Ears that hear and eyes that see– the LORD has made them both. Proverbs 20:12

Over time my eyes have weakened. In my fifties I began to wear glasses. Last year before I turned sixty-six, I had my eyes checked again. I came out with a stronger prescription. The change was necessary for my job. Engineering drawings contain words and details that matter.

Not long ago I had another eye exam. I was asked if I see the world differently as a Follower of Jesus. I responded “Yes!”

Over time my vision of God, Jesus, Heaven, the Bible, the Eucharist, and prophecy had to be corrected. The stronger prescriptions came about through challenges in my life. Some of the challenges were brought on by circumstances beyond my control. Other challenges came about by my own will – the desire to know God and the meaning of life amidst the material concerns of day-to-day life. Some challenges came about because I had to change my ways. Some background information is required to help you see where I am coming from and what has changed my perspectives.

Like most kids, my early vision was through the eyes of others. The Bible churches I attended with my parents taught that heaven is my final home, that a rapture would take me away from the spoiled and messy world, and that creation occurred in six days. In my youth Bible prophecy was bound up in all kinds of adamant theories about the end times. Some of you will remember Hal Lindsey and his book The Late Great Planet Earth.

I attended Moody Bible Institute early in the seventies. Though I entered a Christian Education-Music program I ultimately became interested in the classes that taught Old Testament, New Testament and koine Greek. I have since pursued Biblical studies and added science texts and good fiction. Because of my studies I began to see things differently. Much differently. My eyes were opened and new realities appeared before me:

Heaven is a way station, a temporary place and not my final resting place. The version of heaven taught for so many years has been a great disservice to the kingdom of God on earth where Jesus will return to reign. Heaven and earth will be joined. All of Scripture’s references to the Temple reveal that God’s dwelling place is to be with man, his creation, on his creation. The good that God saw “in the beginning” will be seen again.

I see any pronouncement of a rapture as a misinterpretation of a Scripture metaphor. There will be no rapture. Again, not a literal passage.

I fully accept evolutionary creationism. God created the universe some 4 billion years ago with a Big Bang. At some point God breathed his spirit into evolved mankind so that man would begin to see God as He is. Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are true myth about what God wants us to know about our cosmic origin. These poetic chapters were not meant to be literal scientific texts.

Though physical reality surrounds us, science was never discussed in the churches I have attended throughout my life. Spiritual realities took center stage and those were often reduced to formula: believe, repent, go to heaven and before you leave this vale of tears go into ministry.

The six-day creation meme was considered de facto truth and therefore one was obliged to agree to the premise or your Christianity was in doubt. Put to the congregation, if you didn’t accept six-day creation then you didn’t believe the Bible to be God’s word. Science was considered a down-to-earth field and therefore had nothing to do with your heavenly home. Had science, as a means for searching for truth, been promoted in the churches I attended I may have chosen to be a physicist early on. I am fascinated by the God-created elements and forces that mankind is able to use. And, the mystery of quantum physics. There is no mystery to six-day creation. Without the mystery and wonder of science we might as well turn off the lights.

As science was characterized as a secular necessity and not a stairway to heaven, so was most anything else that wasn’t considered “ministry” related. Early on, the “ministry” was hammered into me via countless sermons and calls to dedication. Yet, I now see that my work as an electrical engineer is just as important as going to the “mission field”. The “harvest”, in cubicles, surrounds me.

After years of feeling guilty that I had revoked “God’s plan for your life”, I began to see that work in all forms is good, profitable, and sustains me, my family and the Kingdom of God on earth. My work as an engineer provides electricity to millions of homes. I add to the Kingdom of God by providing comfort, security and …light to my Lord’s world. And, my fellow engineers know that I am a not a light under a bushel.

The next change to my eyesight came from years of reflection. The churches I attended practiced communion Sundays. They offered symbols and remembrance. The sober times were like a memorial service for someone who had died. I was taught through sermons and schooling that transubstantiation doesn’t exist, that the bread and wine are representations and nothing more. Yet, at the same time, the corporate understanding was that the Holy Spirit indwelt believers. I reflected on this. If the Holy Spirit can dwell in believers then why can’t the True Presence of the Lord exist in the bread and wine?

I also considered that Jesus turned water into wine. That is transubstantiation. I came to see that the indwelling Holy Spirt and the risen Lord and the Father come together at the Eucharist as we celebrate with thanksgiving.

When I was asked if I see the world differently as a Follower of Jesus I responded “Yes! And, because of that, I also see the world differently.

The world does not accept spiritual realities. Instead, it accepts “red in tooth and claw” power struggles. The current world system is based on obtaining power over one’s circumstances by gaining and consolidating power over others. The tower of Babel and Pontius Pilate are two examples from history of man’s will to power. Climate change hysteria, LGBT activism, socialism crusading, feminist stridency, and the surge of occultism are modern-day examples of people trying to use power through force to subject others to their will.

Though I am not worried by the constant political hype pushing data-generated climate change, I am concerned about the media-generated moral climate change. There is a huge power struggle going on. The forces of darkness want control of humanity.

Many churches, under the banner of Christianity, have turned their backs on the precepts God set in place. Their members believe that they are more enlightened than God. They will tell you that Jesus abolished the Law and the Prophets. They have marched beyond the whole narrative of Scripture to an anything goes morality under the banner of love without judgement. As such, humans are reduced to bodily functions. Good and evil are reduced to “Likes” on social media. PC ear plugs and blindfolds block ears and eyes to anything that would expose physical and spiritual reality. The sad truth of such behavior is that one doesn’t see much inside a cave except one’s own eerie shadow flicker on the cave walls. Others are blamed for the self-imposed deafness and blindness. Jesus put it this way regarding Israel:

“Isaiah’s prophecy is coming true in them:

‘You will listen and listen but won’t understand

You will look and look and not see.

This people’s heart has gone flabby and fat

Their ears are muffled and dull,

Their eyes are darkened and shut;

In order that they won’t see with their eyes

Or hear with their ears, or know in their heart,

Or turn back again for me to restore them.’

-Matt. 13: 14-15

Look around. Beauty is being replaced by art and architecture that could have been created by objectivist Ayn Rand. The human element is removed and stark drab utilitarian buildings are erected. My church is redoing the 1800 built and rehabbed rectory into classrooms. The rectory is on the church grounds. The church was required by the village to redo the building so as to fit in with the neighborhood – older classic-styled houses. Three blocks away, in the same type of neighborhood, a monstrosity is being erected. The new public library is a modernist blech that doesn’t fit in at all. For sale signs are going up all around the construction site. The same debasing also applies to the sacred.

“In the presence of sacred things our lives are judged, and in order to escape that judgement we destroy the thing that seems to accuse us. And because beauty is a reminder of the sacred – and indeed a special form of it – beauty must be desecrated too” -philosopher Roger Scruton

Popular music, a noise produced by hormone-driven over-the-edge-of-seventeen generators, pounds with the annoying energy of a 3-year-old kicking the booth behind you in a restaurant. The lyrics of rap, hip hop, popular music, and rock promote animal urges to the nth degree. Unclean spirits roam the earth looking for a song to inhabit.

The vision held by the world is one of utopia. And, according to the world, power and control begets utopia. And so the world seeks power at all costs to others to acquire the long-sought utopia. Accordingly, you and society are to blame for the lack of utopia. Post-modern Progressives seek power to break up society and the communities that sustain it and to remake both in their image. For them, most of what happened before they came on the scene is of no value. This includes art, architecture, and male-female marriage. The foundations of cultural permanence are to be replaced with the shifting sands of Whim-Progressivism.

Humans require beauty. Beauty provides hope. What is being created today reflects the despair of the alienated worldview. Creative outrage is still outrage and does not produce beauty. Humility producing beauty and wonder have been co-opted by know-it-all outrage.

How does one correct one’s vision? Holding an almost cartoonish Sunday School vision of Jesus is not good enough. Reading good theology helps. Reading science texts challenges your mind and your worldview. A healthy imagination is a powerful means to regain your sight. Good fiction causes one to contemplate life whereas TV briefly entertains with its canned product. The ritual of sitting in front of the TV with your spouse needs to be re-examined. Exotic stimulation, violence and touchy-feely programs do not equate to the reality you need to live. Good fiction helps one see beyond one’s circumstances.

In C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, a response-in-kind to H.G. Wells’ progressive humanist fantasies, one can read about Ransom, a philologist and the protagonist. He is forcibly taken out of this world via a spaceship by two men. One of the men is a humanist scientist intent on gaining control of Malacandra for mankind’s future. This is the pair’s second trip to Malacandra. On this return trip, the kidnapped Ransom is to be offered to the Sorns as a sacrificial offering to appease the natives.

Briefly, Ransom arrives on Malacandra (Mars), escapes the clutches of the two men and meets all kinds of celestial beings. His stay on Malacandra opens his eyes to a new reality. When he later returns to earth he learns that he has been invited back to the heavens. But this time it is to Perelandra (Venus). Once there, Ransom’s eyes are once again opened:

“At Ransom’s waking something happened to him which perhaps never happens to a man until he is put out of his own world: he saw reality, and thought it was a dream.”

The intent of C.S. Lewis space trilogy was to open people’s eyes to realities greater than themselves. I recommend reading this trilogy.

Just as there are many accounts of people finding things in the Gospels, Scripture contains many eye-opening moments. In particular, I am reminded of Stephen before the Sanhedrin. Stephen sees Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father. Later, Stephen’s stoning witness Paul has his eyes opened to see the glorified Jesus on the Damascus road. Reality broke in for both.

When the blind beggar’s sight was restored, he saw Jesus as he was, in human form. The Apostle John tells us that when Jesus appears again in his glorified human form as Lord of the Universe we will be like him “for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Every twinkling eye will be opened then. The blindfolds will be pulled off. Wisdom, who was with God before the Big Bang, will be revealed in all her beauty.

 

With this post I am confirming what I know to be true as I have let the Holy Spirit be the optometrist for my eyes of understanding. The Holy Spirit has prompted me over and over: “take another look” and “see Him as he is”. As I have responded I have been able to see the Lord and the world with his eyes.

The way I figure it, if a person stops growing in the Lord and they stop trying to see Him as he is, they have effectively closed their ears and eyes. They are saying, “I can feel my way ahead.”  Who knows where they will end up?

~~~

On Perelandra, the Green Lady speaks to Ransom:

“Your world has no roof. You look right into the high place and see the great dance with your own eyes. You live always in that terror and that delight, and what we must only believe you can behold…”