Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.27 – July 1987

 

How’s Your Vision?

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Matthew 6:19-24

Reading: 2Corinthians 4:1-2, Luke. 11:33-36

Singing: Ps.H.48; 121; 448; BoW.H.811; 413; 490

 

This passage asks you some rather personal questions: How worldly are you?  How materialistic are you?  We should realize these are questions that cannot be answered by doing some arithmetic like: How much money do you have in the bank?  or what’s the value of your home?  And neither can worldliness be measured by whether or not you stick to some outward rules and regulations.  It all goes far deeper than that and it’s all far more difficult than that.  It’s a matter of what’s going on in your heart.  What are you setting your heart on?  At the very deepest level of your conscious being what is most important to you?  Where is your treasure?  Is it on earth or is it in heaven?  Are you spending your life accumulating earthly treasures or are you setting your sights higher and storing up treasures in heaven?

Now these questions are so absolutely vital because they will determine your whole outlook on life.  The way you see life, the way you perceive things, your entire perspective will be shaped by where your heart is; whether its treasures are on earth or in heaven.  So we are dealing here with a subject that is very practical and the way we relate to it will very much shape our way of life in this world.  In fact every detail of our life will be affected in one way or another.

In verse 21 Jesus has mentioned your heart, and now in the next couple of verses He is making some very common-sense statements about your eyes: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full or light.”

But now what does He mean?  What’s He driving at?  “The eye is the lamp of the body.”  This is not literal of course, as though the eye were a kind of window letting light into the body, but here Jesus is using a figure of speech that we can readily understand.  Almost everything the body does depends on our ability to see.  We need to see if we’re going to run or jump or drive a car or cross a road, or cook, embroider or paint.  The eye, as it were, throws light on whatever the body is doing.  It illuminates what the body does through its hands and feet.  Good eyesight gives us clear vision of what we’re doing and where we’re going.  Now of course blind people often cope wonderfully.  They learn to do many things without their eyes and they develop their other faculties to compensate for their lack of sight.  Often it is amazing how many talents they can develop and what they can do.  Yet the principle still holds good: a sighted person walks in the light, while a blind person is in the darkness.  The great difference between the light and darkness of the body is due to this small but intricate organ which is the eye.  “If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness.” And in total blindness the darkness is complete.

So all that Jesus is doing in these verses is comparing a seeing person to a blind person; and it’s a very factual description.  But of course there’s more to it than that.  Jesus is doing more than making a rather obvious statement about physical eyesight.

So what is He saying?  What does this little parable mean?  The key to it lies in what is symbolized by the eye.  All we have to do is look back a verse and we will find that the eye stands for the heart.  Once we get this connection it opens up our whole text and ties it in with the theme of this part of the Sermon on the Mount.  The eye represents the heart.  We find that connection in other parts of Scripture as well: Think of the sixth Beatitude: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” And there are other passages where the blinding of the eyes is equivalent to the hardening of the heart.  What the eyes are to the body the heart is to the soul.

So what Jesus says about the eye in our text bears the closest possible connection to what He said about the heart in the previous verse.  Good eyes represent the heart whose treasure is in heaven, and bad eyes represent the heart whose treasure is on earth.

So again the question must be raised: Where is your heart?  Is it in the right place?  And that will depend on whether your treasure is on earth or in heaven.  It is that simple.  Where are your affections?  Where are your ambitions?  What takes your time and energy and devotion?  Are they the things of this world that will pass with time or are they the kind of things that have eternal significance?

Again I must say that these are extremely important questions.  What Jesus is saying is simply this: just as our eye affects our whole body, so our ambition (where we fix our eyes and heart) affects our whole life.  Just as a seeing eye gives light to the body, so a single-minded ambition to serve God and man gives meaning to life and throws light on everything we do.  But the opposite is also true.  Just as blindness leads to darkness, a selfish ambition (laying up treasures on earth) plunges us into moral darkness.  It will affect our whole quality of life and of living.

As one writer has said: “It makes us intolerant, inhuman, ruthless and deprives life of all ultimate significance.”

Now let me give you some examples, admittedly somewhat extreme but they do illustrate the point rather well, that if your treasure is on earth it will lead to moral darkness.  Think of two of the most powerful philosophical and political systems of the twentieth century – Communism and National Socialism.  In some ways they are complete opposites and yet in one vital sense they are very similar.  Their hopes and their promises are entirely earthly.  Their whole aim and ambition is an earthly paradise of one kind or another.  Their whole policy is an outright denial of any treasures in heaven.  Both systems set their sights entirely on an earthly dream and on earthly treasures.  How great has been the darkness!  Think of the millions who perished, of the human freedoms that were sacrificed, of the blood on the hands of men like Hitler and Stalin and Chairman Mao.  What terrible illustrations there have been in our own century of the truth that Jesus is teaching here.  If your treasures are on earth then you become morally and spiritually blind.  You become blind to human need, blind to the rights of others, blind to spiritual realities and to the laws and demands.  of God.

And doesn’t this explain the moral atrocities in our world today?  Why is it that so many babies are aborted today?  Why this wholesale slaughter of the unborn?  Isn’t it again because of the blurry moral vision of so many in our day?  If an unborn baby stands in the way of the earthly treasure of self-fulfilment or financial success then that’s just too bad for the unborn baby!

Do you see the truth, brothers and sisters, of what Jesus is saying?  It is so practical and so relevant.  If your heart is with your treasures on earth then that will have drastic implications in every area of life.  We see the results all around us in the world today.  Principles are being sacrificed, people are being sacrificed on the altar of earthly treasure.  Whether that treasure is personal success or a political ideology, the results are tragic.  Because people’s hearts are in the wrong place they are spiritually blind and they live in moral darkness.

On the other hand, the opposite also is true.  Where people are storing up treasures in heaven there we have vision and light.  You may hear sometimes of people who are too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good and that can at times be true, but the overwhelming evidence of history is that the opposite is true.  It may seem surprising and paradoxical but it is those whose mind was on the next world who often did the most for this.  Their treasure in heaven gave light and perspective to all that they did in this life.  Many examples could be given, but perhaps the Evangelical Awakening in Britain, in the eighteenth century brings home the point best of all.  It began with the preaching of the Gospel with the promise of heaven and yet it had the most dramatic effect on life in this world.  The poor were uplifted.  Slaves were set free.  Family life improved.  Working conditions got better.  And while there were bloody revolutions on the Continent of Europe there was none in Britain, because the working classes of society had received the Gospel and had responded to it.  As people stored up their treasures in heaven it had a very positive and powerful effect on their life on earth.

Much the same is true today of the Pentecostal Movement in South America.  Thousands of people whose lives were trapped in misery and poverty have come to know the Lord.  People at the lower rungs of the social ladder have been given new hope and a new perspective on life.  Very often their lot in life has begun to improve.  Having treasures in heaven profoundly affects their life on earth.  In many areas it is Pentecostal Christians and not the Marxists, who are having the greatest impact on the working classes in South America.  It is a Gospel about heaven that strangely enough has made for a better life on earth.  Our treasures in heaven shed light on all that we do in this world.

“The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light.”

Let’s look at this a little more closely because it is just so vitally important for our spiritual health and for our earthly well-being.  And here I must say that I like the translation of the Old King James Bible: “If your eye is single your whole body will be full of light.

Jesus here is talking about the single-eyed devotion of the heart.  The opposite of the single eye of course is double vision.  With that everything is blurry and confused.  But if your eyes are good, if they are single, then they are able to focus on the one object and you are able to see clearly.

Now what does that mean into spiritual terms?  It means that you focus your heart on the one treasure:

– As Jesus says a little later on in Matthew 6: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…!”

– Or as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says in its first question and answer.  “What is the chief end of man?”  In other words, what is to be your main purpose in life?  And the answer is, “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

If your eyes are good, if your heart is in the right place, then that’s what you’ll be focusing on to glorify God and to enjoy him, to seek his kingdom and his righteousness.

Is that what you are aiming at?  Is that your goal in life?  To glorify God and to seek His kingdom!?  Is that where your heart is or is it somewhere else?  Is that really what you’re on about in life or is it something else?  A single eye has but one object – God, the pleasing and glorifying of Him.  Is that how it is with you?

Here I’d like to point out a very common mistake, and that is that some people think it a sign of great spirituality and Christian maturity if they can set their sights on God and the world, God and money, God and personal success, God and self-fulfilment.  Yes, they want to glorify God but they also want a good time.  They want to seek God’s kingdom, but also their own personal satisfaction.  In church they would like to be known as good Christians, but at work they would also like to be known as one of the boys, and certainly not as the odd one out.  Yes, God and His kingdom are something they think about, but their own reputation and popularity are mighty important too.  They say they have God but they also like to flirt with the world.  And of course they think themselves so spiritually strong that they can handle it – the entertainment they watch, the company they keep.  It won’t shake them.  “You can still be a Christian and do A, B and C, can’t you?”

Now this is a problem that can occur in all areas of life.  The president and founder of the MacDonald’s hamburger chain was once interviewed by “The New York Times” and they asked him what he believed in.  This is what he said: “I believe in God, the family and McDonald’s hamburgers, and when I got to the office I reverse the order.”  The Lordship of Christ has been squeezed back to free time and the family, and when it comes to the office a whole different set of principles seems to come into operation.  I would say it’s a rather clear example of double vision.  And yet isn’t that unwillingly the approach of millions of Western Christians?  “I believe in God, the family and my business, and when I get to the office I reverse the order.  How about you?  Is your eye single or do you suffer from double vision?

You may say to me now: “What you say sounds all very nice, but how can it ever work out in practice?  To live like this I’d have to be a monk in a monastery, or I’d have to be a hermit living out in the bush where I could think about God all the time.

Let me answer that one like this.  Think of a man who has just fallen in love.  When you fall in love there’s one thing you always like to do and that is to take photos of your beloved.  Now when the lover takes photos of his girl-friend she is always the focal point.  What would you think of a picture where a big gum-tree in the background turned out beautifully, but the girl was one big blur?  You could only say that he hadn’t focused on his girl-friend.  Now that’s what Jesus is pleading for here, that you always have God in the right focus in your life.  The single eye is like the camera that is set just right, and once the girl-friend is in proper focus then the gum-trees and everything else will fall into proper perspective.  He is not asking you to give up your family or your business or your studies and only think about God, but he is issuing a profound challenge – to seek first God’s kingdom and to glorify him.  And that means…
– To seek God’s kingdom and to glorify him in your family.
– To seek God’s kingdom and to glorify him through your business.
– To seek God’s kingdom and to glorify him by your studies.

The same applies to every other area of life – that you learn the art of focusing on God and letting everything else fall into perspective.  That’s what Jesus is driving at in our text: “The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light.  If your heart is in the right place and if God is in the right place in your heart it will shed light on all that you do.

But then Jesus continues with a solemn warning in the next verse: “But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

What a desperate situation Jesus is describing here.  What a fearful prospect.  It is when someone discovers he is going physically blind.  A friend of mine who is in the ministry and who is a very bright student and a great reader gradually began to develop what is known as tunnel vision.  As we talked about the implications of what might happen it became obvious how restricted his ministry could become and the trouble he would have with any kind of further studies.  Thankfully the problem did not develop further but if it had worsened it would have altered his life dramatically.

Physical blindness is something that most of us would regard as rather frightening – even though we know blind people who are leading very constructive and joyful lives.  But the thought of it happening to us personally we would still find rather horrible.  Yet when it comes to spiritual blindness nobody seems to be afraid.  Many don’t even seem to care.  People go through life stumbling around in the dark, getting lost and having no sense of direction and yet it doesn’t even seem to bother them.

As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2Cor.4:4).

Or as he wrote to the Ephesians: “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” (Eph.4:18, 19).

Brothers and sisters, think of what the world regards as a good time.  They get boozed out of their minds; they do things they don’t remember, and a few days later they’ll tell you how great it all was.  I was once talking to a Christian whose group met at a community hall.  Sometimes the place was rented out for social functions on a Saturday night and before the group could worship on a Sunday morning.  This man said, “You have no idea of some of the foul messes we’ve had to clean up.”  And that was fun!  That was having a good time!  How stupid!  Paul would say, “They are darkened in their understanding” and Jesus said: “If the light that is in you is darkness how great is the darkness.”  They have been blinded by the god of this world.

But the pagans are not the only ones with a problem.  Religious people can also be blind.  And for all of us this must be a rather sobering thought.   Who was it that Jesus told off for being blind?  It was not the Gentiles.  It wasn’t the tax-collectors.  It was the Pharisees!

“Woe to you, blind guides!”
“You blind fools!”
“You blind men!”

With blow upon blow they were denounced as the blind leading the blind.

Here they were decent people, religious people, people who knew their Bible, people who observed the law, people who thought they were worshipping God, but Jesus looks at them and says: “Blind!  Blind!  Blind!”  “If the light within you is darkness how great is the darkness!”  Here were people with an open Bible.  They read it in their synagogues.  They knew it – but still they were blind and in the darkness.

Surely we must find this unsettling.  Who of us can claim that we can never identify with the Pharisees?  That we are not like them in any way?  They read their Bibles.  Their beliefs were orthodox.  And yet they were blind.  Why?  Because they were lovers of money and they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.  Their eye was no longer single.  Their hearts were not in the right place.  However correct their doctrine, it made a mockery of their religion.

Brothers and sisters, how careful we must be not to be like them.  Remember that Jesus died not only for the outward sins, the obvious and the external ones.  But you also need to claim His shed blood if your eyes are not good and your heart is not right.
– He died in the darkness so that you might live in the light.
– He overcame the prince of darkness so that you might be children of light.
– And therefore he has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

So how’s your vision?  How’s your spiritual eyesight?  “If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness.”

Amen.