Open My Eyes

Introduction:  A few years ago I read that in some minimal cases, a few people born blind can have an operation and receive their sight.  As I understand it, there is a slight difference between those born blind and those who lose their sight.  The difference being that in the case of the latter – something went wrong and that is usually irreversible.  In rare cases of those born blind, a connection of some sort, simply did not grow correctly as the baby was being knitted together in the womb.  That is sometimes correctible.  Now, I hope that my medical ignorance here is not too evident from my few words designed to make a point.

And that point is, even as David meditates in verse eighteen of our psalm selection today that everyone is born spiritually blind.  Now he doesn’t establish that doctrine in so many words, but he does admit that he, “a man after God’s own heart” needed the Spirit of the Lord to help him comprehend the wonderful delights of God’s revelation.

Now some may possibly object here and argue that David, who is sharing revelations from the heart of God, is only asking for inspiration for the momentary recording.  I would disagree and go with the flow of the text, that in his prayer and meditations – David is lost without the constant presence of God’s Holy Spirit, even though the doctrine of the Holy Spirit wasn’t trinitized until the New Covenant era.  We have to remember that Peter admonished his readers “that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1: 21)  While that quotation is aimed at the establishment of the Scripture revelation, it does indicate the ongoing activity of the Spirit long before He was known by Name.  One God of course is evident, revealing Himself consistently even as He allowed Himself to be more fully known.

“Open my eyes” is David’s earnest prayer here – not only for his personal benefit, but also for ours as well – even as we read and pray from David’s recorded meditations.  May ours be opened as well as we probe into the great depths of this “Thresher’s Psalm” as I have titled it.  A brief review of where we have threshed may well be in order.  In the first section of eight verses, we were reminded that there is real work to digging out the treasures hidden in this Psalm as well as in all scriptures.  In the second section of eight verses, we noted that the Word of God could help us clean up our act as we study and then lay our imperfect lives along side the perfect revelation.  In our section today, the trials of now belonging to the Lord are uppermost in the psalmist's mind.

Development:  The theme of this section is to be found in verse nineteen which we shall come to presently.  In the course of these verses we see the psalmist speaking personally to the Lord just as we would speak to each other as friends.  In verse seventeen, the psalmist admits that like a baby learning to walk, he is unable to stand-alone.  He calls upon the Lord with these words:

                "Grace Your servant,

 that I may live; and obey Your word."

 The first few words of this verse have a deeper meaning than is translated in the NIV, which reads:  "Do good to your servant", they are translated in the NKJ as "Deal bountifully withy Your servant."  The original Hebrew may have the connotation of "Reward your servant".  To see this we must appreciate the context of verse sixteen where the psalmist takes delight in the decrees or statutes of God. That word translated as decrees or statutes has a special emphasis for the sacrifice for sin and the cleansings for purification prescribed in the Law.  So we should see here the delight of the psalmist in the preparation of the sacrifice for cleansing.  If you have ever had a hand in dressing livestock for eventual consumption, you know that this work is difficult and extremely messy!  It is not especially a joyful task!

But here in this verse stands one in need of cleansing through the priestly ritual in the Temple.  In watching the grim work of preparation he appreciates the bloodletting work of atonement for his sins.   In this same way we should appreciate the final sacrifice for sin of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus does the psalmist appreciate what the Lord is doing in His cleansing work of atonement?

 In this context, let us translate these words thus:  "Grace your servant, that I may live".  After all, Grace is the greatest reward given from His bounty.  This is the blessing earnestly requested by the psalmist here.  Notice the twofold result of Grace in that verse:  "I will live;" and "I will obey".  We often need to remember that we work for Him because He works in us.  The more we prize and strive after holiness the more we will be driven towards God for His help.  Like our psalmist we must perceive that our own strength is insufficient and that we cannot live for and work for Him without His bounteous assistance.  Therefore we would do well to pray daily David’s prayer here:  “Grace Your servant, that I may live and obey Your word.”

And let us not forget the dual purpose in that prayer – first that we have eternal life in Christ and second that we may daily obey His will and thus serve our Lord and our King in the present age, even as we wait for the age to come.

 We continue into the verse eighteen as our author continues in his request:

                "Open my eyes that I may behold,

                                 wonderful things in Your law."

The psalmist is not asking for a Bible that is more easily understood.  Neither is he asking for some new revelations apart from the Scripture.  No, he asks the Lord to open his eyes that he might see what has already been provided.  I remember years ago being in the depths of Mammoth Cave.  While we were standing in the bottom of the cave, the guide turned out the lights.  There we were without light and without hope of finding our way unless the guide would enlighten our path and show us the way.  This was and still is our regular condition when we first came to the Scriptures.

One thing that I have learned the hard way over the years – is the absolute knowledge of what I know and what I can long remember!  As I have told my students year in and year out, the fruit of knowledge and the gaining of wisdom is to humbly admit how little we truly know of what is knowable.  When I was in college, it was said that the amount of knowable knowledge in this world doubled every fifteen years.  Since then, that length of time has at least shrunk to half that and probably even shorter.  Just the mapping of the human genome extended the knowledge of science by an incredible amount.

Yet, however much science may learn, the vast majority of scientists are held captive to their favorite myth – that of evolutionary development.  An egotistic appeal that promises those who hold the view, that it really is possible for mankind to know more and perhaps better than the Lord and Creator of this, His universe!  Sometimes, even we in the faith, love our confessions and theories too dearly and miss seeing and knowing the Lord more nearly.

Once we were lost and without hope in the caves of our own minds.  The Bible was only another book.  In the third chapter of John's revelation Christ counsels us to buy salve to put on our eyes so that we can see.  Today we can pick up the Holy Word and by the Grace of God we see and hear His voice.  And the most wondrous thing to behold is His bounteous grace.

The fact of this grace is life changing.  In time as we grow in grace and truth we all will experience the feeling that the psalmist describes in the next verse:

                "I am a stranger on earth;

                                  hide not Your commands from me."

The sense here is that our life on earth is but a temporary journey on the way to our final home with the Lord.  I would like to emphasize this verse as our theme especially for the young people in attendance.  If you have not already experienced it yet you, will eventually find that the world does not appreciate our association with the Lord or with His people.   The pressures of the world would keep us from paying close attention to God's way and His word.  If you persist in growing in grace and truth you will begin to feel worldly pressures to conform.  And these worldly pressures are confirmation that the world is not our real home!

Every time I take a trip and spend more than three days away from home – the more lost I feel.  Each night there was a strange town room and bed.  It is always a real inconvenience to do anything.  The longest I ever spent from my homes in Logan County was the seven months spent in Europe with the Regular Army.  While I did enjoy and profit from seeing the world through another culture’s eyes, I was always reminded that I was a guest in another land.  Every time I left the Kaserne, where I lived, there was another language and another flag.  The doorknobs were even strange to the feel and the electrical outlets demanded a special converter.  Yes, we had our own newspaper, radio and television, but you always knew it wasn’t really home!

 This is the sense captured in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.  We are a pilgrim people on our way to God's heavenly rest!  How much I wanted to use the word pilgrim in the translation of the first part of the verse, but the Hebrew text will not allow it.  You know, I am beginning to think that it is a special mark of maturity when we realize that even our home, our neighborhood, our city, county, state and country are not really our home.  Finally after many years of wrestling with the faith and having grown in grace and knowledge – the realization finally sinks in and we know that heaven is our true home.

But how do we find our way home?  More than once in driving I have missed the proper turn off.  Once as I came around the block again I found the proper exit sign slightly hidden behind a more worldly advertisement!  On another occasion weeds and brush had grown up, over and in front of the proper sign.  The way to our heavenly home is also marked out for us.  And the world would hide those signs if it could.  We should note that we must regularly ask our Father to show us the way home by revealing His gracious commands to us.

 And just as I longed to be home and at rest during vacation so too may we understand that the psalmist is carefully patiently pointing us towards our spiritual heavenly home.  Homesickness is what the world calls our experience and that the psalmist truly recognizes in our last verse for this morning: the twentieth.

                "My soul is consumed with longing

                                 for your ordinances at all times."

Notice that little word here: “ordinances”?  One of the things that I missed most when I was in Europe was the completely different set of road signs that we use in America!  Certainly, I eventually remembered the system, but it wasn’t until I traveled to Ireland that I realized how much I missed the common highway regulators.  The bus had just driven off the ferry from Wales; we turned down a street and stopped at an intersection.  And there it was, a big beautiful red American styled Stop sign with the traditional white letters.  It was a little thing of course, but that was my best welcome to the green isle whose fields looked so much like home.  The Irish have an old proverb that goes something like this:  “The Lord’s must be an Irishman because His favorite color appears to be green!”  And there is an Irish song whose theme is the  "forty shades of green!"  Well, I hope the Irish forgive me, but my favorite Irish color was that simple red stop sign because more than anything else in Europe – it reminded me of home.

In the time of the Apostles, they early church hung around the “sacred” precincts of the Temple Mount because of the familiarity and comfort of the geography and habitual connections.  Of course, we know that attraction was shortened by persecution and eventually even destruction of the Temple Mount as well as most of the city.  And the Church of Christ was sent out into the world as a pilgrim people – taking the Good News to the very ends of the earth.

And yet, the more we realize that heaven is our home, the more we appreciate the ordinances of heaven.  Having worked in a worldly place these last twenty-five years I have become more and more frustrated with the “rule makers” who have torn down all the old cultural institutions, habits and signs of civility.  As a Christian – well do I understand the changing spiritual geography in this fair land of ours.  Men who would be real men are no longer welcome in the majority of institutions.  Our intellect, our way of thinking and doing things is no longer allowed.  The worldly propose that we need to get in touch with our feelings, but what they really mean is that we need to get in touch with theirs.  And unfortunately – their heartfelt feelings are very, very far from the heavenly ordinances of our God and King.

As I look forward to my retirement from public service after twenty-five years – I believe that the strange landscape being created is my primary motivation to get out and get on with living a life pleasing to my Father in heaven.  Since He has been artificially made unwelcome in the public square, so too do we all feel the strange new world where Western Civilization, developed over the centuries by Christ’s Church, has been condemned and a New Age is dusking, from which mortal men may never be allowed to know a public reflection of the very light of God!

Conclusion:  Well Pilgrim, if you will accept the name, are you ready to seek the wisdom of this psalm portion and make it your own?   What is it that you truly desire more than anything else?  Is it God's grace and knowledge of His truth?   Or do you only wish for salvation.  There is a real difference between our wishes and our desires.  A wish is a temporary emotion usually born of excitement and certain to cool in time.  Do you emotionally wish to conform yourself to God's law?  If so, you are not on firm ground.  Desire is consuming in its intensity.  It is not temporary.  And in the sense of this psalm it is God given.  How else could our psalmist or we desire God's law?  May the leading of the Spirit prompt you further up and further into His eternal Kingdom, even as C S Lewis described the leading of the Spirit.  But, you better make this your commitment soon, because even the writings of C S Lewis are being whitewashed to remove the core religious values that motivated the real man who found the Lord of life and went on to seek and ask for more as the Lord led and graces him.  May David’s and Lewis’ desires and motivation be ours through the same Spirit who led them.  Amen.