Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

Blindness is Hereditary!

 

Genesis 48:10  Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see. Then Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them.

 

Blindness is a physical infirmity but it is also a spiritual infirmity. 

I have often wondered what it would be like to be blind.  I have had friends who were blind and they seemed to be able to “see” in some ways better than their friends who could actually see.  However, there are some things that they cannot do.  I never rode in a car where one of them was driving.

 

People who are blind depend on their other senses and those senses become very sensitive.  Israel (Jacob) was blind at the end of his life but he seemed to understand where his two grandsons were standing when he went to bless them.  He may have known that custom would have placed the older grandson where he could be reached with his right hand and the younger would be where he could be reached with his left hand.  In the Bible the right hand was a place of power.  The oldest should have been blessed by Jacob’s right hand since the oldest usually got a “double portion” of the father’s inheritance.  He usually took over as the family leader.  That was not always true of course.  In Joseph’s case, Reuben was the firstborn and should have gotten a double portion of Israel’s inheritance but he had lost that position due to his immorality (Genesis 35:23-24).  But that double portion was being given to Joseph and to his two sons.  In the book of Genesis, which is the book of beginnings, the first born is often set aside and a later child is given the blessing since the New Testament principle of the new birth is being pictured for us long before it was formally taught.  What we are by nature (our first birth) is not acceptable to God, it is what we are when we are born again or born of the spirit that makes us acceptable to God (John 3:6).  So while Jacob was blind physically, he apparently was not blind spiritually.

 

Blindness can lead to tragedy!

Some people make grave mistakes because they are blind.  When Isaac (Jacob’s father) went to bless his sons at the end of his life, he made his decisions based on “feelings”.  In Genesis 27, he had planned to bless Esau but Jacob (the supplanter) followed his mother’s instructions and used the skins of goats to make it appear he was hairy like his brother Esau.  Jacob succeeded in deceiving his father and got the blessing Isaac had intended for Esau.  Again, while the boys were twins, Esau was the firstborn and would normally have received the blessing of the firstborn.  Isaac was deceived because he was blind and depended on his feelings.  He should have asked someone to confirm the identity of this person who talked like Jacob but smelled and felt like Esau.  Many people today who are blind spiritually are making decisions based on feelings rather than on the instructions of Scripture.  They too are being deceived by their feelings.

 

Blindness was hereditary.  Isaac had the problem and now Jacob, his son, has the problem.  But spiritually we all have the problem.  When the Lord was trying to explain to his disciples on his last trip to Jerusalem that He was going to be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles and that He was going to be scourged and killed and the third day He would rise again, they couldn’t understand Him.  What He said was pretty plain but it didn’t fit with their understanding of what was supposed to happen.  The Lord couldn’t “confuse them with the facts” because their minds were already made up.   So we read, “they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken (Luke 18:34).”  We find that at the end of the church age, those who consider themselves to be part of the church will have the same problem.  We read, “you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’–and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.  (Revelation 3:17).”  The problem is that those who are blind no longer know that they are blind.

 

Hereditary blindness is also the problem of those who have never trusted the Lord.  Paul says, they are blinded by the God of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4).  But again, most of those who are blind, think they see and have understanding.  They know the wisdom of this world, but they don’t know the wisdom that comes from above (James 3:17).

 

Only the Lord can cure blindness

Blindness is a problem that only the Lord can cure so that we see clearly.  Maturity doesn’t necessarily help us see more clearly.  In fact, as we grow older, our eyes may grow dimmer.  We may actually not “see” as well as we did when we were younger.  Many Christians have given themselves over to the wisdom of this world and no longer see clearly.  If we are unsaved and if we are rejecting the truth of Scripture, Satan surely must be happy.  He has done the work that He intends to do.  He has blinded the minds of those who believe not.  What a tragedy!  The cure is found in letting God tell us what is right, rather than in us telling God!

 

Bruce Collins

 

Meditation for the week of April 24, 2016

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