A Spirit of Sleep

Spiritual Blindness in Isaiah 29

Amen. Please turn to Isaiah 29. We'll be looking today at Isaiah 29 verses 9 through 12. Just as a reminder, this section of Isaiah speaks of the folly of trusting in the nations. I'm sorry. All right, just as a reminder, the section of Isaiah is a section that comes before the narrative describing the assault of Assyria.

It's a section that's about the the folly of trusting in the nations. The people have trusted in Assyria. Assyria has turned against them, and now they're thinking about trusting in Egypt, but Egypt likewise will not prove themselves to be trustworthy.

And so the people are blind. The people are spiritually blind, and that is what this passage here addresses, is spiritual blindness. Let's go ahead and read Isaiah 29, beginning in verse 9. If you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Astonish yourselves and be astonished. Blind yourselves and be blind. Be drunk but not with wine. Stagger but not with strong drink. For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep and has closed your eyes, the prophets, and covered your heads, the seers.

And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot read.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today as the one who opens eyes, who opens ears, who opens hearts, who gives a spirit of sobriety. Lord, I pray that you would grant us these things today, and as we look at what your Word says about spiritual blindness, I pray that we would be ones who have our eyes open, eager to hear the Word that you have for us today and any word you might give us in the future.

In Jesus' name, amen. So it is a great problem in the world, spiritual blindness. There's so many matters of truth of what right and wrong are. You go and you put them right in front of someone, and they refuse it.

They cannot see it. They refuse to see on one hand, but they simply cannot see it on the other. And this is not just the case in the world, it's even the case in the church. So many people are so blind to what is true, to what God's Word says.

And so this passage addresses that. It addresses it in the context of the people's blindness, as God has told them to trust in Him, and not to trust in other nations, not to trust in Egypt. But the people have gone, and they've trusted in other nations.

They've trusted in Egypt. Likewise, God tells us to trust in Him, but we end up trusting in ourselves, trusting in other things, trusting in our works, trusting in rulers, yet we should not. We should only trust in the Lord.

And so what I want you to see about spiritual blindness here is especially that blindness is something that is both self-inflicted and divinely inflicted. It's both self-inflicted and it's divinely inflicted.

It's also something that afflicts both spiritual leaders and followers, both leaders and followers. And spiritual blindness is something that both is the case, that Christ gives it and Christ also takes it away.

So I want us to see all those things, beginning here first with blindness being something that is self-inflicted. It's usually not how you think about spiritual blindness, but it is the case that it's self-inflicted.

Isaiah speaks in verse 9 and says, Astonish yourselves and be astonished. Blind yourselves and be blind. He commands the people to astonish themselves. In other words, to be perplexed, to be confused about what's going on around them.

Now, in context here, it's talked about how God despises His people's false worship, and yet at the same time, despite all their sin, He will save them out of their sin. And He tells them that they should be astonished by this.

They should be confused at what God is doing. They should be confused at the fact that He will save them. And why? Because they are under some spiritual stupor. Because they are unable to see God's truth.

They're unable to see that God will save them. That's why they've gone to other nations to receive their protection. And so He commands them, Astonish yourselves and be astonished. Blind yourselves and be blind.

It says, Be drunk, but not with wine. Stagger, but not with strong drink. This goes back to what the previous chapter had said. What the previous chapter had said in verse 7, These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink.

The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They reel in vision. They stumble in giving judgment. And so here when it says, Be drunk, but not with wine.

Stagger, but not with strong drink. Before, it was talking about literal drunkenness. Most likely in here, it's talking about a figurative drunkenness. That the people are senseless spiritually. They don't know what right and wrong is.

They stagger in trusting in other things. They stagger in their judgment and their vision. And this is the case in the world today. That so many people are blind because they have blinded themselves. Because they are themselves astonished and are astonishing themselves.

Being perplexed at what God does in the world. Not understanding His judgments. Not understanding His salvation. Because they simply cannot. And it's a blindness. It's self-imposed. Now how does blindness become self-imposed?

Well I think scripture is very clear in this passage and a lot of the context that we looked at has been clear. That blindness happens gradually as people reject God's truth. As they can see God's truth and see the truth of it.

And they push it away from them. They more and more blind themselves. They become more and more senseless to that truth. You know the more you ignore something, the more you become numb to that thing.

Right? If there is a smell in your house and you just live around it, you become pretty used to it. And you can't smell the foul stench anymore. And so you become numb to that sense. If you are out in the light and the light is blinding you, you start not caring about that light.

But if someone else who is in the darkness comes into the light, they see the light and it is very bright to them. And they are not, they're not numb to it because they've been ignoring it. This is the case for us.

The more you ignore God's truth, the more you push it away as though it is nothing, the more you become blind to it. You can see this in Scripture in several places. I think perhaps one of the most, one of the most terrifying of these is when it talks about a final blindness.

A blindness that cannot be returned from because someone has rejected God's truth in such a severe manner. They have seen God's truth so clearly and they have rejected it so firmly that they cannot be healed of their blindness.

Hebrews 6, 4 says,. For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

So what does the Bible say about someone who has been enlightened, who has shared in the Holy Spirit, has tasted the goodness of the Word of God and rejects it? If they have experienced it in its full and they reject it, they cannot be restored to repentance.

Now that is talking about the extreme case. This is known as apostasy, full apostasy, where someone has not only learned that God is good as an intellectual fact, but has experienced that goodness of God and then rejected it.

Jesus elsewhere calls it the unforgivable sin. It is this that is full and final. However, this is the case in smaller things as well. Think about how many times it is your heart might be pricked by something and you ignore that pricking.

You ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit and then you become number and number to that sin where it's not such a big deal to commit that sin. Maybe in other areas of your life you're mature, but to that particular sin, the more you ignore God, the more you ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the more you become numb to that particular spiritual truth, to that particular conviction.

So this is true on large scale, and we're talking about full apostasy, and it's true on small scales where we're talking about the individual person and his individual sin that he might be coming numb to, might be blinded to, because he has repeatedly ignored the call of God.

Now, one thing that we should take away from this is just how dangerous it is to hear the Word of God. You know, there's a responsibility when we hear the God to respond to it rightly. Today, as you gather to hear the Word of God, you have a responsibility to hear it rightly and to not reject it, to not ignore it.

The more it is ignored, the more numb you become to it, the more you are involved in a culpable blindness. But if you receive the Word of God, there are many blessings to receiving the Word of God, to receiving the truth of God.

But this is a dangerous thing. It is a dangerous thing to hear the Word of God. So do not do not come to the house of God lightly. Do not hear the Word of God lightly. It's not something where you can take it or leave it.

Rather, when you come and you hear the Word of God, you are responsible for responding to it rightly. And the more you do not respond to it rightly, the more you ignore it and push it aside, the more there is a spiritual numbness, a spirit of stupor that comes over you as you reject these truths.

You know, they say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Another way of phrasing that in this context would be, whatever doesn't convict you makes you harder, right? Whatever does not turn you around to repentance will make your heart more and more calloused to the truth.

You know, the more you step on hard ground and don't learn something from it and put shoes on, the more your feet will be calloused and stop caring about that hard ground that you were walking on. Now, what's interesting here, too, is not just that Isaiah commands people to be astonished, to be blind, and that it's self-imposed, but the fact that, well, he is the one commanding it.

You know, there's there's something interesting going on here in that the prophet of God is telling the people to be blind. So not only are they blinding themselves, but in having sent Isaiah, God also is blinding the people.

Now, if this is very surprising, in a sense it really shouldn't be, because if you've been following along in Isaiah and know the key, key chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah 6, where Isaiah receives his commission, you'll see that this is, this was Isaiah's commission.

This message where he is telling the people to be blind, this is precisely the message that God gave Isaiah to give the people. In Isaiah 6, 9, let me go ahead and start in Isaiah 6, 8. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

And I said, here I am, send me. And he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

And so God, because of the people's sin, because of their self blinding, he is giving them over to this blindness. So this blindness is not only self-inflicted, it's also divinely inflicted by God himself.

And people, people often feel that this is unfair, this seems wrong, that God would blind the people. Well, consider what he is doing when he is blinding. When he is blinding, is he taking people with perfectly working eyes and closing them so that they cannot see?

That's not what's going on here. If you look at Pharaoh, when it talks about his heart being hardened, now, and having a hard heart, that's just another way of talking about being spiritually blinded, because you're becoming spiritually numb, you're becoming spiritually senseless.

Go look at all those passages throughout Exodus that talk about Pharaoh having a hardened heart. Now, most of them will talk about God hardening Pharaoh's heart, and yet some of them talk about Pharaoh hardening his own heart.

So both of these things are true, and it's not that they're taking turns, it's not sometimes Pharaoh's hardening his own heart, sometimes God's hardening his heart. No, rather, every time Pharaoh is hardening his heart, every time God's hardening Pharaoh's heart.

Because here's what's going on, is we are sinners, we are people who do sinful things, and we are people who, by our own corrupt nature, apart from some special intervention by God, would reject his truth.

We are all predisposed to, we are all geared to, self-inflicted blindness. We are predisposed to reject the Word of God, and therefore predisposed to self-inflict blindness. And so, when we are not blinding ourselves, what's not going on is that by our own strength, and by our own wisdom, we are keeping ourselves from blindness, but rather, those are times when God is upholding his people, or even those who are not his people, and keeping them from a further blindness that they might sink to.

And so, what's going on when God is blinding someone, essentially, he is removing his hand that they might sink further into their blindness. This is what happens with Pharaoh. This is what happens when God hardens Pharaoh's heart, is he is handing him over to his own disposition to harden his own heart.

So, it's not something to be offended at God. God is not blinding people with perfectly working eyes. Rather, he is giving them over to something that they desire for themselves, something that they are inflicting on themselves.

And so, it says here, for the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes, the prophets, has covered your heads, the seers. And so, if this blindness that exists in the world, the spiritual blindness, is something that not only is self-inflicted, but is also poured out by God, that gives us some keys to interpreting the world around us, and seeing what we see.

When we see so many people blind to God's truth, thinking that they can, by their own work, by their own effort, make something for themselves that will have some sort of real value in an eternal sense, how foolish that is.

Why is that the case? It is because God's judgment is on the people. God's judgment is on the people of the world. They are blind because he is displeased with their sin, and he has handed them over to their sin.

This has a lot of repercussions for how we think about things, how we pray. You know, when we evangelize, we shouldn't expect to, by our own wisdom, by our own persuasiveness, be able to argue people out of their spiritual blindness, because it is spiritual blindness.

You need a spiritual healer in order to accomplish this. We are no such thing, but God is. If it is divinely imposed, it can be divinely removed. God is the only one who can heal people, and we need to recognize that, and we need to trust in the Lord as we go to him over any spiritual matter, whether it be in ourselves or whether it be in others.

We need to trust the Lord, because he's the only one who can remove spiritual blindness, if he is the one imposing spiritual blindness, because we can't remove it from ourselves. Verse 11 says, and the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed.

When given it to one who can read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And so, just before this, it said, he's closed your eyes, the prophets, he's covered your heads, the seers. The prophets and the seers, this refers to the people who are supposed to handle the Word of God, right?

The people who handle the Word of God and deliver it to the people are supposed to be the ones who most understand God's Word, obviously. They're supposed to most understand God's Word, but they are the ones who are primarily blinded.

Even in that verse I read from the previous chapter of verse 7, it's talking about the prophets and the seers who are drunk so they cannot understand God's Word. And so, here in verse 11, when it says that this vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, who is the one who is supposed to read the book?

Well, primarily, it's the leaders of the people, it's the prophets and the seers. They are the ones who are supposed to be capable of reading, but they are told to read it, and it is so the book is sealed, as though it is entirely inaccessible to them, they would otherwise have the capacities to read it.

The idea of a book being sealed, that's present elsewhere in Scripture. For example, Daniel 12 ends with the command to seal up the prophecy that's been given to Daniel. Why? Because it's not to be understood in his time, it's only to be understood in a later time, with the further revelation that will be given in Jesus Christ.

And why is it that John in the book of Revelation is told not to seal it up? Because it is for our time that we might understand it. But this book is sealed up, and what is this book? Well, this is just an analogy that says like the words of a book, but I think if we were to pick a particular book, it would be these very words of Isaiah.

Because what does Isaiah say in chapter 8? In chapter 8 he says, "'Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.'".

So everyone else rejects Isaiah's prophecy. What a difficult commission to be given as a prophet, to be given. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go out and speak a word that one, people will not receive, and further, as you speak it, more and more people will receive it, less and less.

But this is his task. And so he goes to even the prophets and the seers, the ones who should be most capable of understanding God's Word. He says, read this, and they say it is sealed. It's totally inaccessible to them.

Now this is significant in part because what is the main content of Isaiah's message? It is not just this message that blinds, but it is the gospel. Isaiah is telling the people about the salvation that God will bring, salvation eternally, as well as salvation from the Assyrians, salvation from all their enemies, and they choose to reject it.

They choose to trust other gospels. Gospels that promise them salvation, but gospels that cannot deliver salvation. Gospels that require them to trust in other nations, to trust in themselves, and not to trust in the Lord.

And it is the case, once again in our world, that this blindness affects even the spiritual leaders, even the prophets and seers of our time. Now we don't have prophets and seers as a particular office as they did in Israel, but we have people who are supposed to handle the Word of God and supposed to be quite capable of handling the Word of God, and oftentimes they are some of the most blind to what God's Word says.

There are so many pastors in this country who do not understand the words of God. They do not understand what it says. They do not handle it rightly, and it is just, a lot of people think that, you know, if you go to seminary that means you you learn a lot and you're capable of handling God's Word.

If you see what many seminaries teach, it's not anything that would really teach you how to handle the Word of God. In fact, it might even train you to worse handle the Word of God. You know, there's a question.

I've tried meeting up with a lot of the pastors around here, both ones that are in our, you know, circles and ones that are a little more outside of our circles, and a question I always ask those who are a little more outside of our circles, I ask them, what do you think of Calvinism?

If you don't know what that means, basically it's, what do you think about the idea that God has to change us before we believe? And the answer I usually get is not agreement or disagreement. Rather, it is, well, I don't, you know, my people don't really care that much about that.

They aren't that interested. I don't think it's that important. You know, we're just, we're mostly concerned with loving God and loving our neighbors and things like that. And so here you ask, here you ask people, you know, someone who is who is in charge of handling the Word of God, and you ask them, what do you think about how our salvation works?

And they say, you know, understanding how our salvation works isn't all that important. That is, that's a tragedy. That's awful. But that is the blindness that the Bible describes. It affects even the leaders of the people, and not just the leaders, but all others as well.

It says, and when they give the book to one who cannot read, this is a common person, one who, one who's not educated, one who can't read, saying, read this, he says, I cannot read. You know, if the, if the pastors are incapable of handling the Word of God, now how are the people supposed to be able to?

How is it possible? Proverbs 29, 18 says that without vision, the people perish. You know, that's talking about prophetic vision. Anyone who tries using that to refer to planning or something like that, it's not about that.

It's about prophecy. It's about God's Word. Without God's Word, the people perish. And so, if the ones who are supposed to be handling God's Word aren't giving it to the people, the people will naturally perish.

And how many people have you tried speaking to about God's Word, and they say that, you know, they're not too concerned with, with the details of what God's Word said, or they think it's not important to study different aspects of the Bible.

Maybe it's the book of Revelation they think is, it's not really for us to understand, or, or, you know, we don't, we're not supposed to be theologians. We're just, once again, supposed to love God and love each other.

And so, they boil it down to a religion of no gospel, but just, just law. Just love God, love each other. You know, that's, that's the law right there. There's no gospel there. You know, one, one takeaway from this, too, is the, a lot of people have this idea that everyone deserves an opportunity to choose God, and it'd be wrong of God not to give someone the opportunity to choose Him, to hear the gospel and respond to it.

One of the reasons why people think that is because they think that people are neutral and not spiritually blinded, right? But people are, of their own, apart from some work of God, spiritually blind.

What would be the response if, if God did grant them an opportunity, apart from some special work of His? They would just reject it. Not only does God not owe it to anyone, but if He did grant such an opportunity to everyone, we already know what the answer would be, apart from Him doing some additional work.

And so, I want, I want us to close in thinking about this in light of Jesus's ministry. Now, okay, so thus far, we've looked at blindness. It's both self-imposed, it's both self-inflicted and divinely inflicted.

It's something that affects both leaders and laymen, and it is also something that Jesus both gives and takes away. He both gives people spiritual blindness and He takes away. So I have bad news and I have good news regarding the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus's ministry was, in many ways, similar to Isaiah's. You know, in fact, He even appeals to Isaiah's own words and Isaiah's own commission as His own commission. Why is it that He spoke in parables?

So that seeing, people would not see. So that hearing, people would not hear. Okay, that's, those were the words from Isaiah's commission, and Jesus quotes them of Himself. So, in a way, that should scare us that, wow, Jesus came and His mission was also one that ends up blinding people.

Because here we have a stronger light, here we have a stronger truth, and if people reject that truth, what do they get? A stronger blindness. But, He has a second mission, too. John 9 39 says, Jesus said, So, do you see?

He's reversing it. It is both the case that those who see, who think they see at least, He will make them utterly blind. But those who do not see, He will open their eyes. And so we live at a special time.

In Isaiah's time, the message was one that would blind almost everyone, and there were few who were part of Isaiah's disciples who believed the Word of God, who had their eyes spiritually opened. To them, the testimony was not bound up.

But, to everyone else, they rejected. But in our time, Jesus has come, and He has given a gospel that not only blinds some, but opens the eyes of others. You see, Jesus is not only blinding some, but He is opening eyes, and He's opening eyes in vast, vast quantities.

Consider the words of Romans 11 that quote our passage in Isaiah. In Romans 11, verse 7, it says,. That's the spirit of sleep we looked at in Isaiah 29. Now, the rest of this is not from Isaiah 29, but I'll continue reading.

God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day. And David says,. Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever. So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

Now, if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean? And so, what Paul is explaining here is that this blindness that has come on people is for the good of God's people.

That's the case specifically in the context of Romans 11, to the people of Jesus' time, to the Jews of Jesus' time, who rejected Jesus Christ. What happened as a consequence of that? The gospel went out to all the nations, and the gospel is going out into all the nations, so that more people will receive the Word of God.

But it is the case every time that God blinds someone, that he has a particular purpose in mind. What Romans 9 explains is that it greater shows God's mercy on his vessels of mercy. You know, there is a lot that's being accomplished through blindness.

So on one hand, yes, it is something to be very fearful of. On the other hand, it is God working in his mysterious way, great mercies upon his people. And you can be thankful that we live in a time where those mercies are being poured out in such great measure that you can be confident that as you bring the gospel to the world, it will be something that not just blinds some, but it will open the eyes of many.

It will open the eyes of many. And so, as I've said before, if this is something divinely imposed, and if we are of our own people who would just blind ourselves, then the only one who can open eyes is God.

The only one who can open eyes is Jesus Christ. You know, that particular miracle of opening physical eyes was never performed by anyone. The Bible points out that it was it was reserved particularly for Jesus Christ.

And why is that the case? Because he is the only one who can open spiritual eyes. We must pray to God to open spiritual eyes. And we gather here for prayer. It is particular that he would open spiritual eyes.

We're praying for this neighborhood. We're praying for our world that he would open spiritual eyes. These are not things that we are going to be doing by our power. They are things that can only be accomplished by God's power.

And we can pray that the the darkness, the blindness, the people with hoods over their heads and coverings over their eyes, they would be removed. And God can do this because this is the mission of Jesus, not only to blind those who see, but to open the eyes of the blind.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great mercy that we have in Jesus Christ. We thank you that his commission was not only to blind but to open eyes. And Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes even further.

We recognize that we are people who, apart from your continual work, would sink into blindness. Lord, I pray that you would that you would give us great sight. And Lord, that the people in this neighborhood, as we pray for them, as people in this world, as we pray for them, that you would lift more and more blindness and that people would see and they would be welcomed into the kingdom of God.

In Jesus' name, amen.