Have you ever laid the gospel out plain as day for someone, clear as anything, and watched it bounce off like they never heard a word? Let me tell you what is going on, because it is not that the message is unclear. The message is crystal. The problem is a set of blind eyes.
“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not…” (2 Corinthians 4:3–4, KJV)
Two things blind a man: a devil and a heart
There is a devil in it. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds”: Satan, whom Jesus called “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44), works to keep men from “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.” But hear me, child of God: this is not intelligence, and it is not education; educated, religious men sit blind as stones. And it is not that people are innocent victims either. Fallen men love the dark, resist the truth, and will not have it. Both are true: Satan blinds, and men refuse.
Only God opens a blind heart
So if the problem is spiritual, the cure must come from God: no salesman can argue a man into the kingdom. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). Watch it happen: “the Lord opened” Lydia’s heart, “that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul” (Acts 16:14). The Spirit convicts (John 16:8), and “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
So preach Christ, and leave the increase to God
That means our job is to lift up Christ, not a church or a system. Peter told Cornelius, “through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43), and the Holy Ghost fell on them before water baptism (Acts 10:44–48). Baptism testifies to Christ; it never replaces Him: Paul says Christ sent him “not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17). So explain the Word patiently, answer gently (2 Timothy 2:24–26), and remember: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6). You cannot open a blind eye, but the God you serve can. Glory to God.
Related Teaching
The Gospel, Stated Plainly
Everything I teach on this site rests on one message from Scripture. Read it in God’s own words from 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 1:16, and Ephesians 2:8-9.
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
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