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Ask Pastor John

The Only Solution to Spiritual Blindness

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

John Piper, Unknown, 163859, Pastor, Ask, Theology, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.83.8K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2017

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Spiritually dead and blind people are willfully dark. It’s what they prefer. Therefore, they can only be rescued by a divine miracle.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, Pastor John. My name is Jacob, a college senior. I'm reading your book, A Peculiar

0:09.0

Glory, and looking forward to your new book, Reading the Bible Supernaturally. My question

0:14.4

comes from chapter 12 of A Peculiar Glory. If it isn't God who shines the light into

0:21.1

darkness, how is it that we as humans are responsible then for knowing God? I may have

0:27.9

misinterpreted something along the way, but this seems like a legitimate question in

0:32.2

light of Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 23. Pastor John, what would you say to Jacob? Jacob

0:39.0

is absolutely right that I argue in peculiar glory that all human beings are spiritually

0:48.6

blind to the superior value of the glory of God, which means that left to ourselves,

0:58.2

we will see the gospel, see Christ, see Scripture, but not see it or see Him for what it truly

1:09.0

is, namely the most beautiful, valuable reality in the world. So we can see, but there's

1:16.7

something wrong with our spiritual capacities to discern the beauty and value of what

1:24.0

we see, so that we always wind up preferring other things over God, seeing we do not see

1:33.2

Jesus said. That's the essence of sin, and it's the plight of every human being, not

1:40.5

just a few. The only hope, therefore he noticed, I argued, for salvation, for recognizing who

1:49.0

Christ is and what his word is, the only hope for this salvation, therefore is that God

1:56.8

would miraculously shine in our hearts with the light of the glory of God, and the text

2:04.4

that he's talking about, mainly I think, at least as the text I go to, is 2 Corinthians

2:11.2

4, verses 4 through 6, where our blindness and God's supernatural intervention is so beautifully

2:21.1

expressed. Let me read that. The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers

2:27.6

to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image

2:33.6

of God. Hence, our inability to see the truth and beauty and worth of Christ in the gospel

2:40.5

were blind. Then, verse 6 is the solution. God, who said, let light shine out of darkness,

...

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