When one is blind, the world lies in darkness.  He has no part in beholding the beauty of the rainbow, the symmetry of each flower, the colors splashed throughout the forest.  He cannot see the great advancements in the arts and sciences.  His eyes are blind.

Of a less severe nature is one who has impaired vision.  He can see, but not clearly and distinctly.  Objects appear before him; he strains and squints, trying to distinguish one thing from another.  This man, however, is not without hope.  He can make an appointment with optician and with the corrective lens he receives, he will be able to see more clearly the things about him.

Man is in darkness.  Through sin he became blind.  He cannot see the beauty and wonder of God.  Oh, can look at it with his physical eye.  He can distinguish a tree from a flower.  He can behold colors, shapes, and sizes.  He can work with the elements of nature, combine, analyze, and mix them so that he produces great “wonders” and inventions that cause most of us to be amazed.  He can do all these things with his physical eye, yet he is blind.

Romans 1 informs us that even God’s eternal powers are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.  That is a paradox concerning the wicked.  They see, yet they are blind.  The answer to the apparent contradiction:  “Their foolish hearts are darkened.”  They can see with their natural eye, but they are blind spiritually.  The testimony stands.  All creation witnesses of God’s greatness and glory.  Hence, the wicked “hold the truth in unrighteousness.”  The works of God abide, they speak, they reveal, but the wicked are blind, they are darkened in sin, they refuse to see, hardened in the depth of hatred against God.

In contrast, the believing child of God is not blind.  He has an eye that sees.  He has the physical eye that focuses on the objects about him.  In all his way he distinguishes, he perceives.  In so far he is no different than the ungodly.  That which is natural is natural.  The difference that comes to the fore is that the righteous see and beholds all things, but the wicked see and does not behold.  The righteous sees in faith.  The man of God is different.  The heart of the ungodly is darkened; the heart of the righteous is enlightened.  That is the power of grace.  By grace the darkness is shattered, his heart is filled with light, the light of God.  In that light the man of God walks in faith.  The whole world radiates the glory of God.  In creation, His handiwork, God reveals Himself in a revelation of glory and power.  The godly see that and behold the “invisible things of God.”  In the trees and mountains, on the grassy slopes, in all God’s dealings with His people in history, in the nations of the world, in all things, He sees His God.

That man of God, redeemed and delivered, enriched with seeing eyes, needs corrective lenses, he needs spectacles.  Not that the power of faith – his seeing eyes, in itself is weak.  It is not so, that the work of God is imperfect, incomplete, or impotent.  He needs, “glasses” because that seeing eye is still in a weak body of sin.  His nature is inclined to all evil.  The world entices him.  He would focus his eyes on all things of unrighteousness.  We experience that, do we not?  We do not see God in all things.  We are not always conscious that “The heavens declare and the firmament showeth.”  We need spectacles.

The living Word of God focuses all that which passes through our “eyes,” whether we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, upon the retina of our heart.  That heart is spiritual.  It is overflowing with the grace of God.  In that heart, that which perceived is spiritually perceived, so that we see the power and glory of God in all things.  And this takes place through the divine directive of the Word of God.  That Word, we read, we preach, we sing, we meditate upon it.  It is God’s revelation to us that leads us onto the way of truth.

The conclusion is that the more we study the Word, the more we also will perceive spiritually the purpose of the world in which we live not only, but also our place in the midst of this beauty of God.  Even as the one who wears glasses, the more he wears them the more they help him, so that we read and study the Word, the more we understand the real purpose of all things.  Then we will see that this world and all its glory is a little shadow of the glory that awaits us when we shall have perfect eyes to behold God’s glory in the face of Christ.