Last night, a new friend of mine from Iran, one of the most unreached places on earth, told me about his attempt to share what God has been doing in his life with some men and women from his own country. He explained that so many had walked away from Islam but yet they were unwilling to listen to what he was saying because of the pain that was in their lives. He had attempted to share the Gospel with them to help them understand that they can know God through Jesus, not just know a religion with its rules and regulations. He explained, though, that it seemed as if they had been blinded, that they couldn’t see. They couldn’t hear. For all of his trying, it seemed that they just couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell them.
I was reminded of this as I read Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians this morning. He explains something very similar:
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:4-6
Paul says that Satan has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. They are wounded. They are hurt. They are unable to accept the Gospel, and that unfortunately the case for many different reasons. Maybe it is a relationship rift within their family. Maybe it is a misplaced expectation of God. Maybe it is a disappointment from their religion. Whatever the situation is, the “god” of this age has discouraged them, has blinded them such that they cannot see the light that has come from God.
Jesus himself is the light. He is the image of God, the true image of God here on the earth. God is spirit and cannot be seen, yet in Jesus we can see him. However, if we are blind, it is impossible to see Jesus. Therefore, it is impossible to see God.
Paul says that he does not preach himself. He does not call people to follow him. Instead, he calls people to follow Christ, to believe in Jesus. He, and by extension, we, are servants of others so that would believe in Christ.
How different and upside-down is what Paul saying when we compare it to our experience in this world? Do we sometimes actually have the impression that, as people who go to a church, or to a mosque, or to a temple, that we are there to serve those who are leading? If that has ever happened to us, we should understand that this is something that we can expect to cause harm because that is not what God intended. He intended for us to know him and for those who serve the Lord to serve others, bringing them to Jesus, not bringing them to us.
My Iranian friend told me that he had spoken recently with another man from Russia, telling him how he felt that God was with him, that God had been helping him in the moments when he was the most lonely. He had moved to a new country where he didn’t know anyone and yet now he was connected to a community where he felt that he could grow together with others. He wasn’t necessarily even intending to try to share the Gospel with his Russian friend, but it seemed that God was working within him, someone that had not been interested in talking about the things of God before, where instead now he was suddenly open and said that he had felt a similar loneliness himself, that he could relate to the loneliness that my Iranian friend had experienced. We are praying, and will continue to pray that God will lift the veil of blindness and will help his Russian friend to know Christ.
It is clear that this a war for the hearts of the people all around us. It is not a physical war, but a spiritual war. The Father is calling people to come to Christ. He wants that all would be saved. Yet Satan is attempting to obscure that call, to blind everyone possible from the call that the Father is giving. His hope is to destroy God’s people by blinding them, by preventing them from knowing Christ.
Like the situation with my Iranian friend, though, God places us in the path of people every day with whom he is speaking. We must be sensitive and listen to those around us, preparing ourselves for the moments in which the veil is torn away, the moments in which God opens the door and we can simply encourage people to come to know Jesus, the one and only one who can fill the one true need of that person’s life: To know God and to live for him forever.