Well, I made it my goal, my aim, in these few weeks that I've been here, to make sure that nobody will say to me at the end of these three weeks, "Well, I don't know what it is to be a Christian. I don't know what it means to be regenerate." And so the last two messages have concentrated on the question of the meaning of regeneration. What does it mean to be regenerate? And if anyone here at the end of this meeting still doesn't know what it means to be regenerate, then I should feel thoroughly frustrated. And I should request that perhaps you'll talk to me yourself and we'll sort this thing out.
But today I want to come to a third aspect about regeneration. And that is the question of seeing. You see, we take our vision for granted. You are looking at me and I'm looking at you. And in fact, if you couldn't see, you wouldn't be here today. I wonder how you would have gotten here in the first place. We take our eyes for granted, isn't it? We hardly realize how valuable our eyesight is. To be able to see is something incredibly precious.
Now, if at any time you had eye trouble — you see, my wife is a nurse that specialized in eye troubles and eye disease. And in London, where she studied and where she worked after the basic training in nursing, this hospital is called Moorfields Eye Hospital. The whole huge hospital deals with only one part of the body, the eyes. In fact, I never realized in my life that there's a whole hospital that deals only with eyes. It's called Moorfields Eye Hospital. It's said to be probably the most famous eye hospital in the world. And they treat nothing else except eyes. All kinds of eye diseases, eye surgery — it's all done in there. Because if you go into that hospital and you see the suffering of people who cannot see, whose vision is damaged, one may never again be able to see, you realize how precious is the sight.
Now, some people talk about being "blind as a bat." Can't see anything at all, so blind. But that's a misnomer. Because bats have an incredible way of seeing with their ears. I saw once a Moody science film that portrayed the experiments on bats. It was amazing. In total darkness, they could put bars through the whole room — bars, thin bars like that, through the whole room. And the bat would fly between the bars and never once hit the bars. And although it cannot see, it will never hit a bar. Why is that so? Because it emits a sound like radar — it sends out the sound, the sound hits an object, and it comes back to the bat's ears. And all that in the fraction of a second, so that it can maneuver right through the bars in total darkness without once hitting the bars. Fascinating. It can literally see with its ears.
Very illuminating to know that when you study the Word of God. Because the prophet said, "I saw the Word of God." Now the Word of God you're supposed to hear. How do you see it? Very interesting. There is a point at which seeing and hearing is no longer so clearly divisible. Like the bats, they see with their ears. But when in the experiment they taped up the ears of the bats, the bats went straight into the poles. Because they couldn't hear, they couldn't see anymore. Their ears were their eyesight. And that is why in the Bible you often find the expression, "Seeing, do you not see? And hearing, do you not hear?" Seeing and hearing are so closely linked together.
And that is the question I'd like to put to you today. Do you see? Or do you think you see? Do you see spiritual things? That's what I mean. When the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Are your hearts hardened?" He says to them in Mark chapter 8, "Are your hearts hardened, that you do not see? Are your eyes so blinded by the hardness of your heart? You cannot see spiritual things."
We live in an age of blindness. I was meditating on this this morning and the thought suddenly quite terrified me. The whole world is blind — spiritually blind. We cannot see. The mark of regeneration is the capacity to see spiritual things. This is the third thing I want to say to you today. This is the essence of the message today. Regeneration — the result of regeneration is the capacity to see spiritual things. Whether you are a Christian in the Bible sense — now please notice, I am talking about the Bible sense of the words, not whether you believe this and that to be true in some intellectual sense — the Bible tells us, as we shall see in a moment, that to be regenerate is seen by the fact whether you can see spiritual things or not.
Now that's very easy to decide. Can you or can you not? Now, if you cannot see spiritual things, if spiritual things are unreal to you — as they must be, things that you can't see have an unreal quality about them — but if you can see spiritual things, then you know you are regenerate. Even if what you see and the quality of your seeing may be quite poor. The capacity to see and regeneration is very closely linked. In fact, inseparably linked.
You know, when our daughter Grace was born, I was there in the delivery room helping with the delivery. It was a very fashionable thing — I don't know how it is today, but it was very fashionable in England that the husband should be present at the delivery to help the wife, to hold her hand, to wipe the sweat from her brow, to put the gas on her face if she needed it, if the pain was too great, and generally to supervise the doctor that he does not do anything wrong. Well, in the case of the doctor who was doing the delivery, he seemed to me so utterly incompetent that I thought I might as well take over from that point, because he seemed not to be quite sure what he was supposed to do. In the end, it was the midwife who was trying to help him along, because this young trainee doctor was so inexperienced. The moment he walked into the room, I thought to myself, "Oh no, does this guy know anything? Does he know how to deliver babies?" Which proved — my concern was proved justified later when I saw that he really was quite incompetent.
But anyway, that apart, as soon as Grace was born, I was surprised that within minutes she opened her eyes and she was looking around the room. Her eyes were looking at the light, and I thought babies are not supposed to be able to see very well. How come she's looking around and she seems to be able to see? And she was very quiet because she was so fascinated with the lights and the movements in the room. She was staring everywhere. And this illustrates the point here, that birth and sight are very closely related.
Let us go to John chapter 3, which is where I've been basing all the past two messages on, both the past two messages on. And let us see from Scripture this very important connection. And this is what we read in John chapter 3, verse 3: "Jesus answered Nicodemus, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew' — or born from above — 'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Here we see it. Unless you are born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Can you see the kingdom of God? Can you?
So it's quite easy, isn't it? The meaning is very plain. If you are born from above, you can see the kingdom of God. If you are not born from above, born by the power of God, you cannot see the kingdom of God. That's what the Lord says in plain language. It doesn't require any profound exposition or exegesis on the passage. Unless you are born from above, you cannot see the kingdom of God. This thing is very easy to understand.
Let's put it this way. What does the Lord say? Here it says in verse 5, as we saw the other time: "Jesus answered Nicodemus and said, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.'" If you can't see it, you are not likely to be able to enter it, are you? And then verse 6: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Now this is easy to understand. There's nothing mysterious or mystical about it.
What is born of the flesh is flesh. Very plain language. If you are born of the flesh, what happens? You have a body. And when you are born of the flesh, because you have a body, you have eyes, and you are born of the flesh, you have physical eyes. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and therefore with your physical eyes you can see physical things, like Grace. When she was born, she was able to see physical things. Why? She was born of the flesh. She has physical eyes. She has the capacity to see physically because she has a body and she has physical eyes. Nothing hard to understand.
And the Lord said, "Well, now you understand physical things — translate this into spiritual things and you see the same thing." If you are born physically, that does not give you the capacity to see spiritual things. You have only got physical eyes; you can't see spiritual things with physical eyes. Look around. What do you see? You see a wall, you see curtains, you see physical things. But when you are born of the Spirit, then you have spiritual faculty. You become a spiritual being just as when you are born of the flesh, you become a physical being. When you are born of the Spirit, you become a spiritual being with spiritual faculty, with spiritual eyesight. Now you can see spiritual things. It's very clear, isn't it? The Lord's preaching and teaching is very clear. There's nothing mystical about it. It is we who are dull of understanding sometimes. This is very plain language.
Now therefore, following this, if you are born of the Spirit — if the Spirit, in other words, gives you life — what does it mean to be born physically? It means you receive physical life, and with that physical life, the capacity to function physically. And you are all functioning physically. That's why you are physically alive. Your heart is beating, your lungs are breathing, your eyes are looking. You are physically alive. To be born of the Spirit is to receive spiritual life. And if you receive from God this spiritual life, then you will have the capacity to function spiritually, which includes the capacity to see and to hear and to think spiritually, to understand spiritual things.
So is anybody going to tell me here that they don't know whether they are regenerate or not? It's like saying, "I don't know whether I am alive or not." Well, look at yourself. Are you alive or not? Have you ever heard somebody saying, "Hey, I wonder whether I am alive or not?" Scratching his head and saying, "Am I really alive? Tell me. Or am I dead? I'm not sure whether I have been born yet or not." You think this fellow is out of his mind. He belongs in some psychiatric ward. You think this fellow doesn't know whether he's — I mean, you go outside to the street, stand on the street corner and tell somebody, "Excuse me sir, but do you think I'm alive? Do you think I have been born? Have I really been born into this world?" The person will probably take one look at you, quietly walk over to the telephone and say, "You better send an ambulance. We've got a nutcase here."
And yet the church is full of nutcases. I hate people telling me, "I'm not sure whether I am born or not." And you're thinking, "Well, if you are alive, you also know you are alive, or don't you know?" Is there some mystery about this? "I'm not sure whether I'm alive." You say, "This is ridiculous." Well, it is ridiculous. How is it possible that you are born and you don't know whether you are born? Because then, in this case, the blindness extends even to our own existence. We can't figure out whether we are alive or not. Can you see spiritually? Maybe a baby does not see very well. His eyes have difficulty focusing, but he still sees. Can it be that you see nothing spiritual?
Now, I would like to go on to speak more clearly about how we come to see, how it is that we have spiritual vision. It says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 27, that Moses endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Moses saw the invisible. What is invisible to the physical eyes, Moses endured. He saw clearly the spiritual things, and in this case he endured as seeing God, who is invisible. Does that make sense to you? This is truly remarkable, isn't it?
This is what I call maybe the fourth dimension. We are all familiar with three-dimensional things in the physical world. The physical world is three-dimensional, we are told. We have it in such a way that all material things are defined in these three dimensions. But I call this the fourth dimension, if you like — to see beyond the physical world and to see the things which are invisible to the physical eyes. Have you had such an experience? Have you perhaps from time to time exercised a little bit of spiritual vision and then it vanished and you are back to blindness again?
Now, here I have to put in a cautionary word. Not all spiritual vision is from God. And the capacity to see certain spiritual things is not evidence of regeneration. Here, maybe I am speaking a little bit deeper, because I doubt that many of you need this kind of caution. But for those of us who have been a bit longer in spiritual warfare and a bit more familiar with the spiritual world, the realities of the spiritual world, for the sake of caution, I will put in this warning.
There are people who can see spiritual things, but not the things of God. "Whatsoever is born of God sees the kingdom of God." Now, these words are very important. The Lord Jesus knows, as those of us who are engaged in spiritual life and battle know, that there are people who can indeed see spiritual things even though they are unregenerate. Why? I said earlier on in the previous two messages that every human being is both body and spirit, but most people do not know how to function with the spirit. That spirit is dead in relation to God, but is not necessarily dead in relation to the spiritual world. That is why there are such things as demon possession, and those of us sometimes that have to fight this kind of battles are aware of the dangers of demon possession, meddling in spiritual things at a time when they are not in the right position to do so.
My father knew a government official — I use this one because it's a particularly vivid illustration — in China, who had been a Buddhist monk, and like many spiritist people, they are able to see spiritual things. And my father tested him on this point. My father himself was not a Christian at that time and was very skeptical about spiritual things. So my father tested him and found that indeed he was able to see spiritual things. And because of his capacity to communicate with the spirit, he was able to tell and answer impossible questions, such as the question my father asked him as to where my grandfather was buried during the Second World War.
My father himself didn't know where my grandfather was buried, because my father was in the resistance, fighting the Japanese from the wartime capital of Chongqing. So he did not know where his father — that is, where my grandfather — was buried. So he asked this man, "If you have the spiritual powers that you claim, you tell me where my father is buried." Because this one — he knew he could not mind-read him. Since he himself doesn't know the answer, you can't mind-read the answer out of his mind, because he was afraid that there is such a possibility of reading another person's mind, and if you already know the answer, he might be able to pick the answer out of your mind. So it might be some kind of psychological trick, or some powers of the mind about which we don't yet know, but may not have much to do with spiritual things. So he asked him a question the answer to which he himself, my father himself, didn't know what was the answer.
And that man closed his eyes, and after a while he opened his eyes and he said, "I will tell you where your father is buried." He named the place, he described the scene, and described it to the last detail — where there was a little brook, where there was the slanting of the land, even where the trees were standing. So my father noted the details that this man told him, and then asked his brother, my second uncle, who was present at the burial. And he asked my uncle, "Now describe to me where our father is buried, the place, exactly what the land looked like, where the trees stand, and so on." And my father was shocked. As my uncle described the scene, it was exactly as this man had told him. Amazing, isn't it?
And when my father asked this man, who had been a Buddhist monk, "How do you know the answer to these things?" He said, "Simple. I talk with the spirit." "Talk with the spirit? How do you talk with them?" He said, "Well, I just talk with them, just as I talk with you, I talk with them." "You see them?" "Indeed, I see them. I see them and I talk to them." "How do they look?" "They don't look very nice. Not very nice, but I get used to them." You see, these people had learned to exercise spiritual sight. And I told you about this lady the other day that I met on the plane coming from Manila. And this lady was able to see these things too, in broad daylight. Broad daylight — it doesn't have to be dark. She could see spiritual things just like that.
Now, I would like you to understand this thing. This is not the kind of spiritual sight the Lord Jesus is talking about. He is talking about seeing the kingdom of God. And in fact, the Bible acknowledges, especially in the Old Testament, the reality of the spirit world. That's also in the New Testament. It acknowledges the reality of the spiritual world and warns the Israelites never to dabble in this kind of thing. Never dabble in it. Not even in fortune telling. There are Christians, I say to you, who go to fortune tellers. And let me tell you this, if you mess around with fortune tellers, the consequences are beyond imagination. And I know Christians who still do this kind of thing, and God's judgment will be upon these persons. They have been specifically warned never to do this kind of thing. So don't think that when I am speaking about spiritual vision, I am talking about visions of spirits and ghosts. Some people have seen ghosts walking around, and this is not uncommon.
Now, we are talking about seeing the things of God. Let's get this very clear. I said there is a general situation of spiritual blindness in this respect. The whole world is blind. The whole world is blind. Even God's people are blind — the people of Israel. Paul says in his two chapters concerning the Israelites in Romans, Romans chapter 9 and chapter 11, that blindness in part has come upon Israel. You remember those important words. The people of God are blind, just as the prophet Isaiah said in his servant songs: "Who is blind like my servant Israel?" The people of God are blind; they cannot see. And when Paul says the Israelites are blind in part, he means the most part. Only a small remnant of Israel was able to see.
And the same problem afflicts the church today. Most of the church in our generation are blind. Those are not my words. We see that in Revelation chapter 3, verse 18, of the Laodicean church, which is regarded as a picture of this present age, the last age of the church. In Revelation chapter 3, verse 18, the Lord says to the Laodicean church, "Get yourself some eye salve. Anoint your eyes that you may see." The church has gone blind. It needs to have its eyes salved with the special ointment of the Holy Spirit that they can see again.
So the world is blind, Israel is blind, the church is blind. Whatever happened to regeneration? So if you have problems with regeneration, I'm not too surprised, given the situation as it is in the world today. The spiritual situation is absolutely terrifying. And let no one say to you that Christians cannot be blind, even if they think they are regenerate.
Let me read to you one verse in 1 John chapter 2, verse 11 — a verse that as I was reading it struck fear into my heart, the fear of the Lord that our brother was talking about last week. This is talking about blindness in Christians. 1 John chapter 2, verse 11: "But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." He's talking about a brother whose eyes have been blinded by the internal darkness, the spiritual darkness of the heart, which finds its expression in hating a brother.
Now don't get this passage wrong. The Bible uses the word "hate" in a much wider sense than in modern language. I'm sure that there's almost no one that you really hate. You just don't love them, that's all. You don't hate them; you don't love them. But not loving them is precisely what the Bible means by hate. That's what it means, when it says hating your parents: "If anyone would be my disciple and does not hate his father and mother and brother and so on, and his own life too" — it doesn't just mean you work up a bitter hatred against your parents. It means that in comparison with the love of God, you do not love them in the same way. And they feel that you don't love them, perhaps sometimes.
So you really do love them at a much deeper level than ever you loved them as a non-Christian. But they feel you hated them mistakenly. I know of no Christian who does not love his parents or her parents more than when they were non-Christian. Certainly I did. When I was a non-Christian, I never really loved my parents. I only really loved them when I became a Christian, because I didn't even know what love really meant when I was a non-Christian. It is only the Gospel that taught me what love means. But here it says of a brother that he does not love his brother. And such a person lives in internal darkness — internal, within his own heart — and therefore he's blinded by that darkness. If you don't love a brother or a sister — and here I have to keep checking myself all the time — is there someone I don't really love? Maybe I even dislike. That will result in blindness for the Christian. Spiritual things will suddenly go blind.
One of the first of the Beatitudes, the Lord Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." A condition for seeing the things of God is purity of heart. Now that's not required in the case of seeing spiritual things in the sense in which this Buddhist monk sees things. You don't need purity of heart there. Or like this lady that I talked about — she doesn't need purity of heart. It only needs a certain type of spiritual concentration, learning certain phrases perhaps, certain spiritual techniques. Even more effective are those people who have sold their soul to Satan and confessed that that's what they have done. It's quite terrifying. By those means they're able to communicate spiritually with the spirit world. But to communicate with God, to see the kingdom of God, you need purity of heart. Just as it says in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14 also: without holiness nobody will be able to see God.
# Spiritual Vision Through Regeneration (Part 2)
...the blood of the cross that cleanses the heart. And through it, we are then being able to see spiritual things. Now, we can go on like this in Scripture and come to realize that spiritual vision concerning the things of God is the mark of regeneration. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, speaks about looking to Jesus. Looking to Jesus.
While we are in John chapter 3, let me show you how important vision is in this chapter. In fact, in this chapter, John chapter 3, five times we see the word "seeing" in one form or another. And I would like to have this chapter deeply imprinted in your minds through these three messages. Chapter 3, verse 3, we already saw that unless we are born from above, we cannot see the kingdom of God. Then verse 11, the Lord Jesus says — this is still in the conversation with Nicodemus — "Truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen. But you do not receive our testimony." We bear witness to what we have seen.
You know what makes the difference between a preaching and a teaching that is effective and a preaching and a teaching that is non-effective? It's the difference between seeing and not seeing. If what you preach, you preach because you yourself have seen, that preaching will carry across with the power of God. Because you can only see through the Spirit. And when you witness to what you see, you are witnessing with His power. We have many servants today in the churches. We have many pastors that when you listen to the preaching, you realize that they do not preach what they have seen. They preach only what they have learned from a textbook, or read from some other book somewhere. There is not the power because they have not seen.
But the Lord Jesus says, "What I tell you, I tell you because I have seen it." But notice here, He says "we." He includes the apostles. He didn't just say "I." He says "we." Later on He will say "I." But here He is saying "we." We speak to you of what we ourselves have heard. Remember? The connection between seeing and hearing. He will speak about hearing later on.
Your Christian life will not carry conviction because you can't speak firsthand. You see, seeing makes you an eyewitness. When you see the kingdom of God, you become an eyewitness of the kingdom of God. You can speak effectively. We have many young people in our churches. But I see that many are not effective in witnessing to their parents, or to their relatives, or to their friends. And I suspect it is because you speak with no conviction. And your life does not carry conviction because you do not speak of what you have seen. That is the tragedy. Make it your earnest desire to see the kingdom of God. Ask the Lord: "Lord, I am blind. Please heal me. Please restore my sight." John chapter 9 is a whole chapter devoted to healing a man who was born blind. Beg of Him. Say, "Lord, I am going to plead with You until You grant me spiritual sight." That is the most important thing you could ask for. Because with it, you will realize that it's only possible to have such sight through regeneration.
And then He goes on. And here comes a very interesting verse in verse 14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life." We say, where is sight in this verse? Now, if you know the story behind this verse, you will know that here believing and seeing are identified, are equated. Believing is seeing. Seeing may not be believing, but believing is seeing. It is seeing with spiritual eyes. That is why in Hebrews 11:27, the chapter about faith, it says that Moses saw the invisible. Believing is seeing. Seeing may not be believing, but believing is seeing. You must get this point very clear in your mind.
Now, what's behind this verse? What's behind this verse was that — you recall, if you read in Numbers, Numbers chapter 21, in fact the whole story is there — the Israelites were grumbling against God and so provoked God that God sent the judgment of serpents, snakes, poisonous vipers into their midst. And many were bitten and many died. And they called out to God, and God said to Moses, "Make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole." And up there in the wilderness, pick that pole up as high as you can, and all the people who look at that serpent on the pole, who look at that serpent, will live. And that's behind here. And the Lord Jesus is saying, just as those Israelites looked at the serpent and lived, so the Son of Man will be set up on a pole. He who knew no sin will be made a symbol of sin, punished for sin that He never committed, put as a criminal upon that cross. And all those who believe, who look with the eyes of faith upon Him, will live. Oh, this is truly wonderful. The spiritual vision of the crucified. I'll come back to this in a moment.
But let's go on to see more instances of the word "see" in chapter 3. As we go down a few more verses to chapter 3, verse 21, we see the word "see" again: "But he who does what is true comes to the light." You see, you can't see in the dark. We see in the light. "That it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God." If you walk in the light, God's power so empowers you that what you do comes through His power. That was my first message, isn't it? "For me to live is Christ." It is His power by which I do the things that I do, that I am able to see what I see. So here are already four instances of "see" in chapter 3.
One more. In the last verse of this chapter, we read this, verse 36: "He who believes in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him." See life. See something that cannot be seen. Has anybody seen life? You can't see life. Life is invisible. But with the spiritual eyes, you see spiritual life in action. You see spiritual things. Exactly as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 18 — a very important verse, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 18 — where the Apostle Paul says this: "We look not to the things which are seen, but we look at the things which are unseen, which are eternal. For the things which are seen are transient, passing away. But the things which are not seen are eternal."
What do you look at? You look at the transient things. The things which are passing away. The stereo set. The latest camera. Self-focusing and self-whatever it does. Everything. These transient things. Oh, they capture the eyes. But spiritual things? We look at the things which are not seen. Seeing the unseen. That is the marvel of faith. Seeing with the spiritual eyes the things that physical eyes cannot see. Now in this chapter we see five times about seeing. Isn't that remarkable? It's all about seeing.
Let me speak about very quickly five spiritual things through which we see the glory of God. Let's come back to chapter 3, verse 14. Seeing Jesus. Looking to Jesus. Seeing Jesus. Can you? Can you see Jesus? "But we see Jesus," it says in Hebrews. But we see Jesus. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18, what do we see there? Paul says this in 3:18 of 2 Corinthians, that beholding the glory of the Lord — beholding, seeing the glory of the Lord — we are being changed into the same glory from one degree of glory to another. That's wonderful.
I've seen many Christians in the church who are trying to improve themselves, and they just thought that the way to improve themselves spiritually is by way of self-analysis, by way of introspection. And so they search for the faults here and the faults there and the faults here, and they try to deal with this one — okay, we've dealt with this one, find another fault, deal with this. And this is called spiritual self-improvement. You know what happens when you do that? You just go all the way down, right down into the drain. The vision of Christ is transforming. It saves us because it transforms us. You keep looking to Jesus and His glory, and without your knowing it, you are changed into the same glory. That is the biblical secret, you see. That is why you cannot grow spiritually. A brother asked me the other day, "How do I grow spiritually?" Here is the answer: you look to Jesus, the crucified One, and you cannot help growing, because to be transformed is spiritual growth — to become like Him more and more.
And the vision of Jesus is amazing. It changes a person. I said the other time, the evidence of spiritual things speaks for itself. How do you know they are true? Very simple — because it works. It works. Let's say that Jesus doesn't exist. Has anybody been transformed by non-existence? Supposing I say, "You look at this blank wall" — nicely washed here, it's quite blank — "I guarantee you that as you study this wall, you will be changed from glory to glory." I think you will go to the telephone again and say, "I think we got a nutcase here. You know what he said? That as you stare at the blank wall, you will be transformed from glory to glory." I think it will transform you into a mental case if you stare at that wall long enough. In fact, this technique is used for torture, as you may know. If some of you have seen the torture techniques of Eastern European countries, one technique is to make you stand and look at a white wall and keep looking at it and keep looking at it, to make your mind blank. They want to wash you blank, because when you look at a blank thing, it will make you blank. You stare at it day after day. That is a torture technique which is designed as part of the technique of mind-washing, brain-washing. It's used.
But I'm not even asking you to look at a blank wall. If I say just stare into space and you will be transformed from glory to glory — and you see this guy is talking absolute rubbish. I mean, nobody ever got transformed by staring into vacant space. And it's a matter of practice — try it and see. We know the Gospel to be true because it works.
Now there are two kinds of vision. We use the word "vision" very loosely. There is a man-made vision and there is a spiritual vision, and these are not to be confused. Not to be confused. When I say I have a vision of a new society — for example, a brave new world that Huxley talked about — it is a man-made vision. I can conjure up pictures of a new society, such as one in which everybody gives and everybody contributes to a central fund and everybody draws from it. That can be purely a man-made vision, and it is quite encouraging. Whether it can be realized or not is another matter. Any psychologist will know that, given human nature, it can't work. But it is still a vision worth thinking about.
When we talk about vision here, we are not talking about man-made vision. You cannot see the kingdom of God in this sort of way. You can invent a kingdom of God of your own, if you like, and put to that invention "kingdom of God" as a title, but that will not be the kingdom of God of the Bible. Now it is perfectly alright to have a vision. I know what it is to have that kind of a vision, because I was a very idealistic young person long before I became a Christian. I had idealized ideas of what kind of a China I would like to build. I was a very patriotic person, you know. I wanted to build a new China, and I was working out in my mind the vision of a new China, and it was very encouraging to me. It helped me to set my course, to decide the direction in which I would go, to discipline myself and to work out many ideas. But that is human vision.
I soon realized that it was not going to work in practice, just as, unfortunately, the dream in China has well collapsed, hasn't it? After the Cultural Revolution the dream collapsed, and today we have in China tens of millions of disillusioned young people. Their hearts are empty. They have no more vision. They have no dream left. They once lived for a dream, and the dream collapsed, and now they know this dream can never work. It was not a possible dream in the first place, and now it has completely collapsed. And so the young people are left without direction, without purpose, without meaning in life. And she — like me, as soon as she heard the Gospel, when she came to Canada, she grabbed this Gospel, she clutched at it, she embraced it like a thirsty person from the desert. She drank in the Gospel. "At last! At last, this is the thing I've been looking for." She was doing a master's degree in Guelph by this time. All this didn't matter to her. She did it just to get out of the country, and being quite brilliant in her studies, she managed to be among the few who got out. But life is more than degrees, isn't it? It's more than material living. Tens of millions, she told me, are hungry for something more than physical food, more than physical things. They know this cannot satisfy them. And so the human vision does not work.
And I'm speaking about the spiritual vision. What is spiritual vision? Spiritual vision is that which God reveals to you. But you can't see it until you are regenerate. You see, there is the point. Until you are regenerate, you can't see it. Therefore you are left with only a human vision. But the person who is truly regenerate catches a spiritual vision which the Spirit of God reveals to us. And the first thing He reveals to us is the cross of Calvary. Remember, that's the first thing. That's where spiritual vision starts. That's where verse 14 comes in. You don't start here — you don't start anywhere else. The first vision is the vision which will set the whole course of our thinking ever afterwards — the vision of the crucified.
Now, I have heard people preach about the cross with emotion-tugging words: how He suffered, and how the thorns were pushed into His brow, and the nail was hammered in, and the Lord Jesus winced, and the pain, and the blood was slowly trickling down. Wow, this is all very, very dramatic stuff. Now that is human picturing of the situation. When you read the Bible, you will notice that not once is there any emphasis on the human suffering of the Lord Jesus. It's almost passed over in silence. It sort of, in a matter-of-fact way, it says, "And they drove the nails into His hands." Not one poetic word about the pain, about the suffering, about the reactions — nothing is said. Amazing, isn't it? The Bible speaks about the crucifixion of Jesus in the most undramatic way. There is no attempt to capitalize on human emotions as some preachers try to do. Have you ever noticed that? Amazing. Why? Because that's not what counts. Spiritual vision is not concerned with the physical aspect of His suffering. It is concerned with the inner meaning of that suffering, the spiritual content of that suffering. And that we cannot see.
Everybody can well imagine — if you are a non-Christian, you can easily imagine how painful it must be to have a nail going through your wrist or through your hand. It's easy to imagine what pain it must be to drive a long nail through your feet. It's easy to imagine what it must feel like to be thirsting as the blood slowly drips away. You don't have to be spiritual to understand that. But as a non-Christian, there is no way you are going to understand the inner meaning of the crucifixion. No way. That the Holy Spirit has to reveal to you. And that you can only do when you quietly wait before the Lord and let the Spirit of God lead you into all truth, lead you into the inner chamber of the truth of that, until you don't know why, but slowly the tears are running down your face — not because any emotion has been worked up. You'll be surprised that you don't even feel an emotion, and yet because of the spiritual perception of what the crucified Jesus means to us, you'll find the tears running down your face. I have known that feeling, and yet you feel perfectly at peace in your heart. No human emotions, but spiritual feelings. God has told you what it means — only a little bit, because we cannot exhaust the depth.
And so wonderful is the meaning of the cross that Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 2, he says, "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." I don't want to know anything else. Not all the philosophy I have learned, not all the skills of rhetoric in which I have been trained, not all the art of debate in which Paul was very skilled — Paul was a learned and trained man — but he said, "I tell you, this — so wonderful is the vision of Jesus the crucified One — I don't want to know any of that worldly wisdom at all."
But you see, unless your eyes have been opened spiritually, all that I have talked to you about spiritual vision, they sound airy-fairy to you. In fact, it sounds like nonsense. Oh yes, that's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, that to the carnal man, the man who does not have spiritual vision, spiritual things are foolishness. The Greek word "moronia" — foolishness — means nonsense. Paul knows that to you who do not have spiritual vision, all this talk is nonsense. He knows it. Why? Because once it was nonsense to him. I know it because once it was nonsense to me. I used to laugh at the Christians. I ridiculed the church. "All these weak people who need something to lean their emotions on. These weak people — not like me, stronger. I don't need this kind of rubbish." I didn't realize that it's nothing to do with emotional support and uplift. It has to do with spiritual reality. And as I said, it is reality we are talking about. If Jesus being lifted up on the cross cannot transform your life, you have the right to say it is nonsense. It is nonsense. It doesn't work.
I have said that if Jesus doesn't exist, if His death was just some piece of fantasy, where comes the power to transform a man from glory to glory? Where does that power come from? You try it and see. It's amazing — the vision of Jesus upon the cross, not as the human thing that I said before that we conjure up in our minds, but as revealed to you by the Spirit, can transform a person beyond all imagination. One of the joys of serving the Lord, which means more than money to me, more than anything to me, is to see the lives of people change. There is nothing like it. Through all these years of ministering, I have seen people transformed in front of my eyes. You think that non-existence and nonsense can transform a person like this? It takes power to change a man — power, incredible power to change a man. You try it and see, and you'll know it is incredible what God can do.
Let me rush on very quickly as our time is going fast. The second thing that we see when we are regenerate: we see the Word of God. The Word of God — the Bible in its inner meaning is the Word of God. If you want to know whether you are regenerate or not, a very quick test is: read the Bible and see if you understand it. Here it is. And I don't mean whether you are intelligent or not. I have seen very intelligent people read the Bible and they can't make head or tail of it. Is it because they are stupid? No, they have very high IQ. They open the Bible and say, "Would you — I read English. Oh yeah, I read English. Explain please this passage to me. Do you know what it means?" Why? They cannot see. They cannot see. And I've seen very simple people, no intellectual training, not even high school education, but once they have become regenerate, they opened the Bible and they said to me in excitement, "I understand! I understand!"
I saw one lady in Liverpool who had no education at all, the wife of a restaurant owner. She said to me, "It's amazing. I used to read the Bible and I can't make head or tail of it. It was like reading Hebrew. And when I got regenerate, I opened the Bible and I was amazed. Is this the same book? Did somebody change my Bible? How come I read this?" The significant thing is that once it was a closed book, and now she was able to find it was an open book. It was speaking to her when it said nothing before to her. Now it was speaking to her. That is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4: "If our word is hidden to anyone, if the gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are perishing." Why? The spiritual power is hostile to God. The God of this world has blinded their eyes, so when they read the gospel they can't see anything. You want to know if you are regenerate or not? Open your Bible and read it. You know why you don't want to read the Bible? Because you can't understand it. That's why it's boring! But when you can understand it, it's too exciting to put down.
We must rush on. The third thing which happens when you are regenerate is that you see something in the brothers and sisters in the church that you never saw before. This means that if you meet a Christian who is super-critical of other Christians, of brothers and sisters in the church, who is always criticizing this brother and that brother and so on — that person may have a problem with regeneration. I tend to see the good side of people. I don't know why. I find it often hard to criticize in a negative sense. There is a positive criticism and there is a negative criticism. All of us who are coaches or teachers — I used to be a sports coach in my non-Christian days, for a team that I built up, and I was very hard on my team members because I loved them so much. I wanted them to be the best, and therefore I gave them a lot of positive criticism. That is why our team members became some of the best in Shanghai in the sport, through being trained in our team. But negative criticism is always to see the bad side of people, not with a view to building them up but always to pulling them down.
Now, when you are born of the Spirit, you see the beauty of Christ, even if it's only a little bit, in the lives of others. You see that with Paul all the time. He always speaks about other people refreshing him. In 1 Corinthians 16, verse 18, for example, he speaks about three brothers who refreshed him — three persons who refreshed him so much. He sees the beauty of Christ in these dear people. He says, "I thank God for these wonderful brothers and sisters who refresh me so much." What is your attitude to other people, your roommates, those you share dwellings with? Is it their weakness that strikes you first, or is it their quality that strikes you first? If you always see the negative side, you may have a problem with regeneration.
Again, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 16 — 2 Timothy 1:16 — Paul says about a brother called Onesiphorus: "Oh," he says, "this brother — I see the beauty of Christ in him. He constantly refreshes me." How can you be refreshed except you channel the beauty of Christ to others? And then Romans chapter 16, verse 4, he speaks about Priscilla and Aquila, this dear couple he loved so much in the Lord. And in Romans 16, verse 4, he says this couple even stuck their necks out to save his life. They risked their life for his. There is a beautiful example of the spirit of Christ — laying down their life for other brothers and sisters. "They risked their life for me," he says. "I will never forget the beauty of Christ in this couple, the wonderful couple." We learn so much about this couple in the Bible. I would that all couples were like that.
Then fourthly, and I have to rush very fast here — the glory of Christ manifests in some of His churches. In some — unfortunately, even the Bible concedes that. In other churches you can't see much of the glory of Christ. But in a few, Paul is so thankful. For some churches he has to rebuke the Corinthian church again and again, but he is so thankful for the Philippian church. You read that in Philippians chapter 1, verse 3. He says this: "I thank God every time I think about you." Isn't that wonderful? Every time he thinks about the Philippian church, he is lifted up because he sees the glory of Christ manifested in the Philippian church — one of the few churches that receives no rebuke at all. Even in the letters to the seven churches — you know, in the letters to the seven churches, five are severely rebuked by the Lord, but two are praised. So in some, the minority of churches perhaps, but in some churches the glory of Christ is wonderfully manifest. And Paul was so delighted with the Philippian church, revealing the glory of Christ as a light in the world.
The last one, and we must close with this: he who is born of God also sees the glory of God in His creation and sees it very clearly. Sees it very clearly. Romans chapter 1, verse 20, Paul says — and this is the language of a spiritual man, because the carnal man cannot see it at all — but the spiritual eyes of Paul scan the creation, and everywhere he sees the glory of God. And he says this in Romans chapter 1, verse 20, that the glory of God is "clearly seen" — notice the expression, "clearly seen" — in the things which are created. We think that they are seen in a vague, unclear way, but Paul says they are very clearly seen! But because He sees it clearly... Can you see the glory of God in creation? You walk out and everywhere there is glory.
I look at a butterfly. Oh, amazing! Amazing. It's as though the Lord pulled up His sleeve and took out His paintbrush and painted the wings of the butterfly, unique in its beauty. Every butterfly a different design. Every type of species does its own design. I saw one the other day in Hong Kong. I thought it was a bird, it was so big. I thought, "What is this bird flying in the night, such a big thing?" Then I looked — it was a beautiful butterfly. The black wings and yellow spots on the wings, and it fluttered around and it flew away and it came back to us and flew away. We were so fascinated with this huge butterfly, so beautiful, and some of us enthusiastic — why? Because I see the beauty of God's creation in the world.
Under the water, oh, it's wonderful. I sometimes would like to take you on a guided tour down into the coral reef, and your eyes will be opened. Oh, what incredible beauty! Every fish looks like it's hand-painted by the Lord. The colors are indescribable. In a tank they somehow seem to fade a bit, but there in the coral reef — the shapes, the designs, the sizes, the colors — you name it and they've got it. You name whatever color you like and there it will be. And the shape of the reef, the color of the coral — incredible, incredible. And that's what Paul said: the glory of God is clearly seen, not vaguely seen — clearly seen in the things which He has made.
That is why everywhere I find myself built up. Everywhere the glory of God is shining into my life. Everywhere I am filled with thanksgiving and praise. You want to look at eternity? You want to have a glimpse of infinity? Go out there and look up into the sky, and you are looking literally at infinity. Literally. This world is an incredible place. We are suspended in a little ball in space, and in space, in any direction you care to look, you are looking at infinity. You are looking at stars which are maybe a million light years away. We are talking about millions of light years. You translate that into figures and you are running into so many zeros you don't know what we are talking about anymore. You are literally looking at infinity. We are living in infinity. God has hung us in space in the middle of infinity. We can talk about eternity with confidence, because every direction you are looking at, we are talking of countless light years, infinity of light years. God has put us as eternal beings in the middle of eternity, too. Amazing. Even our minds boggle at the thoughts of the whole thing. We are talking about spiritual things even in physical terms, in terms of physical infinity. I don't even know whether infinity is physical or not. Maybe I have to ask Einstein sometime about this. Maybe he'll say, "What do you mean, physical infinity? Infinity is not physical." So I say, "Okay, I stand corrected."
Our time is gone. We must close. Let me sum up one more time, and I hope that you become very clear about what it is to be a Christian, what it is to be born again. Which simply means to receive life from God — born from above is to receive the life that comes from God. And the evidence of receiving that life is the capacity to see the unseen — that which is not possible to see with the physical eyes, you see with a new spiritual sight that God gives to you. And if you haven't got it yet, speedily kneel down before God and say, "Give me this life, because without this life I am blind to the things which really matter. I don't see the things which are for eternity. I only see the things which are passing away." And everything you see around you today, brothers and sisters and friends — look at it — everything you see is passing away with your physical eyes. But the spiritual things, this Paul says, abide forever. Ask Him to help you to see those things which really matter, which abide for eternity.
Let us pray.