Title: Good Eyes, Bright Eyes
Contents
good eyes, bright eyes
<Luke 11:33-36>
People with good eyes don't need glasses, but people with bad eyes do. Even if you have poor eyesight, you can see well with glasses. I used to have good eyes too, so I could see very small letters, but now that I am older, I use magnifying glasses to read small letters. Things that are close are hard to see, and things that are far away can be seen. Good eyes make the world look brighter. On the other hand, if you have poor eyesight, the world looks bleak.
In today's passage, Jesus says, "No one lights a lamp and puts it in a cage or under a horse, but on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light" (Luke 11:33).
In the old days, there were no fluorescent lamps like today. Instead, a lamp was lit to light the room. The structure of the lamp is to put oil in a pottery made of clay and cover it with a lid, and a hole is drilled in the lid to insert a wick. And when you light the wick, the oil that rises to the wick burns and light comes out. However, to illuminate the entire room with a lamp, you need to make a lampstand of a suitable height and place it there. If it's too high, it's dark because it casts a lot of shadows under the lights. Also, if you place the lamp too low, the light doesn't reach high enough, so it's dark overall. As a rule of thumb, placing it at about waist height reduces shadows and brightens the entire room. That is why Jesus said, “Do not put a lamp under a lamp or under a horse.”
Um refers to a place dug in the ground and covered with straw. It is said that when a person puts a lamp in a room, he does not put it in a hollow. And ‘Mal’ refers to a large wooden bowl made to measure grain. Whoever lights the house at night and never puts a lamp under his horse so that the light of the lamp does not shine is a fool. Jesus is saying that we should put the light in the right place so that it is not dark.
And then Jesus said again. “The lamp of your body is the eye. If your eyes are clear, your whole body will be bright. If it is bad, your body will also be dark” (Luke 11:34). In other words, the human eye is like a kind of lamp. A person needs light to see, but also needs strong eyes. The word 'good' means 'a thing without any blemishes and in good condition' or 'a thing full of energy'. In other words, there is no disease in the eyes, the condition is normal, and the eyesight is good. A man's bright eyes are like a lamp that illuminates a room, illuminating his whole body. On the other hand, people with poor eyesight feel dark no matter how bright the surroundings are. Look at the blind people. They can't see things because their eyes are dark even in broad daylight, so they fumble or point with sticks.
Following these words, Jesus said, “Therefore, see if the light that is within you is not dark” (Luke 11:35). Jesus suddenly says, “the light that is within.” You can see that the light in you that Jesus is talking about does not mean physical light, but means ‘light of the heart’ or ‘eyes of the heart’.
There is a word in our language called 'Gul-nyeon'. “Your eyes are bright.” Or, there is a saying, “Your eyes are dark.” 'Geul-nyeon' refers to the eyes that can read text well. There is a thing called 'illiteracy'. He is a person who does not understand what the writing is even if he reads it because he cannot learn it. There is a saying these days, 'blindness'. People who do not know how to use computers because they do not learn how to use computers are called ignorant. In other words, it is the blindness of the computer, that is, the blindness of the computer, who cannot understand it well even when they see it with their own eyes. There is also 'Ponmaeng'. Cell phones have various functions, but people who can only make and receive calls are referred to as ‘phone men’. When it comes to cell phones, you are blind.
The “light within” of Jesus’ words here means the eyes of the soul. The reason Jesus is saying these words today is that the Pharisees did not understand who Jesus was even though He performed the miracle of casting out demons to show that He was the Son of God. Rather, it is said that Jesus casts out demons by the power of demons. These are ‘spiritual blind men’ who have seen the power of the Lord to heal the demon-possessed with their own eyes, but do not understand Jesus. That is why Jesus said, “Therefore, see if the light that is within you is not dark” (Luke 11:35).
In John 9, there is an incident where Jesus opened the eyes of a man (a beggar) who had been blind since he was born as he came out of the city of Jerusalem. However, the Pharisees did not want to believe it, even though they had clearly seen with their own eyes that he had been opened to Jesus as a man who had been blind from birth. Therefore, they did not understand the meaning of the miracles that Jesus performed. They did not believe in Jesus until the end. Therefore, Jesus said to them, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). Then some of the Pharisees who were with Jesus heard this and said, “Are we also blind?” (John 9:40) Jesus answered, “If you were blind, you would have no sin, but if you say you can see, your sins are still there” (John 9:41). Although the physical eyes of these Pharisees were intact, their spiritual eyes were completely blind, that is, “spirit blind.” Therefore, even though they saw what Jesus did, they did not believe it.
Aren't all of you here spiritually blind? Even though God reveals His will through the Bible, through my sermons, and through all of your lives big and small, are you not the blind man who does not understand? A few weeks ago, we heard the testimony of a man named Young-Moon Park, who has been to heaven and hell. After seeing heaven and hell in a completely unbeliever state, he said that he believed in Jesus not because he liked heaven, but because he was afraid of hell. Do you believe that the teachings of the Bible really represent the truth of God while hearing the testimony of Young-Moon Park?
According to the words of Luke 16:19-31, the rich man who went to hell asked Abraham to bring Lazarus back to life and send it to my brother to tell him that he would not come to hell. What did Abraham say at that time? He said that there are already Moses and the prophets who teach about heaven and hell in the world, but those who do not listen to them will not believe even if those who are raised from the dead tell them.
Too many people in the world today do not believe what Jesus is saying. Why? Because the eyes of the soul are blind. Or maybe it's because he's spiritually deaf.
Who is Jesus? Wasn't he the one who died on the cross and rose from the dead three days later? He is the One who raises the dead, opens the eyes of the blind, heals the leper, walks on water, feeds 5,000 people with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, and fills 12 squares with the crumbs. Still do not know who this Jesus is? Still, do you think that even if you do not believe in Jesus, you will not receive the wrath of God?
These days, there are many people whose spiritual eyes, the eyes of their hearts, are broken. Some men have the eyes of an animal, not a human eye. Therefore, when you look at women, you should see them as people, but they are viewed as animals. Therefore, women are considered sexual objects. Therefore, some men sexually assault and molest even young girls. Some do bad things to their mothers or daughters. Those whose eyes have been turned into eyes of lust.
Some look at people with angry eyes. Seunghee Cho, a Korean who attended Virginia Polytechnic State University in the United States, looked at American students with anger. Therefore, they shot and killed other students in the same school.
Some people have paranoia of their neighbours. There are people who brutally murdered their opponents because they scolded them for not leaching their dogs. Perhaps he was a person with a sense of inferiority. Therefore, when he pointed out his fault, he thought that he was despising him, and he acted so extreme that he killed the person.
While watching the news on the Internet a while ago, I saw the news that 14 out of 100 elementary, middle and high school students in Korea have serious mental health problems. What is this story? It is said that their mental state is not healthy. They are saying that the way you see the world and your neighbors is abnormal. Therefore, such people do not know when, where, and how an accident will occur.
A beloved religion or any philosophy or belief is a spectacle that opens the mind's eye. The way a person sees the world differs depending on what religion and philosophy he or she has, and the way he sees people also changes. Some people have seen their dogs treated like fathers, thinking they were reincarnations of their deceased father (father-in-law). Because of how well the dog ate and was strong, he became an obese dog weighing over 50 kg. They do it because of their religious belief that people are reincarnated.
In the case of atheistic communists, they only see material things. Therefore, all those who believe that there is a soul and that there is an afterlife are fools and view people as bad people who deceive people. If you are tainted with communism, you see all religious people as fraudsters.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is to give us eyes to see the world properly. It is to come to know that the world and universe in which we live, our life and all life, were created by God the Creator, not the product of evolution that naturally occurred on the earth. Among the many living beings in this world, people are especially precious beings created by God in His image to become members of the eternal kingdom of God. Although we have original sin because of Adam and Eve and our human ancestors, God delivered us from the desperate situation of sin and eternal death by using His only Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins.
Today, many people do not know Jesus Christ and the gospel, so their hearts are darkened. Therefore, we do not know what is truly the path to success in life and the path to happiness. Although they are on the road to destruction, they know that they are on the road to success and love them. Many people are having a hard time not knowing where they are coming from and where they are going. We live as if we are wandering in darkness, not knowing why we live and how we live.
When you know the gospel that Jesus delivers, the eyes that see the world (worldview), the eyes that see life (lifeview), and the eyes that look at yourself (selfview). The eyes (view of people) looking at neighbors are properly opened. In John chapter 1 it says: “There was the true light, the light that came into the world and gave light to every man, who was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him; he came to his own land, and his people did not receive him, but those who did receive him, To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:9-13).
Jesus is the light that brightens the eyes of people's hearts. If you accept this light, Jesus Christ, you become a child of God who has eternal life. I bless you to know that you will live a safe and blessed life in God's grace, blessing and care for eternity. *