And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
God sends the prophet with a hard warning to a rebellious people who will keep hearing without understanding and seeing without perceiving. Their blindness is willful and chosen, for they deliberately close eyes and ears and harden hearts because accepting truth would require giving up cherished ideas and practices and being changed. The same words were fulfilled when Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, hiding the mysteries of the kingdom from dull hearts lest they be converted and healed while revealing them to believing disciples. The same condition exists now, when those with clear light mistake outward godliness for power and pass by plain warnings as unheard. The message must still be spoken without weakening and without making visible success the test, leaving the result with God, for the work is not wholly fruitless but will save a remnant as the holy seed of a future people.
Isaiah's Vision and Commission
The command comes after the vision of God on high, the cleansing of guilt, and the willing offer to serve, and it gives the hard message to be carried to an unreceptive people who would hear and see yet fail to understand and perceive. It is a commission to protest against prevailing evils by warning and entreaty, addressed to an impenitent and rebellious people who hear without understanding and see without perceiving. Their resistance is exposed and they are called to turn back and be healed, yet their failure to understand, repent, and be healed makes the work a protest and raises the question how long this condition will continue.
The commission means patient, courageous teaching through a lifetime as a prophet of both hope and doom, even though evils multiplied over many generations cannot be removed in his day. It is undertaken with dread of laboring without assurance that any will understand, repent, and be healed, leaving the cry how long. Rejection of the warning brings heavy judgments of war, exile, oppression, and loss of power and prestige among the nations. Those judgments include the scattering of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom among the nations with their cities left desolate, repeated sweepings of destroying armies over the land, the fall of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of Judah captive, in order that those who recognize in them the hand of an offended God may be led to repent.
The mission is not wholly fruitless, for the land is not to remain wholly forsaken forever. Warning and entreaty must continue until cities lie wasted and the land desolate so that a remnant may be saved. A tenth shall return as the holy seed and the substance of a future people, and the full fruit of this labor together with the labors of all faithful messengers will finally appear. The work in this chapter is directed by infinite wisdom and brought into perfect order even when intricate and beyond human understanding, for God is the mighty worker. People must not try to control His work or claim its success but trust Him as instructor and faithfully perform given duties. The same command belongs to the lesson for those sent to carry a warning to people who do not know the truth: they are to go and speak even when hearers hear without understanding and see without perceiving.
Nature of Spiritual Blindness
Isaiah 6:9 describes outward hearing without inward understanding and outward seeing without perceiving, a condition in which unresponsive ears, eyes, and hearts render revealed warnings, reproofs, corrections, and encouragements of no effect. People may hear God's truth and see its evidence yet fail to grasp its meaning when truth is unwelcome and they are not receptive, as even Christ's hearers failed to understand His words for this reason. Because of this present unreceptiveness, some truths must remain unspoken until people are spiritually prepared to receive them, and those who resist received light must see their true condition and heed counsel. Those entrusted with truth bear a sacred duty to keep and diffuse its light to those in darkness.
The blindness is willful and chosen, a deliberate closing of eyes and ears and hardening of the heart against truth because it demands self-denial, purity, and change of character and conduct. Israel had turned from God and refused instruction and obedience, not wanting character or conduct changed, and hardness of heart and disaffection follow such rejection. This chosen ignorance comes through neglecting opportunities to learn, misusing powers of understanding, resisting conviction, bigotry, and unbelief, and upon such self-imposed blindness retribution falls. Pride, prejudice, and unbelief lead to resistance even of convincing evidence, leaving people unconverted and unhealed.
Accepting the truth would require giving up cherished traditions, opinions, selfish practices, and preconceived ideas and changing life, so fear of conviction and conversion keeps hearts from recognizing a better way. The Jewish people had abundant evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, including works and the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, yet rejected it for this reason and missed the treasure though it was among them. Their unwillingness to change and be convinced and converted left the beauty and power of the gospel obscure to them. This is moral blindness coming upon those lifted up in their own esteem, corrupting hearts with worldly and false ideas, opposing Christ and rejecting the Light of the world. Though the rites and sacrifices pointing to Him as their fulfillment were explained, they deliberately closed eyes and hardened hearts against understanding.
Pride and stubbornness close the heart even when works inwardly convince the understanding, leading to refusal to acknowledge the Messiah and to demands for further signs. Such demands do not come from lack of evidence, for more signs would not overcome deliberate, chosen unbelief. Closed hearts in this state keep people from understanding, turning to God, and receiving healing. Pride that refuses to admit cherished ideas are incorrect and to be converted leads to wrestling Scripture from its true meaning by misapplying and misinterpreting it. Lest they be converted and have to admit error, people reject counsel and plainly revealed light and evidence, distort the message heard from God, fail to take it to heart, and delude their own souls and others and mislead them.
The gospel preached does not profit when not mixed with faith and not lived by doers of the Word, for ears remain unsanctified and Satan interposes his shadow between God and souls. Though feeling God's power and fed with light and piled-up evidence from heaven, hearts remain weak and faith small, and unbelief, criticism, envy, and evil surmising are received, nurtured, and sown in other minds, followed by criticism of messengers and message so that further ministry would only do harm. Like Pharaoh, those who do not live the truth become hardened and fail to recognize it, and what is needed is not more evidence but a new heart, a converted soul, a new mind and new purpose, so they can hear and be blessed. This blindness is brought by pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, and corruption that keep people from honestly weighing the evidence of the Spirit and accepting the call to righteousness, a response possible even among professed believers in present truth, and it comes not from lack of sufficient evidence but willful resistance.
Blindness comes from self ruling instead of grace, especially zeal to rule God's heritage and compel conscience, leaving eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear and therefore no conversion and healing by the Lord. Taking the transgressors' way of seeing, hearing, and thinking perverts the soul, so God's commandment-keeping people must resist that influence, refuse to adopt transgressors' ways or judgments, and remain united, holy in life, and pure in character. Closing eyes and ears in this sense means rejecting God's Word, testimonies, and Spirit while continuing an unsanctified, unjust, self-directed course and imagining control over God's people. Disregarding Word, testimonies, and Spirit while pressing on in unjust, self-directed rule, and refusing spiritual light and correction, leaves blindness to the fact that conduct is contrary to God and wrong.
When hearts grow resistant, further argument, details, or explanations cannot persuade, for hearing and seeing become defective with eyes blinded and ears dulled, putting people far out of the way. People then misinterpret words to mean what they want, circulate false reports of things never said, and reject and ridicule message and messengers despite repeated evidence and warnings and failure to recognize God's work. Their refusal to hear and understand stands in contrast to those who accept Jesus and become advocates of truth. Hardened hearts would not be persuaded even by a witness raised from the dead, for having set hearts against believing, nothing would pierce encompassing darkness. Despite sufficient instruction through the Word and many miracles, such people could not believe.
Loyalty to ministers and rejection of difficult arguments keep people from hearing God's warning, but contemplating Christ's sacrifice and the plan of redemption can open the heart to see God's law and lead to salvation. By contrast, those who receive Christ, remain open to instruction, believe what they hear and see, and connect with Heaven understand His teaching and gain practical knowledge of the kingdom. Some will hear with attentive ears and perceptive minds, and the Spirit moves powerfully among those recognizing need for deep heart transformation represented by the live coal touching lips. Human agents willing to understand and cooperate respond to the Spirit's appeal, which draws but does not force obedience.
Chosen ignorance leaves people spiritually hardened, unconverted, unhealed, and under condemnation for neglected privileges and for refusing to live by received light. They will never be converted not because God is unwilling but because they are too proud to acknowledge errors and seek Him in contrition and repentance, indulging skepticism and infidelity and standing back when He sends a message. They reject plain teaching about grace, the love of Jesus and His power to keep from sin and save fully all who come to Him, and suppress light about the commandments and testimony. Christ now tests whether people can live in harmony without revolt in heaven, and at His soon coming He will not take those remaining in unbelieving division unless they put away impenitence, fall broken on the Rock, follow where His voice is heard, and receive His Spirit.
Fulfilled in Christ's Ministry
The saying is fulfilled when Jesus speaks to the multitude in parables, while the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are given to the disciples to know but are not given to the multitude. Whoever has shall be given more, and whoever has not shall lose even what he has, for God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes. The reason is that the heart of the people has grown gross, their ears dull of hearing, and their eyes closed, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted and be healed. By contrast, blessed are the eyes that see and the ears that hear what many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but did not.
Jesus used parables to awaken thought and to expose hypocrisy and evil deeds while avoiding an open charge that could give grounds for arrest or condemnation under the laws and cut short His work. The Pharisees deliberately shut their eyes and ears to His teaching, so their hearts could not be reached, and this self-imposed, chosen blindness brought retribution. In this way hearers could recognize the meaning without being able to accuse Him.
The treasure of knowledge and the gospel was among the Jewish people, yet they did not recognize it, and their seeing and hearing without understanding fulfilled the prophecy when Christ taught in parables. They had abundant evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, including His works and the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, but their hearts had grown dull and they had closed their eyes and ears. They refused the understanding that could have led them to conversion and healing, because receiving Christ would require giving up cherished traditions, selfish practices, and preconceived opinions. Their unwillingness to change made the beauty and power of the gospel obscure to them, so though fed with outward hearing and seeing they would not be convinced and converted nor discern what God was doing.
Isaiah spoke these words when he saw Christ's glory in prophetic vision and spoke of Him. The blinding of eyes and hardening of heart kept the Jews from seeing with their eyes, understanding with their heart, being converted, and being healed by Christ. The verse was fulfilled when the Jews would not believe in Christ though He had done many miracles before them, including raising Lazarus from the dead. They had set their hearts against believing, and nothing would affect the encompassing darkness, so they could not believe.
The same words explain why further argument could not persuade Paul's resistant hearers, for their hearts had grown resistant and they had closed themselves to truth, just as Christ had also applied these words. Their refusal to hear and understand stood in contrast to those who accepted Jesus and became advocates of the truth.
Warning to Present Church
The same condition that closed Jewish eyes and ears willfully against better light continues in the present and in the present generation, where people cling to their condition and reject truth and clearer light rather than leave error. Hearing without understanding and seeing without perceiving happens when truth is unwelcome and hearts are unreceptive, as even Christ's hearers failed to grasp His words for this reason. Because receptivity governs comprehension, some truths must remain unspoken until people are spiritually prepared to receive them.
The verse applies to a church that has received clear light yet does not recognize its spiritual condition or respond to God's blessings, remaining unconcerned while deeds contradict professed truth. Light shines in the Word but is not comprehended, works contradict faith, the outward form of godliness is mistaken for its spirit and power, and security is felt even while sin and spiritual darkness remain.
The same blindness appears among self-serving men in positions of responsibility and among rulers, counselors, and leaders connected with important institutions. They hear the plain message spoken in God's name and hear the plan of salvation explained, yet pass it by as though unheard and close their eyes lest they see and be converted. By planning in human wisdom without earnestly seeking God or recognizing His voice, they gather darkness about their souls, walk in sparks of their own kindling rather than keeping the way of the Lord, and disregard Word, testimonies, and Spirit while pressing on in unjust, self-directed rule. Their condition developed over generations of false theories and principles opposed to truth, mixing human plans and inventions with religion until human ideas became supreme. With unsanctified reason controlled by Satan they misunderstand and misapply testimony so its import cannot be seen, and no added details or explanations will make them understand more clearly. They lack personal knowledge of ceasing from sin, receiving Christ's righteousness, and bearing the divine likeness.
Leading brethren today travel the same ground as the Jewish nation, receiving warnings in the same spirit of resistance and refusal, wrestling Scripture from its true meaning by misapplication and misinterpretation rather than admitting cherished ideas are incorrect, rejecting counsel and plainly revealed light and evidence lest conversion require confession of error, and thereby deluding their own souls and the souls of others. The same response can occur among those professing belief in present truth, where hearing the message and seeing evidence of God's work still leaves understanding closed because hearts are hardened and eyes and ears are shut. That blindness comes from willful resistance rather than lack of sufficient evidence, for pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, and corruption keep people from honestly weighing the evidence of the Spirit and accepting the call to righteousness. Men without vital connection with God have eyes but do not truly see, failing to recognize the need to circulate the warning message.
Faithfulness Despite Rejection
The plain message given by God to be spoken in His name must still be spoken without weakening it or calculating the result, even when it is heard by self-serving men in positions of responsibility who pass it by as though unheard. They have ears but do not hear and close their eyes lest they see and be converted, gathering clouds of darkness about their souls by planning and contriving in human wisdom instead of seeking God earnestly and recognizing His voice. They do not keep the way of the Lord but walk in the sparks of their own kindling, while unsanctified reason comes under Satan's control so that testimony is misunderstood and misapplied and its import is not seen. No entering into details or explanations will make such hearers understand more clearly, yet the words given are still to be declared in full strength.
Visible success is not the test of the work, for God does not judge His workers by the amount of success seen in their efforts. His messengers will meet people who have ears but will not hear and who are intelligent but will not understand even after the best effort has been done for them. When that refusal is met, faith must be kept revived and firm and constantly increasing and must not be allowed to fail. Workers are then to pass on to regions beyond and leave the result with God.
Hearing and seeing the message do not bring understanding when ears, eyes, and hearts are unreceptive, so revealed warnings, reproofs, corrections, and encouragements accomplish nothing for those who do not receive them. Those entrusted to preach the truth for the last time to perishing souls have the sacred duty to keep its light and share it, as depositaries of the truth and chosen vessels to diffuse the light that must illuminate those in darkness and to carry the last message of mercy to the world. This places them under most sacred obligation to believe in God, to subdue the self-will that drives toward infidelity, to submit thought and word and action to Christ, and to take the Word as guide rather than impulses or impressions. Only with Jesus in their works and His Spirit as the rule and law of life can they receive what God has revealed and be a power for good in the world.
God sends the prophet with a hard warning to a rebellious people who will keep hearing without understanding and seeing without perceiving. Their blindness is willful and chosen, for they deliberately close eyes and ears and harden hearts because accepting truth would require giving up cherished ideas and practices and being changed. The same words were fulfilled when Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, hiding the mysteries of the kingdom from dull hearts lest they be converted and healed while revealing them to believing disciples. The same condition exists now, when those with clear light mistake outward godliness for power and pass by plain warnings as unheard. The message must still be spoken without weakening and without making visible success the test, leaving the result with God, for the work is not wholly fruitless but will save a remnant as the holy seed of a future people.
Isaiah's Vision and Commission
The command comes after the vision of God on high, the cleansing of guilt, and the willing offer to serve, and it gives the hard message to be carried to an unreceptive people who would hear and see yet fail to understand and perceive. It is a commission to protest against prevailing evils by warning and entreaty, addressed to an impenitent and rebellious people who hear without understanding and see without perceiving. Their resistance is exposed and they are called to turn back and be healed, yet their failure to understand, repent, and be healed makes the work a protest and raises the question how long this condition will continue.
The commission means patient, courageous teaching through a lifetime as a prophet of both hope and doom, even though evils multiplied over many generations cannot be removed in his day. It is undertaken with dread of laboring without assurance that any will understand, repent, and be healed, leaving the cry how long. Rejection of the warning brings heavy judgments of war, exile, oppression, and loss of power and prestige among the nations. Those judgments include the scattering of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom among the nations with their cities left desolate, repeated sweepings of destroying armies over the land, the fall of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of Judah captive, in order that those who recognize in them the hand of an offended God may be led to repent.
The mission is not wholly fruitless, for the land is not to remain wholly forsaken forever. Warning and entreaty must continue until cities lie wasted and the land desolate so that a remnant may be saved. A tenth shall return as the holy seed and the substance of a future people, and the full fruit of this labor together with the labors of all faithful messengers will finally appear. The work in this chapter is directed by infinite wisdom and brought into perfect order even when intricate and beyond human understanding, for God is the mighty worker. People must not try to control His work or claim its success but trust Him as instructor and faithfully perform given duties. The same command belongs to the lesson for those sent to carry a warning to people who do not know the truth: they are to go and speak even when hearers hear without understanding and see without perceiving.
Nature of Spiritual Blindness
Isaiah 6:9 describes outward hearing without inward understanding and outward seeing without perceiving, a condition in which unresponsive ears, eyes, and hearts render revealed warnings, reproofs, corrections, and encouragements of no effect. People may hear God's truth and see its evidence yet fail to grasp its meaning when truth is unwelcome and they are not receptive, as even Christ's hearers failed to understand His words for this reason. Because of this present unreceptiveness, some truths must remain unspoken until people are spiritually prepared to receive them, and those who resist received light must see their true condition and heed counsel. Those entrusted with truth bear a sacred duty to keep and diffuse its light to those in darkness.
The blindness is willful and chosen, a deliberate closing of eyes and ears and hardening of the heart against truth because it demands self-denial, purity, and change of character and conduct. Israel had turned from God and refused instruction and obedience, not wanting character or conduct changed, and hardness of heart and disaffection follow such rejection. This chosen ignorance comes through neglecting opportunities to learn, misusing powers of understanding, resisting conviction, bigotry, and unbelief, and upon such self-imposed blindness retribution falls. Pride, prejudice, and unbelief lead to resistance even of convincing evidence, leaving people unconverted and unhealed.
Accepting the truth would require giving up cherished traditions, opinions, selfish practices, and preconceived ideas and changing life, so fear of conviction and conversion keeps hearts from recognizing a better way. The Jewish people had abundant evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, including works and the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, yet rejected it for this reason and missed the treasure though it was among them. Their unwillingness to change and be convinced and converted left the beauty and power of the gospel obscure to them. This is moral blindness coming upon those lifted up in their own esteem, corrupting hearts with worldly and false ideas, opposing Christ and rejecting the Light of the world. Though the rites and sacrifices pointing to Him as their fulfillment were explained, they deliberately closed eyes and hardened hearts against understanding.
Pride and stubbornness close the heart even when works inwardly convince the understanding, leading to refusal to acknowledge the Messiah and to demands for further signs. Such demands do not come from lack of evidence, for more signs would not overcome deliberate, chosen unbelief. Closed hearts in this state keep people from understanding, turning to God, and receiving healing. Pride that refuses to admit cherished ideas are incorrect and to be converted leads to wrestling Scripture from its true meaning by misapplying and misinterpreting it. Lest they be converted and have to admit error, people reject counsel and plainly revealed light and evidence, distort the message heard from God, fail to take it to heart, and delude their own souls and others and mislead them.
The gospel preached does not profit when not mixed with faith and not lived by doers of the Word, for ears remain unsanctified and Satan interposes his shadow between God and souls. Though feeling God's power and fed with light and piled-up evidence from heaven, hearts remain weak and faith small, and unbelief, criticism, envy, and evil surmising are received, nurtured, and sown in other minds, followed by criticism of messengers and message so that further ministry would only do harm. Like Pharaoh, those who do not live the truth become hardened and fail to recognize it, and what is needed is not more evidence but a new heart, a converted soul, a new mind and new purpose, so they can hear and be blessed. This blindness is brought by pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, and corruption that keep people from honestly weighing the evidence of the Spirit and accepting the call to righteousness, a response possible even among professed believers in present truth, and it comes not from lack of sufficient evidence but willful resistance.
Blindness comes from self ruling instead of grace, especially zeal to rule God's heritage and compel conscience, leaving eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear and therefore no conversion and healing by the Lord. Taking the transgressors' way of seeing, hearing, and thinking perverts the soul, so God's commandment-keeping people must resist that influence, refuse to adopt transgressors' ways or judgments, and remain united, holy in life, and pure in character. Closing eyes and ears in this sense means rejecting God's Word, testimonies, and Spirit while continuing an unsanctified, unjust, self-directed course and imagining control over God's people. Disregarding Word, testimonies, and Spirit while pressing on in unjust, self-directed rule, and refusing spiritual light and correction, leaves blindness to the fact that conduct is contrary to God and wrong.
When hearts grow resistant, further argument, details, or explanations cannot persuade, for hearing and seeing become defective with eyes blinded and ears dulled, putting people far out of the way. People then misinterpret words to mean what they want, circulate false reports of things never said, and reject and ridicule message and messengers despite repeated evidence and warnings and failure to recognize God's work. Their refusal to hear and understand stands in contrast to those who accept Jesus and become advocates of truth. Hardened hearts would not be persuaded even by a witness raised from the dead, for having set hearts against believing, nothing would pierce encompassing darkness. Despite sufficient instruction through the Word and many miracles, such people could not believe.
Loyalty to ministers and rejection of difficult arguments keep people from hearing God's warning, but contemplating Christ's sacrifice and the plan of redemption can open the heart to see God's law and lead to salvation. By contrast, those who receive Christ, remain open to instruction, believe what they hear and see, and connect with Heaven understand His teaching and gain practical knowledge of the kingdom. Some will hear with attentive ears and perceptive minds, and the Spirit moves powerfully among those recognizing need for deep heart transformation represented by the live coal touching lips. Human agents willing to understand and cooperate respond to the Spirit's appeal, which draws but does not force obedience.
Chosen ignorance leaves people spiritually hardened, unconverted, unhealed, and under condemnation for neglected privileges and for refusing to live by received light. They will never be converted not because God is unwilling but because they are too proud to acknowledge errors and seek Him in contrition and repentance, indulging skepticism and infidelity and standing back when He sends a message. They reject plain teaching about grace, the love of Jesus and His power to keep from sin and save fully all who come to Him, and suppress light about the commandments and testimony. Christ now tests whether people can live in harmony without revolt in heaven, and at His soon coming He will not take those remaining in unbelieving division unless they put away impenitence, fall broken on the Rock, follow where His voice is heard, and receive His Spirit.
Fulfilled in Christ's Ministry
The saying is fulfilled when Jesus speaks to the multitude in parables, while the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are given to the disciples to know but are not given to the multitude. Whoever has shall be given more, and whoever has not shall lose even what he has, for God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes. The reason is that the heart of the people has grown gross, their ears dull of hearing, and their eyes closed, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted and be healed. By contrast, blessed are the eyes that see and the ears that hear what many prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but did not.
Jesus used parables to awaken thought and to expose hypocrisy and evil deeds while avoiding an open charge that could give grounds for arrest or condemnation under the laws and cut short His work. The Pharisees deliberately shut their eyes and ears to His teaching, so their hearts could not be reached, and this self-imposed, chosen blindness brought retribution. In this way hearers could recognize the meaning without being able to accuse Him.
The treasure of knowledge and the gospel was among the Jewish people, yet they did not recognize it, and their seeing and hearing without understanding fulfilled the prophecy when Christ taught in parables. They had abundant evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, including His works and the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures, but their hearts had grown dull and they had closed their eyes and ears. They refused the understanding that could have led them to conversion and healing, because receiving Christ would require giving up cherished traditions, selfish practices, and preconceived opinions. Their unwillingness to change made the beauty and power of the gospel obscure to them, so though fed with outward hearing and seeing they would not be convinced and converted nor discern what God was doing.
Isaiah spoke these words when he saw Christ's glory in prophetic vision and spoke of Him. The blinding of eyes and hardening of heart kept the Jews from seeing with their eyes, understanding with their heart, being converted, and being healed by Christ. The verse was fulfilled when the Jews would not believe in Christ though He had done many miracles before them, including raising Lazarus from the dead. They had set their hearts against believing, and nothing would affect the encompassing darkness, so they could not believe.
The same words explain why further argument could not persuade Paul's resistant hearers, for their hearts had grown resistant and they had closed themselves to truth, just as Christ had also applied these words. Their refusal to hear and understand stood in contrast to those who accepted Jesus and became advocates of the truth.
Warning to Present Church
The same condition that closed Jewish eyes and ears willfully against better light continues in the present and in the present generation, where people cling to their condition and reject truth and clearer light rather than leave error. Hearing without understanding and seeing without perceiving happens when truth is unwelcome and hearts are unreceptive, as even Christ's hearers failed to grasp His words for this reason. Because receptivity governs comprehension, some truths must remain unspoken until people are spiritually prepared to receive them.
The verse applies to a church that has received clear light yet does not recognize its spiritual condition or respond to God's blessings, remaining unconcerned while deeds contradict professed truth. Light shines in the Word but is not comprehended, works contradict faith, the outward form of godliness is mistaken for its spirit and power, and security is felt even while sin and spiritual darkness remain.
The same blindness appears among self-serving men in positions of responsibility and among rulers, counselors, and leaders connected with important institutions. They hear the plain message spoken in God's name and hear the plan of salvation explained, yet pass it by as though unheard and close their eyes lest they see and be converted. By planning in human wisdom without earnestly seeking God or recognizing His voice, they gather darkness about their souls, walk in sparks of their own kindling rather than keeping the way of the Lord, and disregard Word, testimonies, and Spirit while pressing on in unjust, self-directed rule. Their condition developed over generations of false theories and principles opposed to truth, mixing human plans and inventions with religion until human ideas became supreme. With unsanctified reason controlled by Satan they misunderstand and misapply testimony so its import cannot be seen, and no added details or explanations will make them understand more clearly. They lack personal knowledge of ceasing from sin, receiving Christ's righteousness, and bearing the divine likeness.
Leading brethren today travel the same ground as the Jewish nation, receiving warnings in the same spirit of resistance and refusal, wrestling Scripture from its true meaning by misapplication and misinterpretation rather than admitting cherished ideas are incorrect, rejecting counsel and plainly revealed light and evidence lest conversion require confession of error, and thereby deluding their own souls and the souls of others. The same response can occur among those professing belief in present truth, where hearing the message and seeing evidence of God's work still leaves understanding closed because hearts are hardened and eyes and ears are shut. That blindness comes from willful resistance rather than lack of sufficient evidence, for pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness, and corruption keep people from honestly weighing the evidence of the Spirit and accepting the call to righteousness. Men without vital connection with God have eyes but do not truly see, failing to recognize the need to circulate the warning message.
Faithfulness Despite Rejection
The plain message given by God to be spoken in His name must still be spoken without weakening it or calculating the result, even when it is heard by self-serving men in positions of responsibility who pass it by as though unheard. They have ears but do not hear and close their eyes lest they see and be converted, gathering clouds of darkness about their souls by planning and contriving in human wisdom instead of seeking God earnestly and recognizing His voice. They do not keep the way of the Lord but walk in the sparks of their own kindling, while unsanctified reason comes under Satan's control so that testimony is misunderstood and misapplied and its import is not seen. No entering into details or explanations will make such hearers understand more clearly, yet the words given are still to be declared in full strength.
Visible success is not the test of the work, for God does not judge His workers by the amount of success seen in their efforts. His messengers will meet people who have ears but will not hear and who are intelligent but will not understand even after the best effort has been done for them. When that refusal is met, faith must be kept revived and firm and constantly increasing and must not be allowed to fail. Workers are then to pass on to regions beyond and leave the result with God.
Hearing and seeing the message do not bring understanding when ears, eyes, and hearts are unreceptive, so revealed warnings, reproofs, corrections, and encouragements accomplish nothing for those who do not receive them. Those entrusted to preach the truth for the last time to perishing souls have the sacred duty to keep its light and share it, as depositaries of the truth and chosen vessels to diffuse the light that must illuminate those in darkness and to carry the last message of mercy to the world. This places them under most sacred obligation to believe in God, to subdue the self-will that drives toward infidelity, to submit thought and word and action to Christ, and to take the Word as guide rather than impulses or impressions. Only with Jesus in their works and His Spirit as the rule and law of life can they receive what God has revealed and be a power for good in the world.