Willful Blindness

Thank you for your worship today as you make your way back to your seats. Let me say thank you, worship team. We do take it for granted as apostolics and especially sometimes as preachers that we forget to thank those that create an atmosphere of worship so that the word of God can be heard. I'm going to go quickly to the word of the Lord. I want to go to John chapter 9, but while you're making your way to your seats, where the galleon is under the weather like many of you in here, I saw Kayla walking around with a mask. I think it would be appropriate for us to pray for our campus pastor and his family. Would you help me do that, Lord? We thank you for the gift that the galleons are to our school. Lord, we could not be who we are without the people that you specifically said in moments

to get the vision of what you want us to be as your people into action, Lord. You give vision to Godly leadership for the times. And we thank you for their voice here, Lord. What they speak to us as an institution and what they're doing as a travel. We pray strength on brother and sister, galleon. And God, we ask you for a gift of healing for him and for his son, Lord. We ask it today. We love you, Lord. You're our source. We lean on you, Lord, in times of need. As much as we love them, Lord, we know you love them, Lord. So we ask good things for them, Lord. We pray for all of this in your name according to your will, Lord. We will say amen, amen, amen, amen. Thank you for your prayers. I want to, I want to read a little bit of a portion of scripture.

Go ahead and be seated. It is a lengthy portion. I want to set the context a little bit today. John chapter 9, thank you so much. The Bible says in verse 1 and 2, in Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And the Bible says his disciples ask him, saying, Master, who did sin? This man or his parents, that he was born blind. Wow. Imagine that, that heresy existed way back in Jesus' time. Verse 3 says Jesus answered, neither had this man sinned. That's why you got to listen to Jesus and not the prophetic nonsense on television. Neither this man had this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him. I must work, I must work the works of him that sinned me. While it is day, the night cometh when no man can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Skipping down to verse 18, the Bible says that after this man had been healed, that was blind from birth, the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received this sight until they called the parents of him that had received this sight. They didn't want to receive the miracle. Verse 30 says the man answered and said unto them, why here and is, here and is a marvelous thing because they're trying to deny the miracle and talk him out of his own experience of that encounter that he had with Jesus. He said, why here and is a marvelous thing that you know not from whence he is, you can't even claim that Jesus is from God because your desire to maintain your power and your position and your tradition

won't even let you embrace this miracle that's standing right in front of you. He says, and you're saying you don't even know from whence he comes or what his commission is and he has to be a man sent from God or he couldn't do the things that he does. He says, since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind? We never heard a miracle like this in our history. Verse 34 says they answered and said unto him, that was altogether born in sins and thus thou teach us. And rather than receive the truth from a man who'd had an encounter with Jesus, they would rather hang on to their tradition and they cast him out. Verse 35 says Jesus heard that they had cast him out and when he had found them because it doesn't matter what people do to you,

if you have to leave a place because of traditional belief, Jesus will always come find you. And he said unto him, thus thou believe on the Son of God and he answered and said, who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, thou hast both seen him and it is he to talk of with thee. And he said, Lord, I believed and he worshiped him. I think it's fascinating that some saw miracles but couldn't overcome their spiritual blindness. There's a little things going around in our movement right now that we're going to have a massive miracle around revivals and I do believe revivals. Sometimes the book of Acts says it brings revival but sometimes miracles bring opposition and listen, it's not going to open willfully blind eyes. A little corrected there. Where I want to concentrate today in our time together is a portion of scripture

that has just been working in my heart and spirit for a long, long time and Jesus has this beautiful little complex statement that he makes that I think if the Lord will help me I want to get it down deep in your heart today. And Jesus said, for judgment I am coming to this world that they which see not might see and they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and said unto him, are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, if you were blind ye should have no sin. But now you say we see therefore your sin remains. I'm going to talk a little bit. I don't know how preachy. I'm not going to be probably running the aisles today but I want to preach a little bit on the dangers of being willfully behind.

It was in the northwest corner of the United States way, way up close to the Canadian border. There was a little town called Libby, Montana. There was a lady that was born there. She was of Russian descent and immigrants. Her family had come over from Russia and she began to work there and get a job as a gas attendant. Someone that would read the gas meters and she began to walk around Libby, Montana. She began to notice something that struck her attention that there was a lot of middle-aged men and a lot of older middle-aged men that were, she would walk through to do her job in the middle of the day that they were all home, they weren't working and not only were they home, they had oxygen. And she said it struck her as an anomaly and she thought that that was odd

and then her own father died at 59 years of age. He was five days from retirement before his pension would kick in from the mine where he was working and she thought, well maybe it's just another anomaly that Brother Vitae, that he was a miner and it's just a strenuous activity in a harsh work environment. Maybe that's what killed him and shortened his life. But then her mother died and she began to think something's wrong here because my mom comes from a line of people that have a track record of great health and longevity in life and her uncle who was not there was older and much older than her mother and was living well and so she began to get curious and began to investigate things and she looked back at some medical records and her mom had broken her leg and at the hospital they had given her two leg X-rays

and that was normal and understandable but they had also given her six chest X-rays at the same time. And so she began to think about, what did that mean? Why would they give her chest X-rays? And as she began to do research all of a sudden she found out that they had a particular type of mine, a vermiculite mine that mined this particular substance and they used it in playgrounds and they used it to condition the soil to grow plants and flowers and gardens and they used it to insulate homes to keep them warm there in those long mountainous winters in those cold nights and she began to figure out what the vermiculite was it was come to find out a toxic form of asbestos. So when she found this out she thought for sure, I'm going to start telling people and they're going to want to do something about this

because she began to realize that it's in the playground and it's not only in the playground it's in the football field and it's in the skating rink it's everywhere saturated in our town and she began to tell people but no one wanted to know. As a matter of fact she became more strong about it trying to bring about some change and make people aware of the danger and so many people got tired of hearing her talk that they made bumper stickers and put them on their car and said, yes, I'm from Libby, Montana and no, I don't have asbestos. Asbestosis. And they began to say things to her like, no, listen, we understand who you are, Miss Benefield but if it were really dangerous surely someone would have said something. Surely somebody would have told us a doctor would have said something a doctor that's been in our society

for many years and dealing with this type of condition surely a doctor, the Hippocratic Oath says do no harm. Surely somebody would have said something. The interesting thing is is there was enough stink and cause by this lady's insistency on uncovering the truth that the government actually stepped in and I'm not a big fan of the EPA but they stepped in and all of a sudden they began to realize of the 15,000 people there in Libby, Montana that they had 80 times the mortality rate of any other city in the United States and what they began to uncover that it wasn't ignorance it was willful blindness. They had chosen not to know. That means that there was evidence and there was data and there was research available but it's a legal term willful blindness where a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability

for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping himself or herself unaware of facts that would render him or her liable or implicated. Willful blindness. See that's what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. The problem is not ignorance because light is coming to the world and the truth is available for you to hear the problem is willful blindness and there's all sorts of examples of willful blindness in our culture and I'll resist the urge to say too much let me just point out one thing it's like a lot of investors and a lot of people that knew Brother Brown that not everybody can afford loans but we're going to give them loans anyway knowing that this is complicit with an evil and that the housing bubble is going to collapse. Willful blindness. We're making too much money I don't want to know. I realize that they can't pay the loan

but I have so much investment myself in terms of profit that I'm going to go ahead and do it. As a matter of fact there's been studies of companies around the world and when they asked people at companies around the world like in Switzerland or England or Germany or the United States there was a specialist that traveled around and said are there issues that people are afraid to raise in your organization or in your corporation and 85% of them said yes. Now what does that mean? Well when the expert was dealing with the Swiss people they say yes that's a problem of the Swiss they're just notoriously silent and then they said well that when they went to Europe they said no that's kind of the cancer the unknown the unspoken truth of European culture and the German people said the same thing this is a German phenomenon

and the people in the United States says yes we're guilty of this primarily here but the truth is Jesus discloses this is a human problem Now what does that mean? That means that organizations as well as individuals can be woefully blind. What Jesus is dealing with in this text is something that's captured in the adage that there is none so blind as he who will not see. Jesus is saying in this text brother white he's saying you will be blind because you refuse to see. Isaiah the prophet says it in chapter 43 verse 8 he says bring forth the blind people that have eyes and the deaf that have ears why because you ready the people that have eyes and ears and that that should see are not willing and Isaiah is saying God is going to find somebody that will listen Jeremiah lifts it up

in his writing as well he says hear this oh foolish people and without understanding which have eyes and see not which have ears and hear not he says it again in chapter 56 verse 10 his watchmen are blind they are ignorant they are dumb dogs they cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber. Jesus is giving the same commentary on the Pharisees that blind men start and then you get blind guys those that cannot see and cannot understand cannot be converted and those that will not see will not understand and will not be converted. Now I know I'm being strong today but I said okay if I just kind of talk out of my heart what I feel see what what Jesus is doing when he calls the gospel writer he said John include this by inspiration of the spirit he says the spirit is

going to remind you of everything that I told you and the miracle of the man blind from birth is not just incidental in scripture it's talking about being spiritually blind I'll give you three things on that because the intellect can be in the service of sin and secondly deceit and willful blindness are motivated by the desires of the flesh and then thirdly I think I think the truth can be shown that the decline of organizations and the decline of homes and the decline of ministry and the decline of individuals life is spread by the willful blindness one man said it this way blindness and action and deceit rush the destruction of great things and I don't know about you but I don't want to I don't want to rush the destruction of this church I don't want to I don't want to rush the destruction of my

organization I don't want to I don't want to rush the destruction of our movement and what it's going to take is people that can see you got to see the problems confronting our you can't be willfully blind you can't go along to get along God needs men and women who can see who refuse to stay silent and willfully blind as people suffer let me give you another illustration someone asked Jordan Peterson I love to listen to him because of his brutal honesty even with himself they asked him in a q &a how is it that as an academic or as a person that's invested in writing how do you protect yourself as a scholar from bias and I love his honesty brother Turner he says there are lots of things that are discovered in scholarship that are not real I mean it's a whole lot of things

published today especially in the humanities are nonsense okay you know I want to say a whole lot right there but I'm just going to not say you've heard me rant in class enough now what does that mean he says here's the problem that if you're a scholar in order to get a PhD you must publish something and in order to publish something you got to discover something new and then and you ready if you fail to discover something new that means you will not get published and you will not get a PhD and that mean he says that the system for awarding people is set up wrong he says because what they should set up the program for is for people to work hard and find the truth and that's why people fail because you know you spend two years doing research or coming up

with a hypothesis about a year and a half it takes you to write your proposal and set up the data and then you got to analyze brother cope the data and if you get to the analyzation of the data then you got to repeat the process and if you can't repeat the process you ready your whole two years is down the tubes and you fail now that's demoralizing because you just wasted two years of your life and you ready to not publish means you don't get a PhD so what do people do well they just publish the first paper without looking at the evidence too hard so now why not do that why not brother killman why not cheat well first of all that would be un-christian well then how about this how about we analyze the data in such a way that we're going

to because you know you can do that you can analyze the data in such a way to get to the conclusion that you want now why would somebody that's in a PhD study not do that because what's on the line is your whole future your whole career and you ready it's all dependent on this so why not cheat why not publish untruth and this is what Jordan Peterson said I try to challenge my students to understand that you can spend 15 years of your life after that studying what's not there you ready and then other people could come along behind you and spend 15 years of their life studying untruth that you published willfully what does that mean it means that you've established a falsehood tangled yourself up in it and then devoted your life to its analysis and your epitaph your statement on your tombstone

is something like this I studied a phenomenon that didn't actually exist so the question he asked is should you hurt in the short term or in the long term he says does your analysis you do your analysis you you get to the study you realize that it was a faulty claim and you scrap the study that hurts because it cost you time in life but it doesn't hurt as much as wasting 20 years of your life I'm gonna be a little strong you ready he says and you and you get more and more crooked because you have to repeat the lie with each repetition of the untruth you get more and more crooked until there's nothing left of your scientific integrity at all he says and then nothing left of your integrity he says I try to tell my students to be afraid of pitfalls

that you ready a false positive where you get in a little echo chamber and all the other liberals give you high fives because you produce something and they call you doctor and then you get to go to all the universities and spend your entire life propagating something that's not true what a way to waste your life can I just tell you that there's all sorts of lies and you can sit in a classroom at IBC and you can hear the truth and you can do your analysis at the end of the day and you can come to the conclusion that you want and you can find a little echo chamber of people not invested in the truth and you can sit around and high five each other and build a church and devote your life to it for 20 years and it is not a church

your soul dies a little with every turning from the truth and your character diminishes every time we refuse to see see here's what you have to do today here's the challenge that Jesus is issuing you must tell the truth but not just tell the truth you have to tell the truth to yourself about yourself see here's the thing that we say we love to run aisles and shout and talk about the truth will not only set you free it will make you free it will build into you the things that you need but every building project comes with a little bit of demolition and truth destroys everything that isn't worthy in you as it sets you free because what God wants to do is build you into something that's profitable and you gotta be willing to see so what do you mean brother Kilman I understand that the truth

is going to destroy things that are unworthy in me why because it's building in me at the same time and that's painful but it's valuable I remember prayer meetings where the Lord has confronted me with my own heart I know times when the Lord has had to yank pieces out of my life why because if he's going to build in me I gotta admit there's some things that gotta go but the flesh cleans the stuff why partially out of pride partially maybe out of ignorance willful ignorance and partially out of laziness one man said it this way what makes you think you give up your misery you get to play the victim you get to continue in your own patterns that you want to live without giving up what you know you should now I know I'm being strong today but see here's the issue

the more carnal you become the easier it is to justify and every time you're confronted with the truth that's an opportunity for you to see and humble yourself and change you ready or you become more carnal and more fleshly and the easier it is to justify then it's the easier it is to blind yourself and the further you will go down that road so here's the question every one of us should ask because Jesus is serious about it that's why it's in the scripture am I willfully blind because if we see you know when God begins to deal with us and stuff we see that maybe we don't have at that moment the willingness or dare I say the character to do the hard work of change which is repentance the flesh realizes realizes that quickly and it equally just as quickly justifies itself are you going to listen to your flesh

or are you going to say Lord let that pure mirror of the scripture confront me so that I can see see I know I'm being strong I keep saying that but it's like medicine right nobody likes it but we all need it sometimes see here's Jesus is cured to self knowledge it's self awareness by the revelation of God's word what he gives to us to be understand by the spirit and are you saying I need knowledge of sin yes you do but you also need knowledge of sin in you and in me so what we should ask is God I don't want to see less we tend to hide and close our eyes and run from truth the cure according to Jesus is not hiding but more seeing because when we see ourselves we know ourselves there are pieces in ourselves that have to change

and that gets uncomfortable and hard and sometimes it's ugly to admit that the motives that we have in our heart are crossed up and wrong and not biblical but God confronts us with our own heart why because in the confrontation is the opportunity for him to transform the temptation is this to kind of go veg out into the flight into unconsciousness where people rush to escape from the burden of their self-knowledge and self-consciousness and the conflicted conscience and they run from it and they run into in the world they run into drink and entertainment and sometimes apostolics run into entertainment too let's just get together and have a good time and laugh and I want to have a good time but I don't want that to be a way for me to escape what God is trying to shape in me see here's what I'm trying to say

in my poor way today you can't treat symptoms the problem is not a vision issue usually we all know what we need to do the problem is not vision it's willful blindness can I be a little more pointed today it's self-deceit that locks us into sin and misery it's self-deceit that threatens us most profoundly because we you ready it takes courage to see no wonder we shut our eyes and hold them tight because it gets uncomfortable when we see what we see when we open our eyes just a little bit in a service somewhere or in a prayer meeting or in the privacy of our own bedside as we kneel and the Lord begins to speak maybe in our devotion and show us things in ourselves I'm moving towards a close today see we must be willing to see ourselves I want to confront it

it's easier to blame when we're confronted with ourselves instead of turning our critical eye on ourselves it's easier to turn that critical eye on others and you ready is it an unwillingness to learn or a refusal to learn or you ready a motivated refusal to learn and that's where our rubs are and here's what Jesus I think is laying out there's option number one which is the worldly cure which is oblivion, blindness, ego and denial I'm rushing past that I'm going to have to go slow because I really want to help you and I really want to help me the worldly cure is oblivion willful blindness ego and denial but Jesus is cure is this option number two is more consciousness of who I am more attention to my heart motives more admissions of my wrong because the point of transformation is see Jesus says it this way

in Luke 8 16 through 18 no man when he had lighted a candle cover it with a vessel or put it under a bed but set it on a candlestick that they which enter in might see the light for nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest neither anything here that shall not be known and come abroad take the take heed therefore Jesus says how he cured so I want you to listen to me today because the Lord spoke to me in the past few days and I didn't even know I was preaching till yesterday when Brother Gallion called me 6th Lord had spoke to me already on the way riding here to IBC and I feel like I have a specific word for someone in this room take heed how you hear this sermon for whosoever hath to him shall it be given if you if you

know the truth and you're willing God says more shall be given and whosoever hath not from him shall it be taken even that which he seem to have see I think sometimes we get so full of ourselves and our own ego sometimes because we're human beings every one of us in this room every one of us in this room including yours truly and we have to say am I going to hold on to that which I think I have I seem to have a great reputation I think I'm a great minister and the Lord is trying to pull things out of you lies out of you things that will rob you of what he wants to build into your life can you give those up or will you be willfully burned he says in Matthew 13 12 for whosoever hath to him shall be given and he

hath and he shall have more abundance but whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that he have see this is reality Jesus saying you must see and you must hear and I'm coming to a close music for me y'all are shocked that the Kilmer didn't preach an hour do you want to spend 15 years of your life building a lie and do you want to wreck everything that comes after you to build their life on a lie see I really do believe that the Lord is calling some of you to speak to willful blindness to call into accountability things in organizations sometimes brother for Zinski we just we don't want to touch the issues we don't want to name the issues we don't want to make people uncomfortable we don't want to talk about the big elephant in the room some of you I believe God is

calling to be a voice to your generation because there's obstacles in the way of this generation to do the will of God obstacles in each of your organizations obstacles that the enemies trying to drop in front of churches in front of families and God is going to say can you speak to willful blindness but if you're going to speak to organizations and you're going to speak to movements it's got to start with you first Jesus said in Matthew 1514 let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into a ditch I felt like the Lord spoke to me to say this is somebody in this room so I want you to blind I want you to bow your heads as I talk about this next little piece I don't think anybody comes to IBC without filling the direction

of the Lord at some level but I absolutely believe some of you here are destined by God to do great things but you got to see yourself first and this is what the Lord challenged me to say to you the biggest issue is this you're refusal to see yourself and then I need to add to that you're motivated refusal to see yourself when you're sitting in a classroom and you hear the truth and you begin to resist it because you know what it's going to cost you to give up you know it may cost you relationships for some of you it may mean walking away from an entire church I know we don't have every one of the same faith in here but the blind man was willing to say my encounter with Jesus and what I've seen and what he's given me is more important than being a part of the synagogue

and even if you cast me out of this fellowship I refuse to give up my encounter with Jesus and I promise you if you're in this room today that's what you're facing Jesus will come and bind you when everybody else turns their back on you don't you give up this apostolic message but then I need to say something to someone else because we don't rejoice we're not heavy handed about it we shouldn't be rejoicing when people are wrong and proving people wrong instead we should say in personal prayer when Lord you confront me with those hard issues I'm willing to see but we got honest hearts already I don't want to see myself I want to be profitable I want to be profitable I don't want to spend 15 years 20 years 30 years 30 years of my life building a lot I want to be invested in the truth

so I'm calling you today wherever you're at to say to the Lord God show me myself you can never ask an organization to see itself you can never ask a church to see itself unless you have prayed God help me see mustn't Jesus said to him see here's your problem you say you see so your sin remains the problem is not that there's a healer and somebody who can help us with our issues the problem is if we say we're okay Jesus cannot help us because he gave us free will I want to help today I do not want to stand in the way of the will of God I don't want to stand in the way of God giving my life impact because I refuse to see my own heart see that's where we got to get every day I know I'm just preaching consecration

you ready but you got to understand that sometimes our hearts and I'm trying to quit today I promise you but sometimes our hearts because of our own lust our own desires will make us willfully blind because of ego I don't want to admit I'm wrong I don't want to admit that what I said was wrong what I did was wrong take that hit my God you're capital as a leader will go up come on young man come on young lady God is trying to build in your life a self understanding so he can transform you and you can go from faith to faith and he's saying if you know what I had for you I can I can do great things in your life if you're willing to admit your issues as they begin to sing come on in the quiet of your own heart

help me to see my own heart Lord help me to see my self God every weakness it's so plain to me God Lord when I'm in prayer it's painful to admit Lord how weak braille I am it's hard for me to look in that mirror and see my own heart but Lord every time I do it as much pain as it is I trust you're just trying to root out everything that's not worth the glory that you have for me and as you root out God you plant and as you tear down God you build up in my my my your strength is made perfect my weakness we want to see Lord we want to see open our eyes today Jesus I'm caught up in your presence I just want to sit here at your feet I'm caught up in Jesus you don't owe me

it I just I'm not preaching condemnation today I'm preaching transformation see when we see ourselves he can show us how to grow and what doors to walk through how to what you need to say is I want to stay on the wheel Jesus make me make me make me don't let the enemy put condemnation in your heart it's not condemnation your admission is a confession a need of help but it's also a confession of faith a confession of trust that Lord if I really admit my issues you have the power to change me so here's what I want you to do if you need help today and we all need help today would you just stand up lift your hands to the Lord and say Lord begin to reveal who I am God and change me and mold me and work with me your purpose

and work with me your will come on that's it you need to talk to the Lord ask him for it God build the things that are worth glory in our life your prayer Lord and John 17 is real the glory that you have you have given us God we ask for it to be formed it's the life of Christ anything in us not worthy of you Lord help me get that sledgehammer out of my heart God bust things down check my issues Lord my motivations help me to see Lord that you can build me into the servant of the Lord