Worship Call 0741 (2)

Worship Call 0741

Thursday October 6, 2022

A Clear Eye

celebrate! Leviticus 25:8-10 'Count off seven sabbath years -- seven times seven years -- so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. As we conclude the observance of Yom Kippur, I'd like to share another interesting observation. While it is a day on which adults are afflicting themselves by fasting, abstaining from all pleasures, and repenting. However, for the children, Yom Kippur is a very different holiday. This day is my son Obi's favorite holiday! Why? Because the kids are not fasting or recalling their sins or suffering at all – they are celebrating freedom! On Yom Kippur in Israel, TV and radio stations are shut down and the children are playing jubilantly outdoors with absolutely no vehicles on any road. Everywhere you look kids are freewheeling on bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, scooters, and bare feet, with no restraint. The children are truly free on Yom Kippur. And unbeknownst to them, they are typifying a prophetic event that occurs only once every 50 years, on Yom Kippur. Every 50th year, in this cycle, called the Yovel or Jubilee, freedom is proclaimed! All things are returned to their rightful owners – all debts are forgiven – and the entire year is a great celebration of freedom, restoration and joy. And the kids, without realizing it, are celebrating jubilee every year. Prophetically, Yovel or Jubilee speaks of the Lord's return to establish His Millennial Kingdom, during which time the world will experience a peace and rest unknown since the fall of mankind. This will be the restoration of all things [Acts 3:21], a time of tremendous joy and true freedom during the reign of our Messiah King. But take note that the atonement precedes the Jubilee, and without the atonement no one comes to the freedom, rest, and joy of the Yovel. The atonement provides our forgiveness of sins. Sin is slavery. Liberty and joy require forgiveness and restoration. Only through atonement can we truly celebrate liberty! Robert, this day, every day, can be your jubilee if as a child of God you celebrate His forgiveness, walk in freedom and rest with your sins forgiven by the atoning sacrifice of Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. If and when you do, you are a living prophetic message to this world that the Lord's jubilee is coming! Your family in the Lord with much agape love, George, Baht Rivka, & Obadiah Chesterfield, South Carolina

And this is another fine day in the Lord.

Matthew 6:19–24 (NASB95) — 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Today let’s deal with the all important Eye gate

Matthew 6:22 (NASB95) — 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

ὀφθαλμός [ophthalmos /of·thal·mos/] n m[1],—‘eye’ (normally including the eyelids).[2]

It is the clear vision that will be opened up to the body in the course it shall take.

Here we have an “if” that is if something is true. If it is true than this….

And in the next statement it will a different reality with a but “if” this is true then this…

First if the eye is clear.

ἁπλοῦς, ῆ, οῦν (Att. contr.; Aeschyl., Thu.+)

pert. to being motivated by singleness of purpose so as to be open and aboveboard, single, without guile, sincere, straightforward i.e. without a hidden agenda (Plut., Mor. 63f: the gods take delight in beneficence for its own sake, but a flatterer’s performance is with mixed motives) εἶναι ἁ. τῇ καρδίᾳ be guileless B 19:2 (cp. SIG 1042, 12 ἁ. τῇ ψυχῇ; Pr 11:25; Ps.-Phocyl. 50). [3]

this is but one eye the eye which is focused on a single agenda. The eyes being clear is that one’s greater reality is one’s heavenly treasure future reward and the spiritual life which is the journey to the promised land.

Verses 19 to 24 deals with earthly treasures and the lust for them the desire to have to hold to possess to the point where one would risk his own spiritual life to obtain.

In the day of Jesus, it was the Pharisees who were full of pomp and circumstance. They set themselves up to be awed by all the poor as they paraded around through the city piously, for they had their own prosperity Gospel going on. That they were much well to do as a reward for their own faithfulness to God. They were however blinded to their own self-righteous arrogance. This is just another of the fronts that Jesus exposed during his sermon on the mount.

The eye of the religious had them walking in darkness heading for their own destruction.

Jesus, prior to coming into his ministry was led to the wilderness by the spirit to be tested by the devil. Each of the tests involved having a clear eye to see the greater reality.

Matthew 4:8–11 (NASB95) — 8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”

No, it was not enough, to tell the son of man about the kingdoms. The devil had to show him the kingdoms. It was to elevate that which was right before Jesus right in plain view along with the message, you can have all of this right here right now.

Makes me think of the Game Show which I believe is at least 50 years old, “The Price is Right,”

A curtain opens with a brand-new car and a trip to an exotic resort on a tropical Island.

The contestant eyes are wide open, the crowd is applauding wildly and the announcer in an excited voice yell’s out

A NEW CAR! YOU CAN HAVE ALL OF THIS IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT!

Of course, all that Satan offered will be our Lord Jesus’ inheritance, but the one who was made a little lower than the angels had a journey of his own and to take the kingdoms now, would be outside of the Father’s timing. But Jesus had a clear eye, a perfect eye, a simple eye, which was focused upon a greater object, that is the plan of God for his life.

You see Satan did not tempt Jesus with trials and suffering. Satan offered prosperity with the message that says

“You can live your best life now!”

Truly Satan is the author of the prosperity Gospel that God wants you to be healthy and wealthy and God is ready to bless you now.

The Lord did not take the deal, but how many of God’s own children, those saved by the blood of Christ on the cross, Are lured away so quickly from their spiritual lives to go after that which is brought into their view and even into mind’s eye.

Listen Like your Lord has received an inheritance from his Father, you and I, children of the living God, have an inheritance undefiled and stored in heaven. Untouched by moth and rust. Riches that stagger the imagination.

Isaiah 64:4 (NASB95) — 4 For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

But how many an eye have lost sight of the eternal for the temporal.

Isaiah 65:17 (NASB95) — 17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.

There are two realities along with two visions of those realities

There is the reality that we are all familiar with. That is the Physical reality. That which you can seen with your physical eye, that which is right before you.

And there is the spiritual reality and though one has not laid a hand on it, the tangible reward of God laid up in heaven, it is the spiritual eye that sees it clearly.

While the tempter brought the physical reality into the Lord’s view as he put on display the splendor of the Kingdoms of the world, it did not cloud the eye of our Lord, His reality was solidly fixed on doing the Father’s will.

The pharisees equated material wealth with blessings from God. Much like the prosperity Gospel seeks today. That which God promises that those with faith will receive health and wealth.

This does it entice our carnal natures. Go ahead and admit it. The prosperity Gospel which says we can live our best lives now is much better prospect than picking up our crosses and following Jesus.

The devil has mighty big purse strings and while you might come through every trial and tribulation with flying colors that which may just be a stumbling block for one is prosperity itself.

The devil has been at this for a very long time and Jesus himself reminded his disciples

Matthew 26:41 (NASB95) — 41 “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Peter is noted with denying Jesus three times even after his bold statement that he would stay faithful.

Mark 14:29–31 (NASB95) — 29 But Peter said to Him, “Even though all may fall away, yet I will not.” 30 And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny Me three times.” 31 But Peter kept saying insistently, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” And they all were saying the same thing also.

What happen to Peter?

When the prospect of being arrested and having to carry his own cross was right before him his eye of God’s plan for Peter’s life became clouded. He couldn’t see it.

How clear that vision is, is going to be the deciding factor of how well your direction will stay set when the distraction comes to change your direction. It is the direction that the body will follow whether it will have the proper perspective of earthly wealth or whether one will be so willing to pick up ones own cross.

As much as we like to beat Peter up for cowering out and denying Jesus, we fail to look at Peter’s victory. His boldness in ministry his willingness to stand up for the faith and when it came to his death, he said hang me upside down for I do not deserve to die in the same way as the lord.

What happened to Peter? What happened to the rest of the disciples minus Judas?

Peter’s vision became real clear when they witnessed the resurrected Christ.

It is the eye that sets the direction of the body.

[1]Strong, J. (1995). In Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship. [2]Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). In Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 96). United Bible Societies. [3]Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). In A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 104). University of Chicago Press.