Undiscernment
Posted by preachgospelblog.com | Filed under Illustrations of Bible Truths
1. Differing Viewpoints
Not all people can see God in the various manifestations of life. Two men looking at the same person may make two dissimilar observations; they may form two varying opinions, and their judgments will reflect their differing viewpoints. When Thomas Edison was a young man in school in Ohio, his teacher said he’d never amount to anything because, seemingly, he could learn only science and mathematics. He couldn’t pass his other subjects because he wasn’t interested in them. The poor fellow nearly despaired when his teacher, at wit’s end, recommended his expulsion. He knew he was slow in English and history, but he was sure he was going to amount to something in spite of it. This young man, as everybody now knows, was a genius, an electrical wizard, a pioneer inventor who helped make America’s standard of living what it is today.
2. He Didn’t See Snakes
“I will never forget my first experience in hospital work,” said Chief Surgeon Millar of the Central Emergency Hospital in San Francisco. “There was an undergraduate nurse in the detention ward, and we had a very violent case-a man in the worst stage of delirium tremens. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the head nurse who requested me to come at once to the patient. When I got there I found him raving and very violent, with the new nurse scared out of her wits.” Then the doctor said, “Why did you let him go so far? I left you some medicine to give him as soon as he got delirious.” “Yes, doctor,” the nurse replied, “but you told me to give that to him if he saw any more snakes, but this time he was seeing blue dogs with pink tails.”
3. Spiritually Colorblind
Just as some colorblind people are not aware of their color blindness, so it is spiritually. Those who are sinful are not always aware of their sinfulness, of their spiritual color blindness. In recent years, the great railroad companies test the vision of their employees by the aid of skilled eye specialists, with the result that from 10-25 percent of those who apply for positions as engineers and signal men are found to be deficient in color judgment. This is certainly a very pertinent illustration of Christ’s teaching in Luke chapter eleven. As the managers of railroads heed the cry of the newspapers and the public to beware of color blindness, and are determined that the men who drive their trains shall know the difference between red and green, so the warning of Christ comes to every one of us, “Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness” (Luke 11:35).
4. A Blessing Overlooked
A man who owned a small estate sent for an agent and asked him to write an advertisement offering it for sale. When the advertisement was ready, the agent read it to him. “Read that again,” said the owner. The agent read it once more. “I don’t think I will sell after all,” said the man. “I have been looking for an estate like that all my life and did not know that I owned it.” Have you praised the Lord for what you now possess on this earth which you wouldn’t have if the Lord had not given it to you.
5. Spiritually Bankrupt
Aesop speaks in one of his down-to-earth fables of a goatherd who, having been caught in the mountains in a snowstorm, drove his flock into a large cave for shelter. There he discovered some wild goats who had taken refuge before him. The goatherd was so impressed by the size and looks of these goats, so much more beautiful than his own, that he gave the wild goats all the food he could collect. The storm lasted many days, during which the tame goats died of starvation. When the sun shone again, the wild goats ran out and disappeared in the mountains, leaving the disappointed goatherd to make his way home, a poorer, and a wiser man. So it is with all those who exchange the tried and true teaching of God’s Word for the ear-tickling speculations of men.
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