Having the Eyes of Your Heart Enlightened

In this part of the sermon: Martin introduces the phrase 'having the eyes of your heart enlightened' as a necessary prerequisite, explaining it as a parenthetical statement indicating a prior spiritual…

An analogy for children explaining 'prerequisite' using the need to learn numbers and the alphabet before algebra, illustrating that initial spiritual illumination is necessary before increased illumination.

Now the reason for this, is not obvious in the English translation, but in the language in which Paul wrote, a literal translation of the phrase would be, having had and still having the eyes of your heart enlightened. So look at it now like a parenthesis, and follow as I read it. For this cause, I pray for you, that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ would give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of him, parenthesis, having already had the eyes of your heart enlightened, end of parenthesis, that ye may know. So he assumes that the condition of the Ephesians, for whom ...

6:42 - 8:08 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains 'eyes' as a figure of speech for the organ of spiritual perception, and 'enlightened' as illuminated, using analogies of physical sight to show that a healthy eye and…

A personal anecdote about his father-in-law developing a cataract, illustrating how a diseased eye cannot properly perceive reality or light, akin to a darkened spiritual heart.

And secondly, there must be light bouncing upon objects and into the eye. Let me illustrate. This past week, I had to take my father-in-law for a checkup at the eye doctor. And in the course of the examination, he was informed that he has begun to have a cataract growing over one of the eyes.

15:49 - 16:09 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains 'eyes' as a figure of speech for the organ of spiritual perception, and 'enlightened' as illuminated, using analogies of physical sight to show that a healthy eye and…

An analogy of a darkroom where healthy eyes see nothing without light, demonstrating that even a capable 'eye' (heart) needs external light (divine illumination) to perceive spiritual objects.

Take another illustration. Here is a person who has two healthy eyes, but he is in a room that is used for developing photographs. It is a dark room. And not a ray of light enters that room.

16:41 - 16:53 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second message is that since the Fall, all men have darkened hearts and eyes, preventing them from seeing spiritual realities as they truly are, leading to a life of spiritual…

An analogy of rearranging a room in total darkness to show that without light, one cannot see things as they really are, even if they imagine them to be otherwise, representing man's inability to see spiritual truth due to a darkened heart.

Having had the eyes of your heart enlightened, a clear indication that man has a heart is a clear indication that at a specific point in time this illumination came to the Ephesians. Prior to that, the eyes of the heart were not enlightened and the absence of light is darkness. And this is the universal testimony of the word of God that man since the fall, though he has a heart and though he has eyes in that heart, the heart is full of darkness and the result of that darkness is that men cannot see things as they really are. If we could plunge this building into total darkness and then for ten...

23:25 - 24:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He is a creature made with a heart and with eyes, made in the image of God, but the eyes of the heart have been darkened so that the things that should regulate the totality of his intellectual and emotional and volition…

A metaphor comparing man's life without spiritual sight to a blind man stumbling and falling in an unfamiliar room, explaining the chaotic and misguided nature of human existence apart from God.

He does exactly what a blind man would do, coming into a room that he's never been in before, stumble and fall, and, careen from object to object. That's the explanation of man.

30:00 - 30:14 Read in full sermon

The point: The first proof of enlightened eyes is that you will know what the darkness is experientially, personally, and inwardly.

An analogy of a man born and raised in total darkness who only understands what darkness is when brought into the light, illustrating that one only truly knows their spiritual darkness after experiencing God's light.

You say, now you're really talking double-dutch to me. All right, follow me now. Here's a man born in a room without one shred of light coming into it. Born in a room of total darkness.

39:28 - 39:41 Read in full sermon