Hello, my name is Matt Whitman. This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour Podcast, and today I would like to begin by saying some nice things about the American state of Nebraska. It's a lovely place, but people are really mean to it because there's an interstate highway that runs east to west across Nebraska called Interstate 80, and it's built in the boringest part of the state. There's no topography, I mean hardly anything. It's just absolutely flat as far as the eye can see. And so understandably, people get very bored and they hate it and they try to drive across it as quickly as possible. And then they think to themselves, well, now I understand Nebraska. I'd never have a reason to go back there. But they were all of them deceived because Nebraska's actually really cool. It's full of absolutely lovely people. Per capita, you do about as well there as you would anywhere in the world in terms of downright decent people who would treat you well under any circumstances. This is a lovely place. Also, they make lots of food, ranching in the West, agriculture, well, really kind of all over the state, but particularly in the eastern half. And I like food, and I'm grateful that I don't starve because of Nebraska. Also, if you just get off the interstate, Nebraska has all kinds of really interesting, beautiful stuff. They've got this area in the north central part of the state called the Sand Hills that's super rolling and dynamic. It's just not like other places that you've seen in terms of the topography. It's weird and it's awesome. There's also in the middle of that, there's also a pine forest. A guy made a giant Rocky Mountain style pine forest in Nebraska by hand. He just planted a bunch of pine trees and was like, what if there were a pine forest here? Huh? I guess it worked. You can go to that. There's a park in northwest Nebraska called Ponka State Park, or northeast Nebraska, rather. And the Missouri River wraps around it. It's lovely. They've got a beautiful river for rafting in the northern part of the state called the Niobera, and people tube and canoe that all the time. Some of the tributaries up there are clear water spring trout streams, like in uh what do they call it? Lone pine? Yeah, I think they call it uh lone, am I saying that right? Lone tree, lone pine, uh Valentine up in that part of the state. I don't know her real well, but man, is it real, real pretty? And then Omaha and Lincoln are lovely towns as well. So my point is Nebraska's great, and y'all should stop being mean to Nebraska and give it a chance and get off the interstate. You don't know the place if you haven't got off the interstate. Well, understandably, Nebraska has had a tough time over the years selling itself as a tourist destination for, you know, some of the reasons I just described. And they've tried different campaigns and whatnot, but most recently it seems like all their campaigns have focused on being like, eh, you know, maybe it's not for you. Maybe you don't have eyes to see what Nebraska is all about. You know, the the encouragement is look closer and be the kind of person who appreciates subtle beauty. It didn't work on me because I thought these nice things about Nebraska before this advertising, this tourist advertising campaign. But the idea is there's some stuff that is beautiful and that is true. And if you don't see it, I guess you just don't see it. If your eyes aren't open to that kind of beauty or that kind of thing, I I don't know what to tell you. If you don't think Nebraska is cool after looking around it in a meaningful way, shrug, I well, I guess you just don't have eyes to see it. Likewise, in the Bible there's this theme, Old Testament and New Testament, that some people's eyes are open and able to see the big redemptive story of God. Yes, I just likened Nebraska to the gospel, I guess. Well, I sort of backed my way into that one. Well, corn huskers rejoice. I guess that's nice for you. Everybody else, you can laugh at me a little bit over that one. But I think it holds. Some people in the Bible are blessed with this ability to see the truth. They're able to see the big picture, the story of the whole thing. They're able to understand why God did it the way he did it, who Jesus is, how Jesus fulfills all the stuff in the Old Testament, and not just the smoking gun prophecies like what happened with Jesus on the cross, the way the whole Old Testament pleads for what happened with the Holy Spirit and the book of Acts and the gospel going out to all the nations, it all hangs together. It's all right there, but there are also all kinds of ways to miss it. And interestingly, throughout the Bible, the people who don't have eyes to see tend to be very loud and very confident in their not seeing it-ness, because if you have eyes to see who Jesus is and what he's doing, it has this massively humbling effect as people encounter him, as people's eyes are open throughout the Bible, and they tend to assume a right posture before God. What is that right posture? They fall at the feet of Jesus and worship him. They fall at the feet of Jesus and their tears wet his feet and they clean his feet with their hair. They anoint him with expensive oil. They collapse at his feet and say, I see you for who you are, I recognize your authority, only you can solve this problem that's in front of me. They see him and they call him by proper titles like Son of Man and Son of David, that they recognize from understanding and seeing the cohesiveness of the scriptures. Look, it's sort of a if you get it, you get it kind of thing. And further, throughout the Bible, there's this intonation that if you get it, you get it is actually a gift from God. This theme is all over the book of Matthew. Some of you have been with me on this podcast since season one, which was an 800-episode marathon through the Gospel of Matthew. That's the first book of the New Testament. And maybe one of the themes that you remember really popping as we carefully went through it one bit at a time, was this theme of eyes to see and ears to hear. I think of the stuff that happens right after the Sermon on the Mount, and everybody's amazed because Jesus teaches with authority, not like their teachers of the law. And people start coming up to him, like weird people who you wouldn't expect to have eyes to see, but they do. A guy with leprosy comes right up and is like, okay, I th I I think I see who you are. And Jesus touches him and heals, you know, he cleanses him of his leprosy. Then you got another guy who comes up, he's a Gentile outsider, an oppressor, and he's like, I think I see who you are. And Jesus is like, Yeah, you do. And I haven't seen faith like this even in Israel. And Jesus grants the guy's request. I've got a ton more examples of this principle, but we've already covered it in Matthew, and for the sake of time, I'm not going to give you all of those examples. But look, this is real. This is an actual motif in the Bible. That in the same way, some people just can't see underappreciated parts of the world, and other people, I guess, just have eyes to see it. So likewise in the Bible, some people don't have their eyes opened to the truth of what Jesus is and what the message of the kingdom is. Other people do have their eyes opened, other people just don't have their eyes opened yet, and they will open later. Who opens the eyes? Look, I know it raises a lot of questions, but God opens the eyes. He is the initiator of that. He is the giver of that vision. He opens the eyes of the blind. Heck, for that matter, he both shut and opened the eyes of the guy who wrote the letter we're working on this season, that being the apostle Paul who wrote Galatians. Jesus blinded him, and Jesus caused those scales to fall from his eyes. He gave him the ability to see again. Well, who are the bad guys in Galatians? They're people whose eyes are shut. They just can't see it. They're loud, they're confident, they think they know what's going on, but the true stuff, the good stuff, it all just looks like foolishness to them. You know, we're we've been working on Galatians 5.11. Brothers and sisters, if I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished. Well, simply put, if God hasn't opened your eyes, I guess the cross is going to look ridiculous. It's going to look like foolishness. You're not going to get it. You're not going to see it. And maybe you're sitting here going, Well, wait a minute, I'm listening to your talk. I don't think I'm a Christian, but the cross isn't looking like foolishness to me. The more we look at the Bible together, the more I think about Jesus and the whole thing, the more not foolish the cross looks, the more it makes sense to me. Well, I would submit to you, my friend, that's not from you that God is opening your eyes. If you can see this, even sort of, that vision is a gift from God. First Corinthians 1 18, Paul writes, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Here's why we're doing all of this today. Yes, we've got one more really spicy concluding line in this block of thought from Paul in Galatians 5 that's coming up. But I lingered on Galatians 5 11 one more day because that phrase, in that case, the offense of the cross has been abolished, is very potent. It's very powerful to me, and all the more so when coupled with what I just read you from 1 Corinthians 1. The cross didn't make sense to these agitators. They don't get it. They don't understand what it was for, they don't understand why Jesus did it, they don't understand how it fulfills the Old Testament, they don't understand how there's life in it, they don't understand how they are trying to bastardize it and cheapen it by likening their own good works and self-discipline and adherence to the law in efficaciousness to the cross, imagining that those are somehow equals, that somehow they work hand in hand to get us to a place of right standing with God, that somehow the tool and the tutor that was the law is equal to the cross rather than what it actually is, which is a teacher that points us to the cross. That's the mistake they're making. They just can't see it. They got scales on their eyes, and so the cross looks like foolishness to them. But Paul's writing to some people who had the scales knocked off their eyes. He's writing to some blind people like the blind people in the book of Matthew, who were given spiritual sight by God to be able to say, You are the Son of Man, you are the Son of David, you are the one who is promised by God. You do have this power, you are the real one. So we've talked a lot about all the reasons the agitators, the Judaizers, the bad guys in the book of Galatians are getting it wrong. But maybe one final thought on why they're getting it wrong for today is they just can't see it. And in not seeing it, they have confidently swaggered into uh the midst of a bunch of people who do see it and are trying to throw them into confusion. That's plenty for now. Shocking verse from Paul next time around. I'm Matt. This is the Ten Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.