I See Men but They Look Like Trees Walking 1978

Around the turn of the century, there was an outbreak, you could call it that, in this country of what could be described as the manifestation of the supernatural as it attended the preaching of the gospel of Jesus. Now, of course, the supernatural has always attended the preaching or proclaiming of the gospel of Jesus, but suddenly it began to appear with much more abundance and much more force that there were healings and outpourings of the Spirit galore in certain places when the gospel was proclaimed. And this movement, as it became, was given all kinds of names, and it doesn't matter what name you call it.

And this movement spread and grew until today. It has really touched and affected in many ways every denomination and every brand of believers that you could possibly think of in this land and abroad. Now, of course, there have been all kinds of excesses, and there are many critics, and yet I believe that anybody who takes a fair and honest look at this, let's call it the supernatural gospel movement, if they look at what happens among these people who expect the Spirit of God to confirm the Word with signs following, they can't but be impressed that some very strange and some extremely wonderful things are going on.

Most of us here were not in a position to look at this movement critically because in most cases our lives were in shambles, our bodies were sick, our minds were flying apart, and we ourselves experienced some kind of supernatural touch from God. Some of us experienced some kind of healing from the hands of Jesus Himself. Many of us tasted something of the Holy Spirit which is of the same order as what took place among our brothers and sisters back in the days of the apostolic believers, Pentecost, and on.

We experienced that, we tasted that, and we can hardly criticize a God who opened our eyes to the reality of Jesus in a new way, caused the Scriptures to come alive to us, anointed our prayers so that we found ourselves able to pray as we never could pray before, and loosed our tongues so that we could in fact proclaim Jesus to the world. But as time has elapsed from our first encounter with the supernatural Lord, we have begun to also realize that whatever you call a supernatural touch from God will not in itself hold us close to God through our lives and eternity. That it is possible, as it says in Hebrews 6, for a person to see the kingdom of God and taste the kingdom of God and partake of the things of the kingdom and yet drift from the kingdom.

It's possible for us to so be anointed with the Spirit that we speak in tongues, prophesy, lay hands on people for healing, and with sheer faith cause bars of iron and gates of brass to yield for us, and yet to end up half-baked. The book of 1 Corinthians was really addressed to just that problem. The Corinthian fellowship was powerful, mighty, and wonderful things were taking place among those believers, and yet they were torn with strife and envy and in every way marked with immaturity, and it was evident that they lacked the basic ingredient of the kingdom.

Even though they had all the goodies. One time Jesus touched 10 lepers for healing, or at least He healed them. Go your way and show yourself to the priest, He said, He didn't actually touch them.

And in each case, every one of those 10 lepers was touched supernaturally. Literally, heaven came down into their wasted bodies, healed them, and yet only one of them, who were injured by heaven, actually turned around and walked into heaven. Now they were all touched supernaturally, this can't be denied.

But the supernatural touch that came on nine of them was not enough to quicken them to eternal life. And how often we, spiritual dynamos who have been touched by the Holy Spirit, and have all these things going in our lives, are nevertheless, in our living, giving evidence that we lack the basic ingredient of God's kingdom. What's the basic ingredient of God's kingdom? From Mark 8, 22.

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a man, a blind man, and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, but they look like trees walking.

Now isn't it interesting that this one instance in which a healing was incomplete, the incompleteness of this healing manifests itself as the man's inability to see the people around him as they really are. I see men, but they look like trees walking. This man understands that even though he has been touched with a healing, if he is not able to see the people around him as they are, if his vision of men and women around him is distorted, then he is still, for all practical purposes, blind.

Any touch from God is incomplete. Any vision is still unclear. Any miracle has failed yet to accomplish its purpose, if after having so been touched by God, we still see people in a distorted way, we look at them and they still look like trees walking.

They're blurred. The test of whether the kingdom of God has in fact taken hold of our hearts is what do we see when we look at the men and women around us? Do we see these people with the eye of divine mercy or do we see them as walking trees, blurs, obstacles that stand in our way, stepping stones for our own climb to success, objects of lust, human cockroaches, vermin? Isn't it interesting that we who have so much spiritual insight, nevertheless, again and again, can walk right by human anguish and not even discover it? We don't see the pain. We don't see the hurt.

We don't see the torment of guilt. We don't see the pleading eyes. We don't see the outstretched hands.

All we see are people who get in our way or people who can be used by us in some way. Now, this is the way it was in Corinth. The church in Corinth had all kinds of spiritual fireworks going.

They had every gift you can imagine functioning and in that sense would put all our fellowships to shame. And yet Paul had to write to them, but I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

And even yet you are not ready for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh behaving like ordinary men? Here you are, you got all these gifts going and yet what are you doing? You're envying one another. What gift you have? There is strife, there's competition and all kinds of disorder going on in here.

And what is needed, Paul tells them, is that we have eyes that are dominated by the love of God's love that suffers long in his kind. Envies not, wants not itself, is not puffed up so that then seeing men as they really are and caring about them, we can keep right on fulfilling the purposes of God in our lives in relationship with his people. Now, should there be some brothers and sisters among us who come from the social activist camp and who may now feel somewhat clean because you're concerned about the downtrodden and the oppressed? It also needs to be said that there are people who will give their bodies to be burned in the cause of peace, disarmament, human rights, et cetera, who yet when they are dealing with people right under their noses, see them only as trees walking.

How do you see your mate? You know, do you see that man or that woman as one given to you by God to love and serve both ways, not just that the woman's supposed to serve the man and work with and comfort and accept exactly as he or she is with all the faults? Or do you, in your day by day living, see nothing but a walking tree? What about the mailman or the grouchy cashier at the supermarket? What about that that always gives you a hard time? What about the people that we're sharing the building with right now? What about the panhandler who never gets himself cleaned up and always annoys us? What do we see? And then some of us say, I just don't know what my ministry is. I've been praying and praying, and it seems God won't show me what my ministry is. Is it that God has not shown us what our ministry is, that there's really nothing to do for us? Everybody else has a ministry.

I won't say it. I was going to say Billy Graham has a ministry. All these other guys have ministries, you know, but I don't have a ministry.

Or is it that when God sends us out into the streets and lanes of the city to invite guests to his banquet, we don't even see them. All we see is some more walking trees. So the man lifted up his face for Jesus to touch his eyes a second time.

He asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, but they look like trees walking. Then again, he laid his hands upon his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and saw everything clearly. Two obvious things here.

One, Jesus touches him a second time. He doesn't say to the man, wait a minute, where's your positive confession? I touched you once. Where's your faith? And having been touched the second time, the man looks intently, applies tremendous effort to begin to come into focus and see these people around him as they are.

And then he is restored and sees everything clearly. Now, if we don't have eyes that are moved by divine compassion, we're never going to be able to, you know, drum it up from within ourselves. We have to do exactly what this man did.

We have to turn to Jesus to be touched again. Lord, I know that I have been touched by your hand. I know that my life has been changed.

I know that you've blessed me and I thank you for this. But I also know that my vision of the people around me is twisted and warped, that I don't see what you want me to see. When I look at people close to me, I see trees walking.

Lord, touch my eyes so that I can see what I should see. Then, after having prayed such a prayer, as the Spirit of God begins to cause the love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts as it will absolutely follow, the thing we have to do is to begin to apply some effort. Strain our eyes if we have to.

You know, to look intently until we begin to see, as we should, we begin to look intently at our neighbor and our enemy and our friend and our child and our parent and our mate and the Lazarus who sits at our gate and the brothers and sisters in our fellowship. And at first, it may well be that they will still look like walking trees. But as we continue to do this, absolutely, a miracle will follow that will not only make it possible for us to see people as they are, but even more will enable us to see God.

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And when we begin to see our fellow men and women as they are, and we will, we will begin to see everything clearly, as it says, including God. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

We've come to a time when it will no longer be possible for us to go fumbling and stumbling along our way with our pettiness and our lovelessness and our strife and our envy and to tolerate it ourselves as something that everybody has. To survive the days which have already come upon us, it will be, I'm convinced, absolutely necessary for our lives to be ruled by a love from God that opens our eyes to see people as they are. A love that suffereth long and is kind, never gets bitter.

A lowliness that's so lowly that it can see reality and so endure all things. And we'll have to pursue that kind of vision, even if it means going back to Jesus for a second touch. And even if it means straining our spiritual eyes until they almost come out of our heads, so that we finally begin to see people the way God sees them.

That we begin to see what God wants us to see in the faces of those to whom he sends us. Let's pray. How often, oh God, we're like the priest in the Levite, hurrying by that man that's been wounded on the road to Jericho, because we're so wrapped up in ourselves that we just aren't seeing the situation as it ought to be seen.

Father, we know that we're not divine and we know that we can't handle 15 things at once. But, oh God, we pray that you'd be able to enable us to be able to see that one thing you want us to see at every given moment. And that our predisposition to the belittling of other people will be removed from all our lives.

And that will be that there will be such a repentance in us day by day and hour by hour until this is our real living and our true nature. We ask it in Jesus name, Amen.