FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN JACKSON: FAITH LETS BELIEVERS SEE THE BLORIES OF GOD

Dr. Bill D. Ellis is a native of Hugo, Okla., and a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has pastored churches in Oklahoma and two churches in Missouri -- First Baptist in Chaffee and Lynwood Baptist in Cape Girardeau. He has been associate pastor at Jackson for six years.

Comparing the seen and the unseen is an interesting study. Obviously, we learn basically by means of our five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. If one bases life only on the observable, through one or more of the five senses, a great dimension of life is missing.

Some people are so pragmatic that they have no confidence in things that cannot be known in this way. Some things cannot be weighed, or tested technologically, but that does not mean they do not exist. We cannot prove love by the scientific method, but it exists on several levels, God's love for us, and our love for Him; love for family, for friends, etc. So it is with the greatest realities in life.

The Apostle Paul makes the comparison of the seen and unseen and declares the superiority of the unseen over the seen, as he wrote, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (1 Corinthians 4:18 NIV)

That God reveals Himself to all persons of all generations is clearly stated in Romans 1:19-20 (NIV), "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Phillips Brooks, born in 1835, became one of the most effective and famous ministers of the nineteenth century. He received many honors, both academically and ecclesiastically. He had a brilliant ministry at Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston. He is also known to many as the author of "O, Little Town of Bethlehem."

An interesting fact about Phillips Brooks was the oft-told experience of Helen Keller being given religious instructions by Brooks. When Helen was a little girl her father brought her to Mr. Brooks for her first religious instruction. Though blind and deaf she learned from her nurse how to understand spoken words by touching the lips of the speaker. She understood the minister's teachings about God. Helen remarked that she had always known there was a God, but had not known His name. ("Biography of Phillips Brooks" by Alexander V.G. Allen, Dutton & Company Publishers)

Through sight we can see the wonders of the universe, we can hear voices of those we love, we can feel the warm embrace of love or comfort, we can smell the aroma of a rose, we can taste the sweetness of honey; but more wonderful than this, we can see a whole world of reality with spiritual sight in the here and now. Sight that one day will be more than faith, more than hope, more than spiritual sight, but of entrance into the eternal world where dwells God, the innumerable hosts of angels, all the saved of all ages, and a glory that fills heaven emanating from Christ Himself.