I have a good friend who is an optometrist. I drink coffee with him frequently, have off and on for over 20 years. I even worked for him for a short while when I moved back to Oklahoma from Arkansas. We talk about lots of things, most not real relevant to anyone or anything.

I have learned a lot about the eyes in my friendship with him. Things like myopia, presbyopia, near and farsighted, macular degeneration and most recently cataracts and diabetic retinopathy (being a diabetic). He has fitted me and my family with glasses and contacts for over two decades.

Having coffee with him Tuesday, I asked him a question that had been on my mind lately. “Hey Doc, what’s the difference between sight and vision?” Kind of caught him off guard I guess. He pondered a few minutes then came back with an answer and it basically came down to one word: ACUITY. This is sharpness or keenness of thought, vision or hearing.

Sight is seeing. You can see forms, images, colors and things. Vision is the acuity of sight, the sharpness or keenness. You take a sight that sees an image or form and make it clearer, sharper. Kind of like looking through a camera lens and seeing the image you want to photograph, but it is blurred. You focus the lens until it is clear. Vision is that way. The eye doctor determines what your sight is and refines it, makes it clear with glasses or contact lenses and you can see more clearly.

Now, all this came about from a simple scripture and an indepth of Jeremiah. The scripture was from Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law is happy.” The prophet Jeremiah was preaching upcoming judgment and destruction along with exile to Babylon. But the people just didn’t get it or even listen to it. In chapters 1819 he made it clear because they had forsaken God, worshipped other gods/idols and even sacrificed their children to Baal, judgment was imminent.

But they didn’t see it that way. They had sight but no vision. Life was good. They were God’s chosen.

They had the temple in Jerusalem. Besides God had always protected before, He would do it again. They looked at things through their eyes. Jeremiah, on the other hand, looked from God’s perspective. He knew and observed from God’s word, the law (know other God’s before me, worship no other Gods and the like).

Jeremiah had vision, God’s vision according to His word. You only had to look at Deuteronomy 28 to see how the people had violated God’s Word and Ways. He saw with clarity, vision, God’s perspective and it did not look good for the people of Judah.

I say all this because I see such a parallelism between our nation/ world today and the nation of Judah of Jeremiah’s time. We have sight. The world is good. We have the largest population this globe has ever seen. We war, but we have had wars for forever. In our country, we are comfortable. Economy strong (well, I have enough money, clothes, automobiles and a roof over my head), I am safe (police and military to protect) and church is always there if I want to go. We see things from our prospective; sight.

But the people of Judah had all these things too. There was an enemy on the distant horizon but God would take care of them, He always had. We have this strong military, we are all good. No one can take the USA. But God’s Word is just as relevant today as it was for Jeremiah’s day. We have forsaken God, we worship the gods of money, power, prestige, sexuality and more. We have legalized what God has forbidden. Our child sacrifice is in the form of abortion. At least the people in Jeremiah’s day made worshipping God still a major part of their life (then they would go out and worship their idols/false gods).

Church attendance is continuing to decrease. We are becoming more Biblical illiterate with each generation. We have the glasses to give us vision but we choose not to wear them. If we don’t wear them, can’t see the sin.

The religious leaders of Jeremiah’s day, Priests, scribes and teachers were not teaching God’s word. Prophets were giving false prophecies that sounded good and made the people feel good but were not from God. We suffer from the same today with preachers afraid to address the issues of sin in life today. They preach a multitude of ways to get to heaven (not just the one way, Jesus). Preachers want big churches and to be popular and well liked (maybe should read 2 Timothy 4:3-4).

God did not relent judgment on Judah, He won’t relent on us either. I think it time to have vision, not sight.

Looking for my glasses, Bro. Tim