Let us pray
Heavenly Father, Your Word is flawless but our perception of it often is not. Help us to see through Your eyes as we gaze upon the truth of Your word. Please impart something unique through me to this precious congregation. Amen
I have a beautiful picture of my grandson, Toby, attached to the cupboard in my church office. Anyone who’s spent any time in my office would no doubt have seen it because it is hard to miss. May we see the photo?
PHOTO OF TOBY’S FACE ONLY
It’s a very special picture to me because this picture, 6 years ago now, inspired the writing of this sermon. This sermon had been brewing for well over a year before I wrote it. Toby was around 18 months old when this photo was taken by his Uncle Robert.
When I first saw the photo, I loved it simply because it’s a picture of my chubby faced grandson. However, there’s much more to this photo than first meets the eye. Have a look at this… may I have the next picture please?
SHOW THE PICTURE OF THE EYE.
Upon close inspection of the photo, you can see that right in the middle of Toby’s eye, right where the IRIS is, there’s a perfect image of his Uncle Robert taking the photo of Toby. Look at that.
When this was first brought to my attention, the biblical phrase ‘apple of His eye’ came to mind, as it now does every time I look at this precious photo of my Toby.
I call this photo ‘Apple of His eye’.
Who’s heard the phrase “Apple of His eye”?
“Apple of His Eye” is a biblical phrase. Yes, it has Biblical origin, like so many other beautiful well-known phrases in the English language.
This phrase, was first brought to my attention many many years ago by my dad long before I’d read it in the bible for myself. Dad would, every now and then, employ this phrase in a discussion in which he was addressing the issue of people condemning the church and I’d hear dad say.
“People need to be very careful what they say about the church of the LORD Jesus Christ because the church is the apple of HIS eye. You slam the church, you slam Him. And it’s a dangerous thing to be an enemy of God.”
For we are the apple of His eye…”
In Zechariah 2:8, where God is speaking to His chosen people He says, “…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye”
“…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye”
Although this scripture originally applied to the Children of Israel, in the Old Testament, in 1 Peter 2:9, when speaking about the church, YOU, it says,
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
I think we can now safely say that Zechariah 2:8 applies to YOU.
“Whoever touches YOU touches the apple of His eye.”
But what does this fascinating phrase ‘the apple of His eye’ really mean?
It’s my opinion, after a little study of the original Hebrew, we can interpret this in two ways – and both are correct.
Firstly, an APPLE refers to a common spherical object which is similar in shape to our iris right in the middle of our eye. Sometimes it can even be the same colour… Green like my iris 
Now, MY apple, MY iris is very precious to me. I’ve guarded it all my life.
I guard it with my eyelid, arms, my hands, my sunglasses and safety glasses, my hats, I use my neck to turn my eye away from danger.
I look after my apple.
In other words, I look after my eye!
I hate it when I get foreign objects in my eye because it hurts! Especially when foreign objects touch my iris, where the all-important coloured bit is (there are more nerve endings in your iris than there are in the white of your eye). Which is, in itself, an inbuilt protective feature to make sure you deal with junk in your eye, so it doesn’t destroy your eyesight.
There wouldn’t be a person in this room who wouldn’t be protective over their eyesight. We all protect it because we value it. If I threw something, right now, at your face, your first instinctive action would be to protect your eyes.
EYES ARE PRECIOUS THAT’S A FACT.
WE VALUE OUR EYES.
And God uses this analogy to convey the message of how much he values YOU.
YOU are the APPLE OF HIS EYE!
“…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye”
“…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye”
And when anything touches God’s eye there’s always going to be a protective reaction.
Particularly in the spiritual realm.
This is why you, church, need to pray for your enemies, and your true enemies are those who despise you because of your belief in the LORD Jesus Christ.
In Hebrews 10:31 it says, “It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
“It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Because folks, they’re the hands that protect the apple of His eye.
Pray for people who’ve made God their enemy, pray that they find Jesus like YOU have. It’s not our call to hate radical Islamic people, God has called us to pray for them. Pray that they have a revelation of the LORD Jesus Christ.
Because if they don’t, your enemy becomes His enemy and it’s a terrifying thing for them to fall into His hands.
Remember, He sees everything, He’s our Witness, our attorney and our Judge – the ‘enemy’ Do NOT stand a chance, in eternity, left up to their own sinful devices.
Now I know there are times in ministry when we’re called to roll with the punches from the enemy. Actually, there are times when we’re called to take a direct hit. I know it often feels like we have a ‘vulnerability’ because we can’t always defend ourselves, how we think we would, if it weren’t for the ministry we were protecting! But the Apostle Paul, who took more physical/spiritual/emotional blows than the average apostle of his time said, ‘…. our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us!’
God is no man’s debtor; He will not allow more than we can bear.
But boy I’m sure we’re going to say when we get to glory, ‘LORD, I would’ve taken MORE if I knew how good it was going to be here!!!!!’
What happened to the first martyr, Stephen in the Book of Acts?
I’m so glad you asked!
I’ll tell you what happened! God gave Stephen a little glimpse of heaven. As Stephen was dying, he said, ‘I see heaven open and the son of Man standing at the right side of God!’ And because of this vision he shouted out, as the enemy viscously pummelled him with rocks, “Lord, don’t blame them for what they’re doing!” In other words, “Forgive them Jesus! Hallelujah! This is nothing compared to what I’m about to experience in paradise!!!
So, firstly, the apple refers to that precious coloured section of the eye, the iris, (the part that is well protected) where, and this is point two (this is the secondly), where the reflection of people can be seen.
Where the reflection of people can be seen!
The apple also denotes people’s reflection.
Let’s look at my beautiful Toby again….
We can see Uncle Robert in the iris of Toby’s eye because Toby was watching, he was looking at, Uncle Robert.
You watch the people you love.
Our eyes are attracted to view what we consider ‘treasure’!
The people you love take up the space in your iris.
My youngest daughter, Diana, gave birth to her first-born son, Harvey, in the year I wrote this sermon. And I observed, at that time, that Harvey very quickly became the apple of her eye because Harvey’s reflection was in her eye, all the time. Morning, noon and night.
Not even her beloved husband, Robert, would get the look that Harvey got in those early days (now Harvey gets the look of death but not back then when he was a newborn he had Diana’s loving, protective look).
Put simply, the husband Robert didn’t get the eye space he used to before Harvey.
For Diana, it became all about Harvey.
Harvey, Harvey, Harvey was the apple of her eye. He literally was, because he was in it most of the time.
Sorry men, when the baby comes along that’s how it is with women.
You were number one once, but you’re not anymore. The baby is the all-important one for a good SEASON, (quite possibly for the rest of your life) so get used to it.
Actually, Robert, my son in law, relayed a funny story to me when around the time Harvey was born.
Robert has an identical twin brother, Michael, who has four young children of his own. And Michael took it upon himself to give Robert an important parental tip…
He advised Robert, that when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night, under no circumstances must you give it ANY EYE CONTACT. Avoid eye contact at all cost! Because once you look into their crying eyes, ‘they’ know they HAVE you. So, when attending the crying infant, in the middle of the night, just quickly pick it up, pat it but then put it down with your head turned away avoiding all eye contact. That’s dads for you!
But most mums, would be looking into their baby’s eyes to reassure them, to let them know they’re not on their own, that mummy loves them!
The good news is, church, God watches you in the same way a mum would watch her baby, because His church is fully reflected in His iris all the time.
He sees His Church, His spotless bride and He loves you with an everlasting love. The LORD loves and protects His people by holding them close to His heart.
King David got this, he fully understood how God loves and watches over his own.
In Psalm 17:6-8 it says, I call on You, my God, for You will answer me; turn Your ear to me and hear my prayer. Show me the wonders of Your great love, You who save by Your right hand those who take refuge in You from their foes. Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings
David said, ‘Keep me, as the apple of Your eye.’
‘Keep me as the apple of Your eye’
Congregation, listen to me, if you know the LORD Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, then you are the apple of His eye, He watches over you all the time and He protects You with His outstretched arm.
That’s good news.
You’ve got nothing to lose, but everything to gain by believing this
And this is absolute truth.
“…whoever touches you touches the apple of His eye”
A beautiful old hymn goes something like this…
Why should I feel discouraged?
Why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart feel lonely?
And long for heaven and home
When Jesus is my portion
A constant friend is he
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches over me
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches me
That’s a fact Jack!
Okay, so for our peace of mind, in this tumultuous world, doing the work we’re doing, we need to constantly remind ourselves of this fact…
WE ARE THE APPLE OF HIS EYE.
But in return, God has a request from YOU.
And I’m closing with this people so lend me your ears for just a few more minutes…
God says in Proverbs 7:2
‘…guard My teachings as the apple of your eye.’
‘…guard My teachings as the apple of your eye.’ Or as the Message paraphrase puts it,
‘My teaching is as precious as your eyesight—guard it!’
Often, we want to hear and know AND BE REASURED concerning how much God watches over us.
But the truth is, we need to keep Him as the apple of our eye.
We need to focus our gaze on His word all the time, so that His words are reflected from our iris constantly. We need to LOVE, CHERISH AND PROTECT His truth in our hearts. When you do this, then to believe you’re the apple of His eye, is easy!
It’s a given!
It’s not hard to believe!
Keep Him central to your focus, not the work you do for Him.
It’s an excellent work, it’s a very important work, but it’s NOT as important as Him.
Keep Him central, seek Him, look at Him FIRST and foremost and then ALL your cares will be dealt with accordingly.
Amen?
Let us pray,
Heavenly Father, we thank you that we are the apple of YOUR eye. But Lord, help us to keep YOU central to our vision. May we never turn away for even seemingly worthy causes. For you have provided the answer to every single problem we could possibly face in this world – the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
JESUS is the answer, so it is YOU we look upon ALL the time. Amen