John 9:1-12

Brother David, we got some young men I'm

going to be encouraging to point them towards the

Gideon's ministry.

Do you know I'll pay in the website?

Is it Gideon's Ministry International.org?

Gideon,

uh, Gideon, adopted.

Just Google it.

Google it.

Google, gig it.

All right, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to

John chapter 9 and verse number one.

Thank you so much, brother David, again.

for being with us this morning.

And we're turning to

a new chapter today, and this verse

by verse study of the gospel of John, and we've

just finished a very intense chapter

8, as you know, with much of chapter

8 being Jesus in confrontation

with the Jewish leadership in Israel.

And those are actually some of my favorite scenes

in the gospel of John.

But as we

come to this chapter, number nine, there's

a little bit of nuance that's added here,

and it tells us, in the ministry

of Jesus, where we are on the timeline,

is that we've passed a sort of

tipping point, if you will, and you're

going to see, in verse two,

the mention of the word disciples.

This is the first time that

Jesus' disciples have been mentioned

in this particular setting of Jesus'

ministry in Jerusalem, as he's come now to Jerusalem,

because he's been focusing

on the crowds, he's been focusing on the leadership, he's

been declaring who he is, he's been

having all of that supported by the incredible

miracles that he's done.

But as I've been telling you through chapter

8, right now on the timeline, we're about six

months away from the cross.

And the overall

rejection of the people of Israel has

become very clear at this point.

And now, we start to see Jesus shift

toward giving more of his attention to his disciples.

In these last months,

He wants to make sure that he's

answering their questions, and that he's equipping

them for what's fixing to happen after he

goes back to heaven in his ascension.

So, in one sense, he has tipped across the

edge, and now he's on the downslope,

away from the attention more to

the crowds and the nation of Israel and the

religious leaders, and as you know, the religious

leaders have long ago made up their mind about it.

And as he focuses in on

these disciples to prepare them.

This is not to say that the rest of

this portion of scripture that he doesn't impact the people,

and he doesn't impact the leaders as he did, but I want you to notice

this new emphasis, and we're going to

do that by starting to read these first 12 verses, and

really, the entire ninth chapter

is built around this one miracle.

Most of the chapters given to the discussion of this miracle.

But, since it's so lengthy, we're going

to have to break it down in parts, we're not going to be able to do it all here today.

But let's just start with our text for today, and read verses

one through 12.

The Bible says as

he passed by, he saw a

man blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him.

Rabbi, who sent?

This man, or his parents,

that he would be born blind.

Jesus answered, it was neither that

this man sinned nor his parents, but

it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

We must work

the works of him who sent me as long as it is day.

Night is coming, when

no one can work.

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had said this, he spat on the ground,

and made clay of the spittle, and applied the

clay to his eyes, and said to him, Go, wash

in the pool of Saloam, which is translated, sent.

So he went away and washed and came back, seeing.

Therefore, the neighbors, and those who previously

saw him as a beggar, were saying, Is not

this the one who used to sit and beg?

Others were saying, This is he.

Still, others were saying, no, but he is like him.

He kept saying, I am the one.

So they were saying to him, How then were

your eyes opened?

He answered, The man who is called Jesus.

made clay, and anointed

my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash.

So I went away and washed, and I received sight.

They said to him, Where is he?

He said, I do not know.

And we're going to stop right there.

For now, in this story, and I want you to think about it.

Sickness, disease,

deformity, death,

have all dominated life in

this world since the follow of Adam.

And what does that mean?

That means all of human history, right?

It touches all of us.

Nobody likes to think about it.

But we are all,

right now, here today, in the process of dying.

We are all infected

and affected by

the corruption that came about

because of the fall in the garden.

And if you go through the Old Testament,

all of the corrupt influences

of physical life in this world were just

as normal and uninterrupted

back then, as they are today, but

also throughout the whole Old Testament, go and

scan every book, you will find that

miraculous healing in the Old

Testament was actually very rare.

In the whole Old Testament, you

only have six occasions where the actual

physical miracle of healing took place,

only six, like the healing of Naaman, the leper, in 1 Kings.

Now that covers a whole lot of years.

And when you come to the New Testament,

there are a couple of physical miracles

on their own, like Elizabeths, barren her whole life,

she's enabled to have a baby, then, of course, marry, right?

Not with a healing, but the miracle of the virgin birth.

And you would think that in all of the

world, where there

would most likely be miraculous

healings, it would be where

God is most active, right?

I mean, the nation of Israel.

And all through the history of Israel, think about your Old Testament.

God was acting.

God was working.

He was working through prophets.

He was working through the fathers, but in all of that period of

history, as I said, where God was acting.

Miracles of healing rarely happen.

Extremely rare occasions did we see it.

until Jesus

showed up on this earth.

And when Jesus showed up.

miracles of physical

healing, literally exploded

in every direction throughout a

three year period of time.

By the way, Jesus did no miracle for

the first 30 years of his life.

Now, how do I know that?

Well, we know that, because when he turned 30,

And he went to the wedding in Cana, and he turned the water into wine.

What does the Bible say?

The Bible says, that was his first miracle.

At that wedding?

So those stupid books about Jesus bringing

birds back to life when he was a kid, and the

Gnostic Gospels, the Holy Grail, and Jesus was married,

and he went to Europe, and all of that garbage.

Every bit of that is lies.

Don't even read any of that.

So, all

that to say, we just don't see, many

miraculous healings, physical healings

in history, till you come to the life and ministry

of Jesus, all of a sudden, miraculous

healings are happening for these three year time period

on a daily, regular basis, and

intercourse, this is intended by God.

to demonstrate that the

Messiah, the Son of God, God in human flesh,

has arrived in the world.

I mean, you would think that when God came to earth,

in the person of Jesus Christ, in

the form of a man, there'd be some miraculous things happening, right?

Doesn't that make sense?

And as we've studied, all of these healings were

supernatural in nature.

These miracles

of Jesus were creative miracles.

There were people with

deformed limbs, they were given new limbs.

There were people with diseased organs.

They're given new organs, they're people with absolutely,

totally blind, useless eyes, and they're given new eyes.

Each of those.

It was a creative work.

Taking something that was corrupted,

deformed, and diseased, and literally replacing

it with something brand new.

There was no natural explanation

for the miracles of Jesus.

There was no medical explanation.

They were definitely not psychosomatic,

or any of those Benny the Hen kind

of categories of healing that we see on television.

These were divine, supernatural

and they were instantaneous.

They were transforming, they were creative miracles.

They were done by a word or a touch, and when they happened,

they happened instantly, and they happened completely.

There's never been anything

like it in the history of the world before

or since.

And as I said, it all exploded.

in a three year window of time.

The prophet Isaiah said, Messiah

would come, and when it came, he would heal.

The New Testament, really,

think about this, just gives us a small window,

just a little glimpse of the

totality of the miracles of Jesus because remember

what John says later, if everything that Jesus did was recorded?

The whole books of the world couldn't

contain all that happened.

So we have the privilege here in chapter

9, of looking closely,

at one of the literally thousands of miracles

that Jesus did when he was here.

And we're going to examine this miracle, alongside

some unbelievers.

And we're going to find out how unbelief investigates

a miracle.

I mean, this miracle alone, just

this one, should have, substantially

change the view of Jesus that

people had who were at that time rejecting him, including the leaders.

If they hadn't already understood that he

was divine, this miracle should

have been enough by itself to

affirm his deity, but

instead of coming to faith.

Instead of acknowledging

that there was absolutely no human explanation

whatsoever for what they were seeing right

in front of their face and what they were experiencing, the rejection

just continued, and the animosity

of the Jewish leaders just continued to rise.

And so, as I said, the inevitable starts to happen.

Jesus starts to pull away.

And that's why we see the introduction

of conversations, not so much with the

Pharisees, as with the disciples from here on

out in the Gospel of John.

It's a sad and

tragic fulfillment of what we learned in the first

chapter of this Gospel of John.

He came unto his own.

and his own, his own people,

received him not.

Now, as I said, chapter 9

is devoted to one miracle and its investigation,

whole chapter, and we're going to take a number of sermons,

to break all of this down, and today, as I said, we're

going to cover verses one to 12,

And in these verses, I've got for you a very

simple outline.

OK?

This will be points of contact for you to follow along as we work our way through these verses.

Point number one is going to be darkness.

Part number two is going to be light.

Point number 3 is going to be site,

and point number 4 is going to go back to

darkness, OK?

So let's start with darkness, number one.

Look at verse one.

As he passed by, he

saw a man blind from birth.

Now, you have to understand, blindness was very

common back in New Testament times.

Same in the Old Testament.

It's mentioned many times in both the Old and New Testament.

It was a dominating reality in the ancient world.

And Jesus comes upon this man.

Remember, this is out right after he's coming out of the temple,

when the last text that we looked at, he's coming out of the temple, and

he comes upon this man who is congenitally blind.

He's been blind his whole life.

He's never seen anything.

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine never having seen

anything but darkness your whole life?

You hear sound?

You hear people talking?

You have no earthly idea whatsoever what they look like.

None whatsoever.

I can't even imagine that.

And just to remember where we are and what

the picture is, Jesus has just finished declaring

in chapter 8, before Abraham was, I am.

The name of God.

I am, he told the religious leaders.

He just told him, I am God.

And they were so infuriated by what he said.

Remember, they picked up the stones to throw at him, but

some kind of way which we don't understand, he hid himself and got out of that temple.

So, right after that scene, he's

walking out of the temple, and along the way

as he's walking out of the temple, he passed by.

Look at verse one again.

He saw a man blind from birth.

Now, this man would have been sitting at

one of the temple gates begging, as

Jesus passed by him.

We know that, because that's where all the beggars went.

They all ended up at the temple gates.

And we must note that even though Jesus

is in a high risk,

dangerous situation coming out of what he just left from, because,

I mean, he's escaping, being stoned to death at that moment, he

still stops, to demonstrate grace,

to demonstrate power and mercy,

and compassion, and as we're going to see, even salvation,

upon a blind beggar.

Now, the lame and the blind came

to the temple to beg on purpose, because that's where the crowds were.

They also knew that

that's where the most devout people would be.

The good folks, right?

The people with compassion, and also people were going

there to make sacrifices.

So at that moment, as they're going to the temple, they'd

be conscious of their sin, and people feeling guilty about sin,

are more likely to be generous, right?

I mean, we get that.

I mean, that's human nature.

Not to mention the fact that, sadly,

you have people trying to earn

their salvation with God, through the false Jewish

system of religion, and they were taught by the rabbis,

Hey, part of your deal is, you got to give these alms.

And so then you also just have the sheer

volume of human beings all day long.

So, I mean, look, the beggars knew where to be.

Now, this particular beggar.

He can't see Jesus at all.

He has no idea what a human being looks like, as I said.

He's never seen anything in his life, ever.

But it says, Jesus saw him.

It's sovereign

grace that dominates this miracle

we're fixing to look at.

The blind man here is

such a very clear picture

of a spiritually blind, natural

man who has no capacity in and

of himself to see salvation on his own, no capacity

to see the Savior as he is.

I mean the analogy here, folks,

is irresistible.

The New Testament uses this analogy in many places.

How many times do you hear?

Paul talk about spiritual blindness, right?

In fact, the gospels record more

cases of blind people being healed than

any other specific malady.

There are five separate accounts of

blind people in the gospels.

So what could possibly be a

better illustration than man's

naturally lost condition in

being blind?

The blind man is

helpless, from the very start, where he sits.

He is at the total mercy.

of somebody who comes

to him and chooses

to help him.

He's like us.

In our naturally lost condition.

God has to take the initiative.

God has to move first upon us through Christ.

That's how grace on merited

favor operates.

Naturally, we are blind.

We can't see Christ.

We can't see spiritual truth.

We have no capacity for it in and of ourselves.

But God always sees us.

And he comes to us with grace.

He comes to us with compassion, and

he bestows upon us spiritual sight.

So that's point number one, darkness there in verse one.

Let's look at point number two, light, starting with verse two.

And his disciples asked him, Rabbi,

who sinned?

This man, or his parents, that he

would be born, Bly.

And that tells you right away where

their theology was in this subject matter.

If something's wrong with you, it's a sin issue,

not an indirect one, but a direct one.

Now, we can

all agree that everybody's illness, whenever you

have an illness, whether it's a cold or cancer,

it is related in the biggest picture

to the fall of Adam, right?

We all understand that.

That's part of the curse.

We get sick, we get disease, we die, but

you cannot make a

direct link between, I'm sick

right now, because two months ago I committed a sin.

But in their theology, that's how it worked.

If you were deformed or diseased,

or you had some kind of illness, it was because of some kind

of direct sin that you had committed, not

because you're just a fallen person living in a fallen

world, and as a result of the curse, people get sick.

They get diseased and have deformity on

a regular basis, but then notice in verse two.

Again, they asked, Who sinned?

This man or his parents?

That was what they had developed.

People were ill, or diseased,

or deformed, were that way, because either here's

the deal, either they sinned, or their parents stand.

The rabbis were convinced

that the sins of the parents were

visited upon the children, and where they got

that was from a serious misinterpretation

of Exodus Chapter 20.

And we're going to come to that in just a few minutes.

But they believed that

parent's sin could show up

in their children's guilt

and punishment.

I mean, they also made

a direct connection between suffering and sin in

the life of a person.

You remember the story of Job, right?

You remember his good buddies?

They came to see him.

Job hadn't done anything wrong.

And he's enduring overwhelming

suffering, more than any of us probably ever will, for

sure, and his friends come up, chapter after chapter, and

they're trying to indict him in that book,

and make him guilty so they can find his

sin as the direct cause for his suffering.

But we know the story.

It wasn't.

But that was ingrained in

the theology of the rabbis.

Even with this particular man, how

could his sin, his particular sin,

make him born into

this world blind?

When they say, Was it this man whose sinned,

how could he have sinned when he was a fetus?

Now, of course, I'm not talking about original

sin.

We were all born or even in the womb,

where we have original sin, because we're descendants of Adam.

I'm talking about practical sin.

We are talking about actual sin committed.

I kid you not, the rabbis even

developed this idea of actual prenatal

iniquity in the womb.

And it gets crazy if you look into it.

One of the rabbis took from Genesis

4, sin lies at the door, and he

made the door, to refer to the door of the womb.

So he interpreted that as some kind

of great insight into actual prenatal

iniquity by the baby.

Another one argued that the baby was actually sitting in the womb, he'd be kicking harder.

The mama.

I mean, it's just insane.

On the other hand, they

also believed that the children suffered

from the parents' sin.

You know where they got this from?

Look at it with me.

Exodus, chapter 20, verse 5.

Look on your screen.

or in your Bible.

I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the

children on the 3rd and 4th generation.

Now, you may have even heard

this in our day.

You ever heard about generational

curses, our crazy,

charismatic friends, believe, some of

them, that there are cursed children and cursed whole generations.

And it's pretty incredible, actually,

to think that even in our day, they have this notion

that you could somehow be

paying right now for the sins of your parents or

your ancestors, based off this verse.

Well, I'm here to clear this up for you today without question.

What does Exodus 20 verse 5 mean?

What does it mean?

It's pretty simple.

It's actually a collective statement.

The sins of the fathers is what it says.

What that means there is the leaders,

the heads of a generation, the

sins that they commit in time, those

sins define that generation are

so influential that they can't be

reversed or rooted out for three or four generations.

In other words, they define the culture in

any given society.

Think about the '60s we've talked about, how

that generation's sinned, what it has spawned since then.

There's a principle here that this verse is establishing.

It's not saying that individual sins

for three or four generations of kids, grandkids,

and great grandkids are going to be cursed.

That is not what this verse is saying.

It is saying, as a whole, You

better take care of your generation, because

if your generation is characterized by

overwhelming sin, it's going to take three or four generations,

at least, to turn that around.

Think about that, and what this generation is we're living in right now.

Think about it.

What we got going

on in this culture right now?

Does this turn around fast?

No.

Unless there's massive revival, and God works

to really convert millions of people at one

time, what this generation right now,

it don't turn around quick.

That's what this verse is talking about.

Now I want you to make sure you get this.

All right?

So I'm going to give you an example of what the Bible is saying in

a positive direction about this.

I want to show you a passage that deals directly with

this issue, so you make sure you know why,

Brother Philip said this morning, that degenerational cursors aren't really what we think they are.

Look at Ezekiel 18.

Versus 1 to 2.

Ezekiel says, Then the

word of the Lord came to me, saying, What do you mean

by using this proverb concerning the land

of Israel, saying, The fathers eat the

sour grapes, but the children's teeth are set on edge.

That's the proverb.

The proverb is that the children suffer

the consequence of the behavior of the parents, but

look what God says.

Next in verse three.

As I live, declares the Lord, you

are surely not going to use this proverb

in Israel anymore.

Very clear.

Stop using it, and then look

down in verse 20, where he explains.

The person whose sins will die.

The Son will not bear the

punishment for the Father's iniquity, nor will

the Father bear the punishment for the Son's iniquity, the

righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and

the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.

Forget the generational cursive stuff.

Okay?

Individual responsibility, period,

paragraph, end of sentence, that's false doctrine.

If you misinterpret Exodus 20.

Y'all with me?

You understand.

Got a question?

Ask me after church.

But in this corrupted Jewish

theology, they had still developed

this system where generations could be cursed.

Now go back to verse John chapter 9.

So that's why they're asking this question.

Did the man sin?

Did he sin in the womb?

Because he was born blind.

Or did his parents sin?

And did that cause him to be born by?

Jesus responds next.

Verse 3.

Jesus answered, because

Jesus knows Ezekiel 2.

It was neither that this man sinned,

nor his parents.

Now, let me tell you something.

Just that one statement, Jesus has completely obliterated

the whole false theological system of generational

curses right there, because he's clearly saying that

a person can have a severe, congenital,

lifelong illness, and that has absolutely nothing to do

with his own sin or the sins of his parents.

Could Jesus be any clearer, I think, not?

You can't make that conclusion, Jesus is saying.

And that wipes out their whole system.

Here is the reason.

that this man is blind.

Look next.

But it was so that the works

of God might be displayed in him.

He's blind?

Well, the glory of God.

He's blind, so

that we could come to this very moment, at

this very gate, and this very healing,

and have the power of God put on display, and

later, this story is going to be written down, and

it's going to be remembered throughout all the rest of human

history, and we're reading it again right here in 2026

on Hooper Road, Providence Baptist, and God is

going to be glorified by this story.

That's the reason.

Not

all disease, not all defect, not all

suffering comes from

personal sin, but listen to me very carefully.

Make no mistake about it.

It can.

You can be a genuine

believer, genuinely regenerated.

And if you just keep on in a continuing pattern of

unending sin as a pattern of your life,

the Lord might make you weak, he might make

you sick, he might even take your life.

How do I know that?

Well, you ought to know it, because we review it every time we have the Lord's Supper.

Huh?

They were acting up, getting crazy, and corn?

And what did Paul say?

That's the reason why some of you are weak.

Some of you are sick.

Some of you sleep.

You died.

The Lord took you out.

But at the same time, at the

same time, you can't necessarily make that connection,

are you going to be like one of Job's friends?

trying to find out something that wasn't there?

So, this isn't about the

blind man's parents.

Were they sinful?

Well, yeah, they were.

Is this man a sinner?

The blind man?

Of course he is.

But this has nothing to do with that.

There are some really healthy sinners in the world.

I mean, have you noticed?

And some of them who are really bad people

are very healthy for a very long time.

George Soros, and at the

same time, there are some really sick

true believers who are suffering

right this minute, immensely in

this life, and they are very faithful to the Lord,

no matter what happens.

So, folks, I'm telling you, that's just people down here in

responsibility, and you can't make those connections.

Stay in your lane,

while God owns every

lane and knows and ordains every reason for every

circumstance that exists.

Just let him be God, and you be you.

So Jesus just cuts the bottom out

of all this era in their theology.

And he says, hey, this is about the works of God.

The purpose of this man's blindness is

to reveal the miraculous power of God, through

the Son of God, to substantiate his claims,

to be the Messiah, to be God

himself, which he had just finished doing in the temple.

He's fixing to do a creative miracle so

that it becomes very clear to everybody that he

is the one who creates, as John

starts out in chapter one, telling us.

He created everything there is to be created.

The blind man is

a prepared vessel to put God on display

through Christ, and so without any more

theological discussion, Jesus moves on.

Verse 4.

We must work the works of him who

sent me as long as it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

So it's good to have theological discussion.

I love having theological discussion, but sooner or later,

you need to go to work with your theology.

He's not going to stand there with him

and debate theology anymore.

Jesus said, it's time to go to work.

Now, when he says, night is coming when no one can work.

He's not talking about physical night.

He's not talking about nighttime when the stars come out.

I want you to notice in verse 4, also, how it starts with the

word we.

You see that?

We must work the works of him who

sent me, and I want to unpack this we for just a minute.

Back in chapter 5,

if you think back, you remember what Jesus said.

I work, and the Father works, remember?

The Father and I work together.

I do what the Father does.

And they wanted to stone him just for that, because why?

He was making himself equal with God at that moment.

remember that?

Here, he pulls

in the disciples with the word, we.

We are called together to the works of him who

sent me as long as it is day.

And what does that mean?

It is day.

It's not literal daytime.

Daylight, what he

means here, is lifetime.

There is a far greater spiritual

implication here, Church.

Death, right now, as I've told

you, is looming on the horizon for Jesus.

He's got about six months left on Earth at this very moment.

And the disciples, even some of them, don't

have very long, just a few years before they're martyred.

The big picture reality here is we

only have a brief time here on the Earth.

This is not a time to get bogged

down and caught up in theological debates.

It's time for us for we to go

to work.

Look what he in verse 4.

He says, night is coming.

You know what that means?

The end of your life is coming.

That's what he means.

Night is coming when no one can work.

There ain't one of us in here that knows

how much time we have left.

This might be our last day right here today.

Don't say it can't be.

There's not 100% degree of accuracy that you will be

here tomorrow at this time.

There's not ever a 100% degree of accuracy that that's true.

What do we have left, months?

Years?

I have no idea.

Neither do you.

I find that fascinating to think about.

But we're all included in the we right here.

We must work the works of

the one who sent me as long as it is day.

What is Jesus saying?

As long as we have life and breath.

Because night is coming.

What is he saying?

Death is coming for all of us.

And when we get there, and we

look back, what will we

have done in this one life that God gave us,

to advance the kingdom of God?

In Ephesians 5, remember back, not

long ago, Paul emphasized, look at it.

Making the most of your time,

because the days are evil.

So it's begging the question, What are you doing with your time?

What are you doing with your life?

This is a call

to every Christian as long as it is day,

as long as you're living here, to get into the business

of doing things with your time, your attention, that

have eternal value, that advance

the kingdom of God, stop being so focused

on things that have no eternal value

at all is what the implication is here.

Get hand in hand with the king, and go serve

the king with your life, be about his business instead

of your business, because night is coming.

Death is coming.

And after you're dead, you can't do any of his works,

that you have lifetime here to do on Earth.

And once death is here, we'll no longer have the

privilege that it is to be on mission for our king.

And so Jesus here knows.

Depths just months away from me.

He says, Next, verse 5.

While I am in the world, I

am the light of the world.

But that's only for a little while longer for him here.

He will always be the light in one sense,

but it'll never shine as brightly as it did

for those three years on the Earth until, of course, he

comes again, and that's just for one event.

He is saying to them, I

must use my power and my light while I

am still here, and he's going to use his power to

give a blind man physical light,

but more importantly, as we're going to see, he gives this man.

spiritual light.

So he skipped down to verse 38, just, let's just

skip ahead and see for a second.

What's the man say?

Lord, I believe.

And he worshiped him.

So he not only heals the blind man.

He saves the blind man from his sin.

He gives him physical light, so he can see the

world around him that he's never seen before, and then he gives him

spiritual sight, so he can see God

and Christ as he truly is.

So number one, to darkness, number two, the light.

Next we come thirdly, verses 6 to 7, to cite.

Look in verses 6 to 7.

When he had said this, he

spat on the ground, and made clay

of the spittle, and applied the clay to

his eyes, and said to him, Go, wash in

the pool of Siloam, which is translated, sent.

So he went away and washed, and came back, see.

Now, if you read the commentaries

on the Bible, the question comes up,

why did he use this method?

I mean, he did it a few times, and Mark,

he did this, and he put it on somebody's ears, and

he did the same thing with the clay and the spill on another blind

person, and the commentaries come up

with some very interesting suggestions.

One says to make use of the healing quality of saliva.

I mean really?

Another one says, to make him even more blind.

What?

You can't be more blind than totally blind.

Popping mud on eyes that

don't function, don't make you more blind.

Another writer says, To

symbolize that man is made from dirt.

Come on, man.

Another one said to give the eyes

time to heal.

Those eyes didn't need to heal.

They needed to be replaced.

So forget all those.

Why did he use this method?

I have no idea.

And

since it doesn't specifically say, guess what?

I'm good with not needing to know.

why this method was used.

But there is something that I do understand.

Jesus could

have just touched his eyes.

Jesus could have just thought it.

Jesus could have just said it, and instantaneously he would have seen.

So why does he do this?

And then send him off to the pool to wash?

Well, John MacArthur, I think, has a good insight here.

He says, I think he's calling for obedience here.

I think he's calling for

this man to submit.

Remember, the man doesn't

know who's talking to him.

He's never seen anybody.

But he obeys.

And he goes and does what Jesus says.

Look at verse 7, he went away and washed

and came back seeing.

Why does he do this?

I mean, look, in any ordinary circumstance, if somebody

came up to this guy and put some spit and some mud on

his eyes, he would probably just strike out on him,

call, help, man!

What's going on here, right?

That might be normal.

But he doesn't do that.

He's immediately obedient.

And I think that

that gives evidence of the start of

what we know happens later that I read to you in verse 38,

where he believes, could this be the start of

the effectual call, and regeneration, new

life bursting upon his dead spirit?

Could it be that spark of faith, ignited in his heart,

and the spirit of God began to change him on

the inside, and in all come on, that's again?

again?

Look at verse 38, where he says, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him.

Are these the 1st workings of the

power of the Holy Spirit, to draw this man, to

submit to Christ in action?

I think the evidence is pretty good that it is.

This is how salvation works, isn't it?

Sovereign grace confronts

a blind, helpless, hopeless,

begging, sinner, who can on his own see God.

He can't see Christ, but sovereign grace comes

to him, and only a response of simple faith is what is.

asked.

And then that response happens.

And you find your way to the

cleansing waters, like I did in 1997.

This is another great analogy we have.

John uses it time and time again of the cleansing waters.

And he comes back, and he can see, not

only with his physical eyes, but brand

new spiritual eyes to be able to see the

glory of God.

And that leads us up to the last little part of our opening.

Now we come to this fourth part, this point going

back to the darkness.

Why do I say it that way?

Well, because everybody around this man and what

just happened is in the dark.

about what's going on.

Check out the neighbors.

You ready for the names?

Look at them in verse 8.

Therefore the neighbors.

And those who previously saw him as a beggar

were saying, is not this the one who used to

sit and beg?

So, pretty clear, this was a

daily deal for him for his survival, same beggar, always in the same place.

They all knew him.

But they can't explain.

It can't even process, wait a minute, how

is this guy all of a sudden able to see, verse 9?

Others were saying, This is he.

Still, others were saying, no, but

he is like him.

I mean, he just looks like him, but that can't be him.

And then looks next.

He kept saying.

I am the one.

Y'all don't need to debate.

I'm the used to be blind guy.

That's me.

And we can't even begin to imagine the rest of that conversation.

As he tried to explain,

I've never seen anything in my whole life, and now I

can see, and everything in front of me is technicolor.

I didn't even know what that was.

Verse 10!

So they were saying to him, How were your

eyes open, verse 11, he answered, The

man who is called Jesus, made clay, and

anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to Salom

and wash, so I went away and washed, and receive my sight.

So, obviously, somebody did tell him Jesus' name.

Because he says, the man who was called Jesus,

and then he doesn't explain, how it happened, he just

explains that it did, and what he went and did.

And there is no human explanation for how it happened.

You understand that?

This is a creative miracle.

Jesus created brand new two eye right here.

So the man can only describe the experience.

Look at verse 12.

They said to him, Where is he?

He said, I do not know.

Can you imagine asking

this guy, Where is he?

He could have said, Where's where?

I'm never seen where or anything else.

I don't know where anything is.

Are you seriously asking me for directions?

This is my first day ever to see.

So this darkness ensues and

falls over everybody.

How are they going to dispel this darkness?

What are they gonna do about this?

Well, verse 13,

What the Jewish mind knew to do?

They brought to the Pharisees,

the man who was formerly blind.

Oh, let's go to the experts.

And this is where unbelief

starts to investigate a miracle

with a predictable result from this crew.

This is just a fantastic account.

Jesus, healing a blinding

which so clearly illustrates the salvation process,

We sat blinded by sin.

We couldn't see God.

We couldn't see Christ.

We had no capacity on our own to desire

Christ, or even recognize him.

We had no possible way of initiating

any kind of delivery from sin or rescue, and

then God, in his mercy and grace through Christ, found us.

That's how salvation reaches out

to us first, in our blindness, and gives us sight.

And all he asks is

a simple act of faith, belief, which he empowers,

which he gives as a gift, and he watches us,

and we forever see.

And that's what's going to happen to this man.

First, physical sight, then soul

blindness is removed.

And we're going to get deeper into that next time.

But you got to come back if you want to hear the rest of the story.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord.

Every single account in

the gospels is extraordinary.

What grace?

You have given us.

to take us back when we read your word 2,000

years ago to this very human

transaction between Jesus and this blind man.

We get to be right there to experience it all

again, afresh and anew.

Every single time we read your word, illuminated

by the Holy Spirit to all believers, Lord.

I just thank you for this word.

I thank you for the picture.

that it represents.

I pray, Father, that we would gain, even

a deeper understanding of how it works from what we've heard today,

and as always, if there are any here, who have not

bowed any to Christ in salvation.

I pray for you to draw them, that they would seek the Lord,

and not let him go until you've given the peace that you have saved.

We pray that all this has been done such a way today.

It's your worship service to bring you maximum glory.

Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen.