The Healing of the Blind Man — John 9-10

0:00 Okay. Let's bow our heads. We'll ask the lord for blessing. Father god, we do thank you for the lord Jesus Christ. We thank you father that you sent your own son into this world.

0:12 We thank you for the wonderful testimony he had as he lived a perfect and holy life and also a a life that exhibited the the very power of god himself and so we we thank you for the lord Jesus and thank you father that it took him all the way to the cross and that he died for our sins. Pray that you'd be with us today as we meditate on the lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Okay.

0:45 So, my message today is going to be from John chapter nine, the story of or the account of of the healing of the blind man. And so before I actually jump into it, I just want to summarize the chapter. The first five verses of the chapter are introductory verses. Then you have the miracle itself in verses six and seven, just two verses, the whole miracles is in two verses. And then then from the ninth verse on, the eighth verse rather on, is the ripple effect of the miracle.

1:31 How how did it affect different people and and how was God using that miracle to the blessing of a soul? So, start out with with the first verse. Well, I'm gonna read the first five verses. Now, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth and his disciples asked him saying, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?

2:01 Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. So that's kind of the introductory remarks to the miracle.

2:24 The first thing we're introduced is to the blind man himself. He blind from birth. And if we go down, I believe it's the eighth verse, it says that he was the one who sat and begged. So being blind in those days were probably quite a bit different from today. Today there's so many resources and training resources and help for the blind, in those days you were in deep trouble if you were handicapped in this way.

3:01 And so this man was blind. Now, as I recall from my own childhood, I remember as a teenage boy, early teens, riding with my brother Jim, downtown Paducah. We felt like we were really big guys. Folks trusted us to ride all the way downtown, And in a certain part of downtown there were some pawn shops. It might give you an idea of the part of town that we were in.

3:40 But there were some pawn shops, not maybe the highest grade part of town. We were just curious walking around town. Leading up against one of those stores, there was a man. And that man had a little tin cup sitting on the ground beside him. And when you looked in his face, his eyes were grotesque.

4:04 I don't remember exactly, I just remember the impression. I don't remember whether it was hollow eyed or whether they were just twisted something. But I just remember the effect on my heart of, well, I suppose it was sort of a sympathy, at the same time, maybe a little bit of a horror of it. But I do remember this, that I had a coin in my pocket, and that as a young kid, I went up and I dropped that coin into the tin cup. I can almost remember still the of the clunk, the tinkle trunk clunk as it went down and hit the bottom of that cup.

4:48 And man said, God bless you. But I just, the memory of a child. But something about the helplessness, perhaps hopelessness of the condition of the man. God uses blindness as a spiritual picture of the condition of mankind before he's saved. Now, I'm just gonna get one verse to get the idea, because I just want our minds to be going a certain direction.

6:04 It's talking about Satan. He's the one that's blinded their eyes so that they wouldn't believe. And then in the sixth verse, it gives the solution to that. It is God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. He's shown into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

6:27 So the gospel then is able to free us from that spiritual blindness. So having kind of, my attempt is to kind of set an idea in our minds so that as we go down through this chapter, we might apply, realize that here's a man that was actually physically blind and he was physically healed, wonderfully so, and it was a great witness for God. But it's also a picture of our own situation. Lest it be thought that that is an exaggeration of it, when you get to the last three verses of the chapter, the Lord Jesus himself makes the application. He talks about the blindness of the Pharisees.

7:14 Okay, so with that start, the second verse says, His disciples ask him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Now, if you're a little bit like me, you would say, that's a pretty strange question. For instance, how could a man's own sense, if he was born blind, how could he be responsible for being blind because of his sins? So maybe it shows a mindset of the Jews. I suppose the mindset was that, look, something's wrong, somebody must have done something really bad or it wouldn't be this way. Who done it?

7:57 So matter of fact, I'm gonna turn to verse 34 to kind of make that point because it bears itself out in the story. So in verses 30, I think it's 30 through 33, the blind man is standing up for Jesus. And the Pharisees are utterly indignant that this man should do this. And in the thirty fourth verse it says, They answered and said to him, you were completely born in sins. Are you teaching us?

8:30 And they cast him out of the temple. So you say, what? What? He says, well, you can see the mindset of them. This guy, there's something terribly wrong with him and they carried it far beyond just the fact he was blind.

8:52 Well, I guess we have to say that it shows the very blindness of the men who would make such a statement. Okay, so the disciples ask a question. They say, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And so Jesus answers this question. He says, Neither this man nor his parents were sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

9:22 Now it doesn't mean that the man or his parents had never sinned. It means they didn't do any sin that would cause the blindness. He's saying, you got it all wrong, folks, he was saying. That's not what happened. But there is a reason why this man was born blind.

9:43 And it's but that the works of God should be revealed in him. But that the works of God should be revealed in him. And my take on this is that God is saying here that he places the circumstances in our lives in such a way that he can reveal himself in those circumstances. In other words, the circumstances of our lives are like a window of opportunity for God to reveal himself in some unusual way. Let me give you just an example.

11:17 But God didn't permit it. And slowly she began to realize that God wasn't against her, God was actually for her. And a course of time, she became very greatly used of God as a witness to the wonder that God could bless us even when terrible things do happen to us. Sometime a number of years ago, Johnny Erickson taught, it was one of the speakers at the Moody's Founders Week. And I remember listening to her message over the radio, and I recall that she said this.

12:04 She said, You know, she said, I have come to realize that I have had much more opportunity to be able to serve the Lord and to glorify him in my disability than I ever would have had without it. She said, I've come to the point where I can actually, truly thank God that he allowed this accident to happen to me. Well, it takes a lot of going to get to that point, but I think it illustrates the point. This man, this blind man, also illustrates the point that the Lord Jesus was going to use this man as a way of revealing himself in a way that he couldn't have revealed himself without the man's situation, man's circumstances. Okay, then the next verse says, the Lord Jesus is speaking, I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.

13:08 The night is coming when no one can work. Now, I believe that the meaning of this is that the daytime of your life is your time that you're living here. The nighttime, when no man can work, that's when you pass out of this scene. So your life is looked at as a single day that you live for God. It's the, shall we say it's the daytime of your life.

13:38 And it would be your lifespan where God gives you honor, the opportunity. I could say it like this. My lifetime, that which God has given to each one of us, my lifetime is the window of opportunity that I'm given to do the works of God, to serve the God. When I leave this scene, it's not the end of the story, but it's the end of that phase of being able to serve the God in the way that we are allowed to serve him in this lifetime. Now, the Lord Jesus, he says it about himself.

14:18 I must work the works of him that sent me while this day. But then in the next statement, he generalizes to apply to all of us. Says the night is coming when no one can work. This In other is applicable to each one of us. We might say it like this.

14:36 This life that we're granted is our window of opportunity to serve the Lord. It's our window of opportunity to serve the Lord. Now the previous statement had said that our circumstances are the window of opportunity for God to reveal himself in us. Now it says, our lifetime is our window of opportunity to do the works of God, to serve him, and to bring glory to him. Kind of perhaps fulfilling the one that you mentioned earlier that the chief purpose of man is to glorify God.

15:41 It says, Jesus says, I've come a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. And that sense is the light of the world. But in the context here, he's just taken his previous statement and generalized it so it applies to all of us. And no man can work best when that nighttime of life comes. So I think probably his purpose was to generalize this one too, that we would realize that Jesus would say, I'm the light of the world.

16:14 As long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world. And the generalization would be, as long as we are in the world, we too must be lights in this world. It fits with the context that we've just been reading. And furthermore, it certainly, even if a person finds it difficult to plot right here in that sense, it certainly is a true statement that we are put as lights in this world. I'll just quote one verse for you.

16:40 It's from the Sermon on the Mount. So in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus said, you are the lights of the world. A city that's set on a hill cannot be hit. What is he saying? He's saying, you need to get your lights up there where everybody can see it.

17:01 It won't be hit if you put it up there where other people can see that you're standing for God. Sit, sit. And then he talks about putting the don't put your light under the bushel, let it shine. We love the little song, don't we? Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

17:18 So the Lord is bringing that thought out. Now he cinches the whole application by saying this. Let your light so shine before men that they may glorify your Father which is in heaven. That they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. So it's clearly that is the application that the Lord Jesus was making.

17:42 And I believe he's suggesting it even here. Well, with that introduction into kind of man's moral purposes for being here in the world, with that introduction, he jumps directly into the miracle. So that's just verses six and seven, so we'll just read that. When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva. And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay.

18:10 He said, go and wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated scent. So he went and washed and he came back seeing. That's it. That's the miracle. There's two verses in the miracle.

18:23 Now, I thought it was interesting that the man himself summarizes the miracle twice. So verse 11, He answered and said, a man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to the pool of Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and I received sight. That's his summary of it. Now again, the Pharisees ask him in the fifteenth verse, and he summarizes it there even more succinctly.

18:54 Says the fifteenth verse, The Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. And he said, he put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see. That's pretty succinct, isn't it? Pretty reduced to its elements. And perhaps if we want to kind of summarize this miracle, would just follow the man's example.

19:24 He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. So first of all, we have the condition of the man himself. He's blind, he's in a miserable condition. He needs help, right? He needs the help.

19:36 So we have that. And then he puts clay on my eyes. So let's look at how it says he did this, and I think it's rather interesting. When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and he made clay out of the saliva and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay. Now how would you like that?

19:55 How would you like if I were to spit on the ground and put a little clay on your eyes? Not likely, This would not be your choice of the way to do a thing. So maybe I could call it diminutive. There's something about this that would not build up your pride. Look at me, well, I'm looking at you, you have clay on your eyes.

20:22 So, why on earth, so the Lord Jesus tells him to go and wash, I'm just trying to visualize this. Like to kind of play with it a little bit and see how. So the man might have said, if he said, oh go and wash, he might have said, you know, sir, I have washed my eyes daily and it hasn't helped my sight a bit, please. Take it a step further, if I put clay on your eyes and I said go and wash, you say, yeah, I think I said go and watch. So what I'm trying to draw out of my little reasoning is whatever it represents to put clay on his eyes, represents something that would cause him to go and wash.

22:16 Have you ever stolen? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever coveted? And he'll go through these things and pretty sure it won't be long where people say, well yeah, I'm not perfect, I've done some things. But surely in the process of doing this, he's putting a little bit of mud in his eyes, right?

22:39 He's making him realize, he's trying to make him realize, you need to wash, you need to wash. And so, I suppose it's bringing a person to a point of repentance. I know even in my own salvation story, was just a little boy. Know, little boys can be pretty naughty sometimes. So I was naughty and my mom had to punish me.

23:03 And I was feeling pretty glum. My mom could be kind of hard on you, you know, little boy speaking. And so I was feeling kind of glum, but as it went on, I began to have a sense of the wrongness of what I'd done. If she hadn't treated me that way, I wouldn't have known it. I had a sense of it.

23:31 We'll say guilt. Okay? I had sense. You know, I was a naughty boy. I was just a little kid, but but I had that sense.

23:39 My mother continued to talk to me about the lord, and and I came to the point where I said, but mother, I do want the Lord Jesus to take my sins away. I had the mud put on my eyes, I think. So my mother was wise. She said, know, Donnie, if you mean that, you need to tell that to the Lord. So I did.

24:03 I got down on my knees, and I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be my savior and to take away my sins. And I and I believe that at that time as a little boy, I did believe in Jesus. I trusted in him and I was saved through his loving care. Okay, so that would be putting the mud on the eye. So the next one is actually similar in that it's strange.

24:31 He says to him, go and wash in the pool of Siloam. So he summarizes it farther down the chapter. I went and washed. Which is boiling it down to the, there was a place that he could go that he could get the filth washed off of him. There's a place he could go and do that.

24:58 He was told where to go. It was even given a name, Siloam, and it bothers to interpret it for us, which surely would have some significance to it. He says it means sent. He sent him to a place where he could wash and he went and did it. He went and washed.

25:24 Now, I realize that it's nothing that you and I do that saves us. But it is a choice. It is a choice. And so the Lord Jesus commanded him to do it, and he obeyed and he went and washed. And I believe that that's what I did as my mother was pressing upon me my need to be saved, that I went and washed.

25:51 I went to the Lord Jesus and asked him to take away my sins. And we know that the scripture itself presents it in this way. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. It fits, doesn't it? It fits.

26:08 We go to the Lord Jesus Christ for cleansing from our sins. And I just praise the Lord for that. And so it says that he came back seeing. And it's interesting as you follow the verses beyond this, that that was the one thing that he never let go of when he was being challenged about Jesus. He never let go of the fact that I was blind and now I see.

27:09 And people had been injured significantly in those fights that he had had. But he had a bad name in that town. But a gospel preacher came and somewhere or another they convinced this man to go into the gospel meeting. And he heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and his saving grace. He came to the Lord and he trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.

27:39 And he was saved. And it was an immediate deliverance from a vulgar and a dissolute lifestyle. He immediately stopped drinking, immediately began to read his Bible, immediately began to be encouraged in the Lord. His whole life changed. And I would say, he could say, now I see.

28:14 His whole life changed. And he became a witness through this to others. For instance, this was actually told in this story of this man. That in this town, and we'll say it was Nova Scotia, was somewhere up there. In this town, a noted atheist came into the town and he was giving lectures.

28:35 And it was more like a soapbox type of a lecture, maybe even on the street. And he was giving lecture on how you can't believe in God and there's nothing to it and so forth. And the man comes walking down the street and he starts hearing the blasphemy coming out of this man's mouth and saying there's no evidence for God and so forth. He became immediately really upset and he walked right up to the man. He interrupted him and said to him, well, if that's true, explain me.

29:16 And of course the man, the atheist was a little bit puzzled because he didn't know the story. And then he proceeded to describe, I violent was man. I was a man that nobody wanted to be around. I was a man, if I got drunk you better not stick around me. And he said, Now I'm changed completely.

29:35 God has delivered me. Now you answer that if there's no God. And so I like to think that was what it was like for this man when he said, one thing I know as I was blind, now I see. So that was the fact of his deliverance was the witness that he held, not only before his own heart, but in front of others. Start with eighth first.

30:03 Let's try to pick up kind of the ripples on the pool from this event. Therefore, the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, Is not this who sat and begged? Some said, This is he. Others said, He is like him. He said, I am he.

30:25 Therefore they said to him, How were your eyes open? He answered and said, a man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to the pool of Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and I received sight. They said to him, where is he? He said, I do not know.

30:45 They brought him, who formerly was blind, to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, He put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see. Therefore, of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.

31:15 Seems like others disagreed. He says, Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, what do you say about him? Because he opened your eyes and he said, he is a prophet.

32:02 He is of age, ask him, he will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, He's a beige, ask him. So they again called the man that was blind and they said to him, Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner.

32:29 He answered and said, Whether he's a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I can see. Then they said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I told you already and you did not listen.

32:52 What do you want to do? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become one of his disciples? Do I sense a little bit of sarcasm? Then they reviled him and said, You are his disciples, but we are Moses' disciples.

33:10 We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we do not know where he is from. The man answered them, why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he is from, yet he has opened mine eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone has opened the eyes of one who was born blind.

33:41 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said to him, you are completely born in sins. Are you teaching us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out.

34:01 And when he had found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking with you. Then he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.

34:23 And that's where the whole thing was going, wasn't it? That's where this whole story was headed for. This man would come and say, Lord, I believe. I'd like to take a minute just to trace the development of this man because I think there's a lot of insight in it. So in the eleventh verse, the man says of Jesus, a man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes.

34:48 He's a man. Not much, right? A man called Jesus. Then the second place is the seventeenth verse. They said to the blind man again, what do you say about him?

34:59 Because he opened your eyes. And he said, he's a prophet. So we're getting a little advancement there, aren't we? He's a prophet. Then the third one is down in the twenty fifth verse.

35:11 Now here they're really trying to nail this man to the wall. They're saying, We know that this man is a sinner. That's the end of the twenty fourth verse. We know that this man is a sinner. And so the man's answer is interesting.

35:31 He answered and said, Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know, one thing I know, is that though I was blind, now I see, it was the fact of the miracle that the man laid hold of. They could tell all kinds of lies to him about Jesus, but he still held to this fact, I was blind and I see. And so the next one is, we'll say it's down in the thirty third verse. Starting with verse 30, the man says, It's a marvelous thing that you don't know where he's from, and so forth.

36:12 And he continues a logic here, We know that God doesn't hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone open the eyes of one who is blind. So he's bringing this. And then he makes this statement, this is his current evaluation of Jesus. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

37:10 Obviously, he didn't see the Lord Jesus yet as the son of God, and yet he honored him with all his heart. He didn't see him yet as the son of God. Jesus tells him, He it is who's talking with you. The one that's talking with you, that's the one who it is. And then to me, it's that sudden, glorious moment of perception.

37:37 Lord, I believe. I believe, yes, I believe in the son of God. Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. And I think that's neat because we get, as we follow through on that story, get a sense of how God works in a soul and how he brings them along the pathway. In verses, I'm gonna read 38, 39, 40, and 41.

38:08 And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. Then some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, they said to him, are we blind also? Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, we see, therefore your sin remains. I would call this a riddle, wouldn't you?

38:36 It's not maybe immediately apparent what that means. So since we're running out of time, I'm just going to read quickly a couple of paragraphs I've read here. Hopefully I can read them slow enough that you get the point. So this is a riddle about spiritual sight and spiritual blindness. The occasion for the healing of the blind man provided a picturesque illustration of spiritual light and spiritual blindness.

39:11 That's what the Lord is dealing with here. The mud which was applied to the eyes of the blind man illustrated the sinner finally seeing his own sinful, spiritual, dirty state. Those around, we'll say the Pharisees, the Pharisees were spiritually blind. But they didn't realize it because they did not see themselves as sinners. Say that again.

39:40 The Pharisees were spiritually blind, but they couldn't see themselves as sinners, so they didn't realize it. Those that acknowledge their condition of spiritual blindness are made to see spiritually. So that's when Jesus said that those that do not see may be made to see. Those that think that they can see spiritually but they do not have faith are tested by the witness of God through Jesus Christ and they are demonstrated to be truly blind. That would be my, okay, let's think of it in terms of religion.

40:23 To embrace religion is to take the position of those that see. To take the position of seeing is to take a position of responsibility before God. God will test the reality of our religion. For Jesus had said, for judgment I have come into this world. To have religion without faith in God is to be in the position of seeing and yet to be truly blind.

40:59 The witness of God through Jesus Christ was the test for these religious Pharisees. I'm out of time, but I just want to extend this for just a second. If you look carefully at the portion, you'll see that chapter 10 is a direct extension of chapter nine. There's a chapter break there, it's still the same conversation going on. You're going right smoothly from one chapter to the other.

41:37 Chapter 10 opens up with basically a question. How are you going to know the shepherd when he comes? How are you going to know him? And you can see that this fits into the discussion that Jesus is with. How are you going to know?

41:57 You're making all your claims, you folks, you Pharisees. But how are you going to know, in other words, if Jesus is the son of God, the Messiah, come into the world, how are you gonna know it? And so he says, it's clear, the answer of it is clear. The guy that comes through the door is the guy that's really the shepherd. The false shepherds, the ones that are thieves and robbers, they climb up over the wall.

42:28 They don't come through the door. The way that you'll know the true shepherd is he comes through the door. But then we say, what's the door? What's the door? What's the way?

42:42 And I think we could say it like this, that the way that you could know for certain that Jesus Christ is the true shepherd, the Messiah, come into the world, is through the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. Somewhat recently, about two years ago, I finished a study. It took me about two years in this study, but I spent a lot of time on it, and it had to do with searching out all the old messianic prophecies. And I realize other people have written very extensive books on it and so forth, but I wanted to do it myself because I knew that what I wanted was the effect in my own soul. That's what I really wanted out of it.

43:25 And I think I got it too. I labored through them and studied them carefully. I know some have reported as many as 300. I came up with 192, maybe, I think. 192 prophecies.

43:45 And I found out this, I found out that one third of those 192 prophecies are quoted word for word in the New Testament as messianic prophecies. So that means there were 62 of the prophecies that were literally quoted to be pointed towards the Lord Jesus. It was a door that was so fixed, so absolute that they could know who the Messiah was, and so may we. It will impress your soul if you ever take the time to study those Messianic prophecies. Will have an appropriate effect on your soul of impressing of the wonder of it.

44:48 We thank you, Father, for the Lord Jesus, who's the one that's able to heal our spiritual blindness. And we pray that if there's anybody in this room that doesn't know Jesus as savior, that today, they'll go and wash. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.