Thank you, Tom. Such an appropriate hymn for what I want to try to preach this morning from John chapter 8. If you'll open your Bibles with me to John chapter 8. Look with me at verse 59. Then took they up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by." Now look at the next verse. And this is just ignore the chapter division, because it's all happening at the same time. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

When the Lord passes by, could not see a starker contrast, he passed by some who didn't see him. He's passed by another who would see him. When the Lord passes by,

Let's pray together. Our glorious Heavenly Father, we are a needy people. Lord, we need for you to pass by here, not to leave us blind to thy presence, not to leave us to ourselves, but Lord, that you would do for us what you did for that blind man in John chapter nine, that you would open the eyes of our understanding, that you would enable us to see. Lord, we must have your Holy Spirit if that's to be. We must, Lord, have your mercy and your grace. We know that we have no right to demand anything from thee, that you have no need of us. And Lord, what a beautiful and hopeful truth it is that that you are pleased to show mercy and that you have loved your people with an everlasting love. Lord, we pray that we might know that love this morning. We might see through the eye of faith the demonstration of that love in the laying down of the life of thy dear son. We ask it in his name. Amen.

I read a commentator on this text who suggested that Perhaps verse 59 meant that the Lord just sort of hid himself in the crowd much like we might do if we were trying to avoid the notice of another person. I don't believe that for a moment. I believe that he walked with his head held high right through the midst of that crowd in the temple in Jerusalem and that those men who hated him and who wanted to stone him could not see him. Their eyes were holding, much like those disciples in Luke chapter 24, who were walking in the very presence of our Lord. They were disciples of him. They had been with him. They knew who he was. You remember in Luke 24, after the resurrection, And they're going back to Emmaus, thinking that all was lost. And the Lord walks along beside them. And beginning with Moses and the Psalms and the prophets, he expounds unto them those things concerning himself. And when they get to the house, in the breaking of bread, their eyes were opened and they saw who he was.

That's always the way it is. If the Lord leaves us to ourselves, we'll walk in his very presence and not know him and not see him. But by his mercy in the breaking of bread, this is the bread of life. This is the revelation of the bread of life, God's word. His written word reveals to us the living word, the Lord Jesus. And our hope when we come here, when we go before the throne of grace in prayer, when we study God's word in private devotion, our hope always is that the Lord will break open the bread of life and cause our eyes not to be blinded to the truth, but that we will be like this blind man in John chapter 9 and have them miraculously, miraculously opened so that we can see him as he is.

A great contrast between these two people. We don't notice it in the English translation but in the original language Where it says that he passed by in verse 59, a better rendition of that was as he passes by. He passes by. It's a continuous action. And the Lord is constantly passing by those whose eyes are holding, they can't see him as he passes by right out of the midst of them. And then in John chapter nine, verse one, it would be better translated as he was passing by, as he was passing by. In one case, he just passes by

I had a friend who learned English. His first language was Spanish, and he learned English from reading the King James Bible. That's how he learned English. And one of the terms that he learned from the Bible that he never really got away from was to pass by your house. He would say to me, I'm going to pass by tomorrow. And I would always, after I realized what he meant by that, he meant he was going to come to my house. But I wanted to say to him at first, and I probably did a time or two, well, why don't you stop while you're passing by? But that's what he meant. I'm going to pass by your house. I'm going to stop. And that's what this passing by gives reference to in John chapter 9, verse 1.

But the passes by in John 8, verse 59, is what we might interpret with someone said to us, I pass by your house, or I'm going to pass by your house. It just passed by. It didn't stop. It didn't stop. How we need. the Lord not to pass by us. Pass me not. What a great hymn. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Lord, you've showed mercy to others, show mercy toward me. Lord, stop. Open the eyes of my understanding. Open my heart. Open the windows of heaven. Open your word. Lord, if you open it, I know that no man can shut it. Whatever God opens, no man can shut. And what God shuts, no man can open. Here's how we always come in need of the Lord to stop, to not just pass us by.

Who were these men in John chapter eight? They were the Pharisees. Now I remind you what the Lord said about the Pharisees when he said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. These men were in the sight of other men, extremely righteous. They were very religious. They were outwardly moral. They were above reproach, model citizens, highly respected in the community. That's who they were. You remember the story the Lord tells about the Pharisee and the publican praying in the temple. And the Pharisee said this, I thank thee that I am not as other men. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not unjust. I'm not an adulterer. I fast twice a week and I'm not like that publican over there. These men were upstanding model citizens in the community. The normal person would look at them and think, that's the way I want to be. That's why the Lord said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now what did the Lord mean by that? He meant that outward morality is not gonna get you into heaven. And oftentimes, as we see in this case, those who are most outwardly moral, those who depend upon their righteousness and their morality and their good works for their acceptance before God, are the ones who hate Christ the most. These are the ones who took up stones to stone him. These men who were so, so very religious became murderous in their hearts when the Lord Jesus told them who he was. The only way that our righteousness is going to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees is if we have a righteousness given to us that is not our own. We can't earn this righteousness. We can't exceed the outward morality. We can't produce a righteousness of obedience that would cause us to be acceptable to God. What the Lord meant by, accept your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, what he meant was what Paul said when he said, oh, that I might be found in him, in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that righteousness, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. I've got to have a righteousness outside of myself, a righteousness that's perfect in the sight of God. And that's our hope. That's the gospel.

God made him who knew no sin, sin. The Lord Jesus, when he hung on Calvary's cross, He bore all the sins and all the shame and all the penalty for those sins and put them away. He atoned for them by the sacrifice of himself. He covered them with his precious blood. And then he gives to his people his righteousness. And our hope of standing in the presence of a holy God is that we have the Lord Jesus as our advocate, we have him as our righteousness.

Now when the Lord Jesus returns in his glorified state, The scripture says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. It will be an unavoidable confession. When the Lord Jesus returns in the fullness of his glory, all men will know who he is and none will seek to cast stones at him. Matter of fact, they will cry for the rocks to fall upon them that they might be hid from the lamb. That's what the scripture says. That they'll crawl into caves and pray that the rocks would cover up the caves and hide them from the face of the lamb. That's what it's gonna be like in the next coming, the second coming of the Lord Jesus.

But in his first coming, he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He came looking just like another man. Now I want you to imagine with me for a moment the reception that the Lord Jesus would have today if he appeared like he did the first time and showed up at a typical church, filled with religious, moral, self-righteous people, and said to them what he said to these Pharisees. You read the story in John chapter 8. My word has no place in thee. You will not hear my word. No man can come unto me except the father which sent me draw him. And you are of your father the devil.

What if the Lord Jesus appeared today in the typical church and made these sort of statements? What if he said, you don't know God, you're going to die in your sins. And if you believed the Bible, as you say you believed the Bible, You would worship me. What if he professed himself as he did to these Pharisees, as the glorious I am, the one who needed nothing from anyone, the one who was self-sufficient, self-contained, self-existent, The one who gave life to all. The one to whom all were dependent. The one that could not be improved upon. The one that could not be diminished. The one you cannot add to or take from. The one who is sovereign. Sovereign over all men.

Well, I'll tell you what reception he would get. He would get the same reception that he got in Nazareth. Before this, before John chapter nine, the Lord began his public ministry back at his village, his hometown, Nazareth, a small town. Everybody knew each other. And as was his custom, after he called his disciples, he went back there and he was there on the Sabbath. And as was his custom, he stood up on the Sabbath, and he took the scroll from the rabbi, and he opened it up to Isaiah chapter 61, and he read from that scroll. And everyone there knew that the verses that he read were prophecies about the Messiah. And then he put the scroll down, and he said to them, This day, this prophecy had been fulfilled in thy sight.

And they wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. They thought, you know, we've always noticed something very special about this man we've called Jesus, something different about him. Could it be? Could it be that the Messiah has been in our midst? Could it be that he would be from our small town?

And then he interpreted Isaiah chapter 61, didn't he? And he said this, he said, in the days of Elijah the prophet, there were many widows in Israel, but God showed mercy upon none of them. except the widow of Sarepta, the Gentile widow. She's the one that the prophet visited. That was Elisha. And in the days of Elijah the prophet, there were many lepers in Israel, many Jewish people who were afflicted with leprosy, but God showed mercy upon none of them except for Naaman, the Syrian, the Gentile.

And they were enraged. They went from wondering whether or not this could be the Christ, the Messiah, to carrying him out of Nazareth, and they were going to cast him off the brow of a hill and kill him. They became murderous toward the one that they knew.

Nothing's changed. These, this is the description. This is the description of those that the Lord Jesus passes by. He just passes by them. The same thing happened in Nazareth, by the way, when they, I mean, there was a crowd, they had him. They were gonna kill him. And he just faded from their midst. Where'd he go? We don't know. He wasn't ducking and hiding and dodging them. He just walked away.

What a warning this is, brethren, for us, that we could be in the very presence of God Almighty and not see him. How needful we are that the Lord does not just pass by us

The offense of the cross, the offense of the cross is that men are sinners. That's the offense of the cross. And I don't, I don't say this in any way as I want to, I want to make a warning perhaps before we even look at these verses of taking rejection or taking persecution, however it might come, as a badge of honor. I've seen that happen. And I've detected hints of it in my own heart that, you know, we've suffered for the gospel. And to wear that as a badge of honor and use that as a boasting thing, oh, that's, the Lord says, do good unto them that despitefully use them, love them, pray for them. We don't consider that in any way a badge of honor, but how oftentimes we have been rejected and persecuted over the gospel.

I remember the very first time I started trying to preach the gospel. A man much like these Pharisees, a very upstanding member of our society, a very highly esteemed man, a gentle man. I'd never seen any aggression from him in all the years that I knew him. An elder in the church. And with teeth clenched, And fist clenched with rage in his eyes, got me nose to nose one Sunday and said, preacher, I just have one question for you. Do you intend to tell us every Sunday that we're sinners? And that was the first of many times we've seen Men are offended. They are offended by the gospel. People say, you know, you have religious people want to argue with you about election, or they want to argue with you about limited atonement, particular redemption, what the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross, whether it was just for the elect or whether it was an offer for all men, and they want to argue those things. But those things really aren't the problem. The real problem is the first point, total depravity. And if that falls, the rest of them are like dominoes.

God makes you to be a sinner. God shows you that you have no righteousness, that you have no rights before God, that you are completely dependent upon his mercy and his grace. that you can make no contribution to your salvation, that you can't obligate God in any way. You can't bribe him. You can't barter with him. You can't buy your salvation. You have no free will in this matter of salvation, that God must save you and he must do it all. What a blessing it is.

And if God brings you to that truth, and the only way to come to that truth is to have some revelation of who he is. That's why we preach Christ, the one who's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and higher than the heavens, the one who himself is without sin, without sin. And when we find ourselves in the presence of a holy God, We can only come to one conclusion. Everything about me is sinful. That's what a sinner is. A sinner is not a person who's just guilty of having done some bad things. The sinner is a person who is all bad in the sight of God. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.

We come to the same conclusion that Job came to when he was confronted with the with the truth of God. He said, behold, behold, I see now. My eyes have been opened. I see something I never saw before. I'm vile. I'm vile. Everything about me in the presence of the holiness of God Almighty This is what the scripture means when God looks down from heaven and he saw that every thought and imagination of the heart was only evil and that continually. But when the God looks down the open throat, he sees an open sepulcher of dead bones. That's all we are.

But this is the offense of the gospel. This is what they were offended at at Nazareth. This is what they were offended at in the temple here when they wanted to stone him. They were willing to violate all the laws of God in order to get this one out of their sight. And this is exactly the same response that men have today. And if the Lord Jesus showed up at a freewill works church and said the things to them that he said to these Pharisees, they would do the same thing. And if it wasn't for our first amendment, In this great country in which we live, we would be shut up. We would be shut up.

And believers are in many places of the world where they don't have the liberties and the freedoms that we have. It doesn't keep our family members and our friends from hating us. You want to maintain a relationship with an unbelieving friend, don't tell them what you believe. They'll hate you for it. They will. Just keep your mouth shut. You tell them what you believe about God. Tell them what you believe about yourself. Tell them what you believe about salvation. And oftentimes, men will respond by saying, you don't have to boldly tell somebody that they're lost. Just tell them the gospel. Just tell them what you believe. Because the implications of that are clear. How oftentimes, I wouldn't. We don't say to people, your father's the devil. We don't say what the Lord Jesus said in the way he said it. We just tell them about him. We just tell them the gospel. And the implications and the conclusions are clear. They're clear from that.

And how many times we've shared the gospel with someone and their first response was, well, I know I'm saved. Well, I didn't say anything about your salvation. And why do they get angry at us but we don't get angry at them? When you get angry at someone who has a different opinion than you do, it only shows the insecurity you have in your position. You see that politically, you see that religiously, you see that in every walk of life.

If we're secure in who we believe, then we're not threatened by what anyone else says or what they do or what accusations they make. And we don't wear that as a badge of honor. We're sad for them. And we pray for them. We do good unto them as we have opportunity. But they will cut themselves off from you. They will avoid you. You won't have to break your relationship with them. It's always been that way.

Started with Cain and Abel right there in the garden, right there after the garden. Abel took a blood sacrifice. The firstling of his flock is the hope of covering his sins with a sacrifice. And God had respect for Abel's offering. Cain, on the other hand, brought the fruit of his own labor. He brought the works of his hands, and God had no respect for him. And Cain hated his brother and murdered him out of hatred for him.

Joseph's brothers were jealous of Joseph. Noah's generation must have thought he was crazy. I'm building this ark on dry ground because water's gonna fall from heaven. It had never rained. In 2,000 years, it had never rained. Rain had never fallen from heaven. Now it's gonna rain, there's gonna be a deluge. The whole earth to the top of every mountain's gonna be covered with water. You're all gonna dry and drown. You seen this crazy guy? He's been working on it 100 years. Nothing's changed. It's always been that way.

Esau hated Jacob. Ishmael hated Isaac. Still does. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10. These We're describing the ones that the Lord passes by. He was in the temple with them, a place of worship. He told them who he was. He told them the truth. You hate me because I've told you the truth. That's what he said. And there must have been a construction place going on in the temple. They were always adding to fixing up the temple. There must have been a pile of stones somewhere because they all ran over and got one and they were going to kill him. And he passed by right out of the midst of them. He didn't have to hide from them like we might hide from someone that we're trying to avoid. No, he just hid their eyes. They couldn't see.

Matthew chapter 10, look at verse 34. Yes, verse 34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. Well, I thought he was the Prince of Peace. He came to give us peace with God, peace with heaven. But peace with God means that we're going to be in conflict with this world. In this world, you will have much tribulation. You're going to be at odds with this world. You're going to have a whole different set of values than this world has. You're going to have a different God than this world has. You're going to be different. If any man be in Christ, everything becomes new. So when this happens, when we have peace with God, we have conflict in this world. But that's fine. That's fine. You see, the ones he passes by love the praise of men more than the praise of God. The ones that he gives sight to love the praise of God over the praise of men.

I don't like people not liking me. I like to be liked. Who wants to be hated? Who wants to be shunned and despised and spoken evil about? Nobody wants that. But the Lord tells us in Matthew chapter five, he said, rejoice, rejoice. For they're saying this for my namesake, and so they persecuted the prophets of old, and so they have always done.

If God be for me, who can be against me? God gives sight. We're able to look into heaven, and we're able to see through the eye of faith, our substitute, our advocate, the righteous one, seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, making all of his enemies to be his footstool. We look around this world, we see confusion, we see darkness, we see hatred for God, for Christ, and for the gospel.

I did not come. Think not that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword, a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." What a heartbreaking thing it is. when your enemies become your family members. We don't look for that. But neither do we shy away from letting people know who we believe and what we believe.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. In other words, he who denies me before men in order to have the approval of men is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, In other words, he that lives life in this world for the life that this world has to offer, the friendships of this world, the prosperity of this world, the mammon of this world, the gods of this world, all the benefits that this world has to offer, he that would find his life in this world will lose his life.

but he that loses his life, he that says the things that this world has to offer, the friendships of this world. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. The Lord Jesus said that. Again, we're not looking for a martyr syndrome. We're not looking to wear this as a badge of honor. We're grieved when our unbelieving friends and family members hate us and hate our God. And we pray for them. And we do good for our enemies. We don't, we don't, this is not a two-way street of enmity. If there's enmity, it's them against us. We're not, we're not adding to it. We don't add to the, but this is the offense of the gospel. This is the offense of the gospel. This is the cost of the gospel. And this is where these men were, and these are the ones that the Lord passes by.

In conclusion, go back with me to our text. Verse one of John chapter nine. And as Jesus passed by, as he was passing by, He saw a man that was blind from birth. A man that was blind from birth. Now this man, if you're blind from birth, you have no concept of what seeing is. People can tell you what they see, but you can't register that. Our babies are very observant with their eyes for a long time before they ever learn to speak. They're categorizing in their minds these images, and then they learn the words that describe the image. I read of a story. of a man that was born blind, but his blindness was, he was in a third world country, and his blindness was surgically correctable. And that happens a good bit, I think, nowadays. And so he went through the surgery, and all of a sudden he could see. And they showed him a ball and a cube. Before he could see, he could touch both of those things and discern the difference between them. But as soon as he got his eyesight, they put a ball and a cube in front of him and he didn't know which was which. He didn't have an image in his brain as to what those things were.

A person who's blind has no concept of what it is to see. Now make the spiritual connection with me. Of the miracles that our Lord performed, twice he healed lepers, twice he healed a deaf man, twice he healed a cripple, once he healed a woman with an issue of blood, Twice he raised a person from the dead. Six times he healed a blind person. What is the Lord telling us? We have no concept of who God is. We have no concept of who we are. left ourselves, we're blind.

Lord, if you don't open my eyes and you don't explain these things to me, there's no way for me to understand them. I won't be able to discern the difference between an orb and a cube if you don't tell me. Lord, you've got to reveal these things to me. At the end of John chapter nine, the Pharisees say this, are you suggesting that we're blind? These are the same ones that tried to stone him. And the Lord Jesus said, if you were blind, your sins would be forgiven you. But because you say you can see, Therefore, your sins remain.

And a believer, my brethren, my brothers and sisters, may be thinking right now, well, the Lord has opened my eyes and I do see some things and I do understand. And even that, you know, could be taken from you. what you now see was given to you by God's grace. And you are just, you see more your dependence upon him now to reveal these things to you than you ever saw before. You're blind and you didn't know it. This man was dependent upon the Lord seeing him.

" We have no concept of who God is. Everything that an unbeliever thinks about God is wrong. Unbelievers don't need to have their understanding tweaked or adjusted. They need to reject everything that they ever thought was true and be brought to a completely opposite understanding of who God is. That is repentance. Repentance is a change of mind. It is a 180 degree turn. And God only can give us that.

A God who's absolutely sovereign, a God who does what he wants, when he wants, however he wants, with whomever he wants, and he always does it right, and he can never be called into question. Who art thou, O man? Can the potter say to the clay, or could the clay say to the potter, why hast thou made me thus? He's the potter, we're the clay. He has the sovereign right to make of the same lump of clay some vessels of honor and some of dishonor. He hath done whatsoever he wills, no man can stay his hand, or say unto him, what doest thou?

But left to ourselves, we fashion a God who's like us, a God who needs something from us in order for him to be able to save us. That is not the God who is. And when God opens the eyes of understanding, we come to believe. This is the eternal, the eternal self-existent, self-contained, self-sufficient and self-satisfied God of glory. A God who needs nothing from me and a God who if I'm going to receive anything must come from him. A man can receive nothing except to be given to him from heaven. Blind, we thought that God loved everybody. You see, we had a concept of God that wasn't God. And now, we are completely, I don't know what to, overwhelmed. That the God who is would love a sinner like me.

That he would pass by that he would stop a man who was born blind and stoop down and make mud of spittle and anoint his eyes and send him to the well of Shalom and come back seeing. Oh, I never dreamed of a God like that. A God that would save someone like me then he would do all the saving all by himself and leave none of it up to me?

A God who would conquer the grave, a God that will put death to death, a God that would defeat the devil, A God that would take me with him into heaven of heavens and be seated at the right hand of the majesty on high right now. A God that would come again and receive me unto himself so that where I am there in a glorified body I might be with him. Oh, I never conceived of a God like that.

This is the God who is. A blind man and the self-righteous can't see it. And he passes by them. And as he was passing by, he saw a blind man. blind from birth and gave him sight.