Well, good morning, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter eight. Kind of excited about our lesson
this morning. It certainly is something I think
every believer will identify with in their everyday life. I'm just, I'm very excited about
it. Pray the Lord will bless it to us. Before we begin, let's
bow together in prayer. Our Father, we bow before you
this morning, a thankful people. Oh, how thankful we are for your
mercy and your grace that you have so abundantly showered upon
your people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how richly that
you Have blessed this congregation with your presence, your mercy,
your grace, your leadership. But how we thank you, we're so
thankful. Father, we also come before you
a needy people, a poor and a needy people. We are in these bodies
of flesh that are so full of sin that nothing can be done
with them, but eventually put them in the ground. We suffer
through the The effects of sin in our bodies, we suffer through
the effect of sin and in weak faith and not trusting you and
looking to you as we should. And Father, I beg of you that
this morning that you would speak to our hearts through your word,
that you might give faith, that you may be pleased to strengthen
our faith, that you might one more time teach us of Christ
our Savior. and enable us to look to him
and trust him, have our souls beatified and thrilled at hearing
of him one more time. And what we pray for ourselves,
we pray for our children's classes and your people wherever they're
meeting together this morning. Father, we pray you'd bless them
as we pray that you would bless us. Father, show us your glory,
we pray. For it's in Christ's name, for
his sake we pray, amen. I've titled the lesson this morning,
Growing in Grace and Knowledge. What we're gonna look at this
morning is the only recorded miracle that our Lord performed
where the healing was gradual. In every other case, the healing
was instant. The blind would receive their
sight instantly. The deaf would hear instantly.
The paralyzed would instantly be able to walk and jump and
run and carry their bed and so forth. the dead were brought
back to life instantly. But in this case, the blind man
is gonna receive his sight gradually. And since this is the only case
like this in scripture, there has to be something real good
for us to learn here this morning. This miracle, like every miracle
that our Lord performed, is a picture of how he saves his people by
his divine power and grace. And I wanna show you four things
I see about salvation in a life of a believer in this miracle. Number one, there's got to be
a blind man. Verse 22, Mark 8. And he cometh to Bethsaida, and
they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.
Now apparently, this man could see at one time, because when
the Lord gives him some sight, he knows something about what
trees look like. So it sounds to me like he could
see at one time, and something happened now that made him blind.
Now, that's a clear picture of you and me. We became spiritually
blind in Adam's fall. And our spiritual blindness makes
it so we cannot see Christ. We can't see his redemptive glory. By nature, we hear of his sacrifice
on the cross, but we can't see his glory in it. We think, well,
he died for everybody to give everybody a chance to be saved.
There's no glory in that, is there? You know, we say, well,
he died to make an offering for men to see, you know, if they
would accept it. There's no glory there. That
makes God a beggar. That makes Christ a failure,
that he died for folks he's gonna send to hell anyway. We're blind,
so we cannot see. We cannot understand how God
saves sinners. It's by his will, by his power,
all in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're blind, so we cannot see
the light of Christ. Look over at John chapter one,
and I'll show you that, boy, if you wanna see blindness, here
is our spiritual blindness. In John chapter one, verse five, and the light shineth in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not. The light shined in the
darkness, but the darkness didn't see it. Now there was a man sent
from God, his name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. Now light came into the dark
world, but we couldn't see him. We couldn't see him. So you know
what God did? He sent a man to tell us that God turned the light
on. Now, the only person you have to tell that the light's
on is a blind man. If you see, you instantly know
when the light's turned on. But if you're blind, you can't
tell. Somebody's got to tell you the light's been turned on.
That's you and me. We are so blind, we can't see
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and how brightly
that light shines, but we can't see it because we're blind. By
nature, we can't see. the kingdom of God. We can't
understand what the kingdom of God is or how a person gets into
the kingdom of God. Look at first Corinthians chapter
two. We are so blind. We cannot see
our sinfulness. We think we're pretty good. That's
an indication of our blindness. We can't see our need of the
savior. We can't see our need for him to do all of the saving
for us. It's because we're blind. Look at first Corinthians two
verse 14. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them. He
cannot know them. He cannot understand them because
they are spiritually discerned. Well, if they're spiritually
discerned, if they're spiritually understood and seen, but I'm
spiritually blind, I will not receive them. The reason people
do not believe on Christ is they're blind. Our problem is not a lack
of light. Our problem is not a lack of
somebody telling us about the light. Our problem is blindness
so that we cannot see. And our dead nature, this is
how blind we are. Our dead nature prefers darkness
to light. That's how blind we are. Look
at John chapter three. John three, verse 19. And this is the condemnation,
that light has come into the world And men loved darkness
rather than light because their deeds were evil. Now that's our
spiritual blindness. That's what this man is a picture
of. But this blind man had some family,
some friends, somebody that had heard about Christ and they brought
him to the Lord. This man couldn't see Christ,
but they could. This man couldn't find his way
to Christ, but they could. And this man's family, friends,
whoever they were, They were sure that the only hope this
man had of ever seeing again was the power and mercy of the
Lord Jesus Christ to give him sight. Now that's a picture of
us, isn't it? Often, a lost blind sinner has
someone that they know, maybe someone they know, someone they
work with, their neighbor, a friend, somebody, invites them to come
hear the gospel. In the case of our children,
somebody makes them come hear the gospel. They don't know Christ,
but their parents do. They don't trust Christ, but
their family or their friends do, so they bring them to Christ. And you know, that's the kindest
thing that any of us can do for a lost loved one or someone we
know that does not know Christ. The kindest thing that we can
do for any son and daughter of Adam is to bring them to Christ. And you know how you bring them
to Christ? You bring them where Christ is preached. Wherever
he's preached, that's where he is. This man's friends or family,
whoever they were, they brought him to the Lord and they besought,
they begged the Lord to touch him. Isn't that our prayer for
our lost loved ones? Our prayer is that the Lord would
have mercy on him, that he touched him. Oh, he touched me, the songwriter
says. And nothing's ever been the same
again. So there's a blind man. If a sinner's gonna be saved,
we gotta know we're blind first. All right, number two, the sinner
was left alone with the Savior. Look back in our text, Mark 8,
verse 23. And he took the blind man by
the hand and led him out of the town. Now the Lord took this
man, he took him away from everybody else. He took him out to a place
where it was just him and this blind man. Now that's how the
Lord does business with his people. When the Lord does business in
the hearts of his people, he does it alone, one-on-one. Now he does that, only the Lord
can do this. He does that in a public setting.
But to the lost sinner, it sure feels like that they're alone
with the Lord, doesn't it? They feel like, oh my goodness,
the Lord must have told this preacher something about me.
He's preaching to me. This is just like I'm the only
one there. The Lord is speaking to me and
nobody else. And you know, this is the miracle
of God's power and grace. It can feel like that to many
people in the same congregation. The Lord's speaking to me. That's
how the Lord deals one-on-one with his people. And if the Lord
ever lays hold on you, with his mighty, omnipotent, stretched
out arm of mercy and grace. He's going to take you alone
and he's going to give you spiritual sight. Just like he's going to
give this man sight. So there's got to be a blind
man. There's got to be a sinner alone with God. And thirdly,
there's got to be a means. The Lord uses means that the
flesh despises to reveal himself to his people. Look at verse
23 again. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of
the town, and when he had spit on his eyes, he put his hands
upon him and asked him if he saw aught. Now, the Lord spit
on this man's eyes. Now, that sounds gross, doesn't
it? I mean, I saw somebody a couple
weeks ago do that in a football game. Boy, they kicked that guy
out faster. I mean, you know, this is just gross. This is not
acceptable. We wouldn't let somebody do that
to us. But you know what? That was the only way this blind
man was gonna receive his sight. It's the only way. Because that's
what the Lord did. Something from inside the Lord
had to be put onto this blind man in order for him to receive
his sight. Now here's the picture. If any
sinner's gonna be saved, something from inside the Lord has to be
put into us. If we would be saved, Christ's
righteousness, His righteousness that he earned as a man made
under the law is going to be put in us in the new birth. If we would be saved, the nature
of Christ must be born in us in the new birth. There's got
to be a new man, a new nature born, and that has to come from
Christ to us. It has to be put in us. I tell
you how that happens. It happens by the sacrifice of
Christ. For he hath made him sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. When the Lord Jesus laid his
hands on these blind eyes, it reminds me of the high priest
of old when he'd lay his hands on the sacrifice and confess
the sins of the people and symbolically transfer the sin of the people
to the sacrifice. The Lord Jesus laid his hands
on this man. He took the sin of his people
into his own body upon the tree, not symbolically, not pretend,
in reality. The father made him sin for his
people and Christ suffered the full consequences of that sin. We know he had to suffer and
die, but he suffered the full consequences of it. He suffered
blindness, didn't he? In those three hours of darkness,
he cried, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He couldn't
see the father. Oh, he felt the father's wrath
and justice, didn't he? He felt the stroke of justice,
but he couldn't see the loving, smiling face of his father. He'd
been the delight of his father from eternity, but now he couldn't
see that. He suffered blindness for his
people so that he could give them his sight. When Christ took
the sin of his people, He traded them his righteousness. That's a trade, isn't it? He
made sin for his people that his people might be made the
righteousness of God in him. Now, many, many people who say
they like preaching, they despise the preaching of that truth.
Absolute substitution. But you know what? That despised
message, that despised means of preaching the substitutionary
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how God gives his people
sight. He does it by the preaching of
his word. He applies that sight by the
preaching of his word. Again, that's something that
came from inside of him to us. It's the word of his mouth. The
word that came out of his mouth. That's what his servants preach.
and we keep preaching it and preaching it and preaching it
and one day God's people hear and then they see. That's how
they receive their sight. Now here's the fourth thing and
this is really the most, the thing that seems to be the preeminent
teaching in this passage. The Lord gives sight knowledge
to his people. Now he saves them, he gives them sight. He gives
them knowledge. They know him. They know him.
They know he gave them sight. They know him and they trust
him. But that knowledge and that sight grows over time. Look at
verse 23 again. He took the blind man by the
hand, led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes
and put hands upon him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he
looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that,
he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up and
he was restored and saw every man clearly. Now the Lord spit
on this man's eyes and laid his hands on him and now he could
see. He could see something, but it
wasn't very clear. Actually, this man did not see
what he thought he saw. You know good and well he didn't
see trees walking, but that's what he thought he saw. but that
was more than he saw a few minutes ago. He was in complete darkness
a few minutes ago. He thought he saw men as trees
walking. And then gradually the Lord gave
him sight to see better and better and better till he saw all men
clearly. Now that's the experience of
everyone that God saves. When the Lord reveals himself
to a sinner, that sinner is as saved as they ever will be. You're
not gonna grow in salvation. When God very first saves a sinner,
makes them righteous, they'll never be more righteous, they'll
never be more holy, they'll never be more justified, they'll never
be more loved, they'll never be more accepted of God than
they are at that very moment, never. Even in heaven they won't
be. There's no such thing as this thing of progressive sanctification
where a person grows more and more and more holy. I hope we
learn to act a little better, but we're not growing in holiness.
We're not growing in righteousness. When God saves His people, He
makes them perfectly righteous. So they can't grow in righteousness. They're perfectly holy. They
can't grow in holiness. But the believer, now they do
see. They do believe. But we don't
see everything at once, do we? The believer's sight grows better
and better the more we grow in grace and in knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. You can't grow in holiness, you
can't grow in righteousness, you can't grow in acceptance
with God, but we do grow in grace and knowledge, don't we? You
know, I don't know the exact moment in time that the Lord
first gave me sight, but I do remember a time period when I
realized, I see. I remember a time when I first
realized I do trust Christ. Now at that time I saw, I understood
and I believed that the Lord Jesus Christ is everything I
need and He's everything I want. I trust Him. At that time I did,
I saw that. I saw He's everything that I
need. The Lord had given me faith in
Christ And I did believe on him. I did trust him. Now that was
real. But I'm telling you, by his grace, that dependence, that
faith has grown over the years. I believe him more now than I
did before. I trust him more now than I did before. You know,
at that time, when I first realized, I trust Christ. I can't tell
you when that first happened, but I trust him. I know there
was a time I didn't trust Him, and I know I trust Him now. When
that changed, I don't know. But at that time, I knew who
Christ was. I knew. I knew how He saved sinners. But I know it a whole lot better
now. Because now I know it by experience. See, I know it better
now. At that time, I knew that I was
a sinner. But I know that a whole lot better
now. because the Lord has solely been improving my sight. Oh,
I see how wretched I am. I see those things that I thought
I did that were pleasing to God, and I see now how sinful that
they were. When the Lord first gave me sight,
see if this isn't true for you, I still saw men as trees walking.
I still saw men as bigger than they actually were. Now I see
more clearly. I see men much more small, much
more insignificant than I used to. I see myself as much more
insignificant than I used to. When the Lord first revealed
Himself to me, I knew this. I knew this, I believed this.
I was needed. I needed Christ to do everything
for me. I knew that. I'm telling you
what, I know that and I feel that, that I need Him to do everything
for me. A whole lot more now than I did
then. Sure do. I knew at that time that I was
dependent on Christ to save me and I was dependent on Christ
to keep me. I'm telling you, as you grow in grace and knowledge,
as your faith grows stronger, your dependence grows too. Here's
a good way to tell if your faith is genuine and if it's really
growing or not. The more your faith grows, the
weaker you become. So I know a whole lot more now
about how dependent I am on Christ than when I first started this
thing. I remember when the Lord first revealed himself to me,
I found a joy in hearing God's word preached that I didn't have
before. That joy has done nothing but grow. It's done nothing but
grow. I know the joy of the forgiveness
of my sin, but not as much as I know it now, because now I've
learned more of the experience of it. I could see, but not very
clearly. And by God's grace, he's been
pleased to make that sight grow by growing in grace and the knowledge
of Christ. So that eventually we're all
like this blind man Every believer will see all men clearly. We're
not going to see trees, men as trees, walking anymore. We're
going to see all men clearly. And there's four specific men
that we will see that enables us to see all men clearly. First
and most important, we see the man Christ Jesus clearly. Now, if the Lord gives us sight,
The Lord gives us life, he saves us, he gives us sight. We will
clearly see the Lord Jesus Christ as the representative man, the
second Adam. I'm made righteous by his obedience. My sins washed away by his sacrifice. It's all in him. I see Christ. The only way that I can be righteous
is if Christ obeyed the lawful. He's got to do it all by himself.
I can't help him. He's got to do it all. Christ made me righteous
as the second Adam by representation, the same way the first Adam made
me unrighteous by his disobedience. Christ made me righteous by his
obedience. See, I was in Adam doing what
Adam did. That's how I became a guilty sinner. Well, in the
same way, I was in Christ doing what Christ did. So when he obeyed
the law, I did too. That's how I was made righteous.
If the Lord gives me spiritual sight, I will clearly see Christ
is my righteousness. He had to earn it for me as a
representative man, and I will see Christ as my substitute,
dying in my place, bearing my sin, because that's the only
way my sin can be put away. Now, do I understand how Christ
could be made sin, yet never sin? Do I understand how Christ
could be made sin, yet he was always holy? No, I don't understand
that. But I do see it and understand
it. Does that make sense to you? You see that? I'll see Christ
as my representative. I'll see Christ as my substitute.
I'll see Christ as my king. I don't understand everything
he's doing. I don't see it. I don't see it yet. But he's
my king and I'm gonna bow to him. I'll bow to him. I'll see
Christ clearly. This thing is not a question
of whether or not I'm going to accept Jesus. This thing is a
question of, will He have mercy on me? And you're going to find
me bowing at His feet begging for it. Because I see Christ
clearly. He's the King. He's the Sovereign
Savior. The second man that I'll see
clearly is myself. If the Lord gives me spiritual
sight, I'm going to see myself as the sinner. The sinner. I'm so vile and wretched and
dead and trespasses and sins. If the Lord chose to only save
me, if I was the only one, he'd still have to do everything that
he did. He'd still have to suffer everything that he suffered in
order to save me. I am so vile. The only way I
can be saved is if the son of God himself dies in my place.
That's the only way. But the only way I'm going to
see myself clearly, I've got to see Christ first. I've got
to see him first. The only way that I can see myself
as I am is by seeing myself in the light of who Christ is. How
do I know I'm in darkness when I see Christ, the light of the
world? How do I know I'm unholy when I see Christ and his holiness?
How do I know that I'm unrighteous when I see Christ and His righteousness?
How do I know I'm just no good, low-down person when I see Christ
high and lifted up on His throne? The way I see myself clearly
as I am is by seeing Christ clearly who He is. That's what happened
to Isaiah. You know, Isaiah was pretty full
of himself at the start of Isaiah, wasn't he? Well, he was woeing
everybody else and he just knew everything and everybody better
be listening to him. And then Isaiah saw the Lord high and
lifted up and his train filled the temple. The seraphims flew
around him crying, holy, holy, holy. And when Isaiah saw Christ
as he is, Isaiah said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips
because I've seen the lips of the word of God. I'm a man of
unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips. Now I know myself as I am. Because I saw Christ high and
lifted up. Job experienced that, didn't he? Job was kind of making
excuses for himself. But after his eye, he said, my
eye has seen the Lord. Do you know what Job did? He
abhorred himself. He hated himself. But he only could know that.
if he saw Christ as He is first. And here's how you can tell.
Have you seen Christ clearly? Have you seen yourself clearly? Have I seen myself clearly? Here's
how you can tell. If I've seen myself clearly,
I'm going to run to Christ for mercy. I'm going to run to Him
for grace. I'm going to run to Him for forgiveness
and beg Him to give it to me. That's how you can tell if you've
seen yourself clearly. Well, the third man that we'll
see clearly is my old man. Now my old man is the nature
that I got from Adam. That nature can only sin. It can never believe on Christ.
It can never do anything good. That old man cannot be improved. He can't be. He's got to die. He's got to be put in the ground,
put out of sight, That old man is me. He's my worst enemy. He's my worst enemy because he
can only sin. He's constantly trying to get
me to trust in my works instead of trusting Christ. I see that
man clearly. And the fourth man that we see
clearly, and I'm going to talk about this for a minute and then
we'll pick up on this in the message this morning, But the
fourth man we see clearly is the new man. The new man. I see that new man. He's holy,
he's righteous, and he can never sin. Never. Because that's the
way that God birthed him. That's the nature that God gave
him in the birth. This new man is conceived by
the seed of the holy word of God. If you got printing on the
front of your Bible, it says holy Bible. This is the holy
word of God. That's the seed. Isn't that the
seed that God uses to give eternal life, to cause His people to
be born again? Well, then the new man has to
be holy too, because he was conceived from holy seed. Now, I grant
you that when I look inside myself, when I say I see the new man
clearly, I really don't see him. When I look inside myself, all
I see is sin. But here's what I know. I have an old man and
I have a new man. I saw a good friend one time
at the golf course and he was asking me about the new birth.
And I told him some of the things that people were saying about
the new birth and that some people were saying there's not two natures
in a believer. This new nature does not exist
in a believer. And he looked at me like that's
the weirdest thing he'd ever heard. And he said, well, I know
there's a new man in me. That man is the one that trusts
Christ. That man is the one that loves the gospel. That man is
the one that needs to hear the gospel. I mean, I don't exactly
see him, but I know he's there because I believe Christ. I don't
see myself as sinless now, but I see Christ. And you talk about
the new birth and the two natures in a believer. To the flesh,
it seems like the most aposterous thing you've ever heard. It sounds
like, Frank, you're saying, in order to be a believer, I've
got to be schizophrenic. Well, the only thing I can tell
you about that is this. It's not hard to see. It's not hard
to understand if you've been born again. If you've been given
eyes to see, it's not hard to see. I had a teacher. in high school, I loved him,
I loved him. Back in Mr. Schrader, you remember
Mr. Schrader. And I told him one time, I said, Mr. Schrader,
your tests are too easy. I mean, can you imagine a student,
that was a dumb thing to say. But, and he said, now Frank,
every test is easy if you know the answers. Everything is obvious if the
Lord's giving you eyes to see. Now, by God's grace, I see. You too, don't you? But you know
what? I don't see anything as clearly
as I wish I would. Oh, I pray every day that the
Lord would give me eyes to see, that he'd make this more clear
to me so that I could preach it to you. I don't see anything
as clearly as I wish I would, but I do see. Now, there was
a time I was blind, and now I see. but it's through a glass darkly,
isn't it? But when the Lord returns and He touches us again, He touched
this blind man twice, didn't He? After the second time, He
saw all men clearly. When the Lord returns and He
touches me again and brings me to be with Him, I'm gonna see
clearly. Then I will know, even as also
that I have been known. But until then, I want to grow
in grace. How am I gonna grow in grace?
How am I gonna grow in knowledge? How am I gonna grow in sight
of the Savior? It's by being where Christ is
preached. That's how. That's the means
that God's given us to be able to grow in grace, and if you
would see more clearly, you would grow in grace, you would grow
in faith, you would grow in trust of the Savior. Make use of the
means that God's given you, and be where he's preached, because
that's the way he does it. All right, hope the Lord will
bless that to you.