Let's open tonight's service
with hymn number 36 from your spiral, gospel hymns hymnal number
36, Covenant Love. Let's all stand together. Behold my soul, the love of God,
behold the grace most free. Before all worlds His purpose
stood, His heart was fixed on me. Elected by eternal love,
the covenant firm and sure, the triune God agreed in love, salvation
to secure. My soul was given to the Son
He promised to redeem By blood and righteousness His own He
would my soul reclaim In the due time Emmanuel came to live
and die for me. He lives today and bears my name. Christ is my sure In love He sent His Spirit down,
Who gave me life and grace. He drew me and I followed on,
My Savior to embrace. Now I rejoice in covenant love,
amazing grace I see. I now am conquered by his love. My Savior is my King. Please be seated. Amen. Let's open our Bibles to
Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. We'll begin reading at the first
verse, Hebrews 10. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come and not the very image of the things
can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then,
would they not have ceased to be offered? If the offerings
ever satisfied the requirement for justice, then there would
be no more need for an offering. But they continued to make offerings,
because those Old Testament offerings were a picture, a type of what
the Lord Jesus would do when he provided himself as the final
offering. And then would they not have
ceased to be offered because that the worshipers once purged
should have had no more conscience of sin. But in those sacrifices,
there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should
take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering, thou wouldest not. But a body hast thou prepared
me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, thou had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book, it
is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and offerings and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadest pleasure therein, which are offered by
the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. By the witch will, we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Let's pray. Gigi is having surgery
in the morning on her knee. I think they're doing some arthroscopic
surgery. I want us to remember to pray
for Gigi. our blessed, gracious Heavenly
Father. Thank you for giving your son as the sacrifice for our sins
that would completely satisfy once and for all everything that
you require in order for us to be sanctified, to be made holy
to be forgiven, to be saved. Lord, we pray tonight that you
would send your spirit in power and that you would open for us
what only you can open. Open your word, open our hearts. Lord, enable us to set our affections
on things above where Christ is seated at thy right hand.
And forgive us, Lord, for putting our affections and our concerns
so much in the things of this world. Lord, in this hour, we
pray that you would set our hearts on Christ and speak hope and
comfort and truth and peace. to our hearts. Lord, we do pray
for Gigi and we ask Lord that you would encourage her, comfort
her and speak peace to her. We pray for the physicians and
ask Lord that you would give them skill to perform the surgery
well and give her healing to her body. Lord, we Thank you for Jeanette's
good report, and thank you for your hand of strength and healing
that you've given to her. And Lord, we pray for that continued
work of grace. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. number 268 in the hardbacked
hymnal, 268. Let's stand together. of foundation, ye saints of the
Lord. It is late for your faith in
his excellent work. What more can he say than to
you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will still give thee aid, I'll
strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, upheld by
my gracious omnipotent hand. When through the deep waters
I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, And sanctify
to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, thy grace also live. shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
thy only design. Thy cross to consume and thy
gold to refine. A soul that on Jesus hath leaned
for repose I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. Please be seated. That's a great, great old hymn. We were singing that, I was thinking
about the Apostle Paul and his prayer for the Lord to remove
the thorn in his flesh and how the Lord said to him, he said,
my grace is sufficient for thee. And Paul responded by rejoicing
that God's strength was made perfect in his weakness. And that applies so much to our
text tonight. We're going to be looking at
John chapter 9. And I'm so tempted to deal with
every verse in this chapter. Maybe we'll do that. We've been
looking at the miracles of Christ on Wednesday night and at the
same time I'm trying to preach through John verse by verse.
But there's so much and this whole chapter is given to one
miracle. It's over 40 verses committed
that the Holy Spirit gave us explaining the miracle and what
happened to the blind man And such a sweet message that the
Lord preached about himself be in the light of the world. We know from what we've been
looking at the last couple of months, few months, that a lot
of the miracles are only given a few verses. I think the one
we looked at last week was only three or four verses. And so there's much here. And tonight
I want to try to keep our attention on the first three verses. And
as Jesus passed by, John 9, verse 1, he saw a man which was blind
from his birth. And his disciples asked him,
saying, Master, who did sin? this man or his parents that
he was born blind? And Jesus answered, neither hath
this man sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. I remember many, many years ago
in seminary, one of my professors commenting on this passage of
scripture. And he interpreted it to mean
that what the Lord was saying in verse three is that his sin
didn't have anything to do with it, but since he is blind, let's
take advantage of this opportunity to bring glory to God. That is
blasphemy. What the Lord's saying in verse
three is that God made him blind. God purposed him to be blind
from birth for this very hour, for this very moment, for this
glorious opportunity to show forth the Lord. He said, otherwise,
you're making the Lord to be capricious and just, you know,
cruel. And, you know, probably the same man that
said, you know, when a person dies, don't tell your children
that God took their life because it'll make them mad at God. And
I'd hold that rather a child be mad at a God who's sovereign
than to love a God who's not. We're talking about the sovereignty
of our God here. And the Lord is saying in verse
3, I made him blind. I was the cause of this affliction. And what a horrible affliction
it would have been. All his life from birth, he never saw. And
I did it all for the purpose of manifesting my glory. And that truth is relevant for
each one of us in every circumstance and every affliction of our life.
That's what Paul was talking about when he was talking about
his thorn in the flesh. And he said, I will glory in
my infirmities, for when I am weak, then I am strong. His strength
is made perfect in my weakness. And there's some evidence in
the scriptures Paul told the church at Galatia, he said, I
know that you would give me your eyes if you could. And in another
couple of places when he signs his epistles, because there were
other men writing letters and sending them out to the churches
and pretending to be the Apostle Paul, and Paul would not write
the letters but he would sign them and he would say when he
signed them, see how large of letters I have written to you,
this is my signature. And if no other, I think there's a strong indication
that the Apostle Paul had a real bad problem with his eyesight
and had to be led about and had to be helped. And what an affliction that would
be. But I want us to consider the question
that the disciples ask. And, you know, to encourage students
to think freely or to explore unknown possibilities, a teacher
might say to a class in encouraging them to ask questions, there
are no stupid questions. If as a teacher you say that
to a group of children in particular, you better be ready to respond
to stupid questions in such a way as to not shut those kids down. And I'm so encouraged in the
way the Lord responds to the disciples' questions because
it is no doubt a stupid question. And I think about how many questions
that I've asked the Lord that just are foolish and fleshly
and selfish and how gentle he is in responding
to our ignorance. Because really what he should
have said or what he could have said, I'm not gonna tell him
what he should have said, but what he could have said is, have
you guys not heard anything from me? The disciples did not say,
notice in verse three, they did not say, Lord, is there any connection
at all between this man's sin or his parents' sin and his blindness? Is there some connection here?
They didn't say that. They assumed that there was a
direct connection between this man's condition and either his
sin. Now you think about it. Look
at the question. Master, who did sin? Who did sin? this man or his
parents that he was born blind? This question is clearly asking,
did God see some sin that this man was going to commit in his
life and therefore punish him for that by making him blind?
Or did God punish him with blindness because of something his parents
did? It's such a works question. In fact, when this man encounters
the Pharisees later on in the chapter, and they want to discount
the Lord for having performed this miracle, He says to them, notice in verse
32 of this same chapter, since the world began, they were
saying, you know, give God the glory. He didn't, this man that
anointed your eyes didn't have anything to do with it. And he
says, since the world began is not heard that any man opened
the eyes of one that was blind, that was born blind. You ever
heard of this, this ever happening before? If this man were not of God,
he could do nothing. And they answered and said unto
him, thou wast altogether born in sins. We know that you're
a sinner. We know that you're a sinner.
You were born a sinner because look at what God has afflicted
you with. That's why you're blind. is because
you're such a notorious sinner. You see, the disciples were making
the same connection, the same correlation that the Pharisees
were making. They were asking a question,
who sinned? When the Lord said in verse three,
neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, he wasn't saying
that they weren't sinners. They came into this, he came
into this world a sinner, his parents came into this world
a sinner, they're fallen in their father Adam by nature, and certainly
blindness and every other affliction that we experience in this world
has come into the world as a result of sin. but to suggest that you can draw
a straight line between a particular sin in a person's life and an
affliction like this is to conclude that the work that the Lord Jesus
did on Calvary's cross was not sufficient, that further punishment
had to be exercised in order to satisfy God's justice. You
see, it's a works gospel. It's a stupid question. But I'm
so thankful for the way the Lord dealt with these men. You know,
maybe he said to them at some point, there are no stupid questions,
man, ask me anything. Well, this was one. And as I said, he could have
said, have you all not heard anything? But he didn't. He took them where they were,
just like he does for you and me when we ask stupid questions.
How many times have we said why? How many times have we, in our
mind, drawn a line between our circumstances and some sin? How many times has Satan, as
the accuser of the brethren, taken us back to the law by suggesting
to us that this affliction is because of something you did? You see, that's what the... And
again, they didn't say, they weren't asking, is there some
connection? They were saying, who sinned?
We know that this affliction is the result of a particular
sin. Who was it? Was it a sin that
God saw he was gonna do? Or was it a sin that his parents
did and God punished him for it? Who sinned? See, to have such a thought is
to deny the whole gospel. It's to say that God's not satisfied
with the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That he's
got to somehow punish us more than he did in the person of our sin bearer,
our substitute. Look at the Lord's response.
Oh, neither hath this man sinned. You can just see the compassion
in our Lord. You know, much like when he said
to Philip, you know, Philip, have I been with you so long
as you don't know by now if you've seen me, you've seen the Father,
I'm the Father of one. You know, we're just as, I speak
for myself, I'm just as stupid and slow of heart to believe
and just as dumb and I've got to be taught the same lesson
over and over and over and over and over again, you know. Nor his parents. but that the
works of God should be manifest in him. Here's the purpose of
afflictions. That the work of God might be
manifest. That when God afflicts his children,
that they cry out to him, they look to him, they rest in him,
they know that this is of the Lord. and that it is for his glory
and somehow or another it's going to be for their good. Why do we not come to that conclusion
more quickly than we do? We do eventually. Eventually
the Lord shows us and we're able to say, thank you Lord, forgive
me for my unbelief. But our initial thoughts are
not always so. Our initial thoughts often are
despair, anger, confusion, doubt, fear, unbelief. When things don't go the way
we think they ought to go, who's sin? And we ask the same stupid question
these disciples ask. And the fact that the disciples,
plural, ask the question, they were all in this together. On
occasion, Peter would speak up, or Thomas would speak up, or
Philip would speak up, and you think, well, and the other disciples,
but they were all together on this one. Who sinned? You know, by nature, men see according to the flesh. They
that are of the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. This
is such a fleshly question. We categorize men by race and
nationality and ethnicity and gender language, religion. But they that are after the Spirit,
may God give us the grace to not look at things after the
flesh. They that are after the Spirit,
they do mind the things of the Spirit. And we make righteous
judgments when we say, you know, Race and nationality and language
and ethnicity, none of those things matter. There's only two
categories of people in the world. That's the lost and the saved.
That's God's elect and the reprobate. That's the only two. All men,
regardless of what other differences they may have in their outward
appearances, all men fit into one of those two categories. The natural man walks only by
sight. As believers, we are admonished
to set our affections on things above, not on things of the earth. And yet, just like these disciples,
we still have a fleshly nature. It's the reason why we have to
keep hearing the gospel. The reason why we have to keep
hearing this message, isn't it? that our God reigns, that he's
sovereign, that he has nothing but good for his children. I had somebody call me just the
other day and they're in the military and trying
to present some some documents to their superiors in showing,
you know, what the important thing is with leadership. And
he called me to ask me, you know, do you have any advice? And I
said, well, the golden rule always works. You know, you just, you
treat other people the way you want, you would have them treat
you. I said, but here's the other thing that's most important.
He was talking about men following him. I said, men aren't going
to follow you unless they know you have their best interest
at heart. And if they know that, they'll follow you. We follow the Lord Jesus without
any hesitation. Why? Because we know that he
has our best interest at heart. and there may be some difficult
circumstances that bring about our good. You know, I've heard
people say, well, you know, that person was afflicted, just like
these disciples, you know, they conclude that an affliction is
a result of sin. And, oh no, more often than not,
it's just the opposite. But God's choice of saints and
servants have suffered horrible afflictions. I already mentioned
the Apostle Paul. And even when Paul was writing
to Timothy, he said, take a little wine for your belly for your
often afflictions. Timothy suffered digestive issues
all his life. I mean, it was well known to
him and Apostle Paul and everybody else. Paul's giving him some advice
on how to, you know, and oh, there's been so many things,
so many things. No, there's not a direct, direct
connection between who sinned, that this man was born blind.
To the contrary, it's often just the opposite, the greatest, The
greatest choices, blessed saints of God have been given some of
the most difficult things. Just as there are only, we make
spiritual judgments, judge righteous judgments, the scripture says.
And righteous judgments and spiritual judgments are just the opposite
of what walking by sight and earthly judgments would be. And
just like there's only two categories of people, there's only two gospels.
There's only two messages of salvation. It's either of works
or it's all of grace. This question, Oh, it throws
not a little bit of leaven but a lot of leaven into the lump. It is a denial of the finished
work of Christ. That justice was not satisfied
by the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. That there's
something else that has to be done in order for God to be satisfied. A salvation that we must contribute
something to in order to be saved. Or a salvation that we must abstain
from something in order to be saved. Now I'm not suggesting that sin
doesn't have consequences. It does, you know that. We've seen that with David recently
and looking at David's sin with Bathsheba. There's, you know, we fish for
God's fish with a net. We throw out the gospel net and
God puts his fish in it. But Satan doesn't fish that way.
Satan fishes with a lure and with bait and a hook. And those
of us that like to do a little fishing, you know you gotta hide
the hook in the bait. so that fish can't see the hook. All he can see is the bait and
the bait smells good and it tastes good and it looks good and he
bites it only to find that there's a hook in the bait. And there's
a hook in sin, isn't there? There are consequences to our
sin. The wages of sin is death. The child of God never fears
eternal separation from God. The Lord Jesus suffered that
death in our stead on the cross. He died and God's justice was
satisfied completely in what the Lord Jesus accomplished.
But there are other, we suffer the death of our of our joy. David prayed in Psalm 51, return
unto me the joy of thy salvation. We can suffer the death of relationships. We can suffer the death of our
testimony. Some sins even lead to the death
of the body. There may be, you know, some
things, but that's not what the Lord's dealing with here. This
man was born unable to see. Now we know that when we get
further into this, we'll deal more with the spiritual application
of being blind. This is the passage where the
Pharisees said, are you saying that we're blind? At the end
of this chapter. And the Lord said to them, if
you were blind, then you would see. But because you say that
you can see, therefore your sins remain. We come into this world
spiritually blind. We can't know God. We can't worship
him. We can't see our sin. We can't
see ourselves. We can't see the accomplishments
of the Lord Jesus until we're born again, to be born from above,
to have the Spirit of God, the light of the gospel, in order
to be able to see. So this man represents all of
us. as we come into this world blind and the Lord has to give
us sight. But I was so encouraged in just
thinking about this question that the disciples ask because
it really does distinguish the difference between a gospel of
works and a gospel of free, sovereign grace. And we know that grace to be
grace has to be free and grace to be grace has to be sovereign,
it has to be a gift. There is no grace otherwise.
We have to use these adjectives because so many people use the
word grace in a way that doesn't really have the meaning of grace. We believe in free grace. We believe in sovereign grace.
We believe in a gospel where God is looking to the accomplished
work and glorious person and sinless sacrifice that the Lord
Jesus made and God's completely satisfied And there's nothing
that we can do or need to do to add to that. Whatever we do to add to it only
takes away from it. If this is a punishment for sin, then the punishment that the
Lord Jesus experienced was not sufficient. Who did sin? They tell me that the book
of Job is the first book that was written in the Bible. Now,
I don't know exactly how they figured that out, even before
Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, that the book of
Job had already been recorded and told. What is the message
in the book of Job? Is this not it? And if the book
of Job is the first book written, this is so foundational. This
is so foundational. Job was afflicted by God. The Lord gave Satan, you know,
God was the first cause. Yeah, Satan may have been the
instrument of that, and he would be the instrument of the afflictions
that we experience, but only as he's given permission by God
to do so. Whatever Satan does, he has to
go before the Lord and get permission before he can do anything to
any of God's people. And the whole book of Job, Job's
three miserable comforters, his three friends, what are they
saying? Job, you need to come clean. You, we know, we know that there's
some secret sin in your life or these things wouldn't have
happened to you. God is exercising his justice
and his punishment against you because you're hiding something.
That's the message of the book of Job. And when each one of
Job's friends speaks that message to Job, Job in response knows
that there's not anything gross or hidden in his life. And so
he defends himself and he justifies himself. And he says that, you
know, no. And Job, as a result of the accusations
that are made against him, falls into the same trap that they
were in, a works gospel. And he begins to defend himself.
And he says at one point, he says, if God would let me come
before his counsel, I would bring my arguments and I would prove
to him that I'm innocent. And as a result of the accusations
that these afflictions are coming upon you as a punishment from
God because of your sin, Job ends up in the same boat with
his accusers until Elihu comes. Elihu preaches the gospel to
him and Elihu is angry because he says, Elihu says to Job, you've
justified yourself before God. And then God begins to speak.
After Elihu preaches the gospel, God speaks. And what does God
say to Job? Brace yourself like a man. I'm
gonna ask you a few questions. Who is this that darkens my counsel
without knowledge? Job, where were you? When I separated
the land from the sea, when I put the stars into the sky, when
I throw a hook out into the ocean and grab a hold of Leviathan
and see what you can do with him. And God for four chapters
just declares his sovereignty, his power, and his glory. He's saying to Job exactly what
the Lord's saying to us and to these disciples, no. but that
the works of God might be manifest in him. And when Job hears the gospel
and Job sees God, the first words out of his mouth are, behold,
I am by him. I spoke without knowledge. I
repent in dust and ashes. Lord, I don't know what I was
talking about. That whole book, that's the whole
book of Job. Obviously, there's so much details in it but that's
the message of Job. And it just keeps repeating itself,
doesn't it? And it's the same conclusion
that these disciples came to. Who sinned? Was it this man or was it his
parents? It wasn't. I repeat again, it
wasn't. Lord, is there some connection
between what this man has been afflicted with all his life and
somebody's sin? Teach us. No. They knew that this had to do
directly with some particular sin. This was a punishment from
God. And it was a direct denial of
the whole gospel of God's free grace in Christ. All the punishment that God required for all the sins of all of God's
elect was placed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. The full justice of God, the
full wrath of God was poured out on Christ. And God saw the
travail of his soul and God said, I'm satisfied. So that we don't even have to
entertain the thought when we're going through some trial or trouble. The Lord's The Lord's getting
me, the Lord's punishing me. The Lord's... Don't even go there. That punishment's
been taking... Now, is God doing something to
manifest his grace and his glory and his work in your life? Yeah. Yeah. but it'll be for our eternal
good. It'll be for our temporal good
for that matter. It'll be for the rejoicing of
our hearts. And with each one, he teaches
us again and again and again so that our first response, our first
response ought to be to rejoice in the Lord Our first response
ought to be to be thankful in all things, for all things of
the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us. It's not. But the Lord would... That's where the Lord's bringing
us. Through every trial and trouble. He's growing us in His grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ so that we're able
to bow, we're able to rejoice, we're able to believe, we're
able to trust. No, my child, this affliction is not because
of his sin or the sins of his parents, but this affliction was given
to him by God that the work of God should be manifest in him,
in him. That's what God's doing. He's
manifesting the work of His grace in the hearts of His children,
giving them faith. And it's the trying of our faith
that worketh patience. Can you imagine how self-righteous,
how independent, how how unfaithful we would be if
we didn't, if the Lord never gave us any of these things.
You know, we just, life was just without any trouble. Scott, you're right. Scott was
telling me, he told a friend of his at work, a friend of his
asked him just today or recently, how you doing or something like
that. And Scott said, well, he said,
In trouble or going in trouble or coming out of trouble all
the time. And that's okay, that's where I like to be. I say, you
know, God's good. May we... This is so that the work of God
might be manifest in you. Our Heavenly Father, Forgive
us. We're so quick to walk by sight. It is so easy for us to fall
into a works mentality. Oh, Lord, forgive us. Remind
us of our need to look to Christ to rest in him and to believe
that you are completely satisfied with all that he has provided
and give us the faith to be satisfied with him. And thank you. Thank you for the measured, loving,
gentle, sometimes very difficult hand of affliction that you've
seen in your wise purpose. to give to each one of your children.
Lord, might we be, might we be content with where you have us. I ask it in Christ's name, amen. 46, 46, let's stand together. In the spiral hymnal number 46, Eternal love, electing grace
Secured for me in heaven a place Chosen from all eternity Son
of God, my blood, pour to me The Spirit came in sovereign
power at the exact appointed hour, revealing Christ, creating
faith, my soul equipped from its death. ? How I rejoice in sovereign grace
? My sovereign God shall have my praise ? Praise God for grace,
praise God for grace ? Sovereign, eternal saving grace