As you know, in Mark, I've been
caused to look at that amazing darkness, that supernatural darkness
that came over... That supernatural darkness that
came over the world for those three hours. And as you can imagine,
it's led me to ponder many passages of Scripture. In fact, the Lord
Jesus began his ministry by quoting those words out of Isaiah 61. He said, The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord." In John chapter 9 we have a remarkable
story and the Lord in His providence has set aside two chapters in
John's Gospel for miracles. He feeds 5,000 and it's mentioned
in a few verses. He raises the dead and it's mentioned
in a few verses. And yet in John's Gospel we have
two whole chapters devoted to miracles. to miracles. One of them, of course, is the
raising of Lazarus, but the one that's before us tonight is the
healing of this blind man. And the context is remarkable. In John chapter 8, the Lord Jesus
declares himself to be the light of the world. He who follows
me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. And as he goes on in John 8,
he speaks again about himself and who he is. And in John 8
chapter 30, as he spoke these words, many believed in him. And then he goes on to talk about,
as he does so often in his discussions with the Jews he goes on to proclaim
that he is God and by the end of John chapter 8 and there are
fascinating 30 verses there by the end of John chapter 8 he
declares himself to be God in all sorts of ways and then he
said your father Abraham Rejoice to see my day, verse 56. And he saw it and was glad. Then
the Jews, these Jews who had supposedly been believing in
some sense in him just a little while earlier, the Jews said
to him, you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, most assuredly,
I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. I am God. I am the God that you
claim to be worshipping. Then, these men who earlier had
said they believed in Him, took up stones to throw at Him. And
then we have a remarkable miracle in John 8.59. They took up stones
to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself. and went out of the
temple going through the midst of them and so passed by. It happened at the beginning
of Luke's Gospel when he was preaching in Nazareth. He just
was able to walk through a crowd and in a sense almost disappear
from their sight. And so he walks through this
group of people and hides himself from them. and now the very next
verse in chapter 9 as he passed by he saw a man who was blind
from birth a man who had never seen the
light of day, a man who may not have even been born with eyes
at all. And his disciples asked him,
saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind? It's such a common way for us
to think, isn't it? that difficulties and painful
things come upon people because of their disobedience. It was
a common thing in that day to consider someone who was born
blind an outcast and someone who was under the judgment of
God. These other people claim to see
and the Lord Jesus hides himself from them. He is a man who had
never been able to see. who had lived all of his life
as someone who the Jews thought was cursed by God, to whom his
parents would have been embarrassed because of him and the shame
he brought on their family. Jesus answered and said, neither
this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should
be revealed in him. Our God is a God who works in
this world. And though these works that we
are going to look at in this chapter are the works of God,
it's intended by God to be an illustration of conversion, of
recovery from the prison of blindness, from the prison of poverty, from
the prison of despair, from the prison of being laboured by sin. This man is a picture of all
of the children of God. We are born blind, spiritually
blind. born dead, spiritually dead,
and we are born helpless and in a hopeless situation unless
Jesus passes by. He comes in places like this,
and he comes through the preaching of the gospel, and he passes
by, but he doesn't pass by and not have an impact on his people. See, he passed by these other
men in judgment. And now he passes by this man
in mercy. You see, it was Jesus who saw
him. It wasn't the man who saw the
Lord Jesus. In fact, there's not even a word
in the text that indicates that this man even sought something
from God. No doubt he had spent many, many
moments, much of his life, complaining and thinking that God had abandoned
him and he would have blamed God for his blindness. But the Lord in salvation, our
God, who works, and our God who reveals His work is always the
one who takes the initiative. Thank God He does. Salvation is of the Lord. So the Lord Jesus replies, This
man, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but the works
of God should be revealed in him." And then he has a marvellous
declaration, I must the works, I must do, I must be about 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." It's remarkable, isn't it? We
spend so much of our lives at one time or another grieving
over the circumstances that the Lord has laid before us. Things
generally don't work out the way we want them to. Mostly our
fervent desires for the things that would warm our hearts the
most are actually taken from us, and at the very odd times
when we feel that we have them, they seem to slip through our
fingers like water. But for God's children in this
world, everything that happens is designed by God from before
the foundation of the world. And it happens for our eternal
well-being. These painful things happen for
the good of our souls. See, this man was not a young
man. When his parents say that he's
of age, and you hear his response, we're talking about a man who
has some maturity and some experience in life. He might have been 20
or 30 years old of blindness, and yet the Lord Jesus says,
this has all happened. This has all happened that the
works of God should be revealed. Many of us struggle with lots
of difficulties. But the Lord says that these
things are for our good, the testing of our faith, the trials
of our faith. God says they're more precious
than gold. It's tested by fire. This man's life was tested by
fire. be tested and God says it is
good. The Lord Jesus, as we've seen
so often, never does anything which is not promised and prophesied
of Him. In Isaiah, He was promised to
be the One who would come, and one of the Messianic signs was
that He was going to be the One who would bring sight to the
blind. Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 36. Many places in the Scriptures
we are told about the Lord Jesus. I, the Lord, have called you.
It was he who came to this man. I've called you in righteousness.
I will hold your hand. I will keep you and give you
as a covenant to the peoples, as a light to the Gentiles, to
open blind eyes, to bring prisoners out from the prison, those who
sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is
my name. My glory I will not give to another. And so the Lord Jesus passed
by some, and he passed by this man in mercy and love. This man, like all of us, is
blind. Blind to who God is. blind to his word, blind to his
grace, blind to his son. When I was at university I was
so blinded to his son that I hated him with a passion. I hated him
and anything to do with him. I hated those who thought they
were worshipping him. In fact, I hated him so much
that his name became my common swear word. I was blind. I was blind to his son. I was blind to the fact that
he was the light of the world. I was blind to what I was. And like all people, until the
Lord comes along, I was blind to my blindness. I thought that
my darkness was light of this world. I could philosophically
stand up and argue with the Christians against the Christians. And at
university we had oodles of people, lecturers of all sorts, who would
give us as much ammunition as we were prepared to take in so
that we could be informed and intelligent haters of God and
haters of His people. Blind, blind as a bat, yet thinking
that I was as shining a light as this world had ever seen.
But the Lord Jesus must do a work, verse 4, I must work the works
of Him who sent me while at His day. What a great declaration
of sovereign activity of our God. He must do these works. He must do them for a time while
it is day. And he must do his Father's works. I have glorified you on earth,
he says at the end of his ministry. I have finished the work you
gave me to do. I have finished the work. He
came as the good shepherd. He knows his sheep. This is one
of them, a blind, helpless beggar. And I'm known by my own. He reveals himself to his own. And he's finished the work. He's
finished righteousness. If you want any righteousness
before God, Jesus is it, and there is nothing else. He's finished
sanctification. He has made His people as holy
as He is. He's finished justification. His people's sins have been put
away forever, and they'll never be remembered by God. He has
finished forgiveness. He has finished salvation. He has taken that law, that law
of God that stands against you and says you must be holy and
you must be perfect. He's taken that law and he's
honoured it as only God can honour it. And then he has suffered
under the wrath of God as if he had broken every one of it. all of that wickedness of mine,
the wickedness of those blasphemies, the wickedness of all of that
idolatry, the wickedness of all those years of worshipping myself
rather than worshipping God. He took them as his own. He said
they're my sins and he suffered God's wrath for them. They're
all the blessings. that he has won for his people. I have glorified you on earth. The glory of God is great in
our salvation because we are such helpless and rotten sinners. And there is a time coming when
no one can work. There is a rest for the people
of God, a rest in the arms of the Lord Jesus, but to him who
does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. The fitness for heaven is for
you to be ungodly, and for you to be a sinner, but for you to
be a believer." See, the accusation against the Lord Jesus is that
He is a sinner because this man was healed on a Sabbath. Verse 9, 16, the Pharisee said,
this man is not from God because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. This man was healed on a Sabbath
and he entered a rest, a rest from all of what ailed him. The Lord Jesus says to him, Go
and wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated scent. So
he went and washed and came back seen. He went and washed. The Lord God uses means. What does a little bit of mud? What does a little bit of mud?
What does a little bit of spittle do for blind eyes? Under the
blessing of God for things that seem so foolish. What are we
doing tonight? God says we're doing something
foolish. We're preaching. We're gathered
together to hear about the Lord Jesus, and he says it's through
the foolishness of preaching. God uses me, the foolishness
of preaching, to save those who believe. This man came back seeing,
and we'll just read these next few verses. Therefore the neighbors,
verse 8, and those who had previously seen that he was blind said,
Is this not he who sat and begged? Some said, This is he. Others
said, He is like him. He said, I am he. Therefore they
said to him, How were your eyes opened? 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. Then they said to him, Where
is he? He said, I do not know. They brought him who formerly
was blind to the Pharisees. Nothing like bringing someone
to the law papers to find out what the truth is. Now it was
a Sabbath when Jesus had made 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 some of the Pharisees
said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the
Sabbath. Others said, how can a man who 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? He said, He is a prophet. But
the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and
received his sight, until they called the parents of him who
had received his sight. And they asked them, saying,
Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does
he now see? His parents answered and said,
We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees,
we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do
not know. 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 the Christ, he would be
put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said,
he is of age, ask him. So they called again the man
who was blind, and said to him, Give glory to God. We know this
man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether
he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know, that
though I was blind, now I see. Then they said to him again,
What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He
answered them, I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do
you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his
disciples? Then they reviled him and said,
You are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know
that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we do not
know where he is from. The man answered and said to
them, Why, this is a marvellous thing, that you do not know where
he is from, yet he opened my eyes. Now we know that God does
not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does
his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has
been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born
blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said to him,
You were completely born in sins, and you were teaching us. And
they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast
him out, and when he found him, he said to him, 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 worshipped him. And Jesus
said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who
do not who do not see may see, and those who see may be made
blind. We see this man like so many
of us isn't it? There's a man in Mark 8 who had
his eyes opened by the Lord and he looked and he saw men as trees
walking. See in verse 11 This was a man
called Jesus. This was his testimony. It's
wonderful how this man doesn't go beyond the things that he's
witnessed. God never expects us to be anything
other than witnesses to things that we've experienced. In verse
17, he calls him a prophet. So he's a man, now he's a prophet. Verse 31, He calls him someone
who worships God and does his will, and someone who is heard
by God. In verse 33, he calls him a man
from God. If this man were not from God,
he could do nothing. He's done something. He is a
man from God. Verse 35, 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 worshipped him. This man
had received an amazing miracle, experienced something which the
Old Testament prophets said that only Messiah will ever do. Only Messiah will open the eyes
of the blind. Elijah and Elisha and all the
great prophets never opened the eyes of the blind. It is a messianic
prophecy. And no doubt this man had a lot
of experience with blindness and with what men's religious
opinions about blindness were. But he had received this amazing
miracle. and what sights he must have
seen for the first time after all those years. To see himself,
to see his parents, to see people around him, to see that temple,
to see where he sat, to see his food, to see that pool of Siloam. Just imagine how his mind must
have been boggling. But it takes more than a miracle
to produce faith in the heart. Because saving faith is a gift
from God. It only comes through revelation
of God in our hearts. It's not a physical activity,
it's a spiritual activity. Paul describes his own conversion in Galatians 1. But when it pleased God, here's
a man who met that time when it pleased God. As Ezekiel 16
describes it, it is the time of love when God passes by in
love. When it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace to
reveal His Son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles."
You see, God's children will have God come and reveal Jesus
spiritually to them in their hearts. And because you are sons,
God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father." Not to make you sons, what does the Holy Spirit
say? Because you are sons, Galatians
4.6. Because you are sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. And here In this verse we see
something else that saving faith brings. And he worshipped Him. To believe in the Lord Jesus
is to worship Him. I don't know about you, but the
thing that I miss most when it's taken from me is the worship
of God. To be in His presence and to
be granted the privilege of worshiping Him is what life is all about. It's what eternal life is all
about. saving faith, a meeting with
Jesus brings worship. You see, we have a great promise
in John's Gospel. It says in verse 23 of chapter
4, but the hour is coming, and now is, when true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth. 4. The Father is seeking such
to worship him. Do you think he's able to get
it to happen? Do you think God the Father is able to get that
promise to happen? He's seeking such to worship
him and true worshipping worshippers, they will worship the Father
in Spirit and in Truth. They will worship the Father
in the Spirit and they will worship the Father in the Truth. They will worship the Father
in the Lord Jesus. Because this word, to worship,
is a special word. There are other words that we
translate worship, and they mean to serve. But the word used here
is a special word, and only one person in all of Israel ever
did it, and on one day of the year. It means to go into the
holy of holies of God, into the very presence of God, and bow
down before him. God's children, because of the
Lord Jesus, because He has finished that work, go now, right at this
very moment, into the Holy of Holies, in heaven, and we worship
God. That's what Revelation, all those
songs in Revelation are songs of worship. And at the end, these
last few verses. The gospel that brings light. The gospel, the declaration of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is. It brings light and it also brings
darkness. In Exodus there's a wonderful
example of it. The angel of God, the Lord Jesus,
who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, And
the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind
them. Here is nation Israel, two million people, the Red Sea,
miles of sea in front of them, and they weren't able to swim.
And they were caverning heavy loads, and they had lots of cattle
with them. And behind them, the greatest
superpower in the world at that time, with the greatest army
that that great pharaoh could muster. And there they are, like
God's children, so often in this world. We look ahead and all
seems hopeless. And we look around and all seems
despair. What does God do? He goes from
before the camp of Israel. He moves and goes behind them.
This pillar of cloud, this extraordinary picture of our God. And so it came between the camp
of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus, it was a cloud
and darkness to one, and it gave light by night to the other. And the purpose of it is so that
one did not come near the other all night. Moses said to the
people, do not be afraid. stand still, see the salvation
of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians
whom you see today you shall see again no more forever. So the gospel which brought mercy
and light to this man revealed to those who were self-righteous
revealed the hearts of those who thought that they could stand
in judgment of God himself and declare the Lord Jesus to be
a sinner. For judgment I have come into
this world, that those who do not see may see. For those who are blind, they
may see. And those who see, those who
claim that they see by their own light and see by their own
wisdom and see by their own religious activities, see the things that
these people throughout the Gospels have seen. They never rejoice
with God. They never rejoice because of
who the Lord Jesus is. They pick up stones to stone
him. Such is their judgment. And they
may be made blind. Then some of the Pharisees, verse
40, who were with him heard these words and 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. They are shocking words, aren't
they? What a wonder the gospel is, that the sins of all of God's
people do not remain. The Lord Jesus said of these
Pharisees, He said, you'll die in your sins, you die surrounded,
surrounded by the reality of your sins and they remain. Do you believe the Son of God? God passes by. There is a time of love. There is a time of the gospel. As Peter said, Rabbi, you are
the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Jesus
said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and
blood have not revealed it to you, but our Father which is
in heaven. May the Lord pass us by, pass
by us in our blindness. May he force us by sovereign
mercy, sovereign grace, and sovereign love to have blind eyes open
that we may see and we may say, Lord, I believe. and we may be given the grace
to worship him. Let's pray.