Alright brethren, let's turn
to John chapter 9. I'll just read the first seven
verses. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind
from his birth. And his disciples asked him,
saying, Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind? Jesus answered, neither hath
this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him
that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man
can work. As long as I am in the world,
I am the light of the world. And when he had thus spoken,
he sped on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed
the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him,
Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation sent. He went his way therefore, and
washed, and came seeing." Now, the text begins here in verse
1 with the word and, with the word and, and some say that this
occurrence with the blind man happened after the Lord had been
at the temple. But you know that the Spirit
of God moved John and the others to put the accounts in their
Gospels on purpose. And they have a meaning, there's
a purpose for them being where they are. Now what had just happened? What had just happened? Let's
look back here at John 8 and verse 58. Jesus said unto them,
verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. He's speaking to some self-righteous
men, some Pharisees and Jews, and they've been arguing with
him. You remember in Exodus 3.14, God said unto Moses, speaking
from the burning bush, that was Christ speaking. He said, I am
that I am. the ever-present God. It's understood best by Revelation
1.8. He said, I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and
which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. He's the great
I Am. He said in John 6.35, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. He said in John 10, 7, I'm the door of the sheep.
He that enters in by Christ, he'll find pasture. He'll go
in and out and he'll find pasture. He said in John 10, 11, I'm the
good shepherd. He said I lay down my life for
the sheep. He said in John 14, 6, I am the way the truth and the life. No man
comes to the Father but by me. And he had just told them up
in John 8 and verse 12, he said, I am the light of the world.
And he told them in verse 24, he said, if you believe not that
I am, you shall die in your sins. And so he tells them now again,
down here at the end of chapter 8, he says, before Abraham was,
I am. He's declaring he is God in human
flesh, the Savior sent to save his people, that's who he is.
And here was the reaction, John 8.59, 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. It's not that
he was sneaking around hiding, he went right through the midst
of them, but he made it so he was hidden from them. And so
passed by. He passed them by. And look at verse 1. And as Jesus
passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. Christ
passed by those who claimed they could see. He passed by them. He hid himself from them. And
he left them there. He left them in their blindness. But as he passed by, he saw one
of his elect who was blind. He saw him. The Lord saw him. And the Lord gave him spiritual
sight to believe and worship the Lord. He said down in John
9 verse 39, Jesus said, For judgment I am coming to this world that
they which see not might see. Those that are blind, helpless
sinners who need Christ to do all the saving. That those that
see not might see. And they which see might be made
blind. Now, he said back up here in
John 9 in verse 3, he said this man was blind that the works
of God should be made manifest in him. And that's what we see.
We see here the works of God. This miracle, our Lord giving
this blind man sight, manifests the works of God our Savior in
saving his people from our sins. This is what's manifest, his
works in saving us from our sins. Now first of all, salvation begins
with God. At all times, at all points in
the salvation of a sinner, everything begins with God. It says verse
one, and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind
from his birth. The Lord Jesus passed by this
man on purpose. He came to this man on purpose.
How was it on purpose? He passed by him because This
is what he does for all those God chose before this world was
made. Here's why. Because Ephesians
1.5 says we're predestinated. He predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will. to the praise of the glory of
His grace wherein He made us accepted in the Beloved. He said
again in Ephesians 1.11, He predestinated us according to the purpose of
Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.
They said later, this man was blind and he sat there begging.
That's what the neighbors said about him. This place at the
temple, when they would come out of the temple, this is where
the blind and the lame and those that could do nothing, they couldn't
work, they couldn't do anything for livelihood, they would come
there and sit and beg for alms. And this man came there probably
like every other day he'd come there. Just like all the others
that were lame and hot that would come to that place. But this
particular man came there on that particular day because that's
one God chose and God predestinated this time, this hour, when Christ's
gonna pass by him and give him sight to believe on the Lord
Jesus. That's why he's there. That's why Christ passed by him.
It's just like when the Lord spoke in Ezekiel 16.6 about,
he's picturing all his elect who were fallen in sin and cast
out as that baby cast out into the field and left, abandoned,
polluted in our own blood. And he said, when I passed by
thee, I saw thee. I passed by thee and I saw thee,
polluted in thine own blood, and I sat under thee when thou
was in thy blood live. I sat under thee when thou was
in thy blood live. That's what Christ does. The
Lord Jesus saw this man. The man didn't see Christ. He
didn't see Christ. He couldn't see anything the
Lord was doing, the Lord saw him. This man was blind from
his birth. That's the nature of every sinner
Christ saves, spiritually blind from our birth. We're blind from
birth, dead in sin by Adam's transgression and by being born
of Adam, totally blind. Blind to a true knowledge of
who God is, how holy he is, that he requires absolute perfection
with no sin. Blind to the fact that Christ
is the Son of God, the righteousness of God, who God has provided
for his people to bring us to God, accepted, perfect, holy,
without blemish, by the works of Christ alone. Blind to this.
Blind to even our own sin and ignorance, that we need Christ
to be everything in salvation. Completely blind. Like the Pharisees
were blind and they were proud that they had their ceremony,
they had their tradition, they had their religion. They had
everything they needed. They didn't need Christ. They
were blind. And here's a blind man. He's spiritually blind too, not
just physically blind. And the Lord giving him physical
sight is not what saved him. The Lord gave him spiritual sight. That's how he was saved. But
Christ passed by him and saw him, and he passed by him in
mercy, passed by him in grace. He came to save him, to give
him spiritual life. So this is the point. Salvation
begins with God. If we love him, it's because
he first loved us. He chose us. We didn't choose
him. He chose us. If we see him and
know something about him, Spiritually, it's because He first saw us
and loved us and had mercy on us and grace upon us. Salvation
begins with God. And this is so. This is so. He's the Alpha and Omega. He's
the beginning and the end. This is so the whole way through.
Anything you and I do in grace, pleasing to God, accepting of
God, He's the first cause. He's the first cause. And then
secondly, look at this. Christ saves sinners, I mean
sinners, real sinners, blind, dead, helpless sinners, so that
the works of God might be made manifest, that it might be made
manifest, that salvation is entirely by His work alone. Now there's
a lesson in the disciples' question and the Lord's answer here. Look
at verse 2. His disciples asked him, said, Master, who did sin,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Now you just
think of this scene. Here's a blind man. He's in dire
need. He's blind. He can't do anything
for himself. He needs mercy. He needs help.
And here he sits, and they walk up to this blind man, and their
thought was to just engage in some theological questions. About
how come he's blind? What caused it? Who sinned? They supposed, they didn't know
this man. They didn't know if this man
was a believer. They didn't know if Christ had called this man.
They didn't know him, but they supposed that because of this
man's blindness, he had sinned or his parents had sinned. Christ
addressed this. Let's go to Luke 13. Luke 13.
Verse one. Christ said there were, or it
says there were present at that season some that told him of
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
They killed these Galileans. And Jesus answering said unto
them, suppose ye, this is what the disciples had done, they
supposed. He said, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners
above all the Galileans because they suffered such thing? I tell
you, no. But now listen, but except you
repent, you shall all likewise perish. Are those 18 upon whom
the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, thank ye that they
were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you
nay, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now listen to Christ's answer.
Back in John 9 verse 3, Jesus answered, Neither hath this man
sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. Now the Lord's not suggesting
that neither had sinned. He's not suggesting the man hadn't
sinned, nor his parents. The man had sinned. The man had
sinned before he was born. How can a man do that? Just like
all of us did in Adam. He sinned in Adam, and he was
conceived spiritually blind because he was born of Adam. And both
the man and the parents had sinned themselves since they had been
born, both of a man. And in affliction that God gives
to a believer, there's usually always, I would say always, sin
to be repented of. But we don't know a man's state
before God by providence. That's one thing the Lord's teaching
here. All afflictions are not chastisements for sin. Job's
wasn't. Some are sent to refine. Some
are sent to teach us Christ is our only strength. But all are
sent by our Lord in love for his people. Whom the Lord loveth,
he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. But our
Lord's declaring something here to, you know, you ever seen a
beggar on a street like this man was? And the thought, well,
he must have sinned. He must have done something to
be in that state. That's a self-righteous thought.
That's a very, that's saying I'm not in his state because
I haven't done what he did. And our Lord is saying what our
first thought ought to be is this. God is the first cause. God is the first cause. God didn't
merely permit sin to enter this world and death by sin. He didn't
just permit it to happen. He purposed it to happen. That's
what Christ is saying. This man's blind that the works
of God might be made manifest in him. That's true of all God's
elect. God didn't just permit sin to
enter this world. God purposed sin to enter this
world so that God might manifest His glory and sin in His Son
and saving His people from our sins in the midst of a sinful
world and saving us who are nothing but sinners. It's of God. He's the first cause. That's
why he saves depraved, totally helpless sinners. God didn't
merely permit this man to be born blind. God purposed for
this man to be born blind. He purposed it. He made it manifest
that Christ is the one who worked the works to give him sight and
give him faith. That's what the purpose was.
Now every affliction, Every affliction that God's children suffer in
God's providence is by God's purpose. Every affliction we
suffer, every trouble we suffer, everything we suffer, even as
believers, everything we suffer is on purpose. God's the first
cause of it. And here's the first cause of
it. To manifest the works of God. That's the first cause. to manifest the works in saving
us, the works of God, to turn us to Him, to see He's all our
salvation. And that's exactly what Paul
is saying. When we suffer affliction and
He turns us to Him, that's the weightier glory that we receive. He said in 2 Corinthians 4.17,
Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for
us. It's working for us. God is working
it for us, whatever the affliction may be. A far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at things which
are seen. He's actually turning us from
things that are seen to things that are not seen. because
the things that are seen are temporary, they're temporal,
but the things that are not seen are eternal. That's the first
cause. If we thought of this first,
when you pass by some beggar or some sinner that doesn't know
Christ and you're speaking to him, if the first thought is,
or some brethren stumbles or falls or some terrible trouble
happens to you, if your first thought is, God's the first cause
of this, to manifest His works in saving His people. In some
way, that's what's going to take place. That'll settle us and
that'll help us in our dealings with one another and with the
sinners that God's calling, when you know that. When you know
that, now listen to Christ and listen to what He said. And we
see this heart in our Redeemer. Listen, John 9, 4. He said, I
must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The
night cometh when no man can work. As long as I'm in the world,
I'm the light of the world. He said, I must work the works
the Father sent me to work. He's the only one who could accomplish
the works the Father sent him to accomplish. In other words,
he's the only one who can save his people. He's the only one
who could obey the law as a man in the place of his people with
perfect obedience that God will accept. The only one, He's the
only one that ever did. Obedience unto the death of the
cross, suffering the fierce wrath of God's holy justice to put
away our sin in perfect faith to God and love to God and love
to His people, thereby purging us entirely of our sin, washing
the sins of His people away and making us the righteousness of
God in Him. He had to work that. He's the
only one who could. I must work the works of Him
that sent me. And He's declaring here that
His time on earth was short. When He speaks here, while it's
day, that's signifying the shortness of His time on this earth, like
the short span of a day. He's saying, while there's time,
I'm redeeming the time. I must work the works of the
Father that sent me. He speaks of death, like at night
when no work can be done. I must work the works the Father
sent me while it's day, while he was on this earth. He said,
I'm the light of the world. He is the light. He's the light. He's going to be the light by
which this man sees. He's the light by which all his
people sees. And when of God Christ is made
unto us light, that's when he's made unto us wisdom. and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption. That means everything about our
salvation. From knowing Him, from knowing
how God can be just and justify of His people, to being made
the righteousness of God, to having a holy man that's purified,
sanctified by faith that's in Christ. that we might see we've
been made free by Christ and kept walking after Christ, kept
free from our sin and the dominion of the devil and death and hell
and everything else that kept us in bondage. He's the light
of everything. And you consider his faithfulness
in finishing the work God sent him to do. Now here's where you
really see this. This is his faithfulness to finish
the work God sent him to do and to save his people from our sins.
Here's his faithfulness in it. Consider what's taking place
when he did this. Men have picked up stones and
are wanting to stone him and kill him. And he's walking out,
and as he's walking out, he sees one that's his own. And he stopped
and had mercy on him. He didn't care that men were
going to stone him and kill him. He said, I must work the works
the Father sent me to work. I must save this man. He didn't
care that it was the Sabbath day and it was going to offend
their precious tradition and the way they thought it was and
their preconceived notions of who he is and how he ought to
do things. He didn't care that they were going to be offended
by it. He must work the works of the Father and save this sinner. He stopped because there was
one of his poor blind elect who he must save. He looked at this
poor blind beggar with a different heart than his disciples did.
They didn't have that heart when they looked at him. They just won't know the cause
of why he was in that shape. He said, I must work the Word
to give him sight. The cause is that my works might
be made manifest in him. And he wasn't only giving that
blind man sight, he was correcting his disciples and teaching his
disciples in the process. All the while, men are trying
to kill him. That's faithfulness, isn't it?
To work the works of God. He had a pure, holy heart of
love to work His Father's will, a heart of compassion for His
helpless, sinful people to save His elect because He alone must
do it and He alone can do it. He's the only one who had this
perfection to save us. So this should be first in our
thoughts toward depraved sinners and toward brethren afflicted
in God's providence. God is the first cause to manifest. Christ works in saving us as
only He can. That'll settle us. That'll help
us. We might even be used of God
to help one another if we think of that first. First. Now let me see, let's see here
the work of God manifest. Verse 6. When he had thus spoken,
Christ preaches the gospel. That's what the whole of this
is picturing here, is him speaking the word, him preaching. He had
just, he spoke this, that blind man heard this, the same as his
disciples heard this, when he had thus spoken. You know, the
gospel here, we see the shallow, the pool of shallow, the pool
of siloam. You know, when, Isaiah was sent
to preach to Ahaz. This is where they were standing.
And the offense of Ahaz was when he rejected Christ, the Lord
said, you've rejected the waters of Shiloah that go softly. You
rejected the gospel. And that's what's pictured here
is this gospel, the word through which our Lord works this. He
spoke the word and then he spat on the ground and made clay of
the spittle. He anoints us by the Spirit to
behold what He's done for His people. He makes us see that
He's the one who has worked the works and is working the work
and has finished redeeming and is going to save His people.
He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle. God made
man out of the dust of the earth. And here you have the Son of
God uniting Himself with the dust of the earth. And that's
what He used to make this ointment to put on this blind man. Christ
came down, the Son of God came down from heaven and took human
flesh which is made of the dust of the earth. And this is how
the saving balm was made by Christ coming as the God-man. And He
anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. Christ is
the only one that can apply the gospel. He's the only one that
can apply what he's accomplished for his people. He's the only
one who can apply and make it effectual. And he must apply
what you have here in this ointment that's made is a picture of Christ
and his person and finished work. And Christ is the only one who
can apply himself to us and make himself one with us and us one
with him. just as he did this man with
this ointment. And he gave efficacy to the means
that he used. You know, anybody else who had
made clay and spit in the ground and made clay and put it on this
blind man's eyes, it wouldn't have helped this blind man. It
would have made it worse. Christ gave it efficacy so that
it wasn't just this clay and this spittle that gave him sight. It was Christ who gave him sight.
And without Christ making the gospel effectual, the gospel
only blinds men. If he hadn't have made this effectual,
this woman would have... You think about it. He's already
blind. You go put clay over his eyes. It's just going to make
him more blind. And that's what the gospel does
if Christ doesn't make it effectual. But even then, the Word's not
returning void. Paul said, we're a saver unto
God in them that believe and in them that perish. And then he told him, he gave
him this command, he said, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which
is by interpretation, sent. This pool was made, at the time
it was made, this was an engineering marvel, Hezekiah made it. And what he did is he made a
conduit that went up into one of the mountains, and so that
water was sent down that conduit into this pool from the mountains.
And so it always had water in it. And I was an engineering
marvel for that time. Christ is the marvel of marvels.
He is the marvel of marvels. He came down from the mount of
God, sent of God. And here's the most amazing marvel. This perfect, sinless man, representing
all his people, he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's the work
he accomplished. That's the work he accomplished.
And through his finished work, Christ sends the Word, and he
sends the Spirit into our hearts to make the Word effectual. Christ loved the church and gave
Himself for it that He might sanctify and cleanse it with
the washing of water by the Word. It's not by works of righteousness
we've done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. And when He
washes us with the Word, and He washes us by the Spirit of
God in regeneration, He continues to wash His people, to keep us
purged so that, what do we do? We look away from ourselves to
Christ, who on Calvary's cross completely, thoroughly purged
all the sins of all his people. Put them away forever. That's what he accomplished.
And when he speaks this, his power is going to make his people
willing to believe him, to wash in Christ, to plunge into this
fountain. He went his way, therefore, and
washed and came seeing. Now, if this man had, if Christ
had done this to this man, now, let me say it this way. There's
no way that this man is not gonna obey what our Lord said. Because
Christ is speaking to him effectually in power. He's irresistible. He's gonna obey. But had this
man had this ointment put on him, and Christ told him to go
wash, and he said, well, why don't you just give me sight
right now? I don't want to go wash. He would have remained blind. Our Lord makes His people willing
in the day of His power. He makes us willing. He becomes
the way to us. And that's what we see here. Everything about this. Can't
you just picture the Pharisees beholding all this taking place
and thinking, this is the most foolish, outlandish thing we've
ever seen in our lives. Isn't that what the gospel is?
Isn't that what Paul said in 1 Corinthians? That the gospel
is foolishness to the wise and the prudent. Everything about
it is foolishness. They think it's foolish that
God would save a totally wretched sinner that can't save himself.
And continue to teach you through all the afflictions and trials
you go through in his life and make him more and more your strength
and less and less dependent upon yourself. But this is how he does it. He
keeps doing it through this gospel, through this Word, by his hand
of providence. But you know something else we're
going to see. We're not going to look at this so much tonight,
but we're going to see something else. It wasn't just experiencing
this that made this man know Christ. He's not going to know
Christ until a little later in this chapter. It's not just experiencing
a trial. It's not just experiencing some
thing that you experience. It's Christ making you know Him. It's Christ revealing Himself. But when he did this to this
man, this man, he believed. He believed. He plunged into
that fountain. And he came away seeing. He came
away seeing. If Christ has worked this in
anybody for the first time, or if you're a believer and you're
suffering affliction, for his people, it's Christ that's working
it. It's Christ working as the first
cause to manifest to us He is salvation. He must work the works. He must do it. And we'll find,
if we cast all our care on Him, and we will by His power, we'll
find He is truly salvation. You'll come away seeing. Come
away seeing. But as long as we refuse to go
to the Pool of Siloam, we won't see this. Those Pharisees would
not, they would not believe Him. They would not plunge into Him
and be cleaned by Him alone. And they remained blind. This
blind man, he didn't have any other choice, did he? He was
blind. He knew he was blind. He knew
Christ was the only one that could save him. And he believed
Him. That's what His people will do
when He's made you see you're absolutely, totally blind. Listen to what he said in Revelation
3.18. Revelation 3.18. Let's read verse 17. Because thou sayest, I'm rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing, knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked. I counsel thee, this is Christ
speaking, I counsel thee to buy of me gold fried in the fire
that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest
be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear,
and anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke,
and I chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
And that's what this blind man did, and that's what all his
people do when he speaks that word. That gold, and that white
raiment, and that eyesalve, it's all Christ in His perfect righteousness,
and He makes you see. And there's no sin remaining.
It's gone. He makes you see that. He makes
you know your sin is gone. He said in that day there should
be a fountain open to the house of David to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. We never stop plunging into that
fountain because we constantly need him to cleanse us. We constantly
need his cleansing. Our sins are put away, they're
washed away, justified before the law, but we constantly need
Christ to cleanse us, don't we? That's what we have here. That's
the works of God manifesting his people.