Good morning. Take your Bibles and turn to
John chapter 9. Let's go to John chapter 9. This
chapter is 41 verses long and I'd like to cover the whole chapter
so I'm not going to read it but I'll just give us a reminder
that this chapter speaks of our Lord It speaks of our Lord healing
a man who was born blind. He does a gracious miracle for
this man who was born blind. He gives him sight. And the people
were amazed by this. And they asked him, how did you
receive your sight? And he tells them that a man
named Jesus He made some clay and put it on my eyes and sent
me to the pool of Siloam to wash and I did and I was able to see. And he comes back seeing and
he's brought to the Pharisees and he bears a good witness,
a good testimony to the Pharisees. And they doubted him and despised
him. They reviled him because he spoke
well of Christ. And all he did was speak the
truth of what the Lord did for him. And he spoke honestly and
sincerely and the Pharisees hated him for it and cast him out. And the Lord heard this and came
and spoke to the man and revealed more to that man. He gave him
more light. He made him to see that he is
the Christ. He's the son of God and that
man believed and worshiped Christ. And so that's what we're looking
at this morning. And so we see here that this
is another example of how our Lord saves all his people by
grace. It's by grace that we are saved. And we see here that the Lord
chooses whom he will be gracious to, and he's gracious to them. And by the miracle of his grace,
he gives sight to spiritually blind eyes. And he gives life
to spiritually dead sinners. And he distinguishes this work
of grace in his people from those that are left to themselves.
just left in darkness, left in their sin, and we see that the
natural man despises the grace of God, which he reveals in his
son Jesus Christ, whom he sent to save his people from their
sins. And so we see here that the Lord,
He begins a work and He completes that work. He does all things
necessary for His people. I've titled this message, Sight
to the Blind. Sight to the blind. And we begin
here seeing the sovereignty of our God. Our Lord tells us in
the scriptures that He is sovereign. He does as He pleases. Our God
is the Lord over all. He's the Lord over all and He
does what pleases Him. And so He saves whom He wills. This is made clear in the scriptures.
For example, in Ephesians 1 verse 4 we are told that we are brought
to a knowledge of our salvation according as God has chosen us
in Christ before the foundation of the world. that we would know
that it's not because of anything we did, but it's because of our
God's grace and compassion and mercy toward us. We're told in
Ephesians 111 that we're in him in whom we've obtained an inheritance
being predestinated according to the purpose of God who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will. And our Lord is telling us there
that we're not persuading him to do anything. We're not changing
God's mind. Our God does all things according
to the purpose and good pleasure of his will. And then in Romans
9 verse 13-15 we find that this is all according as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid, for he sayeth to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. And so our God is sovereign,
and he saves those whom he chose before the foundation of the
world and put in Christ, gave us to Christ and put us in his
care. so that everything necessary
for our salvation, for our life, our preservation is all in the
Son, Jesus Christ. And so it is in our text that
our Lord comes and he sovereignly chooses to be gracious to this
man according to the purpose of God before the foundation
of the world. And so we read now in verse one,
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And what we, what the Lord is
showing you, his people, is that there comes a time in God's purpose,
in God's wisdom, when he passes by his people in order to be
gracious to them, in order to do them good and to reveal himself
to them. And it says that he saw a man. And that word saw means that
he was looking at him intently. He was observing this man. He
was watching this man. And I don't think it was for
his own benefit. It wasn't for Christ's benefit.
Christ knew this man. He knew who this man was and
the purpose of God in grace toward this man. But as he's watching
him, his disciples took notice of where he's looking, and they
begin to look at this man as well. And we're told now in verses
2 and 3 that his disciples asked him, saying, Master, 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. And understand that Christ isn't
saying that this man and his parents were not sinners. We're
all born dead in trespasses and sins. We're all born of the corrupt
seed of Adam. And we ourselves come forth speaking
lies and committing sins and not knowing the truth of God. But what our Lord is making known
is that this man's blindness, what happened to this man providentially
was not because of some sin in the man or his parents. And so you that are troubled,
this should be a comfort to you. We have a way of going back and
people tell us things which are just based on superstition and
they try to trouble you and saying, oh, well, that trouble is coming
upon you because of some evil that you've committed, something
you've done. And that's why this is happening
to you. Well, our God is not some pernicious
little vindictive God, he's not just waiting for us to mess up
and to get us back and to do things without purpose. Our God has a purpose in that
which he brings to pass upon his people. And here we see that
what this man was, what happened to this man and him being born
blind, it was for the glory of God. And God had a purpose to
show this man grace. and mercy, and to give this man
eternal life. God intended to be good to this
man, so this man was born blind that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. And the picture that we see right
away from this is, like this man who was born blind, so are
we in Adam spiritually. We're all born spiritually blind
in Adam. And except the works of God be
made manifest in us, we'll remain in blindness. We'll remain in
darkness to the things of God. and we too will perish in our
sins. And our Lord says now in verse
4 and 5, He says, 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 we thank
our God for his grace toward us. Because today is the day
of salvation. He's given us his gospel word
to preach it, to declare it, to proclaim what God has done
for sinners. To declare that we have no hope
in ourselves by our works, by our law keeping, and by us trying
to work a righteousness to justify or sanctify ourselves, God's
made it clear that we're all sinners and we all come short
of the glory of God by our works. but he's shown us his salvation. He's pointed us to the one in
whom God will be gracious and compassionate and merciful. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's turning our hearts to look to him, to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Look away from yourselves. Look
away from your works. Look away from the law. Look
away from your actions and what you do or don't do. And look
to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has sent for the purpose
of being gracious and compassionate and merciful. Because that's
the one in whom he receives his people. all who come to the Father
through Jesus Christ the Son shall be received of Him, because
it pleased God well to send His Son, and to spare Him not, but
to give His life a ransom for His people. His life for yours,
and that you may have life in Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so our Savior says he must
work the works of God. And he did. He accomplished the
work of God. He came as the surety of his
people. You that believe on the Lord,
you that have no hope or confidence in your own works or your own
righteousness, but are trusting in God's word, the word of God,
the Lord Jesus Christ, he's accomplished the work. He's paid the debt
of your sins and put them away so that God looks upon you covered
in the blood of Christ and he's well pleased. He's well pleased
with you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Christ accomplished this
work of redemption for us and now he pours out his gift of
salvation. He pours out the spirit whereby
he makes us to know what he's accomplished for us. He doesn't
leave us in darkness. He doesn't leave us blind, but
he gives us spiritual sight to see the salvation of God in the
Lord Jesus Christ, in the face of Jesus Christ. And so our Lord
heals this man miraculously. Now it doesn't necessarily describe
exactly what whether he had eyeballs or whether it just was sockets
or, you know, with some skin over it. But the way they describe
it later is how did he open your eyes as though these men had
never seen the eyes of this man. They had never seen his eyes
because they didn't even Recognize him. And so when he came back,
when he was healed, we read in verses 8 and 9, that the neighbors
therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind,
said, is not this he that sat and begged? And some said, yeah,
this is he. And others said, well, he is
like him. He appears to be him. And then the man himself said,
I am he. It's me. Yep, you're right. I was sitting here and begging
all these years and now I have sight. I can see you and you
can see me. And what the Lord does in, in
the, what we see in, in, in the Lord's work with grace here for
his people, what we, what we take from that is, is when the
Lord works his grace in you, those who once knew you, Those
who previously knew you now say, well, they appear to be them. It's them. It looks like them.
But there's something different about them. There's something
different. Because the Lord, when he works
his grace, the others will see that God has done something for
you. There's something different about
you. Because your hope now is in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're
trusting in Him, and He teaches you and leads you and keeps you
and guides you. So they'll see some evidence
of the miracle of grace worked in you, that your hope is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not trusting in the things
which you once trusted in, and you bear testimony of those things,
sometimes in great ways and sometimes in little ways. But it's evident
to others that there's something different about you. Even when
your friend comes to visit you, she doesn't come, but she knows
and understands, well, Johnny's going. She's going to hear, she's
going to services. She doesn't maybe understand
that you're going to hear the gospel to be fed and nourished in the
body of Christ, by the body of Christ, by the grace of your
God. And so Christ, we're told how
he healed this man in verse six and seven. Look at six and seven
there. When he had thus spoken, this
is Christ, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle.
And he anointed the eyes, or where the eyes are supposed to
be, the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said unto
him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation
sent. And he went his way therefore
and washed and came seeing. And so what we see here, what
stands out in this about this healing is what did the Lord
use to heal this man? Well, he spit on the ground and
he made a pasty clay. And then he wiped that on the
eyes of the man. And then he sent him to a pool
called Siloam, which means scent, and told him to wash in that
pool. And the man washed in that water. Now, is there any medicinal
qualities or any healing properties in the dirt or in spit or in
water from a pool? No, these things in and of themselves
are useless things in terms of healing, in terms of giving someone
who's born blind sight. And rather, they're kind of repulsive
to us. The last person that put spit
on your face was your mother, and we didn't even like that.
And so we don't want to be spit on or to have someone's saliva
put on us. And when I get my hands dirty,
I go in and I wash them, because it's kind of repulsive. And that's
what the Lord does. He takes things that in and of
themselves are useless, things that are repulsive, and He uses
that to bless His people, to heal His people, And I'm talking
about the gospel. He takes something that's so
offensive to the flesh, preaching, the preaching of the gospel.
And yet when the Lord attends that word, he makes it effectual
to the hearts of his people so that they are blessed, and they
are healed, and they are comforted, and they feed upon the blood
and the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you're nourished. Others hear it and they get nothing
out of it. But you, by the grace of God,
are healed by his word, by the blood of Christ making it effectual
unto you. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 121,
after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not
God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. All right, so next we
come to to this man being brought to the Pharisees. He bore testimony
to what the Lord had done, and it gained him an audience with
the self-righteous Pharisees. Now, the Pharisees were well-studied
men. They knew the scriptures, and
these were the teachers, the ones who taught the people of
Israel, were supposed to teach them these things. And we read
in verse 14 that it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay
and opened his eyes. And the Pharisees understood
this. Wait, this was today? It's the
Sabbath day. And they already despised this
Jesus of Nazareth. And so here he is doing another
miracle on the Sabbath day, a work in their eyes. And so they despised
him and used it as an excuse not to believe him, not to give
any attention or any space or place to the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in verse 16 that their
response was, this man is not of God because he keepeth not
the Sabbath day. Oh, is that so? The Lord of glory
who fulfilled all the law of God perfectly, he's not keeping
the Sabbath day? Are you sure about that? And
you guys are, right? They use this to justify their
unbelief of Christ. And so we see in these religious
men, as it is in all of man's religion, man knows a lot of
things. He even knows a lot of the scriptures
and has a good understanding of a lot of doctrine, but he
does not know the Lord Jesus Christ. He has no knowledge of
salvation, of spiritual life, and what the Lord must do for
his people. Because they saw Christ and didn't
see Christ. They saw this man and thought
he's nothing more than Jesus of Nazareth. And they did not
see the salvation of God, the Lamb of God standing right before
them. And what our Lord reveals to
his child is that Christ himself is the Sabbath rest for his people. And I know that's an offensive
statement to a lot of people in religion because they look
to the law for their rest. They look to the legal law for
their sanctification. And the Lord is telling us, you
look to me. I'm your rest. I'm all your righteousness. I'm your justification, and I'm
your sanctification, and I keep your heart. And you cease in
me from all your labors, and all your striving, and all your
working ends in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to them that believe. He's the
end of the law for righteousness. And so we look to our Savior,
our Lord, who fulfilled all the law of God perfectly, and we
in Him. And we do keep the Sabbath perfectly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We keep it perfectly. Not one
offense do we commit in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because that new
man, which is created of Christ in us, ever looks to the Lord
Jesus Christ and cannot sin. He cannot but believe. He cannot
not believe because it's created of the incorruptible seed of
Christ, and we're ever looking to Christ, trusting in him for
all our salvation, for everything we need, and we live by his power. And so we're resting in him. And our Lord, he commanded his
people, those whom he calls by grace, he commanded his people
in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, he said, come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke
is easy and my burden is light. Stop looking to the law for righteousness. Stop looking to the law for a
man-made, manufactured rest by your law keeping. You're still
laboring. You're still working for a righteousness. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
who said, if ye believe not that I am You shall die in your sins. And our God is telling us he's
all of salvation. He says, you come to me for rest. You don't look to the law for
the Sabbath day, to the Sabbath day for your rest. You look to
me, who am the Sabbath day rest of my people. We eternally rest
in the Lord every day. That's why we preach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. We preach Christ crucified unto
the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness.
And those who are still turning back to the law are stumbling
over Christ who is the rest of His people. Again, Paul said
in 2 Corinthians 3-4, such trust have we through Christ to God. We're so confident that God saves
his people by the blood of Jesus Christ and what he's accomplished
for his people in his death, burial, and resurrection that
we preach Christ crucified. Because he's everything the people
of God need to stand before the throne of God faultless in that
day. You are accepted even now by
the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says to you, come unto
me. You come to me, all you that
labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. That's his promise to you, brethren,
his promise. So this man, who knew nothing
when all this started, he probably knew a little bit about religion,
but he knew nothing of the truth when it all started, we find
him able to declare what God had given to him by his experience
up to that point. John 9, verse 11 and 12. He answered
and said, so he's talking to the Pharisees who ask him what
happened. Or actually at this point, this is to the people
first and then he'll say the same thing again to the Pharisees.
But 11 and 12, he answered and said, a man that is called Jesus
made clay and anointed mine eyes and said unto me, go to the pool
of Siloam and wash. And I went and washed and I received
sight. And then they said unto him,
where is he? And he said, I know not. I don't know. I don't know
where he went. But we see there this sincere,
honest response. He's just declaring what the
Lord had done for him. And later on to the Pharisees,
they ask him, well, who do you say he is? Who is he? And he
says, he's a prophet. He's a prophet, and what he was
able to do, he must be a prophet. And in that simple little confession,
just based on what he knew, with the light that he had, he already
began to be persecuted. They persecuted this man. It
says in verse 18, the Jews did not believe concerning him that
he had been blind. So they're already calling him
a liar, and he can't be trusted. He's already a liar in their
minds. And so they called his parents and asked him, is this
your son? And they said, yep, he's my son. But we don't know how he was
healed. You ask him. He's old enough
to answer for himself. Because they didn't want to be
persecuted and thrown out of the temple themselves. And so
having confirmed this, They tried to get this man to blaspheme
Christ, to say he's not of God. All right, verse 24. Then again,
called they the man that was blind and said unto him, give
God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner.
All right, they were charging Christ with sin for breaking
their understanding of the Sabbath. But notice this man's response
in verse 25. He answered and said, whether he be a sinner
or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see. And that's true. You know, a
lot of times we don't know doctrine, and we tighten up, and when someone's
asking us a doctrine, and maybe we stumble or don't feel comfortable
answering those questions. But what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done for you, in healing you and giving you a heart, a
new heart that confesses, Lord, all I know is that I'm a filthy
sinner who has no righteousness, no standing before you, but you're
gracious and merciful to me and your son. And that's all you
can say? That's a good confession. That's
a good confession to be able to say, Christ is all my righteousness. I'm a sinner saved by the blood
of Jesus Christ. That's all I know. That's all
I know. And that's an experience that
no man can ever take from you, no matter what they charge you
with. If Christ has given you that confession, they can't take
that. If all our hope is built on doctrine,
which is good, we know doctrine, but if all your hope is built
on what you know or don't know, that could be shaken and you
could be talked out of doctrine. But you that have the seed of
Christ in you, you can't be talked away from Christ because They
can't take that. All I know is that I was a dead,
guilty, filthy sinner, but now I'm cleansed by the blood of
Christ. He's all my hope. I can't deny that. I can't betray
that. And that's what the Lord gives
his people, just as they gave this man, and he says a few more
things, and we're told in verse 34, they cast him out. They had
enough. This man spoke too much truth, and the simplicity of
what he had, it was too much light for them, and they threw
him out. One other thing, a lot of people
do have experiences, and we have some pretty amazing experiences,
but that's not our hope. That's not our hope. I've seen
people healed through prayer. I've seen people healed, but
that's not salvation. Just seeing mighty things and
amazing things, that in and of itself isn't salvation. We've
got to be brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. And this man spoke
according to the light he had, and Christ came and gave him
more light, more light, to see that Christ is all and who the
Lord Jesus Christ is. Look at verses 35 through 38.
Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And when he had found
him, he said unto him, dost thou believe on the Son of God? And
he answered and said, who is he, Lord, that I might believe
on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and
it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. And so
that's what Christ does for all his people. He does not leave
them in the dark. And he doesn't leave them to
experiences, because a lot of people have false experiences.
and trust in those things. That's not salvation. The Lord
Jesus Christ himself is salvation, and he brings all his people
to know him as their savior. He's not just the savior, he's
their savior. And they need him, and they need
his grace, and he gives that to them. That's his gift, to
make them to know, I have nothing. But Christ is all, and he's all
my salvation, and he's accomplished it. And so that's what we see
here being worked there. Now, carnal men, they use every
excuse not to believe Christ, not to trust Christ or to look
to him, and they will not come to him that they might be saved.
That's what Christ said in John 5, 40. You will, that's how man
uses his will, you will not come to me that you might be saved.
But the Lord, When he gives life, he turns that will. They have
a new will. They have a new desire, a heart
for the Lord Jesus Christ, and they cannot but believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. The sinner saved by grace is
going to declare, Lord, I believe. Help me, Lord. Have mercy upon
me. Keep me, Lord. And our Lord is
saying, that in whom he's begun a good work, he shall complete
it unto the end. Philippians 1, 6. We're confident
of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
shall perform it, will perform it, until the day of Jesus Christ. So he's working that in you as
people. Now, let me just read to you these last three verses.
John 9, 39 through 41. This is our Lord. He's capping
off everything that we've seen in this chapter. This is the
capstone of it. Jesus said, for judgment, I am
come into this world that they which see not might see, and
that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees
which were with him heard these words and said unto him, are
we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, We see. Therefore your sin remaineth. And so in these few verses our
Lord is making us to know that the very Gospel which gives blind
men sight is the same word that gives men who say they see and
trust their works and their knowledge, it makes them blind. They can't
see that light of Christ. They don't want to see that light
of Christ. They stumble over Christ, they
think he's foolish, and they turn to their own ways. But all men need Christ to pass
them by for good, to come near to us and to be gracious to us,
that we may know him and be born of his spirit. Because apart
from the blood of Christ, we have no hope. There is no Savior. There is no salvation apart from
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the name which under heaven
is given among every man whereby he must be saved. If you're going
to be saved, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other
salvation out there at all. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the man who's wise in his own conceits He will not see that. He will not trust Christ. He
will not bow to Christ. Not now. He will one day, but
not now. He won't. And he'll die in his
sins unless Christ delivers him. But Christ came for the spiritually
sick. He is the great physician who
heals all his people. He makes us to know him, to know
our need of him. and to find in him all the healing
salve that we need, all the healing ointment, all the healing oil
of his spirit is poured out upon us, washing us in the blood of
Christ, that we may know him and rejoice in him. And so I
pray the Lord bless you, his people, to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and to find rest for your souls in Christ whom
God has sent for his people. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious gracious Lord we
thank you for your great and marvelous work in healing your
people with the blood of Christ, by the power of Christ, and bringing
us to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is all our righteousness,
all our salvation. Lord, may we ever look to Him
and stay upon Him. Bless your people, Lord, to hear
these words and to believe these words and trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ for everything. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ we pray and give thanks. Amen.