If you will take your Bibles
and turn back with me to John, chapter nine. John, the ninth
chapter. We'll be looking at verses one
through seven this morning. And the title of the message
is Sovereign Passing Grace, Sovereign Passing The scripture says, and Jesus
passed by and saw a man which was blind from his birth. He passed by. Now, to give us
the context of this, the Jews had already set out to kill the
Lord Jesus Christ for healing a man on the Sabbath day. strictness of traditions, forbid
them to do any good on the Sabbath day. Now, mind you, they did
pick up stones to try to kill him on the Sabbath day, but that
didn't count. They didn't count that. They
only counted when somebody did something good. And so they hated
him and desired to kill him. And then came the feast of tabernacles. Now, the Feast of Tabernacles,
if you're not familiar with that, it's in Leviticus 23, but what
that is, is a feast of celebration. It's a time of great festivities,
where the children of Israel would come from all over, leave
their homes, they would come to Jerusalem, where the temple
was, where God dwelt, and they would build these booths, little
houses, little shafts, all over the place. And they would dwell
in those shacks for eight days. They would be in there and they
would be rejoicing and celebrating with each other all week. It
was a wonderful time. It was a wonderful time. This
was to picture, this was, God meant this feast to picture that
He is dwelling among them. It is called the Feast of Tabernacles
because God delivered the nation of Israel from Egypt, and He
tabernacled with them. He dwelt among them, and they
dwelt among the presence of God. You remember that only in that
temple, only in that Holy of Holies, did God manifest His
presence. And yet, they were in His presence,
but it wasn't Close, was it? You see, they could never go
into that place where God dwelled. They could not go in because
it had not been yet revealed how they may enter in the veil. Not fully known. And so Jesus,
knowing that they were out to kill Him, He comes to this feast
quietly. He comes up secretly. And He
dwells among the people. Imagine that God. God was walking
around tabernacling with him, he is the fulfillment of the
feast of tabernacles. The scripture says that in John
one, it says that he the word was made flesh and dwelt that
were dwelt means tabernacles. He dwelt among us. He became
one of us. Truly, Jesus became bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh, so that he might be a faithful
high priest and able to enter into our sufferings. The only
thing he was excluded from was sin. He felt grief. He felt pain. He knows what it
is to be a man. He came and dwelt among us. Is
that not cause for great celebration? I mean, should not Israel have
jumped for joy that God dwelt among them? That God walked among
them? But instead, they sought to kill
Him. They rejected Him. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not. And so in this feast of tabernacles
in the middle of the week, The Lord Jesus finally stands up
and he declares who he is. He declares in the middle of
his feast. This is his feast. He declares
himself to be sent of God. He declares himself to be the
son of the living God. And yet, when he spoke the word
of God, they just questioned. They questioned his word. They
didn't question it because it wasn't true. You see, they were
mad because they knew it was true. They knew it was true. It was because he didn't teach
in their school, because he wasn't in their little group. He wasn't
among the self-righteous religious group. And therefore, they knew
that if he wasn't a part of us, then, hey, he's not from God. He testified that he came from
God with the word of God, and he saw their hearts. He knew
that they were wanting to kill him, but he wasn't afraid of
them. His hour wasn't come, and he
declared God's word boldly. He declared that they were not
of God. I tell you, if you want to make
a very self-righteous religious man mad, then you must expose
his sin. And once his sin is exposed,
he will be very angry. And that's exactly what the Lord
was doing all through this feast. Every time he was teaching, that's
what he was doing. He was exposing the self-righteous
of their sins. He was exposing them to be sinners
in need of a Savior. And Jesus preached this gospel
message to them, and they would not hear. They would not believe. Matter of fact, if you go to
flip over just a couple of pages and look at this, I want you
to see that it's the same message. When I read John 9 to you, you
saw that the man that was born blind, he had the same message.
Well, Christ has the same message. He is the message. Now, notice
this in verse 37, he said, If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. You know, that's
the same message he preached to the woman at the well. And yet she believed, and these
Jews did not believe. She was an outcast, a sinner,
and she believed. These men were self-righteous,
religious, and they would not believe. He proves to them of
his deity, and he tells them plainly that they are not of
his father, but they are of their father, the devil. Look at that
over in chapter 8, verse 43. I like this. The Lord is the
great teacher, isn't he? He's the master teacher. He said,
why do you not understand my speech? In other words, don't
you understand English? That's what we would say. Don't
you understand English? You just understand what I said.
I mean, I didn't speak over your head. It's very simple. Why don't
you understand what I'm saying? Even because you cannot. Wait, these guys were educated.
Isn't that offensive? What do you mean we can't understand
what you say? You can't understand me because you are of your father,
the devil, and the lust of your father, you will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Because
I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Which of you convinces
me of sin? For if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's
words, ye therefore hear them not, because you're not of God.
Man, how that must have stabbed them in the heart. How that must
have pierced their souls with anger to turn to him. How dare you say we're not of
God? How dare you say I'm lost?" That's exactly what he was saying. And when they finally had rejected
him in verse 58 of chapter 8, he said unto them, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. And they took up stones
to cast at him. He made himself equal with God,
as was his right. And they tried to kill him. And
what did Christ do? But Jesus hid himself and went
out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so, what
did he do? Passed by. He passed these by. Why? so that he might pass by
this blind man. Wherever Christ goes, he goes
on purpose. Wherever he goes, he goes on
purpose. And he purposely passed them by to get to this man. Look at this. And Jesus passed
by and saw a man that was blind from his birth. He saw a man
that was blind from his birth. When the message of the gospel
is preached plainly, that salvation is of the Lord, that salvation
is completely, absolutely of God's sovereign, immutable, unchangeable
grace, I'll tell you this, self-righteous,
natural men will not and cannot accept this. They will not believe
this, because they have something to offer. They believe they have
something by which God will accept them on the grounds of their
works or their goodness or their family. Salvation is by God's free grace,
and we can't help but see it here. You can't help but see
it. Here it is. And he passed, so
passed by, and he passed by and saw." In other words, he stopped
here. He passed by and stopped. Those
others, he did pass by and he did not stop. He left them where
they were. Jesus, these Jews hated the Lord
Jesus because they were not God. You see, this is why men hate
the gospel, because they desire to be God. That's it. They desire to be sovereign.
Man, by nature, desires to have his own way. OK, God, I'll let
you save me. This is the way you can do it.
No. You're not God. You don't get
to pick and choose how it is that God saves sinners. You're
not the offended party, God is. Therefore, God makes the rules
as to how to reconcile sinners to himself. And he has chosen to do this
by his sovereign grace. Go to Ephesians 1 and read it
with me. Ephesians chapter 1. Friends, don't become so familiar
with scripture that it doesn't have It has meaning just as well
as the first day I read this. The first day I understood this,
it's just as important, actually, it's more important to me now
than it was then. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3,
blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places,
in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in Christ. before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him,
in love having 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 has made
us accepted. in Christ. You see, God has already
made us accepted in Christ. When? When he chose us. When
he chose his people. This blind man, as we're going
to see, he was born blind. And the disciples ask, why? Well,
Jesus said, so I might save him. Christ had this man's name already
written down, and he on purpose passed by those Jews to get to
him. On purpose. And this is what
he does with every one of his children. Every one of his elect. All men are sinners, friends,
and we all deserve nothing but hell. You take your best deeds
and put them before God, and all we deserve is hell. That's
it. Yet God in mercy has chosen some. Praise God He has chosen. Otherwise,
there would be no salvation. If there was no election, election
is not salvation. But election is unto salvation. Without it, there would be no
one that would choose him. Praise God, he did choose some.
Now, who he chose, I have absolutely no idea. And neither did anybody
else. Not even the man that was born
blind. He had no idea of anything. He had no idea. He was born blind. How then and to whom does this
salvation come? If God has chosen a people, if
Christ has redeemed those people, if he has risen from the dead
to save those people, then how is it that he comes? And to whom
does he come? He comes by passing grace. Passing grace. As he passed by
the self-righteous Jews, Even so, he passed by this man, but
there was a difference. He left them in their sins, and
he came to save this man. He passed by to save this man. Now, this man could not see Jesus. I'm sure he didn't see Jesus
coming. And if he couldn't see Him coming,
how in the world could he ask anything of Him? He was blind. He was blind. This man was born
blind. Look at this in verse of our
text. In verse two, it says in this
verse one, it says this man was blind from his birth and his
disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin? This man
or his parents? You see, they presume something.
They thought because, hey, this man must have been really something
bad even before he was born. You see, they thought, man, this
guy, he must have been really evil in some other existence.
I don't know. That's what they were being taught. Either that or his parents must
have been really evil people in order for this to happen.
And notice what Jesus said, he said, Neither hath this man sin,
nor his parents. Now, he's not saying that this
man didn't have sin. This man was a sinner just like
anybody else. His parents were sinners just
like everyone else. The scripture said, all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. We've all sinned.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying the reason he's blind
is not because of sin. It's not the fault of his parents,
and it's not the fault of himself that he's born blind. Why is
he born blind? but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him." In other words, God was going to
give us another picture of his work of salvation. He was going
to show us how it is that God saves sinners. First of all, we must see that
this man was born blind. You know, I thought about that,
being born blind. I have no idea what that is like
because, you know, there are some people who become blind,
but you talk to them of colors and shapes and pictures and they
have some reference, some frame of reference. But this man had
no frame of reference for anything. If you tried to describe a rose,
to this man. The beauty of a rose, if you
were to try to describe the vivid color and how the light reflected
off of the dew on the roses, this man would have no reference
as to what you're talking about. So is everyone born blind spiritually. You see, you, if you are blind,
you have no reference for what I'm saying. You have no idea
where I'm coming from. You can't see the importance
of what I'm saying because you are blind. You were born blind. There is no goodness in you or
me that we can have reference as to how to please God. There's no reference. We don't understand. Not by nature. You see, this is why man can't
be saved by himself. He can't go into the forest and
seek God by nature. He can't understand God by his
own reasoning or logic or his own study, even in the Word of
God. He can't understand because there
is no reference. He doesn't know God. He cannot
know God. In matter of fact, no man seeks
God. This man wasn't seeking Jesus
because he was blind. And so it is with all men, they
cannot seek Christ. The Scripture says in Romans
3 that no man seeketh after God. Is that not astounding? When
men say, oh, I'm searching for God. No, you're not. Not unless God finds you first. You see, God has to find you
because you will never seek after Him. Just like this blind man
could not seek after Christ, so it is that we cannot seek
after Christ. Now, this man, this man who was
born blind, It's just like us in that he was a lost man. But I'll tell you, there are
some people here who think they see. There are a lot of people who
think they see. But they're really blind. Some
people even pretend to be blind. So they think they see. You see,
only those who are born blind will ever truly be able to see. You see, Christ didn't come to
give sight to those who see. He came to give sight to the
blind. That's what He came for. Are
you blind? Do you need sight to see? If so, then Jesus is the only
one that can give you this sight. He's the only one. And friends,
if He gives you this sight or passes you by, He is still good. He is still right to pass you
by. And praise God He's right to
give sight to whomsoever he will. If you're blind, then let me
tell you this, you're in a good place. You're in a good place. Because
Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost. You see,
the problem with the Jews, they weren't lost. You know what it's
hard to find in this city? A lost person. You know, I can't
stumble upon one. I mean, I talk to everybody.
Everybody seems to know God. Now, when they start talking
about their God, I know He's not my God. But they say they
know Him. You see, it's lost people that
Christ came to save. It's people who cannot see. People
cannot save themselves, and this man was not looking for Christ,
and neither are we by nature. But I'll tell you this, all that
the Father gave Christ will come to Christ. They will believe
on Christ. They will be given sight. If
you are gods, I know this, Christ at the appointed time of his
grace will pass you and stop and give you sight. But notice this, when Jesus passed
by this man, He intended to heal him to show the works of God,
but He also intended to use means by which to do that. So God has
chosen a people, He passes by all others, and He comes to them
to give them sight who are spiritually blind, but yet He will always
use means by which to do it. What was the means that the Lord
used here? Look at verse 6. And when he had spoken, he spit
on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed
the eyes of the blind man with the clay. Now, I'm sure that the popular
method of healing a blind man was not spitting on the ground
and putting the mud in his eye. I'm sure that's not the popular
method for that. And I know today that when I
go the optometrist, he's not going to spit on the ground and
put clay in my eyes. Why? It doesn't work. It's not
going to work. It's not going to work. But friends,
the cure for this blindness was not in the clay and it was not
in the spit. It was in the man, Jesus. Christ. It was by his power he
was healed. But yet he still chose to use
that means. And Jesus could have said, open
your eyes and see, couldn't he? Would he have done that? You
bet. You bet he could. But according
to his own sovereign means, he uses these means to save his
people. He uses the means of providence.
He uses the means of the gospel. The preaching of the gospel.
And he uses the means of faith. First of all, providence. Before we were born, Christ had
set his eye on us. And when we were born, he began
to move all things. Actually, he had been moving
all things already. But in our experience, he began to move
all things around us, all circumstances, all the people we've met, all
of the things we have done, evil things that we have done. He
had moved all things for this one purpose, so that you and
the man of God would meet together and you would hear the gospel
of Christ and be saved. That's what he's done all your
life. If you're a believer in Christ, he's done that. in everything. Now, let me ask you this. Did
you know it? I didn't know it. I thought I was doing what I
wanted to. I thought I was doing... I was doing what I wanted. I
wanted to sin. That's what I was living in. Sin. But yet God moved
and used even my sin to bring me to that place. To hear the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Providence. He moves all things. To hear the preaching of the
gospel. Now, we all have different experiences, don't we, concerning
that when he led us to that place. We all have different experiences
that we can recount. But I know this, we all heard
the same gospel. We all heard the same gospel. We all had the same experience
as this blind man. This clay. and the spit, well,
that represents the preacher. I'm just clay and spit. But I'll tell you this, I'm clay
and spit in the hands of the Almighty God to give you the
message of mercy, the message of grace, the message for the
blind. And friends, when this gospel
comes in power, when it truly comes in power and God raises
the dead sinner to life, it's not because of me. It's his power. But friends, only by the preaching
of the gospel is anyone saved. That's just the means that God
has chosen. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching.
to save them that belief. Do I need any other explanation?
Do we need any other explanation from God as to why He used this?
No. We had no explanation why Christ
used spit and mud. But He did. And so He used His
preaching. What does His preaching do? Well,
let me ask you this. What do you think would happen
if somebody put a gritty substance in your eye? Do you think it
would be pleasant? Do you think this man was enjoying
this scraping of this clay and dirt in his eye? No, it's uncomfortable. I tell you, when the gospel comes
to you first, it's uncomfortable. It's unbearable. Because it exposes
our sin, you see, Jesus called attention to this man, his blindness. The blindness was in his eyes.
And that's where he put the clay. Well, friends, guess where he
puts the gospel? In the heart. Because that's
where the problem is. That's where the dead soul is.
And I can imagine that when the Lord Jesus Christ told this man
to go and wash, that he had no objections. Do you? Do you think he had any objections
to Jesus saying, go and wash in the pool of Siloam? I bet
he was probably, hopefully, looking around for somewhere to wash. And Jesus said, wash there and
come see. And so what did this man do?
He went and washed. Gladly. Gladly. Oh, to get that out of my eyes,
I'd be glad. I'd be glad to get rid of my
sin that stretches at my conscience daily, constantly tormenting
me. Oh, but everyone who comes to
the sent one and by faith washes in his blood comes seen. It's a miracle. Salvation is
not a decision. It's a miracle. It's amazing. This man, and when he was asked,
you notice this, that he had no intention of putting any of
the glory for himself. He just told it how it was. Jesus
put mud in my eyes, told me to go and wash. I washed. And it
was exactly as he said, I see. I tell you, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you will see. How do I know that? Well, that's
my experience. I know that. Everyone, listen
to me, everyone who comes to Christ alone and believes on Him, He has not
passed by one of them and left them blind. He heals everyone that's blind.
Not pretend blind. Not if you see. There's no healing
for you. There's only healing if you're
blind. Look at this at the end of this chapter. Jesus said judgment for judgment,
I am coming to this world. What does that mean? Did he mean
to come in and judge? No, condemn? No, because the
world's already condemned, he said. What is that judgment? He said, I've come that justice
may be satisfied by my death. You see, he come to take away
sin. by his death. For judgment I am coming to this
world that they which see might not see. If you see, this gospel
only blinds you, only makes you blind. You grow up in the dark. Just find some way to reject
it. And that they that see not might
see, and they that see might be made blind. You see, everyone
that sees not will see. And the Pharisees perceived,
hey, he's talking about us, are we blind? He said, if you were
blind, you'd have no sin. Are you blind? What a wonderful
thing to be. Because Christ came for that
very purpose, to heal all the blind. In closing, look at Isaiah 63,
61. This we know is fulfilled in
Luke chapter four, when the Lord Jesus Christ said it of himself.
He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me
to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our
God, to comfort all that mourn." Those that are out of the prison,
he says in Luke 4, to give sight to the blind. to give sight to
the blind, to bring them out of darkness into light. You see,
I don't know this because I'm smarter than anybody. I know
this because he gave me sight. This man said, look, I don't
know what you're saying here, but I know this. I don't know much, but I know
this. I was blind, but now I see. And I tell you, believe on Christ
and you'll see. You'll see the complete and absolute
forgiveness of all your sins. Is that not the most amazing
thing in the world that God could forgive me? He can. And he has. And I pray you'll do the same
for you. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed in prayer.