Mark chapter 8. I've entitled
this message, Do You See Anything? Bethsaida is mentioned several
times in the Bible. It was a hometown of Philip,
Andrew, and Peter. And they were on their way to
Bethsaida when Jesus came walking to them on the water. And it was the village that they
retired to when they came back from a mission that the Lord
had sent them on. It is where many of Christ's
miracles have been performed. Yet for all of this, Bethsaida
was under a specific curse. When I say specific, I simply
mean that the Lord Jesus Christ, in calling out woes, specifically
mentioned Bethsaida. And he rebuked Bethsaida, saying
that it would be easier in the day of judgment for the inhabitants
of Sodom and Gomorrah than it would be for them. And why was
that? Simply because they had been
given so much and yet had not responded in faith. The Lord said, if the miracles
that were done in you had been done, I think he may have mentioned
Tyre and Sidon. He said they would have repented
long ago in sackcloth and ashes. So these people have been given
much. The Lord says the one to whom much has been given, much
is expected from him. And that's something for us to
think of. I'm glad that we have been given much, haven't we? You and I have been given eternal
life. We've been given spiritual life. We've been given an understanding
of the gospel. We've been set free from the
bondage of the past. We've been given many precious
promises in the scriptures, all of which, it says in Christ,
they are yes. These are not promises that are
contingent on how well we do between now and when we meet
God. They are not contingent on anything
yet to come. They were contingent upon the
obedience of Christ, even His obedience unto death. And seeing
as much as He obeyed the Father in all things and died in our
place, then We have been removed from any connection to the curse,
and we have been given all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places
in Christ. We have been given much, and
we rejoice in that, but let us also realize that much is expected
of us. People like you and me, to whom
much has been given, it's expected that we would realize that the
life of this world is not the life that we pursue first. It's
not the life that we give ourselves to, and then the leavings are,
you know, what's left over is given, so to speak, to Christ. We understand what our Lord meant
when he said, seek first the kingdom of God, and these things
shall be added unto you. Now when I say that more is expected
of us, I am not saying that if we don't come up to this greater
expectation that we will fall short of salvation. Once again,
our salvation is not based on what we do. Nonetheless, you can see the
Lord's point there. We've been given much. And that
should work in us such a spirit of love and such a spirit of
desire after Christ that we quite naturally pursue him and his
kingdom first of all. But Bethsaida had all these benefits. Three of the disciples were born
in that city. Many works had been done there,
miraculous works had been done there by Christ. And evidently,
the whole entourage was in Bethsaida from time to time. They got to
hear him speak in their synagogue. Well, what would you give to
hear the Lord Jesus Christ preach? I'd like to hear that. I bet you I could sit for a long
time while he spoke. They had that privilege, and
yet, They didn't believe. But in all of God's curses, there is always a remnant according
to the election of grace. Yes, he pronounces woe on Bethsaida. And he pronounces that woe because
despite all that they had been given, they had not returned
in faith. They had not repented, they had
not believed, but some had. There was a remnant, and there
always is. In this world, there is a remnant
according to the election of grace. In the world of broad
Christendom, all these people claiming to be Christians, and
we know they can't all be Christians because they believe things that
are completely contradictory. But in broad Christendom, there
is a remnant according to the election of grace. In the United
States of America, which indeed has been given so much, and what
responsibility falls upon it for all the good that God has
given to the nation, and yet the nation has returned nothing
but rebellion. And you know that eventually, just like the Amorites, I believe
it was, God told Moses, you can't go into the land yet because
the cup of the sin of the Amorites is not yet full. Well, it eventually
got full. And the Lord sent the Jews in
and they wiped them out. And one of these days, America's
cup of sin will be full. And the Lord God will deal with
it. But even then, there will be a remnant according to the
election of grace. There always is. In fact, sometimes
God allows these descent of groups, allows it
to happen that it might be proven who is the genuine, who is that
remnant. This blind man here was a believer. At least he hoped. He believed
enough to go to Christ. He believed enough to follow
Christ. He believed enough that sight
was given to him. Now we get the impression he
didn't live in the town. He lived out in a rural area.
But he was associated with that town. and he was part of the
remnant. His hope in Christ got him what
he hoped for, that he might see. He went to Christ knowing full
well what he wanted. No one had to recite a prayer
for him one of these repeat after me things. He was blind, he knew
what his problem was, he had evidently heard about Christ,
and he had a hope that the Lord Jesus Christ would do for him
what he'd done for others. Now this story provides a good
illustration of the salvation of a sinner. This man was blind. Now it's necessary that we make
much of the sinfulness and inability of man to remedy or even help
his condition. And here's why. Because men are
unaware of it, people are unaware of it, and so long as they have
no conception of their need, they will not go to the one who
can fix it. I mean, if you have no symptoms,
you don't go to a doctor, do you? It's only when symptoms arise
and maybe you try to doctor it some, or you talk to your neighbor,
well, what do you do about this? And he gives you his home remedy
and nothing's working. Then you go to a doctor. And so when we speak about sin,
When we identify things that are sin and we speak about our
depravity, we are not doing so simply so people will feel worse
or act better. That's not our goal at all. How you feel and how you act
is not the issue. The reason we press home the
spiritual deadness, spiritual blindness, spiritual wickedness
of people is because they need to know that so they'll go to
the only one who can fix a problem like that. That's why every Sunday I preach
the gospel. Man's got a lot of problems.
Mankind has a lot of them. And you know there's lots of
professionals that can help you with the many problems that people
have. But when it comes to spiritual
things, there's only one who can help you, and that's the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it would not be loving to
you, nor would it be faithful to my Lord to stand in this pulpit
and tell you how to fix your life. Rather, I stand here and
tell you how you might have life in the hope that God will use
that to your salvation. Now, man is naturally blind. It's the natural state of everyone
born into this world. Several kinds of blindness that
the scriptures speak of. We're talking about spiritual
blindness here, and this man is illustrating spiritual blindness
to us. There's natural blindness. Our
Lord Jesus Christ said to Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. He can't perceive it. So it means
that whatever condition we are in when we come into this world,
it's not a condition that enables us to perceive or to see the
things of God. We're blind to them. I know that some of you have
expressed to me your frustration, and believe me, I understand
your frustration, your frustration over you tell what you think
is just the most wonderful news. It is the most wonderful news.
that's ever been uttered, you tell it clear, you tell it plain,
and then people don't respond. They don't react positively or even negatively
sometimes. They just act like a rock. Or they'll say, oh yeah, we believe
that. And yet, you know them, and you know that that's not
really what they believe. And you wonder why, why can't they
see it? Well, you go get the greatest masterpiece of artwork
that you can carry around. You go and steal Leonardo da
Vinci's Mona Lisa for a little while, and you find a blind man,
and you put that right up in front of him, you say, see this
beautiful thing? It wasn't Michelangelo, it was da Vinci. But you see
this beautiful picture, notice here the colors and all this,
and you can say all of that, and you know what they're gonna
do? I don't know what you're talking about. I can't see. The greatness of the gospel does
not in and of itself change a person's heart and mind. Because he is
unable, by natural birth, he's unable to perceive it. There's
judicial blindness. In John chapter 12, verse 40, The Lord quotes from Isaiah,
he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so they
can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts
nor turn and I would heal them. You know, I suppose all the adults
here profess to believe and I have no reason to say otherwise. But I know this, that those who
steadfastly refuse the truth, they hear it, they hear it, they
hear it, and they walk away unchanged, walk away without repenting and
believing. Do you know what it does? Well,
they started out with a hard heart and it just gets harder
and harder and harder. Now, I know the sovereign grace
of God can overcome the hardest heart if he wants to. But often
the scriptures speak to us not from the perspective of what
God can do, but from the perspective of what we are doing. And these
Jews that he was speaking of, that Isaiah was speaking of,
had so long been given so much and yet rejected it, and God
said, that's it, you won't be able to see. There's willful blindness. You
know the old phrase, there's none so blind as him who will
not see. kind of get a kick out of little
kids sometimes, you know, when you tell them something that
they don't like and they shut their eyes. As though shutting
their eyes changes anything. As though by making it so they
can't see you, then somehow or another they have dismissed themselves
from any involvement and any responsibility. And people do
that in religion. They purposefully shut their
eyes to the truth. As I told you, we're working
on the website, trying to get it set up more professionally,
and then we're going to begin a little bit of advertising on
Facebook. Hopefully people will go there.
And one of the most difficult things is trying to tell them
what we believe because people are going to look at that And
yet I know this, that people will look through a list of doctrines
and all they're doing is looking for something they don't believe
so they can shut their eyes and say, I'm not going there. And it's not that I am the least
bit ashamed of what we believe. I just know that if I ever use
the word, like, sovereign, there's a lot of religious people that's
going to click and, okay, that's a bunch of them hyper-Calvinists,
you know, which we aren't, but that's what they would call us,
and they won't come. People are willfully blind. They
refuse to hear the truth. And then there's satanic blindness.
2 Corinthians chapter 4 beginning at verse 3 it says, and even
if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
The God of this age, and that doesn't refer to God above, you
know, the God we worship. The Greek word translating God,
it was used for all kinds of powerful beings. Most of them
were fictitious. But Of course, when we say God,
normally we're just thinking of one person, but that's not
the way Greeks saw things. And so the word like God could
be applied to other spiritual beings. Here Paul chose to do
that, he called it the God of this age. And maybe he called
Satan the God of this age because he is the one, in some respects,
that people are worshiping. Even if they have the name of
Jesus upon their lips, they worship a false Jesus, and every false
Jesus is nothing but the devil in a more pleasant form. But the God of this age, it says,
has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light
of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Now, demon possession. It's a thing I believe is real,
because the Bible talks about it. I don't know that I've ever
witnessed it. Must be a horrible thing. But you know something? While
I don't think that all the people in the world, all the unbelieving
people in the world are demon-possessed or devil-possessed, they are
devil-blinded, and that's going to take them to the same place
that demon possession will. Someone stronger than us, more
powerful than us, blinds people and they cannot, it doesn't say
they do not, it says they cannot see the light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ. And a man is helpless against
all these forms of blindness, isn't he? This man was helpless
against his blindness. Now modern medicine has found
ways to cure or at least diminish some kinds of blindness, but
they didn't have anything they could do about any kind of blindness
back then. And so if you went blind, that's just the way you
were. There wasn't any doctor that could do anything for you. And so this man was helpless
in his blindness. Natural man is helpless in his
blindness. In fact, he is so helplessly
blind, he doesn't even know that he's blind. Our Lord said to those Pharisees,
if you were blind, you would have no sin. But inasmuch as
you say, we see, your sin remains with you. Why could Saul of Tarsus not
see the glory of God in the face of Christ? He was blind, helplessly, hopelessly blind,
until God blinded him, blinded his natural eyes, knocked him
in the dust, unhorsed him, and then opened his spiritual eyes
to Christ. We're helpless. We can't change our nature, we
can't change God's justice, we can't change our will, and we
can't overcome Satan. We are helpless as we can be
by nature. How desperately we need God's
revealing grace. Henry used to say salvation doesn't
come by education, it comes by revelation. Yeah, we're educating
in the sense that we're telling the truth, but I can tell you,
I can educate you. From now on, it will do nothing
for you unless and until God reveals himself to you by giving
you that spiritual life that enables a person to see, perceive,
and understand these things of God. Blindness makes a man subject
to many disasters. You know, a blind man can't tell
the difference between light and dark. And spiritually blind
people are easily led into this or that religion. They may come to a certain level
of knowledge simply by the instruction of their parents and friends
and so forth. They can even go to Bible school
and seminary and they can get a degree in the Bible and they
can tell you all the doctrines of it. And they can argue for
this and that. They can even become professionals
in the business of churches. But it doesn't mean they see
anything. And one way you can tell whether
or not a person truly sees, distinguish between a true believer and someone
who is a false professor. The blind, professed Christian
can move among many different versions of the gospel, and they're
all the same to him. Now, I'm not one of these fellows
that's gonna try to figure out which doctrines you have to believe
in order to be saved. I've seen that argument go on,
I've seen it split up brothers, and people get mad, and it's
just a big bunch of pride. But I know this, there's truth
and there's error. And a person who has spiritual
sight knows the difference. Why someone newly born again knows the difference between
truth and falsehood as it pertains to the gospel of Christ. Spurgeon
said the merest babe is able to discern whether something
is true or not, even if he cannot intellectually describe to you
what's wrong with it. But when he hears it, it hits
him wrong. Generally speaking, it's revealed
in this. the glory doesn't go to God. No matter how many times
they say, well, this is for the glory of God, you can tell by
the way they're conducting themselves, by the things they put into speaking,
somehow or another, you get in there. Somewhere they put you
into the equation of salvation. And right away, you say, no,
that's not true. That's not the way it is. The only time that a blind man
sees is when he dreams, and I fear that many in this religious world
are simply dreaming, and what they're dreaming isn't real.
Now this man was brought to the Lord Jesus. Earlier I said he
came, and that's true. He came because he was brought,
but he was brought several times in the Bible. We see uh... people
bringing others to the lord jesus christ that way man his friends
brought him to christ and since they couldn't get going through
the door they went up on top of the house and they cut a hole
in the roof and let him down i suppose by ropes on a uh...
he was lame so he was laying on a stretcher like thing and
the lord healed him friends brought him to christ and then there
was that boy who was demon-possessed, and his father brought him to
Christ. I ask you, does it, is there
ever a desire in your heart to bring someone to Christ? Now
I'm not talking about in the way that I remember hearing about
it when I was a kid because, you know, the more you bring
to Christ, it's almost like getting a notch in your belt. And people
brag about how many people they brought to Christ. I'm not talking
about that. I'm not talking about doing something that we can glory
in. Would it not fill your heart with joy if you told someone
the gospel and they believed it to the saving of their souls?
You know it's Christ that did the saving, but that he was pleased
to use you to get it done. That's maybe the most wonderful
experience that a person can have in this world. Whether it's
your children, or your neighbor, or a stranger you meet along
the way. But these friends brought him
to Christ. No doubt these people already
knew and believed Jesus. If they had no faith in him,
they would not have brought their friend to him. And no doubt they
had told this blind man themselves. They told him about Jesus. They
probably came to his house. Never gives his name. We'll call
him Bill. Bill, remember that Jesus I told
you about? He's in Bethsaida today. Let's
go. And you see Bill, well, I don't
know, man, I'm blind. What's he gonna do? He can heal
the blind. Well, what makes you say that?
I saw him do it somewhere else. A man born blind. We'll see in
a minute this man wasn't born blind. Probably not anyway. But he said they convinced him
to go. But the most important point
and the point that is brought out in this is that they brought
this man to Christ and they begged Christ to heal him. They prayed
for him. That's a wonderful thing to have
the opportunity to preach the gospel and see God use that to
find one of his sheep. But what we see laid out before
us here is not evangelism, it's prayer. We don't even find this
man asking anything. His friends begged Christ to
do something for him. Now I know that every believer
has people who lay heavy upon their hearts. Children, spouses,
moms and dads, close friends. people that you desperately desire
their salvation. We cannot help but have a special
interest in the spiritual welfare of those who are our special
friends and loved ones. There's nothing wrong with that. And also realize that many of
those whom you may have a heart for, they're really out of your
reach when it comes to preaching. The kids are grown up and gone.
Mom and dad's too set in their ways. Your friends think they're
already saved and they don't want to hear it anymore from
you. Well, when you can't speak to your friends about Christ,
speak to Christ about your friends and loved ones. After all, he's the only one
that can do anything about it anyway. I won't say it about you, because
I don't know about your prayer life. I know mine. I'd hate to
try to get to heaven on my prayers. There just are not enough of
them, and the ones that there are aren't good enough. My, my. We have access to him
who sits on the throne, and we have personal access to the one
who can do something about our children and our parents and
sisters and brothers and friends. He can if he will. Pour your soul out to him. They
didn't beg this man to go to Christ, they begged Christ to
heal the man. Well, what did the Lord do in
response? Verse 23, he took the blind man by the hand and led
him outside the village. Now the Lord is beginning a work
of salvation. And when God is going to save
a person, he will pull that person away from everyone else. Not necessarily physically. What
I mean is that Christ's work of salvation is always one-on-one.
He doesn't save groups, he saves individuals. Christ's work always leads a
person, what the book of Hebrews calls, outside of the camp. Over here in Hebrews chapter
13. We'll begin reading at verse 11. It
says, the high priest carries the blood of animals into the
most holy places of sin offering. but the bodies are burned outside
the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside
the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let
us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he
bore. So here comes this blind man
being brought there by his friends. His friends plead on his behalf
and the Lord in as much says, all right, Bill, Let's get outside
of this town of religious unbelievers. I've got something to do for
you that I'm not going to do for them. I'm gonna grant you
a grace I didn't grant them. And he pulls him outside of that
environment. And if the Lord is ever going
to save you, he's gonna get you alone. He'll get you alone even
if you're in the middle of a big group of people. You will think
that you and Jesus Christ are the only ones there are because
the Lord's work is a personal work. Let him outside the village and
when he had spit on the man's eyes, I don't know why he did
it that way, I don't know whether he spit
directly in his eyes or spit on his hands and just wiped them.
I don't know. I assume maybe here is an illustration
of the word from his mouth. And even though the word that
he speaks, we can't see it because we're naturally blind. It's by
the very power of that word that he gives spiritual sight. Maybe
that's why we're told that. I can't say it dogmatically,
but it works. But whatever, something from
Christ was put in that man's eyes. It wasn't disciple spit. It wasn't priest spit. I don't say spit when I'm preaching
very often, do I? Not much call for it, but there
is here. It was Savior spit. And Savior
spit can give you sight. And he put it in the man's eyes. And then he asked, do you see
anything? Guy's eyes were open. He said,
do you see anything? And he said, I see people. They
look like trees walking around. Once more Jesus put his hands
on the man's eyes, then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored,
and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home saying, don't
go into the village. Now I just want to think for
a few minutes on this. Do you see anything? Now I ask you, do you see anything? I'm not asking you if you see
perfectly. Because the man said, I see, that was his first word.
So that was the answer, I do see. Before he would have just
said, no, I don't see a thing. He said, well I see. I see. I see people. They look like trees walking
around. Now this is what makes me think that this man was not
born blind. He knew what people were supposed
to look like and he knew what trees looked like. And you know,
man was not born blind. That is, when God created Adam,
Adam had spiritual sight. And then he was struck blind
through sin. We come into this world blind, but spiritual blindness
was not always part of humanity. But here's the thing, the Lord
said, do you see anything? And he said, I see, I see people
and they look like trees walking around. And here's the point
I wanna make. A man doesn't have to see perfectly to see. And
a sinner doesn't have to have a perfect understanding of everything,
every gospel doctrine there is in order to be saved. I've said
it to you before, there's really only two things that a man's
got to know. Number one, that he's a sinner
in need of a savior, and two, Jesus Christ is the savior he
needs. Now there's more to be known. And here's the thing, you show
a seeing person something, you reveal it to them, they'll see
it and they'll acknowledge it. But the Lord, he did see something. Well, do you see anything? Do
you see your sin? Now, people say, we need to learn
the depth of our sin. We're never gonna learn that.
And thank God that we don't, we wouldn't be able to take it.
But we can see enough of our sin to know we need a savior
from it, can't we? Our vision of our sin may be
blurry, but we see it enough to know it's too much for us.
We see Christ, but it's kind of blurry. Oh,
there's some things we know for certain, but there's some things
confusing. But we see him well enough to see that he's a sufficient
savior for sinners, don't we? Our Lord touched his eyes again,
and then he could see clearly. Has God given you sight? You say, well, I see. But it's
kind of blurry. Well, you can see. And don't
worry about whether or not you are a blind person anymore. You're
blind. But your living spirit housed in this corrupt flesh,
both of them work together, gives a blurry view of everything.
But you can say, like this guy, his first words, I see. I see,
but there's coming a day the Lord will touch you again. In fact, he touches us over and
over and over again, doesn't he? It's clearer now than when
you first saw it, but it's not crystal clear, is it? You're
still learning. One of these days, he'll touch
you and it will be as clear as clear can be. Paul says we know in part because
we see in part, but then face to face. It's blurry now, and
because it's blurry, it can get frustrating. But thank God you
can see. You can see something. You can see Christ and know that
that's him. and know that he is sufficient
for such a one as you. And you can see him with blurry
vision in the certain hope that one of these days, without glasses
or contacts, you'll see absolutely clear. And you will be filled
with wonder then even more than you were when you got your blurry
vision. Well, I hope that's a blessing
to you. It was to me.