It is really good to be here
tonight. We had to make a trip down here
to return some very expensive equipment that a company convinced us to rent from them
for five years. And after renting it for five
years, they said, OK, now you have to return it to us. And
that's in San Diego. OK. I don't mind doing that. We'll come down to San Diego.
We get to see, we've just spent some wonderful time with Kimberly
and Kevin, and it's just always a joy to come here to see you
folks. All of creation boils down to
one thing. Kevin and I were talking about
this at dinner the other night. You know, if you take all of God creating the
worlds that we have, the time, the creatures and everything,
it all comes down to one thing. It all comes down to his grace
for his people. The whole idea that God would
become flesh and walk this earth was for the grace of His people.
It was for you and I. Does that not boggle your mind?
God would do all that just for us, and plus much more, giving
His Son sending him to lay down his life to be gracious to you and I,
to his people. All of creation can be boiled
down to one thing, and that's to the grace of God. God became
flesh that his grace may be expressed to a particular people. In Romans
9, 15, we read these words, 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. In Ephesians 2, verse 8, we read
these words, for by grace are ye saved through faith, and that
not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. That's what the word
of God says, is it not? Grace. Everything about the Lord
Jesus is grace to his loved ones, a people, a people that he has
loved from before the world was, a people his love for is eternal. I want that to sink in. He didn't just start loving you
yesterday. He's loved you forever. If you belong to Him, His whole
plan was to save you, that you would spend an eternity with
Him, praising and singing glory unto our Lord and Savior. His love is eternal, and He will
have this people for Himself, and nothing can turn His hand. I like that. I like that very,
very much. Especially walking around in
this valley of the shadow of death, in this body decaying,
committing sin. Every time I open my eyes, I
love the fact that my Lord will never leave me. nor forsake me. How about you? Does that not
bless you? That's his word to us. That's
his grace to us. He didn't have to do any of that,
but he did it because he loves us. Loves us with an everlasting
love. By his stripes, we are healed. He fulfilled that purpose of
saving His people, satisfying the justice of His Father, God. By His stripes we are healed.
Now I'd like you to turn, if you would, to the ninth chapter
of John. A very familiar event in Holy Scripture we're about
to read about, showing us an example of God's grace to one
of His lost sheep. Now, we are never lost to Him. He's always known where we're
at. He went through Samaria, why? Because he had to see a
woman. He knew she was there. She didn't
know he was coming. We're lost to him because sin
has separated us from the Father. In Matthew 18, 11, we read this,
for the Son of Man has come to do what? To save that which was
lost. Again, not lost to him, But we're,
but he is lost to us. Look at verses one, if you would,
through three. We're gonna kind of take this
in a cursory fashion. I don't wanna go through the
whole story here. Most of us already know this, but I wanna
look at a couple of points before I bring us to the subject of
tonight's message. Beginning at verse one, we read
this, and Jesus passed by. He passed by through Hamul. He passed by through rescue. He passed by through Samaria.
There were certain people in each of those places, and every
place our Lord passes by, passes through. He passed by, he saw
a man which was blind from his birth. Blind from his birth. Now, I wanna stop there for a
moment, because I want you to get a picture of this. And this
is difficult for me to understand. I've never been blind. I don't
know what it's like to be blind. Some of you may have at one time
or another in your life. I don't know. But I can picture
a little bit of understanding if I close my eyes and try to
walk around for a while. Have you ever done that in high
school? They taught us to try to do that. You put a blindfold
on. You walk around. Here's what it's like to be blind,
even though it's not, but it is. At least you saw something
one time. This guy had never seen anything. Could you imagine trying to describe
to him something? Well, he could, well, put your
hand on this chair. This is a chair. You can feel
it. But imagine what you could do
when you could see it for the first time. Oh my, that's what
a chair looks like. Now I see what you're talking
about. He was blind from birth. Imagine trying to explain to
this poor soul what it would be like, what a color is. What
is a color? I can't even think of a way to
describe blue. It's blue. That's the best way
I could describe it. He was blind from birth, and
the Lord's disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And verse
three, Jesus answered, neither had this man sinned nor his parents. Now, we know all men come into
this world dead and sin and trespasses and sin, right? Every time I've seen our Lord
talking about a man who never sinned, It's always been one
of His people. That's the only way you can count
anybody that ever walked this earth without sin. Those who
have had their sin laid upon our substitute. Those who have
been cleansed by the blood of Christ when He hung on that cross
and bled out. Those who have been in Christ
from before the world was. Only those, only those for whom
he died could ever be called sinless, perfect men, for that's
what we are in him, and only in him. Neither hath this man
sin nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made
manifest in him. Now look down at verses six and
seven, if you would. When he had thus spoken, he spat
on the ground, speaking of our Lord, and made clay of the spittle,
and he anointed 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 was washed, and came seeing. Power of God exercised upon that
man. He came away seeing that moment. Now I want you to look over verse
25, if you would, with me. Verse 25, John chapter 10, verse
25. What happened was, after that
point, this man who could now see had been going around, the
Lord had healed him, and the Pharisees and stuff, they didn't
like the Lord. He was taking too much glory
away from them. He was proving himself to be who he was, and
they couldn't do anything. They were all jealous about what
the Lord was doing. They didn't like the fact that
a man was claiming to be God, even though he was. And so they
were giving this poor man a bad time and giving his parents a
bad time, as you know, the story. And then in verse 25, he answered
and said, whether he be a sinner or no, I know not. This is the
man speaking to the Pharisees. They were harassing him. He says,
I know not. One thing I know, he says, that whereas I was blind,
now I see. Now mark your text there if you
would. We're gonna leave John for a moment. We'll come back to it. He says,
now I see. I see what? Well I see all the
colors and all that stuff and all those kinds of things I couldn't
see before. And that's exactly what he saw. Things I could not
see before. I'd like to talk to you tonight
about five things that I could not see before. I don't know about, much about
this or much about that, but I know this, once I was blind
and now I see. First, I'd like, I could, first
thing I could bring up to you, I wanna bring up to you tonight
is I could not see my own bankrupt condition. Take a look back at
the time before the Lord called you out of that darkness. Do
you remember? Do you remember when you were blind to the truths
of God's Word? Were you the person that you
are today? Interestingly enough, I see,
when I hear God's true children talk about what they are today,
it's like that man over in the corner who's down on his knees
crying out, Lord, have mercy to me. Anytime I hear somebody
coming in and say, well, I'm not like that person. I'm a whole
new person now. This is the way I am now. I go
to church every Sunday. I tithe. I do this and I do that. I start raising red flags saying,
oh, I wonder. First thing God does to us, he
convicts us of our need for us to know who it is fulfilling
our need, we need to know that we have a need. Is that not correct?
We need to know that we're sinners, bankrupt, with nothing. That's the first thing I saw.
The first thing I heard when the pastor was standing before
us preaching the gospel was, I have nothing that I can offer
my Lord. And I could see that. For the
first time in my life, I saw who I am for what I am, a sinner
deserving God's wrath. And then the pastor went on and
began to teach us the other parts that we would begin to see. And
we'll get to those in a moment. I could see my bankrupt condition
before a thrice holy God. I knew by my nature that there
was something wrong. A lot of us know that, don't
we? That's why we have all these different religions in the world.
Everybody's trying to fix that wrong thing that's in their life. We just don't know how deep that
depravity goes. We could not see the depth of
what was wrong. I could not see the totality of my condition,
the truth of my condition. Turn over to Romans, if you would,
chapter three. Romans chapter three. Let's see
what the Lord's Word says about the condition of natural man.
Over in Romans chapter three, we can begin reading at verse
nine, what then? Are we better than they? Are
we better than those who have not heard the word of God with
the heart of God yet, a new heart? Are we better than they? No.
No, in no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles,
that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous. No, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher,
and with their tongues they have used a seat. The poison of asp
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery
are in their ways, and the way of peace, and the way of peace
have they not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. In Isaiah 53, we read these words. He is despised, speaking of our
Lord and Savior, and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. And we hid it, as it were, our
faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. If you'd have said that about
me, 23 years ago before the Lord called me, I said, you crazy.
I don't think that way at all. Now I know I did. Now I see I
did. This is the way of all mankind.
All have sinned and come short of his glory. We come into this
world hating God, hating him without a cause, and I see clearly
I see clearly that before he came to me, I would have had
none of his doings. I wanted nothing to do with him.
Mom would say to John, John, come to church with me this Sunday.
Mom, I go once a year with you, that's good enough. I would have nothing to do with
him. I may have looked to something, but it wasn't the true and living
God. I could not see my heart was desperately wicked. I could
not see that I was dead in trespasses and sin. I just could not see
it. Look over to Ephesians chapter
two with me for a moment. Ephesians chapter two. This thing that I could not see
is that I was dead in trespasses and sin, that there was no love
of God in me, no fear of God in me. In fact, I found a scripture
here that has been close to my heart because this is exactly
what I was before the Lord called me. He says, and you, speaking
of me and you, God's people, those that he had loved before
the world was, hath he quickened, given life, who were dead in
trespasses and sin. Where in times past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace
ye are saved. Secondly, secondly, I could not
see that God choosing me was not something that I had anything
to do as a part of. See, when I was raised as a child,
it was, if you do this, you'll get this. If you'll just come
to the front of the church and give yourself to God, you'll
be saved. That's the only part of going
to church I ever remember. That and the guy walking around
with a feather or little bonker thing and hitting you on the
head if you fell asleep, which I got hit most every Sunday. I could not see that God choosing
me was not by something that I had done. Surely, Surely there
was goodness in me, wasn't there? Surely I wasn't that bad of a
child. I mean, this guy over here was
a lot worse than me. Surely my goodness outweighed
my wickedness. If I would just stop doing this
and maybe start doing that, wouldn't that be helping the Lord in some
way or another? No. In Romans 9 and 11, we read
these words for the children being not yet born. Not yet born. They hadn't even
come from their mother's womb yet. Being not yet born, neither
having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according
to election, might stand not of works, but of Him that calleth. I couldn't see that. I couldn't
see that before. It wasn't until the Lord turned
the light on in this heart, this dark heart, the dark heart that
every one of us have come into the world with. Until the Lord
turned that light on, we couldn't see all the things in the room
that belonged to Him. We've all walked into a dark
room sometime and you can't see anything. I went into a cavern
one time in Chattanooga, Ruby Falls. And you go down, you hang
on to both posts, and you go all the way down into the depth
of that cavern, and it's so dark down there, you really cannot
see anything in front of your face. And all of a sudden, they
turn the light on, and you see the waterfalls coming down. You
could hear them before, but you couldn't see them. And then all
of a sudden, you see the pearl color of the water coming down
from the ceiling and going right in front of your face. That's how blind we were before
the Lord moved in and took over. John chapter 15, 16, we read
these words, you have not chosen me, he says, but I have chosen
you and ordained you that you should go forth, go and bring
forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Folks, God chose
his people and his holy perfect son from before the foundation
of the world. That's what scripture says. His
love for his people is an everlasting love that cannot be thwarted. I could not see that I was His
all along. I could not see that I was chosen
in Him from before the foundation of the world. Look over at Ephesians
chapter one, just across the page from you there, at verse
three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him 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 hath made us accepted in the beloved, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of his grace. wherein he hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the
mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he
hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness
of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven and which are on earth and are even
in him. Now thirdly, I could not see
the efficiency of his atonement. People would talk about, if you
just accept Christ, you'll be saved. If you'll just accept
what he's done for you, you'll be saved. But if you go off and
do this afterwards, you may not be saved. I had no understanding of the
power of that blood that was shed for His people. When I heard
for the first time that the blood of Christ saved His people, I heard about a God who deserved
to be called God. I heard about the true and living
God of Scripture, that ifs and maybes are not so in His Word. He's a finite God. When He desires
something, it shall be. That's one who deserves to be
called God. That's one who is sovereign ruler over everything. I could not see the efficiency
of His atonement, His payment, my complete redemption in Him. Look with me over at 1 Peter
1, if you would. 1 Peter 1. In 1 Peter 1, we read these words,
beginning at verse 13. Wherefore, gird up the loins,
the loins of your mind, and be sober, and hope to the end for
the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. as obedient children, not fashioning
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but
as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner
of conversation. Because it is written, Because
it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on
the Father, who without respect of person judgeth according to
every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear,
for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible
things as silver and gold from your vain conversations received
by traditions of your fathers. No, we were not redeemed with
anything of that kind, but with the precious blood of Christ,
verse 19, as the lamb without blemish and without spot, who
verily was ordained before the foundation of the world, but
was manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe
in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory,
that your faith and hope might be in God. In Colossians 2, verses
9 and 10, we read these words, for in him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him. His atonement, the perfect atonement
of Christ, covers it all. In Romans 8, 1, we read these
words. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. Do you ever get tired of hearing
that? I love that. Well, I want to say it's my favorite
phrase, but I have so many favorite phrases in God's word. That's
one of them. How's that? That's one of the
ones that rank right up there. Why? Do you struggle with sin? There
is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ. Do
you struggle with the flesh? There is now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ. That phrase will never get old
to a true believer. Not as long as we walk this earth
fighting the good fight doing the best we can to turn away
from that sin that besets us, the flesh that battles with the
Spirit. I pray not. I pray it never gets
old. My sin is ever before me. I know
the battle is won. I know it'll never take me and
grab ahold of me and pull me down to the pit again, for my
Lord has taken that pit for me. He's won the battle. There's
victory in Jesus, is there not? The battle is won by my captain,
yet I must fight on. I must continue the race. The
race is not over yet. And then fourthly, I could not
see God was lovingly drawing me to Himself all my life. Those of you who the Lord has
given enlightenment to to understand, you know what I'm saying, don't
you? Do you not look back and say, wow, look what the Lord
brought me through all the way back then. And all I was doing
was doing this to him. I don't want nothing to do with
him, yet he loved me anyway. all the way through John's life
for 40 years, he brought me through all the things that I had to
go through, so that one day he would bring
me on my knees to a church where one of his preachers was preaching
the true gospel, and I would hear of a lovely, wonderful hope. There's salvation. There's salvation
in the Lord. All those years I walked through
all that stuff, I could not see that my Lord was drawing me.
But now I see. Do you? We don't have to understand
why he brought us through all that. And some of us went through
some pretty bad stuff, didn't we? We don't have to understand
all the reasons why. We'll know that someday when
we stand with the Lord. But we know that he was drawing
us to him. We know that we were going through
times in our life that we'd look back on and see how weak we were
and see his strength bringing us through it. My loving Savior was preparing
me to hear his word. The day he brought me before
one of his gospel preachers, my old stony heart was to be
cut away, cut away by his word and a new heart was prepared
to receive him. Psalms 110 verse three, we read
this, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. I see
that clearly. I see that if the Lord had not
done a work in my heart and given me a new heart, I would never
have been willing to come to him. The irresistible of the grace
of my Lord crossed my path with a preacher of his grace, and
the Lord called me. Just like he did Lazarus, he
said, John, come forth. Come and hear my word. I give
you ears. I give you life. Ears to hear
things you've never heard before. My Lord gave this poor sinful
soul life. Just as we read in Ephesians,
He quickened me that I would be able to receive Him. He made
me willing in the day of His power. Look over at John chapter
17 with me, if you would please. Our Lord is praying his priestly
prayer to his Father on behalf of his people. And in John chapter
17, we read in verse five, and now, O Father, glorify thou me
with thine own self for the glory which I had with thee before
the world was. I have manifested thy name unto
the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they
were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given
me are of thee, for I have given unto them the words which thou
gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that
I come out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me. In John chapter 10, we don't
need to turn there, I'll read it for you, 27 verse, Or chapter
10, verse 27 to 30, we read these words. My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. And
this brings me to my last point. I could not see. Five things
that I could not see. I could not see that he who loves
me and gave himself for me would not hold anything back from me. He who loves me and gave himself
for me would not hold anything back from me. He would have me for Himself,
for that was His desire. In 1 Peter 1, verses 3-5, we
read this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten
us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and
that fadeth not away. Is that a surety from the Lord
or what? It never fades. It's gonna get brighter and brighter
and brighter. This is what grace does. When
you put grace on a black sheet like a diamond, it just grows,
it grows in sight. You stare at that diamond and
all of a sudden you don't see any more of that black felt behind
it, you just see the brightness of that diamond, the grace of
our Savior. It fadeth not away, it's reserved
in heaven for you. And then it says these words.
Another one of my favorite ones. Who are kept. Who are kept. How many churches out there have
you ever been to that, I've been to a couple of them, that's why
I ask if any of you have ever been to this. You go to a church
and they say, okay, now you're saved, now you gotta do this.
Now you got to do that. Oh, you're doing that. You might
want to question. Our Lord says to his people,
something we never saw before he called us out of darkness.
But now we see clearly we are kept by him and him alone. It's not him plus something about
me. It's not him and something that I can do. It's by him. By
his power is what it says. Kept by the power of God through
faith. Is my faith weak at times? Oh,
you bet it is. Am I kind of wondering, Lord,
how can I be saved if these thoughts go through my mind? Oh, we all
have that, don't we? But don't fret. If you belong
to Him, you are kept by Him. You are kept by Him and we will
be kept by Him but for an eternity. Ready to be revealed, what it
says, in the last time. Perseverance is not of me but
of Him. Look over at verses 13 through
20 of John 17. Are you still there? Look at
verses 13 through 20. And now come I to thee. And these
things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled
in themselves. I have given them thy word, and
the world hath hated them, because they were not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but thou shouldest keep them from
evil." Our Lord is praying for us. If God is praying to God
for us, would He turn down that prayer? Absolutely not. We have an assurance above anything
that you'll ever find in the flesh. Our assurance is in Him. God help us, God help me to turn
away from what I keep seeing in this flesh, turn away from
the mirror of John Reeves and look to my Savior and look to
Him alone. We are being kept by His power.
He gave His only begotten Son for us. How shall He not give
us all things? So what is it that I could not
see? I could not see Him for who He
is. I heard about a Jesus, but I could not see Him for who
He is. God was manifest in the flesh. That's powerful. The holy God
of all creation humbled himself and became like us, yet without
sin. Perfect in every way. Everything he did was perfect.
He satisfied the justice of God by giving himself as a perfect
spotless lamb on the cross for us. I could not see that he was the
Christ, the Messiah, the one who was talked about through
all the Old Testament, who would come and save his people. He
would be called Jesus, for he shall save his people. And I could not see him for the
king that he is right now. King over everything. Ruler,
sovereign ruler of all that is. Lord of all things in heaven
and earth. And what does it say after that?
Doesn't it say under the earth? He's Lord of all. Go back to our text one more
time and we'll close with this. Back in John chapter nine, this
man who stated John chapter nine, what did I
say? Did I say six? I meant nine. This man who had
stated over there in verse 25, he answered, he says, whether
he, speaking of our Lord, be a sinner or no, I know not. One
thing I know, he said, that whereas I was blind, now I see. Over in verse 32 through 38,
let's close with these words. Since the world began, was it
not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born
blind? This is the man speaking, he says, if this man, speaking
of Christ, were not of God, he could do nothing. And the Pharisees,
they answered, and they said unto him, thou wast altogether
born in sins, and dost thou teach us? Who are you to teach us,
you unlearned person, you one who's been blind all these years?
And they cast him out. Verse 35, 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 this man answered,
and he 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. When you look into the scriptures, Do you just see ways, good ways
to walk in the world, righteous things to do, this and that,
or do you see the one who is righteous? You know, the scripture
from cover to cover is all about him, H-I-M. A letter, a love letter to his
people, you and I. May God bless us.