Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's holy word. And now, the message. Welcome to our program. Now,
today I'm going to be preaching from the book of John, chapter
9. And the title of the message
is this, I was blind, now I see. I was blind, now I see." Now,
we've talked about in past programs the purpose of the miracles that
the Lord Jesus Christ performed here on earth and his earthly
mission. These miracles that he performed,
and he performed many miracles, and many of them were miracles
of healing, which is what we're going to talk about today. And
these miracles were not an end in and of themselves. They weren't
just to draw attention to the miracle. But they were performed
by the Lord, done by the Lord, accomplished by the Lord for
several reasons. Number one, to give credit to
his deity. Now here we're going to be talking
about him giving sight to a blind man. A man who was blind from
birth. And only God can give sight to
the blind. So this was a testimony to the
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, these miracles were
testimonies to the authority of his word. That when he spoke,
he spoke according in power to the authority of the Godhead,
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And he had authority. And then thirdly, These miracles
were to give a testimony to his ability and his power. He is
able. You see, and this applies to
salvation now. Not only to physical healing,
but it also applies to his ability to save sinners from their sins. In fact, that is the main thrust
of these miracles we're going to see. If he can heal, if he
can raise the dead and give sight to the blind, make the lame walk
and the dumb speak and the deaf hear. If He can calm the storm,
remember when He calmed the storm, He said, peace be still. If He
can have power over men, power over this world, then He is able
to save to the uttermost them that come unto the Father by
Him. He has the power to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. The Pharisees recognized that.
When he spoke of him forgiving sin, they called it blasphemy
because they said only God can forgive sin. Well, he is God.
Now, he's man. We talked about that. He's the
God-man. God and man in one person. And
he performed these miracles. He accomplished these miracles.
And then another purpose for these miracles And we see this
from the viewpoint of the Word of God by the Spirit of God,
is that they are living illustrations of salvation, how God saves sinners
in some aspect of salvation, sometimes in all aspects of salvation. Now, I want you to look at this
in John chapter 9 in this way. Here is a living illustration. Not just simply of the power
of Christ to give physical sight to a physically blind man, but
his power to give spiritual sight to spiritually blind sinners.
Only God can do that. You can't give yourself spiritual
sight. And I want to show you that.
It says in verse 1, And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which
was blind from his birth. Now, one old preacher made this
statement. You know, we talk about the three
R's in education. You hear about that, you know,
that when we send our children to school, we want them to learn
the three R's in reading, writing, and arithmetic. And that's just
a play on words because, you know, certainly that's not the
right spelling. But one old preacher said that
there are three R's in the gospel. And those three R's would be
this, ruined by the fall, redeemed by the blood of Christ and regenerated
by the Holy Spirit." We're going to see just an illustration here
in this miracle. It says he was blind from birth.
That is a good illustration of our birth in Adam, because in
Adam we were ruined by the fall. When Adam fell, we fell. We not
only became spiritually blind in Adam, We became spiritually
dead, ruined completely. Adam's fall was a complete fall
away from God, away from God's favor, away from God's fellowship
and communion. It was total alienation from
God. That's what it means to be lost,
totally without God, alienated from God. And that brought him
into spiritual death. That is, he had no spiritual
ability to love God and serve God and believe God. He's like
a dead man, spiritually. And we who are in Adam, that's
the whole human race whom Adam represented, we fell in him. We became spiritually dead in
Adam, for as by one man sin entered into the world, and death passed
upon all men for that all sin." Romans 5 and verse 12. For as
in Adam, all die, all whom Adam represented. So in man, in physical
birth, there is no spiritual life. Now this man was born physically
blind, but I'll tell you that's a good illustration of the first
R, ruined by the fall. We're born spiritually blind.
We don't have, by nature, in our physical birth, in our physical
faculties, we do not have the spiritual ability to see the
glory of God, to see the value of Christ, to see even our sinfulness. That's why men and women think
by nature that they're better than they are. That's why sinners
seek salvation by works. You know, if you think salvation
from a holy God is by your works in any way, in any stage, to
any degree, for any reason, that is proof that you're spiritually
blind. You don't even have the ability
to look into the mirror of God's Word and see yourself as you
really are. Somebody's got to give you spiritual
sight. You can't give it to yourself.
Your friends can't give it to you. Mom and Dad can't give it
to you. Look at verse 2 here. It says,
and his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin,
this man or his parents that he was born blind? Now, they
were indicating a common misconception about sin at that time. They thought, well, because this
man was born blind, either his parents or he himself sinned.
Well, obviously he himself couldn't have because he was born that
way. You see, being lost is a matter of being born of the flesh. That's why we need the new birth.
That's why the scripture says that which is born of the flesh
is flesh. But that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. We need a spiritual birth. But
they were trying to connect his blindness to some particular
sin. Well, now listen to me. All spiritual
blindness can be traced right back to Adam's fall, ruined by
the fall. We fell in Adam, and that spiritual
blindness is a judgment of God and a consequence of that sin.
But now this physical blindness couldn't be traced to any particular
sin. Some are born with physical sight,
some are born spiritually blind. Some who are born with physical
sight become blind later. You may not be able to connect
that to any particular sin, and it's self-righteous to try to
do so. But look here in verse 3, Jesus
answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but
that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Now
this is an amazing thing here. Did you hear what the Word of
God said in this passage? This man was born physically
blind for the express purpose that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. That's why he was born. That's
why God's chosen people, God's elect, Christ's sheep, are born
into this world, they're born spiritually dead just like anybody
else. But they're born for the specific
purpose that the works of God should be made manifest in them.
They are objects of God's eternal love, unconditional love. They
are objects of his grace and they're objects of his power
and God is going to make himself known in the salvation of his
people. That's an amazing thing. Christ
said in verse 4, he said, I must work the works of him that sent
me, while it is they, the night cometh when no man can work.
What he's saying is now is the time to do the work. And he goes
on, he says, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the
world. Now you see there, he gives physical sight, physical
light. He said, listen, in creation,
God said, let there be light. There was light. He set the sun
in the heavens, the moon. all that is light. He separated
light from darkness. He is also the giver and the
author of spiritual light, spiritual sight. It says in verse 6, when
he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the
spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay.
He smeared that clay, that dirt mixed with his spit, that clay
on that blind man's eyes. What a way to give physical sight.
But you see, The Lord uses what he will according to his power. There's no power in clay and
spit to give physical sight. The power is in Christ. And I
imagine it was a very humiliating and an experience of humility
among men to do something like that. Why not call down fire
from heaven? No, he reached down and he took
from the earth And he made, in his power, brought physical sight
to this man. Well, our Lord, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is God in the heavens, who came down to this earth and
was born of a virgin. He was conceived in the womb
of a virgin by the Holy Spirit. He had a perfect humanity, body
and soul. And in the capacity as God-man,
he walked this earth and saved his people from their sins. And
as God-man, he sends his Spirit to give spiritual life. Verse
7 says, he said unto the man, Go wash in the pool of Siloam,
which is by interpretation, sent. You see, those who preach the
gospel are sent of God, and those who hear the gospel are sent
to the gospel. And it says, he went his way
therefore, and washed, and he came seen. He was healed. He
did what the Lord told him to do, and he came seen. He had
physical sight. Now, in the rest of this chapter,
we see some confusion. We see some doubts given by the
Pharisees, the religious people of the day. His neighbor, verse
8, therefore, and they which before had seen him, that he
was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? He was
a beggar too. That's a good illustration of
lost people, beggars, you see. And when God gives them spiritual
sight, they become mercy beggars. They begged for mercy at the
mercy seat, which is Christ. Some said, this is He. Others
said, He is like Him. But He said, I am. In other words,
they didn't believe that it was the same God, but He said, well,
it's me. That's what He's telling them. It says, verse 10, "...therefore
said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered
and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, anointed mine
eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash.
And I went and washed, and I received sight. This said they unto him,
Where is he? He said, I know not." How did
you receive your sight? Well, this man didn't know how.
It's like when we receive spiritual life by the Spirit in the new
birth, in regeneration. We don't really know how that
happens. Now, some people think they know, but I'll tell you
they're just being foolish. God doesn't read that. We just
know that it's life from Christ by His Spirit. I've heard men
try to explain that, try to theologize it, doctrinalize it, what goes
on in the heart of a sinner. We don't know that we know that
he's given a new heart. The Bible says his heart is changed.
The Bible says Christ enters his heart, he's given spiritual
life. Some people call it a nature, some people call it a principle,
and they argue over that, and it's just foolishness. Now let
me tell you, here's what this blind man, look here what he
said here. He says in verse 13, to the Pharisees him that aforetime
that was blind." Now, they brought him to the Pharisees, and these
Pharisees began to question him. He told them what happened. It says in verse 14, it was the
Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then
again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.
He said unto them, he put clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and
now I see. I see now. And therefore said some of the
Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the
Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that
is a sinner do such miracles? There was a division among them."
Now you think about that. Here's a man who had been blind
from birth, and now he was given sight. And rather than rejoicing
in the fact that this man could now see, oh, they were so concerned
with their religious traditions. Oh, he did this on the Sabbath,
they said. Well, now let me tell you, I've
explained this to you before, just like the man who was by
the pool of Bethesda. And they challenged Christ on
that because he'd healed the man on the Sabbath day. Saying,
you broke the Sabbath, you're a sinner. And a man who's a sinner
is not of God, and he could not do these things because he broke
the Sabbath. Christ did not break the Sabbath
here. Christ is the Sabbath. I'll tell
you, this is something we need to get hold of. What is a Sabbath? It's rest from labor. And when
we come to Christ, when we're given spiritual sight, spiritual
life, how do we know we have that? Not because we can explain
what happens inside of us. The only way we know we have
spiritual life and spiritual sight is we look to Christ and
we rest in Him and His finished work for our whole salvation.
He's our Sabbath. My whole salvation The forgiveness
of my sins, my justification before God, is all based upon
His blood, His shed blood, and His righteousness imputed, charged
to me, given to me. My sins were charged to Him,
laid upon Him, accounted to Him. He bore them to the cross, and
He took upon Himself the responsibility of my debt. And he paid it in
full. He finished the work. He brought
forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value whereby God
could be just and justify an ungodly sinner like me. Christ
finished the work. And when we're given spiritual
life in the new birth, when we're regenerated, you see, we're ruined
by the fall, but we're redeemed, bought back again, and justified
by the blood of Christ. It's by His work, not yours,
not mine. And therefore, out of that great
salvation that Christ accomplished and finished on Calvary, He sends
forth His Spirit to give His people spiritual life, to regenerate
them by the Spirit, to give them spiritual eyes to see their own
sinfulness and depravity and wickedness, even our best efforts. spiritual eyes to see His glory
and the power of who He is. He's God-man and the glory of
His finished work so that we by faith rest in Him. But they
just couldn't understand this, so they questioned this blind
man. They questioned his parents.
They just wanted to know the details so that they could catch
him up. They said to him, over in verse
26, you can read the whole chapter, But they said to him again, What
did he do to thee? How opened he thine eyes? In
verse 27, he answered them, he said, I have told you already,
and you didn't hear." There's an issue of spiritual hearing
there. You see, men by nature hear what they want to hear.
And they refuse to hear the Word of God. We've already seen that
in the book of John. Christ said, He that is of God,
He that is chosen of God, He that is redeemed of God, he that
is regenerated of God, born again from above, hears God's words. And that just doesn't mean hear
them physically. It means he believes them. It means he submits
to them. He loves the Word of God. It's
his desire. It's written in his heart. And
he longs to obey God and to hear God. These words are life because
Christ is our life. And he said you didn't hear.
Wherefore or why would you hear it again? Will you also be his
disciple?" Now the man here is sort of mocking them, isn't he?
I've told you, they kept questioning. They wanted to catch him up in
a lie so that they could bring a charge against the Lord. And they kept questioning. Again,
they questioned his parents. His parents told him, said, well,
you ask him. He's an adult. He's a responsible
adult. He knows what he went through.
You ask him. And so they came back and they
asked him, he said, why are you questioning me again? I've told
you and you didn't believe it. Do you want to be his disciple?
Well, obviously they didn't. It says in verse 28, then they
reviled him. And they said, thou art his disciple,
but we are Moses' disciples. Now, you know what they're saying
there. Most people, they read a statement like that and they
just look right over it. They looked at him, they reviled
him. They ridiculed him. They berated him. And they said,
you're his disciple. My friend, if that's the charge
you've got against me, go ahead and ring it forth. I'm Christ's
disciple. I'm one who follows him. But
they said, we don't follow him, we follow Moses. Now, what do
they mean by that? That means they thought that
they kept the law. The law of Moses. You see, Moses
stood for the law in his office. And God gave Moses the law, the
Ten Commandments, the ceremonial law, the law of sacrifice and
priesthood, the civil law that was given to Israel that presided
over them for over 1,500 years in their national government. And so they thought that salvation
and acceptance before God was based upon their keeping the
law of Moses. Now Christ had already told them,
as recorded back in John chapter 5, that it's impossible for any
sinner to be saved based on works of the law, and he told the Pharisees,
he said, Moses in whom you trust will be your judge and your downfall. You see, Moses didn't trust in
the law for salvation. Moses looked to Christ. Moses
was a prophet, and he saw the law for what it is. It is an
instrument to bring us in guilty by judgment and drive us to Christ
for righteousness. and eternal life." So they said,
we're Moses' disciples. Verse 29, in chapter 9, it says,
we know that God spoke unto Moses. As for this fellow, we know not
from whence he is. We know God spoke to Moses. Well,
God did. But they didn't hear him. They
said, we don't know where this Jesus of Nazareth, where he's
from. Verse 30, The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein
is a marvelous thing, this is an amazing thing, that you know
not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes." It's
amazing that you don't know where he come from and yet he has the
power to give sight to the blind. Well, if he has power to give
sight to the blind, he's a God. He was sent from God, he is God. And that's what this blind man's
saying, it's amazing to me that you don't know these things.
These masters of Israel, these THDs, these leaders, these quoters
of scripture, studiers of the scripture, students, you see.
And he says, you don't know where he comes from, but he's opened
mine eyes. Verse 31, now we know that God heareth not sinners,
but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his will, him
he heareth. Now, a sinner there is one without
God, an unbeliever. But those who worship God...
My friend, you can't worship and serve God apart from Christ.
That's right. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. You see, there's no worshiping,
serving, obeying, trusting God apart from Christ. Christ said
that. He said, I and the Father are
one. And he says, him that doeth his will. What is his will? His
will is to look to his Son, believe in his Son, trust in him for
all life and righteousness. Him he heareth. In verse 32,
Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened
the eyes of one that was born blind? If this man were not of
God, he could do nothing. And they answered and said unto
him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach
us? And then they cast him out, they excommunicated him. Well,
you know what his testimony was to them. His main testimony,
back up in verse 25, was this. One thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see. I was blind. Now, you fellas
worried about all the religious traditions? I was blind, now
I see. Jesus heard that they cast him
out in verse 35, and when he found him, he said to him, Dost
thou believe on the Son of God? Now we're going to see where
the man is brought to spiritual sight. He'd already been brought
to physical sight, and he was seeking. But now Christ is going
to give him spiritual sight. He says, Dost thou believe on
the Son of God? In verse 36, 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 the man said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped
him." Now he had spiritual sight. Now he saw the Lord of glory.
Now he saw Christ, the Lord, his righteousness. Verse 39 says,
Jesus said, For judgment I came into the world, that they which
see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. We think we see before God brings
us down. Then he gives a spiritual sight.
Some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and
said unto him, Are we blind also? And Jesus said unto them, verse
41, If you were blind, you should have no sin. But now you say,
We see. Therefore your sin remaineth.
What he means by that is this. You think you're okay. But if
you saw your condition, if you saw your sin and your depravity,
If you had spiritual sight to see yourself and your works as
they really are before a holy God, an abomination, even wicked
and evil in the sight of God, if you had spiritual sight to
see that, you'd come to Christ. But you deny Christ, claiming
that you already see enough, claiming that you already know
the truth, claiming that you're already children of God. Therefore,
your sin remains. My friend, the only way, now
listen to me, the only way that you're going to seek a cure for
any physical disease is if you know and admit that you've got
that disease. Then you'll seek the cure. But
as long as you think you're okay and insist that you're fine,
that disease remains. And it'll kill you. And that's
the way it is with sin. See, by nature we're just like
this blind man, ruined by the fall spiritually, dead spiritually
blind. But those who have been redeemed
by the blood of Christ, justified by His righteousness, He sends
His Spirit into the world, and He gives spiritual life. He gives
spiritual hearing. He gives spiritual understanding. He gives spiritual sight. So
that the sinner who's born again from above can say just like
this blind man, I was blind, now I see. Now I see what I am
in myself. I see what I was without God,
without Christ. I see the wickedness of my best
works, but now I see the glory of the Son of God incarnate.
I see Christ. I see the power of His blood.
I see the glory of His righteousness, and I come to Him begging for
mercy. Oh, my soul, anyone who has spiritual
sight is a gift from God, and they'll come to Christ. I hope
that message has been helpful to your understanding of the
gospel of Christ and the power and glory of his person and work.
If you'd like to get a copy of this message, the announcer will
give you the details. The title of the message is,
I Was Blind, Now I See. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We're glad you could join us
for today's message. If you would like to receive
a copy of this message, or if you would like more information
about Eager Avenue Grace Church, remember we are located at 1102
Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call us at 229 432-6969, or visit our Reign of Grace website
at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you, and may the Lord be
with you.