This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. John chapter 9, we're continuing
here. We'll have one or two more weeks
after today that we'll be in this chapter. We've seen this blind man healed.
We've seen this blind man go into the world, into the world,
go into the city. We've seen people hear the testimony
of this man that Jesus healed him and he doesn't know how.
We've seen the testimony of these people then taken to the Pharisees
and the Pharisees want to know how. The Pharisees judge Jesus
as a sinner, judge the glory of God as evil. judge this man
as condemned. So how is it that this man could
have his eyes restored to him, and how is it that this sinner,
Jesus, could have done it? So they decide to ask this man's
parents, because they believe the only answer to that is, this
man must not be the same man that was born blind. Surely,
none of this works. So this must be an imposter.
So his parents say to them, yes, this is our son, and yes, he
was born blind, however, what? He can speak for himself. So
that's where we are today in verse 23, and I'll read this
again. Many of us weren't in as we began to read it this morning.
Verse 23 of chapter 9, the scriptures say, therefore his parents said,
he is of age, ask him. So for a second time, they called
the man who had been born blind and said to him, Give glory to
God. We know that this man is a sinner.
He answered, Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do
know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him,
What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He
answered them, I've told you already, and you will not listen.
Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His
disciples? And they reviled Him, saying,
You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know
that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not
know where he comes from. And the man answered, Why, this
is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes
from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen
to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His
will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has
it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.
If this man were not of God or from God, he could not do anything. And they answered him, you were
born in utter sin, and you would teach us, and they cast him out. Now, I want you to see what's
happening here. I want you to hear the language of this in
a very clear way. I often say, I don't know that
there's been a Sunday yet in the history of our congregation
that I have not said you need to read the Bible every day. You need to be in the Scripture
every day. And because we are going through
John's Gospel together, you need to be reading John on an ongoing
basis. Because I want you, as I said
two weeks ago, to come and agree with me with what you've learned,
not necessarily have an epiphany because of what I've learned.
And so as we're reminded about everything that is in the scripture
when we gather together as the church, We are sort of, I don't
know, fed doubly. We're engorged, if you will,
on truth. When we do what we need to do
in our discipline of being in Scripture, and then we come together
in the discipline of assembly, and then we hear through the
discipline of the preaching, and we see something amazing
that takes place. The Word of God will teach us
in ways that we never understood possible. We don't need seminary
classes or a study on John's Gospel. You don't need me or
another elder to come up here and just really show you everything
that you're not smart enough to get. It's very simple if you
just take time to read it. I know many of you read fiction
because you tell me about it. I try to read fiction. I just
cannot put myself in the place to read fiction. As a matter
of fact, I found that most of my theology books were fiction.
So I've been working some of those off the shelves. And so
I don't want to read fiction at all if I can help it. But
even when I have and when I do, have you ever envisioned what
was happening in the storyline? Don't you envision it? I remember
reading the one or two books I read when I was in school,
like grade school, middle school, high school, and I remember envisioning
what was happening, who the people were, what they looked like,
what the scenery looked like. And then you go and you watch
the television or the Hollywood rendition of that, and they're
like, they got it all wrong. They got it all wrong. But if
you're a movie buff and you see the movie and you read the book,
you're like, the book's all wrong, you know? But that's creative
license. That's one of the reasons we
believe that we need to hold to the second commandment about
not having a graven image of Jesus, because I don't want you
thinking of Jim Caviezel when you hear the Bible. How terrible
is that? Much less you have to look at
my face when you hear it, but thinking of somebody, you know,
and I'm not, I'm just being a little bit funny, but we do have a mind's
eye, we have an imagination, we have this vision inside of
us, and this is not mystical, this is just common sense, you
know, the way our brain works, we think and see in pictures
sometimes. And then we dream about these
things and what have you. But when you're reading a story
or the story that you may have read 40 years ago or whatever,
you have this time also where you'll see something happen in
a narrative and you'll stop and ponder it. Will you not? Or maybe
even you'll think, well, if they'd have done this a little bit different.
You know, have fan fiction. You know what that is? You can
go on the internet now and you can find any possibility of any
outcome of any story that's ever existed in the history of the
world. And if you really want to dig
deep into the depths of what people think about what should
have happened in a movie or a story, just go and just dig up fan fiction
and put your favorite thing at the end of it. Now I might be
telling you to do something you shouldn't be doing, but I'm just
that naive anyway. So when you go and you look and
you start seeing people expound, taking the author's original
intent and going, it shouldn't have been that way, it should
have been this way, and here's a whole side of the story on how it should
go. Have you ever taken the time out, not to say how it should
have gone, but to ponder what it must have been like when you
read the Bible? See, what we've learned in John
9, we can read the entire chapter of John 9 in about two minutes.
Verbally. We can read the whole thing in
about two minutes. And there's a lot there, compacted into that,
but there's not much there at all in the sense of a story.
The man was blind, he got his eyesight, the Pharisees were
mad, Jesus did it on the Sabbath, his parents threw him out, they
threw him out. That's about the end of it. Moving right along,
chapter 10, blah, blah, blah. You're not a shepherd. I'm the
shepherd. You don't hear my voice because you're not my sheep.
Blah, blah, blah. You're thieves and robbers. Now chapter 11.
Lazarus is dead. Oops, now he's alive. Now chapter
12. You see how fast we can go through this? But it's not necessary
to rush through these things. I mean, I've spent probably,
I don't know how many hours in a daze this week thinking about
this man. What must have been like to be
this man who was born blind before Jesus found him, before he was
given his sight? I was blind, but now I see. See,
y'all thought that that song was written because it was a
poet. No, he just robs from the Bible. That's what good hymnology
is all about. We just write what the Bible
has written. It's good enough. We don't need poets in order
to create worship to God. God is poetic enough. But so
when we see this, think about this man. What was it like to
sit on the side of the road with no sight? What was it like to
be in despair knowing that his entire life, a grown man, how
old was he? I don't know, but he was a grown
man. He was no longer living in his parents' home. They were
no longer responsible for his well-being. He speak for himself. In a day, not only to be blind,
you know, today if you're blind, it's bad, but it's not the end
of the world. There's a lot of things that you can learn. There's
a lot of things that you can do. There's a lot of ways in
which your life might even be better than those with sight.
But in that day, not only was it terrible because society and
the world around you, the environment, the culture did not cater to
any type of disability, but they looked at it in a spiritual sense
as though it was because of personal sin. Remember, that's the question
that the disciples asked Jesus when this discourse started.
As Jesus was going through, there was a man born blind and his
disciples asked him, who sinned that this man was born blind?
He, him or his parents? And Jesus says, what? Jesus says,
it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the
works of God might be displayed in him. Verse 3. The works of
God, the works that we must continue to do as long as it is light.
You see, the whole point of this man being born blind was that
God, in His sovereign decree, before the world ever began,
before there was anything to see, before anything existed
except God, purpose that this man would be born blind in the
midst of first centuries Palestine so that the Jews would refuse
him fellowship because they see him as evil and sinful so that
the word of God might be recorded in the healing of his eyes, not
to give us all sorts of hope of healing in our eyes, but to
show us the hope of the healing of true spiritual sight through
the gospel of grace. That's the only reason this happened.
The only reason this man... So, you know, we see people and,
oh, it's so sad that that happened. Is it sad if it is the perfect
will of God? It still could be sad. That's
correct. But it's not worthless. It's not pointless. There's no
such thing as a wasted life. Even the reprobate, their life
isn't wasted. It may be personally, but it's
not wasted because God will be glorified in what? and their
destruction. That's the point that Scripture
continues to reiterate. And all the more that we realize
what a blessing the grace and mercy of God is that we sit here
today justified not because of who we are and what we've done.
Because if we all measured our own hearts this very moment,
listen to me church, if we all measured our own hearts this
very moment, Right now, what we could grasp that's right on
the edge of our thoughts, I guarantee you, we could say, is the thinking
that I have today, is there frustration in my heart? Is there any type
of hesitation even in being in the Word of God today because
I'm tired or labored or irritated or just flat out don't want to
do anything? Is that loving God with all of
our heart and mind? No, not at all. So we've already
just by breathing today in our futile and silly efforts, we've
already violated the very first commandment of God. And for us who are parents, we've
already committed murder in our hearts. Those of us who have been hurt,
we've already had covetousness, we've already had idolatry, we've
already had... Friends, listen, if we look deep enough, don't
have to go too deep, if we look deep enough or we look twice,
we'll see sin. Our only hope is that Christ
is the light of the world and the darkness of our sin is not
overcoming. He finished the work. Christ never worshipped an idol,
yet He was crucified for idolatry. Christ never took a life, yet
He was crucified for murder. Christ never committed adultery,
yet He was crucified as an adulterer. Christ never blasphemed, yet
He was crucified as a blasphemer. Christ never disrespected or
dishonored His parents, never violated the law, and yet He
was crucified as an ungodly a disobedient child. He was crucified as a
lawbreaker. Christ was crucified as a liar.
Christ was crucified and He took on the guilt of all these things
for the sake of His people. Each and every one of you personally
who are the children of God, Christ died for your sins particularly,
all of them. So God cannot and will not condemn
you for those sins. It is impossible. Not because
you have a strong faith. Well, what if the faith isn't
strong? Christ is faithful when we're faithless. This man is
showing us two things, and I said it to us about a month ago, shows
us the graciousness of God's mercy, the glory of God's mercy
and forgiveness, and the severity or the gravity of God's justice. And it also shows us other things
about religious people. As I talked about last week,
we saw them. Some people, I actually had someone message me Thursday
from Tattnall County and say, do you hate Jews? No, I don't. I love all people. I love Jewish people and Palestinian
people and Japanese people and Georgians, and Kentuckians, and
all sorts of folks. I mean, I love all people. But
when we hear of the Scripture, when we hear of the religious
rulers of John's day and of Jesus' day, when we see the Pharisees
in action, it sounds like everybody hated them. But I wonder why
they hated them. Because they felt themselves
righteous when they were wicked. They walked in an impeccable
morality, but they were at the root of their soul, immoral. They said that they had the love
of God and they were disciples of Moses, yet they shut the kingdom
of God in the face of people like this blind man. Paul was
one of them. Paul was born again by the mercy
of God, by the sovereign will of God, who overcame the passion
and the zeal of Paul for Judaism and saved him in spite of himself.
And God took over the will of Paul and birthed him anew that
he could believe on Jesus Christ because God, before the foundations
of the world, had elected Paul and had given him to Christ so
that when Christ hung on the cross, Jesus paid for the sins
of Paul. And then Paul said, I count all
that as loss, all of my obedience, all of my learning. All of my
stature, all of the status of me being a Pharisee, all of these
things, none of this matters. I count it all as loss, as nothing,
as garbage compared to the precious gain of having Christ my Lord.
And then he goes on to say later in response to his own kinsmen
of the flesh, I would gladly give up my salvation if God would
save them. How different is that? Before God opened the eyes of
Paul, Paul saw those parishioners of Judaism, saw the common people
as just a problem to contend with, as people who would never
get it, who would never obey, who would never fall in line,
who would never look good enough, who would never be good enough,
who would never dress good enough, who would never speak well enough,
who would never fall in line like he had fallen in line. After he was born again, he said,
God, would you just give them my salvation? There's a big difference. That's
how the Pharisees look at people. And they wouldn't take, his parents
wouldn't take the banner. We're not taking credit for this.
We fear, that's how we closed last week's service. We fear
the Pharisees, they would say. They feared the Pharisees. Look
at that. Anyone who confessed Jesus to
be Messiah will be put out of the synagogue. What was it like
to be that man put out of the synagogue? You got to recognize
too that he's already put out of the synagogue by way of not
being whole because they viewed his disability as a result of
his wickedness. And his parents had a good life.
They had the benefits of being in the synagogue. They had the
benefits of being in the Jewish community. Friends, I want you
to put the parallel together right now in our world. Who are
the Pharisees? Most every professing Christian
in the nation. What is the synagogue? Almost
every evangelical church that I know of. And if it weren't for the mercy
of God and enough time passed without us holding fast to the
truth, we would be just like everybody else. And so would
any other sovereign grace church. It's not our doctrinal distinctives
that keep us in this place. It is the mercy of God so that
we do not fall away into the traps of the world. You want
to see the parallel? Tell somebody you believe in
God's sovereignty and salvation. in a General Baptist Assembly,
in a Southern Baptist Convention, you'll be put out of the synagogue. Tell someone in your home you
believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation, you believe
Christ actually atoned for particular sins. You tell somebody you believe
in the gospel and it will wreck their social life, it'll wreck
your social life, it'll wreck everything you are. And when Jesus raises Lazarus
from the dead and proves that He is who He says He is, that
He can do what He said He could do, and that He was truly from
God, Caiaphas says, I'm going to kill Jesus and Lazarus who
just was raised from the dead. This man who was born blind had
never partaken in the pleasures and the privileges of being a
Jew. because his blindness was seen as something wicked and
evil, a result of God's cursing. His parents didn't love him because
they loved more the social aspect of their hard-headed religion
than they ever, ever loved their son. They were embarrassed by
this boy. What did we do, God, for You
to give us a child born blind? Obviously, he must have sinned
in my womb. That's what the disciples thought.
Did he sin before he was born? Did he was born blind? Or did his mother? See, don't
forget these things as we keep going. This is the ferociousness
of self-righteousness. This is the vigor of holiness
when it comes to this world and what we judge as right and good
in our flesh versus what God has established as righteousness.
The righteousness of God is displayed in the law of God because it
displays the impeccability of His nature, something that no
human being could ever attain, but Jesus Himself did so. So
that Jesus is the righteousness of God, and we are called the
righteousness of God because we are found in Christ alone. So they called Him, and look at what they say in
verse 24, this is what burns me alive. Because I've had this very thing
said in my face. Give glory to God. Anybody ever
said that to you? Give glory to God. This man has
already given glory to God. This man's existence gives glory
to God. This man's healing gives glory
to God, no matter what comes out of his mouth. God is glorified
in the working of this man, in the working of this man's blindness,
in the working to reveal the hearts of these Pharisees who
God is hardening judicially, continually, right now, as this
thing is playing out. Give glory to God. See, here's
the second part of that. We know this man is a sinner.
Don't give glory to Jesus. Don't say that Jesus did this.
Don't dare take away God's glory and give credit to this man.
But this man did it. Jesus, the man, did the work.
He is the one who put the mud on the eyes. He is the one who
gave the command. He is the one who healed the
sight. They're saying, give glory to God. We know this man is a
sinner. I mean, this is what happens when the gospel is truly
on our lips. This is what happens when the
gospel is truly our lifeblood. This is what happens when the
gospel of grace is the pulse of our day. It's that people
who somewhat identify as Christian, culturally, come alongside of
us and when we begin to share the truth of who Christ is, they
say, oh, that's a doctrine of what? Demons. Oh, that's antinomianism. Oh,
that's a license to sin. Oh, these are some bad things
I'm hearing come out of your mouth. Oh, no, don't you tell
me that what I'm, uh-uh. And it happens all the time. Has it happened to you? If you're
sharing the faith, it happens to you. It happens to you. It happens
to you. Even if you don't know what's happening to you, there
are people out there who are judging you, saying that you
are not glorifying God because of the gospel of Christ. And
they'll say, but this is the gospel, and they will glorify
man. And they will give man credit, and they will give man power,
and then they will try to backtrack and say, oh, no, no, no, no,
no. I'm giving God the glory because God empowered me, then
I did. No, that's not how it works.
God doesn't empower us to do anything. God does it all. And then by the power of God's
mercy, because we are born again, God works a whole lot of stuff
in our lives in and out of season. And sometimes we're walking so
well with the Lord, we feel like we haven't sinned in years. And
then we step on a crack. And that's the end of it. And
God reminds us very clearly, it is only by my grace that you
stand before me. Don't take credit for anything
in your flesh. Give glory to God. We know this
man is a sinner." Verse 25, he answered, whether he is a sinner,
I do not know. I love the way this man answered
this. Most people would agree very
clearly. Oh, he's a sinner? Oh, well, pastor said he's a
sinner, I better stop. The religious people said he's
a sinner, I better stop. The high and mighty said he's
a sinner, I better stop. Isn't that the way it works?
We see people in our lives who seem to be on the outside the
most high moral standard, the most spiritually seeking people,
but yet when they say something is not right or something is
holy or something is evil or something is good, we take them
at their word because, well, if they said it. This man didn't fall for that.
So I don't know. How am I supposed to know? This
man had more common sense than the Pharisees who had the common
sense of a house cat. It doesn't matter how much sense
you've got. God takes the dumb things of the world and brings
nothing to things that are. Praise God for that. Or I'd be in trouble. I don't know if he's a sinner.
And then he gives testimony again to the glory of God. One thing
I do know That though I was blind, I now see. So see how we stick
to the facts of things? See how this man stuck to the
facts of his testimony? His testimony is not going to
save a soul. Your testimony is not going to save a soul. Testimonies
don't change hearts. Testimonies change emotions. I can tell you the story of how
God has worked miraculously in many areas of my life. And some
of you go like, That isn't really miraculous. It's miraculous to
me. God take this old broken heart and give joy to it. It's
miraculous to me. And that may encourage you to
hear my journey, but it's not going to bring a dead man to
life and salvation. So his purpose here is not so
that these Pharisees can believe, because the Pharisees have already
been given the testimony of Christ over and over and over again.
This is where Jesus gets the reality of His teaching, do not
cast your pearls before swine. Because a pig, when you're trying
to throw pearls at him, will turn around and stomp them under
the mud. and then cut your legs and gnaw
your feet. They'll bite you. Pigs are ferocious
if they want to be. They'll bite you. Don't throw them there. Don't
throw the gospel to people who continually call it evil. Don't
throw the good in the place of bad and think that you can change
hearts. God will change hearts. Labor
in prayer over what God has planted. Let God water. Let God give the
growth. Somebody else comes along who
doesn't know any better and lays those pearls at the feet of these
swine. Who knows? There may be some
swine among whom there are some elect. But I'll tell you this. It's
not for us to know. It's not for us to judge. We
just go and we just teach. We proclaim and then when nobody
receives it, we move on. Why? Because that is the command
of the Lord. This man didn't labor over and
over and over and over again. I'm telling you again, I'm telling
you again, you'll see what he says there. He just says, I don't
know whether he's a sinner or not. I'm not going to make a
judgment on that. You don't know what you're saying, because you
can't make a judgment on that. But I know that my eyes have
been opened. So, here is the outcome of what's
truly taken place in this man's life. He now can see. So the Pharisees who have already
heard the story of Hal, ask again, how? Why? I don't know. Why do people who are obstinate
continue to press the same issue? Obstinate people press the same
issue. Obstinate people don't have grace enough to receive
the testimony. Obstinate people will not believe
you're telling the truth even when you are standing on the
foundations of Christ. And that's just on spiritual
things, much less personal things. I didn't mean it that way. I
didn't say it that way. Please forgive me. They don't
care. Obstinate, self-righteous people will never receive the
testimony of the righteous. They cannot. They will not. Why? Because God has blinded
them. They hate us. They hated this man. They hate
us. Now, you see, people hate us.
What does it do in us? It hurts us to start with. Then
what happens? Then we get angry. Then we might
get bitter. Sometimes we might get even.
Or we won't, too. Sometimes we want fandom. We
want some fans to come along. I've been hurt. I'm angry. I'm
bitter. I'm mad. Join in. You know, we want to
have an anger party, a pity party. That's what social media is so
good for. Let me throw all my stuff out there so people can
see the skid marks in my underwear. and go, oh, poor thing, who put
their foot there? I mean, let's go. There's a picture
for you. Your minds are going crazy now. But that's not what we should
do. What was this man's position?
I'm sure he was very frustrated with the way he'd been treated
his entire life. I'm sure he's very frustrated that the fact
now he was being called in the question of being an unregenerate,
reprobate disciple of somebody who they called wicked. And he
doesn't defend himself. Jesus doesn't defend himself.
We see what Peter says in 2 Peter. He says, when Jesus was reviled,
he did not return revile with revile, but kept quiet. And he
entrusted himself to the one who judges rightly. You know
what happens when I'm angry? I don't judge rightly. I can
promise you. You ever been in sort of one
of those moods? Nothing's really wrong, it's just really tense.
You ever had a tense day? Nothing's really going right.
There's no air of like demonic flying around burning your house
down but things just sort of feel that way and and nothing's
really going right and somebody says just not the wrong thing
but just the right thing at the wrong time and it's just not
okay and you feel it's not that you necessarily act this way
because we can be mature not to act this way but you feel
like you just want to jump in and cause a scene. Ever feel
that way? How hard is it to be quiet? it's easier to pull your head
off and put it back on rightly, sometimes. When that flesh boils
up, it's like if you're nauseated, you've got some kind of sickness
or whatever, and you feel that, it's like, you can't say, well,
I'll just wait and do that in a couple of hours. I mean, it's coming
up. You've had MSG at the Chinese restaurant. It's coming up. You're going to have problems.
It's not like you can scare. That's what happens sometimes
when our flesh, it just, there it is. Scripture says, be quiet. This man just gave the answer
to his testimony. Jesus did not bark back with
revile. A mature Christian is marked
by this wisdom. Don't revile back. Children revile. Same thing with childlike Christians
revile. Let it go. Let it go. But they ask Him again, how did
He open your eyes? Because see, that's what happens.
These people, when they can't get things out of Him, when they
can't get Him to start confessing what they want, which is what
they want, is Him to say, Jesus is God. Jesus is Messiah. Jesus
is the One. Why do they want him? What do
they want? They want him out. They want him out of the way
because he gives testimony to the true glory of God in violation
of their own self-glory. This is what they want. They
want this man out of the picture and they want a public spectacle
of saying, look, not only was he never really allowed because
of his evil, but we proved that he was truly evil because now
he follows after evil. And so they ask him again. They're
persistent. Answer me this. Give me an account. You owe this
to me. Tell us one more time. This man
doesn't fall for it. What's he say? I've told you
already. And you would not listen. Now
let me tell you something. There are things in your childhood,
you know, that have this impression on you, like visible impression. And there is a plaque that hung
in my grandfather's office, and I've mentioned this before. But
it was right there at the door where I think they kept the time
cards for the employees. And it said, never offer excuses. That's what it said, big print.
And then underneath that, I wish I knew where that thing was,
I'd hang it up in my house. But underneath that it says, your
friends don't need them and your enemies won't believe them anyway. six, seven years old when I read
that for the first time, and it's always stuck with me. We
don't have to give an account for people who won't take our
account. We're not on the hook for continually trying to convince
people to believe the gospel over and over and over again
because they refuse to believe the gospel. And when they ask
questions of us, and here's the thing, now friends, and this
is why we have to be this way. Because people are going to ask questions
of us. And if all we do every time someone asks us questions,
and the same people who are trying to catch us in something ask
us question after question after question, if all we do is feel
like we have to respond continually for these things and never move
past it, then when someone genuinely asks us a question, then we are
aggravated. Imagine if I had an aggravated
spirit if anybody ever asked me a question. You see that a lot in children. We ask them a question and they
get upset. Because they automatically assume that the question, what,
comes with an accusation. For the Pharisees, it did. For the self-righteous, it does.
For the religious, it always does. But we don't know that. So let's take every question
as if it were genuine. I had a man ask me a question
sometime in the spring. I answered the question genuinely.
He came back, why do you think I'd want the answer to that? I was trying to see if you were
legitimate. To my response, you don't love
me. You have no love in your heart,
according to what the Bible would say, because you don't desire
to know. He goes, what could I ever learn
from you? I guess nothing. And I just moved on. I moved
on. Some friends of mine are still
fighting with that guy. Move on. It doesn't matter. He doesn't have to stay in my
house. He doesn't have to come eat at my table. And if he did,
he'd learn to be quiet like a brother. Or he would be treated like someone who hates us. He didn't go into all this. He
says, I've already told you and you won't listen. That's a good
answer for us. I've told you the gospel. Now
see, there's a difference though. We talked about Jude this past
Wednesday night in our Q&A. What does it mean to have patience
with those who doubt? We have to have patience. Sometimes people
are confused. Is this wrong? Is this right?
Is this true? Is this false? How am I supposed
to figure this out? And there is a natural and honest
inquiry. There's a learning and a yearning
and a trying. They go, I don't think I believe
that, but let me... And they want to engage to understand
more. Not just of the truth, but of
our lives and everything that involves our Christian faith.
There are people who truly and genuinely are doubtful. In the
context of Jude, there are those people who were mystics, who
had just sort of, I don't know, messed everything up, circumvented
the Word of God, and at the end of it all, what
had they done? They created a false gospel. And those who doubt or those
who were confused, thinking maybe these people might have been
right. Maybe they're saying something. Maybe there's something we should
listen to about what they're saying. And Jude says, no, they're
wrong. God will deal with the reprobate
who stirred this stuff, but you have patience with those as long
as they stay with you. Have patience with them. Have
patience with them. As long as we stay together,
we have patience for one another. If someone leaves, what do we
do? We mourn over them, but we can't
make them change. We cannot make people believe. We cannot make people see. You're not listening, and you
would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?
So we let those people go with what they have. But look at the third part of
that question. And I love this. There's an insinuation with this
man's line of questioning. I've already told you and you
would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you
also want to become His disciples? I love it! I'm thinking, okay,
parting shot. I can see now I know how to get
out of here. I'm going to run. I'm just being funny. But I mean,
he'd ask the question, and I believe he's genuine in his questioning. Because that's the ultimate end.
If you're not going to become a disciple of Christ, quit inquiring
of Him. Because all you're doing is trying
to gather evidence and information to bring a charge against Him
that you might put Him on a cross. And that's all they wanted. And
you know what? Even when it went to court, He
never had a charge. Jesus was ultimately crucified
not because of any charges that stuck, because He was never found
in sin, He was never found to blaspheme. Even the consensus
of the ruling authorities, both Rome and Israel, said He was
an innocent man, but for fear of uprising by their own judicial
ridiculousness, they let a murderer Barabbas go so that they would
not have the wrong count Jesus died in His place. Self-righteous people, the Pharisees
here, they created a new law anytime they had opportunity.
It's a new law. Every time they turned around,
it's a new law. Oh, that didn't work. This. Oh, that law doesn't
work for us. Let's make it this. This standard
doesn't work. We'll change the standard. You
know what? If he's blind, it's a pain in
the butt. We've got to put in handicapped accessibilities and
all. The better thing would be if you're blind, you're a sinner,
you can't come in. I mean, that's their attitude. If you don't smell right, you
haven't bathed, you don't believe in godliness because you don't
believe in cleanliness, so you can't come in. You see? This
is how people think. This is how people think. This
is how the flesh thinks. And friends, our culture, our
culture, this present day southeastern United States, this Bible belt
that is on so tight, it's constipated. This Bible belt is culturally
unchristian. It's morally unchristian. See, we think differently. But
all of us listening to this right now go, he's right. He's right. Because there is
a list, there is a long list of things that if you can accomplish
in life, if you can do this and say this and wear this and act
this and go here and do that and own this, or not own this, then you'll be as holy and pious
as I am, and Lord bless, we'll all get along together." It's
like the Puritans who used to, and we talked about this Wednesday
as well, used to really have a hard time with people who fell
asleep in church. It was like the epitome of wickedness. I see you fall asleep in church,
I know two things are at work. You're tired. and you fall asleep. Or maybe you're just in a daze. If I sat down preaching, I'd
fall asleep in the middle of it. It has nothing to do with your spiritual
tuning. It might have everything to do
with your preparation of the night before. It could be biological,
it could be physiological, it could be emotional. It could
just be that I have a soothing voice and it's good to sleep
to. Probably not. but has nothing to do with your
standing before Christ, before God. Because Christ never slept. When the disciples slept, Christ
prayed. He said, keep watching, pray.
I'm dying in agony. Please, pray. Come back out there,
sleep. Come back out there, sleep. Why
were they asleep? They're tired! They've been running for days.
Probably haven't eaten or slept in days. The body takes over. We want to pray Jesus, but we
just can't. We can't stay awake. We can't labor in these spiritual
disciplines right now because we can't. We're just too physically
and emotionally overcome. We can't do it. See, the Jews
would say, well, then you're not of God. You don't love God. You want to become His disciples?
And the answer to that question is how we know whether we keep
going. No, I don't want to become His
disciple. No, I don't want to be part of that gospel that you
teach. No, I don't want to be a grace-true
church. No, I don't want to be in your classes. No, I don't
want to have a Bible study with you. No, I don't want to hear
you say anything. No, I don't want to learn more
about this godless Jesus that you keep talking about. I don't
want to hear all this. Then, I've said all I'm going
to say. I've done all that I'm going
to do. I'm not going to labor any further to try to teach you
that which you have no desire to know. except to gain evidence
against Christ and evidence against Christ's people. I've told you, why do you want
to hear it again? Do you want to become His disciples? And look at what happens, verse
28, they reviled Him. They reviled Him. They mocked
Him and berated Him and accused Him They did a lot of things
to this man. They reviled him. And they said,
you are his disciple. You are his disciple. But we are disciples of Moses. I could just preach the rest
of the time on that. But we've already heard their position
on Moses. We know what Jesus said to them
in John chapter 5. We know that they believed that
they were God's people because of their ethnicity. Yes, they were chosen and called
Israel, but they weren't Israel. God created that people out of
Chaldeans, to be honest, with a little bit of cross-mixing
in and out of there. No pure bloodline of ethnic Israel. There's a pure genealogy by the
sovereignty of God, but it's not a genetic bloodline. It has
no origin except the mercy of God. And so just like the things
in the temple, they as a nation were called out and chosen just
as the instruments of the temple were chosen. Here's the table
of unleavened bread. Here's the chalice. Here's the
Ark of the Covenant. Here's the Ten Commandments.
Here are the objects that point to me just as these people are
the objects that point to Christ, you see. Oh no, but they thought
something better of themselves than what they actually were.
Much like the standard of religion in Christianity today in our
culture. Let me ask you a question. This
is not even necessarily relevant, but if every time we came in
here there was three inches of dirt on the floor, no chairs,
beach towels, and the heat was on 90, I know four or five of
you right now are like, I would never come inside. And it was
our only option. How long would it take for you
to give up the goat? And the actual thing there is
ghost, but it has been transferred to goat. How long would it take
for you to quit? I can worship Jesus at home.
I can't do that. I mean, if it was the only option.
Yet we have a congregation in Mozambique this very day who
are going to sit on dirt. And I absolutely pray that God
opens the door for us to help them become a congregation like
ours. What do you need? Nothing. I
don't need anything. Pray for us. I sent him the confession with
all the proof text, and it ended up being like 325 pages. And
he's reading it. Somebody sent me a 325-page document,
I'd be like, click, delete. If you read this, we'll talk.
Delete? No, he's reading it. What does it take? What's that
level? Listen, these people think there's
this level of walking with God. They thought they were somebody
because of who they were and that they followed after Moses,
but the Bible shows they never followed after Moses. They never
obeyed God. Nothing that they did was obedient.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing that they did,
they did not understand any of it. Without Christ, all of the Old
Testament is worthless. It's useless. It's garbage without
Christ. Without the apostles, the prophets
are stupid. Without Jesus, Moses is a fool. You see how that sounds? We're
disciples of Moses. It's interesting that when this
first came up, was it another healing that was on the Sabbath? We are the children of God. And Jesus says to them, you search
the Scriptures because in them you think you find eternal life,
but they speak of Me. Moses wrote of Me. You think
following all this is what it means, but all this points to
Me. Without a proper Christology, the study of Christ, without
a proper understanding of the gospel, the Old Testament is
worthless to you. That's why we don't exposit verse
by verse through the Old Testament. It's not necessary. It would
dry you out, beloved. I mean, you would eat this carpet
up here, I promise you, think this is tastier. Not that it
would dry you out without the New Testament in there. I'm not
saying you can't teach it, but you have to teach the New Testament
with it. You have to teach it or you can't understand it. You
don't understand the Psalms without Romans and John's Gospel. Not one of them! You cannot understand
the totality of anything, of the Pentateuch, the first five
books of the Bible. You can't understand anything in the history of Israel
without Christ, without understanding the book of Hebrews that Paul
wrote to the Jews who had been converted by the grace of God. It won't make any sense whatsoever.
It'll draw you into Judaism without Jesus. And that's what our culture
has done, beloved. Well-meaning, good moral people
have added law after law after law after law, added to the gospel,
become famous, written books, preached on the television and
the radios, and they're luring people into Judaism, which is
Roman Catholicism, which is every other cult, world religion that
has ever existed, and it's all works, it's all glorifying man,
and all of it is of Satan. All of it. There is only one
God and His name is Jesus. He is the Christ and He created
all things by the Word of His power. And He saves His people
for whom He died on the cross and their sins are forgiven. Anything else is of the devil. I said, I can assert that. And
people say, oh, now you're asserting what we're asserting, now you're
being like us. No, I'm just repeating what Jesus said just a couple
of weeks ago. You are not the children of Moses. You are not the children of Abraham. You are not the children of God.
You are the children of the devil. You do the work of your Father.
When you teach, you get this, you get this, when Jesus says
to Nicodemus in John 3, the darkness, He's talking to Nicodemus about
his darkness. Nicodemus, when you teach the
Bible, you teach darkness. Nicodemus, when you pray, you
pray darkness. Nicodemus, when you offer sacrifices,
you sacrifice in darkness. You're in darkness and you love
the darkness. You love the religion of your
own doing. You love the fruit of your own hands. You love the
labor of your own prayers. You are in darkness. You must
be born again. And he's like, how am I supposed
to do that? The Spirit of God will birth
you anew as He wishes. Are you a child
of God today? Then you believe in the gospel
of grace. You believe in the work of Christ. You believe His
righteousness is enough. And you lay down all the sin
that so easily ensnares. Yes, stop murdering. Yes, stop
lying. Put all that away today and try
again tomorrow. And try again the next day. Hold fast to Christ, but also
put away the most vile sins, which is self-righteousness.
Not holding fast to Christ. Unbelief is the vilest of sins.
And a self-righteousness is a vile sin of unbelief. Looking at ourselves
and measuring ourselves in any sense of hope that we are good
enough now because Christ has made us good enough to stand
in judgment is a lie from hell. And that's wrong anyway. Hell,
you know, eschatology. There's no lies coming out of
hell, only truth. The truth of God's judgment.
Nothing comes out of hell either, by the way. But you get the point. Moses is who we follow. Jesus
says you don't follow Moses. As a matter of fact, in John
5, He says Moses is who's going to indict you Guilty as sinners,
because he wrote of me." Moses sinned and never entered
the promised land, but he got the true promised land. And his
body was buried in the desert. And then verse 29, the Jews double
down. They say, not only are we disciples of Moses, but we
know that God has spoken to Moses. Isn't that the way it is? Self-righteous
people, they know that God has spoken to them. They know that
God has spoken to their prophets. They know that God has spoken
to their pastor. How? Because the pastor said it. That's
how. Well, we read it. We know. We know. But friends,
if we know something that contradicts what's clear, we're wrong. We don't get to make judgments
on how we're going to respond to the truth of the Gospel, to
the truth of the Scripture. We don't get to decide what's
right on this account because of something else, just because
it doesn't fit our standard. We know God has spoken to Moses.
They did not. But as for this man, Jesus, we
don't even know where He comes from. Now, I find that incredibly
frustrating. See, if I were Jesus at that
time, I'd have busted through the ceiling of the temple on
a cloud of fire with flames coming out of my eyes and the sword
aflame and tattoos all up down. The revelation is at 1819. I'd
have come in that form. He will. You don't know where I'm from?
Let me show you where I'm from. He's told them how many times
where he's from. He's from the heaven. He's from God. He's from
heaven. Matter of fact, they are teeter-tottering
back and forth. Some of them know He's from heaven, some of
them don't know He's from heaven, some of them maybe He is Messiah, maybe He's
not Messiah. But the whole is that the ones in charge and continually
running the show are saying, He's not of God, He's not from
God. And this is their argument. And
this man answers perfectly, just like he did when he says, how
is it that this sinner has done these
things? And he says, well, I don't know that he's a sinner, I just
know that I can see. He answers in the like manner. He says,
wow, this is an amazing thing. You don't know where he's from.
And all of a sudden, this man has wisdom that the Jews don't
have. This man has clarity that the religious leaders before
him have never had. He's amazed. Where they're amazed
at Jesus' teaching, he's amazed at their assertion. This is an amazing thing. How
is it that you don't know where He's from? He's told you, now
He's given me sight. He's opened my eyes and you question
where He's from? You question what He's doing?
You question who He is? What is wrong with you people? He's done already. He knows He's
done. He's never been undone. He's always been cast out. And there lies the preciousness
of the Gospel. Jesus says He will never come
for those who aren't cast out. Jesus did not die for those who
aren't sinners. Jesus did not die for those who
need no physician. Jesus did not die for those who
are okay with God. Jesus did not die for those who
are included in the courts of praise. Jesus died for sinners. Jesus died for His people. Jesus
died for those that God gave Him. Jesus died for the elect. Jesus died for those who were
cast out. See, the world's self-righteous
religious institutions cast out the true sheep of Christ. As I look at your faces and I
think about where all of you have come from, I think to myself,
wow, we're like the poster child for cast outs. Who would have thought it? I
mean, almost every one of us in the room today, with few exceptions,
have been pressured or cast out of a local fellowship because
of our stance on the gospel. Not because of the carpet, or
the temperature, or the instruments, but the authority of God's Word
and what it really teaches us about who Christ is and for whom
He died. This is a beautiful thing. Christ will never cast us out,
beloved. And remember, I'm talking to
you, the regenerate, the elect, the church, the bride of Christ,
the body of Christ. I'm not talking to the lost.
I'm talking to the church. This is amazing. He opened my
eyes. You don't know where he comes from? Verse 31, you know
that God does not listen to sinners. All right, I just added a week
to the sermons on this one. God does not listen to sinners.
And Jesus said they were sinners. God does not listen to the self-righteous.
But God listened to Jesus because Jesus opened the eyes of the
blind. Now people argue with me sometimes, say, well, a lot
of miracles took place during that time, just like in the latter
days a lot of miracles will take place. Not this. No one in history
has ever given eyes to the blind but Jesus. There's millions of dollars at
stake for anyone who can find a verifiable born blind person
who has been healed divinely. There's millions of dollars on
the table by many institutions, by many research firms or whatever
you call them, if anybody could prove that they had legitimate
crippledness and had been healed, they'd get the money. It's not
there. Growing a leg half an inch is
something I learned out of Mark Wilson's magic book when I was
in the second grade. I did. And people use it all the time
going in malls and saying, you know, you got problems in your
back. What man that works don't have a back pain? What woman
who labors doesn't have a back pain? Well, because one of your
legs is shorter. Yeah, your hips can get out of
line. We got a doctor in the house that can prove that. And when he gets
that straight, he didn't call God down to stretch that leg. People are charlatans. And they
will try to do miracles, just like the magicians of Egypt tried
to do miracles. They did things, but you know
what they couldn't do? They couldn't bring fire from heaven. They
could not bring plagues. They could not kill the firstborn
of every beast and son. And they could not spare any
life with the blood of a lamb. But God can. Jesus Christ is
God, and Jesus Christ is not a sinner.
Though these religious people are sinners, and this blind man
is a sinner, yet God saved the blind man because He knew he
was a sinner. The elect of God, when the Scripture
comes to us, we know that we are sinners. We know that there
is no hope in any work that we might do, any stretch of obedience,
any changing of our way of life that will make us right with
God, but it is all in the hands of God's mercy. And I will tell
you this, beloved, there is no greater news than that. Because
anyone who thinks they are doing well by God is still blind. Never since the world began,
has it ever been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born
blind? If this man were not from God, he could have done nothing." And the response of these people
is, you were born in utter sin. That's exactly the charge they
gave Jesus in John 7. You were born in utter sin, yet you teach us. and they kicked
him out. There's a lot I can say there.
We'll start there next week. Let's pray. We love You, Father. And we're thankful, God, that
we have been cast out by the world. Lord, I pray that as we hear
the truth of Your Word, that Your Spirit would continue to
teach us and grow us, to give us roots in the gospel of grace
to such a depth that nothing would shake us or pull us out.
And even when it feels like we have been uprooted, Lord, I pray
that You would continue to give us hope in our spirit. Father, I thank You, Lord, for
this assembly, for this spiritual family, God, who are eternal. Even though our earthly relationships
will fail and fall away, and even though after death these relational lines are gone, the
lines that we have today, the intimacy we have today in Christ
is forever. We are forever a family with all the other children that
you have saved throughout the generations of every nation,
tongue, and tribe. God, help us not to be haughty,
angry, bitter, selfish, or pitied when we are reviled, when those
around us hate our gospel. But help us to stand firm and
to be resolved to proclaim the goodness of Jesus Christ who
is from you, who is God, who gives sight to the blind. and knowing that there is never
a time where you will cast us away. For you cannot throw out that
which Christ has paid for. For you have redeemed it and
you have bought it, so it is yours. And Father, you do not
waste. You do not change. You do not
lie. And so we thank you for that,
for who you are and what you've done for us in Christ, in Jesus'
name. Thank you for listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.