Turn in your Bibles to John chapter
9. I was listening back to one of
the messages I had delivered from this passage, and I didn't
realize that I started all the way back in January. I didn't
realize this was going to stretch out quite as long as it has.
But it might go on until December. I don't really know as long as
the Lord keeps leading me here. I'll keep trying to preach the
Gospel out of this context. The title of this message today
Well, let me tell you about the last title we had. The last title
was the blind react and the seeing respond to that reaction. The
blind react when the seeing come saying they see things they've
never seen. The blind react to that and the seeing
respond with two things. They said, I was blind. I didn't
know anything spiritually until God delivered me out of that
blindness. And they say, God delivered me. He did it. I didn't
do it. I didn't contribute. I didn't
do anything. There's no part of me in that
salvation that I claim. It's all of the Lord. I was born
spiritually blind, and He graciously and mercifully brought me to
the gospel, sat me down, told me of Christ, showed me how the
only way he could be both a just God and Savior was based on that
righteousness worked out by Christ in which he, the Father, imputes
to every sinner that Christ lived and died for. So that was my
last message, to blind react and the seeing respond. Today's
title is The Religious Reject the Righteous. Now, the religious
in this message are going to be also blind. They're going
to be the blind that react. But what we're looking at here
in this particular portion of this discourse is the religious
and their reaction to the one who comes claiming to see. So,
the religious reject the righteous. John 9, verses 13 through 33.
You might also note that most of the time I only cover one
or two verses, but today I'm going to try to cover 20, so
that's another obstacle in my way here. But the religious reject
the righteous. There was never a time when this
is not true, when this was not a truth in this world. The religious
reject the righteous. It goes all the way back to when
God accepted Abel and his offering and rejected Cain and his offering. Hebrews 11 and verse 4 says,
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain, by which he obtained testimony as being righteous, God bearing
testimony to his gifts. And by it, having died, though
dead, yet Abel still speaks. Abel was the righteous. In 1
John 3 and verse 12, John wrote, not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore, or why did he
slay him? Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's were righteous. The righteous have always, the
religious of this world, the Cains of this world, have always
rejected the righteous. Well, who are the religious?
And who are the righteous? Well, we've got a lot of places
we could look to in the Scriptures to identify these two groups,
and I'm just going to quote you some of the most familiar passages.
First of all, the religious. In Luke 18, the Scripture says
that Christ spoke this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and despised others, or who trusted
that they were righteous in themselves and despised others. See, thinking
that you have a righteousness within, Thinking that you have
a righteousness that somehow you've contributed to, it always
causes you to despise those that you don't see measuring up to
that standard of righteousness that you think you've met. So
that's one place. In Romans 10, are they being
ignorant of God's righteousness? He's talking about national Israel
here. Paul's prayer was that God would save them. And he said,
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about
to establish a righteousness of their own, have not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God. That's the religious
of this world, those going about to establish their own righteousness. You remember when we studied
John 3? There was a verse there, verse 19. We studied some men
there who, although they had heard the gospel, although they
had heard about the light, Although they had heard how God could
be just and yet justify the ungodly, these men preferred. They went on preferring. They
continued to prefer the darkness rather than the light because
their deeds were evil. The light exposed what they were
doing, thinking they were working out their own righteousness to
be evil. And they hated the light. Neither would come to the light.
In Matthew 13, the Christ disciple asked him, Why do you speak to
the multitudes in parables? And he said, Because it is given
unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but unto them
it is not given. The righteous are those to whom
it has not been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom.
God hadn't determined that all men know the mysteries of the
kingdom. And then let's look at one verse or three verses
here in our context. Look over at John 9 here in chapter
9 and verse 39. The religious in this world are
those in every generation who think they see but are blind.
Look here in verse 39. Christ said for judgment. I am come into this world, that
they which see not might see, and that they which see might
be made blind. And I've told you already that
He came not to judge the world, but to bear the judgment of those
the Father had given Him to represent, to bear away their sins in His
body on the tree and the condemnation that they deserve in Himself.
That they which see not might see. The elect are represented
right there. They're the ones born into this
world who do not see, but who are made to see. And then that
they which see might be made blind. These are those born into
the world. They're blind as well, but they're
never delivered from that blindness. They go on unto death thinking
that they see a way of salvation based on something other than
the imputed righteousness of Christ. And then look on at verse
40. And some of the Pharisees, which
were with him, heard these words and said unto him, Are we then
blind also? And Christ said unto them, If
you were blind, you should have no sin. But now you say we see,
therefore your sin remains. He's not talking about sin in
general. He specifies which sin he's talking about. He said,
If you had been blind, you wouldn't have this sin. But since you
go on saying, we see, we see how God can save me based on
something other than you, Christ, based on something other than
the work you accomplished. If you go on seeing that, then
you're seeing the sin of thinking such things, the sin of thinking
that salvation somehow rests upon the doing, the meeting of
a requirement of sinners. The sinner who goes on that remains
blind, although they think they see. So the religious of this
world are those in every generation who think they see, but like
the Pharisees in this discourse, go on in their spiritual blindness
in the face of much truth and many miracles performed by Christ.
Okay, that's who the religious are. Who are the righteous? There's
only one righteous. The scripture says there is none
righteous, no not one, in Romans 3 and verse 10. But there is
one who is righteous. There is one whom God has declared
to be righteous by his resurrection from the dead. That one who answered
the demands of God's law and justice against those he represented,
went to the cross to pay that debt that we owed and none could
pay. And when God raised him up from
the dead, he was declaring him to have established the only
righteousness God ever accepted from a man, the only righteousness
which God could freely then impute to every sinner Christ lived
and died for. So Christ alone is righteous.
And those alone revealed to be in him are righteous according
to God's testimony. I already read you a verse of
Scripture that talked about Abel being righteous. In other words,
those who are born ignorant of Christ, but who in time come
to embrace him, who in time come to rest all of their salvation
upon the doing and dying of Christ alone. They are those revealed
to be righteous. Listen to what Paul wrote in
Philippians 3 and verse 7-9. Having described himself as one
who at one time thought that he was accepted by God based
on a number of things that he lists there in the first part
of Philippians 3, Pharisee of Pharisees, as touching the law
blameless, and a Hebrew of Hebrews, and all those things. But he
said, But what things were gained to me, those I count lost for
the excellency of Christ. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and do count them but dumb, that I may win Christ,
and be found in him. not having mine own righteousness
which is of the law. In other words, the righteousness
Paul was born and grew up thinking he had, he's discounting that
righteousness as lost and dumb here. But that righteousness
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith. In other words, that righteousness
revealed in the gospel. That's the faith of Christ, that
righteousness that Christ himself worked out by his obedience unto
death, and that righteousness which God has freely imputed
to everyone Christ lived and died for. The righteous are those
made righteous by God, by the charging or imputing of Christ's
righteousness to their account. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, we
probably all know that by heart, for God made him who knew no
sin. to be sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. That might also be
translated that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
But how is a sinner? Now, it sounds like a very contradiction
of terms to say that a sinner can be declared by God righteous. And it would be, but for one
thing, how can God declare a sinner to be righteous? Well, because
he charged the sins of that sinner to Christ, and Christ put away
those sins. And then he charged the righteousness
of Christ, the one Christ worked out by his obedience unto death,
to the account of that sinner. And that's the only way any sinner
can ever be viewed or declared by God to be righteous, is based
on Christ's imputed righteousness alone. The righteous are those
brought in each successive generation to know that their only righteousness
before God is in the righteousness Christ worked out in his life
and in his death. The one righteousness God the
Father accepted and imputed to the accounts of those Christ
lived and died for. They're those who were born blind,
but whose eyes are opened to God's salvation. So, the religious
always, in every generation, all the way back to Cain and
Abel, the religious always reject the righteous. And their rejection
is a progressive rejection. As we will see, its end will
be excommunication. In other words, total separation
from the righteous. They don't want to have anything
to do with religious persecution. They just want to get away from
it. They want to get them away from themselves. So the end will
be excommunication. But it doesn't start out that
way. It starts out with an attempt to influence or to change the
thinking of those who come claiming to have had their eyes opened
by Christ. Those whose testimony is this,
I was a blind spiritual beggar on the roadside until God brought
me to the Christ He sent. and opened my eyes to his salvation. The religious start out attempting
to change the thinking of those who come with such a testimony.
But make no mistake about it, everything the religious do is
a rejection of the righteous. Everything they do is an attempt
to reject that Christ who himself brought salvation to every sinner
he lived and died for. Now we're going to look at four
ways that the religious reject the righteous. First, by disregarding
the miracle they say that's happened to them, and by discounting that
miracle. then by discrediting the one
that we claim provided that miracle. And then finally, by disgracing
those who say that their eyes have been opened by this Christ,
Son of God. Alright, there are four things
there, and we'll start with this one. By disregarding the miracle. This is how the Religious reject
the righteous. First of all, by disregarding
the miracle that the righteous claim to have had happen to them.
Look here in John 9 and verse 13. The neighbors of this one, or
the they there, they brought to the Pharisees. The Pharisees
would be the religious of their generation, the most religious.
They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind,
and 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 mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. Therefore
said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because his
keep is not the Sabbath day. Others said, how can a man that
is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among
them. The first way that the religious
reject the righteous is by disregarding the miracle. And you know right
here in this discourse, just notice, they didn't even acknowledge
the miracle that had taken place in this man's life. All they
wanted to know was, who did this to you? He couldn't be of God
because he doesn't keep the Sabbath day. This man is not one that
you would want to acknowledge. They do not acknowledge or deny
that a miracle has taken place. They simply disregard the miracle.
Their focus is on the miracle worker and not on the miracle.
And they can't even agree on that. You see in the last verse,
and there was a division among them. And that's not the first
division. And I can readily tell you why
there was a division among this body of Pharisees. Look back
to chapter 7 here in verse 43. Go back up to verse 40. Many
of the people, therefore, when they heard this, said of a truth,
this is the prophet, the prophet that Moses wrote about, whom
he said God would raise up, that you that men would be held accountable
to what he said. Verse 40, Many of the people
therefore, when they heard this thing, said, Of a truth, this
is the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ.
But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the
Scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out
of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division
among the people because of him. And some of them would have taken
him, but no man laid hands on him. Then came the officers to
the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said unto them, Why
have you not brought him? The officers said, Never a man
spoke like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees,
Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers of the
Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not
the law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them, He
that came to Jesus by night being one of them, Doth our law judge
any man before it hear him, and know what he doeth? They answered
and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search and look,
for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went into
his own house." One of the reasons there was a continuing division
in his body of Pharisees was because of that man named Nicodemus.
God had already apparently began to work in Nicodemus' heart.
He had already begun to see some things. He had already begun
to understand some things about this one that God had sent. He provided a continuing disagreement
in that body of Pharisees. They couldn't even agree here
in verse 17 on whether this man was of God or whether he was
a sinner. How can a sinner do such miracles? In every successive
generation, those whose eyes are opened by God come to the
religious, claiming that spiritually we were blind and that we did
not see Christ's life and death, satisfying the law and justice
to such a degree that He put away the sin and established
the righteousness for every sinner He lived and died for. We come
claiming that we were blind, that we were in spiritual darkness
as long as we were ignorant of how God could be just and yet
justify the ungodly. And rather than marveling at
such profound knowledge, that is profound knowledge, to know
from the Scriptures how God is just to justify a sinner like
you and me, that is profound knowledge. But rather than marveling
at such knowledge, the religious want to know who and where we
learned it from. You've heard these questions,
just as I have. Who told you these things that you're hearing?
I've never heard that from anywhere else. Where did you learn that
from? This man's generation, like ours,
disregard the miracle that we claim has happened to us. They
just want to put it to the background and ask us and point us to where
did we learn this kind of thing from. We don't understand it.
Nobody in town is preaching what you're preaching but you and
that small little body of believers that you have. So the first way
that the religious reject the righteous is by disregarding
the miracle. The second way is that that they
attempt to change the thinking of those who claim to have been
given sight is by discounting the miracle. Let's read on here
in verses 18. Well, let's don't read them just
yet. Let's read them as we come to
them. These rejected the testimony of the man who said that his
eyes were opened and who saw the one who opened them as a
prophet. Look at verse 18 now. But the Jews did not believe
concerning him. Well, we've got to read verse
17. I'm a little mixed up on the verses here. After there was a division among
them, look at verse 17. They say unto the blind man again,
What sayest thou of him, seeing that he hath opened thine eyes,
and the man said, He is a prophet? But the Jews did not believe
concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight
until they called the parents of him that had received his
sight. They rejected the testimony of
this man. This man came claiming that his
eyes had been opened by Christ, that he saw for the first time,
and that the one who opened them was a prophet. And they said,
we don't believe you. Where are your parents? Bring
your parents. We want to see them. Now this is probably an
attempt by the religious to access the damages this miracle. This
miracle no doubt had caused a stir in the camp. And it's probably
an attempt by the religious to access the damages this miracle
has caused. How widespread is the belief
that the one who opened the eyes of this man is a prophet? How
widespread is the belief that he is the Christ? At least that's
the way his parents saw it. Look on to verse 19. They asked
them, The Pharisees asked the parents, saying, ìIs this your
son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?î His
parents answered them and said, ìWe know that this is our son,
and we know that he was born blind, but by what means he now
seeth, we know not, or who has opened his eyes, we know not.
He is of age, ask him. He shall speak for himself.î
These words spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews,
for the Jews had already agreed that if any man did confess that
he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. Therefore,
said his parents, he is of age, ask him. The parents acknowledged
the miracle, but they are not willing to take a stand with
their son concerning the one who performed
the miracle, at the risk of being excommunicated from their religion.
That's what the Jews had told anyone who claimed that this
was the Christ, that they had just excommunicated him. The parents at this time gave
no evidence that they are among the righteous. The parents continued
to make their stand with the religious of the world. Now they
could be among those John wrote of in John 12 and verse 43, who,
it says, believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but who would
not publicly confess Him, because they loved the praise of men
more than the praise of God. The religious of our day are
no different than those of Christ's day. They discount the miracle
claimed by those whose eyes have been opened. We come claiming
our eyes have been opened, that we see things we never saw. We
see how God is just to justify the ungodly. And they discount
the miracle. They do so in an attempt to use
their influence to change the thinking of those of us who may
not be truly convinced of this Savior. And they ask questions
like this. when we come claiming to see
things we never saw, they ask questions like this. Couldn't
you just say that you see more clearly now? Do you have to say
that you were blind before you came to this message and this
Savior? Couldn't you just say that the One who opened your
eyes to this new knowledge that you seem to have, couldn't you
say that He's the same Savior you always trusted and not that
One who has opened your eyes? that that One who opened your
eyes is the true Savior and the One you trusted before your eyes
were opened was a counterfeit? One who was not the Christ and
the God who sent Him was an idol? Couldn't you just say that? Do
you have to say that everything you did before you came to this
Savior who accomplished all of the salvation of every sinner
He lived and died for, couldn't you just say that everything
you did before then, do you have to say it was dead works and
fruit unto death? Do you have to say that those
things you were involved in before you heard God's gospel and repented
of those dead works and idolatry, do you have to say that those
are things of which you are now ashamed? Do you have to say that?
Couldn't you lighten up a little? Do you have to be that dogmatic
about it? So that's how they discount the miracle when you
and I in our generation bring the same testimony this man brought
to his generation. Remember this, the religious
are those yet walking in spiritual darkness. They must, and they
don't have a choice, they must discount the miracle. They must
as well discount the Savior that opened our eyes because if there
truly was a miracle, if the one who performed it is the true
Savior. In other words, if you truly
were blind until the Savior God sent opened your eyes to the
truth, the implication is that their Savior, the one you used
to worship where they worship with, their Savior is a counterfeit,
and they themselves are still obviously blind. So they have
to discount the miracle. See, they don't have any choice.
Now, we know that that is the truth. But we also know that
only those delivered from spiritual blindness will say with us that
I was blind until God opened my eyes by bringing me, declaring
the Savior that he sent to accomplish the salvation of his people.
As we will see, although the religious sought to disregard
and then to discount the miracle, And even though the parents of
the man whose eyes were opened would not take sides with him
in acknowledging Christ to be a prophet, that did not change
this man's conviction when the religious sought to discredit
the one who opened his eyes. That will be our next point.
Their religious attempt to change the thinking of those who claim
to have been given sight by seeking to discredit the one you say
gave you sight. We'll read these verses as well
as we go on down through here, but it will be verses 24 through
29. Let's read verse 24. Then again
called they the man that was born blind, and they confronted
the parents. The parents said, yes, my son
was blind, and yes, he now sees. We know he was delivered from
blindness, but we don't know who did it. Then again called
they the man that was born blind, and said unto him, Give God the
praise. We know that this man is a sinner. Now this is an attempt by the
religious to discredit Christ in the eyes of the one claiming
to see by him alone, who is claiming that his spiritual sight is by
this man alone. He is claiming that until he
encountered this man, this Savior, and until this man opened his
eyes, he was blind. But the sinner whose eyes have
been opened, we can see in the next verse, won't budge. Look
in verse 25. He answered and said, Whether
he be a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see. His testimony is, God did indeed
open my eyes. You say, God did it. Well, God
did do it. But he used this man to do it. It was Christ who opened his
eyes, he said. The religious press on with him
here in verse 26. Then said they to him again,
What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes? They
are attempting to wear down this man's resistance, or to see if
they can wear down his resistance. As I already said, it's the attempt
of the religious to give those an out who are truly not convinced
of this Savior and this miracle. Their experience, the experience
of the religious with many, is that the stony ground hearers
wither away in the face of persecution. But to those whose eyes have
truly been opened, such attempts only make them bolder and more
determined in their defense of the One who gave them sight.
Look at verse 27, the response of this man. He answered them,
I told you already how He opened my eyes, and you did not hear. Wherefore would you hear it again? Will you also be His disciples? He's becoming bolder here in
his attempt, as you say. He said, I already explained
to you how He opened my eyes. Why do you want to hear the thing
again? You didn't believe me the first time. You think you're
going to believe me again? Do you want to become His disciples?
Do you want me to teach you more about Him? At that point, the
Pharisees are obviously becoming weary of this man's resistance,
and they begin to revile him in verse 28. Then the Pharisees
reviled him and said, Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses'
disciple. We know that God has spoken to
Moses. As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. Christ
himself had already told the Pharisees, Moses wrote of me. If you believe Moses, you believe
me. He wrote of me. The man responds in kind with
a reviling of his own from the scriptures that they claim to
be the students and followers of. Look in verse 30. The man
answered and said unto them, Why, herein is a marvelous thing,
that you know not whence he is, you don't know where this man
comes from, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God
heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God, and
doeth his will, him he heareth. 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. Now what he's doing here is he's
taking those Scriptures that these men claim to be the leaders
of, the understanders of, the lawyers of, the explainers of.
He's taking the Scriptures that they claim to know inside and
out, forwards and backwards. And He's bringing them to life
here. If you look in your center concordance,
you'll see three references here, right there where it says, If
a man be a worshiper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.
Let me read you those three references. Psalm 34, verse 15. The eyes
of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their
cry. The face of the Lord is against
them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from
the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth
them out of all their troubles. So the man is quoting to them
scriptures that they know well, scriptures that they probably
studied inside and out. And then Psalm 145 and verse
19, He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also
will hear their cry and will save them. And then Proverbs
15, 29, The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the
prayer of the righteous. So, like I said, this man is
doing some reviling of his own. He's taking Scriptures that they
should be very familiar with. And he's showing them, you say
you don't know where this man's from? God says He hears the cry
of the righteous. This man has performed a miracle
that no man before him has ever performed in this earth. To deliver
a man born spiritually blind unto sight. And you say you don't
know how he did it? You don't know where he came
from? You don't know that God is with him? So he's doing some
reviling of his own. Now this is what those whose
eyes have been opened do. We reason with the religious
from the Scriptures that they claim to be preaching. We reason
that if Christ's blood, His cross, His death is the only condition
for salvation, then His blood, His cross, and death must not
have been shed for all. He must not have died for all
without exception, else all without exception would already be saved. There would be no need to preach
the gospel, because if His death alone accomplished the salvation
of all without exception, then all were saved. We reason salvation
is not an offer. It's not an offer or an attempt
by God to save sinners. The gospel is a declaration of
that salvation that God has already worked out for a chosen people
in and through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We reason just like this man reasoned. So those whose eyes
are open in each generation stand alongside this man whose eyes
were open. We know that as I was blind,
I was spiritually blind, knowing nothing of how God could be just.
Whereas I was blind, now I see. And we know the Savior who delivered
us from that spiritual blindness that we were born in. We know
that that Savior is the one set forth in God's gospel. Not the
gospel we grew up believing. But the gospel God brought us
to and caused us to believe and love. So we come to the religious
with our testimony of the gospel. And the religious attempt to
dissuade us by disregarding our miracle, by attempting to discount
our miracle, and by discrediting the one who gave us sight. When
none of these things work, they take the last reluctant step. They seek to disgrace the one
who's given sight. Look in verse 34. They answered
and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost
thou teach us? And they cast him out. They excommunicated
him. You can see there in your center
concordance. They did what they thought would
leave him alone in this world. But as we'll see as we study
on, what they actually did was a great favor to him. This man's
parents sought to avoid the disgrace of excommunication. But this
man born blind found it to be one of the best things that ever
happened to him. They sought the religious, sought
his disgrace, but it turned him to the true grace of God in Christ. As I said up front, rejection
of the Savior God sent, discrediting Him with all of salvation is
the aim of the religious all the time. It's the aim of the
religious in every generation. If the Savior who died for and
accomplished the salvation of certain sinners by His obedience
unto death alone, if He is the true Savior, then the popular
Jesus of the religious of every generation, the one who died
for all, the one who is trying to save all, that popular Jesus
is a counterfeit, and the God who sent Him is an icon. The
testimony of this man whose physical eyes were opened is literal.
Christ did literally deliver him from physical blindness.
But as I told you already, it's also typical. It's typical of
those whose testimony is, I did not see anything spiritually
until God delivered me through the gospel to the Christ He sent. He delivered me to who He is,
God and man in one person. He delivered me to what He accomplished
in His life and in His death, the putting away of the sins
of His people and the establishment of them in righteousness before
God, eternal, unchanging righteousness. I was blind until God brought
me to this Savior. I was blind until God declared
to me the Savior who accomplished the salvation of every sinner.
chosen in him before the world began, the Savior who on the
cross bore away the sins of those chosen, the Savior whose righteousness
imputed is all of salvation. One of the most important truths
of this discourse, in fact, one of the most important truths
revealed in the gospel is God's sovereignty and salvation. He
chose those sinners he would be merciful to and those sinners
who would be left in their sins. He chose whose eyes would in
time be opened. And he determined who would be
left in spiritual blindness. The religious of the world in
every generation reason that if Christ did not die for all
men, that that means all don't have the same opportunity. All don't have a chance to be
saved. You and I know that if salvation
were dependent in any way, to any degree, upon our response
or our reception of the gospel, nobody would be saved. Those
in each generation whose eyes are open to understand and value
how God is just to justify otherwise ungodly sinners based on the
infused righteousness of Christ alone, we stand fixed in God's
gospel. Although the religious of the
world attempt to disregard and discount the miracle of spiritual
sight that you and I have experienced, And though they attempt to discredit
the Savior who opened our eyes to the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, and although they seek to disgrace us by keeping
us from preaching this gospel under their religious assemblies,
yet we go on rejoicing in God's mercy and grace alongside Noah
who found God's grace to be in Christ alone. I would pray that
God would grant everyone who hears this message A mind to
hear, eyes to see, a will to respond, to rejoice in just such
a Savior.