John 9:1-41
The Man Born Blind
Introduction
Today we’re going to wrap up our series of messages dealing with these personal encounters with Christ in the book of John. In the passage were going to study this morning, I want to tell you right up front that there is so much here that we won’t be able to discuss. All of our encounters with Jesus have been this way, but today’s passage seems especially rich in what it holds for the man or woman who would but study it.
It seems that in John 9, Jesus and His disciples were walking along one day when the disciples spotted a man who had been born blind. They asked a question about him that really reveals quite a lot about our thought tendencies. They wanted to know who had sinned, this man or his parents, to cause him to be born blind. Obviously someone had to have sinned against God for Him to punish this poor man the way He had. Jesus didn’t pursue their line of thought too much when He answered,
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
Jesus said that the man had been born that way for just such a time as this, so Jesus walked over, picked up some dirt off the ground, spat in it, mixed it up into a paste, and smeared it in the guy’s eyes. Then He told the man to go and wash himself in the pool of Siloam. The man went and washed, and was healed miraculously that day. His friends couldn’t believe it! They began asking if he was really the same man, and after determining that he was, they took him to the Pharisees. They wanted to know what had happened to him, so the man rehearsed the story to them.
The Pharisees were enraged, because Jesus had healed this man on the Sabbath, so they wanted to know if it was real or not – who was this man who had healed him? They decided to call in the man’s parents and get them to vouch for the man, but they were afraid of the Pharisees and the great power they wielded in the land. Instead of helping them, they told the Pharisees to let the man speak for himself. He did, but it got pretty ugly as the man stood up for himself before these men. It wound up getting him kicked out of the synagogue, a very significant thing, and putting him right in the path for a second encounter with Jesus that day.
Jesus found the man after the Pharisees got done with him, led him to place his faith in Him as Savior, made a worshipper out of the man, then told the Pharisees that it was really them who suffered from the worst kind of blindness that’s known to man – spiritual blindness.
So why has God included this story in His Word for you? Why did God bother to have John record this miraculous, but true account of an encounter between the omniscient, all-knowing and all-seeing God and this blind nobody who had been kicked to the curb of society? As I told you earlier, there are many things that could be pulled from the passage, but today I want to leave you with six very simple ones.
You cannot argue the goodness of God according to your circumstances.
What was the question they asked? “Who sinned?” Obviously somebody had to have sinned or this guy wouldn’t have been afflicted with blindness. Now this is really messed up thinking. Think about it – what sin could the blind man have possibly committed to have been born blind? He would have to have committed the sin in the womb!
But isn’t that just how we think? It doesn’t have to be blindness – it could be any number of things in your life – sickness, financial stress, marital stress, loose a job, wreck the car, whatever – we seem to have this warped idea that our circumstances are indicators of God’s goodness or God’s judgment in our lives. Now, Jesus doesn’t say that bad circumstances are never the result of God’s judgment, but that with this man that’s not the case.
Listen, you can’t look at your life or anyone else’s life and ask the question – who sinned? You can’t look at your neighbor’s failing marriage and decide that one of them has been in sin. That may or may not be true – but the same is true of your own life.
Some of you are going through some very trying circumstances right now. We could go around the room and begin to name names and point out what you’re going through – but what we can’t do is argue the goodness of God according to those circumstances. Let me ask you something – is God good? Is He really good? Is He good when…
· Payday comes around?
· Your company can’t afford to pay you what you worked for?
· You’re healthy and fit?
· You’re robbed of your health and you can’t do what you used to do?
· You have a new baby?
· That new baby dies?
Do we need to keep going? The Bible says that “the goodness of God endures forever!” Do you believe that? The man in our story had been born blind. Think about that – he had never seen the beauty of a sunrise or a clear starlit night. He had never seen the birds that sang in Jerusalem or the wonders of Herod’s temple. He had never beheld the sight of a child playing in the street, had never seen the mother that loved and cared for him. From birth, the man was reduced to the life of a beggar, a second-class nobody that, as I mentioned before had been kicked to the curb of society and had no hope of anything better – and God in His goodness made the man that way.
Is God good? Why was this man born blind? Why did this man endure a life of terrible conditions? He was born blind just so Jesus could heal him on this day. You look at a life like this one – how do you know God is good? Not by his circumstances – but by the eternal and perfect Word of God! Don’t argue the goodness of God in your life by your circumstances – you base it on His Word!
You can’t always expect God to work the same way in your life.
I am amazed by this story. Jesus spits into a handful of dirt and smears it into this guy’s eyes. You might say that he never saw it coming!
· When Jesus worked at the wedding – how did He turn their water into wine?
· When He healed the nobleman’s son – He never touched the boy, never met him so far as we know, never even spoke the word to heal him, just said that the boy was healed.
· When Jesus calmed a stormy sea, He commanded it to be still.
· When the woman with internal bleeding encountered Jesus, she touched His robe and felt healing power flow through her body.
· In Matthew 9, Jesus healed some other blind men by simply touching their eyes.
· In Mark 8, Jesus met another blind man and the Bible says that He spit in his eyes, then put His bare hands over his eyes. He then asked the man if he could see. The man said yes, but only blurrily. Jesus put His hands over the man’s eyes again, resulting in complete healing the second time.
· Here we have Jesus using spit to make a mud-pie paste for the man’s eyes.
Why didn’t He just speak the word? Why didn’t He just command any of their eyesight to be restored? He could have – but He didn’t. Why? Because God doesn’t work that way! Sometimes when I am in great need – God provides through one of you. Other times He may provide an extra bit of work. He may bring a wedding along. I have even seen it where the need didn’t get met at all – I just had the privilege of doing without. Why? Why does God work this way in our lives? Because then our circumstances become matters of faith – those crises of belief that we mentioned some weeks ago.
If God always worked the same way in your life – you’d do the same thing Israel was guilty of. In the Bible we’re told how time and time again they would fall into sin. God would allow them to be oppressed by their enemies. They would cry out to God and He would heal them. They repeated this pattern over and over and over. Pretty soon they began to presume on God’s goodness and faithfulness. All we have to do is cry a while and God will come running – but what if He doesn’t?
Then you’ve got a different situation on your hands, and then it becomes a matter of faith all over again. Let me encourage you to do this: when your circumstances are tough and there are problems in your life, don’t be so familiar with God and His Word that you’re looking for Him over here – you just might miss the great blessing of God’s freshness in your life. When you’re pouring your heart out and when you’re crying out to Him – be open to whatever He does – and act on faith.
Jesus walks up to this guy, spits into a hand full of dirt and smears it in his eyes. “Go, and wash in the pool of Siloam.” “But Jesus, that’s not what you did for that other blind guy.” “But Jesus, can’t you just heal me? Can’t you just touch me?” The guy didn’t question Him at all – he just went and washed in the pool of Siloam, pretty remarkable considering what little information he had about Jesus at the time.
When Jesus shows up in your life, just trust what He says and act in obedience and then wait for the blessing – you just might be surprised at what He does this time!
You can always expect God’s work in your life to draw attention.
What happened when Jesus healed the blind man? Verse 8 says that his neighbors had to know. Then some other people had to know. They took him to the Pharisees, and they wanted to know. They brought in the parents – I love their answer in verse 20. “Well, that’s our son all right, but we want to know too.” The man immediately became the talk of town. No longer was he a blind nobody begging on the street; he was a seeing somebody that people were drawn to. “Nothing like this has ever happened before – tell us all about it!”
Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that what being a witness is all about? You don’t have to know a lot of theology to talk about Christ or His work in your life – you’ve just got to tell what you do know – God will do the rest. Have you been saved? You’ve got a story to tell. Has the Lord brought you out of debt and your friends want to know about it? You’ve got a story to tell. God’s doing a wonderful work of grace in your life and He wants to draw attention to that work – don’t hide it under a bushel! “Let your light shine!”
So what if you don’t have all the details figured out. What did our man say to the Pharisees in verse 25? He said, “Look, I don’t know all the answers to your questions – but I know this, I was blind this morning, but now I can see!”
You should always be prepared to choose sides in your life.
Some might consider it cruel that after Jesus healed the man that He hid out in town and watched the scene unfold, but the Lord did that. Have you ever noticed how often it is that right after a person gets saved, they go through some of the toughest trials of their life? Have you ever noticed that so often God allows you to be tested right after a wonderful work of grace in your life? You are rocking along, everything seems great because God has been doing so much for you, then SMACK! Right out of nowhere comes this thing, this circumstance, this person in your life that just knocks you for a loop.
Well that’s what happens here. What seemed to start out as great curiosity got real serious real fast. This man got a real education in taking sides. You see, the Pharisees weren’t particularly enthused that this man could see now. They were upset because Jesus had picked up dirt on the Sabbath. He had violated their law and they were looking for a reason to kill Him anyway. “This man is a sinner.” He was condemned already so far as they were concerned.
You notice that when the parents got drug into it they backed away real fast, and John explains why in verse 22. There were going to be lifelong social, religious and economic repercussions for anyone associating themselves with Jesus. Where does our blind man stand in it all? He takes his stand with Christ. Look at verse 27. He chooses sides when he says to the Pharisees, “will you also be his disciples?” Read with me how this goes on in verse 28.
“Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened my 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. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.”
Think about it: the man wasn’t even saved yet! But he took sides with Jesus. He may have been blind; but even he could see what was going on here – and listen to this - write it down if you need to: his gratitude was too great for denial. I believe this – if you and I will ever come to the place in our lives where we are so profoundly touched by what God has done for us, where we realize just how blessed we are, where we see just how much Jesus has touched our lives, our gratitude will be too great for denial.
Jesus told a story one day about two men whose debts had been forgiven them. One with a small debt, the other with a great debt, but both men were released from their debts. If this man owed me $5 and you owed me $500, and I told you both that I was releasing you from your debts, which of you would have the greater appreciation for me? You see? If you ever get a hold of what God has done for you – you’ll not be able to deny His work in your life – no matter how fierce the opposition.
You can be guaranteed that God’s work always leads you to greater depths of revelation.
Very quickly I want you to see this – when the man was questioned about who healed him, what did he say in verse 11? “A man that is called Jesus.” When the Pharisees pressed him for an answer, what did he say in verse 17? “He is a prophet.” When Jesus confronted him later that day, what did the man say in verse 38? “Lord…”
The farther along the man came, the greater his level of understanding became of the person of Jesus Christ. The same should be true in your own life.
There is something terribly wrong in your life if your understanding of Jesus today is the same as it was yesterday. If Jesus Christ, in this chapter of your life is still the same Jesus He was in that last chapter, then you’ve been missing out on the greatest blessing of your spiritual life! God wants you to grow in your level of understanding. He wants to reveal Himself to you in greater ways every day of your life! He is the God of creation, a God who is fresh and new and alive every day!
How does God lead you to greater depths of revelation? Most quickly through a woundedness, through that crisis of belief, through some great difficulty in your life, but not always. Why? Because God doesn’t always work the same way in your life – He’s the God of freshness, of creativity, of imagination and adventure, and I wonder if some of you haven’t allowed your relationship with Jesus Christ to grow stale and cold, and now you are not growing and you are not reaching new depths of understanding and you are not excited about Jesus Christ. If that’s you today, there’s good news! You can receive new sight today! God wants to show you so much, but you’ve got to admit to Him that you’ve been blinded by the humdrum, the routine, the familiarity, the sin, or whatever else has been in your life that has been keeping you from growing in your relationship with Him.
You can be sure that there is no blindness in the world like spiritual blindness.
On that day long ago, a blind man received sight, then a seeing man saw the light. Jesus said in verse 35,
“Do you believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, “Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, You have both seen him, and it is he that talks with you.” And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.”
Now there are a lot of awesome things in the Bible, but this is one of the greatest. This man has been witnessing for Christ, standing up for Christ, defending Christ, getting persecuted for Christ, but he has never so much as seen Him or carried on a conversation with Him. He wasn’t even saved! But he had seen where he had been and realized who this was and what He had done and he saw. The word worship there means that the man fell prostrate at Jesus’ feet in homage and adoration. He worshipped Him!
While the man was lying at His feet, Jesus looked at the Pharisees and 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 some of he Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”
You know something? You’ll never have to convince a blind man that he can’t see – he already knows it, and there’s a man you can work with. Jesus said in another place, “I didn’t come for the healthy, but for the sick.” Do you know why people miss Christ? Because they are so blind they can’t see Him. They think they see just fine – you’ve got health, wealth, you’re a moral person, don’t drink or curse or chew, don’t steal and don’t kill, don’t lie and don’t cheat, and so far as you can see – you’re alright, but I tell you today that you’re more blind than you realize. If you would allow yourself to see yourself for what you really are, you’d realize just how blind and helpless you are. Then and only then would you be in a position to get the help you need from Christ.
