Unsearchable Purposes, Unspeakable Glory Series

Now to be blind, in Jerusalem, during this day and age was a terrible thing… really to be blind anywhere during that time period was a terrible thing. You would have to make your living by begging… and chances were, if you didn’t have someone to help you out, you probably weren’t long for this earth. It was a terrible, horrible thing to be blind in ancient times. So they’re thinking that there must’ve been some kind of sin that was responsible for this mans condition… So they ask Jesus, “Who sinned here? This man or his parents?” And their question displays a level of ignorance on their part.

I don’t know about ya’ll but I’m glad the Bible doesn’t cover up the fact that the disciples were ignorant about a lot of things. It makes me feel better about myself.

So they ask this question… and this is something people do all the time. You know; something terrible happens and people automatically assume that some secret sin must’ve been committed and that’s why the terrible thing happened. Now I’m not talking about iniquity here… and neither were the disciples in this instance. Iniquity in the Bible is that propensity to sin that we all have… and you’ll see certain groupings of sin run in families. Grandpa’s an alcoholic, dad’s an alcoholic, son’s an alcoholic. Grandpa has anger issues, dad has anger issues, son has anger issues. Grandpa struggles with sexual sin, dad struggles with sexual sin, and son does too. That’s iniquity… it’s passed on from the father to his children. We all have it. But the disciples aren’t talking about sin and iniquity that’s passed from the father to the children… they’re talking about punishment for sin… they’re thinking this man was born blind because either his parents had sinned, or God foresaw this man sinning, and God punished him by making him be born blind. And again; we’ve all seen that sins can have consequences… and even the sins of parents can have consequences for their children… A parent does drugs and it causes physical, or developmental, or even social problems with the child. A parent drinks and the baby has fetal alcohol syndrome. A parent is selfish and a baby gets aborted… a parent makes their child an idol, and the child becomes a narcissistic, hedonistic, monster…

But Jesus tells His disciples that’s not the case with this particular man. He wasn’t born blind because of some specific sin. Instead (and this might blow your mind)… He was born blind so that “the works of God can be displayed in him.” In other words; Jesus was saying, “This man was born blind for this specific moment in time, when I’m about to heal him, and show the works of God, and prove My Divinity as God the Son.” God had a purpose in this man’s blindness… He was born blind, and has spent his entire life as a blind man, because at this moment in time, Jesus was going to heal him, and prove that He was God in the flesh.

THAT’S WHY HE’S BLIND!

Now people hear that, or they read this passage, and they say, “Would God really do something like that? Would He really let a man be born blind, and go through his entire life blind, just so Jesus could heal him at this point in time?” And Church, this is where your theology becomes super… SUPER important. So let me ask you – do you believe in and serve a god who “WANTS” to heal, but for whatever reason he can’t? Or do you believe in and serve a God who CAN heal, whenever He wishes and wills to, but at times, for whatever reasons, it’s not His wish or will to do so? Only one of those is the God of the Bible…