The Gospel of John is presented as a profound yet simple book, with its depth often overlooked by casual readers. The sermon emphasizes the importance of diligent Bible study, contrasting it with a modern trend of neglecting scripture. It highlights Jesus' encounter with the man born blind in John chapter 9, illustrating that suffering is not always a direct result of sin but can be an opportunity for God's works to be revealed. The narrative follows the man's journey from physical blindness to spiritual sight, culminating in his confession of Jesus as the Son of God, and underscores that true understanding comes from God's revelation, not human tradition or intellect.
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The book of John, the ninth chapter tonight, John chapter nine. We have only one more study together. I hope that our studies in John have just whetted your appetite to want to know more. There are some excellent books that would help you in this study. It's well worth your time to carefully go through the Gospel of John verse by verse. It's a very simple book, yet it's a very profound book.
The writer of the Gospel of John was a simple fisherman, and Greek scholars tell us that the language that he employed was very simple, simplicity itself. not like the language of the Apostle Paul, who is a highly educated man. But although this is true, those who have studied the Gospel of John have found it to be profound, have found that they have skimmed over, assuming that they understand simple verses like John three, sixteen, John five and twenty-four, and they found that there are depths of meaning that they have never really flown.
I suggest that you ought to give this some serious study. My experience taught me that most Christians do not really study. I'm glad to say that most of them still read, although I know some homes, Christian homes, where reading the Bible has been abandoned. The family no longer gets together to read, and even the individuals are just not reading. I have the nerve to ask this, but sometime I may get up enough nerve to ask the people how many in the audience have never even read the Bible through once.
And if people are honest, I think there are going to be some red faces, because I think there may be people right here in this room who have never read the Bible through once. What are you going to tell your Heavenly Father when you get there? When he asked you what you did with his letter to you? What would you tell your loved one? If you'd received letters from them and hadn't even bothered to read them. This is serious, doesn't it? We're not well-fed Christians. When I was a boy, I can tell you this sincerely. The common thing was for people to be Bible students.
Not just readers. Bible students. All the people. But now this is the uncommon thing. This is one of the reasons why some of those who meet this we're meeting here, in the name of the Lord alone, who have learned the wonderful truths of being gathered together in a scriptural manner are turning away from those truths. They are hiring men to do their preaching for the simple reason that they know that they are not studying the Word of God themselves and they don't want to take the time to do so. They say we have the money but we don't have the time, let's hire somebody to come and do the preaching and do the visitation work and so on.
It's just a part of our declension. I hope, brothers and sisters, this study in John's Gospel will get you started. Really study. Tomorrow night, Lord willing, we shall take up the last of these eight signs. There are just eight miracles recorded here in John's Gospel. And the last one will be in chapter eleven. I hope that you read chapter nine through sometimes since last night and I hope that you will read chapter eleven before tomorrow night and then we shall look at the glory of God in restoration tonight chapter nine the glory of God in revelation that is revealing himself since the chapter begins with a conjunction we ought to read back and see what this and connects us to and as Jesus passed by read the last verse of chapter eight then took the upstones to cast at him but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple going through
the midst of them and so passed by and as Jesus passed by he saw a man which was blind from his birth I don't know about you, but if people were about to throw rocks at me, I wouldn't be looking for blind people to help. I'd be getting out of there as fast as I knew how. But our blessed Lord never missed an opportunity to help anyone who needed help. In the midst of a scene like this, he saw this blind man, and his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin? or his parents, that he was born blind.
Now you can see a little superstition in this question, the feeling that either sin was brought upon or trouble was brought on people because of the sins of the parents. There were many Jews who believed this, although the book of Ezekiel plainly said that it was not so. that they might have believed in some kind of reincarnation. Because if this man was born blind, how could it have been the result of his own sins? Unless he lived on this earth some time before. You can see there's superstition in the whole question.
But the Lord took people where they were, and he answered their question without trying to correct all these other things. They're corrected in other ways. He said, Jesus answered, Neither have this man sinned nor his parents. Now, that doesn't mean that they have never sinned, but it means that isn't the cause. They had asked, What's the cause? And he said, This man's blindness was not caused by his sins nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I'd like to stop and think about that at this moment. Have you ever wondered... why things are as they are in your life.
Have you ever wondered why you have certain handicaps? Have you ever wondered why you were born poor? My grandfather, who had about as much good looks as the rest of the Walden tribe, used to say that he wished that he had been born rich instead of good looking. It's pretty hard when you don't have either one. You ever wonder why this is? There was a man visited a death school. I don't know what ever possessed the man to do it. But he wrote on the blackboard, Why were you born dead?
And I was born good hearing. And a little girl finally went to the board and wrote, Even so father, for so it seemed good in my sight, of the eleventh chapter and answers. Another sweet answer. Can you say that about your life? Are you willing to accept the things in your life that you would never choose for yourself, because God has permitted them that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I'm glad I was born a sinner. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but I'm glad that I was born a sinner.
How else was the grace of God to be shown in my life? And God's grace is going to be demonstrated for all eternity just because I was born a sinner. All of God's kindness to me in this life and for all eternity will bring glory to his name because of his great grace. Now let's move on. I must work the works of him that sent me while at this day the night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. I don't want to spoil a good song for you, but I don't like that song.
The light of the world is Jesus. If you want to change it and sing it, the light of the world was Jesus, I'll buy it. But I don't like it the way it is, because the Bible doesn't say that the light of the world is Jesus. He said, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. But when he went back to heaven, what did he say? He said to his disciples, you are the light of the world. In the daytime, the sun shines. At nighttime, the sun still shines. But you get it reflected off the moon. The Lord Jesus was here. And he said, while the light is with you, for a while you're willing to walk in the light.
And he left and he went home to heaven. All the light this world is getting now is reflected light from the moon, from the church. You and I are the light of this world. He made the moon to rule the night, not the sun. The sun has set for this world, and for many of them it will never rise. and you and I are to bring light. You and I are here to give light to this world. That's why the Lord said, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he sat on the ground and made clay of the siddle and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation sin.
He went his way therefore and washed, and came seen. The neighbors, therefore, they which before had seen him that he was blind, said he is not this he that sat and begged. Some said this is he. Others said he is like him. But he said, I am he. Therefore said to him, How are thine eyes open? He answered and said, A man that has called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. And I went and washed, and I received sight. and said they in the end, Where is he? He said, I know not. They walked with the Pharisees, him that aforetime was blind, and it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.
Then again the Pharisees also asked him, Now I have received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon thine eyes, and I washed and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he did not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. They say unto the blind man again, what saith thou him that he had opened thine eyes? He said, 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. And they asked them, saying, Is this your son?
Who you say was born blind? How then? Nothing now sees. parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But by what news he now said, We know not. Or who have opened his eyes, we know not. He is of age, ask him. He shall speak for himself. These words spake his parents because they feared the Jews. For the Jews have agreed already that if any man is impressed that he was Christ, he should be put out in the synagogue. Therefore, said his parents, He is of age, ask him. Then again called they the man that was blind and said unto him, Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner.
He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or not, I know not. One thing I know. Whereas I was blind. Now I do. Then said they to him again, What did he do? How open he lie now? He answered them, I've told you already. He did not hear. Wherefore would you hear it again? Will you also be his disciples? filed him and said, thou art his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God's taken to Moses. That's for this fellow. We know not from what he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvelous thing, that he know not from which he is, and yet he has opened mine up.
Now we know that God here is not finished, but if any man be of earth with God and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began with it, not earth The guy is the one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Well, all the men were born in sins. Thus thou teach us? And they passed him out. Now, that word means literally they excommunicated him. They didn't pick him up. They took his name off his bedrock road. He was no longer in the synagogue. heard that they had cast him out, and when he had found him, said unto him, Thus thou 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, Thou art most seen him, and it is he that part of him. And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worships him. And Jesus said, For judgment, I am coming to this world that they might see, and that they might be made blind. One of the Pharisees, which really heard these words, and said, Are these lying also? Jesus said, If you were blind, you should have no sin. You wouldn't be the blame for your condition. But now he said, He sees. Therefore, he means.
A wonderful story. All of us pity the blind. hard hearing all my life, but I never considered anything really at all. I went through and never even heard of something. I learned a lot. I learned to read lists. And later on, when hearing aids came up, it worked on both directions. I had born one, so that I certified it. I don't consider it any problem at all. In fact, it's rather nice to be able to shut out that I got mine, I told my wife, I didn't like to tone the voice, I could change that, but in like what I thought, I'd tune her out.
Well, I thought I'd prep it anyway. It's kind of nice to be able to turn off anything that you don't want to listen to. Well, I don't consider it any great thing to be hard to hear, but I feel so sorry. We have the great school for the deaf and blind in my town, and I have spoken there. I find it very, these are blind children, and I find myself very depressed when I have a deaf children.
They seem to be having trouble all the time. One thing about it, you can't keep the deaf and talking in school because the they can signal and nobody knows the difference. And they seem to have pretty good time. But the blind will always have a kind of a sad look on their personal. This man is blind. Born by. A doctor, a friend of mine, told me that congenital blindness is almost always total. Congenital blindness is nearly always a lack of something.
Perhaps the optic nerve never developed. Perhaps the lens never really developed. It's almost impossible to do anything for a person born blind. I think the Lord deliberately took the case like this because He wanted to show us what He was able to do. The miracles of this John's gospel were given for the specific purpose that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name. Chapter twenty, verses thirty and thirty one. The key verses in the book of John. So the Lord wanted us to understand his power, his ability to do for the hopeless.
Now the story of the procedure followed by the Lord here is different from that in the case of the giving the sight to other blind people. I read a little tract one time about the great controversy between the Muddites and the anti-Muddites. This was, of course, purely that they supposed that in the first century, there was so many people that received their sight by the hands of the Lord Jesus, and that some of them received their sight because he put mud on their eyes and was washed off, and others receive their sight when he simply touched them or said the word, that there must have been a controversy between people who got their eyesight with mud and those who got their eyes.
And the mud eyes could never believe that the anti-mud eyes ever really could see. Some of them had mud on their eyes first. And there are many critics like this. They just can't believe that a person was saved and he didn't go through at least three weeks of intense soul trouble. losing his appetite and losing his sleep. And one man told me, the Lord shook me over the pits of hell for two weeks and I could smell the brimstone. I said, I'd be ashamed to admit it. He said, why? He thought that was a good conversion. Why? I said, imagine anybody being so stubborn that you have to hold him over hell for two weeks. Why did you give him the first day?
He said, I never thought of it that way. I went to meeting one night not even knowing who I was a sinner. And they got saved on the way home. I never lost a meal. I never lost any grief. So, of course, the Muddites can't believe that the anti-Muddites ever got their eyesight involved. Now, brother and sister, the details that lead up to your conversion mean nothing. That's why I don't even like testimony on these. I just don't care for them at all. Because I think it gets people all involved in the details that lead up to the conversion. The whole thing that really counts is did you meet the Lord Jesus and did he give you the eyesight?
The rest of it is trimming as anyone. I don't know how much conviction you had. You didn't get a real job of repentance before you got saved. You get plenty afterwards. Most of us have repented far more after our conversion than we did before. The details that lead up to it are really beside the point. The Lord Jesus is in their eyesight. Somebody said to G.L. Moody, that was a kind of a silly thing to do. Why was the Lord so smudged and surprised to give him his sight? I thought the movie said, well, it made man out of mud to start with. Is there anything unusual about using a little of it to repair it?
I thought that was a good answer as any. What differences would make if the Lord saw fit to do it this way? The Lord can do it any way that he sees best. We'd like to see all the people get saved the same way. We've all got our little ideas about how people should get saved. We'd like the things to follow a pattern. We'd like the people to use the right language. There was an Indian came to know the Lord and followed by the springs, few years, Barrett. And the brother who led him to the Lord was a man who was very sure about everything. He believed that everybody who prayed was back to the same language. He got after me one time. it bothers me dreadfully when you pray because you don't use the correct words he said now let me explain to you how he said he said if you're using the word if you're using the word let me see now I don't even remember yet how you're supposed to do this but if you if you use a follow this with a word that starts with a vowel, you'll have to use a
certain form. But if it begins with a consonant, you have to use a different form. You ever hear of anything so silly? And this bug doesn't matter. It really bothered you. He said you don't use the right form when you pray. I said, well, that is the Lord's use, right? I have some way of interpreting it. to him, I think, that I was kind of sacrilegious, but I wanted to shock him a little bit. I'm sure the Lord would get the job done, but he could understand what I had to say. Don't be bothered by details of that time. The thing that really counts is, did Jew meet the Lord? This man did. He said, there are a lot of things I don't understand.
There's one thing I know. Whereas I was blind now, I see. You know that from my brother and sister. the results were perfect, but the results depended upon the willingness and the appeal of this man. Now, I'm not going to preach salvation by words. I don't believe that people are saved by words, but I believe that every person who is saved has to obey God's command in order to be saved. That's what he means when he says obey the gospel. What does God expect you to do to be saved?
He expects you to obey the gospel. Now, obeying the gospel is not obeying the law. You couldn't obey the law, but you can obey the gospel. What does the gospel require of you? It requires that you put your trust in Christ, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not that you have to be in and have in the church. Not that you trust the Lord Jesus in your mouth. The gospel requires that you put your trust alone in the finished work of Christ. And you do this, you've obeyed the gospel. I learned a little couple of when I was a boy about the law and the gospel. Go something like this.
Run and work. The law demands. It gives me neither feet nor hands. Better news, the gospel doesn't hit it and you fly and give it away. That's exactly what happened. The Lord says to you, I want you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And don't tell me you don't have faith. And you get it anyway. I'm reading this book. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But he says in Romans ten, seventeen, if you read God's word, you let faith. You believe God. And that's obeying the gospel. Now there's some lessons to be learned from this, and I'd like to take a few of these with you.
First of all, You know that this is a good gospel illustration. Some of my young brethren here might say that use this sometimes. Wait a few weeks so people forget where you got it. And then you've written it. And they'll think you're very clever for seeing things in it. I beg, pardon, stole everything that I know. I got here too late to be original. You did too. So get all the help you can from other people and learn how to bring the gospel out of any passage to Scripture. preach the gospel from this passage? Well, I think, first of all, I would talk about the need here. And there's a desperate need.
This man doesn't need treatments. He doesn't need lessons. Same thing's true of the sinner is. Well, this is a good place to begin, to begin with the need. And then the man was totally hopeless until he met the Lord sees and heard his voice. He couldn't see, but he could hear it. That's true of every sinner. You can't see God. You can't see the Lord. But you can hear his voice too. Not an audible voice, but through the words. Through the scriptures, through the gospel verses, you can hear what God has to say to you. And he heard what the Lord had to say.
And he did what the Lord told him to do. And then you might finish up by saying there are three questions asked here in this chapter. And you'll find them in verses twelve, twenty-six, and thirty-six. In verse twelve they said to him, Where is he? In verse twenty-six they said to him, What did he? And in verse thirty-six they said to him, Who is Now you begin to laugh and then go back and you have an answer and go out loud. First of all, who is he? This is important. You're not going to be saved unless you're saved by a savior. The Lord Jesus Christ must be God or he's not a savior because he claims to be God.
And good people don't tell lies. Who is he? He is the son of God. Come down to this world. was the original spacewalk. The visits of our planet by a man from outer space. The Lord Jesus Christ came to this world for the express purpose of becoming our state. Who is he? He is the eternal son of God. He never changed and never will. Who is he? He's the lover of our soul. No hint says, Jesus, lover of my soul, let me show thy bosom.
What is he? He's the judge of all the earth. You don't accept him as your savior. You're going to see him as judge. He's a great deal about it. Now the second thing is, what did he do? What did he do? We have a song about that. The chorus says, what did he do? And the answer comes, he died for you. What did he do? He did many wonderful things. This was one of them. He gave the sight to the blind. He raised the dead to life. He cleansed the lepers. He healed the sick and the maimed.
He went about doing good. He said to hundreds. He did many wonderful things. But the most wonderful of all was that he took our place and took our seat. Suffered their chaldery. a holiday. He was my substance. That's what he did. And he did it perfectly. And just before he died, he said it is finished. I believe. And the third thing is, where is the Lord Jesus? Is he on the cross? I don't even like the look of the crucifix for that reason, because he isn't on the cross.
I'm glad to remember he was, but he isn't. Is he in the tomb? If he is, you don't have any faith. Our missionary was preaching among the Muslims, the Muhammadus. And the Muhammadus taunted him with this. He said, You don't even know where your prophet is buried. He said, We can take you to the very place where Muhammad is buried. We can show you his bones. And you don't even know where your prophet is buried. What a funny religion you have. And the man said, You're right. And if anybody ever finds one single bone of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christianity is done for.
Folks are left on this earth. Our Savior rose again from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. That's what he is. He preached a sermon on that which says you ought to do it. But you see how this can carry along. This is a marvelous chapter in the preaching of God. But I'd like to think about it from another angle, and that is the real topic of John chapter nine is the revelation of God as light. In order to help us to understand what God is light, he uses many illustrations that we can understand.
And this would be a good thing for all of you to remember. You teach Sunday school or you try to teach a little bit about it anyway. You begin with the familiar and you move from the familiar to the unfamiliar. You begin with something which people do understand and then you move to something which they don't understand. The Lord Jesus began with simple things like planting seeds or like lighting a candle or like patching a garment. or like sleeping on the floor. He began with things that everybody understood, and then from that he taught them the spiritual lessons that he wanted us to know. So the Lord Jesus wants us to understand the character of God.
He tells us that he is light. What are the characteristics of light? Well, first of all, nobody understands really what light is. It's not what it is. We know that it is composed of waves, and these waves move at a speed of a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles of second. We know that radio waves move at the same speed as light waves, so that in about two seconds time you see the light from the moon. You're just about two seconds late all the time. Watch it three times.
That's why there's a little delay in communication with our men out there. Now, being most distant stars in the universe, it is estimated would require millions of years for that light to reach. Eight hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. Light, we know then, travels by light waves, and we know that it continues to move, although it may be moving clear from all of that distance, all of that space.
That light comes, strikes our eyes, and we pray. We know something else about light. We know that light has both qualities that have to do with the senses of feel, whether it may be a comfortable feeling such as heat, the red rays of light give it the heat, and on the opposite side of the spectrum the violet rays of the light which are not felt can actually burn the skin. One is felt and one is not felt, but these rays can actually affect well as our seed.
You know, too, that light is incompatible with darkness. You can't have light and dark in the same room. If you want half of this room, light and half of the dark, you have to put a partition down in it. Take all the light out of one side and leave it on the other side. Light is really the absence of dark, or, more properly, dark is really the absence of light. What does this mean? Well, when God says, I am light, he wants us to understand that there is something which is the opposite of his character. There is something known as darkness. We'll come to that in a moment. Furthermore, God made us, made our eyes in such a way that we need light in order to discern.
High light, no good without light. Now, we have cancer. Government has developed some cameras that can take pictures in the dark, but actually they don't take pictures in the dark at all. They take them by infrared. They're really not taking the pictures without light. You can't take a picture without light. You can use a very little light. You use a different kind of light, but you have to have light waves in order to take a picture. Your eyes come to a camera, but you have to have light. Therefore, light has to do with our understanding, with revelation. Now, there is a fence in which we use the same thing when you're talking about our understanding.
We say, well, now, that sets the light of the light on the subject. That means that turned on a couple of balls. It means that your understanding detains enlightenment. In fact, in the first chapter of Ephesians, we have it. The eyes of your understanding are enlightened. as the eyes of your heart being light. What do you mean by that? I don't understand this. What do you think about the schoolroom? He's explaining something to the children. And they frown and shake their heads. And then all of a sudden the child takes light and says, Well, I see. But he didn't. He didn't see it anymore than he saw five minutes ago.
Everything ran through the room was there before. But what he means is, it has reached my understanding so light is synonymous with revelation and is the means of revelation first chapter of first job and the fifth word we have this statement God is light and he is no darkness at all how does that mean all light is God that's what it says God is light It doesn't say light and star. The heavens, not understanding that God is back up and beyond the creation, they worship the creation.
That's the sun. The sun has been great and high. It was great. More nations have been idolatrous of the sun than anything else because of the sun. Because it's so important. Because it means so much to be They have failed to see that God was that of that son, whose son is not God at all. But when God says that he is light, what he's saying is not the light of God, but that this is his character. Now the character of God is that of light. That means it reveals everything. I had a friend who was caught in a fishing stream elevator.
and torn up badly. And they called the man to look, of course, and got him down to the hospital, pushed him to the foot, and all the emergency table. And he said, well, he got me on that table. I was blood all over, and the emergency didn't get me up, and I pulled it off. And he said, there's light coming down the hill. And he said, well, there's a light coming right on me. And he said, you know, I have it on your side. I said to myself, well, thank God I took a bath. All these people things are on there and cutting clothes off. You know, he just thought that he had a bath. Why? Because white has the property of revealing everything.
That's exactly what it's got to do with your eyes, but you don't want people to come to me once and worship that. I was reaching out here at Osa City, Kansas in a tent. And the lady came to the meeting and you never saw anybody as she heard of her. As that woman was. She sat all over that. And when the meeting was over, she couldn't get out and asked, do none. And I had dropped by the house. I had dropped by the house. But I'm not coming back. I said, I was terribly uncomfortable.
I was too warm. And the tent was rolled up. And it was in a park. And it was in a park. And it was in a park. And it was in any place in the Old City that night. It was in a tent in the park. She was too out of her eyes. You're a lot of evangelicals. They make people terrible. They think about God. Because of people like God. And we don't like it. We listen to that.
Those things that we've done often. That burden that the joy of thought to those things, we may sort of relish them as we look back and hope that someday we can repeat that thing and begin to bear down upon us and begin to realize what we've done. is not the holiness of God who begins to give up his life. Use God and give account of those things and get their life. That's how you think that God is life. God, first of all, shows us what we are. Remember in the creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, it says that the earth was without form and void. We all amen. What was the very first thing that happened on the first day?
God said, let there be life. And there was life. Now what did the light do? The light showed the mess of everything we did. What did it do? The light revealed the real condition. Now that's the first step in the conversion of the boat. No fool ever got saved until the Spirit of God showed you what he is. And you want to wait for this to happen. Don't you be in a hurry to get me to say this. You make sure that the Spirit of God has an opportunity to show them their law. Show them that they are sinners. That's what the light does, first of all. Show that we are sinners. Now the light of God that shines down into our hearts.
Not only do we reveal what we are, but it reveals what we are. You see when the light of the sun shines, by that light we can see ourselves. We can also see the sun. The sun's not shining. When a cloud comes across, you know the sun's up there somewhere. You know it's here or there or over here. You just know it's up there because you can't see it. So when the sun shines, it reveals itself as well as revealing us. Now, don't stop when the word of God shows you that you're sitting. Go on and let the word of God show you what God is like, what Christ is like.
because God is a loving God. First John chapter one, verse five says, God is light. First John chapter four and verses eight and sixteen say, God is love. God is light. That shows you what you are. But then God is light also shows what he is. And we learn that he loves of our faith. We learned that he loved us enough to send his son to die for us. We learned that he cares about us. We learned he's interested in us. More interested in us than any human being has ever been.
The best friend we ever had. This is how he reveals himself to us. In the ninth chapter of John, God revealed himself to this man progressively. I want to point this out to you. Now, Let me just digress long enough to say that I do not believe in progressive revelation in the sense that the liberals or the modernists or the neo-orthodoxy teachers of our days speak about progressive revelation. They mean that the early peoples, the Hoses and the first ones who wrote in our Bible had one idea about God, and then somebody got a better idea, and then canceled that out, and this is a better idea, and then finally Jesus came, and he threw all the rest of it out and said, I got a better one yet.
That's really what they teach, not that bold thing, but that's really what they're teaching. When they teach progressive revelation, this is not true at all. Actually, the teaching of Scripture is like the building of the house. How many of you lay, that it is? and then course after course of stones were laid on. And you need these courses that are up in the high support of what's coming on up there. And finally the capstone is reached in the book of the Revelation. And those fifty-six books are interdependent and one built upon the other so that you cannot fully understand the New Testament unless you understand the Old Testament. I don't know whether all of you are aware of it or not, but there are eight hundred and eight booktakes.
from the Old Testament in the New. Now think about that a little bit. How are you going to possibly understand the New Testament if you don't read the Old? Eight hundred and eighty times the New Testament quotes, Old Testament verses. So it is necessary for us to understand. By progressive revelation I mean that God, first of all, shows the person that he is a sinner. Then he gets so uncomfortable he doesn't want to come back to meeting. But if you can just keep him coming, Pretty soon God shows him that he loves him. Then he begins to get interested. And then God shows him what Christ does. I want you to see how this man got acquainted with the Lord Jesus.
The first thing he said about the Savior is in verse eleven. In verse ten they said, How are thy eyes open? Verse eleven he answered and said, A man that is called Jesus. Make thy name on his mind. Now, what he was saying was perfectly true. It wasn't the whole truth, but what he said was true. Jesus was a man. He was just as much a man as you and I. He wasn't the same kind of a man. I'm a sinful man. So are you. The Lord Jesus had no sin. He knew no sin. He did know sin. But he was a man. It wasn't simply that he had a body and squeezed his personality into that body.
He was a true man. He had true human nature, not all nature, but human nature. The Lord Jesus was as truly man as you and I, spirit, soul, and body. He was a man, and his name was Jesus. I don't suppose this man knew what that meant. I don't suppose it ever occurred to him that he was called Jesus for a special reason, because there were many people in that day called Jesus. In fact, you read about some of them in the New Testament, a man called Mar Jesus, which means the son of Jesus, the evidence of that was his father's name. And in the Old Testament, you have several of them. So it's the name Joshua, same name exactly. There was a general in the Old Testament, and a book named after him, right after the Pentateuch.
You have the book of Joshua. And that's the same as the name Jesus. That's the Hebrew form, and Jesus is the Greek form. So there were lots of people called Jesus. In fact, if you go among the Latins, you still find it so. Many Mexicans name their little boys Jesus. They pronounce it Jesus. Although they very seldom call them by that name, they nearly always call them by a nickname. Surely, because they don't feel like they want to really call them that name. But they often name their children that. In fact, I knew one little boy whose name was Jesus Mary Angel. Well, that's quite a string of them. They wanted to be real good. So they think, gave him all those names.
What they called him, Shui, just to say. And so this man knew that there was a man named Jesus. That's all he knew. All he knew. But he soon learned some more. Verse seventeen. They say unto the blind man again, What saith thou him, that he has opened thy eyes? He said, He is a prophet. Is that true? Of course it's true. I thought you said he was a man. Well, all men can be prophets. All prophets are men. But he's a prophet, eh? In this particular case, he was perfectly right in saying that he was a man, and then adding to that, he's a prophet.
Is the Lord Jesus a prophet? Why, certainly. Moses said, The Lord your God shall raise unto you a prophet like unto me. To him shall he hearten it. and the Lord Jesus of the prophets, Christ and King. We're told in the first chapter of Hebrews, God who has sundry times and divers manners, taken time fast in the fathers by the prophets, happened these last days, spoken unto us in tongues, through the Lord Jesus Christ, God's supreme prophet. So the man's learned something more, hasn't he? He's found out that the Lord Jesus Christ is really from God with a message from God. That's good.
He's learning something. Is that all there is to know? Look at verse twenty-five. Verse twenty-four, they said, Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he is a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, But whereas I was blind, now I see. What did this man know? He knew there was a possibility that this man might not be a sinner. Now, you hadn't heard anybody say this yet.
You see, God is opening his eyes. God is helping him to see that this man is different from other men. He never has met a man in his lifetime that wasn't a sinner. He doesn't know any people who are not sinners. But when these people say that man's a sinner, he says, now I'm not too sure about that. I don't know whether you can say that man's a sinner or not. In other words, he's beginning to realize something of the character and the perfections of this man. And you and I can go a step further than that. We can say we know he's not a sinner. We know that here is one man who lived on this earth without sinning.
Therefore, here is one man who never needed to die. He died by choice. You don't have any choice. When your time comes to die, you're going to die. You've got an appointment. God knows what that appointment is. It's appointed as a man who wants to die. And you'll have to die because you are a sin. By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men because that all have sinned. But the Lord Jesus didn't need to die. He chose to die in the place of those who had to die. This man is beginning to learn. But we go a step further than that. In verse twenty-eight, then they reviled him and said, Thou are his disciples.
He had said to them in the preceding verse, You want me to tell you all over again? Are you going to be his disciples too? What do you mean? He meant I'm his disciple. I'm learning. What's a disciple? That's all it means, a learner. And a disciple is one who has another for his teaching. So now he's beginning to find out the Lord Jesus knows more than I do. And I want the word of him. Have you got this far? Have you got this far in Revelation? Have God shown to you that the Lord Jesus Christ is your master, your teacher, and that you are really his disciple?
I won't say a word about this, brethren, sisters. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that there are many professed Christians today who are not disciples. We're told plainly in the book of the Acts that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. If he's a disciple, he's a Christian in the first century. I'm not sure that's true in the twentieth century. I know it ought to be true. I know if you have really received your sight, really been saved by the Lord Jesus, you ought to be his disciple. But are you?
Read the things that the gospel say about disciples. How the Lord expected us to follow him fully. How the Lord said to the man, if you're going to follow me, you can't be worried about your family. If you're going to follow me, that doesn't mean to neglect his family, but it meant that the Lord had to come first. The Lord said, if you're going to be my disciple, you can't follow me a while and then turn back. Because the man that puts his hands on the plow and then turns back and not be my disciple. They're told in another place, in the twelfth chapter of Luke, that there were many of them. that turned back and no longer were his disciples because they were not truly satan.
The sixth chapter of John begins with five thousand people, men beside the women and children, gathered round the Lord Jesus. And it ends with none of them left but the twelve. And the Lord said to them, You're going to go away soon? And Peter said to them, Thou hast the words of eternal life. Twelve left. out of power. Are you a disciple? Are you really learning from the Lord Jesus? And do you want to learn more? Would you really like to know him well? Would you really like to know his word well?
I got a young man, Colorado Springs, started studying the scriptures regularly. He just delighted him. He said, it's the first time in my life that I ever really studied. And I'm just discovering all kinds of wonderful things. He'd come over to my office and sit down and visit with me over the scriptures for an hour, a couple times a week. Some of the things that he'd found, thrilled with it. And then he went to an older brother. And he said to him, you know, I've got started studying the Bible. He said, I'm just getting such nice things out of it. And he said, what do you want to do that for? He said, what do you mean? He said, you're not going to be a preacher, are you? you're in business. Well, no, I'm not going to be a preacher.
But he said, you don't need to study the Bible. He said, don't you study it? No, he said, if I want to find anything, I look it up. But he said, you're not going to be a preacher. You don't need to study the Bible. Isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame? Well, now, you wouldn't say that to a young man, but are you having any kind of an example? How much time do you put in God's word in the last time? How long has it been since you read it through? Now he said something else about this man in verse thirty-three. He said if this man were not of God, he could do nothing.
Now this is an advantage. He's not just a teacher. He says this man is of God. Of God means that he came from God. that he is representing God. He's getting pretty close. This man's learned something. Remember he started out by saying, this is the man named Jesus. Now he says, this man came from God. Do you believe that? Do you believe the Lord Jesus really came from God? That's the meaning of the word Christ. The word Christ means the anointed. The one who was sent from God for a specific purpose, do a job. That's the meaning of the word Christ, the anointed one.
He said, I believe this man is of God. And then finally, in verse thirty-five, the Lord Jesus met him. Many when he got thrown out of the religious organization, many a person had the same experience. You're cut off from your religious friends. They say, well, what in the world is a matter for you? You used to be sane. Now you're talking about being saved and going to heaven. What's the matter with you? My father, sister, said to him, Willie, in six months you'll be in the insane asylum. But it wasn't much longer than that until he had the privilege of leading her to Christ, and she was a good church member. So they cast him out in the Lord Jesus' house.
I'd rather they have this company than the company of the religious See, Lot sent him, didn't you? You can always have his company. And then when he came and found him, he said to him, Does thou believe on man, Jesus? No. Does thou believe on the sinless one? No. Does thou believe on the teacher? No. Doth thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is your Lord that I might believe you are? Here's a man with an open mind and an open heart. He wants a full light of God's revelation in his own heart.
He says, I want to know. And the Lord said, I was both seeing him and it is he that talketh of thee. And he said, Lord, Lord, first time he said that, Lord, I believe. I believe what? I believe thou art the Son of God. and he worships. Start then as a man who just knows that this is another man named Jesus and he ends up at the feet of the Son of God worshiping his Lord. I've just got one more thing to say to you. You can have the amount of light that you can absorb.
If you've got something wrong with your eyes, you may have to wear dark glasses. I did for a while. I think there are some Christians with spiritual eye trouble, and they're not able to take in very much of the Word of God. But if you really want to take in the full revelation, God will let you. He'll give you all you can take. How big is your appetite? Well, you say, if I get a verse a day, I can keep alive. All right, that's what you want. You know, if you don't eat very much, you can shrink your stomach down to where you can get by on a half a week full of days.
If you'll starve to death, doing it, but you can do it. And you won't be worried at all. People who are starving to death don't suffer. They get after a while to where their stomach is shrunk down or they just don't feel hungry. Maybe that's the condition that you've gotten into spiritually. Maybe it only takes a verse or so a day. You can read the verse on the calendar or you can grab a verse or two from the Bible before you go to work or before you go to bed at night and that keeps your life. If this is all you have appetite for, that's all you'll get. But if you'd really like to know the Lord, see, if you'd like to know him personally, If you'd like to know him like a friend, if you'd like to know him like a companion, if you'd really like to know him, it's possible to know the Lord Jesus better than you can know any human being on this earth.
But if you're going to know the Lord Jesus, you must know him through the mediation of the Holy Spirit of God. All I need is eyesight to see this kind of light. But I need spiritual eyesight if I'm going to understand the Lord Jesus. And God tells us very plainly that when Christ went back to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit down to teach us all things and to bring all things to our remembrance, whatever He has spoken to us. And the Holy Spirit is here to make the Word of God real to you. Now, if you have sinned against God, the Holy Spirit is grieving. He isn't going to teach you anything except that you sin.
He'll keep bringing this to you until you confess that sin. If the Spirit of God is read, let me say it again, you are not going to be taught. This may be why you're not getting it. This may be why you're reading the Bible and not really taking anything through yourself. Maybe you need to get into the presence of God and say, Lord, I don't know what's wrong. It's been so long since I've had a talk with thee about these things that I just don't know what it is, but I know something wrong. And immediately he'll begin to bring to your mind the things that are not right. And you confess those things and put them away. And you get this fog out of your spiritual life.
You get this barrier away from between you and the Lord. And the Spirit of God can then begin to teach you. Open the scriptures up to you. And you'll enjoy them as you did once. This is possible. It just depends on how much you want. Our father, we're ashamed that our lives are so cluttered up with everything else that we have. So little time, so little appetite for thy word and for thyself. We are satisfied with so little and we have so much.