pointed the eyes of a blind man with the clay, and said unto him, For wash in the pool of Siloam, which is by interpretation sent, he went his way, therefore, and washed, and came, dear. It's an amazing miracle. There are many miracles in the Bible that God continues to perform miracles. I read the letter of the past week from William Beans, a man I've known for many years, a wonderful missionary. In fact, one of his daughters, I see, was converted, included many years ago when we had him there. And he sent me this article. I know some of you know that know about the cruel rule, and I mean, in that part of the world. And this is what Mr. Dean says in this letter. The Center for Protestant Missions in Zurich, its climax, November the fifth, When thirty thousand people crowded into the national stadium in Kinshasa, the capital, Yosia Bhutto and Shadrak Kahawa were present and reported that the address given by Liberia's Christian vice president was a good gospel message. Isn't that wonderful? To find that our men in those countries, the Christian men who know what the gospel is, This is the stadium where four years ago, Hamad Ali recovered the world's heavyweight boxing title from George Foreman. But Foreman came back to Zare for the centenary and joined national evangelists in evangelistic meetings in major Zarian cities. He gave convincing personal testimony to his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He professed to trust Christ three years ago and returned to say, that was the year after he lost the World Championship. He professed to trust Christ three years ago and returned to say, found this worldly boxing, long-lived spiritual boxing against the devil, long-lived Jesus Christ. Another wonderful testimony. And this national stamp there, and they have these two boxes in the ring. And when I read that, I thought, My is my gospel wonderful. Now, four of them lost that bout, but he won the next one. When he had the victory over the devil and Ohama Ali Ali, he won that fight, but he's going to lose the next one unless he gets to know Christ. Because I don't know the first thing about God's salvation. So it's a wonderful thing to know Christ as your personal Savior. Here's a man that wore a reputation. I don't think I'd like to get a ring with him, although I've got a handful of dynamite I've given, but he's already got saved. So I trust that to show you the power of the gospel, the state of I am like that. Now this morning in our message, here you have the outworking of what the Lord Jesus said in verse twelve of chapter four of chapter eight. He says, I am light. of the world. And here he gives us a demonstration that he is the light of the world. He's giving a man who sat in darkness. He gives them light. He gives him light. And that's why he came. He came that those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death might have light. You know the most important thing in light is that the lips, or the eyes of your understanding, might be opened. The eyes of your understanding might be opened, and that's what God wants to open this morning. If you're not a Christian, you're in darkness, and Satan has blinded the mind to them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, should shine unto them, and they should be saved. till you conceive of a person saying, I want to be blind. You want to be blind? Yes, I want to be blind. Physically? And you'll not be able to see God's willful handiwork in your loved one. You want to be blind? You think something's wrong with a man or a woman who willingly, voluntarily, wants to be blind. It's hard to understand. And yet, would you believe me, there are men and women who want to be blind spiritually. Men love darkness rather than light because of these dreams. And if there are any here this morning unsaved, you are willfully, deliberately, wanting to be blind to God's wonderful salvation. They're hard to conceive of them. Far better to have spiritual eyesight. and be blind physically. And I want to say this, you may see all this world with you and gold and glamour, but you'll never be satisfied. And soon you have the assurance you're going to see a king in his duty. And all the greatest of women loved ones gone before. Yet it's the most stringent, hard to apprehend, that men and women with intelligence would sooner be blind to spiritual things. Blind to spiritual things and have eyes for missionaries. God put one over against the other. And I trust, friend, that you are not against me. But your spiritual eyes have not been opened. I trust our gracious God will open them this morning. The chapter begins with a blind individual. It ends with a blind nation. This one and this blind. At the end of the chapter, that Jewish system, through its representatives, the tribes and Pharisees, were blind. Blind. A nation is made up of individuals. Would you like this entire country to be full of people, unsaved? Wouldn't it be a tragedy? If every person in the United States was blind to God, blind to His salvation, I wouldn't want to live. And yet that way has the way things are going. The Bible tells us plainly of the latter days, a nation is made up of individuals. And here at the beginning of the chapter, an individual is blind at the end. Old nation is referred to as being blind. People today seem less interested in salvation than they used to be. Satan is gradually taking over, and under the reign of the coming Antichrist, people will be blind to God. What a world to live in. How wonderful to live in a country where everyone is saved. Everyone is born again. Everyone knows Christ. A wonderful country. for years countries are made up of individuals. What about you? You know, Bible, you have predation with the Lord open the eyes of the blind people. Well, over in Mark eight, they brought to the Lord Jesus. He was in Bethesda at the time, and they brought to him a man who was blind. You know what the Lord did? He took them by the hand and he led them out of the city into the country. What's significant, isn't it? Why did he do that? Because that's one of the cities he had condemned. And so the Lord said, all right, you condemn my ministry. Here's one man who wants to get his eyes open. I'm taken outside your city. This environment is that. And the Lord took him in hand, and before you get saved, if your eyes open, the Lord will have to take you in hand. I led this man outside the city. There are certain environments in which the Lord will not work. One is a modern church that doesn't believe in the fundamentals of the Word of God. He took the man outside all the city. Man-owned cities, the first one who built a city in the Bible was Cain, and the Bible says he was of that wicked one, and he's the fifth one to build a city. There's been a lot of cities built in cities, and they're not very pleasant places. City may speak of the sense of wisdom, and also of architecture, industry, wealth, wickedness, trouble. There's a lot of trouble in a big city. That's what man's done. Some cities are the headquarters of great religious unions, and millions of mined are mined being poisoned from what flows out of those cities. Man makes cities. God makes the country up. You can't look at the lovely rolling hills and the rivers and the mountains and say, man, he did. He didn't. He's spoiling it. God made the country, man makes the city. And here's the Lord. He takes this man outside the city into the open country. And here's where he opened the man's eyes. What did he do? He spat in his eyes. Well, that's a humiliating thing to do. Someone pat on your eyes, you'd be ready to react. He spat it. the man's eyes. And he also made clay, got some clay, and he made some paddies. And he put these on the man's eyes. What a victory you've got here. He said, do you see any of it? The man says, I see men. Trees walk up. He didn't see anything clear. The discernment wasn't right. After none put that verification of that mud patty on his eyes, he couldn't see whether it was a man or whether it was a tree. He saw some movement there. I see men as trees walking. Nice looking through a steam window in your house. You just can't detect what's on the outside. Pretty significant men are trees. There was one man who was made to a tree. A lot of people do not have a discernment to understand the cross. So guys, they need further light. Take assurance. Something opens up to them in the scriptures, and they see everything plainly. When the Lord announces the second time, He touched them. He saw everything plainly and wonderful. God wants you to see his salvation cleanly. and blame. No need being an apogonist. He wants you to understand definitely what his salvation is. He wants you to understand the cross, the permening of the cross. What does the cross teach us? It teaches us God's love for sinners. It teaches God's hatred for sins. It teaches God's righteousness that he will punish them. The cross tells us the story we can save, have everlasting life, and never perish, and ever come into condemnation. This is the meaning of the cross. And so the poor man, the beginner, he couldn't see things distinctly at all. It was all blurred. But when the Lord touched him the second time, the good time, tell me that it was the second lesson. It wasn't. Just to mean there are times when people can't see it quite clear at the beginning. And then the Word of God opens it up and it's the everything clear. I know I'm saved. I know I'm going to heaven. I know my sins are forgiven. I know I have everlasting. I know it. God says it. And I believe it. How remarkable they are concerning this man. He saw everything clearly. Then the second case where the Lord opened the eyes, and ends over in Luke eighteen and around verse thirty-five, blind Bartimaeus, he sat by the wall there the city, begging. Poor blind beggar. That had been his occupation for quite a while. He hears a multitude, and in the midst of all this clutter, How we knew that it was the Lord Jesus passing by. No one knew possibly he got it from the crowd. Someone says, Jesus, that's Jesus, son of David. And out from that crowd was a cry. Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. The crowd said, stop harlors. You're making too much noise. Hush. He wouldn't hush. He said the second time, Jesus, thou son of David, must be on me. And the son of God spoke. And in spite of all the noise, it was something you reached this year. It was the cry of a pooled by the devil. And I'll tell you one thing for another, the cry of the big monstrosity. If anyone is anxious and saved and wants to be saved, There's an ear up the heaven that very sensitive to the cry of the Lord. Lord, I want to be saved. And above the crackle of all the noise of his pool, if anyone in this meeting wants to be saved this morning, he'll capture a whisper. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. When the Lord heard that, he said, They brought the man to the Lord Jesus, and he said, the Lord said to him, What wisdom that I shall do unto you? Here is his chance. What proof that I shall do unto thee? What is that? Lord, fill my cup with pennies. Please give me the money. No one has dropped the coin in that cup all morning. Lord, I need money. Please give me money. He didn't mention that. When the Lord said in the old heaven and earth, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? The blind man didn't ask for money. He didn't ask for lengthening of life. What was his crime? Lord, thy mightless change thy sight. That was a challenge. His church, the Lord is here. The challenge, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? The Lord is challenging you this morning. What without? Do you want the Lord to give you health? Do you want the Lord to give you strength? Do you want the Lord to give you a good time? Do you want him to give you fame? Do you want him to give you wealth? What do you want the Lord to do this morning? He's challenging you. Have you got one sensible answer? No. I might be saved. That's my desire and ambition in life. Man is not here now. He used to be at the chapel many years ago. He didn't live in Albany. He took me over to see his foreman at one of the factories in town. He told me, sir, I make my foreman's angels, sir. And I talked to him earlier about being saved. He said, I think he's interested. He said he'd like to talk to me. So he took me over. And he happened to have the four other businessmen in his office at that time. It was kind of childish. And so this brother introduced me to him. And he said, he said, you'd like to talk to me. Well, I said, I'm so busy. Brother Wilson, we could come back some other time. He said, I got so much to do. I said, I've only got one question to ask you. I can put my point across in just a minute. I won't take up much of your time. He says, what's that? Do you want Christ more than anything else in all the world? He says, preacher, you've got to know it too quick. That's the whole thing. Do you want Christ more than anything else in all the world? It's just that quick. That's the question he was born in. Christ said to this time... What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? He says, Lord, that I may receive my life. If that man in that office had meant business that day and lived like a true value of things, he would have said to these men, gentlemen, you see in my mouth, in my office, I'm going to another room, all my talk to the speaker. If he had a value, his soul shall be more than material. If you're being challenged this morning, You sit in darkness in the shadow of death. What with thou that I shall do unto thee, says the Lord. What is thy desire? What do you want most in this life? Are you ready to say, Lord, that I might be saved? That's what I want. I've been in my sins long enough. I'm not happy. I'm not satisfied. I won't convince me. I want security. I want to know my sins are all forgiven. I want to know if death strikes are the inherent. This is what I want. What with thou that I shall do unto thee? That the Lord Jesus is challenging you with this morning. How wonderful. What a change. The Lord has received thy sight. Thy faith saved me. The man got what he desired. luck will see me in the other incident. The Lord used fickle and plain. He didn't do it here. He just used his words. Just used his words. You see thy sight, thy faith must be made. All you need this morning is to believe his word. That's it. And you can leave this word if you want it. The Bible says that, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then thou shalt be saved. You don't need any ordinances. No good works on your part. No merit, just the fool lost to it. Trust in Christ, taking him out of his word. Lord, he said it, I believe it. That is, receive thy sight. And he did. And he'll say, he's just that quick. you want to be saved this morning. Now in this chapter we read chapter nine, here's a man and he's blind for birth. I don't know what the is, the man might be, but every morning. You know it's wonderful to know that babies, little children, and how many years of accountability, if they die they go to heaven. They're covered by the blood of Christ. They're sinners because of Adam's sin. That was the sin of the world that made all sinners, but Christ came as a lamb of God to bear away the sin of the world. Under that headache, babies and children are sinners, and if they die, they are covered by the blood. But when a man of man comes to age or responsibility, they know what the gospel is, and they reject it. If no longer their sin is longer because of Adam's sin, their sin is because of their own and their rejected Christ. It comes in the age of responsibility and have not responded in favor of God's wonderful salvation. My point is, these little ones covered by the blood until the age of responsibility, they never know the sin and joy of sin today. although the blood takes them to heaven because they're young. Yet they do not know the sin and the joy of sin forgiven like those who come of age. They receive Christ and what a prayer. My sins are gone. My dear all are some God's presence now and more. For it is to know I am saved by the blood of the Christian Thai ones. And so you had it incident with this man. But what thinking you have on this case? They said, who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind? Saying the disciples in the afternoon discussion, who did sin? Well, the parents were born sinners, and of course that boy or young man is a sinner too. All of sin, in some sort of a good job. So it wasn't a case of their butcher, sinners had brought about this blindness. Evidently it was some accident, some tragedy in nature that this man was blind. Not because of the pair having committed some crime, been unfaithful to each other, unhear goddess parties. No, and this boy didn't do anything to bring out his blindness. But these men saw possibly they were blitzed, all were blind, because their parents had made a mistake, or because boy did something. And the Lord says, that's not the case. And he can't be mistakenly what he says there in verse three. Jesus answered, Neither have this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Here's a case of tragedy. is a case of accident, not the income or misbehavior on the part of the adult or the individual's concerns. And my nature is full of tragedy, such as that. It could be that some of these people have a text come into their mind when the Lord said, but for when they looked upon this fellow, who did this who sinned, this man his parents. Maybe this ought to text over in the Old Testament. In Eccles chapter twenty and five you read this, thou shalt not bow down, he's talking now to parents, thou shalt not bow down myself to any given image, nor serve them, for I, Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting me and pity of the fathers upon the children until the third or fourth generation. There are cases where children are in blindness, clearly blind to God's salvation because of the fault of the parents. They did not bring those children up to them for an admonition of the Lord. They did not have a child in the way it should go, but it will go that it shall depart from it. Parents have a fearful responsibility. What about your children? Are they unsaved because you're unsaved? Are they indifference because you're indifference? How much better your children are saved because you're indifference? Yes, children, these are the third and fourth generation that are indifference and the part of parents is God's wonderful standard. You are not interested, so your children are not interested, and their children are not interested, and their children are not interested. There's a world in fourth generation. Children can suffer spiritually. For this case, it wasn't because of the film's sin, or this boy's sin that he was blind, or something that was an act of nature. Yet God can be glorified in it, as his Lord said on this occasion. Yet the Son of Man can be glorified. God can be glorified in these tragedies in life, as he was glorified in this. I've known people, and they were born crippled, some were born blind, some born with a bad disease, wouldn't live long, and yet before they died, they come to know Christ. and how bright and brilliant they were in their testimony. And they lived for Christ a few years in. God was glorified in them. God can take the cruelties, the faculties of nature, and make them displays of sovereign grace, and those people will glorify them forever. You know, from this occasion, the sight was, they wanted to discuss the man's blindness. God wanted to bless the man with sight. These, then, wanted to talk about man's past. How come he was born blind? God says, I'm interested in this future. I want him to hear, answer, and see. Don't worry about the past, then. It's how it came that you are as you are. not interested in your presence and teacher. I don't care what you've done in the past. God wants to take care of that and wipe it out and give you an ease out. He's interested in your teaching. And we can make the slate clean this morning. You'll know your sins. Oh, forgive it. Now he comes to this man's cleansing, somewhat similar to the first man we mentioned. The Lord here makes patty, and he puts the mud in the eyes of this man. Now he says, go to the pool of styloam and walk. Maybe this fellow should see a little, or why would the Lord put mud in his eyes? Maybe he could see just a little bit. If he could see a little bit, before he could appear now, the Lord just passage of mud in his eyes, he couldn't feel the total darkness. What does it mean? You know, I've met people. Well, I wouldn't say I'm totally blind. I know a little religion. And I live a good life, but I go on telling you what they do and what they know. Then you'll never get saved that way, not until you're totally lost. Totally bluff. You know absolutely nothing. about salvation until you come to know Jesus Christ. And first, when a person exhaled is I'm a fool not a sinner. Then he says, God will see if I'm not a sinner. So the Lord puts prey on this man's eyes until the day when you get saved, when I'm convicted of your sin, everything is so dark. so dreadfully that you're lost. You're helpless. You're hopeless. And that's when you cry out for mercy, not when the Lord will save you. If you think there's any good in you or any light in you, no one can do. Or some can say, I know I make a few mistakes. You're all mistakes. And talk to them about them. You're a great mistake. Oh, well, I've tried to win some bad things. You're all bad, one hundred percent. Well, I know I've sinned a little bit. You're all sin. You're just a sinner from head to foot, just with the violence. From the soul of the foot to the crown of the head, there's no soundness in you. The two bruises, two stifling swords, and you've bound up the rudiment. This is God's picture of a poor sinner blind, lost. And you'll turn loose. In a treacherous country, treacherous terrain, there have been a steep cliff, and you're on your own, and you go joking and laughing. Your case is hopeless. You better stop stepping and say, somebody help me. I don't want to go over that cliff. Friend, you're a lost sinner. Your case is hopeless. You better try out for someone to help you and take your hand, and he will. You're just that foolish. You know, when you start to think of this man getting his eyes open, what a wonderful experience it was. Ridley in the dark. And when you look at the Lord, he became totally, truly. There's a young lady sitting here going. This happened many years ago. She was graduated from high school, was going to a group. of some other students down to the beach to have a weekend. Week. And I was a little apprehensive myself. I'm very happy the next week when she came back. I was in the room, if I remember, talking to someone else. But she came to me. As it happened the Sunday night before, I preached on such a coming of sight. And the Lord drove it home so hard she had a miserable week down there. He didn't have a good week at all. She couldn't enjoy it. But when she came back, and when she entered that door, she said, I'm lost. I want to be sick. I want Christ. That was her exact line. I'm lost. I want Christ. And then that's the point. When you're at the point where you say, I'm lost, I want Christ. I want Christ. And I want him now. The scripture might infer here, the Lord said, I think it's in verse three, for I must work the works of him that set me while this day the night comes when no man can work. The Lord says, I'm not going to be here all day with his eyes. You better get the work from now. And that's true. The time coming when there's an old mortal getting saved, this is the opportunity. You know, this seems kind of strange for the Lord to do. It makes me play out of stepping. It seems kind of foolish. Some of these big, higher-earning folks in these universities, they laugh at that. That's not a foolish thing. Yes? The Bible says, concerning the gospel, I'm telling you, Bible, the preaching of the cross is to them that very foolishness. But unto us today, and are saved, it is the power of God. Is that wonderful? You know, those who say, oh, the preaching of a message, that's foolishness. Why not do you? You can say it. And there in that chapter that we referred to over in chapter verse number one, God is bringing before us the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of God. The preaching of the cross is to go to earn men's foolishness. But unto those of us who believe, and I say, that the power of God, he is not foolishness. It burdensome to accept Jesus Christ, as thou wilt send me. Foolish, you have saved men by the foolishness of preaching. No, not foolish preaching. It doesn't save men by foolishness, but the foolishest art. It seems, I mean, it's the only way to be saved. You're telling me a message about what happened nineteen hundred years ago when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, put your sins upon him and punish him in your stead. Nineteen hundred years later, you hear the message, you believe it. You accept Christ and you're saved. Yes, a man of high knowledge, that's a lot of foolishness. It isn't. It's a lot of wisdom. But I get my soul saved. This is what God's offering you. Not with anything I do. This man's got a command. Where in the world? In the pool of silos. The Lord didn't promise him his eyesight. He didn't do that. The Lord after ushering his eyes, now he says, go wash in the pool of silos. And the Lord didn't make a promise. He will give his eyes away. This man took his word. He wasn't able to see what the Lord was doing, sitting on the ground, and making clay, and putting it on his eyes. He was lying. And we said, go to the pool of Spinalum. And that's quite a pool. It's the only pool in existence today that's referred in the Bible. Fifty-three feet long, eighteen feet wide, nineteen feet deep, and the shot steps that go down the side. All the way down to the bottom, sometimes the pool gets over. Some of you don't. And the Lord said to this blind man, go to the pool of Siloam and walk. And that fellow didn't lose any time. He must have gone down many times to walk. He felt his way along the wall. He found that in. Down the steps he went till his feet touched water would get deep and he scooped up the water into his eyes and lost the way in the mud. He received his sight. Now John G. went back up, things kept trickling. He went down. He can see now. He's got his eyes in it. The Lord gave him a command. Go! It was a poo, a shalom, and walk. What did he do? He went. He walked. He came here. He just did what the Lord told him. And he got what the Lord told him. He didn't promise it to him, but he said, The Lord knew what would happen. When he washed his eyes, he knew he would receive his thanks. Here is a man who takes Christ out of his naked word. He heard the message, go to the field of Siloam and walk. Now, suppose on the way there, someone stopped and he said, Listen. Don't listen to that. That's not a foolish one. Take that mud out of your life. But he had, he was filled with water. No sight until he fuller days, he goes down, he gets to the water, he scoops it up, and wipes his eyes, and he's fuller, he receives his sight. Then he's got the trust, Christ told him, Firm, completely and only, if Jesus Christ paid for me on the cross to pay the stresses of plunge of some all sin. And you can have your eyes open this morning. My eyes will open at the age of nineteen away up in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. When my own father pointed me to Christ, quarter past nine on the third of May, nineteen fifty-five, I said I again out to Christ. I'd heard of him all my life, one little cop, For nineteen years, I knew the gospel. I was still in the dark. And I was willfully in the dark. I wanted to spare my sins. How I was in the dark a hockey career. And that night, a poor character killer. I did exactly what the Lord told me to do. I accepted him. I trusted him. My eyes opened. In other words, out of my understanding, I understand it all now. He has died for me. He prayed my death. He suffered from my sins. And I'm sick. My eyes haven't been shut down. They're open. They're never shut. And now I see the king in his glory. See him face to face. The perfect likeness we have in all his ways of troubles. He then made me despair. Are you going out of your sleep this morning groping in the darkness? Or are you going out of your eyes open? Once I was blind, now I see. Will you talk to us? Will you say yes? I will. I'll talk to you right now. You do it. And we beg you to save your mind. Stand for it. Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus, that you can enter thy presence, be asked thy blessing on thy holy word. We thank thee for this demonstration of that. That the Lord Jesus is the light of the world. And he opened the eyes of these men. And he opened the eyes of millions and millions of sinners. And he opened eyes of slaves. If someone desired to have his eyes open. come to Christ. Oh, may it come to the Lord Jesus this morning. Why, Lord, that I might receive my sight, the path of death unto life, from darkness into light, may it be revealed from some year after my Savior's name. Amen. So we sing in closing, Holy Testament, Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him. Now he will save you. He will save you now. He will save you now. If you're not a Christian, you'd like to become a Christian this morning, and if you'd like to see you become a Christian, then you'll make your decision. Maybe you have gotten saved. And you haven't probably confessed it, but you're trying to do it. You stand and say, Shall there we know by sin, oh blessed mercy with the Lord, and he will surely give you as by trust me in his word. Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now. He will save you, he will save you now. Verse two will be the last. We don't believe in the law of what it calls. If you're ready to be saved, the Lord's ready to save you. But these things just then. For she is a dead friend with blood, with blessings to be shown. Flunder into the crimson flood that was just white and snow. Only trust him, only trust him now. He will play you, he will play, he will play you now.