Gooding, David: 13 - On the Road with Jesus

And tonight we continue with our study of the Gospel by John, and on our last occasion we were studying in some detail the third of the journeys that our Lord Jesus made to Jerusalem and away, those journeys that form the framework and structure of the Gospel by John. We conducted a survey of the seven chapters, noticing what the general problem is that is put at the front of the journey at the beginning of chapter seven. That is the problems connected with God's method of disclosing himself and revealing himself to mankind through our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And then we noticed that in answer to the problem with which chapter seven begins, there are given four answers, not just one answer. This is a complicated matter, and to give the full range of answers, it requires four different approaches. So then, having surveyed them in general, we ended last week by looking in some more detail at chapter seven. That leaves three more chapters to this third journey, and I have become painfully aware that when we, and if we complete se- chapters seven, eight, nine, and ten, we are still somewhat less than halfway through the gospel, in spite of all our previous valiant efforts, you'll see. And we are left with just one more af- one more session, one more evening after tonight. Reason would have it, therefore, that I must tonight even more restrain my impetuous self from wandering off into sermonizing, you'll see, which is very rarely appropriate anyway, and content myself with more of a bird's eye view, suggesting avenues that you might care to add to all the other avenues that you pursue when you study John's gospel by yourself. So then, last week, we considered chapter seven and noticed that it is concerned, uh, uh, with got Christ's basic approach to Jerusalem when he was here on earth. How that he went up to the feast incognito, uh, uh, deliberately so, so that without raising the question of his identity, he might teach the people and make his first approach to the nation his teaching of them. And we noticed last week the tremendous surprise and admiration as they wondered at the quality of his teaching. We drew ourselves an appropriate lesson therefrom in our own witness for the Lord Jesus, that sometimes that is a very well-advised approach to get people interested in the magnificence, the attractiveness, the glory of our Lord's teaching, even at the basic level of literary approach to that teaching, and then, of course, to its moral quality. We heard our Lord Jesus therefore challenge the crowd to use their moral judgment on his teaching and judge of its moral quality. Unregenerate men though they were, and in one sense dead in trespasses and in sins, yet they could use their moral judgment on Christ's teaching. That is where our Lord began his approach. Then we discovered that very soon he announced he was going away, and that was not, of course, in defeat. His going away was part of God's self-revelation. Unless he went, the Holy Spirit would not come. And uh, on this line of approach, our Lord's teaching, then the final step in the evidence is the coming of the Holy Spirit. Coming not simply, coming as sent by the Lord Jesus. Our Lord and his teaching are the final word to men, but the final witness to men is the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. That was always God's plan. The Holy Spirit does not come as some kind of an emergency measure after this world crucified Christ and rejected him. It was always God's plan in his self-revelation to men that his son should be the last word, but not the last witness. The last divine witness is the Holy Spirit himself. And wonderfully satisfying it is when we come to the blessed Lord Jesus and find that the risen Lord can give us his Holy Spirit and with him the thirst-quenching water of life. It is not just the interest of solving a theological, still less an academic problem, that we come to see who Jesus is. It is the life-giving, soul-thirst-quenching water that satisfies the heart, the mind, the intellect, the emotions, and above all, the human spirit to discover who Jesus is. And we moved on then a little bit to notice that in chapter eight, our Lord is still asking men to use their moral judgment, but now not on his teaching, but on them themselves. He claims here to be the light of the world, and you will see the light in action. It is one of the evidences of light that when we come into the light, we can see things that before we were not able to see. That, of course, is one way of discovering the truth of Christ's claim that he is the light of this world, that when we come near him and allow him to shed his light upon us, we not only see the truth and quality of his teaching, we begin to see ourselves as we never saw ourselves before, and that, of course, can on times be decidedly painful. So let's take up there, and you have a sheet of notes in front of you. It's a wodge of a sheet, at least you should have, and it puts in columns some of the highlights of chapters seven, eight, nine, and ten. Because one, they are well known. What I aim to do is to pick out some of the details and show how they are related as a whole to the general theme of these chapters. First of all, then Christ as the light, demonstrating himself to be such in the initial i- i- incident of chapter eight when they bring the woman taken in adultery to the Lord Jesus. As we noticed on the last occasion, their question to him, Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned, what sayest thou, was meant as a trick question. It was not an honest question. If our Lord said, no, don't stone the woman, they would say that they are, he lets down the standard of God's word. He doesn't really believe the Old Testament, doesn't insist on its holy demands. If he said, yes, stone the woman, they would report him to the governor Pilate because it was wrong of Israelites, le- illegal for Israelites at that stage in history to exercise capital punishment. The Romans had reserved that for themselves. They thought, therefore, that whatever the Lord Jesus answered, they could find grounds for accusing him. But they reckoned without him being who he was. They came prating to him about the law of Moses. Moses said in the law that such should be stoned. What sayest thou? One other matter then at this point we should observe again and be sure we have observed, is that they were not asking him whether he considered adultery wrong or not. This is a story that is much quoted, uh, sometimes even on the BBC, not renowned for their godliness, uh, by people that would urge upon us that we should take a less judgmental attitude to these sexual misdemeanors, and that our Lord himself, on times, was rather genially disposed towards, uh, uh, i- i- sexually immoral people, and that the church had do better to follow his example and not be judgmental. That is a nonsense, a plain nonsense. They weren't asking him, was adultery right or wrong? Did he approve of adultery, uh, only to find, no, he didn't disapprove of it like they, some people thought he did. The village court had already found this woman guilty. The sentence in the law was that should she be, she should be stoned. What they were asking him for was his sentence, his verdict. Should they execute the penalty of the law or not? Not was she guilty? Was adultery sinful? But should you execute the penalty of Moses' law? And as we have observed many times now, our Lord took the occasion to show not only that he agreed with the law, but he was greater than Moses' law. He was, in fact, the lawgiver incarnate. So he stooped and wrote with his finger on the ground, just as God once upon a time had written with his finger on the tables of stone and given thus the law to Moses. When he lifted himself up, he said, he that is without sin cast the first stone at her, and after a moment's pause, they turned round and went out. Foolish men, in a way, for by going out, they had demonstrated their own conscience that they were guilty and sinful. Why didn't they brave it out and pick up a stone and begin to stone the woman? By refraining from stoning, they were convicting themselves of being sinful. Why didn't they stay and s- and face it out? Because instinctively they knew that if they had dared stay, it would have exposed them. They were exposed whether they went or whether they stayed. Here then was the lawgiver himself in action, demonstrating himself to be the light of the world. When he lifted up himself the second time, he found the all the accusers gone and said to the woman, did no man condemn thee? She said, no man, Lord. And he said, neither do I condemn thee. Go in peace, sin no more. He wrote a second time. It is true in Exodus that God wrote with his finger the law the first time. And scarce had he written it, but what Israel committed their grave sin of apostasy and made themselves the golden calf. And God would have destroyed them completely had it not been for the intercessions of Moses, and God in his mercy forgave them and condescended in his grace to write the law the second time. So here, and when he lifted up from himself from writing the second time, it was indeed a word merc- a word of mercy to the woman. Neither do I condemn thee. In other words, I don't order the sentence of the law to be carried out. How could he, as a lawgiver, as the lawgiver, refrain from what his own justice demanded, that the sentence be carried out? And we shall all know the answer without further elaboration. A few months later, he was to bear the penalty of his own law himself. A law, a a lawgiver then, Christ the light of the world, more powerful than Moses' law in its ability con- to convict, to search the heart, and to deal not merely with externals but internals. And secondly, greater than Moses' law, because it cast light beyond the rigors of the law, to that greater way that God has found for condemning our sin, but saving us from its penalty, by bearing a penalty himself. Now then, if we look just briefly over the page on your notes and at chapter eight, verse twelve to thirty eight, we shall find what follows now is the question of the validity of Christ's testimony. We may care to notice from our sheaf of notes that in the, uh, first column, chapter seven on page two, the question is of the validity of Christ's teachings and his works. Now in chapter eight, it's the question of the validity of Christ's testimony, his witness. In chapter nine, it's going to be the question of the validity of the blind man's own testimony. Validity, therefore, of testimony. How do we know that Jesus Christ's testimony is true? You stand there saying that you are the light of the world, says the Pharisees, but you see, thou bearest witness of thyself. It's just you that's saying so. Anybody can get up on his hind legs and say, I'm the light of the world. Doesn't make it so just because you claim so, said the Pharisees. And what is more, you bear witness of yourself. You've nobody to corroborate you. So how shall we accept your testimony? It was a little bit silly, wasn't it? Do you see? Uh, if you and I are standing in the pitch black outside a closed door, and I say to you there's a light inside that room, and you say to me, prove it, well, I shall say, well, the way to prove it is just to open the door and step in, do you see? Into the light, that's how you prove it, not by some long argument, do you see? Some abstruse chemical formula or some lecture in physics. You just open the door and step into the light. And then when you step into the light and it sheds its beams upon you and you see your dirty face as you never saw it before, and what you thought was beautiful is a little bit less than you thought, uh, do you see? Then if you turn around to me and say, ah, yes, you say that's a light up there, but prove it's a light. Then you will be writing your own admission to the hospital for the weak-minded. Light is something that is self-evident. You don't have to prove it's a light. Yes, but our Lord in his mercy, he wasn't always pushing people to the limits of their rather limited logical powers, but condescended to their level. How would they know his claim was true? They said, you are by yourself. All right, says Christ. Notice how carefully and fairly he argues with them. Verse fourteen, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, for I know whence I came and whither I go, but you not know not whence I come and whither I go. He needs no corroboration for his witness to be true. Let's take an analogy. There are in this big world two kinds of swans. One lot are white, and the other lot are black. But there were many ages that went by in the West when the only kind of swan we knew in the Western world were white swans, and therefore swans were, by definition, white. As far as we knew, if a bird was black, one thing it couldn't be, and that was a swan. But that, you see, was the, was the, uh, uh, uh, uh, the result of our ignorance. Way down in Australia, where people hang upside down by their feet, there were black swans all the time, you'll see. Now, suppose in those distant bygone ages, an Australian had appeared, you'll see, and announced to us, uh, i- i- in his very attractive lingo, that in his country there were white swans. And he's the only person to say it, you'll see, in our quarters. All the rest of our learned men say it's not so. Swans are white by definition, you'll see. Well, now what shall we say to this Australian? Shall we say, that's you're bearing witness yourself, you'll see. You've no corroboration, have you? So we're not going to believe you. That would be less than intelligent. So long as he gives evidence of being an otherwise reliable man, we should say, how interesting, we've never heard of it before, but uh, uh, if you say so, we must investigate it. The fact that he was the only one to tell us, the only one that had come from that far country to tell us, does not by itself invalidate his witness. And our Lord makes the point, I have come down from heaven. I know whence I come. You've never been there, gentlemen. I am the only one in that sense that had ever come down from heaven. The fact that I'm the only one doesn't invalidate my witness as to what I have seen and to who I am. At point number one. At point number two, further condescending in his mercy. I couldn't emphasize it too much, how merciful Christ was in his personal and public witness, and how patient, prepared to follow the argument and reason it through. God give us the grace and the ability to follow his example. But all right, he says, gentlemen, um, uh, let's come to this, that in your law it is written the witness of two men is valid. In a law court in Israel, particularly in capital cases, uh, then the, the lawyers were forbidden to condemn the man in the dock at the mouth of simple, simply one witness. You had in the law courts to have at least two witnesses to a man's guilt before he could be executed. And now our Lord, in his mercy, condescends to that level, to, uh, cite the, the demands of their law in the law courts. As I say, it's not altogether inappropriate, really, is it? Do you see? You don't, uh, summon your electric light bulb into a law court and say, I'm not going to believe that this is a light unless I can get two witnesses. Do you see? But our Lord in his mercy is condescending to these difficult men that are thinking up every argument they can try, you'll see. So he says, uh, well, if that be the requirement that there be two witnesses, I can provide the two, for I'm one, and my father is the other. Now, at that point, we shall remember this, and we need to keep it firmly in our minds, that here is our Lord witnessing not to the hot and tots of Africa, he is witnessing to classical Jews who do profess to believe in God. It is the opinion of one of the more recent scholars on, uh, writing on this gospel that John's gospel was written as a gospel tract to Jews rather than to Gentiles. At any rate, these Jews historically to whom he was, these people to whom he was talking were Jews, and they profess to believe in God. All right, says Christ, now you have two witnesses. You'll see, ponder that a moment. As theologians will know that the Son is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit in a tri-unity, one indivisible tri-unity. Yes. We don't believe in three gods. And when we get home to eternity, we shall not see three gods sitting on three separate thrones, shall we? There are not three gods, there's only one God. And yet, in God's mercy, seeing he has revealed himself through Jesus Christ our Lord, the incarnate Son of God, the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus does give us, in a sense, two witnesses, and we may rightly speak of the Father in heaven and the Son of God on earth, and hold them separate in our thinking, though in another sense they are one. And our Lord points this out, therefore. Eh, they can, uh, uh, not merely listen to his word, hear his judgments, but they can refer the whole matter to that other witness that is the Father, and see whether they agree or not, and thus find confirmation. At least they could have done. If their professed knowledge of the Father had been genuine, and they had actually known the Father. But alas, says our Lord Jesus, you'll see. They said unto him, where is thy Father? Jesus answered, you ni- you know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also. These words spake he in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no man took him because his hour has not yet come. Therein, therefore, was the difficulty. In that sense, he couldn't meet their demand for a double witness, for the other witness they did not know. What obstacles human sin has placed in the way of God revealing himself to mankind. How then would our Lord do, and what would God do in the face of it? The verses that follow, verses twenty one to, uh, thirty, You'll see, uh, and for that we have to come over the page of your notes. Verses twenty one to thirty. Our Lord, as you see from the heading, announces one once more his going away. Notice that repetition in chapter seven. His going away is part of the deliberate tactics for making God known. So now we are to find the theme arise again. Our Lord's going away is part of God's tactics for making himself known. But notice the drama of it and the sense of tragedy there is about it. I go away and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins, says he. Whither I go, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said, will he kill himself that he saith, whither I go, you cannot come? And he said unto them, you are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins, for except you believe that I am, you shall die in your sins. So I pause to point out again tonight, because it is so important, the implication of what now our Lord is saying. Except you believe that I am, in Greek is ego ami. Now, in some parts of the Gospel of John, that phrase ego ami, I am, is simply the Greek equivalent of what we would say if we remarked, it is I. Do you see? Uh, um, so, uh, when in the garden, for instance, the soldiers come to arrest him, and our Lord goes forward and says, whom seek ye? And they say, Jesus of Nazareth. He replies, ego ami, meaning I am he, it's I. Do you see? Uh, context shows it, but here it is impossible to translate it, it is I, isn't it? Wouldn't make sense. What he is saying is, therefore, uh, I accept you believe that I am he. You shall die in your sins. I'm who? No, it's simply I am. In Isaiah forty eight and elsewhere in Isaiah, when God is proclaiming his deity, his unique deity, he says, uh, from everlasting to everlasting, ami hu, I he. It is a Hebrew idiom in which God announces his unique, utterly incomparable deity. I am. There is none beside me. I know not any. Now, when the Jews came to translate that into Greek, the phrase anihu, they translated in Greek as ego eimi, I am. And therefore, read in Greek, those verses would say, from everlasting to everlasting, I am. It is a claim, the most extreme and explicit claim on the lips of our Lord to be. Now I pause here because some of you have been, and some of you will be, and some of you constantly are pestered by, uh, Jehovah Witnesses and such like people, who, if they can, will get you arguing about John's Gospel chapter one and verse one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God. And if you consent to argue with them on those verses, they will quote you Greek at a great length, you'll see. It is quite perverse, but they will quote you Greek and argue this, that, and the other. If you don't happen to know Greek, well, the argument may go beyond you. My suggestion is that it would be better to use this verse. Where there's no possibility of arguing the Greek. Because the Greek is quite plain and straightforward. As you should know, it is the translation of passages like Isaiah forty eight. Our Lord is saying, except you believe I am. You are who? No, no, says Christ, not a Christian, you are who, I am somebody. I am. It is a claim to deity. And incidentally, it is not always wise of us to quote Proverbs eight as though it referred to the Lord Jesus. Uh, I was brought up, uh, with him. You'll see. Because the Jehovah Witnesses will say, yeah, you are. He was a lesser deity, you'll see. He was brought up alongside of God. Proverbs eight is actually talking about wisdom personified, not, uh, not the second person of the Trinity. Any more than, uh, I mean, the good old beldame wisdom. In the next chapter, you'll meet prudence. Who's she? If wisdom is the second person of the Trinity, who is prudence? They are just Hebrew personifications of these abstract qualities. It is better to stick to plain, straightforward verses like this, you see. I am, says Christ. But see the drama of it, ladies and gentlemen, even as our Lord stood there talking to them on the plane of this temporary earth, this temporary planet. He says, I am from above, you are from beneath, and here is God become incarnate, come down to our planet, that we might put our faith in him, and putting our faith in him, live eternally. But if you believe not that I am, says he, you shall die in your sins, and falling over the precipice of the edge of time, sink into an eternity of eternal death. You'll see, strictly speaking, it is not merely believing that Jesus died for my sins, though that is absolutely fundamental. The issue at stake is, shall I last forever, eternally? To have eternal life, I must make contact with, believe in, and be taken up by the eternal God. It is not enough, not just enough to follow Jesus, the moral teacher. I must make contact with and believe in and come to know and be known by the eternal God. And here is the sorry situation of these men, religious in the extreme, but they don't really know God, and they know now, now don't know his son either, and they are in danger of going over the edge of time into that limitless abyss of endless darkness. How then will they come to know this God? They perceived not, you'll see, that he talked to them of the Father. How will they then come to know him? And our blessed Lord replies, verse twenty eight, when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you know that I am, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things. Here then, in the reference to his being lifted up is another way of talking about his going away. In chapter seven, his going away had in mind his ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon those who believe. But in chapter eight, his going away is phrased in the sense of his being lifted up, that is his cross, that is Calvary. And when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know. And once more we come to the point that Calvary is not a disaster that happens and cut short his testimony for God. Calvary was ever in God's mind the very way in which he would make known himself to men. And see the marvel of God's contrivance. We have just witnessed this scene early in the morning in the temple, when God the lawgiver, now incarnate, had faced sinful men and women and exposed them. I don't suppose they went home singing his praises, do you? In fact, chapter seven began by reminding us that this is the problem that has God has had in making himself known. Said our Lord to his brothers, you'll see, you don't have a problem, gentlemen, I do. You are of this world, I'm not of this world. The world doesn't hate you, but the world hates me because I testify of it that its deeds are evil. Which sets up the barrier that makes men unwilling to face the fact that this one who condemns them and must condemn them, and must expose them, is God. They will fight tooth and nail to resist that conclusion, because if he's God, they are condemned and must slink out into the darkness, so they think. How will God get round it? You say he will so shine, is he not the light of the world? He will so shine, he will so turn the voltage up until the light becomes unendurable. No, indeed not. How would that save anybody? That would merely have men and women cry to the rocks of the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of him that sits upon the throne. How can God make himself known without scaring men and women out of their very senses, and yet condemn their sin, and yet gain their trust? Here is the magnificent story of God's grace. How will he make himself known? When you have lifted up the Son of Man, says he, then shall you know. There is one place on earth where guilty sinners may come and look upon the light of God's presence, know themselves condemned, and yet be unafraid and accepted by God. And that is Calvary. Where he who said to the woman, no, I don't say either that the sentence should be carried out on you, my dear, went to Calvary's cross to insist upon the Moses, Moses' law, indeed his own law, he was the lawgiver, and expose our sin, but in that very act bear the penalty, that we might be unafraid and reconciled to God. If I had have been going to preach, but I mustn't, you see, but if I had have been, I should remind- have reminded you of that ancient piece of history when Israel had gone away from the living God and gone under Jezebel's influence to the worship of Baal. And Elijah staged the great experiment and demonstration. Who is the true God? If Baal be God, serve him. If Jehovah be God, serve him. But how would you know who was the true God, Baal or Jehovah? The priests of Baal built their altars and danced around them and cut themselves in their frenzy, all to no avail. There was no voice, nor any that answered. Allah. Old Baal, he was but a nature god, wasn't he? He was a deification of the storm, a deification of fertility. And when men and women leave the living and the true God, then they make themselves gods of lesser things, and they tend to glorify the creature rather than the creator, do you see? And they had done so, bowing down to Baal, the storm god and the god of fertility, as though they were gods. And in the time of their distress, they danced around their altars and they called, Oh Baal, hear us. There came no voice. Tell it to the ancient Baalites and tell it to your modern friend who's an atheist, won't you? That when in the day of his distress he stands to call upon some power to save him, then the great powers of the universe, the physical powers of the universe, he will discover they don't hear him. They don't care tuppence about him. They are mindless forces with less sense in their heads than we have. And there's none that answers. A man is alone and without help before the temporariness of life and the destructive forces and tendency of nature. How will I know is who is the true God? Elijah built his sacrifice and called upon God, and the fire came down from heaven and accepted the sacrifice. Oh, what a message it is. There is one place on earth where guilty men and women may find God and be sure he's the true God. It is when the fire of God comes down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice that was God's own son. That we might be forgiven. That's God. He would do anything, I say it reverently, rather than his creature perish. If you can't see that's God, well, I nearly said there's no hope for you. What else would you have God say? How else would you expect to see and recognize your creator and the lover of your soul? How else would you recognize him? Not by the fireworks of heaven, would you? By the heart of God, appealing directly to your heart. Not in the chocolate and sugar of mere sentiment either, but in his holiness and divine wrath against sin, but in the limitless extent of his love, that God's own son would die for us sinners. Christ as the light, and Calvary exposes our sin simultaneously, shows us who Jesus is. But also, and the rest of this chapter is devoted to it, you'll see it, um, exposes pseudo disciples. You'll see we're told in John chapter uh eight and verse thirty, as he spake these things, many believed on him. And now we come to another very big problem. Christendom is not unaware of it, is it? Nor are we. That people can profess to believe in Jesus. They can profess to believe in Jesus who died at the cross for their sins. How would you know if their faith is genuine or not? So now our Lord functions as the light of the world to discern between those that are genuine and those that are not. If you continue in my word, said he, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Here speaks the son over his own house with all the majesty and dignity of his sonship. It's marvelous to hear it from his voice. The vast creator of the universe doesn't want slaves in his house. He wants freeborn sons. And if the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. But of course, it is a condition of being made free that you first admit your bondage. Free from what, they said? He said, from sin, and they got annoyed. They didn't mind an easy grace doctrine that said, believe on the Lord Jesus, he died for your sin, trust in him, and you'll be safe forever, and it doesn't matter thereafter how you live. Oh no. The mark of a genuine disciple is this, if you continue in his word, then are you truly his disciples? And if you don't continue in his word, you are not truly one of his disciples. It's like that. You'll see. The mark of a true disciple is that she or he is going on to learn of Christ, that each one might be constantly and continuously and progressively delivered from bondage to sin. But they stood on their supposed spiritual ancestry, and they said, what do you mean talking to us like this? Uh, Abraham is our father, we'd have you know. And then presently they said that, uh, God is our father. And our Lord exposed them. And we come back to the initial story, don't we? It is about a woman taken in adultery, and you know it happens, does it not? That because of that particular sin, sometimes a Mrs. Brown has a child, supposedly by Mr. Brown, but as the child grows up, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the butcher, Mr. Smith. And say what he likes. So yes, I- I'm down in the records at the registry office in Somerset House, or wherever it is nowadays, uh, uh, as Mrs. Mr. Brown, son of Mrs. Brown. Say what you like on paper. But family likeness will out. And to remain looking extraordinarily like Mr. Smith. Yes. And the prophets had something to say about Israel, the wife of Jehovah, who had gone aside to multitudes of different husbands, and the resultant progeny wasn't God's either. They were children of strange gods, brought up in an unholy mixture of Israel's God-given faith, all mixed up with the idolatry and ceremonies of the surrounding nations. And so it was here. So our Lord applies the simple test, doesn't he, of family likeness. He said, you know, Abraham your father? Well, if actually you were children of Abraham, eh, you would show the family likeness, wouldn't you? You wouldn't, for start with, be about Jesus's own birth. We have one Father, even God. And our Lord applied the test again. If God were your Father, you would love me. They did not pass the test. He told them then who their father was. You are of your father, the devil. And we need to let the light shine in our hearts, don't we? It's good to believe in Jesus, who died for us at Calvary to, that we might be forgiven. But the mark of our being true believers is that we bear the image of the Father who has begotten us. If that Father is God, we shall love the Lord Jesus and bear his image. If we don't bear his image, we're not God's children, are we? I suppose while we're in this veil of tears, so-called, uh, the amount of likeness to our Father can vary somewhat, can't it? I'm told by those that know me that now I'm getting old, so you'll see. I get more like my own physical father than ever, which is no disaster, I suppose, but it becomes apparent with increasing age, you'll see. It ought to become increasingly apparent with our spiritual age, didn't it, that we bear the image of our Heavenly Father. And then in the final verses of the chapter, Christ proclaims his own sonship of the Father, and I must leave his detailed arguments for you to peruse at your leisure, because the clock warns me to pass on. We have roughly covered then two of these answers, two answers to the original problems associated with God's scheme and tactics for making himself known to men in the person of Jesus. Now we come to the third, and long since we have seen that it comes along a different approach. Here was a blind man physically, our Lord gave him physical sight. He had bo- been born blind, he never had had the faculty of sight, therefore Christ gave him the faculty of sight and used his creatorial powers to give him the faculty of sight. For just as God had made man originally via dust of the ground, so Christ now takes the dust of the ground and makes the clay and uses it as a means to give this man the faculty he never had before. We should notice, however, what it was that the man came to see when eventually he got his sight. For he, first of all, saw Jesus physically, as he had never seen him before, of course. But more to the point, with his physical eyes opened, he was given the faculty of spiritual sight to see that Jesus was the Son of God. And he said, yes, I believe, uh, uh, and he bowed down and worshipped Jesus as the Son of God. Now, we notice how different that is from the earlier ones. In the first, in chapter seven, Christ urges people to use their moral judgment on his teaching and come to the conclusion that his teaching is of God. In chapter eight, he urges people to use their moral judgment on themselves and own themselves sinners and find Jesus as God incarnate, their savior who died for them at Calvary. Now this moves on a step. This is to discover who exactly Jesus is. He's not merely a great teacher, he's not merely savior, he is son of God. How is that to be done? It is at this point, notice it, that the miracle is done that acts as a sign to tell us this, that if we would come to see Jesus as the Son of God, Christ will have to give us the faculty of sight to see it with. You don't have to have that special miracle to see that you're a sinner. And you don't have to have that s- special miracle to see the brilliance and wonder of Christ's teaching. But to see that Jesus is the Son of God, you will need the gift of the faculty of sight. Put in other terms, we are told the same thing in Matthew chapter sixteen, when our Lord said, whom do you say that I am? And Peter replied, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord replied, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father, which is in heaven. Coming to conclude that Jesus is the Son of God is not simply the final result of some theological f- uh, uh, uh, equation, and we work it out. The end product of some very careful philosophical reasoning. But we are to reason, and we are to think. But if ever we're going to see that Jesus is the Son of God, it will need more than our reasoning and more than our thinking. It will mean a divine revelation. We shall have to be given the faculty of sight. So the miracle is saying. And all of us who have come to know Jesus as the Son of God will know by our experience that that is so. The interest, however, in this sign, as we have noticed on earlier studies, is the methods and means God used, uh, Christ used to give the man sight. He made clay, put it on his eyes, sent him to the pool. And now we noticed early on that in chapter five there was a sick man by a pool, but Christ deliberately declined to use the pool. For on that occasion, Christ was making the point that he was equal with the Father, he was the source of life. He needed no means, he could just speak the word, and the man was healed. So to the very present, it is true to say that Christ can give you eternal life if you haven't got it, instantaneously. You can speak the word, and upon your believing, immediately and forthwith, he gives you eternal life. It doesn't need any means. Why then, when it comes to this occasion, did our Lord choose to use elaborate means? You'll see, why did he do it? Well, we should, uh, temper our problem a little bit, shouldn't we, in the water of history. In Genesis one, when God Creator made the world, he just spoke and it was done, yes. He commanded it stood fast, yes. And yet when we come to Genesis two, what we might not have suspected, that though in Genesis one God said, and man came into being, just spoke the word and man came to being, in actual fact, Genesis two tells us that when God made man, he condescended to use means and made him out of the dust of the ground. That was no mer- less miraculous than doing it without means, was it? Well, if you think it is, you have a go at turning some mud into a man and see whether it's, uh, easily done if you use means. It was no less miraculous. It was no less the Son of God because on this occasion he chose to use means. Now, thereby hangs a very practical and important point. True, we shall never know that Jesus is the Son of God, never see it, unless Christ gives them sight. You'll say, well then, that's how it is then. I, I just sit here, child, I cross my legs and read my novels and look at TV and, uh, go about my gardening and looking after my beautiful wife. Uh, there's nothing I can do about it, you see. If Christ decides one of these days to give me spiritual sight, I shall see as the Son of God, and if he doesn't, I shan't. So, that's all I have to do. And along come others, and I say it with trembling because they are very, very learned theologians, and they say, now, Gooding, you have really got it right just there, actually, because man is as dead as a doornail, and he's deaf, and he's blind, and he's dumb, and he's many other things beside, and you can save your breath talking to him, really, because he can't hear. And there's nothing a man can do about it. But that couldn't be true, could it? For there was aplenty that this blind man could do before he got his sight. Wasn't it so? Our Lord spat on the ground, made mud, put it on his eyes, sent him to wash in the pool. So there was a lot to do to start with. So first of all, let's fall to considering what the means were. Why did Christ use these means, do you see? And, uh, obviously so, by definition, they were not arbitrary. He sent him to wash in the pool that is called Siloam. And the, to understand what our Lord is talking about, one must read, I suppose, Isaiah chapter uh eight. Isaiah uh eight, and the verse is, um, verse five six. And the Lord spake unto me yet again, saying, For as much as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloach that go softly and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son. Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory, and he shall come up over all his channels and shall go over all his banks. This was the time of great convulsions in Judah's history. Israel, the ten tribes, and Syria had joined a confederacy, according to chapter seven, and had determined to come up to Jerusalem and seize the king and depose him and put another king in his place. And when Ahab, king of Judah, heard that, he shook like a, like a reed, as the Hebrews say, shook like a leaf, as we would say. Poor old Ahab. I was a bit of a spineless creature. But anyway, when he heard that, uh, Syria, the ten tribes, and the, and the Syria and the ten tribes were intending to do that, to, to come up to Jerusalem, to seize him, depose him from the throne of David, and put somebody else in his place, he shook like a leaf. And Isaiah tried to have words with him, my good man Ahab, Ahabs, Ahaz, not Ahab, Ahaz. Believe in God, man. He was too shaky even to think, you see. Marvelous when you're all of a jitter, you can't think too well, can you? He- he was all of a jitter. Uh, look, this is the throne of David, and God has made a covenant with David, and God has promised that he will send of the seed of David and will maintain his throne forever. Believe, man, in the promises of God. If you can't believe, you'll never be established. You'll stand there jittering all your days, my boy, till your legs go like jelly. You'll have to believe God and in his promises to maintain the throne of David and eventually bring in great David's greatest son. And when he'll be born, Ahab, ask a sign of God to give you some courage. You seem to be in need of it. No, no, it was too holy to ask a sign. Oh, I see. Well, then I'll give you one, says God. The virgin shall, uh, be with child and bring forth a son, and thou shall call his name Emmanuel, which, whatever it meant then, was an eventually a prophecy of the birth of God incarnate in the seed of David, in the town of David, of a descendant of David, would be God incarnate upon the throne of Judah. Now, now, oh no, no, poor old Ahab, he couldn't believe that, could he? So what did he do? A silly chump. Off he went to Assyria, the great world empire of the time, to ask their help to come and deliver him from the ten tribes of Israel and the Syrians, Two little puppet kingdoms, if ever there were any, you'll see. Foolish man, if he couldn't see what Assyria would do, yes, they would come and swallow up Syria and the ten tribes and take them off to Assyria as captive. And when they'd done that, they'd come into the front door that Ahab had opened, and they'd take Ahab if he wasn't careful. Silly chump. Why couldn't he believe in the great promises of Shiloach, meaning the sent one, Hebrew for sent one. And because you have refused the waters of Siloam, Shiloach, the waters of Siloam, that's Greek for Hebrew, that go softly. Then God will bring upon you the flood of the Assyrians. Our Lord, in this final section, at the feast of dedication, will remind them, I'm come in my own, I- I'm come in my Father's name, you won't have me. Another will come in his own name, you will have. It still will be true because they refused the waters of Siloam, the sent one of God that went softly. One of these days, the flood of the beast and Antichrist himself combined shall overwhelm them. Yeah, the sent one, Siloam, the sent one of God. What could the blind man do? As a beginning to to, um, of the process that he would come to see that Jesus is the Son of God. Well, he could go and soak in the waters of Siloam, could he not? Well, he wouldn't if he were a modern evangelical, perhaps, I know that, but he wasn't a modern evangelical, he was an ancient, you see. And to bathe yourself and soak yourself in the plenteous gallons of the water of the Old Testament may not be a popular thing for Gentiles to do, but Jews ought to have done it, didn't they? They ought to have soaked themselves in the water of that, those Old Testament prophets, and particularly the prophets that spoke of a coming Messiah, so that when the Messiah came, they should recognize him. Oh dear, dear, dear, we mustn't throw too big a stones, may we? But when the early Christians began to quote, following the example of the Lord Jesus, they began to quote Isaiah fifty three to their Jewish friends and neighbors, then eventually the Jews refused to include Isaiah fifty three in their public readings of Holy Scripture. Why? Because its prophecy is so self-evidently fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. And so they will not, in popular terms, read it. Because you refuse the waters of Shiloak. But then it's open to any one of us to tell our unconverted friends to, to make the experiment, isn't it? And you'll see he hadn't got sight yet to see who Jesus, that Jesus was the Son of God, but he'd got a lot of moral judgment. I mean, on one side, you might have thought it was a crazy thing for a blind man to go down city and wash in a pool, and the good man would have had to make up his mind. Would he do what Jesus said? Well, it seemed a crazy thing to do. I wouldn't know quite what to expect when he, if he did get sight, he'd never had sight before, couldn't imagine what it was like. How would he know he'd got it, and all those questions that arise. But he could make up his mind about Jesus Christ. Was Jesus Christ an absolute fool, a charlatan, obviously insane or something, completely immoral? Or was he an honest and moral, and powerful preacher of God and of his word. And if he gave, uh, evidence of being a holy man of God, wasn't it worth making the experiment to see whether it worked? Now, I'm well aware that some dear Christian folks will take e- e- exception to that phrase, making an experiment. Dear, dear, dear, dear, you don't make an experiment with God. You believe on the spot, do you see? Don't talk about making experiments, but Christ did, apparently. He sent the man to the pool. The man had to decide whether to go through the whole mechanism, and he did it, and it worked. And whatever you believe, I fancy you have, without saying so, used the method on your friends many times, haven't you? They can't see that Jesus is the Son of God. You say, no, my dear, you can't, perhaps. No, that is true. You know on your side that it will have to be God open their eyes, yes. But you don't say, well, just sit there and do nothing. You say, I wonder whether you'd read this, and you, you hand them a little Gospel of John. Have you ever read it seriously before? Well, yes, I know the Bible, they say, but have you read John before? Well, n- n- not John. I- i- is that the gospel you're talking about? Yes, the gospel of John. Yes, have you read that before? Well, no, at school we did Mark. Yes. And they've never read it since with an adult mind. Dear, dear. And they claim to be educated and sensible. They say, well, now this is written with Christ's imprimature that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and here is the evidence. Wouldn't you take it and read it as seriously as you read your physics and your accountancy and your cookbook? There are people that spend more time over their cookbook and take it more seriously, or not, than they do take over scripture. I'm not sure their cookbook will show them the way to heaven, really. Are you? And with their eternity in the balance, they take more time with their cookbook than they will with the Bible, you know. What do they expect to do? Voices from the blue or something? If you're serious, says Christ, go and wash in the pool. Soak yourselves in it. Now we want quick fixes, don't we? But you don't necessarily get a quick fix when it comes to, uh, deciding the supreme question of all history and of all ages. Go wash in the pool. That's something an unregenerate man can do if he's in earnest. Even when he got his physical sight, that wasn't the end of it, was it? For the chapter, doesn't the Lord like to make things difficult, you know, as distinct from the easy boys. Uh, when he even got his physical sight, he hadn't really come to full spiritual sight as to who Jesus, uh, was, had he? And how was he brought to that, you'll say? Well, by a good deal of thinking hard. Oh, you say, that's disappointing. I thought when it says God reveals it to you, you, you know, you wake up one morning and God says in your heart of hearts, now, now, Simon, Jesus is my son. You say, thank you, Lord, I didn't know that before. In fact, I'd never thought of it before. Uh, now I shan't need to think at all. Uh, I just take it because you say so. Now I know. That doesn't happen like that, not normally. So even after the physical miracle, the man had a lot of hard thinking to do, and he was brought in contact with the Pharisees, you see, who asked him about his experience and made him think. I have recorded some of the conversation on the appropriate pages, do you see, uh, of your notes, the second page, the first interrogation. The argument that went is worthwhile listening to. You may feel you need to copy it and profit from it in your personal witness one of these days. Do you see, the Pharisees were, uh, were Jews, and some of them said he's not of, Jesus is not of God because he does not keep the Sabbath. And others said, but then on the other hand, how can a man that is a sinner do such works? It is to the very present day, isn't it, a difficulty with Judaism. As you'll see, on the one hand, they have to admit the great, uh, miracles that Christ did, and some of them will admit them. And since the days of his flesh, there is that other great miracle. There is no other Jew in all history like Jesus Christ, who has brought multi-millions of Gentiles to believe, not on just any old God, but the God of Israel. I say sometimes to my Jewish friends, you know, ha, I don't know what you think about Jesus. You won't have him, will you? But you, you quote me another Jew that has done like him. You know, I say it's, it's, I believe not in just any old God, and I, I'm a pagan Gentile, but I, I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you know. In fact, I'm of the seed of Abraham. And I do believe that because of Jesus Christ. You show me another Jew that has done anything like it. How do you say he isn't of God? Well, if he isn't of God, show me a Jew who is then. He will have brought more Gentiles to believe, won't he? There was a division among the Jews because of him. So they asked not the the blind man, and he first of all said he's a prophet, that is, he's a someone sent from God and therefore able to do signs and miracles, for instance, like Elijah and Elisha did, you'll see. He's a special messenger. That wasn't quite enough yet, was it? It was a good start. The man is thinking, working things out in his testimony. You'll see. He made clay. That's a blind man didn't know his Bible all that well. The Pharisees ought to have done, wouldn't they? And when they discovered how Jesus had made his eyes, and the man said, well, he made clay and gave me sight. Oof, why didn't the penny drop in the old Pharisaic brain? They said he did it on the Sabbath. Wow. How many clues has God got to put down before some Pharisee can see it? Of course he'd done it on the Sabbath. Sabbath was the last day of creation. On the sixth day, God had made clay and made a man, and on the seventh day rested. How did he open your eyes, they said? He made clay. How blind can some people be and not see a point? He's a prophet at least, says the, says the man. Well, they, they still didn't agree. So then they began to question the validity of the blind man's own testimony, didn't they? Notice chapter nine, verse eighteen: the Jews therefore did not believe concerning him as he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of him that had received his sight and asked them, saying, is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then doth he now see? What they question now is the validity. Oh, notice your notes, don't you? The validity now, not of Christ's teaching, nor the validity of Christ's testimony. This time, what they question is, is the validity of the blind man's testimony. They said, ha, you weren't blind to start with. You don't remember what you were like when you were born, do you? You don't remember being born? How do you know you were born blind? As you weren't born blind at all. So far in the pa- in the, in the sign and the parable. You know, other people have a difficulty at another level, don't they? They hear you say that God revealed himself to you before you'd had no sight, and you say, in one thing I know, now I see. They say, that's silly talk, is that? Oh my dear, you weren't blind to start with. They question the whole reality of revelation and the need for it, don't they? They think coming to be saved and seeing who Christ is is a matter simply of using your religious brains. Anyway, at the level of the, of the, of the miracle, the parable, the sign, they called his parents and they said, yes, he's our son, he was born blind. And then, though they knew, they were not prepared to say how or who cured him, lest they be put out of the synagogue. End, therefore, of the first interrogation, and now they go to the second interrogation that results in the man being cast out. And here is a very interesting thing to notice as the argument proceeds. Verse twenty four, they called the blind man and said, we know that this man is a sinner. He therefore answered, whether he be a sinner, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I was blind. Now I see. They ask him, how did he open his eyes? Well, he said, I told you before. Do you want to hear it again? Are you going to become one of his disciples? Then they reviled him, thou art his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken unto Moses, but as for this man, we know not whence he is. And the man replies with a good deal of sarcasm. The man answered and said unto them, why herein is the marvel that you know not whence he is, and yet he opened my eyes. Notice, if you will, therefore, this play on knowing and not knowing. As far as the not knowing is concerned, there's a very learned Greek word for not knowing, and that is agnosticism. Agnosticism. A is the negative, and the gnostic part is knowing, and agnosticism means not knowing. It's the name given to a certain philosophical attitude where people are not, uh, prepared to say they're atheists, that there is no God, but they're not prepared to say that there is a God, so they sit on the fence and say, we don't know. Agnostic, we don't know. And when it comes to Christ, some people are agnostic. They may believe in some vague way in God, but when it comes to Jesus Christ and you press the claims of his deity, they will take an agnostic stand and say they don't know. And that seems to them highly respectable because it's not making themselves out to be arrogant. An atheist is a bit arrogant, isn't it? He says there's no God. How does an earth he know? Does he, has he been all around the universe and found out or something? How does he know? It is a colossal, arrogant claim to make, to say there is no God. How on earth does he know? But an agnostic sounds much more reasonable intellectually, doesn't it, uh, than say, well, I just don't know, you'll see. That sounds very humble. It is actually an impossible position, as the blind man, uh, showed them in the end. First of all, they said, you'll see, uh, we know that this man is a sinner. Well, that's knowing a lot, isn't it? And you do well to point out to your agnostic friends that they, in spite of their claim not to know, they know rather a lot. You'll see, they say, oh, I, I just don't know whether Jesus is the Son of God or not. Ah, but wait a minute. Uh, are you saying that you don't know or you couldn't know? You'll see, if you're just saying you, you, you don't know, well, that's your fault, my boy. You could find out, couldn't you? Or are you a sort of a strong version of the agnostic brigade? That is, you're saying nobody can know. You don't know, nobody can know. If it's the first, they don't know, but they could know. Well, uh, that's sheer lateness, isn't it? That isn't an intellectual respectable position if you don't know when you could know. That isn't very bright, is it? That's not intellectually with it. Huh? It's a kind of a obscurantism, if you might call it so. If they are saying, yes, but we don't know because it can't be known. There isn't enough evidence. So wait a minute. Jesus Christ says you can know. And Jesus Christ says he can give you the sight to see with. If you know that nobody can know, you know that Jesus Christ is wrong to start with. Don't you? Let me repeat that. Jesus Christ says you can know if you want to, because he can give you the sight. To be a thoroughgoing agnostic and say it cannot be known, you must be thereby saying that you know that Christ is wrong. And to know that Jesus Christ is wrong, you know a lot, my dear sir, if you should happen to know that, don't you? You know a whole world full if you know that Jesus Christ is wrong. Thoroughgoing agnosticism as to the person of Christ is a very difficult, uh, position to hold, is it, isn't it? Unless you know that Christ is wrong, as Lewis would say, either an ignoramus or a lunatic or a liar. Yeah. These stories are up to date. We'll say, so then he said, um, they said, we know that God has spoken unto Moses, but as for this man, we know not whence he is, we'll say. So now they've moderated their agnosticism. It's simply that we know God has spoken to Moses, but we don't know where this man is from, that's all. Marvelous, said the blind man, because he's just done an absolutely world unique miracle on me, and you, you don't know much, do you? You're, I thought you were religious experts. You don't know where he comes from. You don't know where he is from. What an admission for supposed religious leaders to make. Ah, but you see, um, the blind man wasn't prepared to let them off with that mild remark. Said he, we know that God here is not sinless, don't we? But if any man be a worshipper of God and do his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, it was never heard that anyone opened the eyes of the man born blind. If a man, this man were not from God, he could do nothing. How could the Pharisees stand there and say they don't know where Jesus came from, morally? To say that, they'd have to deny all the very basic principles they stood for. They too believe that God doesn't hear sinners. Therefore, if how do they not know where Jesus Christ comes from, if God has heard him and done through him this colossal miracle? And I come back to the argument I have used myself. Will God use sinners to make himself known? You say you don't know where Jesus Christ comes from, but he's led millions of Gentiles to conversion and to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and you can't tell me where he comes from? Ah, dear. How perverse and blind can some people get? You say, ah, ha ha ha, they put him out of the synagogue before, and you say, ah, ha ha ha ha. Ah, well, you see, they were blind, these Pharisees. They were unregenerate men, and how could you expect them to see anything? That proves the point. Unregenerate men are blind, so they can't see. So let's turn to that final part of John chapter nine, shall we? First of all, the Lord finds the blind man. Found he was cast out, followed him, and said, do you believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, and who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him? Jesus said unto him, thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee. The final capstone in our Lord's work in this blind man, opening his eyes spiritually now to see who Jesus was. Notice how our Lord does it. He didn't do it at once, as soon as the man came up out of the water of Siloam. He let the man think it through, think it through, think it through. God does not surpass, bypass our brains, nor our moral judgment. We are by exercise, says the Epistle to the Hebrews, to learn how to distinguish between good and evil and know the moral grounds for our belief. Josie. Ah, but the final end of the process is the Lord's self-revelation. Do you believe on the Son of God, he said to the blind man. The blind man said, well, who is he, sir? I don't know who he is. And our Lord, with very careful words, said, thou hast both seen him, and he it is that speaketh with thee. Compare that, if you will, with your memory of our Lord's conversation with the woman at the well. When she said to the Lord, I know that one day Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will show us all things. Our Lord replied not simply, well, I am Messiah. He says, thou hast both seen him, and he it is who speaketh with you. Why put it that way? Because no Jew had ever spoken to her before and wouldn't. The amazing condescension of him who would come and speak to a Samaritan and a woman. And he it is that speaketh with you. So hear to the blind man, uh, thou hast both seen him. Yes. And now the man saw him as he'd never seen him before, and bowed in worship at his feet and proclaimed him Son of God. In the final step is Christ's personal revelation of himself to you. After all the thinking and the mud packs and the washing, comes the point where the risen Lord draws near to a person and personally speaks to them and shows himself to them. It must be so, mustn't it? Believing in the Son of God is not working out a theorem or an equation. It comes by personal contact, personal spiritual seeing of a Son of God. Yes, you say, and the Pharisees, of course, they couldn't see. Oh, wait a minute. Let's get that quite clear. By this time, the penny was dropping in the Pharisee's brain. Uh, look at that, you'll see. Verse thirty nine, Jesus said, for judgment came I into this world, that they which see not may see, and that, that they which see may become blind. Those of the Pharisees which were with him heard these things and said unto him, are we also blind? Jesus said unto them, if you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say you see. You say we see, your sin remains. And we end up chapter nine with ideas with which we began. When the apostles saw the man was physically blind, they asked the Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? And our Lord said, neither. Whose fault is it? Nobody's, he said. Now we come back here, and our Lord says to the Pharisees, if you were spiritually blind, you would have no sin. That's what it must mean, spiritually blind, doesn't it? You would have no sin. In other words, it wouldn't be your fault. If you were spiritually blind and couldn't see, you couldn't be blamed for not seeing. Now that is such a profound thing that many folks have not been able to bring themselves to believe it. They will say that man is born a sinner and therefore born blind. With that we all agree. But then the Bible says that when man is finally standing before the great white throne and is condemned, this is the ground upon which he will be condemned. He that believeth is not condemned. He who believes not is condemned already. Why? Because of all his evil works? No. Why? Because he has not believed. So if you say to some people, now look at that, people are going to be condemned eternally for not believing. And you say, yes, but they couldn't believe because they were born sinners and they unregenerate and they couldn't believe. And you say, well, if they're going to be condemned for not believing, and they couldn't believe, it wasn't their fault, was it, they couldn't believe? And the reply will sometimes come back, oh yes, it was their fault. Because men and women are born guilty of the sin of Adam. That when Adam sinned, all his posterity sinned. So every baby born into the world is guilty of the sin of Adam. And therefore they will be condemned for not believing. It's their fault they can't believe. You say that's rather rough, isn't it? I say, oh well, there are other situations in life where people get condemned for doing something that they couldn't help doing. For instance, if, uh, uh, a man is held up, brought up before the magistrate for driving while under the influence, do you see? And a man pleads not guilty, and the magistrate says, but my good man, the evidence of this, that he asked you to step out of the car, and he, uh, told you to walk along the white line in the middle of the road, and you couldn't do it. You swayed all over the place from one side of the road to the other. You couldn't walk straight. And the man says, well, that's right, your your honor, you say, I couldn't do it. You're not going to, uh, fine me because I couldn't walk straight, are you? Couldn't help walking rather crookedly. And the judge will say, yes, I am going to fine you because you couldn't walk straight, but it's your fault you couldn't. You shouldn't have had so many beers. I see. Yes, but now that's the man's fault for taking the beers. You're going to charge the baby that it is is the baby's fault that spiritually it's born blind. They never could see. Hear what the Lord says about it. If you were blind, says he to the Pharisees, you would not have sin. To have sin in Hebrew, in Greek, therefore, means to be guilty, that it is your fault. You are worthy to be condemned for it. If you were blind, you couldn't be charged guilty for not seeing. God will never condemn anybody for not seeing, if in fact they didn't have the faculty of sight to see with. That is a basic principle. It is the judge himself that speaks. If you were blind, you wouldn't be held guilty for not seeing. That is important. Ah, but you see, the Pharisees were not prepared to admit they were blind. Now you say you see. And the position is you take that you see so much that you can see that Jesus Christ himself is wrong, and therefore you reject him. You deny that you're blind. You say you see. All right. Now you take the responsibility upon yourselves, and therefore your guilt remains. That is very serious, isn't it? God will never condemn anybody for not seeing what they could not see because they didn't have the faculty to see with. But he will condemn people for not seeing what they could see. The man didn't have any physical sight, did he? But he had a moral judgment and could have made up his mind about Jesus Christ, whether Jesus Christ was a liar or a fool or something. And Christ gave him an experiment to do, backed home with evidence of thousands he had saved and appealed to Holy Scripture. And the man had his choice. He could do what Christ said, and this blind man did and found sight. But the Pharisees said that they saw already. And in spite of all that Jesus said, they didn't need any special sight from him, thank him very much. They had all the sight they needed, and as far as Jesus Christ was concerned, they knew he was a sinner. And, uh, well, if not quite that, then, well, their modified version was they didn't know where it came from. And so their sin remained. And that's solemn. But now we better take a break.