Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Fear able to remain standing. Please
do and turn your attention to John Chapter
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Nine. Here God's word. As
he passed by, that's Jesus. As
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he passed by, he saw a
blind man from birth and that his disciples
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asked him, rabbi, who sinned
this man or his parents that he was
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born blind. Jesus answered it was
not that this man sinned or his parents,
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but that the works of God might
be displayed in him. We must
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work the works of Him who sent
me. While it is day, night
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is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the
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world, I am the light of
the world. Having said these things,
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he spat on the ground and made
mun mud with the saliva. Then he
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anointed the man's eyes with the mud
and said to him go wash in the
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pool of Siloam, which means scent. So he went and washed and came
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back seeing the neighbors and those who
had seen him before as a beggar were
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saying, is not this the blind
man who used to sit and beg some
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said it is he, others said
no, but he is like him.
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He kept saying, I am the
man. So they said to him.
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Then, how were your eyes opened? He answered. The man called Jesus,
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may aid mud and anointed my eyes
and said to me go to Siloam
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and wash. So I went and
washed and received my sight. They said
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to him, where is he?
He said, I don't know. They
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brought to the Pharisees the man who
had formerly been blind. Now it was
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the Sabbath Day when Jesus made the
mud and opened his eyes. So the
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Pharisees again asked him how he had
received his sight, and he said to
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them he put mud on my eyes
and I washed and I see. Some
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of the Pharisees said this man is
not from God, for he does not
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keep the Sabbath, but others said
how can a man who is a sinner
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do such signs? And there was
division among them. So they again said
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to the blind man, what do
you say about him, since he has
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opened your eyes? He said he
is a prophet. The Jews did not
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believe that he had been blind and
had received his sight until they called the
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parents of the man who had received
his sight and asked them, is this
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your son, who you say was
born blind? How, then, does
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he now see? His parents answered, we know that this is our son
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and that he was born blind,
but how he now sees we do not
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know. Nor do we know who
opened his eyes. Ask Him. He
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is of age. He will speak
for himself. His parents said these things
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because they feared the Jews, for
the Jews had already agreed that if anyone
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should confess Jesus to be Christ,
he is to be put out of the
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synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, he is of age, ask him.
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So for the second time, they
called the man who had been born
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blind and said to him, Give
Glory to God. We know that this
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man is a sinner. He answered
whether he is a sinner, I knew.
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Not Know One thing. I do
know that, though I was blind,
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now I see. They said to
him, what did he do to
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you? How did he open your
eyes? He answered them. I have
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told you already and you would not
listen. Why do you want to hear
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it again? Do you want to
become his disciples? And they refiled him,
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saying you are his disciple, but
we are disciples of Moses. We
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know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we
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do not know where he comes from. The man answered. Why? This
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is an amazing thing. You do
not know where he comes from. And
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yet he opened my eyes. We
know that God does not listen to sinners,
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but if anyone is a worshiper of
God and does his will, God
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listens to him. Never since the
world began has it been heard that anyone
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opened the eyes of a man born
blind. If this man were not from
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God, he could do nothing.
They answered him, you were born an
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utter sin and you would teach us, and they cast him out. Jesus
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heard that they had cast him out
and, having found him, he said,
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do you believe in the son of
man? He answered, and who
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is he, sir, that I
may believe in him? Jesus said to
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him, you have seen him and
it is he who is speaking to you.
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He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him. Jesus
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said, for judgment, I came
into this world that those who do not
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see may see and those who see
may become blind. Some of the Pharisees
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near him heard these things and said
to him, are we also blind?
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Jesus said to them. If you
were blind, you would have no guilt,
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but now that you say we see, your guilt remains. You may
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be seated well. This is an
amazing story, this record of this miracle
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that John Records for us here is
stunning in so many ways. The miracle,
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first of all, here is a
man who was born blind, whose
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parents recognized it, knew it,
the community knew it, at least many
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members in the community, and he
got his sight. There are many other
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um important and remarkable things here.
His truth telling, for one. He's
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so simply just keep saying what he
knows. Martin Luther said that a truth
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theolow Jin is one who calls things
what they are, or says what things
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are. If something's rotten, you
say it's rotten. If if something's glorious,
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you say it's glorious. That's what
a true theologian, that's what a
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Christian does, even when things are
not what they seem or not what the
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world calls them. And this man
is like that. He just calls it
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like he sees it. He says
what it is. When he doesn't know,
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he says I don't know, and
when he knows, he knows.
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There is a kind of opening up
even in his soul that we see happening
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parallel with the opening of his eyes. Jesus sees this man that is born
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blind. He goes to him he's
he makes some mud, he puts it
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on his eyes. He tells him
to go wash in the pool of PSILOM.
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This this the name of this pool, being one who has sent like
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a missionary pool, as one commentator
put it. He goes and he washes,
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he comes out and in many ways
the early church compared this to thought
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of this as a baptism, a
kind of a baptism. Anyway, he
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comes out and he can see.
He comes out of the water and he
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can see and he goes out and
now he acts in the world as a
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sighted man. A similar thing is
happening in his soul. He, he
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he. There are many things that
he doesn't know. He doesn't know about
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Jesus. He knows. I know
this. I know this. I can
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make this decision based on good and
necessary consequence. But when Jesus reveals to
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him that he is the son of
man, it says he worshiped him,
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just as easy as that. This
miracle is amazing. The stumbling of the
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Pharisees is another remarkable thing here.
They just can't stand the fact that this
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man was healed on the Sabbath.
This is now the second of these two
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of these kinds of miracles and where
Jesus acts in the Sabbath on a way
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that is perfectly in accord with the
Sabbath and all its principles restoration, peace,
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joy, healing, celebration in the
life of God, in Christ and
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yet is disobedient to all the man
made rules that the Pharisees had set up,
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and they are not happy about it, one of them being this needing
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of the mud and making making mud. Jesus does this action and he heals
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this man on the Sabbath, and
so you see them scrambling in a way.
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They don't know what to do.
They bring this man before him,
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they question him, he says,
I don't know. Then they bring him
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before him again and they question in
a guys, I don't know, what
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do you want? They bring his
parents before him and they're hedging their bets.
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They don't want to be put out
of the synagogue. They say only
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as much as they absolutely have to. They push it back on their son
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and he just keeps saying what he
knows. He keeps telling the truth.
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And then the the this amazing speech, rich with theology and faith and hope,
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comes not from the religious leaders but
comes from this man doing what?
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Simply testifying to what has happened,
and this is what we do. Is
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Christians, as those who have been
baptized into Christ, and he sends us
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out. We are witnesses, we
are simply testifiers to what has happened.
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We don't heal people, we don't
cause them to gain their sight back,
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to have their hearts melted, we
just testify to these things. In this
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way, the man is a lot
like the woman at the well, to
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WHO Jesus speaks to her, he
reveals himself to her, and what does
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she do? She goes back to
her villages, she testifies to the one
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she has seen, to the one
she has heard. So, as we
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think about all of these things,
let's focus our at tension on this miracle.
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The man, in his speech,
this formerly blind man who now can
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see by the grace of God,
says never has anything been done like this
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since the beginning of the world,
and this is true. The Old Testament
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doesn't record any miracles of recovering sight
to the blind, which is may be
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surprising to you, because you might
feel I know I've read a lot of
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them, and that's because it was
the most common of Jesus's miracles. Jesus
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is doing in a most and as
in the number and types of miracles,
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he does something that had never happened
before, and there's a reason for that.
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The reason is because he is the
anointed one, belong and promised Messiah.
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Isaiah spoke about him many times,
saying things like this and out of
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their gloom and darkness, the eyes
of the blind shall see. This was.
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These were promises about the new covenant
that God was going to bring in
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the coming days, when is day
of the Prophet spoke. He said that
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part of the coming of this kingdom, part of the coming of the Messiah
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and the king that would rule this
kingdom, would be the opening of the
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eyes of the blind, both their
physical eyes and our spiritualize. And that's
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important, because Jesus is tying these
things together. Jesus is seeing not only
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the pitiable state of this man who
can't see, who from his birth,
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has been unable to see, but
he also is recognizing the spiritual condition of
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this man and of the whole world. God did not come into our world
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to perform tricks, as wonderful as
that would be just by itself, but
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he came into the world to help
us to see the nature of his coming,
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that he was here not just to
restore this man's sight and to let
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this lame person walk, but he
did these things as signs of what he
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is doing in all of us who
believe in Jesus, who rest on him,
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who trust in him, for him, a trust in him, for
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his his kingship and his power and
the glory and the salvation that he is
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bringing. The Sabbath Day, the
day on which this mirror will happen,
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is a day of blessing, it's
a day of rest, it's a day
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of trusting in God, it's a
day of resting in Him, knowing that
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all things are made right in him, and then we can have peace in
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this world. Let's consider that and
this miracle in four parts. First,
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a sin marred world. Jesus comes
into a world that is has been marred,
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has been scarred, has been affected
by sin. He doesn't come into
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the Garden of Eden where man is
happy with God and and all is peace
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and well. Jesus most certainly doesn't
come into the consummated Kingdom of God where
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everything is set right and then we'll
always be. He comes into a world
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where he can see a man who
has been blind from birth. This speaks
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to the kind of savior that Jesus
is, and remember, that's what these
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miracles are about, there to teach
us who Jesus is, that we would
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believe on him and have life and
worship him like this man does. What
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kind of savior is Jesus? He
is the kind that goes into a world
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old that is full of sin to
save that world, and he does that
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by looking at the people that need
salvation, by the people that are full
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of sin and broken. This is
very different than what the Pharisees were doing.
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But what we often do. Most
of us go around in our world
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looking for titles, pedigrees, accomplishments, wealth. Those are the important people,
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those are the people that really matter, because those are the things that
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really matter. So we think.
Jesus never does this. You never see
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Jesus sort of scrambling around the earth
trying to set up important appointments with important
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people. You never see him gathering
around himself networking and trying to trying to
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raise his status in the world.
And that's not to say that there's something
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inherently wrong with trying to do well
in the world, as long as it
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remains of great and very low importance
compared with storing up your treasures in heaven.
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But this is the point. That
was not Jesus's mission at all.
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Jesus had no place that he came
to do one thing. He didn't have
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a another job that he was trying
to do. He was exclusively focused on
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doing this one thing that the father
had called him to do, which was
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to reveal this salvation in the world
and to call people to that, the
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weak people, the abandoned people,
the lonely people, the sick people.
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When the rich young ruler comes to
and says what must I do to be
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saved, Jesus says Jesus sees the
problem in his heart and he says give
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away all that you have, and
the young man goes away sad. Jesus
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comes to this man who has been
blind from birth and he says, I'm
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the son of man and the man
I am the son of man, and
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a man worships him. Jesus says
that he comes as the great physician to
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heal those who are sick. This
is good news for us who recognize the
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problem. This is good news for
you. If you say I am affected
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by Sin. I am a sick
person, I have blindness, I struggle
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with the flesh, the sin nature
in me holds me and and is a
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struggle and a trial and I want
to be free. If that's you,
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then Jesus is a great hope for
you. But if you are satisfied and
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where you are at, if you
are satisfied in the things you have and
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the things you've done, in the
people you know and the positions to which
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you obtained or might obtain soon,
if you only do a few more things,
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then Jesus a threat to you.
I can understand why, because Jesus
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comes not just to compete against your
little kingdom but to overthrow it. The
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things of this world will not last, the powers of this world will not
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last, but Jesus does. How
do we know? Because he can bring
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sight to a blind person, because
he can resurrect a body, even his
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own body, from the dead.
That's a measure of conquering and power over
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sin which the world has never seen
and will never see apart from Jesus.
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That makes me to a second thing. Second thing we notice is that Jesus
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comes into the sin marred world,
but he does it as a sovereign God,
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as the sovereign God, the one
true God. We understand this not
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only through his miracle that he works, but we also understand this in the
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way that the way that this healing
begins, when it's does it, when
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he sees this man and the disciples
see him, seeing this man, they
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say, rabbi, in Verse Two, who sinned? This man or his
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parents, that he was born blind? Perhaps a little bit sad that the
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theology question is the first thing that
they ask after seeing this man. Maybe
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a little compassion would have been more
appropriate. Nevertheless, Jesus, as usual,
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doesn't answer their question and undermines it. Instead, he says it was
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he doesn't say, Oh yeah,
I was him, or Oh yeah,
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I was his parents. He says
it was not this man who send or
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his parents, but that the works
of God might be displayed in him.
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This reminds us that when it comes
to the works of God and when it
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comes to the problem of evil in
this world, we have to be careful
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about connecting our personal sins to personal
consequences. Now, of course, you
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wouldn't want to avoid that conclusion.
If you were in the room when annonias
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and suff fire died, you remember
that they went before the Apostle Peter.
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They lied to the Holy Spirit and
God struck them dead, and Peter says
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this is because you lied to the
Holy Spirit, you wouldn't want to walk
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out of that room and Got Gee. I just don't know. I'm not
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really sure whether that their death was
connected to their disobedience to God and their
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sin. It was very clearly was, and there are other things that we
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might be able to connect in this
life and we would be fools if we
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failed to learn the lessons that our
master teacher is applying to us. Nevertheless,
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we always have to be very careful
about removing God's sovereignty over our lives
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and his multiple purposes for every action
that he does. They call him a
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teacher, a rabbi. I was
talking with someone yesterday about another teacher and
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this lady. I asked this lady, I said, was this teacher.
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Did it seem like he had everything
prepared ahead of time before he taught the
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class, as he working the student
systematically through the course, or did it
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seem like he was just reacting to
them in the moment and sort of adjusting
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and monitoring it is as he went
and a response about this particular teacher that
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I was asking about his she said
he knows his material so well that he's
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really doing both. She could see
that on the one hand he definitely had
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a grand plan for where he wanted
to take the students and all of that,
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but at the same time he was
also very much acting and monitoring and
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adjusting right there in the moment that
he this teacher, as he helped his
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students, had multiple reasons for what
he did in moving this child here and
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bringing that one over here and giving
this activity to do. There were layers
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of things going on in that classroom
and I hope you've had teachers like that
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that you've been able to experience and
know that there were lots of things simultaneously
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going on, maybe more than you
were able to detect, but you knew
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your teacher was good and you could
trust that teacher to carry you along.
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In many ways, this is what
God does in our world. He has
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multiple reasons for the things that he
does. Take a look at this example.
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Here is this man, a born
to blind since birth. He had
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been this way. Now he's a
grown man. And why did this happen?
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He didn't know for a very,
very very long time, and yet
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no doubt that blindness was affecting his
life in all kinds of ways, and
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his parents life and his communities life. Here was a man who needed to
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be supported. Here is a man
who needed to be cared for, had
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struggles and trials, and yet there
was a purpose that God's works might be
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displayed in him. And then here
on this moment, on this day,
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Jesus heals him. The works of
God are done here on this day of
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God, the Sabbath Day, and
then a whole number of consequences spread out
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from that. This man is saved, he's worshiping God, he's rejoicing in
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the glory of God. But the
Pharisees are even are hardened in their hearts
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even further. The disciples get a
question. And you know what, here
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we are, here we are today, thousands of years later, hearing about
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the same event. Hat it having
effects on us. What's God's purpose for
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you in doing this work that he
did in this man? I don't know,
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and I don't know what it is
for your neighbor or your neighbor's neighbor,
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your neighbors neighbor's neighbor. You See, the point when Jesus comes into
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this world as our sovereign God.
He is exercising his authority and his majestic
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power. Are In his goodness and
His grace in all kinds of ways.
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What we have to remember is that
we do not judge God by the way
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that we experience things in this world, even when they are painful, even
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when they are pleasurable. We are
called to see things in the light of
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the scriptures that are being revealed,
and that's why Jesus makes this point.
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It's time to start doing the works
of God. We must do the works
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of God. That's how we are
to react, he says, to these
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things. Our job is not to
get behind the scenes, to get into
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the mind of God, where the
secret things of God are held, and
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figure it all out before we act. Our God is to our job is
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to trust in the master teacher who
knows all things and is good and his
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gracious and kind. To trust him
and live our lives simply in light of
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that. Calvin says he gave Peter
and Paul to the executioner, and no
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less than most wicked robbers. Hence
we can infer that we cannot always put
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our finger on the causes of men's
punishments in the world. Sometimes the you
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will see something that looks exactly the
same from one person to another, and
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yet god is doing different things.
So humility is necessary, humility which is
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not being displayed by the Pharisees as
they bring this man in and question him
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over and over and over again.
You are his disciple, they accuse him
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of. We are not his disciples. That's very clear. But in not
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being his disciples, it is they
who will remain in their blindness. And
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that's where we come to number three
of four. A simple call. Jesus
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though, the ore, though,
he is our sovereign and most amazing God,
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working in his providence in all kinds
of ways. Nevertheless, he speaks
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to us in such simple, simple
ways. He makes some mud, he
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puts it on the eyes of this
man and he says go wash in the
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pool of silom. It's pretty simple, right there is it's a he doesn't
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hand him a, you know,
giant textbook and say read this, make
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sure you understand it all, and
then when you come back to me we'll
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talk about it. And obviously there's
much to learn and obviously it's good to
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study, and the teachings of Christ
are rich and worthy of abiding in,
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he tells us earlier, to those
who abide in his worders its disciples.
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I don't mean at all to oppose
learning and growing in the knowledge of Christ
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with saying that that somehow is a
bad thing. But the point is that
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when Jesus says something simple, we
should just take it for what it is.
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If he says don't be anxious,
I'll take care of you, maybe
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we should not be anxious. Maybe
it's simple. When Jesus says to the
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man, go wash in the pool
of Silom, maybe the man should just
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go wash in the pool of Siloam. And he does. You know what
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happens? He sees. That kind
of simple call goes on throughout this passage.
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Do you believe in the son of
man? He answered, and who
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is he, sir? That I
may see him, Jesus said to him.
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You have seen him and it is
he who is speaking to you.
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He said, Lord, I believe. Thereofs course, is much this man
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didn't understand yet about Jesus. No
one had yet seen his crucifixion, no
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one had yet seen his resurrection or
his ascension or the pouring out of the
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spirit or the Apostle Paul going to
the gentiles, or you here today.
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He didn't see any of that,
but he saw the Lord and he said,
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I believe, and that is a
good thing. Finally, we have
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in this passage astern warning, in
addition to a simple call, this simple
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call that God gives to this man
and gives all the the world. Believe
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on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
will be saved. The warning is also
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that there is urgency, there are
there is a time in which these this
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this offer, this call, this
invitation, will end. Jesus speaks about
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this in his parables. He tells
the story of a wedding invitation going out
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and people ignoring it, and then
one day the doors are shut. He
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speak, tells a parable about a
number of women, these virgins, that
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somehow were prepared and ready for the
bridegroom that was coming, so that they
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would celebrate with him in this marriage
feast, and some who were not ready,
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and those who aren't ready, the
door was shut, time was over.
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There's a temptation, when we hear
the simple call of Jesus, to
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believe on him, to trust,
so that we might see, so that
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we might have our eyes open to
the glorious things of God and not just
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see them but enjoy them, to
have our sight, to have peace,
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to have resurrection. The simplicity of
it for some people becomes an excuse for
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waiting, for thinking I must not
matter, it must not be important.
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I we can think about this some
other time. It's not the case,
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though, and there is this warning
here, that if we come in our
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own confidence to Jesus and we say
I've got it all figured out, I
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don't need you, then we remain
in our blindness. Jesus came into the
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world and he healed this blind man
so that you can see what God is
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doing through his son. So believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will
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be saved and you will then sing
with all the saints amazing grace, how
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sweet the sound. I once was
blind, but now I see. Let
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us pray
