Take your Bibles, please, and come with me to the Gospel according to John, chapter 9. The reason that Tim was selected was because one of the lines is taken from our very text today. I was blind, but now I see. We have not been in John for a few weeks, but we want to pick up today in verse 13. I want to follow along as I read down through to verse 34 today, a rather lengthy passage. So follow along as I read it to you, John 9, 13 through 34. Hear now the word of the Lord. They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, he put clay on my eyes and I washed and I see. Therefore, some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said, how can a man who's a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them. Then they said to the blind man again, what do you say about him because he opened your eyes? He said, he is a prophet. But the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered them and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees, we do not know, or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age, ask him. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, he is of age, ask him. So they again called the man who was blind and said to him, give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see. Then they said to him again, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? Then they reviled him and said, you are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, we do not know where he's from. The man answered and said to them, why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he's from, yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who's born blind. This man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said to him, you were completely born in sins and are you teaching us? And they cast him out." That, brethren, is the word of the Lord. Let's go to him together again in prayer. Our Father, we thank you again for the opportunity to all of us to sit under the authority of the Word of God. For we know that it is powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword. When your spirit attends it, no man can thwart it. So, God, we pray that you would use it today in all our lives and the lives of everyone in here in this building, Lord, to strengthen the faith of your people and to call out your own. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm sure some of you or most of you have heard of what's called a mock trial. I'm sure there are other names that you've heard about it. Sometimes it's called a sham trial or perhaps a kangaroo court. These kinds of trials obviously probably happen every day all around the world in places like Russia and China and North Korea. person is brought in for questioning for some supposed crime and the leaders and the judges and the court, they've already predetermined the outcome no matter what falls out. Facts become irrelevant, truth, witnesses will become irrelevant, the issue is not who or what is right or wrong, the issue is what the one in charge plans on doing, what they've already determined by their own ideas and purposes to do. But brethren, this is kind of what's going on in our text today. A man is healed of his blindness and he's being interrogated by the Pharisees and they already know what they're going to do. And we will see that no matter how much proof they are given, Jesus truly did perform this miracle of healing this blind man. It doesn't matter how many witnesses faithfully testified that it is a good and a righteous thing, that the outcome came the way that it did. Those who are wielding the authority have already determined what they're going to do. And what we see John doing here, brethren, is what he does throughout this entire gospel account. He, once again, going to highlight for all of us in here the unfathomable depths of man's unbelief against the backdrop of those whose eyes God has opened by His grace. It is written, the whole gospel is written with the intent that all who read and study this gospel would recognize for themselves that they too possess this impenetrable heart of unbelief. The word belief or trust and faith, 90 times in this gospel, over 90. But it's written so that those who have this heart of unbelief would cry out to God, as this blind man would have had he known Jesus was standing by, that you would see and believe. We're going to see, brethren, that the unbelief of these Pharisees today is really generally, at the end of the day, irrational. We're going to see so much blatant truth and facts come upon them, and it's not going to make any difference for them. It makes no sense at all, no matter how you look at it. They're not going to believe. So if you're here today and you're not saved, you carry within your bosom the same irrational unbelief. You're not able to hear what I'm saying this morning. You hear the audible tones, the things that are coming against your eardrums and it's formulating sound, but that's as far as it gets for you. And so that's just my hope and it's the church's hope that anyone here today would hear what this word teaches, what this text teaches. Well, by the truth of God, open your eyes to see who God really is in your need of a Savior. With that, I want to open up this fairly lengthy text in three parts today. And since we're not going to meet tonight, I'm going to take my time and so you can get a full sermon in and marinate it all afternoon. There's essentially three distinct scenes in this text. They're being played out in this what I'm calling mock interrogation from the Pharisees. I'll give you to them up front if you're taking notes. In verses 3 to 17, we're going to look at the division among the Pharisees. Secondly, in verses 18 to 23, we will look at the deceit of the blind man's parents. And lastly, in verses 24 to 34, we will see the deposition of the blind man himself. So we got three Ds this morning. So let's begin with the division among the Pharisees. In verses 1 to 12, we have the occasion of the miracle itself. That was the last sermon we did in John. Jesus is walking by a place where the poor and the blind and the beggarly Jews are congregating and looking for help. And for reasons only known to our Lord himself, he chooses this blind man. He picks him out of all of them needed help, but he chooses this blind man and we're told that he was born this way. And that he was born this way for the very purpose that God would receive and manifest glory through his life. The man was told then to, Jesus mixes some spittle with some clay, rubs it on his eyes, tells him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. And then he obeys this and the miracle, this glorious miracle of seeing begins and it takes place. If you don't remember, I mentioned last time that the impact of this particular miracle would have had great occasion for the people to rejoice if they loved the guy or what have you, but they would claim it and look at it as something very, very powerful. It was an unheard of miracle. In fact, we just read, didn't we, that the man himself confesses in verse 32 that since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. So this is big deal that's happened here. Very, very, very big deal. And this is public. This is in Jerusalem. Everybody's seeing it going on, and everybody's worked up about it. And this is what brings attention to this whole occasion. this whole miracle. And the reason is because it is believed, and I think rightly so, I get this from R.C. Sproul who talks about it, that miracles were given in the Bible not to prove God's existence. I hope you know that, brethren. The miracles in the Bible are not to prove God's existence. They're there to validate God's messengers of revelation. When you look at where God had given the highest amount and concentration of miracles in the Bible, you see this is His purpose. For instance, Moses was God's lawgiver. And there were many great and powerful miracles done in the days of Moses, particularly when you think about what happened in Egypt. And it was validating God's messenger who is the lawgiver, the Word. Think about it. Very few miracles, comparatively speaking, were ever manifested again going forward until the days of Elijah the prophet. And so thus God was placing emphasis on his revelation on the law and the prophets by way of miracles through Moses and Elijah, the two who were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now, after Elijah, when do we see the next huge concentration of mighty and many powerful miracles? Well, that would be, brethren, the ministry of our Lord Jesus, the true lawgiver and prophet of God. Thus, brethren, it was in the Jewish mindset that if one came performing miracles, then he must be a prophet of God. God has something to say. They would all perk up if this would go on. Now brethren, as you know, most prophets did not perform miracles, John the Baptist being one among them. They were recognized because of their preaching and their ability to predict. And then that was how they were known. But when miracles were involved, it was God's explanation point to the people to listen up. God is about to say something earth shattering to his people. Something major is about to go down. And certainly Egypt was something. And then when Elijah came and all of his miracles. So this miracle of Jesus, was the reason that the blind man's friends and neighbors bring him to the Pharisees, there in verse 13. And this is why the blind man who was healed also assumed that Jesus was a prophet. In verse 17, if you look at it, you notice again that they asked him, they said to the blind man, what do you say about him because he opened your eyes? Well, what did he say? He's a prophet. If he opened my eyes, No one's ever opened anyone's eyes before by way of a miracle, then they'd automatically assume then, or at least this blind man did, that he was a prophet. He was taught that. It was in the mindset of the Jewish community. And so this is all hiding in the background as this man now is brought before this large group of Pharisees to investigate the validity of the whole matter. Is the miracle real? And if it is, then is he a prophet? So his friends want to find out. So they bring him. They make the connection. So they bring him. Who's better to validate this reality than the religious leaders of their day? The Pharisees, right? But here's the problem for these Pharisees. If Jesus did heal the man by such a great miracle, then perhaps he is a prophet of God. And if he is a prophet of God, well then this would mean that these Pharisees must listen and obey his words. They didn't want to go there. And so this was at the center of the whole interrogation. interrogation that begins with a division among their own ranks. The majority of those wielding the power, the ones that would instigate the whole crucifixion, refuse at first to believe Jesus is from God and a prophet because they think, as John institutes or puts in here, he violated the Sabbath. He adds this little detail, we didn't get it in the last section of verses 1 to 12, but in verse 16 you'll notice that there is a the issue of the Sabbath. This man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. And of course, they are already been mad at him because of a previous miracle in John 5 at the Pool of Bethesda, he also healed that man on the Sabbath. So they're still mad at him. This is all in the background. We don't know what was the specific violation of why he did this. In Luke 13, one leader of a synagogue thought it was just sinful to heal on the Sabbath. In general, R.C. Sproul suggests that 39 articles that the Pharisees came up with, the crazy man-made ways in which you shouldn't break the Sabbath, one was you couldn't knead dough. And so maybe taking the clay and the spittle was kneading dough. And then in J.C. Ryle's commentary, Lightfoot suggested that, quoting Lightfoot, that just applying spittle to the eye was forbidden on the Sabbath. Whatever the reason, the Pharisees were wrong. God never forbade doing good on the Sabbath day. It was made for man and for man's good. There were some in this group who were not so quick to judge that Jesus was a sinner and had done something wrong. So verse 16 states, how can a man who is a sinner do such thing? So behind the statement, brethren, is the reality that when God does something, it's always good. It's usually involving creation of life, and that's what happened. These man's eyes were dead. They weren't functional. So he brought his eyes back to life again. Unlike the devil, whatever he does, he destroys and seeks to kill. So this whole thing, by nature of the very miracle itself, it is testifying that it is of God. Whatever else you say about it, because it is a miracle for good, it has to be God that did it. The devil doesn't want to heal anybody and anything. It's highly likely that among this group of Pharisees was a man by the name of Nicodemus. The text doesn't say it, but when you put all the pieces together, the puzzle sure fits, because when He meets Jesus at night in John 3. He says to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God. Listen, no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. See, it's in the Jewish mindset. Miracles from God. They're good things that he's doing. He isn't going around destroying people with his miracles. He's healing. He's doing good things. Nicodemus was also there in John 7, holding up, perhaps standing up for Jesus a little bit. Does our law judge a man before he hears him and knows what he's doing? At that time, the other Pharisees want to kill him. But Nicodemus is taking up for him. So the majority of the Pharisees are bent on being against Christ, but there are others who want a fair hearing for him. So the text says, there was division among them. Now, brethren, before we move on to our second point, what do we learn from this first point we have here? Well, at least two things here quickly. First, brethren, we learn that as Jesus predicted and it was mentioned by our brother Adam a moment ago, faith in him or lack thereof would bring division among the strongest relationships of our lives as Christians. Luke 12, I didn't know when I put this in my sermon, I had forgotten that this was the text we're going to read in our public reading today. But Jesus did clearly say to us twice now by way of witness, do you suppose that I came to bring peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. Father against son, son against father, daughter against mother, mother against daughter. Brethren, we cannot hold to an earthly relationship that forces us to choose between them and Christ, no matter how painful it may be. And brethren, it is painful. But here's the thing we have to always remember, whatever the pain for our commitment to Christ, he himself will always be the salve that heals us in the end from that pain. His love and his friendship will always be greater than that of any earthly friend's and relatives of this life. And if we truly know our Lord, then we will always have a greater love for him than we have for any earthly relationships on this side of heaven. Do you love your Lord today this much, brethren? You haven't been pushed to this, most of you haven't. But this is certainly what's going on here, and we'll continue to see this later in the next point. The parents of the man born blind, they had to learn this truth, and they had to choose, and they did choose, and they chose the way of the wicked Pharisees rather than to own the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the contract. There's division. A second application here is only by way of inference, brethren, and that is that the lesson we learn as we continue to read, when you read through all the four gospel accounts, is that the Sabbath was made for man's good. Now, Pastor Timothy's been teaching on it, I've taught on it in Sunday school, but I want to make this statement. Those who feel too restricted because of the do's and the don'ts of the Sabbath day have not yet discovered the purpose of the Sabbath day. There are do's and don'ts, brother. But when we place our focus on those above the main purpose of the day, then you've missed the purpose of the day. And that's what the devil gets some of you to think. And others who are struggling with this whole issue, just get them to look on the do's and the don'ts, the restrictions of it all. And so like the Pharisees, we twist and we malign and we change the focus where God never put it. He says the light in the day. It's like a guardrail, brethren. The day is for our good. It's a gift from God to love and to worship Him and to give it over to Him. I'm going to suggest to you and not exhort you at the time at the end of the service today to use your evening to worship and your family in your home tonight as we don't have evening service. But brethren, the Sabbath, the do's and the don'ts, they're just guardrails. You ever see the kids when they go to bowling, they put the guardrails up so the ball doesn't fall in the gutter. The do's and don'ts are just guardrails so you don't fall into the gutter of worldliness and carnality and keep your focus ahead on God. That's all they're meant for. But these Pharisees continually over and over again miss it, and that's an application for us. Well, after those, let us now move to our second point. We see the division of the Pharisees. Now notice the deceit of the blind man's parents. So after showing us that there was the vision, John moves the narrative now to the second scene, as it were. They had asked the man earlier, point blank, what do you say about him because he opened your eyes? And he said, well, he's a prophet. And then John left us in on a little secret that they did not believe the man at all until they moved their interrogation to the man's parents in verse 18 and 19. The Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until, notice it, they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? Now, brethren, these questions by the Pharisees placed the parents on a very difficult predicament. If they say a man named Jesus healed him, they knew they would get kicked out of the synagogue. The only other choice they had to keep their names on the pews in the synagogue was to deny that the man was even their son to begin with. And so they lie about the first and they own the second. They denied knowing how and who it was that had healed their son, but they admitted to the fact that he was their son and that he was indeed born blind. Anything was acceptable to say as long as it didn't attach them to Jesus. This was a partial deceit, but it was deceit nevertheless, because John tells us that their motive for not being upfront and honest with the interrogation of these Pharisees about and how he was healed, it was not out of ignorance, it was out of fear. Verse 22. If they didn't really know who Jesus was, they could have made the statement without any fear, couldn't they have? But what does the text say? His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, he is of age, ask him. Passing the buck, you might say. The parents said what they had to say in order to keep their place in the synagogue and to keep from disowning their son. That was a noble thing of them, huh? And so in their minds, they were able to keep the best of both worlds, but probably lost both in the end. Not every living soul, brethren, is placed in a position with great pressure like this that this parents had, great pressure to either reject Christ or to suffer greatly if you don't. No American has ever been asked to reject Jesus Christ or to burn at the stake. There are many professing Christians who have no problem secretly rejecting Jesus in public because there's no cost in this life in our country. But sometimes God's provision places men and women in great pressure to choose and you wish you didn't have to make that choice. I was sure the parents were like, oh no, here come the Pharisees. Wish they didn't have to do it. It's hard for us, brethren, to imagine just what suffering and loss these parents were about to face had they did, had owned the Lord Jesus Christ as they knew He was the one. For instance, to be excommunicated from your synagogue meant that you would no longer be able to do financial transactions in the community. So poverty was about to come your way. To be executed from the synagogue also meant that you would be a social outcast. And so then you might as well face the fact that shame and misery from all of your neighbors and friends would soon set in. You'd look like a leper. And to be excommunicated from your synagogue meant that, and this was in the minds of the Jews, that you would be cut off from very God himself. Excommunication was a really big deal. It's so mocked and minuscule even used in churches today, but it was a really big deal for these folks. Do you imagine what's going through their minds? We don't feel the pressure they felt, but they were under a great deal of pressure. Imagine that you might end up going to hell if you get excommunicated. That's what they were thinking, poorly taught as they were. And so while these parents certainly made the wrong choice, brethren, there's a sense in which you ought to appreciate that they were under a lot of pressure. How often, brethren, has God's providence forced you and I into similar but much smaller circumstance where we should have owned our Lord, but we chose the deceit of silence? Because, well, maybe perhaps like these parents, maybe these parents were closet believers, I don't know, but they are the most dangerous kind of believers to be. Jesus taught us very clearly, whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father is in heaven. If it was a prayer request of the apostle Paul, that he might boldly speak as he ought to speak, Paul was timid. He needed prayer. Should it not be the constant prayer for you, brother, for you, sister, wherever you go, that you might be bold enough to speak and own your Lord wherever you go? There's a sobering verse in Revelation 21 that haunts me all the time, every time I read it. John in the apocalypse tells us who it is that's going to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. He's got this long list of people. And the list is ugly. He says there's going to be abominable people, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars. They shall all have their part in the lake of fire, which burns. But do you know how he starts that verse? Do you know the first group that goes in, the first ones that are tossed in? The cowardly. Brother, we need to be praying to not be ashamed of Christ, to be much bolder than we are. May God have mercy on us, brother, for our silence, our deceit of silence. The application here, brethren, is that Christ is calling all of us to a radical belief. If the world says, be poor, deny Jesus, are you ready for poverty? If the world says, become an outcast, suffer ridicule and shame, deny Jesus, what would you choose? If you had to choose between being seen and thought of as a religious fanatic, putting a damper on your faith, which would you choose, brethren? The Word of God is pressing all of us in here today the same as it pressed those parents that day. And how we answer these questions, brethren, often determine whether or not God has even opened our eyes yet or not. In a land of religious freedom, most of us have never been put in such circumstances. It's a good thing to have religious freedom. I'm thankful for it. But the downside is this, brethren, that most of us here are rarely tested like the believers in most other countries, very rarely. A hypocrite can hide in the midst of the most solid Reformed Baptist church, and you and I'd never know it, could be one in here this morning. And so, brethren, let the Word of God do that which the pressure of a hostile world does not do. Let us search our own heart and ask ourselves, brethren, are we prepared to give it all for our Lord? Are we prepared to own Him no matter the consequences? You can settle that in your heart without ever having to be persecuted. Well, brethren, we've seen the division of the Pharisees, the deceit of the blind man's parents. Well, let us look at the deposition of the blind man himself. And a deposition is simply a statement that's made that is entered in as evidence. And so having interrogated the parents and not getting the answers they wanted, they turned their interrogation to the blind man, verse 24. So they again, there it is, called the blind man who was blind and said to him, come back on the witness stand. Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner. And so the testimony of the parents could not be refuted. But rather than allowing themselves to use that testimony to believe that Jesus actually healed the man, thus they'd have to obey, they tell this blind man who'd been healed, you give God the glory himself. In other words, what they were saying was because of what your parents have said here, we now believe that you were born blind. We now believe that even, we believe that now you can see. Therefore you owe God glory for this miracle that much we will confess But you don't owe it to this man Jesus because he's a sinner and because he's a sinner He couldn't have been the one that did it but you do Oh God glory They're intimidating him They're hoping he will give somebody else glory other than Jesus, but the intimidation doesn't work. Notice verse 25. He answered and said, whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know is that though I was blind, now I see. Now brethren, at this point, the man didn't really know who Jesus really was yet. But what he did know is that someone healed him from his blindness. And he wasn't about to throw whoever that was under the bus Because whoever did this showed him kindness, showed him mercy and grace. So the Pharisees pressed harder, verse 26, then they said to him, again, the man's getting tired now, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? Now brethren, at this point, the man has figured out that these guys had no intention on learning the real truth. I think he might have started off that way, but by this time, they're just asking the same questions over, and now he realizes that what they have is they have an irrational hatred toward a good man. They don't know he's God, but he at least knows they're having an irrational hatred toward a man who had healed him. And he's tired of them coming at him. They're tired of them trying to get him to go against this one who had been so gracious to them. So enter in the sarcasm, verse 27. He answered them, I told you already and you did not listen. Why? Do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? Now, we know what's going on here. J.C. Riles says that when the man told the Pharisees that, I told you already, but you didn't listen, basically what he was telling them, you are unwilling to believe. That's the bottom line here. The evidence is there, overwhelming evidence, but you're just blatantly refusing to believe the evidence. Asking the man more questions, asking him to repeat himself was never going to cause them to change their minds. As I said at the beginning, it's a predetermined thing. It's set in. Their unbelief is unrational. It is so deep. It's so rooted in their endemic nature. And they've made it worse through their ongoing rejection. The callousness of their unbelief has grown. And so the man had to know that this would make these guys mad as hornets. And that's exactly what happens. Verse 28 says, Then they reviled him and said, you are his disciples, but we are Moses' disciples. And we're not going to read a lot more of these texts again through over a second time, but from verses 29 to 33, we discover something, brethren, that is quite marvelous about this blind man. And I'd never seen it until I studied this text. For his entire life, he couldn't see anything. I mean, you assume that he was in the synagogue. They let him in. He couldn't see anything, but he was one amazing listener. An amazing listener. This man knew his Bible. And this knowledge of the Scripture, and by it, he challenges the religious leaders of his day who claim to know the Bible. They claim to be followers of Moses, therefore, they should know the truth. Everything's based on two or three witnesses. He had more than that. They had more than that. And so they're actually proving their ignorance of Moses and the God of Moses. This man was...he was a little theologian already. Theological premise number one, God alone is good. No one has ever been healed who's been born blind, but this guy, he knew what a big deal that was. It could have never happened. He knows that God is good, and if something good happens, God was behind it. If it's something bad behind it, the devil's behind it. Theological premise number two, God does not listen to or answer prayers of sinners. Verse 31, what does it say? Now we know, how did he know? This is the blind man speaking who's healed. Now we know that God does not hear sinners. How did He know that, brethren? He knew His Bible, Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. Theological premise number three, God does hear the prayers of those who are willing to do His will. That's the rest of the verse. We know that Jesus was one whose food was to do the will of His Father. The conclusion this theologian reached from knowing something about his Bible was this, brethren. The bottom line is this, is that if this man was not from God, he could do nothing. And he reasoned his way to that truth through his knowledge of the scripture which he received through his ear gate. Never read a passage his whole life. Never read a text his whole life. The interrogation of the Pharisees forced this man to lean on his knowledge of the scriptures to refute their arguments. And here is the most amazing thing, brethren. He reasoned himself into a full-orbed belief that the man had to be from God. He didn't know that at first. That meant that he wants to hear what this man has to say now. He wants to meet this guy. And in the very next section, he will get his chance. but he already has, percolating through his veins, faith that at least this man is a prophet, that he is from God, and he wasn't there at the beginning, but being forced through the arguments of the Pharisees, he sees it now, because he knew and believed that the Scriptures teaches that no one could do this unless he's from God. It hit him like that. I don't know who that guy was that did this to me, but now I know, through you forcing me to look at the Bible, He's from God. I want to go find him." And they will meet up. It just took, brothers, some pressure from the enemy to squeeze his faith in the Word of God out of him. That's what's going to happen to you and me. When you're in trials and when you're in affliction, you're going to find out how much and how well you know your Bible and how much you're trusting it, how much you believe God above your circumstances, how much you believe God above your feeling. The Word of God ruled this man's heart. Well, brethren, the Pharisees make good on their threat. They excommunicated him from the synagogue. The man had gone too far. By his knowledge of the Bible, he made these sophisticated, educated, religious Pharisees look foolish, and that was a bridge way too far for them. You're born in sin and you think you can teach us something? And so they cast him out. Oh brethren, every week I read my text and I think what application for God's people can I get from this? And by the time I'm studying, I have more than I have time to give you. Like this blind man being forced into the scriptures every week opens up a world of applications and truth that you don't get on the surface level of reading the Bible. I found another one this morning, it wasn't even in the four I'm going to give you, so this was an extra one because of what I just said. Pressure, persecution, suffering is sometimes used by God to call out His elect. This man knew a lot more about the Bible than he thought he did, but he didn't know it until God put the pressure down on him. And one of these days, dear brother and sisters, God is gonna put you in some kind of circumstance, and you're gonna be forced to find out what you know about the Bible. I take so much comfort in this with my children, and knowing that what they've learned all their lives, and other loved ones that I know that know something about the Bible, that when something big and hard falls upon them, it may just squeeze faith out, percolate them to the top. Show them what they really know and believe when faced with this kind of situation. But brethren, that was the extra one. Here are the four that I have. Some of them are very short. The first one is this, again, and I've used these many times, but the greatest stumbling block to trusting Jesus for every natural-born child of Adam is this, and that is pride. The Pharisees through the testimony of the others were shown here by the various scriptures what they should have believed. But their pride and their hatred for Jesus kept them from ever even entertaining the idea that Jesus was really sent from God. If you're here and you're unsaved, the real reason you refuse to come to Christ is because you don't want to admit that Jesus really is sent by the Father and is Lord of heaven and earth. Because of pride, unbelievers, all of us before we were saved, are like these Pharisees, there's only room for one Lord in the heart of unbelievers, just one. And it's not Jesus. But again, the reason I preach it anyway is to shake you from your unbelief. Because the only way you're going to be saved from the wrath of God and the judgment to come and the fire that burns forever, is that you might see from what I've shared in this text, the irrational belief of these Pharisees. I mean, how much more could they have been shown that Jesus really is the Son of God? And it pressed them the other way. And that's the other thing pressure does. When that storm and that great affliction hits you in your life some days, it's either gonna push you closer to Christ or to the devil. It'll prove who you really are. Jesus is going to try all people with fire, and only his people can stand and come out. Everything else is wood, hay, and stubble. So turn to the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the fact of the matter is that every one of us still have a great deal of unbelief left in our own hearts. We should provoke every one of us to labor to ask God to help us to believe. So I want to encourage you, if you are not saved, that this was an act of grace on God's part. This man was sitting there minding his own business, begging other people he couldn't see. Jesus came to him. And my point is, Jesus has come to you in here today if you're not saved. And he's willing to open your eye if you would but see that God would help you to be saved today. Secondly, this text reminds us once again that, brethren, we have no power, no influence that can cause an unbeliever to believe. We don't have it. Now, I just gave an appeal to anyone here that's not saved to believe. But unless the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the blind by way of a miracle, I can't do it. It's ours to proclaim the truth to the minds of people. It is left up to God to make it to the heart. to open the eyes of the blind. True it is, isn't it? It's never been heard that a man has opened the eyes of a man born blind, and it's still true today. Only God can still open the eyes of the blind. We have to be faithful to proclaim, brother, but there's sometimes we just feel so much pressure if we just would have said a little bit more, we'd have just done a little bit more of that. We have to keep trusting God. Thirdly, Let us learn from this passage to give thanks to the Lord for those whom we know and love that he has already saved. What a tragic opportunity missed that these parents of this man born blind, it was tragic enough that they saw him get healed and that he could see and they're not leaping for joy. They didn't give God glory, they didn't thank him, but God did more than that. He gave him eternal life. It is a shame, it is to our shame, brethren, that you and I do not praise the Lord more for opening the eyes of those we love. Those that we know now who know Him. Children, give your God praise if your parents know the Lord. And if there's anyone in here who has children who know the Lord, oh, you stopped giving God how long ago? Do you know someone you love who's saved? What a gift! What a cause to praise and to praise and to worship your God! Psalm 107, four times, four times it says this. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. Brethren, we grieve and we mourn over many sorrows, but brethren, let them never hinder us from giving thanks to our God for those whom He saved that we know and love. They've been spared. Oh, yes, we want Him to spare more, but if He spared one, what glory, what praise. These parents, what a terrible, terrible thing. They did not give thanks to the Lord. Well, lastly, I'd say this, brethren. And this may come as a bit of surprise to some of you, but the greatest enemy left for the Christian, for you and for me, brethren, is not your remaining sin. Your greatest enemy isn't even the devil. Our greatest enemy isn't even death itself. It's the last enemy, but it's not the greatest enemy. The greatest enemy for each and every one of us in here as the children of God is our remaining unbelief. I don't know if we believe that or not. Every sin, every fear, every anxiety we have can be traced back somewhere, somehow to this reality. We fail to believe and to trust God. We either didn't believe His promises or we didn't believe His threatenings. But somewhere in there, we're not believing. Now, Jesus said, Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Do we do that? That's what Jesus said. Be anxious for nothing. Think about it. Jesus never sinned. Now, setting aside the moment, the theological reasons that he couldn't, the fact is he always trusted his Father in everything. Not to sound irreverent here, brethren, but this was the secret to his success. And it's gonna be the only one to yours and mine, at least from a human perspective. Even when facing the cross itself, what did he say? If it is possible, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours. I used this earlier in another sermon recently, but in the wilderness when he was combating the devil, it wasn't because Jesus quoted the Bible, it was because he believed the Bible and then obeyed it. It is unbelief. And so if unbelief is so strong that God must work a miracle for unbelievers to overcome it, we still need God to grant us ongoing faith in his word to overcome the world. You were justified by faith. Are you going to keep on in the Christian life in some other way, in the means of the flesh, or is it going to be the same way you were converted? Keep on believing. You keep on trusting. No matter what the world says, no matter what your feelings feel like, no matter what all that's going on around you, all the noise, whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. The world is filled with temptations which will lures in for instant pleasure and gratification is always there. The Bible says, do not love the world or the things in the world. Do you believe that? The devil comes along and whispers, God doesn't want you to have any fun, any pleasure. But we have to trust our Father who says to us in James 1.17, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights. Do we believe this? We must trust our Father when he tells us that it is he who satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good. We just need to do as the psalmist tells us over and over again, wait upon the Lord. Wait upon the Lord. He shall renew your strength. Keep saying no to all those other voices, brother. Trust the Lord. He who believes, all things are possible. Doesn't mean you're going to get cars and houses and cattle. We know all that. But even in your storm, he'll give you a heart of overwhelming peace and even joy. Do we believe Psalm 84 11? No good thing will he withhold from those who walk upright. Wow. It's a promise. And so with that, brethren, We can even defeat the hordes of Pharisees who seek to do us harm. May God give us much faith this year, brethren, to trust him and his word with all our heart. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this passage, for all the many lessons that are still left down in the well that I was not able to bring up. But Lord, for what we have received today, we pray that you'll help us by faith to believe it, receive it, and act upon it the days ahead. Lord, that we would be as this blind man who was healed, that we would be able to know your word and to use it against those who are your enemies, that we might stand faithful in our own day and bring you glory. You have healed us, Lord, and we are here today to give you glory and praise for that. Help us, Lord, in the days ahead, weeks ahead, this year ahead, Lord, to be men and women of faith, to be a church known for its faith, to believe you, Lord, that you will help us in our trials, our afflictions, and, Lord, that you will bless those who walk uprightly. No good thing. Oh, Father, pour out your blessings on us, not because we deserve it, but because you said if we believed, you promised it. Help us to trust you, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.