around the Word of God. The Word of God is referred to as meat, as food or sustenance for us spiritually. And I know that anybody in this room can know that I'm not starving physically. I enjoy eating. I hardly skip a meal. But But it's important to make sure that we are faithfully getting around and opening the meat of the Word, the Word of God, and being sustained spiritually. And just like physically we can go out and we can eat a bunch of junk food and it'll fill us and it might make us happy, but it's not going to be good for us. In the same way, there's a lot of spiritual junk food out there. You can turn on the TV and watch a lot of spiritual junk food, and sadly, oftentimes, there's Christians and folks who are looking for spiritual sustenance in all the wrong places. we're gonna find it in the Word of God. Not in preachers who get up and try to make you feel better about yourself. The truth is, is we're all dirty, rotten sinners in need of a Savior. And we need the Word of God. We need the meat of the Word. And eating the wrong thing can be a problem. My mom knows what I'm about to say. On Thursday, actually Wednesday night, I was at the store. We had to go down to the pet store to grab something. And I had my daughter Reagan with me, and we were walking through. And about her height, you know how they put the right stuff around kids' height where they see all the colorful, bright things? And there were these dog treats. And she loves my parents' dog, Jack. And I might be the only one that loves him that much. And she's always excited. A lot of times when we go, she'll get him a toy. They have like the $2 toys there. It takes them five minutes to destroy it. But she loves bringing the dog something. And there was this special display there where they had these dog treats in the shape of real food. It's like there's one that looks like a hot dog. There's another one that looked like a pizza and different things like that. And she picked up one and we ended up buying it. That looked like, it was a clear plastic bag, looked like it had Pop-Tarts in it. So Thursday evening before church, she went downstairs with my mom and all excited, gave the dog one of those dog treats. And the other one is left in the clear plastic bag and set it on the counter for later. Don't wanna spoil the dog. And so my mom then on Friday mornings looking around trying to figure where did that go? Tried to give my dad a hard time and say, did you throw that away? No, I didn't see it. Finally, he calls Ezekiel. He's at work. He says, yeah, I know what happened to that. I had it for breakfast. He said, it was a little dry, so I had to use some milk to get it down. But it was fine. Not realizing he had eaten the dog's treat for breakfast. So it's his birthday this week. If you guys want to get him actual Pop-Tarts, that's up to you. We're trying to get him back on to human food now. But many times in our spiritual life it's easy to go for something that's flashy that you might find on YouTube and has some flashy idea. But I believe it's important to gather on, just strictly gather on the Word of God. And this morning I want to preach a message that is from this passage in John chapter 9 that really just goes through this passage, and the points from the message are from the Word of God. I don't want to have you learn my thoughts today, or my ideas. I want us to get something from this passage. John chapter 9, starting in verse number 1, which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Salome, which is my interpretation, sent. And he went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbors, therefore, and they which before had seen him, that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he. Others said, He is like him. But he said, I am he. Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you have given us your word, Lord, that we don't have to wonder about what is truth, you've given us the truth. God, I pray that you would meet with us this morning. Lord, just use me as your vessel to bring your message that you have for us this morning. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen. I've often wondered what it'd be like to be blind. You know, and I've met different individuals and believe specifically we minister to quite a few people who are deaf, right, that they can't hear. Oftentimes they could hear maybe loud noises or they could feel the vibration of sound, but they can't hear. But I really believe that being blind is really on another level of difficulty. We've all seen folks when we're out and about feeling their way around. Maybe they have one of those sticks that they put out in front of them, and they're feeling their way through life. And they can't cross the street without getting help. They've never seen their parents' face. They don't even know what their parents look like. You have no idea what it's like to see your siblings or loved ones blind. But not just blind. This man here was blind. and begging. Sitting on the side of the road, begging for someone to feed him, begging for somebody to help. I'm not just talking about blind, I'm talking about blind and broke. Many of us know what it's like to be broke, but this man was blind and broke. He was begging. I'm talking about miserable. Miserable. How hard it would be to be blind. We can look at people like this and often times we can sympathize with them. But I don't believe we really understand the struggle that it must be to be blind. Not just to have a blindness come on you. There are some people who have an accident that causes them to become blind. But they have memories of what things look like. This man says he was blind from birth. Never seen a sunrise or a sunset. He'd never seen a full moon, never had a chance to look at the stars. He'd never seen trees, never seen burns flying in the sky. He's never seen the mountains that we enjoy around us. Never seen flowers. Needs help around the house. He would need help to go shopping. He'd need help to just exist. Can you imagine not knowing who's around you or what the people around you are doing? It's hard to imagine what it's like to be blind, but this man in this story was blind and he was begging. For all his life he had been this way, blind and dependent on other people, until one day, one day something happened that changed all of that. All of his life, from the time he was born, he's going through his life miserable and poor and begging and blind, depending on people around him and suffering until something happens. Somebody might say, I know what happened, that there was a wealthy man that came by and gave him all kinds of money so that he wouldn't have to beg another day in his life. No, it wasn't that a doctor came by and gave him some medicine to take to help him feel better. No, the greatest day in this man's life was not when he became a charity case or when he came into a lot of money. The greatest day in this man's life, when everything changed in his life, was in this passage when it said, and as Jesus passed by. When Jesus passed by. He would never be the same today, same again. And folks here today, you may not be able to picture yourself like this man. You may not be able to fully imagine what it would be like to live your life without the ability of sight. I tell you, every single one of us, every single one of us was born blind. Every single one of us was born spiritually blind, lost and without direction, lost without hope, no way to change our spiritually blind condition on our own. I couldn't change that for myself. And for those of us that used to be blind, aren't you glad for the day when everything changed? And it wasn't because of a turn of events in our lives, it was because we got into the Word of God, and Jesus passed by, and Jesus saved our souls. There might be others here today who say, hey, I've got a job, you've got a house, you've got that nest egg set aside, you've got a car to drive, you've got things that seem to be in place. But spiritually, you're lost. Spiritually, you can't find your way. You're stumbling about in the darkness looking for religion. You're looking for a fresh start. You're looking for a light in your life. You're looking for somebody to give you some type of help and hope. You're spiritually blind. I'll tell you what makes our church special. makes our church different than other churches. It's not the preacher that gets behind the pulpit. It's not about the beautiful building and praise the Lord for the building God has given us. But it's not about the building. It's not about the pews we sit in. Hey, it's not about who gets up and sings up here. It's not about the decor and furniture. I tell you why I love being a member of Mountain Valley Baptist Church. It's because every time we assemble, regardless of who sings and who's preaching, regardless of what the weather is like or the season of the year or what's going on in my life, if you come to Mountain Valley Baptist Church, in this old-fashioned, B-I-B-L-E is opened up. I love it because Jesus passes by. We're not opening up a book of man's words and ideas. We're opening up a book that's inspired by God. We're preaching a message from the Word of God. We're preaching a message that God has brought to us. Jesus passes by, and when Jesus passes by, everything changes. I wonder if Jesus brought you here today because He wanted you to be here when He passed by. Take a look at this story when Jesus passes by, verse number one. We see His situation was discerned. And I'm going to try to be short here this morning, but the pastor did preach a sermon earlier during the announcement, so if I'm long, I'm blaming it on him. His situation was discerned. Look here in chapter number nine, if you would. The Bible says, Jesus passed by and saw him. And saw him. He saw his shameful degradation. He saw his sad desolation and his serious desperation. He saw a fellow who couldn't get out of the spot he was in. He saw a man who couldn't go anywhere on his own. He saw that he was stuck and he could not get himself out of this situation. Aren't you glad that Jesus looked at this man with concern and compassion? Aren't you glad that He saw this man's problems? Some of you in this building, you might be going through something on the inside and say, hey, nobody else around me, they might not notice it, I feel like my life is falling apart, that I might not have direction, I don't know what's going on, I don't know how to get out of where I'm at. Jesus knows. You think nobody cares about it? We don't know what we've come through. We don't know maybe what troubles are in your family. We don't know the addictions maybe you're struggling with. We don't know the depression you're struggling with. We don't know the pain and the crying out that is in your heart. But I'm here to tell you that God, the God that put the stars in place and hung the moon in space and put the sun out there to shine and give us some warmth, What I can't see, what's in your mind and your heart, what other people around you don't notice, I'm glad that Jesus, who loved you and died for you, he sees your situation. He sees what's going on. He sees your burden, he sees your heart. Jesus passed by and he saw him. He saw him. His situation was discerned. Secondly, his soul was delivered. Aren't you glad he got delivered? Praise the Lord, he was delivered for a unique purpose. Jesus said his parents didn't sin to cause his blindness. He didn't sin to cause his blindness. Why was he blind? It says, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. When God does something in our lives, it's amazing, He'll do it in a way where only He can get the credit. Only He can get the credit. And right here He says, hey, you know why this man was born blind? Well, so that I could come here and I could deliver him from this blindness as an example so that others can learn from him and see my glory. Unique purpose, notice also the unquestioned plan. Jesus said after he had spit on that clay and he put it into his eyes. By the way, what a unique way to heal somebody. But he put that in his eyes and he says, go, go wash in the pool of Siloam. I was reading some commentators and they approximated between half a mile and three quarters of a mile would have been the walk from where they were to the pool of Siloam. You say, oh man, I could do that. I'd get out of breath personally, but I'd have to walk nice and slow. But you have to realize he was still blind. He didn't come up seeing until after he had followed the instructions of Christ. So if you imagine that this half a mile or three-quarters mile, whatever it was, that took some determination, that took some faith. Jesus spit on that clay and put it in his eyes, but he didn't start seeing as soon as they put the clay in his eyes. This man had to believe that Jesus knew what he was talking about. He had to blindly walk for that period of portion of road there by faith because Jesus said so. There might be someone here today that says, I want to go to heaven when I die. See, I've done all the things religion has told me to do. I've been sprinkled with water. I've put the money in the offering plate. I show up to church and I go through this ceremony or that ceremony. I've worked hard to make sure that maybe my good will outweigh my bad. I tell you, none of that is going to get you to heaven. You say, how do I go to heaven? You trust the One who loved you enough. to give Himself for you. You've got to believe that He said so because He said so. Right here in His Word, you've got to repent of your sins and turn to Him because He said so. Salvation is not up for debate. Salvation is not an idea that a bunch of preachers got together and said, let's figure out how we should put this together. No, we just look in the Word of God and God said so. Salvation His way. Not everybody else's way. You've got to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart because Jesus said so. This guy walked to the pool of Siloam because Jesus said so and when he had washed in the pool, his eyes started seeing. Can you imagine? If you try to imagine yourself in that place of darkness his whole life, he's never seen anything before. Can you imagine what it was like the first time he looked up and he saw sunshine? As he walked down the street, it must have been exciting. It talks about how he saw these neighbors, these people. He could see them! Wow! And God wants to give us that kind of clarity and that kind of sight in spiritual life through salvation. I don't care what you've done in your past. I don't care what kind of family you're from or what side of the tracks you were born on. You say, I don't know if I can be saved. I don't know. Maybe I've done things in your past that you don't think can be forgiven. If you do what Jesus said in His Word and trust Him as Savior and receive His free gift of salvation, He will take your blind eyes and make you see. Praise God, He offers salvation to all that will come to Him. Not my way, not your way, not the Pope's way, not a religious organization's way. Not an extra biblical way. The Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you're not saved today, today can be your day of salvation. on so much more of an important level than this man's physical blindness. Jesus is here asking, hey, if you're spiritually blind, if you're not saved, if you have not received Jesus Christ as your Savior, maybe you're following this religious list of rules, but if you haven't been saved Jesus' way, He's offering you sight. He's offering you salvation. Wouldn't it be a shame if this man's sitting here begging in this just destitute situation, and Jesus comes passing by, and Jesus is there ready to heal this man's blindness, and he says, I'm good, I'm gonna try it my own way. You say, that wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense. But friend, if you're here today and you say, I don't know if I'm saved, I have not come to this point where I've received Jesus Christ as my Savior, But I'm going to keep trying it my way. Please, today is a day of salvation. He's offering you spiritual sight. He's offering you spiritual salvation. Don't say no to the Savior. Come and be saved today. His situation was discerned. His soul was delivered. Thirdly, His story was declared. There are always curious critics. Anytime God delivers somebody, or God starts moving in the life of somebody, the critics come out. They say, well, I don't even know if that's him. It may look like him. How do we even know if it's the same guy? Maybe he's got a twin. Just read the passage. That's what they're talking about. Is it even the same guy? There were curious critics that came out, but praise God, not only were there curious critics, there was also a courageous convert. A courageous convert. They asked him, hey, who healed you? And he said, hey, it's hard to recognize who healed me when I was blind and I never saw him. Realize this, at this point, he had never seen Jesus. Jesus had healed him, but he had never seen him. So they start asking, was he a sinner, was he a fake? This man said, there's a lot I may know about the man who healed me, but here's what I can tell you. Once I was blind and now I see. And there are people all over this room that when you got saved, you didn't know the proper definition maybe of the words sanctification and justification. Maybe you didn't know how to find Habakkuk in the Bible. You didn't understand how the King James Bible got translated. You may not have understood every aspect of what the book of Revelation means. But one thing you did know is that you got saved. Once I was lost and now I'm found. Once I was blind but now I see. Once I was dead but now I'm alive spiritually. Once I was headed to hell and now, now I'm going to heaven with Jesus someday. and we ought to give God the praise for the change that salvation has brought into our lives. Amen? We ought to give God the praise. Once this man, once this man could not, sorry. Once this man was bold there, they decided, chapter nine, verse number 34, they said, we're gonna cast him out. We're going to cast it, so they cast him out. Watch this, now religious people don't want you to hear, don't want to hear from a genuinely changed person. Genuinely changed person. Why? Why? Because that change is something you're not going to find in a religion. Mountain Valley Baptist Church is not a religious organization. We're a Jesus organization. We are a place where we come together, a place ordained by God to gather around His word, to find what He has to say in His word. Not a bunch of books written by church fathers. There are a lot of good study materials. But hey, you have a genuinely changed person. You're gonna find some people who are stale, people who are religious and Pharisaic who are not gonna like that. I wonder too though, be careful Christian, of becoming so outwardly spiritual that we get upset when someone around us gets too genuinely changed. Some people are so busy trying to put on their best impression of a Pharisee, they're trying to look a certain way and sound a certain way, and when somebody comes in that doesn't maybe fit the part, You're ready to dismiss them because they've got a story that doesn't match your idea of what it should look like. I tell you, I'm glad that Jesus is still in the business of saving liars and cheaters and drug addicts and any sinner that will come to Him for repentance. The Bible says He sat with sinners. Think of Zacchaeus. Sing that Sunday School song, the wee little man who climbed up in a tree. And Jesus came by, hey you, I'm coming to your house today. The Pharisees didn't like Zacchaeus. A lot of people looked down on him. He was a bad man. He had stolen. He had cheated. He had done wrong to so many people. But Jesus loved his soul and saved his soul. Let's be careful not to cast people out, but to bring folks to Christ. The Bible says from the highways and hedges so that they can receive the life-changing power of salvation through Christ. When Jesus passed by, his situation was discerned, his soul was delivered, his story was declared, and lastly, the services were demanded. His situation was discerned, Jesus saw him. His soul was delivered, Jesus healed him. His story was declared, he talked about what Jesus had done, but then the service was demanded. Look in our text at verse number 36 and we'll close. After the man was cast out, Jesus found out that they had cast him out. I'm sure it didn't take much for him to find that out, he's all knowing. In verse number 35, and he found him and Jesus asked him, dost thou believe on the Son of God? Look at verse number 36, he answered and said, who is he, Lord, that I might believe him? Look at Jesus' response. It is he that talketh with thee. This is King James language of saying, you're looking at him, you're looking at him. Aren't you glad that for the day that the lightbulb came on and we realized who Jesus really was? That Jesus isn't just a butler of sorts up in heaven that you come to whenever you have a need and you have a favor to ask. But that Jesus is God and Jesus is Lord of lords. He's our Savior who's died on the cross to save us from our sins and that we need that salvation. Aren't you glad for the day when you realize that he is Jesus, the Son of God, who's come to seek and to save that which is lost? The sincere request, who is he? The sovereign revelation, he's the one who's talking to you. The sensible response, here's what Jesus says, I'm the one talking to you, I am Christ. And the man said, see it there, Lord, I believe. Lord, I believe. He had a personal faith. See, you can't get to heaven on somebody else's faith. I heard it told to me, you can't get to heaven on mom and daddy's faith. That God, when you get saved, you actually become a child of God. We got some people trying to be a grandchild of God. You're not a Christian because mom and dad are a Christian, young people. You need to find salvation for yourself. Somebody here this morning might be saying, why would Jesus care for me? I know that I don't deserve the love of God. We heard that song about God's love here before the message. Oh, I don't deserve God's love. I don't deserve to be saved. Why would God, why would Jesus be concerned about me? I'm too far gone. I wonder if that's how this man felt. There's no more hope, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in this blind, begging state. Crying out for help and the people all over this city, all over the world are blind and crying out for help. And for each and every person, Jesus is the answer. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. Jesus is passing by and He is concerned for each and every one of us. And you may not know how to fix your problems, but regardless of who you are, He is exactly what you need. You say, today I've read the Bible at times, or maybe this is, I haven't been to church in a while, okay. Maybe you've been trying to follow a list of rules from a religion. You're not going to have salvation until you get Jesus in your life. So how does that happen? How does that happen? It's simple. It's not a complicated thing. The Bible says, first of all, there's some things it's not. The Bible says it's not of works. Hey, all those good deeds, it's not of that. It's not of that. Salvation is simple. It starts with a turning. In order to get saved, first you have to realize that you need to be saved. That in our sin, without salvation, we're on our way to a devil's hell, and God doesn't want us to go there. And it starts with a turning, turning from our sin, that's repentance, and turning to God and saying, that free gift of salvation, I believe, I believe that he can and will save me and accepting that gift as your own. The Bible says confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believing in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Bible, it's clear, it's simple, it's not a complicated thing. You can't have both though. You have to turn from sin and turn to Christ. Doesn't mean you're gonna live a perfect life, but it means that you're eternally secure in Christ. Let's ask some questions, I've not done that. Hey, Jesus is a passing by and he wants to give you sight today. Don't delay, we'll pray in a minute. Come forward. If you're a man, I'll have a man go with you in another room and share with you from the Bible, extensively answer all of your questions you might have about salvation, show you how you can know for sure that when the end of your life comes, you're going to heaven. No doubt in your mind. If you're a lady, a lady will deal with you. But don't delay. Don't allow Jesus to pass by with an opportunity for you to have salvation and say, no, I'm good, I'm gonna stay where I'm at, I'm gonna keep trying myself. And Christians, Christians, those that are saved, it's our job to take this message to the lost and dying world around us. It's also our job to make sure that we get into this word. And we let Jesus to continue to affect change in our life each and every day. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, God, thank you so much for your word, for your love, for your salvation. Thank you that it is freely offered to each and every one of us, for all that believe. God, I pray that if there's anyone here today that even wonders about it, that they'd make sure today that they know where they're going when they die. I pray that you get ahold of our hearts as Christians, as saved individuals, to get busy sharing this gospel with others, and in your word, and growing in you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.