John Message #28 “Pharisees” Ed Miller, Sept. 25, 2024
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Listen to the audio above while following along in the transcript below which is also available to download at www.biblestudyministriesinc.com
We welcome all of you to our little look at the gospel of John in order to see a wonderful look of our Lord Jesus. As we come to look in the word of God there is that principle that is absolutely indispensable, and that is total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit. The Bible is His book and He must illumine us.
I want to share a couple of verses from Ephesians and it’s a prayer of the Apostle Paul and it’s Ephesians 1:17&18, but I’m going to read it from the amplified New Testament, “I pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, of insight into mysteries and secrets of the deep and intimate knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart flooded with light.” Isn’t that graphic! So, let’s pray that the Lord would flood our eyes, our heart with light.
Father, thank You that we can gather in this place, and we just ask you, Lord, to minister Yourself and unveil Yourself to our hearts. You know all about us, our needs, our capacities, our hungers, and we just pray that You would meet right where we are and take us where You would have us. We know the Lord Jesus deserves this, so, we come claiming it in His matchless name. Amen.
Once again, I welcome you; by the grace of the Lord we’re allowed to gather here again. We’ve dubbed this place “Bethany” because Bethany, as far as I can see, is the one place in the scripture where Jesus was fully accepted, and He’s fully accepted here. We’re on lesson #28 and I want remind any that are here and haven’t heard this or are here for the first time, just because we’re in lesson #28, don’t feel like you are going to be lost because you don’t have the first twenty-seven lessons. Because we present a Person, we present the Lord Jesus, every lesson stands on its own. You can come in at any time, leave at any time, and expect to be blessed because of the Lord Jesus. Every study is designed to show us Christ. We’ve come to see the Living Word in the written word.
Speaking of the written word, I want to remind you why the Apostle John wrote this book. He didn’t let us guess. He came right out and told us. It’s in John 20:31, “These things have been written so that you might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have Life in His name.” From that verse we found three principles. Why did John give us, or rather the Holy Spirit through John, the gospel of John? It’s so we would know the Lord. Why did he write this? So we would trust the Lord. Why did he write this? So we would enjoy the Lord, and have Life in His name. This book is written to know the Lord, to trust the Lord and to enjoy the Lord. Every chapter we look at, I pray God will take us forward in the intimate knowledge, heart knowledge of the Lord, and that we would trust Him implicitly and obey Him and experience His Life thoroughly.
I’m going to attempt to review just enough to get us back into the flow of where we were. As I teach, I’m also in my heart praying; I can teach and pray at the same time. I’m praying the truth of Matthew 11:27, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” So, as I teach, my heart is asking the Lord, “Reveal Yourself; reveal Yourself to our hearts.”
When we left off in our meditation, we had begun to look at John 9, the healing of the man born blind. I want to review the four great emphasis I found in John 9. We could have begun in verse 1 and then go a verse at a time, and we would have seen the story, but I think we would have missed the great emphasis, the life principles, and as I read the chapter over and over and over again and praying to the Lord, I felt like the Holy Spirit was emphasizing four great truths. So, we’re looking at John 9 in terms of those four truths.
The first truth, the Holy Spirit has much to say about who Jesus is in chapter 9, the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The chapter almost begins in verse 5, “While I’m in the world I am the light of the world,” and He begins by proclaiming that He is the light of the world. In John 9 we’ve already looked at that and we saw, “Who is Christ?”, and the answer is, “He’s the light of the world, the light that gives Life, and He is the One who came to give sight to all those who are hopelessly born blind,” which is everyone. He came to give sight to those who born blind, by His presence and by His mighty power. All of that is illustrated with this unnamed blind man that the Lord healed.
Not only does the Holy Spirit reveal Christ, but the Holy Spirit has a lot to say about this particular miracle, the miracles of opening blind eyes. It’s a special miracle. Of all the miracles the Lord did in the New Testament, He did this one more than any other; He opened the eyes of the blind, and He never did it the same way, as far as the record is concerned. I’ll return to that miracle section. That’s where we were last week, and we’ll pick that up in a little bit.
The third emphasis, He not only has a lot to say about who Christ is, a big focus on the miracle itself, but on the religious leaders, the Pharisees. Almost the whole chapter is taken up with the conversation which these Pharisees had with this man who was born blind, and his parents.
Finally, and Lord willing we’ll begin to look at it next week, He has a lot to say about the blind man and the change in his life since the Lord opened his eyes, the progress that this man made in the knowledge of the Lord. So, those four things the Holy Spirit emphasizes, and we’ve been looking at them. Jesus is the One who opens blind eyes, the miracle of healing the blind man, opening eyes, the Pharisees/religious leaders, and then finally the man himself.
Let me pick up where we left off. We were on the miracle section and I was focusing on the fact that only Jesus can open the eyes of the spiritually and also the physically blind but that’s illustrating the spiritually blindness. Only Jesus can do it, but notice John 9:32, “Since the beginning of time never has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of the blind of a person born blind.” Only Jesus could do that. Notice verse 4 and how the chapter opens, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day.” I say that only Jesus can open the eyes of the blind, then why does He say “we”, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me.” Only He can open the blind, but He wants to include us in His mighty work. He does the work but He wants to use us as His channels, as His instruments. The disciples, when you read this story, they were only spectators; they were only talking to Jesus and standing there, and Jesus is the One who made the clay, and Jesus is the One who spit, and Jesus is the One that applied it to His eyes, and Jesus is the One who sent him to Siloam, and when he got there, in its essence, Jesus was there to open his eyes. The disciples are just spectators, but Jesus said, “We must work the works. I want to use you; I want you do be My instrument.”
They might have scratched their heads not knowing why He said “we”, and what does it mean to be an instrument? So, He gives an illustration. He said, “I want to use you as an instrument. Let me give you an illustration—mud and spit. That’s you; you’re going to be My instrument, and I’m going to use you in order to open blind eyes.” That instrument that He used, John 9:6, “When He said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, applied clay to the eyes,” that is the most unlikely instrument to help a man see. If you put that in somebody’s eyes you’re not going to facilitate sight; you’re going to hinder sight. That’s the kind of instruments we are. This whole thing, clay is a picture of us, and spit, that’s the DNA of Him, and it’s in union with Him that we are His instruments.
I know what it is to try to help somebody to see that doesn’t know the Lord when it’s not in union with the Lord. I drove a lot of people away. I thought I was doing a great service to the Lord. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but I was taught that everybody I met I was supposed to share Christ with. I did it; I was obnoxious. One guy was washing a window, and I climbed up the ladder behind him and I told him about the Lord. I told the guy in the elevator. I told everybody. It wasn’t always loving, “Jesus loves you; you turn or burn…” It was a terrible thing and I’m driving people away. It’s got to be in union with the Lord. He says, “I’m the One that does it, but I want to use you.” So, “We must work the works of Him that sent Me.”
When we closed, I shared the truth that dear Rickie Baker shared with me. It’s from John 9:7, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam which is translated ‘sent’, and he went away and washed and came back seeing.” God uses us but that blind man did not see Jesus until the instrument was washed out of his eyes. Praise God He’ll use you and praise God He uses me, but then get out of the way, and be washed away so that the dear saint that has just become a saint can see the Lord Jesus. The sooner they get their eyes off of us, the instrument, the sooner they’re going to see the Lord Jesus.
Before we look at the third emphasis, the Pharisees, which we’ll do this morning, I want to enlarge one more thing about the miracle; we’re still on the miracle. John 9:5, “While I’m in the world I’m the light of the world.” When Jesus said that, He was standing in front of the man begging, the blind man; he was sitting there. It’s an amazing thing to me how close to the blind man was the One who was the light of the word standing. The blind man didn’t see a thing because he’s blind. He couldn’t see it. Jesus draws near, and how close Christ is to the blind. He’s right there; He’s right in front of them. Sometimes they hear His voice, and faith comes by hearing. We’re going to see that next week when we look at the blind man, that he heard and he believed, but how close he is. I suggested this point last week. Those who are born with a handicap, born blind or my son was born profoundly deaf, he has no concept, my son, of sound. He doesn’t understand. He can feel vibration but he doesn’t know sound because he’s never experienced it. And the blind don’t know what they’re missing because they’ve never experienced it.
I gave several illustrations last time; I’ll just give one now. My mother-in-law and father-in-law became guides to the blind. Every year they would go up to a camp in New Hampshire and they would spend a week, or two weeks and they just guided the blind. We heard many blind stories. One of the things that my father-in-law told us is, I’m not using this in disgraceful way, but how ignorant they are. That is, they don’t know, and they haven’t experienced, and they don’t understand. One time my father-in-law misplaced his keys and he had become friendly with the blind man that he was guiding, and the man said, “I don’t understand. How could you lose your keys if you can see? That doesn’t make sense.” And he said, “They might be in the other room.” And he said, “Can’t you see in the other room?” And he said, “Well, I’ll have to go around the corner, around the wall.” He said, “Can’t you see around the corner?” He was trying to explain to this man that you can’t see through something solid. He said, “You can look through a window.” He’s trying to explain to this man what sight is. You can’t explain it. You can’t explain to a man born blind what color is. They just don’t understand that. So, they are constantly asking questions.
When we get to John 16, I’m going to home in on this, but I want to share the verse now. There’s a recurring emphasis in John 13-17 and it’s “in that day”, “in that day”, “in that day”, over and over, and it’s the day the Holy Spirit comes, “In that day this is going to happen.” “In that day I’ll bring everything to your remembrance.” He keeps talking about what’s going to happen when your heart is filled with the Spirit, the Life of God “in that day”, and I was struck with verse 23, “In that day you will not question Me about anything.” Another translation, “In that day you’ll ask Me no questions.” I’ve been saved a long time, and I’m still asking questions, but I’m not asking questions now in order to get rest. I’m asking questions from rest. I’m already in the Lord and I want more information. I think the heart of that passage is that when you are filled with the Spirit of God, the Life of God, God will give you a satisfied mind. In that day you’ll ask no questions.
Psalm 119:99, “I have more insight than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ages; I’ve observed your precepts.” With illumination comes this wonderful by-product, this fruit, that all of a sudden your don’t ask any more questions; you have a satisfied mind. Now, that particular verse I got in a little trouble one time. I was at Bible school. I’m not a student. We lived off campus and my grades are under water; that’s below C-level, if you don’t know what that means. Anyway, I was not a student, and it was exam day and we pulled in the parking lot and I pulled in right next to my theology teacher. We were walking together and Mr. Wenzel and I were talking and he said, “Are you prepared for the exam today?” I said, “The Lord gave me a verse, Psalm 119:99, ‘I have more understanding than all of my teachers.’” He said, “Don’t count on it.” Actually, he was right.
I think some of you know that I love to express my heart in poetry when the Lord shows me something. I just enjoy that. I want you to imagine, to drive home this truth that the blind have many questions until their eyes are open, to picture a guide taking a blind man on a mountain trail, and they’re going up the trail and the blind man, of course, can’t see anything. Here is the way it touched my heart:
How many ranges do you see stretched before your view?
The blind man asked his faithful guide. Do you see wildlife, too?
What kind of clouds? Are flowers in bloom? Is this day dark or bright?
Do pilgrims walk the path beneath? Is there a stream in sight?
Each answer spawned a question more, betraying he was blind.
When vision fails, then questions come to satisfy the mind.
If that same man received his sight and stood in that very place
With his new eyes beheld the scene his guide had once to trace.
Do you think questions would arise, as all around he saw,
Or would he simply take it in and stand in silent awe?
The gift of vision is the voice that’s speaks a sacred peace,
And revelation is the grace that bids all questions cease.
The day the Holy Spirit comes in fullness to abide,
Like blind men who have received their sight, our eyes will open wide.
We’ll see and understand the things that God has longed to share,
The hidden treasures of the Lord our blindness could not bear.
So, come Lord Jesus, show Thyself, our hearts await the day
When Thou are all our faith can see and questions melt away.
Next week. Lord willing, we’re going to see that when this blind man’s eyes were opened, this poor beggar, he’s going to stand up against the religious leadership. How much he knew! He said, “Only one thing I know. I was blind and now I see,” but we’re going to see how much he really knew. We’re going to look at that next time.
That brings us, then, to our third emphasis. The Holy Spirit emphasizes who Christ is. The Holy Spirit calls great attention to that special miracle, and now the Pharisees, the religious leaders. It’s not possible to read, to study under the guidance of the Holy Spirit John 9 and not see that the Holy Spirit focuses on this particular group. The entire chapter almost is about their response to this miracle of giving sight to this blind man. I want to show you what I think the Holy Spirit emphasizes about these Pharisees.
I’m quite sure most of us are quite familiar that the Pharisees were part of the religious leadership in that day, but they weren’t the only ones. There were also the scribes, the Sadducees, and there were also the priests, and there were also the Essenes; there were other religious groups, but the Pharisees took the lead. They were the bigwigs; they were the religious leaders. Sometimes they appear together, like in Matthew where you read about scribes and Pharisees, you read about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You don’t see that in the other gospels. Mark mentions the Pharisees five times but every time he sees them they’re always in Galilee. When Matthew mentions the Pharisees, they’re in Galilee and in Judea. Luke mentions the Pharisees ten times.
What do we actually know about these religious leaders? The Holy Spirit emphasizes… Their name means “separated”, that’s what Pharisee means, but it was all external. Listen please to these verses. Matthew 23:5, “They do all their deeds to be noticed by men. They broaden their phylacteries, lighten the tassels of their garments, and they love the place of honor at the banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called ‘Rabbi’ by men.” Verse 25, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and of the dish but inside they’re full of robbery and self-indulgence.” Verse 28, “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, and inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
I think the average Christian when he thinks of Pharisee, the word ‘hypocrite’ comes to the mind. There’s a gospel song I heard recently, “I’m a recovering Pharisee.” All we know about the Pharisees come from two main sources. One is the Bible. There are two chief Pharisees mentioned in the Bible. Paul and Nicodemus were Pharisees. What we mostly know about the Pharisees comes from a man name Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish historian, and since most information comes from him you can’t trust it because he was a Pharisee. You’ve got the fox guarding the hen house. When he describes the Pharisees, it’s pretty flowery, but he does give us some background. He tells us that they lean very heavily… You know, the Torah was the first five books of the Old Testament, but they have commentaries on the Torah, and the Talmud was the human commentaries on that. The main part of the Talmud was called the Mishnah, and it had all the details, sixty-three volumes explaining five books of the Bible. They talk about the rules about agriculture and family and about women and about festivals and about temple worship and penalties and what’s clean and what’s not clean—all the details.
The Pharisees had this idea. If you are going near a cliff, God says, “Don’t go over the cliff,” well, you’ve got to make sure they didn’t even get near the cliff. They put laws way over here, so that if you rubbed your toe in the earth and made a furrow, you are plowing; be careful! They’re trying to save the Sabbath Day so they put a fence way around it and put people in bondage with all these laws just to protect them. You know they were against the Lord Jesus. They argued with Him about fasting and about Sabbath Day and about divorce and about washings and about eating with sinners, and all kinds of things. If we’re going to study the Pharisees in John 9 we’ve got to take the main verse, John 9:22, “His parents said this,” we’ll get into that when we talk about the parents, “because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.” Jesus claimed to be Messiah was not new to the Pharisees. It didn’t just come up in chapter 9. They had already made a rule that if anyone says that Jesus is the Messiah, he’s out. They were not only external, all external and all ritual and form, but they hated Jesus, and they determined that He was not Messiah. Everything we want to read about their conversation with the neighbors and their conversation with the parents and their conversation with the man that was healed, you’ve got to remember in the background, they’re not open; they don’t want to know truth. “Jesus is not Messiah; now, what do you have to say? Jesus is not Messiah.”
For example, they claimed to be experts in the Bible, John 5:39, “You search the scriptures and in them you think you have eternal life; they testify of Me. You will not come to Me that you might have life.” They claimed to know the Bible, and they did know it, and they knew the prophecies of Messiah, and one of the main prophecies, “When Messiah comes, He’s going to open the eyes of the blind.” Isaiah 29:18, “On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.” Isaiah 35:5, “The eyes of the blind will be opened; the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.” Isaiah 42:6, “I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations to open blind eyes.” Isaiah 42:16, “I’ll lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know, and I will guide them, and I will make darkness into light before them, and rugged places into plane. These are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.”
One of the types of evidence of the true Messiah is that He’s going to come and open the eyes of the blind. I think they knew that up here, but they’ve already determined that He’s not Messiah, “I don’t care what He does. We’ll come up with another explanation, but He’s not Messiah.” Even in the light of clear evidence they rejected Messiah. Do you remember when John the Baptist was in prison at the end of his life, and even though he had seen so much and heard so much and known so much, he was tempted to doubt? Do you remember that? Luke 7:20, “When the men came to Him,” those were messengers that John sent to Jesus, “they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to You to ask, “Are You the expected one?”, or do we look for somebody else?”’” Imagine that John got so discouraged that he said, “Is He really the Messiah.” He was at the baptism; he saw the dove, he saw the Holy Spirit. This is amazing! And he says, “Go ask Jesus, ‘Are you the One; are You Messiah?’” Here is what was sent back, Luke 7:22, “Go and report to John what you’ve seen and heard; the blind received their sight.” It’s so tremendous, “The lame walk and lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear and the dead are raised and the poor of the gospel preached.” That was the sign, miracles, and Messiah would come and work these marvelous miracles. This was willful rejection in the light of the light of the world. That’s a darkness worse than blindness.
So set were they in rejecting Messiah, they had to come up with an explanation for this miracle that Jesus did. The first thing they tried, of course, was to deny that it ever happened. John 9:18&19, “The Jews then did not believe it of him that he had been blind and had received sight.” Then, of course, they called his parents, and they came up with another idea, verse 14, “It was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened the eyes.” Verse 16, “Therefore, some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God; He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” They already said that He’s not Messiah, and they’re trying to find a reason why it didn’t happen. “Alright, it did happen. Okay, but not by Him because He worked on the Sabbath Day and that’s not allowed. How could He be Messiah and dare to act outside of our theology? He can’t do that.” They had no idea the true meaning of Sabbath.
Did you ever notice how many miracles He did on the Sabbath Day? When I first read that, I thought He was “in your face”, but that’s not why He did it. He was rescuing the Sabbath to its real meaning; He was trying to rescue the Sabbath and deliver those who were in bondage to it. Mark 7:13, He says, “You invalidate the word of God by your tradition which you’ve handed down and you do many such things.”
When they were in the discussion, the man who was now seeing said to, in verse 27, to the Pharisees, “You do not want to be His disciples, too, do you?” I love that. And then John 9:28, “They reviled him and said, ‘You’re His disciples; we’re disciples of Moses.’” Even that was a deception because Jesus and they already had that discussion. In John 5:46, “If you believe Moses, you would believe Me. He wrote about Me.” These Pharisees are external, and the second thing He shows is that they have rejected Jesus all the way. Mark 3:22, “The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He’s possessed by Beelzebub; He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.’” That was their last explanation, “Alright, He did miracles but He did it by Satan, by the power of the enemy.”
So far, I’ve called attention to two things the Holy Spirit emphasized. He emphasized that they are external only, and He emphasized that they’ve already in their heart rejected the Lord Jesus, and now the third thing is even though they were so obstinate in rejecting Christ, they were stubborn and they were resolute and tenacious, they still had a powerful influence over everybody. They represent religion, and religion has a powerful influence over everybody.
The Holy Spirit calls attention to three different illustrations of their influence. Number one, they had an influence on the neighbors. John 9:8&9, “The neighbors and those who previously saw him as a beggar were saying, ‘Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?’ Others were saying, ‘This is he.’ Still others were saying, ‘No, but he’s like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the one.’” What are they going to do because later he’s going to say to the neighbors, “A man named Jesus; that’s all I know.” Well, now the neighbors know it’s Jesus, and they know. The Pharisees said, “He’s not Messiah, and if you say he is, you are out.” Listen to verse 13, “They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly born blind.” Why did they bring him to the Pharisees? “Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made clay and opened his eyes.” They had to check it out with the religious leaders. The religious taught them that you can’t do anything on the Sabbath Day. You can’t spit on the Sabbath Day, and you can’t let your toe go in the soil on the Sabbath Day, and you can’t swat a fly on the Sabbath Day. When we were in Exodus, our brother Sabastian gave other illustrations of some of these laws. They put a big fence around God’s laws, and that became their doctrine and creed, and they influenced those neighbors, “We’ve got to check this out. We’ve got to see what the religious people say.”
The second illustration, of course, is on the parents. John 9:21&22, “’How he sees we do not know. Who opened his eyes we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, and he’ll speak for himself.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. The Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. For that reason, his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’” So, He puts the Pharisees, the religion puts guilt on the neighbors and puts fear on the parents. Guilt and fear is what religion does; it’s puts on guilt and fear. You’ve got to check with the religious leaders, “We don’t want to go astray.” They think you’re dumb. Religion thinks that you don’t know anything, and you need them, and they are the ones that are going to educate you. Even after a person has been delivered from the influence of religion, and I’m talking about today, even after you’ve been delivered from that, there are waves that come of guilt and waves that come of fear. You are so brainwashed by religion that it keeps coming back, and of course, the Lord keeps delivering, but religion has such an influence.
Pharisees not only influence the neighbors, not only influence the parents, but had an influence on the disciples. Listen to John 9:34, this is now the Pharisees talking to the blind man, “’You were born entirely in sin, and you are teaching?’, and they put him out. That idea that you are born entirely in sin. The doctrine that they held was that sin causes suffering. They’re not talking about original sin; they’re not talking about everybody is born in sin, “There’d be no suffering if there were no sin.” They aren’t talking about that. They’re saying, “That pain, that disease, that sickness, that blindness, you did something wrong or somebody did something wrong that affected you.” We’re told that the Pharisees held a belief that was called the transmigration of souls. They actually believe that there was an existence before, and when that person died, their soul got into another fetus, and there was this moving of souls. This guy was born blind because either he sinned or somebody in another life sinned and now that soul is… That was their doctrine. They actually believed that a baby could sin inside the womb. They based that on Genesis 25:22 when Esau and Jacob were wrestling inside the womb, and later on in chapter 38 verse 28 when he grabs the heal and he wants to be born first, some people think Esau tried to kill in the womb, tried to kill Jacob.
I bring this up because did you notice how the chapter began? John 9:2, “The disciples asked Jesus, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’” That influence got to the disciples and they actually said, “Did this guy sin in the womb that he’s born blind? Who sinned?” At first when I read that I thought, “What a stupid question. How could a baby sin?” That was their doctrine, that he was born blind. That’s a great tactic of religion. You start with some false, in this case, supposition, and then you build everything on that. They’re not really interested that you know their theology. They’re just interested that you follow them and that you believe what they believe. They don’t want you to know the truth. “Give me a theory, and I’ll make everything fit.” That’s how I do puzzles. I hate puzzles, but I’m quick because I make them fit; I pound them in. This transmigration of souls was their theory. It wasn’t true but now they interpret everything… That was as old as the book of Job, that suffering causes sin.
Spurgeon told a story one time. He had a dog and the dog had a special rug, and every time Spurgeon came home the dog would run to him and drop the rug at his feet. If he reached out to get it, the dog would get it and shake his head. The dog was looking for a tug of war. So he said, “Every day I come home and my dog meets me and we have to have a tug of war; he wants to play.” That’s what religion does. It doesn’t really want you to know the truth. It just wants to argue with you and wants a tug of war. It’s sort of amazing; it’s got to fit into their theology. The Armenians have their tug of war. Every Armenian I know, we’re not together very long and they want to discuss eternal security. That’s their rug. And a dispensationalist comes along and they’ve got their rug and they want a tug of war, so let’s talk about pre-trib or end times. Then the Calvinists comes along and you can’t be five minutes with them, “Let’s talk about election,” and everybody has their rug. A charismatic comes along and shakes the rug, “Let’s talk about the second blessing. Let’s talk about signs and wonders.” They aren’t really interested that you agree. They just want to argue and just want to discuss it with you.
You can’t have a normal conversation with some Christians unless you get into these theological debates. I used to love theological bull sessions. I wanted to argue about the sovereignty of God and free will, but not anymore. That sovereignty of God, that’s my resting place now; it’s not my rug anymore. So, everybody seems to have their rug. One wants to discuss women’s place in the church and should they teach, and another one wants to talk about polity and church government, “Do you sprinkle or do you dip or do you immerse?” They want to talk about this and talk about that, “Let’s talk about spiritual gifts,” and so on. That’s what the Pharisees were doing with the law; they were just wanting to argue, and if you didn’t agree, you are out of here, you’re out.
We all have rugs. These disciples were trying to reign in Jesus; they wanted to bring Him into their narrow little view, “You can’t do that on the Sabbath Day. You can’t eat with unwashed hands. You can’t eat with those sinners. You’ve got to agree with us on that.” I don’t know about you; I just know about me. My natural heart is a Pharisee’s heart. My natural heart is a Mormon heart. My natural heart is a Buddhist heart. Boy, I need the life of the Lord Jesus. I’ve got a theology, and I try to make everything fit, and if it doesn’t fit… Do you know who is hardest to reign in? Jesus: He keeps jumping over the fence of my theology. He keeps doing things, “You can’t do that. That gift has passed away. What are you doing? You can bless, if you want, but You can’t use that church. You can use our church to bless people, but you can’t use that. It’s not possible; stay in my theology and stay in my doctrine. Don’t go appearing to people that way because I said that You can’t do that anymore.” Like I say, I’ve got a Pharisee heart, and I want everything to fit. I’m trying to bring Jesus, and He’s a loose cannon. He just does things that you can’t believe, and you can’t imagine. He works here and He works there in ways that don’t fit my theology. Like a Pharisee I’m saying, “Well, they just said you can’t do that on Saturday. I say you can’t do that on Monday either, or Wednesday or Thursday,” and I’m trying to put Jesus in a box. I’m trying to fence Him in to my little narrow view. The Holy Spirit emphasizes that; they were dogmatic and they were authoritarian and they had the truth and this is the way it is and you’ve got to fit, and if you don’t fit, you’re out.
I love the way the first three verses of John begin, “He passed by and saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he would be born blind?’” Now remember, this guy is listening. “And Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned or his parents, but it was so that the works of God may be displayed in him.’” I wonder what that guy thought when he heard those words. That was followed by, “While I’m in the world, I’m the light of the world.” Here is this blind man sitting there, and I wonder what went into his mind. We’ll look at that more next week. Then verse 6, “When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied it to his eyes.” What was going on in the heart of that blind man? Anyway, the Holy Spirit emphasizes that they were just form and external. The Holy Spirit emphasizes that they hated Jesus, and they rejected Christ, and the Holy Spirit emphasized that they had a tremendous influence; they had a power on people, on the neighbors, even on the disciples and on the parents, and so on.
I want to look one more time and then we’ll get ready to wrap it up. At the end, verse 39, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Those who were the Pharisees heard these things and said to Him, ‘We are not blind, too, are we?’” Before I comment on that wonderful question, “Are we blind,” you know how the Pharisees felt about Jesus. I went through the gospels and just dug up some adjectives. They called Him a Moses hater, they called Him a Samaritan, they called Him demon-possessed, they called Him a blasphemer, they called Him insane, but He had some words for them, too. Jesus had an opinion of them. He called them fools, He called them murderers, He called them thieves, He called them robbers, He called them hypocrites, Jesus called them a brood of vipers, a generation of snakes, He called them whitewashed tombs, He called them proud, He called them sons of hell. He had a lot of adjectives for them. I left out one, and I left it out purposely. Five times Matthew 23:16, “Woe to you blind guides,” verse 17, “You fools and blind men,” verse 19, “You blind men,” verse 24, “You blind guides,” verse 26, “You blind Pharisees.” Five times he calls them blind. At the end of John 9 they said, “Are we blind?” Why doesn’t he just say, “Yes.”? He had already called them blind. John 9:40, “We’re not blind, too, are we?”
Since He called them blind five times, it seems that would have been a simple answer. “Are we blind?” The chapter begins with the miracle of opening blind eyes, and it ends with blind eyes. Here is His answer. Verse 41, “Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin, but since you say, “We see,” your sin remains.’” What a strange answer to, “Are we blind?” It seems that it would be easier to say, “Yes,” but Jesus isn’t afraid to call them blind, but what I think He’s saying is this, “All through this chapter you are rejecting Me. You hate Me; You want Me out. You are willfully rejecting Me, and if I say that you’re blind I would be giving you an excuse. I would be saying to you, ‘Why did you reject Me?’ And you could say, ‘It’s not my fault; I was blind. I didn’t know.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to give you an excuse, because you say, “We see,” therefore, you are guilty. Your sin remains.” For our Lord Jesus, this was a wonderful answer. He didn’t say they weren’t blind, and He didn’t say they could see. He said, “You say you see,” but he had already called them blind.
In addition to that willful blindness, listen to Matthew 13:15, “The heart of this people has become dull; with their ears they scarcely hear; they’ve closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart.” They were born blind, like we all are. Add to that blindness willful blindness. They chose to be blind on top of that. How thick is that blindness? Now we’ve got to add to that. 2 Corinthians 4:4, “If our gospel is veiled, it’s veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”
How blind is blind? It’s so blind that you are born blind, and then you choose to be blind, and then Satan works to keep you blind, and we’re not done. There’s another layer of blindness. John 12:40, “He has blinded their eyes,” that’s the Lord, “He has hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes or perceive with their heart, be converted—and I would heal them.” That’s an amazing thing! Not only are you born blind, you choose to reject, Satan wants to keep you in that condition, and God refuses to reveal Himself anymore, and He hides these things from the wise and from the prudent. Can there be a deeper blindness? People are born blind, they reject, Satan keeps them blind, God refuses to reveal Himself, and they are so blind Isaiah describes the blind man, and of course, in graphic language, Isaiah 59:9, “We hope for light, behold darkness. For brightness, we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men. We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as the twilight among those who are vigorous. We are like dead men.”
Isaiah pictures the blind as people with eye sockets but no eyeballs. How blind is that? We don’t even have eyeballs. You are born blind, you reject the Lord, Satan keeps you blind, God refuses to reveal Himself, and you are like people who don’t even have eyeballs. That’s amazing word picture! John 8 opens with this, “I’m the light of the world.” John 9 opens with this, “While I’m in the world, I’m the light of the world.” Can He deal with blindness that thick, that deep, that profound? There’s only one time in scripture that we read that the Lord Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit. One Greek scholar says, “The force of that Greek word is ‘spun around with delight’.” What would make Jesus spin around in delight? Luke 10:21, this is Wuest’s translation, “At that very hour He rejoiced exceedingly, this rejoicing being energized by the Holy Spirit.” What would make Jesus, the only time in the Bible He ever rejoiced in the Spirit and spun around in delight, what would make Him do that? It’s Luke 10:21, “At that time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to babes.” “If you would come as a babe, I know you were born blind, I know you’ve been rejecting Me, I know Satan has been keeping you from believing, I know I’ve withheld My manifestation, but if you would come as a little baby,” that make Jesus spin around with delight. He’s so happy to open blind eyes.
I’m going to give you two more verses. Matthew 13:16&17, and now I’m addressing people in this room; I’m addressing you, “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Truly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it and hear what you hear and did not hear it.” We are so blessed that God has opened our eyes.
I’m going to close with the same prayer that I opened with. Ephesians 1:17 Amplified Version, “I pray the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, and insight into mysteries and secrets in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart flooded with light.”
Father, thank You for Your word, and we just pray, Lord, that You would continually unveil Yourself to us. Thank You for illumination, thank You for eyesight, thank You for vision. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
