John 9

John 9:1-41

CHRIST’S CURE OF THE BUND MAN John 9:1-41. THIS is one of the few chapters in the New Testament in which the same subject that opens it is discussed to the close. There are 41 verses in this chapter, and the first verse reads, “As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth”; while in the last verse, Jesus said unto them, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth”.In other words, we are introduced to a blind man in the first verse, and when we come to the forty-first verse, Jesus is still talking of the miracle of His healing and its lessons. This fact calls for explanation. To cure one born blind was indeed a notable miracle, and yet not more wondrous than to heal the palsied, restore hearing, cast out demons, raise up the sick, and far less marvelous than the cure of leprosy, or the calling of the dead to life again; and yet, when ten lepers are healed, but nine verses are required to tell the story; and when the widow’s son is raised to life, only five verses are used in reporting the miracle. Why, then, a whole chapter, in a Gospel where every page is precious, given to the account of a miracle of medium magnitude and interest? Read the chapter and you will understand!

For many reasons, this is the most important miracle reported in the New Testament. Its accomplishment meant a healed and happy man.It resulted also in a new convert to the faith that is in Christ.

It exposed the prejudices of the Pharisees and proved the Divinity of the Lord. It revealed Christ as sympathizing with the suffering, as healing the afflicted, as teaching the uninstructed, and as the very God who was more than adequate to all of these things. The chapter has peculiar interest to the average reader, because a man is the subject of its whole story. Of all studies, biography is the most popular. When you read the Old Testament, your interest centers about Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Daniel, etc. If you read the Gaulic war, your eyes scan the secular page for the name of Caesar.

If it be the New Testament, you do not halt so long with the Sermon on the Mount as with the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Conversion of Saul, or the Imprisonment of Peter. The popularity of the average novel is due to the circumstance that it discusses a man, a woman.Take out the hero, the heroine, and the average novel would only sell for old junk.

This man born blind but now healed, is the subject of his interest who reads the ninth chapter of John; and I am sure that his speech to these Pharisees, when they asked him how Christ opened his eyes, and “he answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear; wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be His disciples”? is worthy of study.Two or three suggestions came naturally out of this speech: HEARING “I have told you already, and ye did not hear”. He meant they gave no willing audience to his statements. The prejudiced auditor takes into his ears the same sound that others hear, and he understands the meaning of the words, but his very unwillingness to receive them makes him so poor an auditor that this man’s speech is applicable, “Ye did not hear”.There are not a few people who from time to time hear the Gospel preached, but who are profited in nothing, simply because they don’t want to receive it. They make up the class of whom Christ spake when He explained why He spake in parables, because His audience were people who“seeing see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand. “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:13-15). And when Paul the Apostle had spoken to the people on the island of Mileta, and some believed not, the Apostle said,“Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias, the Prophet, unto our fathers, “Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: “For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Acts 28:25-27). Years ago, when Dr. Taylor, the Liberalist of Norwich, and John Newton, the Conservative, were living, they were together one day, and fell to discussing the doctrine of the Atonement, when Taylor said, “I have collated, sir, every word in the Hebrew Scriptures seventeen times, and it is very strange if the doctrine of the Atonement you hold should not have been found by me,” to which Newton replied, “No, not so strange! I once tried to light my candle with the extinguisher on it.” Now prejudice often proves an extinguisher, and it must be removed before there is any light.It causes men to misinterpret what they hear. These men, after having listened to the simple report of how this man had been healed, were unwilling to have it so, and they called the man into their presence to try to distort from him some speech which would confirm their opinion that Jesus was a sinner and a charlatan. Men commonly make out of what they hear what they prefer to believe. The good Dr.

Guthrie once said, “Objects take their color from the eyes that look at them; the very sun, as well as the sky and sea and mountains, appear yellow to the jaundiced eye. The brightest prospect wears an air of gloom to a gloomy mind.” And when men are indisposed to see the truth in the Gospel of Christ, they may so misinterpret it to make of it a lie.

It is reported that in the reign of Abdallah, the third, there was a great drought at Bagdad. The Mohammedan priests issued a decree calling upon the faithful to pray for rain, but the drought continued. Finally they consented that the Jews should add their prayers to those of the true Mohammedans, and when their combined petitions were ineffectual and famine pressed them sore, they were driven to consent that the dogs of Christians should also pray to their God. Immediately torrents of rain began to fall, and it is said that the whole conclave with the Mufti at their head were now as angry at the cessation of the drought as they had been before oppressed by it, and after much council they decided by a unanimous vote that the god of their prophet was so highly pleased with the prayers of the faithful that he withheld the rain purely out of the pleasure he had in listening to their supplications, and that the prayers of the infidel Christians were such an abomination before him that he granted their petitions rather than be compelled to hear their loathsome importunities.And yet, those Mohammedans were no worse in their interpretation of God’s actions than the Pharisees of this chapter were in their views of Christ’s miracles, and truly the healed man spake the truth when he said, “I have told you already, and ye did not hear”. Their prejudices perverted the hearing and made it a medium of Satan’s will when they said, “We know that this Man is a sinner”.Prejudice closes the mind against conviction. People often say with reference to reputed miracles, “If I could see one, I would believe.” But many who so speak are not sincere.

I have gone myself in the company of others to examine cases where Christ had as clearly bared His right arm of power to effect restoration from malignant disease as He ever did when on earth; and I have heard the eyewitnesses resort to every conceivable subterfuge in explaining away that which was so ‘evident. The difficulty was that they did not believe in miracles, and they would not be convinced.And more and more I am persuaded that Christ put a very important truth into the lips of Abraham when he made him answer Dives’ plea that one might be sent to his father’s house to testify to his five brethren concerning the torture in which he had his existence. “Let them hear Moses and the Prophets.

If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead”. In other words, a man who is convinced must be convinced by the teaching of the Word of God rather than by the sight of wonders, and the man who will not accept the plain sentence of the first, will never be convinced by the greatest exhibition of the second.Lewes tells of a certain gentleman who believed that all goldfields were confined to Mexico and Peru. Some one brought to him a nugget digged in California which proved to him that his idea was wrong. He examined it and then said, “This metal, sir, is, I admit, extremely like gold, and you tell me that it passes as such in the market, having been declared to be gold by the assayers. Nevertheless, I know the metal is not gold because gold comes only from Mexico and Peru.” In vain was he informed that the geological formation in California and Peru were the same and the ores the very same. He had made up his mind that gold existed only in these two places and would not be convinced.

One of the sad things in the lives of many men is that dominance of prejudice which closes the mind against new truth, and yet leaves the imagination supposing itself open to all truth; men who are like the Irishman, who, in a heated discussion, remarked, you will remember, “I am open to conviction on this subject, and I would like to see the man who could convict me.” The world is full of people who are like our friend Ignatius Donnelly, except they do not so clearly and honestly express themselves. A few days ago he remarked, “Well, I thank the Lord for one thing, and that is in my own opinion I have always taken the right side of every subject.” Preaching to the man who in his own opinion is always right is almost profitless.

MAY REMOVE “I have told you already, and ye did not hear; wherefore would ye hear it again; will ye also he His disciples”? The spirit of the spokesman was, “What profit in repetition,” and his judgment was, no profit, and yet repetition has often accomplished some very desirable ends.It tends to a proper understanding. I think all those of you who heard Tamil David preach were impressed with the power in his repetitions of Scripture; once, twice, a third and a fourth, a fifth and a sixth reading of the same verse was his custom. He seemed to believe with the Prophet Isaiah that if the teacher were to make men understand doctrine, precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little.Repetition also results in a better comprehension. Dr. James Gray, the most noted Bible teacher in America, lays down as one of his rules for Bible study, “Read the Book; read it repeatedly,” and of the five or six important rules he insists upon this: “Read it repeatedly.” He knows that repeated reading will bring a clearer understanding of the Word.Mrs.

Wesley, than whom modern times have produced no wiser mother, was giving John a lesson one day. She had repeated a single sentence about nineteen times, and was ready to add the twentieth repetition, when a neighbor-lady said, “Why do you tell him that over so often and often?” “Because”, answered Mrs. Wesley, “he is dull of understanding, and if I did not tell him the 20th time, I should have had all my pains of nineteen repetitions for nothing.” And of all the sentences that ever passed the lips of men there are none that will so well bear repetition as those that go to make up the fundamentals of the Word of God. That is why Katherine Hankey wrote: “I love to tell the story Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, Because I know ’tis true; It satisfies my longings As nothing else can do. “I love to tell the story, ’Tis pleasant to repeat, What seems, each time I tell it, More wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, For some have never heard The message of salvation From God’s own Holy Word. “I love to tell the story; For those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsting To hear it like the rest. And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, ’Twill be—the old, old story That I have loved so long! “I love to tell the story; ’Twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story Of Jesus and His love.” And if prejudice can be removed by anything, the repetition of the truths of the Gospel ought to accomplish it. Personally I have a dislike of repeating words previously employed. I suppose it is a matter of pride with preachers not to repeat themselves, and yet often the public weal demands it, and pride ought to be put aside and saving facts stated over and over again for the sake of souls.The great evangelist Finney relates that one of the first advocates of this country declared to him that preachers often fail to make themselves understood because they do not repeat enough. He continued, “In addressing a jury, I always expect that whatever I wish to impress upon their minds, I shall have to repeat at least twice, and often I repeat it three or four times and even as many times as there are jurymen before me.” I remember to have read that a certain attorney-at-law was acting upon this principal when the judge stopped him, saying, “You have told the jury that eleven times already.” “I know I have, your honor,” replied the lawyer, “but there are twelve men on this jury and so I must state it again.”Dr. Gordon said, “What is considered a fault in rhetoric is a virtue in testimony, namely, repetition —saying the same thing again and again until it has fairly worn a hole in men’s indifference and let the light in.” ALSO IS THE ’S It is required by the Word of the Lord. When Jesus healed the Gadarene, He sent him to his home and friends to tell them what great things the Lord bad done for him. The man must have understood him to require its repetition over and over until all the people in Decapolis at least were apprised of all that had occurred, for he departed and began to publish in all Decapolis how great things the Lord had done for him.It was Jesus who said, “Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God”. Mark you, the language is, “Confess Me before men”. He does not expect us to call some particular friend aside and in a secret place confide in him the fact that we have found the Christ, but to tell it over and over again until the multitude has received our witness. Paul writing to the Romans said, you will remember,“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, “For the Scriptures saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:9-11). And Paul repeated substantially the same things over and over again as he told different groups of men under different circumstances how he was converted to the faith that is in Christ.I think undoubtedly that this requirement of the Word of the LordResults in spiritual strength for him who follows it. The rule is that great souls, men who serve God most efficiently, are the men who speak for God at every opportunity; and if you are ever going to be a stalwart for Jesus Christ, let no man, let nothing take away your testimony.I have read the story of a young man who arrived at college in the possession of a Bible, his mother’s gift, and under a solemn promise to her to pray and read the Bible every day. On the first evening after his arrival he attempted to keep that pledge, but found himself scoffed at by his newly found, but unbelieving associates. The result was a resolution of silence, and for six or eight weeks he did not read his Bible before them, nor did he bend the knee in their presence. At the end of that time he found that he had drifted into their worldly and wicked ways; but a letter came from the dear old mother saying, “I hope you have kept that promise you made me.” Then and there his Christian courage asserted itself and he said, “Hereafter I will be true to conscience in spite of their opposition,” and that night he read his Bible in their presence and bent his knee in prayer, and every night thereafter they saw him do the same. The victory was won.

He grew in grace, and they were compelled to admire him.To tell what Christ does for us results also in the salvation of others. In the first chapter of John the new disciples of Jesus went to their own brothers in the flesh and repeated in the plainest way their experience with Him, and their judgment of Him, and Christ was accepted by the brothers in consequence.I remember that years ago, when Mr.

Moody was in England, a Quakeress attended his meetings and was greatly impressed. Once at home her brother and nephew fell to laughing at her interest. Satan tempted her to be silent, but God’s Spirit called her to a bolder stand, and she asked, “What would you have done if the minister had come to you and asked, as he did of me, if you were converted?”The brother replied, “I would have told him to mind his own business.” “But, is not that his business?” asked the sister. “Isn’t that the business to which God appointed him? I am glad that he made it his business to speak to me to-night for it has resulted in my salvation.” The very next day, to her astonishment, the brother broke an engagement that he might go with her to church, and that night he too was saved. I believe that if there were more witnessing Christians the multitude of converts to Christ would be greatly increased.Again, to tell over and over what God has done is to prove our love and properly glorify Him. To me, the secret disciple, if such there can be, is certainly an indifferent disciple.

Any keen sense of salvation will result in some adequate expression of affection.Dr. Talmadge, I think it was, told the story of an accident from a steamer in one of our great lakes.

It was heavily laden with passengers and there was a little child who stood on the side of the taffrail watching the water, who lost her balance and dropped into the waves. The excited mother cried, “Save my child!” A great Newfoundland dog was lying on deck. He looked into his master’s face as if waiting for orders, and when the master said, “Tray, overboard! Go for her!” he sprang into the water and swimming to the child laid hold with his strong teeth and soon brought her to the steamer’s side. When loving hands had lifted both dog and child on deck, the mother seemed for a moment to forget the little one in her gratitude, and throwing her arms about the neck of the great shaggy dog, she kissed him again and again. It was seemly. But to me the most unseemly of all things is a soul in whose behalf the Son of God came down from the heights of Heaven and plunged into the deeps and darkness of suffering and woe that He might lay hold upon him and save; and yet that soul goes its way in silence, never speaking a word of praise to the Son of God.