Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, good morning, everyone.
[00:00:03] It's good to see all of you.
[00:00:06] Good to be seen.
[00:00:09] We're going to be looking at John, chapter nine.
[00:00:14] So turn in your bibles to John, chapter nine, and it's verses one through twelve today, to be continued next week, because we want to try to get most of the chapter.
[00:00:28] So we'll go as far as we can today in this timeframe we have.
[00:00:35] We're looking at this passage. It's powerful. Now, we opened the service today with the song open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Well, yeah, that's the title is just open the eyes of my heart, written by Paul Boulash, I think his name was, in 1999.
[00:00:57] That was a leading worship song in churches and concerts. And we back then, and we still sing it today. And it's a simple song.
[00:01:09] It was taken from the Book of Ephesians in chapter one, verse 18. So I would say we should read Ephesians, chapter one, verse 18 first and a little bit following. This is where that song comes from. And that's where the message is coming from today, from John, because they're related.
[00:01:30] I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened or opened. We'll talk about that real quick so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.
[00:01:58] This is a passage that is reminding us of what it means to say, open the eyes of my heart.
[00:02:07] It has. It's very detailed and distinctive as to what we're talking about. It's like when Paul says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be opened.
[00:02:20] He's saying that three things there would be the hope of his calling that you would understand. Now, to be enlightened is to be open to a message, to be able to see something very clearly spiritually. It's not talking about physical sight. And when we get into John, chapter nine, we're talking about a healing of a man who is born blind, but the end result is that he not only sees physically, he ends up seeing spiritually.
[00:02:54] And the same things that Paul establishes, that should be our goal in seeing spiritually in Ephesians, is what happens to this mandev. And that'll be covered more next week.
[00:03:06] Today, when we see the word heart, we think that that's the seed of our emotions, don't we?
[00:03:14] To the jew, that wasn't the seat of the emotions.
[00:03:17] To the jew, the seed of emotions was in your innards your digestive tract.
[00:03:25] How could I say it? Your bowels. Okay.
[00:03:29] We don't say, I love you with all, we say, I love you with all my heart.
[00:03:40] Because the heart in the jewish mind was the center of understanding, the heart. They didn't talk about your brain. They talked about your understanding. And it was your heart. It was the center of knowledge. It was a center of thinking. And today, if we say I love you with all my intestines, the seed of emotions, you'd take a couple of antacid pills and Pepto Bismo or something like that.
[00:04:12] So if you are familiar with most of the healings that God, that Jesus has created within the New Testament, you know that they were always initiated by either the person who needed to be healed or by someone who was very close to them and might be a relative, might be a friend. Either someone came to Jesus themselves asking to be healed or approached him as he passed by, or they were brought to Jesus. But the story we're going to read today, and that isn't how it happened. It's quite different. And I'd like to again go back to Ephesians. The first thing that happens when your spiritual eyes are open is that you understand the calling of God and the hope that's found in that. That's talking about the salvation that we have in Christ and then the riches of the glory of the inheritance. What's in it for me to follow Christ? Your spiritual eyes are open to see that it's a lot better than where you are, that there's wonderful things in store for you. And finally, the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe we are not alone in this world. We have help. It's called the Holy Spirit. We have a power within us that is granted only to us. The rest of the world doesn't have it.
[00:05:36] So we're told here that Jesus and his disciples, they were walking along the street in Jerusalem, says as he passed by, they were in Jerusalem. And when they saw a blind man there and were told that he had been blind from birth, let's just read it. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind? Jesus answered, it was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him, and we must work the works of him who sent me. As long as it is day, night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and applied the clay to his eyes.
[00:06:41] And he said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated scent. So he went away and washed and came back seeing. Well, I know we'll get that far today in the message. So we're going to see that these men were walking along and I don't. They saw a blind man. I don't know what the blind man was doing, but I was suspect and assumed that he was begging because that was all he would have been expected to do as a blind man 2000 years ago. There wasn't much help for him unless he had a family that would take care of him. So we're going to look at the first point of the message, which is the problem of suffering that we see in verses one and two. And I don't have scripture to throw on the screen or anything like that. I have a few pictures later on, but very simple. You can take your notes and you can read with us. Now, I don't know what prompted this question from the disciples when they said, rabbi, who sinned?
[00:07:44] His parents or this man that he would be born blind. Maybe it was just a question one of them had, and it seemed like the right time to ask it because they weren't satisfied with the common understandings of this topic of that day. But it's still a question that is asked today in various forms, such as, what did I do to deserve this? You ever asked that?
[00:08:09] Would you bit your tongue? Okay, well, you bit your tongue. That was a problem.
[00:08:17] Is my child sick because of something I did or what have I done wrong?
[00:08:25] You see, in the Old Testament book of Job, Job's friends implied that all those nasty things that happened to Job had to be his fault. Remember that? Obviously there were hidden sins in his life and that's why he was going through what he was going through. That was in their thinking. That was the thinking. And it was still the thinking even worse at the time of Jesus. It seems that we want to blame someone for just about everything, that it's not enough that it just happened because we're part of the human race. And yet that is what Jesus seems to imply here when he responds in verse three and says, it was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. You see, Jesus is saying here something very important.
[00:09:19] Now, does that imply that the man had been born blind for that very moment, that he had lived a life without sight, as a setup for Christ to heal him at this very point. Now, I don't think that's what's happening here, but I do know that Jesus says, no, no, no, it has nothing to do with sin of this man or his parents. You see, in Jesus day, almost everyone believed that suffering and sin were related. And they are in some ways, the rabbis taught that there was no death. This is a statement that I took out of one of their teachings. There was no death without sin and no suffering without iniquity.
[00:10:13] Well, that's why the disciples then just assume that this man's blindness had something to do with sin. That's what they were taught. So they asked Jesus, well, whose sin was it, this man or his parents? Now, this man had been blind from birth. So what could he have done before he was born that would cause God to strike him blind before he had seen anything? Well, a common thought was that the man had sinned in his mother's womb. Now, some of you mothers, as that child is kicking, you may think, maybe what's going on in there? What's wrong with this child?
[00:10:53] Maybe that's what brought this on in the thinking. Now, what about the parents? It was common teaching that it was because of some sin the parents had committed that caused infirmities and even deformity in children. Now, you can imagine how this made the parents feel.
[00:11:11] I mean, and you can imagine the terrible rumors that would be spread around today. We know that some afflictions of children, and they are related to the sin of the parents. Many drugs and alcohol and abuse and some sexually transmitted diseases. They can cause all kinds of problems for an unborn child. But that's not what this is referring to here. There was one other thought by the rabbis in the apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon, and that was that the soul existed before it came into the body and could sin before it had a body to inhabit.
[00:11:52] It sounds a little bit like mormonism. Maybe Joseph Smith got it from that anyhow. But to the disciples, none of this sounded right. What did they do? They went to the source of everything. They said, what about it, Jesus?
[00:12:07] And Jesus answer is very abrupt and very clear to this problem of suffering. In that point, he says neither this man nor his parents. In other words, he's saying, that's not the way it works.
[00:12:19] So what was Jesus to offer as an explanation? We go to the second point, and that is the works of goddess being displayed or something like that they have the works of God displayed. Now the word displayed. Some of your translations may have being made manifest in him. Now, you read that in verses three and four a. It was neither that this man sinned nor his parents, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him. And we must work the works of him who sent me, as long as it is day, nights coming when no one can work. Now, I don't think that Jesus means that the man was made to go through all of his life being blind up to this point, simply that Jesus might heal him. We talked about that before, and that way the works of God would be manifest, and that's the only purpose for this man's life.
[00:13:14] It could be if God wanted it that way, but I don't think that's what we have in scripture. Rather, he's saying that the blindness is something in and through which God's works are made manifest. God can use this man in whatever condition he's in, and he can use you in whatever condition you're in. We all know that christians are not shielded from all the problems of life and the hardships and the difficulties and the afflictions and the troubles that everybody else goes through. We have that in our lives. The same kind of troubles.
[00:13:51] We have illnesses, we have accidents, we have losses, we have disappointments that everyone else does. And some things we're shielded from because of our biblical lifestyle. I mean, most of us will not be in an accident because we're drunk, because the Bible says we shouldn't be. And we have. There's a lot of other things that we don't do that others do that gets in all kinds of trouble. But that doesn't mean that we're protected from that drunk driver in the other vehicle, though, does it? So basically, we live our lives with the same types of problems that everybody else has.
[00:14:28] This past week, our brother Manolo went on to be with our Lord Jesus, and he lived most of his life with polio without God healing him in a way that I'm sure he prayed for many times and others did. But that man did so much for God and he ministered to so many with his handicap. And you might say that the world would translate that as a weakness.
[00:14:58] The difference in all these things like that is that we look to the grace of Goddesse to see us through whatever we're going through, and that brings glory to God whenever we're going through it. Now, in two corinthians twelve nine, it says that God's grace is always sufficient and that his power is made perfect in weakness.
[00:15:23] Now, this blind man was weak of the weakness of blindness, we call that.
[00:15:28] And that's saying that God can and does use everything we go through as humans. And in this case, he used the condition of the man born blind. He healed him. And that brings glory to God. Now, every one of us have had experiences and conditions that God used in order to bring glory to himself.
[00:15:49] And that's why for a, in John, John four, the second part says, we must work the works of him who sent me. He's saying, we, meaning the disciples and Jesus and you and I, too, we works the works of God because he wants us to. And it brings glory to him when we do. God has given us a great privilege, folks, to work with him in the difficulties of life, to show the world the power of God and bring glory to him through whatever we go through. And the apostle Paul calls us fellow workers, so we work with God. In one corinthians three, nine. Now, what are we getting at here? This blind man was a fellow worker with God, whether he knew it or not, because at this point, he doesn't even know who's talking to him.
[00:16:45] He realizes that later on. And we'll get to that. Now Jesus reminds us, .3, time is running out.
[00:16:54] In the second part of verse four and verse five, he says, night is coming when no one can work.
[00:17:05] While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Now, Jesus is saying that we must work. He's not saying that it's a good idea for us to work. He says we must work. He's not saying that it's a choice. He's saying it's a necessity, basically, and we must do the works of God. When do we do the works of God?
[00:17:30] While it's day. That means while we're living the time that we have to serve him. Meaning that while we are still alive, while we still have time and life, while we're still around. That's why we do the works of God. And he says there's a reason for this.
[00:17:48] He says the night is coming when no man can work. Now, what's that talking about? It's when you're not around anymore.
[00:17:57] It's when we die.
[00:18:00] Our time on this earth is limited. And after we come to Christ, that should be even more evident to all of us. We have a very short time. I tell you what. The older I get, the more I realize it. Time's running out, and Jesus was on a schedule even in his short life while he was on this earth. He had a short time to accomplish the work that would impact the lives of all humans. And you're here today because he did the work in the time he was scheduled to do it. That's why he says, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he died on the cross, went to the grave, and then was resurrected and ascended, he's still the light of the world for us, but as the light of the world for those people and his disciples, he had left.
[00:18:52] And he says, the night's coming. And he says, as long as I am here, I am the light.
[00:18:58] And so it is with us. Opportunity. It must be grasped. We got to grasp it while it's still there. And every opportunity passes away sooner or later. And if we miss it, you can't bring it back.
[00:19:12] 0.4 is pretty neat. It's kind of strange when you see what I have, that the power of spit. Now, I thought I could use saliva or I could use spittle. I don't even know what spittle. Who uses that term today? Please do not spittle on me.
[00:19:33] The idea is, don't spit. That's what we use today. Look at verses six and seven. When he had said this, he spat on the ground.
[00:19:42] He made clay of the spit and applied the clay to his eyes. And he said to him, go and wash in the pool of siloam, which is translated scent. That's just a little understanding that John throws in to describe the word sent, meaning there's something more to this word. The pool. The pool of siloam was a pool that received water. It was sent from one source to another, and people were sent to there. And we'll talk about that in a minute. So he went away and he washed and came back. Seeing now it's considered today, if you spit on somebody in California, it's an assault.
[00:20:28] Okay? And it may be even confirmed as a concern as bribery. Not bribery.
[00:20:36] Maybe it's battery. And if you intentionally spit on someone in California and most everywhere else, you can be charged with this. Now it's punishable. I read this about the law of California. To spit on somebody can be punishable up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. So don't spit on anybody. Okay. And then, though.
[00:21:04] But why? Why is it considered this? Because even today, we recognize the same thing that they recognize. Your spit is considered an extension of yourself. You have DNA in your spit. It's you. You're being cast upon somebody else with all that goes with you and you.
[00:21:24] And in all cultures today, to spit on somebody is an extreme insult.
[00:21:30] Now, some tell us that spit was considered to have healing power back in that time. And I think my mother felt that way because Pastor did Guptill. I heard him preach on this once, and he reminded us that a mother spit is pretty powerful stuff.
[00:21:53] I mean, they clean faces.
[00:21:58] If you have a cowlick, you know, it goes down. I don't worry about that anymore, but that's okay. But when I was a kid, I had a cowlick just like everybody else. So that's why verse six says, then Jesus spit on the ground. He made mud with the saliva, and he spread the mud over the blind man's eyes. Now, this wasn't the first time that Jesus has used saliva in a healing. We can see another example of that, of a blind man being healed by Jesus. In Mark. Go back to Mark. Oh, what is that? Chapter eight.
[00:22:36] In Mark, chapter eight, verse 23, it says, taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village, and after spitting on his eyes, you don't have any mud involved here. He just spit in his eye. I would think he would spit in his hand and rub it on his eyes. But he asked him, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see men, for I see them like trees walking. And he again laid his hands on his eyes, and he looked intently and was restored. That's another sermon, by the way.
[00:23:08] So we read that. But this time, he doesn't just use his saliva. He mixes it with dirt and makes a mud type poultice, which he applies to the man's eyes. And all we know is that in different cases, Jesus used different methods to heal people. Go to the next picture. I want to show you something. It's kind of neat. I think it's there. Yeah, this is a neat picture. It's about memory banks, 130 AD, and it was on the coffin of a rich man whose job was an ophthalmologist, and he's applying something to the man's eyes. So in the early days, it was important and it was talked about. Some of these things they would use to apply to people's eyes. Go to the next one. Now, this is kind of neat. I have to get another paper here for this one because it's to read. Yeah, here it is.
[00:24:12] This one. This is the remains. Now, there was a shipwreck from 140 to 130 BC. This is BC, and it was first discovered in 1974 off the coast of Tuscany near the etruscan town of Etruscan, of Populonia, and was found upon later excavation to contain a vast collection of trade goods from around the Mediterranean. Now, they're packed in a small ship. It's about 60ft long, 10ft wide. There were syrian glass bowls still found in stacks. Pottery from pergamum, wine amphora from roads, lamps from ephesus, coins, lead vessels and other consumer goods. But the most intriguing find was a large cache of medical equipment. And they were ten cylinders made of tin. And they were. There's 136 of them. And they were. And they were in these ten cylinders. They were still sealed and water had not even gotten into them. And in 110 that you see the results here was a really rare archaeological treasure. There was five gray, distinct tablets stacked on top of each other like mentos.
[00:25:30] They'd have these things stacked. They were still as if they were stacked yesterday. And despite having spent 2120 years or so years wrapped in this sea salt ocean, this remained watertight. And in 2010, scientists published the first DNA analysis of the tablets. Now, here's what they found. They found evidence in these tablets of a wide variety of plant matter. They had carrot, radish, parsley, celery. Sounds like a vegetable soup to me. Wild onion, cabbage, alfalfa, yarrow or hibiscus. And these were all in the pills, plants known from ancient sources to have been used for medicinal purposes. And one thing that they found, and it was really amazing, they found that a large part of these pills was zinc, which has a lot of healing properties. It's still used today. And what they think that these were used for were the ophthalmologists would put water, add to them, or maybe spit, I don't know.
[00:26:43] And then they would apply these to a person's eyes. And I thought. So, I don't know, I just thought that was an interesting connection there, that it wasn't something that was used. Jesus was not the first one to do this is what I'm saying. And he used his own, he used mud and he used spittle to put on this man's eyes and he made this poultice.
[00:27:08] But we know, here's the other thing you got to understand.
[00:27:13] The man later on makes a statement that never since in all of history has there ever been a case where a man born blind was healed and. And he could see again and tell Jesus.
[00:27:29] So all these concoctions that they would have made, they may have helped a person see better, but nothing would bring back sight from a person born blind at that time frame, until Jesus came. And he used this. In this way. Now, sometimes he would touch the people.
[00:27:53] Sometimes they touched him. Sometimes he spoke to the person who needed to be healed. And other times he simply spoke to the loved ones.
[00:28:03] And sometimes it was close up and there were times when it was from a distance. And that is the reality today as well. God still heals in different ways, just as Jesus used a variety of ways to heal this man, even including spit. And there are still people who are healed by God in a miraculous manner without any physical intervention. And then there are times that people are healed through modern medicine.
[00:28:34] Does that move God out of the equation? No. He can use whatever means he wants. And this isn't a cop out, but some folks are healed when they die, okay? It's God's way of removing something that no one else can do anything for.
[00:28:55] If we believe what we say we believe about heaven and eternity, it is actually classified as the ultimate healing for a christian. We won't live forever. And often our later years aren't always our healthiest years, are they?
[00:29:16] But God's promise tells us in revelation 21 four, and you know this verse, he says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. And all these things are gone forever. Now, many have quoted that verse to me as we pondered the death of people around us, like our brother Manolo. Many of you have said that about him this week. He will never be afflicted by polio or any other disease again.
[00:29:51] See, now it's interesting.
[00:29:54] The man didn't come to Jesus for healing. Jesus offered the healing to him, but he had to take steps. Now look at verse seven.
[00:30:04] He said, go wash in the pool of siloam. Now I want to look at the next picture. I'll try to tell you about siloam. Now this is a picture of what I was told all, many, many years was the pool of siloam.
[00:30:19] Okay? And all it is is Hezekiah's tunnel. It's a water supply from outside the Giont spring brings water into the city during the time of Hezekiah. And I looked at that thing, I said, this is it.
[00:30:34] Well, it wasn't it. The real one's been discovered. Look at the next picture.
[00:30:40] This is where, as it looks, when I was there at the pool of Siloam, and it's much expanded and now they've excavated it more. And this is what an artist's reconstruction of this will look like. Look at the next picture. Picture.
[00:30:55] Okay. Can you see that?
[00:30:58] It's a rendering. It's a massive pool. Go to the next picture and it should tell a little bit about. Okay, what it is. It's mentioned in John 911. It confirms the passage incorrect pool. And it was discovered in 2004 during construction of a large water pipe. And it revealed monumental pool, 160ft wide and 225ft long. And I threw in there. It confirms a suitable location for the 3000 to be baptized on the day of Pentecost. That's the neat thing about that. So this is the pool that we're talking about now. Jesus tells him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam and he went away and was washed. Go to the next slide. And this is a reconstruct rendering artist rendering of what it would have looked like. Take the lights down if you can there. Who's back there to do that? Nobody did a. Okay, that's all right. That's all right. That's okay. We've got. Have somebody stationed. Well, there's. Yeah, that's all right. And then you can see a little bit better if you hit the other one. Is that Eli? Thank you, Eli.
[00:32:11] Okay, you see the pool is down in the center, lower center. And the stairway goes up all the way up to the Temple Mount. That would have. He would have been up at the temple and the temple Mount would have. He had walked down this stairway all the way to the pool and then he would have gone back. And this was in the feast of tabernacles. The priest would do that daily during the feast and take water from the pool of Siloam and take it back up and pour it on the altar. Well, those steps have now been found. If you look at the next slide, you can actually walk on those steps now 20ft underground, the whole length, all the way up to the entrance to the temple. And I just think archaeology is, you know, it just brings things to life sometimes as to what was actually happening here. So anyhow, we see that. It was interesting that the man. You didn't bring the lights back up. Now, it's interesting that the man didn't come to Jesus for healing. Jesus offered the healing to him, but he had to take some steps and he told him, you go wash yourself in the pool of siloam. And. Which means scent. So the man went, he washed and he came back seeing. Now, in other cases, Jesus spoke, the healing happened. But those folks had asked Jesus to heal him. They wanted to be healed. So Jesus is offering this man a choice. He could do as Jesus commanded and be healed, or he could go home, wash the mud off and not be healed. And it was his choice. Look at the next final point. These are reactions.
[00:34:05] So what happened?
[00:34:07] Oh, I got this picture in there. Let's go back to that picture. Yeah, that's a neat one, isn't it?
[00:34:13] It shows how you would add the mud on a man's eyes and who could not see. And this is how the poultice would be placed on someone's eyes. But now let's go to the next picture, the reactions to faith in verses eight through twelve, and we'll close there. Therefore, the neighbors, those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, is not this the one who used to sit and beg? Others were saying, well, that's him. Still others were saying, no, but he is like him.
[00:34:48] They were saying, well, he looks like him, but it's not really him. And the poor guy kept saying, it's me, it's me, I am the one. So they were saying to him, well, how then were your eyes open?
[00:34:59] He answered, the man who is called Jesus, he made clay, anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went away and washed, and I received my sight. And they said to him, well, where is he? He said, I don't know. So what happened?
[00:35:16] These were the words of the blind man in verse eleven, he says, the man called Jesus, he made mud, spread it over my eyes, told me to go to the pool, wash yourself. So I went and washed, and now I can see that's what happened. And the offer of a healing here was extended by Jesus. The man had the option of either accepting it or rejecting it. And guess what? He accepted it. And the result was that he could see because he accepted the option that Jesus gave him. Now understand he did nothing to earn this gift of healing. Nothing. And really he did nothing other than obey Jesus to facilitate the healing.
[00:36:02] Paul would later write in Ephesians two eight, that God has saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can't take credit for this, it's a gift from God. That's basically what he says there. And whether you receive a physical healing from goddess or a spiritual healing from God, it's all a gift from God. And not every sick person that we pray for is going to be healed, and that's in the providence of God. But every person who accepts the grace of God for a spiritual healing, he will be healed. He will be saved. And one would think that everybody who heard that the man had been healed would be excited for him. They'd be happy for him. They'd be jumping up and down, rejoicing. That wasn't what happened.
[00:36:50] There were those who didn't believe it happened. They stated that it really wasn't the blind man, but the man insisted it was him. But more than the confusion was the fact that his healing enraged the religious leaders. And we'll get into that next week. You see, the blind man wasn't really all that interested in theological debates or whether or not he should have been healed on the Sabbath or not.
[00:37:18] For him, it was a very simple story. Now he sums it up later. He says, but this I know I was blind, and now I see.
[00:37:33] I can't explain everything that happened when I was saved, when Jesus came into my life.
[00:37:44] But even as a nine year old, I knew I could say, this is what happened. I know this can't explain it theologically. I know that I was a sinner, and now I'm forgiven.
[00:38:00] I was blind, and now I see.
[00:38:04] Now his life had been made different. He could see what he had never been able to see before. Can you imagine that? And with that came all kinds of changes. He would have to find work. He would have to get used to how people he loved looked. You know, he said, wow, so that's what you look like with nothing to compare it to. So, as a matter of fact, he would have to get used to how everything looked, wouldn't he? Everything was different. And he had always been blind. He had no idea what anything looked like. And when you become a follower of Christ, your life is going to change. You will change. And not everybody will appreciate that, will they? When you change, your habits will change. Your priorities will change. And when I started getting serious about my faith in my late teen years, I started, well, I actually stopped hanging around with some of my friends because of their behavior.
[00:39:10] It made me uncomfortable. And some friends stopped hanging around with me because my behavior made them uncomfortable. The change was drastic. And I'll share one thing that happened. Many of you have heard it before. My best friends, when I came to, got serious about my faith and talked about Jesus. He started drinking more. He couldn't hand, you know, he couldn't handle being around me. So one night I said, you know, I took him out in my car.
[00:39:39] I drove several miles out in the country, turned the engine off, and I said, you know, his name was Greg.
[00:39:47] I said, greg, you're going to listen to me or you can get out and walk.
[00:39:53] I was bigger than him. So he said, all right, I'm listening. And I told him about Jesus. And it didn't. Nothing happened. And I just made up in my mind, okay, I got to get away from him. He pulled me down more than I'm lifting him up. But the next night I went home, and there sat Greg in my home with my dad. And my father said, you know, Greg has something to tell you.
[00:40:19] And I said, yeah. He said, well, I've accepted Jesus.
[00:40:27] I don't know much more about. I think I fainted.
[00:40:31] I don't know much more that happened after that. But he's still faithful to the Lord today, and he has already offered this salvation to you who are here today. So I guess the question is, what do we do now? I think we'll pick this story up next week. So I gotta ask you the question. Where are you at today?
[00:40:54] Maybe you're like the blind man, unaware that the one who can change your life is so close to you. He's just a prayer away.
[00:41:06] And his name is Jesus. And the same person who changed the life of this Mandev. And as we'll see next week, it gets more detailed as to what happens. Read ahead.
[00:41:19] And he has already offered you his salvation. He's already offered you his grace. But like any gift, it needs to be received.
[00:41:28] And are you ready? Are you ready to wash the mud off of your spiritual eyes and accept the new life that he's offering you?
[00:41:41] Let's close in prayer. Thank you, o Lord, for Jesus. Thank you for all that we've learned today from your passage that we have here. And I pray that today, anyone who's trying to understand spiritual things will understand. You can give them that understanding. You can lift the veil of darkness from their minds, and they can understand that they need Jesus more than ever right now. It's the time before. The time is too late, as you said earlier. And we pray that you'll speak to the hearts and minds of all of us christians who seem to be not realizing time is running out. And we need to be more dedicated to serve you even more so. But it's a powerful message for us today. I pray we'd receive it and respond to it in the way you want. So I pray for those who need to receive Jesus. I pray for those that have received, and they're still floundering a little bit. And we pray that your will be done through all of us. And we would all do the works of the one who sent us. That's you. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
