When Unbelief Investigates a Miracle B

Determined, willful unbelief wants more evidence, but never wants to do anything with it. It's really on a mad search to discredit. It keeps probing, not because it seeks the truth, but because it seeks justification for its conclusion. You may have friends and family members that you have given the gospel to and taken to church, and you've tried to answer their objections to Christianity, but no matter how strong a case you make for the truth of Scripture, they just won't budge an inch from their unbelief.

Why is that? Why can't your loved ones see what is so obvious to you? Is there something more you need to do to help them come to Christ? John MacArthur has answers today on grace to you as he looks at God's grace and how it can change even the hardest of hearts. The message is part of John's study called Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture.

And now with a lesson, here's John. Open your Bible to the ninth chapter of the gospel of John. It's often called the gospel of belief, or the gospel of believing. From the first chapter on to the very end, it talks about believing. But we've also noted all the way along that it is also a gospel of unbelief. And while it presents to us the truth concerning Christ in order that we might believe, it also chronicles the rejection of Jesus Christ.

We learn that at the very beginning, chapter 1, verse 11, He came into His own, His own received Him not. It is the gospel of belief set in a context of unbelief. So, we are always seeing John writing that you may believe and realizing that even as Christ comes to prove who He is, He is confronted by constant unbelief.

And that is still true today. God Himself calls all men to believe in His Son, but the vast majority do not. And the vast majority did not when His Son was here walking in their midst. In this ninth chapter in particular, you get an insight into the character of willful, obstinate, stubborn unbelief. You find in this chapter kind of the pathology of unbelief, its characteristics, its nature, its marks. We're going to see how unbelief makes conclusions before it does examinations.

It's predisposed to its own viewpoint. We're going to see how unbelief establishes false standards. We're going to see how unbelief demands more and more evidence, but when it receives that evidence, it doesn't respond as any appropriate person should, any thinking person. So there's a kind of irrationality in unbelief. Unbelief does biased research.

It can look at facts and come to the complete wrong conclusion. Unbelief is self-centered, selfish, egocentric. All these things are part of unbelief, but we'll try to break it down into some words.

So I'll throw some words at you, maybe some you haven't heard. First of all, I want you to see that unbelief is inimical, inimical. You probably haven't used that word today, or any day for that matter, but it's a really good word, and it means hostile, hostile. It means adverse. It means pernicious, ill-disposed, could even be dangerous. So unbelief, first of all, is inimical. That is, it is hostile toward the truth. Secondly, verses 17 to 24, unbelief is intractable, and what does intractable mean?

Will not bend, cannot be convinced. The blind man told them exactly what happened. I was blind.

I can see. Jesus came. He names Jesus in the first testimony back in verse 11. He came. He told me to go to the pool.

I went to the pool. I washed the mud out of my eyes, and I see, and He is literally staring at them and they at Him as He gives this testimony, and there are all kinds of people around affirming the reality of this, affirming the reality of this, but it is the nature of determined, willful unbelief that it wants more evidence, but never wants to do anything with it. It's really on a mad search to discredit.

It keeps probing, not because it seeks the truth, but because it seeks justification for its conclusion. In Deuteronomy 32 and verse 20, Moses called apostates children in whom is no faith, children in whom is no belief, and since God's truth can only be apprehended by faith, they are shut out, so they want more evidence. Verse 17, they said to the blind man again, what do you say about Him since He opened your eyes? And he said, He's a prophet. This man has no authority. No telling how his life went, but typically speaking, he would never be allowed in a synagogue.

Why? Because he was blind. Why would that keep him out of the synagogue? Because his blindness was related to his sinfulness.

That was what the apostles said when the story started, right? Who sinned, this man or his parents? He's a cursed man. His curse put him out of the synagogue.

He has viewed anybody who had an illness, a disease, a deformity, a disability was cursed. They were not a part of the synagogue. Pharisees, scribes wouldn't go near those people. They wouldn't go near them. They wouldn't touch them.

They were outcasts. So here is a man who hasn't been exposed to the synagogue, hasn't been taught like other people, and yet he's got enough sense to know that this Jesus is, in fact, a prophet. By the way, that was in the wind back to chapter 7. Many were saying, he's a prophet. He's a prophet. Even Nicodemus said, we know you're a teacher.

Come from God because nobody can do what you do unless God is with him. All the way back in chapter 3, he's deemed a prophet in chapter 4, verse 19, chapter 6, verse 14, chapter 7, verse 40. So this man has caught the wind of this man, Jesus.

He knows his name from verse 11. He knows he's a prophet. He now believes he's a prophet from God because of his miracle power. And so he gives them a straightforward, sensible answer, which should have been the end of the investigation.

Here's the man. He can see this must reveal Jesus as a prophet. Verse 18, the Jews then didn't believe it of him that he had been blind and had received sight until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight. Now, remember, they've heard from the man, and the man is surrounded by all the strangers and neighbors who knew him and brought him and all that testimony collectively. And they still don't believe because, again, unbelief is intractable. I'm telling you this because you need to understand this is what you're going to face when you give the gospel. Most of the people are going to reject what you tell them about the gospel throughout your whole life of ministry and evangelism. Most people will not accept what you say. And there is an element of hostility toward the gospel, and there's an element of being intractable and immovable against the gospel. This is what we face.

The way is narrow. Few there be that find it. So this is the predisposed viewpoint. They say, look, we're going to dig deeper into this because they will not give up the notion that this man is a sinner and he is not from God. So there must be something about the story that they're not seeing yet. There's some kind of cover up here. There's some kind of lie. There's some kind of deception.

We've got to get to the bottom of this. So they call the parents. In verse 19, they question them saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see? Is this your son? These are really kind of lame parents, to put it mildly, as you'll see. But they get the parents there, and they ask them two questions.

Is this your son? And the second question, how did he gain sight? Well, you remember that when the miracle happened, there were some people who said, no, no, that's not the man. He just kind of looks like the man, and maybe mistaken identity. We're being fooled here. So let's get the parents. The parents said, we know that this is our son. Good. We would assume that, right? I mean, you know your son.

We know this is our son. End of case. End of case. Hit the gavel on the bench.

The case is over. The man is from God. This is a man who was blind and now can see. This is our son, and he was born blind. But how he sees, verse 21, we don't know. And who opened his eyes?

We don't know. I have to stop there and say they're lying. They're lying.

That's why I say I don't like these parents. They're lying. They're lying to cover themselves. They're lying to protect themselves. In verse 22, his parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews.

What were they afraid of? The Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed him, Jesus, to be Messiah, he was to be put out of the synagogue. The reason they said we don't know is because they were afraid that if they said what they did know, that it was Jesus, they might get thrown out of the synagogue. They knew who did this. They didn't just show up and talk to the Pharisees. When they arrived and saw their son seeing, there must have been a conversation. And he knew, verse 11, the man who is called Jesus made clay. Jesus' name was on the lips of everybody in the city of Jerusalem. They knew what it was to be thrown out of the synagogue, by the way, because their son had lived outside the synagogue.

They knew what the ban was, what the curse was with all its implications. They knew what being an outcast was, and they didn't want that. And by the way, it was that law that fixed the antagonism permanently between the church and the synagogue, the Jew and the Christian. So his parents are afraid of the Jews. By the way, the Pharisees are now being called Jews in the gospel of John. The term Jew implies hostility. The Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus to be Messiah, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

And for this reason, his parents said, he's of age, ask him. Can't throw him out of the synagogue. He's not in the synagogue. You know, being thrown out of the synagogue was a big deal, a very big deal. If you were in Jewish society and you weren't in the synagogue, you were like a leper. There were three kinds of excommunication, but each of them had social implications, economic implications, and religious implications. The first, according to the Talmud, there were three kinds of shamata, which means destruction.

That's considered destruction when you're thrown out of the synagogue, cut off from God, the life of the country. There is nesefah, which was a seven days to 30 days, seven days to 30 days a week to a month. You were out of the synagogue. You were a pariah for those days. Second, there was nidwe, 30 days and up.

That could last a long time, months, maybe years, depending on the crime. And if you died under that ban, you had no funeral. You were seriously dishonored. The worst was cherim, which was an indefinite, permanent ban.

The rabbis used to say that being banned was far worse than being flogged because of its implications socially and economically, as well as religiously. So they didn't want to get anywhere near having to experience what he experienced. And since they couldn't throw him out, they said, ask him.

He's of age. So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. You just want to say, how do you know that?

Why do you keep insisting on that? Talking about Jesus. Give glory to God.

Where is that from? What do they mean by that? What do they mean, give glory to God? That's a direct quote from Joshua 7, 19. Direct quote from Joshua 7, 19. Joshua comes to Achan who has stolen all this stuff and buried it in his tent.

Remember that? When the children of Israel came into the land, they were told to take nothing. And Joshua finds out that Achan and his whole family have conspired together to take all this stuff as booty and bury it in the tent. And Joshua comes in and confronts this crime that Achan has committed in his family, which cost him and his family their lives.

And do you know what Joshua says to him? Give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and tell me what you've done. These Pharisees know that story very well. That story says God is glorified when you tell the truth. God is glorified when you tell the truth. So that's what they're saying.

Tell me the truth. They're not buying this testimony. They're not buying the testimony of the parents. They're not buying the testimony of the neighbors. We want the truth. They want the truth. That is how firm and immovable their unbelief is.

Tell us the truth. We know that this man is a sinner based upon his violation of the Sabbath. We know. So he picks up on the use of the word no. You have to like this guy more each time he speaks, this formerly blind man. He then answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. But one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. You're going to talk about what we know and what we don't know?

I don't know who he is. I don't know about the accusation of being a sinner. But I do know that I was blind, and now I see.

That's as far as he can go. They're not interested in anything remotely related to the truth. So they said to him in verse 26, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? Oh, this is pretty significant, folks, because now they just have admitted what? That he was healed. They've just admitted that he was blind, and his eyes were opened.

What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? Maybe they're probing for some trick.

Who knows? And that takes us into the next little section. Unbelief is inimical, hostile, intractable, that is rigid. And thirdly, unbelief is irrational. With true facts, if you come to a wrong conclusion, you're irrational. Unbelief is irrational. You face this all the time in trying to proclaim the gospel to people. You give them the facts. You lay out the facts systematically like Peter did on the day of Pentecost.

People reject it because unbelief is irrational. So they said, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them.

I love this. Verse 27, I told you already, and you didn't listen. This is an outcast talking to the in-crowd. Why do you want to hear it again? You don't want to become his disciples too, do you?

Sarcasm. He just nails their sarcasm, their hypocrisy. This is a man who's feeling the joy, feeling the confidence, feeling the strength of the conviction that he knows he's dealing with a man who is from God, who is a prophet. And as the story goes, he comes to fully believe in him for salvation. So he's free to attack them because he knows he has the truth.

And so they descend to that third level of conflict, the verbal reviling. In verse 28, they reviled him and said, you're his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. There's that breach again, Moses and Christ, the church and the synagogue, Judaism, Christianity, still at odds. We know this man is a sinner. We are from Moses.

You are his disciple. We know, verse 29, that God has spoken to Moses, but as for...here it goes again...this man, they will not say his name, so much disdain, as for this man, we do not know where he is from. Well, they knew he was from Nazareth, Galilee. They should have known where he was from in John 6 when he preached the sermon on the bread of life. He said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

I have come down from heaven to give my life for the world. And he had said again and again and again, I come from heaven. He even mocked them by saying, you think you know where I've come from, chapter 7, but you really don't know my heavenly origin. When they said, we don't know where he's from, they simply meant not so much the town, but we don't know the origin of this man. We're unwilling to say it's God. In fact, they were convinced that he was satanic, satanic. I mean, this is the character of unbelief. Verse 30, the man answers, sort of punctuating the irrationality of all this. Well, here is an amazing thing that you don't know where he's from, and yet he opened my eyes.

The obvious conclusion is simple. He opened my eyes. He created new eyes. He must be from heaven. God alone is the creator. Satan can destroy and falsify. Only God can create.

He has opened my eyes, and you don't know where he's from. When unbelief investigates a miracle, it will come up with the conclusion that it starts with, even if it has to function in an irrational way. Finally, and we'll just wrap it up, unbelief is insolent. What does insolent mean?

Abusive, contemptuous. You see the insolence of unbelief in verses 31 to the end of verse 34. The man keeps talking. He's quite a theologian. I wish we had time to kind of develop his whole theology here. We know that God doesn't hear sinners. That's an Old Testament principle. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. That's what the Old Testament says. This man knew his Old Testament. God doesn't hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, he hears him.

Since the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. And as I told you, there's no such thing in the whole Old Testament. This man knew his theology.

He was a reasonable man. He knew his Old Testament. And then if this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

He couldn't do these miracles. He could not do this if he wasn't from God. So he's become the preacher. He's taken over the meeting.

He's talking to the leaders. First, he's sarcastic, and now he's specific and clear-headed and clear-minded and faithful to the Old Testament, and even referring to the Old Testament that God doesn't hear the prayers of sinners. He's giving them an explanation of reality, a sensible, reasonable, logical explanation to which they respond with the insolence.

In verse 34, they answered him, you were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us? That's the disdain of it all. So it gets physical.

They threw him out. Be prepared to face this when unbelief investigates a miracle. This is how it acts. This will be a disappointment. It has been a disappointment already in your life, I'm sure. Major disappointment through the years to any of us who've walked with Christ for a long time. We accumulate this kind of disappointment. What is there to do about this?

How can it change? Well, the only answer is where Jesus went in John 6 three times. He said this, all that the Father gives to Me will come to Me. No man comes to Me unless the Father draws him.

Then in verse 65 of John 6, He summarized it again. For this reason I have said to you, no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father. The only way an unbeliever can be released and delivered from this kind of bizarre captivity and bondage to what is evil and irascible and intolerant and irrational, the only way an unbeliever can be delivered from this is by the power of God.

So what do we do? We plead with God to be gracious, don't we? We plead with the sinner to believe and we plead with God to be gracious. Because the natural man, Paul says, understands not the things of God to him, their foolishness, because they're spiritually appraised and he's spiritually dead. So we don't go out to evangelize with any hope really that we have the power in our reason or the power in our facts or the power in our truth to shatter the blindness and the darkness and the bondage of unbelief.

We go with the truth. We cry out to God to draw the sinner out of this bondage of unbelief. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us.

John has been our featured speaker since 1969. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and his current study is focused on rediscovering the Christ of Scripture. John, before we close today, you have a few letters there from some people who have discovered the Christ of Scripture for themselves, and God is using Grace to You to equip and encourage them. And it's always great to hear stories like these, so take a few minutes to share those with our listeners.

Yeah, this is the harvest. This is the fruit of the ministry. Here's a letter from Tim. I am a substance abuse and mental health therapist constantly pouring myself into the lives of people that the Lord brings my way. Your Bible teaching resources help equip me for this work. As appropriate, I share your resources with my clients in the hope that they minister to them as they have so richly ministered to me. My wife and I share your sermons with our children, our siblings, friends, and co-workers—anyone who will listen. Thank you for the priority you place on teaching and knowing the Word of God. Signs his name, Tim. Thank you so much, Tim. That is very encouraging to me. Thank you.

Another letter comes from Michael in Lancaster, California. Thank you for your series, The Christian and Government, which we aired last October. I found it very helpful in directing my response to the current climate of our society. I had been struggling with the division of families and communities. Your teaching helped immensely.

That's why we're here, and we're grateful for that. Another letter comes from Mark in Dover, Delaware. I started listening to Grace To You Radio in the 1980s when I was in the Coast Guard. I later moved to another state and couldn't find your radio program anymore.

Fast forward to this past May. I was watching Fox News and saw you talking about the COVID lockdown and how the people at your church started returning to in-person Sunday worship. It spurred me to reconnect with your teaching ministry. I'm now listening to you through the Grace To You app. Thank you for all you do, especially during these extraordinary times. And it signs his name, Mark.

Not alone, Mark. Many people have joined us during these times. So those letters are a reminder. There's a very deep personal impact by this ministry and the lives of people because that's what the Word of God does. And you who listen and support us provide the resources to make this possible. God's truth is more desperately needed than ever. It alone saves. It alone sanctifies.

It alone comforts. So we want you to continue to support us as the Lord enables you and keep praying for us as we unleash God's truth one verse at a time. Yes, friend, people from all over the world are tuning in, learning, and growing in their love for the Lord. Thank you for praying and giving as you are able to help us take biblical truth across the globe. To partner with us, get in touch today. You can mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Or you can also give by phone. Just call 800-55-GRACE, or donate online at gty.org. Again, to help connect God's people with verse-by-verse Bible teaching that transforms lives, make a donation when you call us at 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org.

Also, friend, let me remind you about our Q&A line. If you have questions about any biblical topic, maybe it's church leadership or knowing God's will or how to study the Bible, just give us a call on our Q&A line. Leave a message with your question and you may hear John answer it on a future broadcast. The Q&A line number is 661-295-6288. Once again, 661-295-6288. And if you're driving and can't write that number down, you'll find it at our website, gty.org. Now, for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today, and join us tomorrow when John continues his series, Rediscovering the Christ of Scripture, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.