Thanks for joining Dr. Michael Yousef and listeners all around the world for Leading the Way. In this episode, experience the healing of a blind man and the answer Jesus gives to an age-old misconception that all physical illness and disease is because of someone's sin. John chapter 9 is the source for Dr. Yousef's teaching, so listen with me as he begins this episode of Leading the Way Audio. Turn to John chapter 9 with me please. As we see Jesus encounter this man born blind from birth.
He was born blind. Don't miss that one because this is a very, and I promise just few messages ago, I promise that I will deal with that very confusing and thorny issue about the relationship between sin and suffering. And I said I will deal with that when I come to John chapter 9. That suffering and disease are always associated with sin and there are some people who live under huge guilt that doesn't belong to them because of that thought, because of that teaching. And this is precisely the question the disciples asked when they saw this man born blind and they looked at Jesus and said, Rabbi, who sinned?
The baby in his mother's womb or his parents? So he's born blind. Now before I get to the miracle itself and to the son and the evidence and why John would choose this particular one among the seven evidence that he chose in his gospels, you need to know a couple of things. First of all, in the gospels, all the four gospels, there are more healing of blindness than any other category of miracles. In fact, we can count seven in the gospels, all the four gospels. And that's very significant.
It's very, very important. It wasn't arbitrary that our Lord just did more opening of eyes than anything else. For one thing, the Old Testament, there is no recorded evidence, there is no recorded incidence of somebody opening the eyes of the blind. Comb the Old Testament as thoroughly as you can. You will not find one.
Why? Because in the Old Testament, giving sight to the blind was clearly and definitively only could be done by God himself, by Yahweh. Not a prophet, not a priest, not a seer, not a miracle worker, none. Exodus 4-11, for example, says, remember when Moses was arguing with the Lord, I said, I stutter and I'm not slow speech and send somebody else.
I don't want to go to Egypt. And finally, the Lord said to him, he said, who made man's mouth? Who makes him dumb or deaf or seeing or blind?
Isn't I the Lord? Psalm 146 verse 8, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. So you understand from that point of view, only God can do that. And that is why God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ performed more miracles of opening sight of a blind as evidence of his messiahship to this hard-headed people than any other miracle.
Back in John chapter 9, I hope you have it open in front of you as we follow it together. This man, like so many needy people, whether crippled or deaf or blind, they were standing outside of the temple begging because getting the sympathy of those worshipers. There were a host of people standing there outside the temple begging. And so he, as a man born blind, he was begging for something to eat, for something to live by.
And yet, he ended up encountering the light of the world. Back to the disciples' questions. Rabbi, they said, who sinned?
This man or his parents that he was born blind. You see, the disciples were really representing all of the thinking of the Jewish people at that time. They were not unique. Everybody probably thought the same thing. The Jews in their day believed that all infirmities, all diseases, all suffering associated with personal sin.
Hear me right. From general sense, from general sense, all of suffering associated with sin. Are you with me? Ever since Adam and Eve fell in the garden and their DNA was altered and the original sin entered into the world, ever since sin entered into the world, suffering came with it. The brokenness that we see on television every day, the suffering of injustice that is rampant in our culture today, that we're seeing it before our own eyes, the suffering of the righteous and the innocent, the diseases and the broken bodies and the persecuted Christians and faithful Christians, the abuse of children. All of these came as a result of the fall of man.
This world was created by God to function justly, perfectly, but now it is totally dysfunctional. This world was not originally created to be filled with misery and natural disasters and diseases and death and that is why Jesus did not deny their premise. He did not deny their premise. You read the big picture. He didn't say to them, now guys you got it all wrong here.
You don't understand. There is no association between sin and suffering. He didn't say that. Jesus said, it is not always that because of someone committed sin A, therefore he or she suffers B. But this was the teaching of the rabbis in the time of Jesus. They said, everyone who is sick, blind, lame, whatever it is they're suffering, it's because they committed sin.
That was the false teaching that was rampant at that time. And so Jesus corrects their incomplete knowledge. Our beloved, please listen. In many ways, this is how Jesus deals with us. In our spiritual blindness before Christ came into our life and opened our spiritual eyes, everyone of us, everyone of us would know this. Our sin condemned us. Our heart condemned us. Our conscience condemned us.
Our neighbors condemned us. But Jesus set us free. Praise God. Make no mistake about it, Satan and the flesh want to remind us of how deeply we have sinned. What Jesus tells us of how deeper still his grace goes. How deeper his cleansing power will work in us.
How far his love will pursue us. Verse 3, Jesus makes it very clear, very clear, don't miss that. A specific suffering is not always, always, always directly traceable to a personal sin.
Sometimes it is, very often it's not. In this case of this man born blind, Jesus was emphatic. He was emphatic that his blindness cannot be traced to a specific sin, either him or his parents. Some of you might feel incredulous by the question of the disciples. How can a baby in his mother's womb sin, right? If you are, you're right.
I feel incredulous too. It is absolutely true. Baby born blind? Sure, we're all born with the root of sin but not the fruit of sin, not the action of sin. And because they have not actually sinned, all babies go to heaven.
Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. All babies go to heaven. They are born guiltless of the act of sin. But believe it or not, there were some Jewish traditions, especially at the time of Jesus, that says that a fetus in the mother's womb can sin.
Explain that to me please, because I can't explain it to you. But this was rampant. Unborn fetus committed sin. But whatever faulty belief system which led the disciples to ask Jesus the question, Jesus was emphatically saying no, not in this case, not in this case. So the question still in the mind of the disciples, then what? I mean, always looking for a scapegoat, right? We're looking for a reason, looking for a cause.
Then why? Why was he born blind? Listen to what Jesus said, so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Look at verses four to seven. Jesus said, as long as it's day, I must do the work of him who sent me.
Night comes, and he could not do the work. And having said that, he spat on the ground and made a clay and put it on the blind man's eyes and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. My beloved friends, Jesus is far from a founder of a religion, which I'll told you again and again, that 65% of churchgoers believe. He's far from a religious guru. He's far from a mere pointer to the way to God.
No in a million, no. He coexisted with the father before all world. He is God of very God who became man. And what Jesus did during the three and one third of a year in public ministry, everything he did is what he saw his father doing in heaven. He did what the father does. And that's why Jesus said, as long as it's day, I must do the work of him who sent me. Time is short. The cross is looming.
Time is urgent. He said, while I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world. In other words, I am sent from the father from heaven to bring light into the world. This is my function. This is my mission.
This is who I am. And that is why today we are experiencing so much darkness in the world because we have rejected the only light of the world. Even in the dark ages, the medieval times, people never rejected Jesus.
They had all kind of superstitions. This time, for the first time, I think in modern history, western societies that have been impacted by the reformation that brought us western civilization is going into a real dark ages because society has rejected the light of the world. This man's darkness needed to see the light of God. And then Jesus proceeded to heal this man's blindness, albeit in a very unusual way, very unusual method. Beloved, this is a parable in action. Sometimes you tell a parable, this is a parable in action. Our precious Lord was healing his spiritual blindness, hence the method of healing.
You say, what's it got to do with it? I want to explain it to you. What does the clay represent in the scripture? In Genesis, God formed man from the dust of the ground, from the clay of the earth, and so the new creation is created from the dust. This symbolism is used many times in the scripture. Jeremiah, for example, says that God is the potter and we are the clay.
God molds us and shapes us into what he wants us to be, even if we resist. The apostle Paul said that all the believers are earthen vessels, dry clay, clay pots in which God stores his precious treasure. I'm sure some of you are bound to ask, but why clay? I mean, clay is not a very powerful or a strong substance.
It's malleable and fragile. It's symbolic of human weakness in the Bible. When our Lord smeared this man's face, his eyes, he was saying something is hindering this man's sight. Something is hindering both his physical sight and his spiritual sight.
So what is the point? Listen carefully. Jesus is saying this man represents all of humanity. He represents all of us, you and me. He represents me. He represents you. We are all spiritually blinded to our human nature.
Something else you notice here I don't want you to miss. Our Lord does not take the man by the hand and say, let me walk you to the pool of Siloam. Now, he sent him alone.
Have you thought about this? In fact, I walked down that Kedron Valley several times. It's not the easiest walk in the world, even now with modern pavement. Because Jesus knew, beloved, Jesus knew that there are difficulties in the journey, that there are challenges in the journey, that there are obstacles in the journey. This man goes down not only blind, but alone. Only when he gets into the pool with his inner sight was granted.
Look at verses 8 to 13, John 9. His neighbors who formerly knew him as a blind beggar, they didn't recognize him. They didn't recognize him.
What happened to you? You're not the same guy. Yes, I am. Who did this? I don't know. I know his name. His name is Jesus.
That's all I know. He only knew his name. But that's enough. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runs into it and they're safe. The name of the Lord is mighty to save. The name of the Lord is our strength. He only knew his name.
But that was enough. You know, in many ways, even the believers, I'm going to come straight with you. We have known and loved Jesus for a long time. Those of us who have our spiritual eyes opened and we are walking with the Lord. Even after our spiritual eyes being opened, after we've surrendered our life to Christ, even when the Holy Spirit already comes and dwells in us, we still have some blind spots. Here we are. We know the God of power and might, and yet we live our Christian life with our blind spots.
I could have given you dozens, but I'm going to give you six because of the time. I want to show you six blind spots that so many believers are living with. The first blind spot is spiritual discernment or lack thereof. How grieving to the Spirit of God to see so many Christians who have been walking with Christ for so many years and you have no discernment. They can't tell the difference between accurate biblical teaching and false teaching. They fall for all kinds of emotional, selfish proclamation of the gospel. In 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 9, he tells us that lack of spiritual discernment renders us near-sighted and blind. We forget that we've been cleansed of all of our sins. Second blind spot, particularly our generation of Christians are suffering from the inability to live by the eternal perspective. There's a rare neurological condition.
Sadly, spiritually speaking, it's pandemic now. This condition prevents us from seeing the whole picture, from seeing things from the Word of God, from seeing things from God's perspective. It's like putting a penny to your eye. What can you see? It's blinding you.
You can't see very much. Third blind spot, sub-blindness that makes us see ourselves as victims, not victors. In our victimhood, we imitate the world system. We copy the world system.
We want to protest and we want to demonstrate and we want to lobby for our rights instead of going to the throne room of God and receiving power to conquer. Fourth blind spot, we allow anxiety and fear to rob us of seeing from seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness first and foremost. We accumulate and accumulate and then accumulate some more. We hoard and we hoard and we hoard some more.
Why? Because we are not sure if the God who provided for our yesterdays, even the God who's providing for our today will provide for our tomorrow. Blind spot number five, the blindness of hate and bitterness, bitterness. I met so many believers who are filled with bitterness and they can't get rid of it.
They can't get rid of it. Listen to what John said, 1 John 2 verse 11. He said, the hating of your brother or sister means that you're walking in darkness. Oh, but our special eyes have been opened. We know and love Jesus.
He's the savior. Yes, but we have a blind spot. Bitterness and hatred toward another person, a brother and sister in Christ specifically is going to take you into dark, dark, dark tunnel that slowly will swallow you up. Oh, beloved, hatred and bitterness is blindness according to John and his epistles.
Blind spot number six, that is the blind spot of half-hearted commitment, half-hearted commitment. Listen carefully, please, to the letter that our Lord Jesus Christ sent to the congregation in the church of Laodicea, Revelation 3.17. Jesus said, why do you say I'm rich and I have no need of anything?
You don't know that you are miserable, poor and blind and naked. Blind. This is the congregation.
This is the church of Jesus. And he said, you're blind. I counsel you, I counsel you to anoint your eyes with self that you may see. Listen to me, if our generation of Christians have a blind spot, it that we have ceased to believe in the God of power and might. This blind man whose eyes were opened, he baffled his neighbors, he baffled his parents, he baffled the religious leaders as you read on the rest of the chapter. He baffled all those in authority.
All that will be said of me. All that my faith commitment baffles the world. You're listening to Leading the Way and Dr. Yusef's series, Evidence of the Exclusivity of Jesus. You can connect further with Leading the Way and with Dr. Yusef when you call us at 866-626-4356. Or you can go to ltw.org. That's also where you can learn about how to join Dr. Yusef as a frontline mission partner. Those who've seen the value of Leading the Way's worldwide ministry and understand the importance of supporting Dr. Yusef and teams in prayer and in generosity. When you become a frontline mission partner, you become part of a family of brothers and sisters in Christ who share the same heart cry, Lord, send me, use me. And each month God will use your prayers and gifts to advance His kingdom in ways you could never imagine by recurring monthly gifts ensure uninterrupted ministry outreach. Consistent monthly gifts allow us to forecast resources and maximize kingdom impact.
Monthly giving allows us to respond quickly to new opportunities. Your monthly commitment fuels life changing gospel ministry. As a token of Dr. Yusef's appreciation for joining as a frontline mission partner, you'll receive a special photo booklet of your gifts at work and 20% off all biblical resources in our online store. To become one of Dr. Yusef's frontline mission partners, visit ltw.org slash frontline, ltw.org slash frontline. The number to call to learn more 866-626-4356. The call center representative will be so glad to help. Just give us a ring at 866-626-4356. And online, we're at ltw.org, ltw.org. And as we say goodbye, Dr. Yusef invites you back again next time for another episode of Leading the Way Audio. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef.
