Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's get our Bible. Turn to the Book of Matthew, Matthew 9.
[00:00:16] We will begin in verse number 27.
[00:00:25] Matthew, chapter 9, verse number 27.
[00:00:29] The Bible says this. And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying and saying, thou son of David, have mercy on us.
[00:00:41] And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him and said. And Jesus saith unto them, believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, yea, Lord.
[00:00:53] Then touched he their eyes, saying, according to your faith, be it unto you.
[00:00:59] And their eyes were opened and Jesus straitly charged them, saying, see that no man know it but they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country. And as they went out, behold, they brought unto him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake and the multitudes marveled, saying it was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, he casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. Let's pray together. Our Father, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for coming into the world and sending your son rather and dying upon the cross for us. Thank you for the opportunity to celebrate and memorialize what you have done, Lord, not just a reminder, but how that truth, the truths of the gospel affect us and influence us and move us and compel us even this day. Lord, I just commit the service to you. I ask your blessing, Lord, to be upon your word and our focus upon it. Lord, let the truths of Scripture I pray just flow out of the scripture and into our hearts and they would become part of who we are and we would grow and increase as a result of it. And Lord, I just ask you that, that you'd help me to say everything I should say and nothing that I shouldn't say and help your people to receive the word. And Lord, we just, we truly want to see you meet with us, Lord, like you said, and we saw in Sunday school that Lord, you are present. You said you would be with us where two or three are gathered together. And so Lord, we look for your presence. We look for the evidence that you are here. Because we know that you, your promises do not fail and you will do what you've said. And we are gathered here today. So Lord, I pray that your word would go forth with power to strengthen and help your people in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:59] Now, as we've been studying through Matthew, remember the benefit of going through a book of the Bible is that you start to see patterns and you start to be you can pick up on continuity from one thing to another.
[00:03:11] And in this section of Matthew, in chapter eight and nine, remember five, six and seven is the Sermon on the Mount, which is almost entirely teaching. And then once we get into Matthew 8 and 9, we've covered a lot of miracles, right? We've seen miracle after miracle after miracle. And it's not necessarily that these miracles are all chronological. That's not really the purpose of Matthew.
[00:03:32] Matthew is writing the history of Christ's life in order to. To teach us something about him, in order to drive home a point, not just as a historical record. And in Matthew chapters eight and nine, he's covered a number of miracles one after another. And he's trying, I think, Matthew's primary purpose as we've seen it over and over again, and we'll see it yet again in the future, he's trying to demonstrate by these miracles the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The miracles prove who he is. You see it over and over and over used in Scripture. That's why it's so off base. And again, be careful of proof text. Christianity, where you got to have a proof text for everything. Some things you can't know with just a proof text. And this is one of them. You know, people latch onto these miracles, and charismatics in particular latch onto these miracles and they want, you know, they try to manufacture these kinds of miracles as if it's something that, you know, some greater thing the Lord's trying to do or whatnot. But remember, the miracles, the signs that the Lord performed, had one primary purpose. Yes, it showed compassion on people. Yes, many of those things. But the primary purpose was to serve as identification for who the Lord Jesus was. You see that over and over and over. You know what, you don't have a proof text for that. But it's demonstrated. It's demonstrated in all the miracles.
[00:05:09] And so far in Matthew, we've seen these miracles. The Lord has healed people with various kinds of diseases and ailments. We saw a girl who was raised from the dead, who had been ill, who died, and Jesus raised her from the dead. We saw the woman with the issue of blood that was healed. We saw a man who was palsied or paralyzed, who was healed. We've seen people who have been possessed with devils that have been healed. The Lord also rebuked fevers and the fevers departed. And we saw one of the first miracles we saw in Matthew chapter eight was a man who had leprosy who Jesus cleansed. But this, what we've read here is the first instance in Scripture, in the life of Christ as recorded in Matthew, where he healed a blind man, where blindness was the ailment. You notice what we've covered. We haven't done a lot of repetition. Matthew has covered different miracles. And, you know, he says it in Matthew that Jesus healed many, many people, thousands and thousands of people. And yet Matthew is only covering a limited few. And he's covering different ones, diverse instances. Why is he doing that? Well, he's saying, well, Jesus has power over this and Jesus has power over that. Jesus has power over. It's undeniable. He has power over the body. He has power over devils, he has power over the weather. He has power over all of these things. And that's demonstrated. It's not shown by a statement of Scripture, but it's demonstrated by an act recorded in Scripture. Right. Which is just as powerful, just as significant.
[00:06:46] Now, if you would take a peek at Luke chapter four, and we'll come right back to Matthew. I just want to read one verse to you. Luke, chapter four. And then we're going to also be in Isaiah 35 in just a minute.
[00:06:57] But as I said, these miracles, each one in its own way, is a demonstration of who Jesus is. And many times without Jesus saying, see, I am the Son of God. See, I am the Messiah. I will do this and prove it to you. No, he. He does it. And the natural response of those people that witness it is, who is this man?
[00:07:21] That's the response. Now, in this case, the same is true. The same is true in Luke chapter 4 and verse number 18.
[00:07:31] Jesus reads a portion of Scripture in the synagogue.
[00:07:36] And verse 17 says, and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Notice the words he's reading?
[00:07:52] Isaiah 60:1. That's where he opened the scroll. He's reading it. That means he was literate. That means everybody always says, well, back in this day, nobody knew how to read. Everybody was illiterate. Well, Jesus knew how to read because he's reading it right himself.
[00:08:07] He says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind. You see that to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of The Lord, interestingly enough, he stops there because it goes on. Isaiah 61 goes on to say, and the day of vengeance of our God. But this was not the day of vengeance. This was the day of salvation. The day of vengeance is yet to come. There's a gap there that Jesus is pointing out here. But notice in this passage where that identifies his mission, which identifies the Messiah. In Isaiah 61, it specifically says he would recover the sight of the blind. All right, good. Now go back to Isaiah 35, if you would. Don't lose your place in Matthew 9, because we'll be back in just a minute. Isaiah 35.
[00:09:15] Now, what you'll find as you study your Bible, you'll find that many of the Old Testament prophecies regarding Christ are just a kind of a mishmash of a lot of different events and characteristics of both his suffering and his kingdom, just kind of put together, not inaccurate, but you've probably heard of the illustration of the mountaintop of the mountaintops of prophecy. Anybody familiar with that idea? The visualization is that when the prophets were looking distant into the future in Isaiah, for instance, they were seeing primarily the mountaintops of prophecy. And what was not evident to them was the valleys that you can't see in the prophecy that were there also. But once you're on this side of it and you can see it all in plain view, you realize it's not just mountaintops, it's a bunch of other things that they just hit the high points of.
[00:10:11] So we might say, so Isaiah. That's why you see so many of these kind of different things mashed up together and. And altogether like Jesus kingdom and his suffering kind of put together.
[00:10:24] And Isaiah 35 is sort of like that. Look at verse number, verse number one, just to pick up the context. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them. And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. That's probably familiar to you somewhat. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it. The excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God.
[00:10:54] Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. That's quoted in Hebrews. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not now. Why? For behold, your God will come with vengeance.
[00:11:11] Even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. What do you see there? You see a mixture, salvation, judgment mixed together. Right now we know when Jesus comes, there will be salvation for those that trust in him at that time, the Jews in particular will be looking to him for immediate physical salvation. But not only that, the coming of Christ also brought salvation, for he himself is the Savior. Right, we know that. But we also know vengeance is with the Lord's coming. It's yet to come. And then we go on to verse number five, then. Now this is in the context of the coming of the Lord. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap, as in heart and the tongue of the dumb sing. For in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert. You see, all this is mentioned in the context of just one coming. But we know that's not what the scripture says. He's coming twice. But that's not obvious. And that's okay, because the Lord did not reveal all of that to one man. Yet everything he says is true, is it not? And in the context of the coming of Christ, what does the Bible say? He would recover sight to the blind in this passage, verse 5 and 6, as well as enable the dumb or the mute to speak. In our passage in Matthew, he does both. What does that mean?
[00:12:47] That means that these miracles once again identify Jesus as the Messiah to those there. But not only to those there, to Matthew's audience, who is recording it, who were primarily Jewish. But not only that, look at a couple other places. Look at Matthew, chapter 11 as we go back to Matthew 9, Matthew, chapter 11, verse number 4, Matthew 11, 4 says this.
[00:13:25] The disciples of John, you know, of course, John's in prison and disciples of John come to him. And John's doubting because he's disillusioned. Jesus is not exactly doing what he expected.
[00:13:37] And Jesus says, blessed, verse six. Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended. In me. To imply John is kind of stumbling, right? A little bit. He's being offended a little bit by Jesus. By that means, he's stumbling at what Jesus is doing.
[00:13:51] But notice when they come to him and say, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Verse 3, Jesus answered and said unto them, go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see. What does it say? The blind receive their sight among others.
[00:14:10] Again, in a very practical way, when a question was, who are you? Jesus says, look at what I've done.
[00:14:20] Look at what I've done.
[00:14:22] That was the explanation given.
[00:14:25] And not only that, we could go in. We could go to John, chapter 9 John chapter 10. In John chapter 9, the blind man says the question comes up when Jesus heals the blind, a different blind man. The question comes up. The Pharisees are interrogating him, and. And they say, well, this man's not of God because he's healed on the Sabbath day. And the man says what? He says, well, if he's not of God, how can he heal, recover sight to the blind, right? In other words, practically, obviously, that God is with this man, right? And that goes on in John chapter 10. So that's what I want you to see from a doctrinal perspective, because this people get way off on this. The miracles prove who Jesus is. Just look at the power involved in healing of the eye. I don't know if they had cataracts. I don't know if they were born blind. I don't know if they had some sort of nerve problem or whatever that often caused blindness. We have no idea the cause. But here's the truth. We know that of all the parts of the body, the eye is one of the most complex because everything is on the nano level. There are no microscopes small enough. There are no instruments small enough to deal with problems in the eye. So you know what happens. I mean, you can do a few things, but mostly it's outside of the boundaries of medical technology.
[00:15:50] And yet this thing is the thing that is used to demonstrate Christ's power, right?
[00:16:00] The Lord knows and is able to do anything, no matter how complicated the man, no matter how difficult, no matter what is inside of the power of man or outside of the power of man. His power extends to all. We should instinctively turn to him in everything, right?
[00:16:24] So that's Jesus identity. Now go back to Matthew 9, if you would.
[00:16:32] They say in verse 27, the two blind men. Now I want you to get this picture. So Jesus comes into town or whatnot, and they hear about Him. I say they see him, they hear about Him. Let me get that right.
[00:16:44] And when they hear about him, they're crying out, now let me. If you've never. Has anyone here ever been to like a developing country where there are actually begging blind people about, like, poor people, Let me explain to you. The way this works is you go into a market, you go into a certain place where there's a gathering of people, and there's. Usually they're there to beg because that's where people are. And they hope to get, you know, because a lot of them have no way of support at all. And so they sit there. And whenever someone comes by that they would like to, you know, would want, you know, some, some sort of donation or whatever. They, they, they'll approach them and then they'll. But they'll tag along and follow them and keep following and keep kind of nagging them. Help. Can you please help? Now not, I don't know if it's so much with the Lord Jesus, but with, with us now, I mean, it becomes quite a problem. It becomes quite a problem.
[00:17:42] But so that's why you see these men crying out. And a lot of times people get out of here, get out of here. What do you. Get out of here.
[00:17:49] That would be the response normally.
[00:17:52] But they're crying out. So they're trying to lift their voice up to Jesus. And it says in verse 27, they follow him. And then apparently Jesus doesn't answer them immediately because he goes right by and doesn't heal him. And then he goes into a house and then the blind men follow him into the house. You see this, right? You see it?
[00:18:11] Now here's the question I want to pose to you. Why didn't Jesus heal him at the beginning?
[00:18:17] They say, thou, son of David. You know what that is? That's a messianic title. You are the rightful King of Israel. You are the Messiah. They're showing faith in that word. Have mercy on us. What is biblical mercy? You know, we think of mercy as when God doesn't give us what we deserve. When we sin, God doesn't just like just send a bolt of lightning on us. Yeah, that's mercy. But mercy also has to do with suffering.
[00:18:43] When God is moved with sympathy and compassion at human suffering, that is also mercy. When the, when the Good Samaritan. You remember in Luke, when the Good Samaritan saw the man who had fallen among thieves, the Bible says that he had compassion and mercy on him by helping him. Now that man had not sinned, he had not wronged the Good Samaritan, but yet he was moved. He wasn't hard hearted toward this man.
[00:19:19] And that's what mercy is. So they're asking Jesus for mercy. Many times in the Gospel, people ask Jesus for mercy even though they've done no wrong.
[00:19:30] And Jesus indeed shows that he is moved with compassion.
[00:19:37] And that's not just true. Then, it's also true. Now you can rest assured that when you are suffering, even if it's just natural suffering as a result of living in a fallen world, that the Lord doesn't just know that you're suffering, but he is moved at your suffering. That's mercy.
[00:20:03] His Mercy endureth forever. He is moved at your suffering.
[00:20:08] But Jesus still did not heal them immediately.
[00:20:12] He walked right by him and went into the house. So much so that they had to follow him. And so why didn't the Lord respond to them immediately?
[00:20:20] Was it because he did not have mercy? Well, we know that's not true because he ends up healing them later.
[00:20:26] So it wasn't mercy. Did he not feel moved toward their suffering? No, he did feel moved toward their suffering. So if that's the case, why didn't he heal them immediately? And I think what's being taught here is the need for what is called importunity to press the issue and to keep asking. Importunity in faith.
[00:20:51] Think about it.
[00:20:55] How would it be hurtful to you and to me if God answered our prayer immediately? The very moment we whisper to him, like we say, lord, it's like he's here. What do you need?
[00:21:08] You know, that would hurt us.
[00:21:10] You know that if the Lord did not make us wait sometimes and put us in a place where we. We felt the weight of that thing and we had to keep asking. Right? With persistence in faith.
[00:21:26] In fact, that is the key of. That's really the key of pray without ceasing. It's persistence. That's the whole idea being taught there. If the Lord never put that requirement upon us, it would actually hurt us because it would warp our understanding of our relationship with him. We would. I mean, that happened two or three times. We would start to think. We start to think that God is our genie. We start to think that really we're the Lord and God is the servant and that we snap our fingers and God shows up and he does exactly what we want every single time. And that is just false.
[00:22:00] So you know what he does? He exercises his lordship.
[00:22:04] And the sad thing is, if God did that and he warped, he allowed our relationship with him to be warped, you know what would happen? We would become bold, and we would live presumptuously, and we would live brazenly in the face of God. Sort of like a spoiled child does with parents who act like that. You should not give your kids everything they ask for. You should not do it.
[00:22:29] And it's okay, you know, when this is. I'm on a rabbit trail now, but when two adults are talking and a child comes up, you should not break off your conversation to talk to that child.
[00:22:40] You should not do that.
[00:22:42] You could politely say, excuse me, hold on, we're having a conversation. I'll talk to you when we're done.
[00:22:47] Well, that's mean. No, it's letting the child know that you are the Lord and they are the child.
[00:22:55] That's what the Lord does for us.
[00:22:59] We ask he doesn't do it. Isn't that frustrating?
[00:23:04] Doesn't it hurt us? Sometimes it feels like it.
[00:23:08] You said you would help. But remember, if he did what we wanted every single time, immediately. Ultimately, that would not be for our benefit. We would never learn to persist in faith. We'd never learn to exercise faith. And worse yet, it would actually make us brazen, like that spoiled child. Think about those kinds of kids who were treated in that way that they do not. They are not obedient, they are not respectful because they have learned that they are the Lord. Which would be the effect upon us. We say, well, I'm an adult. It doesn't matter at all. That same nature in you and me would do the same thing.
[00:23:46] We are no different.
[00:23:49] So therefore, even though God is moved with compassion at our suffering, he sometimes makes us wait and to continue to ask.
[00:24:01] He does this to remind us that we must always be yielded to his timing and to his will in faith. Always.
[00:24:14] He is the Lord, right?
[00:24:17] He is the Lord, not us. And we have to trust him on that.
[00:24:22] But you see, the Lord does respond, though in. But to what does the Lord respond in this passage? He responds to one thing. He doesn't respond to how good these men are. He doesn't respond to how honest they've been. He doesn't respond to anything. And this is a principle in scripture. The Lord doesn't respond to anything except faith.
[00:24:41] Hebrews 11:6, right?
[00:24:44] Hebrews 11:6 says that faith is the thing that pleases God. Faith is the thing that activates God's attention on he sees faith. He says to them, believe ye that I am able to do this. When a person comes to Christ and gets saved, it's not because they're good. He's looking at their faith. When Abraham came to God, when Noah came to God, it was his faith, not how good the man was. And so it is now. But yet this religion has totally warped that, has it not? We come to God thinking, here's all my good works, here's all my Sunday school pins, right? Here's all my badges. Lord, I've been good. You have to help me. And God says, I'm not looking for that.
[00:25:24] Your righteousness is as filthy rags. My eye is on your Faith.
[00:25:29] In Matthew 8, 9. What do you see every time you see that truth, do you not?
[00:25:37] He says, believe ye that I am able to do this. But think about you. Think about me, Think about yourself.
[00:25:45] This question posed to us in our lives.
[00:25:49] We often demonstrate our answer to this question. Believe ye that I'm able to do this? We demonstrate our answer in the negative.
[00:25:59] We don't say our answer in the negative. No, I do not believe you can do this. We demonstrate our answer as no by not asking.
[00:26:11] We don't even bother to ask the Lord for the things that. That we desire because we don't believe that he is able to do it.
[00:26:21] And the lack of our faith.
[00:26:24] Listen, we have a big God.
[00:26:27] He can do anything. I've said this before, but our prayers. My prayers need to be bigger, right? Need to be consistent with the Lord. And I'm not talking about millions of dollars and fancy house. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about to see God at work, to see the Lord do things in my life, in your life, in this church, whatever.
[00:26:50] You know, one thing that's been in my heart as we approach the mission conference, and I don't know that the Lord has put this in my heart, I can't say that for certain. But one thing that's been in my heart that I've tried to pray about. You know what I'd like our church to do?
[00:27:07] I'd like our church here in Greenville, South Carolina to. I'd like the Lord to connect this body with some country. Just one. Maybe my prayers are too small, but just one.
[00:27:24] Where? This church, this little church in Greenville has an enormous and outsized effect for the cause of Christ in some country somewhere in the world, Maybe the Czech Republic, maybe Japan, maybe the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whatever. I don't know the country, but wouldn't it be awesome if a whole country's people was affected and influenced for Christ, for Christ's sake, for the Gospel's sake, by this one body, a whole country, People hear the gospel, churches are started, people are saved because of this church. One little church in the world is God. Believe ye that I am able to do this.
[00:28:21] You say, well, we're just one church, you know, we'll just send support to it. No, no, no, no.
[00:28:28] The Lord can do that. He has done it. I know of instances where he has done that and he can do that with us as well.
[00:28:36] But we do not ask often those kinds of things because we do not believe God is able in any and every circumstance.
[00:28:46] Even though our doctrinal statement to which we affix our signature affirms that we do believe that. So these Times where our doctrinal statement is different than our practical faith. But why are they different? Should they be different? They should not be different.
[00:29:05] They should not be different.
[00:29:08] So these two men come. And as we've looked at all these other instances when Jesus heals people, we looked at the leprous man and the woman with the issue of blood, and we looked at Jairus Daughter, and we've seen people with fevers and different ailments. And we've seen how those things are used kind of as illustrations of different appearances and manifestations of sin and how Jesus heals people. And we see the comparisons, right? We see the analogies with truths in Scripture. And this is no different. Here you have a man who is blind.
[00:29:45] We know that blindness is a spiritual condition, right?
[00:29:51] What is spiritual blindness?
[00:29:54] Spiritual blindness is ignorance.
[00:29:57] At its core, spiritual blindness is ignorance. It is just not knowing something.
[00:30:02] Think about it. If a person is blind, they do not see. They do not know by sight what is happening around them. They do not see the light. So it's, in a way, spiritual blindness is a form of ignorance, spiritually speaking.
[00:30:23] And there are three causes for spiritual ignorance in man. Number one is actual ignorance. They've never heard. You know, there are people in the world who do not know about Jesus, do not know the truth of the Gospel because nobody has ever told them. They have never heard it. And those people exist in many, many places in the world, but they also exist most nearby as well, especially as our country becomes increasingly secular and hostile to Christianity, right? So that's true ignorance. And then you have what we have here, which is spiritual blindness, that people cannot see the truth, though it is in front of them. And that's what you see with blindness, is it is not that the truth is not present. It is present, but you cannot perceive it. You cannot see it.
[00:31:15] And many people around us, and I think this is probably most the category of most people in our world around us, is they have been exposed to the truth, but they have not seen it.
[00:31:31] And then you have people who have rejected the truth.
[00:31:36] That is, they have refused it, which is different than blindness. Blindness means they didn't see it. Rejection means they know it and have refused it. And the Lord says to him that hath not from him shall be taken away, even that which he hath. In other words, you don't receive it. God will take it from you, which turns into darkness and ignorance. Later, look, if you would, at John chapter 9. We'll look at just two more verses and I'll be done. John 9.
[00:32:19] And then Revelation, chapter 3 in John 9. The whole chapter is about healing of a blind man. There was a man that was born blind. And at the very end in verse number 39, after this whole matter is resolved, the man's healed, Jesus turns around and says this verse 39. And Jesus said, For judgment, I am come into this world. That they which see might not see, and that they which see might be made blind.
[00:32:58] That they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and said unto him, are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, if ye were blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, we see, therefore your sin remaineth. Jesus is talking about sin. He's not talking about the blind man anymore. He's talking about sin. Notice they don't want to admit they're blind.
[00:33:20] Jesus says, you're blind, and they say, no, we're not.
[00:33:24] So there's a certain level of humility that comes with that, admitting one is blind. You know, the testimony of most Christians around here especially is not, I never heard about Jesus. And a missionary came to my village and told me about Jesus, and I trusted in Jesus. That's not. Is that the testimony of you, Ms. Pam? No, most everybody in here, that's not our testimony. You know what testimony is? Is this. I heard about Jesus my whole life. And I heard it and I heard it and I heard it and I heard it and I heard it and I heard it.
[00:33:55] And then one day it hit me and I realized, that's me. I'm really not saved. And I've heard about Jesus my whole life. You know what the problem is?
[00:34:06] You were blind.
[00:34:10] The truth was, Sister Pam, the truth was in front of your eyes the whole time, and you didn't know it. That's a description of spiritual blindness. That was me, and that was most of you.
[00:34:24] Now, this is why we give the testimony that even though we've heard it, it didn't have any effect upon us. It was like we couldn't see it at all. We assumed, oh, I'm good. I'm saved. Oh, yeah, I go to church. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. This is the most dangerous thing. Please, everyone, give me your attention just for a minute. This is one of the most dangerous things you can do, is sit in the pew of a church and assume that you're okay with God.
[00:34:51] You know what that is? That's what the Pharisees did. They said, we see.
[00:34:56] I know that.
[00:34:59] And Jesus is saying, you are blind.
[00:35:07] You don't know the peril that you're in. And as a result, your sin remaineth.
[00:35:14] You are yet unforgiven. Sitting on a church pew, thinking you're forgiven, thinking everything's good and it's not.
[00:35:24] And those of you that have come to the Lord Jesus Christ and have realized you're on the far side of that, you say, how did I not see? I look at my own life before I knew the Lord and I was coming to this very church, and I know what I was doing outside of church. And I look at my life back then. I think to myself, how, you dummy, how did you think you were saved?
[00:35:44] You know what? I was blind until the Lord put his hands on me and made me see. Now, at that point, I can. You know, I can. I can reject, right? But he made me see.
[00:36:00] Please don't sit in the pew and just assume you're good.
[00:36:05] Don't sit in the pew and assume you're right with God. The Bible says the opposite. God says, examine yourselves.
[00:36:17] Don't let blindness be your peril.
[00:36:25] But you have to remember one thing.
[00:36:29] As you were, so many people are now.
[00:36:35] They don't respond to the gospel. Even though, you know, yesterday we were knocking doors and we met so many people, you know, so many people. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We go church. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they agree with you and everything. And that makes it easy. I'll be honest with you. Right? It makes it easy to talk to them.
[00:36:51] But so many of them are just blind. Are just blind.
[00:36:57] Just blind. They don't see what's in front of them.
[00:37:01] They don't see how. They don't see the gospel as personal to them. They don't see the warnings of judgment as personal to them. That's somebody else. No, it's not somebody else. It is you.
[00:37:15] It is me. It's not somebody else. It never was.
[00:37:25] Let's finish in Revelation chapter 3, if you would.
[00:37:32] Revelation 3, verse 17.
[00:37:47] This is a letter to the church of Laodicea.
[00:37:51] And in verse 17, part of that letter reads this. Because Jesus speaking to the church. Now, who's he talking to? He's talking to the what? To the church people in the pew now. Got it.
[00:38:03] Listen to what he says.
[00:38:05] Because thou sayest, church, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind. There's that word. Can't see. And naked. The person that's sitting in the pew in this church, do they see?
[00:38:34] No, this is a church person.
[00:38:38] This is a description of church people who are not actually going to heaven. You can tell because he's going to what?
[00:38:45] He's going to spew them out of his mouth. He's rejecting them. Jesus is rejecting this church.
[00:38:52] Now, there are individuals within Laodicea, you know, and Jesus mentions them, but by and large, the church is full of people who are blind. They don't even see that they're not. They're outside that Christ is knocking on the door and they're not opening, and he's on the outside and they don't even see this.
[00:39:07] All I'm trying to say is open your eyes.
[00:39:10] I'm trying to say as these blind men, they open their eyes, but they saw not, but yet they cried out. Their ears worked. And. And I'm just saying, listen. Open your ears, open your heart. Consider, consider.
[00:39:28] Don't just assume that everything's good because you've been to church and you've heard all these things your whole life.
[00:39:35] Don't be the person like this church that's blind.
[00:39:42] Let's pray together.
