various stages. And this healing miracle is not only one of my favorites, but it also actually brings about some eternal truths that we can hold on to. we can base our life upon these eternal truths that will anchor us, anchor our souls, and carry us no matter what life throws at us. So let me quickly point out a few things. I told Pastor Rich and Brother Jim this morning, that I'm not the typical preacher. I'm more of a teacher. God has gifted me in teaching, so I don't follow the typical preaching methodology. First of all, in the Book of John, the Gospel of John, there is something called as a sign. there are seven signs that are mentioned in the gospel. And what is really amazing and very beautiful about these signs are that each of these signs are substantiated by something our Lord Jesus does that is humanly impossible. So if we had to look at those seven signs quickly, Scholars actually debate that there could be eight signs instead of seven. Please hear me out as I outline what these signs are. So the first one, Jesus turns water into wine. We know that story in Cana. That particular sign points to Jesus as the source of life. Then in John chapter four, Jesus heals an official's son. And that particular sign points to Jesus as the master over geographical distances. If you remember, Jesus simply says the word and the son of this official is healed from a long distance. In John chapter five, Jesus heals a lame man at the pool of Bethesda. It shows that Jesus is master over time itself. This blind man, if we remember, had been in that particular state, sorry, the lame man had been in that particular state, it says, for 38 years. And Jesus was able to instantly bring about his healing. In John chapter 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 men and women and children. And that particular sign points to our Lord Jesus as the bread of life. John chapter 6, Jesus walks on water and he stills a storm. That particular sign points to our Lord Jesus being the master over the elements of nature itself. And then this story in John chapter 9, where Jesus heals a man born blind, shows how he is the very light of the world. In John chapter 11, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That particular sign points to Jesus having power over the ultimate enemy of our souls, death itself. In John chapter 21, Jesus causes an abundant catch of fish. There, the sign points to Jesus being master over the animal world. Now John, in writing the Gospel of John, at the tail end of the book, writes the purpose of the book. He says, now Jesus did many other signs. So these are not the only signs that Jesus said. There were many other signs Jesus did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in the book. But these ones, the seven or eight that John specifically illustrates, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So the purpose of the gospel is very clearly, without any doubt, made very, very crisp and clear that the purpose is so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now this particular healing, physical healing, has certain things that are interesting for us to note. We may miss it if we don't slow down and read scripture at a certain pace that corresponds or correlates to the event itself. Many times we read scripture really fast and in that process we could miss out certain things. A wonderful Nobel Prize winner in economics He was the first one, actually, who was not an economist, who was given the Nobel Prize. He was actually a psychologist, wrote a book called Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow. If you ever get a chance, get that book. I normally don't recommend, from the pulpit, secular books. But this one is a really good one, because one of the cases he makes in that book is that when we think fast, beyond a certain pace, and we make decisions, 80% of the time those decisions are wrong. So he encourages us to slow down, really slow down in the decision-making process, and to think carefully what is going on, do all the due diligence, the research, all of it, and then make the decisions. Likewise, if we don't slow down in this particular passage, we can miss out some really amazing things. Let me point a few for us. He's blind from birth, that's very clear, right? But what is interesting is why did Jesus actually take mud, or actually take the dust of the ground, spit into it, make a mud, and then apply it onto his eyes? That's the million dollar question. Couldn't Jesus have done it without doing that what seems a publicly unacceptable thing? But this is really amazing. Scholars think that this particular man was missing his very eyeballs. There were no eyeballs. These were empty eye sockets. So now think about it. God, who created Adam from the dust of the earth, formed him is now encountering a man with no eyeballs. He is God. He's the son of God. So to be consistent with his creation pattern, Jesus has to recreate. From scratch, as Brother Dan pointed out yesterday, this was an incredible sort of thing, even scientifically unimaginable. Jesus had to recreate this man's eyeballs from nothing. So he takes the dust, makes it into mud, and applies it. Scholars think there could have been some potential medical causes why this man was born blind. Maybe gonorrhea was, if that's the way we say it, or any other sexual diseases that were there that could have potentially caused him to be born blind. We are not specifically told the reason for his blindness in the text. Now, the disciples, like any Eastern bunch of people, ask a question of Jesus. They say, Master, was he born blind because of his parents' sin or because of his own sin? Now, there is a fundamental flaw. How could he have been born blind if he had sinned? A baby couldn't sin, right? A baby in the mother's womb has no potential to sin. So how in the world would that square away, right? They were fundamentally mistaken in that part of the question. But on the other part of the question, did his parents sin? And is that the fundamental reason he was born blind? It's a fair question to ask. Actually, the culture where some of us, like Saji and I, grew up in India, this question, society is confronted with this question all the time. When people see poor people out on the streets begging, or people who are sick. The fundamental question that is asked is, what happened? Did karma, did some action that was done by the parents or the grandparents result through the cycle of reincarnation somewhere that affected this individual to be born this way? Right? And so within the Indian system, within the Hindu system, this is a serious question. And it is connected to the law of karma. Basically, your works in this life determine your state in the next. And it keeps on going. It's a vicious cycle of reincarnation. Now, Jesus' response to this fundamental question is very, very surprising and stunning. The text tells us, Jesus answered in verse 3, it was not that this man sinned or his parents. He rules out both the situations. And he says, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I'm in the world, Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. So Jesus has completely removed any doubt in the minds of the disciples. It is not because of his parents' sin or his sin, but there is something bigger. greater at work here, guys, that you have no clue about. If you remember the story of later on when Lazarus is dead and the news reaches Jesus, Jesus deliberately delays his going to Bethany by two days. And the disciples indirectly tell Jesus, Lord, are you crazy? This man is dead. Why are you delaying? And Jesus gives a very similar response in that situation as well. He says, this has happened so that God will be glorified. So moving on, John MacArthur has made a wonderful statement that I borrow here. John MacArthur for John chapter 9 and verse 3 says, Jesus did not deny the general connection between sin and suffering. But what Jesus does do is he refutes the idea that personal acts of sin were the direct cause. God's sovereignty and purposes play a part in such matters as is clear from Job chapters one and two. So every outcome whether it is a physical sickness or a loss of a job or anything else in life, we must be careful that we don't trace it back and say there must be some sin behind it. I'm not diminishing or dismissing the correlation. There could be, and there is. I've noticed it in my own life. The Lord had to teach me some very, very painful and valuable lessons because I had not obeyed his voice clearly. And there were certain after effects of that. So I know very well, I'm not dismissing it, but to make that correlation in every instance of outcome is a very dangerous practice. So what is Jesus actually saying here? And if we get this, we get what is happening within this passage. You see, Jesus is saying this man was born blind, not due to any sin. Okay, sin is out of the question. Neither by any accident, but rather by the deliberate, sovereign plan and purpose of God. Now think about it. Do we easily, naturally accept in our own lives the things that life throws at us as the deliberate and sovereign plan and purpose of God? It's very difficult, right? I accept it. For me too, it's very, very difficult. But Jesus is saying, look guys, this was planned before the foundation of the world. Even before this guy was created in his mother's womb, God planned it with a purpose in such a way that he would be glorified. And then he says the words, while it is day. It's supposed to be understood that as long as Jesus was with his disciples here on earth, he would be performing these miracles. Night is coming. Jesus is indirectly referring here to the period when he would be taken away from his disciples, being crucified, and they would no longer be able to see the kind and the extent of the miracles that he was performing before them. Night will definitely come. Jesus is reminding his disciples. Now, this is a very strange way to heal a blind man. Very, very strange, right? If a physician dealing with an ophthalmologist, dealing with the eye, who has never heard the story is present among us and hearing this for the first time or reading about it, they would be shocked, right? What a way to heal this. No surgery, no medical, you know, guidance, nothing. And here is a way. So what does Jesus do? Right? Saliva plus dust. mud, puts it on the blind man's eyes, tells him to go to the pool of Siloam, washes eyes, and he is healed instantly. Now, last night, a brother alluded to the complexity of the human eye. And later on, actually, right after he was done, I went to him and I said, you won't believe it. I'm speaking on John chapter nine. And I mentioned to him about this, a certain article that was written about the complexity of the eye. And he further told me that he has access to it, and he has read it himself. And so this was the providence of God that what he began yesterday evening, but didn't share this article. Because today, if he had shared this article, I would have canceled my message. And I was literally sitting there telling my wife, and I was praying to God saying, Lord Jesus, this is incredible, incredible, absolutely incredible. He has now pointing to what I'm going to share tomorrow. At the same breath, I was praying, Lord Jesus, please stop him. Please stop him. Please stop him that he doesn't share anything about this article. So I'm going to share this morning this article. The Miracle of Sight. Do we truly realize what a fantastic miracle took place? You see the eye is a wonderfully made, complex, sophisticated, and unique organ. Thousands of times a day, our eyes move and focus on images near and far, identifying images for interpretation. The eye transmits thousands of bits of information at any one time to the brain to interpret and decode. Let's grasp how all this works. These are the basic parts of the eye, the pupil, which is the opening of the eye, the retina is the screen at the back of the eye, the cornea is a layer of clear tissue that covers the iris, and the pupil with an overlaying film of tears. The iris, the colored part of the eye, exercises the muscles required to change the size of the pupil, admitting more or less light into the eye. The lens near the middle of the eye changes shape in order to focus light rays on the retina. If the object is close up, the lens thickens, and when the object is further away, the lens thins itself. The retina has about 135 million light-sensitive cells. They are of two distinct kinds, rods and cones. Rods are sensitive to dark and light, black and white only. The cones, however, react to color in bright light. They stop working in dim light, while rods work well in dim light. That's why we can see even at night. Even though there are many complex parts to the eye, the actual mechanism of sight is a well-designed simple process. The light is projected through the cornea, the pupil, and then the lens. The lens muscles focus the light rays on the back of the retina. There, the rods and cones turn the light into electrical impulses that are carried by the optic nerve to the brain. The brain interprets these messages into what we perceive as sight. In order for us to interpret the messages into recognizable images, the brain draws on images and information that has already been categorized. If the eye sees a tree, the brain interprets the image and searches the memory to compare the image being viewed to what is presently stored and then determines the image as a tree. This all takes place within less than a millionth of a second. Millionth of a second, all of this. As soon as a child is born, the baby is bombarded with sensory stimuli that informs him about his environment. And he immediately starts to recognize this stimuli. Some believe it starts sooner than that. A baby's eye at one day old is able to follow a doctor's pen light. baby's sight starts developing immediately. As he sees new things, images are imprinted in the memory, and the brain gets busy categorizing these pieces of information. It has been found that even at this early age, baby actually develops some preferences as to what he stores. In a relatively short time, he will recognize shapes, colors, faces, light and dark. As the child grows, he will learn to recognize depth perception, balance, movement and much more. And of course, the other senses add to the storehouse of memory. For example, the child will learn by touch what a ball is. He discovers it is round, soft, or hard. By sight, the color categorized, as well as large or small. And of course, whether it tastes good. He filters and stores all this in his memory and continues to add information to this data for the rest of his life. They close this article by saying, when a person regains their sight through surgery or other methods, usually they must cope with sudden learning problems from the deluge of new and incomprehensible images that now flood the brain. Optically, the person is like a newborn babe. The person must learn a new language of lines, color, and dimensions, and be able to discern differences between objects. For example, would the person know if the spoon and table were separate items, or one object when he first sees them? Presumably, the person would have to pick up the spoon, close his eyes, and feel it to recognize what it was, and then visually focus on it to enable the brain to recognize through sight as well as touch. It takes considerable amount of effort to re-educate the brain in this way. The miracle of Jesus healing the blind is so much broader than just restoring sight. It is actually a multifaceted miracle of awesome scope. All the parts of the eye had to function immediately. The brain had to be able to recognize what was being transmitted to it through the eyes, and all systems had to be in the go mode. For those blind people Christ healed who had vision and then lost it, the brain may have remembered images from the past. Also, whatever the physical reason was for the blindness, that too was miraculously corrected. Jesus Christ performed many, many miracles of healing during a short time on earth, and the restoration of sight was one of the most awesome. So when we read the scriptures in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John about Christ healing a blind person, let's think about what an incredible miracle it truly was. So we would expect at this time of such a great miracle of sorts for all the people who are encountering this miracle around them to have a certain attitude. Yeah, because they've seen him for many years sitting there and begging outside the temple. So let's look at all these different groups of people and what were their reactions to this miracle. So what would we expect? First of all, we would expect excitement. We would expect joy, thanksgiving and praise to God, repentance, belief. People would be united around this miracle. So what if we are under the Roman Empire? Look at this miracle. Who could do a miracle of this sort except God? God is with us in our midst even though we are under the tyranny of the Roman Empire. They would have thought, they should have thought something like that. There would be more grace present after seeing a miracle of the sort. There would be less legalism happening after witnessing a miracle of the sort. There would be even questions. Who is this who has performed this sort of a miracle? Could this healer be the coming Messiah, the anointed one? See, these were all the kingdom of heaven expected responses from people after having seen this wonderful and great sign. But alas, none of this happened. We got three groups of people who are witnessing. We got the neighbors, and those who had previously seen that he was blind. Then we have the Pharisees, and then we have the parents of this blind man. Let's look at the neighbors and those who had previously seen that he was blind. They were confused and split. There were two groups among them. One said, he is the guy. He is the guy. And the other group said, no, no, no, he's not that guy. He is like him. He's like him. Then they were not believing the man when the man himself said, look, I am he, I am the one. I am the one. They don't believe him. They knew that this miracle had happened on the Sabbath. Verse 14 says they knew the implications of this miracle having happened on the Sabbath. So instead of being joyful, instead of rejoicing, and instead of showing the heart attitudes of what heaven expects, they actually take him to the Pharisees. It's the wrong bunch of people to take a healed man on a Sabbath, that too, to the Pharisees. You know, as you read the gospels, one thing we never, never miss out. If you ever miss out this particular aspect, yeah, you need to get your eyes and your ears checked. Jesus's beef. If I have to use that word, Jesus's beef, please forgive me. I may be in beef country. Jesus's beef. was fundamentally with the religious leaders of his time, the Pharisees and the scribes. You see, because right in front of their eyes, right in front of their eyes of everything that they were trained in the law, Everything that they knew of the Hebrew scriptures and its future fulfillment right in front of their eyes was the very fulfillment that was promised. And yet, they missed it. They missed it completely. So these people, the neighbors, take this blind man to the Pharisees. And in that process, they wanted advice from their local synagogue and religious leaders. Nothing wrong in the process, except that the Pharisees and the scribes, we will see their reaction shortly. Let's look at the parents. You know, the parents of all the people, right? I mean, think about this. If you had a child, born blind or any other medical health situation, and your child was healed, you would have the greatest joy, right? You would be the most thrilled. Not only that, but you would tell others about it. You would not be afraid because the toughest and the most heart-wrenching crisis in front of you has been solved, has been resolved. you would not be full of fear and not be able to talk about it. But scripture here, Mark chapter nine, says that the parents, in verse 22, were fearful of the Jewish leaders. In verse 22 and verse 23, we get the gravity of the import that they, the parents, feared men more than they feared God. God had done this miracle in their son's life, but rather than fearing God, they feared the Pharisees and the scribes. So what do they say? They say, we don't know anything about this, how it happened. They say, ask him. He's grown up man, right? He can answer for himself. And it says they were afraid because they would have been cast out of the synagogue if they had even in a small breath mentioned the name of Jesus. Now we come to the third and the final group, the Pharisees. The reason I'm doing this is, this is kind of, you know, I was thinking about an example. Suppose you ran the 100-meter dash, yeah, 100-meter dash, let's assume for that, and you broke the world record, let's assume, yeah? You clocked the 100 meters in nine seconds, yeah? And then you come home, and then you tell your parents, dad and mom, you won't believe it. I just ran today. I just ran during the lunch break, yeah? And I just ran, and guess what? I actually ended up breaking the world record. I didn't even know it. The coach told me, hey, guess what? You just broke the world record. And the parents don't show any sense of joy or happiness or anything on their face. So the kid now goes to the neighbors, gets all of his friends and everybody together, and says the same thing. And nobody's joyful. Now think what would be going on in this kid's mind psychologically. Look, this is a great accomplishment. Something wonderful has happened for the record books. Why is it that nobody is participating in my joy and thrilled with me and around me and celebrating. Everybody is just, you know, unhappy. Nobody's showing any signs. The reason I want to show you these three groups and talk about their responses to this is, look, this blind man, born blind from birth, has experienced the greatest miracle of his life. next to salvation, and he's going to experience that pretty soon. He is not in the best of company. All the people that he thinks should have been joyful with him, around him, celebrating with him. are not doing that. So you need to understand that this guy, joyful as he is that something has happened, inside, in his soul, is facing a turmoil, is facing a crisis. The Pharisees, look at their responses in verses 16a. Legalistic. They say, he does not keep the Sabbath. Come on! Come on! Of all the things, you couldn't first say... My wife often reminds me of this. She often says, Ruben, when you correct our daughter, my daughter, she says, use the sandwich approach. Sandwich. Positive, negative, positive. Say first good things, even to your co-workers. If you're managing people in your team and you want to convey some feedback, end of year performance review, whatever it is, the approach is a sandwich approach. Always first deal with the positive. Always, always say the good things that they're doing all the time. give the advice for improvement, where can they improve? And that too lovingly, graciously, and then come back and close it with a positive sandwich, positive, negative, positive. Look at them, they don't do anything of that sort. In verse 24, this man is not from God. In verse 16, again, the second part, they are divided amongst themselves. They're unbelieving in verse 26 and verse 18. In verse 22, they are threatening. They are inducing fear in others. In verses 28 and 29, you see that they are very, very proud and they're very reviling. They are blind, in verses 30 to 34, they are blind to the penetrating insight from this uneducated, healed man. He has been healed, not them. He has been touched. He has undergone a massive transformation. He has the right to say these things, and rather than listening to him and taking it in and thinking about it and saying he's right, He has been like this for so many years, and look, what a joy to see him with sight. Rather than thinking about it that way, they are blind to his penetrating insight. Not only that, the very sad thing is they are ignorant of Scripture. in verses 32 and 33. You know what is so amazing? This blind man, formerly blind man, has to remind them. He tells them, look, has this kind of a thing, this sort of a thing, have you ever heard of it in all of scripture? Has it ever happened in the Old Testament and times? No. Have you ever heard something of this sort happening? And he says, look, here it is. And in verses 40 and 41, they are clearly shown to be self-righteous and unrepentant in front of a miracle. So what are the characteristics of those who are willfully unbelieving? John MacArthur says, unbelief sets false standards. When we unbelieve, we have false expectations. Unbelief always wants more evidence, but never has enough. That's why some people will either prolong their believing in the gospel in Christ, or they will never come to belief, because they're constantly wanting more. He writes, unbelief does biased research on a purely subjective basis. There is no objectivity when there is unbelief. Unbelief rejects the facts right in front of them. They knew was a man born blind for many years, and yet they did not consider the facts. And finally, unbelief, if let to be prolonged, can result in a life of self-centeredness. Keep on. resisting belief, faith, you become hardened. So contrary to the willful unbelief, we find something really amazing happening. Please hear me out. If you want to forget anything else I say, this is the part I want you to remember. The healed man expresses his faith in Jesus. And you see something very interesting happening here. It doesn't all happen at once. This belief is not a single static point where he says, I believe, that's it. But it is in progressive stages of belief. Notice in verse 11. He says to the neighbors, when they ask him, who did this? He says, the man called Jesus, the man called Jesus. At that point, at that point in his encounter with Jesus, this experience, at that static point, he only knew of Jesus as a man, nothing else, just a man who did this. But by the time we go to verse 17, He is now standing in front of the Pharisees and when they ask him, what do you think or who do you think this person is? He says to them in verse 17, he is a prophet. You know, he's now gone from a simple, mere man to a prophet. Now, even this recognition, his acknowledgement of Jesus as the prophet, is not an accidental one. He firmly believed in his heart, between the few minutes that have passed, between the previous acknowledgement of a man to now, he firmly, seriously believes in his heart that this is a prophet. But how did this happen? How in the world did this man's acknowledgement go from a mere man to a prophet? Just hold on, I'm going to tell you. Later on in verse 33, he acknowledges once again, he says, if this man, referring to Jesus, were not from God, he could do nothing. In other words, he's acknowledging that Jesus has come from God. Okay, now this takes on a greater gravity, greater import than his previous acknowledgement of a prophet. See, prophets were born. Prophets were born here on earth. They were called, they were commissioned, they were anointed, the words of God were put into their heart. They were God's mouthpieces, spokesmen. But he's now acknowledging that he is not born here on earth. He is actually come from God. He came from a different place. He's not born here on earth, but he's come from heaven. He's acknowledging that in verse 33. And by the time in verse 38, Jesus encounters him, he, makes the ultimate confession of his faith. And he says, Lord, I believe, I believe. And scripture says, and he worshiped him. So the fundamental question arises, how did all this happen? In a few minutes, how does he go from a man to a prophet, to somebody come from God from above, to I believe you are the Messiah, the anointed one of God. These are four separate stages. When you look at in between any of these two stages, there is a massive chasm. These are not what you call the formation of a butterfly from a caterpillar. you know, caterpillar consuming the vegetation, and then moving into form, the cocoon and all of that process, and then the cocoon breaking, and out of that coming the butterfly. Do you know how sophisticated and complex that process is? Biologists will tell you that. But this is not that. This is infinitely, drastically different categories, compartments, of types that he's talking about. A man is not a prophet. A prophet is not somebody who's come from heaven from God and somebody who's come from heaven from God is now being the Messiah, the very anointed one. The Jews knew when that phrase, the anointed one was used, what it meant. That's why when Jesus said, you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the father. they knew something within their very core, the high priest and the chief priest, something within their very essence of their being, said, no, this cannot be. What in the world is he claiming? And here is exactly that question that Jesus raises to this blind man now healed. Do you believe I am he, the promised one? How did all of this happen? You see, I'm going to speculate a bit here, yeah? I'm going to take scripture and do some holy speculation. You know, it's like the Chosen, yeah? All of you have seen the Chosen and you delight. There is this amazing thing within the Chosen series where it is scriptural. but then they've also taken some creative holy imagination, yeah? As long as that holy imagination does not come back and contradict scripture, we are okay with it, okay? Because we don't know all the facts. As long as I qualify it, as long as I put a condition and I say I like to dream what happened, I'm fine. I don't know all the details, I really don't know, but I can speculate, do some holy speculation. I think two things are at play here. Please hear me out. Two things are at play here. You think Jesus did not know after he performed the miracle and left the man, what would happen? He did. He absolutely, amazed, Jesus knew that. Jesus knew the whole thing. He knew that he would go to his neighbors, and then the neighbors would ask him who did this, and they would then take him to the Pharisees. Jesus knew what the Pharisees would ask him and say, all of that, and then how they would summon his parents, what would they say, and then what would the Pharisees then say, that he was born in utter sin, and we have Moses' lineage. All of that. Jesus knew the whole thing. You know what, Jesus does something absolutely amazing. All through this while, he is still in proximity. That amazes me. Jesus, knowing what this man would undergo, his crisis, stays close to him. He didn't leave the place. He could have said, hey, I have some other business to do, other miracles to do or teach here, teach there. He hung around this man's proximity because he knew what he was going to face. And he wanted to be there. and help him. I also think, knowing Jesus, knowing Jesus, the son of God, who prayed always, always he prayed, always he prayed. You remember Jesus' words. These words are like cold water in a parched desert land when Jesus tells Peter, Peter, Peter, I have prayed for you. that your, finish the sentence, that your faith would not fail. Jesus has prayed for Peter in the background, and Peter's faith is protected, preserved. You know what? I believe in my holy speculation that Jesus prayed for this man. He prayed. He said, Give him strength. Protect him. He's going to be in the midst of wolves, and they're going to tear him to pieces. They are not going to even consider the miracle that I have done in his life. Please, Father, give him strength. Protect him. Give him boldness. with every revelation of your spirit, Father, to this man, as he acknowledges who I am, your son, from a mere man to a prophet, to a man come from God, to the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Father, give him your boldness. Give him your strength. Protect him. You know, that prayer, as every prayer of our Lord Jesus was answered. When we read this story in the Greek language, you get the complete feel of boldness in this man's heart. He was not afraid. He was just so bold. I mean, the man now sees, right? He knows the amazing transformation that has happened in his life. He is filled with divine boldness. You know, somebody had said that after Lazarus was raised, Jesus stood outside the tomb, right, and called the name of Lazarus. By the way, one scholar has written the reason Jesus said Lazarus come out, he didn't say come out, is all the dead bodies in those tombs would have come out. Jesus was very specific. Outside Lazarus's tomb, Lazarus come out. Lazarus's dead body, hear the divine sound, came out. Jesus here has prayed for this man to the Father, and he is filled with divine boldness. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit is at work within him. to take him across these multiple stages of acknowledgment. And each of these acknowledgment is an amazing thing. Yes, sometimes we think man, a mere man, right? But think about it, how he goes from man to the other stages. The Spirit of God is at work in his heart. It's a miraculous drawing that the Father God does of an individual bringing that individual to his son, Jesus. In John chapter six, verse 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. Jesus says, and I will raise him up on the last day. This man's obedience to the progressive stages of revelation, divine revelation, given to him at every stage, He takes it. He doesn't fight against it. He acknowledges. leads to further and further revelation. Obedience to that revelation then leads to more revelation. And then obedience to that revelation then leads to more revelation. By the time Jesus encounters him, you know what is really amazing, it says, they threw him out of the synagogue. So the parents were fine, because they did not acknowledge who did it, They were afraid that they would be thrown out of the Jews. They are fine. But he, because of his bold and strong acknowledgement, gets thrown out of the synagogue. And what do we find here? Right after that, right after, it says, look at your Bible text. It says, and Jesus, hearing, found him, found him. Yeah? This is an amazing encouragement. to people who come to faith in Christ but have to pay a very heavy price, whether that is socially being ostracized or in other ways, to know that when they are thrown out of their synagogues, their families, or their societies, and this happens a lot from where we come from in India, right, when a Hindu person comes to faith in Christ, They are ostracized from the family and social events. They are no longer invited and welcome. And I found tremendous comfort in this verse that Jesus, knowing that this man had been ostracized, thrown out of the synagogue, finds him. He comes to him, finds him, and ministers to him. So quickly, I wanted to give some applications and close. In our encounter with unbelievers in the gospel proclamation, many times we have an unexpected, unrealistic expectation, and that is that person will come to faith in Christ quickly. Rather than praying that God, in his rightful time, in his way, reveals himself to this individual in ways that only he can, and brings about in them the recognition of who Christ is. And based upon that, after a certain time has elapsed, this individual will definitely come to faith in Christ. But what do we do? We have our manipulation. tactics, right? We want to accelerate the process somehow. Of course, all in good stead, because we genuinely love the individual, we genuinely want them to come to faith in Christ. But one of the things we forget within that process, and I've made tons of mistakes in this area, is rather than trying to do something to the process humanly, praying to God and saying, God, you reveal, you show forth, in your ways, in your timings, etc. The other thing that I often found we do with unbelievers when they are searching or they come to church or other arenas, I was involved in student ministries for a long time and college students, is we immediately want them to get rid of certain things from their life. Like, for example, in India, the Hindu women who would come to church would have something called a bindi. They would wear it on their forehead, and it has a certain Hindu symbolism to it. They'd come to church, they'd keep on coming, and in my own church in Bombay, the leaders, all of us made a very terrible mistake. Rather than focusing on what was happening in the heart of this woman and what was God revealing himself to her and what was he doing, we began to put more pressure on her to get rid of that bindi. And guess what happened? Finally, she stopped coming to church. You see, what God does, only he can do. His timing, his revelation. What we can do is God Reveal yourself, pray, reveal yourself. Do this, Lord, do this. Another aspect is many times unbelievers go through a tremendous amount of turmoil, pressure, stress. As I mentioned, you know, family members are many times antagonistic against their coming to faith in Christ. You know, what is one of the amazing things in Christendom? When a person who is taking water baptism from an unbelieving background, or from a Hindu background, or Muslim background, or any background, and their parents and their family come to find out that they're taking water baptism, they have no clue about what water baptism stands for. They have no idea that it's identification with the death, burial of our Lord Jesus, none of that resurrection, none of that. But intuitively, God has designed it in the very hearts of unbelieving Hindu and Muslim parents in India that as soon as they hear their child or their son or their daughter are going to take water baptism, all hell breaks loose. They get so angry, so upset. They don't want anything to do with their children and everything. How did that happen? God has revealed it even to unbelievers, certain things about his kingdom. You have an unbeliever come to church on Sundays when you have communion. Believe me, I've always thought and said about this and experienced this. They watch the communion service being done. And the unbeliever thinks to himself, what are they doing? I want to know more. What is it? Hey, John, you brought me here to church. Can you tell me what is going on? What are you doing here? The communion table becomes one of the greatest evangelistic events to an unbeliever. You see, God has his ways of bringing people to himself. all the time. But in the process, we sometimes make some human mistakes. I've learned, I've learned over the years, especially in these latter years, that rather than me trying to do something with somebody I'm trying to share the gospel with, and trying to somehow force them or something, you know, just to pray and say, Lord, you know what to do. with this person. Please reveal yourself in only ways that you can. And you lead them. At the right time, we will celebrate. We will hope that this person will come to faith in Christ. So in closing, what only and only by the grace of God I wanted to bring before you is this individual, the man born blind who's been healed, faced his adversaries. faced groups of people that were not joyful with him. And thereby, he needed our Lord Jesus's personal strengthening. Our Lord Jesus, knowing what would happen to him, hung around him, stayed in close proximity to him. I think he prayed for him. And then when he was cast out of the synagogue, our Lord Jesus found this guy. You think this guy would now go back saying discouraged? Absolutely not. He has been met and found by the very healer. not only of his body, but of his soul himself, right? So this is an amazing, this is not only for unbelievers, because the passage here is taking somebody from unbelief to belief, but this is also for us as believers, that our Lord Jesus is there for us to strengthen us. The picture I often get when I'm really wrestling in prayer or struggling, is to find myself when I'm praying, when I'm praying is to picture or I get this strong sense in my spirit that there is some other man standing next to me, another man who's also kneeling beside me. And this man has lived a perfect life, absolutely perfect life I could never live. And I'm delighted in him, I'm joyful about him that he has done it on my behalf. And he's taken my sins upon him and everything, and he's redeemed me completely from the guilt of sin, from hell. from death, he has done it. So if he has done all of those things for me, how much more he is there beside me, walking beside me, carrying the burdens and the loads of life, everything that I encounter, everything that life throws at me, throws at us. If he has purchased my salvation through his precious blood, how much more he will sustain me through life. being and comforting. I was telling Pastor Rich in his office this morning, lately over the last number of years, I'm seeing the indelible hand of God. You just pray through God's word. You know, just say, Papa, you know, God, the picture sometimes I get is God on his throne, massive throne. And I'm like a little tiny kid, little tiny kid walking into daddy's room, right? And then I pull on daddy's pants. If you imagine God in his robes, his pant and pulling, and he looks down and saying, what's up, kid? I don't think God says what's up. I think God lovingly says, what can I do for you? And you say, dad, believe me, I've done this many times. I've said, Lord, I've had a very rough week at work. This boss of mine is going to kill me today. If you don't do something, guess what? I get a ping on my Microsoft teams and it's my boss says, I'm taking the day off. So thank you God. No, no, it doesn't work all the time. Okay. You know, Jesus didn't do the loaves, the multiplication of the loaves every time. The very fact that he told the disciples to pick it up, he was telling them a lesson. Don't waste it. I'm not going to be doing this every time. But God does hear our prayers, and he does come to our aid, and he does help us. Saji and Moni's coming today. It's a miracle, absolute miracle. We all know what misflights are, right? But God put his hand. God intervened, and God did it. If God has done that on earth, in his son, with a man born blind, impossible, absolutely unbelievable story, he can do it for you, and he can do it for us. Shall we close?