Okay. As you can see, the subject of tonight is we're going to be talking about the events of John chapter 9 that are recorded for us by John. And this study came out of a, I taught a Sunday school lesson. The focus wasn't John chapter 9, but the Sunday school lesson hit the the events in this chapter. And as I was studying it out for the Sunday school, there were some questions I had in my head and that I didn't focus on for the Sunday school lesson. But so when pastor asked me to teach tonight, I was like, this was fresh on my mind. And I took this opportunity to kind of do a deep dive into John chapter nine and answer some of the questions I had that came up as I was studying for the Sunday school lesson. So John chapter nine. So let's set up for the context here. Specifically, what is the purpose of John's gospel? And the purpose of John's gospel is told to us in chapter 20, 30, verses 30 and 31. And John is saying, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. So this event that's recorded for us in John chapter nine is understand that this is recorded that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, as the underlying or what's the foundation of this story. And by believing this truth, we may have eternal life. So also part of the context is, Israel as a nation is divided over Christ. Who is Christ? That's the question of the day. John chapter 7 talks about this, and John chapter 8 shows us that there's lots of division in the nation about who Jesus Christ is. John 7.40-44 says, Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, Truly this is the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Will the Christ or the Messiah come out of Galilee. Has not the scripture said that the Christ come from the seed of David from the town of Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among the people because of him. And now some of them wanted to take him, but nobody laid hands on him. In the immediate context of John chapter 9, as set up by John chapter 7 and 8, We'll see that this division is how the events of John chapter 9 plays into this. If you look over John chapter 8, it's a series of interesting conversations between Jesus and the religious leaders. And they're just having this back and forth. And it ends in John chapter 8 with verse 57, when Jesus Christ calls himself by the same name God used in the Old Testament. John 8.58. And Jesus said to them, Moshe, surely I say to you, before Abraham was I Am. And so they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out to the temple, going through the midst of them, so they passed by. So Jesus, claiming to be God, using the same I Am, the religious leaders knew exactly what Jesus was saying and they tried to stone him because it was blasphemous for a man to put him on the same, call himself God. So let's open up to John chapter nine, verse one. So the events of John nine happened a short time after the events in John eight in Jerusalem. So John chapter 9 starts out. Jesus is still in Jerusalem after claiming to be Messiah. Some commentaries have this happening the very next day. Some commentators have it happen a little bit later. I happen to believe through my study that this is the very next day. So the day before, Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem. He claims to be God. They try to stone him. And then the very next day, him and his disciples are walking the streets, and this is where we are. Part of the reason I believe this is, if you look at John 8, verse 12, Jesus is speaking to them, and he's saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. And then, in John 9, verse 5, we see Jesus again saying, I am, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. So we kind of have the same conversation going on here. The other indication that these events are relatively close together are that the pool of Siloam that's mentioned in verse 7 is in Jerusalem. So we know that we're in Jerusalem. And again, I believe these events are literally the day after the events of chapter 8. So here we go, John 8, 12 and John 9, 5, 12 have the same subject, I am the light of the world. So, John chapter 9. Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? The medical term for being born blind is called congenitive blindness. And the little research I did about congenitive blindness is there's many different forms. But a person that is born blind or has congenitive blindness, it is, for the most of them, most types, it's very, very easy to tell just by looking at them that they were born blind. versus just a person who became blind over time. I'm not going to show you the, well, I don't have any pictures up here, but it was rather, it was rather, I had just eaten and it was a tough one. So, congenitive blindness would be, the pupils would be a misty white. So if you look at the person, you can tell that they're blind. Their eyeballs or their eyes are misshapen, they're all over the place, they're not round at all. or their eyes are actually missing. So it's really easy to tell, just based on this question, we see that the disciples asked, who sinned that this man or his parents said he was born blind? So whatever blindness this blind man had, it was obvious that it was born blind and not something that happened later in life. The disciples here ask this question, who sinned that this man was born blind? Now I thought we should dive into this one, why is this, why are they thinking that somebody sinned that this guy was born blind? And what I do like is the questions, the line of question comes from a thinking that all disease and sickness is the result of a sin in a person's life. This type of thinking was common at the time. God punished people for wrongdoings by giving them physical issues. This is backed up in the Old Testament. There's examples of diseases and sickness that were a direct result of sin. Ezekiel 18, What caught me off guard was the option that the disciples gave. This man sinned before he was born or this man's parents sinned. Now the option given by the disciples that this man actually sinned in the womb, therefore was born blind, comes from the teaching that was contemporary teaching at the time, based out of Ezekiel 18.20, which states, The little research I did, it says there was rabbis teaching that babies could sin in the womb and therefore as a direct result of that they were born, well, blind or something like that. Another verse in the Old Testament, Psalms 51.5 says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. We'll see in John 9.34 that the Pharisees and the Jews And summing up their opinion of the man born blind is they said to him, you are completely born in sins and you are teaching us. 2 Kings 5.27 talks about the leprosy of Naaman where he sinned when it came to curing the leprosy. And because of it, he had the leprosy as white as snow immediately and it followed him through his life. The reason that his parents are mentioned here is in Exodus 34, 6-7. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. This led to the reasoning that a disease or a sickness was a result of a sin, the result of a sinful parent or grandparents. It is a common Jewish view that the merits or demerits of the parents would appear in the children, and even to the point that the thoughts of a mother might affect the moral state of her unborn offspring. The nation of Israel is not the only place that thought this. This is common in other parts of the world. The Apostle Paul, when he was being transported to Rome on a ship, survived a shipwreck and were being helped by the locals of the people of Malta when they came ashore. And because of the cold and rain, they built a fire for the survivors of the shipwreck. In Acts 28, one through three says, verse two, and the natives, showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome because of the rain that was falling because of the cold. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened onto his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he escaped from the sea, yet justice did not allow him to live. So their point was, was this Paul got bit because he was some sort of sinner and he was going to die from the snake bite. It is true that all sickness and death is a result of sin in general, because of the corruption that entered the sin after the fall. But the Bible is also very clear of people suffering not related to sin in any way, shape, or form. Job is a good example of this. A righteous man that went through terrible things that had nothing to do with sin in his life. So, here's our options. Who sinned? That this man is obviously born blind himself, before he was born, or his parents. And Jesus answers the question and he gives them the correct reason. Verse three, Jesus answers, neither this man nor his parents sin, but the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day and the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Jesus' answer gives us another option for the reason this man was born blind. It has nothing to do with the sins of the parents or this man. The reason this man was born blind was because of the work of God that was going to be performed in him. Remember that Jesus just the day before had publicly claimed to be God and therefore claiming to the nation and anybody that listened that he is the Christ. And now he's going to back it up with a sign or a miracle to show the people of Jerusalem that he is the Messiah and he comes from God the Father and through this blind man. So, John chapter 9 verse 6 and 7. So Jesus heals this blind man. by putting clay in his eyes and tells him to go wash. Now this guy goes and washes in this pool and he comes back to the neighborhood being able to see. So what are the results of this miracle? The works of God that are manifested in him. So this guy, once blind, now comes back to his neighborhood where he sat on the side of the road and begged, and the people and his neighbors are confused about who this guy is. And it actually took the healed man, the formerly blind man, to tell them, yes, I am the blind beggar that sat here, but now I can see. So the obvious question is asked by the neighbors and the people that know him in verse eight. Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen him, that he was blind, said, Is this not he who sat and begged? Some said, This is him. Others said, It is like him. And he said, I am he. Therefore they said, How are your eyes open? And he answered and said, a man called Jesus made clay anointed my eyes and said to me, go wash, go to the pool asylum and wash. So I went and washed and I received sight. Then they asked, well, where is he? And he says, I don't know. So the healed man is back in his neighborhood. He's seeing the neighbors are like, who is, what happened? How did this happen to you? And where is this man named Jesus? And the blind, the healed man answers all the questions truthfully. So here's what we know. The healed man answers the questions. A man named Jesus healed him. And the healed man does not know where Jesus is or was. At this point, the healed man is brought to the Pharisees at the synagogue. Now, there's a little confusion as to why is this guy brought to the synagogue. Part of me thinks that the locals, the neighbors wanted to know what was going on, or the Pharisees caught wind of it and they wanted to know what was going on, or it seemed to think that there was a, this guy was healed on the Sabbath, so therefore he had to go talk to the Pharisees. So anyway, whatever the reason, this man is brought to the Pharisees and they question him. The Pharisees ask how he received his sight. John 9 verse 13, So again, the healed man tells them, the Pharisees, what he knows to be true. The results of this first question is the Pharisees are divided. The Pharisees are divided in their opinion of Jesus. Notice the Pharisees are not divided about how the healed man is It's not divided about the healed man here. We see that the neighbors asked where Jesus was. The Pharisees don't. They just automatically assume it was Jesus. There's no mention of who did it or anything. The healed man just said, he put clay in my eyes. So the Pharisees know exactly who the healed man is talking about, even though the healed man himself only knows the person as a man named Jesus. And again, the first one thing I noticed is the Pharisees don't ask where Jesus is. Like the neighbors did. I have a feeling they know exactly where Jesus is. And I think they have somebody trailing Jesus around Jerusalem pretty much all the time at this point. But the point is, the Pharisees are divided about Jesus. Some thinks he is a sinner because he broke the law, he broke the Sabbath. Verse 16, therefore some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath. The other says, how come a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them. Notice the thinking here, simply because a blind man was healed on the Sabbath, therefore whoever did this is an obvious sinner. So therefore, the first group is Jesus is not from God because he did a miracle on the Sabbath. The other group is he is a man from God because of the miracles he can do. This division about who Jesus is, is not the first time this has come up. Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, was already admitted to this fact in John 3, verses 1 and 2. We want to turn to John 3, since we're in the same book. And there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. So as we turn back to John chapter nine, to me this should have been the end of the questions for the healed man. How did you receive your sight? He, Jesus, put clay in my eyes, told me to go wash, I did, now I come back seeing. But I believe the thinking or the mindset of the Pharisees shows itself with this next question. They go from, this next question is going to be, tell me what happened to What do you think about Jesus? To his credit, the healed man answers the question truthfully based on what has happened. So again, we have this group of Pharisees. There's a division among them because of this. So verse 17, they said to the blind man again, what do you think, what do you say about him? Because he opened your eyes. And the blind man says he is a prophet. So the blind man here, as we notice his succession of thinking here is there's a man named Jesus. And now Jesus is a prophet or a man from God. So, the results of question number two, again, the healed man says, I believe Jesus is a prophet. And the fact is, is I was blind, now I can see. Verse 18, but the Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received sight until they called the parents of him who had received sight. Now notice the term Pharisees, we were talking about the Pharisees now, but now in verse 18 we have the term the Jews. This designation is often used in the Gospel of John, and it's used in a technical sense. It does not mean Israel or the Jewish people as a whole. When John uses the word the Jews here, he means, unlike the other Gospel writers, he means the religious leaders are the people who chose to oppose Jesus. Again, the Jews, this group, the Jews as they call them, these people are definitely opposed to Jesus. There's no division among this group here. And they don't believe this guy actually was blind. So, they get the parents. And they question the parents. Again, if you notice the tone of the questioning here, you can almost feel like they're accusing the parents just by the way they question. Verse 19, and they asked them, the parents, saying, is this your son who you say was born blind? And how then does he now see? Now if I was thinking about this, if I was a parent, and I just found out my kid that was born blind now can see, and I'm brought before the local religious leaders, the question should be, is this your son? And that's it. But the questions that follow this is, who you say was born blind? Kind of like, are you sure he was born blind? And then what, you know, how did you think this, how did this happen? The parents answered them and said, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. By what means he now sees, we do not know, or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age, ask him, he will speak for himself. John, as he's writing this gospel years later, puts the motivation to the parents' answer for us in verse 22. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that anyone that confessed he was the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, he is of age, ask him. So the Jews, again the people that are vehemently opposed to Jesus, bring back the healed man again and question him again. But before they question him again, they put him under oath. by using this term, verse 24. So they called again the man who was blind and said to him, give God the glory. This is a way of saying, tell the truth. And they also let the blind, the healed man know what they're thinking about Jesus, for we know this man is a sinner. So this, give God the praise, is their way of saying, is basically their way of, like in a court, you put your hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth. This is seen in Joshua 7, verse 19. And Joshua said to Achan, my son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession to him and tell me now what it is that you have done and do not hide it from me. They have officially put this healed man under oath and they let him know what the answer they were looking for. Any other Option other than Jesus healed me would do the trick just like his parents had already shown him how And they already said they already told this the healed man that this man Jesus is a sinner So officially the the healed man is now on the spot and as to who's going to get credit for the fact that he can see. A man named Jesus who he considers a prophet or somebody else. They're warning the witnesses. They're warning this healed man that he better cooperate with the court. And if he doesn't, he's going to be excommunicated. The healed man is not intimidated by the Jews. In fact, he refuses to give them the answer they wanted and makes a logical argument that Jesus is a prophet or a man from God. Verse 25, I do not know if he is a sinner. One thing I know, I was blind, now I see. He answered and said to them, So the Jews, not being interested in the truth, have already made up their minds and they repeat the pervious question. They give this guy a second chance. What did he do to you and how did he open up your eyes? The healed man, again, does not get intimidated by what the Jews have said and makes his own statement. And then he asks the Jews some questions. Verse 27, and he answered them, I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? So I think this healed man is picking up the tone and he's giving it right back. The Jews react to this statement by attacking the healed man. Verse 28 says, then they reviled him and said, you are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow, Jesus, we do not know where he is from. The word reviled there means to insult strongly, to slander, to rail at. So here's this formerly, this healed man, And they're saying, you are this fellow's disciples, but we're Moses' disciples, so we're better than you. Again, the healed man only knows Jesus as a man named Jesus. That's all he really knows right now. And the healed man responds, and comes out with a soundproof logical argument. At this point, it would have been easy for the healed man to change his story or say what they wanted to hear, but he fiercely stood his ground. He knew that what a difference Christ Jesus had made in his life, and he would not deny it. The man answered and said to them, why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he is from, yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone open the eyes of one who has been born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." This statement by the healed man indicated that Jesus was from God. Now this statement, since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone open the eyes of anyone who's been born blind. That's what kind of jumped off the page for me, so I want to kind of take a look into that. In the Old Testament, there is a miracle performed by Elijah where he healed that involved blindness. Elijah, the prophet of God, blinds the entire army of the Syrians, leads them away from the city, and then gives them their sight back. So the miracle here is God blinds the entire army through Elijah, and he saves the city that he's staying in. And at this point, the verses in the Old Testament that detail the fact that the Lord has the ability to heal people, blind people, to heal people that are not only blind from sickness or disease, but also heal the one that's been born blind should have been jumping off the pages in the Jews' mind and the Pharisees' mind. Isaiah 35, 5, and 6 says, Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, and the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing, for the water shall bore forth in the wilderness, and the streams in the desert. Isaiah 146.8 says, The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves righteousness. I looked this, like I said, this statement, since the world has begun, it has been unheard of that anyone open the eyes of one who is blind. And I looked into this. We have Up to this point in history, what I just told you about the Syrian army, Jesus is the only person that is recorded in the Bible to heal the blind. And he did this on many occasions to an unknown number of people that were blind. One of the books I had had Jesus' miracles in chronological order. So the first, according to that, Jesus has healed the blind two times before this. Though none of these two, the blindness, mention nothing about being blind from birth. So let's turn in our Bibles to Matthew chapter nine, verse 27. So 9, verse, Matthew 9, 27. This is the first recorded instance of Jesus healing the blind. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, Son of David, have mercy on us. And when he had come into the house, the blind man came to him. And Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? And they said to him, Yes, Lord. He touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, let it be to you. And their eyes were open. And Jesus sternly warned them, saying, See that no one knows it. But when they departed, they spread the news of him in all that country. So notice here, Jesus tells them he heals these two blind men. He tells them, Don't tell anybody. The second Healing of the blind is in Mark chapter eight, verse 22. Mark 8, 22. And then he came to Bethesda and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. He looked up and said, I see men like trees walking. Then he put his eyes on his hands again and made him look up. And he restored, he was restored and saw everyone clearly. Then he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into town, nor tell anyone in town." So this is a second healing of the blind, where Jesus has told the healed men to not say anything. Both of these are done in private settings, and he tells them not to say anything. Our passage tonight is the third instant. Go ahead and back to John 9. that Jesus makes a blind man see. Now, he does not instruct this person to keep quiet about it, and I think this is because, again, the day before he's in the temple claiming to be the promised Messiah. Therefore, the verses we just read, in Isaiah and Psalms, talking about the Messiah. So, should have been jumping out, should have been in everybody's mind. Well, let me catch up on my... So, healed man is not intimidated by the Jews. He gives a logical statement. The result is the Jews insult him and kick him out of the synagogue. So the healed man stands up for what he knows to be true, makes a logical statement, gets yelled at, insulted, and they kick him out of the synagogue. The only thing they can do. At this point, Jesus finds and tells the healed man that he is the Messiah. After the Jews have kicked the healed man out of the synagogue, Jesus finds him and reveals himself to him as the Messiah. The healed man, as he has done all along, reacts favorably to this info. In John 9, 35-38, Jesus heard that they cast him out, and when he found him, he said to him, Do you believe in the Son of God? And he answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, You have both seen him, and it is he who is talking to you. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. So as we're tracking the progression here, The healed man, the man born blind, all he knows is a man named Jesus. Healed, gave him sight. And through thinking about it in a logical thing, he came to his conclusion that this man, Jesus, was a prophet or a man from God. And when push came to shove, he stood his ground. and wasn't going to relent that Jesus was a man from God. And because of this, and after this, Jesus finds him and reveals even more truth about himself that not only is he not a prophet, but he's actually the Messiah. And the healed man here believes and worships Jesus as the Messiah. In conclusion, the difference between the healed man's reaction to Jesus calling himself the Messiah and what we saw at the end of chapter eight is 180 degrees. We start off this chapter with a man being born blind, not because of sin, but because the work of God is gonna be manifested in him. And then Jesus actually does the work. The results of the manifested work in this man was a man born blind is healed by Jesus. We see that from the Old Testament verses, this alone would indicate that Jesus is the promised Messiah. The individual results of this work on the pawn people depended on what they thought about Jesus. Again, the context is the overall, the nation of Israel is divided about Jesus. And now that he's openly declared himself to be the Messiah, this miracle is a way to back that up. End of chapter 8, when Jesus declared himself to be the Messiah, they tried to stone him. The end of chapter 9, when Jesus declares himself to be the Messiah to this healed man, he is worshipped as the Messiah. We saw in our passage tonight that there was a group of Pharisees with a division based with a division among them what they thought about Jesus based on his works or the fact that he broke the law. What I like about this is when push came to shove though none of these Pharisees or even the parents sided with the healed man even after his extremely sound argument that Jesus was the prophet, a man from God. The Jews, as mentioned in this chapter, refer to a group of religious leaders that are absolutely opposed to Jesus, and they call him a sinner no matter what. At the beginning, Jesus was a sinner. At the end, Jesus is still a sinner. Their minds have not changed one iota. And even in the light of this absolute miracle of this man being born blind and being able to see. The religious leaders of this synagogue or the nation of Israel had made up their minds about Jesus and when something like a man born blind all of a sudden showing up being able to see became an exercise in damage control, which they had attempted to do through intimidation and using their authority to kick people out of the synagogue. The fact the healed man was able to see and made an extremely sound argument proving that Jesus was a man from God, did not and was not going to change their mind. They let, again, they let the healed man know what they thought of Jesus and they did not, they never changed their thinking. Using intimidation, they tried to get people to discredit Jesus. or back off, or about saying anything positive about Jesus, or turned in and saying stuff that they wanted to hear. This intimidation obviously worked on their parents because they did not want to upset the leaders of the local synagogue or the synagogue. The Pharisees that thought Jesus was a man from God kept their opinions to themselves because of the cost, the personal cost of them would have been too great. This work of God possibly changed what they thought of Jesus, but not enough to let them officially or publicly stand by the healed man or declare that God was a man from God or that Jesus was a man from God. The healed man, on the other hand, knew one thing to be true. A man called Jesus put clay on his eyes, told him to go wash, and now he could see. This is all the man needed to conclude his own mind that Jesus was not a sinner, but a prophet, which he stood by in light of a lot of opposition. So again, his mindset and his heart was so when Jesus found him after this and told him that he was much more than a prophet, He correctly came to the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah and worshipped him as the Son of God. The blind see. This work of God was manifested in a man born blind, causing not only him to be able to see physically, but spiritually as well. I like the healed man's progression here. It went from a man named Jesus, Jesus was a prophet, to Jesus is the Messiah. So, as I meditated on this, actually during the Sunday school thing, I just thought it was funny that part of this is The healed man here, he took what he knew to be true, took it to heart and believed it, and he got a little more information, took that to be true, and he kept getting information, up to the point where Jesus actually talked to him himself. The Jews opposed. They didn't want to hear anything. The Pharisees and the parents Whatever they thought of Jesus, they kept to themselves because they didn't want to rock the boat. So I was thinking, you know, as a healed, put myself, you know, as a healed man or as a saved person, we may not be born blind or something like that, but our problem with sin or eternity in hell is taken care of. We are saved, our eternal destiny is set, and we have eternal life in heaven. And at a certain point in time in our life, somebody gave us a nugget of truth, and we grabbed onto it and took it. And it may have been a little bit here and there, but we were revealed more and more truth to us, and we believed it to the point of salvation. So the question becomes, and what I was personally convicted of was, what happens when the truth God reveals or the Holy Spirit reveals some truth to you through the pulpit or through a co-worker or through a fellow believer? What do you do with it? Have you already made up your mind about that subject and don't want to hear anything else like the Pharisees? I'm good. Don't need any help in this area of my life. Just be quiet. That's okay. Don't touch me over here. Or do you take it and go, hmm, interesting. Think about it. Yeah, well, I'm not gonna react on that because that'd rock the boat too much, cause too much trouble. Or can we be like the healed man in our second tense salvation and take the truth that the Word of God gives to us, take it in? make sound decisions on it, and step out in faith on that. That's what I was convicted on, because at one point, I was like the healed man, I became saved. I can't speak for you personally, but sometimes when truth comes across to me, either through a friend, co-worker, fellow believers, and I don't wanna hear it, guess what I do? I insult them. Oh yeah? Who do you think you are? Right? I know stuff about you. I'm not going to listen to you. I'm reacting. I had my mind set up. So instead of being convicted on that truth, I'm insulting or I'm attacking the person that the Lord is using to convict me of something. Or in the other times, I understand it to be true, think about it, but I'm not going to say anything or not going to do anything about it. And then other times, hopefully more and more, when the truth of the word of God is revealed to me, I take it by faith and act on it and move on and move out. That is John chapter nine. the deep dive, answered all the questions that I had. And I thought it was a very interesting study. Again, it led to a little bit of a conviction on what do I do with the truth when is it revealed to me? And that's it, let's pray. Dear Holy Father, I just thank you for this event recorded for us and thank you that you showed not only the nation of Israel at this event, but you were proving, showing them that they were the Messiah. And we see that the results were mixed based on the heart or the mindset of the people that saw this miracle. And pray that we would be like the healed man Take what we know to be true, make sound decisions based on that, and step out in faith. In Jesus' name, amen.