John 9:38

BELIEF AND WORSHIP

‘And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him.’

John 9:38

John supplements the other Gospels. The miracle recorded in this chapter is found nowhere else. But some people say—Miracles are impossible. If Christ has opened your eyes and made all things new for you, you will not say miracles are impossible, for you yourself are a miracle of mercy. What greater thing can God be asked to do than to raise a dead soul?

I. It is wonderful how quickly this man grew in grace.—At first he speaks of Christ as ‘a man that is called Jesus,’ then as a prophet, at last he worships Him as the Son of God.

II. The value of experience.—The Pharisees did not want Christ to have the praise of healing. So they first said the man was never blind at all, but only shamming. When the miracle had to be admitted, then they asserted no man of God would do a work of that sort on the Sabbath. But the man who had been born blind held fast to one fact which could not be gainsaid: I was blind, now I see. Herein lies the value of experience.

III. He was willing to suffer for Christ’s sake.—The Jews had agreed to cast out of the synagogue any who should confess that Jesus was the Messiah. There were three kinds of excommunication. The first two were chiefly disciplinary. If after the second admonition the offender was still unrepentant, the third excommunication was of indefinite duration, he was shut out from all the religious and civil privileges of the Jewish people, and was like one dead. But the man stood firm and would suffer all this rather than deny his Lord.

Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘In the case of this blind man we have an example of the triumph of faith. You know Bunyan’s parable. “Then I saw in my dream, that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a place where was a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter. ‘Then,’ said Christian, ‘What means this?’ The Interpreter answered, ‘This fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil: but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that.’ So he had him about to the other side of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast (but secretly) into the fire. Then said Christian, ‘What means this?’ The Interpreter answered, ‘This is Christ, Who continually, with the oil of His grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls of His people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest, that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire; that is to teach thee, that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.’ ” It is even so. God takes care of the faith He has Himself implanted. Faith is a tender plant and must be preserved in frost and wind and storm. And God does this. Faith goes “through the waters,” and “through the rivers,” and “through the fire” (Isaiah 43:2).’