John 9:41

If ye were blind, ye should have no sin.

If they were blind, utterly without knowledge, they would have no moral responsibility, but they claimed to see and had the highest opportunities for knowing; hence, when they closed their eyes and thus wilfully refused to see, they were guilty. To other sins was added the sin of the rejection of the light. Our responsibility is measured by our opportunities.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.

1. Sinners are blind to their own interests, to God, heaven, spiritual life.

2. They are not only blind, but beggars, unable to cure themselves, needing help from God and man.

3. The miracles are "parables of redemption." Observe: (1) The man is in darkness; the state of the sinner; (2) Christ is the light; (3) The condition of receiving the light is faith and obedience; (4) The man believes and obeys and "came seeing."

4. The sinner is blind to his best good, to God's goodness and love, to Jesus, to the Bible, to heaven. He is blind and. beggar, needing help from others. Blind, and grinding in the mill, like Samson among the Philistines.

5. None are so guilty as those who boast that they are enlightened and yet refuse to receive the light. Moral responsibility is measured by opportunity.

6. Sometimes men are called to suffer that "the glory of God may be manifest." Bunyan could never have written the Pilgrim's Progress had he not been cast into prison, nor Milton, Paradise Lost had he not been blind and forsaken by the world. So, too, God's children are sometimes called to endure chastisement in order that they might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. They that bear Christ's cross shall wear his crown. They that wear the white robes on high are those who have come up through much tribulation and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. See Revelation 7:14.