May 5, 2025 -- John 9:35-41 -- Spiritual blindness and spiritual sight

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Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”
Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
John 9:35-41 ESV
 
Jesus healed a born who’d been born blind. The religious leaders of the day questioned the man and threw him out of the temple. The formerly blind man did not know who had healed him. When Jesus revealed Himself to him, as you read, the now seeing man worshiped Jesus. The miracle highlighted something important: the difference between spiritual sight and spiritual blindness.
 
Read on and see what J. Beeke writes about spiritual sight and blindness:
        Have you ever felt so spiritually blind that you could not see the danger
     you were in? Did you cry to God for spiritual sight? Are you still
     spiritually blind today? How can you know for sure?
        God offers us great realities in his Word. He offers us the realities of
     Himself, sin, heaven, hell, and eternity. By nature, we are blind to those.
     We are blind to the threats of God against the heinousness of sin. We are
     blind when the curses of the broken law do not terrify us, when the
     promises of the gospel do not touch us, and when we see no beauty in
     Christ to long for him. We are blind when we see no glory in the gospel,
     no value in salvation, and no beauty in holiness.
          In spirit of all our material goods, we are spiritually poor when we are
     spiritually blind. Too often, however, we don’t realize that.
     Joel R. Beeke, “Contagious Christian Living” page 36
 
O Fountain of all good,
Destroy in me every lofty thought,
Break pride to pieces and scatter it to the winds,
Annihilate each clinging shred of self-righteousness,
Implant in me true lowliness of spirit,
Abase me to self-loathing and self-abhorrence,
Open in me a fount of penitential tears,
Break me, then bind me up;
Thus will my heart be a prepared dwelling for my God;
Then can the Father take up his abode in me,
Then can the blessed Jesus come with healing in his touch,
Then can the Holy Spirit descend in sanctifying grace;
O Holy Trinity, three Persons and one God,
inhabit me, a temple consecrated to thy glory.
When thou art present, evil cannot abide;
In thy fellowship is fullness of joy,
Beneath thy smile is peace of conscience,
By thy side no fears disturb, no apprehensions banish rest of mind,
With thee my heart shall bloom with fragrance;
Make me meet, through repentance, for thine indwelling.
Nothing exceeds thy power,
Nothing is too great for thee to do,
Nothing too good for thee to give.
Infinite is thy might, boundless thy love, limitless thy grace,
glorious thy saving name.
Let angels sing for sinners repenting, prodigals restored,
backsliders reclaimed, Satan’s captives released,
blind eyes opened, broken hearts bound up,
the despondent cheered, the self-righteous stripped,
the formalist driven from a refuge of lies,
the ignorant enlightened,
and saints built up in their holy faith.
I ask great things of a great God.
Valley of Vision: “The Great God”
 
https://youtu.be/clqdCXxqYvI?si=ZaG0mK7GEGSEawch Be Thou My Vision
 

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