John 11:8 – His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?

John 11:9 – Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.

John 11:10 – But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

Hello readers, new blog today. Today will be a conversational type blog, mainly drawing from the book of John and particularly from the narrative of John 8 and 9. Light is a big theme of the book of John. It takes light to see. Without light, we can’t actually see. That’s why at nighttime, if you don’t have light, you can’t see where you are going and what you are doing. We need light to see.

The Bible says that Jesus is the light of the world. John 8:12 – Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If you don’t follow Jesus Christ, you are in darkness, it’s that simple.

Back in Egypt, the plague of darkness came, a darkness so bad that it could be felt. But the Bible says the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. You see, when you get saved, it’s because you saw the light, you came to the light, you believed in the light. Jesus is the light of the world. John 12:36 – While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them. You can be a child of the light, but the sad thing is, Jesus is hidden from many people, hidden because of their blindness and unbelief.

We need light to see what we are doing and where we are going. In darkness, you fumble and grope around. That’s this world. It’s full of sin, it’s full of people who can’t see what they are doing and where they are going. They are blinded to who Jesus Christ is. In John 9, Jesus healed a blind man, a blind man who saw the light for the first time in his life. He had been blind from birth.

That’s why Jesus came, to make us see. It’s not a crime to not be able to see. In fact, not being able to see is a prerequisite to being healed by Christ. You need to be blind in order to see. But most people can’t see their own blindness. They’ve been blinded by Satan, by their sin, they’ve been made blind by their own unbelief. You don’t have to be in darkness, but when you reject Jesus Christ, you will be.

John 12:46 – I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

God doesn’t want us abiding in darkness. When you see Christ, you see the light. It takes light to see. When things are dark, you can’t see. John 8:12 – Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If you don’t have Jesus Christ, if you haven’t believed on him, you can’t see, you’re in darkness.

What will condemn you is not that you can’t see, but that you didn’t confess that you can’t see. You couldn’t see that you can’t see. God knows our sinful, lost, dark, blind condition. That’s why he sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. To give us light, to give us life, to give us truth, to give us forgiveness and eternal life. The scribes and Pharisees were quick to see the sin in others, just like when they brought the woman taken in adultery to Christ… but they couldn’t see their own guilt. Jesus didn’t excuse the woman’s sin, but they couldn’t see their own sin.

He came to fix our sinful condition. If you can’t see you are sinner, then you will never see the Saviour. John the Baptist came before Jesus Christ to plough up hearts, to bring people to repentance, to prepare the way of the Lord which is prepared by repentance. Repentance is when you see you are a sinner before God. You see your own guilt, your own sin.

Back in the Old Testament, God commanded Moses to make several cities throughout Israel places of refuge… called cities of refuge. They were for someone who could flee to. Jesus is our refuge place, we are commanded to flee to him. But if you didn’t go to the city of refuge when you should have… then you were fair game, there was no protection for you. You see, the sin that will damn you isn’t the fact you are a blind, lost sinner, but not going to the Saviour. If you went out of the city of refuge and the slayer of blood found you, he was allowed to kill you and it would be your own fault. Life is a bit like that situation, you can’t help you were born a sinner, but you can help if you choose to reject Christ or believe him. Many people prefer darkness… why is that? Because their deeds are evil, they love their sin, and Jesus is hidden from them. A man called Abner, a mighty man, died at the gate of the city of refuge of Hebron… he so easily could’ve been saved from Joab, but he died at the gate like a fool. So many people die right at the gate of the city, they die so close to being saved, so easily able to be saved… yet unsaved and lost and dead in their sins… like fools. How foolish is it to perish when you can so easily be saved by Jesus Christ, who freely offers you forgiveness from sin, his life… which is eternal life?

I’ve been thinking about when Jesus spat on the ground. It’s so weird. But a chapter before he wrote on the ground! The thoughts are connected. The scribes and Pharisees were pointing the finger at an adulterous woman and would’ve stoned her… but they couldn’t see they were just like this woman. It doesn’t excuse her sin, but the fact is, they were as equally guilty of breaking the law in all points. They accused the blind beggar of being born in sins… but they were born in sin like him. They were blind like him… and in fact blinder, because they stayed blind while he gained sight and saw and believed in the light of Christ. His worship was accepted by Christ while they lived in a place of worship in the temple where they never truly worshiped God.

Thinking you see when you don’t… that’s the sin. Your sin will remain. Jesus will readily forgive you and change your heart, but when you refuse him, your sin will remain on you. It can be on Christ, for he took your sin upon himself, but because you refuse him.

Have you ever thought about how the law could never make the blind beggar see? No matter what he did under the law, he was still blind. The law couldn’t fix his blindness. But Christ could. When he washed in the pool of “Sent”… he came seeing. When people get to the gospel of Christ, that’s when sight comes. But there’s no seeing without the clay in the eyes. Boy that clay would’ve irritated and humiliated him, until the Holy Spirit anoints your eyes… it takes the Holy Spirit for a lost sinner to see Christ.

The blind beggar washed that reproach, that conviction, that guilt, that shame… he washed it out at Siloam. See, Jesus took all our law breaking, all our sin upon himself. He was sent for that purpose. Siloam means Sent… Jesus was sent for you and for me. But notice how the blind man obeyed Jesus Christ, it’s not enough just to know the truth, you gotta obey it yourself. You’ve gotta believe for yourself, and wash for yourself. You have to possess what God has given to you by faith… but just by intellectual head knowledge that knows who Jesus is and what he’s done, but it’s never taken any root in your own heart.

God has made a way of escape for us. The city of refuge is there, see they put cities of refuge throughout Israel so you could get to one of them. There was no excuse for not getting to the place of refuge. The crime wasn’t the sin itself, but the crime was not going to the city for refuge. See, what will judge you is not all your sin and my sin, but the fact we didn’t take it to Christ. Because the light has come people. Truth has come. And when the light came, it sorted people out didn’t it? John 9:39 – And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. See, the truth judges us, it separates who wants the truth and who doesn’t. Who wants the light and who doesn’t want it?

The scribes and Pharisees admitted their own blindness! John 9:29 – We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. They condemned themselves with their own words. Here was Jesus who had done what noone had ever done in opening the eyes of a man blind from birth… and they were confessing they didn’t know him. It was truly a marvelous thing as the formerly blind man said back to them… it’s marvelous that you say you know not whence he is, the man that has opened my eyes!

The scribes and Pharisees didn’t see the light, because they loved darkness. That’s what judged them. They could’ve been forgiven, but they by their own admission wanted nothing to do with Christ, they hated him. They just judged themselves. You gotta do something with truth people. So many people want to be like Pilate, wash their hands of Christ. But there are only two kingdoms, the kingdom of the devil or the kingdom of Jesus Christ. You cannot serve two masters. Jesus said you’re either for me or against me. If you’re not for Christ, you are against him. The light has come, but because you love your sin, because you are of the darkness, you’ve judged yourself. If Jesus didn’t come you wouldn’t have sin, but he’s come, you’ve had the truth, you’ve known it… and you’ve rejected it.

You know, there are things that get in the way of us seeing Christ. Our sin does, Satan does, our flesh does, and that’s what the miracle shows, it shows that repentance and obedience to the gospel is what makes us see. Jesus said go and wash… and he did it. We all need to be washed. We need to wash out that sin in his blood and in the water of his word. We need the guilt, the shame, the conviction of sin to come and be dealt with by Jesus on our behalf. People are in darkness because they’ve chosen that.

You know without Christ there is no light. It’s all darkness. If you are in darkness, you can’t see where you’re going and what you’re doing. You cant even see where you’re going… to hell. People are so blinded. They love their sin too much. They’re unwilling for the Holy Spirit to reprove and rebuke their sin, for the Holy Spirit to identify that problem of sin that is at the root of all our lives… we are all made of the same clay. See, Jesus Christ needs to be applied to all our own problems, we all have different problems, but it’s the same Jesus Christ who is the cure for them all. The same root problem of us all is sin. Sin is the problem. And until that is dealt with… we are in darkness. And once you get in the light… stay in the light… why do people find the light and then go back to darkness?

This was a different kind of washing. You see, they’d do washing under the law, but it never really fixed them did it. What kind of carnal washing can take away the shame and guilt of sin? What kind of washing can change a heart and make one see? This miracle in John 9 really just contrasts blind men who think they see in John 8 and a blind man who can’t see in John 9. He knew he was blind. One man was a candidate for grace, mercy, sight and washing. There is no seeing until there is a washing. It’s one thing to see you are a sinner, but it’s another to be washed. Salvation isn’t hard. It just takes being blind. Many people think they see, but they can’t, because they’ve rejected the light of the world they are in darkness and can’t even see it!

When you walk around in your life today, you only can see because of light. If that light is totally gone, you are in pitch blackness. Go into a dark room, perfectly dark, you can’t see anything. That’s people without Christ. He came as the light of the world, yet those in darkness refused the light. The light shone on them, but they loved darkness. That’s the condemnation… the condemnation is when truth comes to us, when the light comes… and we reject it. That’s the world today. They’re like Cain, they’ve been rebuked by God, their sin exposed, they can get it right… but instead they choose darkness, because they’re evil. They can do right, Cain could’ve done right… but he chose not to. And because of that he killed Abel. The Jews were like that, they then picked up stones to throw at Jesus. Crazy huh.

Acts 26:18 – To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. God wants you to have light. Because the light is life. The Bible says in John 1 that his life (Jesus) is the light of men. God doesn’t want you to be in darkness, you know darkness has power over you? Because the kingdom of darkness has a king… Satan… and he wants to keep you blind, to keep you in your sins. The scribes and Pharisees could’ve simply humbled themselves and repented and obeyed, but their pride was too great, they loved the darkness… and they rejected the light. A blind beggar received sight and the religious elite were made blind.

Jesus revealed himself more and more to this blind man. He healed him, and then he revealed himself more to him when he was cast out of the temple. Being cast out by the world, by religion… it’s worth it to get to know Jesus Christ better. Many of us never find Christ because we are prisoners of the system. His parents didn’t want to be cast out, so they never came to the understanding and simple faith and sight this blind man found. The works of God were manifest in him. This was a man who proved why Jesus came. To make the seeing blind and to make the blind to see. The work of God is to save us, and all he requires of us is to believe on his Son. When you’ve found the Son, you’ve seen the light, you’ve found the light… and we need to believe in it and walk in it. Why would we ever choose darkness over the light of Christ?

1 John 2:8 – Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. The darkness is past. Jesus came as the light of the world. There is no excuse for you to reject him. Yes we are all sinners when we come to him, but he washes us, he heals our blindness, he makes us see, hand he reveals himself to us. We can be a witness of him as this man was, and we can worship him as this man did. We are so busy in what we can do we miss that it’s all about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. The religious people were blinded by pride, by their performance, by their self righteousness… they chose blindness and darkness. We can only see anything when we have light, and we have no light in us. Jesus is the Light of the world. Will you believe on him or not? This is what will judge you. The gospel is the light, but many people refuse it, reject it and don’t believe in Jesus Christ. They think they see, so their sin remains. They could be forgiven and washed, but they remain in their blindness of their hearts. Believe on Jesus Christ today, he is passing by, he sees us, and he will heal us, that’s why he came, to give sight to the blind. If we can see that we are blind and need healing, if we can see that we need his grace and mercy, if we surrender to his word in simple obedience, that’s where the seeing will come, and you will see the light. God has made a way of escape unto salvation and for day to day life, Jesus is our refuge, we need but run to him for salvation.

You don’t stumble in this world because you see the light of this world. In spiritual terms, the only way you will ever truly see is with the light of Christ to guide the way. You have light if you believe in him, and you won’t stumble, you know where you are going, you know what you are doing. You have light, because he is the light. While you have it, believe in it… because one day, after a life rejecting Jesus Christ… there will be night, a time when Jesus said no man can work. Night is coming, and today is the day of salvation. Jesus came to the unbelieving Jews, but there came a point where they would see him no more. The light went, they had sinned away their day of grace. While Jesus is passing by, believe on him and obey him and then abide in him. Saul saw the light on the road to Damascus, and it turned his life around, it gave him new eyes for sure. It turned his world upside down, and God used him to lead many others to Christ. Maybe you’re on a road to Damascus, you are living a life against Jesus Christ, persecuting Christ… but one day the light has come on, what will you do with it? You can only see anything because of light, while you have it, believe in it… believe in Jesus Christ today.

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