WWUTT 892 Was Blind but Now I See?

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There was a man who was sitting by a road and he was born blind. And like that man we are born in a spiritual blindness and do not know the path of righteousness until God in his mercy shows it to us when we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Thank you for subscribing and if this has ministered to you please let others know about our program. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you Becky. We continue with our study of the Gospel of John chapter 9 and I'm picking up where I left off yesterday but to start off we're going to read through the entire chapter.

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The Apostle John wrote, As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him,

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Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered,

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It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

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We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.

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As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

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Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.

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So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying,

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Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, It is he. Others said, No, but it's someone like him.

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He kept saying, I am the man. So they said to him, Then how were your eyes opened? He answered,

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The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to Siloam and washed.

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So I went and washed, and I received my sight. They said to him, Where is he?

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He said, I do not know. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

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Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight, and he said to them,

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He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the

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Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them.

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So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?

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The blind man said, He is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight, and they asked them,

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Is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered,

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We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes.

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Ask him. He is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the

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Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

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Therefore his parents said, He is of age. Ask him. So for the second time they called the man who had been born blind, and they said to him,

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Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. The man answered, Whether he is a sinner

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I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now

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I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?

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He answered them, I told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?

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Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

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We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The man answered,

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Why, this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

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We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will,

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God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.

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If this man were not from God, he could do no such thing. They answered him,

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You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us? And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said,

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Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?

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Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said,

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Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

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Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind?

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Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say, We see, your guilt remains.

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And in the same context of everything that we read here in John chapter 9, Jesus is going to go on in John chapter 10 to talk about being the good shepherd.

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And he's also going to say in John 10 10, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

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I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. He is the good shepherd, unlike the shepherds of Israel talked about in the book of Ezekiel and in Jeremiah that led the people astray.

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But Jesus does not lead them astray. They are hired servants. They abandon the people. But the shepherd remains with them, and he lays his life down for his sheep.

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This is Jesus calling those Pharisees, the false shepherds, just as those false shepherds had been punished in Israel at the time of their exile.

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So all of that kind of goes in context. When we go into chapter 10 later on, it's just continuing the same narrative that started when

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Jesus yet once again healed another man on the Sabbath. In chapter five, he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, and this was on the

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Sabbath. He told the man to take up his mat and walk here. He spit in mud. He put the mud on the blind man's eyes.

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He said, go wash in the pool of Siloam, and you may see when the Pharisees heard about this. They say, look, he is a sinful man.

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He doesn't keep the Sabbath here. He's doing it again. He's telling this man to go and wash on the

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Sabbath day instead of keeping the Sabbath holy as he is supposed to do. But there's nothing in the law of Moses that says that healing on the

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Sabbath or giving a man his sight, that these things are wicked and sinful. There's nothing in the law that says that, and besides,

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Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. This past Sunday, I was filling in for one of my elders in his

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Sunday school class, and he's been teaching through the Gospel of Mark. And so I was finishing up chapter two, and it's there at the end of chapter two where Jesus says of himself that the son of man is

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Lord, even of the Sabbath. But at the start of that particular section of Mark two, it says one

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Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.

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And the Pharisees were saying to him, look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Well, the fact of the matter is, when you go to Deuteronomy chapter 23, it says that if a person is walking along and he gets hungry, he can pluck the heads of grain and eat them.

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That's in the law of Moses. They were not doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. They were doing exactly what the law says.

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But the Pharisees added to the law. They changed it to make themselves righteous and afflicted the people with a burden that was too great for them to bear.

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And it's for this reason, this burden that the Pharisees was placing upon the people that Jesus said in Matthew 11, starting in verse 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And the reason why the yoke, you know, like it's two oxen would be yoked together, okay, pulling a plow.

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The reason why the yoke that we receive from Christ is easy and light is because Christ has fulfilled all the law and the prophets.

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We couldn't keep the law. We could not do it in a righteous way and be justified before God by our works.

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We could not do that. But Christ fulfilled the law. He kept the law perfectly. He lived a righteous, perfect, sinless life so that in Christ Jesus, if we believe and have faith, we are justified.

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There is no work that we've done to receive justification for Christ has done it all. We simply believe by faith and we are justified, as it says in Romans chapter three.

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By no works of the law will a man be justified, but we are justified by faith.

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The just shall live by faith, as it also says in Romans 1 17. So this is

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Christ who has fulfilled all the law and the prophets. The Pharisees couldn't even keep the law, and then they're adding to the law, placing an even greater burden on the people.

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And so here with this particular man who was healed on the Sabbath, this gives cause another reason for this, for the

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Pharisees and the Jews to hate Jesus because he was doing these things on the

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Sabbath. So the man goes to the pool of Siloam. He washed just as Jesus told him to.

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And in verse 12, the people say to him, where is he? And the man says, I do not know. So they brought him to the

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Pharisees, the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

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So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see.

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Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

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And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he opened your eyes?

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And the blind man said, he is a prophet. Now the blind man was right to say that Christ was a prophet, but he was not merely a prophet.

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And then as the blind man comes to Jesus again, Jesus opens his eyes all the more, not just his physical eyes, but his spiritual eyes to see that Jesus is the son of man.

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That's toward the end of the chapter. Do you believe in the son of man? Jesus asks the man and he answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?

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And Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you. And the man says, Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him.

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And as I mentioned to you yesterday, this is exactly the way all of us come to faith. We were once blind, dead in our sins and our transgressions, like the rest of this world, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

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And it is God who opens our eyes to see Christ and what he has done for us on the cross for our sins.

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The fact that we are sinners and in need of a savior and that he died for those sins rose again from the grave, conquering death.

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So not only forgiving us of our sins, but taking away the penalty of death or the penalty of sins, which is death so that by faith in Jesus Christ, we would not perish, but we would have everlasting life.

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And God gives us eyes to see those things that we previously could not see when we were walking in darkness, when we were blind, stumbling about in our sins.

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I mentioned to you Matthew chapter 11, that section where Jesus says, come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy laden.

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It's at the start of that section, start of that particular prayer in Matthew 11, verse 25, that Jesus declared,

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I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

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Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

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So we have come to know God, father, son, and Holy Spirit, because God has been revealed to us through the miraculous working of Christ on the life of a believer.

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Where previously you were stumbling about in your sin, you were walking in darkness and it is

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Christ who has, who is the light, as he said earlier with his disciples,

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I am the light of the world. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And a statement that he had made previously, and John had even made in John chapter one, that Christ is the light.

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So Jesus, by his holy light has revealed to us, God, that we may know him and worship him just as this man does in this particular story.

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And just as it was with this man who was born blind, that the power of God might be displayed in him.

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So it is the same for you who has come to salvation in Jesus Christ, that the power of God might be displayed in you.

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Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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So you have come to faith in Jesus Christ by the power of God. And this is all to his praise.

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It is all to his glory and honor. Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse three, blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

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Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

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All of this is to the praise and the honor and the glory of God. Consider Romans chapter 11, verse 32, which says, for God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all, even those whom he is going to call out from the world as his elect, as his children adopted by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Verse 33, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the

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Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever and ever.

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Amen. It's in Psalm chapter 23, the famous Psalm 23.

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The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. It's in that Psalm that it says that he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake and taking from that in first John 2, 12, it says,

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I am writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.

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He leads us in paths of righteousness. He delivers us from our sins.

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He has forgiven us for his name's sake. This is all to the praise of his glorious grace.

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It is all to the praise of God that his power might be displayed in us again, just as it was displayed in this blind man.

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So it is also displayed in us who believe in Jesus Christ, once walking and stumbling in darkness.

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And now we walk in the light of Christ. Psalm 107 begins this way.

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Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

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Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west and from the north of the, from the north and from the south.

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And that is what we have in the spreading of the gospel and do all of the world. We are redeemed in the

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Lord. So give thanks to him for he is good and his steadfast love, which has brought us into the land of promise through faith in Jesus Christ.

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We go on in Psalm 107 to read in verse four, some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.

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Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in.

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Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the hungry soul.

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He fills with good things. Verse 10, some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and irons.

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And that's what this blind man in this story in John chapter nine represents. He was sitting by the side of the road blind, could not see as we are all sitting by the way we cannot even know the path of righteousness because we're blind to it.

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We don't know it. We sit in darkness in the shadow of death. Prisoners in affliction and irons.

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We are enslaved to our sins and the passions of our flesh for we had rebelled against the words of God.

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Psalm 107, 11, they rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the most high. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor.

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They fell down with none to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress.

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He brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the

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Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he shatters the doors of bronze and he cuts into the bars of iron.

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We are no longer sitting in a prison cell of our sin, waiting judgment from God because in Christ Jesus, as Jesus had said in John chapter eight, if the sun sets you free, you are free indeed.

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You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So it is in Christ Jesus by faith in Christ.

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We have the sins of, or I'm sorry, the chains of sin and death that we were bound to, that we were enslaved to when we were born.

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Those bonds have been broken and we have been set free from slavery as Israel was called out of slavery in Egypt.

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And we've been called into a promised land of Christ in his righteousness, walking in his way that we might receive a kingdom that far surpasses the promised land that the

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Israelites were given. That was but a type. The heaven that we are promised is beautiful and glorious and imperishable and lasts forever and no one will be snatched out of his hand.

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We've got to finish up John chapter nine yet, and we're going to do that tomorrow. In the meantime, let's conclude with prayer and thank

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God for the goodness that he has given to us through his son, that we might see and believe and live our wonderful heavenly father.

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We thank you that you have considered our need, that though we were sinners deserving the judgment of God, yet you demonstrated your love for us in this while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. We were once the enemies of God. Now, by faith in Christ, we have been made friends of God and fellow heirs with Christ of your eternal kingdom.

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Therefore, as we go throughout our day, as we think of the things that we have coming up for us today, let us not be in despair, knowing that no matter what happens to us, whether good or bad, there is something even more glorious than this in heaven above.

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And so we are working and laboring not for something on this earth, which is transient and perishable and is never ultimately going to satisfy.

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But we have been given all good things in Christ Jesus. So let us seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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And in everything that happens to us today, we know that you are working all things together for good, for those who love

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God and are called according to your purpose, that we might give you praise in all things, whether again, whether good or bad, you are working all things out for your glory, to the praise of your glorious grace.

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So teach us to give you praise in all that we do, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do it to the glory of God.

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No matter what you do, give praise to Christ for you work first for Christ before you work for any man.

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We know that everything that we commit ourselves to with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength might be to your glory and to your praise.

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Teach us how to do this as we grow in sanctification. Even today in Jesus name, amen.

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This has been, when we understand the text of pastor Gabriel Hughes for all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email when we understand the text at gmail .com

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and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again next week as we grow together in God's word.