Truth For Life Daily Program - “Do You Believe…?” (Part 2 of 3)

If someone doesn't believe that Jesus is who he said he is, the Son of God and the Messiah, Is it possible that God is withholding from him the gift of faith? We'll investigate the answer today on Truth For Life Weekend as Alistair Begg unpacks the controversy surrounding the healed blind man

in chapter 9 of John's Gospel. Leon Morris, whose commentary on John is arguably one of the finest observes in the response of the man in verse 30 here, the man answered. He says, The man's chain of reasoning is pretty good for someone who'd been a beggar all his life,

and presumably a stranger to academic and forensic argument. And it is quite remarkable, isn't it? This man has got some gristle to him, doesn't he? this man has got truth on his side. This man is not in any doubt at all as to what has taken place for him. And so, look at how he answers in verse 30. I'll paraphrase it for him. What he says to

them is, I find this truly remarkable. Your unbelief in face of the evidence is more of a miracle than my cure. And he jumps on the back of that, and he uses their same form of argumentation, pointing out, we know that God doesn't listen to sinners. Now, don't let that unsettle you if you are aware of the fact that you don't know God and you're aware of your sin.

That's why it's very, very important always to understand the Bible in the context in which it is said. What is being said here is not that the thief on the cross didn't have a hope in the world of ever getting to heaven because he was a sinner hanging on a cross next to Jesus, and he asked him, Lord, will you remember me when you come into your kingdom? Did Jesus

listen to the sinner? Of course he did. Did Jesus listen to Zacchaeus and his cries for change? Yes, he did. Did Jesus listen to the woman taken in adultery? Yes, he did. Well, what is being said here. What is being said here can be best understood—and I'll only give you one cross-reference. I could weigh you down with them, but I won't. Psalm 66 and verse 18.

If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. The verse does not say, if I had sin in my heart, God wouldn't hear me. God wouldn't hear anybody then, would he? because everyone has sin in their heart. So if sinlessness was the key to God listening, all of us would be up the creek. No, if I had cherished sin in my heart,

if I was committed to my sin, then God wouldn't listen to me. He says we know that's true. God does not listen to the impenitent. He hears the cries of the penitent, but he does not listen to those who are willful in their unbelief and in their sin. Secondly, he does listen to the godly man who does his will. He listens to those who do what

God says, who are in a right relationship with him. It's a kind of Matthew 6.33 statement, Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, doing of the right thing before God, and all these things will be added unto you. God does not listen to the cries of the impenitent, but he does listen to the cries of those who do his will. Thirdly, he says, no one has ever

heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn't do anything. Now, they knew that was the case, because even in the miraculous events that we have in the Old Testament, even in the records of the things that Moses did in going before Pharaoh in Egypt and so on, there is no record of any man opening the eyes of a man born blind.

And so, with a simple logic, and yet with a compelling logic, the man beats them at their own game, turns the tables on them, and says, you know, you're the ones who've been starting off with the premise, we know this, therefore that, we know this, therefore that. He says, let's do the same thing. We know that God does not listen to the cries of the impenitent. We know that God does

listen to those who do his will. We know that there is no record of ever anybody having a man open a man's eyes. Therefore, he says, conclusion, deduction, if this man were not from God, he couldn't do anything. Now, let's pause there for just a moment, because there's a lesson here for each of us in speaking to people concerning faith in Jesus Christ. We may think that the high

point in John chapter 9 is arguably verse 25, where he says, I don't know about what you know, but I do know what I know, and that is, I know that I was once blind, but now I can see. Some of us, I think, have a real tendency to retreat to that kind of thing. Well, you can't argue me out of my experience. I know my experience. I know what happened to me.

That's what happened to me. Therefore—and our friends walk away from it and say, idiot. Because they would be able to say that they've had experiences of different things in different places and so on. Well, then what are we going to do at that point, you see? Well, this man is convinced of his testimony. But when push comes to shove and the challenge

reaches for him, he is able to step up and say, well, let's just think about this for a moment. And why don't we think about this too? And have you considered that? And do you agree that this, this, and this leads to the deduction that? So his faith was resting in the experience of what Christ had done for him to this point,

and he was absolutely without any doubt concerning it. But that wasn't the beginning and the end of his argument. Now, what we discover is that they feel the sting of this. The stinging impact of truth hits them. And in verse 34, they do the only thing they've got left to do, and that is they throw him out. But you will notice they don't throw him out

until they have given their own answer to the question with which the chapter began. How did the chapter begin? Well, remember, with the disciples asking Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? The Pharisees say, we know the answer to that question. The reason you were blind is because you were steeped in

sin at birth. You are a miserable sinner. That's what you are. How dare you lecture us?