18 Jesus heals the Man Born Blind (John 9)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm really glad you joined us today. This is the 18th talk in my series on the Gospel of John, and today we will be studying John chapter 9. If you've been following this series, you know that in this study, instead of going through the details of each verse, we have been looking at the overarching themes in the Gospel of John. So we have been focusing on the big picture John is painting. As we've seen, John has been arguing that eternal life comes to those who believe that Jesus is the Christ. As he argues that point, he's been exploring issues surrounding belief, such as the evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, the importance and veracity of testimony, and the dynamics of belief and unbelief. Today we come to the story where Jesus heals the man who was born blind. And it's a very typical story in John's gospel. We see a miraculous healing, and then we see the various ways that people respond to that sign. But John adds an interesting feature to this story. The man born blind is confronted with a choice. Two separate voices push him in different directions. The religious authorities, the Pharisees, the people he has grown up listening to all his life and respect, they push him in one direction. And then this new voice, the voice of Jesus, tells him something else, and he has to choose which voice he's going to listen to. First, let's look at the healing. Jesus encounters this man, he's been blind his entire life, he was born blind. On a physical level, Jesus miraculously restores the sight of this blind man, but more importantly, this is the story of a man who comes to see the truth. And it's also a story of others who fail to see that same truth. And Jesus will very deliberately use this idea of physical blindness as a metaphor for spiritual blindness. The blindness in the story becomes almost a living metaphor for understanding. The blind refuse to see and understand the truth. Let's start with the first seven verses. This is John nine verses one through seven. As he passed by he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. 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. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud, and said to him, Go and wash in the pool of Siloam, which means scent. So he went and washed and came back seen. We are told repeatedly in this story that the man has been blind his whole life. Blindness is a misfortune. The Jews thought blindness must be a punishment from God for something that someone did. But this man has always been blind. God didn't strike him with blindness after a life of sin, he was born that way. So that's confusing. How should we understand this? Was he born blind because his parents sinned, or did he somehow sin right away, right from the womb, and was immediately struck with blindness? Many people believed that misfortune is a sign that God is angry with them. It goes all the way back to Greek mythology. The Greeks believed we suffer because the gods aren't happy with us. How do we avoid suffering? Well we have to keep the gods happy. And this has been a belief of mankind really from the beginning. We see this idea in the story of Job in the Old Testament. For his own reasons, God allows Satan to afflict Job, and Job's friends immediately assume God is punishing Job. They urge him to repent so that God will stop being mad at him. One of the lessons of the book of Job is that hardship is not necessarily a sign that God is unhappy with us. We shouldn't presume that we know God's motives. God has his own reasons for what comes into our lives. Very often we don't know why God asks us to face the things that he does. In this case, we have Jesus actually answering the question. The disciples asked, Why was this man born blind? And Jesus tells them, It's not because he sinned, and neither is it because his parents sinned, but there is a purpose. He was blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him. So we know right off the bat, at least part of the purpose for him being blind through the whole first part of his life was so that Jesus might heal him in the second part of his life. The disciples were wrong. The blindness was not a punishment, it was part of God's redemptive purpose for this man's life. It was a tool that God used to bring this man to saving faith. Now I want to come back to that idea later, but we're gonna leave it there for now. Jesus says that he has work to do in this man's life, and he makes a claim that we've seen before in John. He says he is the light of the world. He's dealing with a man who is in darkness. This man has never seen light of any kind in his entire life, and Jesus is going to heal him so that now he can see and light will enter his life for the first time. To say I am the light of the world is very relevant given what he's about to do. But when Jesus talks about being the light of the world, he's really talking about understanding. He is bringing the light of truth to the darkness of our ignorance and foolishness. Jesus ties this miracle to the broader idea that he has come to open our eyes to the truth of God. We're going to see that light of understanding in the story of this man born blind. He's not just healed of his physical blindness, but he comes to see and understand the light of truth. Before we go any farther in the story, I want to comment on this unusual statement that Jesus makes in 9 4. He says, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. I think this is a bit of an aside. It's not directly related to what he's about to do, but I think it's a comment aimed in particular at his disciples. He says, We must work this work. And I think this is aimed at the men who are going to be his apostles. He's preparing them to be his apostles. Sometimes John gives us glimpses into that training, and I think this is one of them. Jesus is saying, right now it's metaphorically daytime. I, Jesus, am here with you, I'm teaching you. You can ask me questions, you can get direct answers. We've come to this blind man. Jesus is about to do an amazing miracle in this man's life. This miracle is part of the redemptive plan God has, and they are going to see and learn from it. But a hard time is coming. The earthly ministry of Jesus is going to end. He's going to be arrested and executed. John is about to go into the upper room discourse where Jesus explains he's leaving, but they are going to continue his ministry. I think this statement is a brief kind of preparatory statement to the disciples about what's coming. We've seen little hints of it before in John, and as we move toward the end of the gospel, this theme is going to emerge very strongly. For now it's the time when Jesus is here. He's here, the light's here, his work continues, but the day is coming when they are going to have to carry on without him. Okay, back to the miracle. Jesus puts mud on this man's eyes. The man goes to wash off the mud in the pool of Siloam, which was on the southeastern edge of the city, kind of just outside and below the temple area. And this is just an ordinary pool. No one associated healing powers with this pool. When the man washes the mud off, he can see. But when he comes back, Jesus isn't there. Now remember, he has no idea what Jesus looks like. He couldn't see Jesus when he was interacting with him. Now for the first time he can see, but Jesus isn't there. And now we have this opportunity to explore one of John's favorite themes, which is how do people respond to a miracle? And the rest of the chapter explores how various people respond to this situation. Let's start with nine eight through twelve. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some said, It is he. Others said, No, but he is like him. He kept saying, I am the man. So they said to him, Then how were your eyes opened? He answered, The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight. They said to him, Where is he? He said, I do not know. So the first reaction we see is the man's neighbors. They're confused. They've known this man his entire life. All his life he has been a blind beggar. They can't believe their eyes. They see the man, it looks like him, but this man can see, so they say, Oh, it must be somebody else. It's not him. It's just somebody who looks like him. Because the man they know is blind and this man can see. So he has to keep telling them, Really, it's me. I'm the one. I'm the guy that was sitting on the corner of the blind. So right off the bat, we have this picture of those who can physically see, but they're spiritually blind. They see with their eyes, but they don't understand what they're seeing, and they can't accept the truth. That is literally staring them in the face. So they decide, well, let's take him to our religious leaders. We'll drag him up to the Pharisees, and maybe they can explain what's going on here. So this is thirteen through twenty three. They brought to the Pharisees the men who had formerly been blind. Now it was the 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, 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 Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them. So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes? He 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 asked them, Is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? His parents answered, 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. Ask him, he is of age, he will speak for himself. His parents said these things because they feared the 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. Therefore his parents said, He is of age, ask him. Now, when John says the Jews in nine eighteen and on, he's talking about the Jewish leadership, the Pharisees there. We get two more reactions in this section. We learn how the Pharisees react and how the man's parents react. The Pharisees are divided, some think Jesus is a prophet, some thinks he's a fraud. They refuse to believe that this man is telling the truth about being blind and now being able to see. So they seek to disprove the whole thing. They seek out the man's parents, so the parents can deny the man was ever blind at all. Now the testimony of the man's parents is important. People don't believe this healing really happened. They think this man is lying. He's claiming he was born blind, but really he must be lying, they think. But his parents testify the man's story is true. The Pharisees ask them three questions. Is this your son? Do you claim your son was born blind? And how is it he can now see? They answer the first two questions. They attest that they are in fact his parents. They testify that he was in fact born blind. He's not an imposter, this is all true. So they say this is our son who was born blind, but now he sees. But the third question, they deny knowing how he was healed or who healed him, which they probably didn't know, and they say, Ask him. They're afraid to answer that final question. And we can tell from the way John tells the story, the parents probably know the answer. They've heard the story. They know their son claims that Jesus healed him by putting mud on his eyes and telling him to wash it off. They know Jesus is the one who did the miracle, and they probably believe their son is telling the truth, but they're afraid of the Pharisees. The religious leaders oppose Jesus. They've been trying to arrest him, haven't been successful yet because God had other plans, but they have made people fearful of associating with Jesus. They've told people, stay away from this Jesus guy, don't have anything to do with him. If you do decide to follow and listen to Jesus, then you can't follow and listen to us. We're going to kick you out of the synagogue. Getting kicked out of the synagogue was a very serious thing. The synagogue was the center of their social and their religious life. If you got kicked out, you lost your place in the community, and you lost all your friends and your ability to go and worship. You could be kicked out for 30 days, you could be kicked out for a longer period, or kicked out for life. But when you were kicked out, you were shut off from both social and business relationships. But worse, you were shut off from God because you had nowhere to go and worship and hear the Torah read. You would think this man's parents would be incredibly grateful to Jesus. We might expect them to be rejoicing, to be crying out to everyone, look at what this prophet from God has done for our son. But they're too afraid of the Pharisees to do that. They know if they rejoice, they're likely to get punished for it. So they defer and they say, Well, ask our son, he's of age. Talk to him directly. We weren't there. He's the one that used to be blind, he's old enough, talk to him. So here we kind of see inklings of belief, but that belief is crushed by the worries of the world. They care too much about what their fellow human beings think and not enough about what God thinks. So they run away from belief. And that brings us to the two most important reactions in the story, the Pharisees and the man himself. Now here's the situation the man finds himself in. He's been blind from birth, Jesus has healed him, Jesus claims to be a prophet from God, but Jesus healed him on the Sabbath. The last time Jesus healed on the Sabbath, it inspired the Jewish leadership to try to arrest him. And now, Dratit, here he is doing it again. The man's neighbors, the people he's known all his life, are confused. They're a little suspicious about what really happened to him. The Pharisees are divided at first. Some of them are really upset that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Again, they say he can't be from God because he breaks the Sabbath all the time. But others of the Pharisees are kind of reconsidering. They recognize a man who's a sinner, that is, in their usage, a man who isn't following God could not do these things. These miracles are signs from God. They signify that God is with the person who does the miracle. So there's something we ought to consider here. How are we to explain that this man Jesus can do these miracles? Yes, he's breaking the Sabbath as we understand it, but we can't just stop there. We have to explain what's going on because maybe God's working here. So there's this division among the Pharisees. But the ones who see Jesus as a fraud and a Sabbath breaker win the day. Now, why is Jesus healing on the Sabbath such a problem to them? What is wrong with their perspective? In the Mosaic Covenant, God commanded the Jews to keep the Sabbath. You would think that the emphasis the Pharisees placed on keeping the Sabbath would be a godly obedient thing to do, but there is a godly and appropriate way to obey the law of keeping the Sabbath, and there is an ungodly, self-righteous way to obey that law. And in the Gospels we see Jesus repeatedly accusing them of the latter. He says they don't really understand what the law is all about. Jesus reminds them in other places that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. They have distorted the Sabbath and made it into something that God never intended it to be. Plus, they have made it this test that they used to judge whether someone is religious enough. So they say, We Pharisees, we do it right, we wrote the rules, we know all the laws, we keep them, we know the correct rules to follow regarding the Sabbath, and anyone who does not follow the rules the way we follow the rules is obviously wrong. And the result of that attitude is they're standing there telling the Messiah, the man who most fully embodies the moral will of God that he's wrong and they're right. They think they understand, but they don't. And that's where the battle is between Jesus and the Pharisees. It's a battle for what is God's heart like? What does God really want from us? What's he calling us to do? And they are so entrenched in their self-righteousness and their understanding that they are doing this thing perfectly, that they are unwilling to see the truth when it's right in front of them. Even when Jesus does something medically impossible, something that's never been done before, and opens the eyes of a blind man, they say, nope, nope, couldn't be from God. All right, so they go back to this man, they're divided, they're trying to figure out how to deal with this situation, and they go back to the man one more time and say, Okay, you're the one whose eyes were opened, what do you think? Who do you think he is? This is John nine twenty four through twenty nine. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The Pharisees asked the formerly blind man who he thinks Jesus is. And they phrase it like, Don't you agree with us that this Jesus is a sinner? I think this phrase give glory to God has the idea don't give glory to Jesus. We know this man Jesus is a sinner. Praise God instead. Give the glory to God, not Jesus. They're asserting their own authority. Look, we have decided that there's something wrong with this man Jesus. He's breaking the Sabbath, at least the way we understand it. So clearly he's a pagan sinner. You need to submit to our judgment about this. This guy is a Sabbath breaker and he cannot be a prophet from God. Well, the man speaks right up. Instead of debating the finer points of their theology with them, he says, I know one thing, I was blind and now I see. I don't know if he's a sinner or not. I just met him, but I do know that I used to be blind and now I'm not. They can argue theology all day long, but they can't debate away his experience. Well, the Pharisees have no answer to how this miracle happened. So they go back to the beginning. All right, tell us again, what exactly did he do? They're trying another approach. They want to know how Jesus opened this man's eyes, probably so they can. Pug holes in the man's story. And the man gives what I think is a quite perceptive answer. He says, Why are you asking me again? I've already told you what happened. Now, we know, we can guess they're asking him again because they don't like the answer they got the first time. And they figure if they keep asking, like a five-year-old, they might get a different answer. The man seems to almost toy with them. He says, Look, I've already told you the story. Why do you want to hear it again? Oh, I know you want to be his disciples too, right? Well, he's putting his finger on the problem. Why aren't we done here? Why don't you just say, Wow, this is great. A prophet from God healed you. That is the most obvious, most rational, most reasonable response to this set of circumstances. Looking at the facts, this is the conclusion they should be reaching, but they don't want to reach that conclusion. And the man's response really ticks them off. They assert their authority again. We don't want to be his disciple, you're his disciple, we're disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but we don't know where this man comes from. Now that admission of ignorance is stunning. As religious leaders, they were supposed to know such matters. When a prophet appeared, these leaders, the Jewish Pharisees, the leaders of the day, they should be the ones who could immediately verify his authenticity, yet they're clearly running away from the facts staring them in the face. And that admission leaves them open to a further jibe from the man. This former beggar is now their teacher. Let's look at thirty through thirty four. The man answered, Why this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes? We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered him, You were born in utter sin and would teach us, and they cast him out. That's an amazing answer. Think about the situation this blind beggar has been in all his life. He's speaking to the religious leaders of his town. They're the elite, they're the people he grew up listening to. These are the scholars, the PhDs, the respected leaders of the community. They have the power to kick him out of the synagogue, but he doesn't back down. He doesn't bow down to them and say, Oh, well, I guess you guys know better than me. You're the pastors after all, so you know, you must know what you're talking about. Instead, he boldly points out to them the inadequacy of their answer. He says, You don't know where he comes from? I don't think that's hard to figure out. Let's look. Point one, we all agree God doesn't call prophets who don't believe in him. I think that's what he means by God does not listen to sinners. Point two, if a prophet believes in God and truly represents him, God testifies to that prophet through miracles. Point three, no one in the history of the world has healed a person born blind. That kind of healing is something only God could do. Therefore, the obvious conclusion, if this man were not from God, as you claim, he could not have healed me. I am healed, therefore this man is from God. Why don't you know where he's from? I know where he's from. He made it clear where he's from. The only logical conclusion is this man is from God. Now, unable to answer or refute that logic, the Pharisees resort to ridicule and exert their authority again. They say, We don't have to listen to this stuff, and they kick him out. Now it's unclear if they cast him from their presence or they cast him out of the synagogue. Some scholars think one, some the other. To officially excommunicate him, they would need to call a meeting of the Sinhedron. Such a meeting isn't mentioned here, so maybe they were acting illegally or maybe they just cast him out of their presence. It's not all that important to the story. John's main point is contrasting their reaction. A man who has been blind his whole life now sees, but he also recognizes the truth in contrast to these religious leaders who claim to have the market courted on truth, but they don't recognize truth when it's staring them in the face. Now Jesus here's what's happened. This is John nine, thirty five through thirty eight. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Jesus hears that the man that he healed has been kicked out of the synagogue, or at least punished in some way, because he would not back down in his insistence that Jesus is a prophet from God. So Jesus seeks him out and he explores that question with him. Given all that's happened to you, do you believe in the Son of Man? I think what he's saying is the Son of Man, i. e. the Messiah, is here. Are you ready to believe in him? And this man has already come to believe that Jesus is a prophet from God. God is behind this great miracle that Jesus has done, so he's prepared to trust him and believe him. And he asks, Well, who is he that I may believe in him? Remember, he doesn't know what Jesus looks like. He was blind when he interacted with Jesus before. Quite likely that Jesus has not identified himself yet in their conversation. The man probably suspects he's talking to the man that healed him, but he doesn't know for sure maybe he's talking to one of the disciples of Jesus and not Jesus himself. So he asks, Who is he? And I think he's asking, Are you the one? If you're not the one, tell me who is so I can believe in him. And Jesus says, You have seen him and he is speaking to you. And that's just a very poignant answer to give to a man who's only been seen for maybe a day or two in his entire life. Have you ever had the experience where you only know someone by their voice? Maybe it's a tech support person or a coworker that you only deal with on the phone, and then you meet that person face to face and you have trouble connecting the familiar voice with this new and unfamiliar face. I think something like that is going on here. The man is trying to sort out all these unfamiliar faces and strange places with all the familiar voices and the familiar sounds he's been hearing his whole life. And Jesus is saying, Look, your eyes are working great. It's me. I'm the one who healed you. I'm that Son of Man, the Messiah, I'm the one from God who has come to save the world. And the man responds with belief. He says, I believe you. You are who you say you are, and he worshipped him. Now he didn't start singing a praise song or something like that. He humbled himself before Jesus, like a knight who bends his knee in service to his king. He made some kind of movement or acknowledgement that you're claiming to be a king sent from God, and I believe you. I bow myself before you to acknowledge you are my Lord and King and I am your servant. Now, given all that's just happened, Jesus makes a summary statement in verse 39. This is 39 through 41. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now you say we see, your guilt remains. Now Jesus is using language in a very rich way here, and if we hadn't just read the story of the man born blind, these words would be very confusing. But given the context of this healing, it's a very kind of rich picture of what's just happened. Jesus says he came into the world for judgment. People are judged by how they respond to Jesus. That's a theme we've seen throughout this gospel. Your eternal destiny depends on whether you accept Jesus or reject him. And in that sense, he is bringing judgment. But with judgment, he also brings salvation. Jesus has come so that those who are blind to the truth might see the truth and believe. He literally healed a man who was physically blind, but clearly at this point he's using this language metaphorically to talk about the real issue, which is whether you see and understand the truth. The man born blind was just like the rest of us, he was also spiritually blind. He couldn't solve the problem of his sin. Like all of us, he started out mocking God and rejecting him. Jesus brought him sight in both ways. Now the man can physically see the world around him, but in the process he has come to understand truth from God. He now knows God sent Jesus to bring salvation to the world. And this is John's classic theme of a miraculous sign followed by belief. The Pharisees in this situation are just the opposite. They think they see, they have their religious system all mapped out. Their rules say Jesus is a Sabbath breaker, therefore Jesus can't be from God, and they've already figured all that out. They don't need Jesus to teach them, look, this guy can't be from God because we know how this stuff works, and he's not doing things the way we think he should. This whole story shows how convinced they are that they are right. They are so convinced that they understand that they can't see the truth when it's in front of them. And that's the irony Jesus is exploring here in this language. If you were blind, you would have no guilt. If you recognized that you are a slave to sin, that you need a savior, if you recognize you were blind in that sense, you would have no guilt because you could be saved. The blind man was blind in both senses. He couldn't see, but he was also spiritually blind, like the Pharisees. But he didn't fight the truth when Jesus showed it to him. He didn't claim to understand God better than Jesus understands him. The Pharisees who could physically see thought they could also spiritually see, but they were very stubbornly spiritually blind. They insisted they could see the truth quite well and they were wrong. And that's the difference. All of us are sinners, but some of us are so committed to being sinners that we can't see the truth when confronted with it. We reject the truth because we've decided that things are the way we want them to be. And this is that theme of needing the Spirit of God to open our eyes so that we recognize, hey, wait, I'm not the perfect person I thought I was. I'm a sinner and I need a savior. I am guilty before God, and how am I going to solve that problem? Oh, wait, I have a savior in Jesus. Now we're not done here. We have a chapter break here, but if you look at the first line of chapter 10, it starts, truly, truly, I say to you. And that indicates that Jesus isn't done talking. Jesus never uses truly, truly to introduce a new topic. So I would argue that this topic, this discussion, is going to continue into the next chapter, but we're going to stop here and look at the rest of the conversation in the next podcast. To wrap this up, I want to get back to a comment Jesus made in the beginning of the story. Jesus made this statement that the man was born blind, that the works of God might be displayed in him. Jesus here is providing authoritative commentary on this man's life, which is something I think we would all like to have. We would love to have God come along and say, Let me tell you why it is that that thing happened to you. Let me explain the purpose of that hard time back there or why I answered that prayer no. But we don't usually have that kind of commentary on our lives. But this man does, and we see here a confirmation of the way God tends to do things. God is quite willing to put us through what to us seem to be very difficult circumstances in order to accomplish his greater purposes. And what are those greater purposes? Well, first of all, it would be easy to say he was born blind so that the Messiah could come along and do this obvious miracle. Now the man sees, everyone can testify to that, the man has never seen in his entire life, now he does, so in that sense, his life has been a preparation for the miracle that Jesus does. But it's important for us to remember that a greater work was being done here as well. Ultimately, Jesus has this language about giving sight to the blind, about being the light of the world, and that's not about physical sight. The more important purpose than giving this man his physical sight was to bring him to belief, to faith. Jesus is all about bringing the truth that leads to understanding that leads to life, to bring light into a person's life so they might actually see and embrace the gospel when they hear it. And that's what happened in the life of this blind man. When he said I believe at the end, that's the real miracle. That's the sight that really counts. If he had continued to be blind his whole life, that might have been unfortunate, but if he had refused to listen to Jesus and had listened to the Pharisees instead, that would have been a real tragedy. His blindness prepared him spiritually to receive the truth when it came. He wasn't born blind just so that Jesus could do the trick and everyone could say, ooh, that was a great miracle. Jesus was also doing serious and profound work in the man's life, and his blindness had prepared him for that day. Now I think it's important for us to understand that, because in the same way, God uses trials and hardships to teach us, to bring us to truth. When we get despondent or bitter about the hardship God allows in our lives, we need to stop and think there's something bigger going on here. There is a bigger picture God is trying to accomplish. There is a redemptive purpose behind these sufferings. Yes, God means business. He is quite prepared to take us through trials and tribulations to accomplish his purposes, but we have been assured his purposes are redemptive. We know ultimately the point of all that hardship is to bring us to a place where we have a real, mature, saving faith and therefore find life in his kingdom. That suffering prepares us to hear and embrace the truth. So, in a sense, each of us is like the blind man. God is preparing us to hear the truth. Our hardships may be different, but God can use them to bring us to faith in the same way that he used blindness in this man's life. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this podcast is on wednesdayintheword.com slash John 18. All the episodes in this series are on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. It's all free, there's no charge, and no spam and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please follow it wherever you listen to your podcast. If you can, it'd be nice if you could leave a positive rating or review. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned, and maybe mention where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can find Reggie's music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.