Tom:

We’re currently going through the Gospel of John and if you just joined us the name of this program is Search the Scriptures Daily and our heart in this is to encourage our listeners, encourage ourselves to keep getting after the Word of God; keep reading the Word of God.That’s how you grow in your relationship with Him and if you’ve never read the Bible before and it seems to be a little bit intimidating to you, begin with the Gospel of John.They are all tremendous books Dave, but I just believe this is a good place to start.

Dave:

Well, I couldn’t disagree with you although the Bible does start out in Genesis, but if a person has not read the Bible, rather than starting out in Genesis, that’s a long trip, I would recommend yes, go to John and then go to the Book of Acts and then go Romans and then you can start in Genesis.

Tom:

Yes, and the reason we like you to start in John is because you are not going to understand the book unless you have a personal, intimate relationship with Christ.You MUST be born again and after you are born again, now the relationship begins.You have the illumination of the Holy Spirit to help you understand these things and you are going to begin with a personal relationship with Christ and this is such an intimate book.It’s just wonderful.

Dave:

You know how the book ends:“These things have I written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you would have life through his name.”So that’s the purpose of John for which John wrote the Gospel of John.

Tom:

Correct.So we are in John:9:39-41 [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. [40] And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? [41] Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
See All...: “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.And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”Now Dave that’s a little difficult to understand.The metaphor here of blindness, are they physically blind—are they—is this figurative?

Dave:

Well of course he’s speaking spiritually and we’ve been talking about man being a spiritual being, a spirit in fact, and there is such a thing as spiritual blindness; spiritual seeing.For example, if I am talking to you and I say, “Don’t you see Tom?”I don’t mean don’t you see something physically.Don’t you understand with your mind, so once again we see that man is not a physical being.But this is what he is talking about.Let’s go back to verse 39.This is kind of tough stuff.“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”And then he refers to these men who claim that they can see.Well—

Tom:

So in this case it’s the religious leadership who claims to have all things about God, theology and everything, wired.They are the ones you go to for understanding.Jesus didn’t care for that at all.

Dave:

But when he comes, they reject him.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

Their blindness is exposed.He comes so that those who can’t see can be made to see.That would be those who need the light of the gospel.Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4, “The God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.Jesus said in the last couple of chapters ago, “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.”So those that were spiritually blind, Jesus brings light to them and life.Those who claim to be able to see and reject him, their blindness is exposed.That’s a tragedy.Remember way back in chapter five, how long ago were we there Tom?We’ve made some progress.

Tom:

It’s a good trip Dave.

Dave:

Yes, Jesus said to the religious leaders, “You search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me.And you won’t come to me that you may have life.”I think we find the same thing to day.You know in our ministry Tom we’ve come in for a lot of criticism.We try to search the scriptures.We don’t want to put anybody down.We don’t want to cause divisions or troubles and so forth.But divisions come.Jesus caused divisions wherever he went.But we’ve found that the common person in the pew is more ready to hear the truth and even to change their thinking if we can show them from the scriptures, whereas religious leaders, very often Christian leaders often, they have much to lose if the acknowledge that what they have been teaching is wrong and we get some of our toughest opposition from Christian leaders.It’s like the Bereans—that’s what we named our ministry after Acts:17:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
See All....These were ordinary people.These weren’t rabbis.They certainly weren’t Christians, but they went to the scriptures to check Paul out.But it says they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures.

Tom:

So they were open minded to what Paul had to say.

Dave:

To the truth.

Tom:

But some one said they weren’t so open minded that their brains fell out.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

You know they weren’t gullible.They wanted to know what truth was.

Dave:

Exactly.So we see the contrast here with this blind man to whom Christ has given physical sight and he has given him spiritual sight now.Do you believe in the Son of God?Well who is he Lord?“Well, I that speak unto you, I’m the one.”“Oh, I believe, Lord!”He’s so ready.

Tom:

And he worshiped him.

Dave:

That’s right, but the rabbis, they’ve got all the evidence.He’s opened the eyes of a man born blind.

Tom:

They had the scriptures.

Dave:

Yes, they’ve got the scriptures.He’s raised the dead, I mean he came at the exact time that their scriptures said he would if they would go back and look at Daniel 9.The angel Gabriel told Daniel the very day the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey and that’s why Jesus said in Luke 12 you can read the signs of the sky, “Red sky at night is sailor’s delight; red sky in morning is a sailor’s warning.”How come you don’t know the time of your visitation and he wept over them.Because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.And they were so proud and protective of their position as leaders because they wanted the honor that they got from highest seats in the synagogue and so forth.

Tom:

Now Dave, let me take this back to our news alert.We’re referring here to the scriptures refer to these Jewish religious leaders.But how is that any different than this ecumenical gathering?This siding together, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Westminster, Catholic Cardinal—how’s that any different.

Dave:

By the way Tom, you remember the year 2000 when the Pope opened four supposed holy doors.The first one he opened was the holy door in St. Peters.Now you tell me how a door gets holy.But anyway he knelt down and he prayed and as he opened his eyes as he sat down who is praying right beside him, kneeling beside him?The Archbishop of Canterbury—

Tom:

George Carey.

Dave:

The spiritual head of the Church of England, so this has been going on for a long time.So what has some holy door have to do with the forgiveness of sins?But Catholic pilgrims by the millions came from all over the world to walk through a door and to get forgiveness of sins.And you remember the news items about the last evening?When that door was about to be closed you had people jostling with one another crowding in, they want to be sure they get through that door.Jesus Christ said I am the door, If any man enter in by me he has eternal life, but they were looking to some physical door.

Tom:

Right, so in the name of religious ritual we have a spiritual blindness that’s staggering.

Dave:

Tom, it would make you weep when you think of the people who are being led astray by religious leaders.Jesus said that if the blind lead the blind they will all fall into the ditch together.Where are we going to find light, and truth, and life?In Christ alone and in his Word and we want to just remind you that the name of this program is Search the Scriptures Daily.We are trying to go to the scriptures.Don’t take our word for it, please don’t.If we are wrong, write to us, tell us where we are wrong.We don’t want to be.

Tom:

They’re doing us a favor, Dave.

Dave:
Yes, we don’t want to be wrong.We don’t want to lead people astray.We are simply going to the Word of God and this is what we all must do and we must go to the living Word, Jesus Christ, who is God and became a man through the virgin birth, who died for our sins upon the cross, paid the penalty, rose from the dead so that we could have forgiveness.So that he could forgive us on a righteous basis.

Tom:

And that’s the only basis which spiritual blindness can be taken away. The only way.