Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

This is why I love the Bible - It confronts the hard question

Chapter eight ends with Jesus being confronted by the Pharisees.

Jesus declares that “before Abraham was born, I Am!” At this the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus slipped away, leaving the temple grounds.

On his way out, he and his disciples encounter a blind man.

John 9:1

Life is full of questions

The

Introduction

Introduction

One of the reasons I believe the Bible and love the Bible is because it deals with the hardest issues in life.

It doesn’t sweep painful things under the rug — or complex things or confusing things or provoking things or shocking things or controversial things.

In fact, Jesus sometimes went out of his way to create controversy with the Pharisees so that more truth about himself and about unbelief would come out, so that we could be warned by examples of hardness and wooed by images of his glory.

Life is full of questions.

In Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth which spark a question that has caused difficulty for many people for a very long time.

Questions like: How can a loving God allow suffering and evil to continue?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Where is God when tragedy strike?

The nature of God stands in contrast to the pain and suffering that exists in the world He so lovingly created.

It is difficult to understand how the all loving all powerful God can allow bad things to happen.

“If God is all-loving, He must not be all powerful” vs. “If God is all-powerful, He must not be all-loving” “Love does not cancel out suffering”

I believe we’re looking at this question the wrong way.

This was not God’s plan from the beginning.

Because man rebelled against God, sin entered the world and has turned things completely upside down!

For this reason, disorder and destruction have become the “new normal” in our rebellious world.

“Love does not cancel out suffering”

“The man we meet in this chapter was born blind; he had never seen the beauty of God’s creation or the faces of his loved ones.

When Jesus arrived on the scene, everything changed, and the man was made to see.

However, the greatest miracle was not the opening of his eyes but the opening of his heart to the Savior.

It cost him everything to confess Jesus as the Son of God, but he was willing to do it.”

Warren Wiersbe

John 9:1-

1.

We Have To Ask The Right Questions

John 9:

“It is ours, not to speculate, but to perform acts of mercy and love, according to the tenor of the gospel.

Let us then be less inquisitive and more practical, less for cracking doctrinal nuts, and more for bringing forth the bread of life to the starving multitudes.”

Charles Spurgeon

Many Bible students are amazed to discover that the Old Testament contains no story of the giving of sight to the blind.

The only New Testament example outside the Gospels is the encounter between Ananias and Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9.

But when we examine the ministry of Jesus, there are more instances of the healing of blind people than any other type of miracle (Matt.

9:27–31; 12:22ff.; 15:30ff.; 21:14; Mark 8:22–26; 10:46–52; Luke 7:21ff.).

2. God Has A Great Plan Even In Our Pain

C. S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Helen Keller

3.

There Is Always A Lesson To Be Learned

4. God’s Not Always Going To Do Things The Way We Expect

5.

There Will Almost Always Be Obstacles In Our Path

Conclusion

We need to keep the right perspective on pain, suffering, and hardship.

Our God is faithful.

He makes no mistakes.

Everything that happens to us who are believers is for our good and his glory—and whatever temporary suffering we may experience, God will have the last word.

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

The French writer, Paul Claudel, once said that “Christ did not come to do away with suffering; he did not come to explain it.

He came to fill it with his presence.”