Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2309
“Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents” (that he was born blind): “but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” John 9:3.
NEVER attribute any special sorrow endured by men to some special sin. There is a tendency to consider that those on whom the tower in Siloam fell must have been sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem. And if any have met with a very sudden death, we are apt to suppose that they must have been exceedingly guilty—but it is not so. Very godly men have been burned to death in a train. I remember one who came to that terrible end. Many holy men have been drowned on board ship when they have been going about their Master’s errands. Some of the most gracious men that I ever met have dropped dead without a moment’s warning. You cannot judge of a man’s state before God by that which happens to him in the order of Providence. And it is very unkind, ungenerous and almost inhuman, to sit down, like the friends of Job, and suppose that because Job is greatly afflicted, he must, therefore, be greatly sinful. It is not so. All afflictions are not chastisements for sin—there are some afflictions that have quite another end and objective. They are sent to refine, sent as a holy discipline, sent as sacred excavators to make more room in the heart for Christ and His love. Indeed, you know that it is written, “As many as I tenderly love, I rebuke and chasten.” “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”
It was, therefore, in the last degree, absurd to suppose that if a man was born blind, it was a punishment for the sin of his parents, or a punishment sent beforehand for some sin which he might commit, by-and-by. Our Savior bids us look quite another way and regard infirmities and physical evils as sent to be a space wherein God may display His power and His Grace. It was very specially so in this particular instance and I am going to push the fact, further, and say that even sin, itself, existing as it does everywhere, existing especially in some, may afford what we call, “elbow room,” for the Grace of God and may, indeed, become a platform upon which the wonderful power, patience and sovereignty of Divine Grace may be displayed.
That will be the subject that we shall talk about, tonight, how God takes opportunity from the sorrows and the sins of men to make manifest His own works to His own Glory. As this man was born blind, in order that, through his blindness, the power of God might be seen in giving him sight, so I think there are many in whom the power of God may very readily be seen and the works of God be very clearly made manifest.
I. So, first, let us enquire what works these are. WHAT WORKS OF GOD ARE SEEN IN THE SALVATION OF MEN?
There is a man over yonder who is all out of order. There is nothing right about him. He is a man upside down. His heart loves that which will ruin it and does not love that which would bless it. His understanding is darkened. He puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. His will has become very domineering and has usurped power which it never ought to possess. If you will study him well, you will not make much of him. He is all out of gear, like a piece of machinery in which the wheels do not operate correctly. To describe him briefly by one word, I should say that he is in a state of chaos, everything is in confusion and disorder, tossed up and down. “Well,” says one, “that is my case. I am like that tonight.”
Now, the first work of God that we read of in the Bible is the work of creation—“In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth.” When the fullness of time was come for the fitting up of the world, which event we generally call, creation, although it was really the arrangement of that which had been created, then the Lord came forth and the Spirit
of God, with outspread wings, brooded over chaos and brought order out of confusion. Oh, that the Spirit of the Lord would, tonight, come and brood over that man’s confused and confounded mind where everything is tossed about in wild disorder! He cannot tell why he was born, nor for what objective he is living. He seems to have no purpose in life, he is tossed to and fro like a log in the ocean. His passions fly from vanity to vanity and you cannot put him in order. His mother tried it, but he scorned to be tied to her apron strings. Many friends have tried it since then, but he has now taken the bit into his mouth and has run away—he refuses to obey the reins. O God, if You will come, tonight, and make him a new creature in Christ Jesus, Your creating work will be made manifest in him! If You will mold, and model, and form, and fashion him until he shall be a vessel fit for Your use, then will the work of God begin to be manifested in him. Oh, that it might be so! There are some of us here who can bear witness that God is a great Creator, for He has made all things new within us and transformed what before was chaos into a world of beauty and delight wherein He delights to dwell.