Profoundly Impaired - March 30, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

This is Family Sunday, and I always like to do something to include our children.

They're just as part of the church as anybody else, don't you think?

And it's good that we have them. And so I would just like to invite all the

children to come down front here, maybe on this side this time.

And if our young girls want to sit on the pew right there, there's room.

If they have dresses especially, just want to keep everything. But come down.

Parents, if you'll allow them to, just have them come right down here.

I got something I want to show you guys, something you may have seen before

or heard before. and you guys can just kind of sit there on that front pew if

you'd like. Just kind of gather in here.

Oh, man, I forgot. Hey, buddy. Good to see you.

Hi. Hey, come on down. Come on down. And like I said, if you want to sit,

get comfortable for a minute. It might take a minute, okay?

But I got three friends I want to, and there's my wrestler friend right there,

man. Second place. Way to go.

State, second place right here. Good job.

I thought you'd be wearing your medal, but you got the cross.

That's the best metal you can have right there All right, I got three friends

I want to introduce you to, all right? Are you ready to meet them?

Now, don't get too excited But I think they're kind of neat Okay.

Here they come. Let me get them out of hiding here. There are three friends

I want to introduce to you guys, but to everyone as well.

Where's John? John Bechtel. He just got back from Japan.

And this is kind of a Japanese story, right?

Because it's the story of three wise monkeys.

I'm not saying John Bechtel is a monkey or that he brought these friends with

him, but maybe they tagged along with him. You see, so they're Japanese names,

and I'm not going to say them right.

I'll do my best, okay, but I don't do so well with English, so Japanese is going

to be a little bit tougher.

But the first one, and you guys can help me botch the names, okay?

Botch means don't say them right. Here's the first one.

His name is Mizuru. Can you say Mizuru?

Congregation, can you say Mizuru? All right, now we all said it wrong,

so we're all complicit. Here, I'll let you be gentle with Misaru,

but you can pass him around. There you go.

All right. My next friend right here, his name is Kikazaru.

Kikazaru. All right. Help me out, congregation.

Kikazaru. All right. Best I can do. But here's Kikazaru. All right.

You guys want to pass Kikazaru around gently? They're twins.

They are twins. as a matter of fact you're gonna find out they're triplet all

right hate to be that monkey mama,

my last friend here's my last friend iwazaru iwazaru all right here comes iwazaru

triplet yeah all right we've got these three monkeys and this is a proverb that's not specific just.

Just to Japan, but throughout the centuries, these three types,

or the meaning behind these three types of monkeys that we have anyway here,

they each represent something.

All right, who has Mizaru, the first one I gave out?

Someone got him somewhere? All right. You want to come up here and hold him?

Yeah, come right up. All right, awesome.

So what do you kids notice about Mizaru here?

Covering his eyes you know

what this monkey represents is this

see no evil so

put your put your hands over your eyes and say see no evil right that's what

he represents he represented we don't want to put our eyes upon anything that

is evil we don't want to see it so what do we do we cover our eyes all right

good job can you hang out here for a minute are you cool with that All right. Good.

All right. Second monkey. He was the one covering his ears. Kikazaru.

Come on up. Would you mind?

All right. Here comes Kikazaru. And you'll notice something about Kikazaru here. He is doing what?

Covering his ears. Now cover him briefly because you want to hear what I got to say. All right.

He represent if if Mizaru here is representing see no evil. What do you think this guy?

Hear no evil. Right. You don't want to let anything come into your mind through your ears that is evil.

So he represented hear no evil. We don't want to hear any evil.

And last but not least is Iwazaru.

And so where's Iwazaru? You got Iwazaru? All right. Hold him up high so everyone can see.

What is he doing? Stay covering his mouth. Yeah, covering his mouth.

And you guys beat me. See how sharp these kids are? See no evil.

Speak no evil, right? So see no evil, hear no evil. Say no evil.

Say no evil or speak no evil.

And maybe you could do it all at once. You'd be pretty talented,

but don't walk around if you're doing that.

Because you might get hurt. Now, here's the thing.

Sometimes people like to twist this a little bit. And instead of going,

see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.

When they see something wrong they say oh see

no evil here kind of like schultz from

the hogan's heroes i see nothing i

see nothing okay that's kind of twisting the morals here uh sometimes when we

when we're around people uh sometimes we don't want to hear what they say even

if it's the truth and so we just plug our ears you kids have never done that

when your parents were talking cheese. Have you?

You're not going to admit it, but you're already at the altar if you need to read,

because sometimes maybe our brother or sister even, when they're telling us

something that's right, we don't want to hear it, we'll go like this.

No, no, no, I can't hear you. No, no, no, I can't hear you.

So sometimes we twist it around to something that's not meant to be.

And of course, the last one, speak no evil.

But sometimes we twist it and we don't want to say what's right when we should say what's right.

If you see something doing something wrong, sometimes we go like this.

When maybe we should say, hey, don't do that. That's wrong. Or maybe we go like

this when God has told us to share Jesus with someone.

And so you can see how it could be twisted. I think we need to keep the first meaning.

Let us not see any evil. Let's not put anything in front of our mind,

in front of our eyes. I should say, that's not good, huh?

And the same thing here. Let's not listen to things that aren't good.

And let's not say things that aren't good.

So that's my three friends. Thank you for welcoming them this morning.

I won't ask you to say their Japanese names Because I already forgot them myself,

But let's give the children a hand for helping me out here You guys can go sit

down now if you like Take them with you Alright, you can take it with you Will you babysit?

They're going to babysit my monkey friends here Thank you Now next time someone

asks you You can tell them Church is more fun than a barrel of monkeys Alright

Or at least three monkeys today,

When we think about this, it's a proverb that's been around a long time.

And I think when we look to Scripture, it might not talk about three monkeys,

but I think it does talk about seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and speaking no evil.

And today, when we look at our text, we're going to find some exciting things out.

We're going to see some profound things that happen. We're going to hear this

morning from the Scripture about some profound things that take place in the book of John.

And it's John chapter 9. I'm just going to read verses 1 through 11,

John 9 · chapter mention

but we're going to look really at the whole chapter today, at least through 42.

And so this morning, we're going to see in our journey with Jesus,

how Jesus heals a blind man and what that means for us today.

The scripture says in John chapter 9, verse 1, as Jesus went along,

John 9:1

he saw a blind man from birth, a man blind from birth.

His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus said, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that

the work of God might be displayed in his life.

As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.

Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world,

I am the light of the world.

Having said this, Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud with the saliva,

put it on the man's eyes. Go, he said, wash in the pool of Siloam. The word means sent.

And so the man went and washed and came home seeing.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked,

Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?

Some others claimed that he was.

Others said, No, he only looks like him. But he himself insisted, I am the man.

How then were your eyes opened, they demanded. He replied, the man they called

Jesus made some mud, put it on my eyes.

He told me to go to Siloam and wash.

So I went and washed, and then I could see.

Father, thank you for your word. Lord, may it bless our life today.

Lord, may it challenge us. May it equip us. Lord, may it inspire us,

Father, to follow just as this man did every single word that you said.

We thank you, God. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for honoring God's Word. You can be seated. You know,

this is a profound passage.

It's one of the healings of Jesus as he was going about his ministry,

just going about doing the work that he was going to do.

And when we think about who Jesus is, especially here in this passage today,

yeah, we see Jesus healing physically, but also spiritually.

That blindness that was prevalent in this man's life, it reveals,

as we'll go on in the passage here, a profound impairment into those who should

have been excited about what Christ did.

It reveals an impairment in those who refuse to see what Jesus was doing,

refuse to hear what Jesus did, and refuse then to speak the truth about it.

And I think for us today, I think we should be challenged as well.

Are we willing to have our spiritual blindness healed?

Are we willing to hear the Word of God and then to share that with others.

I think when we examine this passage, especially just the three points that I have today,

I hope that we're challenged to really trust God and what He's doing in our

lives, but also in the life of our church and the lives of those people that

we're reaching out to, our family members whom we love,

our neighbors down the road, across the street.

Those that we work with, those that we go out and we have good entertainment

with, I mean, in all this, it should point to Jesus.

So let's examine the profound healing, first of all.

And we think of the word profound, it just means something that's very great or that's intense.

Okay, just to simplify things, not that I like to use big words or anything,

but I think profound fits because what Jesus did in this healing, he was very great.

Well, it was an intense time, especially for the man who was healed.

Can you imagine growing up without the ability to see what that must be like?

It's hard to imagine, right?

Who's got Mizuru, that little monkey? Raise him up wherever he's at. Oh, no, Mizuru ran away.

Oh, no. Well, be on the lookout for a monkey. Oh, there he is. Okay, he returned.

Imagine growing up not being able to see. More than that, reaching a certain

age And then, though your parents should probably keep you They put you out by a fountain And.

They let you beg the rest of your life to earn your living.

I'm pretty sure after a person's been doing that for a while,

they can kind of calculate what the coins are that get dropped into a little tin cup.

Oh, yeah, I got a quarter there. In those times, it wasn't a quarter.

But, you know, you kind of figure that out. But this man had been blind.

When Jesus came, especially in verse 5, Jesus talks about being the light of the world,

not just in the spiritual sense to draw all men to him, But here physically,

Jesus was going to be a light to this man, a light to open his eyes so that

he could see the light, so that he could see everything around.

And indeed, that's what Jesus did.

Jesus healed the man. Now think about the miracle when you look at verses 6 and 7 again.

Jesus uses spittle, spits on the ground, takes the mud and places that on his eyes.

Man, for a lot of us, that's gross. I mean, some of you like to play in mud,

and I'm not just talking about the children either.

You like to go out there and get dirty and get down in it.

You know, those are the best football games I think we ever have.

Neighborhood football in the mud when it's raining.

Boy, when you slide to try and get that touchdown, you slide.

That's another story for another day. But the miracle, Jesus uses that mud,

places it on his eyes, and then tells him something. I want you to go to the

Pool of Siloam, the pool whose name means scent.

The Pool of Siloam was significant because this was used in a lot of the traditional

ceremonies as a pure source of water.

It was used as a place, especially like the festival, the Feast of Tabernacles,

if I'm getting my feast right, in the ceremonies that they would perform,

that the Jews would perform.

And so it had a lot of significance to it.

So the man goes and he washes in the pool. And as he washes the mud off,

he can see a miracle, the miracle that happened.

The boy, the man that was blind from the age of a toddler to a boy all the way

until he was grown up. He was blind. He could never see anything.

But now wiping it away, all of a sudden he could see the miracle that took forth.

Well, we kind of start to tear apart the passage. Was the miracle in Jesus spit?

Was it in the dirt? Was it in the combination?

Was it in the pool of Siloam? Well, I think all that plays a part.

But really, what played the part was the man's obedience, that he listened to

Jesus, and he did exactly what Jesus told him to.

Can you imagine how the story would be different if that man said, What are you doing?

I don't need this stuff on my eyes. Come on. No.

Had enough faith to believe that Jesus was doing something profound,

that Jesus was doing something great.

And so he listened and he went and he followed exactly what Jesus had told him

to do, exactly what Jesus wanted him to do.

It's kind of ironic that the pool, the name of the pool, Siloam, means sent.

The man was sent by Jesus. It wasn't the water in the pool that was the sacred part.

It was the man's obedience of listening to Jesus, listening to him and really.

Being sent out by Christ to do what Christ wanted him to do.

I want you to think about that for just a minute.

There's a miracle that God I know wants to do in your life.

Are you obeying him? Are you listening to him? Are you being sent out and are

you obeying the command to go?

I mean, some of you have family members you've been praying for time and time again.

You want them to be saved. You want their lives to be transformed by Jesus.

But are you obeying Jesus' words to go, to be sent out by him?

We think about the miracle, but even more so is the results of the miracle.

The scripture in verse 7 says, the blind man came home seeing.

It wasn't a temporary fix.

That man's life was transformed. To go home to mom and dad, who would come and

check on you while you were just out there begging, because that's the only

way that you can survive.

Instead, the man comes walking in the door, able to see his mom and dad for

the first time with his own eyes.

Can you imagine what that scene was like?

Boy, to see his own hands and his own feet, to behold his own self.

The miracle in that, but the response to it on his part.

Boy, the conversations that must have ensued as a result of that.

How did this happen? What doctor did you go to? What did you do?

Well, it didn't last long for there to be some more reactions as we read about.

Matter of fact, I think the reactions themselves were profound.

The reactions themselves were very great or intense.

You see, there was some mixed reaction here. Some rejoiced.

Hey, I've seen this guy begging every single day that I'm walking by going to

work, and now he's not there because I've seen him healed. He can see now.

Others said, well, no, he just looks like that guy that used to beg here. That's not the same guy.

When others said, no, that's the man. That's the one.

And then you got the religious folk.

You got the ones that should have been rejoicing to high heaven,

the highest heaven, based on what had happened.

But instead, they reacted with the rejection of the miracle that took place.

So they opened up an investigation. Man, they must have been members of Congress or something here.

Instead of fix the problem, let's talk about it, investigate it a little bit.

Well, there's good investigations and then there's not, but here are the Pharisees.

Well, we need to investigate this.

We need to check this out because surely this could not have happened because

it didn't happen through us.

Well, Lord, help us if we ever get that kind of attitude, if we ever get the

attitude that God can only work through us and our church, God's working everywhere all the time.

We need to get on board and rejoice with what God's doing.

But here the Pharisees, they needed to investigate.

They needed to check things out, and so that's exactly what they did.

In verse 13, the Pharisees brought the man who had been blind into them.

The Scripture says in verse 14, Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud

and opened his eyes was a Sabbath.

Oh, there's the problem.

It was the Sabbath day, the day of rest, the day that God said.

Be working. Don't be doing none of this stuff. And of course,

the Pharisees had all these laws that you had to follow on the Sabbath day.

You could only go so far walking. You could only do so much.

There's some things you could not do at all.

So they were upset that the Sabbath was not honored. How could God heal on the Sabbath day?

That could not have happened. Nothing is supposed to be done?

Well, when we dig further into it, verse 15, the Pharisees asked the man,

how had he received his sight? And here's what the guy said.

He put mud on my eyes and I washed and now I see. Nothing wrong with that testimony.

Pretty straightforward. Say as little as possible, but get the truth out.

Don't embellish it. That's what the guy did. But some Pharisees said in verse

16, this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others asked, get this question, how can a sinner do such miraculous signs?

And so the Pharisees were divided. They couldn't come up with an action plan

with what they were going to do.

Well, they turned the blind man loose after they had asked him.

What do you have to say about him?

It was he who opened. The man replied, he is a prophet.

Now, didn't quite say that Jesus is the Messiah here, but a prophet's a good

step forward in this man's faith.

He must have been a prophet to be able to perform a miracle.

He must have been some kind of prophet to do the will of God here,

to perform this miracle of me being blind from birth and then being able to

see. he must have been some kind of man of God.

Well, the Jews didn't believe him. They turned him loose, sent him back,

and then they sent for the man's parents.

Well, isn't that what happens? You start fishing around for testimonies.

Well, let's bring the parents in. They should be able to testify to that.

And so they did. The parents came in. Is this your son?

Is this the one that you say has been born blind?

How is it now that he can see it? And I love the response in verse 20.

We know he's our son, and we know he was born blind.

But how he can see and who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him.

He's of age. He will speak for himself. And the scripture says his parents said

that because they were a little afraid of the Jews, because they were a little

afraid of what would happen. They heard what their son told them.

Of course, they did not have eyewitness to that.

But it goes on that the parents were asking him. And so a second time,

the man came again. And I I want you to hear this. That's why I'm spending so much time on this point.

In verse 25, Pharisees again asked the blind man who now could see.

Glory to God. We know this man is a sinner, but here's what the man replied in verse 25.

Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know.

One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see.

How many of us can say that? Before Christ, we were blind. We were dead in our trespasses, in our sin.

And it wasn't until Jesus opened our eyes to see the state of our life and the

deficiency that we had with anything that we did to try to meet up to God's standard.

God showed us that, and all we could do was kneel down and say,

God, forgive me. Forgive me of my sin.

Take all of my yucky stuff, all my sin, all my brokenness.

It's all yours, God. And when you rose up again, you could truly see because you were born again.

You confessed your sin to God. He forgave you.

And you could testify like this, man. I was blind, but now I can see.

I could see what God has for me. I could see with hope now what he can do with my life.

I could see how he can take the brokenness and put it back together again in

a much better way, in a better way than I could ever think of.

Boy, the profound reaction of the Pharisees was pitiful, but the testimony of

this man, just being honest, I can see now.

Well, I want to let you know that that did not convince the Pharisees, as the Scripture says.

I think it did not convince them because the Pharisees themselves had a profound impairment.

They were impaired by their own prejudice. They were impaired,

I think, by some of their own theology.

They were impaired by some of their own thoughts.

Ultimately, it really marks the nature of the Pharisees as they refused to acknowledge

their own blindness, as the Pharisees themselves refused to acknowledge their own sin.

So let's explore that for just a minute, how they were profoundly impaired,

because it does give us insight into the Pharisees, who will continue from this

point on, as they already have been,

fighting against Jesus, trying to accuse Jesus, and ultimately, spoiler alert,

lead him to a death on a cross.

They're relentless. They weren't going to give up. Well, they were blind.

When we look in John 9, 39 through 41, again, the Pharisees just kept asking, well, what happened?

They didn't want to accept what was given.

And boy, it's powerful here.

In verse 39 through 41, the scripture says, Jesus said, for judgment have I

come into the world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.

Some of the Pharisees who were with him, with Jesus, heard him and asked, what, are we blind too?

Jesus said, if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin.

But now you claim you can see your guilt remains. Jesus tells them, you guys are blind.

You're willingly not seeing that. We think about the monkey who had his eyes

closed in the Western understanding, I think, of our little monkey friends.

It's the not being able to see or not wanting to see their blindness,

not wanting to see their faults, not wanting to see their shortcomings or their brokenness.

And the not wanting to do that, hey, if I don't see it, there's nothing wrong.

Don't tell me there's anything wrong because I don't want to know that. But I'm a holy man of God.

I'm a Pharisee after all. How dare you question me and my integrity?

Jesus dared. They were so focused in on the law of the Sabbath that they missed

the miracle that God did through Jesus, that Jesus did. They were blind.

Spiritual blindness pervaded them. Not only that, I think they were deaf, spiritually deaf.

They ignored the testimony of the blind man.

They were unmoved by his transformation.

They're trying to find a way to excuse it, to just kind of pass it off as, oh yeah, that happened.

Instead of praising God for the miracle that Jesus performed,

they still had doubts and they still had questions.

Folks, I know it's okay to doubt. I know it's okay to have questions.

That's how we wrestle with our faith. That's how our faith gets stronger when

we consider the hard questions of our faith.

Don't tap out and say, oh, that's it. I can't answer this question.

It's not about answering questions.

It's about getting to the point of what you really believe.

Hey, there's stuff I believe that I won't have evidence for until I get to heaven.

There's things I love about God and I proclaim my praise, my love for God.

I don't really understand it all, but I know there's a day coming where I will understand.

There's things maybe that's happened in your life where you're like,

I don't even understand this.

God, why did I go through this? Why did you put me through this?

Maybe we even boldly ask.

And while we might have some indication from Scripture, I don't think it's until

we're with God, we can ask him, God, let me know. Let me understand.

I mean, if you're in the midst of something right now, it just seems like your

world is crumbled. Your world is shattered. And you're like, why God?

Kind of like in the movies, you know, when they do that kind of thing.

Don't stop believing because you're in the midst of it.

You're not going to be able to see how God is fitting the pieces together.

I'm sure some of our friends in Myanmar and in Thailand have these same questions right now.

I mean, the disciples had this kind of question. When we go back to the beginning

of the scripture here, the disciples were asking in verse 2, Rabbi, who sinned?

Who sinned, Rabbi? This man or his parents that he was born blind.

They sought out a cause for his blindness. They sought out a cause for his misery.

It's got to be somebody's fault, right?

Have you ever seen those cartoons? Used to be in the Sunday morning paper.

I miss those things. They were fun.

I think it was a family circle, if that's the right, or family circus, whatever that was.

Mom's going around asking all the kids, hey, who did this? And each one of the kids said, not me.

Did you do this? Nope, not me.

How about you? Did you do this? Nope, not me.

And then kind of at the last panel of the little cartoon there,

the little comic strip, was kind of an outline of a ghostly type figure,

and he had the name, not me. You know, we all like to point fingers.

We all like to point fingers and find a cause. But here, listen to what Jesus says.

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, blew the disciples away.

Neither of them sinned. But listen to Jesus' words.

But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

We can question, we can complain, why me, God?

But we need to be confident that God is working something out in our life,

that God is doing something within us that will show God's power at work within

each one of us. That's not a strength on our own.

That's not something that we could do. that God is glorified in that.

Think about the profound impairment, the deafness of the Pharisees,

they didn't want to hear the truth because like the disciples,

it didn't fit their way of thinking that sin must cause these great things in life.

Well, they didn't want to face the fact or hear the fact that Jesus is the Messiah

and that in Jesus, he did this great miracle.

Well, last but not least, in their profound impairment, not only were they blind,

not only were they deaf to the truth spiritually, but they were mute,

which means they could not speak.

We think about it. They refused to confess Jesus as the Messiah,

and they clung to their legalistic traditions.

They would not let them go.

They wouldn't let loose of who they thought Jesus was instead of looking at

who he was and then opening their mouth to praise him.

In verse 27, again, the man, when questioned that second time,

and said, I've already told you and you did not listen.

Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?

Do you see the irony there? They had the chance to proclaim the Pharisees did, that Jesus is Messiah.

And here this man, boy, what a quick wit he was. Hey, do you want to become

one of his disciples too? Do you want to praise him too?

They hurled insults at the man, the scripture says. You are this fellow's disciples.

We are disciples of Moses.

They went on to say, we know that God spoke to Moses. As for this fellow,

we don't even know where he comes from.

The man answered, now that is remarkable. You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.

We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will.

Nobody has ever heard of opening eyes of a man born blind. If this man were

not from God, he could do nothing.

And rather than turn and praise God at hearing this blind man who could now

see, instead of praising God, the Pharisees replied, you are steeped in sin

at birth, and now how dare you lecture us? And they threw him out.

Folks, let's not be like the Pharisees. Let's not be blind to what God is doing

in our lives, in the midst of the lives of those around us.

Well, let us not be deaf to what God is doing and to hearing the truth that comes to us.

And well, certainly let's not keep our mouth closed.

Let's not keep our mouth closed to praising God.

I mean, the scripture a little bit later here, Jesus' disciples were praising

him as he rides into Jerusalem.

The Pharisees again getting upset saying, Jesus, tell your disciples to be quiet.

We don't need to have this ruckus going on during this time And Jesus says,

I paraphrase, if I tell them to be quiet, if I tell them to shut their mouths,

then even these rocks will cry out.

Folks, let's willingly not let a bunch of rocks cry out for us,

praising God, praising the Messiah, praising who he is.

As we close this morning, I just want to ask, are you blind,

deaf, or mute to God's work and to God's voice?

Well, check your heart today. Is there something you've just been putting God

off? No, I don't want to hear that, God. No, I don't want to say this, God.

No, I don't want to see that, God, because when I see it, I'm going to want

to act, and it's going to make my life uncomfortable.

Let's not be like that. Let's be like this blind man who went home.

He told his family, who went out and the community saw it. He never stopped testifying.

He even went before the harshest critics and testified about what Jesus Christ had done in his life.

So I just want to encourage you, don't be profoundly impaired this morning.

Open your eyes, open your ears, and open your mouth to God's truth and the conviction

that he brings upon your heart.

To not only take care of sin once and for all, but to freely go out and open

your mouth and be convinced that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is the Messiah, and share that with other people.

Don't want to be in the Pharisees' shoes on Judgment Day because all their impairment will be lifted.

They will truly see, they will truly hear, and they will truly have to respond

as to who Jesus Christ really is.

Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for the opportunity to gather together.

Lord, help us not to be like the kind of Western thinking of the three monkeys.

Please, Lord, to turn a blind eye to sin, to not speak out against it,

and Lord, not to hear the truth when someone is coming to us to hold us accountable.

But Lord, in the Eastern tradition of the Three Monkeys parable,

Lord, more importantly, of our scripture passage today, God,

help us not to be blind to your truth, blind to what you're doing.

Help us to hear the good things that are going on.

Lord, help us not to close up our mouths.

Father, when we need to praise you for what you've done, when we need to cry

out to you in the midst of a storm, save me.

Lord, you hear all this and you see all this. And Father, we love you.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray this morning. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website.

Www.mvcnaz.org. It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that

recognizes the authority of the Bible.