Through Our Challenges....

A Video Supplement for
Come, Follow Me Lesson 17:
“I Am the Good Shepherd.”

Transcript

In John 9:1-7, Jesus heals a man who was born blind.

1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus’s disciples clearly have two key assumptions here. The first, that this man’s blindness must be the result of sin, Jesus will refute. The second, that this man could have conceivably sinned prior to his mortal life, Jesus does nothing to discourage. Jesus’s disciples thus appear to have some understanding of a premortal state, an understanding to which Jesus does not object.

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

This line should be required reading for everyone who faces challenges in this life not of their own making. Suffering difficult circumstances in this life does not mean you sinned. Jesus’s answer indeed affirms that some challenges are made available in this life to show us that, as he also later remarked to Paul (2 Corinthians 12:9), “my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Continuing with verse 4

4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

This last part should remind the careful reader of the experience of Enoch recalled in Moses 6:34-36 during his call from the Lord in which the Lord confers another sort of sight. Beginning at verse 34:

34 Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me.

35 And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.

36 And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye; and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people.

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