John Hagee - The Miracle of Divine Light
The message of John 9 is that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. And if you miss that light, you have missed everything worth living in this life and in the world to come. A man saw a fisherman standing in a lake with a mirror. And he said, "Excuse me". He said, "Could you tell me what you're doing"? And the man said, "I'm fishing". He said, "With a mirror"? He said, "Sure. It's my new invention and I'm going to make a fortune with this invention". He said, "Well, could you tell me how it works"? The fisherman said, "Yes, but it'll cost you $200 first".
The man, being a fanatical fisherman, paid him $200. He said, "Now, show me how it works". He said, "Alright. You aim this mirror into the water and you dazzle the fish with the light. And when the fish is dazzled, you reach in and grab the fish, and you have it". And the guy said, "That's ridiculous. You can't fish that way. How many fish have you caught"? He said, "You're the fifth one today".
The miracle of divine light, this is the story of Jesus Christ healing the blind man from birth. Every miracle has its message. And the message of John 9 is that Christ is the light of the world. And the rejection of his light brings moral, spiritual, economic, and political disaster to every person, to every church, to every family, and to every nation that rejects that light.
Some of you are blind and don't know it. Some of you have sight and you're stumbling in deception. Some of you are searching for success and will never find it, because you will not submit to the only light of Revelation that can bring you to it, Jesus Christ, the son of the living God.
Read with me, John 9:1 and following: and as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? And Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said unto him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, sent.) and he went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
Father, let us see the Revelation of divine light in John 9, in Jesus' name. And all of God's children said, praise the Lord.
You may be seated. Consider first that this man had been blind from birth. He had never seen the light of day. He was cut off from the greatest pleasure of this life. He had never looked into the faces of his family. He had never seen the beauty of a rose. He had never seen the majesty of a tree. He had never seen a massive mountain capped with snow. He had never seen a rippling stream nor a raging river. He had never seen the glittering stars against the velvet of a night, because he had been blind from his first day on earth.
Notice that this man could not see Jesus, but Jesus could see him. The Bible says, "As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from birth". This auditorium and millions of you watching by television and listening around the world is filled with blind people. You have physical sight, but you're spiritually blind. Satan has deceived you into believing that you don't need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ: that religion is for the feeble minded. You have the mindset of ted turner, who said, "Christianity is a faith for losers".
Saint Paul paints your portrait in 2 Corinthians 4:3 when he says, "If our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost: in whom the God of this world", who is that? Satan. "Hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of this glorious gospel of Jesus Christ... Should shine unto them". Paul said Satan has blinded your mind. You have been brainwashed by the prince of darkness. He is the master of deception. And he has duped you into believing in your mind that if you ever accept Jesus Christ, you'll never live another happy day, you'll never know another joyous moment. Let me tell you the good news of Jesus Christ. You'll never know peace until you know the Prince of Peace. You'll never know joy until you know Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world. You'll never be happy until you know the Lord! Give him praise and glory!
What is this divine light? David said, "The Lord is my light", say it with me, "The Lord is my light". This divine light, it's not something, it's someone, and that someone is Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, the light of the world! He is your burden bearer! He is the answer! He is the mighty God! He is the alpha and the omega! He is the bright and the morning star, the fairest of 10,000. In the day of battle, he is my fortress and my deliverer and my high tower. In the day of instability, he is the solid rock, the Cornerstone precious and elect in Zion. He is the bread of life in the day of hunger. When I thirst, he is living water. When I drink of this fountain, it's better than Miller time. It's better than bud light. It's better than old crow. This will satisfy you to the nth degree. Give him praise and glory! Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!
In the midst of the storm, he whispers "Peace, be still". In the deepest night of sin when the surgeons of sin have sliced your soul and you're beyond hope, and you feel beyond hope, and you're stained, and you're soiled, and Satan whispers, "There is no redemption for you," he is the fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilt and stain. Instantly, a life that is absolutely worthless, becomes priceless because of the touch of the divine light. He is heaven's hope and hell's dread. In the darkest night, in your personal Gethsemane, in the valley of the shadow of death, he will say, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you even to the ends of the earth". If your mother forsakes you, I will pick you up. If your father abandons you, I will pick you up. I am the Lord of glory! I am the Lamb of God! I am the lion of Judah! I am the light of the world! Glory and honor to the light of the holiness of Jesus Christ!
Notice that the beggar did not pray for sight in this text. That immediately strikes me. He was a beggar by profession. Among all of his petitions to Jesus, he never asked for the thing he needed. He was blind. He was so accustomed to begging: he never got around to asking God what he needed. I think that describes a lot of believers. You never get around to asking God what you really need. You're so accustomed to accepting the status quo of what you have: you've never believed that you could have more. Many of you in this room are spiritually blind. And what you need to ask the Lord for today is to cleanse you: that you may see the glorious light of the world, Jesus Christ. Many of you see yourself as sophisticated, and wealthy, and educated, and influential. God sees you as a blind, naked beggar in rags, in need of divine Revelation. Your portrait is in Revelation 3:17.
John says, "Because you say", notice that, "Because you say, 'I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing'. You don't know," John says, "That you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked". That's how God sees you. You have a great living, but you have a pathetic life. You're driving a Mercedes and living in a fancy home, but your marriage is in shambles, and your children are scattered like straw in a tornado, and your dreams have been crushed, and life has no direction. You're going in a meaningless circle. There is no joy and there is no purpose. Your answer is ask God for what you need! Jesus is passing this way today! He is the healer of broken hearts and broken homes. He is your burden bearer. He is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. He is God's light in your darkness. Call upon him! He is your answer! He's what you need and he's all you need! Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!
Believers have blindness to the suffering of other people. Let's turn the divine light upon those who call themselves Christians. Believers are often insensitive to the suffering of other people. This text says the disciples asked him, "Who did sin, this man, or his parents because he was born blind"? The point is, they were looking for fault. But Jesus was looking for a way to heal the man. And there are the two divisions in the church today: those who are trying to find whose fault it is and those who are trying to be what Jesus was, a healing force. Some people search for fault like it was gold. When you're looking for fault, use a mirror, not a telescope.
I'm saying to you that you are to be in the church what Jesus Christ came for you to be, a healing force in a hurting world. Every Sunday that you walk through these doors, thousands of people come into this sanctuary looking for a healing force to put their shattered lives and shattered dreams back together again. Saints of the Most High God, we are that healing force in a hurting world! The church of Jesus Christ, be that or be nothing!
You handle suffering? When somebody comes to you in great pain, what do you do? Do you have those little quick, memorized phrases? "All things work together for them that love the Lord and are called together according to his purposes". Let me tell you, you quote that in the right place, and you can go to graveyard. That's an insensitive verse to quote in a time of real sorrow. I want you to hear this. Sooner or later, you're going to face a tragedy, for which you have no theological answer. Jesus said, "Neither this man sinned, nor his parents sinned". There is no fault here! All religions try to explain suffering. There's a legend of a man that was caught in a bed of quicksand and was sinking towards certain death.
And Buddha came by and said, "Let that life be a lesson to the rest of the world". And Muhammad said, "It's the will of Allah". And the Hindu said, "Cheer up, friend. You'll return to earth in another form". And Christ came by and said, "Give me your hand. I'm going to lift you from the miry clay and set you on the solid rock for a new beginning". Why do we suffer? We suffer because we don't take action when we know what to do. I want you to hear this. When you continue praying about what you already know God wants you to do, you're living in rebellion against God. When God has already told you what to do and you know what to do, stop praying about it! Go do it! I hold in my hand, the greatest action manual on planet earth.
David attacked Goliath. He did not form a committee and have a study group on how to convert him and rehabilitate him in Judeo-Christian ethics! Jesus Christ attacked the powers and principalities of darkness at Calvary. Saint Paul says in Ephesians 6, "You who are believers, put on the whole armor of God and take the sword of righteousness and attack the powers and principalities of darkness". Run them out of your life! Don't beg Satan to leave you alone: demand he leave you alone! Take action and take charge of your life! We suffer because of our foolish choices.
Young lady, if you marry an unbeliever, you're going to have heartache all the days of your life. You will walk out of the church in spiritual warfare. If you're dating an unbeliever, drop him! If you marry a drunk, you'll take home a drunk! Oh, but he's promised. There's a difference between promise and performance. Make him perform before you marry him! Make him say, "I have surrendered my life to Jesus Christ," and then make him prove it! Said another way: you can't walk down the aisle with a sow's ear and walk out the back door with a silk purse. It just doesn't work that way. "I do" don't make that happen.
Let me say this: anybody can be wonderful for three hours on Saturday night. The real person is home in a cage waiting to get out. Choices have consequences! And what you decide today determines who you are tomorrow. We suffer because of the sovereign plan of God that we do not understand in the day of trouble. Let me tell you something that God sometimes puts you through something you do not understand this side of eternity. Mary didn't understand the suffering of the cross. Joseph didn't understand why he was sold by his brothers and sent into Egypt. Jesus, on the cross, said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"?
Saint Paul, who had a thorn in his side, said, "Please remove it" three times, and God said, "My grace is sufficient for you". Job suffered. Listen to his suffering. He lost ten children in one day. His health was lost in a day. His wealth was lost in a day. Job did not know that God and Satan had had a conversation about him. He did not know that God had said to Satan, "I trust this man so much: I'm going to remove the hedge of protection around him, so that for every generation, for every century that comes after them, they will be able to know that this is what a man can endure through the grace of God".
I want you to understand that job didn't have a church. He didn't have a television set to watch with preachers on it. He didn't have a King James Bible. But after God took his sons, his health, and his wealth, he said, "Though God slay me, yet I'm going to come forth as pure as gold". I can't imagine the hell of losing one child, but think of losing ten children in a day, and then your wealth, and then your health, and then your wife. Everyone that's the dearest on you, turned on you. You can't describe living hell more than that. But job came forth out of that, saying, "I will endure with God's help".
Some of you here and millions of you watching by television are suffering. You're hurting. You're discouraged. You're depressed. You're frustrated. You're tired. You're exhausted. You're weary in well doing. Quit looks good. I'm saying, don't do it. Don't do it! God's on the other end of faith. "Greater is he that's within you than he that's within the world". "Weeping may endure for the night, but God's joy comes in the morning". Give him praise and glory!
When you're in a dark midnight, you don't think you'll ever smile again, but you will. The sun will shine again. You will laugh again. You will sing again. God will restore everything to you that Satan has tried to take away from you, and then he will multiply it beyond that. I'm asking Jesus Christ today to come by you, personally and individually, and invade your darkness, and refresh you, and restore you, and renew your joy, and give you peace that surpasses understanding and joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and blessed assurance, and confidence, and hope that's bullet proof: and victory over the world, the flesh and the devil! Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!
Every believer is a torch bearer. You are a torch bearer. You, and you, and you, and you, and you are a torch bearer. There are three kinds of torches in this audience, and I saw them physically when I was in the catacombs of Rome. I saw three kinds of torches in those ancient tunnels of the early church that represent every believer here. There was, first, the torches that were unlit. There they are full of promise and full of potential, but the fire from other torches had never touched them. They had never given one ray of light to dispel the darkness for the early church. They had never guided the steps of one weary Christian. They had never driven the darkness from any room. Their light had never warmed the heart of a single believer. They had much to give, but gave nothing.
Like some of you, you are a flameless torch, always promising and never producing. You're never letting your light shine in a world of spiritual darkness. When thousands are crying for light in America in our most dangerous hour, you are giving nothing. You think you are saving your life! But you're losing it. Jesus said that. Then I saw torches in the catacombs partially consumed. They were smoke-stained. Some under the heat of burning, had become slightly bent and twisted. They had known the touch of consuming fire but only for a while. They had struggled against adversity but only for a while. They burned sparingly but inadequately. None had given their all to fight the darkness. They met only the bare requirements. They had given their light for minutes when hours were desperately, desperately needed.
Like some of you, doing something but not much. Using your gifts and talents only occasionally, scrimpily, miserly. You have refused to give your all to a loving God who has given you so much! In America's most desperate hour, you sit talented and with possessions that could help preach the gospel to the ends of the earth and to this nation, but you will not do anything. When I saw the torches burned, then I saw torch that had been burned to the socket, the third kind of torch. They burned to the last ash. They were totally consumed. They held nothing back. They had given their all. They had dispelled the hours of darkness to the nth degree. They had transformed the dark catacombs into a glowing, radiant Cathedral of worship like miniature lighthouses they had faithfully flamed the shores where guidance means death. Their radiant beams had transformed the dark, dreary cave into a Cathedral of praise and worship.
They had transformed gloom to glory because they were willing to burn to an ash. By their light, some lost soul had wept its way to repentance and confession in Christ. By their light, the apostles had built a church that Rome could not conquer. Like 20% of you giving your best in America's darkest hour, holding nothing back, consumed with a holy passion, the eternal flame of God blazing in your bones, you are the salt and light of America. The day of reward is coming when Jesus comes. I say to you and I encourage you, fight the good fight of faith. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered! Burn! Burn until the prince of darkness runs to the back alleys of hell and dials 9-1-1, begging for mercy from the victorious church of the son of the living God, the light of the world! Give him praise and glory!
Jesus Christ was the light of the world. When he was born, the star from Bethlehem guided the wise men to the cave. Herod tried to snuff out his light, and could not, by slaughtering the infants. Rome could not conquer him. The cross could not condemn him. The grave could not consume him, because he was the mighty conqueror. When he was dedicated, Simeon said, he will be a light to the gentiles. When he rose from the grave, there was a light explosion causing the Roman soldiers to fall to the ground.
Out of the darkness, walked the light of the world. When he comes back to earth, the Bible says it will be as lightning coming from the east to the west. When I was in graduate school, I was reading a manual one day on meteorology, and it says when lightning flashes from the east to the west, it means the storm is over. Ladies and gentlemen, I have good news. I see the lightnings in the heavens, and it's flashing from east to west. And it's saying, the Son of God, the light of the world is coming back with power and great glory! The storm is about over! Give him praise and glory!
The first time he came, he was a baby in Bethlehem's manger surrounded by donkeys. The next time he comes, he will be King of kings and Lord of lords surrounded by the holy angels and the armies which are in heaven. The first time, he wore a crown of thorns. The next time, he will wear crowns upon crowns upon crowns: for he is King of kings. The first time, he died in darkness at Calvary. The next time, he will sit on the throne of his father David in the new Jerusalem and rule the world! And the Bible says there will be no need of moon, nor stars by night, or sun to guide by day: for he will be the city where the lamb is the light. King Jesus is the light of the world. And if you don't have him, you're not living! Give him praise and glory!