Suppose Bartimeus had gone from Jericho and had met the other blind
beggar at the gate of the city of Jerusalem, and asked him how it
was he got his sight; suppose they began to compare notes--one
telling his experience, and the other telling his. Imagine the first
saying:
"I do not believe that you have got your sight, because you did not
get it in the same way that I got mine."
Would the different ways the Lord Jesus had in healing them make
their cases the less true? Yet there are some people who talk just
that way now. Because God does not deal with some exactly as He does
with others, people think that God is not dealing with them at all.
God seldom repeats Himself. No two persons were ever converted
exactly alike, so far as my experience goes. Each one must have an
experience of his own. Let the Lord give sight in His own way.
There are thousands of people who
KEEP AWAY FROM CHRIST
because they are looking for the experience of some dear friend or
relative. They should not judge of their conversion by the
experiences of others. They have heard some one tell how he was
converted twenty years ago, and they expect to be converted in the
same way. Persons should never count upon having an experience
precisely similar to that of some one else of whom they have heard
or read. They must go right to the Lord Himself, and do what He
tells them to do. If He says, "Go to the pool of Siloam and wash,"
then they must go. If He says, "Come just as you are," and promises
to give sight, then they must come, and let Him do His own work in
His own way, just as this blind man did. It was a peculiar way by
which to give a man sight; but it was the Lord's way; and the man's
sight was given him. We might think it was enough to make a man
blind to fill his eyes with clay. True, he was now doubly blind; for
if he had been able to see before, the clay would have deprived him
of his sight. But the Lord wanted to show the people that they were
not only spiritually blind by nature, but that they had also allowed
themselves to be blinded by the clay of this world, which had been
spread over their eyes. But God's ways are not our ways. If He is
going to work, we must let Him act as He pleases.
Shall we dictate to the Almighty? Shall the clay say to the potter,
"Why hast thou made me thus?" Who art thou, O man, that repliest
against God? Let God work in His own way; and when the Holy Ghost
comes, let Him mark out a way for Himself. We must be willing to
submit, and to do what the Lord tells us, without any questioning
whatever.
"He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The
neighbors, therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was
blind, said, 'Is not this he that sat and begged?'"
"Some said, 'This is he'; others said, 'He is like him.'"
Now, if he had been like a good many at the present time, I am
afraid he would have remained silent. He would have said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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