We are going to be continuing our time in the book of Matthew today with Matthew 9:27-34 and the remaining two miracles in chapter 9 completing the three sets of three miracles and their responses. Before we do that, I want to go back in time and additional 700 years in order to set the scene a little bit better. The prophet Isaiah spoke at length concerning the messianic day that was promised and describes a few of the things that will transpire when the king comes. They stand as a prediction of what will happen when the earthly restoration begins and we have been seeing preview of that in these miracles in Matthew.
In Isaiah 35 we read starting in verse 4, “Say to those with an anxious heart, ‘take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but He will save you.’ Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.”
In this passage we see some of the things which the Messiah will do in restoring the world; these include healing the blind, unstopping the deaf, and other important things. Now with that in mind, we turn to Matthew chapter 9:27-34 for our passage for today and we will see Jesus fulfilling those prophecies and the reaction to His messianic credentials being proclaimed.
“As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When He entered the house, the blind man came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes Lord.’ Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘It shall be done to you according to your faith.’ And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them: ‘See that no one knows about this!’ But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.”
Over the last two chapters, Matthew has been laying out the messianic credentials of Jesus. The miracles of healing cover every part of the human body from head to toe. We see the demonstration of His authority over nature as well as the supernatural. At the beginning of chapter 9 we saw Christ’s authority to forgive sin and last week we saw His authority over death itself.
The Jews of Jesus’s time would have known the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the Messiah. They would have understood that His ministry on earth would come with healing and restoration because of the many passages like Isaiah 35 that exist throughout the prophets. The Day of the Lord in the Old Testament, the phrase used to indicate the coming of the judgment and salvation of God upon the earth, was full of the destruction of God’s wrath as well as the restoration of the earth and man through healing of physical maladies and forgiveness of sin. What we see in the life and ministry of Jesus, as Matthew is laying it out here, are glimpses of that final time.
The prophets of the Old Testament did not fully understand how it would all be played out. There was not a clear picture in the Old Testament of two comings of the Messiah, but we see in Jesus’ ministry here in Matthew the beginning’s of that fulfillment and we look forward to its final fulfillment when He comes again. Matthew does not just pick these miracle accounts out because he likes the story, they are chosen to demonstrate the full range of prophetic fulfillment and affirm to his Jewish audience as well as us that Jesus is none other than the promised Messiah.
So, after the events of verse 25 where Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, He begins heading back to the house where He is staying. We do not know for sure, but it is believed to be the house of Peter as that seemed to function as something of a headquarters while Jesus was in the area of Capernaum. You must remember, there is a mass of humanity following Jesus through the streets. He had the crowd with Him that had been following all day long and I am sure it had only grown after the raising of the girl as all the paid mourners added to the throng and word spread throughout the area about these miracles. And this is where the story unfolds.
Two blind men were following in this crowd crying out “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” Blindness was a common malady at the time. There are lots of suggestions as to why, the blinding sun, disease, poverty, unsanitary conditions, blowing sands, accidents, war. The possibilities are quite numerous. Whatever the cause, you must remember as well that the mentality of the time was that if you are suffering from some debilitation like blindness it was because of sin, either your own or someone else’s.
These two blind men should be very appealing to believers, worthy of our spiritual imitation and I want to point out a few things about them. First off, they were earnest in their desire for healing. We see that they followed Jesus, “crying and saying.” Two verbs are used here in the present tense. It was an ongoing cry, an ongoing call for mercy. They kept repeating this over and over again as Jesus walked from the house of Jairus to where He was staying. We do not know how long it was, it could have been five minutes it could have been 45 from one end of town to the other. A continual cry, pleading for mercy. The word “crying” is a word for shouting, an emotional outcry. They were begging at the top of their lungs. There was an earnestness and a persistence.
Why was there such a need for this persistence? Especially when we think of the account we looked at last week, both with Jairus and the woman suffering from a hemorrhage, Jesus immediately attended to their needs. Jesus stopped what He was doing and followed Jairus to his house stopping only long enough to heal the woman. Was there something wrong with the faith of these two blind men? Did Jesus see some particular need to draw them in, to make them really feel their inadequacy?
I do not think so. Coming to Jesus and faith, whether it is for physical healing like these two men or for spiritual healing, for forgiveness, does not require some long show of devotion. But true faith will persist, God does not always require it, but the willingness must be there, a willingness born out of desperation and trust. God often uses persistence as a tool to grow the individual going through the difficulty as well as in order to broadcast His power, His mercy, and His wisdom to the watching world as a testimony to Himself.
Persistence in prayer is not required in order to change the mind of God. We do not bug Him to the point of annoyance such that He gives in to our request reluctantly. That is the common misconception of Christ’s teaching on persistence in prayer in Luke 18 in the parable of the unjust judge. Jesus describes a widow who goes before a judge who is described as one who did not fear God or respect man, and bugged him day and night to give her legal protection, though he was unwilling, he finally agreed simply so that she would stop annoying him. People often miss the final verse in that account; the question that Jesus asks in verse 8, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
True faith will be persistent in prayer even when it seems like God is not listening. I have quoted this verse now three weeks in a row, but it is so applicable especially in our current season of difficulty. Speaking of suffering, the apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:10, “And after you have suffered for a little while,” you are going to suffer, it is a part of life, and you must humble yourself before God and undergo that time of trial, not try to worm your way out, not demand that God fix all your problems immediately but persist in humble faith trusting and relying on God; “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.”
That is the kind of faith that God requires, that is the kind of faith that God rewards, that is the kind of faith that God uses mightily in His earthly kingdom, and that is the kind of faith that we see from these two blind men. Persistently crying out for mercy.
Crying out for mercy. They felt a deep need and I am convinced that they felt a spiritual need as deep as they felt the physical one. They believed that Jesus was the Messiah, will look at that in just a minute, but they recognized they were undeserving and so they asked for mercy. Something that you will never hear the Pharisees ask for because they were self-sufficient. They thought they did everything God expected, they were convinced they enter and everything God had to give. They had no need for mercy. Mercy is receiving what you do not deserve and cannot earn; or withholding from you what you do deserve.
Think to the Pharisee in Luke 18, right after the parable of the widow and the unjust judge we just talked about comes the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. I do not think that it is a coincidence, God does not work that way. Jesus teaches on the necessity of persistence in prayer and then immediately following gives a parable of the Pharisee who trusted in his own self-righteousness set opposed to the tax collector who, “Was unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!.” It was he who went home justified rather than the Pharisee. These two blind men came with the right kind of faith, persistent faith, they came seeking mercy, understanding of how unworthy they were, and they knew who it was that they were coming to.
Faith in and of itself does not save us, faith justifies us, it demonstrates the truth of our Holy Spirit changed hearts, but faith does not save us only the one in whom we have faith can save. It is the object of faith that saves. When we come to a bridge we might think “I have faith that that bridge will hold up as I cross it,” and we go over it with perfect confidence and yet it collapses and we fall to the river and drown. It is the object of faith that saves, and so the object of faith must be sufficient to save. It is important that we define what our faith is in, we define the object of our faith.
These men knew exactly who the object of their faith was. “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” That was a very important title to the Jews, a very messianic title. The term “Son of David” was a common Jewish designation for the Messiah. Matthew knew that and that his Jewish readers would pick up on that immediately. That is why in chapter 1:1 he begins his gospel, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” Jesus is the promised one and the title “Son of David” encompasses the concept of dominion, and royalty and kingship that the prophets spoke of.
The entire Old Testament was a narrowing down of the promised Son onto the Messiah. Right after the fall, right after Adam and Eve sinned and the curse is spoken by God against man and earth, in the same breath He gives a promise of a Son who will redeem all. He would be the seed of the woman, then in Genesis 22 the seed of Abraham, then it is narrow down even further with the seed of Judah and still further down to the seed of David in 2nd Samuel 7.
Everyone who heard these two blind men calling Jesus the “Son of David” would recognize exactly what they meant. We will see in Matthew 21 during Christ’s triumphal entry the week before His crucifixion the crowds crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest!” And in chapter 22 Jesus asks the Pharisees, “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” And they answer Him “the Son of David.” So, the Pharisees in the crowd who heard these two blind men calling Him by that title were very aware of its messianic implications.
All of that to say that these two men knew exactly who it was their faith was placed in. And when Jesus finally does respond to them. When they had entered the house in verse 28, Jesus asks these two blind men, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Do you have faith that I am able to do this?” They answer Him, “Yes, Lord.” They recognize Him as Messiah and they recognize Him as their Lord, their master. They recognized that He was not just some prophet, He was not some specially gifted Rabbi, they recognized Him as the one in whom was the expression of divine power and who possessed the authority and ability to heal their blindness.
You see these two blind men knew the prophecies about the Messiah that I read at the beginning of our time together. There were many miracles in the Old Testament, healings and marvelous other events, even the raising of the dead; but one type of miracle that never happens in the Old Testament is the healing of blindness. And yet in numerous prophecies throughout the major and minor prophets there are promises like the one we read in Isaiah 35, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.” It was to be a sign that the Messiah had come, a special class of healings that denoted His presence, and we see them happening over and over again throughout the New Testament.
I am convinced that this was a special kind of healing that was meant to show a spiritual truth in a very physical way. This account was not specifically given as a metaphor for the spiritual blindness of the world but there is a very biblical metaphorical application to be seen in blindness being healed through the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah and at His touch. It is a picture replete throughout the New Testament. The world is in darkness. We are all born in spiritual blindness, by nature born incapable of seeing the spiritual realm of God, there are scales on our eyes.
You talk to people about Christ, about the truth of the gospel and they to say, “I just cannot see that.” And the truth may be as plain as the nose on their face, as bright as the sun piercing into the darkness, but the reason they do not see it is because they cannot see it. It is the sin of our heart the blinds us from the things of God.
And until God opens the eyes He will not be seen. And if you can see the things of God, the excellencies of God, if you can perceive the sweetness and the mercy of Jesus, that is not a natural vision that you have, nothing that you have come to on your own, that is a gift of God. God has touched you just like Jesus touched the eyes of these two blind men. And if you do not see it, and you cannot see it then you need to scream with all of your lungs “God, have mercy on me, let me see the forgiveness of Christ.”
You say, “I have gone to church all my life, I know the Bible backwards and forwards, I have been demonstrating love and kindness to everyone around me.” Well, so did the Pharisees and what was their reaction to all of this? After Jesus and then heals a man who was mute in verse 33 by casting out a demon. And that word there “mute” is the same Greek word that is in other places translated “deaf;” the two are often interchangeable because in that time if you were born deaf you would be unable to speak. But in either case, after this second healing that follows exactly the prophecies of Isaiah and the Old Testament prophets concerning the Messiah, after the crowds marvel in verse 33 saying, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” What is the response of the Pharisees? “He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.”
Now Matthew lets this hang in the air for a bit, it does not address this accusation right away. This is the same accusation that will come out again in chapter 12 and Jesus will rebuke them by describing the unpardonable sin which we will and deal with when we get there. But what is very clear is that these Pharisees are being presented with clear and undeniable proof of the title and authority of Jesus as the Messiah and yet they are so spiritually blind they reply with, “He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.” They went to church regularly, they knew the Bible backwards and forwards, most of them had most if not all of it memorized, they followed the law so strictly they added extra rules just so they would not come close to the line, let alone cross it, and yet they were blind to the truth of God.
It is not enough to just get glasses. People cannot be healed through the corrected vision of education and culture as our world tries so desperately to do. It is not enough to even have the eye-salve of religion. All of these things may make you feel better, but what is needed is a new set of eyes. It is not enough to get religion, it is not enough to have a new sense of purpose or desire for kindness, it is not enough to do good works and be a good citizen it is not enough to make some new resolutions, it is not enough to spend time in church or among Christians, it is not enough to observe all the ordinances. You must be born again, we need new eyes and new ears, new minds given by God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the story of these two blind men ends with usefulness intermingled with disobedience. That is so often true of Christians. There is not an instantaneous perfection, even true Christians struggle with sin. We sometimes even disobey the very blatant commands of Christ, “See that no one knows about this!” But what did they do? “They went out and spread the news about Him throughout all that land.”
Now why did Jesus tell them not to say anything? We see this a lot in the Gospels, in fact in Mark and Luke’s account we see at the end of the healing of Jairus’ daughter; Jesus gave them strict orders that no one should know about this. This is sometimes referred to as the Messianic Secret, and we see it a lot in Mark as Jesus repeatedly tells both demons and people not to reveal Him as the Messiah. Why would He do that? It may have been that Jesus did not want to be swarmed by people seeking miracles. I do not think that was the case because we see Him over and over again being swarmed and in compassion, He takes the time healing everyone. It may have been that He wanted to spend His time preaching the truth rather than healing, but again we see Him dealing with that in different ways.
The real reason, I am convinced, was that there was a gross misunderstanding throughout the Jewish culture of what the Messiah would be. Jesus knew that the crowds were looking for someone who would deliver them from the power of Rome and give them all of their desires. In John 6 after He fed the 5000, the people try to take Jesus and make Him king by force. That is not why He had come, the healing, the restoration were promised as a byproduct of His dealing with the ultimate problem of man, man’s sin. To make sure that His purpose was not misconstrued by these events, Jesus was working to set His own timetable, He was going to reveal Himself as the Messiah in the way that He wanted to and in His own time and on His own terms.
Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind, the physical blind yes, but far more importantly and far more broadly the eyes of the spiritual blind throughout the world. It is such a beautiful picture of how salvation occurs in life. Jesus is the Messiah, when we recognize that when we have persistent faith that is centered on the person and work of Jesus we are healed from the worst thing plaguing us, the eternal consequences of sin. If you have not yet come to see Jesus as He truly is then no matter how good your life may be, no matter what you do for others, what you do for yourself, you are still in the darkness and the blindness of your sin and in a desperate state of need. Jesus has shown Himself as the only one who is capable of dealing with that need and all that is required of you is to put that persistent, mercy requiring faith in His finished work.
Make God give you grace to respond and say to Him, “Son of David, have mercy on me, a sinner.”