Hank Smith: 00:04 Hello my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith and I’m here with the incredible John Bytheway. Hello John Bytheway.

John Bytheway: 00:12 Hi, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:13 Yeah, it’s always good to be together.

John Bytheway: 00:15 Absolutely.

Hank Smith: 00:16 John, followHIM Favorites, we take a single question from this week’s lesson and this week we’re in John 7, 8, 9, and 10. And the question comes from John chapter 9. What can we learn from the man born blind? This day in his life changed everything for him. Here he was born blind and probably thinking today’s going to be just like any other day, but he meets Jesus and everything changes. What do you learn, John, from the man born blind?

John Bytheway: 00:46 Well, I think one of the best things happens right at the beginning with kind of an untrue conclusion.

Hank Smith: 00:54 Some false doctrine.

John Bytheway: 00:55 Yeah. This is in verse two, right at the beginning. “Who did sin? This man or his parents that he was born blind?” It’s like, okay, somebody did something wrong or this wouldn’t happen. This is clearly a punishment and it’s just a false conclusion to draw. So I love how Jesus answered it too.

Hank Smith: 01:13 “Neither did this man sin nor his parents.”

John Bytheway: 01:16 Neither one of them.

Hank Smith: 01:17 “This is part of the plan of God.” Yeah.

John Bytheway: 01:19 This is a fallen world that we live in and things like this happen all the time, but wonderfully it has a beautiful ending to this story too, because of what Jesus does. But he has to teach him, doesn’t he?

Hank Smith: 01:29 Yeah. I love the man born blind because when his day changes dramatically, he’s all of a sudden at the end of his day taking on the elite of his society.

John Bytheway: 01:41 The rest of the chapter. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:43 Yeah. He was blind this morning and now he’s standing. I bet he didn’t think, “Oh, by tonight I’ll be seeing and I’ll be having a debate with the hierarchy.” But here he is in front of the Pharisees, who his own parents are scared of. You can tell when they bring his parents in, they’re scared of and they’re saying, “What happened?” And he said, “I already told you what happened. Would you want me to tell you again? Would you be His disciples? This man is of God.” He’s just telling them and they say in verse 24, this is my favorite part. This is my highlight. They say, “Give God the praise. We know that this man, Jesus, is a sinner.” And the man answers, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I know not. Here is what I know. I was blind. Now I see.”

  02:28 To me, John, that is the essence of a testimony. There are some things I don’t know, but there are things I do know because I have experienced them for myself. To me, if the qualification for having a testimony was you have to know everything. You have to have an answer to every single question. No one would have a testimony.

John Bytheway: 02:47 Neither one of us would be here.

Hank Smith: 02:48 It’s okay to say, “There’s some things I don’t know. There’s some things I don’t understand, but there are things I do and I’m not going to back down from those.”

John Bytheway: 02:56 I have right next to verse 25, 1 Nephi 11:17 where the angel says to Nephi, “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” And his answer sounds like this. “I know he loves his children, but I do not know the meaning of all things.” And boy, what a good place to start. I know he loves his children. I don’t know everything, but I know enough and that’s kind of like his answer, “I was blind and now I see. That’s what I know.”

Hank Smith: 03:19 That’s what I know. And anybody could say, “I don’t have all the answers about the church, but I do know the Book of Mormon changed my life.” What is someone going to say? “Nuh-huh.”

John Bytheway: 03:30 You’ve experienced the gospel. It’s working. It gives you peace and joy and a reason for living and it works. It’s awesome.

Hank Smith: 03:39 It works. That’s exactly right. So we hope that you’ll learn also from the man born blind this week. Take advantage of this story and come join us on our full podcast. We have Dr. Jenet Erickson with us, and you are going to love the way she goes through these scriptures. And then join us next week for another followHIM Favorites.