Amen. What a beautiful hymn.
If you turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, as I said earlier,
this is the last of the healing miracles, all of the Lord's activities
are wondrous, all of His activities are miracles. But these healing
miracles as we've seen, as we've gone through Mark's Gospel, are
always pictures of the way the Lord Jesus saves His people. And so before us we have this
beautiful and simple but amazingly instructive message from God. God the Holy Spirit has chosen
to preserve and to write and to give these words to us. And
as we well know, without the Spirit's light shining on these
words, they are just bits of ink on pieces of paper. But the Lord Jesus says my words,
they are spirit and they are life. So let's just read this
simple but beautiful story from Mark chapter 10 verse 46. When they came to Jericho, and
as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples, and a loud and
a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of
Timaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus
the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David,
have mercy on me. Many were sternly telling him
to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more. Son of David,
have mercy on me." And Jesus stopped and said, call him here. So they called the blind man
saying to him, take courage, stand up, he is calling for you. Throwing aside his cloak, he
jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him, Jesus said,
what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to
him, Rabboni, I want to regain my sight. And Jesus said to him,
Go, your faith has made you well. Immediately he regained his sight
and began following him on the road. If God has given us any sight
whatsoever, of His truth, the thing that is so evident to anyone
who wants to look at the way the 7 billion people who live
on this planet now live, and the billions before them have
lived for these past thousands of years, the mockery the mockery
of those who were made in God's image to take Satan as their
ruler and to treat them as his playthings. Satan's promise to
Adam and Eve, God knows that in the day you eat of it, your
eyes will be opened and you will be like God. knowing good and
evil. All of the children of Adam have
known evil for these past 6,000 or however many years it is. Satan according to Ephesians
chapter 2 has blinded the mind. It has taken humanity captive. We all walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, We
have those powerful words about the state of all mankind. The Gospel is veiled. It's veiled to those who are
perishing, whose mind the God of this age has blinded, who
do not believe, lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. And so, as in the story before
us, the reality is, it is only God who gives light. It is only God, verse 6 of chapter
4 of 2nd Corinthians, who commanded light to shine out of darkness,
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so all of
humanity's history is just a sad tale of blinded eyes. Eyes that did originally see
and saw the glory of God and now are blind to the God and
His glory. They're blind to who we really
are and what is our desperate situation. They're blind to who
the Lord Jesus is and to what his sacrifice is. And they're
blind to the Gospel and its power. We live in a blinded world among
people who are blind. But to thank God that we know
that there is a Gospel, a Gospel that is powerful to open blind
eyes. And that's the state of this
man we meet on the way out of Jericho. Jericho just typifies
this world, isn't it? Here we have a blind man in a
cursed city. Joshua chapter 6 said that this
city was to be cursed and it was not to be rebuilt except
at the cost of one of the sons of the man who rebuilt it. And
its gates were to be raised at the cost of another son. And
yet there was a king of Israel who chose to rebuild Jericho
at the cost of his son. It's a cursed city. while all
of this world is under the curse of God and kept in darkness and
blindness. And Satan, in his craftiness,
provides entertainment for that 7 billion people that walk around
with us today. He entertains them with trinkets
and toys and all sorts of other things. He entertains them with
religion. He cries peace, peace to them
all the time. May God open our eyes like this
blind beggar and as we follow Bartimaeus through this part
of his life and follow him to Jerusalem, may he be both an
emblem and a challenge to us to be like this man He was in
a cursed city, but the Lord Jesus specializes in bringing His people
out of a cursed city. There was in that day when Jericho
was destroyed, there was one woman who was Jesus' ancestor. She was Rahab the prostitute. And by Rahab's faith, she saved
both herself and others. It's out of the cursedness and
out of the darkness that the light of the Gospel shines so
brightly. So here we have Bartimaeus, a
blind beggar. In fact, in the Greek it says
that he is Bartimaeus the Blind. He'd become famous in Jericho,
famous for his blindness, famous for the fact that even though
his family name is Honor, now this man sits as a beggar. Nothing, having nothing, able
to do nothing but sit by the way. And so it's a great picture
of of the place that God takes his people. Blindness comes from
the Lord, who is sovereign of all things. Why was Bartimaeus
made blind? Because God's good purposes would
be fulfilled in him. But Bartimaeus did something
which we need to be reminded of. We have in this story, Bartimaeus
in verse 46, sitting by the road. In fact, you can just as faithfully
translate those words as by the way. And at the end of this story
in verse 52, he began following Jesus on the way. He was by the way. He put himself, and he was put by
the grace of God, in a place that was by the way. By the way where the Lord would
pass. By the way where he would hear
the Gospel. Has he heard about this Nazarene? He was there by the way. And it's a challenge for us,
isn't it? To bring people as we can, by
any encouragement that we can, to bring them to a place that's
by the way and encourage them to stay in a place by the way. We have here, now, A gathering
of God's people. A gathering of God's people gathered
by God Himself and with a promise that here, right now, God has
gathered people and God has promised to be with them. And we might
just walk by the way to shine light into blind eyes. Today,
this morning, church is a place that is precious to God because
it is a place where He comes and meets with people. So we
need to encourage people. To know with spiritual eyes the
significance of being in a place where Jesus passes by and comes
to meet with people. We need to encourage people to
be people, despite the difficulties that they might find, and all
of us do in our flesh as we come, to read the scriptures. To read
the scriptures. And we need to encourage people
to be people of prayer. to be in a place where the Lord
might pass by. He just might pass by, and pass
by with blessing. When he heard that it was Jesus
of Nazarene, this is a word that was used as a contemptuous declaration
about who Jesus is. Jesus the Nazarene. Can anything
good come from Nazareth? Nazareth was a despised part
of Israel. A part of Israel polluted by
its closeness to the Gentile world. Jesus the Nazarene. But Bartimaeus, by the grace
of God, saw something bigger about our Lord. And he cried
out to Him, He says, Jesus, Son of David. In fact, in Matthew's
Gospel, he cries out, Matthew 20, verse 20, O Lord, Son of
David. So he acknowledges that Jesus
is the Messiah. How could a blind man know that? He'd heard others gossiping about
Jesus. After three years of ministry,
the Lord had shown himself to be the Messiah. The opening of
blind eyes is the one miracle that no other prophet of God
had ever performed. This was the messianic miracle. That's why we have so many records
of the Lord Jesus opening blind eyes. And so we have from Bartimaeus'
lips a prayer to God. And what about what a prayer
it is? If any of us are faithful to our friends around, we'll
acknowledge the paucity of our prayer life, how pathetic it
is in so many ways. Bartimaeus should humble us. So true prayer has these elements
in it. It has faith. It looks to the
Lord Jesus and acknowledges Him. Acknowledges Him as Lord. Acknowledges
Him as Jesus, God's salvation. Acknowledges Him as the promised
Messiah, the Son of David. And it has humility. Real prayer is humbly seeking
from God what only God can provide. Have mercy on me. True prayer has faith. True prayer
has humility. And true prayer has perseverance. Many in verse 48 were sternly
telling him to be quiet. Why would you, a blind beggar,
want to disturb this group? Why would you, by your yelling
out and your noise, embarrass us and disturb them?" But Dato
Maes kept crying out all the more, Son of David, have mercy
on me. True prayer just keeps pleading
with God, a God who He has known from the promises, that He is
a God of mercy. He loves mercy, our God. There is just so much that we
face that is discouraging, isn't there? So much that discourages
us from reading our Bible, so much that discourages us from
meeting with people, so much that discourages us from gossiping
and bragging about the Lord Jesus. All of the world, all of the
flesh that's in us, and all of Satan's activities, A tale made
to stop us crying out to God. Bartimaeus is a great encouragement,
isn't he? Just keep asking, keep seeking,
keep knocking at the door. Bartimaeus is a picture of God's
children too, that in the sadness and the difficulties that God
brings in our lives. He makes us people who cry out
to God. He puts us always, again and
again, in places where we are made to know that we have no
resources in ourselves, that the problems are too big, the
enemies are too great. We need God to do spiritual things. Spiritual things can only be
achieved by God coming to His people in mercy. And here we have this remarkable
event. There's absolutely nothing that
would deter the Lord Jesus in His determined walk. So determined
was His path to Jerusalem that those around Him, as we saw earlier,
were afraid and fearful of what was going to happen. They knew
about the enemies just up the hill. But nothing was going to
deter the Lord Jesus from marching triumphantly to Jerusalem. Caesar
wasn't going to stop him. Herod wasn't going to stop him.
Satan wasn't going to stop him. The Pharisees weren't going to
stop him. His disciples weren't going to stop him. His family
wasn't going to stop him. But we have in this wonderful
verse 49 a miracle of all miracles. Jesus stopped a blind beggar
in need of mercy. caused the God of this universe,
who makes the sun to shine, to stop. It's a wonderful picture
of what God does to His people, isn't it? But there is this intimacy
of relationship. He stopped and He calls him. The Son of God, will never ignore
the cry or refuse the faith of a sinner seeking mercy. Can I say that again? The Son
of God will never ignore the cry or refuse the faith of a
sinner seeking mercy. And so we have this wonderful
word from the Lord. to blind Bartimaeus, called him
here. And so they called the man. As
much as God is infinitely omnipotent and is able to do all things,
He chooses for His glory and the good of His people to achieve
His purposes through fallen men. So they called the blind man,
that he'd heard about Jesus through men gossiping and talking about
the Lord Jesus. And then he calls on these people
to say to the blind man, come to him, he's calling you. Take
courage, Bartimaeus. Stand up, Bartimaeus. He is calling him. We just have the most amazing
picture. of the compassion of the Lord
Jesus. As he walks on his way through
this world, he will not leave ever one of his sheep without
the mercy needed. He will never leave one of his
sheep with faith that seems so weak at times and seems so pathetic,
without that faith being encouraged, without that faith being fulfilled. It's a blessed blindness that
Bartimaeus had had from God. It's a blessed activity of grace
that Bartimaeus had heard about this Saviour, this Son of David,
this promised Messiah. It's a blessed act of grace that
Jesus stopped. A blessed act of grace that He
called Him. And it's a wonderful act of grace
in verse 50. The response of God's children. Throwing aside his cloak, he
jumped up and came to Jesus. I read in a commentary some considerable
time ago, and I couldn't find it just recently, but in India,
the cloaks of the beggars were the cloth that they had in front
of them, basically often just a dirty, filthy rag. that they lay out in front of
them in a place where they could exhibit the coins that had been
thrown there and encourage others to gather. The only means of
sustenance that blind Barber Myers had was this cloak for
gathering the coins of people who walked by. He threw away
everything he had. He threw away all that he had
and he jumped up and he came to Jesus. True faith, by the grace of God,
leaves everything behind, leaves everything that this world would
provide for us as our security and our refuge. It leaves it
all aside. and brings people to Jesus. And
Jesus asks him a question, the same question that the apostles
had asked in this same chapter. What do you want me to do for
you? For the apostles, it was a plea
for them to have some glory in God's kingdom, to have some place
of preeminence. For the blind man, for the man
who was going to be shown mercy, he just has one thing. The blind man said to him, Rabboni,
I want to regain my sight. He called the Lord Jesus, Rabboni. He said of him, my master is
what it means. It's just a wonderful description,
isn't it? Martin Luther said that there are many, many people
who go to hell because they cannot use personal pronouns when they're
talking about God. They can talk about a God, they
can talk about a Saviour, they can talk about a Redeemer. But
is He my Saviour? Is He my God? Is He my Redeemer? Is He my Husband? My Master? I want to regain my sight. And in Matthew's Gospel we have
the picture of Jesus touching this man. There's just always
an intimacy about the Lord Jesus and his dealing with people like
the leper, like the bleeding woman, like the dead girl. The Lord Jesus comes and in grace
he touches people. But then we have this remarkable
statement. Jesus said to him, Go, your faith
has made you well. Well, faith has made you well.
Your faith, it's really saying, has saved you. That is the word
there. God's people believe, according
to Hebrews 10.39, to the saving of their souls. Faith lays hold of what God has
promised and clings to what God has promised and waits for blind
Bartimaeus. It had been many, many, many
years. Faith waits for God to come and
do what he will do to his people in time. Faith causes people
to leave everything behind and come to Jesus. causes people to do as Bartimaeus
did. He now sees clearly what a sight
that would have been. We have eyes that see things
in this world But God's children have eyes which are spiritual
eyes. To the world, Jesus was just
a man. To much of this world, to much
of this crowd, they were going in a few days' time, or maybe
even less, going to crown Him, in a sense, King of Israel through
the eyes of human reasoning and wisdom. He was a man who could
restore that throne of David. He was a man who could deal with
our real enemies, the Romans. He was a man who could make us
a nation which would be the envy of the rest of the world. But
the eyes of faith see a different Jesus. The world talks about
a Jesus all the time, but the eyes of faith see another Jesus,
a Jesus who is absolutely sovereign, a Jesus who sits on a throne
having finished his work, a Jesus who has promised to come and
deal with each of his people individually and open their blind
eyes, and give them eyes to see him as he really is. This is eternal life, that you
may know him, and to know him you must encounter him, and to
know him you must see him. And so Bhava Mayas, who began by
sitting by the way, is now following Jesus in the Way. Christianity was called the Way
for the first decades of its existence. It was called the
Way, as Peter calls it, the Way of Truth and the Way of Righteousness. And Jesus says, I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father But
by me. Bartimaeus is a picture of saving
faith. Bartimaeus is a picture of saving
grace. Bartimaeus is a picture of what
the Lord had asked the apostles to do in Mark chapter 8. To take up your cross. Whoever desires to come after
me, Mark chapter 8 verse 34, whoever desires to come after
me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. They are commands from God, but in
Bartimaeus we see that they are achieved by the grace of God
in Christ. Bartimaeus followed, and you
can imagine, you can imagine now the gossip that there was
about the Lord Jesus as he joined that crowd, triumphantly going
up the hill, singing the songs of Zion, not only now with eyes
that can see, but eyes that see Jesus for who he really is. He followed him to Jerusalem. He followed him to Calvary where
the Lord Jesus defeated that one who had blinded eyes from
the foundation of the world, from that time in the garden.
Defeated Satan who had led Adam and Eve into sin and rebellion. He took upon himself the sins
of Bartimaeus. The attitude of the Jews was
that Bartimaeus was a blind man because he was a sinner. In John chapter 9 even the apostles
thought that way. People are blind because they
are sinners. Rabbi who sinned? This man or
his parents that he was born blind. And the Pharisees, as they criticized
this man for his testimony about the Lord, in verse 24 of chapter
9, we know that this man is a sinner. And they said to him, a blind
man, you were completely born in sin, and you were teaching
us, and they cast him out. The Lord Jesus says, The end
of that chapter. For judgment I have come into
this world that those who do not see may see. Those who know themselves to
be blind, those who think they see will be really made to see
who Jesus is and who they are. And those who see, those who
claim to see, may be made blind. And then some of the Pharisees
who heard him say these words said to him, Are we blind also? Jesus said to them, If you were
blind, you would have no sin, but now you say we see. Therefore your sin remains. So there are eyes that see this
world through the eyes of human understanding and human wisdom
and human reasoning. And in that world the Lord Jesus
is just a man, just a teacher, just someone who tries to save
people but he can't. The eyes of faith see our Saviour
sitting on a throne. The eyes of faith see Him as
glorious. The eyes of faith are like Bartimaeus,
and they go leaping and bounding and saying, I'll walk with you
to Jerusalem. I'll walk with you to Calvary. And no matter what this world
has, no matter what this world offers, no matter how attractive
the things of this world are, all of that will be to me just
filthy rags that I'll leave behind for the sake of seeing Jesus
in His glory. Let's pray.