All right, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Luke chapter 18. Luke 18. We have a question here that
our Lord asked a sinner. Luke 18, verse 41. The Lord said, what wilt thou
that I should do unto thee? What wilt thou that I should
do unto thee? Now, are there anybody here with
a need, a true need? What wilt thou that Christ should
do unto thee? We may think that this is only
a message for those who are just coming to Christ, but this is
the simplicity of Christ. What we're going to see in this
passage is what our Lord does for His people every day, multiple
times throughout the day. And this is what He brings us
to do throughout each day as believers. Peter said we're always
coming unto Him. And this is the first picture
of the first time He comes to a sinner. And He never stops.
This is the simplicity of Christ. If we could get this, And note,
this is the simplicity of a believer's life. Every hour, every day,
coming to Christ for all our need. And this is what he does. Now, let's just take this verse
by verse. It says here in verse 35, it
came to pass that as the Lord was come nigh to Jericho, a certain
blind man sat by the wayside begging. This blind man was Bartimaeus. Now he's blind. He's unable to
work. He's unable to provide a living
for himself. He's blind. And he had to sit
by the highway and beg. He depended entirely upon others
to give to him because he couldn't do for himself. He was blind.
Those Christ saves are born into this world spiritually blind. Worse than that, we're totally
unable to save ourselves. We're unable to even help ourselves
in this thing of salvation. Those that are given faith in
Christ even are still helpless in ourselves. Our Lord said,
without me, ye can do nothing. That's me and you, believer.
A sinner needs Christ to be all to him. We need Christ to be
all to us. The sinner knows that the true
sinner made to know himself, no, he can't contribute anything. He can't provide anything that'll
please God. He knows he needs Christ to be
his salvation beginning to end, the author and finisher of our
faith. He needs Christ to redeem him
from the curse of the law. We need Christ to quicken us
to life and continue to quicken us. We need Christ to be our
righteousness and our holiness. We can't provide it. We need
Christ to be our righteousness and our holiness, the perfection
that God will excel. We need Christ to be our spiritual
life and our daily bread, that bread of life by which we live
spiritually, continually, and are sustained and kept by God. We need Him. We need Him to preserve
us. to preserve us, to hedge us about,
to keep us, to guide us, to lead us, to turn us when we need to
be corrected, to continually be our wisdom in our heart, to
teach us and lift our hearts to heaven to see from whence
our help comes. We need Him constantly, beginning
to end. He is salvation. Everything included
in that tremendous word salvation. That's who Christ is. That's
why God sent him to save his people. We need him to take us
through that river of death and to present us faultless to
God our Father. To raise our bodies incorruptible
and conform us to him and present us to the Father without fault
and without blame. We need him for everything. So
the Spirit of God's gonna bring his child to confess he's blind,
he's a sinner, he needs God. And this blindness, this blindness
pictures everything about our need, from the top of our head
to the sole of our foot. Nothing but bruising, wounds,
and putrefying sores. And this blindness typifies that. It's our complete and total need
we have. Look over at John 9, you remember
when our Lord Our Lord healed another blind man, and the Pharisees
came to Him. And they thought they could see.
That's pride. They thought they could see.
They didn't think they needed Christ. They thought they could
see. And that means they thought they
could work out of righteousness, they could make themselves holy,
they could keep themselves, they could present themselves. They
thought they didn't need Him. And listen to what He said in
John 9, verse 39. John 9.39, Jesus said, for judgment
I am coming to this world that they which see not might see. That's his people. And that they
which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which
were with him heard these words and said to him, are we blind
also? That insulted them. to be told they needed him for
everything. Are we blind also? Jesus said
to them, if you were blind, if you came confessing your nothingness
and your blindness, he said, you should have no sin. We're
talking here about far more than just giving us sight and physical
healing. We're talking about God healing
us of our great disease. That's the sin that we are. He
said, if you came to me confessing your absolute, total need of
me to be all your salvation, you'd have no sin. But now you
say we see, therefore your sin remaineth. So when the Spirit
of God gives us life, He makes us see our sin, our total ruin,
and He continues to work this in His child. Making us know
we're blind. Making us know we're sinners.
Making us know we need him. We can't work out a righteousness
for ourselves. Notice here, Christ came to where
this blind man was. He says there, it came to pass
that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man
set by the way begging. Those Christ came to save are
certain blind men. He's elect. God chose his people
freely by grace. apart from anything in us, and
that there's certain blind men, and Christ knows them. He came
to save them. He knows where we are. He knows
us. He knows all about us. He knows
where we are. He has us on his breastplate.
He came to save us, and he came there to where this man was,
and he never stops coming to his child. He's an ever-present
help, and he never ceases to come to us and do what he did
here. And we know faith comes by hearing.
Now look what it says, verse 36. And hearing the multitude
pass by, he asked what it meant. This blind man heard all this
commotion, this multitude coming by, and he said, what is this?
What's going on? And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passes
by. Christ is going to send the gospel
to his child, declaring the truth. He's going to send the gospel
in truth. And He's going to save us beginning to end through the
preaching of the gospel. Not through a lie. He doesn't
have to. He's sovereign. He's going to
save through the preaching of the truth. He said in Romans
10, 13, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have
not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? Every step of that is by Christ,
our sovereign Savior. He's going to send the preacher.
He's going to give the word to preach in truth. He's going to
give the faith to believe. He's going to give the ear to
hear it. And He's going to bring His child to cast it all on Him.
and He's the righteousness He imputes to us to make us righteous. He went to Bartimaeus personally.
He came to this blind man personally. Christ is going to come to each
of His people personally. Each one of them. He's sovereign
to send His preacher in truth. He's sovereign to make it effectual
in our heart. And He's sovereign to irresistibly
make us hear and believe and come to Him. This is our redeemer,
this is who he is. And so he's gonna do this only
through the gospel because he's sovereign. It pleased him to
save through the foolishness of preaching and he's able to
do that. He's able to do it of his own
will. Begat he us with the word of
truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Paul said, in whom you also trusted,
after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation. You're not going to save through
that message that's saying that it's preaching another Jesus.
It's saying Christ wants to save you, and He's trying to, and
that's putting it all in a sinner's hand. That's not declaring a
sinner totally ruined. and it doesn't give him the honor,
and he's not gonna save through that message. He's gonna save
through the message that declares he is the savior. And then when
he does this, the sinner, when he's made you hear, you're gonna
cry for mercy. Look here at verse 38. And he
cried saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. He
heard, they told him, and he cried out for mercy. His name
is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. He cried
out, Jesus, Savior, save me. His name's Son of David. That's
a capital S right there. You see that? He's the Son of
God, God the Son, given. And after the flesh, the son
of David, made like unto his brethren. And this man heard
him and heard of him and he called on him because he believed he
was the one who could save him. He called out for mercy. What
is mercy? Go over to Psalm 51. Look it,
look it. To call for mercy and to ask
for mercy is to confess we are totally ruined sinners. and that
we don't deserve anything from God. That's what being a mercy
beggar is. And when you're crying out for
mercy, you're saying you need Christ to be all and you need
him to do all. And I want you to notice here
in this, David's crying for mercy. Now he's a believer who needs
mercy still. We don't ever stop needing mercy.
We don't ever stop crying for mercy because we don't ever stop
being sinners. And I want you to see here how everything is
Christ working it, how everything is God doing it. Look at this,
look at these. He cries out, verse one, have
mercy on me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according
to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression. Only God can do that. Only he
can have mercy, only he can blot out transgressions. Look, wash
me throughly from mine iniquity. We're calling on, mercy's calling
on for him to do the washing. Cleanse me from my sin, for I
acknowledge my transgression. My sins ever before me against
thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight,
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear
when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth
in the inward parts, in the hidden part. Thou shalt make me to know
wisdom. You see this call for mercy,
it's not only confessing sin's what I've done. He confessed
that. Against thee and thee only have I sinned. But it's also
confessing sin's what I am. He said I was conceived in sin.
I am sin through and through. Thou shalt make me know wisdom. Purge me, only he can. Purge
me with his soap, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall
be whiter than stove. Make me to hear joy and gladness. It's all him. This is what mercy's
at. He does it all. That the bones
which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins. Blot out all my iniquities. You see these words where it's
him doing them all. You hide your face, blot out
my sins. Create in me a clean heart, oh
God. Renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Uphold me with
thy free spirit. All of this is God doing it.
That's what mercy's begging. Lord, only you can do all these
things for me. I don't deserve them. I've sinned
against you, and sin's all I am. I have no claims on anything
from God. Whatever he does for us, brethren,
it's God doing it in mercy. And when he does that for you,
he said, then will I teach transgressor thy ways. Cause this is God's
ways. This is him. Sinners should be
converted to you. Now the faith God gives will
be tried. It's going to be tested. God's
going to see to it. God's going to manifest. He gave
the faith and he sustains it and he gets the glory. And so
he's going to test it. And that true faith that's tested,
though it's tested, true faith will never quit crying for mercy.
Never. Never goes back, never quits,
never gives up, never goes out and departs. It keeps crying
for mercy. Look at this, verse 30, Luke
18, 39. And they which went before rebuked him when he cried out
for mercy. Here's a blind man begging. And
here's this crowd going along with the Savior. Probably a lot
of people in that crowd that don't believe him. They're not
blind. They're not sinners. But they're
with him. And this blind man is begging
and that bothered them. And they rebuked him. That he
should hold his peace. But he cried so much the more. Thou son of David have mercy
on me. They rebuked him. Told him to
hold his peace. You know what they were saying
to him? You're a sinner. You don't have any value to be
with us. You don't have any claim to be
with us. Quit crying out to him. You're
a sinner. You're not fit to be in our company.
Did that make him stop? Did that make him quit crying
for mercy? Did that make him stop looking to Christ only?
It wasn't them he needed. It was Christ he needed. And
he cried so much more. Lord have mercy on me. God's
gonna test the faith he gives from the beginning to the end.
Friend and foe, strangers and loved ones, folks you never even
thought would be your enemy are gonna end up being your enemy.
Christ promised that. They're gonna rebuke you. They're gonna point out every
wicked thing about you. And they're gonna try to stop
you crying for mercy. That's the devil's number one
priority. He's trying to get God's people
to stop crying for mercy. The Lord said through Paul, there
must needs be heresies, that's choices. Why? There must needs be heresies
among you that they which are approved may be made manifest
among you. The Lord's going to manifest
who He's approved, who He's a saved in the heart and given true faith.
And here's how He's going to do it. They're not going to stop
crying for mercy. They will not. Hell may endeavor
to shake your faith. Hell may endeavor to turn you
from Him. Here's the good news, brethren. The Lord, by His power,
by His strength, He's going to uphold the faith He's given you.
And He's going to keep you crying for mercy from Him. You have
nobody else. You have to have Him. And He
keeps you knowing that. And the faith He gives will not
fail. You will not quit. You'll keep
crying to Him. If He's given us true faith,
He's gonna prove it. It's the genuine article. You're
not gonna stop calling on it. And Christ always answers the
cry for mercy. Now look here in verse 40. And
Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto Him. Mark
says Jesus stood still. Now, out of the heart, the mouth
speaks. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Christ gives the new heart. He gives the new spirit. He gives
life before we even know what he's done. And he never stops
keeping that heart cleansed and renewed to call on him. And so he puts this cry of mercy
on our tongue. Turn me, Lord, and I'll be turned.
Put this prayer in my heart and I'll pray to you, I'll call on
you. And he's the one that gets the glory. He said this, I create
the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him that's far
off and to him that's near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him. Christ is gonna stop. When he
put it in the heart, he put it on the tongue, and when that
cry of mercy comes to him, he gonna stand still. and give the
command, bring him to me. The Lord is righteous in all
his ways, holy in all his works. The Lord's nigh unto all them
that call upon him. Was he near Brian Bartimaeus?
He came right to where he was, didn't he? He was near to him.
That's why he called him. He made him call. The Lord's
near unto them that call to him, to all that call upon him in
truth. What is that? Everything we're
looking at here to confess, I have nothing. I am nothing. Lord, I need you to do it all.
I need you to be all. He will fulfill the desire of
them that fear him. He also will hear their cry and
he will save them. The Lord preserveth all them
that love him. Christ draws his child to him.
Jesus stood still and commanded him, be brought unto him. Mark
says, they called this blind man, and they said, here's these
people who were saying, shut up, quit calling on him. Lord
said, bring him to me. And they go to the blind Bartimaeus
now, and they say, be of good comfort, rise, he calleth for
thee. Oh, can you just put yourself,
I know you can. You put yourself there in blind
Bartimaeus' shoes. This man don't, he can't even
see what's going on. He hears this commotion. They
say, this is Jesus of Nazareth and he knows something about
him. This man can give me sight. This man can heal me. He calls
out for mercy and the cry comes back, huh, quit calling on him. Oh, that must cast him down. And then he hears Christ say,
bring him to me. and they come and say, be of
good comfort, he's calling for you. Don't you know, don't you
know, oh, his heart, you know what that's like. You know what
that's like. Every time a believing sinner
calls for mercy, it's cause Christ has first called us, and he makes
you never stop calling, and he always sends this good news,
be of good comfort, rise, he's calling for you, come on. But
I have a free will, I can reject him if I choose now. Not if you're a blind beggar.
You reckon Bartimaeus would have argued in defense of his will?
You reckon blind Bartimaeus would have said, now I'm not coming
to you, now let's get this, let's understand this now. I'm not
coming to you unless I can have a part in giving myself sight.
You reckon this blind man said something like that? He's blind. He can't do a thing for himself.
He's blind. Oh, those that don't know him,
they're going to boast about something they did. Those that
know him and know themselves, they're not going to argue in
pride about something they did. He's just gonna rejoice that
he said, come here, come near, come on. He calls you, be of good company,
rise, he calls for you, come on. You're gonna come to him,
aren't you? How does a true, blind, begging
sinner answer Christ's call? Matthew said there, or Mark said
there, he casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. That's
what his cause is going to do. You're going to cast off your
garment. You're not going to have any trust in anything you
are or anything you've done. Never. Not anything you've done
that might gain you favor, and you're not even going to regard
anything you've done that might keep you from him. Whenever he's
made you to know what you are and who he is, you're casting
off your garment. Nothing in my hand I bring. I've
come in needy. I need everything. And He calls you and He makes
you rise. He makes you come to Him. For
what? To be robed in His righteousness. To be found in Him alone. To
have Him to be your wisdom in spite of your ignorance. To have
Him to be your strength because you have none. To have Him to
be your sight because you're blind. To have Him to be your
hearing because you're deaf. To have Him to be your all. You're
coming to Him saying, Lord, I need you only. And when He was come near, He
asked him saying, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? Now
you think about this now. The Lord knew. The Lord knew.
He don't ask questions for information. The Lord knew what everything
was going on here, He knew. But he's gonna ask us, what will
you have Christ do for you? Now listen, it ain't about what
you'll have him do for this one over here, that one over here.
It's not what you think of that one or that one or the other
one. What do you think of Christ? What will you have Christ do
for you? Do you need him? Do you need
Christ to do it all for you? What will you have Christ do
for you? Are you willing to confess to
Christ that you need Him to save you? Beginning and end. Everything about your salvation.
Are you willing to confess that you need Him to be all? Are you willing to confess you
need Him to give you a right spirit? You need Him to purge you of
all your sin. You need Him to justify you before
God. You need Him to be your propitiation,
your satisfaction, your atonement, your reconciliation with God
so God will receive you. You need Him to keep you in the
way, following Him. Here's what He said. He said,
Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said to him,
Receive thy sight, thy faith has saved thee. Thy faith has
saved thee. That's what the Lord said to
him. Well, I didn't think our faith contributed. Listen carefully.
Faith which saves is faith that is willing for Christ to do all
the saving. The faith that says, well, now
my faith, I believe in Him now. No. No. The faith that says,
well, I came to Him, I arose and came to Him. No. It's the faith that's willing
to confess Christ does all the saving. He alone. That's saving
faith. That's the faith God gives. Verse
43, And immediately he received his sight, and followed him,
glorifying God. And all the people, when they
saw him, gave praise unto God. Immediately Christ gave him sight. You can pine away in your sin
and try to soothe your conscience and try
everything in the world to be accepted of God. And it's all
to no avail. But when Christ has worked this
and he brings you in your heart to really and truly go out of
yourself and confess, Lord, Will you have mercy on me? Will you
do all for me? When he does that, immediately
Christ makes you whole. That's right. Immediately. Same
with us when we're going through our life, brethren. It could
be some trifling little thing that you're going through in
your daily life as a believer, and you're looking to your hand,
you're looking to your wisdom, you're trying to to buck against
God's providence and what He's put you up against. And you don't
have any peace in your heart whatsoever. And when He turns
you, and He has to come to you just like He did here, and do
everything He did here, and when He's done that, He turns you
to Him to cast it all on Him immediately. All is well. It
doesn't mean that the problem's all worked out, but in here,
And then at the throne of God, everything's well. There's communion.
That's so, that's so in all aspects of our life. It doesn't mean
he gonna eradicate all your sin and that you're gonna now walk
and be just this perfect believer. Nope. He can make you for a long
time travail in sin that he could just put away like that. And
the sin's your fault. The sin's nobody's to blame but
you. But he can use that, just like
he used this site, to keep you coming to him, begging him, Lord,
save me, save me, save me. And in some regard, to some extent,
that's what he does for us all the whole day we go through this
life. He doesn't take you out of your
sin. He left some enemies in Canaan on purpose. Why? To keep us coming to Him and
saying, Lord, I need you to be my strength. And you'll be rebuked and you'll
be tested and you'll be tried. And He keeps doing that to show
you, you cannot save yourself. He puts you in predicaments to
where Just like blind Bartimaeus, he brings you to a place where
you say, I cannot give myself sight. I cannot take the next
step. I cannot fix this. I cannot work this out. I can't
do anything. Why? What wilt thou have Christ
to do for you? That's the question he gonna
bring. What will you have him do for you? Not what will you
work out with Him, what will you have Him to do for you? And
when you brought there to confess it to Him and cast it on Him,
peace with God in your heart. Oh brethren, listen, Bartimaeus
rose up and followed Him. That's the result. In Mark's
gospel, he said, go thy way. And the scripture says, so he
followed Christ in the way. Lord heals you. And he says,
now you go your way. My way now is Christ. And we
followed Christ in the way. And that's what he's going to
keep his child doing all our days. And look at this now. Bartimaeus
glorified God and gave him all the praise. And everybody that
saw this work, they gave him all the praise too. It would
have been absurd for Barnabas to have taken credit for anything
that took place here, wouldn't it? So it would have been for
them to take any credit for this. The Lord did it all. That's absurd
for any sinner to say he contributed any, just a second to your salvation. Well, now there was just that
one second back in 2001 when I did such and such that contributed
to my salvation. That would eradicate the whole
thing. Just one second. God gets the glory for all of
it. From eternity to eternity and
every second in between. Christ is passing by this morning.
Nicodemus heard Him. Heard Him passing by. Do you
hear He's passing by? He's passing by this morning.
Do you hear Him passing by? This is Jesus, the Lord Jesus,
the God of glory, the salvation of sinners, righteousness, holiness,
sanctification, redemption, truth, the way, the truth, the life.
He's passing by this morning. You hear Him? What will you have
Christ do for you? If He's made you see you're a
sinner, you'll call on Him. And Christ will hear that call
and say, come here. And you'll come to Him. And He'll
save you. And He'll make you know it immediately. And you'll throw off any other
hope you have. And you'll follow Him. And He
won't stop this work until He brings you face to face with
Him in glory. What will you have Christ do
for you? Amen. Let's stand together and we'll
be dismissed. Lord, we ask you come near to
us this morning. We ask you, Lord, please make
us hear you. Make this word life in our souls. Put this question to us, each
of us here this morning. Make us answer you honestly.
Lord, we have nothing in us, nothing we've ever done. All
we've ever done will leave us blind and undone. Lord, make
us come to you and confess our entire need to you. And Lord,
please don't stop this. Renew us. Keep us cleansed, keep us washed
by Your blood, and keep us calling on You constantly. Thank You,
Lord, for this Word. Thank You for this time. Thank
You for these brethren. Lord, we ask You to do this for
somebody that thinks they know You, or somebody that never has
even pretended to know You, Lord. Work this in us. Work it in all
of us who believe You. Forgive us our sins. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen.