This thing of preaching the gospel
is a heartbreaking call. It is a heartbreaking task. You
want unbelievers to hear the gospel. You have some that you
trust that hear the gospel, that often walk away. It truly makes
you see just how totally helpless you are. how completely, thoroughly
helpless you are. You're as helpless to save yourself
and the members of your own immediate household, just like you are
helpless to save anybody else. Just helpless. God has got to
do the work. One of the most comforting things
to me of all is to look into the Scriptures and see how that
the Lord Jesus Christ saved sinners when He walked this earth. And
that's comforting to me because our Lord Jesus Christ is risen,
and He's seated upon a throne in glory. And He sends forth,
He prays the Father for God the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy
Spirit comes forth. And He calls out His sheep. He
does from heaven's glory what He did exactly like He did it
when He walked this earth in person. He's doing that now.
The Lord adds to the church daily such as should be saved. He does
that. So let's see it tonight in this
case of blind Bartimaeus. We begin in Mark 10, verse 46. The Lord Jesus is on His way
to Jerusalem to lay down His life to accomplish the atonement
of His people. And we read here, they came to
Jericho, and as He went out of Jericho with His disciples and
a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, blind Bartimaeus,
the son of Timaeus. That's what bar means, son of
Timaeus. Bar Timaeus. Son of Timaeus. This blind man sat by the highway
side begging. Now the first thing we see here
is that Christ saves totally helpless sinners. That's who
He saved. We see here in this man blind
Bartimaeus, what he was outwardly, is what he was inwardly, and
that's what every child that Christ saves, calls, that's what
we are inwardly, just like what this man was outwardly. He's
blind. That's what we are by nature.
We come into the world blind. He's poor. He's a beggar. All he could do was sit on the
side of the road and ask mercy for another, somebody else, to
provide for him because he couldn't work to get life for himself. Now that's being you. That's
exactly what we are. We come into this world blind
bar Adams. That's what we are. We're going
to see how Christ heals blind bar Adam. That's what I am. That's what you are. We're so
spiritually blind though that in our natural state we don't
know we're blind. We're so blind that God has to
give us spiritual sight for us to even see we're blind. That's
strange to somebody that doesn't know what I'm talking about,
but that's so. He has to give us spiritual sight to make us
see we're blind. We think we can do something
to save ourselves. We don't think we even need salvation. We don't see we're unable to
work. We're unable to do anything to
please God. We're unable to do anything to
bring ourselves to Christ, to believe on Him. We're unable
to let go, make ourselves let go of our so-called righteousnesses. so-called sanctification, our
so-called holiness, which we think has been done by our keeping
the letter of the law, we can't even let go of anything done
in our flesh until God makes us all together a new creation.
and makes us to see we need someone else to do it all for us. And
when he's done that, he's made us have a new heart. Those that
go on boasting in their will and boasting about their works
and all of those things, they're like the Pharisees. Look over
at John 9. You know, the Pharisees, I'd
like to ask sometimes, the Pharisees, they were men who were wholly
outwardly, appear pious outwardly, they appear moral outwardly.
They, I mean, they were straight as could be outwardly. And if
you would, well, when Christ spoke this to them, they rebuked
Him. Look at John 9, 39. Jesus said,
for judgment I've come into this world, that they which see not
might see, and that they which see might be made blind. And
some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words. And
they said unto him, Are we blind also? You saying we can't see
God? You saying we don't see God?
Look at us. Just look at us. Look at what
we've built. Look at who we are. Look at how
many followers we have. Look at how we hold to our traditions
and our creeds steadfast. Look at all of us. Look at us.
Are you saying we're blind? And Jesus said unto them, if
you were blind, you should have no sin. But now you say we see, therefore
your sin remaineth. You know what their sin was?
Thinking they could see. Their sin was thinking they could
see. Thinking they made themselves see by something they had done.
When the Spirit of God gives us spiritual life, the first
thing God's going to make us see is that we're blind. He's
going to make us see we're poor in sin. He's going to make us
see that our flesh profits nothing. It profits nothing. Absolutely
nothing. Only then will a sinner come
empty to Christ. Empty to Christ. Begging Christ.
Begging Christ. Begging Christ for mercy. Mercy that Christ don't have
to give. Mercy that we know He don't have to give us. That's
what mercy is. That's what grace is. Him giving
us something we don't even deserve it. But now see, so I want you
to see here now that this work of grace that we're looking at
here, this had already begun in Bartimaeus. You see, God,
the Lord Jesus has already done something in Him through the
Spirit of God. Where we pick up here, something's
already been done in Him. This is not teaching us that
we can come to Christ of ourselves. That's not the message here.
That's not what this is. It's showing us a sinner will
believe and come to Christ when God the Spirit's already given
him life, and given him a hearing ear, and given him faith to believe,
to believe Christ to receive Him. That's when He'll come. That's the only way Bartimaeus
was made willing to come to Christ. So what we're seeing here, this
is who God saved. Blind, desperate sinners. That's who He saved. Now second
thing we see here is God draws His elect to Himself through
the truth of Christ. Through the truth of Christ.
Look at verse 47. And when He heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, He began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. Now it says there, when he heard.
When he heard. Now clearly this means that he
heard, somebody told him that Christ was right then walking
his way, walking down that highway right there where he was. But
the Lord said he had faith. The Lord, down at the end of
the passage there, the Lord says in verse 52, Thy faith hath made
thee whole. You see that? Thy faith. This
man had faith. He had faith. This man called. He called upon the Lord. He believed
Christ and he called upon the Lord. He called on His name in
truth. That's what he did. You know
what that tells us? If we use the scriptures, and
read the scriptures, and read what the scriptures tells us,
that tells us that this man already heard of Christ prior to this,
in truth. This tells us that he'd already
been given spiritual life, he'd already been given faith by the
Spirit of God. These things are the gift of
God. Man can't work this up in himself. So, we know that if
we just look at the Scriptures and read the Scriptures. Look
at Romans 10. Romans 10. You listen to this
and listen very carefully. Listen very carefully. Romans
10.10. With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness, as opposed to man doing something to make
himself righteous. Believing is a heart God's made
new, a faith that God's given. And through faith, God imputes
the righteousness of Christ to his people. For with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. That's what we see Bartimaeus
doing. He cried, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me! In front of everybody, he called
on him. with the mouth confessions made
unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Now that's just, write
it down, whoever he gives faith to believe on him won't be ashamed
of Christ, to call on him, and they won't be ashamed when they
call on Christ. They won't be disappointed when
they call on him. For there's no difference between
the Jew and the Greek. God's no respecter of persons.
Christ is no respecter of persons. There's nothing in our persons
to respect. We're just dead worthless sinners. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord, he called on the name of the Lord.
Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But God does something for that
sinner first. That's what makes him call upon
the name of the Lord. Now look at the next thing, verse
14. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not
believed? God's got to regenerate us and
He's got to give us faith. We can't call on Him in faith
unless we call on Him believing Him. We've got to be given faith,
life first and faith to believe Him. How then shall they call
on Him whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him of whom they have not heard? There's no sinner that can call
on Christ in truth if they've never heard the truth of Christ.
I defy you to call on somebody you've never even heard about.
You can't do it. It's impossible and this hearing
is hearing by the teaching of God the Father in the heart.
I mean truly hearing of it God in his wisdom Has chosen chosen
look at how shall they hear without a preacher? God in his wisdom. That's what's great in his wisdom. I to stain the pride of man,
to bring to nothing proud sinners. God, in His wisdom, has chosen
to use the proclamation of the gospel of Christ and Him crucified,
that's what He's chosen, to call out His people. And He uses nobodies
with no power in them whatsoever, so that no flesh has any reason
to glory in His presence but in God alone. That's why He does
it this way. And how shall they preach except
they be sent? We don't use committees to choose
preachers. No man can raise up a preacher.
No man can make a preacher. No man can make a witness of
God, period. God has to make His witnesses.
God makes His witnesses by coming to us in the power and grace
and giving us life and giving us faith to hear this Word of
this Gospel so that He does this bringing us to see that Christ
has done it all, that Christ is the one He'll have exalted
and man is nothing but a worm and helpless And when he does
it this way, and this is how God does it, when he does it
this way, you know what happens? That sinner knows, he knows first
hand, by experience, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.
And this gospel is the power of God unto salvation because
therein is the revelation, the revelation from God to his elect
people. of the righteousness of God.
And that makes a man no longer ashamed of the gospel. And until
a man has experienced this by God's mercy and God's grace,
he won't stand up and preach it because he don't believe it
is. He don't believe the gospel is the means God uses. He don't
believe that Christ is the power and wisdom of God. He don't believe
Christ is the righteousness of God. He proves it because he
won't preach Christ and get out of the way. That's so. But until
God makes a man a nobody, a nobody, he won't use him. But when God's
made him a nobody, but make him receive Christ as all, then God
will use him to be his witness and he will go bear witness.
He can't do it on his own. He can't do it on his own. There's
no power in any of us who are his witnesses. Not me, not you. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
of us. So, and God's done this work this way. That's when He
sends a man. So then verse 17 says, So then
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The
key here is God uses the truth. The key here is God does the
work. The key here is God that must quicken. The flesh profits
nothing. It profits nothing. Faith in
a false God is not faith at all. You can water it down, you can
say half-truths about God and try to hide the truth from sinners
about God. So that you think by crafty words
you can get a man to believe and all you've done is got him
to believe a false God. That's it. Now listen, the truth
of His own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of first fruits of his creatures, of his creating,
of his creation. He said in Ephesians 1.13, in
whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. Well, that don't line up with
the tradition of my denomination. throw the tradition of your denomination
out the window. That's just so. God said this.
God said this right here. God said this. Man didn't say
this. God said this. All right? So you see, prior
to Christ coming, to Bartimaeus. God's worked this in Bartimaeus.
He's already done this. He already sent somebody who
told him about Christ. He's already given him, well
before that he gave, regenerated him and gave him a heart to even
listen to him and then he gave him faith to believe the word
they taught him so that when Christ comes by he knows who
he is. And he believes on Him. And listen
to the name He called upon. The Lord said, Whosoever calls
upon My name, listen to what He said. Verse 47. He began to
cry out and say, Jesus! They said, Jesus of Nazareth
passes by. I think that was sort of a slander
on the Lord Jesus Christ. They're saying he's just a man
from Nazareth. That's what he was told by somebody.
Oh, this is just Jesus of Nazareth passing by. But listen to what
this man cried out. He cried out, Jesus! for He shall
save His people from their sin. He cried out, Thou Son of David. He believed Him to be the promised
Messiah that God sent to the King of kings and Lord of lords,
the King over His spiritual Israel. That's who He called out. He
said, Have mercy on me. There's only one that can give
mercy, that's God. He called on this one who's the
God-man mediator who can show mercy, who alone can show mercy.
He gave great honor to Christ where He called on His name. You see that? That's only when
a sinner, when God's done this work, in truth, by His Spirit,
giving these gifts of life and faith and repentance, only then
will a man call on His name, calling on the name of the Lord
Jesus for mercy, like Bartimaeus did. God saves through the truth. He saves helpless nobodies that
can't do anything to save themselves. And He does it through the truth.
He does it through the truth. Here's the third thing we see.
Those that He draws affectionately to Himself, they can't be turned
away. They cannot be turned away. Verse
48. And many charged Him that He should hold His peace. They told Him, shut up. Quit
yelling at me. You're making a scene. But he
cried to More, a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy
on me. You see, faith's going to be
tried. Faith will be tried. When God gives faith, faith will
be tried. There's many that will try to
turn us away from Christ. Satan is the enemy of Christ. He's the enemy of Christ's people.
There's many friends and folk, loved ones and strangers, many
who'll do everything that they can do to tempt a child of God
away from Christ. And they'll do it in the most
appealing way. They'll do it in the most persuasive
arguments. They'll do it in the name of
God. They'll do it. They'll do it
in the name of tradition. They'll do it in the name of
holy men of old calling on the name of dead prophets. They'll
do it. But this is certain. This is
absolutely certain. The power of God. I'm talking about the power of
God gives a desire in the heart for Christ which no one or no
thing can turn. You can't quench it. Matthew
11, 12, the Lord said, From the days of John the Baptist until
now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take
it by force. You see, it's heartbreaking. I'm telling you, this thing of
preaching is heartbreaking. Here's what's heartbreaking about
it. It's heartbreaking to hear the reasons that men give, that
sinners give for not believing on Christ. It's heartbreaking.
And it's heartbreaking for the reasons men give for departing
from hearing the gospel. I wouldn't be preaching to you
if I didn't believe I preached the gospel. I wouldn't stand
up and say a word to you if I didn't believe what I'm preaching to
you is the truth. So when I see people depart,
when they hear it and depart from it, and the excuses and
the reasons I hear, it's heartbreaking to me. It's heartbreaking. But the Scriptures tell us plainly
what men and women do all along, what they do all along. Look
at Ezekiel 33. Ezekiel 33. Look at verse 30. Ezekiel 33
30. Also thou son of man, He's talking to the preacher. The children of thy people still
are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the
houses, and they speak one to another, every one to his brother,
saying, Come, I pray you, hear what is the word that cometh
forth from the Lord. Let's go hear what he's going
to say today. Now watch this, and they come unto thee as thee
people come unto. Who's the people? They come unto
you like thee people come. They sit before thee, here's
who the people are, as my people. They come and look just like
God's elect, true believers. They come to hear the preaching
of the gospel like they're the true elect of God. Look, and
they hear thy words, but they will not do them. They hear you
say, turn from your works. They hear you say, turn from
your flesh. They hear you say that there's nobody in this world
that God will accept but Christ. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. Christ's blood has purged His
people of their sins. Christ has justified His people
of our sins. It's in Christ that God's just
and the justifier of His people. And they hear it! They hear it!
But they won't do it. They won't do it. Either they
go on in their vile, sinful, lewdness, or worse, worse, they
go on in their self-righteous religion. For with their mouth, look, and
they hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with their
mouth, they show much love. They show much love. Oh, preacher,
that's the best thing I've heard in my life. but their heart goeth
after their covetousness." You see, a man's going to go after
what he covets. Everybody is. Everybody's going
to go after what they covet. If it's the world, you're going
to go after that. If it's self-righteous, free
will, fleshly, works, good for nothing religion, a man will
go after that. If it's Christ and Him only, a man will go after
Him. A man's going to go after what
he govets. That's right. And lo, thou art unto them as
a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice. You don't like to hear a singer
with a bad voice. I always want to pick out a singer
that has a good voice. That's how they pick out preachers.
He's got just a good speaking voice. And he can play well on
an instrument. He always sounds like somebody
that's singing a song and can just play an instrument so well.
For they hear thy words, but they do not do them. But they
do them not. And when this cometh to pass,
lo, it will come in the end when God brings it all out to light.
Then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them. It'll be
too late then. That's right. But a true believer,
let me tell you this, a true believer may stumble. He may
stumble just like we see believers throughout the Scriptures. for
seasons. They go and they stumble. Bad,
bad, bad stumble. And he may stumble, but the power
of God keeps him. The power of God keeps his heart
fixed on Christ and keeps it so that he has to have the Lord
Jesus Christ. He has to have Him. When Christ
has got dominion in the heart, when Christ the King has taken
over dominion in the heart, God's power makes a man lay aside his
vain denominational traditions. It does. Saul of Tarsus was a
Pharisee. He didn't agree with the Sadducees,
but he'd get along with them. But most of all, he would not
hear that one who came preaching the
truth. He wouldn't have anything to
do with him. God brought him together with him. got called
out Roman Gentiles who before that Paul would have had nothing
to do with and he called them his brother by grace and they
called him their brother by grace. It makes, grace makes a man forget
everything he's ever been taught when he looks at it now and he
squints trying to filter it through his tradition and his denomination
and he looks and says, well God says that. These folks don't
say it. You can't make yourself do that.
I can't make myself do that. God can, though. God can. It'll make Him lay aside His
vain doctrines and His creeds of men. Make Him lay them aside. My creed's right here. It's this
book. What does the Scripture say?
That's my creed. Every one of the creeds that
men hold on to, they'll hold on to the creed when you show
them right here in the scripture what God said. They'll hold on
to it anyway. And just about every one of them, the first
thing that this creed says is we believe that the scriptures
are the only rule of faith right here in practice. They don't
believe that. They throw the creed away. You
can't do that. I can't do that. I can't make
a man do that. Grace can't make a man do that. Grace makes him
let go of all his vain experiences and all his vain profession and
all his vain works. Make him let them all go. Somebody, I heard this, somebody
said, the only two things you ask people about when were you
saved, I told somebody the other day, today, they looked at me
like I was crazy. The only two things that matter
to me, is before the foundation of the world and right now. Because
God did it. He determined the end from the
beginning. And right now, do you believe
Him right now? If you got to go back to a time and a place
and an act and something you did, I guarantee you what a man
will do. He'll hold on to that when he
hears the truth. He'll hold on to that and he'll say, No! Because it don't agree with his
experience. And you cannot force a man's
hand open and make him let go of that. God can. Grace can. Grace will. Grace makes a believer
willing to deny his own dearest loved one and their false God
rather than deny the God of his salvation. Grace will do that. I tell you what, if you ever
find yourself drowning in the sea of your sin and God gives
you Christ Jesus to hold on to, you won't trade Christ for a
stone. You just won't do it. Grace makes a believer look over
the shortcomings and the personal differences of his brethren. The man who's trusting in his
flesh and looking for a church for any other reason but because
Christ is preached, he'll pick out every little personal difference
and every little silly little thing and leave for that reason. Grace makes a man look over all
that. It's not worth cutting a baby in two because I love
the baby. Grace will make a man overlook
the meeting place. I've passed up a bunch of nice,
nice, big, beautiful buildings to go to some lowly places to
hear the gospel preach. But they had the gospel. They
had the gospel. That's right. Grace makes a sinner
submit all to Christ, all to the plain testimony of the scripture
and lay aside the excess. Grace will do that. You know
why? Because grace makes Christ all
in the heart. makes Him all in the heart. He
makes Him to be the one thing needful. The one thing needful.
And so the more men try to silence Him, the more Satan and all the
hoaxes of hell try to silence Him, the more this world tries
to silence Him, the more they call Him a bigot and narrow-minded
and closed-minded and everything else, He'll stand up and He'll
say, You got it right, my friend. God's closed my mind. He's closed
it shut. He sure has. and closed it on
Christ alone. That's right. Here's the fourth
thing we see. So you see Bartimaeus. He couldn't
be shut up. He's going to have Christ. Here's the fourth thing.
Christ Jesus answers the call for mercy that He puts in the
heart. He does. Look at verse 49, Mark 10, 49.
It says, And Jesus stood still. Jesus stood still. There were
some who said things to Him, and He went directly away from
them. There were some who said things to Him, and He left them
right where they were. This man cried out for mercy from a true
heart, a heart made pure by God, and Christ stopped. He stopped
right in His tracks. He stood still. There are many
that call, but they call on another Jesus, and they call Him for
vain reasons and for vain things. That's right. Most of the people
that you hear that talk about how they were saved and what
their hope is, the one that they're really calling on is themselves. When they call Jesus, when they
call Him, maybe they call Him the Lord Jesus, they could just
put their name in that place because once you start talking
to them, they tell you they did everything and they're looking
to themselves to do everything. I don't even know why they use
his name, really. The Lord said, you hypocrites,
well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh
unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips,
but their hearts far from me. In vain they do worship me, teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men. But those born of God,
those taught of God, those drawn of God, they cry out for Christ
from a broken and a contrite heart. a heart so low in the
dust and so down in the depths of his own nothingness, that
all he can do is just smite upon his breast and beg God, God,
please, please have mercy on me. That's what Bartimaeus was
doing. And the Lord Jesus stood still. Do you listen to this? It doesn't
matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you are.
It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter what you've
done. It doesn't matter what you have not done. Grace makes
each vessel of mercy nothing but an empty-handed sinner calling
on the only one that they're persuaded is able to save them. That's what grace does. For there's
no difference between a Jew and a Greek. It doesn't matter who
you are. It doesn't matter if you're educated or uneducated.
It don't matter if you've been sitting all your life flying
under the same Christian creed or whether you've been laying
in a gutter drunk drunk, too drunk to stand up all your life.
When God gives this heart and He gives a true understanding
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and that He alone has accomplished
the work of salvation, that God will receive His people in Him
alone. That man that cries out for mercy,
he'll have mercy. He'll have it. For the same Lord
over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. Upon Him, that's
the key. For whosoever, I love it, I love
the word, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved. That's God's word, that's not
man's, that's not my word. That's in the word of God, that's
the word of God. It wouldn't be there if it wasn't
true. Look over at Psalm 145, look at Psalm 145. Look at verse 17. The Lord is righteous in all
His ways, and holy in all His works. The Lord is nigh unto
all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in
truth. Do you see that? In truth. He
will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He will fulfill
the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their
cry and will save them. Not just in the beginning, the
whole way through. Look at the next verse. The Lord
preserveth all them that love Him. He preserveth them. But all the wicked All that call
on Him with the mouth but their hearts far from Him, He'll destroy
them. He'll destroy them. Look at verse
49, Mark 10, 49. And Jesus stood still and commanded
him to be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise, he called it thee. You
see, when the Lord works His work of grace in the heart, you
know what He persuades us? He persuades us. He convinces
us that the Lord will receive us. We wouldn't call on Him if
we weren't convinced of it. He convinces us He will receive
us. And His call gives us every reason to be of good comfort,
to come boldly to His throne of grace. You know why? Because
His call assures us that we're loved by God. Because He only
effectually calls those that He's everlastingly loved. His
call assures us. I'm talking about His effectual
call. It assures us that we're the elect of God, chosen of God,
and precious. Because whom He did predestinate,
Him He also called. His call assures us that Christ
has done everything necessary redeeming us from all our sin
and all our iniquity, because He said, all that the Father
giveth to me, all that the Father giveth to me shall come to me,
and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. That's what
Christ said. And his effectual call makes
that sinner cast off all his own garment. Look at verse 50.
And he, casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. This
garment he had. You think of how dirty it was.
He sat there begging in the roadside. He was a bum. He didn't bathe. He didn't have nothing. And think
how dirty his clothes were. Think how filthy his garments
were. But he threw that garment off.
That garment is a picture of everything our flesh is. Everything
we once tried to cover ourselves with. That's what it pictures.
The call of Christ is a holy calling. And when the holy calling
comes, he makes a sinner put off everything that's unholy. He makes us put off the old man
with his filthy deeds and his conduct and his conversation.
You don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. And He
makes us put off that garment of our filthy rags that we call
righteousnesses. He makes us put off that garment
that we call holiness because we outwardly were looking like
we were keeping the letter of the law. Until the heart's purified. Until
the heart's been made holy. put in Christ and made holy in
Christ. We can't renounce ourselves and
throw that garment off. But when He's made the heart
pure, a man will. He will. When he comes under
grace, he won't try to come under law anymore. When a man comes
under the grace of God and the power of Him, that sin won't
have dominion over him anymore. That sin that kept him from throwing
off that garment and coming to Christ won't have dominion over
him anymore because Christ's got dominion in His heart. Now
everything he does, now he says with Paul, what I really want
to do, I don't do it. He's honest. He don't go around
acting like he does things and trying to convince other people
he does things and preaching law to folks and making folks
think that a preacher that preaches law, I'll tell you what he's
doing, he's trying to convince you he does those things. And
he's a liar. He's a bald-faced liar. The only
man that's ever, ever, ever, ever in the history of this world
kept the law of God is Jesus Christ the righteous. He's the
only one. But he can't throw that garment
off until God purifies the heart. He can't. He can't. Because he
don't even, he don't see it. He don't see the spots on it. He makes us come absolutely naked
to Christ to be robed in His righteousness, to stand justified
in Him, to make us be washed, to come to be washed in His blood,
to come to have peace with God that Christ Himself has accomplished
for us. He makes us come there and trust
Him to be our Savior and our salvation from the beginning
to the end, being the author of it. Because we know He's the
author. He started it in our heart and
we know He'll be the one that finishes it. And then one day
He will. Here's the fifth thing. One day
He'll make everyone that He's called completely whole. Look at verse 51. And Jesus answered
and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my
sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way, thy faith hath made
thee whole. And immediately he received his
sight and followed Jesus in the way. Now you think about this. Think about this. Bartimaeus
had been made whole inwardly by the word of Christ. by being
born of Him, by being given life and faith in Him. That's why
He called on Him. He'd already been healed inwardly.
That man that's been born inwardly is born of the incorruptible
seed and he's everywit whole. He's whole. There's no such thing
as a partial holiness. There's no such thing as a partial
justification. There's no such thing as a partial
righteousness. God don't do things in halvesies.
He does things all the way. All my works are righteousness
and truth. And when He creates that new
man, He's holy. If He wasn't, when you die, you'd never be
able to enter into the presence of God immediately. Now that
Bartimaeus, he's whole inwardly. But then when Christ called Bartimaeus
to Him personally, Christ gave him sight outwardly. He gave
him sight in His flesh, outwardly. Now there's a beautiful picture
here before us, brethren. You see, faith makes us whole
because it lays hold on Christ who's the author and the finisher
of faith. He don't just start it, He finishes
it. When the Spirit gives us this
life and faith to call on Christ, we're made whole inwardly. We're
already made whole inwardly, all by His blood, all by His
righteousness, by His incorruptible seed. That's right. A new nature is born, holy and
righteous, created after the image of Him that created Him.
And then by His grace we follow Christ the rest of our life.
By His grace we do. Christ said, go thy way. So Bartimaeus
followed Jesus in the way. You know why? Because Christ
was his way. Christ is our way, so we follow
Him the rest of our days. And then throughout our life,
Many, many keep trying to hinder us all along the way like those
folks kept trying to hinder Bartimaeus and tell him to shut up, quit
calling on him, quit calling on him. The whole world tries
to get us to do that. But by His preserving grace,
we keep calling on Him because He's made us new inside. He's
made us whole inside. We see Him by faith. And one
day, you know what He's going to do? He's going to call us
to Himself personally. That's right. He stood still
and he called in person. Remember when Stephen was dying?
Remember when they were stoning him? And the scripture says he
looked up and he saw the Lord Jesus Christ standing. He stood
still and he said, come on, come to me. Whether it's when we die
or whether it's when he returns. When He calls us to Himself,
our spirits are going to go to be with Him immediately. That
inward perfection that He's already created. But then He's going
to raise these outward bodies, just like He gave Bartimaeus
that sight outwardly. And He's going to raise our bodies.
And then we're going to be completely whole. Completely whole. You see the picture there? This
whole picture is a picture of how God saved. This is what we'll
say. This is what I'm saying right
now to you. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causes
to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. Then,
you know what will happen then? We'll be satisfied with the goodness
of his house, even of his holy temple. We'll be satisfied then. Are you satisfied? Are you satisfied
that what you've heard tonight's the truth? If not, why not? Did I not show you in the scriptures?
If you saw it in the scriptures and it said it plainly, and yet
you're not persuaded and you're not convinced, there's only one
reason. You're still holding on to something
else. You hadn't let go. and grabbed
ahold of Christ because you're in darkness, still blind, had
been made whole. That's right. I hope he'll use those words
to make you really, make us really, really think about where am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
What is this thing I've been holding on to? And maybe He'll give you sight.
Maybe He'll give you sight to see. You've been holding on to
a lie. You've been holding on to yourself.
You've had your arms wrapped around you, calling Him Jesus. If He does, you know what'll
happen? If He gives you that sight, you know what'll happen?
You'll drop Him. You'll drop that man you've been
holding on to. You'll renounce Him. You'll say, these are hidden
things of darkness. And there won't be anybody or
anything that can stop you from crying out to God for mercy.
And He'll show you the mercy. He'll save you, because He already
has. If you can, He's already done
it. And then you'll start following Him. Stop following all these
other things and follow Him. Follow Him. And one day He'll
make you completely whole. That's right. Amen.