Mark chapter 10 in our Bible. Now, the first time we got together,
we spent a little time studying about a man that was a leper. And there was only one person
in all the world that could help him. The Bible, or God, let's
put it that way, God has left us many evidences about the power
of Immanuel, his son. His son is all powerful. And he demonstrates that so often
when he's on the face of the earth, when he was here during
his personal ministry. He spends a lot of time dealing
with people that nobody else can help. And that's the way
God does his business. He takes care of things that
no one else can do. And that's particular when it
comes to our salvation. No one else can do it. Only God
can. And in this book of Mark, chapter
10, I'm going to begin reading with verse 46 of the book of
Mark, chapter 10. There are four that we call gospels,
gospel books, because they are specifically sharing with us
things about the Lord Jesus Christ during his personal ministry,
My grandmother started me way back saying, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, saddle a horse, and I'll ride on. And I've remembered
that all that time. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
We're in the book of Mark today, and in Mark chapter 10, verse
56, we have an account here of the ministry of the Lord Jesus
in a very special way. He's going to be dealing with
a very special situation here. And he's going where he's going
on purpose. The Lord never went anywhere
without a reason. He never went anywhere without
a purpose. And we find that so clearly as
it's declared here in the Gospels. In the book of Mark, chapter
10, verse 46, the Bible tells us this, and they came to Jericho. Now, most of us will remember
Jericho as a place that the Children of Israel marched around, marched
around, marched around, and the walls came tumbling down. Well,
this place, Jericho, it tells us that there, as he went out
of Jericho with his disciples, a great number of people. There
was a man by the name of Bartimaeus, and he is blind, and we know
him as Blind Bartimaeus. That's how we identify him when
we talk about him. He's Blind Bartimaeus. He cannot
see. and the son of Timaeus, and he
sat by the highway side begging. So however that road was that
came out of Jericho, this man had been spending his time by
the road, the edge of the road, that highway, begging for money,
begging for a living. And it tells us here, and when
he had heard, it was Jesus of Nazareth, Now, we find out that
Jesus of Nazareth is the one that the Bible calls Immanuel. You shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is God with us. So we have God in the
flesh. It's hard to be understood, but
it's the truth that God came in the flesh, and it is he that
is here at this time. He began to cry out. This blind
man began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. Now there's something about that
that lends itself. This man had been told. Someone
had shared with him about the power of this one Jesus. He calls him by name. He has
some knowledge about him. Someone had told something to
him about this man. And he may have told him how
he saw someone else healed by this man, the Lord Jesus. Well,
anyway, blind Bartimaeus is crying out and he's saying, Jesus, thou
son of David. He's identifying Jesus as not
just some name that we find in the Bible, he's identifying the
son of David, the lineage of David. David had said that through
his line, the great mediator, the savior would come. And so
he's been given some information that most people didn't understand
at all. He's Jesus of Nazareth, and he's
the son of David. This is a specific individual
that Blind Bartimaeus is talking about. And he recognizes the
fact that this individual that he's been told about is right
next to him, coming down the road. He's in the right place
at the right time. And Jesus Christ is in the right
place at the right time. It's been planned. There's been
an appointment made. Jesus planned to be there, and
he planned to have this man there, and this man is blind, and Jesus
Christ is the giver of all light. So they pass, he passes by. Now Jesus does something that
to me is so interesting, because it goes on to tell us here that
when Jesus heard, thou son of David, have mercy on me, In verse
48, he said, in verse 47, he says, Jesus, thou son of David,
have mercy on me. And we looked at that last time
and we found out that mercy is not something that we can demand.
When we're in trouble and we ask for mercy, we cannot demand
mercy. Mercy is not demandable. We beg
for mercy. We ask for mercy. We want mercy. We find ourselves in a terrible
situation. I don't know how many times on
some of the judge shows that are on TV, people have come in
and they say, I plead the mercy of the court. I want mercy. I
don't want what I deserve. I plead for mercy. Well, it's
up to the judge to do that. It's up to the other individual,
the offended party to do that. So this man who is blind. And can't see. He's been told
something about the Lord Jesus. He's been told about Jesus of
Nazareth. He's been told about Jesus of
Nazareth, who's in the lineage of David. He's been told about
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, who came to save his people
from their sins. And he cries out and says, have
mercy on me. I can't appropriate it myself,
but you can give it if you please, if you want to." Well, he goes
on there and said, and many charged him that he should hold his peace.
A lot of people in the crowd said, just be quiet. Don't interrupt. This is an important person going
through here and just leave him alone. Well, when they told him
to do that, he just cried out the more. If that's true, I want
the mercy of that person. This is Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of David. Many charged him, just be quiet,
hold your peace. But he cried the more, a great
deal. Thou son of David, have mercy
on me. I think the decibels went up.
I think he was reaching his voice up to get the attention of this
one that's going by, that he was crying out. It wasn't just
a whisper. He was crying out for mercy. From this one, he had heard that
could give mercy. It's wonderful to deal with someone
that we ask mercy of who can give mercy. The Lord Jesus can
give mercy. He is all merciful, but he does
not give it at our demand. It is at his purpose and his
will. Now, Jesus did something here that is just, to me, it's
just outstanding. Jesus stood still. You know what? He stopped. The Lord of glory stopped on
his journey. The Lord of glory stopped in
his travels. The Lord of glory stopped in
what he was doing. He had a whole host of people
around him, gathered around him, and he heard about one man along
the road, begging, blind, crying out for mercy, and it tells us
that the sun stood still. Now, Jesus is the son of God.
You know, there's another place in the Old Testament about the
sun standing still. God caused the sun in the sky
to stand still so that his people could win a great victory. Well,
that we'd think is just, that is powerful. What a power it
took to do that. Well, it was gracious. for the
Son of God to stand still and hear the cry of someone else
to hear the cry of someone in need. Now this person had someone
had been faithful to tell him we don't even have the name of
it. Someone had brought the message. There's someone that can do something
for you. This last Wednesday, and I think
last time I was with you, I talked about a little girl that was
taken captive by the Syrians. She was a Jewish girl and she
was taken captive. And one of the reasons that she's
taken captive is she knew about someone who could help her master.
The Lord put her in a home of a man by the name of Naaman,
and he had leprosy. And this little girl, young lady
said, you know, I know somebody can help here. And so he went
to that person. Well, eventually he was healed
of his leprosy. Well, the Lord stood still. Jesus
stood still and commanded him to be called. Now that word has
the same weight as by the voice of his power, by the word of
his power, he created the heavens and the earth. He commanded. This is one thing about the Lord
Jesus. He can command things to take
place and he does. He commanded, what does he say
there? He commanded him to be called.
Go get that man over there that's been crying out. He commanded
him to be brought. Now, whether the disciples, it
goes on to say, and they called the blind man saying unto him,
be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. no greater voice
and no greater call than the call of the son of God to an
individual. This is a miracle of his grace
that he would call to a blind man. You know, sometimes I've
been in places and there've been people that, I was in Mexico
and you know, sometimes I just tried to avoid them, people that
were begging. And yet the Lord Jesus is always
in the right place at the right time. A man that was blind, begging
at the side of the road, he just, by God's providence, comes by
him, hears his cry, commands him to be brought to him. He
says here, being of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. Now they're
just trying to get him to be quiet just a moment ago, and
now he says, come on. Come on, the Lord's calling you.
And then it says here in the scriptures, and he casting away
his garment, rose and came to Jesus. Now it doesn't tell us
what kind of garment it was, but you know, when the Lord saves
his people from their sins, we have to get rid of our robe of
righteousness. The one that we're making, the
one that we're carrying. The Lord's righteousness is the only
righteousness that God accepts. That robe of righteousness. So
we have to get rid of ours. So he threw his garment away
and he came up there and Jesus answered and said unto him, what
will you that I should do to you? What do you want? Well,
what do we expect this man saying? I'm blind, I want to be healed.
He didn't ask for money. He didn't ask for fame. He didn't
ask for fortune. He didn't ask for more money
to be given to him while he's blind. He said, the blind man
said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. That's what
I want. 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, I like reading
accounts in the Bible about the Lord Jesus, who is able to do
things that nobody else can. He's able to heal the blind.
He's able to heal a woman of issue of blood. He's able to
heal a blind man. And he did that throughout his
ministry. But his main part of his ministry was not to perform
miracles, but the main part of his ministry was to go to the
cross and die for sinners. That's why he came. He came that
he might call the sinner to himself, the blind to himself. Now, we
have a problem. We can't heal on our own. We
can't fix on our own. We can't deal with on our own.
But the Lord Jesus is able to do that in such a mighty way
to save his people from their sins. Now, what do you think
happened after that? I think the man went on his way
rejoicing. He got to see what he had never
seen before. He got to see the Lord. He got
to see Jesus of Nazareth. He got to see Jesus of Nazareth.
the descendant of David, the son of David. He got to see all
of that which he had in his mind. He got to see the Lord Jesus
Christ in his glory. God stopped his way to take care
of one individual. Now, it doesn't tell us if there
were any other people in the crowd that might need some healing,
but we do know that he took the time out to heal this one man,
just like he took the time out to heal that one leper. and that
one woman with an issue of blood, and now we have this one man,
Blind Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, he's just a man, he has nothing
in him that he could take care of his eyesight about, and he
came to the right place because someone told him where to go.
He would have not known if someone had not told him where you must
go to have this kind of blessing, and no one would know where to
go if someone didn't tell me there's only one place for hope
and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ there's only one place
of safety that is in the Lord Jesus Christ now the son stood
still Jesus stood still he commanded he called he brought and then
he said what do you want of me you know that man was so confident
that this one was able to do what he asked for and that was
to have sight He understood this one could give him sight. We've
looked at three different individuals over the last three times I've
been here. One was a leper, one was a widow or a woman with an
issue of blood, and today it's a blind man. Now, why did the
leper come to Jesus? Because he was a leper. He needed
help. Why did the woman with an issue
of blood seek out the Lord? Because she was a woman with
an issue of blood and she couldn't get help anywhere else. And why
did the blind man come to Christ? Because he was a blind man. You know, there's some wonderful
things said about the Lord Jesus when it comes to that. The people that are whole don't
need a physician. But he goes on to say, they that
are sick. They're the ones that need a physician. So we find
that out here. When it comes to spiritual things,
we find that we are all, by nature, sinful like lepers, can't take
care of ourselves, and we have an issue of blood. It's right
in our veins. We inherited it from Adam, our father. We have
a problem. And then we're blind. We're blind
to spiritual things. And the Lord gives us sight.
We get to see him who he is. He is Jesus of Nazareth. He is
Emmanuel. He's the Lord God Almighty. He's
the power of God come in the flesh. And we see him as he went
to the cross. We find out he laid down his
life, a ransom, a payment price for sinners. And that's a wonderful
news if we're a sinner. If not, we're like the rest of
the people who just walked by him and didn't recognize him.
But for sinners, he is the savior of his people. So as we close
for today, we find out immediately he received his sight. That's how quick the Lord does
his business immediately. the leper was healed, immediately
the woman with an issue of blood was healed, and immediately a
man that was blind was taken care of. And I can't help but
think all three of those folks went on their way rejoicing,
thanking God for what he had done for them. Nobody else could
help them. This man did. They knew it because
someone told them. that there's a man that can do
something for him, and that's really sharing the good news,
the gospel. That's what we say. There's someone who can take
care of the problem, the problem that we inherited, and his name
is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ.