and I've had the privilege to
listen to Brother Gary for years, but I had the privilege of finally
meeting him. And it's been wonderful. And Brother Jean-Claude and Sister
Wendy have been very dear to Vicki and I for a long time. He's just a dear friend and a
dear brother. He means a lot to me. One thing we have to say is,
sirs, we would see Jesus. We would see Jesus. Brothers,
you didn't call it, come on. Good evening, everybody. I can see that in Almonte you
have the same habit as in France, sit towards the rear of the place. I should have warned you that
it's been a few months since I've left Africa and a few weeks
since I left Europe, so most of the viruses have left and
I'm pretty harmless. But it's good to be here. Also
very thankful that you called our good brother to become the
pastor here, because before, to see him, you had to go an
awful long way away. Now it's a whole lot nearer.
It's good to be here. Well, I'm not very good with
greetings, so let's go into the Word. And I invite you to turn
with me to the gospel according to Mark. Chapter 10. A couple of years back, I was due
to speak at a camp in Africa, a Bible camp, and I knew I was
to give several messages, and the Lord led to my heart to go
through a series of people Jesus met. Typical, you've probably
heard that before. But as I was working on them
and preparing them, came to my mind that this was
not really a good title because you can go to the store and meet
somebody perchance. You've not planned to meet that
person, but you see that person very glad and so on. Well, Jesus
meeting people is quite different. He has a sense of purpose and
therefore there is more of an appointment. It's more of an
appointment than sheer meeting. So I had to change the title
of my series, of this series, and as I was thinking coming
over to the U.S. and traveling and so on. Well,
if these meetings, these sermons, these messages have been blessed,
as people said they were blessed in Africa, well, they can do
also here, I hope. And so there we are. the people
Jesus met. And if we go to the end of chapter
10 of Mark, we see one man Jesus meets, that's blind Bartimaeus. So we'll start reading at verse
46. Then they came to Jericho, that
is, Jesus, the crowd, and the disciples. And he, Jesus, went
out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude. And as
they went out of Jericho, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of
David, have mercy on me. And many warned him to be quiet,
but he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.
So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called
the blind man saying to him, be of good cheer, rise, he's
calling you. And throwing aside his garment,
he rose and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said to
him, what do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to
him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. Then Jesus said to
him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately
he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road, or as it should
be translated, in the way. You will remember that the church
in the first few years of its existence was called the way.
And Mark is quite aware of that, and he uses that expression so
that Bartimaeus is not just following Jesus in the road to Jerusalem,
but in the way. And this is a beautiful way to
show that this man was transformed. Well, Bartimaeus. When the biblical
writers write under the inspiration of the Spirit, compose their
writing. They put their material in certain
orders. It's not always chronological,
but they have a certain pattern which tries to prove certain
points. Matthew, for instance, writes
more specifically to the Jews in order to show the kingship
of Christ. For instance, a lot of other
things, but at least that. So they do that. And for instance,
if you go to Mark 4, you see Jesus with the disciples across
the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is tired, and there's a
storm come, and Jesus stands, is woken up, and stands in the
boat, rebukes the elements, and there was a great calm. And in
front of that, the disciples said, who is this man? When you
go into chapter 5, they get the answer from the mouth of the
devil, of the demon, saying, Jesus, son of the most high.
So Mark has composed that there probably was quite a few things
happened between calming the sea and landing the other side,
but he's not interested in that. He wants to show Jesus and who
he is really. So they compose these sort of
things. And it comes again and again in the gospel accounts.
And here, again, Mark is not writing just any old how. For instance, he says Jesus is
going to Jerusalem. That's what it is in our versions. Well, he's going to the feast.
But Mark is not just saying that. And this is why he goes through
all the details and incidents on the way, because Jesus is
actually going to the cross. Because at the feast, the feast
was about the sacrifice, about this one who would take away
sin. So Mark here also composes his
writing. Now, Jesus comes, is now going
to the cross. Well, he's been going to the
cross from eternity. But now, he sets his face towards
Jerusalem. And in a sense, we could say
nothing can stand in the way. Well, nothing has ever stood
in the way, but you know, now it's a beeline and it must have
weighed on his mind because this implacable resolution is going
and he knows what what to expect and this must have gotten hold
of his soul because even his composure was marked. For instance, if you go into
Luke and if you go to just a bit before in Mark 10, 32, you see
that as he set his steps towards Jerusalem, the disciples were
afraid. There must have been this sort
of air of resolution come to him. Now he's the one who is
going to go and tread the one press on his own. And these men
can't be near him in a way. So we have this, the anguish
of the cross is kind of beginning to crush him in a more particular
way. And this is why, for instance,
he unburdens himself in a way in telling his disciples what
is going to happen. in order to prepare them for
their future ministry. But Luke is very careful to point
out that they didn't understand anything. He was on his own. He was on his own totally. The
Son of God is going to humble himself. And this is a gospel. This is a gospel. And what is
the reply, the response of man faced to this resolution this
determination to set all his rights aside and humble himself. What is it? Look at verse 35
of our chapter. Then James and John, son of Zebedee,
came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever
we ask. And they want to have a position
of honor. Can you imagine that? There with
the Son of God, the Son of God is going to go on his own to
the deepest humiliation this world has ever seen, and what
they want? To share his glory. And frankly,
if you know your heart as I know my heart, that is a little, we
are of the same material, aren't we? We see it in others, but
it is in us. We don't understand, we don't
understand. And Christ is, the gospel here
is explaining really what all this is about. And verse 45 is
a verse which is really important there. For even so the Son of
Man did not come to be served. And how many of servants want
to be served? But to serve. to give his life for the ransom
for many. This is why Mark is writing,
and this is what he wants us to understand. Christ has come
to seek and save that which was lost, and he will do the work. And our passage, the healing
of blind Bartimaeus, is an illustration of this. Here's a man who is
lost. And Christ has come to save him,
even though he is on the way to the cross. There are quite
a few things to underline, but I think we're all more or less
familiar with the scene. Christ has left Galilee. He's
had this great Galilean ministry, as some theologians call it,
for several years. Now he's left Galilee to go to
the feast. He spends some time in the region
of Piraeus, which is the other side of the Jordan, but now he
recrosses the river and he comes to the town of Jericho. He begins to take the road which
will take him up in the mountains where Jerusalem is. And this
is where he's going to accomplish the salvation of his people. But already now, he's saving
people. Because by the time he comes
out of Jericho, we have two notable people, notable person who are
saved. And this is what we want to look
at. He's not the only one to travel. Like every year, there is a crowd
doing this trip. And many are pressing along this
young rabbi who does miracles, who teaches like no other. people know of their leaders
do. And this man who is so controvertive,
he's in direct conflict with the authorities. And that brings
always a crowd. That always brings a crowd. But
all along, we need to keep in mind that the vice of God's hatred
and God's wrath against sin, the sin of his people, is kind
of screwing and getting closer and closer and crushing his soul. that which will be expressed
powerfully at Gethsemane. And supremely, Golgotha is already
starting. And as he walks, as he heals,
as he teaches, there is this crushing power around him. And
we need to keep that in mind to see what cost, what cost was
salvation to the Lord, to the Lord. This shows that this appointment
the Lord has has got beautiful, multiple colors about it. The greatness of the work, the
compassion of the one who does the work. He's not just come
to do a theological salvation. He's come to save souls that
were lost. And if your soul is lost today,
There is hope. There is hope. Well, there is
hope for all of us. Because one way or another, we
don't live as we should do. We are not what we should be.
We are not what we used to be, by God's grace. We're not what
we're gonna be if we belong to Christ. But this should be tremendous
encouragement. Well, let's see now the son of
Timaeus. The man Jesus meets here. Who is this man? Well, as many
times in the Word of God, we don't know many things about
him, but what we know is very, very instructive. Very instructive.
First thing we know about him is that he lives in Jericho. Jericho. This is where Jesus
meets him. And Bartimaeus seems to have
lived there, and he seems to have been somebody well-known. Probably not. one of the leaders,
but well-known because he's described as Bartimaeus, the blind Bartimaeus,
the son of Timaeus, and people would know who this man is. And back home when I was kid
and teenager, in our town there was a man every morning would
come to the main shopping street and would unfold his little folding
chair and put his accordion on his shoulders and start to play
the whole day because he was blind and he wanted some money. And everybody knew that man and
nobody knew him. It was only probably 40 years
later that people realized where he lived. But we knew Lulu. That was Lulu. And it was only
40 years old that we knew exactly his name. By that time he was
gone. So Bartimus is like this. People know him, people don't
know him. But he's well known. So this is it. And he's in Jericho. And Jericho is a place which
comes often in the Bible. First, it was a very pleasant
place. It was a city of palms in the plain. There was not the
harshness of the hills of Judea. It was a city quite prosperous
too. There were some tar pits. I guess
we would call that the equivalent of oil fields in that area. Also, it was a prosperous city
because it was set at the crossroads of very important commercial
roads. If you wanted to go from Babylon
to Egypt, which were two poles, you had to go through Jericho.
And from north to south and back, it was the same. So there was
a lot of money going on in Jericho. Pleasant place and quite prosperous. And this is why, where this blind
man lives and is found by Jesus. But Jericho also is famous in
the Word of God as a cursed city. That was the first city the Israelites
came to after crossing the Jordan. And you know the story. And Jericho had been totally
destroyed, razed to the ground, and cursed. And for many years,
many centuries, it lay in ruins. And it was rebuilt in great defiance
to the word of God and at great cost. And you can find that in
1 Kings 16. So Jericho, pleasant, prosperous,
cursed. And in our passage, you can see
that because it says, as he left Jericho, but actually Jesus was
coming into Jericho. Well, there was the old city,
which had been abandoned, and they built a new city. So you
see, prosperous, pleasant, cursed. Well, we have some lessons from
that. underline two lessons. The first is that the best environment
this world can offer can do nothing for the condition of man. Nothing. This man is in the best place
in Palestine, we could say, and yet he's blind and he's a beggar.
That place couldn't do anything for his state, and many people
today look for prosperity and if they're afraid of the word,
they will say they look for an easy life or all sorts of things
like this, but that cannot do anything about the cancer which
is eating their soul because of sin. So it is exactly the
same thing. The second lesson is that In
the realm of this new covenant ratified in the blood of Christ,
there is no place on earth that is so cursed that the grace of
God cannot touch. Jericho, cursed. They even poured
salt on it so that nothing could grow. And Christ comes to Jericho
and saves, heals and saves people. So nobody should presume but
nobody needs despair. And this is a beautiful, beautiful
lesson from the gospel. So Bartimaeus was in Jericho
and he was called Bartimaeus. That's something we know about
him. Now, many people in the Bible don't have names. And this
man is named according to his father. He doesn't have really
his own name. And this shows us that he's got
the same nature as his father, as his father's father, as Adam. Here is a man, he's born, he
lives, he suffers, he dies far from God. Like his father? Like his grandfather? Right to
Adam, a man who is in sin. But this name also shows us that
he was a Jew. He was a Jew, and this detail
has some importance, as we will see. For us, it would be basically
just simply a sort of ethnical reference. Okay, he's a Jew,
belongs to that nation or that ethnical group, but really here,
Mark mentions it because it shows us that being a Jew, ever since
he was a child, he's been exposed to the scriptures. both probably
in the synagogue and at home. And also with the promises of
the covenant which are all in Jesus Christ, that Messiah who
is their weight. And it is quite possible that
this knowledge didn't have a direct impact on his life. Just something
he knows, that's all. But the baggage is here. And
sometimes we look at our children, our youngsters, and we think,
They come to church backwards kind of thing, and nothing comes
in and so on. We don't know. We don't know.
It only needs the Lord maybe 50 years time to just blow on
that and the fire is up again. You see, I remember our son coming
to the services and It was not really willingly. And he was,
when you're in the pulpit, you see quite a few things. And he
was trying his hardest, the whole service, to show that he was
not listening to one little bit. He was not part of that. His
body was there, but not his spirit. He was trying to show this sort
of frontage, but if you'd said something wrong, back in the
car on the way back and say, that was not right, was it? Say,
oh, you were listening? You were listening. So you see,
this man is heard a lot, but it doesn't touch his life. So
far, so far. So he's a man who is a Jew, and
he has a lot of baggage. What do we know more about Bartimaeus? Well, he's blind and he begs. He's blind and he begs. This
man is in a total inability to do whatever to get out of his
state. Nothing at all. He can't see,
doesn't have his sight, so therefore it is impossible for him to fend
for himself. He can't hold a job. especially
in those days. Now, it would be more possible,
but not in those days. Now, the only way he can sort
of feed himself is by begging. And in this, he gives a very
true image of what sinful man, natural man is. Blinded by sin
and reduced to invent deities which are just illusory, don't
exist. And he knows that he has to placate
these sort of semi-gods in order to live. And he's in bondage,
like this man, bondage to his state. And this is a perfect
picture of despair. Sinful man in this world, just
like this man, despair, despair. But at the same time, this is
his great blessing. This is his great blessing because
his real state is not hidden by kind of veneer, a sort of
morality, a sort of good life. As you know, I spent some time
in Haiti. You say Haiti? Haiti. And for you, you would straight
away think, oh, this is a poor country, one of the poorest of
the world. Try to say that to a Haitian. Straight away, there
is pride, as much as you have pride to be in this country.
And yet, it's really a poor country. It's difficult to live there
and so on, but it's their country. See, we try to make our life
look good. Well, this man couldn't. That
was a blessing. That was a great blessing. And also, the fact that with
his blindness, his handicap cuts him off from the world. That
gives him a lot of time to think about. He's blind. So he put
his little cup on the side and well, when he hears, he says,
thank you. When he hears a coin fall in. But all the rest of
the time, he can just think. And he does think. He does think. We see that because when he cries
to Christ, he doesn't call him by any name, by any old name.
What he says, how he addresses Christ shows that this man has
been thinking about what he's heard. Son of David, this is
not just a title like this. It's more than that. This man
is addressing the Lord. And he knows it in a way. But
for us, for every one of us, there are things which bother
us. Now, I will give an illustration.
Every young lady wants to be very pretty in order to attract
a nice, beautiful, great, strong young man. So beauty is an asset,
isn't it? But it can be a shield to the
truth. And I remember a friend of mine in Africa one day said,
why am I cursed to be attractive? And she was. Why? Because she
was attracting the wrong kind of person for the wrong kind
of reasons. So you see, an asset can be a curse. And we have these
sort of things. I'm not clever. I can't express
myself. I can't talk to people about the Lord because I've said
everything which should not be said, and I've not said what
should be said, and that kind of thing. And I'm bashful and
diffident with myself. You know all these things. And
oh, I wish I would be kind of sure of myself I could present
properly in front of others. All these sort of things. And
we think, if only we had these good things, but they might shield
us from the truth. And Bartimaeus here is free from
all this. This man has time to think about
what he's heard preached in the synagogue so many times. And
we say that people who are deprived of one sense have their other
senses developed. A blind man will hear things
a normal person can't hear, and vice versa, you see. So here,
our man is thinking, and he's heard about the one, there is
one coming. We don't quite know exactly the
details, but one is coming, and he's going to inaugurate it,
to bring to pass a new covenant, a new world. And he thinks about
that, and he thinks about that. So Bartimaeus is blind, but he's
waiting, unconsciously. And Bartimaeus is blind, and
he hears. And he hears that there is a
bristling, there is a crowd. Well, there was a crowd on that
road anyway. But here now, this is something
different. And he starts to inquire. And we want to see now, from
Bartimaeus, the man Jesus met. Now, who is coming along this
road? And it is the son of David. The son of David. Bartimaeus
says, What is this thing? What is this movement, this noise?
What is it? And it is sure that the news
about this new rabbi going around Palestine and so on have spread.
And he's heard about him. He's heard about him. And he
asked, and he receives a response. Now our text is not very, very
clear on that. And we read in verse 47, and
when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, so he says, who
is it? And people would say, it's Jesus
of Nazareth. Well, actually what they said
was, is Jesus the Nazarene? And this has nothing to do with
the Nazarene in the Old Testament. What they meant is exactly the
same as the Galileans when he went back to Galilee after Samaria
and they welcomed him well. Well, actually, the text said
they were interested in him because they heard of what he did at
the feast, because he's a miracle worker. So this is the local
curiosity. This is the latest fad. This
is the one who is in the news all the time. And it's interesting
to know him. And we press. We want to hear a word from him.
And there's no spiritual interest at all. Jesus the Nazarene. Can
anything good come out of Nazareth? You know, the expression which
was well-known there at that time. So he receives that news. This is somebody. This is the
man we follow at the moment, the man who kind of has all our
attention. And then there'll be another
one, and another one, and so on. And you know, there are people,
and maybe I am, who see Jesus that way. Of course, if we say
it so crudely, we say, no, no, that's not me. But let's examine
our heart because that could be a way to miss Jesus. So many good people, so many
people saw him with their own eyes of the flesh and yet missed
him. Couldn't it be me? This is a
question. So Bartimaeus receives this reply,
but for him, Jesus is not a curiosity. Jesus is not a fad. No, not at
all. Because when he addresses Jesus,
he says, Jesus, son of David. He's not the Nazarene. He's the
son of David. And this title is clearly messianic. clearly Messianic, the blind
man has heard of the fact that there is the messenger of the
covenant coming and he's familiar with Isaiah. In those days, Isaiah
was probably the favorite prophet for the Jews. John the Baptist,
for instance, continually quotes Isaiah. And he's heard that there's
one coming, and he's going to heal the blind. He's going to
set the prisons free, and so on. He knows that. And when he
cries to Jesus, have mercy on me, he's not just asking for
his sight. That's what his words say. But
he's asking for new life. He's asking for new life because
he knows that this one will set the prison free. Come with me
to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter four, and this is
something which is read. in the synagogue, and Bartimaeus
could have been there. There's been many times when
that passage has been read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, verse 18, Luke 4, 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel, the good
news to the poor. Well, Bartimaeus is poor. He
has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Now, this man is brokenhearted.
to preach the deliverance to the captives, the recovery of
the sight to the blind. Oh, that's me. And to set at
liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. And Bartimaeus knows what that
year is. It's the 50th year, the year
of freedom, liberty, even for the slaves. He's slave to his
blindness, which brings him to poverty, into begging. This one
is coming who will free from that. Of course, the year of
jubilee was not just the freedom of the slaves. It was a picture
of the freedom that God was going to bring through the one he had
appointed of all. The only one who could do the
work. We have a fundamental principle
for the kingdom of God. And many people, even in churches,
ignore that and reject it. And this is why, for instance,
we hear things like, how do we come to Christ? Or what do we
have to do to make our church grow? This is just sheer ignorance. What is this fundamental principle?
Life, the true life from God comes when the Spirit of God
breathes on the Word of God. And this is the only way, the
only way. And there is a lot, a lot of
unbelief about this. This is why we bring in gimmicks,
even nice gimmicks, even respectable gimmicks. things, thinking that
it will soften their hearts. And so, no, it is when the spirit
takes hold of that word and plants it right in the center where
nothing else can put it. This is the real principle. Because
here, we can see that Bartimaeus is touched by that. See, he knew
a lot of things, being a Jew. He's gone to the synagogue, he
knows these things, and they're true, but they don't do him no
good. And then Christ comes and the
Spirit gets hold of this man, hold of what he knows, his baggage
which is there, and this man sees clearly. Son of David, the
Son of David. This is wonderful. And how do
we know it is the Spirit of God who moves him to cry this? Well, because the crowd is around
him, and they see exactly the same thing as him. But for the
crowd, Jesus is the Nazarene. He's a curiosity. But for him,
he is the, son of David, and the crowd comes and say, no,
come on, calm down. You don't shout when there's
a sort of personality going by. You know, you imagine somebody
important going by and somebody's shouting. You say, well, what
is he doing? That's quite indecent. You don't do that. And if Bartimaeus
had been moved by the flesh, he would have said, oh, I'm sorry.
I forgot. Just got out of my mind. I'm
sorry. Just would sit back, or he would just shut up no he refuses
he refuses to be to be blocked that is the spirit of god he
cries all the more why because now he knows because of the spirit
empowering the word that it is jesus the salvation of the lord
it is the son of david it is the one who is the only salvation. There's no salvation outside
of him. And this man, ignorant as he
has been, he knows that now. This is why he won't let him
go. This is why he won't let him go. And Mark shows us very
clearly that this man is now transformed, just in the way
he addresses Jesus. So before he's healed, he's healed. Isn't that wonderful? And now,
because God had compassion and pity on this man and freed his
soul, now all that Isaiah predicted belongs to him. He's free and
he sees. And he has possibility not to
be poor anymore. You see, this is the man who
sees the son of David. But now let's look at what Jesus
says. Go, your faith has made you well. This is what Jesus
says. And today there is a lot of confusion. And even if we're not confused
in our mind, we can be unsettled by things going around us. And
it's worth spending a little time on this. Now, is Jesus congratulating
Bartimaeus because somehow he's been able to whip up a sort of
dormant power which was in him, faith, and made it to work in
order to get hold of Jesus and be saved. Is that it? Or is it
that Bartimaeus is the author of a super good work, which we
would call faith, and through that he's been able to get hold
of salvation in Christ, whereas the crowd, which is kind of worse
around, they've not been able to do that work, and therefore
they're not saved. Is that it? No, not at all. Why? Because it is by grace that we
are saved. Now nowhere, my friends, nowhere
in the word of God, salvation comes from faith. Nowhere. That may surprise you. Salvation is by grace. And that
means simply that it is according to the free will of God. And he doesn't have to explain
himself. He is God, period. It's just that. He gives salvation,
he gives life to whoever, whomever he wants. And he doesn't have
to give explanation, nothing at all. Salvation doesn't come
in response to anything which can have anything to do with
man, nothing. And that is a good thing. That is a good thing because
man cannot bring anything You take a good thing for yourself.
You take the word and it is not very long before you turn it
around yourself. Isn't it? so often, so often. Now, here is Bartimaeus. He's sitting by the side of the
road. He knows a lot of good things in his mind, probably
unconsciously, but he knows them. He dwells on them, probably not
realizing they're such good things, such treasures, such truth. This man is there. He knows many
things. He has heard about Jesus and
Nazarene, but he's not seeking Jesus, not at all. Every morning,
he will come by the side of the road, probably puts his garment,
sits on it, put his little ball, and that's it. All he knows is
that he's going to spend the time, this is a good road, there's
a lot of people, and probably by the end of the day, he will
have enough to survive and fall into another day when he will
come, put his garment, sit there, and so on. He doesn't seek salvation. He doesn't seek the Savior. Yet he knows a lot of things,
like the Pharisees. But these things don't impact
his life at all. He's blind with his eyes, blind
with his heart, dead in sin, without any sense of God, apart
from what God has put in him as a creature. He say, but suddenly,
suddenly, There's a mysterious work which takes place. And even
Bartimaeus is not aware of this taking place. Apart from the
result of this, his heart receives life because God has sent his
spirit, the spirit of life. And here is this man, suddenly
he understands. He was in a room which was dark,
full of treasures, but dark, couldn't see a thing. He's blind.
And now there's a light, the light. And he understands what
really Isa and all the other prophets have said. And now he
has in front of him, he doesn't see him yet, but it is the son
of David. Whereas all these experts pressing
along Jesus, they don't see him, Nazarene, son of David. So the
work comes, and the others around can see, but there's no life
to take hold of the Savior. And faith is the operating mode
which this life uses to get hold of the Savior. You are saved
by grace through faith. by the means of faith. Never
make your faith a way to be saved. If you do, you will be doomed. This is terrible. So let's not
look so much to have faith, but let's come to the source, the
fountain of everything, and beg for forgiveness, for forgiveness. This comes when the spirit empowers
the word. the word that is preached. And
that power comes with a power, that word comes with a power,
which is never had before. And how many times you've said,
I've read that passage thousands of time, and I've drawn a lot
of things out of it, but I've never seen it like this. And
suddenly say, wow, I can't be the same again. I mean, any passage,
you know. What is this? This is a spirit
coming on the word. And this is the spirit breathes
on the word of God. But it cannot, the spirit cannot
work if the way is not open. And this is why Jesus continues
and speaks to his disciples, well actually he did before.
We're going up to Jerusalem, he says, and he tells them what's
going to happen. It is not what they want, but
it is what is written from everlasting. Salvation doesn't operate as
a magical thing. It's not sort of a superstitious
thing. No, it is a heart of the covenant. God must solve a dilemma, which
he has. And I say that with reverence.
Paul speaks about this dilemma in Romans 3. God is just, and
he has decided to have a people in his presence, but this people
comes from a race which is plunged into unrighteousness. How can
he dwell with unrighteousness and be God? But through that
new covenant, there is a righteousness which is revealed, which doesn't
belong to the old order, do these things and you will live? No,
it is through Christ, the righteousness of God. And now God in Christ
can still be just, still be God, and have people whom he declares
just in his presence, who are not just in themselves, but they
are covered, clothed with a righteousness which is like no other. And they
don't need any righteousness of their own, because that one
is sufficient. And the terms of the covenant
must be fulfilled. There must be death. There must
be blood. And all these things, you need
a substitute. There is no pardon. without shedding of blood. And
God had to do this. The salvation is free. You don't have to do anything
for it, but it is not cheap. It's not a discount salvation. It costs God his son. The Lamb of God is coming, is
walking up to Jerusalem, and there he will be slain as a sacrifice. so pure and yet so taken as sin
that the whole wrath of God will fall on him and crush him and
himself can say this is the blood of the covenant which is shed
for many, for many This is a covenant which is not the one of the circumcision
where man has a role to play, but this is this new covenant.
The covenant which is centered on this son of David, this ultimate
Davidic king who has the power and the authority to see this
covenant being fulfilled totally. It is that covenant which is
operated by a priest, but not like the other priests. A new
priest, according to a new order, which has no end. And the priest
who offers the perfect sacrifice. And it is for all those who believe,
all those who receive this life which believes. And it is for
all those Have this life and cry to the Lord for salvation.
Oh Lord, that I may receive my sight. Son of David, have mercy
on me. Is salvation something which
is due for you? No, it's mercy. It's for beggars. It's for beggars. And this is
the salvation the Lord Jesus has come to accomplish. the heart of the covenant. Now,
my friend, is this the salvation you have come to? Is it the salvation
which you claim to have? And it is important to determine
the thing for ourselves. So many people are in darkness
about this. And maybe you'll say, well, I
know quite a lot of things. I know the truth. But the knowledge
of the truth does not save. Look at all these Jews around
Bartimaeus. They know a lot of things in
the truth. I know that the Pharisees twisted a lot of things, invented
a lot of things, but they knew quite a lot of things of the
truth. But they didn't know the one who is truth. So knowledge
of the truth doesn't save. Look at the Pharisees, look at
the crowd, the spirit of God in the great grace of God, Has
He come to give you the life which gives you the energy to
get hold of Jesus and not let Him go at any cost? If you come to Jesus, you will
lose everything, so let it be. I can't do without Him. Is that
what the Spirit of God has done for you and in you? Is that it? And is that this life which he
has given you, which gives you the energy to follow him in the
way? Because that is the best evangelism,
my friends. Let's turn once again to Luke,
Luke 18. It's a parallel passage. Luke 18, look at verse 43 at
the end. Talking about Bartimaeus, and
immediately, Bartimaeus received his sight and followed him, that
is Jesus, glorifying God. There's worship there. And all
the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. Gave praise
to God. This man was met by Jesus. Jesus was there in Jericho going
to Jerusalem, but he had this appointment with this man because
he had come to save, to seek and save that which was lost. My friends, you've been in the
way many years maybe, maybe you haven't, but do you still see
yourself as a sinner, as a blind person in yourself? as a beggar. Well, this is a good thing. This
is a good thing. Because there's a savior for
beggars. And it's the only savior. May he be glorified among ourselves.
Amen.