I preached last night on a leper
who came to the Lord Jesus, and I want to look this evening on
a blind man who came to the Lord Jesus. In Mark chapter 10, and
I want to begin here in verse 46. Mark chapter 10 and verse 46. And they came to Jericho. And
as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number
of people, Bilan Barthimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the
highway side begging. 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. And many charged him that he
would hold his peace But he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son
of David, have mercy on me. 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 calleth thee. And he,
casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. 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 has made thee whole."
And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus in the
way. I'm amazed sometime at the number of people
that we read of in the New Testament when our Lord was here that had
diseases, many of them devastating diseases. You and I often read
in the Scriptures such phrases like this, that He cured many
of their infirmities, or He healed many of their diseases, or He
cast out evil spirits out of many, or many that were blind
He gives sight. Multitudes He healed. The pool of Bethesda, we read
about that in John chapter 5. And the scripture says there
were multitudes of people, many people around that pool waiting
to be healed. The scripture tells us not only
of all of these impotent people, the blind and the withered, but
for years this small nation had not only entertained a multitude
of these people, but they had been sick for a long, long period
of time. There was a lady who had been
bowed over, could in no wise lift up herself. And this had
gone on for that dear lady for eighteen long years. There was
another man who had been possessed with the devil thirty-eight years. He laid there by that pool for
thirty-eight years, crippled. Another man that was born blind,
he was now man. That amazes me as I read about
these multitudes everywhere the Lord Jesus went. Multitudes came
to him to be healed. It seems as though that God had
withdrawn his hand. And all of these multitudes of
people all across this little nation had been afflicted with
these awful, awful diseases. But as we read these scriptures,
we find out the purpose behind it. At least one of the purposes
behind it was to glorify his Son. It was prophesied in the Old
Testament scriptures, Isaiah spake of it. that the blind would
be made to see, and the dumb would be made to hear, the lame
would be made to leap, and those who could not speak would sing. And when John the Baptist, for
some reason or another, seemed to be doubtful And he sent his
disciples to the Lord Jesus and said, Are you he that should
come? Are you the Messiah? Are you
that prophet? Or should we look for another?
In that same hour, while his disciples were there watching
the Lord Jesus, he opened the eyes of the blind. He unstopped
the deaf ears. He calls those that were dumb
to speak, and the lame to leap for joy. And he said, go tell
John what you've seen. And when they went and told John
what they'd seen, no doubt John remembered that it was written,
this is what the Messiah is going to do. This is what he's going
to do. So if no other reason, then all
this sickness was for indeed the glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. This blind man came to Jesus. I'm interested in this instance
this evening for this reason, because I've come to the Lord
myself. And I'm coming to the Lord myself.
When I read in here of others who have came to the Lord Jesus,
I find something that will help me to come to Him. And when I
read that others have come to Him, it fills my heart with joy. Those who have truly come to
the Lord Jesus Christ want others to come to Him. So I want to
look at this incident this evening not only for my own joy, and
not only for the joy of you who have come, but for the instructions
of those who need to come to Him. There may be someone here this
evening that's never come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like
to see you come to Him. There may be someone here this
evening that is confused and don't know how to come to Him.
Maybe this will give you some instructions on how to come to
Him. Maybe there's someone here this evening that has been in
his heart attempting to come to the Lord Jesus. But you're
so discouraged in coming. Maybe this will help you this
evening. Now, I could spiritualize this, and many preachers have
spiritualized this and have preached from this and have done a good
job in doing so. And we could do that this evening.
But that's not my intention. I want to look at this this evening
as it really happened. Barnabas was a real man. who was in real trouble. And
he was a man who come to the Lord Jesus Christ and was delivered
out of that trouble. I want to just look at it this
evening, not spiritualize it, but just look at it as it really
happened. And I think as we do that, it
will help us. It will encourage us and instruct
us and comfort I want to look at it this evening in the difficulty that this man
had in coming. I want to look at it from a negative
aspect. Sometimes we look at negative
things and they can help us. I remember you preached one time
on the power of negative thinking. Sometimes looking at negative
things can help us. And by looking at this this evening,
I mean the trouble that this man had coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He had some difficulty coming
to the Lord. I found that to be so in my own
experience. I found myself to be terribly
hindered in coming to Christ, in worshiping the Lord, in serving
Him, I've had these discouraging thoughts. I've had these negative
circumstances arise in my life. And I found out that it's not
an easy thing to come to God, and sometimes it's not an easy
thing to follow the Lord. That's been my experience. The first thing I want to see
Concerning this, man, and let me emphasize these two things
here. I want to emphasize this. I'm looking at this this evening
from this blind man's perspective. We could look at it from different
perspectives, but let's look at it from his perspective. What
he actually experienced in his own heart. And the first thing
I want to consider with you this evening is this. This man, this
Bartimaeus, had a very, very narrow window of time in which
he could come to the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was always on
the move. He never stayed anywhere very
long. And we read that he came here to Jericho two or three
times. But he's always passing through. He's never staying there in Jericho. He's just coming into Jericho
or he's going out of Jericho. He never stops and spends any
time here. He never settles down here. And
here we have this blind man that was more or less confined to
Jericho. He was a beggar. He was a blind
man. He never ventured out into other cities. So the window of time was very
narrow in which he could come to the Lord Jesus Christ. I get
that from this verse here, verse 46. Look at this. Speaking of
the Lord Jesus, he said, And they came to Jericho, and as
he went, See that? As he went. In other words, he
was leaving this city. And the trouble with this blind
man was, he either come to the Lord Jesus now, or he may never
come at all. The Lord Jesus may never come
this way again, and it's for sure that this blind beggar could
never go out and find him. It was now or never. Someone would ask me, I'm sure,
how does this fit in to your system of theology? I have no idea. To be honest
with you, I have no idea. If I was preaching tonight on
John chapter 6, verse 37, ìAll that the Father giveth me, he
shall come to me.î I would preach, ìThey shall come.î But I am not
at all hesitant this evening to come here and talk about a
narrow window of time in which this man could come to the Lord
Jesus. I do not hesitate to present
to you this evening that this man had that opportunity to come
to the Lord Jesus. But it was a narrow window of
time because the Lord was passing by as he went. I thought a few weeks ago, I
thought of making out a little pamphlet writing our articles
of faith, you know, for the church. And I have nothing against those
who do that. I appreciate wise men who have sat down and wrote
out doctrines and explained them to us from the Scripture. But
I thought about getting a system of theology. Now, here's how
dumb I am. I looked up theology in the Bible.
I got my computer out and I typed in theology and it wasn't in
there. And you invited me down here to preach. System wasn't
in there. Well, I concluded right quickly.
I said, Bruce, what you better do is leave this to those that's
got some sense. And when you preach, you better
go to the Scriptures. And the verse that you read and
the passage that you read, you better just stay with it. You
better just preach it, and don't try to get a system of theology. So I'm not hesitant at all to
tell you this evening that here was this blind man, and the only
one that could give him sight was passing out of his presence.
And he failed it, too. He failed it. That's why this
man cried, Jesus, have mercy on me. Oh, Son of David, don't
pass me by. Have mercy. And when they tried
to stop him from crying, he felt so anxious about it all that
he cried that much louder. Why do I emphasize this this
evening? For two reasons. I emphasize
this because for years now, you and I have had this false concept
presented to us that men simply decide for Christ. We've heard
that. That a man gets up on Sunday
morning and he hears a little sermon on the radio, and he sits
around for an hour or so, determining in his mind and rolling around
in his mind whether or not he wants to decide for Christ. The whole concept of that is
ridiculous. Could you see this blind man
who maybe had never seen the sun or his loved ones or himself
reflected in the water? He had no light in his eye. And here's someone that could
give him sight, and he sits there rolling over in his mind to decide
whether or not he's going to let this Jesus heal him. The whole thing is utterly ridiculous.
And you know what I'm saying here this evening, brothers and
sisters. Men do not decide for Christ. Men flee to Christ. You see this anxiety in this
man. You can feel it, can't you? He's
in desperate need. And the Lord is passing him by. And he feels so anxious in his
soul. So anxious that he begins to
cry out, Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy, have mercy on me. That's the first reason I say
this. Men do not simply decide. Men flee. Men flee. And the second reason I emphasize
this point this evening is because the scriptures will never allow
us to tell anybody to wait to come to the Lord. The Scriptures
present to us coming to Christ as now. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Come now and let us reason together. This is why we dare not tell
young people to go ahead and sow your wild oats. You're a
teenager, go ahead and get all that out of your system. We don't tell a man and his wife
to go ahead and work hard and lay up a retirement and enjoy
that for a while. There'll be opportunity for all
this in a few days. Wait until you get older. We
have no right to say such a thing. No, brothers and sisters, our
very souls are at stake. If you're sitting here this evening,
you have the opportunity that many, many people in this world
do not have. And that's hearing the blessed
gospel. That's hearing that it is finished. And my advice this evening would
be for you to be anxious about this thing. And secondly, I want us to consider
this for just a minute. In verse 4, the scripture tells
us that a great number of people were with him. Now, I'm talking
about the negative things. The negative things. The first
thing was, he had not much time. He couldn't wait until tomorrow. The second thing was this. This
that hindered him and would hinder him from coming to the Lord.
This great number of people were with the Lord all around him.
It was always this way. Very seldom you found the Lord
alone. Sometimes out in the desert with
His disciples. Maybe sometimes alone at night
you could approach Him. But most of the time, this great
crowd followed Him. I think sometimes we forget how
difficult it was to approach unto the Lord Jesus. Physically
speaking. The woman who said, if I can
just touch the hem of His garment, found it wasn't that easy. She
had to press her way through that crowd just to touch the
hem of his garment. When they brought that man who
had palsy to the door of the house where the Lord was preaching,
he was so full that they had to climb on the roof and take
up the shingles and put him down through the ceiling. It was difficult
to get to him. And you add to that here, in
this incident that you and I are looking at, this crowd tried
to keep Bartimaeus from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. What does this tell us? What
does this tell us? You may have great difficulty
if you begin to seek the Lord. It's almost come to the point
that I expect it anymore. If someone in the congregation,
someone who is visiting with us or whatever, he begins to
relate some interest, there is some interest in spiritual things,
begins to set up in his soul, or he appears to begin to be
seeking the Lord, When I see that, almost every time, trouble
is just around the corner. I don't know how often I've seen
this happen, and it really happens. It's legitimate so many of the
time. Someone has called me and says, Pastor, I'll see you Sunday. A lost person. I'm coming over
there Sunday. And Saturday night, something
will happen. or Sunday morning something will
happen to keep them from coming and
hearing the gospel. And what I found out, if you
have any interest in the salvation of your soul, if you have any
thoughts as to the eternal well-being of your soul, there's going to
be things in your life that confront you that you're going to have
to get over it. You're going to have to get around
it. You're going to have to get through it some way that you
are going to be hindered from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. Many said unto him, I don't know
what it's going to be. I know some of the things that
hindered me to this day. And I found them to be many.
Many said unto him out of this multitude, shut up. Settle down. Don't holler at him anymore. Don't try to get his attention. There's going to be things that
hinders you. This man here had this great multitude hindering
him. And they said to him, Hold thy
peace. Hold your peace? Hold my peace? Hold my peace? You are not in
my condition. You are not in my situation.
Hold my peace. He is passing by. Hold my peace. I am perishing. Hold my peace. My soul is at stake. My relationship
with God is at stake. Hold my peace. He was an anxious man. And I
think it was this anxiety that got him through some of these
hindrances that he faced. I wouldn't discourage anybody
this evening from coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. All come to
Him. If you've never come, begin to
come tonight in your heart. Come to Him. I'd never discourage
anybody from doing that. But I want to be honest with
all of us. You may find it's not as easy as some people today
have told you. You'll find there's a world that
attracts you You'll find out there's a devil that hinders
you. There's flesh that is weak. And you'll face all of these
things. You talk to any believer, and he'll tell you that. I'm
just saying, count the cost. Count the cost. Many charged him, O thy peace. And you add thirdly to this,
and I'm just looking at the negative things this evening, things that
would hinder from coming to the Lord Jesus, he was a blind man. He was blind. Now, that is a
dilemma. This crowd is saying, stay away.
And you add to that, he could not see where the Lord Jesus
was. All he did was hear the crowd.
He heard the commotion. And someone told him it was Jesus
of Nazareth. That perhaps he was heart of
Jesus, have mercy on me. And the Lord was over here. How did he know where the Lord
was? I imagine that was so confusing
to him. He was a blind man. I asked a
man not long ago, I said, why won't you come to the Lord? And
you know what he told me? I don't know how. I don't know
how. This man could not see how to
come to the Lord Jesus Christ. And some people are so discouraged
by their ignorance, and they're so discouraged by their spiritual
blindness, they're almost ready to despair and give up. But let this be an encouragement
to you, dear soul, if that's the way you feel this evening.
There was a man in your predicament one time, and yet the Scripture
says he came, he was blind, and at first he could not see how
to come. But the Scripture says in the
end of the story, he saw perfectly and followed the Lord Jesus in
the way. Isn't that encouraging? That's
so encouraging to me, and I've been coming for 35 years. My dear friend, begin to pray. Begin sincerely to seek the Lord. And when your poor mind seems
so blinded, and all around you is dark, And your mind is just
as dark as Barnabas' eyes were blind. Then you have a precious
promise from the Lord himself. I will bring the blind by a way
that they know not. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked places straight. These things will I do unto them,
and not forsake them, saith the Lord. Let this be a comfort to
encourage you, dear soul. Though you do not yet have eyes
to see Him, He can see you. And though you yet do not know
how to come to Him, He knows how to bring you. And let this
encourage you, the darkness you feel now, many, many, many before
you have felt that darkness also. And now they see. Now they see. The Lord Jesus will not long
reject a cry for mercy. He will not be sought after in
vain. I said not to the seed of Israel,
seek ye me in vain. I speak righteousness. I speak things that are right,
saith the Lord." This encourages me. This encourages
me. Because I find in myself now,
so often, all this darkness in my mind. And I have to say, with
a church of old, Lord, draw me. Draw me. And then I'll run after
you. It's no surprise to me that lost
people don't know how to come to the Lord. I don't either. I don't either. And as sure as
he removes the light from my soul, I'll be just as blind as
this poor man was. Lord, draw me. Bring me. And we have this about this man. Fourthly, we're told that he
was a beggar. Well, this is a negative thing,
I say too. This hindered this man. The Lord Jesus was just passing
by. The small that you hindered him.
He was a blind man. And now we find out here he was
a beggar. He couldn't buy any favors. He
couldn't pay someone to take him to the Lord. He had no leverage
to negotiate. He was a beggar. He couldn't
do anything for anybody else. Everything had to be done for
him. He was a beggar. And as far as everybody is concerned,
that whole crowd was going to pass on by and leave him there,
destitute. Nobody cares for the poor, hardly
does it. You've got some money, people like it, take advantage
of it. But if you're a poor man, they'll leave you. They'll leave
you. But there's one that will have
mercy on the poor. He came to save the poor. Remember the rich man? What must
I do to be saved, he said, to have eternal life? Give up all
you have, he said. I can't do that. It's a blessing
to be a beggar, really. You don't have anything to give
up. You know all you have to give
up is yourself. Yourself. Yourself. But you know something? No matter if you're poor, No
matter if you're rich. If you come to the Lord Jesus,
you're going to give up yourself. He wants you. And He'll have
you. I have no trouble telling a man,
give the Lord your heart. Sometimes you have to stop in
this false thing today and give Jesus your heart. I abhor that. But you know what the Scripture
says? Give me your heart. You know what the heart is? It's
you. It's you. Not what you possess. The Lord
don't want your money. The Lord don't need your money.
The Lord's going to get you. And so what they did here, the
Lord Jesus stopped and He says, you call Him. You call Him. And what did this man do? He
stopped crying mercy. Lord, be merciful. You know,
there's really a time. I was talking with my son the
other night. He said, Dad, nobody prays harder
than I do. He's lost. He said, nobody prays
harder than I do. Nobody cries more than I do. I said, what are you praying
about? What are you crying about? There comes a time, brothers
and sisters, to arise and come to the Lord and give yourself
to Him. You can slay that if you want
to and shed tears, but I'm telling you, it won't do you no good.
And there comes a time when you're just going to sit there and say,
oh, Lord, have mercy on me, have mercy on me. But what you're
going to have to do is give yourself to Him. Just give yourself to
Him. He arose, and the first thing
He did is cast away this garment. Brother Mahan said he did some
research on that, and they used this garment for two things.
They kept warm by it, and they hid their treasure underneath
it. You didn't want to be a beggar without this garment. Because
when someone gave you some money, you hid it under there, or someone
else would steal it from you. It's the place where you kept
your secret things. Your living. What did he do? He threw that away. Threw it
away. And come and found his living
in another. Give yourself to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what I'm saying. Quit
crying. You don't need your tears. Could
your tears forever flow? These for sin cannot atone. It's
finished. I'll tell you what. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? If it's so that
this is what kept this man warm. This was his comfort. And this
is where he kept his treasures hid. He couldn't live without
this. Can you imagine what it took to throw that away? It's not difficult to start paying
tithes and come to Christ. It's not difficult to throw out
your TV and come to Christ. It's not difficult to make a
few restitution and come to Christ. What's difficult is this. Throw away that garment. Self. Security. your living, your protection. Give yourself to Christ. They
first gave themselves to the Lord. Do that, dear soul, do
that. Do that. And you'll find out
it's going to take grace to do that. You can give everything
but yourself. It's ourselves. It's ourselves. Cast away that old garment of
self. It's filthy anyway. Yeah, it'll
hold a few riches, but they're only temporary. You'll spend
them. There's true riches. You get all Christ is. All that
he possesses. But he gets all of you. Do that. Do it. Do it. I call upon men
to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and do it immediately.
Come to the Lord Jesus and come now. And you'll find out when
you do. It took grace to bring it. God
bless you.