I'm going to take a couple of weeks break from the series I've been preaching on. I had only two sermons left and you probably thought to yourself, well, why, when you've preached 18 sermons, are you stopping and not concluding it? Well, the reason was simple. I want to give you time to think about what has been said. I want to give you time to mull it over. When I come back to you in a couple of weeks' time to preach those last two sermons, I want you to hear those sermons in a way that you'll be refreshed to do so, and that you'll receive it. And also, being very honest and straight with you, I needed a refreshing of my own soul this week. I needed to turn to Christ this week for my own soul. And so I bring to you the Word of God this day, with a desire that you too will be refreshed by it, you'll be instructed by it, and we come to that last two sermons that you'll become, and they'll come fresh to you as the concluding of that series. So now I ask you to turn to Mark's gospel chapter 10, Mark's gospel chapter 10, and the verses 46 to 52. Mark's Gospel, chapter 10, and we're going to be reading the verses 46 to 52. And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus was sitting by the roadside. 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 rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stopped and said, call him. And they called the blind man, saying to him, take heart, get up, he's calling you. And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well." And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. May God bless to us this reading of his word. Jesus is nearing the end of his ministry and his life, you see, the next chapter. Chapter 11 of Mark's Gospel, you have the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He then engages in teaching some parables before he meets with his disciples, and then the plot to kill Jesus unfolds to its bitter end. Traveling through Jericho is the means by which he will get to Jerusalem. No doubt Jesus had visited Jericho on various occasions before. It lay two miles south of the Old Testament Jericho that had been destroyed by Joshua. It had been rebuilt and then subsequently rebuilt by Herod the Great on a different side. Herod the Great would reign from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. It was a cosmopolitan city. Many public buildings, it had an amphitheater, It had a wrestling arena, parks and gardens, villas, it had a winter palace. Jericho was an affluent and very prosperous city. It was the traditional site of the baptism or the traditional site of Jesus' baptism was only five miles away in terms of the River Jordan. And so we have here somewhere where Jesus would have been familiar with. It was a city that was 820 feet below sea level. And when you take that Jerusalem is not all that far away, and Jerusalem is some 2,500 feet above sea level, that's a difference of 3,500, you can see that Jericho lay in a very hollow area geographically. It was a very prominent road that people had to travel along. This road is the road that would have been in the mind of Jesus when he spoke about the parable of the good Samaritan and the man who was mugged on his way. So here is Jesus and he is traveling through Jericho. He is accompanied, we read, by a great crowd. Huge amount of people thronging after Jesus. Sometimes we don't think about that. We don't think of the vastness or the number of people that were actually watching Jesus and walking after Jesus and walking with Jesus and wanting to talk to Jesus and wanting to be with Jesus. I think I've used this, it's not an illustration, it's an experience we had during the summer when we were down in England, and we were on a small craft, a small boat up the Thames, and we had stopped at a lock, and we weren't allowed to go any further up the lock, and we asked why we would be prevented from going up the lock, and they said, well, the Queen's gondola was on the other part of the Thames, and we would have to wait there. Well, actually, that had happened after. This piece of information I'm going to give you. Campbell was out of the boat and he was running up to see why the lock was closed. That happened first. He came back and said the Queen's gondola was her gondola for her jubilee, 20th, not 20th, 50th jubilee. Was it 60th or 50th? 60? 60, thanks. 60th jubilee. And he says, the gondola's there and the Queen's on it. I said, son, listen, it's a nice day. Stop carrying on. He says, it is, Daddy, it's there. So we would get out and travel up in there. Sure enough, we were in this part of the river, small lock, and what was like a narrow channel that had just fed off the Thames. There through the clearing in the woods was the Queen standing on her gondola with Various men dressed in royal regalia with their oars up in the air and a small party on board. What happened afterward really intrigued me because I thought I wanted to get a better view of the Queen. So I started walking up this path and then a crowd started walking up the path after me. Now this wasn't a wide path. This is through the middle of like forestation. It's like a small track along the river bank. And here we had, and I looked over my shoulder, must have been 20 or 30 people, people in their 50s and 60s. And I started into a short jog as the Queen's gondola started, because I was trying to get a photograph of it, up. And there were these women in their 50s jogging behind me, trying to get a better look, through this forest track. And I thought, this is astonishing, isn't it? Here we are, running through this forest track along the River Thames. to try and get a photograph of the queen, who by this time had turned her back and sat down to us. So the view wasn't all that great. We did, as we went on up the river, get a very good view of her because we actually sat outside where she moored at the Windsor moorings. We saw Sir Steve Redgrave there and we were able to take a photograph of him, which he was totally obscured with because there was a knower in front of him. But it made me think as I ran up that path and then I stopped and I let all these people go past me, I thought, There's only about 20 or 30 people doing this, and they're chasing up the path after the queen. And I thought about the Lord Jesus, and about the occasions where we read like these, when he was surrounded by a great crowd of people. Children on shoulders, people running ahead of him to try and get a view, trying to work out, is he gonna go down this street, is he gonna go this way? pressing in on him, cajoling him. And there he is in the middle of it, just trying to go about the affairs that God had called him to do. On this day, his life is interrupted. His journey is disturbed. And it's disturbed by a man. Mark tells us that that man's name is Bartimaeus. He gives us the man's father's name, Timaeus, and he tells us something about the man that is rather significant. He says he is blind and that he is a beggar. Now, we're not told whether it was a congenital disorder, whether it was a subsequent disease, or whether it was an accident that had resulted in Bartimaeus becoming blind, but we do know that he is blind. He is a beggar because his inability to see prevents him from providing for himself. He wasn't living in a culture where there was a welfare state. There was no income support. There was no benefits that he could receive from the state in order to provide himself with food and nourishment. And so he was required, because of the circumstances of his life, to sit and beg during the day and be dependent upon the good pleasure of those in that society to provide for him. He's not alone because we know from Matthew's gospel there was at least one other man who is with him. He too is blind. And that is not an unusual thought either because there they would have found companionship. They would have found an ability to understand one another. They would have had similar experiences. They would have been able to relate to each other in the difficulties of their lives. They'd be able to share what it's like in their common blindness. Such people often had someone to accompany them who had a similar disability as themselves, a friend, as it were, in that situation. And here we read, is this man Bartimaeus, this blind man who is physically disabled by his eye impairment, and we read that he is a beggar, and he's sitting by the right roadside. He becomes familiar with the presence of Jesus Christ because of the noise of the crowd of the people that are thronging alongside Jesus. His ears are not impaired, and so when he hears this crowd and the commotion that is going on, he obviously asks who it is that is passing by and why this stir is being caused. Jesus caused a commotion wherever he went. He caused a stir by the very fact of his presence. Remarkable thing for a man of 30 years of age. I don't want to liken him to a pop star of today because such a similarity would be totally unacceptable. But if we can just see the sort of furore that was going on in terms of the thronging around him, then you get a sense of the demands on him. And as he sits there, he utters a cry for help, That cry for help from the lips of Bartimaeus also makes an announcement to the world, an announcement to the world that up to this point had been smothered by Jesus. And whilst the main focus of what we read here is about what happens to Bartimaeus, The very, very interesting side story of it all relates to the fact that Jesus allows this announcement to be made without thwarting or telling Bartimaeus to stay quiet. This is important. This is important in the life of Jesus. This is important in the unfolding of the events in the life of Jesus. This is important in the lead up to the events that are going to take place when Jesus goes to Jerusalem. Up to this point, Jesus had avoided the use of the title Son of Man, or Son of David rather. He had studiously avoided the use of this title because this title to the Jews spoke of the Messiah. As far as the Jews was concerned, the Messiah, the savior of his people, was denoted or defined by this term, son of David. And to be linked with this title was to be declared to be the Messiah. In Matthew's Gospel, there's a record of a previous occasion when two other blind men met Jesus. In terms of the chronology of Jesus's life, it was a much earlier time. It's recorded for us in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 9. And in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 9, in verse 27, we read that Jesus passed on from there And he traveled. Two blind men followed him, crying aloud, have mercy on us, son of David. There is that same statement. When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to him, Do you believe that I am able to do this? Yes. Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it opened. And after their eyes were opened, Jesus sternly warned them that no one knows about it. But they went away and spread his fame through all that district. And there you have Jesus warning or counseling these blind men on this occasion not to spread the news of the fact that he was the Son of David, or the Messiah. Later we read in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 15, in verse 21, when he is far away in a different area, in Tyre and Sidon, there is a woman, a Canaanite woman, who comes to Jesus on that occasion, and she begs for Jesus' help for her daughter, who is severely oppressed by a demon. She says to him, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." Jesus doesn't speak to her. And the reason why he doesn't speak to her is because she is not of the household of Israel. And he says to her, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then she makes this astonishing statement, it is not right to take Or he answers her, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And she says, yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. But she's in a different region, at a different time, in Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman. And then in John's gospel, chapter four, we read about the time that Jesus as at the well with the woman in Samaria, and there he reveals himself as the Messiah. So here is this, Jesus' avoidance of the fact that he is the Messiah. On this occasion, that is no longer the case. For we read that when this cry for help comes, in terms very clearly marked Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." There's no word of repudiation. There's no statement to be silent. There is on Jesus' part an acceptance of this revelation of who he is, because he is heading to be revealed as a Messiah. The cry comes for help. The beggar takes the opportunity. Bartimaeus and his friend know their need. They are blind. Nobody needs to tell Bartimaeus that he can't see. He has lived with that. His life has been affected by that every day of his life since he was blind, whether it's since the moment of his birth or since whatever event took place to make him blind. He knows that he is blind. He knows the daily requirement for him to go and beg. He knows the limitations placed upon him. He knows his dependence upon other people. He knows, in a sense, the fact that he cannot integrate to a full extent with all that's going on in society. He has to be informed of what is happening. Even this very event shows that. Because when the noise arises concerning the coming of Jesus, he doesn't get to his feet and stand up and peer and see who is coming because he's incapable of doing that. He has to ask what is happening. And so the very simple aspect in his life of knowing what is going on in society around him, is deprived from him by virtue of the fact that he cannot see it. He has to wait until he hears and then asks what is happening. You don't have to draw aside to Bartimaeus and say, Bartimaeus, you have a problem that needs addressing. His need is obvious. His need is clear. But in our lives, our needs are not obvious and clear. There are times in our lives when our needs are not obvious and clear. There are times in our lives when we cannot see the needs that are in our lives. We don't understand the needs that are in our lives. And you may be sitting here this morning, and you might be blind to the truth of the Word of God that I have just read. And you might be deaf to what I have just said about the fact that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior of the elect of God's people. You're physically here. You can see with your eyes. You can hear with your ears. You can understand the words that I'm speaking. But the reality is that the true extent of your spiritual need is something that you do not comprehend. You don't get it. And the reason why you do not get it is because you were born with that blindness. You were born with that deafness. You were born with that mind that is not receptive to the truth of God. You were born with a heart that does not automatically respond with joy and a sense of anticipation and excitement when you hear the name of Jesus mentioned. You just don't get it. You don't get it. You're sitting here this morning, and for you it's about being in this building at church. And when you go home, all you'll have done is been to church. That's all you will have done. You will not have engaged with God, your Creator. You will not have understood the words that have been read and sung, you will not get it. Oh, that God would show to you your need. Oh, that God by His Spirit would reveal to you the fact that your heart is in rebellion against God and your mind is hardened to the things of the gospel. And I know that those words sound threatening. And I know that that can recall you because you can say, well, I'm not against God. I'm sitting here this morning. I am not angry at God because I'm here listening to you talking about God. But the truth is that you don't and cannot see your need. You cannot see your need until the Spirit of God will open your eyes to see your need. You desperately need to hear it. You desperately need to understand it. You desperately need to be confronted with the reality of the depravity of your soul. Grant, would you go in close? You really need to understand. You need to hear And I would pray that God will enable you to hear. I would pray that God will enable you to see. I would pray that God would give you the passion and the urgency to seek after him with all his heart and all his soul. And believers in Christ, how often we sit and we don't get our need. We don't see our need. We don't understand our need. We're almost blind to it. We need to receive God and ask him to show us our real need. We often quantify our needs in terms of our physical needs or our emotional needs. And we often quantify our spiritual needs in terms of the things that we need to be doing. The reality is that there is a need within each one of us that is much deeper than that. There's a spiritual need that God requires of us that we would grow in the things of God. And we desperately need God to show this to us. We desperately need God to show it to us. You need to ask God to show him, show to you the need you have in your life. Bartimaeus understood his need. Bartimaeus got his need. If you don't get your need, you won't seek the help you require from Christ. And Bartimaeus, recognizing his need, is not slow to respond. You see what happens here Jesus is going along the road and he's filled with a strong and Bartimaeus begins when he hears the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by we read that he cries out he makes this statement it's no whimper it's a loud shrill sounding exclamation, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. People respond to him negatively. They rebuke him. They tell him to be silent. If God opens your eyes to behold your need and to see your real need, unbeliever, believe you me, there will be one on your shoulder who will be saying to you, be quiet. You don't need to face this need. This is not something you need to worry yourself about at the moment. You will get another opportunity at a later date to meet this need. There will be occasions, believer, in your life when God reveals to you your need, and you have a sense of that need, and you want to run to God, and you want to cry out to God that He might meet that need in your life. And there'll be those who will come to you and say, you don't need to worry about this at the present moment in time. There are greater needs that you have to worry about in your life. There are more practical things that you need to worry about than addressing this particular need in your life. This need will do. You believe in God. You trust in God. It's just at the present moment in time there are things in your life that are meaning that you can't realize that in your life. And there'll be people who will encourage you and even exhort you not to become overly anxious about seeking after God and seeing that need met in your life. They will bring even encouraging words to you. You'll put an arm around your shoulder and say, listen, God knows the situation you're in. When the reality is, what they should be saying to you is, run to God and get that need met. Think about it. Here is this man, blind and a beggar, and he is crying out to the Son of God for mercy. And those who have eyes, and have employment, and have families whom they can see, and whom they can delight in, and work that they can go to, and there they are saying to this man, sit there and be quiet. You don't need his help. He doesn't listen to them. He persists. Why does he persist? He persists because it is personal. He persists because it's about Him. It's not about these people. It's about Him. He's the one that's blind. He's the one that has the need. And I would say to you this morning, unbeliever, if you're sitting here and the Word of God comes to you, don't think about anybody else or believer. Don't think about anybody else. Think about you. It's God's Word to you. It's your personal need that needs to be addressed. You don't need to worry about the person sitting in front of you, or the person sitting behind you, or your wife, or your husband, or your son, or your daughter. You need to worry about you. Because it is your need that is being pointed out to you by God. It is your need that needs to be addressed. And if there's one sitting on your shoulder saying to you, listen, don't worry, then you say to that one, what right have you got to say to me not to worry? What right do you have to tell me what to do? This is my life. It's not your life. This is my breathing. This is my doing. And if God opens my eyes to see my need, then why do you want to interfere? Why do you want to tell me not to have that need met? Sometimes we have to look at our brothers and sisters in Christ when they would counsel us and say, it's all right, it doesn't matter, and say, do you not understand? This is what actually matters. This is what matters. It's not the other peripheral stuff in my life that matters. This is what matters to me. And so he cries out to God in the person of the Son. Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stops. Everybody stops. He, with his cry for help, has stopped the Son of God in his tracks. Two words call him. The word goes, He wants to speak to you. And at this moment, Bartimaeus has a choice to make. Is his cry for help real? Or is it just a cry for recognition? Is it a cry that he really, really wants addressed? Or is he just crying for sympathy? In your life and mine, we have to work that out, you know. We have to work out when we cry for help, whether we're crying for sympathy or whether we're really crying for work of God in our lives. Because I believe that often we cry for sympathy. I believe that often we cry to God and to other people that they might see the difficulty we're in, that they might understand the difficulty we're in, that they might offer to us some degree of succor for the difficulty that they're in, and that they might make excuses for us for the difficulty that we're in. And really it revolves around my personal pride. I want people to think well of me. And so I will use my need. Now we're not as conscious as that. We're not as deliberate in terms of our thinking as that. But if we really explore sometimes our cries for help, are they really a real cry for help? Or are they Just a cry for sympathy. I believe that when we really reach the point of really understanding our need, our blocking out of other people becomes very, very clear to us. And our real cry for help bursts through any sense of just being wanted or sympathetically thought of or being consoled of. And here we see Bartimaeus doesn't want sympathy. It's not simply that he wants his position to be recognized because the moment that the word comes, the anticipation and excitement and the expectation, take heart, get up, he's calling you. There he is, having made the cry, having been rebuked, having made the cry, Jesus has stopped, call him, the people come and say, he wants to speak to you, Bartimaeus, he wants to speak to you. They're all excited about it, they're enthused about it, they're worked up about it, you can get that in a sense that they're, he doesn't turn around then and say, hmm, You know, I didn't really expect him to answer me. That's taken me by a bit of surprise. I expect him just to walk on by. He throws off his cloak. He springs up and he comes to Jesus. There's no hesitation. No hesitation. No waiting. Probably one of his few personal belongings is lying on the ground where he leaves it. Because you see, what God is going to give him, the person of Jesus, will far excel his need of that belonging. How often in our lives when we have cried out to God for help, and God has come to us, and God has spoken to us and says, now I have stopped. I have stopped. Come to me. Come to me, I will give you what you want. We turn around and say, well, I need to bring this with me, I need to bring that with me. I need to carry this, I need to carry that. Instead, you see, of running to God and saying, I don't need any of that because I'm coming to you to meet my need. I don't need to carry this guilt. I don't need to carry that worry. I don't need to carry this attitude. I don't need to carry this complaint against another person. I can leave it all behind because I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. And I'm going to run to you freely. I'm going to run to you unhinderedly. I'm going to run to you with full acceptance of the fact that you are my God. And I'm going to receive from you Why did Jesus ask him, what do you want? Did Jesus not understand what the man wanted? Because he wanted the man to express, Lord, because there's more than just the rabbi teaching here, Lord, make me recover my sight. He wants to hear from the lips of Bartimaeus what it is he wants. He wants Bartimaeus to show him what it is his need is. Do you know why sometimes, believer, you don't get what you want? You don't get your need met. Do you know why that happens sometimes? It happens very simply because if truth be told, you don't actually want that need met. You don't want that need met. Your heart is deceitful above all things. Knows there's something wrong in your life. Knows there's an issue there. You want people to sympathize with you and you may have good grounds for sympathy. You may have good grounds for sympathy. This man had good grounds for sympathy. He was blind. But he had Jesus passing by. And Jesus comes to you in his word. And Jesus says to you, I'm going to stop, and I'm going to invite you to come, and I'm going to ask you, what is it you want from me? But you see, at that point, you have to be honest, and you have to be clear. You have to be honest, and you have to be clear. You have to tell Jesus what you want. You have to be honest, and you have to be clear. You have to tell him what you want. Is your problem that you're not willing to tell him what you want because you're afraid of what he will require of you? Is it that you're afraid to tell him what you actually want and need because you're afraid of what he require of you? Do you not understand his compassion and his love and his healing power? Do you not understand that as he laid his hands, as Matthew tells us, on the eyes of Bartimaeus, as he speaks to him, receive your sight, as he commands that he should go and live for the glory of God, do you not understand that whatever he asks you to do will be nothing in comparison to what he will give to you, to you, to you? This man was in need, real need. He wasn't looking for sympathy, he was looking for his need to be addressed. That's why he cried out when everybody said quiet. That's why he got up and ran, throwing off his cloak to Jesus. That's why when Jesus asked him, what do you need? He told him immediately what he needed. That's why when Jesus said to him and healed him, we read the man then followed after Jesus. Do you know your need? Do you really want Jesus to address your need, or are you just looking for sympathy? When he asks you what your need is, are you going to be honest and speak to him about it? And when he addresses that need, are you then going to pick up what's yours and truly follow him for the glory of God? Or are you just playing, playing at need? You know this morning that if you're not playing at need and you want Jesus' help, that he will hear and he will listen if you cry out to him with all your heart. Jesus will hear and listen if you cry out with all your heart. Ask and you will receive. Ask and you will receive. Tell him what your need truly is. Do not fear. Do not listen to other voices that would tell you not to do it. Speak to him Receive healing in your life for whatever you need. Trust on Him. Lean not on your own understanding. Seek first His kingdom. Delight in what He has for you. Delight in what He has for you. And let Him deal with all the other issues that you think are beyond your control. Amen.