Need Some Mercy(9_of_12)

Need Some Mercy? (9 of 12)

Meet Jesus

Jerry Vines

Mark 10:46-52

4/14/02

We continue in our studies of people who met Jesus in

the New Testament—people who had particular problems,

particular needs and they brought these needs to

Jesus. When they met Jesus those needs were satisfied.

This morning it's Need Some Mercy—Meet Jesus.

Along the way in the ministry of our Lord, His

journeys carried Him to the city of Jericho. Jericho,

in the day of our Lord, is a far cry from Jericho in

our day. The last time I went Old Testament Jericho

was 1989. I was president of the SBC at that time and

when we got to Jericho, I heard that Arafat was there.

He has a compound there. I said to a couple of friends

of mine, "let's go see if we can see Arafat?"  Each

one of them had a cell phone. I got them on each side

of me. I thought that would make me look more

important. We walked right up to the gate where the

guard was and announced ourselves and said we would

like to see Arafat.

There was some commotion; they went inside the

compound and came back and said that Chairman Arafat

had just laid down for the day and was resting and was

sorry that he would not be able to see us.

Jericho, today, is just but a reflection—a pale

picture of what you would have found in the days of

Jesus. Today is just a little place and about all you

can find there are some stores where you can buy some

trinkets and some other things like that. It is run

down. It is decrepit, dilapidated kind of place.

But when the Lord Jesus Christ went to Jericho, in the

New Testament day, it was quite a resort center. I was

a large city—about 100,000 people who lived there. It

was a city of villas and baths. It had become kind of

a winter resort. Herod had built a theatre and an

amphitheatre there. The name, Jericho, means

fragrance. It was a city that was filled with

beautiful fragrances. The fragrances of the rose

gardens and the palm trees. It was indeed a resort

center. But there came a day when Jesus came walking

through the city of Jericho. When Jesus went walking

through, the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the

Valley, lent to that city a fragrance which comes even

to our day and it blesses us to see what Jesus did

when He went there.

Jesus Christ is on His way up to Jerusalem. There is a

large crowd of people. The pilgrims are getting ready

for their annual journey up to the city of Jerusalem.

They are thronging around the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus

Christ is on His way to Jerusalem and we know that He

will never return to Jericho again because Jesus is

going up to Jerusalem for the last time. HE will go up

to die on a cross.

The people are gathered around Him, listening to His

every word. Watching His every deed. The Bible tells

us that there was a man, right on the outside of the

gate as you go out of the city of Jericho. His name is

Bartimaeus. He is one of the most familiar to us in

all of the Bible   All of us have heard the story of

Bartimaeus. Some of you may remember the gospel song

that has immortalized Bartimaeus. Some of the lines of

the song go like this.

One sat alone beside the highway begging.

His eyes were blind, the light he could not see.

He clutched his rags and trembled in the darkness.

Then Jesus came and bad the darkness flee.

We all remember the story of blind Bartimaeus.  I want

to tell his story for you because in the story of

Bartimaeus we have the account of a man who needs

mercy and he comes to Jesus and when he meets Jesus,

he finds the answer to his needs.

I may speak to someone this morning and what you need

is some mercy. Maybe you have needs in your life and

you desperately need the mercy of God. I want us to

learn from the story of Bartimaeus this morning.

The first thing I want to point out to you is in verse

46 -

I. The CONDITION of the Man.

We are told in verse 46 when Jesus came to Jericho and

as He went out of Jericho. Putting the gospel writers

together, we know that on the way into Jericho Jesus

had healed two blind men. We know that while Jesus was

in Jericho a little man named Zaccheus came and Jesus

saved him. Now, on the way out of the city of Jericho,

there is this blind man.

Notice the condition of the man. We are told two facts

about him in verse 46. We are told that he was blind

and that also that he was begging.

Every indication of the verse we read here is that

Bartimaeus was born blind. It says he is Bartimaeus,

the son of Timaeus. When you see "bar" in front of a

Jewish name, that means son of.  Bartimaeus—son of

Timaeus. There are those who believe that Bartimaeus

was born the blind son of a blind man. He came from

the darkness of the womb of his mother into the

darkness of his world. It is a common sight in the

Middle East even to this day to see those who are

blind.

This means, of course, that this man could not see.

That's the simple truth of the matter. If you are

blind, that means that you cannot see. That means that

if this man had been born blind; he had never seen a

sunset. He had never seen the stars. He had never see

the trees. He had never seen the flowing streams. He

had never looked into the faces of his loved ones. He

is a blind man. His life is confined to a narrow world

of darkness. In those days that would have been a very

dangerous world. They didn't have any seeing-eye dogs.

This man could come right up to the very edge of a

precipice and might not even know it was there. It was

a dangerous condition for a person to be blind. What

this man needs is sight.

Of course you and I understand that there are more

kinds of blindness than mere physical blindness. There

is physical blindness caused by diseases of the optic

nerve or the retina or macular degeneration and all

these kinds of things that bring about physical

blindness. But the Bible makes it very clear that

there is also a spiritual blindness.

We are told in II Corinthians 4:4 that the God of this

world has blinded the minds of them that believe not

the gospel. There is a mental darkness.  Have you ever

wondered why people think the way they think and draw

the conclusions they do when it is very obvious what

the truth of the matter is and scripture is very clear

on the subject. Yet they seem to go out in left

fields. It is because there are people who are

suffering with mental darkness.

In Ephesians 4 the Bible talks about darkness of the

heart which is moral darkness. Have you ever wondered

why it is that people draw the moral conclusions they

do and live the way they do and act the way they do?

It is because there are multitudes of people around us

who are living in moral darkness.  Here is a man who

is blind. He cannot see. He is in a dangerous

condition. People today, outside of Jesus Christ, are

blind. They cannot see and they are in a very

dangerous condition. They cannot see the horrors and

the life of sin that they are living. They cannot see

the terrible wrath of God to come upon unforgiven sin.

They cannot see the glorious opportunity which is

theirs to know Christ and their life to be changed.

They are in a dangerous condition.

The Bible even goes further and talks about an

everlasting darkness. When Jesus was describing what

hell is going to be like, one of the descriptions he

gave is that is a place of outer darkness. Think about

it. To be blind mentally. To be blind morally. To be

blind spiritually and to die without the Light of the

World and go into eternity into everlasting darkness.

I heard about a man who had trained his parrot to

answer back to him. He would say, "Good morning,

Polly."  The parrot would say, "Good morning." In the

evening he say to the parrot, "Good night, Polly." The

parrot would say, "Good night."

One morning he got up and said, "Good morning, Polly."

The parrot said, "Good morning."  That night he got

ready to go to bed and he said, 'Good night, Polly."

The parrot said, 'Good night."

Then ext morning them an got up and said, 'Good

morning, Polly."  The parrot said, "Good night." He

said, "Oh, no, good morning, Polly."  The parrot said,

"Good night."

At close examination the man discovered that the

parrot had gotten in a fight with the cat during the

night and the cat had scratched and gouged out the

eyes of the parrot so that the parrot was blind. There

would never be anymore good mornings for Polly. It was

all good nights.

That's the danger of a person dying in their spiritual

blindness without Jesus Christ. Here is a man who is

blinded physically. But you may be here this morning

and you need sight. You don't need just a reformation.

A lot of people say, "I need to turn over a new leaf." 

You don't need some remedial glasses. You don't just

need some eye salve, you don't need a little religion

smeared on your life. Just show up for church every

now and then. Get you a little religion. That's not

what you need. What you need is spiritual sight. Here

is a man who is blind. That's the condition of the

man. There he sits by the roadside.

Notice the second thing that is obviously told here.

The Bible says he was begging. That's not uncommon

either. It used to not be uncommon in our day. I can

vividly remember when I was a boy living in a little

county seat town up in Georgia how common it was to

see blind people sitting on the street or sitting on

the square up in our little county seat town. I can

remember seeing those blind men with a little pan a

few pencils, trying to see pencils to eke out a meager

living. There they would sit. "Alms for the blind.

Alms for the blind." People would drop a few pennies

in and some would and some wouldn't take a pencil.

There they sat rattling a few pennies in a pan. A

beggar.

This man is a beggar. That's what his blindness has

brought to him. He doesn't have a job. He's just

having to beg for his way of living. Everyday he comes

to this same spot. This is his only occupation, his

only means of welfare. He is a beggar.

That's what the Bible says has happened to every one

of us. The Bible says that our first father, Adam,

sold us out and we are born into this world into

spiritual poverty. Here was a man who was in poverty

and spiritually we are in poverty.  The government has

what they call a poverty level. I don't know what that

level is now. It changes from time to time. But you

may be very well off. You may have an abundance of

this world's goods. You may have a lot of money in the

bank; but outside of Jesus Christ you are on the

spiritual poverty level. That's where you are living

this very morning.

Notice this blind beggar as the people are going by. I

can almost image this morning he wakes up in some barn

where a beggar had to live. He shakes the straw off of

his well-worn garments and stumbles out of the barn.

He begs some milk from a lady passing by. He begs for

a crust of bread from a man passing by. Then he makes

his way and sits down at his accustomed place there at

the gate of Jerusalem, wondering where he will get his

next meal. The condition of the man.

Move on into verse 47 and see-

II. The CRY for Mercy.

"And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth." 

That's so true to the picture because we know that

sometimes our senses are enhanced in one area when we

lose them in another area. It is true that those who

have blindness, their sense of hearing is enhanced. He

has keenness of hearing. He hears all the familiar

sounds of the beginning of activities in the morning.

He hears the donkeys as they come by, braying and

kicking. He hears the camels as they go by wheezing

and blowing under their load. He hears the women as

they come by with their pitchers, on the way to get

water for the day, giggling and laughing with one

another. Then he hears a larger noise than he has

heard on recent days. He can tell that something big

is coming along. All of a sudden he hears little boys

running like little boys do in front of parades. Now a

big crowd is coming by. I can almost see him as in his

blindness, he reaches out and grabs the garment of a

man and says, "What's going on? What's coming down

today?

The man says, "You fool, haven't you heard? Jesus of

Nazareth is getting ready to pass this way."  He had

heard of Jesus of Nazareth. He knew that name. He had

heard what Jesus had done. This Jesus of Nazareth had

met crippled people and caused them to walk. This

Jesus of Nazareth had cleansed lepers. This Jesus of

Nazareth had even raised dead people from the dead.

This Jesus of Nazareth, on the other side of

Jerusalem, had given two blind men their sight. Maybe

there's a little hope for me.

The man begins to cry and says, "Have mercy."  He's

crying for mercy. He may have started the day off

crying for money; now he's crying for mercy. The voice

of misery now becomes the voice crying out for mercy.

Notice this cry of mercy how insistently he makes it.

"Jesus, son of David." Isn't that interesting? That

was a messianic title. The messiah had to have been

the Son of David. That's why Matthew 1 is so important

because it gives genealogically the proof and the

evidence that Jesus Christ was born as a son of David.

So he understands messianic terminology. It may be

that he also understood that in the book of Isaiah

28:10 the Bible says about the Messiah, "In that day,

the eyes of the blind shall see." So he recognizes who

it is and insistsently, "Jesus, thou son of David,

have mercy on me."

That's what he needed—mercy. Mercy is contrasted with

grace in the Bible. We are saved by grace, but we are

also saved by mercy. Grace means we get what we do not

deserve. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. But

mercy, by contrast, means that we do not get what we

do deserve. He's calling out for mercy. He's not

asking for what he deserves. He's asking for what he

does not deserve.

This is the day of rights. Everybody is demanding his

or her rights. We have women's rights. We have civil

rights. We have children's rights. We have senior

citizen's rights. Everybody demanding his or her

rights. But I don't won't my rights. If I got what I

deserved I would be in hell forever. I don't want my

rights; I want mercy. That's what I want. The good

news is—he is calling out to someone who has mercy to

give. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:4 that God is rich

in mercy. In Titus 3:5 the Bible says, "Not by works

of righteousness which we have done, but according to

His mercy has He saved us."  We are saved not because

we deserve it, but we are saved by the shear grace of

God. We are saved not because we merit it; we are

saved because God in mercy does not give us what we

should deserve; he gives us mercy.

He cries insistently. "Son of David, have mercy on

me." Look what happens. Verse 48 says, "That many

charged him that he should hold his peace." In other

words, the people around were upset about it. Here

comes Jesus. Here this blind guy is and he starts

disrupting the party. He starts interrupting the

parade. I can hear them now. "Shut up, blind man. Keep

your mouth closed, loud mouth. Jesus doesn't have any

time for you."

That's kind of the way it is today. You get interested

in the Lord and in things of the Lord and you get

ready to call on the Lord and ask God to help you—

there will be folks who will try to stop you. Satan

will try to do it, I'll guarantee you that. You get

interested in Jesus and in getting your life changed

and getting your spiritual eyes opened up, and the

devil will do everything he can to stop your cry for

mercy and seal your doom. This old world will dot he

same thing. You get interested in the Lord and this

old world will do everything it can to blind you by

its pleasures.

The world of religion will try to do it, too. The

world of religion will try to get you covered up in

its rules and its rituals and its regulations.

Anything to keep you from Jesus Christ who has mercy

to give.

Are you a help or a hindrance to people who want to

get to Jesus?  Are you helping people get to Jesus or

are you hindering people getting to Jesus?  These

people are trying to hinder the man, but it didn't do

any good. It says in verse 48, "But he cried the more

a great deal."  In other words, he just turned up the

volume. He says, "Jesus, have mercy on me."

If you are interested in the Lord this morning and

spiritual thing, don't let anything stop you. Don't

let anybody hinder you.

I remember back during the hippy movement. I was

preaching one day in Mobile, Alabama. Right in the

middle of my message as I was talking about people

coming to Christ and giving their life to Christ. I

said you ought to give your life to Christ now. About

that time there was hippy girl in the congregation. I

will never forget it. On a Sunday morning that hippy

girl, dressed in her hippy garb, was about half way

back the building. Right in the middle of it she just

jumped up and came running right up here. There would

be a machine gun get her today before she would get

her, I guess. But in those days she came and just fell

right up there on the pulpit. I just stopped my

message and led her to the Lord right on the spot.

Don't let anything keep you from coming to the Lord.

You say, "He won't forgive me." Yes, He will. Cry on.

"But I'm blind." I know it. He will give you sight.

Cry on. "Others will try to hinder me." I know that,

but cry on. "I'm not sure I'm worthy to come."  Cry

on. The cry for mercy.

Here's the man. He knows what he needs and he's asking

the lord for it. The condition of the man. The cry for

mercy. Notice in 49 and following-

III. The COMMAND Of The Master.

"And Jesus stood still." You could paraphrase that,

"Jesus stopped dead in His tracks."

There were a lot of sounds going on. There was a lot

of commotion around and a lot of noise was being made.

But through all of the din of the noise here is a cry

for mercy. Here is a man who needs to meet Jesus. Here

is a man who needs some help from Jesus. When this man

cries out to Jesus, Jesus stood still. Ladies and

gentlemen, the cry that stops deity in its track is

the cry for mercy. So Jesus stood still and commanded

him to be called.  He calls the man.

Can you imagine what that did to that man? In those

days a blind person was an outcast. Nobody wanted to

be around them. They were just a bother. They just

cumbered the situation up. Yet, here is a man and

Jesus wants him. Jesus calls for him. Jesus asks for

him.

It's something to be wanted, isn't it?  I was reading

a biography this week and it was very typical of what

goes on in school when you are a kid. When you are on

the ball field at recess and they have two captains—

the two best players on the team. They start choosing

sides. Do you remember how you felt standing there?

Can you feel it this morning? You are standing there

and sweat pops out on your brow. They pick this one

and they pick that one. It's getting smaller and

smaller. Then in a little while the guy says, "Hey,

Vines, you come over here on my side."  Do you

remember how relived you were? You run over and get on

his side. "I've been chosen!  I've been picked! 

Somebody wants me!" Have you ever stood there and

nobody wanted you?  They got in a fuss and said, "You

take him."  "No, I'm not going to take him, you take

him." You don't feel wanted.

Here is a man who has been chosen by Jesus. Let me

tell you something, dear one. If you were the only

blind sinner who ever lived, if you were the only lost

person who ever need Jesus Christ, out of all the

people of the world, Jesus Christ would have died on

that cross just for you. He wants you. He calls you.

"He called."  And they say to the blind man, "Be of

good comfort, rise, He calleth you."  I can almost

imagine that man. He's been called, he's been chosen

by the Lord. I can almost see him as he gets up and

starts stumbling forward.

Jesus is calling you this morning. You didn't come

here by accident. You are here by divine providence.

Jesus is calling you.

You just stand up when the invitation time comes and

ask Jesus to help you take that first step and then

ask Him to help you take that second step and ask Him

to help you take that next step. You come right down

because Jesus Christ is calling you unto Himself this

day.

Verse 50 says, "And he, casting away his garment,

rose, and came to Jesus."  He threw away that garment.

He got rid of anything that would encumber him.

The prodigal son was in the hog pen and when he said,

"I will arise and go to my father." He got up and left

the hog pen. He didn't come back to the father with

two buckets of slop in his hands. He comes leaving all

of that behind.

I hard about a little boy who got his hand caught in a

vase. His hand was so little it easily should have

come out of the opening of the vase. Yet, they just

couldn't get the little boy's hand out of the vase. At

great tendency to cause some harm to the boy, finally

they had to crack the vase. When they did, they found

the little boy's hand doubled up. When they pried it

open he had a quarter in his hand.

Some of you need to come to Jesus Christ, but you are

holding on to that old quarter. You are holding on to

something that keeps you from Jesus Christ.

Here is this man and Jesus calls him and he throws

away what would encumber him and he comes to Jesus.

Notice what he says in verse 51. Jesus said unto him,

"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?"  He could

have said, "Lord, I would like to have a new suit of

clothes. I've been living in these beggars rags long

enough." Or he could have said, "I need a good job.

I'm tired of this begging."

Oh, no. He said, "Lord, that I might receive my

sight."  He knew what he needed and he asked for it.

That's what some of you need this morning. What you

think you need may not be what you need. What you

really need is spiritual sight. That happens to be one

of the specialties of Jesus. The Bible says, "The Lord

openeth the eyes of the blind."  He specializes in

that.

He says to the man in verse 52, "Go thy way, thy faith

hath made thee whole."  Jesus not only called the man,

now He cures the man. He says your faith has saved

you.  Faith is the hand that reaches up to the grace

of God. Faith is also the hand that reaches out for

the mercy of God. The Bible says, "The lord is

abundant in mercy." You call on Him, he will come and

he will give you sight.

It says, "Immediately he received his sight." He could

see for the first time in his life. Do you know what

the first thing he saw?  The face of Jesus.

The special music was so beautiful this morning—

talking about that crystal river and all of the

glories of heaven. There will be a lot of sights to

see when we get to heaven—the sea of glass, the gates

of pearl, the streets of gold, the fresh river of

life, the tree of life. A lot of sight. But to me the

sweetest statement in all of the Bible about heaven is

when it says, "And they shall His face."

One of these days, if you will give your life to

Christ now, you'll see His face.

So, he followed him in the way. He's following Jesus.

I can almost hear him now. "See that man right there.

That's Jesus. I was blind and he made me see."  I

don't think he ever got tired of telling the story.

Jesus was passing by. Here's a man along the roadside

who needed some mercy. He got what he needed when he

met Jesus.

The m an could have said, "There's too big a crowd,

I'll wait until the crowd is smaller."  Or he could

have said, "I don't feel just exactly like it this

morning. I would like to get my sight, but I don't

have that feeling I want. I'll wait until I get that

feeling."  Or he could have said, "I'm afraid somebody

is going to laugh at me."  No. That was his first and

his last opportunity and when the opportunity came,

when Jesus passed by, he took his opportunity and got

what he needed.

How many times has Jesus passed by you? Do you

remember that day you heard that pretty song and

something happened to you down in your heart and kind

of shoot you up a little and you knew you need the

Lord? Do you remember that day you heard a preacher

preach and he aid something out of the clear blue and

it shook your soul? Do you remember that mom or that

dad or that friend who said something to you about the

Lord and you knew down deep in your soul you needed to

do something about it.

Dear one, Jesus is passing your way again this

morning. He may never pass by again. This may be your

last opportunity.

We used to sing an old invitation hymn, "Pass me not,

o gentle Savior, hear my humble cry. While on others

thou art calling, do not pass me by."

Let's bow our heads in prayer.

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