Mark 10:47 “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.”
In our lives, Jesus will not walk the physical highways of our nation. What is taught by blind Bartimaeus is the need to seek our own healing, spiritual or physical. In this account of Jesus performing a miracle, the first miracle was understanding that Jesus can heal anything within the Father’s Will. As he walked this earth about 2000 years ago, He healed a multitude of different problems; physical problems and spiritual problems. It is a picture for us to follow.
Jeremiah 33:3 tells us “Call unto me and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thoug knowest not.”
Blind Bartimaeus did not let the crowd around him keep his voice from being heard. He continued to call unto the LORD until he was heard. Thou around him tried to silence him, yet he persevered until Jesus stood still. Jesus was listening. He heard the cry in the midst of the multitude. He called blind Bartimaeus to Him.
“What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” the Lord asked.
“That I might receive my sight!” What a glorious gift to a blind man. After years of sightlessness, to be able to see his family or go to work again or just to enjoy the beauty of the world around him! Bartimaeus lived in a time where you were a farmer or a businessman. A blind man was useless to both areas. He was beside the road like road trash, begging for anything to help his situation. Today, the blind can be taught repetitive tasks they can do by feel, yet back then if you could not work, you were consigned to the roadside begging for the mercy of man to drop a coin into a container.
While I was in Nigeria, there were many, many of those. They hired a youngster to lead them to the wealthiest looking men so they might beg for alms. “Give from your abundance! Allah will bless you for it!” they would call over and over again, holding out some container. If you gave to one, you would be overwhelmed by dozens of others. Our company had a strict policy against giving to the those who begged. If you were walking in the market and you gave to one, then a crowd would follow you and disrupt the market flow of traffic. If the merchants began to lose money, they called the police and you would be arrested for causing a disturbance. Many times, the state of the beggers broke my heart for them.
Jesus will hear if we call. He may wait to see if we are serious, but He will act on our request. Sometimes, it is yes, sometimes it is no and sometimes it is wait, but like blind Bartimaeus, do not give up.
Luke 18:1 “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;” I know of a woman that prayed for her husband for years about him coming to Christ for salvation. Some of her friends and family who knew her husband well, told her she might as well give up. Her husband was more than hostile to the gospel, he would lash out with word or fist if he thought that it was the only way to get someone to shut up about him being lost. An Evangelist came to town to speak in this woman’s church. She sought him out after the first night he preached and told the story about her husband. He promised to come visit with her husband. Right on cue, the husband became violent and struck the Evangelist in the face. The man stood and wiped the blood from his face and began again to tell the man of his need of a Savior. Again the man struck him in the face and again he got back up. He spoke of the wife’s desire to see him ready to go to heaven and the man struck him again. Again he stood back up and smiled a small smile. “God loves you even now and so do I,” said the Evangelist. “How could you?” demanded the man. “God gave His own self to die to pay the wages of sin. He loved you enough to die for you. I love you enough to take a beating from you. Won’t you listen to the Gospel?” The man was saved that day. His wife had prayed for years until a young man was born, accepted Christ himself, was called to preach, went to Bible School to be trained, became a successful Evangelist, then came to her church to preach. God is Almighty. God knows best. You see, the man was not ready to accept Christ until the moment he finally gave in. All those years of prayer were not wasted for they drew the wife closer to Christ, and God heard her prayer just as Jesus heard the plea from blind Bartimaeus. He healed both at the right time in their lives. Do you have someone that needs salvation in your family? Pray for them and continue to pray for them until there is no more hope. Only in death does that hope die. I have witnessed to more than one on their death bed and gotten a nod when asked if they wanted to be saved. Do not let others keep you from prayer either for yourself or others. Pray always. Romans 12:12 “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;”
