Let's open our Bibles to Luke 18 and we will
look at the text of verses 35 through 43. It is the last section in the 18th chapter
of Luke's glorious gospel. Luke chapter 18, verses 35 through 43. Listen as I read. "And it came about as He was approaching Jericho
a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Now hearing a multitude going by he began
to inquire what this might be. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was
passing by. And he called out, saying, 'Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me.' And those who led the way were sternly telling
him to be quiet. But he kept crying out all the more, 'Son
of David, have mercy on me.' And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be
brought to Him. And when he had come near, He questioned him. 'What do you want Me to do for you?' And he said, 'Lord, I want to regain my sight.' And Jesus said to him, 'Receive your sight. Your faith has made you well.' And immediately he regained his sight and
began following Him, glorifying God. And when all the people saw it, they gave
praise to God." The New Testament record of Jesus' miracles
began with the wedding in Cana where He turned water into wine. That's how it all began. It ends here. It ends here with Him giving sight to the
blind. Oh there is a brief incident in which He curses
a fig tree while in Jerusalem during His Passion Week. But as far as miracles related to people and
public, this is the last one. It all started in Cana in the north of Galilee
in an insignificant village in the foothills atop the Sea of Galilee and it all ended in
the south of Judea in a historically significant town in the lowlands atop the Dead Sea. It really is fitting that the first and last
miracles of Jesus bracket the land of Israel in between because in between those two miracles,
both in time and geography, He filled the land of Israel, the towns, the villages, the
hillsides, the valleys, with miracles, signs, and wonders and mighty deeds as He constantly
moved from place to place, preaching and teaching the Kingdom of God and salvation and demonstrating
and proving His deity by His miraculous power. This miracle puts the period at the end of
the astonishing sentence of His miracles. Through the years since His baptism at the
Jordan River, He filled Israel with supernatural power on display, banishing disease, demons
and death, demonstrating that He had total authority over the physical world and the
spiritual world. Clearly He is the Son of God. Clearly He is the Lord. Clearly He is the Messiah. There is one more monumental miracle to follow
the cross. He will rise from the dead. But for now, it is time for the Servant of
Jehovah to become the suffering Servant. It is time for the Anointed One to become
the rejected one. It is time for the sovereign Lord to become
the sacrificial lamb. And He knew it. Last week we looked at verses 31 to 33, didn't
we? He took the twelve aside and said to them,
"Behold, we're going up to Jerusalem and all things which are written through the prophets
about the Son of Man will be accomplished, for He will be delivered to the Gentiles and
will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And after they have scourged Him, they will
kill Him and the third day He will rise again." Nothing surprised Jesus, not the omniscient
Son of God. He knew every detail of His suffering to come. And if you combine Matthew and Mark's account
of those very words which are also recorded and put it all together, there are even more
details. He says that He knows that He will be betrayed. He knows He will be betrayed into the hands
of the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn Him. Then they will hand Him over to the Gentiles. Then He will be mocked, mistreated, spit on,
He will be scourged, He will be killed, says Luke. Matthew says crucified, and He will rise again. It is now time for all of this to begin. This is His last time to go up to Jerusalem. He will be crucified because it is the will
of His own people that He be crucified. He will be crucified at the hands of the godless
Romans, but it will be done for God, for God, because God had ordained that He would be
the sacrifice for sin. Rejection is set. Death is inescapable. The shallow crowd that hails Him on His entry
into the city will be the same crowd that a few days later cries for His blood. The great apostasy in Israel has led the Jews
to execute their own Lord and Messiah, according to God's predetermined plan, yes, but without
escaping the guilt of their crime. And from here on, there are no stories of
conversion in Jerusalem during Passion Week, no stories of salvation in the last days,
just two at the cross, a thief, and a Centurion who was a Roman. But until those two conversions, the days
are bleak and filled with suffering. This is the last shining light what happens
in Jericho before the darkness of His suffering begins. There is not one joyful note from the time
He walks out of Jericho until He is nailed to a cross. Only a few days for Him; for us, I'm afraid,
could be a few years because the details must be seen in all their majesty and glory. He is, after all, the Man of Sorrows, and
for us, we're going to take the sorrowful journey with Him and it will last, I warn
you, a long time. But it has to, because these final days of
Jesus are the reason He came and they are filled with inexhaustible richness and we
must drink as deeply as we can the very cup that He drank. But on the way to Jerusalem, before the darkness
sets in, there are two wonderfully beautiful salvation stories that Luke gives us. They occur in Jericho. These are two stories that stand in stark
contrast to the belief...to the unbelief and the hatred of Israel's leaders. These are two stories that are in contrast
to the shallow, superficial praise offered by the crowd that was so fickle; two stores
if salvation, two prodigals brought home for the joy of God, two outcasts, two hated sinners. And they are the lowest of the low. One, a blind man begging, which means he had
no one to care for him. The other a tax collector, the most hated
and despised of all people in Israel. And the other two trophies of sovereign grace
at the cross were also outcasts: a wretched, hated, executed criminal and a despised Roman. This is an indictment of massive proportions
against the nation Israel: a beggar, a tax collector, a thief, and a Roman centurion. It is a reminder that the Lord chooses the
poor and the lowly for His kingdom. Here are the last shining lights, the last
moments of joy. Oh the hypocritical hoopla on Palm Sunday
doesn't break the pain at all. In fact, you'll know that when you get there
because you'll feel the hypocrisy, you'll feel the superficiality, you'll feel the shallowness. And in fact, that kind of superficial praise
only intensifies the pain because of its hypocrisy. So I say to you this, beloved, cherish these
two stories. Cherish them, because it's going to be a long
journey and the pain will be deep and unrelenting until we finally get to the Resurrection. So let this be our joy as it certainly is
God's joy to share it with us. Now this journey to Jerusalem began back in
chapter 9 verse 51 when Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem. So we've been with Him a long time on this
journey. Some of you have been here long enough to
remember when we were in Luke 9. I know you do. And I would just remind you that during this
wonderful journey in which He went around and around in Judea and took a little foray
up into Galilee and down again, during this long time there are four notable miracles
recorded for us: one in chapter 13, one in chapter 14, one in chapter 17. This is the fourth and the last. Matthew also writes about this same miracle,
Matthew chapter 20 verse 29 and following. Mark also writes about it, Mark 10 verses
32 and following. So we have Matthew's account and Mark's account
to enrich this and that way we get the whole revealed picture and so I'll be drawing from
those accounts as we focus on Luke's. Now the only way I know to tell a story in
a way that we can really grab it is to go through the characters in the story. Always that's the key to the story. And there are three characters that we want
to look at. There is a blind man. There is the Lord Jesus. There is the crowd. So we're going to look at the sad plight of
the blind man, the supernatural power of the Lord, and the spontaneous praise of the crowd. Let's begin with the blind man's sad plight,
verse 35. "It came about that as He was approaching
Jericho a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging." This is a very vivid picture if you start
to put the pieces together. Matthew says Jesus was accompanied by a massive
crowd, a great multitude. Why? They were all headed for Jerusalem for the
Passover and they would be coming flowing down through Jericho because if they came
from the Galilee and they came toward the east, they would...they would come down from
Galilee, they would cross the Jordan River to go through Perea; so they didn't go through
Samaria because the Jews did not go through Samaria, believing it to be cursed. They would then cross the Jordan to go down
through Perea. They would cross the Jordan again down at
the south and they would cross just east of Jericho which would be the first city this
west side of the Jordan River and they would begin their trek up the hill through Jericho. So there was a steady stream of people flowing
south and then up through Jericho to Jerusalem. But this was greater than the normal, daily
flow going to the city, and it was greater because this was a mass of people who had
surrounded the Lord Jesus Christ. Three years of ministry, by now He is well
known, His power is well known, spread throughout the land. There is tremendous interest in Him. Is He in fact the Messiah? Is He in fact the Lord? Has He come to establish the kingdom? Will this be the moment? And by the way, having ministered for that
last almost year of His ministry in Judea, He has taken a brief foray up into Galilee,
done some teaching and preaching there, over into Perea down some ministry there, now coming
back, He, along with the flow of Passover pilgrims, would have crossed the Jordan River
very possibly on a ferry because the Jordan -- though it's a small river, when the spring
comes and the rains begin to fill the river and the snow begins to melt on the Lebanon
mountains -- can be a serious river and very often they crossed on a ferry and so they
cross at Jericho. Jericho! You've heard that, haven't you? Let me tell you about Jericho a little bit. It was the city of palms. That's what it was called, about a six hour
walk up and it's straight up. And to go up to Jerusalem you had to go that
way. That was the path. Well known, by the way, in New Testament times,
south end of the Jordan Valley, six miles north of the Dead Sea. And in those days the city was fed by springs. There were springs all around it. And when they weren't near to the city, the
water was piped into reservoirs to use in the city and also used to irrigate and make
the area productive and so it was a flourishing area for certain crops. It was filled with date palms. That how...how it got its name; and fruit
trees were everywhere. There was a plant called balsam which was
a bush that produced the juice that was used for medicinal applications and found only
there. The climate was warm in the winter and really
hot in the summer, some of you know. Josephus says if you're going to live in Jericho,
you only need linen clothes because even when there's snow fifteen miles up in Jerusalem,
it can be very warm in Jericho. Mark tells us that in Jerusalem during Passion
Week on the Mount of Olives, Mark says in Mark 11:13, it was not yet the season for
figs. But it would have been the season for figs
down in Jericho, so they would have been ripening everywhere on those palms. Almonds, by the way, also grew there and flourished
there as well as rose plants, which are very old in the history of the world, by the way,
making it a lovely place, a kind of an agricultural garden. In fact, it was such a magnificent place with
the Dead Sea nearby that Marc Antony gave the city to Cleopatra. That's a pretty good gift, according to Josephus. It was also the place that Herod loved so
much he built a fortress there, he built a palace there and he went there to die. So New Testament Jericho had a large population,
and was flourishing. But most of us remember Old Testament Jericho,
don't we? The other Jericho, the Joshua 6 Jericho. You remember Jericho. The children of Israel marched around the
walls for seven days and on the seventh time on the seventh day the walls fell down. We all sang that song growing up in Sunday
school. This was God's amazing destruction of Jericho
as the children of Israel coming out of forty years of wandering out of the wilderness entered
in to possess the land of Canaan and this was God's demonstration that it would fall
to them because it was promised to Abraham and to his seed. So, even when Jesus was there, there were
actually two Jerichos. There was the old Jericho, the ruins of the
Old Testament Jericho, a little bit east and north. I've been there. I've seen down at the bottom of the archeological
digs what they say are the original walls of Jericho fallen outward, just as the Bible
indicates. So there was that city. Two thousand years ago the ruins would have
been more readily seen then they are today. And then there was the new Jericho. So there really were two Jerichos. That's kind of an interesting thing because
Luke says He was approaching Jericho. Matthew and Mark say He was leaving Jericho. That's possible. You could be approaching the new Jericho leaving
the old Jericho. It is also possible that Luke's words are
not to be taken in the way they're translated, "He was approaching," but rather the literal
is "in the to come near." It's an infinitive clause; that it simply
means "in the vicinity." Others say He was going out but when He heard
the cry of the blind man He went back in. Well, in any case He was around Jericho. One more thing to think about: If you've been
to Jericho, you look up and you see this massive, massive rock mountain that casts its shadow
every night over Jericho as the sun goes down. Archeologists, including George Adam Smith,
have called it the devastation. It wouldn't be a place you'd want to get lost:
severe cliffs, severe drops, severe valleys, rugged, barren land. Some believe it, very likely, is the place
where Jesus was tempted by the devil. Jesus surely would have remembered that. Couldn't have approached Jericho without crossing
the Jordan, remembering His baptism three years before, couldn't have come to Jericho
without looking up and realizing that He had been there in conflict when it all began with
Satan. So, Jericho had to have been filled with all
kinds of sights, all kinds of sounds, all kinds of memories, including the dusty commotion
of a huge crowd following Him, kicking up dirt everywhere. And when He got to Jericho, all the people
came down out of their houses, out of their fields, and they lined the streets, swelling
this massive group of curious people; some, the pilgrims moving, the rest lining the roadway;
Passover excitement everywhere. The wonder drew the huge crowd to follow Jesus. Is He the King? Is He going to bring the kingdom? This kind of anticipation, this kind of pent-up
desire and longing really is what erupted when He finally got there on Palm Sunday. And there's something else to put in the mix
here. As He comes to Jericho, Jericho is very aware
of an event that happened just a few miles up the hill in a little village called Bethany
and it only happened a few weeks before. And it is that Jesus went there and raised
a man named Lazarus from the dead, and everybody knew he was dead because he had been dead
for four days and he was in the tomb. And the word of His resurrection of Lazarus
had spread up to Jerusalem and to all the leaders who wanted to kill Jesus for that,
and surely down the hill to the people in Jericho. So He was the focus of immense attention,
immense interest, to put it mildly. The whole city must have been just chaotic
as He came through with this mass of people. By the way, He was there for two days because
He spent one night in the house of the tax collector, which would have been by all Jewish
standards about the most defiling thing a Jew could do. But the next day, the tax collector started
paying everybody back what he owed them four-fold and so being with the tax collector hadn't
made Jesus unclean. In fact it made the tax collector clean. So He's there for a couple of days. He may have...He may have actually healed
this blind man on the way out so that the crowd was not only buzzing about Jesus, but
they were buzzing about what in the world happened to Zacchaeus, as he was giving people
their due and four-fold; so, a lot going on. And so, Luke, in the wonderful inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, in the middle of this melee and chaos of sights and sounds and people,
takes the spotlight of divine revelation and brings it down and magnifies the image and
goes right down and finds a beggar. Beggars were everywhere. He goes right down to this beggar and shines
the spotlight of divine revelation on his sightless face. A lot of blind people in Israel, a lot of
blind people; Jesus healed them all the time. Blindness was a major issue in the gospel
record. In fact it was so common that Jesus used blindness
as an illustration of what it was to be ignorant of God. It was to be blind. The Old Testament prophet talked about that. Physical blindness came...came with birth
defects. Physical blindness also came very frequently
from birth itself called ophthalmia neonatorum , gonorrhea of the eyes. A lot of venereal disease in those days and
little babies passing through the birth canal with conjunctiva in their eyes pick up the
infection and it would cause them to be blind. Infantile blindness was a very serious issue. And then poverty produced its own blindness
in a myriad of ways: unsanitary conditions, blowing sand, accidents, crimes, fights, infectious
organisms. And the blind were inevitably reduced to begging
because the idea was that if you're blind, you're blind because you're sinful, right? Remember what they said in John 9 about the
blind man. Who sinned, this man or his parents? The assumption was this was the judgment of
God, and so you want to leave that man to suffer the judgment of God. So there on the roadside begging is a blind
man, a lowly, lowly, lowly blind man. In fact, the blind were believed to be below
the normal riff-raff, below the normally unclean sinners. And the only people who were below the blind
were tax collectors. And by the way, Matthew says there was another
blind man, that this blind man had a buddy. They helped each other. Well, not as much as having a guy who could
see as your buddy would help. But misery likes company, doesn't it? And together they were better as two then
they would be as one, so Matthew tells us there were actually two of them. But Luke focuses on one and Mark tells us
the name of the one. His name is Bartimaeus, which means bar, son
of, Timaeus. Why does Mark give his name and why does Luke
focus on this one who has a name? Well it is very possible that he was known
to the readers of the gospel. When the gospels were written at a later time,
he may well have become a well-known person in the church so that Mark wrote using a name
that everybody knew and this would be a recounting in the gospel record of the conversion of
this man. And so Luke focuses on him and so will we. Verse 36, "Hearing a multitude going by,"
different than the normal flow of constant pilgrims, "he began to inquire what this might
be. And they told him" verse 37 "that Jesus of
Nazareth was passing by." Jesus of Nazareth, huh? That's basically how you would identify anybody,
right? Bill from Toledo. That's a human thing, isn't it? Jesus of Nazareth. That's how you identified people, by their
town. He was well known far from His town. But in the popular perception, He was a man
named Jesus from a town named Nazareth. That's important because the blind man who
couldn't see anything physically saw a whole lot more than that in Jesus. And verse 38, "The blind man, he called out
saying, 'Jesus,'" not Jesus of Nazareth, but Jesus what? "'Son of David, have mercy on me,'" and here
the seeing can't see what the blind see. And by the way, "called out," bawao , to literally
call out loud; Matthew uses krazō , which means to scream. This verb, krazō , used by Matthew, is used
of the insane, of epileptics, of demon-possessed people, and women in childbirth in the Bible. We're talking about really yelling, very strong
word. Now that's understandable, wouldn't you think? Massive crowd, chaos everywhere, buzz going
on, thousands of conversations happening, and in the middle of this, he wants to be
heard. This is anguish. This is desperation. But it's not just that, it is clearly faith. He does not say, "Jesus of Nazareth," though
that is who has been identified to him. He says, "Jesus, Son of David." Not "are you," but "Son of David." Is that important? It is important because that is a Messianic
title. He is confirming his faith that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel and God's anointed King. Trying to be heard over the din, trying to
be heard over the noise of the crowd, trying to be heard in his obscurity and his isolation,
crushed down in the middle of the crowd somewhere with all that's going on, he shouts at the
top of his voice, "Jesus, Son of David." That's His title as the heir to the messianic
throne. That's His title as the one who has the right
to fulfill the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7:12 to 14, where God promises David's going
to have a greater Son who is going to reign and who is going to have an everlasting kingdom. Who is David's greater Son? They all knew that that greater Son was not
Solomon. They all knew that that there was a greater
Son than Solomon. There was a coming Son who would have an eternal
kingdom. Solomon didn't have a very successful kingdom
at all. In fact, out of him comes a divided kingdom. They all knew that there was coming another
king in David's line. That's why it's so important when the New
Testament opens up it gives a genealogy of Jesus right back through Joseph to David. And in Luke it gives a genealogy of Jesus
right back through Mary to David. Mary was in the line of David, and so was
Joseph. He was fully by fatherly right and by blood
an heir to David's throne. More than that, He was God's choice. There were many descendants of David. He was God's choice to be the Messiah and
the King. And in the beginning chapter of Luke, do you
remember verse 32? When Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her who
the child that she will bear will be, "He will be great, He will be called the Son of
the Most High and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father, David, and He will
reign over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end." And Zacharias, the Old Testament high priest...the
Old Testament priest I should say, he was the father of John the Baptist, he understood
what the coming of the Messiah meant in his Benedictus at the end of chapter 1 in verse
69, he says, "God has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, His
servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old. If you follow it into the book of Acts, the
preachers of the early gospel are preaching that Jesus Christ is the Son of David. If you follow it all the way into the book
of Revelation when He comes to establish the kingdom, He is the Son of David. They knew it. Everybody knew that the Messiah was to be
the Son of David. In the 21st chapter of Matthew, we get a bit
of a glimpse of Jesus' entry into the city which shall come in a few days after these
events, and I'll just give you a couple of looks at this. Chapter 21 and verse 9: "After the multitudes
were going before Him and those who were following Him were crying out, saying, 'Hosanna to the
Son of David....'" That was simply a messianic tribute, everybody
understood that. In verse 15, again, "When the chief priests
and scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, the children were crying out
in the temple," children now, "saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,'" which means the parents
had taught their children that the Messiah would be the Son of David. They all understood the Davidic Covenant. They all understood the Messiah would come
to fulfill it and establish the kingdom. In chapter 22 and verse 41, "The Pharisees
were gathered together. Jesus asked them a question saying, 'What
do you think about the Christ? Who's son is He?'" What do you Pharisees think? Now we've talked about the population in general,
we've talked about the children what they know, what do you guys know? They said to Him, "The Son of David." Everybody understood that. Here you have a blind man. We don't know how through what means who has
come to know and believe and be confident that Jesus is the promised Son of David, the
Messiah, the one whose come to be their Redeemer and the King of Israel. And He knows all that's bound up in messianic
prophecy which extends not only to Israel but through Israel to the world. He sees it the way it really is. This is an expression of faith in Jesus as
the Messiah of promise and His power has proven it and His teaching. And he says, "Have mercy on me," which means
he confesses his pitiable condition. There is a measure...a measure of repentance
of this for sure. He recognizes no merit, he can offer nothing. By the way, a typical cry, "Have mercy on
me" for afflicted people, you see it throughout the Psalms: Psalm 4, Psalm 6, Psalm 9, Psalm
25, on and on through the Psalms, people saying, "Have mercy on me, have pity on me." This is a penitent heart. Here is a man who has faith in the person
of Jesus Christ as his Deliverer and the one sent from God to be His anointed King. Here is a man who knows his plight and it
is not possible for him to remedy it. And so he cries to the only one who can help. It's a beautiful, beautiful moment. And you won't hear any of this from now on
till the thief says, "Remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus, verse 40, stopped. He heard that one voice out of the cacophony
and He commanded that he be brought to Him. But before that happened, I want you to notice
how the crowd reacted. Verse 39, "Those who led the way" people in
charge, crowd-control people, "were sternly telling him to be quiet. But he kept crying out all the more, 'Son
of David, have mercy on me.'" This is desperate faith. This is the stuff that God desires. The man could not be brow-beaten back. He could not have his passion crushed. He could not be silenced. Why would they tell him to be quiet? Nuisance, disdain for a beggar, he's an outcast. It had absolutely no...absolutely no effect
on him, however, cause he's a true believer. May be despised by the people, rejected by
the people, and he's totally rejected, nobody is taking care of him. His family has rejected him. That's why he's begging. And he couldn't see anything, so he couldn't
see the dusty stranger coming down the road. He couldn't see that he was not clothed in
royal robes. He couldn't see that he was not carrying a
scepter, he was not attended by a royal entourage, he wasn't riding in a mobile throne. He couldn't see any of that, but he knew who
He was. Somehow in some way the truth had come home
to his heart and he had embraced it. And he refused to be beaten back into silence. His faith has frankly risen to the full height
of possibility. He believed everything there was to believe,
that He was the King and He was the one he needed and the only one who could give him
mercy. His heart had seen the light before his eyes
ever did. So we see this beggar's sad plight. We turn now to the dominant character in the
story, the Lord, and we see the Savior's supernatural power. "And Jesus stopped," one final time. One last time He will confirm His deity publicly,
one last time, one last time to demonstrate divine compassion. By the way, Matthew 20:34 even says, "He had
compassion on him." And He commanded that he be brought to him. Now you have to look at what Mark says at
this point. In Mark chapter 10, Jesus commands that he
be brought to Him. Mark chapter 10 verse 49, "Jesus stopped and
said, 'Call him here.'" Listen to this. "And they called the blind man, saying to
him, 'Take courage," cheer up, "arise. He's calling for you.'" Stunning, shocking. Listen to this response. "And casting aside his cloak, he jumped up
and came to Jesus." I love that. Is there any other way to come? This is faith. There was nothing to contemplate. There was nothing to think about. He just threw off his beggar's cloak. That's pretty significant because very likely
that's all he had in this world, kept him warm when the nights did get cold, provided
a bed for him to lie on. He threw it aside. This is great faith, this is eager faith. This is faith that says, "I don't have much,
but what I have I gladly discard." This is faith that says, "I don't think I
have any use any more for the stuff that has made my life a measure comfortable." He left everything he had behind. He came as fast as a blind man could come. And when he came near, verse 40, "Jesus questioned
him." I love this, verse 41, "What do you want Me
to do for you?" It's just stunning. The high King of heaven, the Creator God of
the universe, the sovereign, wants to be the servant of this lowly outcast. "What do you want Me to do for you?" This is mercy. This is grace. And he said, "Lord." He said what? Lord? Now his theology is starting to fill out a
little bit here. Kyrie , deity, Lord, Messiah, one who dispenses
mercy, and He comes to serve the blind man. And the blind man said, "I want to regain
my sight." It may indicate that he once had it and lost
it, that verb. And Jesus said to him in verse 42, "Receive
your sight." I love the simplicity of that, don't you? It's so understated. It doesn't say the earth shook and the clouds
moved and angels began to sing, and somebody cranked up the organ. Jesus threw His arms out. And He just said, "Receive your sight." Free dispensing of miracle power without any
diminishing of the supply; receive your sight. When Jesus healed people, sometimes He did
it with just a word. Sometimes He touched them. Matthew 20, same text, Matthew's account,
he said, "He touched their eyes." Why? Because Matthew says that his buddy was also
healed. Sometimes Jesus used spit, sometimes He used
clay. Sometimes He put His finger in people's ears. But no matter what gestures accompanied His
healing and no matter whether people had faith or didn't have faith, and there are healings
of people who had faith and people who had no faith, always His healings were total,
instantaneous, verifiable and inexplicable any other way than divine intervention. And it's really hard to fake healing blind
people. You can fake healing low back pain, but try
faking healing a blind person. One final messianic display, one final divine
act, one final preview of the coming kingdom, one final indictment of apostate Israel and
its leadership, one final rescue of the lowly and the rejected. But it wasn't just a healing for this man
or his blind pal because verse 43 says, "And immediately he regained his sight and began
following Him, and glorifying God." That means something else also happened, and
if you back up into verse 42, we look a little deeper into the text. "Your faith has made you well." The verb there is not iaomai which means to
heal, it is sōzō . It is the only New Testament word for save. "Your faith has saved you. Your faith has saved you." We've seen it repeatedly throughout Luke,
haven't we? Your faith has saved you. Your faith has saved you. Your faith has saved you. Faith is not necessary for healing, faith
is absolutely necessary for salvation. This very statement made in Luke 5 verse 20,
chapter 7 verses 48 to 50, chapter 8:46 to 48, chapter 17:17 to 19, this man was saved. And the evidence is there that tells us what
Jesus meant by what He said in verse 42 in that he followed Him. He followed Him. That's the mark of true conversion, isn't
it? Matthew 20:34 makes that point, says, "They
followed Him," the two of them. Mark 10:52, "He followed Jesus on the road." He was on the way with Jesus. He must have been there at the triumphal entry. All he had in the world was a cloak; threw
that off, followed Jesus. Can you imagine going up the Jericho road
to Jerusalem and seeing? Talk about a transformed life in an instant. He had gone from being a despised, despicable,
rejected beggar on the side of the road, to being a companion of God in a moment. And he's walking with Jesus. You can imagine that when they got to Jerusalem
and they went in, all that he experienced in the hallelujahs that were being heaped
on Jesus, you wonder, "Hey," maybe he thought, "everybody feels like I do." Then as the week went on, he must have been
around when the trial started, must have been around when Jesus was executed. But must have been around when Jesus was raised
from the dead. Guess what? He may have been one of the 120 in the Upper
Room. It doesn't say that. Let's put him there, OK? And if we get to heaven and we're wrong, we'll
never know it because nothing's wrong in heaven. OK? So for the moment, and maybe that's why Mark
gives his name because everybody did know who he was. Talk about a life transforming day! But isn't that how conversion always works? Always an outcast, always rejected, always
despised, no loving family. Now, so much has changed you could say that
18:29 and 30 is true of him. "Truly I say to you, there's no one who has
left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of
God who shall not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come eternal
life." He just stepped in to a new family both here
among the followers and lovers of Jesus Christ and the eternal family of heaven. He's one of those who will walk with God when
God walks with us in the New Jerusalem. And the idea of following is the picture of
obedience. And the idea of glorifying God is the picture
of worship. That's...That's how you live your life, isn't
it? As a believer you obey and you worship. Jesus went to the bottom, the bottom of Israel,
geographically. Went to the bottom of the social ladder to
claim a beggar, oh two beggars, two blind beggars and to throw in a tax collector. As beautiful as it is, as stunning as it is,
it is a horrific indictment of Israel, because when He gets to Jerusalem, nobody's saved
until two more despised men at the cross. But it was so stunning a miracle, so obvious,
that we do have to look at the crowd's spontaneous praise. End of verse 43, "When all the people saw
it, they gave praise to God." It doesn't mean they believed in Christ. They just knew it was miraculous. They gave praise to God. Surely this did begin the mounting praise,
especially in the light of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, which they would have
known about, to the burst that came when He finally walked through the gate of the city
of Jerusalem and the triumphal entry took place. It all exploded like popping the cork on the
champagne bottle when He got there. But it was so superficial for the crowd, so
shallow. So what are the lessons in the story? Well there are a lot of lessons. The Lord doesn't ignore the cry of those who
call upon Him truly. That's a lesson, isn't it? Another lesson, the Lord is profoundly compassionate. Another lesson, the Lord has power over all
ailments. Another lesson, the Lord came to do far more
than heal your body. He came to forgive and to save and to produce
someone who obeys Him and praises Him. But I think the real application for us is
simply to ask you a question. In the story, who...who are your people here? Who are your people? Who do you belong to? Are you part of the curious crowd? Are you willing to go to the point where you'll
recognize that God's doing certain things and put on a power display? Are you lining the church aisles here, or
are you just kind of sitting along the edge as Jesus passes by Sunday after Sunday after
Sunday after Sunday in all His glory and His majesty and you see His miracle power and
you hear His profound teaching and you think it's nice and it's good and it's interesting
and it might be compelling? And maybe you rise to sing the hymn and to
celebrate. But when it comes down to reality, you're
really on the side of the crucifiers because you will not give Him your life. Is that your people? Or are the two blind guys your people? Are those your people? Do you identify with people who threw off
everything, whether all it was was a cloak or whether it was all that the world had to
offer, whether it was riches incalculable? Do you understand the self-denial, the taking
up the cross, the following Jesus? Are you one of the followers and one of the
worshipers? Are the blind guys your people? This is a most important thing you'll ever
determine. Are you going to be with the many or the few? Who are your people? I know well that there are many of you who
will line the streets. You sit here and you watch Jesus go by and
He's on display in all His majesty and wonder and attractiveness, and you admire it, but
in the end, you're going to spend an eternity in hell in a far more severer hell because
you knew He was worthy of praise but you never gave Him your life. That's a severer judgment. But I pray that your people are the blind
guys. They're my people. We follow and we truly worship the One for
whom we would gladly forsake everything. Pray with me. Father, it is the truth of Your Word that
always penetrates to our hearts. Lord, I don't know who here is standing with
the curious crowd, walking along kicking up dust somewhere in the approximate area where
Jesus moves. I don't know who it is that admires Jesus
and yet has never given Him his life. Oh God, You know, and I pray right now that
You would be gracious, that You would be merciful, that You would hear the crying heart of some
who are here like the blind beggars and saying, "I've been a part of the curious crowd. Now I want mercy and grace and forgiveness
and salvation." We thank You that only a few days after the
blind men were healed and saved You paid in full the price for their sins and You've done
it for all those of us who know we're blind and we come to You that we might see spiritually. We thank You for the sacrifice of Christ,
the necessary sacrifice for our salvation. Lord, save people here from being doomed and
damned in the curious crowd, close but not redeemed, close but not forgiven, and of greater
condemnation for having known Jesus was worthy of praise but not worthy to be confessed as
Lord and Savior. Do Your work in hearts, Lord, we pray.
