A blind beggar coming to Jesus (Quality:very good)

[0:00] Just outside Jericho.

[0:14] He was a beggar because he was blind. Not that all beggars are blind, nor all blind people beggars, but this much is true, all blind people are very dependent upon others.

[0:33] This poor man was, as a blind man, and in addition as a beggar. He was blind.

[0:47] And so are we, blind spiritually by nature. I realise that that term by nature is so often used.

[1:01] And hearers may truly realise that this perhaps is one of the most frequent expressions they hear from the pulpit.

[1:11] And if such are praying people, it will be something they often confess in their petitions, as to what they are by nature.

[1:25] Paul used the expression, by nature, says he, writing to the Ephesians, we are children of wrath. We, says he, we the apostles, we, the members of the mystical body of Christ, his church, we, the children of God, are by nature, blind, dead, enemies to God, alienated from God by wicked works, children of wrath, in short, even as others.

[2:06] And what can people, left to their natural state, do for themselves, as to their souls? What aid can they render to God in the matter of their eternal salvation?

[2:24] They cannot pray. They cannot exercise any good spiritual desire. And moreover, a person in his or her natural estate can never, never desire to be born again.

[2:44] Never. It's impossible. To desire to be born again is a spiritual desire. And of spiritual desires, the natural man has not won.

[3:01] So take comfort from that, dear troubled sinner. You who are praying to be born again.

[3:14] You are. What you're really praying for is this. A token. A sign. An evidence. That you are born again. You are putting the fact of being born again as a token that you are.

[3:34] I put it like this. Your prayer that you might be born again by the Spirit of God, or born again from above, is evidence that you are.

[3:45] Because that is a truly spiritual desire, and proves that you are born again. I hope you see the point.

[3:58] I hope you can receive it. Once I could not, now I believe I can. It's impossible that anyone in a state of nature, then, should wish, should pray, should desire to partake of the new birth.

[4:20] Because whilst in that sad condition, such a desire is far, far above them, so high that they could not attain unto it. But you have attained unto it, surely if you are praying for it, and desiring it, and begging the Lord to make it clear to you that you are born again.

[4:45] Friends, if you know what prayer is, in any sense, I mean spiritual prayer, that is prayer about spiritual things, rather than mere temporal or providential things, if you know what it is to pray over spiritual things, your blindness, in part, has gone.

[5:09] The Lord has removed it in parts. You might possibly resemble those of whom we read that one who was blind and had been partially restored saw trees as men walking, unable clearly to discern what it was that was moving.

[5:34] Is it a tree? It looks like it. Is it a person, a man? It also looks like a man. I cannot tell.

[5:45] And you may be like that, some of you, some of you young friends, possibly, that you cannot clearly discern either yourself and your present spiritual condition, nor yet the Lord Jesus in all his saving, suitability, and ability as the only one who can supply your wants.

[6:13] of spiritual vision, spiritual activity in your soul, spiritual desires. So if, friends, you are saying, as before God, and spend much time in confessing this in secret, Lord, I'm so blind.

[6:37] You're not altogether so because you can see that you are. And the person who can see anything is not totally blind.

[6:48] This poor beggar, but I may as, he was, I suppose, totally blind. Secondly, he was a beggar.

[7:02] He had to beg. To beg for sufficient to keep himself alive. For the bare necessities of life.

[7:18] It's a sad thing to see a beggar. My elder brother, who some of you are well acquainted with, when he was a boy on his way to school and mother perhaps had given him what we used to call a hapenny for some sweets, if he saw a beggar, he would always give his hapenny to that beggar.

[7:43] He's of that tender nature, soft, tender, loving heart. I wish I had one that more resembled him and his hearts.

[7:57] But, that is what he would do. The sight of a poor man touched him within and he would forego his few sweets and give his hapenny away.

[8:12] Do you know what it is to beg? To beg of God for what this man came to beg for? What was that? Mercy.

[8:24] Perhaps you are begging mercy every day and every hour during the night, during the daytime. You need mercy.

[8:37] You're not blind if you see your need of mercy, by the way. Far from it. The man truly blind knows nothing about his need of mercy.

[8:47] You can see that you need mercy. And moreover, surely you can see, though perhaps rather vaguely, that there is mercy to be had from God and through his beloved Son.

[9:04] The Lord show you a little more, then after that, a little more still. That is to say, the God whom you seek, the mercy of God that you seek, is that which he delights in.

[9:21] He delights in mercy. Never think that God delights in anger and in wrath. He doesn't. The Lord only has recourse to his wrath when he is provoked to.

[9:39] In one of the Old Testament prophecies, we read about a certain action that is going to be taken by the use of a razor. But that razor, let us notice, is a hired one.

[9:57] A razor that is hired. It's got to be brought in for the purpose. It isn't our own.

[10:07] It's got to be borrowed, hired. You look it up and see for yourself that scripture and its context. And I remember too, one of God's dear servants taking up a pastorate.

[10:23] And one said to him, ah, you will need in going to that place to be like a sharp threshing instrument having teeth. But in the event, it was nothing like that at all.

[10:40] It was this, I am among you as a nurse that cherisheth her children. And that, that latter, was what God blessed and used in his subsequent ministry over many years.

[10:59] God said to him, can you not see this, amongst other things, dear friends, that the Lord's ways are so higher than ours.

[11:10] His thoughts are so much above ours. My thoughts, says God, are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

[11:30] Remember this then also that, ere God delights in mercy. The more you feel to need the mercy of God, the more you are going to beg the mercy of God, that, that mercy may be manifested to you in the pardon of your sins, in the salvation of your immortal soul.

[11:57] And the more you beg God for mercy, the more mercy you will have, the more mercy you will see as residing in Jesus, our ever living and glorious head.

[12:16] This blind beggar could hear something happening. There were the footsteps, the coming, the going. the general conversation, I suppose.

[12:29] And he wondered what this meant. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry, to cry out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on him.

[12:49] And at that point, he was opposed. For there were those, in fact, many, many charged him that he should hold his peace. Some of these many may have been his own disciples.

[13:07] The rest, I suppose, were made up of the great number of people who were accompanying the Lord Jesus. They said like this, be quiet.

[13:19] There's no mercy for you. The Saviour is on a journey. He has an appointment somewhere to keep. He mustn't be interrupted.

[13:31] Be quiet, they said. Do you get opposition when you seek God? When you come to the throne of grace?

[13:42] Do you find it easy to pray? Do you find the way so clear and unobstructed? Or do you find opposition? The religion which the Holy Ghost begets in a soul is that which will have opposition.

[14:05] If your or my profession is nominal, if it takes its rise from the flesh, fallen flesh, sinful flesh, and is no more than that, then there will be no real opposition.

[14:21] We shall not realize opposition from without, neither yet from within. If you have that which is genuine, God wrought in your soul, you'll get opposition from all directions, all quarters, and principally, I believe, from within your own heart.

[14:41] where Satan has much scope and power, where he can easily find a way in. In us, as distinct from Christ, he has so much upon which he may work and operate.

[15:01] So this man had opposition, and you must expect it. you, I must expect, to be opposed. We are opposed in a ministry.

[15:13] I have been to my face, and who has not? If your profession brings you into the public eye, as a minister, a deacon, a praying, a man, in the prayer meeting, you're bound to get opposition from someone or from something, but chiefly, I think, from within your own heart.

[15:37] And who's behind that? Satan himself, the great opposer of the children of God. hearts. But what effect did this opposition have upon him?

[15:54] This, he cried, he cried the more a great deal, a great deal. Now that implies this, real importunity, a constant begging of God for mercy and for compassion.

[16:23] So, more than once does he cry for mercy, twice in fact. Friends, some of God's dear people have to go on begging for pardon, begging for the peace of God, begging for sweet assurance of salvation for a long, long time.

[16:44] But, in the end, the Lord will grant their requests. The Lord doesn't inspire prayer in the souls of his dear people merely to tease or to perplex them, or to keep them in doubtful suspense.

[17:04] No. The time comes when your pleas and mind shall have that desired and designed effect, namely, he will turn and have compassion upon us and pardon our transgressions even for his own name's sake.

[17:26] At this juncture, Jesus stood still. He was overcome with the cries of the blind beggar.

[17:38] he could not go on. He was touched with the feeling of the infirmity of that poor blind beggar. he was touched with the feeling of his infirmity.

[17:56] Now, only the Lord Jesus can ever be touched like that with the feeling of the infirmities of his dear people. He wasn't touched with the infirmity, but with the very feeling of it.

[18:14] The feeling of it. what this poor blind beggar was feeling, Christ the Saviour was feeling. Of course there's a distinction between the two.

[18:28] One, a sinner, the other, sinless. We know that, we believe that, but, if I may put it like this, the need of the poor sinner was conveyed into the very heart and feeling of the dear Son of God, in our nature, the Son of Man.

[18:52] He was touched, moved, affected. Oh, how affected Christ was at the grave of Lazarus. Jesus wept.

[19:05] He wept. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, sorrows and grief of others.

[19:16] Why, he made them the sorrows and the griefs of himself. Yes, he did. He carries his people and their afflictions and their trials and their burdens, yes, and their sins too, all which were laid upon him by the Father at Calvary, that he should bear them away.

[19:41] He bare our sicknesses, carried our sorrows. Jesus calls the blind man. Now the people have a very different attitude.

[19:54] A sudden change overcomes them. Now they say to him, be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee.

[20:06] This man was called. All God's people are called. They're called by grace. There's another familiar phrase oft times mentioned amongst us, but again Paul uses it.

[20:23] He says, when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb to call me by his grace, it's not air terminology, it's a not denominational phrases.

[20:38] We may be very familiar with them, we might use them freely, but they come from the word of God. And they imply both doctrine and experience.

[20:54] The doctrine of our Savior is this, call that man, call that young person, he is to be called, call him. And it's always an experience, is it not, to be called.

[21:13] One of the godly ministers in Scotland used a very lively sort of illustration once, in regard to sinners being called.

[21:28] He likened the church of God as to a chariot going through the world. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit were there.

[21:42] And on the journey they see a poor man weeping his heart out, as we sometimes say. The command is given, stop.

[21:54] What are you crying for? Why these tears? Oh, I fear I'm lost, is the reply. I fear there's no hope for me. I feign would have mercy, but ah, I feel it will never come.

[22:10] As here, he was commanded to be called, so the command was given. Take him up into the chariot, he's one of us. He's one of us.

[22:23] The next person might be like this poor man in rags and tatters. Oh, look at his poverty, his need, his helplessness. He might be blind.

[22:35] He might be stripped and half dead, like the man who fell amongst thieves between Jericho and Jerusalem, or Jerusalem and Jericho. He went from Jerusalem to Jericho.

[22:49] What's his trouble? Oh, hear his tragic, pathetic utterances. A language which may not to some ears sound anything like the language of Zion, but he's one of ours.

[23:04] Call him, take him up. He belongs to us. In other words, the speech of such betrayed them.

[23:18] And I remember again, if I may quote this, one of God's dear servants, I think Mr. Frost, first at Chelsea in London and then at Swindon as pastor, I heard him preach once in Brighton many, many years ago.

[23:32] He started something like this. Some of you saying, tis a point I long to know. Oft it causes anxious thought.

[23:44] Do I love the Lord or no? Am I his or am I not? And then he suddenly said, friend, thy speech bereath thee.

[23:55] And that cheered me a little in my earlier seeking days, thy speech bereath thee. What did that mean? You do love the Lord, even though it be a little, and do you not long to love him so much more?

[24:15] So perhaps your speech betrays you or bereath thee. And it does. If your petition is like that, if your desire, your concern is that one, you long to love the Lord Jesus.

[24:32] But now, having come by a long way to our text verse 50, let us see the response on the part of this called one, this poor, needy, blind beggar in his ranks.

[24:48] And he, casting away his garments, garments, which I take to mean his outer garment, and which is descriptive, I believe, of the filthy rags of even our righteousnesses.

[25:10] Some of you might have looked at that scripture, namely, our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and you might wonder if there has been an error on the part of some translator or even printer.

[25:23] What about the two letters UN, unrighteousnesses? Shouldn't it be that? Perhaps one could better understand the case if it were put like that.

[25:36] Our unrighteousnesses are as filthy rags, but no, the word of God is our righteousnesses, our best things, our holy things as they're sometimes called.

[25:51] Do not see so much sin, friends, in our holy things? I believe I do in every sermon I've tried to preach, in every petition I've tried to bring before God, there's so much sin, so much of self.

[26:11] I assure you I don't expect to get to heaven upon my sermons or my preaching. neither do I on my praying and professing, but alone on the finished work of my Saviour, nothing else, nothing less, nothing more than that.

[26:34] Like a dear godly friend once wrote to me, and he was a choice character, he said, my hopes for eternity do not depend on anything I've done, or on anything I haven't done, but wholly and only upon him whose name is faithful and true.

[27:04] Can you say as much? If so, I believe it is well with your soul now, and will be at death and throughout, a never ending eternity.

[27:17] But the point is this, he was sick of his garments, he was tired of them, he wanted to be rid of them, so he cast them away.

[27:30] Have you cast away your garments? Have you cast on one side once and forever your works, your own efforts, your good promises and vows and the like?

[27:45] have you made vows to God and promises and you have broken them? Did you not promise God once that you would do much better, try to be more holy, you'd pray more, you'd seek more earnestly and the like?

[28:03] What has become of that? You haven't cast away seeking, no, I hope not. You haven't cast away your little faith, again, I hope not.

[28:15] If your faith be real, you never will do that, God will see to that. But have you cast away your garments, your filthy rakes, your vain endeavours, the things which once you regarded so highly and now you regard in this way, they must be gone.

[28:39] I want the saviour's righteousness, I want the best robe to be brought out and to be put upon me. He casting away his garments, then he rose, he got up.

[28:57] He was still blind and he was still begging, but he rose at the response of the divine call.

[29:09] When the Lord calls a sinner, there's response. The Lord called Peter and he followed James and John, the two sons of Zebedee.

[29:22] They left their boats, their father, their nets, and they followed him. Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom, I suppose he was there collecting the taxes from the people on behalf of the Roman authorities.

[29:39] And as such, he would have been a most hated man. He was a Jew, but working for the occupying authority, the Romans.

[29:51] He was a much hated man, a publican. But he left that. he left the table and the money. Someone else could see to that, he must follow Jesus because Jesus had called him.

[30:08] Being called, he responded by rising. And to rise implies a journey, be it a little journey or a great journey, a short distance, a long distance.

[30:23] We rise and we go. You can't very well take a journey by sitting there, can you? You rise. This man rose, I believe, with a wonderful hope because a wonderful prospect was before him, a very wonderful prospect indeed.

[30:47] He came to Jesus. You come to Jesus in all your need, with all your sinfulness, just as you are.

[30:58] Have you come to Jesus just as you are? Not waiting to get better? You never will. You never will. Not waiting for some improvement in your natural part or being?

[31:15] You never have that. Never. have you come to Jesus penniless, without one little might in your pocket?

[31:27] That's the way to come. You know the parable of the two debtors? One owed 500 pence, the other 50.

[31:38] When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. he came to Jesus.

[31:50] He came for healing, he received it. He came to receive sight, he was blessed with it. Oh, how he rejoiced and praised his God, you may be sure.

[32:07] The last verse, go thy way, go thy way, rise, go thy way. What was his way? We're told he followed Jesus in the way.

[32:21] That was his way. The Lord Jesus didn't say, depart, go from me. He followed Jesus in the way. The Lord honoured the faith he had been blessed with.

[32:36] The Lord always does that. Where he gives faith, although he tries that faith, he will honour that faith. Thy faith hath made thee whole.

[32:49] He was the healer, but faith in the healer healed him. Faith in the promiser was honoured.

[33:00] He was blessed, his faith was honoured. Oh, how he was cheered, comforted. What a wonderful thing to get his sight, so much that he was ignorant of was now revealed.

[33:16] The darkness was gone. He followed Jesus in the way. Friends, we shan't get to heaven without following Jesus, because he's the forerunner of his people.

[33:31] what is it to follow Jesus? To follow him in his doctrine, in his teaching, in the way of obedience, submission, resignation.

[33:43] A man follows his political champion, as it were, by having the same sentiments.

[33:55] Poor sinners follow Jesus, as Jesus calls them, by having the same divine sentiments. What he has, they admire.

[34:08] He attracts them. He has blessings to impart. They need them. Oh, no wonder poor sinners being called come to Jesus and follow him in the way.

[34:21] He is their all. To give up following him is not to get to heaven but go to hell. I know many Bible days did follow Jesus for the miracle's sake, some for getting bread to live upon.

[34:43] But the Lord Jesus said, would you know, labor not, follow me not, seek me not, for the bread that perisheth, but for that which endeareth unto life everlasting.

[34:57] May the Lord pardon all amiss and bless his own word. Amen.