Jesus’ Final Miracle Before Entering Jerusalem

[0:00] We've been going through the Gospel of Mark here for, I think it's been just about a year. We are about two-thirds of the way through. We're about to finish up chapter 10.

[0:11] Now, I think I mentioned this when we first started the Gospel of Mark, but it's interesting, the first 10 chapters of Mark span a period of about three years.

[0:23] It's this three-year ministry of Jesus, in which He has an itinerant ministry. He's going all around Israel, Galilee mostly, but also throughout Judea and other parts of Israel, and even the outskirts, sometimes a little bit into Gentile territory.

[0:43] But primarily Israel, because like He said, He was sent, and His ministry is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But in this last chapter, as we've been going through, Jesus has told His disciples, disciples were going down to Jerusalem.

[1:01] They've been mostly up in Galilee, which if you've ever looked at a map of Israel, is on the northern side of Israel, up high. And they're traveling down south towards Judea and its capital, Jerusalem.

[1:13] And as He told them, hey, we're going down there so that I can suffer and die, and most of you will die with me. That was the plan.

[1:25] And they're still a little bit confused because, hey, Jesus, I thought you were the Messiah, the King, who's coming to restore our kingdom. So there's some confusion going on, and these things will eventually get cleared up.

[1:39] But for now, you know, they're just getting little bits and pieces. Jesus is feeding them a little bit of detail about what's going to happen. But He says, hey, listen, if you're willing to lay down your life, take up your cross and follow me, there will be rewards when I do establish my kingdom for you.

[1:56] So His disciples have committed, and they're going down with Him. So this last section of Mark chapter 10 is really the last miracle that we see Jesus perform before He gets to Jerusalem.

[2:12] And then the rest of Mark, the last five chapters, the last one-third of Mark, is over the span of just one week. So the first ten chapters, three years.

[2:24] Those last five chapters, a span of just one week. starting in chapter 11. But what we'll do is we're going to, and I need to open up my Bible here, and open up to Mark chapter 10, and we're going to read these last, I think, six or seven chapters.

[2:49] Verses. Yeah, we won't read that many verses. So we'll read this together to kind of just get the gist, and then we're going to go through verse by verse as we usually do.

[3:03] All right, here we go. Starting with verse 46. Mark 10, 46. Now they came to Jericho. As he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging.

[3:20] 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. Then many warned him to be quiet.

[3:31] But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. So Jesus stood still, and he commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, Be of good cheer, rise, he is calling to you.

[3:46] And throwing aside his garment, he rose, and he came to Jesus. So Jesus answered and said to him, What do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, Rabbani, Rabbani, that I may receive my sight.

[4:03] Then Jesus said to him, Go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. So Jesus, on his way south, enters into this city of Jericho.

[4:20] Jericho is famous, right? We know that from the stories in the Old Testament when the people of Israel entered across the Jordan for the first time to take the promised land that God had promised to them, led by who?

[4:38] Joshua. I heard a few whispers. Joshua. Joshua was leading them, and the very first city that they come to, which they conquered, was this city of Jericho, which is just about 10 to 20 miles north of Jerusalem.

[4:58] So they come into this city. Oh, by the way, the city of Jericho, at this time, now when, back during the time when they crossed the Jordan and conquered the land of Canaan, Jericho, the city, was leveled.

[5:12] Remember what happened to the walls? They crumbled. They came tumbling down, right? Isn't there a song about that? Yeah. And so the city was completely destroyed.

[5:24] It was completely leveled. In fact, when that happened, there was basically a curse pronounced that said anyone who would rebuild this city, does anybody remember?

[5:37] I can't remember. It was something about, yeah, their firstborn. Something happened to their firstborn. Oh, okay, yeah.

[5:50] So I can't remember the details. I didn't write it down. But then that actually came to pass later on. I think it was during the reign of King Ahab. And somebody worked on rebuilding those walls, and the Bible says something happened to his children.

[6:05] And so, but the city of Jericho at this time was actually Herod the Great, who was, as you might have remembered from one of our previous messages, there were lots of Herods.

[6:21] And so it's hard to keep track of which one. But Herod the Great was one of the original Herods, and he actually lived before the time of Jesus, before Jesus was even born. And he built this great palace in Jericho, the area of Jericho.

[6:39] I don't know that it was on the same location, but Jericho was really, I think, the second largest city in the area, second only to Jerusalem. It was also called, in fact, in the Old Testament, if you go back in the book of Deuteronomy, and if you're taking notes, I'm going to write this down.

[6:56] This is in Deuteronomy 34.3. It was called the City of Palm Trees. Jericho was called the City of Palm Trees. And so, I guess it must have been, had lots of palm trees all around, which will be interesting, right, because in the next chapter, we're going to see Jesus going into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, and people spreading palm branches all over.

[7:23] So, there was lots of palm trees around that area. The other interesting thing about this, so in this account, there's another story, not in the book of Mark, but it's in the book of Luke, about a man named Zacchaeus.

[7:39] Anybody remember the story of Zacchaeus? In fact, there's another children's song, right? Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.

[7:49] He climbed upon the sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. So, Zacchaeus, he was short of stature, and he climbed a tree, and Jesus had an interaction with him.

[8:00] We won't get into the details, but that also happened in the same time when Jesus was going through Jericho. That actually happened, the Bible describes, as he entered the city.

[8:12] Here, it says they came to Jericho, and then it says, as he went out of Jericho. So, we don't know exactly how long he stayed in Jericho, but he's on his way out. He's got an entourage with him.

[8:25] So, Jesus has his 12 disciples, but it also says that there's this multitude of people with him. It's not just him and his band of, you know, 12 disciples, band of merry men, but it's him with a whole multitude, just a mass around him.

[8:41] Jesus had become quite famous at this time, and people were really expectant that this is the Messiah. This is the one who was prophesied to come. There was great anticipation.

[8:54] Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. This means something, you know. He's been up in Galilee for a long time, but now he's heading to where the throne of David was established. Is he going to establish his kingdom now?

[9:09] Let's go with him and find out. If you remember when we told the, we looked at the story of the feeding of the 5,000 at the end when that happened, and that was an amazing miracle.

[9:21] It said that there were people who tried to crown him as king right then and there. They said, this is the Messiah.

[9:31] This is the king. We need to establish him as the king right now. Jesus wasn't ready. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Not yet. So that's kind of the context here.

[9:43] That's the attitude of the people, the anticipation, the expectation that they're having as they're traveling down with him. And it says that there was this blind man.

[9:55] His name was Blind Bartimaeus. Not Bartimaeus the blind man, but Blind Bartimaeus. I'm sure that's how he was referred to. Oh, that's blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus.

[10:11] And he was sat by the road begging. This is probably how he supported himself. You know, when you're blind, there's not, you're really limited in the kinds of things that you can do to support yourself.

[10:24] So especially back in that day, you would resort to begging and without a means of income. And I do ask the question, you know, well, where was his family?

[10:36] You know, you would imagine that if somebody is blind and they have trouble supporting themselves, that their family might take care of them, whether they're parents, if they're younger, or maybe if their parents have passed on, maybe a brother or a sister.

[10:51] And it could be possible that maybe his family was too poor to care for him, so he was, his only option was to beg for his living. Or maybe his current family, whoever it was, was just unwilling.

[11:06] No, we don't want to have to, we don't want to have to support you. Which the Bible says, when you do something like that, you, especially in this day and age, in the age of grace, says you're acting worse than even an infidel, even an unbeliever would act if you don't take care of your own family.

[11:28] But this is Bartimaeus' decision. Well, let's look at his name real quickly. His name is Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. You notice a little bit of a redundancy? Well, that's because bar in Hebrew means the son of.

[11:43] That's all it means. It means son of. So you actually see that several times in the Bible. I think of Simon Bar-Jonah. I'm sure there's probably others. But Simon Bar-Jonah just means Simon, the son of Jonah.

[11:55] And so this is Bartimaeus, but he is the son of Timaeus. And so there's a little bit of a redundancy. Maybe he just took on the name Bartimaeus and they just called him the son of Timaeus.

[12:09] He didn't have a first name, not one that maybe anybody recognized anyway. The other interesting thing to note here is that we know his name, or Mark anyway, provides his name.

[12:24] When you look at most of the miracles that Jesus did and the people that he interacted with, it might describe them as a, you know, the Seraphonician woman, for example, or some other general description.

[12:37] But very rarely do we actually see somebody's given name provided. And so why would that be the case? And I think, as we'll find out later on, we see that Bartimaeus, Bartimaeus, after he was healed, it's said that he followed after Jesus.

[12:56] And so it's very possible that he became a disciple, a long-term disciple of Jesus and joined among the disciples and their ministry, even into the book of Acts, so that his name was known among them.

[13:10] And specifically by John Mark, who most believe wrote this gospel of Mark. The other thing to point out here is that in Mark, this story, this account, is told in three different gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

[13:27] And they're each a little bit different. In Matthew, there's actually mention of two blind men. Matthew 20, verse 30, it says this, And behold, two blind men, sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David.

[13:46] And in Luke, it tells the account, same account, but with only one blind man. Luke doesn't mention anyone's name. Remember that Luke was a Gentile.

[13:59] He came after. He was actually part of Paul's ministry. So maybe he just didn't know Bartimaeus like Mark did. But both Luke and Mark just mention one blind man, whereas Matthew mentions two.

[14:12] And this is, again, another opportunity where someone might say, Hey, see, there's a contradiction here in the Bible. Was there one blind man or were there two? But as we've mentioned before, when you have eyewitness accounts, people have different things that they remember, different things that are pronounced in their memory.

[14:33] And so, especially if it's somebody that you know later for what it seems like with Mark, he knew the guy, he's going to remember, oh, that was Bartimaeus.

[14:45] And maybe it's just, he considers it an insignificant detail that there were two guys that were there. And I imagine possibly when you have more than one person, a lot of times one person is the spokesperson, right?

[14:56] Speaking for multiple people. We see that a lot with Peter. Peter speaks for all the 12. And so it could have been, right, that Bartimaeus spoke for both him and his compadre, both begging there on the street.

[15:11] But they were doing this together. And so Mark decides that he's just going to mention the one. The next verse, it says in verse 47, 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.

[15:32] We actually see here, because he asked who it was and then the people tell him, this is Jesus of Nazareth.

[15:44] And back then, people didn't have first names and last names like we do. They had, it's somewhat similar, like we find with Bartimaeus, actually.

[15:55] You might have somebody who is the son of somebody else. So, for example, two of the disciples, James and John, were the sons of Zebedee. That's how they were known. And so, James and John were common names.

[16:08] We see lots of Johns. In fact, there were two disciples named John. Jesus had a brother named James, as well as his disciple named James. In fact, there were two disciples named James, right?

[16:19] James, the son of Alphaeus. Am I getting that right? And so, when you have a lot of common names, you want some kind of way to distinguish them. And so, Jesus, even though, especially in our culture, does anybody know anybody named Jesus?

[16:35] Like, anybody have a neighbor named Jesus? Unless they're Hispanic, right? Unless they're Hispanic, right? You just never see that in our culture anyway.

[16:46] In Spanish or Hispanic cultures, it's a lot more common. Jesus, right? But, back during this time, Jesus was a common name.

[16:57] It wasn't something unique just to Jesus, our Savior. This is a common name. So, people would refer, in fact, does anybody know what the Old Testament name, if you were to look back at Old Testament names or Hebrew names?

[17:12] Yeah, I see some people mowing it. Joshua. Jesus was actually just the name Joshua, which means salvation. And so, it was a common name. You can imagine, just like we name people, a lot of times Christians will name people after Bible characters or Bible, people from the Bible.

[17:30] I'm sure the Hebrews, the Jews, would do the same thing. You know, I want to name my son Joshua, right? Because he was a great and mighty warrior. But Jesus was a common name, so they would call somebody after where they were from.

[17:45] Well, there's lots of Jesuses, but there's probably not many from Nazareth. Nazareth is a pretty small town. So, this is the Jesus that's from Nazareth. And that's how Jesus was described all over the Gospels and even into the book of Acts.

[18:01] And so, blind Bartimaeus here, he recognizes that name. He knows who it is and he cries out and he calls out. Notice how he doesn't say Jesus of Nazareth, but he calls him something out and he says this, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

[18:19] And what does he mean by that? Son of David? Did Jesus, was his father, what was, Jesus' father's name was Joseph, right? Why would he call him Jesus, son of David?

[18:31] Well, this blind man had heard about Jesus. He knew about all the chatter that was going on all throughout Galilee and Judea about this man Jesus and what he was doing.

[18:46] And the people were pretty convinced, many of them, that this was the Messiah. Well, what does that have to do with David, the king of Israel? Well, all throughout the Old Testament, the prophets had spoke of a time when a man would come from the throne of David, from the seed of David, who would rescue Israel, the people of Israel, from their captors.

[19:12] We'll just look at one verse that I think hits at home the closest. Jeremiah 23, verse 5. Jeremiah 23, verse 5.

[19:23] And it says this, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness. A king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

[19:40] In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely. Now, this is his name by which he will be called the Lord our righteousness.

[19:52] righteousness. And so, Jeremiah, what, not quite, I think, a thousand years earlier, had prophesied about someone who would come from, it would be raised up under David, from the family of David.

[20:11] And so, that's why Bartimaeus is saying that he recognizes at least who people think this man is, that he is the son of David, the one that the prophets spoke of.

[20:24] So, he cries out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And what is the response from all of those around him? Be quiet.

[20:36] Verse 48, then many warned him to be quiet. And then, how did he respond? But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. I love it.

[20:48] And you can imagine why the people would say, be quiet. Now, you have kind of two crowds of people, the multitudes following Jesus down to Jericho and on to Jerusalem.

[21:00] And then you have the people of Jericho. And there's some excitement and the people of Jericho, maybe they've never seen Jesus before and they're interested to see what's going on and what he might say or what he might do.

[21:11] But these people of Jericho, they've been around, they are on these roads all the time. And maybe even on a daily basis, walk by, oh, and there's Bartimaeus again.

[21:27] Bart the blind beggar, maybe they call them, right? Filthy, probably stinks, maybe hasn't taken a bath in a while. Constantly asking for handouts.

[21:38] Again, you know, I just gave him something last week and he's asking for more today. And so, this is their experience. They've been around this guy. He's constantly asking for things, begging for things.

[21:50] He's not somebody that, you know, they probably really want to hang out with or be friends with. And so, they're just, would you just shut up? You know, you're constantly crying out, asking for stuff and, you know, we're trying to listen here and see what's going on.

[22:06] But he cries out all the more. Now, he could have followed their advice.

[22:17] He could have shut up. And if he did, what do you think would have happened? Probably nothing, right? Jesus would have kept on going by, doing whatever he was doing and he would have stayed blind.

[22:33] That's probably what would have happened. But, he persisted and he kept crying out. And it says in verse 49, so Jesus stood still.

[22:45] He captured Jesus' attention. And Jesus commanded him to be called. And then, the people, it says, they called the blind man saying to him, be of good cheer, rise, he's calling you.

[22:58] So, there was a kind of a complete change of attitude from those that were around him from shut up to all right, hey, hey, this is exciting, come, Jesus is calling you to go see him. And it says that in verse 50, and throwing aside his garment, he arose, or he rose, and he came to Jesus.

[23:17] And what a cool picture, I think. He's got this garment, you know, this is his, it's like a cloak probably, right? And he just throws it off. And he's, I don't know if he's running, you know, it's probably hard to run when you're blind, but he's making his way to Jesus.

[23:35] And this, to me, just illustrates excitement and expectation. Jesus responded to him when he called out. Verse 51, Jesus answered and said to him, what do you want me to do for you?

[23:55] And I think this is really interesting, right? Because when you meet a blind person, it's usually pretty obvious that they're blind, right? If you met a deaf person or maybe somebody like the woman with the issue of blood or other types of ailments, you might not know right away, but when someone's blind, especially I think in that day, it's very, very obvious.

[24:17] You can't look into their eyes. They have trouble looking, even though they might have a, they might look towards you, can't look you straight in the eye.

[24:28] So it's very obvious when somebody's blind. Why did he ask if he knew that he was blind and he heard him crying out?

[24:40] I mean, Jesus has been here before, many, many times before. Of course he knows what he wants, but he wants him to ask him. He wants him to ask.

[24:52] I think this is the same thing that God wants and we'll talk about this more in a little bit from anyone who is looking to receive something from the Lord.

[25:05] Don't just wait for the Lord to come and give it to you. Ask. Lord, this is what I want. This is what I need. What do you want me to do for you?

[25:17] The blind man said to him, Rabbani, which just means teacher, that I may receive my sight. Just tells him straight up, I want to see again. Well, maybe it's for the first time.

[25:28] We don't really know how long he was without his eyesight, if he was born blind or became blind later in life, but he says, I want to receive my sight.

[25:40] And then Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he received his sight and he followed Jesus on the road.

[25:50] A few things to point out here. One, Jesus' response was again, and we've brought this up before, he didn't pray to the Father.

[26:01] Father, would you heal this man? He didn't even say anything like, be healed. He could have. But he just said, go.

[26:13] And this is something that Jesus did so many times. A man who is lame, what does he say to him? Get up. Right? There was another blind man, remember?

[26:26] And he asks him, he says, open your eyes. Just tells him to do something, something that he was never able to do before. But to this man, he just says, go.

[26:37] Jesus had the power to heal him. And it didn't require any incantation or even laying on of hands or anything like that.

[26:49] He just said, go, you have been made well. Your faith has made you well. And I want to talk about that. Your faith has made you well. And what is he talking about?

[27:00] Your faith. Now, some people have said, well, you know, if we look at what Bartimaeus had just said, he recognized Jesus as the son of David, the Messiah.

[27:13] And so maybe that's what Jesus is talking about when he is talking about his faith. I'm less inclined to think that. It's a possibility.

[27:24] But we see so many others who are healed by Jesus who really didn't seem to have a clue who Jesus was. They just knew, this is the guy going around healing people. That's what I heard.

[27:36] And I want to be healed. as well. You know, this is a special time.

[27:47] This three-year ministry and even going into the book of Acts, we see a lot of miracles and people being healed of ailments. Things that we haven't really seen in the Old Testament as much before.

[28:04] We see it a lot during the time of Moses. There's a little bit of it during the time of the prophets in which people are miraculously healed. Jesus actually makes mention at one point when he's giving a rebuke to the Israelites.

[28:21] And he makes mention of two people that were healed during the time of the prophets. prophets. And he actually makes a big deal about how few people were miraculously healed. And he said, there were many people sick during the time of Elijah the prophet.

[28:38] And he said, but the only one who was healed was a Gentile. He kind of used that as like a sticking point. A little bit of a rebuke to the people of Israel. And so, miraculous healing was not something that was this common thing that happened even during much of the Old Testament.

[28:59] We see later on in the ministry of Paul the Apostle and even later on in the book of Acts, even though there's lots of healing going on, miraculous healing, I mean things that are just incredible.

[29:12] But then later on we see Paul says, you know, I left Trophimus sick. And was it Epaphroditus also was sick nigh unto death.

[29:25] And Timothy, he says, take some wine for your stomach's sake. But during this time, Jesus is presenting himself as Messiah and these signs and wonders are a witness to the people that he is who he said he is.

[29:42] And so, during this three-year ministry and on at least partway through Acts, we see this miracle ministry where every single person who comes to Jesus and asks is healed.

[30:04] Do you remember reading any accounts where somebody came to Jesus and they said, I need healing. And Jesus said, no, I'm too busy. every single time.

[30:17] Sometimes he might have a little interaction with them and says, well, will you believe? And there was one time where the response was, I believe, but help my unbelief.

[30:29] Jesus worked with them, didn't he? There was one time, though, where Jesus said, nope, I'm not going to heal you. Remember that? We talked about that a couple months ago.

[30:41] It was with the Seraphim woman and she was a Gentile. She was not a Jew. She was a Gentile, but she heard about Jesus and she had a daughter who was demonized.

[30:53] She was being, what's the word? Tormented. Tormented by demons or a demon. She came to Jesus and she said, I need help for my daughter.

[31:06] And his response was to ignore her, first of all. He just ignored her. And that was shocking. That's shocking to most Christians because that is not the storyline of the Gospels.

[31:19] Everyone that comes to Jesus, he is thrilled, really, to heal them. But for this woman, it was different. But he says something as part of that interaction that I think is important.

[31:29] He says, why should I give the children's bread to the dogs? And again, that shocks a lot of people because this is a woman in need. You're calling her a dog. That's certainly not very nice.

[31:43] But he's making the point that I have a ministry here to a certain group of people and it's not you. And he calls it the children's bread. You see, Jesus, he was sent, he says, not to the Gentiles, but I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[32:02] This is an important part of understanding Jesus' three-year ministry. That he only went to the Jews. That was his ministry to them. And he had something special for them.

[32:12] And part of that was this bread that Jesus called it. This bread of healing. That anyone that was willing to come to him, they could partake of that bread and they could be healed.

[32:26] Whether it was blindness or deafness, leprosy, the woman with the issue of blood, those who were lame, every single time that someone asked, he said, yes, I'll do it.

[32:42] that, I think that gets to another question for us today because, you know, there are lots of people who could use a physical healing today, right?

[33:03] And we'd love to be able to just go to Jesus and say, have mercy on me. and then all the pain and suffering that we're dealing with would just go away.

[33:16] But it seems, as we read through the Bible, that this was something that God was doing for everyone who asked, at least those in Israel who asked at that time. Free for the taking based on just asking.

[33:31] But there's something that God is doing different today in this age of grace in which we live. God's not handing out miracles like that in the same way that Jesus was passing them out and even the early apostles were passing them out early in the book of Acts like they were back then.

[33:55] But he is offering something to everyone. In fact, Paul says to Jew and Gentile alike, it doesn't matter whether you're part of the nation of Israel or you're not part of the nation of Israel which is what we call a Gentile.

[34:12] If you're part of ethnic Israel, you're a Jew. If you're not, then you're part of the rest of us, the Gentiles. You know, sometimes I'll have opportunities to share, to talk to people about their soul, their eternity, their relationship with God if they have one.

[34:34] And I'll ask the question, you know, what do you think happens when you die or do you think that you will go to heaven? And you know, one of the most common responses I get, I hope so.

[34:49] I hope so. And that's, I mean, nobody wants, you know, if you die, you want to go to heaven, you don't want to go any other place, right? I hope so. But the message today is that God is willing to give eternal life, to make us children of God, to give salvation, forgiveness of sins to anyone who asks.

[35:21] It's like children's bread. It's the bread that he'll give to anyone who asks. Just like a good father will, you know, give good meals, cupcakes and brownies even, to his children because he loves them.

[35:38] At that time, this time, Jesus was passing around these healing miracles. Today, God is saying, anyone can become a child of God, can receive of this bread, the bread of life, and all they have to do is ask.

[35:56] Don't just hope, right? Don't just say, well, I hope I get eternal life one day after I die. But we, if we're not yet believers, should be like this blind Bartimaeus.

[36:17] Not just letting Jesus pass by and, well, hmm, maybe, maybe he'll stop by. Maybe he'll, maybe he'll do something or notice that I'm in need of something.

[36:33] But instead, saying, no, I'm going to do something. I'm going to call out. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. You know, blind Bartimaeus knew something about himself.

[36:45] Right? What did he know? He knew he was blind. He couldn't see. It was just darkness. Darkness. When he opened his eyes, no light, just darkness. There's a lot of people out there that need to realize, they need to understand that they are living in darkness and they don't understand it.

[37:02] They don't see it. But when you realize you're blind, that's the first step, right? realizing that you're blind, that you need the light, that you have a, you're a sinner in need of salvation, in need of forgiveness, knowing what your need is.

[37:22] Paul writes in Romans 10, it's actually a quote from the Old Testament, but in talking about the salvation that has been given to all men, Jew and Gentile alike, and he says this, he says, here's how you get it.

[37:40] In fact, you know what? We have to turn there. Romans 10. If you've got your Bible, open up to Romans 10. We'll just start with verse 9.

[38:04] Go back to verse 8. Romans 10 verse 8. But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. So there's this word, there's this message that requires believing it.

[38:21] That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

[38:34] And then it says this, for the scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. You know, just like all those who came to Jesus with their ailments, Jesus didn't shame them.

[38:50] He didn't deny them. He said, he didn't say, nice try, but move along. Jesus always gave them what they asked for because it was something that he, that was promised to them if they were willing to ask.

[39:09] And continuing on, verse 12, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him. You know, in Jesus' ministry, those who called upon him, those who had the promise were the Jews.

[39:23] It was just the people of Israel. They could call on Jesus and have him heal them. But here Paul says it's not just the Jews. This promise is, it's not to just Jews, it's just, it's to Gentiles as well.

[39:38] In fact, anyone who will call upon him, just like blind Bartimaeus did. Verse 13, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

[39:53] I find it interesting, you actually, as we read this last verse, in fact, let me read it again. It says, go away, your faith has made you well. That's, I'm reading the New King James, your faith has made you well.

[40:07] Some translations say your faith has made you whole. The actual word used there is this word, this Greek word, sozo. You know what it means?

[40:19] Salvation. Your faith has saved you. There are some translations that, that say that. Your faith has saved you. And now in, Bartimaeus is, in this instance, saved you from blindness.

[40:37] But that same word is used for our salvation. Salvation from our sins. God has promised to both Jew and Gentile alike that he will always respond to our request for salvation from our sins.

[40:59] Like it says in verse 11, Romans 10, 11, whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. And just like Jesus healed every single person who asks, even that blind, annoying, filthy, stinky, and worthless beggar begging on the street, God will do the same for any one of us who calls out to him.

[41:34] No matter what we've done, the kind of worthless life that we've lived, no matter how much we stink, whether metaphorically or literally, just like here, he will respond.

[41:49] And he's promised to respond every single time for those who ask. He'll respond in the same way, your faith has made you whole. Or, your faith has saved you.

[42:02] Your faith has made you a child of God. Your faith has given you peace with God. Your faith has made you righteous. That's the promise to anyone who will call out on him.

[42:16] We'll wrap it up with this. Jesus, after he says that, he's healed. And it says, immediately, he received his sight. And Jesus had told him, he said, go ahead and go on your way.

[42:31] But we read in this last sentence that he says, after he was healed, he followed Jesus along the road. Instead of going back home, he followed Jesus on the way.

[42:44] You know, Jesus in the past had told those that he healed. He said, remember this, it seemed kind of strange. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. But here, he doesn't say that. He just says, go ahead and go on your way.

[42:58] Why before did he say, don't tell anybody, and now he doesn't seem to be concerned with that? Well, again, we've talked about this before, but Jesus has a three-year ministry.

[43:11] He's making people mad. And that's kind of the intention, right? But he's kind of managing things as he goes along in these three years.

[43:23] He doesn't want to make him too mad, right? Because he's got a three-year ministry to fulfill before all hell breaks loose. But now is the time. There's no need to keep things kind of hidden and secret.

[43:37] In fact, as we look on, as we go here into Mark chapter 11, the intensity is going to be ratcheted way, way up. Up until this time, Jesus is kind of generally avoiding confrontations with the leaders, with the Pharisees and the scribes.

[43:56] Sometimes they'll come to him and he'll say something and they'll get pretty upset. But now, as we go into chapter 11 and on, Jesus is going toe-to-toe and rebuking them and bringing out their sin and hypocrisy.

[44:18] So it's time, it's time for, it's time for this final week for, to ratchet up the persecution and the anger and the hatred that has been festering over all this time.

[44:31] I want to talk a little bit as, you know, just to finish up here about the next five chapters. We're going to see a few things.

[44:48] Again, I mentioned already the confrontation with the Jewish leaders. Before he generally avoided them, now it's going to be no holds barred. Jesus is also going to spend some time talking about the future, not just his death, burial, and resurrection, but what's going to happen when he actually does establish his throne, what we call today his second coming and the tribulation that's going to come before it.

[45:13] And then, of course, there's all the details of his passion, his suffering, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. We're going to finish there.

[45:24] I, there's not as much time as I would have liked, but I would like to take some questions if there are any.

[45:37] I'm sorry if I didn't give you enough time, Keith, but if we could get the microphone. If anybody has any questions or comments they'd like to share, and I see one hand raised up already, we'll go ahead and do that.

[45:48] The other thing that I was going to have you do, in fact, if you would do this while we're getting the mic ready, and if I could get, Abby, if you could help, or maybe one of the boys, I put little, what do you call them, index cards in front of your seat.

[46:03] You'll look, you'll see those little pockets and there's an index card. One of the things I'd like to do is to get a little bit of feedback on, you know, we're going to take questions today about what we talked about, but if there are questions that have come up over the ministry of Jesus as we've been studying, things that are maybe unanswered or like more detail on, if you could write those down on that index card, and if, you know, David has some pens if you don't have a pen.

[46:32] And then the other thing I'd really like to get is looking into the future, I'd like to cover some more topical type things, you know, we spend most of our time going verse by verse and a lot of things come up, but I know people have questions, you know, that they ponder.

[46:49] Maybe it's things, just Bible questions, what does this mean, or maybe it's things like how do I live as a Christian in the world, right? Things like, you know, my boss changed their gender and now they want me to call them, they, them, and Zezer and all that and how do I, what do I do there?

[47:07] There's some pretty crazy things going on in the world or just things like, you know, I'm having, you know, things about family or relationships or whatever. So I'd like to just take some time and if you're doing that while we take questions to just write down questions, maybe topics or whatever and we'll have somebody collect those right before we dismiss but we'll go to Steve.

[47:30] What do you got? Pastor, I wonder if you could finish for the audio record the story about the Syrophoenician woman? Finish the story of the Syrophoenician woman?

[47:42] Yes. Okay. I didn't finish. Okay, where did I end? Yeah, so the Syrophoenician woman. Yeah, okay, I think I know what you're talking about.

[47:54] Yeah, Jesus denied her request initially and in fact, I think it was three times basically he either denied or hesitated to do anything but finally, Jesus did meet her need and it was because of why?

[48:15] Yeah, because of her faith and her faith, it was really a persistent faith that, remember what she said? She said, yes, I'm a dog, okay, fine, I'm a dog but even the dogs will eat the crumbs from the master's table and Jesus responded and he said, such faith I haven't even seen in Israel.

[48:40] He says, woman, be it unto you as you have said and her daughter was healed from the torment of that demon. You know, Jesus' compassion, you know, even though he was sent to Israel, you know, someone who would express faith and come with a need, he was willing to meet that need.

[49:00] So, thanks Steve for allowing me the chance to finish that story up for those who may not have heard it before. Any other questions? So, what do you think?

[49:16] Is everybody going to take a chance to write something down? You know, I didn't give you very much time so, you can take the card home and maybe write some things but would you bring it back if I let you do that?

[49:30] Only do a pinky swear or whatever, pinky promise. because I really would like feedback to see kind of where people's thoughts are, what are the questions people have, whether about the content that we've been covering or just general things in the Bible because as, you know, we'll finish up, in fact, I plan to go through the last five chapters of Mark a little bit more quickly than we've done up to this point and so, maybe in two or three months we'll be finished and we'll look to move on.

[50:03] So, let's end in a word of prayer. Father, we love you. Thank you so much for your word and the insights that you give us from your word. We ask for wisdom.

[50:13] We need it to have our lives changed. I know me personally as I started studying your word as a young man, it just absolutely revolutionized my life for the better, my relationship with you.

[50:27] Thank you for giving us this word that we might know you, that we might have a relationship with you that we really might not otherwise have. And I ask that the words that we read today and the message from that would settle down into our hearts and transform us forever.

[50:43] In Jesus' name, amen.