Persistent Faith (Two Blind Men Receive Their Sight)

Moore's Corner Church

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All right, let's turn to Matthew chapter 20. We'll continue in the gospel of Matthew chapter 20.

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And the title of this message is a persistent faith, a persistent faith.

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Another word for persistence is determination. So we can't give up.

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We need to seek God, continue seeking God. And we see a couple of men here who also sought the

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Lord. So in this passage, Jesus and his disciples, they are leaving Jericho and they are headed towards Jerusalem.

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And as I had mentioned last week, Jesus is on that final journey which would lead him to the cross.

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But before he reaches Jerusalem, he encounters two blind men. We learned from the gospel of Mark that one of these blind men, one of their names is

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Bartimaeus. Some of you are familiar with this story of blind Bartimaeus, but there's actually two blind men.

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So they're crying out to Jesus and the people are trying to silence them. And what does that do?

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It just makes them cry out to Jesus even more. They had persistent faith and that's what we need.

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We need persistent faith. So let's read about this. Matthew chapter 20, starting in verse 29.

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It says, now, as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed him.

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And behold, two blind men sitting by the road when they had heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out saying, have mercy on us, oh

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Lord, son of David. Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet, but they cried out all the more saying, have mercy on us, oh

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Lord, son of David. So Jesus stood still and called them and said, what do you want me to do for you?

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So they said to him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.

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So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes and immediately their eyes received sight and they followed him.

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So I just wanna add this. This is from Mark chapter 10. Jesus says this to one of the men,

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Bartimaeus. He says, go your way. Your faith has made you well.

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And then Mark says, immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.

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So what was it that made these men well? It was their faith.

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So we know these men had faith because number one, they called Jesus the son of David. So this is a messianic title.

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They are basically professing that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, more on that in a moment.

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Number two, they believe that Jesus has the ability to work miracles.

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They believe he is the Lord and they believe that he can actually change their situation.

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And then number three, not only do they believe that the Lord can change their situation, they believe they have faith he is willing to change their situation.

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And even with just that, we should maybe apply this. Do we believe in the

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Lord? Hopefully. Do you believe that God can change your situation?

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We know he can. So really it just comes down to this. Do you believe that he is willing?

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And then are you going to cry out to him? Are you going to call upon his name and continue to call upon his name?

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We see that these men were rewarded for their persistent faith.

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And the fact that Jesus heals blindness, I think as Christians in the 21st century, we've all heard these stories so many times and it almost seems like just a routine thing.

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Yeah, of course, Jesus raised the dead and he gave sight to the blind and giving sight to the blind probably seems like one of the more minor miracles, but actually in scripture, this was, it was really unheard of.

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The Bible says in John 9, 32, since the world began, it has been literally unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who is born blind.

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So this miracle, it just didn't happen. I guess we don't know for a fact that these two men were born blind, but still this is a very amazing thing.

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But the thing I want to focus on is their faith because it was their faith that delivered them.

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Jesus clearly states that it's their faith that made them well. So this is what the

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Lord wants from all of us, so much so that it's not even typically referred to as the

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Christian religion. We prefer to call it the Christian faith because it's all about faith.

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This is what God wants from us most of all. He wants people to believe in him, but this isn't just believing facts in your mind.

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He wants us to have a personal trust in Jesus. Jesus wants us to have a personal trust that he is the son of God.

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He can do amazing things and he's willing to do amazing things.

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It was Peter's confession of faith. You remember back in chapter 16, that caused the

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Lord to call Peter blessed. He said, blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah. Why?

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Because Peter actually stepped out and professed, you are the son of God. We learned in our

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Hebrew series, what faith is. You remember the definition of faith? It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

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So having faith is when you believe something. It's when you know something is true, even though you can't see it.

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Even though the evidence isn't right there in front of you, you believe it anyway. And this isn't a blind faith.

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This isn't a shot in the dark. We have reason to believe, there are many reasons to believe that there is one

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God and Jesus is his son. And we've done apologetic messages to demonstrate that, but this is what faith is, believing what you can't necessarily see.

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And of course, these men haven't seen anything. They haven't seen anything at all. They have heard about Jesus and that is enough.

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They truly do trust in him. And notice Jesus doesn't say, it's because you've done all these wonderful things in your life, that's why

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I'm healing you. He doesn't say that. It's not, well, you guys are nice guys. I'll do this for you. That's not what it's about.

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I mean, that's good, right? You should be a nice guy, a nice woman. You should do good things, of course. But it's about faith.

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Let's turn to Mark chapter 10 for a moment. And again, faith is not mental assent.

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It's not believing certain propositions. It's actually loving the

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Lord and trusting in the Lord. As we often say, it's about a personal relationship with the

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Lord. So we're gonna read from Mark chapter 10 and just a piece of advice.

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As we go through Matthew's gospel, it's always good to read the passage ahead of time.

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If you know we're in a certain place, read that next chapter ahead of time before Sunday and then compare scripture with scripture.

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But if you do that, if you do compare Matthew and Mark and Luke, then you're gonna come across a few differences.

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Have you ever read through the gospels and you're like, gee, what Matthew writes and what Mark says, it's a little different.

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Sometimes it seems like it's significantly different. I want to address one or two things here.

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Mark chapter 10, verse 46, look at it. It says, now they came to where?

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Jericho. And then the next thing you read, as he went out of Jericho with his disciples in a great multitude, blind

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Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. So you see a statement about Jericho and some people will ask this, well, are they coming to Jericho or are they leaving?

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Because it makes it sound like they're coming, but then they're going out. Well, which is it? So there's a little discrepancy, maybe shouldn't call it that, but there's another difference.

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How many blind men were there in Matthew's gospel? Two, right?

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And in Mark's gospel, how many blind men are mentioned? One, just blind

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Bartimaeus. So just some more advice. We know this, the atheists, the skeptics, the critics of Christianity, they love to kind of jump on these details and they're quick to call them contradictions.

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So if you've ever come across something like this or you do come across something like this, just take a few moments, read a commentary.

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Maybe you have a study Bible, check the note. You could ask somebody, I suppose. 99 % of the time, if you simply take a minute and a half and check here or check this commentary, these supposed discrepancies will be easily explained.

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So how can they be coming to Jericho and then leaving Jericho? And it's like, well, which is it?

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Well, what a lot of people don't know is there was actually two Jerichos in Bible times. Now who knew that?

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Okay, so three people. I probably knew it, but honestly, I'll say I forgot. My mind was refreshed this week or maybe

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I just didn't know. But yeah, there were actually two Jerichos. There was a city inhabited in the days of Jesus.

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Jericho, that's where they're probably at. But then there's that Old Testament city of Jericho that was destroyed.

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Remember the book of Joshua, Rahab, and the spies and the walls. And they marched around the city and the walls came tumbling down.

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We know the story. So there is that ancient city of Jericho that was laid waste.

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Those ruins were about a mile from this inhabited city also called

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Jericho. So it could easily be explained that they were leaving one and coming to the other.

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So that's probably what was happening. As far as the blind men, one gospel says there was two.

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The other says there was one. You say, well, that's a contradiction. One says two and one, that's a contradiction, right?

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Well, listen, if there were two, then there was at least one, okay? So we know there were two because Matthew says that.

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Mark does not contradict Matthew. It would be a contradiction if Mark said there was not two or there was only one.

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He doesn't say that. He just talks about the one. So he just chooses to focus on one instead of the two.

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But again, this is not a contradiction. All right, let's go back to Matthew chapter 20. I just wanted to show you that because if you do read these passages during the week or if you look into it, that's likely to come up.

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I'm willing to go on record and say the Bible never contradicts itself one time.

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I mean, depending on the translation, there are some translations that probably contain a scribal error or something.

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But the Bible itself, God's word, hear me say it, it is inerrant and infallible, okay?

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Inerrant means it's not wrong and infallible means it cannot be wrong.

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So again, the skeptics who will say, oh, there's all these contradictions in the Bible. All you have to do is say, okay, name.

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If there's all these contradictions, name two or three. And then I, again, 99 % of the time, they're not gonna be able to do it.

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But back to the story, verse 30. It says that a crowd is following them, verse 30.

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And behold, two blind men sitting by the road when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out saying, have mercy on us, oh

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Lord, son of David. Now, when it says here in the Bible, they cried out, what does cry mean in scripture?

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It means to yell, it means to scream maybe. But they were yelling out to Jesus.

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We hear the word cry, we think of weeping. Well, that's the word the Bible uses. Bible talks about weeping as in shedding tears.

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So cry actually means to shout or to yell. So these men are yelling out and they wanna make sure that Jesus hears them.

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So they're yelling with all their strength and they're crying out, have mercy on us.

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They're calling for help. But what's significant is that they call Jesus, they call him what?

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Son of David. Yeah, two different things. They call him Lord and son of David.

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So this really is a profession of faith. What does the Bible say about professions of faith?

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Romans chapter 10, 13, whosoever calleth upon the name of the

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Lord shall be saved. Was Jesus going to ignore these two men? Not a chance.

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But they didn't know that, but they believe. Many of the Israelites rejected

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Jesus as Lord, but these men are professing Jesus as Lord.

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Lord can either refer to, it's a sign of respect, someone who's important.

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They're a Lord or it's like calling someone, sir. It can be a sign of respect or it can be a title for God.

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It looks like they're using it in the ultimate sense here because they also call Jesus the son of David.

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So son of David is another way of saying that we believe you are the

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Christ, the Messiah. So what are the origins of this title, son of David?

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Well, this comes from the Old Testament. This is just another reason why Christians should read and be familiar with the

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Old Testament because you're just not gonna understand these things if you don't. But in 2 Samuel 7,

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God makes a covenant with David and the Lord says that David will have a son and that this son will rule over a kingdom that has no end.

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So it's that concept that developed into this idea of the

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Messiah being the son of David. The prophets Isaiah and Mitha spoke of the

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Messiah as though he were a divine figure that his origins are from everlasting.

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Of course, Isaiah said that he will be God with us. So you put all these pieces together, that's what the

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Jews did. And many of them believed that the son of David would just be a great king, but many believed that he would be

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God incarnate. He would rule over a kingdom that has no end.

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That means he's never gonna die. He's from, he's eternal, he is the Lord. But whatever's in their mind, they do believe that Jesus is the

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Christ. So they're calling out, they're crying out for help. Jesus is the only one they believe can help them.

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And what does the multitude do in response? Basically, they turn to these men and they say, hey, be quiet.

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We don't wanna hear from you. You two blind men just, what does it say? Says then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet.

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So they didn't just tell them to zip it. They told them you better be quiet or else.

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I don't know what they threatened them with, but clearly they don't wanna hear from these men.

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And that's just the way disabled people were treated back in Bible times. I mean, there were just righteous, godly people who treated disabled people well, but you know how it was back then.

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Some people are still like this. They make fun of disabled people. They don't care about them. We don't wanna hear from you.

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You're a nuisance. Well, Jesus didn't have that viewpoint, did he? Jesus has great compassion.

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So verse 31, after they tried to silence these blind men, it says, and I just love this, verse 31, but they cried out all the more saying, "'Have mercy on us,

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O Lord, son of David.'" So did the opposition stop them? No, it didn't.

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Well, what does this teach us? Have you ever spoken about the Lord and somebody tries to, come on, stop.

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We don't wanna hear it. People have made up these two rules. There's two things, totally made up rules.

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There's two things you're not allowed to talk about. What are they? Politics. Politics and religion.

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Now the politics part, some of you are happy that that's a rule. Others, if you are not happy, you wanna hear more about it, but maybe before November, I'll preach a sermon on that, but the other thing you're not allowed to talk about is your faith.

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Who made up this rule anyways? You're not allowed to talk about religion. That sounds like a rule the devil would make up.

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I don't know about you. I don't abide by this rule, obviously, and neither should you.

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Now in the workplace, you're there to do a job. Okay, you can't spend eight hours a day evangelizing and you need to do your work, but when you have opportunity, when opportunity arises, you have every right.

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I don't care where you are, you have every right to speak about your faith and you should, but yeah, there will be people who try to silence you and when they silence you, take a cue from these blind men.

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When they try to silence you, you're gonna do what? Persist. Yeah, you're gonna persist. You're gonna talk about it even more.

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So yeah, maybe it won't go well, but that's the advice. So they have a persistent faith.

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They're crying out to Jesus. They don't care what anyone thinks, what anyone says. Verse 32, so Jesus, in response to that, he stood still and called them and he said, what do you want me to do for you?

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So the persistence pays off. Now, quick question here. Does Jesus know? Do you think

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Jesus knows what they want? I think it'd probably be obvious, but Jesus is the

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Lord. He's omniscient. He knows already, but by asking, it's an invitation for a deeper engagement.

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As much as the Lord wants to do things for his people, he wants us to ask.

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He delights in us coming to him and asking. You know, there are parents who they delight in doing things for their children, but still, you know, the children should still come and ask and there's delight even in that.

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So what the Lord wants is again, that personal relationship.

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Here's the tendency for us. Well, God already knows what I need. Yeah, God already knows everything.

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So, you know, why bother asking? He already knows. Well, it's true, he does know, but here's what

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Philippians 4, 6 says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, what?

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Let your requests be made known to God. The word supplication means to ask.

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The Bible also says, seek the Lord while he may be found. So this is what they did.

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This is what we should do. Let your requests be made known. Does that mean pray once, seek the

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Lord one time, then he knows I told him. I told him once. He's got it. No, keep engaging, keep asking.

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And again, this builds our relationship with God. He wants us to talk to him.

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He wants us to ask. And it's because of the Lord's great compassion, he stops here,

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Mark's account, Jesus commands the crowd and Mark, he says, go bring them to me.

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And someone then tells Bartimaeus, be of good cheer, rise, for he is calling to you.

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So Jesus knows what they're gonna say, but still they ask him because he wants to hear it.

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And again, this is all part of our faith being public. Their faith was very public.

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This is done in front of a large crowd, a multitude. And our faith should be public.

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Well, I'll wait and I'll ask God when I'm in my prayer closet, which is good. You should have that time alone and pray to God, just you and him.

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But don't be afraid to pray in public. I mean, most people, the only time they pray in public is like this setting here, right?

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And then maybe at a restaurant, but a lot of people don't. Again, they don't pray or they don't talk to God in public, but don't be afraid to do that.

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Christianity is to be public. Our faith should be public. I remember watching an interview speak, going back to the politics thing back around 2008,

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I won't mention the names, it doesn't matter because a lot of them are like this. But there was a man who was running for president and he was on TV and they were talking about faith and Christianity.

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And of course, all the candidates, except for Bernie Sanders, they all acknowledged that they're Christians. They all say they're

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Christians. Bernie Sanders is Jewish, that's another story. But this person said, well,

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I'm a Christian. And the host said, well, tell us something about your faith.

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And he said, well, no, I'm not gonna do it. My faith is very private, he said. So he would not talk about his faith.

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Well, listen, I'm not judging the man's soul. I'm just saying that Christianity, our faith should never be private.

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It should be personal, but it should never be private. Jesus did say something about if you deny me before men, like if you will not confess me before men, what?

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What did the Lord say? I won't confess you either. In other words, let me just put this in layman's term.

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If you're ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you. If you want nothing to do with me, that goes both ways.

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So our faith should be personal, but never private. So Jesus, back to the story.

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He asked them, what do you want me to do for you? Verse 33, so they said to him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.

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Verse 34, so Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes, and immediately, it says, their eyes received sight.

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And then their faith persisted. Then they actually joined Jesus as a disciple.

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So this miracle was what? It was immediate, full healing, and it was done in a moment.

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Two points about this miracle. The first point, it was immediate. This is the difference between a true, real miracle and maybe what

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I'm gonna call, I'm just gonna call them the fake miracles we hear about today. Don't misunderstand me.

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I believe that God is still doing miracles. I really do. I believe they're rare, but I still believe that God answers prayer.

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I believe that he does work miracles, even today. But a lot of the miracles that are going on today, the signs and wonders movement is a real big thing right now.

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These so -called miracles that are happening today, they're not immediate. Sometimes the healing happens over the course of weeks or months, and it's like, well, you know, some people just get better.

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Like if someone is miraculously healed, but they're healed over the course of like a few months, just saying, that's not a miracle, okay?

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That's not a miracle. Now, are we happy to give God the glory for all improvement, all healing, whether it's miraculous or not?

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Yes, we give God the glory either way, but biblical miracles, here's the point.

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It was obvious to everybody that that's what it was. It was a miracle. You remember Jesus when he performed miracles, even his most staunchest critics, they couldn't deny it.

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There was no denying the miracles of Christ. Another thing about this miracle, he didn't just give them physical sight.

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I believe he gave them spiritual sight. Now, when this happened, because they already seemed to believe before he came, but still this is what commentator

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Matthew Henry writes about this passage. I really like what he said. He says, surely it was by the

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Holy Ghost that they called Jesus Lord. They persevered in prayer.

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When they were in pursuit of such mercy, it was no time for timidity or hesitation.

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They cried earnestly and Christ encouraged them. And then he gets into the application.

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He said, oh, that we would with such feeling complain about our spiritual maladies, especially our spiritual blindness.

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Matthew Henry says many are spiritually blind, yet they say that they see.

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And there are a lot of people say, well, I believe I'm a Christian, but they're completely blind to spiritual things.

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Jesus cured these blind men. And when they had received sight, they followed him.

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None follow Christ blindly. He first by his grace opens men's eyes and so draws their hearts after him.

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These miracles are our call to Jesus. May we hear it and make it our daily prayer to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. So let me kind of summarize that and bring this to a conclusion.

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Why are these stories written? There's so many miracles that Jesus does in the Bible. Why write it all down?

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Okay, these two blind men were given their sight. Why write it down?

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Why read about it? Why preach about it? What's the purpose? Well, we just heard why from Matthew Henry.

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Bartimaeus and the other man almost certainly heard the stories about Jesus, what he had done.

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They believed he was willing to heal the sick and heal them. These miracles, here's what they do.

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The miracles point to Jesus, okay? They are a sign that he is who he said he was.

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The miracles are a sign that he truly is the son of God and that the kingdom truly is at hand.

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When they heard about Jesus, what did they do? They believed. And when the moment came, when Jesus was in their presence, what did they do?

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They called upon his name. Let's turn to John chapter 20 for a moment and we'll close.

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But that's why these stories are written. The gospels are the Holy Spirit inspired record that Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of God. And here in John's gospel, he comes right out and he explains why all of this is written.

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So John chapter 20, we'll just read verses 30 and 31.

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John 20, 30 and 31 says, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

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So what's a sign? A sign is something that points to something else, something beyond itself.

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So the miracles, giving sight to the blind, that's the sign and it points to Jesus.

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Look at verse 31, but these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.

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That's why this story is written down. Jesus healed the blind men so that others would believe.

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We don't get a record of anyone else in the multitude following Jesus, but these two men certainly did.

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They believed, they believed that Jesus was the Christ, number one. They believed he was able to change their situation, number two, and thank

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God they believed he was willing. And because they believed, they had persistent faith that he was willing, they cried out to him.

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When they got opposition, they cried out even more. And what are you gonna do when you get opposition?

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Hopefully speak even more. Will Jesus reward that? Yes, he will.

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Has Jesus ever passed by a person who calls out to him in true saving faith?

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Not a once, he never will. And I thank God for that. Let's close.

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Father, how thankful we are for your word. We thank you and praise you in the name of Jesus for healing these two blind men.

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You healed them physically, you also healed them spiritually. You gave them sight.

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You gave them spiritual sight that they could see and believe and know that Jesus was the

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Christ. Lord, I pray that you would give us this strong, persistent faith in you.

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One that not only endures, but one that produces fruit. That once you open our eyes, we would be like these two men and we, for the rest of our lives, would be your followers.

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And if there's someone listening today who has never trusted in the gospel of Christ, crucified and risen, we pray that they would believe, even at this very moment, and that they would call upon your name and be saved.