<TITLE>05. Par 14-16</TITLE>L-14 Just for the next few moments, I want to say these words about the little text, just for a short time. We're going to try and we'll see how many people that I can pray for in this line. If these men will just hold me up to pray for them.
Our scene tonight is a very sad, tragic look as we see a Jericho. Jericho was always a cursed city since the Jews possessed Palestine. Joshua said, "Cursed is the man that'll build this city." Jericho always represented backslidden. Jerusalem sets above Jericho, the heavenly, and as it left Jericho, going down, you were going away from God... The cursed city.... The blessed city: the cursed city.
In the time of our scene tonight, was Blind Bartimaeus, an old blind beggar, perhaps ragged, begging for his pennies as he set by the side of this fence or wall, by the highway, where it passed by the highway. Perhaps, this cold November day, because he shivered there, his--it's cold...
And as he set there by the side of the highway, he had a lot of competitors. Many blind people was in the land at that day. Hardly a stranger passing by would give him a coin now and then. But you can imagine how hard it was on beggars when blind, leprosy, and leper stricken, deaf, dumb. All kinds of beggars just filled the road. And what would one poor old beggar have up to side of all that group of people? As he set there in the cold wind, no doubt, cut away in this dark world that he lived in... On the inside was a group of people who professed to be very religious, yet very indifferent, very wicked, very sinful.

L-15 There's so many beggars and things, perhaps, he never even thought of blind Bartimaeus. And here he was setting out there, shut off in the dark world. Along the side of him, run the Jericho road, running up to Jerusalem, the cobblestones in the road was perhaps, well polished from many travelers going back and forth over the road. Over this same road, the great warrior Joshua led the children of Israel, many years before.
Over this same road walked Elijah and Elisha as they went to Jordan. No doubt that this old blind beggar, setting there, saying--in his dark world, saying, "If I'd have only lived in the day when Elijah and Elisha passed by, I would've cried out, and they'd have prayed for me. And God would've give me my sight. But now, all the peoples in the city and around say the days of miracles is past."
But perhaps, down in his heart, he believed that God still lived. How little did he know, just down the road come his deliverance. I wonder if that ain't our case tonight. I hope it is. Many of you setting here is sick and afflicted, needy, some of you dying with sickness.

L-16 There same thing: great cities, great scientists, but in your case, there can be no help come. Perhaps blind Bartimaeus, if he would've had money, there'd have been no way they could've helped him, an operation. He'd... I been told that the man was born that way. That I don't know. That...The Scripture doesn't back that up. But anyhow, he was blind. And if he could have an operation, he wasn't able, because he was a beggar; so he might as well not be any help for him, if it come through medical science and they didn't have any way to operate or no money to be operated on. There he sets in this horrible condition, but down in his heart he was a believer. You know, I always think if a man will really believe, God will shove something by him. Don't you believe that? If there's a hunger in your heart for God, there's got to be something to respond to that hunger.


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