<TITLE>06. Par 17-20</TITLE>L-17 And here he is setting there in his darkness. Now, no one coming by, after a while, he listens. He hears somebody whispering. They say, "He's coming this a way." Let's dramatize it a moment.
"He's coming this a way." After while, I hear a bunch hollering, "Good evening, father." The priests are coming by. I hear some priest saying, "And the very idea, that Beelzebub coming into the city to interrupt our churches. He doesn't do nothing but speak evil. Why, we know the days of miracles is past. He only casts out devils through Beelzebub. He's a fortuneteller. That's how he knows who touched him, and so forth. Why, he's nothing but Beelzebub. And he's anointed with the devil, and he only has got the devil to help him."

L-18 Down in old blind Bartimaeus' heart, something begin to turn over: "I wonder if He's really coming this a way?"
After while he heard a bunch of screams and shouts, "Hosanna," somebody who believed Him.
I hear the priest say, "Listen at that bunch of radics. Listen. Look what follows him. Look who comes to His meetings: them poor cast-outs." The Bible said the common people heard Him gladly. "Look what kind of a crowd He associates with. That shows there isn't nothing to Him."
Too bad, didn't realize Who He was. I wonder today, if that isn't a great thing today too, Christian friends. They just don't realize Who He is, don't realize that He's the same today as He was then.

L-19 I can hear them blaspheming. After while blind Bartimaeus kept saying, "Who--who's passing? Who's passing?"
Some said, "Jesus of Nazareth passes by." Oh, my. A new hope come into his heart. Something's happening. There's his first and last chance. He'll never pass that way again. That's his only hope. And how do we know that tonight, there isn't men and women setting here, that's your only hope. He may never pass this way again.
Then he grabbed his rags. He said, "Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." Perhaps, the roar of the people and the screams, Jesus never heard his voice. But he thought, "Oh, He's going to pass me." "Oh, Thou Son of David, have mercy."
Jesus, in a deep study, His face was placed towards Jerusalem. Being the Son of God, He knowed that He must go to Jerusalem and there be crucified the next few days. You know what, friends, you and I are part of the fault that He was on that road that day. Did you know that? Our sins and sickness put Him on that road that day, going to Calvary. And there He, walking slowly, lived in another world that man didn't understand Him. When He spoke, people said, "Oh, you speak in parables. Who can understand what you say. You never answer anything correctly to us. We can't understand. Tell us clearly." And He'd give them something in a twisting word, and walk by, go on. They didn't understand Him. He wasn't of the world, and they were of the world.

L-20 And now, with the howling mobs from every side, some in...?... singing (His friends), "Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Praise God forever." The sick people had been healed, perhaps, following Him, praising Him.
And the priests criticize Him, "All right, let us see you do a sign. You done it somewhere else, come over here. We got somebody's crippled. Let me see you make them whole. We don't believe you. We believe you're the devil, the Beelzebub. Don't come around our churches. We don't want that kind of stuff in our city. Bypass us."
All that screaming going on, Jesus never noticed it. He walked steadily on towards Jerusalem, knowing that that was His own children crying for His Blood, and He couldn't turn them down. How can a father turn his own children down? And here He walks on to Jerusalem.


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