<TITLE>07. Par 22-24</TITLE>L-22 But as our blind beggar friend tonight, thought on these things. "Surely, Jehovah didn't die. Surely, He hasn't got weak. You know, I remember my mother telling me of the great tragedy that happened in the wilderness, and how that leprosy even was healed. O great Jehovah. And I am Abraham's child, and got an heir to the same promise. But what's the matter with me? They tell me those days are gone. Maybe they understand more than what I do. Maybe--it's just my--my condition today. Maybe I'm just lonesome because I didn't get nothing to eat."
So he shivered a little bit as the sun begin... After a while he hears a footsteps coming. He raises up, runs towards the road, said, "Please, kind sir, as you're passing through, I am Bartimaeus the beggar at the gate. Would you be so kind to give me a coin, I--I have a wife and child at home which is hungry."
"Away beggar! Out of my way. I must be on my road."
"Well, thank you, kind sir."

L-23 Goes over and sets down again. He takes up his study again. And begins to think, "Now, just remember, not over five hundred yards, or--or maybe a mile, from where I'm sitting right now, Israel passed over this Jordan I hear roaring behind me on dry land. And down there is a pile of stones raised up, they tell me, as a memorial."
"Oh, I remember it when I was a little boy, mother taking me down there one day and showing me those stones, that they taken up out--the bearers of the ark, the ones that followed picked up stones, and laid them up on the ground; and they're there yet. Oh, if I would've only lived then. Wouldn't that been wonderful if I could've lived in that day when those great God took this Pillar of Fire and crossed over the Jordan. And the ark of the Lord representing the Word, come behind, the Spirit and Word together. What a great thing that was. But well, those days are gone. They tell me miracles don't happen no more."
"And how I remember how she used to tell me that some glorious day, we'd be visited again. But oh, it must be way in the future. Maybe my great, great, great, grandchildren might see it. But not I, a poor blind beggar. When that great mighty Messiah shall set His feet on the earth..." Little did he know that within a hundred and fifty yards He was standing.
That's what I think tonight. Many of you try to wonder, "Someday, somewhere." But that same Messiah isn't five feet away from you tonight, right here with you.

L-24 After while he hears a clatter of some hoofs. He knows he hears some bare feet on the well polished cobblestones. He runs out again, "Kind sir, would you help me, a blind beggar? I'm in need."
And when he does, the man leading the mule stops; the man on the mule, in the back, of his leading, said, "Out of my way, beggar; I am a servant of the Lord. I am a priest; I'm the head of the Ministerial Association down here in the--in Jericho. There is a fanatic in the city today. And we must put a stop to this nonsense. And I've come down to hold a council how we can run Him out of town. I'm on my way, and I have no time with beggars, so get out of my way."
"Excuse me, father."
On into the city he goes. And blind Bartimaeus goes back and takes his position and sets down.


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