<TITLE>03. Par 12-16</TITLE>L-12 It must have been a cold morning. He'd dreamed all night that he could see again. And he come to the gate late. All the business men had done gone into the city. And just a few tourists in them days, so what could he do? He wouldn't get a coin then. How would he get something to eat? He listened. He couldn't hear no one.
So he took his place by the side of the gate. He felt around until he found a big stone, that had fallen down when God had shook the walls of Jericho. It had been a cold morning. He set down in the warm sunshine. And there he was sitting. And he begin to think of what he was dreaming the night before. Oh, what a wonderful dream. He dreamed he could see. And he bowed his head, and he begin to think of years ago of when he was a little boy. We all like to go back to those times and think of childhood scenes.

L-13 And he begin to think of when he was a little boy running around over the hills, just a little Jewish lad of about seven or eight years old; how he loved to pick the little yellow flowers off of the banks of the Jordan. And the beautiful hill flowers of the Palestine, what pretty colors they had; and how his little dark eyes used to look at those flowers; and when he would see the pretty skies the big white clouds. But now, it had been black for many, many years.
Then he remembered, how happy he would be when his Jewish mother would call him to his midday lunch. And she would, after he had eaten, take him up in her arms, go out on the porch, and go to rocking him for his midday nap. She'd stroke back his black hair, pat him on the cheek, and how his eyes would see her beautiful face. His mama, oh, how he could remember it.

L-14 And he remembered too that she used to tell him Bible stories. That's good for mothers to tell your children those things. "Bring up a child in the way it should go, and when it gets old, it--it will not depart from you." That's what the Scriptures says. And she would rock him, and tell him of the great Jehovah.
There was one story that he likes specially. That was about the days of Elijah the prophet. He loved to think of that great mighty prophet and of the Shunammite woman. How that this woman was a good woman. Though she was a Shunammite, she knowed that that prophet was a man of God. And she liked to do kind things for him. So one day she had her husband to build him a little room, so that in his traveling, he could just stay in that little room built on the side of their house.

L-15 And as him and his servant came by one day and seen how nice she'd treated him, he wanted to do something good for her. So they found out that she had no children.
And mother would brush his little hair back, of little Bartimaeus, and say, "Bartimaeus, every mother wants a little boy like you."
So the prophet thought that could be the nicest thing could happen to this nice lady, for she would keep him of the Lord. So he prayed for the woman, and she had the little boy.

L-16 And when he got to be about twelve years old, one day he was out in the harvest field with his papa, and must've had a sunstroke. He said, "My head, my head." And the servant taken him to his mama. She held him on her lap, an he got sicker and sicker. And after while there was no breath in him. He was dead.
And look at what that mother did. She never put him on his--his little bed; neither did she put him on her bed. But she went around and put him on the prophet's bed. That's a good place to put him.
And then she said to her husband; they were all screaming. She said, "Saddle a mule (mule) and ride. Don't stop. I'm going up in the mountains to a cave where a prophet lives."
Oh, her husband said, "It's no good now."
She said, "All is well." And away she went to find the man of God who could who could pronounce a blessing, could say a prophecy, and tell them the time that baby would be born. Surely, if God could give a baby, God could tell why He took a baby. Amen.


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