<TITLE>05. Par 12-13</TITLE>L-12 Our--our scene opens on a cold, spring morning, and it's at the walls, the old tore down walls of Jericho. And there is a--a man setting there which we know to be a beggar called blind Bartimaeus, or Bartimaeus. It would be either one, be pronounced all right. And so in that day there were many beggars. And all night long he'd tossed and rolled, and He couldn't sleep. Many of us know what them kind of nights are, just no rest at all. And he'd roll from one side of the bed to the other, and there was no rest for the poor old fellow. And he'd got up late, so he'd come to his post late. Therefore, if--if they're not there early, the merchants and so forth coming in... There's so many beggars and people, incurables, like blindness, and leprosy, and cripples, and so forth, and people that were poverty stricken. And about the first beggar they met they give him a coin, and that just about settled it. That's all they could afford for the day.
So he'd come to his place late. Let's say it's up about eight o'clock in the morning, and he should have been there about six. But the reason he was late was because he missed so much sleep. All night long he'd rolled and tossed and couldn't sleep. And he'd--he was dreaming all night that he could see again. He dreamed that he had his eyesight. And he'd wake up, he'd go back to sleep.
You know I believe God warns us many times in dreams. Don't you think so? He always has, and He promised in the last days that he would show visions and let them dream dreams. And let's think of Bartimaeus, and he dreamed that he could re--he'd received his sight and he could see again.

L-13 So when he got there that morning he was late, and all the merchants had done gone into the city, and--and the great city of commerce as it was. But all--all of them had went in, got early at the market places to sell their goods and so forth. So perhaps he'd have to do without that day. He didn't--wouldn't have his coin for the day to eat by. And I can just imagine, as many times we've pictured him: his old, ragged cloak on, like that, and his little old shriveled up arms, and the beard all over his face, and that gray, and--and blind along the road, kind of trying to get to the place to where he'd set down and beg. Each one had their own private place where they begged.
That's a pitiful thing. I've been in India and watched them there where they're... There's four hundred and seventy million people in India; and honest, I'd almost say four hundred million of them are beggars. You... Just everywhere is beggar, beggar, beggar. And they each have their post and their place, and some kind of a little enchantment that they do to attract the attention of the tourists: and such a pathetic sight.


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