Pause for a moment and try to imagine what it would be like to not only be blind, but also to be deaf. Blind and deaf. Some of you know the name Helen Keller. At the age of just 19, Helen Keller suffered an illness that left her both blind and also deaf. At the age of seven, she met a lady, Anne Sullivan, who would spend her life teaching her to read and to write, and she became the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

She became a notable writer of the last century, an educator, and she was once asked a very blunt question. The question was, isn't it terrible to be blind? To which she replied, better to be blind and see with your heart than to have two good eyes and see nothing. Now we begin there because we get applied those words to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious leaders of Jesus' day, you could even apply them in certain ways to the 12 disciples as they argued about who was the greatest of all. What a contrast with those people in comparison to the two men in our story, two blind men, one of them named by Mark and his gospel, Bartimaeus.

Jesus is on the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem. They're going out of Jericho, they've got about 25 kilometers to head west and then up the hill towards the great city of Jerusalem. Jesus, as he travels with his disciples, he's surrounded by huge crowds making their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast. And we read there in verse 29, as they went out of Jericho. Now, sometimes we think about the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, you think, that's a four lane paved highway, you've got all the traffic there.

Go back in time and try to imagine a dusty trail, Jesus and his disciples and the crowds making their way along that road towards Jerusalem. Jesus, he's on his way to give his life as a ransom for many. We looked at that last week. And yet he had also time on that road with that mission in mind, he had the time to touch the lives of those two blind men in their deepest needs. So if you hear Bibles open, let's look at this short passage together.

We're gonna focus on the roads. Think about the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. We're gonna think first of all of two men sitting by the roadside, then we're gonna have Jesus who is stopping on the road, And then thirdly, we're gonna think about two new disciples following Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. So three active words, sitting, stopping, following. Let's begin there with the word sitting.

Let's begin the story there in verse 30. Matthew describes it there. He was an eyewitness. He said there were two blind men sitting by the roadside. Now, Luke's gospel tells us that these men were begging, begging, Bartimaeus was begging, of their blindness, they had no way to earn a living.

They weren't living in the generation of Helen Keller. They were hoping for just a few coins from the crowd on the road. They were heading to Jerusalem, they're heading to the Passover. They were more than hopeful they would have some coins there to help them make ends meet. But this day was different, the crowd's excitement, the background noise was noticeable.

Maybe someone came up to those two men, whispered in their ears and said, It's Jesus of Nazareth, He's on the road to Jerusalem. Now they'd heard reports about Jesus coming back from Galilee, including how Jesus had given sight to the blinds. So verse 30, it's no wonder we read that they yelled out at Jesus, Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. Now we can learn three things about these blind beggars by the roadside. We're gonna look at their insights, their self awareness and their persistence.

Look at their words that they yelled at Jesus, son of David, son of David. They they knew that Jesus of Nazareth was more than just an ordinary man, more than even just a prophet of God's, they saw him through their blind eyes, they saw the one who fulfilled God's promise, God's covenant promise to David of old. What they lacked in eyesight, they more than made up for in their insight as to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. The fulfillment of God's promise. Second Samuel seven verse 12, the promise there to to David, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.

So there, that prophecy of the coming of God's Messiah, his son, his rightful ruler of his coming kingdom, and there he is, the Messiah, and the blind men can see he's coming. These two men now pinned their hopes on this anticipated Messiah. They knew perhaps the words of the prophet Isaiah chapter 35 verse five, the eyes of the blind will be opened, and they longed that they would know that their eyes would be opened too. No wonder they raised their voices. The Messiah was passing.

That's the word there, He was passing. So we see there their insight. Let's look secondly at their self awareness. Now we all know that that's such an important thing, self awareness. Someone needs to tell us we're talking too much or we're talking too loudly or we have a little piece of food stuck in our tooth perhaps, or maybe our humor is just a little too edgy for that conversation.

We don't always have that self awareness. These two blind men were very aware of their true condition. Think about it, blank gazes locked in the direction of Jesus' voice. They cried out, have mercy on us, have mercy on us. And as he cried out to Jesus, they they cry out for that one thing.

They want to know God's mercy in their dire situation. The God of mercy. The apostle Paul writes in second Corinthians one verse three, he says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comforts. These two men believed that Jesus, as the Messiah, had the power to do what only the living God could do, to meet their greatest needs, to stop and heal their blindness. You see, to know the identity of Jesus as the son of God leads us to acknowledge your sin to him that our one great need, the one great need in your life and mine is that mercy of God's forgiveness of our sins.

I love the words of the Puritan writer, Thomas Watson. He said, God's mercy can drown great sins as the sea covers great rocks. Imagine the picture on the coast, those great waves coming in, covering the rocks, mercy of God crashing over our sin as it were, submerging it, cleansing us. Now, not everybody as we know has that self awareness. You could survey five of your friends who are not believers, ask them the same question, are you spiritually blind?

Now how will that go? Some of your friends may be offended by the question, others may be in absolute denial that they are indeed spiritually blind. I wonder, what about you? Do we have that self awareness? Do you have that self awareness that the the debt of your sin is that it's a debt you just cannot pay?

It's a debt that can only be cancelled through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. Every one of us in this room or watching this morning needs to pray the prayer of the tax collector, the story of Jesus. Remember the Pharisee tax collector went down to the temple to pray? The Pharisee, he's proud, he's glad, he's not like the tax collector. The tax collector, what has he got to say for himself?

Well, prays these words, God, be merciful to me a sinner. That's a humble prayer. That's a prayer God loves to hear from each one of us, not just as we come to faith in Jesus Christ, but every day of the Christian life as we are aware of our sin, as we confess it to the Lord, we cry out for forgiveness, and we give thanks that the Lord does not treat us as our sins deserve. So there's self awareness, there's insight, and thirdly there with these men there is persistence. To the crowds following Jesus, these two men were, you could say they were an inconvenience.

They were getting in the way of Jesus, their Messiah. After all, he was in their minds heading to Jerusalem to give them this great deliverance from the rule of the Roman Empire. Hence, verse 31, they desire to silence these men. They acted just like the 12 disciples of Jesus. Remember when parents tried to bring their little children to Jesus for him to bless them, and the disciples, they're saying, no, no, no, no, he's too busy, we don't want him to be troubled, Take them away.

So the crowds here as well acted in this way. They didn't share the compassion of Jesus for the needy. Their messaging to the blind man was unmistakably this, zip it, put a lid on it, they said. So these two men are faced with a very real obstacle to making their request known to Jesus, We read they won't be deterred, verse 31, they overcome the obstacle, how did they do it? Well, just cranking up the volume.

They yelled again. You've got to love their persistence here. We think about our own lives, think about some of the things that would prevent us to enjoy not fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We desire communion with him, but our lives just seem too busy perhaps. Things in our lives, situations, circumstances seem to be like obstacles keeping us away from the Lord.

Or perhaps there's that question, maybe Jesus is too busy. How will he have time for us in that situation? Come before the Lord, come with that same persistence of these two men. Come with the persistence of Jacob in the old testament as he wrestled with the Lord there during the night, and we read in Genesis 32 verse 26 his words, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Wrestle with him, seek the Lord, seek his mercy, persist.

So the camera swings away now from the two blind men at the roadside yelling at Jesus as he strides along the road to Jerusalem. Now the camera as it were zooms in on the feet of Jesus that have just stopped, absolutely dead on the roads. Why has he stopped? Well, we read there verse 32, stopping, Jesus called them and said. Now again, think of the 12 disciples.

Everything has just stopped. They're kinda looking back. What has happened? What's what is it this time? What's the holdup back there?

Why isn't Jesus on the road with us? Well, it's very simple. The Lord of the universe knew these two men stories. He was not too busy to stop and they were not an inconvenience to Jesus. Mark's gospel fills us in with some of the detail there.

Mark 10 verse 49, Jesus stopped and said, call him. So they call to the blind man, cheer up able We're He We're We're singles be out these two blind beggars out of all the other blind beggars on the roadside, outside Jericho. He is the God who comes. He is the God who draws us to Himself. Picture those clouded eyes turning in the direction of Jesus' voice as He asks that simple, deceptively simple question.

How can I help you? Now Jesus knew what their greatest need was. His question just served to draw the crowd's attention that the crowd would see what the greatest needs these men had. And they verbalize it there, verse 33, Lord, let our eyes be opened. You and I will never cry out to the Lord for mercy until we first realize our spiritual blindness.

The understanding that our greatest need is truly the mercy of God. Only then can you truly see the depth of your sins and how Jesus Christ came to to bear that sin upon the cross. No matter what your past is this morning, no matter the the depth of sin that you have sank to in these past few days, no matter how strong that temptation is that you wrestle with. Richard Sibbs, the Puritan writer says, there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us. More mercy in Christ than there is sin in us.

That mercy was revealed on the cross where Jesus laid down his life for all those who are blind in their sin. And the good news of the gospel is Jesus hasn't changed. He he still stops as it were for all who will cry out to him for mercy. He hears our prayers. He knows our deepest cries.

So what would Jesus do here? Well, what he didn't do was to throw a few coins in the in the basket in front of these two men. No. No. He does so much more.

He answers a cry for mercy. Look at the words there as Matthew describes it simply. Jesus, in pity, touched their eyes. So imagine the sense of touch there on his eye on their eyes, And that sense of anticipation, are they about to receive their sights? And Jesus acts there.

The word is in pity. Pity, compassion, we go to another crowd and another story that involved Jesus healing. The story is told there in Luke seven, the story is of a funeral of a young man. He is the only son of his mother. She is mourning that son.

And then Jesus in verse 13 speaks, and when the Lord saw her, he had compassion slash pity on her and said to her, do not weep. And then he would heal. He would bring that dead man to life. And that's that same pity, that same compassion that is involved here in the story of these two blind men. All who cry out to Jesus for mercy experience his pity, his compassion, his kindness, as he gives us spiritual sights.

Look at the result there, verse 34, immediately they recovered their sights. Before the fingers of Jesus had left their eyes, they have vision twentytwenty, perfect eyesight. They don't need bandages around their heads, they don't need prescription glasses to help them. They don't need a follow-up appointment with Jesus. They are instantly healed.

What a miracle. Who was the first face that they saw as their eyes were opened? Well, it was the face of the one who on the cross outside Jerusalem would make that sacrifice needed to atone for their sin and for ours as well. At the end of that final leg of his journey, Jesus and his mercy would shed his blood willingly on the cross for all who will look through the eyes of faith to Jesus and receive his mercy. What a miracle.

The mercy of Jesus, the son of God who who takes time to show compassion to these outcasts of society. The amazing compassion that can be the turning point perhaps in your life this morning. Jesus hears your cry. Maybe that cry is just very, very basic, very simple, Lord have mercy. Lord help me.

How do we receive God's mercy? Well, again, Mark's gospel and the account he shares describes it there in chapter 10, verse 52, he's describing faith as the instrument by which these men were healed. Faith is the instrument by which you and I receive God's mercy. Jesus said there, go your way, your faith has made you well. So, again, we need to remind ourselves that this faith, it's not about the strength or weakness of your faith this morning, it's all about the object of your faith.

As you get older, like myself, eventually you face the prospect of a cataract removal. Thankfully, it's not on my horizon at the minute, but the very thought of it, I'm a little sensitive to anybody poking around in my eyes, so the idea of going into hospital, day procedure, whatever it is, to have a cataract removed, what I want to know when I see the surgeon, the doctor who's gonna remove the cataract, I wanna see someone who is knowledgeable, experienced, I don't wanna see the kid who was taken to work by her parent and the parent just gave them a scalpel and said, you know, why don't you have a try? You know, this seems like a good guy to practice on. Here, have a scalpel, remove the cataract. I'm out of there, my fastest ever sprints out of that hospital, out of that ward.

No, it's faith in the object, the one that we can trust in. Jesus, the skilled surgeon here who spiritually and physically removes the scales from the eyes of these men. They believed, they put their trust in Jesus, that He, as the Messiah, Son of God, had the power to bring them eyes to see, that they would be able to see their spies perhaps, their kids, their parents, and maybe even as beggars just to see each other for the first time. Who was that sitting beside them by the road? So how do we know when we have received God's mercy?

How do we know when we have been given spiritual eyesight? Well, that brings us to our last point here. We go from sitting by the roadside to Jesus there healing them, and we now come to that following. Look at verse 34, it's easy to pass over this last part, this last detail. They recovered their sight and followed him from being sidelined by the roadside.

Now they're on the road, two new disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe they would be part of the crowds on that following Sunday, Palm Sunday. They would perhaps be shouting there with all the crowd, Hosanna, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Maybe they would taste of the Passover there in Jerusalem, what they expected to taste, but maybe they would be shocked and horrified by Jesus' death on the cross outside the city walls. Matthew Henry, in his commentary helps us here.

He says, none follow Jesus blindfold. He first, by his grace, opens men's eyes and so draws their hearts after him. Grace of God, opening our eyes that we might see clearly and understand his majestic love in Jesus Christ. Those who have had their eyes opened by God's grace are those who become followers on the road with Jesus Christ. Eyes that now see, our gaze is taken away from our peer group or the influencers in our lives, and our gaze is fixed spiritually upon the Lord Jesus.

So what does it mean to be on the road with Jesus? Find Ephesians four verses one to three helpful there. The apostle Paul describes that road. He says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Think of those words, bearing with one another in love. That's one of the evidences, that walk of love. That includes a new heart of kindness and compassion and pity to that person that the Lord has brought into your life. Maybe a neighbor, maybe someone here this morning, and he is using you and he will use you as an instrument of mercy. And it's a heart of compassion also for those who remain spiritually blind in their sin.

Again, that may be a family member, a friend, work or school. It may be some of the hundreds of homes, the people outside in this community, people we will go to their homes next Sunday after service to invite them to hear good news. Christ has risen from the dead. So we see the needy not as a not as an interruption, not as a inconvenience. Instead, we we embrace them, and we embrace their needs as an opportunity to walk in that same path of compassion with the Lord Jesus.

So as we close, we see two very different groups here. Some of us are like the two beggars. We are all too aware of our blindness as we cry to the Lord for mercy. Some of us are more like the crowds. We we don't really see just how blind we really are.

Today again, we've been given God's words so that we can see his mercy in Christ, that we can see our need of him as our savior, and our need daily to experience his mercy towards us. So as we close, we can echo the words of another blind man. John's gospel describes his story in chapter nine. Take time this afternoon to read his story. It's a tremendous story in verse 25, this blind man makes his incredible confession.

He says this, one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. We worship the God who gives spiritual eyes to the blind. So you and I today as we confess him as our savior, we turn from our sin. So like the two men in their story today, cry out to Jesus. Cry out to him for mercy.

Follow him on that lifelong journey, on the road that doesn't lead to Jerusalem, the road that leads home to him. Let's pray together. Our gracious God, you are merciful to sinners. We are here, Lord, only by your grace this morning. We come to you with empty hands.

We come to you, Lord, in our needs, and we cry out to you for mercy. Lord, pay that debt of sin that we cannot pay. And, Lord, keep us on that road with you that our hearts would be filled with compassion in a needy world, and a world where so many still are outside your kingdom. So we are thankful for your word to our hearts now, pray that you would implant these words in our hearts and that we would be transformed more and more into your likeness. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.