Lesson 6 - Chapters 11, 12, and 13

After much travelling, Jesus arrives at Jerusalem. Mark structures the Jerusalem narrative carefully, giving Jesus just a few days before the sorrowful events leading to His crucifixion and burial. The entire time is filled with parables about His mission and symbolic actions referring to His identity. The entire scene is rife with Old Testament allusions. Jesus begins at the Mount of Olives, a traditional location associated with the coming of the Jewish Messiah (see Zechariah 14:4). Jesus’ entry is “triumphal,” but not in the military sense that people assumed of the Messiah. Military leaders of the day rode war horses into a conquered city, while a king coming in peace, or a messenger bringing good news, traditionally rode a donkey (compare 1 Kings 1:33, where Solomon rides David’s own mule to his coronation).

We have here Mark’s report of Jesus Christ’s public entry into Jerusalem. Typically, He came into the city sending out two very clear signals. First, He showed that He was not afraid of the power and malice of His enemies in Jerusalem; He did not slip into the city in secret. Rather, His entry was so dramatic that people could not fail to notice Him — an encouragement to His disciples, who were fearful and intimidated at the thought of their enemies’ power and rage. Second, He showed that He was not cast down or troubled at the thought of His approaching sufferings and death on the cross. He came not only publicly but cheerfully, with shouts of joy, fully assured of complete victory over evil — triumphant in the certainty that His Father’s purpose would be fulfilled.

The initial reaction of Jesus:

According to Mark’s account of the entry into Jerusalem, our Lord went straight away into the Temple, looked around, and went to Bethany with the twelve, as it was getting late in the day. But we read in Luke 19:41, “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.” Let us briefly examine what made Jesus weep over Jerusalem.

The road Jesus and His companions travelled crested upward, just outside the little town of Bethphage, then dipped down into the valley, and the plateau just beyond it came into view. On that plateau stood the beautiful city of Jerusalem. The walled city seemed to rise straight out of the ground, the glistening golden Temple occupying centre stage. From this vantage point, Jesus could see the entire city — the Temple with its courts, the magnificent city behind it, and the gardens. He could also see the thousands of travellers camped on the hillsides surrounding Jerusalem. They were there for the Passover celebration. The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus claimed that as many as two or three million pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem for the feast each year, though most modern historians regard that figure as a considerable exaggeration; even allowing for that, Jerusalem’s population still swelled many times over during the festival, with vast numbers of additional visitors from Judea, Galilee, and beyond. And seeing all this — the city and the crowds — Jesus wept.

He wept because those people were choosing to be blind.

• blind to the coming of their King,

• blind to the significance of that coming,

• blind to the message of the Kingdom,

• blind to the consequences of their actions,

• blind to the actions of their leaders against the Messiah

And because of that blindness, they were going to suffer a tragic consequence. Jesus said that not one stone would be left upon another, that a powerful enemy would come and invade them and destroy the city. This took place a little less than forty years later, in the year 70, when the Roman legions under Titus besieged and destroyed Jerusalem, just as Jesus had foretold.

This was the horrible and tragic end of Jerusalem. They had not received Jesus for who He was — their Saviour and their Messiah. Their hearts were hard, and so Jesus’ heart was broken. Friends, what do you think Jesus is doing when He looks at the world today? A world founded by God is going blind. I tell you, friends, Jesus is weeping when He looks at us right now. The question before us this evening is: does your relationship with God cause you to weep about the things that break the heart of God?

Expectations of the crowd

Let us understand that up until now Jesus has been very guarded about His identity as Messiah (see, for example, Mark 8:30). Rather than using the term Christ (Greek for “anointed one”) or Messiah (the Hebrew word for “anointed one”), He identifies Himself as Son of Man. If Jesus had previously acknowledged publicly that He was the Messiah, the political implications would have been such that He could not have completed His intended ministry of teaching, healing, and proclaiming the Kingdom. But now that ministry is complete. All that remains is to accomplish His “exodus” in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). Jesus now moves to fulfil messianic prophecy, and directs His disciples to find the donkey that His Father has prepared for His public entry into the City of Zion.

His claim as King must now be made clear. Indeed, this open claim of Messiahship and Kingship seems to precipitate His death; it was certainly on the lips of everyone in Jerusalem that week (Luke 22:67; 23:3, 35, 38, 42; 24:26, 46). Jesus is not crucified for His good works. He is killed for His claim to Kingship.

Yet none of the crowd called Him Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, or any of the titles Christians would later use of Him. They welcomed Him as someone coming “in the name of the Lord” (Mark 11:9-10, echoing Psalm 118:25-26). They also praised the coming of the “kingdom of our father David,” which is not quite the same thing as welcoming the King himself. Did they take Him for a prophet, or something else? Their laying of clothing and branches (which John identifies as palm branches, though Mark leaves this open) along His path shows that He was honoured — but in what way? Let us examine this in some depth.

Prophecies fulfilled:

We will look at a couple of Old Testament references, and see how Jesus here is fulfilling ancient prophecy. First, consider Zechariah 9:9:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”

The coming of the king is a cause for rejoicing, for he brings justice and salvation — though he is humble, not arrogant or proud. He enters not on a warhorse as a conqueror, but on a donkey, as a peaceable authority.

The second prophecy we want to consider is Psalm 118. The setting of this Psalm is an attack on the people of Israel. It looks as though all is lost, but the nation is delivered through the king’s reliance on God. Let us begin reading at verse 10; note that this section through verse 21 is spoken by the king himself. As I read, listen for parallels with what we have just read in Mark:

“10 All nations compassed me about: but in the name of the LORD will I destroy them. 11 They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: but in the name of the LORD I will destroy them. 12 They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them. 13 Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the LORD helped me.”

(Note that the king has been speaking; now the people respond)

“22 The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. 23 This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. 24 This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. 26 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD.”

(In Hebrew, “Save now” is the very cry transliterated “Hosanna” — the word the crowds shout as Jesus enters Jerusalem in Mark 11:9-10.)

Do you see the many parallels between this Psalm and Jesus’ triumphal entry?

1. Setting: In both cases the people are threatened and oppressed — in the Psalm, by an external military threat; in Mark, by the Roman Empire on a political level and by spiritual blindness on a spiritual level. They need a king to save them.

2. The phrase “in the name of the Lord”: In verses 10-12, the king in the Psalm says three times, “in the name of the LORD I will destroy them,” and the people respond in verse 26 with the very phrase the crowds later use for Jesus: “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD.”

3. In both settings the people praise the king with branches from trees.

4. The goal of the procession in each case is the Temple.

The people identify Jesus with the king in Psalm 118 but fail to understand the purpose of His coming. What do the people expect Jesus to do? What are they so excited about?

Undoubtedly most are thinking about Jesus “cutting off” the Roman oppressors. Some may want Him to do away with the present religious establishment (see Mark 12:35-37). Few, if any, see Satan and indwelling sin as the great enemy whom Jesus has come to destroy “in the name of the Lord.” But this is the battle Jesus has come to Jerusalem to fight: by dying Himself, to redeem His people from sin and death; to open the eyes of the spiritually blind; to shed light on those walking in darkness; to proclaim salvation to Gentile and Jew alike — to complete and make possible the good news of the gospel of God that He began to preach in Mark 1:14.

But the crowds do not understand Jesus’ purpose. They just do not get it. They are so completely focused on the relatively minor problem of political oppression that they cannot see the forces of darkness that hold almost the whole world captive. So although the crowd praises Jesus, even using the words of Scripture to do it, they, like crowds throughout His ministry, have not grasped the nature of the gospel He preaches.

Recall that much earlier, after the first feeding of a multitude, a crowd wanted to make Jesus king (John 6). They wanted relief from the Romans. They wanted free, plentiful bread every day. The crowds did not repent of their sins and seek spiritual healing; they focussed on meeting their present material needs. So Jesus refuses their offer of kingship, even though He is their king.

What had Jesus come to offer?

Because the people were so self-absorbed, they failed to see the significance of the salvation Jesus had come to give — a far different kind of salvation than the one the Jews thought they needed. His salvation would run far deeper than merely getting rid of Roman rule; His salvation would provide deliverance from sin, death, and Hell.

Here is the twist. As long as the people limited Jesus’ delivering power to freedom from Rome, they received Him with shouts of jubilation. As long as He fulfilled their expectations on their terms, they would follow Him.

But as soon as they discovered that Jesus’ arrival was on His terms, not theirs, their shouting changed — just a few days later, on the Friday of that same week, it had turned to, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Friends, when you think about it, this is not very far from what we do. When things do not turn out the way we think they should, whom do we blame? We get angry at God, or we worry endlessly, or we try to punish God by shutting Him out of our thoughts, or we run away from Him rather than running to Him. In essence, that is its own way of shouting, “Crucify Him, crucify Him! Get out of my life. Leave me alone. You didn’t follow my agenda, God. I wanted to be God. I know what’s best for me. I’ll turn my back on You, and I won’t trust You for anything. Life is in my hands now.”

But the Triumphal Entry shows us that the scope of God’s plans is far greater than what we can see or comprehend at any given moment. Therefore we have to trust God’s agenda and His timing, not our own. We have to let God be God, rather than placing demands on Jesus to act according to our plans for ourselves.

A Strange Command:

It is in this context that Jesus issues a very strange command. He asks His disciples to go into the village, find a colt on which no one has ever sat, untie it, and bring it back to Him. Now, inquiring minds want to know — why did Jesus want to ride into Jerusalem on a colt?

The reason had to do with His character and the character of His Kingdom. Humanly speaking, this was an unusual way for a king to approach a city. Most kings, entering a city, wished to project the image of a mighty warrior.

But Jesus did not use a war horse for His Triumphal Entry, because He was proclaiming the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man. By the very nature of what He rode into Jerusalem, Jesus surprised people, and declared that the Kingdom He came to establish was not one of power and might, but one of humility and meekness.

Let us talk about that donkey for a few more minutes. The Lord needed that donkey to fulfil His mission here on earth. Is that not amazing? Jesus is God, and He could have accomplished this any way He chose, yet He chose to use a little donkey.

By the way, He is still using little donkeys to get His work done on earth. He uses the likes of you and me. He could have assigned the task to angels, but He chooses to work through human instruments. I am glad to be a part of the Lord’s business. I am glad He can use a little donkey like me!

Let us note a few important things about this donkey before we leave it behind.

That Donkey Had To Be Released — It was bound, and had to be set free before the Lord could use it. Before you and I can be of any use to Him, the chains of our sin must be broken, and we must be set free. Let us praise His Name, for that is exactly what He does for His believers (compare Romans 6:14 and John 8:36: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”).

That Donkey Had To Be Redeemed — Under the Law, every firstborn donkey had to be redeemed with a lamb (Exodus 13:13; 34:20). That little donkey was alive and useful to the Lord because it had been redeemed by the blood of a lamb. Praise God, that is why we have life today. That is the only reason you and I have any usefulness to the Lord — the redeeming power of the blood of Jesus.

That Donkey Had To Be Ruled — Someone had to take charge of that donkey. Mark 11:2 tells us that the donkey had never been broken in. Yet it submitted itself to the Lord Jesus and yielded to His control. It was not frightened by the crowds or their noise; it surrendered itself to the Lord. That is what He expects of us: total submission, total surrender, total faith (compare Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”).

Our good Lord could save sinners and accomplish His work on earth perfectly well without us. Yet He chooses to use frail human instruments for His glory. When we are like that donkey — released, redeemed, and ruled — He can use us too.

Jesus desires to give glory back to the Father, but He wants to do it through us. In other words, God the Father receives glory through what God the Son is doing in the life of someone who desires the character of Jesus to be seen in his or her life, and who desires the advancement of God’s Kingdom here on earth through what that person says and does.

So how should we then live? If nothing can harm us, we can take risks. If no one can stop us becoming like Christ, then we can love and love and love. If God is in control, then we can give and give and give, without worrying about our next meal or our future.

The Gospel of Mark is a Gospel of action, but today the action might seem to have paused — it is the calm before the storm. The fiercest encounter with the religious rulers is building. Both sides bring up their heaviest arguments and prepare for the coming clash of heaven and hell, night and darkness, God and Satan.

For three years, Jesus and the religious rulers have engaged in periodic verbal skirmishes. Jesus takes the initiative; they try to trap Him with loaded questions, hoping to turn the crowds against Him. But Jesus always wins the exchange.

The parable of the vineyard

Jesus brings this pattern to its height with the most pointed, plain, and direct parable of His ministry — the vineyard. He tells of a man who planted a vineyard and then went to a far country. He had given his tenants a God-given inheritance — the only people who ever had the visible presence of God among them.

In the parable, the man sent a servant from a distance to collect some of the fruit. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Repeatedly he sent other servants; they beat some and killed others. Finally he sent his son, thinking they would honour him. Instead they killed him too. What should the lord of the vineyard now do?

The religious leaders understood exactly what Jesus meant by the parable, and it enraged them. The “certain man” who owned the vineyard is God the Father. The vineyard is the nation of Israel, which God had chosen and protected. The servants sent were the prophets. The tenant farmers were the religious rulers. Finally He sent His Son — and that, of course, is the Lord Jesus.

The Lord delivers a deliberate and direct thrust at the religious rulers.

He knew they had plotted His death, and now He brings their plans out into the light. He foretells their every step and anticipates their next move. He charges them with murder before they commit it. Then He pronounces their judgement.

The religious rulers would have seized and executed the Lord Jesus on the spot, but they were afraid of the crowds. The parable of the vineyard set off a verbal war, so next they sent further delegations to trap Him with questions.

What about taxes?

“Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” Their question was a masterpiece of a trap, but He knew what they were trying to do. They flattered Him first, and He called them hypocrites. He asked them for a penny — perhaps He did not have one Himself. “Whose is this image and superscription?” “Caesar’s,” they said. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:13-17).

Their mouths hung open, speechless. Jesus had brilliantly turned their question back on them. If He had told them to pay taxes to Caesar, He would have seemed to put Caesar ahead of Moses. If He had told them not to pay, He would have been guilty of rebellion against Rome. They thought they had Him trapped, but they did not have Him at all.

Jesus’ answer reveals that, as children of God, we are responsible to pay our taxes to our government. We also have responsibilities to our loved ones and our church. Just as the coin has two sides, we have responsibilities both on earth and in heaven. Even as citizens of heaven, we pay our taxes here; and as pilgrims here, we should also be laying up eternal wealth in heaven. We are answerable to God for both.

Then the Sadducees came with a question.

The Sadducees were a priestly, aristocratic party who accepted only the five books of Moses as fully authoritative and denied the resurrection, angels, and spirits (compare Acts 23:8) — though they still prided themselves on knowing the Scriptures well. Their question was a far-fetched scenario built on the levirate-marriage law that Moses had given (Deuteronomy 25:5-6; compare the related kinsman-redeemer custom in the book of Ruth). If a woman’s husband died and, one after another, seven brothers married her and died in turn, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? Jesus pointed out their two errors: they did not know the Scriptures, and they did not know the power of God. This was just another attempt to trap Jesus, and He would have none of it.

The most important commandments

A scribe then asked Jesus, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answers by quoting the Law: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

This commandment is for us too. If you say you obey God and do not need Jesus Christ as your Saviour, then ask yourself: do you love God as you should — with all your heart and mind and soul? If you do not, then you are breaking His commandment and you need a Saviour. Do you love others as you should? Until you do, you need a Saviour. Jesus affirmed what the scribe said — that to love God and neighbour is better than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices put together. This ended their questions; the enemy could not trap Him. Now Jesus turns the questioning around.

As Jesus taught in the Temple, His audience was the scribes, the men who devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures. He asked them, “How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David?” Jesus then quotes Psalm 110 and asks how David could call his own descendant “my Lord.” The only way that makes sense is if great David’s greater Son is not merely his descendant but his divine Lord — eternally the Son of God. The Lord is teaching the Temple crowd about Himself.

Teaching from the mountain top

Now Jesus moves His conversation and teaching from the Temple to a hilltop overlooking Jerusalem. We sit with Him now atop the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from the Temple. Here Jesus teaches about the events that will bring this age to a close. He describes God’s power at work in the great tribulation, and then in His second coming.

From this vista overlooking the Temple Mount, the disciples remarked on how glorious the scene below them appeared. But Jesus asked them, “Seest thou these great buildings?” They looked at man’s works for their beauty, strength, stability, and permanence. But all those buildings were temporary. “There shall not be left one stone upon another,” Jesus said, “that shall not be thrown down.”

“Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?” Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Jesus privately (Mark 13:3-4). According to early church tradition, the Gospel of Mark was written with a Roman audience in mind, and so Jesus calls attention to that which reveals power, action, and drama. Jesus then warns them — and us — about false teachers and people claiming to be the Messiah. Other signs of the coming age will be rumours of war, then earthquakes, famines, and troubles. This is only the beginning of the end.

Jesus said that the gospel must first be preached to all nations (Mark 13:10) before the end comes. All salvation is by the grace of God, and God has never had but one way to save sinners: the blood of Jesus Christ. Families will turn against one another, and believers will be hated and persecuted for His name’s sake (Mark 13:12-13).

A note on what follows: the next few paragraphs weave together material from Daniel, Mark 13, and Revelation into a single connected timeline — three and a half years of false peace, an “Antichrist,” 144,000 sealed witnesses, and so on. Mark 13 itself speaks only in more general terms about false christs, false prophets, tribulation, and the abomination of desolation; the more precise sequence and terminology come from reading Daniel, Matthew 24, 2 Thessalonians 2, and Revelation 7 and 14 alongside it. This is a well-established teaching tradition, but it is one interpretive framework among others held by faithful Christians, and Scripture itself is more reserved about the exact timetable than this section may suggest. The author may wish to review this passage and decide how much certainty to attach to the details.

This is the beginning of what is often called the great tribulation. The first three and a half years are comparatively quiet — a false peace. Then, in the midst of it, there appears the “abomination of desolation” that the prophet Daniel wrote about (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Mark 13:14). In the Holy Place, an abomination will take place, and the desolation that follows will come so quickly that Jesus says His hearers should not even go back to pack their belongings, but should simply run. Those will be terrible days — so terrible that God has set a limit on them, “for the elect’s sake,” so that not all life is destroyed (Mark 13:20). Empowered by Satan, false Christs and false prophets will perform signs and wonders, to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen people (Mark 13:22).

Jesus’ second coming will be heralded when the whole created order is shaken: the sun darkened, the moon giving no light, the stars falling from the sky (Mark 13:24-25). Into that great and solemn display of power, Jesus, the Son of Man, will come in glory, His Arrival filling the sky. He will dispatch His angels to gather His chosen from the four winds, from one end of the earth to the other (Mark 13:27).

All of this describes events that will take place after the tribulation, when Jesus Christ returns to the earth in glory and judgement. While Jesus was still teaching about these things to come, He compared it to a young fig tree, budding in the spring and so signalling that summer is near — many understand the fig tree here as a picture of the nation of Israel. These events, once they begin, will unfold quickly, and Jesus promises that those who see the beginning of them will also see them through to the end.

Jesus concluded this teaching with a challenge for God’s people:

Watch and pray, for you do not know God’s timetable. This instruction is for us today too. We can watch with anxiety, or we can watch with joyful anticipation. If you are God’s child, look for that blessed hope and His glorious appearing.

BARTIMAEUS: A BLIND MAN WITH TWENTY-TWENTY VISION

The Christian life

What is the role of suffering in the Christian life? Jesus said, “There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time... and in the world to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30). But Jesus also says, in the same breath, that along with the hundredfold of houses and brothers and farms, we will receive persecution. Persecution is not something we welcome the way we welcome joy and peace. And yet, in many ways, suffering brings with it a kind of rescue: it rescues us from ourselves, because we are never more open to our Lord’s bigness than when we are most aware of our own smallness and helplessness. Suffering disrupts our agendas, but more than anything else it shapes us into the likeness of Jesus — softening us, and opening us to a Christ-likeness we would not otherwise experience.

Here we see our Lord on the final leg of His journey towards the cross. He is entering Jerusalem knowing that crucifixion awaits Him. The disciples and other followers are astonished and afraid. Nevertheless He goes forward purposefully, even though it means walking into danger, persecution, and suffering. And in the midst of all that, He is ready to shower His blessing on a poor, blind beggar.

Let us pause for a moment and reflect on those occasions when we were passing through bad patches in life — perhaps that is happening to some of us right now. During those times, do we notice the greater sufferings of others around us and try to extend a helping hand? Or are we so caught up in our own suffering that we become blind to the suffering of others?

To endure suffering, we need to open our eyes and see Jesus; we need to experience the joy of glorifying God, of being His treasured possession. We need to see others with the eyes of Jesus. Mark gives us this wonderful account of blind Bartimaeus to illustrate these very points.

The Background:

They say there is no one as blind as he who will not see, or he who refuses to see. I suspect you will agree that many people are walking around in this world today whose eyes work perfectly well, yet they cannot seem to see that the way they are living will lead them into eternal ruin. In Mark’s account we are presented with a man who was blind. Bartimaeus could see nothing with his physical eyes, yet he could see, on a spiritual level, what many with perfect eyesight could not.

As we look at the people around us, everywhere — including in church — we are reminded again of the truth that not everyone can see. Their eyes work fine; none need a white cane or someone to guide them. And yet there are those among us who simply cannot see. Though they can see the world around them, they cannot see the truth of our Lord’s love and His plan for their lives, because they are blind spiritually.

I. HIS PITIFUL CONDITION

(a) He Was Blind — Mark’s account does not tell us whether Bartimaeus had been blind from birth or lost his sight later in life, but blindness of every kind was common in the ancient world, largely because of disease and poor sanitation, and it usually meant a lifetime of poverty.

(b) He Was A Beggar — Beggars were a common sight in most towns. Because of his physical condition, Bartimaeus was unable to find work and earn a living. In those days there was no state welfare system to turn to, and he was entirely dependent on the generosity of others to survive — even though God’s law commanded His people to care for the needy (Leviticus 25:35-38). He was in a pitiful and wretched condition.

In his condition, Bartimaeus is a good picture of every person who has yet to accept Jesus and is lost in sin. A lost person is spiritually blind (2 Corinthians 4:4) — blind to their condition, to their sin, and to their impending eternal doom. Only Jesus can open their eyes. The lost person is also a spiritual beggar: they can do nothing, and they have nothing within themselves to produce salvation. They simply sit by the roadside, begging, as Jesus passes by, wholly unaware of Him.

II. HIS PERSISTENT CRY

(a) He Recognised Who Jesus Was — Bartimaeus had evidently heard about the miracles Jesus performed. He must have heard about the lepers, the lame, the demon-possessed, even the dead, whom Jesus had touched and made whole. As he sat by the road, he heard the travellers talking to one another. He had heard about Jesus, and he knew that what Jesus had done for others, He could do for him too.

“Son of David” was a popular way of addressing Jesus as the Messiah, since it was known that the Messiah would be a descendant of David (Isaiah 9:7). That Bartimaeus called Jesus the Son of David shows that he recognised and accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and his faith in Jesus as the Messiah is what brought about his healing.

This is the first step in coming to Jesus for our salvation: we must recognise and accept who He is, and know that what He has done in the lives of others, He can do for us too. We must accept what the Bible teaches about Jesus; when we do, we can be certain of salvation (Romans 10:9).

(b) He Realised What Jesus Could Do — Bartimaeus exercised faith in Jesus, which is the key ingredient for receiving anything from God. Beyond that, this poor, blind man saw things that most of the crowd around him never saw — things that many of us have never seen, things we need to see today.

What did Bartimaeus see?

We will look at it in four parts.

He saw that his greatest opportunity had come. For years this man had sat by the road begging, helpless and hopeless. As Jesus passed by, it dawned on Bartimaeus that if Jesus was who He claimed to be, this was the day of his greatest opportunity — and so he began to cry out for the Lord to have mercy on him. Bartimaeus, though blind, seized the opportunity the moment it was in front of him. There are those around us who need to see that today may well be the greatest opportunity they will ever have. You have the opportunity this evening to come to Jesus and be forever saved by His grace. If we ignore that opportunity and choose to go on in our sins, then there is nothing ahead of us but judgement (2 Corinthians 6:2).

He saw that this opportunity could easily pass him by. Had Bartimaeus sat still that day and said nothing, the next day would have been like all the others: he would have gone on sitting by the roadside begging until he died. He may have been blind, but even he could see that unless he did something about his situation, he was doomed to a life of misery and darkness — such an opportunity might never come again. Every lost person needs to understand that Jesus Christ loves them so much that He died on the cross to save them, and He will do exactly that today if only they will come to Him. However, He will not force Himself into our lives. If God has been calling us to come to Him, our task today is to obey that call; if we refuse, this golden opportunity will pass us by.

He saw that this opportunity might never return. Jesus had apparently never passed that way before, and for all Bartimaeus knew He might never pass that way again. He knew that if he was to receive help from Jesus, he had to call on Him while He was near. You cannot be saved just any time you choose. The only time to come to the Lord is while He is calling you — when you feel that pressure on your heart, when you know you are lost and heading in the wrong direction and want to change. That is the time to come to the Lord (John 6:44); to delay may mean losing the opportunity to be saved altogether. Isaiah’s advice is still good today: “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” (Isaiah 55:6). That is exactly what most people fail to do — but it is exactly what Bartimaeus did.

He saw that Christ’s way was far better than his own. After Bartimaeus had been healed, he was told, “Go thy way.” But he saw that Christ’s way was better than his own, and he followed Jesus instead. According to Luke 18:43, he glorified God as he followed Jesus along the road. There is a lesson here for every person who has been saved, especially those who have come to Jesus recently: after salvation there will be a change of direction in your life. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

He Repeated the Cry

Those standing by, and those travelling with the Lord, tried to make Bartimaeus stop crying out. But so great was his determination to get help from the Lord that he continued to cry out, only louder. He was not hindered or troubled by the opinions of others; he needed something from the Lord, and he was determined to get it, regardless of what anyone thought or did.

My friends, there is nothing and no one worth going to hell over. Situations, circumstances, and people may try to stand in your way and keep you from Jesus, but let nothing keep you from the Lord who loves you and wants, more than anything, to save you. Be like Bartimaeus and get serious about coming to Jesus. He is worth any price. He is worth any loss. He is the only One worthy of your inmost self.

He Received A Response

When Jesus heard the cry of this beggar, He stopped in His tracks and called for Bartimaeus to come to Him. What a glorious moment that must have been for this poor, blind beggar! His faith was honoured, and he received an audience with the Lord.

Jesus Christ is never too busy to hear your cry either. Like I said in another study, when we call on Jesus, we will never hear Him say, “Your call is important to Me, but I am busy attending to other believers — please stay on the line and call back later.” There is nothing in this universe more important to Him than we are. Remember the price He paid for us: He proved His love when He climbed Calvary and paid for our sins on the cross. If only we will cry out to Him, He will save us today.

III. HIS COST

When Jesus called, Bartimaeus got up to go, and the Bible tells us that he cast away his garment — he threw aside his outer coat and jumped up to go to Jesus. That coat must have been valuable to a man with so little; he risked losing it for good, with no means of replacing it. Yet he counted the cost and was willing to pay whatever price was necessary just to get to Jesus.

IV. HIS POWERFUL CURE

When Bartimaeus came to Jesus, he was asked a very important question, and his answer was one of pure faith. He trusted Jesus to heal him, and then the impossible happened: the blind man received his sight, and was made whole at the word of Jesus. Jesus said, “Thy faith hath made thee whole” (Mark 10:52). Bartimaeus received far more than physical healing that day; he received spiritual healing too.

This is what happens when a lost person responds to the gospel of grace. The moment faith is exercised, the power of God moves into that person’s life, and God saves them completely and eternally. In this age of religion and self-righteousness, we need to remember that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31). If you are trusting in anything other than Jesus for your salvation, you are in for a rude awakening when you leave this world. It is Jesus Christ, or it is nothing.

V. HIS PREFERRED COURSE

As mentioned, after Bartimaeus was healed, Jesus told him to go his way. He, however, wanted to stay near the One who had healed and saved him — a theme repeated several times in the Gospels. This reminds us that when salvation comes into a life, there follows a desire for the things of God. The saved person will want to walk with the Lord in holiness. They will want to be around other believers, to be part of the church, and to share in what God is doing in the local congregation. There will be a profound, dramatic change in life — in many cases as dramatic as what happened to Lazarus when Jesus raised him from the dead (John 11). When Jesus saves you, He makes you alive in Him (Ephesians 2:1-10). When that happens, you will be different.

Conclusion

Friends, we do not need a set of worthless external changes. What we need this evening is to be born again. We need to seek Jesus and let Him clothe us with a new self.

And those who are already saved should be cautioned: many of God’s children are walking around like blind beggars. If you are saved, you are not meant to live like one who is lost. If there are things in your life that need to be made right with the Lord, come to Him right now. He will receive you, forgive you, and restore you this evening, if you will only come to Him.

May we be like those of whom Peter wrote: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Jesus is passing by! Please do not let this opportunity pass. Come to Him, and receive your sight.

Discussion Points:

1. The religious leaders kept trying to trap Jesus with hostile questions, yet Jesus always answered honestly, because He knows our hearts. If you could ask Jesus one sincere, honest question right now — not to trap Him, but because you genuinely want to know — what would it be, and why?

2. Explain in your own words the parable of the vineyard. Who does each character represent, and why did the parable make the religious rulers so angry? Can you think of a time you resisted hearing something true because it was uncomfortable, the way the rulers resisted Jesus?

3. Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” What are some things in your life right now that belong to “Caesar” — school, family responsibilities, rules you have to follow — and what are some things that belong distinctly to God? How do you decide when the two overlap or conflict?

4. Jesus said the whole of God’s law comes down to loving God with everything you have, and loving your neighbour as yourself. Who is the hardest person in your life to love right now, and what would it actually look like this week to love God and love that person, rather than just feel that you should?

5. In Mark 13, Jesus tells His disciples not to be alarmed by wars, disasters, or false teachers, but to “watch and pray.” Why do you think Jesus deliberately refuses to give an exact date for these events? What is the difference between living with genuine watchfulness and living in fear or obsessing over predicting exactly when the end will come?

6. Bartimaeus kept crying out for Jesus even when the crowd told him to be quiet. When has peer pressure ever made it harder for you to speak up about your faith or ask for help? What helped Bartimaeus keep going, and what could help you do the same?

7. Bartimaeus gave up his coat — one of his few possessions — the moment Jesus called him. What is something you would find hard to let go of in order to follow Jesus more closely, and what is stopping you?

Editorial note (retained on closure): although this lesson is titled “Chapters 11, 12, and 13,” it does not narrate the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, or the widow’s mite, all of which fall within that span of chapters. The Bartimaeus account (Mark 10:46-52), strictly the close of Chapter 10, was deliberately placed here by the original author as the transition into the Jerusalem narrative, and has been left in its original position. On the author’s instruction to close the Study as drafted, this gap has been left as is rather than expanded with new material, as has the italicised note above on the Olivet Discourse.

--End of Lesson 6--