Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 102
TRANSCRIPT
Desperation is a great motivator. And desperation is something that moves the heart of God. In today’s podcast we are going to look at a story of desperation and see what we can learn from this story.
I’m Lee Whitman and I welcome you to this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. We just celebrated Father’s Day here in the United States, so I want to salute all of the fathers listening. Way to go guys. You are raising up the next generation of leaders. Train them up in the way they should go and when they are older, they will not depart from it.
Today we are going to look at the story of blind Bartimaeus and see how this story can help change our hearts today. The story is found in Mark 10:46-52, and I will read the entire passage.
“Then they came to Jericho. And later, as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a beggar who was blind named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So, they called the man who was blind, saying to him, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” 50 And throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. 51 And replying to him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the man who was blind said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!”52 And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well. “And immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.”
Steven had been struggling with a gambling addiction for many years but recently it was getting worse. He had never reached out for help because he felt like he could handle this on his own. He was able to limit his gambling for months at a time and felt like that meant he had it under control. Then there were the times he would find himself borrowing money from the family budget to gamble with and not be able to pay bills on time. His struggle came to a head when he borrowed money from a loan shark and could not pay it back. His wife found out that the family was in danger of harm from this unsavory person, so she took her kids and went to live with her parents. She made an ultimatum to Steven that he either quit gambling or she was going to divorce him.
Someone told Steven about RTF, so he went to a ministry team in his area for ministry. Out of his desperation Steven received wonderful ministry and was set free from his addiction to gambling. He had tried on his own to stop many times, but he had never been to a place where he was desperate before. It took that desperation for Steven to really deal with this struggle for the first time. Desperation strips off the hiding and all of the self-effort to fix yourself and fully surrenders to whatever Jesus has for you.
The story of blind Bartimaeus is the story of a desperate man. It is interesting that Mark included Bartimaeus’s father’s name in this story. It says he is the son of Timaeus. This is one of the few places in the gospels where the father’s name is given. In Hebrew Timaeus means contaminated; defiled; unclean; impure; polluted; infamous; profaned. Wow, Timaeus was cursed by his parents from birth. It is no wonder that the son of Timaeus is cursed with blindness due to the curses passed on from his father.
It says that Bartimaeus heard that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by and he cried out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” This is another interesting factor in this story. Bartimaeus was probably not educated because blind people were not usually educated. Somehow, he knew that Jesus was from the family line of David. This meant that Jesus came from a royal family line. The fact was that this uneducated blind man knew this about Jesus and also knew to show Jesus this honor when he called out his name. Instead of just calling out Jesus’ name, he includes this sign of honor for his royal lineage. This was a very smart blind man considering he had no education.
The people around him tried to shut him up. In that culture a blind person did not have much value. They were usually cast aside and made to stay out of the public markets. For Bartimaeus to cry out in this manner would have brought him a stern rebuke from those in the crowd, which it did. But instead of shutting up as the crowd hoped, it says “he began to cry out all the more.” I love this guy. He wasn’t going to let the crowd stop him from meeting with Jesus. He was desperate and that desperation drove him to cry out even louder.
Norman came to us for ministry. He was not a wealthy man by any means, but he was desperate. He could not afford the price of ministry, nor could he afford the cost of traveling across several states to come to Nashville, nor could he afford the lodging while he was here for ministry. But Norman was so desperate that he worked overtime for several months in order to save up enough money to pay for everything. Jesus met Norman during this ministry time, and it made all of the hard work and effort worth it. He was desperate and Jesus responded in a powerful way to that desperation. When people go through RTF ministry, they will receive the level of healing they desire. Jesus will always meet them at their level of desire. One of our struggles as ministers is that we can see the healing that is available to the person coming for ministry, yet at times we want their healing and freedom more than they do. It doesn’t work that way. When someone comes to ministry desperate, Jesus meets them at that deep level and brings deep healing.
We had a guy come to us for ministry who told us, “I am not sure I agree with you theologically (about things like generational curses or being oppressed by demons) but I am so desperate to be rid of this addiction to pornography, that I am willing to join what little faith I have with your faith and go through this ministry.” Due to that man’s desperation and mustard seed size faith, he was set free from his addiction.
We have had many people come to receive RTF ministry who have told us “If this doesn’t work, the divorce papers are on the kitchen table at home.” We had a couple who had been married fifty years tell us the divorce papers were on the table at home when they came for ministry. The husband was a very smart man, but he did not have a good grasp on emotions. Everything to him was about how he thought, and feelings were irrelevant. His wife on the other hand felt very deeply. So, the conflict was that she would express a feeling and he would give a cognitive reason why that feeling was not accurate. They had been to several counselors, but no one had been able to help them. They were desperate. We went through the RTF ministry of breaking generational curses, then replacing Ungodly Beliefs with God’s truth, then helping them get the wounds of their hearts healed, and of course removing the demonic oppression that was at work in their marriage. At the end of the week of ministry we have the couple share with each other what God did during their ministry. This man got down on his knees before his wife and with tears running down his face, he apologized to her for being in his words “a lousy husband” for fifty years. It was amazing. He was crying, I was crying. He was desperate to save his marriage for the first time in many years. I can report that they are still happily married to this day.
All too often people will try other remedies recommended by their church or pastor before they try RTF. We hear people often say they have tried counseling or as many people call it therapy to help them in their life or relationships. RTF does not have any problem with counseling or therapy after you have had your foundation restored. There are some issues that you can’t counsel away because they are spiritual. For example, you can’t counsel away a generational curse. Generational curses are a spiritual problem that can only be broken by applying a spiritual solution.
Back to the story of Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus yells louder and louder until Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here”. His desperation paid off. The people said to him, “Take courage, arise! He is calling for you.” Verse 50 is another amazing part of this story. It says, “And casting aside his cloak, he jumped up, and came to Jesus.” This cloak doesn’t mean much to us but to him it was his everything. In that day beggars wore a distinctive cloak that identified them as beggars. This cloak was Bartimaeus’ only way of making a living. It was his whole identity as a blind beggar. We can assume that he was wanting to receive healing, yet at the moment he threw off his cloak of identity, he did not know yet what would happen. He was willing to give up everything and leave behind the only life he knew.
Then in verse 51 Jesus asks the blind man “What do you want Me to do for you?” You would think what he wants is obvious, right? Yet Jesus often asks people who obviously need healing what they want Him to do. Jesus does not force people to receive healing. He does not force them into doing anything. He always invites people into an encounter with Him. Romans 2:4 says, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and restraint and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” God is not into condemnation; He is into kindness. I have to admit that I struggle at times being judgmental about certain sins (by the way there is not a scale with some sins being worse than others). The church historically has made the mistake of believing that we can condemn people into the kingdom. That might be why people who are trapped in sinful lifestyles have turned away from the church and in the process away from the kindness of Jesus. They don’t see the kindness of Jesus in us, His church so they believe that is also true of Jesus. In the days ahead, as people become more confused about who they are, the church is going to need to know how to express the love and kindness of Jesus to these confused people.
When asked by Jesus what he wants, Bartimaeus replies, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight.” The title Rabboni is a term of respect for a spiritual instructor. It literally means teacher or master. I am impressed with this Bartimaeus guy. How did he learn who Jesus was, and that Jesus was a teacher and that he should call Him master. Remember that the blind were outcasts and were often shunned and rejected as being under a curse. This is one smart blind man. Or could it have been that the Holy Spirit was showing Bartimaeus things that he could not have known humanly.
Due to his desperation, Bartimaeus received his sight.
My purpose in this podcast is to say that many of us are not desperate. We have become comfortable in our sin and bondage. We have become comfortable in settling for less than Jesus died to give us. When Jesus died, He gave us all of Himself. We have the opportunity to give us all of ourselves back to Him.
Prayer
Father God help! We have become so comfortable settling for less than Jesus came to give us. Would you out of your kindness reveal any places where we are blind to our own condition. Would you also continue to tenderize our hearts so that we show the world Your love and kindness. Thank you Father God. Amen
