Why the blind man called out

Luke chapter 18 please, verse number 35. Luke 18 and verse number 35, and it came to pass that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant.

And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him that he should hold his peace, but he cried so much the more, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought on to him. And when he was come near, he asked him, saying, what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, receive thy sight, thy faith hath saved thee.

And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it gave praise unto God. Now we are going to read in the book of Romans now.

So let's turn please to the book of Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10 verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for as I sayeth Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Now that's all we need to read.

For the first part of our gospel meeting, we're going to go over something very simple, but something that we sometimes overlook. As we view the blind man in Luke's gospel chapter 18, we're going to look at some simple principles that caused him to call out for mercy. Very simple things, but I want you to know these simple things by the time I'm finished.

We're going to look at three things that he believed. We're going to look at the fact that he believed his need. He was aware of his need.

He was aware of the Lord Jesus and the power that he had to meet his need. And then we're going to focus just for a second, or maybe more, on the fact that he also became aware that he had a short window of opportunity to come to the Lord Jesus. So those three things he knew.

He knew his need. He knew that Christ was able to meet that need. And he knew he had a short window of opportunity to come to Christ.

What we're going to do is we're going to find out that his situation and circumstance and his response in the circumstance is really an illustration of the truth that we find in Romans chapter 10. So in Romans chapter 10, we're going to go over it first. We're going to go back to Luke 18, and then we're going to review the truth of chapter 10 in Romans again.

And by that time, my time will be up. Look with me in Romans chapter 10, please. Romans chapter 10, where we have those verses that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

And then this very famous verse, a verse that I love to use in Sunday school lessons, and I love it when the children are able to remember the exact words for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now I know I'm speaking to people tonight, and you have a desire to be saved. There is something inside of you that has responded to what you have heard in the gospel, and you want to have your sins forgiven, you would love to be saved.

So listen to this verse. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I sometimes think about this this word whosoever, and when I have children to teach this verse to, I ask them, what does whosoever mean? And oftentimes you get a lot of hands up.

I'll tell you, lately I get less hands. Kids are shy. I'll tell you what gets hands to go up is usually chocolate bars in your pocket, right? And kids will put their hand up and say, I know, I know, I know.

What does whosoever mean? Whosoever means everybody, right? Whosoever means anyone who chooses. But let's remember, as the Bible speaks to masses of people, and it does, I can stand up in front of an entire group of people, no matter how large or no matter how small, and I can say that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But I sometimes tell people about my little girl.

My little girls aren't so little anymore, but we used to have in our living room when when Josie was just three or four years old, a large tote that she put all of her teddy bears in, right? You guys have a box like that at your house? You have teddy bears in it, you have toys in it, and sometimes you don't even know what's in there, right? But everything goes in there, and the lid goes on, and when everything's in there, your toys are put away, right? Well, I used to go to work and come home for lunch around noontime, and Sharon would be in the kitchen, and I come into the living room, and I would see that Josie had been busy taking toys out of that toy box, and there were toys in the corner, there were toys in my shoes, and there were toys down the hallway, there were toys everywhere, and I would say just before lunch, now Josie, I need you to pick up all of your toys. Very simple, isn't it? She knew that I meant every single toy that was out of that toy box was included in that all, but here's something else she also knew. In order to reach all, she had to pick them up one at a time, right? So she would go and she would pick up the first one and put it in the box, and the second one and put it in the box, and she kept doing that, walking over to individual toys to bring and put in the box until each and every individual one was picked up, and all of the toys were now put away.

And that really is the same idea when the Bible talks about all, and when the Bible talks about whosoever. It means every single person that makes up the whole. So not just the masses, but I could say whosoever to everyone in here tonight, but I mean every individual person who is sitting in the seats that make up this crowd.

I could say you, and you, and you, and you, and you make up the whosoever. So that's why when we say whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, this is an invitation that is open to all. Whosoever.

But I want you to notice something. This verse doesn't stand by itself, right? There's a verse that comes right after it. And if you have your Bible open, look with me please.

Romans chapter 10 and verse number 14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Now verse number 17. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

What we have here really is a sequence of events that take place that culminate with a person calling on the name of the Lord. And you remember whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But in order to understand what's really taking place here, you have to start at verse 17 and go backward.

We have here in verse 17 the word of God. Now that's important. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

The word of God is a message from God. The word of God is established in heaven and the word of God is the basis for the preaching of the gospel. So all of this begins with the word of God.

And then God sends the message. In this case it's the idea of sending a preacher. A preacher that is sent with the word of God.

A message from God that has already been established. A preacher does not go out seeking to negotiate with sinners or try and reach a settlement with sinners. A preacher goes out and he tells people what God has already done.

He tells people what God has already established. He tells people the word of God. So you see it.

The word of God established is now sent. The word of God being sent and preached is then heard and it falls upon the ears of individual people that make up the large crowd. You see it, don't you? So the word of God established, the word of God sent, the word of God heard and now there is a response that is expected.

There are some people who hear the word of God and they turn away from it. There are some people who hear the word of God and they choose not to respond by faith in the Lord Jesus. They reject it but they've heard the word of God.

The other response possible is that a person believes what they hear. Now this may sound oversimplified but this is what's here. The word of God, unchanging, sent out and preached, heard with the ear and believed.

They believe the message that God sends and that produces a response and that response is a heart that believes what God says about sin. A person who believes what God says about death. A person who believes what God says about eternity.

A person who understands their situation and responsibility to God for their condition is a person who then calls. They call on the name of the Lord for mercy. They cry out, Lord save me and this book says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Now let's look at this man in Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18 is a man who's been blind for quite some time and he understands. He understands that his condition is serious.

He's blind. Back in this day there were no accommodations made in society for any people with disabilities and work which was necessary to survive was was something that would have been foreign to this man. It was an impossibility for him to work.

With an impossibility for him to work it was impossible for him to provide for himself and for his family and if in all likelihood he wouldn't have been able to have a little family of his own because of his condition. He realized that his blindness was a serious problem. That is the first key to what we're going to witness when he comes to the Lord Jesus and as we are preaching it is our desire and really it is the goal of gospel preaching and the presentation of the truth of the Word of God that even young people who hear about sin and who hear about responsibility to God for sin and who hear about meeting God.

Now focus with me for a second. I understand it's been a long day. It's been a long day for everyone but I want you to focus with me for one second on something that you might not have thought about all day.

You have to meet God. You must come face to face with a holy righteous God who hates sin, who cannot allow sin in his presence and here's the most frightening thing. He knows every single sin and you have to meet him and as we present to you truth from the Bible about your responsibility to God and you having to meet him really the response to that should be concern because sin is serious.

So he believed his condition was serious. He also believed his condition was hopeless because never had there been up to this point that that that he knew of anyone personally that he had seen healed from being blind that he had seen given their sight. Now I'm going to get this to a point in a minute but remember typically this was a hopeless situation.

He was helpless to heal himself and there was nobody that he knew that could possibly give him his sight. So not only was he aware of a sin he was aware of the seriousness of it and he was aware of the hopelessness of it and a man like that would have just simply been giving up right giving up on all hope of ever having his sight ever being able to see people ever being able to see nature ever being able to read a book he had given up on all of that because there was no hope but I believe he heard about a man now in John's gospel chapter 9 there was a man blind there was a man who was blind from his birth and the Lord Jesus came to that man on one day and that man received his sight and I am convinced that every blind man in Israel would have heard about that event there would have been messages go out to all the little communities all throughout the countryside saying tell your blind friends tell them there's a man who can heal blindness tell everyone you know so that everyone gets the message for the hopeless blind man there's a man who gives hope what a great message that would have been and if you were blind and you heard that you know what you would have said in your mind one of two things I don't believe that that's just a story or what you would have said I would love to meet this man I would love to meet this man see that's what I believe happened in this man's experience he knew his condition but now he hears a message the message is about a man who can heal him and immediately I'm convinced that he said I would love to meet this man if I can only meet this man there is hope for my hopeless situation so remember we are not only preaching about meeting God in your sins we are not only preaching the seriousness of your condition and the hopelessness of your condition but we are preaching about a man who has saved other people we are preaching about a man who gives hope to the hopeless we are preaching about a man the Lord Jesus Christ who is able to forgive every sin take away all of your sin and take you to heaven and now you are hearing about this man and it's one of two responses that you will have you will either say I don't want this man I have no need for this man or I don't believe this man and you walk away from here without your sins forgiven or you can believe the message you are hearing and if you believe the message you are hearing it change the way you look at the rest of this gospel meeting it will there's a man who can save you now there's some younger people here tonight and I've chatted with you in the past just to get to know you a little bit and some of you I'm convinced you do think about being saved I think you're being honest when you say that can I tell you this you could be saved tonight before you leave this building because there is a man called Jesus who is able to save so we heard or he knew about his sin he heard about the Savior and now there's a noise that is happening and he hears the multitude passing by and then he asks a simple question what's this mean what's the noise that's going on I can't see someone needs to tell me they come they tell him and they say this Jesus of Nazareth soon as he heard those words his ears perk up Jesus of Nazareth he's the man who can heal me they say Jesus of Nazareth is passing by that's the thrust of the word there Jesus of Nazareth is passing by now very simply what was going on in this situation is that the Lord Jesus was going to be passing through Jericho for the very last time he was on his way to Jerusalem to die on a cross he would never be passing that way again I don't believe this man knew the future I don't believe this man knew what was going to happen in the coming days that would make it impossible for him to have another opportunity but he knew this why would I wait if I have this opportunity now why would I wait to see if I will have another chance to be saved I hope you understand when I use the word chance I don't mean chances in a roll of the dice you know luck I mean opportunity and I'm trying to diversify my vocabulary and use different words why would I wait for another opportunity when I have this one right here in front of me see that's something that I think people are missing when it comes to salvation you come to gospel meetings and you've been very privileged that your parents have taken you to gospel meetings so many times consistently and repeatedly but it is produced in you a casualness when it comes to approaching this and you're saying I'm not sure how much longer I have but I probably have tomorrow but if you want to be saved why would you wait till tomorrow when the opportunity is tonight Jesus is passing by and he believed he was hopeless he believed the man could give him hope and when he heard he was passing by he responded a man who believed the message he hears responds by crying out Jesus thou son of David mercy mercy on me now I'm going to tell you that if we had only read to that point and I had taken you to Romans chapter 10 in verse number 13 I would have been able to tell you confidently that this man received his sight even without reading the rest of the story you know why don't you because whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved he cries out mercy have mercy on me and Jesus stood the idea is that he stopped and for every sinner who cries for mercy there's a Savior who hears their call he stands he stands still and he says bring him to me and he has a conversation with them and he says what wilt thou that I shall do unto thee and he said Lord that I might receive my sight and he said unto him receive thy sight thy faith has saved thee receive your sight I am able I am willing and you have come to me and now I am giving you what you need and sometimes we analyze these things and we overanalyze them sometimes we simplify these things and we oversimplify them but this is not oversimplified this is just what happened so listen if you're a sinner lost and you're concerned about meeting God in your sins you have heard a message about a man who was able to save now what are you going to do turn with me one more time please to Romans chapter 13 chapter 10 sorry Romans chapter 10 and we go over this one more time the Word of God verse number 17 has been established there's a message for you that message is Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures that message is God gave his son and in God giving his son and the death of Christ on Calvary God is satisfied for sin and now the message goes out the established Word of God is being preached in the gospel it's being spread in in gospel papers it is being taught in Sunday school but the message is going out then there are people tonight and you're hearing that message and as you hear the message from the Word of God there is a response that is expected and every single person who believes what God says the response will be calling out and here's the promise from God I quote this verse and I end my message the promise from God to a person who his word and calls out for mercy is this whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved