The soul that does not feel its need deeply, has little hope of being heard by the Lord. To be heard by God, by Christ, we must make this the greatest concern that we have: to prevail with him in prayer. We need him because there is no other who can help us. There is no one else who has power to heal us, no one else who understands our need, no one else who has compassion for us, and who is willing to pay the price to redeem us.
The crowd tried to silence the blind man’s cries, and in doing this they played the part of the devil. The moment we begin to be concerned about our eternal souls, Satan comes and attempts to silence our cries to the Lord. He tells us that we will never be heard. He tells us that Christ is not interested in cases like ours. He tells us anything and everything that will discourage us in calling on the name of the Lord. He is allowed to do this, to pour cold water on our concerns, but he is not allowed to actually stop us from crying out to the Lord.
The response of Bartimaeus is the opposite of what the crowd intends. Their efforts to silence him only make him more desperate to be heard. He understands what they are doing, and he realises that he must abandon any hope of help from that quarter. He knows his own need, and he knows that they care nothing about his real needs. In the same way the seeking souls becomes entirely disenchanted with this world. What does the world care about our eternal souls? What does it care that we are perishing in our sins, and that at the end of life we will be lost forever. They do not care about their own souls enough to do anything about it, so why are they going to care about the soul of anyone else? We cannot go to unconverted friends, to doctors, or to so-called counsellors. All their advice will be the opposite of what we really need to hear. They are dead in their sins, and they have nothing of any worth to say to us. The seeking soul loses its trust in the world, because it sees that the world has no knowledge of spiritual realities. Bartimaeus sees that he must detach himself completely from the sympathies of the crowd, and appeal to the one person there who understands his need. Surely the Lord Jesus who is passing by knows why he is making such a commotion. He has said nothing yet, but he is not telling Bartimaeus to be silent. He cries so much the more as he realises that the crowd around him is utterly ignorant of his true need, and will never give him the counsel that he needs. God uses even this discouragement from the crowd to spur Bartimaeus on the cry out the louder to the Lord. The Spirit teaches the soul that is discouraged by Satan from coming to the Lord to see its desperate need even more clearly, and to push past all the barriers that unbelieving man puts in the way. We can expect very little help from this world in getting relief for our souls from God.
We are so foolish sometimes. We may truly feel our need of God, our need of conversion, and we think, ‘Oh, I do need my sins forgiven. I would like to have a relationship with the living God and a new life and be certain of where I stood eternally.’ And then as soon as we begin to think like this, so often we blow cold we forget about it something puts us off – perhaps the scorn of our friends, perhaps the fear of what they will say, perhaps because somebody comes up to us and says, ‘Come with us; there's a great thing to do’, and it just sweeps us along, so that we forget all about our spiritual concerns. We mustn't be put off. We must tell ourselves, ‘I am spiritually blind. I am spiritually dead. I am destined for eternal damnation. I am going to be condemned for my sin. I am going to die unforgiven and be cast away from the presence of God, and be punished forever.’ I must exert every power I have within me to reach the Lord and be heard by him. I am so determined to find him, and that I would rather die at the foot of the cross, unheard, than cease to pray to him.