sinning, Alpha and Omega be,
and of faith at its beginning, set our hearts at liberty. Come almighty to deliver, let
us all thy life receive. Suddenly return and never, nevermore
thy temples leave. May we would be always blessing,
serve thee as thy hosts above, pray and praise thee without
ceasing, glory in thy perfect love. Finish then Thy new creation,
pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee. Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before
Thee, Lost in wonder, love and praise. Good morning. Thank you, Bert. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Mark chapter 10? Mark chapter 10. And I want to
try to answer this question from our text. Who does the Lord save? Who does the Lord save? Now, I'm interested in the answer
to that question, aren't you? I wanna know if I fit the qualification
of those that the Lord saves. Let's go to the Lord together
in prayer and Abigail Hickman's having her surgery I think this
Friday, is that right? So the Lord enables you, remember
to pray for her and the Hickman family this week. All right,
let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
We do desire, Lord, for you to come down and to visit us, as
we just sang, that you would cause our hearts to be lifted
up in praise, that you would open the eyes of our understanding
and enable us to set our affections on things above where Christ
is seated at thy right hand, that you would reveal more of
his glory to us and that you would speak to our hearts and
comfort us in knowing, Lord, that his work, his work is all
we need for the hope of our salvation, for the forgiveness of our sin, for the imputation of thy righteousness. Lord, we are so hopeful and comforted
in knowing that you have made him who knew no sin to be sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Lord, confirm
that message to our hearts. Enable us to worship You. Send
Your Spirit in power. Forgive us, Lord, for we are
a poor and needy people. And Lord, we pray for the Hickmans.
Pray for Caleb and Bobby and ask, Lord, that You would comfort
their hearts as they wait on You Pray for little Abigail that
your hand of healing would be upon her and that you would restore
her. Pray for the physicians that minister to her and ask
the Lord that you would use them as instruments of healing and
that you would get all the glory. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Who does the Lord save? and full answer to that question
is that he saves the poor and the needy. He saves the poor
and the needy. And we see those two things illustrated
in reverse in our text. The needy are illustrated in
the babies that the mothers bring to the Lord to be Blessed and
you remember the disciples said tried to chase him away and the
Lord said oh no suffer the children to come Unto me for such as the
kingdom of God. They're the needy They can't
do anything for themselves. They're completely dependent
upon me for everything and then we have the story of that rich
young ruler who said what can I do to inherit eternal life
and and the Lord concluded that sad story with with this declaration
to his disciples, it's easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. He's not poor. He's not poor. If he was, he
would take up his cross and follow me. So, the question that you
and I have to ask ourselves is, as God defines needy and poor,
are we poor and needy? Now David said nine times in
the Psalms, I am poor and needy. In Psalm 86 verse one, he cries
to the Lord and he says, bow down thine ear, oh Lord, and
hear me for I am poor and needy. The Lord heard that prayer. As
he hears the prayer of everyone who says, Lord bow down. come
down to where I am I can't get to where you are you gonna have
to open the windows of heaven you're gonna have to rim the
heavens you have to come down Lord I'm poor I'm needy and then
in Proverbs 31 where that virtuous woman's being described as a
picture of the church the scripture says that she that's the church
pleads the cause of the poor and the needy And that's what
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ does. We not only plead
our own cause, but we plead the cause of all the poor and the
needy. Now the truth is that all men
are poor and needy before God. All men. So it's not a matter
of whether you are poor and needy, it's whether or not you recognize
the fact that you're poor and needy. Because most folks don't
see themselves as poverty stricken and they don't see themselves
as unable to bring anything to the throne of grace for the hope
of their salvation they think they've got something that they
can bring. The needy don't have anything. The poor don't have
anything. The needy can't do anything.
That's what poor and needy means. So poor means I don't have anything. I don't have any righteousness.
I don't have any free will. I don't have any ability. I'm
dependent completely on the Lord. Lord, I'm needy. And the poor,
well, they don't have two pennies to rub together. They don't have
anything. They don't have any righteousness.
They don't have anything to offer God to pay for their salvation. They're completely dependent
upon that precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which was shed
to purchase our souls. We're bought with a price, aren't
we? That's the poor. and the needy, and that's who
the Lord saves. Listen to Psalm 41 verse 17,
when the poor and the needy seek water and there is none and their
tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them. Oh, what a promise. What a promise,
child of God. What a promise to all those who
see themselves as poor and needy. The Lord says, when the poor
and needy are without water and they cry out in thirst, I'll
hear them. I'll hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not
forsake them. I will open rivers from on high. The Lord opens the river of grace
And he pours that refreshing water of hope and salvation by
his spirit, by his spirit. That's what he said, if any man
thirst, let him come unto me. And out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water. He's that river clear as crystal
that flows from the throne of God that John saw in the heavens,
isn't he? We drink from that river, the
poor and the needy. are the only ones that have access
to the river of life. Everyone else is drinking out
of the polluted waters of broken cisterns, trying to satisfy their
thirst with the things that this world has to offer. The poor
and the needy cannot find any satisfaction there. And like
that woman at the well, the Lord said, you drink of this water,
you'll never thirst again. You'll never have to go anywhere
else to have your soul satisfied. to have the hope of your salvation,
to have comfort and peace. So who does the Lord save? He
saves the poor and the needy. Now, much of life and all of
man-made, free will, works religion is based on shame and commitment,
isn't it? There's a little article in your
bulletin this morning that I wrote the other day that I thought
would be an encouragement to you. Shame and commitment. You even see that on your jobs,
don't you? You know, this whole thing about being a member of
the team? What's the purpose of that? What's
the purpose of that team spirit, whether it be at work or whether
it be at sports? It's to shame you into committing
yourself to the task, whatever it is, because you're part of
the team. And if you don't make your contribution
as you ought, then you have the peer pressure of the team ridiculing
you for not pulling your weight. Isn't that what that's all about?
And I suppose there's a place for that in this world, in work,
and in sports. And then there's the reward,
there's the promise for reward. These are the motivations that
men use to bolster commitment, isn't it? And again, whether
it be in sports or whether it be on your job or wherever it
is, you get a promise for promotion if you're more committed, you
make a better contribution to the team, you win the game. These are the promises for reward
that one gets if they if they're really, really committed. And you'll notice in your article
I made this statement, the word commitment is nowhere to be found
in the Word of God. And yet men in religion use the
same thing to try to get people committed, don't they? They shame
you. Oh, if you're not in church,
every time the doors are open, they shame you. And then they try to make, you
know, motivations for you to be a part of the team. That's not a motivation. Or they promise you a reward.
If you're really committed and you really make your contribution
and you, you know, You'll be head and shoulders above everybody
else, won't you? You'll be recognized by the rest
of the group as more holier than the rest. And you'll be given
positions of honor and positions of respect and positions of leadership. All based on your commitment
will reward you. And so all these same motivations
that the world uses are used in religion to get people to
be more committed. I just want to say this about
being in services. If God is true to his word, if
he said that where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there I am in the midst of them, and the gospel is being preached,
and sinners are poor and needy, Oh, what a perfect combination. What a perfect combination. People don't come to services
for one of two reasons. Either the gospel's not being
preached, which means the Lord's not there, or they're not poor
and needy. That's it. That's it. And I don't say that
in order to try to shame folks to be here. That's just the truth.
It's the truth. If a sinner is poor and he's
needy, And the water of life is being poured out and the bread
of life is being offered, then they're going to be there to
feast, aren't they? They're just going to... And
so it's not a matter of commitment. It's not a matter... You will
commit your soul to Him if you're poor and needy. So, may God, you show me a person
who uses shame and promise for reward to motivate commitment
and I'll show you a person who is putting men under the law. You show me a person who's preaching
Christ and I'll show you a congregation of poor needy sinners who are
there to drink freely from the fountain of life. It's just that way, isn't it?
May God spare us from using shame or the promise of reward to bolster
commitment. That's not what it's about. That's
what the world does. That's what religion does. God
enable us to lift up Christ. If he's lifted up, he'll draw
men to himself, won't he? I remember asking this thing
about reward. Rewards in heaven are a denial
of the gospel. But people teach it all the time.
I asked a renowned, famous theologian, Calvinist theologian, one time. He's no longer with us. But I
asked him one time, I said, do you think you'll see Billy Graham
in heaven? And you know what he said to me? He said, Billy
Graham's going to be so close to the throne of God that I probably
won't be able to see him. He's going to be rewarded for
all the souls that he's won to Christ. The truth is, But all those souls
that he deceived are looking down on him right now. He's lower than they are. Hell
does have degrees. Heaven doesn't. Heaven doesn't. We all are going to see him as
he is and be made like him. How much more reward can you
get than that? How much more reward can you get than to be
sinless? How much more reward can you
get than to be made like the Lord Jesus Christ. To have a
sinless body, a resurrected body, a glorious body. But religion
does it all the time. If you'll just be more committed,
you'll get a higher status in heaven. You'll get a higher status
in this world. And it's a lie. It's a lie. given out in degrees based on
your commitment is given out to the poor and
the needy. Now the Lord is going to illustrate what that means in our text in
Mark chapter 10 verse 13. And they brought young children
to him that he should touch them and his disciples rebuked those
that brought them. Now this term, young children,
is not toddlers or little kids, it's babies. Babies. Breast-fed, diaper-wearing babies. And the mothers were bringing
their babies to the Lord to have them blessed. You know, I thought
about this, I thought about, I wonder what these babies that the Lord
touched and blessed grew up to be. And then the Lord immediately
told me, the blessings that you asked for now are just as real
as the ones I gave them. Might we plead with the Lord
to lay his hand on our children or bless our babies, bless our
children, bring them to your, make them to be poor and needy,
cause them to be saved. The blessings of God are just
as real now. As a matter of fact, the Lord said it's expedient
for you that I go away. If I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. And the miracles that I do, the
greater things you will do. In other words, the miracles
that the Lord performed were limited to where He was in time
and in space. The miracles that He performs
now by His Spirit are through the faith of His children all
over the world. There's no difference. No difference. When Peter spoke of handling
the word of truth, and he said, we did not bring you cunningly
devised fables. We saw him on the Mount of Transfiguration. We saw the veil of his humanity
taken away. We heard the voice of God cry
out from heaven. And what a mountaintop experience
that was. And then in the next verse, he
says, yet we have a more sure word of prophecy, speaking of
the word of God. He was saying that the written
word of God is more sure than our experience. And so let's
not think, well, wonder what it was like to walk with the
Lord, to have the Lord touch our children, to have the Lord
to look into his eyes and to hear his voice. Oh, no, don't
think like that. Don't think like that. We'll
have that one day. But what the Lord's doing now
Right now, today, by his word and by his spirit and through
his church and by faith are just as real as what he did when he
was here in the flesh. More so now, we have a better
revelation of the fullness of his grace post-resurrection than
the disciples had before the Lord raised from the dead, before
Pentecost. So when he was here in the flesh,
they could only see in part. And we see more now than what
they were able to see. So the mothers bring these babies
to the Lord. And when Jesus saw it, he was
much displeased, displeased with his disciples and said unto them,
suffer the little children. Allow, that word's an old English
word that means allow. Allow. Allow the little children. to come unto me, and forbid them
not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you,
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,
he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms
and put his arms upon them and blessed them." I've been texting with a relative
this week. who's been listening to the gospel
in another city, listening to the messages from here. And I
believe the Lord's got his hand on him. He's saying all the right
things. He said, he said, I feel so tiny
and unworthy. That's his words. I think God is speaking to me
and it is a very humbling experience. I'm just realizing now how minuscule
we are. Oh, that's being needy, isn't
it? That's being made a little child.
I didn't know how small I was. I didn't know how little I was. Though we come from our mother's
womb speaking lies, and children, when they want something, they're
going to lie to you in order to get it, even if they're babies. But one thing babies aren't is
they're not pretentious and they're not proud. They just aren't, are they? We
learn that. You know, I like what I heard one brother tell
me. He said, you know, I have no trouble at all with pride.
until someone else walks in the room. You know what pride is? Pride is that competitive spirit
that we have with one another and we tend to be, we want to
present ourselves so we want to look good among men. And,
you know, might God temper that spirit of pride in us, but you
know what, it's always going to be there in our relationships
with one another. But I'll tell you one place you
won't find pride. You won't find pretentiousness. You won't find
it. Not when you're on your knees
before God. You don't have anything to be proud of. You're going
to be like a little child. You're going to be completely
dependent upon Him. You won't be playing the games
with God that we play with one another. You can't, can you? unless you become, who is the
Lord? Who does the Lord save? Those who come before him as
a little child. Lord, I don't have anything to
be proud of. I'm completely dependent upon you. As I've said before,
I can cry for mercy and I can mess myself up and that's about
it. And I can gaze into your eyes and know that I'm safe in
your presence. That little child that feels
scared, what's he do? clenches to the neck of his mother and
father, doesn't he? I was holding him just, oh. Little children suffer no shame
in being poor and needy. They suffer no shame in being
poor and needy. That's a shameful thing in this
world, isn't it? To be a beggar, it'd be a shameful
thing, it'd be a shameful life. To have to beg from other men, But there's no shame when you
become a mercy beggar for God's grace. That's who the Lord came
to save. And so my question to you and
my question to me is, are you a little child in the presence
of God? Are you needy, completely dependent
upon Him? You can't feed yourself. You
can't dress yourself. You can't clean yourself up. You can't do anything. All those things that we have
in our relationship with men, need to compete, prove ourselves,
be in control, all those things vanish when we find ourselves
in the presence of God. Daniel said, all my comeliness,
all my beauty, all my vigor, all my strength, was turned in
me into corruption when I stood before the Lord. And that's always
the case, isn't it? Always the case. When Isaiah
saw the Lord, what came out of his mouth? Woe is me, I am undone. I'm undone. Now, there's no Facebook in heaven. You know, boast in all your accomplishments
you want with men here in this world, but you're not going to
do it before God. You're going to be a little child
if you're going to be saved. For such is the kingdom of God.
Unless you become a little child, you're not in the kingdom of
God. Now, the second thing that qualifies
those whom the Lord saves is to be poor. which obviously this
rich young ruler was not. He wasn't poor. And we're not
talking just about financial wealth here. We're talking about
the poverty of our righteousness. You remember the church at Laodicea
when they said we're rich and increased in goods and in need
of nothing? We're so proud of ourselves. We're good. We've got all I need. All we need. And God said, do
you not know that you're poor and wretched and naked and blind
and miserable? See, the Lord has to make us
poor, doesn't He? He has to strip us of all of
our righteousness and make us to where we don't have anything.
Lord, I don't have a I don't have a will to bring to you.
I don't have works to bring to you. My wisdom doesn't earn me
favor with God. My Bible knowledge doesn't earn
me favor with God. Nothing. I'm poor, completely
dependent. That was the problem with this
rich young ruler, isn't it? Look at verse 17. And when he was gone forth into
the way, there came one running and kneeling to him. Oh, great
commitment, great vigor, great enthusiasm, great desire, was
it? And he asked him, good master. Now the word master is teacher,
teacher. as all he saw the Lord as was
a teacher. Teach me. You know in that, some of us
were there running to and fro and going from one place to another
trying to learn something new. You know, I've been diligent
to study the Bible, I've been diligent to keep the law, this
is what this rich young ruler is saying, but I know you're
a good teacher and surely you've got something to teach me that
I've not yet learned. And if I can just learn that,
then I can inherit eternal life. What must I do to inherit eternal
life? And the Lord started with the
most important thing. Most important thing. Now, first
of all, you don't do anything to inherit something. You inherit
something based on who you are, not what you do. Isn't that true? An inheritance received, you
get together with a lawyer after the death of a testator and what
do you say, okay, so and so here, okay, this is what you get because
of who you are. Your name is right here in the,
what do you call it? The will, thank you. If your name's written in the
last book of life, all the promises of God are inherited. Inherited. They're not earned. They're given. And so, this rich
hunk, the Lord begins with the beginning. He doesn't begin with
talking to him about what he needs to do to inherit eternal
life or his misunderstanding of eternal life as his misunderstanding
works. He begins with his misunderstanding
of who the Lord is. Why callest thou me good? For there is none good but God.
Why did you call me a good teacher? Now this word good means moral
excellence. That's what it means. It means
without fault. Now this rich young ruler obviously
thought himself to be pretty moral because he was evaluating
his morality based on his outward behavior as was the Apostle Paul. May have been the same person,
I don't know. But what did the Apostle Paul say? Concerning
the law, I was blameless. No one could bring a charge against
me for my outward behavior. But the Lord's got to begin,
you see, we're not going to see sin until we see the Savior. That's it. That's why Christ
is to be preached. We don't preach the law, we don't
preach sin, we preach Christ. Because when Christ is lifted
up, we see ourselves in comparison to Him. Otherwise, we're going
to compare ourselves to ourselves. That's just the way we are. and
we're gonna think, well, you know, I messed up today, but
I'm gonna do better tomorrow, and I'm gonna just keep getting
a little better and a little better, or we'll compare ourselves
to other men, and we'll always figure ourselves to be at least
above average. It's not until God enables you
to set your affections on things above. When Isaiah saw the Lord
high and lifted up, what did he say? Woe is me. I am undone. I'm a dead man. I'm a man of
unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean
lips. What am I going to do? My eyes have seen the king. Now
I see who I am in comparison to who he is. And so the Lord
begins with this rich young ruler's biggest problem. He was talking
to God and he didn't know it was God. Just like Nicodemus, talking
to the Lord. He didn't know who he was talking
to. Why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. There's
none that meets the quality. Now, Paul, what did he say in
Romans chapter 7? He said, in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth what? No good thing. There's none that
doeth good, no not one. God's the only one that's good.
And I see myself now as I am in his presence. And now I'm
poor. I don't have any righteousness.
I don't have any goodness. I don't have anything to offer
God. I'm poor and needy. I'm naked. So then in verse 19, the Lord
says, Thou knowest the commandments. You ask what you could do to
inherit eternal life. And notice he only deals with
those commandments that have to do with outward behavior in
relationship with other men. And I'm sure that this man's
response was good. I mean, it was, he said, those
things I've done from my youth. I've not committed adultery.
I've not killed anyone. I've not stole. I've not lied. I've not defrauded anyone. I've
honored my father and my mother. Now the Lord is going to get
to the heart of the problem. I think there's a really good
chance that this probably was the Apostle Paul. For several
reasons, Paul's testimony matches perfect with this man's testimony.
And the other thing is, look at verse 21, and Jesus beholding
him loved him. So whoever this man was, and
I can't speak with absolute authority on who he was, but whoever he
was, he's one of God's elect. Eventually he came to know the
Lord. Because the Lord only loves his elect. Jacob I've loved,
Esau I've hated. He's loved his people with an
everlasting love. Would the Lord to be able to
look upon a man and say he loved him? That's one of his. That's
one of his. And what Paul say, those things
which I thought were gain, I thought because I was keeping the law,
no one could charge me for having violated the law in terms of
my outward behavior. You know, when the scripture
speaks of in some of the epistles where some of the sins of the
flesh, The pagan sins of the flesh are being described. Paul
says on a couple of occasions, as were some of you. He didn't
say they were all that way. He didn't say they all lived
that way. He said some of you were that way. Some of you lived
that licentious pagan life. Some of you came out of a moral
lifestyle. But does that make one a less
sinner than another? No. Paul said later on, he said,
when the law did come, he knew the law. He was trying to live
by the law. His outward behavior was consistent with the law.
But when the law came by the Spirit of God, sin revived and
I died. And what was that law that came?
It was the law of covetousness. The last of the commandments
is thou shalt not covet. You see, men apart from only
those who have been made poor see their hearts for what it
is, wicked and deceitful. Everybody else is judging themselves
based on their outward behavior just like this rich young ruler.
He wasn't poor. He wasn't without righteousness because he was
living by the law. He was doing that which was right. And then the Lord reveals his
heart when he tells him to sell all that he has. It wasn't the
selling of what he had that made him a believer. It was his covetousness. It was his love of money and
the possessions that he had. It wasn't money that he had. It was his trust in it. It was
his heart. He was trusting his riches. But the Lord said, sell all that
you have, take up your cross and follow me. Identify yourself
with my death on Calvary's cross and follow after me. And he went
away sad for he had much possessions. He wasn't poor. His problem was a heart problem.
See, this gospel speaks to the heart. The natural man looks
at the outward appearances. That's all he can see. All he
can see. And he thinks, I'm not poor.
I'm doing right. I've got some good stuff going
on. But the child of God who has
gotten a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness
of his glory. And that's all we ever get is
a glimpse of him. Oh, Lord, my heart is wicked and deceitful.
I don't have any goodness. I've never had a pure and perfect
motive in anything I've ever done. And the Lord reveals That's
what Hebrews chapter 4, the word of God is sharper than any two-edged
sword and divides asunder and reveals the thoughts and the
intents of the heart, of the heart. Everybody else is judging
themselves based on what they're doing outwardly. But when the
word of God comes in power, it exposes the thoughts and intents
of the heart and at that point, you can come to no other conclusion
but that you are poverty stricken. To whom does the Lord save? The needy, the little children,
and the poor, those who don't have anything, those who can't
do anything for themselves, completely dependent upon Him. Is that you? If it is, it's by God's grace.
Amen. All right, let's take a break. th th th th