This is the fourth and last of
the examinations that the Lord Jesus has before the people who
were, those who had been for three years, conspiring to kill
Him. 1 Peter 2.23 says that they found
no guile in his mouth, which means that they sought to find
it, but there was none there. There was no guile in the mouth
of our Saviour. I'll just read the passage. We're
just looking more closely at just a couple of verses. Mark
12.28. Then one of the scribes came,
having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered
them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Here,
O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second like it is this. You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. There is no commandment greater
than these. So the scribe said to him, Well
said, teacher. You have spoken the truth. For
there is one God, and there is none other but He. And to love
Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with
all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor
as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices. Now when Jesus saw that he had
answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom
of God. But after that, no one dared
question him. And so here we have these men
coming to the Lord Jesus, examining him and examining him. The others
had come With evident guile, and the Holy Spirit describes
them as such, they sought to catch him in his words. But it
seems as if this scribe came with a genuine question. And
as we remember, look back through the Gospel, we remember that
the Lord Jesus' issues with the scribes and the Pharisees were
always issues over the law. Two big issues. One was what
he claimed to be himself. He told them at the beginning
of his ministry, I am God. I am Messiah. I am Israel's King. Now you have three years to examine
me. And then they did examine him.
And it was always the scribes and the Christians were always
about the law and about purity. How is it that he eats with tax
collectors and sinners?" said the scribes. The scribes, when
they saw the amazing miracles he'd done, says, he has Beelzebub. And when the scribes and Pharisees
saw the disciples eating with unwashed hands, why do your disciples
not walk according to the tradition of the elders? This people, says
the Lord Jesus, honour me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me." They lay aside the commandment of God, they
then reject the commandment of God, and then they make the Word
of God of no effect. And eventually in Mark 11.18,
the scribes, the chief priests, sought how they might destroy
him, is the word. But out of this group of scribes
comes this man. And we'll look more about the
scribes, Lord willing, in a few weeks' time. But today I wanted
to focus on a couple of things. One is, of course, that the Lord
Jesus speaks so wonderfully and passionately about God. He came, as we saw earlier in
John 1, He came to reveal God. to reveal the glory of God. The other thing is, of course,
that His glory is great in the salvation of His people. And
this is a man who seemed to do many good things. And then the
Lord says to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. It's potentially a wonderful
place to be and potentially an incredibly dangerous place to
be. It is not a place where any should
ever rest, not far from the Kingdom of God. There's only one place
of rest for God's people. That's in the Kingdom of God.
This is a place where God meets with His people. People here
are not far from the Kingdom of God. It's not good enough. And may, as we go through these
verses today, may God the Holy Spirit confirm His people as
in the Kingdom and those who are not just be drawn by Him
and drawn by the wonders of what He says today that those on the
outside might find themselves in. And so the Lord Jesus begins
with remarkable words. He's asked which is the first
commandment of all, and he quotes, of course, from Deuteronomy 6.
And these were famous verses for these men. We've heard about
the phylacteries that they had. They had one on their wrist and
they had another one that went between their forehead. and hung
down on their forehead just to remind them that that's where
the law of God was to be. It was to be before them all
the time. I was on a train in Thailand a few years ago and
there was a group of students there and one of them was a Jewish
fellow. And it was remarkable to watch his ritual in the morning
at about sunrise. He got up in the middle of all
these people in this crowded carriage and he put on this amazing
robe with the tassels in the corners and then he spent ages
putting on these phylacteries, the one around his wrist and
the one around his head. And these words, among others, were
in the phylacteries. just to be reminded. So these
are the most famous words for these scribes. They've come many
times testing Jesus about the law, and now this is a big question,
a debate that they often had amongst themselves. And the Lord
Jesus answers in remarkable ways. In fact, the first part of his
answer is really a statement, isn't it? Hear, O Israel. Hear, O Israel, give ear, O heavens,
says Moses at the end of Deuteronomy, give ear, O heavens, and I will
speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching
drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the rain drops
on the tender herb and as the showers on the grass. For, because
I proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God. He is the rock, His work is perfect,
and all His ways are justice. A God of truth and without injustice. Righteous and upright is He."
The Lord Jesus has rebuked these people in the words of Isaiah,
that they have ears to hear, but they do not hear. They may
hear and not understand. The Gospel comes with its own power, its own force
from God. And the hearing ear and the seeing
eye, the Lord has made them both." And he's referring to ears that
really hear. And so it's a challenge to Israel,
a challenge to all of us, isn't it? Hear, O Israel. Listen to God. listen to what
God says about God. Then we have this remarkable
statement, the Lord our God is one Lord. So no less than three
times is the glorious name of Jehovah repeated in this one
short sentence. A reference, I believe, to the
character of the persons in the Trinity. 2 Corinthians finishes, doesn't
it? That God would be gracious and His people would know the
Father's love, the Redeemer's grace, and the Spirit's fellowship. And the Lord Jesus is taking
these people, as we looked at earlier, taking them to remind
them of who their God is. That remarkable time in Deuteronomy
when they were on that border to go into the Promised Land,
Moses gives these amazing sermons recorded by the Holy Spirit for
us in Deuteronomy to look back at what God has done Look back
at how big their God is. Look back at how holy their God
is. Look back at how just their God
is. As Moses says much earlier on,
Lord, show me your glory. Please, Lord, show me your glory. And we see that glory in the
Lord Jesus. And so often we come into contact with people who
say, Jesus, it was little Jesus. But the God of the Scriptures,
our Lord Jesus, is a big God, and He's pointing these men in
Jerusalem, at the temple, the place where God's name is to
reside, He's pointing them to the bigness and the greatness
of God. Now see that I, even I, am He,
and there is no God beside me. I kill and make alive, I wound
and I heal, nor is there any who can deliver from my hand,"
says Moses. Nehemiah says, you alone are
the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven
of the heavens with all their host, the earth and everything
in it, the seas and all that is in them. And you preserve
them all. The host of heaven worships you. We look around this world and
we should see God's handiwork and God's provision and God's
sovereignty in all of it. Some of the most wonderful chapters
that picture the glory of our great God, Un-Azai, forever need
an uplifting time. Spend an hour or so and start
reading at chapter 40, and don't finish until you get to chapter
55 or so. Read on if you can. But they
are just the most wonderful descriptions of our covenant God, the Lord
Jesus, who is the covenant, Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel,
and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am
the last. Besides me there is no other. Thus says the Lord who created
the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it,
who established it, who did not create it in vain. It's not some
endless machine running on in evolutionary time scales. He
did not make it in vain. He formed it to be inhabited.
I am the Lord, there is no other. And when God reveals himself
to his chosen ones at a time of love, he reveals himself as
almighty, he reveals himself as sovereign, he reveals himself
as absolute ruler. You know the story well of Nebuchadnezzar,
left for seven years, crawling around, knocked down from that
tower that he was so proud of. He looked around like so many
of us do at all the things that we have achieved. This is all
mine. Look at this great city I have built. Look at this great
activity that I have done. And God did to Nebuchadnezzar
what he did to Saul on the road to Damascus. He knocked him down
from his wall, made him eat dust, and Nebuchadnezzar raised his
eyes to heaven at the end of this period. And my reason returned
to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honoured
Him who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth
are accounted as nothing. He does according to His will
in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can ward off His hand or say to Him, what have you
done? What a rebuke to proud man who
dares to question the Almighty. The Lord, the Lord our God is
one. And that is one can mean two
things. The Lord, the Lord our God, is
alone. As he says, there is no one else
here beside me who is saying, in the courts of heaven, where
this universe is ruled with absolute sovereignty, there aren't any
other gods. The Hindus can have 33 million. The Papists can create
as many as they like. The rest of the world can create
gods all over the place. God says in heaven there are
no others. The Lord our God is alone. And it can also mean, and it
does as well mean, that the Lord our God is unique. There is none other beside Him.
He is unique. There is no other. In effect, what the Lord Jesus
is doing is taking these people back to their most famous verse
in the scripture. And he's just reminding them
that what you see happening around you, what you have seen for these
last three years, is the activity of God. every little tiny bit
of it. And if God had given you eyes
to see, you would be astounded and amazed as the sinners were
when redeeming love was revealed to them. And the legalists sat
on the outside and carped and bickered. At the end of the day,
they didn't know two things. They didn't know God. and they
didn't know themselves. Nebby Kedneza had seen himself
for seven years and he had seen God. Comparatively, few of those who
occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe-inspiring and
worship-provoking grandeur of the divine character. That God
is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of mercy is
assumed by many to be almost common knowledge. but to entertain
anything approaching an adequate conception of His being, His
nature, is something which very, very few in these degenerate
times have attained to. God is solitary in His excellency. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord,
among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, Exodus 15 written. The Lord Jesus has come to reveal
himself to his people, to manifest God to his people. In two weeks'
time, we'll be gathered here with our brothers and sisters
from many parts of this land and from around the world, and
God is doing that. God has laid on Don Fortner's
heart to come from about as far away as you can get on this planet
to come here. God has moved the hearts of Lance
Heller to go on what is an amazing trek to get from where he is
in New Guinea down to here to meet with God's people. We need
to keep seeing God in everything. We need to keep putting man out
of the picture and have a big God. a big God who does wonders. And we need, like Moses, to keep
praying, God please show me your glory. And when the Lord descended
in answer to Moses' prayer, And he stood there with him and proclaimed
the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and
proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and by no means clearing
the guilty. What a remarkable God we have. Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let
the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory
in this, that he understands and knows Me." So having established
for these people who God is, he now comes to the answer in
a sense, although he's already given the best answer, comes
to the second part. The answer is, verse 30, and
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second like it is this,
you shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment
greater than these. And of course, given the nature
of God, it's the most perfectly reasonable thing that he could
request of his creatures. Absolutely perfectly reasonable.
Just love him with every fibre of your being. Love him absolutely
perfectly. A perfectly reasonable request. A perfectly reasonable response
to this question. with every part of you, leaving
nothing behind, every thought, every moment of every day, perfectly
devoted to loving God and loving your neighbour. We've seen how
amazing our God is, something of His holiness. And then we
look like Nebuchadnezzar at ourselves, and we don't need many milliseconds
to realize this is a big request from a big God who has every
right to make it. And well might we say, like Paul,
O wretched man that I am, not that I was, but that I am now. And yet remarkably God, the Holy
Spirit, says that these words, these words of command from God
given to Moses 1,500 years before these events, 3,500 years before
our time today. Romans 15.4 says that these words
that we've just read, love the Lord your God, Love your neighbour. They were written for our learning
that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might
have hope. How do I have hope? How do I
have hope in the midst of all of this? How do I have hope? What was the scribe to think
in response to that? How do we find a solution to
this dilemma? God makes an amazing promise
in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 6. He talks about His ministers,
His servants. God's servants have been made
by God sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. Not of the
letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life. The solution is in their law
as well. Deuteronomy 30 verse 6. And the
Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your
descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul that you may live. If you turn with me
in your scriptures to Ezekiel chapter 36, and let's just read
as we have so many times, and I pray that the Lord would make
these words real and alive in our lives. Ezekiel 36, verse 23, and God
keeps saying that He's doing the things that He does in Ezekiel's
day. Judgment falling on Jerusalem. God taking His people, not just
out of the city of Jerusalem, taking them all the way to Babylon
and growing them and protecting them and nurturing there while
He brings judgment on Jerusalem. Just as this is happening as
we read these words from Mark's Gospel, and was going to happen
in 70 AD, when that city and all of its religious activities
are destroyed. Verse 23, just read and listen
to the I wills. Listen to what God does. I will
sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations,
which you have profaned in their midst, and the nations shall
know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed
in you before their eyes. for I will take you from among
the nations, gather you out of all the countries, and bring
you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water
on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your
filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of
stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will
put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues. And you will keep my judgments
and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land
that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and
I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your
uncleanness. I will call for the grain and
multiply it, and bring no famine upon it. And I will multiply
the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that
you never need again bear the reproach of famine among the
nations. Then you will. Love the Lord your God with all
of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your
strength. Love your neighbour as yourself. Then you will remember
your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will
loathe yourself in your own sight for your iniquities and your
abomination. Not for your sake do I do this,
says the Lord God. Let it be known to you. Be ashamed
and confounded in your ways, O house of Israel." The solution
to this dilemma is that God must do for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. In fact, these words contain
not so much command for the people of God, but beautiful, beautiful
promises. You shall is a promise. You shall love the Lord your
God. You shall love your neighbor. How do we do it? Brother Don's
coming in a couple of weeks. I just thought I'd read something
that he preached just last week in England. out of those amazing
verses in Colossians where it talks about the Lord Jesus being
the fullness of deity in bodily form. And then that remarkable
verse, Colossians 2.10, which says that you are complete in
Him. He said, you who labour and toil
in great heaviness, perplexed in heart, vexed in your souls
because of what you know you are, perplexed and grieved because
of your sinful heart, your depraved nature, your corrupt lust, vexed
and grieved because of your unbelief. vexed and grieved because of
your lack of devotion and commitment to Christ, because of your horrid
attachment to and love for the things of this world. You who
believe in the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, in the midst of all
your frustrations, vexations and failures and sin, you who
believe on the Son of God, are complete in Him. You who groan
under the conscious sense of this body of sin in which you
live, you who are loved of God, chosen of God, redeemed by the
precious blood of Christ, called by God's Spirit, you are complete
in Him. Ah, what a strange word, ah.
Now it would be easier to understand if the scripture said, you shall
be, but it says you are. You who are in Christ are complete
in Him. Now we understand that this book
teaches we have a completion in Christ from eternity. We were
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. We were accepted in the beloved
before ever the world began. We were chosen and justified
and sanctified and glorified in Christ before the world began. The book of God is plain in stating,
and we understand this, But this is talking about something presently. We rejoice in this blessed hope
of God's grace that soon we shall be complete in Christ, in the
everlasting glory of Heaven's eternal home. Oh, what shall
it be to dwell with Christ in the perfection of His own being,
with no trace of sin or unbelief or deceit or corruption, in the
sweet experience of resurrection glory. What a blessed hope! What sweet prospects! But here
in this verse the Holy Spirit tells us by His servant Paul
that in this present situation, right where we are, right now,
we have a blessedness for all of God's people who believe on
the Son of God, that declares that you are complete in Him. No conditions, no qualifications,
no prerequisites, you are complete in Him. But pastor, there are
so many things required of us. God requires so much. Let me
give you a lesson, one lesson here. Write it down and be sure
you get it. Whatever God requires, God gives. Whatever God requires, God gives. All the precepts of the law read
in gospel light are but promises from God. God said, be holy,
for I the Lord your God am holy. And then he said, you shall be
holy. God said, be perfect. And he
said, you shall be perfect. All that God requires, God performs. And God gives so that everything
required of us is. Everything demanded of us, everything
the Lord demands of us, everything God in His holiness demands of
us, is ours in Christ Jesus. You are complete in Him. Everything here is grace, free,
unconditional, unqualified, unmerited grace. The Spirit of God is not
exhorting us to be complete. He is not telling us how to be
complete or what we must do to make ourselves complete. No,
He states a fact. He affirms a reality, a reality
revealed throughout this book in the Gospel of God's grace.
He announces a work that's altogether finished, a work to which nothing
can be added and nothing taken away. You are complete in Him. Don't imagine that there is anything
lacking, some deficiency that you must make up, something that
you must complete. No, He says, know this and rejoice. You're full. Complete, perfect
in Christ, being one with Him, in union with Him, you are full,
complete, perfect. This is the delight and glory
of faith. It looks to Christ alone, gives
glory to Christ alone. Faith leaves all works behind. Faith leaves all works behind
and trusts Him who is God, our Saviour. But Brother Don, don't
we have to do something? No. But doesn't something depend
upon us? No. That which is required of
us is given to us in Christ Jesus, and that which is the glory of
faith is the comfort and joy of our faith. We are so looking
forward to hearing the Gospel proclaimed again and again from
our pulpit, from this place. That is the good news, isn't
it? That is the comfort and the hope that God promises that we
have from these demands upon humanity which are so big and
so huge and so all-encompassing. As Paul finishes what people
call the doctrinal section of Paul's letter, we call it the
practical section of Paul's letter. It's the place you go to find
out what God's going to do. The depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are
His judgments and His ways past finding out. For who has known
the mind of the Lord? For who has become His counsellor? or who has first given to him
that it shall be repaid to him? How many people do we know who
live in exact opposite to that verse, that they believe that
the things they do will demand that God will reward them in
some way? As Simon said to Noah, Noah was
loved before he was born. Noah's loved because he's in
the family. Noah's loved even when he's naughty. Noah's loved even when he's good. Because the love of parents,
the love of real parents, is not a love that's based on activity,
it's a love that's based on relationship. Hero Israel. for from him and
through him and to him are all things, to whom be the glory
forever. And so our scribe, having heard
these words from the Lord Jesus, honours him in a sense. and says,
Well said, teacher, you have spoken the truth. For there is
one God, and there is no other but He, and to love Him with
all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the
soul and with all the strength, and to love one neighbour as
oneself, is more than the whole of burnt offerings and sacrifices. These men knew their scriptures
really well. When Saul was about to be deposed
as king, and David reinstated as king. So Samuel said to Saul,
has the Lord a great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Saul just didn't believe
God. Saul sacrificed like Esau a kingdom
for a few trinkets. It's faith, isn't it, is obeying
the voice of the Lord. And David said in Psalm 51, for
you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do
not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, these you will
not despise. Sacrifice and offering, says
Hebrews, you did not desire, but a body you have prepared
for me. In burnt offering and sacrifices
for sin you had no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come,
in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do your
will, O God." There are many lessons, aren't
there? The Lord Jesus reminds these people in this place where
he's about to be crucified that he is God, that God is very,
very big. He reminds his people, Israel,
who has given ears to hear and to see these things as not commands
of legalism, but promises of grace. this man was not far from
the Kingdom of God. He shows us some serious lessons,
doesn't he? It's possible to respect the
Lord Jesus, to call Him Master, Teacher, and be not far from
the Kingdom of God. It's possible to hear the words
of God from God Himself and His servants, and be not far from
the Kingdom of God. It's possible to be well versed
in the scriptures and still be not far from the Kingdom of God.
It's possible to understand the spiritual nature of true worship
and be not far from the Kingdom of God. It's possible to be wise
in learning and answer wisely in truth. and even receive some
commendation and be not far from the Kingdom of God. May God reveal
His glory to those who are not far from the Kingdom of God. There is just one way into that
Kingdom. There is just one door. It is
just through the blood of the Lord Jesus. It is through His
righteousness. there is just one thing that's
accepted by God to get into heaven, and that is that you have to
be as good as God. You have to pass away your self-reliance
and your self-righteousness. You are to repent. You are to
trust and believe. We are to confess the Lord Jesus. Many of these people in Israel
died not far from the Kingdom of God. May God be gracious to
the people that we love. May He reveal Himself and them
to themselves, that they might know the riches of grace that
we've been talking about today. Why stay outside starving when
God's children are feasting? Why stay, as the scribes and
Pharisees so often did, outside mocking God and His people and
His love for them? while inside there was feasting
and rejoicing with our Saviour. We have so much to thank Him
for His grace. What a remarkable thing that
God's believing people do love God perfectly right now. God's believing people do love
their neighbours perfectly right now. Because our works are the
Lord Jesus' works. Our works are in heaven. Our
works are finished. What gospel do we have to proclaim
to this world that's trapped in so much darkness? Let's pray.