Some stories in the scriptures
are just so plain and clear that we are best just to read them
sometimes and just pray the Lord would make them alive and real
in our hearts. And this story is an extraordinarily
familiar story, like the one that's also on your sheets from
Luke chapter 18 of the two men who went up to the temple. We will read from Mark 10 verse
17. As the Lord Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up
to him and knelt before him and asked, Good teacher, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do
you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do
not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false
witness, do not defraud, honour your father and mother. And he
said to him, teacher, I have kept all of these from my youth
up. Looking at him, Jesus loved him
and said to him, one thing you lack, Go and sell all you possess,
and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
And come, follow me." But at these words he was saddened,
and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said
to his disciples, how hard it will be for those who are wealthy
to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were amazed at
his words. But Jesus answered again and
said to them, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of
God. It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God. They were even more astonished
and said to him, Then who can be saved? Looking at them, Jesus
said, With people it is impossible, but not with God, for all things
are possible with God. Up to this point in Mark's Gospel,
we've had pictures of salvation. Picture after picture of the
way the Lord saves his children. saves his chosen one. Extraordinarily
how the Lord deals with those that he loves infinitely, has
loved infinitely from eternity, and is loving them in this world. And extraordinarily, the reason
I say extraordinarily is that we have in Mark's Gospel seen
pictures of suffering of the Lord's people. A man paralyzed,
A man with a withered and shriveled arm. A man who is full of leprosy,
outcast and rejected by society. A man who walks around and when
he meets other people, his obligation is to say, unclean, unclean,
to warn others not to come near him. A bleeding woman, 14 years
of bleeding. grieving parents, a demon possessed man with a
legion of demons in him. All of these people afflicted,
all of these people brought to a place by the love of God where
they have absolutely no resources in themselves, absolutely nothing. And they have lives where pain,
and suffering mark every hour of their days. And here we have, in Mark's Gospel,
another picture of salvation. And things are reversed now.
Here we have a man who comes to the Lord with all of these
things. that the others would love to
have. A man who hasn't had their afflictions, a man who, in the
eyes of the Jews of his day, was a man blessed by God. And the proof of his blessing
from God is the fact that he has all this wealth. And to cap
it all off, he's a man who has obeyed the law from his youth. And so here is a picture of someone
who comes and he needs to be put through a place of affliction. He needs to be made to know that
he is the leper. He is the one who has been taken
captive by Satan to do his will. He's the incurable, he's the
hopeless, he's the outcast, he's the one who is accursed. And
this is the way the Lord Jesus deals with this man. This man
who comes to Him and will be put through pain and affliction.
The pain and affliction the others have suffered. And he comes with
a great record, doesn't he? We know from the Gospels that
he is rich, he is young, and he is a ruler. And he's an earnest
and zealous man. In fact, he comes running to
Christ. And he's a man who is respectful
of the Lord Jesus. He comes and runs and he kneels
at the Lord Jesus' feet. And he was a man who was concerned
about spiritual things. He was concerned about his soul. He was concerned about his eternal
life. What shall I do to inherit eternal
life? And extraordinarily he was, on
top of all these things, a very moral man. As Paul says of himself
in Philippians, he was blameless. This man was declaring the fact
that he had done all of these from his youth. But this man
was lost. He was as lost and helpless as
the Gadarene demoniac. And what was wrong with this
lost man? Firstly, He's lost because he sees that eternal
life is something that he must do, something to attain. What shall I do, he says to the
Lord Jesus. What shall I do to inherit eternal
life? The Lord Jesus' rebuke of the
Pharisees and the Jews of his day was that they were ignorant
of God's righteousness and they went about to establish their
own. God made man upright in the garden
and he had a perfect righteousness, a righteousness which he chose
not to defend and not to honour. But ever since man has been out
of the garden, all men All children of Adam, you and I, have been
stitching the fig leaves of our own righteousness. We've been
wanting to cover ourselves before God and other people with a robe
of righteousness, a robe of pretended righteousness. And as I've said so often, the
worst righteousness in all of the world A world full of self-righteousness,
the pinnacle or the pit, the darkest pit of self-righteousness
is religious self-righteousness. There are no more self-righteous
people in this world than those who have mixed their self-righteousness
with the righteousness they think they have earned by their activities
as Christians. And so the Lord Jesus has a serious
lesson to teach this man. He has, as the Lord Jesus knows
this man's heart, he has a heart of stone, a heart of Adamite
stone that must be broken. And so he challenges the man
in verse 18, why do you call me good? Jesus is not denying
his deity or his goodness. The reality is the man is wanting
not to know what he must do. The man is wanting to compliment
the Lord Jesus, as so often we do, that we want a compliment
in return. No one is good except God alone. And this man had not acknowledged
that the Lord Jesus was God. And the Lord Jesus takes him
to the commandments. So he knows this man's heart.
Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false
witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father
and mother. And the man says something extraordinary. Teacher, I have kept all of these
from my youth up. I've kept them all. One of the misunderstandings that's
so common in our world today is that Christians, so many Christians
believe that the law is something there put before you that you
can do. God's law is a holy law. God's law is a spiritual law. God's law demands one thing of
all people who come into contact with it. You must be perfect. You must be perfect all the time. This man has the same pride that
the Jews had as they were rescued out of slavery in Egypt and they
were taken by God out of a place where they couldn't do anything
for themselves and they were taken to the Red Sea to a place
where they couldn't do anything for themselves. And they were
taken to the waters of Mara where they couldn't get drink for themselves. Continually they were taken to
places where they were shown to have no resources in themselves.
And God showed grace and mercy to them. And extraordinarily
they get to Mount Sinai and they turn around to God and say, you
just tell us what to do. Three times in that passage of
Exodus they say, you just tell us what to do and we'll do it.
Obeying God's laws is a piece of cake for us, no problem whatsoever. Within weeks, of course, they
were worshipping a golden calf and having an orgy at the bottom
of the mountain. Just tell us what to do and we'll
do it. So the problem with the law is
that if we think the law is about external things and not about
things of our heart, and not about spiritual things, we'll
always think that we have done it. So many people come and they
want to have a set of rules about Christian life given to them.
Tell me what I have to do. And like the rich young man who
comes to the Lord Jesus and says, good teacher, and then parades
his righteousness. They're not really asking, what
should I do? They are really asking, please
tell me how wonderfully well I have done it. They are asking
that question not because they need to know. God has written
his laws on our hearts. Just read Romans 2. We know what's
right unless the hearts of us have been calloused by horrible
practice. People who are asking for rules
to live by are wanting to have something physical they can do
that they can commend themselves to God. And that's the state
of this man. He kept them all from his youth.
If we give the Bible reading program, if we give a set of
instructions about Christian life, there'll be a whole bunch
of people who'll do them. Whatever there are rules, there'll
be people who'll go to them and say, this is what I've done,
this is my righteousness, and they will worship those things.
And God's people will look at them through circumcised and
broken hearts and say, everything I touch with these hands is sin. They have met God. And the Lord Jesus meets this
man, looking at him in verse 21. Behold him. He actually looked
at him and the Lord Jesus looked at this man through the eyes
of absolute perfect knowledge. He knew everything about this
man. He knew all about him. He knew
what he had been, what he was now, and he knew the state of
this man's heart. And we have those extraordinary
words, and Jesus loved him. Jesus loved him. So this is a
picture of the saving of one of God's children. We need to
be saved from self-righteousness as much as we need to be saved
from self-loathing and other things. Jesus loved him. He loved him from eternity. He loved him with a love that
cannot change, Malachi 3.6. For I am the Lord, and I do not
change. Thankfully He doesn't change,
because you sons of Jacob, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And those the Lord Jesus loves,
He loves them to the end. And those the Lord Jesus loves,
We will meet with Him in this world and they will meet with
themselves in this world. And they will be saved. They
were saved from eternity. They will be saved by sovereign
free grace. But this man needs to go through
and go to a place of affliction. One thing you lack. Just one
thing the Lord Jesus said he lacked. Of course he lacked many
many things but the Lord Jesus will always place his finger
of love on the part of our lives that most needs dealing with. One thing you lack, go sell all
you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in
heaven and come follow me. It's a simple thing relatively,
isn't it? All you have to do is go down to the real estate
agent. Alex will look after it in no time at all. Just one thing. But in that one thing, the Lord
Jesus had exposed a heart in this man that until this moment
he had probably never seen. The law that he obeyed was a
law that demanded generosity. The law that he obeyed demanded
tithes and you can guarantee that he tithed. And the tithe
was just a simple tax of 10%. But above and beyond that there
was much to give and he probably gave. All of a sudden, what he
had thought was something that was his security and his place
of refuge in this world, is exposed by the love of the Lord Jesus
to be not His security, but the stone around His neck. So often in this world we clamour
to gather possessions and then when we've got them, we find
that we don't own them. They really own us. Just get
rid of them. They really own us. And so the Lord Jesus has taken
this man and exposed his heart. And he went away shocked and
appalled, the word saddened can be. All of a sudden what he thought
was righteousness and what he thought he was going to get as
commendation from this good teacher now becomes something that horrifies
him and he went away grieving for he was one who owned much
property. There's a wonderful proverb that
says that wounds from a friend can be trusted, but enemies multiply
kisses. These are wounds from a friend. And so often we want to, in Christian
life, go and heal the broken hearted. Heal them when they're
troubled and have Holy Spirit conviction come upon them. But
the best thing to do is to leave them. If the Lord has made them
grieve, let them grieve. That doesn't mean that we add
to their burdens. But if the Lord who brings the
grieving has brought it for a purpose, then he and his sovereign care
for his people will use it in his time. Jesus looked around
and said to his disciples, How hard will it be for those who
are wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God? How hard? The problem with wealth
is, as the Lord said in Matthew 6, in the Sermon on the Mount,
He says, where your treasure is, There your heart will be
also. The things that we treasure will
be where our heart is. This young man treasured his
righteousness, treasured his wealth, and that's where his
heart was. And the Lord says, give me your
heart. He doesn't need our wealth, he
owns the universe. Give me your heart is what he
says. That's why it's so hard for the
wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God. They have so much in
this world that is a refuge for them, a sanctuary for them. And I speak as one who is in
that situation. It's so easy to think of the
things that we have as our refuge. The world economy might fall
down, but we have a house. The Lord can take it all away
from us in the blink of an eye. The disciples were amazed at
his words. And Jesus again said something
incredibly significant. Children, how hard it is to enter
the Kingdom of God. We live in a Christian age where
entering the Kingdom of God is a painless, simple human activity. Put your hand up. Come forward
at a rally. Say the sinner's prayer. Just
say the sinner's prayer and change your life. Make your choice in
the two ways to live. The Lord Jesus never makes the
path of salvation The path of salvation is one
that is full of affliction. Just ask the rich young man as
he walks away grieving and saddened. If we are going to enter the
Kingdom of God, we are going to enter through trials. Trials that continually strip
away our self-righteousness. Trials that God has ordered and
ordained for us which will show us again and again that salvation
is of the Lord. It is hard to enter the Kingdom
of God. It requires a miracle of sovereign
grace. It requires nothing of us, but
it will in time require everything of us. Don't forget this passage comes
after the serious warnings about hell and the serious warnings
about being a disciple. You deny yourself, take up your
cross and follow him. All of these things are impossible
with men. It's easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God. And then we have these words
from the apostles that show how shocked they were. They were
even more astonished. Jesus has so many lessons for
his people to learn. Then who can be saved? How can you have salvation? The question at the beginning
of the passage is, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? The Apostles finally proclaim
their dismay. Who then can be saved? And then the Lord Jesus shows
us the wonder of the Gospel. Looking at them, Jesus said,
with people it is impossible. With people's activities, with
people's will, with people's worth, with people's possessions,
with people's self-righteousness, with people's compliments, with
all of human activity. Romans 3 makes it clear, you
bundle up all of humanity and put it all together in one big
lump. All together it is worthless. With people it is impossible.
That's why we proclaim a gospel of God's sovereign activity. But not with God. For all things
are possible with God. All things, Mattie, are possible
with God. Can he take a heart of stone
and put in a heart of flesh? All things are possible with
God. Can He take a man out of his legalistic self-righteousness
and bring him to a place where he realises that his works of
righteousness are nothing but filthy rags and worthless before
God? Can He bring him to a place where
he sees that the Lord Jesus is absolutely everything? Everything
that he needs to be right with God has been done. Done and finished. Done and finished
before the foundation of the world. Done and finished at the
cross of the Lord Jesus. Done and finished in heaven right
now. And we just see that wonderful
unfolding. All things are possible with
God. Can he change hearts? What about
your heart? What about my heart? Can He change
our hearts? Can He give faith where there's
unbelief? All things are possible with
God. Write it down on your heart when
next we doubt the power of our God. All things are possible
with God. When we look around and have
reasons to grieve and lament and be sad at circumstances around
us, all things are possible with God. God's people should be,
in the midst of trials and sufferings, the most optimistic people that
ever walk on the face of this planet. He's God! He sits on a throne in this universe. Nothing has happened and nothing
ever will happen except exactly what He has determined from the
foundation of the world. There is not an electron in this
universe that moves outside of His perfect sovereign control. All things are possible with
God because God controls all things. That's our Saviour. What a wonder it is to have Him
as your husband. What a wonder it is for him to
love, to have loved this man and to have loved his people. What a wonder it is to think
that even in the midst of pain and affliction and things that
we cannot understand, he loves and he cannot change his love
for his people. He's written and signed it in
his blood. His blood represented in the
elements that we've just taken. That blood that's now become
part of our life. That broken body which is now
sustaining to an extent our lives. All things are possible with
God. Let's pray.