Mark chapter 10. Let's read a few verses here
from Mark chapter 10. Let's read beginning with verse 32. And they were
in the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before them. And they were amazed. And as
they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve
and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, saying,
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. and the Son of Man shall be delivered
unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn
him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, and they
shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him,
and shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again." Now, verse 32 is where we will
focus our attention. They said that they were in the
way going up to Jerusalem. In the way. The scripture says
the way to God is a singular one, that there is only one way
to God Almighty. And it also says that there is
a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof, the end
of that way of man, is death and destruction. In other words,
there is one way to God Almighty, and it is the right way. And
then there's a way that man thinks is right, the right way to get
to God, and it's the wrong way. It's exactly the opposite. It's
the other direction. These ways of man, this way of
man, first of all, is the way of the world. The way of the
world, that is, fleshly materialism, which all men and women by nature
are consumed with. All men and women by nature are
in the way. We're all consumed with this
world, the riches of this world. We're consumed with having it,
we're consumed with enjoying it, and we're totally taken up
with this way. And the scripture says this way
is death and destruction. To remain in that way is to die
eternally. To remain consumed with this
world, its pleasure is death, spiritual death. its carnality,
its worldliness, and its spiritual death. And then there's the way
of pride. The way of pride. The scripture
says, he that exalteth himself shall be abased. God said he
hates the pride of man. And he'll humble it. Six things,
he said, my soul hates. Yes, seven are abomination to
me. And the first, he said, the first thing God hates, the thing
he hates the most, he said, was pride. Why is that? Because what do you have that
you have not received? It's by the grace of God that
we are what we are, that we have what we have, yet men and women
are full of. man by nature, men and women,
children, are full of pride. Proud of themselves, proud of
what they do, thinking we're something when we're nothing.
When God Almighty is responsible for all that we have, he's given
us everything we have. So this way of pride, and I might
mention this, our generation is going more in that direction. Everything you see on television
and all appeals to the prides of man, doesn't it? You are somebody. The world, the material world
wants us to think you're somebody. You're worth it. Go ahead, use
Clairol. You're worth it. Use the best. Love yourself, you know, is what
the world said. That's not what the Bible said. Did you remember reading that,
where Christ said to he that saveth his life in this world,
he that saveth his life will lose it? He that loveth his life
in this world will lose it, Christ said. You see that? There is
a way that seems right to man. Love yourself. And even religion
is headed in that direction, aren't it? Even religion says,
if you're somebody, God needs you, God wants you, God has wonderful
plans for you, if you'll just Exercise your sovereign will
and let him do what he wants to do. That's the wrong way. Ain't nobody gonna get to God
like that. That's the wrong way. Then there's
the way of religion. The way that seems right but
is wrong is religion. And oh, we're full of it. Just
drive down the street and you can, you don't even, if you look
to the side, Drive down the street and you just have to look up
every two or three miles and see a church house. Religion. Our land is full of religion,
isn't it? Religion. And this church thinks they're
right. And this church thinks they're right. And I might add,
our church thinks we're right. No. I take that back. Our church
thinks God's right. And everybody else is wrong.
Everybody else doesn't go God's way, doesn't worship God's way.
We say they're wrong. Anybody worships God the way
God says to worship, we say, no, they're right, they're in
the right way. But everybody thinks their way is right. Self-righteousness. I myself, even me myself, I've
got the right answers. Do you now? Do you? Yes, you
must, here's what they say, you better keep the Ten Commandments,
I'll tell you that. One woman I worked with on a railroad before
said, I don't know much about the Bible, but And boy, when
I hear somebody say that, I say, well, why in the world are you
going to open your big mouth for? If you don't know much about
the Bible, what in the world are you, what business have you
got even speaking? I want to talk to somebody that
knows something about the Bible, see what God says. Not interested
in what you think. I don't know much about the Bible,
she said, but I tell you this, you better keep the Ten Commandments. Well, she sure doesn't know much
about the Bible. Scripture says all have sinned and come far
short of the glory of God. It says defending one point is
guilty of all. It says the law is spiritual.
We can't keep the law to perfection because it requires an inward
perfection. She sure don't know much about
the Bible. Self-righteousness is the wrong way. Works of the
law are the wrong way. Keeping the Ten Commandments
is the wrong way. It's the wrong way. Try to go that way, you'll
go to hell. Why? God requires perfection. Perfection. Not just the best
that you can do. Perfection. He said in Leviticus
22, 21, it shall be perfect to be accepted. Perfect. God's perfect. He requires perfection. He's
a perfectionist. And we must be too. We want to
get to God. Okay, that tells me then that
my ways are not God's ways. What is God's way? How do we
get to heaven? There's one way. One way to God. And the scripture says, Christ
said, I am the way. That is, by Christ being my righteous
substitute, my righteousness, the one, the man who stood before
God Almighty for me and lived a perfect life, not only outwardly,
but inwardly in thought and word and deed. Perfect, jot for jot,
tittle for tittle, line upon line, precept upon precept. And
he said before, God and man, nobody can convince me of sin. I've done it to perfection. And that's my substitute. And
I come to him by faith and said, would you take me in? Would you
take me in? He says, I will. Everybody that
comes to him, he says, I'll take you. So Christ must be my righteousness. His blood must be shed for my
redemption. God says the soul that sins must
surely die. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission, no forgiveness of sin. God says my blood's got
to go, got to be shed. I got to be killed. But Christ was killed for me.
He was crucified for me. I was crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, but it's not me living, it's Christ in
me. Christ is my hope of glory. Salvation is God's way, not a
way I think, not the way that most men say. Salvation is God's
way. Now, let me illustrate. Turn
with me to Jude, verse 11. The book of Jude, right before
Revelation, the last little epistle there. Jude, verse 11. There is one way to God Almighty.
One way. Let me illustrate. There's a couple of fellas in
the scripture. There's been quite a few, but
a couple of fellas who bore similar names. One was named Uzziah,
and another one was named Uzziah. Uzziah was a religious man. He
was a priest before God, and one day he took it upon himself.
One day he got to thinking pretty big, pretty good thoughts about
himself. I'm a priest, I'm a king. Well, he thought he was a priest,
he was a king. He was a king, he wasn't a priest. But he was
a king and he thought he was somebody, God's king, so he thought,
well, I'd like to be priest. And he took it upon himself one
day to go into the temple and offer sacrifices. Now, God said
only the priest can do that, which was a picture of Christ.
God said, only the priest can go into the temple and offer
sacrifices, only the priest. But Uzziah said, well, I'm going
to bypass that way. God said, that way. That's the
way you come to God, with a high priest and a sacrifice. But Uzziah
said, no, I think I'll try it my way. I like to do things,
I don't like the way they're doing it anyway, and they're
coming out, they've got blood all over them, it's nasty. I'm
going to do it my way. So he walked into that temple,
the priest begged him, don't do this. Don't do this." And
they drove that man out of there a leper. He didn't come God's
way. He tried it his own way. Then
there was another man named Uzzah. Now, this was a man of good intentions.
He was a moral man. He was religious, too. He was
following the ark of God. David was bringing back the ark,
which had been captured by the Philistine. And all these people
were following the ark. He was a man. He was sitting
in church. He was reading his Bible. singing the songs, nice,
good, moral, upright man, carrying the ark in, was the picture of
the gospel. And the ark stumbled a little bit. At least he thought
it did. He thought it was going to fall. He thought the gospel
wasn't good enough. He thought the ark wasn't going
to make it, so he wasn't going to help it out. He didn't think God's power and
God's strength was in the ark, so he thought, it's going to
fall, I've got to help it. And he reached up to steady the
ark. That was good intentions, wasn't it? Dead wrong. He reached up and just touched
that ark, which is a picture of the gospel. And God killed
him. Right there. Why? David was so confused. He got mad at God. Why did you
do this? Kill this man? He's just standing
in the ark. He's just doing the best he could. He's just trying
to help it out because that ark is my gospel. That ark's a picture
of my son who is the ark. You don't lay a hand on him.
You don't help him. You don't touch the gospel. You
don't add your works to it. You don't do what you think ought
to be done. The ark's enough. It'll stand by itself. You don't
help it out with your faith or your works or whatever. Leave
it alone. Christ alone is salvation. Get your dirty, filthy, rotten
hands off of it, or I'll kill you. That's what God said. Seemingly
insignificant thing, what? There's one way. And buddy, it's
strict. Look here at Jude 11. Jude chapter,
or Jude verse 11. I want to say chapter, Jude 11. Here he speaks of three different
types of people. And they try to get to God three
different ways, which are really one and the same. And this is
what our generation is guilty of. Verse 11, James says, Woe
unto them. He said they're brute beasts
in verse 10. Brute beasts. They don't have any understanding.
They're just like animals. What's wrong with them? Don't have the
understanding of God. They've gone the way of Cain.
What's the way of Cain? Well, Cain, now here's another
one. Cain was a religious man. God says, you must worship me.
So Cain came worshiping, came to church one day. What did he
bring? Had to come. What was the way Cain came? His
works. He'd raised him a garden. Raised
him a nice garden. That was a pretty garden. It
looked good. And he bought them a big basket
full of the fresh fruits, the best fruits, the best things.
The shiniest apples, the prettiest cucumbers. And he laid them all
on the altar and decorated with flowers. And King got him a robe
out, you know, and put a cross around his neck and put his hands
together like this. And there's my life. God, I'm
giving you the best I've got. That's Jesus. And the fire of God fell, and
God was angry. Roth says, angry with Cain. Why? He did the best he could. He was sincere, wasn't he? Yeah, he was. Cain was more sincere
than anybody. Anybody. He did the best he could. He bought the best that his hands
could offer. That's not the way God said to
come. Don't bring me your morality.
Don't bring me your works. Don't bring me the best you've
got. Bring me the best I've got. Bring that which I provide. Something
you don't have anything to do with. Salvation's about grace.
Salvation ain't about grace plus your works. Salvation's about
grace. Pure 100%. Not 99 and 44 100% pure. But it's pure.
Grace. It's either grace or it's works.
It's either works or it's grace. God says it's grace. It's what
I provide. He said, you bring a bloody lamb,
bring the blood. Abel brought that lamb, he didn't
have anything to do with it. God raised the lamb. God raised
the lamb, gave life to the lamb, gave it to Abel. Abel just flicked
his neck and said, here, Lord, this is what you require. I don't
understand all about it, but here it is. God says, please. It's a picture of Christ. Christ,
who was sent by God, offered by God. the blood of Christ,
that which God provides? That's the way of Cain. And look
here, and it said they went the way of Cain, and this is what
our religious generations do, bringing the best they've got
to God, they're dressing themselves up in their works and this and
that and the other. God won't take it. He won't accept it. I don't
care how sincere. If we're going by sincerity,
then the Moslems got all us good Christians beat all the pieces.
If God accepts sincerity, he has to save the Muslims, the
Islamics, the Hindus, the Buddhists. Those people, flagellators, flailing
themselves with quips, crawl on the ground for miles, make
their pilgrimages to Mecca, sincere about what they're doing. Now,
God said it in one word. He said it in one way. And it says they ran greedily
after the error of Balaam for reward. Boy, here's our generation.
You look at verse 11. It says they ran greedily after
the error of Balaam. Now, there's another religious
man. You notice how all these people were religious? Balaam
was another one. And what did he do? He was a
religious man for money. Reward. Now, if you send me If you send
me a hundred dollars, God will give you a thousand back. Oh,
that's good. What is that? That's a hundred
percent markup. That's a whole lot better than
Thanksgiving. Well, I'd be a fool not to send it, wouldn't I? That's
what Oral and the boys say. Bobby and the boys. They say,
send me this and God will do that. That's a good deal. No,
that's the way of Balaam. That means you're not worshipping
God because God ought to be worshipped. You're worshipping God for what
you can get out of Him. A handout. God, you sugar daddy. God ain't
nobody's sugar daddy. God's God. God is to be worshipped
whether you get anything out of Him or not. That's what John
Calvin said. He said, if I found out my name
wasn't written in the Lamb's Book of Life, I'd serve God anyway
because He's God. And He ought to be served. He
ought to be worshipped. That's the way of Beto. Get what
you can get out of God. And here's the third set. Korah. Now here's another religious
bunch. A man and his family. A man named Korah and his boys.
They built that church. They built that church. Korah
and the boys. What did Korah and the boys do?
Sons of Korah. What did they do? Well, God had
one prophet. one man named Moses. And God
said, him and him only will I speak to, or be spoken to by. Right? Him. He's my spokesman, and he's
the one I'll speak to, and if you're going to learn anything,
you're going to have to hear it from him. You're going to have to hear Moses preach.
Oh, now, Cora and the boys are sitting there waiting now. We've
got a mind of our own. We've got a mind of our own.
I don't have to come to church to be saved. I don't have to
come to church to worship God. I can worship God my own way.
I don't have to hear this preacher, this guy, get up there and talk
like a fool. I don't have to do that. Who does Moses think
he is anyway? Moses doesn't think he's anybody.
Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth. He didn't
think he was anybody. He just did what God said. Preach,
Moses. All right. Well, I ain't sure.
Lord, I can't. I'm not going to do it anyway.
All right, then. And Cora and the boys said, we
don't like the way he preaches. You know what happened? Who does
he think he is? God hasn't spoken about you only.
Moses never said that. God did though. And God opened the ground up
and killed those fellas. If you won't hear my prophet,
you won't live. You won't live. One way to God. One way to God. And the Scriptures
call it a straight and narrow way. Straight and narrow way.
I've got to get to my message here. There's a broad and a wide
and a comfortable way that leads to hell. A broad way. People say, anyway. Anyway. As long as you're sincere. Anyway. Go your own way. God's love is
so broad. God loves so many people. God
loves everybody. It doesn't matter how you worship
as long as you're sincere. This is what the religious generation
said. It doesn't matter how you come
to God or really what kind of God you worship as long as you're
sincere. Right? It's broad. It's wide. God loves everybody. Just come.
Just do what you can. Just get there, you know. God
will receive you. No? Christ said that's the broad
way that leads to destruction. There's one way, one straight
and narrow way, one way, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one calling, one hope of your calling, one Holy Spirit, one
way that is Christ. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there's none other name unto heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not
Krishna, Christ. You go by Krishna, you die. You
come to Christ, you live. Simple as that. Right? One way. One way. Christ, through him. His life, his death, his resurrection. And it's a straight way, the
scripture said. Not a roundabout way. Not a roundabout
way, but a straight way. Not a way you think is better,
but a straight way. You better head in that direction.
This is all the preacher is supposed to do. Like Moses holding up
that pole. This is all the preacher is doing,
really. Just holding up the pole. Look! You better look to Christ.
Don't look anywhere else, look to Christ. As long as he holds
that pole up, he's good for something. The minute he drops that pole
and has you looking somewhere else, God will kill him and you
with him. Let me illustrate this. Salvation
is looking in one direction, looking to Christ. Look unto
me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. If I'm God,
there's none of us, there's just one, God said. One God, one Lord,
one way of salvation. God says you better look to me,
you better have the right one. He says there's plenty of people
that have got a God of their own imagination. Scripture, scripture,
scripture. People worshiping a God of their
own, an image of God, the way they think God is. God said,
you better look unto me now, as other gods better not look,
better look to me. Look to Christ. I was sailing
one time with five other men on a boat. We sailed 850 miles
down the Atlantic coast on a sailboat. And we were coming into a—we
left Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and we came into a little small—we
had to get some supplies on down the—start to say the road—on
down the sea. And I'm a landlubber, see? We
went down, sailed down the way, about 50 miles or so, and we
come into this little port called Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts. I didn't
have the foggiest, no pun intended, foggiest idea where we were headed.
We were in the fog. I mean, it was thick fog. And
the captain of the ship, though, he had charts, he had compasses,
he had a radar, he'd been there before, and he said, we're headed
this direction. And he said, now you go out there.
He told me, Greenhorn, he wouldn't get my feet wet. I thought he
was going to do it literally. I was going to fall in. He said,
get on the bow of the ship, and you look, and you watch now.
I want you to sight and tell me when you see, land and hold. Boy, what an experience. Well, I was on the point of that
boat, and I was looking. I didn't see a thing. I couldn't
even see my hand in front of my face. We were in the fog. But that don't know where he
was going he had charts and cups and he knew the way you know
you look right through those clouds there but I can't say. I can't say. He said you keep
looking right here don't look right look we're going in the
right direction. He said you look and you'll see a lighthouse.
So I looked. What happened if I looked over
here I'd have never seen it. I don't see it. I ain't got trouble
with it. I don't care. So you look ahead. I looked and
for a long, I saw a little light blinking. I see it. I see it. We're headed the right
way. I told you. He said, I know, I know where
we're going. And God says, look to Christ. I can't see anybody.
Look to him anyway. You see a little light blinking.
I see him a little bit. You hear the guy? I see him.
And the more you look, the more you'll see. And so finally we
ran up into that man, the guy knew what he was doing, I'm telling
you. He pulled right up in the dock like he's parking a car.
I thought, my, my. My, my. And then I saw clarity.
We're here! We're here. God says there's
one way. Look to Christ. It's straight.
It's straight. Straight to Him. And it's narrow.
There's no room for boasting. What if I said, you captain,
we got there because I was looking. He would laugh me to scorn. We got there because the captain
was guarding the ship. He just told me where to look.
I got there because I was on the right boat. The way is narrow,
no room for boasting, no room for pride, no room for my work,
no room for my decision on Jesus. It's all his decision for me. No room for it. Somebody said
this way is so narrow that you've got to take your clothes off
to get in. You ever been in a real cave? I used to go into some
caves in Kentucky, mammoth caves and all. And there's some places
in that cave that's so narrow that you'd just about have to,
if you had a lot of clothes on, you'd just about have to take
your clothes off and squeeze by. And the Scripture says the way
is so narrow Salvation is so narrow, you've got to take off
your filthy rags. You've got to take them off. You've got to come naked before
God. I don't care if it's a security blanket you've had all your life.
But I've never smoked. Take that off. That ain't gonna
get you in. But niggers never touch my lips.
You better take that filthy rag of your righteousness off. God's
not paying any attention to that. Naked! I don't care how long you've
carried that little security blanket. I'm attending church. Naked, in my hands, no price
I bring, simply to thy cross I claim. Naked before God Almighty. It's a solitary way. You all
that are in the way, now these disciples are in the way. It's
a lonely way. Get it? It's lonely. Because
the world out there, you work out there on a job and ain't
one, you're one among a thousand. Like old Elijah, you're one among
850 people. You think, I'm the only one,
nobody else. Doesn't anybody want to seek
after God and know the truth? Isn't anybody wanting to really
worship God? And everybody just sits and plays
church. It's a solitary way, isn't it?
You think, isn't anybody out there? And so a solitary people
get together every now and then in comfort one another. And then
it's the way of the grave. It's the way of death. Except
the corn of wheat fall in the ground and die. Look at the text
again, verse 32, Mark 10, 32. And they were in the way going
up to Jerusalem. The way up. It wasn't a downhill
road. It's all downhill from here.
No mountain. It's all uphill from here. Christ never promised
you a rose garden like these fools are saying on TV. He never
promised you you'd ever be able to be paid. I don't find that
in the Scriptures anywhere. I see where he says he must,
through much tribulation, enter the kingdom of heaven. He said,
now your problems are just beginning because they hated me, they're
going to hate you. They persecuted me, they're going to persecute
you. You're not going to have it easy, you're going to have it hard.
But you're going to have it easy with God. It's an all uphill, difficult,
long, upward climb. No end in sight, really. I would
say it's another illustration. I went to Mexico three times. The first time I went down there,
I was just a young boy, about 13 years old. And this is good. We climbed up the pyramids. You
see those pictures of the pyramids? Oops, small. It's a Chichen Itza. Pyramids. There's a passageway,
one passageway inside one of those pyramids that if you walk
up to it, walk up that passageway, right at the top you'll see a
green god statue. Well, it's supposed to be a solid
jade, you know, beautiful thing. Well, I wanted to see it. And
so we started to climb. Now, when we started out, the
passageway, normal door, you know, go in this door. Is that
it? Yeah, sure. Go in that door and go up that
little passageway. You'll see that cat up there.
It looked too tough to me, so I walked in the door. Hey, it's
easy. And I looked. And there was a stairway that
you had to bend over to walk up, and it was about this