Welcome morning. If you care
to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 19, that's where our
lesson will be taken from this morning. Matthew chapter 19. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, we bow in your thrice
holy presence, giving thanks that sinful men and women such
as we can come into your presence accepted. have our prayer heard
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank
you for a savior whose love means something, whose love moved him
to completely and fully save all of his people from all of
their sin. Father, how thankful we are.
And it is our earnest prayer this morning that his name would
be glorified and that you would enable us by your spirit to worship
you, to worship in spirit and in truth, to not just go through
the motions of religion, but to hear a word from thee and
be enabled to worship. Father, I pray you to apply your
word to our hearts that we might take it with us. It would help
and encourage us along the way that you would apply your word
to the hearts of your people to give life and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we continue to pray for
those who can't be with us, who are sick and hurting and in deep
waters. Father, we pray for them. We
pray for your hand of comfort and healing and direction upon
them. We ask you forgive us of our many sins and see us and
hear us only in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his sake and
in his name we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, the
title of our lesson this morning is Who Can Be Saved? I have three
points I hope that we can learn from this very familiar story
of the rich young ruler. The first point I want us to
be able to learn is this. No one can be saved by our works
of the law. It's impossible. Verse 16 of
Matthew chapter 19, and behold, one came and said unto him, good
master, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal
life? And he said unto him, why callest thou me good? There's
none good but one, and that is God. But if thou will enter into
life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, which Jesus
said, thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor
thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. The young man saith unto him,
all these things have I kept from my youth up, what lack I
yet? Now this young man has some commendable
traits. He was interested in salvation.
He was concerned about his soul. He was concerned about eternity.
And with these concerns, he came to the right person, didn't he?
He came to Christ. Mark says that he came in the
right way. Mark says he came running to
the Lord. There's an urgency in this matter
of coming to the Lord. And Mark says he kneeled before
the Lord. There's a reverence when he came
to the Lord. And really, there's nothing wrong
with his question. The Philippian jailer basically
asked the same question, didn't he? Serge, what must I do to
be saved? The problem, and you know this,
is the way that he asked the question. This young man is asking
this question like, if you'll tell me what God requires, I'll
do it. He really thought he could do
what God required. I mean, he really thought that.
Now, I know that this young man wasn't there to hear it, but
the Lord just showed us in the previous verses we looked at
last week, that he saved little children. He saves people who
spiritually are like little children. People who are helpless and completely
dependent on God to do everything for them, just like a little
child is dependent on their parents. And this man did not come as
a little child, did he? He didn't come helpless or dependent,
he came wanting to do some good works that he might earn his
way into heaven. And he really thought he was
able. He thought he was able to do some good works. Now, I
know he didn't get it, he didn't hear it, but the Lord showed
him he can't do any good works. If we would do good works, that
work must be perfect in order to be good. When the Lord asked
him, why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. What
he's telling us is, It's got to be God to be good. It's got
to be as perfect and as holy as God to be good. Our works,
if we would do a good work, they have to be as good as God would
do them. It can't be our best. It's got to be God's best in
order to be perfect, in order to be good and accepted. And
you'll think, well, we can't do that. Absolutely right. That's why the Lord said that.
Why callest thou me good? There's none good but God. You and I can't do anything good.
We can't do a good work. We can't even think good thoughts.
We can't see anything about God. We can't understand anything
about God. God will only accept the righteousness
of Christ because we can't produce any righteousness. We can't produce
anything good. And that's how this man was.
He was dead, he was blind, he couldn't see. But oh, he was
religious, wasn't he? He was religious. And he knew
what the scriptures say. He could quote them to you. He
knows the words, but he showed us he didn't know what the scriptures
mean. He knows the words, but he doesn't
know the message of the scriptures. He showed that he was ignorant
of the spirituality of the law. The law. doesn't just require
an outward obedience like this man has. The law requires inward
obedience. It's got to be perfect outwardly
and inwardly. And our heart, our dead, sinful
heart can't produce anything good. It can't. It's impossible. And I think this man inherently
knew it. I think he inherently knew he wasn't He hadn't arrived
yet. He's wanting to earn. He's wanting
to have eternal life. And he knew he hadn't got it
yet by his obedience to the law. Because when the Lord said, keep
the law, he said, which? Which? Give me one. What am I
missing here? What is the one? But that's not
possible, is it? To keep just one law. If we would
be saved, we've got to keep the whole law perfectly. And it's
interesting, the Lord doesn't quote all the Ten Commandments
to him. He leaves out the part about really the spirituality
of the law about God. And he just deals with the outward. Don't commit murder. Don't commit
adultery. Don't steal. Don't bear false witness. I'm
sure this man never done any of those things. I mean, I don't
think he's just saying that and lying about it. I really don't
think he'd ever done those things outwardly. But you'll notice
he left out love for God, didn't he? He left out love for God. He left out the N word and the
whole law hangs on that commandment. To love God and to love your
neighbor as yourself. And the Lord included here, love
your neighbor, but he left out the love for God and just dealt
with the outward. And when he did that, he exposed
this man's ignorance of the spirituality of the law. He exposed this man's
ignorance of himself. Like I said, he really thought
he could do some good work to earn salvation. He really thought
he could do something to make himself worthy to have eternal
life. So he's ignorant of himself.
He's ignorant of his sin nature, and he's ignorant of the purpose
of the law. The law was never given so we
could obey it and make ourselves righteous. The law was given
to show us how sinful we are. And this man just hadn't seen
it. He cannot see because he's blind. But now the Lord did tell
him the truth. Keep the law perfectly and you'll
be accepted. That's true. But our problem
is we have a sin nature that makes us unable, unwilling, not
to even have any desire to keep God's law. So none of us can
be saved by our works of the law. None of us can earn eternal
life by our works of religion. Right, here's the second point.
Who can be saved? Sinners can only be saved through
faith in Christ. Verse 21, Jesus said unto him,
that thou will be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give
to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven, and come
follow me. But when the young man heard
that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Now God always meets his people
at their point of rebellion. Always. He can just put his finger
right on it. He meets his people at their
point of rebellion every time. This man's point of rebellion He went away because he had great
possessions, and he didn't want to give them away. Really, the
problem wasn't his great possessions. It wasn't his love of those possessions.
He didn't love his neighbors himself. He wasn't willing to
give those things away, but, you know, where this manifested
itself was his great possessions. Now, there's nothing wrong with
being wealthy. Abraham, David, Solomon, Job
were all very, very wealthy men. is when you put your trust in
those things, in those riches. You think that's your refuge. You think that's what's going
to, you know, get you through when your riches are your God.
That's where we come into the problem. You know, Abraham was
a very wealthy man, but he believed God, didn't he? He trusted Christ. He told those kings of Sodom,
he said, I live to my end of God. I'm not going to take a
shoelace from you. He believed God. David was a very wealthy
man. Nobody was as wealthy as David
at that time, but how many times has David called himself poor
and needy, poor and needy? Solomon was a very wealthy man,
probably more wealthy than his father, but he showed his dependence
on God. When God said, ask whatever you
want, I'll give it to you. Solomon asked for wisdom. He said, I'm
too young to rule this nation. I don't know how to go out and
come in. He said, I have sense enough to come in out of the
rain. Lord, give me wisdom. He showed his dependence on God,
even though he was very wealthy. So there's nothing wrong with
wealth inherently, but this young man, his wealth was his God,
and he just could not give it up. Now, the issue is not financial
riches. The issue is faith in Christ. The issue is trusting Christ,
trusting him alone and following him. You know, our riches, to
our point of rebellion. Maybe it's not financial. Maybe
it's not, you know, our earthly wealth. But I'll tell you what
it is. It's what we think is our spiritual
wealth. That's the issue. And we're not
going to give those things up by nature. Our riches are our
works. That's the, you know, whatever,
however your point of rebellion manifests itself, that's what's
in all of our hearts. Our riches are our works, those
good works that we've done that we think has made us spiritually
wealthy. It's good works that we've done and we're not giving
them up because they give us some credit. They give us some
glory. They make us feel good about ourselves. It's self-righteousness. And if we don't give them up,
if God does not meet us at that point of rebellion and we don't
give them up, we'll be damned. You know, I say this all the
time, repentance is repentance from sin. It's turning from what
you used to trust in and turning to trust Christ. The thing we've
got to repent about is not what the world calls this open, horrible
sin. We've got to turn from the good
things we think we've done. Those things that we think we've
done that commend us to God, those are the things we've got
to turn from. We've got to turn away from them, count them but
done. Now, here at Hurricane Road Grace Church, Our riches
are probably not the works of the law. We've probably been
well taught enough. That keeps coming up in our mind
from our nature, but that's probably not the thing that we really
fight that much. We know that our flesh tells
us to trust in those things. We don't do it. And we certainly
are not going to say that out loud. We've at least been taught
well enough. I'm not going to say out loud, I'm trusting in
my works of the law, how well I've obeyed the law and trusted
in those things. But I'll tell you what our riches
could be. It could be our knowledge. Our riches could be our knowledge
of the scriptures, our knowledge of doctrine, our knowledge of
the truth. And we take pride in that. A
knowledge is not going to save you. is it? Christ saves. Our riches could be our talents,
the talents that we use in the service of God's kingdom and
the service of God's people. It could be our morality. Now,
it's true. You all act better than the general
population of this world. I mean, you ought to. I'm not,
you know, please understand, I'm not saying that that ought
not be the case. That ought to be the case. But
we can't trust in those things. Can't trust in those things.
Anything that we think we've done that gives us some credit,
that gives us even a leg up in this matter of salvation and
righteousness is our point of rebellion. It's what we're trusting
in something other than trusting in Christ alone. And if we're
one of God's own, God's going to meet us right there at that
point of rebellion. And he's going to break us right
there. Those things have to go. God's got to teach us to count
those things but done and throw them out. So we trust Christ
alone. That's the only people that God's
going to save. That's the only people God's
going to give eternal life are the people who trust in Christ
alone. Our Lord says, you throw those
things away and you come follow me. Well, following Christ is
trusting him. It's trusting that he is all
I need to be saved. You know when I'll be willing
to get rid of the dung heap of my works? When I see Christ as
my all. I'll gladly get rid of the dung
heap of my works. When I see that Christ is all
my righteousness, and my works don't add to it, I'll gladly
get rid of them. I'll gladly quit trusting them.
When I see Christ as my sanctification, Christ is my holiness, Christ
is my hope, Christ is my refuge, I'll quit trusting all this other
stuff that I've done and trust Him. That's following Him. And here's something else about
faith in Christ. Faith in Christ will give you
rest for your soul. You rest. when you know the work
is finished or Christ finished it. If the spirit ever lets us
hear him cry from the cross, it is finished. For me, I'll
rest. Faith in Christ gives you rest.
The law never gives you rest. This man, like I said, he probably
did keep the law outwardly. I mean, I don't, I just don't
think he was just saying it. I really do. The Apostle Paul
said that when he saw Tarsus is touching the righteousness
which is in law, he said, I was blameless. Nobody could say they
ever saw me do any of those things. I was blameless. But this young
man knew he was lacking something. He knew he was lacking something.
He just didn't know what it was. And I tell you what he was lacking.
This is what the Savior's telling him. You're lacking faith in
Christ. Salvation can only be received
by faith. It can't be earned, it's gotta
be received by faith. All right, here's the third thing.
Who can be saved? Sinners can only be saved by
God. Verse 23. Then said Jesus unto
his disciples, verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now again, remember we're not
talking just about financial wealth here and riches. The Lord
is not saying it's impossible for a financially wealthy person
to be saved. We know that because the whole
start of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they were all very
wealthy men, Job and David and Solomon. So what the Lord is
teaching us here, it's impossible. It's not hard. It's impossible
for a person to enter the kingdom of heaven by their own merit. by their own works, it's impossible. It's impossible for them to bring
those spiritual riches they think they've earned and enter into
heaven that way. It's impossible. It's impossible
for someone to make themselves righteous and enter the kingdom
of heaven. Salvation is not of works. It's by faith. The Apostle Paul
wrote a whole letter to the Church of Rome about that very subject.
Salvation is not by works, it's by faith. So it's impossible
for a sinner to save themselves. And that's the illustration the
Lord gives us here in verse 24. And again, I say unto you, it's
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Now, there are
people that you can read here that they'll tell you that the
Lord here is talking about the camel going through the eye of
a needle. There was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem that was
kind of shaped like the eye of a needle. I don't know why they
made it that way, but they did. And camels coming to the city
through trade or whatever, you could get a camel, you could
teach a camel to get down on its knees and shuffle through
that little opening that kind of looked like the eye of a needle.
It would be hard, but it could be done. Could be done. The Lord's
not talking about that. He's not talking about something
that's difficult, but you could eventually do. He's not talking
about something difficult. He's talking about something
that's impossible. Salvation by our works, our merit
is impossible. The Lord is talking about a camel.
I mean a camel actually going through the eye of a sewing needle.
I mean, I can hardly get thread to go through the eye of a sewing
needle. You certainly can't get a camel through that thing. It's
impossible. That's what the Lord's talking about. It's just, you
would think it's absurd, wouldn't you? To try to fit a camel through
the eye of an eagle. It's absurd for us to think that
we can earn our way to God by our works. Something else about
camels, camels They're dirty, rebellious animals. They spit
at people. They're just, from what I've
never really been around a camel, but from what I read about them,
they're kind of mean. They're stubborn as a mule. They're
just unclean. It's impossible for a camel to
be clean. Just like it's impossible for
sinners like us to make ourselves clean by our works. The Lord
here is talking about something that's impossible. I don't know
that the rich young ruler got that at this time. One of the
accounts of this story, one of the other gospels, says that
the Lord looked at him and loved him. That gives us some hope, doesn't
it? The Lord loved this man. I'm just confident He came back
at some point, it's just not recorded in scripture, but at
this time, he just didn't get what the Lord was teaching him.
But the disciples did. The disciples got what the Lord
was saying, and they looked at this young man. He's a Pharisee,
he's, I mean, just does everything just right. This rich young ruler,
this is what the disciples had to be thinking, this fella is
the best the human race has to offer under the law. The whole
human race, the Jews, he's the absolute best that we have under
the law. The way that we would grade somebody
by the way they're keeping the law, and they got what the Lord
was saying. It's impossible for that man
to be saved by his righteousness and by his works. It's impossible,
and he's the best. And the disciples were amazed
and ask the question that I'm asking in our lesson this morning,
who can be saved? Verse 25, when his disciples
heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can
be saved? But Jesus beheld them and said
unto them, with men, this is impossible, but with God, all
things are possible. Now the Lord, in case nobody
had gotten what he was saying in these examples and the way
he was dealing with this young man, he says it just point blank
so we can't miss it. Salvation is impossible by the
will of man, by the will of man, by the works of man, by anything
about man, it's impossible. But we're not without hope. All
things are possible with God. There's no case too hard for
God. Not only is the salvation of God's elect possible with
God, it's sure. It's certain. Salvation is accomplished. It's accomplished by the will
of God alone, by the work of God alone, by the grace and mercy
of God alone. Only God could choose a sinner. Only God. If you and I were choosing
who would be saved, it wouldn't be sinners. It'd be people we
loved or people we admired. There'd be something good about
them that would make us choose them. Only God could choose a
sinner when there's no reason whatsoever found in that sinner
for God to choose him. Only God could choose to save
sinners. Only God could put sin away. Only God could pay the
price. Only the blood of God could atone
for sin. Only the blood of God. pay for sin. Only the blood of
God could cleanse us from our sin. That's how filthy we are
in the sin. Only the blood of God could cleanse
us. Only God can give life to a dead sinner. How many times
did the Lord go through and raise someone from the dead? Nobody
could do that. I don't know if I want to say that's
nothing, but that's nothing compared to God giving spiritual life
to a dead sinner. Only God could do that. Only
God could give a new heart of faith and make that rebel believe
God and love God. Only God could do that. Only
God can break a sinner at their point of rebellion and make them
come to him begging for mercy. Only God can make that sinner
come to him in faith, believing that God can and will do exactly
what he promised. Only God could save a sinner.
Well, then who can be saved? Well, let me tell you. Everybody
God chose to save, they'll be saved. Everyone for whom Christ
died, they shall be saved. His death demands their salvation. Look at John chapter six. Now
these are all the same people. Everybody God chose to save,
they'll be saved. Everybody for whom Christ died,
they'll be saved. That's the same people. And thirdly,
everybody who comes to Christ will be saved. Everybody. Now
they're the same people. But look here at John 6 verse
37. All that the Father giveth me,
those that the Father elected and gave to Christ, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. Now that's not to say that we
can decide to be saved. We can choose and decide we're
going to come to Christ And we can be saved so that salvation
is up to our will to come to Christ, our ability to come to
Christ. That's not what the Lord is saying here. Salvation is
of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. The
Lord has to make us come to him. Look over at verse 44. No man
can come to me. We don't have the ability. Not
only do we not have the desire, we don't have the ability. No
man can come to me. except the Father, which has
sent me, draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. It's
written in the prophets, and they should be all taught of
God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of
the Father cometh unto me. All those that the Father chose
and gave to Christ, Christ died for them. He died to put away
their sin. They're gonna come to Christ.
They're going to come. You know why they're gonna come?
The Father's gonna draw them. The Spirit's going to draw them.
He's going to do it through the preaching of the gospel, to teach
them Christ, and they're going to come to Christ. Everybody here, you've been here
often enough. You've heard the gospel preached
often enough. You know how God saves sinners. You know, at least
up here, you know who and what you are. You know. You know what
the scripture says about Christ being the savior of sinners.
You know God has an elect people and those people shall be saved.
And people that have been taught that and steeped in that, I can
tell you this from my own experience, because of the deadness of our
nature, we tend to think, well, God's got elect people, whoever
be saved will be saved. And I'll just, you know, sit
around, wait and see. No, that's not how it works.
You don't, don't, Don't try to figure out if you're one of God's
elect before you come to Christ. Scripture doesn't say the elect
come to Christ. Scripture says sinners come to
Christ. You come to Christ because you're
a sinner who needs saving. Don't try to figure out, well,
now is it really the spirit drawing me or is it, you know, are you
a sinner? Do you need saving? Do you need
forgiveness? Do you need cleansing? You come
to Christ because you're a sinner who needs saving. The Savior
said, I'll not cast you out. You come to it. There's not one
example anywhere in scripture of somebody coming to the Lord
seeking mercy that didn't get it. Not one. You're not so special,
you won't be the first. Come to Christ. If you're weary
of trying and failing to make yourself good enough to have
eternal life, Quit it and come to Christ and have rest. If you're
thirsty, you long for it, you're thirsty for salvation, you're
thirsty for righteousness, you're thirsty for forgiveness that
you can't earn and that you don't deserve, just quit it. Come to
Christ and drink. And now we said, if a man thirsts,
let him come unto me and drink. Are you thirsty? Come and drink. Are you hungry? The Spirit and
the bride say come, come and dine. You know, if we're not
saved, It's not God's fault. It's not God's fault that he
didn't choose us. It's not God's fault that Christ didn't die
for us. It's not God's fault he didn't call us by his spirit.
It's our fault. If we're not saved, it's our
fault because we refused to come to Christ and beg for mercy.
We refused to come in faith and depend on him to do all the same
thing without our help. That's exactly right. Look back
at chapter five, John. Verse 40, and you will not come unto me
that you might have life. Now, if those people died without
spiritual life, whose fault is it? The Lord said, you will not
come unto me. It's our fault. But I tell you
this, if you come to Christ and God saves you, you come to him
begging for mercy, he has mercy on you, this is what you'll confess.
That's all God's doing. It's all God's doing. Everybody
God saves. This is their confession. God
chose me. God died for me. God forgave
me and God kept me. Salvation is of the Lord because
only the Lord could save somebody as sinful as me. If God saves
me and someday I awake in glory in Christ likeness, this is going
to be our eternal confession, our eternal song. God saved me. I hope the Lord bless that too.