Mark chapter 10 and verse 17. And when he was gone forth into
the way, that is the Lord Jesus, there came one running and kneeled
to him and asked him, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why
callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that
is God. Thou knowest the commandments,
do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear
false witness, defraud not, honour thy father and mother. And he
answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from
my youth. Then Jesus, beholding him, loved
him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven. And come, take up thy cross,
and follow me. And he was sad at that saying,
and went away grieved, for he had great possessions. And Jesus
looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. The
disciples were astonished at his words, but Jesus answereth
again and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that
trust in riches to enter into 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 into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished
out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus, looking upon them,
saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God
all things are possible. Then Peter began to say unto
him, Lo, we have left all and have followed thee. Jesus answered
and said, Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left
house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands for my sake and the Gospels. But he
shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and
brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions
and in the world to come eternal life. But many that at first
shall be last and the last first. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The Lord Jesus Christ, having
recently spoken about coming to him as a little child, now
encounters a young man whose own coming to the Saviour seems
to be very thoughtful, very commendable, and very sincere. In fact, as we read the accounts
of this young man's coming to the Lord, everything about this
young man's life seems to suggest that he is ripe for salvation. Someone once said that he's the
kind of person that you would love to have in your congregation. The sort of person that you would
like to have in your fellowship or indeed the sort of person
that you would like your daughter to date. He was a rich young
ruler and he seemed to be very earnest and sincere in his approach
to the Lord and very upright and moral in the way in which
he lived. But appearances can be deceiving. And this man came to Christ. Indeed, he ran to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And when he arrived at the Lord
Jesus Christ, he bowed down before the Lord. And yet he did not
come as a little child would come. He did not come with that
humility with which a little child would come. That awareness
of need. and in the end he left the presence
of the Saviour grieved and sorrowful. There is much for us to learn
from this passage before us today. The reading that we made, as
I mentioned, was fairly extensive and it divides into three distinct
parts, I think. First, there's the meeting of
the rich young ruler with the Lord Jesus Christ and there's
the Lord's subsequent observation about the hurdle of riches for
those who would enter into the kingdom of God or enter into
the awareness of grace in this gospel dispensation. And second,
there's the amazement expressed by the disciples at the Lord's
comments. about rich people entering the
kingdom of God. And that culminates in them asking,
who then can be saved? If this man, if this ostensibly, outwardly commendable
man is not amongst those who are saved, then who can be saved? And the Lord's reply, with men
it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things
are possible. And the third thing that I want
just to touch upon today is the Lord's statement at the end of
our reading, of the last being first and the first being last. And we're reminded, just as we
go through this sort of opening few remarks, we're reminded that
the principal purpose, again, of the Lord's ministry is the
teaching of his disciples. As he progresses towards Jerusalem,
as he heads towards that city where he knows he will be taken
by the religious leaders and sentenced by Pilate to death,
where he knows he will go to the cross for the redemption
of his people and that great work of redemption and salvation
that he will effect. The run-up to that great work
is filled with him teaching his disciples for their own subsequent
gospel service. And I feel sure that the displeasure
of the Lord at the way in which the disciples hindered the little
children very recently from coming to him, coupled with their amazement
at the Lord's response to the rich young ruler, are connected. Right here, in this contrast
between the little children that they tried to stop coming to
the Lord, and this rich young ruler whom everybody was delighted
to see coming to the Lord. In that very comparison, there
was an object lesson given to the disciples about sovereign
grace, which I am sure they never forgot. Now there's much said
in this passage that recommends this young man to us and certainly
it recommended itself to the disciples. He's respectful, he's
eager, he comes running to the Lord and it appears he is honest
with the Lord in everything that he says. His question to the
Lord, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal
life? That question is one of the most
heartfelt and profound questions in the whole of scripture. It's
right up there with Nicodemus' question, how can these things
be? Or with the question of Saul
of Tarsus on the Damascus road, Lord, what will thou have me
to do? Or the Philippian jailer's question
as he came running to Paul and Silas, sirs, what must I do to
be saved? It's right up there with those
questions. We would be thrilled to have
anyone come to us and ask of us such a question. What must
I do to inherit eternal life? I'm not going to repeat the story
of this young man's approach to the Lord. I wrote about it
yesterday in the introduction that I sent out to you, and we've
read it again today. So the facts of the story I trust
you're familiar with. But I want to point out a couple
of things regarding this rich young ruler and his approach
to the Lord, and then we're also going to touch upon the last
two points, or the other two points that I mentioned. But
notice this first, here is the first thing and the largest thing
really with respect to this rich young ruler. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
once mention faith or believing to this man. Let me ask you, What preacher
have you ever encountered when confronted with the question
that this young man asked of the Lord, what shall I do that
I may inherit eternal life? What preacher have you ever encountered
when confronted with that question would not have said, Just believe
in Christ. Simply trust in Jesus or give
your heart to the Lord. That is the stock answer that
would be given in response to such a question. And yet that was not what the
Lord said. More, let me point this out to
you. What evangelical or what self-respecting Protestant, to
enlarge it even more, would ever have pointed such a fellow back
to works, telling him about the commandments not to kill, or
to steal, or to lie, or to commit adultery. We cry out Constantly. It's faith, not works. But the Lord's wisdom in this
matter is simply this. Here, this man did not know that
he was a sinner. He did not know that he was a
sinner. He hadn't killed anybody. He didn't tell lies. He was careful
not to steal. He didn't have to steal. He was
rich. What would he have to steal for? He really was hungry. He didn't steal. And he'd never
committed adultery, this young man. And he assumed that he was fulfilling
the law of God in every detail. He took the Ten Commandments
seriously. and he took them literally as
a measure of his life and his conduct, as his rule of life,
if you like. And he had no concept of the
spiritual force or the spiritual extent of those commandments. The Holy Spirit had neither convicted
this man of sin, nor convinced him of righteousness. This rich
young ruler, despite his strict upbringing, had assumptions of self-righteousness. And even his religious enthusiasm
didn't help him to understand the true nature of his heart. He needed to understand sin before
he could appreciate a saviour. And the Lord explained to him
the true spiritual nature of the law by one simple application. regarding or concerning his love
of money, and the dominion that that affection for his riches
held over his heart. It was as though the Lord said,
you call me good, and rightly so, because I am God, and thou
shalt have no other gods before me, The trouble is, rich young
ruler, you do, you do. You do have other gods before
me. Wealth is your god. It is wealth
that rules your heart. Now give that up and follow me. But of course, the young man
could not. He fell at the first hurdle,
the first commandment, and he couldn't get up again. Ashamed,
confounded, he withdrew sorrowfully from the presence of the Lord.
And as far as we know, he never returned to Christ. Now let me
just be clear on a point here in case there is any doubt or
confusion. You don't get eternal life. This young man said that he wanted
eternal life. You don't get eternal life by
giving all your money away, by your self-sacrifice. by giving
away your wealth. That's not what the Lord was
saying. The Lord was pointing out the
true spiritual nature of the law. He was revealing to this
young man his own inability to keep the law. Having stumbled
and fallen at the very first commandment, how could he imagine
that he had kept all 10? And he knew that having failed
in one, he had failed in all. The lesson for the rich young
ruler, the lesson for the disciples, and the lesson for you and for
me as well, is the absolute necessity of imputed righteousness. Knowing that we can never obtain
true righteousness, complete righteousness, full righteousness,
by obedience to the law. No amount of human effort can
satisfy the spiritual demands of God's holy law, or the tenor
of these words, as God himself calls it. And preachers can try
to entice and even enforce faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But
this rich young ruler shows us that if you do not know who the
Saviour is, and you cannot know who the Saviour is if you do
not know what sin is. If you do not know why you need
a saviour, you've no use for his forgiveness and you've no
desire for his righteousness. Why would you need grace when
you can please God by yourself? And the Lord's imagery here of
the camel passing through the eye of the needle it simply emphasises
the point. Humanly speaking, a camel going
through the eye of a needle, and we're not trying to find
any metaphors in this, but humanly speaking, a camel going through
the eye of a needle is preposterous. It's even amusing to conceive
of it and imagine it. The lesson is this, despite all
the outward indications of eligibility or suitability, it is only divine
grace that saves. It is only divine grace that
bestows eternal life, because it is only through righteousness
imputed that a man or a woman or a boy or a girl will ever
be holy before God and ever stand in his presence. Here's the second
point that I want to draw your attention to today. The disciples
were bewildered at this conversation that took place between the rich
young ruler. And as it unfolded, and especially
with respect to the Lord's words concerning rich men hardly entering
the kingdom. The disciples were confounded. Matthew says that they were exceedingly
amazed and Mark says that they were astonished out of measure. So it appears that it was not
only the assumptions of the rich young ruler that had to be overturned
that day. These disciples too had their
assumptions overturned as they watched what was transpiring
between the Lord and this young man. They found that their own
expectations had been upended as well. their notions of the
establishment of an earthly kingdom ruled by Christ, an enduring
empire if you like, to which the great and the good would
flock and over which Christ would reign with those disciples by
his side, was deeply entrenched in their minds and they couldn't
get rid of it. We've seen it time and time again. Despite the Lord carefully, patiently
explaining the reality to them, this was stuck in their minds
and in their imaginations. To them, this rich young ruler
was exactly the kind of person they imagined would rally to
the cause of Christ and populate this kingdom that was about to
be established. And we're reminded of God's words
to Samuel when we read about the disciples' astonishment here. The Lord said to Samuel, The
Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but God looketh on the heart. Outwardly this young
man had everything, but God saw his heart and he knew his heart. and he knew the blackness of
that heart and the sinfulness of that heart and he knew that
it had never been cleansed and he knew that there was no righteousness
in it. The Apostle Paul, he employs
the same phrase to the Corinthians so that the Old Testament and
the New Testament agree. The Lord seeth not as man seeth,
for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh
on the heart. We are prone, too prone, to take
outward appearance of religion as evidence of an inward experience
of grace. and we are wrong to do so. We
fail to grasp just how radical the concept of salvation by grace
is. The disciples struggled with
it and we still struggle with it today. Grace is God's gift
and there is nothing within us that gives us any eligibility
or any principle or foremost right to its possession, not
by anything that we do or say. The truth is that there are lots
of rich young rulers amongst us who run to Jesus seeking eternal
life. It's the very essence of man's
religion. We run to Jesus seeking eternal
life. But the righteousness of these
people is of their own making, of their own confidence, in their
own strength. They have neither understood
the nature of sin, nor the depravity of their own hearts. They come
to negotiate with God, but we cannot negotiate with God. Ironically, I believe that this
rich young ruler was a very blessed man. And I say it for this reason. He was grieved to discover his
true spiritual state. But there are many who will only
discover their true spiritual state when it is too late. When they hear the Lord say,
depart from me, I never knew you. and there will be weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then, too, all self-righteous
will go away grieved. But this time they will go away
to hell and to outer darkness. I don't know if that young man
ever came back to the Lord. Perhaps he didn't. We've no reason
to think that he did. Except perhaps that he was grieved. Except perhaps that the Lord
had smiled upon him and loved him. And I trust indeed that
that rich young ruler subsequently found that there was grace extended
to him by the goodness of God and found his way back to the
Lord. Here's my third point and with
this we will be finished. Salvation by grace is what God
has decreed. There is no other salvation It
is only by the grace of God, by the forgiveness of sins, and
by imputed righteousness. We are only accepted with God
through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We are only justified
with God by the righteousness that he alone gives. All who come to God, all who
seek for eternal life, must come to God by way of Jesus Christ. He is the only suitable, way
to approach God. There is no other way. He is
the only substitute for sinners. He is the only worthy Redeemer. Jacob knew that. Jacob knew that
in the Old Testament. Job knew it. A Redeemer that
lives. is the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation
is a rare and exclusive privilege. What was it that the Lord talked
about? A peculiar treasure, a peculiar
people, a rare and exclusive privilege. Salvation is God's
free gift to his chosen people whom he loves. And men and women
imagine that grace is theirs for the asking, that salvation
is there for the taking, that eternal life is easily gained
by the coming, and it is not. Just ask the rich young ruler. Today preachers tell us that
it is our duty to believe the gospel. But that's not what Jesus
told the rich young ruler. Or they tell us that if we are
so willing to be saved, then God will reward our desire. But the very premise of free
will and the very premise of their free will preaching and
their duty faith is contrary to sovereign grace. The Apostle
Paul says, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
and that's what the rich young ruler did, but of God that showeth
mercy. If you are a believer, it is
only because God has chosen you to salvation. If you have eternal
life with God by Christ, it is only because God has laid the
desire on your heart and stirred your soul under a sense of sin
and conviction. Nothing about grace originates
in the heart of man. All we are and all we have is
sin and unless we see that and unless we are given to know that,
we will never desire the salvation that comes by Christ alone. Men say that the race is to the
swift and the battle is to the strong, the bread is to the wise
and riches to the men of understanding. But the Lord Jesus Christ says,
the first shall be last and the last shall be first. And however
we interpret this, whether in the context of this passage in
the Rich Young Ruler or more widely in all other areas of
life and more particularly in spiritual matters, the truth
of that saying is this, that the assumptions and the suppositions
of men will be wrong every time. and God will be glorified and
all his ways will be vindicated every time. Brothers and sisters,
friends, let us come humbly to Christ as little children might
come. Come not as proud, self-confident
graspers, pushing ourselves to the front of the line to get
God's blessings, but as poor sinners in need of mercy, as
grateful recipients of grace. May it be so, for His name's
sake. Well, we are going to have another
hymn now. Thank you very much for your
attention.