I invite you to turn with me
this morning to Mark chapter 12. We're gonna be looking at verses 28
through 34. And this is a continuation of
the business that we talked about last week. The Pharisees got
angry at our Lord because he gave a parable and they knew
that he spoke that parable against them. and they were angry, but
they smiled because of the crowd. I've been there and done this,
so I know how they react. And they smiled because of the
crowd and was quiet, but they quietly went away and then got
some men to go back and try to trap him in his words. They were
gonna set him up. And so this is just a continuation
of this, and actually it goes clear through verse 40. But we have in verses 28 through
34 a lesson kind of all in its own. My subject this morning,
and I believe it is the message contained in my text, is so close
and yet so far. Now let me read with you my text,
Mark 12, verse 28. And one of the scribes came,
and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that
he, that is our Lord, had answered them well, asked him, which is
the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, the first
of all the commandments is here, O Israel, the Lord our God is
one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. There's none other commandment
greater than these. And the scribe said unto him,
well, Master, thou hast said the truth, for there's one God,
and there's 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 his neighbor as himself is more
than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw
that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, thou art not
far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask
him any question. Now there can be little doubt
that this scribe was among the chosen to catch our Lord in his
words. But he differed in these other
men in that he held his peace and he listened to the Lord as
he reasoned with these men and he liked what the Lord had to
say. He gave assent to what our Lord
had to say. What our Lord said made sense
to him. And the Lord said to the scribe,
thou art not far from the kingdom of God. Now very quickly, let's
look at three things preserved for us in these verses. First of all, he said, which
is the first commandment? And being chosen for this secret
mission to catch the Lord in his words, the scribe had chosen
his subject carefully. And he believed he had a full
and complete understanding of his subject. Someone said this,
he probably debated on this subject often, no doubt. And he felt like he had some
advantage from his experience in this verse of scripture. And
one thing I remember from my past experience in the world
of religion is this, they love to debate. They live for it. They'll read on a subject, and
read it, and read it, and read it, and read it, and then they'll
ask you a question to get you on their home court, because
they feel like they got a home court advantage. And then they'll
lay into you. And the fact of it is, we all
love to debate and argue. It's in every one of us. Why? Because it affords us the
opportunity to impress others with our knowledge. That's why. But all these conversations which
were started to lead into a debate were cut short by our Lord who
dogmatically answered them and didn't give them any further
avenue to travel. You see, this is, if you're gonna
preach the gospel, if you're gonna teach the word of God,
it cannot be done in any other way except dogmatically. You have to, this is the truth,
not that. This is so, not this and that
and that. We don't speculate on the truth,
we declare it. We declare it. And I'm going
to tell you something. Nothing spiritual is ever gained
through debate. And I'm going to tell you something
else. Debate is not witnessing. Somebody comes up to you and
asks you a question and they're baiting you. So you give them,
to the best of your knowledge, you say something back out because
it's expected of you, and you say it, and boom, they slam the
door on you. That's not witnessing. In Titus 3.9, we're clearly instructed
to avoid foolish questions. Just avoid them altogether. And
genealogies and contentions. Contentions about what? Contentions. Any kind of contention. Avoid
it. Don't do it. And striving about
the law, for they're unprofitable and vain. And Paul told Timothy,
he said, foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that
they do gender strife. Here's what's going to happen.
There are going to be an argument. What are you going to gain by
that? You don't gain anything. We preach the truth in love.
We don't preach the truth to get an arguer. And then pay particular attention
to this one in 1 Timothy chapter six and verse three. And he talked
about this. He talked about declaring the
truth in love, preaching in love. And then he said, if any man
teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness, and I've told you enough times what godliness
is, that has to do with the whole character of God. That has to
do with these words, these wholesome words from Christ have to be
in harmony with the character of God. then this man is proud, listen
to this, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes
of words whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings. Avoid these things, just avoid
them. Perverse disputings of men with
corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is
godliness. From such withdraw thyself. And the gain in this verse, if
held to the context, is not talking about monetary gain, but gain
in favor with men and gain in reputation and office and authority. That's what it's talking about. But wicked as his motives may
have been, the Lord turns this thing into a learning experience
for us and for those believers who were gathered around him
when this scribe came to him with his question. Our Lord was
quick to take this subject and declare the absolute supremacy
of the triune God and the fact that the Trinity is one. He said,
the Lord our God is one Lord. One Lord. One in character. The Son doesn't
differ from the Father in character. Now you watch religion. They'll differ the Holy Spirit's
character from Christ, and they'll differ the Father's character
from Christ. And they show them all three
having different characters. But that's not so in the Scriptures.
You read the scriptures, they're one in character. They're one. Philip said this. He said, Lord,
show us the Father, and that'll do. That'll suffice us. Just show us the Father. He said,
Philip, have you been so long time with me? Have you not seen
the Father? He that has seen me has seen
the Father. You see what I'm saying? They're
one. The Lord our God is one Lord. And the Holy Ghost is sometimes
called the Spirit of Christ. You can read it in there. He's
called the Spirit of Christ. I think it's, is it 1 Peter or
2 Peter in there where he's talking about these men of old who prophesied
with the Spirit of Christ? Our God is one in character,
and our God is one in purpose. He's one in power. He's one in
wisdom. Our Lord said, no man taketh
my life from me. I lay my life down freely, and
I can take it up again. He's one in power, and they're
one in wisdom. The Lord our God is one Lord,
which means also He is one Jehovah. The whole triune Godhead is engaged
in our salvation, not just Christ. It pleased the Father to give
Him all preeminence. And Jesus Christ does have the
preeminence, Jesus Christ, but He took to Himself human flesh
as our representative and suffered and died on a cross for us. was
raised from the dead force ascended into glory and we ascended with
him. He has preeminence in that respect. But the Lord our God is one Lord. And to be taught of Christ is
to be taught of the Father. You know it confuses people in
John 6 when the Lord said except you eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood, you got no life in you. And they said, this man's
crazy, he's crazy. But at the same time, he said,
they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard of the Father, learned of the Father, he cometh unto
me. So to be taught of Christ is
to be taught of the Father. It's to have the gospel, the
mysteries of God, and the scriptures revealed unto us through the
Holy Ghost. And we all love him. Any man
who knows him loves him. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. That's pretty clear in the scriptures.
And we do love him, and we love him because he's God. We love
Him seeing who He is and knowing that the whole of His person
is engaged to the saving of our souls and nothing but our great
God is a deterrent to our love for Him. He's our God, we love
Him. And all these things, they just
contribute to that love. And then the second thing I want
you to see is our Lord's answer to the scribe's question. If
I understand what he's quoting from Deuteronomy 6, verses four
and five, it's that our great God demands from us a perfect
love, and if we have a perfect love, we will fulfill all the
law. In one place, he said, the whole
law is hinged on these first two commandments. Actually, the
first commandment. If you love God with all your
heart, soul, mind, and strength, you'll love your neighbor as
yourself. And if one loves God with a perfect
love, he won't transgress his law. And if he does, it's clear
evidence of his lack of love. Actually, to sin against law
is to sin against love because love is the fulfilling of the
law. That's what the scriptures say. And the second commandment,
same as the first, love your neighbor. And God commands from
men a perfect love and he provides this love in Christ. Now there's
where we go around. We look into this bottomless
pit, this empty soul of ours, and we look in there and we don't
see that love. We don't see that love that God
requires. I think about my salvation, I
think about how he engaged the entire Godhead to save my soul. I think about the suffering of
Christ. I think about his intercession for me in glory and his kindness
to me through his providence and through his preachers and
through the Holy Ghost. I think about these things and
it does generate a love in me for him, but not perfect. He requires perfect love. And I'll tell you something.
It says we're chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world that we should be holy, that is equal with God in character
and the harmony of it and without blame, justified, clear of all
wrongdoing, that we might be before him in
love. And I'm gonna tell you something,
I've turned that thing every which way and there's no other
way that I can see that fulfilled except by faith in Christ and
because of my union with him, I have a perfect love in Christ. And so I read that verse this
way, before him being loved. He's always loved me. He's always
loved me. How could he always love me? Because he chose me in Christ. He chose me in Christ. And in
Christ, He loves me. Loves me. He cannot but love
me. Because that's where He put me,
that's where He sees me, and that's how He saves me in His
Son. And John gives a clear explanation
of this commandment in 1 John 3, verse 23. He said, and this
is His commandment, And he singles this out because
it's the first and the greatest commandment. And upon this commandment
hangs all the other commandments. This is his commandment that
we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and
love one another as he gave us commandment. Now the law has but one design,
and that's to shut us up to faith in Christ. And the man who believes
on Christ He has exalted and honored the law, and he's done
it with the proper motive of love because he did it in Christ.
Now you can't keep that law. You can't have any kind of a
hope in that law. That law is fulfilled in Christ.
And we look to him, and that law is perfectly honored and
exalted. And then thirdly, I want us to
see what should be and what was to them a horrifying reality. Our Lord said to this man, thou
art not far from the kingdom of God. There wasn't a man in
that place who heard that scribe say what he said to the Lord
and heard our Lord commend him for it. And then here our Lord
said, you're not in the kingdom of God yet. But you're not far. You're close. You're close. This man knew some great truth
and he seemed to have some depth to his understanding and some
quality in his character and some insight as to whom he was
speaking. And I have over the years read
books that remind me of this scribe, seem to have the promise
of truth, but they came just short of it.
One I remember well was W.A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist
Church in Dallas, Texas. All I knew was what I had read
about God's sovereignty, and I ran to the Baptist bookstore,
and I started looking at Romans 9, and I'd go through there,
and I'd see what they had to say about Romans 9. If it was
good, I bought the book. And I bought his book. And he'd
go right up to it, right up to the edge, and stop. Right up
to the edge of election, and stop. Right up to the edge of
sovereignty, and stop. Right up to the edge of redemption,
accomplished, and then stop. The scribe had so much going
for him, and yet comes short of the truth. And I've known
men and women like that, so close and yet so far. I'll tell you
one, Demas. Paul called Demas his fellow
laborer. He went with Paul. He went with
him out into the jungles and out into the cities and out into
the marketplaces and took shipping with him and was right there
with him when he preached. Publicly identified himself.
And then Paul wrote this, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved
this present world. So close, and yet so far. It's a very real possibility
to be near to the kingdom of God and then fall short of it. And it is a fact. Brother Don
said this, and I wrote it down. It is a fact that many have been
on the very doorsteps of mercy, yet perished in unbelief. And this man was full of facts,
but he didn't know God. Knowing about Christ is not salvation. Knowing Christ is salvation. One of the old writers told a
story about a ship called the Royal Charter. And they sent
it out, and its mission was to completely circle the world in
the ship. And it did it. They did it. Out for a long, long, long time. And as it approached its home
port, it docked briefly in Queenstown, Ireland. not far from its home
port in Wales. And one of the sailors there
got off and telegraphed, the telegraph was in working order,
and telegraphed his wife and said, I'm in Queenstown and I'll
be home in just a few hours. He'd been gone an awful long
time. Boy, she went about preparing a meal for him and got herself
all dolled up, you know, and dressed, and just anxiously pacing
the floor waiting for him to come home, and she heard a knock
on the door. And they said, your husband's
ship was smashed on the rocks, and
he'd grounded at sea. between Queenstown, Ireland and
Wales. And he died in Mulfrie Bay, just
off the coast of Wales, and drowned. And her pastor, hearing the news,
ran over and tried to comfort her, and he said, as I took her
hands, and with a blank stare, she looked me right in the face,
and she said, so close, and then lost. So close, and then lost. That's what our Lord told the
scribe. So close, and then lost. Paul prayed, he said, oh, he
said, I don't wanna, having preached to others, find myself a castaway. And you can, I tell you, a man
can take a lot of comfort in things that he knows. But there's
no comfort in knowledge. The comfort's in the person.
And the person, he's our wisdom. And that's the kind of knowledge
we want. The son of God hath come and given us an understanding
that we may know him that's true. Now that's what we want. That's
what we, not to fill our head with facts. If I wanted to fill
your head with facts, I'd have a library from wall to wall up
here and be up here after church selling you books, giving you
books, whatever I can do. I don't want to fill your head
with facts. I want you to know Christ. I want you to find him. Find him and believe on him. All right.