If you will, turn with me to
Mark chapter 10. In Mark chapter 10, verses 17 through
27, is recorded the beginning of the
experience of grace in the life of a chosen sinner, not given
his name, We're told he was a rich young
ruler. That's all we're told about him.
And I don't have time this morning to read the account, but this
afternoon I encourage you to read all three accounts. In Matthew
chapter 19, you can find the account given, and in Luke chapter
18, and in Mark chapter 10. The lessons taught in these verses
and the experience of this young man is very much in common with
most sinners when they begin to, when the Lord begins to draw
them to himself. And you say, well, I just, how
do you get that this guy was being converted? How do you get,
it doesn't say that he was converted, it said that he walked away. When the Lord told him, answered
his questions, he was depressed and he walked away. So where
are you getting that this man was converted? Well, I'll tell
you how. The Lord looked at him and said he loved him. How? Jacob have I loved. Well, what
happened to Jacob? Because God loved him. He made
him an example of his election. He came to him in time and established
his covenant of grace in his heart. He converted old Jacob. He changed his name to Israel. My soul. He named and used him as a kind
of head of all his elect and shelled him that way in Romans
chapter nine. Said these things were said to
his mama, that Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand. Was this man converted? I guarantee you he was. I guarantee
you he was. God's love is effectual. But the lessons taught here and
the experience of this young man, we all have in common. And the lesson begins with the
Lord bringing the sinner to see his own ignorance and inability.
I think most of us, I'm not going to say everybody in here, but
most of us, we reached a certain age in life and if you knew anything
at all about religion, if you were taught anything at all about
religion, you come to that point in your life when you say, well,
I've got to You know, I've been avoiding this, I've been leaving
this off, and I need this, and so you go down and you join the
church and you do whatever they tell you you have to do. Whatever
church you were brought up in. It was nothing more than a religious
experience, but that's where the believer learns something
about his ignorance. The Lord takes that and shows
him. When the Lord began to work in
me, the first thing he did is begin to reveal to me the absolute
fallacy, the absolute ignorance in myself concerning God. And
that's the first thing he does with this sinner when he comes
to him. He come to him in a religious, oh, what's the word I wanna say? A delusion, a delusion. And the Lord, just from the get-go,
he said, good master, and the Lord just stopped him right there.
He said, why callest thou me good? Well, in religion, they
would greet you at the door and say, good brother. And this is
what the Lord did. He wanted this man to stop and
think about what he was saying. Why callest thou me good? They're
none good but God. None good but God. And all the
way through this thing, he shows this man his ignorance. And that's how we come. We come
to the Lord in ignorance, and we come to the Lord, if we come
in religion at all, we come in self-righteousness. He said,
what must I do to inherit eternal life? And he said, well, you
keep the law. Oh, I've already done that. That's self-righteousness. That's what that is. I've done
this from my youth up. This man got all excited. He
come running to Christ, the scripture said. He come running. He was a shrewd businessman.
And he looked into this thing of this man called Jesus. He looked into him quite a bit. He was impressed with him. And
he was anxious to get signed up, make a name for himself.
I actually believe when he first came, he came with the idea of
what he might contribute to the ministry of Christ. I think that's
how he came. What can I do to assist him? No hesitation, there was no cautious
proceeding, no reservations, no self-examinations, no thought. The fear of being turned away
never entered his mind. Nor did it enter the mind of
the Lord's disciples. Nobody thought this man would
be turned away. And then with a religious reverence,
no doubt something he picked up in the synagogue where he
went when he was a child, he knelt down before the Lord and
said these words, good master, What must I do? What must I do that I might inherit
eternal life? In Matthew's account, he said
that I might have eternal life. This young successful religious
man came under a general delusion that every son of Adam has and
will continue to have until the Lord intervenes in his life and
teaches him the truth. He'll keep operating on those
principles. He'll keep thinking along those
lines. And this delusion is a threefold
delusion. The first part of it is that
he thought that salvation could be attained by something he could
do. Now I'm telling you the truth. All you have to do is turn your
radio on. Turn your television on on Sunday morning. You'll
find it. You'll find it. You'll hear them. I don't care
what the name is above the door. They're all going to say the
same thing. There's something that you can do. Something you
can do. You can make a decision. You
can walk an aisle. You can sign a pledge card. Do
this, you can do that. All these things that you can
do. Surely there's something that a man can do to begin this
work of salvation or at least earn the right to obtain it.
That's how man thinks. He's under that delusion and
he'll stay under that delusion until he dies if God doesn't
intervene. But the scripture said, it's
not of him that willeth. Just because you want to be saved
doesn't mean God's gonna save you. It's not of him that willeth. And it's not of him that runneth. Nothing you can do to earn the
right to have this done to yourself, nothing. It's of God that showeth mercy. Now that's what the scripture
says. Paul said in Romans 9.31, but Israel, which followed after
the law of righteousness, have not attained to the law of righteousness,
wherefore, because they sought it not by faith. but as it were by the works of
the law, for they stumbled at the stumbling stone. That's the
delusion. It's man's mindset that he can
do something to earn the salvation. In Romans 10, verse 3, it said,
for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes. And then the second
delusion that man has is that he thought the law only required
a physical outward obedience. Paul tells us in Romans chapter
seven when he's talking about that man of sin in him. He's
a converted man and he wants to do right. but the good that
he would, he does not, and so on. And this is what he said. He said, the law is spiritual, but I'm
carnal, sold unto sin. The law's spiritual. What's that
mean? That means it requires motive
and not just deed. Our Lord said, they said, which
is the greatest commandment? He said, well, the first, thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and
strength. And the second one's like unto it, love your neighbor
as yourself. On these two commandments hang
the whole law. What do you mean it hangs the
whole law? Without this motive, Everything
that you've done is an abomination to God. You see what I'm saying? I paid 10% of everything I own. That's basically what this man
was saying. All these things that I kept from my use of. I
paid 10%, I paid my tithe my whole life long. Since I was
just a little child. Did you do it because you loved
the Lord with all your heart? If you didn't, you didn't do
anything. You didn't do anything. He thought the law only required
a physical obedience. The Bible says man looks on the
outward countenance. That's where he was looking.
That's where the disciples were looking when they looked at him.
Man looks on the outward countenance, but God looks on the heart. He
sees the heart. He sees what no other man can
see. He sees what's on the inside.
Man thinks adultery is intercourse. The word of God says to look
on a woman and lust after her is to commit adultery already
in your heart. To be angry is to murder, our
Lord said. to steal is to covet. That's all you gotta do. Covet. And you stole. The law is spiritual
and we're carnal. The law is spiritual and it requires
a motive. And then the third delusion is
that he actually believed that the whole first part of his life provided him with a righteousness. That was his righteousness. And that it was righteous in
the eyes of God. You remember the Pharisee prayed
with one eye on the publican. He stood in the back. He had
one eye on that publican up there whose head was bowed. He wouldn't
even look toward heaven. The Pharisee in the back, he
was looking toward heaven, but he still had one eye on that
Pharisee, and he was praying to God. He said, oh, he said,
I thank you, I'm not like other men. Oh, my soul. But you are. You're exactly like
other men. Death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned. All have seen come short of the
glory of God. We all walk according to the
course of this world and according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So this man came to Christ with
a delusion. which he picked up in his former
years of religion and picked up out here in the world talking
to religious folks. That's what we do. We grow up
being taught something. We grow up in the Nazarene religion
or the Baptist religion or Church of Christ religion or whatever
it is, Catholic religion, and then we go out here and we begin
to mix in with the world and we marry somebody out there and
I'm a Nazarene and she's a Baptist or a Lutheran or whatever. We
begin to work with folks and listen to them and listen to
our wives and we begin to talk and then we form our own religion.
We get our own concepts. And it's not exactly Baptist
and it's not exactly Nazarene, it's something else. It's something
else. This man came to Christ with
a delusion that he picked up from his former days of religion.
and from this world, whom Paul tells us walks, this world does,
they walk in the vanity of their mind. They walk in darkness. And then the second thing I want
you to see here, this man came deluded. Deluded, totally deluded. And the Lord began to reveal
to him some of that delusion. And then secondly here, This
is a surprising statement, okay? Here's a proud, self-righteous,
deluded sinner. He's coming in his self-righteousness,
and he's coming in his pride, and he's coming in his ignorance.
And it said, then Jesus, beholding him, loved him. Isn't that a, that's a surprising
statement, isn't it? If you know the Lord it is, why? Why did the Lord love him? His sin and his ignorance obvious.
Why would Christ look on this man and love him? Well I found
as I studied this passage, that it's confusing to both the Armenians
and the Calvinists. Neither one of them know what
to do with it. Neither one of them. The Armenian, he wants
to use this as a proof text for universal love. He loved even
this man that he condemned. Even this man that he sent away
loved him. If he can love him, he loves
all men. That's what the Armenians say.
The Calvinists want to explain it away in a word study, and
they want to talk about agape. They want to get back to the
Greek and say, well, this is not really that effectual love. This is a different kind of love. But I'm going to tell you something.
This text is perfectly stated by divine inspiration, and it
needs no change. at all. The confusion comes because of
our ignorance of the love of God. That's where the ignorance and
confusion comes from. We're ignorant of God's love. There's five things stated very
clearly in the word of God concerning the love of God which justifies
the love of Christ for the sinner. First of all, he tells us in
Jeremiah 31.3 that his love for his people is eternal. He didn't
see something that this man did and behold him and then love
him. He loved him from all eternity. From all eternity. When Christ
beheld this rich young ruler, he saw him exactly the way he
saw him when his father chose him and put him in him before
the foundation of the world. And ain't you glad he does? Secondly,
the Bible tells us his love is immutable, unchangeable. It can't change. If he ever loved
you, he'll love you to the end. Listen to this, Malachi 3.6. He said, I'm the Lord. I change
not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. That's why you're not consumed.
That's why the terror of God hadn't fallen on you, because
I don't change. Thirdly, he tells us that those
whom he loved or those who are loved by him can never be separated
from his love. You can read about it in Romans
chapter eight. He gives you everything that you could possibly think
of that could separate you from the love of God. And he said,
nothing shall be able to separate you from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Huh? Fourthly, all those who are loved
of God shall be saved by God's free and sovereign grace in Christ.
It tells us husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. Now listen, and gave himself
for it. Huh? Isn't that what it says? Everybody Christ loves, he died
for. Everybody Christ loved, he represented
in his life under that law. Everybody Christ loved, he justified
when God raised him from the dead. And everybody Christ loved,
he intercedes for in glory. All which the Father hath given
me, said I'll lose nothing. I'll raise it up again at the
last day. I tell you, that's good news
to me. All those loved by God will be
saved by God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. Every one of
them. In Ephesians 1, 3, and 4, he
tells us that God's eternal blessings are given to us in Christ according
as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him being Loved. Being loved. He loved us. Gave himself for us. And then
lastly, here's another thing we're ignorant of the love of
God. That his love is a perfect love
without flaw. What's that mean? Well, he expressed
it in John 17 verses 22 and 23. He said he loves us as he loved
his own son with the same love. Can you imagine? Well, what's
that mean? That means a perfect, lawless
love. That's what that means. And then the third thing I want
you to see in this text is an unexpected departure. These disciples
looked at this rich young ruler and saw him as a prime candidate
for the kingdom of God and they never doubted for a second that
he'd be accepted and become a fellow disciple. They pictured this
man walking with them everywhere they went. But here he goes walking
away. He's walking away. Scripture
said he was grieved by the words our Lord said to him. Well, what'd
the Lord say to him? He told him he didn't know the
basic meaning of the word good. He didn't even know that. He
thought himself to be a wise man. He was brought up under
the Pharisees. He was taught. He was instructed. He told he didn't even know the
meaning of good. And then there was no agreement
with his own evaluation of his self-righteousness. All these
things have I kept from my youth up. The Lord didn't say amen. He didn't say nothing. And there was no acknowledgement
of his prior life as a recommendation for his salvation. And then the
Lord, here's the fourth thing, the Lord demanded of him an unreasonable
sacrifice. Go sell everything that you have. Then take up the cross and follow
me. Put his head down, walked away. And this man among men, he turned
his back on the Lord and walked away. I'm gonna tell you something. God doesn't save every man and
woman he intends to save in his first encounter with them. You
can't even go back and pinpoint the date when the Lord began
to work in your life. He'd been working on you from
all eternity and he certainly was working on you from your
birth. Put his angels in charge over them who shall be heirs
of salvation. Thousand times you should have
left this world Who knows how many times those angels intervened?
I don't know. But I know what they are. They're
ministering angels sent forth to minister to them who shall
be heirs of salvation. And I'll tell you this, the Apostle
Paul heard the gospel many times before God actually gave him
ears to hear. He heard the gospel just before
he stoned Stephen. Stephen gave him the whole history
of Israel and their rebellion against God, preached Christ
to him. And I'll tell you something else
about this encounter. It was as much for the learning
of his disciples as it was for the conversion of this rich young
ruler. And then, fourthly, I want you
to see in our text a shocking reaction. Our Lord turned to
his disciples in Mark 10, 23, and he said, how hardly shall
they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. In some of
the accounts, he told the people that were standing there listening
to everything that he had to say, he said, it'd be easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to enter
into the kingdom for a rich man. enter into the kingdom of God. Now listen to this. The disciples
were astonished at his words. They couldn't believe what they
were hearing. And he went on with further explanation
and down in verse 26 and it said, they were astonished out of measure. saying among themselves, who
then can be saved? And many have been the ones that
I thought surely the Lord would save, but he didn't. Or he hadn't so far. And then
there was some that I thought he'd never speak to again, but
he did. And what is that except our ignorance
of man that makes us to believe that one might be easier to save
than another? What'd our Lord tell his disciples
here? With man, it is impossible. Which man? Any man. Huh? Salvation is of the Lord. He
saves whom He will, when He will, and salvation takes just as much
grace and mercy on one person as it does on another. Salvation is not to reveal the
glory of men, but to reveal the glory of God. And it's a salvation by representation
and by eternal union and The death and resurrection of Christ,
the intercession of Christ in glory, and everything about it
is designed to this end. Of him are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. That, according as it is written,
he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord. And ever how God
works this experience of grace in your life, he's gonna get
all the glory. This man was gonna have the glory of his own salvation
and the Lord sent him away with his tail tucked between his legs. Some of the writers that I've
read over the years speculate that this was the rich man who
came and begged for the body of Christ after his death. Might have been, might have been. And then fifthly, he gives us
a lesson that can only be learned by grace. Mark 10, 27. With men,
it is impossible, but not with God. Not with God. With God, all things are possible.
God not limited. But we are. We are. Nothing hinders him in the salvation
of sinners. His election is final and immutable. His work is accomplished and
accepted. His calling is effectual and
irresistible. His grace is sufficient and his
reign is sovereign. He lacks nothing in his ability
to save sinners. We lack everything. And so he says, with man salvation
is impossible. but not with God. God can save
to the uttermost, somebody said to the gutter most, those who
come unto God by Him. And it's not something in us
that brings us to pass, but what's in Him. That's what brings it
to pass. That's why we worship Him, because
it's all of Him. It's all of him. And somebody
said, well, that makes man a puppet. Well, the alternative is that
God's the puppet and you're pulling the strings. I'd rather he be
pulling the strings, wouldn't you? I'd be his puppet. I'd be
his puppet.