We'll do that again, God willing.
We'll learn that. Beautiful Course, the Word of
God. If you will open your Bibles
with me tonight to Matthew Chapter 19. Matthew Chapter 19. reading verses 16 through 22. 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, that
is God. But if thou wilt 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 like I
yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow
me. But when the young man heard
that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. If someone charged me to write
a play from these verses of scripture, and I know nothing about writing
a play, but if I was charged to do so, I would write a play
with three acts. Three acts. The title of the
play would be A Sad Ending. A Sad Ending. But the first act
I would entitle A Hopeful Beginning. A Hopeful Beginning. What we read here about this
man, this young man, at the beginning causes us to have hope. a hopeful beginning. There are
three things I would point out to us about this man. First, he was a young man of
a serious disposition. It appears to me that he adhered
to Solomon's words in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 1, where
the wise man said, remember now thy creator in the days of thy
youth." Youth is a wonderful time of life. And like every
time of life, it has its peculiar temptations. The Apostle Paul,
writing to Timothy, said, flee youthful lust. Again, Solomon
gave this word of warning. warning advice to the young. He said, Rejoice, O young man,
in thy youth. And it is, youth is a time of
rejoicing. And let thy heart cheer thee
in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart,
and in the sight of thy eyes. But know thou, know thou, that
for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. The natural tendency of the young
as well as the old is to walk in the ways of his heart. As Solomon said, walk in the
ways of thine heart. That's the natural tendency of
all men, to walk in the way that our hearts direct us forgetting
that by nature we all have a sinful heart. We all have a deceitful
heart, the scripture says. And then he says, to walk in
the sight of thy eyes. The world calls for you to walk
in the sight of your eyes, to live for the moment. I'm sure you've heard the saying,
if it feels good, do it. You only go around one time. Grab the brass. But Solomon says, do that. Do
that. Walk in the ways of thine heart
and in the sight of thy eyes, but remember this. For all these
things, there will be a day of judgment. There will be a day
of judgment. This young man seems to be a
man of a very serious disposition. By him coming to the Lord Jesus
and asking the question that he asked, he's not a frivolous
person. But he's a serious individual,
at least that's what seems to me. So first of all, a hopeful
beginning. Here is a young man of very serious
disposition. And the second thing, he was
a young man who showed unusual respect. Good master. as he approached the Lord Jesus
Christ. Mark tells us in his account
that he kneeled and he addressed the Lord Jesus Christ as good
master. Matthew Henry tells us that the
word which is here translated master is used for a teaching
master, not a ruling master necessarily, but a teaching master. And I
would remind us of this, Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee, a ruler of
the Jews. An older person, when he came
to the Lord, that's the way he addressed the Lord Jesus Christ.
Good master. He shows unusual respect, I believe. Matthew Henry went on to say
that this was very unusual because the Jewish people never addressed
a teaching master as a good master. Uncommon respect. As I thought
about this this past week, I could not help but recognize there
are men who stood in pulpits today, and even tonight, who
do not show the respect for the Lord Jesus Christ that this lost
man showed. And you see that by the way they
constantly refer to him as Jesus. Very seldom, if ever, the Lord
Jesus Christ, simply Jesus. This young man showed, in my
opinion, for the Lord Jesus Christ. And a third thing about this
man, he was a young man who recognized that there is a life after this
life, because his question shows that. What must I do to inherit
eternal life or to earn eternal life? Many young people as well as
older people have swallowed Satan's great There is no eternal life. That
when you die, you die like an animal, and that is your end. That you're buried in the ground,
and that's it. After all, you evolved from a
single-cell amoeba. Just an accident, by chance. and not the product of the wise
God. That God did not breathe into
your nostrils the breath of life and make you a living and immortal
soul, a never-dying soul. Lost men die, eternally die,
eternal death, but they never cease to exist. The same word
that is used to speak about eternal happiness, eternal glory, eternal
joyfulness in the presence of God Almighty is the same word
that is used to speak about eternal punishment, eternal separation
from God. And you cannot deny the one without
also denying the other. This man evidently had not embraced
the teachings of the Jewish liberals of that day, that is, the Sadducees,
because the Sadducees do not believe in a resurrection and
they do not believe in spirits. This man knew and he did believe
that there is a life after this, an afterlife. Everything about this young man,
to this point, I see as very hopeful. I see as very hopeful. But that act ends. And the second
act I would entitle the truthful master. Good master. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the master of all masters, He dealt with this man with the
truth. The first thing we see is he
said, Why callest thou me good? There's none good but one, and
that is God. That God alone is good. When you think about the goodness
of God, God is essentially good. His goodness never changes. He's
just as good today as He was a thousand, a billion years ago,
if we could use that terminology for eternity. And He will be
no better, no more good throughout the ages to come. He is good,
superlatively good, good only. If he were to do anything that
is not good, he would cease to be God. There's none good but
one. I think about Moses. I think
most of us are familiar with this case. But after Moses led
the children of Israel through the Red Sea out into the wilderness
at this time, just starting off, he asked the Lord to show him
his glory. And that's amazing, isn't it?
Think of all that Moses had witnessed, the bush burning, all the plagues
that had come upon, the miracles, the signs that had come upon
Egypt. I believe there are 10 of them.
The Red Sea opening up. And Moses, you haven't seen his
glory. He begged the Lord to show him
his glory. And the Lord's response was this. Now listen. There's none good
but one, the Lord told this young man. I will make, this is what God
told Moses, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. And I will proclaim the name
of the Lord. before they. And then in the
next chapter of Exodus we find that God put Moses in a cliff
to the rock. He said, You cannot see my front
part. I'll cover you with my hand.
And you know God is using these words, these terms for us to
relate. God doesn't have a hand. God
is Spirit. but he would cover Moses as he
passed over and then remove his hand and he might see his back
parts. No man could see God and live,
no mortal being. The Lord put Moses in that cliff
to the rock and I believe Robert Hawker Do you? Because Moses couldn't
put himself in the cliff of the rock. That rock is Christ, and
God puts men and women in Christ. God passed by and proclaimed
the goodness of the Lord, and this is what He said. He passed
by proclaiming His name, that is, God's name, proclaiming His
goodness, and that goodness included His grace, His mercy, and His
love. His grace, unmerited favor. His love, which is eternal, never
varies. cannot be increased or diminished. God loves whom he will love,
and it is eternal. And God's mercy. I love all of
these characteristics that we're told about God, don't you? But
I'm so thankful he's a God who is good, who is love, who delights
in mercy. who has grace for the undeserving. You cannot deserve grace. You
cannot merit mercy. It's free. There's nothing good,
the Lord told this man. The truthful master would teach.
You say, why would he tell him that? Because this man needed
to recognize that if you call me good, that's fine. If you understand who I am, that
I'm God, I'm God manifest in the flesh. Because if I'm not
God, I'm not good. There's only one who is good. The truthful master would teach
this young man who he was, who Christ is. The second thing Eternal
life does not come by our doing. The young man believed like,
I would say, everyone. Like everyone believes. This
is just a natural belief. We're just born. It's inherent
in us when we come into this world. that we naturally believe
that eternal life comes by doing, by our doing, by our doing good
things, either a good thing or good things. What good things
must I do to inherit eternal life? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ
has just told him there's none good but one, that's God, That
means, since none are good but God, you cannot do a good thing. If the fountain is polluted,
then the streams will be polluted. If the heart is not good, then
out of the heart is not going to come good things. This man should have been familiar. I want you to keep your places
here, but turn back with me to Psalm 14. He should have been familiar
with this passage of Scripture. Psalm 14, and verse 1, The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God. Now I want you to notice the
translators have added those two words, there is, and maybe they are needed. Certainly a man who denies that
there is a God is a fool. No doubt about that. But if you
leave those two words out, the fool has said in his heart, no
God. No, God, I will not have this
man to rule over me. No, God. They are corrupt. They have done
abominable works. There is none, In Romans chapter 3, in showing
the depravity and the lostness of man, he quotes this passage
of Scripture. There's none good. None righteous. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seek it after God. That's the description
of all men by nature. Listen, if you're seeking the
Lord tonight, I mean it sincerely, you are seeking Christ, I want
you to know He has sought you. You would never seek after the
Lord if He had not first sought you. It's just like the verse
that says we love Him because He first loved us. No man ever
loved God who was not first loved by God. And no one ever seeks
the Lord if the Lord has not sought first. The Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They're all gone aside. They're
all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge to eat up my people as they eat bread and call not
upon the Lord. This man back in our text now,
Matthew 19, this man should have been familiar with this verse. Good Master, what good things
shall I do? Someone said, who denies that
salvation is by grace, someone says, No, salvation is not by
grace through faith. It is by our doing, that's what
this man thought. And then this person quoted this
passage of scripture. The question that the jailer
asked Paul and Silas that night, sirs, what must I do? What must I do to be saved? You see, their salvation is by
doing. Even the apostles said, you must
do something. What must I do? But pay attention to their answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Believing on Christ is the very
antithesis, it's the very opposite of doing. It is trusting in him and what
he has done. Perfectly his work. And then the third thing I would
point out here is that the good master, the true master, taught this young man or showed
him the true purpose of the law. The truthful master took him
to the law. Keep the commandments. And notice
that word, keep, keep the commandments. It's not memorize the commandments.
It's not make a plaque and put the commandments, the Ten Commandments
on your wall. No, no. It is keep, keep, do,
keep the commandments. The young man's response showed
that he did not realize that the law is spiritual. Matthew Henry, again, his comment
here was good. He said, had he been acquainted,
had this young man been acquainted with the extent and spiritual
meaning of the law, instead of saying, all these have I kept,
what lack I? He would have said, with shame
and sorrow, all these have I broken. What shall I do to get my sins
removed? A pastor friend of mine asked
me the other day, he said, do you think that may have been
Saul of Tarsus, this young man here? Do you think that might
have been Saul of Tarsus? Well, I think this, before the
Lord revealed himself to Saul of Tarsus that day on the road
to Damascus, he was certainly capable of saying this very thing. And I say that from what he wrote
in Romans chapter 7. He was convinced that he, too,
had done all these things. In Galatians, the apostle Paul
called the law a schoolmaster. A schoolmaster, a schoolteacher,
teaches. And the law, when we are taken
to the law, the law teaches us our need. And when it pleases
the Lord, it causes us to lose hope of eternal life by our doing. We will then, by God's grace,
look to Christ as the only Savior for sinners. Now the third act,
the sad ending, verse 22. He went away sorrowful. He turned away from the only
Savior, choosing death rather than life. And I thought about
these verses, if you will turn with me to John chapter 6. He went away sad. He went away
sorrowful. In John chapter 6, verse 66, We are told that many who were
following the Lord Jesus Christ, they were following him because
he had fed them the bread and the fishes. They were following
him because they had seen miracles that he had brought. But then
when he began to teach them, the necessity of faith in him
alone, eat my flesh and drink my blood or you have no life
in you." Verse 66, we read, from that time many of his disciples
went back and walked no more with him. A great multitude turned
away, turned back. Then, notice the next verse,
then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? And look at this beautiful answer
that Peter gave to that question. Will you also go away? Lord, to whom shall we go? Where did this young man go when
he left the Lord? He was interested in eternal
life, but he walked away from the only source of eternal life.
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. And we believe, now notice, and
we believe and are sure. Many people struggle with assurance,
and usually the reason any of us do is because instead of believing
the Word of God, we are looking to our feelings. And feelings,
my friends, they go up and they go down. We believe, Peter said, and are
sure, this is our assurance, thou art the Son, thou art that
Christ, the Son of the living God. That's my assurance today.
What about you? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. one and only Savior of sinners. And I would just say this in
closing. Everyone, everyone who goes away from Christ will experience
sorrow sooner or later, and sorrow of the worst kind. I pray that
the Lord might bless these words to each one of us here tonight.
And I trust by God's grace that there would not be anyone here
who would ever walk away from the Savior, but everyone would
look to Him and confess Him and follow Him as Lord and Savior.