This podcast is made available by Vision Christian Media, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. Your donation today means great podcasts like this remain available to help people look to God daily.
Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au. It may be the only time that someone approached Jesus feeling hopeful and left feeling discouraged. Creutz's encounter with the rich young ruler is the focus today on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. It's a reminder that followers of Jesus are assured of eternal life, but not necessarily an easy one. Continuing the series in search of the Savior, here's David to introduce his message to the two rich young rulers.
Well, you know, this is a really interesting study that many of us have taken before. We know the story about the rich young ruler, but have you ever noticed that in this story there are really two rulers? There's the rich young human ruler and the rich young heavenly ruler, and they collide in this story, and it's really interesting. It's a tremendous picture of riches, because you can have riches on this earth that don't matter to too much, or you can have riches in heaven. I tell people all the time, whoever you are, whatever you're doing, you're either moving toward your riches or you're moving away from them. If you're wholly involved in what you own on this earth, if that's your deal, you're moving away from it. You may not like to know that, but it's true. But if you've invested in heaven, you're moving toward your riches.
You're probably a little bit of both, but you can't be exclusively a ruler of this earth if you want to have riches in heaven. So we're going to talk about that today. Part one, we'll finish that up on Monday.
Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, we're going to talk about betting on the wrong world. Then we're going to take some time for Thanksgiving, and we'll continue our study of the book of Mark through the end of the month. Now let's get started with this lesson, The Two Rich Young Rulers.
Open your Bibles to the book of Mark, and I want you to find your place in the 10th chapter, Mark chapter 10. This is a story of a man who had everything. I mean, he had everything.
There wasn't anything that he wanted that he didn't have. But like so many modern stories, it doesn't take long to discover that what you think is the ultimate source of meaning leaves you empty. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record this story, and apart from the crucifixion scene, there is scarcely a more pathetic story in the gospels than this one. I mean, here's a young man in the prime of his life who comes to Jesus expectantly, and he goes away disappointed. He comes with an eager, smiling face, and he walks away with a fallen countenance. He rushes up to Jesus with a bubbling heart, and the Bible says he walks away exceedingly sorrowful.
As far as I can tell, this is the only occasion in the Bible where someone came to Jesus and left him in worse shape than they were when they came to see him. I've called this message Not the Rich Young Ruler, but The Two Rich Young Rulers, because two men are going to meet in this story. Both of them are young, both of them are rich, and both of them are rulers. One is a human rich young ruler, and the other is a heavenly rich young ruler. And in their meeting, two world views collide. Two ideas about what life is all about come together in a few moments of conversation between two rich young rulers.
Let me tell you about the first one, the rich young human ruler. Several things about him are given to us in the text. First of all, if we read this, we pick up the fact that he is young, but Matthew's account tells us his age. Basically, he was a young man. When the young man heard this saying, he went away, says Matthew 19, 22. Most scholars believe this puts this young man in the age bracket of somewhere between maybe 28 and 32.
He was a man who not only was young, but he had great accomplishments. Verse 18 of Luke's account of this gospel, Luke 18, 18 says, A certain ruler asked him, saying... The Bible calls this man a ruler.
It's a Greek word, which is really the word archon, and it means to be a principal one, a first one. Maybe the ruler of a synagogue or the most important person in the group, sometimes called a great man or a prince. This man was evidently not only young, but in his youth had become a person of great importance in his Jewish community. And then the Bible tells us he was affluent. He was rich. In fact, all of the synoptic gospels which record this event make note of the fact that this man was wealthy.
Let me read the verses to you. Matthew 19, 22 says, The young man heard it saying, went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Mark says he had great possessions, and Luke says he was very rich. A very rich man with great possessions. Young, accomplished, affluent, and he was also aggressive.
Now, that shouldn't surprise us. Most young, accomplished, affluent people are aggressive. And this young man is aggressive. Watch this, verse 17. As he was going out on the road, one came running. As Jesus was going out on the road that day, this guy comes running up to him, and he kneels before him and asks him a question. The way Mark tells it, this man didn't just run up to Jesus. He ran up to Jesus, fell on his knees in front of him.
I mean, he was trying to get his attention, no question. We don't know why he was in such a hurry. The Bible doesn't give us that information, but maybe somewhere along the way he had heard Jesus teach. And he had sensed that in the teaching of Jesus, maybe there was an answer to the question that was burning in his heart. So he couldn't wait to get there. If he thought the answer was there, he was going to find the answer. And no question about the fact this was a self-assured young man who went after whatever he wanted. He wanted an answer. We don't know why he used this word, but he called Jesus teacher.
Our modern word would be doctor, or perhaps even the word rabbi would be better. In the Middle East, it was very undignified for a grown man to run in public. They walked with a sense of gait and dignity to them, but to run, that was very undignified. This man, with his youthful passion, was throwing his respectability at the feet of Jesus. He could not wait to ask the great teacher how to find the answer to the longing that was in his heart. And he didn't mind the risk of losing faith with all those who probably didn't like him anyway because of who he was. And as young as he was, and as rich as he was, and as affluent as he was, there was this emptiness in his life and he wanted to find the answer to it.
His age, his accomplishments, his affluence, his aggressiveness, notice his actions. After he asked the question, what do I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to the young man, why do you call me good?
He had called him good teacher. Don't you know there's only one good and that's God? You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Don't murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother. And he answered and said to him, teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.
This is an incredible young man. When he had said he had kept all the commandments from his youth and up, Jesus didn't correct him. He didn't say, no, you haven't. If anybody would have known if he had broken those commandments, Jesus would have known it. And, of course, he did break them, but Jesus didn't confront him with his inaccuracy. One of the things you notice about it is that this man apparently was outwardly a good and moral person. As we will see in a few moments, what he said was not about anything good that he did, but it was all about the bad things he didn't do. And in spite of all these things, he was searching. In spite of all that we've discussed, he had an emptiness in his life that he couldn't fill with his wealth and his success. Despite his high standing in the eyes of men, he knew he did not have the peace that he read about in the Psalms and the peace about which the prophets had spoken. He felt this deep spiritual emptiness. For all of his religious efforts, he was unfulfilled. He knew that he did not possess the life of God that satisfies now and gives eternal life. He had everything that money could buy, and he was unhappy. And all of this was because of an assumption that he made.
Let's look at his assumption. In verse 17, he said to the good teacher, What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Now, there's a disconnect there before you even get out of the Bible. You don't do anything to inherit. You've got to be related. You've got to have a relationship for you. Just do something to inherit.
This rich young ruler, though, only had one mode of operation. This is all he knew. He assumed there was something that he could do to get this commodity that he was missing in his life. And I remember several occasions like this where I would explain to these men that the only thing you have to do to have eternal life is to ask for forgiveness of your sin and ask Jesus Christ to come and live in your life, and he will come and change you. And they would say, Well, no, what do I have to do?
No, you don't have to do anything. Well, come on, Jeremiah. There's no way I can get what you're talking about. I've got to do something. Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. Well, no, this is a gift. You don't do anything for a gift. Come on, man.
That doesn't work. You know that. My whole life has been built around this thought that you work hard and you're rewarded. So tell me what I need to do to get eternal life and I'll do it. And this man came to Jesus and he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? One writer that I read described this young man in these terms. We can easily imagine this young man, he wrote, we all know men like him, bright, fit, prosperous, successful, gifted in leadership, eager to learn and serve, earnest and well-meaning. He is evidently an upright, outstanding, respectable, and decent man.
He's the kind of man we would be proud to have as a brother, a friend, a son, or a son-in-law. He had everything one could ever dream of having, but he just didn't know the answer to the most important question in life. He had everything going for him in the realm of the temporary. He had nothing going for him in the realm of the eternal. Now, this is not the only time this has happened to Jesus. On another occasion, we are told in the book of Luke that a lawyer came up to him and asked him the same question. In Luke 10 25, behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Jesus, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, the sameness of these two questions is because these men were following the argument that was a mainstream Jewish concept. They thought they had to do something.
They were under the principles of the law. They did not understand that salvation is not about what you do for God, but it's about what God does for you. On one occasion, when Jesus was speaking to a multitude of people near Capernaum, the multitude asked Jesus a question, and Jesus answered it with a clarity that no one should ever have to question again. Listen to these words from John chapter 6. And they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.
What is the work of God? It's to believe. That's what had escaped this young man. He had everything that you could have wanted.
He was at the peak of his success, but he was saying in his own words, isn't there something more? There's got to be something more than this. What he's about to learn from the great teacher is that he has the right question, but he's looking for the answer in all the wrong places. The question, of course, is how do I have eternal life? And the answer has nothing to do with what you do.
It's about who you know. The Bible says the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Salvation is not a reward for something you do.
It's an absolutely unwarranted gift from Almighty God. In 1 John 5, 11, and 12, it says this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. Ladies and gentlemen, if there's anything we can do to have eternal life, there is no such thing as eternal life because all we have to offer to God is the imperfection of our humanity, and that's for every single one of us no matter who we are. What we need is something that's perfect, something that's flawless, something that has no chinks in it, and that only comes from the hand of God. He must give us eternal life or we can't have it.
So guys, you may be like this man. You've done a lot, and you've accomplished a lot, and you've got a lot to be thankful for. Your resume looks pretty cool at this particular time in your life, but without the gift of God, your resume won't get you to heaven.
It doesn't make any difference what you've got on your resume, what people say about you, how good you think you are or they think you are. If you do not have the gift of God, which is eternal life, you will be denied at heaven's gates. The only way to get to heaven is through Christ. That's why we read in the Bible, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me. So this young man came to Jesus looking for some answers.
He was young, he was prominent, he was rich, he was aggressive, and he assumed that that was enough. Now he's about to meet someone like he's never met before. He's going to this man to get an answer, and all of a sudden he's going to discover that this man not only wants to give him the answer, this man is the answer. And so the rich young human ruler is now meeting the rich young heavenly ruler. It's an outstanding moment in life, a moment where a man full of questions meets the answer.
These two men meeting that day represent the two ways open to all men today. The rich young ruler had made this earth and his possessions the reason for living. He had everything that you could ever want, but he was empty. The rich young heavenly ruler had left all of his riches behind in order to come to this earth and do the will of his Father. His whole life was about the future. The young human ruler had only his past and his present.
He had nothing going in the future at all. Two men standing face to face representing the broad way and the narrow way, the way of life and the way of death, the way of works and the way of grace, the way of man and the way of God. In the beginning of the story, this man was searching out Jesus for answers to his emptiness. Now Jesus is going to search out the heart of this young man for the truth about his life. Watch Jesus' work as he talks with this young ruler.
First of all, he begins to search him for truth about Christ. In verse 18, Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? There's no one good but one, and that is God. Jesus wanted to see if this young man knew who he was talking to. In essence, he was saying to him, you can't call me good if you don't call me God because there's only one good, and that's God.
If you're calling me good, you must think I'm God. Even though he did not acknowledge that Jesus was God in the flesh, he had come to the right person. Jesus then begins to search him out with regard to the commandments. In verses 19 and 20, Jesus says, you know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother. In Matthew's Gospel, we are told that when Jesus said to this young man, you know the commandments, the young man asked Jesus, what commandments are you talking about? And here Jesus cites five of the last six commandments.
Do not defraud, he leaves out. He basically quotes them according to the Hebrew order. He moves the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, to the end, and he omits the last commandment, you shall not covet. The first four of the Ten Commandments, as you know, have to do with our relationship with God.
The last six have to do with our relationships with each other. Jesus chose the least difficult section of the commandments to show this man his sin. The young man answered, I've kept all of these from my youth, basically from my bar mitzvah. I have not done any of these things. These words could also be translated, I have avoided these sins.
I have kept myself from doing these things from my youth. The rich young ruler was more interested in avoiding sin than in doing good, that's quite evident. William Barkley explains, never did any story so lay down the essential Christian truth that respectability is not enough. Jesus quoted the commandments which were the basis of the decent, respectable life. Don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't defraud. Without hesitation, this man said he'd kept them all. Now, note one thing.
With one exception, they were all negative commandments. In effect, the man was saying, I never in my life did harm to anyone. That's usually an answer you get from somebody when you ask them where they are with God. Well, I'm a pretty good man. I don't do harm to anybody.
I don't steal my neighbor's stuff and all that. But of course, the real question Jesus wants to get at is not what bad have you avoided, but what good have you done? And the question that this man was even more pointed for was with all your possessions, with all your wealth, with all that you could give away, what positive good have you done for anybody?
How much have you gone out of your way to help and comfort and strengthen others as you might have done? Respectability on the whole consists in not doing things. Christianity on the whole consists of doing things, doesn't it?
What we do is followers of Christ. That was precisely where this man was and so many of us where we are. We look at being acceptable to God on the basis of all the bad things we don't do and we never stop to think that maybe there's something more to it than that. Now, Jesus wasn't examining this man's works so that he could determine whether he was fit for heaven. He was examining this man's works to help him understand that he wasn't fit for heaven because in his own mind he probably thought that he had done enough with maybe one little exception and he thought Jesus could fix that for him. When he had said he had kept all the commandments from his youth and up, Jesus didn't correct him. On the surface, you see, he was a very good man. His statement that he had kept the commandments since his youth would have meant that since the age of 13, he had practiced Judaism rigorously. He had superficial goodness and external respectability. He was a lot like the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road who recorded for us all of his pedigree that he had before he met Jesus. So the Lord Jesus is asking him these questions to help him begin to see where he really stands in his relationship with God. Money, you see, was his God.
That's pretty evident. So we already know he blew up the first commandment, you shall have no other god before me. The first commandments, he'd already messed those up. Thankfully, Christ didn't ask him about the first four commandments.
He just settled on the last six because the most evident commandment that he was not keeping was he had put a god before God and that god was his money. He had trusted in it. He had worshiped it.
He had gotten his fulfillment from it. His morality and his good manners were just a front for a covetous heart. And that's the reason Jesus asked him about the commandments because one of the purposes of the commandments is to show us our sin. Romans says, By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. If we didn't know that God said this is right and this is wrong, we wouldn't know what's right and wrong. But this man is being confronted with the fact that though he claims to have been a good person, down underneath the exterior of his life was this broken heart that did not have any relationship with God at all. He was good at posturing, but he did not have reality. The Bible tells us that the law is a mirror that shows us who we are.
Yeah. And you know, this man always has intrigued me because I have known people like him personally, people who are rich in the things of this earth, but so empty in their own lives. I could tell you stories about people that I have met, people that I have ministered to, people I've talked to and interacted with, friends who I played basketball with at the Y and handball with at the Y.
They had everything, but they didn't have anything. And this is what this story is about, the two rich young rulers, the rich earthly ruler, human ruler, and the rich heavenly ruler. We'll have more of this on Monday as we continue in search of the Savior, the study of the book of Mark. I hope you'll be with us on Monday. Let me tell you that church is so important. I have been such a cheerleader for church, and especially during COVID-19. We're back in church and have been for some time, even though we've had to have church outdoors a lot.
Fortunately, in California, we're able to do that. We had church on Saturday night and Sunday night, and we brought back a lot of our people to church. We're now back more in the normal way in church and continue to realize how important it is that we gather together. Church is not online services. Church is gathering together. This weekend, if you can, whatever you have to do, get together with your people at church. Go to church. Whatever that may look like, where you are right now, you go to church and be a part of the community of believers. That's the truth of the Word of God.
That's the instruction of God's Word. We'll be there for you on television. We'll be back here on Monday.
In the meantime, have a great weekend. I'm David Jeremiah. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church, where Dr. David Jeremiah serves as senior pastor.
Let us know how Turning Point keeps you spiritually strong. Write to us at Turning Point, post office box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Ask for your copy of O.S. Hawkins' new book, The Bible Code, finding Jesus in every book in the Bible.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version, filled with hopeful notes and articles by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details.
I'm Gary Hooke Fleet. Join us Monday as we continue the series In Search of the Saviour. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. . Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more go to vision.org.au
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-01-26 11:47:10 / 2024-01-26 11:57:34 / 10