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Bro. Bill Nichols
I'd like to welcome everybody here today. We're going to begin a study this morning of Luke 18, beginning with verse 18, entitled, The Rich Young Ruler, or What Shall I Do to Inherit Eternal Life? Before we begin, there's three questions that come to mind.
Question number one is the question that the rich young ruler actually asked, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? The second question that comes to mind is the question that he should have asked and the question that Jesus actually answered, what can I do to inherit eternal life?
And then there's a third question that we will come to shortly. What should we ask? But before we do anything, let's pray. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day and thank you for all of the things that you've given us.
Thank you for allowing us to come back together to meet in person and in spite of this coronavirus thing. Bless us and keep us through the day. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, to control what we do, to control what we hear, and to control what we learn.
Bless us and go through all the services today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So verse 18 of chapter 18 of Luke, and a certain ruler asked him saying, good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Now nowhere in this passage is there any indication given that this ruler is young. But in a parallel passage in Matthew, it reads this way. Matthew 19 verse 22. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
So here it does indicate that he's young. So our title is accurate. He is rich, he is young, and he is a rich young ruler. Now you've got to remember what the rich young ruler had just heard Jesus say.
In verse 17, the very verse before we were picked up here, it said, Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. Now we discussed this last Sunday.
Not just a little child, but an infant. An infant has nothing to bring to Jesus. In fact, an infant has nothing of his own that he could bring. And that's how we must come into the kingdom of God. Bringing nothing of our own.
We must rely solely on the grace of God. But clearly the young man in this parable that we're about to study was not ready to accept this answer. So he approaches Jesus with a question. And his question, good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
His question, how may one enter the kingdom of God, indicates that apparently he wasn't listening to the previous question. A better question that he could have asked would have been, now that I've been received into the kingdom of God, what does God want me to do?
That's an entirely different question. That's not a question of what we do to gain our salvation. It's a question of what we should do now that we have our salvation. But that was not his question. His question was, what must I do?
Or maybe, what must I be to inherit eternal life? He prefaces his question by describing Jesus with the same description as he wants Jesus to use as Jesus describes him. And that is good. Now John MacArthur adds this, this calling Jesus good master does not necessarily or is not necessarily a recognition of Christ's deity.
Calling Jesus good master does not indicate that the young ruler thought Jesus was the Messiah, even though that is what he should have thought. The rich young man simply meant that Christ was righteous and a teacher from God who apparently had eternal life and might know how the rich young ruler could acquire it as well.
So Jesus answered him and says this, why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, and that is God. That should have been enough to tell the rich young ruler that he had addressed the man wrong, that he is not a good master.
He is the Messiah, but he didn't pick up on that. Jesus knows what Paul knew when he wrote in Romans 10 verse 3, there is none righteous. No, not one. Of course, that precludes Jesus Christ. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Their tongues may have used deceit.
The poison of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of peace have they not known?
There is no fear of God before their eyes. That is a pretty horrific description of the natural man. Jesus wants this young man to understand the extent of God's depravity, and he also wants to understand that if he, Jesus, is truly good, then he cannot possibly be an ordinary man.
All he can be and be good is God. All he can be and be good is the Messiah. Of course, that's a little too far for the young man to accept, as we shall see later. John MacArthur also adds, Jesus was not disclaiming his own deity, but rather teaching the young man that all but God are sinners.
This young man's most serious spiritual defect was his reluctance to confess his own utter spiritual bankruptcy and the unique status of Jesus. Matthew, in his account of this event, adds this in Matthew 19 verse 17,.
But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. Now MacArthur continues, this of course is law, not gospel. Before showing him the way to life, Jesus wants to impress on the young man both the high standard required by God and the absolute futility of seeking salvation by his own merit.
This should have elicited a response about the impossibility of keeping the law perfectly, like the disciples' response in Matthew 19 verse 25. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
So what commandments are we referring to that the young man should keep? Actually, to all of them. But Jesus only lists five, all of which deal with man's relationship with other men. That is sufficient to establish that the young man could not possibly succeed in earning his way into God's kingdom.
But he failed to understand that. So here are the commandments that the Lord lists. Verse 20, Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.
Honor thy father and thy mother. Those are the five that Jesus lists. That was more than enough to establish that the young man had failed to meet the divine standard. And what is the divine standard?
Matthew 5, 48 tells us, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. That's a pretty high standard. MacArthur says this, Human righteousness, even the righteousness of the most fastidious Pharisee, falls short of this divine standard.
But the young man confidently declares that he has qualified for heaven even under those terms. So he says, and he said, all these I have kept from my youth up. Now he's leaving out some things. He's leaving out the five commandments that Jesus didn't list.
And he's leaving out the 200 or so, or maybe 600, I can't remember, laws that the Jewish people had to keep. So at least he thought he had done them all from the youth up. But remember the standard. Not a single misstep in these five commandments, nor in the other five, nor in any of the hundreds of laws that the Jews were required to keep.
Jesus knew that this young man had fallen far short of success, but he didn't leave it there. He goes on to say this, and he says this not necessarily to all of us. And people use this and make it an attempt to create some sort of greatness or superior religious attitude by being poor.
This is not being... This is not saying it's better to be poor than it is to be rich. It's only saying that the Lord knows that this young man's standard, this young man's thing that he really worships is not God, but is his wealth.
And so to him, this is a commandment, but to us, it may not be at all. So let's keep in mind what he says. Part of this will absolutely pertain to us. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing, sell all that thou hast, and distribute it unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.
And come, follow me. Sometimes my machine doesn't work exactly like I was expecting it to, and that's what happened right now. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing, sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.
And come, follow me. Jesus was not setting forth... This is MacArthur. Jesus was not setting forth terms for salvation, but rather exposing the young man's true heart. His refusal to obey here revealed two things.
He was not blameless as far as the law was concerned, because he was guilty of loving himself and his possessions more than his neighbors. And two, he lacked true faith, which involved a willingness to surrender all to Christ's bidding.
Jesus was not teaching salvation through philanthropy, but he was demanding that this young man give him first place. The young man failed the test. Stated in verse 22. Now the part, come follow me. This was the answer to the young man's question in verse 16.
What can I do? What must I do? And he says, come follow me. That's what he's saying to you and to me. Come follow me. It was a call to faith. It's likely that the young man had never even heard or contemplating it though, because his own love of his possessions was such a stumbling block that he had already rejected Jesus's claim to lordship over his life.
Thus he walked away in disbelief. Now we don't know for certain whether he comes back at some later time and accepts Christ or not. Only God knows that. But you might have noticed that Jesus purposely omitted the 10th commandment.
Now I'm going to read. You don't need to go here. This is Exodus 20 verse 17. And this is the 10th commandment. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.
Now, unlike the other commandments, this one focuses on, unlike the other commandments focus on outward actions, this commandment focuses on thought. It is imperative against setting one's desires on things that are forbidden or things that belong to someone else.
There is a commandment that forbids the act of adultery. That's something that's wrong. This commandment forbids the desire for adultery. There is a commandment that forbids stealing. That's wrong. This commandment forbids the desire for the acquisition of another's goods.
That's a stronger commandment than the first. And the New Testament consistently describes Jesus as interpreting the 10 commandments as issues of what is in the heart of man, rather than merely prohibiting certain outward actions.
It's not just the action that is being prohibited, that the Lord says is disallowed. It is merely the thinking about them, the deciding, the contemplating about it, the worrying about it. What is in your heart is most important.
Now, verse 23. And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful. This is the rich young ruler, for he was very rich. He was not just rich. He was very rich. And when Jesus saw that, he was very sorrowful.
And he said, how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God? For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, I'm going to go back to MacArthur one more time.
That is to say, it is impossible. It's impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. What Jesus was doing was underscoring the impossibility of anyone's being saved by merit. Since wealth was deemed proof of God's approval, I'm going to try that one more time.
Since wealth was deemed proof of God's approval, and those who had it could give more alms, it was commonly thought that rich people were more likely candidates for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus destroys that notion, and along with it, the notion that anyone can merit enough divine favor to gain entrance into heaven.
Now, most conservative commentators agree that this is a statement of hyperbola, designed to show the impossibility of any man doing anything to earn his entrance into God's kingdom. There are others who maintain that he is not speaking of a real needle and a real camel, but a small gate at which the camel must first be unloaded, and then the camel must enter on his knees, showing that you've got to rid yourself of the burden of your wealth, and then, or your burden of anything that encumbers you, and then humble yourself and come before Jesus in a humble manner.
Well, of course, that's the way we need to come before Jesus, but that's not what this is teaching. This has nothing to do with how you should present yourself to God. This says that no matter how you do it, it's impossible.
And they that heard it said this, who then can be saved? They understood, even though maybe the rich young ruler didn't, and he said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. That should be enough.
That clearly disposes of the controversy considering the previous verse. Was this a real needle and real camel, or was this a real camel and a small gate? Which is what a lot of commentators seem to prefer.
It doesn't say difficult. It doesn't say extremely difficult. It says impossible. Matthew says it even more clear, so I'm going to read that. Matthew 19 .25, this is exactly the same passage, the exact same place when his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So what Jesus said was, with men the answer is no one. No one can be saved. That's just another way to say no one can earn his salvation, or even do anything to assist in it.
But with God, all He has chosen will be saved. I'm going to read that again. But with God, all He has chosen will be saved. We know that from John 6 verse 39. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I shall lose nothing, but I shall raise it up again at the last day.
So how many will Jesus lose? None. Not a single one. Will everybody then be saved? The answer is, that's clearly no. We have passages that say, wide is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the gate.
Few there be that find it. So more will not be saved than will be saved. There'll be more people fall into the category of refusing than receiving. Then Peter said, lo, we have left all and followed thee.
Now what Peter's doing is pointing out that what Christ had demanded of the rich young ruler, leave all that you have, come follow me. They had already done. They had embarked on a life of faith with Christ.
Now you notice that Jesus did not rebuke Peter for his expectation of reward. There will be a reward, but much of it will come later. In Revelation 22, 12, it tells us this, and behold, I come quickly, this is Jesus, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his works shall be.
And he goes on to say in verse 29, and he said to them, the disciples, verily I say unto you, there is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wives, or children for the kingdom's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the world to come everlasting.
Now there's two things. Even in this present time, your rewards will be greater than what you gave up. He's telling that to the disciples. Now the disciples are going to face some hard times. They've given up a lot and they're going to face some trials and some tribulations, but even amongst it all, the rewards are going to be greater than what they gave up.
And then there will be those even greater rewards in the world to come, and those rewards will last for an eternity. Now that's basically the end of the parable, or not the parable, but the story of the rich young ruler.
But I purposely went through that fast. If you've got any questions or comments that you'd like to make, now is a good time because we're going to go on to something a little bit different to preface the next class.
Any comments or questions? I think this is a particular group that has sent through the sovereignty of God sermons enough that we all are of one accord. If there's one thing that we all are in agreement with is that God is sovereign.
He is absolutely sovereign. There is nothing out of the control of His power. Everything that He desires to do will be done at exactly the time that He wants it done. For us, sometimes we think that God is late.
You know, we never think He's early. When we get a surprise, when we get a good surprise, we never think that's too early. But when we ask for something, we don't get it. We seem to think it's late. It's not late.
It's right on time. He will give us what we need when we need it. And the goal is, and His understanding is, He knows more than we know. And what He knows is better for us than what we think we know. Okay.
So now we're going to push on ahead and look at verse 31 through the rest of this chapter. I'm going to go reasonably quickly through most of this. Then He took unto Him the 12, the 12 disciples. And He said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.
I'm going to hesitate there just a second. He took unto Him the 12. And He said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. There's a comma there. I'm going to pause longer than the comma maybe suggests.
He's getting ready to tell them something that He has never, ever told them before. Oh, He's talked about it. He's talked about it in generalities. But when push comes to shove, His answer always has been, My time has not yet come, or my hour has not yet come.
I want to give you a homework assignment. I'm going to let you look for some examples of that exact phrase. I'll get to that in a minute. But as we go forward, look at what He's telling them. Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.
Now the disciples were privy to all this. They knew what the prophets had said. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and He shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spit upon. And they shall scourge Him, and put Him to death.
And on the third day He shall rise again. And they understood none of these things. And this saying was hid from them. Neither knew they the things which were spoken. Now, we will deal seriously with this passage next Sunday and the following Sunday, God willing.
In the meantime, use your logos, or your blue letter Bible, or whatever reference you use, and just do a word search for the word hour. And find three or four instances where it was said of Jesus that His hour had not yet come.
This is the first time in the book of Luke that Jesus gave any indication that His hour, although it hadn't yet come, was imminent. It's right on the horizon. And that's where He is. He's going to Jerusalem to fulfill what He was destined for when He came to the earth as a man.
To fulfill what He had come for. But He still had time for good works. So, verse 35. We're going to go on. And He came to pass as He was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging.
And hearing the multitude pass by, He asked what it meant. And they told Him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. Now, you've got to wonder about this blind man. He's sitting there begging, and there was a commotion, and He asked, what does all this mean?
And they said, that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. He immediately calls out something. This tells me that He had been pondering this for a time, waiting for Jesus of Nazareth to happen through Jericho.
And He cried out saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. He didn't say Jesus of Nazareth. He didn't say good master. He didn't say anything except Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
He knew who Jesus of Nazareth was. He knew part of His mission. He probably knew part of His mission more than the disciples knew. Probably all He did while He was sitting there blind and begging was dwelling on the coming Messiah.
And they which went before rebuked Him. And they which went before rebuked Him. These were the church leaders. These were the priests and the Pharisees and the people that were out ahead of Jesus as He's going.
That He should hold His peace. But He cried out so much the more, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded Him to be brought unto Him. And when He was come near, He asked Him saying, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee?
And He said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said, receive thy sight. Thy faith has saved thee. And immediately He received His sight and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people when they saw it gave praise unto God.
So what was the purpose of Jesus going into Jericho? Well, one of the reasons was to give this man his sight so that he could proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah. And He followed Him. And He glorified God.
And all the people when they saw it gave praise unto God. Well, it says all the people, but I suspect some of the priests and some of the leaders were not quite so happy. But there was a large group that saw it, saw Him glorify God, saw Him receive His sight, and gave praises to God.
Now I want to take a couple of minutes to contrast some of the people that Jesus has dealt with in chapter 16. And I said chapter 16. I didn't mean that at all. In chapter 18 and even into chapter 19.
First, the Pharisee and the tax collector. You've got the Pharisee. What was the Pharisee's view of himself? The Pharisee viewed himself as righteous, as holy, as holier than probably anyone else in the whole world, but certainly holier than the tax collector over on the other side of the temple.
That's how he saw himself. He saw himself as upholding of the law to such a great extent that he had earned his salvation. That's what he thought about himself. He had earned his salvation. Now what about the tax collector?
The tax collector saw himself as a sinner, as somebody not even worthy to look up his eyes and behold Jesus, a person that had done nothing to gain his way into heaven, but a person wishing for God to have mercy on him.
The very fact that he wished for God to have mercy on him implied that God had already put His finger on him. God had already made him want to have Jesus come into his life. Then we look at the infants.
Infants so young that they have no understanding of anything. They have nothing at all that they can bring to the kingdom of God. They have nothing at all they can bring to their salvation. So the Pharisee thought he had something to bring.
He thought he had already done it. The tax collector knew he had brought nothing and knew that he was relying totally on God's mercy. The infants had nothing to bring, so they brought nothing and they could only rely on the mercy of God.
Then the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler came to Jesus seeking Jesus in a sense. Not really seeking Jesus, seeking a way to eternal life. He thought he had done enough to earn his salvation, but he hadn't.
The Lord knew he hadn't. The Lord knew he wasn't even asking for that. He was only asking for a way that he could enter into the kingdom of God with his own merits. So we have now three. We have the Pharisee who thought he could earn his way to salvation, thought he had earned his way.
The tax collector who knew he couldn't and relied on the mercy of God. The infants who didn't know anything and relied on the mercy of God. The rich young ruler who thought he had done enough to earn his way into salvation, into the kingdom of heaven.
And now we have the blind man in Jericho who knew that he hadn't done enough either. How many of them relied totally on the mercy of God to enter heaven? All these people that I listed, the Pharisee, the tax collector, the infants, the rich young ruler, and the blind man in Jericho, which one of those or which ones of these depend entirely on the grace of God to gain passage into heaven?
All of them. There is no other way. There is no other way. I asked that in a way that I knew I was going to have you tell me those that actually got into heaven, not that earned their way into heaven.
How does one get into heaven? By the grace of God, by only the grace of God, by no other means. There is no way under heaven where man may be saved except through Jesus Christ. Now there is a third person in chapter 19 that we're going to deal with, Zacchaeus.
I've got enough time to introduce Zacchaeus. We used to sing a little song about Zacchaeus, and it was something like, Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for his good Lord there to see.
Well, Jesus is going to come along through Jericho. Zacchaeus is in Jericho as well. Zacchaeus might've been the wealthiest man in Jericho. He was a tax collector. If he didn't have all he wanted and all he needed, he could always get more simply by levying more taxes on all the other people.
He actually did want to see Jesus, and Jesus invites himself into Zacchaeus' house, and while he was there, he offers... Actually, Zacchaeus offers before Jesus even presents the option to return all he's stolen.
Anybody that he has hindered financially, restore them. He agrees before Jesus even ask him to do those things that would be pleasing in the sight of God. The rich young ruler didn't do that. The rich young ruler walked away sad.
Zacchaeus was already one of the chosen when he climbed up in that tree so that he could get a glimpse of Jesus. Oh, you've got to understand how disliked Zacchaeus would have been in Jericho. He was the tax collector there.
Not only was he a tax collector, he was a little bitty midget tax collector. He was a tax collector so small that he couldn't see Jesus over the crowd, so he climbs up in a tree to see him. That is humiliating to have to climb up in a tree to see Jesus, but he was willing to do that.
He was willing to do all the things that we said the camel had to get on his knees to crawl through the gate. He was willing to do all those. He's willing to humble himself, not to gain salvation. He already had that.
He did all of these things because he had that, not in order to gain that salvation, but because he had it. Well, we'll do that the first part of next week, and we will introduce Jesus's trip into Jerusalem and the fickleness of the crowd.
How one day they were calling him Hosea, and a couple of days later they were calling him to be crucified. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for all of your many blessings.
Thank you for having mercy upon us. Thank you for coming into our life and giving us a pathway to salvation. Thank you for producing in our hearts the desire to do those things which we should do that are pleasing to God.
Go through the service today. Bless and keep us. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.