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A while ago I was taping a couple of shows, this past week, on things that I wish I would have known as an unbeliever. I was an unbeliever for 29 years, and I had a lot of people come up and say certain things to me.
But as I look back, of course God is sovereign. The day that I was supposed to be born again, I was. Of course God had it worked out just perfectly, that I was not to get saved until I was 29 years old.
But now that I know what I know, when I evangelize, and when you evangelize, there are certain things that I want you to tell people, because I wish somebody would have told me. Tonight we're going to talk about how it's loving to tell people the truth.
It's the epitome of love that looks at someone else and says, I want what's best for you. And for an unbeliever, what is the best thing for them? New job, new car, early retirement, you know, the euro goes down and the dollar goes up.
There might be side benefits, but the biggest thing, the most important thing, the eternal issue is, we want them to be born again. We would like to see them adopted into the family of God. That's why we evangelize.
We're told to evangelize, and that's what we want. We want what's best for them. So tonight I'm going to talk about several things that I want you to bring up in your evangelism, one-on-one, at work, down at the Worcester Common.
Things that you might know. Some of the things you'd say, oh yeah, pastor talks about that all the time. And some things you might not know. Truths that I wish someone would have told me before I got saved.
So now you can use these truths to tell other people, unbelievers. Now before we start, I'm just going to ask you, the congregation, we don't do this in the morning, but tonight we'll do it. Tell me something, just raise your hand and I'll call on you, something that you wish someone would have told you before you got saved.
Some kind of truth, some kind of biblical truth. You wish some dear Christian would have come along and said, here are the facts, this is the truth. Yes, Carol? Okay, good, that the Bible is perfect. And by the way, this could turn into a long series, so I'm not going to use all the ones that you guys use, but that is a good one.
All right, Dave, that you could be sure that you're going to go to heaven. That strikes me as something especially important in our society today, especially here in New England, when the most popular religion in New England says that you cannot know until you're in heaven.
Barry? Okay, standing on the precipice of hell and it's going to give way eventually. That reminds me of the Deuteronomy 32 sermon by Jonathan Edwards. Yes, Mark? Works will not get you into heaven. Good.
Steve? Okay, that God's sovereign, that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. Steve? Okay. Yes, Satan doesn't want you to believe he exists. Or if he does, he's kind of, he's got a pitchfork and kind of a red suit on or something like that.
Somebody raise your hand. Bruce? You know, I don't like, just to repeat it for the tape, that God knows everything about you and he'll bring everything to light and judge you. I don't really like chick tracks, but there is that one chick track that shows that where by dates, what you said, slander, lie, it shows the dates and that impressed upon me that God does know all those and every word.
Can you imagine every word that we say even will be judged? All right, just a few more. Yes. Okay, good. So many times people today come to Christ and you get your marriage fixed and you get all these good things and all these wonderful things and you won't have to suffer when, are you sure you want to believe in Christ Jesus?
Because there might be suffering. There might be all those other things. The suffering servant Christ Jesus in Isaiah has servants who suffer. Good. All right, just a couple more. Gil? Okay, we're going to talk about that tonight where I thought my eternal life was in my own hands and therefore I thought I'm just going to wait until the very end of my life, do whatever I want and then right before I die, kind of on my deathbed, I'll bring all the kids around and then I'll say, I believe in you now, Jesus.
Don't make me go to hell. And so if you realize what we'll learn tonight, that if salvation is in God's hand, you ought to spend this time pleading that God would grant you mercy and repent of your sins.
All right, Steve. No matter how good you think you are, you're not and you can't perfect yourself. Any kind of Mormon theology in that? That's right. A lot. Yes. Saying a scripted prayer does not obligate God to save you.
That would have been good for people to know because that has deceived many, many people. Not baptismal regeneration, but decisional regeneration, prayer regeneration, where if you pray this prayer, God has to do something and he has to save you.
That is very important. I should have put that in. Yes. Catholics don't have the gospel. My guess is you grew up Catholic and you thought you had the gospel and you needed somebody to tell you that, but that's unloving to tell people.
By today's definition, that is very unloving to go look at someone and to say you're wrong. How can there be right and wrong when there's no truth? When everything's in this postmodern world relative.
Well, it's true for you. All right. Let's do a few more. This is kind of fun. All right, Mark. Only one way. That's on my list. Good. Yes. That man has fallen and not naturally good. Excellent. That's on my list too.
Yes. Wish sin nature was explained in more depth. That is a very crucial thing because people don't know what they're getting saved from and who they're getting saved to. And if you don't really realize you're that bad of a sinner, then you don't really need a savior, do you?
But if sin condemns, then you need a savior from that sin. All right. Yes. Becky said to tell other people how bad hell really is. It's kind of bad taste today to talk about hell, isn't it? It's kind of lowbrow.
We don't talk about that, especially in these Ivy League schools. But hell is important. And I think Jesus preached hell, true or false, more than any other person in the Bible. The answer is true. All right.
A couple others. All right. Let me give you my list. Many of these things you'll know. We'll try to do some exposition in the meantime. This is not necessarily like this morning in 1 Corinthians where we just work through a passage and I give you the context and everything else.
But I just want to help you in your evangelism. We believe in the gospel. We are evangelicals because we want to tell people the good news. And without the good news, no one goes to heaven. I'm not talking about babies or anything else.
We're talking about sentient adults, people that understand, and even a lot of kids understand as well, you need to know the truth. And so I want to try to help you, the congregation, to evangelize. And by the way, as I look out in the congregation, I think tonight we have more people than on a typical Sunday night.
So what that tells me is you would like to be better evangelists. And so I'm glad for that. Truths that I wish someone would have told me before I got saved. Number one, talked about this several weeks ago, but that's right.
Number one, it's not enough to just believe in the facts about Jesus Christ. You have to believe in more than facts to go to heaven. Let's turn our Bibles to John 3 and see a man who knew all kinds of facts, but it's not salvation by intellectual knowledge, by the accumulation of doctrine, of systematic theology, reading systematic theology.
John chapter 3, there's a man here that we'll look at in the Gospel of John who had all kinds of things right intellectually. He understood the facts. Now I don't want to say that facts are not important.
They are important. You have to know the facts of the Gospel. We have words to tell us what the Gospel is, but it's not enough to just believe in the facts. And by the way, this is a fairly microcentric message that I'm giving you tonight because these are things that I wish someone would have told me, but I think they'll be very common in all of our lives because there's a lot of spillover when it comes to satanic deception, whether it's through Mormonism or Catholicism or anything else being Goodism, there's a theme.
It's not enough to believe just the facts. You hear me preach this all the time. Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, John 3, a ruler of the Jews. For you young people there who might want to learn Greek, Nicodemus is where we get the word Nike, and his name basically means what?
Victory. He's a victor. Here's Nicodemus, and he is a ruler of the Jews. He's basically in the Supreme Court of the Jews, and he knows plenty about the Old Testament. He's in the Sanhedrin. And then it says in verse 2, this man came to Jesus.
So a knowledgeable Old Testament man comes to Jesus by night, by stealth, and says to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from Satan. We know you're a teacher come from the world. We know you're a teacher come from your own self.
Does he say any of that? We know you're a teacher come from God. He's got a lot of facts right. He's a rabbi. He's a teacher. Comes from God. For no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
He does signs. Here Nicodemus realizes Jesus does signs. In the context of John, what's the sign that he's probably talking about? John chapter 2, Jesus turns the water into wine. Word gets around. Who can do something like that?
No one can do that. Jesus can do miracles. And now it's like news spreading throughout all the land. This man can do miracles. That's more intellectual facts right there. And it says, no one can do these signs unless God is with him.
God is with this man. That's all kinds of facts. But as I said two Sundays ago there, as Bunyan said, can be a porthole to hell at the gates of heaven. How dreadful is that? To say, believe in the virgin birth, divine conception, virgin conception.
Jesus is 100 God. He's 100 man. He will return bodily for the return. He was bodily resurrected from the dead. He died a substituent death for sinners. Are those all true? They're absolutely true.
But just knowing the facts cannot save you. I believe that God wrote the Bible. If someone had said the Bible is not from God, I would have said, those are kind of fighting words against my Lutheran catechism.
You know, I don't know what the catechism question was, but the other day, I looked up, and I've saved some of my Lutheran catechism tests. I had a couple of thoughts. My first thought was, boy, I was pretty smart back then.
I got all in the 90s, but I was smart in damning theology because it's not the theology that they got right. Jesus is God. He's the only God. He's the eternal God. He's the son of God. He's the substitutionary God.
He's the resurrected God. He's the soon coming God. It's how can I be right with him? It was the wrong stuff. When it comes to poison, venom from a snake, I've been told that 80 of snake venom is protein.
It's the 20 that's got the poison that will kill you. Remember, we don't live in a society where people say, like in California, hey, you know, let's all be Satanists. Let's all be Anton LaVey, or who's in the werewolf deal?
Who is that? There's Anton... Lon Chaney. Did you just hear what Steve said? Lon Chaney. You are old. I still can't get over the whole Moe's thing, the restaurant down on Shrewsbury Street. On Wednesdays, people 50 and older get 50 off, and I now qualify.
That is just bad. There is, as I said two weeks ago, an assurance that is a false assurance. Flip over with me to John 6 .66, if you would, and I want to show you that. It's not just enough to believe the facts.
John 6 .66. While you might think of the Mark of the Beast 6 .66, I want you to remember these three sixes as well, because it'll serve you well when you talk to people who know a lot, but there's a kind of a person, when they hear the claims of Christ, that they have to follow him, forsaking all repentance and belief.
John 6 .66, after this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. You can believe Jesus was good. You can believe he's from God. You can believe he's a performer of miracles. And my question now is with John 3 and Nicodemus.
Was Nicodemus right with God? He knew all those things. Was he right with God? Answer, no. He needed to be born again. He needed to be changed from the inside out. For me, I knew the Apostles' Creed by heart.
I knew the Nicene Creed by heart. How many people know those things? We had to repeat them on Sunday. Some Protestant churches do that now as well. Every night before we went to bed, I prayed. I wasn't some kind of blasphemer who wouldn't pray before dinner.
Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let this food to us be blessed. Amen. By the way, is that a good prayer? I think it's a fine prayer, unless you just wrote all the time. At night, now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. I knew all that. Something that really shocked me when I was studying this. Turn over to Mark 5 with me.
You know James 2 says that demons believe in God and shudder. I want you to see what demons believe. It doesn't do any good to just know the facts. You must be born again. And that's what Jesus tells Nicodemus.
I just find it fascinating that demons are monotheists. Demons are... Can I say this? I know we have some guests, but I'll say it anyway. I hate to use this word. I think I've used it three times from the pulpit on Sunday, but I'm going to say it today anyway.
Demons are Calvinists. Demons are reformed in their theology. They have right soteriology. They have right pneumatology. They're not crazy, subjective, mystic people. No, they believe the truth. And look at even here in Mark 5.
Who could not think Jesus as wonderful as you see how He deals with these kind of creatures? But just to read to you from Mark 5, 1. They came to the other side of the sea to the country of the Gerizim.
By the way, if you go with us to Israel next year, you'll see this spot. And when Jesus stepped out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. Can you picture that in your mind?
Jesus gets out of the boat, and all of a sudden, here's the confrontation. He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind Him anymore, not even with a chain. For He'd been often bound with shackles and chains.
But He wrenched the chains apart, and He broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue Him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, He was always crying out and cutting Himself with stones.
Can you imagine this continual, unearthly shrieking? And when He saw Jesus from afar, He ran and fell down before Him. And crying out with a loud voice, He says, He said, What have you to do with Me, Jesus?
And look at what He calls Him. What any good Gentile or any good Jew would call Jesus, He knows it as well. What do you have to do with Me, Jesus? Had He ever met Him before? Son of the Most High God, I adjure you by God, do not torment Me.
You can deny Muhammad. You can deny the tenets of Hinduism. You can say Baha 'i is the wrong kind of faith. But that's still not enough either. Intellectual facts that are positive about God, intellectual facts that are negative about false saviors.
That is not enough. I'll never forget the time I moved to Newport Beach in California. I think I was 22 or 23 and my roommate came up to me. And he said, Hey, we're poor and living down by the beach and free food on Sunday nights.
I found this place where you can get free food and it's really good. I said, All right, free food on Sunday nights. What's going on? What's the catch? He said, The Hare Krishnas give you this huge big banquet and then you just have to listen to their little five-minute spiel afterwards.
I said, Those guys are false teachers. They're crazy. They're not Christians. I'm not even saved. I'm far from saved. But I understood that Hare Krishnas are going to put some kind of weird kind of funky...
I don't know what they put in there. Some kind of voodoo child something, some saltpeter. I don't know what they're putting in there. Just like, They're going to try to hurt me. They're going to try to distort my mind.
They're going to do what some seeker-sensitive churches do. Oh, by the way, you know, come and we're going to feed you. And then, by the way, while you're here, we'll trick you with the Bible. We'll sneak it in there.
I think if you're going to have a Bible study, what you do is you say, Hey, kids, we're having a Bible study. By the way, there'll be pizza after, but we're going to be here to teach you the Bible. And if five kids show up, five show up.
Anybody can get a crowd. Was I saved then? I thought, you know, this guy is out of his mind. He's going down there for Hare Krishna food. Next thing you know, he's going to be bald and working at LAX.
I mean, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't want that. That's what I thought. And what happens in John chapter 3? He says, You must be born again. That's the answer. You've got to be born again.
It doesn't matter what you know. You've got to be different. I want to say more about that, but that's going to be just a little bit later. So that's number one. Number two. The second truth I wish someone would have told me is that religion cannot take away your sins, nor can being religious.
Religiosity cannot take away sins. As a matter of fact, religion and religiosity actually does the opposite. It inoculates you against the real truth. It inoculates you against the real truth. What is an inoculation?
They get some kind of weak version of the virus, a dead version of the virus, some kind of weak or dead or unstable virus, and they give it to you, and then your body can react against the dead virus, preparing itself in case the real virus ever comes.
I grew up in a religious home. My grandmother was religious. I can remember going to Grandma Erna's house. She actually was German. Her first name was Hedwig. I said, Grandma, we didn't pronounce the V and the W right, and it only took me one time to ask Grandma, why doesn't anybody call you by your first name?
If your name's Hedwig, that pretty much solves that here in America at least. She was very religious, and she had a picture of Jesus right above the kitchen table, and we had to pray, and we had to do these things.
We had to go get baptized. We had to go to church on Christmas, and I remember seeing that Jesus. You know that Jesus with the blue eyes? You know, the real Jesus, kind of blonde hair and blue eyes, kind of the white Jesus.
Religiosity basically says, I don't care what the Bible says. We've got a few bones we want to throw out to God, in his name, of course, and then everything's fine. I've got my own life to live, my own agenda.
But after all, we're sophisticated people here, and we're not some kind of weird, you know, polytheists. And the problem with religiosity is, people are very, very sincere about their religiosity, and that makes it seem better.
I'm sincere in my religiosity. Sincerity is usually good, isn't it? Sincerity, by definition, is not a fault. But I can imagine back in the Old Testament, people with sincere hearts, take that brand new baby.
We've got a lot of babies around here. I'll take church growth any way I can get it. Every time, you know, you turn it around the corner, we've got a new baby. Can't count them as members until their hearts are changed, though.
All right, Josh? Can you imagine taking these babies, thinking, there's Molech, the God, who is going to give me more children, my best life now, everything I need on earth, and my wife and I just have to sacrifice this first baby to Molech.
And Molech looks like a brass bowl, and it's heated up, and then you put the baby inside this hot Molech brass structure, and they've got holes where the nostril would be and other places, so the steam just comes out, and then to silence the baby's cries on the inside, you have all the trumpeters out here.
And those people who gave their babies to Molech were sincere, and they were religious. It was the anti-religion, like Abraham being told, go take your son, your only son, and slay him. It was that kind of sincerity.
But sincerity can't save. Religiosity can't make anyone right with God. Religiosity, when it comes to sacramentalism, by baptism, all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin.
Catholic Catechism, number 321. In the booklet, Baptism Saves, put out by the Lutheran Church, baptism establishes a new relationship with God. Through Christian baptism, we have our sin forgiven, become heirs of eternal life, and can remain His children forever.
Amazing grace, end quote, in the booklet, Why Baptize Infants, 1981. Does that save anybody, this kind of religiosity? How about the religion of moralism? Ironclad rules, if we just do these things. Some kind of hyper-brethrenism, where if you think, if I only just do these rules on Sunday, then I'm okay.
As MacArthur used to say, he grew up in a brethren household. He said, you know, we couldn't do anything on Sunday. We couldn't read the funny papers. We had to go to church in the morning, Sunday school, Sunday night.
We couldn't do anything all day, except sit around and indulge in the sin of gluttony. We could do that. How about the religion of easy-believism? Yeah, I prayed the prayer. The religion of, I experienced something.
No. Let's go back to John chapter 3. Go back to John chapter 3, verse 3. Something needs to be done on the inside, and religiosity on the outside can't change us on the inside. You can do all you want, but you can't do enough, because you're tainted.
And here, to a very religious person, I think it's fair to say that this Sanhedrin minister, this zealous Pharisee, a separated one, one that was very good on external religion, by the way, I think what Jesus says to him is true for every person who thinks their religiosity is going to do anything when it comes to entrance to heaven.
Oh, it might assuage conscience for a while, but not at the end. Jesus answered and said to him, He's going to give him an answer that was never really, never had a question like this. He didn't expect this.
Towards the religious, Jesus answered and said to him, John 3, 3, Truly, truly, amen, amen, verily, verily, believe it. I say to you, unless one is born again or born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Religion cannot remove sins. Go down to verse 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. I have a question for you. It's a very deep question, a very important question.
I don't know if you'll get it. In Pittsburgh, they have big factories there, and they make something. Think of a pro football team. These factories, guess what they make in these factories in Pittsburgh?
Cotton. No, they make steel. You have a steel factory, and what do they make? Some kind of... Ray needs to be here to tell me about steel. Some kind of iron, ore, steel. They're factories. And so, these factories produce steel.
I have a question for you. The sinful heart in people is like a factory producing what? As Calvin would say, it's an idol-producing factory. But it never produces good. It never produces righteousness.
Why? Because the factory is faulty. The factory can't make what it's supposed to make, because we believe in the fall. I have a question for you. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Nowadays, some kind of, you know, Sammy Sosa joke or something.
I knew there would be somebody like that. Kind of Michael Jackson kind of thing. All right, let me give you one. Another one, Mr. Wise Guy. Can the leopard change his spots? You head up our evangelism ministry out in Worcester?
You do need this message, young man. Jeremiah 13, 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? No. Are the leopard his spots? Very no. Then you also, Barry, can do good who are accustomed to doing evil. Accustomed to doing evil.
This is not some kind of amendment. I just need to do better. You know, it's kind of like January 1st and we have that list. We're just going to be better. We're going to do better. We're going to do more.
No, the problem with religiosity is it comes from a person who's broken, who's fallen. So everything they do and everything they touch. Have you ever played with some of the kids by a pine tree? And all of a sudden you're going home and you go, it smells kind of like pine in the car.
And what do you have on your hands and on your jeans? You have to get this pine pitch or sap on your hands and then everything you touch. And you get home and you go, I've got a bunch of dirt on my face from the pine because I touched my face and it's just like everything I touch I just contaminate with this pine smell.
We have a factory that is producing sin. And so whether we say, I think baptism is the right thing or being good is the right thing. Going to church is the right thing. It's not good enough. Listen to Ecclesiastes 7 .20.
Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. Religion gives false assurance. Religion gives an inoculation against the need of feeling the pressure of your conscience that says, I'm not right with God.
We need a righteousness from God, not derived from the law, my law rather. Number three, he's all tied together. I want to get ahead of myself, but I just can't. Number three, the third thing I wish someone would have told me is that if you're not for Jesus, you're against him.
That Jesus gives an ultimatum. It's not, you can just kind of have Jesus too. I wish someone would have told me that no decision is a decision when it comes to following Christ Jesus. No decision is a decision.
And if you're going to believe anybody about salvation and eternal life and death and resurrection, I think you should believe Jesus. Who do you know that's been to heaven and has come back to tell you what heaven's like, what God's entrance requirements are and how you can get there.
If somebody did that, you would believe them, wouldn't you? I wouldn't. I don't mean 90 minutes in heaven and some other, you know, tripe that they sell at Walmart. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about somebody who really has gone there.
Well, look down at John chapter three, verse 13. If you want to listen to anybody, you should listen to Jesus. And Jesus here is going to basically demolish every other religion because Buddha hasn't been up to see God and come from heaven.
Any kind of avatar and Hinduism hasn't been there. Muhammad hasn't been there. No one ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. Therefore, I think you want to listen to what Jesus says when he talks about the holiness of God, the perfection of God, and how, if you'd like to get into heaven, you need a righteousness from someone else.
When we were kids, even in the Lutheran church, we sang that song. We are climbing, climbing somebody's ladder. Remember? Climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder. Do we sing that song here in junior church?
Good. I hope we don't because the song is horrible. Climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder. Like we're climbing Jacob's ladder. Hey, you want to go to heaven? Go over there and climb that ladder. I wish I could put some lyrics to the George Whitfield quote.
He basically says, if you would like to get to heaven on your own, it's like climbing a ladder up to heaven made of sand. That would be better. How can you climb up to heaven? Climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder.
I don't even remember the tune. Thankfully for you, especially for you young kids, Jesus is the ladder. He's the one that came down. He's the one that goes up. Let's say you don't want to say it's a ladder.
Well, you just look here. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. You'd like to know about God? It's from Jesus. Like I said this morning, you don't discover things about God or calculate God or measure God or weigh God.
God reveals himself to you, and it's the one who's been in heaven who has come down to say, this is who God is. There's no one else. I like what MacArthur said. He says, This verse contradicts other religious systems' claim to special revelation from God.
Jesus insisted that no one has ascended to heaven in such a way as to return and talk about heavenly things. By the way, when Paul did go to heaven, what was he told to say after he got back? Nothing.
And maybe this is one of the reasons why he was to say nothing, because there's one that's come back down, and he's the Messiah, and he's told us this is exactly what we need to believe. Jesus gives the ultimatum, because he is the ultimatum.
He's the only one who saves and delivers people from sin. Therefore, when you preach, I hate to tell you this, but you know this, because you're the elect on Sunday night. When you preach the gospel, you need to preach for an ultimatum.
And if people say, Well, you know what? I don't really want to believe that yet. I'm telling you, they're saying, I don't believe. A lack of acceptance is a blatant rejection. So, well, you know, maybe later.
No. Listen to what Tozer said. We who preach the gospel, you who evangelize, let me add, must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish goodwill between Christ and the world.
We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports, modern entertainment. Listen to this. We are not diplomats, but prophets, and our message is not compromise, but an ultimatum.
Turn with me to Mark chapter 10, and I'll give you an illustration of that. We might not have time for anything else, but that's all right. Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. Look at how Jesus, the ultimatum, preaches the ultimatum.
Did I say John 10? Mark 10. Good. That's what I want. Mark chapter 10. Remember this summer as a church, we're reading Mark. In June, Mark 1 to 5 every day. In July, Mark 6 to 10 every day. In August, Mark 11 to 16 every day.
If you miss a day or two, fine. That's our goal. Some of you have already told me, you begin to read Mark already. And by the way, I was very, very happy this morning when some people came up to me and said, I'm more committed, and I'm convicted that I need to read the Bible more.
And what did I say? How could you be messing up for so long? It's about time. No. I was happy. I was happy. But if those same people are at home watching TV tonight, I'm not happy. Mark chapter 10, verse 17.
This is just a great passage. I was talking to Linton earlier today, and he had to give his testimony in front of a bunch of high school kids, and said, you know, I didn't really know what to say, so I thought I'd just preach this.
That's exactly right. This is the testimony of Jesus. Who talks like this? Here's the ultimatum. And as he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, and knelt before him and asked, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
For you Greek students, it's an imperfect verb, to kneel. Imperfect means, it was a long time. It wasn't some quick genuflect, some kind of quick curtsy. He was running up, and he's on his knees, and he's saying, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
The rabbis would tell people, that is the right question to ask a teacher. It's the question, isn't it? It's the most important question. To date myself, it's the $32 ,000 question. The updated was the $64 ,000 question.
What must I do? He could have said, you know Jesus, he runs up, he gets down on his knees, and he goes, how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin? Jesus, Jesus, how do I figure out the divine decree, that the decree, the divine eternal decree, included the fall of Adam?
What's going to go on in the end times? Pre-mill, a-mill, post-mill, pan-mill, I need to know how it works out in the end. He's asking the right question. We too often say, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
See, the guy's a works loser. He's always talking about works, and what do you have to do? No, this is the right question. And he runs up, what must I do to inherit eternal life? If somebody ran up to you, they thought, you're the religious kook of the family, and on Thanksgiving, they come up and get enough gumption, and they run up to you, and they get down on your knees, and they say, I know you study the Bible, you go to that cult down on 110, they always preach the Bible, and it's a bunch of weirdos, and I know you know the answer to this, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
What would you say? You'd never say what Jesus says. I hope you wouldn't say, and I don't think you would, you just need to accept Jesus in your heart, bow your head, pray this prayer, you're good, you've got to get baptized.
It's like a wake-up call. It's cold water in the face. By the way, these people were poor, Jesus and the disciples, and it didn't help that Judas is stealing from the treasury that they had. Here's the rich young ruler.
This is going to be perfect. He's a rich person. Just water it down a little bit, and then we'll get the money. Another follower. Rich, influential. This is easy pickings. He's begging, he's running, he's kneeling.
And Jesus says, you've got to just love Jesus. Who teaches like this? Who is like this? Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Young man, you don't have any idea who you're talking to.
Because in the absolute sense, only God is good. And you're calling me good. And therefore, your implication is, I'm God. And the implication to me being good is that you are not good. This is a jolt.
He didn't say, well, you know, compared to other people, I'm good. No, he needs to see himself in light of God's holy nature. He needs to be like Peter on the boat who says, Jesus, depart from me, for I am a what? Sinful man.
Oh, dear good teacher, what must I do in order to inherit eternal life? One reformer said, before you address me with such a title, you had better think soberly about what the implications are, and especially what they are for you.
And now Jesus fails E .E. class. Verse 19. Any Bible college in all the world that says, if somebody says, what must I do to be saved? If you write down this answer, you will fail that test. Sadly. You know the commandments.
Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Maybe that's a summary of the 10th commandment. Maybe it's a special warning to this rich person. It's not part of the 10 commandments.
Honor your father and mother. If you fail to love other people, the second side of the tablets, it will show that you're failing to love God, the first side of the tablet. And he said to him, what word is missing from the last time he addressed Jesus?
He said to him what? Teacher. The good's gone. Because now if you're good, I'm not good. And that's not really where I want to go. Good, holy, perfect, transcendent, all-knowing. Let's just kind of downwardly adjust this.
Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth. I looked up Webster's Dictionary. Definition of a Christian. Ready? You want a belly laugh tonight? Here you go. Maybe you're going to be sad. Should be both.
A decent, civilized, or presentable person. It's a Christian. Random House said this, exhibiting, this is what a Christian is according to Random House, exhibiting a spirit proper to a follower of Jesus Christ as in having a loving regard for other persons.
Closer. This man, this rich young ruler, sounds like Paul before he was saved and according to righteousness which is found in the law, found blameless. But he's blind. He can't even admit sin. I don't know if Steve was over there and Janet, but Kim remembers there was a young guy that came to our Bible study in North Hollywood, California, and he came over and I started talking about sin and he looked me in the eye, he was 18 years old, and he said, I have never committed a sin in my life.
I didn't meet anybody like that before until I moved to Lancaster and we had a couple over and they had a little daughter and I said, and do you know even your daughter is sinful? And this particular person said, my daughter has never sinned and my daughter is not a sinner.
And I thought to myself, lots of things. One of the things I thought, just wait. Just wait. Matter of fact, those people attend this church and they know that their little daughter is a raging sinner.
I got a good GPA. I live a moral life. I'm the son of wealthy parents. I'm a pillar in the synagogue. I'm a ruler around here. I'm the kind of guy the parents want their daughters to marry. I'm no bum.
I'm a rich young ruler. From my youth up since Bar Mitzvah and Jesus looking at him if there are any hyper-Calvinists out there, here is the love of God for his creation. There's two kinds of love. Love for a creation.
Love especially for the bride. Here's a general love of creation. NAS messes it up. ESV is right. And Jesus looking at him, what's the text say? Loved him. And said to him, you lack one thing. And he gives him four things to do.
Go, sell all that you have, give to the poor. Give, you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me. Matthew is interesting. The other account of this, the man says to Jesus, all these things I have kept, what am I still lacking?
I'm missing something in my life. Something's not right. I'm not fulfilled. I'm not shalom. I'm not well-sighted and well-rounded. And here Jesus picks the most vulnerable spot. He picks his Achilles heel.
Come and follow me. One man said, like a doctor who has just diagnosed a fatal disease, Jesus prescribes a radical treatment. Get rid of what you own and follow me. The patient, however, is willing neither to accept the diagnosis nor to submit to the cure.
Jesus says, with final, conclusive determination, come and follow me. Follow me. Present tense, and always follow me. It's like Matthew, the tax collector. Follow me. He drops the stuff. Off he goes. Verse 22, disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful because he had great possessions.
That word sorrowful there is not the normal word for sorrowful. It means gloomy. It means you're going to have a graduate... No, let's make it this way. This is the best way to describe it. You're going to have an outside wedding and it's beautiful at 10 o 'clock.
The wedding's at noon. At 11 .45, the rain clouds come in and it starts pouring down and you are gloomy. That's exactly the word here. It's a disappointment. Sullen, somber disappointment. Scrooge said he wanted God but not at the cost of his gold.
He wanted life but not at the expense of luxury. He was willing to serve but not to sacrifice. Whatever became of the man, we don't know. But I do know that Jesus said this in Luke 13, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?
And he said to them, strive to enter by the narrow door for many, I tell you, will seek to enter but will not be able. Doesn't that describe what happened here? Seeking eternal life. He doesn't want to go to hell forever.
He's seeking it. Hey boys, did you get the message? Look at the text. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
Even the word money, mammon, comes from where we get the word amen because there's a trust and there's a belief and a support system within that word, within the idea of money. False sense of security.
Verse 24, and the disciples were amazed at his words. Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle.
That's a literal camel and a literal needle. There's no such thing as a needle gate. The context here is it's impossible. Verse 26, and they were exceedingly astonished. You're not astonished at some camel that can kneel down and scoot through something.
Then who can be saved? And Jesus looked at them and said, I wonder what his face looked like when he said this. I would have loved to have been there. With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.
You ought not to come to Christ Jesus because you want your marriage fixed, because it would be the death of you is what Jesus is going to want. The problem with you is not your marriage. The problem is with you.
The problem with you is not your social structure. The problem is you. And Jesus gives this ultimatum, you must be born again. For me, 29 years of my life, I thought I did some pretty good things. I thought I was helpful to certain people.
I had a good job. I didn't get caught in any kind of criminal activity or anything like that. And to think for 29 years it wasn't empty. It counted against me. Because I thought all those things that I was doing for 29 years were helping me, but they were hurting me.
That's why Farley's right with our parenting book. What's the number one thing in all the world that damns people? Virtue. Perceived virtue. That we're good. We're grandparents. We're kind and nice and undergird society.
I wish someone would have told me that if you are not born again, you are standing in military array against the God of the universe, and if your arms were long enough, you would kill Him. Because if you're not for Jesus, you're against Him.
So for us as a congregation, I think I've got about six more left. We'll do that next time. Here's my hope. My hope is this. Sometime this week, you get an opportunity to preach the gospel. Has that ever happened to you?
You read about something in the Bible or you hear a sermon, you go, I just learned about something and now the Lord gives me an opportunity to live it out. I just prayed, Lord, make me a better evangelist.
Sometimes I think to myself, I just would like to be more humble, but I'm almost afraid to pray for humility because I know how God breaks people to make them more humble. And I'm thinking, didn't I go through kind of enough breaking?
And so you're thinking, alright Lord, I'd like to evangelize, but then when you're there, it's difficult because every person in here has said to themselves as they've evangelized, if I really tell them what I really think, they aren't going to like me.
And I'm going to lose respect in their eyes. And they're going to think, here's how I think, they're going to think that I'm one of these weird televangelists. They're going to think I'm a Christian right person who is all concerned about politics.
They're going to think that I'm this, that, or the other. When what does it really matter what they think? We're here to tell them the truth. And without the truth, they will perish. And so I hope everyone here gets the opportunity to preach the gospel to somebody this week.
And to tie it together with this morning's sermon, you don't need to feel led to preach the gospel. You're told to preach the gospel. Jesus says, Lo and I'm with you always. I'm there with you when you preach the gospel.
Say, well, you know, I'm not really, I don't feel led. I've told you a hundred times, you ask your kids to pick up the bedroom and they don't do it. And you come in, you march in and snort and storm around and you go, why didn't you pick up your room?
And your kid looks at you and uses your theology against you. Mommy, I wasn't led. I told you to do it. You don't need to be led. We have the privilege to preach the gospel to people and it's time to open our mouths and talk about who is God?
He's holy. He's just. He's full of grace. That you men are sinful, fallen, foolish and depraved. That God alone can bridge the gap between holiness and sin by sending His Son who makes reconciliation, redemption and propitiation for all those who would believe and the response to a risen resurrected Savior is believe, trust and follow.
That's our message. And that's the message that will take somebody who's on their way to hell and send them to heaven. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank You tonight. Thank You that You're not just a God who can heal blind men like in Bethesda.
You're not just a God who can give Peter the words Jesus is the Christ. But You're a God who can conquer and did conquer death, hell and sin. Like we talked about this morning, we have a hope of heaven tonight because of Your justice.
You're not going to punish us if You've punished Jesus. So help us to live in light of that. And help us to tell other people clemency can be had if they'll put down their weapons and repent and believe in the risen Savior.
Father, give us boldness. Give us strength that's hard to evangelize. Give us a love that loves our family enough, our friends enough to tell them the truth. And Father, especially the men who are working and maybe some of the ladies who need to work, I pray that they would be good stewards of their time at work.
And when they're to be working, that they would be faithful workers, the best workers at work. And Lord, give them opportunities away from work, off the clock, where they could preach the gospel. We ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.