Luke 18:18-27

This morning I invite you to turn with me to the book of Luke chapter 18, looking at verses 18 to 27 for our text and study today. Luke chapter 18 and beginning with verse 18. We started this study last week and we’ll continue it this morning. and a certain ruler ask him saying good master what shall I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus said unto him why callest thou me good none is good save one that is God 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. And he said, all these have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing, sell all that thou hast, and distribute under the poor. and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. And when he heard this, he was very sorrow, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, 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 the eye of a needle or a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they that heard it said, who then can be saved? And he said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with men are possible. with God. And God blessed to us the reading of His sacreds and Holy Word this morning. I only saw a video where there was a group of people out on the street and they were asking college students questions. And they weren’t a normal kind of questions. But the first one was, can you name ten brands of beer? Well, the young people stopped. Usually did fairly well, you know, with the Budweiser and Mickelope and Iron City and Genesee and Coors and so forth. But the second question, took them back a little bit. Can you name the Ten Commandments? And here the students struggled. Not one of them could name all ten. And none of, and some of them actually came up with some rather novel commandments. One interviewer asked, do you think, what do you think of the Ten Commandments? The person just stared at the questioner and asked and said, are you kidding? And others said, well, I don’t take them literally. One person laughed. and said, well, I think rules were made to be broken. And another one said, it’s fortunate that we don’t have to keep them anymore. This is a pretty good, I think, sampling of the state of our society and how people view the commandments of God. People know more about fear than they know about the law of God. This rich young rule, has come to Jesus to obtain eternal life. That was his question. He’s very religious person. He has been instilled with moral values from his youth, as we see. He, no doubt, could have named the King of Manments. He’s very respectful of Jesus. He recognizes him as a good teacher. or good master, as he says. He is a prime candidate you would think for salvation. What a trophy he would make for the kingdom of God. And you would think that a person that came on this kind of question would be, you know, just a perfect guy to deal with because he wants to know how he can have eternal life. And he’s opening up the question right to you. And you have a perfect question. opportunity to answer. But it’s how Jesus deals with this rich young ruler that may take you back. Our Lord’s evangelistic approach is far different than what you would find out in the religious world. For Christ takes here the time to deal with this man. He doesn’t take him down a Roman road and get him to pray a prayer and pronounce him saved, as many probably would have done. But what he does do here is he questions him. In fact, rebukes him, as we saw last week. There are two basic things. One is there’s none good, but one that is God. An inquire after. salvation needs to realize that the holy character of God, God’s goodness we saw last week refers to many of his attributes. When God’s goodness appeared before Moses, we looked at all the attributes, such as mercy and grace and long-suffering and truth and faithfulness and justice and holiness and so forth, were all listed as well as the fact that he did not put up with sin and would by no means clearly guilty. Inquire after salvation needs to realize the sinful the sinful character of man as well. There is none good that all are sinners in the eyes of God. Now Jesus here is indicating that he’s not just a teacher. He is asking this young man, do you realize that you are speaking to the Lord God? There’s none good but God. Say, if you’re going to call me good, are you recognizing me as God, as the son of God? God manifested in the flesh. Now, Jesus is a sound guide when it comes evangelism and it’s wise to follow his example not man-made mechanical views of salvation. So the first thing we saw last week was he starts with the attributes of God. You know who God is? Now, here he moves on to the law of God. The law of God must be the primary tool. in your evangelism, 18 to 20. You gain a knowledge of sin by the law of God. Christ’s remark to the young man relates here to the law of God. The moral law, we’re talking about the Ten Commandments here, reveals the demands of God upon you as one of His creatures. In a way, Jesus has already covered the first table of the law because of the question that he put to him, there is none good one that is God and of the attributes of God that were associated with it. Here, Jesus focuses upon the second table of law. This is your obligation to God with regard to your neighbor, your fellow human being. Although the commandments are not stated in the exact order, we have them in the Ten Commandments. The man clearly knows that Jesus is not referring to the civil or the ceremonial law, but indeed to the Ten Commandments. The only question relates to this, defraud not. It’s possible that Jesus is referring to Thou shalt not covet such. is withholding the laborer’s pay that’s due unto him. However, the fraud not is related to thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, because Matthew’s gospel adds this in Matthew 1919. Do not withhold the love you owe him. In which case, then, Jesus is summarizing the second table. of the law of love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, it doesn’t this seem like an odd answer to what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, Jesus knew that this fellow was incapable of meriting eternal life by perfectly keeping the law. A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, whereby the works of law shall no flesh be justified according to Glacians 216. So why not talk about the free grace of salvation? Why not talk about the fact that salvation is a free gift? Why not speak of himself as the Savior? Why old his attention to the law of God? Well, Jesus, is already mentioned. There’s no one good in God’s side. Therefore, we know that no one keeps the commandments perfectly. They’re all guilty. God’s law is essentially an ingredient in gospel preaching, because by the law is the knowledge of sin, and you see yourself as a sinner when exposed to God’s demands. The word sin makes no sense unless there is God’s righteous law to show what sin is. How can anyone understand his or her sinfulness without the implication of the law of God being grasped? Something is sinful because God says it is sinful. It makes no difference what society thinks as a whole or even what the government says is acceptable. The point is, sin is transgression of the law, 1 John 3, 4. If society believes that little white lies are okay, then we are not likely to, you know, realize that God will damn you for those lies. If the government hands a real estate developer land that has been confiscated by eminent domain from someone, he is unlikely to realize this violates, thou shalt not steal. As long as you have a document legalizing your five divorces, the state accepts it. You may not realize that God sees unbiblical divorce. as adulter. So these are the things we have to keep in mind. You know, Herod, Philip, married Errodius, the daughter of Aristobulus. And Philip, when he was married to her, had a daughter from her named Salome, according to the historian, the Jewish historian Josephus. Years later, Herod and Tippos visited his brother, Philip, became infatuated with Erodeus, the wife, and the two became lovers and agreed that they would divorce their mates and marry one another. Roman law didn’t condemn this. The judge. John the Baptist came along, and he said to Herod, he said, it’s not lawful for you to have her. You’re violating God’s law by doing this. For according to God’s law, marriage was not only, this marriage was not only incestuous, according to Luke 18, or Leviticus 18, but also adulterous. for it was without biblical grounds, as Matthew 5 talks about. You know, coveting your neighbor’s wife and taking her for yourself is sinful in God’s eyes. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s legal in the eyes of the eyes of the state. It’s sinful. So you gain a knowledge of sinful. the law of God. Notice this. Ignorance of the law leads to a mere lip service regarding your sinfulness, as verse 20 indicates. Normally, evangelical practice is to swiftly run to the cross of Christ, and after after you state there’s none good, take them to the cross of Christ. Everyone’s a sinner. He cries. However, without the knowledge of the law’s condemnation, the cross may draw sympathy, but it’s not looking, not looked upon as necessary for you to escape the wrath of God. So what sense was there in presenting to this man the way of salvation when he was not really seeing himself as lost and condemned in the eyes of God. So the man didn’t think of himself as a lawbreaker. As he seized, I’ve kept the law since my youth. He defends himself as a moral and upright person who respects God’s law. Well, since Jesus came not to call the righteous but sinners to him. retent this man is still unprepared for the gospel now a surgeon who selects a scalpel for an operating in an operation room he is going to reject any scalpel that even has a minute speck of dirt upon it you might say well yeah but it’s 99 and three-quarter percent and pure. Any little speck of defaulment on that instrument makes it useless for the operation. In the same way, spiritually, any small defaulment that we have make us unacceptable in God’s side. Even though we may keep many of the laws of God, all we have to do is unacceptable in God’s side. and we’re guilty. So even the, you know, the finest, the tiniest, I should say, is spot will condemn us in God’s sight. Many people think in this manner, well, yes, I’m a sinner, of course. I’m less holy than God, but no one’s perfect. I’m a pretty moral person. But this is lip service. There’s none good. You’re not a godly person. You’re not a really moral person. People don’t see themselves as reckless violators of the law of God. And this is what Jesus is pointing out. Some like this rich young ruler think that they have observe the law of God and their lives appear to be moral and upright and religious. Maybe a few indiscretions here and there, but basically nothing major. But when God cite, you’re guilty. The law of God must be a primary tool in your evangelism. Now, secondly, you must emphasize the spiritual character. of the law of God. In verses 20 and 21, you will find people have a superficial understanding of the requirement of the law. And this is very, very common. As he says here in verse 20 in our text, He says here, Thou knowest the commandments Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. And he said, all these have I kept from my youth up. You know, people will not turn to Christ. When there’s no sense of sinning against the Lord, there’s no conviction of sin. And they don’t really understand the laws of the law of God at all. This young ruler’s knowledge of the law is superficial. He says, well, you know, I look at the commandments and I haven’t violated these commandments. I’ve been very careful to keep them from my youth. but in such a case you’re only dwelling on the external aspects of the law you’re not looking at the internal aspects of the law of God this is where people often fail did you ever look at the point of a needle and it’s ground very fine, smooth. But put that needle under a microscope and you’ll see all the rough spots and the irregularity. Your life is like that needle. Viewed from the lens of God’s law, it looks a lot different than you think it is. You think, well, it’s pretty smooth. I’m going to living pretty good. God’s looking at things much deeper and much more closely. Exemplary outward behavior is not the only demand of the law of God. The young man has to learn that the law of God is spiritual in nature. You must make people appreciate the fact that the law makes demands with regard to the thoughts and intense of the heart. This is where people fail to grasp the law of God. David Brainerd, the missionary, famous missionary to the American Indians, was converted, before he was converted, he became very angry with God. One of the reasons he was angry with God was because of the strictness of the law of God. For I found it, he said, to be impossible to keep. To my utmost pains, he says, I’ve done everything I could and tried to keep the law of God, but I always failed. He kept making new resolution. I’m going to try better. I’m going to do better this time. and so forth. But he couldn’t keep it. And so he got frustrated. He got angry with God thinking, well, this isn’t fair. I can’t keep the law. So every time he had a stronger resolution, he found himself failing. And he began to quarrel with the law of God. It just was not something he could keep. And Bernard found the law to be impossible. I thought if it extended only to my outward actions and behavior, then I could bear with it. But I found that it made demands on my inner self as well, and that’s where I utterly failed. Brainerd thought that if the law was just external in its control, of behavior, he wouldn’t have a problem. But the law’s spiritual implications condemned him. You know, most people you meet can tick off maybe a list of 10 commandments and say, well, I never broke this one or I never broke that one. And I never committed adulterter. I never stole from my neighbor. I never told a serious lie and so forth. Nor do they. understand the unity of the law, that whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he’s guilty of all of it, according to James 2.10. So violation of law being subject to its penalty doesn’t require you to break every single commandment in it. one lie shatters the entire law and you stand guilty before God. You know, a stone that kicks up and cracks your windshield, cracks it in one place. But that crack windshield has to be replaced. It’s just, it’s going to spread and it won’t stay in one spot. And therefore it has to be replaced. The whole windshield has to be replaced. So it is with the law of God. If we crack in one spot, if we’re guilty of the whole thing, the whole thing is, you know, we’re guilty of before God. A chain may only have one bad link in it. All the rest may be fine. That one bad link makes that chain useless. If you don’t have to touch, an electric wire in several places they get electrocuted. All you need is one bare spot, and that’s what’ll get you. So we begin to see here that one sin, one breaking of the commandments can make you guilty of the law of God. A person may think, well, I I’ve kept 90% of the law. I’ve only failed in one area. God surely is going to give me a passing grade on this, but he will not. You find people have a superficial understanding of the law. You will find emphasizing emphasizing the spiritual character of the law brings conviction. There was a man that was filling out his job request, and as he’s filling it out, one of the questions was, have you ever been arrested? And he said, no, and then underneath it, it said, why? And he thought he should answer that. He said, never been caught. That was not really the question that if you had broke the law, they want to know what it was, but he used to say, why I never got caught. And this is the way, you know, people are with regard to the law of God. They think they are okay, because they never have been caught by the law. Once the law’s spiritual character is understood, they will be caught by the law. Since the inquirer was a very rich man, one who probably employed many people and clung tenaciously to all his possessions. Jesus stresses here the 10th commandant. He talks about selling all that you have and giving to the poor. Because this man’s problem was spiritual in nature. It was covetousness. Covetismus, which is the 10th commandment. To any of the commandments, Jesus could have added, you know, spiritual application, as he did in the sermon of the mount. He could have explained that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her and committed adultery with her in his heart. He could have explained that thou shall not kill also takes in whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is guilty of the same thing. He could have explained, thou shalt have no other gods before me, by saying that a covetous man man is an idolater, according to Ephesians 5.5. He worships money, whose God is his belly. He worships of whatever he deems to be. be important to him. He could have explained, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, by saying, according to Isaiah, you need to delight myself in the Lord, Isaiah 158. It’s not a matter of just keeping the law of God with regard to the Sabbath, but actually taking it delight in the Lord as we keep that law. Jesus here puts his finger on the rich man’s darling sin, covetousness. Greed is a sin that’s not always clear in the eyes of human beings. You don’t always see greed. On the surface, the ruler’s behavior perhaps didn’t reveal his covetousness, but Jesus drives home. The fact that covetousness ruled this man’s life. He is applying the commandments’ teachings to this man in particular. If Jesus had merely said, do not covet, the man would have maybe responded, wow, I don’t desire anybody else’s property or wealth. I’m satisfied with my station line. However, when Jesus translated this commandment into practical terms, it becomes obvious that the young man here loved his riches more than he loved God. For he would not sell all that he had and give to the poor and follow the Lord. He was deficient in love for God, on which the whole law is hanging. So Jesus was taking the law and he’s using it as a sharp instrument cut into this man’s soul. Sometimes you have to labor with the law until a person understands how guilty they are in my eyes of God. It’s not merely the letter of the law. it’s the spirit of the law that we violate as well. You know, the Apostle Paul thought of himself as a very good person. He, as he put it, you know, touching the righteousness of law, blameless. He was a meticulous keeper of the letter of the law. His concern was to gain righteousness before God by being blameless. to the law. However, Paul’s had to acknowledge when the commandment came and the spiritual implication of it hid home, sin revived. I could no longer appear to be a righteous person. I was beaten, and I The law slew me, he says, in Romans 7.9. He confessed this, I had not known sin or lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not shalt not covet. Romans 7.7. The one who previously thought he was blameless, when he understood covetous, he said, I’m guilty. And so we see the character here of the law and its effect. So the testing of the college students indicates that they know more about beer and they know about the commandments of God. This reveals our society and its understanding of sin. That’s this imperative in your evangelism that you speak. of the law of God and explain its meaning to people. So they don’t just think about the letter of the law, but the spiritual character of the law. Remember that you are trying to bring people eventually to Jesus Christ, first of all, they have to see themselves as lost. If you don’t bring them to that state, they’re not ready for the salvation that’s in Christ. So Jesus here is slowly, maturely dealing with this man. First, this is what God is like. Secondly, let’s look at you. You’re guilty in the eyes of God. Let’s close with prayer this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity we’ve had. to study your word, to think about the law of God, think about our witness before others. Help us, Lord, to teach your word faithfully, to apply it to follow Christ’s example here, and encourage us, Father, in our labors. We ask. In Jesus’ name, with Thanksgiving. Let’s stand for the benediction. May God’s blessing. upon his people. Brother, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirit.