Mark 10:17-22 -- And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
Proverbs 30:15-16 -- The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.
l. THE RICH YOUNG RULER
-The text from Mark is but a third of the picture of the man who approached Jesus on that day in the costal regions of Judea, the southern-most portion of Israel. A further profile of this man comes from the accounts given by Matthew and Luke (Matt. 19:16; Luke 18:18). John is strangely silent in his omission of the young man.
-The profile of the man from the three accounts proves to us that he was a young man who was rich who held the position of a ruler. He was a young man who was highly principled and highly motivated. He had invested his talents wisely, not fingering them until they had lost their power, nor had he hoarded them away to be buried in some obscure place in his heart.
-This young man was filled with honesty and love for God. He had the markings of discipline, an excellent quality to have, but discipline without desire will bring dryness to the soul of every man.
-Inside of this young man is the picture of a generation of men who had the discipline but did not have desire to accompany their efforts. Inside of this young man were some hidden keys that once found could have unlocked the doors of greatness.
A. The Approach of The Rich Young Ruler
-The approach of this young man to Jesus bears attention. He came to Jesus and assumed the posture of respect, submission, and reverence. He did not desire to be antagonistic toward the Great Teacher with his question of great importance.
-He knew that righteousness was synonymous with eternal life and entrance into the kingdom of God. Such a principle still prevails.
2 Corinthians 7:1 -- Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Ephesians 4:21-24 -- "If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:" "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;" "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
-This is done in view of what the Epistle of Peter gives to us:
2 Peter 3:10-12 -- "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness," "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?"
-Great emphasis is placed on righteousness. It is my belief that spirituality and conduct are inseparable. A true relationship with God is going to affect the behavior of a man. It marks him and separates him from the world.
-This young man placed a high emphasis on conduct over ritual. He was not so caught up in his world that he did not have time for his God.
B. The First Great Question
-The first question was related perhaps to the externals of life. The second question that he would ask was related to the internals of life. His first question was a very important question:
Mark 10:17 -- ". . . Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"
-When Jesus answered this question he resorted to the Law. He proved two things by going to the Law.
• (1) The Law was a revelation of the holiness of God (by showing men what God desired).
• (2) The Law defined the requirements of holiness (by showing men how God wanted men to walk).
-This young man had fulfilled the requirements of the Law and still felt that there was a missing element in his life. He could declare with a confidence that his life was well pleasing in the sight of God.
-Service to God involves more than just fulfilling the externals of life. It is more than just being able to say that the Law has been upheld. There are some requirements of God that come when one least expects them. Such was the case with the rich young ruler.
C. The Second Great Question
-The second question was related to the internal issues. Those things inside the soul. There are many who walk through life with things seemingly "under their thumb" while the inside is a rolling, boiling cauldron of emotions.
-The outside can display some great feats but the inside can be as weak as water and yet no one is aware who watch from the outside.
-The young man’s second great question, taken from Matthew’s account, illustrates this:
Matthew 19:20 -- ". . . what lack I yet?"
-That question is deeply imbedded within every man. But it is a question that usually is not asked for fear of embarassment, for fear that image will be tarnished, for fear that others might misconstrue the intent and purpose of the question.
• How many times has it been uttered through prayers of desperation?
• How many times have I approached God, with tears flowing, trying to grasp and grapple with a strong will?
• What is the thing that is missing that keeps me from gaining the spiritual greatness that I desire?
• What lack I yet, God???
-The answer comes to light when we look to the life of this young man. Illuminated by the Word of God, the answer is a matter of the heart. The element of desire.
ll. DISCIPLINE VERSUS DESIRE
-This young man was so highly disciplined and so highly motivated that he had fared well throughout his young life. The future held bright things for this young man.
-To some men, disciplines chafes and irritates. They work to shrug off the bindings created by discipline. They are prone to resist the boundaries that discipline brings to their lives. To some men, discipline structures and shapes their lives. They seem to relish the engagments of discipline. Discipline can work with the smallest of talents, the minute gifts, and turn them into something that the world stands in awe.
-The account of the rich young ruler is sandwiched by two great events in the life of Christ. Preceding the story, one will find a blind Bartimaeus, a man who received what he wanted from God because he was persistent. Following the rich young ruler, is the cursing of the fig tree. Perhaps each is a mirror for the rich young ruler.
-The fig tree illustrates to us a life that is full of discipline, externally all of the leavesproved to be doing exactly what was required but there was no fruit. The healing of Bartimaeus proves to us the importance of desire.
-That was the plight of the rich man, full of discipline but low on desire. What lack I yet, God? Answer: Desire that is coupled with discipline.
A. Desire -- A Key to Success
Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself. (J. Hawes)
Dreams are not opiates to make men fall into the lethargy of imagination, but they are the steam to push their visions toward accomplishment. There are some men who have dreams that are lived out to their extent in the imagination. There are other men who are willing to put feet and legs on their dreams and accomplish great things. It takes blood and brawn to see the fulfillment of a dream.
Desire:
• Pressed a widow through the crowd to touch the hem of the garment of God (Matt. 9:20)
• Forced Zacchaeus up a tree (Luke 19:2-10)
• Drove a palsied man through the roof (Mark 2:4)
• Made Bartimaeus cry louder (Mark 10:46)
• Compelled the Syrophonecian woman to continue pleading (Matt. 15:27)
• Made Rahab risk her life to go with the Israelites (Joshua 2:8-22)
B. The Salmon
The Alaskan Steelhead (also Chinook) is a salmon that averages a size of about 20 lbs. This particular species of fish will be born in the cold rivers of Alaska and began a trek down the river until it feeds into the Pacific Ocean. This small fingerling is generally about 2-3 inches by the time it reaches the ocean where it will remain until it migrates back north to the spawning beds that it came from. The trip that these salmon make is often between 1000-2000 miles.
The migratory instinct of the members of the salmon family is remarkably specific, each generation returning to spawn in exactly the same breeding places as the generation before it. Once the salmon has reached the nesting area, it will leave as many as 20,000 eggs in October or November. It will then drift back downstream and die. Having fought the chilling waters, the bears who move in for sake of food, and resisting disease the entire way, a zoologist refers to this as instinct. Perhaps another word to use would be desire. (From article in Outdoor Life that I read in the barbershop.)
-There is an overwhelming desire in the salmon to continue the trend of its species. More concerned than just having a tree that is full of leaves yet no fruit. Spiritual desires should mark and put our lifestyles in a place beyond the reaches of the world.
lll. THE FOUR HEARTBEATS OF DESIRE
-The wisdom of Solomon captured the missing portion of the rich young ruler’s life.
Proverbs 30:15-16 -- "The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:" "The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough."
-Inside of every man are four separate entities of desire, the four heartbeats of desire. They have the capacity to make or break. There comes a time in the life of a man where he must face down these four forces.
-If that man fails in his response to the four, then he does as the rich young ruler, he will leave downcast and grieved because the wealth of the possessions are considered more valuable than the cost of the Cross.
-If that man gleans the victory in his response to the four, then from that point on the equations that life presents are but small obstacles that he must overcome. Desire tempered by discipline causes one to rise above all limitations.
-Inside of every man there is a grave, there is a barren womb, there is a tract of land, and there is a fire that will burn until life ebbs out of the body.
A. The Grave
-The grave that is presented to a man comes on this premise given to us by Jesus Christ:
Mark 8:34-36 -- "And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it." "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
-Every man is supplied with wood. He may do what he wants with that wood. Some men choose to build houses with their wood although the foundation is neglected and when the storms of life come, the house of wood fails them.
• Some craftsmen, as Bezaleel and Aholiab, choose to take their wood and overlay it with gold and make artifices of worship for a nation to find their God.
• Isaiah tells us that others choose to take their wood and hack out smaller gods to worship and then spend the rest of their wood on their own comfort.
• The book of Esther gives the sad account of Haman, a man whose ambition went in the wrong direction. He took his wood and built the gallows that he would die on.
• Yet, there are others who take but a meager supply of wood and form a cross.
-The grave in every man hungers for fulfillment. The internal graves that all men have either kill them or fulfill them. It is my choice. My wood can be spent on frivilous matters of life, on deadly gallows. Or I can take but a meager supply and build a cross. A cross that has the ability to save and bring me to a throne room.
Galatians 2:20 -- "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
-To reach such a level, a man must be willing to answer and let desire take up where the discipline leaves off.
B. The Barren Womb
-The second heartbeat of desire is that has to be faced is the womb. There is a quest for fruitfulness in the heart of every man.
-It is the cry of revival. "Give me children or I die." The quest of Rachel brought her two sons. One of the sons would serve as a deliverer to the nation of Israel.
-The birth of a natural child is predated by months of burden and days of travail. The birth of revival is no different.
• Jesus Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for a church to have a spiritual birth and then he submitted to the cold hands of death.
• Paul prayed "night and day . . . . exceedingly" for sinners.
• When Zion travailed, then she brought forth.
-The process of childbearing will mark that mother. Such will occur when desire reaches into the comforts of a nonchalant relationship with God. Desire has a way of marring the figure of a man who is willing to submit to the fruitfulness of God. Why is it that we cannot see that fruitfulness with God is imperative?
-Women of the Bible who had been barren brought forth its noblest children:
• Sarah, barren until ninety years of age, brought forth Isaac.
• Rachel’s cutting cry, "give me children or I die!" was answered, and she bore Joseph, who delivered a nation.
• Manoah’s wife bare Samson, another deliverer of the nation.
• Hannah, a smitten soul, after sobbing in the sanctuary, ignored Eli’s scorn, poured out her soul, vowing vows, and received Samuel who became a prophet of Israel.
• The widowed Ruth found mercy and bare Obed, who begat Jesse, the father of David, of whose lineage the Savior came.
• Elizabeth, stricken in years, came forth with John the Baptist, who became the greatest prophet in the Bible.
-Revival shook Scotland because John Knox cried in the sixteenth century, "Give me Scotland or I die!!!"
-There are those who will always live out of sync with the purposes of God because they can never shake the carnality of this life. Carnality is enmity against God. Carnality is trying to have one hand on the pulse of the church and the other hand on the pulse of the world.
-Desire demands that we find a place of travail, or again we will have to turn away in great sorrow being unable to pray the price of spiritual greatness.
C. The Parcel of Ground
-Every man has been allotted a parcel of land that he must till. The fallow ground has to be worked. The rocks that are prone to break the plows must be tossed to the wayside. The rampant weeds that grow out of control have to be removed.
Matthew 5:45 -- ". . . .for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
-It is the law of the harvest. God gives the sunlight and the rain to the just and the unjust. Whatever one plants in his life it will grow. The demands of desire prove that a man must have the proper things planted in his life.
-Water becomes the defining point in the life of a man. When the water comes to the seed it will grow. Numbers 5 gives an account of how that water has the capacity to either deliver or condemn (The bitter cup).
-Then there is a deep relationship with God that the Psalmist mentions:
Psalm 42:7 -- Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.
D. The Unquenched Fire
-The final heartbeat of desire is the flame that burns within. Paul made reference to a man who is set on fire by the fires of his lust. That man will never be one who is successful in his service for God. He will always be distracted, not necessarily by flesh, but by the whims of character. It is time for men to stand up and collar their flesh and feed the fires of revival.
-In the Bible, fire is often associated with the presence of God:
• In the making of the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:17)
• At the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-4)
• At the pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21)
• On Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:18)
• At the altar (Judges 13:20)
-That fire of God can set your soul on fire and lead you through a wilderness, it can take you to victory at the midnight camp of the Midianites, and it can refine your actions.
-Fire always ascends:
Colossians 3:2 -- "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."
Philip Harrelson
barnabas14@juno.com
barnabas14@yahoo.com
