The Move of the Slave-Savior's Gospel Service (15)

0:00We praise the Lord for thy great plan, that we might well in place may be. Thou with Him thus we filled with thee. Thou in the sun as fresh might be. Welcome to Life Study of the Bible with Witnessly, a program brought to you by Living Stream Ministry. Witnessly, a servant of the Lord for over seven decades on five continents, culminated his ministry with a 21-year book-by-book exposition of the entire Bible, which he called a Life Study. This Life Study is the basis of our program today, which includes short portions of the spoken messages given by Witnessly. Now, let's join today's Life Study.

1:02Mark chapter 10 presents us with three cases all related to whether or not believers will enter into the kingdom of the heavens. The best known of these cases concerns a rich young man who approached the Lord Jesus wanting to know what he must do in order to have eternal life. The Lord's words shocked the young man as well as the Lord's disciples, for he instructed him to go and sell all that he had and give it to the poor. Well, the young man turned and walked away, knowing that he was unable to meet such a demand, and then this famous exchange took place between the Lord Jesus and his followers. And Jesus looking around said to his disciples, how difficult it will be for those who have riches to enter into the kingdom of God, and the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus again answered and said to them, children, how difficult it is for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into

2:05the kingdom of God. But they were astonished beyond measure and set among themselves, than who can be saved. Looking upon them, Jesus said, with men, it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God. James Lee has joined us as we continue our fellowship from Mark chapter 10. James, what I'd like to do in our opening today is spend a few minutes for those who may not be that familiar with this ministry, and how we understood and taught concerning the matter of the kingdom. I think this passage is a good one to have this discussion on, because it illustrates that even the disciples here at this stage were not so clear. They thought the Lord's word was really talking about salvation, obviously, when he was specifically talking about entering into the kingdom, and I think most believers it's fair to say in Christianity today, consider these are synonyms, the kingdom going to heaven being in the kingdom, entering the kingdom, all the same

3:06thing. But really, if we read carefully, that's not what the New Testament presents us with, is it? The kingdom of God is a big subject in the Bible. It covers a broad realm. Of course, when we believed into Jesus Christ, we were transferred into God's kingdom. And that is true. But God's kingdom is not limited just only with that realm of experience. There is definitely the aspect of the reward of the kingdom. As a reward to those believers who after being saved, they continue to love Christ, to pursue Christ, to gain Christ, growing Christ. So, especially in light of this passage, the kingdom of God referred to here is not so much the salvation aspect when we first believe in Christ. That is already taken care of. But it just after we believe into Christ, we have to take care of some things in our Christian life. And in order to be brought to the stage that we can be counted worthy

4:06to inherit the kingdom, or to receive the reward of the kingdom. Yeah, a couple of things I think. Maybe we can make a couple of points just to illustrate this. As you said, a big topic and one we can't hope to exhaust in the short amount of time we have. But at least we can point out that there's nowhere in the Bible, nowhere in the New Testament, doing something like selling all of our possessions and giving that money to the poor is a condition of our being saved. That's not part of the gospel message, is it? We know that we're saved by faith, not by word. That's right. So, this must not be what the Lord is talking about here. That's right. And in fact, he says, no, it's a matter related to our entrance into the kingdom. And this, as you rightly pointed out, is the aspect of the kingdom that is the potential reward for the believers who have not out of their own strength carried out such things. But have learned, as we'll see again in our program today, how to take Christ our Savior as both our Savior and our replacement. That's right. Well, James, let's get into the other two matters. As I mentioned in the

5:10opening here, this chapter, chapter 10, really touches three big cases. The one we just have been talking about, the matter of this rich young man who was stumbled by his possessions, his wealth, is the third of the three. The first one is a dialogue that the Lord entered into regarding the matter of divorce and marriage. And of course, marriage can be a big stumbling block and is definitely related to whether or not we will enjoy that portion of the kingdom as our reward. If we don't handle this matter properly, it will make it very hard for any believer to enter into this reward aspect of the kingdom. That's right. All right, here's what, let's leave with our first portion. Three things would always first hit us from the ending in to the kingdom. You have to realize by that time Peter John James, all the disciples, they all had been proud into the way

6:10to enter into the kingdom. Now in chapter 10, they are on the way. But they need to be taught that three things are also on the way to first see them. What are these three? Number one, marriage. Number two, oldness. And then number three, riches, money. For all of us to enter into the kingdom, we need to handle these three things rightly. Do you know their things? God created men. But God didn't create all men. He needed. He only created a couple. For them to propagate. And the propagation of man can is through marriage. This is why in chapter 13, we are told that we have the owner marriage. Marriage is a thing too holy because marriage is so crucial only second to God's

7:21creation. Without creation, human can never come into existence. But without marriage, human can never be propagated. No creation, no beginning of man can. No marriage, no propagation of man can. Then there's no fulfillment of God's purpose. Then in marriage, you must be honest. You must be faithful and you must be pure. Be careful. If you are not faithful, if you are not pure, you marry. You would offend God to the rest. This is why in the Bible, God condemns all the time fornication, adultery. Fornication, adultery is only second to idol worship. The biggest sin of fending God is to worship the idols. Then another sin that is second to this idol is fornication.

8:31It's a serious thing. If you don't handle your marriage properly, this will frustrate you from them into the kingdom. You know, James listening to this, I think when witnesses spoke this message, it was something like maybe more than 20 years ago. I'm just thinking now about even the state of things in our current society, 20 years after he's talking about this. If anything, it is a much worse situation to date, particularly related to this very important matter. It's not just a divorce. It's the whole topic right of the male, female relationship. What has happened to it? I was struck how serious God takes this matter. How important this is, even to the accomplishment of his purpose. This is a serious topic, isn't it? It is indeed very important and critical as far as God's eternal purpose is concerned because this matter

9:36was touched in the very beginning of the Bible. God created a man and a woman and they have a marriage and that marriage of this man and woman, God explicitly said they shall become one flesh and no man should separate these two. And under no conditions should these two be separated or divorced. And this was revealed even at the beginning of the holy word showing that this is high in God's heart after his creation of man. So as I honestly pointed out that beside next to creation is this matter of marriage. Creation brings man into being and through marriage the human life is continued. And also beside this fact that union is a picture of the relationship God wants to have with man. And God is jealous when we divorce him, run away from him to love other

10:38gods or matters or persons, it is serious thing. And so God treats this matter very seriously. And God would not allow any kind of fornication to cause man to be separated from him. So this is part of the basic structure of the whole Bible, touching the basic relationship of God and man. Yeah, interesting. He puts it right up there with this matter of idolatry and the two are very closely related as you were saying there. When Israel, for example, in the Old Testament, would forsake God to run after other gods. This was idolatry, but really in a way this was a spiritual fornication, a spiritual adultery, wasn't it? Exactly. So usually with idolatry is there is fornication too. Yeah, I was just going to say these two things frequently go together. So in our society today, it's really on that kind of plane and it really requires us as believers to bring our full attention and to be humble because we're all still in the flesh. We're all very prone aren't we? We need his covering, his protection, his saving in this sense day by day. That's

11:42right. That's why we really need this Christ as portrayed in this book of Mark, you know, as our replacement because through his death and his resurrection to deal with this lust within human being as a fallen man, no one is exempt from this problem. But in this gospel, we are presented this wonderful Savior who is our all-inclusive replacement, universal replacement. And this is the only solution, Christ, that we can be saved from this lust. Really so. Well, in this next section, James, we're going to go on to the second point, which is the matter of oldness. I'll read a couple of verses. We'll also hear at the beginning, he continues on this line of marriage. And I think a particularly helpful word for young people. So we've included that as well. So we'll start out on the same topic, but then move on. And I'm at verse 13 in chapter 10 and they brought little children to him so that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus seeing it was indignant and said to them, allow the little children to come to me. Do not forbid them.

12:45For of such is the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall by no means enter into it. And taking them into his arms, he fervently blessed them, laying his hands on them. So there's more here than just the fact that the Lord Jesus loved the little children. Certainly he did, but he is sending, I think, a strong message to the disciples and also to us as we'll see. Here's when Islay went more. I'd like to say we're two young saints who have not got married yet. Ten individuals. I love this country. One thing bothers me, that is the matter of sex. The young Americans are easy to get into marriage. Just after a few dating's, okay, let's get married. Easy to marry easy to divorce. Too many cases, they're saying, don't get into marriage so easily.

13:47You have to get married through much prayer, through much prayer, through much constellation. Once you get married, that's it. After you get married, you just learn to be blind. Don't try to know any secrets about the other party. Don't investigate. If you investigate, you do the investigation before marriage. You need 240 eyes to observe the other party before waiting. Once engaged, close all the eyes. You are a blind man. Everyone who is going to get married is blind. If you are not blind, you can never get married. Hunder the matter of marriage in this way. I think good enough, right? The second thing is the matter of oldness. I consider so much. Why such a case is inserted into chapter 10? They're all shoot me. Well, you have to realize

14:52everyone who is the other way to enter into the kingdom should not be old. You should be young, even a young child. Nothing old. Today, the hardest thing for the Christians is their ownness. We need to be young. Why the Lord Jesus changed these young children? You see, he put them into his bosom. He embraced them. He changed them. Why? Because the Lord Jesus purposely wanted to indicate that he expected all his followers would not be old. You know, the disciples of John the Baptist, the only followers of John the Baptist, less than three years, they became old. They form a religion. Don't think we cannot. We are not so fresh every day.

15:54Man should be only for one day. Any man left for next day will stink, right? We need to be young, daily. We need to be refreshed. We need to be renewed. We need to be made newer, newer, fresher, and fresher every day. Don't keep the oldness. Forget about the oldness. James is a really interesting way to look at this passage on the young children being brought to the Lord Jesus and to see that especially in light of the kingdom, there's nothing old that will enter into the kingdom. That's right. In fact, if you talk about the final manifestation of the kingdom is finally what is called new Jerusalem. So the whole city is new and nothing of our ownness will qualify us to enter into the kingdom. And being old is a frustration will hinder us

16:58to love the Lord in a fresh way. As I was listening to, honestly, just now, how much it is even connected to the marriage, how we have to be fresh with the Lord. When we get old, that means we get stale in our relationship. Things become routine now, become formal. That's when it's easy to fall into all kinds of problems. And so I think this matter of us be reminded to become children, just like the Lord's word to the church and Ephesus, don't leave your first love to the Lord. So if we can be fresh with the Lord, always so fresh, so new that the Lord is always so dear to us, then we can also be preserved even in our marriage relationship with the Lord. James, quickly, I want to investigate a little bit his bringing up this matter of John the Baptist, particularly his followers in this context. That may have been hard for some people to follow. Help us to see the connection between that and the oldness and the newness thing that we're talking about. Well, John the Baptist, he was really fresh when he first came out to be the pioneer

18:03open the way for Jesus. Then his followers came in, but only after a short time, they became a new religion, a religion that is formal, that is just a routine following a kind of tradition. That became a real rivalry to Jesus, this living savior. So whenever we enter into something, we have to be always be careful after a certain amount of time. If we are not fresh with the Lord, we pick up something and formalize a religion, a formality. And then we will lose the newness, which is vital for us to enter into the kingdom. We don't want to just merely be a routine Christian, doing things in a traditional way, following a tradition. Like that disciples of John, they became a religion, unfortunately. So what was initially something that the Lord brought in, he initiated, John the Baptist was there in the Lord's economy to usher in the Lord Jesus in his ministry. But even the following of John soon became old, traditional, and a kind of

19:07another religion. As you said, we see the case in the New Testament where John had his own disciples, his own followers. Why were they still following him when the Lord Jesus was on the scene? So this is a danger for all of us, not to hang on to anything old, to always exercise to be new and fresh. Okay, our final segment goes back to how we opened the program today, and this matter of riches related to our entrance into the kingdom. Then the reaches, my, when I was young, my spotter by this portion. To sell everything, but at that time I was a poor student. I didn't have much, even I was concerned, if the Lord gives me this commandment to sell everything I couldn't do it. I have a few items, I trade you so much, I will never sell. It bothers me. Then gradually, by studying the New Testament, I could see when Paul came up, Paul didn't say, Corinthians, if you mean business with the Lord, you have to sell everything and give to others.

20:11Impositing, there is no such thing. Yet listen, Paul does stress that none of the believers should be under the bandit of wealth. Well, it must be under fate. We should not be under the bandit of the new wealth. The riches are for us, and we are not for riches. We must be free. We must use our riches for the fulfilling of God's purpose. Of course, as human beings, we need a living. We need to live on something, but we shouldn't be under the slavery of money. That in the scent should not be our master. And we should not be slave. Otherwise, we are under the slavery, then we are too, as far as the untamed into the kingdom goes. You see, they are saying,

21:11we must not be damaged by marriage, by oneness, and by riches. In our hand, we have Christ. Christ has filled up our hand, so we can handle these three things rightly for our untamed into the kingdom of God. We handle the marriage with Christ. We handle the age matter with Christ. We handle the wealth, the money matter with Christ. Christ replaces us in all these matters of marriage, ordnance, and wealth. James, we only have a couple of minutes left. I had really liked to use them. I don't know about you, but I'd like to use these two minutes to talk about Christ and how we can handle him and have him as our replacement. We surely need him to replace us in all these matters, don't we? Absolutely. I appreciate what this one fact concerning

22:15this last final matter about wealth, riches. After this young man said, I couldn't do it. I too much to get rid of. He left. He just left a little bit too early because he didn't stay long enough to hear what Jesus had to say. Because Jesus, at the end, he recognized that with man, it is impossible to guide all things possible, implying that the Lord wanted him to sell everything he had. He didn't expect that he would, by his own strength, could accomplish that. He needed that all-inclusive Christ as his replacement to do that for him. He has to be open to him for that. But unfortunately, that rich man left a little bit too soon and not be able to hear that word from the Lord. But again, this is a little revelation. I feel this is very precious to show us the only way we can really fulfill God's commandment and even to love him so purely, even in our marriage relationship, to reflect that relationship with God and to be so fresh and up to date with him, and be right in our proper and our dealing with riches. We need this person. We need this

23:19all-inclusive Christ. And it's important that we have an attitude that we are really humbled and open before him. Lord, I need you. And he is the one who enables us to do what human beings are impossible to do. I like this imagery that he closes with here. Before we handle marriage, before we handle the relationship with the opposite sex, we need to first lay hold of Christ and have Christ in our hands. So he's really the one handling the relationship. He's the one making us new, always new. He's always new and fresh to God. And that he is the one that is really handling the finance, the wealth, the riches. All these things not related to are being saved in the traditional sense, but related to how we enter into and enjoy the kingdom. That's right. Well, this is our second time together, James. And you're still smiling, so I'm going to assume that you're willing to come back again. We invite you and hope you can enjoy the time here. Very good. We did too. We hope you enjoyed it. We also hope that you'll contact us about the

24:22materials we have available, particularly these printed life-study messages. If you'd like to get a copy for yourself so that you can follow along day by day, we invite you to call us our toll free number 1-888-life-study, 888-543-3788. And we also invite you to stay with us day by day as we continue this life-study of the gospel of Mark. For James Lee, I'm Chris Wilde. Thank you for listening today. In both the first and last book of the Bible, God presents himself to man as the tree of life. Throughout the Bible, God is portrayed as food for man to eat and life for man to enjoy.

25:23In the tree of life, witness Lee presents a view of God's heart that is little understood and seldom experienced by Christians today, revealing that it is God's desire that we receive Christ, experience Christ, and enjoy Christ as our moment-by-moment supply. The tree of life from living-stream ministry is available at Christian bookstores everywhere. Or you can order by calling 1-888-543-3788. That's 1-888-543-3788.