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Ray Exum
Crystal Lake Church of Christ, Crystal Lake, Illinois
1/5/97 a.m..
Click here for a copy of this lesson on audio cassette.
Look with me, please, in Mark, in the New Testament, at Chapter 12. There is something interesting in this chapter that involves a question that Jesus was asked. People were always asking Jesus questions. And I think it's good that they were; it's good today, that people ask questions. All of us who have taught Bible classes know how encouraging it is for a person in the class to ask a question. It shows that they're interested. It shows that they want to learn. It just encourages the teacher when people present questions in a Bible study-type setting.
Well, they were always asking Jesus questions. The apostles, for example, said, "Lord, would you please teach us how to pray?" Nicodemus went to Jesus at night and his question was, "How can you be born again?" Martha went to Christ and her question was, "Lord, why didn't you come sooner when you knew that my brother Lazarus was sick and at the point of death?" So they were always presenting questions to Jesus Christ.
Here in Mark, Chapter 12, we have one of the most interesting questions that was ever presented to Him. It was presented in verse 28, by one of the Old Testament scribes. The scribes were called that because they, at one time, had been the ones who made copies of the Old Testament for each generation. They maintained the manuscripts for generation after generation, trying to do this without mistakes.
So here was a man who was in the tradition of the scribes, but by the first century, they were no longer just copyists. The scribe here in Mark 12 refers to a man who was an expert in the law of Moses. He knew the old law. He knew it well, and he taught it to others. And so here in Mark 12, we begin by saying that people were trying to trick Jesus with questions.
The Pharisees had some tricky questions. In verse 13, the Herodians tried to trap Jesus into making a mistake. The Sadducees began arguing with Him over the resurrection of the dead. We come to verse 28, and finally, we have an honest, sincere person who had a legitimate question that he wanted to ask the Lord Jesus Christ. The question was, "Out of the entire Old Testament, what is the greatest commandment?"
That is a rather interesting question, even today. We know that in the 1st century the Jewish rabbis had catalogued all the commandments in the Old Testament, and they said that the law of Moses could be reduced to 613 commandments. That is the way they looked at the Old Testament...613 commandments. For centuries, they had been arguing over which of those was the greatest commandment. Some of the Jewish rabbis believed that it had to be something to do with sacrifices, since there are so many commandments in the Old Testament about sacrifices. But they were mistaken. Other rabbis had various other opinions on this subject, and yet, here, finally, was a scribe who had the courage and the sincerity to go to Christ to ask Him this question.
Would you look please, at Mark 12, beginning in verse 28 and going through verse 34:
"And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, 'What commandment is the foremost of all?' Jesus answered 'The foremost is: Hear, Oh, Israel, the Lord Our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.' And the scribe said to Him 'Right, Teacher! You have truly stated that He is one and there is no one else besides Him, and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as himself is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.' And when Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And after that no one would venture to ask Him any more questions."
What an interesting passage this is. Let us go back and look at the answer that Jesus gave to this scribe. Would you please notice in verse 29 that the first thing that Jesus did was to begin quoting from the Old Testament. There's certainly a great lesson right there. When people ask us a question, whether we might be serving as a gospel preacher, or just a member of the congregation, if somebody asks us a biblical question, it is not good enough to say, "Well, my opinion on that subject is such and such" or "I think this..." or "I believe this way..." or "I believe that way...". The question is, what does the Bible say?
Notice, therefore, that Jesus immediately began quoting, and of all places, He quoted from the book of Deuteronomy, which is not generally studied today, or appreciated. But the Lord began quoting to this scribe Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5. That passage tells us, that number one: there is one God. The Jews were monotheistic as we, as Christians, are today. That is, we believe in one God. We understand that there are three personalities in the Godhead, but we are monotheistic. There is one God.
And then Moses said, back in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, that God wants us to love Him in four ways: 1) in all the heart; in other words, it is to be an emotional love. It is not strictly mental, but emotionally, we are to love God. We're not to hold back. We're not to deceive Him into thinking that we are just going through the acts of worship. We're to love Him with the heart, and without reservations. 2) Moses said we are to love God with all the soul; the spiritual part of a person is to be devoted to God. 3) It says in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, we are to love God with all of our minds. That is, intellectually...it's not just emotionally; but we are to know the word of God. Intellectually, we are to know what God wants us to do. And then 4), Jesus is quoting here from Moses, in Deuteronomy 6. Moses said that we are to love God with all of our strength. In other words, our bodies are to be involved. We are to do the work of God. We are to expend our bodies as living sacrifices. This, therefore, was the greatest commandment in the old law: to love the one God, with all of one's heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And then Jesus went beyond that! He said, "Do you want to know what the second greatest commandment is?" Jesus told him that - again quoting from the Old Testament, this time from Leviticus 19, verse 18: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Notice the scribe and his response. Number one, the scribe complimented Jesus. He could see the wisdom of what Jesus said! And so he summarizes what Jesus said and the scribe points out, in verse 33, that loving God with the heart, soul, mind, and body, loving one's neighbor as oneself, is much more important than all of the laws about the burnt offerings and the sacrifices and so forth. This tells us a lot about this man. It tells us that this man believed in the one true God. This man did not worship idols, as many of the Jews had done, back until the time of the Babylonian captivity. This scribe, therefore, believed in the one true God. He was monotheistic, as we are today.
We have people here, this morning, visiting with us, who are not members of the body of Christ. I think that this could be said probably about you, that you are monotheistic. You know that there's one true God and you believe in that one true God; that is great! It is tragic to see what is happening in this country, and the way this country, the United States of America, is actually turning to idolatry!
I could not believe what happened this past Friday afternoon. I walked into True Value hardware store, bought something, and looked at the checkout counter. There at the checkout counter they had a whole display of statues of St. Joseph, as he's known. You buy one of these statues, bury it upside down in your front yard, and if you're trying to sell your house this will help sell your house! I could not believe it! And it told there exactly how to bury it upside down, and what to say and so forth. There must have been several dozen of these little statues with the instructions saying that if you're trying to sell your house, you buy this little statue and bury it upside down in your front yard, and you will sell your house almost immediately. That is tragic!
Idolatry? Isn't that idolatry? If that's not idolatry, then what is it? That is bowing down to a statue, worshiping a statue, placing one's faith in some kind of statue. Here in the United States... today? But certainly, it goes far beyond just statues of St. Joseph. It goes into the lives of some people in the New Age movement, which many times involves idolatry. There is actually a movement in this country to go back to the worship of the Druids, the ancient religion from Europe. It's just incredible, that things like this are growing in the United States! Well, here is a scribe who did not believe in idolatry. And I'm sure that there are those here this morning who would be in the same category. You are not idol worshipers!
Notice the second thing about this man: this scribe knew that God required total dedication. He knew that in all spiritual matters, God was to come first. He was to be first in his heart, in his soul, in his mind and in his strength. This man knew something, that again, probably some visitors who are here this morning, who are not yet Christians, know and believe to be correct. And that is, if you obey the gospel, it will require total and complete dedication of one's life to Jesus Christ. Let's notice some other things about this man. Notice, this man understood that he had to love his neighbor as himself. He could see what Jesus was saying. He agreed with this. He understood about the love that he was to have for all mankind. This man also understood that loving God with heart, soul, mind, and body, and loving one's neighbor as oneself, was more important than offering sacrifices and burnt offerings and all of these outward signs of religion.
There are many great things here that we can say about this man. He was a good man, he was sincere, he was searching for the truth, he understood these tremendous principles that were explained by Moses in the Old Testament.
Good friends, most of the denominational churches around us today would love to have a man like this. They would accept him right into their membership, no questions asked. He was a good, honest, sincere man who believed these tremendous principles from the Old Testament. He would be welcomed with open arms into most religious groups today.
Let us notice how the Lord Jesus responded to this man. In verse 34 the Lord Jesus said, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." In some ways, this could be considered one of the greatest compliments that Jesus ever paid to a person while he was here upon the earth. "You are not far from the kingdom of God." This man was searching for the truth. He was willing to ask Jesus this question. He was willing to accept the truth.
It is great when people are like that today, when they're searching for the truth. Over about the last two or three months, we have started getting a lot more phone calls than usual. People call the church building here and their question is, "What is the church of Christ?" I don't know why it has picked up recently. It could be our new telephone ad which we expanded, and we now cover all of McHenry County as well as Barrington. It may be something else that I'm not aware of. But, nevertheless, it seems like every few days, somebody will call up.
In fact, as I was writing this particular lesson several weeks ago, a lady called up and her question was, "Can you tell me what the church of Christ is?" She said that she lives rather close to our church building, that she knows that her kids need to go to Sunday school and so forth and she just wanted to find out about the church of Christ. We had a rather long discussion. I'm not sure if she has shown up yet; I don't believe so, but maybe she has, and I just didn't get to meet her. But that's becoming rather common. And it's great when people are searching for the truth, that they're willing to make a phone call like that. They're willing to find out what the church of Christ teaches and what it believes and practices.
So, in some sense, this was a compliment. But in another sense, this was a very dangerous statement that the Lord made about this man. Notice Jesus said to this man, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." He did not say, "You are in the kingdom of God." It is a dangerous thing to be close to obeying the gospel and not to do it. It is dangerous. It is dangerous because we know not what the future holds for us. We may think that we will have many more opportunities to obey the gospel; and yet it is dangerous to be near the kingdom of God and not take that final step and go into the kingdom of God.
I happened to save a newspaper article that I thought was really tragic. The title of it is "Movie Stunt Man Misses Air Bag, Killed in Plunge off 80 Foot Cliff." I want to read what it says about the death of this man. The dateline is Los Angeles, from the Associated Press: "A 37 year old veteran stunt man working on an adventure movie died after he leaped from an 80-foot cliff and hit the ground two feet from a cushioning air bag. Jack _____, who had been a stunt man for ten years, died of massive injuries after the fall on Tuesday. Police say he landed two feet short of a 30 by 15 foot bag set up to break up his costumed plunge for a new adventure movie." It goes on to describe the details.
A very sad case! Here is a man who was trained in that profession, but somehow, he missed the airbag at the bottom of the cliff that was supposed to break his fall. Did you catch it there? He missed it by two feet! He was not far from the device that would have saved his life - a 30 x 15 foot airbag that he missed by two feet. He was not far from being saved in that stunt.
There are airplanes that have crashed not far from the airport. There are houses that have burned down not far from the fire station. There are people who have drowned not far from the shore. Death is not a respecter of persons. Death can come at any time. And being not far from the kingdom of God is not going to be good enough!
Somebody might say, "Well, I plan to obey the gospel one of these days real soon." I would say, are you prepared right now for the day of judgment? We don't always know when we're going to experience certain things in this life, including experiencing death!
I can think back to the days when I was in college and I drove an old jalopy of a car. It was a '52 Chevrolet, and it had a few dents and dings in it, but it's how I got to college each day. I liked to live on the edge. I mean, why have a full tank of gas, when you could have an eighth of a tank, and still get there? But I noticed...I noticed, in my college days, that when I did fill it up, the needle went way past the full mark.
And I got to thinking and wondered how much past the empty mark would it go? I wanted to find out just how far down the needle would go. So I decided that I was just going to run it out of gas, and I'd have a gas can in the trunk that I could go some place to get some gas... I just wanted to find out how far that needle went! And I thought, surely, I'll run out of gas on some back road, some quiet suburban street on the way to college. I ran out of gas going through the intersection on the south side of Nashville, on Nolansville Rd. and Thompson Lane. Now, if you're not from Nashville, you don't know about that intersection. That's probably about the biggest intersection on the south side of Nashville. It's five lanes, in all four directions. It is very similar to Main Street and Hwy. 14, here in this town. If you can imagine a car, running out of gas in the middle of that intersection... I'll tell you, it was so embarrassing, for a college student to get out of the car and have to push it, struggle with the car and push it on through the intersection. I was not prepared for it to run out there!
Somebody might say, "Well, that's the dumbest thing you've ever done!" Well, you know, college students! I mean, that's what college is for, to try dumb things. I did find out how far the needle went down. I remember my grandfather pulled me aside and said, "Don't you know that gas is the same price whether the tank is half full or whether you've got an eighth of a tank in there? I mean, you don't save any money by running it on an eighth of a tank all of the time!" So I sort of learned a lesson on that.
Somebody might say, "Well, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard anybody do!" No, beloved, it's not! The dumbest thing is when people are not far from the kingdom of God... and put off obeying the gospel.
This scribe was so close. He had all of the basics within his grasp. He knew all of these tremendous principles of God that were expounded in the bible of that day, the Old Testament, and yet being close is not good enough! We are to be in the kingdom of God, not near the kingdom of God.
Think about the reasons that some people put off obeying the gospel. There is something in physics known as "inertia." This is the clinical definition of inertia: a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. What that is saying is that things and people get set in their ways. They continue doing what they have been doing in the past, unless some external force operates upon them. People get set in their ways. They are close to the kingdom. They get comfortable. They are in that comfort zone. In some cases they are more faithful in attendance than some of our own members here! They're in that comfort zone. And inertia sets in, where they grow comfortable being near to the kingdom of God and not in the kingdom of God.
I want to read a comment from a preacher, earlier in this century, by the name of George _____. I want to read from one of his sermons, what he observed about a man that he had known from almost the beginning of his preaching. He said this in his sermon: "A man in the city, whom I have seen sob like a child, under the preaching of the gospel, said to me a while ago (he's a rich man now), ?I would give one million dollars if I could cry like I used to cry twenty years ago when I first heard you preach.'"
And Mr. _____ continues with his comments. He said, "This man had come near. Feelings had been disturbed. Emotions had been kindled. Great fires of anxiety, of concern, of conviction had burned within him like a furnace. He came near, but the fires died down. He did not act. He did not follow the light. He did not obey. There is not anything in the world more pitiful than that. There is not anything in the world more alarming than that. There is not anything in the world more distressing than that."
I would say "Amen" to those comments. There are people who come very close to obeying the gospel, but then put it off. And grow comfortable just being near the kingdom.
Maybe our young people should consider the words of Solomon when he said, in Ecclesiastes 12:1, "Remember, also, the Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near and you say ?I had no pleasure in them.'" In other words, you can put off obeying the gospel, but it gets harder and harder to do, the older a person is.
There may be men here who are thinking about obeying the gospel this morning and I know what it is like. I know the heart of men, and that is, we all have pride in our hearts. It is not easy for the head of the family to admit that he needs a savior. It is not easy for men to repent of past sins and to call upon the blood of Christ for salvation. And yet I would say, is that pride worth losing eternal life over? There may be women here who also are thinking about obeying the gospel, and maybe you have come very close to doing so in the past, but that will not save you.
I wonder what ever happened to this man, this scribe. The Bible does not tell us if this man ever obeyed the gospel or not. We can hope that he did. There are several places in the book of Acts where we read that they were being baptized constantly. For example, Acts 5:14: they were constantly being added to the church, they were baptized, they were brought into the kingdom of God, and we can hope, we can pray, that this man was one of those that obeyed the gospel later on in the book of Acts. But it could be that he just remained not far from the kingdom and died in that condition.
For those who are thinking about obeying the gospel this morning, I would ask, how close are you to the kingdom of God? The Bible says that to be in the kingdom of God we have to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you are not far from the kingdom. The Bible also tells us that we must be willing to make a public confession of our faith in Christ in order to enter into the kingdom. Romans 10, verse 9, says that we are to "confess with our mouths Jesus as Lord." If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, would you be willing to tell the good people here, or in any worship service of the church, would you be willing to state that publicly? If I asked you the question, "Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God?", could you say, with a sincere conscience, "Yes"? If you can, you're very close to the kingdom.
Are you willing to repent of your sins, that is, the things you've done in the past? Are you willing to stop doing those things that were sinful, and to the best of your ability try to do better, to tell God that you're sorry about the sins that you have committed? Jesus said in Luke 13, verse 3, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
Good friends, if you believe that Jesus is the Christ; if you are willing to state that publicly; if you are willing to repent of your sins, you are so close to the kingdom. There is only one thing left to do. And that is to be baptized, to be immersed in water, for the forgiveness of your sins, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 2:38, Peter said to those who had crucified Jesus Christ, when they asked what they had to do, "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins." If you're up to that point, that's all that's left to do! You are not far from the kingdom of God. If you can make the decision at this time, to be immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins, then at that moment your sins will be forgiven, and you will enter into the family of God. If that's your decision, or if there is something else you want to bring before the church for our prayers at this time, would you please come to the front while we stand and sing together.