of Mark in the New Testament, Christ the servant. It says at the top of your sheet, because that's kind of like the theme of that gospel. Each of the gospels like sheds a different light on Christ. Matthew shows him as Christ the King. Mark shows him as Christ the servant. Luke shows him as Christ the man. And then John shows him as Christ the Lord, especially expressing the deity of Christ. So those themes, I believe they were just chosen by God so we could see different sides of Christ and just worship Him for who He is. So we see Him as a servant here in the Gospel of Mark, so if you're new, that's what this is about. We try to study, tonight we're gonna try to get through verses one through 27. Now these are divided into different subjects. Verses one through 12, Verses 1 through 12 deal with divorce. Verses 13 through 16 deal with children. The children are brought to Jesus here for the first time in three years, and let's see how they respond and how He reacts. And then verses 17 through 27 is the rich young ruler. All right, let's begin at verse number one. And he arose from thence and cometh into the coast of Judea by the far side of Jordan, and the people resort unto him again. And as he was wont, he taught them again. So you see again and again in that verse. All right, this time he's gone down south. We've been up in Galilee for the last few chapters, and now he's down south in Judea, and the people resort unto him again. And as he was want, or as he was accustomed to doing, he taught them again. And wouldn't it be nice just to be able to have been there to hear everything that Christ taught. Now, I don't know if you have your Bible open to Mark 10, but if you do, let's just flip back and review real quick to Mark chapter six and verse 34, which says this, and Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them because they were as sheep, not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. He began to teach them many things. That's what I like to hear, all the many things Christ taught them. Now why? Because of compassion. This is one of the evidences of compassion, is teaching. And as we have mentioned before, if you know something somebody else does not know, teach them that. if it will benefit them in their life. Don't keep that to yourself. There's, I think, seven different illustrations of Christ showing compassion. Every time, without exception, it led to activity. There was no such thing as compassion that did not lead to some activity to help them. who had a need, and in one case, compassion is teaching, and it's teaching people as though they were sheep without a shepherd. Do you remember when you were like a sheep without a shepherd, and somebody taught you the gospel? Boy, I am so thankful for that compassion that was shown toward me on that day, and I was able to get saved, and so many preachers, teachers, elders, have taught me so many things. And I've always just felt that was such an act of compassion to not let me just wander around and destroy myself as they taught. So Jesus, it says here, began to teach them again. And he taught them again. Who? In the middle of verse one, the people. Verse two, and the Pharisees. You got the people in verse one, the Pharisees in verse two. These guys show up everywhere, and they're gonna show up in your life too, where you're trying to help somebody, and then somebody's gonna question you, and question you, and question you, and never be satisfied. I've heard of many pastors who've gotten on blogs and all this kind of stuff who have since gotten off because they found out it's a huge waste of time. That the people did not want help, they just wanted to argue and argue and argue and argue and argue and argue and argue. And they found out it was just kind of a trap they stepped in. and wasted a lot of time with people. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. So it doesn't even mean, even if you win the argument or show the scriptures, if it's against their will, they're going to be of the same opinion still. And over and over and over again, we've seen the Pharisees got to show up and got to question Jesus or bring up a question. And so they came to him in verse two and said, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting him? All right, they wanted to trap him on a subject that has been just excruciatingly painful to the human race for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, and that is divorce. I have heard some say divorce is worse than death. I don't know, I haven't experienced it, but I always feel for the divorce. It's such an old subject that over 1,500 years ago, Moses had to address it in the law that he had written by the Holy Ghost to the land of Israel because it was so prevalent, as you see Moses' name in both verses 3 and 4. And he answered and said unto them, what did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered or permitted or allowed to write a bill of divorcement and to put her away. And that's the Jewish idiom for our English word divorce. And so divorce has been around a long time plaguing and troubling the human race and breaking up relationships and just hurting people profoundly. Now, because Moses said this, the Pharisees thought, well, we've got a right to marry any woman we want to, and we just don't like her, we write her a bill of divorce, send her out the door, and off she goes, and let me find the next one, let me go on to the next one. But Jesus said unto them, and Jesus often in the New Testament shed light on the Old Testament and what it meant, so that the Old Testament is never complete without the New Testament. And Jesus said, this is really the main reason for divorce. He said, for the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. Now, often you've heard me and probably others say that the number one cause of divorce is financial pressures, and that's usually at the root of the argument. But the inability to reconcile is usually the hardness of the heart. Somebody just determines eventually, that's it, no, I'm not gonna even try. And this has been my experience as a pastor in many cases where I've said, well, can you try reconciling? Oh, no, no, no, that's out of the question. No, no, no, wait a minute, you haven't even heard what I've said yet. You haven't even heard what I've suggested yet. No, no, it's out of the question. And I have literally with my eyeballs seen the hardness of men's hearts and women's hearts in this issue, that when they make up their mind, and that's what Jesus is saying right here. He's saying, for the hardness of your heart, in other words, I think Jesus is saying God never wanted to put this precept in the law, but because of the hardness of your hearts, he had it, he put it in there, And so this is a great insight by Christ, is that it's usually a heart issue. It's usually a heart issue. Now I know there's other times where it is, there's other reasons that trigger it, and a lot of them are financially based, and the pressure, and the arguing, and the fighting. And as I said Sunday, if you're single, please try to marry a good business partner, because you're going to be doing a lot of business with that person. for the rest of your life financially. I mean, every week you're going to be making financial decisions and you want to really kind of sift that out before marriage and what your financial plan is. Someone once said it's hard to read the fine print when you've got stars in your eyes. And that's true, but there's fine print to a marriage. And finances is one of those areas I would strongly encourage you to discuss and come up with your plan and your goal. And I know that sometimes goals are shattered, and it's richer or poorer, and sometimes it's poorer, and health problems come up, loss of job. I understand that. But if you do have God in your marriage, He can help you through the hard times and give you grace, even financial hardships. He can help you, he can lead you into a life of faith and fasting and claiming the promises of God and prospering you through that. But anyways, verse six he says, but from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. And so the Lord now sheds light on marriage. And he says, since the beginning in Adam and Eve, this was God's plan, this was God's will before Moses, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, that they are no more twain, but one flesh." What he's saying here is that the two become one, and if it's possible to split a human body in half somehow, that's really what divorce would be. Because you're no longer two, but you are one. And you look at it as one flesh. In fact, I think it's Genesis 5 and verse 4. The Bible says, and he called their name Adam. And that's where we get the tradition of the wife taking the husband's name. He called their name Adam. Read that. And that's where we get that tradition from. And that tradition's You know, going out the door too nowadays, like the buggy whip. You know, we don't need that anymore either, so it's really sad to see what's happening. But this is what Jesus says about marriage in verse 9, "...what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And so again, I stressed to you that are single, make sure it's God that's joining you together. Sometimes God has nothing to do with it, And sometimes it's lost, sometimes it's desperation, sometimes it's security, who knows what it is that attracts some people. I had broken-hearted parents telling me this week about one of their children about ready to marry an unsaved person. And I said, what for? And they said, well, just, you know, it sounds like security and money and so on. I said, this is not God's will. This is not God's will. And I don't know what will happen. Well, this led to some confusion, I think, with the disciples, but again, praise the Lord, the disciples during these first three years had a lot of faults, and we can see those in the Gospels, but they also had some virtues. And one of the virtues the disciples did have was many times they asked for clarification. They ask for clarification on an issue or on a parable or something that Jesus said. And I wanna encourage you in this case to emulate the disciples and ask God questions. God is not afraid of our questions. And there's some questions to this day I've never gotten an answer for and I've taken them to God and trusting that God will show me the answer someday. And if you don't, So what? If I knew all the answers, I'd be God. And there's a lot of things God just leaves us out there, so we gotta trust in Him and we just say, I don't know. So they ask for a clarification, verse 10, and He saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. And so what a charge that is. And so we want to strongly encourage you to be faithful to your current vows. And if you have problems, man, ask for help. Ask a pastor, an elder, or some good Christian brother or sister. That's where help starts, I think, by saying, hey, it's not going very well for my wife and I or my husband and I. Could you help us? There's help. I think I've seen a lot of divorces that I think could have very easily been salvaged if they had been humble enough, and not hard, to go up to somebody and say, we don't know what to do, this isn't going well. But in the hardness of their heart, they even avoided counsel. Now, are there any exemptions? Remember, any verse in its context is not the whole interpretation of a matter. Back in Matthew chapter five, in addressing this same subject, Jesus said, Matthew 5.32, but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery. So I think there is an exemption And this is, of course, my opinion, and you might disagree with it, and there is a lot of discussion, certainly, on this matter. But fornication, he repeats that in Matthew 19, verse 9. And I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication. and shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her that is put away doth commit adultery. So those two verses, Matthew 5.32, Matthew 19.9, on two different occasions, Jesus addressed that, but he said the exact same thing. He said the exact same thing. And so, in 1 Corinthians, and I'll read this for you from chapter seven, And verse number 15, now these are the two that I've told people, taught people. In this case it says, but if the unbelieving, this is 1 Corinthians 7.15, but if the unbelieving depart, let him depart, a brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. That's the bondage of marriage, and marriage is bondage. but God hath called us to peace. And he goes on and he explains that it's really better in the Corinthians case to just stay single because they were so messed up in that city and in that church. But there seems to be those two reasons or exemptions, and again, there's a lot of debate on this, and one is fornication, perhaps perpetual fornication by a married partner Or if the person's an unbeliever and just says, I'm tired of you. And Christianity may be in the case of two unsaved people that get married, and later on, one of them gets saved. Or if it's a case where a saved or an unbeliever marry and they shouldn't, but they do, and one just is fed up with it, those two, a brother or sister, is not under bondage in such cases. Those two, but any kind of remarriage, I would consider the words of Paul there in 1 Corinthians 7, that it might just be best to stay single and just serve the Lord. So anyway, Jesus addresses this excruciating, painful subject here in verses 1 through 12, but again, I would compare all of the scriptures before you make an interpretation on any subject. that you come into in the Bible on that matter. Now in verses 13 through 16, we see the story about the children being brought to Christ. The children are brought to Christ. This is a short story. It says, and they brought young children to him that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was a little bit disturbed. Is that what your Bible says? No, it doesn't say that. I made that up. What does it say? He was much displeased. He was much displeased. Now, I'm gonna give you my opinion on this story, okay? If you get a good chance to buy a Thompson Chain Reference Bible, It'll give you a lot of insight into the life of Christ. One of the things Thompson does is he does the Harmony of the Gospels in the back here and the Tree of Christ's Life. And before what we might call Holy Week, before the last week of his life when he died and was buried and rose again, there are 185 events recorded from his birth at Bethlehem until he begins the last week of his life, so the first 33 years. There's 185 events that we see harmonized here in the order that they take place. This event is number 174. 174 out of 185. This is just before his crucifixion. And for the first time, we see children brought to Jesus, and the men, the disciples, rebuke those, it says here in verse number 13, that brought them. So that would be the parents, maybe grandparents or whatever, guardians, I don't know what they had back then. So here's Peter, James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Thomas, and Matthew, and those guys rebuking these parents. for bringing these children to Jesus. Now we think that very strange. We just sang a few minutes ago, yes, Jesus loves me. You know, one of the children's songs. We think this very strange behavior, but if you study the harmony of the Gospels, children were never around Christ for three years. He spent his whole time deliberately, now there were a couple children he, like demon possessed boy and girl, and he used a boy's lad. There's a couple little tiny stories sprinkled in there, you know, where he held a, you know, children. But children weren't part of his ministry. It was all men, men, men, focusing on men, apostles. He had 82 men. and he ordained 12 of the 82 that they should be with him, and he just poured his all into them in three years, because he was gonna turn the whole thing over, the whole church over to men. So now comes these children, and it's what we would call a teachable moment, a teachable moment for these men, and Jesus was much displeased with them, but that's how they actually thought. They weren't against children, they just thought, this is strange. This isn't kid's stuff, that's what they were thinking. But now Jesus is gonna teach them this is kid's stuff. Christianity is kid's stuff. And so he uses this as a teachable moment. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased and said unto them, sufferer, that word suffer means permit the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is kids stuff. What do I mean by that? Look at the next verse. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. Keep in mind these guys are in their 20s, but most people who get saved, get saved in their childhood or in their teen years. Some people estimate it's about 85% of testimonies. When you ask the body of Christ, universal, when did you get saved? Most will say in my childhood or in my teen years. And then it just progressively seems to get harder and harder and harder to reach older and older people. And so the Kingdom of God, He teaches us, I know you guys, the Kingdom of God is kid stuff. In fact, if you don't get saved as a little child, you don't have to be a child, but you've got to have a childlike spirit. You've got to be so humble that you just come to God like you're a child and say, I'm a sinner, I need a Savior, there's not a thing I can do about my salvation, would you please save me? And we'll see that in the last story here in a minute. But you gotta have that childlike faith to be saved. What's childlike faith? It's believing in Santa Claus at Christmas, even though it's so stupid. You just believe it because somebody told you. And some of those kids believe in it with all their heart. That's a childlike faith. And that's how we need to come to God through Jesus Christ and say, Lord Jesus, I can't save myself. Please save me. And so what a teachable moment here. And he ends it by taking them up in his arms, the little children, puts his hands upon them and blessed them. I got a feeling those kids were blessed. I don't know what they went on to be, but I got a feeling they had a blessed life. And I got a feeling if the Lord will touch you and me and the Lord will touch our children, our grandchildren, they'll be blessed too. We gotta get them into the presence of Jesus Christ. Now this is the only verse in all of these that Spurgeon has any kind of a note, and that's on the back, verse 15. It says, instead of growing wiser, in order to be fit for Christ, we must be more conscious of ignorance. more trustful toward him, more dependent on him, more childlike. And boy, I wanna encourage you to keep a childlike spirit toward Christ and God into your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, I don't care how old you get. Never think you're anything. Never think you know it all because you don't know anything. I don't know anything. And if we just keep a childlike spirit all of our days, He'll just keep teaching us and teaching us and teaching us and teaching us the inexhaustible Word of God. And so let's be childlike. Now the last story is the rich young ruler. I don't think he's called the rich young ruler in this, but these last two stories are in the Synoptic Gospels. Now that fancy word means Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those two, three gospels are almost the same. John's quite different, the gospel of John. But if you look in the harmonies of the gospel, like Thompson has in his Bible, you'll see so many stories are in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Matthew, Mark, Luke. Those are called the synoptic gospels because they're very similar in their history and stories. Now this is number 175 out of 180. When I say two, 182. 182 events from the birth of Christ till he's 33 and goes into Holy Week. 182 events in the harmony of the Gospels of Christ. And he's almost to the end before Holy Week. And he meets this rich young ruler who wants to be saved. He wants to have eternal life. He doesn't want to be saved. He wants to save himself. He wants to inherit eternal life. And so, I could probably say this authoritatively, but this is the last person in his ministry who rejects him, who rejects Christ. After this, there's only a few more events. A little later on, blind Bartimaeus will accept Christ as his savior, and Zacchaeus, both the same day. One of the poorest men Jesus ever ministered to was blind Bartimaeus. One of the richest men was Zacchaeus. They got saved the same day. And that is it. And then comes Holy Week. So those were his last two converts, Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus, that we know of. Of course, a lot we don't know. It was not recorded. But this guy rejects Christ, and he has no idea he'll never see Christ again. that Christ is just a few days away from going to Calvary, dying on the cross. This is the only conversation this guy will ever have with Christ, and he doesn't know it. Well, what about us? This might be the last time you hear the good news tonight. You don't know. Who knows? Might be, but one of these times is going to be the last time. And some people only get one chance, maybe at the fair next week. they're only gonna get one chance for somebody to explain to them the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So let's see what happens. We'll have to go quickly. Our time's running out. Verse 17 through 27 on your notes. And when he had gone forth into the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him, well, so far so good. You would think some guy sprinting towards Christ, kneeling down in front of him, you'd think this is gonna be good, this is gonna end well, what a start. But it goes downhill from here, especially with his first words, good master. What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Two things wrong here. Jesus is more than just a good master. There are a lot of good masters in his day. A lot of them, Gamaliel, others. A lot of good masters. His question's wrong. What can I do to inherit eternal life? Inheritance and salvation are two different things. We've been learning that on Sunday nights. Inheritance are things that you earn. Rewards. We've been talking about that on Sunday nights. Rewards. riches, ruling and reigning with Christ, and my mind's blanking out on me here, but we've been going through the inheritance. There's so much about our inheritance and what heaven can potentially be for us. It's up to you, though. But that's rewards in heaven. Salvation, eternal life, is not a reward. It is a gift. And I'm gonna say that till I die. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. If you're here tonight and you're trying to earn eternal life, forget it. Listen to this story. Don't make the mistake this guy's gonna make. It's not something you inherit, it's something you receive. It is a gift that God gives you. So he starts right off with, and so the Lord corrects his first mistake in verse 18. It says, and Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one. That is God. So question, is Jesus good? He's perfect, he's sinless. So Jesus is not saying I'm not good. Jesus is saying why are you calling me good? Why do you think I'm just a good man, a good master? There's only one good, and that's God. If you're going to approach Jesus Christ and be saved, you better believe that He's God. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. A person cannot deny the deity of Christ and be saved. They can't do it. You can't do it. Jehovah's Witnesses can't get saved until they acknowledge Jesus is Lord. Mormons can't get saved. Muslims just think he was a good prophet. Now these are sincere people. I don't mean any ill towards them, but they're wrong in their knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord. The Bible says God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed not in the world, received up to glory. God. Jesus is Lord. And so he clarifies that. That's what he's trying to do here. in verse number 18. Then he goes on now in verse 19 and tries to clear up this matter of inheriting eternal life. And he says basically this, okay, if you wanna inherit eternal life, here's all you gotta do. Verse 19, thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother, And he, the young ruler, answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Now this is what you call pride and delusion. Any guy that's gonna say that is full of pride, religious pride, and he's delusional. None of us have kept the law. The law was our schoolmaster, it tells us in Galatians 3 and verse 24 and 25, our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after we are justified by faith, we're no longer under a schoolmaster. The law is not our friend. The law is not our friend. The law is what condemns us. The law is what gives life to sin. For instance, if I go out there in the street, Route 62, and I dig a big hole in the middle of Route 62, and they arrest me and take me to court, And they can't find a law that says it's illegal to dig a big hole in the middle of Route 62. They gotta let me go. But if they can find a law that says it's illegal to dig a big hole in the middle of Route 62, or some law that applies to that, then that law gives life to the sin, then I'm guilty. But I'm not guilty if there's not a law. And the law gives life or the commandment, the law of command gave life to sin and by it slew me. It says in Romans 7, 11, for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me. The law is no, you know, and so this guy here, here's a young man, he says, oh, I've kept these from my youth up. Yeah, right, honor your father and mother, sure. I'm sure if we go back over every day of your life, Jesus starts out with, do not commit adultery. And he's already taught that a man that just looks at a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery. Do not kill. He's taught already that if somebody just hates somebody in their heart, they've committed murder already in their heart. The fact is you can go through the 10 commandments, and there's over 600 commandments actually in the law. But you can go through the 10 most famous and you can condemn yourself probably in all 10 and so can I. Thou shalt not covet. Well, he's gonna get to that one last of all. Now, Jesus, this is precious. You gotta see this before we go on. Verse 21, then Jesus beholding him loved him. Our generation doesn't know what love is. You ever hear people, don't judge me, don't judge me. I don't want you to judge me. I don't want to be judged. If I go to that church, will I be judged? Of course you will. Nobody goes through life without getting judged. That's how we get better. And Jesus, beholding him, loved him and said, look, one thing you lack, that's love. That's love. I'm glad for those that got in my face. It was no fun at the time. Correction is grievous to him that forsaketh the way. But I'm glad for those who helped improve me by saying, Art, you're wrong. What did you say that to that person for? You shouldn't treat that person that way. But boy, we live in a woke generation where nobody wants to get offended. Nobody wants to get judged. And so nobody's going to improve. There's a lot of definitions, there's a lot of characteristics of love, and here's one. There's over 16 characteristics just in 1 Corinthians 13. Here's another one. It says, He loved him and said to him, one thing you lack. And what is that? He violated the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet. And the first commandment, don't have any gods before me. So he said, go take your money, give it all away, and come follow me. Take up your cross and follow me. And you'll have treasure in heaven. I'm shortening this for time. So you violated the first one, don't have any gods before me, because it says he walks away sorrowful because he had much money. He had much riches. So that was his idol, he wouldn't give that up for God. He violates the first commandment. And he violates the 10th, thou shalt not covet, because he loved his money and the things money could buy. And he went away, it says, very sorrowful, very sorrowful. And so Jesus uses this as a teachable moment and says, you know, it's gonna be hard for the rich to be saved. But what does he mean? He means those in verse 24 who trust in riches, I know some rich people that are saved, and boy, they love the Lord, man, they love the Lord as much as we do, and you do, and I do. They serve the Lord, and they serve God with their money, and it's just mind-blowing what they do for God's kingdom with their money. Praise the Lord for rich people who know the Lord. But this guy trusted in his riches, and not in Christ. And he wouldn't give it up for Christ. That's the high cost of discipleship. It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter in the kingdom of God. And so they're astonished, it says, verse 26, out of measure. Here's 12 guys just staring at Jesus with pinwheel eyes like, what did you just say? Who then can be saved, is their question. Great question, I'm glad they asked it. Verse 26, I'm glad they asked this question. Who then can be saved? Because the answer in verse 27 will close, And Jesus, looking upon them, saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God all things are possible. So if you happen to be here tonight and you're trying to save yourself, you're trying to do the impossible. Quit trying and start trusting in Christ. He's the Savior, you're not. James said, you know, if you offend the law on one point, you're guilty of the whole thing. It's looked at by God as one big whole. All 614 commandments of the law, you violate one, you're guilty of the whole thing. I'm guilty, you're guilty, Romans 3.25, that every mouth be stopped. I'm sorry, Romans 3.19. Every mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. I'm guilty Praise the Lord I acknowledge it though, and I said Jesus saved me I Can't say myself. It's impossible. Would you please save me? Let's pray father. We thank you for your word. We Pray that you'd help us with the things we've learned tonight, and we pray the Holy Ghost would teach us and Help us to ponder these subjects to help us to love the children God, give us more children in our church and our families. And Lord, we pray too for the lost and those who trust in riches. It seems that it's so hard for them to be saved, but we pray for them to be saved. And if there's one here tonight, Lord, who thinks they can save themselves, somehow be good enough to earn or inherit eternal life. Help them to remember the words of Christ in their heart and never forget, with men it's impossible, but not with God. May they call on the Lord and ask him to save them. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.