[Note: This sermon expounds Mark 10:21–31 with Matthew 19:16–30. Delivered 14 December 1980, Montreal.]
We continue studying the rich young ruler, reading today from the fuller account in Mark 10:21–31. "And Jesus, looking upon him, loved him and said to him, 'You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, 'How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!' And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, 'Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.' Peter began to say to him, 'Lo, we have left everything and followed you.' Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many that are first will be last, and the last first.'"
We must first face the question of conditional obedience. The rich young ruler was genuinely earnest — he knelt before the Lord, which was no small thing for a man of position and wealth, and he sincerely wanted to know the way of eternal life. But he wanted it on his own terms. This is the tragedy repeated daily in the church. Somewhere in many a conference or meeting, a preacher assures a crowd that eternal life is simply a gift — just raise your hand, sign the card, and there you have it. People do so gladly, take this gift and file it in a mental safe deposit box, and expect everything to remain as before. But a gift of life is not something you can store and ignore. Life comes into you and turns everything upside down. It gives you pins and needles where there was numbness. It changes your appetite, your relationships, your values, your ambitions. When the consequences begin to show, many people say: this is more than I bargained for — and they draw the line, willing to go this far and no further.
The Lord Jesus, who loved this young man, came straight to the point without softening it. Not because he wanted to exclude him, but precisely because he loved him. The one thing he lacked was the surrender of his possessions. When he heard this, his face fell and he went away sorrowful. The disciples were astonished — because in the Jewish understanding of that day, wealth was a sign of God's blessing. If the rich cannot be saved, who can? "With men it is impossible," the Lord replies, "but not with God." God can change a heart that naturally loves money. The promise in verses 29–30 is also remarkable: whoever leaves houses or family or land for the sake of the gospel will receive a hundredfold in this present age — not without persecution — and eternal life in the age to come.
Now let us look at the Lord's teaching concerning the danger of riches. I want to draw out eight points from various passages where the Lord speaks on this subject. The first point, visible immediately in verse 23, is that there is a definite incompatibility — indeed an antagonism — between the possession of riches and entry into the kingdom of God. "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom." In verse 25, the Lord intensifies this with the image of a camel going through the eye of a needle — something impossible. This is a general statement about all who have riches; it is utterly foolish to confine it to the rich young ruler alone.
Why this antagonism? Because of the most basic principle Paul states in Galatians 5:17: the flesh and the spirit are irreconcilably opposed. They cannot be harmonised; they cannot coexist in peace; they are permanently in antagonism. Riches belong to the realm of the flesh — to this world, this age. The kingdom of God belongs to the realm of the spirit — to the age to come. As the Lord said to Pilate in John 18: "My kingdom is not of this world." You must choose which kingdom you belong to. You cannot serve two masters from two different and opposed realms.
The second point is that riches competes against the kingdom for the love of our heart. Matthew 6:21: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." This is plain common sense, not some deep spiritual principle. If the things of this world are your treasure, your heart will be in this world, no matter what you profess about your love for God. Your heart follows your treasure. You cannot move your treasure to the kingdom while your heart remains in the world; it will follow your treasure wherever it goes.
The third point, from Matthew 6:24, is that riches competes not only for our love but for the lordship of our lives. "You cannot serve God and mammon." Mammon here is the Aramaic word for wealth and possessions. Serving money means giving it the allegiance of your life — devoting yourself to its acquisition, its growth, its protection. You cannot at the same time give that allegiance to God. God requires all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, all of our strength. He accepts nothing less. Any preacher who tells you otherwise is not telling you what the Lord says.
The fourth point is that because riches competes for lordship, it becomes a god. The very root of the Aramaic word mammon, according to the linguists, means that in which one puts one's trust — the object of one's faith, one's hope, one's confidence. Mammon literally becomes the object of trust for vast numbers of people, believers and unbelievers alike. That is the definition of a god: the thing you trust and hope in and rely upon.
[Continues in Part B]
# How Hard It Is for the Rich to Enter the Kingdom — Matthew 19:16–30; Mark 10:21–31 (Part B) — Mammon as the Object of Trust; Money as Addictive and Transient
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Mark 10:21–31 with Matthew 19:16–30, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 14 December 1980, Montreal.]
We were considering the fourth point — that riches becomes a god. The God of the unbeliever is money. Ask many people what they trust in and they will tell you honestly: money. They work for money; they live for money; they stake their future on money. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that "the god of this world has blinded their eyes." One danger of worshipping the god of this world — mammon — is that you become spiritually blind. Not only the unbeliever worships the golden calf. Many Christians also bow to it, and they become blind to spiritual things in proportion to the degree of their devotion to money. Paul also warns Timothy, in 1 Timothy 6:17, that the rich of this world should not set their hope in uncertain riches — the Greek word there is literally "to hope in riches," to make them the object of your hope and expectation.
The fifth point is from Luke 12:15, where the Lord says to the crowd: "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." The Greek word for covetousness here is pleonexia, which means quite literally wanting more. There is an English word — moreish — meaning you want more and cannot stop. Riches are moreish. Once you get a taste, you want more. It is addictive in exactly the same way as drugs. The first small dose of drugs feels wonderful and leads to another, and another, until you cannot stop. Money works the same way: at fifty dollars you want five hundred; at five thousand you want fifty thousand; there is no point of satisfaction. The addict does not worry about what will happen in the end — the pleasure of the present is all that matters. That is precisely the danger the Lord warns about here: present satisfaction blinds you to the sacrifice of eternity.
I must confess that I have looked at other people's possessions with envy many times. I had no house until I came to Canada, and even then I only bought one because I was told I would pay as much in rent as in mortgage payments. The only cars I drove in England were over ten years old; the ones I drive now have not been younger than five or six years old. I never had much, and I have felt covetous about what others had. This is worth confessing plainly. Covetousness is a real danger even for those who have relatively little, and the Lord's warning is not addressed only to the rich.
The sixth point comes from Luke 16:9, where the Lord describes money as "the mammon of unrighteousness." Money itself cannot be righteous or unrighteous — it is a thing, and things have no moral character. The phrase "mammon of unrighteousness" is therefore an objective genitive in Greek, meaning: the mammon that leads to unrighteousness. Just as drugs lead the addict to commit crimes to feed the habit — one person interviewed said he needed four hundred dollars a day for his drug habit and got it by theft, because no legitimate job would pay that — so the love of money leads people into every form of evil. Trampling a colleague to get his better-paid job; lying to gain an advantage; stealing; killing. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:10, the love of money is the root of all evil. It is the love that leads to evil, not money itself — but the pull of that love is ferociously strong and its consequences devastating.
The seventh point is from Luke 16:11, where the Lord speaks of "the unrighteous mammon" — but here the Greek word is different, better translated "unfaithful" or "untrustworthy." Money is unreliable; it lets you down. You invest your savings in the most solid-looking equities and they collapse. You put your trust in property and a war renders it worthless overnight — those who had land in China during the upheavals of the twentieth century know this well. You put your valuables into diamonds and in a crisis no one wants your ring; they want bread. And even in peacetime, a currency steadily erodes in value — the Canadian dollar weakens year by year. Mammon demands your trust but cannot be trusted. Foolish is the man or woman who puts their hope in it. By contrast, says the Lord in the same verse, there are "true riches" — spiritual and eternal realities that do not lose their value, that are permanent, that are truly worth possessing.
The eighth and final point about the character of money is that it is transient — it never truly belongs to you; it simply passes through your hands. You take one hundred and twenty dollars from the bank to do the household shopping and a few days later it is simply gone. What happened to it? A few groceries, a few necessities — and it has all flown away. Money flows like water. To put your trust in something so transient is utterly foolish. It cannot be your own in any lasting sense. It passes through your hands and moves on to someone else's.
These eight points together show why the Lord said that the road to eternal life is narrow and few there are who find it. The Christian life does affect everything — our relationships, our future, and our possessions. That is when it hurts. Next time we shall consider how to deal with money practically — what exactly the Lord is telling us to do. But for today, let us begin to consider carefully where we put our trust, and how far we are prepared to go. Let us take these things to heart.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer. Amen. Thank you.