I used to know Sister Margaret from London days. In this London time, the teacher already knew me. It's a great privilege today, and I know it's no accident that we can serve him together on this platform today. I wouldn't translate that. I should say that. I should say the other way around. This time I have to beg her to translate. It's a great privilege today to serve us today.
While I was in London, I was staying in an apartment with two other students. And during the summer holidays, we would have students from other parts of England coming to London. And of course they needed somewhere to stay, so our apartment got quite full up. They needed places to stay, so our apartment was full of people.
In those days, I used to travel around London on a motorcycle. But to buy that motorcycle, as they say in English, cost me an arm and a leg. I would have to pay my entire property. There was a fellow student at the Bible Institute who was going out to Japan as a missionary, and so he wanted to sell his motorcycle. The motorcycle, of course, is very convenient for traveling around in London, especially through heavy traffic. You know, there's a long queue and you can just go all the way to the front. That's why the motorcycle is very convenient. If you're in a car, you're stuck in traffic.
Also, as you know, the motorcycle uses much less gas than a car, and so it's quite cheap to run. It was quite an old motorcycle, so I had to pay this brother in installments. I couldn't pay him all at once.
One day, it was quite late at night. There was a Chinese brother from the United States. He was born in the United States. He couldn't really speak Chinese. Anyway, he was sharing my room with me. After a time of fellowship, we decided it was time to go to bed. So I made myself comfortable on the floor to get ready to sleep.
I was just about dozing off. Because we were living on the third floor, I heard a click. I don't know whether this is due to kung fu training or what. I used to play around with those things when I was young. There was a lot of traffic on the road, a lot of noise. And yet, amidst all this noise, I was falling asleep when I heard a click and I jumped up immediately. Why? Because I recognized it was the stand of my motorcycle going up. You know, the stand comes up with a click sound like that.
I rushed to the window and looked down. I saw two people getting onto my motorcycle. So I rushed down the stairs, three floors as quick as I could go. And just as I got down the stairs to the motorcycle, the man in front managed to kickstart it. It was a bit heavier type of motorcycle. You have to kickstart it. And just as I was going to grab the fellow at the back by the neck, the motorcycle started and zoom, it went off.
I saw my motorcycle just disappear down the road. All my investment, all my money gone down the road. In the meantime, this Chinese American brother heard me rushing down the stairs, so he also came running down. He saw my motorcycle too, gone in the distance.
What was left to do? I just made a phone call to the police to report that my motorcycle was stolen. You know thousands of motorcycles are stolen in London. So they said, okay, just put your name here and number there, and that's it.
So I went upstairs and committed the matter to the Lord. My most valuable possession was gone. This was my most precious property. I owned almost nothing of value apart from that motorcycle and the watch that my mother had given to me. I just committed the matter to the Lord and went to sleep. I had a very good sleep.
The next day the American brother was looking at me at breakfast very carefully. He said, "I'm very surprised." He said, "You seem to be smiling, you're very relaxed. Well, what's the matter? What's happening?" He said, "Last night you had your motorcycle stolen. You've lost your most valuable piece of property." He said, "How come you're sitting there smiling and looking relaxed?"
I said, "What's the problem? What do you mean, what's the problem? It's only a piece of property, a motorcycle. I leave it in the Lord's hands. If he wants me to have a motorcycle, I'll have a motorcycle. Yes, I keep going."
# What Shall I Do to Obtain Eternal Life (Part 1, Side B)
I can always go with my BMW. In Canada we have a local joke. When we ask somebody how are you going home, he says always my BMW. So I say you have a BMW? Oh, he says yes. You see, BMW is bus, metro, and walk. Very simple. So after I lost my motorcycle, I go with my BMW.
I have to say the remarkable thing is my friend could not understand why I was so full of peace. He said to me, "If I lost my motorcycle, I would be jumping up and down." And then I thought about it and I said, yeah, he has a point. Come to think of it, I don't know why I am so peaceful. I wasn't even aware that my friend was so astonished by this peacefulness.
And then it came to my mind, the verse in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 7, where the apostle Paul says, commit everything to the Lord in prayer. And then the peace of God, which is beyond human understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. It's wonderful. I didn't even think about it until he mentioned it. Yeah indeed, I was so peaceful.
Now you ask, what's this got to do with our message? I'm trying to help you to understand what eternal life is and to carry on from where brother Isaac left off yesterday. What is eternal life then? There are two phases of it. One is now in the present and one is in the future. How do I know I have eternal life? Because I already experience the character of eternal life now.
What is the character of eternal life now? The apostle Paul tells us. Let's turn to Romans chapter 14 verse 17. And it reads like this: "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Now these three things characterize eternal life as it is now. If God's life, eternal life is God's life, if God's life is in you now, you will have three qualities that mark your life. It is God's righteousness. It is God's peace, that we have such a peace, we don't know how it works, we're not even aware of it. But the peace is there. And it is an indescribable joy.
In other words, eternal life is not just that you live forever and ever and ever. As we saw yesterday, some people don't want to live forever. Today people are committing suicide. They don't want to live because the quality of the life they live is unbearable. But eternal life, when God's life comes into your soul, you find something amazing happening. Almost unconsciously, in fact quite unconsciously, you're not even aware of it, working with power in your life. You find that before you loved to be selfish, you loved to be greedy, you loved to hurt people, you loved to annoy people. Now you love righteousness.
You didn't know me when I was not a Christian. Somebody in the camp said to me, almost apologizing, and said, "I am not yet a Christian." I said, you don't have to worry. I also once was not a Christian. And if you knew what I was like at the time, maybe you don't want to know me. But when God gave His life to me by the Spirit, I couldn't understand why the things I loved before, I don't like anymore. And now I love righteousness. It's God's grace.
And then I discovered with that, there was this peace that I just shared with you, one example of. This amazing peace in my heart. If you think you have gone through troubles, my friend, let me tell you, I have been through enough troubles in my time. For me it was a daily experience that I didn't know when I would get my next meal. For many people it would be enough to drive them into panic, not to say a mental breakdown. But my heart was so peaceful. "Father, you are my father, remember? Here's your little child. Your child is hungry now. Can you provide me something to eat?" You say I must be joking. God is spiritual, food is material. You haven't known my father yet. God is so practical. He knows when his child is hungry, he will give you what you need to eat.
That's why when I read in the Bible, he says, the birds of the air, do they sow? Do they plant? No. But God feeds the birds. He will feed you. I put that into practice. Not one month, not one week. For years and years and years. The birds never fail. Never fail.
When I first came to be a Christian, the first experience I had was an unbelievable joy. I was arrested by the communists. I was waiting for them to decide whether they would shoot me or whether they would be so kind as to put me in hard labor for the rest of my life. Why? Because they had caught me at the border of Shenzhen on the other side of Hong Kong without a permit. They knew that I must be a counter-revolutionary because only this kind of people want to run away from the new China.
I was waiting either to die or to go to hard labor. And that is where I met with the Lord, as I shared in my tapes. And there came upon me, sitting right in that prison courtyard under the nose of a machine gun, a joy that I had never experienced before. You have to experience this to understand it. I have no way to describe this to you. This is not some natural joy like a little boy sees an ice cream cone and his face brightens up. I have never seen anybody filled with joy with a machine gun looking at him. I was filled with unspeakable joy. This is something really amazing. It is not from man. It is something that God does.
Let me ask you, if you think you have eternal life, have you experienced any of these things? You say you have eternal life. Have you experienced this joy? Otherwise we are talking about some eternal life floating in the air. What eternal life? Paul knows about this eternal life. That's why he says here in Romans chapter 14 verse 17: "The kingdom of God is not food and drink and all these external things. It is righteousness. It is peace. It is joy by the power of the Holy Spirit."
Now some of you Bible experts will say, "You seem to have wandered a little bit from the point. You were just talking about the kingdom of God, not about eternal life." Well, let me show you that I have not. We can turn to Luke chapter 18 and verse 18. The question the rich young ruler asked is, "How do I inherit eternal life?" He didn't mention the kingdom of God.
Well, if you thought of this point, you are quite sharp and I am glad that you haven't quite fallen asleep yet. But as a matter of fact, the kingdom of God and eternal life in the New Testament are synonyms. They are equated to each other. If you look at this passage, you will see the rich young ruler asks about eternal life and the Lord Jesus answers about the kingdom of God. So in Luke 18 verse 18 it says, "What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?" And the Lord's answer, as you will see in verses 24-25: "How hard it is for those who are rich to enter the kingdom of God." And then the next verse he talks about the kingdom of God again.
As you look through the New Testament, you will find again and again that the kingdom of God and eternal life are inseparably linked together. For example, in Mark chapter 9 verse 43 and 45, it says it is better for a man to enter into life with one hand or one eye than to go with both hands and both eyes into hell. In verse 47, he says exactly the same thing but this time referring to entering into the kingdom of God. The same thing in the well-known passage in John chapter 3. Verse 3 talks about seeing the kingdom. John 3:5 talks about entering the kingdom, and later on in that chapter verses 15 and 16 it talks about having eternal life. So kingdom and eternal life are again spoken of in the same way.
But our time is running off quickly and let me try to wind up this message. The link between life and the kingdom of God is very important. What does the kingdom of God mean? It means the kingship of God. It means that God rules. You cannot live in the fullness of eternal life now unless you live under His kingship now. God is king. He is king in my life. And he is also king over all the earth.
If he thinks I don't need this motorcycle, it may be dangerous for my life, he doesn't have to give it back to me again. As a matter of fact, I was three times nearly killed or seriously injured riding my motorcycle. So if the Lord, my King, decides that it's enough of this motorcycle, then he doesn't have to give it back to me, it's alright too. As a matter of fact, a few days later I received a phone call from the police to say that your motorcycle has been found, come and collect it. I thank the Lord because I used that motorcycle to conduct an evangelistic tour in Ireland.
You cannot live in the fullness of eternal life now unless you live under His kingship now. Now, are you living under His kingship? It's not you saying, "Yes, I do." Nobody can say, "Yes, I do." Are you willing not to run away from His words like the rich young ruler, but say, "Lord, because You are my King, what You command me to do, I will do." You will follow Him. Only then you begin to enjoy the reality of eternal life now. And let me say this to you: if you don't enjoy eternal life now, how do you know there is such a thing as eternal life in the future?
But now here comes the difficult part, talking about His kingship. Let's see what His kingship translates into. I just want to leave you with these thoughts and we continue tomorrow, the Lord willing. We stick to Matthew 19 verse 24. When the rich young man turned away from the Lord Jesus, this is what the Lord Jesus says in verses 23 and 24: "Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, 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."
I think you will all remember the other night, the first night we had the play. And then you remember Howard was this great big camel struggling to get through the eye of a needle. But that was actually a cloth hanger which is hundreds of thousands of times bigger than the eye of a needle. Well, we saw that Howard couldn't get through the eye of that particular needle.
So let me summarize the Lord's teaching here in three points very quickly. Firstly, let me put it in question form. If the rich man can only be saved by the power of God, that is, only when God performs a miracle can the rich man, like the camel, get through the eye of a needle, then does it mean that a poor man can get through the eye of a needle without God's help? But let me ask you the question: can a mouse get through the eye of a needle? What about a fly? They also can't get through the eye of a needle.
In other words, the difference between the rich man and the poor man is only a relative difference, not an absolute difference. That is to say, it's exactly the same for the rich man and the poor man. The difference is only quantitative, not qualitative. The rich man cannot get into the kingdom except by the power of God, and the same is true for the poor man. We also cannot get into the kingdom except by the power of God. Therefore, it is utter foolishness to suggest that it is only the rich man who cannot get into the kingdom, but we can.
That is what we mean when we say that we are saved by grace alone. That means to say, none of us, not the poor man, just by being poor can save himself. The rich man has to be saved by God, and the poor man can save himself? That is utter nonsense. So the first point, let us summarize: whether we are rich or poor, we are all saved only by the grace and power of God.
The second point that we see in the Lord's teaching, and this is very important to understand, the Lord teaches us that riches and the kingdom of God are incompatible. The material and the spiritual cannot be made to come together in such a way that you can enter the kingdom with both. That means the Lord is saying to the rich man, and he is also saying to us, you have to choose one of two things. You either choose the riches or you choose eternal life, but you can't have both.
Now that's the part, that's the fish bone that sticks in our throat. That is the part that the rich young man couldn't take. And that is the part that the church also cannot take. And that is the part that you and I also don't like. Why can I not have both? I can have eternal life and I can have the riches. But my friend, you can if you want to, but you won't get into the kingdom. That's as simple as that.
If you can show me that the Lord Jesus means something different, then teach me, please. The Lord Jesus said these words to the rich young ruler, we know for sure. But he says the same thing to everybody. Look at it for yourself in Luke chapter 12 verse 33. He is not talking to rich young rulers. He is talking to all those who follow him. He says to them, "Sell all that you have and follow me." Exactly the same words that he said to the rich young ruler. We wish that these words were not in the Bible. But I have not the right or the power to change it. I have no way to twist this around to make it mean something different. I don't have the daring that some preachers have to twist the word of God, I am sorry to say.
So this second principle is simply this: you must choose one or the other, but you won't have both.
The third thing the Lord Jesus tells us is that life does not consist in the things that you possess. You can see this in Luke 12:15, just a few verses earlier. If you think that your life cannot be good, cannot be nice, unless you possess a lot of things, then you have not yet understood what eternal life is. The scriptural teaching is clearly stated in 1 Timothy 6:8, where the apostle Paul says this: "If we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content."
Why do we seek riches? Because we are not content with this. We want more, more, more. That's why not just food and clothing, but more food, more clothing, more houses, more cars, more everything. In other words, we want to be rich. And the apostle Paul says those who desire such things will not have peace, joy, and righteousness, but they will be pierced through with many sorrows.
What is your attitude? What do you think about life? Be very honest, be truthful. In what for you does life consist? Are you content with food and clothing? Or do you want a lot more than food and clothing? If you say, "No, these things don't interest me," and you are not deceiving yourself, do you dare to sell what you have and give to the poor?
The Bible tells us that the material and the spiritual will be constantly fighting each other. You cannot choose both. I beg of you to understand, that's what the Lord Jesus is telling the rich young ruler. You cannot choose both. And if you have already chosen both, like this rich young man, the Lord says, go and undo it. There is a sword stabbing into the heart.
But if you don't do it, you will discover that you do not have joy. You do not have peace. You do not have righteousness. And then you will find that the Christian life does not work. When you try to pray, does God answer you? When you want to commune with the Lord, do you find Him there? Do you find daily you are walking into the joy and the peace that comes from God? Not if you try to grab with one hand the world, and the other hand the kingdom of God. No, it doesn't work.
Think about it. Consider whether what the Lord Jesus says is the truth.