The Poverty of Riches/The Riches of Poverty
Matthew 19:23‑29
Let's look together at Matthew chapter 19. It's our great privilege this morning to open the Word of God. And what a sacred trust it is. It's my constant prayer in my heart before the Lord that I would be able in some way to rightly represent to you the meaning and significance of God's Word. It is a holy trust and demands our great heart attention as we look together at what the Spirit of God would teach us.
We're looking at verses 23 to 29 of Matthew chapter 19. It is a section of teaching from our Lord that follows the incident with the rich young ruler. You'll remember that the rich young ruler had come to the Lord and he said, "What do I need to do to obtain eternal life?" That's a fair question. He came with the right attitude, he came running, it says in Mark. He came kneeling. He came to the right person. He asked the right question. His heart was eager and anxious and unembarrassed.
And the Lord effectively said to him, you're not ready to be saved until two things occur. Number one, you recognize your sin. Instead of giving him the gospel, instead of giving him grace, Jesus gave him law. And He listed the commandments and the young man had the audacity and the self‑deception to say all these things have I kept. What lack I yet? Incredible. That man couldn't be saved because he wouldn't recognize his sin.
And the second thing the Lord did was tell him to sell everything he had, give it to the poor, come and follow Him. And he wouldn't do that either. That is the second demand that is an element of salvation and that is He demanded that the man submit himself to His Lordship. Jesus was saying you must acknowledge your sin and you must acknowledge that I have the right to give directions in your life. He wouldn't do either. He went away sorrowing.
Sorrowing why? Well, Mark says he even went away with his face gloomy, glum, drawn, dropped. He really wanted eternal life. But the terms of our Lord were an impassable barrier to him. And out of that experience, the Lord teaches about true riches and true poverty. The things that are really valuable and the things that are not. And so, I'd like to entitle this passage, "The poverty of riches and the riches of poverty."
There's a verse in Proverbs which sums up the lesson of our text. It's chapter 13, verse 7 and it says this, "There is he that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing. And there is he that maketh himself poor yet hath great riches." Paradoxical.
Now, we're all aware that the Bible has a lot to say about riches and a lot to say about poverty. And maybe nothing is any more direct or clear or significant than this particular section taught by our Lord. The young man was a tragedy. He fits into the category of Luke 14:33 where Jesus said, "Whosoever he is of you that forsaketh not all that he has cannot be My disciple." And what he held on to was self‑righteousness and possessions. He could not come to the point of repentance for his sin and he could not come to the point where he would affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ and submit himself to that no matter what it costs.
Oh, he wanted eternal life. Sure he did. He really wanted it. But he wanted his self‑righteousness more. He wanted eternal life but he wanted his riches more. And so he had to forfeit salvation. You see, it isn't that he didn't understand salvation. It isn't that he didn't understand that he needed it. It's just this, the price was too high. It would have cost him the admission that he was a sinner and it would have cost him the subjection of everything he owned to Jesus Christ...too high. He wouldn't pay the price. And the lesson we learned last time when we studied that account is that if someone wants anything more than Jesus Christ, they forfeit Christ.
Jesus could have succumbed to his terms. Making disciples on their own terms is quite easy...quite easy. They're easily won and they're easily lost. He could have gained that man on his own terms and would have perhaps created a temporarily enthusiastic follower who would have turned out to be a second Judas.
Now out of that incident with that rich young man comes some profound teaching about true riches. Let's look, first of all, at the poverty of riches in verses 23 to 26...the poverty of riches. "Then said Jesus unto His disciples, Verily I say unto you that a rich man shall with difficulty enter into the Kingdom of heaven." Now let me just say at the outset. We've seen the term "Kingdom of heaven" again and again. It is synonymous with the term "Kingdom of God." That's clear from verse 24 where He makes reference to the same thing and calls it the "Kingdom of God." They're used interchangeably. They simply mean the sphere of God's gracious rule. They are synonyms with eternal life. They are synonyms with everlasting life. Synonyms with salvation.
The young man said, "What do I have to do," verse 16, "to attain...to inherit or attain eternal life?" And here Jesus calls that eternal life entering into the Kingdom of heaven. So it's just a term referring to salvation. Now that is its non‑ technical usage. We could get into development of that but we've done it in the past. Suffice it to say, this statement by our Lord is clearly, "I say unto you that a rich man shall with difficulty enter salvation." It's very difficult for rich people to be saved. That's what He said...very difficult.
You see, the young man was not willing to forsake all and follow. And Jesus had said this many times. Matthew 10:38, He said, "If you're not willing to lose your life, you'll never find it." "If you're not willing to take up your cross and follow Me, and deny yourself," Luke 16...Matthew 16, "you're not going to be My disciple." I mean, over and over He said that. And even to this rich young man, in the Mark account, chapter 10, verse 21, He says to him, "You must sell all you have, take up your cross and follow Me." Take up your cross meaning be willing to die. You've got to abandon everything, even your own life if I require it. I may not but you've got to be willing to do that.
In other words, you come bare and naked through the narrow gate. And the man was not willing to admit his sinfulness and he was not willing to say no to all that he possessed. The price was too high.
So, Jesus draws this conclusion. "Truly," verily means truly, it is a point of emphasis, "I say to you that a rich man shall with difficulty, duskolos," that word is only used three times in the New Testament and it's each time used in this account, in the account in Matthew, in the account in Mark and the account in Luke. It says that our Lord used this word. Now we then have to take its meaning out of these accounts. So it is difficult for a rich man to enter salvation.
How difficult is it? We've got to get a definition from that word and since it's not used anywhere else, it's hard to use other scriptures to define the degree of difficulty. So we ask just how difficult is it? And the answer comes in the next verse. Here's how difficult it is, "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God." How difficult is it for a rich man to get saved? It's the same difficulty...no, it's a greater difficulty than to stuff a camel through the eye of a needle.
Now you say, "What in the world is the Lord trying to say here?" Well, just take it at face value. How difficult is it to stick a camel through the eye of a needle? It's so difficult it's impossible. You can't put a camel through the eye of a needle. You say, "Well what in the world did this phrase...why does He use this phrase, where did it come from?" Well, you see, it was a colloquialism. In fact, we found in the Talmud a saying that was used in Persia, "It is harder...It is easier, rather, to put an elephant through the eye of a needle." It was just a colloquial phrase used to express something that was impossible. And, of course, since there were no elephants in Palestine and the camel was the largest animal, the Lord simply uses the colloquialism only He substitutes a camel for an elephant. It was just the way of saying something is impossible.
So, the point of the teaching is: how difficult is it for rich people to get saved? It's impossible. You know what this is saying? It is impossible for rich people to be saved. That's right. Jesus said that. It's impossible.
You say, "Now wait a minute. It's impossible?" That's what it says...impossible, just as impossible as sticking a camel through the eye of a needle. Well, you have to understand that. And, boy, you'd be amazed what people want to do and want to get out of this issue. They want to make it difficult but not impossible. So they say, you see, you see...when it talks about the needle it's referring to a gate. And there was in the wall of Jerusalem a needle gate, it's a little gate, a little small gate. And it was so small that when you wanted to put your camel through there, you had to take the load off the camel's back, you had to take the saddle off the camel's back and you had to get the camel down on all fours and sort of shove them through this needle gate.
You see, the problem with that view is it doesn't say needle gate, it says needle. And we also know that it was a colloquialism that was extant at the time our Lord used it. And we also know there's no needle gate. There wasn't any needle gate. And we also know that Jews aren't stupid. They're not going to jam camels through needle gates when 50 feet down the road is a huge gate. And we also know that if the gate's too small, they're going to make it bigger. There is no needle gate, folks. Where in the world that came from I'll never know.
Somebody else says, no, it's a scribal error. The word is kamelos for camel and the word is kamilos, a difference of one vowel. And some scribe goofed it up. Kamilos means a cable or a rope and it referred to the rope that they anchored a ship with. That doesn't help. You can't stick one of those through a needle either. Plus you can't assume that every scribe all the way along made a mistake. Start doing that with the Bible and you're in a lot of trouble, change letters here and there according to your own whim. No.
And some have suggested that if you could just line up the molecules in a camel, you could shoot him through the eye of a needle. And one guy even suggested that if you reduced a camel to liquid, you could eyedrop him through the eye of a needle.
It is not difficult to enter the Kingdom, it is impossible...it's impossible. Now listen to Mark 10:23 and 24, just listen to what it says. "And Jesus looking around said to His disciples, How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God." But not only that, the next verse, "And the disciples were amazed at His words, but Jesus answered again and said to them, Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God." And He goes from the rich people to everybody. It is hard to get saved. How hard is it? It's impossible.
And so, the message of our Lord is on the impossibility of salvation. It is impossible to be saved. It is exactly what our Lord had in mind, of course, in Matthew chapter 7 when He said, "Narrow is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that...what?...that find it." And it's exactly what He had in mind in Matthew chapter 11 verse 12 when He says, "The violent are trying to seize and take by force the Kingdom." In other words, they're struggling and fighting to get their way in. It is exactly what is meant when it says that everyone presses his way into it.
Listen, the rich young ruler wanted to get into the Kingdom. And he came running and kneeling and in a sense pressing his way and violently wanting to get in but it was impossible. It was impossible. "The gate is narrow and the way is hard and few there be that find it." You see, it's impossible.
What do you mean it's impossible? It's impossible to be saved when you come for salvation on your own human terms. You understand that? That's what He's saying. It's impossible. It isn't difficult in the sense of just hard, it's impossible. And He really goes to the extreme here.
And so, Jesus is saying that I demand the impossible. And what that does, in effect, is say that nobody can get saved on their own terms, right? In one fell swoop, He eliminates all work‑righteousness systems. He eliminates all man‑made salvation. Not only for rich people, but even beyond the rich people, as Mark 10:24, "Little children," He says, "how hard it is to be saved." And we say, "Oh, it's easy. All you have to do is just sign on the dotted line...just believe...put your hand up, or whatever." No, this man came, he was ready to do all that. The Lord put up impassable barriers to him. And when he was insisting on coming on his own terms, it became impossible. He had no power to do it himself. It's what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 13:23 when he asked whether the leopard could change his spots or the Ethiopian could change his skin. And he said, "No more can they do that than you who are accustomed to doing evil can do good." You see, man can't be saved by himself. No amount of works, no amount of religion, no amount of activity, no amount of desire, no amount of willfulness. It's impossible...it's impossible.
And that impossibility of salvation is sort of crystalized in the case of rich people for three reasons. The way that impossibility sort of works itself out in the rich people, let me suggest these to you. First of all, rich people have a false security. That's their particular problem. That's why they can't save themselves. They're obviously unable to do it. And what the barrier to them is the false sense of security. See, rich people don't need God because they've got all their resources. They can buy anything they need. No sense in depending on God.
You know, the city of Laodicea in Asia Minor was the wealthiest of all the cities in Asia Minor. In 60 A.D. it had an earthquake and the city was literally flattened. And the Roman government commissioned some emissaries to go to Laodicea and say the government will give you money to rebuild your city. They said, "We don't want any money from the government, we'll rebuild it ourselves." And the pride of Laodicea was that they raised their entire city out of the ashes without taking a dime from the Roman government. And that attitude spilled over to the church which was the dead...the dead Laodicean church and you remember when the Lord wrote them a letter, He said that you Laodiceans say I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing and you don't know you're blind and naked and wretched and poor, right?
You see, rich people, people who have all the resources in and of themselves tend to feel smugly complacent. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 17, and you'll get a sort of an epistle view of the same thing that Matthew 19 is teaching, same principle. Paul writing to Timothy under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells him how to discharge his ministry and 1 Timothy is literally filled with all different aspects of it. He gets around to the rich people here in chapter 6 and in verse 17, he says, "Charge them that are rich in this age, the earthly rich," the people who are banking on their money, the people whose hope is in possessions, "Charge them that they be not high minded," that is snooty, proud, superior, "nor trust in uncertain riches but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy." You see, it is the particular problem of rich people to trust in their uncertain riches because they don't need God. They can buy anything they need. The rich are satisfied to trust in their riches.
And then the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, tell them they ought to do good, be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to share. You say, "Why do you tell a rich man that?" Because if he's not willing to do that, then the rest of the gospel doesn't matter, right? Because if he's not willing to submit everything to the Lordship of Christ, they don't need to tell him the rest of it. If a guy comes to you and he's very, very rich, you don't say to him, "Oh, listen, wouldn't you like to ask Jesus in your heart and just accept Him and then we'll worry about all that other stuff later?" That isn't the way the Bible approaches it. If a rich man comes to you and the best question you can ask him is if the Lord Jesus wants every dime you have, will you give it to Him? Oh..oh..oh, and if he won't, that's end of discussion, right?
So, you tell the rich people, he says, do good, rich in good works, ready to distribute, throw it out, give it to people, and willing to share it. And if they'll do that, they'll lay up in store for themselves a good foundation against a time to come that they may lay hold on, it's not eternal life, aionios, it's ontos, real life. Because life does not consist in the abundance of the things a man possesses, Luke 12:15. But these people think real life is in money. You tell them if they'll give it away and distribute it, they'll lay hold on a foundation against a time to come and they'll get a hold of real life.
So that's very much like the story of the rich young ruler. It isn't that you get saved by giving away your money, it's just that you demonstrate if you have a lot of it that you're concerned more with the Lordship of Christ than you are with holding on to your own resources. And when you come to Christ, you come on His terms and the terms are abandonment to Him, forsaking all and following Him. It doesn't mean that He'll take it all away from you. I mean, He may give you back like He did Abraham, way more than you can handle. Or like Job, give you back far more than He ever took from you. But the only issue is not whether He will or won't, it's whether you're willing to let Him do what He will...submitting to His Lordship.
So, you see, it's so difficult for rich people to be saved because they trust in their riches. Secondly, they're bound to this world. Rich people are bound to this world. Go back to verse 6 of 1 Timothy 6, and there it says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." I mean, have you ever met a contented person, I mean, a really totally contented person? Most people in our materialistic society aren't content cause they want something else that they don't have. We brought nothing into the world and it's certain we can carry nothing out. No pockets in a corpse, right? Nobody going anywhere with anything.
So, he says in verse 8, "Having food and clothing, be content." Food and clothing, be content...a very convicting verse. And if you're not satisfied with that and all you want to do is be rich, you're just going to fall into temptation, a snare, foolish hurtful lust which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, causes people to err from the faith and pierce themselves through with many sorrows.
You see what happens to rich people is they get all tied down to this world. And everything revolves around this world. How much they've got in the bank, how many possessions they've got, how many cars they've got and so forth and so forth. And Jesus said in very clear terms in Matthew 6:21, "Where your treasure is, there will your...what?...heart be also." And if all a man cares about is here in this world, he has no thought for the heavenly realm. And you see what happens? The gospel comes to that man and all of a sudden he sees all of his money and possessions. The Lord says I'll take it all, please, I'd like to have it all subjected to My Lordship. And he says, "Wait a minute."
And that's exactly what happened, you'll remember, in Mark chapter 4 when the Word was thrown out like seed on soil and it was sewn among the thorns and it says, "The cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entered in and choked the Word and it became unfruitful." You see, there's some people they hear it, "Oh, isn't that wonderful?" They respond to it but it isn't very long until they are deceived by the substantial riches that they have, until they are bound up in the caring for the things of this world and the lust of possessions and they abandon the gospel. So you have to deal with that first otherwise you're going to get a sham converts.
It's very difficult for rich people to be saved...it's impossible. In fact, it's impossible because in their humanness, they are bound to this world and they live and die for the possessions of this world and they trust in those as their security.
I mean, the big fool that we read about in the Bible is the guy in Luke 12, isn't he? You remember him? "He spoke a parable to them, A ground of a certain rich man," verse 16, "brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do because I have no place to bestow my crops?" Oh really? You can't find a poor man with no food? You can't find all these folks over here who have nothing? You have no where to put your crops, huh? Stash it away, right? "And he said, This will I do, I will pull down my barns and build greater and there will I bestow all my crops and my goods." I know what I'll do, I'll give it to me. I'll give it to myself. He couldn't eat it in ten lifetimes. "And I will say to my soul," he had to talk to his soul because he had nobody else to talk to, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years." Boy, don't think of ever using it for somebody's need, just stash it. "Take thine ease."
You know what rich people want? Easy life, eat, drink, be merry, retire at 28. "God said, You fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then who shall those things be which thou hast provided, so is he that lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Listen, don't stockpile stuff for some unknown future. You are a steward of whatever God's given you. Use it for the advance of His Kingdom, the glory of His name, lay up eternal treasure right now. I really can't get in to too much future stuff when I see needs immediate. But rich people are bound to the world and their only hope is in their money and so they must stash and store. And they've got to do that to accumulate it so they can live a life of ease. And they've got to have enough to support their ease.
So, the rich trust in their riches and are bound to this world. Thirdly, they're selfish. I talked to a guy this week who works for a multi, multi millionaire. He said probably worth about 300 million or more. He said there's three things about him, he said I worked for other ones and he said they all have three things in common. One, they are very, very rich and capable of getting richer. Two, they are very eccentric. And three, they are all extremely selfish...self‑centered. The rich are selfish. They're consumptive. They indulge themselves. "Soul, take thine easy, drink and be merry."
You remember the Luke 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? Probably not a parable but a real story. And the rich man fared sumptuously every day and Lazarus is laying in the gutter with the dogs licking his sore, just begging for some crumbs. What kind of a rich guy is that? I mean, it's got a guy laying out there, the dogs licking his sores and he's leaving him the gutter and won't even give him a few crumbs to eat. What kind of a person is that? That's not a Christlike person, is it? What kind of a person does that? And then that guy winds up in hell and the rich...the beggar winds up in Abraham's bosom being comforted.
The world is full of people who indulge themselves. See, it's impossible for rich people to be saved. They can't get over the hump of their own humanness and they're evil of their own nature which cannot be reversed, manifest itself in the love of money and the love of possessions.
Now, believe me, when Jesus said this, this was a shocking teaching, not only to the rich young ruler but to the disciples. You know what the rich young ruler had been taught? He was...he was involved in rabbinical Judaism, no question because he was probably the ruler of a synagogue. And the rabbis taught this, never give away more than one fifth of what you possess. To do so is unlawful and sinful, they said. It's sinful to give away more than one fifth.
Now they had to make a law about that so they could be holy and still be selfish. You understand that. And so they made that law. And so he had been instructed all along, you just keep piling it up and piling it up and you call it the blessing of God and you only give away one little part of it and that's how you buy your way into the Kingdom. They actually believed that the richer you were, therefore, the more...the larger your little fifth was and the larger the fifth that you gave away, the more you purchased unto your