Please turn to Mark 12:29. “Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.”
Let’s say that the old tree in your front yard was struck by lightning last summer. For months, your wife has been reminding you, reminding you and reminding you to cut off the dead limb which reaches out over the yard. Finally you can’t find any more excuses not to attack that limb, so out comes the old ladder and chain saw. That ladder reaches into the tree, but you’ve got to climb some limbs to get even higher. You aren’t afraid of heights, and you used to climb trees all the time, so off you go. Cutting off that branch shouldn’t be a problem. When it falls, it won’t even land on the sidewalk or drive way. So merrily you climb up and then start the motor, reaching up over your head, carefully sawing away. You are busy, and your eyes are looking upward so that you are oblivious to the neighbor’s child who has come to investigate the noise and watch the excitement. Crash comes down that heavy branch, and the little girl is instantly killed. “Which is the great commandment of the law?”
If this were an Old Testament situation, the father that girl would have the legal right to kill you. But the law specifies that you have recourse – since this was obviously an accident. You can flee to one of the six cities of refuge – perhaps Bezer, Shechem or Hebron. In that city there would be a trial, and you would certainly be proven not guilty of deliberate murder. And you would be granted protection and safety – as long as you stayed inside the walls of the city of refuge. If you chose to go back to Post Falls, even to visit your family, the father of that child, your neighbor, would see you and kill you. In fact, even if you lived in the suburbs of that city of Refuge, your life would be at risk. That man has become crazed with rage and grief. Without a moment’s hesitation, you would be stabbed through the heart, if he found you. There is no law to stop the man. There are laws – and there are other laws. “Which is the great commandment of the law?” By one law, it is dangerous to live in the suburbs of protection.
As we have noticed, it was late into the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. The Saviour has already made His ceremonial arrival into Jerusalem. And He has cleansed the temple once again. It was after the fig tree had withered. But there was still a spark of life in a few of the branches and leaves. And one of those leaves brought this question to the Saviour. No doubt, the majority of the Pharisees were looking for an opening into which they could pour their poison. And perhaps this spokesman was not against doing just that. But the question itself was honest – “What will this provincial hick say is the greatest of all the law?”
One of the things to note is the quickness of the Lord’s response. He didn’t have to stop and think about an answer. He didn’t have to analyze what the Pharisees were trying to do in order to come up with a response. And He didn’t offer His opinion; His reply was immediate and precise – it hit the mark.
One has to wonder if this scribe had his own answer in mind, or if he was a clean slate. Did the Lord’s response resonate with something which was already bouncing around his heart? And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” I like the fact that he didn’t try to twist the Lord’s words, and he didn’t immediately try to find fault with them. Perhaps he was a bit surprised that this apparently unlearned Galilean possessed such wisdom. And to this “when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” The word “discreetly” means the same as “prudently” or “wisely.” Nevertheless, it was not enough. “Jesus said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” You might say that this scribe was living in the suburbs of the City of Refuge.
Let’s think about that man’s SUBURBAN HOME.
Christ says that it was not FAR from the Kingdom. He was close to citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. This man was residing just down the road from the residence of the Messiah. He was just around the corner from salvation, from Heaven, from eternity with the blessings of God. It was in a good neighborhood to live in, but it was not the best.
Nevertheless it was a beautiful home, and this was a relatively good man despite the rest of his “family.” But to be “relatively good” is not the same as to be “righteous.” This man was well acquainted with the Word of God. Mark calls this man “a scribe,” while Matthew declares that he was “a lawyer.” The two terms are used interchangeably throughout the gospels. It was the profession of these men to know, understand and share the law – the Word of God. This man could probably quote Isaiah 53, Exodus 20 and Psalm 23 along with a hundred other scriptures. He knew the covenants made with Abraham and David, and could discuss them backwards and forwards. And he could probably name all the Kings of Judah in proper sequence. He might have been able to write from memory all 613 of the commands of God. But such things as these don’t make a person a child of God. This man may have had the gift of spiritual perception beyond the average. Unlike most of his co-workers in the law-firm of “Levi, Levi and Cohen” this man knew that religious ceremonies were of very little consequence. He wasn’t going to say that “Decalogue point 4″ was more important than point 6. He recognized that the tie which binds any soul to Lord, is found in the heart not the head. The summary of the law is to love the Lord our God, with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength. And this fellow was a man of integrity and personal consideration. After his initial approach, he continued to treat the Lord with respect, even though initially he may doubted the claims that he was the Messiah. His friends were attacking Christ at every opportunity. Most of their questions were not asked with a desire for his answer. Strangely though, they failed in every point to that end. But this man was asking an honest question, and he was pleased to hear a worthy reply. Perhaps he even had some experience with conviction for sin. He had a sense of his own needs before God.
He indeed lived in a beautiful house.
But, this little bungalow IS in the SUBURBS on a serious geological fault line.
Nearness to the kingdom of God speaks of some degree of separation from that kingdom. And no one is safe who is not inside the walls of the city of Refuge. Rather than being built upon the rock, his life and home were built upon sand – legal sand. In Jesus’ parable, there were winds coming up and destruction loomed large on horizon. But this man just couldn’t see that right now.
In fact he was quite pleased with his house – the life which he had built for himself. Even if it was just a bit ostentatious. There was a slight odor of pride emanating from its kitchen. That man appears to be pleased with his intellectual attainments. He even dared to pass judgment on the answer of the Saviour, as though the man was superior to the Son of God. I suppose that since he was Pharisee as well as a scribe, his moral structure was above average as well. Sadly, pride keeps more people from Christ than any other sin.
And the truth is, he just didn’t want to sell out and move into the city of Refuge. The life that he was living was worth something to him. He was a somebody. After all, it was he, who was selected by his peers to pose this question to Jesus. The man’s life was quite valuable to him, and in the job market of the day. To move into the city of Refuge would entail some major changes and some degree of loss. For example to move into the kingdom of God might alienate some friends. It might cost him is job as a religious lawyer and scribe. He would loose probably a great deal of money and his plans to fill that three car garage. It could even very well put him in some physical danger. What would his wife say, and what would her parents have to say about his conversion? But what danger can a man inflict upon another in comparison to the danger of revenger of blood? The man was still a sinner and the wrath of God still is awesome. What is a $600,000 house in the suburbs when the death angel is approaching?
He might have said, “I’ll sell out and move when the housing market improves.” I will come to Christ later, when most of my old life is gone and wasted. I will move to the city of Refuge after I have made my fortune, and after I have sown and sold my wild oats. Or he might have simply said simply, “I have no need to come to the Kingdom of God at all.”
If he had been honest he might have said, “I have no desire to move.” With his lips he said, “Love for God is the most important thing.” But the fact is, the man didn’t love God as the Lord prescribed. If he had loved Jehovah, he would have loved the Christ of Jehovah. He may have honestly thought that things were fine, but they weren’t. I remember the testimony of a woman — a preacher’s wife — who professed to be a child of God. She taught a children’s class, played the piano, and did all that is expected of the preacher’s wife. True or not, she said that she knew that by faith in Christ, sinners become children of God. But the fact was that for a long time, her faith was not in the Lord. She might have had faith in faith, but not in Christ. She believed in the cities of Refuge, but she had never moved into one of them. Like this man, she was dwelling in suburbs, so near to the city of refuge.
What should this man have done?
He should have thanked God, first, that he lived so close to the truth. The Kingdom is near us all – but not all of us are near the kingdom. The gospel of Christ permeates our society, but so many are blind and gospel illiterate. Sometimes we are near, but it is not necessarily due to anything in ourselves. Perhaps in some cases our parents are Christians, and we bask in that blessing. Sometimes we live in a community where a church cares about souls, and tries to reach us. Thank God that you live in a country where the kingdom of God has been declared.
Secondly, this man should have feared the danger of not being actually in Kingdom. Paul was moved by the terror of the Lord, thinking about the lostness of others. This man was one of those lost ones and doomed. He should have been scared silly, unable to pillow his head at night in fear lest the death angel should pass his way that evening.
And he should have asked the Lord for directions into the place of blessings. I don’t know if they complied, but Israel was to keep all the roads leading to the cities of Refuge marked and well-maintained. This man should have been pleading with the Lord for more conviction of sin and for faith to trust the truth. “May God give me a solution for my soulish deficiencies!” Convictions not acted upon die; truths not followed fade into uselessness. Impressions resisted are harder to be made again. Obtacles almost always increase with time. And the habit of delay grows and grows.
Think back to my illustration about the man in the tree. If he fell from that tree, he might have been hurt or even killed, at any point or distance from the ground. Generally speaking, if he fell from the first step on the ladder, he wouldn’t have suffered very much. But as a rule, the higher we climb, the more danger we are in. The longer we delay our move to the city of Refuge, the more likely that we will be slain.
If I had to guess, I would say that the man in our scripture is in Hell today. Furthermore, the pain – at least the emotional and mental pain – that he is experiencing is far greater than the man who lived and died a drunken wretch or heathen idolater. What is worse than going to hell? Going to hell, thinking that you’re going to Heaven. Near the Kingdom but lost, is a tragedy of enormous proportions.