The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom
of God have been given to you.
But to others it comes by means of
parables, so they may look but not see,
and listen but not understand.
The son of man must suffer much and
be rejected.
He will be put to death, but three
days later will be raised to life.
Anyone who starts to plow and then keeps
looking back is of no use for the
Kingdom of God.
If anyone wants to come with me, he
must forget himself, take up his cross every
day and follow me.
For whoever would save his own life will
lose it, and whoever will lose his life
for my sake will be saved.
What will it profit a man if he
gained the whole earth and lose his own
soul?
If any man is ashamed of me and
of my teaching, then the son of man
will be ashamed of him when he comes
in his glory.
There is still one more thing you need
to do.
You must sell all you have and give
the money to the poor, and you will
have riches in heaven.
Then come and follow me.
Will any of you come with me?
I'll follow you wherever you go.
Take no thought in your life for what
you should eat, for life is more than
food and the body more than clothing.
If you
give up all that you have and come
follow him, what about the future?
Shouldn't we have some cushion, some condition, something
that will not make us utterly, totally, abandonedly
dependent on him?
You know what faith is?
Exactly that total and unqualified abandonment on him.
No longer to be connected with an organization,
no longer to have a salary, no longer
to have a fixed income, no longer to
have retirement benefits, no longer to enjoy medical
insurance or any such thing, and increasingly and
totally and finally and irrevocably to be utterly
dependent on him.
Are you coming to that?
Maybe the better question is, are you willing
to sell the car?
Or do you want to clutch and retain
what is the foundation of your present security
and yet be spiritual, and yet speak lofty
things, and yet talk about the body of
Christ and God's kingdom purposes to the earth,
and you yourself not to have ended that
kingdom?
Unless you are unwilling basically, deeply, irrevocably, and
finally and totally to go, sell, give, come,
and follow him.
Will any of you come with me?
Earthly conditions are opposed to this kind of
totality.
There is still one more thing you need
to do.
The earthly spirit and mind and mentality will
cry out fanatic madness, going too far.
If our consciences tell us anything, they tell
us that it matters eternally what we do
with our lives now.
The eternal issue is before us now.
The knowledge of the eternal, and eternal life
has to be effectual now.
There's an actual place of entry, it's called
salvation.
It's waiting for a certain totality from us,
which many of us have not yet given.
Have you for his sake left all?
For the kingdom's sake?
Or maybe I've got to put the question
another way.
For whose sake have you not left all?
For whose sake have you not sold all?
For whose sake have you not given all,
to come and to follow?
Houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and
children, and farms, a hundredfold, along with persecutions,
not so much from the world, but from
other Christians who think you have gone too
far.
Why do they persecute you?
Why do you make them boil?
Why do they find something growing in them
that is an irritation and vexation with you
who are a kingdom person?
Because it shames them.
Because it scandalizes their present Christian faith.
Because it really reveals to them what the
true commitment to the kingdom is.
It shows that they are yet outside the
kingdom.
If only you were not there to confront
them.
If only they could continue to persuade themselves
that they're wholly given to God, and look
what they're tithing, and look what they're donating,
and look how they open their homes to
meetings, and look how often they attend the
youth synagogue, this, that, or the other.
But your total kingdom consecration, the all, the
finality, the totality of it, angers and irritates
them.
If you have not experienced persecution, it is
ipso facto evidence already that you are living
beneath the kingdom level.
Blessed are you when men hate you, and
reject you, and insult you, and say you
are evil, all because of the Son of
Man.
Because a great reward is kept for you
in heaven.
The Lord came and stood before you tonight.
There is still one more thing you need
to do.
But he knows also what to do with
the partial withholding conditional.
We have not come to his absoluteness, to
his totality.
You cannot bend his rule or his requirement.
Salvation requires totality, or it cannot be undone.
One thing you lack.
Will any of you come with me?