Are the Demands of the Gospel Unreasonable?
“If
anyone comes to Me, and does not
hate his own father and mother and
wife and children and brothers and
sisters, yes, and even his own life,
he cannot be My disciple. Whoever
does not carry his own cross and
come after Me cannot be My disciple.
For which one of you, when he wants
to build a tower, does not first
sit down and calculate the cost to
see if he has enough to complete
it? Otherwise, when he has laid a
foundation and is not able to finish,
all who observe it begin to ridicule
him, saying, ‘This man began
to build and was not able to finish.’ Or
what king, when he sets out to meet
another king in battle, will not
first sit down and consider whether
he is strong enough with ten thousand
men to encounter the one coming against
him with twenty thousand? Or else,
while the other is still far away,
he sends a delegation and asks for
terms of peace. So then, none of
you can be My disciple who does not
give up all his own possessions.” (Luke
14:26-33)
Is it unreasonable
to obey the
gospel
as spoken
by Yahshua,
the Messiah
in Luke
14? The
gospel
is unreasonable
to those
who are
not willing
to do God’s
will.[1]
Is God
unreasonable? It seems that way
to many
Christians
today,
as they
are taught
that any effort
to obey
Yahshua’s
word disqualifies
them from
the free
gift of
eternal
life. Yet
Peter said the Holy
Spirit
is given to those who obey God.[2]
And Yahshua
Himself
said, “He
who has My
commandments
and keeps
them, it
is he who
loves Me.
And he
who loves
Me will be loved by My Father,
and I will
love him
and manifest
Myself
to him.”[3] And
again, “Most assuredly, I say
to you, if
anyone keeps
My word he
shall never
see death.”[4]
The kingdom
reign of
Messiah
is unreasonable
to the
natural
man[5]
and unattainable to the carnal
man.[6]
But
to the
faithful,
the way
is very
narrow and hard,[7] but not unreasonable,
for it
is attainable
for the
spiritual
man. For
those who
see the
worth of
Messiah
and understand the nature
of eternal
life, it is unreasonable to not
obey the
gospel
for Him.
Nothing
less than
total surrender
of one’s
life will
bring about
the witness
of His
transcending
life on
the Earth.
If one is
satisfied with a comfortable, status
quo, Sunday-go-to-meeting existence,
then the demands of Yahshua’s
gospel would seem unreasonable. For
it would be considered irresponsible
by this world’s standard to
not provide for yourself a good home,
nice things, a college education
for your children, and a comfy retirement.
But it would require great complexities
of reasoning to imagine that Yahshua
was envisioning such a life when
He preached the so-called “hard
sayings” of the gospel.
The Rich
Young Ruler
The rich
young ruler
came to Yahshua,
believing
that He could
grant him
eternal life.[8]
And what
is eternal
life but
to know God
and His Son Yahshua whom He sent?[9]
And to know
Him, one
must obey
Him.[10]
And to call
Him the Sovereign
of one’s life,[11]
one must
follow Him,
in order
to serve
Him where
He is.[12] This is the one who will
be honored
by the Father.
Yahshua made
the demands of following Him very
clear to the rich young ruler. It
would be impossible for him to go
on with the life he had grown accustomed
to and be a fully surrendered disciple
at the same time. He would have to
choose between his own life — everything
he had always taken security in —
and the eternal life that he knew
Yahshua was extending to him.
And looking
at him, Jesus [Yahshua] felt a love
for him, and said to him, “One
thing you lack: go and sell all you
possess, and give to the poor, and
you shall have treasure in heaven;
and come, follow Me.” But at
these words his face fell, and he
went away grieved, for he was one
who owned much property.
What was
he grieving about? What great loss
caused such grief?
It requires
great complexities of reasoning to
imagine that Yahshua envisioned such
a life of affluence when He preached
the so-called “hard sayings” of
the gospel.
He lost eternal
life because
he loved
his own life more. For Yahshua
said that one must
hate his
life in
the world, in order to follow Him.[13]
Yahshua was the
One who could
give him
eternal life and told him what
he must do in order
to have eternal
life. But
the rich young ruler did not trust
Him, even
though he
believed
that what He told him to do would
grant him eternal
life. The
word grief
there means to strike the bosom
and to
beat the breast as
an outward
sign of
an inward grief. This is
what the rich young
ruler was
doing as
he walked away from Eternal Life.
Could the
rich young
ruler go
to the
Father
any other
way, except through Yahshua
— the One whom he asked what
he must do,
in order
to be able
to go to
the Father?[14] Certainly he must
have
believed
in Yahshua,
or he would
not have
asked Him
what he had
to do in
order to
have what he wanted. But somehow
he knew that
he must do
something
more than
just believe, for he asked, “What
must I do?” But at hearing
the unreasonable demands of
the gospel,
he was full
of dread,
heaviness,
and sorrow. For he had his mind
on what he
would have
to give up
— all those things
which he
could not
carry with
him to follow
Messiah as
the other disciples did, who
left their
employment,
family, friends,
possessions
— everything that would hinder the
journey.
The good
news does
not make
sense to
one who
does not see salvation as a pearl
of great
price,[15]
or as a
treasure
hidden in a field, which
is unattainable
without doing
what one
must do
to attain
it. And then one must
go on after
baptism to attain to the kingdom
reign of
Messiah.[16]
The unreasonable
demands
of the gospel make the
word
of God seem
unreasonable,
and the
Father
unreasonable to expect anyone to
have to
do what
the gospel
says one
must do in order to
trust the
Savior for his salvation.
All who
see Him
and His word this way will walk
away
sad like
the rich
young ruler.
The rich
young ruler
was not
just sad, but
grieved, knowing that the
heaviness
and dread that came upon him was
keeping him
from drinking
the water of life
Yahshua
offered Him.[17] The word cowardly in Revelations
21:8 means dread.
Why would
it say dread? Why would
the rich
young ruler be so dreadfully sad
after hearing the
good news,
as Yahshua
called him to follow Him? Why is
trusting required
for believing?
And He said
to me, “It is done! I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning
and the End. I will give of the fountain
of the water of life freely to him
who thirsts. He who overcomes shall
inherit all things, and I will be
his God and he shall be My son. But
the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable,
murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,
idolaters, and all liars shall have
their part in the lake which burns
with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death.” (Revelation
21:6-8)
The coward
in Revelations
21:8 was
filled with dread when he heard the
good news
of what it
would take
to drink of the water of life offered
to him.
As John the
Baptist said, “He
who does
not obey
the Son shall not see life, but he
shall incur the
wrath of
God.”[18]
The Outcome
of Obeying the Good News
Those who
trusted Yahshua
and gave
themselves
to actually
obey what He said were gathered
together
into an abundant
life with
all the others who
put their
trust completely
in Him. Those
who believed
were of one heart and soul, and
no one claimed
ownership
of any possessions,
but shared what
they had
with whoever
had need.
Whoever had
lands or houses or farms, sold
them and
brought the
proceeds
and laid
them at the apostles’ feet.
From there
they were
distributed
to wherever
the greatest need was. And great
grace was
upon them
all.[19]
This is a life where nothing
is held back,
everything has to go
— every attachment to the world,
which is
under the
sway of the
evil one
and which
will soon pass away.[20] All
must be completely
detached
from everything
that would
disqualify them from the kingdom
reign of
Messiah.
But how can
one live
in the
community of believers without
leaving the world behind?[21]
For one cannot
drink the
water of life freely unless he
has no other
cause greater
than to
drink. For that is what the word
freely in Revelations
22:17 means
— without
cause — with no cause that would
keep you from
drinking
what God
has freely given.
[1] John 7:17
[2] Acts 5:32
[3] John 14:21
[4] John 8:51
[5] 1 Corinthians 2:14
[6] Romans
8:5-8
[7] Acts 14:22; Matthew 7:14
[8] Mark 10:17,21,28-30; 3:31-35; Matthew
10:37; 24:14
[9] John 17:3
[10] John
14:21
[11] Romans 10:9
[12] John 12:25-26
[13] John 12:25-26
[14] John 14:6
[15] Matthew 13:44-45
[16] Philippians 3:10-13; Revelation
2:11; 3:21-22
[17] John 7:37-39
[18]
John 3:36
[19] Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37; see the story,
Son
of Encouragement
[20]
1 John 5:19; 2:17
[21] Luke 9:60
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