16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “ ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony,
19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
He went away sad - did God want this? Here was a man standing before God incarnate and saying, “No.” Is this possible? Of course it is! The rich young ruler was dead (Ephesians 2:1, 2:5, Colossians 2:13) and everything he did was “in the flesh,” he could do nothing in the spirit. So in his flesh he had decided that his possessions were more important to him than eternal life. Why? Answer, because he was thinking with his heart, the heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). He made the only decision he was capable of making. He was unable to sell all he had because he was unable to please God (Romans 8:8), he was unable to understand (John 8:43, 1 Corinthians 2:14). God must FIRST replace the heart of stone every lost person has with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). Only THEN will he be able to hear, only THEN will he be able to understand, and only THEN will he please God.
Now, as far as what Jesus told him. Look back at one of my previous Bible Truths - Isaiah 55:10-11. God’s Word will NOT return void but WILL accomplish that which pleases Him. Most Christians would say that God wanted the young man to follow Jesus, to be saved. Sorry, if that’s true then God’s Word returned void and it didn’t accomplish what God wanted - so that is not the case.
God’s Word will NEVER return void and will ALWAYS accomplish EXACTLY that which pleases him. The Christian who says that God wanted the rich young ruler to be saved is putting human logic, emotion, and their tradition into the equation rather than reading and accepting what God’s Word says - HIS WORD WILL NOT RETURN VOID. So whatever that young man did after hearing the Word of God from Jesus is EXACTLY what God wanted him to do. God WANTED him to go away sad and still lost. If you have trouble with that, you don’t believe God is Sovereign and you don’t believe Isaiah 55:10-11.
Even if 5 days later the rich young ruler sold everything he had and became one of Jesus’ disciples, it makes no difference. THAT was what God wanted too. God wanted the man to walk away sad and then 5 days later sell everything he had, give it to the poor and then follow Jesus. For it is God working in us to think and to act according to His good pleasure, not ours. (Philippians 2:13) - and if God DOESN'T work in someone to make them believe (John 6:29), they’ll never believe and if they never believe, it’s because they were never chosen to start with.
If you want to know what God’s Will is, don’t look at the meaning of the text in the pages or listen to the Words (the Words of Jesus, the words of a preacher, or anytime God’s word is being proclaimed), LOOK AT THE RESULTS. The results will always show what God’s Will is - ALWAYS. (Isaiah 55:11)
BTW - the same situation is written about in Mark 10:17-27 with one exception. In Mark it is written, “Jesus loved him.” Well, since Jesus loves only the Elect and hates everyone else (Ephesians 5:25, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5) I really believe this man was saved at a later point in his life. It was simply God’s plan that at this point of his life his dead spirit would not be quickened.
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