One Thing You Lack (Clip)

The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of God have been given to you. But to others it comes by means of parallels. 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 plough 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 this 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 save it.

What will it profit a man if he gain 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 shall eat. Think of your body, what you shall wear. For life is more than food.

And the body more than clothing. Consider the rate. Be neither sown nor reaped.

Have neither storehouse nor barn. Of how much more worth are you? Are you more than the birds? Listen to how you and men hate you and reject you and insult you. And say you are evil all because of the Son of Man.

Be glad when that happens and dance for joy. Because a great reward is kept for you in heaven. But their ancestors did the very same things to the prophets.

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 so to come? 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 in the earth.

And you yourself want to have end of that kingdom. Because 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 for me 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 from now. The eternal issue is before us right now.

The knowledge of the eternal and eternal life has to be effectual now. There is 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 him. Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms a hundred fold, along with persecutions not so much from the world, but from other Christians who believe 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 aversation with you or 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 King is.

It shows them 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 and go this, that and 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 we do impartial, withholding, and conditional. That we have not come to this absoluteness, to this totality.

We cannot bend his rule or his requirement. Salvation requires totality or it cannot be ended. One thing you know.

Will any of you come with me?