One of the things that I love so much about the good old Bible, as I read it from time to time, is that I never cease to marvel at the expressions that are contained in it that are so utterly surprising. You know, nobody but God could write a book like this. I know that he used human instruments to put these words down, but in back of these penmen, was the Almighty Eternal God. And I'll tell you, when you see Jesus Christ in contact with men on this earth, you have to realize that you're not dealing with a mere man. We're looking into the face of the God that created the heavens and the earth. And you know, I just couldn't help but think tonight as Brother John was bringing us the message about these two men and the prayer meeting that they had. You know, who could have been more surprised than that Pharisee? I mean, he really thought he had it made. And who could have been more surprised than the publican to go home justified? One man thought that his batting average was so good, God had to put him in the Hall of Fame. And the other man thought he'd never make it, the first base. And his name is in scrolls and enrolled in the Lands Book of Life, and he's there tonight enjoying the results of his coming to the Lord Jesus. You know, that old publican wasn't so dumb. There were three things that he knew that every one of us ought to know, and you'll never get saved until you find out what they are. First of all, he knew what he was. He knew he was a sinner. That's more than some people know. The second thing he knew, he knew where he was. He stood afar off. He realized that his sin put him at a distance from God. And the third thing is even best of all, he knew what he wanted. He wanted mercy. And he got it. He went home justifying. Tonight I want you to turn, if you will, in your Bibles, to a little scene which is recorded at least three times in the Gospels. But I want to look at the account which is found in Mark's Gospel, Chapter Ten. In fact, when John... called out Luke chapter eighteen. I thought, uh-oh, there goes my sermon. But fortunately, he fell a little bit short of my text. I don't care. I'd have gone on anyhow because we would have said something different, I'm sure, and arrived at the same place. But in Mark chapter ten, beginning at verse seventeen, I want to read these words. And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him, Good master, what shall I do, that I may inherit internal life. And Jesus said unto him, Why calleth thou me good? There is none good but one. That is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Defraud not honor thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, some of these things I've tried to keep. Well, that's the ultra-dispensational translation, which is not printed yet. But they'll be around with it one of these days. I want you to notice what this man said. He says, Master, all these have I observed from my youth? You talk about a success, John. This man has really got it made. Then... Jesus beholding him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come. Take up the cross and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved, for he had great possession. I just want to read by contrast, and this is all the reading I'll be doing at length in the book of Luke chapter twenty-three. Verse thirty-nine, and one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Doth thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, that this man has done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shall thou be with me in paradise. This man was evidently a colossal failure. I'm speaking by human standards. He had to be just about as far down on the totem pole as you could possibly drive it. And the other man was just about as far up on the high end as a man could possibly go without the help of a jet engine. There was all the difference in the world between these two men. And what I want you to notice tonight, as we go back to this account in the book of Mark, how much this fellow had going for him. And yet the scriptures make it very plain that he never got to Christ. One of the things that we notice in the Word of God is that the last glimpse you ever get of anybody or anything is generally the way that they go out into eternity. And some, I don't know where they get this, but some believe that this young man is the one to whom the Lord Jesus referred in Luke sixteen of the rich man who died and went to hell and lift up his eyes being in torment. There are some traditions to that effect. But be that as it may, this man that we're looking at tonight, had it made by every human standard that you could possibly think of. And yet before the eye of God, that man missed out on salvation and is lost forever tonight. I mean, that's astounding. Now, notice some of these things about this fellow. I tell you, it's amazing. First of all, we're told that he came to Jesus. That in itself has got to be a tremendous step in the right direction. I'm asking you tonight, why didn't he stop off at the temple? He was a ruler and he was a rich man. He was well up in society. He was well thought of in his day. Why did he not stop at the temple and do his business there? Notice that he raises the question, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? That man was not interested in religion, friends. He was interested in eternal life. The first thing that I see that he got around was this business called religion. I was put on the religious assembly line when I was a little child in the city of Chicago, and I came out to finish product a few years later. I was confirmed in my sins and baptized to seal the job, and I was fully commissioned to go to hell. You say, my, that sounds terrible. That's the absolute truth. I enjoyed going to church only fifty percent of the time, and that was when I was going back home. I did not enjoy it. My parents, I come from a long line of drunkards. My grandfather had the dubious distinction of opening up the first saloon in Linsburg, Kansas many years ago, and then he moved on into Chicago and opened up several more there. But you know, my parents and my people in the background days were not religious people. But you know, my dad and my mother thought I ought to have some religion. And so they sent me to this very fine, fashionable church in Morgan Park and the south side of Chicago, Illinois. And I was exposed to all of the religious treatment that they could possibly give anybody. And the day that I was confirmed, along with seventy other young people, I remember turning to my friend Francis Weaver, and I said, Francis, what are we now? He says, Lent, he says, I don't know. And that was a very honest reply. A few days later, in the mail, I got an envelope in which to put an offering. That was the only difference after I get confirmed in my sins. Well, I got an envelope to put some money in which I didn't have. Those were depression days. I don't know of anything that keeps people from getting to Christ more than religion without Christ. Religion is an opiate that people seek out and lay hold on and think by becoming religious, they are going to make God happy enough to receive him. Friends, there's not one thing in religion that will put away your sin. The word religion means do, and Christianity is the word that says done. Religion is man trying to work his way to God, and salvation is God coming down to man. The message of the cross is that Jesus Christ has died for our sins, look unto him and be saved all the ends of the earth. And religion is a treadmill upon which you walk and stumble along, hoping that your good deeds are going to outweigh the bad deeds and God will weigh them up and say, well, you got more good deeds and your bad deeds enter down to the joy of your Lord. Somehow or another, he got past this thing called religion, the establishment, the temple. How he did it, I don't know. The second thing I notice about him is this, that he was rich. I tell you, I don't find too many rich people a day wanting to get saved. Do you? I don't find very many rich people in Wichita, Kansas, coming knocking at the chapel door saying, well, you know, we're not interested in religion. We're interested in getting eternal life. I don't meet many people, even poor people. But he was rich. I'll tell you, if some of us had the amount of money he had, we'd say we have got it made. But whatever the man had, it didn't satisfy his heart. One thing I'm convinced about is that riches... and material prosperity does not satisfy man's deepest longing. I only speak in for what I've seen, and others have told me, believe me, I've never been rich enough to test it out. I've often thought that I would have made a good millionaire. I was tall, dark, and handsome. But you know, the Lord never thought that way. But I know from those that I've talked to who have had a good deal of this wherewithal, that riches is not the answer. Then he was a ruler. I'll tell you, this man had authority. He could say, do this and they would do it. He'd say, come and they would come. But there was one thing he could not do. He could not legislate. He could not authorize peace in his heart. The wicked have no peace, saith my Bible. The wicked are like the troubled sea whose waters cast up mire and dirt. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. He didn't have that peace. And I don't know of a time in the world's history when there's less peace than there is right now. This world is struggling, terribly struggling, trying to get peace. We're desperately searching for answers and we're not getting them. And I thank God for men in our government who are seriously and earnestly trying to lead us through the quagmires that we're finding ourselves in, the desperate times, the international situation, the social dilemmas of our day. We're living in a time of upheaval, friends, when men don't know what the standards are, what the values are anymore. Sodomy, a few years ago, was considered a sin according to the Bible. A few years later, it's reckoned as a sickness, and today it's considered a lifestyle. And the men have crawled out of the woodwork and waved their signs around and advertised and flaunt the fact that they have defied the very order of God's creation among men and women. I tell you, we're living in desperate times. I spent a whole summer in the camp in Alaska. And I want to tell you that I meet teenagers, I meet junior high kids, I meet grade school kids, and these kids are searching for answers. A couple of those kids came to me and said, Brother Len, did you know that we don't know what a home life is? I said, what do you mean? Don't you live with your mom and dad? Oh, they said, listen, my mother has been married six times. We don't know what a real home is. Whatever this man had, whatever he didn't have, was haunting him and he came searching for an answer. I hope tonight, my friend, if I'm speaking to someone here and you don't have this peace of God, you don't have peace with God, I hope in your heart tonight you desire it. Let me tell you, let the rest of the people go home, but stay here and get it settled and get right with God. The next thing I notice about this fellow is that he was a kind of a clean fellow, because when Jesus spoke to him about the commandments, the man wanted to do something, and he says, well, you know the commandments, do not commit adultery, don't kill, and don't bear false witness, and don't defraud, and honor your father and mother, and he says, put me down. He says, I've kept all these for my youth up. How many of us could say that? Boy, I'll tell you that thing on adultery. Here's a sovereign. Here's a ruler. Let me tell you, that was a common thing with these men. They had access to anything that their flesh desires. There were no with strength. There was no holding back. He says, you know. He says, I've never committed adultery. And not only that, he says, He had never killed. A man who's got authority to take somebody's life and not give a report or an account of it, it's a big temptation. I hear a lot of people say, I could kill him. They just don't have the authority, the power to do it, or maybe they would. There's no telling how many people we've murdered in our minds. That's another sermon. Do not steal. Where could you go around the White House and talk about that? This man was rich, where did he get his money? He says, I never stole it from anybody. That's more than a lot of wealthy people can say today. I tell you, this man's batting average is stupendous, isn't it? He'd have made any team. He'd have been on the Yankees. They need him right now. And he says here, defraud not. He never cheated anybody. And he honored his father and mother. My, oh, my, oh, my. My soul, I asked myself, what kind of person was this man? And yet for all of his religious caliber, his credentials, he did not have that peace deep down in his heart with his God. Well, I just want to take one quick look over at a little passage that comes to mind over in the book of Romans, because, you know, a lot of people don't understand about the laws. A lot of people believe that it's by keeping the Ten Commandments that they're going to get to heaven or by doing good, but not according to my Bible. Let me read you what my Bible says here in Romans chapter three. He says in verse nineteen, Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, this fellow had a tremendous pedigree, didn't he? And I meet a lot of people who say, well, you know, I don't smoke and I don't drink and I don't do this. And I believe I've got as good a chance as anybody else. Well, that's not saying much, really. You know, we had a chihuahua dog and it never smoked. I never saw it smoke once. I never saw it chew red man. This dog never cursed. to my knowledge never did was a very fine little dog had very good habits but I don't expect to see it in heaven poor little thing never be there this business about keeping the law my Bible says that the law does two things but it does not say but it does two things it closes the mouth and it opens the eyes Notice what he says there in that nineteenth verse. He says that all the world may become guilty before God, that every mouth might be stopped. And then, you know, their eyes are open. I remember I was riding down Douglas Avenue a good number of years ago with Bill Malter, who was a detective on the Wichita police force, and Bill Malter was sitting in the back seat. I guess my wife was up in the front seat with me and Somehow or another, I came to a kind of a rolling stop. You know what that is? Do they do that in Iowa? Boy, you ought to see them do it in Kansas. You'd think the sign said, speed up. And so I just kind of eased down, and I eased on out into the thoroughfare, and the first thing you know, I had a police escort. And he pulled me over to the side, and I... I looked up at his nice uniform and he said to me, he says, you did not come to a full stop. I said, well, I'm awful sorry about that. I noticed they began to do some writing. I said, did you know that this is the first time that I've ever been apprehended by the law in Wichita, Kansas? That's a good record, but he kept on writing. I said, you know, I've lived here six years. I said, I've never done a thing like this before. He says, well, that's real good. but he kept on writing. And I just kept on talking like that, and pretty soon I didn't have anything more to say. I'll tell you what that man did. He closed my mouth and he opened my eye, especially when I had to pay thirty-five dollars at the court. And Bill Malter was sitting in the back seat laughing his head off. I don't appreciate that laughter. But I want to tell some of you people here today, here tonight, you're sitting here and you're just as ignorant as I was, because you're thinking that by coming up with a nice kind of a religious record of some kind, you can expose it to God, and God is going to say, man, I'm really thrilled by you. Man, we can't wait to get you into heaven. It will stop your mouth and open your eyes. That's what the law does every time. Friend, there is no mercy in the law. The law, my friend, never, never brings mercy, never brings salvation. If you drive in Atlantic, Iowa for fifty years and never run a red light, never run a stoplight, never go beyond the speed limit, never get apprehended by the police department, they'll not come and give you a reward. They simply leave you alone. That's all. The law comes to life when you break it. And this man had a tremendous record, but he realized that that wouldn't do the job. I want you to know something else. He was young. You say, well, I can understand a guy like Linstead being religious. Man, he looks like he's half dead. I don't blame him for being concerned. He looks like he's about gone. Did you notice how white his hair is? He's dying from the top as well as from the feet. That man's not going to last long. Fifteen years ago, I was somewhere in western Nebraska, and I saw a bunch of women whispering that hadn't seen me in ten years, and I went by her and heard him saying, doesn't he look bad? He sure looks bad. You know, a lot of people got the wrong idea about salvation. They think it's for old people. People who've got their one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Now you know this, the only thing you can do is get saved. Let me tell you something, my friends. Don't wait till you're old. I've gone into the old folks' home. They says, Brother Len, would you like to talk to the old folks? They said, yeah. I go in there and they're sitting there like a bunch of dodo eggs. They don't even know where they are. They don't even know who they are. They call me up and say, you want to see somebody in a hospital? Yes, I do. They're so full of dope and drugs that they don't know where they are either. In the name of God, don't sit around until time runs out. The more people that are saved today you'll find will be in the ranks of the young people. What about you kids sitting over tonight saying, man, we're waiting till we get big enough to get a motorcycle. I'll tell you, you better get saved before you get a motorcycle. Because if there's anything you'll usher you into eternity quicker to cash in on salvation, get a motorcycle. It's the fastest way to go. It's one of the better ways. He was young, but he was hungry. Am I talking to a young person tonight? And all the pleasures and all the fun of youth, you've tasted them to the full, like John and others here, and you say, oh, I'll tell you, there's something lacking yet. It's Christ that you're lacking. And I'll tell you something else about this fella. We're told that he was running. I don't see too many people running to Jesus. I see a lot of people running away like Jonah. One thing about Jonah when he was going to try to get away from God, the devil saw a tooth that there was a ship waiting for him. And would you believe it? He had the exact amount of money to pay for his fare. But you know he had to pay for the trip away. And then something else. He knelt. He was a very reverent fellow. He knelt by the feet of Jesus. And you know, he wasn't ashamed either. He didn't care who saw him. Sometimes we get in the restaurant, we can get thanks for food while we kind of scratch our brow like that. That's one psychological. Hope nobody saw me. I was giving thanks for food in the restaurant. The waitress came over, she said, what's the matter? She said, something wrong with the soup. I said, no, I was just thanking the Lord for it. I said, I'm taking a chance that it's worth thanking. She says, excuse me. She said, I thought maybe you were ill or something wrong with the soup. I'll admit we don't pray too long. But you know, he wasn't ashamed. And when Jesus looked at this man, it says here in my Bible that he loved him. Jesus looked at this young man and it says he left. And ladies and gentlemen, with all that he had gone for, when Jesus says, one thing you lacked, you sent what you have and give to the poor. And I'm going to give you treasure in heaven. And you come, take up the cross and follow me. And the young man went away sadly, for he had great possessions. Jesus put his finger on the one thing. that kept him from getting saved. I find as I go around the country, it isn't many things that's keeping people from getting saved. Oftentimes it's only one thing. One little bitty thing. That's all it is. I had a camp in Texas a few years back, one of the last sessions that we had at Old Cedar Hill, and at the close of the meeting, I said, if any of you fellows would like to get saved, it was a boy's camp, a young fellow's camp. I said, do I like you to come up here and we'll talk about it? And a meeting was dismissed and two fellows were coming down the aisle. About that time, Art Griffin, who was director of the camp still, he says, just a minute. He says, I want to tell you fellows that he said, we got a whole bunch of extra bananas up at the mess hall. He says, you all go up to, that's that Texas part, you all go up to the mess hall and get you a banana. There are bananas down there in Texas. And boy, I mean you oughta seen those kids' eyes light up. And they lit out of there as fast as they could go to get a banana. The two boys that are coming down the aisle stood there debating what to do. One of them says, hey, he says, we better go and get us a banana. The other one said, well, I wouldn't mind to get me a banana, but I'd kind of like to go up and talk to him about getting saved. Yeah, but he says, those guys are up there eating those bananas. You know that they're eating those bananas while we're standing here. Yeah, but he said, I don't know. I'd kind of like to go and talk to him, see if I could get saved in there. He said, well, I do too, but he says, let's get them bananas first. He says, this thing can wait. And I thought, oh, Lord, Jesus, what's going to happen here? And finally, those two boys separated. One says, well, he says, you go and you can have my banana. He says, I want to get saved. And he came up, he says, I'd like to talk to you about getting saved. The other boy looked at him a couple seconds. He turned around and ran out. I never did see him again. Never did come. And that young man at stay trusted the Lord Jesus Christ after fifteen, twenty minutes. And I was letting him go back to his cabin and he was starting to go up the hill. I said, hey, you didn't get a banana, did you? Oh, well, he says, I got something better than that. Yeah, but I said, you know, you never get saved and get shortchanged. I said, you come on up to the mess hall. I said, I know my way around here. And boy, I tell you, I lit into a bunch of bananas like you never saw. And I loaded him up with bananas, and he was staggering up the hill with his arms full of bananas. I thought nobody was going to get saved and miss out. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added unto you. One thing checked him out. And then last of all, I close with this, was this man over in the twenty-third of Luke. My, oh my, you talk about a failure. The other guy was a success, but he was a successful failure. If you ask me, he missed it. But here's a man that didn't have a ghost of a chance. He couldn't run. He was nailed to a cross. I don't think he had ever gone to the temple, and he sure couldn't say, I've kept all these commandments from my youth up, or he wouldn't have been in the condition he was in. And as he was hanging on that cross, He turned his eyes and gazed upon the face of the Lord Jesus. And he said to him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus turned to that young man. And he replied to him. He says, Verily I say to thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. We don't know another thing other than what Jesus said to him. But I have a feeling. That when those words went into that man's ears and went down into his heart, that he gave a great big sigh and said, Thank God I've made it safe home. He made it. I'm going to see that man in heaven. Here's a bunch of people here on this side of the auditorium, kids sitting over here, young people over here, older people over here. Can you say tonight that you know that you're saved, that you've got everlasting life? One man was a success by the world standards and he's in hell tonight. The other was a failure by every standard that I can think of. He was a reject, an outcast, and condemned to die by decent society in his day. And Jesus spoke peace to that man so. What's it going to take to get somebody that receive the gift of God tonight. What's it going to say? Here's an opportunity as we bring the meeting to a close for you to close in with the offer of salvation that I can guarantee you on the authority of the Word of God. If you respond to it tonight, God will save you on the spot. And a thousand million years from this evening, you'll look back and thank God that you settled it. When my wife and I sold our house in Chautauqua Street and relocated on Broadmoor, where we live now, we had a lady real estate agent who tried to help us, but unfortunately she didn't show us anything that we liked that we bought from another lady. And a few days after the sale was closed, we heard, we got a phone call from the first real estate lady. And I said, well, Mrs. I'm sorry to say this, but we've already bought a house. She said, oh, I'm not calling about that. And then I noticed that I detected a little sob in her voice, and I said, well, I don't understand why, what is it that I can do? She said, you know, my sister and I are married to brothers. And she said, my brother-in-law, Bob, is forty-two years old, and he's dying with cancer. She says, every chance we get, we go over and sit with Bob. And we were sitting over in the house this afternoon and we didn't know what to say. And Bob was sitting there and all of a sudden Bob jumped up and he says, I can't stand this any longer. He says, you all know I'm going to die. You all know it, but you don't talk about it. You know I'm not going to last much longer. And I'm asking you, said he, where am I going when I leave this world? And she says, we went out of the room and we couldn't tell him. And we don't know any preacher that we could turn to. They said, do you know a preacher? And finally, Mercedes said, well, I was trying to show a house to a preacher. Maybe he might be able to help us. So she called me up. She says, do you think you could answer his question? Fortunately, he only lived about four blocks from our house. I jumped in the car and I rode over there. And when I went into the room, the relatives were sitting there. Pretty soon, the bedroom door opened, and this man came. Forty-two years of age, dark hair, dark eyes. I couldn't believe he was actually dying. He sat down on a hassock by me. He looked in my face. He says, Mr. He says, I'm a dying man. He says, you're looking at a dying man, but he says, this man does not know where he's going. He says, I want to know where do I go from here? He says, can you tell me? I said, my friend, I can tell you only this. I can't tell you where you're going, but I can tell you this, that there's only two ways to go. There's a way that goes down to eternal judgment, and there's a way that goes to heaven. I said, if you can tell me which way you'd rather go, I says, I can help you. He says, I'd rather go to heaven. He said, if I could, he says, I don't know if I could make it. I said, well, let me read you what God says. And I sat down and I want to tell you in eight minutes flat, that man received Jesus Christ in front of all those people. And he was so filled with joy that for about a week or ten days, they thought he had actually been cured. And they called me. He was in the St. Francis Hospital. And he says, Bob's not going to last any longer. So I went up to, I had him in an oxygen tent. Now lift it up the flap, I said, Bob, can you tell me how it is? I saw him as his eyes sought mine out, and he answered with one word. He said, Wonderful. You tell me tonight, my friend that's sitting here, and you don't know my God, you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. When you face what that man faces, then you're going to face it, and so will I, and so there's not one of us here. You're going to face it. When you like to face it like he and say, Thank God, it's wonderful. Jesus with a broken heart saw that young man turn away. He had so much going for him. He was young and he was reverent. He passed by the well of this world. He said, Oh Lord, I want eternal life. But there's one thing that checked him out. And the other man had everything going against him. Except one thing. He put his faith in Jesus Christ and he's in heaven tonight. I'm going to let you make that choice as we bring this meeting to the close. Maybe you have a verse of a hymn or something. I don't know. And my friend, if you're not saved and you'd like to be saved tonight, please don't leave this fairground auditorium. Remain here. Come up to the front. I don't know who you may be. If you want to raise your hand, if you want to nod your head, if you say, well, preacher, I'd like to talk to you. We would just like to simply take the Word of God and show you how you can know without a shadow of a doubt that you can be saved. God specializes in saving failures. He really does. Let's pray. Our Father, we just pray for thy blessing upon the twofold testimony tonight. We ask it for Jesus' sake and in Jesus' name, amen.