If you want to catch a monkey, all
you have to do is drop a nut
into a narrow neck jar and leave it
in the jungle.
The monkey will sniff it out and contract
his paw to squeeze it into that jug
and once he grabs that nut with his
fist, he won't let go and it's impossible
for him to get his paw out of
that jug unless he lets go of the
nut, so he just screams and hollers until
the trappers come and catch him because he
won't let go of that nut.
I believe there are a few of us
here who can stand by that monkey.
You can't tell them apart because they refuse
to let go of what they have come
hell or high water.
I don't believe we fully understand the gospel
as it is found in God's book.
I don't believe we have a true inkling
of the depth of the gospel as it
pertains to our personal lives, that God's kingdom
must be put first and that Christ must
be Lord and have first place, first priority
and first call and first preeminence all the
time, because he is Lord, that Christ preached
we should renounce the world and deny ourselves
and pick up his cross and follow him,
then said Jesus to his disciples, if any
man will come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow
me, for whosoever will save his life shall
lose it, and whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it, for what
is a man profited if he shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul,
that the gospel calls all followers of Christ
to renounce the world and embrace the cross,
that the gospel has certain rights and claims
on individuals who claim to be Christians, that
the Lord requires us to renounce ourselves and
all we have and to give ourselves and
all we possess to Christ fully and immediately,
that we are not our own and we
are bought with a price and that price
is his blood, that we are expected to
forsake all we have and deliver everything to
Christ as belonging to him, our bank accounts
and houses and investment portfolios and lands must
be fully given to him for his use
and for his glory.
When Edward Studd, the father of C.T.
Studd, came to Christ under the preaching of
D.L. Moody, he sold all his choice
racehorses and turned his lavish country estate in
England into a preaching chapel for visiting ministers
to preach the gospel.
That's how his sons were saved, because of
his renouncement to the world.
And when Steamboat Ryman got saved in Nashville
under the preaching of Sam Jones, he had
his fleet of steamboats pour all their booze
into the Cumberland River and he closed the
gambling halls on them and fired the dancing
girls in them and turned those boats into
floating chapels where the gospel could be brought
to the down-and-out at the Nashville
Wharf.
And if that wasn't enough, he built a
large auditorium, sparing no expense so that thousands
could come and hear Sam Jones preach in
it, which was later named the Ryman Auditorium,
which still stands to this day that the
gospel, when it is fully embraced and Christ
is made Lord, that we must understand that
what we have in regard to our possessions
is no longer ours, that it cost the
rich young ruler his soul because he would
not comply with the demands of Christ in
his life.
So he turned his back on God and
walked away, and a day came when he
finally was parted from his possessions by death.
But it was too late from then, as
his soul went out into a Christless eternity,
that we must understand what it means to
renounce the ownership of our possessions because they
are God's and not ours, that we are
never to treat these things as ours ever
again, that the Lord does not require us
to relinquish all our possessions and houses and
lands and investments and bank accounts or to
quit our businesses, but that we are never
to treat those things as belonging to ourselves,
as it is respected to God, that in
respect to men these things are ours, not
belonging to others, but as respected to God,
that he requires us not to regard ourselves
or anything we possess as belonging to us,
that God requires us and has placed demands
on us in the gospel to renounce all
claims to these or anything else as it
respects their relation to him, that his claim
on these things is absolute and his property
entirely is what we have we've received entirely
from him, that God requires us to use
ourselves and everything we have for him and
his glory as belonging to him and to
never think that we had a right to
use our time, our strength, our substance, or
our influence or anything else which we possess
as it were our own and not the
Lord's, we give God our 10% and
keep 90% for our own use in
the ruin of our family, while the gospel
still needs to be translated into 1200 different
languages, while God called ministries are closing their
doors for lack of support, I had the
privilege one time to read the will of
a famous Christian preacher who in his life
preached at some of the biggest churches in
the Southern Baptist Convention and he left an
estate of over a million dollars to be
divided between 10 ministries at his death, well
the old boy lived so long that by
the time he died half the missions and
ministries in his will had gone out of
existence for lack of support, had he given
them that money while he was alive maybe
they could have had more impact in the
world, we must understand what it means to
renounce self in light of the cross, when
we get saved our time is no longer
our own, our possessions are no longer our
own, our money is no longer our own,
our body is no longer our own, Christ
must be a complete master, he will not
accept a divided heart or a self-willed
life even if you are the chairman of
the deacons, that God didn't give us what
we have to enjoy a retirement of only
leisure and golf and cruises and new boats
and automobiles but to hand all of these
over into the nail-pierced hands of a
risen Lord and that what we have should
be used as a means to further the
gospel in our generation and to save the
hell-bound that we should be closer to
the New Testament believers who had all things
common and sold their possessions and goods and
parted them to all men as every man
had need