“All these I have kept from my youth,” he said.He said, “I have observed all these things from my youth up.”And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.And he said, All these things have I observed from my youth up.
5 sermons cite this verse
Now I do not say that I was glad that young man had told a lie, but I did feel thankful that he had discovered what a liar his heart had been all his life—for his heart had always been saying to him, "You are a good fellow," yet he had not been so in reality! If there had not been lies in his heart, that lie would not have come out of his mouth. If there were rats under that floor, you might not know it was so until one happened to pop his head up through a hole in the boards—yet he only shows you what was there all the while! And so, sometimes some one sin has crept up into the light to let a man see what always was secretly in his soul—and that one sin has proved to be, in the hands of God, a sharp sword which has cut right into his heart and convinced him that he is a sinner in the sight of God. In a great many other cases, God has used teaching concerning His Law as the means of pricking sinners in the heart A man reads the Ten Commandments and he says, "All these have I kept from my youth up." But he is told, upon Christ's authority, that every Commandment contains within itself a great deal more than appears on the surface, as, for instance, "You shall not kill," is a Commandment which is broken by anger. "He that hates his brother" so that he wishes that there were no such person, is, in heart, the perpetrator of the crime of murder! Then take the Command, "You shall not commit adultery." "Oh," says one, "I never sinned in that way!" And some excellent woman says, "I could not bear even to think of such a thing!" Yet there have been unchaste desires, glances, thoughts, imaginations—and the Commandment covers all those. I do not need to go into the details of each command—it will suffice to sum all up as that "certain lawyer" did. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself." Did you ever do that? Has anyone among us come anywhere near to doing that? When the Law of the Lord, in its wide sweep and wondrous compass of all our thoughts …
4. In bestowing salvation on some who have had few advantages. God sometimes will bless weak means for producing astonishing effects, when more excellent means are not succeeded. God sometimes will withhold salvation from those who are the children of very pious parents, and bestow it on others, who have been brought up in wicked families. Thus we read of a good Abijah in the family of Jeroboam, and of a godly Hezekiah, the son of wicked Ahaz, and of a godly Josiah, the son of a wicked Amon. But on the contrary, of a wicked Amnon and Absalom, the sons of holy David, and that vile Manasseh, the son of good Hezekiah. Sometimes some, who have had eminent means of grace, are rejected, and left to perish, and others, under far less advantages, are saved. Thus the scribes and Pharisees, who had so much light and knowledge of the Scriptures, were mostly rejected, and the poor ignorant publicans saved. The greater part of those, among whom Christ was much conversant, and who heard him preach, and saw him work miracles from day to day, were left; and the woman of Samaria was taken, and many other Samaritans at the same time, who only heard Christ preach, as he occasionally passed through their city. So the woman of Canaan was taken, who was not of the country of the Jews, and but once saw Jesus Christ. So the Jews, who had seen and heard Christ, and saw his miracles, and with whom the apostles laboured so much, were not saved. But the Gentiles, many of them, who, as it were, but transiently heard the glad tidings of salvation, embraced them, and were converted. …
But Christ corrects this their mistake, and teaches that such an external purity will never give a man a title to this blessedness, for it is purity of heart that is requisite in order to attain to it. Matt. v. 20. “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” However exact any man may be in the external observance of moral, instituted duties, if he be careful to wrong no man, and can say, as the young Pharisee did, Matt. ixx. 20. “All these have I kept from my youth,” i. e. as to an external observance, if he be very strict in keeping the sabbath and in coming to the house of God, in attending family and secret prayer, yet if he has not holiness of heart, he is never likely to see God. It is no reformation of manners that is sufficient, but there must be a new heart, and a right spirit. It is the heart that God requires. Prov. xxiii. 26. “My son, give me thine heart.” It is the heart that God looks at. However fair and pure an outside there may be, that may be very pleasing to men, yet if there be not purity of heart; the man is not at all the more acceptable to God. 1 Sam. xvi. 7. “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” If men outwardly behave well and speak well, yet it is not accepted without trying and weighing the heart. Prov. xvi. 2. “All the ways of man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the spirits.” It is the spirit which is the subject of this blessedness of seeing God, and therefore the qualities of the spirit, and not so much those of the outward man, are regarded. …
Sometimes an actual sin has let in light upon the sinfulness of the heart I knew a young man who, in his own esteem, was as fine a fellow as ever worked in a shop. He prided himself that he had never told a lie, nor been dishonest, nor a drunk, nor loose in his life—and if the Savior had said to him that he must keep the commandments, he would have rep- lied, "All these have I kept from my youth up." In pushing a fellow workman, he upset an oilcan. It happened to have been upset before, and the master had spoken strongly about the careless waste. The master, coming along on this occasion, called out, "Who upset that can?"" The young man said that he did not know, though he himself was the offender. That passed away. No further question was asked, but in a moment he said to himself, "I have told a lie! I never would have believed myself capable of such meanness." His beautiful card house tumbled down! The bubble of his reputation burst and he said to himself, "Now I understand what Mr. Spurgeon means by the depravity of the heart. I am a good-for-nothing creature! What must I do to be saved?" No doubt outward sin has often revealed the secret power of evil in the heart. The leprosy has come out upon the skin and so it has been seen to be in the system. Thus is pride hidden from man—and his hand is sealed up that he may look for mercy from God, and live! …
I. First, then, this is A WORD OF CONGRATULATION. Let us take this young man's case as descriptive of that of many here present. He did not lack morality. He could say, "All these things have I kept from my youth up." Nor did the Savior tell him that he was uttering a lie—He looked upon him and lovedhim—which He would not have done if he had been a willful liar. No, he had been neither unchaste, nor dishonest, nor profane. He had been all that could be desired in these respects. I congratulate you if such is your case. It will save you from a thousand sorrows to have been kept from those grosser sins! You have not formed habits which will lead you in later years into temptation. You have not formed associations which it will be difficult to break. You have not learned words, phrases and sentiments which will defile your memory in later days, even though you should live to hate them. I thank God that you have this privilege—that it cannot be said of you that you lack in morality! …