The Great Refusal.
I. The gracious Lord loved the young man, but was not met with trustful, entire response. Why did He love him? Because He saw him as he was pure, enthusiastic, unspoiled, though unproved. It is a false and forlorn view to take of man, that there is nothing beautiful in him before he becomes saintly. The very attractiveness of an unredeemed soul makes us the more keenly desirous to redeem it. God may love a man whom He cannot yet trust; He may love a man who does not yet truly know, and cannot yet deeply love, Himself.
II. This rich young ruler was no selfish, corrupt worldling. He sought to have, perhaps to merit, eternal life. If we cannot merit heaven we cannot have heaven without merit. The youth would like to do something gloriously good, which he might wear as a rose at his breast, or carry as a heavenly decoration granted to him, an honourable courtier of the King of kings. He knew not that he lacked more than he had to give. He lacked the giving heart. He sincerely sought to be good; he admired, he revered goodness; but he thought to be good in a brilliant, easy manner. He had not strength to be good at the proposed cost.
III. Was he, therefore, excluded from the kingdom of heaven? It is sufficient to say that he was unable to follow Christ fully. Goodness has work to do, quite necessary, for which he was quite incompetent. But God does not reject what we cando because of what we cannot. Only, in the gradations of the spiritual realm, they who have borne the most, and been the bravest, will hold the highest places.
IV. As the test may not come to us, being rulers and being rich, so neither may it come in one hour, but may rather be applied through many a weary day. "Wilt thou be perfect?" is the question put to us. Having been invited by thy God, by His word that speaketh day by day, by thine own soul that has listened with delighted awe, to give thyself wholly to what will cost thee friends, and fame, and ease, and gain thee only an honoured grave and a heavenly home hast thou refused "Him that speaketh"? It is the Great Refusal.
T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates,p. 175.