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What it Sounds Like When a Camel Goes through the Eye of a Needle

Luke 18 and 19 present the contrasting stories of the so-called ‘rich young ruler’ and the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus.

After his encounter with the young ruler, Jesus makes the famous statement, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25).

Then comes another rich man, Zacchaeus, who heeds the call of Christ:

“And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19: 8).

Interestingly, the rich young ruler made the claim that he had kept the moral law from his youth; but when called upon by Christ to give up his riches, he “went away sorrowful.” Zacchaeus, on the other hand, was a notorious sinner – not a law-keeper. But he honors Old Testament restitution law in his response to Jesus:

“If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep” (Exodus 22:1).

On top of this obedience to the law (giving fourfold restitution), he was willing to give half of all he had to the poor.

I can’t pin down the source of the quote, but years ago I heard someone comment on this verse saying, “This is what it sounds like when a camel goes through the eye of a needle.”

“What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

What Gray Hair?

-“Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.” – Hosea 7:9

James Montgomery Boice comments:

G. Campbell Morgan wrote of this blindness, ‘Signs of decadence, which are patent to others, are undiscovered by ourselves; and we go on, and on, and on, the victims of ebbing strength, spiritually and morally becoming degenerate, without knowing it! We are blind to the signs which are self-evident to onlookers…’ It was of Israel as it had been of Samson so many years before: ‘He did not know that the LORD had left him’ (Judg. 16:20) (The Minor Prophets, vol I, p. 61).

David Foster Wallace makes a similar point in Infinite Jest; something you learn when you go to a halfway house: “That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid.”

Denis, from Crome Yellow, learns it when he sees sketches drawn of him by a woman he considered obtuse.

One of the great realizations we can come to is that others will often see our faults before we see them ourselves. Don’t be afraid to ask them: What do you see as my weaknesses? What do you see as my greatest faults? What do I need to be working on? Is there anything in my character that you think I need to be aware of?

Others will see your gray hair before you do.

The same goes for a culture. I’ve made this point before. You often have to get outside of a culture to see what’s inside of it. That means that we need an outside reference point, or we’ll start going gray and fail to realize it until our hair is white. The mirror can’t be ourselves; it has to be something outside ourselves.

Flipping the Pancake

Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned – Hosea 7:8

Gordon Ramsay screams, ‘It’s raw! Can’t you cook a pancake? You didn’t even flip it!’

This is reminiscent of the ‘lukewarm’ church Revelation 3. Be hot or cold, not lukewarm. Be cooked or not cooked. Flip the pancake.

Perhaps the preacher is a spatula in the hand of God? Our job is to make sure all parts are heated equally.

Ministering Before Idols

  • Ezekiel 44:12 Because they ministered to them before their idols and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn concerning them, declares the Lord GOD, and they shall bear their punishment.

Do we minister to the people before their idols? This means that we share their idols. It means that we are either in willful rebellion or that we are oblivious to our shared idolatry.

Matthew Henry comments,

Those who have been treacherous are degraded and put lower those Levites—or priests who were carried down the stream of the apostasy of Israel formerly, who went astray from God after their idols (v. 10), who had complied with the idolatrous kings of Israel or Judah, who ministered to them before their idols (v. 12), bowed with them in the house of Rimmon, or set up altars for them, as Urijah did for Ahaz, and so caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, led them to sin and hardened them in sin; for, if the priests go astray, many will follow their pernicious ways.


In my mind, I saw three things as I read this verse today: 1) A mega-church preacher standing in front of a plasma screen, 2) a health and wealth preacher standing in front of a million dollar stage setup, an 3) I’ll leave you to guess at the other one…

The good news is that Christ too ministers before our idols; but, rather than endorsing them, he tears them down and replaces them. He is our true Icon (Col. 1:15).

Image from stuffchristianculturelikes.com

Naked, Beardless, and Full of Shame

  • Now after this Nahash the king of the Ammonites died, and his son reigned in his place. 2 And David said, “I will deal kindly with Hanun the son of Nahash, for his father dealt kindly with me.” So David sent messengers to console him concerning his father. And David’s servants came to the land of the Ammonites to Hanun to console him. 3 But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, “Do you think, because David has sent comforters to you, that he is honoring your father? Have not his servants come to you to search and to overthrow and to spy out the land?” 4 So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved them and cut off their garments in the middle, at their hips, and sent them away; 5 and they departed. When David was told concerning the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, “Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return” (1 Chron. 19:1-5)

King Hanun of the Ammonites sent a humiliating shot at King David by disgracing his men. He cut their tunics in half and shaved their beards. They were sent home naked and beardless. The idea illustrated for us so vividly here is that of nakedness and shame.

What do you know of shame? What do you know of humiliation? What do you know of disgrace? What do you know of being exposed? How do you deal with such shame and humiliation and nakedness? These men waited it out in Jericho. Maybe you wait it out in your house.

We deal with our shame in all sorts of ways. We try to remove it by catharsis. My psychology of abnormal behavior textbook says that the majority of men who become child molesters and domestic abusers were once abused themselves. They remove their shame by inflicting shame on others. If they can shame others, then theirs doesn’t seem quite as profound. If everyone has shame, then no one has shame. That’s the idea.

Different folks, who aren’t quite so heinous, go watch a nice romping horror movie. The blood flows, the bodies hit the floor, and they walk out of the movie theater without a scratch. Catharsis accomplished.

Others pile shame on shame so that the first shame doesn’t look so big. Call it the Miley complex. If you can take control of shameful acts and call them publicity, then what is there really to be ashamed of. Just make it a point that your next move will be your worst. People will forget about the past and just wonder what’s coming next.

Others just put lipstick on the pig that is their life. If you can make a nice living, live in a nice home, wear nice clothes, send your kids to nice schools. If you can perhaps do a few things right, then those bad things won’t seem so bad in comparison. But it actually just makes them stand out all the more. We all end up naked at the end of the day. Even if we hide in the dark.

That old saint Job said we’re born naked and we leave the world naked. Speaking of being born naked…

Hundreds of years after the incident of David’s messengers and the King of the Ammonites, a child was born in Bethlehem. God Almighty decided to reveal himself that day – as a naked baby. He was born, like all babies, naked and beardless. But he grew, and so did his beard. Until one day someone decided to pluck it out:

  • I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting (Isaiah 50:6).

He had no shame. He was sinless. He had nothing to hide. But shame was heaped up on him from the outside, and he chose not to hide from it. He exposed himself to the scoffing, to the spitting, to the beard-plucking.

  • Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood.

When Jesus Christ went to the cross, two soldiers played a card game to decide who would get his garment. They weren’t going to cut in half like the Ammonites of old. They were going to take the whole thing. And so, he hung on that cross naked.

  • Sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah! What a Savior.

What do you do with shame? Take it down that road from Bethlehem to Calvary. And ultimately to the empty tomb. Only there will you ever find real catharsis – by atonement. He died that shameful death that our shame might be dealt with.

Shame is real. I feel it. You feel it. God felt it on Calvary. He took, he takes, our shame so seriously that the cross happened. And you think he doesn’t care? Take it to him, lay it on him, it’s already been laid on him. He takes shamed and exposed men and women and he covers them up in his righteousness and love.Find in him one who bears it for you, that you might find forgiveness, relief, and release.

You are the Man, You will be a Substitute: The Gospel in 1 Kings 20

In 1 Kings 20, Ahab, having just defeated the Syrians, makes a peace-treaty with King Ben-hadad of Syria. God didn’t like this treaty. He had devoted Ben-hadad to destruction – he was placed ‘under the ban.’ He was, in other words, sentenced to death. He was a reprobate, headed for hell, and Ahab’s armies would be God’s agent to bring him there. But Ahab had other plans.

This sets up a moment in some ways similar to David’s encounter with the prophet Nathan. This time, an unnamed prophet bruises himself and covers his face in order to appear as a soldier. He confesses that he was given the charge of guarding a prisoner of war, and that the prisoner of war has escaped. He asks Ahab what punishment he would receive:

  • 1 Kings 20:39 And as the king passed, he cried to the king and said, “Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, ‘Guard this man; if by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.’ And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”

Ahab responds in v. 40:

  • The king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.”

The prophet was only retelling the story of Ahab, who had let King Ben-hadad go, despite the fact that he was to be devoted to destruction. He is in effect saying, ‘Ahab, you are the man!’:

  • 1 Kings 20:42 And he said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people.'”

This is quite the compelling narrative as it is, but it actually serves to set up Ahab, in a sense, as a type of Christ. Ahab essentially is declared by God to be a substitute for the cursed Ben-hadad. Ahab’s life will be taken in the place of Ben-hadad’s. The King of Israel becomes the substitute for a cursed Gentile. He takes destruction in his place.

Ahab was a wicked king, a sinner to be sure. He deserved death in his own right. His death would in no way atone for the sins of Ben-hadad. But we have a righteous King, the King of Israel, he is without sin and willingly makes himself a substitute for cursed Gentiles.

Ben-hadad is named the ‘Son of Hadad.’ Hadad was a false god. So, in 1 Kings 20, the King of Israel is to die for the ‘son of god’ (Ben-hadad). In the gospel the King, the true Son of God, dies for those who have followed after idols.

Ahab was killed by the very Syrians for whom he was dying as a substitute:

  • 1 Kings 22:35 And the battle continued that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, until at evening he died. And the blood of the wound flowed into the bottom of the chariot.

Yet there was no atonement for them. There is for us, because Jesus has taken the curse due to sin upon himself.