Matadormus

139:9.9And how grate­fully proud were these hum­ble men on that day when the Mas­ter re­fused to ac­cept a cer­tain rich man as an evan­ge­list un­less he would sell his goods and help the poor. When the peo­ple heard this and be­held the twins among his coun­selors, they knew of a cer­tainty that Je­sus was no re­specter of per­sons. But only a di­vine in­sti­tu­tion—the king­dom of heaven—could ever have been built upon such a mediocre hu­man foun­da­tion!

163:2.7Al­most ev­ery hu­man be­ing has some one thing which is held on to as a pet evil, and which the en­trance into the king­dom of heaven re­quires as a part of the price of ad­mis­sion. If Mata­dor­mus had parted with his wealth, it prob­a­bly would have been put right back into his hands for ad­min­is­tra­tion as trea­surer of the sev­enty. For later on, af­ter the es­tab­lish­ment of the church at Je­ru­sa­lem, he did obey the Mas­ter’s in­junc­tion, al­though it was then too late to en­joy mem­ber­ship in the sev­enty, and he be­came the trea­surer of the Je­ru­sa­lem church, of which James the Lord’s brother in the flesh was the head.

164:2.1Je­sus had at­tended the feast of taber­na­cles that he might pro­claim the gospel to the pil­grims from all parts of the em­pire; he now went up to the feast of the ded­i­ca­tion for just one pur­pose: to give the San­hedrin and the Jew­ish lead­ers an­other chance to see the light. The prin­ci­pal event of these few days in Je­ru­sa­lem oc­curred on Fri­day night at the home of Nicode­mus. Here were gath­ered to­gether some twenty-five Jew­ish lead­ers who be­lieved Je­sus’ teach­ing. Among this group were four­teen men who were then, or had re­cently been, mem­bers of the San­hedrin. This meet­ing was at­tended by Eber, Mata­dor­mus, and Joseph of Ari­mathea.

163:2.4Then An­drew brought to Je­sus a cer­tain rich young man who was a de­vout be­liever, and who de­sired to re­ceive or­di­na­tion. This young man, Mata­dor­mus, was a mem­ber of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin; he had heard Je­sus teach and had been sub­se­quently in­structed in the gospel of the king­dom by Pe­ter and the other apos­tles. Je­sus talked with Mata­dor­mus con­cern­ing the re­quire­ments of or­di­na­tion and re­quested that he de­fer de­ci­sion un­til af­ter he had thought more fully about the mat­ter. Early the next morn­ing, as Je­sus was go­ing for a walk, this young man ac­costed him and said: “Mas­ter, I would know from you the as­sur­ances of eter­nal life. See­ing that I have ob­served all the com­mand­ments from my youth, I would like to know what more I must do to gain eter­nal life?” In an­swer to this ques­tion Je­sus said: “If you keep all the com­mand­ments—do not com­mit adul­tery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false wit­ness, do not de­fraud, honor your par­ents—you do well, but sal­va­tion is the re­ward of faith, not merely of works. Do you be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom?” And Mata­dor­mus an­swered: “Yes, Mas­ter, I do be­lieve ev­ery­thing you and your apos­tles have taught me.” And Je­sus said, “Then are you in­deed my dis­ci­ple and a child of the king­dom.”

163:2.5Then said the young man: “But, Mas­ter, I am not con­tent to be your dis­ci­ple; I would be one of your new mes­sen­gers.” When Je­sus heard this, he looked down upon him with a great love and said: “I will have you to be one of my mes­sen­gers if you are will­ing to pay the price, if you will sup­ply the one thing which you lack.” Mata­dor­mus replied: “Mas­ter, I will do any­thing if I may be al­lowed to fol­low you.” Je­sus, kiss­ing the kneel­ing young man on the fore­head, said: “If you would be my mes­sen­ger, go and sell all that you have and, when you have be­stowed the pro­ceeds upon the poor or upon your breth­ren, come and fol­low me, and you shall have trea­sure in the king­dom of heaven.”

163:2.6When Mata­dor­mus heard this, his coun­te­nance fell. He arose and went away sor­row­ful, for he had great pos­ses­sions. This wealthy young Phar­isee had been raised to be­lieve that wealth was the to­ken of God’s fa­vor. Je­sus knew that he was not free from the love of him­self and his riches. The Mas­ter wanted to de­liver him from the love of wealth, not nec­es­sar­ily from the wealth. While the dis­ci­ples of Je­sus did not part with all their worldly goods, the apos­tles and the sev­enty did. Mata­dor­mus de­sired to be one of the sev­enty new mes­sen­gers, and that was the rea­son for Je­sus’ re­quir­ing him to part with all of his tem­po­ral pos­ses­sions.

163:2.8Thus al­ways it was and for­ever will be: Men must ar­rive at their own de­ci­sions. There is a cer­tain range of the free­dom of choice which mor­tals may ex­er­cise. The forces of the spir­i­tual world will not co­erce man; they al­low him to go the way of his own choos­ing.

163:2.9Je­sus fore­saw that Mata­dor­mus, with his riches, could not pos­si­bly be­come an or­dained as­so­ciate of men who had for­saken all for the gospel; at the same time, he saw that, with­out his riches, he would be­come the ul­ti­mate leader of all of them. But, like Je­sus’ own breth­ren, he never be­came great in the king­dom be­cause he de­prived him­self of that in­ti­mate and per­sonal as­so­ci­a­tion with the Mas­ter which might have been his ex­pe­ri­ence had he been will­ing to do at this time the very thing which Je­sus asked, and which, sev­eral years sub­se­quently, he ac­tu­ally did.

163:3.3As they went off by them­selves, Je­sus was grieved that Mata­dor­mus did not re­main with them, for he greatly loved him. And when they had walked down by the lake, they sat there be­side the wa­ter, and Pe­ter, speak­ing for the twelve (who were all pres­ent by this time), said: “We are trou­bled by your words to the rich young man. Shall we re­quire those who would fol­low you to give up all their worldly goods?” And Je­sus said: “No, Pe­ter, only those who would be­come apos­tles, and who de­sire to live with me as you do and as one fam­ily. But the Fa­ther re­quires that the af­fec­tions of his chil­dren be pure and un­di­vided. What­ever thing or per­son comes be­tween you and the love of the truths of the king­dom, must be sur­ren­dered. If one’s wealth does not in­vade the precincts of the soul, it is of no con­se­quence in the spir­i­tual life of those who would en­ter the king­dom.”