The_Sermon_On_The_MountE°ÌŽE°ÌBOOKMOBIþþ@ˆ!ˆ1ˆAˆQˆaˆqˆˆ‘ˆ ¡ˆ ±ˆ Áˆ ш áˆñˆˆˆ!ˆ1ˆAˆQˆaˆqˆˆ‘ˆ¡ˆ±ˆÁˆшáˆñˆˆ ˆ!!ˆ"1ˆ#Aˆ$Qˆ%aˆ&qˆ'ˆ(‘ˆ)¡ˆ*±ˆ+Áˆ,ш-áˆ.ñˆ/ˆ0ˆ1!ˆ21ˆ3Aˆ4Qˆ5aˆ6qˆ7ˆ8‘ˆ9¡ˆ:±ˆ;Áˆ<ш=áˆ>ñˆ?ˆ@ˆA!ˆB1ˆCAˆDQˆEaˆFqˆGˆH‘ˆI¡ˆJ±ˆKÁˆLшMáˆNñˆOˆPˆQ!ˆR1ˆSAˆTQˆUaˆVqˆWˆX‘ˆY¡ˆZ±ˆ[Áˆ\ш]áˆ^ñˆ_ˆ`ˆa!ˆb1ˆcAˆdQˆeaˆfqˆgˆh‘ˆi¡ˆj±ˆkÁˆlшmáˆnñˆoˆpˆq!ˆr1ˆsAˆtQˆuaˆvqˆwˆx‘ˆy¡ˆz±ˆ{Áˆ|ш}áˆ~ñˆˆ€ˆ!ˆ‚1ˆƒAˆ„Qˆ…aˆ†qˆ‡ˆˆ‘ˆ‰¡ˆŠ±ˆ‹ÁˆŒшሎñˆ ˆ ˆ‘ !ˆ’ 1ˆ“ Aˆ” Qˆ• aˆ– qˆ— ˆ˜ ‘ˆ™ ¡ˆš ±ˆ› Áˆœ ш ሞ ñˆŸ ˆ  ˆ¡ !ˆ¢ 1ˆ£ Aˆ¤ Qˆ¥ aˆ¦ qˆ§ ˆ¨ ‘ˆ© ¡ˆª ±ˆ« Áˆ¬ ш­ ሮ ñˆ¯ ˆ° ˆ± !ˆ² 1ˆ³ Aˆ´ Qˆµ aˆ¶ qˆ· ˆ¸ ‘ˆ¹ ¡ˆº ±ˆ» Áˆ¼ ш½ ሾ ñˆ¿ ˆÀ ˆÁ !ˆÂ 1ˆÃ AˆÄ QˆÅ aˆÆ qˆÇ ˆÈ ‘ˆÉ ¡ˆÊ ±ˆË ÁˆÌ ÑˆÍ áˆÎ ñˆÏ ˆÐ ˆÑ !ˆÒ 1ˆÓ AˆÔ QˆÕ aˆÖ qˆ× ˆØ ‘ˆÙ ¡ˆÚ ±ˆÛ ÁˆÜ ÑˆÝ áˆÞ ñˆßˆàˆá!ˆâ1ˆãAˆäQˆåaˆæqˆçˆè‘ˆé¡ˆê±ˆëÁˆìшíáˆîñˆïˆðˆñ!ˆò1ˆóAˆôQˆõaˆöqˆ÷}Uø}Xùfú¸àû¹ü¹0ýkÍ÷MOBIääµËÙÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿù,ùRÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿúüûÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿEXTH8,,€ì¾ôíThe Sermon On The Mount

Information. 2

Chapter 1 - The Salt Of The Earth. 3

Chapter 2 - The Light Of The World. 9

Chapter 3 - Exceeding The Scribes And Pharisees. 16

Chapter 4 - Christian Homicide. 23

Chapter 5 - Be Reconciled To Thy Brother 31

Chapter 6 - Dangerous Liaisons Of The Mind. 39

Chapter 7 - Cut It Out 47

Chapter 8 - The Subject Of Divorce. 54

Chapter 9 - Nothing But The Truth. 63

Chapter 10 - Turn The Other Cheek. 71

Chapter 11 - Love Your Enemies. 79

Chapter 12 - Why Are You Working?. 86

Chapter 13 - Why Are You Praying?. 93

Chapter 14 - The Disciples' Prayer 101

Chapter 15 - Why Are You Fasting?. 108

Chapter 16 - Where Is Your Treasure?. 115

Chapter 17 - Don't Worry. 123

Chapter 18 - Misjudgement 130

Chapter 19 - Don't Feed Dogs And Swine. 137

Chapter 20 - Encouragement To Pray - Part 1. 144

Chapter 21 - Encouragement To Pray - Part 2. 150

Chapter 22 - Sanctified Selfishness: The Paralysis of Legalism.. 157

Chapter 23 - Sanctified Selfishness - The Power Of Positive Living. 164

Chapter 24 - With Christ At The Crossroads. 171

Chapter 25 - False Prophets: Their Projection and Their Production. 178

Chapter 26 - Profession Or Possession?. 186

Chapter 27 - Building For Eternity. 194

David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted.  However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 1

"The Salt Of The Earth"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:1-16

We're turning in our Bibles to Matthew's gospel and chapter 5. You will remember, if you were here approximately a year and half or so ago, we spent about 12 weeks going through the Beatitudes that you find at the beginning of Matthew's gospel and chapter 5. I have felt led, I believe, of the Lord to continue that study of the Sermon on the Mount. We have done the Beatitudes, and I hope that we have understood what the Lord Jesus was teaching in those - but there was much more that He taught within the Sermon on the Mount. I want us, in the weeks that God would set before us, to look at this great sermon of the Lord Jesus Christ and see what He says to us in our own present-day.

We'll read the Beatitudes so that we can get the context of what the Lord is saying. Verse 1: "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven".

I did announce on Thursday evening that we'd be looking at the subject of salt and light - and I misled Trevor a little there, because as I studied more and more into this passage of Scripture, particularly in verse 13, I found that there was too much to say on the subject of salt. So we're looking at the salt of the earth this morning and, God willing, the week after next - after Children's Day - we will look at the light that we're meant to be.

You will note in verse 10 that the Lord Jesus changed from addressing 'they' to, in verse 11, addressing 'ye'. He was speaking of those who were in Christ as being blessed if they fulfilled these things that we find in the Beatitudes. Then in verse 11 it seems that He takes His attention away from generalities, and speaks specifically to the disciples themselves, and says: 'Blessed are ye'. In verse 13 He continues on with that particular second person and says: 'Ye are the salt of the earth'.

We know that in the Beatitudes the Lord Jesus was not addressing the multitude, but as He preached this greatest of all sermons the multitude were not far from His thoughts - but specifically He was speaking to the disciples, the twelve whom He had called to follow Him. We learnt in that study of the Beatitudes that that teaching, those things that the Lord laid down that will make a man blessed in the eyes of God, specifically deal with the interior of a man. They deal with our heart. Of course, the backdrop to that great teaching of the Lord was the external legalism of Pharisaism. The Lord was opposing that in these teachings, showing that this is true religion, this is the faith of God, and it is within the heart. It is in the interior. It's not as much taken up with externalities of man-made religion, but it is to do with our relationship toward God and toward men from the heart.

Now, the danger of just studying the Beatitudes is that we conclude therefore that this life of the Beatitudes can be lived in isolation. If we make that mistake it is a fatal one. To think that this great holy life can be lived [away] from a world that contradicts what we believe - but as we read verses 13 to 16, we find that it is the opposite that is the case, it is the opposite that is true. In fact, the Lord Jesus is saying that it is impossible to live these eight Beatitude characteristics in private. To show that to us the Lord Jesus Christ crowns them with two brilliant illustrations - to show that, as we have considered in the Beatitudes what we are, we must now consider what we must be in the eyes of men and women.

Someone has said that the believer is like a scuba diver in the ocean - he is out of his element in this present world system, because his citizenship is in heaven. That is a very apt illustration of our condition: we are not of the world, but we are in the world. We do not love the world, but we are called to be a witness to the world. So you have this seeming contrast within the word of God, of how we are to live holy lives, how we are to be godly in Christ Jesus and strive, by the Holy Spirit, to live a life that is pleasing to Him - yet it cannot, and it ought not, be in isolation to the world.

Of course that is illustrated beautifully in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He had contact with the world without contamination from the world. Indeed, He was called the friend of sinners, yet the writer to the Hebrews goes on to interpret that He was also holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners - and that is so refreshing, isn't it? To realise that these Beatitudes, spiritual principles, can be lived in the midst of an awful, sinful world - that it is a truth that true separation from the world can be without isolation from it! Hence the error of monasticism, where men and women lock themselves away from the world and isolate themselves, and subtract themselves and separate themselves from everything that this world is - how it is in total error about the mystery of what is in Christ, the great mystery of the gospel, the wonderful thing about this gospel of Christ, is that a holy life can be lived in the midst of a sinful world!

It is seen in the illustrations that the Lord Jesus gives us of what our lives ought to be within the world. They're conspicuous, aren't they? They cannot be missed - look at them, verse 13 to 16. He gives us the illustration of salt, then there's the illustration of light, then the third of a city set on a hill - they cannot be missed! Indeed His words contradict the growing concept today: 'Live a holy life, be a Christian, but don't broadcast it or bother anyone else with it'. The word of God teaches that the believer cannot display all these Beatitudes in splendid isolation from the world, it is just not possible!

Now, I want you to take yourself to the scene where the Lord speaks these words, and He says to His disciples - directly addressing them: 'Ye are the salt of the world'. I'm sure that perhaps some people in that gathering, in the multitude, might have thought it absurd to call them the salt of the earth. If you think of who they were: some of them fishermen, some of them terrorists, some of them publicans, and hated by all of society - and here is the Lord Jesus calling them the salt of the world. Literally in the Greek it means this: 'You alone are the salt of the world' - in other words He's saying: 'Out of the whole world you twelve disciples are the salt of it, and you alone'! That's remarkable, isn't it?

In the Old Testament the prophets were the salt of the land of Canaan, but now in the New Testament these apostles would be the salt of the earth. You know if you take a handful of salt in your hand, and put it all over your dinner - or maybe you can take it along a long road, those millions of grains of salt - one handful of them will have a tremendous effect, indeed, a widespread effect. When we consider the effect that the apostles had on our world, indeed they turned it upside-down, we can see how true it was that they were the salt of the world.

Now, salt in our society is taken for granted, but in the ancient world it was of great value. Indeed, I'm led to believe that Roman soldiers had salt rations, and they would revolt if the rations were changed in any way. The English word that we have 'salary' literally means 'salt money'. You've heard the saying that a man 'is not worth his salt', or that a man 'is worth his salt' - and really what you are saying is exactly what the ancient world said about salt: it is valuable, and we can measure a man's work by it.

So the Lord says to His disciples, and - because we are His disciples also - He says to you today: 'You are the salt of the earth'. What picture was He painting in that illustration? Well, the first thing I want you to note is the reason there needs to be salt - the reason there needs to be salt. If you go into the Old Testament, you find that the sacrifices there were never ever made with leaven. Leaven was symbolic, or typical, of sin - and never was leaven to enter into any sacrifice, but the sacrifices were always to have salt within them. Leaven is a picture of a corrupting force within the world, this antichrist system - but salt is seen to be something that is pure, something that is white, something that is holy and acceptable unto God. We find that right throughout the whole of Scripture, salt becomes emblematic of the covenant between God and His people. In ancient times, in the secular world, salt was symbolic of fidelity, of purity, of friendship.

But what I want you to see, in the light of what the Lord Jesus says here, is that scripturally salt is to be seen as a picture of spiritual health - spiritual health! Of course, the epitome of spiritual health is the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't it? As we look all around us - unless we're blind in our sin, or blindfolded Christians - we cannot fail to see that there is decay all around us. Daniel, in his great vision, saw the meaning of the image. It was revealed to him the fact that political powers would decay, they would go from gold to silver to brass, and then to iron and then to clay. What he was seeing was this: history, started with clay in Adam - made from the clay of the ground - but history will end with clay, and all the great battlements, all the great empires and status symbols of men, will turn one day to dust again in the face of a holy and a wrathful God. We see that happening in our midst, we see the religious world is decaying - for Paul says that men have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. The Lord Jesus Himself said: 'Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh shall He find faith on the earth?'.

We are blind if we cannot see that we are in perilous times, we are in the times that Paul spoke of, we are in the end times - and when we think of the decay, and when we think of the subject of decay, after decay there comes a falling apart, and what we are seeing in our society today is a falling apart of everything around us! Marriages are falling apart, families are being broken up and scattered, law and order is laughed at. The basic institutions of our society are threatened near to extinction, and many of the structures that we see in our society, that look healthy from the outside, are rotting in the inside - and it is only a matter of time before they collapse and they fall around our ears! As one writer said: 'The corpse is rotting away, and the eagles are gathering together'.

Now, in that backdrop, you can see the need for salt, can't you? Can you see, in the tone of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is saying - His motivation is - that it is criminal for a Christian disciple to isolate or insulate himself, and stand at the sidelines and wait for the great collapse of society? The contrast is that between Jonah and the Lord Jesus - what did Jonah do? He went outside the city of Nineveh and he sat down and he waited for the judgement and wrath of God to fall upon those people - but what did the Lord Jesus do? It says He went in and looked over the city, and He wept, and He wanted to woo them to Himself.

You have Abraham, who knew the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah, yet he prayed that that city might be spared. You have Paul in the book of Romans who knew how blind Israel was, yet he was willing to be accursed that Israel might be saved. You can see Joseph in Egypt, you can see Daniel in Babylon, and all of those individuals in the midst of a decaying world that was falling apart around them, they were divine salt for good! Granted, their ministries did not prevent the ultimate collapse of the nations - but let me say this: they left everyone in those nations without excuse.

Now my friends, that is the need for salt, that is why we need salt - and we need to be salt in this world because of the awful corruption, depravity and sinfulness of this world system around us. Then we see, secondly, from this picture of salt that salt brings preservation: the preservation that salt brings. You will know, I'm sure, that in the ancient world there was no ice-making machines, there was no refrigeration, and the only way that they had to preserve meat was to salt it down and rub salt into it, or soak it down in a saline solution.

Do you believe humanity is rotting? Do you believe that? I hope you haven't swallowed the evolutionary philosophy that is channelled into children in school, and to us through the television and the radio and the newspapers, periodicals and magazines. We are continually bombarded by it: that humanity is getting better and better by the day - it is a lie! It is rotting, it is decaying, and that is why God had to destroy it with a flood - but I want you to note that after the flood they were as sinful as they were before the flood. Humanity does not, and cannot, change - and what the Lord Jesus was saying in verse 13 of chapter 5 of Matthew's gospel is this: 'Humanity without Me is a dead body, rotting and falling apart. You, My followers, are the salt of the earth that must be rubbed into the flesh to halt that decomposition'. He is saying that the Christian must be rubbed into the world.

He didn't say, as many modern Christians say: 'You are the sugar of the earth' - meaning gentleness and winsomeness without truth, not the offence of the gospel or the stumbling block of the cross. But what He was saying is: 'If you are to be the salt of the earth, you will be disadvantaged to be salt'. It will not be nice to be salt, because as you are rubbed into the world that salt will hurt the world. When God's people are amongst those who are raw towards God, their presence will hurt! You see the man that is without God, and is wrong before God, is like an open wound - and when you come in, and if you come in, with a holy and righteous life it will aggravate it, it will irritate him - the annoyance and distress he will feel will bring spite toward you and hate and persecution - hence the persecution in verse 11 and verse 12.

You see, that's why we're still here. Do you ever think about this? The reason why the Lord didn't rapture us as soon as we were converted is that we are to be here for the Holy Spirit is within us, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the church of the Living God, and through that Holy Spirit in the church He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement to come. The reason why the world hated the Lord Jesus Christ, the reason why the world fed the Christians to the lions, is that if He, and if we, had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin.

Now my friends, let's be honest with this: are we being rubbed into the world? Are you? As Christians, have we saturated the world system, infiltrated it, in order to turn people away from the darkness of Satan unto the kingdom of God's glorious light? Do we work like a preservative, like an antiseptic on the effect of decomposing life? Do we rub life and soul into people around us, into the society that we live in, into the workplace that God has placed us in, in the family that we have jurisdiction over, are we salt within it?

Now you know as well as I do that there are certain people, and in their company you have to be spiritual. They have a preserving influence on you. But then there are other people, and when you're in their company you think nothing of dropping down the guard and saying something you know you shouldn't say, and talking in doubtful conversation. What that is simply illustrating to us is that salt has a preserving effect, it brings with us a precious, a holy influence on society. My friend, if we were what we ought to be, our influence on society would reduce the crime level, it would restrain ethical corruption, it would promote honesty, it would quicken the conscience of unbelievers, it would elevate the general moral atmosphere to an all-time high. Can you imagine what the presence of such salt in the military would mean, in business, in education? But the antithesis of that is that if their presence is not there, and if the Christian is not rubbed into the midst of the world: all we do is hasten the surprising levels of depravity we see around us today! You see the truth is this: we are meant to be unlike the world, and salt is essentially different from the world - and that is why, when it is rubbed in, it has a preserving effect.

Thirdly, the illustration the Lord gives us is that salt has a savouring influence - the savouring that salt gives. You will know that salt flavours things, and certain foods without salt are insipid, maybe even sickening. What the Lord Jesus is saying is: Christianity is to life what salt is to food. Oliver Wendel-Holmes (sp?) once said this: 'I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers'. You can laugh at that if you want! Robert Louis Stevenson said once, in his diary after going to church, and it seemed to be an extraordinary phenomenon - he wrote: 'I have been to church today and I am not depressed'. The perception of the world is that we are the opposite of salt upon life, isn't it? That we are not the savour and the flavour of life, but we are that insipid tastelessness, and unsavouriness of life. We seem to hinder everything that is pleasure, but all the Lord is saying to us is: 'Ye are the salt of the earth, and you must discover once more that lost radiant flavour of the Christian faith'. He is saying: 'In a worried world the Christian should be the only one who remains peaceful. In a depressed world the Christian should be the only man or woman who remains full of joy!'.

Do you have a savouring influence on those around you? Do you? Do you have a positive influence? Do you exude aura that life without Christ is insipid and is dull? That's not what our culture teaches us, our culture attempts to numb itself with pleasure and with drugs, and with a pleasure-mania - and people are literally dying of boredom around us! The entertainment industry thrives on making life look better, on making it more fun and luxurious - and good within it is often portrayed as evil, and evil as good. Evil is seen to be more exciting than good, isn't it? But that is a lie! Young people, whatever you do, don't believe that lie!

The truth of God is this - do you believe this, Christian? Think about this: that holiness is more exciting than sin. Can you think of the influence that we would have on society if we were more courteous, if we worked harder, if we produced the best musicians and artists and craftsmen and students? But fourthly - and I do want to finish this message with you today - there is a thirst that salt causes, a thirst that salt causes. Jesus made people thirsty for God! You see that, don't you? He attracted people to God, He repelled the Pharisees and the legalists, but the ordinary sinners, the ordinary people were attracted to the Lord Jesus. Now the question is too obvious: do we make people thirsty for Christ?

You know from taking one slup of your soup, or one bite of your dinner, whether it's been salted or not - don't you? The question is: when people take one bite of us, do they taste Christ? There is a thirst that salt causes, and then fifthly the Lord Jesus says there's useless salt. Now, please look at this - verse 13: 'If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?' - if the salt becomes tasteless. Now today the salt that you have on your dinner table when you go home, chemically speaking, it's been refined so many times that it's impossible for it to lose its saltiness - it's an extremely stable substance, it can't become tasteless. But in Palestine, the type of salt that they had could be diluted, or even adulterated - so if you came along and put a load of water in the salt, and mixed it all up, that wasn't good enough to preserve meat. Or perhaps there was some sand mixed in, or soil, or dirt, mixed in with the salt - and it wasn't pure. So the salt could be diluted, or it could be adulterated - and either one of those two things would do one thing: it would make the salt lose its preserving influence.

Someone has said: 'If we are not affecting the world, the world is affecting us'. Are we exporting or are we importing? Are there greater influences coming into the church than going out of the church? If we are not salting the world, do you know what it means? The world is rotting us! Matthew Henry said: 'Salt is remedy for unsavoury meat, but there is no remedy for unsavoury salt'. Now please don't dilute the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, because He says: 'If the salt', and the salt is the believer, 'If the salt has lost its savour, there's nothing can be done!'. It is to be thrown out and trodden under foot of men! Why does He say that? Because if the salt is adulterated or diluted - the purpose of the salt to fight deterioration, it has been deteriorated itself, and that purpose is lost! Do you know what He's speaking of? Uselessness - and He says that uselessness invites disaster.

Do you know something? There are some substances and when they become useless for one thing, they can be useful for another. You think of grapes: you have a lovely bundle of grapes on your table and they're there primarily, the greatest thing is for your refreshment, but when the grapes rot what do you do? Well they can't be used for your refreshment, but if they're sweet grapes you can plunge them and make them into wine - or if they're not sweet enough for the wine, then you can make them into vinegar - and if they're not even good enough for vinegar, you can use them as fertiliser to fertilise other vines and make more grapes! There are many uses for many things that become useless - but let me say this: there is no use for salt that becomes unsavoury! For it is cast out and trodden under foot of men in the street - the street was the rubbish dump of Palestine. Do you know what the Lord Jesus is saying, and do you know what the message is to you today? Are you a rubbish Christian? Are you?

There is a need for salt. The Lord asks: 'How will it be made salty again?'. Do you know why I know that there are rubbish Christians, and do you know why I know that those rubbish Christians are thrown out on the street and trodden under foot of men? Well, one reason is the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel! And the second reason is: you can search all of Asia Minor for all the great churches that you find written in the word of God, and you'll not find any of them! Why? Go to North Africa, look for the church of great Augustine - you'll not find it! Why? Because they lost their salt, and they were thrown out and trodden under foot of men.

My friend, I've so much to say to you, but I want to end on this note: in a country like ours, and a city like ours, that claims such a high density of believers, why do we have so little influence? Why? Perhaps in the last 50 years or more they've done more for peace, they've done more for social matters, and influenced society politically and every other way that you can imagine - but I believe that we have entered into a new dark age. Spiritually we are in another Dark Ages - and the only way to get out is if we prevent it! Am I placing too much responsibility on man? No! Christ said: 'You are the salt of the earth. You are the preserving influence. You are the savouring factor to society. You are the one that will rub life into this world'. He tells us that we need again to find our saltiness! That will only happen when we live a holy life, and that holy life is brought into contact with a dying, decaying, depraved world.

Let us pray, and as we bow our heads - we heard recently about a 'Blue Moon' service, and you know it grieves my heart that - as far as I can tell, and many in this assembly - there are some here today and the only thing that makes you Christian is the fact that you come and warm a seat on a Sunday. My friend, that is not what a Christian is - a Christian is the salt of the earth. My question to you is: have you lost your savour? For you need to beware that you're not thrown out.

Father, these are hard sayings. They do not comfort us, but they trouble us - but one thing we do know is this: we want to be what He wants us to be. We want to be holy, we want to make a difference in the home and in the school, in the University and in the workplace. We want to be the salt of the earth, and we pray that through us that You would overflow Your blessing to a dying world. In the Saviour's name we pray, Amen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - May 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 2

"The Light Of The World"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:14-16

Now we're turning to Matthew's gospel again and chapter 5, to the Sermon on the Mount. The week before Children's Day, last week, we looked at the subject of 'The Salt of the Earth' and how we, as believers, are to be the salt of the earth - and that is the name that the Lord calls us. Now we're turning to the second illustration in those verses of scripture, from verse 14 to 16 of chapter 5 - let's read that together.

The Lord speaks again: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven".

The very first word of verse 14 is the word 'ye' or 'you'. It is astounding even to read that word at the very beginning of this statement of the Lord Jesus: 'You, yes, you are the light of the world!'. What an astounding statement! In fact, I think it's one of the greatest statements that our Lord ever made, because He stands among this company of people and specifically His own twelve disciples, and says to them: 'You are the light of the world'.

Once that was a title that was given to the nation of Israel. You will remember, in Deuteronomy chapter 26, God said to His own people Israel: 'The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, and to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken'. But we see, as we enter the New Testament, that that great privilege that the people of God occupied, Israel, had been removed from them - and, if you like, in light of verse 13 they were salt that had lost their savour, they had been cast out to the street and trodden under foot of men. Now, in verse 14, the Lord removes that privilege from Israel and now gives it to His own disciples. Israel, who had once been a light in the world to all the Gentile nations, that privilege was being taken off them, they were now in darkness and the Lord Jesus' disciples would have to illumine them!

As we read the New Testament we see that Christ came not just to trim the wick of the old lamp of Judaism, but He came into the world to raise up new lights, new luminaries, in the church of Jesus Christ. Christ's disciples now would be the salt, the remedy, against human corruption. But now we see, in verse 14, that they would be the light against human ignorance - and just as the Lord Jesus Christ had come into the world as God's Sun of righteousness, as the Light of the world, now He turns to His disciples as He anticipates leaving the world, and He says: 'You are the light of the world'.

That is the first thought that I want to bring to you today, that you are light in this dark world. You are light in this world's darkness! If you were to turn to John chapter 3, you would see there in verse 19 that this world is shrouded in the deepest, depraved, degraded darkness that you can imagine. The Lord Jesus as a commentary upon that says: 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil'. Darkness is one thing, but intentional darkness is quite another. It is one thing to be subject to darkness, it is another thing to choose to shelter underneath it.

This world that we live in has chosen darkness rather than light! The world, I believe, reasons very much like Lady Macbeth when she said: 'Come thick night: And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell: That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark'. They long for the darkness of this world to cover over their evil deeds, and blind the almighty, holy God from their depravity.

Of course, we know from the book of Genesis that the original state of nature was one of darkness, and it took the act of God coming in and saying: 'Let there be light', to bring light into it and to bring life to it. Human nature is the same: it is in deep, dense darkness. It is ignorant of the attributes of God, it is ignorant of the character of God, it is ignorant of its own state before a holy and a righteous God, it does not recognise its duty toward God - to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever - and it does not recognise, it is blind to, the destiny of all sinners if they do not come repentantly to God.

For the average man death is a leap into the dark, isn't it? He doesn't know where he's going to - and indeed, it seems that when man boasts about his darkness, and the darker he seems to admit himself to be, the greater he is in the eyes of men, the wiser he is! When a Professor stands up, or a theologian nowadays, and says: 'Well, we just can't know, we just can't be sure. You have your belief, and I have mine, but we can't be absolutely sure' - and they pull this shroud, this veil of darkness, over the truth of God - why? Because men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.

This darkness is a spiritual darkness that is deadly. Just as you're liable to fall and hurt yourself in natural darkness, just as you drive along the road and if you have no headlights - or there's no lamplights along the road - it's very dangerous to do so. Like a vessel out on the sea, and perhaps it has no lights, perhaps it has no navigation system, and perhaps there are no lights to guide it into the harbour - it is very dangerous! It could hit the rocks, it could hit another vessel. The Lord says we are the light of this world - isn't that remarkable? A world that is shrouded and has been plunged into the deepest darkness, Christ says to you and I: 'You are the light of the world. You are the luminaries, you are the guides, you will be the help of this world, you will be the ones who will deliver this world'.

I think that this is, perhaps, one of the greatest compliments that were paid ever to Christians: that Christ calls them - in John 9:5 He calls Himself: 'I am light of the world' - and now here He says: 'You are light of the world', and He calls His disciples by the very same name He calls Himself! All He is saying when He does that is: 'I want you to be like myself'. That's a big request, isn't it? To be like Christ as He was the salt of the earth, to be like Christ as He was the light of the world, to be like Jesus. It may be all you ask, but it's a big thing to ask isn't it? If Christ had not called us the light of the world, and we called ourselves that, it would be the height of arrogance - wouldn't it? It would be the height of presumption to think that we could say: 'We are the people, the light of the world' - but here is the Lord, standing with His disciples, and He wants to bring to their attention that there is a great need for light in this darkened world.

I don't know about you, but there are times that I despair because of the dense darkness of the age in which we live. Do you not? Are you not sometimes beside yourself as you think of what is going on in our nation at this moment, in our world? But you know, the lighthouse would laugh at us, because he has more sense than we have - because he realises and knows that it is needed all the more in the darkest of places, that's where light needs to be! What a privilege! That's what it is - it ought to be exciting to think that we are light in perhaps the darkest hour of history that there has ever been! In Philippians 2, in his day Paul said: 'In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, you are to shine as lights. You are to be my light in a darkened world!'. It's more than simply reflecting the light of the Saviour, the inference of the statement is: we actually become light ourselves! We become the light of God.

In Ephesians 5 and verse 8 Paul said: 'For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord'. He doesn't say 'You were sometimes in darkness', he says: 'You were darkness' - and not 'now you are in the light', but: 'you are the light of the Lord, therefore walk as children of light'. Now, of course, our light is derived from the Lord Jesus - of course it is! But, you know, isn't it a great mystery to think that although it is from Him, somehow it becomes ours - even though we don't contribute one individual ray to the light that we have, the church of Jesus Christ becomes that light!

If you think about it for a moment, if we are the light of the world we ought to do what light does naturally speaking. Light reveals things as they really are. I'm sure you've had the experience of fumbling into a home late at night and it's dark, or maybe you've been into a house that you've never been in before, and you don't know what to expect - and it's not until you turn the light on that you see the layout of the room. When light is shed on a situation, it shows things as they really are.

Light also promotes life. Indeed, I am told that even our broken bones flourish and mend better in the light, in the sun and in the heat. Light is persistent, natural light is - it goes into the deepest and the smallest little crevices all over nature, into the slightest crack, light will flood into the darkest place. Light awakens - I don't know whether you've ever been up at about half past four in the morning, but if you are you will hear what light does. You will hear the birds singing, you will hear all of nature awakening, because light awakens things. We are to be light in this dark world.

But the Lord says a little bit more than that, because He's emphatic in the statement He makes. This is my second point: you must let your light shine! It's alright being light, but you've got to let that light out! You've got to shine your light! Now, in a Biblical context, the Gentiles - if you like - lived down in the valley, they were the dogs, they had no thought of God, they didn't seek after God, they worshipped idols and they were pagans and idolaters and filthy sinners - down in the valley. Then the Israelites, they lived on the plain - if you like - they were higher, they had the God of Israel, they followed the ten commandments, the law of God, they were the chosen people of God. But now we are going from the valley, to the plain, to an even higher scale: we're going to the church of Jesus Christ. They are to be a people set upon a hill, because they have believed in Messiah. They have been elevated, they are one with Him, justified by His righteousness, possessed by His Spirit. Israel on the plain is made a possessor of earthly blessings in earthly places, but the Christian - the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ - becomes a recipient of spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

It may be more desirable to live in a place that we are not in public view. It may be more comfortable to be in a place where we are a secret disciple, but the Lord Jesus is saying - verse 13, 'the salt of the earth', verse 14, 'the light of the world' - that is impossible! 'If you want to be My child you must let your light shine, you must be like a city set on a hill, you must be like a lamp on a lampstand giving light to all of the house. I have forbidden', He says, 'I have forbidden that you hide your light!'. What the Lord Jesus is saying is there is a great deal expected of sons and daughters of God. You can't hide your temper, you can't hide your character, you can't hide your demeanour, you can't hide your actions, you cannot hide your word - therefore in your words, in your actions, in everything that you do and are publicly, show yourself to be a son of God!

Now, in the illustrations that the Lord gives that we must that our light shine, there are four things that I want to outline from them. The first is this: He is saying your light must be visible. Look at the two illustrations He gave, verse 14 and 15. He talks of a city set on a hill for all to see. He talks of a lamp set up upon a lampstand. Now you know that there is no way, at all, to obscure a city on the crest of a hill - and I believe the Lord, perhaps, was turning and looking actually to a literal city by the side of Him up on a hill. You can't hide it, it's meant to be seen. If you think of a lamp - and remember that the houses in Palestine were very dark, they had no electricity, they had only perhaps one circular window not more than 18 inches long. All they had was a little lamp like a sauce-bowl filled with oil, and a wick floating in it. Normally they put that lamp in a high place, so that it had the greatest effect in all the house, so it spread everywhere. Perhaps they were going a message down to the shop, and they didn't want to put the lamp out, so they would put a bushel over it - a measuring bushel - to cover over the light.

What the Lord is saying is: a city set on a hill, a light on a lamp stand - that the primary duty of light is to be seen, do you get it? That, therefore, is what He's saying to you: you have got to be seen as a Christian, as a believer. Christians are meant to be seen - and as one person says: 'There can be no such a thing as secret discipleship - for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy'. It's a contradiction! You can't be a follower of Christ and no-one knows about it! You notice He didn't say: 'You are the light of the church'. He said: 'You are the light of the world'. It must be visible.

Secondly: it must be effective. The sense of the lamp being put on a lampstand is so that it could light up - indeed, as the Lord says - give light to all the house. That's why He said: 'Don't put it under a bushel. Don't cover it up'. In Luke 11 He says: 'Don't put it in a vault. Don't put it down in the basement'. Although it may shine in a secret place, there are no people in that place for it to affect. It's got to be elevated, it's got to be put to a sphere and a place where it can affect other people - and the sphere of light that is given in verse 14 is the world! Look at it: 'You are the light of the world'. Isn't it wonderful to imagine that when you put a pound into your missionary box, that can be a beam of light to a little child in Africa? Isn't it? When you get onto your knees and pray for young boys and girls and adults in China, under persecution for their faith, that you can actually be shining the light of God round a world that you cannot possibly get to!

But I want us to see, specifically, from verse 15 that the Lord says that that light set upon a lampstand is to send light to the house - to the house. One author says: 'The light that shines the furthest, shines the brightest near at home' - isn't that true? Paul said to Timothy: 'Learn first to show piety at home'. I think this is the need of the hour - there are many things that we need to do, but there's one thing that is needful for our families, and that is to be the light not just in the church, but in the home. There's many a person comes into the church and they are the light of the church - and sometimes their over-piety and over-pious nature in the church is often over-compensating for a lack of holiness in the home! The Lord is saying: 'You've got to be a light where the sphere is your family, where the sphere is your home, where you affect your neighbours, where you affect your work colleagues. If you're not that light, you're useless!'.

Christians - this astounds me, you know - Christians are meant to be the world's real standard. We are meant to be the ones, like a thermometer, that show to the world around us what is right and what is wrong. Now, you know about this - I hope - from experience, that the facts speak louder than the words. Because you ask a man a question: 'Is that right, or is that wrong? Is it right to go there? Is it wrong to do this or that?' - the reply may come: 'Well, it is wrong because so-and-so is a Christian and they don't do it'. Isn't that true? But what is happening today is: when men are asked is this right or is this wrong, the sad reflection upon our holiness today is that they license people in going to sin because believers are doing it!

Whether we are comfortable with it or not, we must realise that many in the world observe Christians to know what is right and wrong - and that's why they often are the ones to point out when we are inconsistent. Isn't that right? They are the first to point the finger, why? Because they are looking, for we are the light! If this is the case, and I believe it is, we can't afford to take our standards from tradition or take our standards from each other - we must learn of God, we must look to the light, and we must also realise that when we dabble in the pleasures and sinful practices of this world, the line of demarcation becomes blurred and we're not any longer taking the light to the world but we're borrowing their darkness!

We are to be a guide to the world. You know the Lord Jesus Christ was that in Mark 7 verse 24, for it says that: 'He entered into a house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid'! It's like trying to hide sprayed perfume, to try and hide the fragrance of a Christ-like life within you! That's what we need today: a life hid with Christ cannot be hid from others. I hope you've noticed that - I know people and they're like that: they stand out among the rest. They're maybe not always the most gifted people, or the most wealthy, or the most influential, but they have a landmark life - they have a life that you can look to and say: 'There is a holy man, there is a holy woman'.

The challenge is 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 6, where Paul says: 'Ye became followers of us, and of our Lord'. That's a wonderful statement. Do you know what that is saying? Put it in our situation, ask the question: if the men and women outside this Hall became followers of us, would they find themselves being followers of Christ? Would they find that we are the light of the world, following our Christ, our Lord who said: 'I am the light of the world'? Are we people - oh, that God would make us people who others could point to and say: 'Now, that is a Christian!'.

It must be visible, it must be effective, and thirdly it must be unhidden. Normally men would not put light under a bushel, but isn't it strange that what they wouldn't dream of doing in the natural sense, in the spiritual they so often do? The believer often puts his light under a bushel. Do we hide our light? The question we must ask first of all, if we are hiding our light, is: is it light at all? Lloyd-Jones said: 'If we find in ourselves a tendency to put the light under a bushel, we must begin to examine ourselves and make sure that it really is light - for Christians are meant to be visible'. Like Christ in that house: we cannot be hid! Salt in the earth, making an irritation to an unholy and adulterous generation. A preserving influence, as the world decomposes, that we are the ones who stand up and are counted, and attempt by the Spirit to stop the rot. But we often put our light under a bushel.

Sometimes it's the bushel of cowardice, like Joseph of Arimathea. He had been lit, he had been a candle lit by the Lord, and no-one would have known it for he busheled his light - and it's recorded in the word of God, listen: 'He was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews'. What about in the workplace? What about on the street? What about your next-door neighbour? Do they know that you're child of God? Or if you told them that you were a child of God would they be astounded because of the life that you live?

Sometimes it's the bushel of apathy. Paul said: 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost' - that are lost! I think that the most dreadful thing that has ever happened in our society today, and within the church, is that that word 'lost' has been emasculated! We no longer realise what it means to be lost - and if we don't realise that, that's a bushel over our light. It makes us apathetic to the lost, we become unmoved at the millions who are Christless and on their way to hell! Let's face it: we are desensitised to the lost, and to the reality of hell. How do I know that? Well, we live in a society that kills it's unborn, and it doesn't bother us at all - isn't that right? Millions of little babies are cut up in the womb on the NHS* - and that desensitises us to death and to hell.

(*National Health Service)

There's the bushel of silence. You remember Lot - how do I know that Lot was silent? Do you know why I think he was silent? Because when he spoke to his family about Christ and God, it says he seemed as one who mocked - 'You're speaking about God? That's rich coming from you!' - and that can be a bushel upon our light. Because we're fearful we've been silent so long, but my friend can I urge you - in the light of the judgement seat of Christ - to take the bushel of silence, cowardice, apathy, away and to let your light shine!

Then there's the bushel of inconsistency. One man put it well: 'Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say'. There was once a story told of a shipwreck off the coast of Florida. The storm came by night and it was so fierce that the howling wind came to the lighthouse and actually broke one of the windows of the lighthouse, and the wind was going to blow out the candle. Therefore the guard of the lighthouse climbed up and he put a bit of tin in the place where the window should have been. There was a great vessel that was coming at the aspect of where that piece of tin was, and they couldn't see the light of the lighthouse and they crashed into the rocks - what was the reason? There was one specific aspect of the life of that lighthouse where the light was not shining! It was blind. Sometimes one of our sides are inconsistent - and, you know, that causes awful damage.

Fourthly I want to ask question: how can I shine more? You've listened to this, perhaps you're wanting to shine visibly, shine effectively, shine in a way that you're not hidden by cowardice and apathy and silence and inconsistency - well, here's the answer! Donald Gray Barnhouse explained it this way, he said: 'Christ was in the world, and when He was in the world He was the shining sun that is here in the day and is gone at night. When the sun sets the moon comes up, and the moon is a picture of the believer or the church, because the moon reflects the light of the sun'! It doesn't shine with its own light, it shines with a reflected light.

How can we shine? A man on one occasion went camping with his wife, and brought a matchbox with him. When they bought it there was little sign that said on it that it glowed in the dark. When they turned the lights out in the tent, they were going to test it out - and they went to strike a match, but they couldn't find the matchbox because it didn't glow in the dark. When the wife took the torch and looked at the writing down the side of the matchbox, she found written in French these words: 'If you want me to shine in the night, keep me in the light'. If you want me to shine in the night, keep me in the light.

We need, more than ever, in a dark and a sinful world to keep and expose ourselves to the light of the world, Jesus Christ - and then we will become the light of the world, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. The face of Jesus Christ is where that glory shines: 'But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord' - look to Him! Bathe in His light, spend much time in prayer and in the word of God, and in fellowship with God's people - be under the shadow of God's light!

Thirdly and finally I want you to see that your light will reflect upon another. Look at verse 16 as we close, verse 16: 'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven'. That word 'good works' means attractive things, things that don't repel people, but things that attract people to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are being good - not in a theatrical sense, not to impress people or to win friends, but you are being good for God - it will glorify God! Some of us, you know, we're good to get a pat on the back from men.

Dr Alexander MacLaren said: 'Candles are not lit to be looked at, but that something else might be seen'. You're lit, my friend, hopefully with good works - not that you should be seen, but that God should be seen, that His glory should be seen. Like John the Baptist, who said: 'I must decrease, but He must increase' - he was saying: 'Don't look at me, look at God'. We are the sons of God, but we only reflect the light of God - and you can see that in his life, because it says not that he was a shining light, but it says of John the Baptist: 'He was a burning and a shining light' - it cost him! He was burnt up being a light unto the world.

Can I say, as we close, that in our nation: prison reforms, medical care, control of a perverted and perverting alcohol trade, abolition of slavery, abolition of child labour, the establishment of orphanages, the reform of the penal code - all of those areas of social reform were spearheaded by men of God! George Whitefield, John Wesley, Howel Harris, Lord Shaftesbury, William Wilberforce and others - at a time when the church, in those days, was a full moon dazzling the world with the light of the Lord Jesus Christ - I believe at this moment of time it is only a thumbnail moon with very little light that shines on the earth. We have got a challenge, my friend, the challenge is that in the densest of darkness - if we live a life that is pleasing to Christ - we can light this world! Will you take the challenge? Listen to the words of the Lord Jesus: 'You are the light of this world'.

Our Father, we thank Thee for the Lord Jesus who is that ultimate light of the world - but we are called by Him to be that light now that He has gone to heaven. We pray, Lord, that Thou wilt help us and give us grace to be cities set on a hill that cannot be hidden, to be candles put on a candlestick that will light our houses, our homes, our workplace, and - yes - our assembly, and all that we come into contact with may be lit by our light. We pray in all these things that our light may shine before men, seeing our good works, and they may glorify Thee. Lord, that is what we long for - our ultimate prayer is that Thou should be glorified in our holy lives. So hear us Lord, and help us, in the Saviour's name we pray. Amen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - May 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 3

"Exceeding The Scribes And Pharisees"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:17-20

Matthew chapter 5 again, the Sermon on the Mount. Please do make yourself comfortable, it's very very warm, and I want you to get through this meeting awake! So let's turn to Matthew chapter 5, and these are very difficult words that we're going to read together today - they are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 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".

I've entitled my message today: 'Exceeding The Scribes And Pharisees'. What we have just read are some of the most difficult verses in the whole of the word of God. But as we read them and study them today, we must note that they are an introduction to what will follow within the Sermon on the Mount in the weeks that lie ahead.

The backdrop to these words was the perception of the Scribes and the Pharisees of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not who He was, or what He stood for, but what they perceived Him to stand for and the threat that they perceived Him to be. As far as they were concerned the Lord Jesus Christ was a destroyer of the law. He was a threat to what they called, and was they understood to be, the law of Moses and the law of God. As you read through the Gospels you find that to be so, because the Lord Jesus healed the sick on the Sabbath, it appears that He abolished the food laws that we find within the law of Moses. As far as they were concerned He was a destructionist, a revolutionist - He was one who was bringing a new teaching into Judaism, and He was trying to break the old ties with the past. They saw Him as setting Himself above the Mosaic law to change it, to rectify it.

Therefore in John chapter 5 and verse 18 we find these words: 'Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God'. For this reason, in a human sense, that is why the Jews wanted Him crucified. He was crucified as a lawbreaker. They perceived Him to be against, to destroy, the law of Moses.

With such a backdrop and context it's amazing even the more when we read the words of the Lord Jesus Christ with regards to the law, for He speaks of the law with such veneration - in a way that no Pharisee or Scribe had ever done. You can understand why the people who were listening to Him could be puzzled by His statements in this text, and also why people even today and throughout all of church history fail to understand what the Lord Jesus was really saying when He spoke of the law saying He had come not to destroy, but to fulfil.

One of the most famous heretics of the early church, the second century heretic Marcion, was one who found these words of the Lord Jesus very difficult. Indeed Marcion rewrote the New Testament, and he eliminated all the references to the Old Testament. In other words, whenever the Old Testament was quoted, or there was an allusion to a truth in the Old Testament, he extracted it from his particular New Testament. In fact some of his followers went even further, and they dared to reverse the verse's meaning that we've read - verse 17, they changed it to say: 'I have come not to fulfil the law and the prophets, but to abolish them'. They turned it on its head because it was so difficult for them to understand how the Lord Jesus Christ had not come to destroy the law, but how He had come to fulfil it.

Indeed, in our modern church day today we have the same types of people. We could christen them 'Libertarians' - anything goes. They teach the doctrine of antinomianism - 'nomia' means 'law', 'anti' means 'against' - they're against any laws. They believe that because they are saved by grace and grace alone, that therefore living by grace there is no law needed for the Christian. They believe, theoretically, that the only law that the child of God has is a law of love. Love is the only absolute truth, and therefore as long as something is done in love it is lawful.

Now the question that this text arises for me in my mind, and ought to for you, is the great question: did the Lord Jesus Christ come to destroy the law? Are we, as believers, New Testament Christians, under the law? If so, should we keep the law of God? And if that is not the case, does that mean that we can do what we please? Well, out of all the Scriptures within the word of God, this scripture ought to settle those questions for us, because the theme of them is Christ's relationship to the law, and what the Christian's relationship to the law ought to be. What was Christ's attitude to the law of God, and what should ours be?

With that in mind I want us first to look at verses 17 and 18, to Christ and the law - the Lord Jesus Christ and His view of the law. The first question I want to ask is: what is the law and the prophets that our Lord speaks of? That's very important to understand. In verse 17 He says: 'I am come not to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am come to fulfil'. Now what was the law that the Lord Jesus was speaking of? Well there are four uses of the law within the New Testament in relation to the Old Testament. The first is the ten commandments that you find in Exodus chapter 20 - the Decalogue, the ten words of God, that is like a summary - if you like, the moral law of all that is taught within the first five books of the Bible. That's the first definition of the law of God, the ten commandments. A second definition is the Torah, the teaching, the Pentateuch, the first five books in the Bible - from Genesis through to Deuteronomy - that is, if you like, the elongated law. The third definition of the law is what we find here in verse 17, the law and the prophets. Whenever you find that phrase, 'the law and the prophets', throughout the word of God it is speaking of the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures in the eyes of the Jew. It's a term that summarises our Old Testament. Then the fourth definition that we find in the New Testament of the law of God, is the oral and scribal law. The oral and scribal conditions that were laid down by the Scribes and the Pharisees - that is the most common meaning of the law that we find within the New Testament Scriptures. So, whenever the law is most commonly spoken of in the New Testament, it is speaking of the oral traditions of the Scribes and the Pharisees.

Now if you go into the Old Testament Scriptures you will found, generally speaking, that there are few rules, but rather there are broad principles out of which a man and a woman in Judaism was to derive the laws and the rules for their life. There aren't that many rules and regulations in the Pentateuch, but there are principles laid down - often illustrated by specific examples - whereby the children of Israel were able to discern what is sinful and what is not sinful, what is good and what is bad. To the later Jews, and specifically some of the Jews in Jesus' day, these broad principles were not enough. They believed that every single matter in life had to be covered within the law of God - because it was God's last word to His children, there must be within it, if not explicitly there must be implicitly, guidance and direction and law for everything in life.

Therefore that's why you find, within the New Testament, the Scribes and the Pharisees arguing that it must be possible to find out a rule for every single man in every situation of life that is possible. From that perception of the law of God there arose this race, this group of men, called 'Scribes'. It was the Scribes job to reduce the great principles of the law of the Old Testament to, literally, specifically, thousands upon thousands of rules and regulations. If I can give you an example of the Sabbath day, you will know that the principle of the Sabbath day in the Old Testament was: no work was to be done upon it. But for the legalists, for the Scribes and Pharisees who had a passion for definition, that was not enough.

So they asked the question: 'Well, what is work?'. The word of God says that work was to carry a burden, perhaps - that's how they interpreted it. But to say it's to carry a burden wasn't enough, they had to go on and say: 'Well, what is that burden? What's the definition of the burden?'. So, the scribal law that was written down - and I have it before me here, I'm going to read it to you - this is what they say was the law, the rule, the regulation for the Sabbath day: 'A burden is: food, equal to the weight of a dried fig; enough wine for mixing in a goblet; milk, enough for one swallow; honey, enough to put into a wound; oil, enough to anoint a part of the body; water, enough to moisten the eye salve; paper, enough to write a customs house notice upon; ink, enough to write two letters of the alphabet; and a piece of reed, enough to make a pen with to write those two letters'.

So the Scribes and the Pharisees spent hours upon hours arguing what was right and what was wrong according to the law. They argued over how far a man could carry a lamp from one place to another. They argued if a tailor sinned by keeping his needle stuck in his lapel walking out on the Sabbath. They argued whether it was a sin for a woman to wear a broach on the Sabbath day, or whether it was a sin for her to even wear a wig. To go out on the Sabbath with your false teeth in was a sin - how many transgressors do we have here this morning?! To wear your wooden leg was a sin, and even if a man lifted his own child it was seen by a Scribe and a Pharisee to be a transgression of the Sabbath day.

Now listen: that was the essence of religion to a Pharisee and to a Scribe. May I make a contemporary application of that right away, before we go on any further, that to some Christians in Ulster and even in this church, that is the essence of your faith! What you do and do not do, but more specifically what other people you are looking at do do and don't do! That is not God's religion! In fact, that is the very thing that the Lord Jesus castigated with the most strong words that you will ever read in the New Testament.

The Scribes were the men who worked out these rules. The Pharisees were a group of men - 'Pharisee' means 'separated ones' - and they were separated from the ordinary activities of life to keep all of these rules and regulations. Now, as I said, it was an oral tradition, but in the third century it was written down and it's known as the 'Mishnah'. It comprises about 800 pages, in English, of rules and regulations that the people of God ought to keep. Then a few years later they made commentaries of them called the Talmuds, and they went into it even further about how they ought to keep the law.

Now let me say that, although that is the law that Christ castigated within the Scriptures, that is not the law that He speaks of in this verse. If you look at verse 17 you will see that He specifically says: 'The law and the prophets', and that was our third definition of the law, meaning a summary of the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures. So, that is what the law is that the Lord speaks of in this verse.

Then we must ask the second and most obvious question: how did Christ fulfil that law and the prophets? In verse 17 the word 'to fulfil' literally means 'to make full'. It means more than to simply fulfil, it has the sense of completing something that was incomplete, bringing to perfection something that was imperfect. It in no way means 'destroy' or 'make obsolete', but it means 'something added to' - to perfect the law. I believe that our shoes should be off our feet at this moment - why? Because we find here an exclusive statement where only one man, and the only man who could say such a thing, says: 'I am come to fulfil the law'. From Adam there was never a man who could say that, but only our Lord Jesus Christ could say: 'I have come to fill up the law, to fill full'. You can understand the horror, the gasp, of the Jewish people - that this man was actually saying that He could fulfil the law - it was blasphemy to them! He is placing Himself as the exact fulfilment of all of the word of God! The law and the prophets, the Old Testament, He is claiming to be the fulfilment, the consummation of everything that we find in the Old Testament Scriptures.

Now in the light of that we must beware that we don't neglect the Old Testament. We ought not to neglect the Old Testament - and some would say we are under grace and not under law, therefore the Old Testament has nothing for us. That is not what the truth 'we are under grace, but not under law' means. In fact, as Oswald Chambers said: 'It is surprising how easily we can juggle ourselves out of Jesus Christ's principles by one or two pious sayings repeated sufficiently often'. We must deal with these verses, because Christ said He had come to fulfil the law.

The law and the prophets, the Old Testament Scriptures, they all point towards Him - why wouldn't He come to fulfil them? He's hardly going to destroy things that were telling of a future day when the Christ would come. The general sense of what the Lord says in verse 17, if you look at it, is this: 'I came to elevate the standard of the law. Whoever therefore shall ignore, theoretically or practically, the raising of the standard shall not enter the kingdom'. He had come to fill the law full. Now that presupposes that the law was lacking - and we know that the law was lacking, because men couldn't obey it, men couldn't follow it. But the Lord didn't come, literally the Greek means 'to take it down stone by stone' - but the Lord came that He might fulfil it in all of its aspects, to fill up the half-filled lamp of the law with the oil of heaven.

Now, how to He do that? Two ways: first of all He did it as the doer of the law, and secondly He did it as the teacher of the law. He fulfilled the law because He did it - the only man ever in time who was able to obey these precepts. But more than that, at the cross of Calvary He suffered its penalty. In all aspects - take, for instance, the moral law, the ten commandments; He kept all of the ten commandments. Take the ceremonial law: He embodied all of the laws types and symbols that pointed toward Him in all the sacrificial system - the Lord fulfilled all those prophecies in Himself. The judicial law, He fulfilled it because He personified God's perfect justice, righteousness and holiness, and He came and told John the Baptist that all righteousness must be accomplished and fulfilled.

But that is not the sense here: He's not talking about how He'll fulfil the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the judicial law - but I believe what He is speaking of here is a practical righteousness, the practical aspect of the law. We must beware of those who tell us to push aside the Old Testament as an antiquated and useless book, replaced by the New Testament. As J.C. Ryle said: 'The Old Testament is the germ of Christianity, the Old Testament is the bud of the New Testament gospel flower'. If that is the case: how then, practically, do we in Christ fulfil the law of God?

Well, if you think for a moment of an acorn, there are two ways to obliterate an acorn. I can take an acorn and set it on a rock, take a sledgehammer and smash it. Or I can take that acorn and I can plant it in the ground, and out of that acorn there will sprout an oak tree - but the original acorn will be destroyed. That is how the Lord Jesus fulfils the law, He does not come to obliterate it in the sense of smashing it to insignificance, but He comes actually to set it up on a pinnacle where it had never ever been before - in fulfilment in a human being!

Just in case you don't believe that, or His listeners didn't believe it, in verse 18 He says: 'Verily I say unto you' - and that's the same word as 'Amen' - He's saying: 'I mean what I have just said', and to point it out He says, 'Not one jot or tittle will be removed from the law. Not one jot or tittle will be removed from the law, until heaven and earth pass away'. Now a 'jot' in the Hebrew language was a bit like an apostrophe in the English language - it's hardly even a letter at all, it's so small. A 'tittle' is a little tail, if you can look at the letter 'i' in verse 17 - our English letter 'i' - you see the little bits that hang over the foot and the head of the letter 'i' - that little bit hanging over the edge is just like a tittle in the Hebrew language, it's just a little tail, a serif. Two of the most smallest aspects of the Hebrew language, He is saying that not even a dot, if you like, or a cross of a 't' will be taken away from the law until heaven and earth pass away.

What He is saying is: nothing in this law will remain unfulfilled - nothing! The heaven and the earth will be the last things to pass away, and the law will not pass away until they pass away! Until all of the types of God's word are replaced with the anti-types, the real thing that they pointed towards, until the symbols are replaced with the reality, the law of God will not pass away! If I can give you an example, the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ that is spoken of in the prophets and throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, that must happen - mustn't it! That is a fulfilment of the law of God, and the heavens and the earth will not pass away until Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys run.

So the law, the Old Testament, will not pass away - not one jot or tittle - until Christ reigns upon the earth. The heavenly bodies are made His heralds, showing fearful signs of the coming of the great day of the Lord. The law fulfilled in the fact that heaven and earth, think of it, this earth that we're on and the heavens are being preserved to let the Old Testament Scriptures be fulfilled! I hope you can see that in that sense Christ upheld the law. He insisted that it must be fulfilled, 'I didn't come to wipe it out, it must be fulfilled'. But note, He didn't say that it would never pass away: it will pass away when all that it has prophesied is fulfilled.

Now that is Christ's view and relationship of the law. But the second thing I want to draw your attention to in verses 19 and 20 are: the Christian and the law - the Christian's attitude to the law. There are great ramifications concerning what our Lord Jesus said for us. What is our relation to the law of God to be? Now we must consider what the purpose of the law was, first of all, in the Old Testament. We must beware of the error of thinking that Jews got into heaven by keeping the law - that was never the case. It was not for salvation, but it was to show the sinfulness of mankind to themselves - it was like a mirror. With that condemnation of the law, that they were guilty before God, there was a penalty - and the penalty was: the wages of sin is death. If you broke one commandment you are guilty of all, James says. God, because He is a righteous and a holy God, demanded a penalty for our transgression of the law! We read within the New Testament the glorious message of the new covenant, that Christ died for the ungodly. There is that great penalty, where Christ in His death satisfied the demands of God's law, satisfied the demands of a righteous and a holy God - in His life, by living it; and in His death by dying the penalty of the curse of the law for us.

Now please note this: if that is the case, the law cannot be overthrown - because in the very gospel you have the law enshrined in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, for He was under the penalty of the law, and because He went under the law we are under grace! He has made us dead to the penalty of the law through His work. The penalty has been paid, it's no longer over our head - that's what Paul means when he says that we are no longer under condemnation. The law of God was a tutor, until Christ came, to show us our sin - but now Christ has come, He has set the law on a place that it has never been before, it has been fulfilled by blood-bought humanity in Christ!

It's wonderful, isn't it? Now that begs the question, very obvious - and time is going on, but...should the Christian keep the law? I mean, if Christ enshrined the law and we are fulfilling the law because we are in Christ, ought we to keep His commandments? Now if you go through the New Testament Scriptures you'll find that 9 out of the 10 commandments - the 10 words, the Decalogue that you find Exodus 20 - nine of those are repeated in the New Testament - nine. That would be an endorsement to me that they are to be kept. Now they aren't given with the penalty of death on them, in other words they aren't given as law - but they are given as principles whereby we live, training in righteousness. All scripture is profitable - isn't that right? - for instructing in righteousness, and the only commandment that was never repeated is the Sabbath day, because Christians do not keep the Sabbath day, they keep the Lord's Day.

But as we will go through these verses of Scripture in the days that lie ahead, you will find that the ten commandments - the law of God in the Old Testament - is repeated right throughout the Sermon on the Mount, but it's a greater law. It's a fulfilment of the law. It is Christ coming and filling up what was lacking within the law. If you look, for instance, at the one that we will deal with the next week - verse 21: 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill' - but the Lord goes further than that and says: 'Thou shalt not hate'. So Christ is upholding the law and the prophets, He's not destroying it but He is amplifying, developing them, into deeper implications for the Christian.

The first thing I want to leave with you, with regards to your responsibility to the law, is this: righteousness is the object of our reward. As a believer, righteousness is the object of our reward. Verse 19, you've to keep the least of these commandments. He's just been talking about one jot or one tittle, now He talks about the least of these commandments - and if you don't keep them, and you teach other men not to keep them, you will be guilty! Now the interesting thing about that statement of the Lord that 'if you don't keep them, or if you teach other men not to keep the least things in these commandments', it shows to me that often our doctrine is lowered to meet our conduct - isn't it? We lower our doctrine to accommodate people that aren't doing it anyway - 'go with the flow'. Now listen: the mistake of legalism and Pharisaism, we often think it was being too tight - and sometimes it was - but the greater mistake was opening up the laws of God to allow them to sin!

So, if I can give you the example of divorce, you could divorce your wife for burning the dinner. That's the truth! You could give her a bill of divorcement for burning the dinner. You can imagine, there were two different schools of Rabbi - one didn't teach that, the other did, and everybody followed the one that did! Not surprising. What that tells you and I is this: we have a natural tendency to relax God's commandments.

What are we to keep? What are the least of His commandments? My friend, listen: is it not both the Old Testament law and the New Testament law? Now, what do I mean? Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled it all in His death and resurrection, but if He has taken the Old Testament law and put it on a pinnacle, and amplified it and elevated it to a place that it has never been before - that is what we find in the Sermon on the Mount. If that is what we find, that is the law of Christ that we ought to keep! In a sense we are still keeping that law, but in a fulfilled state.

My friends, this is staggering to me, because we will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven if we teach others to break these small commandments - but more than that, He is saying that there is this aspect of a day of recompense, there's a day of reward, the kingdom of heaven speaking of it. When we will receive according to our - listen - works! Some people have tried to say what the difference is between the righteousness of the Pharisees in verse 20 and the righteousness that we are to practise: 'Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven'. They say: 'Well, it means that we are clothed with the righteousness imputed by Christ at the cross, we are given the righteousness' - that is not what it means! Don't pervert the word of God! Why does it not mean that? Because how could that be a righteousness that exceeds? That would be a righteousness other than - this is a righteousness that is of a kind, but better!

Our righteousness is to be exceptional - oh yes, it's exceptional, as the New Testament teaches us that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. But do you know what it is talking about here? Not about right-being, right-being is important - that's what the Pharisees and the Scribes didn't have, they were not new creatures in Christ Jesus - but let me ask you a question: if we are right-being, we are born-again, we are regenerated by the Spirit of God, ought that not to spawn in our lives right-doing? And if we have a right-doing that spawns from right-being, and the Pharisees and the Scribes didn't have right-being, does that not conclude that our righteousness ought to be exceeding more than theirs?

It's so humbling, isn't it? For the church today is full of people who say: 'I want to be a Christian, I want to be a recipient of the ministry of this church, I want to escape hell fire - but don't ask me to do anything'. That is not the Christianity of the word of God. The Pharisees followed the law, and the law was their goal - as long as they fulfilled the law, they were happy. But the Christian doesn't follow the law as a goal, but he follows the law of Christ as a means, because it's the law of love. If you're following a law like the Pharisees, and it's your goal, as long as you get A-B-C and 1 to 10 you're happy - but if you're a Christian, and you're following the law of love, you can give the sun the moon and the stars to Jesus Christ and it's not enough! That is a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees. Augustine said: 'The Christian life can be summed up in one phrase: love God and do as you like'. Love God, and if you love God you will keep the law of God in Christ.

We don't exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees in the quantity of the good things that we do - we could never do that - but it's the quality. Can I ask you, as we close: do you have something real, rather than something formal? Do you have something internal, rather than an external religiosity? Do you have something spiritual, rather than material? And do you have something practical, rather than ritual? The prophecy of the millennial reign of Christ to God's people, Israel, was this: 'My Spirit will put My law in your hearts'. It's not a contradiction to have the Spirit and to have the law together, but the believer fulfils the law of Christ by the Spirit of God. You claim to have the Spirit of God, can I ask you as we begin these studies in the weeks that lie ahead: are we living the law of God in the law of Christ? God willing we will find out if we are.

Lord Jesus Christ, Thou who hast said to us: 'Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world', and given us a name that is Thy name, we know that we will need Thy life in order to keep Thy laws. We pray that in the weeks that lie ahead, as we have presented to us the highway of holiness in the elevated law of Christ, that we may have grace to obey - that men may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. Amen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 4

"Christian Homicide"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:21-26

Now we're turning in the New Testament again to our studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew's gospel and chapter 5. We took a brief break over the Sunday School Prize Giving and, indeed, our day of prayer and fasting from these studies - but we're returning again to the greatest sermon ever preached by our Lord Jesus Christ. We're looking this morning at the subject of 'Christian Homicide', Christian homicide - and we're reading verses 21 and 22.

The Lord Jesus says: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing".

Let's bow our heads together and let us pray that the Lord may speak to us, that His fiery glance would come and look at the motives that control and the place, the chamber, where polluted things hold empire o'er our soul. Father, we pray for Thy Holy Spirit. We ask that He may come in convicting power upon Thy church, that He would come and speak to us of Christian homicide, and how we as the people of God are so often guilty of the sin and the seed of murder. We pray that You will help us to be open-hearted, that You will help us to be honest with ourselves and with Thee, our God - that You will speak to us, cleanse us, and heal us of all that is contrary to Thy will and word. We pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

In our last study in the Sermon on the Mount you will remember that, in verses 17 right through to verse 20, the Lord Jesus Christ laid down how He had not come to destroy the law - which was the accusation to Him of the Pharisees and the Scribes - but He had come to be the filling up of the law, the fulfilment. He, indeed, in Himself as a person, as Messiah, was the fulfilment of all that the law and the prophets foretold and pointed to. Therefore the Lord in those verses, verses 17 through to 20, and especially verse 19, told of how He was, in Himself and in His new covenant and new law, uplifting the law to a position that it had never held before. We see the Lord Jesus Christ as the new lawgiver, we see the Lord Jesus elevating the law of Moses, indeed the law of God, to a position that it never ever had before - for the Lord Jesus was enshrining God's holy law in the new covenant of Christ.

That is what the book of Hebrews is about, isn't it? In Hebrews 7:22 we read these words: 'By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament', of a better covenant. Hebrews 8 verse 6: 'But now hath he', the Lord Jesus, 'obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises'. Isn't it wonderful to have entered into something new, to have entered into the new covenant of the Lord Jesus Christ? But we had to be reminded in our last study that that does not mean that we are antinomian - in other words, anti-law. It doesn't mean that we disregard the law of God, it doesn't mean that we ignore it in our sinfulness - or as Paul put it: 'Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?'. That is not an option for the child of God.

So, to clear all these questions up that the Scribes and the Pharisees were asking concerning the law of God, the Lord Jesus presents Himself in the Sermon on the Mount as the pivotal point of history, as the one who will fulfil God's law and, indeed, in His own disciples and in His own people, will have a people - a peculiar people, a new nation of God - who will be zealous of good works, and who effectively will live out in the Spirit the Sermon on the Mount. Of course the running theme right throughout this sermon is the difference between the letter and the Spirit. It is the contrast between the religion of the Pharisees and the Scribes, and the faith of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees' religion was outward, it was an outward conforming to man's rules and the traditions that they deciphered from the law of God. But the Lord Jesus was coming along to them and speaking of a new righteousness, a righteousness - as He said in verse 20 - that exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisees. This was something deeper, this was an inward righteousness. In other words - as we see in the book of Ezekiel that will come to pass one day to the children of Israel, and did in the day of Ezekiel - they are given a new heart, a new spirit is put within them. This is not the stony righteousness of outward external conformity that does not change the dead, stone-cold heart - but this is an internal, supernatural change where God comes into the life and the Spirit of God lives through external righteousness.

So we have the difference between the letter and the Spirit. The difference between keeping to every jot and tittle of the law without a change of heart. The difference between external conformity to the law without an internal change to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. We must be very careful in these days, because there are two extremes within Christendom. There is the extreme of not regarding the law of God at all - in other words, the Bible does not matter. Things are thrown out that are not the tradition of men, but the tradition of the word of God! We must beware that we do not disregard the law of God. That is one extreme: where every man in the church does that which is right in his own eyes. But there is the other extreme, and I think that this extreme could be more deadly, because it is more subtle, because with its externality of religiosity it gives the assumption within the mind of the person committing this sin, and within the eyes of those around him who witness him, that he is alright and that his heart is OK. Of course, it is modern day Pharisaism - and I'll give you an illustration of what it is. It is studying the word of God down to every Greek verb and participle, but there is no reality of the thing you are studying in your heart! That is the letter, not the Spirit. When we get to a position where our little idiosyncratic doctrines are more important than the theological and spiritual principle behind them, we are according to the letter!

That is exactly what the Lord Jesus was preaching against in this sermon. That is why He says in verse 20: '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'. He now proceeds in this passage to give five illustrations of the meaning of how our righteousness ought to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. He tells us that our righteousness can be estimated by the depth to which it goes. In other words, the righteousness of the Pharisees were whitened sepulchres - their outside walls were white and clean, pristine with all the rules of men, but if you were to delve deep into the chamber of the tomb of their heart you would find dead men's bones. So our righteousness is to be estimated by the depth to which it goes.

So the Lord begins with the sixth commandment in verse 21: 'Thou shalt not kill'. He says: 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time', you notice He says that it was heard, because they didn't read, or many of them couldn't read. Indeed there weren't enough editions of the word of God, as we are blessed with today, to go around. So what happened was they all gathered together on the Sabbath day, and they read together the word of God in the synagogue in worshipping. Every Sabbath a portion of the law was split up into seven sections and read by seven different people, and then it was followed by a reading from the prophets. How carefully every Jew sat there, Saturday after Saturday, listening to the law of God, and they heard the law of God. 'Ye have heard that it was said'.

In verse 21 He says 'it was said by them of old time', that would be better translated, I believe, 'to them of old time'. It was said to them of old time, in other words, God spoke this! In Exodus 20 you can see the law given to Moses by God, it was spoken to the people of God by God. Then in Deuteronomy 5 it's repeated by Moses, ultimately from God, but by Moses to the people. In Exodus 20:15 you find this very sixth commandment: 'Thou shalt not kill'. The Master is insisting that we are not to see God's law as the law of Moses, but we are to see it as the word of God. He now unfolds to us the law of God in its inner, fullest sense, in its greatest meaning, in its prophetic implication in Himself - 'I am come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it'. In verse 22 He shows how He is doing this, how He has come as the fulfilment, He says: 'But I say unto you'. 'It was said to you by God through Moses of old time, but I say unto you'.

Now that's emphatic, that word 'I say'. It means 'in contrast to what God has already said'. 'I am coming to you as God's new utterance. I'm revealing to you the more perfect way. I am the Minister of the new covenant'. We should ask the question - this is what is being spoken, but who is the Lord speaking to in this passage? This is so important. If you look down verses 21, right down into the very last verse of this section, you will find that the word 'brother', or 'brethren' comes four times at least. If you turned to Paul's letter to the Galatians 3 and 26 - you don't need to turn to it, but if you were to look there you would say that Paul says of all Christians: 'Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus'. So all who are believers are sons of God, they are sons of the Father - and that necessitates that they are brothers one to another. It means that in their behaviour they ought to behave charitably to one another, as the word of God puts it: brotherly kindness. If you were to turn to 2 Peter 1:7 he says that the foundation of Christian qualities within the Christian character is 'add to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity'.

Brotherly kindness, this relationship in the family of God, and charity - the one to the other - is nonnegotiable. So, when you come to this passage and what the Lord Jesus Christ says, He isn't addressing the world. He's not addressing men and women in the ordinary family, He's talking to the family of God. In fact, what He is saying is: 'This type of misconduct between brethren is far worse than the misconduct of the world'. He is saying it is worse that believers behave in a murderous hateful way the one to the other.

Now, you see, the backdrop to all this is the way that the Jews kept this sixth commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill'. They believed that if that sin was abstained from, as long as they didn't strike the final blow, that they were righteous in the eyes of the law - 'As long as I don't kill someone in cold blood'. But their cloak of false righteousness had been taken off them, because the Lord is now laying down that you can no longer take pride in not committing murder. Murder is deeper, murder begins with a seed in the depths of the heart - and we're all murderers by the Lord's definition!

It gets worse as you through the New Testament Scriptures, because when you get to that great epistle of love - 1 John chapter 3 and verse 15 - you read these words: 'Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him'. Now, if you want to dilute that - go ahead, but you'll pay the consequences! Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. What the Lord is doing is He is tracing the actual physical act of murder in cold blood with a man's hands to the seed within the heart - right back to the spring of action. He deals with what Dr Campbell Morgan calls: 'Murder in the making'. The Lord is dealing with nipping in the bud what will eventually come to fruition in literal hate or murder, what will effectively come to bear fruitfully as a flower of murder.

What the Lord Jesus is doing is He is tracing the germ, the real germ to its origin: 'The foul overt crime of murder', He says, 'begins in the very heart of the believer'. So we come to the crime of murder, that is the crime that the Lord is laying down as a possibility in the life of a believer: murder! Christian murderers! 'Thou shalt not kill', it would be better translated: 'Thou shalt not murder'. The case is one of homicide, and the idea is the idea of the city of refuge within the Old Testament. In other words, the fact of murder is certain, but the motive is uncertain. When a man committed manslaughter in the Old Testament, he ran to a city of refuge and there he was safe - but he had to be judged there whether his motive was right or not for running away, whether he had literally committed manslaughter or cold-blooded murder. He flees to the city of refuge, and when he is tried it is decided whether the fugitive has a right to the privilege of sanctuary or not. He has to be judged, that's right throughout Numbers and Joshua.

But the Lord Jesus says, in the light of that, verse 22: 'I say unto you: it's not just the act of murder that has to be judged, but it's the very seed of murder in the depths of your heart'. So He tells us the three crimes, the seed of murder. Look at verse 22, the first: 'But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment'. The first sin of murder is silent hate, I've entitled it: 'Murdering with the Heart'. It's the idea of anger within your heart to a brother. Now, in the New Testament there are two Greek words for anger. The first is 'thumos' (sp?), and it means like a flame that comes on dried straw - it flares up in a moment, a great bright flame, and then it suddenly goes out. An anger that quickly blazes up and then just as quickly dies down. It's an anger that rises speedily and then speedily passes away - 'thumos'.

Then there is the Greek word 'orgay' (sp?), and it describes a long-lived anger. A person who nurses their wrath in their bosom, who keeps it warm. It is an anger over which a person broods and meditates, and on which he allows himself to actually die within that murder, and he doesn't let the murder die within him. Have you ever met believers like this? I have. I'm sure there's been times I've been guilty of it myself. You can see them: miserable looking people. They sing the hymns: 'Oh, happy day that fixed my choice on Thee, my Saviour and my God', and they have a heart filled with pent-up anger, pent-up bitterness. People who never speak to you because they've got a chip on their shoulder, people who don't sing the hymns because they're so bitter that they have no joy of God in their heart any more. People who are annoyed because someone did something to them 20 years ago and they still haven't forgot about it!

Do you know what was remarkable to me as I was studying this passage? This seems to be the sin of the church! It seems to be riddled with this murder in the heart, murdering with the heart - a silent hate, something that is nursed in your bosom that you keep warm, that you have as a little titbit that you can brood over - you never allow it to die, you never allow healing in your heart. Old Cicero was not a Christian, but he had some wise things to say and one was this: 'Anger is a disposition where nothing can be done rightly or sensibly, it is brief insanity'. There are Christians walking about today in the flesh, and they are in insanity because of an inner heart hate against another brother or sister!

Well, let me tell you what the word of God says - James chapter 1 and verse 20: 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God'. Whatever your cause may be, if your heart is eaten up with a passionate anger, your cause is wrong! Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ forbids, forever, anger which broods and anger which will not forget, anger that refuses to be pacified and that seeks revenge and retribution. In fact He says that if you inhabit that anger, you're a murderer!

Silent hate is the first thing He prohibits. The second thing, in verse 22 you find: 'Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council'. This is speaking with contempt - the first was silent hate, murdering with the heart, but this is murdering with the words. This is when your anger is permitted to express itself in an utter contempt for another brother in Christ. The word 'raca' is an Aramaic word, and the sense of it is 'vain and empty' - to be a vain and empty person. If you want to put it into our contemporary language, you could say that it's calling someone 'a good for nothing', or an 'empty head'.

There's one occasion, at least, I found in the Old Testament where this word is used 'raca'. Second Samuel 6:20, and you have the account there that after David danced naked before the Ark of God, it says: 'David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul', his wife, 'came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!'. David comes home after worshipping the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind - and his wife is standing there in jealousy and in sarcasm, and says: 'You're empty headed! What were you doing today? Like one of those vain fellows shamelessly uncovering yourself'. Do you know what happened Michal? She became a barren woman - if you want to put it in our terms: she became an unfruitful Christian because of a loose tongue! That is the fruit of loose tongue: unfruitfulness.

Our Lord first treated the anger as a feeling within the breast in the heart, and now He goes further and He proceeds to the case where angry words display the feeling within. Do you know what this does when anger is put into words? Effectively the reason why it is murder is because it depreciates the value of the one we offend! You're saying: 'Raca!', you're saying, 'You're good for nothing! You're empty headed!'. Not only is it hate and murder, but it gets worse because it is false witness. The Lord is speaking of a relationship between brothers and sisters in Christ, and you can't call anybody good for nothing who was bought by the blood of Christ! How can you do that? It's a lie! Whether it's in your heart, or whether it's with your mouth - how can you call anybody good for nothing who is a son and an heir with the Lord Jesus Christ? How can you call anybody good for nothing that one day will rule and reign with Him, and will share all eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ? These words of contempt must cease, brethren! They must stop!

It can come from the pride of birth and snobbery, from money, from material things. It can come from contempt because of the knowledge you have, and perhaps one of the worst of all snobberies is intellectual snobbery. But the point is this: you can never look with content upon a man for whom Christ died! Many a man's character has been assassinated and murdered by another child of God. We all have met people whose anger bubbles over into words - people, even maybe here, would that be possible? Even here? People who you're afraid to speak to because you don't know what way they're going to take you up, or you're afraid to joke with because they always take you the wrong way? Grumbling people, always grumbling about someone or something - and the only time you hear them is when they've something ill to say about another! What about this character assassination? What about it? Do we commit it? Murder in the house of God!

That is murdering with the heart, and murdering with the words - thirdly He says, in verse 22: 'But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire'. This is murdering, I believe, with curses. First of all it starts in your heart, then it starts with the words of contempt, and then finally it starts with words of cursing. It's anger assuming an unsuppressed energetic activity - it's inflammatory language of passion. Now, if this word here - and we don't know - but if this word is Greek, it means 'fool' as the Authorised Version translates it. But I suspect that it's a Syriac word, which actually means stronger than 'fool', because it seems that the Lord is going down in a digression of deeds and sins and wrong, and it's getting worse and worse. If it's a Syriac word 'moray' (sp?), it means 'rebel'!

So you're going from one who hates in their heart, down to one who calls another 'worthless', and then finally to one who calls a brother a 'rebel'. It seems to account for the increase in penalty that we'll see in a moment, but you know that word 'rebel' has, even in a legalistic sense in the land, the court of the laws, is an awful criminality - a terrible thing. The idea of treason, rebellion, and literally in the law in Deuteronomy 21, that sin of rebellion was worthy of death - so you would have been stoned for it! If it's 'a fool' it means 'a moral fool', it means to be dead, it means what the Psalmist says: 'The fool has said in his heart: 'No God, I don't want You in my life, I don't want You in my heart''. But the point is this: this is hate going from the heart right to the words, and getting even worse from the words and coming to a curse - and it's literally a wish that the person would be dead!

The believer can do that! In other words, rebellion was a sin that was worthy of death, and if you call another a 'rebel' in this context it means that you want them to die! You have it about today, you know. I want to say this, because it brings it home. Do you see when you hear people say: 'God damn you'? That's what they're doing. That's what the Lord Jesus is talking about. When you hear someone say to another: 'Go to hell', that's what they're saying. Jesus is saying that one who utters such a word is in danger of hell fire themselves! Now I want you to see this, in Numbers 20 verse 10 - and I believe this is what was on the Lord's mind, although I can't prove it - but it says there about Moses and Aaron, they gathered the congregation before the rock. We were hearing in the Breaking of Bread how Moses was probably the greatest man in the Old Testament, and that's right - but there are Moses and Aaron, and he says to the congregation around the rock: 'Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?'. 'You rebels, why won't you obey God?' - and God kept Moses and Aaron out of the promised land because of that, because they called God's people rebels!

Calling a child of God [a rebel], it seems, in the Old Testament was an unpardonable sin - not in eternity, but in time and in the law - you had to die for it. The Lord is saying that calling a child of God a rebel is a great sin today, because it sets a child who has been reconciled to God by the blood of Christ among the enemies of the most high God. You're lining up another child of God with the hordes of hell! What you're saying when you use that language like that is: 'If I had the power, according to my will, I would put you in hell'. It's an awful thing to hear a believer threaten another believer. It's an awful thing to hear a believer curse another believer, and use violent words against them.

Do you see the Lord's teaching? He's teaching that anger contains the seed of murder. He's saying that anger contains abusive language, which is the spirit of murder, and anger is cursing language which implies the very desire to murder! Now what's the sentence, as we close - and I want to finish this - what's the sentence for murder that the Lord gives? Think of this: Christians going down for murder! Our Lord uses illustrations that would be familiar to the disciples of the law courts of the day, and He's telling what will happen. In His day if men disregarded the common judgement of the court, they were in danger of being brought into the inner court, the synagogue, and if they disregarded that they were in danger of the final judgement - they were handed over to God! What the Lord is saying is that God will hold everyone responsible for their actions and for their motives: we will be judged as believers! Don't think that we're going to get off scot-free for everything we say and do as believers because the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin - I don't believe that! I believe that there is a judgement for us, and there will be loss!

The first thing the Lord mentions in verse 21 is that those who commit this hate with the heart are in danger of the judgement, that's the local court of the synagogue where ordinary misdemeanours were tried for minor offences. So if you're guilty of having hate in your heart, it's as if you were guilty of going to the court of minor offences. Then He says that if you have this contempt with your words, you're in danger of the Council, that's the central court of the 71 members of the Sanhedrin that met as the people of God and the leaders, religiously. That's a more serious charge if you say 'raca', 'empty head' to someone. Thirdly there's the fire - now it's not hell fire, it's the fire of hell, the fire of hell. The word is 'Gehenna', the word speaks of a place, literally, in Palestine. It was the Valley of Hinnom, it was the city rubbish dump south-west of Jerusalem, where criminals bodies - after crucifixion - were dumped and were burnt up. It was also where people who weren't crucified were burnt to death at the stake! 'Where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched', and the Lord often uses that place 'Gehenna' as a picture of hell.

Now, my friend, here we're getting to the point. Does that mean that we are guilty of hell if we show violence to another believer? Yes, it does! Did you hear me!? It means we're guilty of hell! What is the grounds of this guilt? I'll tell you what it is: in the Old Testament whenever you had something against another the two of you were to come together, and you were to stand before the Lord, and if you falsely accused the other person you were to suffer the punishment for what you accused them of. You notice in these verses that the Lord says that you will be in danger of these things. In other words, if you hate someone from your heart, the guilt you have ought to make you in judgement - and if you go as far as to act violently or speak violently against another believer, you are guilty of hell! You're in the danger of it!

I believe in eternal security like anybody but, my friend, I'm not going to water down the words of the Lord Jesus Christ for anybody. It tells me this: that if this is the way you behave in your life, you deserve hell! Praise God you'll maybe not get it, but you deserve it! You're in the danger of it. It's not literal, because there's not going to be any Council in the millennium reign of Christ that's being spoken of here, there's no Sanhedrin there, neither will there be any hell fire - but the Lord is looking at the question of guilt. He's saying you are guilty of this - one who commits the first of these crimes, and the second of these offences, in God's sight is on a par with one who is guilty before the synagogue or guilty before the Sanhedrin. Anybody who goes as far as to commit the third of these things - awful thing - is in the rank of judgement with the worst of criminals, that is what God is saying. To be cast into the city rubbish dump for execution, that's the kind of thing this hate between believers is worthy of!

Dr Plummer (sp?) says: 'To cherish such feelings is a kind of murder, and merits the like penalty'. It is worth the penalty of murder to hate your brother and your sister, it is worth the fires of hell. It's a difficult verse to interpret, and I don't know whether you'll all interpret it the way I do - but do you know something? The one thing is for certain is that the Master places anger on the level of murder. Murder! Christian homicide! Christian murder and Christians going down for murder, and it's serious, and just as any nation or government brings people to account for the crimes, the Lord is saying: 'Even the children of God will be brought to account for their crimes. You're in my kingdom!'.

Do you know what we all do? This is what maybe some will do after this, they run to that wee phrase: 'without cause'. 'Ah, but I have a cause!'. We could go into the text and see how, possibly, that's not what that means - but anyway, that's for another day. The problem is here, I know that there is anger with a cause - but do you know what those angers are? An anger for the glory of God, an anger for ill-treatment toward another brother and sister, but there's never ever righteous anger toward self. Never ever self defence. I think we use this 'without cause' as a cloak to cover over our own wrong, as a salve to our conscience at times, to try and convince ourselves. Yes, there is a holy anger against sin, but let me say this: there is an unholy anger against people - the brethren!

How do we fare? Now, come on, let's be honest with this: how do we fare? The truth is that churches are being wrecked at this very moment as we speak because of this sin! Murder in the house of God! Hate in people's breasts! Words and actions - people standing in members meetings and tearing one another apart! Christ's word says there'll be hell to pay! We may even be paying it now, with the church of Jesus Christ in shreds. Are you in the gall of bitterness today? Are you? Are you wrecked with a hate of the heart? Have you spoken words? Do you know what the answer is? We'll look next week at how this affects the church more literally, but do you know what the answer is? Repent! You're in sin! Repent!

Oh, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Oh, to have the disposition of Christ. Do you know something? Do you know what the message of the Spirit is? You can't imitate Christ, but if His Spirit is to come into your heart and you allow Him to move: He can be formed in us as a gift by the Spirit. Our Lord is going behind the rules of the law and actually breathing spirit into it to give the disposition that allows you to live this law! It's impossible unless He puts His Spirit in us, and He makes us from within outward. Oswald Chambers said well: 'When a man is born from above he does not need to pretend to be a saint, he can't help being one'.

Oh, can you not help being a saint? Some of us can't help hating others, some of us can't help saying violent words at one another. My friend, this is not the way things ought to be, for the Lord said through His apostles: 'Little children, love one another', 'By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples: that ye love one another'. If you can't do that, praise the Lord and come to Him - come to Him, as the Beatitude says: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit', come to Him and receive the power by His Spirit to live the way that you ought to live. It's wonderful, isn't it, that we should have the Son of God formed in us by His Spirit.

Let's bow our heads. If we're all honest this is a sin we are guilty of, every one of us. I'm not saying that some of you don't have hurts deep down that were made by others who didn't show love towards you, but murder and hate. But I want to point you to the Saviour who, when He was reviled, reviled not again for you. That is the one you are called to follow, the one who was despised and rejected yet endured for the joy that was set before Him. Will you let Him come in and heal your hurt, and heal your hate, and let the Son of God be formed in you?

Father, we pray that You will deal, by Your Spirit, with folk that are hurting, with folk that are hating - that they will see the danger that they are in, they are in the very danger of hell. Oh Lord, we thank Thee that we won't go there - but, Lord, to be in the danger of it! Lord help us, help us to repent, and help us to shut our mouths when we ought to - but, Lord, it goes further than that: help us to be changed in our hearts, where all these things proceed out of. For we ask these things in the name of the one whom we are to follow and have formed in us, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - June 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 5

"Be Reconciled To Thy Brother"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:21-26

Now our reading is taken again from the Sermon on the Mount this morning, from Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, and we'll begin to read at verse 21 - and you remember that last Lord's Day morning we looked at verses 21 and 22, half of these words of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning the sin of murder among brethren.

Verse 21, remember it is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool", or rebel, "shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing".

Let's take a moments prayer: Father in heaven, these are very difficult words that we ponder today. Indeed we have felt the two-edged sharp sword of the word of God already from studying these words, but we pray that we will be honest with ourselves, that we will be honest with Thy word - and, Lord, that we will root out those things in our lives which are not pleasing to Thyself, Lord that we will follow the example and the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Impart Thy Spirit to us for understanding and for the power of the preaching, for we ask it in the Saviour's name. Amen.

Last week we learnt how the Lord Jesus Christ went from the mere outward committal of the crime of murder to the very seed of it within the heart. We looked at how it can begin with an inward hate, deep in the heart where no man can see, only God, there can well up within us a resentment toward another. We saw that the Lord Jesus Christ went further than the Pharisees to simply judge the outward expression of violence and murder, but to go deep within the recesses of man's motives, those dark recesses and chambers where polluted things hold empire o'er the soul. The Lord Jesus pronounced judgement upon the inward hating of the heart, but He went further and described how that hatred of the heart can express itself in contemptible words toward another. He went further and said that those words, like calling your brother 'Raca', 'empty head', was worthy of judgement also.

But we saw the very disturbing words of the Lord Jesus, that when we call our brother or sister in Christ 'Fool' - and the definition of that word 'fool' we saw is really 'rebel', or someone who is against God and exempt from the grace of God, perhaps calling someone beyond redemption and worthy of condemnation - by that very act we put ourselves in a place that is guilty of hell fire. Now that is very important, and I hope that I stressed to you that does not mean we will get hell fire, for there is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. But what the Lord was saying is that if this was in the law of the land, if this was in the legal civil system, we would be under severe guilt and penalty. In the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, to have such a hatred between brethren in the Lord is guilty of hell fire.

Therefore the Lord seeks to illustrate these principles, this is what we're going to look at today in verses 23 to 26. That's why He begins with this word in verse 23: 'Therefore' - 'The implications of what I have just said', verse 21 and 22, 'I want to illustrate to you what I mean'. Now the Lord Jesus, here, was laying down a principle which these Jews would have known very well. The idea behind it is this: the concept of sacrifice. The Old Testament concept of coming to the altar and bringing your gift to God for sacrifice. Often not known to us today in the New Testament age, in the Old Testament if a man did a wrong thing that action actually disturbed his relationship between him and God. That is why sacrifice came in, now we all know this: sacrifice came in to restore the relationship between that man and his God, but the Jew in the Old Testament never ever held the view that sacrifice could atone for deliberate sin - that is very important. Sacrifice never, in the Old Testament, atoned for deliberate sin - or what the Jews called 'the sin of the high hand', in other words wilful, rebellious sin against God.

Now, if a man committed a sin unawares - if you like, was overtaken or swept into sin in a moment of passion when his mind was not in him - the sacrifice that the Jews knew, they believed to be able to atone for those sins. But if a man deliberately, defiantly, callously, and open-eyed committed a sin against God, those Old Testament sacrifices were powerless to atone. Before we go on any further, we know today in the New Testament that all the Old Testament sacrifices were powerless to atone, but what I speak of today is the instructions, the reason why God gave these sacrifices. God was telling them: 'Those sins that overtake you, those sins that you commit unawares, if you give this offering I will look down and have grace upon you. But if you deliberately commit a sin against me with your eyes open, callously, those atonements will not suffice'.

Let me give you an example. If a man was making a sin offering, say to atone for the sin of theft, that offering was held completely unavailing until the things that that man stole were returned to the owner. So if you came as a thief to offer your sacrifice unto the altar of God there had to be a judgement take place, there had to be a criminal inquiry as to whether what you had stolen had been restored. If it was found out that you had not restored the things that had been stolen, your offering was taken out of the camp and it was burnt as something that was unclean. Also you remember from the Old Testament that if a man was taking his paschal lamb to the priest as an offering, and if on his way he remembered that he had leaven in his house he had to go back to his house, take out the leaven, before he brought the offering to God. Now this is so important, for I want you to see that there is not a carte blanc atonement for sin in the Old Testament Scriptures. The atonement and the offering that we find there does not atone for deliberate sin against your brother.

Therefore, to be effective, the sacrifice had to include confession of sin. To be effective there had to be the element of true repentance - in other words meaning the rectifying of the consequences of your sin toward your brother. It wasn't enough to simply come to God and confess your sin, but you had to go to the one offended. Even the Day of Atonement couldn't avail for a man's sin unless he was personally reconciled with his neighbour and his brother.

Now in the light of that backdrop of the Old Testament we see the significance of the words of the Lord Jesus. It's very clear and categoric what He is saying, in fact He is enshrining this principle in the law and saying to His disciples: 'You cannot be right with God until you are right with men'. In other words, we cannot have the hope of forgiveness until we have confessed our sins not only to God, but to men that we have offended. Indeed, I believe that this is the backdrop to the teaching in the book of Hebrews, and there's a very difficult verse that many theologians ponder and debate about and confuse many, in Hebrews 10 and verse 26. It says this, now think of in the light of what we have just looked at: 'If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins'.

Do you see it? 'If we sin wilfully'. Indeed it's what David was encapsulating in Psalm 51 and verses 16 and 17, when he prayed to God over his sin of adultery which was wilful, deliberate, open-eyed sin, he says: 'Lord, thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it', sacrifice would not atone for that sin alone, 'thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise'. This is so important for our understanding of what the Lord Jesus Christ said and so, with this Old Testament Jewish concept as a backdrop, let's look at the first illustration that the Lord Jesus gives us in verses 23 and 24.

We could put it like this: He describes a scene of strife in God's house, and how it ought to be resolved. Strife in God's house resolved - and the question that has to be asked of us, and let me say that the Lord Jesus Christ pulls this illustration from the Old Testament, speaks to his disciples, and the principles that are behind it apply to us today in our dispensation and in our age. They ask us the very pertinent question: are we participating in futile religious practices? In other words, if we come to worship God and we remember that our brother has aught against us, it is futile to worship God. It's pointless! The reason, perhaps, we are coming to the Lord's Table - to confess our sins, to examine ourselves - if we haven't made things right with our fellow men, the Lord will not see our worship.

I believe, perhaps in the mind of the Lord Jesus, that as He speaks of these men coming to give their offering to God to the altar, He has in His mind the idea of the offering that Cain and Abel gave in the book of Genesis. As you look at that, you find that there is a principle that there must first be acceptance of the offerer before there is acceptance of the offering. We read: 'And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and his offering He had not respect'. There is acceptance of the offerer before the offering can be received.

This applies to the Lord's Table. The Table of the Lord is a place not only of worship, but it is a place where there is manifested the union of the Lord's people. It speaks of unity, it is the table of fellowship. That's why, in the book of Corinthians, Paul says to them: 'For we being many are one loaf, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one loaf'. As the loaf is broken and each little bit of bread is consumed by you, the loaf still exists, but it exists pulling together every participant in the Lord's Supper. We become the one loaf. It was talked of in the early Church as 'The Love Feast', and each brother is to worship God, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting before God. Love is to be our constant spirit as we worship the Lord, and the Lord Jesus says - whether it's the Old Testament offering, whether it's this middle partition in between the Old Testament and the New that we have here, whether it's now in our church age - He says: 'No matter what is, as we worship God we are not to retain our anger against brethren'.

We grieve the Holy Spirit, and it hinders our communion with God, when there is anger between us. It is backsliding, and the Lord speaks of it as such. He says our worship is futile because of the disposition that we are in, and that's why He says in [Romans]: 'As far as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men'. Now can I ask you in light of this: are you perhaps participating in futile practices? Are you here today and you maybe don't realise, because of the disposition of your heart, that your prayers don't even reach the ceiling? The reason for that is that you may suffer from a pricked conscience, that is the illustration that the Lord gives. If you come to the altar, you walk through all those holy places, and come to the place where your sacrifice and offering will be accepted - and as soon as you come to that altar rail and you lift that sacrifice up to God, you remember something! The wrong, anything that gives you a cause to be annoyed, or indeed specifically here a cause for your brother to be annoyed at you - 'If thy brother hath aught against thee'. In Mark's gospel the Lord Jesus speaks of the opposite: 'When ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any'. So if you have got something against someone else, or if somebody else has something against you, and you come to worship God and God's Holy Spirit reminds you of that - you've got to do something about it! Do you know why? Because if you carry on without offering it means nothing.

It is the convicting voice, that solemn moment when you bow down to worship God and suddenly you become conscious of something that is wrong. You come to God in deep sincerity, you really want to worship Him, you come to God's altar to give a gift to God and for God from your life, but then suddenly - as if a cloud blocks out your mind - you remember a sin that casts all of God's brightness away from you. You remember a wrong you have done to your brother, or a wrong that he or she has done to you. My friend, don't think this is chance that it comes into your head, it's not! The Lord Jesus says that it is God, He infers that God is bringing it to our mind in order that we deal with it. So often when things come into our mind we blame the devil, don't we? We say: 'I hear the accuser roar of ills that I have done' - but maybe it's not the accuser roaring! Maybe it's the Holy Spirit of God coming and putting His finger on something that is not right between you and your brother, and that's the difference between the Holy Spirit and the accuser. The accuser brings to your mind things that God has already forgiven, the accuser brings to your mind things that you have repented from and confessed to God, but the Holy Spirit brings to your mind things that you're still hiding from Him.

This is God's voice speaking to you. Everybody wants to hear God's voice today, don't they? 'I want to hear God speak to me. I want to see God. I want to know God actually relating to me and having a relationship with me' - but nobody wants to hear this voice of God. Nobody wants to hear God reminding them of something that they have against their brother. This is so awesome, because it is the realisation of this in our hearts that will determine the acceptance of our offering to God, and ultimately the blessing that God gives us in our lives! The blessing that we have as a Christian will depend on how we deal with that voice in our hearts. Indeed, possibly I would go as far as to say that the whole future of our spiritual experience will depend upon how we deal with that voice!

Nothing could be of greater importance at this moment in time than that you listen to what God is saying to you. As you've come into this place and perhaps here remember - I'm not talking about some kind of introverted fanatical raking up of something morbid, I'm not talking about looking for things because when you do that Satan can grab hold of those things and torture your mind and heart. I'm not asking you to wallow in your sin, and to become all self-loathing because of it - but what I am asking you to do is: if the Holy Spirit brings to your mind and heart a sin against another brother, deal with it! Bring it into the light! Plunge it beneath the blood, and have done with it and forget about it! But, oh, deal with it!

We can be participating in futile practices because of these things. As we come, if our conscience is pricked, do you know what the Lord Jesus Christ says that we must do? We must pursue reconciling priorities. We must get our priorities right, and the priority in this instance is not the Breaking of Bread, it is not the worship of God - but the Lord Jesus says the priority, look at it, is to leave your gift. In other words there is an obstacle to be removed before acceptable worship can be rendered by your heart. Something has to be done! He says: 'Leave your gift, and first be reconciled to your brother'.

Now imagine the implications of this. If we don't leave our gift and be reconciled to our brother it means that our prayers are hindered, it means that God doesn't hear us. The prophet said that: 'If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me'. Feelings of separation and enmity between disciples and believers doesn't just affect our relationship with them, but the Lord is saying it affects our relationship with God, and indeed God's relationship with us - His ability to bless us. We make an obstruction before God in order that He can't touch our lives because we're obstinate and rebellious toward Him.

How much more powerful and availing would prayer be if Christians were not divided? Have you ever thought about this? My friend, if you're sitting here and the Holy Spirit has brought to your mind something that someone has against you, or that you have against someone else, I know what you're thinking: 'Well, I'm not going to make up! I wasn't the one in the wrong, it wasn't my fault!'. Or maybe it's: 'I was in the right, and it'll only give them a smug satisfaction if I went to them and sorted things out'. Listen to what Oswald Chambers says: 'Unless you are willing to yield your right to your self on that point absolutely, you need not pray any more for there is a barrier higher than Calvary between you and God'. That's serious, isn't it? To have a barrier higher than Calvary between you and God!

So the instruction of the Lord Jesus is: 'Go! Postpone your offering to God. Seek reconciliation with your brother'. Guy King, the great Christian writer, said this - and I agree wholeheartedly with him: 'Probably there are more churches deprived of spiritual blessing for this cause than for any other, and', he says, 'probably there are few quicker ways to an outpouring of blessing than the happy composition of these quarrels'. It's probably number one on the hit list of the reasons why God is not blessing His children, and it's the very thing that if we were to do - leave our offering and go to our brother - the whole outpouring of God's blessing could come in upon us!

So, 'Go', He says. 'Ah, but it's not my fault', isn't that what we say? 'But I didn't do it! Whose fault is it? Who's wrong? Surely you have to decide who's wrong and then it's the wrong person goes to the person who is wronged. Surely you have to get things right, whose fault it is, who has been wronged?'. My friend, look at the words of the Lord Jesus: 'You go if your brother has something against you'! You might not have anything against him, but if he has something against you and you know it, you go! It doesn't say: 'You meet him halfway', it says: 'You go to him' - there's no questions of your rights that come into it. What the Lord is saying - do you know what He was saying? 'If you are so earnest to bring your gift to God, can you be brave enough to go to your brother and bring him your heart?'.

It's serious, isn't it? You do need to be brave, because it's absolutely humiliating. It's hard to do. It's hard and a proud man can't do it, a proud woman can't do it. But it still remains the fact that the quickest way to the heights is down to the depths. Some of us find that our efforts in doing this are ignored and rejected, and you can only do your part and then come back to offer your offering to God - you can only do what God has asked you to do - but I have found in many occasions that the opposite is the case, that this is the best advice that has ever been given to anybody in the world, because more often than not it works! You and you brother can be united together because of the honesty, because you have opened your heart to them - but the fact is this: whether they accept it or not, the Lord says it must be done! It must be done!

Sometimes it's not just an apology, but it's restitution has to be added. Some of you men will remember hearing about the Nicholson shed in the shipyard, that's restitution. That is when these men were converted, and they realised that there was so much that they had stolen from the shipyard that they were pricked in their conscience - and they knew that they weren't right with God because of it, so they brought everything back, and they had to build a new shed because there was so much came back. My friend, that's restitution - and sometimes there is a restitution that needs to be made in connection with the wrong that we have done to our brother. If we desire God's blessing in our life, we need to go now, we need to go straight away and do something about it, whatever the cost. Do you know why? Because it's getting in the way of you and God, can you see that?

I believe in the power of the blood, oh, I believe it. But I believe what Duncan Campbell said, and it is this: 'Calvary will not cover what you will not uncover'. We need to bring it into the light, for if we walk in the light - if we walk in the light - we have fellowship one with the other, and the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin. I would vouch to say that God has never forgiven a sin that has not been confessed. Oh, I know there are secret things that we can't even remember, but you know it's the disposition of our heart - that's what He's looking for. The disposition of whether our heart is confessing known sin and all unknown sin that we have - but there are some of us that hold a little sin, and it could be this sin against another brother, and we will not let it go - and that will be the death of us spiritually!

There is strife in God's house that must be resolved, but secondly the illustration that the Lord gives us is strife in the courthouse that must be avoided. Verses 25 and 26, He says: 'Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way'. Agree with him quickly, and the scene that's given here is two men going to the courthouse - one has something against the other and he's dragging him to court. Now they're not just ordinary people, these are brethren, these are the children of God, these are Christians. Now that word 'adversary' doesn't mean, how we think of the devil, as a deadly foe - but what it does mean is 'one who has a lawsuit against another'. Here the brother has something against his brother, and he is bringing a lawsuit against him and taking him to court. These two brethren are subjects of the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The Lord is saying: 'My courts are open, my courts are in heaven, and differences between brethren and breaches of the peace of my kingdom will come before me if they are unresolved in this lifetime'.

Do you see what He's saying? The purpose of the Lord's words here is to show us that present quarrels here and now will affect our future in eternity. They will affect it! If we don't settle the matter now out of court we will be taken to court and the Lord will deal with us there judicially, in a way where He can see everything! The reason why the Lord gives this illustration of the court is twofold. The first is that He wants to stress that urgency is needed in dealing with these things. Urgency! 'Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way' - hurry with the reconciliation. While you have the opportunity, do it before the opportunity passes. The Lord speaks of a debtors prison, He speaks of a man being taken to court and He's saying to him: 'Before you cross the threshold of the court, before all hope of an amicable settlement is gone, deal with it! While you're going to the court let the settlement be done, arrange a settlement now before the law takes its course'.

Along the way it's possible to come to some agreement between you, it's possible to arrange some terms of payment of the debt, but you've got to do it quickly. You've got to do it on the way to the courthouse that's no great distance. You've got to do it before it's too late, for if it's postponed you enter into the time factor - that is exactly what the Lord is illustrating here - for we do not know what a day brings forth. You don't know! Death hurries us beyond the power of reconciliation. Death takes us to a place where we no longer can control our relationships and apologise for past thoughts, but where God will judge them.

Suppose that we were to die quite soon and you never settled that problem. Suppose the Lord was to come again, and He's coming very soon, He could come at any time - that's what the Lord means when He says: 'While you're on the way'. Do you notice that life is but a few yards along the road of eternity, along that road that comes to a courthouse where we can be cast into prison and we will be in there until we pay every farthing?

What is the key to this interpretation? I believe it's Romans chapter 14 verses 10 to 12, listen to what Paul says: 'But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God' - specifically that verse is in relationship to your relationship to your brethren. Second Corinthians 5:9 and 10: 'Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad'.

Come with me for a moment to the judgment seat of Christ. You face the Lord, unreconciled with your brother and sister in Christ. What are you going to say? What will you say? 'Lord, it wasn't my fault!' - do you think that's going to wash? Was that not what Adam said? 'It was her fault!'. The Lord says: 'If anyone has ought against you, you go'. What are you going to say? 'Lord, You don't understand' - the All-knowing doesn't understand your problem? The one who hung on a cross and said: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do', He doesn't understand the problems that you have with another brother? 'But Lord, I couldn't admit that I'm wrong, I just couldn't bring myself to do it!'. I wonder, if we say that the Lord might say: 'Are you sure you're in the right place? Are you sure you didn't get mixed up in the queue? Because this is the place where blessed are they that are poor in spirit!'. Poor in spirit!

You see the Lord, through Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, brings this right home with regards to the Lord's Table - how everything must be in order, and if we meet at the Lord's Table and we have not agreed with our adversary quickly, we will be in trouble in eternity. Now I'm not talking about hell, I'm not talking about purgatory, but I'm talking about eternal loss! Eternal loss! How are we to obey Christ? Do you know how we're to obey Him? Look: do you see if I was to take this passage and bring it right today, here and now, and say: 'Now how, Lord Jesus, can we apply this here in the Iron Hall?' - do you know what He's asking you to do? Before I even finish my message this morning, He's asking you to get out of your seat and go over to a brother that you've offended. That's what He's saying! Now, I would drop dead if that happened! But my friend, that's what He's asking, isn't it? That, perhaps, would be the greatest message ever preached in this Hall, and you'd be the one preaching it.

You see, what we do is we don't do it quickly, sure we don't? That's the problem: we don't do it when we're offended, and these things grow out of all proportion. They're like the acorn covered over and ignored, unseen in the heart of the earth, and one day will spring to a shoot and then to a small shrub - before we know it it will grow into a mighty, strong, overwhelming oak tree out of man's control! That's what's happening all around us: family quarrels that have descended down generations, and still haven't been solved. Within the church family, perhaps a silly word 10 years ago festers and is the cause of a schism 10 years later! As far as I can see - now I can't see everything - but as far as I can see most of the Evangelical splits today aren't about doctrine, sure they're not? They aren't about the truth, but they're about some problem or grievance that was never confronted at the time and has grown into a monster of destruction!

What do we do? We don't agree with our adversary while we're on the way, we say: 'Ach, just forget about it! Forget about it, it's nothing' - and that is the most deadly thing of all, because it's not nothing. Christ doesn't tell us to forget about it, because it's the seed of murder - and that's not nothing! Eventually the seed of murder will cause blood to be spilt! We could go on, literally, into how to fulfil this - because the Lord was talking about a debtors prison, and if you owe money you need to pay it! Owe no man anything - and as the man says, and he's right: 'A pound covering your eye can shut out the light'. There's many an unbeliever has been put off Christianity because a Christian owed him too much money!

You can apply it to everything - but whatever you apply it to my friend, the point is this: restitution has to take place quickly. I read this week that it happened once or twice during the Keswick Convention that the town's Post Office had run out of postal orders through the working of the Holy Spirit on the consciences and wills of many who, longing desperately to be right with God, had been convicted about their unpaid bills - so they went down to the local Post Office and sorted them out.

There's a penalty that's threatened, and that's why the Lord said: 'Do it quickly'. Gehenna was the illustration given last week - 'Gehenna', hell fire, that doesn't mean we get hell fire, but it means that that is the worth of the crime that we're committing amongst brethren. What is the penalty here? It's being cast into prison and paying everything, every last farthing - that's not purgatory, but what the Lord is saying is: 'If you committed this crime against ordinary people in society and were caught, you'd be put into the debtors prison until you paid it and you wouldn't get out - yet you're committing it among brethren, and you won't go and sort it out!'.

In 1 Samuel 15, and I close with this, Saul was told by God to go and destroy the Amalekites entirely. Do you remember? 'Go and destroy the Amalekites, women, children, all their animals, destroy absolutely everything'. Do you know what he thought? He says: 'I don't need to go as far as that, now do I? I don't really need to go to that length, I'll spare some of the people and some of the beasts, and some of the cattle I'll spare to sacrifice to God'. He thought all was well, and what was the next thing he did? He came and worshipped God, but suddenly Samuel the prophet arrived and said: 'What have you been doing?'. Saul replied: 'I've just been carrying out the commandments of God'. 'If you have', said Samuel, 'what is the meaning of the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle that I am hearing? What have you done?'. 'I decided to spare some of them. I wanted to spare some of them for God'. Then Samuel, he uttered these momentous words, listen: 'Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams'.

One great preacher said of that story: 'I always feel sorry for King Saul, because I understand him so well'. We'll go to the altar, we'll remember, but will we leave the altar? 'First go to thy brother whom thou hast offended and be reconciled and then return'. Do you see if we did this? There would be no-one here tonight only them who had sorted out their differences. Do you see if that happened? The windows of heaven could open out and pour blessing so great that we wouldn't have room to receive it.

'I bring my sins to Thee,

The sins I cannot count,

That all may cleansed be,

In Thy once open fount.

I bring them, Saviour, all to Thee,

The burden is too great for me'.

Now please: don't commit the sin that the Lord is telling you not to! Don't confess it to God if you're not prepared to confess it to the one you've offended.

Let us bow our heads, and I know I made a comment earlier on that I would be very surprised if this happened - but, you know, it shows us how far away we are from the mark. We don't even believe that this is possible. You know, how great it would be after this meeting - no-one would know why you were doing it, not that it would matter anyway - if you wandered over to that person. It doesn't matter whether you're right or they're right, what matters is that it's sorted out. That's the only way, today, that you can obey this message.

Father, we pray for grace, for these words are hard words. They strip us of all pride and selfishness because none of us like to admit that we're wrong, or even take wrong when it's not our own, but Lord we have Christ as our example - and that is exactly what He did. He was counted among the transgressors, that freedom might be bestowed upon the repentant. Lord, help us, please help us - give us grace to obey Thy word. Lord, we know that the blessing will be enormous - in our own lives, even, the release and the joy that will fill us for settling these differences within our lives. Now we pray that the grace of God, and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the peace of the Holy Spirit may reign among us now and evermore. Amen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - July 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 6

"Dangerous Liaisons Of The Mind"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:27-30

We're turning again to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, Matthew chapter 5, and we're looking this morning at verses 27 and 28. Just before we read these verses together, let's bow our heads in prayer and come before the Lord and ask Him that He will speak to us through His infallible truth today. Our Father, we come to Thee as the One who has inspired this book. We come to Thee who has written Thy word down for us, that we might know Thy mind and Thy will, that we might be instructed in the ways of righteousness and truth. Lord, we live in the world that is full of lying and deceit, and we pray that as we have come and shut the world out in a measure today to seek Thy face and to seek Thy guidance, that Lord You would reveal Yourself to us. We pray for those who are sick, we pray for those who mourn, we pray for those who are sad, but Lord we pray most of all for those who are in sin - believer and unbeliever alike - that You will rescue them, that You will fill this place now with Thy Spirit, and take a dealing with us. For Christ's sake, Amen.

Matthew chapter 5 and verse 27 and 28: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart".

I want to entitle my message today: 'Dangerous Liaisons of the Mind' - dangerous liaisons of the mind. It is true that the Eskimos of North Alaska on the American continent, until recently, lived in such a way and in such a custom as men and women would have done 500 years ago. In fact, for food they depended mostly on the polar bear. They depended on the meat for food, they depended on the fur for clothing, they depended on its fat for cooking, and they depended on its bones and its teeth for tools. So you can see how, in a prehistoric way, they depended upon this animal in every quarter of their livelihood. Because of that, over hundreds of years, they developed an ingenious way of catching polar bears. What they would do is: first all they would kill a small animal, for instance a seal, and they would take that carcass and corpse and drag it across the snow, and bring a trail of blood through the snow leading to one specific central location. Then they would take a knife, and they would freeze the handle of that knife deep into the snow and ice, about two feet. That was a sharp, double-edged knife, and they would place the carcass over the double-edged blade. The polar bear, eventually, would see the tracks of blood in the snow, would follow those tracks of blood and find that there was an easy meal for him. Once he tucked in to the food, that delicacy would be devoured very quickly, but the Eskimos were smart enough to know never to use a large animal upon that blade. The reason why they took a small seal was that they wanted the polar bear to be incredibly hungry after eating the seal. Just as you remember perhaps as a boy, or maybe like me as a husband, once your wife has beat the cream you like to take the whisk and lick the cream off. That's what the polar bear does: he devours the little seal, and he licks the blade. He licks, and licks, and licks - and a phenomenon takes place, because the more blood he licks the more blood he gets. What begins to attract him is his own blood! In fact, it is his own blood that kills him.

I would call that 'fatal attraction'. We could use it as the fatal attraction of sin, but specifically in our context today it is a wonderful illustration of this sin of lust. The Lord Jesus, as He has been doing, addresses the ten commandments and comes as the new lawgiver, as the one who will fulfil and fill up the law of God to its completion, its prophetic fulfilment, and He comes again and addresses for us the seventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', and the tenth commandment: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife'. Previously, in verse 8 of this chapter, in the Beatitudes He told us: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God'. Now He goes, not to the blessedness of the purity of heart, but rather He goes to those who offend in the sin of lust and offend against purity. He now goes to the prohibition of adultery, He now speaks concerning what will happen men, and the process psychologically and sinfully of a man who falls into lust.

Now, what He is speaking of is not what the Scribes and the Pharisees have said. If you look at verse 27 He speaks upon what God has already said, what God has declared: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'. Now to the Jew although, as we will see in the weeks that lie ahead what they had begun to bring into vogue in relation to divorce - divorcing a man or divorcing a woman for everything under the sun - theologically the Jews saw adultery as a very serious sin. You can see that from Leviticus chapter 20 and verse 10 that teaches that it was punishable by death, stoning. You would think that was severe enough judgement upon adultery, but the Lord Jesus is filling up - He comes and brings it a further step, He goes the extra mile with the law of God. He goes further and He says that it's not enough to refrain from the bodily act of adultery, but the Lord Jesus said: 'I want you as My people to refrain from the adultery of the heart'.

So, in verse 27, He says: 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery', verse 28, 'But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman' - whosoever looketh! Now, this is more than a passing glance. What the Lord is talking about in the sense of the Greek word is a lingering view. Any scene of beauty can turn our head, but what the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about is when our head is turned and we turn it back again, when we take the second glance and linger. This is not an accidental sight, but this is an intentional occupation with the object in vogue. It is a deliberate harbouring of the thing in your heart and in your mind. He is not speaking of the natural and normal desires of humanity that God has put into us, and that God has blessed us and said in creation: 'It is good'. It's not the natural attraction, but what the Lord is talking about literally: the man who is condemned is the man who looks at a woman with the deliberate intention to lust after her. A man is condemned who looks at a woman with the deliberate intention to lust after her. A man who deliberately uses his eyes to awaken within his breast a lust, who looks upon a scene, or a picture, or a situation, or a scenario, or a passing person in order to arouse a passion within his heart.

Now, as the Lord speaks, the Jewish disciples - and indeed in the hearing of the Pharisees and the Scribes - they would have known exactly what He was talking about. In fact the rabbis had a saying: 'Passions lodge only in him who sees'. They said: 'Woe to him that goes after his eyes, for they are adulterous'. You see, they even knew that there was an internal desire of adultery, and adultery in itself - in a physical sense - was only the fruit of that desire. Now this is not a sudden evil thought that darts into your heart and into your soul, and you resist it and put it out of your mind and out of your heart - that's not what I'm talking about. We all get the fiery darts of the devil, but this is a heart surrender - that when a scene comes into your mind or into your breast, that you allow it to stay, you allow it to reside, you surrender your heart to that temptation, you mull it over and turn it over in your tongue. Before you know it evil has gained the victory within you. This is the man that voluntarily gazes with a view to arouse these unlawful passions within him. The irony of this sin - just like the polar bear that licks the blade over and over again and feeds his lust, but in the feeding of his lust kills himself - many a man thinks that by committing an extra-marital affair, adultery, by going after fornication, by satisfying his desires by pictures, that they satisfy that lust - but E. Stanley Jones is right when he says that the import of what the Lord Jesus Christ says here is: if you think the act of adultery, or the thought of adultery will satisfy your sex urge, you pour oil on the fire in order to quench it - it doesn't make sense, it makes things worse!

Just as the Lord has spoken about murder, hate, words, He is telling us right throughout this sermon that the acts that we commit that are sinful begin in the mind. They begin when we have the thought, when we nourish the thought, when we feed the thought, when we pour oil upon the fire of our bosom - and eventually that seed will break forth in fruit. Again the Lord Jesus deals with another enlargement of the Old Testament law. The Old Testament law, the ten words, the ten commandments, demanded purity of life - but now the Lord Jesus goes further, and He says: 'I want you disciples to have purity of thought'. For He says: 'To succumb in the realm of thought is the equivalent, whether it be murder, whether it be adultery, to that very act itself, and will be regarded with the utmost severity as it is'.

So, in the light of these facts, I want us today to look at three things. First of all: there is a danger from within. Secondly: there is a danger from without. Thirdly: there is wisdom from the word of God. First: there is a danger from within. Many of you - perhaps not many of you, but some of you at least - will have read John Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress', and if you haven't I encourage you to read it. But another book which is not as famous, but which is perhaps equally as good is Bunyan's 'Holy War'. I've spoken to you about this before, but to remind you: it's a story about a city called 'Mansoul' - speaking of the body, the soul, the spirit, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the human being. The story goes that this Mansoul is a believer, it is ruled by Prince Emmanuel - Prince Emmanuel rules in that land. But there is a foe to Mansoul, his name is 'Diabolus', which just means the devil. He is the enemy of Mansoul. There is a conflict right throughout this book 'The Holy War', and it's of tremendous importance to you and to I to understand the conflict that we are in, specifically with the subject of lust. As you go through that story you find that Bunyan lays tremendous emphasis on the importance attached to the gates of the city of Mansoul. He says that it is at the gates that the main threat is, the main threat of the welfare of the town is at the gates. As you read through the book you find out what the gates are: Eye-gate, Ear-gate, all the ways in which the body can bring information into it - and, effectively at times, take information out of it.

This passage of Scripture that we have read this morning deals with the Eye-gate. I don't think I need to tell you today in the world in which we live that the war is on. The war for Mansoul - the war for your soul - whether you're ruled by Prince Emmanuel or not, Diabolus is trying to bring you down into the mire and into the dirt of the lust. Everyone of us, the day that we were born, were born with an old sinful nature. All that is is a bias toward everything that is bad, a tendency, a bent in us to do that which is wrong and not to do that which is good. But the miracle of the grace of God is that when we trust the Lord Jesus Christ we receive a new nature. The first nature that we were born with is the nature of the flesh that feeds upon sin, but the nature - supernaturally - that is given by God to us, born from above, is the Spirit.

Now I want you to see how these relate the one with the other. Turn with me to Galatians chapter 5, and this is so important - we're talking now about the danger from within. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 17, Paul says: 'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would'. Now I want to break this up for you for a moment, because I want you to understand everything that Paul is saying about the danger from within. First 'the flesh lusteth against the Spirit', that old nature that you were born with of wickedness and sinfulness and of the flesh that feeds on everything that this world can give it, is forever, every day, fighting with the new Spirit of holiness that God has given you in Christ. There's a war on! Every day you're being pulled between these two natures.

In fact, in the book of 1 Peter 2 and 11 it talks about how these fleshly lusts war against the soul. They are in a war against your heart! Indeed, a literal translation of Peter could be this: 'Fleshly lusts, which take the field against the soul'. Paul goes on, he says: 'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh'. Now, the word 'and' in Greek can also be translated 'but', it's determined by the context that it's in. So you could translate this, I believe: 'For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, but the Spirit against the flesh'. That's so important, because as you read that verse you can become very negative and pessimistic and think: 'Here I'm in this ping-pong ball match, I'm pushed from one extreme to the other. I don't seem to be able to control myself, and there is this battle and it just depends on the way I feel about how I will live this specific day' - the word 'but' makes a difference. 'The flesh wars against the Spirit, but the Spirit can war against the flesh'. The Spirit is well able, the indwelling Holy Ghost - if we will let Him - will war against those evil things within us.

Paul says these words, and I think we can all identify with them: 'So that ye cannot do the things that ye would'. That's the truth, isn't it? Left to ourselves - you've experienced it, I've experienced it - left on our own, perhaps in a moment of lack of fellowship with God, we fall into sin. The old nature comes and rises above and controls us, and we give in and we become defeated in the struggle. Whenever that happens we are bound to fail, the flesh will prevail! It may not be the actual sin, whatever it may be, but it can be the voluptuous look of that evil desire. So what Bunyan is saying is what I'm saying, and what the Lord Jesus Christ is ultimately saying, there is a spy in the castle of Mansoul! There is a weak link! There is a traitor in the eye that opens up the gates and can let sin into the city, and ultimately let ruin come in!

How does it happen? Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 5 - now here's the answer, right? You've all identified, I hope, honestly, with me that this is the way we live, that there is this danger from within - but what is the answer to it? How can we overcome it? Second Corinthians 10:5, we can: 'Cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God' - here it is - 'and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ'. Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ! You're having trouble with your eyes, you're having trouble with your thoughts - your eyes, your thoughts are causing sinful deeds - how do you stop it? Bring into captivity those thoughts. Do you know what that means? Arrest them! Put the handcuffs on them! You might say: 'That's alright saying that, but I just have them, and when I have them I can't help them' - look! It is possible by the Holy Spirit to arrest those thoughts to the obedience of Christ, in other words to what He is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord Jesus isn't going to tell us something that we cannot do! 'Every thought', do you think Paul would have said that if it wasn't possible? 'Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ'. That means that it is possible! Let this rejoice your heart: it is possible, when the thought discloses itself within our mind or heart, that we can treat it like a criminal, like an intruder, like the spy that it really is!

What would you do if you went home today and suddenly you heard a rustle in the back room, and you saw this dark figure running out of the back window and over the fence and away - and when you went upstairs into the jewellery box everything was lying around? You would go first of all to the phone, ring the police - isn't that what you would do? The police would come, and if they could catch him they would chain him and take him away. Now listen, when those thoughts come into our mind, when we look upon things with our eyes, we are told to bring them into captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ - every single one of them! He wants us to turn to the Holy Spirit who indwells us, and literally drag that sin, arrest it, say: 'Lord Jesus, did You see what's in my mind?', and bring it into the presence of Christ - and when you bring it into the presence of Christ it will disappear! That is the danger from within. There is a spy in the city of Mansoul, and we need to realise it.

The second thing is this: there is a danger from without. There are internal considerations that we've looked at, but there are also external, because you have the devil - Diabolus - he is assaulting outside the gates of Mansoul. He is assaulting the city with his forces, his onslaughts are serious, and do you know why they are more serious? Because he's got a spy within us. They can collaborate - the old nature within is in league with the enemy without, and when those two meet together and that old world system outside the city of our lives comes into contact with that old spy, the eye that lives within us, that's the end of it! We give way, we sin, and that is the offence!

Now, please don't misunderstand me: we all have temptation, we all can have those darting thoughts that come into our heart and into our mind, that's not what I'm talking about - I'm talking about when we surrender to them. There is a difference between temptation and sin. That great Christian author Guy King on one occasion asked his children's meeting: 'What is the difference between temptation and sin?', and a little boy replied: 'Temptation is when you're asked to do it, and sin is when you've done it'. Isn't that it? Temptation is when you're asked to do it, sin is when you've done it. Martin Luther put it like this: 'We cannot prevent the birds flying over our heads, but we can prevent their making nests in our hair'. The sparrow can't prevent the cuckoo depositing its egg in her nest, but she can turn it out - she doesn't have to sit on it and wait until it hatches, she can push it out and it's gone! If she doesn't do that, she'll realise that she will be in a heap of trouble: her home will be gone.

Now this is the crux of what the Lord Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount with regards to lust. He is saying, as Thomas a Kempis said: 'Resist beginnings'. Don't even let it start! It is so tempting to let the thought come into the mind and let it stay there for a few moments - but the problem is this: when the combination of that thought and the dangers without come together, they can make life so difficult, and the only way to prevail is to let God deal with the spy inside of me, and let God deal with the world outside of him. There is a danger from without, and the weak link is the Eye-gate. The Eye-gate must be guarded, for if it sees the dark sight of a form, or a picture, or sees words written in a book, or sees a programme, or sees a website, it can kindle the thought within him and it can cause mutiny within Mansoul! It can cause a rebellion and a down-falling, anarchy! That is how that spy and that enemy without collaborate. James, I believe, was thinking exactly the same thing when he said: 'But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death'.

Now there are other gates whereby the enemy can enter into our lives if we will let him, but specifically we're concerned with Eye-gate today. If you look around the word of God it's not too long before you see how men and women sin through Eye-gate. In Genesis 3 the mother of all sin, Eve, in Genesis 3:6: 'When the woman saw'. Now, Satan had already tried to convince her that God wasn't on her side, and that God was hiding something from her - that was trying to get at her from the Ear-gate. But you can see how powerful the Eye-gate was, because as soon as she saw that the fruit was good to eat, she fell! Joshua chapter 7 and verse 21 you've got Achan - sin in the camp - and when he's describing how he took the treasure, he coveted it, and lusted after it, and hid it, he says: 'When I saw all the treasure'. The great prophet Elijah, he's on Mount Carmel, he's undaunted by the prophets of Baal - he's gaining a glorious triumphant victory for the honour of God, but as soon as Ahab's wicked Queen Jezebel sends him a letter by a messenger, his eyes see the letter and it says in Kings: 'When he saw'. There was something about seeing the letter - he knew she didn't like him - but there was something different that made it real to him and made him fear and he ran away. Remember Peter on the waves? Walking to the Lord Jesus Christ, and what faith he had even to step out of the boat and for those few seconds be walking along the water, but it says in Matthew's gospel: 'When he saw' - for one brief second he took his eyes off the Master, he caught a sight of the mountainous waves that boisterous winds had raised, and when he saw he was gone!

We live in a visual world, we live in a world that history has never ever seen. You look at marketing anywhere, on the television, in the newspaper, in magazines, even on the radio - everything is advertised by sex. The slogan is: 'Sex sells'. Whether it's ice-cream or a 4x4 greasy jeep, they will sell it with sex! Do you ever ask yourself the question why that is? The reason is they want to excite you about their product, and they know - maybe they're better theologians than some of us - that the greatest thing that will excite you is sex. In our world things all around us - imagine, you see this is what people don't think when they sit down for three hours watching the television at night, that there was a time a few months ago before this programme was shown that there was a group of people around a table discussing how they could get you to watch that, how they could get you to watch that programme! There are literally men and women today discussing how to market items, how to get you to buy them, and they're doing it by calculating what is more likely to awaken the sinful natures and desires within your soul. We live in a generation of voyeurism - voyeurism simply means that this generation gets turned on, gets a satisfaction, by watching others enjoy themselves.

Now let's be frank - and we've got to be frank, I know that maybe some of you'll be uncomfortable by some of these things that I have said, but that frankly is just too bad because our young people are listening to this every day and if we don't say anything about it we'll lose them to sin and to the world! Channel 4, Channel 5, I would vouch to say perhaps every night of the week, you can get whatever you want to view - that's not because I view it, I don't have them. Now don't tell me that if you put your young teenager in a room with a television upstairs that they'll not look at it! My friend, this is the age in which we are living, where you can get whatever you want through cable, through satellite, through anything where the censoring laws in our land are being relaxed to allow almost any perversion to be broadcast as entertainment. Videos, internet - did you know that 12% of the Internet is pornography? Twelve per cent! Every day there are 300 new pornographic sites added to the Internet! It can be the press, it can be the glossy magazines, it can be anything. D.A. Carson says this, and this is so true: 'Our advertisements sell by sexual titillation, our bookstores fill their racks with both the salacious and the perverted. The vast majority of pop songs focus on man-woman relations, usually in terms of satisfying sex, physical desires, infidelity and the like - and into this society Jesus speaks His piercing word: 'Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her''.

We live in a society where it is easier today to commit adultery in the mind than it has ever ever been. Let me leave you in the last five or ten minutes of our meeting with some wisdom from God's word concerning this, and we'll look at this more next week, at the specific things the Lord Jesus tells us to do with regards to our sins that so easily beset us. But I want to leave you with six things, very quickly, that a man called Rick Holland preached on one occasion, and I heard him preaching it, six things whereby we can avoid committing this sin within our mind and then avoid, effectively, the fruit of it which is the sin of adultery or sexual immorality. Take these down if you've got a pen.

One: undertake the pursuit of biblical instruction - undertake the pursuit of biblical instruction. You go to the Psalmist: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?'. You're saying that: 'It's alright, but I can't handle it. I can't! How?' - by taking heed according to God's word. 'Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Him'. Now, my friend, and this is for the older brethren - it shouldn't just be up to you to put the word of God in. Now please, older folk, more mature folk in the faith, Titus 2 says that the older men are to teach the younger, that the older women are to teach the younger. Please teach our young people what they ought to be doing, and even sit down - remember Ezekiel? This is a wonderful phrase, where he came to the River Chebar, remember what it says? He sat where they sat. They don't need somebody sitting down telling them they just need to quit, they need a bit of understanding and they need a bit of love. Undertake the pursuit of biblical instruction, you've got to put it in and the assembly have got to put it in.

Secondly: undress the deception of sexual sin - undress the deception of sexual sin. If you read Proverbs 5 - and you should read Proverbs, for this will give you more guidance on it than I can this morning - but the adulterous woman in Proverbs is called the 'strange woman', or the 'foreign woman', and the point is this: she's described as having honey dripping from her lips, she's described as speaking smooth words, but the word of God says her steps lead to death and take hold upon hell. In other words, what we see with the eye, we need to realise Satan is an angel of light, deceptive, beautiful, but with an awful deadly bite - and unless we undress the deception, instead of undressing the figure, we'll fall!

Thirdly: understand the value of safe distance - understand the value of safe distance. The Proverbs 5 also says: 'Young man, I'm telling you son - father to son - I know what I'm talking about'. He didn't say: 'I went up to her door, knocked it and gave her a tract'! He says: 'Keep far from her, pass not by her door'. Like Joseph running out of Potiphar's house, he left his coat with her to get out as fast as his feet could carry him away from sin. That's what God is saying: when the thought comes to us, put it out of your head! I was reading the 119th Psalm again this week in my daily readings, and what a blessing it was to me to get those verses all together in the way that the Psalmist puts them. Here is a man who committed adultery, and do you know what he says in that Psalm? 'Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity'. Do you know what that word 'vanity' means? Worthless things! Turn away my eyes, Lord, from beholding worthless things! Psalm 101 would be a good Psalm to write over your TV - if you want to keep it - 'I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me'. What about Job? I don't know how many times, as a young man, I turned up Job chapter 31 verse 1, and said: 'Boy, you're some man!'. 'I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?'. Do you know what the bottom line is here? I'll never forget this statement as it was said to me on one occasion: 'I refuse to be entertained by that for which Christ died'. Do we?

Fourthly: unmask the regret of sin's aftermath - unmask the regret of sin's aftermath. In other words, we get this sort of, it's as if the devil drugs us into thinking: 'Look at the grass on the other side of that field, that would be great!'. But when we get to the other side of the field we're left in guilt, in remorse, and we just wish that we could turn back time and not commit that sin - but the fact of the matter is, at the point that we're tempted we need to unmask the regret of sin's aftermath; we need to think about the remorse that we will feel; we need to contemplate the public disgrace; perhaps the disease; perhaps the marriage that will never ever be the same, or trustworthy again; what your children will think in years to come when they hear of what went on in your marriage; what your mind will conjure up in times that you would just wish you could forget those things. It really is the question: 'Is an hour of pleasure worth the disaster of a lifetime?'.

Fifthly: unmask the satisfaction of marital fidelity. Do you know what the wise man in Proverbs says? 'Son, drink from your own cisterns'. You see, the mistake of the world is that you can satisfy the desire in your heart by physical relationships - like the polar bear licking the blood off the blade, do you know what happens? You keep licking because you get hungrier, and hungrier, and hungrier - and that's not what men and women need. Do you know what they need? Intimacy, intimacy! Every young person that has had a one night stand has found out that intimacy can only be found in marriage.

Sixthly: unleash the horror of God's omniscience. This is the real motivation, for the wise man in Proverbs says: 'The ways of a man are before the Lord', He sees it all. I don't know about you, but when I contemplate these things and when I think upon my past and my mind, this gives me poverty of spirit. The miracle of grace is that failure is not final, it is not! God can give to you, through the blood of Christ, something that is more precious than even virginity is - the road to recovery through the grace of God. As we come to the penetrating word of God, and as we have looked at it honestly today, do we not say with the hymnwriter, Walter Chalmers Smith:

'One thing I of the Lord desire,

For all my way has darksome been,

Be it by earthquake, wind, or fire,

Lord, make me clean!

Lord, make me clean!

So wash Thou within, without,

Or purge with fire if that must be,

No matter how, if only sin

Die out in me!

Die out in me!'

If you come back next week I'll tell you what the Lord tells us to do with regards to these sins in our lives. Let's bow our heads. Do you know what I read this week as I was studying that passage of Scripture? One leading Evangelical scholar, who we would all know if I named him, said: 'Some men can look at artistic forms and pictures and just see them for appreciative art' - balderdash! And all you men can say 'Amen' to that, you know exactly what I'm talking about, and maybe some women here as well. These sins of the heart are hidden from everyone, but we can bring them into the light and the Lord can cleanse them and make us whole.

Father, we pray, help us to guard Eye-gate. Oh, Lord, we know that there is an enemy within - but, Lord, greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. We pray, our Father, that we will feed the right nature, and that we will not watch worthless things. Lord, make us holy, cleanse us from our sin, and let Your nature be formed in us we pray. Amen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - August 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 7

"Cut It Out"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:27-30

Now we're turning again in our New Testaments, to Matthew's gospel and chapter 5, to the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 5, and we're looking this morning specifically at verses 29 and 30. Matthew 5 verses 29 and 30, and we'll read from verse 27 to get the train of thought. The message this morning is entitled: 'Cut It Out'.

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell".

Last week we saw, and the week before, how the Lord defines sin for us in a new way that the law, the ten commandments, did not do. How He goes behind the letter of the law to the spirit, how He delves with His x-ray eyes right into the very depths of where sin originates in the heart. He doesn't just look at the deeds, if you like, the execution of our sin, but the Lord Jesus in this great sermon goes to the very root of our sin and beyond it to the very seed, the beginnings of sin. So, the Lord has been defining for us the sin of murder. He tells us it is not simply the act of bloodshed, but it is the very thought, the very word of hate. We looked last week at the sin of adultery, and the Lord Jesus says it is not simply that physical act outside of marriage, but it is more than that: it is the very thought, it is the second look at a woman to lust after her, and indeed a man.

But the Lord in this sermon does not just define sin for us. It would be an awful thing if He defined our sin, and He left us in our sin. But we see in these verses, specifically verses 29 and 30, that the Lord tells us how to deal with our sin. As you read these verses you can't help but see that the Lord wants us to absolutely abhor our sin, He wants us to forsake it to such an extent that it causes us to leave it. Now the question that comes to me, and is obvious from all of these verses within the sermon is: 'How can I get victory?'. It seems to be asking so much of us, not to even think a bad thought about another person; not to utter, even in private, a word that they cannot hear, but a word of hate or a word of rebuke. It seems impossible for young men and young women to not have in their minds lustful thoughts in a world that is filled, and is absolutely bombarded with lust on every hand. The cry goes out from my heart, and I'm sure from yours: how can I get victory? How can I conquer sin?

Perhaps you have said, as I have said many times: 'I cannot conquer it! It conquers me! I have prayed, I have covenanted, I have sought help, I have fasted, I have sought this blessing, that blessing, the other blessing. I have re-dedicated my life through crises experiences. I have read this book, the other book. I have tried this secret to the Christian life, this formula of biblical success - but perhaps at this very moment I am still in the snare of my sin'. Perhaps even this very week, or in the last 24 hours, we have lain in the mire of habitual iniquity and we just feel like a dog going back to its vomit, like a pig rolling in the mire, that we cannot escape it, that we cannot conquer it. I know from talking to enough people that many Christians live in that limbo of despair and spiritual frustration, and their hearts cry is: 'I want freedom from my sin!'. Well, the good news of the Gospel is this: that Christ is the Saviour from sin! Hallelujah! He is not simply the Saviour from the penalty of sin, but He is the Saviour from the practice of sin. In other words, God can say to us today: 'Sin shall no longer have dominion over you'.

That is the good news, but the bad news is that if you're looking for a quick fix, or pain-free easy cure or exorcism of your sin, you need not come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You can see that in the strong language He uses in verses 29 and 30. It's strong, symbolic, indeed oriental language - and we'll see that in a moment - but as we read it it seems that He is being very strong, perhaps a bit too strong, but as you analyse and weigh up the statements of the Lord, you will find that He is not being too strong at all. If I asked you if it came to a choice for you between plucking out your eye and death, I'm sure that you would pluck up the courage to pluck out your eye in order to escape death. Is that not the case? It's not a nice thing to have to do, but if it meant the difference between life and death I'm sure that you would find the courage to do it. Everyday hospital patients across our land submit themselves to gruesome operations in order to save their lives, to relieve intolerable sufferings for them. I heard a man recently say, concerning one such operation: 'There's no choice when it comes to such a decision - you've no choice'.

Now if you were to do what the Lord does, and substitute death for the word 'hell' in this passage, you would see that the choice is not a choice at all. Isn't that right? You would very swiftly and definitely choose the lesser evil rather than the greater. You would choose the plucking out of your eye or the cutting off of your hand in order to escape death, but how much more would you do it in order to escape hell? I wonder is the reason why we are appalled and even shocked at these words of the Lord Jesus - it seems so violent, so extreme - perhaps the reason why we are shocked is that today too often sin is thought of as something that we cannot avoid. Isn't that right? We think of it as a disease that must be pitied, or an illness or a condition that must be treated, but whenever we see it condemned, whenever we see the command that it be repented of, it seems too strong! I remember reading Charles Grandison Finney, the revivalist in North America, who said - instructing men to preach the Gospel: 'Never ever call a sinner a poor sinner'. He said: 'A sinner is not to be pitied for sinning'. But today, perhaps, we have imbibed this idea in psychological circles that we are not to repress sin in the young people, we're not to repress it in our own lives. You can see this going right down into primary school education - you've got to let the children express themselves, and it doesn't matter what they're expressing, you've got to let them do it.

I don't agree with repression either, and indeed the Lord Jesus didn't agree with it at all - He purported amputation. Now let's look at these words about cutting it out. The first point I want to leave with you is: cutting it out. That's what the Lord says: cutting it out - cut out your sin! Verse 29: 'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out', verse 30, 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off'. If you think of it in the context of verses 27 and 28, concerning lusting after a woman, the act of adultery in the mind and in the heart, the eye is the one that has looked and the thing that has lusted. Indeed, the reason why He says chop off your hand is because the hand is often the sign of theft - we steal with our hands. When we lust after a woman in our heart with our eyes, we steal another man's wife - and that's why we don't just commit the commandment against adultery, but we commit the commandment of coveting: 'Covet not thy neighbours husband or wife'.

So that is the reason why the Lord speaks of the eye and the hand. Now here's the big question as we look at these verses: is the Lord meaning us to literally pluck out our eye, and cut off our hand? This is important, because we're the people that keep shouting about how we have to interpret the word of God literally. Can I say it is not always correct to interpret the word of God literally. A few misguided Christians in church history whose zeal greatly exceeded their wisdom have taken the Lord Jesus in these verses literally, and mutilated themselves. Perhaps the best-known example is the third century scholar, Origen of Alexandria, and he went to the extremes of asceticism - in other words, renouncing all his possessions, renouncing food and even sleep. He took an over literal interpretation of this passage and of Matthew 19:12. Matthew 19:12 reads this: 'For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it'. So he made himself a eunuch, literally he made himself a eunuch! The church had to step in in AD 325 at the Council of Nicea to stop such barbaric practices as this, because it was clearly not in keeping with the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching of the rest of the apostles in the epistles, where we're told that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit! We're not to mutilate it!

Now if that is the case, what does the Lord mean? Surely He means what He said? He means pluck your eye out, He means cut your hand off - but if you take that literally, I would say to you that you miss the entire point! Because if you gouge out your right eye and throw it away, what are you left with? You're left with the left eye. It's no good just plucking out your right eye! Or if you cut off your right hand, you're left with the left hand. In other words, you can blind yourself in some way, you can even take both eyes out, but you can still in your own mind lust after a woman if you're blind!

This is not what the Lord is saying. What does He mean? I'll tell you what He means - this is the primary teaching of these two verses: that we are to deal drastically with our sin. Deal drastically with it! Don't pamper it, don't flirt with it, don't enjoying nibbling a little of it around the edges, but we are to hate it, we are to crush it, we are to search it out, dig it out and get rid of it! That's what Paul said in Colossians chapter 3 verse 5, listen to what he says: 'Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature; sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry', and Paul adds in verse 6, 'Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon men'. This is the reason why God is going to judge the world, and if that is the case - because the Sermon on the Mount is to believers - the Lord Jesus is saying: 'If this is the reason God is going to judge the world you should have nothing to do with these sins'. Deal with them drastically. You've no business harbouring these things, but you're to grip it on the threshold of your mind in a vice of blood and allow it no more sway with you.

What the Lord is advocating is not literal, physical self-mutilation and maiming, but what He is advocating is a ruthless, moral self-denial. Not mutilation, but mortification! This is what the Lord is teaching, this is what the apostle Paul, and Peter, and all God's men in history taught. It's this: that the path to holiness is mortification. In the great statement of the Lord Jesus Christ: 'Take up your cross and follow me'. A cross is an instrument and element of mutilation and mortification. The Lord says you're to die to your sin, you're to put your sins to death. Now what does that involve in practical terms? How do we practice this? This is what the Lord is meaning, look at the verse: if your eye causes you to sin, because temptation comes to you through your eye - in other words through the objects that you see - then pluck out your eyes. In other words, don't look at it! Don't look at the things that cause you to sin, don't use your eyes as organs of iniquity - behave as if you had your eyes plucked out and had flung them away, and you're now blind and so could not see the objects which previously caused you to sin. Again, verse 30, if your hand or your foot causes you to sin because temptation comes to you through your hands - things you do, things you touch - or through your feet, places you visit and go, then cut them off! In other words, don't do the thing, don't go to that place - behave as if you were crippled, as if you couldn't do it!

That's mortification of sin. These are the surgical demands of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words He is saying, not literally do these things, but whatever causes you to sin, whatever seduces you into iniquity, you've got to completely and utterly cut it out of your life! He says: 'If thy right eye offend thee...if thy right hand offend thee' - that Greek word 'offend' is the word for 'stumbling block'. In Greek it is 'scandalon' (sp?), it's the word that we get our English word 'scandal' from. If your right eye causes you a scandal as a Christian, if your right hand causes you a scandal - in other words, it's speaking of a trap. Literally it comes from the word 'a bait stick', as you hold a carrot out to a donkey by the stick - well, the 'scandalon' is the stick that tempts the donkey. The Lord is talking here about anything that causes you to fall, anything that is a trap and causes your destruction.

There are two pictures for this Greek word. The first is of a hidden stone on a path against which a man walking down the pathway crigs his toe, falls over and stumbles - that's the picture. Another picture is of a cord, a thin cord across a path deliberately set to trip up a man. Another picture is of a pit dug in the ground in a forest, deceptively covered over with a thin layer of branches or turf, and so arranged that a man may walk into the forest unwittingly and put one foot in front of another and fall headlong into the pit. That's the word! If thy right eye causes thee to scandalon, or thy right hand causes thee to scandalon - in other words, if your eyes or your hands are the gates by which you are caused to sin, you've got to cut off the inlet!

In the Ancient Near East, in Palestinian days, as we read the New Testament, there is more of a meaning in the right hand and the right eye - because in their language, and in their contemporary vernacular if you like, it would have expressed something - an idiom. In other words it had a greater meaning than what we read, we only think of our right eye and our right hand, but in their day it communicated something more. It communicated a part of you that was greatly prized and that you did not want to lose. The right eye was thought to be the best eye, the right hand was thought to be the best hand. I believe the Lord was saying more than simply cut out your sin, I believe the Lord was going further and saying that there are some things in life that are not necessarily bad things. There are some things that you hold dear, that you prize, like your right eye and your right hand, your best eye, your best hand - and the Lord may require us to give up the things that are best to us in order that we follow Him, why? Because the best things about us can be the very things that hinder us.

You know as well as I do that what we are good at, at times can be the very thing that hinders us. Isn't it? Indeed, what we are good at can be the thing that hinders us being best for the Master. The eye is given to see with and the hand is given to work with, and both are innocent in themselves, there's nothing wrong with them. Let me say this: the body is not evil, and the reason the body was created neither is evil - but the point is this: your right eye and your right hand were created to be servants of the soul, servants of God. The Lord Jesus says: 'Even if you do something good with your right hand or your right eye, if it is not in service and glory to Me it is wrong and you must cut out!'. You might find it difficult to believe that the Lord is meaning that, well let me point you to a verse in Luke chapter 14. You don't need to turn to it, I'll read it to you - Luke 14 and verse 26, this is a very difficult verse for me to understand: 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple'. Now what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means, it means exactly what the Lord is saying here: if anything comes between you and the Saviour, legitimate or illegitimate, it is to be hated. If we misuse anything, good or bad, if we put anything in a wrong position it is to be cut off and cast away from us. As one man said: 'If my faculties, propensities and abilities do lead me to sin, then I must cut them out'.

These are hard sayings, aren't they? Cutting out first of all, then secondly in these verses there is throwing out. You pluck the right eye out and cut the right hand off, and then He says: 'Throw out, throw it out of your life'. Look at the verse: 'Cast it from thee'. This is painful, the Lord is speaking figuratively of painful loss. He is implying that once you carry out the act and pull out the eye, or cut off the hand, that there's this indignant promptness in the way that you throw it away. You're not looking at it and saying: 'Well, I love that eye. I remember the things, even the good things I did with that hand'. You don't even think about it, the minute you do it there's this promptness, a heedlessness of whatever the cost to feeling or the act of pain is - you throw it away! The Lord is saying: 'I want you, my child, to strike at the root of every unholy thing in your life. It may be painful, but it will be a profitable loss'.

In nature the lizard, I'm led to believe, if you grasp its tail and it suspects that you're going to harm it, it will leave its tail in your hand and run away! When there's a greater danger in view it will leave its tail, although it's a painful loss to it. He says to himself: 'It's better to lose my tail than to lose my life!'. The lobster does the same - if you grab hold of its claw, it will drop the claw just down to the ground and will scuttle away in the hope of safety. Maybe you've played chess at some time in your life - well, if you're a keen chess player you'll know what a 'gambit' is. A gambit is the sacrificing of a pawn or another piece on the chessboard for the sake of the game. In other words, you may lose even your Queen - one of the highest pieces on the board - but it will be worth the loss of the Queen to win the game!

C.T. Studd was a rich man. He inherited a great fortune from his family, and he was a great cricket player as well. But he left all of his riches and went to the mission field, and do you know what he said? Listen to this, he could say it because he did it: 'If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him'. Jim Elliot who left a wife and a child and went to minister to the Auca Indians and never came back because he was martyred for Christ in his twenties, he said: 'He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose'. Your stumbling block mightn't be mine, my stumbling block mightn't be yours - and I know that there are matters that are strictly sinful, and clearly doubtful, and many things that we really need to ponder and think about, but there are also things that can cause us to sin that are not sins in themselves, and wouldn't cause you to sin or wouldn't cause me to sin. But that's the point of what the Lord is saying: whatever causes you to sin, whether it's a blatant sin or not, if it becomes a scandalon, if it becomes a trap, cut it off, throw it out!

The great theologian Cecil (sp?) was a fine violinist, and I have read recently that he found that his musical talents lured him into unhelpful and undesirable company. So do you know what he did? He took his violin and he smashed it, and he never played it again - lest through the Ear-gate and through the company he could become endangered and entrapped again! You know as well as I do that all musicians don't need to smash their instruments up - in fact the opposite could be the case, that their instrument could the very thing that they use to bring glory to God. People read about the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 and think that everybody has to give away all their riches in order to be saved, that's not the point of that message at all. The point is this: that was the very thing that was coming between him and Christ, and it had to go! It had to be cast away violently in order that his soul would be saved.

Well, you might sit here and think: 'Well, what's that got to do with me? I know that, I did that when I was converted'. My friend, this is the Lord speaking to His disciples! He is telling His children: 'Cut it out! Throw it out!'. The reason being then you'll get out! Getting out is the third thing He talks about. He says you'll only get out of trouble if you do this. Look at the verses, both of them say: 'it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell'. It's a solemn warning from the Master. Again He uses the word 'hell', as He did in verse 22 - and its again an allusion to Gehenna, that actual place, the rubbish dump at the outskirts of Jerusalem where they tipped all the rubbish and burned the corpses. It was literally a figurative sign of hell fire. The Lord never ever was ambiguous, can I say that again? Do you see the Sermon on the Mount? I don't claim to understand everything about it, but I'll tell you this much: the Lord was never ever ambiguous. When the Lord says 'hell', He means hell! I only seek to say what He said, I don't attempt to soften to blow, I just want to give to you this morning what the Saviour says. He effectively said this, this is what He said: 'It is better to be maimed than to be damned'. It's better to be maimed than to be damned! As one author said: 'It is better to enter into life lame in man's sight, and lovely in God's sight, than to be lovely in man's sight and lame in God's'.

I believe what the Lord is saying is, He is following through one of the principles in this whole sermon that is shockingly visible here, but we often miss it. Do you know what it is? The only basis of spiritual growth is the sacrifice of the natural. The only basis of spiritual growth is the sacrifice of the natural. Listen to what Oswald Chambers says about that very thing: 'If you are going to be spiritual, you must martyr the natural. Sacrifice it! If you say 'I do not want to sacrifice the natural for the spiritual', then Jesus says to you 'You must martyr the spiritual for the natural'. This is not a punishment, but an eternal principle'. Now, what is the Lord saying to His disciples? Let's clear this up: is He saying, as He has done about calling your brother a fool, that your literally going to get hell and go to eternal damnation in the lake of fire, as a Christian, because you do these things? That is not what He is saying, but what He is saying is that the sin that you commit is guilty of that punishment. We would have gone to hell because of our sin, is that not the case, because of our sin? The Lord says, even when we are saved and Christians, when we continue in those sins we are still committing sins that are worthy of hell - even though, by grace, we escape hell. Do you see it?

The primary purpose of our Lord is to show us the seriousness of sin - and let me say this, that although the believer will escape hell fire in the lake of fire, there is a future fire even for you! Do you know that? I'm not talking about purgatory, I'm talking about what Paul talks of in 1 Corinthians 3:13 where he says this: 'the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is'. That's what Paul says, and the awful tragedy is that it may be that for many Christians everything in their own lives will be burnt up, yet they themselves will be saved. That's what Paul says. Dr Stuart Holden spoke of the possibility of - and this is wonderful - having a saved soul, but a lost life. That's what the Lord is talking about. The Lord is urging us, and I would urge us all today, to get our eternal welfare in view in this lifetime. He wants men to consider their eternity, He wants them to give more time to their eternity, then souls would be converted, then saints would be consecrated if men and women thought of their eternity. The Lord wants us to put eternity in view, to put it in the depths of our heart and in the very recesses of our mind, that our consciences, our behaviour, our actions, our thoughts, our feelings and emotions would all be regulated by eternity! That is why Paul says: 'Judge yourselves, lest ye be judged'.

Why does the Lord use such shocking language in these two verses? It's very simple: He wants us to see the awesome seriousness of our sin. He doesn't just tell it, but if you go to the final chapters of this book you will see that He lives it. Why is He climbing Mount Calvary? Why is He being nailed to a cross? Why is the wrath of God abiding on Him? Why is He dismissing His Spirit, even as the immortal Son of God He dies? Why is He buried as an ordinary man would be buried? Why is it that they mourn over the Son of God? Why? Sin! And the greatest way for us to realise the awesomeness and awfulness of our sin is to think of it in relation to our Saviour, and to think of what it did to Him! One of the most direct roads to holiness is always to consider Him, to consider His suffering and His agony. There's nowhere, no place on earth, that the nature of sin can be displayed in such terrible awful colours as the death of the blessed Son of God at Calvary's cross. What a price He paid for sin! Our sin! That is why Isaac Watt says because of the price He paid for our sin, we ought to pay a price too - pluck out your eye, throw it; cut off your hand, throw it away - for such love demands my soul, my life, my all!

Can I echo a word of warning as we close? If you try to do that on your own, you will fail. You need the Holy Spirit, and Paul said in Romans: 'If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live' - through the Spirit. He says: 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure'. If you, my friend, today decide upon the authority of God's word that you are going to mortify the flesh, you're going to pluck out that eye of sin and cut off that hand of iniquity - I believe that if you come to God as a poor-spirited sinner and plead the power of the Holy Spirit, He will give you the power to do it! If you don't go to the Holy Spirit, you'll make the mistake of the Pharisees and the Scribes, and you'll become a legalist. Listen to the word of Paul: 'Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof'. Make no provision for the flesh, and - just as the engineer will tunnel through mountains, will blow up huge rocks, will bridge the wide chasms to carry his road to its final destination - we, as the believers in Christ, are to be sure that there is no hindrance at all blocking our course to our eternal prize and destination.

You often hear: 'Let go and let God' - oh, that it was as simple as that. It is: 'Let God', but it is this - listen as we close - let God, but mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. We need to mortify by the Spirit the deeds of the body.

Let us pray. It may be that you're in this gathering and this verse applies to you if you're not converted, for in repentance you have to cut that sin from you and flee from the wrath to come. Christ, at Calvary, is where you can see what your sin costs. Believer, we're all struggling with sin, aren't we? Some struggling more than others, because we're not struggling at all, we're letting it happen. The only way to be free is to cut that thing from us, whatever is causing us to sin, whatever we're watching, wherever we're going, whatever we're partaking of - sins of the heart, thoughts that we're allowing to linger - we must be ruthless with them and cast them out, for the prize is the price.

Father, help us we pray. We long to be what Christ has asked us to be in this great sermon. We know that that of ourselves is impossible, but we pray that by the Spirit we would mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we would be done with the works of the flesh and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - August 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 8

"The Subject Of Divorce"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:31-32

Now, we have been studying Matthew's gospel chapter 5 in the recent year that has gone by. We have been studying in the Sermon on the Mount, perhaps almost two years ago we were studying the Beatitudes, and then we took a break for a while and we commenced again our studying in the Sermon on the Mount. We've been going through a few verses - we've been interrupted in recent weeks with the start of the new season here in the Assembly, we've been having a week of prayer and we've been ministering around that and so on. We're returning again this week, as announced, to the subject of the Sermon on the Mount - specifically the relation of adultery, which you find in verse 27 right through, and then we find in verses 31 and 32 the subject of divorce.

This is a very controversial subject, and I want to bear my heart before you today to let you understand that I, in no shape or form, want to offend or embarrass anyone. So please do not feel that I am getting at anyone. I don't seek to hurt anyone, or wound those who have already been wounded or touched by this very controversial subject. I can't avoid it, and maybe, in my heart of hearts, if I could avoid it I would. But when you're going systematically through a passage of the word of God, and especially the Sermon on the Mount, you have to do exegetical somersaults and just ignore these verses - and I'm not prepared to do that. The other reason that I'm addressing this subject is I feel it's very important for our young people, maybe many engaged couples and couples going together, that need to know what the scriptures teach with regard to divorce and remarriage.

Let me also say, before we read the word of God: many godly people, many godly commentators, Christian leaders, disagree with what I will say this morning. I believe it with all my heart. I don't say that I know everything about the subject or the word of God from cover to cover, but I seek this morning to deal with it as honestly and as biblically as I can. But understand that I am not saying that other people who don't believe what I believe are unspiritual or ungodly. There are men and women who have been used in mighty ways who do not believe what I will teach from the word of God today. But I must deal with it, and I won't be dealing with it like a sermon as such because we must go through individual scriptures - and therefore it will be quite an analytical study, and I want you to turn to a few verses. But we must, I hope, be of a disposition today to learn and to know what the Lord says.

So let us read from Matthew chapter 5 and verses 31 and 32. We'll read the whole section - verse 27 - in order to get the flow. The Lord Jesus says: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife', except, or 'saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery".

One famous commentator of the word of God said these immortal words: 'All history bears witness to the fact that when vital godliness is at a low ebb, the sacred institution of marriage is held in light esteem'. I repeat: 'All history bears witness to the fact that when vital godliness is at a low ebb, the sacred institution of marriage is held in light esteem'.

If you know the word of God and the gospel writings of the apostles and, indeed the words of the Lord Jesus, you will see that divorce was unhappily a common occurrence in our Lord's time as it is today. It was a matter of controversy and a matter of common discussion. One of the most principle cases of all that can be found in John chapter 4 and verse 18, where you find the woman who was married several times whom the Lord met at the well at Sychar. There the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to her as Messiah, as the Saviour - the One who had to come to deliver Israel and, indeed to deliver all men from their sins. The Lord spoke prophetically to that woman and said: 'For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband'.

Although that is a specific case and cannot be seen as the general situation in Palestine in that day, it certainly gives us an illustration how there were similarities with society and certainly with the demise of the institution of marriage. In the few decades before the fall of both the Grecian and Roman empires, marriage was held in such a low esteem that it was a common thing for a woman to keep tabs on her divorces by the number of rings that she wore on her finger. You could count the rings and count how many husbands she had.

Now, what the Lord is first of all saying is He is addressing what He has already said in verses 29 and 30 with regards to plucking out your right eye and cutting off your right hand. He was telling us how to mortify sin. In other words, how to cut sin away from us and, indeed discard it, throw it away so that it wouldn't infiltrate and pollute the rest of the human being. But the Lord, I believe, as He moves away from that illustration, He wants to tell the people who are listening: 'Those offending members that you're to cut off and throw away does not extend to the divorcement of your wives and your husbands'. In other words, you can't just cut off your wife or cut off your husband and discard them, no matter what thorn in the flesh they may be to you. That was opposed to the views of the Jews in that day. You can see that in the Apocryphal writings of Ecclesiasticus 25:26 - and this is one of the reasons why we reject the Apocrypha as not being the word of God. It writes this: 'If your wife go not as you would have her, cut her off from thy flesh, give her a bill of divorce and let her go'. You can see the imagery there, and how men and women could misunderstand the imagery of the Lord Jesus, of plucking out an eye and cutting off a hand.

Josephus, the great Jewish historian of the church said that, in Judaism, divorce was to be given 'for any cause'. Indeed he himself, in his own life and in his own home, was a prime illustration of that because he put away his wife after she had borne him three children because he was not pleased with her behaviour. So you can see how common it was in the Lord's day to divorce your wife. The same as in society today and, sadly, even those within the church are entering into the holy estate of matrimony believing - at the back of their mind or in the depths of their heart - that it is an option to divorce if things go wrong. Sadly we must acknowledge that, that many see it as an open door and an option that they can take if things do not turn out the way they expect them.

I'm led to believe that divorce in 25 year olds and under has soared 500 per cent since the 1970s in our nation. We are told that marriage is out of fashion, and that is embodied in the fact that a quarter of all couples today co-habit - they live together - and they don't get married. Because of this legal predicament, the law courts, the law society in our country are under so much pressure that they want the divorce laws to be relaxed - in fact, for them to be entirely changed. They want it to be the case that there will be no legal battle in court. For that to happen they want the idea of a guilty party to be abolished: that you're not wrong, or your husband wrong, or your wife wrong; and you just want a divorce and you get a divorce. So there's the dropping of the need or the cause for a divorce.

So you can see in our land today, divorce will no longer and is no longer according to whether adultery has been committed or not, but in fact it is permitted if any reason comes out in court. At the moment the law is that if there's a two year separation with the consent of both parties, or indeed a five year separation without the consent of either party, you're divorced. We must note this please, in the church, and you theologians need to realise this: that we are living in a society today that if your partner wants to divorce you, and you don't want divorce, there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. You must acknowledge that, and we must grapple with that within the church of Jesus Christ. Our laws are changing, so much so that what the law wants to bring is: one year's separation and then a divorce for no reason at all. You'll not need to go to court, you'll not need to give a reason, there'll be no cause: you can just have a divorce after one year's separation. So I hope that you can understand the difficult situation that we face today as our laws change from year to year. That is the reason why I feel that we must be aware of the principles that govern marriage and divorce within the word of God.

We must realise that these verses that we're reading today are not the Lord's view on when a divorce is legitimate and when it is not. Don't fall into that trap. The primary reason that the Lord is bringing these verses is to enshrine again in His holy law - the holy law of the Lord Jesus Christ - the holiness of marriage. Whatever your view on divorce is - whether you believe it's legitimate for adultery, or whether you believe it's not legitimate for any case, it doesn't matter - you must concede that the purpose of the Lord saying these words was to enshrine in His holiness the fact that marriage is a holy estate and is not to be broken. Therefore the Lord is guarding us against anything that would encroach upon the peace, the happiness, and indeed the sanctity of the Christian home.

It's natural that the discussion of purity and adultery and so on, in this passage, should lead to the question of divorce. What is the Lord's teaching on divorce? There are four occasions where the Lord Jesus alludes to this subject. I want you to turn to each of them. The first, we have already read, and I want you to look at it in chapter 5 of Matthew and verses 31 and 32. I may - I'm warning you now - I may go on 5 minutes or so longer so don't throw anything at me! Matthew 5:31 and 32, and you see the Lord says: 'It has been said'. Now, there's a debate on about what has been said: is the Lord quoting from scripture here? Is He quoting something that God has said? Well, it's a bit of both in a way because your margin will tell you that the Lord is quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse 1. That is included in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, which is the law. But the Lord is not quoting from the perfect revealed will of God in the law. What I mean by that is simply this: the Lord is quoting something that was brought into institution by Moses because of the hardness of men's hearts. It is found in Deuteronomy but we will learn, in a moment later, why it's found in Deuteronomy. In verses 31 and 32 of Matthew chapter 5 the Lord mentions the man, He mentions nothing to do with the woman: 'Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement'. In verse 32 also it's in relation to the man, which shows that He's speaking of a certain situation - and He speaks only, in this context, of the conduct of the male in the marriage relationship.

Now, turn to Matthew 19 - Matthew chapter 19 and verses 3 to 9. The Lord speaks again, and He says: 'The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you' - distinguishing - 'Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery'.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background. The Pharisees come to Him - verse 3 - and test Him. Why are they testing Him? They are testing Him with the backdrop of two Rabbis, two schools of thought on the subject of divorce that were diametrically opposed. One was Rabbi Shammai and the other was Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Shammai said that a divorce can only be given upon the cause of adultery - divorce can only be given if adultery has taken place. Rabbi Hillel, on the other hand, broadened it out as far as you like - in fact, for any cause he legitimised the male in the relationship to divorce his wife if she didn't please him. That ranged from adultery, extramarital affairs, right through to if he just went off her, if he didn't find her attractive anymore and even right through to if she burnt the dinner. That was Rabbi Hillel opposed to Rabbi Shammai. So there are two views that the Lord has in the backdrop of what He says. One man says only for adultery, and the other man says for any cause.

Now, I want you note that as the Pharisees come before the Lord and ask this question, they are assuming already that divorce is legitimate. You must see that! They haven't even entered into the possibility that divorce is not legitimate. For that reason, when they come with whatever views they have - whether they followed Shammai or Hillel - the Lord comes and says in verse 9: 'I say unto you, except for fornication', and again He addresses the men, it doesn't mention the women, 'except for fornication' - that's the only reason you can have divorce.

Now, this is very interesting. Look at the reaction of His own disciples in verse 10. His own disciples say to Him: 'If the case of the man be so with his wife' - now, notice they're emphasising this is the case of the man with his wife - 'it is not good to marry'. Now, what are they saying? The Pharisees come assuming that there's some grounds for divorce, whether Shammai is right with adultery or whether Hillel is right for any cause. They come and say: 'What is the reason to divorce your wife?', and the Lord Jesus says: 'I say unto you, don't divorce except for fornication'. His own disciples are astounded at this: 'Lord, what are You saying? If this is the case, it's better not to marry at all. Lord, You're too narrow. You're taking too narrow an interpretation of the word of God'. Now, I want you to remember that please.

Now, turn with me to the third passage where the Lord mentions this subject, in Mark chapter 10 and I want you to notice the difference between Matthew and Mark. Mark chapter 10, and we are going to take time to go through these things today for they're important. Verse 2: 'And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? testing the Lord. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered', allowed, permitted, 'to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder'. Then it goes on verse 10: 'And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter'.

Now, I want you to notice that, comparing Mark 10 with Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, the Lord Jesus finishes short of what He said in Matthew's gospel. This is where a great deal of confusion comes in. He reaches the point where He's about to say, in Matthew, that divorce is only allowed upon the exception of fornication, but He doesn't say that in Mark. He stops short of saying it! He makes no pronouncement relative to fornication.

Then, in verse 10 and 11 and verse 12, He does something in Mark's gospel that He didn't do in Matthew. He begins to introduce the case of the woman: 'And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery'. He didn't address the woman in Matthew 5 or Matthew 19, but all of a sudden in Mark He doesn't mention fornication, He doesn't mention an exception, and He begins to address the woman.

Now, these raise grave questions for us and so does Luke chapter 16 if you turn to it for the last reference of the Lord to this great subject. Luke chapter 16 and verse 18, and the Lord again, like in Matthew, says these words - but again He mentions what He doesn't mention, and He doesn't mention what He mentioned in Matthew. Verse 18: 'Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery'. Verse 19 - the rich man and Lazarus, He stops - no exception. Now, you have to notice this - and please do see - I know I'm going through this rather quickly, but in Matthew 5 and 19 He alone speaks of an exception to divorce. Only in Matthew does He mention 'except', or 'save for the case of fornication'.

Now, go with me in your mind back to Genesis chapter 2. We don't need to turn to it but you will remember there that the marriage bond was instituted. The characteristic of that scene is the dispensation, if you like, of innocence. As it was instituted there was no possibility, as Adam and Eve where there in perfection in the beautiful garden, that it could be broken. There's not even a consideration that the union can be broken, because of their innocence and the lack of sin. Now, often when we come to the question of whether people, believers, are allowed to divorce, and whether they are allowed to remarry, Matthew 5 and Matthew 19 are the texts that people use for the grounds of divorce. But you will find that they believe that the word 'fornication' that you find in verse 32 means 'adultery'. 'Except for fornication', they believe it means 'except for adultery'.

Now, I want to say to you right away that I do not believe that. I do not believe fornication here is understood as adultery, nor includes adultery. Now, I want to spend a little bit of time - and bear with me - in this. The reasons why I don't believe that are these: first of all, if the Lord meant adultery when He said 'fornication', why didn't He say 'adultery'? As you look down at the passage you may ask the question: 'Why didn't He say what He meant?'. In the context of this great subject where precision of words is a vital thing, He used the word 'fornication' and not 'adultery'.

Now, men and women in the age of the Lord Jesus understood and knew the difference, I believe, between fornication and adultery. In John chapter 8 you have the case of the woman caught in the act of adultery, and she's brought before the Lord Jesus. As the Lord Jesus tells her to 'Go away and sin no more', the Pharisees and the Scribes rise up against Him and they make an accusation concerning His birth. They say to the Lord Jesus: 'We were never born of fornication'. In John chapter 8 adultery is mentioned in the context of the woman caught in adultery, but then the Pharisees turn to the Lord and say: 'We were not born of fornication'. Maybe you do believe, if you don't you need to know, that the Pharisees believed that the Lord was born and conceived out of wedlock. In other words, that Mary had slept with someone else apart from Joseph before the two of them were bonded together properly in marriage. They believed - I can't even say the word, but you know what the word is, OK? That's what they believed. They put the tag of fornication upon that act. They distinguished it from adultery that they were talking about already in the passage. Mary had conceived the Lord, they said, in that betrothal period with another man apart from Joseph. They were clear in their mind that fornication meant the sin in the betrothal period. The Pharisees were clear on the difference. I want you to see that: those whom the Lord was speaking to were clear on the difference between fornication and adultery.

Now, many people come and say fornication has a wider meaning in its word. It means illicit sexual sin of every kind, including adultery. Everything under the sun, sexually, that is against God's law, including adultery. I would concur that that is the meaning in certain places of the New Testament scriptures. There's no denying that: it can be used as an umbrella term for extramarital sexual sin - but that is not the question before us today. The question is not how it is used right throughout the scriptures, but rather the prime question is: how does the Lord Jesus use the word 'fornication'? By finding out that, you will find out what He means when He says 'except for fornication' in relation to divorce. I believe, if you look at the word of God and read, that only three times (Matthew 5, Matthew 15 and Matthew 7) the Lord uses - or it appears - the word 'adultery'. The Lord uses the word 'adultery' and not the word 'fornication' in Matthew 5, 15 and 7. You will find that He actually uses the word 'adultery' in the broad sense. Adultery is not used as the specific act of unfaithfulness outside of marriage. He uses the word 'adultery' as an umbrella term that incorporates much more than simply that extramarital affair of a husband or of a wife. In fact, each case when He is using 'fornication' He uses it, not in an umbrella term, but in the precise term, contrasting to adultery.

Now, let me show you this, it's important. The question before us is this: is fornication wider, including adultery, as some scholars say? The Lord never used 'fornication' once when speaking of wider sexual sin. When He spoke of wider sexual sin He used the word 'adultery', and that shows you and I that He had a narrow definition of fornication. Now, let me show this to you. Matthew 5, that we're already in, He talks about what it's like to look and to lust after a woman - that a man, when he looks and lusts after a woman; what does the Lord say he commits? Adultery! Now, does he commit literal physical adultery? No he doesn't. But the Lord is talking about the mind, so He uses the word 'adultery' as a wider, broader term for sexual sin. He doesn't choose 'fornication', He chooses the word 'adultery'. In Matthew 12 and Matthew 16 the Lord speaks of 'an evil and an adulterous generation'. He's alluding to the wickedness of this old world in which we live. But He's not alluding simply to the act of adultery. He's talking about all the idolatry and the sin and the degradation in this whole world, and He doesn't use the word 'fornication' that many say is a broad umbrella term - He uses the word 'adultery' in a broad sense. When He uses the word 'fornication' He always uses it in a narrow sense. I want you to see that. He uses it in its precise definition and usage.

So therefore we ask the question: is divorce allowed 'except for adultery'? Can you have a divorce if one of your partners has committed adultery? Is that the grounds? The answer is no, my friend! In the light of the word of God, I can see that the answer is no, for adultery was never the grounds of divorce even in the Old Testament. If you go into the Old Testament you find that the consequence of adultery in the Old Testament was that you were stoned. You were stoned to death! That made you free to remarry, why? Because your partner was dead and you could remarry! It was a capital offence. Now, if the Lord Jesus, here in the New Testament, is now making adultery the grounds of divorce I would put before you that the Lord is adding to the scripture, and that is exactly what He condemned the Pharisees for doing: adding to the word of God. Adultery was never the grounds for divorce.

Now, I admit to you - Deuteronomy chapter 24 - why is it there? I'll tell you why. Because the Israelites wouldn't obey God's law with regards to adultery. They wouldn't stone people who had committed it and therefore divorce came in, as the Lord said: 'This was not always so from the beginning but, because of the hardness of your hearts, Moses permitted you divorce'. Don't you get it into your head that God legislated divorce in any way in the Old Testament or in the New Testament.

So what is this 'fornication' if it doesn't mean specifically 'adultery'? Well, I believe the answer is found in Matthew 5 and 19, because it alone is found in Matthew 5 and 19. Now please, you don't need to turn to these verses because I want to bring a whole lot before you, but in Matthew 5 and 19, as I've already said the Lord alone says: 'except for fornication'. He doesn't say it in Mark and He doesn't say it in Luke. Also in Matthew He's unique in that He speaks concerning the man, He doesn't speak concerning the woman. Mark and Luke are unique because they don't legislate for an exception. Now, that's vital! They don't mention 'except for fornication'. However you interpret this whole subject of marriage and remarriage you must not conflict Matthew with Mark and Luke. You mustn't have them contradicting one another. That means that, if they are not contradicting one another, why is Matthew different from Mark and Luke? Why is the Spirit - the Holy Spirit, who inspires the same book, the Bible - why does Mark and Luke leave out this exception clause? Why? I mean, if I could proffer it to you for a moment, the scholars believe that Mark's gospel was the first gospel that was written. If that is so, Mark was circulated in the church before Matthew. If Mark was circulated in a church before Matthew they would have read these words without an exception clause to do with fornication, then Luke's gospel would have come along without an exception clause to do with fornication, and then one day someone would deliver Matthew's gospel. All of a sudden, those who had staked their life upon the word of God in Mark and Luke realise: 'Oh, there's an exception here. I can give or take a divorce for fornication'. Now, the question, today, before us is this: does the word of God contradict? Does Matthew contradict Mark, and does Matthew contradict Luke?

Now, let me say this: there has to be an explanation. More than that, there must be an explanation in the gospel of Matthew, because the gospel of Matthew is the gospel that is the different one. I think everyone would agree - those dispensational and those who are not - that Matthew's gospel was the gospel that was written primarily for the Jew. Mark and Luke were written for the Gentiles. As you go into Deuteronomy 22 you find fornication there defined as 'playing the whore'. In Matthew chapter 1 you find fornication there in the story of Mary being conceived of the Lord in her womb before the betrothal period was ended. You read the words in Matthew 1:19 and 20: 'Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost'.

He was mindful in that betrothal period, he thought she was playing the whore! He was mindful to put her away, to divorce her. That is what fornication means in Matthew's gospel. You can see that further in Matthew 19 where the subject of Rabbi Shammai, who believed you could divorce on adultery, or Rabbi Hillel for any cause, that fornication was too narrow for them. Please note that! They were debating among themselves if it was for adultery or if it was just for any cause, and the Lord comes along and He doesn't mention adultery. He says: 'Except for fornication'. They all stand back, and even His own disciples say: 'What? It's better not even getting married!'.

In Israel a woman couldn't get a divorce. That's why Matthew doesn't mention the woman. He speaks only of the male, and in Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel, Gentiles who are being written to have no idea of a betrothal period. They don't have a custom where, like an engagement, for the first year you're bound together in a marriage, but the marriage is not consummated yet - you're not fully married. So they didn't know anything about that. So what's the point in Mark and Luke writing to Gentiles about it? They don't know anything about it, but notice also that they don't have an exception clause. The exception clause has something to do with this betrothal period.

I would get you to look further - don't turn to it - but 1 Corinthians 7. Where does Paul quote from when he talks about marriage? Do you know where he quotes from? He quotes from Mark, he doesn't mention Matthew, he doesn't mention an exception clause. Why? He's writing to Gentiles, and Gentiles cannot commit this particular sin of fornication in a betrothal period that they don't have. Paul, as a Jew, understood that this had absolutely nothing to do with Gentiles.

Now let me say, in the closing moments of our meeting let us lay down - and I'm doing this for your benefit - I'm telling you  - I don't have time to go into everything, but I want you to know that I'm not doing this in any way to make you feel uncomfortable. I love you in the Lord. But what I do want our young people to know is this: marriage is permanent! This holy estate is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly because it is permanent. Genesis 2:24 that the Lord quotes: 'the two become one flesh'. Malachi 2 and verse 14 - I wish we had time to turn to it, but the story is this: some of the Jews had taken to themselves in captivity - you read about it Ezra and Nehemiah - they put away their wives, they married foreign wives. God told them to put away their foreign wives, and He gave them a reason: because of the wife of your covenant, the wife of your youth. What the Lord is saying is: 'It doesn't matter that you've divorced your Jewish wives and taken to you these other wives. They are still the wives of your youth', as the Lord says, 'the wives of your covenant'. That means this: once you enter into that covenant of marriage, it is permanent! In verse 16, in that same context where the Lord makes those declarations, He says: 'I hate divorce'.

From the start of Genesis, right through to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, what you get is that marriage is permanent. Yes, Moses allowed the people to divorce. Why? For the hardness of their heart to prevent further sin. But the law of the Lord said 'No' to divorce within God's framework. Therefore we must not today use the word of God in order to lay down a reason to get divorced. The word of God tells us that marriage is holy, and divorce was only ever permitted for unbelievers.

In Romans chapter 7 Paul again gives the last word: 'For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband'. First Corinthians 7 the same: 'The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth'. The law of the word of God is: you're only released from marriage when your spouse dies. Now, my friends, look, we must spend a little bit more time. I must spend this time - forgive me.

There are laws today that make it very, very difficult to implement these scriptures - for you can be divorced of whether you like it or not. So whether divorce is wrong or not, your spouse can divorce you whether you like it or not. We've got to grapple in this Hall with these things from the word of God. But let me say this categorically, I don't have all the answers but what I do know is this:

One: Divorce was permitted in Israel for the hardness of their heart - the church of Jesus Christ is not Israel and their hearts shouldn't be hard.

Two: It only applies to the betrothal period, because we find it in Matthew's gospel.

Three: It's only mentioned in Matthew to the male because in Judaism (and it's specifically to Judaism) there was no law of the wife. They had no say.

Four: The Lord uses 'fornication', and not the word 'adultery'.

Five: Mark and Luke are to Gentiles, and the exception is omitted.

Six: Paul never quotes Matthew or the exception clause used in Matthew 5:19. If that's what those verses mean it makes all of Paul's writings and all the rest of the New Testament void.

Seven: The law I've last mentioned - Paul's last word in scripture, the revelation, is: 'No divorce'.

You've got it right throughout and I could add more things. There's Ephesians 4 - that we are to forgive one another; 1 Corinthians 6 - we're not to take one another to court. My friends, I know that there are many hard questions - and I am not for one minute saying that a woman should take a beating for the rest of her days, or should have a husband running around with every female under the sun. I am not saying that. All I am doing is trying to present to you what God has revealed with regards to marriage and remarriage and divorce.

Now, let me say this please, bear with me: the disciples had to walk a narrow road and we must walk that road today. But note, in individual cases - in individual cases - the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself to people in this situation. People who are divorced and remarried - whether you think it's a sin or not a sin, I'll tell you this: the Lord says if you lust after a woman in your heart and your head you're guilty of adultery. We are falling down where this is concerned, but what I want to bring to you today is this: when the Lord came to a woman caught in adultery He said, 'Go and sin no more'. There is forgiveness! Oh, there is forgiveness! Beware: this doesn't justify you going down an unscriptural road of divorce and remarriage. But let me tell you this: the Lord Jesus  - and do you believe this, saints today, as we preach to a dying world and a compromising church? Do you believe this? 'All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven you'.

As we close, we need to have hearts of grace, hearts of compassion to a world around that are affected by these things, people in our own assembly perhaps that are touched by these things. We need to have grace toward them. Do you know why? 'Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God; and such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God'. Praise His name! There is grace that is greater than all our sin! Hallelujah!

Our time has run away. Get the tape and go over it slowly, because I know I was like a train there this morning, but I wanted to give you all that for your benefit and your exhortation.

Let us pray together - please bring folks back tonight, I'll not preach as long as that tonight, don't worry about that! Let us pray, let us pray for our young people, let us pray for our young married people. Let us pray for us all - for, if the truth be told, we're all touched and affected with this in our families and maybe in our past. But praise God, there's a sympathising, compassionate Redeemer who's full of grace. Hallelujah!

Father, we thank You for the Saviour. We thank You for the truth of God that has not changed since the beginning of time: 'From the beginning this was not so'. But yet Lord we thank You for Your truth that guides us today, but yet we acknowledge that many of us have failed. Many of us in our mind, or even literally and practically, have committed sins that we wish we could forget. But thank You Lord that they're beneath the blood if we're redeemed. If we're saved they're gone as far as the east is from the west, and they're buried with Christ. Oh Lord, may the joy of our Redeemer and redemption fill us today. Not a critical spirit, not a condemnatory judgmental view but, Lord, the grace of God that is greater than all of our sin. Hear us today we pray, and bless us now in the Saviour's name. Amen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - October 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 9

"Nothing But The Truth"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:33-37

Now we're turning again to Matthew's gospel and chapter 5. If you're visiting with us, in the fellowship here on Lord's Day mornings we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount. We have had quite a lengthy break from it in recent days, and we began it again last week looking at the Lord's teaching on divorce. So that brings us to verse 33 of chapter 5, and we'll take up the words of our Lord there.

Verse 33 of Matthew chapter 5, and the Lord Jesus says: "Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil".

So, our subject today we have entitled: 'Nothing but the Truth'. On one occasion there were two brothers who were very rich. Those two brothers were as wicked as they were rich. Both lived wild unprofitable existences, using their wealth to cover-up the dark sides of their lives. On the surface you would never have guessed it, for both of them were committed members of a church. They both attended the same church every Sunday, and in fact gave large sums of money to the church projects. On one occasion the church that they belonged to called a new pastor. He was a man who preached the gospel and the truth of God with zeal and courage, and before long the attendance within that assembly grew so much that they needed a larger building. But that pastor was no fool, being a man of keen judgement, insight and strong integrity, he saw through the hypocritical lifestyles of the two brothers. All of a sudden, out of the blue, one of the brothers died. The new pastor was asked to preach at his funeral, and the day before the funeral the surviving brother pulled the pastor aside and handed him an envelope. 'There's a cheque in here that is large enough to pay the entire amount of the need for your new sanctuary', he whispered, 'All I ask is one favour: tell the people at the funeral that he was a saint'. The pastor gave the brother his word, and he said: 'I will do precisely as you asked me'. That afternoon he went along to the bank and deposited the cheque into the church's account, and the next day the pastor stood before a great congregation and before the coffin, and said with firm conviction these words: 'This man was an ungodly sinner, wicked to the core. He was unfaithful to his wife, hot-tempered with his children, ruthless in his business, and a hypocrite in the church - but compared to his brother he was a saint'.

Now one of the strange parallels that we have with that story and the words of our Lord Jesus, and indeed with the whole Sermon of the Mount as the Lord preaches it, is that often our Lord Jesus is reminding the Jews of things that they already knew. It was no secret to the Jews that they shouldn't commit adultery, it was no secret to them that they shouldn't murder or hate - and now, as we come to the matter of truth and telling lies, of course these Jewish people believed what the Lord Jesus was telling them. So, in some instances, He was telling them what they already knew. If you look into the history books you will find in Jewish theology that telling the truth was of paramount importance to all Jews, and especially to the Jewish teachers.

We thought last week, in relation to divorce, of two rabbis - one called Rabbi Shammai, and one Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Shammai believed that you could have a divorce on the cause of adultery, Rabbi Hillel believed for any cause. But Rabbi Shammai, as all of the rabbis, didn't just talk about divorce, adultery and remarriage, but he also talked about the truth. He believed, with regards to truth, that the person who believes in God is so wedded to the truth that they are forbidden from even giving ordinary courteous politenessess. What I mean is this: you go along to a wedding, it is a courtesy to say to the bride: 'You're looking wonderful today' - but Rabbi Shammai said that if that wasn't the truth you ought not to say it, and if she's looking ugly you ought to tell her she's ugly. You wouldn't get invited to too many weddings, and I wouldn't get invited to do many!

It reminds me of the story of the teacher, Mrs Fisher, recovering from surgery, and she got a card from her class that read: 'Dear Mrs Fisher, your class wishes you a speedy recovery by a vote of 15 to 4' - blatant honesty! We as Christians - I don't know about you, but in everyday life we grapple with this: when is a lie a lie, when is the truth all the truth and nothing but the truth? Indeed, one writer says: 'If the Rabbis tended to be permissive in their attitude to divorce, they became permissive also in their teaching about oaths'. This again is another example of how the rabbis took the word of God, the Old Testament Scriptures, and deviously twisted them in order to allow them to sin as much as they could.

Now, I want us to look very frankly at these words of the Lord Jesus. Look at verse 33 first of all, the Lord says: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths'. Now that's the first thing I want you to note: that is an Old Testament law. The Lord, as He often does in this sermon, brings before the Jews an Old Testament law - and this, if you like, is the Lord's text, the word of God that He is reading from. Now it's not a direct quotation, but it's an allusion to Leviticus 19:12 where people were told not to forswear themselves. Leviticus 19 is, if you like, an application of the third commandment in Exodus 20 verse 7 which tells us not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain.

So, the Lord is alluding to an Old Testament law, a law that speaks of the false use of the name of God. The law, the third commandment, that says a false use of the name of God is the equivalent of taking God's name in vain. Specifically what Leviticus 19 is talking about, and what our Lord is alluding to, is to swear solemnly. In other words, to swear solemnly in the Old Testament was to appeal to God as your witness, but to forswear meant to swear falsely - to state that black was white and white was black. In other words: to state that something is true when you know fine well that the thing is false - that was to forswear, to falsely swear.

Now, here is where these problems came in: by the Jew swearing by the name of God, he was actually bringing God into the agreement to be a witness. God is being brought into the matter, and when God is being brought into any matter it can be no light matter. Gradually in Judaism it came to be widely accepted that if an oath did not actually, in word, contain the divine name of God, it need not be binding. Have you got that? The law of God says that if you swear by the name of God, if you bring God into your agreement of truth, you better not forswear, you better honour the word that you have spoken. That's very binding, very serious. So, the Jews decided in their mind: 'Well, here's the thing to do, here's the way to get out of it, here's the loophole - don't bring God into it! Don't bring God's name into it, and then your word will no longer be binding - you can tell a bit of a white lie'. Your word could become easily discarded, and they thought: 'Well, if I swear by heaven, if I swear by the earth, if I swear by Jerusalem, if I even swear upon my own head' - some of those were the most common things to swear by in those days - 'if I swear by anything but the name of God, I'm off the hook'. But I want you to notice this: the rightful swearing of an oath in the Old Testament, swearing by the name of God and fulfilling what you have sworn, was one of the highest forms of worship that we find in the Old Testament Scriptures. It was worship!

So, there is an Old Testament law - the text that the Lord alludes to. The second thing I want you to notice is a Jewish lie: how the Jews take that text and they twist it, they twist the law to suit their own compromises and sinfulness. In verse 34 the Lord alludes to it: 'I say unto you' - the law has said this, but I'm going to go a bit further and say - 'Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King' - God - 'Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black'. I want you to come with me to Palestine in the Lord's day. A scholar called Thompson in his book, 'The Land and the Book', says this: 'This people' - the Jewish people - 'are fearfully profane. Everybody curses and swears when in passion, no people that I have ever known can compare with these Orientals for profaneness in the use of the names and attributes of God. The evil habit seems to be universal'.

So you can see and understand the backdrop of the words of the Lord Jesus. Swearing, profaneness, oaths and curses in passion and even in everyday usage was so common that it had become a serious concern of some Jewish teachers. Now what are these oaths that these Jewish people were taking? Well, I have divided them for you into two oaths. First there was the frivolous oath-taking - that is taking an oath when an oath was not needed to be taken. That was a very serious matter: using an oath when you didn't need to, and this was becoming so common. People would say: 'By your life I'll do this', or 'By my life I'll do this', or 'By my head I'll do it', or 'Upon my own head be it if I do not to it'. Do these sound familiar? 'May I never see the comfort of Israel and Jerusalem if I do not fulfil my word to you', and you can almost see the Jews with their hands up saying this to one another. Frivolous oath-taking - they didn't need to take these oaths, but they were doing it everyday of their lives.

Then also there is evasive swearing or oath-taking. Evasive: when you're swearing in order to avoid something. As I said to you already, the Jews divided oaths into two classes. There was the oath that is absolutely binding - that is the oath that you bring God into - and then there is the other oath that is not binding because you haven't brought God's name into the transaction, He's not a partner in the whole deal. Therefore, if God's name is used you better do what you've said; and if God's name is not used, well you can get away with a wee white lie.

Now, here's the Lord's teaching, this is the Lord's teaching: no oath, indeed no man, can keep God out of any transaction of truth. Have you got it? The Lord is saying: 'Just because you leave God's name out of the matter doesn't leave God out of it, for God is in the issue of truth and untruth, of lying and truth'! God is already there! Just avoiding His name is absolutely useless, God is already there! You don't bring God into your decision! He says that by saying: 'You might swear by heaven, but where is God? In heaven! For heaven is God's throne'. The earth is God's footstool, if you swear by earth you're still swearing by God because God is in the earth. If you swear by Jerusalem, it is the city of the great King, and God dwells there so you're swearing by God. Then if you swear by your head, He says you can't even turn one of your hairs black or white - and some of you would like to do that - but you can't even do that! You don't have the power to do that, but God alone has the power to do it.

Here the Lord makes clear to us a very important spiritual lesson, and I want you to learn this this morning. Listen, a great eternal truth that we as the children of God today of this dispensation must learn, what is it? Life, your life, my life, all of life cannot be divided into compartments. You can't do it! You can't say: 'Well, this area of my life God is involved in, but all the others He's not', or 'All these areas God is involved in, but this little one He is not'. The Lord is saying that there cannot be any kind of language in the church and then another kind of language in the factory or in the office. There can't be one standard of behaviour in the assembly and another standard of ethics in the business world. The fact is that our God does not need to be invited into the areas of our lives, and our God cannot be kept out of other areas of our lives - do you get it? He is everywhere, He is through life, He is through every activity. He hears not just the words where we use His name in a swear or an oath, He hears every single word that is spoken by our mouths. He sees, hears, and knows everything!

Boy, if we really believed that how that would change our behaviour, our conversation, the way that we live our lives everyday. So you can see the Old Testament law the Lord is alluding to, and you now see how the Jews took this law and thought that by avoiding the name of God they could swear and then not fulfil their obligations - how the Jews lied about even this and twisted it! Now here's the third thing, the final thing, and I want to spend a bit of time on this. The Lord says to His own people, His disciples, to us today in verse 37 - so what do you do then about this matter? The Lord says: 'Let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil'. Now, what does the New say? What is the Lord saying? How is He commenting about this matter of oaths?

The Lord is not saying: 'Don't swear falsely', He is saying: 'Don't swear at all!'. Let me say first of all that I believe the Lord is speaking about the flippant oath habit, I believe the Lord is speaking specifically to the context of what He's been saying: swearing by heaven, swearing by the earth, swearing by Jerusalem, swearing by your own head. Don't swear like that at all! He alludes to Isaiah 66 and Psalm 48, and it amazes me as I've been going through the Sermon on the Mount - before I elaborate on what I've just said - it amazes me how the Lord uses His Bible so much, so much. His usage of the Old Testament - and that's what we must do as we're asking the question: how do we implement this truth in our life today?

Here's the big question that's probably in your mind: is the Lord forbidding the taking of a solemn oath in a secular court? Is that what the Lord is saying? Are we not allowed to take oaths today in any shape or form? There were some very godly men and women who believed this: the Essenes, who were a Jewish sect, believed that you shouldn't take oaths; the Quakers in our society and our generation believe it, and still believe it today; George Foxe, who wrote the book of martyrs, he would only go as far as to say to somebody 'Verily', which is an old word for 'truly' - 'Verily I'll do it'. In fact there was a saying going around in George Foxe's day: 'If George Foxe says 'Verily' there is no altering him'. So you have many Christians, a Jewish sect - the Essenes, you have the Quakers, you have George Foxe, you have believers perhaps even in this assembly - and it's not my intention to offend you today - but I want to ask: what do the Scriptures say? Are these people correct in this assumption?

Let me first of all say this: the Old Testament does permit oath-taking, and we've laid that down already. What it does not permit is false oath-taking. Let me go further: God Himself swears - God swears! In Genesis 9 and 11 God swears never ever to bring a universal flood upon the earth, and He gives a promise of that oath - He puts it in the sky as a rainbow. In Luke chapter 1 and verse 73 we have there recorded by Luke the doctor that God swore that He would provide and send a redeemer to the Jews. In Acts chapter 2 and verses 27 to 31 you have him quoting the Old Testament Psalms where God swore that He would raise His Son from the dead, He would not let Him see corruption. There are many more Scriptures that I could outline for you today where God pictures Himself as swearing an oath to His people.

Now what is that swearing? That swearing is not in order to convince us that God is telling the truth, God is truth - He is the epitome and absolute of all truth. But God swearing these things is to encourage these truthfulnesses to our hearts, to make them more solemn to us, to make them more sure to us, that we may - in our faithlessness - step out upon them. If you don't believe me - I'm getting some funny looks from down there in the congregation - turn with me to Hebrews chapter 6. We must be honest with scripture as we look at this subject, Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 17: 'Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability', or the unchangeableness, 'of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath'. There you have it in black-and-white! God, in order to convince you and I of His unchangeableness, in other words - speaking specifically to Jews here, but it can be applied to us all - if God said He's going to save us, He's going to save us. To show us that, not in order to make Him do it as if He would want to get out of it some day - that's not the reason He swears by an oath, but to show us that He is absolutely in earnest He swears by an oath.

For that reason the Mosaic code forbade only false or irreverent oaths, profaning God's name - for if you brought God into the matter and then you didn't fulfil the oath, you were taking His name in vain. Let me take you into the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Himself consented to being put under oath in Matthew 26 verses 63 and 64, Caiaphas said to Him: 'I adjure thee by the living God', that was the most solemn Jewish oath that you could be put under. Now I know that the Lord didn't say it, but the fact that the Lord answered Caiaphas - and you remember that there were occasions when He was crossed questioned that He didn't answer, and it was His prerogative not to answer here but He answered under that oath. The Lord!

You have God in the Old Testament - Paul writing, probably, in Hebrews. Then you have the Lord Jesus. If you go to 2 Corinthians - you don't need to turn to it - chapter 1 verse 23, also Galatians 1 verse 20, you have Paul the apostle who took an oath, as it were, put himself upon oath. He invoked the name of God to prove that he was telling the truth. This confuses us, perhaps, but you see what we fail to see often is that, by the Lord Jesus' time that we're reading this Sermon on the Mount, the Jews had built up an entire legalistic system around what was a perfectly feasible Old Testament teaching. They devised ways to swear without using God's name therefore, as they saw it, evading the responsibility of telling the truth. Swearing had now become, in Jesus' day, a justification for lying! Do you see that?

This is something that the Lord could not allow among His followers - a justification for lying. So Jesus simply abolishes these oaths. Now let me say this, it's important because I know that some of you may disagree with me and that's your prerogative to do so, but there are two principles of interpretation that we must always remember when we're looking into the word of God. First is this: apparent absolute statements are not always understood absolutely - apparent absolute statements are not always understood absolutely, but have to be understood in the context wherein they are written. Let me give you an example, Paul says in 2 Corinthians: 'I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some'. Now does 'all' mean 'all'? Of course it does, 'all' means 'all' - but does that mean that Paul became a blasphemer to the blasphemer, Paul became an adulterer to the adulterer, a drunkard to the drunkard? Of course it doesn't! It means in the capacity whereby a Christian could become all things to all men, therefore he did not become a blasphemer, he did not become a drunkard. The language has a limitation, it has a limitation.

The second principle is that when something is forbidden in one passage, like Matthew chapter 5, but allowed in another passage, it's obvious that a certain use or a certain mode of that thing is forbidden - not the prohibition of the whole thing altogether, regardless of the context. Now what is the Lord speaking of? If God swore by oath in the Old Testament, if the Lord Jesus was put under oath in the New Testament, if Paul does it on occasions right through the epistles, and Hebrews says that God swore to us about our salvation under an oath - what does the Lord mean when He says: 'Swear not at all'? Well, look at it, verse 34: 'But I say unto you, Swear not at all;' - and look, a semicolon introducing, 'neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool', and so on. He's saying swear not at all in this way, and then in verse 37 He's saying: 'If you're going to use swearing for lying, you'd be better not to swear at all - just tell the truth'.

Now, the act of 1888 legally entitles you in court to affirm rather than swear - so let every man be convinced in his own mind, I'm not going to tell you what to do and you're not going to - hopefully - tell me what to do. That's what I believe the Scriptures teach, but you do whatever your conscience teaches. But here's the question to us today: how do we fare in this matter of truth? Now I'd be interested to ask any of you who don't believe in taking oaths: did you just affirm at your wedding ceremony? Have you ever been in court to take an oath, and have you kept that oath of truth that you took? Did you tell the truth? Did you keep your oath there at the altar as you came together, man and wife, have you kept that oath? What about the oath of public office? Some people in here may hold that oath. Maybe it's the oath after a meeting of consecration, where the word of God is preached and you as a believer are encouraged to come and give all to God and put all on the altar to God - have you vowed that to God? Have you paid it? These are grave question that we must answer - how do we fare? Have we kept them?

I want to spend a moment or two just before we finish practically looking at the subject of how we fare as Christians with the subject of truth. What about our flippancy in our speech? That was one of the oaths that these Jews were using: flippancy about the name of God and the things of God. I wonder at times how unthinkingly and unblushingly we Christians use swearing expressions! You might say: 'Who's been using swearing expressions?'. Well, let me give you a few of them: 'By Jove' - did you know that 'Jove' is a Greek god? 'By Jove', you can't say 'By God' because people would raise their eyebrows, but you can get away with it like that. That is exactly the same as when the Jews substituted the name of God for Jerusalem, or for the earth, or for their head. Some people say: 'God knows', or 'Good heavens', or 'Good Lord'. Now, I know that we don't mean anything by these things - but these things of themselves mean a great deal!

The Jews didn't mean anything when they said these things, they thought it was getting them out of a thing. They weren't being serious, but God in the Lord Jesus Christ condemns this. I'm not talking about words of humour, or foolish words, or jovial words - we need to have a bit of banter now and again. Some of you can sometimes be so sour-faced that you don't laugh at a joke! That's not what the Lord is talking about here, but what He is speaking of is speaking flippantly with holy, reverent things. Parents, what about in the home life? Maybe a parent makes a promise, do you keep it? What about a threat you make, do you carry it out? Then, perhaps, when you don't carry it out or keep your promise, you wonder why your word has no weight with the children and then we wonder why in society there is indiscipline all around.

What about in business life? How often are employees expected to say things or do things which they know right well are wrong things, yet they're afraid to dare to refuse to do it in case they lose their job! This is serious, isn't it? The word of God would teach: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you' - and if you study His business, that's what the verse is saying, if you study God's business He'll look after your business. I know it's hard. What about insincerity in our social lives? That could be divided into many things, but one of them can be flattery. Now I'm not talking about encouragement, a pat on the back, saying well done - that's needed greatly today. But what I am talking about is something not helpful but hateful, something that is for your own good to flatter someone, to be in with them or to get something from them.

What about falsity, or you could put it: hypocrisy? We're sitting in the front room, you're talking about your neighbour and you're giving them this, and that, and the other with your words - and then all of a sudden there's a knock on the door, who is it? 'Oh, I'm so glad to see you! How are you doing?' - hypocrisy! You can look at it as scandal-mongering - 'Oh, Christians wouldn't do the like of this' - I think Christians should go into the Olympics for this! Some of them are that good at it! Some of them, when they gather at houses for coffee, that's all they spend their time doing! This is serious stuff: backbiting within the church. Do you know what Oswald Chambers says? I know it's hard to be talked about, I know that - it's bad to talk about others, but it's hard to be talked about and you want to rush to defend yourself. Do you know what Chambers said: 'Scandal should be treated the way you treat mud on your clothes. If you try to deal with it when it's wept you rub the mud off into the texture, but if you leave it till it's dry you can flick it off with a touch - it's gone without trace! Leave scandal alone, never touch it'. Who cares what they say about you? If we had time we could go into what they said about the Lord Jesus: a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, a glutton - look at Him! Look who He's with! What does it say of Him? He made Himself of no reputation, He didn't run after them defending His name.

What about irreverence in the life of faith? Think of some of the jokes that are permitted and we permit concerning the Bible, concerning words of Scripture, concerning stories or even lines of hymns - we've got to take these things seriously! What about the solemn words that we have sung this morning, the things that we say in our prayers publicly - and we perhaps sing without paying the slightest attention to what we are doing, or what we are saying. We're singing: 'All hail the power of Jesus name', when really all you're interested in, madam, is the splendour of the colour of your sister's hat! Is that where we're living, is it? Is that the level of our spirituality? Do we say things and not mean them? Preachers and teachers, how often do we fudge evidence to make a point, or to dogmatise in areas that we know nothing about - or perhaps in areas that 'Everybody's always believed this, therefore I better toe the line'? What about that? What about the preacher that writes in the corner of his notes: 'Shout loudly, weak point'? Isn't that right?

Let me tell you: all of these things can be encapsulated around what is the biblical definition of lying. Lying! What does the Lord say? What do we do? As we close, verse 37: 'Let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no'. What's He saying? He's not saying you don't take official oaths when you need to in an evil world, that's not what He's saying. He's saying you, as a Christian, shouldn't need to take oaths! It shouldn't be necessary in the kingdom - whether in the future millennial kingdom or now in those members of the kingdom. As someone said: 'A gentleman's word is as sure as his oath' - and I put that to you today, a Christian's word is as sure as his oath too! We should speak truthfully, honestly, as if we were under oath. Oaths or swearing should be completely unnecessary! Our speech should be untarnished, unembellished - it should be a clear yes or no!

In Casablanca, during World War II, Winston Churchill met Roosevelt to discuss the plan of war. At the conclusion of the sittings Mr Churchill volunteered to incorporate the British undertakings in a treaty, but the President's response was in these words: 'No thank you, your words are good enough for me'. I think that must be one of the greatest tributes to Winston Churchill ever: 'Your word is good enough for me'. That is the believer, that's the believer - the Lord says: 'Whatsoever is more than these comes of evil'. In other words, if you have to swear it's either because you're not trustworthy to tell the truth, or the person doesn't trust you to tell the truth. The mistrust is either in you or the other person - and that's why the Lord says: 'If you have to swear it comes of evil'. Let me go further: that is the reason why we are required to swear in a court of law today, because we live in an evil world - that's why we do it. And I would put to you that there's something wrong if a Christian refuses to do it.

The evil lies within, but let us beware most of all of an evil: lying against God. What did the Lord say to the Pharisees? We could go and look at many passages where He castigates the Pharisees for these things: 'Ye honour me with your lips, but your heart is far from me'. Horatius Bonar, that godly man, put those words into a hymn, a prayer from his own heart. He said this:

'Help me, my God, to speak

True words to Thee each day.

Real let my voice be when I praise,

And trustful when I pray.

Thy words are true to me,

Let mine to Thee be true.

The speech of my whole heart and soul,

However low and few'.

Oh, God says to us as His people today: 'Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal rightly and truly are His delight'. Do you remember the words of the Lord? 'Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement'! We thought recently of Eye-gate as the Lord pictured a man looking on a woman lustfully - Eye-gate, that is what we let in. But now the Lord is speaking to us today of Mouth-gate, what we let out. Oh, I pray - you know gossip is a cancer in this church, because it's a cancer in every church. You go home today and get on your knees and pray David's prayer: 'Set a watch, oh Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips'.

Let's bow our heads together, and if you're guilty of this sin - join the club, because we're all guilty of it! What we have to do is confess it. You could be here, and maybe not guilty of this sin in particular, but guilty of never ever coming to Christ. Why don't you come to Him today? The blood that is able to cleanse the believer of this sin is able to cleanse you of all sin, forever, Amen. So why not come to Him today in simple faith and take that gift of salvation?

Father, we thank Thee for a clear-cut speaking Saviour, a Saviour who did not mince His words - though they were filled with grace, they were filled with truth. We pray as Thy people and as His disciples, that we will be enabled in this day of lying, this day of spin, this day of economy with the truth, that we will say 'Yes, yes; No, no' - and let the facts and our character be enough to speak truth. These are hard things, our Father, and we have all failed - and I confess my sin. We pray that You would help us from today, by the grace and by the Spirit of God, to live right in Christ Jesus. Bless us now as we go, in His name we pray, Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 10

"Turn The Other Cheek"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:38-42

Now we're turning to Matthew's gospel again and chapter 5 - Matthew chapter 5, and we're reading today from verse 38 through to 42. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away".

Let's bow our heads for a moment's prayer: Our Father, we come before Thee and before the words of Thy blessed Son, our Lord Jesus. Lord, these words are hard to read, let alone meditate upon and implement into our sinful lives. Therefore to that end we pray that You'll give us grace today to understand the word of God and, indeed, to apply it and implement it into our lives. Lord, we believe that this sermon is not meant to be preached as much as meant to be lived. Therefore we pray that the preaching of it would add to the living of it in the life of the people gathered here today. Fill me with Thy Spirit I pray, and come by Thy Holy Spirit to minister to us and speak to us. For Christ's sake, and for His glory alone. Amen.

A successful Irish boxer on one occasion was converted, and he grew in faith and became a preacher of the gospel. He happened to be in a new town setting up his evangelistic tent, and a couple of tough thugs noticed what he was doing. Knowing nothing of the evangelist's background, they made a few insulting remarks to him. The Irishman merely turned and looked at them. Pressing his luck, one of the bullies took a swing and struck a glancing blow on one side of the ex-boxer's face. He shook it off and said nothing as he stuck out his jaw to him again. The fellow took another glance and blew him on the side of the cheek. At that point, the preacher swiftly took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and announced: 'The Lord gave me no further instructions' - bang!

Now believe it or not, that is the way many people view the Sermon on the Mount and, indeed, view these verses that we read together today. I would say that nowhere is the challenge greater in this sermon than in these few verses that we have read today. In verse 38 the Lord again, as He does right throughout this sermon, goes back to the Old Testament law. He quotes these words that we know all too well - even proverbially in society - 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. If you go to Exodus 21, Leviticus 24 and Deuteronomy 19 you will find there in the law those words. Those words that the Lord quoted from the Old Testament were both a command to punish, but I want you also to see that it was a limitation on punishment. 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' was telling people that punishment was necessary. If you pluck out someone's eye, your eye should be plucked out. If you knock out their teeth, your tooth should be knocked out. So it was a command to punish.

But you see, what people often miss - Christians and, indeed, society at large that scorns this law: 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' - is that not only is it a command to punish, but it is a limitation on punishment. What God is saying in the Old Testament is: 'The penalty must not exceed the crime'. So in order to command to punish, it also says you mustn't punish too hard, over and above the crime that has been committed. You see, what happened in Old Testament times, or what ought to have happened, is that this law kept people from forcing the offender to pay a greater price than the offence he committed deserved. Another thing it did was it prevented people from taking personal revenge. So don't scorn this law in the Old Testament too quickly. But what I want you to note, before we go on any further, is that according to the Old Testament scriptures and the law, authority for punishment was vested in government. That is important!

You must remember that the first five books of the Bible are not just a spiritual Old Testament, like we have our spiritual New Testament. The Pentateuch was the law of the land that was to be implemented in that Jewish Israelite society. It is not given to the individual. Therefore this law: 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth', was not for private vengeance. It wasn't for you as an individual, or me as an individual, living in Judaism in the Old Testament society. But rather it was a direction for the magistrates and for the judges and the leaders in Israel. But what I want you to see is: what the Scribes and the Pharisees in the Lord Jesus' day did with these verses of Old Testament writ. They took them - meant to be applied to the authorities and society - and they extended those principles of just retribution to individuals. I hope you can see that transition. They extended these principles of just retribution from the law courts, where it belonged, to the realm of personal relationships, where it did not belong.

These verses are misunderstood today because many people think that the Lord Jesus is prohibiting the administration of justice in society. That is not what the Lord is prohibiting here by bringing us His new law in the Sermon on the Mount. What the Lord is saying is, indeed, the spirit of the law in the Old Testament: 'You are not to take the law into your own hands'. So He says: 'Resist not evil'. Now, He is not thinking - let me implore you to understand this - He is not thinking of judicially or nationally, but He's thinking individually. Now why am I emphasising that? Simply this: the Lord Jesus is not teaching that nations are to discard their armies, or their navies, or their police forces, or their judges, or to open the gates of all the prisons and let people out. Nations as nations are not yet in the Kingdom of God! Therefore the laws of the Kingdom do not apply to them as nations. It would do you well to, in your life as you read the word of God and understand the word of God, not to apply Christian principles to a non-Christian world, because then you have confusion.

The Lord Jesus is teaching this sermon, and if any nation in this world - I'd vouch to say to you - implemented these laws as national laws in the society that we live in, filled with sin and not under the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would be absolute collapse of all institutions and chaos within society! Thank God there's a day coming when all nations will be members of the Kingdom of God, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. But I want you to see the distinction here: the Lord Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He is not speaking of national laws, but He is speaking of individual responsibilities of believers in Christ.

Now, in order that you don't misunderstand me when I say that, and in order that we lay a proper foundation I want you to turn to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 and verses 19 to 20, and we'll not take time to read them but if you just glance down at them you will see that Paul illuminates on the principles that I've just been speaking about. He says, instead of avenging ourselves for any wrong that's been done to us we are to 'give place unto wrath'. That means 'let way' and 'give way' for God's wrath. God's word says in this passage, Paul quoting the Old Testament: 'I will repay'. He will deal with a person and with a matter that we have been wronged in. Our part, Paul says, is to act kindly and generously toward our enemy. By doing so we 'heap coals of fire' on his head, or maybe we cause his mind to burn with shame - but we are not allowed, ourselves, to overcome by evil the evil that has been done to us. Quite the contrary, we are to overcome evil by good! Now, that is the sentiment of individual responsibility between you and your brother, between you and another.

But then if you know the word of God and are familiar with it, if you go to Romans chapter 13 this time, you will see how Paul doesn't want us to misunderstand who this applies to. Now, we have to realise that many people - Christians - take the words of the Authorised Version in Matthew 5 where the Lord says: 'Resist not evil', and they take it to awful literal extremes. They take it to the extremes of uncompromising pacifism, where it's never ever right to take up force in any shape or form - whether it be a government or whether it be from the point of freedom fighting. In fact, Luther says one of the most absurd instances of this was seen in a man who he calls 'the crazy man'. He describes him like this: 'This man let the lice nibble at him and refused to kill any of them on account of this text, maintaining that he had to suffer and could not resist evil'.

Now, I hope none of you would say that that is what this passage teaches! But in Romans chapter 13, if you take time to read it when you go home, you will see that God has invested authority in the law courts. God has invested authority in the state that you live in. He sets up one ruler; He brings down another ruler. In the law of the land it is the responsibility of the judicial system to resist evil. This is important, and we looked at this when we were looking at oaths - that the Lord doesn't say that it's never, on any occasion, right to take an oath. What He is talking about here is individual responsibility. He is not applying it to an unbelieving, unregenerate world. The reason I'm labouring this is that the duties and the functions of the state are quite different from those of the individual. God's purpose in the Sermon on the Mount is to express individual responsibility. Romans 13 - we are not to take out vengeance on another but the state is to do it, and indeed the sword, if you like, the gun of the policeman in society today is ordained by God.

I'll illustrate it for you. It's a ridiculous illustration, but I think it brings home to you the sentiment here - the difference between individual responsibility and the responsibility of the law of the land. If I went home and found that my house was being burgled, and I catch the thief, it may well be my duty individually as a Christian to set him down and give him a glass of milk and a chocolate chip biscuit, but also ring the police for them to come and collect him! Now, I know that's ridiculous, but that is keeping in tandem the two ideas of individual responsibility but also a responsibility to the law of the land. Now, think of it! If you take this verse to its literal extreme, as many believers do, we will not only be resisting evil but we would be letting loose evil in our society. If I go home and find a burglar there I say: 'Look son, that's OK. You've done something wrong but I'm not going to phone the police because the Lord Jesus said, 'Don't resist evil'. So you just go away and rob Sadie down the road, and take all her silver'. Is that what the Lord is teaching? Of course it's not! Let me encourage you, there is some literalistic nonsense that is taught from many portions of scripture that do not weigh up with the whole counsel of God; and we've got to get down to what God teaches.

What is the Lord really teaching? I'll tell you what He's teaching. Four illustrations: the first tells us that as believers we are to choose insults. Choose being insulted over not being insulted. Look at verse 39: 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also'. Now, to the Eastern mind it wasn't the pain of the slap on the cheek that was the problem. It was the absolute insult and indignity that it brought. What's being spoken of here is a slap from the back of your hand, which was ten times more indignant than a slap with the palm of your hand. Now, what happens? If you were slapped across the face all our instincts incline us hotly to return a blow for a blow. What's the Lord saying? If there is a second blow, we as God's people are not to be the ones to throw it. We are to take it!

Now, don't miss the wood for the trees, because week after week as I study these verses, you know what people sometimes do? They get taken up with the actualities of the passage about what it means: 'Now, is it the back of his hand or is it the front of his hand? Or what way did he slap him? With the right hand or the left hand?'. They miss the principle behind what the Lord is saying. Don't miss the principle, because if you do that you do what the Pharisees do! What is the principle? Did the Lord do this? Well, He didn't do it literally. In John 18 and verses 22 to 23 we read this: 'One of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand...and Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?'. Now, in a literal sense the Lord perhaps didn't jut out His other cheek, but in the most real way He did so.

Does it pay to do this? This is an attitude. It's not a literal action. It doesn't matter if you put your other cheek out and the attitude within you is hate and revenge, and you want to get this person one way or another - we'll follow them and we'll get them somehow, whether with our tongue or with our fist. The Lord is speaking of the attitude deep in our hearts.

Now, does it work? Does it work? There's a famous story that goes around about Billy Bray who was an eccentric Methodist preacher, and he was once an ex-miner. He tells in his biography of his remarkable conversion, and also the disgust of his fellow miners of the fact that he had got saved and given up his evil ways. One day in sheer annoyance one of them struck him in the face saying: 'Take that for turning to Methody!'. Billy turned and looked at him and said: 'May God forgive you man, as I do'. He didn't turn the other cheek, but it was his attitude, isn't that right? And that attitude actually brought that rough individual to Christ!

I'll tell you another story of a keen young soldier determined to nail his colours to the mast right away in his corp. He found himself in a very rough regiment and he was on his knees one evening. They often gave him a hard time, jibing at him as he was on his knees in prayer. One night, as he was kneeling at his bedside, a particularly brutal man threw a boot at his head, and it bounced off his head. That young man continued praying through all the cursing and all the abuse. He didn't do anything. He didn't say anything. Nothing more was done, and night fell and they all went to bed; but when that ruffian got out of his bed that morning, there was a new polished clean pair of boots beside his bed. That man too came to Christ. He was turning the other cheek, wasn't he, the young soldier? Billy Bray - he didn't do it in a literal sense. It's what the Lord is encapsulating in these parables and, indeed, in these illustrations: 'Turn the other cheek' - it's an attitude. Now listen, people mightn't get saved. Whether they get saved or not, it's our duty to do this, but let me say this: much of it has fruit! Much of it has fruit! The bottom line is that we have to choose insults, as the people of God. We may lose our dignity. We may lose our pride, and that wouldn't be a bad thing to lose, but we may gain a soul.

The Lord Jesus was called a glutton, a winebibber, a drunkard. He was called a friend of tax-collectors, and harlots, and sinners. The reason why men called Him this, was that they were accusing Him of the same sins because of who He was hanging around with every day. The early Christians, if you read early church history, were called cannibals because they broke bread, which symbolised the body of Christ, and they drank wine, which symbolised the blood of Christ. They were accused of immorality of the grossest and shameless kind, because they called the Breaking of Bread 'The Love Feast' - and people accused them of having an orgy! When Lord Shaftsbury undertook the cause of the poor and the oppressed he was warned that it would mean that - I quote - 'He would become unpopular with his friends and people of his class, and that he would have to give up all hopes of ever being a cabinet minister'. When Wilberforce began his crusade to free the slaves the slanderous rumour went around that he was a cruel husband, he was a wife-beater, and they even said that he was married to a black woman. But none of those men, especially our Lord Jesus Christ - now please, let the spirit of this teaching infuse your heart - 'When He was reviled He reviled not again. He made Himself of no reputation'. Do you know what that means? He chose to be insulted rather than to be praised. What's the Lord saying with 'turn the other cheek'? Choose the insults!

Secondly, He says 'choose injustice'. Look at verse 40, the second illustration: 'If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also'. We don't have time to go into all this, but if you were to go Exodus 22 you would find under Jewish law that if you didn't pay your debt your creditor was entitled to take your coat as a guarantee until you did pay the debt. What the Lord is speaking of here is a false accusation. This man was falsely accusing this other man of not paying his debt, and he sues him for his coat. It's an unjust claim. It's this man's right to keep his coat, to have his coat as his own. The law laid down that even if it was a just claim, and he took his coat rightly, he couldn't keep his coat forever. You weren't allowed to keep another man's coat permanently. What would you do if someone sued you? What would you do if a man falsely accused you? I think in your innermost old man that it would arouse a resentment, a tenacity to cling onto your name, to cling onto your rights, your reputation. What does the Lord say? The Lord says 'No!'. Whether it's an unjust claim, whether you did it or you didn't do it, whether he takes away your cloak permanently, and that's another injustice, you've got to choose injustice! But more than that, the Lord says it's far greater than that: if he takes away your coat, you give him your cloak!

The Lord is saying the Christian is a person that never stands up for his rights. He never disputes about his legal rights. He does not consider himself to have any legal rights at all! Don't water it down! That's what people do with this - they water it down to get their rights. We live in a land that is full of proud, pompous, Protestant rights. The believer doesn't have any. The believer is to fight for rights, but fight for others' rights! Tenaciously, you're to fight for the right of your brother or sister, or the right of those in poverty or in famine, but you are not to make yourself of any reputation. These are hard words, aren't they?

The church, I think, is especial in having people who are caricatured forever standing on their rights, who clutch to their privileges, who will have to be pried lose from them, who will militantly go to the law rather than to suffer what they regard as the slightest infringement upon their rights. Sadly, churches are tragically filled with such people! A Christian - now listen to this - a Christian is a man who has forgotten that he has any rights at all!

You're to choose insults and choose injustice and, thirdly, His illustration tells us, in verse 41, you're to choose inconvenience: 'Whosoever shall compel you to walk a mile, go with him two'. What the Lord is referring to here is in Roman custom - remember the Jews are in the Roman empire at this moment - there was a custom that you could put your hand on someone suddenly and force him to do something for you. If you were a Roman citizen or a Roman leader you could impress someone for imperial business - a sort of press gang. In other words, if there was a Roman official going down the road and you were minding your own business in the corner; if he wanted he could impress you to carry his bags and go wherever he was going. If he so decided, he had the power to compel you for service in accompanying him and aiding him for the next stage of his journey. That's what the Lord means when He says: 'If he compels you to go a mile'. The only other occasion when we have a reference of this is in Matthew 27 and Mark 15 where Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross of the Lord Jesus. That's the idea here.

What does the Lord say? You'd say: 'Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am? Do you think I'm a second class citizen, asking me to do the like of this?'. The Lord doesn't even say that your attitude is to do it - He says that your attitude is to go an extra mile! Choose inconvenience! How many times are we - and I'm guilty of this - unexpectedly called upon to help or to serve, and it's a great inconvenience to me? How do I do it? It's hard even to get going that one mile, isn't it, let alone get going the extra mile? But do you know something? Our compulsion to do right is more stringent than the imperial Roman government had upon individuals in Judaism to do right, because the Lord Jesus says to us through His word: 'The love of Christ constraineth us. Go not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a cheerful giver'. Do you know what the Lord is saying? If you went out today and somebody asked you to do something, whether it was to carry a bag somewhere like the Roman government would, you're to grab the bag and you're to run on ahead of that man, singing and shouting in glory to God: 'For the Lord loveth a cheerful giver'.

It's hard, isn't it? - to choose insults, to choose injustice, to choose inconvenience, and then, fourthly, to choose indulgence. Verse 42, look at it: 'Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away'. Let me say a few things very quickly. This verse is not teaching that you've to give at the expense of your family, because the word of God teaches 'if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable before the Lord; but if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel'. So you're not to rob Peter inside to pay Paul outside. Supply for your own home! So it's not just giving money 'willy-nilly'.

Secondly, it's not at the expense of your duty. Oliver Goldsmith said he was so liberal to beggars that he had nothing left for his tailor or for his butcher. Not at the expense of others! If you've bills to pay, you pay the bills, no matter how many people are coming to you and asking you for money.

Thirdly, not at the expense of the beggar himself. What I mean is this: a tramp comes up to you in the town and he asks you for a tenner or a fiver, or he asks you for a pound; if you can smell drink off his breath have the sense not to give it to him for he'll go and drink it! Here's a question: why do we always think of money? The Lord doesn't mention money. Give him a feed. Do whatever you like with him, as the Lord leads you but give him something. But don't give to the extent that you harm the person you're giving to. The best form of giving or lending is that which helps people to help themselves. There's provisos to these rules. But the Lord still says, and let's not water it down: 'Give to him that asketh thee'. Here's the real point - when we see somebody, and somebody comes up to us and says: 'I need money', what do we think? 'Does this man deserve it?' Isn't that what we think? What would you have done if the Lord had said when you came to Him and said: 'Lord, would you save me?', and He said: 'Does this man deserve it?'. That's not the question we're to ask, the question we are to ask is this: 'Does this man need it? Does he need it?'. If he needs it give it to him.

'As we therefore have opportunity let us do good unto all', and especially unto them who are of the household of faith. Especially the brethren and the sisters in Christ, we are to do this! As we close today, in the last five minutes, what is the teaching of the Lord? It's to choose insults - yes - it's to choose injustice, it's to choose inconvenience, it's to choose indulgence, but is that all? I mean, if we go out and follow this like the law of the Medes and Persians, and dot all our i's and cross all our t's with this, and when we're slapped across our face we turn the other side of the cheek and follow all His laws - is that what He really wants us to know? Of course it's not! I'll tell you what He is speaking of - He is saying that beyond the Old Testament law there is a higher righteousness that abolishes retaliation altogether. There is an attitude of the 'right cheek' in your heart. Listen to what Matthew Henry says about this: 'If any person says flesh and blood cannot pass by' - in other words, flesh and blood could never ever accomplish what you have in this sermon - 'remember that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'.

What do you think when you look at this passage of scripture? Do you know what I think? 'That is impossible!' And do you know what? It is impossible! It is impossible without the divine life of God in your being. You need to know that flesh and blood - effort - cannot get into the Kingdom, let alone keep the laws of the Kingdom. Is it any wonder that the Lord says: 'Marvel not Nicodemus that I say unto you, ye must be born again'? You need the life of God! If you don't have it, my friend, don't follow these things because you're only heaping coals upon your head. You need to be saved!

What is this? How can we sum all this up? How can we sum up the Sermon on the Mount? Do you know what it all is? Listen: it is death to self. Death to self! You take a slap on the cheek, you know what? You're dying; your body's dying to self. You're sued for your coat and you give your cloak. What does that mean? Your property has died to self. You're not materialist. Verse 41 - you're compelled to go the extra mile in your work, in your service, in your energy, in your efforts and strength - you've died to Christ! Now, here's the question the Lord is asking you and I today: will you choose to be a fool for Christ? Will you choose to suffer for Christ? It's a choice! You don't wait until the sovereign will of God brings you into suffering. It's a choice! When you choose insults and injustice and inconvenience and indulgence, the problem is we don't see it as God breaking us down - we see it as everybody else hammering us. We need to come in the spirit of the hymnwriter and say,

'Lord, bend that proud and stiff-necked I,

Help me to bow the head and die;

Beholding Him on Calvary,

Who bowed His head for me'.

Let me finish with this story. It's the choice between common sense and Kingdom sense. I've read recently the life of a martyr who laid down his life for Christ. That's what the Lord is speaking of here: spiritually laying down your life for Christ and others. It's the path of blessing and fulfilment, and you ought not to be afraid to step out by faith on it. His name was Jack Vincent, he was a widower and it happened in October 1931. He was a southern American Presbyterian, and he had been captured by bandits in China. The government forces had surrounded the building, and the bandits that he was captured by offered the missionary freedom if he would implore and persuade the forces of China to retreat and let them all out. Vincent agreed that he would do that on the condition that they would release not only him, but other captives. The bandits refused to do that and they tried to shoot their way out of the camp, and many bandits were killed. All the survivors that were in that camp fled with Vincent, but that old missionary couldn't run because he'd had recent surgery. One bandit shot him. Then another ran up to him and cut off his head. The daughter of a Chinese pastor was among the government troops and she recalled having heard a bandit tell him: 'I'm going to kill you. Are you afraid?'. Vincent replied simply: 'Kill me if you wish. I will go straight to God'.

One of his colleagues, E.H. Hamilton, was inspired to write this poem, and I believe it captures the attitude of what the Lord is teaching. Listen to this - you can be a martyr and not die. It's a martyr's attitude that the Lord is speaking of:

'Afraid of what?

To feel the Spirit's glad release?

To pass from pain to perfect peace?

The strife and strain of life to cease?

Afraid of that?

Afraid of what?

Afraid to see the Saviour's face?

To hear His welcome and to trace

The glory gleam from wounds of grace?

Afraid of that?

Afraid of what?

A flash, a crash, a pierced heart?

Darkness - light of Heaven's art?

A wound of His a counterpart,

Afraid of that?

Afraid of what?

To do by death what life could not?

Baptise with blood a stony plot

'Til souls shall blossom from the spot,

Afraid of that?

'Except a corn of wheat fall in the ground and die, it abideth alone'.

Let's pray and bow our heads. Maybe you didn't know that when you chose to trust Christ that you chose to be insulted, you chose injustice, you chose inconvenience and you chose to be most indulgent. In fact, do you know what you chose? You chose to lose your life that you might find it in Heaven. Are you sure you chose Christ? Choose that narrow road today for it is the road of blessing.

Lord Jesus, help us. Who is sufficient for these things? We know that only the life of Christ satisfies the life of God. We pray that the life of Christ would be manifest in our bodies; that the dying and the living of the Lord Jesus would be seen in us; that men would see our good works and not glorify us, but our Father which is in Heaven. Give us grace, we pray, to be epistles written unto men. Amen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - November 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk 

info@preachtheword.co.uk 


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 11

"Love Your Enemies"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 5:43-48

We're going through a series on the Sermon on the Mount, so I would ask you to turn to Matthew's gospel and chapter 5 - Matthew chapter 5. Let me encourage all the folk who will be out at the meeting tonight to bring as many unconverted folk as you possibly can, I want to be a simple as I can with the presentation of the Gospel tonight on the subject of 'Conversion'. So please do make an effort if you can to bring unconverted folk under the sound of God's Word.

We're looking this morning in Matthew chapter 5 at the last section, remember there have been several sections where the Lord Jesus was dealing with the Old Testament law, and speaking of how He has come to be the fulfilment of it. Those sections began in verse 21, and now we come to the last of those five, and we're looking at the subject of: 'Loving Your Enemies'.

Verse 43, the Lord says: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect".

Let us pray together: Our Father, as we come to Thy eternal Word, we pray now that Thou wilt help us to understand. We pray that You will help us to implement these truths in our lives, they are so difficult - therefore we ask for Thy divine enablement and power and unction of Thy Holy Spirit. To me as I preach the word, that You'll fill me and anoint me to preach it. For those who are listening, that You'll give them that meekness, by Your Spirit, to receive the engrafted word of truth. So help us now we pray, for we ask these things in Jesus' precious name, Amen.

Love your enemies. I'm sure you would admit that the Irish race are not the most forgiving when it comes to their enemies. I read an Irish prayer this week that went like this: 'May those that love us love us, those that don't love us may God turn their hearts, and if He doesn't turn their hearts may He turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping'. That is often the sentiment of folk from Ulster and indeed Ireland, and in fact any folk that can call themselves sinners - and all are sinners. That is the natural reaction of humanity to those whom we class as our enemies. But nevertheless, still today in our godless and unbiblical generation that hardly knows who Noah is, or Moses is, some even do not know the gospel of Jesus Christ, yet most people know that one of the distinguishing factors of the Christian faith is that the Christian is to love their enemies. It is seen, perhaps, as the primary most distinguishing virtue of the Christian faith.

It is said of Archbishop Cranmer: 'If you would be sure to have Cranmer do you a good turn, you must do him an ill one', for though he loved to do good to all, especially he loved to do good to those who did him evil. He watched for opportunities to do good to those who were doing evil to him on a regular basis. When we look at saints of old like Archbishop Cranmer, and we see this Christian virtue within them, we have to ask ourselves in the light of the words of the Lord today: how do we fare? How do we measure up when it comes to loving our enemies?

Now, we have seen as we have gone through the Lord Jesus commentating on the Old Testament law, the ten commandments, we have seen how in each case He never ever opposed what the law taught. What He did oppose was the unauthorised additions of the Scribes and the Pharisees - in other words, how they inadequately interpreted the word of God, how they took the word of God and twisted it to mean what they wanted in their own interpretation. Indeed, the Lord calls it the tradition of the elders, how they deluded and prefixed - put parts onto - the law, in order to fit their own trends and their own lives.

What the Lord Jesus does is He comes to the law, and He says of Himself: 'I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil the law'. So as the Lord has been speaking, and as we have been looking at it in these weeks, as He speaks on the Old Testament Scriptures His primary goal is not destruction, His goal is development. He wants to bring the Old Testament Scriptures to the goal and the development that God intended it in the first place. So He comes to the law of love. I hope you can remember the occasion when the Jewish lawyer came to the Lord Jesus and asked Him what was the greatest of all the commandments, and the Lord replied these words: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and the great commandment, and the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, and on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets'.

So the Lord Jesus is re-laying the foundation of what the true commandments of the law, and indeed the spirit of the whole of the ten commandments, is. The first five commandments: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; and the last five commandments are related to our brothers and sisters in humanity: and the second is like unto it: love thy neighbour as thyself, and on these two hang all of the law and the prophets.

But again we come to an instance of how men edited the word of God, how men changed the law of God to suit their own circumstances and to suit their own sinful habits and tendencies. So, I want to outline for you two things whereby men edited God's word, and specifically edited the law of God with regards to the law of love. I don't know whether you're computer literate, but you will know on your computer - if you can use your computer - that there is a cutting and pasting mechanism. In other words, if you have a bit of text on your screen you can take out a bit that you don't want, you can put it somewhere else. You can take it out and totally delete it, in fact you can add a bit in from another document - and it's called cutting and pasting, like you would cut the wallpaper and paste it onto the wall. The Pharisees and the Scribes in the Lord Jesus' day had that mentality toward the word of God. They were cutting bits out that they didn't like, they were putting bits in that made it easier for them to follow the law of God.

As we've been looking at the Sermon on the Mount in recent weeks we have seen these Jewish perversions of God's law. The rabbi's teaching with regards to love in verse 43 is said to be this, Jesus says: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy'. Love thy neighbour, they said, and hate thine enemy! Now, the law of God did not say that. It was quite different in Leviticus 19 and verse 18 we read these words: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself', but there it stops. It doesn't say anything about hating your enemy. So the Pharisees, the Jews, had perverted the law of God once more.

They made it different in three ways, first of all in qualification. They didn't just leave it as: 'Love thy neighbour', but they defined for you who your neighbour was. In other words, your neighbour is somebody of the same colour as you, the same religion as you, the same creed as you, he has to be a Jewish neighbour - love your Jewish neighbour, but don't love anybody else. Qualification. Then there was omission, they changed the law of God by omitting some of the truth within it. If you look at verse 43 it says: 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy' - what part of the law did they leave out? 'Love thy neighbour as thyself', they omitted it. That's the extent of the law of love, you've to love your neighbour as yourself. They qualified it, they omitted it, and they added to it - there's addition, because they said: '...and hate thine enemy', and the law of God did not do that. In fact, the law of God - if we had time we could look at it in Exodus 23 - it actually told you how to behave toward your enemy, to behave toward them in benevolence. In other words, if your enemy's ox or ass was stolen or lost and you found it, you had to be kind to him, you had to return to him. The law of God is full of these benevolent instances toward your neighbour and toward your enemy.

I can understand how, perhaps, the Jews had misinterpreted the law of God. If you remember Joshua going into the promised land, Canaan, was told to exterminate all their enemies - men, women, boys and girls were to be totally wiped out so that they could have the land. Perhaps, as they looked at that they thought: 'Well, God wants us to hate our enemies. God wants us to destroy our enemies'. Perhaps as they looked at the Psalms, and if you've read the Psalms you will know that there at times when the Psalmist calls down judgement upon his enemies, calls the wrath of God down upon the enemies of Israel and his personal enemies as the king or a leader in the nation.

What we have to remember in those two instances is this: first of all, God commanded Israel to go into the promised land, God commanded them to clear out the land of all their enemies for one reason: purely because of the evil of those nations. The Canaanites were bringing abominations into the sight of God, the gods that they were worshipping, the evil sinful practice is that they were delving into. If you like this was the holy war that we find in scripture, where God told His people to go in and clear the land so that they would not be contaminated with the sins of the Canaanites. You must remember this: God gave warrant for that. Then as we come to the Psalmist we must also remember that the Psalmist never is talking about his personal enemies, his personal animosity, his personal hate, but he is speaking as a representative of the nation - perhaps as a king, perhaps as a general - or even a representative of God, he's standing in the place of God, singing praises to God in his Psalm or perhaps as a penitential prayer to God for the nation against the enemy.

This is what I want you to note, because we've been looking at this week after week, if we applied this to today and to our nation the nation would be in total chaos. There would be crime everywhere, because we would say: 'Well, you're to love your enemy, you're not to lock them up, you're not to put them in jail, you're not to take them to the court'. If we did it on an international scale we would be saying: 'Well, let Osama Bin Laden get on with it, let them do what they like around the world'. Maybe that seems in our own present situation that that may be what is going on, but these are not principles to be applied to nations, these are not principles to be applied to individual unbelievers, these are the principles of the kingdom of God, these are the principles of believers.

What we are talking about today are your personal enemies, your personal animosities, your personal hatred. You can see how the Jews perverted the word of God for their own ends. You might 'tut, tut', and shake the finger at them, shake your head at them for touching and tampering with the word of God, but it grieves me today to bring to you that Christians do exactly the same. There might be Jewish perversions that edit the word of God and the laws of God, but there are also Christian diversions that take away from the truth of what God has said. We've already said that this verse, perhaps more than anything, in the eyes of people in the world defines the true attitude and nature of the Christian ethic, what the Christian ought to be in the eyes of men and women. But although perhaps it's the pinnacle of all Christian witness and what it should be, you will admit with me as a believer here today that it's the hardest, perhaps, of all the commands that God gives to us in His word, and it's the hardest trait for anybody to find within a Christian believer.

I believe, for that reason, Christian theologies, Christian ideologies, Christian doctrines and beliefs, have been evolved in order to get people out of the awkward corner of forgiving and loving your enemies. Let me give you a few of them: 'Matthew's gospel is for the Jew, so this command is not for me it's for the Jew'. Now, Matthew's gospel is for the Jew, and these were spoken to Jews - but, my friend, this is the word of God. We haven't time to go into all the details of why we can take this as the scripture to ourselves. Others say: 'Well, it's for the millennial reign of Christ', and it is for the millennial reign of Christ in the sense that it will all be consummated and fulfilled when people actually live like this on the earth, but it still can be applied to the believer and the life of God in our lives today. Whether you say it's only for the Jew, or whether you say it's for the millennial reign of Christ, do you not see what the ploy is behind all of that? 'That's not for me, I'm looking for a way to get around how I can stop having to love my enemy'.

Some commentators that I was reading this week went into the detail of the Greek words for love, and there are four Greek words for love, and they all mean different things. The Greek word for 'love' here isn't family love, it isn't love that you have for a wife or a son or a daughter or a mother or a father, it isn't the love that you have for a friend that you have a great deal of things in common with. It's none of those things, and so some people have said: 'Well, this is a love that isn't an affection of the heart, but it is a love of the mind and the will. When you decide to maybe love a person that you don't really like, you mightn't like them, but God commands you to love them'. I don't know how men and women see this within the word of God, the idea of God putting in a believer a forced love, a love of the will and not a love of the heart. Surely that is the opposite of all the heart teaching within the Sermon on the Mount, that it is not the outward appearance, it is the heart. God is looking for what's in your heart, not that you say or you do something towards someone to show them that you love them, but deep down you can't stand them, you can't be around them.

The word for love here is a different word, it is the word 'agape'. Agape is the greatest love of all, because agape is the love of God, and you can't tell me that God doesn't love us from His heart, that God just loves us with His will and He doesn't really like us. Putting all that aside, even forgetting about all of that - and that proves it for itself - the Lord Jesus said: 'You have heard it said: Love your neighbour as yourself'. That is the extent of this love, it's a great love, I believe it's the greatest love of all, because it's God's love - agape. The love that God has shown toward us! Seneca said this: 'Live for thy neighbour if thou wouldst live for God'. He is right: live for your neighbour if you would live for God!

We have a personal salvation today in evangelicalism, we have a personal redemption, a personal forgiveness, but we have forgotten this: that if you are to live for God, if you are to be a disciple for the Lord Jesus Christ, you're commanded to love your neighbour as yourself, and love them with God's love. It's hard, but, isn't it? Someone said: 'It is no chore for me to love the whole world, my only real problem is my neighbour next door'. That's the truth, isn't it? The problem, perhaps, that we have in a materialistic world is, as someone else said: 'We too often love things and use people, when we should be using things and loving people'.

So, you see how the Jews, how Christian theologians, will do somersaults around the word of God to get out of what it is to be commanded as a believer to love thy neighbour as thyself. Plain as day, isn't it? So, what is it to love your neighbour as yourself? Well, I want to give it to you simply as this: it is admitting God's life. To love your neighbour as yourself is to admit God's life in your personality and in your life. Verse 44 says that: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven'.

Love your enemies! Now, who are your enemies? The Lord defines it in verse 44: them that hate you, those who wish you evil, who detest you, have a real loathing of you, who are often aroused even when you do good things for them, they seem to just emit hate toward you continually. The Lord says: 'Them which despitefully use you', those who threaten you, those who insult you, them which persecute you, those who speak evil against you with their words - or perhaps even further than that, act against you in physical violence. The Lord Jesus says: 'There is a definition of your enemies, you go and love them'. Now, that's not natural, don't tell me that's natural. We live in a world that says: 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You punch my nose, I'll punch yours'. We live in a world, and the philosophy is: 'Give as good as you get', but the Lord is coming here and He's saying: 'That's not allowed for the new order, that's not allowed for the kingdom of God, that's not allowed for My children. My children have a greater rule, a higher rule, and it's this: those who are provocative towards you, you have to remain unprovoked. Those who hate you, you must love them. The treatment to everyone who reviles you, persecutes you, say all manner of things against you, despitefully use you, your reply always - you don't need to think about it - it's just love'.

Now, can you imagine the reaction of the disciples when the Lord Jesus is teaching this? Can you imagine their faces? Perhaps even the listeners around in the outer crowd as they heard this absolutely, as far as they were concerned, impossible teaching. Perhaps, I imagine - and it's only my imagination - the Lord was even jeered as He said these words! 'Love them? How can you love your enemy!'. Maybe that's what is coming from your heart as you listen to the word of God today. You're saying from your heart: 'How is that possible?'.

Well, there is natural love - and you don't have to work at that. That's the love that you have for the members of your family, for the family circle, and that love is probably drawn from your heart because you're flesh and blood. If you're not flesh and blood, it's a love that is drawn out because of an affinity of interests, or because you're similar in character to this other person or in temperament. It's not hard to love someone that you're attracted to in that way, it's a natural affection. There's a Greek word for that, but that's not the word here, the word here is God's love - and that means a supernatural love, a love that supersedes all other loves. It is a love that is utterly regardless of condition or of position. It's a love that loves you and is a genuine love from the heart and from the will, but it loves you not because of anything in you, but just because it loves you.

A tremendous illustration of this is found in Luke's gospel chapter 10, we don't have time to look at it all. The good Samaritan - and I don't need to refresh you with the story of the good Samaritan, I'm sure most of you, if not all of you, know it - but that good Samaritan, what happened? His heart went out in love, and went out practically for that man lying in blood. The love that he had toward him was an unknown love, in other words the Samaritan had never seen this man in his life before - so it wasn't a natural affinity, it wasn't a bond of flesh, it was a love that went out to something that was unattractive. Can you imagine the ugly sight of that man lying bruised and bleeding, a battered form? Yet this love went towards something that was unattractive. It was an unprofitable love, the Samaritan was getting nothing out of it - in fact, if anything, he was losing. It was costing him, for he had to put the man up in the inn, remember. He had to pay for all his hospitality and all his care. It was an unfriendly love, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans - and for that Samaritan to do what he did toward the Jew was going across political, social, religious and cultural barriers, just to do that. Now, that's the love that is talked about when God says to you and to me: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'.

Imagine that! A person you don't know, a person that's unattractive, you get nothing out of it, it's unprofitable. Maybe the person is unfriendly, but you do it! That snotty-nosed little boy in Sunday School who's never invited to tea, who's never made a fuss over, who's never been taken to the zoo, and who smells of urine - it's to love him, that's that love. Do you know what it is? It's God's love, God's love! When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Even when His perfect justice had to punish, His perfect love remained. What we're talking about here is the love of Jesus. We are to love others with the love of Christ!

'A perfect friend is one who knows the worst about you, and loves you just the same.

There's only one who loves like that, and Jesus is His name,

His wonderful, wonderful name'.

Let's, in the closing moments, pin this love down. Verse 45a says you're to love like this that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Now really what that is saying is: is there a family likeness? Ask yourself that today: is there a family likeness? Am I like God? Am I loving with God's love? Am I resembling Him in the love that I offer others? Just as your father, your mother, your daughter, your son has a family resemblance to you, God is saying: 'This is the resemblance in my children, because they love like I love'. It's a spiritual resemblance. Augustine said: 'Good for good, evil for evil, that is natural. Evil for good, that is devilish. Good for evil, that is divine' - that's divine. It is the characteristic of God in your life, it's the family characteristic and resemblance. It's what John meant when he says: 'We love Him' - now that doesn't literally mean we love Him, as in 'we love God because He first loved us', that's a mistranslation. It means this: 'We love others, because He loved us'. In other words: 'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another'. Do you see it? The love of God in our lives is to cause us to ferment within our souls to such an extent of appreciation that we go out to a world and we love them as Christ loved.

The big question is: can this be done? Well, don't answer that question with whether it is being done or not, for frankly it's not being done. The question is: can it be done? The answer is: yes! But there's only one type of man and woman who can do it. There are three men in the scriptures: one is called the natural man; one is called the carnal man; and one is called the spiritual man. If you're to love like God loves, you are to be the spiritual man. The natural man is the unregenerate, the unsaved, the unconverted, and it's foolish to tell him to love his enemies for he receives not the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness unto him. They're unsaved, there's no point in telling unsaved people to love their enemies. The second is the carnal man, and that is a person who is a Christian, but he's like a baby who's underdeveloped. He has never grown up, and there's no use telling him to love his enemies, because he won't do it - he doesn't want to do it. If even in your prayers you include forgiveness for your enemies, maybe on the outside he says: 'Yes', but inwardly he's recoiling at the fact that you should ever say such a thing.

My friend, if you're unsaved, if you're a carnal Christian, you cannot love your enemies. What you must be is the spiritual man, that is a man who is a Christian and who lives as a Christian, who lives on the high level of the spiritual plain which is the normal Christian life. God's word says: 'If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His'. We all have the Spirit, we all have the Spirit if we are saved, that's not the question regarding the spiritual man - the question is this: how much of you does the Spirit have? If He has all of you, you are the spiritual man.

How is the family likeness today? Love like that detects your parentage, and in verse 45 it says love like that displays God's impartiality. God let's the rain drop on the righteous and the unrighteous, He lets the sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous - that's the type of love we are to have. The love of God, that type of love makes a man like God! It displays God's impartiality, and thirdly, verse 46 and 47, it demonstrates a good testimony. The Lord says: 'So what if you love your brother, so what if you love your neighbour, so what if you love someone you're attracted to - even the publicans do that!'. The publicans were the lowest of the low in Jewish society - the Lord Jesus says: 'You're doing as much as the worst sinner imaginable!'. That's not what we're called to do, what does He say? You're called to do more than others - more than others!

Now, how do we measure up to that? How many people have been turned off Christianity, who haven't got saved or are not getting saved at this moment, because of something that a believer has done because they have not lived 'more than others'? Oh, we are often criticised - and sometimes we resent the criticism of unbelievers - but here's the big question: is it true? Is it true? You know, it's amazing to me, in all of this Sermon we're astounded at what God is asking us through the Lord Jesus to do, but the sad thing is this: how far short do we fall of it all?

Verse 48 says this love derives from Christian maturity. He says: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect'. Now that's not perfect in wisdom, perfect in power, perfect in holiness - it's in the context of this: perfect in love. You're to be perfect in love, as God is perfect in love. It doesn't mean sinlessness, perfect morally or spiritually. What it means is two perfections I believe: perfect in capacity. If I had a glass of water here, and I was standing beside Lough Neagh, that glass of water is filled to capacity just as Lough Neagh is. They're not filled with the same amount of water, and you cannot be filled with the same amount of love as God is filled with at this moment - but you can be filled to capacity. Do you get it? All your being filled in fullness.

Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost? Are you filled with the Spirit? And if you are filled with the Spirit you will be filled with the fruit of the Spirit, and one of the fruits of the Spirit is love. It's perfection of capacity, but secondly it's perfection of maturity. The word 'perfection' here is 'telios' (sp?) - and do you know what it is? If you had a half-grown lad here, and a tall lad fully-grown - the tall lad is telios, fully developed, fully mature. If you had a student who's just learning, and a professor who's an expert - telios is the Professor. In other words, God is saying: 'I want you to have a grasp of love. I want you to have a perfection in the function that I have given to you'. It's the idea of the screw and the screwdriver. When the screwdriver fits the screw, that is telios. In other words, when it's filling the function it was created for. What were you and I created for? God said: 'Let us make man in our image and after our likeness' - we were created to be like God! Perfect!

Oh, it's impossible, isn't it? It's impossible unless you have died. It's no good doing. It's no good getting the Sermon on the Mount open and sitting and saying: 'I must, I must, I must try and do this. I have to do my best, I have to live like that' - that's not what God is asking you to do. God is asking you to die. He's not looking for good doing, He's looking for Godlikeness. He doesn't want you to exhibit good human characteristics, but divine characteristics. The miracle of it all is this: there is not one person in this building this morning who can't do it, for God does it!

Our Father, we pray this morning that our lives will exhibit the divine nature: God is love. We pray that we would love one another, love our neighbours as ourselves, but love our enemies and love all - for we believe God loves all. We pray, our Father, that Thou wilt make us perfect as Thou art perfect. For Christ's sake, Amen.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - November 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 12

"Why Are You Working?"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 6:1-4

Matthew chapter 6, we have finished now chapter 5 - the first chapter in the Sermon on the Mount - now we're entering into this next chapter. The rest of this great sermon of the Lord Jesus is given over to true righteousness. You know that the theme of the sermon has been this true righteousness - not externalities of ritualistic, Pharisaic religion, but true righteousness, which is the righteousness from our hearts. We've been looking at that in the first few verses of chapter 5 of the sermon, but now He takes us a little bit further and He talks to us about righteousness in our relationships with one another. We've been instructed in chapter 5 to avoid, negatively, heart unrighteousness - you remember that. We were told, not just not to hate, but not to hate in our hearts. OK, you're not to speak hateful words, murderous words; you're not to kill. But the Lord goes further and says: 'You're not to hate in your heart'. Concerning adultery He warns us about heart unrighteousness where that's concerned. It's not just the sin of adultery that the Lord prohibits, but it's actually heart unrighteousness, heart adultery - if you look at a woman with your eyes and lust after her, you've committed adultery already in your heart.

So He has told us in chapter 5 to avoid, negatively, heart unrighteousness. But now in chapter 6 He's telling us to do the positive, to engage positively in heart righteousness. Chapter 5: 'Don't get involved in heart unrighteousness', chapter 6: 'I want you now positively to engage in heart righteousness'.  In verses 1 to 18 He speaks of it concerning God and the worship of God, how we relate righteously to God. In verses 19 to 34 you have a relationship, righteously, to material things. In chapter 7 verses 1 to 20 you have a relationship in righteousness to other people. Our devotion to God is described in this chapter, through alms, through prayer and through fasting. Prayer is a relationship of the soul, our soul's relationship in righteousness to God. Fasting is our bodily relationship of righteousness to God. Alms is our relationship of righteousness to other people, and our relationship to our possessions that we own. To the Jewish mind, those three things that we will encounter in chapter 6 - almsgiving, prayer, and fasting - were the three pillars to a righteous life. Because of that, the Lord addresses it, and the irony that He says about these three things - charity giving, praying, and fasting - is that these three righteous acts lend themselves ably to hypocrisy and to unrighteousness.

So let us read these verses together; verses 1 to 4 just this morning: "Take heed", the Lord says, "that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly".

The title of our message today is: 'Why Are You Working?'. Why are you working? What are you doing for God? I mean, what are you doing within the Iron Hall? What are you doing outside the Iron Hall that could be said to be a service for the Lord Jesus Christ, and even a service for others for the Lord Jesus Christ? I think there are possibly three groups of people who would answer to that question. There are some who are doing nothing. There are some here, sadly there are some in membership within the Iron Hall, that are doing nothing for the Lord. There are some who are doing little. The opposite extreme of doing nothing is there are some who are doing absolutely everything. The answer often comes back: 'No one bothers with me! Why should I help out? Why should I put my shoulder to the plough? Nobody comes to me, nobody talks to me, no-one visits me'. Have you ever asked the question why no one helps you, why no one visits you, why no one encourages you? I think the answer can be given in the poem:

'Somehow, not only for Christmas, but all the year through

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.

And the more you spend in blessing the poor and the lonely and sad,

The more of your heart's possessions return to make you glad'.

What are you doing for the Lord? We need that question asked to us. What are we doing for others? Evangelistically, we need to make sure we're not underestimating the impact of what it is to do things for other people in this district around us to show them the love of Christ.

In 'Newsweek', an American magazine, there was once a cartoon that had a starving man standing in front of an empty bowl, and a man with a big cigar hanging out of his mouth came along to the bowl and poured out a great sack of words to fill that bowl. The caption at the bottom said: 'We need more than just talk. We need to take action'. We can preach and we can teach. We can sing our hymns and we can say all the verses, but at the end of the day what this world around us, what our brothers and sisters in Christ need to see is not words but action!

These verses are mighty, because the Lord Jesus presupposes a few things. First of all, He presupposes that we are doing alms. Look at verse 1: 'Take heed that ye do not your alms'. He doesn't even tell us to do them, He is assuming that we're doing them already. 'You should be doing them', the Lord says, 'already!'. Before you get a complex as you sit in the Iron Hall today - you're maybe saying: 'Well, I'm not the only one. Don't be looking at me. You're thinking of me? Well, I'm not the only one. What about so-and-so? They don't do anything'. Then the theologians get up on their high horse, and they open the word of God and they say: 'Well, we want to avoid a social gospel'. We're afraid to get like the establishment and provide for the poor, provide for the homeless and helpless - and so they get the loophole out of the verses by doing nothing, theologically.

Listen to Matthew Henry, and I am sure there is no one that would find fault with this man in his holiness and devotion to the Lord, and even in much of his theology. He said in his day, as a Puritan: 'If superstitious Papists have placed a merit in works of charity, that will not be an excuse for covetous Protestants that are barren in such good works' - now, listen to this - 'It is true: our alms deeds do not deserve heaven, but it is as true that we cannot go to heaven without them'.

What did the Lord say? What is the basic sentiment of this message that we look at today? This is it: you may say: 'Well, so-and-so's not doing it. I haven't had it done unto me. The evangelical church at large isn't doing it, and we wouldn't like to stand out and be different'. What does Christ say? 'Be ye therefore not like unto them. They are carnal but be you Christlike' - that's our standard!

We could spend a whole series of meetings on that one thing, but that's not even what the Lord's saying. I'm saying something that He's not saying. He's saying: 'I'm taking it for granted that you are already doing those things'. The real issue of what the Lord is saying is that you could be doing absolutely everything for the Lord, but why are you doing it? Why are you doing what you do? The Lord says works are to be expected, but what is the motivation? That's the real question! What is your motivation for what you do? 'Why does motivation matter?', you might say, 'Surely is it not good enough that you're doing something? Is it not good enough that you're involved?'. Listen - it's not good enough!

Oh boy, we're trying to get people involved, and I don't want to try to discourage anybody getting involved. We have great needs in this fellowship that must be met, but one of the common misconceptions of Christians, and indeed non-Christians, is this: all good will be rewarded. 'All good will be rewarded'. The unconverted believes that, and that's what takes them to hell! They think by living a moral and a charitable life that they will go to heaven, but all good will not be rewarded. The believer believes that: 'As long as I do something; it doesn't really matter about the motive, as long as I'm doing something' - that will take you to the Judgement Seat empty handed!

The word of God teaches us that not all good done by Christians will be rewarded. Paul said: 'Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire'. Here's our question: what is the difference between good that is rewarded and good that is not rewarded? What is the difference between Christian work that will receive reward from God, and that which will be burnt up and receive nothing? Here is the keyword, here is the difference: motivation!

At the end of a concert on one occasion there were two ushers applauding harder than anybody in the whole of the crowd. The people who were music-lovers smiled up to see two music-lovers who appreciated all of the notes that were played. They were all in the right order, until one of the ushers stopped and the other said to him: 'Keep clapping you dope, for if we get another encore we get overtime!'. What is their motivation? It was not the love of music, it was their overtime. They were doing what was right in the eyes of all the crowd around them, but what was the reason that they were doing it? Why do you do what you do for Christ? The big question the Lord asks us is, do you do it for men or do you do it for God? Do you do it to be seen of men or to be seen of God? Do you do it to be rewarded of men or rewarded of God? The tragedy that many fall over is that you can do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and the question that we have to grapple with today is: how can you make sure that your fruit will remain unto the Lord Jesus? Do you want to know that?

Well, the Lord tells us. He says to us in verses 1 to 4 - listen - if you do good works for people your reward will be from people. Have you got it? If you do good works for people your reward will be from people. If you like, it is like for like, what you put in you get out. If you're doing something for a person you will get your reward from that person. The Lord tells us to do it in secret, not to glorify our giving or what we do. Many people ask the question: 'Is this not contradicting Matthew 5 verse 16, where the Lord says,  'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven?'. On the one hand the Lord is saying: 'You do good works so that others can see My glory', yet in this passage He's saying, 'You cover up your good works. Don't blow the trumpet about it'.

The Lord is speaking about two different sins. In Matthew 5 He's talking about cowardice. He's speaking against the fact that you're afraid to go out and declare your faith, and do good works. But the sin that He's talking about here is overdoing it in insincerity and hypocrisy, and trying to show yourself to be something that you're not. Two different sins! One writer said the difference is this: 'Show when you are tempted to hide, and hide when you are tempted to show'.

It is again the hidden thought of the heart that the Lord is concerned with - motivation. What does He say? He says - the first thing in verses 1 and 2: 'Are you doing it to be seen of men?'. These alms (and 'alms' simply means works of mercy, pity, righteousness), do you sound a trumpet when you do something good? That's probably a proverbial statement in the day, a bit like we use the statement 'sounding your own trumpet'. Do you bring attention to what you're doing for God? The picture that the Lord is conjuring up in the Jewish mind is of the pompous Pharisee on his way down to the temple or the synagogue to put money in the special box for the poor, or to give a gift to the poor. As he walks down there's a whole parade, and in front of him there are trumpeters blowing a fanfare as they walk, and it's quickly attracting a crowd. People hear the noise and they all run out to see what's going on. It's reported in the history books of one Rabbi, that he carried an alms bag on his back so that the poor might help themselves. C.H. Spurgeon said rightly, encapsulating the spirit of what our Lord is saying: 'To stand with a penny in one hand and a trumpet in the other is the posture of hypocrisy'.

Hypocrites! If you draw attention to what you do for God, you are a hypocrite. This word 'hypocrite' is fascinating. Literally, in the Greek language, it means an actor who uses a mask. In other words, someone who is covering up who they really are. This happens in religious life, it happens in this fellowship. There are people who use religion to cover up their own sins, and indeed to get profit as the Pharisees did. It's anyone whose world is a stage, who are acting out a role, but it's a false role; who are impersonating something or someone that they're not. They are trying to get others to believe that they are, but deep down their heart is impure.

One other translation put this verse like this: 'Be careful not to show off your religion before men'. Because people who tend to cover over their sinfulness with religiosity are usually people who are arrogant show-offs with little deep sincere spirituality in their heart. If you want to know a hypocrite, insincerity will be the stench that will come from them. There will be an aroma of falsehood that will hit you, and it comes across every time, for the Pharisee's religion was insincere, it was dishonest. They practised their religion to be praised of men, but true righteousness was not within. Now, you can't tar all hypocrites with the one brush. There are several types of hypocrites. One type is an evil man who is trying to portray goodness, like those who tried to trip up the Lord Jesus, who tried to test Him and, in His words, tried to bring accusation against Him. They were evil. They knew what they were doing. They were being deceptive, but not all hypocrites are like that. There's another type who is puffed up with his own importance and self-righteousness. In fact, he's blind to his own faults. He may be genuinely unaware that he's being hypocritical, but even though he's harsh to other people, even though he's unloving and does not portray the fruit of the Spirit, he's still a hypocrite and he doesn't know it. The irony about hypocrisy is no matter what type you are, everybody notices it.

But the hypocrisy here in verse 2 is different than those two, because this man actually talks himself into believing that, at heart, deep down in his heart, he is conducting himself in the best interests of those people that are poor and deprived in the society. He truly believes, deep in his heart, that he is doing good. The fact is this: he is doing good for the betterment of other people, but the thing that makes him a hypocrite is his motivation for doing it - it is still self! He is genuinely, from his heart, doing it for the good of other people, but he is doing it to be praised of those people. He is doing good works for people, and he is getting his reward from people.

Why does he do it? To be seen of men. Secondly, verse 2, the Lord says: 'To be praised of men'. He receives the reward that he wants, he gets what he asks for. He's seeking the praise of men - he gets it. They're not living, these men, for the applause of eternity, they're living for the applause now - here on earth. The Lord testifies to that when He said: 'These men' - Pharisees - 'receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from God only'. John the Baptist said they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. The spirit of their giving is found in this poem:

'I did a favour yesterday,

A kindly little deed,

And then I called to all the world

To stop and look and heed!

They stopped and looked and flattered me

In words I could not trust,

And when the world had gone away

My good deed turned to dust'.

Their account is closed. That's what the Lord is saying. Their payment is given down here. There's nothing that goes forward to heaven for their reward. They get the receipt in full for all that they have done down here, not from God but from themselves and from those around them. You see the picture - a performance, and at the end of the performance everybody claps and applauds. That's the reward, and they get it. There's many different motivations for giving, even in wrong ways. There's a sense of duty, isn't there? 'I have to do this. I'm a Christian. I have to give'.

I read a story this week about a man in Glasgow who used to bail out drunks on a Saturday evening, in order that they could get out and make sure that they got to their job on Monday morning and wouldn't lose it. But that same guy that went around bailing them out for half a crown insisted that the first wage packet they got back, that his half crown was given back to him. It's duty, but really he hasn't given himself. That's a motivation that is impure, a sense of duty. Then there is prestige - what is being talked of here - to glory in the praise and thanks that you get. But there's one more motivation and this is the pure one that we want to dwell on today - listen: those who have to do it! Not a sense of duty, not in order to get prestige, but there is a group of people called Christians - apparently! - and they can't help being Christlike. They've a Christlike heart, and they can do nothing else. They can't help giving in love!

If you do good works for people your reward will be from people. But the second thing the Lord says, in verses 3 and 4, is this: 'If you do good works for God, your reward will be from God'. Verse 3 tells us to do your works, not to be seen of men, but to be seen of God: 'When you do your alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does'. Here's the big question, OK? This happens every week I preach on the Sermon on the Mount. Everybody misses the point - well, not everybody, but a lot of people miss the point - and get taken up: 'Now, what does that mean? Does that mean I can join the covenant scheme, or is that letting my left hand know what my right hand is doing? Does that mean I can't put the thing in the box at the back, because somebody sees me doing it? Is that what that means?'. You're doing what the Pharisees do, by the way. You're missing the point of the message and getting taken up with the little idiosyncrasies around it. Must your giving be anonymous? Well, I think what the Lord is saying is: 'Make your giving anonymous as far as you can'. But, you know, in the early church, the church knew that Barnabas had given his income for the sale of land, in Acts chapter 4. The church knew all about it. The church was encouraged to take their giving and lay it at the apostle's feet. It was not done in secret, but the difference was the motive and the manner in which it was done. You can see the antithesis of that in Ananias and Sapphira. They did the same thing, but it wasn't the act that was wrong; it was the motivation from within. The Lord is saying, if you want to guard your pure motive you've got to, as far as possible, do your giving in secret. It doesn't mean if you can't do it in secret you don't do it at all. Sure that's nonsense!

The Lord is talking about the individual, as He has been talking right throughout this sermon. You're not to blow a trumpet. You're to give in secret as far as possible. But my friends, you need to watch, because the irony of this passage is this: if you give in secret (and we're all encouraged in these verses to do it), you can actually, by preserving your anonymity (nobody knows you're giving), you can take pride in that yourself! You can quietly give and nobody knows about it. You maybe didn't put a name on the envelope or anything, but you put it through the door and as you went away you gave yourself a spiritual pat on the back - 'Well done, you're great! You didn't even tell anybody. The wife doesn't even know that you did that'. Whose hands are not to let one another know? It's your left hand and your right hand. It's not somebody else's left hand or somebody else's right hand. It's your left hand knowing what your right hand is doing. The Lord is using an illustration to say you're to even go as far as keeping this secret from yourself!

What does that mean? Does that mean you close your eyes the next time you write a cheque? I'd love to do that every time I write a cheque! Is that what it means? No. You're to close your eyes in your heart. In other words, we can take pride even in ourselves when we're doing a thing secretly. But what this verse is meaning is not so much what your hand is doing as it passes over the blank cheque note, but rather what your heart is thinking while the hand is moving. That's what matters!

We are not to be self-conscious in our giving. We are to keep it secret from ourselves. It is possible to turn an act of mercy into an act of vanity. Do you know what this really is? This is what you can miss if you taken up with the wee things here. Do you know what this sermon, all of it is? Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: 'It is the death knell to the old man'. The death knell to the old man: self-centredness, self-consciousness, self-praise, the great characteristics of our old nature - it is a death to it. You cannot literally obey this, but what the Lord is saying is, as far as you can, give in secret, but when you give in secret you've got to forget about it yourself. Don't summon it to your mind and gloat over it. The Lord is saying - this is remarkable - do good until it is an unconscious habit of life, you do it and you don't know that you're doing it. That's what He's saying!

When you do it, oh my friend, what do we do? If the Lord rewarded us as we were giving - not reward of men and applause, that's not what we're talking about, but if the Lord gave us a crown when we gave some money to somebody, or we gave some help, we would say: 'Oh You noticed, didn't You? Oh You felt about it the same way as I did. It was good, wasn't it?'. This is hard, what did the Lord say? He said that the spirit that will be in His disciples, who literally give and don't realise they're doing it because of a heart that is so like Christ - when they are rewarded they don't say: 'Oh Lord, you noticed!' They said, 'Lord, when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee?'. They didn't even know they were doing it. He replied: 'And as much as ye have done it unto the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me'. Listen to what Oswald Chambers says about this: 'Get into the habit of having such a relationship to God that you do good without knowing you do it. Then you will no longer trust your own impulse or your own judgement, but you will trust only the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, and the mainstream of your motives will be the Father's heart, not your own; the Father's understanding, not your own. When once you are rightly related to God like this He will use you as a channel through which His disposition will flow'.

To be seen of God, secondly and finally, verse 4, to be praised of God. Have you ever sung this hymn?

'Riches I heed not,

Nor man's empty praise

Thou mine inheritance

Now and always.

Thou and thou only,

First in my heart,

High King of Heaven:

My treasure Thou art'.

The Lord said to Abraham: 'After these things the word of the Lord came to him in a vision, 'Fear not Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward'. Paul said: 'But as we are allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men but God who trieth our hearts'! Is He the reason?

In the Revised Version, in Darby's translation, the word 'openly' is omitted. God says, 'If you do this in secret I will reward you', and when it says 'openly' it may not be there, but the point is this: when God rewards us, if He does on earth, men won't see it to praise us; and when God rewards us in heaven it will not be so that we can strut about Glory like a peacock with all our crowns around our brow, but it will be for the glory of Christ!

Who are we doing it to? Are your eyes on God or are your eyes on men? What are you motivated for? What rewards? Let me finish with this. There was once a fable told about a dog, and the dog boasted his ability as a runner. One day his friend said: 'If you're such a good runner, you chase after that rabbit there'. The dog - away he went and chased after the rabbit, and he failed. The other dog stood and laughed at him, and ridiculed him because of all the boasting he did. But this was his reply: 'You must remember that the rabbit was running for his life, while I was only running for my dinner'. Are you working for your life in heaven, or are you working for your dinner down here? What's our example? I'll tell you what it is: we don't do good works because people deserve it. We don't do it because they need it. We do it because it is unto God, and our example is this: we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor that we, through His poverty, might be made rich.

Let's bow our heads. Can I ask you please, are you working for the Lord? If you are, are you working for people and your only reward is being praised of them, or are you working for God? You may not get a 'Well done' down here. You may not get a pat on the back, but you'll get your reward in heaven.

Father, this is so hard. This sermon is devastating to me, and I suspect to the most of us that are willing to let it penetrate our hearts. I seek my own glory, for I am a sinner. Lord, what it takes is that we die to self. We pray, we thank Thee, that at Calvary the old man was put to death, but we pray that You will help us day by day to reckon him dead, to reckon all that self-seeking and pride and self-gratification; that we will be absolutely oblivious to even the good that we are doing, that the life of God will shine and manifest itself so radiantly from us that we're not even aware of it, that men will see it and not glorify us but glorify our Father which is in heaven. In His Son's Name we pray, Amen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - November 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 13

"Why Are You Praying?"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 6:5-8

Now we're turning again our Bibles to the Sermon on the Mount. We have studied in weeks gone by chapter 5, which is the first chapter of the Lord's sermon, and now we have entered into chapter 6 of Matthew's gospel. Last Lord's Day we looked at the subject 'Why Are You Working For The Lord?' - why do you do you alms for God? We looked at the motivation of why we do things for the Lord, in verses 1 to 4. This week we're going to look at verses 5 through to 8, and the question for this week that the Lord asks is: 'Why Are You Praying?'.

So we'll read from verse 5, the Lord addresses His own disciples again: "When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him".

Let us just bow and pray before we hear the word of God together: Father, we thank Thee for the gift of prayer, the gift of corporate prayer that we enjoy at this very moment as we lift our spirits to Thee. We thank Thee for private prayer, and for the privilege of having a closet where we can shut the door from all the world and all the hustle and bustle that would distract us from eternal things, and we can commune with Thee through Jesus the Son. We pray now, our Father, that You would guide us to understand a little bit more what our responsibilities are as Thy children. We pray that Thou wilt give us grace, that after we hear the word of God that we will be enabled by Thy strength and by Thy Spirit to obey the word of God and to live lives that are godly in Christ Jesus. We pray, our Father, now for the enduement of power from on high upon this preacher and upon this gathering, for we need Thee now - for the sake and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ we ask, Amen.

The prayer meeting of the church has been described by various people down through the epochs of its history as the powerhouse of the church. I'm sure you've heard it referred to as that. It has also been referred to as the thermometer of the church, in other words you can gauge how hot or cold the church is in spiritual zeal by the state and the health of the prayer meeting in the local assembly. I read a book on one occasion, and the author defined the prayer meeting and its importance - and indeed the dwindling responsibility of the saints towards the prayer meeting in this day and age - by this little quip, he said: 'Look at Sunday morning, and you will see how popular the church is. Look at Sunday evening, and you will see how popular the Pastor is' - in other words, the people have come back to listen to him - 'But look at the prayer meeting, and you will see how popular God is'.

I know that the prayer meeting is the thermometer of the church, it is the powerhouse, and we don't have prayer we don't have power. But I think that the prayer meeting does not just reflect upon the corporate body of the church of Jesus Christ, but it can also reflect upon the individual. It can be your thermometer! Indeed, it is your powerhouse, and if you are absent from the prayer meeting of God's people it says a great deal about your spiritual health. If I was to ask you: 'What is the condition of your prayer life today?', I wonder what your answer would be? Is your prayer life ready for admittance into Accident and Emergency, or has it got to such a stage that it should just bypass the hospital and go straight to the cemetery? How do we gauge it, how do we know the condition of our prayer life?

Well, I think that a good reflection of it may be how many of you come to the prayer meeting regularly. How many of you come? How many of you promising young people are here on a Thursday evening for prayer? Many of you are promising with gift and enthusiasm, and we rejoice that we have such a good group of young people, but where are you when God's people pray? You are the future core of this church and the church at large, but perhaps you're too busy, perhaps you're doing other things, or are you just plain disinterested to be here? The young people often get a hard time of it, so I direct my attention for a few moments to the older folk within the assembly. Do you set an example to the young people by coming to the place of prayer? What example are you setting? Parents, do you convey to your children that it's acceptable and legitimate for a committed Christian to sit in on Thursday evening and watch Coronation Street, while the people of God are agonising and wrestling with principalities and powers in the place of prayer?

Of course, like last week, we saw that there are people who do nothing in the church, there are people who do a little, and of course there are people inevitably who seem to be doing absolutely everything! You can make the same reflection and observation with regards to the prayer life of the church. There are brethren who don't pray, don't pray at all. There are folk who won't pray, unless they're asked to pray - and there are some who are always praying. I feel that that reflects the sentiment and the spirit of what the Lord Jesus is saying in this passage that we are looking at today, for there are two extremes. There is the extreme of the person who never ever is heard to pray in the prayer meeting, or never prays at home - and that is no desire for prayer, an absolute lack of desire totally. Then there are others who you can't stop getting praying, because they have an all-consuming desire - not to pray, but a desire to be seen to pray.

It's remarkable, isn't it? We will see in the weeks that lie ahead how these three of the most holiest occupations for the saints - alms giving, praying and fasting - can be so abused. Indeed, they can be used as a platform for hypocrisy and for religious sin. I don't want you to miss this, before we go on any further, because the Lord again is contrasting these two different approaches to these holy things. He contrasts spiritual public life with your spiritual private life. What you do in public when other Christians are watching, when other people are observing; and what your life really is when the door is closed, and no-one knows perhaps what life you and your family are living. He is contrasting the external with the internal, what people see on the outward appearance and what God sees deep into your heart that could be an entirely different thing altogether. He is contrasting the carnal, in other words the fleshly, and the spiritual - that which is of the heart with that which is of the flesh, that which is of man with that which is from Christ and the Spirit of God in your life.

I think these two contrasts between spiritual and fleshly, public and private, external and internal, they can be reflected in the whole of Christendom - so-called - today. You have two poles apart. You have liberal emotionalism which is all heart and no head, people who don't think about their following God but they just feel something - they have 'emotions'. Then there is the other extreme that we have to guard against, and that is dead conservatism which is all head and no heart. It's amazing to me - well, it's not really, but I think it should hit us today - that the Lord, again, as He did with alms giving, He doesn't command His people to give alms, He doesn't command in these verses His people to pray - it's expected of them! He didn't start His sermon the way I have started, with seeing that there are believers who don't have a need to come to the prayer meeting. The Lord Jesus assumes that if you're walking in fellowship with Him, if you are trying to follow Him, you will want to pray and you'll want to be with God's people who are in prayer.

Matthew Henry put it well when he said: 'You may as soon find a living man that does not breathe, as a living Christian that does not pray'. The issue today, as it was not last week, is not 'if you pray' or 'if you give alms' or 'if you fast', but the question is: 'You're doing it' - or at least you ought to be doing it - 'Why are you doing it? How are you doing it?'. The Lord again is addressing our motivation for prayer. He says: 'Do not strive after being seen to pray publicly, to be praised of men, but pray privately to be seen and to be rewarded of God'. The Lord again is speaking of heart relationship. Heart relations, He is saying, is more important than public relations. The question I pose to you today, and the question that the Lord Jesus Christ brings to us all by His Spirit through His word, is simply this: is your public prayer life a cover-up for your private prayer life?

When I speak of public prayer life it can be the brethren in the assembly who participate audibly, it can be the sisters who sit and do not participate audibly but pray from their hearts, it could even be your attendance - the fact that you come to the prayer meeting, if you come at all. Why do you do it? The Lord is guarding us against this sin, realising that we could actually participate in outward, external religious ritual of prayer as a cover-up for what is lacking in our private life. The Lord is saying, as is indeed the theme right throughout this sermon: 'You must have reality, rather than ritual. You must have relationship, rather than religion'. If God sees you, you won't care how many other people see you! If you are desirous to come before God for His eyes and for His heart and for His pleasing alone, it doesn't matter who will see you, it doesn't matter if no-one sees you. 'If God hears you', the Lord is saying, 'what does it matter if no-one else hears?'.

So we come to the Lord Jesus in His divine diagnosis of our prayer lives. The first thing that we find in verse 5 are these words, the Lord says: 'When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward'. Now, here's the Lord's question to us today: is your public prayer a show? Is your public prayer life a show? The Lord is asking: are you a praying hypocrite? We learnt last week of how 'hypocrite' was a Greek word that simply meant an actor that used a mask, a person that stood on a stage and portrayed a particular role. You see, the Lord is saying we can perform in our prayers, we can act in our prayers, we can pray for the benefit of others - to be seen of men. In other words, if you get up in the prayer meeting and you pray as if you're consumed with zeal after God, you act as if no-one can get you down - but at home when you pray there is no zeal, there is no desire, and perhaps there's no prayer at all!

We get to our feet, and we pray for the Lord to save people - but we never would dream of bringing someone to the Gospel meeting for various reasons, perhaps even for the most awful reason: that we're going out to supper and we don't want anyone spoiling our night by getting saved! We can pray these things, and the reason we pray them is for people - we pray them because that is what the church expects you to pray, and we pray these things to be seen of men! That's why the Lord cites the synagogues and the street corner, because the synagogue is where zealous people met and the street corners are where all sorts of people met. So if you want to be seen to be zealous in front of other zealous people, and you want to be seen to be even more zealous than they are, you'll go where the zealous people are. But if you want to be rewarded of men as a holy man of God standing above the rest, you will go to the street corner to be seen of men where the people gather.

If you know anything about the Pharisees you will know that they were obliged to pray many times a day, and they took care that when that call for prayer happened that they were in the midst of the city, perhaps in the marketplace for the hour of prayer, and they had to pray in front of everybody around about them. Both the synagogues and the street corners, the Lord says, can be a theatrical platform for hypocrites to perform their acting - actors must perform, they can't help it, they need, they crave attention of people, they want to hog the limelight and they can even do it in their prayers! Here is the issue, here's the Lord cutting to the very bone of this matter, and it is this to us today: is our attendance at the prayer meeting, is our participation in the prayer meeting, simply to keep up appearances?

When you are asked to go to a prayer meeting, do you ever think: 'What would people think if I didn't go? I have to go, they might think I'm not spiritual if I don't go!'. Can I say: God hates that! God hates hypocrisy of every colour and shade, and I believe that the closer you get to God the more you will get His heart, and you will hate hypocrisy! You'll see it more and more in yourself, you'll not see it more in others as we tend to do, but you'll see it in your own heart and it will absolutely turn you! Watchman Nee said: 'It is natural to a man of the flesh and blood to hide his shortcomings, but grace enables one to hide his strengths'. You see, when a person is newly converted they want to hide their weaknesses from the folk around in the fellowship - but I believe as they grow in faith, they're more willing to let their weaknesses be exposed before others, and still the more they grow their weakness becomes eliminated by the grace of God. Now, where are we on that scale? Are we at the point where we're trying to hide our weaknesses? Or are we at the point where we're willing to bring them into the light that God's grace can handle them and deliver us from them?

The issue in this passage of Scripture again is the issue of reward. The Lord is saying that there are only two times when believers can be rewarded. You will either be rewarded now, or you will be rewarded in the future. You will either be rewarded now through the praise of men, or you will be rewarded in the future from the praise of God Almighty - but the Lord is saying no-one can have both rewards! If you want to receive man's reward now you cannot obtain God's reward then, and if you want to receive God's reward then you cannot and you ought not to be hankering after man's rewards and praise now. You cannot seek to enjoy great fame on earth, and then expect a high position in the Kingdom of Heaven to come. Therefore, do you know what the Lord is saying? This is amazing to me: 'You' - David Legge - 'who want to be seen to be the greatest preacher. You who want to be the greatest Sunday School teacher. You who want to be the greatest personal worker. You who want to be the greatest Gospel singer. You must refuse that on earth if you want to be rewarded in heaven!'. That is death to the soul.

Is your public prayer life a show? Why would it be a show? Your public prayer life would be a show because your private prayer life is a sham. That's what verse 6 says, your public prayer life is a show because your private prayer life is a sham. Look at verse 6: 'Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet', into thy inner chamber, 'and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly'. The question the Lord is asking is: does your public prayer life portray your private life, or is it a decoy to cover it up? In other words, the fact that you stand to your feet in a prayer meeting, or the fact that you come along to a prayer meeting, does that declare that you are praying at home, or is it a decoy and a cover-up that you are not praying at home?

The Lord speaks of the inner chamber, and that simply means a bedroom. That tells you and I that prayer is not restricted to one individual place, indeed Paul said to Timothy: 'Pray in every place'. But the point that the Lord is saying is that your bedroom might be occupied by more than yourself, it might be only yourself but it might be your family - particularly in these days. But His point is, in the daytime the family were probably out at work or school, and then at night time the family would be tucked into bed and asleep - so it's a quiet place for you if you want to get alone with God, it's a place of secrecy between you and your Lord.

It has come to us already this morning, through the witness to the children, that our Lord had no inner chamber. Our Lord had no place to lay His head, but what He did was He used the wilderness. He used the mountains and the hills of Judea as His inner chamber, and David prophetically speaking of the Lord said: 'I watch and am become like a sparrow that is alone upon the housetop'. The Lord, early in the morning in the cool of the day, went out to a place of secrecy, to a place of holy separation, and sought God upon His face. Isaac went into a field, Peter went onto the top of a house, the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane went a little further and prayed. Many a time He departed into a solitary place and there prayed. Paul, after his conversion, went to a house in Damascus - and God Almighty looked down and said: 'Behold, he prayeth!', and you can almost hear the joy in the very heart of God as He saw one of His children newly converted upon their knees praying in secret!

'Thy Father sees in secret'! It brings joy to the Father's heart to see you pray in secret. He even sees a cup of water that is given in His name in secret - even that's not ignored! But here is what the Lord is saying: believers, you cannot substitute a public prayer meeting for personal prayer - it cannot be done! The thing, I think most forcibly, that has come to me in this week studying these verses of Scripture is the fact that God will reward secret prayer. The word for 'reward' is 'recompense', and it points forward to the Judgement Seat of Christ and God's Kingdom here upon the earth. It's not talking simply about your answers to prayer, for you get your answers to prayer down here, it's talking about a reward up there. Isn't that amazing, to think that we will be rewarded in the future for how we have prayed in the secret place where no one else has watched? That is a sobering thought, for then our hypocrisy will be shown up. The Lord says: 'There is nothing hid which shall not be manifested, neither was anything kept secret but it shall come abroad and will be known'.

Now here's the questions that the Lord poses to us today: do I pray more frequently and fervently at home alone than I do in public? Do I love the secret place of prayer, just God and me together? Or is my public praying simply an overflow of my private praying, and what will be my reward in eternity for my secret prayer today? What would God give you for your prayers this morning? If the answer is 'no' and negative to many of those questions, the declaration and diagnosis of the word of God on us is that we are hypocrites. Our public prayer life is a show, because our private prayer life is a sham.

Now, what the Lord is trying to bring us to is verse 7: 'When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking'. He's asking the question: your prayer life will be a sham, it will be a show, if your prayer life is only an external frame - vain repetitions. If you use meaningless words and phrases to prolong your prayer, in other words if you do it to make yourself feel that you're praying. You're doing something good, but there's nothing in it, there's no meaning. You use much speaking, the Lord says - now please note that that doesn't say 'much praying' - 'much speaking'. It's not talking about using the same words in prayer, it's not talking about praying for the same thing perseveringly and over and over again, it is talking about empty, vain repetitious words where you think you will be heard because of the many words you use. It cannot mean repetition, because the Lord Jesus three times in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed the same words. Paul the apostle three times prayed that the Lord would take the thorn from his flesh, and God answered him. But for Paul and for the Lord Jesus those prayers of repetition were in private, and those prayers were certainly not motivated to be seen of men because there was no-one to see.

But we are talking about here is 'lip labour', praying much for public support and praise. Men who love to hear themselves! The point behind it all is this: if you wanted a man to hear you, if you want your little child to hear you, what do you do? You repeat things over and over, that's how they learn. The Lord Jesus is saying: 'You are approaching God as you would approach a man. You're repeating over and over and over again and again, because you think by doing that He'll hear you' - but that's not how God hears, for God is not a God who reads your mouth, God is a God who looks into the depths of your heart!

The Jew prayed formalised prayers, he prayed the Sh'mah that you find in Deuteronomy 6 every morning and every evening as early as possible - in fact in the Jewish books it says as soon as the light was strong enough for a man to distinguish between blue and green he was to pray. What about that for law? He was to pray before nine o'clock in the morning, and he couldn't pray after nine in the evening. No matter where he was or whatever he was doing, if it was his last opportunity he was to stop and to pray. Inevitably, you can imagine, if you were out doing the shopping or if you were in business and that hour comes, you have to pray in public - and some of the Jews even prayed as they were on the way, to get it done and to rush through it! There was another prayer called the Sh'moneh Esray that was 18 prayers prayed daily three times over and over, and it became like a spell, it became like an incantation at 9 o'clock, at 12 o'clock, and then at 3 in the afternoon - like the Muslim calls to prayer!

There was a story once told of a Muslim who was chasing after another man with a knife to kill him, and when the call for prayer rang out around the city he took his little prayer mat, he laid it down, he prayed his prayer quickly, and then he got up and continued to run murderously after the man! That's what the Lord is talking about: praying for praying's sake, prayer for the benefit of others or a religion or a system, prayer to impress, prayer - even in our prayer meetings - to make a point to someone else in the meeting, prayer to rebuke another brother, prayer to display your knowledge of the Scripture, prayer to show off how many verses that you've learnt! The other side of the coin is criticism of other men's prayers, when you go to a new believer or you go to a man who is truly praying from his heart, and you criticise them ungraciously, and they end up never praying again!

Pharisaism is rife in the church of Jesus Christ. A great preacher once described an ornate and elaborate prayer offered in a Boston church by a great preacher as the most eloquent prayer offered to a Boston audience. Many have a formula for starting their prayers, others pray the same prayers over and over again. Dr Robert A. Cook said on many occasions: 'All of us have one routine prayer in our system, and once we get rid of it then we can really start to pray!'. I heard recently of a meeting where a man used to get up every week and pray the same prayer like rote over and over again, and the rest congregation could nearly repeat it. They used to sigh inwardly every time this man got to his feet, and on one occasion one of the big men in the assembly couldn't take it any longer. When the man got into full steam of his rigmarole of rote praying, this man stood to his feet and he said: 'Oh, Lord, You've heard it all before, Amen!'. The problem was, the Lord hadn't heard anything!

Vain repetition, do you know what that is? It's what the heathens did in 1 Kings 18. You know the prophets of Baal, who were trying to get the power of their false god down upon the sacrifice? It said that from morning even until noon, until the evening sacrifice, they cry out, they cut their flesh, they prayed to their god - but there was neither voice nor any answer. It was a kind of hypnosis, an intoxication of words, a bit like the charismatic movement today and their false gift of tongues. But by contrast, there was the prophet Elijah and he made one prayer of faith to God, and it was answered immediately and the fire of God fell!

The amazing thing to me is that the prayers of the Bible are straightforward, concise, short and to the point - the best I can give you is Matthew 8:25 where one poor soul just cried out: 'Save, Lord!'. If you're not saved today you don't need any elaborate words, you maybe don't need all the knowledge that you might think you have, all you need to do as a simple soul is humbly cry out: 'Save me Lord!'. The Lord isn't prohibiting long praying, He's not prohibiting persistent praying, but what He is saying to us today is: it's not the length of your sentences and the big words that you use and the flowery phrases that secures your answer, but it is the state of your heart!

Is your prayer life an external frame, or here's the crux of the matter, verse 8 - it is an external frame when our hearts, our internal heart-life, is a farce. 'Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him'. People could use false reasoning and say: 'Well, if God knows what I'm going to ask for then what's the point in me asking?'. Well, the first thing is that the Lord has told us to ask, so that's enough point in asking. But what the Lord is saying here is that it's not that we ought to multiply our words to God, we don't get answers to our prayer because we pray reportingly. In other words: 'Lord, did You know Aggie is in hospital in Ward 15? Lord, You know that man two doors down in the fifth house along, You know his name and his address?' - you don't need to give the Lord all those things, the Lord isn't looking for information in your prayers, the Lord isn't looking for a report or for words, but what the Lord is looking for is the disposition of your heart. As you come to God are you realising that God knows everything about you? God knows all your needs, God knows what you're going to ask before you ask it, is that the disposition of your heart?

Prayer is not just getting things from God, but prayer is getting into a perfect communion with God. The point of the Lord Jesus is this: are we depending on our own earnestness, are we depending on our own ability to quote verses, are we depending on our own understanding of the theology of prayer, or are we depending on God's goodness? The goodness of God that knows what you need before you ask it! It is that confidence toward God that makes the difference, it is that faith toward Him that gets our prayers answered. That's why John said: 'This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us' - the confidence is Jesus! He is our confidence. We have only have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

Do you want your prayers heard? You must have the disposition of faith. The Lord is saying: 'You'll not be heard because you have a mouthful of words, but rather you have a heart full of faith in the goodness and the faithfulness of God'. Now let's ask the question as we close, we asked it last week, we ask it this week, we'll ask it next week and the next week: are our eyes on God, or are our eyes fixed on men? Why do we pray? Is our prime motive in prayer to know Him, or to know the praise of others? Are we playing at prayer? M'Cheyne made a wonderful statement, he said: 'What a man is on his knees he is and no more'. If you give me a man with his head filled with unused knowledge, and another man whose knowledge is far less but his knees are bent more - give me that man of prayer every time!

I've given you this illustration before, but I close with it as a poem. Listen very carefully:

'From a convert in Uganda

Comes to us a story grander

In the lesson that it teaches,

Than a sermon someone preaches,

For it tells what sore temptations

Come to them what need of patience,

And a need, all else outweighing,

Of a place of private praying.

So each convert chose a corner,

Far away from eyes of scorner -

In the jungle where he could

Pray to God in solitude.

And so often went he thither

That the grass would fade and whither

Where he trod, and you can trace

By the paths each praying place.

If they hear the evil tidings

Of a brother's late backslidings,

And some are even saying

'He no longer cares for praying' -

Then they say to one another,

Softly and so gently: 'Brother,

Do forgive us now for showing,

On your path the grass is growing!'

The erring one, relenting,

Soon is bitterly repenting:

'Ah! How sad I am at knowing

On my path the grass is growing.

But it shall be so no longer,

Prayer I need to make me stronger.

On my path I'll oft be going

Soon no grass will there be showing''.

May we say today: 'Lord, teach me to pray'. Now, let's bow our heads, and if you're not converted here this morning I'm sure there have been times in your life when you have lifted your heart to God in prayer - but you know that God is not obliged to listen to your prayers because you have never lifted to Him the most important prayer: the prayer of repentance and faith in Christ. It's time you prayed that prayer and opened up a way of relationship with God. Believers, when I preach on prayer what happens is the prayer meeting is full on Thursday night - that's not what I'm looking for today, because it will be empty the following week. I want you to examine your heart, the Lord is saying: 'It's not your body on the seat, it's your heart at the throne of grace that matters'. We don't want to pack the prayer meeting, we want pray-ers at home and here in the assembly - and if you're praying at home, my friend, you will be at the prayer meeting praying from your heart.

Father, we thank Thee for the teaching of the Lord, and we pray that we will be gracious disciples and servants who will meekly receive His word and obey, that we will be joyful givers as we give our lives in adoration and savours of prayer to Thee morning and evening and afternoon, sacrificing ourselves in prayer to Thee. Lord, there is a great day of judgement coming for Thy people where their works will be tested, and Lord we pray that when we reach that great throne that our hands will not be empty of private prayer, but it will be full to overflowing in blessing and reward in eternity. Take us now to our homes, we pray, with Thy blessing. In Jesus' name, Amen.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - November 2001

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk


The Sermon On The Mount - Chapter 14

"The Disciples' Prayer"

Copyright 2001

by Pastor David Legge

Matthew 6:9-15

Now we're turning again today to Matthew's gospel chapter 6, Matthew chapter 6. We've been dealing with these three aspects of righteousness that the Lord Jesus is speaking about - in the Jewish faith they were three holy things that a holy man of God or, woman of God, engaged in. So the Lord is addressing them, and we've already looked at almsgiving, last Lord's Day morning we looked at prayer - both of which were looking at the motivation of these exercises. We looked at 'Why Are You Working For The Lord?' - why are you giving? And also 'Why Are You Praying?'.

The Lord - as He doesn't do in the other two instances of almsgiving and fasting - He carries on speaking about what we should pray and how we should pray. That is what we intend to study this morning, beginning at verse 9. The Lord says: "After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses".

Let's just bow in a moment's prayer together: Our Father we thank Thee for the great gift of prayer. We believe that it is probably the most holiest exercise that man can engage in down here on earth. Therefore as we come to Thee through this medium, we pray Thy blessing, we ask for Thy help, we ask for Thy guidance and for the teaching of the Holy Spirit from Thy Word. We need to know how to pray - we come to Thee as the disciples did, and we say 'Lord, teach us to pray'. Teach us how to pray, teach us what to pray and what manner to engage in prayer. So we ask Thy help now, and we ask the filling of Thy Holy Spirit for the preacher and for the people in the pew as they listen, that they may have the grace of God to receive the word of God in their hearts and implement it in their lives. Lord, we need Thee - if anything that is what prayer is: it is the expression of total and utter dependence upon Almighty God. So we need Thee now, and we pray that Thou wilt meet our need, for Christ's sake. Amen.

I don't intend to go into an in-depth study of the Lord's prayer today, simply because we're engaged in a much larger study of the Sermon on the Mount and we haven't got too much time to engage in individual studies within that larger study. If the Lord wills and tarries, hopefully in the future at some time we may be allowed to go into more depth with the Lord's Prayer.

Books on prayer are never-ending. I don't know whether you have been in a bookshop lately, a Christian bookshop, and browsed around the shelves and gone into the prayer section - but there are new books on prayer coming out and being released every week. There's no better subject that books could be written upon, let me hasten to add, and I have probably read more books on prayer than I have on anything else or any other subject. From the reading of books on prayer I am sure you have found, and I have found, that the methods of prayer and men's ideas about what an ideal prayer is, are varied.

What should be the ingredients of a good prayer? It's good to have books, and thank the Lord for books, but it's always important - I believe - when it comes to things spiritual to look to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Author and the Finisher of our faith, to see what He taught and what He did. Here in this prayer that we have, between verses 9 through to 13 in chapter 6 of Matthew's gospel, we have the Lord Jesus' pattern for prayer - if you like: the Master's blueprint for the way we ought to pray. We have the necessary ingredients of prayer according to Jesus Christ the Lord. That is right, and we would expect that simply because in verse 8 the Lord Jesus had already told us: "Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before you ask him". Therefore God knows what we need, therefore God in flesh - the Lord Jesus Christ - is coming to us and, knowing what we need, He tells us what we ought to pray for and how we ought to pray. He is telling us: 'These are the things that you need to pray for'.

If you were here last Lord's Day you would have seen from the first part of verse 7 that when we pray we are not to repeat things ritualistically over, vain repetitions, empty religious systems of men. He is warning against ritualism, He is telling us that prayers must be motivated from the heart - and we have been teaching that, and of course we believe it. But to the other extreme, it is important that when we pray - and I'm thinking, and I believe the Lord is thinking more personally now - in your own home, when you close the closet door behind you and you pray to God in secret where God alone can see and God alone can hear, there ought to be order in our prayer. All things in our prayer life ought to be done decently and in order.

Here we have, in the words of Lord Jesus Christ, the God-given order for our prayers. I believe today, personally, each one of us, it is our responsibility before God and Christ to realign our personal prayer life with the Saviour's pattern. It is commonly called 'The Lord's Prayer', and that's a bit of a misnomer because - yes, it came from the Lord's lips, but it came from the Lord's lips for the benefit and the use of His own disciples. We know that because the Lord Jesus could never have prayed this prayer, because one of the clauses within it asks God to forgive us our sins - and the Lord Jesus was apart from sin, He was always the sinless One. I prefer to call it 'The Disciples' Prayer' - and that is the title of our study today.

He didn't give us this prayer to be recited a certain number of times on the Lord's Day, or even days during the week. He gave it to keep us from using vain repetitions, so we ought not to take this prayer and vainly repeat it without any meaning or without any heart. Let me say this: it is not wrong to pray this prayer, what we need to guard against is praying it in vain repetition without our hearts being in the midst of it. Note please that the Lord Jesus didn't say: 'Pray in these words', He said: 'Pray after this manner' - that is, use this prayer as a pattern, not as a substitute for what is in your heart. Some have said that this is only a Jewish prayer, of course some believe that the Sermon on the Mount is purely Jewish, and therefore this prayer is not meant to be used by the church today but by a Jewish remnant in the Great Tribulation period in the future. I am sure that it indeed will be used in that period by that Jewish remnant, but to say that ought not to be used today in the church of Jesus Christ, I would say to you is verging on the error of ultra-dispensationalism. Now, we haven't got time to go into that today, but perhaps again we will go into it.

The very fact that it is found not just in Matthew's gospel, but in Luke's gospel - a Gentile gospel - is an indication that God wanted this prayer to be used as a pattern by Jewish and by Gentile believers. If you take a casual look down at this prayer you will see that there is nothing in it that cannot be used by Christians who are Gentiles. In fact, the fact that God is addressed as 'Our Father' is all the warrant that we need to use this prayer as members of the family of God. Certainly the epistles that we have in God's further revelation would add more to this prayer, things that we need to pray about that Paul tells us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But we can use this prayer today as a pattern in our personal lives.

The theme of this prayer, I believe, more than anything is the will of God for us. God's will, all that He desires to accomplish speedily in our lives, what He expects the church - believers - to pray for during the thousands of years of His absence. So let's look at it, let's look at the ingredients of prayer. I've divided it into two, and the first point is simply this: our praying should be God-centred, our praying should be God-centred. If you want to give a theological name to that you could call it: 'Adoration' - coming with God on our minds as we come in prayer. If you count down this prayer you find that the word 'thy' appears three times, and the word 'us' appears four times. As you read it doesn't take long to find out that there is a reversal of the order of person in life's grammar. What I mean by that is simply this: our English grammar, the different persons, goes like this: the first person is 'I', the second person is 'you', and the third person is 'he'. But we find in this Disciple's Prayer that that is an old-style, and now there is the new order and, if you like, the new grammar of the Christian is reversed. The first person is 'He' - God, the second person still remains 'you', and the third person is put last - 'I' must come last.

The Sermon on the Mount is paralleled in the law of God in the Old Testament, we've seen that in how the Lord addresses specifically the ten commandments. I think I told you in recent weeks that the first half of the commandments are our responsibilities God-ward, the second half of the commandments are our responsibilities to God man-ward. You find it in the Sermon on the Mount reflected from the law, and now we are finding it in the Disciple's Prayer - the first half of the prayer is God-ward, and the second half is man-ward. So there are three things that I want you to note - God-ward - how we are to make God the centre of our prayers. It divides into three: relationship, reverence, and reversal.

Let's begin with the first: relationship. The Lord Jesus says: 'Pray after this manner: Our Father which art in heaven'. Now does this mean - and here we go, people read into these things - does this mean that we cannot pray to the Lord Jesus? Does this mean that we cannot pray to the Holy Spirit? I do not believe it does mean these things, but what I believe the Lord is instructing us to do is: the normal practice of prayer, the norm, is to address God the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. Verse 9: 'Our Father which art in heaven' - He is the object of our prayer. What the Lord is focusing us to at the very beginning of His instruction and His teaching on prayer is: our prayer must be directed to God, for God is the Place and the Person that assures us of love, and power, and dignity, and majesty, and deity. We come and we name God's name as our Father because, at that very outset of prayer, at the introduction when we begin to pray, that name 'Our Father' will raise our affections, will confirm our confidence in God, and the effectiveness of what it means to pray to God.

He is a divine being, but the reason why we address Him as 'Our Father' is because He is a divine being with our best interests at His heart. Oh, it's thrilling, isn't it? We are invited to draw near to Him. John could say: 'Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God'. He is our Father by covenant relationship through the Lord Jesus Christ. He said before He left this earth to His disciples: 'I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to your God and to My God'. He is our Father by regeneration, Peter tells us that when we are born-again of the Spirit of God we are made partakers of the divine nature.

'Our Father' - that's mighty! Don't miss that word 'our', for that means that all Christians know - all true Christians - know God as their Father. Now the world cannot address God in this way. The Lord Jesus said: 'If you're not saved, ye are of your father the devil' - and there is nowhere in scripture, in God's word, that we find the universal fatherhood of God to all men. My friend, if you're saved you can call God 'Father' - but if you're not, if you're unregenerate and unconverted you can't come to God knowing Him as a loving Father, you can't ask for the things that are prayed for in this prayer. My friend, I would urge you to come to God through Jesus, the Son. There is no universal fatherhood of God in the scripture, but what there is is the universal brotherhood of Christians - 'Our Father'. You go right through this prayer and there are no singular pronouns - you don't find 'I' in it at all, everything is plural. God is saying: 'When you come to Me as your Father, remember that you're not an only child. When you come to Me, remember that you're one of a great company, a worldwide family of believers. Therefore, when you come, don't just ask for yourself'. We express our love for our family, don't we, in various ways in our own homes? God is simply saying: 'You're in the family of God now, and the way I want you to express love to your worldwide family is to pray for them, to pray for their needs over and above your own needs'.

'Our Father which art in heaven'. If 'Our Father' speaks to us of the worldwide family of God and the nature of God toward us in compassion, and love, and goodness; 'which art in heaven' must speak to us of faith as we come to God, that we're realising that God is above us but we are putting faith in Him as above us. Without faith it's useless to pray. You see, that's what Paul meant when he said in Hebrews: 'Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is'. When we come to God and say: 'Our Father which art in heaven', that's meant to be a declaration that we believe that there is a God in heaven. We bow before that God, and that whole introduction of this prayer is meant to raise from our breast such feelings and emotions, and it's meant to extract from the names of God, and the character and attributes of God, such a sweetness of our relationship with God that it inspires us to pray and to know that, as we come to God, He is a God who can and wants to answer our prayer.

Boy, what a relationship! My friend, do you have that relationship today? 'Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name'. The fact that God is in heaven should fill us with humility. We are only creatures of the dust, it should fill us with awe, we should fall at God's feet as dead men. I know, and you know, that God is everywhere - we cannot limit God to simply being in heaven. But within the Scriptures heaven is seen as the place of God's presence in a special sense. It's seen to be, if you like, the place where God has prepared His throne for judgement - but it's more than that: it's the place where God has prepared His throne in grace. That's why we talk about coming to the throne of grace.

There was a little military drummer, on one occasion, who was asked why - if God is everywhere - the Lord's Prayer speaks of Him as being in heaven? With the smartness of a little soldier he answered: 'Because that's headquarters!'. Isn't that it? When you think about it for a moment: God is there, our Lord is there, our names are there, our life is there, our future inheritance is there, our citizenship is there, and our heart ought to be there! Oh, what have we been learning in the Sermon on the Mount? Whether it's alms, whether it's prayer, whether it's fasting - who has our eyes to be on? Has your eyes to be on the Pastor, or on the members, or on the elders, or the deacons, or so-and-so across the road from you? No, our eyes are to be on God! If our eyes are on God, we will see His majesty, His reverence, and His greatness. Our eyes are not upon men, our eyes are not upon false gods in temples on the earth, but we are the people that worship the God of heaven - the true and the living God!

It speaks of His transcendence, and I would ask you today: what difference would it make if, when you came to God in prayer, you had a disposition that was saturated and enthused and soaked in the recognition of who you were coming to, and in the awareness of where your voice was heard - in heaven? It's lovely when I read, and it was in my reading this morning, where the Lord Jesus Christ - it says He lifted His eyes toward heaven. Do you know why He did that? Because He knew that's where power was, He knew that was where the place was where we obtain blessings that we need. Prayer needs to be from the heart, it needs to communicate with God not with the lips but with the heart - the reason being: there's no physical voice on earth that can rend the skies and go into heaven, but it is the heart pangs, the voice of our sighs and our groans before God, that will reach His own ears. If that's the case, if we are praying: 'Our Father which art in heaven', we need to be severed, divorced, detached, and wrenched from this earth! Some of us have our moorings tied and our foundations dug deep, and our desires are not heavenly.

This is what God enjoins His children throughout all the centuries to do: to worship Him, to hallow His name! Isn't that what the Lord taught us? That is worship, and when we go into the Old Testament we find there that King David felt that this part of prayer - adoration - was so important that he appointed a select group of men who did nothing else in the temple but praise and worship God day and night! In the book of the Revelation, we see four special angels - John saw them - and they existed solely to worship God, and they rest not day and night saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come'. Do you remember the words of the Lord to the Samaritan woman in John 4: 'The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship' - notice it doesn't say 'worship God' - 'worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him'. You can't worship God unless He is your Father, and you can't have Him as your Father unless there is that regenerated covenant relationship. Do we have the relationship? Now listen, in a world that thrives on, and a church that loves a casual approach to God: is there reverence?

Then there is reversal. He says: 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven'. The reason why I call that reversal is simply: God's will is always done in heaven, but the Lord wants us to pray that God's will would be done on earth - it's a reversal of what we know to be the norm. First of all let me deal with this: 'Thy kingdom come'. Now the Greek tense of the word 'come' in this passage, I'm led to believe, indicates a cataclysmic arrival of the kingdom of God in one specific point of time, in one act. It speaks of the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ that is prophesied in the Old Testament and seen in Revelation chapter 20 - the kingdom of God established on the earth. Of course it can also mean the spiritual, for on earth at this moment men do not carry out God's will on earth, do they? The purpose of God right throughout all time, from the beginning to the ending, will be to have His will and purpose done on earth as it is in heaven - for in heaven God's name is hallowed, in heaven God's will is done. Yet on earth there is another name that is hallowed, for this old world lieth in the lap of the wicked one - he is the god of this age, he is the prince of this generation.

We are going to and fro, and meant to be preaching the Gospel, in order that people will be released from the bondage of the god of this world, and that they will have the kingdom of God in their hearts - in order to deliver them from hand of the evil one, so that they may hallow God's name and submit themselves to His authority. That's what this is talking about: submission before God. It is our monumental responsibility to bring the kingdom of God to earth. How are we to do it? Through prayer. How has God ordained that He bring His purposes into planning and into actuality in this earth? Through your prayers. So prayer is not, as commonly thought, the means of getting our will done, it is the means of getting God's will done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now in the remaining time let's look at the second half. We've looked at how our praying should be God-centred adoration. We're to have a relationship, we're to have reverence, and there's to be reversal. But now we look at our praying and how it ought to be needs-motivat