John says, "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now" (1 John 2:9). Here, however, I must for the present pause, though one can only and deeply regret being obliged to pass so very cursorily over the ground; but I have sought in this first lecture to give thus far as simple, and at the same time as complete, a view of this portion of Matthew as I well could. Christianity did in fact split families as we have seen; and so Christianity was represented as something which divided man and wife, and disrupted the home. To be thus "peacemakers" is to be acknowledged as such (Matthew 5:9). (iii) But the greatest and the most obvious quality of salt is that salt lends flavour to things. California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. This is a love that demonstrates itself in action. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." Each road was divided into stages lasting one day. In the First World War Rupert Brooke, the poet, was one of those who died too young. Few passages of the New Testament have more of the essence of the Christian ethic in them than this one. offices that lie in your power; let them partake of your bounty It is impossible that God could do what even we should be ashamed of. Act immediately to remove the barriers which anger has raised.". The effect, therefore, is, that it is much more solemn, because unbroken, carrying its own majesty along with it. There have been two sets of people who completely refused all oaths. And whosoever shall murder shall be in danger of the judgment ( Matthew 5:21 ): Now doesn't the law say that? Christianity is caring. This is obviously a case of debt, for, if peace is not made, the last farthing will have to be paid. In effect Jesus is saying that, so far from having to make God a partner in any transaction, no man can keep God out of any transaction. "Eye and heart are the two handmaids of sin." If you were only chronicling the events of a year, you keep to the order in which they happened; but whenever you rise to the higher task of bringing out moral features, you may be frequently obliged to abandon the consecutive order of events as they occurred. Worldly minds will always struggle to understand goodness that thrives in an environment of bitter hatred and antagonism. a. But in the way that the law was originally intended, because it was intended to govern the spirit of man, the law was actually intended to make the whole world guilty before God and to show man's guilt. Jerusalem was indeed a light to the Gentiles, but "God lit Israel's lamp." There is here a picture of which we know little, for it is a picture from an occupied country. It is supremely true on the divine side, for he who shows this mercy has become nothing less than like God. And so the mission of the church to turn them from darkness to light; "You are the light of the world. Though men are ever so bad themselves, and carry it ever so basely towards us, yet that does not discharge us from the great debt we owe them, of love to our kind, love to our kin. But, then, it is not simply the anointed of Jehovah, but One who proves Himself, and is declared of God, to be Jehovah-Messiah No such testimony appears elsewhere. Clement of Alexandria insisted that Christians must lead such a life and demonstrate such a character that no one will ever dream of asking an oath from them. If her husband wanted to divorce her, he could divorce her but she could not divorce him. The Rabbis loved to point out that loving-kindness was one of the very few things to which the Law appointed no limit at all. But when I look at the Lord, that purity, that holiness, that righteousness, I say, Oh, God help me. The matter was complicated by the fact that the Jewish law of divorce was very simple in its expression and very debatable in its meaning. Jesus said that in God's sight it was not only the man who committed murder who was guilty, the man who was angry with his brother was also guilty and liable to judgment. We are here told. For the inner perfection the only thing that is enough for a man to say is that he himself is dead and Christ lives in him. It is the man who has that experience who will indeed be comforted; for that experience is what we call penitence, and the broken and the contrite heart God will never despise ( Psalms 51:17). This is another important truth; for thus was to be fulfilled the word, not of one prophet, but of all "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." So Matthew goes on to show us Jesus selecting the men who will be his fellow-workers. Pray for them. So seeing the multitudes, he left the multitudes. It very often happens that if a man loves peace in the wrong way, he succeeds in making trouble and not peace. Why would they strain at a gnat? He was clear that he had come "not to make life easy, but to make men great.". If I do not stand and suffer here, my conscience will be defiled; but this is in no way suffering for Christ's sake. and liberality; if poor, feed, clothe, and supply them, as you In the Ten Commandments we find no rules and regulations at all; they are each one of them great principles out of which a man must find his own rules for life. In doing this we serve ourselves and consult our own advantage; and what reward can we expect for that, unless a regard to God, and a sense of duty, carrying us further than our natural inclination and worldly interest? There is a contempt which comes from knowledge, and of all snobberies intellectual snobbery is the hardest to understand, for no wise man was ever impressed with anything else than his own ignorance. Blessed is the man who is intensely sorry for his sin, the man who is heart-broken for what his sin has done to God and to Jesus Christ, the man who sees the Cross and who is appalled by the havoc wrought by sin. Those men that were trying them, beat them and warned them not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus Christ. You see, the disciples could not read Hebrew. (i) First, there is the word peace. Has it appeared unreasonable and absurd to some? Now you have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. The old story in Daniel tells how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace heated seven times hot because of their refusal to move from their loyalty to God. There is a contempt which comes from pride of birth, and snobbery is in truth an ugly thing. It is impossible to love the conduct of a man that curses and reviles us, and injures our person or property, or that violates all the laws of God; but though we may hate his conduct, and feel deeply that we are affected by it, yet we may still wish well to the person; we may pity his madness and folly; we may speak kindly of him, and to him; we may not return evil for evil; we may aid him in the time of trial; and seek to do him good here, and to promote his eternal welfare hereafter, Ro 12:17-20. Hence, besides that order, which is the most elementary, however important in its own place, other presentations of His life were due, according to various spiritual grounds, as divine wisdom saw fit, and as even we are capable of appreciating in our measure. Joseph was the descendant of David, the king, through Solomon: the Messiah must therefore, somehow or other, be the son of Joseph; yet had He really been the son of Joseph, all would have been lost. Christ will be nearer to him than at any other time. But in the case of our enemies, love is not only something of the heart, it is also something of the will. 3. If there is a habit which can be seduction to evil, if there is an association which can be the cause of wrongdoing, if there is a pleasure which could turn out to be our ruin, then that thing must be surgically excised from our life. You're the light of the world but you are to let your light so shine before man, that when they see your good works they won't be praising and glorifying you but they will be praising and glorifying your Father which is in heaven.Now Jesus moves into the next section of the Sermon on the Mount as he talks to them concerning the Christian's relationship to the law. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers." They have connected Christianity with that which takes the flavour out of life. I find that the screw-driver exactly fits the grip of my hand; it is neither too large nor too small, too rough nor too smooth. These generations God blots out along with that wicked woman. As Julian saw it, Christianity took the vividness out of life. The first word is suggestiv. Human beings naturally struggle with the idea of passively accepting persecution. We should be surprised when they are not. Jesus set before men, not the law of God, but the love of God. You should not have to take an oath. I need help. Its sacrifices were held to atone for sin known and unknown; but even this day had its limitations. If at the very beginning one of the parties had had the grace to apologize or to admit fault, a grievous situation need never have arisen. According to the literal meaning of the Greek the man who is condemned is the man who looks at a woman with the deliberate intention of lusting after her. Therefore it is that, in this discourse on the mountain, we have throughout the tone of One who was consciously God with men. As it stands now, the passage wears this most awkward appearance, that Satan, though commanded to depart, lingers on. There is part of him which is attracted to good, and part of him which is attracted to evil. The point about the seventh year is that in every seventh year there was a cancellation of debts; and the grudging and the calculating man might refuse to lend anything when the seventh year was near, lest the debt be cancelled and he lose what he had given. Yes it does; thou shalt not murder. Love your enemies - There are two kinds of love, involving the same general feeling, or springing from the same fountain of good-will to all mankind, but differing so far as to admit of separation in idea. How intense is our desire for goodness? Marvelous. Let your light so shine before men, that when they see your good works, they will glorify your Father which is in heaven ( Matthew 5:16 ). Now, looking at the gospel of Matthew as a whole, and taking the most enlarged view of it before we enter into details, the question arises, what is the main idea before the Holy Ghost? First of all, this law was not given to the common people. Long-lasting anger is bad; contemptuous speaking is worse, and the careless or the malicious talk which destroys a man's good name is worst of all." We have, as usual, righteousness developed according to Christ, which deals with man's wickedness under the heads of violence and corruption; next come other new principles of grace infinitely deepening what had been given under law. Spiritual Israel is a peaceable kingdom. Love for all men, even enemies, opens doors of opportunity (Romans 12:20). She was loud. So, then, the translation of the fourth beatitude could run: O the bliss of the man who longs for total righteousness, as a starving man longs for food, and a man perishing of, thirst longs for water, for that man will be truly, The Bliss Of Perfect Sympathy ( Matthew 5:7). It might be the feeblest recognition of God and man; it might be but a remnant of Israelites; but, at least, they owned the truth about themselves; and Jesus was with them in owning the ruin fully, and felt it all. None but God could have imposed a yoke so contrary to self-love; and nothing but the supreme eternal love can enable men to practise a precept so insupportable to corrupt nature. They recognized the phenomenon as looking for the star of Jacob; they instinctively, I may say, certainly by the good hand of God, connected the two together. Wars are going to cease. Do good to them that hate you Give your enemy every proof that you love him. It was said of Archbishop Cranmer, that the way to make him a friend was to do him an ill turn; so many did he serve who had disobliged him. As he did so he said, "I entreat, O Lord; I have sinned, I have done perversely, I have rebelled; I have committed (here the sacrificer specified his sins); but I return in penitence, and let this be for my covering.". It is Cicero's plea, as it was the statement of Demosthenes, that relationships outside marriage were the ordinary and the conventional thing. The Christian weekly meeting was called the Agape ( G26) , the Love Feast; and the name was grossly misinterpreted. They were among the most despised people in Palestine. And thus, the law condemned me. Jesus will show that agape love manifests itself in three radical ways: in blessing, in doing good, and in praying. The primary duty of the light of the lamp was to be seen. Skandalon is a form of the word skandalgithron, which means the bait-stick in a trap. 5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. The thesis of the book is simply is this: as Jesus forgave those who crucified Him, the cross of Christ was transformed from an instrument of shame to a sign of salvation. They had long looked for the time when the earth should no longer be left to itself, but heaven should be the governing power; when the Son of man should control the earth; when the power of hell should be banished from the world; when the earth should be put into association with the heavens, and the heavens, of course, therefore, be changed, so as to govern the earth directly through the Son of man, who should be also King of restored Israel. but in this they agreed with them. (ii) Their Christianity would certainly disrupt their social life. Swinburne had it: "Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilaean; the world has grown. In the sentence, "It was his custom to go to Church every Sunday," in Greek it was his custom to go would be expressed by a single verb in the imperfect tense, because it describes continuous and often-repeated action in the past. It was but once that God forbade his sun to shine on the Egyptians, when the Israelites had light in their dwellings; God could make such a distinction every day. When they would stand it would be to herald or to proclaim as a herald, a truth. The Christian is a man who has forgotten that he has any rights at all; and the man who will fight to the legal death for his rights, inside or outside the Church, is far from the Christian way. This gives occasion to his stern sentence upon their condition in the sight of God. Copyright 2022, Bible Study Tools. The next three are founded upon mercy. It was based on Deuteronomy 15:7-11, 5:38-42 "If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of your towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. (iii) But there is another meaning for this word peace. Blessed are the peacemakers: For they shall be called the children of God ( Matthew 5:8-9 ). Such cases were settled by the local council of elders. H. G. Wells somewhere said, "A man may be a bad musician and yet be passionately in love with music." They have made the notable discovery that there is an omission! Most people are so concerned with their own feelings that they are not much concerned with the feelings of anyone else. Dr. Lukes Sermon on the Plains, is shorter than the Sermon on the Mount. You're the preserving influence. When was permission denied? A man with no knowledge and no skill could not tell an old master from a worthless daub, whereas a trained art critic might well discern a picture worth thousands of pounds in a collection which someone else might dismiss as junk. Three things emerge from this. This never could be consistent with the glory of the person who was there. Is our religion a thing in which we are conscious of nothing so much as the need of God within our hearts, or a thing in which we have comfortable thoughts of our own piety? Raca (see rhaka, G4469 and compare H7386) is an almost untranslatable word, because it describes a tone of voice more than anything else. Persecute - See the notes at Matthew 5:10. The question was to make good, along with His eternal glory, a Messianic title that could not be set aside, a title that no Jew on his own ground could impeach. So, then, Jesus condemns all selfish anger. But if a man was too proud to ask for help, Rabbi Ishmael suggested that the giver should go to him and say, "My son, perhaps you need a loan." Marriage amongst the Romans ( Matthew 5:31-32). So, it is said, Hillel arranged that the poverty-stricken son of a noble family should be given, not simply enough to keep him from starvation, but a horse to ride and a slave to run before him; and once, when no slave was available, Hillel himself acted as his slave and ran before him. (ii) If that be so, then God alone can judge men. Could a Christian share in a feast held in the temple of a heathen god? In actual practice the type of compensation which the Lex Talionis laid down is strangely modern. The Jews used the expression The Law in four different ways. No doubt God has been pleased in this genealogy to do that which men in modern times have cavilled at; but not even the darkest and most hostile Jews raised such objections in former days. The great Day of Atonement was held to make atonement for the sins of the whole nation, but the Jews were quite clear that not even the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement could avail for a man unless he was first reconciled to his neighbour. Just give her writing of bill of divorcement. But when they reached it, where were faithful souls awaiting the Messiah? Such is the true force of it. It is clear that the effect of the giving on the receiver must be taken into account. We learn from these words, how far believers ought to be removed from every kind of revenge: for they are not only forbidden to ask it from God, but are commanded to banish and efface it from their minds so completely, as to bless their enemies. He is not speaking of the natural, normal desire, which is part of human instinct and human nature. To examine one's own motives is a daunting and a shaming thing, for there are few things in this world that even the best of us do with completely unmixed motives. And as you see Jesus making the contrast, he first of all teaches it as they were teachers or shows us how they were teaching it, but then he shows the original intent of the law. The Jewish teachers forbade such anger and such words. It was on a hand-barrow. Matthew in his introduction wishes us to see that it is the official teaching of Jesus; that it is the opening of Jesus' whole mind to his disciples; that it is the summary of the teaching which Jesus habitually gave to his inner circle. Here Jesus makes a great and a surgical demand: he insists that anything which is a cause of, or a seduction to, sin should be completely cut out of life. So, then, this saying of Jesus leaves two obligations upon us. The outstanding example in history of the wrong way to deal with such thoughts and desires was the hermits and the monks in the desert in the time of the early Church. Why should that be? (verses Matthew 7:5-11.). If a man committed a sin unawares, if he was swept into sin in a moment of passion when self-control broke, then sacrifice was effective; but if a man deliberately, defiantly, callously and open-eyed committed sin, then sacrifice was powerless to atone. (ii) Wherein does the main difference lie? So, then, in Greece an extraordinary situation arose. All the world knows of the Christians who were flung to the lions or burned at the stake; but these were kindly deaths. The fact is that very few of us in modern conditions of life know what it is to be really hungry or really thirsty. When a task is laid on you, even if the task is unreasonable and hateful, don't do it as a grim duty to be resented; do it as a service to be gladly rendered.". To suffer for the right is to gain a share in a great succession. If you are only loving those that love you, what are you doing more than anybody else?Now, the inference here is that as a Christian you should be doing more than anybody else and if you're not doing more than anybody else then how can you really boast to being a Christian? We want them to be saved and to be blessed by God like we are blessed by God. Here is the beatitude which demands that every man who reads it should stop, and think, and examine himself. Our Lord prohibits that only which, from its nature, is opposed to man's happiness. There is the word penes ( G3993) . It was Jesus' teaching that it was not enough not to commit adultery; the only thing sufficient was never even to wish to commit adultery. When he was a boy at Harrow, he was going along the street one day, and he met a pauper's funeral. No matter what men do to him, God seeks nothing but their highest good. He said, ah, that's good. The light which can be seen, the light which warns, the light which guides, these are the lights which the Christian must be. There lay the Roman tragedy, what Lecky called "that outburst of ungovernable and almost frantic depravity which followed upon the contact with Greece." It is connected with the root ptossein ( G4434) , which means to crouch or to cower; and it describes the poverty which is beaten to its knees. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. The principle is clear and apparently simple--if a man has inflicted an injury on any person, an equivalent injury shall be inflicted upon him. Accordingly, as in chapter it we found Gentiles from the East coming up to own the born King of the Jews, when His people were buried in bondage and Rabbinic tradition in heartless heedlessness, too, while boasting of their privileges; so here our Lord, at the beginning of His public ministry, as recorded in Matthew, is seen taking up His abode in these despised districts of the north, the way of the sea, where especially Gentiles had long dwelt, and on which the Jews looked down as a rude and dark spot, far from the centre of religious sanctity. Jesus himself was called a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. And "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers"( Ephesians 6:12 ). The genealogy is, no doubt, formed peculiarly according to the Jewish manner; but this very shape serves rather as a confirmation, I will not say to the Jewish mind alone, but to every honest man of intelligence. From this certain things emerge. He never seeks to draw the eyes of men to himself, but always to direct them to God. It is not his province to regard the person of Christ peculiarly, i.e., His divine glory; neither does he occupy himself with the testimony or service of Jesus here below, of which we all know Mark is the exponent. But we'll get more into this when we get to the seventeenth chapter or the nineteenth chapter when we look at the law of Jesus and divorce, because Jesus does then begin to amplify it there a bit. The amazing thing about authority is that it is self-evidencing. The basis of the Roman commonwealth was the patria potestas, the father's power; the father had literally the power of life and death over his family. In the gospel of Luke it is not to Joseph, but to Mary. It would appear that, in John the Baptist's preaching it, we have no ground for supposing that either he believed at this time, or that any other men till afterwards were led into the understanding of the form which it was to assume through Christ's rejection and going on high as now. The Sermon on the Mount was not for the multitudes. The substantial truth is given to us without noticing the immediate occasion in particular facts, appeals, etc. Now here are those disciples, Peter and John and James, and they were fishermen. And so Jesus is going back more towards the original. In Luke's account of the Sermon on the Mount this becomes even clearer. It is true that that law was a law of mercy; it is true that it was a law for a judge and not for a private individual; it is true that it was never literally carried out; it is true that there were accents of mercy speaking at the same time. Claudius, the Emperor, said that he deprecated divine honours being paid to any human being. If a man of one tribe injured a man of another tribe, then at once all the members of the tribe of the injured man were out to take vengeance on all the members of the tribe of the man who committed the injury; and the vengeance desired was nothing less than death. The type of "love" Jesus commands is agape love. Another common sin that resulted from a misunderstanding of the law was divorce. When we approach this beatitude from that side it is the most demanding, and indeed the most frightening, of them all. 1 Corinthians 16:4 - Let all that you do be done in love. Or that the sun rose and shone on Israel, who was righteous, and not upon the Gentiles, who were wicked? When we speak to them, we must answer their revilings with courteous and friendly words, and not render railing for railing behind their backs we must commend that in them which is commendable, and when we have said all the good we can of them, not be forward to say any thing more. "Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" ( Deuteronomy 19:21). Nature inclines them to it; interest directs them to it. If Jehovah called Moses up to the top of one mount) He who then spake the ten words sat now upon another mount, and taught His disciples the character of the kingdom of heaven, and its principles introduced as a whole, just answering to what we have seen of the facts and effects of His ministry, entirely passing by all intervals or connecting circumstances. Sir William Jones lays by far too much stress on the casual introduction of such sentiments as this in the Asiatic writers. The word used for to compel is the verb aggareuein ( G29) , and aggareuein is a word with a history. She had virtually no legal rights at all. The result was that, however good a man, however fine a citizen a Christian was, he was automatically an outlaw. So, then, Christianity is something which is meant to be seen. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a scratch for a scratch meant that there had to be a heavy punishment for a major offence, and a light punishment for a minor offence (Exodus 21:23-25). There is the name of Rachab, a Gentile, and a Gentile bringing no honourable reputation along with her. Paul orders his people to put off all "anger, wrath, malice, slander" ( Colossians 3:8). Now, let me say that interpreting the Sermon on the Mount or the words of Jesus Christ, that we must take care in interpreting, because if our interpretation of a passage makes the passage ridiculous then we have the wrong interpretation. In both Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27, Jesus calls for believers to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It really means the Valley of Hinnom. The one was in His life, when He taught His own; the other was in His death, when He bore the iniquities of many. There is an even greater thrill in having a share, however small, in the actual action. John 15:12-14 - Love one another as I have loved you. In this article, we hope we can help unpack the meaning of two critical passages that guide us in this area: Matthew 6:44 and Luke 6:27. It is one thing to sit and read it, and to pause and linger as we read; it would be entirely another thing to listen to it for the first time in spoken words. The idea behind this was that, if God's name was used, God became a partner in the transaction; whereas if God's name was not used, God had nothing to do with the transaction. There are no technical loopholes and no theological outs. In every sphere of life we see what we are able to see. He changes his place of sojourn from Nazareth to Capernaum. The one thing which makes us like God is the love which never ceases to care for men, no matter what men do to it. Thank you Father again, for this privilege of being here tonight and sharing in thy Word. Aramaic and Hebrew have a very common kind of expression, which is in fact an exclamation and which means, "O the blessedness of . There, according to prophecy, light was to spring up; and how brightly was it now accomplished? A victim which is fit for a sacrifice to God, that is a victim which is without blemish, is teleios ( G5046) . If he has made the tooth of a poor man fall out, he shall pay one third of a mina of silver." Such is the scope of the fifth chapter. Therefore if when you are bringing your gift to the altar, and you suddenly remember that your brother has ought against you; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift ( Matthew 5:22-24 ). Miracles we have elsewhere, no doubt, and prophecies occasionally; but where is there such a profusion of them as in Matthew? Evidently Jewish unbelief, even where there was an acknowledgment of the Messiah, turned upon this, that the Jew looked upon the Messiah purely according to what He deigns to become as the great King. When Jesus gives instruction to pray for those who persecute us, He is reminding us of a three-way link. It is when man reproduces in his life the unwearied, forgiving, sacrificial benevolence of God that he becomes like God, and is therefore perfect in the New Testament sense of the word. It is not an absolute command in any of the books which they consider to be Divinely inspired. What is in the attitude of your heart, that's what God is looking upon. Moreover, not only does God condescend to notice the line of fathers, but, if He turns aside for a moment now and then for aught else, what instruction, both in man's sin and need, and in His own grace, does thus spring up before us from the mere course of His genealogical tree! God maketh his sun to rise, and sendeth rain, on the just and the unjust,Matthew 5:45; Matthew 5:45. Again the Christian answer was clear. (i) It may be a piece of most practical advice. If they swore by heaven, by earth, by Jerusalem or by the head and then broke their oath, they felt no guilt, because such oaths did not use the name of God. So the word came to mean anything which causes a man's destruction. Despitefully use you - The word thus translated means, first, to injure by prosecution in law; then, wantonly and unjustly to accuse, and to injure in any way. It is not here a question of law; it was too late for this ever a ruinous thing for the sinner. "Get thee hence, Satan," was the real language of the Lord to Satan, and is so given in closing the literally last temptation by Matthew. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and don't get into these long deceitful kind of well, I would be very happy to do it and I'll tell you what. There is something gracious and lovely in the idea that giving must not only remove actual poverty; it must do something also to remove the humiliation which poverty brings. His honesty, his morality, his respectability are beyond question; but it may be that no one could go to that man and weep out a sorry story on his breast; he would freeze, if one tried to do so. Note, it is the great duty of Christians to love their enemies; we cannot have complacency in one that is openly wicked and profane, nor put a confidence in one that we know to be deceitful; nor are we to love all alike; but we must pay respect to the human nature, and so far honour all men: we must take notice, with pleasure, of that even in our enemies which is amiable and commendable; ingenuousness, good temper, learning, and moral virtue, kindness to others, profession of religion, c., and love that, though they are our enemies. Further, a man might be summarily arrested if he was discovered to be exercising the rights of a citizen when he had been disfranchised, or if he returned to his state or city after being exiled. "These died that the desert might rejoice and blossom as the rose.". It is no doubt of that situation that Jesus was thinking. But the essential point remains whatever the picture, and it is a point which the New Testament makes and remakes again and again--uselessness invites disaster. The writer of Proverbs has it: "He that rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city" ( Proverbs 16:32). For I say unto you, That unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven ( Matthew 5:20 ). I might merely do my duty in the place in which I am put; but grace is never satisfied with the bare performance of one's duty. These adequately cover the range of all human endeavors: words, works, and worship. Think on what is, perhaps, the most famous verse in the Bible: John 3:16. Is our work done from motives of service or from motives of pay? But next a burden has to be defined. their actions; do not make returns in the same way, but on the Now the point is that in the Greek of this sentence, which we are studying, the verb taught is not an aorist, but an imperfect and therefore it describes repeated and habitual action, and the translation should be: "This is what he used to teach them." One of the characteristics of the world in which we live is the lowering of standards. The answer I conceive to be this, that the Spirit in Matthew loves to present Christ as the One like unto Moses, whom they were to hear. The smallest part of the letter--what the King James Version calls the tittle--is what we call the serif, the little projecting part at the foot of a letter, the little line at each side of the foot of, for example, the letter "I". The hatred of the first we are to meet with love. That is often difficult, and it is often hard to do it in a way which will not do more harm than good; but one of the most poignant tragedies in life is for someone, especially a young person, to come and say to us, "I would never have been in the situation in which I now find myself, if you had only spoken in time.". What does that mean? Deterioration, disease, death, and decay ravaged the body and spoiled the beautiful world that God had created. Article Images Copyright 2022 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. If you're friendly to those that you know and all, you're not doing any more than anybody else.Then comes the capper, and if you haven't felt like a sinner yet; Jesus said. Life cannot be divided into compartments in some of which God is involved and in others of which he is not involved; there cannot be one kind of language in the Church and another kind of language in the shipyard or the factory or the office; there cannot be one kind of standard of conduct in the Church and another kind of standard in the business world. (Matthew 3:1-17) The Spirit of God carries us over a long interval, and the voice of John is heard proclaiming, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." If the cruel torture of crucifixion could not silence our Lords prayer for his enemies, what pain, pride, prejudice or sloth could justify the silencing of ours?" There are people like that in almost every society and every Church, and such people are doing the devil's own work. The man whom Jesus here condemns is the man who deliberately uses his eyes to stimulate his desires; the man who finds a strange delight in things which waken the desire for the forbidden thing. The reason is very simple and tremendous--it is that such a love makes a man like God. Now you may have an ungovernable, unreasonable anger but you may have been able to control it but you go around constantly seething, constantly angry, boiling inside. At the present we must simply note that with Christianity there had come into the world an ideal of chastity of which men did not dream. In the Old Testament we find it laid down no fewer than three times. Then came the astonished answer, "But I see four men, loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods" ( Daniel 3:19-25). Plato likened the soul to a charioteer whose task it was to drive two horses. And it was manifested, as Jesus said, when the Pharisee went into the temple and said, "Oh Father, I thank you I'm not like other men, for I fast and I pray" and you know, he's telling God all of his good things. "The eyes and the hand are the two brokers of sin." And I showed her the scripture "Let the women keep silent in the church"( 1 Corinthians 14:34 ). What we need is, to gather up all, for all is worthy; to delight ourselves in every thought that the Spirit of God has treasured up every fragrance, so to speak, that He has preserved for us of the ways of Jesus. You know what constitutes the violation that thou shalt not murder? I live right across the street. And when the invitations to the feast went out, they would read: "I invite you to dine with me at the table of our Lord Serapis.". Oh, the influence that the church should be having in this dark world today. That is what the Cross does for us. Look at the United States, we were formed on Christian principles. But I have it not. But I say unto you, love your enemies,. That is, as the Apostle Paul may be thought to interpret the words of Christ. Lesson 47: "Seek the Lord, and Ye Shall Live" (Amos, Obadiah) 00:00 / 11:03. 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; (Matthew 5:44 KJV), but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; (Matthew 5:44 ASV), But *I* say unto you, Love your enemies, [bless those who curse you,] do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who [insult you and] persecute you, (Matthew 5:44 DBY), but II say to you, Love your enemies, bless those cursing you, do good to those hating you, and pray for those accusing you falsely, and persecuting you, (Matthew 5:44 YLT), But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, (Matthew 5:44 WEB), Mt 5:44 But /de/ I /ego/ say /lego/ unto you, /humin/ Love /agapao/ your /humon/ enemies, /echthros/ bless /eulogeo/ them that curse /kataraomai/ you, /humas/ do /poieo/ good /kalos/ to them that hate /miseo/ you, /humas/ and /kai/ pray /proseuchomai/ for /huper/ them which /ho/ despitefully use /epereazo/ you, /humas/ and /kai/ persecute /dioko/ you; /humas/. There are cases where an author necessarily departs from the mere order in which the facts took place. In the one case, the believer stops dead short: if he did not stand, there would be sin. We often speak about a radiant bride, but the radiance which shines from her comes from the love which has been born within her heart. It has often happened that a quarrel between two people has descended to their families, and has been inherited by future generations, and has in the end succeeded in splitting a church or a society in two. First of all, who but God would have thought it necessary to remind us that Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar? Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca ( Matthew 5:22 ). And when I look at you, I don't look near so bad. On them all law is based. Long ago Augustine said that the Christian life could be summed up in the one phrase: "Love God, and do what you like." 5:44 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; 5:45 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. 2 Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Paul said when the law came, sin was revealed and I died. The word for such compulsion was aggareuein ( G29) . If he has made the tooth of a man who is his equal fall out, one shall make his tooth fall out. I lay the screw-driver on the slot of the screw, and I find that it exactly fits. That summary is known as the Mishnah; it contains sixty-three tractates on various subjects of the Law, and in English makes a book of almost eight hundred pages. ", Ideally the Jew abhorred divorce. The liberalizing of the law through interpretation.Now, this law of divorce had been extremely liberalized through interpretation. The Queen. This undesirable state creates a culture of suspicion, intrigue, concealment, treachery, and sabotage casting a shadow on unity, and turning a nation into a divided people. For it is no longer a question of mere acts, but of the soul's condition. (i) Anyone who heard it in its present form would be exhausted long before the end. All rights reserved. I was almost tempted to write little cards and say, Did you know you left your lights on this morning and you would've had a dead battery tonight but I came over and turned them off for you. What are the real ways that believers can love their enemies?, "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." Their weapons of war are not carnal but mighty to the pulling down of strong holds (2 Corinthians 10:4). A heart that grieves over its own sin and iniquity, a heart that hungers and thirsts after God, for they will then be filled with that mercy of God and they will become pure, the pure desire of their hearts for God and for the things of God. It may seem an extraordinary thing to talk about the bliss of the persecuted; but for him who had eyes to see beyond the immediate present, and a mind to understand the greatness of the issues involved, there must have been a glory in that blood-stained way. 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