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INCARNATE WISDOM AND INDIVIDUAL REASON 59
in, we will not trust what we cannot see, we will not believe
what we cannot trace. Then it is all up with my dis-
cipleship. The great word of Jesus to His disciples is
" Abandon." When God has brought me into the relation
ship of a disciple, I have to venture on His word, to trust
entirely to Him and watch that when He brings me to
the venture, I take it.
Jesus sums up common sense carefulness in a person
indwelt by the Spirit of God as infidelity. After you have
received the Spirit and you try and put other things first
instead of God, you will find confusion. The Holy Spirit
presses through and says Where does God come in in
this new relationship ? in this mapped-out holiday? in
these new books you are buying ? The Holy Spirit always
presses that point until we learn to make concentration
on God the first consideration. It is not only wrong to
worry, it is real infidelity because it means I do not think
God can look after the little practical details of my life,
it is never anything else that worries us. Notice what
Jesus said would choke the word He puts in the devil ?
No, the cares of this world. That is how infidelity begins.
It is the little foxes that spoil the vines, the little worries
always. The great cure for infidelity is obedience to the
Spirit of God. Refuse to be swamped by the cares of
this world, cut out non-essentials and continually revise
your relationship to God and see that you are concentrated
absolutely on Him. The man who trusts Jesus in a definite
practical way is freer than anyone else to do his work in
the world, free from fret and worry, he can go with absolute
certainty into the daily life because the responsibility of
his life is off him and on God. Once I realise the revelation
Jesus gives that God is my Father and that I can never
think of anything He will forget, then worry is impossible.
60 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
(d) Concentrated Consecration, w. 33-34.
" Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you." " Seek ye
first the Kingdom of God " " But, supposing I do, what
about this thing and that ? who is going to look after me ?
I would like to obey God, but don t ask me to take a step
in the dark." We enthrone our common sense as almighty
God and treat Jesus Christ as a spiritual appendage to it.
Jesus Christ hits desperately hard at every one of the
institutions we bank all our faith in naturally. The
sense of property and of insurance is one of the greatest
hindrances to development in the spiritual life. You
cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus
Christ.
Our Lord teaches that the one great secret of the spiritual
life is concentration on God and His purposes. We talk
a lot about consecration, but it ends in sentimentalism
because there is nothing definite about it. Consecration
ought to mean my definite yielding of myself over as a
saved soul to Jesus and concentrating on that. There are
things in actual life that lead to perplexity, and I say I am
in a quandary and I don t know which way to take.
" Be renewed in the spirit of your mind," says Paul,
concentrate on God, so that you make out what is His will.
Concentration on God is of more value than personal holi
ness. God can do what He likes with the man who is aban
doned to Him. God saves us and sanctifies us, then He
expects us to concentrate on Him in every circumstance we
are in. " Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."
When in doubt, haul yourself up short and concentrate
on God, and every time you do, you will find that God
engineers your circumstances and opens the way perfectly
INCARNATE WISDOM AND INDIVIDUAL REASON 61
securely, the condition on your part is that you con
centrate on God.
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous
ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." At
the bar of common sense Jesus Christ s statements are
those of a fool ; but bring them to the bar of faith and the
word of God, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit
that they are the words of God.
STUDY No. 4.
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT.
Matthew VII. 1-12,
(1) CHRISTIAN CHARACTERISTICS, w. 1-5.
(a) The Uncritical Temper, v. 1.
(b) The Undeviating Test. v. 2.
(c) The Undesirable Truth Teller, w. 3-5.
(2) CHRISTIAN CONSIDERATENESS. vv. 6-11.
(a) The Need to Discriminate, v. 6.
(b) The Notion of Divine Control, vv. 7-10.
(c) The Necessity for Discernment, v. 11.
(3) CHRISTIAN COMPREHENSIVENESS.
(a) The Positive Margin of Righteousness.
(b) The Proverbial Maxim of Reasonableness. > v. 12.
(c) The Principal Meaning of Revelation. J
" And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith
virtue, . . ." Peter is writing to those who are the
children of God, those who have been born from above,
and he says Add, give diligence, concentrate. " Add "
means all that character means. No man is born with
character ; we make our own character. When a man is
born from above he has a new disposition given to him,
not character; neither naturally nor supernaturally are
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CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 63
we born with character. Character is what a man makes
out of his disposition as it comes in contact with external
things. A man s character cannot be summed up by what
he does in spots, but only by what he is in the main trend
of his existence. When we describe a man we fix on the
exceptional things, but it is the steady trend of the man s
life that tells. Character is that which steadily prevails,
not something that occasionally manifests itself. What we
do steadily and persistently makes character, not what is
exceptional or spasmodic, that is something God mourns
over " thy goodness is as a morning cloud," He says.
In Matthew VII. Our Lord is dealing with the need to make
character.
(1) CHRISTIAN CHARACTERISTICS, vv. 1-5.
(a) The Uncritical Temper, v. 1.
" Judge not, that ye be not judged." Criticism is
part of the ordinary faculty of a man, he has a sense of
humour, i.e., a sense of proportion, and he sees where
things are wrong and pulls the other fellow to bits ; but
Jesus says, as a disciple, cultivate the uncritical temper.
In the spiritual domain, criticism is love gone sour. There
is no room for criticism in a wholesome spiritual life. The
critical faculty is an intellectual one, not a moral one. If
criticism becomes a habit it will destroy the moral energy
of the life and paralyse spiritual force. The only Person
who can criticise human beings is the Holy Spirit. No
human being dare criticise another human being, because
immediately he does he puts himself in a superior position
to the one he criticises. A critic must be removed from
what he criticises. Before a man can criticise a work of
art or piece of music, his information must be complete,
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he must stand away from what he criticises as superior to
it. No human being can ever take that attitude to another
human being, if he does he puts himself in the wrong
position and grieves the Holy Spirit. If a man is con
tinually criticised, he becomes good for nothing, the effect
of the criticism is to knock all the gumption and power
out of him. Criticism is deadly in its effect because it
divides a man s powers and prevents his being a force for
anything. That is never the work of the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost alone is in the true position of a critic,
He is able to show what is wrong without wounding and
hurting.
The temper of mind that makes me lynx-eyed to see
where others are wrong does not do them any good, because
the effect of my criticism is to paralyse their powers, which
proves that the criticism did not come from the Holy
Ghost. I have put myself into the position of a superior
person. Jesus says a disciple can never stand off from
another life and criticise it, therefore He advocates an
uncritical temper, " Judge not." Beware of anything that
puts you in the superior person s place.
The counsel of Jesus is to abstain from judging. This
sounds strange at first because the characteristic of the
Holy Spirit in a Christian is to reveal the things that are
wrong, but the strangeness is only on the surface. The
Holy Spirit does reveal what is wrong in others, but His
discernment is never for purposes of criticism, but for
purposes of intercession. When the Holy Spirit reveals
something of the nature of sin and unbelief in another,
His purpose is not to make me feel the smug satisfaction of
a critical spectator Well, thank God, I am not like that ;
but to make me so lay hold of God for that one that God
enables him to turn away from the wrong thing. Never
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 65
ask God for discernment, because discernment increases
your responsibility terrifically ; and you cannot get out of
it by talking, but only by bearing the life up in inter
cession before God until God puts him right. " If any
man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he
shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not
unto death." (1 John V. 16.) Our Lord makes no room
for criticism in the spiritual life, but He does make room
for discernment and discrimination.
If we let these searchlights go straight down to the root
of our spiritual life we will see why Jesus says Don t
judge, we won t have time to. The whole of the life is to be
lived in the power of God so that He can pour through the
rivers of living water to others. Some of us are so con
cerned about the outflow, that it dries up. We continually
ask Am I of any use ? Jesus tells us how to be of use
Believe in Me, and out of you will flow rivers of living
water.
" Judge not, that ye be not judged." If we let that
maxim of Our Lord s sink into our heart we will find
how it hauls us up. " Judge not " why we are always at
it ! The average Christian is the most penetratingly
critical individual, there is nothing of the likeness of Jesus
about him. A critical temper is a contradiction to all
Our Lord s teaching. Jesus says of criticism, apply it to
yourself, never to anyone else. " Why dost thou judge
thy brother ? ... for we shall all stand before the judg
ment seat of Christ." Whenever you are in the critical
temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with
God. Criticism makes you hard and vindictive and cruel,
and leaves you with the nattering unction that you are a
superior person. It is impossible to develop the charac
teristics of a saint and maintain the critical attitude. The
66 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
first thing the Holy Spirit does is to give you a spring-
cleaning, and there is no possibility of pride left in a man
then. I never met a man I could despair of after dis
cerning what there lies in me apart from the grace of God.
Stop having a measuring rod for others. Jesus says
regarding judging Don t judge ; be uncritical in your
temper, because in the spiritual domain you can accomplish
nothing by criticism. One of the severest lessons to learn
is to leave the cases we do not understand to God. There
is always one fact more in every life of which we know
nothing, therefore says Jesus Judge not. It is not done
once for all, we have to be always remembering that this
is our Lord s rule of conduct.
(b) The Undeviating Test. v. 2.
" For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ;
and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured
to you again." This statement of Our Lord s is not a
haphazard guess, it is an eternal law and it works from
God s throne right down. (See Psalm XVIII. 25-26.) The
measure I mete is measured to me again. Jesus puts it
here in connection with criticism. If you have been
shrewd in finding out the defects of others, that will be
exactly the measure meted out to you, that is the way
people will judge you. " I am perfectly certain that man
has been criticising me." Well, what have you been doing ?
Life serves back in the coin you pay ; you are paid back
not necessarily by the same person, but the law holds
good " with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged."
And it works with regard to good as well as evil. If you
have been generous, you will meet with generosity again
through someone else ; and if you mete out criticism and
suspicion to others, that is the way you will be treated.
There is a difference between retaliation and retribution.
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 67
According to Our Lord, the basis of life is retribution, but
He makes no room for retaliation.
In Romans II. this principle is applied still more defi
nitely, viz., what I criticise in another I am guilty of my
self. Every wrong I see in you, God locates in me ; every
time I judge you, I condemn myself. " Therefore thou
art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest :
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy
self ; for thou that judgest doest the same things." God
does not look at the act, He looks at the possibility. To
begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible.
For instance, do I believe that what I criticise in another
I am guilty of myself ? I can always tell sin in another
man because I am a sinner. The reason I can see hypo
crisy and fraud and unreality in others is that they are all in
my own heart. The great danger is to call carnal suspicion
the conviction of the Holy Ghost. When the Holy Ghost
convicts men, He convicts for conversion, that men might
be converted and manifest other characteristics. I have
no right to put myself in the place of a superior person
and tell them what I see that is wrong, that is the work
of the Holy Ghost.
The great characteristic of the saint is humility. I
realise to the full that all these sins and others would have
been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore
I have no right to judge. Jesus says Don t judge,
because if you do, it will be measured to you again exactly
as you have judged. Which one of us would dare stand
before God and say My God, judge me as I have judged
my fellow men ? We have judged our fellow men as
sinners; if God judged us like that we would be in hell.
God judges us through the marvellous Atonement of
Jesus Christ.
68 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
(c) The Undesirable Truth Teller, w. 3-5.
The kind impudence of the average truth teller is in
spired of the devil when it comes to pointing out the defects
of others. The devil is lynx-eyed for things he can criticise,
and we are all shrewd in pointing out the mote in our
brother s eye. It puts me in a superior position I am a
finer spiritual character than you. Vhere do you find
that characteristic ? In the Lord Jesus ? Never. The
Holy Ghost works through the saints unbeknown to them,
He works through them as light. If this is not understood,
you will say That preacher or that teacher seems to be
criticising me all the time. He is not, it is the Holy Spirit
in the preacher discerning what is wrong in you.
The last curse in your life as a Christian is the person
who becomes a providence to you, he is quite certain you
cannot do anything without his advice, and if you don t
heed it you are sure to go wrong. Jesus ridiculed that
notion with terrific power " Thou hypocrite, first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou
see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother s eye."
" Thou hypocrite," literally play actor, one whose reality
is not in keeping with his sincerity ; a hypocrite is one
who plays two parts consciously for his own ends. When
you find fault with other people you may be quite sincere,
yet Jesus says in reality you are a fraud. There is no
getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the
mote in your eye, it is because I have a beam in my own.
It is a most homecoming statement.
If I have let God remove the beam from my own outlook
by His mighty grace, I will carry with me the implicit
sunlight confidence that what God has done for me He can
easily do for my brother, because he has only a splinter,
I had a log of wood ! This is the confidence God s salva-
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 69
tion gives you, you are so amazed that God has altered
you that you can despair of no one. Oh yes, I know God
can undertake for you, you are only a little wrong, I was
wrong down to the remote depths of my mind, I was a
mean, prejudiced, self-interested, self-seeking person, and
God has altered me, therefore I can never despair of you
or of anyone. These statements of Our Lord s save us
from that fearful peril of spiritual conceit Thank God
I am not as other men, and also make us realise why such
a man as Daniel bowed his head in vicarious humiliation
and intercession I have sinned with Thy people. That
call comes every now and again to individuals and to
nations.
(2) CHRISTIAN CONSIDERATENESS. w. 7-11.
Consider how God has dealt with you and then consider
that you do likewise.
(a) The Need to Discriminate, v. 6.
" Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither
cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
under their feet, and turn again and rend you." Jesus is
inculcating the need to examine carefully what you present
in the way of God s truth to others. If you present the
pearls of God s revelation to unspiritual people, He says
they will trample the pearls under foot not trample you
under their feet, that would not matter so much, but they
will trample the truth of God under their feet. These
words are not human words, but the words of Jesus, and
the Holy Spirit alone can teach us what they mean. There
are some truths that God will not make simple. The only
thing God makes plain in the Bible is the way of salvation
70 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
and sanctification, after that my understanding depends
entirely on my walking in the light. Over and over again
men water down the word of God to suit those who are
not spiritual, and consequently the word of God is trampled
under the feet of " swine." Ask yourself In what way
am I flinging God s truth to unspiritual swine ? Be careful
Jesus says, how you give God s holy things to " dogs,"
i.e., a symbol of the folks on the outside; don t cast your
holy things before them nor give the pearls of God s truth
to men who are swine. Paul mentions the possibility of
the pearl of sanctification being dragged in the mire of
fornication, it comes through not respecting this mighty
caution of Our Lord s. Some points in your experience
you have no right to talk about. There are times of
fellowship between Christians when these pearls of precious
rarity get turned over and looked at, but if you flaunt
them for the means of converting people without the
permission of God, you will find what Jesus says is true,
they will trample them under their feet.
Our Lord never tells us to confess anything but Himself.
" He that confesseth ME before men." Testimonies to
the world on the subjective line are always wrong, they
are for saints, for those who are spiritual and understand ;
but your testimony to the world is Our Lord Himself,
confess Him He saved me, He sanctified me, He put me
right with God. It is always easier to be true to your
experience than to Jesus Christ. Many a man spurns
Jesus Christ in any other phase than that of his particular
religious ideas. The central truth is not salvation nor
sanctification nor the second coming ; the central truth is
nothing less than Jesus Christ. " I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men unto Me." Error always comes in when we
take something Jesus Christ does and preach it as the
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 71
truth. It is part of the truth, but if you take it to be the
whole truth you become an advocate of an idea instead
of a Person, the Lord Himself. The characteristic of an
idea is that it has the ban of finality. If you are only
true to a doctrine of Christianity instead of to Jesus Christ,
you drive home your idea with sledge hammer blows, and
the people who listen to you say Well, that may be true,
but they resent the way it is presented. When you follow
Jesus, the domineering attitude and the dictatorial attitude
go, and concentration on Jesus comes in.
(b) The Notion of Divine Control, vv. 7-10.
By the simple argument of these verses Our Lord urges
us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God s control
behind eveiything and to maintain an attitude of perfect
trust. Always distinguish between being possessed of the
Spirit and forming the mind of Christ. Jesus is laying
down rules of conduct for those who have the Spirit.
Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. Once
the mind is notioned along that line, when you are in
difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember Why,
my Father knows all about it. It is not an effort, it comes
naturally. Before, when perplexities were pressing, you
used to go and ask this one and that, now the notion of the
Divine control is forming so powerfully in you that you
simply go to God about it. You will always know whether
the notion is at work by the way you act in difficult cir
cumstances. Who is the first one you go to ? What is
the first thing you do ? The first power you rely on ? It
is the working out of the principle indicated in Matthew
VI. 25-34, God is my Father, He loves me, I can never think
of anything He will forget, why should I worry ? Keep
the notion strong and growing of the control of God behind
all things. Nothing happens in any particular unless
72 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
God s mind is behind it, then I rest perfectly confident.
There are times when God cannot lift the darkness, but
trust Him. Jesus said God will appear at times like an un
kind friend, but He is not : He will appear like an
unnatural father, but He is not ; He will appear like an un
just judge but He is not. The time will come when every
thing will be explained. Prayer is not only asking, it is
an attitude of heart that produces an atmosphere in which
asking is perfectly natural, and "everyone that asks
receives."
A man will get from life everything he asks for, because
he does not ask what his will is not in. If a man asks of
life to make him wealthy, he will get wealth, or he was
playing the fool when he asked. " If ye abide in Me," says
Jesus, "and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will, and it shall be done unto you." We pray pious
blether, our will is not in it, and then we say God does
not answer; we never asked Him for anything. Asking
means that my will is in it.
You say But I asked God to turn my life into a garden
of the Lord, and the first thing that happened was the
ploughshare of sorrow, and instead of getting a garden
I have got a wilderness. God never gives the wrong
answer, He had to turn the garden of your natural life
into ploughed soil before He could turn it into a garden
of the Lord, He is putting the seed in now. Let God s
seasons come over your soul, and before long you will have
a garden of the Lord.
We need to discern that God controls what we ask.
We bring in what Paul calls " will worship." Will is the
whole man active, there are terrific forces in the will.
The man who gains a moral victory by sheer force of will
is the most difficult man to deal with afterwards. The
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 73
profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the
essential element in God s creation of man ; sin is a per
verse disposition which entered into man. At the basis,
the human will is one with God, covered up by all kinds
of desires and motives, and when we preach Jesus the Holy
Spirit excavates down to the basis of the will, and the will
turns to God every time. We try to attack men s wills ;
Jesus says Lift Me up, and I will push straight to the
will. When Jesus talked about prayer He never said
If your human will turns in that direction. He put it
with the grand simplicity of a child Ask. We bring in
our reasoning faculty and say Yes, but, . . . Jesus
says " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."
(c) The Necessity for Discernment, v. 11.
"I f ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your Father which
is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? "
But remember that you have to ask things that are in
keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ reveals, things
in keeping with His domain. God is not a necromancer,
He is after the development of the character of a son of
God. If I want to know the things of a man, I can get at
them by the " spirit of man which is in him," but the
things of the Spirit of God are " spiritually discerned."
The discernment needed here is the habitual realisation
that every good thing I have has been given to me by the
sheer sovereign grace of God. Jesus says Get this
reasoning incorporated into you How much have you
deserved? Nothing, everything has been given to you
by God. Then may God save us from the mean accursed
economical notion that we must only help the people who
deserve it. One can almost hear the Holy Ghost shout
74 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
in the heart Who are you that you talk like that, did
you deserve the salvation God has given you, did you
deserve to be filled with the Holy Spirit ? It is all done
by the sheer sovereign mercy of God, then be like your
Father in heaven, says Jesus, have a perfect disposition
like His. " Love as I have loved you." It is not done
once for all, it is a continual stedfast growing habit of the
life.
Humility and holiness always go together. Whenever
hardness and harshness begin to creep into the personal
attitude towards one another, we may be certain we are
swerving from the light. The preaching must be as stern
and true as God s word, never water down God s truth ;
but never forget when you deal with others that you are
a sinner saved by grace, no matter where you stand now.
If you stand in the fulness of the blessing of God, you stand
there by no other right than the sheer sovereign grace of
God. Then, says Jesus, if you, an evil being, saved by
grace, can do such kind things to others, how much more
shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to
them that ask Him?
|)ver and over again we blame God for His neglect of
people by our sympathy with them, we may not put it
into words but by our attitude we imply that we are
filling up what God has forgotten to do. Never have that
idea, never allow it to come into your mind. In all pro
bability the Spirit of God will begin to show that it is
because we have neglected what we ought to do that
people are where they are! The great craze to-day is
socialism, and men are saying that Jesus Christ came as
a social reformer. Nonsense ! We are to be social re
formers, Jesus Christ came to alter us, and we try to shirk
our responsibility by putting our work on to Him. What
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 75
Jesus does is to alter us and put us right, then these prin
ciples of His will instantly make us social reformers. They
will begin to work straightway where we live, in my re
lationship to my father and mother, to my brothers and
sisters, my friends, my employers or employees. Consider
how God has dealt with you, says Jesus, and then consider
that you do likewise to others.
(3) CHRISTIAN COMPREHENSIVENESS, v. 12.
Christian grace comprehends the whole man. " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."
Salvation means not only a pure heart, an enlightened
mind, a spirit put right with God, it means that the whole
of man is comprehended in the manifestation of the mar
vellous power and grace of God; the whole man, body,
soul and spirit is brought into fascinating captivity to the
Lord Jesus Christ. An incandescent mantle illustrates
the meaning, if the mantle is not rightly adjusted, only
one bit of it glows, but get the mantle adjusted exactly,
and when the light comes the whole thing is comprehended
in a blaze of light ; and every bit of our being is to be
absorbed until we are one glow with the comprehensive
goodness of God. " The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness
and righteousness and truth." Some of us have goodness
in spots.
(a) The Positive Margin of Righteousness.
The limit to the manifestation of the grace of God in me
is my body, and the whole of my body. We can under
stand the need of a pure heart, of a mind rightly adjusted
to God and a spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but what
76 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
about the body ? That is the margin of righteousness in
me. We make a divorce between a clear intellectual
understanding of truth and its practical outcome. Jesus
never made such a divorce, He takes no notice of our fine
intellectual conceptions unless their practical outcome is
shown in reality.
There is a great snare in the capacity to understand a
thing clearly and to exhaust its power by stating it. Over
much earnestness blinds the life to reality, earnestness
becomes our god. We bank on the earnestness and zeal
with which things are said and done, and after a while
we find that the reality is not there, the power and presence
of God are not being manifested, there are relationships
at home or in business or in private that show when the
veneer is scratched that we are not real. To say things
well is apt to exhaust the power of doing them, so that
a man has often to curb the expression of a thing with
his tongue and turn it into action, otherwise his gift of
facile utterance will prevent his doing the things he says.
(b) The Proverbial Maxim of Reasonableness.
" Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them." Our Lord s
use of this maxim is positive, not negative. Do to others
whatsoever ye would that they should do to you a very
different thing from not doing to others what you don t
want them to do to you. What would I like other people
to do to me ? Well, says Jesus, do that to them ; don t
wait for them to do it to you. The Holy Ghost will kindle
your imagination to picture many things you would like
others to do to you, it is His way of telling you what to
do to them " I would like people to give me credit for
the generous motives I have ; " well, give them credit for
having generous motives. " I would like that people should
CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 77
not pass harsh judgments on me," well, don t pass
harsh judgments on them. " I should like other people
to pray for me ; " well, pray for them. The measure of
my growth in grace is my attitude towards other people.
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," says Jesus.
Satan comes in as an angel of light and says But you must
not think about yourself. The Holy Spirit will make you
think about yourself, because that is His way of educating
you as to how to deal with others. He makes you picture
what you would like other people to do to you, and then
says Now you go and do those things to them. This
verse is Our Lord s measure for practical ethical conduct.
" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them." Never look for right in the other
man, but never cease to be right yourself. We always
look for justice in this world, but there is no such thing as
justice. Jesus says Never look for justice, but never
cease to give it. The stamp all through Our Lord s
teaching is that of the impossible unless He can make
me all over again, and that is what He came to do. He came
to give any man a new heredity to which His teaching
will apply.
(c) The Principal Meaning of Revelation.
Jesus Christ came to make the great laws of God in
carnate in human life, that is the miracle of God s grace.
We are to be written epistles, "known and read of all men."
There is no room whatever in the New Testament for the
man who says he is saved by grace but who does not
produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Re
demption can make my actual life in keeping with my
religious profession.
In our study of the Sermon on the Mount it would be
like a baptism of light to allow the principles of Jesus to
78 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
soak right down to our very make-up. His statements
are not put up as standards for us to attain ; God re-makes
us, puts His Holy Spirit in us, then the Holy Spirit applies
the principles to us and enables us to work them out by
His guidance.
STUDY No. 5.
IDEAS, IDEALS, AND ACTUALITY.
Matthew VII. 13-29.
(1) TWO GATES, TWO WAYS.
(a) All Noble Things are Difficult.
(6) My Utmost for His Highest, ivv. 13-14.
(c) A stoot heart tac a stae brae. /
(2) TEST YOUR TEACHERS, vv. 15-20.
(a) Possibility of Pretence, v. 15.
(6) Place of Patience, v. 16.
(c) Principle of Performance, w. 17-18.
(d) Power of Publicity, vv. 19-20.
(3) APPEARANCE AND REALITY, w. 21-23.
(a) Recognition of Men. v. 21.
(b) Remedy Mongers, v. 22.
(c) Retributive Measures, v. 23.
(4) THE TWO BUILDERS, vv. 24-29.
(a) Spiritual Castles, v. 24.
(b) Stern Crisis, v. 25.
(c) Supreme Catastrophe, vv. 26-27.
(d) Scriptural Concentration, vv. 28-29.
An idea reveals what it does and no more. If you read
a book about life, life looks simple ; but go out and face
79
80 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
the facts of life and you will find they do not come into
the simple line laid down in the book. An idea works like
a searchlight, lighting up what it does and no more ; but
daylight reveals a hundred and one facts the searchlight
had not taken into account. An idea is apt to have the
ban of finality about it the " tyranny " of an idea.
An ideal embodies our highest conceptions, but it con
tains no moral inspiration. To treat the Sermon on the
Mount as merely an ideal is misleading. There is nothing
of the ideal about it, it is a statement of the working out
in actuality of Jesus Christ s disposition in the life of any
man. A man gets ashamed of not being able to fulfil his
ideals, and the more upright he is, the more agonising is his
conflict I won t lower my ideals, he says, although I can
never hope to make them actual. No man is so laboured
as the man with ideals he cannot carry out. Jesus Christ
says to such " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,"
i.e., I will " stay " you, put something into you which
will make the ideal and the actual one. Without Jesus
Christ there is an unbridgeable gap between the ideal and
the actual, the only way out is a personal relationship to
Him. The salvation of God not only saves a man from
hell, but alters his actual life.
(1) TWO GATES, TWO WAYS. w. 13-14.
Our Lord continually used proverbs and sayings that
were familiar to His hearers and put an altogether new
meaning into them. Here He used an allegory that was
familiar in His day, and lifted it by His inspiration to
embody His patient warnings.
Always distinguish between warning and threatening.
God never threatens ; the devil never warns. Warning is
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 81
a great arresting statement of God s, inspired by His love
and patience. This throws a flood of light on the vivid
statements of Jesus, such as those in Matthew XXIII.
Be careful how you picture Jesus when you read His
terrible utterances. Read our Lord s denunciations with
Calvary in your mind. Jesus is stating the inexorable
consequence " How can you escape the damnation of
hell ? " There is no element of personal vindictiveness.
It is the great patient love of God that puts the warning.
" The way of transgressors is hard." Go behind that
statement in your imagination and see the love of God ;
God is amazingly tender, yet He cannot make the way of
transgressors easy. God has made it difficult to go wrong,
especially for His children.
" Enter ye in at the strait gate. ..." If a man tries
to enter into salvation in any other way than Jesus Christ s
way, he will find it a broad way, but the end of it is distress.
Erasmus said it took the sharp sword of sorrow, and
difficulties of every description, heartbreaks and disen-
chantments to bring him to the place where he saw Jesus
as the altogether lovely One, and, he says : " When I got
there I found there was no need to have gone the way
I went." There is the broad way of reasonable self-
realisation; but the only way to a personal knowledge of
eternal redemption is strait and narrow. Jesus says " I
am the way."
There is a difference between discipleship and being
saved. A man can be saved by God s grace without being
a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship means a personal dedi
cation of the life to Jesus. Men are saved so as by fire,
they have not been worth anything to God in their actual
lives. Go and make disciples, said Jesus. The teaching
of the Sermon on the Mount produces only despair in a
82 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
man who is not born again. If Jesus came to be a Teacher
only, He had better have stayed away. What is the use
of teaching a human being to be what no human being can
be to be continually self-effaced, to do more than his
duty, to be disinterested, to be perfectly devoted to God ?
If all Jesus came to do was to teach men to be that, He is
the greatest taunter that ever presented any ideal to the
human race. But Jesus came primarily and fundamentally
to regenerate men ; He came to put into any man the
disposition that ruled His own life, and immediately that
comes into a man, then the teaching of Jesus begins to be
possible. All the standards He gives are based on His
disposition.
Notice the apparent unsatisfactoriness of the answers of
Jesus. He never once answered a question that sprang
from a man s head, because those questions are never
original, they always have the captious note about them.
The man with that type of question wants to get the best
of it logically. In Luke XIII. 24 a certain devout man
asked Jesus a question " Lord, are there few that be
saved ? " And Jesus replied " Strive to enter in at the
strait gate," i.e., see that your own feet are on the right
path. Our Lord s answers seem at first to evade the issue,
but He goes underneath the question and solves the real
problem. He never answers our shallow questions but
deals with the great unconscious need that makes them
arise. When a man asks an original question out of his
own personal life, Jesus answers him every time.
(a) All Noble Things are Difficult.
Our Lord warns that the devout life of a disciple is not
a dream, but a decided discipline which calls for the use
of all our powers. No amount of determination can give
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 83
me the new life of God, that is a gift ; where determination
comes in, is in letting that new life work itself out according
to Christ s standard. We are always in danger of con
founding what we can do and what we cannot do. We can
not save ourselves, nor sanctify ourselves, nor give ourselves
the Holy Spirit ; only God can do that. Confusion
continually recurs when we try to do what God alone can
do, and try to make out that God will do what we alone
can do. We imagine that God will make us walk in the
light ; God will not, we must do the walking. God gives
us the power to walk, but we have to see that we use the
power. God puts the power and the life into us and fills
us with His Spirit, now we have to work it out, not work
our salvation, but work it out ; and as we do we realise
that the noble life of a disciple is a gloriously difficult one
a difficulty that rouses us up to overcome it, not a difficulty
that makes us faint and cave in.
It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble.
Jesus never shields a disciple from fulfiling all the require
ments of a child of His. Things that are worth doing are
never easy. On the ground of Redemption the life of the
Son of God is formed in my human nature and I have to
put on the new man in accordance with His life, and that
takes time and discipline. " Acquire your soul with
patience." Soul is my personal spirit manifesting itself
in my body, the way I reason and think and look at things.
Jesus says that a man must lose his soul in order to find it.
We deal with the great massive phases of Redemption
that God saves men by sheer grace through the Atonement,
but we are apt to forget that it has to be worked out in
practical living among men. " Ye are My friends," says
Jesus, therefore lay down your life for Me, not go through
the crisis of death, but lay out your life deliberately for
84 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Me, take time over it. It is a noble life and a difficult life.
God works in me to do His will, only I must do the doing ;
and if once I start to do what He commands, I find I can
do it, because I work on the basis of the noble thing God
has done in Redemption.
(b) My Utmost for His Highest.
God demands of us our utmost in working out what He
has worked in. We can do nothing towards our redemp
tion, but we must do everything to work it out in actual
experience on the basis of regeneration. Salvation is
God s " bit," it is complete, I can add nothing to it, but
I have to bend all my powers to work out His salvation.
It requires discipline to live the life of a disciple in actual
things. " Jesus knowing that He was come from God and
went to God . . . took a towel . . . and began
to wash the disciples feet." It took God Incarnate to do
the ordinary menial things of life rightly, and it takes
the life of God in me to use a towel properly. This is
Redemption being actually worked out in experience, and
we can do it every time because of the marvel of God s
grace.
" If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments."
Jesus puts that as the test of discipleship. The motto
over our side of the gate of life is All God s commands
I can obey. I have to do my utmost as a disciple to prove
that I appreciate God s utmost for me, and to learn never
to allow " I can t " to creep in. " Oh I m no saint, I can t
do that." If that thought comes in, we will be a disgrace
to Jesus. God s salvation is a glad thing, but it is a holy,
difficult thing that tests us for all we are worth. Jesus
is bringing many sons to glory and He won t shield us from
the requirements of sonship. He will say at certain times
to the world, the flesh and the devil Do your worst, I know
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 85
that " greater is He that is in you than he that is in the
world." God s grace does not turn out milksops, but men
and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ.
Thank God He does give us difficult things to do ! A
man s heart would burst if there were no way to show his
gratitude. I beseech you, says Paul, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice. . . .
(c) A stoot heart tae a stae brae, i.e., a strong heart
to a difficult hill. The Christian life is a holy life ; never
substitute the word " happy " for " holy." We certainly will
have happiness, but as a consequence of holiness. Beware
of the idea so prevalent to-day that a Christian must always
be happy and bright " keep smiling." Preaching along
that line is merely the gospel of temperament. If you make
the determination to be happy the basis of your Christian
life, your happiness will go from you ; happiness is not a
cause but an effect that follows without striving after it.
Our Lord insists that we keep at one point, our eyes fixed
on the strait gate and the narrow way, which means pure,
holy living.
" Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me." It seems
an amazingly difficult thing to do to put on the yoke of
Christ, but immediately you do put it on, it makes every
thing easy. At the beginning of the Christian life it seems
easier to drift, to say " I can t," but once you do put on
His yoke, you find, blessed be the Name of God, that you
have the easiest way after all. Happiness and joy attend,
but they are not your aim, your aim is the Lord Jesus
Christ, and God showers the hundredfold more on you all
the way along.
In order to keep a stout heart to the difficult braes of
life, watch continually that worry does not come in.
"Let not your heart be troubled," is a command and it means
86 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
that worry is sinful. It is not the devil that switches
folks off Christ s way, but the ordinary steep difficulties of
daily life, difficulties connected with food, and clothing, and
situations. The " cares of this world," said Our Lord, will
choke My word. We have all had times when the little
worries of life have choked God s word and blotted out
His face to us, enfeebled our spirits, and made us sorry
and humiliated before Him more so even than the times
when we have been tempted to sin. There is something
in us that makes us face temptation to sin with vigour
and earnestness, but it requires the stout heart that God
gives to meet the cares of this life. I would not give much
for the man who had nothing in his life which made him
say I wish I was not in the circumstances I am in. "In
the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ;
I have overcome the world " and you will overcome it
too, you will win every time if you bank on your relation
ship to Me. Spiritual grit is what we need.
" Enter ye in at the strait gate." I can only get to
heaven through Jesus, no other road ; I can only get to
the Father through Jesus, and I can only get into the life
of a saint the same road.
(2) TEST YOUR TEACHERS, w. 15-20.
In these verses Jesus tells His disciples to test preachers
and teachers by their fruit. There are two tests one is
the fruit in the life of the preacher, and the other is the
fruit of the doctrine. The fruit of a man s own life may
be perfectly beautiful, and at the same time he may be
teaching a doctrine which if logically worked out would
produce the devil s fruit in other lives. It is easy to be
captivated by a beautiful life and to argue that therefore
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 87
what that life teaches must be right. Jesus says Be
careful, test your teacher by his fruit. The other side is
just as true, a man may be teaching beautiful truths and
have magnificent doctrine while the fruit in his own life
is rotten. We say that if a man, lives a beautiful life, his
doctrine must be right ; not necessarily so, says Jesus.
Then again we say because a man teaches the right
thing therefore his life must be right; not necessarily
so, says Jesus. Test the doctrine by its fruit and test the
teacher by his fruit. " If the Son shall make you free,
ye shall be free indeed," the freedom of the nature will
work out.
" By their fruits ye shall know them." You do not
gather the vindictive mood from the Holy Ghost ; you
do not gather the passionately irritable mood from the
patience of God ; you do not gather the self-indulgent
mood and the lust of the flesh in private life from the
Spirit of God. God never allows room for any of these
moods.
We find that as we study the Sermon on the Mount we
are badgered by the Spirit of God from every standpoint,
in order to bring us into a simplicity of relationship to
Jesus Christ. The standard is that of a child depending
on God.
(a) Possibility of Pretence, v. 15.
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep s
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Our
Lord here is describing dangerous teachers, and He warns
us of those who come clothed in right doctrine but inwardly
their spirit is that of Satan.
It is appallingly easy to pretend. If once we get our
eyes off Jesus, pious pretence is sure to follow. 1 John I. 7
is the essential condition for the life of the saint " If we
88 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
walk in the light as God is in the light," i.e., with nothing
folded up, nothing to hide. Immediately we depend on
anything other than our relationship to God, the possibility
of pretence comes in, pious pretence, not hypocrisy (a
hypocrite is one who tries to live a twofold life for his own
ends and succeeds), but a desperately sincere effort to be
right when we know we are not.
I have to beware of pretence in myself. It is an easy
business to look what I am not ; it is easy to talk and to
preach, and to preach my actual life to damnation. It
was realizing this made Paul say " I keep under my
body . . . lest that by any means when I have preached
to others I myself should be a castaway." The more
facile the expression in words, the less likely is the truth
to be carried out in life. A preacher has a peril that the
listener has not, the peril of being able to express a thing,
and the expression reacts in the exhaustion of never doing
it. That is where fasting has to come in fasting from
eloquence, from fine literary finish, from all that natural
culture makes us esteem, if it is going to lead us into a
hirpling walk with God. " This kind can come forth by
nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Fasting is much
more than doing without food, that is the least part, it is
fasting from all that manifests self-indulgence. There is
a certain mood in us all which delights in frank speaking,
but we never intend to do what we say, we are " enchanted
but unchanged." The frank man is the unreliable man,
much more so than the subtle, crafty man, because he has
the power of expressing the thing clean out and there is
nothing more to it.
(b) Place of Patience, v. 16.
" Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " This warning is
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 89
against over-zealousness on the part of heresy-hunters.
Our Lord would have us bide our time. Luke IX. 53-55
is a case in point. Take heed that you do not allow carnal
suspicion to take the place of the discernment of the Spirit.
Fruit and fruit alone is the test. If I see the fruit in a
life showing itself as thistles, Jesus says you will know the
wrong root is there, for you do not gather thistles off any
root but a thistle, but remember that it is quite possible
in winter time to mistake a rose tree for something else
unless you are expert in judging. So there is a place for
patience, and Our Lord would have us heed it. Wait for
the fruit to manifest itself and don t be guided by your
own fancy. It is easy to get alarmed and to persuade
myself that my particular convictions are the standard of
Christ, and to condemn everyone to perdition who does
not agree with me ; I am obliged to do it because my
convictions have taken the place of God in me. God s
Book never tells us to walk in the light of convictions,
but in the light of the Lord.
Always distinguish between those who object to your
way of presenting the Gospel and those who object to the
Gospel itself. There may be many who object to your
way of presenting the truth, but that does not necessarily
mean that they object to God s making them holy. Make
a place for patience. Wait before you pass your verdict.
" Ye shall know them by their fruits." Wrong teaching
produces its fruit just as right teaching does if you give
it time.
(c) Principle of Performance, w. 17-18.
" Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ;
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree
cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit." If I say I am right with God, the
90 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
world has a perfect right to watch my private life and see
if I am ; if I say I am born again, I am put under scrutiny,
and rightly so. If the performance of my life is to be
steadily holy, the principle of my life must be holy, i.e.,
if I am going to bring forth good fruit, I must have a good
root. It is possible for an aeroplane to imitate a bird, and
it is possible for a human being to imitate the fruit of the
Spirit. The vital difference is the same in each: there
is no principle of life behind. The aeroplane cannot per
sist, it can only fly spasmodically ; and my imitation of
the Spirit requires certain conditions which keep me from
the public gaze, then I can get on fairly well. Before I
can have the right performance in my life, I must have the
principle inside right I must know what it is to be born
from above, to be sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost,
then my life will bring forth the fruit. Fruit is clearly
expounded in the Epistles, and it is quite different from
the gifts of the Spirit, or from the manifest seal of God on
His own word, it is the "fruit of the Spirit." Fruit-
bearing is always mentioned as the manifestation of an
intimate union with Jesus. (John XV.)
(d) Power of Publicity, vv. 19-20.
" Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn
down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye
shall know them." Jesus makes publicity the test, He
lived His own life most publicly (see John XVIII. 20).
The thing that enraged Our Lord s enemies was the public
manner in which He did things, His miracles were the
public manifestation of His power. To-day people are
annoyed at public testimony. There is no use saying
Oh yes, I live a holy life, but I don t say anything about
it. Then you certainly don t, for the two go together. If
a thing has its root in the heart of God, it will want to
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 91
be public, to get out, it must do things in the external and
the open, and Jesus not only encouraged this publicity,
He insisted on it. For good or bad, things must be
dragged out. " There is nothing covered that shall not
be revealed ; and hid, that shall not be known." It is
God s law that men cannot hide what they really are. If
they are His disciples it will be publicly portrayed. In
Matthew X. Jesus warned His disciples what would
happen when they publicly testified, but, He says, don t
hide your light under a bushel for fear of wolfish men ;
be careful only that you don t go contrary to your duty
and have your soul destroyed in hell as well as your body.
" Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Our Lord
warns that the man who will not be conspicuous as His
disciple will be made to be conspicuous as His enemy. As
sure as God is on His throne, the inevitable principle
must work, the revealing of what men really are.
One of the dangers of the Higher Christian Life movement
is the hole-and-corner aspect you must have secret times
alone with God. God drags everything out to the sun.
Paul couples sanctification and fornication, meaning that
every type of high spiritual emotion that is not worked
out on its legitimate level will react on a wrong level.
To be in contact with external facts is necessary to health
in the natural world, and the same thing is true spiritually.
God s spiritual open air is the Bible. The Bible is the
universe of revelation facts, if I live there my roots will
be healthy and my life right. There is no use saying
" I once had an experience " ; the point is where is it
now ? Pay attention to the Source, and out of you will
flow rivers of living water. It is possible to be so taken
up with conscious experience in religious life that we are
of no use at all.
92 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
(3) APPEARANCE AND REALITY, vv. 21-29.
Our Lord makes the test of goodness not only goodness
in intention, but in the active carrying out of God s will.
Beware of confounding the appearance and reality, of
judging only by the external evidence. God honours His
word no matter who preaches it. The men Jesus refers
to in v. 21 were instruments, but an instrument is
not a servant. A servant is one who has given up his
right to himself to the God whom he proclaims, a witness
to Jesus, i.e., a satisfaction to Jesus wherever he goes. The
baptism of the Holy Ghost turns men into the incarnation
of what they preach, until the appearance and the reality
are one and the same. The test of discipleship as Jesus is
dealing with it in this chapter is fruit-bearing in godly
character, and the disciple is warned not to be blinded by
the fact that God honours His word even when it is preached
from the wrong motive. (See Phil. 1-15).
The Holy Spirit is the One who brings the appearance
and the reality into one in me ; He does in me what
Jesus did for me. The mighty redemption of God is made
actual in my experience by the living efficacy of the Holy
Ghost. The New Testament never asks us to believe the
Holy Spirit, it asks us to receive Him. He makes the
appearance and the reality one and the same thing. He
works in my salvation and I have to work it out, with fear
and trembling lest I forget to, and, thank God, He does
give us the sporting chance, the glorious risk. If I could
not disobey God, my obedience would not be worth any
thing. The sinless perfection heresy is that when I am
saved I cannot sin, that is a devil s lie. When I am saved
by God s grace, God puts into me the possibility not to sin,
and my character from that moment is of value to God
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 93
because I can disobey Him. Before I was saved I had not
the power to obey, but when He has planted in me on the
ground of Redemption the heredity of the Son of God
I have the power to obey, consequently the power to
disobey. The walk of a disciple is a gloriously difficult
one, but a gloriously certain one. On the ground of the
perfect Redemption of Jesus, I find that I can begin now
to walk worthily, i.e., with balance. John " looked upon
Jesus as He walked. . ." Walk is the symbol of the ordinary
character of the man, no show to keep up, no veneer.
" I perceive that is a holy man of God which passeth by
us continually."
(a) Recognition of Men. v. 21.
" Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the
will of my Father which is in heaven." Human nature is
fond of labels, but a label may be the counterfeit of con
fession. It is so easy to be branded with labels, much
easier in certain stages to wear a ribbon or a badge than
to confess. Jesus never used the word " testify," He used
a much more searching word " confess." " He that
confesseth Me before men." The test of goodness is con
fession by doing the will of God. If you do not confess
Me before men, says Jesus, neither will your heavenly
Father confess you, and immediately you do confess, you
must have a badge, if you don t put one on, others will.
Our Lord is warning that it is possible to wear the label
without the goods, possible for a man to wear the badge
of being His disciple while he is not. Labels are all right,
but if we mistake the label for the goods we get confused.
If the disciple is to discern between the man with the label
and the man with the goods, he must have the spirit of
94 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
discernment, viz., the Holy Spirit. We start out with
the honest belief that the label and the goods must go
together, they ought to, but Jesus warns that sometimes
they get severed, and we find cases where God honours
His word although those who preach it are not living a
right life. In judging the preacher, He says, judge him
by his fruit.
(b) Remedy Mongers, v. 22.
" Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have
we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have
cast out devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful
works ? " If I am used to cast out devils and to do wonder
ful works, surely I am a servant of God ? Not at all, says
Jesus. Does my life bear evidence in every detail ? Our
Lord warns here against those who utilise His words and
His ways to remedy the evils of men while they are disloyal
to Himself. " Have we not prophesied in Thy name . . .
cast out devils . . . done many wonderful works" not one
word of confession of Jesus, one thing only, they have
preached Him as a remedy. In Luke X. Our Lord told
the disciples not to rejoice because the devils were subject
to them, but to rejoice because they were rightly related
to Himself. We are brought back to the one point all the
time an unsullied relationship to Jesus Christ in every
detail, private and public.
(c) Retributive measures, v. 23.
" And then will I profess unto you, I never knew you :
depart from Me ye that work iniquity." In these solemn
words Jesus says He will have to say to some Bible exposi
tors, some prophetic students, some workers of miracles
" Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." To work
iniquity is to twist out of the straight, these men have
IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 95
twisted the ways of God and made them unequal. " I
never knew you " you never had My Spirit, you talked
the truth and God honoured it, but you were never of the
truth. " Depart from Me," the most appallingly isolating
and condemning words that could be said to a human soul.
Only as we rely and recognise on the Holy Spirit do we
discern how this warning of Our Lord s works. We are
perplexed because people preach the right thing and prove
that God blesses the preaching, and yet all the time the
Spirit warns No, no, no. Never trust the best man or
woman you ever met, trust only the Lord Jesus. " Lean
not to your own understanding ; " " put not your trust
in princes ; " put not your trust in any one but Jesus Christ.
This warning holds good all the way along. Every character
if taken as a guide leads away from God. We are never
told to follow in all the footsteps of the saints, but only
in so far as they have obeyed God. " Follow my ways
which be in Christ." Keep right with God ; keep in the
light. All our panics, moral, intellectual and spiritual
come along that line, whenever we take our eyes off Jesus
we get startled There is another man gone down, I did
think he would have stood right. Look unto Me, says
Jesus.
(4) THE TWO BUILDERS, w. 24-27.
The emphasis in w. 24-27 is laid by Our Lord on hearing
and doing. He has given us His disposition, and He demands
that we live as His disciples ; how are we going to do it ?
By hearing My words and doing them, says Jesus. I only
hear what I listen for. Have I listened to what Jesus has
to say ? Have I paid any attention to finding out what
He did say ? Most of us don t know what He said. If
96 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
we have only a smattering of religion, we talk a lot about
the devil ; but what hinders me spiritually is not the
devil half so much as inattention. I may hear the sayings
of Jesus, but my will is left untouched, I never do them.
The understanding of the Bible only comes from the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit making the universe of the
Bible real to me.
(a) Spiritual Castles, v. 24.
We speak of building " castles in the air," that is where
a castle should be, whoever heard of a castle underground!
The problem is how to get the foundation under your
castle in the air so that it can stand upon the earth. The
way to put foundations under our castles is by paying
attention to the words of Jesus. I may listen and read,
and not make much of it at the time, but by and bye I shall
come into circumstances when the Holy Spirit will bring
back to me what Jesus said am I going to obey it?
Jesus says the way to put foundations under spiritual
castles is by hearing and doing " these sayings of Mine."
Pay attention to His words, and give ti
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