Studies in the Sermon on the Mount - Part 1

INTRODUCTION

IN order to understand the Sermon on the Mount, it

is necessary to have the mind of the Preacher, and this

knowledge can be gained by anyone who will receive the

Holy Spirit (see Luke XL 13, John XX. 22, Acts XIX. 2).

The Holy Ghost is the only expounder of the teachings of

Jesus. The one abiding method of interpretation of the

teachings of Jesus is the Spirit of Jesus in the heart of a

believer applying His principles to the particular circum

stances in which he is placed. Be renewed in the spirit

of your mind, says Paul, that you may make out what is

that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Beware of placing Our Lord as Teacher first instead of

as Saviour. That tendency is prevalent to-day, and it is

a dangerous tendency. We must know Him first as

Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for us, or

before it has any meaning other than that of an ideal

which leads to despair. Fancy coming to men and women

with defective lives and defiled hearts and wrong main

springs, and telling them to be pure in heart ! What is

the use of giving us an ideal we cannot possibly attain ?

We are happier without knowing it. If Jesus is only a

Teacher, then all He can do is to tantalise us by erecting a

standard we cannot come anywhere near. But if we know

Him first as Saviour, by being born again from above, we

know that He did not come to teach us only : He came to

make us what He teaches we should be. The Sermon on the

Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy

Spirit is having His way with us.

ii STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The Sermon on the Mount must produce despair in the

natural man ; and that is the very thing Jesus means it

to do, because immediately we get to despair we are willing

to come to Jesus as paupers and to receive from Him.

" Blessed are the poor in spirit " that is the first prin

ciple of the Kingdom. So long as we have a conceited,

self-righteous notion that we can do the thing if God will

help us, God has to allow us to go on until we break the

neck of our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are

willing to come and receive from Him. The bedrock in

Jesus Christ s Kingdom is poverty, not possession ; not

decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility

" I cannot begin to do it." Then, says Jesus, " Blessed are

you." That is the entrance, and it does take us a long

while to believe we are poor. The knowledge of our own

poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ

works.

N.B. The Conscious and Subconscious mind.

Every mind has two compartments conscious and

subconscious. We say that the things we hear and read

slip away from memory, they do not really, they go into

the subconscious mind. It is the work of the Holy Spirit

to bring back into the conscious mind the things that are

stored in the subconscious. In studying the Bible never go

on the line that because you do not understand it, therefore

it is of no use. A truth may be of no use to you just now,

but when the circumstances arise in which that truth is

needed, the Holy Spirit will bring it back to your remem

brance. This accounts for the curious emergence of the

statements of Jesus ; we say " I wonder where that word

came from." " He shall bring back to your remembrance

the things I have said unto you." The point is will I obey

Him when He does bring it back ? If I discuss the matter

INTRODUCTION

with someone else, the probability is that I will not obey.

" Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. . . ."

Always trust the originality of the Holy Spirit when He

brings a word back.

Bear in mind this twofold aspect of the mind, there is

nothing supernatural or uncanny about it, it is simply a

knowledge of how God has made us. It is foolish, therefore,

to estimate only by what you consciously understand at

the time. There may be much you do not begin to grasp

the meaning of, but as you go on storing your mind with

Bible knowledge, the Holy Spirit will bring back to your

conscious mind the word you need and apply it to your,

particular circumstances. These three things always

work together my moral intelligence, the spontaneous

originality of the Holy Spirit, and the setting of a life

lived in communion with God.

CONTENTS

PAGE

STUDY NO. 1. HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING - 1

2. ACTUAL AND REAL - - 12

3. INCARNATE WISDOM AND INDIVIDUAL

REASON - 35

4. CHARACTER AND CONDUCT - 62

5 [DEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY - 79

STUDY No. 1.

KIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING.

Matthew V. 1-24.

(1) DIVINE DISPROPORTION. Matthew V. 1-12.

(a) The "Mines" of God. vv. 1-10 (cf. Luke VI. 20-26).

(b) The Motive of Godliness, vv. 11-12.

(2) DIVINE DISADVANTAGE. Matthew V. 13-16.

(a) Concentrated Service, v. 13.

(b) Conspicuous Setting, vv. 14-16.

(3) DIVINE DECLARATION. Matthew V. 17-20.

(a) His Mission, w. 17-19.

(b) His Message, v. 20.

(1) DIVINE DISPROPORTION, vv. 1-12. Our

Lord began His discourse by saying " Blessed are . . . ,"

and His hearers must have been staggered by what fol

lowed. According to Jesus, they were to be blessed in

every condition which from earliest childhood they had

been taught to regard as a curse. Our Lord was talking

to Jews, and they believed that the sign of the blessing of

God was material prosperity in every shape and form, and

yet Jesus says Blessed are you for exactly the opposite.

" Blessed are the poor in spirit." " Blessed are they that

mourn."

(a) The "Mines" of God. vv. 1-10.

The first time you read the Beatitudes they appear

beautiful and simple and unstartling statements, and they

1

2 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

go unobserved into the subconscious mind. We are so

used to reading the sayings of Jesus that they slip over us

unheeded, they sound sweet and pious and wonderfully

simple, but in reality they are like spiritual torpedoes that

burst and explode in the subconscious mind, and when

the Holy Spirit brings them back to our consciousness we

realise what startling statements they are. The Beati

tudes, for instance, seem merely mild and beautiful precepts

for unworldly people but of very little use for the stern

world in which we live. We soon find, however, that they

contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost, they explode like

a spiritual " mine " when the circumstances of our life

require them to do so, and rip and tear and revolutionise

all our conceptions.

The test of a disciple is obedience to the light when these

things come to the conscious mind. It is not that I hunt

through the Bible for some precept to obey (Jesus Christ s

teaching never leads me to take myself as a moral prig) ;

but that I live so in touch with God that the Holy Spirit

can continually bring some word of His and apply it to the

circumstances I am in. I am not brought to the test

until the Holy Spirit brings the word back.

It is not a question of applying the Beatitudes literally,

but of allowing the life of God to invade you by regenera

tion, and then of soaking your mind in the teaching of

Jesus which slips down into the subconscious mind ; by

and bye a set of circumstances arises when one of His

statements emerges, and instantly you have to decide

whether you will accept the tremendous spiritual revolu

tion that will be produced if you do obey this precept of

Jesus. If you do obey it, your actual life becomes differ

ent ; and you find you have the power to obey it if you will.

That is the way the Holy Spirit works in the heart of a

HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING 3

disciple. The teaching of Jesus comes with astonishing

discomfort to begin with, because it is out of all proportion

to our natural way of looking at things ; but Jesus puts

in a new sense of proportion and we have slowly to form

our walk and conversation on the line of His precepts.

Remember that our Lord s teaching applies only to His

disciples.

(b) The Motive of Godliness, vv. 11-12.

The motive at the back of the precepts of the Sermon on

the Mount is love for God. Read the Beatitudes with

your mind fixed on God, and you will realise their neglected

side. Their meaning in relationship to men is so obvious

that it scarcely needs stating, but the Godward aspect is

not so obvious. " Blessed are the poor in spirit " towards

God. Am I a pauper towards God ? Do I know I cannot

prevail in prayer ; I cannot blot out the sins of the past ;

I cannot alter my disposition ; I cannot lift myself nearer

God ? Then I am in the very place where I am able to

receive the Holy Spirit. No man can receive Holy Spirit

who is not convinced he is a pauper spiritually. " Blessed

are the meek " towards God s dispensations. " Blessed

are the merciful " to God s reputation. Do I awaken

sympathy for myself when I am in trouble ? Then I am

slandering God because the reflex thought in people s

minds is How hard God is with that man. It is easy to

slander God s character because He never attempts to

vindicate Himself. " Blessed are the pure in heart "

that is obviously Godward. " Blessed are the peace

makers " between God and man, the note that was struck

at the birth of Jesus.

Is it possible to carry out the Beatitudes ? Never !

Unless God can do what Jesus says He can, give us the

Holy Spirit who will re-make us and bear us into a new

4 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

realm. The essential life of the saint is simplicity, and

Jesus makes the motive of godliness gloriously simple,

viz : Be carefully careless about everything saving your

relationship to Me. The motive of a disciple is to be well-

pleasing to God. The true blessedness of the saint is in

determinedly making and keeping God first. Herein lies

the disproportion between Jesus Christ s principles and all

other moral teaching : Jesus bases everything on God-

realisation, while other teachers base everything on

self-realisation.

There is a difference between devotion to principles and

devotion to a Person. Jesus never proclaimed a cause ;

He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself For My sake.

Discipleship is based not on devotion to abstract ideals,

but on devotion to a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ,

consequently the whole of the Christian life is stamped by

originality. Whenever the Holy Spirit sees a chance of

glorifying Jesus, He will take your whole personality, and

simply make it blaze and glow with personal passionate

devotion to the Lord Jesus. You are no longer devoted to

a cause nor the devotee of a principle, but the devoted

love slave of the Lord Jesus. No man on earth has that

love unless the Holy Ghost has imparted it to him. Men

may admire Him and respect Him and reverence Him,

but no man can love God until the Holy Ghost has

shed abroad that love in his heart (see Romans V. 5.)

The only Lover of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Holy

Ghost.

Jesus puts all this blessedness of high virtue and rare

felicity on the ground of For My sake. " Blessed are ye,

when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall

say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake."

It is not suffering for conscience sake, or for convictions

HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING 5

sake, or because of the ordinary troubles of life, but some

thing other than all that For My sake.

" Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when

they shall separate you from their company, and shall

reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son

of Man s sake." Jesus did not say Rejoice when men

separate you from their company because of your own

crochetty notions but when they reproach you for My

sake. When you begin to deport yourself among men as a

saint, they will leave you absolutely alone, you will be

reviled and persecuted. No man can stand that unless

he is in love with Jesus Christ, he cannot do it for a con

viction or for a creed, but he can do it for a Being whom

he loves. Devotion to a Person is the only thing -that

tells ; devotion to death to a Person, not devotion to a

creed or a doctrine.

"Who that one moment has the least descried Him,

Dimly and faintly, hidden and afar

Doth not despise all excellence beside Him,

Pleasures and powers that are not and that are.

Ay, amid all men bear himself thereafter

Smit with a solemn and a sweet surprise,

Dumb to their scorn and turning on their laughter

Only the dominance of earnest eyes."

(2) DIVINE DISADVANTAGE, vv. 13-16.

The disadvantage of a saint in the present order of

things is that he has to make his confession of Jesus not

in secret, but glaringly public. It would doubtless be to

our advantage from the self-realisation standpoint to keep

quiet, and nowadays the tendency is growing stronger to

say Be a Christian, live a holy life, but don t talk about

it. Our Lord uses as illustrations the most conspicuous

6 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

things known to men, e.g., salt, light, and a city set on a

hill, and He says Be like that in your home, in your

business, in your church ; be conspicuously a Christian for

ridicule or for respect according to the mood of the people

you are with. Again in Matthew X. Our Lord taught the

need to be conspicuous proclaimers of the truth and not

to cover it up for fear of wolfish men. (vv. 26-28.)

(a) Concentrated Service, v. 13.

Not consecrated service, but concentrated. Consecration

would soon be changed into sanctification if we would only

concentrate on what God wants. Concentration means

pinning down the four corners of the mind until it is settled

on what God wants. The literal interpretation of the

Sermon on the Mount is child s play ; the interpretation

by the Holy Spirit is the stern work of a saint, and it

requires spiritual concentration.

" Ye are the salt of the earth." Some modern teachers

seem to think Our Lord said " Ye are the sugar of the

earth," meaning that gentleness and winsomeness without

curativeness is the ideal of the Christian. Our Lord s

illustration of a Christian is salt, and salt is the most

concentrated thing known. Salt preserves wholesomeness

and prevents decay. It is a disadvantage to be salt.

Think of the action of salt in a wound and you realise that.

If you get salt into a wound, it hurts, and if God s children

get amongst those who are " raw " towards God, their

presence hurts. The man who is wrong with God is like

an open wound, and when salt gets in it causes annoyance

and distress and he is spiteful and bitter. The disciples

of Jesus in the present dispensation preserve society from

corruption. The " salt " causes excessive irritation which

spells persecution for the saint.

How are we to maintain the healthy salty tang of saint-

HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING 7

liness? By remaining rightly related to God through

Jesus Christ. In the present dispensation, Jesus says, the

kingdom of God is within you without observation, men

are called on to live out His teaching in an age that will

not recognise Him, and that spells limitation and very

often persecution. This is the day of the humiliation of

the saints ; in the next dispensation it will be the glori

fication of the saints, and the Kingdom of God will be out

side as well as inside men.

(b) Conspicuous Setting, vv. 14-16.

The illustrations Our Lord uses are all conspicuous

viz., salt, light and a city set on a hill. There is no possi

bility of mistaking them. Salt to preserve from corrup

tion has to be placed in the midst of it, and before it can

do its work it causes excessive irritation which spells

persecution. Light attracts bats and night moths, and

points out the way for burglars as well as for honest people :

Jesus would have us remember that men will certainly

defraud us. A city is the gathering place for all the human

driftwood that will not work for its own living, and the

Christian will have any number of parasites and ungrateful

hangers-on. All these considerations form a powerful

temptation to pretend we are not salt, to put our light

under a bushel, and to cover our city with a fog. But

Jesus will have nothing in the nature of a covert disciple.

" Ye are the light of the world." You cannot soil

light, you may try to grasp a beam of light with the sootiest

hand, but you leave no mark on the light. A sunbeam may

shine into the filthiest hovel in the slums of a city but it

cannot be soiled. A merely moral man or an innocent

man may be soiled in spite of his integrity, but the man who

is made pure by the Holy Ghost cannot be soiled, he is as

light. Thank God for the men and women who are

8 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

spending their lives in the slums of the earth, not as social

reformers to lift their brother men to cleaner styes, but as

the light of God, revealing a way back to God. God keeps

them as the light, unsullied. If you have been covering

your light, uncover it ! Walk as children of light. The

light always reveals and guides, and men dislike it and

prefer darkness when their deeds are evil. (John III. 19-20.)

Are we the salt of the earth ? Are we the light of the

world ? Are we allowing God to exhibit in our lives the

truth of these startling statements of Jesus ?

(3) DIVINE DECLARATION, vv. 17-20.

(a) His Mission, vv. 17-19.

" I am come ... to fulfil." An amazing word ! Our

shoes ought to be off our feet and every common sense

mood stripped from our minds when we hear Him speak.

In Him we deal with God as man, the God-Man, the re

presentative of the whole human race in one Person.

The men of His day traced their religious pedigree back to

the constitution of God, and this young Nazarene Carpenter

says I am the constitution of God, consequently to them

He was a blasphemer.

Our Lord places Himself as the exact meaning and

fulfilment of all Old Testament prophecies. His mission,

He says, is to fulfil the law and the prophets, and He

further says that any man who breaks the old laws because

they belong to a former dispensation, and teaches men to

break them, shall suffer severe impoverishment. If the

old commandments were difficult, Our Lord s principles

are unfathomably more difficult. Our Lord goes behind

the old law to the disposition. Everything He teaches is

impossible unless He can put into me His Spirit and re-

HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING 9

make me from the inside. The Sermon on the Mount is

quite unlike the Ten Commandments in the sense of its

being absolutely unworkable unless Jesus Christ can

re-make us.

There are teachers who argue that the Sermon on the

Mount supersedes the Ten Commandments, and that

because we are not under law but under grace it does not

matter whether we honour our father and mother, whether

we covet, etc. That, in practical application, is sentimental

dust-throwing. To be not under the law but under grace

does not mean I can do as I like. It is surprising how

easily we can juggle ourselves out of Jesus Christ s prin

ciples by one or two pious sayings repeated often enough.

The only safeguard is to keep personally related to God.

The secret for all spiritual understanding is to walk in the

light, not the light of my convictions, or of my theories,

but the light that God is in. (1 John I. 7.)

(6) His Message, v. 20.

" Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteous

ness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter

into the kingdom of heaven." Think of the most upright

man you know, the most moral, sterling, religious man (e.g.,

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, so was Saul of Tarsus " blame

less " according to the law) who has never received the

Holy Spirit, and Jesus says you must exceed his righteous

ness, i.e., you have to be not only as moral as the most

moral man you know, but infinitely more to be so right

in your actions, so pure in your motives, that God Almighty

can see nothing to blame.

Is it too strong to call that a spiritual torpedo ? These

statements of Jesus are the most revolutionary statements

human ears ever listened to, and it needs the Holy Ghost

to interpret them to us ; the shallow admiration for Jesus

10 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Christ as a Teacher that is taught to-day is of no use.

Who is going to climb that " hill of the Lord ? " To

stand before God and say My hands are clean, my heart

is pure ? Who can do it ? Who can stand in the eternal

light of God and have nothing for Him to blame in him ?

Only the Son of God, and if the Son of God is formed in

me by regeneration and sanctification, He will exhibit

Himself through my mortal flesh. That is the ideal of

Christianity " that the life of Jesus might be made

manifest in our mortal flesh."

Your disposition, says Jesus, must be right to its depths,

not only your conscious motives but your unconscious

motives. Now we are beyond our depth. Can God make

me pure in heart ? Blessed be the Name of God, He can !

Can He alter my disposition so that when circumstances

reveal me to myself, I am amazed? He can. Can He

impart to me His nature until it is identically the same as

His own ? He can. That and nothing less is the meaning

of His Cross and Resurrection.

" Except your righteousness exceed. . . ." The right

eousness of the scribes and Pharises was right not wrong ;

that they did other than righteousness is obvious, but

Jesus is talking here of their righteousness which His

disciples are to exceed. What exceeds right doing if it

be not right being ? Right being without right doing is

possible by refusing to enter into relationship with God,

but that cannot exceed the righteousness of the scribes

and Pharisees. Jesus message here is that unless we

exceed their righteousness in doing (the Pharisees were

nothing in being), we shall never enter into the kingdom

of heaven. The monks in the Middle Ages refused to take

the responsibility of life, all they wanted was to be and not

to do and they shut themselves away from the world,

HIS TEACHING AND OUR TRAINING 11

that does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and

Pharisees. People to-day want to do the same by cutting

themselves off from this and that . relationship. If Our

Lord had meant exceed in being only, He would not have

used the word " exceed," He would have said " Except

your righteousness be otherwise than. ..." You cannot

exceed the righteousness of the most moral man you know

on the line of what he does, but only on the line of what

he is.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount must produce

despair in the natural man ; if it does not, it is because

you have paid no attention to it. Pay attention to Jesus

Christ s teaching and you will soon say "Who is sufficient

for these things ? " " Blessed are the pure in heart." If

Jesus Christ means what He says, where am I in regard to

it ? Come unto Me says Jesus.

STUDY No. 2.

ACTUAL AND REAL.

Matthew V. 21-42.

(1) THE ACCOUNT WITH PURITY. Matt. V. 21-30.

(a) Disposition and Deeds, w. 21-22.

(6) Temper of Mind and Truth of Manner, w. 23-26.

(c) Lust and License, vv. 27-28.

(d) Direction of Discipline, w. 29-30.

(2) THE ACCOUNT WITH PRACTICE. Matt.V.31-37

(a) Speech and Sincerity, v. 33.

(b) Irreverent Reverence, w. 34-36.

(c) Integrity, v. 37.

(3) THE ACCOUNT WITH PERSECUTION. Matt.

V. 38-42.

(a) Insult, w. 38-39.

(b) Extortion, v. 40.

(c) Tyranny, w. 41-42.

A man cannot begin to take in anything he has not begun

to think about, consequently until a man is born again

what Jesus says does not mean anything to him* The

Bible is a universe of revelation facts which have no mean

ing for me until I am born from above, when I am born

again I see in it what I never saw before. I am lifted into

the realm where Jesus lives and I begin to see what He

sees. (John III. 3.)

By Actual is meant the things we come in contact with

12

ACTUAL AND REAL 13

by our senses, and by Real is meant that which lies behind,

the things we cannot get at by our senses, (cf . 2 Cor. IV. 18.)

The fanatic sees only the real and ignores the actual ;

the materialist looks only at the actual and ignores the

real. The only sane Being who ever trod this earth ; was

Jesus Christ because in Him the actual and the real were

one. Jesus Christ does not stand first in the actual world,

He stands first in the real world ; that is why the natural

man does not bother his head about Him " the natural

man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for

they are foolishness unto him." When we are born from

above we begin to see the actual things in the light of the

real. We say that prayer alters things, but prayer does

not alter actual things half so much as it alters the man

who sees the actual things. In the Sermon on the Mount

Our Lord brings the actual and the real together.

(1) THE ACCOUNT WITH PURITY, vv. 21-30.

Our Lord in these verses is laying down the principle

that if men are going to follow Him and obey His Spirit,

they must lay their account with purity. No man can

make himself pure by obeying laws. Purity is not a

question of doing things rightly, but of the doer on the .

inside being right. Purity is difficult to define, it is best

thought of as the state of heart just like the heart of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Purity is not innocence; innocence is the

characteristic of a child, and although, profoundly speaking,

a child is not pure, yet his innocence presents us with all

that we understand by purity. Innocence is a beautiful

thing in a child s life, but men arid women ought not to

be innocent, they ought to be tested and tried and pure.

No man is born pure, purity is the outcome of conflict.

14 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The pure man is not the man who has never been tried,

but the man who knows what evil is and has overcome

it. The same with virtue and morality, no one is born

virtuous and moral, we are born un-moral. Morality is

always the outcome of conflict, not of necessity. Jesus

Christ demands that purity be explicit as well as implicit,

that is, my actual conduct, the actual chastity of my

bodily life, the actual chastity of my mind, is to be beyond

the censure of Almighty God not beyond the censure of

ray fellow men, that would produce Pharisaism, I can

always deceive the other fellow. Jesus Christ has under

taken by His Redemption to put in me a heart so pure

that God can see nothing to censure in it. That is the

marvel of the Redemption that Jesus Christ can give

me a new heredity, the unsullied heredity of the Holy

Spirit, and if it is there, says Jesus, it will work out in

actual history.

In Matthew XV. Our Lord tells His disciples what the

human heart is like " Out of the heart proceed. ..."

and then follows the catalogue. We say " I never felt

any of those things in my heart," and we prefer to trust our

innocent ignorance rather than Jesus Christ s penetration.

Either Jesus Christ must be the supreme authority on the

human heart or He is not worth listening to. If I make

conscious innocence the test, I am likely to come to a

place where I will find with a shuddering awakening that

what Jesus said is true, and I will be appalled at the

possibility of evil in me. If I have never been a blackguard,

the reason is a mixture of cowardice and the protection of

civilised life ; but when I am undressed before God I find

that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis. So long as I

remain under the refuge of innocence, I am living in a

fool s paradise. There is always a reason to be found

ACTUAL AND REAL l

in myself when I try to disprove what Jesus says.

Jesus Christ demands that the heart of a disciple be

fathomlessly pure, then unless He can give me His dis

position, His teaching is tantalising ; if all He came to do

was to mock me by telling me to be what I know I never

can be, I can afford to ignore Him. But if He can give me

His own disposition of holiness, then I begin to see how

to lay my account with purity. Jesus Christ is the sternest

and the gentlest of Saviours.

The Gospel of God is not that Jesus died for my sins

only, but that He gave Himself for me that I might give

myself to Him. God cannot take from me goodness, He

will take from me badness, and will give me for it the

solid goodness of the Lord Jesus. (See 2 Cor. V. 21.)

(a) Disposition and Deeds, vv. 21-22.

Our Lord is using an illustration that was familiar to

the disciples. If a man disregarded the common judg

ment, he was in danger of being brought into an inner

court, and if he was contemptuous with that court, he was

in danger of the final judgment. Jesus uses this illustra

tion of the ordinary exercise of judgment to show what the

disposition of a disciple must be like, viz., that my motive,

the place I cannot get at myself, must be right the

disposition behind the deed, the motive behind the actual

occurrence. I may never be angry in deed, but Jesus

demands the impossibility of anger in disposition. The

motive of my motives, the spring of my dreams, must be

so right that right deeds will naturally follow.

In Psalm CXXXIX the Psalmist is realising that he is too

big for himself, and he prays O Lord, explore me, search

me out, and see if there be any way of grief in me, trace

out the dreams of my dreams, the motives of my motives,

16 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

make those right, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Deliverance from sin is not deliverance from conscious

sin only, it is deliverance from sin in God s sight, and He

can see down into a region I know nothing about. By the

marvellous Atonement of Jesus Christ applied to me by

the Holy Spirit, God can purify the springs of my uncon

scious life until the temper of my mind is unblameable in

His sight.

Beware of refining away the radical aspect of Our

Lord s teaching by saying that God puts in something to

counteract the wrong disposition, that is a compromise.

Jesus never teaches us to curb and suppress the wrong

disposition ; He gives us a totally new disposition, He

alters the mainspring of action. Our Lord s teaching can

only be interpreted by the new Spirit which He puts in ;

it can never be taken as a series of rules and regulations.

A man cannot imitate the disposition of Jesus, it is

either there or it is not. When the Son of God is formed

in me, He is formed in my human nature, and I have to

put on the new man in accordance with His life and obey

Him, then His disposition will work out all the time. We

make our character out of the disposition we have. Char

acter is what we make, disposition is what we are born

with, and when we are born again we get a new disposition.

A man must make his own character, but he cannot make

his disposition, that is a gift. Our natural disposition is

gifted to us by heredity ; by regeneration God gives us

the disposition of His Son. Jesus Christ is pure to the

depths of His motives, and if His disposition can be formed

in me, then I see how I can lay my account with purity.

" Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born again."

If I will let God alter my heredity, I will become devoted

to Him, and Jesus Christ has gained a disciple. Many of

ACTUAL AND REAL 17

us who call ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus.

Our Lord goes behind the old law to the disposition.

Everything He says is impossible unless He can put into

me His Spirit and re-make me from the inside, then I

begin to see how it can be done. When a man is born

from above, he does not need to pretend he is a saint, he

cannot help being one. Am I going to be a spiritually

real man or a whitewashed humbug ? Am I a pauper in

spirit or conceited with my own earnestness ? We are so

tremendously in earnest that we are blinded by our earnest

ness and never see that God is more in earnest than we are.

Thank God for the absolute poverty of spirit that receives

from Him all the time.

There is only one way in which as a disciple you will

know that Jesus has altered your disposition, and that is

by trying circumstances. When you are brought into

trying circumstances, instead of feeling resentment, you

will experience a most amazing change on the inside.

When circumstances put you to the test you will say

" WTiy, bless God, this is an amazing alteration, I know

now that God has altered me, because if that had happened

before I would have been sour and irritable and sarcastic

and spiteful, but now there is a well of sweetness on the

inside which I know never came from myself." The proof

that God has altered our disposition is not that we persuade

ourselves He has, but that we prove He has when circum

stances put us to the test. Instead of the criticism of

Christians being wrong, it is absolutely right. When a

man says he is born again, he is put under scrutiny, and

rightly so. If we are born again of the Holy Ghost and

have the life of Jesus in us by means of His Cross, we have ,

to show it in the way we walk and talk and transact all :

our business.

18 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

(b) Temper of Mind and Truth of Manner, vv.

23-26.

Our Lord in these verses uses another illustration familiar

in His day. If a man was taking a paschal lamb to the

priest as an offering and remembered he had leaven in his

house, he had to go back and take out the leaven before

he brought his offering. We do not carry lambs to sacrifice,

but the spiritual meaning of the illustration is tremendous,

it emphasises the difference between reality and sincerity.

If when you come to the altar, says Jesus, there you

remember your brother has ought against you, don t say

another word to Me, but go and be reconciled to your

brother and then come and offer your gift. Jesus does

not mention the other person, He says You go. He does

not say Go half way ; first go. There is no question of

your rights.

Talk about practical home-coming truth ! That hits

us where we live. A man cannot stand as a humbug for

one second before Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit makes

you sensitive to things you never thought of before. Never

object to the intense sensitiveness of the Holy Spirit in

you when He is educating you down to the scruple ; and

never discard a conviction. If it is important enough for

the Holy Spirit to have brought it to your mind, that is the

thing He is detecting.

The test Jesus gives is not the truth of our manner but

the temper of our mind. Many of us are wonderfully

truthful in manner, but our temper of mind in God s sight

is rotten. The thing Jesus alters is the temper of mind.

If when you come to the altar, there you remember

Jesus does not say There you rake up something in your

mind, that is where Satan gets hold of embryo Christians

and makes them hyper-conscientious ; but if at the altar

ACTUAL AND REAL 19

there you remember. . . The inference is that the Holy Spirit

brings it to your memory, never check it, say Yes, Lord,

I recognise it, and obey Him at once no matter what the

humiliation is. It is impossible to do it until God has

altered your temper of mind ; but if you are a saint you

find you have no difficulty in doing what otherwise would

be an impossible humiliation. The disposition which will

not have the Son of God rule is the disposition of my claim

to my right to myself ; that, and not immorality, is the

essence of sin : I will possess my right to myself in this

particular matter. But if my disposition has been altered,.

I will obey Jesus at all costs.

Watch the thing that makes you morally snort. If you

have not had the temper of your mind altered by Jesus,

when the Holy Spirit brings something to your memory

to be put right, you will say No, indeed, I am not going to

make it up when I was in the right and they were in the

wrong, they will say I knew I would make you say you

were sorry. Unless you are willing to yield absolutely

your right to yourself on that point, you need not pray

any more, there is a barrier absolutely higher than Calvary

between you and God. That is the temper of mind in all

of us until it has been altered. When it has been altered,

the other temper of mind is there that makes reconciliation

as natural as breathing, and to our astonishment we find

we can do what we could not do before. Instantly you

obey, you find the temper of your mind is real. Jesus

makes us real, not only sincere. The people who are

sincere without being real are not hypocrites, they are

perfectly earnest and honest and desirous of fulfilling what

Jesus wants, but they really cannot do it, the reason being

that they have not received the One who makes them

real, viz., the Holy Spirit.

20 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Jesus brings men to the practical test. It is not that I

say I am pure in heart but that I prove I am in my deeds ;

I am not only sincere in manner but sincere in the attitude

of my mind. All through the Sermon on the Mount the

same truth is brought out. " Except your right eousnes

exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. ..."

We have to fulfil all the old law and do much more, and

the only way it can be done is by letting Jesus alter us on

the inside, and by remembering that everything He tells

us to do we can do. The whole point of Our Lord s teaching

is Obey Me, and you will find you have a wealth of power

on the inside.

(c) Lust and License, vv. 27-28.

Our Lord goes to the root of the matter every time with

no apology. Sordid ? Frantically sordid, but sin is

frantically sordid, and there is no excuse in false modesty

or in refusing to face the music of the devil s work in this

life. Jesus Christ faced it and He will make us face it.

Our natural idea of purity is that it means according

obedience to certain laws and regulations, but that is apt

to be prudery. There is nothing prudish in the Bible.

The Bible insists on purity, not prudery. There are bald

shocking statements in the Bible, but from cover to cover

it will do nothing in the shape. of harm to the pure in heart,

it is to the impure in heart that these things are corrupting.

If Jesus Christ can only make us prudish, we should be

horrified if we had to go and work amongst the moral

abominations of heathendom, but with the purity Jesus

Christ puts in He can take us where He went Himself, and

make us capable of facing the vilest moral corruption

unspotted, kept pure as He is Himself. We are scandalised

at social immoralities because our social sense of honour is

upset, but are we cut to the heart when we see a man

ACTUAL AND REAL 21

live in pride against God? When the Holy Ghost is at

work He puts in a new standard of judgment and proportion.

Remember that every religious sentiment that is not

carried out on its right level carries with it a secret immor

ality, you are privately immoral if not publicly. That is

the way human nature is constituted, whenever you allow

an emotion that you do not carry out on its legitimate

level, then it will react on an illegitimate level ; grip it on

the threshold of your mind in a vice of blood and allow

it no more way. You have no business to harbour an

emotion the conclusion of which you can see to be

wrong.

God does not give a man a new body when he is saved,

he has the same body but a new disposition. God alters

the mainspring, He puts love in the place of lust. What is

lust ? I must have it at once the impatience of desire.

Love can wait seven years ; lust can t wait two seconds.

Esau and his mess of pottage is a picture of lust ; Jacob

serving for Rachel is a picture of love. In these verses lust

is put on the lowest level, but remember, lust runs from

the lowest basis of immorality right up to the very height

of spiritual life. Jesus Christ penetrates right straight

down to the basis of our desires. If ever a man is going

to stand where lust never strikes him, it can only be because

Jesus has altered his disposition. It is impossible unless

Jesus Christ can do what He says He can. A disciple has

to be free from the degradation of lust, and the marvel

of the Redemption is that Jesus can free him from it.

Jesus Christ s claim is that He can do for a man what he

cannot do for himself. Jesus does not alter our human

nature, it does not need altering, He alters the mainspring,

and the great marvel of the salvation of Jesus is that He

alters heredity. Lust is the impatience of desire ; license

22 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

means I will do what I like and care for no one ; liberty

means I have the power to do what is right.

Do you see how we are growing ? The disciples were

being taught by Jesus to lay their account with purity.

Purity is too deep down for us to get to naturally. The

only exhibition of purity is the purity in the heart of Our

Lord, and that is the purity He implants in us, and He

says we will know whether the purity is there by the

temper of mind we exhibit when we come up against

things which before would have awakened in us lust and

self -desire. It is not only a question of possibility on the

inside, but of a possibility that shows itself in performance.

That is the only test there is, " he that doeth righteousness

is righteous." (1 John III. 7.)

(d) Direction of Discipline, vv. 29-30.

If God has altered the disposition, where is the need for

discipline ? Yet in these verses Our Lord speaks of very

stern discipline, to the parting with the right hand and

the eye. The reason for the discipline is that our bodies

have been used by the wrong disposition, and when the

new disposition is put in, the old physical case is not taken

away, it is left there for us to discipline and make it an

obedient servant to the new disposition. (Romans VI. 19.)

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it

from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy

members should perish, and not that thy whole body

should be cast into hell." What does that mean ? It

means absolute unflinching sternness in dealing with the

right things in yourself that are not the best. " The good

is the enemy of the best" in every man, the bad never is,

but the good that is not good enough. Your right hand is

not a bad thing, it is one of the best things you have got,

but, says Jesus, if it offends you in developing your spiritual

ACTUAL AND REAL 23

life, if it hinders your following My precepts, cut it off and

cast it from you. Jesus Christ talked rugged truth, He

was never ambiguous, and He says it is better to be maimed

than damned, better that you should enter into life lame

in man s sight and lovely in God s than that you should

be lovely in man s sight and lame in God s. It is a maimed

life to begin with, such as Jesus describes in these verses ;

otherwise we may look all right in the sight of our fellow

men , but remarkably twisted and wrong in the sight of God.

One of the principles of Our Lord s teaching which we

are slow to grasp is that the only basis of the spiritual is

the sacrifice of the natural. The natural life is neither

moral nor immoral, I make it moral or immoral by my

ruling disposition. Jesus teaches that the natural life

is meant for sacrifice, we can give it as a gift to God,

which is the only way to make it spiritual. (See Romans

XII. 1-2.) That is where Adam failed, he refused to sacrifice

the natural life and make it spiritual by obeying God s

voice in it, consequently he sinned, the sin of taking his

right to himself. Why should God make it that the

natural has to be sacrified to the spiritual by me ? God

did not. God made it that the natural had to be trans

formed into the spiritual by obedience ; sin made it that

the natural had to be sacrificed, which is very different.

If you are going to be spiritual, you must barter the natural,

sacrifice it. If you say, I do not want to sacrifice the natural

for the spiritual, then, Jesus says, you must barter the

spiritual. It is not a punishment but an eternal principle.

This line of discipline is the sternest that ever struck

mankind, there is nothing more heroic and grand than the

Christian life. Spirituality is not a sweet tendency towards

piety in people who have not enough life in them to be

bad ; spirituality is the possession of the life of God which

24 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

i

is masculine in its strength, and He will make the most

corrupt, twisted, sin-stained life spiritual if He be obeyed.

Chastity is strong and fierce, and the man who is going to

be chaste for Jesus Christ s sake has a gloriously sterling

job in front of him.

When Jesus has altered your disposition, you have to

put your body into harmony with the new disposition, to

get the body to exercise the new disposition, and it can

only be done by stern discipline, discipline which will

mean cutting off a great many things for your own spiritual

life s sake. There are things that are to you as your right

hand and your eye, but you dare not use them, and the

world that knows you says How absurd you are to cut

off that, whatever is there wrong in a " right hand ? "

and they will call you a fanatic and a crank. If a man

has never been a crank or a fanatic, it is a pretty sure sign

that he has never begun seriously to consider life. In the

beginning the Holy Spirit will check your doing a great

many things that may be perfectly right for everyone

else, but not right for you. No one can decide for another

what is to be cut off, and you have no right to use your

present limitation to criticise someone else.

Be prepared to be a limited fool in the sight of others,

says Jesus, in order to further your spiritual character.

If I am only willing to give up wrong things for Jesus

Christ, never let me talk about being in love with Him.

We say Why shouldn t I ? there is no harm in it. For

pity s sake, go and do it, but remember that the construc

tion of a spiritual character is doomed once you take that

line. Anyone will give up wrong things if he knows how

to, but am I prepared to give up the best I have got for

Jesus Christ ? The only right a Christian has is the right

to give up his rights.

ACTUAL AND REAL 25

(2) THE ACCOUNT WITH PRACTICE, w. 31-37.

Practice means continually doing that which no one

sees or knows but myself. Habit is the result of practice,

by continually doing the thing it becomes second nature.

The difference between men is not a difference of personal

power, but that some men are disciplined and others are not.

The difference is not the degree of mental power, but the

degree of mental discipline. If I have taught myself how

to think, I have mental power plus the discipline of having

got it under way. Beware of impulse. Impulsiveness is

the characteristic of a child, but it ought not to be the

characteristic of a man, it means he has not disciplined

himself. Undeterred impulse is undisciplined power.

Every habit is purely mechanical, and whenever we form

a habit it makes a material difference in the brain. The

material of the brain alters very slowly, but it does alter,

and by repeatedly doing a thing a groove is formed in the

material of the brain and it becomes easier to do it again,

until at last you become unconscious of doing it. When

we are regenerated, by the power and the presence of God

we can reform every habit that is not in accordance with

His life. Never form a habit gradually, do it at once, do

it sharply and definitely, and never allow a break. We

have to learn to form habits according to the dictates of

the Spirit of God. The power and the practice must go

together. When we fail it is because we have not prac

tised, not brought the mechanical part of our nature into

line. If I keep at it practising, what I practise becomes

my second nature, then in a crisis I find that not only

does God s grace stand by me, but also my own nature.

The practising is mine not God s and the crisis reveals

whether or not I have been practising. The reason we

26 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

fail is not the devil, but inattention on our part arising from

the fact that we have not disciplined ourselves.

w. 31-32. Marriage and money form the elemental

constitution of personal life and social life. They are the

touchstone of reality, and around these two things the

Holy Spirit works all the time. Marriage is one of the

mountain peaks on which God s thunder blasts souls to

hell or on which His light transfigures human lives in the

eternal heavens. Jesus Christ faces fearlessly the question

of sin and wrong, and He teaches us to face it fearlessly.

There is no circumstance so dark and complicated, no

life so twisted, that He cannot put right. The Bible was

not written for babes and fools, it was written for men and

women who have to face hell s facts as well as heaven s

facts in this life. If Jesus Christ cannot touch those lives

which present a smooth face but have a hideous tragedy

behind, what is the good of His salvation ? But, bless

God, He can. He can alter my disposition, alter the dreams

of my dreams, until lust no longer dwells there.

(a) Speech and Sincerity, v. 33.

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are

exactly the same. Remember, says Jesus, that you

have to stand before the tribunal of God, not of men ;

practise the right kind of speech, and your Father in heaven

will back up all that is true. If you have to back it up

yourself, it is of the evil one. You have no right to call

in anyone to back it up, your word ought to be quite

sufficient, whether men believe you or not is a matter of

indifference. Refrain your speech until it conveys the

sincerity of your mind. Until the Son of God is formed

in me I am not sincere, I am not even honest, but when

His life comes into me, He makes me honest with myself

ACTUAL AND REAL 27

and generous and kind towards others. We all know men

whose word is their bond, there is no need for anyone to

back up the word, the character and the life are sufficient.

There is a snare in being able to talk easily about God s

truth because frequently that is where it ends, if you can

get a good expression for truth the danger is you will

know no more. Most of us can talk piously, we have the

practice but not the power. Jesus is saying let your

conversation spring from such a basis of the Holy Spirit

that everyone who listens is built up by it. Unaffected

sincerity always builds up ; corrupt communication makes

you feel mean and narrow. There are men who never

say a bad word yet their influence is devilish. Don t

pay attention to the outside of the platter, pay attention

to the inside and practise the speech that is in accordance

with the life of the Son of God in you, and slowly and

surely your speech and your sincerity will be in accord.

(b) Irreverent Reverence, w. 34-36.

In Our Lord s day the habit was common, as it is to

day, of backing up ordinary assertions with an appeal to

the name of God. Jesus checks that, He says never call on

anything in the nature of God to attest what you say,

speak simply and truly, realising that truth in a man is

the same as truth in God. To call in God as a witness to

back up what you say is nearly always a sign that what

you are saying is not true. If you can find eight or more

reasons for the truth of what you say, it is proof that what

you say is not strictly true, if it were, you would never

have to find the reasons to prove it. Jesus Christ puts in

a truthfulness that never takes knowledge of itself.

Irreverent reverence is what Our Lord checks, talking

flippantly about those things which ought only to be

mentioned with the greatest reverence. I remember an

28 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Indian woman who got wonderfully saved, she was an

ugly woman but at the pronouncement of the name of

Jesus Christ, her face was transfigured, the whole soul of

the woman was in reverent adoration of her Lord and

Master.

(c) Integrity, v. 37.

Integrity means the unimpaired purity of the heart.

God can make our words the exact expression of the dis

position He has put in. Jesus taught by example and

precept that no man should stand up for his own honour

but only for the honour of another. Our Lord was never

careful of His own honour " He made Himself of no

reputation ; " men called Him a glutton and a wine-

bibber, a madman, devil-possessed, and He never opened

His mouth ; but immediately they said a word against

His Father s honour, He not only opened His mouth but

He said some terrible things. (See Mark XL 15-18.) Jesus

Christ by His Spirit alters our standard of honour, and a

disciple will never care about what people say of him, but

he will care tremendously what people say of Jesus. He

realises that his Lord s honour is at stake in his life, not

his own honour. What is the thing that rouses you ?

That is an indication of where you live.

Scandal should be treated as you treat mud on your

clothes. If you try and deal with it while it is wet, you

rub the mud into the texture, but leave it till it is dry and

you flick it off with a touch, it is gone without a trace.

Leave scandal alone, never touch it.

Let people do what they like with your truth, but never

explain it. Jesus never explained anything, we are always

explaining, and we get into tangles by not leaving things

alone. We need to pray St. Augustine s prayer " O Lord,

deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself."

ACTUAL AND REAL 29

Our Lord never told His disciples when they made mistakes,

they made any number of blunders, but He went on

quietly planting the truth, and He let mistakes correct

themselves.

In the matter of praise, when I am not sure of having

done well I always like to find out what people think ;

when I am certain I have done well, I don t care an atom

whether folks praise me or not. The same thing with

regard to fear, we all know men who say they are not

afraid, but the very fact they say it, proves they are.

We have to learn to live on the line of integrity all through.

Another truth we do not sufficiently realise is the in

fluence of what we think over what we say. A man may

say wonderfully truthful things, but what he thinks is what

tells. It is possible to say truthful things in a truthful

manner and to tell a lie by thinking. I can repeat to

someone else what I heard you say, word for word, every

detail scientifically accurate, and yet convey a lie in saying

it because the temper of my mind is different to the temper

of your mind when you said it. A lie is not an inexactitude

of speech, a lie is in the motive. I may be actually truthful

and an incarnate liar. It is not the literal words that

count but their influence on others.

Suspicion is always of the devil and is the cause of

people saying more than they need to say, and in that aspect

it " cometh of evil." If you submit children to a sceptical

atmosphere and call in question all they say, it will instil

the habit of backing up what is said Well, ask him if you

don t believe me. Such a thought would never occur to a

child naturally, it only occurs when the child has to talk

to suspicious people who continually say Now I don t

know whether what you are saying is true. The child

gets the idea that it does not speak the truth unless someone

30 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

backs it up. It never occurs to a pure honest heart to

back up what it says, it is a wounding insult to be met

with suspicion, and that is why from the first we ought

never to submit a child to suspicion.

(3) ACCOUNT WITH PERSECUTION, w. 38-42.

(a) Insult, v. 38-39.

If a disciple is going to follow Jesus, he must lay his

account not only with purity and with practice, but also

with persecution. The picture Our Lord gives is not

familiar to us. In the East a slap on the cheek is the

greatest form of insult, its equivalent with us would be

spitting in the face. Epictetus, a Roman slave, said that

a slave would rather be thrashed to death than nicked on

the cheek. Jesus says If any man smite you on the

right cheek, turn to him the other also. The Sermon on the

Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ s errands,

there is no time to be taken in standing up for ourselves.

Personal insult will be the occasion in the saint of revealing

the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.

The Sermon on the Mount hits where it is meant to hit,

and it hits every time. Jesus says Whosoever shall

smite thee on thy right cheek, as My representative, pay

no attention, i.e., show a disposition equivalent to turning

the other cheek also. Either Jesus Christ was mad to say

such things or He was the Son of God. Naturally, if a

man does not hit back it is because he is a coward ; super-

naturally, it is the manifestation of the Son of God in him,

both have the same appearance outwardly. The hypo

crite and the saint are the same in the public eye, the

saint exhibits a meekness which is contemptible in the

eye of the world, that is the immense humiliation of being

ACTUAL AND REAL 31

a Christian. My strength has to be the strength of the

Son of God, and He was " crucified through weakness/

Do the impossible, and immediately you do, you know that

God alone has made it possible.

These things apply to a disciple of Jesus and to no one

else. The only way to interpret the words of God is to let

the Holy Spirit interpret them for you. Jesus said that the

Holy Spirit would bring back to our remembrance what

He has said, and His counsel is When you come across

personal insult, not only don t resent it, but make it the

occasion of exhibiting the Son of God.

The secret of a disciple is personal devotion to a personal

Lord, and a man is open to the same charge as Jesus was,

viz., that of inconsistency, but Jesus was never incon

sistent to God. There is more than one consistency. There

is the consistency of a little child, a child is never the

same, always changing and developing, a consistent child ;

and there is the consistency of a brick wall, a petrified

consistency. A Christian is to be consistent only to the

life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and

fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God

Almighty has to blast them out of their prejudices before

they become devoted to Jesus. " The expulsive power of

a new affection " that is what Christianity supplies. The

reality of the life of the Son of God in you must show

itself in the appearance of your life.

The miracle of regeneration is necessary before we can

live the Sermon on the Mount. The Son of God alone can

live it, and if God can form in me the life of the Son of

God, as He introduced Him into human history, then I can

see how it can be done, and that is Jesus Christ s message

Marvel not that I say unto you, Ye must be born again,

(cf. Luke I. 35.)

32 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

(b) Extortion, v. 40.

Another unfamiliar picture to us, but it had a tremendous

meaning in Our Lord s day. If a man s cloak and coat

were taken from him as the result of a law suit, he could get

back the loan of the coat to sleep in at night. Jesus uses

the illustration to point out what we are going to meet

with as His disciples. If they extort from you anything

while you are on My service, let them have it, but go on

with your work. If you are My disciple, says Jesus, you

have no time to stand up for yourself. Never insist on

your rights. The Sermon on the Mount is not Do your

duty, but Do what is not your duty. It is never your

duty not to resist evil, that is only possible to the Son of

God in you.

(c) Tyranny, vv. 41-42.

Under the Roman dominance, the soldiers could compel

anyone to be a baggage carrier for a mile. Simon the

Cyrenian is a case in point, the Roman soldiers compelled

him to be baggage carrier for Jesus. Jesus says if you are

My disciple, you will always go the second mile, you will

always do more than your duty, there will none of this

spirit Oh well, I can t do any more, they have always

misunderstood and misrepresented me, but you will go the

second mile, not for their sake but for Jesus Christ s sake.

It would have been a sorry look-out for us if God had not

gone the second mile with us. The first thing God requires

of a man is to get born from above, then when he goes the

second mile for men it is the Son of God in him Who does

it. The only right of a Christian is the right not to insist

on his rights. Every time I insist on my rights I hurt

the Son of God. I can prevent the Son of God being

hurt if I take the blow myself, but if I refuse to take it, it

goes back on Him. (cf. Col. I. 24.)

ACTUAL AND REAL 33

v. 42 is an arena for theological acrobats, " Give to him

that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee

turn not thou away." That is the statement either of a

madman or of God Incarnate. We always say we do not

know what Jesus means when we know perfectly well He

means something which is a blunt impossibility unless He

can re-make us and make it possible. Jesus brings us with

terrific force straight up against the impossible thing, and

until we get to the place of despair we will never receive

from Him the grace that enables us to do the impossible

thing and manifest His Spirit.

These statements of Jesus revolutionise all our concep

tions about charity. Much of our modern philanthropy is

based on the motive of giving to the poor man because

he deserves it, or because we are distressed at seeing him

poor. Jesus never taught charity from those motives,

He says " Give to him that asketh thee," not because he

deserves it, but because I tell you to. The great motive

in all giving is Jesus Christ s command. We can always

find a hundred and one reasons why we should not obey

Our Lord s commands because we will trust our reasoning

rather than His reason, and our reason does not take God

into calculation. How does civilisation argue ? Does this

man deserve what I am giving him ? Immediately you

talk like that, the Spirit of God says Who are you?

Do you deserve more than other men the blessings you

have got?

" Give to him that asketh thee." Why do we always

make it mean money ? Jesus makes no mention of money.

The blood of most of us seems to run in gold. The reason

we make it mean money is that that is where our heart is.

Peter said " Silver and gold have I none ; but such as I

have, give I thee." God grant we may understand that the

34 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

spring of giving is not impulse nor inclination, but the in

spiration of the Holy Spirit I give because Jesus tells

me to.

The way Christians wriggle and twist and compromise

over this verse springs from infidelity in the ruling pro

vidence of our Heavenly Father. We enthrone common

sense as God and say It is absurd, if I give to everyone

that asks, every beggar in the place will be at my door.

Try it. I have yet to find the man who obeyed Jesus

Christ s command and did not realise that God restrained

those who beg. If you try to apply these principles of

Jesus literally without the indwelling Spirit, there will be

no proof that God is with you, but once get rightly related

to God and let the Holy Spirit apply the words to your

circumstances, and you will find the restraining hand of

God, for if ever God s ruling is seen, it is seen when once

a disciple obeys what Jesus commands.

STUDY No. 3.

INCARNATE WISDOM AND

INDIVIDUAL REASON.

Matthew V. 43-48, VI.

(1) DIVINE RULE OF LIFE. Matthew V. 43-48.

(a) Exhortation, vv. 43-44.

(b