Bible Lesson 230

SERMON ON THE MOUNT (Matthew 5-7)

“It may justly be called the key of the whole Bible, for here Christ openeth the sum of the Old and the New Testament.” W. Perkins.

“The (Early) Church was not an organization merely, not a movement, but a walking incarnation of spiritual energy. The Church began in power, moved in power and moved just as long as she had power. When she no longer had power, she dug in for safety and sought to conserve her gains. But here blessings were like the manna: when they tried to keep it overnight it bred worms and stank. So, we have had monasticism, scholasticism, institutionalism; and they have all been indicative of the same thing: absence of spiritual power. In church history, every return to New Testament power has marked a new advance somewhere, and every diminution of power has seen the rise of some new mechanism for conservation and defense. If this analysis is reasonably correct, then we are today in a state of very low spiritual energy. A.W. Tozer

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven” Over the next few months we will be look at and into the condition of the visible church, and The Sermon on the Mount, gives us indications concerning why the visible church is in trouble. Let’s begin by stating that there are many in today’s church that are definitely not poor in Spirit.

This month we want to look at the first sermon that our Lord preached after He began His ministry. Matthew is the first Words from God to His people in 400 years, and that Word stands for all people, and applies to those who were in Judea and any other place where Jehovah has a people.

It is certainly applicable to us today, here in the 21st Century. These people, there in Israel, were in the same shape so many of us today are in, and that is that we have a religious past but we are not fully aware of what we are supposed to believe, and what we indeed will tolerate as Christianity.

This is the state of the vast majority of individual churches today; however, congregations are satisfied with the lack of Truth that is being drilled into them every time they meet.

Why would congregations sit under preaching that is powerless and even denies Biblical Truth? There can be only one reason, and that is that most congregations do not know what the Bibles teaches.

Most do not care because even if they know that they are hearing misinformation, they think that they will be able to say to God in the Judgment, “it’s not my fault, it’s my pastors fault.” Good luck with that! God makes it clear that if you ever had the opportunity to hear the truth or read it for yourself, you will be held responsible.

If we will be honest, and many in every congregation, are not willing, then we have to admit that we are too lazy, too satisfied, too worldly, too trifling, to sit down and read the Bible and discern the truth. We have been trained to simply come to Church, sit and listen, and then go home and drink a beer, watch the superbowl, and take a nap.

We do not see any benefit in applying ourselves to knock, ask, and seek the truth that is easily available to all of us. Many really believe that if they go to church every time the doors open that is sufficient to save us. If you believe that give me a call, I have some waterfront property in Arizona you will be interested in.

What is wrong with the church you may ask’ My answer is that there is nothing, that is wrong with the Church, but plenty is wrong with what we call the church today. We have taken the Word that God uses in the Bible, and made it point to certain buildings and congregations, that are everywhere; and abused it by not understanding what it means. The Greek word, Ekklesia (or Eccclesia, which ever you want to use) which was translated as church in our Bible, means a building; however, the building it refers to, is not these churches that we find scattered over our landscape.

The building that ekklesia refers to is that of the true church, that building that has as its corner stone, Jesus Christ, and is built with spiritual stones (those who are truly saved, born-from above, and obedient to Christ). Certainly, there are those who have been saved by Grace that make up a part of many of the congregations that we see in the visible churches of our day, but if Jesus Christ comes back this next Sunday, most congregations won’t know it.

I want you to understand that I am not against the visible church; but I am against what we have allowed, and even enabled it to become. Jesus tells us that He will build His church, and nobody can walk any aisle, and shake any preachers hand, and be saved. Nevertheless, that is what we hold up as salvation in our day. There is not a requirement to be Called, Justified, and Glorified, which is what God does whenever He saves any sinner. There is no mention often in the churches membership requirements for any of that. Listen to me now’.and you read your Bible and see if you won’t agree, that there is only One mediator between God and man and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

No man, woman or child will ever be saved and inherit heaven without faith in Christ Jesus. The Bible states that this way, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44). God sent His Son who was the light of the world to the earth to substitute Him for sinners who, without Him would have to spend eternity in a Hell where they would be tormented by darkness, and the knowledge that they had a chance to miss hell, but they refused God’s free gift of eternal life in heaven. John 1:1-17; John 3:3,5,16-21; Ephesians 2:1-10). We have allowed ourselves to believe that salvation is something that we decide to either accept or reject; however, Salvation belongs to God, and only those who are chosen, are called by God, and those who are called by God will be saved. (Romans 8:28-30).

You may correctly ask, who I am to judge the visible church’ My answer is that I am not judging the visible church, God is the Judge and He Will Judge it according to His Word, the Bible. I have said nothing that I have not proven by Scripture. The Bible will be the Book that will be used in God’s judgment, and according to the Bible, there is only one way to be saved, and that is to be called out of the world’s sin, into eternal life which comes only when God adopts us into His own family. God’s Family has a church and that consists of all those who have been called, justified, glorified by God, these are Saints who live every day, walking in the Spirit and living like Jesus. Saints are what true salvation produces, and Saints not only know the Word of God, they obey it. (Romans 1:7; John 14:21-24).

The Sermon on the Mount was God, through His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, calling the religious establishment and warning them that they were on the wrong road, heading to hell instead of heaven, and reminding them that they must turn from sin and self, to obedience to the perfect will of God. That is the message for the visible church in our day! Some who read this message will jump at the chance to win the game by arguing that their church is different, however that is an argument that must be won with God ‘. Not me. Church members have become so shallow that they believe if a preacher opens his Bible and reads a scripture, that he is a God called man. I might believe that if I had not seen it happen over and over that a man opens and reads a certain scripture and then takes it out of context to present a pretext which guts the scripture he just read. Understand now, I am not accusing them of being willfully deceitful, what I am saying is that they sometimes sand-bag the truth in order to maintain a strained unity among the congregation.

You may think that I am a lone wolf attempting to give the visible church a black-eye, but that is far from the truth. My prayer is that the visible church will wake up and stand up, stand up for Jesus. It may interest some to know that shortly after the Cross of Christ, that preachers began to warn people about error and false Prophets. (1st Timothy 6:20-21; Galatians 1:6-10; 2nd Corinthians 2:15-17; 2nd Corinthians 11:13-15; 2nd Thessalonians 2:1-12; 1st Timothy 1:11; 1st Timothy 4:1-11; 2nd Timothy 4:1-5; 2nd Peter 2:1-3). God tells us that we, who are truly saved, will be engaged in a war, a spiritual war, but never the less, a war. A war between good and evil, sin and sainthood. (1st Timothy 1:18-20; 2nd Corinthians 10:4-6.).

Jesus Christ, God in the flesh spoke to us in the Gospel of Matthew and warned us that the way to eternal life in heaven was a difficult way, it is not as easy as falling off of a log, or fulfilling some formula that allows men to save themselves. In Matthew Chapter Seven and verse 13-14, Jesus tells us that there are two gates, and we must go in at the narrow gate, there are two roads or ways, and we must take the narrow path or difficult path. There are two destinations heaven and hell, the way to heaven is a narrow way but the road to hell is broad and easy. Which gate have you been through, was it narrow or wide’ Interestingly, in that same Chapter of Matthew 7, in the very next verse, Christ warns us to, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”

These false prophets look like us, talk like us, even know some of the Bible like a few of us, but they are not called men of God. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, it is time we woke up from our slumber and began to study and meditate and understand the Word of God and the God of the Word. Christ could come back at any time and there will not be any more chances, no try overs, no forgiveness, just the Wrath of Jesus Christ against those who are unsaved and I mean unsaved on God’s terms.

Think about this’. until next time, this is brobob. Note: Never let it be said that brobob does not like the visible Church of our day, however, we as Christians are people of the Book (Bible) and we know the truth and stand for the truth. What I want to stress is that over the decades that the visible church has been in existence, it has been loaded with sinful thoughts, actions, people to the point that if cannot do its job of teaching truth. In fact, it has even in many cases set aside personal study of God’s’ Word.

We have in many cases simply become social clubs, meeting places where we come and go and never learn the truth about the most important thing in our world and that is the salvation of souls. Stop and think, and ask yourself how many people have you pointed to the Cross of Christ in the last year’ How many people have you taught to obey all that God has commanded’ What have you done to further the knowledge of God to people in need’

Until next time,

may God bless and keep you

This is Bro. Bob