OK. Here we are. Matthew for Beginners,
this is lesson number four and what we're going to do in lesson number four
is we're going to begin looking at discourse number one in Matthew and that
would be from chapter five verse 1 to chapter 7 verse 29. Now I hope that
you're kind of getting used to our approach of study for the Gospel of
Matthew, because it's not your usual typical Bible class, you come in, you get
some information, you go home, you come back the next week, you get some more
information. This is a little more interactive as far as a Bible class is
concerned. You're supposed to read ahead of time the section that I assign and
then on class day I provide you with the headings of that section so you can
compare with the notes that you've already made based on your reading, in
other words, you read ahead and what you've read I'm going to comment on in
today's class. Alright, the class that we're having, then in the class portion
I'm going to provide commentary and analysis of the text so that you can
kind of compare what I'm talking about to perhaps some of the things you may
have noted. Again, you don't have to do that, it's just one way of study, if you
wish to follow along in this class. So today we're going to look
at discourse number one which includes the Sermon on the Mount.
Discourse, remember, we said... Narrative, narrative is Jesus went here,
He did that, He saw that person, He went over here, He did this miracle, that's
narrative. Discourse is Jesus said and Jesus discussed and Jesus answered, discourse.
So in Matthew as we said at the very beginning, it's just a series
of a narrative followed by a discourse followed by a narrative followed by
another discourse and so on and so forth; a very well-organized gospel. So we're in discourse number one beginning in
Matthew five and we'll read verse one and two. It says, "When Jesus saw the crowds,
He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.
He opened His mouth and began to teach them saying," So we'll just stop there,
because that sets the scene for the discourse that's about to follow. So the
Sermon on the Mount is a collection of topics that Jesus addressed at this
occasion and it is mentioned elsewhere. In Luke chapter 6 verse 17, Luke also
mentions the Sermon on the Mount. The setting is a hillside overlooking the
Sea of Galilee. I've been there. I've been to that place. They know where the...
believe it or not, they know where the the place is because it is close to
Capernaum and so there's not many places where there's a mount there
where so many people could gather. Today there's a chapel at that place
and you can see the hillside where this took place, also near the city, or
not a city, but the village of Capernaum. And Capernaum was where both Jesus and
Peter, both of them lived in that town as adults. Matthew says that after Jesus
finished this sermon and teaching, He came down and after healing several
people in the crowd, He went straight to Peter's house and he records that Jesus
healed Peter's mother-in-law who was ill and when she was healed she got up and
made a meal and served them, so on and so forth, just the normal
activities that people do. They are hungry, they need to eat after a
long day. The sermon itself has five major subjects. Five major subjects in
the Sermon on the Mount. One, the Beatitudes, chapter five verses one to
sixteen. Two, the law, Jesus talks about the law. Number three, He talks about
relationships with God; our relationship with God, Chapter 6:1-34.
Four, our relationship with other people, Matthew 7:1-12 and then the way of life or the way into life or the way
to get to life in chapter 7:13 to 29. So in our lesson tonight or today,
I'm going to comment on these five areas. Again, I don't have time to read all of
these scriptures and especially this part, pretty familiar to us,
we've read this a lot, Sermon on the Mount, so I'm just going to talk about
the Beatitudes, the law, what did He say, what was the point of all of this, OK?
So we're going to start with the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-16. The term
"Beatitudes" does not appear actually in the New Testament as such, it is actually
a Latin translation from the Latin word "beatitudo" which means
to be blessed or to make happy or to be joyful. OK. There are nine "Beatitudes"
that are listed and they all begin the same way; they make a promise at the
beginning, they all deal with spiritual matters and here's the important part,
the Beatitudes all talk about, if you wish, or deal or directed to people who
are in the kingdom of God, that's very important, OK? He's not talking in the
Beatitudes and even in the Sermon on the Mount, He is not talking to people who
are not believers, He's talking to people who are believers, it's directed towards
believers, OK? Because it makes no sense to people who are not
believers, the things that He says. So this Beatitudes was a style of
teaching actually that the rabbis used. They would introduce a lesson with a
question or some sort of paradox to pique interest, to get people to
pay attention. And so the Beatitudes were contradictions actually which
challenge the preconceived notions of life and philosophy. For example,
those who are poor in spirit, they're going to get the riches of
heaven, the contrast. Those who mourn, well those are the ones who are
comforted. The gentle are those that will gain the earth. Well that's a
contradiction isn't it? Because in life that we see, it's not the gentle that
gain the earth, it's the warriors that gain the earth, the ones with the big
armies, they're the one that win battles and that gain the
earth, but Jesus says, "Ah, no. In the kingdom of God it's the
gentle that inherit the earth. The thirsty remain or will be satisfied.
You know how we say the poor get poorer and the rich get richer? That's how stuff
works in the world, but that's not how stuff works in the kingdom of God and that's
what Jesus is getting at here in these Beatitudes. Now in the beatitude Jesus
gives insight into the spiritual reality that operates in the kingdom of heaven.
So you have to when you're reading the Beatitudes you have to understand these
are spiritual principles in which we in the kingdom of heaven operate, we operate
under these types of principles. For example, those who bear persecution
in the name of Christ rejoice. Well that doesn't make any sense. If
somebody's beating you up, if somebody's taking your property, if someone's
oppressing you, that's not a cause for rejoicing in the world is it?
No.You call out for help or you fight back, but Jesus says but for people in
the kingdom, when they're oppressed, when they're belittled, when they're attacked
because of their faith, because of Christ, it causes exactly the reverse, it causes
them to rejoice. Again, not a normal reaction for those who are persecuted,
usually the reaction when you're persecuted is fear and anger, the desire
for revenge, but for those in the kingdom of heaven, the spiritual laws work in
such a way that those who suffer for Christ rejoice. Now it doesn't
mean they enjoy the suffering, we're not masochists, we're not
looking for trouble, we're not seeking to be oppressed, we're not looking for
someone to crush us. But Jesus is saying when you suffer difficulty and
you know that you're suffering it simply because of who you are as a Christian,
one of the things that happens inside of you is that you have a sense of peace,
you have a sense of joy, knowing that I have actually done something for the
Lord, I have actually given or suffered something for Christ, it's a genuine
thing that I'm going through and that gives rise to a certain sense of joy and
happiness because of what we are about to do and because God has allowed us to
suffer a certain measure on His behalf. So disciples in the kingdom who are
influenced by these types of principles are distinctive, that's
the point He's making. They're like salt. They're like salt that
gives flavor to something or light to the eye which makes things distinctive.
So the point of the Beatitudes is the distinctiveness of the disciples who
rejoice when they're persecuted and who do these things, so on and so forth.
The distinction of the disciples characterized by the principles set
forth in the Beatitudes, this is what makes them stand apart from others and
what characterizes the kingdom like the saltiness of salt or the brightness of
bright and light. This distinctiveness He says ultimately perceived in good lives
and good works not only characterizes the kingdom, but it also reveals the true
nature of God to the fallen world. What is God like? The world wants
to know. Well, God is like the Christian Church,
that's what God is like. The only way that people can have a
vision or an insight into the true God is by being exposed to true disciples of
that God, otherwise they can't see Him right? Can't see God, spiritual being. So
the point is this... In the Beatitudes we see man as he is in the regenerated
state. You're baptized, you're born again, you come out of the water,
you're born again, you're regenerated, revivified, OK? Well the Beatitudes, living
according to the principles of the Beatitudes, that's what the regenerated
life is like, not as I was in my lost state without Christ, but as I am now
born again in Jesus. The Beatitudes, a kind of a caricature of what that new
status is like, what that regenerated life is supposed to look like, that's
what those things are about. OK, so a little bit of commentary about the
Beatitudes. Hopefully if you've read them that fills in some of the blanks. Alright, let's move on. Next He talks about the law, chapter 5 verses 17 to 48.
Remember what I said, the Sermon on the Mount has these five
topics that He talks about. So the second topic is the law and the
key verse is in chapter 5 verse 20 and Jesus says, again He's talking to people
who were in the kingdom now, He says, "For I say to you that unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not
enter the kingdom of heaven." So this key verse in the discourse, in this discourse,
is verse 20 that I've just read and it reveals that the higher righteousness
of the disciples is the quality that distinguishes them and makes
them useful in the kingdom. How are we useful in the kingdom? We're
useful because our righteousness is a cut above others righteousness.
Some people say, "oh, you people think you're so good." We don't think we're so
good, we're trying to be good. There's a difference. You think you're
perfect? No, but I'm trying to be. I'm shooting for it, it's a very clear target
that I have. Well everybody makes mistakes. Yes, everybody does make mistakes, but you
know what? I'm trying to cut down on my mistakes. I'm doing it consciously.
I'm consciously shooting for the perfection that I see in Christ. I
know I can't make it, but I'm shooting for it. I know what I'm aiming at. So the
section from chapter 5, in chapter 5 17 to 48, in this section Jesus makes a
series of comparisons putting forth what they had been taught about the law by
their teachers, because throughout this passage Jesus always says "it
has been said" and then He says something and then He says "but I say to you." So
what He's comparing He's saying "OK, it has been said, your teachers, your rabbis,
they've taught you this about the law of God. OK, well here's what I'm teaching
you about the law of God," and He kind of lays one next to the other throughout
this entire passage, OK? So the teachings that He puts down are the
essence and the spirit of the law given by the one who originally gave the law
to Moses and that's Jesus himself and we know that in 1st Corinthians chapter 10
verse 14. And you ask why did He do this? He was doing this because the Jews
had a warped sense of what the law actually meant and so what He was trying
to do was to clarify for them what the law of God really meant.
So Jesus comments on five areas of teaching in the law that they had
received from their teachers and He compares it with the true essence of
that teaching given to Him or given to them by Him, after all who's the one that
gave the law? Well, God. And who is God? Jesus Christ. So Jesus is saying "so who
you going to believe about what the law really means here, your teachers over
here or you going to believe Me who actually gave you the law?" OK,
so the five areas that He talks about in the law. First area is murder. Murder is
the unjustified taking of life, the unjustified taking of human life was
wrong, so Jesus says to them "it has been said," in other words, you've been taught
"thou shalt not murder," you shall not take an unjustified life, but then Jesus says
but I tell you that the essence or the spirit of this command is the following:
He pegs the crime at the beginning of anger and resentment towards other
people and that keeping the law meant a conscious effort at reconciliation, not
just avoiding murder. So the Jews thought, many of them, they thought well I keep
the law, I obey the law, because I never have actually murdered somebody, so I'm
good on that commandment and Jesus said "Oh you think you're good? You think
you're obeying? Here let me show you what the commandment really is about. The commandment is really about if you have anger in your heart towards someone,
if you have resentment in your heart toward someone and you're hanging on to
that, you've already killed them, you're already guilty." So on a
continuum, they always put the point of disobedience at the very
end, the Jews did, murder, and Jesus says "no, no, no, let's take the point and let's
bring it all the way back here, here's the point of guilt: anger in your heart,
you call your brother a fool? OK, you're already guilty, you broke that command.
You're keeping resentment in your heart? You broke that command." OK? Alright, so
then He goes on, so you see that? I'm not going to repeat this over and over
again, but this is what He does over and over again in this section.
Next He talks about adultery. Now they had been taught that adultery
was, in their terms, if a Jew had sex, if a married Jew had sex with the legitimate
wife of another Jew, that was adultery. If the woman was a slave woman, not so much.
If she was a single woman, "nah, that's that's good." And if you desired this
other woman over here and the model that you happen to have is getting a little
old and you wanted to get a new model, so long as you did things legally,
you wrote out a bill of divorcement and you gave it to her and said "OK, I
divorce you, goodbye," so long as you did things legally and then you took another
woman to yourself you were good. So their idea was I've obeyed "thou shalt not
commit adultery," I've never committed adultery, in other words, I have never
slept with my Jewish brother's wife even though I may have slept with the slave
girl or a temple prostitute or a single woman or something, that doesn't count,
that does not count as adultery. So Jesus said "but
you've been taught this, let Me show you where the guilt happens.
If you lust after a woman in your heart, you're guilty. You've done it. You've
broke that command. He always pegs it at the very beginning of sin. And so the
desire to keep that commandment is what? Just to avoid the ugly end part? No,
He says keeping that commandment is the consistent effort to have a pure heart.
Are you perfect? Well, no of course not. Do you ever lust? Well sure, who doesn't.
So what do I do? I continue to make an effort to have a pure heart. He goes on.
Vows. They learned a complex manner of making selective vows which they felt
they could break when inconvenient. So long as I don't break a certain vow
according to the law, in other words, they would do things like they were obliged
to care for their parents, to support their elderly, no welfare in
those days or anything like that, so they were obliged to take care of their
parents financially so what many of them would do is they would pledge money to
the temple, the money that they would have used to care for their parents and
then they would say, "you know I'd really like to be able to help out with mom and dad
but you know I've been a pledge, corban. I've made a pledge to the temple," and
then when mom and dad finally passed away, would they would relinquish
the corban and take the money back. I haven't broken a vow. I've kept the law.
I've played by the rules. So what does Jesus say? Jesus reveals that vows are
not even necessary when someone has an honest heart. An honest heart. The law of
God requires us to have an honest heart. Number four, justice. Their system relied
on the law as a tool many times for restitution and many times a cover for
revenge. You've heard... "You have heard that it
was said," Jesus says, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." The idea behind the
eye for an eye and tooth for tooth was not literally you rip out somebody's eye,
you pull out somebody's tooth, it was fairness. If you borrowed an animal from
your neighbor to plow and somehow through your carelessness or whatever
that animal died, then you had to replace that animal for your neighbor plus some
compensation. The eye for an eye idea was that if the animal died, for example, in
your keeping, your neighbor wasn't allowed to come over and
take over your house and all of your cattle. An eye for an eye. You lost the
one animal, you pay back an animal and some compensation. An eye for an eye, but the Jews, they, many of them were using this as an excuse for revenge against one another,
justified revenge, you insulted me, I go in and burn you down. Whoa, an eye for an
eye, the law says an eye for an eye. Jesus taught them that the higher
principle of the law wasn't equal, financially equal restitution, He
taught them that the higher principle of the law was mercy, not simply exacting
justice or revenge. So the law of justice is the higher road of mercy. God will
honor a merciful man and a merciful man is always just, is he not? Is she not?
And then He talks about nationalism. They used to use the law to build a kind
of a wall around themselves to keep others out. So their goodness and their
kindness was meant only for their Jewish brothers, many a times only for the
Jewish brothers in their village or only the Jewish brothers in their
tribe. And they used the idea of the law that forbade them to mix with Gentiles,
they used it as a cover to keep others out, and in His teaching, Jesus
showed them that one purpose of the law was to reveal God's goodness to men, that
to be like God meant justice and mercy and
especially justice to strangers, justice to the alien. Here in this
country and I don't want to go off on a political tangent here, but
the passage begs the question, it was one of the big political
problems you know, seal up the border and deport to all the illegal aliens and so on and so forth and a lot of times the argument that that some people make for just granting amnesty for everybody, just
let everybody in, is well if you're a Christian, if you're a merciful, doesn't
the Bible say you need to be merciful? Well yes it does, but when
the Bible is talking about aliens it isn't talking about mercy, it talks
about justice, it talks about not taking advantage of aliens. In the Bible what
they would do is they would enslave them, they would enslave foreigners and so
the teaching was that mercy and love required the Jew to show justice to
those who were aliens. And I think if we were thinking in those terms,
"what is just for those who are here?" There's a way, there's a
middle way, that satisfies the requirement of the law, but also
satisfies the requirement of mercy, a combination of the two and
this is what the Scriptures are teaching, but anyways. Jesus is saying to
these people, "you people are using the law to justify your bad behavior and I
want to show you what the true meaning of the law is." The other thing too is
that they were using their idea of what the law was to justify them[selves] before God. I
once had a discussion with a Jewish woman once and we were just talking
about things and talking about religion and she said to me, she says, "I don't need
anybody. I don't need anybody to die to pay for my sins." I said, "Really?" and she
said, "Yes." I said, "Well, why is that?" She says, "Because I keep the law." I said, "What?"
She said, "I keep the law. I obey the law of Moses." "Really?"
So she said, "So therefore, I don't need somebody to die for my sins, I have
obeyed the law." And I was amazed, of course this was many years ago, I was
amazed that in the 20th century after 2,000 years of Christianity that
somebody could still have the idea that they kept the law, and yet she wasn't
joking, and that was the attitude that Jesus was facing at the time. These
people had watered down the law to the point where they actually thought they
were keeping it and in doing so that they were justified before God and they
didn't need a Savior and so Jesus comes along basically in the Sermon on the
Mount He says, "you think you're keeping the law? Let me show you what the law
really demands." Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. So if you're sitting there and you're
listening to what He's saying all of a sudden you start to think, "Hmmm. Maybe I'm
not keeping the law after all. Maybe I might need a Savior. Maybe I might need
somebody to help me with this." That was the point of it. The big danger that we
do, we take what Jesus is saying here and we make that into a new law. We make it
10 times harder for ourselves. We think that what He's teaching here is
a new law that we have to keep and if we don't keep that new law, we're
lost. Well, no. Jesus is doing exactly the opposite, He's trying to show people that
we don't have the ability to keep the law because it is so demanding. Who can
go around and never have an evil thought? What person can do a thing like that?
What person cannot be angry at times at someone else and want revenge or wants...?
Who can do such a thing? Nobody! And that's what He was trying to do, He
was trying to kind of soften them up and say "you people think you are keeping the
law, you're not keeping the law, you have no way to keep the law. The law is way
too difficult, way too demanding for you to keep it, there's got to be another way"
and hopefully when people see there's got to be another way they start
thinking what other way? Well then Jesus comes along and said "OK, I'm the way."
When He says, "I'm the way," that's the answer to this question, "I'm
the way to be right and to be perfect, not through perfect obedience, you can be
right with God through faith and if you believe in Jesus, what Jesus gives you, He
gives it to you is the obedience of the perfect law, He imposed it on you. It's as
if you're given OK, it's as if you have obeyed the law according to how Jesus
has explained it to you. And how do you get that status? You don't get it by
effort, you get it because it's given to you. Why? Because you believe in Christ,
that's why. Alright, let's move on. Next He talks about relationships with God Relationship with with God, chapter 6
verses 1 to 34. So He teaches them how to have a proper relationship with God in
heaven. First of all He says practice your goodness toward God with the view
of pleasing God and not men. Practice your goodness toward God with the view
of pleasing God not men, in other words, the things that I do I do to please God.
Someone told me the other day, "I have a hard job. Sometimes my bosses are very
demanding so on and so forth. I feel a little resentful. I feel I'm not
appreciated, whatever, and then it dawns on me that the work that I do, whatever
the work it is, if I'm doing it with the view that I'm doing it for God,
'Lord I'm doing this for You, I'm whatever, building something,
correcting something, managing something, I'm doing it for You, Lord. Now I have to
answer to this human boss, this human supervisor, but I'm doing it for you.'" And
Jesus is explaining this is how you begin to build a relationship with God.
It's not all sitting in a dark, quiet place meditating, that's good, meditation
is good, but it's not all of that, because most of us have to put in some hours in
the day to earn a living. How does that work that we do to earn a living, how
does that translate into building a relationship with God? Well, the work I do,
this is for You, Lord. Secondly, He says pray to God in order to communicate with
Him, not to impress others with your piety, and of course now He's talking to
the Jews. Prayer for them had become like a competition, like a spectator sport,
who could pray the longest, who had the most eloquent words, and so on and so
forth, the biggest crowd. So He's saying, "hey pray to God in order to
communicate with Him, not to impress others with your piety. God knows who you
are," and then He in this particular... that's not all there is to say about prayer
obviously, but in this particular instance this is what He says. Finally,
trust in God to provide for all your physical and spiritual needs, verse 19-34, you know that passage one day at a time and God knows what you need before you ask and so on, that's in this passage
here, basically trust in God. Boy, it's it's like one of the hardest lessons in
Christianity to learn. It's like learning how to...when you're playing
tennis, when I tried to learn how to play tennis there's a way
to serve the ball and it's so counter-intuitive you have to hold the
racquet kind of crooked and you have to... or golf or any sport
always seems counter-intuitive, well this also seems
counter-intuitive. We're always thinking ahead and we're always trying to plan
ahead and we're saying God I really trust you if you could just put
like twenty-five thousand in my account, a little buffer, a little cushion, you
know my faith would be so strong if I had a little cushion and God says "OK,
I'll give you a cushion, one day at a time," and we fail to believe, we fail to take Him at His word. He says to us
I'm going to give you life, but I'm only going to dole it out one day at a time
and every day that I give you in that day I'm going to provide what you need
for that day and what we do is we take what He gives us for that day, spiritual
and emotional energy, and we invest that spiritual and emotional energy and we
invest it in worrying about tomorrow. What's going to happen? Am I going to be
OK? Am I going to be safe? Blah. Blah. Blah. And so what happens? Well, what
we had for today we've invested it into tomorrow, we don't have anything left for
today and we get into this vicious circle. I'm telling you brothers and sisters if we could learn this lesson to simply
live one day at a time and recognize that God will provide for today, our
Christian life will be so much richer. So He encourages them in understanding the
nature of the kingdom, the Beatitudes, the quality of life that they should strive
for as salt and light of the earth, that is the essence of the law, and how He
guides them into the practical ways of how to have a meaningful
relationship with God; practice goodness, pray to God, and trust
in Him a day at a time. Number four, got to move quickly now. Relationship with
other people, chapter seven verse 1 to 12. Well the elements of a proper
relationship with God are followed by the key idea to a blessed relationship
between people in the kingdom and that is in verse 12. "In everything,
therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for
this is the Law and the Prophets." And so upon this principle is based all the
teaching of the Law and Prophets on how we must treat each other in order to
bless ourselves and to bless God. Boy, we teach this to our kids, right?
Older sister's slapping younger brother around and what do we say to older
sister who's three or five? You wouldn't want him to do that to you, or
older sister bites younger brother. What do you do? You bite older sister. Did you
like that? Was that enjoyable? Well if you don't want... It's
that lesson is so hard to knock in, but and then on the other hand, think about
this, while I'm looking around, I think (well except you, young ladies you're not
married yet), but all of us who have children right, what is the most
joyful moment with your children or your grandchildren? It's to see one of your
children genuinely helping another one of your children, right? I mean I could
watch that all day long, one of my children...You know, one comes in
brokenhearted, something's wrong, they're discouraged and to see the other child
go to them and put their arm around them, say "hey buddy, it's okay. We're going to do it.
What do you need? I'm going to help you." You're going "oh Lord, thank you!
It's so good." Can you imagine how God feels? He has to observe His creation
killing each other and murdering each other, violating each other; so the last
thing you want to see in the kingdom is people doing that to each other and so
"the golden rule" right? Relationships with other people are based on this thing; the
way you want to be treated is how you ought to be treating other people. Then
the last thing that He talks about is the way of life. Having set forth the
parameters of the kingdom and its inner workings Jesus explains the way to enter
into the relationship with the Father in the kingdom of heaven. Number one, enter
by the narrow gate of Christ. Now later on at His crucifixion the disciples are
going to understand just how narrow and just how difficult this gate
is. Why do you say that? Well the fact that Jesus is the only gate and that
faith is the only way, that's why it's narrow. Why is it narrow? Because
intuitively we'd like everybody to make it. We don't want to judge somebody else.
We hate to say that person may not make it, because why? Because they don't
believe in Jesus Christ. That's why it's the narrow way, there's only one way to
go and not everybody is going in that way and the hard part is sometimes some
of the people not going in that way, they're people we love. I know people who
have refused to be baptized knowing that this is necessary for their salvation
simply because someone they love has not been baptized and their thought is "well
if I do it, somehow I'm condemning that person." I know it's a weird way of
thinking, but that's why... that's why it's so narrow, there's so
many obstacles. It's not just moral obstacles, emotional obstacles. I say to
people, "hey, if that person really loved you, wouldn't they want you to do what is
right? You know my dad, he died long before I ever became a Christian. Even if
I wanted to I could never tell him what I know now, but I mean you know... My only
comfort is I know that God is just and I know when God will judge my father and
my grandfather, my aunt, and my whatever, the people that I love, I am
absolutely sure that His judgment will be correct and even I will say, "Lord that
is correct, what you have done is right and good," and it's better that God judge
the people I love than I judge the people I love because His judgment will
be correct, that's the confidence I have. Let me just finish up real quick here. He
says also beware of false prophets who produce neither the teachings
nor the fruit of the kingdom of God. That's how you know them; neither
the fruit nor the teachings. The true prophets have the fruit and the
teaching. So I tell people judge Christianity or judge any other religion
by its fruit, what does it produce? So for 20 centuries look at what Christianity
has produced and I guarantee you there's no religion that even comes close to
producing the good fruits that it has produced. And then finally, don't just
hear, do! This is what Jesus says. Act upon them in order to enter in.
He says many are called, few are chosen. Many are called, but few are chosen. Many
here, and in those days many heard all of what He said that day and they were
amazed, but only a few entered through the narrow gate of the cross
and faith, only a few. You know in Acts at the beginning, chapter 1, how
many people are in the upper room still hanging in? A hundred and twenty. After
three years and miracles there's like a hundred and twenty? That's it. So the
gate has always been very narrow. Don't feel discouraged if you're in the
minority. Brothers and sisters we're always going to be in the minority. How
do I know? Jesus said so. We're always going to be in the minority. OK, so
that's some comments on what you've read. The assignment of course, read narrative
number two which would be chapter eight verse 1 to 9:34. Alright.
Thanks for your attention I appreciate. We went a
little long tonight.
