 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" Many people say they "know God," but the verse above implies that God will say He never knew them. This is a scary verse for a new Christian. For any Christian, really, who might be struggling with their faith. So over my next three posts, I'd like to look at them in context.
This verse is part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 7. The entire chapter is about how we should live our lives. Not judging others, approaching God with our concerns (ask, seek and knock), how we should walk with God, who we should not listen to, and how to build our faith on a firm foundation are all in this chapter. But today, we are going to concentrate on the verses above. We will start with the narrow gate.
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 Photo Credit: Kevin Carden, Creation Swap Did you ever notice what Jesus filled up on before he went into the wilderness for forty days? For that matter, did you notice why he went into the wilderness? In Luke 4:1 we get the answers to both of these questions:
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit before he went into the wilderness and it was this same Holy Spirit who then led him into the wilderness. How interesting, don’t you think? Without the Holy Spirit, he would have succumbed to Satan’s temptations. Yet without the Holy Spirit, he would not have felt compelled to go into the wilderness in the first place. 
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
In June I began an impromptu study on some verses on the Sermon on the Mount. After that study I decided I would go to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and look at the whole thing from start to finish. Today, we look at the final words in that sermon, and how appropriate they are too.
This sermon of Jesus' was famous because from it we learn how to live as Jesus did. He covered everything - blessings, the Law (and how he fulfilled it), murder, adultery, marriage, oath-taking, going the extra mile for someone, loving our enemies, how to pray, praying for our enemies, fasting, money, worry, judging others, taking the narrow path and more. His ideas were, at the time, extraordinary and unique. They still are. Can you imagine any government, anywhere who, instead of going to war, would instead sit down and pray for their enemies? What a world we would live in if we all followed Jesus'. May His Kingdom come! He finishes his sermon by emphasizing how important His words are. By living them and applying them to our lives, we are building a firm foundation, founded on the rock Himself - Jesus Christ. When the storms of life come our way, we will not fall because our faith, hope and trust is built on a firm foundation - Jesus. But the foolish man has not built his faith on the Rock. Sadly, the church at large has lost its firm foundation. I see it time and time again, where Pastors encourage the members of their congregations to study books instead of the Bible. Resulting in members getting all their "wisdom" from man rather than from the Word of God. Books like the Circle Maker for instance. This book has deceived many well-meaning Christians into believing that God has given them a new way to pray. He has not. A careful examination of this book reveals that everything it is based on is not even found in the Bible. And yet, whole congregations are reading this book.
Be wise therefore, and build a firm foundation on Jesus Christ and the Word of God. A Bible study should be based on the Bible and nothing more. Taking you through Scripture, precept by precept. It should not be based on new ideas or "fads". This is where the church is losing its firm footing, by placing more emphasis on "book-studies" than Bible studies. When a new "fad" book appears that everyone is "raving" about - beware! And compare it against Scripture. If it is built on a firm foundation of Scripture then you will be in the Word more than you will be reading that book. It will merely be a guide to your Bible studies, nothing more. Keep standing on the Word of God and you will build for yourself a firm foundation in life.
“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Continuing on with a look at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I want to take a closer look at oath taking and the implications it might have for Christians in the world today. Are we for example, forbidden from swearing on a Bible in court?
Let us first look at the history Jesus is talking about here. In Exodus 20:7 we find this verse: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. So what does it mean to take the Lord's name in vain? And what does that have to do with swearing an oath? The word for "vain" in Hebrew is shav' and it means emptiness, vanity, falsehood, lying or worthlessness (of conduct). So "taking the Lord's name in vain" was to use it in a false, empty way. Many have taken this to mean we shouldn't curse using God's name and so we shouldn't, because it is using God's name in a profane way. Which we find in Leviticus 19:12 and is also something we should not do. And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. So we have two verses that warn us about using the Lord's name in a false or profane manner (in vain). How does this relate to what Jesus was talking about in regards to oath taking? Deuteronomy 23:21 gives us an idea: When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. The word "vow" comes from the Hebrew word neder and means to promise or swear to do something. In this case making a vow to God and not following through is considered a sin. Each of these verses shows us that using God's name when taking an oath, as a way to show everyone your statements are true is essentially using it in a false, empty and profane way. In Old Testament times oaths taken in the name of the Lord were looked upon as binding, and if you didn't follow through with that oath, or you were never meaning to follow through, it was strongly condemned by Jewish Law. However, by the time Jesus came on the scene, the Jews had developed an elaborate system of oath-taking, adding to what the Lord had commanded, which often formed the basis of actual lying. In other words, there were stages of truth and thus also of falsehood within the system of taking oaths. Jesus alluded to this in Matthew 23:16-22. According to Jesus, all such oath-taking was unnecessary if one were in the habit of just telling the truth. It's so simple! Tell the truth and you do not need to take an oath. Hence his command do not swear at all. Jesus said, "Do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black." Again, the Lord is driving home the point that no one should use God's name in vain this way, because He is Holy and the creator of everyone and everything and so should be respected - not used to extract the truth out of someone or extract a promise from someone. Instead, we are to let our yes, be yes and our no, be no. Why? Because as Jesus said, "Whatever is more than these is from the evil one." This is why Christians will not and should not swear on a Bible in a courtroom or swear using God's name in any way at all. Jesus is telling his disciples to speak the truth in such a way that their “yes” means yes and their “no” means no. To make an oath or vow that is binding and using God's name to cement that oath is, as Jesus says, "from the evil one."
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Read Matthew 5:27-32
Continuing on with Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, today we look at what Jesus had to say about adultery and some of the strange things he said in regards to that topic.
It is interesting to note that when you look up the word "adultery" in Strong's Concordance you get the standard definition of the word which is "to have unlawful intercourse with another's wife". But you also get this definition, "A Hebrew idiom, the word is used of those who at a woman's solicitation are drawn away to idolatry, i.e. to the eating of things sacrificed to idols." So what did Jesus say about adultery in general? Like he did with anger, he looks at the intent of the heart. As he did with anger when he equated it as being the same as murder, he says that when a man looks lustfully at a woman it is the same as committing adultery with her. The intent of the heart is what is looked at here and to drive that point home Jesus added the following: "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell" (Matthew 5:29-30, NKJV). So did Jesus literally mean that he wants us to pluck out and cut off our body parts? Not at all! Jesus is using the eye and the hand as a metaphor for how dangerous it is to give into the sin of adultery. What Jesus implies is that if your right eye is infected with disease then the logical thing to do would be to pluck it out. Likewise, if your hand is diseased and it is spreading the logical thing to do would be to cut it off. His point is not that one should literally pluck out their eye, or cut off their hand but that one should recognize that the source of lust comes from within the mind and heart of man, not from the physical organ itself. It is when we allow those lustful thoughts to fester that they grow and are acted on, thus resulting in sin. Jesus is teaching that men and women need to bring their lust under the control of the Holy Spirit. Jesus goes on to discuss divorce and how the sin of the heart (wanting what it can't or shouldn't have) results in adultery. In fact, he stressed that those who are married should never divorce unless the sin of sexual immorality (fornication) is present. I talked about the meaning behind fornication in another post and why it was so important to abstain from it. The point is clear, lust begins in the mind or flesh (as does all sin) and weaves its way into the heart, infecting the whole body. Once the mind begins to make excuses for why it's okay to sin, then it has no trouble convincing the heart of following through. God looks at the intent of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9-10), so if we do not bring our desires under the total control of the Holy Spirit then we are allowing sin to reign in our lives and ultimately saying to God, "I don't want to be obedient to you. You are no longer in charge of my life." And God will do as you ask and leave you to your own desires (Romans 1:24-25; Psalm 81:11-12). This is why we are told time and time again in scripture to run from sin because it destroys not just your relationship with God, but in the case of adultery, it destroys whole families. This is why Jesus put it so bluntly, because in the end it would be better to lose a limb than to see the destruction the sin of adultery can wreak.
Today is Monday Meditations – Please link your faith-based posts below.
Let's encourage one another. Don't forget to visit those who post. |
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