Live Sermon on the Mount? Explain it first!

new article tomorrow. in meantime:

The Sermon on the Mount is mistakenly thought of as personal instructions from Jesus Christ to follow. What it really represents is the Lord's imperatives for the future Believer’s walk in the kingdom to come when Christ rules as king from His throne in Jerusalem after His Second Coming.

In a nutshell, Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, set up the standards for this future literal kingdom on earth. His sermon message is about the law dwelling in a person’s heart; about the heart attitude and motives for what a person does.

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Preacher Tom Bruscha of Warren, MI, says that sometimes when you ask a stranger what they think a person must do to be saved, their go-to response is, “Keep the Sermon on the Mount.”

He reasons, “It’s funny, I’ve been studying the Bible for quite a while now (30-plus years) and one of the things I understand least is the Sermon on the Mount! And for someone who doesn’t study the Bible at all to think they’re going to live out what the Sermon on the Mount says, I’d like them to sit down and explain it to me first!

“What Christ’s doing is describing to Israel’s faithful remnant the life they are to learn about and even begin to practice back (in the time of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), but which ultimately God will produce in them in the future kingdom.

“When Jesus Christ teaches in the Beatitudes about the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, etc., He’s describing the character of the repentant, contrite person in Israel who will ultimately be blessed ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

“We’re not talking about the defiant or stiff-necked during Christ’s earthly ministry, but God had a faithful remnant that believed the promises of God and would become His nation. The Sadducees, in all their hypocrisy and pride, didn’t have the character to be a recipient of that kingdom.

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“When Christ says, ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,’ He takes adultery from simply the practice of it to just looking upon a woman to lust. That tells me that when Jesus Christ does set up His kingdom, there’s not going to be any pornography there. It will not be allowed.

“Now, if someone smuggles it, which they probably will, and tries to practice it and promote it, those people are going to be caught. There’s no freedom of artistic expression and all that other stuff in the kingdom. There’s going to be immediate judgment; there’s not going to be an appeal to the court. They’re going to be cast into the lake of fire.

“I get a kick out of verse 29 because it’s talking about looking upon a woman to lust and then it says ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.’ Doesn’t your right eye and left eye go together? Mine do.

“It’s like a woman goes by and, ‘Okay, I’m not supposed to lust,’ and the right eye just keeps going and you’re trying to keep the left eye from following! . . . of course, later on He’s going to talk about having your eye straight—a straight eye. In other words, keeping your eyes fixed where they’re supposed to be fixed.

“If you’ve got eyes going in two directions, they’re not straight. Your eyes are to be singly fixed on what God would have you to do, not wandering around. The hands, too, are not going to go off and work the works of wickedness, and that’s why there’s the reference to the right hand.

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“Under Paul’s ministry for today, we are to forgive one another ‘even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you,’ but under the kingdom program, those people have to forgive in order to be forgiven, and if they don’t forgive, judgment’s going to fall. They won’t be forgiven!

“. . . You can read in Hebrews how it talks about this new covenant and says, ‘The old is vanishing away and the new is coming.’ The Lord Jesus Christ’s blood is the provision for Israel to receive this blessing right here.

“It says in Hebrews 6 that they had a taste of ‘the world to come’ on the day of Pentecost. You need to realize that the day of Pentecost, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, was a taste of what the new covenant is going to do in Israel when they are all filled with the Holy Spirit to speak the Word of God and live the Word of God.

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“As Jeremiah 31:33 says about the future kingdom, ‘But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.’

“Instead of God writing in stone, like He did when He brought them out of Egypt, He’s going to take His laws and write them right into the heart of His people Israel. Now, if God writes something, isn’t that Scripture?

“God’s going to take His Word and implant it in their heart. You and I today, we are to study God’s Word and put it into our heart and then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live what those things say. That’s what being filled with the Holy Spirit is all about.

“But what God’s going to do for the nation of Israel in the kingdom is write the Bible right into their heart. When He says in Jeremiah 31, ‘For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them,’ doesn’t that remind you of what the Apostle Paul said his goal in life was—‘That I might know Him’?

“We can KNOW Him because the Scriptures given are the full revelation of Jesus Christ. God says about the future kingdom program, ‘Not only are they going to know Jesus Christ is their Messiah; they’re going to know their Messiah! They’re going to know my will; my ways.' ”

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Of this future kingdom, God says in Ezekiel 36, “And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
[24] For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
[25] Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
[26] A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

Bruscha explains, “The (nation Israel) was supposed to TEACH the Gentiles, not profane God’s name among the Gentiles. Their hearts were so callous and hard He calls it a stone and says, ‘I’m going to take away your stony heart and I’m going to give you a heart of flesh—one that’s tender; one that I’m going to have my Word written in.’ He’s going to give them a heart transplant!

“That’s when Israel’s finally going to be what God always wanted them to be, and when you read Isaiah 61, He says, ‘The Gentiles are going to call you the priests of the Lord; the ministers of God.’ They are going to ‘teach them all things whatsoever I command you.’

“So God is going to glorify the nation of Israel. In fact, Isaiah 60 says they’re going to be seen as glorified. I imagine that the Believer within Israel is going to glow as a resurrected saint; they’re going to be glorified with the glory of Jesus Christ, all the time teaching the Gentiles the things Israel finally has learned from Genesis to Revelation.

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“In the kingdom, the law of the Lord is going to come out of Jerusalem and the Gentiles are going to be ruled with 'a rod of iron' and taught God’s standard of the law. They’re going to have that influence on them so they won’t have to worry about Satan’s deception during that 1,000-year-period.

“Isaiah 14:16 tells you about how Satan will be taunted: [16] They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

“The human race is going to look at Satan down in that pit, which will be visible from the ground during that time, and say, ‘Is this the man?!’ and he’ll look so pathetic all chained up in there; a little, humble soul chained up in the bottomless pit.

“They look into the pit and say, ‘Is THIS the man that did all the things I read about in this Bible?!’ You see, during this 1,000 years, life for them is almost what it was in the Garden of Eden. The lion and lamb will eat together. They’re going to hear stories about how lions used to eat lambs.

“Some will think, ‘Oh, that’s gruesome—you mean, they had to run and hide because a lion would eat them?! Children had to worry about snakes biting them if they went and played in a field?! No, I don’t believe that! What do you mean, someone was 100 years old and they had a party for them because they lived so long?!’

“You see, they’re going to have to read the Bible and believe that life as we know it really did exist, and Satan really was evil and destructive and his lies hurt and destroyed.

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“At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan is loosed and when it’s all over . . . these people who are ruled with 'a rod of iron' have only known the reign of Jesus Christ and His rule over them, and they’ve never been tried to find out if they really do believe Jesus Christ is holy and true and righteous.

“Remember, they’re just as wicked as we are because they’re still in natural bodies and ‘desperately wicked and deceitful.’ Do they really believe Jesus Christ had to come to earth and die on a Cross to pay for their sins before He could reign in His glory? Do they believe that they cannot trust ‘in the arm of flesh’ and that they, too, must trust in the Lord?

“Satan will be loosed and he’ll argue things like, ‘I ruled this world in righteousness and peace; I wasn’t mean and ruling with a rod of iron. I didn’t hold you responsible. I’d let you have artistic expression; freedom of speech to cuss when you want.’

“And the world’s going to have to make a decision—do they want Jesus Christ to be their eternal king or would they rather follow Satan in his last, final rebellion? The Bible tells us multitudes will follow Satan.

“You see, everybody of all ages has to make a decision in their heart of what they’re going to do with Jesus Christ and the truth that’s written down in this Bible concerning our sinfulness and the provision He’s made through Jesus Christ because of God’s great love.”