Studies in the Sermon on the Mount - Part 2

INCARNATE WISDOM AND INDIVIDUAL REASON 59

in, we will not trust what we cannot see, we will not believe

what we cannot trace. Then it is all up with my dis-

cipleship. The great word of Jesus to His disciples is

" Abandon." When God has brought me into the relation

ship of a disciple, I have to venture on His word, to trust

entirely to Him and watch that when He brings me to

the venture, I take it.

Jesus sums up common sense carefulness in a person

indwelt by the Spirit of God as infidelity. After you have

received the Spirit and you try and put other things first

instead of God, you will find confusion. The Holy Spirit

presses through and says Where does God come in in

this new relationship ? in this mapped-out holiday? in

these new books you are buying ? The Holy Spirit always

presses that point until we learn to make concentration

on God the first consideration. It is not only wrong to

worry, it is real infidelity because it means I do not think

God can look after the little practical details of my life,

it is never anything else that worries us. Notice what

Jesus said would choke the word He puts in the devil ?

No, the cares of this world. That is how infidelity begins.

It is the little foxes that spoil the vines, the little worries

always. The great cure for infidelity is obedience to the

Spirit of God. Refuse to be swamped by the cares of

this world, cut out non-essentials and continually revise

your relationship to God and see that you are concentrated

absolutely on Him. The man who trusts Jesus in a definite

practical way is freer than anyone else to do his work in

the world, free from fret and worry, he can go with absolute

certainty into the daily life because the responsibility of

his life is off him and on God. Once I realise the revelation

Jesus gives that God is my Father and that I can never

think of anything He will forget, then worry is impossible.

60 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

(d) Concentrated Consecration, w. 33-34.

" Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness

and all these things shall be added unto you." " Seek ye

first the Kingdom of God " " But, supposing I do, what

about this thing and that ? who is going to look after me ?

I would like to obey God, but don t ask me to take a step

in the dark." We enthrone our common sense as almighty

God and treat Jesus Christ as a spiritual appendage to it.

Jesus Christ hits desperately hard at every one of the

institutions we bank all our faith in naturally. The

sense of property and of insurance is one of the greatest

hindrances to development in the spiritual life. You

cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus

Christ.

Our Lord teaches that the one great secret of the spiritual

life is concentration on God and His purposes. We talk

a lot about consecration, but it ends in sentimentalism

because there is nothing definite about it. Consecration

ought to mean my definite yielding of myself over as a

saved soul to Jesus and concentrating on that. There are

things in actual life that lead to perplexity, and I say I am

in a quandary and I don t know which way to take.

" Be renewed in the spirit of your mind," says Paul,

concentrate on God, so that you make out what is His will.

Concentration on God is of more value than personal holi

ness. God can do what He likes with the man who is aban

doned to Him. God saves us and sanctifies us, then He

expects us to concentrate on Him in every circumstance we

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

When in doubt, haul yourself up short and concentrate

on God, and every time you do, you will find that God

engineers your circumstances and opens the way perfectly

INCARNATE WISDOM AND INDIVIDUAL REASON 61

securely, the condition on your part is that you con

centrate on God.

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous

ness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." At

the bar of common sense Jesus Christ s statements are

those of a fool ; but bring them to the bar of faith and the

word of God, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit

that they are the words of God.

STUDY No. 4.

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT.

Matthew VII. 1-12,

(1) CHRISTIAN CHARACTERISTICS, w. 1-5.

(a) The Uncritical Temper, v. 1.

(b) The Undeviating Test. v. 2.

(c) The Undesirable Truth Teller, w. 3-5.

(2) CHRISTIAN CONSIDERATENESS. vv. 6-11.

(a) The Need to Discriminate, v. 6.

(b) The Notion of Divine Control, vv. 7-10.

(c) The Necessity for Discernment, v. 11.

(3) CHRISTIAN COMPREHENSIVENESS.

(a) The Positive Margin of Righteousness.

(b) The Proverbial Maxim of Reasonableness. > v. 12.

(c) The Principal Meaning of Revelation. J

" And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith

virtue, . . ." Peter is writing to those who are the

children of God, those who have been born from above,

and he says Add, give diligence, concentrate. " Add "

means all that character means. No man is born with

character ; we make our own character. When a man is

born from above he has a new disposition given to him,

not character; neither naturally nor supernaturally are

62

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 63

we born with character. Character is what a man makes

out of his disposition as it comes in contact with external

things. A man s character cannot be summed up by what

he does in spots, but only by what he is in the main trend

of his existence. When we describe a man we fix on the

exceptional things, but it is the steady trend of the man s

life that tells. Character is that which steadily prevails,

not something that occasionally manifests itself. What we

do steadily and persistently makes character, not what is

exceptional or spasmodic, that is something God mourns

over " thy goodness is as a morning cloud," He says.

In Matthew VII. Our Lord is dealing with the need to make

character.

(1) CHRISTIAN CHARACTERISTICS, vv. 1-5.

(a) The Uncritical Temper, v. 1.

" Judge not, that ye be not judged." Criticism is

part of the ordinary faculty of a man, he has a sense of

humour, i.e., a sense of proportion, and he sees where

things are wrong and pulls the other fellow to bits ; but

Jesus says, as a disciple, cultivate the uncritical temper.

In the spiritual domain, criticism is love gone sour. There

is no room for criticism in a wholesome spiritual life. The

critical faculty is an intellectual one, not a moral one. If

criticism becomes a habit it will destroy the moral energy

of the life and paralyse spiritual force. The only Person

who can criticise human beings is the Holy Spirit. No

human being dare criticise another human being, because

immediately he does he puts himself in a superior position

to the one he criticises. A critic must be removed from

what he criticises. Before a man can criticise a work of

art or piece of music, his information must be complete,

64 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

he must stand away from what he criticises as superior to

it. No human being can ever take that attitude to another

human being, if he does he puts himself in the wrong

position and grieves the Holy Spirit. If a man is con

tinually criticised, he becomes good for nothing, the effect

of the criticism is to knock all the gumption and power

out of him. Criticism is deadly in its effect because it

divides a man s powers and prevents his being a force for

anything. That is never the work of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost alone is in the true position of a critic,

He is able to show what is wrong without wounding and

hurting.

The temper of mind that makes me lynx-eyed to see

where others are wrong does not do them any good, because

the effect of my criticism is to paralyse their powers, which

proves that the criticism did not come from the Holy

Ghost. I have put myself into the position of a superior

person. Jesus says a disciple can never stand off from

another life and criticise it, therefore He advocates an

uncritical temper, " Judge not." Beware of anything that

puts you in the superior person s place.

The counsel of Jesus is to abstain from judging. This

sounds strange at first because the characteristic of the

Holy Spirit in a Christian is to reveal the things that are

wrong, but the strangeness is only on the surface. The

Holy Spirit does reveal what is wrong in others, but His

discernment is never for purposes of criticism, but for

purposes of intercession. When the Holy Spirit reveals

something of the nature of sin and unbelief in another,

His purpose is not to make me feel the smug satisfaction of

a critical spectator Well, thank God, I am not like that ;

but to make me so lay hold of God for that one that God

enables him to turn away from the wrong thing. Never

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 65

ask God for discernment, because discernment increases

your responsibility terrifically ; and you cannot get out of

it by talking, but only by bearing the life up in inter

cession before God until God puts him right. " If any

man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he

shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not

unto death." (1 John V. 16.) Our Lord makes no room

for criticism in the spiritual life, but He does make room

for discernment and discrimination.

If we let these searchlights go straight down to the root

of our spiritual life we will see why Jesus says Don t

judge, we won t have time to. The whole of the life is to be

lived in the power of God so that He can pour through the

rivers of living water to others. Some of us are so con

cerned about the outflow, that it dries up. We continually

ask Am I of any use ? Jesus tells us how to be of use

Believe in Me, and out of you will flow rivers of living

water.

" Judge not, that ye be not judged." If we let that

maxim of Our Lord s sink into our heart we will find

how it hauls us up. " Judge not " why we are always at

it ! The average Christian is the most penetratingly

critical individual, there is nothing of the likeness of Jesus

about him. A critical temper is a contradiction to all

Our Lord s teaching. Jesus says of criticism, apply it to

yourself, never to anyone else. " Why dost thou judge

thy brother ? ... for we shall all stand before the judg

ment seat of Christ." Whenever you are in the critical

temper, it is impossible to enter into communion with

God. Criticism makes you hard and vindictive and cruel,

and leaves you with the nattering unction that you are a

superior person. It is impossible to develop the charac

teristics of a saint and maintain the critical attitude. The

66 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

first thing the Holy Spirit does is to give you a spring-

cleaning, and there is no possibility of pride left in a man

then. I never met a man I could despair of after dis

cerning what there lies in me apart from the grace of God.

Stop having a measuring rod for others. Jesus says

regarding judging Don t judge ; be uncritical in your

temper, because in the spiritual domain you can accomplish

nothing by criticism. One of the severest lessons to learn

is to leave the cases we do not understand to God. There

is always one fact more in every life of which we know

nothing, therefore says Jesus Judge not. It is not done

once for all, we have to be always remembering that this

is our Lord s rule of conduct.

(b) The Undeviating Test. v. 2.

" For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ;

and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured

to you again." This statement of Our Lord s is not a

haphazard guess, it is an eternal law and it works from

God s throne right down. (See Psalm XVIII. 25-26.) The

measure I mete is measured to me again. Jesus puts it

here in connection with criticism. If you have been

shrewd in finding out the defects of others, that will be

exactly the measure meted out to you, that is the way

people will judge you. " I am perfectly certain that man

has been criticising me." Well, what have you been doing ?

Life serves back in the coin you pay ; you are paid back

not necessarily by the same person, but the law holds

good " with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged."

And it works with regard to good as well as evil. If you

have been generous, you will meet with generosity again

through someone else ; and if you mete out criticism and

suspicion to others, that is the way you will be treated.

There is a difference between retaliation and retribution.

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 67

According to Our Lord, the basis of life is retribution, but

He makes no room for retaliation.

In Romans II. this principle is applied still more defi

nitely, viz., what I criticise in another I am guilty of my

self. Every wrong I see in you, God locates in me ; every

time I judge you, I condemn myself. " Therefore thou

art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest :

for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy

self ; for thou that judgest doest the same things." God

does not look at the act, He looks at the possibility. To

begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible.

For instance, do I believe that what I criticise in another

I am guilty of myself ? I can always tell sin in another

man because I am a sinner. The reason I can see hypo

crisy and fraud and unreality in others is that they are all in

my own heart. The great danger is to call carnal suspicion

the conviction of the Holy Ghost. When the Holy Ghost

convicts men, He convicts for conversion, that men might

be converted and manifest other characteristics. I have

no right to put myself in the place of a superior person

and tell them what I see that is wrong, that is the work

of the Holy Ghost.

The great characteristic of the saint is humility. I

realise to the full that all these sins and others would have

been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore

I have no right to judge. Jesus says Don t judge,

because if you do, it will be measured to you again exactly

as you have judged. Which one of us would dare stand

before God and say My God, judge me as I have judged

my fellow men ? We have judged our fellow men as

sinners; if God judged us like that we would be in hell.

God judges us through the marvellous Atonement of

Jesus Christ.

68 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

(c) The Undesirable Truth Teller, w. 3-5.

The kind impudence of the average truth teller is in

spired of the devil when it comes to pointing out the defects

of others. The devil is lynx-eyed for things he can criticise,

and we are all shrewd in pointing out the mote in our

brother s eye. It puts me in a superior position I am a

finer spiritual character than you. Vhere do you find

that characteristic ? In the Lord Jesus ? Never. The

Holy Ghost works through the saints unbeknown to them,

He works through them as light. If this is not understood,

you will say That preacher or that teacher seems to be

criticising me all the time. He is not, it is the Holy Spirit

in the preacher discerning what is wrong in you.

The last curse in your life as a Christian is the person

who becomes a providence to you, he is quite certain you

cannot do anything without his advice, and if you don t

heed it you are sure to go wrong. Jesus ridiculed that

notion with terrific power " Thou hypocrite, first cast

out the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou

see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother s eye."

" Thou hypocrite," literally play actor, one whose reality

is not in keeping with his sincerity ; a hypocrite is one

who plays two parts consciously for his own ends. When

you find fault with other people you may be quite sincere,

yet Jesus says in reality you are a fraud. There is no

getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the

mote in your eye, it is because I have a beam in my own.

It is a most homecoming statement.

If I have let God remove the beam from my own outlook

by His mighty grace, I will carry with me the implicit

sunlight confidence that what God has done for me He can

easily do for my brother, because he has only a splinter,

I had a log of wood ! This is the confidence God s salva-

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 69

tion gives you, you are so amazed that God has altered

you that you can despair of no one. Oh yes, I know God

can undertake for you, you are only a little wrong, I was

wrong down to the remote depths of my mind, I was a

mean, prejudiced, self-interested, self-seeking person, and

God has altered me, therefore I can never despair of you

or of anyone. These statements of Our Lord s save us

from that fearful peril of spiritual conceit Thank God

I am not as other men, and also make us realise why such

a man as Daniel bowed his head in vicarious humiliation

and intercession I have sinned with Thy people. That

call comes every now and again to individuals and to

nations.

(2) CHRISTIAN CONSIDERATENESS. w. 7-11.

Consider how God has dealt with you and then consider

that you do likewise.

(a) The Need to Discriminate, v. 6.

" Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither

cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them

under their feet, and turn again and rend you." Jesus is

inculcating the need to examine carefully what you present

in the way of God s truth to others. If you present the

pearls of God s revelation to unspiritual people, He says

they will trample the pearls under foot not trample you

under their feet, that would not matter so much, but they

will trample the truth of God under their feet. These

words are not human words, but the words of Jesus, and

the Holy Spirit alone can teach us what they mean. There

are some truths that God will not make simple. The only

thing God makes plain in the Bible is the way of salvation

70 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

and sanctification, after that my understanding depends

entirely on my walking in the light. Over and over again

men water down the word of God to suit those who are

not spiritual, and consequently the word of God is trampled

under the feet of " swine." Ask yourself In what way

am I flinging God s truth to unspiritual swine ? Be careful

Jesus says, how you give God s holy things to " dogs,"

i.e., a symbol of the folks on the outside; don t cast your

holy things before them nor give the pearls of God s truth

to men who are swine. Paul mentions the possibility of

the pearl of sanctification being dragged in the mire of

fornication, it comes through not respecting this mighty

caution of Our Lord s. Some points in your experience

you have no right to talk about. There are times of

fellowship between Christians when these pearls of precious

rarity get turned over and looked at, but if you flaunt

them for the means of converting people without the

permission of God, you will find what Jesus says is true,

they will trample them under their feet.

Our Lord never tells us to confess anything but Himself.

" He that confesseth ME before men." Testimonies to

the world on the subjective line are always wrong, they

are for saints, for those who are spiritual and understand ;

but your testimony to the world is Our Lord Himself,

confess Him He saved me, He sanctified me, He put me

right with God. It is always easier to be true to your

experience than to Jesus Christ. Many a man spurns

Jesus Christ in any other phase than that of his particular

religious ideas. The central truth is not salvation nor

sanctification nor the second coming ; the central truth is

nothing less than Jesus Christ. " I, if I be lifted up, will

draw all men unto Me." Error always comes in when we

take something Jesus Christ does and preach it as the

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 71

truth. It is part of the truth, but if you take it to be the

whole truth you become an advocate of an idea instead

of a Person, the Lord Himself. The characteristic of an

idea is that it has the ban of finality. If you are only

true to a doctrine of Christianity instead of to Jesus Christ,

you drive home your idea with sledge hammer blows, and

the people who listen to you say Well, that may be true,

but they resent the way it is presented. When you follow

Jesus, the domineering attitude and the dictatorial attitude

go, and concentration on Jesus comes in.

(b) The Notion of Divine Control, vv. 7-10.

By the simple argument of these verses Our Lord urges

us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God s control

behind eveiything and to maintain an attitude of perfect

trust. Always distinguish between being possessed of the

Spirit and forming the mind of Christ. Jesus is laying

down rules of conduct for those who have the Spirit.

Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. Once

the mind is notioned along that line, when you are in

difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember Why,

my Father knows all about it. It is not an effort, it comes

naturally. Before, when perplexities were pressing, you

used to go and ask this one and that, now the notion of the

Divine control is forming so powerfully in you that you

simply go to God about it. You will always know whether

the notion is at work by the way you act in difficult cir

cumstances. Who is the first one you go to ? What is

the first thing you do ? The first power you rely on ? It

is the working out of the principle indicated in Matthew

VI. 25-34, God is my Father, He loves me, I can never think

of anything He will forget, why should I worry ? Keep

the notion strong and growing of the control of God behind

all things. Nothing happens in any particular unless

72 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

God s mind is behind it, then I rest perfectly confident.

There are times when God cannot lift the darkness, but

trust Him. Jesus said God will appear at times like an un

kind friend, but He is not : He will appear like an

unnatural father, but He is not ; He will appear like an un

just judge but He is not. The time will come when every

thing will be explained. Prayer is not only asking, it is

an attitude of heart that produces an atmosphere in which

asking is perfectly natural, and "everyone that asks

receives."

A man will get from life everything he asks for, because

he does not ask what his will is not in. If a man asks of

life to make him wealthy, he will get wealth, or he was

playing the fool when he asked. " If ye abide in Me," says

Jesus, "and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye

will, and it shall be done unto you." We pray pious

blether, our will is not in it, and then we say God does

not answer; we never asked Him for anything. Asking

means that my will is in it.

You say But I asked God to turn my life into a garden

of the Lord, and the first thing that happened was the

ploughshare of sorrow, and instead of getting a garden

I have got a wilderness. God never gives the wrong

answer, He had to turn the garden of your natural life

into ploughed soil before He could turn it into a garden

of the Lord, He is putting the seed in now. Let God s

seasons come over your soul, and before long you will have

a garden of the Lord.

We need to discern that God controls what we ask.

We bring in what Paul calls " will worship." Will is the

whole man active, there are terrific forces in the will.

The man who gains a moral victory by sheer force of will

is the most difficult man to deal with afterwards. The

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 73

profound thing in man is his will, not sin. Will is the

essential element in God s creation of man ; sin is a per

verse disposition which entered into man. At the basis,

the human will is one with God, covered up by all kinds

of desires and motives, and when we preach Jesus the Holy

Spirit excavates down to the basis of the will, and the will

turns to God every time. We try to attack men s wills ;

Jesus says Lift Me up, and I will push straight to the

will. When Jesus talked about prayer He never said

If your human will turns in that direction. He put it

with the grand simplicity of a child Ask. We bring in

our reasoning faculty and say Yes, but, . . . Jesus

says " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye

shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

(c) The Necessity for Discernment, v. 11.

"I f ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto

your children, how much more shall your Father which

is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ? "

But remember that you have to ask things that are in

keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ reveals, things

in keeping with His domain. God is not a necromancer,

He is after the development of the character of a son of

God. If I want to know the things of a man, I can get at

them by the " spirit of man which is in him," but the

things of the Spirit of God are " spiritually discerned."

The discernment needed here is the habitual realisation

that every good thing I have has been given to me by the

sheer sovereign grace of God. Jesus says Get this

reasoning incorporated into you How much have you

deserved? Nothing, everything has been given to you

by God. Then may God save us from the mean accursed

economical notion that we must only help the people who

deserve it. One can almost hear the Holy Ghost shout

74 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

in the heart Who are you that you talk like that, did

you deserve the salvation God has given you, did you

deserve to be filled with the Holy Spirit ? It is all done

by the sheer sovereign mercy of God, then be like your

Father in heaven, says Jesus, have a perfect disposition

like His. " Love as I have loved you." It is not done

once for all, it is a continual stedfast growing habit of the

life.

Humility and holiness always go together. Whenever

hardness and harshness begin to creep into the personal

attitude towards one another, we may be certain we are

swerving from the light. The preaching must be as stern

and true as God s word, never water down God s truth ;

but never forget when you deal with others that you are

a sinner saved by grace, no matter where you stand now.

If you stand in the fulness of the blessing of God, you stand

there by no other right than the sheer sovereign grace of

God. Then, says Jesus, if you, an evil being, saved by

grace, can do such kind things to others, how much more

shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to

them that ask Him?

|)ver and over again we blame God for His neglect of

people by our sympathy with them, we may not put it

into words but by our attitude we imply that we are

filling up what God has forgotten to do. Never have that

idea, never allow it to come into your mind. In all pro

bability the Spirit of God will begin to show that it is

because we have neglected what we ought to do that

people are where they are! The great craze to-day is

socialism, and men are saying that Jesus Christ came as

a social reformer. Nonsense ! We are to be social re

formers, Jesus Christ came to alter us, and we try to shirk

our responsibility by putting our work on to Him. What

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 75

Jesus does is to alter us and put us right, then these prin

ciples of His will instantly make us social reformers. They

will begin to work straightway where we live, in my re

lationship to my father and mother, to my brothers and

sisters, my friends, my employers or employees. Consider

how God has dealt with you, says Jesus, and then consider

that you do likewise to others.

(3) CHRISTIAN COMPREHENSIVENESS, v. 12.

Christian grace comprehends the whole man. " Thou

shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with

all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."

Salvation means not only a pure heart, an enlightened

mind, a spirit put right with God, it means that the whole

of man is comprehended in the manifestation of the mar

vellous power and grace of God; the whole man, body,

soul and spirit is brought into fascinating captivity to the

Lord Jesus Christ. An incandescent mantle illustrates

the meaning, if the mantle is not rightly adjusted, only

one bit of it glows, but get the mantle adjusted exactly,

and when the light comes the whole thing is comprehended

in a blaze of light ; and every bit of our being is to be

absorbed until we are one glow with the comprehensive

goodness of God. " The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness

and righteousness and truth." Some of us have goodness

in spots.

(a) The Positive Margin of Righteousness.

The limit to the manifestation of the grace of God in me

is my body, and the whole of my body. We can under

stand the need of a pure heart, of a mind rightly adjusted

to God and a spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but what

76 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

about the body ? That is the margin of righteousness in

me. We make a divorce between a clear intellectual

understanding of truth and its practical outcome. Jesus

never made such a divorce, He takes no notice of our fine

intellectual conceptions unless their practical outcome is

shown in reality.

There is a great snare in the capacity to understand a

thing clearly and to exhaust its power by stating it. Over

much earnestness blinds the life to reality, earnestness

becomes our god. We bank on the earnestness and zeal

with which things are said and done, and after a while

we find that the reality is not there, the power and presence

of God are not being manifested, there are relationships

at home or in business or in private that show when the

veneer is scratched that we are not real. To say things

well is apt to exhaust the power of doing them, so that

a man has often to curb the expression of a thing with

his tongue and turn it into action, otherwise his gift of

facile utterance will prevent his doing the things he says.

(b) The Proverbial Maxim of Reasonableness.

" Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men

should do to you, do ye even so to them." Our Lord s

use of this maxim is positive, not negative. Do to others

whatsoever ye would that they should do to you a very

different thing from not doing to others what you don t

want them to do to you. What would I like other people

to do to me ? Well, says Jesus, do that to them ; don t

wait for them to do it to you. The Holy Ghost will kindle

your imagination to picture many things you would like

others to do to you, it is His way of telling you what to

do to them " I would like people to give me credit for

the generous motives I have ; " well, give them credit for

having generous motives. " I would like that people should

CHARACTER AND CONDUCT 77

not pass harsh judgments on me," well, don t pass

harsh judgments on them. " I should like other people

to pray for me ; " well, pray for them. The measure of

my growth in grace is my attitude towards other people.

" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," says Jesus.

Satan comes in as an angel of light and says But you must

not think about yourself. The Holy Spirit will make you

think about yourself, because that is His way of educating

you as to how to deal with others. He makes you picture

what you would like other people to do to you, and then

says Now you go and do those things to them. This

verse is Our Lord s measure for practical ethical conduct.

" Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do

ye even so to them." Never look for right in the other

man, but never cease to be right yourself. We always

look for justice in this world, but there is no such thing as

justice. Jesus says Never look for justice, but never

cease to give it. The stamp all through Our Lord s

teaching is that of the impossible unless He can make

me all over again, and that is what He came to do. He came

to give any man a new heredity to which His teaching

will apply.

(c) The Principal Meaning of Revelation.

Jesus Christ came to make the great laws of God in

carnate in human life, that is the miracle of God s grace.

We are to be written epistles, "known and read of all men."

There is no room whatever in the New Testament for the

man who says he is saved by grace but who does not

produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Re

demption can make my actual life in keeping with my

religious profession.

In our study of the Sermon on the Mount it would be

like a baptism of light to allow the principles of Jesus to

78 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

soak right down to our very make-up. His statements

are not put up as standards for us to attain ; God re-makes

us, puts His Holy Spirit in us, then the Holy Spirit applies

the principles to us and enables us to work them out by

His guidance.

STUDY No. 5.

IDEAS, IDEALS, AND ACTUALITY.

Matthew VII. 13-29.

(1) TWO GATES, TWO WAYS.

(a) All Noble Things are Difficult.

(6) My Utmost for His Highest, ivv. 13-14.

(c) A stoot heart tac a stae brae. /

(2) TEST YOUR TEACHERS, vv. 15-20.

(a) Possibility of Pretence, v. 15.

(6) Place of Patience, v. 16.

(c) Principle of Performance, w. 17-18.

(d) Power of Publicity, vv. 19-20.

(3) APPEARANCE AND REALITY, w. 21-23.

(a) Recognition of Men. v. 21.

(b) Remedy Mongers, v. 22.

(c) Retributive Measures, v. 23.

(4) THE TWO BUILDERS, vv. 24-29.

(a) Spiritual Castles, v. 24.

(b) Stern Crisis, v. 25.

(c) Supreme Catastrophe, vv. 26-27.

(d) Scriptural Concentration, vv. 28-29.

An idea reveals what it does and no more. If you read

a book about life, life looks simple ; but go out and face

79

80 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

the facts of life and you will find they do not come into

the simple line laid down in the book. An idea works like

a searchlight, lighting up what it does and no more ; but

daylight reveals a hundred and one facts the searchlight

had not taken into account. An idea is apt to have the

ban of finality about it the " tyranny " of an idea.

An ideal embodies our highest conceptions, but it con

tains no moral inspiration. To treat the Sermon on the

Mount as merely an ideal is misleading. There is nothing

of the ideal about it, it is a statement of the working out

in actuality of Jesus Christ s disposition in the life of any

man. A man gets ashamed of not being able to fulfil his

ideals, and the more upright he is, the more agonising is his

conflict I won t lower my ideals, he says, although I can

never hope to make them actual. No man is so laboured

as the man with ideals he cannot carry out. Jesus Christ

says to such " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,"

i.e., I will " stay " you, put something into you which

will make the ideal and the actual one. Without Jesus

Christ there is an unbridgeable gap between the ideal and

the actual, the only way out is a personal relationship to

Him. The salvation of God not only saves a man from

hell, but alters his actual life.

(1) TWO GATES, TWO WAYS. w. 13-14.

Our Lord continually used proverbs and sayings that

were familiar to His hearers and put an altogether new

meaning into them. Here He used an allegory that was

familiar in His day, and lifted it by His inspiration to

embody His patient warnings.

Always distinguish between warning and threatening.

God never threatens ; the devil never warns. Warning is

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 81

a great arresting statement of God s, inspired by His love

and patience. This throws a flood of light on the vivid

statements of Jesus, such as those in Matthew XXIII.

Be careful how you picture Jesus when you read His

terrible utterances. Read our Lord s denunciations with

Calvary in your mind. Jesus is stating the inexorable

consequence " How can you escape the damnation of

hell ? " There is no element of personal vindictiveness.

It is the great patient love of God that puts the warning.

" The way of transgressors is hard." Go behind that

statement in your imagination and see the love of God ;

God is amazingly tender, yet He cannot make the way of

transgressors easy. God has made it difficult to go wrong,

especially for His children.

" Enter ye in at the strait gate. ..." If a man tries

to enter into salvation in any other way than Jesus Christ s

way, he will find it a broad way, but the end of it is distress.

Erasmus said it took the sharp sword of sorrow, and

difficulties of every description, heartbreaks and disen-

chantments to bring him to the place where he saw Jesus

as the altogether lovely One, and, he says : " When I got

there I found there was no need to have gone the way

I went." There is the broad way of reasonable self-

realisation; but the only way to a personal knowledge of

eternal redemption is strait and narrow. Jesus says " I

am the way."

There is a difference between discipleship and being

saved. A man can be saved by God s grace without being

a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship means a personal dedi

cation of the life to Jesus. Men are saved so as by fire,

they have not been worth anything to God in their actual

lives. Go and make disciples, said Jesus. The teaching

of the Sermon on the Mount produces only despair in a

82 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

man who is not born again. If Jesus came to be a Teacher

only, He had better have stayed away. What is the use

of teaching a human being to be what no human being can

be to be continually self-effaced, to do more than his

duty, to be disinterested, to be perfectly devoted to God ?

If all Jesus came to do was to teach men to be that, He is

the greatest taunter that ever presented any ideal to the

human race. But Jesus came primarily and fundamentally

to regenerate men ; He came to put into any man the

disposition that ruled His own life, and immediately that

comes into a man, then the teaching of Jesus begins to be

possible. All the standards He gives are based on His

disposition.

Notice the apparent unsatisfactoriness of the answers of

Jesus. He never once answered a question that sprang

from a man s head, because those questions are never

original, they always have the captious note about them.

The man with that type of question wants to get the best

of it logically. In Luke XIII. 24 a certain devout man

asked Jesus a question " Lord, are there few that be

saved ? " And Jesus replied " Strive to enter in at the

strait gate," i.e., see that your own feet are on the right

path. Our Lord s answers seem at first to evade the issue,

but He goes underneath the question and solves the real

problem. He never answers our shallow questions but

deals with the great unconscious need that makes them

arise. When a man asks an original question out of his

own personal life, Jesus answers him every time.

(a) All Noble Things are Difficult.

Our Lord warns that the devout life of a disciple is not

a dream, but a decided discipline which calls for the use

of all our powers. No amount of determination can give

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 83

me the new life of God, that is a gift ; where determination

comes in, is in letting that new life work itself out according

to Christ s standard. We are always in danger of con

founding what we can do and what we cannot do. We can

not save ourselves, nor sanctify ourselves, nor give ourselves

the Holy Spirit ; only God can do that. Confusion

continually recurs when we try to do what God alone can

do, and try to make out that God will do what we alone

can do. We imagine that God will make us walk in the

light ; God will not, we must do the walking. God gives

us the power to walk, but we have to see that we use the

power. God puts the power and the life into us and fills

us with His Spirit, now we have to work it out, not work

our salvation, but work it out ; and as we do we realise

that the noble life of a disciple is a gloriously difficult one

a difficulty that rouses us up to overcome it, not a difficulty

that makes us faint and cave in.

It is always necessary to make an effort to be noble.

Jesus never shields a disciple from fulfiling all the require

ments of a child of His. Things that are worth doing are

never easy. On the ground of Redemption the life of the

Son of God is formed in my human nature and I have to

put on the new man in accordance with His life, and that

takes time and discipline. " Acquire your soul with

patience." Soul is my personal spirit manifesting itself

in my body, the way I reason and think and look at things.

Jesus says that a man must lose his soul in order to find it.

We deal with the great massive phases of Redemption

that God saves men by sheer grace through the Atonement,

but we are apt to forget that it has to be worked out in

practical living among men. " Ye are My friends," says

Jesus, therefore lay down your life for Me, not go through

the crisis of death, but lay out your life deliberately for

84 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Me, take time over it. It is a noble life and a difficult life.

God works in me to do His will, only I must do the doing ;

and if once I start to do what He commands, I find I can

do it, because I work on the basis of the noble thing God

has done in Redemption.

(b) My Utmost for His Highest.

God demands of us our utmost in working out what He

has worked in. We can do nothing towards our redemp

tion, but we must do everything to work it out in actual

experience on the basis of regeneration. Salvation is

God s " bit," it is complete, I can add nothing to it, but

I have to bend all my powers to work out His salvation.

It requires discipline to live the life of a disciple in actual

things. " Jesus knowing that He was come from God and

went to God . . . took a towel . . . and began

to wash the disciples feet." It took God Incarnate to do

the ordinary menial things of life rightly, and it takes

the life of God in me to use a towel properly. This is

Redemption being actually worked out in experience, and

we can do it every time because of the marvel of God s

grace.

" If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments."

Jesus puts that as the test of discipleship. The motto

over our side of the gate of life is All God s commands

I can obey. I have to do my utmost as a disciple to prove

that I appreciate God s utmost for me, and to learn never

to allow " I can t " to creep in. " Oh I m no saint, I can t

do that." If that thought comes in, we will be a disgrace

to Jesus. God s salvation is a glad thing, but it is a holy,

difficult thing that tests us for all we are worth. Jesus

is bringing many sons to glory and He won t shield us from

the requirements of sonship. He will say at certain times

to the world, the flesh and the devil Do your worst, I know

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 85

that " greater is He that is in you than he that is in the

world." God s grace does not turn out milksops, but men

and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ.

Thank God He does give us difficult things to do ! A

man s heart would burst if there were no way to show his

gratitude. I beseech you, says Paul, by the mercies of

God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice. . . .

(c) A stoot heart tae a stae brae, i.e., a strong heart

to a difficult hill. The Christian life is a holy life ; never

substitute the word " happy " for " holy." We certainly will

have happiness, but as a consequence of holiness. Beware

of the idea so prevalent to-day that a Christian must always

be happy and bright " keep smiling." Preaching along

that line is merely the gospel of temperament. If you make

the determination to be happy the basis of your Christian

life, your happiness will go from you ; happiness is not a

cause but an effect that follows without striving after it.

Our Lord insists that we keep at one point, our eyes fixed

on the strait gate and the narrow way, which means pure,

holy living.

" Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me." It seems

an amazingly difficult thing to do to put on the yoke of

Christ, but immediately you do put it on, it makes every

thing easy. At the beginning of the Christian life it seems

easier to drift, to say " I can t," but once you do put on

His yoke, you find, blessed be the Name of God, that you

have the easiest way after all. Happiness and joy attend,

but they are not your aim, your aim is the Lord Jesus

Christ, and God showers the hundredfold more on you all

the way along.

In order to keep a stout heart to the difficult braes of

life, watch continually that worry does not come in.

"Let not your heart be troubled," is a command and it means

86 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

that worry is sinful. It is not the devil that switches

folks off Christ s way, but the ordinary steep difficulties of

daily life, difficulties connected with food, and clothing, and

situations. The " cares of this world," said Our Lord, will

choke My word. We have all had times when the little

worries of life have choked God s word and blotted out

His face to us, enfeebled our spirits, and made us sorry

and humiliated before Him more so even than the times

when we have been tempted to sin. There is something

in us that makes us face temptation to sin with vigour

and earnestness, but it requires the stout heart that God

gives to meet the cares of this life. I would not give much

for the man who had nothing in his life which made him

say I wish I was not in the circumstances I am in. "In

the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good cheer ;

I have overcome the world " and you will overcome it

too, you will win every time if you bank on your relation

ship to Me. Spiritual grit is what we need.

" Enter ye in at the strait gate." I can only get to

heaven through Jesus, no other road ; I can only get to

the Father through Jesus, and I can only get into the life

of a saint the same road.

(2) TEST YOUR TEACHERS, w. 15-20.

In these verses Jesus tells His disciples to test preachers

and teachers by their fruit. There are two tests one is

the fruit in the life of the preacher, and the other is the

fruit of the doctrine. The fruit of a man s own life may

be perfectly beautiful, and at the same time he may be

teaching a doctrine which if logically worked out would

produce the devil s fruit in other lives. It is easy to be

captivated by a beautiful life and to argue that therefore

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 87

what that life teaches must be right. Jesus says Be

careful, test your teacher by his fruit. The other side is

just as true, a man may be teaching beautiful truths and

have magnificent doctrine while the fruit in his own life

is rotten. We say that if a man, lives a beautiful life, his

doctrine must be right ; not necessarily so, says Jesus.

Then again we say because a man teaches the right

thing therefore his life must be right; not necessarily

so, says Jesus. Test the doctrine by its fruit and test the

teacher by his fruit. " If the Son shall make you free,

ye shall be free indeed," the freedom of the nature will

work out.

" By their fruits ye shall know them." You do not

gather the vindictive mood from the Holy Ghost ; you

do not gather the passionately irritable mood from the

patience of God ; you do not gather the self-indulgent

mood and the lust of the flesh in private life from the

Spirit of God. God never allows room for any of these

moods.

We find that as we study the Sermon on the Mount we

are badgered by the Spirit of God from every standpoint,

in order to bring us into a simplicity of relationship to

Jesus Christ. The standard is that of a child depending

on God.

(a) Possibility of Pretence, v. 15.

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep s

clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Our

Lord here is describing dangerous teachers, and He warns

us of those who come clothed in right doctrine but inwardly

their spirit is that of Satan.

It is appallingly easy to pretend. If once we get our

eyes off Jesus, pious pretence is sure to follow. 1 John I. 7

is the essential condition for the life of the saint " If we

88 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

walk in the light as God is in the light," i.e., with nothing

folded up, nothing to hide. Immediately we depend on

anything other than our relationship to God, the possibility

of pretence comes in, pious pretence, not hypocrisy (a

hypocrite is one who tries to live a twofold life for his own

ends and succeeds), but a desperately sincere effort to be

right when we know we are not.

I have to beware of pretence in myself. It is an easy

business to look what I am not ; it is easy to talk and to

preach, and to preach my actual life to damnation. It

was realizing this made Paul say " I keep under my

body . . . lest that by any means when I have preached

to others I myself should be a castaway." The more

facile the expression in words, the less likely is the truth

to be carried out in life. A preacher has a peril that the

listener has not, the peril of being able to express a thing,

and the expression reacts in the exhaustion of never doing

it. That is where fasting has to come in fasting from

eloquence, from fine literary finish, from all that natural

culture makes us esteem, if it is going to lead us into a

hirpling walk with God. " This kind can come forth by

nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Fasting is much

more than doing without food, that is the least part, it is

fasting from all that manifests self-indulgence. There is

a certain mood in us all which delights in frank speaking,

but we never intend to do what we say, we are " enchanted

but unchanged." The frank man is the unreliable man,

much more so than the subtle, crafty man, because he has

the power of expressing the thing clean out and there is

nothing more to it.

(b) Place of Patience, v. 16.

" Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather

grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " This warning is

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 89

against over-zealousness on the part of heresy-hunters.

Our Lord would have us bide our time. Luke IX. 53-55

is a case in point. Take heed that you do not allow carnal

suspicion to take the place of the discernment of the Spirit.

Fruit and fruit alone is the test. If I see the fruit in a

life showing itself as thistles, Jesus says you will know the

wrong root is there, for you do not gather thistles off any

root but a thistle, but remember that it is quite possible

in winter time to mistake a rose tree for something else

unless you are expert in judging. So there is a place for

patience, and Our Lord would have us heed it. Wait for

the fruit to manifest itself and don t be guided by your

own fancy. It is easy to get alarmed and to persuade

myself that my particular convictions are the standard of

Christ, and to condemn everyone to perdition who does

not agree with me ; I am obliged to do it because my

convictions have taken the place of God in me. God s

Book never tells us to walk in the light of convictions,

but in the light of the Lord.

Always distinguish between those who object to your

way of presenting the Gospel and those who object to the

Gospel itself. There may be many who object to your

way of presenting the truth, but that does not necessarily

mean that they object to God s making them holy. Make

a place for patience. Wait before you pass your verdict.

" Ye shall know them by their fruits." Wrong teaching

produces its fruit just as right teaching does if you give

it time.

(c) Principle of Performance, w. 17-18.

" Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ;

but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree

cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree

bring forth good fruit." If I say I am right with God, the

90 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

world has a perfect right to watch my private life and see

if I am ; if I say I am born again, I am put under scrutiny,

and rightly so. If the performance of my life is to be

steadily holy, the principle of my life must be holy, i.e.,

if I am going to bring forth good fruit, I must have a good

root. It is possible for an aeroplane to imitate a bird, and

it is possible for a human being to imitate the fruit of the

Spirit. The vital difference is the same in each: there

is no principle of life behind. The aeroplane cannot per

sist, it can only fly spasmodically ; and my imitation of

the Spirit requires certain conditions which keep me from

the public gaze, then I can get on fairly well. Before I

can have the right performance in my life, I must have the

principle inside right I must know what it is to be born

from above, to be sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost,

then my life will bring forth the fruit. Fruit is clearly

expounded in the Epistles, and it is quite different from

the gifts of the Spirit, or from the manifest seal of God on

His own word, it is the "fruit of the Spirit." Fruit-

bearing is always mentioned as the manifestation of an

intimate union with Jesus. (John XV.)

(d) Power of Publicity, vv. 19-20.

" Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn

down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye

shall know them." Jesus makes publicity the test, He

lived His own life most publicly (see John XVIII. 20).

The thing that enraged Our Lord s enemies was the public

manner in which He did things, His miracles were the

public manifestation of His power. To-day people are

annoyed at public testimony. There is no use saying

Oh yes, I live a holy life, but I don t say anything about

it. Then you certainly don t, for the two go together. If

a thing has its root in the heart of God, it will want to

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 91

be public, to get out, it must do things in the external and

the open, and Jesus not only encouraged this publicity,

He insisted on it. For good or bad, things must be

dragged out. " There is nothing covered that shall not

be revealed ; and hid, that shall not be known." It is

God s law that men cannot hide what they really are. If

they are His disciples it will be publicly portrayed. In

Matthew X. Jesus warned His disciples what would

happen when they publicly testified, but, He says, don t

hide your light under a bushel for fear of wolfish men ;

be careful only that you don t go contrary to your duty

and have your soul destroyed in hell as well as your body.

" Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Our Lord

warns that the man who will not be conspicuous as His

disciple will be made to be conspicuous as His enemy. As

sure as God is on His throne, the inevitable principle

must work, the revealing of what men really are.

One of the dangers of the Higher Christian Life movement

is the hole-and-corner aspect you must have secret times

alone with God. God drags everything out to the sun.

Paul couples sanctification and fornication, meaning that

every type of high spiritual emotion that is not worked

out on its legitimate level will react on a wrong level.

To be in contact with external facts is necessary to health

in the natural world, and the same thing is true spiritually.

God s spiritual open air is the Bible. The Bible is the

universe of revelation facts, if I live there my roots will

be healthy and my life right. There is no use saying

" I once had an experience " ; the point is where is it

now ? Pay attention to the Source, and out of you will

flow rivers of living water. It is possible to be so taken

up with conscious experience in religious life that we are

of no use at all.

92 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

(3) APPEARANCE AND REALITY, vv. 21-29.

Our Lord makes the test of goodness not only goodness

in intention, but in the active carrying out of God s will.

Beware of confounding the appearance and reality, of

judging only by the external evidence. God honours His

word no matter who preaches it. The men Jesus refers

to in v. 21 were instruments, but an instrument is

not a servant. A servant is one who has given up his

right to himself to the God whom he proclaims, a witness

to Jesus, i.e., a satisfaction to Jesus wherever he goes. The

baptism of the Holy Ghost turns men into the incarnation

of what they preach, until the appearance and the reality

are one and the same. The test of discipleship as Jesus is

dealing with it in this chapter is fruit-bearing in godly

character, and the disciple is warned not to be blinded by

the fact that God honours His word even when it is preached

from the wrong motive. (See Phil. 1-15).

The Holy Spirit is the One who brings the appearance

and the reality into one in me ; He does in me what

Jesus did for me. The mighty redemption of God is made

actual in my experience by the living efficacy of the Holy

Ghost. The New Testament never asks us to believe the

Holy Spirit, it asks us to receive Him. He makes the

appearance and the reality one and the same thing. He

works in my salvation and I have to work it out, with fear

and trembling lest I forget to, and, thank God, He does

give us the sporting chance, the glorious risk. If I could

not disobey God, my obedience would not be worth any

thing. The sinless perfection heresy is that when I am

saved I cannot sin, that is a devil s lie. When I am saved

by God s grace, God puts into me the possibility not to sin,

and my character from that moment is of value to God

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 93

because I can disobey Him. Before I was saved I had not

the power to obey, but when He has planted in me on the

ground of Redemption the heredity of the Son of God

I have the power to obey, consequently the power to

disobey. The walk of a disciple is a gloriously difficult

one, but a gloriously certain one. On the ground of the

perfect Redemption of Jesus, I find that I can begin now

to walk worthily, i.e., with balance. John " looked upon

Jesus as He walked. . ." Walk is the symbol of the ordinary

character of the man, no show to keep up, no veneer.

" I perceive that is a holy man of God which passeth by

us continually."

(a) Recognition of Men. v. 21.

" Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall

enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the

will of my Father which is in heaven." Human nature is

fond of labels, but a label may be the counterfeit of con

fession. It is so easy to be branded with labels, much

easier in certain stages to wear a ribbon or a badge than

to confess. Jesus never used the word " testify," He used

a much more searching word " confess." " He that

confesseth Me before men." The test of goodness is con

fession by doing the will of God. If you do not confess

Me before men, says Jesus, neither will your heavenly

Father confess you, and immediately you do confess, you

must have a badge, if you don t put one on, others will.

Our Lord is warning that it is possible to wear the label

without the goods, possible for a man to wear the badge

of being His disciple while he is not. Labels are all right,

but if we mistake the label for the goods we get confused.

If the disciple is to discern between the man with the label

and the man with the goods, he must have the spirit of

94 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

discernment, viz., the Holy Spirit. We start out with

the honest belief that the label and the goods must go

together, they ought to, but Jesus warns that sometimes

they get severed, and we find cases where God honours

His word although those who preach it are not living a

right life. In judging the preacher, He says, judge him

by his fruit.

(b) Remedy Mongers, v. 22.

" Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have

we not prophesied in Thy name ? and in Thy name have

cast out devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful

works ? " If I am used to cast out devils and to do wonder

ful works, surely I am a servant of God ? Not at all, says

Jesus. Does my life bear evidence in every detail ? Our

Lord warns here against those who utilise His words and

His ways to remedy the evils of men while they are disloyal

to Himself. " Have we not prophesied in Thy name . . .

cast out devils . . . done many wonderful works" not one

word of confession of Jesus, one thing only, they have

preached Him as a remedy. In Luke X. Our Lord told

the disciples not to rejoice because the devils were subject

to them, but to rejoice because they were rightly related

to Himself. We are brought back to the one point all the

time an unsullied relationship to Jesus Christ in every

detail, private and public.

(c) Retributive measures, v. 23.

" And then will I profess unto you, I never knew you :

depart from Me ye that work iniquity." In these solemn

words Jesus says He will have to say to some Bible exposi

tors, some prophetic students, some workers of miracles

" Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." To work

iniquity is to twist out of the straight, these men have

IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 95

twisted the ways of God and made them unequal. " I

never knew you " you never had My Spirit, you talked

the truth and God honoured it, but you were never of the

truth. " Depart from Me," the most appallingly isolating

and condemning words that could be said to a human soul.

Only as we rely and recognise on the Holy Spirit do we

discern how this warning of Our Lord s works. We are

perplexed because people preach the right thing and prove

that God blesses the preaching, and yet all the time the

Spirit warns No, no, no. Never trust the best man or

woman you ever met, trust only the Lord Jesus. " Lean

not to your own understanding ; " " put not your trust

in princes ; " put not your trust in any one but Jesus Christ.

This warning holds good all the way along. Every character

if taken as a guide leads away from God. We are never

told to follow in all the footsteps of the saints, but only

in so far as they have obeyed God. " Follow my ways

which be in Christ." Keep right with God ; keep in the

light. All our panics, moral, intellectual and spiritual

come along that line, whenever we take our eyes off Jesus

we get startled There is another man gone down, I did

think he would have stood right. Look unto Me, says

Jesus.

(4) THE TWO BUILDERS, w. 24-27.

The emphasis in w. 24-27 is laid by Our Lord on hearing

and doing. He has given us His disposition, and He demands

that we live as His disciples ; how are we going to do it ?

By hearing My words and doing them, says Jesus. I only

hear what I listen for. Have I listened to what Jesus has

to say ? Have I paid any attention to finding out what

He did say ? Most of us don t know what He said. If

96 STUDIES IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

we have only a smattering of religion, we talk a lot about

the devil ; but what hinders me spiritually is not the

devil half so much as inattention. I may hear the sayings

of Jesus, but my will is left untouched, I never do them.

The understanding of the Bible only comes from the

indwelling of the Holy Spirit making the universe of the

Bible real to me.

(a) Spiritual Castles, v. 24.

We speak of building " castles in the air," that is where

a castle should be, whoever heard of a castle underground!

The problem is how to get the foundation under your

castle in the air so that it can stand upon the earth. The

way to put foundations under our castles is by paying

attention to the words of Jesus. I may listen and read,

and not make much of it at the time, but by and bye I shall

come into circumstances when the Holy Spirit will bring

back to me what Jesus said am I going to obey it?

Jesus says the way to put foundations under spiritual

castles is by hearing and doing " these sayings of Mine."

Pay attention to His words, and give ti