Thru the Bible

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: "A firm foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent word." All scripture is for us, but not all scripture is to us. That's one of Dr. J. Vernon McGee's unforgettable statements, and you'll hear it again as we continue our study in Matthew 5. It's really a simple distinction, but it changes everything when you open the Bible and ask, "What is God saying, and how does it apply?"

Well, as the Bible bus keeps rolling, let's hear what God's doing around the world in the hearts of those who join us, this time in Spanish. Maritza in Venezuela writes, "Your words are very true. I am fascinated by your biblical studies. Little by little, I am learning." Little by little. That's how God builds us, isn't it? Little by little, quietly, steadily, and faithfully.

Isabel in Spain shares this about La Fuente de la Vida. That's TTB in European Spanish. "Your program is spectacular. Every morning, I listen, which I find very instructive, and I encourage everyone to continue doing so because, as the name of the program says, the water of life is what allows us to maintain faith. Thank you very much for all your dedication and effort." Well, I love it. The water of life is flowing. And it is flowing through apps, radios, and so many other ways right into homes around the world.

And then listen to Sergio. He's in Guatemala. "I remember when I was young, I would leave home very early for school. When I returned, my mother had gone to work, but in her little corner of the dining room table, I would see pages of notes underlined and highlighted. Later when I got married, I saw those booklets again in my mother-in-law's house, also full of diagrams, notes, and underlined parts. These were her notes and outlines from your ministry. These are testimonies of women who heard, studied, and appreciated searching the scriptures as they traveled in the Bible bus.

Now in retirement, I have the opportunity to listen to Radio Cultural in Guatemala City. I have completed my first journey through the Holy Scriptures. It has truly been a wonderful trip, which I am enthusiastically preparing to begin again. I want to share with you that along the way, I have invited several people to join the study. It is somewhat disappointing because they have not accepted the invitation. However, my wife has been more successful. It is shocking to me to see the spiritual hunger of the friends she has invited to listen and how God has provided nourishment.

Every morning, we download the audio and the PDF file with the study of the day and send it to him by WhatsApp. Thus, when he moves to a place with good signal, these files are downloaded to his phone, and he can enjoy feeding his soul with the study of the word in the place and time that he has available. Keep going, brethren, the road is difficult and the trials are many, but the word of God goes where He wills to the person He selects, in the way He allows and to accomplish the purpose He desires. He will grow the fruit and undoubtedly, He will give the reward."

Well, isn't that a great picture? Generations marked by underlined passages and now digital files traveling by WhatsApp into signal-starved places. The word really does find a way, doesn't it? Well, you know we'd love to hear your story too, so why don't you send it to us through the feedback section of our app or you can always email us. That's simple, Biblebus@TTB.org. Or you can write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. And then you can even leave us a voicemail at 1-800-65 Bible. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank You that your word moves wherever You send it. Open our eyes as we study, Lord, and give us a hunger for Your truth and the courage to share it. Accomplish Your purposes through Your living word in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's turn to Matthew 5 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now we come to the so-called Sermon on the Mount. It's in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 and you'll find excerpts of it in the other gospels. I do not think that our Lord gave it just one time. I think He gave it on many occasions. He repeated, as you know, a great deal of the truths that He gave. He would repeat parables. He would repeat on several occasions great truths. And Dr. Luke speaks of the fact that He gave this down on the plain. And he has only a portion of it. And very frankly, I'm sure Matthew only carries a part of the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that our Lord gave a great deal more than you have here. But this is given for our learning, our understanding today.

Now, there are two things I'd like to say. One is that the far right and the far left are not confined to politics. We have in the exposition of scripture today among theologians, we have the far left and the far right. And it's not revealed in a more vivid manner than in the understanding of the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, the liberal theologian, he's the far left. He treats the Sermon on the Mount as the Gospel. And he acts, even if he doesn't say it, as if it were the only important part of scripture. I played handball quite a few years ago with a very liberal preacher. He became, I think, rather famous after that as a leader of the liberal wing. He told me one day that all he needed in the Bible was the Sermon on the Mount. And he went so far as to say that all he needed was the golden rule over in the 12th verse of the seventh chapter. "Therefore, all things whatsoever you would that man should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets."

Now, may I say that sounds very good. It's very pious, and it's pious drivel to talk like that. The question is not whether you feel that the Sermon on the Mount is your religion. The question is, are you living it, brother? That's the important thing. And we'll have something to say about that a little later on. This is an extreme viewpoint. But it actually is representative of a very large segment of liberalism today. And will you listen to me very carefully now? The content of the Christian gospel is not found in the Sermon on the Mount.

For instance, there is absolutely no mention of the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul said to the Corinthians, "I declare unto you the gospel." Well, what is the gospel? Sermon on the Mount? Is that what Paul gave? No, he says that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture, and that He was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And friends, that's not here. The gospel is not in the Sermon on the Mount. That's the reason a great many people like to come to this. It sounds very pious. It's nothing in the world but a great deal of verbiage for men to get up and say today, "I live by the Sermon on the Mount." When they actually don't, I believe that type of preaching has made more hypocrites in the church than anything else.

If any man's honest and he'll read the Sermon on the Mount, he'll know he's not living up to it. And if that's God's standard, and by the way, it is, you come short of it. What are you going to do? Do you have a savior? Do you have one that can extend mercy to you? Do you have one that can reach down in grace and save you by faith? Because apparently you can't measure up to it. No. May I say they just hold us out before them. And it ministers to hypocrisy today. And to reduce the Christian message to the Sermon on the Mount is a simplicity which the scriptures would not permit under any circumstances whatsoever.

Now, this is the extreme left. Now we have the extreme right. This group, they treat the Sermon on the Mount as if it were the bubonic plague. And they want to have nothing to do with it. You get the impression that there's something ethically wrong with it when you listen to them. And this group are known as hyper-dispensationalists. Don't misunderstand, I'm a dispensationalist, but not a hyper-dispensationalist. And they say that you just can't use the Sermon on the Mount at all.

I had one man that said that the Lord's Prayer has no meaning for us today. And when I heard that, he was a leading man. I ran a series on the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer. And I have a book called, "Let Us Pray," and it deals with the Lord's Prayer. It has a meaning for us today, but I don't think it's to be quoted at a Sunday morning service, as we shall see when we get into the Sermon on the Mount. Now, these folk just want to rule it out. They would say to me today, "Well, let's pass over the Sermon on the Mount. It's not for us." Well, it is for us, not to us. That viewpoint represents the extreme right today.

Now, it is true that there's no gospel in the Sermon on the Mount. And it's tragic indeed to give it to unregenerate men as a standard of conduct, and that if they try to measure up to it, that they are Christian. The Sermon on the Mount is law lifted to the nth degree. Man could not keep the law in the Old Testament, and how in the world can he keep the Sermon on the Mount, which is even higher that is in his own strength? It's likewise true that the modus operandi for Christian living is not really found in the Sermon on the Mount. It gives the ethic without supplying the dynamic. Living by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit is just not one of the truths taught in the Sermon on the Mount.

You find nothing in here. Paul says, "God has sent now the Holy Spirit into the world, and the Spirit of God is able to produce fruit in the life of the believer." You don't find that here. You don't find the ministry of the Holy Spirit at all. Now, the Sermon on the Mount contains high ethical standards and practices, which are not contrary to Christian living. In fact, the Sermon on the Mount expresses the mind of Christ, and certainly His mind should be in the Christian. And there are great principles that are set down here which are profitable for the Christian to learn and to study today, but you'll never attain them in your own strength, my friend. You'll have to go elsewhere to look for the power. You have a marvelous electric light bulb here. But you do not have the generator here that produces the power that will make the light. And it's the light, not the bulb that is all-important.

Now, the primary purpose of the Sermon on the Mount, I believe, is to set before man the law of the kingdom. What are we talking about in the Gospel of Matthew? The king. The king has come to present himself now. He began by, we saw last time, preaching the gospel of the kingdom as John had, his forerunner. And then He called disciples as the king to follow Him. Now, He annunciates the law of the kingdom. This is the manifesto of the king, and it's the platform of the Prince of Peace, and it's law. It'll be the law of this world during the millennium. That's when it's going to find its full fruition. Christ will be here in person to enforce every word of it. The Sermon on the Mount will finally prevail when He whose right it is to rule shall come.

Now it's inconceivable to me that anyone who acknowledges Him today as Lord would despise this document or turn from it. The Christian who calls Him Lord will seek to do the things He commands. He can obey only in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, it's worse than futile to try and force the Sermon on the Mount on a gainsaying and rebellious world. Only the gospel of the grace of God can make men obedient to Christ. And it was given to bring men to obedience to God.

Now, the Sermon on the Mount needs to be preached to bring conviction to the hearts of men and to let them know that they come short of His glory. The Sermon on the Mount lets men know that they've sinned. It reveals that none are righteous and that all have come short of the glory of God. Now, the Christian can take the principles which are set down here and consider them in the light of other scriptures to get a better understanding, a full orb viewpoint of the mind of Christ. And you can only find Christ's definition of murder and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, by the way.

And believe me, you put that down on someone. I think probably I ought to tell this little story. It took place in my first ministry, and I was much more blunt then than frankly, I am now. And I guess some folk may think I'm very blunt. Well, anyway, I was invited by a very wonderful man who was a vice president of a bank and an elder, and one who had actually helped me get through school. I have his picture right here in my study. He's one of the men responsible on the human plane for me being in the ministry.

Now, this man invited me to come up to the Chamber of Commerce, where he was a member, at a noon luncheon and bring a very brief message to them. He said, "You won't have but a few minutes, but I want you to give to these businessmen," they were outstanding businessmen, "the gospel." Well, I went up, and I got there a little early, and there were several men standing around. I went up near the speaker's table, and there was a man there, and he shook hands with me, and he began to rip out oaths. I've never seen such a fine-looking man, so well-dressed, curse as this man did.

Well, finally, he said to me, he says, "What's your racket?" I told him, "I'm a preacher." Well, he began to cover up immediately. He began to apologize for his language, which he didn't need to apologize to me because God heard him all the time. He needed to apologize to God, which I told him. And he went on then and explained to me that he was an officer in a certain liberal church. And believe me, he was covering up fast. He said to me, he says, "You know," said, "the Sermon on the Mount is my religion." I said, "It is?" I said, "Let's shake hands." And I shook hands with him. I said, "I congratulate you. You've got a wonderful religion." I said then to him, "How are you doing with it?" He said, "What do you mean?"

Well, I said, "You said the Sermon on the Mount is your religion. Are you living by it?" Well, he said, "I try." Well, I said, "That's not quite it." The Lord said, "Blessed are you if you do these things," not whether you vote on them, but whether you do them. Well, he said he wasn't too sure about that, but he certainly tried. Well, I said then, "Are you keeping them?" Well, he said, "I think I am." Well, I said, "You mind if we just take a little test?" Well, he said, "All right." I said, "Well, the Sermon on the Mount says that if you're angry with your brother, that you're guilty of murder." I said, "Could you make that?" Well, he said, "That's pretty strong," but he said, "Maybe I could do that. I don't think I've been angry enough to kill anyone."

Then I gave him the other one the Lord gave on adultery. I said, "He said if you so much as look at a woman to lust after, you're guilty of the act." I said, "How about that one?" "Ooh," he said. "I guess that would get me." And I said, "I imagine there are several things in the Sermon on the Mount that would get you." I said, "Apparently, you're not living by your religion." Now, I said, "If I were you, I'd change my religion and get something that works." How many people in the heart of day like that man, very piously say that the Sermon on the Mount is my religion?

Now, all he meant was he just thought it was a good document and a very fine expression, but it didn't affect him one whit. He could curse like a sailor. And I found out later that he had two wives, one he had at home and one was his secretary. May I say to you, friends, the Sermon on the Mount, if you're going to have it as your religion, you better make sure you're keeping it because, you know, the breaking of the law is what gets you in trouble. And if you're going to be a law-abiding citizen, you are to keep the law. And it's loaded with law.

May I say, the Sermon on the Mount, if you look at it and be honest, it'll bring you to a savior who died for you on the cross. That's very important to see. Now, these great principles here are for us today. And we need to come to them. It reveals how far we come short, but sets before us a high goal. Now, the Sermon on the Mount, we have only an excerpt, I'm sure here.

Now, we have in this sermon on the Mount, I've divided it like this: the relationships of the subject of the kingdom to self, in the first 16 verses of the fifth chapter. The relationships of the subject of the kingdom to law. That's 5:17-48. And the relationship of the subjects of the kingdom to God. That's in chapter 6. And then the relationships of the subject of the kingdom to others. That's in chapter 7. And this will prevail when He is ruling over the earth.

Now, let's come to chapter 5, and here we have the relationship of the subjects of the kingdom to self and to law. Now, it opens with the Beatitudes. And I would have you note, they are Beatitudes and not do-atitudes. It states that the subjects of the kingdom, what they are. And how they are to become this type of person. For instance, we'll just look at them. Now, will you notice, and I'm reading verse 1 of chapter 5. "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying." Now, you see, he did not actually give the Sermon on the Mount to the multitudes. He gave it to his disciples.

And that is so important to see. He gave it to those that were already His, and don't misunderstand me, it was because He saw the multitudes and their need. And this is given to them indirectly. And I believe that today that men need first to come to Christ in this day when the kingdom of heaven is actually in abeyance. The present state of it is a place where the seed is being sown, the word of God. That's what we're doing right now. I think that's my business is to sow the seed, the word of God. That's our business in the world. Now the day's coming when He'll establish His kingdom upon this earth.

Now, this has a meaning for us, but notice what it says. It says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Now, the poor in spirit, it doesn't tell you how to become the poor in spirit. It just says the poor in spirit. And He here says nine times, "Blessed." And the Psalms, by the way, open with the same word, "Blessed is the man." And there's a contrast, I think, to the Mosaic Law. In the Mosaic Law, the curses back in Deuteronomy. You remember that Joshua was told when they got into the land that they were to stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people. When you come over Jordan, and then the curses on Mount Ebal. Now, the curses are given in Deuteronomy, and the blessings are given in the Sermon on the Mount for He alone can bring those.

Now, only the saved sinner today can know his poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Why, the Sermon on the Mount makes some of these fellows, as this man I referred to, why it makes them boast. For he certainly was boasting. This was his religion. He's trying to kid himself, and he tried to kid me that he was keeping it. He wasn't keeping it at all. It just made a hypocrite out of him, and we got a lot of those. I played golf in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a very wealthy man there. He'd been in the oil business. He told me he said, I forget how many years. He said, "I went to church just like the rest of the hypocrites, and I was one of them talking about keeping the Sermon on the Mount." Then he said, "One day, I found out I was a lost sinner on the way to hell, and I turned to Jesus Christ, and He saved me."

May I say, friends, don't be taken in by this type of thing. Only the Spirit of God can reveal to you your poverty of spirit. These are the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't tell you how to become one. These are already citizens of the kingdom of heaven. And to know your poverty of spirit, Paul says, "being poor, we make many rich." That's spiritual riches, by the way, and he gives us that over in II Corinthians, the sixth chapter. Now I'll not take time to turn to that today. He says, "as poor, yet making many rich." And that's spiritually. And you'll notice here, the next one is, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And by the way, you will find all of these given elsewhere. The poor in spirit is given in Zephaniah 3:12. "Blessed are they that mourn, they'll be comforted" in Micah 7:1.

This is a state, you see, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." And that's Psalm 37:11. And friends, the meek are not inheriting the earth today. I'm sure you recognize that. They are the ones that are not inheriting it right now. So, apparently, the Sermon on the Mount is not in effect today. Now, when He's reigning, the meek will inherit the earth. And by the way, how do you become meek? This man I talked to wasn't meek. How do you become meek? Well, you and I can't do it. Our Lord was meek and lowly. He'll inherit all things.

Now, we are the heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. We're told the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and among other things, is meekness. Only the Spirit of God can make you meek. When you try to do it and you do accomplish it, even if you did, which you don't, but if you did, you'd be proud of yourself, wouldn't you? And out goes your meekness. You just wouldn't have it at all. How wonderful this Sermon on the Mount is, but let's interpret it accurately, friends. And so, until next time, may the Lord richly bless you, my beloved.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: What a great study. If you'd like to get "Let Us Pray," the booklet Dr. McGee mentioned, you can read or download it for free anytime in our app or at TTB.org. And while you're there, be sure to download our Bible companion for Matthew. It's a clear, concise summary of Dr. McGee's teaching through the book, along with thoughtful questions that will help you reflect, discuss, and dig deeper yourself.

Our desire is that you don't just listen, but that you open the word yourself and let God speak to you personally. We sure hope the companion will help you do exactly that. You'll find it in the resources section at ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65 Bible. And we'll gladly point you in the right direction. We'll continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount next time. I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll be right here saving a seat on the Bible bus just for you.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Through the Bible is a five-year study of God's entire word, and together we discover God's purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him yet?