Luke 6:20-49

CHAPTER 16

SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Matthew 5-7, and Luke 6:20-49. A few days ago it was my privilege to spend two beautiful bright days at the sea of Galilee, sailing over it, and visiting the places of historic note. Our dragoman escorted us up Mt. Hattin, which hangs over the city of Tiberias on the west coast, and said to us, “This is the Mount of Beatitudes.” I correct this mistake, lest you fall into it. While perhaps all the guides through that country would corroborate our dragoman, the Word of the Lord is the end of all controversy. Mt. Hattin, so celebrated as the battlefield on which the Christian Crusaders suffered their last and final defeat by Saladin, the Mohammedan general, A.D. 1189, after which the Cross retreated from the Holy Land, the Crescent superseding even till this day, is twenty miles from Capernaum overland, and ten by sea. Hence this can not be the Mount of Beatitudes, as we see (Matthew 8 and Luke 7) that when our Lord concluded this sermon, and they descended from the mount, they were at the city of Capernaum, which is on the north coast. From these Scriptures, we see very clearly that the great mountain, rising in his majesty, immediately back of Capernaum, is really and unmistakably the Mount of Beatitudes. This conclusion satisfies the Scripture at all points i.e., the location of the mountain; the plateau, about midway from the summit down to the sea, where Jesus descended with his apostles; and the city of Capernaum, down on the plain, hard by the sea.

“Seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain, and having sat down, His disciples came to Him.” Our Lord, having already this morning done a mighty work of bodily healing and soul saving, retires from the multitude, leaving them on that “level place” i.e., plateau, on the southern slope of the Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum and the sea of Galilee being down at the base retires back into the mountain, where He had spent the preceding night in prayer, organizing the Apostolate about sunrise. Though at the beginning only His disciples came to Him, the multitudes doubtless follow on.

“Opening His mouth, He continued to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” Luke: “Lifting up His eyes toward His disciples, He said, Blessed are ye poor, because yours is the kingdom of God.” Here, as uniformly in the Scriptures, “heaven” (E.V.) is “heavens” in the Greek, corroborating the astronomical revelation of many worlds constituting the celestial universe. “Kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God” are everywhere precisely synonymous here, Matthew giving the former, and Luke the latter; simply meaning the Divine government, including all the saints and angels in glory, and the holy people under the reign of grace on the earth. Spiritual poverty stands at the head of these seven wonderful, spiritual Beatitudes, corroborating the uniform teaching of God's Word, setting forth humility as the fundamental and primary grace of the Holy Spirit, without which every other is defective and evanescent. Conviction, superinduced by the straight preaching of the awful Sinai gospel is prerequisite in every substantial work of grace. John Fletcher was once interrogated, “What is the most important Christian grace?” He answered, “Humility.” “What is the next?” His response was, “Humility.” To the third inquiry he gave the same answer. When John Wesley preached the funeral sermon of that good man, he said: “The most saintly man I ever saw lies in that coffin, and I never expect to see another such till I go to glory.” Perfect humility is the corner-stone of all Christian perfection.

“Blessed are they that mourn, because they shall be comforted.” When the Holy Spirit transmits His wonderful light into the deep interior of the sinner's heart, revealing to him his absolute destitution and hopeless bankruptcy, he is inundated with a Bochim of weeping, refusing to eat or sleep; but crying to God out of a broken heart, mourning night and day, despite all efforts to comfort him, till Jesus sends into his troubled breast the infallible Comforter. Hence, you see the logical connection of these two Beatitudes “poverty of the spirit” preparing the way for the comfort of the Holy Ghost.

“Blessed are the meek, because they shall inherit the earth.” Meekness is a strong, clear case of humility, bringing us down low at the feet of Jesus, there to abide in the bottom of the valley of humiliation, from which we can never fall, as we are already on the bottom, and no place into which to fall. The meek here signifies the genuine humble saints of God in all ages and nations, in whom the Holy Ghost has wrought the glorious work of pride's extermination. Here our Savior flashes out a glorious anticipation of the Millennial Theocracy, when the humble saints of God, who have lived and died in poverty, many of them sealing their faith with their blood, shall be promoted to the thrones and principalities, and, as the subordinates of the glorified Christ, rule the world. We are very sure that the Lord's meek and holy people have not yet inherited this earth. With very little exception, it is in the hands of Satan's people. The Word of the Lord can not fail. I am living in constant anticipation of the trumpet call, responsive to which the saints, living and dead, will fly up to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.)

“Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, because they shall be filled.” Here we have another beautiful couplet of these Beatitudes; meekness, which is perfect humility, puts us in position to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Are you hungry? Do you not hear the invitation ringing? Your chair is vacant at the table of the Lord, which is groaning beneath the very bounty of heaven, the blessed Master sitting at the head, and saying to all, “Help yourselves,” while the angels are all around you, with smiling solicitations to partake of this and that, and everything sweet, delicious, and nutritious; the fatted calf floating in his gravy, bread enough and to spare, milk and honey flowing, delicious grapes of Eshcol, strawberries, cream, and every edible desirable or conceivable, without money and without price. Are you thirsty? The crystal river of life is flowing at your feet, and Jesus is ready to turn the water into wine.

It is your privilege to eat to gluttony and drink to intoxication. I fear the trouble is, that you do not hunger and thirst. Thirty thousand promises in God's Infallible Word assure you, that heaven is full of salvation, and you have nothing to do but tap the ocean by faith and you will get full. Even now is the auspicious moment for you to eat and drink and be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” The merciful man is merciful to everything that has feeling. His heart leaps over the ocean, and breaks with sympathy for the heathen millions, “sitting in the valley and the shadow of death.” He cries to God to make him a blessing to all his neighbors and friends. O how gushingly and genuinely he loves his enemies! He is full of kindness to the horse, cow, hog, sheep, dog, cat, chicken, and every living creature. He longs to do good to everybody and everything. O how he loves the antiholiness people, who fight him so pugnaciously! He does not feel like leaving his Church, where God needs him to show mercy to the unsaved. If they turn him out, he is still the more flooded with loving sympathy and tender mercy, crying out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” This blessing takes away all your horns, hoofs, claws, sharp teeth, and leaves you harmless as a wasp whose sting has been extracted. These Beatitudes run in couplets: Spiritual poverty puts you down where you can mourn and be comforted.

Meekness is still a deeper humiliation, preparatory for the filling of the Holy Ghost. From the bottom of a deep well, you can look up and see stars at noonday. If you want to see the deep things of God, close your eyes. The blessing of mercy is still progressive in the sphere of humiliation, and a glorious preparatory school for the happy graduation, which follows in the next Beatitude; i.e., a clean heart.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see God.” Our Savior has decreed that none shall see the kingdom unless they are “born from above;” and now we hear the irrevocable decree ringing out, “None but the pure in heart shall see God.” The heart is never pure, so long as it contains any malevolent affection; i.e., pride, vanity, folly, envy, jealousy, revenge, selfishness, bigotry, sectarianism, anger, malice, ambition, avarice, lust, or any other incentive out of harmony with pure love, the character of Jesus, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and the will of God. The precious blood of Jesus, applied by the Holy Spirit, through humble faith, preceded and accompanied by complete consecration and obedience to God, is the heavenly elixir for the purification of the heart.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, because they shall be called the children of God.” Things are very apt to be called what they are. The Bible was first written in Hebrew, which is a rigidly significant language, every name having a meaning. Consequently, when Adam, before the black darkness of sin fell on his intellect, looked on the animals which God had created and brought to him, he had no trouble to name them all, not haphazardously, but significantly of their character, by the wonderful intuition of his unfallen intellect looking into the very nature of every animal, diagnosing its constitution, recognizing its character, and calling it just what it was. That mutation is still in the world in a modified state, as a rule calling everything by its right name; i.e., what it is. When you receive a clean heart, you, ex-officio, become a peacemaker; i.e., like a ministering angel, you make peace among all the inmates of your house, not only with one another, but with God, thus rendering your home a little heaven. You become a peacemaker in your community, reconciling alienated friends; rising above partisan strife, whether political or ecclesiastical; shedding a benignant, heavenly influence all around. Is there any serious trouble between neighbors or Church members? You run, lest some one may anticipate you, and take the blessing which God has for the peacemaker, and you may miss it. Religious professions which do not illustrate and verify these Beatitudes are all counterfeit and spurious.

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, because theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” Such is the importance of the blessing of persecution that our Lord here repeats it in a more elaborate form: “Blessed are ye when they may revile you, and persecute you, and say every evil word against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, because great is your reward in the heavens; for thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Luke gives this blessing so grand and beautiful, we give you the full benefit of his testimony: “Blessed are ye when the people may hate you, and when they may turn you out of the Church, despise and cast out your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven, for according to these things their fathers were accustomed to do unto the prophets.” The old prophets, like the apostles, suffered a terrible persecution all their lives, many of them sealing their faith with their blood. You wonder why I give you this Scripture from Luke, “Turn you out of the Church.” The word which our Savior used is aphorisosin, and means separate i.e., separate you from their fellowship; i.e., turn you out of the Church, which was currently customary during all the persecutionary ages, when they burned the heretics, invariably excommunicating them from the Church antecedently to their martyrdom. When they burned Bishops Latimer and Ridley at Smithfield, during the reign of Bloody Mary, the Roman Catholic bishop turned them out of the Church before they took their lives. Much of this excommunication is now going on a matter of great encouragement to God's true people, because it is a literal fulfillment of our Savior's prophecy. What shall we do amid all these persecutions, excommunications, and everything they dare to undertake? as they certainly would expose God's people to martyrdom now, as in bygone ages, if the civil arm would only enforce ecclesiastical law. Our Savior tells us what we are to do amid all these persecutions, (Luke 6:23), “Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy; for, behold, your reward in heaven is great; for according to these things their fathers were accustomed to do unto the prophets.” Hence, you see, it is no time to put on a long face, turn blue, and complain, “ O they have done me so much evil, and even turned me out of the Church.” Do you not know that all your murmuring and complaining grieves the Holy Spirit and pleases the devil, and at the same time shows to the world that your place is down low at the altar, where you are to stay until you get a clean heart? Do you not see here that persecution is a blessing, and actually climaxes the preceding six? If you were sanctified wholly, then persecution would be a blessing to you, and you would rejoice in it. The joy of perfect love can not be quenched out by the devil's cold water. When you get this catalogue of blessings, as you see, culminating in a clean heart, then you will be in fix to obey the Savior, who commands you to rejoice in your persecutions, and leap for joy, even in case that they turn you out of the Church, ignoring you as a heathen or a publican. Rely upon it, this is all true.

These Beatitudes are a glorious and ineffable reality. If you are not sanctified wholly, having a genuine case, in harmony with the Scriptures, wrought by the Holy Ghost, persecution will not be a blessing to you; as it is very likely to upset you, provoke you to commit sin, and bring you under condemnation. While, if you really have a clean heart, filled with the Holy Ghost, you will stand on an eminence, not only above, but out of reach of persecution, so that you will actually get happy, rejoice and leap for joy, amid the persecutions; not that you rejoice over the persecution, but your eye is on that great reward in heaven, the persecution serving as an exceedingly valuable test, throwing wide open the door through which God pours a flood of blessed assurance, which lifts you above all the raging storms and black tornadoes which earth and hell combined can raise against you. Remember, the blackest clouds are white as snow on the upper side, where the sun is shining in his beauty. These seven Beatitudes are the sapphire steps of Jacob's ladder, by which you climb above every storm, tread the bright plateaus of the Delectable Mountains, where the Sun of righteousness eternally shines in His undimmed glory, and the fadeless flowers of Paradise emit their heavenly fragrance on celestial airs, their fadeless tints and hues flashing in the gorgeous glory of the Sun that never sets.

“Moreover, woe unto you rich people, because you exhaust your consolation;” not, as E.V., “have your consolation,” as in that case it would read echete, whereas we have apechete, which means exhaust. How is this? Why the rich, worldly people have only the consolation of this world, which is fleeting and transitory. Therefore they exhaust their happiness in this life i.e., use it all up and have none left for eternity.

“Woe unto you who have been filled, because you shall hunger.” Still speaking of these rich, worldly, unsaved people, who have been filled i.e., satisfied with the bounty of this world, which they must quickly leave, and go away to hunger through all eternity. “Woe unto you who laugh now, because you shall weep and mourn.” It is impossible to live for this world and for heaven at the same time, as they are utterly out of harmony, either with other. Here is the turning-point in human destiny.

We are all brought face to face with the issue: Take this world or heaven.

“Woe unto you when all the people may speak well of you; according to these things their fathers were accustomed to do unto the false prophets.” During an Annual Conference, a petition was brought before the Cabinet, requesting them to send a preacher who would please, not only the Methodists, but other denominations and the outsiders, specifying, “We want a well-rounded man.” The presiding bishop observed, “There is but one round figure, and that is zero, all the rest having sharp corners; so go and tell them I haven't got the man. But be of good comfort; for they can pick him up anywhere, as there are plenty of them.” It is a significant fact that the climacteric effort is made in pulpit and pew to please everybody, which is inevitably selfcondemnatory, at the same time illustrating their unhappy identity with the false prophets, and confirming the sad conclusion that we live in an age of fallen Churches and false prophets; also warranting the conclusion that the false prophets of the old dispensation were the popular preachers, beloved and applauded by the people, who believed them to be orthodox, genuine, and true, while they persecuted Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, and all the glorious prophetical procession from righteous Abel down to the present day.