Be Perfect As God is Perfect, Matthew 5: 46-48

I want to focus our attention today on the last paragraph of chapter 5.  As most of you are aware, we are studying the Sermon on the Mount, or what I prefer to call, the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  This is the first recorded sermon of Jesus Christ.  And in it He has elucidated the characteristics of the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  

One of the most striking statements that Jesus makes concerning the kingdom of heaven is He says that no one will enter unless their righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  The scribes and Pharisees were known for their righteousness.  They were known for keeping the law to the smallest degree.  And Jesus confirmed  that even the smallest point of the law was important, and would not be done away with until all was fulfilled. And yet, even so, He said that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees still came up short of what was required to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

So then Jesus uses six illustrations of the law in order to show the kind of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.  In each case Jesus first says, this is what the scribes and Pharisees teach concerning the law, but this is what I say regarding it.  And then in expounding the law He goes on to show the full extent of the spirit of the law, and thus He illustrates the degree of righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the kind of righteousness needed to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And let me make sure that you understand what is meant by the kingdom of heaven.  He is not speaking of going to heaven when you die, but of becoming a citizen of God’s kingdom now.  It is a spiritual kingdom in which those who are a part of it are first of all made spiritual beings, who live under the reign and rule of Christ their King, who live their life for their King and by the power of His Spirit, and who are given everlasting life. The kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of being which exists now and forever.  We need to stop thinking of heaven as a destination we will attain someday and all that’s required is that we do certain things in order make sure that we go there when we die sometime in the future.  But we need to realize that we need to enter the kingdom of heaven now and live in the Spirit and by the Spirit now as citizens and ministers of God’s kingdom and then our eternal destiny will be secured.

That’s what Paul was speaking of in Eph.1:3 which says, “Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”  He’s not talking about heaven to come, but the heavenly, or spiritual realm we enter into now.  He speaks of it again in chapter 2 vs 4 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”  Again, spiritually we are raised with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly realm.  That is a present reality, and then in the ages to come, in eternity future, He will show us the surpassing riches of His grace.  It’s entering a spiritual state now, being born again into a life that will never end, going from glory to glory. 

Now we came last week to the last illustration which Jesus gives of the law, the law of love. Paul said in Romans 13:10 that love is the fulfillment of the law. Or you could say love is the culmination of the law.  And so Jesus is speaking of that law of love  in vs 43.  He said,  "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Now that is where we stopped last time, and I don’t have time to review all that we had to say about that passage.  But the verses we are going to look at today build on that statement, and are connected to that statement, so I want to include it for the sake of context.  However,  I do want to pick up on that last phrase and expand on it for a moment.  Notice the phrase, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”  This statement is of vital importance in coming to the correct interpretation of this passage.  And It’s not the first time that Jesus has referenced this principle.  He states in vs 9, as one of the beatitudes, that the peacemakers shall be called sons of God.  He states again in vs 16, that our light should shine before men in such a way that it glorifies our Father who is in heaven.  

The point that Jesus is making is that those who are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are also the sons of God.  God is their Father.  And so it is reasonable to assume that the children are going to look like their parents.  They will  have a similar nature and character as their parents. It’s quite reasonable to expect when you see parents and kids together that you see a  family resemblance.  And in like manner, if we are the children of our Father in heaven,  we will  share in His nature.  We will be like Him.

Now this is only possible as the man or woman is born again.  We are all born naturally through our parents.  The Bible teaches that by the lineage of our parents we are born in sin.  We are born with a sin nature, and as a result we all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.  So to become a child of God means that we have to be born again.  Jesus said to Nicodemus, who incidentally was a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, Jesus said in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus was confused about that, as perhaps some of you are.  He said, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  So to become a child of God you must be twice born, once in the flesh, and then born again in the Spirit.

So to be born again is to be born again spiritually.  He is born of the Holy Spirit and his spirit becomes alive in Christ.  No longer is he just a natural man, like everyone else, but he is a spiritual man, a Spirit filled man, who now lives in the power of the Spirit and according to the leading of the Spirit. Only in this way can it be said that you are now sons of God.

Now if this is true of you, that you have been born of God, then you are meant to be like God, you are meant to manifest Jesus Christ to the world and to imitate His example. You are meant to be like Christ, to be conformed to His image; that means you look like Christ, you act like Christ, you speak like Christ. 

A Christian is not just someone who is morally upright, a do-gooder, a person who goes to church on Sunday.  There are other religions in the world that are moral, that honor justice and do good works and so forth, and yet they are not Christians.  They may even believe in God, or at least their version of God. But they deny Christ is God and so therefore they are not Christians.  But they may still be moral people.

However, a Christian,  who has become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, is one who is born again spiritually by God, and now has the indwelling of the Spirit of God in Him, and who is being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and therefore he manifests the life of Christ and the nature and character of Christ through HIs life.

Now only in that way can you be the type of person that Jesus describes in this chapter.  Only in that way can your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Because only through salvation, by being born again spiritually, is the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to your account, and your sinfulness is applied to Jesus Christ.  Only in that way is your nature changed, your heart changed, your desires changed. Only by being born again are the old things passed away and all things become new and you become a new creation. 2Co 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [he is] a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” And only as that has happened are you able to be the type of person manifesting the kind of righteousness that Jesus describes in this passage.

So Jesus speaks to this necessity by comparing the works of the natural man with the works of the spiritual man. He is speaking in the context of the law of love, which was the last  illustration of the law, but it’s application is far broader than that.  In vs 46 Jesus says, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

Here is the practical application of righteousness exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  They were undoubtedly moral people.  They even worshipped the true God of Israel. But they were still natural men.  They had not been born again because they had not believed on Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. They did not recognize Him as God’s Son.  And so though moral men, they were unsaved.

But here in this statement, Jesus equates the righteousness of the Pharisees, who only loved other Israelites and hated everyone else, He equates that with the love of the tax collectors. Tax collectors were the most hated Jews in all of society.  They were considered traitors who worked for the Roman government to extract taxes from the Jews and at the same time charge exorbitant rates. And so they were considered the lowest of the low in Jewish society. 

And again Jesus compares the righteousness of the Pharisees, with their love for their own, as nothing better than that of the Gentiles.  As we have pointed out last week, the Gentiles were hated by the Jews, and were considered no better than a stray, flea infested dog.  So for Jesus to compare their love for their own with the love of the tax collectors and Gentiles was not very flattering for them to hear.

The point that Jesus is making though, is that even the most base of natural man loves his own children, loves his own family.  That’s not the kind of love that God requires of us.  That’s natural love.  But God requires a supernatural love from His children, a love that goes beyond a love toward those that are likeable, those that are like us, to those who are unlikeable and are different from us, even to the point of loving those who hate us.  The citizen of heaven loves more than the natural love of man, to the kind of love that God has towards the world.  The Christian is to love even as far as the kind of love that Christ had, offering Himself as a substitute to die in the place of those who were enemies of God.  

As Jesus said earlier, the Christian is the type of person that goes the extra mile. If you ask him for his coat, he will give you the shirt off his back as well.  He does more than is required. He does more than the natural man.  But not only that, the Christian does that which the natural man cannot do.  The Pharisees could claim that they kept the letter of the law, but only the Christian has the capacity to go beyond that to exceed their righteousness.  He goes beyond the norm by not only loving his neighbor, but also loving his enemies, and then even doing good to them that hate him, and even to the point of praying for them who persecute him.

And as I indicated earlier, this is only possible because there has been a transformation in him, from the natural man to the spiritual. He has been born again, so that He is made in the image of Christ.  He is meant to be like Christ that he might be the child of his Father which is in heaven.  So that Jesus says in vs. 48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”   He is not like the natural man because he has been made a new man, a new creation, a child of God His Father.

That aspect of God as our Father is one that needs to be explained.  The natural man thinks of God as someone to be obeyed, someone in authority. But the Christian knows God as His Father.  He still is to be obeyed, He still is the authority, but He is also our Father and we have a relationship with Him as His children that He loves.  So that as a result of our relationship as sons we are able to love our Father with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  We are able to love Him that way because He first loved us, and because He has given us spiritual life.

Charles Spurgeon, the great English preacher of the 19th century once said, “It is a high crime and misdemeanor for a man to assume the name of a son of God, when he is utterly devoid of the divine nature, and lives in unholiness.”  If we are truly sons of our Father, then we will manifest a dimension of His character and holiness.  If God is in you, then you will exhibit His character.  And His character is characterized as holiness.  

So then Jesus says to His children in vs 48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  It is going to be a natural progression.  As you are born of God, you become made in His image, conformed to His character, and as a result you will manifest His character.

The word translated there as perfect is a word that is used in many other places in the New Testament. It is the word “teleious” in the Greek.  And it has the idea in it of completeness.  The definition is brought to its end, finished, wanting nothing necessary to completeness, perfect.  So the principle that Jesus is teaching is not that we must somehow obtain utter perfection, but rather be made complete, mature, finished, nothing lacking.  The principle I think is that we can often fall short of God’s standard by not going far enough.  We are complete when we love as He loved.  We are incomplete when we love as a natural man loves. 

So the thing we are to be striving for is maturity in our sanctification.  It’s coming to a place where we have died to the selfish nature and we walk in the Spirit.  It’s coming to a place where we know Christ and His attributes and we have imitated Christ and followed in His footsteps and our nature becomes aligned with His nature.  Where we sin less because we love Him more.  Where we are interested in the things that He is interested in. Our perspective on life is like His perspective.  We love what He loves.  We do what He does.  We act like He acts. That is spiritual maturity, completeness, or what is called here being perfect.

When Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, be perfect, I’m sure there were many that wanted to say in response, “But I can’t be perfect.” And that’s when He says, “You’re right. And because you fall short of perfection, which is the standard of God, then you need a Savior.” None of us can reach perfection in our own efforts in the natural man.  All of us fall short.  But  that’s where the new life in Christ comes in, and gives to you what Peter calls the divine nature. He gives you HIs Spirit to dwell in you.  Therefore God, in a miracle of salvation, does for you what you could never do for yourself – to be like God.  When you came to Jesus Christ, positionally, you were made a son of God, to be like God.  You were given His spiritual life, His righteousness,  and His nature.   And in maturity, in completeness, your  behavior comes into harmony with your who you are spiritually.

Oswald Sanders said, “The Master expects from His disciples such conduct as can be explained only in terms of the supernatural.”  And if your conduct can only be explained in terms of the supernatural, then you will give testimony to the world of the power of Christ,  and they’re going to take note.  But if you say you’re a Christian but live like everybody else, what is the difference?  What do you have that they don’t have?  If we’re to speak to this age, and bring this world to Jesus Christ, and let them know that there’s real life in Christ, it’ll be when our lives are unique, and there is no other explanation than that God is in us.

I would conclude then by asking this question. It is the most important question that a person can ask in this life. Is there evidence of spiritual life in you?  Is there evidence of God’s divine nature in you?  I’m not asking if you go to church, or if you have taken communion, or if you do some charity work.  I am not asking for that kind of thing. There are people who do that who are not Christians. If that is all you do, what do you do more than others?  Is there something of your heavenly Father about you? In the earthly realm you expect to see some traits, some characteristics of the fathers in the children.  Is there any less to be seen of our Heavenly Father in us? 

If God is your Father, somewhere or another, in some form, the family likeness will inevitably appear. May God help you to examine yourself in light of His word, that you might see yourself in light of God’s likeness, that you might recognize if you are truly His child.  The tremendous thing about the gospel of Jesus Christ is, that if you fail the test, and you recognize that you are still in your sins, and without God, then there is an invitation to become a child of God that is still open and waiting for you to respond.  Jesus has given HIs life in exchange for yours, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.  Call upon the Lord today that you may become a true child of God and enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Love your enemies, Matthew 5:43-45

There is a trend to use verses of scripture such as the one we are looking at today, by taking them out of their context of all that is taught in the Sermon on the Mount, as a pretext for the social gospel.  And unfortunately, in a lot of mainstream churches today, the social gospel is the only gospel that is being preached.   The social gospel is applying the teachings of Christ not  towards personal conversion but primarily towards social reform, especially as it relates to matters of social justice, environmental issues, race and gender relations, and even economic disparities among the population.

And at first glance, if these statements by Christ are removed from the greater message of His sermon, they would seem to support many of the social gospel’s goals.  The social gospel message is that love is the only important thing.  And so they take the doctrine of Christian love out of context, and magnify it to the point that it eclipses or nullifies any other doctrine that does not support that in the way that they think it should.

And let me be clear;  the social gospel is a false gospel.  It’s not something that  can coexist in the church without damning results.  Because the doctrine of the Bible teaches that man is condemned to die because of God’s judgment against sin, and after physical death is the judgment of God in which He will separate the righteous from the sinner, and will give each it’s reward, either heaven or hell.  Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”  So any gospel that does not warn people of the coming judgment, and offer them a way to escape, is not only not the gospel, but it directly contributes to men and women ending up at the judgment with the only outcome that of being sentenced to hell.  So we cannot just tolerate a certain measure of the social gospel because it is appealing to social activists, or it is appealing to people who want to do something good in hopes of earning their way into heaven.  It’s something that needs to be dismissed as a false gospel.  

So in looking at these verses, you must consider all that Jesus teaches and give equal weight to all His teaching.  You can’t just isolate a few verses out of this sermon and ignore the rest.  For instance, Jesus has already had much to say about the judgment and about hell. In vs 21 He speaks of those who murder being held accountable at judgment.  And in vs 22 He speaks about being guilty enough to be cast into hell.  In vs29 and 30 Jesus speaks of the unrighteous being thrown into hell. In chapter 6 He talks repeatedly about our eternal reward. In chapter 7 He talks about judgment, and then in vs 13 He speaks of the gate and the way to destruction being wide and many people entering it.  In vs 21 He speaks of those who will come to His judgment and be told “depart from me I never knew you,”  and He says not everyone who says to Me “Lord, Lord” will  enter the kingdom of heaven.  So then it becomes clear as we look at the sermon in it’s entirety, that the true message cannot be separated from the doctrine of the coming judgment against sin, and salvation from that judgment, without which one is doomed to spend eternity in hell.  So the need for salvation of your soul is the paramount doctrine of Jesus’s message. And only within that context and as it is subservient to it, can we properly understand the passage before us.

That being said then, it is imperative that we have the right perspective on these verses today.  This sermon is the Lord’s Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  He has laid out the characteristics of it’s citizens.  He has told us that such citizens will be hated by the world and persecuted for their faith. He has told us that the laws by which this kingdom operates are not done away with, nor different than the laws which God gave to Moses.  And He has given us six illustrations  of these laws which contain principles for how we are to live and operate as citizens of His kingdom.

But just as the social gospel today perverts or twists the doctrines of Christ to use them for their own purpose, so also the Pharisees of Jesus’s day twisted the law of Moses for their own advantage.  And so as Jesus gives these 6 illustrations, He contrasts what the Pharisees were teaching in regards to the law with His interpretation of the full extent of the law, even to the point of the spirit of the law.

Now the law we are looking at today is found in vs 43, Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on [the] evil and [the] good, and sends rain on [the] righteous and [the] unrighteous.”

Now let’s first examine what the Pharisees were teaching.  They said, “you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  The first question we should ask  is where did they find that in the law, or even the entire Old Testament for that matter?  Well the first part is found in Lev. 19:18 which says,  'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.”

The Pharisees interpreted this to mean that your neighbor was only a fellow Israelite. Everyone else was considered the enemy.  You were either a Jew or a Gentile, and all Gentiles were considered worse than dogs. Gentiles were routinely called dogs by the Jews.

But let’s try to understand why they considered everyone other than an Israelite to be an enemy and therefore it was ok to hate them. In fact, they went so far as to say that it was their duty to hate Gentiles.  How did they come to that point?  Well, it probably had something to do with way back when they first entered into the Promised Land, they were told to wipe out the Canaanites completely, leaving none of them alive.  They didn’t do it completely, but it was a direct command from the Lord to wipe out the Canaanites. And so that may have fostered this idea of hating their enemies.

But it’s important to understand that when God told the Israelites to enter the land of Canaan, and completely destroy the people there, it was a judicial decree of God that was to be carried out by the Israelites.  It wasn’t just because they were foreigners, or even just because they were pagans.  But because the Canaanites had rejected God and the law of God, and their depravity had progressed to the point that God decided that their time was up, and He was going to act in judgment upon them and wipe them out.

Now for justification for God’s decision, let me tell you a little about the Canaanites. They worshipped Baal, the male god, and Ashteroth the female goddess. The temple of Baal hosted male prostitutes, and the temple of Ashteroth hosted female prostitutes. Worship consisted of orgies of the worst sort imaginable. Furthermore, the excavations of an archeological organization called the Palestine Exploration Fund, back at the turn of the century, found in the Canaanite excavations under the temple a great number of jars containing the remains of children which were sacrificed to Baal.  Another thing that they did was when they built a house, they would sacrifice the first born child and bury it’s body into the wall, to bring good luck to the family.  The Canaanites were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and as a result, God brought His judgment upon them and used Israel to wipe them out. That is the prerogative of God.  He made the world, and He has the right to destroy it whenever He choses.  And He chose to do so not only as judgment, but as protection for the Israelites so that they did not become corrupted by the practices of the pagans.

God is holy and just.  Holiness and justice are essential to His nature.  And a just God must act justly.  At some point He must avenge wrongs against the innocent. I would add here that it’s a dangerous thing in the life of a nation to turn it’s back upon God and do things like kill the unborn.  America sanctions the killing of millions of babies a year.  God is going to execute justice on a nation that kills the innocent.  And it’s important that we understand that such things are the judicial prerogative of God, and not comprehensive of His dealings with the individual.  Jesus speaks of loving our neighbor on the one hand, and then talks about the judgment against sinners resulting in hell in another section of the same sermon.  Now how do we reconcile this apparent discrepancy?  We look at it this way, we love our enemies because that what God does.  “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Now the social gospel interprets that to mean that all that matters is the love of God, and that it doesn’t matter whether a man sins or not; everyone is going to heaven regardless.  God is love, and so therefore love wins; God can never punish sin. But that is to deny all that the Bible teaches. You have to deny the flood, deny the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah.  You have to deny the exile of the Israelites.  And finally, you have to call Jesus a liar, for He said that the unrighteous are to be cast into the lake of fire, where the worm doesn’t die and the fire is not quenched.

To have the correct perspective then we must understand that it is the right of a just God to enact judgment. He does so at various times in history to preserve His creation. The dispensation of God does have a judicial element.  It is the prerogative of a Holy and righteous God to be judicial.  And furthermore, those of you that are parents should understand this, it is possible to love someone and yet also discipline them.  But that is the prerogative of God to determine.  However,  the Pharisees took this judicial principle and applied it to ordinary affairs in their own lives.  They regarded it as justification for hating anyone they disliked. 

So how did Jesus respond to the Pharisee’s teaching of the law?  What contrast did He give in the way it should be applied?  Jesus said in vs44, “But I say to you, love your enemies.”  Now I need to point out something here in regards to the translation of this text.  The KJV includes some phases in the remainder of the verse which most of the newer Bible versions do not include.  And I readily confess that I am not a Greek scholar, but in this case I would rather include the text from the KJV rather than leaving it out as the newer translations do.  The problem  is that the KJV uses one ancient text for it’s translation and the newer versions use another text, or a compilation of other texts, some of which they say are older than the text of the KJV.  In my opinion I believe the fact that God allowed the KJV to stand virtually alone for almost 600 years as the authorized text in the English language should be reason enough to give credence to their translation in regards to disputed texts such as this.  But let me hasten to say the teaching found in the KJV is also found in other places in the scriptures, and so I think that bolsters my belief that this should be included. 

So the NKJV reads as follows, and that’s what I would like to use today; “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,”   Now what I find interesting in this translation is the emphasis is on the response to persecution.  It’s not just the blanket statement to “love your enemies.”  But it’s more specific than that in this translation.  The emphasis is on loving enemies who curse you, who hate you, who spitefully use you and who persecute you.  So you see that the emphasis is on retaliation against persecution, something that Jesus has already spoken about.  He said do not take the approach of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth back in vs 38 and 39.  He was talking about personal retaliation, especially in the realm of persecution.  And all of that ties back to the Beatitude in vs 10 and 11 regarding being blessed if you suffer persecution. 

That provokes the question, what are we to suffer persecution for?  Is it because we defrauded someone and that made them our enemy?  Or because we took advantage of someone and that turned them into our enemy?  No, of course not.  The proper perspective is that we endure persecution because of our relation to Christ.  Vs. 11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”  Because of Christ, you will suffer persecution.  That is, if you are indeed acting like a representative of Christ. 

So how is this principle supposed to be lived out? First of all, our response should not be governed by how they treat us, but how we were treated by God when we were enemies of Him. We must understand their condition, that they are blind,  they are dead in their sins, and they are lost, and if we don’t help them to come to Christ for salvation, they are destined to eternal death.

God doesn’t deal with sinners according to how they deal with Him. Rather Jesus says He causes it to rain on the just and the unjust.  It’s what is called in theological terms “common grace.”  Every good gift comes from above.  And to a farmer, rain is a good thing.  But not just the righteous farmer receives rain, but so does the unrighteous farmer.  God has given to mankind good gifts such as a husband or wife, He gives children, He gives sunshine, He gives rain.  He gives common grace to all, the good and the evil.  

God is governed by justice, but He is also governed by love.  And in order to manifest His love for the world, He had to first satisfy His justice.  So God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son to be our substitute and our sacrifice for sin, so that those who believe on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.  Love comes only by accomplishing His justice.

So how do we reflect this attitude of God towards sinners who hate us, who slander us, curse us, and even persecute us? Well, we have a perspective that is not attached to the things of this world.  We are citizens of another kingdom, and we no longer live for ourselves, but for the kingdom of God.  And if we have that kind of attitude, then we will not defend ourselves when these attacks come from our enemies against the kingdom of heaven, but we will try to win them over with love.  The same kind of sacrificial love that Christ showed for us, we should show to others. Not concerned with our rights as individuals, but concerned with winning their souls for the kingdom of heaven.

How tragic is the Christian who still lives in this world as if this is what is important. Who thinks it’s important to stand up for my rights, to not let this person get away with treating me this way. Who like Peter when confronted with armed soldiers who came to arrest Christ, pulls out a sword and cuts someone’s ear off. It’s tragic because when we do that, it reveals that we are still living according to the flesh, we are still carnal, natural.  We are not living in the Spirit. And the blessing comes when we live in the Spirit.  “Blessed are you when men persecute you.” You’re not blessed when you respond to their attack  and hit them as hard as they hit you.  But you are blessed when you turn their attack into an opportunity to give them the testimony of Christ.

When you have that attitude, then you show compassion to them, knowing that they are being controlled and held captive by Satan.  And so we do everything we can to expose that to them and to lead them to salvation.  That’s what God did.  He looked at the world which was at enmity with Him, who had denied everything that He said was right and instead did what they thought was right in their own eyes, and He sent His only begotten Son into this corrupt world to die in their place because He knew that was the only way to save the world.  And we must have in our hearts this same compassion for the lost that we might win some for the kingdom of God.

Now why should we do this? Why should we love our enemies?  Some people say it is to turn them into our friends.  I think there is a great effort on the part of the modern church today to try to turn the enemies of the cross into the friends of the church. And so we do all kinds of things hoping to get our enemies to think that we are cool, we are hip, we’re not as weird as they think we are.  We think maybe if they like us, then they will want to become like us, and join the church or something.  The problem with that is that liking us is not the issue; it’s liking Christ and His gospel.  The gospel of Christ calls people to recognize that they are enemies of God, that they are sinners, that they are hopeless, and that they must die to themselves and live for God.  It’s not about whether or not they feel like they fit in with the church.  The fact is, they cannot fit in until they are born again.

Another misconception in regards to why we are to love our enemies is they say, “God sees them not as they are, but as they have the potential for becoming.”  That’s the psychological approach. That’s the modern parenting approach.  Such parents don’t ever punish or discipline the child, but they try to treat them as an adult, regardless of how infantile they are acting. The idea is that there is a spark of divinity in man, and if you just nurture it, and fan it into a flame, then you will see that man is basically good.  Of course, that idea goes against the Biblical view that man is hopelessly a sinner, hopelessly corrupted by sin and he needs a complete transformation.

How then are we to manifest this love of God in our dealings with our enemies?  Jesus said, “Bless those who curse you.” Our language should be the language of blessing and not cursing.  How we speak to others is important. Simply put, reply to unkind words with kind words.  

Secondly, Jesus said we manifest love by, “Do good to them that hate you.” That means that we overcome evil with good.  Paul said in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” More specifically, Paul said, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Lastly, Jesus said, “Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.” When persecution comes from our enemies, then we are to pray for them.  I believe this is one of the hardest things for me to do.  What are we praying for?  Their salvation.  That they would be given eyes to see and a heart of repentance.  But also to do as Jesus did when He was persecuted.  When the nails were being driven into His hands by the scoffing, cruel soldiers, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.”  We are to treat others even as He did.

There is another aspect of loving our enemies, if we are going to deal with this honestly. And that is we need to recognize the difference between loving and liking someone.  We are not called to like everybody. But we are commanded to love.  Our natural flesh gets in the way of us truly liking everyone.  To like someone requires that I be like them in certain ways or admire them.  That is the natural inclination, and that is not what Jesus is commanding here.  But He says we are to pray for the one who we don’t like.  We may not like them, but we can still love them.  Because love is a decision.  Like is a matter of affinity or admiration. Love is a decision.

Love is treating someone you don’t like as if you do like him. Love is much more than a feeling of affinity or sentimentality. Love is practical.  1John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.”  Love is active.  Love isn’t passive.  If we don’t like someone, that is not a problem, we just treat them like we like them.  It’s how you act, not how you feel that matters.

You all are familiar I’m sure with the parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10. The Jews considered the Samaritans as so despised that they would go out of their way to avoid even walking through Samaria.  They hated them, and perhaps the Samaritans hated them in return. But when the Jew was attacked by thieves and robbers on the road and left on the side of the road wounded, several other Jews passed by and did not help him.  But the Samaritan, the enemy of the Jews, got off his horse and cared for him, even to the point of supplying his own provisions and money for his well being. That is an example of not only loving your neighbor, but loving your enemy.  Love your neighbor, even if that means loving your enemy.

Listen, the natural man cannot love like that.  The natural man likes people who are like himself. And he hates those who are unlike him.  If someone offends him, insults him, he’s going to naturally respond in kind. But the Christian is different because his makeup is different.  He is a new creature, with a new nature, and the Spirit of Christ is in him.  And so if he is truly living by the Spirit, then he can be like Christ and love his enemies.  The Spirit of God gives him the power to live the life of Christ.  

Gal. 5:22 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love…  We must first have been given the Spirit of God to live in us by being born again, and then we must live by the Spirit that we will obey the commands of Christ and manifest His nature and His gospel to the world.  Only in this way can we be like our Father who is in heaven. If we would begin to really love like He loves, by the power of Christ in us, then the whole world might come to know the saving power of the gospel. 

If you are here today, and you do not have the Spirit of Christ living in you, then I invite you to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.  Repent of your sins, and believe in Him for forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The penalty for your sin was paid for by Jesus, all that remains is that you believe in Him as your Savior and follow Him as your Lord.  

The law concerning retaliation, Matthew 5:38-42

For several weeks now we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount.  And as I have said, that’s not really the best title for Christ’s message. He didn’t title it as that, that’s just the title that became associated with it by commentators and theologians down through the years.  I think a better title is the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Because what Jesus has been presenting in this message is a declaration of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The kingdom of Christ is a spiritual kingdom, and thus it’s called the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God.  

In His declaration He began by giving a series of characteristics of the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as the church is not a building or an organization, but the people of God, so the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, nor a physical government, but it consists of people.  People who have been born again spiritually.  Paul states this spiritual reality for the Christian in [Eph 1:3 saying, “Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ.” He is speaking of the spiritual realm that we are a part of now in our present state.  He restates it again in chapter 2:6 “[God] raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus.” He’s speaking of a heavenly realm of which we belong, though physically we are here on earth.

Let me expand on this for a moment.  The Bible teaches that all men are born spiritually dead. And as a result, all men destined to die. Every person born on earth is subject to die, sooner or later.  That is the curse of the fall, it is the penalty for sin.  And all men are born in sin and are prone to sin.  God is holy and just, and in order to be holy and just, He must execute justice, and so He condemned man to death because man became sinful. Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin is death.  But God is not only holy and just, but He is merciful and loving.  God loved the world that He had created, He loved mankind, and He wanted to give man life.  So in order to satisfy His divine justice and at the same time provide a way for man to be given life, He sent Jesus to die on the cross, as the substitute for sinners, that those who through faith in Jesus might have life. Physically this body is still dying, but spiritually we are born anew with a new life of Christ, and because we have the life of Christ living in us  we will never die in spirit. That’s the other part of Romans 6:23 which I quoted a minute ago; “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Now for those who have been born again spiritually, they are made children of God.  They are made citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  1Peter 2:9-10 says, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God's] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;  for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”

Peter makes an important distinction concerning this spiritual life.  A lot of people want to be assured that they are going to heaven when they die. But the new life of Christ is not just about going to heaven one day, but it’s about being a citizen of heaven now.  Heaven is just a word that speaks of the spiritual realm. It is the realm of Christ, who is the monarch of heaven.  He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.  He rules over the heavens and earth.  And we that have become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are being remade in His image at this present time.  We have His Spirit dwelling in us now.  And so if we are citizens of heaven, then we will manifest the character and nature and purpose of Christ now in our lives.  

That should help us to understand this sermon.  Christ is explaining how His people act, how they live, how they think, and how they conduct themselves.  If you have been born again spiritually, then you have been given a new nature, a new character, and a new attitude.  And your new nature, new character, and new attitude are patterned after Christ.  Now we may not always act like Christ, but we should.  We should want to be like Christ. That is the result of being born again. We are given the Spirit of Christ, so that according to  Romans 8:29 we are predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.  We are growing to be like Him as we follow Him.  Just like a baby is born after the likeness of his parent’s, but as He grows he is trained by his parents to act like hIs parents. Some character traits are an acquired taste, so to speak.  We learn to like them, and be like them, as we practice them and as the Lord trains us through His word.

So when you read the Beatitudes, you should recognize that is a list of character traits that belong to Christ, and therefore have become our character traits as well. When Jesus starts each beatitude with the word “blessed,” He isn’t saying that if you do this you will be blessed.  He is saying because you are blessed with the life of Christ in you, because you have been born again, you are blessed.  And therefore these character traits are yours because you are blessed.  To be blessed is to have received eternal life, spiritual life.  To be blessed is to have become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And those that are citizens of that kingdom, that have the life of Christ in them, will then exhibit these characteristics because they are the characteristics of Christ.

So then, as the Lord talks about the law, and explains these 6 laws from His perspective, we should understand that these are guidelines for our conduct in the Kingdom of Heaven.  As we conduct ourselves according to these principles we will find ourselves manifesting the life of Christ.  These laws are guidelines for kingdom living.  Obedience to these laws and principles  is how we are conformed to the image of Christ.  It’s not how we are born again, it’s not how we are saved, but how we grow to be like Him.  It’s best summarized in the last verse of this chapter, vs48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  These are designed to conform us to the image of Christ.

Now in expounding these laws as examples of heavenly principles that we are to live by, Jesus follows a certain formula.  He first says what the Pharisees teach concerning the law, and then He gives what the true divine principle teaches.  The law we are looking at today is the law concerning retribution.  I’m sure we all have heard the first part of this law before.  Maybe you didn’t even realize this phrase came from the Bible.  Jesus said in vs38 "You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’”

So Jesus is saying this is what the Pharisees teach.  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Now what did the Mosaic law actually say? In Exodus 21:24 we can find this statement as a part of a larger statement which includes life for life and hand for hand, and foot for foot.  The various body parts illustrate the principle of an appropriate response for a crime.  If you read the context of this statement you will find that Moses was giving this principle as guide for civil courts.  He specifically mentions that it is to be done by judges as a response to a crime.

What this law teaches is that the punishment should fit the crime.  You have a similar principle in effect today in our laws.  For instance, you have the right to defend yourself in your home.  But there is a law which says the defensive or retaliatory force must not exceed the nature of the crime. So an unarmed intruder isn’t supposed to be shot.  He can be held, arrested, incarcerated, but not executed.  In the community, if someone is caught stealing a piece of candy from a store, it’s not supposed to warrant the death penalty.  That’s the principle that governs our laws today and it’s the principle that the Mosaic law taught.

So what was the Pharisees teaching concerning this law?  Well, they applied it to individuals.  They considered it as a duty or a right to individuals to take their own revenge.  They ignored the fact that this was intended for the judges only. To them it was something to be insisted on rather than something which was intended to restrain them from taking their own revenge.  So the result of their teaching was that it was your right to retaliate, and furthermore, it was necessary to do so.  And so you had individuals retaliating against one another and taking their own revenge.

Now then, what was the Lord’s response?  Vs39 "But I say to you, do not resist an evil person.” I think a lot of confusion has been created by the King James rendering of this text.  It says, “resist not evil.”  And from a wrong interpretation of that text, comes the notion of pacifism.  I would suggest that pacifism is not what is being taught here.  And the NASB rendering of evil person helps us to recognize that it’s not speaking of evil regimes, or evil empires, such as that in Nazi Germany which tried to take over the world and wipe out the Jewish nation.  But it’s speaking of individual Christians response to a person with evil intent.

I believe that these six illustrations of the law which the Lord gives for us here in this passage are chosen for their relation to the Beatitudes.  And if you will remember vs 10 He said, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when [people] insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”  Now when you compare that to this principle of non retaliation in vs 39, do not resist an evil person…” I think you will see what Jesus is talking about.  He isn’t talking about governments defense against evil, or against those who would kill it’s citizens.  But He is laying out a principle of response to personal persecution by evil people, who are acting as agents of the enemy and insult you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you because you are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.

As we have said from the beginning, the Sermon on the Mount must not be taken out of context, without considering the greater message.  That’s why I spent so much time at the beginning of my message reiterating what constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven, and why these principles are laid out in the manner in which they are presented.  The point is that these principles guide how we act as representatives of Jesus Christ.  They show us how to manifest the character and nature of Christ to the world as citizens of HIs kingdom. 

So when we consider this principle, we must consider how Christ reacted to His detractors.  How did He respond to His accusers?  How did He retaliate against those who persecuted Him?  Well, the short answer is, He didn’t.  When they spat upon Him He said nothing.  When they ridiculed Him He spoke not a word.  When they nailed His hands and His feet to the cross, He prayed, “Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.”

But let us not forget that on two separate occasions, Jesus fashioned a whip out of leather cords and He kicked over the tables of the money changers and He drove out the animals and the vendors out of the temple.   And His reason for HIs actions?  “Zeal for Your house has consumed Me.”  So there obviously  are times when retaliation is justified.  But in your own defense, the principle is that you are not to retaliate against an evil person.

So this law is not about pacifism, but about individual response to a personal attack for the sake of Christ.  Particularly an attack on you because of your faith.  The point being taught here is the attitude of a Christian towards himself.  The Lord is concerned about our attitude towards ourselves; our rights as individuals.  He is teaching that we are to be dead to self.  It’s about  how I see myself in relation to others.  I need to die to the spirit of retaliation and self defense.  The sinful nature of our natural man results in an attitude of self defense in regards to perceived injustices to me.  It results an attitude of selfishness in regards to my possessions.  This attitude is rooted in pride and conceit.  But in Christ all that I am, all that I have, are surrendered to the greater glory of Christ and His kingdom.

I may have my rights, prescribed for me by government.  I may have rights which are considered inalienable, fundamental rights of an individual.  But I do not operate under those rights.  I operate as a citizen of heaven.  I live under the banner of love.  And under that banner, I give up my rights for the sake of others.

Jesus had rights.  He was God. And yet He set aside those rights for our sake.  Phl. 2:5-8 says, “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” As followers of Christ, we also set aside our personal rights so that men might be saved. So that they might understand the love of Christ, the grace of God.

Jesus teaches that the child of God has become dead to self, dead to pride. Jesus said, “If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself ( deny his rights, deny the pride of self) and take up his cross ( die to self) and follow me.”  Dying to self then, Jesus is saying, is the underlying principle of the law.  An eye for an eye is the law of the government, but grace upon grace is the principle by which we are to operate, because that is the principle by which Jesus operates.

Then in delineating how we are to live out this principle, Jesus gives three illustrations.  Let us look at them briefly because they illustrate this principle of non retaliation.  The first is found in vs. 39, “but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”

Too turn the other cheek means not having the spirit of retaliation.  Jesus applies it first to the physical level of someone hitting you on the face.  To strike someone on the cheek was a means of humiliating them in Jewish culture.  And it is often considered the same in our culture. It’s an act of humiliation, an insult. 

But an insult or humiliation can be verbal as well as physical. Many women who are divorced that I have talked to have told me they left their husband because of abuse.  When pressed, many times  they say it is because of verbal abuse.  He’s mean, he’s insulting, he gets angry. While I am not denigrating that sort of abuse, nevertheless it applies to this category of turning the other cheek.  

On the other hand, it would be nice if that was all there was to it.  Turn the other cheek and then the other person is guaranteed to change.  But that’s not what Jesus says will happen.  And I doubt that it happens that way too often in real life.  My Dad, who was an old timey hell fire and brimstone preacher from the South, used to like to say, Jesus said turn the other cheek.  But if he hits me on that cheek, Jesus didn’t say what I had to do then. The point being that he was going to be gracious one time.  But the second time he was going to respond in kind.

Well, that’s obviously not what Jesus is teaching.  Once again, we must warn against a literal interpretation.  This is a principle, and the principle is that you forgive the injury, forgive the humiliation.  And again, let me remind you that this principle does not apply to governments.  Governments are authorized by God to be a restraint against evil and to punish evil.  This is born out in Romans 13:3-4 “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;  for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”  So governments are a minister of God, ordained by God as an avenger who brings judgment on the one who practices evil.  

But as individuals, especially as ministers of the Kingdom of Heaven, we do not retaliate or take our own vengeance.  Paul quoting from the Old Testament says in Romans 12:19  “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath [of God,] for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.”  As citizens of heaven, we let God take revenge, in His time,  and we respond with grace.

I cannot help but think of the fact that at His trial, Jesus was slapped repeatedly on His face.  And yet He did not retaliate.  He could have called 10,000 angels to defend Himself, but yet He did not. He is our example when we are insulted, humiliated and hurt by evil people.

The second illustration is found in vs40, “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.”  Here again the Lord is concerned with how we consider our possessions in light of the gospel.  The example is of a man suing another which would result in losing his inner garment.  The law said that they could not be sued for their outer garment, but they said it was ok to be sued for the inner garment or  the shirt.  

The principle that Jesus is emphasizing in this is the same.  The Christian is not to be concerned about personal insults or injury, even to the loss of property for the sake of Christ. It doesn’t mean that we leave our doors open and advertise that my house is open and available for robbery, I won’t be there.  

No in fact, Jesus said in Luke 12:39  "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.”  But if we lose our possessions because of persecutions against us for the sake of the gospel, then our attitude should be that of offering them up as unto the Lord.  

I would also point out in this illustration a similar situation happened to the Lord at His crucifixion.  John 19:23-24 says, “Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and [also] the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, [to decide] whose it shall be"; [this was] to fulfill the Scripture: "THEY DIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS.”

The last illustration Jesus gives is about going the extra mile.  Vs.41,"Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.” Once again, we are told to turn around what was meant towards you as evil and using it for good. At that time, Judea was under Roman military occupation. Under military law, any Roman soldier might command a Jew to carry his soldier’s pack for one mile – but only one mile. Jesus here says, “Go beyond the one mile required by law and give another mile out of a manifestation of love.” This is how we transform an attempt to manipulate us into an act of grace.  

The last phrase is just a summation of this whole principle.  Jesus says in vs 42 "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.”  Once again this could be taken to such an extreme literal interpretation that it might be ridiculous.  It would be tantamount to allowing someone to steal from you until you have nothing left.  That’s not what Jesus is advocating. But what He really is talking about is the denial of self and using your life and your possessions for the purpose of the kingdom.

He is rebuking the wrong attitude of people who say “what I have is mine, I worked hard for it, and and I will not let it go lest I suffer.” He is rebuking the wrong attitude of those who are always thinking of themselves first, whether their rights or their possessions, whether they are being hit on the cheek, or asked to go an extra mile, or asked to give something up. 

What the Lord is countermanding is the tendency of a Christian to deny help to those in need, to be stingy, to be selfish and prideful. But rather we are to be gracious as the Lord was gracious to us.  We are to be forgiving as He forgave us.  We are to be merciful because He is merciful. Jesus went the extra mile in accomplishing our salvation.  He not only paid the penalty for our sins that we might be forgiven, but He gives us eternal life and an inheritance in heaven. We have received grace upon grace.  So should we also exhibit grace to the world.

The only limit to this kind of self sacrifice is the limit on how much Christ loved us. The manifestation of our Christian character is going to be that of giving, of serving, of helping those in need.  Especially those in need of salvation.  That is our reason for being here on this planet.  We are being conformed to the image of Christ that we might manifest the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, so that the world might be saved, so that they might receive life and gain entrance in the kingdom of Heaven.   

As Paul said in Romans 12:21, “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” 

May God fill us with the power of HIs Spirit that we may do the things which are pleasing to Him, and manifest the love of God to the world.  

Divorce and vows before God, Matthew 5:31-37

As we continue in our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, we are now in the middle of an exposition which Jesus is giving concerning the law.  Jesus has said that rather than diminishing the law, or abolishing the law, He has actually come to accomplish it and fulfill it.  And in regards to our responsibility to the law, He has said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees then we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

So to that point, in regards to how we must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, He gives six illustrations of the law, in which He contrasts the teaching of the Pharisees with His own teaching, which of course is the intent of the law from God’s perspective. 

Last week, we looked at the second law which Jesus interpreted, which is the law concerning adultery. And  closely related to adultery is the next law which Jesus expounds upon, which is the law concerning divorce.  And we will also look at the one which follows divorce, which is the law concerning  vows, which, of course, is closely related to divorce. 

I want to say by way of introduction, that this teaching concerning divorce is not one that many preachers want to deal with in today’s culture.  If the statistics concerning divorce are correct, then even within the church the divorce rate is about 50%.  So at the very outset, I risk offending half of the people here today.  

But the fact that we preach through the Bible verse by verse, expositionally, means that sooner or later we will get to all the doctrines in the Bible, whether they are popular topics or not.  If I were interested in being popular, I would probably find a way to avoid having to speak on this topic.  But if we are to be true to the teaching of Christ, then we must deal with this subject.  I will say this in my defense however, the teaching that you hear today is the teaching of Jesus Christ.  It is not my teaching. My job is not to correct Jesus or reinterpret what He said.  I am going to tell you to the best of my ability exactly what Jesus taught.  So if you have an issue with the subject matter today, then I urge you to take it up with Him, not me.  I’m just the messenger.

Now as I have said previously, Jesus is not disputing the law of Moses, but rather the interpretation of the Pharisees in regards to these laws.  Let’s read again what Jesus is saying. Vs. 31 "It was said, 'WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE';  but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for [the] reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  So first Jesus says what the Pharisees were teaching concerning divorce, and then He contrasts it with His interpretation. 

Now we know that Jesus was accusing the Pharisees of misinterpreting the law, but perhaps it would be helpful for us to review the law of divorce as Moses gave it.  In Deut.  24:1-4 Moses said, "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out from his house,  and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's [wife,]  and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,  [then] her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”

The purpose then of this injunction was to regulate divorce.  The situation in Israel had become one in which men were divorcing for all kinds of reasons, even because the wife may have  burned their breakfast.  They could get a divorce because the wife burned their toast. And in that society, women didn’t have a lot of rights, nor did they have a lot of options.  And so the injunction of Moses was so that there would be some order restored to the sanctity of marriage, and also to provide some protection for the women who were being treated unfairly.

So the law limited divorce to only those cases in which there was some sort of unfaithfulness. He spoke of something he calls uncleanness or indecency.  It means  a moral defect.  It also required that she be given a certificate of divorce, upon the testimony of two witnesses.  So the law made divorce a legal matter, and a very serious one.  It was given to reduce the trivial reasons for divorce which had become the norm in society. 

Another thing that is indicated in the law was that a man who had given a writ of divorce is not allowed to marry her again, if she had been remarried and divorced since their original marriage.  Again, the purpose of the law was to limit the type of divorce that was so commonplace in that society, and to make them realize that it wasn’t something to just wander in and out of, but it’s a permanent thing. So that’s the law of Moses.

Now consider what the Pharisees said.  They taught that Moses commanded a man to divorce his wife under certain conditions. But that was not what Moses had said.  Moses had put certain restrictions and limitations on divorce, but he had never commanded it.  Furthermore, they took the word “uncleanness” and applied it to all kinds of things that were never intended in the original law. The main thing the Pharisees were concerned about was giving the writ of divorce.  They were only interested in the fact that if you wanted a divorce, you had to give the wife a certificate of divorce.  They weren’t interested in the reasons for it, just accommodating it.

So what does Jesus say in regards to divorce?  Jesus says, “but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  He gives them God’s intention concerning divorce.  Jesus says that there is only one legitimate reason for divorce and that is sexual immorality.  All the other hosts of reasons that were popular were against the law of God, and furthermore to divorce on other grounds did not annul the marriage at all in the eyes of God.  In God’s eyes, they were still married, regardless of what the writ of divorce might say.  So then Jesus says an illegitimate divorce gives place to adultery because God doesn’t recognize the divorce.  It is possible for a person to have a divorce that is recognized by the state, but not by God. If that person goes on to marry someone else, God considers that relationship adultery because He sees them as still married.

Listen, what that teaches us is that marriage is a sacred contract between the two people and God. Whether or not the state recognizes it, or even defines it is irrelevant in the eyes of God. Marriage is determined by God and authored by God and is entered into as a vow unto God, which is binding as long as they shall live.  The only exception is that of immorality, and even that is not commanded by God.  God permits it, but does not command it.

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 19 and let’s look at another time when Jesus answered this question concerning divorce and I think you will see there the heart of God concerning this matter.  Matt. 19:3-9 “Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful [for a man] to divorce his wife for any reason at all?"  And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created [them] from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,  and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'? "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND [her] AWAY?" He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."

First of all, notice that Jesus clearly defines marriage as the union of a man and his wife, male and female.  That’s God’s definition of marriage.  Secondly, Jesus said, What God has joined together, let no man separate. So marriage is a sacred union and a covenant between God and man.  And if you break that covenant between male and female, you still have the covenant with God to deal with.

Listen, why does the Lord care so much about marriage?  Why does God hold us to such a high standard in regards to marriage? It’s because marriage is a symbol of God’s relationship to us.  Paul said in 2 Cor. 11:2 that he betrothed us to one husband, who is Jesus Christ. The church, that is the people that are born again, that have entered into the kingdom of heaven, are described in scripture as the bride of Christ. Our reunion with the Lord at His coming is described as the bridgroom coming for His bride.  The consummation of the kingdom at His second coming is called the marriage supper of the Lamb.  So in our salvation  we have become one flesh with the Lord.  He has entered into us. We have committed our life to Him, and He has committed His life to us.  And God will never divorce us.  

In Malachi 2:16 God says, “For I hate divorce.”  The Lord said numerous times in scripture, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  He will never forget His covenant with us.  2Timothy 2:13 says, even “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” 

Now this standard of God in regards to marriage is applied to us, that we might be like God. That is the purpose of our sanctification, to become remade in the image of Christ, to mirror the nature and character of God.  And that is the intent of the law, that we might know the nature of God so that we might be like Him.

The purpose of the law is that we might be holy, even as He is holy. It is to raise our level of love to the standard which God has for us; a sacrificial, unwavering love, a love rooted in forgiveness and long-suffering.  A love that never fails. And so rather than diminish that law as the Pharisees had done, Jesus raises the standard of marriage to the standard of God.

Then building upon that law regarding divorce, which is really a law pertaining to marriage, Jesus then restates God’s law concerning oaths. I think that it especially applies to the vows of marriage, but it also has a much broader application as we will see.  Let’s consider again what Jesus says in vs 33, "Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.'  "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,  or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING.  "Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' [or] 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.”

Now if we use the same formula as in the preceding exposition of the law, then we would first ask, what did the law of Moses say?  Well, the 10 commandments does not state this explicitly.  What it does say is that “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”  That certainly applies to the taking of an oath, if you are using God’s name as a guarantee of your word. There is another reference however, which is found in Leviticus 19:12, which says, “You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD.  So out of these two commands the Pharisees had extracted their teaching which was “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.”

So what had evolved out of this teaching of the Pharisees was that they supposed that as long as they did not swear by the Lord, they could still swear, but swear by things of less importance. They had reduced the law of God to just the matter of perjury.  As long as you didn’t perjure yourself, then you were fine.  They could swear by heaven, or by the temple, or anything that they thought gave their word weightiness.  But the other aspect of this practice, was that they attributed more weight to one oath above another.  If they swore by the temple, then that was not really binding.  If you swore by the altar in the temple  it was not binding, but if you swore by the sacrifice on the altar then you were absolutely bound.  And so out of this interpretation of the law they had come up with a sliding scale in regards to truthfulness and making oaths.

Now how did the Lord contrast the correct teaching of the law?  Notice He says, “but I say to you.”  He is the authority, He is the law giver. And He says, “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,  or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING.  "Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' [or] 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil.”

Some people have taken this injunction of the Lord quite legalistically to the point that they do not feel that they can take an oath at all.  For instance, in a court of law they cannot make an oath.  But if we examine the Bible, we find many examples in which oaths were taken and there was no rebuke from the Lord.  For instance, Abraham extracted an oath from his servant when he went to find Isaac a wife. Jacob extracted an oath from Joseph, and Joseph from his brothers. Jonathan asked an oath from David.

One of the best examples is one which we looked at last Wednesday in our Bible study.  The Gibeonites came to the nation of Israel under false pretenses, having disguised themselves as coming from a far country because they knew that God had prohibited the Jews from making alliances with the Canaanites.  So they came under disguise and after hearing them out, the Israelites decided to make an alliance with them. Joshua 9:15 says, “Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.”

When after three days they found out that they had been deceived, the Israelites still kept their oath.  In fact, later when the Gibeonites were being attacked by the Canaanites, they sent word to Israel and asked for help.  And Joshua and the leaders of Israel came to their defense because of not only their oath to them, but the spirit of the oath. And God blessed their commitment to that oath.  They could have let them be attacked and perhaps gotten the burden of them off their backs and been free from the oath.  But because they understood the principle behind the oath, they went to their defense.

There are New Testament examples of oaths as well.  It might be argued that Jesus responded to an oath by answering the high priest at His trial. He responded when He was adjured by God to answer whether or not He was the Christ.  He did not rebuke the high priest, but He answered him in the affirmative.  And Paul on a couple of occasions gave an oath, in Romans 9:1 he says, “I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.” And again in 2 Cor. 1:23, “ I call God to witness for my soul…”  

Another example is given in Hebrews 6:16, this time speaking of God HImself taking an oath. “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.”

The conclusion that we can draw from this is that oath taking should be restricted, realizing that all oaths are binding, all promises are binding, and that while the need for oaths should be rare, there are times when a solemn oath is not only legitimate, but lends an authority which nothing else can give.  And Jesus clearly teaches that oaths that are given in such a way that  they are not intended to be binding, are really a form of lying.  He teaches that speaking the truth is always a solemn matter and a necessity before men and God.

One of the greatest tragedies in modern society is the breaking of oaths in regards to marriage.  As I said at the beginning of the message, the law of divorce is closely related to the law of oaths, and I believe the Lord deliberately placed them next to one another in His message.  Marriage is a sacred covenant between God and a man and woman.  And the fact that people today so casually break these oaths is a matter of grave concern to God, and it has grave repercussions to His people.  I gave the Gibeonites as an example while ago of a people who came under false pretenses and made a covenant with Israel.  Israel could have tried to use the excuse that they had made a mistake in making a covenant with them.  They could have used the excuse that it was made under false pretenses.  But two wrongs do not make a right.  Even thought that was true, they still considered their oath as binding, even to the point of going to war to keep not just the letter of the oath, but the spirit of the oath.  

And God gave the Israelites a great victory because they kept their word.  God puts a high value on keeping oaths, and He will hold us accountable when we break them.  Many years after this event, King Saul acted unfaithfully towards the Gibeonites.  He had put some of them to death in his zeal for Israel.  Though his zeal for Israel was a good thing, yet God punished Israel for Saul breaking their oath to them to protect them.  It happened many years later after Saul’s death, during the reign of King David. God sent a famine in the land, and it lasted for three years.  David finally came to God and asked why He was sending a famine upon them.  And God answered in 2Samuel 21:1"It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”  

The point I want to make is this.  The fact that you may have broken your vows, whatever they may be, might have resulted in you having a famine in your life.  David had to go to the Gibeonites and make things right with them.  It wasn’t an easy thing to do.  It required a great sacrifice to set things right.  And that might be what God requires of you concerning your vows.  Some things you cannot undo.  But you can still repent and try to make things right.  

Listen, if you are a Christian today then you are the children of God, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  If we have been born again then we have become partakers of His divine nature.  We are to conduct ourselves with fear on the earth, lest we sully the name of Christ. Peter said in 1Peter 1:17-19 “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay [on earth;]  knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,  but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, [the blood] of Christ.”

God sees our hearts, He hears every word we speak, every promise we make. He witnesses every action that we do. Let us be obedient even as Christ was obedient, let us love even as God loves, and let our conversation be true even as God is true.  Praise God that He keeps His promises.  Thank God that He will never divorce us.  Thank God that we can trust in His word and His enduring love for us.  

Listen, the law was given to be a tutor to show us our sinfulness and our need of a Savior.  I urge you today, if you have not been born again, to confess your sin to the Lord, and repent, and believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, that you might become one with Christ and receive His Spirit within you.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  The Lord has paid the price for your sin, and He extends His invitation to enter into His kingdom.  I pray that you will accept Him and trust Him as your Savior today.