Sermon on the Mount: The Content: What's Inside the Sermon?
Matthew 5-7 · Vern Peterman · Jul 8, 2007
Sermon on the Mount, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926032142660

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Sermon on the Mount. We're stepping into our second week here. And remember, we've got about three weeks of introduction. Last week we looked at what's the big context of the Sermon on the Mount. What's the big picture? And we looked substantially at a sweeping look going through all of Matthew all in one morning. And so we looked at what's the big context of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is Matthew chapters 5 through 7.

And we'll take a look at the content this morning. Last week we looked at the context, this week the content. Just in the middle of page 1 on your handout there, we say context, context, context. Last Sunday we looked at the book of Matthew on a broad scale. We looked at the perspective of the book of Matthew, which is explicitly Jewish.

Among the four gospels, it's the one most directly targeted, not by its statement, but by the kinds of things that it says and the kinds of things it contains, particularly focused upon the Jewish people as its readers, and specifically the Judaism of the first half of the first century.

The historical context was the Romans had been ruling for decades. The Romans came in at 63 BC. Romans came in at 63 BC. And aside from the circumstance where in 40 BC the Parthians came in briefly and liberated Jerusalem and then got driven out, it had been decades of Roman rule. Here in about the time of 28 AD, assuming a 30 AD crucifixion, Christ was presenting actually early in his ministry, early in his ministry, the Sermon on the Mount.

The other thing is just the Jewish culture. It was the Jewish culture, particularly that in Israel and especially in northern Israel, in the area around Galilee. Now, what we have right below these bullets, I'll read from the paragraph right below them, that coming Messiah, as the Jews commonly saw it, would be from the house of David, a descendant of David. He would sit on the throne of David over the kingdom of Israel, that's the land and the people, over the kingdom of Israel.

And I put in there Luke 1.26-33. In other words, that's exactly what the angel Gabriel told Mary. House, throne, kingdom. From Jerusalem, all taken literally. That's what they expected. The reign of their Messiah, as the Jews saw it, would be over the entire earth, including all the Gentiles, called the nations, the peoples, or led by the kings of the earth. Those are some common phrases or word pairs.

And we'll find that the Sermon on the Mount comes from and confirms the perspective summarized above when we look at the content. One more point about the immediate context of the Sermon on the Mount will further convey the group to whom Jesus was speaking. This is right before the Sermon on the Mount, which starts in chapter 5.

Here in Matthew 4.23, Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

Let's take a look here. Let me back up. Here's the satellite view. This is a view that nobody in the time of the New Testament ever saw, right? But this is the satellite view looking at northern Israel and then Tyre, which is up in Lebanon, off to the northwest. And as we come in a little closer, here is looking at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. And this is with some of the key areas marked off.

Capernaum, where, as we'll see in a little bit, Jesus went into the synagogue there and went into Peter's house. which was, by the way, very close to the synagogue. And he also went to Bethsaida with the Mount of Beatitudes. That is the traditional location. It's not like we're able to nail it down for sure, but that appears to be a reasonable location.

And so that's the north end of the Sea of Galilee there. This is the view on the bottom part from that place where the Sermon on the Mount was given. One of the points we made last week is the Israeli idea of a mountain is a whole lot different from the Colorado idea. But it's up on a rise and looking down over the Sea of Galilee. OK, one of the things that you see there is teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Why doesn't he say teaching in the churches?

Yeah, they didn't have churches. Okay. First, first of all, our concept of what a church was just, it wasn't in existence at that point in time. But one other thing, a synagogue is not just the gathering of the Jews. What is it? It's also the building, right? And, and the churches did not have a concept of meeting in a church building for some time after the new Testament.

Here is, for example, the synagogue at Capernaum. What you see here is actually built the century after the New Testament. What they did is, this is a light colored stone you see there. The synagogue that was there during the time of Christ, and Christ was in, was made from basalt. So it's a dark stone, and in some places you can still see the underlying dark stone. But this is the one in Capernaum.

And here's the one, yes. Oh, please do. Yes. Okay. This one that we just showed. This one. Yes. It had more multi-purpose. And matter of fact, we'll talk about that in a bit. Oftentimes we'll have church gatherings and churches will meet just simply for church gatherings. And we will do other things, different churches can have different practices. But very much the synagogue was also just kind of the public meeting place. And as we'll see shortly, also the courtroom, including the place where you got whipped if you need it. Okay. Thank heaven we don't do that here. Isn't that nice? Okay. Here is the Nazareth Synagogue. Now, some reconstruction has likely taken place, so it may have appeared differently than that, but nonetheless, that's as it stands now.

The synagogues were a place where the Jews gathered. They had their readings. Luke chapter 4 records where Jesus read from the first verse and a half of Isaiah 61. They had rabbis come and speak. And it may have been the example where Jesus would be invited to come and speak. Paul spoke at times as a rabbi. After all, he was fully qualified, having been trained by Gamaliel as a Pharisee. And so it was a place where they would come and speak. It was a place where there would be various kinds of social gatherings.

Matthew 9.35 after the Sermon on the Mount has a similar kind of thing. Teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. So notice the place where it's at. It's a Jewish gathering place. Top of page 2 there. Let's take a gander at it. Okay? Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We're going to find in general these points.

We'll find that the Sermon on the Mount was spoken from the coming earthly kingdom's rightful king. The rightful king of the coming earthly kingdom. Here's Jesus before Pilate some time later. Pilate says, are you the king of the Jews? It's as you say. He spoke to the Jewish people who were disciples of the rightful king of the coming kingdom. Now notice, I make a qualification here. His audience was Jewish, but it wasn't just Jews broad and general. It was Jews who were disciples.

That's one of the particulars we need to keep in mind as we go through. with a view to their manner of living until the kingdom and being qualified to enter. We'll talk more about that next week when we get into our approach, how we're going to approach the Sermon on the Mount. But they're looking, here we are right now, between here and the kingdom, what do we need to know? What's the perspective that we ought to have?

That's what Jesus is laying out. And number four, to enable them to pass along the same gospel of the kingdom to others as and when Jesus authorized them to do so. Matthew chapter 10. He sends them out. After first giving them fairly lengthy instructions, then he sends them out, the twelve, two by two. And as we were tantalized last week, it would be interesting to think of Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector for the Romans being sent out together.

We don't know that. Alright, as we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we're going to find that what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount will be fitting to the exclusively Jewish character of the audience. At the same time, it's going to be shocking. Remember we said last week, what was the part of the title on the second page that's shocking? Repent. Isn't that something? Repent was the shocking news.

Because they figured, hey, we're all getting in. You're Jewish, you're in. You've got the right genetics, you're going. So, for Jesus, and prior to that, John the Baptist, to say, repent, for the kingdom is at hand, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, was shocking news for the first word. Not the rest of it. The first word. That's what was shocking. The way that Jesus taught was radically different from the scribes and the Pharisees. How did we say that the scribes and the Pharisees taught? A couple of different things. What did we say that they taught?

Pardon? Pardon? Doesn't the Sadducees believe that this is all there is? Oh, the Sadducees believe this is all there is and don't believe in any coming kingdom, any Messiah, any resurrection, any angels, any miracles. Well, I'd say miracles, yeah, but not in any grand global sense.

But there were two things here that were different about the way that Jesus talked, the manner in which he talked that we talked about. How did the Pharisees like to leave things, if you had a couple of different vying opinions? Up in the air. Yeah, they liked to leave things up in the air. Isn't that interesting? There are various topics we could go on. And of course, one of the things they would do is bring things to Jesus with those, you know, hey, you get in the middle of this discussion. And what would shock them is you'd say, this is the answer. You're wrong. Go away. You're done. Okay? And that blew them away.

Because they like to leave things up in the air. There's one other thing. They like to just quote other authorities. So-and-so said this and so-and-so said that. And quoting other authorities. That was particularly the favorite practice of the scribes. Quote lots of other authorities. The Pharisees particularly like to be one to say, well, there's this and there's this. You know, stand in the tension, embrace the diversity. OK.

The content of what he taught in correcting the then current errors was startling. One of the things we're going to see in the Sermon on the Mount that just blew their socks off was his teaching on divorce and remarriage, which, by the way, as we'll get into is often misunderstood. But what he told them was the kind of divorces that you people in great numbers are getting is committing adultery. And by the way, everybody who is the offspring of that invalid divorce is not legally allowed under penalty of death to enter the inner part of the temple.

Bam! What? You know, you've got a whole crowd full of people and, you know, We're all committing adultery, which by the law of Moses is a death penalty, and all of our offspring should be getting the death penalty for entering the temple. Whoa. This is a problem. The third one, repent in order to qualify for entry into the kingdom. That was stunning news. They thought that if what? I would enter?

Just you're Jewish. Yep. You got the right genealogy. You got the right genetics. Hey, you're in. Yes. Pardon? Oh, yeah. But what they had taken was, you know, hey, I'm descended from Abraham. And all the things that the law of Moses had laid out about conditions of heart and what kind of attitude you ought to have, and those kinds of things, they had begun setting aside. Yes? So the difference is, just being Jewish isn't good. Jewish is a heart, because the covenant wasn't if you do this, then. Is that correct?

Yes, but the covenant also went to a heart level. The laws of Moses went to the heart level. And that's a part of what is being underscored in the Sermon on the Mount. Condition of heart matters. Condition of heart matters. And that had not been well understood. Paul even brought it across in Book of Romans 9, I think it's about verse 6. Not all they who are Israel who are just descended from Israel. But believing is key. All right, now, to move forward to the coming kingdom, first go back. That's the next title here. What are we saying in that? Jesus is going to come across here. He founded what he said on what God had revealed to the Jews in the Old Testament.

A lot of people will look at it and say, hey, he added this, or he tweaked that. No. What he was doing was, because soon he's going to come and you'll see this list, you have heard that it was said, or you've heard this, you've heard that, you've been told. And what he says, but I tell you, but I tell you. And what is he doing? You look at each one of the things where he says, I tell you. He goes and takes it back to what the Law of Moses said before they laid on piles of traditions. before they started adding to the law and tweaking it and skewing it. That's what he's correcting. One other thing. He'll say repeatedly, but I told you. The emphasis in the original language is not on the but. Matter of fact, that word for but there is day, which is a soft one. It's not on the but, it's on I. Okay?

You've heard that it was said, but I, Jesus. The Messiah. The One who is the Incarnate Son of God. I tell you. That's where the emphasis comes. I tell you. So here we'll have a string in Matthew 5 of places where He makes reference to the law and to the traditions. He goes back. This is what was intended by God. How do I know? I'm God, see? He's making the statement.

So what he does is he goes back and corrects all the accumulated misunderstandings and traditions that have been passed along. Some of them subtly and others more radically different from what was originally revealed through Moses. Now, the Sermon on the Mount makes quite clear that Christ was maintaining the applicability of the law. He stripped away the traditions and went back to the law of Moses.

He said, I'm not here to get rid of the law. I'm not here to end it or abolish it. I'm here to confirm it. Let's look to the top of the third page there. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." What's he saying?

One of the things that's critical here is when you talk about the law, the rabbis had all sorts of lingo, figures of speech about the law. You ever heard like binding and loosing? We'll talk about that, but that's part of their lingo about the law. In the verses I just read, here's some of their lingo in the bullets that you see. To abolish the law of Moses was to violate the law. If you violate it, that is to abolish it. To annul any part of the law of Moses was to misinterpret it.

Jesus is using rabbi code words, rabbi figures of speech. It's the kind of thing that the rabbis would have come and said right there in the synagogues. I did not come to is not some reference to Jesus being born of Mary and talking about how He came. It's about the purpose for His coming.

And the fourth one, to fulfill, was to preserve and sustain the law by interpreting it properly. And guess what? In the following verses, that's what He does. Because He goes back and says, you've heard that it was said, But I tell you, and here's what was originally meant before all the encrustations and additions were laid on top of the law. Yes?

No, what I'm saying is Jesus was speaking in lingo that the rabbis used regarding the law. He was using their terminology. He was using words that the rabbis would have said about the law in terms of what it means to abolish. Abolish doesn't mean to go and make a law that the law is no longer applicable. Abolish means to violate it. That was the terminology that they would use.

To fulfill the law was to preserve and sustain the law. Okay. Let me look at the line just below it where I summarize it. It is after verses 17 and 19 that Jesus proceeds to correct the teachings and practices of the Jews so that the law is properly interpreted, right? Instead of annulling it, they've interpreted it properly. To kept rather than violated, so to keep it rather than abolish it. That's that's not what that's not what he intended by those words is what I'm saying.

OK, what we commonly do is we will look at it and we will say, OK, that's what he means. But we will put our own assumptions as to what those mean. Let me give you a for instance. I think I may have brought this up last week. Daylight savings time. If we look at each of those words individually and try to put together, will we end up with the understanding, looking up each one of those words, of what the phrase daylight savings time means?

No. The Jews, I mean, for them the law was the ultimate thing. And so they had ways of talking about the law. And I mentioned binding and loosing was another example. that was their figures of speech, was their phrases, was their phraseology. And it's important to understand their phraseology. What did he mean by this phrase here? It was steeped in the kinds of words that they would have heard there in the synagogues regularly from the rabbis.

So that just directly looking up the words in English and saying, what does that individual word mean? Doesn't get the point across as to how they would understand it. It's a part of when translators translate it. Do they translate it word for word or thought for thought? Here's an example.

In the book of Romans, and we'll see in the book of Galatians as well, he talks about adoption of sons. And they translate it just that way, adoption of sons. Now, did they mean in their culture, adoption, what we mean? In our culture, we think of adopting maybe a little baby or maybe possibly one little bit older, but oftentimes we think of a baby. Adopting a baby in the Roman culture was virtually never done. They adopted adults. So it is incumbent upon us to look at what did that mean in the culture? What did it mean in the cultural context? And how did they understand that?

Yes. Right. And it's just just like the word binding and loosing. I've had people use the binding and loosing as a justification for binding Satan. I wonder who does the loosing part. But, you know, the thing is, we have to understand what does it mean in the culture. And it's up to us to study it. Now, there are translations that attempt to, and mostly those are paraphrases, when they're going that direction, where they try to carry over the thought and then it's not up to you to look up the culture and look up what was being conveyed and that kind of thing. The difficulty with that is then you're totally relying on, did that person do their homework? Because it basically says, then I don't have to do any studying, but did that person do their homework?

And so those figures of speech, because Scripture has all kinds of figures of speech. It talks about God's hands. Does God listen with the ears? Are his eyes on you? Those are figures of speech, right? And so as we look through Scripture, lots of figures of speech, we have to look at What did that mean? How is that used in the cultural context? Just like we would say, oh, this person drives me up a wall. What? You know? Our cultural context is something we understand. When we study Scripture, particularly a word-for-word translation like this, we need to go back and look at what was that saying.

Example, Jesus meets with Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus, you've got to be born again if you're going to enter the kingdom of God. But there was a cultural meaning of born again that caused Nicodemus to be very puzzled. He already had four qualifications, according to the Jewish culture, for being born again. So Jesus had to explain to him beyond his cultural assumption.

So it's valuable and important for us to look at what are those patterns of speech that they're using here. He's using rabbi lingo in this context here. And if you look at the following verses, he proceeds to do exactly what he says, understanding these figures of speech. Because what does he do after these verses? is He proceeds to tell them, you've heard that it was said, but I'm telling you, and He goes right back to what the Law of Moses originally said, and strips away all the tradition. He says, I'm not here to get rid of the Law of Moses. I'm here to sustain it and uphold it.

Was He going to fulfill it in the sense of following through all the way to the cross? Yes. That's true as well. So I'm not setting that aside. But what was He intending to say here? That's the question. One of the other things that comes out here is while Jesus upholds the law and even takes them back to the law of Moses on numerous points. As a matter of fact, as He goes through and describes things here, He's not really talking about the cross, is He? Look at the things as we go through it, look at the things that He told them, but I tell you, He's not talking about fulfilling it in the sense of the cross. He will do that. But His meaning here is, let's get back to the Law of Moses, the way it was written, without all the junk that's dumped on top of it, and let's just look at it the way it is.

That's what He talks to them about. One of the other things that's clear, though, is while Jesus supports the law and the understanding of the law as it was originally written, that's what he's laying out and making clear, taking all the layers of tradition off of it, taking all the tweaks that they've put upon it. Are we, are you and I, under law? as believers. I see Bud shaking his head. No. Why not? What's the problem? He just said he's going to support it. Why aren't we under law?

He came to fulfill it. He came to go all the way in carrying out His death upon the cross, paying the price for the sins, to be the ultimate sacrifice. as John puts it uniquely, to be the Lamb. The Lamb of God. The One who would take the sins of the world upon Himself. But some of the things we'll be looking at in Galatians pretty shortly is Christ died on the cross. Who and what else died on the cross? Pardon? The Law. Colossians 2, verses 12-14, the law itself down to the last detail and our debts and obligations were nailed to the cross with it.

Galatians 2.19, we have died to the law. What else? We are crucified with Christ. We, everyone who believes, is crucified with Christ.

Galatians 2.20, Romans 6. We are crucified with Christ.

And what else? What else happened that day that there was a dying and a dying to? The old nature of the sin nature. So we were there. We died in relationship to the law, the sin nature, and one other. We died to the law, the sin nature, and one other. He took the price. He paid the price that we could not pay. He paid the price in our place and we were there co-crucified with him and we died unto, we died in relationship to the law, the sin nature, and the world.

So, while here, among these people, he is going to support the law, even down to the place of saying, let's trip off all this junk that people have added to it and get right down to the way it was originally written. He says, I'm going to stand right by the law. But we, in the church, are in a different place. The message, in this respect particularly, will be quite different. We have died to The law, the sin nature, and the world, and as Tom put it, Christ died in our place. Now, topic page four.

Was the Sermon on the Mount directed to Gentiles? As we looked at last Sunday, Matthew 10, 5, and 6, Jesus sent his twelve disciples only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Matthew 15, 24, He said that these were also the people to whom He was sent. He said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So He sent His disciples only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and He Himself said He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus confirmed His target audience by speaking as if the Gentiles were a group apart of His immediate and intended audience.

Chapter 5 Verse 47, if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles, the Ethnikos, the ethnic ones, do the same. Chapter 6, verse 7, and when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles, the Greek is Ethnikos again, the ethnic ones, do for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. And that was carried on through a lot of the Gentile religion.

And as a matter of fact, still carried on today in Tibetan Buddhism, the prayer wheels. And oddly enough, it's been carried over into a Christian song. Keep a little prayer wheel turning. You ever hear that? Really odd. That's Tibetan Buddhism, not Christianity. Making a prayer wheel go around or saying prayers over and over and over again and again, even within Christendom, we've got groups that go and repeat prayers and repeat prayers and repeat prayers and you're supposed to take care of some things by saying it again and again. Well, guess what?

This says that's not what the Lord wants and that's what the Gentiles do. Don't do that. 632, for the Gentiles, the ethnos, Eagerly seek all these things, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. That's what they do, but your Heavenly Father, you who are not Gentiles, know that you need these things.

Cultural references to Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. Jesus presents a principle and priority that is in the context of the sacrifices and offerings in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. That temple no longer existed for presenting offerings after 70 AD. Quick question, when is the temple going to show up again? Pardon? The tribulation. OK. And will we be here? No. And as a matter of fact, the initiating point of the tribulation will be a treaty in which the Antichrist is involved that will begin sacrifices again in Jerusalem.

So it's very interesting that basically about the time these people were dying off that Jesus was speaking to, the temple was ended. The Romans came in 70 AD and scraped it off the face. As a matter of fact, the rubble from the temple, the archaeologists dug up recently and they left some of it just to see where it was left. There won't be a place again for those sacrifices until the tribulation begins and we're out of here. Yes? When the temple was taken out. Basically shortly before that, things got so disrupted that it was taken out.

So it wasn't when the veil was torn? No, I'm sure that they scrambled to try to fix the veil. That must have been quite a project. It was not a little skimpy veil. You couldn't just go down to Target and fix that one. Because the thing was, you know, some inches thick. It was a massive piece of fabric. Tearing it was quite an accomplishment. Yes? Here's an example of understanding how they improved. They call it a bale, but we think of a bale as something that's quite sheer that you can see through. Ah, yeah. Several inches thick, you won't see through it. Yes. Yep. Good point.

So interesting that the references to the temple here are references to a building that within about four decades of the time that Jesus spoke would no longer be in existence. To alter and practices of sacrifice, everything that goes with it, would be gone.

Let's see, here is the Here is the temple in a model, and it would be kind of behind this lower wall, but in front of that larger building where the sacrifices would take place. And so what he's referring to, there if you are presenting your offering at the altar, because that's the only place where Jews were allowed to do that. They couldn't just go present a sacrifice anywhere. They couldn't go in a synagogue anywhere. That was the place that you could do it. The only valid place.

And if you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and present your offering. But the ability to even do that would be gone in four decades. Yes? How did they justify the cessation of the keeping of sacrifices? Ah, okay. Basically, obviously once the temple was gone, there wasn't too much they could do about it. And the Romans weren't gonna let them back in. The Jews were driven off.

And matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of Jews died at the hands of other Jews during that time. It was a horrific event because the Jews who were wanting to fight slaughtered the Jews who refused to. So before the Romans even got in, the slaughter of Jews by the hands of other Jews took place en masse. It was a ghastly, horrific event. So the ability to come in after this major disaster, Jews killing other Jews, then the Romans coming in and slaughtering a great number, hauling some off just as an example to take on their victory tour back to Rome. It was a mess and they could not do it. What the rabbis concluded once the temple was taken out was for sacrifice, you substitute prayer. I don't know how they drew that conclusion, but that's what they did. Yes, Winnie? Ah, okay, good point. Winnie asks an excellent point.

Why in the millennium will the sacrifice continue to go on? The millennial temple is described in the book of Ezekiel. And the sacrifices will continue during that time, even while Christ is here. Think, what were the sacrifices during the Old Testament time doing? What do those sacrifices point to?

Christ. They point forward to Christ. Exactly. Now, in the millennium, what will it be? Why would you have sacrifices? Pointing back. There will be memorial sacrifices. Think of it this way. What do we do once a month upstairs? We take the Lord's table looking back. What will the Jews do? They will have memorial sacrifices looking back.

And Ezekiel describes that millennial temple and gives dimensions which are actually vastly greater than any temple that's ever been at that site. So it'll be memorial sacrifices, not that the sacrifices themselves will accomplish anything. And in fact, did they ever? The sacrifices never did directly accomplish anything, did they? They pointed to God's provision through Jesus Christ. The millennial sacrifices will be the same. They will not accomplish something, but they will point as memorial sacrifices back to Christ.

Yes, the Jews will be under the law and they have to do it to fulfill the law. But let's look at that will be under what is called Israel's new covenant. And what that tells us, the starting verse, but there are three books that address it, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31.31 is the central verse there. The Jews will have the law written on their hearts. There will not even be a need for one to teach another, no rabbis. And they will live it from their heart. Therefore, they will all be blessed, every last one, according to the blessings promised in Deuteronomy 28, verses 1-14. Yes. They will do memorial sacrifices in the Millennial Temple.

There will be no rabbis. There will be priests, but no rabbis. The priests will do the sacrifices. In truth, though, you think of what is a priest, A priest represents people to God. All the Jews will serve as priests. As a matter of fact, what we saw in part in Isaiah is that Gentiles will come and do the work in the land of Israel so that the people of Israel can act as a nation of priests. A nation, not just the tribe, a whole nation of priests representing man to God. every one of them having the law written on their hearts, one not needing to teach another.

Isn't that something? Yes, bud? Well, let's see, they will go through and carry out everything that the law lays out. Yes, they will be carrying out the law down to the letter, from the heart and they will have the Holy Spirit to empower them to do so. So this is an amazing time.

Okay, so you see an offering at the altar which does not exist, has not existed since about four decades after Christ spoke these words and will not exist again until the tribulation period starts and the church is not here. By the New Testament times, the rabbis had developed an elaborate system of oaths. You ever read this passage in the Sermon on the Mount where it talks about, you know, don't say an oath, just say yes, yes, no, no. And so that's Matthew 5, 34 and 35. What the Jews had done is they'd accumulated an elaborate system of oaths.

You could make a whole bunch of oaths, I swear by, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and you could make a long list of oaths that sounded real valid and cool, but they'd made a bunch of rules by which if you swore by these certain things, it wasn't valid, no matter how official it sounds. You can make a long list of swearing by this and that and the other thing.

But if it was on one list, it was not valid at all. You could swear by 20 different things. It all sounded good. But they said that didn't count. But if you swore by this other list of things, then that was valid. And then, you know, then you were held to it. So they had this list basically as a way to lie.

You could say, I swear I will do this, and I swear by da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, and they'd go down their list swearing twenty times about something, and it was all lying. And then you have this other list of, I swear by da-da, da-da, da-da, and you swore by any of those, then you had to do it. You're obligated. What Jesus said, hog feathers, eh?

Nonsense. The whole list. Good, bad, doesn't matter. It's all rubbish. Either tell the truth or that's it. And there's a whole system of oaths that was basically, here's how to lie very nicely. Here's how to lie and make it sound good. He says, forget the whole system. Tell the truth. Say it like it is. That's what he's saying here. 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.

Compare Isaiah 66.1, it says the earth is the footstool of His feet. Or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.

Psalm 48.2 says Jerusalem is the city of the great king. And who is the great king? Christ. Here is the great king, telling him it is the city of the great king.

Let's take a look at the top of page 5. It's addressing the Lord's Prayer. It turns out that the content of what's classically called the Lord's Prayer appears to be in great part a paraphrased combination of two common Jewish prayers of the day. Isn't that interesting?

The first one is Kaddish, exalted and hallowed be his great name. This was the one said in the Jewish synagogues. in the world which He created according to His will. May He let His kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon. Praise be His great name from eternity to eternity, and to this say, Amen.

Well, here's another traditional Jewish evening and morning prayer. Bring me not into the power of sin, and not into the power of guilt, and not into the power of temptation, and not into the power of anything shameful. Do those words sound kind of familiar? Essentially what Jesus had done is combined a couple of traditional prayers of the day, put those together and done some kind of rewording and paraphrase in the Lord's Prayer. Isn't that interesting? The similarities here are evident.

Reference to God as our Father comes from the Jewish Old Testament. has observed in Isaiah 63-16 and 64-8 that God is in heaven as reflected in the Jewish Old Testament scriptures such as Deuteronomy 4, 3 and 9, Joshua 2-11 and Isaiah 1-35-6 and others. Both the Kadish and the Lord's Prayer reveal a typically Jewish reverence for the name of God. His personal covenant name was considered too holy to be pronounced. So you say not God, but you say our Father. Or how about this one? Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.

Does that sound like what we typically see in Lord's Prayer? That's just out of a traditional Jewish writing. Typical of the time. Notice that both the Kadish prayer and the Lord's Prayer are said with a prayer and a hope for an anticipation of the coming earthly kingdom. So, just like we said with the Sermon on the Mount, it's an anticipation of this coming kingdom. As the Lord's Prayer is typically called, it says, thy kingdom come.

Alright, where most Jewish people met. This is the top of page 6. Other than going to the Temple in Jerusalem, other than going to the Temple in Jerusalem, faithful Jews in Israel gathered regularly in synagogues for scripture reading, worship, even for judging and punishment.

By the way, that's where I mentioned earlier, that's where they also carried out their punishments as well. The Jewish law said you get 40 lashes. So the rabbis said, but you might miscount. And if you miscount and whip one more, you've broken the law in punishing. So they said make it 39. But you could have up to 39 lashes right there in the synagogue. And some of the things that you might get whipped for would be surprising. For example, a husband refusing to give affection to his wife was punishable by whipping. How about that? And it could be done every day she reported it. I have good news for you. We're not contemplating that here.

Well, yeah, the divorce thing, that gets a little hairy. As a matter of fact, it gets much more complicated. What he says about divorce in the Sermon on the Mount is very stripped back and simplified. I think it was Vonnie last week brought up Matthew 19. All the things are said about marriage and divorce in that passage. It's a bit more than we have time to tackle now.

Finally, the Jewish court systems. We mentioned last week there's the Shammai court and the Hillel court. The Shammai court says you are only getting a divorce if you can tell us and justify there's been adultery, there's been denial of physical support, abandonment, or denial of affection. That's one of those things you get whipped for. So those things, and then there was the Hillel court that said, okay, you can get a divorce for any reason at all. It's no fault. Nobody even asked why. You got a problem, good, divorce.

And so they had both of those courts, the Shammai court, the one that was more restrictive and asked questions, that was ended in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed. So the court proceedings were carried out in the local synagogues. Matthew 5, 21 through 22 there talks about the court. And as I have in the footnote, it may mean the judgment. But finally, at the end there, the part that is clear is the Supreme Court is the Sanhedrin.

It's the way it's written. Now, let me touch on a couple other things real quick. Jot and tittles. You ever heard of jot and tittles? And we'll be getting into that. Not one jot or tittle will get changed. Well, here is the Hebrew alphabet and Yod is the smallest of the various letters there in the Hebrew alphabet. And the little crook at the top of Yod, that's what gets translated as a tittle. It was actually a kotz in the original language. And here's the way they did it.

A yod with a little hook over the top that was slanted down, that was the kotz where it got translated into King James as a tittle. So the smallest letter and even a little tiny hook on the letter, nothing's going to change. Jesus said, nothing's going to change. It's all going to be carried out down to the finest detail. That's the character of the law.

Alright, we plum run out of time. So, if you have questions, see me afterwards. Let me pray. Lord, we do thank You. As we look at Your Word, boy, we are so thankful for truth laid out. It's not exhaustive. It doesn't answer every question we might have. But it answers the questions You've determined we need to know the answers to. Because You love us. Because You care for us. We thank You for that. Thank You in Jesus' name, Amen.