Matthew, 7:24-29

Matthew 7, 24-29. And this is kind of a shorter section than we sometimes bite off. But we have this here, the Sermon on the Mount. It's not over until the house built on sand falls. So in this section here, the last few verses, As he's been doing, because really he's given them word pictures, hasn't he? Talked about the narrow gate and the wide gate and kind of stepped through two trees. This is a word picture as well. So he's doing a series of word pictures. And this is the fourth in a series of twos. And so here he's got two different things on which the house is built.

So this illustration finishes off this series and what's real interesting is the differences in the twos are black and white. That doesn't fit with a lot of our popular concepts of truth, right? Just black and white. The narrow gate and the wide gate, is there a slight difference between where those end up? No, not even a little bit, okay? Really big difference. And we'll find that's the same thing here. that it is a radical difference, big difference.

And I think that's one thing about Jesus' teaching. We mentioned in the past, and we'll kind of revisit this even this morning, we mentioned in the past that the teachers that were common in those days taught in ways that were substantially in contrast with what Jesus taught. Remember, what were some of the things we said were common to the teachers of the day. Do you recall what some of those things were? What's that? Parables were common. Okay.

What were the things that Jesus taught about that were different? That's what we're aiming at here. How did the teachers teach? that was different from the way Jesus taught? How did the teachers teach that was different from the way Jesus taught? Tradition. This is the way we always do it. He taught with authority. The tradition issue, he addressed even at the very first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, didn't he? Because he said, you have heard this. That was the tradition, right? But I say to you, And so he was making a break with tradition in those points. And then you mentioned, Brad, what was your point? Taught based on authority. How is that different from the way that things were commonly taught during that time? Remember, what did the scribes and Pharisees tend to do?

Yeah, lots of quoting. This guy says, This other fellow says, I heard this guy say, you know, and so they would do lots of quoting. That would be one thing. How many quotes do you read in the Sermon on the Mount? Yeah. No, no. Somebody else says this and, you know, leaving it at that. So, lots of quoting.

And the other thing is they loved to leave things in tension. To leave things in a quandary. And I think you, working with some folks of the same ethnic background, have noted that as a sort of a cultural trait. Love to leave things in a quandary. Leave things in a tension. Now, so we get to this.

Here Jesus says in Matthew 7, 24-27, Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against the house. Yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against the house. And it fell, and great was its fall.

Isn't it interesting that not only does the illustration end on a negative note, it ends the whole Sermon on the Mount on a negative note. But you know that that's common in Jewish writings, even in the Old Testament. We have kind of a footnote here. The Book of Genesis ends with the words, "...in a coffin in Egypt." Isaiah ends with the words, "...an abhorrence to all mankind." Malachi, here's the end of the whole Old Testament, with a curse. So this was actually, believe it or not, typical Jewish way of writing and speaking. To end with the last few words just being shockingly negative. How many of you like a movie that has a really bad ending? Yeah, it leaves it unresolved. Anyway, real interesting, Jesus kind of, as much as he broke from many of the patterns, he also followed a Jewish pattern here.

Now, Jesus compared these two kinds of responses to his words to the character of the two builders and then sharply, got that sharply contrasted, the outcome of their choice of building locations. Building locations. Now, The one builder, this is the one who, to use the analogy that he sets up there, who hears the words of Christ and acts on them.

This first builder is a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the house withstood the impact of rain, floods, and wind. Now, what do you see in that? What's the point of contrast between these two builders? What's that? Okay, that's in the illustration, it's the foundation. What's the point he's trying to make? What's the application to these Jewish people who are listening to him? Okay, they both listened though, didn't they? They both listened. They both heard. One acted and the other did not act on what was said. Acting on what was said, that was building on the rock. Not acting was building on the sand.

Other than that, the illustrations are identical, aren't they? You've still got a builder. You've still got a house built. You still have the same things come against the house. So the difference in the lives of the people who are hearing is acting. The difference in the illustration is how it ends up.

Yes? Isn't it interesting that the one who did not act on Jesus' word still built something? Isn't that kind of comparable to not to decide is to decide? Yeah, and if you don't decide, you made a decision, right? Yeah. So here's a few questions to ponder here. They both hear the words of Jesus. They both are illustrators, builders. So why is the outcome of the illustration so very different? Why the different outcome? I mean, we said there's a lot similar. Why the different outcome? What's the one thing that's different? A sure foundation versus a sandy one.

And that's an illustration of acting on His words versus not acting. Now, Jack, you brought up the point where it seems like the second builder that does not act on His words still built something. So, why would Jesus make this point? It wasn't like He didn't build a house. He didn't prepare. No oil in the lamp. The reality is that people will do things, right? It's a question, will they do things in response to what he says or not?

Okay. the analogy between this and someone who hears the gospel. He hears it, but maybe he doesn't understand it. You bring up a good point and that is that we can hear the gospel or teachings and turn away from it. We've had people here at Holly Hills. We'll talk to them about grace. We'll talk to them about you have been identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension and seeding.

And they say no. Yeah, well, even sometimes they'll say, oh, it sounds too gracious to me. Too good to be true, right? It's a little too gracious. I'm not going to go for that. Yes? Convenience? Maybe I already own those handy lands. Ah, that's a good point. How about that factor? She brings up a good point. Convenience. How might the words of Jesus be inconvenient? Well, it's not easy to build on a rock. Okay, yeah. If you're literally building a house on a rock, it takes a little bit to get that house down into it.

On the north end of the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus was speaking here kind of at the northwest part of the Sea of Galilee, but right at the north end in Capernaum, just not too far to the east of where he was speaking, the ground was all basalt. And it's interesting, there was somewhere over a thousand people that lived in Capernaum at the time. And the archaeologists have excavated a good deal of it. I would venture to say almost all of it.

They have yet to find anybody who has dug a basement. The basalt is inconvenient for basements, right? It's not convenient, yeah. So yeah, convenience, that's a good point. I was going to say, this reminds me of Cain and Abel, where the Lord told them, I believe, what kind of sacrifice they should do. Abel did the right one, but Cain did too, but he didn't do it the right way. They both did a sacrifice, didn't they? Yeah, the I did it my way thing doesn't really work so good, right?

Yeah, that's a good point. Next question on the top of the next page there. Why does Jesus make such a sharp dividing line between the one who acts and the one who doesn't act? Why is that such a big deal? Why such a sharp divide line? We mentioned earlier, this is real black and white. Couldn't you, I mean, wouldn't it have been fine to have sort of a grayscale illustration? Why so black and white?

You're either in or out, okay? You're either going to build on the rock or build on the sand. Yeah. Did somebody else start to say something? Yeah. I think that's one thing. We live in a world that loves grayscale. And what's interesting is we go through this Sermon on the Mount. Boy, He makes things sharp black and white. I mean, it's stark. It really stands out. The grayscale thing that our world just loves is not here. Not here at all. Yeah, if you look at it, that's an excellent point.

In a lot of the truths in Scripture, things are very crisp, aren't they? Things are very crisp. We're having the elective upstairs, grace. We're looking at law and grace as we go through the book of Galatians. Very crisp. Very crisp. It's interesting. Why do you think the world loves grayscale? It's convenient. It's convenient, yes. The convenience. Yes. They can do what they want to do. Yeah, you can kind of fit yourself anywhere along the grayscale and find something that fits. Things like a wide gate and a narrow gate, I guess you've got to pick one. Matter of fact, the way it works, he says, enter the narrow gate.

Sounds like if you don't deliberately do that, you're going through the wide one, right? Isn't that the way this is? If you don't pick a rock, you're probably building on sand. How about this principle of law and Jewish mindset? Here's the big question. What did Jesus mean by the builders and houses? One on the rock and one on the sand. What was he trying to get at? What did he intend for each of the items in the illustration to represent?

The right foundation. The right foundation. Okay. He certainly, boy, the right one and the wrong one makes a big difference. I mean, that's the bottom line here, isn't it? And that right foundation consists of what? Stability. Consists of stability. Alright. What did it represent? What was he wanting to get across? Eternal. Pardon? Eternal. Eternal. Okay. It's eternal.

But what was his kind of dividing line? Everybody hears. Where is it different after that? Everybody hears. And so here's the interesting thing. He's just given this whole Sermon on the Mount. Lots of different kinds of truth. And so here's the ending illustration.

What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it? Well, don't you feel like some of them walked away and said, this guy's a rebel and he's too far out there and I don't want to have anything to do with him. Yeah. And that would be the people who went to the sand. Yeah.

Isn't it interesting that here he gives all this truth and this is a passage, boy, people have written books on it and churches have studied it and people have spoken on it left and right. But in the end, you look back at that time, You look back and now, are people, once they hear, do they want to just set it aside? Or take him at his word? Procrastinators.

Yes. Yeah. You know, we've had the suggestion of, you know, convenience, procrastination. It's interesting. There are different means for human beings to say, no, I'm not going to do that. And one is, that's not convenient. Another is, oh, I'm going to do that. Just not now. Just not now. He makes a real dividing line here.

One of the things that in the kind of the godly Jewish mindset, and Jesus was underscoring here, is when God says something, the understanding among a godly Jew was, well, of course that's what we do, because God said it. Among our people in our culture, we have sort of a, we inherited a Greek mind, where something can kind of be hypothetical and just stay there. And so putting it into action, that's why Paul spends so much time, you know, he talks about your position.

He says, okay, now, now that you know that, here's what it looks like. The Jewish mindset was more, you know, here it is, do it. You know, here it is, do it. Here it is, do it. But Jesus was underscoring here, putting it into action. This is truth to be lived out.

The storm that Jesus refers to in the illustration points to entry into the kingdom. Which material are you going to build on? Isaiah 28, 16 and 17, if you want to take a look at that, or Ezekiel 13, about 10 through 16, have similar word pictures. The wise man is the disciple who puts that teaching into practice. and thus prepares himself or herself for entry into the kingdom. He's been saying really in these illustrations, here's the issue about entry. Here's the issue about entry. Also, how about building a house? Does that happen at the snap of a finger? Does it happen like that or does it take a little longer? It takes a little longer. Only an extreme makeover.

Yes. Yeah, let's have a deliberate panic. Some years back in the consulting firm that I worked for in Carson City, Anaconda had located a molybdenum ore deposit in southern Nevada. And so they came to our company and they said, we want to build basically a small city right now. Oh, okay. And so the way they had things, we had people just working around the clock and when the sun was coming up they'd be, you know, printing stuff off and running out there and getting the machinery moving around. They had a small city built in a short period of time and what they did is in parallel with getting all the streets and foundations and pipes and utilities in place and all that, in parallel with that they had manufactured homes that they came in, they just used a helicopter, dropped it on the foundation.

Boom, you know, and the whole thing happened. It was like, you know, one week there was nothing there, and then just a few weeks later, there's this whole small town, you know. So, at any rate, it was kind of astounding to have the whole thing happen like that.

And just, yes? How far did they drop it from? What's that? Very carefully. Yeah, get a house and drop it with a helicopter and then get it on the bolts. That was a little tricky, but they did it. Then the price of molybdenum fell through the floor. The price of molybdenum fell through the floor, those houses are now standing empty.

Oh well. But the thing is, the reality is building a house is typically a process, isn't it? It takes a while, it takes time, you do it very deliberately. Isn't it interesting that you would go through all the effort and process with no thought for what's this going to end up like? Isn't that something? But isn't that what most people do? No thought for what's this going to end up like, right? Yeah, I'm doing fine right now, I think. I'm doing okay now, but no question of what's this all going to turn into. Next question. What did He intend for the disciples to take away from what He had said in these four verses? What outcome was Jesus looking for among those who heard Him? What was the outcome He was looking for them to take away from what He said?

Yeah, apply it to their lives. He wanted them to carry it out. To consider what he'd been saying. Everything. All of what he'd said. To carry it out. To live it. He wanted them to act on what he had said. And not, as some have wisely pointed out, not grab for the, oh, that isn't really convenient for me. Or, this is a great sermon. I think I'll start on that later. Why did he say these words at this point in the Sermon on the Mount? Why not just throw them in somewhere else? Somewhere halfway in the middle? Why here? What's that?

Yeah, he says, the outcome, from whether you listen to my words or don't listen to my words, has this kind of radical difference. Both the builders built a house. They both put it on something. But boy, the outcome's different. So he's here putting it at the end, saying, look, I've said a lot of things, but you know what?

What I say won't matter a whole lot unless you put it into action. It's not good to have it hypothetical. Yeah, to summarize it and also to write along with that, underscore the importance of it. To just hear it and then walk away, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't do any good.

He was talking to Jews, he was talking in terms of the law. He even said, not one as the English translations have it, jot or tittle. The yod is the smallest Hebrew letter and what was translated the tittle is a little hook. It was kind of like, you know, we have the font that this is in has little serifs kind of at the ends and the corners. And that was kind of the tittle or the hook that was put on the letters in those days. So not the slightest detail of the law will be left.

For us, however, in the church, we've been seeing in the message in Galatians, we're not under law, so what do we take away from this? Do we just say, well, that's a nice thing for the Jews to hear and call it good, or what do we take away from it? Okay? Not being led astray. And, you know, that goes along with the convenience and procrastination issues. In other words, if you figure out, you know, how can I end up in the wrong place? Boy, there's several, aren't there? And we probably could add to the list. There's plenty of ways to go the wrong route.

Yes, Brent? We call the Bible the Word of God, right? It's God's message. It's God's message. And so you say, no matter what it is, respond to it. Respond to it. What did He say? Do we understand what He said? Respond to it. One of the things that we spend quite a bit of time talking about here at Holly Hills is who you are in Christ. What Christ has done. How many Christians go through life never even realizing what the Lord has done. Who they are.

Isn't this strange? There have been TV shows and movies made on this medical phenomenon called amnesia. Anybody ever been through that or been in contact with somebody who's done that? It's kind of an interesting thing. Essentially, Christians have kind of starting amnesia.

They don't know who they are. once they're saved. And so that's something we have to learn, isn't it? But once we learn, then there's also a matter of that being lived out. We'll be looking at it even this morning in the Galatians class. Do I understand that I am saved and completely saved, justified, that I am in Christ, Or am I trying to work for it? Huge difference, isn't there? Massive difference. So, he who hears my words and acts on it, even to the point of understanding who we are in Christ. Am I trying to stay saved? Or am I, because of understanding what God's Word tells me, growing in the salvation that He's given me? Okay, how about let's take a look at 7, 28 and 29.

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes. It's interesting as you go through Matthew, and we could go through the other Gospels as well, but just sticking with Matthew, there are plenty of passages to work with. Matthew 13, 54. says this, and he came to his hometown, so this is Nazareth, and began teaching them in the synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?

Astonished. Matthew 19, 23 through 25, And Jesus said to his disciples, Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, Who can be saved? Why would they be very astonished? Anybody give us some insight on that? I mean that's something, not just astonished, but very astonished. Why would they be so astonished?

Ah, okay, yeah. That's a good point. We pointed out earlier on that for Jesus and John the Baptist both to say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it almost sounds like You mean I got to do something in advance? I thought the fact that I'm Jewish just, I'm in. Yeah. So for talking about dividing the line was astonishing. Yeah. Yeah, this is another cultural point. The idea in the Jewish mindset was that if you were well off, then you were blessed by God because you must be doing things right. That was the mindset. And so for Jesus to turn that upside down, which he frequently did anyway, right? I mean, here's the Pharisees are like the best of the best, and what does he say? Oh, if you're getting into the Kingdom of Heaven, you've got to be way better than those guys.

What? Fly over tall buildings with a single bound, right? So here he puts that standard, and Brad's right. Here, what does he do? He does it again. Everybody's thinking, hey, if a guy's rich, it's because God's blessed him because he's a good dude. And what is the point that he makes here? He says, it is hard for a rich man hard. Oh, no, you know, then they're thinking that if it's hard for a rich man to enter, then it's going to be impossible for me.

So at this they are very astonished, not just slightly amazed, very astonished. After hearing that, then who can be saved? It's hopeless for everybody. They They were amazed, very amazed, astonished, very astonished. Matthew 22, just a few chapters later, 19-22. There was a question put before them, and of course they were trying to trip Jesus up.

And, you know, should we pay taxes to Caesar? Let's just kind of revisit. What's the issue they're trying to put in front of them? If they pay taxes, if he says pay taxes to Caesar, What's that message? You're giving your money to Caesar? Yeah, you're giving your money to Caesar and here we're supposed to be sovereign Jews, right? So yeah.

And then that'll get him in trouble with a lot of the Jews. You know that up until this time there had been a number of rebellions over the course of Jesus' lifetime and even just before he was born. A number of rebellions in Galilee. And the final rebellion that ended up bringing in the Romans to just stomp on all of Israel and destroy Jerusalem block by block, brick by brick, started in Galilee. So there was a lot of anti-Roman sentiment, not just a little bit of muttering under the breath.

But we want to take these guys out, okay? So for Jesus to pick a side was big. Now, if he said, don't pay taxes to Caesar, guess what they can do? Tell the Romans, hey, this guy says don't pay taxes to Caesar, right? So either way, they're going to try to get him hung up on this. So what does he do? He does what we see here.

Show me the coin used for the poll tax. And they brought him a denarius. By the way, that was a larger coin. They had a lot of smaller coins. And it's interesting, the archaeologists who have done a lot of digging up in Galilee and Israel, they've determined this. Large coins were used for paying taxes and hoarding. small coins were used for daily life. Isn't that an interesting pattern?

And that's one reason he didn't pull out a coin from his own pocket. He says, you guys show me one because you guys got it, I don't. And he said to them, whose likeness and inscription is this? By the way, are they supposed to have anything with a likeness? No. So by having, here's a Jew handing him something out of their own pocket and purse, with a violation of the Ten Commandments. There's a way to have a gotcha, right? So they give him this violation of the Ten Commandments, which has a pagan ruler on the face of it. They said, He said to them, Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

And hearing this, they were amazed. And leaving him, they went away. It's almost like leaving him, they left him. But it sounds also like leaving him, they really wanted to get out of there. Boy, don't ask this guy questions. That will get you in big trouble. Let's take a look at the next page there. I'll tell you what was real interesting. That was the last question that they asked him of that kind at all. That just blew him away. And they spent a lot of time trying to catch him in one of these quandaries that they love to do.

So here's Matthew 22, 29-33. But Jesus answered and said to them, You are mistaken. He's speaking here to the Sadducees. You are mistaken not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, and the Sadducees don't believe in a resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read, what was spoken to you by God." And he quotes out of the only portion of the Old Testament that the Sadducees said that they believed in. Notice how I put that, said that they believed in.

And that's out of the Torah, the first five books. I am, present tense, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. Jesus repeatedly and continuously amazed and astounded the people that He talked to. Did He astound His disciples?

Yeah. Big time. Did He astound His would-be enemies? Oh yeah. Everybody else who is listening, you're saying, okay, here's a quandary. We love quandaries. And this guy just comes out and just slices it right through. They were astonished. Wow, this guy doesn't let those quandaries just hang there, does he? This is the truth. This is what God said. He lays it out.

There were certainly a great many people in Israel with an opinion about spiritual things or would quote somebody else's opinion. The scribes were inclined to quote the direct content of scripture, but for its interpretation they would quote other authorities. Instead of telling you this is what it means, like Jesus did, they would say, well, Rabbi so-and-so says, and they would make those quotes repeatedly.

The Pharisees were inclined to present quandaries and puzzles and leave them in unresolved tension. And they had variety among them. You notice that Jesus just keeps answering things, slice, there's the answer. One group would present puzzling questions to the other group, even between subgroups among the Pharisees.

They would respond to things differently. And we're not quite sure what's true, but here's what I think. There's a way they present things. Jesus didn't do that. He says, is the truth with a capital T. They were fascinated by the possibility that they might leave the other group stumped and baffled. Can I come up with a question, a riddle, that will leave you unable to answer?

Then we've won. That's the best. Jesus used some of the languages of the rabbis of the day. We've mentioned before that he used some rabbi lingo, rabbi speak. And he would say things that many of them would say. And then he'd turn around and say things that none of them would ever dare say.

Not only did he teach with certainty and finality, He left no residual tensions in his statement, black and white. Your house is built on the rock or the sand. It's either going to withstand or be a complete wreck. He didn't quote from another person for authority. He said directly, this is what God means. This is what God means. The other thing they did is make claims about himself that no one else would claim. As a matter of fact, it blew their mental circuits to have him claim the things that he said.

Think about this. If you were one of the Jewish scholars, And you looked at Jesus and you said, well, that guy's just a carpenter. That's all he is. He's a Jewish carpenter, which is good, but he's a carpenter. And this carpenter comes up and says, before Abraham was born, I am. What's that going to do to your mental circuits? That's when the sparks fly and you see all the smoke coming out. This is mind-boggling stuff that he tells them.

He makes claims that none of them would dare claim. Jesus didn't do what the rabbis would say. I will teach you the way of the Torah and you will know the way of the Torah and that will be truth. What did he say about truth and the way? In fact, let me expand upon what he said. I, in contradistinction to all else, am the singular way and the singular truth and the singular life. No one, not even by the slightest chance, no one comes to the Father except exclusively through me.

That's an expansion of the Greek. That is what he laid out. Boy, talk about black and white. And talk about being exclusive. That doesn't sound very open-minded at all, does it? Isn't it interesting? Boy, he taught differently. Boy, he taught differently. And isn't it good that he did? Isn't it good that he did?

But what it does is it means that where the world wants grayscale, A lot of wishy-washy, maybe, might be, that's good for you, not for me, all those kinds of things. You know, you do your thing, I'll do my thing. Whatever floats your boat. When he says, hey, I'm the only thing that'll float your boat, everything else is going to sink. He laid it out crisp, crystal clear.

Growing up in the Methodist Church, I didn't really believe Jesus was the Savior. I kind of generally believed in God. In which verse was this? There's no one come to the Father except through me. Except through me. Exclusively. I believe in God. I wasn't sure about Jesus. Randy and I have a common friend down in Texas, and I'm glad I'm here and not there, but anyway, he's down there. He was raised Hindu. In Hinduism, of course, there's all sorts of different paths through it, and it's amazing to talk to him and just see the He realized, no, all these things I was taught, Jesus is the one singular way and the one singular truth and the one singular life.

And yeah, it is astounding, but people have to see it, right? And notice, similar to what he said earlier, people have to act on it too. And that action is just the space. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? Here's some questions, some points to ponder. Before the crucifixion, how did they come to Christ? What's that? By faith. Salvation is always by faith, right?

Let's take for instance, the Lord had the Jews, He instituted this Passover. What did the Passover represent? Christ. You sacrifice the Lamb, put the blood on the top and on each side here, and you do that. in remembrance, but it's also a looking forward. And so we observe the Lord's Table. What is it?

It's a remembrance looking back and also looking forward until He comes. But yeah, it's either looking forward or looking back. Bonnie mentioned Cain and Abel. One of the things with Abel's sacrifice is it looked forward. It looked forward, didn't it? Because he knew that was going to happen.

And here's a question. We can, in a historical timeline, put the crucifixion somewhere around 30 AD. But does that particular time limit God? No. The one who died on the cross is the same one that said, before Abraham was born, I am. We can put it on a timeline, but from the Lord's standpoint, He's looking at all times as the same.

They're all present, all at once. The Sermon on the Mount here, as we see, is a major discourse. We've got three chapters worth. It's easily one of the most substantial discourses in the Gospels. And certainly nobody can be saved apart from His death on the cross for sins and His burial and His resurrection. Why then isn't the message about Christ dying for sins, His burial, and His resurrection found anywhere in the Sermon on the Mount? Anywhere. Is that shocking? Why is it nowhere in the Sermon on the Mount?

Does it have something to do with the age of the dispensation? It has something to do with the age of the dispensation, but Winnie is suggesting maybe a possibility here. Any other thoughts? Yeah. One of the things that frequently gets lost is, and it's partly because people say, well, the kingdom of God is the church. That ends up losing the distinction. Essentially, a message that went through the Gospels, in fact, comes out of the Old Testament, continued through the Gospels and even to the very last verse of the book of Acts, is that there's the gospel of the kingdom which was substantially pointed and aimed at the Jews, and the gospel of substitution, Christ died for my sins. Now, one must believe in Christ died for your sins for the gospel of the kingdom to mean anything. Salvation is always by faith. Always. Always.

Interesting, if you think of John the Baptist, early in Matthew, it says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's John the Baptist's message. But he also, first chapter of John, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The gospel of substitution. That Christ died for my sins.

He taught both. And you trace it through the Gospels. Jesus is telling them throughout the Gospels about this coming kingdom and he's also telling them the Son of Man is going to die and be buried and rise again. He's telling them both, isn't he? And if you go through the book of Acts, you can trace both of those messages as well, even to the last verse of the book of Acts. Both of those messages come across. The Sermon on the Mount, people will sometimes go and gravitate towards that and say, boy, that's the core, that's just the ultimate.

And what it is, it's all gospel of the kingdom, but it's not the gospel of substitution. So we've spent, you know, three months here, almost, studying this thing. And the interesting realization after three chapters is there's nothing in it about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, because it's the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel of substitution.

Not Christ died for my sins. The closest implication there is of Christ dying for my sins in the Sermon on the Mount is when he talks about if you go to the altar with a sacrifice and then you realize you need to resolve something with your brother. Go deal with that and then come back. The sacrifice points to his death, right? That's the closest implication there is. for this three-chapter long discourse.

It's the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel of substitution. And why do I say the gospel of substitution has to be believed in order to get into the kingdom anyway, for the kingdom gospel to mean anything? Why would I say that? You can't just be a Jew. You have to have faith. Here's Jesus and Nicodemus, right? And what did He tell them? He says, unless you're born again, you can't even get into the Kingdom of God. You're not getting there. Unless you're born again.

So later on in that chapter, that's where John 3.16.

God so loved the world. Paul taught both. Both Gospels. You'll find it at the very last verse of Acts. He divides them up into two. And he taught them throughout the epistles as well. The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Substitution are two separate Gospels. What Paul does make reference to my gospel, and that's particularly things that were revealed to him, and you're correct about that, that Paul had a specific set of things that he taught and revealed.

Paul taught that we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies, and that's not something you find in the other epistles. And taught we're heavenly citizens. That's a unique teaching. Taught uniquely that the church is the body of Christ, that we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. So there are those things about Paul's gospel that were unique.

Well, we're out of time even though we're not out of questions. So we've got to call it to a close here. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as we've looked at these things. Thank you for the clarity. When the world likes fog, when the world likes blur, when the world likes lack of distinction, you have made things crystal clear. And you've made a sharp dividing line. And we thank you for that. We thank you for your love and care. shown to us, and that you lay these truths out before us. Yes, they might be inconvenient, and they might be something that people are inclined to put off, but we ask you to draw our hearts to the crystal clear truths that you've laid out before us. In Jesus' name, Amen.