Sermon on the Mount

Thank you again, Mr. Baker. I appreciate you leading some songs that we don't know very well yet. I haven't sung that one very often.

Well, brethren, do you want to be sure that your spiritual house is built on a firm foundation that is built upon the rock, Jesus Christ? Do you want to be sure that you will not seriously waver and certainly not fall, no matter how difficult the times get, from a spiritual perspective in the days ahead? Well, then it only makes good sense to study the teachings of Jesus Christ, and we've been doing that now for a number of weeks.

We do want to learn to live by every word of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ has some very powerful words that He certainly wants us to live by, that He wants us to take to heart. So we're going to continue today discussing the Sermon on the Mount.

Rather than take time in summarizing the past four sermons, I would ask again that you go back and review the Sermon on the Mount from time to time, because it is such a foundational teaching. And if you miss one of these sermons, it would be wise to go back and listen to it. So, let's go to Matthew 5, verse 19. Matthew 5, verse 19. And let's read what Christ says here in verse 19.

Now, we know that Christ had just said that, Think not that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. Christ certainly did not come to do away with the law, even though many people teach that. In fact, here He says, if we break one of the least of these commandments, then we will be considered least in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, we know that God is a loving, merciful, forgiving God, but we also know God is a law-giver. And He does expect His children to obey Him, to obey His laws. A good parent has certain laws and rules of the home, and Mom and Dad expect their children to be obedient to those rules.

They know it's good for their children to learn obedience. They also realize that their children aren't perfect. So we've all forgiven our children, haven't we? Many times. When they've let us down, when they've transgressed, when they've broken our law. God is the same way. God is a loving, merciful Father. Now, if a child is teaching his brothers and sisters to disobey the parents, then that takes it even a step further, doesn't it?

We don't like to see one of our children affecting another one of our children in a negative way, so we don't like that. And we find that especially destructive, and we want that to stop, of course. The point is that God expects us to strive to live by His every word, to respect and to honor Him by striving to keep His laws perfectly. That should be our goal. Our goal should be to obey God perfectly. We should strive to obey Him perfectly, not just in the letter, but in the spirit of the law.

Now, we all know we're not going to be able to do that perfectly, because we're not Jesus Christ. We weren't conceived of the Holy Spirit from the very beginning. We're not God. We're still in the flesh. So we know that to achieve perfection, that's not something that's going to happen in this life from a spiritual standpoint, but it should still be our goal, shouldn't it? It should be something that we strive for, because we want to be as pleasing to God as we possibly can be.

We want to be the very best children that we can be. So when we strive for perfection, we're going to fall short, but not nearly as far short as we would if we didn't make that our goal. So it is important to have that as our goal, to become like God, to be holy even as I am holy, God says. That is our calling, to be holy as God is holy. And one day we will be given that wonderful gift of holiness as we enter God's kingdom. No longer subject to sin, no longer sinning, then we'll truly be free from these physical bodies of ours and for these carnal minds that are enmity against God and are not subject to God's law.

So we all long for that time. Now, this particular verse that we're talking about now, it does show a certain contempt when a person breaks a law and then teaches others to do the same thing. That we should feel repentant for our sins. We should be concerned about our example and that we don't want to infect other people with our sins and with our problems. So to go and to teach these things is especially egregious.

It's especially wicked. So we will be called least from God. God would look at that as one of the least things that a person could do, is to be willing to hurt others by teaching them also to disobey. So be careful your example. You are all God's children and you do have an impact on the rest of us. I have an impact on you, you have an impact on me. So we should be careful to set a good example and not to teach others to disobey.

A child who is obedient to even the lesser rules of the home and goes out of his way to set a good example and to actively teach his brothers and sisters to obey is considered great. Just as parents, we would especially appreciate a child who would be like that. God appreciates those who are like that. God appreciates those who, even when they break the least of the commandments, they feel badly about that and they certainly don't want to teach others to follow suit, to be that way.

In Matthew 5, verse 20, Jesus says, For I say unto you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, this was certainly a very bold and inflammatory statement by Jesus Christ, one I'm quite certain the scribes and Pharisees were not real happy with.

It's no wonder they wanted to kill Jesus Christ because he spoke out against them. Matthew 23, you probably remember, is a chapter where Christ takes the scribes and the Pharisees to task. Time after time after time, he excoriates them for their lawlessness, for their evil, for their ungodliness.

So, it's always good to go back and review Matthew 23 from time to time. Remember, woe to you Pharisees and hypocrites, scribes, your hypocrites. Woe to you because you do all these things. I'm not going to take the time to go through Matthew 23 because that's a rather lengthy chapter in itself. But I would suggest you go back and review that from time to time. Let's consider the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees for a moment. They were the ones who were, you might say, the keepers of the law, in the sense that they worked very closely with the law. The scribes copied the law meticulously. And according to William Barclay in his commentary on the book of Matthew, he says they made it their business, the business of their lives, to reduce the great principles of the law, basically the Ten Commandments, to literally thousands upon thousands of rules and regulations. The Pharisees were the separated ones. That's what Pharisee meant. Separated ones who had separated themselves to devote their time relentlessly to keeping all the rules and regulations that the scribes devised. I'd like to read from Barclay's commentary, page 128.

Page 128.

See if I can read it without my glasses.

Page 128.

Oh, someone's bringing me my glasses. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

That does make it easier. I would have tried my best.

Okay. From page 128, the last part, he says, we may best see this in action. Oh, let me read just a... Oh, he talks about how they literally made these moral laws into thousands of rules and regulations. Then he says, we may best see this in action. The law lays it down that the Sabbath day is to be kept holy. And that on it no work is to be done. That is a great principle.

But the Jewish legalists had a passion for definition. So they asked, what is work? All kinds of things were classified as work. For instance, to carry a burden on the Sabbath day is to work. But next, a burden has to be defined. So the scribal law says it lays it down that a burden is food equal in weight to a dried fig.

You don't read that in the Bible. It doesn't say anywhere that it's a dried fig. But that was their determination. Food equal in weight to a dried fig. Enough wine for mixing in a goblet. Milk enough for one swallow. Honey enough to put upon a wound. Oil enough to anoint a small member. Water enough to moisten an eye salve. Paper enough to write a customs house noticed upon.

Ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet. Read enough to make a pen. And so on endlessly. So they spent endless hours arguing whether a man could or could or could not lift a lamp from one place to another on the Sabbath, whether a tailor committed a sin if he went out with a needle in his robe.

Whether a woman might wear a brooch or a false hair. Even if a man might go out on the Sabbath with artificial teeth. Or perhaps an artificial limb. If a man might lift his child on the Sabbath day. These things to them were the essence of religion. Their religion was a legalism of petty rules and regulations. To write was to work on the Sabbath. But writing has to be defined. Now it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that to write something is a breaking of the Sabbath.

That constitutes work. But first they determined that to write was to work on the Sabbath. But writing then had to be further defined. So the definition runs, he who writes two letters of the alphabet with his right or with his left hand. Whether of one kind or of two kinds. If they are written with different inks or in different languages is guilty.

Guilty of sin. Even if he should write two letters from forgetfulness. He is guilty whether he has written them with ink or with paint. With red chalk, vitriol, or anything which makes a permanent mark. Also, he that writes on two walls that form an angle. Or on two tablets of his account book so that they can be read together is guilty. But if anyone writes with dark fluid, with fruit juice, or in the dust of the road, or in the sand, or in anything which does not make a permanent mark, he is not guilty.

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? If he writes one letter on the ground and one on the wall of the house, or on two pages of a book, so that they cannot be read together, he is not guilty. So that is a typical passage from the scribal law. And that is what the Orthodox Jew regarded as true religion and the true service of God. Of course, to heal was to work on the Sabbath.

Obviously, this has to be defined. Healing was allowed when there was danger to life, and especially in troubles of the ear, nose, and throat. But even then, steps could be taken only to keep the patient from becoming worse. No steps might be taken to make him get any better. So a plain bandage might be put on a wound, but no ointment. Plain wadding might be put into a sore ear, but not medicated wadding.

So the scribes were the men who worked out these rules and regulations. The Pharisees, again, were the separated ones, who tried to keep all of these rules and regulations, and tried to teach others to keep all these rules and regulations. Berkeley says, We can see the link through which this went from the following facts. For many generations, this scribal law was never written down. It was the oral law, and it was handed down in the memory of generations of scribes. In the middle of the 3rd century AD, a summary of it was made and codified.

That summary is known as the Mishnah. I'm sure you've heard of the Mishnah. It contains 63 tractates on various subjects of the law, and in English makes a book of almost 800 pages. Later Jewish scholarship busied itself with making commentaries to explain the Mishnah. These commentaries are known as the Talmuds.

Of the Jerusalem Talmud, there are 12 printed volumes, and of the Babylonian Talmud, that took place when they had gone into captivity in Babylon. They wrote the Babylonian Talmud. There are 60 printed volumes. So, volumes and volumes and volumes of laws and regulations. To the strict Orthodox Jew in the time of Jesus, religion serving God was a matter of keeping thousands of legalistic rules and regulations. They regarded these petty rules and regulations as literally matters of life and death and eternal destiny. Clearly, Jesus did not mean that not one of these rules and regulations was to pass away. Now, Christ, of course, did break a lot of those rules and regulations that were so petty, like He healed on the Sabbath, and He didn't follow their laws in regard to healing on the Sabbath.

He followed God's law to do good on the Sabbath. To heal someone was a wonderful miracle that took place on the Sabbath. That's why He called them hypocrites, because they were focusing on the minutia, the strict letter of their own law that they had even devised themselves. So, it does help us to realize, to a large degree, what was happening back at those times, to understand just... Thankfully, we don't have these talments. We don't have the Mishnah that we think we have to adhere to and obey. The Bible gives us what we need.

We don't have to add to it or take away from it. It's a complete word that God gives us, and it is indeed the words of life. So, God looks on the heart. We know that's what the Scripture tells us. He looks on the heart, and He is much more concerned with the spirit of the law than He is the letter of the law. Although, as Mr. Hooser mentioned in his sermon, the letter of the law is very important as well.

The Spirit goes beyond the letter. We're supposed to be keeping the letter. Christ makes that very clear in the Sermon on the Mount. But we are to go beyond just keeping the letter of the law. We're to keep the Spirit of the law. As Isaiah 42 says, Christ came to magnify the law, and that's exactly what He does in the Sermon on the Mount. So, the Spirit goes beyond the letter, and it magnifies obedience from the heart, motivated by love, by God's love, because we know God is love, and that should be what motivates us, and we know that keeping the law, that's pleasing to God.

The Scriptures are very clear. The law is not a burden. It is a tremendous blessing.

There is ample evidence of even principles of the Spirit of the law in the Old Testament. In fact, let's go to a couple places. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 10. There's a subheading in my Bible in Deuteronomy chapter 10 that says the essence of the law. Deuteronomy chapter 10.

I remember reading this quite a bit back in 1994 and 95, as I was hearing certain things and saying, wait a minute, this isn't brand new. I mean, this was talked about in the Old Testament. In verse 12 of Deuteronomy chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Eternal and his statutes, which I command you today, for your good.

The law is holy and just and good, and it is for our good. That's why God gave the law. Just as we parents give our children laws because it's for their good. We consider, before we lay down a law, whether or not it's going to be good for our children or not. God did the same thing for us.

These are good laws. Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God. Also the earth, with all that is in it, the eternal delights only in your fathers to love them, and he chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples as it is this day. Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart. See, that's not just New Testament. That's also Old Testament. Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer.

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality, nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and he loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore, love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve him, and to him you shall hold fast. So we should certainly serve God and hold fast.

This was teaching in the Old Testament, which did speak to the spirit of the law. Christ came and magnified it even further. We know that Christ was actually the one who brought the law on Sinai, the one who became Christ. Another good place to go is Isaiah 58 when it comes to the Sabbath. Isaiah 58. Because it talks about the spirit of observing God's Sabbath day.

This could have easily been put in the Sermon on the Mount. Isaiah 58, verse 13, If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, there are six other days to do our own pleasure, to seek things that are right and good. He's not talking about evil pleasures, but godly pleasures. You can do lots of things on other days that you're not going to do on the Sabbath. You should be able to figure out what those things are.

God doesn't spell them out specifically, but you pretty much have a pretty good idea of what your pleasures are and what you probably ought not do on the Sabbath day. But we don't have a list of do's and don'ts of everything you can and cannot do. Thankfully, we don't have that. You get to choose, because God looks at your heart. And he sees whether or not you're fooling yourself, or if you're being truly faithful to the Spirit of the Law in regard to the Sabbath.

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure on my holy day, this is a day sanctified and set apart. It's a day of worship. It's a day of a commanded assembly. To come to church is a good thing. To fellowship with one another, that's a good thing. To study the Bible, to pray, these are all very wonderful things that we can do on the Sabbath, to do good on the Sabbath. These are all wonderful things, but to seek your own pleasure, like if you're a golfer and you really love to play golf, that's probably not the day to play golf.

And if you like to watch football, that's probably not the day to watch football. The Sabbath is a holy day. And you get to decide, though, whether you want to watch football or not. I'm not going to tell you you can't do it. It's up to you. You get to decide whether that's being too pharisaical or whether that's appropriate. And I get to decide. And some things, I suppose, might be sin for some and not for others, because whatever is not a faith is sin. And if God buys your argument, who am I to say anything against that?

If you can convince God or if God agrees with you, then fine. But whatever is not a faith is sin. So if you have guilty tinges because you're doing something on the Sabbath, then you probably should stop doing that on the Sabbath. So this is clearly speaking about the spirit of the law. So you turn your foot away from trampling on the Sabbath.

You don't do your own pleasure on my holy day. You call the Sabbath a delight the holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor Him on this day. I don't know how you really honor God a whole lot by some activities that are personal interests, that is your own personal pleasure. I don't know that you can really do that to honor God if you decide to do certain things.

You shall honor Him not doing your own ways, not finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words. Then you shall delight yourself. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath and stop trampling on it on the ways that God talks about here, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Eternal has spoken.

So there is a tremendous blessing for not trampling on the Sabbath day, calling it a delight and honoring God on this day. That could easily have been in the Sermon on the Mount. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So it's not surprising that there would be this type of teaching within the Old Testament as well, because we're to live by every word, Old and New Testament.

And yes, there have been some changes in the New Covenant, in regard to especially sacrifices and ritualistic ceremonial type things. But there's an awful lot of continuity between the Old and the New Testament. In Matthew 5, verse 21, here it says, Scripture says, when you're dead, your thoughts perish, your plans perish, all of your dreams, they're gone.

So to murder someone is a very wicked and egregious thing to do. When a person is dead, again, there's no hope for them until the resurrection. In the resurrection, yes, they will live again, but not until then. So murder is a very drastic action, and it's a great offense toward one of God's children to murder someone. Now, of course, there are different ways in which a person may be murdered. And there are different reasons for why one person might murder another. It could be a calloused, premeditated act to murder someone simply because a person doesn't like them.

Some people have been murdered simply because of the color of their skin. Someone may murder another person because the other person has wronged them in some way, and they take revenge. Someone may murder another person unintentionally. They might get in a fight, never intending to murder the other person, but it could happen. Now, it does seem that there is a difference between murdering someone and killing someone. Murderer has a different connotation. Perhaps the last thing, when it was unintentional, we call it manslaughter, I guess. It's not exactly the same as a premeditated murder or an angry fit wanting to kill someone, wanting to do away with them. Someone may also kill someone out of self-defense, or perhaps defending other people, maybe defending children.

Such a person had no intention whatsoever of killing or murdering the person. That was not their intent at all. They were just trying to stop a person from doing evil, determined to do evil, to maim others, to kill them. Some people will decide it is their duty to stop such a person from harming others. Not to do so would be to go against their conscience. To not try to stop someone who is murdering innocent children would go against their conscience not to do whatever they had to to stop the person from doing that. Others may decide that even under those circumstances they would not do such a thing.

I believe the Church has not said a whole lot about self-defense. I think it is because it is a very controversial subject. We basically leave it up to the individual to decide what they are going to do when it comes to self-defense.

We are subject to the governing authorities, according to Romans 13. The governing authorities typically do allow for a certain level of self-defense or defense of others. Typically, one would not be prosecuted if they acted responsibly according to the law. That might be a consideration that one would take into account if they are ever in a situation like that. Again, you can go to our Church literature and you are not going to find much at all in regard to self-defense. In fact, I probably said more than what we typically say in our literature.

Clearly, many members and ministers have different approaches toward self-defense, and it is best to leave it to the individual to make determinations in that regard. We do not need a mountain of regulations for every possible circumstance that comes along. We do need to be very careful that we do not have a spirit of murder and hatred. That is certainly what Christ is mostly talking about, is the spirit of murder and a spirit of hatred. If we do choose to defend ourselves, even then, we must be very careful to have the right attitude about it. We do need to apply the principles that Christ gives in the Sermon on the Mount.

He is going to go on and explain a little bit more in regard to this thing about, Thou shalt not murder. He is going to amplify this.

Perhaps it is not enough just to not murder someone. Perhaps there is a spirit of the law here that goes even beyond the fact that you are not murdering people.

He says in verse 22, We see three levels of the spirit of murder in one's heart.

We see a corresponding punishment or judgment that goes along with these three levels.

Number one, someone who is angry with his brother is in danger of judgment.

The Greek word for anger is orgizo, O-R-G-I-Z-O.

It means to provoke or to enrage, to become exasperated. Berkeley says it is a long-lived anger.

As opposed to another Greek word that was not used is the word thumos, which is a short-lived anger that quickly passes.

The type of anger being talked about here is the anger that is nursed and kept alive.

It is a brooding anger, angry with your brother.

I've seen people that have been angry with their brothers for years in God's Church.

They were just never able to lay that to rest. They weren't able of repenting of that anger that festered within them.

That's a very dangerous sort of anger because it's the spirit of murder.

This type of anger is liable to the judgment court, according to what it says here. But in actuality, these things were never... I don't think people were hauled off to court because they were angry.

We don't even do that today.

People get angry at other people. They don't get hauled off to court.

The Christ is wanting us to get a message here.

He says this anger is liable to the judgment court. The local village council, made up of local village elders, its size depending on the population of the village. Maybe in some cases they would bring someone who was angry like this before the council and give them a good talking to.

According to what Barclay says, if it was a town of under 150 people, there would typically be three elders.

If it was larger than 150 but still not all that big, he didn't really give any parameters after that. Seven in larger towns, 23 in big cities. So there was a council, and someone who was angry like this, that in brooding anger they wouldn't get over it.

Perhaps they would come before the council. Not really sure on that. If you know, please let me know because I didn't... Barclay seems to indicate that this never really took place, that they didn't do this, but I'm not too sure that's accurate. He doesn't really spell it out.

Let's go to James 1 for a moment.

He talks about anger here in the book of James. James is a very practical book. We're going through that now in a Bible study up north around McKinney. We had a good turnout, too. We had 24 people there last time. It's nice to get everyone together on a Friday evening.

James 1, verse 19, So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath, or anger. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

I think we would all agree with that. When we become angry, that's not going to produce the righteousness of God. A righteous indignation is one thing, but oftentimes, I'm not talking about that kind of anger. I'm talking about the kind of anger that we know is wrong and that we're out of control, and we're not as self-disciplined and self-controlled as we ought to be.

The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So we want to be careful that we're not wrathful people, that we're not angry people.

So that's the first step. Someone who is angry with his brother, he's in danger of judgment before a council. Number two, someone who calls his brother, Raka. He is in danger of going before the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Council of the Jews. This is a step beyond that first step. Barclay says the word Raka is basically untranslatable because it is mostly about an attitude of contempt. This was to call a person a brainless idiot, basically. A silly fool, an empty-headed blunder. Some very hurtful words.

Most of us don't like to be called blundering idiots or brainless idiots. That's not the way to win fans and influence people in a proper way. When we get angry, we might say things like that and we regret saying them. This word speaks of someone who despises the other person with an arrogant contempt.

This is a grievous sin toward another child of God to allow your temper to get to the point where you're calling names, using swear words. You're out of control when you behave like that. And you need to repent of that. If that's what you do, if you get angry and swear, that's the ways of the world. We're supposed to have come out of that, were we not? That's not acceptable to throw... I'm not going to say any words or even... You know the kind of words that sometimes come out when people get angry? That's the kind of stuff that we need to make sure we've eliminated. And if we haven't, then perhaps we should pray more, study God's Word more, repent more, spend more time with God because we're allowing our carnal mind to motivate us. That is a mind which is not subject to God's law. That is a dangerous situation to be in. So if you have that type of temper and you have not yet gotten control of it, then start doing something about it. That shows an arrogant contempt. It shows a certain pride and vanity that one should not have. The third step is when someone would call his brother a fool. Now this is the word moros. M-O-R-O-S. It basically means fool, but it goes a step further because it refers to a moral fool, not just a brainless idiot. This is a moral fool, a moral brainless idiot. It's casting aspersions upon one's moral character, so it goes a step beyond that. It says, they are in danger of hellfire. It was to brand him as being an immoral person and was an attempt to ruin his reputation. Jesus says this behavior is subject to the greatest judgment, that of being cast into hellfire. Now the word translated hellfire is the Greek word gehenna. We've all heard the word gehenna, and we've heard probably an explanation of where it comes from. The word translated hellfire is a word that stems from the Valley of Hinnom, which is southwest of Jerusalem. It was the place where King Ahaz introduced into Israel the fire worship of the god Molech, and it was where children had been sacrificed to Molech, a child sacrifice, a very heinous sin. Idol worship. Josiah stamped out that worship and declared the Valley of Hinnom an accursed place because of this type of behavior, this worship of Molech that took place there. It became the place where criminals were cast and their dead bodies were burned. It became a garbage dump where all the refuge of Jerusalem was cast and burnt. It became to Israel a cursed and filthy place which spread worms that seemed to never die because of the constant flow of refuse and garbage.

Now, again, Berkeley says these judgments never actually took place. I mean, obviously, no one's been thrown into hell fire. Well, maybe... I don't know if they actually threw people into... Yeah, criminals, they did throw into hell fire. I don't think just for calling someone a fool or a moral field that this never happened. But Christ is making a point here. He was simply showing that the inmost thoughts and actions come under scrutiny in the court of heaven. It's the court of heaven that we should be concerned about, not the courts of men so much, although we ought to be concerned about the courts of men because getting locked up is not a good place to be. It's very difficult to really be very productive in prison.

So we should consider that we are always before the court of heaven. Long-lasting anger is bad. I mean, a quick blow-up where we use swear words is bad. And then we ought to certainly repent and ask for forgiveness of whoever we called these wrong and evil names. We should seek restitution, ask for forgiveness from the person, also go to God and ask for forgiveness. Long-lasting anger is bad. Contempt and contemptuous speaking is worse when we have contempt for other people. Children of God, all people, every person on this earth, we should treat with respect. And we should strive to love them with a genuine, godly love. Now, some make it very difficult. I know. But we should still strive to be that way as much as possible.

And the talk and gossip that would ruin a man's reputation is perhaps the worst of all. When we're seeking to ruin someone's reputation, all three ways are guilty of murder from the heart. So we should examine ourselves and make sure that we're not murdering people in our hearts.

And, you know, especially in our own families, we should be very, very careful. Oftentimes familiarity breeds contempt. You've heard that, right? You live with someone, you see they're not perfect, that breeds contempt. Listen, none of us are perfect. You are not perfect. So to become contemptuous toward another human being, you're probably not really looking at yourself very well.

So, today we've talked about some important principles, just to summarize what we've covered today.

Number one, strive to keep even what some would consider the least of the commandments, and teach others to do likewise. That's something that we should be doing. Strive to keep even the least of the commandments and to teach others. Secondly, know that you will not enter the kingdom of God unless your righteousness succeeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

So cultivate a soft, repentant heart, because they were hard-hearted people. They were stiff-necked. They were hypocrites. Cultivate a soft, repentant heart that allows you to walk in the Spirit.

And number three, don't let your anger get the best of you, but bring it into check lest you be guilty of murder in your heart.

So, brethren, if you want to build your spiritual house on the rock, then take heed to what Christ says. In the Sermon on the Mount, we will continue in the weeks ahead to study and detail Christ's instruction, instruction that will lead to peace and contentment now in this life. You'll be much happier if you apply these principles in your life right now, and ultimately you'll be in God's kingdom.

If you master what Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount, you will be in God's kingdom.