Sermon on the Mount Part 6

Well, brethren, do you want to be sure that your spiritual house is built on a firm foundation? That it's built on the rock upon Jesus Christ? Do you want to be sure that your spiritual house is not going to seriously waver and certainly not fall, no matter how difficult the times become?

Now, if we happen to be living in the very last days, if you'll be living through the last days, then it's going to get very, very difficult for you before Christ returns. Well, if you want to be prepared, it only makes good sense to study the teachings of the rock, the foundation, the chief cornerstone, the head of God's church, Jesus the Christ. It only makes good sense to not only read and to study the teachings of Jesus Christ, but to also, more importantly, to live by every word of God and to put into practice these words of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

As Christians, we need to take to heart Christ's words, His teachings, especially those given in the Sermon on the Mount. That's the most popular sermon ever. More people know about that sermon than any other one particular sermon. So, it's stood the test of time. Here we find instructions in Matthew 5-7. We find words from the Word of God that will allow us to build our spiritual house on a very firm, rock-solid foundation.

So, today we're going to continue Christ's foundational teachings. I believe this is part six of the Sermon on the Mount. The nice thing about the Sermon on the Mount is you can pick it up anytime. It still makes sense. This is not new teaching, but it is important teaching. It's teaching that we all need to consider in greater depth, and we also need to be reminded of these principles.

Now, rather than take time to go back to summarizing five sermons, I would ask that if you would like to review, you can always go back online. Go on the website. We have them there for you if you want to listen again. I did want to cover briefly three principles that we covered last time.

Number one, as followers of Christ, we should strive to keep even what some would consider the least of the commandments. That's what the Scripture tells us, that we should strive to even keep the very least of God's commandments, if there is such a thing. I mean, God doesn't make commandments lightly, but Christ talked about the importance of keeping the least of these commandments, and then certainly not teaching others.

We talked quite a bit about the importance of your example and not teaching others to disobey and to break the commandments of God. It's very, very important that we strive to keep the very least of God's commandments, whatever you consider to be least. Still, you should keep it. Secondly, know that you will not enter the kingdom of God unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Scribes and the Pharisees were looked up to as religious leaders, as spiritual men. Christ called them hypocrites. Christ had a real issue with the Pharisees and with the scribes, because they were not living by every word of God.

They were setting a bad example. They were selfish. They were caught up with the idea of who gets to be in charge, that sort of thing. It was an authority issue for many of them. Our righteousness must succeed, that of the scribes and the Pharisees. So now is the time to cultivate a soft, repentant heart that allows you to walk in the Spirit. As we move closer to Pentecost, we should be living by the Spirit of God. We should be allowing God's Spirit to work in us, to produce the fruit of His Spirit. When we have a soft heart that's soft toward God's laws, in other words, is readily accepting of God's law and His ways, then, of course, we will draw nearer to God, and we have to get beyond the letter of God's law to living by the Spirit of God's law.

And then thirdly, don't let your anger get the best of you.

If any of you have ever had a problem with anger, you know what I'm talking about. Anger can sometimes get the best of us. It can cause us to do things and say things that we wish we hadn't said, do things we wish we hadn't done. So don't let your anger get the best of you, but bring it into check lest you be guilty even of murdering someone in your heart. And we talked about that last time, how harboring hatred and resentment toward others can actually make us guilty of breaking the sixth commandment, thou shall not murder. So today we're going to go on from there. Before I do that, though, I do want to clarify something. I don't remember exactly what I said last time, but I did want to just go over one thing, where it says, but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. Now without a cause is oftentimes left out. It's not included. It is included in the New King James. And the New King James and the King James Version New Testaments are based on the Byzantine Greek text, the Texas Receptus or the Receive text, which we as a church view as more trustworthy overall, even though they are not necessarily the oldest ones discovered. So I believe it's the Greek text or the Alexandrian Egyptian text. I'm sorry. They do not have the phrase without a cause. They leave that out, but we believe it's better to have that phrase included. The Byzantine texts include the phrase without a cause, while the older ones do not, but there are many, many more texts that have survived of the Byzantine text. We have thousands, I think, over 5,000 of those. So William Barclay favors the Alexandrian text, but the United Church of God and the Church of God for many years has favored the Byzantine text, and that's why we largely use the King James Version and the New King James. So just so you know.

Also, I personally believe it's best to have the phrase without a cause included, because that's likely what Jesus meant. We should never get angry unless there's a good reason, unless there's a good cause. Even God gets angry, doesn't He? God has gotten angry with good cause and with good reason. There are times when we may become righteously indignant or angry if we see someone that's being abused, mistreated. I mean, that's only natural to have that well up inside you. That's actually a good thing, because we should be able to be moved by wrongdoing. So the Scripture also tells us that it is acceptable to be angry, but sin not. So a person can get angry, but getting angry isn't always sin. In fact, oftentimes it isn't sin, or at least some of the times it isn't sin.

If you have a good reason to be angry, a good cause, and then you keep it in check and you control it, and you don't allow it to get the best of you, where you do something foolish or stupid, so it isn't wrong to get angry about the right things.

Now let's go on to Matthew 5, and we'll start reading in verse 23. Matthew 5, verse 23, let's read verse 23 and 24 together.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. So if you brought an offering to give to God, and you have an issue with a brother, the direction is to leave your gift there, leave your offering there, go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. So it's showing the importance of having our relationships right, because if we want to have our sacrifices or offerings accepted, then we need to have our hearts right, because God looks on the heart, and relationships are far more important. And of course, today we don't give physical sacrifices, but we are to be a living sacrifice. And one way that we are living sacrifices is when we when we treat each other with love and respect, and we put them before us, and we learn to give to them the way God would have us give to them, love them the way God would have us love them. Sacrifices were given to atone for one's sins, but only for sins of ignorance or sins of passion and weakness, not for deliberate, willful sins or what they would call sins of a high hand. The idea was that by making a sacrifice, a person admitted their sin and sought to restore the relationship between them and God. So they were admitting their sin, they're seeing their sins. The great emphasis, again, was placed upon relationships with one another. So the instruction that Christ gives is that we need to make sure that our hearts and our minds are right with people. It was understood that a person who made sacrifice to God must seek to have a right relationship with his fellow man. Scripture says, how can you love God unless you first love your brother and you love your sister, who you can see? God the invisible God who you can't see, how can you possibly learn to love him until you learn to love each other? So don't think you can love God and hate your brother. That doesn't work that way. So that's why it's so important that we learn to forgive one another.

So in order to give a proper sacrifice, one must reconcile with anyone he may have offended or wronged by making restitution just as he had offended God by his sin for which he was now making a sacrifice. That was the idea. William Barclay says in his commentary on the book of Matthew that the Jews were quite clear that not even the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement could avail for a man unless he was first reconciled to his neighbor. Now, I don't think that was probably really kept well. I seriously doubt whether everyone was loving and forgiving their brother, but it was probably mostly a show, an exterior show, not so much spirit of the law, but a letter of the law. The breach between man and God could not be healed until the breach between man and man was healed. So it just does underscore the importance of having right relationships with each other, and especially those of us who are part of the body of Christ. You know, we need to make amends. If we wrong someone, we need to be willing to admit it. We need to be able to see our sins, see what we've done that would be hurtful, and ask for forgiveness, and then we need to forgive as well. Again, God does look on the heart. Instead of making a physical sacrifice for our sins, we seek repentance and we seek forgiveness through admitting our sin and also claiming the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. So that's the kind of living sacrifice that we are to be. Christ is to live in us. We've accepted Him as our Savior. He is our Lord and Master. He now lives in us by the power of God's Holy Spirit and Christ living in us by the power of His Spirit. We produce fruit, fruit of love and joy, peace, long suffering, kindness and goodness, meekness, faithfulness, self-control. You know, these are the fruits of God's Holy Spirit that we all need to be producing on a regular basis. In fact, we should be producing God's fruit abundantly. That's what the Scripture tells us. We should be producing God's fruit abundantly, the fruit of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. So Pentecost is a very important holy day. It does obviously picture God's Holy Spirit. God's Spirit living in us to change us, to help us be like Christ. So the person was to go and make things right with anyone that he had wronged, including someone he should forgive and had not yet done so. So you might think about your own life. Do you still harbor resentment toward somebody? Is there anything that you can do to help reconcile, to make things better between you?

If so, then you should seek to do that.

Now, if you want God to forgive your transgressions against him, then you must first repent of your transgressions against your brother. Again, making amends, making restitution. You have to also forgive your brother his transgressions against you.

All right, now let's go to verse 25. Here it says, To agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the prisoner or over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. As surely I say to you, you will by no means get out of there. You won't get out of prison till you have paid the last penny. So what is Christ talking about?

Well, there may be two scenarios to which Christ may be alluding. Certainly the more likely one is that Christ was referring primarily to Jewish law and specifically to one of debt. The context bears that out, talking about paying the last penny.

In a small town, one could easily bump into another on the way to court. So if you're in a small town and there's one court, one place to go, and you're both going to the same place, you could easily bump into the person who's suing you because you owe them money or you've wronged them in a certain way, probably because you haven't paid your debts.

So the advice is the person primarily in the wrong would be wise to seek a remedy and make peace rather than go to court. You know, if you could settle this thing out of court, then that would make good sense. Otherwise, you stand to lose much more. If you end up going before the judge, the judge could very likely throw you into debtor's prison, and you would think it would be harder to pay someone back if you were in debtor's prison. I mean, I don't know how that worked. Maybe they, you know, they must have worked and got some kind of wages, but it seems like you'd probably get more if you were just able to freely work.

So it might be in the best interest of both people rather than fight it out in court.

If you know you're wrong, why not admit it and, you know, make, you know, make some kind of an agreement. So that could be what he's talking about. Don't go before the judge or the court, because it could end up being a lot worse. Now, there's another scenario to which Jesus was likely, you know, he was aware of this anyway, and that was under Greek law. And in Greek law, and this is kind of interesting because he could have been, he could have had this in mind too, there was a lot of Greek influence at the time of Christ, and there was an arrest called a summary arrest, where one person could literally, literally arrest another person by grabbing him by the robe at the throat. Grab him at the robe by the by the robe at the throat in such a way that if the person struggled, he would end up strangling himself. So, two people going to court together, another person would have to follow along. Now, the crimes for which one might be summarily arrested in this way was thievery, such as closed stealing. You know, they had public baths, and people would leave their clothes, and other people would steal their clothes. Of course, if you're naked and you grab the guy, it's that's not so good either. So, I don't know, you know, how that all worked out. But, closed stealing, picking pockets, breaking into one's home, kidnapping a gifted slave was pretty common at that time. So, a plaintiff and a defendant might easily find themselves on the way to court together if one grabbed the other one by the robe at the throat.

But, it's more likely he was mostly referring to the debtor's prison and the Jewish law. But, I thought it was interesting. Barclay brought that out in his book. So, I thought I'd share that with you. Now, Jesus may have been hoping that we will also see the spiritual application of this these two verses as well. There is indeed a spiritual application of repenting quickly when we sin. Know if you sinned, repent quickly, admit your sin quickly, fall upon the mercy of a forgiving God. A day of reckoning is coming and we would all be wise to get right with God before we are caught unawares or before it's too late for us and we go into some kind of great tribulation. Whether it's the real great tribulation or just some other great tribulation that we may have brought upon ourselves. So, it's wise to get right with God so that you don't bring upon a great tribulation yourself. It's good to avoid those kinds of problems if at all possible. Sometimes it is possible. Now, in verse 27, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Now, you shall not commit adultery, of course, as one of the 10 commandments given on Mount Sinai. Violating this commandment brought the death penalty. In Leviticus 20, verse 10, it reads, The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, both, shall surely be put to death. So both people who are guilty of adultery are to be put to death. Now, obviously, this is a law, a rule, that God doesn't want us to take lightly. It's one of the 10 commandments. And yet, what is the modern approach toward divorce and remarriage and adultery, which often leads to divorce and remarriage? People often marry, they often commit adultery, they often divorce, then they remarry, then they commit adultery, then they divorce again, and they commit adultery and they divorce again. I mean, it happens often these days. I know of one church member's mother. It wasn't the church member, but it was his mother who was not in the church. She was married no less than 10 times. 10 times. And that was several years ago. She may be up to a dozen if she's still alive. I don't know if the woman's still alive or not. It's been a while. But 10 times, that's a lot of divorcing and remarrying. Some of them probably died. If they all died, then I would certainly check into how they died.

No, a lot of it was divorce. And that's, unfortunately, too much the way we look at things. Divorce, remarriage, adultery. It isn't nearly as big a deal as God says it is to people. It's not nearly so big. It should be. So Christ told the woman that was caught in the act of adultery to go and sin no more. Remember that? That's what he told her. She was called in the act of adultery. The guy wasn't anywhere around. It makes you wonder what happened to the guy. I mean, that's the question that we all have that we don't have an answer in the Bible.

Christ told her to go and sin no more. Now, this was a situation where those who wanted to see her stoned to death were also guilty of the same type of things. Maybe not exactly that same sin, but sins worthy of death. Of course, they were calling for her death, but they weren't calling for their own death. Jesus said, He was without sin. Cast the first stone. Well, that thankfully stopped them from moving forward because at least they evidently, whatever he wrote on the ground, whether it was dates and times and women's names and I don't know, no clue.

But something he wrote, something he said, convicted them that they were not fit to be stoning this woman themselves unless they bring upon them that same retribution. So they backed off. Now, we do live in a very permissive, a very perverse society today, much more so than even 40 or 50 years ago. When I was a teenager, it's a lot different today than it was when I was a teenager.

At the time of Christ, it was also a very permissive and permissive, or as a very permissive and perverse society in many parts of the world as well. I mean, that's human nature. Throughout history, we can see that there are people's pockets of people, Sodom and Gomorrah, and those types of things throughout history. Back in 1956, William Barclay wrote this in his commentary on the book of Matthew. He said, in an attempting world, there are many things which are deliberately designed to excite desire. Books, pictures, plays, even advertisements. Today, I say especially advertisements. The man whom Jesus here condemns is the man who deliberately uses his eyes to stimulate his desires. So, this is what Barclay is saying over 50 years ago. The man uses these things to stimulate his desires. The man who finds a strange delight in things which waken the desire for the forbidden thing. To the pure, all things are pure, but the man whose heart is defiled can look at any scene and find something in it to titillate and excite the wrong desire. So, there is something in mankind, and maybe more in a man than a woman, although I guess it can be both. But oftentimes, men are seeking this out. They have minds that are not pure, that are carnal, lustful minds. The Scripture is full of that. Those are the things we have to fight. So, it certainly isn't wise to seek out if you really don't want to be a certain way. To seek it out or to go there, to tempt yourself, to expose yourself to certain things. It's very, very foolish for one thing, but the human heart is powerful.

The lusts are powerful. So, we struggle with that. Paul talked about a struggle that goes on. The things that I don't want to do. These are the things that I find myself doing. The things I should do, I don't do. Maybe we don't pray like we should. We don't fast like we should.

This is a common problem. It's a human problem. It's human nature. But, of course, we're told to overcome. And it is possible to overcome. And with God's help, we can overcome more fully. And when we make good decisions, then we make it easier for us to overcome. When we make bad decisions, then it becomes almost impossible to overcome. When we put ourselves into temptation and we're weak, we're going to sin. Now, the eyes affect our mind. When we see things, it affects how we think. So, we have to be careful what we look at. Remember what Job did? Job made a covenant with his eyes that he would not look on a young woman. Maybe an older woman, but not a young one.

What I'm saying is, when you get older, maybe we're not quite as appealing physically. I mean, I guess that's kind of what that's saying. So, you know, regardless, wherever you find temptation, wherever it is, you should avoid it. You should not go there. You should not seek to go there. So, making a covenant with your eyes as a man is a good idea, you know, to make that covenant and then stick with it.

You know, follow that and do the right thing. You'll be much, much better off.

The word pornography you probably realize is from the word porneia. It's a Greek word. It's basically talking about sexual immorality. Pornography can be very stimulating. It's something that men are drawn to, that some women are drawn to, but it's extremely destructive. It's very, very destructive. It's something that should be avoided.

It is a huge problem in this world. Billions of dollars are spent every year on pornography. That's the world we live in. To think that that's not going to affect us in any way is not very realistic, is it? The way people dress, the permissive approach that we have in the world today towards sex, that affects us all. So we have to be on guard and we have to be wise. You know, what is Christ talking about when he talks about if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Is that what God wants us to do? To pluck our eyes out? To cut off our limbs? That's right. God doesn't want us to do that. He doesn't want us to mutilate ourselves. So Christ said this to make an impact, though. No, literally, He doesn't want us to do that. But figuratively, that's exactly what He wants us to do. Figuratively. In other words, there's a lesson to be learned in what Christ says. The lesson is don't cut your arms off, don't gouge your eyes out. But it is important that you do realize that figuratively and spiritually, that's what you need to do. You need to remove yourself from the temptation. If something is bothering your eyes spiritually, then avoid that. Don't go there.

And if your hand, which we get our hands involved in everything that we do, when you do something, it's just talking about acting in an improper, ungodly way. If there's anything that would tempt you to do something you shouldn't do, don't go there. Cut it off. Eliminate it. That's what God wants us to do. He wants us to learn to do that.

So there's something very interesting about the word translated cause. The word cause, verse 30, if your right hand causes you to sin, in verse 29, if your right eye causes you to sin, there's something interesting about this word cause. It's the word offend in the King James It's cause in the New King James, right? That's what I have. If the right hand causes you to sin. Or, I forget, I don't know exactly how it's used in the King James. I think it's offend in the King James. Anyway, it is a Greek word, scandalon. Scandalon. S-K-A-N-D-A-L-O-N. Is there any English word that this word reminds you of? Scandalon. Scandalous. To scandalize.

Okay, so this is a word, scandalon. It's a form of another very similar word that means the bait stick in a trap. Have you ever set a trap like a mousetrap? There's a bait stick. They're calling it a bait stick. It's where you put the cheese or the peanut butter. It's a little stick there. You have to put the spring, load it. Okay, that's what we're talking about here. It is the stick or the arm upon which bait is placed. And then when you put the spring to it, then it springs back and captures or traps the prey. So most of us are familiar with a mousetrap that has a rod or a piece of metal that you put the cheese or peanut butter on. The sticker rod is attached to a spring. When the mouse attempts to eat the bait, he triggers the spring which releases the piece of metal that slams down upon him and traps and kills the mouse. Now, have any of you ever trapped a mouse? Let me see your hands if you've actually trapped a mouse. Well, I probably, I think I'm chief among you. Has anyone trapped more than 200 mice? Anyone here trapped more than 200 in one winter? Maybe two winters. When we moved into our house in Oklahoma, which we refer to as the house from Gehenna. Well, when we first moved there, it was infested, first of all, with ticks. You can believe that. It had loads of ticks. We took the carpet out, we burned it, we put new carpeting in, we had to get rid of, you know, we had to do a lot of stuff there because it was not, let's put it this way, the housekeeping was not up to par for those who lived there prior to us. So, it was also infested with mice. It was unbelievable. Seven or eight mice every single night I was trapping. I mean, I got so sick of even looking at a mousetrap, but I know how they work and peanut butter really does work pretty well. Peanut butter works better than cheese, so if you haven't tried peanut butter, it's quite effective. But let's think about this in terms and in the context of what we're talking about here. Okay, the cause or the cause of the right hand or the right eye, the dominant eye, typically we're talking about the dominant eye. It's usually my dominant eye is my left eye, but the majority of people have a dominant right eye. Most people are right-handed, they're right, their right eye dominant for the most part, not everyone. But it may be the reason they use the right hand and the right eye is because typically it's a dominant dominant eye and a dominant hand. So it's like a snare, a trip wire, or a thin layer of grass, perhaps. You've seen in the movies, like watching Tarzan, they have this big hole, and over the hole they have all this debris and brush and stuff, and a lion comes along and usually after a person has fallen in. No, no, usually it's the other way around. Usually the lion falls in and then some unsuspecting person falls in. I've seen a few of those. Then they come scampering out when they see the lion with unbelievable speed and agility. It's called motivation. Anyway, that's also, it's talking about that kind of trick. It's talking about that kind of trap or a snare where you catch a bird. You know you have a little stick and then you see the bird. You have some stuff in there and you set off the trap and it falls on them. Okay, they're trapped. Our eyes and our hands are indicative of major parts of our bodies that are involved with one's sins. The eyes lust, the hands do things they shouldn't do. They're largely involved in everything we choose to do. Now, Satan will do his best to scandalize you. Do you believe that? Do you think Satan would like to scandalize you personally?

He's your enemy, right? He's your adversary. If he can scandalize you, then he's victorious in many ways. If he can bring reproach upon you as a Christian, if he can scandalize you, if he can tempt you to sin, if he can entice you to sin, if he can bait the trap and catch you in it, then he will scandalize you. Now, how many times have we seen preachers who have been scandalized by their behavior? How often, how many times can we think right off the hand of certain people? I'm not going to name any names, but I could throw out several.

And that's what Satan has done. He's scandalized them because they were tempted. They did not avoid the trap. They got caught in the trap. And so it all ties in together. It's pretty intriguing, quite interesting how this works. So be careful you don't allow Satan to tempt you and to destroy you because that's exactly what he wants to do.

He's referred to as the prince of the power of the air because he broadcasts his thoughts.

Satan broadcasts these temptations and these wrong desires. He stirs up the carnal flesh through his thinking that he projects toward you.

Moods, attitudes. You know, if Satan can get us into certain attitudes, then we're more prone to sin. We're more likely to go down a certain path, a dark path.

We must learn to reject the ungodly, the unholy thoughts that come into our minds, and we need to reject them quickly. When Satan's trying to tempt you, that's the time to fight back immediately. Reject it quickly. What does the scripture say in the book of James?

Draw near to God. He will draw near to you. What about Satan?

If we resist Satan, he will flee from you. But if you don't resist him, trust me, he's not going anywhere except right there. That's where he's going to be until he's victorious. Until he scandalizes you. There's many, many ways to be scandalized, and some aren't known by most people, but we know when we've been scandalized, right? You know. You know when that happens, even if no one else does. So, next time you're tempted, think about that. Think about your adversary, the destroyer, who wants to destroy you, he wants to hurt you. Maybe he wants to drive a wedge between you and your wife, or you and your husband. And so he will try to entice you to do certain things that will do that, that a wedge will develop because of bad behavior.

You know, it's so important that we are careful. Let's go to James chapter 1, and we read this not long ago in the Bible study, and I won't belabor it because we went into it in greater depth then, but in verse 12 of chapter 1 of the book of James, blessed is a man who endures temptation for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life. So what we've been talking about, that's important to resist Satan and to endure the temptation. Don't go there. Don't allow yourself to be enticed. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. So, if we learn what love is really all about, and love is the keeping of the commandments. And if you love God, you'll keep his commandments, even though you don't want to. Part of you doesn't want to.

You know, part of you really doesn't want to. The carnal human part doesn't want to do that. It's not subject to the law of God. That's what the scripture says. Romans 8 verse 7, it's not subject to God's law, and it can't be. So it has to be the Spirit of God that's motivating us and helping us along. Verse 13, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. Now, God is not going to try to tempt a person to do evil. God is against evil. God is holy and righteous and good. So he's not going to try to tempt anyone to sin. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires. Obviously wrong desires and is enticed. Then when desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. Okay, when we dwell on a desire and then we go there, then it's going to be conceived. It's going to happen. If you don't resist it right away, if you go down that path, the more you go down that path, the harder it is to ever stop. So you don't want to go down that path in the first place.

Once you start it, you've already sinned. Once you start down that path. We play games with ourselves thinking, oh, we're not going to do anything. We're not going to do anything that's wrong. We're just kind of curious. Yeah, well, it's more than that. You're not just curious. You're wanting to do something. And when you go down that path, you weaken yourself spiritually. It's very hard to turn from that. The best thing to do is seek God, start praying about it. If you go somewhere and pray for strength, then you could avoid it. But if you don't get the help from God, you don't have enough strength on your own. So when desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. Okay, so you have a bad desire. You go down that path. You sin. You do it. Whatever it is.

And sin, when it is full grown. In other words, if you continue to do this sin and you don't repent of it, and you continue going down that path, eventually you end up destroying yourself.

It brings forth death. The wages of sin is death. So you have to come to the point of repentance, repent of that sin, and go the other way. That's what repentance is all about. It's turning from the sin. It's overcoming the sin. It's putting the sin out. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. That's good advice. So what is James saying? He's saying you're likely to be deceived on these very issues right here. This is where we're likely to be deceived. Satan will deceive us into thinking we're stronger than we truly are, or we can go down a certain path and not get hurt. It's not going to happen. So don't be deceived, my brethren. Obey God, follow Him, serve Him. Reject all that is evil. Now, I found in my own personal life that the closer I am to God, the stronger I am. That makes sense, doesn't it? The closer you are to God, the stronger you are spiritually. The more faithful you've been in prayer, the stronger you're going to be. If you're not praying, then you're not going to be very strong spiritually. If you're not studying the Word of God, you're not going to be very strong. I draw strength from reading the Bible. That gives me power. It gives me spiritual power to do what's right. If I neglect to pray, if I neglect to study, then I'm weaker. It's not rocket science, people. This is not rocket science. It's Sermon on the Mount 101. So Bible study meditation. If you meditate on God's way all day long, you're more likely to do that which is right and good. But if you got your mind on a million other things and you pushed God far away, yeah, you're more likely to sin because you're not spiritually minded. So meditating throughout the day is essential. Fasting is a powerful tool. I find that the more regularly I fast, the better off I am.

Spiritually, I'm just stronger spiritually. If I'm fasting on a more regular basis than at other times, I'm stronger. Again, it's not rocket science. It's basic. So these things are essential. Prayer, Bible study, meditating, fasting, they are essential in strengthening one spiritually. So he is able to resist temptation. Stirring up the Spirit of God is what gives us victory over sin. That's what stirs up the Spirit. Prayer, Bible study, meditation, fasting. It stirs up God's Spirit within us. It helps us be stronger. It helps us to produce the fruit of God's Spirit.

God in us gives us victory over sin. God's the one that has the victory. It's not us. We're not strong enough. Of myself, I can do nothing. That's what Christ said. If Christ said that, how much more is it true for us? I can of myself do nothing. The Father had to work through Jesus Christ, who is human. And he was totally yielded to the Father. Let not my will, but your will be done. That's how Christ lived his life. So, just to give you a few verses to consider, 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 5, bring every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ. If we're doing that, we don't have much to worry about. Bringing every single thought into captivity, that's what Christ did. He didn't sin. Christ was perfectly obedient. That's because he brought every thought into captivity. He did not allow those thoughts to run wild. He captured those thoughts, those evil thoughts, did not allow them to grow. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 5, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Put on the mind of Christ.

Learn to think like he thought when he didn't sin, when he did the right thing. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4 verse 8, another important scripture. Think on these things. He's telling us what to think about. First of all, think like Christ. How did Christ think? Meditate on these things. Whatsoever things are good. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things have virtue. Whatsoever things are a good report, think on these things. Don't allow yourself to think on anything except those things.

Sure, you'll have to deal with life, but if you'll put them in that context, you can still deal with life. But put it in that framework. Don't go down these dark paths. 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13, remember, God will provide a way of escape for any temptation.

Also, there's a scripture about make no provision for the flesh. Don't do anything that would provide for the flesh. You want to deny the flesh. You don't have to deny the good things. God's okay with the good things, but he does want us to deny the evil things. So don't make a provision for the flesh. In other words, again, don't go down that path where you stir up the carnal mind, the lust of the flesh. Make no provision for the flesh. Also, 1 Corinthians 10, 13, God will provide a way of escape. God provides it. It doesn't mean you have to take it, right? It doesn't force you to take it. He will provide it, though. So this idea that I'm too weak, I'm too weak. Yes, I agree. You are weak, and I am weak, and I have sinned because of my weakness. But could I overcome? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

It was my choice not to get the help that I needed. I was the one that was guilty. I was the one to blame. Nobody else. God provides the way of escape for temptation, but you have to avail yourself of it.

You have to take it, and if you don't take it, then you'll pay the consequences for it.

So today, we've covered some very important principles of living from the Sermon on the Mount. Let me summarize five things that we talked about. Number one, if you want God to forgive your transgressions against him, then you must first repent of your transgressions against your brother.

So if you want God to forgive you, obviously you need to forgive your brother, and make amends, and make restitution for what you've done. Oftentimes, it's just simply saying, I'm sorry, what I did. I know I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. Please forgive me.

And then also, you need to be willing to forgive your brother who comes to you, and ask you to forgive. So that's the first principle. Secondly, agree with your adversary quickly, and admit your wrongdoing, lest you bring upon yourself greater punishment.

If you're the one that's in the wrong, then you should be willing to admit it, and agree with your adversary. Ah, you're right. I was wrong. Sorry. I owe you so much money. Let's make out a way to pay this off. Make an agreement. Work it out. Pay it out over time. Don't try to neglect what you owe, but work with it. Thirdly, get right with God and man before it's too late for you and you suffer severe consequences. In other words, now is the time to act, not next week or next month, but right now. Get right with God and man before it's too late. If you have people you harbor resentment toward, first of all, pray about it, and then try to work it out. You know, try to make amends, try to forgive, whatever it is you need to do to work things out. Now, fourthly, it's not enough to follow the letter of the law in regard to adultery or sexual immorality. It's not enough to follow the letter of the law. And Christ clearly brought us the spirit of the law in those matters. We are to strive to follow the spirit of the law and learn to bring our impure thoughts and desires into captivity. So don't allow yourself to go down that path. Remember the mouse trap being scandalized. Stay away. Avoid those traps. And number five, learn to make the hard choices now. How do you learn to make the hard choices? By making one. If you make one, then you may be able to make a second one and a third one.

But if you don't make any hard choices, then how are you ever going to learn to make a lot of hard choices? Learn to make the hard choices now. Take the drastic measures necessary to be faithful and obedient and to guard your thoughts, bringing them into captivity as Christ did. So, brethren, if you want to build your spiritual house on the rock, then take heed to what Jesus Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount. In the weeks ahead, we will study and detail Christ's instruction. We still have a ways to go. I finished this in Dallas, so you guys are a little bit behind. I took 11 sermons, so we're at six. It'll be a while, but that's okay. I hate starting a series and not finishing it. So, we'll continue to go through these sermons. If you want to build your spiritual house on the rock, then you need to take heed to what Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount. So, we're going to continue to study and detail Christ's instruction that leads to peace and contentment, not only now, but ultimately, it leads to eternal life.