Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel and chapter
4 and verse 8.
In our last two studies we were considering
how God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus, his
son, after Jesus was baptized and anointed with
the Holy Spirit.
And we saw the first two temptations that
came to him, the first in the wilderness
and the second in the Holy City.
No doubt the devil brought these as images
into his mind in the wilderness and in
the Holy City.
And that is how the devil tempts us
to, through thoughts put into our mind, which
when our mind responds to, we sin.
And Jesus did not respond to those temptations
that were flashed into his mind.
The third temptation came on a very high
mountain.
We read in verse 8, the devil took
him to a very high mountain and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world in
their glory.
As we considered in our last study, there
is no place where the devil does not
seek to tempt us.
It can be in the wilderness, can be
in the Holy City, it can be in
the mountain, it can be in times of
depression and discouragement and failure, which the wilderness
would symbolize, it can be in our holiest
moments of religious activity, as the Holy City
would symbolize, and it can be in times
of great accomplishment, as the high mountain would
symbolize, when we've really done something great and
are, as they say, on top of the
world.
There is no circumstance or situation where the
devil does not have some particular and particularly
appropriate temptation with which he seeks to knock
us down and pull us away from the
Lord.
And that's why the word of God says,
Be alert and sober at all times, for
your adversary, like a roaring lion, seeks whom
he may devour.
1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 8.
We are to be alert at all times
and in all situations, when we are depressed,
when we are elated, when we are in
the midst of religious activity or secular activity,
it makes no difference, in the city, in
the wilderness.
Again the devil took him to a very
high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms
of the world and their glory, and he
said to him, All these things will I
give you, if you fall down and worship
me.
Again here we find a twofold temptation.
First of all, to seek all the honor
and the glory of this world, which involves
compromise, which involves bowing the knee to Satan,
and that is a temptation that can come
to us in many ways.
It can come in secular situations, whereby compromising
a little, by telling a little lie, by
signing a small false statement, we could make
more money or get more honor or get
into a particular position.
There are parents who give false age certificates
for their children, so that they can put
them into a school at an earlier age,
etc.
All types of situations where a little bowing
the knee to Satan can get us something
in this world.
And we can think of so many situations
where we attempted to give a little bribe,
we can call it by a more dignified
name as a tip or something like that,
but it is a bribe in order to
get something for ourselves from this world.
Satan invites us to bow the knee to
him.
He says, If you'll bow the knee to
me here, if you'll give this little bribe
here, I'll give you all these things.
Then we must remember this temptation.
It can also be in the religious world,
where we can be tempted to keep quiet
on certain topics, so that we get a
wider circle in which we can preach.
Think of the opportunities the devil will offer
us.
Keep quiet on certain things concerning the whole
counsel of God, the devil says.
Just speak on certain things which will not
offend all your congregation and audience.
Because if you speak on certain topics, even
though they are written in scripture and part
of God's whole counsel, the people here might
be offended, Satan says.
So keep quiet on those matters.
Then you have a wider audience.
You can be a more popular preacher.
There are many, many areas like this, where
the devil invites us to bow the knee
just a little bit to him, and he
says, I'll give you a wider opening, many
open doors, etc., and Jesus would not fall
for that deception of Satan.
The other temptation here is to bypass the
cross.
The devil knew that Jesus had come to
win the kingdoms of the world for his
father, and he says, I'll offer you a
shortcut to that.
You don't have to go through that painful,
hard way of dying on the cross and
then winning the kingdoms of the world to
the father.
You can get it through a shortcut.
Just bow your knee to me, and I'll
give it to you straight away.
And that can be a tremendous temptation, to
avoid the pathway of the cross, to find
a shortcut that bypasses the cross, and we
think we can accomplish God's purposes still.
And Jesus was not going to be fooled.
There is a time coming when we read
in Matthew, in Revelation chapter 11, that the
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom
of our Lord and of His Christ.
But that has come through Jesus going the
hard way, the difficult way, the way of
the cross.
If Jesus had yielded to Satan's temptation, he
would have sinned.
Remember this, when God is appointed a particular
way for the accomplishment of His purpose, any
shortcut that bypasses that God-appointed way will
only lead you into sin, and it will
never accomplish God's purpose at all.
The kingdoms of the world could never have
become the kingdom of the father if Jesus
had bowed his knee to Satan.
We can never accomplish God's purposes by compromise
or by responding to the subtle suggestions of
Satan to find an easier way.
We read that Jesus steadfastly set His face
to go to Jerusalem, to the cross, to
death, because He knew that that was the
way the Father had appointed for Him.
And He says to us, if any man
will come after Me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily, Luke 9,
23, and follow Me.
It is impossible to follow Jesus Christ without
denying ourselves and taking up the cross every
day, and if we find that the devil
suggests a pathway to us in which there
is no cross and no death to self,
we can be sure that it involves bowing
the knee to Satan in some way or
the other.
And Jesus said to him, Matthew 4, verse
10, Be gone, Satan!
For it is written, You shall worship the
Lord your God and serve Him only.
Notice in all three temptations that Jesus overcame
Satan only by quoting the word of God.
It is written, verse 4, it is written,
verse 7, it is written, verse 10.
He never got into a discussion with Satan
like Eve got into in the Garden of
Eden.
It's always dangerous to get into a discussion.
Satan will outwit you.
The sword of the Spirit we read in
Ephesians 6, 17 is the word of God,
and Jesus used that sword to overcome Satan.
He just quoted Scripture.
Scripture was the final authority for Jesus Christ
when He was here on earth as a
man.
And that is a good example for us
to follow as well, that when God's word
has spoken on a particular subject, there is
no need for further discussion on that matter.
If Christians would follow the example of Jesus
Christ here, that Scripture is the final authority,
not man's traditions, not what has helped someone
or blessed someone, but what does the word
of God say.
I believe that we would overcome Satan in
many situations.
Jesus replied saying, You shall worship the Lord
your God and Him only shall you serve.
Notice here in this response of Jesus the
connection between worship and service.
The two are linked.
To worship, according to Romans 12, 1 in
the New Covenant, is to offer our bodies
as a living sacrifice to God so that
His will can be accomplished in our bodies
in the use of our eyes, hands, legs,
tongue, etc.
And it's only when we worship the Lord
like this through the presentation of our bodies
to Him that we can serve Him.
There are many people today trying to serve
Him without worshiping Him by the presentation of
their bodies to Him.
Notice the order, not first service and then
worship, but first worship and then service.
You shall worship the Lord your God and
serve Him only.
The offering of our bodies, worship is not
just speaking words of praise, but the offering
of our bodies to God in a complete
surrender to Him.
Then we can serve Him effectively.
We read in verse 11, Then the devil
left him, and, behold, angels came and began
to minister to him.
And we know from Luke's Gospel, chapter 4,
that the devil left him only for a
season.
He tempted him again for the remaining part
of his three and a half years on
earth, but for the time he had overcome.
God does not allow us to be tempted
beyond our ability, and He is always there
to encourage us and strengthen us.
Angels helped Him, and God is always there
to help us and encourage us, even today,
if we are faithful, if we follow in
the footsteps of Jesus, overcoming temptation, quoting God's
Word, and standing true to the Lord.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4,
and verse 12.
In our last three studies, we were considering
the three temptations that came to Jesus Christ
at the end of His forty days fast
in the wilderness.
And after the temptations were over, we read
in Luke's Gospel, chapter 4, and verse 14,
that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power
of the Spirit.
He had gone into the wilderness, filled with
the Holy Spirit from the River Jordan, and
He had gone through temptation for forty days,
culminating in the three temptations that we have
just considered in our last three studies, and
returned in the power of the Spirit.
And that's very significant.
It's not mentioned here in Matthew 4, but
we read in Matthew 4.12 that He
came into Galilee, but it's mentioned in Luke
4 that He came in the power of
the Holy Spirit, which teaches us that temptation
does perform a function.
We can be filled with the Spirit like
Jesus, and yet we need to be tempted
for our spiritual muscles to be strengthened.
This is one reason why God has not
destroyed Satan.
He allows Satan to exist so that we
can be tempted.
And as a result of that, our spiritual
muscles are strengthened, and we can move in
the power of the Spirit.
Jesus came forth as a tested person, one
who had overcome.
It's not enough that we are anointed.
We need to be tested.
Jesus was anointed.
He was also tested, and then He went
forth into His ministry.
Many would like to move out straight from
the anointing.
We need the anointing, but we also need
to be tested and to be proven in
the times of temptation that we are faithful
before God can commit to us a ministry.
This is the lesson we learned from this
section.
By this time, John had been taken into
custody, Matthew 4.12, John the Baptist, and
Jesus withdrew into Galilee.
And leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in
Capernaum, which is by the sea in the
region of Zebulun and Naphtali.
We read in Matthew 4.14, This was
to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the
prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun and the
land of Naphtali, by the way of the
sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who were sitting in darkness saw
a great light.
And to those who were sitting in the
land and shadow of death, upon them a
light dawned.
So we see here that even the movement
of Jesus from Nazareth to Capernaum in the
region of Zebulun and Naphtali was the fulfillment
of Scripture.
We can say, Well, that is because it
was Jesus Christ.
Everything was prophesied concerning Him in the Old
Testament.
But the word of God reveals very clearly
that God has a plan for our lives,
too.
Ephesians 2.10 is very clear when it
says that we have been recreated in Christ
Jesus so that we might walk in good
works which God has prepared beforehand that we
should walk in them.
In other words, God has made a plan
for our lives, and our movement, whether it
is from Nazareth to Capernaum or from one
town to another or one city to another
or one country to another, must be in
the will of God.
It must be the fulfillment of God's Word
and God's plan for our lives.
Jesus moved in fulfillment of God's plan for
His life.
Even a simple thing like leaving Nazareth, verse
13, and settling in Capernaum was to fulfill
the word of God.
If only we'd be gripped by this, that
God has a plan for our lives exactly
like He had a plan for the life
of Jesus Christ, we would be more careful
in our movements.
We can't just go anywhere we like because
it's comfortable or convenient for us.
It must be in fulfillment of God's plan
for our lives.
Then we can fulfill God's purpose for our
lives.
Otherwise, we may still live a godly life,
but we can never fulfill God's purpose and
plan for our lives.
We can say that a godly life can
be lived anywhere on the face of the
earth, but God's plan and purpose for our
lives can only be fulfilled in that place
or those places that God has appointed for
us in His plan.
And there it's important that we don't seek
our own convenience and comfort, but the glory
of God in the interest of His kingdom.
From that time, Jesus began to preach and
say, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand.
John had preached that gospel, and when John
was imprisoned, we can say that Jesus took
the baton from John's hand and continued this
relay race, proclaiming the message of repentance.
When Jesus died and rose up and ascended
into heaven, in Acts 2.38, we read
that Peter took the baton and continued the
same relay race.
And through the centuries, God has always had
His men who proclaim the same message of
repentance.
This is the great need of the hour,
this message of repentance.
And we need to take that baton today
from men of God who have preceded us
and proclaim the same message.
Not that the kingdom of heaven is at
hand now, but it has already come.
But Jesus' second coming is at hand.
Repent.
That's the message for the unbelievers and for
the church.
Turn from sin.
Turn from sin is the message that John
the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles always preached,
and that we need to proclaim even today.
And walking by the Sea of Galilee, verse
18, he saw two brothers, Simon who was
called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a
net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
And he said to them, Follow me and
I'll make you fishers of men.
They immediately left the nets and followed him.
Notice that Jesus never called a single unemployed
person to be one of his apostles.
Every case of Jesus calling someone that we
read off in the Gospels was of someone
who was employed somewhere, whether it was Matthew
sitting at the collection of taxes, or Peter
and Andrew that we read off here a
little later, James and John.
They were working people.
Jesus never called any unemployed people to serve
him full-time.
This is the tragedy today.
There are many people who've come into full
-time Christian work who've never been in any
secular employment, and one has to seriously question
whether they were ever called by God.
It's very important that we follow the scriptural
principles of find a job, be employed, and
then if you're faithful in those things that
God gives you there, then if it is
God's will, he may call you into the
ministry.
If we go out into the ministry on
other terms, we'll find frustration and fruitlessness and
a missing of God's will.
But when Jesus called, they left the nets
and followed him.
The response was immediate, as Jesus expects it
to be.
People who are slow in responding to any
call of God usually end up missing God's
plan for their lives.
Going on from there, he saw two other
brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John,
his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their
father, mending their nets, being faithful in their
tasks, helping their parents, and he called them.
God calls those who are faithful in their
earthly tasks, faithful at home, faithful in their
place of work.
It's only those who have proved themselves of
faithfulness at home and in their secular job
who can be entrusted with a spiritual ministry.
And they immediately left the boat and their
father.
Here was something more.
They not only left their job, they broke
that connection with their father and they followed
him.
There are two things we need to break
a connection with.
Our attachment to anything earthly in our job
or to our earthly relatives.
It didn't mean they didn't care for their
father, but when Jesus called, his call took
precedence over their other earthly connections.
It's very important to bear this principle in
mind.
And Jesus was going about in all Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of
the kingdom, healing every kind of disease and
every kind of sickness among the people.
We can say that the ministry of Jesus
described here was summed up in teaching, proclaiming
the gospel of the kingdom, evangelism, and healing.
Healing always accompanied the ministry of evangelism in
Jesus' life and also in the lives of
the Apostles.
Healing was the way by which doors were
opened for people to respond to the gospel
that Jesus and the Apostles preached.
And the news about him went out into
all Syria.
And they brought to him all who were
ill, taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs,
epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.
And great multitudes followed him from Galilee and
Decapolis in Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond
the Jordan.
Through the healing gift that he received through
the anointing of the Holy Spirit, doors were
opened for him everywhere to proclaim the gospel.
But the gospel he proclaimed is not called
here the gospel of forgiveness of sins.
It's called the gospel of the kingdom.
It's very important to notice that.
A lot of evangelism today, even connected with
the ministry of healing, proclaims merely the gospel
of the forgiveness of sins.
But here it says that Jesus proclaimed the
gospel of the kingdom, verse 23.
Even in the Old Testament, forgiveness of sins
was proclaimed.
We read in Psalm 32, blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute
iniquity, and Psalm 103, blessed the Lord, O
my soul, who forgives all your iniquities.
He forgives every sin of ours.
What then is this gospel of the kingdom?
We consider that that was the message John
the Baptist preached.
The kingdom of God, as opposed to the
kingdom of self.
The kingdom of heaven, as opposed to the
kingdom of earth.
It was the kingdom of heaven, of a
life where our mind is set on heavenly
things, not on earthly things.
Where God's interests take precedence over our own
personal interests.
This is the gospel that Jesus proclaimed.
And this is the gospel that we need
to proclaim today, too.
Jesus was not going to be taken up
with the multitudes and seek popularity.
He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom, that
they had to deny themselves and become disciples.
And here is another area where we need
to follow the example of Jesus once again
and evangelize and proclaim the gospel and engage
in evangelism in the same way that Jesus
did it in his day.
Let's turn now to Matthew chapter 5 and
verse 1.
Beginning here, we read of what is commonly
known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Verse 1.
And when he saw the multitudes, he went
up on the mountain, and after he sat
down, his disciples came to him.
And opening his mouth, he began to teach
them, saying.
Now notice the connection between this verse and
what we read in the previous verses, which
are the last verses of Matthew chapter 4.
Jesus was going about in all Galilee, we
read in Matthew 4.23, teaching, proclaiming the
gospel, healing every kind of disease.
He was engaged in evangelism, and the news
went about him into all Syria, and great
multitudes followed him, from Galilee, verse 25.
But the evangelism that Jesus engaged in, which
included healing, led on to the making of
disciples in chapter 5, 6, and 7.
And this is the important thing that we
need to see, that as far as Jesus
was concerned in his ministry, there was no
evangelism without disciple-making.
And that is what is missing in much
of Christian work today.
There's evangelizing without disciple-making.
Jesus told us to preach the gospel to
every creature in Mark 16, and he also
said in Matthew 28, the last few verses,
to go and make disciples.
One must lead on to another, to the
other, and Jesus' own ministry is an example,
a perfect example of this.
Having healed the sick, having proclaimed the gospel
all over, he went on from there to
concentrate on those who were interested in becoming
disciples.
And so we see here that when he
saw the multitudes, he didn't just continue to
preach to them and continue to bring all
of them to conversion.
Seeing the multitudes, he went up to the
mountain and began to speak to his disciples.
And he told his disciples about the characteristics
that were to be found in those who
were to be a part of this new
covenant kingdom of heaven.
He began to teach them.
He did not teach the multitudes now, he
had finished with that.
He now began to teach the disciples.
And he said to them, blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
And here we need to understand what it
means to be poor in spirit, because this
is the opening verse of these three wonderful
chapters.
And we can say that this is the
key to the whole sermon on the mount.
It is the key to the kingdom of
heaven.
If you think of the kingdom of heaven
as a large mansion with many rooms, Jesus
said that you could possess the whole mansion
if you were poor in spirit.
In other words, this is the master key
to every room in the kingdom of heaven.
And if people don't understand what it means
to be poor in spirit, they will not
be able to possess the kingdom of heaven.
And this is the reason why many believers
have not possessed all of God's riches in
the kingdom of heaven.
What does it mean then to be poor
in spirit?
We can take an illustration from what it
means to be poor materially.
When you think of a beggar who has
no resources, no job, no savings, no house
to live in, he lives from day to
day with his begging bowl, going from house
to house collecting money.
And at the end of the day, his
bowl is still empty because he's used up
what he got that day for his needs
that day.
And the next morning, his bowl is empty
again.
And that's how he lives day after day
after day after day.
That's what it means to be really poor
materially.
And we can apply this illustration to the
spiritual realm to understand what it means to
be poor in spirit.
To be poor in spirit, therefore, is to
have a constant sense of our own spiritual
lack and need, so that, just like that
beggar has to go from house to house
every day, and what he got yesterday was
not good enough for today, in the same
way we need to go to God every
day, sensing our own helplessness, our utter lack
of confidence in our own abilities to live
for God, to do His work.
In other words, it's the complete opposite of
being self-sufficient.
To be poor in spirit is the opposite
of being self-sufficient.
And when we look at the opposites of
these beatitudes mentioned in Chapter 5, we will
see clearly the difference between the race, the
new race that God is making through Jesus
Christ as the head, and the old race
that has come through the headship of Adam.
We see that in the race of Adam,
self-sufficiency has got a great value in
the world.
For example, in business organizations and in every
worldly setup, a self-sufficient, self-confident person
is highly valued and appreciated.
In the kingdom of God, it's exactly the
opposite.
It's a person who has a recognition that
he is totally insufficient in himself, not for
worldly things, but for the kingdom of God.
That is the person who is going to
possess all of the kingdom of heaven.
So if this is the key, then we
can say that the only person who can
possess the kingdom of heaven and all of
its rooms in this mansion is the one
who is perpetually aware of his own limitations
and his own inability.
In the Old Testament, the mark of the
Jew was circumcision.
If you turn to Philippians in chapter 3
and verse 3, we read that circumcision had
a spiritual meaning, and the spiritual meaning was
this.
Philippians 3.3 Paul says, We are the
true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of
God and glory in Christ Jesus and put
no confidence in the flesh.
So we see here that the mark of
the new covenant Christian is this new covenant
circumcision, which means no confidence in what we
are after the flesh.
When you look at the example of Jesus
Christ himself, we read in John chapter 5
and verse 19 these amazing words which show
us how Jesus himself was really poor in
spirit.
John 5.19 Jesus said, Truly, truly, I
say to you, the Son can do nothing
of himself unless it is something he sees
the Father doing.
And he says in verse 30, I can
do nothing on my own initiative.
Is it really true that Jesus Christ could
do nothing?
He could do a lot of things, just
like we can do a lot of things.
But the point here is that anything that
we do on our own initiative has no
spiritual value, and Jesus recognized that.
And he didn't want to do things which
had no spiritual value, and therefore he did
nothing out of his own initiative.
There are very few believers who live like
this.
There are very few believers who really live
in perpetual poverty of spirit.
It's easy to begin our Christian life like
this, when we are first converted, to recognize
our own inability, but after a while, when
God's blessed us and we know the word
and God's used us, perhaps in some way,
then we find a certain self-confidence and
certain self-sufficiency coming in, which ruins us
spiritually.
This is the history of many, many believers,
and this is what we need to be
aware of, to remain in poverty of spirit
like Jesus did all through his life.
Consider, for example, the matter of our intellect.
Our intellect is very useful in worldly things,
but can be a tremendous source of a
hindrance to our spiritual welfare and spiritual progress.
We read in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and
verse 18 that if anyone is wise in
this age, let him become foolish that he
may become wise.
In other words, if you want to progress
spiritually, you need to recognize that your intellect
is not good enough for spiritual things.
You need to come to God's word and
say, Lord, I'm an idiot when it comes
to spiritual things.
Please teach me, otherwise I'll never understand.
My intellect's good enough for chemistry and physics
and maths, but not good enough to understand
spiritual things.
Here I need the revelation of the Holy
Spirit.
That's one aspect of being poor in spirit,
a recognition of the fact that my clever
mind is of no use in understanding spiritual
things.
The Word of God says that He has
hidden these things from the wise and the
intelligent and revealed them to babes.
And that's the position that we need to
take, the position of a babe who cannot
understand and who has to come in helplessness.
We can say a babe is an example
of poverty of spirit.
Think of a helpless babe lying in a
cradle, six months old or three months old,
dependent on its mother and father for everything.
It cannot do a thing for itself.
Jesus said we are to be converted and
become like little children to possess the kingdom
of heaven.
That is the same as to be poor
in spirit, to be perpetually dependent.
This is the life of faith.
A life of faith, when it says the
just shall live by faith, means a life
of perpetual helpless dependence upon God for everything,
a perpetual awareness of our own inability, our
lack, our insufficiency to do spiritual work, and
therefore a leaning on God in total confidence
in Him, trusting Him to take care of
all our need and to help us to
go on.
Let's turn now to Matthew chapter five and
verse four.
In our last study we were considering the
key to the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
And we saw that that sense of our
own inability to live the Christian life and
to do God's work is the key to
possess all of God's kingdom.
God does not help those who can help
themselves, as the world says.
But God helps those who cannot help themselves
and who are aware of their own insufficiency
and who live in perpetual dependence on Him.
In fact, no one can have true faith
if he is not poor in spirit.
The self-confident, self-sufficient person cannot have
true faith because he leans upon himself.
Faith means a total leaning of the personality
upon God in absolute confidence in His wisdom,
love and power.
And he goes on to speak about those
who will be comforted in this kingdom.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall
be comforted.
The word blessed that occurs a number of
times in the first part of this chapter
is a word that means happy or someone
who is to be really envied.
If you want to envy someone, don't envy
the rich person.
Don't envy the highly educated capable person.
Envy the person who has these qualities listed
here.
In fact, the qualities listed here in these
verses are very good for us to have
a spiritual check-up of our lives with
frequently to see whether we are progressing in
these virtues.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall
be comforted.
If you really want to envy someone, don't
envy the jovial, happy-go-lucky person, but
the person who mourns.
And as you go through this list, you'll
see that the qualities that Jesus gave importance
to are exactly the opposite of what the
world gives importance to.
We considered that last time in our study
of being poor in spirit, that the world
values the self-confident, self-sufficient person, but
in the kingdom of God, it's the poor
in spirit who are going to possess all
of God's riches.
We can also say that these virtues listed
here are a contrast between the spirit of
Christ and the spirit of Satan.
Here is the spirit of Christ, to be
poor in spirit.
The opposite of that, being self-sufficient, is
essentially part of the spirit of Satan.
As far as spiritual things go, we need
to see this contrast very clearly so that
we don't get confused as to what true
spirituality is.
Likewise here, blessed are those who mourn.
In the world, people appreciate those who are
laughing and joking all the time, and yet
it's an amazing thing that we never read
of Jesus laughing and joking in the scriptures.
Mourning has more value in the kingdom of
God.
There is a place for a sense of
humor, for God has given us that.
It's a useful safety valve in the pressures
of life, but there's a difference between having
a sense of humor and being always jovial
and cracking jokes and laughing all the time.
Is there a place for mourning in your
life?
Mourning over what?
That's an important question.
Many people mourn because of what other people
do to them.
The world is full of people who are
mourning because they've been treated unjustly or because
other people have hurt them in some way
or injured them in some way.
It's not that type of mourning that Jesus
is speaking of because there's no blessedness in
that.
In fact, that's a miserable thing to do,
spiritually speaking.
To get people to sympathize with you and
to feel sorry for yourself and to be
drowned in self-pity is of the essence
of the spirit of Satan.
Jesus never had any self-pity in him.
He never shed a tear for his own
sorrows or difficulties or trials, not once.
Here is an example, dear friends, for us
to follow.
Never to shed a tear, never to mourn
for that which we suffer ourselves.
What then are we to mourn about?
We can say, first of all, we are
to mourn for sin that we see in
our life.
And then it's a question of what we
understand to be sin.
Our understanding of sin depends on our spiritual
growth.
For some people, sin is only gross evil
like murder, adultery, theft, etc.
We can go one step beyond that and
think of a lot of other evils that
there are in the world, gambling, drinking, smoking,
etc., that are ruinous to our Christian life.
Or we can go still further and think
of the standards that Jesus laid down and
think of dirty thoughts and the love of
money as sin.
And we can go still further to the
highest level and say that everything that is
unchristlike is sinful.
An unchristlike attitude to another human being is
sin.
An unchristlike attitude towards money and material things
is sin.
An unchristlike word, an unchristlike thought or action
is sin.
And it is when we judge ourselves by
this standard that we shall find plenty of
opportunity to mourn if we are really interested
in being transformed into the likeness of Christ.
If we see that the greatest thing that
the Holy Spirit wants to do in our
life is to conform us, to transform us
and make us really like Jesus in every
aspect of our personality, when we see this
as the goal towards which God is working,
we will mourn for failure.
And then we will find it is very
easy to make restitution, to set right what
we have done wrong, to return money that
we have taken wrongfully in our past life.
It will be easy if we mourn that
what we have done is dishonored God.
Why do people find it so difficult, for
example, to make restitution in the matter of
money?
Or it could be restitution in terms of
making an apology to someone whom you have
hurt or injured or spoken harshly to.
Very many believers never think of doing that.
Many husbands who hurt their wives never think
of going and apologizing to their wives.
That is because they have no desire to
be like Christ.
If they had a desire to be like
Christ, they would be mourning over that unchristlike
attitude and the words they spoke.
That mourning would drive them to go and
apologize to the person whom they hurt.
It is those who mourn who are comforted.
The comfort here speaks of the Holy Spirit,
the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit as a
comforter in John chapter 14, or a helper.
It has the meaning of strengthening.
The word fort in the middle of comfort
refers to strength.
It is like the Spirit of God building
a fort around you and strengthening you.
That sin which we mourn over is the
sin we are going to get victory over.
If you do not get victory over some
sin, the chances are that you do not
mourn over it.
Ask yourself whether you have wet your pillow
at night with your tears for the dirty
thoughts that pass through your mind during the
day, and then you will know why you
are not getting victory over those dirty thoughts.
The Lord wants us to have a clean,
pure thought life, but we will never get
that comfort and strengthening of the Holy Spirit
to help us to have that life unless
we mourn over our failures.
This is the opposite of the spirit of
the world.
The spirit of the world is one whose
attitude to sin is very loose and lax.
The only thing that the world is careful
about is to ensure that it makes a
good impression on others and has a good
testimony before men.
But the true God-fearing disciple is one
who mourns over sin in his hidden life,
who is grieved because his failure in his
hidden life has dishonored God.
And once we begin to mourn over sin
in our personal life, Jesus never had to
mourn over that because He never sinned.
But Jesus did mourn over something else into
which we can also enter once we have
graduated out of the first step.
The first step is to mourn over sin
in our private life.
Then we can enter into the mourning that
Jesus had, which was a mourning for others.
If Jesus wept, it was for others.
It says He wept over the city of
Jerusalem.
Mourning because God's name was dishonored in Jerusalem.
And we can think, dear friends, of how
God's name is dishonored in our country and
other countries in the world.
And to mourn and to long that God's
name will be hallowed and glorified in our
land, that is a level of intercession and
concern which very few seem to rise to.
But we can never rise to that if
we don't finish once and for all with
this mourning for our own sorrows.
We must follow in the footsteps of Jesus
who had no tears for His own griefs,
who never grieved over the way other people
treated Him.
His only concern was that God should be
glorified.
And when God, the Father, was dishonored, that
made Him mourn.
That's why He mourned over the city of
Jerusalem.
And so here are two areas of mourning.
One in our personal life where our own
personal sin has dishonored God.
We can't move into the second until we
have finished with the first.
And when we are mourning in this area,
we qualify to move on, to be concerned
that God's name should be honored in our
land and to be burdened in our heart,
a burden that leads to a mourning and
a longing and an intercessory prayer to God
that rises from our hearts that God's name
will be honored.
Blessed are those who have learned to mourn
like this, for they shall be strengthened to
fulfill God's purpose and for God to fulfill
His ministry through their lives.
Let's turn now to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5,
and verse 5.
We've been looking at the characteristics of those
who are disciples of Jesus under the new
covenant, of those who will partake of the
wealth of God's kingdom.
And we see here a third characteristic of
virtue mentioned as belonging to those who are
the blessed in Jesus' eyes.
Blessed are the gentle or the humble and
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
We can say that these are laws of
the spirit by which we must live, these
characteristics mentioned from verse 3 to verse 11.
We also consider that it's a description of
the spirit of Christ as opposed to the
spirit of Satan that rules on the children
of Adam.
And if self-sufficiency is the opposite of
the poverty of spirit mentioned in verse 3,
and if a casual, jovial attitude to life
is the opposite of that mourning serious attitude
mentioned in verse 4, then we can say
that it's a quarrelsome spirit that is the
opposite of this gentleness and meekness mentioned here
in verse 5.
It is said about Jesus Christ in Matthew
chapter 12 and verse 18 and 19 that
Jesus was beloved by the Father, a servant
of the Father whom He had chosen, beloved
in whom the Father was well pleased, in
whom the Father would put His spirit on
Him.
Because verse 19, He would not quarrel.
And that's a very important thing, that we
have a testimony that we will never quarrel
with any person.
What do people quarrel about?
Usually about some earthly thing, about material possessions,
about something that they want for themselves, their
rights, their reputation, their name, their honor.
They quarrel about the fact that they are
everything concerning earthly things, the honor of men,
possessions.
People can quarrel because they want something for
themselves.
And in contrast, Jesus said, blessed are those
who are gentle.
The people who quarrel are trying to inherit
the earth.
They are trying to possess the earth.
People who quarrel over property, for example, they
want more of the earth for themselves.
And that's why they fight for a little
piece of earth, even go to law courts
for it.
But Jesus said, ultimately the earth is going
to be inherited by those who have given
up their rights and those who refuse to
fight.
It's a very beautiful example of this in
the Old Testament, in the story of Abraham
and Lot.
We read in Genesis chapter thirteen that the
herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham
were fighting with each other.
There was strife between them, Genesis thirteen verse
seven, because they each had so much of
livestock and they could not graze together in
the same area.
And see the graciousness of Abraham at that
point towards his nephew.
He says in Genesis thirteen eight, let there
be no strife.
And he tells him, the whole land is
before you.
We can say the whole earth.
This land is before you.
Take what you want.
You have the first choice.
There was no need for Abraham to do
that.
He was older.
He was an uncle.
He was the one whom God had called
to Canaan by every possible way that you
look at it.
Abraham had first right to choose, but he
gave it up.
That's what it means to be gentle and
meek, to give up one's rights.
And Lot selfishly chose for himself the best
part of the land, which happened to be
Sodom and Gomorrah.
And the interesting thing we see here, that
God was watching this whole thing from heaven.
For it says in verse fourteen that when
the Lord saw this attitude that Abraham displayed
to Lot of giving up his right and
choosing the worst part of the land and
letting Lot choose the best part, God was
so delighted with Abraham, just like he was
delighted with Jesus as we read in Matthew
chapter twelve, that he told Abraham in Genesis
thirteen fourteen, after Lot had separated from him,
he says, just lift up your eyes now
and look towards the north and the south
and the east and the west.
And all the land which you see, including
the land which Lot has just grabbed selfishly,
I will give it to you and to
your descendants forever.
The descendants of Lot were the Moabites and
the Ammonites.
The descendants of Abraham are the ones whom
we know as the Jews.
And we can ask today, in nineteen eighty
-seven, nearly four thousand years after God spoke
to Abraham, as to who is living in
that land today.
It's not the descendants of Lot.
It's the descendants of Abraham, who are living
in that land, even the land which Lot
grabbed selfishly.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth.
And there is an example of that.
For us, who are disciples of Jesus Christ,
we do not seek an earthly inheritance now.
This is a promise for the future.
The point is that Jesus never sought anything
on this earth.
Once, when a man came to Jesus and
said, Lord, tell my brother to divide the
property with me, Jesus said, no.
He refused to be drawn into that dispute
between two brothers about some earthly thing.
You can never go to Jesus in prayer
to help you to fight against somebody else
for some earthly thing, because the Lord will
never be interested in that.
Jesus told that man in Luke chapter twelve,
who asked him to resolve that dispute, saying,
Who made me a judge over you?
And he said, Take heed and beware of
covetousness.
No, if we are gentle and meek, we
give up our rights, and God will take
care of our rights.
That was the attitude Jesus took.
The spirit of Lucifer, who became Satan, one
who was the head of the angels, is
one of grabbing, of possessing for oneself.
The clenched fist is an appropriate symbol of
the human race, the children of Adam, clenched
in the sense of having a fighting attitude
towards those who will take something which is
mine, clenched in the sense of grabbing tight
to what is mine already.
Jesus came with an open palm, not with
a clenched fist.
And the open palm is the opposite of
the clenched fist.
The race of Adam is symbolized by the
clenched fist, and those who are under the
headship of Jesus Christ have an open palm.
They do not fight for their rights.
The earth is the Lord's, the Bible says
in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, and everything in
it.
And if somebody possesses a part of the
earth today, it is only a temporary loan.
But one day God will give it as
a permanent possession to those who are gentle.
There is no gentleness, basically, within us in
our flesh.
In our flesh there is a hardness.
There is a hardness in our attitude towards
others.
Jesus told us in Matthew 11, 29 to
learn gentleness from Him.
He said, Take my yoke upon you and
learn from Me, He said in Matthew 11,
29, for I am gentle and humble in
heart.
Jesus never taught us to learn from Him
how to preach or how to heal the
sick, but He told us to learn how
to be gentle, how to be gentle towards
our marriage partner in the way we speak,
how to be gentle in our attitude towards
our children, in our conversation, in our attitude.
Gentleness instead of hardness.
If we have this clenched fist demanding our
rights attitude, we will remain hard.
We have to learn to give up and
to mortify this clenched fist attitude in our
flesh, and to learn from Jesus Christ this
open palm attitude of giving up our rights
then we can learn gentleness.
And that will affect every area of our
life.
We read about Moses in Numbers chapter 12,
that he was the meekest man on the
face of the earth.
What was the distinguishing thing about Moses among
many other things?
One was this, that he never fought for
his own rights.
When people questioned his authority as a leader,
he always just fell down on his face
and let God defend him.
He would not defend himself, and God defended
him mightily.
You read that again and again in the
book of Exodus, in the book of Numbers.
Very beautiful to see, and an example for
all who are spiritual leaders.
One of the most important requirements for a
spiritual leader is this, that he does not
fight for his position or the authority God
has given him.
If God has given him an authority, he
will take care of that.
If God hasn't given it, then it's no
use defending it in any case.
Blessed are the gentle, God will give them
what belongs to them.
We cannot get anything by grabbing.
Jesus came not with the spirit of grabbing
that Lucifer had, but the spirit of giving
up.
And therefore, Jesus has been made Lord, and
one day the kingdom of the whole earth
will belong to him.
We are to follow his example, and follow
in his footsteps.