The Sermon on the Mount, Part 19
Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas. This season, Pastor Jim is leading us in a study of The Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew, chapters 5-7.
Studying God’s Word will inform, influence and transform us.
“The ‘offensiveness’ of the Bible is culturally relative. Texts you find difficult and offensive are ‘common sense’ to people in other cultures. And many of the things you find offensive because of your beliefs and convictions, many will seem silly to your grandchildren just as many of your grandparents’ beliefs offend you. Therefore, to simply reject any Scripture is to assume your culture (and worse yet, your time in history) is superior to all others. It is narrow-minded in the extreme.”
Tim Keller
“The comment that many people enter by the broad and easy way, while few find the narrow and difficult way, is hyperbolic and not focused on the quantitative difference. Rather, while it is true that the majority of people do not seem to respond to Jesus’s message, the contrast in 7:13-14 concentrates on ease versus difficulty and on the varied outcomes of lie versus death. These verses with their opening imperative, are not merely a description but an exhortation to enter the way of life.”
Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing
“Some so muddle or distort the gospel that they make it hard for seekers to find the narrow gate. Others try to make out that the narrow way is in reality much broader than Jesus implied, and that to walk it requires little if any restriction on one’s belief or behaviour. Yet others, perhaps the most pernicious of all, dare to contradict Jesus and to assert that the broad road does not lead to destruction, but that as a matter of fact all roads lead to God, and that even the broad and the narrow roads, although they lead off in opposite directions, ultimately both end in life. No wonder Jesus likened such false teachers to *ravenous wolves*, not so much because they are greedy for gain, prestige or power (though they often are), but because they are ‘ferocious’, that is, extremely dangerous. They are responsible for leading some people to the very destruction which they say does not exist.”
John Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount
Jesus speaks with eschatological urgency here is because our eternal destiny is at stake. This REALLY matters!
“We are reminded all along that our life here is a journey and a pilgrimage, and that it is leading on to a final judgment, an ultimate assessment, and the determination and proclamation of our final and eternal destiny.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
