Now, this November it will be 50 years since the Lord saved me in the Air Force at Kinloss Air Base in the north of Scotland there. And I want to add to the testimony that we got on the piano. You know, we sang, or we heard that verse ringing out to those that seek thee thou art kind to those who find thee all in all and we are found in Christ are all in all so I'd like to read a connecting verse or two here in Matthew 4 Matthew 4 verse 23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria. And they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils. or demons and those which were lunatic and those which had palsy and he healed them and there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee from the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and from Judea and from beyond the Jordan and seeing the multitude he went up into a mountain, as Mr. Gamston has read to us. And we see here the incomparable ministry of the Lord Jesus, the great prophet of our God, we sing our tongues, would bless thy name, by thee the joyful news of our salvation came, the joyful news of sins forgiven, of peace with God, of hopes of heaven. There never was, in all the annals of history, in all the realms of literature, in all the sayings of the sages, the seers, the rabbis, the teachers, that has been recorded, there never was a ministry that could compare with this. This is incomparable. This is unique. And we want to say this right away that we see here the many facets of ministry of the Lord if we pause for a moment and inspect the familiar words. One minute the Lord is the Rabbi of Nazareth in the synagogue, the doctor of the law expounding the Torah to the people as gathered together on the Sabbath. The next moment is the evangelist heralding the gospel of the kingdom to those who need to hear the great message of salvation from his lips. The next moment we find that he's dealing with those who are sick in body and in mind and with all manner of disease. And he's the miracle worker of Galilee. He's the one who is the great physician The great physician who never fails to answer a call, never makes a charge and never fails to effect the cure. The great physician of them all. And then we find yet another facet as we come to the Sermon on the Mount. He gathers together his disciples and he teaches them those wonderful precepts which we're about to look at this evening. I believe from the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we may conclude that, as Mr. Gamston has said, the words that fell from the lips, the sacred lips of the Saviour, the greatest teacher of them all, those words were heard by the multitudes, but they were immediately aimed at and effective for his disciples. And that's what I want to look at tonight. We cannot take all the sermon, of course. We made a joke this afternoon that you would get a short preacher this evening. And so you have. But we can't take all the sermon, can we? Three great chapters with all the many truths that we find here. But what we shall do is to deal with Christ's portrait of a disciple. And we shall look at the disciple self-ward. and then we shall look at the disciple in the world the impact of our testimony upon the world for we have been saved to serve and saved for a purpose to have an impact upon the world we are here Not for our own purposes, but primarily to seek first. As this sermon says, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all those things of mammon, those secondary things, those necessary things, will be added unto us. So then, we shall see the disciple and the world, the disciple worldward. And finally, we shall look at the disciple Godward. Because in that marvellous sixth chapter, the Lord is dealing with the disciple living the righteous life. The disciple is there seen fasting first of all, or rather communicating of his substance, doing alms, communicating his substance to those in need. Then the Lord switches to the disciple at prayer. He brings us into the school of prayer that we may learn those lessons that Christ would teach us. And finally, we learn about fasting, but it's on the matter of prayer. It's the Christian at prayer, the Christian on the rungs of the ladder of prayer, the Christian in the school of prayer. that I want to think of and of the great crescendo the great ultimate aim and the great crowning glory that is this that God's will will be done in earth as it is in heaven and so we shall look at those facets but first of all because this is a prophetic testimony we have to deal with a teaching that is very popular in the world. It's propagated by some Bibles. It's embedded in the literature. We don't need to quote specific examples. There are abundant examples of the higher dispensational teaching that would immediately set this sermon aside. And they would say that it is legal that it is pure law or it is for the Jew but certainly whatever it's not for us and I remember some years ago a very able man a great scholar in a large brethren assembly in Bradford in West Yorkshire and he said that at the end of the Second World War when he first joined that assembly they were about to do Matthew's Gospel in the Bible reading and the eldest said well we'll pass over this teaching We'll miss out 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew because it's Kingdom Truth and it's for the Jew and it's not for us. And I heard a whiff of this and I meditated on it and then mentioned it to a very able man who moved in the large circle of Leeds assemblies. A great and a godly man he was, and a good expounder of the prophets of the Old Testament. And he told me in personal conversation, he said, you know, we're far above this, far above it. and as a young believer I dare not challenge what he had said but the thought came across the mind that my problem was not that we were above it my problem was reaching up to it this is my problem and it still is it's only by the help of the Lord that we can do it so this kind of teaching what they predicate is this that the Lord gave this teaching and it was given for those disciples that then were that it would be broken off when Israel rejected the Lord and he wasn't enthroned as the King of Israel and then the church would come in as a kind of a parenthesis and when the Lord had finished gathering out of the nations a people for his name from Pentecost to the Rapture. This teaching would then once more be resumed. And we want to say that our conviction is tonight that that's emphatically not what the Scripture teaches. What the Scripture teaches, beloved, is not a breaking off. and a parenthesis and a resumption and a taking up in a future date presumably in the tribulation because the social, spiritual and moral conditions anticipated by the Sermon on the Mount will not obtain in the Millennium in the full blessing of the coming of the Kingdom and in the crowning glory of the Millennial Sabbath those conditions won't obtain so it must be according to their teaching in the tribulation period. Now what we want to say is this that our answer is that the teaching of the scripture is progressive. God's revelation is here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept. God's development of doctrine is progressive. And what Christ said we grant in the paschal discourse is of great importance. He said, I have many things to say unto you, but you can't bear them now. But when he, the spirit of truth, is come, whom I will send from the Father, he said, he will testify of me. He will take of mine, he will glorify me. he will lead you into all truth he will show you things to come and there would be a progression and a filling up but the sermon on the mount the teaching that is there given my friend was to take its place in that ongoing revelation that gradual unfolding that development of doctrine which would culminate in what we have now which is the full meridian splendor of the New Testament revelation, of the new covenant, what Paul, by inspiration, calls the glory that excelleth. So we say that in all the annals of history and in all the realms of literature and in all the teachings of the rabbis and the seers and the sages, you will never find any teaching that is higher and greater than this. Our Lord Jesus was greater than the greatest. He was higher than the highest and he was better than the best. Where all indeed is divinely inspired and God breathed. So, of course he says a little later on from where we broke off in chapter 5 that he had not come to destroy and to dismantle and to take down brick by brick as it were the law and the prophets but he had come to fulfill. And even in this very sermon, he countenances the fact that the ceremonial law was still in operation at that time. There afterwards, later in the New Testament, that very ceremonial law would be abrogated. The moral law, never. The moral law abides from Genesis to Revelation. It is perpetual, while ever the world stands. And it is woven into the warp of the wolf of the New Testament. When the Saviour expounded these precepts, he heightened the law. He went into the spirituality of the law. He deepened it. He opened it by his glorious and wonderful teaching. So it is that we come then to these three aspects of the Christian. The Christian portrayed by Christ as and in him or herself. The Christian and the Christian's impact upon the world. And finally, the Christian prayer. So we see that our Lord's portrayal of a Christian is at once that which destroys a well-nigh universal persuasion of fallen nature. And fallen nature assumes that outward religion and the outward communication of ceremonies and ritualism and so forth can confer a title to heaven that it can change fallen nature but the Lord goes on to show that that cannot be so and he shows us how his ingressive and incipient and prevenient grace comes in to the life of a person and creates a realization of nothingness and sinfulness and consequently a poverty of spirit and the mourning for sin and the consequent becoming meekness of character and he shows us how that in that person who is so wrought upon by the spirit of God with a law work with a real conversion who is born from above, that there is a re-ascending of the new nature to the source of its birth with the hungering and the thirsting after righteousness. And that Christian who has been so made is then made to practice the graces that he mentions there, those wonderful graces and virtues that he mentions later on in the further Beatitudes he says that the Christian there will then begin to practice compassion or mercy and they will practice purity of heart and they will be peaceable in character And he says they will practice the perseverance that his spirit alone can help with in persecution and pressure and tribulation and misrepresentation. and all these things that we have to endure for his dear sake and so he draws that picture of the Christian as wrought upon by the Spirit of God producing this character and it's as the greater than Moses that he does it as the new Moses giving us the new directive and the new Torah he gives us nine Beatitudes there Nine Beatitudes pronounced over the head of the true Christian, produced and wrought upon by the Spirit of God, crowning it all with the sonorous rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. He goes on to the Christian's impact upon the world. You are the salt of the earth and ye are the light of the world. So this person who is so produced by the Spirit of God and who expresses the essential of the Kingdom of God. What is the essential meaning of the Kingdom of God? It is the enthronement of God in Christ in the heart of a Christian. And this is what this person who is the recipient of these beatitudes and this sonorous rejoice and be exceeding glad. It is that which this Christian produces. And then he goes on to say, ye are the salt of the earth. Now what is salt? Salt is a preservative. Salt is universal as a cleanser. Salt is in the blood. Salt is in the rivers and the rocks and the rills and the sea to purge and to cleanse. It's in the warp and woof of creation to cleanse. And what the Lord is saying here is that negatively That Christian who has been so produced is put into the world to arrest corruption and if you will to stop the rot. So we know that if we put salt onto meat it will draw the moisture and it will stop putrefaction and that is the main purpose of salt And so what we find is, dear friend, that the Christian is put there to stop the world from festering in its own corruption. And by our lip, and by our life, and by our testimony, that is what we have to do. And then he says, ye are the light of the world. He is the light of the world in John chapter 8 is it? When he goes back to heaven he leaves us as the light of the world. Paul says that you may be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom ye shine as luminaries in the world. So we're not only there negatively to check the rot, to stop the world from festering in its own corruption, but we are there as luminaries to give light and to shine in a dark world. Now, the Lord encourages us to do that. Not to manifest ourselves before men per se. He condemns that and says that we should do it as unto God. But here he says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. You know, light is a wonderful thing. I can go a mile from home and look out over the North Sea and look northward and I can see the headland of Flamborough and the lighthouse that has been there for about two centuries flicking at constant intervals in dangerous conditions. A warning of impending danger and pointing the shipping either north to Whitby or south down to Bridlington Harbour, to the harbour lights, to the glittering harbour lights, and to safety, and to the haven, and to anchorage, and to home. And this is what we are there for, to point men, to bring to their remembrance the things that are fraught with danger, the impending danger of neglecting Christ, and to point them into the harbour of safety and salvation and home. And then he says that you don't light a lamp and put it under a bushel. In Luke chapter 11 he says and you don't put it in a crypt in a secret place But you set it on a lampstand so that it gives light to all those who are in the house and We used to sing with the children in the in the Sunday school Jesus bids us shine with the clear bright light, like a little candle burning in the night. In this world of darkness he bids us shine, you in your small corner and I in mine. So then that's the Christian in and of him or herself, wrought upon by the Spirit of God. all those blessed characteristics produced upon which the Lord pronounces the divine benediction all those graces practiced all those virtues expressed that he speaks of and he pronounces the divine blessing and benediction upon them and crowns it with rejoice and be exceeding glad he tells us negatively we are there to stop the rod positively. We are there to shine as lights in the world. Holding forth, Paul says, a word of life. We have the word of life and we're to preach it. You know, in the epistles, in Paul's epistles, the warnings and provisions for perilous times, he goes on to tell them what to do. and he doesn't give them a list of gimmicks and a list of do's and don'ts but he says preach the word be instant in season and out of season that is our business in the world to shine and to set forth the word of life in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation and to hold forth that word of life among them, and to be luminaries, pointing, my friend, to the imminent dangers, and to heaven, and to hope. So, we are to be a witness for Christ. And then, we get the Christian prayer. As the Lord gives to us what is known as the Lord's Prayer, some say, well, it's a model prayer. And they say that you take the principles of this prayer and you apply them. Well, we've no argument with that, we've no quarrel with that. But Luke 11 does say this, when ye pray, say. So that there is nothing to be blamed in taking this prayer and repeating it as the Lord gave it. And he gives us this wonderful prayer and he shows us the Christian in ever so many attitudes as the Christian is praying. And we get the first, our father. That's the child of God praying. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That's the worshipper praying, sanctifying the name of God. Thy kingdom come. That's the subject praying. Thy will be done. That's the disciple praying, following the will of God. Give us this day our daily bread. And that's the dependent praying. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That is the penitent praying. Sin regarded as a debt for daily cleansing. We have been eternally cleansed. We are eternally forgiven. But we are to keep short accounts with the Lord. And then finally, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. There is an evil in temptation. There are holy temptations. The Bible tells us that there are trials that God brings upon us and with them he makes a way of escape. But the Christian does not go into temptation in self-will, deliberately seeking. If it is that we have to endure it, by the will of God, God will make a way of escape. But what we are praying for here is to escape from the snares of the devil and the evils of his temptations the evils that come when the devil brings those unholy temptations upon us and we do not pray to enter into that and so we find that it is there the suppliant praying the suppliant praying to be delivered from temptation and from the evils thereof. And then finally, we find that the seven petitions are crowned with this wonderful peon of praise. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. And there we get the kingdom coming. Just a thought about the order of the prayer. Have you thought about it? How unlike many prayers that we hear in the prayer meeting. What we hear in most prayer meetings today is I, me and my. In fact, I don't want to upset anyone, but there was developing in a church where I attended, something that had been done in the universities and These young fellows were coming home and praying, I pray, in the middle of a corporate prayer meeting, I pray. And people in the middle of kneeling at prayer in a house, I pray. Now beloved, when we are gathered together, that's alright for the bedside, but when we are gathered together, in the church, in church capacity or in corporate capacity in the house when we pray we are leading in prayer we are leading all those who are going with us to the throne of grace and it's only politeness and it's spirituality in addition To take up all those who are with us and unite our hearts together and the person who does the praying is merely leading and representing the company before the throne of God. Leading them, as we often say, to the throne of grace. And notice the order of this prayer. Usually what we get today, it's all about our needs. All about what we could do with. All about what we want the Lord to do for us. But this is not the way that the Saviour orders the prayer. First of all, it's an approach, a reverent approach to the Father which is in heaven. And we need to be reverent in prayer. Do we realise that? When we go into the presence of God, we know that we have freedom of access. We go with boldness because our Father is our God. But we go with reverence because our God is our Father. And it's here that we find that the Lord says that the concernments of the Christian are the concernments of God. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. It's God's name. It's God's kingdom. It's God's will, it's God's concernments that come first. There afterwards, our needs, our forgiveness, our deliverances. And as we begin with God, we end with God, with this great peon of praise. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Now this prayer brings us to the bringing in of the Millennial Kingdom. And I just want to spend a few moments in illustrating the Kingdom of God. We have already said the very essence, the essential in connection with the Kingdom of God is God enthroned in the heart of man. And the Kingdom of Heaven can only be known. Its principles can only be known, its laws can only be expounded. by those who recognize and obey them because God is enthroned in their hearts and then there is another way in which the kingdom of God is known and that is in the sphere of profession you know that in Matthew 13 the Lord goes on to speak about the mysteries of the kingdom after the Jews have rejected him then the kingdom of heaven would be set up and in those parables he shows us the start of the inauguration the internal workings the wide embrace of the kingdom the gathering together of evil as well as righteousness the gathering together of the false and the true until the end when all of these things that offend and stumble shall be gathered out of the kingdom and the righteous shall then shine forth She'll then shine forth as the sun in their father's kingdom. That's when the meek will inherit the earth. They've not done it yet. And this is when we shall come into that inheritance in that coming day. And then there will be a further display of the kingdom. There will be the long millennial Sabbath. There will be the reign of Christ and his saints as kings and priests for a thousand years. And then finally, says Revelation, forever and ever. And 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that the kingdom should be delivered up by the Son when he has put down all rule and all authority, he will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, God. may be all in all. And then shall be brought to pass, not only thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. But it will come about that thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. The Lord bless his word to us.