It's always a privilege to have the opportunity to expound the word of God. It's also a great privilege to be with you all here tonight and the next couple of days. Some of you I know, some of you I do not know. I hope to get to know you a little bit better. I want to preface everything we do here with a statement first. Apostle Paul gives the self-identity of a gospel preacher when he writes the Corinthians and says, Let every man regard us as stewards. of the Gospel. You don't believe anything that I said because I say it, some supposed authority that resides in me. There is none. You believe what you are to believe because the Word of God teaches it and the Holy Spirit, working with that Word in your heart, convinces you that that is indeed the truth of the Bible. So if you have questions about what I present, please feel free to ask me or ask Pastor Paul. And it may be I've said the bin correctly. Maybe I misunderstand. Maybe that you misunderstand. Maybe that we both misunderstand. But if anything is offensive or new or weird, please feel free to discuss that issue. Our consciences are bound only by the word of God. Jesus Christ alone has the authority to bind your conscience. No man, no councils, no church courts, but the Word of God alone written. Please take your Bibles and turn, if you would, to Matthew 3. My assignment, as Paul and I were discussing this conference, is to set forth the contrast between the gospel, the authentic, genuine gospel, and the counterfeit, synthetic gospel of men that has become so prevalent, so well known, so loved in our day and time. So I mentioned to him that we would spend the bulk of our time, though not exclusively, in the Sermon on the Mount, because it deals very clearly with the gospel that Jesus came to preach and perform in his life. Matthew 5, and I'm going to read verses 1 through 9, and just that far, our focus actually will be on the third verse. 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, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Let's pray. Great and holy God, who from all eternity has existed in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, From eternity did design all that you purpose to do. From eternity before the foundation of the world did set your love upon a people, not a few, O God, but a multitude which the angels are incapable of counting. You did assign the Lord Jesus Christ as the mediator, as the Great Shepherd, as the prophet, the priest and the king, as the one who would come and live a perfect life in the stead of his people, the one who would die upon the cross in the place of his people, thus satisfying the requirement of righteousness and thus dealing with the demerit of sin and fulfilling the jot and the tittle, your holy law. Father, we thank you for the precious gospel, which is the only remedy of man's situation. We do lament that in our day the gospel is clouded, unclear, veiled. There are many who are proclaiming, O God, a false gospel. Wormwood is plentiful. We ask that by your Spirit you would again pour out the truth of the gospel. Open the eyes and the ears of those who are your sheep that they may discern and turn away from that which is harmful and love the truth of your holy word. Grant understanding as we examine your word on this particular issue these several days. Father, not only may our hearts be thrilled and warmed with that which Jesus has done and Jesus has revealed to us as the great preacher of the Gospel, may we have discernment and be the better able to help, in some cases, our own family members and relatives or our friends and associates out of the deception in which they presently do labor. to the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the salvation and enlargement of His kingdom, the church we do pray, in His name alone, Amen. You will remember Abraham, of course, in his life, an early incident. Well, it's not actually an early incident, but an incident in Abraham's life when he was traveling. And he came into an area of the country in which he knew the people were not particularly moral. and he feared for his life, and so he equivocated. Now, many people do not think of equivocation as lying, but it is one of the many, many forms of lying. It is forbidden in the ninth commandment. You might remember his equivocation. What he did is he actually told the truth, in part, and said to this individual, or through his messengers, she's my sister. Implied, of course, not my wife. And the guy took her and began to do all the process of getting ready to take her as his wife. And God spoke to him and preserved Sarah. Abraham equivocated. Gave a partial truth. Said something in such a way that those who heard would draw a conclusion. Abraham consciously knew was wrong. But he skirted the line of truth to do it. And he was wrong to do so. But God was faithful even when Abraham was not, and protected both he and his wife, and ultimately brought great blessing to him. Many preach the gospel in the same way. Paul wants me to set very clearly the antithesis, the gospel and the antithetical gospel. Actually, my title is different than is in the brochure. Paul did not know that, so he has not erred here. Poor and Spirit Explained is what your brochure says. The title that I'm using is actually The Christians' Anti-Works Heartset. Now, by using that title, I've already told you what the Bible means, what Jesus means by poor in spirit. The basic heart set of a Christian is anti-worse. That is the root, fundamental presupposition of a Christian in terms of his understanding of who he is and what the gospel supplies in Jesus Christ. And we're looking at the Sermon on the Mount to deal with the gospel, the authentic gospel, contrary to or set against the synthetic gospel, because Jesus here is not equivocal. Jesus speaks very plainly, very clearly. This is his first public sermon, at least as we have recorded, so we assume, I think with warrant, that this is his first public sermon. It is an entire sermon. You can go to seminaries or you can read the intellectual books about how Matthew just picked and chose. various pieces from here and there and put it together in a literary form of a sermon. And it's not really a sermon of Jesus. They're lying to you. This is a sermon of Jesus. Matthew makes it very clear. He is inspired by the Holy Spirit. When he says Jesus sees the multitude, he comes up the mountain, sits down, and after he's done, they say, wow, this isn't the way the rabbis teach. Matthew's not lying. Matthew's not equivocating. The Holy Spirit has told him, has inspired him to write it that way because he's recording truth, real historical truth. This is one sermon. As one sermon, it has a very obvious structure. Somewhat we'll deal with that. We're not going to have the time, of course, to deal with the Sermon on the Mount. I've now preached my 40-some sermon on the Sermon on the Mount in my home church. But it is one sermon of Christ that's important because it has a structure. It has a logical order. It has a connection. And one must understand the connections between things to understand the details of those things in this sermon. Jesus here enters into his public ministry. Now, if I asked you, why did Jesus come to earth? You all would give me half right answers. Some of you may give me whole right answers. Every one of you would say Jesus came to earth to die on the cross. Absolutely, positively correct. But there's something else Jesus makes a comment about. When he's in one town and has preached, he then says to his disciples, let's get up and go from here and go to the other towns, for that is why I came to preach the gospel. Why was Jesus incarnate? One, to die on the cross, live a perfect life, fulfilling the law, to die on the cross for justification. Second purpose that sometimes is lost sight of is he came to earth to preach the gospel. And so we come to this Sermon on the Mount, which is his opening sermon. Jesus very clearly and plainly speaks the gospel, preaches the gospel. He very clearly and plainly defines what a Christian is in this whole of the sermon, this first public sermon. He is very self-conscious about setting before these people the antithesis between Christian gospel, the true gospel, and the non-Christian gospel, the gospel of men, a sense-filled, sense-appealing gospel that men make up on their own authority. And the fact that there is confusion about this sermon, whether or not it even is one sermon of Jesus, whether the organizational structure is from Jesus' mind or from Matthew's mind as some sort of editor of collected notes, That confusion is because men either ignore the truth that Jesus teaches or they deliberately rest the truth that Jesus teaches. Jesus is not responsible for the confusion. Jesus is exquisitely plain and clear about the gospel in contradiction to the synthetic gospel of the Pharisees. Of the first century. The sermon may be outlined in five broad statements. Need to do this because we're going to have used the context to define some of the other things that are in this sermon. So you need to understand the flow of the sermon, at least in the broad outline of it. And you can outline this sermon in five broad statements. The first section is dealing with, and this goes from verse 3 of chapter 5 to verse 16, and this first broad statement or broad headline for the structure of the Sermon on the Mount is, Jesus is describing here the recreational work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The Beatitudes are not a new law of Christianity. They are not a new law of religion. Do these things and you will advance. Do these things and you will earn entrance into heaven. But Jesus saying here is, in essence, what the Holy Spirit does in an unbeliever as he recreates him, regenerates him. So the Beatitudes are a description of the work of the Holy Spirit. And that goes through verse 16. Now, to make a little finer sub-point here, verses 10-16 are an exhortation not to grieve the Holy Spirit. We're going to come back to this, I think, Sunday when we look at salt of the earth. You are not to become the salt of the earth. You are not to be the salt of the earth. Jesus says, by virtue of the recreational work of the Holy Spirit, He has made you salt of the earth. And how dare you not behave like salt? Verses 10 and the same with life. Verses 10 to 16 are an exhortation of Jesus. How dare you contradict the work of the Holy Spirit? How dare you fight against what the Holy Spirit has done in your recreation? How dare you grieve the Holy Spirit? He has sovereignly, as God, made you to be salt and light. How dare you not be salty? How dare you not be light? You are working in antithesis to the very job of the Holy Spirit. That's verses 10-16. But all that, the first section of this Sermon on the Mount is the Holy Spirit's recreational work in the life of one whom He is making, a saint, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Second main division is chapter 5. You remember there Jesus speaks of the law, specifically cites the law. and corrects the people's understanding as they have been falsely taught in some part by the ancients and also present tense in Jesus' time by the Pharisees. And there you can give a headline for chapter 5, 17 to 48, The Christian and the Law of God. Now, we'll come back to this because we have to, but not tonight. But notice Jesus moves from the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart. This is what he does to you. Convinces you that you cannot save yourself, that you're utterly dependent upon God's grace and all the things that flow out of that. The desire for an alien righteousness, because you can't be righteous in anything you've done. You must find an alien righteousness, which can only be found in Christ and applied to you by faith, through faith. Jesus describes this work of the Holy Spirit. This person now has been brought to life. He's now been redeemed. He's now been saved. He's now the child of God. And then he moves over to the law of God and says, because of what you are, because of who you are now by God's sovereign work, this is how you ought to live. Man-made religions reverse those. They start off with the law and say, do these things, a little self-work, a little self-reformation, and then you can become a child of God. Jesus says, the Holy Spirit makes you my child, a citizen of heaven. And now, as a result of what he has done in your life, this is how you ought to live. The law is in its proper place, which you would expect in Jesus' sermon. follows upon the Holy Spirit's work. There's a reformation of heart, a recreation of heart. And then the life follows the heart. The third broad headline for the sermon, the sections, chapter six, verses one through twenty four, is the Christian in the presence of God. You remember Jesus there uses three images, three figures, of that he refers to that describe you in the presence of God and how understanding God's presence. Well, just look at this. I'm not wanting to take too much time with this outline. Six, one, beware of practicing righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your father who's in heaven. So Jesus' concern is now that as you do your life, as you live your life out, you recognize that you live your life in the presence of God. It's not men whose eyeballs you're concerned with. It's God's eyes you're concerned with. He talks about your life under the image of all. your dealings with others, merciful to others, kind, loving your enemies. And then he deals under the aspect of prayer with your personal relationship with God. And then he deals with fasting, your relationship to yourself, others, God and yourself. He covers all areas of life. And he drives home the fact that as a Christian, you must realize you live your entire life under the presence or rather in the presence of God. Fourth, chapter 625 to the end. You're familiar, I'm sure, with the things there. Again, some persecution, treasures in heaven, the sparrows, the birds, the number of hairs on your head. You can put a title on that section, the Christian in submission to God, content, utterly content with the providence of God. God will take care of me. I am his. My duty is simply to do what he has revealed is pleasing in his sight. And what comes from that is in God's hands. And those are good hands. The final section, chapter seven. Well, you have the urgent exhortations to take to heart what Jesus preached, to commit yourself to the truth of the gospel and the truth and him of whom the gospel teaches, Jesus. It is then that section you could call a chapter 7 Christian in fear of God. God is to be feared even by the bride. by the church. It's amazing how often we are exhorted to fear God throughout the scriptures. Saints are to fear God, though the fear of God that a saint has is a fear that causes a saint to run to God and to serve him and worship him. Now, this evening, We begin to look at some of the particulars of the sermon which Jesus preached. Our concern is the very concern of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus was on the earth, men were dying and going to hell. When Jesus was on the earth, men thought they were in a right relationship to God, but were, and were dying and going to hell. Jesus, when He was on earth, understood, knew very well that men were eating and drinking wormwood. False gospels. Their whole life and their whole souls were being poisoned by false gospels. And though many of them thought they were okay in the sight of God, they were dying. Sound familiar today? Multitudes believe they're right in the sight of God. And they're deluded. They're deceived. Apart from a saving faith in Jesus Christ when they die, they will not wake up in bliss and glory, but in hell. A real place for real souls, eventually reunited with real bodies forever. So our concern is Jesus' concern. Jesus' concern that the people with whom He spoke could discern between the authentic gospel and the counterfeit gospel. You and I are concerned with the exact same thing. Can people discern between the authentic gospel and the counterfeit of the authentic gospel? The false, man-made, man-centered, humanistic gospel. You must keep clearly in your understanding four truths which govern the interpretation of the Beatitudes. Again, these Beatitudes are the description of the Christian. They are not an ethical system. They are not a new law. Ethics will come in its proper order. Secondly, as you discuss and seek to interpret these Beatitudes in which Jesus is making a very clear distinction between the true and the false gospel, these Beatitudes are descriptive of every Christian, not a few. You may not comfort yourself and say, well, first Beatitude, I'm a little shaky on that one. Second Beatitude, yeah, I think I got that one down. Third Beatitude, well, so-so. These Beatitudes are the description of every true Christian. This is not some sort of class of super spiritual Christians, some sort of class that some churches call saints. They're true of every saint biblically used the word saint. Now, it is very true that you and I will each have different developments and different degrees along which these things have progressed in our own understanding, in our own life. There is a progression in sanctification. Some grow fast. Some grow slow. Some who are growing slowly. Certain things will happen. The Holy Spirit will work in certain ways and suddenly they'll shoot up very fast. So, there are differences in the development how much these particular Beatitudes evidence themselves in our lives. But at root, every Christian is described. By every one of these Beatitudes. If you do not mourn for sin in yourself, you're not a Christian. If you do not mourn for sin in those around you within the covenant community of God. You're not a Christian. You don't mourn for sin and its consequences and those of the world. You're not a Christian. Now, again. The issue isn't how much do you mourn, some people are very touched with these things and they become more and more deeply aware of sin and its consequences as they mature and as they're sanctified. The issue is. Is the reality there in your life? So as we discuss these Beatitudes, some of these Beatitudes, we're not going to do them all in the next three days, recognize they're the description of the Christian non-ethical system, that they are true in every single Christian. If the Beatitude isn't true, you're not a Christian. So again, remember we said Jesus is setting apart very plainly, enabling us to discern a Christian and a non-Christian. And he's very clear. It's very plain about the differences and how to identify the Christian. It is a very, very sad state of affair when you can ask another brother or sister in Christ and and they say, well, pray for Aunt Margaret. She's been diagnosed. They just found that now it's already stage three cancer and And then you're asking prayer meeting or church Sunday school, well, is Margaret a Christian? And when the other Christians say, well, I don't know. That's sad. Now, there may be times when we have some warrant not to be sure. But most often, to be unsure about that question, His evidence for that answer is evidence that we have not come to grips with the plainness and simplicity of the definition of Jesus Christ concerning who is a citizen of heaven because Jesus was very clear He did not equivocate. Third thing you need to keep in mind as you interpret the Beatitudes is that, again, these Beatitudes are the work of the Holy Spirit and you always must be defying them with that viewpoint. Jesus is saying this is what the Holy Spirit produces as he recreates the sinner. making him sent forth the Beatitudes, delineated clear distinction. This is what we've been saying over and over between the Christian and the non-Christian. This is a great text. This Sermon on the Mount is the great thing to really come to grips with. I know Pastor McDade has preached. You've completed the whole thing, has preached through this. This is a passage of scripture to really get to know well. Because this is where you can take people who have questions. What is a Christian? Well, let me show you what a Christian is. Here you have Jesus' description of a Christian in contradistinction against those who have deluded themselves that they're in a right relationship with God. What then does Jesus mean by poor in spirit? Let me start, answer that question by giving it in a negative. What it does not mean. Jesus does not mean, first, that one is a financial pauper. You can find a number of people that teach, a number of papered people that teach, that Jesus is saying here that a real godly Christian person is somebody who has taken a vow of poverty, or is somebody who does not have riches, or having had riches, has freely given them up. That is not what Jesus means to you. If it is what he meant, do you realize when the greatest revival ever occurred in the United States? October 1929. And the next ten years as the federal government usurped unconstitutional power and tampered with the economy and kept it in the doldrums. Because people felt pretty badly. Some. Some made out very well. There are many who couldn't buy food, even as they watched the government destroy food to bring the prices up. Many who couldn't buy an apple, even an apple to eat, and would labor and be willing to work all day just for one meal. If Jesus is saying the Christian is one who is in financial straits, then the greatest revival was the Great Depression in these United States, in terms of our history. Jesus indeed does not agree with monasticism. Jesus does not agree with socialism. Jesus does not agree with communism. He is very clear here in his sermon what a Christian is. And again, you understand these views are all wrong if you recognize that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. Not some sort of monastic vow a person takes. Second wrong answer. The Christian wimp. The one who is poor in spirit as a Christian is the kind of individual that always keeps his eyes cast down and or always whimpers about their lack of talents. Sometimes we think such people are particularly godly and humble. It's not a biblical definition of humility. Who is one of the boldest men you ever read about in the scriptures? Who is a guy that could stand with just a stick and stand in front of the most powerful man in the world? And say, I'm going to tell you what you're to do. I'm going to tell you what God has told me to tell you what to do. And if you don't do it, you're in trouble. Who was it? Moses. Did you read what God says about Moses? He was the meekest of all men on the earth. Poor in spirit is not somebody that just kind of walks around like this and always says, well, I don't have any talent. I don't have anything I can do. I don't have any way I can serve the church. I don't add anything to the local congregation. Oh, really? Do you realize what that says? Your New Testament, my New Testament says the Holy Spirit gives every member a measure of grace and certain gifts and abilities. So the body meeting together, working together, supplies everything that's needed and the body grows. And so for somebody to say, I really don't have any function in the local body of church. I don't do anything. I don't add anything to the Christian fellowship in the body while I'm in the local church. What they're saying is the Holy Spirit has messed up with me. What the Holy Spirit says about the individual saint isn't true. It may be difficult to find what it is you can do for a time, but the Holy Spirit gives all of his people to provide for the church what is needed. Boldness is not the antithesis of spiritual poverty. Moses was very bold, but he was the number one star of meekness, of humility that the Holy Spirit holds before us as an example in the entire Old Testament. Boldness is not the antithesis of spiritual poverty. You remember Peter and Paul in Acts. how people were marveling about their boldness. Well, I will take you through some of these passages. Turn to Acts 4.13. This is a lot of confusion in terms of the evidence of the Holy Spirit and the mark of the Holy Spirit. What is it? Well, you go through the book of Acts and you'll find out pretty quickly, if you read with an open eye, you'll find out very quickly what the mark is of the Holy Spirit. 413, now as they observed the confidence, I use a new American standard. The Anglican Bible has a different word there. The word they have there is, now as they observed the boldness of Peter and John and understood their uneducated, untrained men, their marveling, and because they were bold, the people began to recognize they have been with Jesus. There is the root of the boldness. They knew Jesus and so they were bold. The mark of the Holy Spirit is boldness. Four twenty nine. And now, Lord, take note of their threats and grant that thy bond servants may speak thy word with all confidence or boldness. Thirty one. When they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. Turn over to Acts 9, 27-29. Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, that he had talked to Him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews, but they were attempting to put him to death. Somebody says that spiritual poverty, poor in spirit, is this Christian wimp that just, you know, never asserts himself or does anything, kind of melts into the background, hides in the shadows. They're wrong. These apostles who were bold, Moses who was bold before Pharaoh, were poor in spirit. And another wrong answer so many give today is the unassuming non-Christian. That's pretty close to the unassuming Christian. The difference here is some people, when they get this wrong definition, you see you don't need the Holy Spirit when you have the wrong definition of what it is. It can be produced naturally. It might be produced genetically. And there are just some people, some non-Christians, who just are very mild, very...