“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be guilty before the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” Matthew 5:21-22.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Your life is so much gain! Jesus brought the devil to naught and dethroned him. He put him under your feet. The devil has already received his judgment and condemnation, John 16:11, but he is still roaming the earth pending his final sentencing to imprisonment forever in the lake of fire as soon as the leasehold given to him by Adam is over. But you are now in the world but of a different Kingdom where you have a different ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords who has conquered the grave and given you the authority over sin, death, and all the forces of the evil one if you will just use your authority. He has clothed you with power from on high. The time that remains to the devil’s final sentencing and confinement is decreasing, so the devil is decreasing but you are increasing. The devil must decrease and you must increase in victory, prosperity, peace, health, and eternal life. If you are not, if the devil is still subtly holding you captive to do his will, though it is illegal for him, it is time to know who you are in Christ and take the devil’s influence in your life down.
I call the devil the accuser of the brethren (believers) and for good reason. He pulls your flesh into sin and then uses your sin to condemn you and make you hold back from achieving your high calling in Christ. He makes you enter into self-condemnation and you will shut yourself up to receiving all the blessings I have planned for you in that prison. You will never go forward to take your promised land and enter the rest of the hundredfold as long as you are trapped in the prison of self-condemnation, regret, and blame. It will lead from there to fear, anger, bitterness, and jealousy. Be careful about this. Know and believe My Word, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4. You must renew your mind to that and then answer those thoughts of regret and condemnation with that. Let the devil know you are a winner and he is a loser. That he is decreasing and you are increasing. He is demoted and you are promoted. Your life is so much gain, for if you are walking with Me you are walking free and you are earning a great reward.
You will notice that Jesus spoke the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount to his disciples. At that time He had not chosen the twelve as yet and there were many. But this teaching was for those who believed in Him, whose hearts were towards Him, and who were remaining in His Word, for that is what defines a disciple. John 8:31. So the Sermon on the Mount is about a heart that is totally committed to Me.
Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” John 14:23-24. I reveal My Son to those who keep My Word with their heart, for they are the ones who love Me. John 14:21. The Sermon on the Mount is for those who are walking in the truth in their hearts. David longed for this, he sang, “Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.” Psalm 86:11. But if you have bitter jealousy and strife in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. James 3:14-16.
The Sermon on the Mount is about being transparent—about having nothing evil or lustful hidden in your heart, it is about living in the light and not in the darkness. Jesus told the Pharisees, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Mathew 23:27. And again, “Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.” Luke 11:44. What they spoke and their demeanor was not in keeping with what they had in their hearts.
It is a sermon about guarding your heart. That is, watching your thoughts. It takes the outward commandments to an inward motivation and purity, cleanness of heart. It is out of the darkness into the light with even your innermost thoughts.
Living the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount could be likened to wearing or being hooked up to a heart monitor that went off sounding the alarm at thoughts of fear, anger, depression, self-pity, jealousy, offense, self-glorification, pride, hatred, bitterness, and any other ungodly thoughts and emotions that you should not be permitting your mind to dwell upon. Thus, monitoring your heart at all times to see if you are thinking thoughts of Heaven or thoughts of hell and immediately applying the remedy necessary to take every thought and emotion captive in obedience to My Word. Pulling up such thoughts and emotions immediately before they become entrenched and grow. Pulling out immediately all bitter roots and anger. And the antidote? The removal mechanism? My love for you and My love that I pour into your heart by My gift of the Holy Spirit. Gratitude and love is the best remover of evil. Making a determination to walk with Me in the light.
The Ten Commandments are about morality of actions. The Sermon on the Mount is about morality in the inner man of the heart—of the thoughts and motives of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.
Grace takes the outer to the inner. It is fulfilled in the fruit of the Spirit produced in you by your joining with Jesus and becoming one spirit with Him. It is about you as the branch and Jesus as the vine. It is about abiding in My Word and letting My Word abide in you. And that is what makes you a disciple. So this teaching is for disciples, and that includes YOU. Being attached in this way, you are so closely connected with Me in your heart that you begin to walk up at My level rather than at Satan’s level.
The Ten Commandments are for sinners. The Sermon on the Mount is for the saved, the ones who have been made righteous with My righteousness in Christ.
The Law is for an evil world to hold lawlessness in check, even now. The Sermon on the Mount brings the atmosphere of Heaven to the earth. There is no law against the fruit of the Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—these beautiful characteristics when lived will never harm your neighbor, but fulfill the Law. And those who are in Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If you live by the Spirit, then also walk by the Spirit.
The Sermon on the Mount is a teaching on walking in the spirit. It is up to a new level of seeing with the heart and not only the outward appearance of flesh. If you have been limiting yourself to just looking at people and knowing them in the flesh, you are no longer to know them that way. “Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:16-17.
And that is what the next teaching we come to as we continue the Sermon on the Mount is all about. A new way of seeing and knowing others with a heart for Me.
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be guilty before the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.” Matthew 5:21-26.
This takes the disciples up to a whole new level for the simple command “You shall not murder.” They supposed as long as you did not commit the physical action of murder it did not matter what you thought about the person or how angry you were with them. But Jesus just threw that justification out and gave you the heart part.
Jesus told His disciples, and now these words are for you, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing, (empty headed)’ shall be liable before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool, (dull, stupid, foolish)’ shall be liable to go into the fiery hell.” Matthew 5:22.
This is serious. People, even believers, are not careful about this. If you confess Jesus as Lord, then I abide in you and you in Me. And I am love, and the one who abides in love abides in Me, and I abide in him. The one who does not love does not know Me. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:9-11. “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” 1 John 4:18-21.
Be very careful what you say to people, especially you who are parents or teachers. “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.” James 3:1-2. You can ruin a life if you shame that person into believing they are stupid, foolish, or incapable of great things. If they are impressionable and respect you they will believe you, but they would also believe you if you told them they were more than a conqueror in Me and exhorted, edified and encouraged them to be all I made them to be.
But your mouth will speak from your heart’s abundance so be careful what you are festering in your heart. Do not let the sun go down on your anger for a person’s anger does not achieve My righteousness. James 1:20. Cast the care of it on Me before you become embroiled in an argument or get pulled into an abusive situation and keep yourself from being defiled. This will sum it up for you, “Let no unwholesome, evil, rude word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:29-32.
And this is not just when you speak such insults to others out loud so they can hear. It is also if you are speaking pleasantry with another while all the while you are harboring ill will, resentment, bitterness, and anger against them in your heart. Or even if you are just looking down on them and thinking how physically unattractive and foolish they are as you nicely converse with them. Speaking nicely and with courtesy is good, but hating and despising them in your heart while you do it makes it worth nothing to Me for it is done in hypocrisy or fear and not done in love and truth. This could be with anyone, a family member, a co-worker, a boss, a neighbor, but you will know to whom I am referring. They cannot see your heart, but as Jesus tells you in the Sermon on the Mount, you know what is in your heart and so do I.
The Pharisee did this as he prayed in the temple and despised the rest of men and the tax collector there praying at the same time and he prayed in a self-righteous way thinking I agreed with him in his pride and arrogance, but I did not, and he did not go home justified. “You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done and I kept silence; you thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.” Psalm 50:20-21.
And I will tell you a secret if you think this is hard to do or impossible for you to achieve, if you just let Me help you with this and determine you are going to live a transparent life of love and edification walking in My Ways, only speaking My Words and doing the works I show you to do in love and with the mentality of one delighted to serve, you will be free and have joy unspeakable filled with glory. You will come from the darkness of being bound in hatred, bitterness, anger, and resentment to the world of peace with Me and peace in yourself. You will find yourself, like My servant Paul, learning to be always content in all circumstances and running over with joy past human understanding. You will suddenly come into the hundredfold return.
A life well lived is the best gift of all—it is a precious treasure to Me, a satisfaction and pleasure to you, and a joy and comfort to all. And you will hear, “Well done good and faithful servant, come share your Master’s joy!”
I love you. Enjoy and share that love.