Sermon on the Mount: The Context: Matthew, History & Jewish Culture

one quarter series on the Sermon on the Mount. We've got just a tremendous amount to go through and I think some what might even be surprising content. You have an eight page handout. That's probably going to be exceptional, but more likely have more pages initially. I'm not going to try to cover eight pages. The last about three pages is supplemental. You can read that as you have opportunity.

Let's just take a minute here and pray for our time together. Lord, we're thankful for Your immense love for us and Your marvelous grace. As we gather here this morning, as we look at Your Word, we do desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And for that, we thank You for the time and for every grace You've shown. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright. Actually, keep at least one of those open if you could. Tie it back. Otherwise, air circulation stops. Okay, Sermon on the Mount. We're talking about Matthew 5-7. There is a more brief and similar passage in Luke 6. but a lot shorter. And I'm not convinced that it's exactly the same discourse anyway. There's a few things about it that are different. So anyway, Matthew 5-7. Sermon on the Mount.

What are some of the things you've heard about it? What's that? A way of life. Okay, alright. Anything else? The Lord's Prayer. Okay, those are both biggies. What else have you heard? What's that? The Beatitudes, yeah. Very well known. These chapters are three chapters. Boy, all kinds of things are drawn. What else have you heard? The Spirit of the Law. Okay, that's an interesting one. That's good, but I haven't heard that yet. Until now. Anything else? Anything else about the Sermon on the Mount? Written to the Jews. Okay.

What's interesting is as you go to this, a number of different churches have grabbed hold of certain parts of it and recite or use certain parts of it. Sometimes they'll use certain parts of it and exclude others or even contradict other parts of it. So I think as we go through it, we're going to find this kind of an interesting contrast and even a puzzle. What we're going to do here is we're going to take three Sundays to kind of set the stage before we start looking in detail at it.

Today we're going to take a look, as you see here, at the book of Matthew. So we're going to do a sweeping survey of the book of Matthew, all 28 chapters. Are you ready? And we're going to look at the history behind it and the Jewish culture because this takes place in the context of the Jewish culture. So let's take a look at it. What you'll see right in the middle of that first page is a simple chart. It shows the four Gospels. And what we have here is each of the four Gospels and the target group.

Now, it's not because these Gospels say, I'm writing to these people, but because as reading through it, the group that they're targeting becomes evident. that Matthew was written to the Jews. And that's one of the things that's been noted here this morning in terms of who the Sermon on the Mount was written to. Mark appears to have been written to the Romans. One of the reasons why we say that Mark was written to the Romans is Mark is very brisk.

He says immediately, immediately, immediately. And he puts more time in action than in talk. And that's what the Romans wanted. Not a lot of talk, they want action. Luke more to the Greek mind and John to all the groups. Yes, Peter was action-oriented as well. Good point. And we found that in 1 and 2 Peter. He was very much into action.

Setting a date for the Gospel is not as direct as it might be for the book of Acts where you've got some particular historical things you can nail it to. Nonetheless, the likely range for the book of Matthew is about 40 to 55 A.D. My own personal inclination is to look at the earlier end of that range as being likely. It would mean that Matthew wrote that Gospel about a decade after Christ had ascended and about the same time that Peter had introduced the Gospel to the house of Cornelius, to the Gentiles. Now, the historical background. Matthew and Luke portray things starting from the birth of Christ. And so it would be about 5 B.C. to about 30 A.D. That period of time. And by the way, We get 5 B.C., 30 A.D., and there's zero. I hate to tell you, this is really sad, nobody lived in the year zero. This is tragic to tell you, but nobody made it through the year zero. There wasn't any such thing.

The Jews had been under Roman rule for decades, 63 B.C., except for one time in 40 A.D. when the Parthians came in. all the way into Jerusalem. And then the Romans pushed him back out. Except for that time, the Romans had been ruling for decades. Basically, for a lifetime plus. And the Sermon on the Mount was given within the first year of Christ's three-year ministry.

So, let's look at the top of the second page here. Now we get into the cultural background. The Jewish culture was very diverse, so it's in some ways difficult to make some statement about, you know, the Jewish culture was like this or like this. Lots of diversity.

However, it is fair for us to say that there was a prominent expectation, prominent expectation of the Messiah. Remember the two different Messiahs that we talked about going through Isaiah? And we actually brought it up also at this last Christmas Eve.

There was Messiah Ben Joseph, who was the suffering Messiah, and Messiah Ben, and Ben means son, Messiah Ben David, who was the reigning and conquering and liberating Messiah. It was the expectation of that second one, Messiah Ben David, was key. And it was the prominent belief of a great many of the Jews that that Messiah was coming. Can you think of a group of Jews who did not believe in Messiah ben David? That there was a coming Messiah?

Yes. Good. Sadducees. They did not believe in anything past the first five books. And they did not believe in a coming Messiah. But it was the Pharisees substantially and even the Essenes, although they're a minor group, even the Essenes who were promoting and teaching that the Messiah would come. We have a listing of these groups here and you've probably seen most of them. Let's go over them quickly.

Pharisees were the prominent Jewish group. They were like the culture heroes. Ra-Ra Pharisees. They were the culture heroes for the time. And oftentimes in reading through, because we do find Jesus condemning many of the things that they did and said, it's important to get the understanding that the Jews, by and large, looked at them as, hey, these are my guys. Boy, these are our heroes. These are the guys that we want to be like.

No, the Pharisees were not of a particular tribe. They were of a particular persuasion. Paul was a Pharisee. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. Hillel and his grandson was Gamaliel, Paul's teacher. He was of the tribe of Judah. Same tribe as Joseph and Mary and David and Jesus. So that's a good question. And the fact is, different tribes. The Sadducees centered around Jerusalem, especially in the temple activity. So they tended not to get oriented anywhere else. Then the Essenes were more secluded. We'll actually be hearing about the Essenes as we go through this group. They are the ones who are thought to be, this is not a universal conclusion, but thought to be the ones who occupied the Dead Sea Trolls area and particularly that village of Qumran.

And then there were the scribes. They were actually writers by occupation, oftentimes aligned with the Pharisees. The scribes were primarily copyists. They were expert at copying. They were your New Testament era photocopy machines. So that's what their job was. Copy this stuff and do it well and do it right. So that was their forte. The Zealots were the ones who were covertly resisting Roman rule.

There was another group mentioned once in... By the way, who's a Zealot that we have a name for? Simon the Zealot, one of the disciples. On the other hand, now you've got the Sicarii, a group mentioned towards the end of the book of Acts. Jewish terrorist group. Yeah, I mean, the Zealots were zealous. The Sicarii were something else. And so it's a group more extreme than the Zealots. You also then have the Herodians, mentioned in the New Testament, ones that said, hey, Herod, he's our guy.

I'm sure they had chance, but I won't try to do it in Hebrew. And then you have the Samaritans, another ethnic and separate religious group. They actually had copies of the five books of Moses with special changes to allow them to worship in their area instead of Jerusalem. Now, looking at the first three groups above would have rabbis. and they would follow traditional rules of rabbinical systems. Now the Essenes were the ones most likely to be out somewhere else, because they abhorred the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they thought that the whole temple ritual was polluted by these guys. Nonetheless, they had this idea of a rabbi, and what was the idea with the rabbi?

Let's take, for example, Paul. He was brought up under Gamaliel, right? So that was the traditional arrangement. You have some older, wiser man who is then teaching these younger people and that's how you grow eventually to be a rabbi yourself and to be well regarded. So that tradition, passing it on that way was the way to do it.

Did Jesus have a rabbi that he learned under? No. So that's a problem, isn't it? What? You're not learning this stuff according to traditions, yes. He would have gone to synagogue. That wouldn't necessarily have included a rabbi, and especially in a little, tiny village. In other words, you might have a little village and not necessarily even a rabbi there. Someone consider a rabbi. And Scripture even mentions that he hadn't been under some rabbi. He was just like, you go around teaching people things and yet you haven't been under a rabbi.

Something wrong here. You're violating our system. Now, in the middle of this paragraph here that starts the first three groups we have here, but many of these rabbis would leave a remaining tension in their teaching and quote others as authorities. They would say, Hillel said, and Shammai said, Gamaliel said, and quote other people. And the interesting thing, they would be very hard line on some conclusions and leave other conclusions they actually deliberately left things in tension. You got this teaching and this teaching.

Which one is it? A couple of different times I've met a fellow who's a Christian of Jewish background. You may recognize the name Arnold Fruchtenbaum. And I've heard Arnold tell this joke. It goes this way. There's a group of Jews that were meeting together and the rabbi was not with them. And they were arguing over two different positions on a tradition. And finally the rabbi walks into the room and They run up to the rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi, we have some that say it's this position and some who say it's this position. Which one is the tradition?

And he says, well, tell me about it. Okay. And they presented the first thing and described that. He said, that's not the tradition. And then they described the second thing and he said, that's not the tradition. Then all of them went into a huge uproar. He said, that's the tradition.

Okay. Okay? Yeah. And so when Jesus, Jesus would do a couple of things. One, He wouldn't just say, somebody else said, but He would say, but I say to you. Okay? He wouldn't just quote somebody. He would say, this is the truth. And one other thing, he would not leave things in some sort of a, here's what a couple of different people think and that's good enough and let's move on. But would say, this is the truth. This is where it's at. And not leave people in attention.

Can you think of some of the quandaries that they try to present to Jesus? What's that? Which is the greatest what? Which is the greatest love? Law. Okay, yeah. Which is the greatest law? So we can argue about that. Okay, good. Any others? Pardon? Yes, Matthew 19. A big question and it was a question that was brought up not entirely because of the divorce question, but because it was one that separated the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Which one will be the husband in heaven, right? Yeah, but good point, that's another quandary. What's that?

Taxes, yeah. Should we pay taxes to Caesar? You know, here we are, Jews, we're supposed to be an independent nation, not under anybody else. Pardon? Yes, is there a resurrection? Good one. Because the Sadducees said what? No resurrection. The Pharisees said, absolutely. Yeah, that, you see? Yes, good point. Good point.

And so you have these quandaries and they loved the quandary. They loved the tension. They loved the dynamics and the drama of leaving something with Yupik. They even had established in the century before the New Testament by Gamaliel's grandfather Hillel and Shammai two different court systems that you could go to. They like the tension.

Rather than saying, it's this one or it's this one. And by the way, Jesus did decide. The point that Bonnie brought up. He said, the court of Shammai is correct. The court of Hillel is not even valid. We'll get to that as we get farther on the Sermon on the Mount.

He said, it's this one, not this one. He said, it is so far off that this other court system, if you use that, you're committing adultery. I mean, He drew the line. The constant embracing of various tensions was not the way Jesus taught. Look at Matthew 7, 28 and 29 there. When Jesus had finished these words, this is the end of the sermon on the Mount, the crowds were amazed at His teaching. What?

He didn't quote people. When He did, He corrected it. He didn't leave things in a, it might be this and it might be this. For he was teaching them as one having authority and not, contrast, not as the scribes. Thanks for asking the question though, because that's an important one.

The scribes were not necessarily considered rabbis. They were copyists. This is actually the scribes. A person could be a scribe and probably would not necessarily be a rabbi. The scribe, because of their abundant copying, would know the Scriptures, but not necessarily know all the different arguments and insights. They'd just recite it because they're copying it all day.

So here was Jesus' ministry carried out primarily in northern Israel. We've had these Galilee scenes rolling here in front of you. Some of these scenes would be things in the area where the Sermon on the Mount was given. Most of Jesus' three-year ministry was carried out in this area that you see here. And some rather dramatic, miraculous events took place in this area. So, if you ask the disciples, tell me about Jesus in your time with Him, a good deal of what they would have to tell you is in the area we see pictured here. Alright, now, there were Roman soldiers in this area sufficient in order to keep Roman control. And the big thing was not just suppressing rebellion, but keep the tax system going. And by the way, let's look at something here.

What was Matthew's occupation before he became one of the disciples? Tax collector, and of course everybody loved the tax collectors, right? Oh yeah, they just gave him a hug every time they saw him. No. Okay, not even sorta. How do you think Matthew the very shortly before being a disciple tax collector, got along with Simon the Zealot.

Oh, wouldn't that be good? In fact, it would be irony if in chapter 10 where Jesus sends them out two by two. Oh, can you imagine those two matched up? Oh, good. Okay. This would be wild time, you know. I don't know if that's what happened, but it's tantalizing to ponder. Okay, let's look at the top of page 3 there. Yes, Doug? I'll tell you one thing.

I'm glad you asked the question because one of the things that we would say these people in Israel need to learn about is what's a mountain? We think of mountains. We think, okay, we've got these 52 14ers in Colorado. They see a little thing that we would say, well, that's too small to even name. And they call that the Sermon on the Mount. It's the Sermon on the Hill. It's a Kansas mountain. For example, Mount Zion is kind of one of the little knobs in Jerusalem and an adjacent mountain is Mount Moriah where the temple is at. You wouldn't look at any of those if you're from Colorado and call those a mountain. This is an area, let's see if it comes up in the scene here.

Here's the Sea of Galilee which is inland from what's now the port of Haifa. Okay, there's a sunset shot across the Sea of Galilee. Anybody seen or been to Lake Tahoe? Sea of Galilee is about two-thirds the size of Lake Tahoe, if you've had that as a point of comparison, and a very similar shape. Here's the Sea of Galilee, another sunset shot.

This is not far from where the Sermon on the Mount was given. There are other shots that we'll have there that even point out where it is. Keep an eye to it here. Okay, off to the left part of this picture is the Mount of Beatitudes. See that? Okay, to give you an idea. On the north end, on the western part. Yes? Yeah, yeah. Oh yes, it's definitely, you're looking down from this area. They call it the Mount of Beatitudes or the traditional side of the Sermon on the Mount.

Let's look at the top of page 3 here. Here's Matthew, which by the way I passed on earlier. Matthew is our Anglicized form. Matityahu. It would be his name in the original language. If we were to yell Matthew, I don't think he'd even hear us. Matityahu would be his name and also the name after that would be, we would say Levi and he would say Levi. Matityahu Levi.

So real different kind of pronunciation but that's the name of it. He wrote in Greek, there are a few people who contend that he wrote originally in Aramaic and Hebrew. That opinion hasn't held sway and certainly what we have in the way of the Gospels prominently is in Greek.

He built the Gospel around five major discourses. Five major discourses. So what he did is he put those five major discourses in there and then filled in between them. At the end of every one of the discourses, look at the similarity. Matthew, at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount, 728, when Jesus had finished these words.

The next discourse, which is instructions to the twelve who are sent out two by two, which I ironically ponder. Gee, how about Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot sending them out together? When Jesus had finished giving instructions. The third discourse after the eight parables centering on the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Jesus had finished these parables. So when Jesus had finished is kind of like this is the thing to say at the end of each one. And then teachings about living until an entry into the Kingdom of Heaven in chapter 19. a section that Vonnie asked about and brought up in the divorce and marriage issues. That one here, when Jesus had finished these words, identical to the Sermon on the Mount. And then finally in chapter 26, this is chapter 26 at the end of what's called the Olivet Discourse, chapters 24, where it tells about the Tribulation and the Second Coming. and the parables that follow in chapter 25. So when Jesus had finished all these words. So when Jesus had finished is common to each of those major discourses. And then some words afterwards which sometimes are similar and sometimes different. Now the introduction of each of these discourses was a little more varied and so I haven't quoted those.

But look at the Sermon on the Mount introduction, if you will, which is right in the center of the page there. Matthew 5, 1 and 2, when Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain. And again, think of a Jewish mountain, not a Colorado mountain. And after He sat down, His disciples came to Him and He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, So before, between, and after each of these five discourses were narrative historical accounts, more brief interactions. These discourses tended to be, the five discourses tended to be more Jesus speaking at length. He did speak at some length in some of these points in between, but many more of them were interactive when he spoke. And there were often other miracles and places that he went and things that he did and that kind of thing.

All right. Matthew's gospel is all about the king and the kingdom. Why would that be? Why would it be all about the king and the kingdom? Pardon? Okay, because of the Jew. And why is that significant? Jesus was the king, okay? So here's the king. He's presenting. Why doesn't he just say, I'm going to come to Colorado and tell people about this and wait around until Colorado comes into existence? Yeah? Well, that's a stumper.

Yeah, in other words, if you look at it, it was, first of all, the right time, and that's an insight we have from Galatians 4.4. But it was also a situation, here we've got Jews, and we've got Jews who are looking for a coming kingdom and are also looking for a liberator, because living under the Romans wasn't no fun. Right?

No fun at all. And so, the circumstances pressed them to look for a liberator. That didn't seem to help their recognition. But nonetheless, they were looking for this coming king. Certainly, they had a king. And what particular king had they been focusing on?

David. David in the line of David through this time. And the promise to David. When we went through Isaiah, what did we see? More and more mention of David and the promises to David roughly 300 years after David had lived. You get into the Psalms and many of the Psalms are written by who? David.

Yeah. And then we get into the early New Testament and here's the angel Gabriel coming to Mary And the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and says, hey, guess what? You're going to give birth to a soccer player. No, right? What did he say? What did he say? Pardon? He gave birth to the Messiah. And what were the things that Mary was told that says this is going to be the Messiah? Pardon? A house? The house of David? He'll sit on David's throne and he'll reign over David's kingdom.

Now, what's interesting is Mary got that focus when Joseph got the message, Mary's going to give birth to a child. The focus was not so much on the reigning king as on the one who would save Israel. In other words, Mary heard about Messiah ben David. Joseph heard about Messiah ben Joseph, the suffering Messiah.

Isn't that interesting? Okay. Let's take a look at, I've got a couple of quotes here, Matthew 3, 1 and 2, Matthew 4, 17, and their similarities. Now, in those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Matthew 4.17, From that time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What about the statements? And they've made identical statements, haven't they? Identical, as a matter of fact, let's upgrade that. Proclamations. What about those proclamations would be shocking? Stunning. What about the proclamations would get their attention?

Okay, that the kingdom was imminent. Were they looking for a kingdom? Were they looking for the kingdom? Were a lot of them looking for the Messiah, hoping that He would come? Okay, what I would say is they were certainly looking for that. That it was imminent might be a welcome thing. I would suggest, however, that that wasn't necessarily shocking. What was shocking about the statement? Well, they were looking for a kingdom on this earth. They believed Messiah was a man. What they should have seen is the Old Testament indicates Messiah is God Himself. Particularly, the book of Zechariah underscores that.

Yes? Okay, notice here's Rome, the ruling kingdom. And how could this be? Yeah, Doug? Actually, that was not shocking. Yes! Okay? Repent. Repent was shocking. Isn't that something? I mean, we hear it and we say, of course that's what they said. It was shocking news. Absolutely shocking. And here's why. Now, let me ask you why.

What were they expecting would be the qualification that would get them into this coming earthly kingdom? They were sons of Abraham. They were Jews, okay? Ethnic heritage. Genetics. I can look at my genealogy and I can go into the kingdom because I've got the right genealogy. That's what they were looking at. I'm a Jew, man. I'm going in.

And then for Jesus, preceded by John, to come along and say, repent for the kingdom of His hand and to put that word prominent and right out there, Do you mean something has to happen besides my being born Jewish? Remember in Philippians, there were seven things that Paul said. Man, I have this and that background and I did this. There were seven things that Paul listed.

I was born of this. I was born a Jew. I'm of this tribe. He listed all those things. Four of those were things that didn't have to do with anything that he did. It was his heritage or his parents circumcising him on the eighth day. It was nothing about any of those things that were things that he did or accomplished. And the Jews were all looking. Man, I am Jewish. I am in the door. That's the thing.

So to come in, what John said and what Jesus said, you're not Jewish in terms of just getting in. Because what is a real Jew? Yeah, it helps to have the ethnic background, but what else does it take? Pardon? You have to have a condition of life and heart to allow you to get in. And the law is a part of it. A condition of life and heart in order to get into the kingdom. And if not, you will not get in.

And that's why the things that he said in the Sermon on the Mount were absolutely shocking. Starting off with the things that you see right here. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. It's close. You've got to repent or you're not getting in. Wide is the gate that leads to destruction. Narrow the way to life. Few are those that find it.

I'm Jewish. Go to the temple. They've got the genealogy tables and charts. I'm Jewish to the core. My parents were Jewish. I was circumcised on the eighth day. I've been eating kosher food. I'm Jewish through and through. Of course, I'm getting in. No. Remember John 3. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. And what does He say to Nicodemus? You're not getting in unless you're what? Isn't that something? That was absolutely shocking. If you have to be qualified, I'm in, right? That was Nicodemus' thought.

And Jesus was telling him straight out, you who are unquestionably Jewish, who know more about this than anybody else in all of Israel. You, who are, remember we went through a list some time back here, who are born again by about four different criteria that the Jews said that somebody was born again. You have to be born again. And the bottom line is, here is the guy who, by Jewish measure, was the most qualified of anybody, and Jesus is telling him, you're not getting in unless you're born again.

This is wild stuff. And for the Jews, this was shocking. This was earth-shattering stuff. So everything that Jesus was telling them in the Sermon on the Mount, because in chapter 5 He's going to talk about entry. In chapter 7 of the Sermon on the Mount, He's going to talk about entry. The shocking thing is not everybody Jewish is getting in. As a matter of fact, most are not. That blew their socks off. That was absolutely stunning for them to hear. But of course, everybody believed it and embraced it in the end, right? Not so much. Not so much. Let's turn to the next page. We've got some bullet points here.

Matthew introduced and presented Christ as the King of the Jews in a number of ways. And a few of those are born of the line of David and fulfillment of prophecy. Here's the king. And what did the Magi come to Herod saying? Hey, we're here to celebrate a baby getting born. We like babies. What did they say to Herod? Where is the one who was born king of Jews?

The one. This is the king. It's that recognition and Matthew points it out. Interestingly, that's the gospel that points it out. The others don't bring up this account. John announces the coming king and his kingdom. Matthew chapter 3, we quoted from that in the prior page. The king begins to announce and offer the kingdom.

Here's an interesting thing. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Okay? What does that mean? It's a close in time thing. What do you think of when you think of something's at hand? It's at the door. It's what? Close enough to touch. It's within reach. Okay? But let's ask this question.

When He was offering the Kingdom but saying at the same time, not everybody's getting in, what is the key to getting in? He's the key. Do you recognize the King? You can't have a kingdom without the King, right? And the King has to sit on the throne over the kingdom. So the real question in this is here's the guy who's of the house of David Do you accept all the other things about this guy who's going to be the king? So what he was offering was the kingdom with acceptance of himself as the king being the key. Yes, Tom. What is this kingdom of heaven? Is that the same thing as salvation or forgiveness of sins?

I'm really glad you asked that question because that's an important one. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Yes. That's a very good question though. Okay. The key point here in viewing the Gospel of Matthew is that Jesus was offering the Kingdom to the Jews by offering the King to the Jews. Okay? Offering Himself as the pivotal issue. Okay? Here's John, Jesus' cousin, and Jesus were both announcing the coming Kingdom.

Every Jew had to decide whether they would accept or reject the King. That's the pivotal question. That a Jew would accept Christ as king over the coming kingdom and thereby enter the kingdom and enjoy all of its benefits was what Christ announced as the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom. And it's a key phrase.

Let's look at Matthew 4.23. And this is just before the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was going throughout all Galilee. This place we see the pictures of here. Teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. A few of those synagogues are even places you can visit today. Healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. By the way, why was it important that Jesus was doing this healing? What significance? Pardon?

It was prophesied of the Messiah. Remember, John the Baptist was in prison before he was beheaded. John the Baptist sent some messengers to Jesus and the question was, are you really the one or should we look for somebody else? What was Jesus' response? Go back and tell them what? He quoted from Isaiah. You recognize that healings are taking place, the prisoners are freed, those kinds of things. It's a quote from Isaiah. This is testimony. Yeah, this is the one.

Matthew 9.35, which is a couple chapters after the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. The message was specifically conveyed to the Jews alone. In Matthew chapter 10, just a few chapters after the end of the Sermon on the Mount, these twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, do not, isn't it interesting, do not go in the way of the Gentiles.

It is not just don't go to the Gentiles. Don't even go on a road that heads in that direction. How about that? And do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jeremiah 50, verses 6 and 7, My people have become lost sheep. We'll get there. That's a very good question. Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's a tough one. I'll give you the quick answer on that one, because I don't particularly address that one.

And that is something very interesting to look at, is that when Jesus came over the crest of the hill, he burst into tears. And also that the things that they said, Hosanna, all that, those were traditional psalms that you recite, the Hallel, that you recite as you're going to Jerusalem.

So, more tends to be made of that entry than Jesus seems to have made of it, besides of which inside of a week you would be crucified. Let's take a look here in Matthew 15-24. But He, Jesus, answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Identical statement, basically, as He had told the disciples just five chapters earlier. Alright, now we're on to top page 5 here.

Jesus was offering Himself to the Jews as King of the Jews as the deciding question as to whether a Jew will enter the coming kingdom. If the Jews had largely accepted them as their Messiah and King, there would still have been the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seven-year tribulation, ending with Christ's second coming in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. But if the Jews had largely accepted Christ as their Messiah and King, there would not have been the body of believers known as the Church.

Nor the books from Acts of Revelation as we have them." It might be something different. Nor the rapture of the church, nor the gospel of grace. Acts 20, the gospel of this grace. Even the gospels would each have been written differently. These were all added because the Jews largely rejected Christ as their King and Messiah. Isn't that something? It's something to ponder. Actually, I don't believe so. Yeah.

The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel of Grace are two different Gospels. And the Gospel of Grace was only introduced after Israel had rejected her king. And here's the deal. What's the Gospel of the Kingdom Jesus gave the gospel of the kingdom to the Jews, presented it. We see it introduced in the Sermon on the Mount.

And it has to do with, are you getting into the kingdom? The king's here. The kingdom, the opportunity for you to enter the kingdom is at hand. It's close by. And the pivotal person about whom you need to decide is standing right in front of you. And that's the gospel of the kingdom, which presented, as we saw just in those two verses we saw right here, was presented to the Jews. And the Jews were at the center of that issue. And the gospel of the kingdom had to do with the law of Moses. The gospel of the kingdom had to do with entry into that coming millennial kingdom. The gospel of grace is different in that, as we'll see in our continuing studies upstairs in Galatians, the gospel of the kingdom is law-based. The gospel of grace even includes, you have died to the law. Galatians 2, 19.

You have died to the law. That's radically different. One says, not one jot or tittle of the law will be changed. And the person who denies the law is in trouble. And let me get you corrected on the law. You've heard this that was said, but I tell you about the law. Let's get things straight here, because you haven't been getting a straight story about the law. And then proceeds to tell them about the law and to look to the Gentiles as a separate group.

The gospel of grace doesn't come with the law. The gospel of grace comes and says even you've died to the law. It is entirely by faith. This grace in which we stand. Yes. Abraham did not have the law. by faith. And Paul makes that point repeatedly in Galatians and in Romans.

Saved by faith. The reality is people of every time, all times, are saved by faith. All saved by faith. And even here, saved by faith. But the instrumentality, how that is lived out is done differently among different peoples and different groups and different times.

So here's Abraham, didn't have the law. How was he saved? By faith. Those who had the law, how were they saved? By faith. How are we saved? By faith. And that's Paul's point in Romans and in Galatians both. Salvation for every group of all times is always by faith. No doubt about it. Okay? But the question of are you under the law, the gospel of the kingdom is, yep, law counts. The gospel of grace, you died to the law. Radically different message. Yes. Isn't it interesting?

God knew all of these things that were going to happen. Excellent point, Doug. God knew all of these things that were going to happen, and yet He did not say, well, I know what you're going to do, so I'm not going to give you the choice. Could He have done that with Adam? Right? He could have said, I know how you're going to choose, so I'm not even going to make you. What he did instead is he said, I know how this is all going to pan out.

I see it all at the same time. God lives in the eternal present. To him, it's all now. He can look at you and I where here we are in 2007. He can look back at 30 A.D. and it's no problem for him to say, Each one of us here this morning that believes was identified with Christ. To him, it's all at the same time.

No problem at all. He didn't struggle with the time or the knowledge. But it's interesting that he does not allow his knowledge of the decision to make him say, well, I know how that's going to turn out, so I'm not going to let that happen. Interesting. Very interesting. OK, one more thing.

This gets down to a question that Bud had, a question that Tom had. The kingdom. There are places in Scripture that speak of God as the sovereign king over all his creation. So this is what some people call the universal kingdom. I think that's a fine term. The idea is God is a ruler over all of his creation, isn't he? And that's a biblical truth. So that's certainly to be acknowledged.

The references to the kingdom, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, his kingdom, Christ's kingdom, and the Gospels and Acts are in reference to the coming reign of Christ as king of the Jews. Thought was that this coming reign of Christ, King of the Jews, over the kingdom, sitting on David's throne, over the whole earth, as King of kings and Lord of lords. We have the additional insight from Revelation chapter 20 that the reign on this present earth will last for a thousand years. So that's called often the Millennial Kingdom.

That's the insight we get from Revelation 20. Here's John the Baptist, Jesus, who's the Messiah, and his disciples were all continuing to declare to the Jews, as described throughout most of the Gospel of Matthew, were the conditions of heart and life required for entry into the kingdom. For entry into the kingdom. Because entry was the issue. Remember? Remember?

Repent for the kingdom's at hand. Shocking news. He didn't say, rejoice, you're Jewish, for the kingdom is at hand. He said, repent. Repent means to change the mind. Meta, noia. Meta means to change and noia is the mind. So change the mind. We have all sorts of strange distortions of that in our modern culture where we think repent is where you cry about a gallon of tears and your face is all red and your eyes are bloodshot. and you scream and yell and the decibel level has to get at least to 85 or 90 or you haven't repented yet, right? But the definition from Scripture is metanoia, which means a change of mind. Let's have one question. Why would the message repent be so commonly portrayed to the Jews? Why the Jews? Because, by the way, you see it start to fade when it comes to the Gentiles. Yes? Yeah. And they needed to change their mind.

Had they been presented with the gospel of the kingdom? They were being presented with it here. John, Jesus. And we'll see in the Sermon on the Mount. They'd been given the gospel of the kingdom. They needed to change their mind with regards to the truth that had been presented to them. Even afterwards into the book of Acts, you'll still see the message to the Jews.

Repent. Repent. Why? You need to change your mind about that Messiah you just crucified. You know the facts, but you've got a head change that's got to take place. Cry all you want, but it's the change of mind that's going to matter, right? Okay. What's that?

Yeah, I'm out of time. Now, what I would like for you to do, because we talked today about the context And I've got about three more pages. Read the rest of the one more thing, the Kingdom, and the subsequent pages there to the end. And next week we'll look more at the content of the Sermon on the Mount, just in an overview fashion to see what it says. We are out of time. Nancy is quite correct.

That doesn't mean, however, I'll be glad to talk to you about it. You can talk to me at some convenient moment. Call me on the phone. Send me email. Walk over. See me. Throw rocks. Whatever you feel like doing. Okay? Let's pray. Lord, we do thank You as we look at this passage and as we focus on what these Gospels are saying, particularly the Gospel of Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount. We thank You that You've laid out marvelous truth for us and life-changing and heart-changing truth. We thank You for that in Jesus' name, Amen.