Why Keeping the Rules Is Not Enough - Matthew 5:13-48 (Session 7)

What does Jesus mean when He tells His followers to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world? And why does He later say, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”?

In this session, Glenn and Steve continue through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:13–48. They examine how believers should influence the world around them, why good works should point people toward God rather than ourselves, and what Jesus meant when He said He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.

The discussion then turns to some of the most challenging teachings in Matthew: anger and murder, lust and adultery, reconciliation, divorce, keeping our word, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and loving our enemies. Throughout the passage, Jesus moves beyond outward rule keeping and exposes the condition of the heart.

The chapter ends with an impossible human standard: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The Sermon on the Mount ultimately shows why righteousness cannot be earned through human effort and why sinners must depend upon God’s mercy and righteousness.

Matthew 5:13–48 | The Book of Matthew — Session 7

  Questions discussed in this session include: 

•  What is the best light for a dark world? 
• What does it mean to be salt and light? 
• Is the Mosaic Law in place today? 
• How serious does God view sin and righteousness? 
• What does Jesus teach about divorce? 

Transcript

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Why Jesus Preaches This Sermon

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome back to Reasoning Through the Bible, our podcast where we do verse-by-verse Bible studies through the entire Word of God. We're in the book of Matthew, and we're in chapter 5. We're going to start off in verse 13. This section of Scripture is called the Sermon on the Mount. It's one of the more profound sections of Scripture. It's up there with the upper room discourse in John 13 and places like that that are some of the high points of the Word of God. And it's also very poetic. In our last session, if you didn't get a chance to hear it, encourage you to go back and hear our introduction and the Beatitudes or the first 12 verses, blessed are the peacemakers, things like that. But we all have to remember here that the Sermon on the Mount was given to the Jewish leaders and given to the Jewish people who thought that because they were keeping the letter of the law, that they were okay, because they had not actually spilled anybody's blood, then therefore they were not guilty of murder. Jesus takes that and says, No, no, if you even have hatred with somebody in your heart, then you're guilty of murder. If you look at a woman, you're guilty of adultery. And he sums it up at the end of chapter five by saying, Be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect. So Jesus' purpose for the Sermon on the Mount was to take a people who thought they were keeping the letter of the law, therefore they were in a relationship with God, and get them to realize that no, you're not. God's ethic is so high that we're all guilty. And he was trying to get us to realize there's no way any of us can keep this standard. Therefore, we must fall at the feet of God and beg for mercy and depend on his righteousness and not on our earned righteousness.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

This is all the changing of the mind. This is all the way that we should look at and think about these are the things that he's focusing on here. And it talks about, again, in earlier part, this is a teaching. Now he's sitting there and now he's teaching them.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So, yes, we can take the things in the Sermon on the Mount and apply them to our lives today and get benefit from them. But if we're trying to be righteous before God by doing this, we're gonna fail and we're just gonna fail in frustration. We have to realize that when we get to these more difficult passages in the Sermon

Moses And Jesus On Two Mountains

SPEAKER_01 2:31

on the Mount. There's a little bit of contrast that I'd like to do, or at least comparison, between this Sermon on the Mount and in the Old Testament, Moses getting the law. Moses, of course, got the old covenant. This is the ethic of the new covenant. In Moses' day, the Lord came down on the mountain, and in this one, the Lord went up on a mountain. In the old one, if you remember the case, Moses went up on the mountain and there was thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and it was very scary. This mountain that we get the gentle voice of Jesus. It's given very gently and lovingly. And in the old covenant with Moses, people were ordered to stay away from the mountain, don't get near it. Here, people came near because they wanted to. In the old testament, they didn't want to come. They were trying to hide from God because of the thunder and lightning. The old covenant, the old sermon on the mount with Moses' day was the message of the law. And this one here with Jesus is a message of love. The old one was the message of the law that brought death. And this sermon on the mount is a message that ends in life. Great comparison there from the two passages of Scripture. As we get through this next section, Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 13, we have to remember the overall thrust of this section, which is the ethic is so high that it's impossible to keep all of it.

Salt That Preserves And Draws Thirst

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So Matthew 5.13 says this you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. What is salt used for? What's the point here?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Well, today we use it to season food, but salt then and through the years has been used to cure meat. It's been used to preserve food, not just a spice in itself. So the tasteless part is speaking of the spice, but if it also loses that taste, it loses that ability to not only be a spice, but also the ability to cure the meat, to cure the food. It's just there's no worth in it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

So the salt was there to make the food taste good and as a preservative. That was its purpose. But if the salt wasn't doing its purpose, that's his point here.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

If suddenly the salt doesn't taste good, you're not going to put it on your food if you don't have any benefit out of it.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

So if it's not doing what it's made for, what's it good for? It's just throw it out and use it to fill in holes in the sidewalk. We're gonna not gonna use it for its purpose. Should we expect God to keep us around if we're not doing what we were made to do?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

I know. I mean that's that's the point.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

That's that's the point of the passage is saying you are the salt of the earth. But if the people he's speaking to aren't doing what they're made for, they're gonna be thrown out.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I think we have to keep in mind this is all a buildup. So it's building up on the things that he said before. He just gave descriptions of the people that are blessed through their attitudes and the way that they operate in the world and the things that they are. So now he's getting into them that you are the salt. In other words, it builds on what his previous statements were.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

So this ought to be a challenge to us. What would it mean to us to be salty? How would we do that? How would we taste good to the people around us? We can't be abrasive. Salt also makes people thirsty, but thirsty for what? Thirsty for the word of God. People around us ought to say, I want what they've got. There's something about them that I want. I'm thirsty for that. Whatever you guys have, you guys Christians over there, well, I want that. I mean, that's being salt. That and preserving life in our families and our countries. We should be salt to the world. Salt makes things taste good, it makes things appealing, and it preserves things from decay.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

It takes bland food and gives it a taste to it of where you want more. We are to be that saltiness to the blandness of the things in the world.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Our actions and our speech should make people thirsty for the word of God. Steve, read verses 14, 15, and

Light That Cannot Be Hidden

SPEAKER_01 6:29

16.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So when it says you're the light of the world, in what sense were the Jewish people or the disciples the light of the world?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Abraham was told that your seed is going to bless all the nations of the world.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

The Jewish nation had been given something very special, which was the Messiah. The Messiah, the Word of God. They were given all these Old Testament prophets through them. The Messiah would come, plus the words of God reached the world through them. So in that sense, they were the light of the world because God, who is light, spoke through them. The words of God. So in that sense, they were the light of the world.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

They were to be the example to the world of how the one true God, who he was, and how he operated and how he blessed them.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

They had the words of God that can enlighten every person, and they knew of Jesus who enlightens every man, John 1 9. That's the sense that Jesus can look at the people around him here on the Sermon on the Mount and say, You are the light of the world. The passage talks about light shining forth to people, a city being on a hill, so it can be seen from far away, a light on top of a stand, so it gives light to the whole house. And in verse 16, let your good works be seen before others. Light purpose is for lighting up a dark space so we can see. Is the world a dark space?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Very dark, very dark place. What is the best light to enlighten the dark world? Word of God. In John chapter 1, verse 9, Jesus is the light that comes into the world and gives light to all people. The light needs to be up on a stand where the rest of the room can see it. What does that mean to us today? I mean, he's using poetic language here, but what does it mean to to uh put the light on a stand versus hiding it under a basket? What does that mean to individual people?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

It means that if you're a Christian, you should be leading other people to Christ through your actions and through the things that you say and through the talking with them, that you shouldn't hide it. You shouldn't hide that you're a Christian, you shouldn't be ashamed to talk about Christ. That is in effect hiding Christ. And so if you have light for the world, which is salvation through Jesus Christ, and you have that salvation, that's the light. Why would you want to hide it? Why would you want to suppress it? Why would you want to not talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Jesus is the light, so we don't keep it to ourselves. That would be hiding it under a basket. If we have the great message of Jesus and we know we can give light to a lost people that are people in the world that are lost in the dark, it doesn't make any sense to keep that light under a basket and hide it. So I'm the only one that can see it.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

And the works talked about there in 16. The works, they're useful and profitable works. And the purpose for them is to glorify God the Father. The purpose of them is for glorification and not for self-aggrandizement.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Right. It's to draw attention to our God. He's saying do good things for people so the people who are helping can see God at

The Law Fulfilled Not Repeated

SPEAKER_01 9:51

work. So then verse 17 says this do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter of stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. What's he talking about here? Is the Mosaic law in effect today?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

No, it's not. I mean, it was brought about, or Jesus came as he's talking about, to fulfill every part of it in order to fulfill the law. The law was everything to them from the Old Testament in Leviticus 18.1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I'm the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I'm bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes, you shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I'm the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules. If a person does them, he shall live by them. I'm the Lord. And over in Ezekiel, a couple of verses, 2011, I shall give them my statutes and made known to them my rules by which if a person does them, he will live. Verse 13, 2013. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes, but rejected my rules by which if a person does them, he shall live. So life was in keeping the law, and that was a central part of their existence. They were looking to the scribes and the Pharisees as the interpreters of the laws, the scribes were the teachers of it, the Pharisees were the interpreters of it, they were looking to them to bless them and say, Yes, you're keeping the law, because in the law they had life. And that's Jesus' point here is that unless their life exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees, who were at the top of the chain, the teachers and the interpreter of it, then they didn't have salvation. He's saying the law is not going to pass away until every bit of it has been fulfilled. And it is fulfilled through Jesus all the way through to the satisfactory sacrifice that he gave of himself.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

You said a lot of things that are real important. One of the things you said was keeping the law was alive. What's the problem? It brings out in the New Testament epistles.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Is did anybody ever keep it? No, and and that kind of goes along with what he's going to say here. The next part is as you've brought out, if you look at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery. So that I mean that's the next part that he's getting to. So again, his whole sermon here is building up on it. So no.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And so because nobody ever kept it, it didn't bring life, it brought death. And that's Paul and the other writers' message throughout the rest of the New Testament is the law brought death because we couldn't keep it.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

That's exactly what Paul says. The law showed him that he had death.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Matter of fact, in Acts chapter 15, there was a church council where the question was: should the Gentiles be required to be circumcised? With that comes the Mosaic law and things like that. They debated that. And in Acts chapter 15, verse 10, Peter stood up and addressed the first council and said that neither the Jews of that day nor their fathers were able to keep the law. And his point was, we weren't able to keep it. Our fathers were not able to keep it. Why should we burden the Gentiles with keeping this law that we couldn't keep and our fathers couldn't keep? And that was with the letter of the law. Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount raises it to this impossibly high standard. The idea here is that the Mosaic law, is anything wrong with the law? Is it a bad law?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

No. I mean, it gave them instructions in the way that they were to live their life and to also be able to glorify God through it. And there was a lot of good things that were in it, but it was there to show that nobody can keep it 100%.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

In this passage, we just read Matthew 5, 17 through 20, when it talks about the law, he says, Don't think that I came to abolish the law. So one of our questions is, is the Mosaic law in place today? And we have to look at what he said. He said, I did not come to abolish but to what? Fulfill. Fulfill. And then in the end of the next verse, verse 18, nothing shall pass. The old King James said, A jot or a tittle shall not pass until what? All is accomplished. So there's some untills in there. And again, what we said earlier was this Sermon on the Mount was given at what point in Jesus' ministry? At the very beginning.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

And he's then the kingdom is at hand.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

The kingdom was at hand because the king was there. Three years later, he dies on a cross. What was the fulfillment of the law? The fulfillment was Jesus lived his entire life sinless. Sinless. He was able to keep it. He was the one human being that was able to keep the law. This sentence here, this passage in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 17 through 20, was given at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. He keeps the law, he fulfills the law, and then dies on the cross and rises again. We don't get righteousness from keeping the law. I remember I knew a guy in the church I was in once who was really big on reading these authors that were teaching that the Mosaic law was still in place today. And what he held was that the what they called the ceremonial parts of the law, which were the sacrificial system, sacrificing the animals, was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. But this man held that all the other parts of the law we were obligated to keep. And he went on and on about this. I finally got so tired of it. One day I said, Look, it says in the Mosaic Law that not only are you supposed to take off one day in seven, but it says you're supposed to take off a whole year every seventh year. So if you've worked in your job for the last six years, you need to quit your job now today and not work for a whole year, or else you're violating the law. Second thing it says is you're not supposed to use mixed fabric clothing. So if you've got mixed fabric on, you got to go change your wardrobe. It says a lot of other things. What say you? And he says, I don't know. Never thought about that part. So he goes and calls the guy that wrote the books. And I saw him a week or two later at church. I said, Well, what'd the guy say? He said, Well, you got to be reasonable. Now, there's no got to be reasonable about this in the Mosaic Law. It's either do it or not. So the whole point is, even those authors that are claiming that you can't even keep it.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

And they were missing the part of it, the whole point of it. The whole point of the law, giving of the law is you can't keep it. You can't. You have to have a way for that law to be satisfied. We get back to the Jesus as the satisfactory sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

But today, Matthew 5, 17 and 18, he fulfilled it. So therefore, the Mosaic law, we are not held to it as a standard of righteousness. We are held to a much, much higher standard, which is grace. For example, a lot of the Old Testament was the dietary laws. Paul in Romans 14 says, if my food causes somebody else to stumble, then I'm only gonna eat certain things the rest of my life. It's whether it causes somebody else to stumble or not. And he says, some people keep all the days and some people don't. He says, don't cause division. So it's a state of grace that we're in, which is a much higher standard than the Old Testament law. That's why we're not held to the Mosaic Law today. In verse 20, anyone entering the kingdom must have righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. They dealt with the letter of the law. Our righteousness is not measured by whether we keep the Mosaic law. And the entirety of the book of Galatians covers this in an excruciating detail. In the book of Galatians, he pounds it over and over and over about keeping the law. So in Matthew 5, verse 21 and 22, read

Heart Sin Behind The Commandments

SPEAKER_01 18:35

those two verses if you would, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

You've heard that the ancients were told, You shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to 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.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

In verse 27 and 28, he picks up on this same theme. You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And Steve, read verse 38 and 39.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your cheek, turn the other to him also.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

And then in verse 43 and 44, you have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. These passages are keys to interpreting this whole three-chapter section of the Sermon on the Mount. He's taking these Old Testament commandments and giving God's standard for following them. The Jewish leaders, as we've said previously, thought that because they had not actually spilled somebody's blood, that they were not sinful. Jesus is saying, Yes, you are, because you got murder in your heart.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

And it's an exposure that the scribes and the Pharisees had not interpreted the laws correctly.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Now, an eye for an eye meant equal punishment. That's what it meant. People misunderstand. The Old Testament law, eye for an eye meant the neighbor kills my bull, then the most I can go expect is a bull. What I can't do is say, well, you killed my bull, so I'm going to burn down your house and kill your whole family. Well, no. You kill my bull, you you owe me a bull. An eye for an eye meant equal punishment. Jesus is taking this concept of equal punishment and saying that if you're wrong, don't demand justice. Let the evil person wrong you. That's what he's saying. In context, turn the other cheek doesn't mean just ignore a wicked person, but to go to them and offer them, keep abusing me, please. You've slapped me on this side. Okay, now do it over here too. He's taking this to this ridiculously high standard, showing God's ethic here. It's not that I'm going to go to court and get what I'm owed here, an eye for an eye. He said, No, no, no, let them wrong you. And if they take something from you, give them the rest. They steal a dollar, give them your other money. Love your neighbor is a good idea. Loving your enemies is an idea that's way over the top. Notice he's not saying pray against your enemy. He's saying, pray for. Pray that your enemy will prosper. That's what he's saying. Pray for them. He's not saying, God, can you take care of my enemy here? He's saying, no, pray that your enemy will succeed. That's what he's saying. Pray for them, not against them.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And why? Because verse 5, blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Why? Verse 9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. This is all based off of what he started out with as well. So the sermon builds upon itself.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

So the answer is can anyone really do this? No. And I submit no. We couldn't do the help. Not without help. Not without help. Now I submit that being gentle and not fighting back, and there's a place for being. A peaceful person and there's a place for praying for your enemies. I've heard people give testimonies where people have been won to Christ because of some of these things where they hit me and I didn't fight back. But I submit the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to have an ethic about these things that's so high that nobody can really keep it. What Jesus is doing is to get everyone to realize they cannot get to heaven by keeping rules. Get everyone to realize that they're sinners in need of a savior, and get everyone to fall on their knees and beg God for mercy. Because we can't live to this wonderfully high ethic. Key concept here in the Sermon on the Mount.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

So I think one of the things you're saying is that if somebody has done you wrong and you say, Well, I'm going to do what the scripture says, what Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount, I'm going to turn the other cheek, that you're missing the point. That the point is that's God's standard, but it's not man's standard. And that you can't do it. Maybe you can do it one time, maybe you can do it another, maybe, but maybe it comes to a point that the person that offends you is so egregious that you just can't stand by and turn the other cheek. Your point is that this is pointing out it's God's standard, and you're not going to be able to keep it.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Exactly. You may be able to keep part of it, but there's no way to keep all of this. That's the point.

Reconcile Quickly And Take Sin Seriously

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Now go back to verse 23. Talks about presenting your offering before the altar, and then you have an issue with your brother, and he said, Stop, you know, and before you get to the altar and go take care of it before you go and do your worship. Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you're with them on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

So, what's the main point of that passage? It's to make sure that there's peace between you and your fellow brother, meaning a brother in Christ, in this case, fellow brother of Jewish. But I do want to point out in 23 that it's not if you have an offense against the brother, go make it. It says there, and that you remember that your brother has something against you. You need to stop your giving and do it now.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And do it now. Don't let the sun go down on that. Fix that before you do go any further in life. What happens when we don't settle disagreements quickly?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

They fester, just like a wound that you don't take care of. It just festers into something that can turn bad and ugly.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

They tend to get worse. The end of verse 25 talks about going before a judge and being thrown into prison. You have to understand there, they had debtor prisons. It's not really a spiritual application that deals with salvation. That's not really what that judge there in that passage is. He's only dealing with debts. He's dealing with debts between people. He's not talking about heaven, hell, purgatory, you know, getting out of purgatory. That's not really what that passage is about at all. They had debtor prisons. And he's saying to go settle this issue so you don't end up in in debtor prison. Now, read verses 29 and 30.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your hand makes you stumble, cut it off, throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of your parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

How serious does God view sin?

SPEAKER_00 25:14

This is hyperbolic language, it's hyperbole, but it shows that it is serious. It's serious enough that you've got to take care of it. And if you don't, then it's gonna give you a problem.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

How radical should we be when we try to get rid of sin in our lives?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Excise it immediately and do everything you can to get it out.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

What happens when I've been a slave to a particular sin and I try to control it in my own strength?

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

I always fail. We know we'll get tempted by a particular sin. What should we do?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Get rid of the sin.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Cut it out of our lives. That's really what he's saying here. Is if you've got this issue, then cut it out of your life. Now, the next one, very serious here,

Divorce Text Read With Context

SPEAKER_01 25:55

is the issue of divorce. And we purposely put it here simply because, with all of that background, so that we can know a tool here for interpreting this next section. Matthew chapter 5, verse 31 and 32 says this it was said, Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchasted, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Now, with that, we have to first of all know a little bit about the quotation that he gave in the Old Testament. Verse 31, he's quoting the Old Testament. There's a passage there where he talks about divorce in Deuteronomy chapter 24, the first four verses. And if you read that passage in Deuteronomy 24, what it's actually saying is that if man number one divorces his wife, he has to give her a certificate. And then if man number two marries her and also divorces her, she can't go back to the first one. The reason for that was so that the men wouldn't pass the women around like property. Here, you can have her a while, you get tired of her, give her back. So the reason for the certificate was to protect the woman. She could have the certificate and say, No, you divorced me. You're not gonna pass me around like a piece of property. See, I have a certificate here that says you divorced me and you're not gonna do it again. That was the purpose for it. It didn't say you had to get divorced, it just put this rule in place to protect the women from being taken advantage of. That's the background here. Just like all the other commands, like adultery and murder, Jesus raises the standard to this really high standard. That's where we get divorced here. And again, the reason why we have to understand the context of the Sermon on the Mount, we spent so much time doing it, is so when we get to passages like this that mean so much to our audience, we can now have a tool of interpretation that'll help us a bit. 31 and 32 say, Oh, the Old Testament had this rule about the certificate of divorce, but I say you can't get divorced except for immorality, which even above and beyond what Deuteronomy 24 said. And if you do, it's making her commit adultery. And really the command here from Jesus is more about remarriage than adultery. If you marry a divorced woman, commits adultery. Now, first thing is I didn't say that. So don't blame me. It's here in red and white. What he's doing is he's giving a standard that is God's level for a family.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

It's in line with everything else that he's been talking about. It's not something separate. It's in line with what we've been talking about, showing what God's standard is.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

And what we can't really do and we get in trouble is if we have a lesson on marriage and we just turn to this passage and we don't understand the context of the Sermon on the Mount and how he's elevating these standards to this really, really high standard. I'll say this. I taught at my church a 30-year-old and older singles class for four and a half years, and two-thirds of the class had been through divorce. I realized from that there are a lot of people in the world that have a lot of pain in their marriages. There were people in there that had a lot of emotional pain. There were people in there that had experienced physical pain, that had some physical abuse. I can say that the emotional pain is as painful as the physical pain. I can also say from being in churches and being around Christian people that it's really easy for those of us that have good marriages to pull out passages like this and use it as a bludgeon over the marriages of other people. We really shouldn't do that simply because we're not in those marriages and we don't know the level of pain that they're going through. I just would encourage our audience to take a little bit of humility and gentleness and mercy that it says at the beginning of this chapter and not use passages like this to bludgeon people over the head. As a Bible teacher, I've never gone to anyone and used it as a, oh, you're doing wrong because you're getting divorced. I take this as a command of them. If they want to take it and apply that to their lives, then great. If they ask me what it means, I'm not going to cut corners, I'm not going to jump over it or duck under it. We go right through. He says here in red and white that if you divorce someone, you're causing them to commit adultery. And if you marry a divorced person, you are committing adultery. And I don't slack off from that one bit. It's a clear command. But it's in the context of a passage that's also telling you to pull out your eye and cut off your hand. And it's telling you that if you even think somebody's a fool, you're gonna go to hell. And it's in all these other passages that are raising this ethic so high that really what we should do is fall down on our knees and beg God for mercy because none of us can live this. I know that our families are very important, and we don't want to encourage divorce. There's also a lot of pain, and we don't really need to be going around and telling other people what they ought to be doing in their marriage other than what's written here.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

You're keeping it in the context of the overall sermon. It's not one thing that you pull out and hold it up. Everything that we've been talking about is it's showing it from God's perspective, number one, all of these. And number two is it's also showing and demonstrating nobody's going to be able to keep any of them. We need a way of salvation, we need a way for these sins to be forgiven of us, and we do. That's the purpose of the sermon, the main purpose. And as you've pointed out, the very last verse, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, be complete as your heavenly father is complete. There's no way I can do that on my own. Nobody can't do it on our own. The emphasis is on what is the sermon about? What is the purpose of the sermon? And and we've explained that many times.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

They're good commands, not slacking off on these at all. These are great. It's just, you know, try to live

Simple Truth And The Extra Mile

SPEAKER_01 32:12

it, and all you're gonna do is end up in frustration. Verse 33 to 37 is a section where it talks about swearing oaths, and he says to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, don't swear an oath. But we have to understand this is not talking about like you you smash your thumb with a hammer and you yell out a curse word. That's not really what he's talking about. You shouldn't do that, but that's not really what this passage is talking about. This passage is talking about, I don't hear it as much anymore, but occasionally used to hear people say things like, Well, I'm telling the truth. Well, how do I know you're telling the truth? Well, by my grandmother's grave, I'm telling the truth, or by my father's name, or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Or I swear on the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

That's what we used to say when I was a kid, is I swear on a stack of Bibles. And that's what he's saying. And the reason is he's saying in verse 37, let your yes be yes and your no be no. And the reason ought to be well, if I'm swearing on my grandmother's grave, well, what happens if you're not swearing on your grandmother's grave? Are you are you lying then? No, he said, just tell the truth. However, it does come up. What do you do when you swear in court? When you testify in court, and oftentimes they'll ask you, Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth? I actually testified in court at one point. This came up and I thought about this exact passage. The judge that was swearing me in said, Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth? And I merely said, I affirm that I will tell the truth. And he accepted that. So don't have to make a big deal. You can still go into court. And then in verse 38, talks about the eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. We kind of talked about this already. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go more. If somebody asks you for your shirt, give them your coat also, and is telling you to be generous with those who ask of you. What it's not saying to do is I've seen people with family members that were like drug addicts that keep coming asking for money, asking for money, asking for money. Don't give them money. All you're doing is enabling them. There comes a point where you have to say, I'm not going to loan you this because you're just going to go use it for drugs.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

And the context there of verse 41, whoever forces you to go one mile, they were under Roman occupation, and the Roman soldiers had the ability to say, You over there, come grab my equipment, and you had to go for a mile, but they couldn't take you more than a mile. They'd have to go grab somebody else. Hey, you, you come over here and grab my equipment and carry it for me. So this is just saying is that when you're forced, if the Roman soldier comes over and says, carry my equipment for a mile, offer to take it the extra mile. He's using various types of examples from all forms of life and all areas of life.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

These are for interpersonal relationships from God's ethic. And it doesn't preclude, as we said, things like serving in the military or things like that. It's really not what any of this is talking about.

Be Perfect And Run To Grace

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At the last verse at the end of chapter five sums it up. Therefore, you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. And I submit to you, no human can do that. If there's any question at all about being able to keep the rest of it, all I can say is good luck if you're trying to actually be as perfect as God because you want. The purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to drive us to our knees, which is what he wants, is to depend on him and not on our own righteousness. The Jews thought if I just work hard enough, I can please God. And Jesus' purpose for the Sermon on the Mount is no, you can't. Real good place to stop for today. There's two more great chapters in the Sermon on the Mount, chapters six and seven. And we'll get to those next time on reasoning through the Bible.