Mathew 5:17-26

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Matthew 5:17-26

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass [cf. Revelation 20:14-15; 21:1], one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: but whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath aught against thee: leave thy gift before the altar, go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say to thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

The Most Powerful Sermon in the World,

part 1

“Good morning. Let’s turn in our Bibles to Matthew chapter 5…We’ve been studying Matthew, you know just a little while ago we studied the Christmas narrative. We’re kind of coming into that part of the season again, and next week we’ll stop as we do each year and have our Christmas service and consider the Christmas narrative. But we just saw it a little while ago, as we go expository, verse by verse through the entire Word of God. And having just been in Matthew a number of weeks we saw chapter 2 and considered chapter 1 and chapter 2 and the birth of Jesus Christ. Now as we noted, Matthew is writing this Gospel, he’s collected this information, and he’s being led by the Spirit. He’s seeking to demonstrate, especially to the Jew that Jesus [Yeshua] is indeed the Messiah, he’s the Christ. So he lays out aspects of that from his birth, supernatural birth to just prophecies about him, just his lineage and all these things, This is the Messiah, Jesus, he’s a unique individual, he’s divine, he’s the Son of God. And as he’s laying that out, he also now comes to that part of his teaching, and we’ll see different times where Matthew’s collected his teaching together, and of course his [Jesus’] teaching was very unique, the things that he said, the way he expounded on the Law of God, unlike any other. He just had such wisdom and authority when he taught. And so we now again go here into Matthew chapter 5 and we pick up where we left off last week, and it’s the Sermon on the Mount. Now as you remember, there’s a multitude of people, we saw that in the beginning of the chapter a number of weeks ago, multitudes of people. Although Jesus is predominantly speaking to his disciples. But there’s a multitude, and they’re there on the side of the mountain overlooking the Sea of Galilee. We were looking at a photograph of it, maybe you noticed it, if you’re eyes were open during the worship, but as we were singing the songs, there was this picture of hills, very pretty picture, maybe there’s a cloud between, or maybe it’s a body of water, but it’s like that on the Sea of Galilee. You’ve got these hills and mountains around and then you have this body of water. So there, in your mind’s eye, there’s a multitude of people, and here’s this Rabbi, this Teacher, Yeshua, Jesus teaching authoritatively the Word of God. Now gathered before him in my mind’s eye too, there’s all sorts of different ethnic groups, and multitudes, there’s the poor, there’s the rich. But also in some areas, I think of the movie The Passion of Christ, you know, the religious leaders, and the way they were dressed. And in my mind’s eye I see the crowds seated, and then there’s these religious leaders. Of course they’re the religious leaders, the spiritual elite. And when these guys come on the scene you give them the proper respect, I mean, they are “the dudes,” they are “the guys.” And they know they are, and everybody knows they are. And they’re standing there. But when Jesus looks at these people, he doesn’t see the phylacteries and the prayer-shawls and all that, he doesn’t see the peasant in his lack of clothes or the religious leader in his supposedly spiritual appearance, what he sees is the heart, and he sees things very differently. And so as we’ve been seeing, he lays out what a real spiritual person is as opposed to one who isn’t a spiritual person. In fact, just a little earlier, in stating the things we’re going to look at today, he stated these things just before, and you might remember this, we noted this in Luke chapter 6, he teaches the Beatitudes, what we call the Beatitudes, this blessed life. And then right after that he follows it up with the woes. And we noted those woes before. And when he said these woes [found in Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6:24-26], I believe he was especially addressing the prideful hearts before him, especially these religious leaders. Of coarse others too, but these guys that are standing there thinking they’re something. He loves them, of course, but he’s trying to get through their hard hearts and show them their great need for salvation and their need for him, they were missing the mark. So earlier he said this to them (in Luke’s account), ‘Woe to you who are rich, woe to you who are full, woe to you who laugh now’ meaning, for those of you who think you are at such a place spiritually, apart from me, that you think you are on good standing with God. ‘Woe to you who don’t recognize your true spiritual condition before a perfect and holy God.’ And as he went on to say, ‘Woe to you, and if something doesn’t drastically change soon, you’ve already received your consolation, and you shall hunger, and you shall mourn and weep.’ So, woe to you, confronting this spiritual pride he saw in their hearts. And this pride is very blinding, pride is that way, it’s hard for us to see our own pride. And these folks that are listening to him, even these religious leaders and others in the crowd, they may think that he’s saying the things that he is, and this is intriguing, this is interesting, but of course they didn’t even realize that when he said ‘Woe to you’, that Jesus was speaking to them. And when he spoke of this blessed wonderful godly life, I’m sure they were thinking ‘That’s me. I fulfill those things.’ Yet Jesus looks and he sees this is not the way it is, it’s not the way it is at all. And so, as he sees their blindness, as he sees their prideful religious egos, he now to me seems to go even deeper. I mean, he loves them, he wants to get through to them. He wants them to realize how much they need him, and how far they are from where they think they are as far as being with God. You know, I think of Jeremiah, God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah, and speaking of the Word of God I think of this verse with what we’re going to study here. God said, “Is not my word like a fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.” And God’s Word can be that way, breaking the rock in pieces, and there are rock hard hearts that are there before him. And it’s as if he’s beginning to, he’s turning on that spiritual jack-hammer and he’s putting it up against their hearts, and trying to get through to these guys and gals that are not realizing their true condition. He wants their eyes to open, he wants to see that man, back to poor in spirit, you need to be there first, and you don’t have anything good to give to God, and you are spiritually in a desperate condition, you need to turn to God and cry out to him for his grace and mercy, and receive from him his righteousness and his life. Well, as we get started, maybe the Lord wants to do some work like that in our hearts too, maybe, you know, pride, it’s so hard to see, so hard for us to see. We’re like the last ones to guess that we have issues of pride in our heart. And maybe God wants to turn on that spiritual jack-hammer in a sense, ‘I love you, I want you to realize things, I want to get through to you.’ And if that be the case, may the Lord open our eyes and our hearts. And let’s just join our hearts now in prayer and ask the Lord to lead us and speak to us. ‘Lord, we thank you that we can study these verses together today, and as we gather, it is true so often the stance of man, the nature of man is to be prideful. And often we think we’re better off than we are, that’s often the case, and pride, man, we’re the last ones to see it. Lord, we know what’s important is what you see, so give us eyes to see and ears to hear what you see and what you want to say to us. And where there might be pride in some of our hearts, we pray God that by the time we’re done, there’d be a realization of that, and then a repentance in a true sincere humility. And maybe some are even gathered here that are somewhat like these religious leaders in the time of Christ, that they think they’re on a certain standing with you, and yet they’re so far from it, so far from it, and if there are people even here now that have trusted in just a religious experience and tradition and something else other than you solely, I pray God that in your grace that you’d get through to them and reveal where they stand, as it’s so imperative, so important. And Holy Spirit, we pray you’d be upon all of us as we go now through your Word, and upon myself also, in Jesus name, amen.’

“I did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets”---what does that mean?

Verses 17-20, “Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets, I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law, till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will be no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now there are some shocking words, man. That spiritual jack-hammer is definitely at work there. Jesus has come with a radically different message than what man is used to hearing, used to hearing being taught by the various religious leaders. Yet as you see here, what he teaches is 100 percent consistent in every way with the Law of God that’s been spoken of from the very beginning. And that’s the point he’s making. [Yeshua, a contraction of Yahweh-shua, is the very one who originally spoke the Law on Mount Sinai.] Although the trouble is, man has often chosen to reinterpret the Word of God, and isn’t comfortable exactly, or doesn’t understand, so he tries to mold and shape the Law of God to fit his own desires, fit his own system, fit his own experience, meet his own requirements. And so often making it even into a religious system---a religious system that we’re comfortable with, that I can attain to, that I can by my own merit achieve. And so for this reason, as Jesus states the things he does now, it would appear to the people that are listening at this point in time, that it’s pretty radical what he’s saying. This is maybe even contrary to what we’ve been hearing as the Law of God to the traditions and things that have been taught to us. Now in Jesus’ day there was no printing press, so not like today where we have just the written Word of God so readily available to us. In that time the written Word of God wasn’t available in most cases to the common man. You know, it was a painstaking process for the religious scribe to make a copy of the Law, and in addition to that, it was written in Hebrew, and after the Exile [Babylonian Exile, 605BC] there were many that didn’t even speak Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic. So many were standing before the Lord at this time that don’t even, you know, if they had the written Law it wouldn’t even be in their own language. Hence, the teachers of the Law had a great responsibility, and that is that they had to insure and to teach the Word so that the masses understood the Word and knew the will and heart of God. Of course, so vital. But the problem was, for various reasons, they weren’t doing that. They were teaching something very different. They had grossly reinterpreted and repackaged the Word of God, setting up this codified complex legal system that rather than bring people into a vibrant walk with God, just a spiritual intimacy, they brought people into a spiritual religious bondage. And you know, that’s been the problem from the beginning, hasn’t it? I mean, this is the example then, but it happens all the time, and it has throughout history, certainly even in the modern day, where supposed religious leaders and teachers who say they’re expounding wisdom or the Word of God, and saying that they have supposed authority from God, yet what they’ve done rather than speaking the heart of God, they’ve come up with some kind of system of tradition and teachings that are so far from the heart and truth of God. And so as a result, people are being given a false understanding of God and what he requires of them, you know, that he requires more than just two Sundays a year attendance, or more than an infant baptism, or more than a church certificate. What he requires really is your heart and your life. And so, in the time of Christ that’s been the situation. So Jesus, Yeshua now comes, the Messiah [Hebrew haMeshiach], the Christ, he comes on the scene. He’s the Word himself [cf. John 1:1-14], and he powerfully expounds upon the Word, and yet, it seems so new and so different. And so no doubt, because of some, there’s accusations that are beginning to fly, ‘Hey, this is destructive, you don’t want to listen to this. This is not good. This is bad news.’ You know, those in the ‘spiritual know’ as they thought, they’re wondering ‘Whose this Jesus, this guy’s authority, where’s it coming from, he wasn’t part of our schools, yeshivas, wasn’t trained by one of us? I mean, what’s he saying, where’s he coming from?’ Well it’s now that Jesus more and more discerning their hearts, that he begins to address right at that, addresses these concerns, these confusions, and he says ‘You know it may sound this way to you, it may sound that this is different, but you need to understand what I am teaching, what I am saying is completely consistent with the Law of God. It has been from the beginning.’ And as he says in verse 17, ‘I’ve not come to nullify or destroy the Law but rather I’m here to fulfill the Law.’ And it is true, that the Word of God is fulfilled in Jesus in every way. I mean, Jesus is the Word himself, so that all that he does, all that he says and all that he is, is completely entirely in harmony with the Word of God. And when he says here that he comes to fulfill the Law, he’s saying that he literally came to achieve it’s final purpose, in fact, he’s the very substance of the Law himself. He’s not destroying it, he’s not nullifying it, but rather he’s what the end of the Law was intended for, it’s him. ‘Now I didn’t come to destroy it, but came to fulfill.’ I mean, he fulfilled it in every possible way. He fulfilled it ceremonially as far as the ceremonial laws, all of those ceremonies, you know, you study through Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and it gets a bit tedious, but it’s all pointing to him, speaking of him and his life. He fulfilled the moral law. Nobody ever has. He fulfilled it perfectly, the written moral law of God, perfectly. He fulfilled the many types and prophecies that are laid out in the Old Testament. And then again, his teaching, just the heart of it, he’s fulfilling the Law as he teaches, the very heart and purpose of the commands of God, he’s showing what that is. [Comment: There’s a prophecy found in the Old Testament that the coming Messiah would magnify the Law of God. Matthew chapter 5 contains that magnification, where Jesus brings the true intent of the Law of God to light.] And especially important as we continue to go through Matthew, we’ll see that his death on the cross, and three days later his resurrection, would also fulfill the very requirements of the Law. And that so wonderfully and so powerfully then has also brought something to my life, meaning by fulfilling the requirements of the Law, he’s now made it possible for you and I to fulfill the requirements of the Law. [i.e. He’s paid for all our sins, the penalties for our breaking of God’s Law, and also through Jesus dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit, he actually gives us the ability to more perfectly obey God’s Law. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/galatians/Galatians5-1-26.htm.] So when it says fulfill, I mean, it means fill to the full. That’s what he’s done. He’s made it possible for you and I to now live according to the Law, and without him, it is completely impossible to fulfill the Law.

Before Christ came, what was the purpose of the Law?---it’s a spiritual mirror showing people they need Christ, and sanctification through the Spirit

Nobody can do it without Jesus Christ. Now, with that, then maybe the question is, if there is one in your mind, if Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law, and without him I could not fulfill the Law, why was the Law here before? Why did it exist for centuries before? Well Paul makes that clear in his letter to the church in Rome, and we’ll just note this briefly, because this is important. Romans chapter 3, verse 19, “Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” He says, the law is there to make everybody stop. You know, man in his way is saying ‘I’m better than you’, or ‘I’ve got this, I’ve got that’, and if we’re honest and let the law show us what it shows, it makes me just silent before God, it humbles me, it shows me that I am a desperate and evil wicked sinner. The Law reveals to me I’m a sinner and I fall short of the glory of God, and that I need some desperate intervention. Also, Paul said to the church in Galatia, Galatians chapter 3, verse 24, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” Meaning, the law shows me my condition, and therefore, I’m in the place, it starts to drive me and force me to looking for answers, and ultimately brings me to Jesus, and I go ‘Oh, there’s my answer. I’m in a predicament, and I need help.’ And I find it’s Jesus Christ himself, I need a Savior, he’s my Savior, and it’s only through him that I have eternal life. And then furthermore, now coming to Jesus and receiving him, it’s then that I receive the Spirit, and as the Word of God goes on to say, it’s through the Spirit that I’m now able to fulfill the Law. [Be sure to see http://www.unityinchrist.com/galatians/Galatians5-1-26.htm for more elaboration on this subject of the Sanctification of the Spirit, and how it works.] Romans chapter 8, verse 4, “That the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” You might be trying to make this right in your life, and make that right, and trying to get this in order, and man, your not going to get there by yourself. It’s by the Spirit of God in me, now I’m able to fulfill the Law of God. Now I go through that. Do you understand that? It’s so vital that we understand. Because so often, man, by our nature, we’re thinking about it differently, we’re thinking about the Law in the context ‘Well I’ve done a lot of good, a little bad, and I’m on good standing because I’ve done a lot of good, and just a little bad. And before you God clearly I please you. Yeah, there’s a couple things in there, but look at all the good that I do, and all the bad I don’t do. And therefore I must be pleasing in your site and I must be on my way to heaven.’ No, as we see in the Word of God and the Law of God, and what Jesus is saying here, to those that are seated before him, no doubt there are people thinking that right now. But he’s now going to go deep beyond that pride, and deep into the hardness, and show that everybody is guilty of breaking the Law of God, every single person that’s ever lived. And if you’re guilty of breaking the Law of God, then you are under the penalty, the condemnation of the Law. That means you are under a death sentence, and the wages of sin is death and that’s eternal separation from God. [Comment: the apostle John gave a classic definition of what sin is. 1^st John 3:4, “Sin is the transgression of the law.” In Romans 6:23, the apostle Paul said, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”] Now that’s important, he wants them to appreciate that and see that. I think of the famous Massachusetts senator, senator Daniel Webster. He’s the guy, that when he began to learn that, he appreciated that that was taught to him. He used to be as a senator down in the Washington area and attend church services down there, and the way it was there, not unlike today, evidently the guys were dynamic, really impressive in the way they taught, yet they taught the politically correct way. It existed certainly a long time ago. And so he would go, and it would be ‘Daniel Webster, ah, impressive statesman, ah, many achievements, such a good man, a good position.’ Well it didn’t do much for him, so he’d get bored and wouldn’t tune in. Well he was on a summer vacation in New Hampshire, and looking for a church, found a little country church. And this was different, this little country preacher was different, and really grabbed his attention. Well a niece, noting him attending this little church, said “Why are you going there? The way you are down there in the church in Washington, you don’t seem too impressed, why are you at this little church?” Well he replied, “In Washington, they preach to Daniel Webster the statesman. But this man has been telling Daniel Webster the sinner about Jesus of Nazareth.” And that’s what’s going on here. You know, these folks, even the religious leader, ‘ah, so impressive, Daniel Webster sitting in my audience.’ And Jesus is coming out now and saying ‘You’re a sinner. Let me tell you about why I’m here, and what you need in your life.’ And maybe you’ve had that as a past, you’ve been told one thing and understood one thing, and you’re out of balance, you’re thinking your at one place spiritually, when you’re at another. If that is you, listen to what Jesus is saying here. Jesus has come to fulfill the Law and not to destroy it. And that is to fulfill it even for us, so that we can then fulfill the law. But also, the wages of sin is death, we’ve all broken the law. But when Jesus came to fulfill it he also provided he means for you and I to be delivered from the curse of the law, the penalty. Paul again said to the church in Galatia “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written ‘Cursed is every man that hangs on a tree’), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). [Comment: he’s not saying the law itself was a curse, like some preachers mistakenly preach. The curse of the law is the death-penalty attached to it for the breaking of it. Christ has paid the penalty for us. Then through the indwelling Holy Spirit he places within believers, the Holy Spirit grants us with ever increasing ability to obey the Law of God. This is called the sanctification of the Spirit.] Through faith, not through works, he’s paid the penalty, there’s now hope, there’s salvation, there’s forgiveness. The Law says you’re a sinner, and he’s paid the price so that I can now be redeemed from wages of sin, which is death. And now through faith I have life.

The commandments of God are going to be fulfilled

Well, as he continues, “I didn’t come to destroy, I came to fulfill”, he now reveals that it is imperative that we understand that every commandment of God is going to be fulfilled, and there’s no exceptions. Verse 18, “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” What God has said, every piece of it, little or small in a human’s eyes, every piece of it, is going to be fulfilled. There is nothing that is just going to pass away. In fact, as he describes it there in verse 18, not even the smallest of what we would say ‘portion’, I mean, every little thing, he says the “jot” or in the Greek the iota, that is the smallest Greek vowel, can also be referring to the smallest Hebrew letter, the Yod, or the tittle, which is in Latin the tilius, came to mean the ‘stroke’ above an abbreviated word. And so any little tiny mark, he says “None of that is going to fade away without accomplishing it’s purpose.” Everything is going to be accomplished that God has said would, every little piece. Interesting there are people who in Jesus time were teaching that the guilt of altering one of these little marks in the Law of God, if somebody was to do that, it was so great of a guilt, that if it was done the whole world would be destroyed. I mean, that’s how some viewed it. Don’t even mess with it, you take one of those little tittle’s off or jots off, the world’s coming to an end, this is the Law of God. [Comment: The requirements for copying the Torah were so strict, that if a copy was found with one mistake in copying, that copy would be burned.] And so Jesus says “Till heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest portion of the Law is going to pass away, till it is all fulfilled. [Comment: And when would that be? Turn to Revelation 20:14-15. That describes Gehenna fire. The Gehenna fire that the Bible calls hell, is really where God sets the whole world (and universe) on fire, and melts them down. Then in the very next verse, found in Revelation 21:1, Jesus told John that he has now made the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus is saying here in verse 18, that not until that event, when there will be no more physical humans on earth, that’s the time Jesus is referring to in Matthew 5:17-18. Some misguided preachers have made the huge doctrinal error of saying the Law of God has been nailed to the cross, or that it has been done away with. I don’t see Jesus saying that here, nor does this pastor giving this sermon.] As God said through Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 8, “…the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” Now if that is true, then what should be your attitude, what should be my attitude towards the Word of God? If it is that completely trustworthy, are we being foolish not seeking to understand it, and live by it? And if I can only fulfill it through Jesus Christ, then shouldn’t I then be seeking him and his power to do that? But every little piece is going to be fulfilled, none of it just flies by. No, that’s not the case with man’s law, we seek to obey man’s law. But man’s law is very different, and sometimes that’s why maybe we get deceived about obeying the law as far as obeying God’s Word. Our landlord in this facility, a year or so ago I was with him, and you know there was an elevator installed, part of our agreement in this whole situation in this building was we need to get an elevator. But I didn’t realize this, but as I was standing with him, there was the elevator company, and we’re talking about the elevator, and evidently as he was getting ready to do it, the building code, the laws said you needed to install this certain safety device with an elevator. Now that little deal was very expensive, if I recall correctly a couple grand, a few grand. And also it was a bit of work putting it in, so it costs a lot of money, this little piece, had to be in there, safety mechanism. So ok, that’s what we’ve got to do, so we put it in. Well I didn’t even know if the elevator was done yet, working, or was shortly after, then the building code came forth, and was changed, and said ‘You must remove this safety thing, or you’re not conforming to the law anymore, so you gotta take this thing out.’ And so as we’re standing there, he says, ‘We just spent thousands for this, and the thing’s like brand new, and now in order to conform to the law, we gotta take it out.’ Now, we live in a world like that, and we get to think sometimes it’s that way [with God’s Word and Law], that it’s, you know, well it’s alright, you miss a little bit. But Jesus is coming and saying, “every jot, every tittle, every little piece of the Word will be fulfilled”. And therefore what are you going to do about it, how are you going to view it? What’s your attitude about it? Now, there’s therefore no taking a risk, there’s no taking any chances, if that’s going to be the case, I mean, we need to really consider it and seek to live by it [i.e. God’s Law].

The importance of obeying God’s Word and teaching it correctly

Verse 19, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Now with that, he then goes on in verse 19 and shows the importance then of obeying the Word, and also teaching it accurately. Right, verse 19. There is a grave danger. I mean, if somebody (i.e. a believer) breaks the law, and then teaches others to do that, there’s a grave danger in that. As opposed, then, I mean it’s so powerful, if you obey and teach others to obey, there’s a great blessing. That’s what he says. To the former who disobeys and breaks the law, even the least of the law, he will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, and to those who obey and teach others, they’ll be called great in the kingdom of heaven. So, the importance, this is the law, it’s always going to stand, it’s never going to fade away, all of it will be accomplished, so therefore it’s so important that you seek to obey and also understand, and if you’re teaching it, that you teach it accurately. Now today, just like in the time of Christ, we have many people who because of deception, maybe because of pride, or personal hidden motives, maybe the desire to win other’s approval, they are clearly not teaching the Word correctly, they’ve misinterpreted it. They’re teaching it erroneously. And ultimately God knows who they are. Some today are saying this lifestyle is acceptable, this lifestyle is ordained by God, and yet the Word of God says that’s an abomination. And that’s a grave danger, not only for the person teaching it, but also for the person hearing it. They’re being misled. And you want to know what God says, because it’s gonna be fulfilled. There are those that are saying ‘Well Jesus, he’s important, he’s a prophet, he’s a good guy, but he’s not divine.’ And someone may be saying these things, false teachings like ‘There’s room, other ways to get to God, other ways to get to heaven, this isn’t the only deal, it’s not what the Bible means.’ But as we go on, and we study the Word of God, we find it teaches otherwise. Jesus says “I am the only way, and I’m it, and I’m the Son of God, that’s because I died on the cross for your sin.” Nobody else has done that. [Comment: the Bible clearly reveals that Jesus, Yeshua, in his pre-incarnate days was none other than Yahweh. Read John 1:1-14. His very name in Hebrew, Yeshua, is a contraction of the two Hebrew words, Yahweh and shua, Yahweh-shua, contracted to Yeshua. Jesus told the Pharisees that he was the great I AM in John 8:58-59. Jesus here claimed to be the Great I AM. In Exodus 3:13-14, the Torah identifies who I AM was, the God of Israel, Yahweh, that took the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. Read those verses if you doubt me or that Jesus is God, God the Son, the One that was and is I AM, Yahweh.] Folks may be teaching erroneously, and believing erroneously, and thinking that that’s OK, but they’re going to find out, as Jesus says, that’s not OK, you’re going to realize it in the end. [Comment: Now there’s a certain part of the body of Christ---the Sabbatarian Churches of God---that do not properly understand the new covenant, especially the terms of the new covenant, which legislates that during the period of the Church age, between the time of Christ’s 1^st and 2^nd comings, that “days of worship” have been made an optional choice. These people, not understanding that the Old Testament Sabbath command, the 4^th Commandment, and the Holy Days of Leviticus 23 have been made an optional choice as to whether to keep them or some other days of worship, as Gentile Christians have for almost 1700 years, have chosen to obey the Old Testament 10-Commandment Law of God, including the Holy Days of Leviticus 23. The Law of Christ is the Law of God the New Testament commands for believers, if their Christian consciences can accept the truth about the freedoms of the new covenant in this area (cf. Romans 14:5-6, 22-23), which commands nine of the ten commandments, and even expands on them, bringing them to their spiritual intent, as we’ll see as we go further into Matthew chapter 5, but it nowhere mentions the 7^th Day Sabbath as being a command. See a whole section that deals with this subject at http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm. When Jesus returns, it and the Old Testament Holy Days of Leviticus 23 will be commands the church and world will yet again keep. So these Sabbatarian Churches of God, not having a good understanding about the freedoms of choice the new covenant grants Christians in the Church age, and due to their Christian conscience, follow the whole Ten Commandment law of God, now brought to it’s spiritual level taught by Jesus in Matthew 5:17-48. They obey from the Holy Spirit who is within them, and not on their own, and their faith is real. Due to misunderstandings, they have been termed legalists, when it is only on “days of worship” they choose out of Christian conscience to disagree. These folks came from a very ancient extraction of Messianic Judaism, which existed in Judea and Asia Minor before the 300s AD. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/index3.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/revivals.htm for more on this particular part of the body of Christ. They are a genuine part of the body of Christ, and have usually been misjudged by their Gentile Christian brothers and sisters in Christ due to a lack of proper understanding of who they really are. Their respect for the Law of God usually exceeds that found in most Gentile Christian churches, and they tend to follow the spirit of the Law laid out by Jesus in Matthew 5 explicitly. They won’t even join the military, because you have to hate your enemy in order to fight in a war, and this goes against Jesus command to not hate your enemies, but to love them instead. And to those of you who like to label them as legalists, their obedience is empowered richly by the Holy Spirit who indwells them. Shame on you if you continue to misjudge these folk.] Sometimes too, we as Christians can think that ‘Well, you know, least of his commands, some of it I can let slide, there are more important things, and there are less important things when it comes to the Word of God, and so if I’m right on the big ones, I’ll be ok, I can let some things slide on the little ones. And you look at what he says here, “Whoever breaks the least of these commandments”, the least. There’s many examples. I think of our world, this is a challenge for people today a lot, my heart goes out to them, but folks will come to Christ, and in our culture the family is coming apart, we have different messages (in our society) about purity, so folks will be told. ‘Hey, live together, try it out, man, don’t get married, live together for awhile. So now they come to Christ. They’re now believers, and then they realize, they’re reading the big commands, ‘No, wait a minute, sexual purity, I don’t want to break that one, that’s a big one.’ And so these young believers start to work on that situation, and then God says ‘Well, wait a minute, you’re still living together, yeah, purity is important, but what about your witness?’ And there’s a temptation in our nature to say ‘Well, that’s a little thing.’ [By the way, statistics have just come out showing that living together just about dooms the marital relationship that may come after it. See http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,532600,00.html] ‘Yeah, we’re living purely, but my witness, well, you know that’s somebody else’s challenge, that’s not my challenge.’ And God obviously sees, I mean, look how far we’ve come. But Jesus says whoever breaks the least of these, I mean, all of it, it’s so vital to the Lord and so important. In fact, just follow, look where he’s heading, go to the end of the chapter, verse 48. This is what he’s saying to these people, because the heart of man says ‘I’m OK, I’m making it, I’m cutting it, and I’m doing better than I was, and I’m doing better than Joe over there.’ And Jesus says, ‘This is the issue, you’re a sinner, and you need to realize it, and you need my grace.’ Verse 48 of chapter 5, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” [Or as the King James says, “Therefore become ye perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”] That’s the standard, perfect, in every way, that’s where it’s heading. So he’s hammering away, he’s trying to get through to hard hearts, get through to people who are trying to reason it another way.

The standard for believers is set by this verse

And then he says something in verse 20 that’s shocking, that’s shocking. Verse 20, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” I mean, The Passion of the Christ, imagine those guys all dressed up, standing there. And I mean, people have cleared the way when they show up, you got a little extra grass because you’re one of those guys, I give you the proper respect, you’re the religious leader, you’re the dude, you’re the elite, you’re the spiritual Marine, and Jesus comes and says “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of them, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” I mean, talk about jaws dropping and eyes going hmmm. You know, I say that and I can’t help but think of my daughter just this summer. You know it’s amazing how your eyes do that. We were at Six Flags, and my daughter’s just a little half-pint, she’s our two-year-old, they almost weigh the same, and she’s almost six, she’s just a little half-pint, but she’s a little taller, so we are going on rides, and as my wife says, Dads take risks, and I guess that’s my nature, so there’s one of these slide deals with a tube, waterslides, and it looks like it’s pretty cool, my son’s eight, and of course he wants to do it, and we take my daughter up to the sign, and she’s tall enough, so let’s go do it. Well, you know, you got the ride, you got the line, and some of these things you don’t get much of a chance to like second-guess if you’re going to do it, there’s a long line, and you finally get up there, and now there’s the pressure to get going, and they’re just seating you, and we’re getting to the top, and there’s my daughter, son and I, and they’ve got this big inner tube with these holes inside it, maybe you’ve been on one. And so they take us real quick, put us in these holes, and off you go to get ready to go into this big tube. Well my daughter is such a thin little light thing, that that hole was like just a cavern, it was this huge thing, and I didn’t know it until they sat her in it, and I look over at her, and she’s doing all she can to try to hold on and not slip away and disappear. They pushed us, so here we go. Now I was just on a white-water rafting trip before, and that didn’t go very well, and I am still in shock from that trip, and I guess that it was maybe related to that, but I got this, my daughter, and I’m trying to grab her, and I look over at her, and it was just like in the cartoons, I’ve never seen her like that, her eyes were HUGE, they were massive, and her mouth…and then we went into the tunnel [laughter], and it was terrifying, I was horrified by that whole deal, I don’t ever want to go on that ride again. It’s like that, and in my mind I look at these religious leaders, and they’re shocked that he would say this about them. I mean, he says “if you’re not in a better place than them, you’re going to go to hell” is what he said. Oh man. You know, a popular Jewish saying at the time was “If only two men make it into heaven, one will be a scribe and the other will be a Pharisee.” That was the saying, ‘If anybody gets there, these guys are getting there, two people, one a scribe, one a Pharisee.’ I mean, come on. But he says ‘No, no, no guys, you’ve been misled, and that’s not the way it is.’ And so, where he’s then bringing them, is that, the Word of God is powerful, and it has to be known accurately, it has to be understood, and it has to be obeyed. And in fact, if you don’t know it, if you don’t know it accurately, and have not received it then in truth, then you’re in a desperate place. Without the truth, there’s no eternal life, is what he’s saying. The Word of God, without it, in truth there is no eternal life. I mean, these folks, the religious leaders, they were teaching one thing about the Word, and they were misrepresenting God, they were deceiving the people, and leading them off with a different message, and they were not even in the kingdom themselves. But they came across that way. And so Jesus is warning the people, he’s shocking them about their error and their deception. And there’s no doubt what he says here, man, it rings through the halls of the centuries. I mean, there are many churches where this should go out and just bounce off the hearts and minds of their people, and in many of their institutions, that if you don’t have the truth, and if you do not receive the truth then you don’t have eternal life, it’s so important, it’s so vital. Without the Word, without the truth, there is no eternal life. You can look to a man, you can look to philosophy, you can look to psychobabble, religious gurus, you can look to all this stuff, but it doesn’t get you into the kingdom of heaven, it’s the Word of God. These religious leaders, I mean, if you want to talk about religious zealots and looking good on the outside, I mean, these guys were out of control, I mean they were sooo holier than thou. You know, if they didn’t get in by that method, nobody has a chance. Well, to go further then with that hammer of the Word, go at the heart, to get through those rock-hard hearts, he now lays out in verse 21 to 48, he lays out six examples of how these religious leaders were misinterpreting the Word of God. And through that he’s demonstrating that the Word is about the heart. It’s much more than your outward appearance, you’re religious ritual and your outward so-good action. It’s about the very heart, what’s inside. [i.e. there is a saying, “You are what you do in private.”] The Word of God is about the matters of the heart.

The Sixth Commandment brought to its lofty spiritual intent---it’s to be part of the believers new code of conduct

What the Pharisees did to this commandment and all the others

Verse 21, “You have heard that it was said of old ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown in prison. Assuredly I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.” So he focuses on their misinterpretation and their false teaching of the Law. They interpreted it in a letter of the Law kind of way, a legalistic kind of way, according to their tradition, and therefore they missed the spirit, the heart of what God meant, the intent of the Law. They had taken the simple straight forward Law of God, you know, you’ve got the Big Ten, the Ten Commandments, they had taken that, they had broken it down into six hundred and thirteen lesser laws. [Comment: Now I have to admit, since I looked up a Jewish website listing those 613 laws, that a lot of them are legitimate lesser laws, and some of them major, all found within the complete Old Testament Law of God found in the Torah. See http://www.jewfaq.org/613.htm for an honest listing of these 613 laws, most of them found within the Torah, the first five books of Moses. We must be careful when making such statements to always try to be accurate. Most of these lesser laws Jesus was referring to when he made his opening statement in Matthew 5:17-19. All of these lesser laws are physical applications based on the Ten Commandments. Some of them are ceremonial laws. Be sure to log on that link and check them out. What the pastor is really referring to is all the extra do’s and don’t the Pharisees added to those basic 613 laws. What Jesus is showing is the basic spiritual intent of all those laws is wrapped up in the spirit of the Law he was presenting in Matthew 5.] 348 were the “do not’s” and 365 were the “do’s”, so Ten Commandments, to 613, do, do, do, don’t, don’t, don’t. And you know, honestly, that’s comfortable when we do that. You give me a long list of don’ts and do’s, I got a chance here in the sense of that, outwardly. And as they did that they came across as very spiritual. But yet in some ways, in many ways they also put the people into bondage. ‘I mean, this is something as religious leaders we can do because of our life. But you know, you guys, I know it’s a little hard on you, boy man, these laws, but this is how you get there,’ so they put these people into bondage. I mean, they took the command “Honor the Sabbath, God said”, God had given the Sabbath to the nation of Israel. It was a day of rest. It was ultimately to point them and remind them of God and of his love, and ultimately Jesus Christ, that in Jesus I find true rest. I don’t have to work anymore to try to please him in my own doings, I just need to love him and embrace him and rest in him, and that’s how I please him, and that’s how I have this powerful spiritual life. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/email/Sabbath%20Scriptures%20Study%20Paper%20(Rev%201998).htm to read a really good article written about the Sabbath, and what it means to Christians today.] But they had taken it (the Sabbath Commandment, the 4^th Commandment) into a whole legalistic letter of the Law kind of deal, and so they said ‘Here’s code number one, whatever the number was, if you’re going to obey the Sabbath, you need to remove your false teeth, and your wooden legs. If you don’t, you’re actually going to be guilty of breaking the law because you’ll be carrying wood, carrying a burden. Now imagine, you’re some elderly gal and you have false teeth, once a week you’ve got to take those out, and you can’t eat with your teeth. I mean, that’s like a burden, but they’re telling you, you’ve got to obey the law of God, you’ve got to do this. [And I think, if you search on that Jewish website, you won’t find extra Sabbath commands in those 613 laws, but you will find extra law-burdens added to the Sabbath Command in the extra-biblical books the Jews wrote, like the Mishna and other rabbinical works. And there were a lot of extra-biblical Sabbath commands added to the actual Sabbath commandment by the Jewish religious leaders in the time of Christ.] And say you’re a guy whose lost your leg in a battle, and so you’ve got this wooden deal, and once a week you’ve got to take it off and hop around? Once a week, in order to be spiritual? It was a burden. But you know, hey, we’ve got to make sure we can do it as religious leaders. So they were hypocritical about it. I mean, they also said ‘Obey the Sabbath, honor the Sabbath, so listen, that means you can only go a certain number of cubits from your house. If you go any further, you’re not resting, you’re breaking the law. And I’m sure that was in place, and then over time one religious leader got in a pinch, meaning, ‘I’ve got to go further than that, this is really going to be hardship to me if I can’t tomorrow travel a little bit further because of this great need. So they came up with this, and that is, the day before, you could go out and build these little lean-to’s, and so then you could go out and attach a string to your house, you know, you go down the road a little bit, you’ve built this lean-to, what you’ve done is you’ve essentially, according to the law, you’ve increased the size of your house [lean-to attached to the string, which is stretched back to and attached to your house]. Well with that string you run it out a quarter mile, you’ve now increased the size of your house, it’s attached to your house. So you can go out the length of that string, you can go out to that lean-to, and you’re still in your house. So you haven’t gone anywhere as far as the Law. And you can build another lean-to [just couldn’t do all this on the Sabbath], and another lean-to. Foolish, right? Just out of control. But you know, we do that. I mean, we do that in our own lives. We start reasoning it out, going, ‘That’s not comfortable, that’s a hardship, well I’ll do this, and I’ll make room for that, that’s how I’ll work it out.’ Just study any religion, and it gets kind of silly. That is not what God intended, not at all. So he says ‘You have heard that it was said of old, it was said so often.’ You may have heard it a lot, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was true. And you may have heard it from somebody your respected, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was true, I mean, your grandma said it over and over, but that doesn’t make it the law. You know, it’s been part of the fabric of society for generations, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. ‘It’s echoed in the halls of institutions and stated out publicly so frequently, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true either. Doesn’t matter if it was from your favorite athlete or favorite musician or your favorite author, actor or actress, because they made the statement that doesn’t necessarily make it true either. It doesn’t matter. If you heard it, and it misses the thrust and spirit of what God says, then it isn’t going to do you a whole lot of good. He says ‘You’ve heard it said from those of old.’

The Heart and soul of the Sixth Commandment stated by Jesus

Now, as he goes on, he makes some folks really squirm. They think they have it all down, they’re there in all their phylacteries and garb, they think they’re in a good place, and now Jesus says something that’s so---blam!---right to the heart. He says ‘You’ve heard that you shall not murder [the actual 6^th Commandment stated by Jesus], you’ve heard that said of old, the command, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of judgment.’ Of course that’s one of the Ten Commandment laws. They took that legalistically, they took that to mean that, and therefore if you actually killed somebody physically, and you went to prison, then you broke this law. But of course if you haven’t done that, you’re OK. So the religious leader thinks to himself, ‘I haven’t killed anybody, I haven’t shed any blood physically, I’ve not gone to jail, so I’ve made it with that, I’ve got that one in order.’ So your standing there, but he says ‘Listen, you’ve missed the whole point. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of judgment, whoever is angry with his brother.’ Now when he says the word “anger” there, he refers to a settled anger, a malice that is nursed inwardly, so there is this poison of anger in your heart. You can have a hatred. And he says ‘Whoever has done that, is guilty of judgment’, he’s saying you’ve missed the point. You’ve understood, ‘I haven’t killed anybody’, but he says ‘No, the issue’s much deeper, it’s a matter of the heart.’ And the attitude, the attitude is as important as the actions, so if there’s the attitude of murder, even if you didn’t do it physically, you’ve done it in your heart, you’re guilty of violating the Law.’ Interesting, Warren Wiersby in his commentary on this says, “You know, out of every 35 deaths in Chicago, one of those is a murder.” But what was interesting to him, that most of those murders are actually what is called “Crimes of passion”, meaning there is somebody killing a friend or a relative, because they got so hot and angry, and they then killed them. And even before they actually physically killed them, God saw they were guilty of murder because of what was in their heart. He goes further, he says “And whoever says to his brother “Raca!” shall be in danger of the council, and whoever says “You fool!” shall be in danger of the fires of hell.” Raca was probably an Aramaic word, and it meant “empty, or stupid”, it could also be translated “empty-head” or “bone-head”. [Comment: Dennis Leary in one of his movies called his partner in crime “a useless waste of life”. This would describe the meaning behind the word “Raca”. Also, one of the worst curses one German can give to another is to take the index finger and touch his forehead with it, signifying the other person is “an air-head”. Germans have been known to kill due to this insult being leveled at one of them. This also would fit the meaning of the Aramaic word “Raca”, it’s a deep-cutting insult to another person.] And it’s saying in a certain heart “You empty-head, you stupid.” Second, the word “fool” is a Greek, meaning “dull or stupid”, it’s a fair equivalent, it’s essentially saying somebody’s a scoundrel. In one way you’re killing a person by killing their reputation, and another way you’re killing a person by destroying their character. That’s essentially what Jesus is saying. You’re committing murder in another way. And when Jesus says you do this, you are in danger of the fires of hell. Imagine the wrestling that starts to go on at that point when he said this, ‘You’re in danger of hell.’ If you said to somebody, you pull up to McDonald’s, you order your food, I remember this once happened to me, I had been fasting, longest fast I ever did, and I actually was ending the fast as I was going to the airport, going on a trip. And man, I was hungry. So I pull up to Burger King while rushing to the airport, and I order all these wonderful meat things, and whatever else, and other people ordered. And so, we get on the highway, and we start opening the bag, and don’t you know, they forgot my order. Now, I didn’t have wonderful thoughts about them at that point [laughter], and you’ve been there, where you’re like ‘What an idiot! What an idiot!’ ‘What a fool!’ Or your boss, you look at him, ‘Why’s he asking me that, what a fool.’ Or somebody that works with you, and they’re supposed to be helping you on a project, and they’re not cutting their weight, and you say ‘That idiot! That idiot’, they cut you off on the road, ‘You stupid.’ And that type of deal, it’s in the heart. And he says “If that is in your heart, you have broken the Law.” You can’t say you’re some religious strong, wonderful person if you’re just standing in your place without Christ. You’ve broken the Law and you’re guilty of the penalty which is death, fires of hell, fires of hell. Well here’s a warm and fuzzy Christmas message for you [laughter]. What Jesus is doing, we’ll be with Christmas next week, he’s taking the Law, and God meant it a certain way, he wants the pure heart. And he realizes we’re all sinners. And the Law has that purpose, it should bring me to verse 3 of Matthew chapter 5, where we realize “Oh, I’m so far from where I need to be, I’ve got this stuff in my heart”. And so then I fall on my knees and I cry out to God asking God “Forgive me, cleanse me, help me”, and then I see the cross, I see Jesus, now there’s my answer, “Oh be my Savior, be my Lord.” And then I hunger and thirst for that, and as a result, I’m filled now with the righteousness of God in the Spirit. That’s the purpose of the Law [i.e. the Law of God is a spiritual mirror, shows us where the dirt is, it doesn’t clean the dirt. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/galatians/Galatians3-1-29.htm and scroll to the paragraph titled Purpose of the Law]. Yet people are thinking it’s a do’s and don’ts thing, I’m on this certain platform, spiritual whatever, piety, and God says “No, you’re a sinner, you’re guilty of breaking the Law. And do you know what that means?” He’s bringing it out, ‘This is what is meant, very high standard.’ So, no doubt there’s some bewildered expressions at this time. Man, have you ever been guilty of that, ever been guilty of that? How about this week? How about this morning with your children, your spouse?

Leave your gift at the altar, go be reconciled with your brother first, then come back and worship God

Jesus goes even deeper though, as we come here towards the end of our time, he says, ‘Now you come to church, you come to the altar, and there you’ve got your worship, you’ve got your sacrifice, and you remember there, as you’re there, now your heart is softened a little, and you remember there’s a brother, you haven’t talked to him in the longest time’, or there’s an aunt or sister, and you’ve been at odds for ever, or there’s your neighbor, you know you’ve erected the security fence next to you, you’ve got the lights and barbed wire, because, you know, they have an inch of your grass, whatever, and so now you’re at odds with them, or something else. ‘And you come to church, and you’re going to worship me,’ and God says, ‘Dude, it’s good to worship me, but leave your gift there, and that’s important, but I am a God of love, God is love’, that is the heart, ‘and you’re offensive to me, you go make that right.’ You know, it’s the broken, contrite heart, it isn’t this religious sacrifice. That’s no different then sorcery, as we read in the Old Testament. Same spirit to it. He goes even deeper. “You first be reconciled to your brother, and then you come to the altar.” Now, when he speaks of that, reconciliation, he’s speaking of where there’s that hostility, and going to settle matters so that the hostility is no longer there. Of course, you know I can’t always resolve those things, sometimes, you know Romans, as much as it depends on you. So you write the letter or you go and make peace, and sometimes it’s not there [it’s not reciprocated by the other person], but you do it in your heart, what you can do. You go do that. One person has said, ‘One of the closest distances between two points is not a straight line’, meaning Point God, Point me. The closeness there isn’t a straight line, at times it’s going sideways, dealing with issues, and that makes me now closer to that other point. The rule here is, ‘First peace with man, and then you’ll have acceptance with God.’ Now that goes way down to the heart. We’re messy people and we have misunderstandings and we’re getting hurt, and he says ‘You see, before a perfect holy God, a God of love, do you realize you’re a religious leader, and you have all this pride, and you have all these enemies, and you’re standing there thinking you’re one way, you’re offensive to me! I don’t even want you to be near me. You go make it right. Repent of your sin.’ Verse 25, “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.” ‘You go get ‘em, make it right’, in the Greek, ‘with your adversary quickly while you’re on the way,’ and the way it worked in that time, in the legal system of Jesus’ day, it required the plaintive to personally track down the defendant, so if somebody had done something wrong to me, and I wanted to go to court, I had to go get them myself and bring them to the judge. And he says, you go, you’re talking, they’ve got you and they’re going to bring you to the judge, you want to make it right, you know, work, man, make peace, do it quickly along the way, lest, as you see, they deliver you to the judge, and the judge looks down and says ‘You are guilty, and because you’re guilty, you’re given to the officer, and he takes you away to jail. And when you’re in jail you don’t have a lot of income, and you’re going to stay there until you pay the last penny, and that could be a long time in jail. He says, the wisdom is there. He’s saying this, the point is, your heart, the sinful anger, you’ve got to face it honestly, you’ve got to confess it to God. You’ve got to settle the matter with your brother quickly and not waste any time, don’t wait. If you wait it’s going to become bondage, man, you’re going to be in spiritual prison. Go get reconciled. Somebody said, “The person who refuses to forgive his brother, destroys the very bridge over which he himself must walk.” Well, here’s a hammer for you, I tell you the Word of God is good, man. It goes in and that broken and contrite spirit is a wonderful place. And the point that Jesus will now make in the weeks ahead, he starts with that, and then he’ll go to another, and another, and another, and another, and he makes six points [mainly magnifications of five or six of the Ten Commandments, bringing the Ten Commandment code of law to its high and lofty spiritual intent]. And he gets to the point ‘You know the standard is perfection, you’re not perfect, you need Jesus, you need me as your Lord and Saviour. You know those verses I just read at the end, Jesus is not referring to this place where you can die, and when you die, there’s heaven, there’s this place inbetween, and you can go there and work out and pay the last penny, and work it out, enough of your suffering for your sin, and get to the higher place, heaven, that’s not what it’s referring to. Neither is he saying that you can go to such a place and somebody else can work it out for you and get you out of there, that’s not what he’s saying at all. I mean, look at the context as we’ve been going through these verses. He’s speaking to the issue of the heart, and he’s given just a picture of what it means to be at odds with your brother, and the wisdom of making it right with your brother, the great need to do that before God. Let’s close in prayer…[expository sermon on Matthew 5:17-26, given somewhere in New England.]