Harmony of the Gospels

Lesson XXX

Sermon on the Mount

Part 7

Matt. 7: 7-29

Matt. 7:7-12  Ask and you will receive; seek, and you will find;

Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive, and he who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to him who knocks. Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone, when he asks you for bread? Or would you give him a snake when he asks you for a fish? As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, your Father in heaven will give good things to those who ask him? Do for others what you want them to do for you; this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.

Comments:  Ask, Seek, Knock, these terms are here used with reference to prayer, and these constitute a climax. Ask implies a simple petition. Seek indicates earnest search. Knock shows perseverance in spite of hindrances. The three represent earnest prayer. Christ indicates that everyone who asks will receive, that is everyone of the class concerning whom the Savior speaks. That class is those who can say, “Our Father in heaven; Hallowed be thy name; Thy will be done. This assurance that will answer our prayers is based on the fact that God is our Father. He treats his children as a good and wise earthly parent would. No kind parent would mock his child by answering his cry for bread with stones. Bread and fish were the chief articles of food of the Galilean peasant. Men who have the natural affection of parents, even though sinful men, will not do such things. Whoever believes that the term Father, as applied to God, is more than a figure of speech, must believe in prayer.  

God will give us good things. Luke 11:13, in the parallel passage, says, instead of “good things,” “the Holy Spirit,” as though this is heaven’s greatest blessing.

    Doing unto others does not imply that we are always to do to others as they wish, but what we would like to have done to ourselves if we were placed in their condition and they in ours. We might injure them by complying with their foolish wishes. A maxim similar to the Golden Rule is found in the teachings of various sages; Socrates among the Greeks, Buddha and Confucius among the Orientals, and Hillel among the Jews. But the other teachers do not come up to  Christ’s standard. Their maxim is negative and passive. They say; “ Do not do to others what you would not have done to you.” It is a rule of not doing, rather than of doing.

Matt. 7:13-14 Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to hell, and there are many who travel it. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and few people find it.

Comments: Christ’s leading thought of the whole discourse is the kingdom of heaven and its conditions. Hence, when the Lord says, “Enter ye in,” he means into the kingdom of heaven. Nearly every town in Palestine is surrounded by walls and is entered by gates. The principal ones are wide, with double doors, closed with locks and fastened with iron bars. The “strait gates” are in retired corners, are narrow, and only open to those who knock. What is it, that makes this gate so strait to us? It is not that it is strait, or narrow, in itself, but that we want to take in our pride, our self-will, our darling sins. Few will go through this gate, Why? It has to be sought, you have to hunt for it.

The reason that men do not find it is not because it is hard to find, but because they prefer to walk in the broad way.

Matt. 7:15-20 Watch out for false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but they are really like wild wolves on the inside. You will know them by the way they act. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. A healthy tree bears good fruit, while a poor tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a poor tree cannot bear good fruit. Any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown in the fire. So, then, you will know the false prophets by the way they act.

Comments:  The word prophet, as used in the Scriptures, means any one who teaches authoritatively the will of God. They are messengers in the old testament that delivered God’s messages to the Israelites. A false prophet is someone who is a false teacher. Christ refers to the scribes and Pharisees as such.

They are fakes, while they have an appearance of harmless sheep the are really hungry wolves. The Lord could not have expressed it any better. Not the leaves (professions), or appearance, are the proper tests of the life that is in the tree, but the fruit it bears. We are to test men and every institution by this principle. Christ here uses common plants and vines found in Palestine to express his point. Two of the most highly  valued fruits of Palestine are grapes and figs. Nothing is more common than thorns and thistles. It has been said that Israel is the land of thorns and thorny plants. Good fruit cannot be expected on such evil stocks. 

    The Lord points to the uniform law of nature. Every tree bears after its kind. As is the tree, so is the fruit. The same principle holds good in the moral world.

Now Christ establishes the results, the test of good and bad trees, good and bad men, and good and bad systems, has been presented. Now the figure is carried farther to show their destiny. The Savior states a principle that seems to run through the whole government of God. Whatever is useless and evil shall finally be purged by fire and swept away.

Matt. 7: 21-23  Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do. When that Day comes, many will say to me, Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God’s message, by your name we drove out many demons and performed many miracles! Then I will say to them, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers! 

Comments: Christ has shown that the entrance into the kingdom is through the strait gate. He now shows more particularly what is needed to enter. Certain ones are described who cannot enter in. “Not every one” implies that some who say, Lord, Lord, shall not enter in, only those who do the will of my Father. No one can be a citizen of the kingdom who does not obey the King.

    Jesus now describes an event that all will be subject to, the great day of the Lord. Then he describes a certain class of disciple. The Lord chooses out the greatest of the class of non-doers to show that all such will fail of entrance.  They have omitted the one thing needful, a faithful obedience.

    “I never knew you” must be accepted in its deeper signification of recognizing you as disciples. For Christ to say “I never knew you” is another way of saying, “ You never knew me.” In spite of all their professions they had been evil doers. Their religion expended itself in professions and prayers.

 So on that day, the Lords day, they are commanded to depart. What it is to so depart we may learn from Matt. 25:41 (Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: We can see from this scripture that many will be self-deceived.

Matt. 7:24-29 So then, everyone who hears these words of mine and obeys them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, and the winds blew hard against that house. But it did not fall, because it had been built on the rock.

    But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not obey them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, the winds blew hard against that house, and it fell. What a terrible fall that was!

    Jesus finished saying these things, and the crowd was amazed at the way he taught. He wasn’t like their teachers of the Law; instead, he taught with authority.

Comments: Jesus tells us that everyone who hears the words that he has spoken in this sermon on the mount and all his teachings, he compares him to a wise man, with wise forethought, has built on a firm foundation. In a country with a rainy season and heavy floods this was essential. The man who “hears and does” Christ’s words is building upon the rock (Matt. 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.) This is the only confession required of anyone when becoming a Christian and it is the very foundation upon which the Church of Christ stands.

Palestine is a country of torrents and sands. This verse gives a picture of the sudden violent storms and sweeping floods which are so common during the rainy season. The house founded upon the rock could not be undermined and destroyed, but would stand firm. So, says the Lord, shall it be with those who hear and obey. “ They shall stand in the Judgment” (Psa. 1:5)

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

     The person who hears Christ’s word and does not obey it is like a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand. Every one knows how transitory and shifting sand is as a foundation. Whole towns on the Missouri River and the lower Mississippi have been undermined and gone into the vortex because they were built upon the sand and so will fall the disobedient.

    The Lord describes the thoughtlessness of the builder on the sand, the storm and the utter destruction. There is an awful solemnity about this close to the wonderful sermon.

     Everyone there at the mount were astonished at his teaching. No wonder they were astonished. The whole world still wonders as it studies this sermon. Christ speaks, not as man, with human doubts and limitations, but as one who had infinite awareness, understanding, and insight. Who possessed of universal or complete knowledge. He came from God, and spoke as one a God; not as human, hesitating, halting, limping expounders like the scribes, the interpreters of the  Scriptures.

    On what are you building, my brother,

    Your hopes of an eternal home?

    Is it loose, shifting sand, or the firm, solid rock,

    You are trusting for the ages to come?

    Hearing and doing, we build on the Rock;

    Hearing alone, we build on the sand;

    Both will be tried by the storm and the flood;

    Only the rock the trial will stand.