Joseph Prince double-talks about his doctrines & makes Jesus a liar in the Sermon on the Mount – By Rev George Ong (Dated 17 Apr 2023)

 

Joseph Prince, who uses social media extensively to preach his heresies, is a serial double-talker – Double-Talk No 1

 

Appendix 1:

 

Joseph Prince teaches the perverse doctrine that there are 2 salvation plans,

 

one for the Old Covenant people, and one for the New Covenant saints,

 

and that the Old Covenant people could have been saved by the law.

 

How could a grace teacher such as Joseph Prince,

 

who talks so much about grace,

 

be teaching that the Old Covenant people

 

could be saved by the law?

 

This must be the most shocking of all his double-talks.

 

Only a false prophet such as Joseph Prince

 

would advocate such a warped and perverse doctrine.

 

Appendix 2:

 

Joseph Prince’s dispensation doctrine regarding the Sermon on the Mount

 

is debunked by John MacArthur and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

 

(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)

 

Please click here

 

to view the entire video.

 

In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube yesterday, on 16 Apr 2023, Joseph Prince said;

 

Please click here to view the 1-minute video:

 

“We also focus a lot on the Sermon on the Mount.”

 

“They (believers) are more familiar with the Sermon on the Mount than the Sermon on Mount Zion. The Upper Room is probably the highest point of Mount Zion.

 

They know this but the Sermon that Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount is actually the laws, the constitution of the Kingdom that He came to bring. That’s another teaching altogether.

 

Alright, it is still not the dispensation of grace just yet, or the church age, yet. He came to bring the kingdom of God to Israel.

 

Alright, that is now in abeyance; and now the kingdom of God becomes spiritual.

 

But have they received Jesus then, the kingdom of God will have come to earth in Israel. So that was the constitution of the kingdom.

 

We should be more familiar with instructions for the Church in the sermon in the Upper Room.”

 

“A lot of instructions. The Holy Spirit was given. Instructions about the Holy Spirit; and what He’ll do. All in the Upper Room. That’s the message we have to spend more time in.” 

 

First, Joseph Prince teaches that the Church should be more familiar with and spend more time

 

with the Sermon in the Upper Room

 

than the Sermon on the Mount

 

because the Sermon on the Mount

 

is under the Old Covenant of law for the Jews,

 

while the Sermon in the Upper Room is 

 

under the New Covenant of grace for the Church.

 

When Joseph Prince refers to the Sermon in the Upper Room,

 

he was alluding to John chapter 13,

 

which is not shown in the video,

 

but mentioned in his sermon yesterday, on 16 Apr 2023.

 

Now, let’s take a look at what Joseph Prince wrote in his books:

 

In ‘Unmerited Favor’, Page 97, Joseph Prince wrote,

 

“However, the new covenant does not actually begin with the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John 

 

as these books deal predominantly with the life of Jesus before the cross. 

 

In fact, the new covenant begins after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

 

Hence, the cross is our clearest marking point of where the new covenant begins.”

 

In ‘Destined To Reign’, Page 92, Joseph Prince wrote,

 

“The new covenant only begins after the cross, when the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost.

 

I know that our Bibles are divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament, which begins with the four gospels.

 

However, it is important to realize that the cross made a difference!”

 

So, on the one hand,

 

Joseph Prince said in his sermon yesterday, on 16 Apr 2023

 

that we should be more familiar with and spend more time

 

in the Sermon in the Upper Room in John chapter 13,

 

which occurs before the cross

 

because this sermon is for the New Covenant Church.

 

On the other hand,

 

Joseph Prince wrote in his books

 

that everything of what Christ spoke and taught in the gospels,

 

which includes the Sermon in the Upper Room in John 13,

 

which occurs before the cross 

 

doesn’t apply to New Covenant believers

 

because they were spoken and taught under the Old Covenant of law.

 

Can you see how blatant and shameless a double-talker Joseph Prince is?

 

How on earth could people trust Joseph Prince

 

in the flippant, inconsistent and self-contradictory way he handled Bible texts,

 

has continued to baffle me?

 

Second, Joseph Prince said;

 

“They know this but the Sermon that Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount is actually the laws, the constitution of the Kingdom that He came to bring. That’s another teaching altogether.

 

Alright, it is still not the dispensation of grace just yet, or the church age, yet. He came to bring the kingdom of God to Israel.”

 

Joseph Prince teaches that the Sermon on the Mount

 

is under the Old Covenant of law for Israel

 

and not under New Covenant of grace for the Church.

 

Because of that,

 

he alluded to the fact that we should not be focusing on the Sermon on the Mount,

 

as much as we should on the Sermon in the Upper Room in John chapter 13,

 

Yet, on many occasions,

 

he keeps using the following passages

 

in the Sermon on the Mount, such as

 

Matthew 5:13-14,

Matthew 6:9-10;

Matthew 6:19-23;

Matthew 6:25-34;

Matthew 7:7-11

and Matthew 7:20

 

to teach, prove and defend his grace doctrine.

 

Let’s take Matthew 7:20 as an example.

 

In a sermon, and in trying to defend himself against his critics regarding his doctrine and ministry,

 

he alluded to Matthew 7:20,

 

that is part of the Sermon on the Mount for support.

 

Joseph Prince said in a 15-second video;

 

Please click here to view:

 

“Never mind. I always say, let the fruits speak for itself 

 

because our Lord Jesus says, 

 

“By their fruits, you shall know them” (Matt 7:20). 

 

Not by the talk, Amen.”

 

On the one hand, Joseph Prince

 

teaches that the Sermon on the Mount

 

is under the Old Covenant of law for Israel

 

and not under the New Covenant of grace for the Church,

 

and that we should not be focusing on it.

 

On the other hand,

 

Joseph Prince keeps using passages in the Sermon on the Mount,

 

such as Matthew 7:20,

 

which belongs to the Old Covenant of law for Israel

 

and not for the Church,

 

when it finds it convenient

 

to defend against his critics regarding his grace doctrine.

 

This is another double-talk of Joseph Prince.

 

Third, in ‘Grace Revolution’, Page 12, Joseph Prince wrote;

 

“The good news is that Jesus didn’t stop there. He preached the Sermon on the Mount and then He came down. 

 

Spiritually speaking, if the King had stayed on the mountain, there would have been no redemption for us.”

 

Joseph Prince also said in a 10-second video;

 

Please click here to view:

 

“Now if Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and He stayed up there on the Mount, there’ll be no hope for us.”

 

How can Joseph Prince, who categorically states that there is no redemption/salvation and hope for us

 

in the message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-7

 

because it happened under the Old Covenant of law

 

be using Matthew 7:20, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount

 

to support his New Covenant doctrine and ministry and to hit at his critics?

 

If Joseph Prince said that what was preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount couldn’t even save us,

 

how then can he allude to Matthew 7:20,

 

which is under the Sermon on the Mount,

 

to support his New Covenant ministry and doctrine?

 

This is nothing but brazen double-talk.

 

Fourth, in ‘Grace Revolution’, Pages 12-13, Joseph Prince wrote,

 

“Spiritually speaking, if the King had stayed on the mountain, there would have been no redemption for us.

 

Are you getting this?

 

If Jesus had stayed high up in heaven and decreed God’s holy standards from there, there would have been no hope and no redemption for us.”

 

How does Jesus, who remains on the mountain be without hope for us

 

when He has already given us hope of redemption on the mountain?

 

Didn’t Jesus teach from the mountain

 

that those who are poor in spirit, pure in heart, etc,

 

will inherit the kingdom of heaven? (Matt 5:3-12)

 

Didn’t Jesus teach from the mountain

 

that those who obey and teach others to obey

 

will be great in the Kingdom of heaven? (Matt 5:19)

 

Didn’t Jesus teach from the mountain

 

that those who walk the narrow way

 
will find life (eternal)? (Matt 7:14)

 

Didn’t Jesus teach from the mountain

 

that those who do the will of the Father

 

will enter the kingdom of heaven? (Matt 7:21)

 

If that is not salvation, hope and redemption,

 

what is?

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus

 

of not preaching the redemptive gospel and not giving us hope

 

when He has already taught them so clearly up on the mountain.

  

Yet, despite this clear scriptural evidence,

 

Joseph Prince is mocking Jesus

 

by accusing Him of not preaching a salvation message that could save.

 

With what Joseph Prince said in the above quote and wrote in his books,

 

he literally did away with it and totally invalidated the salvation message

 

that Jesus came to proclaim to us in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

This is the kind of man you are dealing with

 

– having the reckless abandon to cancel out the teachings

 

of none other than Jesus, who is God Himself.

 

If Joseph Prince has clearly rejected the gospel message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount,

 

how can he claim to possess saving faith?

 

Fifth, when Joseph Prince said;

 

“Now if Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and He stayed up there on the Mount, there’ll be no hope for us,”

 

and when he wrote in ‘Grace Revolution’, Pages 12-13;

 

“… if the King had stayed on the mountain, there would have been no redemption for us,

 

he is not only lying

 

but he is also accusing Jesus of lying.

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us,

despite the fact that Jesus teaches that those who are poor in spirit, pure in heart, etc,

will inherit the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3-12).

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us,

despite the fact that Jesus teaches that those who obey and teach others to obey

will be great in the Kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:19).

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us,

despite the fact that Jesus teaches that those who walk the narrow way

will find life (eternal) (Matt 7:14).

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us,

despite the fact that Jesus teaches that those who do the will of the Father

will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 7:21).

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us, despite the fact that Jesus teaches

so that we can avoid hell (and make it to heaven)

by not being angry with another brother and calling him a fool (Matt 5:22).

 

Joseph Prince is accusing Jesus of lying

that what He said in the Sermon on the Mount could not save us, despite the fact that Jesus teaches

that we can avoid hell (and so make it to heaven)

by avoiding the sin of adulterous thoughts (Matt 5:29-30).

 

Here’s the catch

 

– the one who is accusing Jesus of lying

 

is the real liar!

 

Joseph Prince is not only a one-time liar but also a crafty and serial liar

 

who lies about the word of God and replaces the teachings of Jesus with his own.

 

How can the Church close one eye to Joseph Prince,

 

who even dares accuse Jesus, who is God Himself, of lying?

 

One, such as Joseph Prince, who accuses Jesus of lying

 

can never be preaching the Jesus of the Bible.

 

He is preaching his own counterfeit Jesus.

 

How can Christians be so nonchalant and unconcerned about the evil that he is doing?

 

How can such a man who is destroying the souls of people by his lies be so easily let off?

 

If you, being lovers of God’s word and guardians of the truth, are able to stomach such utter nonsense, I can’t!

 

I have already exposed many of his lies and double-talks

 

and I am determined to expose

 

many more of such perversions in the days to come.

 

Rev George Ong

 

Appendix 1:

 

Joseph Prince teaches the perverse doctrine

 

that there are 2 salvation plans,

 

one for the Old Covenant people,

 

and one for the New Covenant saints,

 

and that the Old Covenant people

 

could have been saved by the law.

 

Joseph Prince said;

 

“They know this but the Sermon that Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount is actually the laws, the constitution of the Kingdom that He came to bring. That’s another teaching altogether.

 

Alright, it is still not the dispensation of grace just yet, or the church age, yet. He came to bring the kingdom of God to Israel.

 

Alright, that is now in abeyance; and now the kingdom of God becomes spiritual.

 

But have they received Jesus then, the kingdom of God will have come to earth in Israel. So that was the constitution of the kingdom.”

 

Joseph said that the Sermon on the Mount

 

is under the Old Covenant of law for Israel

 

and not under the New Covenant of grace for the Church.

 

Prince also said that had the Jews received Jesus then,

 

and His Sermon on the Mount,

 

the kingdom of God or the gospel,

 

which would have come to Israel,

 

would be based on law, not grace.

 

What this means is that Joseph Prince is teaching

 

that Israel, the Old Covenant people

 

could have been saved by law, not grace.

 

What?

 

This is preposterous!

 

The truth is, no one is saved by the law.

 

Regardless of whether we belong to the Old or New Covenant people,

 

we are all saved by grace.

 

Israel would never be saved by law, as Joseph Prince teaches.

 

Was Abraham, an Old Covenant saint saved by law or grace?

 

Was David, another Old Covenant saint saved by law or grace?

 

Needless to say – they are both saved by grace.

 

Salvation has always been by grace through faith,

 

not by the works of the law (Gal 2:16).

 

Even the Old Testament people who were under the Mosaic Law

 

were saved by grace through faith (Rom 4:3, 6-8, 16).

 

Though New Testament believers are not under the Mosaic law,

 

does that mean we are under no law?

 

Of course not!

 

We are under the law of Christ,

 

and we too, have a law to fulfil and obey (Gal. 6:2; 1 Cor 7:19; 9:21).

 

With that in mind,

 

Joseph Prince is shockingly promulgating 2 salvation plans,

 

one for Israel, and one for the Church.

 

One – Israel, which could have been saved by the law,

 

if they accept Jesus and His Sermon on the Mount,

 

and the Church, which is saved by grace.

 

How could a grace teacher such as Joseph Prince,

 

who talks so much about grace,

 

be teaching that the Old Covenant people

 

could be saved by the law?

 

This must be the most shocking of all his double-talks.

 

Only a false prophet such as Joseph Prince

 

would advocate such a warped and perverse doctrine.

 

Appendix 2:

 

Joseph Prince’s dispensation doctrine

 

regarding the Sermon on the Mount

 

is debunked by John MacArthur and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

 

Joseph Prince said;

 

“They know this but the Sermon that Jesus preached on the Sermon on the Mount is actually the laws, the constitution of the Kingdom that He came to bring. That’s another teaching altogether.

 

Alright, it is still not the dispensation of grace just yet, or the church age, yet. He came to bring the kingdom of God to Israel.

 

Alright, that is now in abeyance; now the kingdom of God becomes spiritual.

 

But have they received Jesus then, the kingdom of God will have come to earth in Israel. So that was the constitution of the kingdom.”

 

The false dispensation view of Joseph Prince

 

regarding the Sermon on the Mount

 

is refuted by John MacArthur and Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

 

In the ‘Gospel According to Jesus’, John MacArthur wrote;

 

“Chafer’s view of all Scripture was colored by his desire to maintain a stark distinction between the age of “pure grace” (the church age) and the two ages of “pure law” (the Mosaic era and the millennial kingdom) he saw sandwiching it.11

 

He wrote, for example, that the Sermon on the Mount was part of “the Gospel of the kingdom,” the “Manifesto of the King.”12 He believed its purpose was to declare “the essential character of the [millennial] kingdom.”

 

He judged it to be law, not grace, and concluded it made no reference to either salvation or grace. “Such a complete omission of any reference to any feature of the present age of grace, is a fact which should be carefully weighed,” he wrote.13

 

Other dispensationalist writers did weigh those ideas and went on to state in more explicit terms what Chafer only hinted at: that the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount “have no application to the Christian, but only to those who are under the Law, and therefore must apply to another Dispensation than this.”14

 

This lamentable hermeneutic is widely applied in varying degrees to much of our Lord’s earthly teaching, emasculating the message of the Gospels.15

 

It is no wonder that the evangelistic message growing out of such a system differs sharply from the gospel according to Jesus.

 

If we begin with the presupposition that much of Christ’s message was intended for another age, why should our gospel be the same as the one he preached?

 

But that is a dangerous and untenable presupposition. Jesus did not come to proclaim a message that would be invalid until the Tribulation or the Millennium.

 

He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came to call sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:13). He came so the world through him might be saved (John 3:17).

 

He proclaimed the saving gospel, not merely a manifesto for some future age. His gospel is the only message we are to preach.”

 

In the ‘Gospel According to Jesus’, John MacArthur wrote;

 

“It should be pointed out that many dispensationalists… relegate the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus to a future age.

 

Most dispensationalists will say that they see application of the sermon to the church age but still stop short of saying that its primary message is for Christians.

 

Even Ryrie… falls short of embracing the Sermon on the Mount as truth for today.

 

After a lengthy defense of the traditional dispensationalist view of the Sermon on the Mount, Ryrie concludes that it cannot be applied “primarily and fully … to the believer in this age” (Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, 109).

 

Yet virtually every detail in the Sermon is repeated in the Epistles.”

 

In the ‘Gospel According to Jesus’, John MacArthur wrote;

 

“No passage in all of Scripture attacks modern-day easy-believism with more force than Matthew 7:13-14.

 

It is the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, and it amounts to the Savior’s own presentation of the way of salvation.

 

How different it is from the trend of modern evangelism!

 

There is no encouragement in these words for those who think they can be saved by a casual acceptance of the facts about Jesus Christ:

 

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.”

 

Here our Lord brings the Sermon on the Mount to its evangelistic climax.

 

This passage crushes the claim of those who say the Sermon on the Mount is not gospel but law. 1

 

In fact, these closing verses are pure gospel,2 with as pointed an invitation as has ever been issued.

 

This closing lesson also debunks the opinion that the Sermon on the Mount is merely a discourse on ethics for us to stand back and admire.

 

Jesus is clearly not interested in bouquets for his moral teachings.

 

And his challenge here erases any possibility that the Sermon on the Mount is truth for some prophetic tomorrow; Jesus is preaching to people in the here and now, and his message is urgent.”

 

In the ‘Gospel According to Jesus’, John MacArthur wrote;

 

“What to do with Jesus Christ is a choice each person must make, but it is not just a momentary decision. It is a once-for-all verdict with ongoing implications and eternal consequences – the ultimate decision.

 

Jesus himself stands at the crux of each person’s destiny and demands a deliberate choice of life or death, heaven or hell.

 

Here, in the culmination of all he has said in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord requires that each person choose between following the world on the easy, well-traveled road or following him on the difficult road.

 

You will not find a plainer statement of the gospel according to Jesus anywhere in Scripture.”

 

“Thus Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount ends with a devastating warning of judgment: “and great was its fall.”

 

It is a warning of doom, characteristic of Jesus’ preaching, but again, markedly different from the trend of contemporary evangelism.

 

The gospel according to Jesus clearly calls for a radical difference – not merely a new opinion, but a response of full commitment.”

 

In the ‘Gospel According to Jesus’, John MacArthur wrote;

 

“In searching for the source and context of that quotation, I encountered these words by Machen:

 

I know that some people hold – by a veritable delirium of folly, as it seems to me – that the words of Jesus belong to a dispensation of law that was brought to a close by his death and resurrection and that therefore the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, for example, is not intended for the dispensation of grace in which we are now living.

 

Well, let them turn to the apostle Paul, the Apostle who has told us that we are not under the law but under grace. What does he say about the matter? Does he represent the law of God as a thing without validity in this dispensation of divine grace?

 

Not at all. In the second chapter of Romans, as well as (by implication) everywhere else in his Epistles, he insists upon the universality of the law of God. Even the Gentiles, though they do not know that clear manifestation of God’s law which was found in the Old Testament, have God’s law written upon their hearts and are without excuse when they disobey.

 

Christians, in particular, Paul insists, are far indeed from being emancipated from the duty of obedience to God’s commands.

 

The Apostle regards any such notion as the deadliest of errors.

 

“Now the works of the flesh,” says Paul, “are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”1

 

It is a mistake of the worst sort to set the teachings of Paul and the apostles over against the words of our Lord and imagine that they contradict one another or speak to different dispensations.

 

The Gospels are the foundation on which the Epistles build. The entire book of James, for example, reads like a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Those who want to consign the sermon to another age must still deal with the fact that all its principles are repeated and expanded upon by later New Testament writers.

 

Those who wish to do away with “lordship salvation” gain no ground by trying to limit discussion of the gospel message to the Epistles.

 

While Jesus’ gospel was not yet fully completed until his death and resurrection, the elements of it were all clear in his teaching.

 

Each of the apostles who wrote under inspiration underscored and amplified the truth of the gospel according to Jesus.”

 

Joseph Prince is undoubtedly teaching the dispensation doctrine

 

that we shouldn’t study so much about the Sermon on the Mount

 

because it is not meant for the New Covenant Church

 

but for Israel under the Old Covenant.

 

But Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who is a giant in expository preaching,

 

totally contradicted the dispensational and false view of Joseph Prince.

 

In ‘Studies in the Sermon on the Mount’ by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he said:

 

“… and which teach a dispensational view of the Sermon on the Mount, saying that it has nothing whatsoever to do with modern Christians. 

 

They say our Lord began to preach about the kingdom of God, and the preaching of the Sermon on the Mount was in connection with the inauguration of this kingdom.

 

Unfortunately, they continue, the Jews did not believe His teaching. So our Lord could not establish the kingdom, and therefore, almost as a kind of afterthought, the death on the cross came in, and as another afterthought the whole Church and the whole Church age came in, and that will persist up to a certain point in history.

 

Then our Lord will return with the kingdom and again the Sermon on the Mount will be introduced. That is the teaching; it says, in effect, that the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with us. It is meant `for the kingdom age’. It was meant for the people to whom He was preaching (Israel); it will be meant again in the millennial age. It is the law of that age and of the kingdom of heaven, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Christians in the meantime.

 

Now obviously this is a serious matter for us. This view is right or else it is not.

 

According to this view I need not read the Sermon on the Mount; I need not be concerned about its precepts; I need not feel condemned because I am not doing certain things; it has no relevance for me. It seems to me that the answer to all that can be put like this.

 

The Sermon on the Mount was preached primarily and specifically to the disciples.

 

`When he was set, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying…’

 

Now the whole presupposition supposition is that it is preached to them.

 

Take, for instance, the words which He spoke to them when He said, ‘We are the salt of the earth’; `Ye are the light of the world.’

 

If the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with Christian people now,

 

we must never say that we are the salt of the earth, or that we are the light of the world, for that does not apply to us.

 

It applied to the first disciples; it will apply to some people later on. But, in the meantime, it has nothing to do with us.

 

We must likewise ignore the gracious promises in this Sermon. We must not say that we must let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

 

If the whole Sermon on the Mount is inapplicable to modern Christians, all that is irrelevant.

 

But clearly our Lord was preaching to these men (His disciples) and telling them what they were to do in this world, not only while He was here, but after He had gone. 

 

It was preached to people who were meant to practise it at that time and ever afterwards.

 

Not only that. To me another very important consideration is that there is no teaching to be found in the Sermon on the Mount which is not also found in the various New Testament Epistles. 

 

Make a list of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount; then read your Epistles. You will find that the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is there also.

 

Now all the Epistles are meant for Christians today; so if their teaching is the same as that of the Sermon on the Mount, clearly its teaching also is meant for Christians today. That is a weighty and important argument.

 

But perhaps I can put it best like this. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment’. 

 

His new commandment was that we love one another even as He has loved us. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a grand elaboration of that. 

 

If we are Christ’s, and our Lord has meant that word for us, that we should love one another even as He loved us, here (in the Sermon on the Mount) we are shown how to do it.”

 

“There is nothing, therefore, so dangerous as to say that the Sermon on the Mount has nothing to do with modern Christians. 

 

Indeed, I will put it like this: it is something which is meant for all Christian people. It is a perfect picture of the life of the kingdom of God.”

 

“In other words, we are not told in the Sermon on the Mount, `Live like this and you will become Christian’; rather we are told, `Because you are Christian live like this.’ This is how Christians ought to live; this is how Christians are meant to live.”

 

“And if you read the history of the Church you will find it has always been when men and women have taken this Sermon seriously and faced themselves in the light of it, that true revival has come.”

 

“Finally, if you regard any particular injunction in this Sermon as impossible, once more your interpretation and understanding of it must be wrong. 

 

Let me put it like this. Our Lord taught these things, and He expects us to live them. His last injunction, you remember, to these men whom He sent out to preach was, ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things 

whatsoever ever I have commanded you.’ (Matt 28:19-20) 

 

Now here in this Sermon (on the Mount) are those very things. He meant them to be taught, He meant them to be practised.

 

Our Lord Himself lived the Sermon on the Mount. The apostles lived the Sermon on the Mount, 

 

and if you take the trouble to read the lives of the saints down the centuries, 

 

and the men who have been most greatly used of God, you will find that, every time, they have been men who have taken the Sermon on the Mount not only seriously but literally. 

 

You read the life of a man like Hudson Taylor and you will find he literally lived it, and he is not the only one. 

 

These things were taught by the Lord and were meant for us, His people. This is how the Christian is meant to live.”

 

“Beware of the spirit of arguing against them (injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount); beware of making them ridiculous; and beware of so interpreting them as to regard any one of them as impossible. 

 

Here is the life to which we are called, and I maintain again that if only every Christian in the Church today were living the Sermon on the Mount, 

 

the great revival for which we are praying and longing would already have started. 

 

Amazing and astounding things would happen; the world would be shocked, and men and women would be drawn and attracted to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

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