believing that you're destined for
heaven when you're not would be the most
tragic self-deception David servants
book the great gospel deception will
help you be sure that heaven will be
your eternal home order your copy and
heaven word on TV okay back now to the
Sermon on the Mount this very pivotable
pivotal why do I keep missing a pivotal
part of the introductory part of this
sermon Matthew 5 verses 17 through 20
Jesus is emphasizing how important it is
to keep God's commandments and he in
fatica Lee stated in verse number 17 I
did not come to abolish the law and the
prophets I came to fill them to the full
you got some revelation back in the Old
Covenant I'm here to give you more
revelation more insight as to what God
expects of you praise God and we also
saw that if you want to be great in
God's kingdom what do you do you keep
the commandments and you teach others to
keep the commandments that's found in
verse number 19 now we come to verse 20
and here's where I believe Jesus dropped
a bomb a shock bomb that would have like
sent reverberations out through the
crowd who followed him that day up that
mountain he said in verse 24 I say to
you that unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the scribes and
Pharisees you shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven so you can see the
progression of this year didn't come to
abolish the law and the prophets no sir
came to fulfill the law the prophets
gonna be relevant till heaven and earth
pass away people that don't keep even
the least of these Commandments they
wind up being called least in the
kingdom those who keep and teach the
commandments to others they'll be called
great in the kingdom and let me tell you
one more thing about how important it is
to keep the commandments if your
righteousness does not exceed that of
the scribes and Pharisees that is the
religious leaders the guys who are
teaching you every Sabbath in the
synagogue's the guys who everyone greets
with the respectful greetings rabbi and
on and so forth those guys whom you look
up to and you think that you know
they're setting a great example if your
righteousness does not exceed their
righteousness you will not even get into
heaven do you understand what he's
saying there by implication he's saying
your spiritual leaders are all going to
hell you know he imagine if like Jesus
came into your city and gathered a big
crowd of people and he said to them I
want to tell you that all the pastor's
in this city are on the road to hell and
you have to do better than them or
you'll be joining them in hell that's
existence what he said I'm not saying
all the pastor's in your city are going
to hell I'm just saying that's kind of
the equivalent of the bomb that Jesus
dropped that day you have to do better
than the scribes and Pharisees in
keeping the commandments now some people
try to immediately spiritualize this and
say well praise God our righteousness
does exceed that of the scribes and
Pharisees because we're clothed and the
rightness of Christ which he has imputed
to us and so therefore God sees us to
the blood of Christ and even though that
we are wretched sinners who send
hundreds of times a day and thought word
indeed praise God
our righteousness exceeds that of the
scribes and Pharisees I submit to you
that is not what Christ was saying here
there's there's no nothing here about
imputed righteousness or any of that
more advanced type stuff that you'll get
later on particularly in the epistles
he's talking about literally keeping the
commandments hasn't that in the context
doing what God says keeping them
teaching them and so forth and so it
just makes logical sense in fact to
press this to try to make it mean
something else is is unwarranted there's
no excuse for it whatsoever he's talking
about keeping the commandments and then
he says unless your righteousness
exceeds that that is unless you do a
better job at keeping the commandments
than the scribes and Pharisees you won't
get into heaven so that tells me
something that tells me there's a
correlation between salvation and
holiness and I recognize that that's
rejected in many circles today because
they say well then you're talking about
salvation by works it's not what I'm
talking about at all salvation is by
grace through faith alone but it's
through a faith that's a living faith
because faith without works is dead and
not save and that's what James said and
Jesus said the same thing over and over
again - we'll talk about them when we
come to them right so there is a
correlation between holiness and heaven
people who have truly repented they act
like repented repentant people right if
you repent that's the first step in
salvation if you repent you're different
you start acting different you go from
sinfulness to holiness from disobeying
from being a rebel to being an obedient
servant so there of course is a
difference and and the Holy Spirit comes
to live inside of you
and it be has to transform you more and
more all the time and so of course
there's a component of holiness that's
why we find verses that say for example
pursue the holiness without which no one
will see the Lord blessed are the pure
in heart we read this earlier on they
shall see God the impure on heart will
not see God blessed are you who are
merciful for you shall obtain mercy
but but judgment will be merciless to
the one who has shown no mercy see this
is a salvation sermon this is helping us
to evaluate to see if we're on that
narrow road that leads to eternal life
and we've got to do better than the
scribes and Pharisees now there are a
lot of the rest of the sermon Jesus
elaborates on that very thought and
we'll see that so I hope you stay with
me in the weeks and months ahead as we
continue our study in this Sermon on the
Mount Jesus then we'll take examples of
what the scribes and Pharisees are doing
or what the scribes and Pharisees are
teaching and I'll say hey I'm raising
the bar that's way above that in fact
it's always been way above that these
guys are always finding loopholes in my
law
twisting it to fit their own sinful
lifestyles but I expect more out of my
people my people have got to do better
than that and you'll begin to understand
how wretched the scribes and Pharisees
were you realize that this is not all
that scary of a thing it's not it's not
such an amazing thing to be more
righteous than a scribe or a Pharisee
they were corrupt lustful scripture
twisting God hating money loving greedy
liars cloaked in a thin veneer of
religion but complete hypocrites
complete hypocrites and so to exceed the
I mean I'm not saying it's easy but I'm
not saying I'm also saying you know it's
not like oh my goodness I can never be
more righteous than a scribe or a
Pharisee no you know the scribes and
Pharisees set a very very low true bar
of spirituality and to get above their
bar is not such a big deal especially
for those of us look repented believe
that Jesus and have the Holy Spirit
working inside of us to transform us and
produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit
within us every day of our lives
hallelujah and praise God I so will talk
about these things more the next time we
get together you don't want to miss it
it just gets better and better and
better all right thank you so very much
it's been my pleasure of my joy I'll see
you next time
you