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***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.

Dallas: We read for the scripture this morning three brief passages, one from John 14, and I’ll begin with that one, 14th chapter of the Gospel according to John, beginning with the 15th verse and going through the 26th. If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you, yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more, but ye see me, because I live, ye shall live also. And at that time ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments and keepeth him, he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas not ascariot saith unto him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said to him, If a man loveth me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings, and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you, but the comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.

Now the keeping of the commandments of Jesus is connected with power, and I want to read to you from 1 John, the third chapter, and the 21st through the 24th verses. 1 John 3 and 21. Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then we have confidence toward God, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of the Son, of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandment dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given to us.

Now one other passage, back to the Gospel of John, the 20th chapter. Again, on the power of the individual who walks in the commandments of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ, these are inextricable. John 20, verse 19 through 23. This is the post-resurrection Christ now, and he says, and the Scriptures say, then the same day at evening, verse 19, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst of them, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. And then said Jesus unto them again, Peace be unto you, as my Father hath sent me, even so sin I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whosoever sins ye remit. They are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain. They are retained. May God add his blessing to the reading of these important words.

Thank you, Brian, for that lovely song that reminds us again of the all-sufficiency of our Savior, wherefore he is able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by him, for he ever liveth to make intercession for them. And in these times when we are dealing in the morning services with the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Christ, we must keep before us the broad scope of the work of Christ in salvation.

That work has three important aspects. One, and perhaps the most fundamental, is his work as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of mankind. His work as Savior in his death upon the cross as the propitiation for our sins. And that part of his work as our Savior is something which we rest in and we forever put an end to the attempts of ourself to justify and to make right in terms of what we might do and what we might obtain. We simply rest that all with Christ.

In our time, though, the other important works of Christ in salvation are often left aside. And I want to mention the other two which are so important. And that is that in his life he brought the kingdom of God to earth in a special way and he deposited it in the community which he called his church. He did this by his teaching and by his healing and by his miracle working presence. When he said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, he was above all saying, it is at hand in me. I bring it to you. I present it to you. And the acceptance of Christ meant to accept the kingdom of heaven which was in him and of which he was the king. To believe on and to trust meant to believe on and to trust that kingdom which he announced and made present in our lives.

And then thirdly, his work as a Savior is seen in the post-resurrection Christ. Here in this form until the end of human history as we know it, which is referred to in 1 Corinthians 15, 28, when Christ himself shall be subject unto the Father and return the kingdom unto God. There will be a time when Christ himself will cease his work as mediator. There will be a time when he will simply be in the bosom of God with those who are called to God and who are sanctified and who are glorified with him. Jesus spoke about that time often in the Gospel of John. And in 1 Corinthians 15, 28, Paul refers to the time when human history as we know it will simply end. And until that time, his work as Savior is as intercessor, as indweller according to Colossians 1, 27, the mystery which is hid throughout the ages is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And his governance of the church is described over and over in the epistles and referred to in the Gospels.

And so the threefold work of Christ in salvation as propitiation, as teacher, as intercessor and Lord covers the entire scope of his work. And we must have that constantly before us if we are to understand the power and confidence of the child of God in this world.

And I say all of this to remind you of the many-sided work of Christ in redemption. We have today, I’m afraid, I’m sure, in the Christian church and in the world fallen out of balance. And for many people, their whole religion consists simply in the first part of what I’ve referred to, namely in having their sins forgiven and making sure that when they die, they go to heaven. Now, that’s very important. But my dear friends, there is never anywhere in the Scriptures an indication that that is to be the totality of your religion. Indeed, this is only one part, and there is no indication in the Scriptures that you can be free to separate that part from the other parts of your salvation walking in the commandments of Christ and in the power of God in his present kingdom in this earth here and now.

If a person makes the mistake of supposing that all of their religion consists simply of securing eternal salvation in the sense of going to heaven when they die, then the words of Jesus, which we’ve read this morning, make no sense. For example, these words from John 14, if a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings. And again, from that same passage, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.

You see, if you wish to have an experimental salvation, one where you constantly experience the presence of God in your life, you must set yourself to keep the commandments of Christ, to walk in his ways. He said, come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And then in that passage in Matthew 11, he proceeds to point out that the rest comes to those who take upon them his yoke and learn of him. And that’s precisely where Christ as saving teacher comes in. That is what we must understand if we would know on an experiential basis the presence of God in our lives.

The church, I am afraid, has forsaken the task which was set forth in Jesus’s last recorded words in the Gospel of Matthew, in which he said that we were to go into all the earth and to make disciples and to baptize and to teach those whom we baptize to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And then he said, lo, I am with you always. It is as we undertake to teach people how to actually do what Jesus taught, that his presence is with us, that he manifests himself to us.

And the answer of Judas, not Iscariot, which he gave, was if a person will walk in my words, then I will deal with that person in such a way that they will know that I am at hand, that I am there, that I am in their lives. He didn’t promise anything to anyone else. And he doesn’t promise anything to the church which does not undertake to carry out his commission to teach everyone to observe, to do what Jesus has commanded.

Now, you see, I have to remark once again, and I do this often and you’ll forgive me if you’ve heard it enough that you now remember it quite well, but there’s a very severe confusion between the teaching of grace, salvation by grace through faith, and the necessity of works. And what is constantly thought is that when we speak of walking in the commandments of the Lord, we’re talking about earning something. And what I have to say to you again is that when we speak of walking in the commandments of the Lord, we’re not talking about earning something, we’re talking about receiving something. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which it was before ordained that we should walk therein.

So when we come now, as we will in just a second, to look back into the fifth chapter of Matthew and see these words of commandment, we must remember that while they are commands, and while they do indicate a failure if they’re not lived up to, they are primarily the offer of a gift. And we must understand that or else bondage falls upon us.

Now that’s what’s happened with the teachings of Christ in the world is they have been presented in such a way that they are made to sound utterly impossible. This is the root of that dispensationalist teaching, which takes the teachings of Christ and says they are very nice, they are lovely, they are wonderful, but not for now, they are there for another time. The sense of the impossibility of following the commandments of Christ overwhelms people. And it is at that point that we must remember that in the teachings of Christ, he teaches a spirit in which we may live, and that spirit is not ours. That spirit is given to us by God when we simply open ourselves in faith and confidence to receive it through the merits of Christ, and back of that, the love of God.

We open our lives to the kingdom. We take each part of our life and we say not, oh, here I must do such and such or else God will not love me. But we say in this part of my life, I see an area in which I can count upon God and trust him to bring whatever is wrong to the right, to bring whatever is sad and sorrowful and hopeless to what is hopeful and joyful. And our trust then, you see, goes not only upon Christ to enable us to get by the pearly gates, as we say, and to go to the right place, but our trust is now. Our trust is for today. The song we sang, Great is Thy Faithfulness, comes to mean faithfulness literally morning by morning, hour by hour. And it is shown not to be a vain hope, but something which works as surely as the ground upon which we walk and the legs with which we walk. And our confidence is that firm and that thorough in every aspect of our lives. That is what he calls us to. That is what he offers us.

Now let’s look again at Matthew 5. And we’re going to deal this morning, as the bulletin indicates, with that segment of righteousness, kingdom righteousness toward others, which I call very simply sex, swearing, and justice. In these areas we are to come to know the confidence that rests upon the fact that we know whatever we have done wrong in these areas is forgiven on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ. And then secondly upon the fact that we have received in our spirit a purification which enables the right deed in all these areas to naturally flow forth without effort as we rely simply upon the presence of God to direct it.

Sex is one of those areas where we suffer terribly. Let’s be frank about it. It is one of the principal areas, if not the principal area of human suffering, and it is because of that that it is one of the principal areas of human sin. It is right that it should be so because sex refers to that most intimate of relationships between two people. One is never more vulnerable than when they are engaged in a sexual relation. I’m not just referring to the physical act, but to that general life together in which a man and a woman open themselves up to one another in every respect. The vulnerability is so great and the rage and the disappointment and the hurt that is in the hearts of human beings comes out and people suffer so terribly there.

You see, that’s what Jesus knew when he said to those who thought themselves right sexually because they simply didn’t perform the acts which were forbidden. He knew the awesome condition of the heart and all of the evil and bad thoughts and suffering and sorrow that went on there. And he said to them, you’re not right if you just don’t do the deed. In order to be right, there has to be a new spirit in your heart. Even if you cut off all your hands and all of your members and punch out your eyes where you can’t see anything that might be used wrongly or do anything, he’s saying to them, you still could not be right because there that heart is hurting and pumping away.

We talked about that some last time. I want to go into the second part of his instructions about sex and this has to do with divorcement. If you read in the fifth chapter of Matthew, the 31st verse through the 32nd verse, you find a segment of Jesus’s teachings that have been used to hurt many people, been used by people on themselves, and they also of course contain a great principle of truth. We want to try to make clear what that is this morning.

Jesus says here, it has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. Now, this is the teaching against which Jesus will present his teaching. We have to understand it. We today all know what the pink slip on an automobile is. When you sell your automobile, you’re supposed to give the person who buys it a little pink slip with your signature on it, which releases that automobile to another person so that if they have an encounter with the law, they can produce that slip and say, look, it really is mine. I bought it. And that’s what he’s talking about here because in that day when a man got rid of a woman, he was supposed to give her a sort of pink slip. That’s what the writing of divorcement was. When you put her out, you were supposed to give her a piece of paper so that she would not get in trouble with the law and her neighbors and so that any other prospective husband whom she might meet would be able to say, yes, she really is free because this fellow has given her this bill of divorcement.

And in that time, Jesus is speaking to a condition in which people, men who did that, thought they had fulfilled righteousness towards others in this particular relation. Now, look at what Jesus says. But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery.

Now, we must handle this thoroughly and with great sympathy. Divorce is an ever-present problem in our world today. Nationwide, 38% of first marriages terminate in divorce. 59% of second marriages terminate in divorce. And in the churches, there’s great suffering on this point. I have known so many wonderful Christians who have literally suffered physical pain because of the feeling of condemnation and the sense of hopelessness that has been imposed upon them by a wrong reading of this verse. Because it has been said to them by ministers and others who perhaps meant well that if they were divorced and remarried, they were living constantly in adultery. And this has simply broken their hearts.

I’ve known many people. I remember one man, for example, who, because of an indiscretion, he became a father and he married the woman involved, just a girl, in order to give the child a name, as we used to say. And they never lived together. And yet this young man felt he could never witness, he could never minister, because he had been married and was divorced. I remember another story of a woman who married a fine man, she thought, and very soon after they were married, she discovered that this man was a homosexual and had only married her for the purpose of respectability. And he would not engage in the normal manner of a husband with his wife. And in fact, in a few months, was bringing to their house his homosexual lovers. That woman’s church told her that she could not leave this man. This commandment is turned into a law of iron and bondage which kills the soul.

There have been whole countries in which you could not get a divorce. Of course you lived with other people, you even had whole families by them, but you still said, well, we’re not divorced.

Now, I say all of that, you see, to liberalize our imagination, because it is so easy for us if we are not caught in a situation which the commandment deals with, it is so easy for us to suppose, well, it should never be that someone should behave in a certain way when we have not looked at the details. We don’t know what the possibilities are. We don’t know the suffering and the agony that goes into it.

Now, let me tell you as plainly as possible what the situation Jesus is speaking to. Jesus is speaking to a situation in which the woman was utterly dependent upon the man. Jesus is speaking in a situation in which divorce simply meant ruin for the woman. She would have no children. She would have no home of her own. She would have no honor. She had drudgery, possibly, if she could return to the house of a relative who might let her live there as a kind of maid. One of her alternatives was prostitution. There was no alternative for the woman that did not involve complete degradation so far as her inner spirit was concerned.

If she married again, she would invariably be treated as used merchandise, as some sort of secondhand cast-off thing. And very likely, she would be so miserable that she would have to move on. The poor woman whom Jesus met at the well of Samaria in the fourth chapter of John, Jesus went right to the heart of her circumstance when he said to her, where is thine husband? And she said, I have no husband. And Jesus said unto her, thou sayest well, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom thou now hast is not thy husband.

Now, you see, you have to understand the kind of details of the life into which a woman was turned by a divorce. She was ruined. And in this situation, where the man was not ruined, and indeed, you may often forget that a man in the world in which Jesus lived among the Jews, if he had one wife whom he didn’t like all that much, he could always get another and keep the old one too. It was a polygamous society. And the Jews remained polygamous in Europe up until the 11th century. But a woman had no such option. When she was thrown away, she was thrown away.

Very interesting, by the way, as an illustration of how the law of Moses became changed at the hands of men in power who wished to modify it and society rolled along. It’s very interesting to notice that in the old law, a woman could obtain a divorce, and there were grounds specified very clearly for a woman to obtain a divorce. But in the world in which Jesus lived, it was pretty well impossible for a woman. And if she could, she normally wouldn’t because of the suffering she would have to go through.

Now in that situation, Jesus said, do not divorce your wife. Where such great evil resulted, Jesus is saying, it can never possibly be the result of a dictate of faith and hope and love that one should divorce one’s wife and cause her such grief and suffering.

Now I have to say something to you which may make you uneasy about me. But it is very important for us to understand this. And I’ll just put it to you as bluntly as I can. Jesus is not saying that always and forever and in general divorce is wrong. He is not saying that. You must remember that Jesus always teaches against a background of an erroneous practice and he always teaches to convey a spirit of faith and love. He always does. And if you want to understand what he’s doing, you have to look at what he’s saying is wrong. In this case, what he’s saying is wrong is supposing you’re right merely because you give the woman a bill of divorcement. He’s saying in this domain of sexual relationships, that is not enough to make you right. You can do this out of hatefulness. It can be an act of tyranny, of revenge, of wrath. It can be any of a number of things which are still bad.

And then secondly you have to remember that he teaches to exemplify a spirit and that spirit is always one of faith, hope, and love. And what he’s saying is that to these people in these circumstances, it can never be an act of faith, hope, or love to cause another human being to suffer in that way.

Now, I want to try to deal here as straightforwardly as I can with the problem because you see, you cannot understand what Jesus teaches unless you understand how he teaches. And in order to make clear this point, I want to turn you to the fourteenth chapter of Luke. And I want to show you what Jesus said once to a man who invited him to dinner. One of the chief of the Pharisees in the fourteenth chapter of Luke invited him to dinner. Jesus talked as he came to that dinner and one of the things he did was to teach a lesson to the person who invited him.

Now, you might not think that was very polite. But in the twelfth verse, then he said also to him that bade him, that is he called his host to him and said, Now, fellow, I have something to teach you. When you make a dinner or supper, call not your friends, nor your brethren, nor your kinsmen, nor your rich neighbors, lest they bid thee again and recompense me made unto thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maim, the lame, and the blind.

Now, dear friends, what that tells you to do is never have your friends over for dinner. And with kinsmen such as some of you have, you may be glad to hear this word. Now, I want to point out to you that in the same generality in which Jesus said that you should never divorce, he tells you here never to have your friends for dinner.

When Jesus got done washing the feet of his disciples in the thirteenth chapter of John, he told them to wash the feet of their brothers and sisters. Isn’t that right? Do you wash the feet of your brothers and sisters? Now you see some people do. And some of you have perhaps been in services where foot washing actually occurred. Others may never have heard of such a thing. But there are many sects, you want to call them that just because they believe in foot washing, right? In which people when they come together wash one another’s feet because Jesus said so.

I shall come in a moment to the passage about swearing, where Jesus says swear not. And there are many sects, you want to call them that because they say you shouldn’t swear in court, who say that it is wrong to take an oath in a court of law. All of these groups make the same mistake. They take a direction which Jesus gave in a particular circumstance against a particular error and they elevate it into a general law. And they take the dictate of love and faith in that situation and turn it into an absolute which can be used against love and against faith.

Let me tell you frankly there are many marriages which should never have happened. Let me tell you frankly that there are many marriages which should be dissolved on the principle of love and faith and hope. If a disciple of Christ finds themselves in a marriage with problems, they have to be very careful how they undertake to follow the Lord in that setting. And in particular they have to be very sure that they cannot fulfill the duties of love and faithfulness with reference to their husband and their wife and their children by staying in a marriage simply because they’re afraid to face God if they get out of it. They will be cornered in that marriage like a frightened rat and they will gnaw on everything that gets in their way.

The person who stays in a marriage where there are difficulties and in what marriages there are not difficulties and the person who stays in a marriage where there are difficulties as a disciple of Christ must stay in that marriage because of their faith in God’s power to accomplish his purposes in that marriage.

We today in our world we get married on the basis of lust and we get divorced on the basis of lust. We get married on the basis of illusions and we get divorced on the basis of illusions. And as long as we are simply governed by those principles, we shall suffer horribly in the process. But where we are involved in a marriage relationship, that is simply a place which we can open to the power and presence of the kingdom of God to see what his will will accomplish in us.

If you’re going to get a divorce as a disciple, make Jesus Christ your marriage counselor and your lawyer as you go through it. And if you think that’s blasphemous given that Jesus has said what he said, all I ask you to do is be consistent and follow everything he said to the letter.

I’ve known many people, for example, who were dispensationalists and who said that the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount were not meant for today and yet they held everyone to this particular commandment. We pick and we choose and when we do so, we are subverting the word of God to fit with our prejudices. Now if Jesus meant this commandment in all generality, he meant all of them in all generality. If on the other hand he meant this commandment as an expression of the spirit of faith and of hope and love for the child of the kingdom in the circumstances specified, then it is something we can walk into and we can say we can follow the same principle where we are today with men and women and boys and girls who are alive under the conditions in which we live today. That’s hopeful. That is something that we can go to others and we can share.

And let me just say, we must bring this message to people about divorce and remarriage. Until we have come to the place to where we understand and have great confidence in the power of the kingdom of God, in this area of life, a whole domain of redemption is closed off to us and we must be able to go to people and say where there is sin and wrong in this area, we must be able to say that burden is gone. Your sins are remitted. The person who comes and seeks to follow Christ there must have your pronouncement, your confirmation, your absolution as his brother, as her sister. You must go in that spirit and you must say your sins are remitted. And if you don’t do that, you leave them in bondage. And the Holy Spirit is given to you for that purpose. And as he guides you, you must proclaim deliverance to the captives and healing to those who have bruised hearts.

See we are so often afraid, I think, that when we come to others and we say your sins are forgiven, they will just say whoopee, let’s go commit some more. And so we hold the threat of unforgiveness and punishment over them. And we feel like somehow if we don’t keep them in a corner with a club, they won’t behave. And that’s something we simply have to forget in the church of Jesus Christ. It is the goodness and grace of God which leads us to repentance, which teaches us not that we mustn’t do things that are wrong, but that things that are wrong are just bad. They’re harmful. They’re unhelpful. They’re unhealthy.

Let’s go on now from this topic to swearing and look at the passage in verse 33 through 37. What is Jesus teaching here? And I want to try to illustrate the same principle here. He have heard that it hath been said by them of all time, thou shalt not forswear thyself. This is what was forgiven. That is, you shouldn’t make a lying promise to God. But thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. Now you see, this is at the level of action of performance. What you say you’re going to do for God, you do it. And as long as you do that, you are right in this area of dealing with God.

But now Jesus says, but I say unto you, swear not at all, neither by heaven for it is God’s throne. Notice the reason given for each case. For it is God’s throne, nor by earth for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king, neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be it is so or it is not so. For whatever is more than this comes from evil.

What is Jesus talking about here? Well the first thing is he’s not talking about cussing, okay? You know what cussing is, and swearing ain’t cussing. Now cussing is something else, and it has plenty of licks that are due to it, and we can deal with that another time. What he’s dealing here is with something quite different from cussing. He’s dealing with swearing. And what swearing is, is an attempt to invoke something bigger than I am, and something over which I have no control to get you to believe something. That’s what swearing is. So you say God is my witness. Now that may be done in a way which is acceptable. I don’t want to question that. What I want to stress is that normally it is not done in a way which is acceptable, because it is normally done in an attempt to overwhelm people and get them to do or believe what you want them to do by invoking something greater than yourself.

Look, heaven is invoked. The earth is invoked. Jerusalem is invoked. In Jesus’ day, and he deals with it in another place, they would invoke the altar. And finally, your head. Ever hear anyone say, I’ll bet the devil my head that such and such and such. Jesus says, you don’t have power over your head. What are you doing invoking your head? Your head isn’t yours.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you think that Cal Worthington has a dog named Spot? Let me ask you a simple question. What in the world does a dog named Spot have to do with whether or not Cal Worthington is going to help you with your transportation needs? The answer is it has absolutely nothing to do with it. And Jesus is getting at that human tendency to call on whatever you can bring in, whether it’s a dog named Spot or whatever, to distract from the issue and steamroller your way through life and get what you want.

Jesus is saying very simply, when you deal with other people, tell them the way it is. If you’re going to give them a good deal, tell them what the deal is. Say, look, I paid this much for this car. I want you to pay this much to me. I will make this much money. Have you ever heard a dealer say that? You see what Jesus picked up on was the fact that we’re constantly using illusion and distraction and downright lies to get our way. And Jesus says, whenever you see a person coming on in that way, and if you come on in that way, that whole smear comes from evil. And that’s exactly where Cal Worthington’s dog named Spot comes from, evil. But you have to understand that Cal is just a beautiful example of what goes on all around. And this is what Jesus is highlighting. And he’s saying, simply state things the way they are. Simply state them the way they are not. Leave people free to decide. Don’t try to hornswoggle them. Don’t try to browbeat them and badger them and distract them until they do something and then have to pay for it.

You see, we are so tempted to be what we are not. And if you were to take that temptation out and remove from life that human tendency to try to manage the appearances to get what they want, most of our need for tranquilizers would be gone. You know, I saw on the news the other night, you may have seen the same thing, that the number one prescribed drug in the United States today is Valium. I believe it was one out of every eight adults is on Valium. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the drug and with taking it, but the need for it being so widespread indicates the huge anxiety that hangs over us. And most of that comes simply from not accepting our simple limitations and allowing things to be stated and stand the way they are and accept our humble place in God’s kingdom and accept his provision. And just let it rest at that.

We’re going to deal with provision in a later discussion when we come to the sixth chapter of Matthew, but in this area that Jesus is talking about of swearing, it is often the desire to obtain provision which is much more ample than we need or that would be good for us, that leads us into the creation of images and the swearing and the promising and the invoking of everything that isn’t ourselves to back us up in getting what we want. And Jesus says, don’t do that. That’s the wrong spirit that is not the spirit of faith, that is not the spirit of hope, that is not the spirit of love.

Jesus did not say you should not take an oath in court, okay, any more than he said that it was always forever and in no exceptions wrong for a person to be divorced.

Let’s read finally the section on justice now. Verses 38 and following, ye have heard that it’s been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And those against whom he spoke is saying, were those who said, as long as you stick strictly to reciprocity, that is if someone knocks your tooth out, you knock their tooth out. You knock out exactly the one they knocked out of you, right? I mean, if it’s this one, you get that one. Now if you don’t have that one, you’ve already lost, or if you’ve already lost that one, then you come as close to equality as you can, an eye for an eye, all right? Punch your eye out, you punch their eye out. Now if you punch both eyes out, then you’re in trouble, but if you just do one, you’re okay.

But I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn him the other also. And if any man shall soothe thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh of thee, and give him that would borrow thee, turn not thou away.

We have to understand again that Jesus is not teaching us that these are things we are always to do. Let me illustrate. Suppose the person strikes you on the other cheek, and you say, now I have been hit on both cheeks, so I’m at liberty to hit back. That would entirely miss the spirit of Christ in this.

When he says resist not evil, he is not saying that you are to make no resistance to anything that is wrong. Jesus himself did that. He took a cord, a rope into the temple, and he whipped a bunch of people. And if you think Jesus didn’t resist evil, look at the 23rd chapter of Matthew. But it was always, it was never merely a personal affront, a personal burden that he resisted. He accepted those, but when there was evil wrongdoing in general, he resisted it. He stood against it, and we are to do the same.

Many of you saw this last week the program on the Holocaust. I want to tell you a very simple fact, that if one church alone, if the Catholic Church had simply stood up and said, we will excommunicate everyone who cooperates with the Nazi regime, that whole thing would have stopped. In fact, if any of the larger denominations in Europe had said similar things, it would have stopped that whole thing that you saw. Jesus did not say not to resist evil in general. He is speaking about personal impositions, and he’s telling us a spirit in which to deal with them.

He is not saying, for example, that if a man sues us at the law and takes away our coat, we make him take our cloak also. He is saying that if a person has been in a tight spot with us legally and has taken something away from us, and then we are in a position where we see that the person still needs something and we have it and can give it, that we are to give it, we are not to stand back and say, huh, I won’t give it to him. I don’t owe it to him. That fellow did me wrong. That fellow took me to law and hurt me. I’m not going to give him anything. We are to say, no, if I have a coat, a cloak, and he’s taken my coat already, and he needs the cloak, and I have it available to give to him, I should let him use it, because he needs it. Just that simple.

He’s not saying that I should force it upon him if he doesn’t need it. Here, take my cloak. You must take it so that I can be righteous, as Jesus taught. He’s not saying that at all. He’s teaching a spirit of justice.

When he says, give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would bar of thee turn not thou away, he’s not saying that if a person comes to you and wants to borrow your gun to shoot you with, you should give him the gun. He is teaching that when someone in need comes to you, it is characteristic of the spirit of the child of the kingdom to give simply because they need. But on the other hand, you may find that you should not give if love dictates otherwise, because it is the spirit of love and of faith and of hope which Jesus is teaching in these passages.

This is the righteousness which is beyond the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. This is the righteousness in which we can stand with confidence and know the power of answered prayer and the power of a spoken word at the direction of the Spirit of God to accomplish his purposes when we stand with this confidence in our hearts.

It’s available to everyone. I am most concerned that those who are already in the church should come to live and to learn and to walk in it. Jesus transformed the ancient world with a group of people smaller than the group of people that is seated in this room this morning. If we turn to the same Savior in the same confidence and learn to walk in his ways at the behest and in the power of the spirit of love and hope and faith, even greater things can be accomplished in our midst.

We’re going to sing a hymn now, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior. There may be those of you who would like to come at this time for counseling or prayer. There will be someone here at the front to meet with you, number 416. And as you do, as we sing, let’s sing prayerfully and with a confidence in the spirit of which we’ve spoken that he would accomplish his purposes in us this morning.