Happy are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach, and shall cast forth your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake
You know the story of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount. He preaches to the crowds on a mountainside near Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus begins with nine compassionate proverbs – not the Proverbs of the Old Testament, but wisdom of His own.
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Do you see God? (I don’t.) What does that tell us?
Many feel-good sermons have encouraged our hearts in these beatitudes – our hearts which are not even close to pure. We hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but we do not receive it in our hearts which are not pure. The heart is deceitful, because it is not pure.
I once inadvertently poked myself in the eye. I saw a great flash of light with intense distortion of my suddenly excruciating painful poke. I didn’t see God; but I couldn’t see anything else, either.
Sometimes it takes a sudden poke to get my heart refocused. It takes a pouring off of the dross from my cold hardened heart to purify my soul nearer to the pureness of God.
Jesus does NOT have fond and ‘happy’ memories of the crowds who sat on the Capernaum hillside. The Son of God rebukes the “blessed” of Capernaum… those who did not accept his nice little Sermon on the Mount.
He later delivers these same ‘blessed’ an unexpected poke in the eye.
Matthew 11:23 “And you people of Capernaum, will you be honored in heaven? No, you will go down to the place of the dead.[a] For if the miracles I did for you had been done in wicked Sodom, it would still be here today. 24 I tell you, even Sodom will be better off on judgment day than you.”
The nice people of Capernaum have not had ears to hear the nine nice proverbs of blessing by Jesus. Here He sounds more like the Prophets who warned of curse which would come on the land and God’s ‘blessed.’
Zechariah 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
“The choice is clear: BLESSING OR CURSE – Heaven OR Hell – Jesus OR a heart not quite pure enough for Heaven.
It seems we have two choices: the eternal fire of Hell
You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross;
Therefore I love Your testimonies.
The wisdom of Proverbs 25:4 tells us:
Take away the dross from silver,
And it will go to the silversmith for jewelry.
“IF you want to see God, allow the Holy Spirit to take away the dross, the impurities of your heart and its cold deceptive hardness.
Jesus gave us the fire of the Spirit to refine our souls to see God. By the blood of Jesus and the fire of the Holy Spirit we will be 100% pure.
John 14:15 “If you love me, obey[d] my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,[e] who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.”
How pure is your heart?
Pray for the ‘blessed’ refining fire of the Spirit, before the ‘cursed’ punishing fire of Hell.
Here is a Gospel commentary you might not consider Good News.
It looks like the church is walking away from Jesus Christ. And church leaders do very little to take the ‘controversial Gospel’ of Christ Jesus into a world which has long ago walked away from God.
“Many christians walk away from the church. Biblical preaching is too confrontational for our daily lives.
Roger@talkofJesus.com
Many churches accommodate worldly sin as accepted doctrine. Such preaching and failure to separate the Holiness of Christ’s Church from the sins of the flesh is NOT Biblical. The atheist pulpits expect no miracles; nor will they be prepared for the Last Day.
“The Bible is confrontational. Religious institutions as Temples of tradition will be torn down by the same crowds they once accommodated.
Roger@TalkofJesus.com – August 20, 2013 A.D. (soon to become the ‘common era’)
a Challenge of the Gospel of John
Yet what happened to Jesus?
The crowds rejected Him.
The Religious establishment remained for a time, then the Temple fell [A.D. 70], as had its religious leaders long before.
Jesus did not strike down the Pharisees (as political Caesars do each other). Or did the Son of the Most High God take over the Temple.
Rather, He became our Sacrifice on its Altar.
the Chaff of ‘christian’ Unbelievers
What would cause the unthinkable thing of disciples turning away from Jesus — the so-called faithful to turn away and desert our Lord Jesus?
To back up a little in John’s Gospel, Jesus said:
63 The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64 But some of you do not believe me.”
Men and women followed JESUS when it was 'the thing to do.' The number of Jesus' disciples multiplied again and again. But when their KING would not seize their imagined National Throne for the country of God most looked for another savior.
Do you believe Christ Jesus?
He does not say that is doesn’t matter what you do. What we do as witnesses of Jesus as Lord of our life matters greatly. However, nothing we do – no acts which merit praises of men – can accomplish anything to save our soul from hell.
Remember the miracle of feeding the 5000?
They would have made Jesus King right there on the spot. But our Lord fled.
Most leaders of a 21st c. church (unlike the Lord Jesus) would taken credit for their miracle, make certain to collect the offering and most likely fail to mention God, the Bible or Jesus Christ.
The crowds of disciples found and followed Jesus.
“Give us more miracles – show more of this Kingly power” —
Isn’t that is our typical human response (rather than thankfulness for God’s provision and blessing)?
No more miracles; no more disciples.
We'll find another religious leader for our kingly church vision.
41 Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
52 Then the people began arguing with each other about what he meant.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.
53 So Jesus said again,
“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day.
Gospel of John 6:53b-54 ASV
Do you, dear believer, murmur and complain that Jesus isn’t doing much for Christians in these last days?
“Lord, to whom would we go?
67 Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked,
“Are you also going to leave?”
68 Simon Peter replied,
“Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”
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