Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Four)

Matthew 4:23 - 5:4
#BS-MA04
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 02-Sep-81; 79 minutes

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We are going to tear these verses apart, especially the first 12 verses of Matthew the fifth chapter where I feel that it is very essential to have a good, clear understanding of the finding of terms.

But we are going to drop back into Matthew 4 because we never did get finished with it when we last spoke. We got up as far as Matthew 4:23. So we are going to begin there, and then we will get into Matthew 5.

Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

The first thing I want you to notice is the word synagogue.

Sometimes there is the opportunity in our minds to get confused or, let us say, a little bit of confusion anyway, between the Temple and the synagogue. There was only one Temple, but there were many, many synagogues. And I would imagine that just about any town of any size in Palestine had a synagogue.

The Temple was really a monument to God. There was very, very little preaching done in it. If you can just think even of the size of it, you can understand why very little preaching was done in it. It was very small internally; the actual Temple itself was very small, although it was very richly decorated, very beautiful to look upon. The only thing that was actually performed there by way of religious service on a regular basis was the sacrificing.

On the other hand, there was no sacrificing permitted anywhere else but the Temple. The Jews were not sacrificing at the local synagogue. They were not supposed to sacrifice on, you know, high hills or any other place. They were to sacrifice only at the Temple. And so all the sacrificing you read of in the Bible, all is a little bit too general, but the major portion of it was done either at the Tabernacle when it existed, or the Temple when it existed, and there just was not sacrificing permitted at other places.

Now, the synagogue was a teaching institution. It was the place where the Jew would receive his spiritual education. And they too were usually not very large. I do not know, really, the reason why they were not too large, but maybe it was because they were only built, in most cases, to accommodate the men. And so, they would have to seat only the men in the village. The children did not attend, and the women normally did not attend. And only boys who had passed through the age of 12 and above would be attending.

It is interesting to note that Jesus, it says, was teaching in their synagogues. Now, they had a form of worship that was by our standards really quite loose. The service would begin with prayers. Apparently, these prayers were pretty much formalized—things that were recited by rote Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year, generation after generation. Then following the prayers, there would be a reading of the Bible. And of course, most of you understand that apparently during the time of Ezra, the Old Testament—the law, the prophets, and writings—had been broken down into a highly systematized series of readings, so that at any given time during a three-year period, any Jew who was at all interested in religion would know where he should be reading, not just on the Sabbath, but during the weekdays as well. And then following the reading of the Bible, there would be time given over for a sermon.

Now, in the New Testament, you will see occasionally the title, the ruler of the synagogue. We might call this man today a president. He was the president of the congregation, the leader of it. Now, he was not necessarily the man who gave the sermon. The president could give the sermon, but he could also appoint someone who told him that he had a message. And if he deemed that person fit to give a message, then he would appoint that person to give the message.

Or if someone looked as though he was somebody, or maybe traveling through, and it looked as though this person was educated, it might well be that the president would call upon that person, and say, how about you give the sermon? Do you have anything that you would like to say? And then if he felt as though he had anything prepared, then he would stand up and give a sermon. And then following that sermon, there would be time for questions or discussion.

Turn with me to Luke 4, verse 16. This is in regard to Jesus. Jesus was not a Levite. He was a member of the city of Nazareth. And here He was, He came on the Sabbath day to the synagogue.

Luke 4:16-17 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

And then it goes on to quote the scripture there from out of Isaiah the 61st chapter. And then verse 20,

Luke 4:20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him.

And then He began verse 21 to give a sermon. It was based on that scripture that He had just read.

Now you see, Jesus was just a member of the city. He was probably somebody of at least some importance within the town, but he had no a formal ecclesiastical training in the sense of being trained for the synagogue or the Temple. So you see, that is the way they did things—very loose.

Can you imagine me going into the local Lutheran church down here and sitting down while the preacher is going through whatever he goes through. And then at a certain time, he said, “Hey, I see we have a visitor here. Maybe he’d like to stand up and speak.” We do not do things like that anymore, do we?

Turn back to Acts 9, verse 19. Here was Paul who had just been struck down, blinded, laid hands on, and then baptized.

Acts 9:19-20 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Immediately he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.

He immediately got up and went directly to the synagogue. Why? Because he knew that he would probably be given the opportunity to speak there. And so, when he was given that opportunity, why, off he was, beginning to preach.

Acts 13:13 Now when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John [Mark], departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, "Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on."

You see there, their form of worship, even though we have the tendency to think of it as being highly ritualized, it had a form, but it was not as orderly as ours is by far.

The ritual went on at the Temple. But at the local synagogue, things were quite loose by comparison to the way it is in the church of God today.

So, it is very easy to see that there apparently was no formal ministry that was trained any more than the man who was the ruler of the synagogue or the president or whatever. And that he could appoint anybody, even a stranger, to preach. That is why you will so often see that Jesus went to the synagogue, or that the apostles went to the synagogue, because there they could meet with people, have an opportunity to speak, and though it may not be received, they would at least have that opportunity.

Back to Matthew 4, verse 23:

Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

In the biblical sense, preaching and teaching are not the same thing, even though when a man preaches, he also teaches, and even when a man teaches, there is there are elements of preaching involved as well.

In the biblical sense, preaching is the proclamation of the message. Teaching, on the other hand, is the explanation of its meaning and significance. So the preaching has a tendency to be general; the teaching is specific. It is in detail.

Mr. Armstrong has put it this way: “It is my job to set the overview, to give people direction and purpose.” And so it is. Preaching removes ignorance of purposes and gives vision, whereas teaching gives understanding.

You have to understand that these are generalities, because preaching also gives understanding. Teaching also gives purposes. I am talking about, in a general sense by definition, preaching gives overview and teaching gives specific details.

So Mr. Armstrong's responsibility, then, to this work is to give the overview, to give vision, to set the direction. It is the local pastor's responsibility, then, to fill in the details, and as much as lies within him to make it practical, so that we can use the guidance and direction that we receive from the overview.

Now, what about the healing? The healing was done in order to show a type of the result; that is if the preaching and teaching were properly used, then healing would result.

Healing, of course, is a symbol here in the sense that he actually literally did physically heal people. But remember that Jesus’ primary purpose was to get people more spiritually oriented. And He is thinking primarily of spiritual healing, not the physical.

So then He preached, He gave overview, He gave vision; He taught, He filled in with details, and He healed in order to show the result. Now, of course, the healing did more than that. It was also a confirmation of His ministry, that is, focusing in on who He was. And it was a wonderful advertising means, because it really attracted a great deal of attention. So God had the opportunity then to be both merciful and to advertise the One who was proclaiming the gospel all at the same time, with one stroke.

Healing for us falls into a different category. It is not that God cannot advertise through healing us because He can. But healing is used by God as a tool in a different direction. And that is primarily for the development of all or as many aspects of character as He can possibly wring from a given circumstance. And maybe He withholds healing from time to time for a major reason.

What is it that always results from sin? It is pain, suffering, and ultimately death. If we are ever going to stop sinning, it is because we have come to the place where we do not want to suffer, and we do not want anybody else to suffer. We do not want any more pain either in ourselves, or in our loved ones, in our neighbor, or anybody. And when we reach that place where we do not want any pain for anybody at any time, we will hate sin, and we will quit sinning when we hate it enough. It just seems as though we learn best when we hurt most (we are going to see that in one of these beatitudes as we go through.

And so God uses it to a very great extent to build patience, to learn sacrifice, to understand forgiveness, to learn to live with pain, to hate sin, and to build faith. Oftentimes, I think we get the wrong idea that if God does not heal us immediately, that maybe we do not have faith. Well, I say that that might be a possibility, but there is also a very strong possibility that the reason He is not healing is simply because He wants what you do have to grow. And it is actually, if you look at it in the right attitude, a means of patting you on the back, because the hardest trials go to those who can do and endure the most. So not being healed can actually be looked upon very positively as a vote of confidence in you from God; that this is one person who has faith, and they are going to demonstrate this faith before others and build others’ faith as a result of it.

So just understand that, that is an important point to remember: that God does use healing for us in a way different than He did for the Israelite at the time of Jesus’ ministry.

Matthew 4:24 Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.

There was a whole wide spectrum of people, sick from all kinds of causes.

Matthew 4:25 Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis [that means the 10 cities that were around the Sea of Galilee], Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

Here is where we are going to begin to really slow down for a while. You might recall that when we began this, and we were giving the background for the book of Matthew, that I stressed to you, I believe it was in the very first study, that the book of Matthew is very systematically organized, that it is the work of a person of a very precise mind. Remember I was talking about Matthew's background; how as a tax collector he undoubtedly understood a great deal about accounting; how that would account for his orderliness; that everything in the book of Matthew is arranged in a very orderly fashion; how that at the very beginning, the first thing he did was state Jesus’ claim to the throne by giving His legal genealogy. And then following that, he went to the events that preceded His birth, and then at His birth, and then those things that occurred immediately after His birth.

And then chronologically, there is a very big gap between chapters 2 and 3. But in chapter 3, he jumped all the way up to the time of John the Baptist. With John the Baptist, we see the announcement that the Messiah is on His way. Then we see John announcing that this is the Messiah and baptizing Him. Then in chapter 4, we move directly from His baptism to the testing of Jesus by Satan. And we see listed various means through which sin is activated. We also see sort of an idea of the means by which Jesus decided that the gospel was going to be proclaimed, sort of in a reverse manner, that this will not work, that this will not work, and this will not work approach.

Then following in chapter 4, we have the choosing of His disciples. Here we see only five of them named. But when we put this together with John the first chapter, it is very evident that there were at least six chosen at this time. And it is quite possible that very shortly after this came the choosing of the other six. But we see six of them here in Matthew the fourth chapter.

The next logical step is that He has His disciples chosen, He has to train them, He has to teach them, He has to instruct them. And so, that is what Matthew 5 begins with. We have the foundational instructions for His disciples. And actually, it is more than that; it is the foundation of all of the teaching of Jesus Christ that is given here in the book of Matthew.

Now, the Sermon on the Mount is the essence of the teaching of Jesus. We tend to think of it as being a sermon, but it was far more than a sermon. It is many, many sermons that covered many days. I can stretch that out with no stretching the truth, I feel at all, to say that what Matthew has gathered together here is the essence of the teaching that Jesus gave through the entirety of His ministry.

And so we have here in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, a compendium. You see, a collection of the teachings of Jesus Christ. I think that you know just from experience in listening to God's ministers in the church of God, that it is highly likely that we can make a sermon from each one of these verses. I can talk for an hour and a half without any difficulty from each one of these verses.

Now, we are only doing what our Master did. I do not have any shred of doubt in my mind that Jesus could sit down and talk for an hour and a half on verse 3! It does not stretch my imagination at all, because I have given sermons for an hour and a half on verse 3 myself. It was not the only verse I stayed at by far. And I do not think Jesus would have either. He would have gone to various places in the Scriptures, expounding to these men, and to anybody else who was in hearing distance, what these verses meant.

So, when we begin to examine the Sermon on the Mount, the first thing that I think that we can begin to see is we have got to get rid of this idea that it was one sermon given at one time in one place. There is just far too much information contained here for it to have been just one sermon given at one time at one place.

Another bit of evidence that this is true is that much of the Sermon on the Mount contains disconnections. That is, there are sections that just suddenly break off, and go in an entirely different direction, for example, between verses 12 and 13. There is a slight connection, but He seemingly goes off in another subject altogether. And then, verse 17: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law and the Prophets.” He had not even been talking about the law and the prophets. And on and on it goes like this, which seems to indicate that it was material that was given at a different time, different day, and very possibly at a different place.

Now, there are two other proofs that are even stronger than this. The one is whenever we make a comparison between the Sermon on the Mount as it is given in Matthew, and the Sermon on the Mount as it is given by Luke.

I will just give you three examples. The Sermon on a Mount in the book of Luke appears in the sixth chapter. Now it took three chapters of Matthew for Matthew to write the Sermon on the Mount. But Luke got the whole thing in one chapter. Now is Luke's chapter 6 exceptionally long? No, it is not.

Let us take a look first at that scripture in Matthew 5:13 where He says that you are the salt of the earth.

Let us go back to the book of Luke. You know what? If you go to Luke the sixth chapter, you will not even find it there. It is not even in Luke's account of the Sermon on the Mount. You know where it is? It is in Luke the 14th chapter, verses 34 and 35.

Now, if you look at the context in which it appears, you will find it is entirely different. Back in Matthew the fifth chapter, it appears within the context of the Beatitudes. In Luke the 14th chapter, it appears immediately following where Jesus was telling these people what their commitment to Him was going to be. If they were going to be His disciple, they were going to have to make this commitment. So, you see, it even appears in entirely different context.

Now, what should that lead you to believe? Well, Luke is also very well organized, only his organizational pattern is different than Matthew’s. You can look back in Acts the first chapter, which was also written by Luke, and you will find there an interesting little item, that Luke set things down in order, and the order appears to be chronological. Matthew does have a chronologic order to it, but it is far looser than Luke's. It does begin with His birth and it ends with His resurrection, as does Luke. However, because Matthew puts things in topical order, he tends to disregard chronology, whereas Luke has almost everything in chronological order.

So you begin to see these things in Luke in the context in which they actually appear, whereas Matthew arranged it as a compendium or summary of the teachings of Jesus.

Let us go to another one back to Matthew 5 again, this time in verse 15.

Matthew 5:15 “Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

You know where that appears in Luke? In chapter 8! Again, you see it is not even in the Sermon on the Mount in Luke. It appears in Luke 8:16. Again, it appears in an entirely different context. Do you know where it appears in Luke? It appears at the end of the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. It is an entirely different context.

Let us look at just one more.

Matthew 5:18 “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”

That appears in Luke 16. Again, ten chapters away from the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Luke, chapter 16, verses 16 and 17. And again, it appears in a different context altogether.

So this leads me to believe even more strongly that the Sermon on the Mount was not one sermon given at one place at one time, but rather, it is a collection of the teachings of Jesus; teachings that He gave over quite a long period of time.

Now, in verses 1 and 2 we are going to see this confirmed grammatically that this is exactly what Matthew did. We will see it confirmed grammatically.

Matthew 5:1-2 And seeing the multitudes. He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened his mouth and taught them saying. . .

First of all, it appears to be private teaching: He saw the multitudes, and he left the multitudes, He took His disciples aside, and He went up into a private place. It says that when He was seated, that is, He sat down to teach. Here is another difference. Today, this evening, I am sitting down teaching. However, normally on the Sabbath, I stand up and teach. Now, whenever they of that culture were giving teaching that they intended to be taken very seriously, they sat down. Did you notice in that account we read in Luke the fourth chapter, that when Jesus read the Bible, He sat down to read, and then He gave the book back and it says He sat down again, that when He was set.

The Jews were not the only people who did this, other cultures did it as well. The Romans did it. The Greeks did it. When they were serious about something, they sat down to teach. It was as though an utterance was coming from the oracle. You know, when the Greeks went to get wisdom from the oracle, they went to Delphi, and the oracle sat down before them and instructed them.

When you see that in the Bible, understand that it is something serious.

I just happened to think of this. There is one personage on this earth today that it is noted when he is speaking from his chair—the Pope. You see he speaks ex cathedra, meaning out of his chair. And when he is giving official church doctrine, if he is reading an encyclical before people, he sits down to do it. Not because he is weak, but he is emphasizing the seriousness of what he is pronouncing to them.

The next thing it says is “He opened His mouth.” Now that sounds like an unwieldy way to say that he spoke. But I guess that is the best they can do in the translation. But again, in the Greek language, this is intended to signify something that is serious, solemn; something that is intended grammatically to make the person pay attention; that here comes something that I really want you to get.

It says that “He opened His mouth and taught them, saying . . .” Here is this indication from the grammar that what Matthew is telling us is that we have here not one sermon, but a collection in a nutshell of the continuous teachings of Jesus. Now, the Greeks have a tense, a verb tense that they call aorist, and it is very similar to our past tense. And when the aorist tense is used, it indicates an action that was completed at a definite time in the past. For example, if I say to you that he shut the door, you see it was definitely completed at a set time in the past, the action was not continued. However, they have another tense that is very similar to our imperfect tense which means, “Repeated and habitual action that was done in the past but is still continuing.”

Now, that is the way this is written here, that it was not an action that was done at one time. You see, it says His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth. It appears as though it was in the past tense, open, you see, sometime in the past. And He taught them. That also appears to be in the past, but it is not written that way in the Greek, but rather it is written in the verb tense that indicates continuous action, the imperfect tense.

Therefore, what Matthew is saying here is that Jesus did not do it once, but rather He did it continuously, that is, through the entirety of His preaching.

So when we apply that now to Matthew 5, 6, and 7, since these are the opening statements, what Matthew is saying is that I have here a collection of teachings that Jesus continuously taught.

Let us go on to verse 3.

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

A couple more details. Notice the word “are.” You will notice that the word “are” appears in italics, I think in every verse through verse 10. Now, I think that you are familiar that when you see that in the King James, it is an indication to you that that word does not actually appear in the Greek text, and that the word has been supplied by the translators in order to hopefully make the meaning more clear to you.

Now this is a technicality, maybe it will help you to understand something. So what we are saying here is that as Jesus uttered these Beatitudes, there is no verb there, it is missing.

Hold your finger there and I will show you an example back in the Psalms. Remember, it is extremely unlikely that Jesus actually spoke this in Greek. He probably spoke it either in Aramaic or in Hebrew. Now, everybody in here is at least somewhat familiar with the first song. “Blessed and Happy is the Man,” the way we sing it.

Now look at Psalm 1, verse 1. As this was written, notice again, the second word is the word “is” and it, too, is in italics. It had to be supplied by the translators again. That is because in the Hebrew, there is no verb there. Now why? The reason is because these are actually exclamations. And what this literally says, is, “Oh, the blessedness of the man that walks not in the council of the ungodly!” You see it is an exclamation, “Oh, the blessedness of the man!”

Back to Matthew 5. Now we have here a statement that actually says, “Oh, the blessedness of the poor in spirit.” In practical application, what this means is that these statements are not pious prophecies, they are not something that you are kind of intended by Jesus to hope for somewhere out in the future. But rather what He is saying is that they are things that exist right now.

Now you may want to attain to them. They are things that you can strive for, but it is God's every intention that you have it right here and now. And it can be yours, the blessedness of a man who is poor in spirit, that theirs is going to be the kingdom of heaven.

What He is saying here, what He is eventually leading up to, just simply by the cumulative effect of every one of these beatitudes is that there is absolutely no reason for any Christian ever to get into deep depression, discouragement, or gloom.

Now, that does not mean that a Christian cannot sorrow; that does not mean that he will not get depressed occasionally. But he will never stay depressed. He will never stay discouraged because those things are sin; they come from selfishness.

But the person who has these attitudes—these states of mind—you are going to see as we go through them, their mind is on anything else but themselves. And it is because their mind is not on themselves that they are in this state of perfection or blessedness, by the very fact that they are not dwelling on themselves. But the thrust and direction of their mind is in an entirely different direction. It is beamed in on God and all of the hopes and joys that He has revealed to us in His Word.

Let us look more closely at the word blessed. It is the Greek makarios. You are probably familiar with Archbishop Makarios. His name appears in the news every once in a while, and I guess to the Greek Orthodox Church, he is the equivalent of the Pope, but makarios means blessed. It means happy; joyous. But really, it is a very special kind of joy.

I will give you an illustration. Most of you are familiar with it from geography at some time or another of seeing Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. You know, you have looked at the map and you have seen Cyprus. Well, about the time that the Bible was written, the Greeks did not call it Cyprus. That is a fairly late name that has been given to it. Instead they called it, Makaria—the Happy Isle, a literal translation. Makaria is the feminine of makarios. Now, why did they call it Makaria, the Happy Isle? Why did they call it that? Well, I will tell you why. Because to them it was paradise.

Now, you might think that it is great to be able to go to some South Sea Island—palm trees and all of that—and say, “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place like that.” Well, that is the way the Greeks looked at Cyprus. They thought that Cyprus had everything that life could offer to a person. It had the most beautiful climate of any area that they knew. It had soaring and majestic mountains. It had beautiful fertile and verdant valleys. It had places with lush grass in order to feed their cattle, sheep, and goats. It had bubbling streams of water that came down from the mountains and watered every place on the island. It had tremendous stores of minerals. It would grow just about anything. So, they felt that everything that a human being needed to be happy was contained within Makaria.

Can you begin to understand why they called it Makaria? It had everything—a person would not have to leave it. He would not gain a thing by leaving Makaria. It just could not be improved upon.

Now, when you see this application here in the Beatitudes, what God is talking about is, in this case, a joy that is not dependent upon anything that is external at all. It does not depend on the weather. It does not depend on how much money; it does not depend on one’s state of health. A joy that is not dependent upon anything that is physical but is generated from within.

Now, I want you to compare that to the English word happy. And maybe you will understand why they did not use the word happy here. The translators could have done it. Do you know what the root word for happy is? It is hap. Do you know what hap means? It means chance. It is the same root word for happen and happenstance.

And what the etymology of the word happy will tell you is that this joy that we call happiness is something that is dependent upon circumstance. It is dependent upon chance. You see how the translators could not use a word like that because that is not what the Greek makarios means. It is not dependent on chance at all. It is something that is generated from within.

Let me give you from The Reader's Digest Dictionary some synonyms for the word happy and we can make some comparisons. And then you understand even more clearly why the translators used the word blessed.

The synonyms for happiness are felicity, gladness, bliss, and blessedness. Now listen to this:

Happiness is a general term often indicating little more than freedom from sadness or sorrow.

Felicity is more formal and colder but refers to the same quality.

Gladness is joyful, overflowing happiness, but falls short of bliss, which is a static, perfected happiness.

Blessedness is happiness so profound as to be attributed to divine favor. Now I did not say that. That is what the dictionary says the definition is. It is a happiness that is so profound as to be attributed to divine favor.

See why they used the word blessed? Now, He is almost telling you that this happiness is a gift from God. And really, I do not see how we could come to any other conclusion, that when a person reaches the state of mind where he is poor in spirit, he is going to have a happiness that is being generated by God Almighty Himself and is given to that person by His Spirit. And it is therefore not determined or dependent upon anything that is external.

You know very well that we sometimes get upset when the weather changes. I will tell you that we can go into a blue funk if we have a picnic scheduled or something that we are going to do outdoors and it pours down rain. Do you ever listen to these disc jockeys? And they are given the weather report, especially when they get toward the end of the week. Boy, they start emphasizing whether or not the weather is going to be good on Saturday and Sunday. It almost makes a person feel as though they are almost going to die if it rains on Saturday or Sunday; that it is just going to ruin their lives.

Sometimes, I just feel like (I am going to do it one of these days) I am going to pick up the phone and ask, “Don’t you know that rain is a blessing?” You know, last week our kids went up to North Carolina. They were camping up around Linville, which is just a little bit south of Boone, and it had not rained up there for a couple of months. They had a map with them that showed where there were springs that they could go to get water up in the mountains, and the springs were dry. Do you know that Steve Baer had to go into town and beg for water? Someday we are going to learn.

This kind of happiness is not dependent on the state of your finances, the state of your health, whether a certain plan or goal that you fixed failed in some way, some kind of a disappointment, or whatever. You see, it is something that is being generated from within.

I will show you even further proof of that. Let us go back to John 16, verse 22 where Jesus is speaking to His disciples just prior to His death. And he says,

John 16:22 “Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”

Do you have that kind of joy? I will tell you, if you do not have that kind of joy, maybe you need to get on your knees before God, and say, “God clean me up. God do something to me. Fill me with enthusiasm. Give me hope. Inspire my dreams. Give me vision. Help me to be generated with that kind of a feeling. Help me to be inspired with the things that I know are so great and awesome. Help me to think about those things.”

Maybe we need to ask God for that once in a while so that we can get our minds off old number one.

Let us go back to Psalms 16. David was a man who was in the midst of a great deal of trouble from time to time. He is making what turned out to be a prophecy. He says,

Psalm 16:10-11 For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

That is why I say that this joy, this blessedness, this happiness that He is talking about here, this makarios back in Matthew the fifth chapter, is something that is generated by God. It is a gift of His Spirit. That is why it is a joy that radiates from within the person to the outside, not dependent on circumstances whatsoever. It is a joy that can overcome sorrow because it focuses in on the things of the mind of God.

We are past the first two words. We will go on to verse 3. Let us look at the word “poor.”

I really feel that what is being said here are the standards of Christianity. This is what we are to shoot for; the kind of expectation that we all ought to have.

The Greeks had two words that they would use for poor. The one is penes. It meant poor in the sense of a man who did not have anything extra; he was just barely surviving. He had no luxuries.

However, that is not the word that is used in Matthew 5:3. This is another word that is pronounced something like pchosos. And it means absolute, abject poverty. It comes from the root which means to crouch, to cower; as beaten to their knees. You see, this person has nothing at all. He is not just poor, he has nothing. He does not even have enough to survive. He has absolutely nothing at all.

Again, remember that this was very likely spoken in Aramaic. The Aramaic word for poor is ebeon. Any of you who have studied any church history might recall the Ebionite. The Ebionites were a group of people that we feel very likely were part of the true church, probably in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. It literally means the poor ones; Ebionites.

There is another connotation to it. It is really very interesting. It went through a very long etymology over the centuries because it first meant simply to be poor. But gradually it came to mean a person who had no influence. You see, it simply did not mean poor. It began to apply to a person who, because he was poor, had no influence. No influence at City Hall or anything like that. Then it slowly developed to mean that because the person had no influence, he was downtrodden. That is, that people picked on him. And then it came to mean that because the person had no one that he could turn to give him help because he was beaten down and downtrodden, he came to trust in God. Poor took on a different connotation altogether. It meant somebody who trusted God. You see, after all of those centuries, it did not have anything to do with being monetarily poor. The word completely changed until it meant somebody who trusted in God.

Now, the Greeks had no equivalent for that word, except the words that are translated faith in the New Testament. So, whenever Jesus spoke that they had to use the word that literally meant poor. That is why the word poor appears in the New Testament here.

Turn with me back to Psalms. Now we will see it in the Hebrew. And if you want to make a study of this in the book of Psalms alone, you will see what I mean. Let us take Psalm 34. We will just take one to give you an example.

Again, remember that this was spoken by David. David was far from poor.

Psalm 34:6 This poor man cried out, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

Now, what does it mean? You see, it means this man who trusted God cried. That is what it literally means. It has nothing at all to do with money. It has nothing at all to do with the person's financial standing in the community. When it is used in this sense, it has everything to do with his standing before God.

You see, the Greek word begins to come into play here. What did the Greek word mean? You see somebody who is cowering, somebody who has bent his neck, somebody who has submitted himself to God, and trusts Him.

God always called the Israelites stiff-necked. It meant that they would not subject themselves to Him, they would not bend their neck, they would not bow before Him, and they would not yield before Him.

We begin to see this word take on an entirely different connotation. It is taking on the connotation of a person who is submitting himself. And that is exactly what it means. “Oh, the blessedness of the man who submits his spirit,” who is poor in spirit, who submits his spirit, who puts his whole trust and faith in God. He has no earthly resources to which he can turn to for salvation. And so, he turns to God.

Now, if a person has this state of mind, it is going to do two things to him. Number one, he knows his happiness is going to be generated by God in his relationship with Him. Therefore, he attaches himself to God. He also knows that his happiness is not in any way, shape, or form dependent upon things—material things, houses, clothing, or whatever. Therefore, he has no attachment to things. It does not mean that he does not appreciate or admire good things, or that he does not have good things. He may have good things, but his hope, his joy, his state of mind is in no way dependent upon them.

That follows right on the heels and agrees perfectly with the definition of the word makarios. And so we can come to this conclusion by putting together many other scriptures in the New Testament and maybe in the whole Bible.

We can see very clearly that God shows that poverty is not good. God says He wishes above all things that we prosper and be in good health. God intends that we be prosperous, a great deal of our lack of prosperity is dependent entirely upon us. Either our laziness or our failure to handle the blessings that God does give us in a good way or whatever [leads to a lack thereof].

Poverty of money is not good, but poverty of human spirit is very good. And that is what He is talking about here—the poverty of human spirit. When a man realizes that in his spirit there is no hope of salvation, what is going to be the result? He will yield to God. If he wants eternal life, he is going to yield to God.

Now, when he yields, he is going to obey. And does it not say that God gives His Spirit to those that obey Him? And when God gives His Spirit, with it comes the gift of joy, or this kind of happiness.

The conclusion there is, “Oh, the blessedness of the person who recognizes the poverty of his spirit and submits to God in obedience, for theirs is going to be the kingdom of heaven.”

So you see this person is going to be very teachable in his attitude and he will be happy.

Matthew 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

We do not have to go through the word blessed again.

This one almost seems like a contradiction because on the one hand, He is telling us that we ought to be happy. On the other hand, He says, happy are they who are sad. That does not make sense, does it? It almost seems to be a contradiction in terms. There is a lesson here though, and it is a beauty!

Turn to Genesis 37. The context is Jacob being told that his son Joseph is dead. Now, we know from reading the rest of the book that Joseph really was not dead. But as far as Jacob knew Joseph was dead, that his sons were telling him the truth. And of course, his sons were very sincere too because they thought that Joseph was dead. Or did they? No, they did not know that, they had sold him into slavery. They knew better than that. It says,

Genesis 37:34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

When that translation into the Greek (called the Septuagint) was made, the word for mourned in verse 34 is the same word that is used in Matthew 5:4.

It does not mean that Jacob shed a few tears. It is a very strong word. It means that Jacob was really broken up. It means a grief that cannot be hidden. You know, that he shed great big tears, and that “rent his clothes” gives an idea of the state of his mind; that the tears were unrestrained, that he was racked with sobs because his favorite son, he thought, was dead. The one that I am sure that he intended to be the heir of everything, even though he had other sons, that Joseph was his favorite. [The firstborn of the wife he loved.] That is the kind of mourning that Jesus was talking about here in verse 4 of Matthew 5—a grief that cannot be hid.

Now, how can we be happy if we have a grief that cannot be hidden? Well, I will tell you. God, of course, does not intend that it be continuously sustained. But there are at least three applications to yours and my life.

Have you ever heard the expression that all sunshine makes a desert? If you just stop to think of what it takes to grow crops, it takes not only sunshine, but it also takes rain. In the analogy here, sunshine, of course, is the equivalent of good weather, and rain is the equivalent of bad weather. When we transfer this into human experience, sunshine means happy and joyous times when we are having a lot of fun, laughing, and life is just sailing right along; we have all kinds of pleasurable experiences and it seems as though we will never ride off into the sunset, that it will always be sunshine.

Now rain, you see, are bad times. It is the equivalent of bad times. If you constantly have good times, you would end up with you being nothing more than a shallow and vain person who had no understanding of things. It takes sorrow—it takes sadness—to make us understand cause and effect. It takes pain.

Now let us go back to the Old Testament again where there are so many beautiful illustrations, to Ecclesiastes 7.

When things go wrong, do you not start looking for solutions? As long as things are going well, you want to continue things the way they are, and you will do everything in your power to continue to sustain things that way. But immediately if something goes wrong, you start to look for a cause and then you learn something.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart.

See, it is better to mourn, Solomon says, than it is to laugh. We would rather laugh than we would to mourn. The only trouble is that as long as we are laughing, we are apparently learning almost nothing. But whenever sadness enters, we begin to learn something and get smart.

Ecclesiastes 7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better.

After all, is that not what God is after? Is he not after a better heart? Did Jesus not say in Matthew 15 that all of these evil things are generated out from the heart? And if a man's heart is not changed, that he will continue to be evil?

Now, Solomon is teaching us here that when sorrow comes into our lives, the heart is made better, because sorrow makes us think of cause and effect, and it makes us want to do things differently.

Ecclesiastes 7:4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools [Ha, ha, laughing all the time] is in the house of mirth.

Turn back to Ecclesiastes 2. Solomon tried everything, you know. And he said in verse 2 of chapter 2,

Ecclesiastes 2:2 I said of laughter—“Madness! [Those are pretty strong words.]; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?”

I would say that is what we are driving at here.

Now is God without humor? Of course not! We are created in His image, and we find many things funny. Sometimes the wrong things, but certainly God has humor, and He has passed this ability on to us as well. But what he is telling us here is that humor is relatively unimportant. It does not do much good as far as salvation is concerned. But sorrow and sadness make a person think and make a person change. So very little is accomplished by humor. And so, in the long run, it is relatively unimportant as far as salvation is concerned.

A second application here.

From the first beatitude we saw that it is okay for us to detach ourselves from things, but we should never detach ourselves from people.

Now turn with me to Ezekiel 9:4 and we will just look at this very briefly. This has tremendous importance as far as yours and my salvation is concerned. We are not going to read through the whole vision that Ezekiel was given.

Ezekiel 9:4-6 And the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it." To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary." [That is, His church!] So they began with the elders who were before the temple.

The second application ought to be very clear. Christianity is caring. And if we do not care for the state of this world enough to pray about God sending His Kingdom to this earth; about sending Jesus Christ to relieve the oppression; to relieve the slavery and the pain and the torment that people are going through, from being in bondage to governments, or malnutrition, or starvation, disease epidemics, or whatever; that if we do not have enough care within us to pray that God's Kingdom come on this earth, and that this mess gets stopped, then that vision indicates that we are going to go down the tubes too. That is not a very happy situation, is it?

And so, you see there is a second indication that those who are really concerned about the state of this world are going to be rewarded by God by being made happy. That is a pretty good reward.

The final thing is probably the most important one of all and it applies to the application of this mourning to oneself. Jesus’ first message as it is recorded in the book of Mark is repent. He says, “Repent and believe the gospel.” That was His first message (Mark 1:14).

Change—what does the Bible show that always precedes change? Sorrow, godly sorrow. A person will not really change unless he is desperately sorry for the effect of sin, and for sin itself. The thing that makes us repent is when God, either by revelation or some way He impacts upon our minds to the extent that we are able to see very clearly what sin is, and what sin does. So often, brethren, that has to come through pain. That it is pain that makes us sorry and leads to a godly repentance.

But really when we get right down to it, that is what Christ's death does for us. When we can get to the place where we can really relate to Jesus Christ and understand that He was the great and majestic God who created everything that was, everything that is, who is the Giver of life. And that God became a man, and He lived the loveliest life that has ever been lived on the face of the earth, and when our sins went on Him, it smashed Him so that you and I can see that the greatest, loveliest life that has ever been lived, when sin is applied to it, it ends—horribly, and that leads us to repentance in relation to sin and God.

Now, those who truly mourn over sin are the ones who are going to be made happy, because as they change, God is going to generate it within them.

Let us go back to Psalm 51.

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. . .

You see, one that is really saddened by sin, and in this case, one's own sin, and what one's own sin has done to oneself, to others, and to God Himself, he says,

Psalm 51:17 . . . These, O God, you will not despise.

That means that He will not turn His back on the person who is truly sorry and He will grant forgiveness. So what we are saying is that the only way that we can experience the joy of forgiveness is to truly experience the kind of mourning over sin that will produce happiness.

So there is really no contradiction here at all; that mourning is a step toward joy.

JWR/rwu/drm