The Sermon on the Mount: Three Different Audiences

The Sermon on the Mount contains Jesus' important ministry of restoring the fullness of the Law, so that the Israelites of His day could understand that they needed a Savior. There is no amount of good deeds, great works, or law-keeping that one can do to be accepted before God.

We need His grace, we need His favor, and if we will just believe on His Son Jesus, then we will be saved!

So, what else do we see in the Sermon on the Mount which affirms the truth that much of that sermon is not written for the church to abide by today, but does exist to show the fullness of His ministry on earth, and what He accomplished at the Cross?

Consider the first few verses of Matthew 5:

"1And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying," (Matthew 5:1-2)

There are two groups that I want to focus on here: the multitudes and the disciples.

Throughout the Gospels, when there are multitudes thronging after Jesus, our Savior reaches out to them and helps them in every way, whether with healing or provision. Yet this time, early in His earthly ministry, Jesus does not go towards this multitude, but goes away from them. Isn't that interesting!

What's going on here? The multitudes here are pictures of people who are "fans." They see Jesus as a celebrity, as an oddity, a curiosity. They want to get near Him, see Him so that they can brag about being something near Jesus. Any movie star can tell you that fans are often very selfish. They only care about their feelings and promoting their own reputations, their own interests. Basically, this multitude of fans wanted to use Jesus to further their own ends.

We see another example of this fleshly fan-dom in John 6:

"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." (John 6:15)

Jesus performed miracles and healed many, but there were still many in these crowds who just wanted to use Jesus to accomplish the narrow political goal of restoring Israel. Jesus' main mission during His earthly ministry was not Israel, but to fulfill the Old Covenant, enact the New Covenant, and provide salvation for the whole world! 

Then we have the second group: the disciples. When Jesus sat down on this mountain, all the people who saw Jesus as a pattern to follow, a teacher who could help them be more godly, they came up and sat around Him. These are the "followers." They want to be near Jesus so that they can hear His teachings and become just like Him ... through their efforts.

However, anyone who reads the Old Testament, as many of these disciples should have done by that time, would have learned that there is no keeping the Law in order to make oneself holy!

"And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." (Joshua 24:19)

and

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

Yet, these disciples come up to Jesus, they sit down around Him on that mountain, and they smugly distance themselves from the rest of the crowds, which only see Jesus as some curiosity. "Teach us how to be like you, Jesus!" You can kind of sense that arrogant eagerness about them.

In fact, there is also a third audience, but in the Sermon on the Mount account, he does not appear until the end, when Jesus goes away from the multitudes further and goes down the other side of the mountain:

"1When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." (Matthew 8:1-4)

We have here a leper, in essence a failure who would later become family. He does not see Jesus as a Celebrity. He does not see Jesus as a Sage. He sees Jesus as He really is: a Savior! When you are dying from a deadly disease, or in bondage to sin, you need someone to save you, to set you free. You don't need a selfie with a celebrity. You don't seek advise from a sage. You need a SAVIOR who can save you! The leper asks Jesus to heal Him, and He not only heals him, but he touches the leper! This very act of touching the leper probably shocked the disciples whom He had been teaching, since in the Law it was unlawful to touch a leper. Not only that, but the leper should have never been around other people, but instead he should have shouted "Unclean! Unclean!" to warn and ward off everyone away from him. Jesus not only fulfilled the Law, but He took away all the sins of the world, and that included healing people of diverse diseases.

And there you have it. There are in total three key audiences throughout the Gospels when it comes to the people who interact with Jesus. In the midst of disciples generally, one can include the Pharisees and other religious leaders, who think that they can earn God's goodness, that they can keep God's law, that if they learned more and tried harder, they would be good, loved, accepted, and blessed. All of this is rank offense, of course, since it's only by God's grace that we receive, not achieve, His goodness.

With the three different audiences outlined, this revelation will further help us to see the full context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was not speaking to the saved and resurrected Body of Christ who believes in Him. He was speaking to disciples who had gotten accustomed to this falsehood that if they could keep God's law as best as possible, then they would be accepted and favored. With them, He expounded on and restored the Law to its "unkeepable" heights. Keep in mind that when Jesus opens His mouth and speaks, that moment occurs when the disciples come up to Him. He doesn't say anything when He sees and walks away from the multitudes. He speaks to His disciples, and so with them He is restoring the full prominence, pre-eminence, and impossibilities of the Law.

Why Are Conservative Pundits Demanding Young People to “Get Married!”

In my previous article, I wrote about the growing rallying cry among conservatives, especially Dennis Prager and his fellow intellects, about the crisis in marriage. Specifically, they argue frequently that marriage is the rite of passage which young people need to engage and embrace again.

In fact, they go to great lengths to shame people that they need to get hitched, or they should be prepared to get ditched in this life. While the most enlightened conservative intellects have their opinions, the Bible is our standard for wisdom. In both the Old Testament, there are men and women who do great things for God, and they are never married (like the prophets Elijah and Elisha). In some cases, marriage or romance can hinder a man’s service to God (consider Samson and Delilah).

To recap the Biblical stance on singlehood, let’s refer back to what Paul the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians:

“Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” (1 Corinthians 7:1)

Paul encouraged everyone to be like him: celibate, unmarried, committed to God’s work rather than raising a family. (1 Corinthians 7:6, 32-35). However, he assured the church that there is nothing wrong with being married”.

“Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned.” (1 Corinthians 7:27-28)

Also, it’s worth nothing that just because someone is not married or does not want to get married, that they are immature in some fashion. Marriage does not define or undermine adulthood.

The next question arises: why are conservative pundits determined for young people to get married?

1.       Depopulation

Decades ago, academics argued that the world would struggle with overpopulation. As far back as the late 1700’s, Thomas Malthus predicted that demands from population growth would far exceed available resources and wealth.

Then came Industrial Revolution. More bountiful harvests with less work results from agricultural reforms. Mechanical ingenuity produced and transported goods better, faster, and cheaper. Families moved into bustling, teeming cities, where a growing network of commercial activity created higher demands, more work, and so on.

Larger families were no longer crucial, whereas agricultural families had reared many children to help with work on the far. The need for larger families tapered off. Fast forward to today, there’s an unprecedented number of younger people who don’t want to marry, especially among men. As a result, populations in Western countries are declining. “Get married! Have kids!” is an understandable reaction. A better response would assess more proximate causes.

The higher suicide rate among young people should concern us. The opioid crisis is wiping scores of people. Rampant violence among gangs, drug cartels, and even terrorism are wiping out people. Yet even removing these concerns, lots of people are not getting married for selfish reasons: they want to live their lives in the present, unencumbered by demands, etc.

Death has been a fact of life since man sinned, however. Populations in decline and in growth are a more frequent phenomenon than most people realize. Would anyone expect Japanese families to birth out large numbers of children when there is so little room for all those people in that country?

What’s really animating this “marriage crisis” for these conservatives?

They want to save Western culture at all costs. Married life as an institution bolsters conservatism in general. As they witness the growing moral malaise of the modern Western World, conservatives want to retain a strong, vibrant Western Civilization, and that requires a Mom and one Dad bringing new lives into the world. Conservatives are right to see declining marriage trends with concern. However, they are treating a major symptom rather healing the disease.

Why are people, especially men, avoiding marriage? Why is the culture in such decay? It’s not because more people are avoiding marriage.

The attack on manhood has turned off men to getting married and raising children. Third Wave Feminism has shamed and demeaned men as such. Rather than commanding respect in their homes, colleges and their Third Wave feminist acolytes have been taught to see men as the enemy. Who would want to marry someone with that kind of worldview? Legal institutions have inculcated this anti-male bias, drawn from decades of progressive indoctrination in colleges and graduate schools. In courts of law, the wife/mother is automatically entitled to half of everything just because she’s the wife. Following a divorce, the woman custody of the kids nine times out of ten.

Why is Western culture in decay?

God’s reign of grace and truth has been demeaned, rejected, and excluded. The Judeo-Christian ethic which makes civilization possible, which blesses and prospers married life, has fallen into disrepute. Children no longer learn about God the Father or His Son Jesus Christ, which was long ago routinely taught in public schools. Students no longer read the Bible and receive revelation from it. In those schools, teachers have replaced school prayer with secular regression.

While conservatives are alarmed about the decline in marriage, and the decline in population which has resulted from it, they need to focus on the fundamental disregard for God and His Majesty in our public as well as private lives. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” (Psalm 33:12)

Conservatives need to focus less on shaming men for not marrying, and they need to do more than merely promote its fringe benefits. Christ is the center of all happy marriages, and any society which wishes to foster this sacred institution must restore its sacred core and displace its secular degradation.

The cultural rot overwhelming our societies stems from national disregard for God’s grace and the Finished Work of His Son Jesus. When He is properly recognized as the Head of all Creation once again, then we will see Male and Female Great Again, and Marriages Strong and Abundant Again.