May God be pleased to help us
this evening as we continue our meditation in the Sermon on the
Mount and that's in Matthew chapter 5 and we'll read tonight verses
17, 18 and 19. That's the fifth chapter of the
Gospel of Matthew verses 17, 18 and 19. Think not that I am
come to destroy the law or the prophets I am not come to destroy,
but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till
heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle, should in no wise
pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore
shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach
men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. but whomsoever shall do and teach
them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." We must realize, of course, that
the Lord Jesus here was preaching this wonderful sermon in the
relative early days of his ministry, and how, no doubt, perhaps confounded
those that listened by introducing his sermon by all those statements
which we've already referred to, those who are blessed, and
perhaps not in the way that you and I would think in a natural
way, but nonetheless, it was the way that the Lord set before
the people. And then he spoke about being
salt and then being light. And so having establish the position
of what the people of God should be like, he then comes and confirms
the great truths of God, and to instruct the people that they
are not to turn away from those commandments, the law of God,
and believe that because of these changing times they might be
able to cease from them and just not be concerned about the great
truths contained in the law of God. And of course the law of
God here is specifically really the Ten Commandments. And Jesus therefore lays it down
very clearly and very straightly. The problem is today so many
people disregard such truths and they think Therefore, because
it's New Testament times and the law therefore is not applicable
and appropriate, they can therefore do more or less what they like. And particularly that has reference
in a day and age in which we live amongst Christians with
regard to the fourth commandment, which you remember is that we
are to keep the Sabbath day holy. and how important that is. Of
course, all the commandments are important. And the Lord Jesus
speaks here so clearly when he says, think not. They weren't
even to think about it. Think not that I have come to
destroy the law. He hadn't come to destroy it
or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but
to fulfill. He'd come to fulfill. the law of God. Now we know that
there was the law contained in the Ten Commandments, and there
was also the ceremonial law. Now with regard to the ceremonial
law, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled those ceremonies
by his great and glorious sacrifice, when he gave his life as atonement
for sin. But nonetheless, Still the essence
of that ceremonial law was not to be passed over, because it
has much instruction and teaching in it. The physical element had
been dispensed with, but it was to be continued in that wonderful
way, to meditate upon the glorious scene that it sets before us
today, as it did of course in those days, before the Lord Jesus,
what did it show forth? It showed forth the Lord Jesus. It showed forth Christ. In the
ceremonial law, in so many ways really, in all of it, Christ
was to be viewed. Now, the Jews of old, Israel
of old, they saw through a glass darkly. It wasn't clear to them. But we can be thankful today
of that we live in New Testament times, and therefore we are able
to look back at that ceremonial law and see how wonderful it
was, and how wonderful it is, and how it is good to meditate
upon because it gives us, in many instances, clarification
as regards to the great truth of God and the wonderful way
in which the Saviour came in order to atone for our sins. And so, the Lord Jesus tells
us here that he hasn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfil
it. And we should therefore never
forget that. And we read together In that
last verse in the Romans chapter 3, where the 31st verse where
we read, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid,
yea, we establish the law. So the law is not to be got rid
of. The law is there and it's an established law. For verily
I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Well,
that again gives us a very clear time scale, doesn't it? It indicates
to us very clearly that these things of the law will be maintained
down to the end of time and in their fullness. We can't pick
and choose and say, well, that part isn't appropriate and that's
not applicable. The law tells us here very clearly
He says, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
well, we know that that time will come when heaven and earth
will pass away, burnt up with a fervent heat, when the Lord
shall return in all his glory. And he says, therefore, for verily
I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the Lord. Now, these jots and tittles,
of course, really refer to the Hebrew alphabet and there were
just little ticks and dots and tittles as they were called which
were so important because they influenced and they made the
whole words into sense and reality and they were added of course
at a later date, they weren't there in the original Hebrew
language there were no spaces for the words but as the After
the Chaldeans came and took captivity of Jerusalem, they realized that
the skill of knowing where to put the vowels and the punctuation
and the spaces for words might be lost. And at that time, therefore,
the Jewish people then reorganized the Hebrew language with spaces
for words and these dots and tittles. And so, therefore, how
important it was The Jews knew that it was important that those
little pieces were not removed, otherwise it would remove the
sense of the words and the sense of the sentences. So he uses
an illustration which is really quite clear to them. And he tells
them this, and he says, therefore, heaven and earth shall pass one
jot, or one tittle shall he no wise pass from the law, till
all be fulfilled." That really means, surely, until the end
of time, when the Lord's purposes for this earth have been fulfilled,
when the last child of God has been called by grace, there will
be no need then for the worlds to continue anymore, and no doubt
then it will be when the angels come and sound and time shall
be no more. Wherefore therefore shall Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom
of heaven." How often people just ignore such statements as
this. And these are, of course, the
words of the Lord Jesus. They're very powerful words.
They're very important words. And yet, you see, a poor, sinful
man thinks that he can dispense with bits he doesn't particularly
like or thinks that they've been superseded. He loses sight of
the fact that the Lord Jesus has spelt these commands out
very clearly in this Sermon on the Mount. And therefore, he
tells us, those that teach this way, the least commandments,
to teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom
of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach
them, The same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Well, what a blessing it is to have a clear word, a clear illustration
to direct us into things that we should do and the things that
we should say. You know, Jeremiah, in his prophecy,
he gives some guidance and instruction in these things and sometimes,
again, it's good to go to the Old Testament and see the instruction
that we are given in these words. And he tells us in the 31st chapter
and the 33rd and 34th verse. But this shall be the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write
it in their hearts. and will be their God, and they
shall be my people." Well, it's a blessing when God imprints
His law in our hearts. We realize the great truth of
it. And they shall teach no more,
every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them
unto the greatest of them. Saith the Lord, for I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Now that's
comforting, isn't it? Because as we, of course, read
the Ten Commandments, we realise how just and holy they are, and
how we are utterly unable to keep them in that perfect way,
because it doesn't, of course, just mean in a physical sense
It also means that we should not think of those things in
our minds. And if you analyse our thoughts
day by day and realise that so often we are covetous and so
often we commit those sins which are spoken so clearly against
in those Ten Commandments, well, then we're thankful to know that
the Lord Jesus Christ himself came and died upon that cross,
fulfilled the law of God. He kept the law. We could not
keep the law. The Lord Jesus did keep the law.
He kept it perfectly. And he kept it perfectly on behalf
of his people. How thankful we should be then
for that truth, you see. He didn't come to destroy the
law, but to fulfill it. He kept it. And we read again that the Lord kept the law and
he magnified the law and he made it honourable. The whole law
of God is not dishonourable. God ordained. God spoke it to
Moses on Mount Sinai. It's written there so clearly
in the 20th chapter of Exodus. It was the word of God. and sinful man had disobeyed
the Word of God from the time when Adam and Eve succumbed to
the temptation of Satan, and how mankind ever since has succumbed
to the temptations of Satan. We cannot keep the law ourselves,
but thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Thanks be unto
God today for the Lord Jesus Christ, who kept the law and
indeed made it honourable, he did not fail. If he had failed,
then you see there would be no hope for us. But the Lord Jesus
Christ, he fulfilled that work that his Father gave him to do. What a blessing it is to know
that through that fulfilment of it, he died to atone for our
sins. So although we have sinned, although
we do sin, yet you see, If we are moved by the Holy Spirit
of God, then we shall not love sin, we will love holiness, and
we will mourn over our sins. You see, the effect of the grace
of God in our heart is to make us mourn over sin, not to love
sin. You see, before we were converted,
we loved sin. And left to ourselves, we can
still enter into sin, but you know, you won't love it to the
same extent, because you'll realize what Christ has done. and the
cost to atone for our sins was that his great and glorious sacrifice. So we have some little view then
really why it was so important and why it is so important that
there is still this righteous and holy law, and to understand
why the Lord Jesus came and said these words, think not that I
am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to
destroy, but to fulfill. Well, he did fulfill it in a
very wonderful and glorious way. I'll just quote, because he speaks
it very clearly, a little quote from Kelvin with regards to these
verses. And he speaks about the saviour
who would one day appear, as we know he will. And he says,
he came to fulfil the ceremonial law by becoming the great sacrifice
for sin, to which all the Mosaic offerings had ever pointed. He came to fulfil the moral law
by yielding it to a perfect obedience which we could never have yielded.
and by paying the penalty for our breach of it with his atoning
blood, which we could never have paid, in all these ways he exalted
the law of God and made its importance more evident than it had been
before in a word. He magnified the law and made
it honourable. Well, may we bless God that we
have the word of God, the words of Jesus, confirming that the
law is still appropriate today and we should not dispense with
it, but we should be concerned to follow those commandments
as the Lord may give us grace and help us day by day and then
seek for forgiveness from all our failures in those things.
We'll leave it there. Amen.