We'll be in the Gospel of Luke
chapter 6 this morning. We've been in chapter 6 for some
time here. We'll probably be in chapter
6 for some time to come. We're to that portion in Luke
chapter 6. beginning in verse 20 in a section
that's called the Beatitudes in Luke. It's similar to the
Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. And we'll be
looking at some of those things. And today is going to be kind
of an overview of this portion of Luke's gospel. And We'll be
discussing some of the similarities and some of the differences between
this and the Sermon on the Mount, and I appreciated that hymn that
we sang, Praise the Mount. I'm fixed upon it because we
really begin this block of scripture back in chapter 6, verse 12,
where it says, And it came to pass in those days that he went
out into a mountain to pray, and he continued all night in
prayer to God. And then it goes into the part
where he chose some apostles out of his, and he named the
traitor. And I think that was probably
a large part of what he prayed for on that mountain, my own
familiar friend. I have to pick him and he's going
to betray me. How awful. He's going to betray
me with a kiss. It was very detailed. And this prayer that he prayed
that was for the accomplishment of the redemption of the church.
That was his mission. That was what he was there for.
And so he's up on this Mount praying, communing. It says he
was communing with the father. And at the same time, his enemies
were communing one another, it says in, uh, in, uh, verse 11,
they were filled with madness and they communed one with another,
what they might do to him. So there's two kinds of communing
going on here and one evil and one blessed. And so as we go
on, a key verse here, I think we'll find that applies to where
we're going to be today is found in verse 17. And it says, and
he came down with them. He came down with them and stood
in the plain and the company of his disciples and a great
multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem and from
the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon which came to hear him and to
be healed of their diseases and they that were vexed with unclean
spirits and they that were and they were healed. And the whole
multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue. And remember,
we discussed that virtue last time. It was power. A power went
out of him and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on
his disciples, and he begins this sermon here in Luke chapter
6. It's about 30, 31 verses long
in Luke chapter 6. In Matthew's Sermon on the Mount,
it's three chapters long. It's a long sermon. So we'll
kind of compare that a little bit. There's many similarities
to this sermon and the Sermon on the Mount, which is recorded
in Matthew, but there's also many differences, not in the
gospel, but in details and different things that he expounded on.
And so I think I'd just like to read
verse 20 through 26 this morning. And just for sake
of time, if you want to read the whole thing as your homework
assignment, that would be good. It goes down to verse 49, and
he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, blessed be
ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. That's kind of the opposite
of the human view of things. We think we're blessed when we're
well off, when we're rich, and when things are easy. Blessed,
we're going to look at the true meaning of that when we get to
that, but it won't be today really. Blessed are ye that hunger now,
for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall
hate you and when they shall separate you from their company
and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the
son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap
for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for in like
manner did their fathers unto the prophets. You know, it's
interesting about that particular verse there that many in religion,
they aim for that. They try to get people to be
aggravated at them. They try to antagonize them so
that they'll be reviled and hated. It's sad. They're not wanting
to share comforting words. They're not wanting to share
good news. They're trying to say something
to inflame people, and that's just wrong. He says, woe to you,
but woe to you that are rich, for you've received your consolation.
Woe to you that are full, for you shall hunger. Woe unto you
that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when
all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers under
the false prophets, but I say unto you which hear, love your
enemies, do good to them which hate you. And he goes on and
he gives a list of things here that many, many view the rest
of this sermon as the new law. Here's the things that you need
to do to become righteous. And if you manage to do any things,
it's because it's a fruit of the Spirit. You know, if you
look at each one of these things that's listed here, and pay close
attention to the Scriptures, you're going to find there's
only one person that accomplished every one of these things. He
says, when people say, someone takes your coat from you, Well,
give him your cloak also. Well, who accomplished that? When he was reviled, he reviled
not again. So we find that Christ fulfilled
all these things for us, and if we manage to accomplish any
of these things, it's just due to the goodness of God, because
it's just against our nature to do most of the stuff that's
listed here. It just goes against our grain and it's only the Spirit
that overcomes that. So we'll look at those as we
go through here. But today we're just going to
kind of have a broad kind of overview. There's some things
found here in Luke chapter 6 that are found elsewhere in Matthew and
not in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, in the middle of
this Luke's account here in verse 39, he spake a parable unto them. Can the blind lead the blind?
Shall they not both fall into the ditch? And you don't find
that in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, six,
or seven, but you do find it in Matthew chapter 15, verse
14. So the Lord uses that same. idea to teach people at a different
time in a different place the same thing. The gospel is the
same always. And he uses it all the time. In Matthew 15, 14, let them alone,
they be blind, leaders of the blind. If the blind lead the
blind, both shall fall into the ditch. The same exact teaching.
And so our point is this, that these sermons They were likely
at probably different times to different people or perhaps even
some of the same people at different times. The sermon in Luke is
really short. As we mentioned, it's only like
31 verses long and the sermon on the mount is three chapters
long. it's important to note that nothing
is by chance and the Lord knows what to say and to whom to say
it at the time appointed from eternity. And it's not so important
where these were or who it was. You know, I was telling Norman
this morning that back in our earlier lesson in Luke, he went
into the synagogue and taught them on Sabbath days. Now we
have recorded one of the messages that he gave. They handed him
the scroll from Isaiah and he read it in chapter four, I believe it
is. And he said, and this day is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears. But it doesn't tell us what he
taught them on the other Sabbath days. And it doesn't even say
exactly how many Sabbath days, but it says Sabbath days, plural.
So he was there for, longer than one Sabbath day, several. But we know from this verse and
from other scriptures, what he always did, as was his custom. He went in and read from the
scriptures, and then we find in other scriptures, he expounded
to themselves, to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning
himself. And beginning at Moses and the
prophets, He told them about the Christ, about the kingdom
of God, about the gospel, the things concerning himself. In
them you think you have eternal life. Well, they are they that
testify of me, he said. So we know that's what he did
every time. And so this sermon here in Luke that's called the
Sermon on the Plain, as opposed to the Sermon on the Mount, it's
the same gospel, but it's a little different in that it's shorter
and it covers some different things. But the essential points
of the gospel are there. And he knows what to say at the
time that's necessary and who to say it to. And so these messages
are the same, but different. They address what's needful in
each place. The core of the gospel remains
the same. There's a scripture in Isaiah chapter 50 verse 4
that says, the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned
that I should know how to speak a word in season. to him that
is weary, he awakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine
ear to hear as the learned. So the Lord has been giving the
knowledge and the ability and the supreme wisdom in saying
what's needful at the time to who's needful. And we've had
lessons before that have brought that out as the woman at the
well and the woman caught in adultery and the the Pharisee
and the Publican and those parables that they taught there. And Zacchaeus,
you come down, I have to go to your house and give you the gospel
and so forth. So many times, each place was
planned, each place was from eternity, it was determined. And so much, if not all of this
Sermon on the Plain, and perhaps this word on the plain is a misapplication
of topography as we would think of it. And that word is kind
of the base word is tapos, where we get topography from. And it's
taken from the Old Testament. And they had the same gospel
then as now. This word plain. We're going to look at that here
in just a second here. But as we
look at some of these key words that we find in this scripture,
it talks about blessedness. Blessed is, blessed be, blessed
are, blessed are, blessed are. Blessed, we find that term used
in the psalm, in the psalm, the very first psalm. That's the
opening word of the psalms. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. His delight is in the
law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night,
and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. We find
the trees that bear fruit, good fruit, bad fruit in this sermon.
And we find the spiritual application of the law in here. The ungodly
are not so. We find them in the woe be to
those that try to supply their own things. They're like the
chaff which wind driveth away. Therefore, the ungodly shall
not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of
the righteous." They're not going to be standing when that happens.
The Lord knoweth the way of righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall
perish. And many of these elements are found in the two sermons
that were concerned with the Lord. what delivered in Luke
and Matthew. So let's kind of start by looking
at the beginning, the beginning of the beginning
here. In verse 12, we mentioned this, that in those days that
he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night
in prayer, which we covered in our last message in Luke, for
my love. For my love, they are my enemies. For our Lord prayed all night.
He communed with God the Father while his enemies communed with
one another what they might do to him. And then in verse 17,
we find the ultimate picture of grace. He came down with them. When we look at that spiritually,
He came down from heaven and dwelt with us. He was Emmanuel.
He was God with us. And that's kind of how it struck
me. He came down with them. He came
down from the mount. And it's kind of this great spiritual
metaphor for what he did. Remember in our lessons on the
covering of the tabernacle, the various layers, the outer covering
that we learned that was probably some ramskins dyed blue that
pictured the heaven, and then the goat hair, that picture of
sin. Then we find the ramskin dyed
red that pictured the shed blood of the Lord, and then The result
of that we find on the inner covering of the tabernacle, the
white linen is the result of God coming down, conquering sin
by His blood. And then we have this, they are
all dressed in white. What a beautiful picture of the
redemptive work of Christ. So we find this, Him coming down.
He says, I came down. He says that multiple times in
the scriptures. In John chapter 6 verse 38, he
says, For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the
will of Him that sent me. And that will we know is the
redemption of the church, to give Himself an offering for
our sin. John 1, verse 14, And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. Matthew 1, verse 23,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth
a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is being
interpreted, God with us. And so, we see him, he came down
from that mount after communing with the Father all night. He
came down with them and stood in the plain. In Genesis, we
note that God remained on the mountain and Moses came up to
him and God gave him the law, but God stayed up there. Moses
went up and then went back down. But note here in Luke that Jesus
came down and brought grace to the people. Brought this wonderful
sermon that says, to my people, blessed are you. Our last message,
well, I mentioned this to Norm this morning. Our last message,
well, Norm was in Jackson. I had a quote from Jonathan Edwards
that said, There's a dreadful sound from
Mount Sinai and the law. Dreadful sound, it's the law
kills us because when the spirit reveals to us that we can't keep
that, we can't keep a part of it, we can't keep it for 10 seconds.
But there is a joyful sound from Mount Zion that are exactly what
Norman's been bringing to us from Zechariah and a comforting
sound, comfortable words, words of love and grace, your sins
have been paid for. They've been paid for double. Now it says, he came down with
them and stood in the plain. And in the Greek interlinear,
in my Greek interlinear Bible, it says, it's translated, and
coming down with them, he stood on a level place. And my friends, that's just from
the Old Testament. That was ordained from before
the foundation of the world. It gives us a spiritual aspect
of Christ that just reading it over, well, he came down from
the mountain and stood on the plain. Well, physically you think,
well, he came down off the mountain and he walked out into the desert
plain area. in the flat area, but it really
says he came down the Mount to a level place, a place, and I'm
sure, you know, if he's going to address multitudes, it says
there was multitudes from all Judea and Jerusalem and Tyre
and Sidon and all manner of people were there,
Jews, Gentiles, Priests, scribes, everybody was there. So when
we look at this aspect of Christ coming down to a level place. He came down with them and stood
in a place level. And that just tells us about
the gospel. The gospel is a level place. There's not a gospel for
these group of people. There's not another gospel for
this group of people. There's not another gospel for
this level of people, the rich people, or the poor people, or
the whatever. They're ultra religious. It's
the same gospel goes out irrespective God is no respecter of persons.
It's the same gospel. It goes everywhere and it has
the same effect on His people no matter what circumstances
that they're found in. And it will accomplish that to
which He sent it. The gospel is a level place. And there's just not separate
gospels for different groups or individuals. And the following
examples of that gospel is always referred to as the gospel. He came and preached the gospel.
Well, they always put that the in front of it because it's the
gospel. It's not one of many gospels. plural gospels. It's the gospel
singular. And we note that the same gospel
is given to all the people, the chief priests, the elders, the
believers, both Jew and Greeks. In Luke chapter 20 verse 1, it
came to pass on one of those days as he taught the people
in the temple and preached the gospel, the chief priests and
the scribes came down upon him with the elders. It had its effect
on them, which was not good. But it was the same gospel. He
didn't mitigate it. He didn't come into the temple
and say, oh man, there's a bunch of people here that aren't going
to like to hear that, so I better change my message this morning
to reflect something socially popular or something acceptable. He gave them the gospel. He would take up the scroll and
read it and say, well, this is a picture of me. This is all
the scriptures that concern me. In Romans 1, verse 16, it says,
for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it, again singular,
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. It's not many gospels. It's the gospel and it is the
power of God and salvation. Philippians 127 says, only let
your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether
I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs
that you stand fast in one spirit. with one mind striving together
for the faith of the gospel. So there's one spirit, one mind,
one gospel. There's not many gospels. Remember
Paul said to those Galatians, I'm surprised. I'm shocked at
you." And we find that that still goes on. Many times we were just
talking this morning. Well, I'm shocked that this pastor
said this or did that and starts preaching a gospel that's not
another gospel. I'm so shocked that you're removed
from Him that called you by His grace to another gospel that
isn't even another gospel. It's a lie. So one gospel, one mind, one
spirit, and again, this gospel is from the Old Testament and
it's fulfilled by Christ. As we mentioned earlier, we're
gonna find, as we go through here, that Christ fulfilled everything
in this. He didn't just say one thing
and do another. He didn't give us a list of stuff
to do that we could never do, that He didn't do for us, accomplish
for us. He came down with them and stood
in a level place, comes from Psalm 26, 12. My foot standeth
in an even place. And when you look that word up
in the Hebrew, it says a level. That is a plane. It's where those
two words come from. My foot standeth on a level place. In the congregations will I bless
the Lord." And that's what he does in this sermon. He comes
down, and I'm sure it probably was not all the way down into
the flat where he couldn't be seen by everyone, but down to
a level place where he could have a platform. And he declared
the kingdom of God. He declared the righteousness
of God, and he declared the only way to that was by him. comes to him except by me. And
this word in the Hebrew also gives the connotation of straightness,
which is interesting because it corresponds to the word in
the New Testament, a word in the Greek is called euthys, which
means made level or true. And we find that example in Luke
chapter three, verse five, where he says, every hill shall be
filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and
the crooked shall be made straight. The crooked shall be made level
and true. And the rough ways shall be made
smooth. So isn't that an interesting
way to view that? He came down off the mountain
and came to this level place, this place that was made level
and true. The gospel is level and true. And there's a similar word in
the New Testament. that sounds the same, it's spelled
a little different, but it has a totally, it's from a different
Greek word, has a totally different meaning, but it's found in Matthew
chapter 7, 14, where it says, because straight is the gate,
and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there
be that find it. It's straight spelled a little
bit differently, and it means narrow. It's stenos, it's the
word stenos, narrow. Narrow is the gate. and it opens
up to the narrow way. You don't have a wide gate opening
up into a little... It's kind of the way when you
get up into the Yukon Territory, you go up through British Columbia
and the road is like this wide and then all of a sudden you
get into the Yukon Territory and it goes... And they tried to fill in the
low places. But they don't last long. They keep sinking away
in the permafrost up there. Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked
shall be made level and true. So I think it would be good for
us to view that. that idea when we look at him
coming down from the mountain with them and standing on the
plain and delivering this message, bringing one gospel to the disciples,
to the multitudes, the religious, the same gospel. Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, Then how shall
they call upon him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they
believe in him in whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. And boy, is that what he is doing. He is preaching deliverance to
set at liberty them that are captive. bring the oil of the
good glad tidings. So now, in verse 20, in our overview,
he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, blessed be
ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. And I wanted to spend
some time looking at that word blessed this morning because
it's an important word. And he's talking to believers
there. He's talking to his church. And
it's found, it's a present tense word, blessed are, blessed be,
not, you will be blessed if you make yourself this way, or if
you do this, or if you do, there's no ifs in there, it just says,
here's a statement of how you are, if the condition of regeneration
is applied to you. if it has been applied. In the
Greek, the reason I wanted to spend some time on this, because
blessed is used several times in the New Testament. And again, the English translators
were indiscriminate in how they applied that word in the English
to several different Greek words that were entirely different,
had different meanings, but yet they applied the same English
word to cover cover it all. And here it's from the Greek
word makarios, which is an adjective and it's related to another Greek
word makrizo, which is used in many words which describe large
or lengthy or long. And in a spiritual sense, it
gives us the sense of blessed beyond measure. It's so lengthy,
so large, so long that it can't be measured in our concept. Blessed. When the Lord says you
are blessed, there is so much that goes into that that we can't
even comprehend. All the things from eternity.
Your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the
foundation. That's beyond our comprehension. That is lengthy. That is long. That's one of those
things we talked about, launch into the deep. When we start
to think about what the Lord has done for His people, how
their names are inscribed on the palms of His hand, and their
names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and all the things
that we are foreordained. He chose us in Christ from before
the foundation of the world to be inheritors. All those things
that we find in Ephesians. And speaking of Ephesians, that's
where we find another translation of this word, blessed. In Ephesians,
if you want to turn over there quickly to Ephesians chapter
one, in verse three, which is hard
to break into Ephesians. It's like, I can't read this
without backing up to verse 2 where it says, Grace be to you and
peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace
to you. Peace to you. And then he says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who
had blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places.
Now that's used three times in there, but the first one is where
we get the word eulogy from. Eulogio. It's translated blessed
in Ephesians, but in that sense it's talking about adorable,
speaking about God. Blessed be God. We can't say
enough good things about Him. Every week I say, man, help me
just to say one good thing about you to my class. If I could just
say one thing about the magnificence of God, how wonderful He is during
my class, then I would say that was successful. Blessed be the
Lord, God, and Father. It's eulogy. It's adorable. Speaking about God and the next
several mentions of blessed and blessings is to speak well of
someone. It's defined as fine speaking. And that's what God says about
his people. Fine speaking. He's blessed us. And that means
He's spoken good things about us. Blessed are you. He speaks
well of you. He's blessed us with all spiritual
blessings. He said all the spiritual good
things about us and to us. He says them to us according
as He is chosenness in Him before the foundation of the world.
That's blessedness. And this word here, as we find
it in Luke, it has the application of being blessed beyond measure
and a happiness because of that which has been bestowed on them. because of what we read in Ephesians. He's blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ that makes us happy. Blessed are ye. He also addresses some who have
made themselves happy. A couple of verses later, he
says, woe to you. Woe to you who have made themselves
happy because of what they bestowed upon themselves. And that's the
big difference here we find between blessedness and woe. Blessedness
comes from Christ, woe comes from oneself. Also we find in
this sermon, which many of you, as I mentioned earlier, it's
just a modern day set of rules that you must live by, that they're
really spiritual fruits. And in fact, we find again that
what God demands, He also supplies. And we'll see that, I mentioned
this a couple of times, we'll see that Christ indeed fulfilled
everything here demanded in this sermon. He has done for us what
we could not do for ourselves. And I see those looters and rioters
and I just grit my teeth And one particular episode kind of
came to me, it kind of struck me. These people are sitting
out in an outdoor setting having a supper at a restaurant. and
a bunch of rioters come over there and take over their table
and start tipping stuff over and insulting them and saying
all kinds of vile things and trying to ruin their peaceful
evening. I don't know why that guy took
his wife out to supper in that setting, to tell you the truth,
but he did. But I thought, man, if somebody
did that to my wife while I was out to dinner with her, I'd just
be going, And we probably have a terrible scene there. But what
would be more effective? That or saying, why don't you
sit down and let me buy you some supper? And we'll talk about
your issue. Sit down, be my guest. You know
what? The Pharisees were mad at Jesus.
He's eating with sinners. So what would be more effective? It's kind of disarming when somebody
tries to aggravate you and you're nice to them and you say, join
us. What are they going to do? They're
probably going to say, well, I don't want to stand here and
listen to this Bible thumper or do-gooder or whatever. Let's go over and antagonize
that guy that's going to fight back or whatever. So anyway,
it just was kind of a a thing that we're up against spiritually.
In our flesh, we would just, it would not be good. But in
the Spirit, the Lord, he did that for us. Why does your master
eat with publicans and sinners? because he had something good
to tell them. He had the gospel, the level
gospel. It wasn't just for the Pharisees
and the scribes. It wasn't just for the Jews.
It was for everyone. The glad tidings, the good news.
And so we'll stop there. And when we come back together
here in a few weeks, we'll take a look at blessed be poor. That's
kind of a contrary to our mind. We think that we're blessed when
we're, We're well off. But it's really not talking about
physical things here that have a finite life. It's much, much
more. It's another launch into the
deep experience here. And we'll see that. So we'll look at that. And we'll
look at it from the point of what Paul wrote in Romans, the
seventh chapter. Wretched man that I am. The things
I want to do, I don't do. The things that I seem to do,
I don't. Those are the ones I don't want
to do. And we'll look at poor from a spiritual aspect of I
have nothing. I can bring nothing. Could my
tears forever flow? these for sin could not atone.
So we'll take that approach as we come back next time and we
continue in Luke chapter 6 verse 20. So as always, be free.