I sat with myself and kept thinking on how to introduce the blessed personality of Jesus to whom does not know Him yet, whom does not deal with Him, and whom has not been attracted by His wonderful personality, for He is more beautiful than any human being.
Do I have to introduce the whole Bible to him to read, so that he looks forward to get known to Him?!!
Or do I have to introduce only the new testament to him, to take his time in studying it!!
And God has shown me the answer to this worrying question. And it was God's voice to me: Introduce to him "The Sermon on the Mount" - chapters five, six, and seven of The Gospel according to Matthew - The first of the four Gospels.
Matthew is Levi - his parents called him "Levi" to have a share in serving in the sanctuary of the Lord. But he turned to be a tax gatherer for the sake of the Romanic country instead of gathering it to God's case.
And Jesus passed by the tax-office, and saw Matthew the tax-gatherer who where Levi before. "And He stopped at the tax-office and said to him Levi this is not your place, follow me."So Levi followed Him immediately and left the tax-office with no back. And Levi made Him a big Party to which he invited all his friends of tax-gatherers, and announced that he left the tax-office and followed Jesus.
And God honored Levi (Matthew): and inspite that the oldest of the four Gospels is the Gospel according to Mark, but God made Matthew the beginning of the new testament.
The tax-gatherer became a preacher of the scripture, and beginner of the New Testament. That is God's fabulous work in sinners that they become leaders to the new heaven-God's Heaven.
The words of the Sermon on the Mount (the longest sermon that Jesus said) touched Matthew's heart, so he wrote the chapters 5,6,7 of his gospel about it, the thing that no one of the four evangelists except him did it.
And "the sermon on the mount" that Jesus said and teached to His virtuous disciples, and to all God's people who want to have knowledge and wisdom; it is the crown made of rare jewels in Christianity.
Some opinions say that the sermon on the mount have not been said in one time, but in scattered places but Matthew felt it and collected it in consecutive chapters, while the other evangelists took only pieces of it.Some others say that after professors and philosophers teach their students a big deal of science, the student can collect what he has been taught in a summary as the evangelist Matthew did and offered us the sermon on the mount, in which Jesus has gathered all what has a relation with His teachings in few simple words in a scientific manner "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life" (John 6: 63).
If you wish to introduce Jesus to any person who does not know Him yet, introduce to him the sermon on the mount for it is a wonderful summary for all His teachings.
I found a extensive attention in the whole world for the sermon on the mount, for in Torento University's library there is more than 150 books about the explanation of the sermon on the mount in order to make it simple and practical because it is the original law that leads to the eternal life and as the apostle said "Those who act according to this law will have prosperity and blessings from God". These are the laws of heaven so if we wish to know who is Jesus we know him through the sermon of the mount.
The sermon on the mount still occupies the human being's thinking after passage of more than 1900 years, and the Mahatma Gandy praised it.
A writer said: its words have fast wings and it is capable to scold, to challenge, and to inspire. It is the most of what has been said about the moral life strong capability of "inner self examination" and of the most power.
Telestoy said: the person comes back to it eagerly in complete conviction in its 100 statements (107 statements) a cure to the humanity wounds, and whenever the person tries to put it far from him intentionally he finds it comes to life again to guide the person and to introduce to him a new challenge…. It gives a group of obvious and practical principles and it is worthy of every person of good thinking.
Kingdom of Heaven and Its Laws:
In the spiritual world there is two kingdoms: the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of heaven (God's kingdom).
By nature we are living in the kingdom of darkness, so if we live and die in it there is no doubt that we are going to be destroyed.
But if we want to liberate, we should move to God's kingdom.
And the only way to this is the "new delivery". And for this the church has organized the secret of baptism as the Master said, "unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3: 5).
Let us ask now in what kingdom you are? … If you are not in God's kingdom, then with no doubt you are in the darkness kingdom - there is no middle state.A lot of people think that there is a middle place between the two states: in which they can have half of themselves inside God's kingdom and the other half of themselves out of it. Let me decide very surely that this middle place is just an imagination that doesn't really exist.
Someone may ask: I have been born new by baptism, while I was still a child, and I became a new person, then I made sins so how can I be born in new?
The answer is that "the secret of repentance" is a new baptism. In the time you repent your sins, and confess them in front of your father (priest), and in front of God, and accept Jesus as a personal savior for you. In this moment you can be "born again" and transfer from the kingdom of darkness to "God's kingdom".
And as Saint Augustinous said, "the secret of repentance or confession is a second baptism". And this what was decided by kortagena convention held the year 257 AC under the administration of saint Kebrianous.
Our talk is directed to those who have been born from above and entered within "God's kingdom".
So if we are in "God's kingdom", we have to regard the laws of this kingdom and its principles. If we are living in Egypt or Britain or America,
Shouldn't we act according to the laws of each country of these countries!! And if we do wrong we become under liability.
This is also the state in the spiritual world, so if we are sons of God's kingdom and don't obey the laws of this kingdom, we will suffer spiritually.
And the reason that a lot of God's sons receive from their religion only little happiness, slight blessing, and trivial strength, is that they are disobedient sons.
Why don't we reach the test that the apostle tells us about "rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" (Philippians 4:4) because we don't obey the laws of the kingdom of heaven. This obedience is also the secret of blessing, as the Prophet Isaiah said "obey with a will, and you shall eat the best that earth yields" (Isa. 1:19) and in the New Testament Jesus says, "you are My friends, if you do what I command you." (John 15:14), and saint John says "and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." (1 John 3:22).
Also we can't obtain the power of heaven unless we obey its laws. The church now needs strength. In the days of apostles the church was strong, as Peter gives one speech vacant from philosophy
but saves five thousand souls. This power is the result of obeying the laws of heaven.
Let us study these laws to realize what is it, and our reaction towards it in order to enjoy full blessing that God saved for us.
It is shame all shame that some Christians obtain saving by baptism, and enter the kingdom of heaven and stop at this limit. They don't proceed forward with God and they don't make effort to know God's will to follow it. And because of this they lose a lot of blessing and happiness that they possess without knowing any reason for that.
I wish that God challenges every one of us to let him realize the amount of his loss, and the reason for which he didn't enjoy all what God meant him to enjoy. And I wish that God opens our eyes to see the blessed privileges, and the venerable blessings that all of us can enjoy in His new heaven.
If we want to obtain the power of heaven that is the power of the Holy Spirit that incarnates upon us as it incarnated upon the church in the fiftieth day, we have to obey the laws of this heaven.
The scream of the Christian church nowadays is the scream for the need of strength. And the reason for this is disobedience, for by the extent we obey the laws of the kingdom of heaven we obtain the strength of heaven.
We take an example in electricity to explain this reality: Scientists discovered some electric lamps and so they lit the streets and ran the machines, which means we obtained light and strength.
Niagara Falls:
I visited Niagara Falls in Canada where the rush of water transfers to light and motion. Scientists prepared machines to transfer the strength of the falls to light that lit Buffalo City (it is 15 mile far from the falls). But after the effort they did, they found that the machines didn't work as expected. And engineers in the United States failed to know the reason. So they sent to lord Kelvin in Scotland and after ten minutes lord Kelvin knew where is the mistake and said, "your only mistake is that you didn't go with the code of nature…." And they obeyed lord Kelvin, and what they ignored was minor not to be taken in consideration, but nature refused unless they obey it complete obedience.
And so as we obey the laws of heaven as we obtain more blessing and strength. You took blessing in baptism but it is delayed by misconnection between God and us.
Objections:
Some objects that these laws are:
(1) A perfection model impossible to obey: and such obedience is a difficult matter.
I was talking with some friends about the laws of the kingdom of heaven and he replied immediately that these laws are perfection model that don't expect us to obey, as how can I not beat who beats me and how can I not be angry at who did me wrong.
I am afraid that what this friend said expresses what a lot of people feel towards the laws of God's kingdom that they are perfection models "and as if they thus say: "God doesn't expect us to follow it".
We should know that God doesn't give an order without giving the strength to obey it. So if we say that it is impossible to practice the laws that came in the "Sermon on the Mount" practical performance we thus deform God's attributes. As what do you expect of me if you hear me ordering my sons to do something that I personally know it is impossible to be executed. So is God less than me in love and in justice ?!!
Except and never as God would never give his children an impossible order that He knows their failure in obeying it brings to them loss that they can't avoid.
And the secret that we should know is that Jesus possesses these attributes that He asks us for, and as He is living inside us and working inside us, obedience becomes an easy matter for us, and then we realize that His orders bear in themselves the strength to carry them.
(2) The Sermon on the Mount is not for this generation, that we live in, and we are not obliged to its laws: and the reality is that these laws are obligatory to us that the ages ended to us-and they are directed towards us to act according to them.
The ten laws considering the kingdom of heaven are only ten features of the new will that God gave to us "I give you a new commandment: love one another; as I have loved you, so you are to love one another." (John 13:34)
In Brief:
These laws can be executed
And it is for our days
And it is practical 100%
And our obedience for these laws is the condition that God blesses us, and makes us blessing for others.