The
Book of Matthew the Kingdom of Heaven
Matthew
is NOT God’s doctrine for the Christian.
Questions:
Isn’t
the Book of Matthew in the New Testament? Isn’t the Book of Matthew
about Jesus
Christ?
Doesn’t
Matthew have the Lord’s prayer in it? Doesn’t Matthew teach us how to
live the
right way? Doesn’t Matthew have The Sermon on the Mount in it? Doesn’t
Matthew
show us how to be like, and follow, Jesus?
Answer:
Yes,
to all of the above, but it’s NOT God’s instructions for the CHRISTIAN
or the UNSAVED!
Jesus
Christ comes solely for the salvation of the Jew (Rom 15:8) and he
preaches the
kingdom of heaven.
Christ
says to the Jews “Look, I am the Messiah you have been waiting for. I
am here
so that we can have heaven here on earth. Let’s call it the
kingdom of
heaven shall we?”
“Oh
yes!” they replied excitedly “that will be excellent! What do we have
to do?”
The
Sermon on the Mount
So
Jesus sits them down and gives them the set of rules that will
be needed
to have this kingdom of heaven down here on earth. He gives them the Constitution
of how this thing will operate. He gives them The Sermon on the
Mount as
contained in Matthew chapters 5-7. When he finishes, they are in
disbelief!
“Those
rules are too strict!” they said “we will never be able to keep
them in
a million years! Really Jesus!? God won’t forgive us our sins unless we
forgive
others!? “Who can be pure in their heart!? Who can do that? No, Jesus,
you’re
not the Messiah we were looking for. Go away. In fact we will crucify
you. We
want someone who will get rid of these Romans who are crushing us to
death.
This is our immediate concern.”
The kingdom
of
heaven is pure works!”
1. Must
be pure in heart to see God (Matt 5:8)
2. Righteousness
needed to exceed the Pharisees’
(Matt 5:20).
3. Saying
“Thou fool” with no good cause will
mean hell fire (Matt 5:22)
4. Lusting after
women is
adultery and equal to the act (Matt 5:27-28)
5. Pluck your
eye out if necessary if it causes you to sin (Matt 5:30)
6. No oaths using
heaven’s name
(Matt 5:33)
7. Limit
agreements to a
‘yes’ or ‘no’
(Matt 5:37)
8. Don’t pay
back evil
for evil
(Matt 5:38-44) but go the extra mile (Matt 5:41)
9. You have
to be
perfect like God
(Matt 5:48)
10. Give Alms in secret
(Matt 6:1-4)
11. Pray in secret
(Matt 6:5-8)
12.Forgive others or
God won’t
forgive you (Matt 6:14-1
13. Fast in secret
(Matt 6:16-18)
14. No
hoarding up money or goods (Matt 6:19-21, 24)
15.No
worrying about food and drink
(Matt 6:25-33)
16. Take
no thought about tomorrow (Matt 6:34)
17. No
hypocrisy (Matt 7:1-5)
18. Beware
of false prophets (Matt 7:15-23)
Christ
continues “Now if you do all these works, when you die you will
go to
the ‘half-way house’ called Abraham’s bosom. It’s not actually
his
bosom, but it’s simply a place in the earth called that, where Abraham
is
waiting for you. People in the fires of hell will be able to see you,
but you
won’t see them. It will be impossible for you to visit any friends or
relatives
that will have gone there (Luke 16:26). Now, Abraham’s bosom won’t
be
heaven, but it will still be pretty good. You’ll wait there until I am
resurrected after the cross. Then I’ll come and get you and take you
into the
kingdom of God which is the actual heaven where God the
Father
lives. If we begin this kingdom of heaven on earth, it will be
a training
ground for the real heaven – the kingdom of God. God is a Spirit and
lives in that
spiritual place called heaven.”
“You
can have the kingdom of heaven down here on earth, but
it won’t
be the kingdom of God. If you believe I can keep the rules for you PLUS
you do the animal blood sacrifices for your sins, I guarantee you’ll go
to
Abraham’s bosom as a temporary stop over, and then to heaven.”
Now
at this point, Jesus started to sew the seeds of suspicion and doubt
into the
minds of the Jews. Not the ordinary person though, but with the priests
and the
Jewish rulers, who saw their empires about to crumble. No, the ordinary
Jew
just loved Jesus. And why wouldn’t they” He healed them, fed them,
raised their
dead and ‘nursed them like babies’.
Good
question. God was getting fed up with Israel.
When
Moses gave the laws at Mt Sinai, they were to put Israel under the curse of God
(Galatians 3:10) as
these laws were also impossible to keep as
well (Matthew 22:37-40). Keeping
the law was two things 1. The act itself eg sacrifices and so on 2. Right
heart attitude. They were simply going through the motions but
their hearts
weren’t in it. So when Christ gives
his laws with the Sermon on the Mount,
they were also given to put Israel
under a curse, as these laws couldn’t be
kept either. These laws were just a strict and much
stricter again in demanding internal obedience (thought-life,
heart attitudes and motives). In
the Old Testament they knew all this, but God was in heaven and they
couldn’t
see him and secondly, it wasn’t as clear perhaps. But with the Sermon
on the
Mount, Jesus, God himself in the flesh, is face to face with them.
Furthermore,
he is speaking the words of internal purity.
The
purposes of the Sermon on the Mount are as follows:
1.
Christ
deliberately gives them impossible laws.
2.
By
not being able to keep these laws, the Jews were to recognise
that he
was God the Saviour.
3.
To
demonstrate that he is God in the flesh.
4.
For
the Jews to crucify him to fulfil Old Testament prophecy
5.
For
the Gentile, the rest of the world, to have access to
God the
Father, through his shed blood.
The
three chapters of Matthew 5-7, contain all the foundational beliefs of
many ‘good’ people who have died and
rocketed straight into the fires of hell. In fact, it
is the misunderstanding of these three chapters,
that probably has been responsible, for more people going to hell than
any
other chapters in the Bible. These are
your unsaved volunteers, ‘charity’ workers, good and kind and helpful
people
that inhabit the suburbs eg pro-abortion, save the whales, fight
pollution,
save the planet, ‘climate warmers’ and so on. They also include
people who
attend a church thinking they will go to heaven because of how good
they
think they are in going to church, taking the Lord’s supper, and
trusting the
pastor and what he says. These include the Catholics who believe the
Last Rites
will get them there. They call themselves Christians, but they are not.
They
fight for causes for the betterment of humanity, hoping their
‘ever-so-small’
contribution may make a difference in leaving the planet a better
place.
Matthew
5-7 is wrongly understood by the self-righteousness and pious
do-gooders
(Catholics, SDA’s, Mormons, the cults, people who think they’re
Christians and like
most ‘Christian’ churches today) who think that “the kingdom of heaven”
is the
same as “the kingdom of God”. They are not. All the unsaved
showing off
their voluntary humility and being vainly puffed up in their fleshy
mind
(Colossians 2:18) just adore and love these three chapters in Matthew.
The
sermon on the mount are
misunderstood as the rules for getting into heaven.
As
stated, the kingdom of heaven is not
heaven. It is not the kingdom of God. There’s not one Christian in the
book of
Matthew. Millions go to the fires of hell
because they got their ‘Christian’ doctrine from Matthew. They wrongly
believe
that works are needed for entry
into heaven and that you can lose your salvation.
Where
are the Christians’ rules of behaviour?
These
are the commandments of Paul (1 Corinthians 14:37) also known
as Paul’s
doctrine, and are set out in the books of Romans to Philemon. Do
Christians
follow Christ? Absolutely! And Paul shows us how to as Christians,
not as Jews.
We are to be followers of Paul as he follows Christ (1 Corinthians
11:1)
Why
do people get all upset that we follow Paul instead of Christ.
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