May 20 Daily Devotional

A sermon which preaches impossible things—until we turn to Him

... [The first Beatitude (Matthew 5:3)] is obviously, there­fore, a very searching test for every one of us, not only as we face ourselves but especially as we come to face the whole message of the Sermon on the Mount.

You see, it at once condemns every idea of the Sermon on the Mount which thinks of it in terms of something that you and I can do ourselves, something that you and I can carry out. It negatives that at the very beginning. That is where it is such an obvious condemnation of all those views which ... think of it as being a new law or in terms of bringing in a kingdom amongst men.

We do not hear so much of that talk now; but it still lingers, and it was very popular in the early part of this century. Men talked about "bringing in the kingdom" and always used as their text the Sermon on the Mount. They thought of the Sermon as something that can be applied. You have to preach it, and then men immediately proceed to put it into practice. But this view is not only dangerous; it is an utter denial of the Sermon itself, which starts with this fundamental proposition about being "poor in spirit."

The Sermon on the Mount, in other words, comes to us and says, "There is the mountain that you have to scale, the heights you have to climb; and the first thing you must realize, as you look at that mountain which you are told you must ascend, is that you cannot do it, that you are utterly incapable in and of yourself and that any attempt to do it in your own strength is proof positive that you have not understood it." It condemns at the very outset the view which regards it as a program for man to put into operation immediately, just as he is.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, p. 43

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Comments on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, A First Book of Daily Readings

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