Studies on the Sermon on the Mount by Oswald Chambers

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IDEAS, IDEALS AND ACTUALITY 81
a great arresting statement of God s, inspired by His love
and patience. This throws a flood of light on the vivid
statements of Jesus, such as those in Matthew XXIII.
Be careful how you picture Jesus when you read His
terrible utterances. Read our Lord s denunciations with
Calvary in your mind. Jesus is stating the inexorable
consequence How can you escape the damnation of
hell ? There is no element of personal vindictiveness.
It is the great patient love of God that puts the warning.
The way of transgressors is hard." Go behind that
statement in your imagination and see the love of God ;
God is amazingly tender, yet He cannot make the way of
transgressors easy. God has made it difficult to go wrong,
especially for His children.
Enter ye in at the strait gate. ..."
If a man tries
to enter into salvation in any other way than Jesus Christ s
way, he will find it a broad way, but the end of it is distress.
Erasmus said it took the sharp sword of sorrow, and
difficulties of every description, heartbreaks and disenchantments
to bring him to the place where he saw Jesus
as the altogether lovely One, and, he says
:
When I got
there I found there was no need to have gone the way
I went." There is the broad way of reasonable selfrealisation;
but the only way to a personal knowledge of
eternal redemption is strait and narrow. Jesus says I
am the way."
There is a difference between discipleship and being
saved. A man can be saved by God s grace without being
a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship means a personal dedi
cation of the life to Jesus. Men are saved so as by fire,
they have not been worth anything to God in their actual
lives. Go and make disciples, said Jesus. The teaching
of the Sermon on the Mount produces only despair in a