Sermon on the Mount

“ They swear by the “Sermon on the Mount,” and are blind to the deep doctrinal basis laid in that “sermon” itself, on which its lofty moral teaching is built. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Why pit the parent against the child? why wrench the blossom from its stem? Knowledge is sound when it moulds conduct. ”

“ THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him.
And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. ”

“ If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen world, of which the agnostic refuses to know anything, stands unveiled before us. There you see revealed the divine Father and Creator of all things, in personal relation to his creatures, hearing their prayers, witnessing their actions, caring for them and rewarding them. ”

“ Yet, in spite of these obstacles, what do we find? we find that the few discourses uttered by Him, and recorded in the Gospels, contain infinitely more wisdom than is to be found in any other book, or in all other books. Every precept of the Sermon on the Mount is a most comprehensive truth, and containing the profoundest wisdom, applicable to all men in all times. ”

“ In the Sermon on the Mount, the simplest, easiest, most comprehensible rules are laid down for love to God and one's neighbor, and for living without recognizing and fulfilling these commands it is idle to speak of Christianity. ”

“ They confined themselves to a single topic, and that purely subjective, whereas a Christian sermon is to be both objective and subjective. It should be like Jacob’s ladder, reaching from God’s throne to man’s earth, with its subject-matter constantly ascending and descending, leading men up to God, and showing God by His Incarnation descending to man.
A Spanish bishop of the seventeenth century thus speaks of the Sermon on the Mount, the model for all sermons, and the pattern upon which many ancient preachers framed their discourses. ”

“ All the precepts that answer most to the description that is given of the Sermon on the Mount, when it is praised for its ethical qualities, for its beautiful morality, are here made to depend upon the fact that those whom He was addressing had a Father in heaven, who knew them and desired them to be what He was. ”

“ Rising like a gigantic natural pulpit, tradition has since declared it to be the Mount of the Beatitudes, and asserts that it was from this picturesque elevation that Christ delivered that sermon which has exercised so vast an influence on mankind ever since. ”

“ I preach better than I ever did in my life. Yet it may be my lot to wander down into the deep valley, an idle shepherd with an idle crook. I have just come from the writing of my next sermon, in which I exhort my people to strive that their names be not written on earthly monuments or human hearts, but in the Book of Life. ”

“ Here men and women walk with heads erect in holy confidence, and hearts glad with living faith, and mouths full of joyous song, and eyes steadily fixed on the holy light that streams from the summit of the mount above them. ”

“ Within its sacred walls may song and sermon generate only that which Christianity writes in broad facts over great continents — sermons that fell forests and remove mountains, songs of joy and gladness.
The letter of your work dies, as do all things material, but the spirit of it is immortal. Remember that a temple but foreshadows the idea of God, the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” while a silent, grand man or woman, healing sickness and destroying sin, builds that which reaches heaven. ”

“ But the mountain stands to catch the clouds, to win the blessing they bear, and send it down to moisten the fainting violet, to form streams which gladden valley and meadow, and sweep on at last to the sea in deep channels, laden with fleets. Thus the forms of the Church, the creeds of the sects, the conflicting opinions of teachers, float round the sides of the Christian mount, and swell and toss, and rise and fall, and dart their lightning, and roll their thunder, but they neither make nor mar the mount itself. ”

“ Come to him now, this Lent; that, above all else, is what it was made for; come to church not only to hear a sermon, but to pray, to get near to God, and to bring him into your hearts. Shut the world out of your heart, that he may come in. Ask him to come to you and make his abode with you. Then, when he is really your treasure, he will draw you where he is; you will not have to try to get to heaven; you will go there of your own accord. To die to the world and live to God, this is the Christian's true life; and Lent was made to give this life to our souls. ”

“ Beyond the pretty village a wooded mountain rises toward the bluest of skies, enticing to a stroll amid the beauties of a forest. The preacher is strongly tempted to stop over a day and enjoy a brief rest. Then he thinks of his word, given in good faith, to be in a certain place at an appointed hour; he remembers the souls which God might save through the sermon which he is expected to preach the next evening. He is tired and jaded and worn. Would he not be justified in telegraphing that he would not come until a day or so later than expected? It is a stout temptation ”

“ He does not require to go far for a subject; he will stare on the puddle in the street of a New England village, and immediately it becomes a Mediterranean Sea with empires lying on its muddy shores. If the sermon be written out fully in your heart, almost any text will be suitable—if you have to find your sermon in your text, you may search the Testament, New and Old, and be as poor at the close of Revelation as when you started at the first book of Genesis. ”

“ The declamations of the ancient prophets differ widely in character from the sermons of Christian orators, and in briefly tracing the history of sacred elocution, we shall put them on one side.
For the true principles of preaching are enshrined in that glorious mountain sermon. From it we learn what a Christian oration ought to be. We see that it should contain instruction in Gospel truths, illustrations from natural objects, warnings, and moral exhortations, and that considerable variety of matter may be introduced, so long as the essential unity of the piece be not interfered with. ”

“ In the eighty years, last past, who can estimate the benign influence of the lives and actions of men, yea, on their eternal destinies, of the oft-repeated utterances pointing to the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man—a sermon that has been painted on the bow of God's eternal promise since Paul stood on the Mars Hill and preached this everlasting, unchangeable doctrine to the heathen world. ”

“ Oh, how much the preaching of God's word might profit us, if we brought the right dispositions to the hearing of it! {380} If we came to Church, eager to know more of God, with a single heart desirous to nourish our souls with His Truth, what progress we should make! A single sermon has before now converted men. ”

“ When the sermon gets over thirty minutes long, the Devil comes to church and takes a seat in the Amen corner.
Heaven is in every man's easy reach, but some are too contrary to even tip-toe for the blessings of the other Kingdom. ”

“ After remarking on the great predominance of young people in the congregation, he says that the sermon was delivered with a great deal of energy and action, and that the idea of the preacher seemed to be to bring religion down on the every-day life, that it might become the motive power in work. ”

“ All we have yet heard and all we have experienced is scarcely a preface to the sermon that is going to be preached. When the testimony of the Elders ceases to be given, and the Lord says to them, "Come home; I will now preach my own sermons to the nations of the earth," all you now know can scarcely be called a preface to the sermon that will be preached with fire and sword, tempests, earthquakes, hail, rain, thunders and lightnings, and fearful destruction. ”

“ More than that, all the strength that is in the laborer's arm to sow the heavenly seed must be given by the Master. We cannot preach except God be with us. A sermon is vain talk and dreary word-spinning unless the Holy Spirit enlivens it. He must give us both the preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue, or we shall be as men who sow the wind. ”

“ When the Twelve, or any other witnesses, stand before the congregation of the earth, and they preach in the power and demonstration of the spirit of God, and the people are astonished and confounded at the doctrine and say: That man has preached a powerful discourse, a great sermon—then let that man or those men take care that they are humble and ascribe the praise and glory to God and The Lamb; for it is by the power of the Holy Priesthood and Holy Ghost that they have power thus to speak. ”

“ But I felt still more surprised when, after anxiously attending to what was said for a few minutes, I found the sermon was as easy to understand as my mother's conversation after a Bible reading: all inattention was gone, and for the first time in my life I was listening with interest deep and anxious, whilst the clergyman, in simple language, explained the text so clearly that not one in the church need have gone away uninstructed. ”

“ God preaches, — a noted clergyman, —
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I'm going all along! ”

“ The solid matter in Theology and the Sacred Scriptures and their developments. A book of sermons is the last to open. Why? You wish to raise a structure, then go to the original quarry where you have material in abundance. The arguments that bear the shaping of your own chisel, though not as polished as those you would borrow, will fit more naturally and adorn with greater grace. There are two great risks in reading sermon books—a tendency to imitate the style and a temptation to filch the jewels. ”

“ There is a time for the seasonableness of every subject to men, as it is the season of autumn which produces the harvest and not the vernal spring.
13. The preaching of a sermon is selectable to old men, as fine colourings are suitable to clean canvas; and so a spiritual discourse of deep sense, suits one who has known the Spirit. ”

“ Few men would crowd into a sermon more evangelical thoughts, or make more vivid and happy illustrations.
The old pioneer was not less interested in the impressive sermon of Mr. Going on missions, and the wonderful progress made in the work of translating and publishing the Scriptures, and preaching the gospel to the heathen.
At the close of such exhilarating meetings, a lively hymn is sung, and the friendly grasp of the hand of christian fellowship extended through the highly excited congregation. ”

“ Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.
"He owns her logic of the heart,
And wisdom of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,
The needed word in season.
"He sees with pride her richer thought,
Her fancy's freer ranges;
And love thus deepened to respect
Is proof against all changes.
"And if she walks at ease in ways
His feet are slow to travel,
And if she reads with cultured eyes
What his may scarce unravel ”

“ But such toil and care are never wasted. You desire your sermon, under God, to make a difference to human lives. You hope that the result may be some vow secretly ratified, some bondage broken, some cross more resolutely shouldered, some song in the night more bravely sung, some area of life more thoroughly surrendered to the sovereignty of Christ. The weakness of too many sermons is that they meander along and beat about the bush ”

“ Even sermon-making, incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty, as a work, or as a pleasure, will engross and harden, will estrange the heart, by neglect of prayer, from God. The scientist loses God in nature. The preacher may lose God in his sermon.
Prayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God and in sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly air of a profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the facility and power of a divine unction. ”

“ And the Brothers who worked by turns there would say to one another: “True is the word of the Lord which He spake: ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed ye shall say to this mountain, be thou removed from hence hither and it shall be done!’ But since faith without works is dead, we do firmly believe that if we put our hand to this work in the name of the Lord, we shall quickly remove this mountain.” ”

“ Every Sunday afternoon many people, whether or not members of the congregation, assemble in the church to hear a short sermon, in which are explained the divine mandates, accompanied by some pleasing example, an interesting story or edifying narrative. The father-visitor began these sermons with good results, which were soon realized in the changed lives of many persons—especially one, who, coming by chance to hear the sermons, was—although bent on leading a shameless life and giving loose rein to his appetites—brought to himself by one sermon and began to lead a new life. ”

“ When a passage from the Holy Scripture has been planted as a root and well watered with prayer, the sermon should spring naturally from it. The central thought of the text being the central thought of the sermon and all argument, all instruction and exhortation are only the boughs branching off from the central trunk, giving unity, vigor and spiritual beauty to the whole organic production. The unity and spiritual power of a discourse usually depend upon the adherence to the great divine truth contained in the inspired Book. The Bible text is God's part of our sermon ”