Transcript: Jesus' Teachings: The Most Hated Commandment Explained

I could have called this the most consistent command of Jesus, or the most fundamental command of Jesus. But I settled for the most hated. The other titles could have referred to the greatest commandment, that is, to love God and others with all our heart. Most people are happy to talk about love. They love just the sound of it. You can never say that the world hates the command to love God and others. But at the same time, they do little or nothing to actually practice it. Usually because the few apparently loving things that we do from time to time are really just part of a righteous show. What makes the topic of this video so hated is that it gets down to the real nitty-gritty of love where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. It exposes the utter lack of love that the church world has for either God or their fellow man. Challenge people on this command, the one I'm about to tell you, and you probably will never hear from them again. That's how much it is hated. In a few minutes, you may be feeling the same way. So brace yourself. I will also be looking at the fundamental nature of this command, and at its consistency as well. Consistency to me means that there are so many different passages of Scripture that all point to the same general theme, especially in the teachings of Jesus. It's not just an isolated passage here or there. That's why I repeatedly ask people to read through everything that Jesus taught with an honest and open heart. They don't need me looking over their shoulder. I know that without any special prodding from me or anyone else, they will come up against this requirement again and again, in one way or another, on almost every page of the Gospels. Right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about our eyes. He says that if we get a speck of dirt or other foreign body in our eyes, our whole body becomes useless until that irritant is removed. In other words, he was metaphorically speaking about something that is fundamental to everything we do as Christians. If we cannot get this one thing right, it's going to mess up everything else that we do or say as Christians. We will become totally useless to God. Now that's where I see just about every church I've ever heard of today, bogged down in the swamp of uselessness because they've ignored this most fundamental, most consistent, and also most hated teaching of Jesus. Now the passage I just quoted, as it's written, could be referring to almost anything. Something is fundamentally wrong with the churches. And because of this error, everything else that the churches do has been invalidated. But what is it? Maybe it's a lack of better church buildings which is making the churches so spiritually weak today. Do you think so? Or maybe it's something more spiritual than that, like the people are not reading their Bibles enough. It could be that their theology is flawed. Maybe it's because they're not having enough prayer meetings. What do you think is the reason that even the most outwardly successful churches are so ineffective and lukewarm spiritually? Well, let's go back and look at the context of that passage, the verses just before and just after the bit about the eye being the light of the body. Here, at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, I believe that Jesus exposes the corner of the cornerstone The place where we need to start if we are to get anything that follows into perspective. He is calling our attention to what we might call the root of all evil, the source of all our problems, the barrier to worldwide revival. We'll start with the two verses that precede the illustration about the eye. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Have you ever heard someone say, God knows my heart, when they're being criticized for something? Well, here in these verses, Jesus gives us the key to discern for ourselves where someone's heart is. Just take a look around. Where is their money going? Is your heart here? Or here? Or here? God knows your heart all right, but it's not that hard for the rest of us to know either. Now, let us read verse 24, the one that follows what Jesus said about the eyes. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon Have you ever wondered why Jesus did not say you cannot serve God and the devil Why did he contrast God with mammon or money instead I believe that Jesus exposed something so fundamental to faith in God that even today it must be almost whispered, said it all because of the furor that it will stir up when it is mentioned. In the Garden of Eden, there was no money. In heaven, there will be no money. Yet somewhere along the way, money became almost synonymous with life. Without it, you are nothing, and with it, you are everything. Just ask Donald Trump. He'll tell you. When someone asks, what do you do for a living? What are they talking about? Are they talking about serving God? Are they talking about doing volunteer work or giving to the poor? No, they're talking about how do you make money. If you don't have visible means of support, then you are, in their estimation, simply not living. Notice too that Jesus uses the word serve here, not worship, even though that's what people like to pretend he said So they can say in response, well, you can work for both God and money, as long as you don't worship money. But working for money is serving money. The Apostle Paul said, don't you know that whoever you obey, you're serving? So, who do we obey? We have many doctrines which actually teach us not to try too hard to obey Jesus. At the same time that the church hammers away at children obeying their parents, Members obeying the elders, everyone obeying the laws of the land, and especially employees are told to obey their employers as a way of being a witness, they call it. But what are your employers and your fellow employees really witnessing when they see how hard you work to make money? Aren't they seeing that for all your talk about God, your faith is really in money and all that it can buy? God gets the leftovers. Sunday mornings and Wednesday night prayer meetings mostly, unless the boss, the real boss, the real master calls you in to work overtime. Everywhere you look, churches are telling you to go out there and make a lot of money. Oh yeah, don't forget to give them some of it. Have you noticed that the churches that preach greed most strongly are the ones that are growing the fastest these days? That doesn't say much for the spiritual condition of our modern world. In fact, it is one of the most overwhelming and convincing pieces of evidence for the total depravity of the churches today. A few churches speak out against the heretical prosperity gospel, but on closer examination you find that they too are looking for more subtle ways to make a business out of religion. Even those churches would say, well, we have no paid pastor are really just saying that they all stopped working for God so they could unanimously concentrate on making money. Church, for these people, is just a hobby after they finish work. Now, let me ask you this. When has any church ever kicked anyone out for serving mammon? Truth be told, the more mammon they have, the greater they'll be welcomed in any of these churches, big, little, or in between. Someone recently complained to me that I'm saying what is wrong with the churches when I should really just be teaching John 3.16. Believe me, I'd love to be able to preach John 3.16. But the problem I find is that no one, inside or outside of the churches, has as much interest in eternal life today as they have in their jobs, and the temporal wealth that it gives them. I find that they've never met God's only begotten Son, And so the only thing they can believe is some clever counterfeit for what Jesus actually taught. But never mind. I'll give you John 3.16 right now. For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son. That's Jesus, you know. The one who preached that great Sermon on the Mount that I just quoted from. The one who said that you cannot work for him and work for money at the same time. Only one boss. Only one provider. You will learn to hate or despise the other one. Which one will it be? That whosoever believeth on him? Do you believe what Jesus said? Or have you replaced it with some kind of a magical prayer, some empty promise that if you say he's your Savior, then it's all done, signed, sealed, and delivered? Jesus is asking you to believe him today, right now. shall not perish, but have everlasting life. This real Jesus, the one in the Bible, not the one your pastor told you about the real Jesus promised that if you obey what he said in the Sermon on the Mount your house will never fall. And the same Jesus promised that if you listen to that sermon and then do not obey what he has said Your house will be destroyed when the testing storms of life and death come. Do you want eternal life? Then do it the way he said and forget the cheap counterfeits and imitations Jesus said that his heavenly Father will feed us if we stop working for the food that perishes and start seeking his kingdom and his righteousness The way that his early followers did, they left their jobs and followed him. The early Christians sold all that they possessed and laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles. and then they live together 24-7, proclaiming the good news by their entire lifestyle. Do you believe Jesus? Do you believe that his Father will feed and clothe you if you take no further thought for food or clothes and build his kingdom instead? If you cannot believe God for a little thing like that how can you possibly believe that he will resurrect your dead and rotting body when he returns? Jesus said that when he returns, he'll be ashamed of anyone who is ashamed of what he taught. You've heard today some of the most challenging things that he taught. Do they excite you? Do you want to live in a world where we all work for free, serving others, and where God takes care of us individually and corporately? Or does this embarrass you? Are you ashamed of what Jesus said? Sadly, there's hardly one person in a million who is prepared to take Jesus at his word even though we can see in his life and in the lives of all those early Christians that receiving Jesus meant laying it all down before him, quite literally. Jesus said that all the Gentiles of the world worry about where they're going to get money for food and clothes. He said that what will make his disciples different is our willingness to trust our Heavenly Father while we go into all the world preaching the gospel in further obedience to him. In conclusion, I would like to look at one special word from John 3.16. It is the word, whosoever. Are we to consider that what Jesus said to Nicodemus was only limited to Nicodemus? like it was just Nicky's special problem? This business of trusting his religious institution more than his heavenly father? Was it Nicodemus' special problem, or is it a problem for all of humanity? Whosoever tells us that it applies to all of us. Now, let us look at another verse with that same word in it. It's in the 14th chapter of Luke's gospel. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsake not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Where is that being preached today? The church has gone through and contradicted every single word in that verse. No, no, no, not whosoever, they say. He only said this to the rich young ruler. No, no, no, that's a lie. He taught it to his twelve disciples. He taught it to the Pharisees, he taught it to the multitudes, and his disciples taught it to the thousands who joined the church in the book of Acts. No, no, no, not forsake, they say. Just imagine yourself giving them up, in your heart. You can still keep them. You need them. It would be foolish to give everything up. How could you do anything for God without all that wealth? Lie number two. Ask yourself, what is the church doing with its wealth even now? Less than one cent in every hundred dollars given to a church today ever reaches the mouths of the world's starving masses. And you? You're not slaving away at your job so you can help the poor. Most of you are doing it to pay off bills that you ran up because you could not wait for God to provide the funds to satisfy your greed. Oh no, no, no, not everything they say, not all that you have, just 10% or maybe 20% or what about some incredibly rich people who have given 90%? Surely they know better than Jesus how it should be done. Put something in the collection plate and leave it at that. Once again, I have to say it's a lie. God may give us back after we have turned loose of it, but even then, he will challenge us over and over to let go of it all, again and again, just to experience his miraculous provision. Your home, your car, your bank account, all your possessions, forsake it all. He cannot be my disciple. No, no, no, they say. He's only talking about a very select few. Some people may feel called to forsake everything, like the twelve disciples, and that's wonderful. But we're not all disciples. We can get to heaven without doing that. Yet this is one more lie. The twelve were apostles, but all Christians were disciples. The Bible says that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Christian is the term we use most today, but disciple was the word used in Bible times. So Jesus was saying that you cannot be a Christian unless you forsake everything that you own. Do you hear what I saying And do you understand it not just me that saying it Come one come all receive your Lord the only begotten Son of God Ask him into your heart. Reach out and embrace him and what he has said to you and me and everyone else on this planet. But do it with full knowledge of what it is that he demanded of his followers. If you cannot do that, now that you've heard what he said, than have the courage to admit that you are not a Christian. You are not one of his disciples. You are not born again. You are not filled with his spirit. In every case, you have been sold a watered-down counterfeit. I have showed you this day what the real Jesus, the Jesus of history the Jesus of the Bible requires of his followers. And I know that it will blow many of you away. Some of you have written to me and complimented me for apparently saying it like it is with regard to what is happening in many areas of the church today. But what about this most important issue? What about this beam in the eye of virtually every churchgoer in the world? What are we going to do about that? You can message me here on YouTube, but it's really God that you need to message. Lay it all out before him. Tell him, if you like, that what I've said is too extreme, that Jesus didn't really mean for us to take him so seriously. Or you can tell him that you do want to get it right, that you are prepared to turn loose of everything to become one of his children. The Bible says that Jesus came to his own people, and they rejected him. He's done that with the Jews, and now it's happening in the churches. They have rejected him. But it goes on to say that as many as did receive him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God. Are you prepared to accept the real Jesus today? God is building a supernatural army, brothers and sisters. It's worth more than everything you own. It's worth more than all your loved ones. It's worth more than your own life. Do you want to become a part of it? I look forward to hearing your answer. Please subscribe to this channel, and share these videos with others through your blogs and other social media. Click the box that says you want to be given notifications when new videos come out. But more than anything else, subscribe to Jesus Christ and follow His instructions, starting today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.