Sermon On The Mount

The Test of Profession

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 21-25

Genre:

Track: 21

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount – 21

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thou art He who art able to turn the heart of kings and rulers, men in high places and low places, to make them do Thy will, to fulfill Thy holy purposes in spite of all their own plans and beliefs. And so we come to Thee in the confidence that Thou who can work in the hearts of the enemy are most certainly at work in us around us and throughout the length and breadth of the world. We come to Thee to rejoice in Thy government and in Thy word. To commit ourselves to Thee and to Thy spirit that we might indeed understand wonderful things out of Thy word. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of Thy scriptures. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Matthew 7:15-20. Our subject: The Test of Profession. The Test of Profession. Matthew 7:15-20.

“16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

We began our studies of the Sermon on the Mount by going through it hurriedly to get an overview and then began a more detailed study of it. When we dealt with these verses earlier we saw that what our Lord was striking at was a very prevalent view in those days and still in our own. In the Greco-Roman world to review very briefly it was commonplace to have a doctrine of man which said he was made of two substances: mind and body.

Other Greeks held to a tripartite view, soul, mind and body. And these were unrelated elements which somehow had come together and would eventually go apart. Now this view is very different from the biblical view that there are only two kinds of being: God, uncreated being, and the whole of the universe: created being. Now there can be different aspects to our being but it is all one unified created being. In terms of the Greco-Roman view it was possible to say that a man who did certain things with his body could still be a very noble man because his mind or his soul were pure. Thus Socrates could discourse on virtue while engaged in a homosexual act. And this kind of Greco-Roman thinking has led to the perspective, very common in Christian circles, of excusing a person who does all kinds of flagrant evil things by saying well you can’t judge his heart. Scripture more specifically our Lord does not permit us to say that. By their fruits shall ye know them. Man’s being is one, a good tree brings forth good fruit, a corrupt tree brings forth evil or wormy or rotten fruit which is the meaning of the word there. The problem of course is that then as now human motivation is seen by many in highly sophisticated and alien terms to scripture and as a result is falsified. And we are told that we cannot judge people. It is ironic that Britain which a few years ago, a decade ago, was saying that the United States was so obviously incompetent, that it could not handle its racial problems, which were so simple it was a matter of good will, has now been torn apart in three of its major cities with the last I heard five nights of rioting and the cities looked as bad and in some areas worse than during World War II in the blitz.

And what are their answers? Well the parents are to blame or its society or it’s the environmental conditions in which they grew up and one thing after another except to say that it is sin. Our problem today all over the world is that men will not pay attention to the simply facts our Lord calls attention to. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. It’s that clear and simple. But modern man like Greco-Roman man wants to sophisticate its thinking. But the bible gives us ground for judgment: by their fruits shall ye know them. The standard is established for all for the leaders, for the followers, for children, for adults, for all. Our Lord begins with the leaders: beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Our Lord earlier in the Sermon on the Mount criticizes bluntly the Pharisees of the day and Phariseeism as a way of life. And He says except that your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees we have no part in Him. Now, at this point our Lord is not talking about Pharisees, rather He is talking about false leaders within the church who come in to be a part of the fold, Christ’s flock. They pretend to be sheep but they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. False leaders, and their purpose is destruction. They pretend to be defenders of the faith, they are very apt at a professional kind of holiness, very unctuous, sanctimonious, and their pretense to holiness is designed to delude people. But of course our Lord says by their fruit shall ye know them we have this simple criteria.

We know that’s the truth. We don’t like it always, we don’t like it sometimes when we see it in people we love. If it’s someone we love we want them to be what we believe they should be so we refuse to read the truth that their works tells us. So we deceive ourselves, deliberately. We like to have reality our way then God’s way and so we deny Christ’s truth. No one can tell me I’ve heard more than once that my boy is a bad boy, I know him too well. That’s both sad and wicked because it’s a denial of God’s truth but this is not all. We approve very often of people who are evil and obviously so because we admire their ability to get away with it. I’ve seen more than one pastor who has been sexually and financially immoral and very successful and congregations making every kind of excuse for him or insisting that the communists are spreading the propaganda that he did this and so. Why are they doing it? In every case it’s been very obvious. And by their fruits ye shall know them. Well the reason is very clear: if we admire something we do like to see the thing we admire succeed. We may not have the courage then to be sexually immoral or financially dishonest but we’re ready to admire someone who can get away with it and he becomes, whether we admit it or not, a hero. And sometimes pastors are successful most when it is known what they have done because they attract a certain type of people and there is no challenge to people in a church like that. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, beware of them our Lord says and it’s the sheep that He’s talking to. Wolves will follow a wolf. Wolves come into Christ’s flock in sheep’s clothing but evil always disguises itself as righteousness because when evil is obviously evil who would follow it?

Evil comes in the name of righteousness, of justice, of good, of brotherhood. Consider the great evils of our day, Marxism. Supposedly a vision of world good. Nazism, to avenge the wrongs done to the German people and to rescue them from the fearful plight they were in because of the depression. And every politician in this country and the world over that is evil is most self-righteously indignant when anyone impugns his integrity. We’ve had one more spouting in Washington lately who more than one commentator has said should have been indicted for fraud and for bribe taking during the last administration but was not. Evil disguises itself as righteousness but this should not surprise us. After all did not the tempter in the very beginning, Genesis 3:1-5 come with a program that was designed for the freedom of man. God is keeping the truth from you, you are all entitled to be gods. You shall be as god, every one of you, knowing, determining for yourself what constitutes good and evil. Paul tells us the same thing in 2 Corinthians 11:13-14 when he says of some such evil people in the church:

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”

What is Paul saying? Why he says there are people going around who are false apostles who are insistent that they are the true apostles. The true apostles of Christ implying thereby that the others are not and of course we know that Paul was regularly accused, that wherever he went slander followed him implying that he was somehow dishonest or faithless or in one way or another undeserving of anyone to follow. And Paul says why not, Satan himself presents himself as an angel of light.

He believes that he represents the cause of cosmic freedom, everyone should have a right to be their own god. We fail to understand the enormity of evil until we realize that fact. One evangelist some years ago said that we knew the works of the devil because the devil is for drinking and smoking and dancing and going to movies. Well what the devil by his own statement is for is that every man should be his own god. And he sees himself as not as one bad person who’s tempting you to sneak behind the barn and try a cigarette but someone who is going to bring to you the light and yet at the same time they disguise themselves in order to delude people so there is no honesty in them. But our Lord says they are ravening wolves. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. And they are working to subvert the moral picture, to sophisticate it. You are more spiritual if you don’t judge when our Lord says judge righteous judgment. By their fruits shall ye know them. No, you are holy if you don’t judge somebody even if they’ve killed or raped. And so a mealy mouthed attitude is presented as true holiness and true righteousness. And we are told the lines are so blurred who can judge? I heard one professor of theology get up at a meeting and say it was wrong to condemn anyone because how do you know that tomorrow you might not commit adultery? Or murder? So how dare you condemn someone who does. As though the standard were what we are capable or not capable of doing rather than the law of God. All around us people are trying to complicate moral judgment and our Lord is saying it is very sinful. Men are either good or evil, now there may be degrees in their goodness and their growth and there may be degrees in their evil but they are either good or evil and a good man produces good works and an evil man evil works. It’s that simple. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Our Lord puts it on a very elementary basis. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? The whole of this universe is God’s creation; there is an order in it. You do not gather grapes from a thorn bush nor figs from thistles and you do not get good works out of an evil man, out of an evil heart. How then can anyone say you can’t judge their heart? Our Lord destroyed that opinion which was prevalent in His day with these words. Just as there is an order in the natural universe so that an oak tree has acorns not plums so there is an order in the moral universe, in the world of man and when we deny that order we begin the destruction of society, we begin the kind of thing we see today in this country and in Britain. We begin to burn down civilization when we refuse to recognize moral order. And what happens is and our Lord in the nineteenth verse quotes John the Baptist who was there echoing the Old Testament:

“19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

There is a judgment, our Lord says. This is God’s universe and just as man who has a bad or dead tree in his orchard is going to cut it down so God in His time will again and again bring judgment in history. And every tree that bringeth forth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits shall ye know them, thus says the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee for the plain speaking of Thy word and Thy word is truth. Give grace to our generation that we may again with moral clarity judge between right and wrong, good men and evil men. Might know the wolves in sheep’s clothing and cast them out and might indeed judge righteous judgment. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions concerning our lesson first of all?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Ah, but he’s not speaking about giving birth but moral works.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The fruits has reference to a life of a man, his works. Yes.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] That slogan ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’ goes right back to the Greco-Roman point of view. It is a part of the ancient dualism whereby because mind and body were different substances what the body did in the way of sin did not mean that the person and his soul was bad. So that’s continuing paganism, most people who use it don’t realize that it is and it’s a part of this pseudo-holiness that is very widely promoted. You can find it in very fine Christian periodicals sometimes. It’s sad but it is very widespread. I encountered it recently in a publication where I’d never thought I’d encounter it.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. The net result of it is if you say that their fruits are bad, if you call attention to an obvious fact, he’s an evil tree an evil person, you are a nasty sinner and everything is done to make you feel guilty. If someone robs you and you want to press charges you can be scolded as I know one friend of mine was by a judge for being vengeful in this case it was a man who passed a bad check and had a long record across country of bad checks going up into, he traced himself, over a hundred thousand dollars.

But because the check in his case was only eighty dollars the judges attitude was that he was an evil and a vengeful man for demanding that prison, a prison sentence would be given to the man so he put him on probation and the man was just going to town to town across country and passing small bad checks, when he was caught the attitude was well we’ll put him on probation and he’ll move on out of town. Why should we support him in jail and he knew that was the attitude. But the judge was very angry with this man.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] They want to lay a guilt trip on you. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all God said more than once vengeance is mine, I will repay sayeth the Lord. Now a part of God’s vengeance as the bible makes clear is His direct judgment on men. That is, something happens to you that is an act of God, if you have sinned and gone astray. But a part of God’s vengeance which he spells out clearly is the law. The courts are to represent God and His judgment and God says the judgment is mine. So that if the courts function properly they are executing God’s vengeance. That’s why God gives the law so that His vengeance can be applied in history. He also reserves the right to intervene apart from the law but the law of God is the means of God’s vengeance and today we’ve departed from His word and therefore we no longer see any obligation to execute God’s justice and vengeance upon evil doers.

Then the second half, and then we’ll…judge not lest ye be judged, our Lord was there dealing because remember, He said both judge not lest ye be judged and judge righteous judgment. So obviously He was not barring judgment, per say. What He was saying was do not judge in terms of purely personal standards. Say the man’s background or his level of education or his personality if he is not as cultured as you would like. He says with what measure you judge it shall be meted out to you, measured out to you. So If we judge in terms of superficial things we are going to be judged in terms of superficialities but we are to judge righteous, that is, godly judgment. Yes. Did you have a…yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. First of all the doctrine of common grace I…to put it mildly I’m not too fond of it [laughs]. I don’t think it’s a biblical doctrine as it is commonly formulated. Van TIl uses it because the Christian Reformed Church had a doctrine of common grace but he reinterpreted it and he says that what he meant by it was creation grace. That all things as God created them in the beginning were entirely good, that metaphysically all things continue to be good. Morally all men are fallen and totally depraved but not metaphysically, you see, the fall is not metaphysical. Our bodies, our minds have not become evil in their being but in their moral nature in which sense then they are totally depraved. The trouble with the doctrine of common grace is that it has become really almost identical with the doctrine of natural law in the atomistic sense.

And the atomists have really gleefully hailed the doctrine. Now, what we do have in a culture is this: our Lord says ye are the salt of the earth. Now salt is a preserving agent. So that when there are enough Christians in a community or in a nation who are strong and who exercise dominion they give a grace to the society of character and the others are followers and they follow that so that the ungodly are governed by it, restrained by it. So they are restrained by it you could call it common grace. Now in this sense when the godly exercise their due powers under God, their calling to dominion, they are going to have an influence far beyond their circles and they are going to be a restraint on others and more evil men. Now I know that in one classroom I was told of this once which was quite a lawless group in a lawless situation whenever the teacher…it was bad enough when the teach was there when the teacher had to step out into the hallway it was pandemonium. And on one occasion when they were taking a test one student started to cut up and everybody else chimed in and one who was trying to do his work and wanted a good grade said shut up please, some of us are trying to take the test and a fellow said who’s going to stop me. Well there was someone who was relatively new, been transferred and it was a good size burly fellow that nobody knew and he stood up and said I am, sit down and shut up. Now he exercised a certain dominion there so that you might say there was a common grace in the sense that I mean it in the classroom. They shut up, they respected his size. Well we can exercise that kind of a power but as far as the individual having a certain grace in him when he’s reprobate, that’s a contradiction in terms.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. And today men have surrendered the power of judgment to the state, to a very devastating extent and the state because it sees itself as sovereign or lord is playing god over us. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes there has been in the past a continuing discussion of what was meant by fruits. Did it mean good works or did it mean correct doctrine or did it mean certain spiritual qualities and so on, you can imagine all the differences of opinion that have prevailed. And really the argument died about a century ago because I think every side exhausted itself as far as the arguments were concerned and none had the answer because it wasn’t any one of these things but all of these things. It is the fruits of the spirit, it is the faithfulness to God in every word, it is knowing and believing the doctrine, it’s all of those things. Life in Christ is not an unbalanced thing but a balanced thing. So that well, we are all of us unbalanced. Not in any mental sense but in our abilities, our aptitudes. Some of us have a super abundance of talent in one direction and we are very stupid in other directions. Some of us, for example, can do remarkable things with wood and others of us can bang our nail not the nail in the wood, but our thumbnail a good deal of the time. We have an imbalance in our aptitudes. Well it’s different in the Christian life because there it’s the spirit of God working in us so we have a balance.

He that doeth my will, our Lord says, shall know the doctrine so the fruits of the spirit, correct doctrine, sound works, all these are part and parcel of one thing and you don’t see the one in isolation from the other unless it’s a case of a wolf. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s a good point because that’s an entirely different area, that deals with children. And children because they are or should be and once were and in our generation were in a disciplined environment in the home, in the neighborhood, in the school, in the church, so that they never got away with things. If they were playing down the block the women there would report on them to their mother, you know, you didn’t get away with things in those days. And the environment as a whole worked to make sure that no kid got out of line. Now, the value of that was that it established a pattern, a discipline, which even if they should become reprobate in their nature still made them a functioning and a useful member of society. You may remember that I pointed out some years ago that in 1815 the average age of criminals was forty-five whereas by 1960 it was nineteen which told you how many juveniles were in the courts. The reason for that was the very strict kind of puritan discipline they had then gave them a character, a discipline that made them conform. This did not mean that people did not know what they were but even the ungodly were able to outperform what the godly often do today.

You see the level of productivity has declined in our society both with the godly and the ungodly, we’re not as productive as Americans were a generation or two or three or four ago because we don’t have the training and the discipline but within that you can still see that while they may be productive and disciplined to a point they are still not good. Do you understand what I am saying? There is a difference that the culture creates and a Christian culture will produce a measure of conformity as in the classroom and work ability that a culture that is not Christian cannot produce. That’s why in India they can work ten and twelve and fourteen hours a day and have a productivity in terms of current American standards of forty five minutes. It’s that low. Whereas our productivity is very high compared to most of the world but low compared to what it once was. So productivity is a part of a cultural discipline which is ultimately religious. Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us conclude with a word of prayer and then we can have our dinner.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thy word is truth. Thy word is indeed a lamp and a light upon our way. Give us joy in Thy word and in Thy spirit so that we might indeed manifest that we are those who have the fruits of the spirit, who do Thy will and therefore know Thy doctrine. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus’ name, Amen.