WWUTT 2312 Jesus Preaches the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17-19)

The Sermon on the Plain and the Question of Contradiction

In Luke chapter six, we have what is called the Sermon on the Plain. And there are some that will want to say it's so different from the Sermon on the Mount, there's a contradiction here. Nope, it is absolutely consistent with Jesus' teaching when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke, we're in chapter six, in the part that is referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. It's like a briefer version of the Sermon on the Mount, as recalled by Luke.

Let me read the whole thing to you today. So I'll start in verse 17 and we'll go through verse 49. Hear the word of the Lord. And he came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.

And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the son of man.

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. And from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back.

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you?

For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great.

And you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

He also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye? But do not notice the log that is in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite?

First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly, to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.

For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good, and the evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And not do what I tell you. Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.

He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.

When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. And there you have it, the entire Sermon on the Plain. Only took me, what, five minutes to read through the whole thing.

I think the Sermon on the Mount takes at least three times as long. I think if you're reading it briskly, you can probably get through it in about 15 minutes. So this is, of course, much shorter, and you'll notice that pieces are put into different places.

Some things are worded even a little different. And this has caused some people to say that there's a contradiction here. There's a contradiction between Luke's Sermon on the Plain and Matthew's Sermon on the Mount.

First of all, the topography is totally different. I think I mentioned that yesterday, but you have Luke presenting this sermon as being delivered on a plane, whereas Matthew, of course, Jesus goes up on the mountain and sits down and the crowds come to him.

Now, the plain portion in Luke 6 is in verse 17. He came down with them, the 12 apostles. We looked at that yesterday in verses 12 to 16. He came down with them and stood on a level place, rendered in some translations as a plain, with a great crowd of his disciples and a multitude of people from these different locations.

Now, some, when they look at that and they're trying to reconcile the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, trying to bring them together so that there's no contradiction, they'll say, well, it was a plain, but it was up on a mountain.

So kind of like a flat top on a mountain. You go up to a high place and there up on the mountain, it wasn't like a summit or a peak. It just was a flat, level place there. So now you have the sermon that could be said it was delivered on a mountain and it was also delivered on a plain, that level place at the top of the mountain.

But that is an unnecessary explanation.

Why?

Because this is a sermon that Jesus gave in a different spot and it has very similar points to what he preached in the Sermon on the Mount, but it's not the same sermon in the same place. Doesn't have to be.

It is very likely that Jesus preached the same things in multiple places. This isn't a time of podcasting that he's in, where you can record it once and distribute it to multiple thousands of people over several years.

That's not what he's doing. He has sermon points that he is making in the various places that he teaches and he will repeat those in the different places that he goes to, so more people are able to hear it.

Now, there were certain things that he probably didn't teach as many times because a whole multitude of people had heard it, but nonetheless, traveling from place to place. Remember we read previously in chapter four, Jesus said to his disciples, I must go to the other towns and preach there too because that is what I came out to do.

So he's going to all these different places and he's teaching the same things in those places. Surely you've heard of itinerant preaching, where you have a preacher who will travel around to different places and he will probably be preaching the same sermon or he's got just a few sermons, a half dozen or something like that, and he will select from those half dozen sermons, which one he's going to preach at the location that he is going to.

I remember when I was growing up with my dad doing that very thing as an itinerant preacher, he had several different sermons that he would preach in different places. I worked at a Christian radio station as I've shared before and there were churches that would call us at the station and say, hey, our pastor is going to be gone this Sunday, do you have someone that can come and fill the pulpit?

And they just assumed that because we were Christian men on a Christian radio station referencing the Bible when we talked on the air, well, then we must know something about the Bible, so perhaps you could come and preach, you got a pretty good voice too, so come and fill my pulpit and preach.

I mean, it took some practice, my dad taught me how to do it but that was where I cut my teeth preaching, was traveling around to those different churches in the Southwest part of Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma panhandle.

Some of those churches would only have 20 or 30 people in them but it was a great place for me to get that experience in preaching, that's where I learned how to do that. But anyway, first of all, I'm following my dad around everywhere and I would listen to him preach.

As I got older, he even had me sing songs, so I would play piano and sing and I would lead worship, we kind of became a duo in that way, he would preach and I would sing and lead the hymns for the congregation.

But before I even got to leading worship in that way, when dad would invite me to come to church with him on a Sunday, do you want to go to our church here or do you want to come with me? I almost always would go with him but I remember my siblings were a little more choosy about it.

And when he would extend that invitation to us, my brother Jesse, for example, he would say, what sermon are you preaching on Sunday? And if dad told him, Jesse would go, I've heard that one like 10 times, I'm not gonna go hear that one again.

Or if he mentioned one he hadn't heard as often or that he liked, Jesse would say, yeah, I like that sermon, I think I'll go with you on Sunday. So that's just giving an illustration of how an itinerant preacher will have just a few sermons that he kind of rotates through.

George Whitefield used to do this as well. It was actually a criticism that Jonathan Edwards made of George Whitefield. Jonathan Edwards' wife was actually impressed by Whitefield but Edwards was not because he knew Whitefield's just got a few sermons and he's just rotating through those sermons.

So yeah, he's an eloquent speaker but it's not like preparing a new sermon every time he goes and preaches. So here Jesus probably has a similar thing going on and it's not exactly the same sermon every time because you'll notice here, the way that Luke captures what it was that Jesus preached, there are points in here that look very much like what we saw in the Sermon on the Mount but then there are other things that are moved around and they'll even have a different context.

For example, where we read about judge not that you be not judged, condemn not and you'll not be condemned. Okay, we have that part there but then you don't get to the speck in the eye part for a few more verses.

Verse 41, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Well, when you read it in Matthew 7, it just goes, those two portions are right back to back.

Judge not and you will not be judged. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? It just flows one into the other in Matthew but Luke kind of separates them out a little bit and Jesus may very well have preached it that way and he'll move things around and he'll connect things to other things to kind of expound on it and help people to understand it better.

So it doesn't have to be exactly the same sermon every time. There's no contradiction here. Sermon on the Mount, Sermon on the Plain, different outline in the Sermon on the Mount than we have in the Sermon on the Plain.

It's just Jesus preaching some of the same points in different places. We have the Beatitudes are slightly different. I'm gonna come to that tomorrow though. We'll look at Luke's version of the Beatitudes that we have in verses 20 to 22.

Let's just look at that section today where the great multitude comes to Jesus. So coming back to verses 17 to 19, he came down with them, talking about the disciples, the apostles who were with him and stood on a level place.

They're on a plane of some kind with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from several locations that Luke mentions here, Judea and Jerusalem and also the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon.

That's a reference to Gentiles, Judea and Jerusalem and then Tyre and Sidon. So Jesus is preaching even to Jews and also to Gentiles. He doesn't go into Gentile places for as he has said, I came to the house of Israel, but there are Gentiles from those outside places who hear of this man who is doing incredible things, teaching incredible things, performing amazing miracles and they come into Israel to hear him.

And we have multiple times where Jesus indeed ministered to someone who is a Gentile, Jesus healing the Seraphim woman's daughter. You have the Roman Centurion who comes to Jesus and asks that his servant would be healed.

So on many occasions, Jesus indeed ministered to Gentiles, but his main ministry is just right there in Galilee, in Samaria, little bit in Samaria, and then also in Judea and especially in Jerusalem. This is where the focus of his ministry was.

And then when he sends out the apostles, then they go out into all the world. That commission that he gives in Acts chapter one, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So they're gonna go beyond even that territory that Jesus had focused on during the time of his earthly ministry. But you see here, and Luke gives hints of this, even in this sermon on the plane, that Jesus has come not only for the Jews, but even for the Gentiles.

Now with this reference to him being on a level place, he's standing on the plane and it says there's a great crowd of his disciples. That certainly presents its own kind of obstacles where Jesus goes up on a mountain to preach in Matthew chapter five.

Well, he can go up to the top or he can sit at a higher elevation and the people can gather kind of beneath him. And then his voice carries a little bit farther. But here with a plane, if you've got a massive crowd that's coming to him, difficult for him to get up on a high spot and be able to broadcast across the crowd.

But nonetheless, it would have worked. They would have made it happen. And Jesus would have spoken to the multitude that came to him. They came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. It says in verse 18, they wanted to hear the teaching of this man who spoke with such authority.

He has such authority that he heals diseases. Remember that point was made in the previous chapter when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, telling him to get up and walk. He said to the Pharisees, which is easier to say, get up and walk or to say your sins are forgiven.

You can say your sins are forgiven, but how do you see that? How do you prove it in a way that your senses can perceive it? So to show that he had authority to forgive sins, he heals the man who gets right up, rolls up his mat and goes home.

The people recognize this. If he can heal diseases, he speaks with great authority. And so they are there to hear his teaching as well as to be healed by him. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits, it says, were cured.

And we've seen that, we'll see more of that with those possessed by unclean spirits and Jesus will cast them out. Verse 19, and all the crowd sought to touch him for power came out from him and healed them all.

If they could just get close enough to reach out and touch him. Remember the woman who was bleeding for years. If I could just touch the hem of his robe, then I could be healed. And indeed she did so and her faith healed her, Jesus said to the woman.

So this is a whole crowd of people desiring to do the same. They're trying to reach out. They're trying to find him so that they can touch him and that they will be healed. Now in verse 20, again, we'll look at verses 20 to 23 which is the Beatitudes.

But there in verse 20, it says, he lifted up his eyes on his disciples. Now that distinguishes one group of people from another because we have a great multitude of people. It says in verse 17 from Judea, Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon.

But right before that, it says that there was a great crowd of his disciples. There's a distinction between the two. There are crowds who are there just because they want a miracle. And then there's a group that's there who actually want to learn from him.

And that's the disciples because that's what the word disciple means. The word disciple means learner. So after he appoints the 12 apostles, verses 12 to 16, he comes down with them from the mountain, stood on a level place.

And you have those 12 apostles who of course are there with him to hear from him. But then there are other disciples, those learners that want to hear from their teacher. And so when you get to verse 20 and it says, he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, that's specifically who he's teaching.

He is talking to those who are there to learn. He's talking to those who have ears to hear. That statement he makes often, he who has ears to hear, let them hear or let the hearer understand. And you have these references to hear what I'm telling you, even in this short sermon.

Verse 27, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Or at the conclusion, everyone who hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. But the one who does not hear, this is what he is like.

So you have those who are there to listen and those that are there for another reason. And hence that comparison to one who builds the house on the rock, that's the one who hears. But the ones who are there and don't hear what he is saying, don't listen to him and don't do what he says.

Well, they're like the ones who build a house without a foundation and it's easily swept away. So this is the sermon on the plane. This is what we'll be looking at tomorrow and on into next week, we'll come back to this again on Wednesday and look at Luke's rendition of the Beatitudes.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read and I pray that we would be hearers of these things and not just hearing the word that Jesus teaches us, that the Holy Spirit is communicating to us even these 2000 years later, but we would even be doers of what Jesus has said.

May our hearts be convicted and as followers of Christ, we desire to obey our master and do as he has instructed. So guide our steps, not in our own understanding, but leaning upon the word of Jesus and it's in his great name that we pray, amen.

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word, when we understand the text.