Beatitudes - Part 2 — Leonard Ravenhill

Last week, at least, we took the time to sit in there and run in what we call, again, the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who ever lived, which is called The Sermon on the Mount, which, as we said, isn't really a...

I don't think it's a good title. It merely tells you the location. You could say it's a mountain that we've got to climb, if you like, and that would give it a little more qualification for that title.

The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke

The version that we studied, at least we looked at, began to look at, is in the 5th chapter of Matthew, and it runs through to the 7th chapter. There are roughly 110 verses in this version, and in the account that Luke gives us, there are only 30 verses.

But Luke makes one very real observation, I think, in that 6th chapter. Where does he begin now? Verse 20. He lifted up his eyes on his disciples. Now, I think that that puts a qualification on this, because, obviously, the Sermon on the Mount is a total impossibility.

You may as well tell a pig to fly from here downtown as to tell an ungodly man to live the Sermon on the Mount. It's not possible. It's contrary to his nature. It's contrary to his desires. And so Jesus here is speaking explicitly just to his own disciples.

He lifted up his eyes. There was an old bishop in England many years ago, I think his name was Vaughan, and he said that Jesus was talking to his disciples and the crowd was eavesdropping. You know, they came in on the perimeter and were kind of listening, hoping the wind was blowing it that way, and what was Jesus really saying?

But he's speaking specifically to his disciples. OK. How many books are there in the Old Testament? 39. Good. Give you an A+. 39. So Matthew is what? What book is Matthew? 40th book. 40, in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, is typical of a period of probation.

How long was Moses on the Mount? OK. I thought you might say 40 years. 40 days. How long was Israel in the desert? OK. How long was Jesus tempted? How many days between the Resurrection and the Ascension?

40 days. 40 is typical of a period of testing or trial. Well, how do you tie that in with the 40th book? For the simple reason, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was given to the people of Israel and they were being tested by him.

He wasn't being tested by them. They were being tested with what would they do with the Son of God. And you remember that John says he came unto his own and his own received him not. So, you know, and really the world in which we live right now is being tested by the presence of the Church.

Now, the Church as we know it, I'm sure it doesn't have much trouble with it. It used to be the Church was going that way and the world was going that way. Now they're both going this way, so there's no opposition.

I'm convinced that the early Church was a thorn in the side of everybody. Dignitaries, just like Jesus was a thorn. You know, if this hasn't come to you, I guess somewhere in life it will come to you.

You're too young to have known it, maybe. Maybe my kid has known it and some of these older men. I mean, I've been older with a lot. But, you know, sometimes you get into a situation and you think, you know what, nobody in the world has ever had what I'm going through.

You know, you just feel the walls have gone out, the roofs come in and I'm just getting beaten up. Nobody's had it like this. Well, don't get conceited, that's exactly what happens to every believer, sooner or later.

The Beatitudes, Persecution, and the Example of Christ

You know, it's amazing when you think of the Sermon on the Mount. As I said last week, if it began with, Blessed are the pure, we'd back off and say, oh, look, this is a chapter I'm going to skip. It doesn't begin with, Blessed are the pure.

It begins with, Blessed are the poor. A little later it moves into, Blessed are the pure. And then at the end we're saying, and blessed are the persecuted. Do you get persecuted for being pure? Sure you do.

Do you get persecuted? What Jesus says, look, can you endure all this, blessed are they who are persecuted, misunderstood, kicked around, for my sake. Now Moses never said anything for my sake, did he?

Joshua never said, do this for my sake. Jesus said, you do it for my sake. Now if you get under, as I say, if you kind of feel you're under the weather, surely the thing is to say to yourself, well, wait a minute.

The holiest man that this world has ever known. There have been some holy men. The Spirit of Holiness was in Moses, the Word of God said. I'm sure the Spirit of Holiness was on the Apostle Paul. But the holiest man that ever lived, obviously, was Jesus.

Well, what did this world give him? A crown of thorns. It's an idiotic world, you know. Because if you do wrong, they'll put you in jail. And you know what? If you do right, they'll put you in jail too.

If you murder a man, they'll put you in jail. But if you murder them for the government, they'll give you a medal. But it's still murder as far as I'm concerned. You see, this Sermon on the Mount distinguishes itself above all the sermons, I think, very much like the sun.

You don't see too much of it today. But yesterday, the day before, the sun was brilliant all day, and you couldn't look up at the sun. But you could go and look at the stars tonight. Well, think of the difference of, if you like, the candle power between the star and that of the sun.

And this sermon is so superior to anything. It's superior to any philosophy. You don't find Buddha or Confucius saying the things that Jesus said. Now, isn't it amazing? He gathered together his disciples.

There weren't many of them. I don't know why he only had 12 disciples. If anybody could have managed 1 ,200, Jesus could surely. But he managed 12. Later, he says to the 12, you're going to sit down with me in my kingdom, you're going to have thrones.

But the Book of Revelation says there are 4 and 20 elders. Well, who are the other 12? I think the other 12 are possibly the 12 patriarchs. And yet, you think of all the time that Jesus took to try and get these men, I nearly said women, but anyway, these men into shape.

He not only teaches them by word exhortation, but he teaches them by the most powerful thing of all. He teaches them by example. That's a great thing about parenthood. You know, you can turn your kids over and beat them if you must.

Back them some time to do other things. But they learn most by example. They absorb, they see. They hear with their eyes as well as with their ears. And they have this paragon of virtue and holiness in front of them all the time, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom Manifesto and Jesus’ Ministry

And you remember that Peter, when Jesus appeared to Peter one day, he says, he shrunk back and he said, depart from me because I'm a sinful man, O God. Okay. He's talking about the kingdom. We said last week, this is the manifesto of the kingdom.

It's not just an outline. It's not just statements that they have to believe. It's something they have to behave. Now, if you go back into the previous chapter, chapter 4, and verse 17, it says, from that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now, before this, he's done some great things. He fed the 5 ,000. If he got on, he could have abolished hunger forever, couldn't he? He could have satisfied the whole world. But Jesus knew where to stop.

He knew when to do things and when not to do things. A man came to him a bit later and says, look, just before you preach your next sermon, I want you to get my brother on one side and talk to him about dividing our inheritance.

Well, he could have established inheritance laws for the rest of time. Jesus says, no, no, I'm keeping off that thing. You know, this church involvement now in the modern majority, I think it's an alibi.

The preachers can't produce what they should produce, so they're getting really lost and tied up in this. It's just like people say about the Sermon on the Mount. Well, after all, it's a social gospel.

It's not a social gospel. It's not talking about the gospel being worked out in just helping the poor. I can remember when the Salvation Army was a hellfire, blood and fire bunch of people night. They used to pray.

Every Salvation Army group is called a corps, C-O-R-P-S. A friend of mine used to say, man, I preached to the Salvation Army corps last week. Well, it's not corps. Some of it's like a corps now. But it was a corps.

And it was an unwritten law that they had a prayer meeting every Saturday night from 10 o 'clock until they felt the spirit moved off. And they used to pray and sweat. Really, really moved. And gradually, they got drawn more and more and more into the social life until a young lady startled me a few months ago when I'd been preaching.

And she said, oh, is the Salvation Army a religious organization? She said, all I know, I see them at Christmas begging pennies, begging money at the door of, you know, Dillard's or somewhere. And if there's a fire, they come up with blankets and other things.

I didn't know. And she was a university girl, bright girl. And she said, I did not know it was a religious organization. Why? Because they got lost in good works. And that, of course, brings the praise of men.

But this is not what we're after. Jesus is talking about here, about having the praise of our Heavenly Father, of being well-pleasing in His sight. I reminded you last week, you can take one print in 13 and in the Sleepy Elizabethan English, the word used there is the word charity.

Charity suffereth long. All the new versions have changed charity into love. You can take love out and you can put carnality there and read it backwards way. Carnality doesn't suffer long. Carnality is kind.

Carnality warms itself. Carnality struts. It's the very opposite, the antithesis of what we're talking about here. And then you can rub all the words out and put the name of Jesus there. Jesus suffereth long.

He's kind. Jesus envieth not. Jesus vaunted not himself. Jesus was not puffed up. He didn't behave himself unseemly. He was never provoked. He was always slow to expose. Jesus was always eager to believe in the best.

Put them all out. Then put yourself in there. I suffer long. I'm kind. I'm never rude. I'm never resentful. When the children are climbing the wall, I'm never irritated. Let's skip that one. And, you know, when you put yourself, that's what...

1 Corinthians 13 is the most beautiful poem ever written. And what is it? It's a full-length portrait of Jesus Christ. Nowadays, you don't see full-length portraits anymore, do you? Nearly everybody's shot off by the shoulders.

Every portrait you see in the old days, that was new when I was a child. You always got a picture full-length. And so, boy, daddy used to see your trousers were creased and your shoes were shining and you stood at attention, you know.

Now that's gone. Well, 1 Corinthians is a full-length portrait of the Lord Jesus. It's a full-length portrait of a sanctified believer. Switch that back and say the Sermon on the Mount is a full-length portrait of Jesus Christ.

It's a full-length portrait of a true believer. I said last week, I say again, that if every true believer, every professed believer in the country lived the Sermon on the Mount just one day, if everybody in the country believed it, behaved it, 24 hours for one day, we'd turn the country upside down.

You see, one thing that got Jesus into trouble was that they thought he exalted himself above Moses. Moses said unto you, I say unto you. Now here, again, Jesus has been manifesting his power in this fourth chapter and then he suddenly, he stretches.

Matthew deals with the kingdom more than any other of the four evangelists, the other three evangelists. I think the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, and I don't see any difference in them, except one is that there is an invisible kingdom, the kingdom of God is within you, and there is an ultimate kingdom, a manifest kingdom, a state.

Personally, I think the millennial period will be a state of the kingdom of God. Jesus is going to rule with the rod of iron. But the eternal kingdom, come ye blessed of my Father, enter into the kingdom prepared for you.

Now, he's worked, he's done the works of the kingdom, if you like, in the miraculous things that he's done. But there is an entrance into the kingdom. Verse 17 of chapter 4, from that time Jesus began to preach.

From what time? After he's done all these miracles? John has been cast into prison? John says, run and ask him, art thou he that should come, or look we for another? And people say, you know what? I think his faith has collapsed.

Oh, mercy. Isn't it easy for little squirty preachers, two by four preachers to start sitting in judgment over the greatest man that ever lived, Jesus said? I don't think his faith collapsed in prison.

I think he was trying to draw out of Jesus what Jesus lately admitted, that he was a son of God. But he wanted to hear it confirmed by Jesus himself. Sure, he'd heard a voice from heaven. I think he would have been satisfied if Jesus says, well look, I'm the son of God come with power.

He didn't get that gratification as far as I know. But I don't think that John's faith wavered. Man alive, he'd have wavered a long while before they brought him out to chop his head off. I get so many young preachers that write to me or call me and say, Brother Rayneal, I've been reading a book of yours or somebody else's and I got really stirred up and I haven't eaten for a week and God's really called me, and he's called me to be a John the Baptist.

And I just say very sweetly, well, that means you're ready to die in six months. Pardon? Well, he said he wanted to be John the Baptist, that's all he lived. Six months preaching. Do you want to preach six months?

John lived for 30 years and preached six months. Now guys want to go to Bible school, six months and live for 30 years preaching. And it doesn't work out. But it says that Jesus, from that time, Jesus began to preach.

Or if you go back to verse 14, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. All right. If you read carefully through Matthew, you'll find that that word fulfilled is mentioned 15 times and that's more than it's mentioned in any other of the Gospels.

Jesus has come to fulfill the law and the prophets. Again, he has controversy. He has adversity. He's up against the scribes. The scribes were very learned. As we would say in our language, to be a scribe you had to go through so much study and then graduate and be accepted as a scribe.

That was not true of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a bunch of zealous laymen. And Jesus has opposition from both of them. They didn't receive him gladly. They didn't say, Oh, Isaiah 35 is fulfilled before our eyes.

They quoted scripture when it was convenient. Don't people in the world do that? They quoted scripture when it's convenient. And they forget other scriptures that hurt them. Now, Jesus here is... Again, he's established the fact that he is a son of God in many ways.

But now he's turning to a different ministry. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Well, this is the manifesto of the kingdom. These are the laws of the kingdom.

If you're going to have a kingdom, you must have a king. If you have a king, you have laws. That's pretty logical. And I think it was Finney who said that the royal... The law of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is the...

It's a tongue twister, really. It's the royal rule of love. The royal rule of patience and love. After all, we don't have a map. If we had a map, you could see on the old maps, you've got the eastern hemisphere and the western hemisphere.

Two hemispheres. There are only two kingdoms in this world. There's a kingdom of Satan, which is a kingdom of darkness, and a kingdom of light. You don't crisscross from one to the other. He has translated this, isn't it?

Colossians says, Out of the kingdom of darkness, or out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Or as it says in Ephesians 6, We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the principalities and powers, the kingdoms of another world.

Now, there's an entrance into the kingdom. What is the entrance into the kingdom? Well, the entrance into the kingdom is you must be born again. You know, the whole world, ever since Adam transgressed, I guess, the world has longed...

It has an idealism in its mind. It's made up its mind, Look, you can put the world straight if you do this. Okay. 1912, before World War I, we had a bunch of people called Fabian Socialists in England.

Their philosophy simply was this. We'll pull down the hills of wealth. We'll fill in the valleys of poverty. We'll make the crooked places straight. We don't need the Bible. We don't need Christ. We don't need the church.

We can put this world right. H .G. Wells was the big self-anointed and self-appointed prophet of that group. And he says, we don't need the Bible and Jesus Christ. We can make, establish a new world order.

Now, he's not talking in any sense about righteousness and repentance. And because of that, he says, this is how we'll do it. We'll do it by intellectual and biological processes. You see? And because he's a materialist, a humanist, he says also, he says, I believe in the adequacy of materialism.

There's enough stuff in the world. All we have to do is get it and put it together. The adequacy of materialism, listen to this, 1912, the inevitability of progress, the inevitability of progress, he has us going up like that and we've been going down ever since the World War I, which was 1914.

So it's the adequacy of materialism, the inevitability of progress, and the sufficiency of man. All you've got to do is knock your head. After all, Shakespeare could have had an IBM machine. He could have had a computer.

All the stuff was there. Why didn't somebody put it together? I believe that if the world lasts another hundred years, it would have been a shocking mess without revival, but I don't think it can do that.

But if it did, I believe we'd look back to these days in which we're living as the Dark Ages. Man does not get more gentle as he gets wiser. He gets more diabolical. He makes the earth into hell. This is the first time in the history of mankind where we can roast a whole city, barbeque it, in 60 seconds.

We did it in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just barbeque a whole city. That's education. That's the inevitability of progress. All man does is make hell. Now, that's all in the Kingdom of Darkness. The scripture says, such is the twisted heart of man, such are his affections corrupted, such is his will twisted, that they prefer darkness to light.

Well, can you think of a better example of insanity? I went into my office for something last night. Oh, I won't bother to put the light on. I know where everything is. Well, I made it to the door because there's a little light.

I can see a little bit of light. Coming back, it was pitch black. Well, I know where everything is. Oh, my goodness, my sofa wasn't there. I'm sure it was further over. I went this afternoon, and then I walked a bit.

Oh, man, something hit me in the ribs. Oh, boy, I should have had a light. And yet people do that. We're stumbling and staggering in the darkness. We know there are things out of control, but man will not, as Jesus said, he will not come to me that he might have life.

Repentance as the Entrance to the Kingdom

The Kingdom of Darkness. We had a nice lawn in front of our house, and we, you know, summer, I think it was one Wednesday afternoon in England. But anyhow, in summer we, I'd go out on the lawn. My sister would come out with a book, and I'd pick up a rock, you know, because I knew under that rock there were bugs and slugs and everything.

And I didn't want her sitting on the lawn. I wanted to stretch out on it. And I'd pick that rock up and say, ah, don't, don't. And they'd say, come on, you sit down here. But as soon as I picked that rock up, every little creeping, horrid thing, it shot off.

It couldn't bear the light. Put the rock back, they shelter in the darkness. Nighttime is when most burglaries are happening. It used to be, but it's fashionable to burglarize any time now. But it used to be burglaries were done in the night.

People go to discos in the night. They sin in the night. They love the night. They're children of darkness, and they love it. And the horrible thing is, they don't want light. They don't want light. But there's an entrance into the Kingdom.

What's the entrance into the Kingdom? Well, Jesus says the entrance into the Kingdom is being born again. The entrance into being born again is repent. He puts it right down there. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

And repentance isn't an emotional upset. Repentance is something intellectual and volitional. It's something I turn right round and determined by the grace of God to go the other way. Repentance leads us into salvation.

It is not salvation, but it's a necessary priority to salvation. We don't find people repenting very much these days. I had a couple of preachers came in to see me yesterday, and I guess they stayed two hours and asked me, well, what's the great need?

We go to churches and people come forward and we go back six months after, and there's no change in the church and the pastor's in despair. What's happened? What should we do? I said, well, do you really want to know the truth?

Yeah. Well, first of all, go and preach about sin. And then when they get despairing about sin, preach repentance. And then when you get past repentance, preach adoption. And when you get to adoption, or forgiveness, and adoption, and justification.

Tell me, because today, the average person doesn't know a thing about those things. They just sit there and say, Did you repent? Yeah, I just, Lord, I'm sorry. But that's not repentance. You hear much about the gifts of the Spirit today.

You don't hear too much about the fruits of the Spirit. You hear less about Romans 6, having your fruit unto holiness, and we hear less still about bringing forth fruit for repentance. I was in the company of some celebrities not too long ago, and they asked me about a certain thing, and I stressed this, and I saw one man go like this, and I knew, I knew his history.

I knew, for instance, he's living with his third wife. He's a Christian, he's living with his third wife. And I'm not saying that he was saved when he gave up the others. There's something gnawing at him.

Every time I brought that, something like that up, there was something pulling at him all the time. You see, the world doesn't believe in that lots of people have been saved. Because they don't try and put straight what they twisted further back in their lives.

They won't go back and pay their bills that they owe. We're to bring forth fruit meet for repentance. That in itself will not bring justification or salvation, but it's a step toward it. Now, the kingdom of heaven again is invisible.

The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is within you, and yet it's not only within us, it's going to be ultimate as well. Now, Jesus begins, and let me say again, okay, we've been brought out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Well, what's the fruit of that repentance and knowing God? You know, when people quote John 17, they always go to the, slip over the first few verses. He's got 26 verses. The first part, in the first five verses, I guess, Jesus prays for himself.

In the second part, he prays for his disciples. In the third part, he prays for the world. What does he pray? In the second part, second verse, he prays for his, or third verse, he prays for his disciples.

What is real salvation? That they may know thee, the only true God. That they may know God. That's the fruit of repentance. That's the fruit of salvation, that we know who is the true God, because there are so many false gods.

And we need to stress the true God. Do you remember the psalmist says, thy word is truth? Do you know what Buddha said he was looking for, just before he died? He said, I'm searching for truth. It's a bit late.

Jesus starts by saying, I am the way, the truth. Jesus says, when he the spirit of truth is come. You see, in part of the work of conviction of the spirit is to face men and women with truth. They've been living in error.

They've been deceived. We don't see people much these days anymore, writhing as they used to do in days like under Wesley. Or even in my day, back there in England or in Ireland, when old W .P. Nicholson was preaching.

Men would sit there and you'd see the sweat run off the end of the nose and off the end of the chin when he was preaching. There would be such conviction. They'd sit back and laugh. He usually kicked meetings off with jokes, because he got such a big percentage of wicked people.

And he knew if he began to stand up and sing, Jesus, you're the lover of my soul, they'd get up and walk out. So he kind of conditioned the audience. But I'll tell you what, before he finished preaching, those men who were relaxed and happy were sitting up.

Somebody said, I've seen them sit up like this and then sit up like this and then sit up like this, holding on to their seat as though they were going to drop into hell. And I've seen them shredding their hymn books till their hymn book was shredded.

They were under such conviction. One man told me himself, a man who eventually became a wealthy man in Ireland. And he told me, he said, Brother Angel, I went into the meeting the first night just to hear Nicholson out of fun, because he really scalded all the preachers.

And he said, I said, I'll never go hear that so-and-so again. I cursed coming out of the church, but I went the second night. Man alive, he said, he roasted me the second night and I cursed and said, you won't get me in there with a team of horses.

But he said, I was there the third night. And I preached in that big building that the man got saved in. And I remember people, when we used to get the place packed to the gallery, and he said, I was sitting on the back seat, but when Nicholson made the appeal, man, he said, I toppled down those steps.

And he said, men were even cursing going to the altar. But he said, you know what? Nicholson would say, everybody else get out. Don, get out as quickly as you can. No talking. All of you that came forward, sit up now on the seat.

And he dealt with every person individually. If he took him to a club the next morning, so what? What's he there for? You can get them there to wave to God, or sign a card. You'd start right off. Now, what's your problem?

Come on, what's your sin? Are you an adulterer? Are you a liar? Are you a thief? What is it? Are you just a thoroughbred hypocrite? He'd help them to get through, you know. If they're short of memory, he'd help them.

But you know what? When they got through, they got through. He had the largest amount of abiding fruit of anybody that's preached. Maybe since Wesley, or the Irish people had their own Wesley, a man called Giddy Newsley.

Holiness, the Kingdom of Light, and Spiritual Appetite

You see, if you're going to build... I remember when we were in New York, when they were going to build a skyscraper, I didn't know what they were going to build. But I noticed the sidewalk, and these big boards were up, and there were holes drilled in, and I looked down, and I had to stand on my tiptoes and see why the men down there looked like worms about this size.

And then I saw notice. They're going to build a skyscraper. A new skyscraper. And the whole Manhattan is supposed to be one solid rock. I don't know whether it is, but what they did, they went right down to the bedrock, and then they scraped it as clean as a plate, and the dogs licked it.

And they started building. Why? Because they're going up 80, 90 stories, it's going to stand all that vibration, all the resistance, but you've got to anchor it deep, deep, deep. And I said to these preachers, yes, your reputation usually hangs on how many come to the altar.

Oh, he's a good man. We had 250 at the altar this week. Marvelous, marvelous. Where were they next week? The fruit did not remain. Why? Well, as it says about Israel in the Old Testament that they brought forth, when she should have brought forth child, she brought forth windows, no strength there.

Well, the other thing I said, after you've talked to people like that, what you need to do with the believers is get them to realize again the majesty of God, the holiness of God, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, which we're not dealing with very much in this day.

Now again, I remind you that the last word in the Old Testament, it finishes with curse, and the first word of Jesus was blessing. But in the Old Testament, when the law was given, nobody could go near the mountain.

They were all terrified. They were left in the valley, and the mountain was wrapped in black cloud, and there were thunders and lightnings, and the whole earth was shaking. This is the very opposite. Jesus is beginning the manifesto, or preaching the manifesto of his kingdom.

It's all calm. It's still. It's beautiful. And the first word of the others is blessing. Now, what is he talking about? He's talking about those things which build holy character. He says you'll need all these things to get through this world, and you'll need them for this reason, that if you're going to really walk in righteousness, you're going to get opposition from unrighteousness.

If you're going to walk in holiness, you're going to get all the opposition from the unholy. If you're going to walk in truth, you're going to get all the shot and shell from the liars, because this is the very antithesis of what the world lives.

Now, his first word is blessing. What's our idea of blessedness? What does the Constitution of the United States guarantee to every citizen? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is happiness the highest thing in the world?

It is to the world. They can hardly get out of the factory. They're talking about going bowling or doing this or going somewhere and going to... But that's what the world, that's what the government is supposed to give us anyhow, allow us to have.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What do you mean by happiness? You can't even buy happiness. I remember years ago, a man down in the south of France said that every day he went on the promenade, there was a woman on a very expensive blanket on the beach, under an enormous sun hat, one of these great big floppy sun hats, and a servant would come in and just at so many intervals bring a great big glass of iced lemonade or something, and she would just lounge there and suck through a straw and read a book and then take her sunglasses off and lounge, and she did this day in and day out for the three weeks he was there.

And finally the man said, who's that woman there? Is she nothing to do? I don't know. Do you know who she is? Yeah, she's an American. What's her name? Barbara Hutton. Barbara Hutton. She inherited all the Woolworth millions.

She's had seven husbands. She's travelled the world. She has mansions. She's some of the greatest paintings in the world. She's some of the most artistic things in the world. And yet she says there is one thing which is elusive.

I can't grasp happiness. Of course he can't grasp happiness. It's as old Augustine said, God has made us for himself, and outside of himself there is no happiness. Well, if you can't find happiness, what's the ideal?

If Jesus had said, look, this is the kingdom of God. Not holiness as he outlines here. If you enter into my kingdom, I'll guarantee this, it's exemption from poverty, it's exemption from illness, it's exemption from hardship, it's exemption from adversity, it's exemption from everything which will irritate and upset your life.

Now that's some people's idea of an ideal state of life. And if you had it, we'd have no character. Jesus is talking not just about a state when we get to heaven, he's talking about how we can live in this world if we're really truly born again of the Spirit of God.