09 -- THE MOUNT OF BLESSING

        We have now come to what is one of the most interesting mountains described in the Holy
Bible, the Mount of Blessings or the Mount of the Beatitudes. Here was given the "Sermon on the
Mount." We have gotten used to talking about the Sermon on the Mount, and we have, in our use of
them, connected together the two words "sermon" and "mount" until we can't separate them. They
are joined together, and we say what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

       Just why the Son of God went to the top of a mountain to preach this, the most wonderful
discourse the world ever heard or ever will hear, is not as easy to explain as it is to ask.

         We might ask why did he go to the top of this mountain to preach this wonderful sermon
and you probably could not answer the question. Why He did it I don't know, but we know that He
did. It seems that mountains had a wonderful fascination for the Son of God. He could be found out
on the mountain top most any time.

        We find in the Sermon on the Mount more than one hundred verses, and we have heard it
said by men who study the subjects of the Bible very closely, that He discussed one great subject
in each verse. In this wonderful discourse there is nothing common to man, but what He discussed
thoroughly. He opens this wonderful sermon with nine blessings such as were new to the world.
Notice them: Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are they that mourn; blessed are the meek;
blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the merciful; blessed are
the pure in heart; blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are they who are persecuted for
righteousness sake; blessed are you when men shall revile you.

         Then He takes up this thought and says to the Christian, "Ye are the salt of the earth." One
is a healing, cleansing, purifying power, and the other is a life-giving energy. Nothing gives life
like light, and nothing protects life like salt. He teaches how to pray, and He teaches how to fast,
and He teaches how to give, and He teaches how to love, and He teaches how to worship. In fact,
anything that you want to know is explained in the Sermon on the Mount. And when we say that all
Christian doctrine is founded on the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount we do not overdraw the
statement, for there is no way to have a religious creed in the land of Bibles without taking into it
the Sermon on the Mount. I suppose that millions of sermons have been preached from this one
great sermon, and today there is plenty of it left for the whole human family and to spare.

        In this remarkable sermon we have what is known as the Lord's Prayer, and it is unlike
anything else on the whole earth. Nobody ever got up anything that looks or reads like the Lord's
Prayer. I suppose that every Sunday morning many millions of Christians repeat the Lord's Prayer.
But while we call it the Lord's Prayer, we all know that it is our prayer, for He said, "When you
pray, pray after this manner:" And then He proceeded to word for us what we call the Lord's
Prayer.

        Again, we see another prayer dictated to us by Him in this remarkable Sermon. He said to
us, "Ask and it shall be given you," then He said, "Seek and ye shall find, and knock and it shall be
opened unto you" Listen then to the next words He uttered: "For every one that asketh receiveth and
he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." There is no room for doubt. He
said, ye shall find, and I believe it with all my heart, don't you?

         I am of the opinion that the world has never been the same since the day that Christ
preached the Sermon on the Mount. At one time he said, "The words that I speak unto thee, they are
spirit and they are life," and when we read the Sermon on the Mount we know that He meant just
what He said. The words uttered by Him on that great occasion were the words of life. How the
infidel and skeptic and agnostic and the higher critic and unbelievers are to be pitied by the man
that knows God the Father and God the Son and the Holy Ghost! The man who has sat down and
read with pleasure the Sermon on the Mount and believes it, has nothing to fear from the
unbeliever and the skeptic, for he can sing with Brother John T. Benson, of Nashville, Tenn.:

My feet   have found    the resting place,
I am on   the Rock at   last, at last;
My feet   have found    the resting place,
I am on   the Rock at   last.

       Will Huff would say that the man who has the Sermon on the Mount in his heart has
something that is rock-ribbed to stand on.

        Amen and Amen!
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