John Wesley’s Sermon “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Eighth”: A Brief Summary

20 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

Tags

John Wesley, John Wesley Sermons, Sermon on the Mount

This is the 23rd sermon in this series. You can expect to see a new post in this series by 10am EST on Tuesday mornings. Just joining the growing number of people reading these sermons? Feel free to start at the beginning by reading the first sermon by John Wesley in this series, “Salvation by Faith,” or jump right in with us!

Background:

Did you know that many of John Wesley’s sermons are part of the formal doctrinal teaching of multiple Wesleyan/Methodist denominations? Wesley’s sermons have particular authority because these were the main way he taught Methodist doctrine and belief.

“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Eighth” is the 23rd sermon of the Wesleyan Standard Sermons. It is also the 8th of 13 sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon focuses on works of piety, works of mercy, and the Lord’s Prayer. The fact that 13 of the 44 original Standard Sermons focused on the Sermon on the Mount gives an idea of the importance John Wesley placed on Matthew 5-7. Wesley spends so much time on these three chapters of the Bible because he believed they provide essential teaching from Jesus on “the true way to life everlasting, the royal way which leads to the kingdom.”

In hopes of sparking interest in Wesley’s sermons and Methodism’s doctrinal heritage, here is my very short summary of “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Eighth.” I hope it will inspire you to read the sermon in its entirety yourself. Links to the sermon and other resources are included at the end of this post.

Key quote:

“May not this be another reason why rich men shall so hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven? A vast majority of them are under a curse, under the peculiar curse of God; inasmuch as in the general tenor of their lives they are not only robbing God continually, embezzling and wasting their Lord’s goods, and by that very means corrupting their own souls; but also robbing the poor, the hungry, the naked, wronging the widow and the fatherless, and making themselves accountable for all the want, affliction, and distress which they may but do not remove. Yea, doth not the blood of all those who perish for want of what they either lay up or lay out needlessly, cry against them from the earth? O what account will they give to him who is ready to judge both the quick and the dead!” [25]

One sentence summary:

Wesley gives an account of stewardship, calls for giving generously to the poor, and warns of the danger of riches for the one who fails to be a faithful steward.

Scripture passage for the sermon:

“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.The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

– Matthew 6:19-23

Concise outline of “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Eighth”

1. The same purity of intention is required in the normal things of life as in giving, fasting, or prayer.
2. “The eye is the intention: what the eye is to the body, the intention is to the soul.”
3. If our eyes are fixed solely on God, our lives will be filled with the light of Christ.
4. If you seek God in all things, with focused intention, you will find the fountain of holiness, constantly filling you with “his own likeness, with justice, mercy, and truth.”
5. “This light which fills him who has a single eye implies, thirdly, happiness as well as holiness.”
6. Your eye either is fixed solely on God, or it is not and then leads to evil.
7. “If thine eye be not single, if thou seek any of the things of earth, thou shalt be full of ungodliness and unrighteousness, thy desires, tempers, affections, being all out of course, being all dark, and vile, and vain.”
8. There is no peace for “them that know not God.”
9. Those who lay up treasures for themselves on earth are not singly fixed on God.
10. Many read this passage regularly without recognizing that “they are themselves condemned” by it.
11. Jesus’s command here does not forbid providing for the basic necessities like food and clothing for ourselves and our household. It also does not forbid saving “what is needful for the carrying on our worldly business so that we are not in debt, can provide for the basics for ourselves and our families, and provide the same for them if we die.
12. Saving beyond this is forbidden by Jesus.
13. “If you aim at ‘laying up treasures on earth’ you are not barely losing your time and spending your strength for that which is not bread… You have murdered your own soul.”
14. It is exceptionally difficult for those having riches to enter the kingdom of God.
15. The warning is particularly for those who desire riches, “those who calmly desire and deliberately seek to attain them.”
16. Who will warn this generation of this danger?
17. Jesus did not tell everyone they must sell all that they have. He gave this as a specific command to a particular person.
18. Do not trust in riches for help or happiness.
19. Everyone will die and when they are near death, riches are of no help.
20. Do not trust in riches for happiness. If you are tempted to, ask yourself: Are the richest people the happiest?
21. Trust in the living God for help and happiness.
22. Do not try to gain more and more wealth.
23. If you have riches do not set them aside for posterity or spend them on yourself on excessive indulgence.
24. “Equally inexcusable are those who lay up what they do not need for any reasonable purposes.”
25. The vast majority of the rich are “under the peculiar curse of God” because “they are not only robbing God continually, embezzling and wasting their Lord’s goods, and by that very means corrupting their own souls; but also robbing the poor, the hungry, the naked, wronging the widow and the fatherless, and making themselves accountable for all the want, affliction, and distress which they may but do not remove.”
26. “Give to the poor with a single eye, with an upright heart.”
27. The rich are to “be merciful as your Father which is in heaven is merciful.”
28. “Be a steward, a faithful and wise steward, of God and of the poor.”

Resources:

Read “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Eighth” in its entirety.

Check out my brief summaries of the first twenty-two Standard Sermons:

“Salvation by Faith”

“The Almost Christian”

“Awake, Thou That Sleepest”

“Scriptural Christianity“

“Justification by Faith“

“The Righteousness of Faith“

“The Way to the Kingdom“

“The First-Fruits of the Spirit“

“The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption“

“The Witness of the Spirit, I“

“The Witness of Our Own Spirit“

“The Means of Grace“

“The Circumcision of the Heart“

“The Marks of the New Birth“

“The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the First“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Second“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Third“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Fourth“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Fifth“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Sixthth“

“Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Seventh“

I highly recommend the critical edition of Wesley’s sermons, which has excellent references that show his reliance on Scripture throughout his preaching. There are four volumes if you want every known Wesley sermon. They aren’t cheap, but this is the most important publication by Abingdon since its release. Highly recommended!

There is also a three volume edition of Wesley’s sermons in modern English, which is easier to read if you find the 18th century English frustrating. Here is the first volume.

Kevin M. Watson is a professor at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. He teaches, writes, and preaches to empower community, discipleship, and stewardship of our heritage. Click here to get future posts emailed to you. Affiliate links used in this post.

John Wesley’s Sermon “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Seventh”: A Brief Summary

13 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

John Wesley, John Wesley Sermons, Sermon on the Mount

This is the 22nd sermon in this series, which means we are half way there! You can expect to see a new post in this series by 10am EST on Tuesday mornings. Just joining the growing number of people reading these sermons? Feel free to start at the beginning by reading the first sermon by John Wesley in this series, “Salvation by Faith,” or jump right in with us!

Background:

“Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Seventh” is the 22nd sermon of the Wesleyan Standard Sermons. It is also the 7th of 13 sermons on the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon focuses on works of piety, works of mercy, and the Lord’s Prayer. The fact that 13 of the 44 original Standard Sermons focused on the Sermon on the Mount gives an idea of the importance John Wesley placed on Matthew 5-7. Wesley spends so much time on these three chapters of the Bible because he believed they provide essential teaching from Jesus on “the true way to life everlasting, the royal way which leads to the kingdom.”

In hopes of sparking interest in Wesley’s sermons and Methodism’s doctrinal heritage, here is my very short summary of “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Seventh.” I hope it will inspire you to read the sermon in its entirety yourself. Links to the sermon and other resources are included at the end of this post.

Key quote:

Here then is the natural ground of fasting. One who is under deep affliction, overwhelmed with sorrow for sin, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God, would without any rule, without knowing or considering whether it were a command of God or not, “forget to eat this bread”, abstain not only from pleasant, but even from needful food. Like St. Paul, who after he was “led into Damascus, was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.”[II.2]

One sentence summary:

Fasting is an instituted means of grace that connects embodied practice with inner trasformation.

Scripture passage for the sermon:

“Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face;

That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”

– Matthew 6:16-18

Concise outline of “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Seventh”

1. From the beginning, Satan has worked to separate inward from outward religion.
2. It is by this very device of Satan that faith and works have been put in opposition to one another.
3. In the same way have the end and the means of religion been put at odds with each other.
4. Of all the means of grace there is scare any concerning which men have run into greater extremes than fasting.

I. The Nature of Fasting

1. “All the inspired writers, both in the Old Testament and the New, take the word to ‘fast’ in one single sense, for not to eat, to abstain from food.”
2. Other practices were sometimes added to abstaining from food in the Old Testament, but they were not essential to fasting.
3. There are a variety of lengths of fasting, but the most common is “one day, from morning till evening.”
4. Abstinence is a supplemental term added by the church for those who cannot fast entirely and means to eat little. It is not spoken of in scripture one way or another.
5. The lowest kind of fasting is abstaining from pleasant food.
6. There were called fasts in the Old Testament and there have been seasons of fasting in the early church and contemporary churches. There have also been national fasts. The directions here primarily refer to private times of fasting.

II. The Grounds, Reasons, and Ends of Fasting

1. First, people in extremely difficult circumstances often fast, sometimes because eating is such a low priority they don’t even think about it.
2. “The natural ground of fasting” is when someone “under deep affliction, overwhelmed with sorrow for sin, and a strong apprehension of the wrath of God,” forgets to eat out of their anguish.
3. People sometimes fast because they are aware of their tendency to eat too much of what they are permitted to eat.
4. People fast to “remove the food of lust and sensuality, to withdraw the incentives of foolish and hurtful desires, of vile and vain affections.”
5. People sometimes fast in order to “pushing themselves for having abused the good gifts of God.”
6. More importantly, they fast as a “help to prayer.”
7. Fasting is undertaken sometimes in hopes of averting the wrath of God. (Ex. of Ahab.)
8. Example of fasting in Jonah 3.
9. “It is a means not only of turning away the wrath of God, but also of obtaining whatever blessings we stand in need of.”
10. “The apostles always joined fasting with prayer when they desired the blessing of God on any important undertaking.” (Acts 13, 14, Matthew 17)
11. Fasting is a means of grace given to us by God directly.
12. The main reason for Christians to fast is because Jesus tells us to in Matthew 6.

III. Objections

1. Objection: Christians should fast from sin, not food.
Answer: “That a Christian ought to abstain from sin is most true. But how does it follow from hence that he ought not to abstain from food?”
2. Objection: But is it not better to abstain from pride, from peevishness, and anger, and discontent, than from food?
Answer: “Without question it is… We abstain from food… that by the grace of God, conveyed into our souls through this outward means, in conjunction with all the other channels of his grace which he hath appointed, we may be enabled to abstain from every passion and temper which is not pleasing in his sight.”
3. Objection: We tried fasting and did not find benefits.
Answer: It is possible to fast in a way that makes things worse, makes you more unhappy and unholy. The fault is not in the means itself, but in the manner of using it. “Do what God commands as he commands it.
4. Is it not mere superstition to imagine that God regards such little things as these?
Answer: If everyone who has fasted was superstitious, “all the generation of God’s children” who have practiced this before us would be condemned.
5. Objection: If fasting is so important, shouldn’t we fast always?
Answer: “By all means use as little and plain food, exercise as much self-denial herein at all times, as your bodily strength will bear… But this is not fasting, scriptural fasting.”
6. Answer continued: Abstain from unnecessary eating and indulgence as much as possible. This is good. But this is not fasting and fasting is still an instituted means of grace.
7. Scriptural examples.

IV. In What Manner We Are to Fast

1. Fix your eyes singly on the Lord.
2. Do not think of fasting as a way of earning merit.
3. Do not imagine that “the bare outward act will receive any blessing from God.”
4. Fasting should be done in a way that is prudent and cares for our bodies and our own bodily strength.
5. Fasting should be a season of “exerising all those holy affections which are implied in a broken and contrite heart.”
6. Join fervent prayer with fasting.
7. Add works of mercy, concrete expressions of care for the bodies and souls of other people, to fasting.