If you want to skim through the Sermon on the Mount and get nice little devotional inspiration this is not the book for you. If you wish to dive into the sermon, explore it, see its wonders, discover its beauties, tremble at its majesty, and be overwhelmed at its power I highly recommend D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. This collection of 60 sermons is easily readable to the layman, the language is not technical, and one can sense the same power that was surely present when originally preached. As with most of Lloyd-Jones writing he is amazingly timeless. His observations, applications, and illustrations fit our time so well. You sense that he is overwhelmed by the text, wrapped up in it such that though handling each thought so thoroughly he is only scratching the surface. The word of God was meant to be preached, here you sense why.
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different form the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen her message, though it may hate it at first. That is how revival comes. … Our ambition should be to be like Christ, the more like Him the better, the more like Him we become, the more we shall be unlike everybody who is not a Christian.
The world, it is obvious, has fallen into this primary and fundamental error, an error which one could illustrate in many different ways. Think of a man who is suffering from some painful disease. Generally the one desire of such a patient is to be relieved of his pain, and one can understand that very well. No-one likes suffering pain. The one idea of this patient, therefore, is to do anything which will relieve him of it. Yes; but if the doctor who is attending this patient is also only concerned about relieving this man’s pain he is a very bad doctor. His primary duty is to discover the cause of the pain and to treat that. Pain is a wonderful symptom which is provided by nature to call attention disease, and the ultimate treatment for pain is to treat the disease, not the pain.. So if a doctor merely treats the pain without discovering the cause of the pain, he is not only acting contrary to nature, he is doing something that is extremely dangerous to the life of the patient. The patient may be out of pain, and seems to be well; but the cause of the trouble is still there. Now that is the folly of which the world is guilty. It says, ‘I want to get rid of my pain, so I will run to the pictures, or drink, or do anything to help me forget my pain.’ But the question is, what is the cause of the pain and the unhappiness and the wretchedness? They are not happy who hunger and thirst after happiness and blessedness. No. ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’
In the same way sin blinds us to the relative values of things. Take time and eternity. We are creatures here in time and we are going on to eternity. There is no comparison between the relative importance of time and eternity. Time is limited and eternity is endless and absolute. Yet do we live as realizing these relative values? Is it not again a simple fact that we give ourselves to things that belong to time and entirely ignore the things that are eternal?
…ultimately, the authority of the Sermon derives from the Preacher. That is, of course, what makes the New Testament such a unique book, and gives uniqueness to the teaching of our Lord. With all the other teacher that the world has ever known, the important thing is the teaching; but here is a case in which the teacher is more important even than what He taught.
No Other Boast 