The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life

by Emmet Fox

The teaching of Jesus concerning the Fatherhood of God was original and unique. In the Old Testament God is never addressed as "Father." Where references to His Fatherhood are made, He is referred to as the Father of the nation, and not of individuals. Indeed this was the reason why Jesus made the declaration of the Fatherhood of God the opening clause of what we call the "Lord's Prayer." It explains, for instance, the tremendous statement in Genesis that man is the image and likeness of God.

It is axiomatic, of course, that the offspring must be of the same nature and species as the parent; and so if God and man are indeed Father and child, man— notwithstanding all his present limitations, and despite all appearances to the contrary—must be essentially Divine too, and susceptible of infinite growth and improvement and development up the rising pathway of divinity.

That is to say, as man's true nature—his spiritual character— unfolds,

which means as he becomes more and more conscious of it, he will expand in spiritual consciousness until he has transcended all bounds of human i...

It is in reference to this, our glorious destiny, that, as we have already seen, Jesus himself says elsewhere, quoting the older scriptures: "I have said ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High." He then emphasized his point by adding significantly: "And the scripture cannot be broken."

So, in this passage we are set free once and for all from the last link in the last chain that binds us to a limited and a degraded destiny. We are the children of God; and if children, then sons, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, as Paul says; and as sons of God we are the heirs of our Father's estate, not strangers, or paid servants, much less chattel slaves. We are sons of the house and will one day enjoy our inheritance.

The most mischievous thing in life is man's slowness, indeed we can say his reluctance, to perceive his own dominion. God has given us dominion over all things, but we shrink like frightened children from assuming it, although that assuming is the one and only escape for us. Mankind is often like a fugitive who sits in the driving seat of an automobile which is all ready to bear him away to safety, but who cannot bring himself, for nervousness, to grasp the controls and start the car. He sits there halffrozen with terror, glancing over his shoulder, wondering whether his pursuers will catch up with him, and what will happen to him if they do. He could make his escape into safety at any moment, but he will not, or dare not.

Ask and ye shall receive. Is not this the Magna Charta of personal freedom for every man, woman, and child on earth? Is not this the decree of the emancipation of the slaves of every kind of bondage, physical, mental, or spiritual? What room does this leave for the so- called Christian virtue of resignation, so often preached? The fact is, of course, that resignation is not a virtue at all. On the contrary, resignation is a sin. What we commonly dignify with the fine name of resignation, is really an unwholesome mixture of cowardice and sloth. We have no business to be resigned to inharmony of any kind, because inharmony cannot be the Will of God. We have no business to accept ill-health, or poverty, or sinfulness, or strife, or unhappiness, or remorse, with resignation.

We have no right to accept anything less than freedom and harmony and joy, for only with these things do we glorify God, and express His Holy Will, which is our raison d'etre.

It is our most sacred duty, out of loyalty to God Himself, to refuse to accept anything less than all-round happiness and success, and we shall not be following out the wishes and instructions of Jesus if we do accept less. We are to pray and meditate, and reorganize our lives in accordance with his teaching, continuously and untiringly until our goal is attained.

That this attainment, that our victory over every negative condition, is not merely possible but is definitely promised to us, finds its proof in these glorious words, the ensign of freedom for mankind: Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Innumerable schemes have been designed to bring about happiness by making changes of some sort in man's external conditions while leaving the quality of his mentality untouched; and always the result has been the same— failure.

We are now in a position to see why this must be so, that it is because the very nature of our being is such that it is only by a change in consciousness that outer conditions can really be altered.

The answer is that, as we have already seen, the changing of one's consciousness is really very hard work, calling for constant unceasing vigilance and a breaking of mental habits which is sure to be very troublesome for a time. The natural man is lazy, always tends to take the line of least resistance, and so, in this as in lesser matters, he does not get down to bedrock principles until he is compelled to.

As soon as you obtain the spiritual consciousness you will find that all things indeed work together for good to those who love Good, or God. You will experience perfect health, abundant prosperity, and complete and utter happiness. Your health will be so good that mere living will be in itself an inexpressible joy. The body, no longer the burden to be dragged about that so many people find it, will be as though it were shod with winged shoes. Your prosperity will be such that you need not take the question of finance into consideration at all. You will always have all the supply

that you need to carry out any of your plans. The world will turn out to be full of charming people only too anxious to help you in every way.

Those who have not glimpsed the secret of the Christ Message may look upon all this as nothing but a beautiful vision, "too good to be true," but it is just the essence of the Christ Message that nothing is too good to be true, because the Love and the Power of God are true. It is just this very belief that complete harmony is too good to be true that really prevents our getting it. We, as mental beings, make the laws under which we live; and we have to live under the laws that we make.

A tragic mistake that is often made by orthodox religious people is to assume that the Will of God for them is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not they look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe Puritanical parent. Too often their prayers virtually amount to something like this: "Please, God, give me such and such a boon, which I sorely need—but I don't suppose you will, because you won't think it is good for me." Needless to say, a prayer of this sort is answered as all prayers are answered, according

to the faith of the subject; that is to say, the boon is not granted. The truth is that the Will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, wider and newer and brighter experience; better health, greater prosperity, wider opportunity of service to others—life more abundant.

Jesus, the most profound, and at the same time the most simple and practical teacher the world has ever known,

Now that we understand clearly that a successful demonstration is the proof, and the only proof, of true understanding, we have no further excuse for straying from the Path.

Our progress on the Path may, for one reason or

another, be comparatively slow, but at least we shall be able to keep on the Path. We shall always know when we have left the Pat...

Most people find it especially difficult to demonstrate in certain directions, while having little difficulty in others. This is to be expected, and only means that more work needs to be done in some directions than in others. If, however, you are getting no real demonstrations in any direction, it means that you have left the Path and are no longer praying rightly; and you must immediately get back, by claiming that Divine Intelligence is inspiring you, and that you are expressing Truth. If you do...

One does not seek demonstrations as an end in themselves, but one seeks to know Truth as an end in itself; and since the Law is that as one acquires true understanding the

outer picture improves automatically, that change in the outer picture becomes the visible evidence of the change in the inner—"an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace"—and thus we come to know unerringly where we stand. The outer picture is like the gauge that tells what is happening inside a boiler.

There is no such thing as undemonstrated understanding. As within, so without; as without, so within. If you wish to know how you really stand spiritually, look about you at your environment, beginning with the body. There can be nothing in the soul that is not demonstrated sooner or later in the outer, and there can be nothing in the outer which does not find some correspondence in the inner.

(Matthew VII) Mankind is slow to realize that there is simply no way of salvation except by changing one's consciousness, which means trying to do the Will of God consistently in every department of life. We are all willing to do His Will sometimes and in some things, but until there is a complete alignment both in the great and in the small things—a complete dedication of one's whole self in fact—there cannot be a complete demonstration. As long as we are allowing any secondary thing to come between us and the Primary thing, there is no full salvation.

No sooner have we met and mastered it in one direction than it seems to attack us in another. It calls for nothing less than unceasing watchfulness, and an almost heroic courage. Never is it more true than in the life of the soul, that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

We must not allow any consideration whatever, any institution, or organization, or any book, or any man or woman, to come between us and our direct seeking for God.

If our reliance is upon anything but our own understanding of Truth, our work will cease to be fruitful. If we rely unduly upon anyone else, upon a particular teacher or healer, for instance, he will be ce...

It is your duty to get all the help that you can from books and teachers, and so forth; but unless your real reliance is upon your own understanding, you are only crying "Lord, Lord" with your lips, and pretending to prophesy in His name while essentially "knowing Him not"; which, for practical purposes, will be as though He knew you not. There is no entering the Kingdom of Heaven in this way. For the thousandth time let it be said, you have to earn your salvation by genuine, consistent hard work upon your own consciousness in realizing God.

You should gladly take advantage of helpful teaching wherever you may get it; go to churches or meetings that help you; listen to speakers, and read books that inspire you to find yourself; but do not surrender to anybody your own spiritual judgment. Thank those who have helped you, and acknowledge the good received; but always be ready to pass on to the next step.

Centers, churches, schools, all fill a useful purpose in providing the physical framework for the distribution of right knowledge, through lectures, books, and so forth; but the actual work must be done in the individual consciousness. To claim more than this for outer things is to reestablish superstition. If, when the testing time comes, we attempt to lean upon a church membership, or upon our devotion to a teacher's personality, or upon a mere letter-perfect acquaintance with any textbook, the Voice of Truth will proclaim that it never knew us; and we shall have to go without our demonstration.

This section of the Sermon teaches another very important lesson too; namely, that the only true way of bringing about anything is by the Practice of the Presence of God. This is the only way in which permanent results can be obtained. Temporary alterations in conditions may be achieved by will power, but they are only temporary, and sooner or later anything that seems to have been accomplished in this way will disappear again, leaving everything worse than it was before.