The Sermon on the Mount_ The Key to Success in Life - Emmet Fox [0]
The Key to Success in Life
And
The Lord’s Prayer
An Interpretation
Emmet Fox
To
My Students
in Great Britain and America
Who Have Been
the Inspiration and Encouragement
behind This Book
Contents
Preface
The Sermon on the Mount
Chapter 1. What Did Jesus Teach?
2. The Beatitudes
3. As a Man Thinketh
4. Resist Not Evil
5. Treasure in Heaven
6. With What Measure Ye Mete
7. By Their Fruits
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father
Which Art in Heaven
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom Come Thy Will Be Done in Earth as it is in Heaven
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
Forgive Us Our Trespasses, as We Forgive Them That Trespass against Us
Lead Us Not into Temptation But Deliver Us from Evil
Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory For Ever and Ever
About the Author
Other Books by Emmet Fox
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
THIS book is the distilled essence of years of Bible and metaphysical study, and of the many lectures I have delivered. It would have been easier to have made it twice its present length. My object, however, is to present the reader with a practical manual of spiritual development, and, with this end in view, I have condensed the subject matter into the smallest compass possible, because, as every student knows, conciseness of expression is of the greatest assistance in mastering any subject.
Do not imagine that you can assimilate all that it contains in one or two readings. It should be gone over again and again until you have thoroughly grasped the utterly new outlook upon life and the absolutely fresh scale of values which the Sermon on the Mount presents to mankind. Only then will you experience the New Birth.
The study of the Bible is not unlike the search for diamonds in South Africa. At first people found a few diamonds in the yellow clay, and they were delighted with their good fortune, even while they supposed that this was to be the full extent of their find.
Then, upon digging deeper, they came upon the blue clay, and, to their amazement, they then found as many precious stones in a day as they had previously found in a year, and what had formerly seemed like wealth faded into insignificance beside the new riches.
In your exploration of Bible Truth, see to it that you do not rest satisfied in the yellow clay of a few spiritual discoveries, but press on to the rich blue clay underneath. The Bible, however, differs from the diamond field in the sublime fact that beneath the blue clay there are more and still more and richer strata, awaiting the touch of spiritual perception—on and on to Infinity.
As you read the Bible, you should constantly affirm that Divine Wisdom is enlightening you. That is the way to get direct inspiration.
I have followed a convenient modern custom among writers of metaphysical books in capitalizing certain words that signify aspects or attributes of God.
CHAPTER 1
What Did Jesus Teach?
JESUS Christ is easily the most important figure that has ever appeared in the history of mankind. It makes no difference how you may regard him, you will have to concede that. This is true whether you choose to call him God or man; and, if man, whether you choose to consider him as the world’s greatest Prophet and Teacher, or merely as a well-intentioned fanatic who came to grief, and failure, and ruin, after a short and stormy public career. However you regard him, the fact will remain that the life and death of Jesus, and the teachings attributed to him have influenced the course of human history more than those of any other man who has ever lived; more than Alexander, or Caesar, or Charlemagne, or Napoleon, or Washington. More people’s lives are influenced by his doctrines, or at least by the doctrines attributed to him today; more books are written and read and bought concerning him; more speeches are made (call them sermons) concerning him; than concerning all the other names mentioned put together.
To have been the religious inspiration of the