In the Bible, a mountain is a type of the kingdom. That’s why when Satan took Jesus Christ up into an exceeding high mountain, it says he showed Him “all the kingdoms of the world.”

While Christians mistake the Sermon on the Mount as personal instructions from Christ for today, it represents a type of Jesus Christ ruling as king from the throne after His Second Coming, giving imperatives for the future Believer’s walk in that kingdom program to come.

As a preacher I like in Warren, Mich., Tom Bruscha, explains it, “Jesus Christ is setting up the standards for that literal, physical, earthly kingdom out there in the future. He’s not just elevating the law, He’s talking about the law down in a person’s heart. It’s not just what you do, but your heart attitude in it; the motives for what you do.”

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Bruscha says when he asks strangers if they’re saved and what they think a person needs to do to be saved, some will answer, “Keep the Sermon on the Mount.”

He reasons, “It’s funny, I’ve been studying the Bible for quite a while now and one of the things I understand least is the Sermon on the Mount! And for someone who doesn’t study the Bible at all to think they’re going to live out what the Sermon on the Mount says, I’d like them to sit down and explain it to me first!

“What Christ’s doing is describing to Israel’s faithful remnant the life they are to learn about and even begin to practice back there, but which ultimately God will produce in them (out yonder).

“The Amilennialist who views the kingdom only as a life to live isn’t all wrong in the sense that the kingdom is a life as well as a physical establishment that’s going to take place here on the earth. Their problem is they only take the ‘life’ part about it and throw the rest away and try to get rid of everything that’s literal.

“Of course, I always wonder how they can think that in the Old Testament . . . we just heard (preached) last night about how Israel’s supposed to go in and judge the Gentiles in the land of Canaan. Not only is Jesus Christ going to do that in His Second Coming, but Israel was commanded to do that when they went into the land the first time.

“And if the kingdom is not literal, and physical, and visible here on earth, a whole lot of Canaanites died to make a spiritual example, didn’t they?! I mean, God was ridding Gentiles out of that land back when Israel came out of Egypt and went into (Canaan). They were wiping out people and it wasn’t to make a spiritual point for you and me to live by!

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When Jesus Christ teaches in the Beatitudes about the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, etc., He’s describing the character of the repentant, contrite person in Israel who will ultimately be blessed “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Bruscha explains, “There’s a certain group within the nation of Israel (during Christ’s earthly ministry); it’s not the defiant or stiff-necked, but God had a faithful remnant that believed the promises of God and would become His nation, and the character of that remnant is described in the Beatitudes.

“The Sadducees, in all their hypocrisy and pride, didn’t have the character it’s going to take to be a recipient of that kingdom. They’re going to fall in judgment. God wants to produce in (the Jew) the life and character that He’s blessed by and they’re going to have to have that character even to enter into that kingdom.

“When Christ says, ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,’ He takes adultery from simply the practice of it to just looking upon a woman to lust. That tells me that when Jesus Christ does set up His kingdom, there’s not going to be any pornography there. It will not be allowed.

“Now, if someone smuggles it, which they probably will, and tries to practice it and promote it, those people are going to be caught. There’s no freedom of artistic expression and all that other stuff in the kingdom. There’s going to be immediate judgment; there’s not going to be an appeal to the court. They’re going to be cast into the lake of fire.

“I get a kick out of verse 29 because it’s talking about looking upon a woman to lust and then it says ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.’ Doesn’t your right eye and left eye go together? Mine do.

“It’s like a woman goes by and, ‘Okay, I’m not supposed to lust,’ and the right eye just keeps going and you’re trying to keep the left eye from following! . . . of course, later on He’s going to talk about having your eye straight—a straight eye. In other words, keeping your eyes fixed where they’re supposed to be fixed.

“If you’ve got eyes going in two directions, they’re not straight. Your eyes are to be singly fixed on what God would have you to do, not wandering around. The hands, too, are not going to go off and work the works of wickedness, and that’s why there’s the reference to the right hand.

“Under Paul’s ministry for today, we are to forgive one another ‘even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you,’ but under the kingdom program, those people have to forgive in order to be forgiven, and if they don’t forgive, judgment’s going to fall. They won’t be forgiven!

“. . . You can read in Hebrews how it talks about this new covenant and says, ‘The old is vanishing away and the new is coming.’ The Lord Jesus Christ’s blood is the provision for Israel to receive this blessing right here. It says in Hebrews 6 they had a taste of the world to come on the day of Pentecost. You need to realize that the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit was a taste of what the new covenant is going to do in Israel because they were all filled with the Holy Spirit to speak the Word of God and live the Word of God.

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As Jeremiah 31:33 says about the future kingdom, “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Bruscha explains, “Instead of God writing in stone, like He did when He brought them out of Egypt, He’s going to take His laws and write them right into the heart of His people Israel. Now, if God writes something, isn’t that Scripture?

“God’s going to take His Word and implant it in their heart. You and I today, we study God’s Word and put it into our heart, and then by the power of the Holy Spirit live what those things say. That’s what being filled with the Holy Spirit is all about.

“But what God’s going to do for the nation of Israel is He’s going to write the Bible right in their heart. When He says in Jeremiah 31, ‘For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them,’ doesn’t that remind you of what the Apostle Paul said his goal in life was—‘That I might know Him’? We can know Him!

“The Scriptures given are the full revelation of Jesus Christ, and through the study of the Scripture we can know Him. God says (about the future kingdom program), ‘Not only are they going to know Jesus Christ is their Messiah; they’re going to know their Messiah! They’re going to know God’s will; God’s ways.”

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Of this future kingdom, God says in Ezekiel 36: 23-26, “And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.
[24] For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
[25] Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
[26] A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”

Bruscha explains, “They were supposed to teach the Gentiles, not profane God’s name among the Gentiles. But look what He’s going to do for them for His name’s sake: Their heart was so callous and hard He calls it stone and He says, ‘I’m going to take away your stony heart and I’m going to give you a heart of flesh’—one that’s tender; one that He’s going to have His Word written in. He’s going to give them a heart transplant!

“That’s when Israel’s finally going to be what God always wanted them to be, and when you read Isaiah 61, He says, ‘The Gentiles are going to call you the priests of the Lord; the ministers of God.’ They’re going to ‘teach them all things whatsoever I command you.’

“So God is going to glorify the nation of Israel. In fact, Isaiah 60 says they’re going to be seen as glorified. I imagine that the Believer within Israel is going to glow as a resurrected saint; they’re going to be glorified with the glory of Jesus Christ, all the time teaching the Gentiles the things Israel finally has learned from Genesis to Revelation.

“The law of the Lord is going to come out of Jerusalem and the Gentiles are going to be ruled with a rod of iron and taught God’s standard of the law. They’re going to have that influence on them so they won’t have to worry about Satan’s deception during that 1,000-year-period.

“But how about the deception of their own heart and their willingness to believe the things? In Isaiah 14:16, this is where Satan’s being taunted. They’re going to look at Satan down in that pit (visible from the ground during that time) and say, ‘Is this the man?! Why you calling him a man?!’ Because he’ll look so humble all chained up in there; a little, humble soul chained up in the bottomless pit.

“They look into the pit and say, ‘Is this the man that did all the things I read about in this Bible?!’ You see, during this 1,000 years a child dies at age 100; life for them is what it was in the Garden of Eden almost. The lion and lamb eat together. They’re going to hear stories about how lions used to eat lambs.

“Some will think, ‘Oh, that’s gruesome—you mean, they had to run and hide because a lion would eat them?! Children had to worry about snakes biting them if they went and played in a field?! No, I don’t believe that! What do you mean, someone was 100 years old and they had a party for them because they lived so long?!’

“You see, they’re going to have to read the Bible and believe that life as we know it really did exist, and Satan really was evil and destructive and his lies hurt and destroyed.

“He’s got to be loosed (at the end of the 1,000 years), and when it’s all over . . . these people who are ruled with a rod or iron have only know the reign of Jesus Christ and His rule over them, and they’ve never been tried to find out do if they really believe Jesus Christ is holy and true and righteous.

“Remember, they’re just as wicked as we are because they’re still in natural bodies and ‘desperately wicked and deceitful.’ Do they really believe Jesus Christ had to come to earth and die on a Cross to pay for their sins before He could reign in His glory? And that they cannot trust ‘in the arm of flesh’; that they must trust in the Lord also?

“Satan will be loosed and he’ll say things like, ‘I was ruling this world in righteousness and peace. I wasn’t mean and ruling with a rod of iron. I didn’t hold you responsible. I’d let you have artistic expression; freedom of speech to cuss when you want.’

“And the world’s going to have to make a decision—do they want Jesus Christ to be their eternal king or would they rather follow Satan in his last, final rebellion? And multitudes will follow Satan.

“You see, everybody of all ages has to make a decision in their heart of what they’re going to do with Jesus Christ and the truth that’s written down in this Bible concerning our sinfulness and the provision that’s made in Jesus Christ because of God’s great love.”