Norbie, Donald: Sermon On The Mount ~ Matt 5

It's a joy for me to be with you here this morning. I'm glad my wife could be with me. She doesn't usually travel with me, and uh, I talked to her coming this time. Usually she has a couple of Bible studies and a Sunday school class, and she hates to leave them. And I'm delighted that, uh, she could come here and be with me on this trip. Trust you'll invite people out. You know, I don't know all the folk here in, uh, Spanish Wells. I don't have contacts, uh, so I really can't invite them out the way you can, but I hope that you'll be diligent as you think of the meeting tonight. I hope you'll try to invite someone, and you'll be in prayer, and that the Lord will give us just a very good time. I want to turn to Matthew chapter five, Matthew chapter 5. And we're going to read beginning with verse one and down through verse sixteen. Seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the po- prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Let's pray once again. Father, thank you for these words. We think of the Lord Jesus as he, uh, was speaking to this group gathered on that hillside on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. And, uh, Lord, as we're here this morning, we would like to hear those words come afresh to our own hearts. We would realize these are the words of our Savior. And so help us to take them to heart and change our lives, we pray, through your word. We thank you for it. Thank you for one another, for this beautiful morning. We give our thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. He's talking here to disciples, and I call this, uh, section of three chapters Kingdom Ethics. In other words, he says, I'm setting up my kingdom, and, uh, you are going to be, uh, those who are in my kingdom. In a kingdom, you have laws, you have principles, you have things that govern a kingdom. Now, here in the Bahamas, you have certain laws, and, uh, those who live here realize when we live here, we put ourselves under the authority of these laws. If you go to the States, you have perhaps some different laws. Notice here you drive on the left-hand side of the road. In the States, we drive on the right-hand side of the road. The laws are somewhat different. But usually throughout all nations, the moral laws are pretty much the same. There are things that are right, there are things that are wrong, and most peoples agree on things in general as to what is right and what is wrong. Now, these laws that God, God is giving here to us through the Lord Jesus are laws for his people. They're laws that apply in every age because, uh, they're based on the character of God himself. And the first section here deals with character. He's talking about the kind of character that he wants to see us develop as Christians. And, uh, what is character? I want to, uh, read something I wrote down some years back. This man said, sow a thought, you reap an act. Sow an act, you reap a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap a destiny. And, uh, I have a comment with regard to character. I call it a pattern of thinking that has become habitual. In other words, character is not just something we do on the outside, it's really what we are on the inside. How we think, it's our values, it's how we view life. Character. It's what you are really in your inner world of thinking. What do you really believe is right? What are your goals? What are your values? What are the things that are important? These things that are on the inside. Now, it does show in our actions, but sometimes you can be a hypocrite. And people this morning, in many places, are acting the part of a hypocrite, in that they've gone to church, they're going through certain motions, and outwardly, you know, they're acting very religious, and yet perhaps in heart they're far from God, like the Pharisee, just going through external motions. Now, when he speaks here of character, he talks about character in, uh, 7 different ways. And, uh, as we think of this, we don't want to think of, well, now I'm going to be one of these. Actually, we should say these different aspects of character should apply to all of us. It's sort of like taking a, a gem and turning it over and looking at the different facets of it, seeing its beauty, and you'd have to say this is what Jesus is doing. He focuses on one aspect of character, but all of these seven things should characterize all of us. He's not saying, well, one of you should be pure in heart, and the other one should be poor in spirit, and so forth. Uh, the first that he mentions is blessed are the poor in spirit. Now, the values of the kingdom and the values of Christian character are very different from what the world says. Jesus said, remember what he said one time? He said, that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God. Amazing when you think about it. In fact, he says, to become a follower of me, your whole thinking's going to have to be reversed. You're going to have to have different values than the world around you. The ver- world simply values things that God hates. Amazing when you think about it. So that today in the world, what is valued most is pride. The, uh, Marines used to have a solo- a slogan in the United States, pride builds men. Now, there is such a thing as, as having a proper sense of your own value to God, but that's a different thing from what the world means when it talks about pride. And the Lord Jesus said, no, I'm not interested in my followers being proud, and being, uh, arrogant, and being self-sufficient. He says, I'm interested in people who are poor in spirit. Now, what does that mean? I- I think, uh, part of it, certainly, there's an emphasis here upon, uh, our utter dependence upon the Lord. How, uh, we are so helpless in ourselves. We are creatures. He's the creator. You remember Micah said, uh, he has showed you, man, what is good. What does the Lord require of you, but to do justly and to love mercy? And then he says, walk humbly with your God. To walk humbly with your God. Now that's the opposite of pride. The person who is doing this is realizing I am dependent upon the Lord. He is holy. I need to walk very humbly before my God. Remember Daniel said to Belshazzar, he said, you remember what happened to your, uh, your father, Nebuchadnezzar? Remember how God humbled him, how he was proud? God humbled him so that he lost his reason and he was living like an animal, eating grass like an ox. He says, you didn't pay any attention to that. You've exalted yourself. Here you are having this drunken feast. He said, you're praising the gods of Babylon. You're praising idols. You're praising those that cannot speak, that cannot help themselves even. And you're doing this with the vessels from the temple of the true and living. And he says, you haven't exalted the God in whose hands your breath is. What an amazing thing to say. Daniel stood and he looked at that oriental king, and he de- he, uh, he defied him, really. He said, you have been walking in all your pride, and you haven't recognized your dependence on the living God, the true God. God's going to judge you tonight. You're going to lose your kingdom, and you're going to die. So Jesus says, when you begin with the Lord, you have to begin poor in spirit, humble. We don't come into the kingdom of God with our heads up and our shoulders back and saying, I'm okay, you're okay. You come into God's kingdom, a broken sinner. You come into the kingdom of God, like the publican did, you remember? God be merciful, he said, eating his breath. Uh, no pride, no self-sufficiency, brokenness before the true and living God. Are you saved here this morning? You know, you can look back if you did, if you are saved, you can look back to that time when you accepted the Lord and, uh, you, you, there was no thought of pride, there was no thought of your own sufficiency. You just felt, I'm a sinner, I'm lost, I, I can't do a thing to save myself. I desperately need Christ. He loved me, he died for me, and you, you reached out to him in all your needs. As one who was so poor, you had nothing to give God, and you simply had to take the gift of salvation. It's humbling to be saved. And, uh, yet what a blessed experience it is. You know, as you look back on it, you can say, well, thank God. Thank God for that time when I was broken, poor in spirit. I stood before the Lord just as a, a sinner with nothing, nothing to offer him, with open hands to receive what he wanted to give me so freely, poor in spirit. So Jesus begins with that, and he says he there has to be this, this spirit of pr- of humility on the part of my disciples. Now, sometimes we forget. After we've been saved a while, we, we kind of settle down, we become complacent, and we just kind of feel, well, I'm really a pretty good person, and, uh, we need to, I think, go back and remember the pit from which we were digged, and remember that we were sinners. Still are by nature. That old flesh has gotten no better. The old man waxes corrupt, it says, the old nature. And we need to remember that, or else we be- can become very proud, we can become very, uh, indifferent to sinners around us. Uh, we can become those who, uh, uh, even reject sinners and despise them, forgetting that we ourselves were saved from a life of sin. So it begins with humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He says, blessed are those who mourn. Now, when he, Jesus says this, I don't think he's saying, uh, you're blessed if simply you weep because of some of the tragedies that come in life. These come to everyone. In the process of life, everyone's going to go through some pain and some sorrow, so that he's not saying everyone who weeps is one of my disciples. I think rather he's emphasizing the fact that, uh, those who mourn, who enter into the compassion of God because of the tragedy of sin, uh, these are those who, uh, will know the comfort of God. And Jesus did this. You remember he stood by the grave of, uh, Lazarus. He stood with the sisters, with some of the others. He, uh, he heard them weeping. He saw their pain. And uh, he entered into that. He entered into their pain and into their suffering, and it says Jesus wept. Now, he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but that didn't mean for the moment, uh, these people weren't hurting and they weren't suffering, and he entered into their pain and entered into their suffering. So one of the things the Lord would say to us as believers, as members of his kingdom, is you should be compassionate. Compassionate because we live in a world that is suffering. Uh, the whole world is groaning and travailing in pain. There's a lot of suffering around us. So as true disciples of this, he says, I want you to be compassionate people. Now, compassion is costly. It means that you spend time involving yourself in the lives of other people. You don't live just selfishly. Because if you live selfishly, you don't want to feel compassion. You don't want to hurt with other people. Uh, you want to just say, look, I've got enough pain of my own, I have enough suffering of my own, and this is the way the world lives many times, uh, that I, I just don't want to get involved with other people. It's too costly. It costs me emotionally, it may even cost me financially, and I don't want to be involved. And so many people today just live their little selfish lives. They may at times watch on their television news and see the suffering and pain in the world, but they say, well, that's the way it is, and let's have another beer and forget it, you know? And, uh, there's a lot of just very indifference, uh, great indifference to the suffering around us. Jesus says as, as disciples, he says, uh, you need to be compassionate. Don't be indifferent to the pain. You go to a funeral, you weep with those that weep. If they're a Christian, you realize, oh, they're going to be hurt. But still, there's a pain. There's a present pain. There's a separation, there's a heartache. So he says, as disciples, weep for those who weep. Now we look at the lost, and we ought to be moved with compassion for them. Now, I don't know how many true believers there are here in Spanish Wells. I don't know what the percentage would be, and I'm sure the Lord has blessed you here with many fine believers, but I'm sure there are some that are lost. There's some that if they died today, they'd be in hell forever. So that should move us. Some of us have children that are lost. And, uh, some of us have parents, we have relatives that are lost. It should move us to weep for them, and to be concerned, and to be compassionate. All around us, there are people that are terribly, terribly lost. When I'm at home, I serve as a chaplain in a local jail. It's a county jail. They have around three hundred inmates. And, uh... as you go in there and you hear the different stories of men, and you think of the pain, the suffering, the tragedy that sin has brought into their lives, it moves you with compassion. Uh, sometimes I come home and I'm just emotionally drained, I'm worn out, hearing of all the heartache and pain, the suffering there is in the lives of some of these people. Young man, eighteen years of age, that I've been working with somewhat, and uh, he uh, was saying to me, he says, you know, I've never touched a Bible till you gave me one here. Grew up in a home, no room for God. Parents were drunkards and I don't know what all. The age of fourteen he was put out of his home, been on the streets ever since. Now he's in trouble with the law, been living a life of crime, of burglaries, drugs, and lead singer in a, uh, rock and roll group that was called Cannibal Corpse. He says you wouldn't want to hear the lyrics. But, uh, thinking of here this young man and, uh, how his life, he has twelve years, he's sentenced to twelve years, eighteen years of age, and just going full blast down the road to hell. How sad. How tragic, how terribly sad. Reading the Bible. Maybe when I get home, you'll say I've accepted the Lord. He's close. But the, the, the tragedy and the pain he's already known in his life, and he's just a young man. The world is full of it, full of pain and tragedy. So he says, blessed are those who mourn. They shall be comfort. And as the Lord's people, we need to be compassionate. We need to have compassion for the lost, compassion for suffering, enter into the, the, the suffering of our brothers and sisters. We need compassion. And many times, it isn't even saying anything. I know I've had people say to me, you know, the best thing was just for a brother to come and, when I was in the hospital, and stand beside me and just be there, and to realize he cares. This brother, this sister cares. Says, blessed are those that mourn. So as the Lord's people, we ought to be a compassionate people in this world. It is such a selfish world, so utterly selfish. I get sometimes frustrated with, uh, some of our, the national policy of the United States, because so many times it's self-serving, and they will very frankly say it's in our best interest to do this. It isn't whether it's right or wrong or anything like that, it's just in our best interest, selfishly speaking, and that's the way the world is. He says you as Christians should be compassionate. Blessed are the meek, he says, they shall inherit the earth. A meek person. Now, meekness is not a virtue that is, uh, desired in the world around us. They say if you're meek, you're a wimp. You got to stand up for yourself, and you got to fight, and it's a tough world, and you got to blast your way through it, and if you don't take care of yourself, no one will take care of you. And, uh, it's a tough world to survive in. So the, the idea is oftentimes the, the ideal man is a macho man and someone who fights for himself and who steps on heads and who gets ahead. Doesn't matter how, just so you get on top. And I think the thought of meekness here, it's a particular way humility functions. And this is humility as it's responding to unjust attacks upon itself. Now, you can be patient. One kind of patience we speak of as long suffering, where you put up with the failures and inconsistencies and foibles of the people around you. You're patient, patient with all the mistakes people make. That's one kind of patience. This is the kind of patience where you yourself don't respond when you're unjustly. The Lord Jesus said, uh, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. How did he show his meekness? Showed his meekness when, uh, they came up to him and slapped him across the face. He didn't hit back, he didn't retaliate. He showed his meekness when they came up and spit in his face. He didn't curse them, didn't respond to that. He showed his meekness when they beat his back until it was bloody and raw. Like a sheep before he shears his dung, so he opened not his mouth. He showed his meekness when they hammered nails through his hands and his feet. And when he said, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Meekness. He wasn't, uh, retaliating for the injustice done to him. Now, there were times when Jesus was very strong when he was contending for the truth of God. When he drove them out of the temple, he says, you made my father's house a house of merchandise. And here it's a matter of principle, it's the truth of God. But when it came to his person, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. Meek. Sheep are so meek. You know, I was at a, uh, a sheep farm that is fairly close to us. We know the family that runs it. It's a, um, it's a feeding operation. They take in lambs and feed them for market. It's a big one. They feed thousands of them. At times they've had up to one hundred thousand head of sheep there, feeding them for market. Christian family. I was there the other day, and they were shearing some of the sheep, getting ready to, getting them ready for market, I guess. And I was amazed. I saw those men shearing the sheep. They could drag the sheep around, they could, uh, slip them over. Uh, they weren't like cattle. Cattle will fight like crazy. The sheep just lay there, so meek, so lacking in any fight, as they were being manhandled, really, and finally sheared and then given a boot, and off they ran fine. And that's the picture of the Lord Jesus. Goes against the flesh. We don't want to be meek. I don't like to take it if someone criticizes me or, uh, unjustly accuses me. It's very, very hard. And yet he says here, blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Hunger and thirst for righteousness. I don't know if you're thirsty for righteousness or not. This is a picture of someone who is dissatisfied. Oh, but I thought you, the scripture teaches us to be content. Be content with such things as you have. Is that what the scripture says? Paul says, I've learned in whatsoever state I am to be content. That's fine as far as your material situation is concerned. Some places it's easier to be content than others. We live in a beautiful area here. A lot of people in the world would love to live in this part of the world. You say it's easy to be content here in Spanish, well. But, uh, the Lord isn't talking about your material situation. He's talking about your spiritual situation. Are you content with where you are spiritually? You feel, well, I'm saved and I'm on my way to heaven, so that's all there is to it? Uh, how do you feel about your own spiritual condition? Would you like to grow a little more? Uh, do you have a longing to know the word of God a little better? Uh, do you have a desire to overcome some of the weaknesses in your life. You, you have a longing to be a little more like the Lord Jesus so that you can control that temper a little better? So you can co- control your thinking better? So you're more loving husband or wife? Is there some a longing here, and this is what he's talking about, for righteousness. There's a hymn I've heard sung at times, Oh, to be like thee. Eh, this is the desire, he says, that should mark a disciple. I want to be more like the Lord Jesus. I'm not satisfied. Uh, there's still more ground to be possessed. There's growing to be done. That's a wonderful thing that, you know, as Christians, the years pass and, uh, we stop growing physically, the body starts deteriorating, and, uh, you realize you're coming to the end of this life, ultimately. You stop growing physically. Some of us grow outwardly more, but still basically you stop growing. But as a Christian, you don't need to spiritually ever stop growing. Isn't that good? See? You can keep progressing. You can say, by God's grace, at the end of this year, I'm going to be a little stronger Christian. I'm going to love the Lord more. I'm going to enjoy his word more. I'm going to be more like the Lord Jesus when I get to the end of this year than I was at the beginning. He says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. So this should mark us as Christians. It's great to see people growing as the years pass. And seeing them finally come to old age, uh, full of years and full of the Spirit of God. Lovely to see that. Uh, maybe some of you have met T. Ernest Wilson. I've spoken with him at a few conferences, and I remember after, uh, one meeting, one of the Christians was, uh, saying to me about him. He had spent years, of course, in Angola as a missionary, and and now he's coming to the end of his life in, uh, New Jersey. Because of health, he can't really speak anymore. But, uh, anyway, this person who'd been listening to him said to me afterwards, isn't he a grand old man? And they were just saying, you know, as a Christian, uh, he is mature, he is mellow, he has been growing all of his life spiritually. They said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And I hope this year that, uh, you know, you have that desire for growth, that you're, you have certain goals spiritually, that you say, I, I want to, uh, get to know God's word better. I want to study it more. I want to make progress, spiritual progress. Maybe there are certain areas of your life you've struggled in. By God's grace, at the end of this year, you can say, Lord, I'm stronger in that area than I wanted to be. That should mark us as disciples, the Lord Jesus said. He says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Disciples should be forgiving, a forgiving spirit. There's nothing that'll destroy a marriage quicker than an unforgiving spirit. Many marriages are falling apart because of a lack of forgiveness. Maybe sometimes it was a serious sin that was involved. And yet, even where there's been adultery or some very tragic things that have happened, there can be healing, there can be restoration if there's forgiveness. Forgiveness is so vital. So vital in a, uh, fellowship of Christians. Absolutely vital among the elders that there be forgiveness. And among the Christians, if the lack of forgiveness comes in, and if there's bitterness, uh, if there isn't this spirit of showing mercy, it will destroy you, and it will destroy a fellowship. There was an assembly in the state where I live that years ago was strong, had a conference every year, was flourishing, was one of the most healthy works in the state. Today, there is no witness in that city along this line. They sold their building, they disbanded. I saw the work fall apart. You know why it fell apart? Because some of the elders, uh, took sides against one of the elders. Uh, there was deep bitterness, there was deep anger. I'd gone at times to visit them and tried to have a reconciliation. I knew both sides and loved them both, on both sides, but there was a refusal to forgive. And you would talk to one of these men about the other man, and his face would become angry, and there was bitterness. Every word that came out was full of bitterness and anger against that other person. Destroyed the work. And it's sad to see those men going down to the grave, some of them, still with bitterness. You know, I don't want to die with bitterness toward anyone. And it's a tragic, tragic thing. He said, blessed are the merciful. Show mercy, be compassionate. I want to read Matthew eighteen, just a couple of verses here. Verse twenty one. Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Now, Peter thought he was being very, very generous. The Jews said three times, generally speaking. They say, well, three times. You know, if a man does something against you, forgive him the first time. He comes to you and says, hey, forgive me. Second time, the third time, after the third time, no more forgiveness. You cut him off. No more. So Peter comes and he says, now look, Lord, you know, this kind of a problem, I, I want to know how forgiving should I be? How merciful should I be? How about 7 times? Seven Notice Jesus' answer. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. In other words, he's just saying, indefinitely. You can never stop forgiving one another. Unless you want God to stop forgiving you. That's what he said. Don't we pray? Didn't he say to his disciples, you pray, our Father, what in heaven? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Is there anyone you haven't forgiven? Is there anyone that you have bitterness against? Jesus said, what right do you have to ask God to forgive you? Do you feel that other person has sinned against you more than you've sinned against God? He says, listen, my disciples who've known my forgiveness, who've known the mercy of God, need to be very merciful and compassionate. So that should mark us as his people. He says this should be a mark of one of my followers, very merciful, very compassionate, very forgiving, uh, not holding a grudge, not holding resentment, not filled with bitterness. And I can say this, there are some marriages that go on year after year full of bitterness and a lack of forgiveness. Years ago, I, uh, taught at Emmaus for several years, and I, uh, had in charge of some of their gospel courses, and I can remember corresponding with this man who, uh, uh, in his old age was full of bitterness. He was retired. They were in an assembly fellowship, and he sort of confided in me. I think he had to get it off his chest. He was bitter against his wife. Years before, he had caught her in bed with another man, and he had, uh, lived with her, I guess for the sake of the children and family, but he'd never forgiven her. And, uh, in old age here, he was going over it, over it with her constantly. She wrote to me, and she said, he'll never forgive me. He'll never forgive me. As far as I know, they died that way. Full of bitterness and full of anger. Now, it's hard to forgive. It's the hardest thing I've learned to do. But he says, blessed is the mercies. He says another quality is pure in heart, or they shall see God. Pure in heart. Scripture says the heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. My natural heart is not pure. But the Holy Spirit is holy, and uh, we've been born again, not of corruptible seed. We do have a new nature, a new nature. He says, I'll give you a heart of flesh. And uh, so we've got this new life, but we are called on to practice purity. Purity in the heart. Now, this doesn't mean sinlessness. What does it mean? Well, I want to turn over to First John one and just read a verse here. John, as he's writing, says this in verse seven, If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. I think the ones who are pure in heart are walking in the light. They're open to the scripture. They're open to God. They're not covering sin. They're saying, search me, oh God, and know my heart. And then they are judging sin as it comes, as it appears. And they're trusting the blood of Jesus to cleanse and to keep them pure. So it means not covering sin. The one who covers his sin will not prosper, but the one who confesses and forsakes it will obtain mercy. The pure in heart are constantly judging sin and putting sin away and rejecting sin. Have to be careful here of how, uh, we allow, uh, sin to gradually come in. There is no sudden fall. We find someone who has fallen into sin, and, uh, we view it as something that just happened suddenly. It didn't happen suddenly. There was a process of just gradually accommodating sin and tolerating sin and putting up with sin and covering sin and living a secret life of unclean thinking, and finally it erupted in the act itself. There was a lot of thinking that was wrong before that. Blessed are the pure in heart. One of the things I feel that is doing more to destroy that purity among Christians than perhaps anything else is television. And if you have television, you must guard it. You have to watch it. Uh, you'll have to control it. If you don't watch it and if you don't control it, it will begin to destroy you. There are Christians in the privacy of their own home watching stuff now on television you could not have seen in a public theater thirty, forty years ago. There it is, right in the privacy and secrecy of your own home. And you can watch that stuff in private, and then come to the church services on Sunday, to the meetings of the assembly, and all the time this thing is, uh, destroying you inwardly. Blessed are the pure in heart. Uh, so I plead with you, watch that thing, guard the programs, refuse to allow it to corrupt and to destroy you. It's so dangerous. There's a family in our fellowship. The man had a pit bull, he he's liked dogs, and he had a put pit bull for many years, then he got married, then now he has two little children. Has a little girl, sweet little girl. I was concerned about that pit bull. They have kind of a bad reputation. We in the States have been a number of children killed by pit bulls, so they're, they're bred to fight, and when they take hold of something, they have tremendous jaw strength, and it's almost impossible to break them loose. They have this pit bull, and I was concerned for