What we want to talk about in
this session is personal purity and personal holiness. And when we read Jonathan Edwards,
and again this conference is really standing on the shoulders
of that towering giant, Jonathan Edwards, and as we read his resolutions
and of course read his sermons and his diary, etc., etc., here
was a man 18, 19 years old, in downtown New York,
an interim pastor on Wall Street of a Scottish Presbyterian church,
age 18 and 19, preaching the Word of God for a block of time
until he would go back to Yale and write his dissertation and
complete his master's program, and that his life might be on
target He wrote these 70 resolutions that he would be alone and review
to be almost like auditing his own life and heart to make certain
that the direction of his life was on target. And the emphasis
that Edwards made was on the glory of God. And as we said
yesterday morning, there was only one thing that would hinder
his pursuit of the glory of God, and it was sin, and only one
kind of sin, and it would be his sin. And so he was ruthless
to war against sin in his own life. And in so doing, Edwards
did not want to simply treat the fruit of his life, but he
wanted to go to the root of his life. He wanted to go to his
heart because he understood that his whole life was flowing out
of his heart. And to master his heart would
be to master all of his actions and his conversations because
everything was flowing out of the deep wellspring of his heart. And so as we read the resolutions,
he was continually undergoing self-examination. The unexamined
life is not worth living. He was continually examining
his own heart, his own motives, his own ambitions, his own zeal,
his own desires, his own appetites, his own affections, that they
would be as pure and singular toward God as a saved sinner
could possibly be here upon the earth. He then kept a diary in
which he would monitor how he was doing in keeping his resolutions. And he was very transparent.
He had no idea that anyone would ever read his diary or his resolutions. It was a private document that
now is public domain. And he emphasized the heart.
I believe it is the right and proper emphasis because to control
your heart, to govern your heart, is to govern the entirety of
your life. When your heart is right towards
God, then your words will be right, your choices will be right,
your deeds will be right. And so Edwards focused upon the
heart, and that is what I want us to do in this session, and
I want you to take your Bibles and turn back again with me to
the gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5, and I want to look
one more time at the Beatitudes. We've said these are attitudes
that ought to be. It is the beginning and the inauguration
of our Lord's public ministry. These are the first recorded
words that we have of Christ, other than in the previous chapter,
repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This really becomes
the profile description of what it is to be a repenter in order
to enter into the kingdom. And these beatitudes stand at
the beginning of the greatest sermon that has ever been preached,
the Sermon on the Mount. It was certainly preached by
the greatest preacher who has ever lived, Jesus Christ, who
is the great expositor, come from heaven and has given the
purest interpretation of the law. And he begins his sermon
with the most positive, gracious words with which any preacher
has begun a sermon. He begins with these words, blessed,
blessed, blessed. He has come that we might have
life and have it abundantly. He has come to open the vaults
of heaven and to pour out the blessing and the goodness and
the graciousness of God upon His people. And so he defines
for us who are those who enter into the kingdom of God. And
they are not those who simply are in the temple or who go through
the religious ritual and outward motion. They are people whose
hearts have become repentant towards God and have exercised
faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It begins at the very
epicenter. And what a contrast this is to
the religion of the Pharisees, which was an outward, external
facade, a shallow, superficial religiosity that was just painted
on the outside of the corrupt lives of the people. And what
Jesus calls for here is heart-searching repentance. that the hearts of
the people of God would be right towards Him. And in order to
enter into the kingdom, there must be a heart repentance and
a heart faith. And Jesus defines that. Beginning
in verse 3 and extending through verse 12, these are the Beatitudes. And in the first four Beatitudes,
the first four are really Jesus's four spiritual law booklet. These
are the four steps that lead into the kingdom of heaven. This
is how to be saved. This is how to be a true repenter. This is how not to be one who
says, Lord, Lord, but who shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven. These are the distinguishing
marks of true saving faith. And so it begins in verse 3,
"'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.'" We talked about this yesterday morning. This is where
it all begins. It begins by coming to see that
I have sinned and I have fallen short of the glory of God, and
I declare spiritual bankruptcy before a holy God in heaven. But there is more. Second, in
verse 4, blessed are those who mourn. There must be a weeping
and a mourning over the sad condition of my sinful state. I must be
broken on the inside and to see that my life has been an offense
to a holy God, I have violated His holiness in the way that
I have lived my life. I cannot be apathetic. I cannot
be lukewarm. I can't just yawn in the face
of God and say, well, I have sinned. That is a false faith. One who is a true repenter who
enters the kingdom, there is a deep brokenness over my sin. Blessed are those who mourn. No one shuffles their way into
the kingdom of heaven. No one comes yawning into the
presence of God. There are the tears, whether
they are real tears or simply in the heart, we come mourning.
Third, blessed are the gentle. Now, this word gentle was used
of a wild stallion that was meek. A wild stallion would live out
in the open, and it never submitted to a rider, and it would just
go where it wanted to go and do what it wanted to do. It had
fury and kick. It was just wild. It would run
in every direction until there would come one who would break
the colt. would not break its legs, but
would break its spirit, whereby the horse would now submit to
the authority of a rider. And when the rider would pull
to the left, it would go to the left, pull to the right, it would
go to the right, pull back on the reins, and it would halt.
That is what this word is, to come to the place and the recognition
that my life can no longer be lived where I do my own thing,
I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do, but now I
submit under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and I am gentle
in the sense that my life is now in His hands and He has the
reins of my life. Then fourth, in verse 6, blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. in submitting
my life to Christ, at that very moment, I must realize that my
righteousness is as filthy rags in His sight. I am weeping over
the corruption and the depravity of my heart, and I now hunger
and thirst for a righteousness that is not my own. It is a righteousness
that must be given to me. It is the very perfect righteousness
of God in Jesus Christ. Martin Luther defined it as a
foreign righteousness, an alien righteousness. And the idea is
that it is a righteousness that comes down from God above. I must hunger for that and thirst
for that, and that is the desire of saving faith. And I receive
the gift of righteousness from God. Only He can take off my
dirty rags of self-righteousness. I stand naked before a holy God,
and He now clothed me with the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ and present me faultless before His throne of grace. That
is what these first four beatitudes teach, and there is a sequential
progression from being poor in spirit to weeping and mourning
over being poor in spirit, now to be meek and gentle and yield
my life under the lordship of Christ and to cry out for His
righteousness. That defines the one who enters
through the narrow gate at the end of this sermon. This defines the one who builds
his house upon the rock. Jesus said, "'Truly, truly, I
say unto you, he who hears these words of mine and acts upon them
is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And
when the rains came and the winds blew and beat against the house,
it did not fall because it was built upon the rock.'" This is
the one who builds upon the rock. poor in spirit, mourn, gentle,
hunger, and thirst for righteousness. Now that you are in the kingdom,
now that you have passed through the narrow gate, now that you
are building upon the solid rock of Jesus Christ, you continue
with all four of these beatitudes. We continue to be humble and
recognize, I am what I am by the grace of God. We continue
to be those who weep and mourn over our sin. We continue to
be meek and under the lordship of Christ, we must continue to
hunger and thirst, not for a positional righteousness, but for a practical
righteousness. But added to that now are the
next four beatitudes, which pertain to those who have entered into
the kingdom of God. They are those, verse 7, who
are merciful. Of course they are. They have
been the object of sovereign mercy from God. They have had
grace and divine favor placed upon them. They become the most
merciful people on the earth. Verse 8, "'Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God.'" We see here the inseparable
connection between justification and sanctification. All those
who are justified by faith begin now a life of the pursuit of
holiness, and they are those who are pure in heart, but they
must continue to maintenance and watch over their own hearts
that they would be pure. Then, verse 9, blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. They are
reconcilers. They are those who are seeking
to bring people who are at enmity with God, who are enemies of
God, to bring them to a position of being friends of God through
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they are uniting sinful men with
holy God through the gospel. They are peacemakers as well
as making peace among brothers and among sisters within the
body of Christ. The result of all of this, verses
10 through 12, if you live like this, you are going to so stand
out in this world that you will rub people the wrong way. and
they will begin to persecute you. Jesus said, this is a promise
that you will be persecuted. There is no way to go through
this world and for the first seven Beatitudes to be real in
your life without you suffering persecution for the gospel of
Christ, and it will perhaps be a religious crowd that will persecute
you more than anyone else. That was the case in the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ as He was crucified by a religious
crowd. And these and these alone, verse
13, are the salt of the earth. These and these alone are the
light of the world, in verse 14. And the entire emphasis upon
this entire section is upon the heart. It is a heart religion. What Jesus is after for every
one of us in this room today, He is after your heart. It is with your heart that you
know and love God. It is with your heart that you
make the decisions of your life. It is with your heart that your
steps are directed, that your destiny is determined. It is
with your heart that you think and feel and decide. The real you is not what we see
on the outside. The real you is who you are and
what you are on the inside in your heart. Solomon said, watch
over your heart, for from it flows the issues of life. In
other words, your heart is like a well spring out of which a
fountain is flowing the entirety of your life. Whatever your life
is, it is all simply flowing out of your heart. There's an
old saying, what's down in the well comes up in the bucket.
And what is down in your heart is what is coming out of your
mouth, and it is directing your steps. Govern your heart, and
you govern the entirety of your life and your destiny. Solomon
says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Moses said,
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. And
Jesus affirmed this and said, the greatest commandment of all
is that you love the Lord your God with all of your mind and
heart and soul and strength. Paul said that true worship involves
making melody in your heart. The most important thing in your
life this moment is your heart before God. I want to ask you. Where is your heart? I know where
your body is. Your body is right here in this
conference. Your body is right here in this
massive room in which there are 4,000 people. Your body is here
in the midst of this extraordinary conference. But the question
on the table is, where is your heart? It is possible to be here
and your heart to be far away. But Jesus said of the Pharisees,
you honor me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. Is your heart close to God? Is your heart tender towards
God? Is your heart trusting of God? That is what Jesus is driving
for. And today, I want us to focus
upon verse 8. Yesterday morning, we isolated
verse 3. This morning, I want to look
at verse 8. I want to put it under the microscope. I want
to think it through. I want to think it out. I want
to deliver this to you. Look at it again, verse 8, "'Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.'" are five headings
that I want you to note. I want to give you five key words.
You can write down these key words. These will be the main
headings that we will follow in this message. I want to unpack
everything that I can find in verse 8. I want you to first
see the priority of the heart. Jesus obviously prioritizes the
heart. We live in a society that prioritizes
the body, that prioritizes the outward packaging, that prioritizes
the hair, that prioritizes clothes, that prioritizes the facade. Jesus prioritizes the heart. Second, we'll look at the purity
of the heart. He calls for purity. Blessed are the pure in heart.
What does it mean to have a pure heart? And third, the problem
of the heart. There's obviously something wrong
with the heart if Jesus has to call for purity in the heart.
What is the problem? Fourth, the purifying. How can
we purify our hearts? And finally, the privilege it
is only those who are pure in heart who shall see God." Can
you think of a greater privilege than that, to behold God? This is inseparably connected,
a pure heart and seeing God. It is only those with a pure
heart who will ever see God. Let's begin first with the priority
of the heart. Jesus is front-loading in this
sermon the absolute importance of the heart. He says, blessed
are the pure in heart. When He says heart, He is referring
to all that we are on the inside as opposed to our body on the
outside. The heart here refers to the
inner person, the inner being. And if you would like some categories,
it refers to the mind, the emotion, and the will, the entirety. In
our Western culture, we think of the heart really as simply
the emotions, but it is much larger than this. It is the mind,
the seat of the intellect, the very thoughts and reasonings
of a person. It's what you think about. It
is how you think. Solomon said, as a man thinks
in his heart, so is he. And it refers to the affections
or the emotions. Edwards called them the affections,
that is, your desires, your passions, your cravings. That is what Jesus
is prioritizing because He understands that your heart will be the rudder
of the ship of your life. To turn your heart will be to
turn the direction of your entire life. And then finally, the heart
includes the will, the seat of the volition, where decisions
are made. And so we see that the heart
encompasses the center of a person's being. It is the fountain out
of which everything else flows. The heart is the real you. It is who you are, made in the
image of God, tainted by sin. It is your very soul. This is the priority. of the heart. All of the Beatitudes
are emphasizing the heart. Look at verse 3, blessed are
the poor in spirit. That's the heart. In verse 4,
to mourn is to have heart repentance. Verse 5, to be meek is to have
heart submission. Verse 6, to hunger and thirst
for righteousness is to have a heart's desire. It's all the
heart. He is after our heart. He knows
that the heart is like the root of the tree. And if the root
is right, the fruit will be right. Jesus said, you'll know them
by their fruit because the fruit is but a revelation of where
the root is. And with this, Jesus plunges
down beneath the surface of the dirt and looks down into our
roots, and He prioritizes that your heart must be right with
Him. Is your heart right with God? Is your heart pure? This is the
necessity of what our Lord requires. It is a heart religion. Second, the purity of the heart. As Jesus prioritized the heart,
He called for purity. Notice, blessed are the pure,
the pure. Blessed are the pure in heart.
Cursed are the impure of heart. Abandoned by God are the impure
of heart. Chastened by God are the impure
in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart. He will only bless those who
are pure in heart. This word, pure, means to cleanse
from all dirt and filth. to make clean from the inward
contamination of that which defiles. The word pure was used of raw
metals that would be put into a furnace, the smeltering process,
in which the heat was raised so high that the impurities in
the metal would rise to the surface and they would skim the alloys
off the top and what was left behind was a pure metal, a singular
metal. That is what Jesus is calling
for, that the impurities of your heart would be raised to the
surface, and by repentance, and by the Word of God, and by the
power of the Spirit of God, they would be skimmed off the top,
and what would be left behind would be an undefiled, unalloyed,
unadulterated, pure heart. purity of mind, purity of motives,
purity of affections. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 17,
verse 3, the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for
gold, but the Lord tests the heart. The Lord tests the heart,
and what He is searching for is a singular heart without any
other side attractions, without any other side loves, a singular
heart. Jesus said in Luke 14, verse
26, except a man hate his own father and mother and brother
and sister, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. The love that we have for Christ
in our heart must be so vastly superior that any other affection
that we have by comparison would appear to be as hate. It's the
purity of heart. It's been this way throughout
the entire Bible. In Leviticus 11, verse 44, I
am the Lord your God. consecrate yourselves therefore
and be holy, for I am holy." God is infinitely, absolutely,
eternally holy and pure, and He requires of us that we be
a holy and pure people and that we be set apart to holiness as
well. The word holy, kadosh, in the
Hebrew Primary meaning means transcendent, set apart, separated. God is set apart and separated
unto Himself. He is different from His creation. He is in a whole different league
than we are. He is holy God. And secondary,
He is sinless. He is blameless. All of His ways
are perfect. All of His judgments are pure.
And He calls us to be holy and pure. that we would be set apart
from this world and this evil world system. All that is in
the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and
the boastful pride of life is passing away. And we are to put off sin. And
we are to strive for holiness, as we heard last night, with
all of the energy that God would supernaturally empower us with. Psalmist David said in Psalm
24 verse 3, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who
may stand in His holy place, who may have an audience with
the King, who may come into the presence of holy, holy, holy
God. He who has clean hands and a
pure heart. Clean hands are the result of
a pure heart. If we are to have fellowship
with God, we must be pure and clean. Romans 12, verse 1, I
urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living and holy sacrifice. Hey, if all you are is just committed
to God, that's not good enough. You must be a holy sacrifice. Don't commit an unholy sacrifice
to God. God desires that we be pure and
holy from the heart. 1 Timothy 1, verse 5, the goal
of our instruction is love from a pure heart. that there would
flow out of a pure heart love for God, love for one another,
love for the truth, love for the kingdom, love for the Son
of God. 2 Timothy 2, verse 22, now flee
from youthful lusts. Don't play with it. Don't tease
with it. Don't see how close you can get
to it without being burned. Flee. Run away from youthful
lusts. Pursue righteousness. faith,
love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure
heart. Your entire life is flowing out
of your heart. Make certain it is pure. A Pharisee's never got this. Look
later in Matthew chapter 5. Look at verse 21. All the Pharisees
wanted to do was, in essence, just paint the outside of the
Titanic. to make it look better, to rearrange
the deck furniture, if you will, on the Titanic, when their entire
lives were shipwrecked and were going down, but they were just
concerned with the external. And Jesus, now the great expositor,
gives the true interpretation of the law of Moses. He does
not cancel out the law of Moses. He reinforces the standard of
holiness and places it before those who would follow Him. In
verse 21, Jesus said, you have heard that the ancients were
told, you shall not commit murder. And whoever commits murder shall
be liable to the court. You see, the Pharisees thought,
just because I have not strangled someone with my own bare hands,
that I am pure before the law. Just because I have not killed
someone, I am pure before God, Jesus in verse 22, but I say
to you, he's not changing anything. He is simply explaining properly
the interpretation of the Mosaic law. But I say to you that everyone
who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.
He is saying, you're a murderer in your heart if you are angry
unjustly towards your brother. Do you have ill feelings towards
someone else? Jesus says that is murder in
the heart. Look at verse 27 of the same
chapter. You have heard that it was said,
you shall not commit adultery. Of course, that's in the Ten
Commandments, Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 4. But I say to you, that everyone
who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart." The issue is the heart. Long
before it ever becomes the action or the deed on the outside, it
was conceived and birthed in the heart. Later, Jesus confronted
the Pharisees about their complete neglect of their heart. He said in Matthew 23, 27, "'Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees,' which is the very opposite of
saying, "'Blessed are the pure in heart.'" Woe means condemned,
judged, not like a man on a horse saying, "'Woe.'" And he says,
"'Woe, ruined are you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.'"
You know what hypocrite is? out of the first century, it
is one who wears a mask. It is a play actor on a stage
who is given a script and who plays a part that has no reality
to who the person really is. He stands up before people on
a stage, he parrots words, he plays a role. When the play is
over, he comes off the stage, he takes his mask off, and he
lives out who he really is. That's what a hypocrite is. He
is one person in the temple and someone totally different out
in the flow of life, someone who wears a mask and hides behind
the thin veil of religiosity, and their life betrays the script
that they parrot. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs. which on the
outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead
men's bones and all uncleanness." What a picture. He goes on to
say, you clean the outside of the glass, but you neglect the
inside of the glass. You clean the outside, you're
into behavior modification, but you neglect what is on the inside
of your soul. your very heart. Suppose I was
to come to your house and to have a meal, and you bring out
a glass and put it in front of me, and it is so sparkling on
the outside. The lights and the chandelier
over the table just cause the glass to sparkle, and I raise
it up to my mouth to drink from, and I look on the inside, and
there is a chunk of meat on the inside. I see a smear of lipstick. I see some black hairs just floating
around on the inside. That's what Jesus is saying. That is your life. You clean
up so well on the outside when you go into the temple and you
parade your religiosity in front of others, but down deep in the
shaft of the heart, you're impure and unclean. That leads to third, the problem
of the heart. So what is the problem of the
heart? It's been well said that the
heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.
That Jesus calls for a pure heart here logically implies that our
hearts are not naturally pure. The fact is no one was ever born
with a pure heart. The first beatitude is a slam
dunk on this. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
that every human heart suffers a poverty of holiness that is
in reality marred by the corruption of sin. Jeremiah said, the heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can
understand it. Solomon wrote, the hearts of
the son of men are given fully to do evil. Solomon goes on to
say, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity. You know what that means? Sin
will make you stupid. Why would a man ever leave his
wife or his secretary? because sin makes him stupid. He makes irrational, illogical
choices for his life because of the impurity of his soul. Isaiah said, the whole head is
sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot, even
to the head, there is nothing sound in it. That is the doctrine
of total depravity, which does not mean that every person is
as totally depraved as they can possibly be, but what it does
mean is that every part of man, his mind, his affections, his
will, is ruined and corrupted by sin. It's like a drop of cyanide
into a glass of water. It spreads to the whole until
the entire content is permeated with the cyanide. That is what
has happened with the hearts of all men and women. Jesus said, from within, out
of the heart, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts,
murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, as well
as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander. What Jesus is saying,
it's all already in the heart It's not the environment that's
done it. It's not the devil that's done it. It's not someone else
that has done this to me. No, it was all already inside
of you in the heart. It's like walking across the
room with a glass of milk and you trip. Whatever's in the glass
spills out. And what is coming out of our
hearts is what was already in our heart. That's the problem
of the heart. It's the problem of every unbeliever. It continues to be the problem
of every believer. It's the problem with the family.
It's the problem with society. It's the problem with the school.
It's the problem with the nation. It's the problem with the world. All problems in the world are
ultimately traced back to a lack of purity in the heart. Fourth, the purifying of the
heart. If my heart is impure, if your
heart is impure, and Jesus prioritizes a pure heart, then how can my
heart become pure? And let me say on the front end,
no religious ritual will ever make your heart pure. No religious
ceremony will ever make your heart pure. No outward reformation
will ever make your heart pure. Purity is an inside job by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Only God can give a pure heart. That begins first with salvation. It begins first with regeneration,
when God gives to us a new heart. If you are born again, you have
received a new heart. Your old heart was a bad heart. Ezekiel 36 verse 25, God said,
I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. It's
the picture of the washing of regeneration that Titus 3 verse
5 speaks of. I will cleanse you from all your
filthiness and from all of your idols. Moreover, I will give
you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will
remove the heart of stone from your flesh. and give you a heart
of flesh." A heart of stone is one that is cold and hardened
and indifferent and unresponsive to God. It is just a cold, hard
heart. God said, I will take that heart
out and I will give you a heart of flesh, a heart that is alive
unto God, a heart that has a pulse for God, a heart that is responsive
to the things of God. That is what the new birth is.
It is not turning over a new leaf, it is receiving a new life. When Whitfield was saved, he
had just read the book, The Life of God in the Soul of a Man.
That's what the new birth is. It is the life of God in the
soul of a man. God said, I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will
be careful to observe My ordinances. That's the purifying of the heart
at the moment of the new birth, at the moment of regeneration. And if you're here today and
you are outside the kingdom, you need a new heart. And only
God can give you a new heart. And it doesn't even matter all
of the externals. What matters is your heart before
God. And that which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. And then once we're born again, we
must continue to purify our hearts. Remember Proverbs 4.23, watch
over your heart with all diligence or from it flows the springs
of life. I'm assuming most of us here
in this room are believers. How can you as a believer maintain
a pure heart? I want to give you five things
on how to maintain a pure heart. You need to write this down in
the back of your Bible. You need to refer to these five
things. Number one, wash in the Word. What sanctifying power there
is in the Word of God. Hear it again, Psalm 119, verse
11, how can a young man keep his way pure? by keeping it according
to Your Word. Verse 11, Your Word I have treasured
in my heart that I might not sin against You. It is the Word
of God in the heart that sanctifies and purifies the heart when it
is received by faith. Jesus prayed in John 17, 17,
sanctify them in the truth Your Word is truth. It is the
Word of God that setteth apart unto godliness and purity, Ephesians
5 verse 26, so that Christ might sanctify her, referring to the
church, believers, having cleansed her by the washing of water with
the Word. As we are in this struggle against
sin, as we are inundated by the temptations of this world, I
would remind us all, how did Jesus resist temptation when
He was in the wilderness? He said, it is written, it is
written, it is written. And He pulled the sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God, and He repelled the advances
of the devil and his temptations. This very same superior weapon
is put into your hands. For the Word of God is living
and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Wash in the
Word. It's been well said, either sin
will keep you from the Word or the Word will keep you from sin. The two are mutually exclusive.
When the Word moves in, sin moves out. And when sin moves back
in, appetite for the Word goes out. Number two, bathe in the
blood. There is power in the blood of
Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all sin. Ezekiel 13, verse 1,
speaks of a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It is that
fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins. And sinners
plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. And
we are to, day by day, now that we're in the kingdom, continue
to confess our sin and to be washed and to be cleansed by
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our
sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Bathe in the blood. Third, submit
to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit of God is the
Holy Spirit. He is the agent of sanctification. It is the ministry of the Holy
Spirit in the life of the believer to conform us into the image
of Jesus Christ, which is an image of holiness. The Holy Spirit
in Romans 1 verse 4 is called the Spirit of holiness. He has
come to convict of sin. He has come to grant repentance.
He has come to turn the heart away from sin. He has come to
give power to resist temptation. He has come to cleanse the heart
from sin. The Holy Spirit purges the heart
like lightning purges the air. Fourth, pray for purity. We cannot make
ourselves clean. Only God ultimately can do this
in us. Job 14 verse 4, who can make
the clean out of the unclean? No one, exclamation point. No man, no woman, no pastor,
no minister, no parent, no friend, no one can make you clean but
God. We must pray to God. We must
confess our sins. We must ask for His grace, not
only to cleanse us, but to maintain us in the narrow path of purity. What did David pray in Psalm
51, verse 10? Create in me a clean heart. He
prayed that as a believer. Create in me a clean heart, because
my heart has become unclean. Psalm 51 verse 7, "'Purify me
with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow.'" In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the
grace of God can wash away sin and restore purity to the heart. Someone can walk into a service
like this with guilt and sin. and wickedness can fall on their
face before God and say, God, wash me and I will be clean.
Bathe me in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and walk out
of here cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Finally, number
five, run with the righteous. If you would be pure, then you
must walk with those who are pure. Like produces like. Purity breeds purity. Proverbs 13, verse 20, he who
walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will
suffer harm. We could say he who walks with
those who are pure will be pure, but the companion of fools will
suffer impurity. This does not say that we do
not witness to those in the world. It does not say that we don't
reach out to tax collectors and harlots. We do. We are here on
this world to be a witness for Christ. But I'll tell you, our
closest friends must be those who are pursuing holiness because
they will have an enormous effect upon our lives. You need to find
out who is the greatest Christian in this room and say, I want
to be your friend. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 33, do not
be deceived. Did you hear that? Do not be
deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. A little leaven leavens the whole
loaf. You tell me who your friends
are, and I will tell you exactly who you are or who you're about
to become. Run with the righteous. This is the purifying of the
heart and how desperately we need it. wash in the Word, bathe
in the blood, submit to the Spirit, pray for purity, run with the
righteous. Blessed are the pure in heart. Finally, the privilege. What is the privilege of the
one who is pure in heart? What is the fruit where the root
is pure in heart? What is the inevitable result? What does it lead to? What does
it produce? What does it provide? Where will
it take me? What will I experience? What
will I see? What will I know when I am pure
in heart? For they, let me stop right there,
they implies they and they alone. They and they only. They and
no one else. Jesus is claiming a monopoly
here for those who are pure in heart. For they shall see God. There is no more glorious sight
for you to ever behold than for you to see God." Now what does
this mean, to see God? I want to give you five more
subheadings. Put this in the front of your
Bible. What does it mean to see God?
Jesus ends in the most positive pronouncement of privilege that
has ever been afforded to any creature created in His image. And this is all of grace. It
is all the result of unmerited favor from God. It is all the
result of the new birth and being washed in the blood of the Lamb. It is all the result of receiving
a heart of flesh and bathing in the Word and running with
the righteous and praying for purity and all of these things. We are privileged by His grace
to see God. And what does this mean? Number one, it means we see God
in creation. We see what the impure of heart
do not see. The world around us with unbelieving
eyes and with impure hearts, all they see is a beach, a tree,
and a rock. But we see the fingerprints of
God in creation. Psalm 19, verse 1, the heavens
are declaring the glory of God. We look up into the starry host
above and we see glory of God, glory of God. We see more than
the impure of heart. Romans 1 20 says, for since the
creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power
and divine nature have been clearly seen. Do you not see God in creation? When we see the mountains, we
see the towering majesty of Almighty God. When we see the ocean, we
see the vast immensity of His Creator. When we hear the thunder,
we hear the violent fury of Almighty God. When we see and feel the
wind of a hurricane, we feel the awesome presence of God. You talk about your earthquakes
out here. Come home with me to Mobile and
go through a category 5 hurricane. It doesn't last for five seconds.
You're not just jostled in your chair and go running outside. The end of the world has come. Try living in Hurricane Alley,
and for a wind of 145 miles an hour to come and just flatten
every house in the neighborhood and uproot trees and move the
ocean miles in. As I stand in those hurricanes
down in Mobile at times, there is a sense of the awesome power
and majesty of Almighty God. We who are pure of heart, we
see God in everything. We see the Creator that impure
hearts do not see. They see mother earth. They see Mother Nature. We see Almighty God. Second, we see God in providence. We
see, to take R.C. Sproul's term, the invisible
hand of God. In the affairs of providence,
We see the invisible hand of God ordering circumstances and
directing events. The impure heart never sees the
invisible hand of God. The impure heart sees only good
luck, bad luck, chance, fortune, random occurrence, accidents,
fate, bad karma, lady luck. Those are all pagan myths and
devilish lies. There is no such thing as luck.
There is no such thing as blind fate. There is no such thing
as karma. There is no such thing as chance.
There are no maverick molecules in the universe. They all exist
to obey Almighty God. And because of this, as we see
circumstance, as we see events in the affairs of mankind around
us, we see what the impure heart does not see. We see divine appointments. We see divine timing. We see
divine intervention. We see divine purpose. We see
the invisible hand of God. The heart of the king is in the
hand of the Lord. As rivers of water, He channels it whichever
way He wills. Do you see that invisible hand
reach down into prime ministers, into dictators, and into presidents
and redirect their hearts? Do you see that? The lot is cast
into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Do
you not see that God is ordering? even the most minute occurrences
in this world, not a sparrow falls apart from the Lord. And
we know that God causes all things to work together for good to
those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.
We see God in providence. And the more mature you are in
the Lord, and the better instructed you are in the Word, the more
you will see God in everything. Third, we see God in Scripture. When the impure heart opens the
Bible, the impure heart sees myths. errors, mistakes, a God
small g of one's own making. When the impure heart looks into
the Bible, it sees but a mere caricature of God. It never sees
the true God. It sees a God who does not punish
sin. It sees a God that does not see
the future. It sees a God that will not separate
at the end of the age the wheat from the tares. Now, the one
with an impure heart does not have mental problems, it has
moral problems. But the one who is pure in heart
sees God everywhere in the Scripture. The one who has a pure heart
opens the Bible at the beginning and sees that God created the
heavens and the earth, and that God spoke everything into being
out of nothing in six consecutive days. The one who has a pure
heart sees that God destroyed the world with a flood in the
days of Noah. that this God drowned in Pharaoh's
army. This God caused the walls of
Jericho to come tumbling down. This God protected Daniel in
the lion's den. This God answered with fire in
the days of Elijah before the prophets of Baal. To have a pure
heart allows one to behold the transcendent majesty and glory
of God that is revealed in pages of Scripture, and you behold
God for who He is, and we are transformed into the same image
from glory to glory. Fourth, we see God in Christ.
We see more than a carpenter. We see more than a teacher come
from God. We see God come to teach. John
14, 9 and 10, show us the Father and that is good enough for us.
Have you seen me and you have not yet seen the Father? He who
sees me has seen the Father. It is with a pure heart when
we look into the Bible, we see the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, one day, we shall
see God face-to-face. Theologians refer to this as
the beatific vision, the most glorious, the most grand vision
human eyes will ever behold, as we shall see the glory of
God and the greatness of our Savior. Revelation 22, verse
4, they will see His face. This is the greatest blessing
for any one of us in this room. In ancient days, only a privileged
few were allowed into the king's palace The common people were
on the outside. Those obscure people were on
the outside. Only those who were a part of
the king's court were allowed into the inner recesses of the
throne room and were allowed to lift up their eyes and to
behold the throne and to behold the king upon his throne. It was privileged access. for
only a few to draw near to the throne and to behold the majesty
and the splendor and the glory of the King and His might upon
the throne. And what Jesus is saying, that
for all who are poor in spirit, all who were mourned over their
sin, all who are meek and who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
all who are pure in heart will one day be ushered into the very
throne room of God and behold the King of kings and the Lord
of lords high and lifted up. His train filling the temple,
crowned with many diadems, ruling and reigning and bestowing mercy
and grace upon His people. My friend, when you arrive in
the celestial city, you will not be captivated by streets
of gold or gates of pearl. You're not going to be doing
a head count. You will be so captured by the
splendor of our sovereign, gracious God as you will behold Him that
you will see no other. For whatever time that would
be, there will be a great reunion in heaven. And I and you have
many loved ones there, but when we enter into the throne room,
it will not be the attendance that we will be observing. It
will not be the carpet. It will not be even the scepter.
It will be the face of the King that will capture our hearts,
and we will be satisfied in Him. and we will prize Him, and He
will be the pleasure of our hearts throughout all of the ages to
come. But you'll never see Him with
an impure heart. You will never see Him with a
heart of stone. You will never see Him with dirty
hands. You will only see Him with a
new heart. Do you have need for a new heart
this day? Ask God to give you a new heart.
Ask God to cause you to be born again. Ask God to take out your
heart of stone and to give you a heart of flesh, and it will
be with this new heart of flesh that you will repent of your
sins and you will believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That which
is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of Spirit
is Spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born
again." Let us pray. Father, we are awestruck at the thought that we will behold
You. We can't even begin to comprehend
what that means, but it is the end of the journey,
and it will be the beginning of eternity. It will be the greatest
prize that we will ever know or experience. with our eyes, to look upon Your face and to see the smile of Your
countenance and the graciousness of Your hand extended toward
us as You receive us into Your presence. God, give us a pure
heart and we will see Take away our impure heart, and we will
behold You in creation and in providence and in Scripture and
in Christ. And one day, we will see You
as You truly are. Turn our hearts away from sin.
Increase our affections for You. all for the honor and the glory
of Your name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.