Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the Gospel according to Matthew
chapter 5, and reading from our text, verse 8. Verse 8. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 8. Our text speaks of a present
blessing, because of what those are that are spoken of, they
are by grace. It doesn't say that they shall
be blessed, but blessed are the pure in heart. And each of these
beatitudes, each of these blessings, They are blessed because of God's
work, God's grace in them. They're also blessed because
of what they enjoy under that blessing. To actually be pure
in heart, they are blessed in that, walking in what the Lord
has done for them. and what the Lord has put in
them. And then they are blessed for what they shall enjoy, the
expectation of blessing. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. I want to write at the start,
just mention four things we need to make clear concerning this
text. Firstly, what we understand by
heart. Now we know, of course, each
of us have a heart, a fleshy muscle that pumps the blood around
our bodies. That is not the heart that is
spoken of here, although it is a good illustration of it, because
If a person's heart is not sound, then it affects all of their
body. The blood is the life of that
person, and it is the heart that pumps that life through every
limb, through every organ. And so very often when there
are symptoms in limbs or other parts of the body, it can be
traced back to a heart problem. So in that sense, the heart is
a good illustration. But it is that inward part of
man, that part that comprises the mind, the soul, and all the
soul's faculties, its affections, its purposes, its inclinations,
really it is the real person what that person is, the secret
that the eye cannot see, it is that which is inward, the driving
force for that person, the real person. Blessed are the pure
in heart, the real person, that which is
what they really are. and we might say really are in
the sight of God. The second thing to note is the
heart naturally is impure, it is unclean. The Word of God says
that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,
who can know it? that it is full of bruises and
wounds and putrefying sores. And I believe if the Lord has
given us grace, we will know that that is the condition of
our heart by nature. That is where our heart will
go, that we are all as an unclean thing. We've all turned everyone
to our own way. The fall has affected especially
the intentions, the thoughts, the whole drift of man is away
from God. The hymn writer says in hymn
76, at peace with hell, with God at war, in sin's dark maze
they wander far. And yet through the work of God's
grace, it is to change the heart, renew the will, and turn the
feet to Zion's hill. But we need to be clear that
all men, when we are born into this world, men, women, all that
are born into this world are born in sin and shapen in iniquity. We have all gone astray from
the womb. We are all gone astray into that
which is evil. There is nothing good within.
There's nothing pure within. All is vile, all is unclean. Man is full of deceits and full
of evil. Yes, outwardly. Outwardly, through
fear of man, through tradition, through perhaps even a natural
disposition, there is much good that is done in the world. But
the heart is still the same, and especially towards God. It is enmity towards God, hatred
towards God. The third thing to note is that
it is not in the power of man to change his own heart. He may learn many things, he
may do many things because He is instructed and as parents
we're commanded to train up a child in the way that he is to go. We are instructed to teach them
in ways of righteousness so that they act in right ways and walk
in a right way and to train them up in the things of God. But
all that we might do in that way is not actually changing
the heart. By nature it is still the same,
it remains unchanged, and we need to be very clear on that. It is only God that can actually
change the heart. The fourth thing to note is that
no man in this life is so pure in heart as to be free from sin. The Apostle Paul said there's
that sin that is dwelling in him, that the evil that he would
not, that he did, and the good that he would, he did not. O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of
death? But he says that if I do that
which I would not, is no more I that doeth it, but sin, that
dwelleth in me." And he's making a very clear distinction then
of the sin of a fallen nature and a renewed heart, a renewed
spirit that would do good but cannot do it by reason of the
sin and the fall. But the desire to do good is
honestly, genuinely and fully there. But we would make it very
clear when we come to a verse like this, that this side of
the grave, there is none that are perfectly pure in heart. All of God's people, really only
God's people, know how what sinners they are and the things that
go on in their hearts. It's only true of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, of the angels in heaven, and of God's
people who have died, and the spirits of just men made perfect
in heaven, they are pure, they have no sin. But when we have
the word here, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God, who to understand it especially as in all of these
beatitudes, as that blessing through the new birth, through
God's grace, that makes them pure in God's sight, here below,
while in a body of death, this side of the grave, to be exactly
what the Lord would have His people to be, by His grace and
by His teaching. On to then look at three points,
Firstly, what it is to be pure in heart. And then secondly,
wherein is the blessedness. And thirdly, what they shall
see, they shall see God. But firstly, what it is then
to be pure in heart. When we think of something as
being pure, it is something that is not mixed. The gold in the
tabernacle, the gold in the sanctuary, was to be pure gold. Just gold. With the ring, a wedding ring,
or many things that are made with gold, they're measured in
either 9 carat, 18 carat gold, as to how much gold is actually
in them. Because they are alloyed, they
are mixed with copper, tin, titanium, some other metal, to give it
strength or to give it properties so that it can still be used. And though it is gold, and it
looks like gold, but it is not pure. It is not gold through
and through. And the Word of God, our Lord
especially, he emphasizes that a child of God is not to be mixed,
as it were. He says you cannot serve God
and mammon. You can't have Those two things
in one heart, serving God, serving the things of this time state,
the Lord says no man can serve two masters. He'll love the one,
or cleave to one, or hate the other. He cannot do both. And also the separation, God
says of his people, Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate. Touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you. It is, when we think of purity,
a separating, a coming out. He says of his people, I've chosen
them out of the world. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. And so the, purity that God works
for His people. Paul says that the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. The children of Israel, when
they were in Egypt, they had to, when they were to worship
God and to be for Him, they had to come out of Egypt. They had to separate from Egypt. And so it is with God's children. If they are pure, They are this
people, have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise."
And the way the Lord often works this, and the scripture speaks
of being refined, as silver and gold is refined, and the silversmith,
the goldsmith, he puts the The gold, the silver in the crucible,
he puts fire under it, he heats it up, he burns off the impurities,
he takes out the things that are not right. And God's children
must also be brought into trials and troubles, afflictions, and
the Lord uses those in chastening, correcting them, refining them
as gold is refined. to make them pure, make them
so that they solely serve Him, look to Him alone, walk in His
ways alone. They haven't got a divided heart. It is a heart that is one towards
the Lord. So there is that first thought
of purity. Then secondly, it is a change. a change of heart, that is what
is given us the new heart, that is what is spoken of in Ezekiel
and chapter 36. The Lord says in verse 26 or
verse 25, then will I sprinkle you, well before that he says
I'll take you from among the heathen gather you out of all
countries and will bring you into your own land. There's the
idea of separation again. Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you and you shall be clean. From all your filthiness and
from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
give you. Notice, speaking of God's work,
what He will do. 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 a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep
My judgments and do them. And you shall dwell in the land
that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and
I will be your God. and he says that I will yet be
inquired of by the House of Israel to do it for them. The change
of heart, the new birth, the Lord bringing about that new
nature, that which is pure from above, that which is his creation,
that which influences Everything in us gives us new ears, new
eyes, new purpose, new desires, new affections, is that which
really affects all the faculties of the soul, gives it new direction,
new purpose. I make all things new, the Lord
says, a new creature in Christ. walking after the Lord, following
Him, obeying Him, believing His Word, trusting His Word. He that trusts his own heart
is a fool. But with those that have a pure
heart in that way, with a new heart, they distrust their own
heart, they distrust their own wisdom, and they trust in the
Lord's wisdom. and the Lord's Word, or how we
need to be so careful that we are not shaping our lives, what
we do, where we worship, how we worship, what we do in the
day, our prayer times, our interaction with the world upon our own feelings,
and not according to the Word of God. I think it's one of the
great signs of our times and in many, many of the churches
that men are just worshipping God in the way that they want,
in the way that they think, without any regard to what the Word of
God condemns or points to or directs to at all. And such do
not show the evidence of a pure heart, a new heart at all. Because
that heart has an ear. My sheep, they hear my voice. It has an ear to hear the word
of the Lord that sounds in that new heart, in that person. It
has an authority there. It has an entrance there, a hearing
there, that the world does not want to hear. The Lord says,
I've given them thy word and the world hath hated them. And
it's a solemn thing to not have a heart that looks to the word,
falls under the word, what would thou have me to do? But then
it is a heart that has a singleness of heart towards God. We spoke
of serving God and mammon. Well, a pure heart is that single
heart after the Lord. It's not half thinking, well,
we're going to just live our lives and we just allocate just
one service on the Lord's Day in the morning and away in the
evening, and that will be my religious life. But the rest
of my life, I'll just live just like the rest of the world. I
won't have any any private worship, any family worship. I won't give
the whole day to the Lord. I won't keep the Sabbath, the
Lord's Day, as a day purely given to worship and obeying the Lord. I'll just fit it in around my
life and that'll be good enough. But that's not the pure heart.
That's not a singleness of heart unto the Lord. It puts the Lord
first. But also it is those things that
there is not. There is no hypocrisy that is
doing one thing, or saying for others to do something, but not
doing it ourselves. One rule for one, another for
another. Or testifying or believing things,
but not actually walking them out. No guile, that is slyness
or cunningness, seeking to be like Jonadab, a subtle man, deceiving,
not perhaps telling an outright lie, but saying words in a cunning
way to give an impression that we want to give, but really is
not the truth and not right. That is not a mark of a pure
heart. And there's no hidden motives.
To have a motive within that is driving us, and so we're talking
perhaps peace to a neighbor, or yet we have some other motive,
some other reason why we are doing various things, very searching. What is our motive in our worship? What is our motive in all that
we do? Is it a hidden motive, or is
it an honest, open, transparent? That is, the purity is transparent. And internal purity is that which
affects the outward, but really is not defined by the outward. It is, by their fruit she shall
know them, But we can keep an outward clear and it'd just be
hypocrisy. But the Lord says that His work,
it begins in the heart and it will then flow out. Out of the
abundance of the heart man speaketh, or with the heart man believeth,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. When they bade the Lord to bid
his disciples to hold their peace when they sang praise to him
in coming into Jerusalem. He said if they should hold their
peace, the very stones would cry out. It was coming from their
heart. They really felt it. It was heartfelt. You know, sometimes we can use
that expression when someone is saying something, when someone
is doing something. We say it is heartfelt, and it's
evident it is, that which comes right from the heart. When we
read many of the Psalms, every heart it knoweth its own bitterness,
and those Psalms, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art
thou disquieted within me? A lot of the Psalms are coming
right from the heart, and you can feel that poor man is laboring,
under heaviness, discouragement. We think of Job, O that I knew,
where I might find him, that I might come even unto his seed. You're not just thinking, well,
God's people, they use these expressions, so I'll use it. No, he's feeling it. He's really
feeling the absence of his God, and he's crying out. We think
of our Lord. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And these things, they come from
the heart, the utterance of the heart. But then in the words of scripture,
especially Romans 8, it is to be spiritually minded instead
of calmly minded, pure instead of sensual, sexual, lustful,
An evil eye. How our nature, our natural heart,
is so sensual, so carnal. The apostle says to be carnally
minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life
and peace. And later on in this chapter,
the Lord speaks about just to look after a woman, to lust after
her in one's heart. There is sin, just as if he'd
committed adultery with her. And so join to that. If the heart
is pure, that conscience will be tender. It will register. One of our hymns says that by
nature we heeded not a heart unclean. And sadly we can get,
even when called by grace, in a hardened, state so that again
we don't heed that unclean heart, we don't stop it in its tracks,
we don't cry out to the Lord to deliver us from it. But it's
a blessed thing to have a tender conscience that is void of offence,
it registers quickly when we stray into forbidden paths of
thought, word and deed, but it also keeps from those ways so
that we are not all the time under a guilty conscience feeling,
well actually, we are walking contrary. We're not really honestly
resisting. We're not really honestly crying
out to the Lord to be delivered. We're not making every effort
to do so. You know, the scriptures speak
of a maid being caught in the country And a man tries to take
her, to rape her. And she resists, she fights. She doesn't succeed. She's defiled. But she is free because she cried
out. She resisted, but there was none
to help her weakness. It didn't make then that she
was guilty. But if there was one in the city,
then they were guilty because they did not cry. The implication
is there was people all the way around. And if they'd have only
cried, they would have had help and deliverance. And I think
of those two accounts. And God sees. He knows where
there is that real resistance. He knows with a heart. really
groans under sin, where it really longs for purity, where when
there is a fall, then it is really felt and we come, as in 1 John,
to confess our sins, to cry out unto the Lord because of them.
No, a pure heart is not a hardened heart, is not an insensitive
heart, is not one that is determined to sin, that is hedged about
its besetting sins, that lives a religious life in one sphere,
and very vocal against some sins, but others it still wants, and
therefore keeps them, and conscience, if it is there, It is still there
with pricking thorns, it was said, a sword of Tarsus is hard
for thee to kick against the pricks. And so that which is
pure really is marked by complete honestness, complete openness
as before God, that we'd be able to say unto the Lord, look at
my heart, search my heart, And we sung it in our first hymn,
didn't we, that needed a search. Lord, I search my inmost heart,
try its real state to find. And there is that desire that
we do want the Lord to search it. We know He sees it anyway,
but we want that He look upon us, that He deal with us in mercy
and cleanse us from our unrighteousness. that He does renew our heart,
that He makes the chastenings work for good, makes those trials
work for good. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Onto look then, secondly, at
wherein is the blessedness. The first thing is this, that one that is pure in heart
is a partaker of grace. Where there is the work of God
going on there, where there is these things we've mentioned,
in part or in whole, it is the Lord that is working them in.
None of these beatitudes it can be said that this belongs to
one by nature. This is the Lord picking out
some of lost mankind that are better than others and pronouncing
them blessed. In every case it is the evidence
of grace. That is what makes the difference.
And whereas the justification before God is solely upon the
standing in Christ, that Christ has died, He has put away our
sin, He has blotted out our transgressions, the debt is paid, satisfaction
is made between God and our soul, the wrath of God taken away. That by faith in Christ and a
belief in Christ, that is what saves. And it is the Lord's righteousness
imputed to us as believers that enables us to stand faultless
before God's throne at last, not our works, good or bad, in
this life. But wherever the Lord then has
put away his people's sin, what flows from that will be a giving
of life to them, a giving of grace to them, and purifying
them, washing them with the washing of water by the Word, sanctifying
them, making them made to be partakers of glory, and making
them to be useful in the Church of God, or as in this passage
here, to be salt and to be light. And that sanctification is a
gradual work, it's a growth in grace and in the knowledge of
the Lord. And where the Lord has given
faith and given a hearing ear, it is through the preaching of
the Word, through the instruction of the Word, through the Lord's
teaching, that He brings the people to be pure in heart, makes
them to be what He'd have them to be. So they are blessed in
this respect. The Lord has begun a good work
in them. And may we be able to trace that
with us. not deny that the Lord has begun
with us, not deny that He has given us to believe that He has
passed by us when we are in our sin and bid us live, and that
we have those tokens that He has put away our sin at Calvary. That is the first, the most important
thing, that we truly know that the Lord has given us eternal
life, and that where that is so, that is our standing. And we should be encouraged.
We think only of all of the letters the Apostle sends to the churches. When you read them, you notice
the very first paragraph, first verses, and he extols the Lord
for the grace that he's given them. He acknowledges that they
are elect because they've been called. You look at each of those
letters, Corinth especially, he establishes that first, and
then he goes on in the further chapters to reprove, to reprove
them of their sinful walk, their conduct, the things that they're
doing that they should not do, abuse of the Lord's Supper, the
wrong walk, saying, one of I'm of Apollos, I'm of Peter, I'm
of Christ, divided contentions amongst the brethren, even things
in the church where there was adulteries and fornications. Those churches were not perfect. Those people were not perfect.
But they were called and they were saved. And so they listened
to the apostle. They took on board the instruction,
the warnings. They were taught through it.
and the Lord was dealing with them. And so the blessedness
is being a partaker of grace. It also is a blessedness by reason
of the heart being spiritual, of those things that the Lord
is working within, giving an appetite, making spiritually
minded, that is a blessing in itself. O the happiness arising,
says the hymn writer, with the life of God within. That is the
blessing that is now enjoyed by the people of God. May we
never think that to be called by grace and to be sanctified
is a dull thing, a hard thing, an unhappy thing, something that
is not as nice as the old nature or not as nice as the world.
But the blessedness is to walk with the Lord, to enjoy the Lord,
to feed upon His Word, to delight in His Word, to love His people
and to love His ways. There is a blessedness when that
life of God is in the soul. But it's also a blessedness by
what we can expect to see. And we have this in our text,
blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, is what
there is an expectation of what they shall see. They shall see
God. And I believe we can look at
this first in time, in this life. And I hope some of us can say
that this has already been true with us. We've seen God in our
trials. We've seen God in our prosperity. We've seen God in providence.
We've been like Psalm 107. Whoso is wise and will observe
these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness
of the Lord. We, like those of old, this is
the Lord's doing, and is marvellous in our eyes. All the thing proceedeth
from the Lord. What was it? They looked upon
the thing. They looked upon providence.
They looked upon what had been done, and they saw God. They
saw His hand. They saw His handiwork. And their
text says, those pure in heart, they shall see God. The world,
the world that lies in wickedness, and I've seen it. They've had
God work in their lives, in Providence. Things that I've looked upon,
I've said to them, that is the work of God. God has provided,
God has gone before. That's not just chance. That's
not just a coincidence. They haven't seen it. No, that
was just a chance. And yet they're professing Christians.
They cannot see it. And yet this is a promise, they
shall see God. Whosoever watches providence
will never lack a providence to watch. Those that are looking
and expecting for God to work in all of their lives will see
His work. And those that are pure in heart,
they'll see it in providence. They'll see it in creation, day
into day, utter a speech. What a blessed thing. When this
verse is fulfilled, when we see in creation, and we don't just
see it as the world sees it, but we see God in it. And that
is a blessed thing. Bless the Lord when you do. In
the word of God, in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself,
the Lord on the way to Emmaus, he preached to those, their heart
burned within them. This is a blessing that we would
expect and must expect as called by grace and as made pure in
heart by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, that we see
God. He's not hidden from us. We see His face in His Word,
in the preaching. We see it in the ordinances.
They're not just the bread and the wine, they're just not baptism
and water, but they are pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. He
do show forth the Lord's death till he come. I often think of
the sacrifices in the Old Testament. Without seeing God in them, without
seeing the Lord Jesus Christ in them, they must have been
such a weariness of flesh. What a waste of animals, what
a shedding of blood, what a mess, what foolish things that they
were if you did not see God. If they were just done as just
sacrifices that didn't point to the Lord Jesus Christ, there
were no doubt many that never had faith, that did not see past
those things that were done. Or just did them as thinking,
well, God's commanded it, I've done it, he must pat me on the
back and say I'm a good person. But never see God in them, ever
see the crucified one, the seed of the woman, the one that was
to come. We can be the same. Just rounds of dead service,
coming and going from God's house, or perhaps nowadays, not even
coming and going to God's house. And just think that, well, that's
all that is religion. We don't need to see him by faith. We don't need to enjoy him. We
don't need to have that walk with him and communion with him.
But such do not see God. Our Lord said, how blessed the
eyes of the disciples were because of what they saw, and their ears
because of what they heard. We shall also see God in the
grace of his people. Barnabas, when he came to Antioch,
we read that he saw the grace of God. Not just grace, but the
grace of God. And he himself was a gracious
man. Now sometimes the world does
notice. They cannot help but notice.
For the ones that really notice and really see God's handiwork,
are those that know it themselves, and they see it in others, and
they're glad of it too. But there is another, of course,
a wonderful expectation of a fulfilment of this world, for they shall
see God, and that is beyond the grave. The Apostle Paul, he says
that we shall then be known even, know even as we are known. We
shall be like him because we shall see him, as He is. They shall see His face in glory. And that is a blessed expectation. It is a promise that is put forth
here. If we really have seen God in
our lives, seen Him in Providence, seen Him in the house of God,
seen Him in the Word of God, seen Him in His people, we shall
see His face above. May the Lord shine upon His work. And even though we may mourn
over our evil hearts and those things that are within, yet may
we be able to be honest and sincere before God and men that we truly
do desire the things of God. We would walk in a right way. We would not be deceitful, hypocritical,
We will not seek to deceive, but we want to be honest and
open with God and truly serve Him in every way that He has
set forth in His Word. That we do want to be spiritually
minded. Let the Spirit bear witness with
our spirit as to what by His grace the Lord has made us. changed us, renewed us. And when we see many things that
are not right, may we know we have got a God to go to that
is the best refiner and teacher and the only one that can manage
our hearts and to sanctify us. May it bring us to really value
that purity And the Word before us this morning
make us really willing to cast out those things that are really
not of God, that are unholy, that are impure. And where we
have had that calm mind, pray that we might be given a spiritual
mind and to value that which solely is of the Lord, blessed,
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. May this word
describe us, and we desire that it describes us, and it be to
the Lord's honour and glory. Amen.