Well may God be with us and help
us once again to turn to his word in the Beatitudes and this
time in Matthew 5 and we'll read verses 9 and 10. So the Gospel of Matthew chapter
5 and reading verses 9 and 10. Blessed are the peacemakers for
they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Well, we come this evening to
the ninth and tenth Beatitudes, and they're all short, they're
all direct, And they all have an application to each one of
us. So tonight we have this statement. Blessed are the peacemakers. And the promise for such is,
for they shall be called the children of God. Well, surely
that's a great blessing, is it not? To be called a child of
God, to be called by God as one of his children, and to enjoy
the fellowship and the blessing that children receive. from their
father. And so we have this statement
here, blessed are the peacemakers. It doesn't say, blessed are the
troublemakers. It says, blessed are the peacemakers. And it's quite clear, isn't it,
that a peacemaker is something that people go out of their way
to do. It's not something which perhaps
comes naturally. but it's something that requires
a doing because it's a peacemaker. People who make peace desire
to have peace and enjoy to encourage people in a peaceable way. It's wonderful, isn't it, when
we're blessed with peace, peace in our own hearts, and peace
in our own hearts when we are before God and we have the answer
of a good conscience. If we're not following the path
that the Lord sets out, we don't then enjoy peace, do we? Because
we have all those questions rising up in our hearts. But what a
mercy if God has given us a grace to desire to be a peacemaker. To go out of our way, perhaps,
to make peace. Sometimes such an attitude It
is costly to ourselves. Sometimes we have to deny ourselves. Sometimes we're not able to do
the things that we want to do. And perhaps sometimes we think
we're justified in following a certain course. But the great
question is, is it going to have a peaceable result? Or is it
going to cause friction? And is it going to cause enmity? And is it perhaps going to cause
anger? Well, here says the Word of God. Blessed are the peacemakers. If you and I, by grace, are able
to follow that injunction and then recognise the wonderful
favour that is to such, for they shall be called the children
of God. Well I'm sure that's our desire,
I hope it's our desire, that every one of us here tonight
wants to be called a child of God. A child of God. How terrible if we're not children
of God. If we're not children of God,
we shall never enjoy the glory of heaven. You should never be
with the saviour. You should never be with the
whole family of God. But we should be cast out and
we shall spend eternity with the devil and his angels. So
what a mercy then to be called a child of God. And that emanates
from those who truly follow this pattern of being a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God. And again, you
see, it's very positive, isn't it? For they shall be called
the children of God. There's no doubt about it. And
then the Lord goes on and says, blessed are they which are persecuted
for righteousness sake. It doesn't say, blessed are they
which are persecuted. Many people are persecuted, but
the blessing is, if we are living a godly life, a life which follows
the path of righteousness, We can then expect to find persecution. Persecution from one quarter
or another, because Satan hates those who are walking in a right
way, who desire righteousness, desire in their own lives, design
the lives of those with whom they do to live a righteous life. When you think what Christ gives,
that wonderful, blessed, glorious robe of his righteousness, which
is pure and white, spotless, no sin, and true righteousness
is like that, because it means what it says. It's right. It's not wrong. And what a good
thing to be a follower of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who lived a perfect life, a righteous life. And we have his example
to follow today. And so what a wonderful thing
is God gives us grace and a true desire to follow his steps, to
follow his path, and then to realise that in that path there
will be opposition, there will be persecution, because Satan
hates anybody that endeavours to follow a despised and crucified
man. Those who desire to follow The
many exhortations in the Word of God. The devil hates it. And he will make every effort
to turn us away from doing those things which are righteous. He
wants us to do those things which are unrighteous. Sometimes he
presents unrighteous things as though they were righteous. and
how we need to be very aware of the skill of our great enemy
the devil yes he goes about as an angel of light he pretends
all that he says and does is good and right and how needful
it is for us to be on our watch and to be aware of his plans
and aware of the cunningness he uses to endeavour to turn
us away from this wonderful situation of righteousness. You know, we've
had in an earlier statement, in the sixth statement, Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. You might think, well, that's
obvious. Well, we might think it's obvious,
but the difficulty is, devil hates righteousness and therefore
he'll do all that he can to turn us into those ways which are
unrighteous. Now the fact is that because
by the grace of God we should desire to live and to follow
a righteous path, we can expect opposition. The devil will stir
up people to mock us and to cast aspersions at us and to endeavour
to turn us away from those ways are righteous and therefore that's
One of the reasons we have this statement here, God blessedly
tells us, blessed are they which are persecuted. So that if we
are following a righteous path, and we are persecuted, we should
think, well, bless God. He says that we are blessed in
this path. And that will be a comfort to
us. And that will be an encouragement
to us to believe that we are doing indeed the will of Almighty
God. That's the answer of a good conscience
and how valuable that is. To our natural life, it'll be
costly. We shall face opposition. We shall face persecution. But let us remember, we only
have one Master, and that's our great and glorious Saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life to atone for our sins, that
we might receive that wonderful robe of righteousness, not because
of what we've done, but because of what he has done. So, as we
think of such words, we're then told, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Eternal bliss. What a wonderful
reward, we might say. In this life, we're not promised
an easy path. We're promised the opposite.
But what a glorious prospect there is to realize that before
such is the Kingdom of Heaven. And glory to God, there is a
place reserved in Heaven for every one of His people which
the devil cannot take away. It's there from eternity. and it will be there until we
take our place. Humbling, isn't it? Wonderful,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Well, may we rejoice
in such truths and praise God for it.