May it please God to be with
us and help us again this evening. We'll continue our meditation
in what we know generally as the Beatitudes. and they occur
in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and we've already dealt with
four of them, and tonight we'll speak on verses seven and eight. So Matthew chapter five and verses
seven and eight. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Well, we read together in that
103rd Psalm a number of times where we read of the great and
wonderful mercy of our God and indeed mercy is a wonderful theme
and to every true believer we rejoice in it because we know
how needful it is and what a blessing it is when we receive mercy from
our God. Unworthy as we are yet we are
able by the grace of God to come boldly unto the throne of grace
and we can plead that lovely and simple prayer of the publican,
God be merciful to me, a sinner. So we can understand perhaps
if the Lord has given us a true desire for God to be merciful
unto us. And as I've said, every true
believer will pass that way because we will all recognise we are
guilty before a holy God. We all deserve be punished for
our sins and we will all plead for that mercy to God. So here
we have this statement where the Lord said, blessed are the
merciful. It's interesting, I'm sure you
know John Kelvin and in John Kelvin's commentary, he always
gives his own translation. He was obviously a very able
scholar. And he says, happy, instead of
blessed, he uses the words happy. So we can just think of that,
can't we, here? Happy are the merciful. We're very happy, aren't we?
And very blessed when God shows to us his mercy, And I believe
that we also are blessed and we are happy when we show mercy
to others. And it's a great sign of the
grace of God when he enables us to be merciful to others,
perhaps those who've been very harsh against us, perhaps antagonistic
against us, and yet you see to have what we can term as the
Spirit of Christ, who is gloriously merciful to his people. And surely such a wonderful example
should make us merciful to others. And the Word of God encourages
us in these things. You know, we can read about the
wonderful favour and being merciful, and in Colossians, beautiful
epistle, the third chapter and twelfth verse, this is what we
read. Put on therefore as the elect of God, that means as a
true believer, holy and beloved, boughs of mercies. That means
feelingly merciful. Kindness, humbleness of mind,
meekness, long-suffering. You know, it's a great blessing
when you and I can read the epistles of Paul and recognise the relevance
that such words have in our life today and how they do follow
the great and glorious example of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Again in the Psalms, we read
that 103rd Psalm, a number of times it speaks of mercy, I won't
go through it again, but Psalm 18 also encourages us, and in
verse 25 we read, with a merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful,
and with an upright man, thou wilt show thyself upright. It's good to realise that mercy
occurs many times in the Word of God and how necessary it is
that you and I are the recipients of God's mercy and that you and
I are merciful to others. We should not hold things against
people, we should be those who forgive When you think that Christ
has forgiven us of all our sins, we should never hold things against
people. We should also always be willing to forgive them. And the Lord himself, as we read
in Psalm 145, the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. Blessing
indeed, if you and I have known his graciousness and also known
his compassion. And then he goes on, slow to
anger. You think of your life and think
of my life, we should have been cut off, shouldn't we? Because
we've done those things which were wrong. And yet what do we
see? God is slow to anger. And then
he says, and of great mercy. Well, if we're great sinners,
we need great mercy. And if we have received great
mercy, it must influence you and me in our little lives and
show the same mercy to others. It's a wonderful, example, these
beatitudes, and we should be thankful for them, blessed are
the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. It's a wonderful
promise, isn't it, to the true believer. We are to be merciful,
and as God gives us grace, so to do, and so to be, we can believe
the promise we shall receive. for they shall obtain mercy. Well, I hope we can rejoice in
such great truths. And then the Lord goes on and
says to the multitude, blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God. Well, as we know, our heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. and we're
born in sin and we're shapen in sin. But it's a great blessing
if therefore God enables us to truly desire in our hearts to
have pure desires, God-honouring desires. I wonder if you often
pray for that. You look into your heart and
see so many unpure things, unpure desires. and yet to realize the
Lord has said, blessed are the pure in heart. Again, turning
to the book of Psalms, David tells us there in the 24th Psalm,
it's a well-known Psalm, in verses four and five, he says this.
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted
up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully it's a very
strong statement isn't it because again if you look in our hearts
and find we do lean to vanity and we do lean to deceit and
it's only by the power and spirit of God that you and I can be
delivered from sit that situation and therefore in and of ourselves
we don't have a a pure heart but what a blessing if we understand
something of our new nature that god-given nature when we are
born again in his holy spirit and the desire is to have a pure
heart that means really to turn away from sin and it's a battle
isn't it it's a constant battle It always will be. But our God
is gracious. And the Lord goes on to tell
us. Now, the end of the commandment
is charity out of a pure heart. That means love out of a pure
heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. So blessed are the pure in heart.
And again, there's a wonderful promise. for they shall see God. Now I hope and trust and believe
that we should all be amongst those who desire to see God. And that's really in two ways.
You and I see God by faith as we journey through this world. We see God as the Lord speaks
his promises into our heart. by faith we therefore see God. And in those times we have good
and pure desires. What a merciful favour it is
then if God looks upon us and we have this wonderful promise,
and it is a wonderful promise, for they shall see God. And again we turn for comfort
to the Psalms and Again, Psalm 17 tells us this. As for me,
David speaking, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake
with thy likeness. Well, what a wonderful statement
that is. And that really is an amazing test, isn't it? Of your
religion and my religion. as we can look forward. We look
for things in this life, don't we? We try and find satisfaction
in the things of time. But we will never truly do so. And yet you see, the psalmist
tells us this great truth. I shall be satisfied, we will
be, by God's grace, when I awake with thy likeness. when we are
found in glory with the Saviour, face to face, and there to spend
a never-ending eternity. Well, it's a glorious prospect,
and I hope as we just ponder these couple of verses, we can
realise the relevance of them. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Amen.