Matthew chapter 5. This past Wednesday evening, I preached
a message from this passage of Scripture, mainly in verses 3
through 6, concerning the blessed man, the happy man. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as we
saw Wednesday, in these verses describes to whom his message
is preached. Blessed, blessed. He is preaching to the blessed
or to the happy man. Jesus in these opening verses
tells us to whom he is preaching. Now, as we read in the first
two verses, he's preaching to a great multitude. There were
many people there under the sound of his voice. But as all preachers
do, the Lord Jesus Christ as well, being the prince of preachers,
he declares the truth of the gospel to all who will hear it. Yet this gospel, this same gospel
that is preached, is a savor of life unto life to some. Some men will hear this message. Some men will rejoice in the
message of the gospel of Christ. We preach this to all, but only
some will enjoy it. Some will receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit. Some will receive eternal life. And this gospel is always A savor,
a smell, a sweet smell. To those who believe, to those
who trust in Christ, the gospel is sweet. But to others, this
gospel is a savor of death, a smell, a stench of death unto death. If you hear this same gospel
message as the elect, The lost hear the same message of their
sin and inability to please God. They hear the same message of
Jesus Christ who obtained righteousness and redemption. They hear the
same message. They hear how God raised Him
from the dead and how Christ is seated on the throne. And
we say, repent. This is our message. Repent and
believe the gospel. This is a message that goes out
and every ear in this place has heard the message. Yet, some
will not bow. They will continue in darkness
because they love darkness rather than light. They will continue
to rebel and will not lose their life that they might save it.
Some men will even use the doctrine of election as an excuse. This
is astonishing, that they would use the doctrine of election
as an excuse as to why they will not come. They say, well, faith
is a gift of God's grace and, you know, if God wants me to
believe, He'll make me believe. Never a truer word has been spoken.
If you ever have faith at all, it's because God gave it to you.
This is the work of God, Jesus said, that you believe on Him
whom He has sent. No man can come unto Me, except
the Father which has sent Me draw him. Surely, if you believe, it is
because of election. It is because of the sovereign
mercy of God. But listen, if you will not believe,
that's your own fault. If you will not believe, that
will be your work, that will be your doing, and you will suffer
an eternal damnation for it. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. So then, in our text, the whole
of the Word of God here regarding the blessed, this is to whom
Christ is speaking. He's speaking to those who have
heard it, those who do hear it, those who rejoice in it. They
are blessed. This benediction of blessing
is pronounced upon them by the blessed man, Jesus Christ. Some men, man by nature, he surely desires to be blessed. He desires to be happy. And that's
what this word blessed means throughout these verses here
in Matthew chapter 5. Blessed means happy. The happy
man. The happy man. But happiness
never comes By the things of this world, Solomon said, vanity
of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. So what constitutes
true happiness? We saw this in Psalm 1, blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. But the blessed man, his delight is in the law of
the Lord. And in that law doth he meditate day and night. That's the blessed man, the righteous
man, the holy man. That's the blessed man. That's
the truly happy man. So then none of us are happy.
None of Adam's race are happy by nature because we always seek
to satisfy that happiness by the flesh, by looking to the
flesh. None of us are happy by nature
because Adam, our father, when he died, lost all sense of righteousness
and holiness. And so did we in him. And therefore,
the whole of nature, the whole fallen man seeks happiness in
all the wrong places. Man is depraved. and continues
to seek happiness in the things of the world which he cannot
find them. But Jesus, who is the holy, sinless
Son of God, who is always the happy man, He was made flesh,
He became a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, and yet He is the
blessed man. Why is He the blessed man? Why
was Christ always continually, perpetually happy? Because He
was sinless. He was righteous. Therefore,
we should give heed to the word, to his word on happiness. You
know, I go to bookstores and you see those books, self-help
books. There's a whole section of them.
Boy, there's plenty of them. And these people are supposed
authorities on helping. Helping self. They're really
good. They've got it all worked out.
They're professionals at making men happy. No, this man is the
one who's a professional. This is the one who truly knows
what happiness is about. He is the happy man. And so Jesus
says this, blessed are the poor in spirit. Who are those? Those
are not just poor in pocket, but poor in spiritual things. They are bankrupt. Blessed are
the spiritually bankrupt. Those who have no goodness, no
righteousness in themselves. What makes us happy? Who are
spiritually bankrupt? What's so happy about that? This
is the first working of God's mercy and salvation. Is to make
us see that we have nothing with which to please God. We are bankrupt. This is the first conviction
of sin. That all we have ever done And
all we ever do is against a holy and just God. And notice what
the progression of this is in verse 4. Blessed are they that
mourn. Those who are poor in spirit, what's the next progression?
They mourn for their sin. Blessed are you which mourn over
your sin. Remember in Psalm 32, the Lord
said, He dried up all my moisture became as Drought. What is that? He dries up all
of our schemes. He dries up all of our refreshments
in religion. All of our goodness turns to
dust in our mouth. And it's vile. It becomes nothing
in our hands. And we weep and we mourn because
of our loss. And we acknowledge our sins.
And what does that do? Next verse, blessed are the meek. You see the progression now.
Blessed are those who are abased. He shows us our spiritual poverty. We begin to mourn for our sins. And then He abases us and shows
us that there is no hope in ourselves. There's no help in ourselves.
There's nothing that we could ever do to please God. And yet
in grace He reveals this to the sinner of our need of righteousness. Verse 6, Blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness. He reveals man's need of righteousness. And blessed then is the spiritually
bankrupt. Blessed are they that mourn and
weep over their sin. Blessed are they that are abased.
Blessed are they which are starving to death for righteousness. Seeing this is no work of man,
but truly the work of God. If you have ever been convinced
of this, this is not a work of man. It wasn't the eloquence
of the preacher that ever made you see that. It is the Holy
Spirit of God. It is a work of supernatural
proportions. And we who are made to seethe
and feel the sharp pains of our depravity are truly blessed. Listen, depravity is not just
a doctrine to us. It's an experience. It's an experience. You see, I'm not just talking
about everyone else's depravity. I speak of my own depravity. I know my own depravity by nature. I know this to be so. I've experienced
it. Blessed are you if you have ever
experienced your depravity. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit. I like that song by Joseph Hart, The sinner is a sacred
thing, the Holy Ghost hath made him one. That's who exposes the sinner
is the Holy Spirit. He must bring us to the end of
all hope and confidence in our self-righteousness. And then
the Holy Spirit reveals to us the desperate need of righteousness
that can only be found in the righteous man, the blessed man. The only way that you and I are
ever going to be happy is if we are in the blessed man, Jesus
Christ. If we have union with him, only
then can we truly be happy. We see by his blood and righteousness
alone all the righteousness we need. By him poor sinners obtain the
kingdom of heaven. Isn't that what it said? Blessed
are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You
know why you receive the kingdom of heaven? You who are poor in
spirit, because Christ obtained it for you. He obtained it for
you. You remember in the book of Revelation
how that John was weeping. He saw the book in the right
hand of God and he began to what? Weep. He recognized his spiritual
poverty. He began to mourn for his sins.
He was abased. And he longed for righteousness.
He longed to understand how he could be accepted with God. And
then a man came and said, Weep not. Behold, the lion of the
tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book. And he turned,
and he saw the Lamb of God standing there in the midst. And what
did the Lamb of God do? He took the book from the right
hand of God that sat on the throne, and he opened it. He opened it. This is why the kingdom of heaven
is yours, because Christ obtained it for you, you poor, miserable
sinner. The kingdom of heaven is yours.
Now that doesn't make you happy, I don't know what will. Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted. Hear the word of comfort given
to you by God himself, you weeping sinner. Comfort ye, comfort ye
my people, saith the Lord. Speak comfortably unto them.
You tell Jerusalem her warfare is accomplished and she hath
received double at the hand of God for all her sins. Double. Double payment. How is it that you might receive
comfort? Weep not. The lion of the tribe of Judah
hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seals. You obey
sinner. Behold, Jesus Christ has made
even you, the lowest of men, to be heirs of all things. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. I tell you, I don't want this
world the way it is. You could try to give me the world the
way it is, and I don't want it. It's nothing but a headache.
But I tell you this, all things are mine. Christ has purchased
all things. for you, you lowest of men. And you who weep, who hunger
and thirst after righteousness, behold, God hath made him to
be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. How are you Starving to death
for righteousness, going to be filled with righteousness. Only
by the righteousness of Jesus Christ that He obtained for us.
And now then let's go on to the next verse. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed, happy are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy. Now this passage of Scripture
is used by workmongers who twist it to their own destruction. They teach, these workmongers
teach that men obtain mercy based on their work of mercifulness. They say, ah, if you want God's
mercy, then you should be a merciful person. If you want to obtain
mercy, then you should be merciful. No, most definitely that's not
what this is saying. Matter of fact, if that's what
it was saying, the Scripture verse should read like this,
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain justice. Now, if your mercifulness is
to obtain something from God, it would be justice then, not
mercy. Not mercy. If mercy is earned
by our mercifulness, then it is no longer mercy, but reward.
Oh, the word of the Lord Jesus Christ is not to those who are
rich in spirit, but to those who are bankrupt. Isn't that
so? In the blessed man, those that are bankrupt have nothing
to give God. We come then to Christ empty. We come to Christ with nothing. We come as beggars seeking mercy. Go to 2 Samuel chapter 9. This
is how we come. This is how we come, even as
Mephibosheth came. It's a good picture. It's a beautiful picture of how
we come to God for mercy. In 2 Samuel chapter 9, we read,
David said, yet is there any left of the house of Saul that
I might show him mercy or kindness for Jonathan's sake? And it was
told them of Ziba. Then Ziba says, yes, there's
one. In verse 3, Ziba said unto the king, Jonathan hath yet a
son that's lame on his feet. And the king said, and where
is he? And Ziba said, behold, he's in the house of Micah, the
son of Amul in Lodibar. Then king David sent and fetched
him out of the house of Micah, the son of Amul from Lodibar.
Now, when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul,
was come unto David, he fell on his face and did reverence. So what do we see? We see Mephibosheth
is the son of Saul. And this time, if a king were
to mount the throne, he was to eliminate the race of the former
king so that there should be no insurrection, no rebellion,
no usurping of authority. Saul's line was condemned to
death. Phibeshev was of that line. He
was condemned to death. Isn't that a picture of you and
me by nature? Condemned to death of a corrupt
line only worthy of the king's punishment. Matter of fact, you
know what the word Mephibosheth means? Shameful thing. Oh, isn't that a beautiful word
for you and me? That's our name. By nature, that's our name. Shameful
thing. And he's condemned and he's,
notice this, he's fetched by David. He's a lame man on His feet.
He could not be summoned. He could not come. And matter
of fact, if He was summoned, do you suppose He would come?
If He could, do you not suppose He would have ran for fear? He could not come, so He must
be fetched. Is that not true of you and me?
We are by nature lame on our feet and could by no means come
to God. Nor did we want to. because of the sentence of death.
And yet David desiring to do what? Show mercy. Now Mephibosheth
didn't know that, did he? He didn't have any clue. He was
just fetched. I tell you we have no clue of
God's mercy until we're fetched. I remember a preacher preaching
on this message fetching grace. That's what fetches us. It's
grace that fetches us and he brings us to the feet of Christ
And how did Mephibosheth come to the feet of David? he fell
down and Did what reverence? If any man is ever brought to
the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit He will never come
as an equal or a buddy. I That's modern religion today.
They think Jesus is somebody, your friend, your pal, that you
can just come to any old way. That's not how we view our Master.
That's not how we view our Savior. He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of lords. And
we do reverence Him. We fear Him. We bow before His
feet. And what did he say? He fell
on his feet and he said, What is thy servant? Behold thy servant. And David's purpose was to show
mercy for Jonathan's sake. And what's God's purpose in calling
you? It is to show you what? Mercy. Mercy for Christ's sake. That's what He's going to show
us who come. But I tell you what, Mephibosheth
had no peace until David said these words in verse 7. There
he was. He was trembling. He couldn't
do anything. He couldn't go anywhere. He was
lame on his feet. All he was ready for the sword
to fall on his head. That's all he was ready to expect. He expected the sword. But listen what David said. David
said unto him, fear not. Fear not, for I will surely show
thee kindness, mercy for Jonathan thy father's sake. And I will
restore unto thee all the lands of Saul thy father, and thou
shalt eat at my table continually." Continually. Now, upon this word of peace,
Isn't this the word of the Lord Jesus Christ to you? Come, come and feast at my table. You come and you sit with my
sons and I will make you heir of all things. And upon this news, what did
Mephibosheth do? Did Mephibosheth stand up and
say, okay, David, now I'm gonna earn that. All right, David,
you showed me mercy, but now I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna
earn your mercy. No, Mephibosheth did, after he
heard that, he did the same thing he did when he first came. He
bowed himself and did reverence and said, what? is thy servant,
that thou should look upon such a dead dog as I am." A dead dog. You see, this is
what true belief and faith in Christ produces. It produces
only a desire for mercy. You who believe, have you ever
stopped suing God for mercy? When does a believer ever stop
suing God and start earning mercy? Never! Never. When Mephibosheth
was pronounced to sit at David's table, was he miraculously cured? Did he somehow gain his leg strength
now because he received mercy from David, now that he can go
out and earn this? No. Matter of fact, the scripture
says he was still lame on his feet. He sat at that table, but
he was lame on his feet. Even so, we who have been fetched
by the sovereign grace of Christ, we only seek God's mercy. And oh, what mercy we have received. If you've ever received such
mercy, Yet we still confess that we
are but sinners saved by the grace of God. But out of such
mercies that we have been given, surely this is now our heart's
desire to show mercy. If you've ever received mercy,
I know this, it is your heart's desire to show it, to show it. Now man by nature is not merciful. Man by nature is selfish. Now
some men may appear to be merciful and show kindnesses to other
men. They may feed them, they may clothe them. But what good are such temporal
mercies if not accompanied with spiritual mercies? What good
is it? Here lies the great difference
between the natural mercies of man and the true believers of
Jesus Christ. For we not only desire to show
temporal mercies, and believer, listen to me, you should be merciful. Of all people, we should be the
most merciful people, seeing that we have received such great
mercy. Our Lord told Peter this, Peter
said, how often should I forgive my neighbor? Seven times? Oh no, 70 times seven. Perfectly, continually, you should
forgive. And he gave that parable of the
servant. He said the servant owed his
master a debt. And the master says, I'm going
to sell you, and I'm going to sell your family, and I'm going
to sell all your goods so that you could pay this debt that
you owe me. And the man fell down and said,
Oh, have mercy on me. And the master was moved with
compassion and he forgave him his debt. But then that servant
went around to this other servant that owed him a small amount
of money, and he began to choke that man. I tell you, if this is the heart
of a person professing to believe on Jesus Christ, there's real
question as to whether he knows mercy at all. You that have been forgiven much,
should you not forgive much as well? You bet you should. And
let me ask you this, who truly is more happy, a man who's merciful
or a man who's not? You bet the man who is merciful
is infinitely more happy. He has fewer cares than the man
who's always trying to inch out that extra dime from someone
else. God's people are to be merciful.
Why? We've obtained mercy. We've obtained
it. And listen, Jesus said, blessed
are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. What a wonderful
condition is this, that not only we have obtained mercy, listen,
we shall obtain mercy. This should make you most happy. This should make you most happy.
You that have mercy, you will receive more mercy. You shall
obtain it. God's going to give it to you.
Now then, moving on to the second one here. He said, Blessed are
the pure in heart. Now, like the verse before it,
men, workmongers, would try to twist it, and false teachers
would use this verse to say that a man's pureness of heart causes
him to be a child of God. Listen, blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God. They believe that pureness
of heart causes man to see God. They teach that pureness of heart
comes by man's personal obedience, which is nowhere taught in the
holy scriptures. Therefore, the Scripture says,
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. For by the law is what? The knowledge
of sin. That's what the law does. It
is a mirror. It only reveals what's there. It cannot cure it. One man said,
if you had a crooked fence and you were to put a true plum on
that fence, The plum would only show you the crookedness of the
fence. It wouldn't fix it. The law never
fixes it. It only shows it. And this false
gospel of progressive sanctification or progressive holiness is the
same lie that crept in the Church of Galatia. The Church of Galatia
said that Jesus Christ is the Savior, believe on Him, but you
need to be circumcised. What they did in Galatias, they
took out the whole law except for that one law of circumcision. Well, what is the church doing
today but taking out all of the law except for Exodus chapter
20? When they say that you should
be progressively sanctified, you should be progressively made
holy by your obedience, they cut out all circumcision, they
cut out all ordinances of sacrifices and governmental law and dietary
law. They cut out all that and they
just glue in there Exodus chapter 20. They say, well, you've got
to obey the Ten Commandments in order to be sanctified, in
order to make yourself progressively more holy. You know what Paul
called the Church of Galatia? Anathema Maranatha, he said,
you are accursed. Let them go to hell. Christ shall
profit you nothing. And so what do we say to anyone
who says about this matter of progressive holiness? Let them
go to hell. Christ will profit you nothing. You put that law to finish the
work of grace You've defiled the sacrifice, and Christ will
profit you nothing. These liars promote self-denial,
that by self-denial, self-discipline, and mortification of the flesh,
you can somehow make your heart purer. Purer. Friends, if you would
ever try to approach to God By this self-manufactured pureness,
God will surely cast you into outer darkness forever. So what does this mean, blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God? It does not mean
that a man should be happy if he would make his heart pure,
even because this is not possible. Our heart by nature is only evil
continually. Genesis chapter 6 and verse 5,
God saw that the heart of man, the imagination of the thoughts
of men were only evil continually. Well, pastor, that was before
the flood. Well, after the flood, he said the same thing. He said
man from his youth was only evil continually. This is our heart. This is what the heart of man
is. It's wicked. A deceived heart hath turned
him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul. Isaiah 44 and verse
20. He cannot deliver his soul. His heart is deceived. That's
what man's heart is. It is deceitful and desperately
wicked above all things. Yet here the promise of God is
to all his blessed and chosen people. Go to Isaiah, Ezekiel.
Ezekiel chapter 36 and see the blessing of the promise of God
to his elect. Ezekiel 36 and verse 26. A new
heart Also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh."
Notice what God does. He says, I'm going to take out.
He's not going to fix. He's not going to decorate the
stony heart. He's not going to change the
stony heart. What is he gonna do with it?
He said, I'm going to take it out. I'm gonna take it out. And in its place, what is he
going to do? I will give you a new heart. A new heart. A heart of flesh. You who are poor in spirit and
mourn for your sins and are abased, you know this, your heart by
nature is cold and dead as a stone. Your heart by nature is indifferent
to the gospel and to God and can by no means be cured. And if this is our case and our
condition, how then can we be happy? If our heart is in such
a state, surely we could never see God with such a heart. Jesus says plainly, except a
man be born again, born from above. Except God give you a
pure heart, you shall never see God. But you to whom God gives a pure
heart, blessed are you, happy are you. Why? You shall see God. You shall see God. Even because
God has given you a righteous nature. Salvation is not giving
your heart to God. What does He want that worthless
thing for? God doesn't want your heart. God has to give you a
new heart and take out the old one. Take out the old one. Whereas once we walked in unbelief
and our hearts despised the grace of God, we were deceived to think
we could establish our own righteousness to see God. But now God has given
us a new heart and created in us faith in Christ. For by grace you are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. Not of works,
lest any man should boast, for we are what? His workmanship. Created. You got a new heart? You don't
want to know how that got there? He created it. He made it in the image of his
son's heart. So then we may say with his righteous
garments on, I am holy as God's son. Blessed are you that have a pure
heart. You shall see God. You shall see God. Now we see him through a glass
darkly. But I see him. I know him. Don't you? When you hear him, don't you
know him? I tell you, when I hear men talk
of another Christ, alarms go off in my head immediately. That's
not Him. If they're talking about earning
salvation, that's not Christ. You talk about grace, and I say,
oh, that's Him. That's Him. That's the one who
gave me a new heart. And this is what He gives to
His people. And blessed, blessed are you, for you have received
mercy. All right, does that not make you happy that you've received
mercy? Should you not go and then show mercy? You bet you
should. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
And blessed are the pure in heart. You've received a new heart. You know that heart is perfect,
lacking nothing. Now you still have that old heart,
don't you? You still have it. One day, God's
gonna get rid of that completely. He will. I'll close with this. William
Huntington wrote this. He said, God has left that all
his children with the old man to remind us of our base origin,
to hide pride from our eyes, to exclude boasting from our
lips, and to keep us from putting confidence in the flesh. It is
to exercise our grace, especially patience, to make us watchful,
to make us sensible of the depths of man's fall, and finally, to
exalt the grace of God, to make us sick of self, sick of this
world, sick of sin, and to teach us to prize Christ, the great
physician, and to make us long for that perfect rest which remaineth
for the people of God. That's why God leaves that old
man there still. But you take comfort in this.
You have a pure heart. You will see God. No matter the
trouble you face in this life, not even the matter of the sin
of your own flesh, you will see God. May God bless your heart
with that and cause you to see that you are the happy man. You are the happy man in Christ.