Catharoscardia. You know what that means? You
have some idea. I know you do. Cardia. Everybody
knows about cardiac today, don't they? Pretty soon just about
everybody in this building is going to have a stent, right?
A cardiac stent. I'm ahead of you. but pretty
soon everybody's going to, pretty much anyway. We know about cardiac,
that's the heart, all right? And that's what we're going to
talk about today. Blessed, verse eight of Matthew five, blessed
are the pure in heart where they shall see God. What a statement.
Blessed are the pure in heart. What does it mean to be pure
in heart? Who are the pure in heart? What
is it to be pure? Is there such a thing as being
partly pure? Can a person be 50% pure and
another person 60 or 70 or 80? Or we're just talking about 100%
pure. Well, I can tell you right now,
this is talking about 100% pure. And when you think about that,
it's a really convicting message. But one of the things I want
to emphasize as we go through these Beatitudes, we continue
through the Sermon on the Mount, is that whenever we see these
qualities of spiritual character, and that's what they are, blessed
are the poor in spirit. We talked about that one. Blessed
are they that mourn. What kind of mourning? Everybody
mourns in some way. And he says, blessed are the
meek, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous, blessed
are the merciful. We need to continually understand
that these qualities as Christ describes them here and uses
them is in the context of citizens of the kingdom of heaven. It's
in the context of salvation by the grace of God. These things
are not natural to man. They're not natural to man. The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."
That's a given in the scripture. So whenever we talk about somebody
who's poor in spirit or somebody who's mourning in this way, someone
who is meek, someone who hungers and thirsts after righteousness,
someone who is merciful, compassionate, we're not talking about in ways
that the natural man can attain those things. You understand
that. The natural man, and what are
we talking about there? I was talking about this on the
television program this morning. The natural man is all of us
as we are naturally born. And how are we born? What does
the Bible say about our birth, our physical first birth? Is that as we fell in Adam, we're
born spiritually dead. That means the absence of spiritual
life. So that we will not receive the
things that honor and glorify God, things of the Spirit. That's
why Christ said we must be born again. But now another thing
you have to understand is that Satan has his counterfeits of
all of this. There's two things that can deceive
here. Number one is the natural man can attain to things that
may look like this, but they're not really like this. You know,
somebody poor in spirit, you know, somebody who realizes that
he's no good, things like that. Mourning, like I said, we all
mourn, everybody mourns. Even the natural man mourns sometimes
over things, but not like this, not this morning. The meek, somebody
who's submissive. Thirst, hunger and thirst after
righteousness. The Jews followed after, the
unbelieving Jews followed after righteousness. But they didn't
attain it, scripture says. They were hungry and thirsty
for righteousness, but it was one that was way lower than what
God requires. And that's one of the main themes
of the Sermon on the Mount. That's why Christ said, except
your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you will no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.
So they hungered and thirsted after a righteousness, but not
God's righteousness. and then merciful. Now we know
unbelievers can do acts of compassion and charity. An atheist, for
example, I can tell you about an atheist who gave millions
of dollars to charity. Wanted to show mercy to orphans
and widows. Well, that's not who Christ is
speaking of here. He says here that those who are
merciful, it says, they shall obtain mercy. He's talking about
mercy from God, compassion from God. That is fat. Now the word there is just plain
compassion, but it's also in the context of the scripture,
anybody who receives this kind of mercy from God, is one who
receives mercy that's based upon justice satisfied. That's why
last week we went over that, the two words for mercy. God be merciful to me, the sinner. And you cannot tell the difference
between a child of God performing, for example, an act of mercy
and an unbeliever performing an act of mercy except by what? Their testimony. What's your
hope? Now that's where we come to the
pure in heart. Now, and let me say this, the
acts of mercy, for example, the poverty of spirit, in a believer
it's all sanctified. It means it's set apart from
the world and what the world can attain. And it's set apart
by the grace of God. And the motive does also give
the difference. An act of mercy performed by
a true believer is to be motivated by grace, gratitude, and love. But now, you know, there's a
lot of unbelievers who'll say that they do these things not
hoping for anything in return. But it's just talk unless they're
looking to Christ for all of salvation. Now that's so. And we'll see that later on.
But this pure in heart, what is the heart? Well, first of
all, what is pure? Pure means cleansed. That's what
the word means. It means clean. White, spotless,
clean. That's what it means. So there's
no such thing as degrees of purity in this thought here. This is
not doing the best you can, say, if the best you can does not
measure up to the standard that God requires. So this pure means
cleansed. Blessed are the clean in heart. Now, what is the heart? Well,
in the Bible, you know, I think a lot of people, because of the
romanticism of poetry and songs in the West, you know, they think
of heart as emotions, and they think of it as good intentions.
You know what a lot of people, for example, in false Christianity,
when they read passages like this, blessed are the pure in
heart, you know who they think that the pure in heart are? They
are those who have good intentions. And you know you've heard the
old saying, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Incidentally, that's not a biblical verse. But you know, it can be
true. The pure in heart are not those
who just simply intend to do good. Good intentions. The heart in the Bible, and a
lot of times, you know, we do this, I do it too, you know,
we'll talk about, there's a difference, you know, somebody says salvation
is, I heard a preacher say one time, salvation is the difference
of 12 inches from here to here. Well, not really. But not literally. This heart
here in my body is not the heart that's being spoken of here.
This beating heart. It's got all those arteries that
surround it, all those chambers, all those valves that pumps the
physical blood. This is not a physical issue.
This is a spiritual thing. So what is the heart? Well, the
heart in the Bible always involves the mind, how you think. The Bible says that as a man
thinketh, so is he. Your thoughts, really, that's
who you are. If you really want to know what
you are, who you are, don't judge the book by its cover. We say
that, don't we? What about your thoughts? That's
the mind. Now, it's also the affections. That's the heart. All this together
now. I mean, you don't have inside
your chest an organ that's segmented up like this, you know? No. Your
mind, your affections, what does that mean? It means what you
love, what you desire, that's the heart. The desires of the
heart. You husbands love your wives,
as Christ loved the church. And wives, you love your husbands,
too. That you're each other's desire
in that way. You're children, you love them.
You desire the best for them. Do you love the word of God?
That's not a natural love, is it? It's also the will. That's part
of the heart. What you will choose. Based upon
what you know to be true, And what you want to do, your desires,
that's what you choose. Why is it the scripture says
that man by nature will not choose the things of God, the things
of the glory of God, you say? It's because the natural heart
is sinful. We'll see that in just a moment.
But now the heart also contains the conscience. Now what is the
conscience? Well, in the heart, in the mind,
It's the seat of judgment by which you judge the value or
the worthlessness of a thing. Now, like for example, somebody
comes along and preaches the true gospel. What does the Bible
say about the natural man? It says, it says, the preaching
of the cross, the person and work of Christ as the ground
of salvation, his blood, his righteousness imputed, his glory
is foolishness to them that are perishing. And we've talked about that.
That's how they judge it. I've had people tell me, said,
I don't want to hear what you have to say. What are they doing? They're making a judgment out
of the natural heart. They're saying, what you have
to say is not worth my time or worth my hearing. Certainly not
worth my believing. Anybody who hears the gospel
preach and walks away unaffected, without believing it, what does
that tell you about their heart? It tells you that it's the natural
heart. and then that's the back that's
the so what does the bible say about the site it says but to
them who are being saved it's the power of god it's the wisdom
of god this is the glorious this is the best message this best
news i've ever heard our righteousness of god that i can call mine and
stand before a holy God who knows me better than I know myself.
I know he knows me better than you know me. But he knows me
better than I know myself. A righteousness of his that I
can call mine and stand before him and be accepted. That's the
best news I've ever heard. And that comes from a convicted
heart. Pure in heart, that word is catharoscardia. And the reason I say that is
because we get our word, that word pure in heart, we get our
word catharsis. You ever heard catharsis? Something
that is cathartic? We get our English word cathartic
from that. Now in psychology, cathartic
means to purify or purge your emotions. Have you ever felt
down and all of a sudden a song you like comes on the radio and
makes you happy? That song was cathartic. That's
what that means. I've done that. Or you see somebody
you love and that makes you happy. You're not depressed anymore.
That's cathartic. That's what psychology says.
In medicine, cathartic means to purge out the impurities.
My little nephew one time got into the washroom and decided
he was going to eat a cup full of Tide. What'd they do? They took him to the emergency
room and you know what they did? They pumped out his stomach.
That was cathartic. They purged his stomach. Somebody
swallows poison that you want to purge. That's what that means. In ethics, It's a person who's
been purged from sinful, corrupt desires. Not actions now, desire. One who's free from sin and guilt. And it also describes one who's
free from any mixture of dishonesty with truth, like hypocrisy. There's
no hypocrisy. No mixture of hypocrisy with
sincerity. In other words, it describes
one who is blameless and without what the scripture calls guile. Now who among us, don't raise
your hand, who among us can honestly know ourselves and say I'm standing
before you as one who's pure in heart, considering my thoughts,
my desires throughout any given day? What's he talking about? You
remember I told you the story about the fellow who told me
that he doesn't sin anymore. And I asked him, I said, well,
if somebody could make a movie of your thoughts, a film of your
thoughts, just in one day, would you, and we're gonna show them
at church on Sunday morning, you're gonna sit right there
in the front of the congregation, we're gonna show your thoughts,
just your thoughts. I said, how long do you think
you would stay in that congregation? Well, first of all, consider
our own thoughts and desires and motives and goals, even our
own judgments, and ask ourselves, do we have any thoughts? Ask
yourself, do I have any thoughts that are sinful? Any desires,
motives, goals, or judgments that are sinful? And understand
before we answer that question in our own minds that God knows
the thoughts of our hearts. He knows the score. We can fool
other people, and sometimes we can even fool ourselves, but
we can't fool God. Remember Hebrews 4, the word
of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting asunder even to
the marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. I've
got that referenced here. If we're honest, even we who
claim to be saved by grace will admit that we struggle constantly
against the flesh, which consist in sinful thoughts, sinful desires,
motives. Think about it. Paul wrote about
it in Romans 7, didn't he? He said, I want to do good, but
I can't. Not the good that I want to do
now. I want to be like Christ. That's what Paul's saying there.
I want to think like Christ, who had no sinful thoughts, but
he said, sin that dwells in me keeps me down. In fact, he even
made this statement. Here's a man who said in Romans
6, I'm dead to sin, and I'm free from sin. And then in Romans
7, 14, he says, I'm a slave to sin. What's he doing? What is
he? Is he Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Or has he got the two natures,
one that's sinless and one that's nothing but sin? Is that what
he? No, that's nonsense. What he's simply saying is that
in Christ, I'm free. I'm not guilty. But in myself,
I'm still a sinner and I can't rise above it. Oh, I can be a better person.
I can do that with the help of God, but I still cannot be rid
of sin so as to look within my own heart and based on my thoughts,
my motives, my goals, my desires, tell you that I have a perfectly
pure heart in that way. Can't do it. I'd be lying. That shows you don't have a pure
heart to begin with, because you're lying about that. Don't see yourself. Secondly,
consider what the Bible says about sin being not simply a
matter of actions, but a matter of a bad heart. Where does sin
come from? Why, preachers, down there at
the liquor store. Don't go in there. Don't defile
yourself. Oh, it's down there in that movie
house. That's where sin is. Don't do that. Taste not, touch
not, handle not. Now what religion says? I remember when I first came
down here in 85, there was a couple here who'd gotten back from a
A seminar where the preacher had told them to go home and
purge their homes of everything that causes them to sin. Well,
my soul, what you got to do is go home and cut your throat. Sin's not in these things. You
know, Christ had... That's one of the most fundamental
biblical principles. Sin is not in things. Now, are there things that I
need to stay away from? Yes, and you want to know why?
Because it brings out me. Things I don't need to look at,
things I don't need to hear. But it's not because sin is in
me, it's in the heart. That's what Christ said in Matthew
15. He says, look here, he says,
for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Then, and when he starts in,
when we get over here and starts in Matthew 5.21, you've heard
it said by them of old, thou shalt not kill. What's he doing?
He's showing that the law is not just a prohibition on sinful
actions, but the law reaches the heart. It's sinful, it's
murder to think it. It's adultery to lust after a
woman. Or a woman after a man. That's
adultery. What does that make me? You say, I don't want to be around
that person. They're a sinner. Why not? We've got something
in common. I understand the wisdom that
people use when we teach our children. Don't hang around with
that crowd. Don't hang around with this crowd. I know that.
I understand that. I don't want my little grandkids
growing up and hanging around with a drug crowd. I don't want
that. But it's not because they're
sinners, because my little grandson's a sinner too. We're all sinners. Well, the Bible shows that this,
whatever this purity of heart is, it's not natural to fall
in sinful man. None of us by nature have it.
And that's proven by the fact, mainly, and listen to this, I
want you, don't let this go by you. You know the sinfulness
of man, the depravity of man, is mainly shown by the fact that
when we do realize that we've got a problem, sin, and you know
just about everybody out here today is gonna say I'm a sinner. Most everybody. But when we realize
our problem, we seek catharsis Relief purging in ourselves,
in our religion, in our works, in our sufferings. I remember going to a funeral,
I was a little boy, and the preacher, his whole message was about this
lady, poor old lady, and I don't know what she believed. I'd never
heard the gospel then, but his whole message was, I know she's
in heaven because she suffered here on earth. Well, my friend,
there's not enough human suffering that we can go through that'll
get us into heaven. Getting into heaven is based
on the sufferings of another person. His suffering unto death,
the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you find catharsis? That's
why I stated that. This catharoscardia. Where do
you find relief? That's the issue, isn't it? And
Jeremiah said it in Jeremiah 17, the heart's deceitful above
all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it? That's not talking
about somebody else, folks. That's talking about me and you
in our natural state. We will not, of our own desires,
believe and receive God's way of salvation in Christ because
it leaves us no room to glory. That's an evil heart of unbelief.
That's what Paul calls that. It's what Stephen and others
in the Bible called the uncircumcised heart. Remember when Stephen
preached the gospel in Acts 7, and they hated what he said,
and he said, you stiff-necked, that means proud, self-righteous,
unsubmissive, not meek, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears. He's talking about spiritual
circumcision. Paul spoke of that in Romans
chapter 2. He says he's a Jew which is one
not outwardly but inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart.
What is that circumcision of the heart? Well, I want you to
look at Psalm 24 with me. Turn to Psalm 24. The circumcised
heart and the pure in heart. Now, here's what I'm leading
to. The pure in heart. What is a
pure heart? That's the regenerate heart.
The born-again person. That's who he's talking about.
It's the circumcised heart. Circumcision was the physical
cutting away of the filth of the flesh. What is the circumcised
heart? What is that cutting away of
the filth of the flesh? It is when a sinner is brought
by the Holy Spirit, he's given a new heart, and God said that,
and I've got these scriptures listed in your lesson here. He
said, I'll give him a new heart. Now does that mean that when
we are born again, when we're given a new heart, that we no
longer have sinful desires, sinful thoughts? No, it doesn't mean
that at all. That's not the pure heart that he's talking about.
One day we will have that pure heart, that kind of pure heart,
when we die and go to be with the Lord. But what he's talking
about, and see, we still have the flesh to deal with. and it
does contaminate our thoughts and it does contaminate our desires
and our goals. It contaminates everything we
think, say, and do. That's why Paul said, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? But this pure heart is one that
is purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's one that's purified
by faith. Not by our believing, but by
looking to Christ, whose blood cleanses us from all sin. That's the pure in heart that
he's talking about. Look at Psalm 24, verse 1. He says, The earth is the Lord's
and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein,
for he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon
the floods. Who shall ascend unto the hill
of the Lord? Who's gonna get to God? Everybody,
you hear the mountain analogy, we're all going up the mountain,
you're going your way, I'm going mine, but we're all going, well
that's not true. But who's going to ascend into
the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place,
look at verse four, he that hath clean hands. That means he who
has done no sin. You've not done anything that's
sinful. And a pure heart. who have not
lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." Wow. That's who's going to get to
God? Well, if you base that on works, if you base that on character
and conduct, or even enablements, we're not going to make it. I
got news for you, if that's what it's based on. See, in light of this, what God's
word reveals about us in our natural state, how could any
of us say we're blessed? He says blessed are the pure
in heart. And then he says they shall see
God. Talked about it last week. Moses
saw God. Saw him who's invisible. How
did he see God? God said, you can't stand before
me face to face. You can't come to me on your
own. on your own merits you can't
do that but I'll let you see my back part and I'm gonna what
hide you in the cleft of the rock set you on a rock and I'll
hide you in the cleft of the rock well look on he says now
listen this he says in verse six or verse five He shall receive
the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of
his salvation." Now whoever he's talking about who is going to
have clean hands and a pure heart and standing before God and being
accepted with God and seeing God, he's somebody that God has
saved. You see now if you are, listen,
if you're born pure and innocent and you live a pure and innocent
life, and you never have any sinful thoughts or desires, let
me tell you something, you don't need salvation. You're okay. If you're sitting on the beach,
taken in the sun, it'd be useless for the lifeguard to jump in
to save you. You're not drowning. But my friend,
all of us by nature are drowning in a sea of sin. We need salvation. So whoever he's talking about
there, he's going to be talking about the Lord's righteousness
and the God of his salvation. And then look at verse six. This
is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face,
want to see God, his favor. Oh, Jacob, I'm the Lord. I changed not. Therefore you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. Well, where are we going to find
this purity? Where are we gonna find it? Look
at verse seven. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory
shall come in. There's where we're gonna find
it. The King of glory. Who is this King of glory? The
Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, Christ. That's
what he's talking about. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory
shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory. The pure in heart, and what this
is basically teaching us, is that the pure in heart are those
whose hearts are cleansed from the guilt and defilement of all
sin. Not the contamination now. Not
the influences. But the guilt, the condemnation. And I want you to turn to one
verse and I'll hurry and we'll quit. Turn to Hebrews 10. We'll close
with this. It's the heart that the condemnation
and the guilt that brings condemnation is cleansed by looking to Jesus
Christ as the author and finisher of our faith, purified by faith.
We know that if God were to judge us at any time based upon our
best thoughts, let alone our worst, we'd be condemned forever. But in Christ, by the washing
and cleansing of His blood, all the guilt and all the power of
sin to keep me from looking to Him has been washed away. Look
at Hebrews 10 and verse 19. Now, who's going to ascend into
the hill? He says, having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter the holiest Who's going to stand before God?
Who's going to stand in His holy place having boldness, confidence,
liberty to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus? There
it is. There's the pure heart. By a new and living way which
He, Christ, hath consecrated, made new for us through the veil,
that is to say His flesh, this is my body which is broken for
you. Remember? And having a high priest over
the house of God. Now look at verse 22. Let us
draw near with a true heart. A true heart is a pure heart,
a sincere heart. In full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil. That's a guilty, condemned
conscience. That's the kind of heart that
finds catharsis in the works of men. See? But our hearts have
been sprinkled, sprinkled with what? The blood of Christ, and
an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. What's
the pure in heart? Who are the pure in heart? They're
sinners saved by the grace of God who look to Christ for all
salvation, for all cleansing. What can wash away my sins? There's
no other catharsis, nothing but the blood of Jesus. All right.