Well we come this week to the
start of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 and that
sermon lasts for three chapters of Matthew's Gospel, 5, 6 and
7. But this morning I just want to think with you about the first
few verses. Let's just read the first 12
verses together. And seeing the multitudes, he,
that is Jesus, seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and
when he was set, sat down, his disciples came unto him, and
he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God. 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. Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. Now it was my original intention
to cover all those verses in the sermon, but I quickly came
to the conclusion that it was far too much for one go, so I
don't want to give you spiritual indigestion. So we'll just look
at the basic principles, the underlying way to look at these
verses this morning. So this is the Sermon on the
Mount, and I think you would agree that Certainly amongst
older people, the older generation, who have very little to do with
Christianity, but what they do know is they think the Sermon
on the Mount was a very good thing. They think Jesus was a
good teacher, and their kind of Christianity is the Sermon
on the Mount. That's what we need. Don't bother
getting into too much complicated, convoluted doctrine. Just give
us the Sermon on the Mount. We know where we are with that.
It's practical teaching on life morals. And if we all did it,
gosh, we'd have a good society, wouldn't we? It would be a good
society. This is the common man's Christianity,
not the highfalutin theologian's Christianity. The common man's
Christianity. Yes, we like this. Jesus was
a good man and this is what he taught. No, you know, you're
missing the point completely if that's the way you think.
Remember why the Gospels were written, the four Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John. Why were they written? It's the
God-given testimony. God gave this testimony. It's
the witness of God the Holy Spirit by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
but it's the Holy Spirit that inspired them, the God-given
testimony concerning His Son. What's it about? It's about the
Son of God. It's about the Messiah, the Old
Testament Messiah, the Promised One, the seed of the woman who
would come, the seed of Abraham in whom all nations of the earth,
people from all nations of the earth would be blessed in this
seed, this Messiah, this seed of Abraham that would come, the
promised Messiah coming to redeem a people from the curse, the
condemnation of the law, of the justice of God. Why is there
condemnation? Because of sin, because of sin. You know, we see so much It's
a term I've learned to use recently, and I don't really know what
it means, but I think I've got a good idea. Woke, have you heard?
You know, it's political correctness all around us. The whole society
is full of political correctness all around us. Do you know what
I consider the vast majority of it to be? It's an excuse for
sin. It's an excuse for sin in society.
People don't want to admit sin. Their problem Their problem is
that they're sinners before God. That's their problem, they're
sinners. And this is about the Messiah. This is about God's
answer to sin. This is about the Messiah, the
Christ. God become man to redeem his
people from the curse of the law, that heaven might be populated
with a people who are sinners by nature, but who are made white
in the blood of Christ, who are made whiter than white in the
blood of Christ. whose sins are taken away by
the blood of Christ. It's in him is all blessing and
all acceptance with God. Jesus is what this is about. These Gospels present the account
of the man Jesus. The man Jesus, born as a baby
in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of Herod the king, grew
up in Nazareth in Galilee as the carpenter's son, lived in
a family with brothers and sisters, went about in obscurity for 28
years after the Magi came to see him, till he was about 30
years old. And then he comes preaching.
He comes and he's baptized, he's tempted of the devil, God puts
him deliberately in the way of that to prove that he is the
sinless substitute for sinners. And then he begins preaching
the gospel at the end of chapter 4, the second half of chapter
4. And now we see it more fully laid out before us, the teaching
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, the man, is his people's
savior. That's why he was called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Because it's
in him alone that there is life eternal. Don't think for one
minute that I am putting before you a possibility for somebody
for you to follow, a good possibility, oh here's another good possibility.
No, I'm telling you that this man is unique in the true sense
of that word. There is nobody else like him.
He is God become man. He is the Son of God. He is the
Messiah. He is the Christ of God. In Him
alone is life eternal. The words He spoke are the words
of eternal life. He alone is the true prophet
of God to His people, the one who speaks the Word of God. For
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. John's Gospel, start of John's
Gospel. He is the one who verbalizes the mind of God to his people. He is our prophet. We need somebody
to intercede between us as sinners and God who is holy, who dwells
in unapproachable light. And we need a priest to do that.
But we don't need a priest who is a man, we need a high priest,
a great high priest, who is God alone. Read Hebrews, as we're
doing on Wednesday nights, we'll get to it. He is our great high
priest. And we need one to be our leader. Oh, you know what they say is
the best form of government? You know, there's anarchy, there's
all sorts of things that people like. Everybody thinks that democracy
is wonderful, but do you know the founding fathers knew that
democracy was okay as far as it went. It was basically the
least bad of all the alternatives, not that it was particularly
good, because it depends on the decisions of sinful people. And
how much better is a benign dictator in all things? Well, our Lord
Jesus Christ is our glorious benign king to his people. He is the king who rules over
all his people with such compassion and grace. He is God's mouthpiece,
the Word. God, who at sundry times and
in divers manners, says the opening of Hebrews, spoke to us by the
prophets, to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by his Son, by whom he made the worlds. by whom he
upholds all things. The chair you're sitting on now,
the laws of physics that keep things together. He is actively
now, by his sovereign divine volition, holding all things
together. No, the words that we look at,
those 12 verses we read, recorded there, written by Matthew, inspired
by the Holy Spirit, they're not the words of a moral teacher. They're not the words of some
guru, some Sikh guru, or the Buddha, or some Eastern mystic. No, they're not those words. These are the words from God
in heaven. When Christ came down and spoke,
these are the words from God in heaven. In John chapter 3
verses 12 and 13, I will paraphrase it, but if you look for yourself,
you look and see if what I'm saying is not essentially what
Christ is saying. He said there to Nicodemus, I,
the Son of Man, Why does he say that? Well, he's the Son of God
who's come as a man. The Son of Man. I, the Son of
Man, came down from heaven to teach you heavenly things. How
else are you going to know heavenly things? Unless someone teaches
you. How else are you going to know?
You imagine the days before mass communications and television
and radio. You imagine, how did anybody
in this country know what the state of Virginia in the United
States was like? Answer, somebody went there and
came back and told you. How are you going to know anything
about heavenly reality? One has come from heaven down
amongst us. I, the Son of Man, came down
from heaven to teach you heavenly things. We wait expectantly for
pronouncements from political authorities, from the White House,
from number 10 Downing Street, but this is God come down to
announce heavenly truth. It's God come down to speak the
words of eternal life. Without Him, we know nothing
of heavenly truth. The Samaritan woman knew this.
When, in John's Gospel, chapter four, Jesus was going from Judea
back up to Galilee, and he had to go through Samaria, because
that's where the journey took you, and he came to the place
called Sychar in Samaria, about halfway between Galilee in the
north and Jerusalem in the south. And he met the woman at the well
and asked her for a drink, because why did he go there? Because
he was going to save that woman. He was going to bring her to
a knowledge of eternal life in Him. And she starts to talk about
religion and Christ puts His finger on the problem in her
life, the sin in her life. And she says, I perceive that
you're a prophet. And she says, when Messiah, the
Christ, is come, he will tell us all things. There are things
we need to know from heaven. But she said, we're waiting for
Messiah, the Christ, to come. Because he, I know, she said,
I know, I may be a heathen woman, a sinful woman, not living right
with God, but nevertheless I know this, I know this, you know the
Samaritans were an intermingled race, part Jew, part Assyrian,
all interbred. And she said, I do know this
because there was something of the scriptures and teaching of
it still there. When Messiah, the Christ, is
come, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I that
speak to you now am he. I am the Messiah. I am the Christ. How did she know that the Christ
would come? Because the word of God told
her. Deuteronomy chapter 18 and verse 15. The Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee. This is Moses,
God speaking by Moses. Of thy brethren, like unto me,
like unto Moses in the sense that Moses mediated the word
of God to the people. Unto him ye shall hearken. Listen to him, as God said. Many times, this is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. According to all
that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of
the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the
Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that
I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They
have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise, you
see they were fearful of the law being given, I will raise
them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee
Moses. And I will put my words in his
mouth, in the mouth of Christ, of Jesus. And he shall speak
unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass
that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall
speak in my name, I will require it of him. These are the words
of God from heaven. Ought we not to hang on his every
word? You know, the rubbish that we're
so quick to listen to? the news stories that we're so
quick to listen to, the social media gossip and backbiting that
we're so keen to look into. Ought we not to hang on every
word of the Son of God, come down from heaven to speak the
words of eternal life. This is the voice from heaven.
This is the beloved Son of God. Hear ye Him. and we need to acknowledge
that we need God's Spirit to teach and guide us. Where so
many go astray in just the bare reading of the Word, we need
the Spirit of God to teach and guide us because it isn't just
mechanical, it's by the grace of God and by the revelation
that comes from on high. So these are important words
that we handle here before us. I want you then to see the manner
of Jesus' ministry. In verses 1 and 2, seeing the
multitudes, he went up into a mountain, a raised up place. I don't know
how high it was, I don't know which one it was. And when he
was sat down, his disciples came unto him. I don't know how many.
Was it a large number? Was it just the twelve? We're
not told. But he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed,
etc. This was verbal teaching. He used words to convey ideas
and concepts. Ideas and concepts. Words that
go in the ear and work in the mind. You know, when you hear
a language that you understand, it conveys thoughts into your
mind. If I say the word ice cream,
well that's two words, but if I say that to you now, all of
you who understand English can immediately imagine that substance
and the sweetness and the cream, you can imagine it conveys a
thought to your mind. He conveyed ideas and concepts
by audible, comprehensible speech. Speech. This is preaching. He
began to preach. He used speech. He used a declaration. He didn't use art. I must mention
it every single morning, it's almost as if I'm giving an advertisement
for the BBC's Sunday morning service, but this morning they
were extolling the virtues of art to convey the truth of the
gospel. You know, this sculpture shows
us how the truth of the... absolute rubbish. You know, you
may say, oh you're being so unkind to say that. I have not the slightest
doubt, not the slightest hesitation in saying it. The truth of God
is conveyed through words, spoken words that you hear. You might
read them in a book, but it's essentially the same thing. Not
by art. It isn't conveyed by drama. We
sing hymns to music and we love doing that, but Music is not
the medium to present the gospel of grace, it's preaching spoken
words. We don't all gather together
and have a debate and share our ideas. That's what Bill Clark,
I remember, used to call shared ignorance. So many meetings were
people who didn't know what they were talking about getting together
and thinking that they were going to get more truth by sharing
their ignorance. No, it's not about that. It's
about a God-anointed man, equipped for the purpose, declaring with
words the truth of God. And he went up into a mountain,
some elevated position. As I say, I don't know how elevated
it was. But you might notice that I'm
sort of elevated amongst you here. It's so that everybody
can see and hear as much as possible. You want the one who is speaking
to be visible to everybody that he is speaking. So they can see
the gestures that go with the words in an elevated position.
Do you remember in Nehemiah chapter 8, which is about the restoration
of Jerusalem following the Babylonian captivity. And in the days of
Ezra, in the book of Ezra, the temple had been rebuilt, and
then in Nehemiah, it's the walls of Jerusalem and the gates that
are put back up. And when they get to Nehemiah
chapter 8, and all is secure again, then all the people gather
together. All the people that had returned
from the Babylonian exile. And they get together, and they've
been working hard, and they haven't been studying the Word of God,
but the day comes, when Ezra, the scribe, is to stand in a
prominent position, and they made a pulpit of wood for him,
an elevated position for him to stand on, and he preached
God's Word, and helped by lots of others because the crowd was
big. helped by others that were delegated to go and take that
truth and explain it in smaller groups where they could hear,
he preached God's word from morning to midday. You know, in our day,
the media experts will tell you that the attention span of the
average person is about 10 seconds. Nonsense. He preached from morning
to midday. When Paul preached, he preached
so long that one young man, listening, became drowsy and he was seated
very high up on a window ledge in the room and he fell fast
asleep and fell down and they thought he was dead. You see,
it's preaching long enough to say something worth hearing.
And do you know what it says about Ezra? He gave the sense. The idea is that the people understand. He gave the sense to everybody
that could hear with understanding. Just as it says in John chapter
1 verse 17, Moses went up a mountain. He went up Mount Sinai to give
the law of God. God gave him the law and he brought
it down the mountain from Mount Sinai. But as it says in John
1 17, the law came by Moses But our Lord Jesus Christ went up
a mountain and sat down, and the truth that He dispensed was
grace and truth, grace and truth from Christ. The law came from
Moses, grace and truth from Christ. He, our Lord Jesus Christ, preached
the kingdom of heaven in opposition to the kingdom of antichrist,
this world which is all around us. He preached the kingdom of
heaven, that God has a kingdom of perfect peace and righteousness
into which nothing enters that defiles. That kingdom of heaven
of perfect blissful communion between God and his people, the
kingdom of heaven, in opposition to the kingdom of Antichrist.
The kingdom of heaven, where the justice of God is perfectly
satisfied, where sinners are there as redeemed sinners, and
therefore their sins and iniquities are remembered no more, for they
are taken away as far as the east is from the west, as opposed
to this kingdom of Antichrist. where there is no thought, even
especially in the religious world that calls itself Christianity.
There is no thought that it is necessary to establish and to
satisfy the justice of God. Oh no, we're all alright anyway.
No, we're not. We're sinners before the justice
of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ came
and preached the reality of it, and the nearness of it, and the
relevance of it, and the qualifications for it. And most religious people
completely misinterpret this sermon as instructions for a
better society. But it's not possible. Why is
it not possible? Weakness of the flesh. Sin in
the flesh. The spirit may be willing, but
the flesh is too weak. the sin and corruption in the
heart of the natural man. The heart of man, says Jeremiah,
is deceitful above all things, and dreadfully wicked. Who can
know it? Who can fathom it out? Only God
can fathom it out, and He knows what it's like. No, this introduction
to this sermon, which we call the Beatitudes because it's the
blessed are, blessed are, the Beatitudes, is about the characteristics
of those blessed by God with the citizenship of Zion, with
the salvation that comes from God and God alone. Consider with
me the word blessed, blessed, blessed if you like, blessed.
What does it mean? Let's think about it for a while.
blessed. Jesus said, there are those who
are blessed. It means there are those who
are favoured by God. There are those who are objects
of the eternal attention of God for their good, from before the
beginning of time until time is no more in eternity, favoured
by God. And the corollary of that must
be and people don't like to think of this but it must be true,
when others, in mankind in general, are not so favoured by God. Where does it come from? It's
the undeserved favour bestowed by God in sovereign grace alone. Sovereign grace? Sovereign means
he and he alone decides on whom he is going to bestow this blessing. And grace, because it's completely
free and utterly independent of anything that the one receiving
that blessing might do. God's sovereign choice of whom
he will. Don't you remember what the scripture
says? God said, I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful, and
I will have compassion on whomsoever I will have compassion. So it's
not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who
shows mercy. You say, and Paul addresses this,
well there's unrighteousness with God, that's so unfair. How
can that be right? I've heard so many people say
that in response to the clear teaching of Scripture. It's so
unfair. He says, God forbid. God is God. God is the potter. We are the
clay. It's for Him to do as He will
with us. But praise Him. He hasn't left
everybody to their sin. Praise Him that there's a multitude
from every race and tribe and tongue and kindred chosen in
Christ before the foundation of the world to be redeemed by
Christ in time and brought in eternity to the presence of God
in His heaven. What does God's blessing of some
people, these people whom he blesses, what does it consist
in? Let me remind you of some of
the things that the blessing of God consists in. First of
all, the foundational one must be the blessing of election. The blessing of election. Look
at Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 3. Blessed be God. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praised to our God, is what it's
saying. Oh, how good is our God, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. Explain what you mean, Paul,
according as he has chosen us. in Christ, before the foundation
of the world, what for? That we should be holy, that
we should be saved from our sins, that we should be made the righteousness
of God in Him, and without blame before Him in love. Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children, He determined then that He would
make this people whom He chose in Christ to be His children
by Christ Jesus, to Himself according to what they did. No, not according
to what they would do, according to the good pleasure of His,
God's will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein
in which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. Accepted by God
as fit for heaven because of the Beloved. Who is the Beloved?
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Election is a blessed, there
are those who are blessed because they are elect of God. Secondly,
blessed are those who, by the grace of God, are given a stability
in life that others do not have. A stability in life, an anchor
for the soul, we read of it in other parts of the scripture.
We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure as
the billows roll. A stability in life, and knowing
what life is about, and knowing where we're going to. Jeremiah
17 verse 7 says, Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,
and whose hope the Lord is. Because that's the anchor for
the soul, that's the stability of this life. Blessed is the
man. You know, the storms of life,
as a storm is battering us at the moment, as the storms of
life come along, and upset our emotions, and knock us this way
and that way, and good things happen and bad things happen.
But for the child of God, who is blessed of God, one of the
blessings is stability in life. Whatever else happens, we have
an anchor of the soul, the trust in the Lord. We know that He's
not going to change. We know that we can constantly,
confidently hope in Him, not that He might do something, but
that He will accomplish everything He said He would do. Thirdly,
these people are blessed with knowledge of who God is. knowledge
of when the rest of the world has no idea who God is they all
have their theories or none whatsoever but this is these people are
blessed with a knowledge of who God is and what does that lead
to it leads to godly fear for what is the beginning of knowledge
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom the beginning of knowledge
Psalm 128 verse 1, Blessed is everyone that fears the Lord,
that walks in his ways, for thou shalt eat the labour of thine
hands. Happy! If you fear something, happy. No, if you reverence the God
whom you know, happy shall you be, and it shall be well with
you. Fourthly, Blessing from God is assurance based on justification
confirmed. Christ is risen from the dead.
He was raised for our justification. And that means that our sins
are forgiven. The sins that would condemn us to hell are forgiven.
And so David writes in Psalm 32 and verse 1, and Paul quotes
it in Romans 4 verse 8, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will
not impute sin. Oh, think of it. It is appointed
to man to die once, and then comes the judgment. We must all
stand before the judgment seat of Christ and receive the things
done in the body. The books will be opened, but
praise God, blessed is the man whose name is written in the
Lamb's book of life, because to them God will not impute sin. Why will He not? Because there's
none to impute. Why is there none to impute?
Because Christ has taken it away in the blood of His cross when
He died for the sins of His people. Fifthly, the blessing of God
is a hope of glory, a hope of heaven, the promised crown of
life. As James says, James 1 verse
12, blessed is the man that endures temptation in this life, because
there will be, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown
of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him. But remember,
all of this blessedness, all of it, is entirely in Christ. When Peter read Psalm 72 earlier,
you might have noticed verse 17. Men shall be blessed in him. That psalm is all about the Messiah
who's coming. God's king whom he will set on
his throne. As Psalm 2 says, I have set my
king on my holy hill of Zion. That one described in Psalm 72
is Christ. Men shall be blessed in Him. All of these blessings of God
are mediated to us, are made known to us through Christ and
Him alone. It is in knowing Christ that
we know these blessings. It is in knowing Christ that
we know the forgiveness of sin. It is in knowing Christ that
we have the anchor for the soul. It is in knowing Christ that
we have the knowledge of who God truly is. It is in knowing
Christ that we know we're justified and forgiven our sins and we
have a crown of life and we're accepted in the Beloved. It's
all in Him. Robert Hawker, who lived a couple
of hundred years ago, whose writings I love and commend to you, said,
it is not enough that Jesus gives me life and salvation, but he
himself must be my life and salvation. Just as Paul said, Remember these
verses, Philippians 1.21, Paul talking about what it is to live.
He says, for to me to live is Christ. But what if you don't
live, Paul? What if you die? Ah, that's gain. That's gain. For to me to live
is Christ and to die is gain. Again, he says, Galatians 2.20,
Paul says this, Paul says, me as a believer, I know that in
the judgment and justice and reckoning of God, this is the
fact of the matter. I am crucified with Christ. When
he died, I died in truth. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ lives in me. Christ must be my life and my
salvation. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me. I ask you, are you blessed of
God in this way? Are you conscious of God having
spoken to you, having moved you, having ordered your circumstances
to hear His truth, having softened your natural opposition to the
truth of God? Oh, what a blessed thing it is.
Do you remember that hymn we quote so often? A sinner is a
sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so.
Because most people don't know or don't acknowledge or don't
care that they're sinners before God. But the one spoken to by
the Spirit of God is taught that he is a sinner before God. and
he's brought low to see what he needs. So what are the marks
of God's blessings? Of God's blessing somebody? Well,
they're here in these eight Beatitudes, which we're not going to look
at in any detail. Eight characteristics that mark out in this life those
whom God has blessed and favoured with eternal good. You know,
the ones God has blessed with eternal good are poor in spirit.
The ones God has blessed with eternal good, they mourn over
their sin. The ones whom God has blessed
with eternal life are meek. The ones whom God has blessed
with being the possessors of the kingdom of God are those
that hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the merciful and the pure
in heart. God has blessed them with eternal good. But note,
and this is so important, to distinguish the truth from error.
God's blessing produces the characteristics. It isn't the characteristics
that procure God's blessing. Oh, if I start mourning over
my sin, God will bless me. Oh, if I start wanting to be
righteous, God will bless me. Oh, if I start being merciful
to others, God will bless me. No, it's not that way round.
God blesses, and then that produces the fruit of characteristics.
You say, how do you know that? Because surely, there are religious
folk that read these Beatitudes, and aren't they perfectly entitled
to interpret it that way round, if they want to? That if you
try to be poor in spirit, God will bless you. If you try to
mourn for your sin, God will bless... How do I know it's not
that way round, but the way I've said? Well, we always... What's the best commentary on
the Bible? clearer parts of the Bible. Wherever anything appears
to be somewhat ambiguous or open to interpretation two ways, look
for somewhere where there's not the faintest doubt as to the
way around. Ephesians 2 verses 8 to 10, listen
to this, you know it, you should know it off by heart. For by
grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, faith
isn't of yourselves, it is the gift of God. You're not saved
by works, because people would only start to boast about it.
Because we are God's workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, to produce the fruit of good works, which God has
before ordained that we should walk in them. Do you see? It's
100% crystal clear. It is the sovereign grace of
God that procures the salvation of any one sinner. It's not of
the sinner themselves. It's by grace. The way we know
about it, apprehend it, experience it, feel it, is through faith.
And that is not of ourselves either. It's the gift of God.
Not of works, lest any man should boast. but were saved to produce
good works, which He has ordained that we should walk in them.
The blessing that God bestows is entirely without our works,
its grace, its undeserved favour. The characteristics are what
results from the new nature given by God. Always interpret scripture
that could be read in two ways in the light of another scripture
where it's absolutely unambiguous, as we've done here. Does the
scripture say, there is nothing I can do to be blessed of God? Well, in a sense, yes, there's
nothing that I can contribute to make me more favourable to
God, but is there nothing I can do? Do I just sit back fatalistically,
passively? No, because the scripture says
again and again, things like this. You've heard them many
times. Call upon God, call upon Him
while He is near, while today is the day of salvation. Cry
for mercy, God be merciful to me, the sinner, because that
prayer for mercy is a prayer that God will always answer in
the positive. Pray for mercy. Pray as that
man did. Lord, I believe, but help thou
mine unbelief, because I am so weak in the flesh. Pray for divine
help with natural unbelief. Come, come to Christ. Not with your feet, not by movement,
but by faith, believing him. For He tells us, come without
money and without price, take of the water of life freely.
That's nearly the last verse of the Bible, Revelation 22,
17. Take of the water of life freely, freely, freely. Such great, great blessing in
Him. He has promised. that he will
turn no sincere seeker away empty. Well we'll look in more detail
at the Beatitudes next week, God willing, but for now we'll
leave it there. Amen.