Let's turn to Matthew chapter
5. This chapter, of course, begins
our Lord's Sermon on the Mount. Much of it familiar, at least
in word, to most people who profess faith in Christ. But at the beginning
of this Sermon on the Mount, our Lord makes a statement. It's
been on my heart and mine almost incessantly for the last two
or three weeks. I woke up every morning with
it pressing on my heart. I went to bed every night with
this burden on my heart. Awaken many times through the
night crying, O Spirit of God, teach me what this means. Matthew
5, verse 8. are the pure in heart. Not in hand, not in head, not
in foot, in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Now remember, If we would claim
this promise or any other given in the book of God, we must meet
the character of the one to whom the promise is made. If you do
not meet the character of the one to whom the promise is made,
the promise is not yours. If you do meet the character
of the one to whom the promise is made, then the promise is
yours. Do we qualify? Do we meet the
character of the one to whom our Savior makes this promise?
Is there such a thing in all the world as a man, woman, or
child anywhere of whom it can be said, here is one who is pure
in heart? Is there one of us here today
who dares imagine himself or herself to be pure in heart? Is there anyone so pure in heart
that he is fit and able to see God who said to Moses, my face
shall not be seen? Is there anyone here so pure? so pure as to be pure in heart
so fully that you are thereby able to look upon the invisible
God and see him who only hath immortality dwelling in light
which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can
see. Does our Lord here make a requirement
that's impossible? Does He promise us that which
can never be obtained? Is He mocking us with demands
that can't be satisfied, dangling before us a promise that can
never be realized? Of course not. The Son of God
doesn't tease us with promises that can never be obtained and
with requirements that can never be satisfied. And yet, that's
exactly what the self-righteous, religious, moralist, and legalist
make of this text. Blessed are the pure in heart. Several years ago, Brother Gary
Shepard and I were preaching for a group of folks up in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. And word got around we were coming.
Pretty good group of folks attended. Among them, there were 10 or
15 Reformed preachers. They had heard the name Don Fortner
a few times. And what they heard wasn't real
pleasant. And so they came to check me out. And after the first
night services, after asking a few questions, I went outside
and left them to let Gary talk to them. And Gary and I went
back to the motel. And he said on the way home,
he said, these preachers want to meet us for lunch tomorrow.
And I told him we'd meet at 1 o'clock. Is that all right? And I said,
well, we'll go. But I'd rather not. I know what
they want to have for lunch, they want to have roast don and
I don't like the taste of it. But we went to lunch and it was
a packed, delicatessen type place. I mean packed. And there were
all these preachers sitting at several tables put together,
had me right in the middle of them. And I'm trying to get my
mouth full so I can't answer any questions. And they're talking
and talking and kept asking questions. And folks look, and you know
how people do. Who are these idiots in here discussing theology
at lunchtime? But they kept asking questions.
And getting a little louder and louder in the opposition, the
answer is given. And finally, I looked at one of the fellows
who seemed to be the chief spokesman of the Pharisees. And I said
to him, I said, you have been sitting here telling me for 10
years, it's been 10 years since God saved you and you're pastor
of a church and you've been preaching for a while. I said, let me ask
you a question, just one question. Are you more pure and holy now
than you were 10 years ago when God saved you? I don't believe
anybody took a crunch of lettuce between their teeth in that whole
restaurant. I mean, you could have heard a pin drop. Everybody
wanted to hear his reply. And he paused for a good while,
several seconds. And he looked around and he said,
well, honestly, I would have to say, yes, I am. And I said,
well, honestly, I would have to say either you or I don't
know God. Because honesty compels me to
acknowledge I'm not. In fact, I'm worse in here. Now I behave better. I'm 54 years old, I can't do
the same stuff I used to do. I just can't act like I used
to and get by with it. That's part of it. I hope there's
more to it than that. But I have found it's not too
difficult to control what I say, or to control how I act, or to
control where I go. That's not difficult. That's
not difficult. Oh, but my soul. to control the lust of my heart? I can't. And neither can you. And if you imagine that you can,
you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you. You make
God to be a liar. Would it not be utter mockery
and cruelty If you were to see a man, a soldier lying on a battlefield
who had been severely wounded, both legs blown off, and you
walk over to him and you say, now Joe, if you will just get
up and run right over there, everything will be all right.
All your wounds will be healed. Everything will be taken care
of. You will have full health, recovery. He said, well, preacher,
nobody would do such a thing. Oh, I know folks who do a whole
lot worse. Almost everything I've read or heard by theologians,
preachers, religious leaders, and teachers on this passage
of scripture, I mean almost everything, runs in this vein. If you will
make your heart pure, you shall see God in heaven. Very few leave
out God's work altogether. Very few would leave out God's
work altogether. Most try to make their doctrine of works
appear to be a doctrine of grace. They tell us, of course, God
must first make your heart pure in the new birth, in regeneration.
But you must make your heart pure by the discipline of grace
in self-denial. in mortification of sin and in
sanctification. God, now we're not saying that
you save yourself. Oh, no, we wouldn't say that.
But now you must make your heart pure or you can't see God. And
they will almost always follow this verse with a reference to
Hebrews 12, 14, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And
make holiness then to be your work, something that you do.
I ask you who follow such counsel, and I'm sure some of you still
do, have you succeeded? Have you succeeded? Have you
made yourself pure in heart? So pure that you can now, by
reason of your heart purity, confidently hope to see God himself
face to face in heaven's glory? If you have even a shred of honesty,
You must hang your head with me and confess, no. But what then does this mean?
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And these
words, lofty and remote as they seem, are in fact among the most
hopeful, encouraging, comforting, radiant words ever to fall from
our master's lips. They proclaim certain, the sure
realization of something that seems utterly impossible, seeing
God. They promise the possession of
that which is apparently impossible vision, blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God. And they soothe our corrupt
sinful hearts. These hearts that are so sinful
that we naturally shrink from and tremble at the prospect of
seeing God in all the splendor of his radiant glory. That's what makes you afraid
to die, isn't it? That's what causes a fellow when
he finds out, the doctor tells him he's got that C word, everything
goes to pieces. That's why it is that when a
fellow is told he's got six months to live, oh, everything changes. Everything changes. Now, I've
known people, I've known people over the years, preachers and
others, have been told they were going to die real soon. And all
of a sudden, they start doing things different. They start
doing things different. Oh, I don't have time to do anything
except read my Bible. I want to be close to God. As
if you're going to make yourself more ready to die. It is our corruption, our vileness
in heart, that makes the thought of seeing God terrifying. But here, our Lord makes this
promise. As a promise of free grace. An
assuring thing. A comforting thing. He says to
somebody persecuted, afflicted, hated and despised. Somebody
who mourns, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Somebody who's
poor in spirit. He says, blessed are you, pure
in heart. You're going to see God. You're
going to see God, and that shall be your ultimate happiness and
blessedness. All right, let's look at this
text. And I want to talk to you about three things in it. First,
our hearts. That's the tough part. We don't much like to think about
our hearts. We would be wise not to honestly
discuss them in company with other people too much. And then the pure in heart. That's
the part difficult to understand. And then the blessedness promised.
All right. First, let me show you what this
book has to say about our hearts. Now, I pray God the Holy Spirit
will give you grace to hear what he says. It doesn't matter what
the educators say. It doesn't matter what the psychiatrists
and psychologists say. It doesn't matter what popular
opinion says. And it doesn't matter what you
say. It doesn't matter what you say about your heart. I'm going
to tell you about your heart, your heart. Your son sitting
right here, I'm going to tell him about your heart. And tough
as it is for you, I'm going to tell you about his heart. That's
tough. This is what the book says about
our hearts. Our Lord says, blessed are the pure in heart. You see,
that which is a primary essence in all true godliness, that which
is essential to spirituality, that which is vital to Christianity,
that which is the essence of godliness, is the heart. The
heart. Religion works at chopping off
branches that look bad. Don't smoke, don't chew, don't
cuss, don't run with girls who do, you know, that kind of stuff.
Chop off the branches. Oh, now look at him. I remember
what Don Fulton was like. Somebody asked Brother Moose
Parks this weekend. Got those things and thankfully he didn't
say too much. But I remember what he's like.
Yeah. Oh, what a change. If you can
see it, it don't matter a thing. Not before God. Not before God. Listen to what he says. The Lord
seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. Peter said to Simon
Magus, Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy
heart is not right in the sight of God. You see, I make no attempt,
we make no attempt in this place to get anybody to make a profession
of faith. Make no attempt. Put no pressure on folks. None
whatsoever. Except the pressure that God
brings by His word through the preaching of the gospel. Nothing
else. Nothing else. How come? Because I'm not interested
in getting you on the numbers board so we baptize this many.
I'm not interested in getting you to change and reform your
life. It will do you no good. I'm interested in your heart. Before God. Your heart. Thy heart is not right before
God. With the heart men believeth
unto righteousness. The Lord God requires this. Apply
thine heart to understanding, and let thine heart keep my commandments. Write mercy and truth upon the
table of thine heart. Let thine heart retain my words. Keep thy heart with all diligence. All true religion is a matter
of the heart. Faith is a heart work. Repentance
is a heart work. The confession of sin is a heart
work. Prayer is a heart work. Thy servant
found it in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee, David
said. Worship is a heart work. It's a heart work. And in our
Lord's comments concerning this matter of worship in Matthew
6, he tells us plainly, don't act like the Pharisees. When
you pray, don't blow a trumpet and let everybody know you're
praying. When you fast, don't put on ashes on your forehead.
That's silly, religious nonsense. Don't do that. And so I can't
eat today, I'm fasting. Don't do that. When you did,
don't say, look at what I'm doing. These things are matters of the
heart. The heart. Our Lord declares in Matthew
5, 8 that the pure in heart shall see God and no one else. And
that's the rub. Because our hearts are anything
but pure. There's not one spark of decency
in any human being before God. Not even a spark. Not even a
spark. Not, oh, there's just a little
goodness in all of us, we just need to fan the spark until it
goes into a flame and folks will get gooder and gooder and gooder.
Well, you might fan the spark if there's a spark there, but
not any. There's none good. Now, we act good before one another. You, my friends, treat me good
in my eyes. That's great. We commend one
another's goodness in behavior and we're properly instructed
to do so. But to suggest that Merle Hart
has some goodness that will recommend him to God. Don't ever let me hear you say,
because I will have to correct you. Friend or foe, I'd have
to correct you. If I was standing over your coffin,
I'd have to correct the person who said it about you. Well,
if there's anybody going to heaven, I'm sure it's Brother Duvall.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard, anybody ever, ever
desire to go to heaven, it's my sister. Don't tell me that
she doesn't deserve that. No, you don't. You don't. No goodness in us. Hear what
the book of God has to say about the human heart. When the Word
of God speaks about the heart now, it's not talking about this
organ that pumps blood through your body. Some years ago when
I first started talking about heart transplants, folks wrote
to me of real concern. I don't know whether I'll do
that or not. Take away my heart, but take
away my faith. It's not talking about this pump. That's not it. If the heart's gone, it's not
going to change a thing. If somebody replaces it with
something else, it's not going to change a thing as far as relationship to God's
concerned. The heart, as it's used in the scriptures, is the
seat of a man's being. Your innermost being. the seat
of intellect, emotion, and will, the seat of your affections.
It is that which motivates, that which rules you, that which you
really are in your essence. Now, let's see about the heart. This is what God saw in Genesis
6. The wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and every Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart were only evil all the time. That's tough to bear, tougher to experience. But I'm
telling you, the thoughts of your heart and mine by nature
are only evil all the time. All the time. All the time. So that's talking about the folks
who died in the flood. It's talking about Noah too. He had the same
heart. Same heart. The scriptures do
not teach that God found grace in the eyes of Noah. Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And the reason he was saved was
not because he was different from the folks who died in the
flood. The reason he was saved is because God Almighty saved
him by his grace. He deserved his wrath as much
as anyone else. This is what God says about all the sons of
Adam in Psalm 12 verse 2. With flattering lips and a double
heart do they speak. That's the only way any man knows
how to speak. That's the only way. That's the
only way. Listen to this. Psalm 101, verse
4. We read of a forward heart. In
Isaiah 44, verse 20, the Lord tells us that man feedeth on
ashes. A deceived heart hath turned
him aside. The heart is deceitful above
all things. and desperately wicked. And who
can know it? We use terms and phrases that
we learn from our idolatrous, unbelieving parents and neighbors
all our lives growing up. Say, well, if I know my heart,
honey, you don't know your heart. That's the one thing. You might
know everything you need to know about the sun and the solar system,
but you don't know your heart. You don't know your heart. You
haven't the ability to know your heart. The Lord God tells us
in Hosea 7 that Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart. That is, without understanding,
without knowledge, without a desire after God, but rather seeking
for pleasure and enjoyment in life where God never promised
it. Turn to Mark 7. Mark 7. Our Lord is talking to the Pharisees
who love to clean up the outside. Oh, religion has always loved
to clean up the outside. Oh, go out on Memorial Day and
put a little whitewash on the tombstones and just admire everything
about you folks who left this world. And our Lord says, inside
there, Just leave it covered up. You don't want to dig that
thing up and pull them out because there's nothing in there but
dead men's bones. Dead men's bones. And that's
the way you are. You fight the sepulcher on the
outside. But inside, nothing but deadness
and corruption. No life. Nothing to appeal. Nothing to attract. Our Lord
says here in Matthew 7.20, He said, That which cometh out of
the man, that defiles the man. We don't half believe that. We
don't half believe it. We have the idea somehow if we
can isolate our children from all the evils out there, I'll
just make hermits out of them. I met a fella, came to him up
in northern Michigan one time, I was up at Dalmont preaching,
been years ago. Drove down from way up in the backwoods of Canada,
up in the sticks. I mean, the man lived way away
from everything. I said, how far is it from your
nearest neighbor? He said, about 100 miles. I said,
what? I said, why on earth did you move your family up there?
He said, I wanted to keep us away from the world so we could
be holy. That's a problem. Because you
can't move away from your heart. You can't move away from your
heart. Now, it would suit me fine. It'd suit me fine. If they
would ban pornography, it's a horrible thing. It'd suit me fine if they'd
take that fellow who, Hefner's that name, and the others who
put out all that junk they talk about so flatteringly, take them,
banish them, exile them. I don't care if you put them
to death. They'd be all right. They'd be all right. But if you got
rid of all of it, your heart would still be a pornography
factory. Men and women, no difference. As the Lord said, that which
cometh out of the man, that defiles the man. For from within, out
of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,
an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things
come from within and defile the man. I remember years ago when
they had preaching on man's depravity and the depravity of the heart,
and he read this passage, several others like it, and one woman
met him at the door, she said, I always knew men were that way. He's talking about mankind. You too. Listen to this promise
of God's free grace. I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh. And I will give you a heart of
flesh. I'll take away that dead, hard,
cold, unfeeling, unaffected heart of stone that's in you by nature. And I'll give you a tender, sensitive,
broken, chondrite heart. Has God taught you the evil,
the horrid evil of your heart? Has He made you to know something
of just how hard your heart is? Well, may we look within, and
every time we look within, sigh with the poet The rocks can rend,
the earth can shake, the seas can roar, the mountains quake.
A feeling all things show some sign, but this unfeeling heart
of mine. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. But these hearts of ours, These
hearts that we have in this body of flesh, these hearts of nature,
shall never see God. Except the man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God, much less see God. Now that
is the state and condition of our hearts by nature. It's anything
but pure. Yet our Lord speaks of the pure
in heart. So let's look at the scriptures and see what the scriptures
teach about that. Blessed are the pure in heart. What is that? What exactly is he talking about?
This purity of heart is not the external varnish of the Pharisee,
or the boasted perfection of the hypocrite, or the empty dream
of the carnally secure religious professor. There are those who
are pure in their own eyes, but they're not pure. This is what
scripture says. There is a generation that are
pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. The pure in heart are not those
vain religious fools who try to convince themselves that they
are pure, and they shall never see God. They're irksome, smoke
in his nose. That's how he describes them.
You turn to Jude 1. This is what God says about these
who think they have purified themselves. They're really good
folks. Really good. Which say, stand
by thyself. Come not near to me, for I'm
holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose,
a fire that burneth all the day. Holier than thou. Anytime anyone
uses the word holy comparatively. Comparatively. Oh, he's such
a holy man. She's such a holy woman. Oh,
I want to be more holy. Doesn't it sound good? Doesn't
it sound so pious? The only time the word is ever
used in a comparative or relative sense is right there in Isaiah
65 verse 5. Nowhere else. It speaks of those
who say, I am holier than thou, so don't you come near me. It's
talking about self-righteousness. Holiness is either something
you have altogether or none at all. It's not something you arrive
at by degrees, it's something God gives by grace. Now listen
to how God describes these who stand by themselves and separate
themselves. Jude verse 16. These are murmurers, complainers
walking after their own lust. And their mouth speaketh great
swelling words, having men's persons, particularly their own,
in admiration, because of advantage. Verse 17, But, beloved, remember
ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our
Lord Jesus Christ, having they told you there should be mockers
in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly
lust. Oh, who's that talking about?
Stand by thyself. Come not near me, I'm holier
than you. That's what it's talking about.
Let's see. Verse 19. These be they who separate themselves,
sensual having not the Spirit. Purity of heart certainly does
not imply sinlessness of heart. Those who think they have no
sin are dead and don't know God. I don't mean folks who say, boy,
I have arrived now at the state of sinless perfection, and I
don't sin anymore. I don't sin. Bring them, set
them down here one Sunday morning, and you'll find out they still
have a little in them. Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't know God. Don't
know God. But there's more than that. Bobby
Estes, you're sitting here right now, trying to worship God and
hear His Word. And if you say, I haven't sinned
in doing this, you deceive yourself and the truth's not in you. Because
every imagination of the thoughts of your heart are only evil continually. Everything you do, you do with
a corrupt heart, with corrupt hands. And so whatever your corrupt
hands touch is defiled. And certainly, This heart purity
is not accomplished by the imaginary self-sanctification of those
multitudes who delude themselves into thinking that they have
some slight, outward, rare, occasional conformity to some selected precepts
given in the law. They call it obeying the law.
Listen to what the book says. You can read it for yourself
in Isaiah 66. For by the fire and by his word
will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord
shall be many. They that sanctify themselves
and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree, in the
midst eating swine's flesh, in the abomination and the mouse,
they shall be consumed together. Purity in heart is not talking
about the natural heart, it's talking about a changed heart.
Would you show me somewhere in this book where God ever said
he was going to change your heart? When I was a young man before
God saved me, religious folks used to talk to me, soul winners,
you know. Won't you give your heart to
the Lord? And even in my utter ignorance,
I thought, what on earth would God Almighty want with that horrible
thing? What would he want with your heart? I can't stand my
own. What would he want with it? Oh,
has the Lord changed your heart? Have you experienced a change
of heart? No. And neither have you. Neither
have you. The Lord gives men and women
a new heart in grace. A new heart. The old heart never
changes. Thank God one of these days it's
going to drop with the flesh and die forever. But God puts
a new heart within. A new heart. A new heart also
will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. Turn to
Jeremiah 32. Look at this. Salvation is not you giving God
your old wretched heart. Salvation is God giving you a
new heart. So how do I get Him to do that?
You don't! You don't! When He gives it, He causes you
to be glad for it, and want it, and look to Him. Look at this,
Jeremiah 32 verse 37. Behold, I will gather them out
of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and
in my fear, and in great wrath, and I will bring them again into
this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely, and they
shall be my people, and I will be their God. Verse 39, And I
will give them one heart. It's called Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Christ formed in you. Christ
created in you that new thing which is born of God, which cannot
sin. I will give them one heart and
one way. that they may fear me forever
for the good of them and of their children after them and I will
make an everlasting covenant with them and I will turn away
from them and I will not turn away from them to do them good
but will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart
from me. What is a new heart? Turn to
Hebrews 9. Let me show you. A new heart is a heart that has been sprinkled
with the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, by the Spirit of
God. That's the heart to whom God
the Holy Spirit has applied Christ's precious blood. That's what a
new heart is. So it is a heart purged of guilt,
purged of sin, purged of corruption, A heart pure is a heart that
Paul describes as a pure conscience before God. You remember in the
Old Testament, when God brought Israel out of Egypt, he commanded
Moses to have the children of Israel slay the Passover lamb
and put the blood on the doorpost in the letter. That is, take
the blood that was sacrificed and apply it with hyssop to the
doorpost in the lemon. And God said, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. And so they did so, and God passed
over them, and not one where blood was applied, not one for
whom blood was shed, perished that night of God's judgment.
So it is now. Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God,
our Passover sacrifice, died in the room instead of His people
at Calvary, satisfying all the justice of a holy God. And the
time comes when God, the Holy Spirit, takes the hyssop of His
Word and applies to the hearts of chosen sinners His precious
blood, giving you faith. And faith is not deciding, I
will believe to accept Jesus as my personal Savior. There
ain't nothing like faith in that. What's faith? Faith is looking
to Christ and seeing salvation in Him. Faith is looking to Christ,
trusting His blood, resting upon what He's done with a confident
heart. Let's see. Hebrews chapter 9
verse 11. Christ being come and high priest
of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but with his own
blood, entering once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and
goats and the ashes of an heifer and sprinkling of the unclean
sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, that is ceremonially,
How much more, oh how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God. Let me tell you something. I've
never told anybody this in my whole life. Let me tell you something. It's been 37 years now. You're
looking at a man with a pure heart. A pure heart. Oh, how I weep over my sin. Over the corruption that's in
me. The evil that I know I am. Like David I cry. In sin my mother conceived me,
I was brought forth iniquit. Against thee and thee only have
I done evil in thy sight, not this evil, evil, nothing but
evil. Thou desirest truth in the hidden
part, in the inward part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Oh God created me a right heart, a clean heart. I have a pure
heart in this regard. I look to the sacrifice of God's
darling son, and seeing Christ crucified, I am convinced that
my sin has been put away. I am convinced that justice is
satisfied. I am convinced. Oh, bless God,
my Savior, I am convinced. Absolutely convinced. Convinced! All my debt is paid, cancelled,
and gone! And God Almighty has no reason
ever to be angry with me. Because Christ died in my stead. The word Pure. There's actually three words
translated pure in the New Testament. The word here is the word katharos. It's the word from which we get
the name Catherine. When our daughter, we found out, Shelby
was pregnant with Faith, the doctors had told us we couldn't
have any children. And I was studying New Testament Greek
at the time, and I said, let's name her Catherine Faith. Pure
Faith. God's given us a child. This
word is the word that's used in psychology and psychotherapy
and all that babble. It's called catharsis. You know
what that is? That's when the psychologist,
psychiatrist, sets you down and tries to figure out a way to
get you to get rid of your guilt. Get rid of your guilt. Or else
you can just get rid of your guilt. Then you're going to have
a changed condition permanently. Just get rid of your guilt. Whatever
it is that's pent up inside you, get rid of your guilt. Blessed are those who've gotten
rid of the guilt. Gotten rid of the guilt. So that
you're no longer terrified to see God. How did you get rid
of it? I didn't. He did. He made me
pure in heart. And now I stand before His law
justified. Not guilty. Not guilty. The pure heart is the heart that
confesses sin before God. If we confess our sin, the pure
heart, this word pure means transparent. walking down here confessing
your sin to me, you may as well go confessing to some clown with
a backward collar and a black uniform on in a closet somewhere. Not going to do you any good.
Confessing your sin to this church, not going to do you any good.
Confessing your acts of evil, oh I did this, I did that, it's
not going to change a thing. You walk out the door just as
guilty as you were when you came in. Oh, but if you can rip open your
heart before God, Confess what you are continually. Walking before Him with transparency. No pretense. No hypocrisy. Trust in Christ. If we confess
our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin. And to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Alright. Just quickly, let's
look at the promise. Oh, this blessed promise. Blessed
are the pure in heart. for they shall see God.