I want you to open your Bibles
with me to the book of Matthew. I'm going to speak in just a
few moments on the subject, the marks of grace, or the marks
of grace in a man's soul. Now, this passage of Scripture
in Matthew 5 is called by some, the Sermon on the Mount, and
it's called by others, the first few verses, the Beatitudes. Well,
I want to read these verses, Matthew 5, 1 through 7, 8 or
9, some of those verses, and bring you a message on the marks
of grace. Now, it's true that our interest
in a sermon depends largely upon two things. Interest in a sermon. One is who preached it, or who
is preaching it. And secondly, what is the man's
subject? Now, our interest in a sermon,
a message, depends largely on those two things. Who's doing
the preaching? Does he have any authority? Does he have any experience? Does he have any understanding?
Does he have any wisdom? And secondly, what is his subject? Is it a subject in which I'm
interested? Well, now, this sermon here was
preached by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, John on the Isle of
Patmos, turn to see who spoke with him. He wanted to know who
was speaking. Well, the important thing about this message, the
sermon that I'm going to read from this morning, it was preached
by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Master who speaks.
The Master. And then the Lord's subject.
Now watch this. The Lord's subject, the Sermon
on the Mount, the Beatitudes. The Lord's subject here is not
how to be saved. He's not telling men how to be
saved, how to be justified, how to be redeemed. But he is setting
forth the evidences or marks of those who have saving grace
in their hearts. That's what Christ is dealing
with. We're saved by the grace of God
through faith. We're saved by the grace of God
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're saved not by our
work, but His work. We're not saved by our merit,
but by His merit. We're washed in the blood, redeemed
by the grace of God, born of the Spirit of God, and accepted
in the Beloved. And the Lord is not showing us
here in the Sermon on the Mount how to be saved. He's giving
us the marks or the evidences of grace, saving grace in the
soul. And He begins this message with
the word blessed. He says, blessed are, blessed
are, blessed are, Well, the word blessed means happy. It means
happy. It means highly favoured of God. That's what the word blessed
means. Highly favoured. Highly favoured of God. And notice
this. He puts this happiness, these
blessings, and this favour of God in the present tense. He
doesn't say, blessed shall be the poor in spirit. Blessed shall
be. the meat, blessed shall be the
peacemakers, as if everything were going to be given to us
in the sweet by and by, like pie in the sky, you know, and
nothing here. He says, blessed are, right now,
present tense, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the
meat, blessed are the peacemakers. And we call these seven statements,
seven blessings, the beatitudes. Now, what does the word beatitude
mean? Well, it means a great pronouncement
of happiness and blessings upon those who are described. Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." You
see, the Lord says happy, highly favored, right now, highly favored,
right now, are the poor in spirit. That's what we've got to find
out, who the poor in spirit are. Because you can't claim the blessing
if you don't fit the requirement. You can't claim the blessing
if you don't, to some degree, fit the one to whom the promise
is made. Blessed, happy are the poor in
spirit, for theirs, this is the great pronouncement of happiness
and blessings in favor of God. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now, one more thing of great importance before I get into
the message. These principles which Christ sets forth here
in the Beatitudes, do you have it there before you, Matthew
5, 1 through 12? These principles that our Lord
sets forth in the Beatitudes, are totally contrary, totally
opposite to the principles and the wisdom and the ways of this
world. That's exactly right. Now, what
our Lord says, the character that He blesses, the world despises. The attitude the Lord praises,
the world condemns. And the conduct that the Lord
honors, the world ridicules. It's just exactly opposite. The
principles in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount,
which are evidences and marks of grace in the soul, and which
tell whether or not a man walks with God, these principles and
this nature and these blessings are opposite from the wisdom,
teaching, and principles of the world in which you live. What
does the world say? Blessed are the rich. Oh, if
I could just have all the money I want, if I could just have
the finest home and car, I'd be blessed. I'd be happy. That's
what the world says. Blessed are the rich. The world
says, blessed are the famous. We run around getting autographs
of fellas that sing, you know, and fellas that play ball. And
they're famous. And they're on top of the world.
They've got everything they want. And the world says, blessed are
the powerful, the strong. Blessed are the young. Blessed
are those that have everything. But our Lord declares, blessed
are the poor and the meek. and those that hunger and thirst.
Our Lord says, would you be rich in grace? Become poor in spirit. That's the opposite from what
the world says. The world says, would you be
rich? Then get all you can get, any way you can get it. Just
walk on, folks, while you're going up the ladder. Just do
what you want to. If you set your mind on something,
reach that goal no matter how you do it. The end justifies
the means. That's not what Christ said. Would you be rich? Become
poor. in spirit. Would you be filled
with grace? Become empty of self. What's
today's principle, teaching, wisdom? You're okay, I'm okay.
We've got to have a positive mental attitude. We've got to
look upon ourselves as conquerors. We've got to build up our ego.
Our Lord said, would you be filled with God's presence and grace?
Become empty of yourselves. Would you live to God? Die to
the world. That's what Christ said. Would
you be lifted up? Would you be exalted? Then come
down. The gifts of God are on the lower
shelf, not on the top shelf. You've got to come down. You've
got to come down in repentance, down in the dust, down with sinners. Those are the ones whom God blesses.
Would you receive? Then give. Now, that's not the
philosophy of this world. The whole philosophy of our Lord's
grace and truth is contrary to what this world says. And you've
got to remember that as I try to teach you what we call the
Beatitudes. Blessings and happiness. True
happiness. Highly favored of God. Well,
let's touch lightly on 7 as we have time today. 7 Beatitudes,
and ask the Lord to give us some understanding. It's His Word.
This, like I said, the Master's talking here. This is the Master's,
and it's not my message. This is His message. I'm just
repeating it in your hearing. First of all, in verse 3, you
have it there, the Master taught His disciples and the people
from the mountains. And he said, blessed are the
poor in spirit. Blessed, happy, highly favored
are the poor in spirit. Now, he doesn't say blessed are
the poor in purse, the poor in material things. There's no blessing
in being poor. I was raised awfully poor. I was raised, when some of you
were, back in the Depression. You people in West Virginia know
what the Depression did. Some of you do. And it's no blessing
to be poor. It's no blessing to be in want
materially. But our Lord's not saying, blessed
are the poor in purse and material things, because some people who
are poor are very vicious. Some people who are poor are
very dishonest and very evil. So there's no blessing just in
poverty itself. That's not what Christ said,
blessed are the poor. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit. In spirit. In attitude. In an
assessment of themselves. In an attitude where they're
concerned, though they may be blessed with good health. They
may be blessed with strength. A man can be strong and still
be poor in spirit. A man can be blessed with material
things and still be poor in spirit. A man can be blessed with friends
and material comfort and still be poor in spirit. You see, those
who are poor in spirit know that in God's sight they're nothing.
In God's sight and before Him, they have nothing, know nothing,
and are nothing. They're poor in spirit before
God. Their language is the language of Paul in 1 Timothy, when he
said, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
whom I am the chief. I am the chief. He said again,
I'm less than the least of all the saints. He said, I'm not
worthy to be an apostle. You see, that's a correct assessment
of himself. There's no pride there and arrogancy
there. In his attitude, this is what
he said over here in Romans 6 or 7. He said, O wretched man that
I am! The things I would do, I do them
not. The things I wouldn't do, that's what I do. I find when
I would do good, evil is present with me. I have a real conflict
with that. And their cry is, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Show mercy to me, mercy to the
miserable. My friends, it's the Lord's mercies
that we're not all consumed, you and me and everybody else.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, poor in heart. The Lord's known
to them of a broken heart. I'll tell you two things that
are totally opposite, pride and faith. I don't know how in the
world people today in religion who claim to have faith, who
claim to believe the Bible, who claim to believe God are so arrogant
and so haughty and so proud and so conceited. I'll tell you this,
the poor in spirit, our Lord said, blessed are they for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. What is the kingdom of heaven?
It's the gospel. It's the blessings of the gospel.
Being an heir of the gospel, you're an heir of God's kingdom.
But I'll tell you, before God exalts you, He'll bring you down.
Before God lifts you up, He'll strip you. Before God clothes
you with His grace, He'll strip you of your own pride and haughtiness
and arrogance and self-righteousness. And you'll come down before God
declaring, I'm nothing. I have nothing. I know nothing.
I'm dependent as a miserable sinner on the grace and mercy
of Almighty God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Alright, here's
the second one, verse 4, "...blessed are they that mourn." Mourn,
they shall be comforted. Now, I'm quite confident that
everybody of every age, if they aren't mourning now, they will.
They'll groan and mourn under the burdens of this flesh. There
are even small children and young people and men and women who
mourn under sickness and trials. Every son of Adam bears the consequences
of Adam's fall. And we do mourn and we groan,
or we will someday mourn in trial and sorrow and suffering and
sickness and death. We've all got to die someday.
But our Lord's not speaking here of a mourning in the flesh, a
groaning in the flesh. Blessed are they that mourn.
How do they mourn? They mourn and grieve over their
sins before God. That's what they grieve over.
That's what they groan about. That's what they mourn over.
Blessed are they that mourn over their sins before God, for they
shall be comforted." He said, if we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us. That's a mourning over sin.
To face them, to acknowledge them, to admit them, to weep
over them, to mourn over them, and to cry before God, Lord,
forgive me. And those that mourn shall be
forgiven. He's faithful and just to forgive
us. He that hideth his sins shall not, cannot prosper, but whoso
confesseth his sins shall find mercy." David in Psalm 51 mourned
over his sins. He mourned over the nature of
sin. He said, in sin my mother conceived me. I was shapen in
iniquity. He mourned over the acts of sin. He said, my sins are ever before
me. He mourned even over his best
deeds. As Isaiah, when he said, our
righteousness is a filthy rag, blessed, Christ said, happy.
To be envied, highly favored of God, is that person who has
found a place apart to mourn before God overseen. They're
going to be comforted. You know what their comfort shall
be? Their comfort shall be in Christ, a substitute, a sin offering,
a sacrifice, Because there's therefore now no judgment and
no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Who can lay
anything to the charge of God's elect, it is God that justifies.
Yes, we know our sins, we admit them, we confess them, we mourn
over them, but we have laid them at the feet of Christ. And through
His sacrifice and through His sin offering and through His
meritorious death, He has put our guilt away. And there's therefore
now no condemnation in Christ. Look at verse 5. Blessed are
the meek. Now listen to me. Meekness. True humility and meekness is
not a product of human nature. The flower of meekness does not
bloom in the garden of the human heart. It's the fruit of the
Spirit of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, faith, meekness. Meekness. Let me give you an
example. You go to the back door, and there's a beggar there, ragged,
dirty, diseased, broke, hungry. And you come back in, and you
say to your husband or wife, you say, there's a beggar at
our door, and he's such a humble man. He's such a meek man. Well, in his state, he has every
reason to be humble. He has every reason to be meek.
He's broke. He's homeless. He's jobless. He's hungry. He's totally, completely
dependent on you. And he's a meek man. But now
wait a minute. Let him suddenly become rich. Let him suddenly become of greater
position than you, with greater authority. And then you'll see
whether he's humble or not. He may just be the most arrogant
man on the block. You see, true meekness and true
humility. Now listen to me. is a heart
work performed by the Spirit of God, and true meekness and
humility manifests itself in riches or in poverty, in failure
or success, in weakness or strength. It's easy for a 115-pound fellow
to be meek, especially if he's surrounded by three or four men
weighing 300 pounds. He better be meek But let him
be bigger than anybody. You see, the bully's always bigger.
He's always stronger. The man that flaunts his riches
is the man that's got plenty. But when he becomes poor, he
becomes meek. So Paul said, I know how to abound,
and I know how to be abased. It's a lot easier to be meek
when you're weak. But true meekness is seen when
a man's strong, when a man's on top. That's when you find
out whether he's humble or not, when a man's on top, when he
has charge, when he's an authority, when he has the money, when he's
batting .350, when he's knocked 40 home runs. You'll find out
whether he's meek or not. You see, true humility ascribes
all that I have to God. What do you have you didn't receive?
Well, if you received it, why do you boast as if you didn't
receive it? True humility doesn't envy the gifts of other people
and the graces of other people, but true humility rejoices in
what I am and what I have. By the grace of God, I am what
I am. Why should I envy you? God made me like I am, and He
intended for me to be what I am. True humility has honest thoughts
toward self and charitable thoughts toward others. True humility
condemns ourselves. and what we find in ourselves
and forgives others. True humility has a teachable
spirit. Find me a man that can't be taught,
and I'll show you a proud, arrogant man. True humility can be taught. I'm just a child, Lord, teach
me. True humility is motivated by an awareness of God's love
and grace to me. The love of Christ constrains
me. Now, our Lord said, blessed are the meek, they're going to
inherit the earth, the new earth. The new heaven and new earth.
The meek. Those whom God has humbled. God
is nigh unto them of a broken heart. He saveth such as be of
a broken heart, and of what? A contrite spirit. Now watch
the next verse, verse 6. Blessed are they which do hunger
and thirst. Now they tell me hunger and thirst
are the greatest passions. They're the strongest. The strongest. When all is said and done. Well,
these people hunger and thirst after righteousness, and they
shall be filled. Righteousness? Well, the master
doesn't refer to our righteousness, because our righteousness, in
his word, is called filthy rags, the best we do. Man at his best
state is altogether vanity. And he's certainly not talking
about the righteousness in which Israel trusted, and which Paul
condemned. He said they go about to establish
their own righteousness. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst for righteousness." What kind of righteousness? That
righteousness which was imputed to Abraham by faith. It was imputed
to him by faith. That's the righteousness. That
righteousness promised in Romans 3, when God says what the law
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in
the flesh. And what the law saith, it saith
to every one under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and
all the world be guilty before God. But therefore by the deeds
of the law shall no flesh be justified, but there is a righteousness
manifested." That's the one I'm talking about. That righteousness
of God in Christ. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes it. That righteousness
accomplished by His obedience. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners. By the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous." That righteousness purchased by His
death. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's what we hunger, thirst,
and desire above all things, that righteousness of God which
is purchased, procured by the person and work of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and makes us holy before God leaves us without sin justified
before the law, and he says they're going to be filled. Those that
want that righteousness are going to have it. Those who hunger
and thirst for it will be filled with the hope of it, they'll
be filled with the joy of it, they'll be filled with the peace
of it, and they'll be filled with the assurance of it, and
one day they'll partake of the benefits of it. They'll be filled.
Now watch this, verse 7, blessed are the merciful. For they shall
obtain mercy. Now what are we talking about
here? Blessed are the merciful. Well, I think it means just what
it says. Blessed are the merciful. Those
who are merciful to the bodies of men and women. They pity the
needy. They pity those that are poor.
And those that are undergoing great burdens and trials and
help them. They're merciful to the bodies. To the needs. They're
sensitive to the needs of other people. They're merciful. And
they're not only to the bodies of people, but they're sensitive
to the feelings of other people. Blessed are the merciful who
are merciful to the hearts of other people. They care. They
have love and compassion and pity for everyone, for their
feelings. For their feelings, they have
compassion, and they encourage one another. They reach out to
others. And then, blessed are the merciful
to the souls of men who faithfully minister the gospel to the souls
of men, who go as missionaries and evangelists and pastors,
who support those who go, who send the gospel to others, who
witness. They care for the souls of men.
You see, they're merciful. They have feeling. A person who's
merciful has pity, compassion, and affection. And he cares for
people's physical sufferings. He cares for their mental and
emotional sufferings. And He cares for their soul sufferings,
and He does what He can to relieve all three. Now then, blessed
are the pure in heart. I looked at this for a long,
long time. Blessed are the pure in heart.
They're going to see God. And I thought, there's nobody
living with any sense who will claim to be pure in heart. There's
certainly no believer. No one who knows the Scriptures,
who are claimed to be pure in thought and in motive and in
attitude and in heart. Well, what did the Lord mean,
blessed are the pure in heart? They're not pure in themselves.
They're purified by His grace and His mercy. Their hearts are
pure in that they have been washed and made white in the blood of
the Lamb. Our Lord said, though your sins
be as scarlet, they'll be as white as snow. That's pure. Though
they be red like crimson, they shall be as white as wool. That's
pure. And we have been purified by
his blood. And then our hearts have been
purified from our dead works to serve the living God. And
then our hearts are pure in the sense that we sincerely love
Christ. Peter said to him, Lord, you
know I love you. That's a pure love. That's a
genuine love. That's a sincere love. You know
I love you. He was pure in his confession,
in his profession. And then their hearts have a
pure and sincere love for others. John said, we know we've passed
from death unto life because we love the brethren. There's
no question about that. The love of God shed abroad in
our hearts, I know it's there. I know it's there. They shall
see God, the pure in heart. They see Him now by faith, through
the word, through a glass dimly, and then face to face. Now the
last one, blessed are the peacemakers. Only our Lord Jesus Christ is
the Prince of Peace, and He made peace with God through the blood
of His cross. But these peacemakers, they publish the gospel of peace,
they promote peace among men, and they themselves are of a
peaceable disposition. And blessed are the peacemakers,
they shall be called the children of God. Now, I want to make an
announcement before I close this message today. The first one
is this, two announcements. The first one is this message,
along with one I brought recently on today's religion. Both these
messages are on one cassette tape, which we'll send to you
if you want it, for two dollars. That's a minimum charge for two
messages on one tape. About seven years ago, I started
writing Sunday school lessons, Bible class commentaries for
our Bible classes at our church, where I've been the pastor 30-some-odd
years. I've never been satisfied with
the literature. The commentaries are too weighty,
they're too heavy for the average person to read. So I've written
some commentaries on the 21 epistles in the New Testament. And these
commentaries are being printed by a company in England and distributed
worldwide. And we've recently received six
of these of these New Testament epistles, which I have written
these commentaries. We have Romans, Galatians, 1st
and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy. And these are in
three books. The others will be out before
November of next year. Now, you're looking at them.
There's Romans, there's 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd
Timothy in a book, and then there's Galatians. And I'll send you
these books. Quickly as I can, by return mail,
we have a good supply. But you send five dollars. That's
what they cost me and what they'll cost me to send to you. And please
understand, I'm not using gimmicks and trickery to get you to support
this program. God provides the means for this
broadcast. But I want you to have these
books, verse-by-verse commentaries written in simple, everyday language
that the average person can read and understand. Five dollars.
That's what the books cost. Send to this address. That'll
be on the screen. If you want the tape, I'll mail
it to you. Two dollars. If you want the
three books with the six epistles, verse by verse, write to me.
Same address. Send five dollars. We'll mail
it to you. Until next week, I bid you a very pleasant good day.