If you will, open your Bible
with me today to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, I'll read
the first 10 verses. And seeing the multitudes, he
went up into a mountain. And when he was set, 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. This is my third message at this
time from the Beatitudes, the words that the Lord spoke at
the beginning of his sermon on the mount. And we recognize them
as characteristics, these Beatitudes, as characteristics of God's people
to whom God the Holy Spirit applies Christ's redemption. They're
not natural dispositions, they're not natural temperaments with
which men are born, but they are those that are wrought in
the heart of God's people by God the Holy Spirit. God's people
are able to identify with these things. When I read, blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, you're
able, if you're one of his children today and God has begun a work
in your heart, you're able to identify with that poverty of
spirit. It's not just at the beginning
of your experience with the Lord either, but it's something that
continues with God's children throughout our life in this world. There's always that hunger and
that thirst for righteousness, to be more like Christ, to be
more conformed to the image of God's Son to which we've been
predestinated. So these things are characteristics
of the people of God. They that mourn, We're not talking
about mourning over some loss here in this world, but over
who we are. Like the Apostle Paul, when he
said, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this
body of death? God's people mourn in the beginning
of their experience. And as I said, it continues through
life. As we read them, we see, as I
read through these Beatitudes and you followed with me, we
see a great contrast. A great contrast between the
thinking, the word of the Lord of glory and the thinking of
this world. You know, the word blessed, I
said, could be translated happy. One commentator, I think he translated,
to be congratulated. To be congratulated are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The natural
man is carnal, and he sees happiness primarily in the things of this
world. More stuff. More stuff. If I can just get more stuff. If I can just get this and then
when you get that, if I can just get this other thing and it just
never ends and people think that's going to bring me happiness.
No, no. That's the way the carnal man
thinks, a man that is only flesh and not born of the spirit of
God. Our Lord in one of his parables,
we know that he gave several parables. Someone one time defined
a parable as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And
one of his parables, he told about a man who had a bumper
crop. You remember this. His fields
just produced so much this year. And so what does he say? He says,
I'll pull down my barns and build bigger barns, and I'll say to
my soul, eat, drink, and be merry. You see, his idea was that happiness,
merriment, is going to come by these things that I have accumulated. His thoughts are not on spiritual
things at all. He's a carnal man. He's a natural
man. He's a man who has never been
born again of the Spirit of God. You know, David was able to say,
one day in thy courts is better than a thousand. and the tents
of wickedness. I'd rather spend one day in thy
courts and to be with God, to worship God, to know God and
walk with God. This is the blessedness of life
to those to whom the Lord reveals himself. You know, being a Christian
isn't just coming to church on Sunday morning and sitting through
a lecture or something like that and singing some hymns. No. Being
a child of God is knowing God and enjoying God. The joy of
the Lord, Nehemiah said, is our strength. Oh, what a blessed
thing it is to know God. Do you know him this morning?
Not just know about him, but is he real to you? Is he a person
that you converse with, and sing to, and pray to, and do you know
him? Oh, I know many of you do, and
I'm so thankful. But if you're here this morning
and you don't, may God deliver you and bring you to know him.
The scriptures, our Lord said, you shall find me when you search
for me with all your heart. And if you don't know God today,
seek him. Seek the Lord while he may be
found and call upon him while he's near. While he's near. Maybe in this service right now,
he's near to you. He's speaking to you. Call upon
him. You don't have to walk down a
church aisle and pray some sinner's prayer or something like that.
No, no. Trust him. Call upon him while
he's near. I like that little chorus we
sing sometimes. He's passing by this moment.
Your needs to supply. Reach out and touch the Lord
as he passes by. Okay, this morning we're looking
at the fourth, or rather the fifth and sixth of these Beatitudes. Blessed are the merciful. for
they shall obtain mercy. Now what does it mean to be merciful? When you define the word mercy,
think about it right now. As you think about what does
mercy mean, what does that word mean, merciful? Remember this,
that the definition you come up with, it must be one that
will also describe the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is merciful. In Hebrews chapter two and verse
17, the apostle wrote, wherefore, in all things it behooved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that is the eternal son of God
was made like his brethren, those he came to save, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest. So, blessed are the merciful. However we define that word merciful,
it must be compatible with holiness, because the Lord Jesus Christ
is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. It must
be compatible with justice. It must be compatible with righteousness. It's not just an easygoing, Feeling,
you know, some people will just forget about it. Just forget
about it. Merciful. No, that's not what
it means to be merciful. Now, I've been preaching for
some years, and whenever I preach from a text that has to do with
mercy, I study. And every time, I found this
word, pity. Pity. Mercy. is pitiful. That's usually the
first thing that the writers say. Mercy has to do with pity. With pity. But with pity there is also the
desire to do something for the one who is suffering. You know,
one of our Lord's parables, the parable we call the Good Samaritan,
there are a number of men in that parable. One man was walking
along, he was taking a trip, and you know the story, he was
going to Jericho, and some robbers came upon him and beat him up
and robbed him and threw him in the ditch and left him to
suffer. Well, there's a Levite came by,
he looked at him. A priest came by, he looked at
him. But then this last man came by
He not only looked at him, I'm sure the Levite and the priest,
when they saw that poor guy over in the ditch, they had some pity
for him. Wow, that's awful. That poor
guy was beat up and there he is suffering. Sure, they had
some pity, but that's as far as it went. They didn't have
mercy. The Samaritan, when he came along,
He not only saw the man and pitied him and his condition, but he
did something about it. In other words, that pity that
he felt promoted action. Look over here in Luke chapter
10, at one scripture where the parable was told or is recorded
rather. The last word in verse 37, the
Lord Jesus Christ said, he that showed mercy on him. Mercy. This man showed mercy. Blessed
are the merciful. It's not just having pity, but
it is, pity is put into action. You know, the Lord and The Word
of God, I should say, in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 17 says,
But who hath this world's good, and seeth his brother in need,
and shutteth up his bounds of compassion from him? How dwelleth the love of God
in him? Our Lord, in that parable, of
course, he was illustrating that God's command, the first commandment,
is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul,
and all thy being, but the second commandment is like unto it,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. That man that had
asked the Lord the question that caused the Lord to give that
parable, you remember he wanted to know who my neighbor is. He
was a Jew, no doubt, and he considered other Jews, his neighbors, but
a Samaritan? But a Samaritan, a Gentile dog? Merciful. And our Lord showed
that the Samaritan, the Gentile dog, he was merciful. Look at another place in Luke's
gospel. Turn to Luke chapter one. What
I'm emphasizing is that mercy includes pity. It begins maybe
with pity, but it doesn't end there. It promotes action, not
just a feeling, but action. And we see this here, this passage
we're going to look at here in Luke chapter one, we see this
on the part of God. God is full of mercy, isn't he? That's one of the characteristics
of God that we love to talk about and love to think about. He's
full of mercy. Scripture says judgment is a
strange work unto him. He delighteth in mercy. If you're
here this morning and weighted down with sins, I want you to
know that the God of the Bible, the God and Father of the Lord
Jesus Christ, He delights in mercy. He delights in showing
mercy to those who have need. Look to Him, call upon Him, trust
Him, believe Him. But here in Luke chapter one,
these are the words of the father of John the Baptist, Zacharias.
And in verse 72, and he's filled with the Holy Spirit and begins
to prophesy and praise God and bless God. But in verse 72, notice
he says, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers. In other
words, the birth of John the Baptist, which he realized that
he would be the precursor of the Savior. He would be the one
who would come before the Lord and prepare the way for the Lord.
Well, Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, knew that this
meant the Messiah was coming, the Savior was coming. And what
he says, what this is, what this is going to accomplish is he's
going to perform the mercy promised to our fathers In other words,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and all those Old Testament
saints, God had promised mercy, mercy, pity upon those who were
sinful and needy. Mercy. But then notice in verse
78 how this mercy is displayed or manifested. Verse 78, how's
he going to show his mercy? How's God going to show that
mercy? Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring
from on high hath visited us. Who's the day spring? Who's the
bright morning star? It's Christ. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ who is the light of the world. And how is God going to
show this mercy that he's promised to the fathers by sending his
son into this world? That he might come to save, to
redeem his people. One of the hymns that we sing
here is majestic sweetness sets enthroned
upon the Savior's brow. And I especially like that line
that goes, he saw me plunged in deep distress. Who saw me? God did. He saw me plunged in
deep distress and flew to my relief. For me, he bore the shameful
cross and carried all my grief. That's pity, but it's pity in
action. It's mercy. He saw me. He saw
me in my awful condition, just like that Samaritan saw that
man in that ditch. I've always liked that part of
that parable when it tells us that the Samaritan, he went to
him. man's over there in the ditch,
and he goes to him. And isn't that a beautiful reminder
to us that God, the eternal son of God, saw us in our need, plunged
in deep distress because of our sins against God. And he came
to where we were. It's like that man went to where
that man was in the ditch. He came into this world in the
fullness of the time. God sent forth his son made of
a woman that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. The merciful person is one who
has inward sympathy, but that inward sympathy brings out acts. in relation to the sorrows and
the afflictions of others. What is the difference between
grace and mercy? What is the difference between
grace and mercy? Well, one definition is this.
Grace is especially associated with men and their sins. While
mercy is especially associated with men in their misery, their
misery. Why is a person miserable? Because
he's a sinful, he's a sinner, that's why. One writer also pointed out that
the problem, go back to our text here in Matthew 5, the problem
with this beatitude is that fallen men misunderstand the promise
connected with it. Notice the word in verse 7, blessed
are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. They think that
this parable is somehow teaching, that our Lord was somehow teaching
that If we show mercy, then God will show us mercy. They do the
same thing to that part of the model prayer when the Lord taught
us to pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass
against us. And they say, you see there,
if we forgive those who sin against us, then God's going to forgive
me. In other words, they make it a work that we do something,
and because we do something, then God does something in return. If I forgive those who sin against
me, then God will forgive me. If I show mercy to others, then
God will show me mercy. Martin Lloyd-Jones said to him,
now listen, he said to him, It was amazing that anyone should
ever interpret the scripture to mean something like that.
And it gave two reasons why it was so amazing to him. Number
one, if that were true, and God forgives us because we forgive,
and God shows us mercy because we show mercy, if that were true,
that would make forgiveness impossible. It would be impossible for man
to ever have forgiveness on a legal basis like that. Not one of us
would be saved. But you know, people who believe
in salvation by works, they are deceived, aren't they? They're
deceived into thinking that they can do something that will please
God and cause God to be merciful or gracious unto them. God said,
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will show mercy
to whom I will show mercy. God is free. God is free. His grace is free. His mercy
is free. Yes. And number two, Lloyd-Jones
said that would cancel the whole doctrine of salvation by grace.
If God forgives me because I forgive, if God is merciful to me because
I show mercy, then just take out the scriptures that teach
us that by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourself. Well, what does it mean then?
Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Well, if you follow these Beatitudes,
I don't, well, I know they were not given just randomly. The Lord gave them and one builds
upon the other. If the Lord has worked in my
heart by his grace and my attitude has changed, my attitude has
changed, I've been made to see my need. That little chorus, it's me,
O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. It's me, O Lord, I'm
the center. You know, if God has made me
to see that I'm the one who is needy, I'm the one who's poor,
I'm the one who needs mercy, then we're made to feel that
need and our emptiness and our unworthiness and we hunger and
thirst after righteousness. And having been filled, freely
forgiven through the blood, of Christ and righteousness justified
by his righteousness, then my attitude towards others is automatically
changed. When I see others, I remember,
I identify with them. If they're lost, that was my
condition. That was my condition. And it's
just because of the mercy of God that that I'm any different
if I am any different. It's just by the grace of God.
When someone does something to me or to you, something harmful,
we just say that, you know, if it were not for the grace of
God, tables would be turned. It would be me doing that to
somebody. I think about that old preacher
that lived somewhere out of London, and when a person was condemned
to be hanged, they brought the person right in front of his
house, put him in a cart, and carried him out to where they
would hang him. And every time that that cart
came by, that preacher said, there go I, but by the grace
of God. Do you feel that? Is that real
to you? Is it? There go I. No matter what condition we see
others in or how they act or don't act, the only difference
is God. And I shouldn't say only. That's
a big difference. That's a big difference. But
it's still God. It's God's grace. Blessed are
the merciful. He's been merciful to me. He's
forgiven me. I think about that parable, another
parable that our Lord told that Pharisee. He said, Simon, one
man owed 500 pence and this other man owed 50 pence. Well, neither
one of them had enough to pay. It doesn't matter if, you know,
some... And it's just God's providence You may be here this morning.
I assume there are many people here today. And you've never
been on Skid Row. You've never been in prison.
You've never been addicted to drugs or alcohol. You know, it's just the grace
of God. That's all it is. Do you realize that? Oh, no,
I'm not like that. I could never do that. I would
never be like that. By the grace of God. Blessed
are the merciful. We've received mercy. And it's
a disposition now that we have in our hearts to be merciful. We don't have to work at it.
It's just part of us now. It wasn't always that way. Well, let's move on to the sixth
one. I'll be very brief on this. Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Now, every one of these Beatitudes could call for a message. And this one especially, blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. How in the world do any of us have a pure heart? Three things about this, about
the heart. First of all, man's trouble is
the heart. It's not our environment. It's
not our education. My trouble, your trouble, the
trouble of man is the heart. And this was true. You know,
we have these verses in the scripture before the flood, before God
destroyed all living flesh except those eight souls inside the
ark. This is what God saw. as he looked
at his creation. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth. Now listen, and every, every,
every imagination of the heart or the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually. Did God say that about man? Did
God say that about us? Yes, he did. And then after the
flood, through the prophet Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Man's problem
is his heart. Our Lord Jesus said, for out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These things defile the man.
Now this beatitude says, blessed are the pure in heart. The first
thing we see is number one, that's man's problem, his heart. There's
only one remedy. Don't you love this about God?
One time I was sick in Mexico. Probably told you this before.
Doctor came to the house, he came several times, but one time
he told my wife, he said, oh don't worry, We've got plenty
of medicine at the pharmacy that we haven't tried yet. Yeah. I tell you, when it comes
to being right with God, knowing God, being forgiven of sins,
there's not a whole lot of remedies. There's one. One remedy. For this unclean heart, there's
only one remedy. And that is the blood of Jesus
Christ. The scripture says in Acts 15,
purifying their hearts by faith. That is by faith in Christ. You know, this beatitude doesn't
say blessed are the sinless. We've all probably known some
people. I've known a few who believe that they live in this
world without sin. They've told me that. You know
what the scripture says about those people? They're liars.
They're liars. It doesn't say, blessed are they
without sin. It says, blessed are they of
pure heart. Blessed are the pure in heart.
They have a new heart. A new heart. That's one of the
promises of the new covenant. Our Lord ratified the new covenant
with his blood. And one of the promises of that
new covenant is a new heart. that he gives, a heart of flesh
upon which he writes his law. The third thing, we shall see
God. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. I like to think about that. I
know there's coming a day, and my, we look forward to that day.
What a day of rejoicing that will be, when with my Savior
I shall be But you know, even in this life, we see God. God's
people do. We see Him in creation, don't
we? We go out at night and see the beautiful stars, and oh,
this is my Father's world. We see Him in creation, don't
we? And we see Him in providence.
how God works all things after the counsel of his own will and
brings things to pass. And we know, we don't always
understand, most of the time we don't, but we know in the
end, we'll all say, amen, he did all things well. And yes,
like I said, one day we shall see him face to face. And the
beautiful thing about that is, we'll be like him. We'll be like
him. Amen? We're going to sing a hymn
number 291 before