Matthew 5:8.
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"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” ()
Purity of heart has two distinct but related senses in Scripture.
First, it is that inner moral holiness that is the opposite of external piety.
Old Testament prophets contrasted ritual observance of the law (especially laws of sacrifice and circumcision)
with covenant obedience that flowed from love and sincerity of heart.
Moses called on Israel to circumcise their hearts, not simply their flesh (; ).
Samuel said, “To obey is better than sacrifice” ().In a psalm of worship, David asked,
"Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? "The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not appealed to what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. "He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” ()
Jeremiah heaped scorn on Israelites who claimed refuge in
the temple of the Lord while they oppressed the weak and chased after other gods (; cf. ).
Second, purity can mean simplicity and freedom from double-mindedness.
The pure, on this view, are those who show mercy because they love mercy, not to gain a reward.
The pure show kindness to children who cannot thank us, to strangers whom we will never see again.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus promotes purity in both senses.
As for the first, Jesus expects our internal purity to match our external purity.
For example, we must shun adultery in thoughts and deeds (5:27–30).
Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, p. 123). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
We should pray in public, but should be more intent on praying in private (6:5–6).
Jesus flays the scribes and Pharisees for their merely external religion:
“You tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (23:23).
They look righteous on the outside, but are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (6:1–18).
As for the second sense of purity, Jesus blesses the eye that is set on one thing, the will that determines to serve one master (6:22–24).
Purity of motivation is essential to discipleship.
The second and sixth beatitudes form a pair.
The disciple who mourns over sin will desire to be pure in heart.
If we recognize our sins, both sinful deeds and sinful thoughts, and
f we recognize our sins, both sinful deeds and sinful thoughts, and if we hate those sins, then we will try to rip them out, like so many noxious weeds.
if we hate those sins, then we will try to rip them out, like so many noxious weeds.
We will become pure in heart; we will see God.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” ()
Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, p. 124). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Doriani, D. M. (2008). Matthew & 2. (R. D. Phillips, P. G. Ryken, & D. M. Doriani, Eds.) (Vol. 1, p. 123). Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.
Let’s look at our text this morning under three simple headings.
THE CORRUPT CAUSES of the cursed. This corruption cause the heart to be blind and not see God.
A man that’s drunk cannot see clearly. His vision is distorted.
Those that have drunk deeply of the cups of sin become spiritually blind and are unable to see afar off!
There are moral beauties and immoral horrors which certain men cannot see because they are impure in heart.
In the OT (1 Sam. 11) there’s a man named Nahash the Ammonite.
He wanted to make Israel accept his supremacy which consisted in allowing him to gouge out their right eyes.
Satan leaves men their left eye, and in worldly knowledge they are quick-sighted enough.
But their right eye of spiritual knowledge is gouged out!
"In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” ()
Ignorance is satan’s strong hold called the “power of satan”. When Paul is telling of the commission given to him by Jesus he says,
"I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them "to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” ()
describes the demons as being chained in deep darkness awaiting the day of judgment.
So too are all ignorant men!
With impure hearts, man sees no need of purity.
They become like the church of Laodicea that say, “I’m rich, I have become wealthy and need nothing” (v17).
And yet Jesus tells them that “you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” (v17)
It’s a dreadful thing with the diseased man isn’t sensible to his disease!
To hear a man diseased with sin who say , “I have no need for repentance”.
Jesus gives these parables in about lost sheep. Jesus is responding to the Jewish religious leaders who are criticizing him for welcoming sinners (v2).
And listen to how Jesus contrasts the religious people with saved people.
"I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.” ()
The religious crowd thinks that they don’t need repentance.
There’s ignorance,
those who don’t see their need for a pure heart.
Then there’s the heart of unbelief.
An unbelieving heart is an impure heart.
Scripture calls it explicitly “an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” ()
Unbelief is a God-affronting sin.
It puts a lie upon God. Listen to the apostle John’s take on unbelief:
"...The one who does not believe God has made him a liar...” ()
There cannot be a greater affront to the God of glory!
Unbelief causes us to trust in secondary causes, which is setting the creation in the place of the Creator.
Asa, “even in his disease he didn’t seek the LORD but only the physicians.” ()
He relied more on the physicians, than upon God.
O high affront, to lean upon the reed, and neglect the Rock of ages!
There is also the same thing with regards to spiritual truth as well as moral truth.
THE COMPREHENSIVE COMFORT of the blessed.
PURIFICATION OF THE HEART USHERS US TO A MOST GLORIOUS SIGHT! “they will see God.”
Wow! What’s this mean?
This is the perfection of the soul’s happiness to see God.
Seeing Him by faith in our present time is a taste of heaven on earth.
The pure in hear will be able to see God in creation.
When our hearts are clean we’ll hear God’s footprint in the garden of the earth in the cool of the day.
You’ll hear this voice in the gentle breeze and the hurricane!
Every peal of lightening & thunder shows forth the power of God!
They behold the Lord walking on the great and mighty waters, or see Him in every leaf that tumbles in the breeze.
To the pure in heart they see the glory of God in the deepest caverns of the sea or
the outer realms of the deserts,
in every start that glows across the brow of midnight!
The pure in heart see God in the Scriptures.
Impure minds cannot see any trace of God in Scripture.
But the pure in heart see God on every page of this blessed Book!
The pure in heart read it devoutly and prayerfully,
they bless the Lord that He has been pleased so graciously to reveal Himself to them by His Spirit, and
that He has given them the opportunity and the desire to enjoy the revelation of His holy will.
The pure in heart see God in His church.
The impure in heart cannot see Him there at all!
To them, the church of Almighty God is nothing more than a big conglomeration of divided denominations.
They see nothing but her faults and failures and imperfections!
We note that a man cannot see except that which is according to his own nature.
When a vulture soars up into the sky, he sees nothing but the decaying flesh wherever it may be.
The lion sees its prey in the forest.
The lamb sees its food in the grassy meadow.
But the pure in heart see God in His Church and rejoice to meet Him there!
So seeing traces of God in creation, in the Word and in His church body...!
The pure in heart begin to discern something of God’s true character.
To perceive that God is
eternally just and yet infinitely tender, and that
He is sternly severe and yet immeasurably gracious, and to
see the various attributes of the Deity all blending into one another
as the colors of the rainbow make one harmonious and beautiful whole,—
this is reserved for the man whose
eyes have been first washed in the blood of Jesus, and
then anointed with heavenly eye-salve by the Holy Spirit.
It is only such a man who sees that God is always and altogether good, and
who admires Him under every aspect,
seeing that all His attributes are beautifully blended and balanced, and
that each one sheds additional splendor upon all the rest.
The pure in heart shall in that sense see God, for they shall appreciate His attributes and
understand His character as the ungodly never can.
They shall be admitted into His fellowship.
The time shall come when those who’ve seen God in this way on earth shall see Him face-to-face in heaven.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” ()
Oh, the splendor of that vision!
It is useless for me to attempt to talk about it.
Possibly, within a week, some of us will know more about it
than all the divines on earth could tell us.
It’s but a thin veil that parts us from the glory-world;
it may be rent asunder at any moment, and then at once,—
“I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!””
“Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in,—
the pure in heart shall fully understand what it is to see God.
May that be your portion, beloved, and mine also, for ever and ever!
Spurgeon, C. H. (1909). The Sixth Beatitude. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 55, p. 418). London: Passmore & Alabaster.
THE COMPREHENSIVE CHARACTER of the blessed.
Those who are going to see God are described as “pure in heart”!
This is the perfection of the soul’s happiness.
Making note that true Christianity consists in heart-purity!
THIS PURIFICATION OF THE HEART IS A DIVINE WORK.
Purity is often mistaken.
Civility isn’t purity. A man may be clothed with moral virtues, justice, self-control, yet go to hell.
God tells Jerusalem to wash their hearts
"Wash the evil from your heart, Jerusalem, so that you will be delivered. How long will you harbor malicious thoughts?” ()
We must lift up to God, not only clean hands, but a pure heart (according to ).
"Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.” ()
The heart must be purified!
The heart must be purified by faith, and entire for God;
must be presented and preserved a chaste virgin to Christ.
May God create in us such a clean hearts, O God!
Why do we need this purity?
FIRST, purity is a what’s called for in Scripture.
"for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.” ()
It’s not your pastor only that bids you to be holy but God himself calls for it!
What’s a holy God to do with unholy servants?
SECOND because of that filthy and cursed condition we are in before us being purified by grace!
Sin doesn’t just blind us it defiles us. James calls it filth!
"Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” ()
In scripture sin is called an
“affliction” 1 Kg 8:38.
“Defects” ()
Vomit (2 Pet. 2:22)
To infants thrashing around in blood ()
“Defects” ()
Vomit ()
And a menstrual clothe. ().
To infants thrashing around in blood ()
And a menstrual clothe. ().
All the ceremonial washings which God appointed (under the Old Covenant),
were but to put men in mind of their loathsomeness,
of their loathsomeness, before they were washed in the blood of Christ.
before they were washed in the blood of Christ.
A lost man is nothing more than a devil in the shape of a man.
So we need this purity because God calls for it and because of who we were before Christ.
But also, this is the end outcome of our election into Christ.
"For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” ()
We’re chosen not for holiness but to holiness.
"For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son...” ()
God predestinates us to Christ’s image, which image consists in righteousness and true holiness.
"and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.” ()
The unholy professing people of God don’t show signs of God’s choice of them but rather bare the devil’s brand-mark!
Purity is the end of our redemption. If we could have gone to heaven in our sins, Christ wouldn’t have had to die!
Why did Christ shed His blood?
"For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, "but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.” ()
Redeemed from tat empty way of life with the precious blood of Christ.
"He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.” ()
Redeemed to cleanse for Himself a people eager to do good works!!
Yes Christ died to save us from the wrath of God and but also to save us from our sins!
A church is hideous looking if the Head should be pure and not the members of His body!
THIS PURIFICATION OF THE HEART IS DIVINE WORK.
THIS PURIFICATION OF THE HEART IS A DIVINE WORK.
This is never an unnecessary work.
No man (except Jesus of Nazareth) was ever born with a pure heart; all have sinned, all need to be cleansed, there is none good no not one!
Rest ASSURED THAT
This work was never performed by any ceremony.
Men may say what they will, but no application of water, be it sprinkled or dunked into a baptismal tank ever made a person’s heart better!
Baptism doesn’t regenerate you!
It doesn’t make you members of Christ church
It doesn’t make you a child of God!
For many the whole baptismal ceremony is useless because no outward ceremonies can ever affect the heart!
Neither can the heart be purified by any process of outward reformation.
People often attempt to work from the outside to the inside to make the heart pure but it cannot be done!
It’s like trying to give a living heart to a marble statue by working upon the outside of it with hammer and chisel!
To make a sinner pure in heart is as great a miracle as if God were to make the marble statue live, and breath, and walk!
The heart can only be purified by God’s Holy Spirit.
God’s Spirit must come upon us, and overshadow us, and when He comes to us in this manner,
then is our heart changed, but never before that.
When the Spirit of God comes to us in this manner, He cleanses the soul—
to follow the line of our Savior’s teaching here in the context of —
by showing us our spiritual poverty: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
That is the first work of God’s grace,—to make us feel that
we are poor, that
we are nothing, that
we are undeserving,
ill-deserving,
hell-deserving sinners.
As the Spirit of God proceeds with His work, the next thing that he does is to make us mourn:
“Blessed are they that mourn.” We mourn to think that we should have sinned as we have done,
we mourn after our God,
we mourn after pardon; and
then the great process that effectually cleanses the heart is the application of the water and the blood which flowed from the torn side of Christ upon the cross.
Here it is, O sinners, that you will find a double cure from the guilt and from the power of sin!
When the eye of faith looks to the bleeding Savior, it sees in Him not merely
for pardon for the past, but
the putting away of the sinfulness of the present.
The angel said to Joseph, before Christ was born, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”” ()
This is the whole explanation of the process of salvation.
The Spirit of God finds us with defiled hearts, and He comes and throws a divine light into us so that we see that they are defiled.
Then He shows us that, being sinners, we deserve to endure God’s wrath, and we realize that we do.
Then he says to us, “But that wrath was endured by Jesus Christ for you.”
He opens our eyes, and we see that “Christ died for us,”—in our room place, and stead.
Spurgeon, C. H. (1909). The Sixth Beatitude. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 55, p. 419). London: Passmore & Alabaster.
We look to him, we believe that he died as our Substitute, and we trust ourselves with him.
Then we know that our sins are forgiven us for His name’s sake, and
the joy of pardoned sin goes through us with such a thrill as we never felt before; and
the next moment the forgiven sinner cries,
“Now that I am saved,
now that I am pardoned,
my Lord Jesus Christ,
I will be thy servant for ever.”
You are a spiritual leper until the grace of God purifies your heart!
God is in love with the pure heart because He sees His own picture drawn there!
The pure in heart have the embroidery and workmanship of God’s Spirit upon them!
The pure in heart is God’s paradise where He delights to walk!
See section 4 with thomas watson