“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David… Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:1-3, 6-7) “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38) “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25) So, this week, we will pick up where we left off last week. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” My assumption is that everyone here is going to have at least one of these Beatitudes that is particularly piercing, and the one that pierces me the most deeply is this one.  I can take a couple approaches to that:  1.  I can see how I stack up against how God says His children ought to be, recognize that I’m lacking, be humbled, and pray to Him, because the only help will come from Him; or 2. I can change what the verse means so I won’t feel uneasy about it.   I like option #1.  There’s no great mystery about what the verse means – if we aren’t merciful, then we aren’t blessed; if we aren’t merciful, then we aren’t giving evidence that we are God’s people; if we aren’t merciful, then we have no reason to expect that we will be going to heaven.  
 
Merciful?  Like these humans walking around, today?:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God The characteristics of God’s people are that they are poor in spirit, mourn for their sins, are meek in the sight of God, so they hunger and thirst after righteousness, and have hence been  filled.  God has had mercy on us.  He was under no obligation to put our sin aside and impute His righteousness to us, but He had mercy on us.  Because of that mercy that we received, we are merciful and will obtain more mercy, and we are pure in heart.   The Jews of Jesus’s day were very concerned with outward appearance.  They thought they could show everyone their great purity by their actions.  But Jesus said, “No.  It’s purity of HEART that I’m looking for.”  A pure heart will lead to pure actions.  Conduct is important, but only if your heart’s right. The first question is, what is the “heart” referring to here?  Proverbs 4:23 says about the heart, “out of it are the issues of life.”  The “issues of life” are those things that proceed from the heart; those things that you think, do and say.  The heart includes what you feel and what you will.  Those things result in outward behavior – they come from the heart.  And the heart is the core of all our problems.  A wicked and corrupt heart leads to wicked actions.  Jeremiah tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).  Jesus tells us that “those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man.” (Matthew 15:18-20).  The problem of human beings is that we are rotten to the core.  Our very hearts are corrupt.  It’s not our environment that is to blame for humans doing evil things – it is our evil heart.  Our nature is to be contrary to God; to be at enmity with God.   And here we have Jesus telling us, “only when you are pure in heart can you see God.”  Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “is any folly greater than the folly of imagining that you can ever make yourself a Christian?”  Folly, indeed.  “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.”  (Job 14:4).  “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23).  We can no more make ourselves have pure hearts than an Ethiopian can change the color of his skin.  What Christ is saying is, “before a person can see God, there has to have been a change to your very core.”  And that can only be done by God.  Christ describes this elsewhere as “ye must be born again” and “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”  (John 3:5,7).
 
Pure like these people?
GodSmack!
 
The New Testament is full of warnings about persecution.  It’s going to happen.  If you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).  Paul says that we are appointed unto afflictions (1 Thessalonians 3:3).  And again says suffering for His sake is a gift that was given to us, along with the gift of believing on Him (Philippians 1:29).  So don’t be shocked when it happens to you.  Persecutions are absolutely necessary, because they try our faith.  You won’t know if your faith is real until you see how you stand up under persecution. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.” (1 Peter 4:12-16) 
 
God is not sleeping, people.  The same Jesus Christ who gave these words of fair warning and encouragement is at work, still:
 
 
 
 
 
 
BOLO for the last sermon to be reviewed in 2024.  2025 shall be dedicated to reviewing Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs IF THE LORD IS WILLING.