V. The Mercifully Driven
Verse 7 says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” The character of the repentant person who has received the kingdom of heaven as their present possession is merciful. This person is not showing mercy so that somehow one day he will receive mercy from God, but having received mercy, he has the characteristic of one who is merciful. We would call these people the mercifully driven. When you have realized that you are morally bankrupt and mourned over your offenses against God, sought comfort in Jesus Christ the Messiah and humbled yourself in meekness, having pursued and received righteousness from God as a gift, you understand the mercy of God in your life and can show mercy to others. You can have compassion upon those beset by sin because the compassionate God looked upon you in mercy. There are three truths about mercy that Scripture gives to us.
A. God’s expectation of mercy (Matt. 18:33)
When God grants mercy to the repentant sinner, withholding His judgment and granting mercy and eternal life as a gift, an appropriate response is that the one shown mercy should show mercy to others. It is a response of gratitude for salvation that this repentant sinner should grant mercy to others. Who would withhold mercy from his fellow sinners when once he has seen the magnitude of the mercy shown to him?
In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of a man who owes a king multiple millions of dollars. Without the means to repay, the man pleads for time (knowing the impossibility of repayment). However, the king freely forgives this man the debt. He has compassion on the man and takes the debt upon himself. He absorbs it for the sake of the man. The man’s response, though outwardly grateful toward the king, does not extend to his fellow slaves. He finds a man who owes him a pittance in comparison to what he had owed the king and seizes him, choking him and demanding repayment. When the second man begs for mercy, the first won’t hear of it and has him committed into prison until he pays back what he owes. He refuses to have mercy on this man when he has just been the beneficiary of great mercy.
When the king hears of it, he calls the man in and asks this question: “Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, IN THE SAME WAY that I had mercy on you?” Here is the statement of God’s expectation of mercy, that when a repentant sinner receives the removal of his sin against God, the forgiven one should likewise have mercy on others who have sinned against them. Why? Because the debt that is owed him (by those who have sinned against him) is in no way comparable to the debt he owed God who has had mercy upon him.
Has someone sinned against you and you have not forgiven them? Do you hold it against them and refuse to release it? Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow sinner IN THE SAME WAY that God had mercy on you? God has an expectation of mercy from those to whom He has shown mercy.
What has someone done to you that you have not done to God? Is it not a light thing to which God calls us who have received His mercy?
B. The source of God’s mercy (Heb. 2:17; 8:12)
If you have not received the mercy of His forgiveness for your sin you must come to the source of His mercy. Like the man dying of thirst in the desert needs desperately to find a source of water, so we who are condemned because of our sin desperately need to find the source of God’s mercy.
God’s mercy is not handed out freely to all. People say that because He is merciful, certainly He will forgive their sin and give them eternal life. Yet God has provided but one way to obtain His mercy. Apart from that source there is no mercy from God, only justice.
How many have heard someone say, “God is a forgiving God and will forgive my sin when I confess my sin.” Again, apart from the source of mercy there is no forgiveness, only justice.
Many people have a works mentality in regard to the forgiveness of their sin. If I just confess my sin God will forgive me. However, even if that were the way God removes the penalty of sin, the problem is that no one knows all the sin he commits. We break God’s law all the time. Many times, wrong thoughts, deeds and words take place with little or no recognition on our part as to their wrong. How could someone confess their way to complete forgiveness? Full forgiveness or righteousness is what God requires for eternal life.
The source of God’s mercy is Jesus Christ. Hebrews 2:17 says, “He (Jesus) had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Jesus Christ became a man so that as the perfect God-man He could die on our behalf and become a propitiation (a sacrifice that turns away God’s wrath) on the cross. He suffered God’s wrath for us that He might be the source of mercy as a merciful and faithful high priest. It is on this basis alone that God’s mercy is extended to the repentant sinner. The author of Hebrews says later in 8:12, “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” The mercy found in Jesus results in a complete remission (forgiveness) of sin. It is the truth that God forgives all your sin or He forgives none of it.
He wants to forgive and He offers you eternal life, but you must come to Him in His way, the way He has outlined in the Scripture through Jesus Christ, not in whichever way you have outlined in your mind.
Psalm 86:5 tells us that God desires to forgive. King David says, “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness (or mercy) to all who call upon You.” For “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
This is God’s great mercy. Eternal life through the forgiveness of sins. Receive it through faith in Him and call upon His name.
C. The limit to God’s mercy (Luke 16:24)
God’s mercy does not extend for everyone into eternity. God calls for you to receive His mercy but there is time limit on that invitation. In Luke 16:24, Jesus tells the story of a rich man who rejected God’s mercy while he was alive and was shown no mercy in his death. The verse reads, “He cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’” Yet no mercy was shown to this man to soothe his torment for even an instant.
There is a limit to God’s mercy. God says to you that today is the day of salvation, now is the acceptable time. There is no promise of tomorrow. This is why Isaiah 55:6-7 says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Repentance over your sin and faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Messiah will bring you the mercy and compassion of God. Why would you accept eternal torment when the abundant pardon of God is available to you if you will call upon the Savior?
Those who receive God’s mercy are the blessed. Don’t let anything keep you from experiencing it today.
VI. The Internally Pure
Verse 8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Perhaps more than any other verse in these Beatitudes, verse 8 shows a great necessity for the inward work of God in the heart of a person. For unless you are pure in heart, you will not see God.
In Job 4:17, one of Job’s friends asks, “Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?” King David tells us in Psalm 24:3-4, “Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” No one may approach the Lord unless His heart is clean, unless it is as pure as freshly fallen snow. Who then may approach Him? Who may come before Him? Does it not pierce your own soul knowing that your heart is in truth impure before God? How can your heart be made pure? How will you be able to stand before Him? Don’t think lightly of such of a position before God if your heart is impure. Shouldn’t it cause you to consider carefully your eternal condition if only the pure in heart will see God?
This verse speaks of the ultimate necessity for the purification of my heart by faith. Nothing else will do it. I can’t bring this about through my own works. How can I purify my heart? Many have tried much more diligently than me to do so in very many ways by their own effort and have failed. How could you or I succeed in the venture? Some have gone away into monasteries seeking asylum from the world, hoping that by running away they will create in themselves a pure heart. As if the environment around us is the cause of the impurity of our heart. Others by self-beatings think that they will drive out the evil thoughts and temptations from them that they might be pure in heart. Still others have made long pilgrimages, sacrificing time and money, or spent hours upon hours confessing sins for the sake of purifying the filth of their heart. Yet in all these instances they find that they cannot do it because, as Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately wicked.”
In Matthew 15:18-19, Jesus tells us, “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” These things are in our hearts and must be cleansed.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
A. Who will see God?
To speak the truth, all people will see God, but not all will see God in the way that they hope to see Him. Not all will see God in a blessed way. Not all will be blessed to see Him. Who are those who will see God?
1. Those who see Him in unbelief
In John 6:36, the crowds had come back to Jesus after He had fed several thousand with a few loaves and fish. He told them, “I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” There are those today who see Jesus (I don’t mean with physical eyes) in the Scripture and through the preaching of the Word of God and yet continue in unbelief. The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to them but they refuse to put their trust in Him. To these people Jesus is like a phantom, a murky shadowy figure filling the pages of the past with no connection to their life. Or He is to them a contradiction. Because of their unbelief they cannot seem to grab hold of Him and receive what He says He will do for them because they will not trust His promises in the Scripture. So they can see Him but yet not believe.
Jesus spoke about this in John 9. In that chapter Jesus heals a man who had been born blind. In verses 35 and following John writes that Jesus asks him, “‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.’ And he said, “Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped Him.” Jesus continues, “‘For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.’ Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, ‘We are not blind too, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, “We see,” your sin remains.’”
Seeing Jesus in unbelief is as good as not seeing Him at all. If you don’t see Him with eyes of faith you don’t see your sin. If you don’t look upon Jesus Christ in faith in the Scripture you do not see your need for Him as the Savior who will deliver you from the punishment of hell. You don’t see the truth that the Spirit of God is presenting to you. Your heart is blind because of unbelief.
2. Those who see Him in judgment
Those who continue to look at Him in unbelief will one day find themselves staring Him in the face under judgment. In Matthew 26:64, Jesus, at His trial, standing before the leaders of Israel says, “Nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” It will not be a day of blessing for those who do care to resolve the status of their unclean heart. It will be a day of darkness and fear and judgment. In speaking of that day the prophet Joel said, “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision.” There will be many more at that judgment than expected to be there. They will hear the Lord utter His voice and sit upon His throne of judgment.
3. Those who will see Him as He really is
Those who will see Him as He really is will see Him as the God of grace and truth. Their view of Him will be the God of mercy. They will receive the blessing of knowing His smiling countenance. In his first letter, the apostle John says in chapter 3:2, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
This is the blessing that mankind has longed for since the dawn of time: to see God. Moses longed for it. His request in speaking to the Lord was, “Lord, let me see your glory.” People have always wanted to see God. This is why there is so much idolatry throughout the history of mankind. They try, corruptly, to represent God with a statue. But it can never give us a real glimpse of God. This is why God outlawed the making of statues to represent Him. It can only give a warped sense of the God whose image cannot be captured in a caricature.
Those who see God in judgment will find the face of God terrible. Their unclean hearts will cause them to see the face of God in the hot anger of His holiness that cannot bear with sin. But those who have a pure heart will see the beauty of His holiness expressed in the glorious light of His presence.
In Revelation 22:3-4, when all those whose hearts have been purified will stand before God, the Scripture says, “There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.” These who would not take the mark of the beast upon their forehead will find the beautiful name of the Lord written upon theirs as they look into the face of God and are blessed forever and ever. And they will serve Him and be in His presence in the joy of their Lord.
B. How do you receive a pure heart?
Since only those who are pure in heart will see His face in the way they desire, the next question to ask is, how do you receive a pure heart? For it ought to be obvious, with the Holy Spirit’s prompting in your heart, that there is a necessity for you to have a new heart. There can be no reconditioning of your heart. Exercise and eating right might rejuvenate your physical heart, but in speaking of a pure heart, God is speaking of your spiritual heart. And you need a transplant.
In Ezekiel 36:25-27, we see the Lord’s Word concerning this spiritual heart transplant that needs to take place to be able to see God. “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
God wants to put a new, pure heart into you. He wants to remove all your sin and cleanse and renew you. How then are you to receive a pure heart? Hebrews 10:22 says, “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience…” With what does the author of Hebrews say our hearts need to be sprinkled with? In verse 19 he says, “Since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,” of which he says in 12:24 you have come “to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”
In the days of Moses, the people of Israel entered into the covenant allowing themselves to be sprinkled with the blood of a bull. The blood represented the blood of Christ that would cleanse everyone who would come by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus to pay for their sins and cleanse their hearts. In Acts 15:9 the apostle Peter, addressing the church at Jerusalem, said that they and the Gentiles had their hearts cleansed by faith. In Peter’s first sermon in Acts chapter 2, Peter quoted from the Old Testament passage that read, “It shall be that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” If you are to be blessed to see God you must have a pure heart. To receive a pure heart from God you must be sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ. This takes place by faith when you call upon the Lord to save you. Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sin and give you eternal life. He shed His blood to give you a new heart, a pure heart. Ask the Lord to cleanse your heart by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don’t put it off.
Let me close with some of the last verses of the book of Revelation: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.” In which place will you be? On the inside or the outside? With robes washed clean in the blood of the Savior, or with the immoral and the murderers?