Will you kindly turn with me in the
scriptures to Matthew chapter 5, which forms the
basis of our meditation today.
Purity of heart and the vision of God.
Said Jesus, blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Pondering over the challenging implications of this the
sixth beatitude, one cannot fail to have some
kind of sympathy with those who say that
the beatitudes have a reference to a future
life rather than to the present.
Now I believe, and we have said this
earlier on, that that is untenable really.
But nevertheless one is frightened by the reference
here to the purity of heart.
If it is only the pure of heart
that see God, will any of us see
him in this world?
And what is the vision of God?
Will any of us be able to have
the scum taken out of our eyes that
with any clarity we can behold him?
However, one is glad to be reminded that
there is nevertheless a present and a future
application to these beatitudes.
And we need to remember that at all
times, but especially when we come to this
beatitude today.
It is not altogether something that applies to
the future, though it has a future application.
When we shall be out of these bodies,
and we shall be in the presence of
God, and we shall see as he sees
us and know as he knows us.
Even so, even so, there is a present
day by day application of these very words
as of the other beatitudes.
And this is where the shoe pinches all
of us very especially.
Now we shall examine these breathtaking words this
morning by noting in turn two things.
The content of the particular blessedness where Jesus
here holds forth, namely the vision of God.
And then the condition that relates to its
actual enjoyment.
Purity of heart.
I would like you to pray for me
for special grace this morning.
I never like to lead people on a
guilt trip that is not born of the
Spirit of God.
We need to be convicted and convinced of
certain things in our lives, but it must
be the work of the Spirit of God
and not of the preacher.
And a subject like this can lead every
member in the congregation on a guilt outing.
If so, then let it be the conviction
of the Spirit of God and not anything
I may say that would appear to be
aimed at creating a guilt that is false.
I don't want to do that.
Now the first thing then that is before
us is the vision that is promised.
Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall
see God.
They shall see God.
It's obvious to the reader of scripture that
the vision promised here is something different from
that rendered possible to our natural sight, the
sight of our physical eyes.
God is pure spirit and as such is
not capable of being seen by our natural
eyes.
Whenever scripture tells us that someone has seen
God in any visible form, in any tangible
form, then it means that God has taken
upon himself to manifest himself not as pure
spirit, but in some form or other in
order that man should know that he's there
and know something about him.
As for example, the pillar and the cloud
in the wilderness in the history of Israel.
Just to mention two illustrations.
God is pure spirit.
He's not a pillar of cloud.
God is not a pillar of fire.
God is pure spirit.
Normally and naturally God is unseen, cannot be
touched, but he makes himself such that men
from time to time can even see that
in which he appears.
Otherwise it is necessarily spiritual.
God's nature is essentially spiritual and the vision
of him must be spiritual for God clearly
said to Moses, you cannot see my face
for no one may see me and live.
We cannot see God in his essential being
as spirit and live until and unless covered
by the atoning blood of Christ and his
righteousness.
Rid of this body we shall see him
in the world that is to come.
This means therefore that the vision promised in
this particular word of our text is not
to the natural eye.
It is to the spiritual.
It is of the same order of vision
as that to which our Lord refers when
he told the disciples of old.
Before long he says the world will not
see me anymore.
The world will not see me anymore.
But you will see me.
Why is he able to say that?
Well evidently because he is going to give
them a sense of his awareness spiritually that
will not be given to the world.
Peter lying in prison guarded by two soldiers
and the doors of the prison bolted and
barred and he sees them moving back on
their hinges and he sees someone taking him
by the hand and taking him out and
leading him to liberty.
You see that's seeing God.
Jesus later explains that kind of vision of
God when he says two chapters later in
John 16 the spirit will take from what
is mine and will make it known to
you.
The redeemed have the capacity for the vision
of God in this life.
Now let's look at that for a moment.
The vision of God promised in this present
world.
I can only point to illustrations of this.
This is an endless theme as indeed is
the other part.
The vision of God promised to us in
the world to come.
We shall be even shorter there not because
there is no material but because our time
is limited.
The present vision of God.
Our present vision of God involves for example
the capacity to recognize God in and behind
the events of life.
That is a most crippling and shattering kind
of blindness which is totally oblivious to the
imminence of God in the affairs of daily
life and living, in the progress of history,
in what is going on in your office,
in your home, in your street, wherever you
are.
If we can only see men doing man's
thing then my friends you and I have
cause to tremble and especially in days such
as ours.
I don't want to go off at that
tangent today but if you cannot see God
in the affairs of daily life then you'll
have some ulcers or a breakdown or something
sooner or later.
It's inevitable.
The kind of present vision of God to
which I mean to refer is beautifully illustrated
in the experience of Joseph for example.
Now you're going to be hearing about Joseph
next Wednesday evening.
Do see that you're there to hear Desmond
McConaughey from Ottawa.
He's a dear friend of mine and the
Lord has greatly blessed him in the churches
where he's ministered.
He comes with a fresh understanding of things
and you'll be blessed if you're able to
join him.
Well now you'll be hearing about Joseph.
You remember Joseph was sold by his embittered
brothers for the price of a slave.
They hated him.
And then he was pitchforked from one experience
to another.
I don't want to steal Desmond McConaughey's message.
I'm not going to do that.
But he was pitchforked from an unhappy home
into a pit.
From a pit into a caravan taken as
a slave to Egypt.
From the caravan into the home of somebody
who bought him as a slave, a high
-ranking official in Egypt.
From there he was pitchforked into prison and
from prison to the palace.
What a whirling set of human experiences.
But at long last those responsible for setting
that chain of human history a-going, humanly
speaking, there they are before him.
The brothers that sold him, that hated him,
that couldn't speak kindly to him.
There they are.
And not only are they before him, but
they're absolutely dependent on him for bread to
eat and thus to live.
And they're getting a bit frightened.
But you see Joseph has seen God in
history.
And rather than come down with a rod
of iron as he might have, for all
power was in his hand, the reigning Pharaoh
has put the ring from his finger on
Joseph's finger.
And he rides in the second chariot.
And when he rides in the second chariot
they all bow the knee before him.
Oh he had power, he had authority.
And he says to his brothers, his enemies,
who sold him for the price of a
slave, fellows, he says, don't look so gloomy
and dismal.
It wasn't you really who did it.
Oh no, you did it.
But listen, he says, God actually was in
it.
And he sent me beforehand in order to
preserve life.
God had a big, God had a large
purpose.
And it wasn't all you he says, God
was in it.
And you see the man wasn't sour.
He was in control of himself because he
saw God in it.
You and I get agitated very times because
we don't see God in anything.
We only see men.
Especially when we ourselves are involved and we're
hurt in any way.
Now to see God in the affairs of
daily life and living is something that keeps
people sane.
God means us to see him you see.
And you will have serenity and sanity to
the extent that you can really see God
behind men.
And if you can't see God behind men,
the Lord have mercy on you.
Faber, the hymn writer, has a lovely stanza
in his hymn when he says, thrice blessed
is he to whom has given the instinct
that can tell that God is on the
field when he is most invisible.
That's it.
When he is most invisible.
All your worldlings are around, intelligent, cultured, powerful,
insightful in every other realm.
And they're looking around and they're saying, where
is God?
But the man or the woman of faith
sees him.
And that vision arises from a purity of
heart.
For ultimately you see, it is only sin
that blocks out the vision of God, nothing
else.
Not the fact that you haven't been to
a university for a degree, important as that
may be.
Not the fact that you're poor rather than
rich or rich rather than poor.
It's not that at all.
There is only one thing that shuts out
the knowledge of God and the vision of
God.
It's sin.
And where you have purity of heart, God
in his glory is manifest and the soul
senses the reality of it.
Let me give you another illustration.
Such a vision of God in the present
involves also the capacity to learn from him
and about him as he is revealed in
the affairs of life.
You see this most graphically and most beautifully,
most perfectly in the life of our blessed
Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, it seemed at times as if
he saw God in everything, either by comparison
or by contrast.
He could hardly look at a blade of
grass without remembering that God clothed it.
He painted it.
His father painted it.
Or the lily of the field and he
saw it in all its glory, far surpassing
that of Solomon.
And where did it all come from?
Oh, my father made it and caused it
to grow.
Even when he thinks of an unjust judge,
not a just one, he sees his father
by contrast of course, by contrast.
God will do with you the opposite to
what this man does because God is not
unjust but just.
The lily of the field, the sowing of
the seed, almost everything has something to say
about God.
How is it?
Well, for this reason you see, his heart
was pure.
It isn't that he had a special pair
of glasses that enabled him to see a
visible God there.
You know, you can wear some kind of
goggles and they play ducks and drakes with
your eyes and you can see all sorts
of visions beyond.
I once had a pair on and I
took them off rather quickly.
It isn't as if Jesus had some queer
pair of spectacles on that he could see
figures everywhere.
No, no, no, no, no.
But you see there was no sin between
him and God.
His soul was pure.
And when he saw a sparrow fall, he
saw God falling with the sparrow.
Oh, you and I miss so much when
we don't see God in the affairs of
this life and like our Lord, out of
that experience being able to teach others about
him.
So many of the mystics and so many
of the saints of God in various circumstances
have been, have been more than conquerors because
of this vision of God in the here
and now.
Think of Madame Guillaume, rotting in that foul
French dungeon and beginning to sing in her
desolation and in her anguish physically with no
hope of getting out.
A little bird am I, shot in from
birds and air, content to sing my little
song to him who placed me here.
Oh, how beautiful.
Madame Guillaume, what are you doing?
I'm singing to God and here she's composing
hymns and she's singing them to the Lord
there's no one else to sing to.
But she sees God in prison.
See?
And she leaves mankind and she leaves the
church.
She bequeaths to the church a wealth of
understanding that many of us desperately need.
She had the vision of God.
Or let me give one other illustration.
There are so many that one can give.
The vision of God in the present time
may also include the ability to discern the
pattern and direction of his workings in history.
The way he's moving and therefore the way
we ought to be going if we're going
with God.
And this is fellowship.
It's going with God.
I find that among the most priceless illustrations
of this, apart from our Lord of course,
is that of Moses.
Abram, we were hearing of Abram on Wednesday
night but I won't illustrate from Abram this
morning or you think I'm trying to steal
the thunder from all these fellows.
I'm not doing that.
But let me illustrate from Moses.
Well of course Moses is coming the week
after next.
Sorry.
There you are.
You see we're all in the one Bible.
But let me read to you from the
epistle to the Hebrews.
By faith Moses when he was grown up,
now notice the verbs here, refused to be
known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the
people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures
of sin for a short time.
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ
as of greater value than the treasures of
Egypt because he was looking forward to his
reward.
By faith he left Egypt not fearing the
king's anger.
He preserved, he persevered because he saw him
who is invisible.
Now let me just look at that.
Behind the wheels and the woes of that
enslaved people, with a taskmaster's lash coming down
upon them all through the long day, this
man Moses saw something among that ancient rabble
community now humiliated after being there for 400
years of slaves.
He saw something among them he did not
see in the courts of Egypt.
What did he see?
Well he didn't see nice clothes, he didn't
see anybody wearing a crown, didn't see anybody
wearing a halo.
They were sweating it out.
All the grime and all the dirt and
all the misery and all the heartache and
all the anguish of it.
But Moses saw something Moses man, what do
you see?
I see that God is with them.
In a way he's not found in the
Egyptian court.
I see God working alongside of them and
I see Messiah coming from among them and
so you see he refused the honor of
being called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose to be ill-treated alongside of
them.
He left Egypt not fearing the fury of
the Pharaoh.
He could see the unseen.
Oh brothers and sisters some of our eyes
have need to be opened and the only
thing that keeps them shut is impurity in
the heart.
Now something about the vision of God promised
in the life hereafter.
I can only refer to this.
You will understand that this is the subject
of subject, but I can only refer to
it.
Precious as it is, bliss as it is
to be able to see God in the
here and now, all that is but the
first fruit, the foretaste, the foregleam of what
the Bible holds out for the redeemed of
the Lord.
Clothed in their resurrection bodies and pure in
heart, the saints of God will one day,
as John says in the Revelation, they will
one day move into a place where there
shall be no more curse, but the throne
of God and of the Lamb shall be
in it and his servants shall serve him
and they shall see his face.
Now we see through a glass darkly, says
Paul.
Oh we see, Moses saw, Abram saw my
day.
We see, we see, we see because sin
is taken away.
We have the capacity to see, but even
so, says Paul, in comparison with that which
is to come, we're still like men looking
through a dark glass.
It doesn't, it isn't a clear glass, you
can't see through it, there's a, it's shot
with a hue of darkness.
We're looking through a glass darkly.
Oh but then, he says, by, by, by
contrast, when we see his face, it will
be face to face.
We shall have perfect vision of the God
who is spirit and we shall see him
as he is.
The Old Testament even is enraptured at the
prospect of this, but of course so is
the new.
And I, says the Psalmist in Psalm 17,
15, I in righteousness, I will see your
face.
When I awake, I will be satisfied with
seeing your likeness.
Says Isaiah in chapter 33 and verse 17,
your eyes shall see the King in his
beauty.
And Jesus prayed to his Father, Father, he
says, I want those whom you have given
me to be with me where I am,
to see my glory, the glory you have
given me before the world was created.
I want them to see my glory, which
is the glory of the Father.
So much then, so much for this first
main thrust, the vision promised.
Now a few words about the condition postulated.
The vision attracts us.
We sense that we need the vision of
God in the here and now and we
desire the vision of God, the beatific vision
in the world which is to come.
If we have no such hope, we are
of all men most miserable.
But what are the conditions?
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God.
Now what, what are the implications of heart
purity?
What does it mean?
Jesus Christ here and elsewhere inevitably stresses first
of all the inwardness of true religion.
It's a matter of the heart.
True religion is a matter of the heart.
Now we mustn't go to other, to the
extreme of saying that all the emphasis in
the Bible is upon character.
It is not.
The Bible also stresses conduct, the way we
behave, what we do.
It says that we shall be judged by
our words and by our works.
And these are what we say.
These are things we do, our activity.
But the priority falls inevitably in Scripture upon
the kind of person we are, upon character.
And character of course has this inward side
to it.
Character is never what, something on the surface.
It is something deep.
It is what I am in the depths
of my soul.
Now our Lord was probably stressing it at
this point by way of contrast to the
externalism of pharisaic religion.
You see, they were content, provided you were
in the Lord's house on the Sabbath.
Doesn't matter whether you're a killer in your
heart or not.
Many of them were in the synagogue at
the right time, doing the right things, planning
to kill the very Messiah.
But you see, they scored the point.
They were there.
And as far as pharisaic was religion, the
most important thing was doing the right thing.
Doing the right thing.
The externality of things was so important.
And they minimized the significance of character, of
the quality and condition of spirit that must
be underlying.
But now you notice that you can't evade
the thrust of Jesus.
Blessed are the pure in...
You read on into the Sermon on the
Mount and he's not saying, you'll see it
very clearly, and elsewhere too of course, and
the whole of the New Testament.
Jesus is not saying, the only thing that
matters is your condition of heart.
No, no, no.
You are the, you are a city set
upon a hill.
You've got to let your light shine, your
salt, you've got to let the salt work.
You are, you, you are, you are this
and that and there's something for you to
do and to go places and do things.
And the most important thing of all is
this.
What you are in your heart, in your
soul, in your spirit, in the depth of
your being.
Jesus takes us right to the source of
life and of behavior.
Now, granted that our Lord requires purity in
the heart, purity at the very source and
center of desire, thought and emotion.
What does he really mean by purity?
These are very important questions.
May I suggest two or three things and
I cannot, I cannot complete it.
There are so many things involved probably, but
I think we can refer to some of
the major things.
First of all, purity of heart implies a
heart that has been cleansed from sin.
See, we've got to start there because we
come to this with all our hearts soiled.
If there was an exception here this morning,
if there was somebody who had come to
church and said, well my heart has never
been soiled.
Well now, we would have to start somewhere
else then, but there isn't anyone.
Because you see the scriptures say, all we
like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way.
All of us, all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God.
The heart, says the scripture, is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked.
That's your heart, my heart, apart from the
grace of God.
And it was Jesus who said, out of
the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, fornication,
theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy,
slander, pride, and so forth.
Where do they come from Jesus?
Out of the heart of men.
Well now then, if this is the quality,
if this is the condition of the human
heart, then evidently any man who's going to
have purity of heart has got to undergo
a cathartic process.
There has to be a process of cleansing.
That is why we have that great old
hymn, there is a fountain filled with blood,
drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath
that flood lose all their guilty stains.
You and I need that to be pure.
We have to be cleansed.
Such purity only emerges, of course, as the
Bible tells us, by obedience to the truth,
by being washed in the blood, by being
obedient to the Spirit, by walking with God.
But now let's add to that.
A pure heart is not only a cleansed
heart, but a changed heart.
If my heart is normally unclean, then it
has to be changed, it has to be
given a new direction, so that it doesn't
move in the way of uncleanness as it
previously did.
What's the point of a heart being cleansed
if all the time, like a pig it's
going back to the mire?
What's the point of a heart being cleansed
when all the time it gravitates to the
dirt and to the mess?
A pure heart is a heart that's not
only cleansed, but having been cleansed, it has
in the process been changed.
To desire after purity, to long after purity,
and to seek purity, literally to seek it.
And the Bible promises this, God promises this
in the Bible.
He says right away back in Genesis, and
it comes through to the New, listen to
Ezekiel 36.
Let me just take out these words.
A new heart also will I give you,
and a new spirit will I put within
you.
I'll take away the heart of stone, and
I'll give you a heart of flesh.
I will put a new heart within you,
and I will put a new spirit, even
my Holy Spirit within you.
The spirit that animates the inner life of
a man must be holy if the person
is to see God.
Then let me add to that, a pure
heart is not only a cleansed heart and
a changed heart, it must also be a
heart that is unmixed in its condition and
in its motives.
No heart can claim to be pure, which
is a mixture of good and evil.
Now at best in this life, all of
us are a mixture, but the mixture should
be changing in its ratio from day to
day.
We cannot claim to be wholly pure in
this life.
Pure gold is unmixed gold, all gold.
Pure milk is unadulterated milk, and the pure
heart is a heart that is unadulterated by
the opposite.
We do not get that in a day.
Positionally in Christ it is ours.
In terms of prospect we shall have it,
but in actuality in this life of ours,
being the kind of people we are, we
only overcome the territory of evil and the
power of evil little by little.
And oftentimes we slip back to where we
were a month or so ago, so that
so many steps forward results in so many
steps backward.
So that it's a progressive thing, and it
must also be an integrated heart.
Do you remember the psalmist crying in Psalm
86 and verse 11, Unite my heart, he
says, to praise thy name.
Did you ever ponder that prayer?
Unite my heart, the heart there speaks of
the whole inner life.
And you see what the psalmist found was
this, his head wanted one thing, his emotions
wanted another thing, and even when both wanted
the right thing, his will was weak and
vacillating, and he wasn't quite sure where he
was.
He was at sixes and sevens.
And so he prays to God, Unite my
whole heart, my whole inner life, so that
all of me inside of me is geared
and harnessed to do your will.
Oh it is so easy to be divided
inside the citadel of our own hearts.
Blessed are the pure in heart, says Jesus,
they shall see God.
Now lastly, if this is what is meant
by purity, how is it to be achieved?
Well, as I've already indicated, it must be
a progressive experience.
But how?
Well fundamentally, God must do it.
And if Jesus Christ had not made provision
for this in his death, and by the
gift of the Spirit, and the inspiration of
his word, and the creation of the fellowship
of the Saints, it would be impossible.
It is only possible because of the work
of Christ, the power of the Spirit, the
fellowship of the Saints, and the sovereign provisions
of God for us, according to his promises.
It is only possible there.
But now, having said that, having agreed with
the writer of the hymn who says, "'Tis
thine to cleanse the heart, to sanctify the
soul, to pour fresh life on every part,
and new create the whole,' having agreed to
that, how do we get there?
Now brothers and sisters, as I understand it,
this is what Jesus is telling us in
these Beatitudes.
And I'm going to repeat something.
Purity of heart begins with a poverty of
spirit that recognizes my own condition as lost.
Now you may say, I don't see the
connection.
Well Jesus says he does.
I think that's the meaning of it.
Purity of heart can only begin when I
have come to the point where I see
that I am undone, I am unimpure, I
am unholy, I am unworthy, I am lost
before God.
More, purity of heart proceeds, it begins to
germinate, and you see maybe the first petal
on the little flower, as we begin to
mourn on account of our sin.
Not now mourning for other people's sin in
the first place, but for our own.
We're saddened by who and what we are.
We're worried because of ourselves.
We lose some sleepless nights because of the
things we find within.
And when something disturbs the dirt in our
souls and it comes up to our minds
and to our consciousness, we're amazed that these
things come from us.
We mourn.
Following upon poverty of spirit resulting in a
deep mourning of the condition on account of
what's on in us, of what's going on
in us, comes the desire for the things
that are absent in one's life.
The things that God requires of us.
And Jesus put it like this, blessed are
they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after
the right things, to be right with God,
to be right with men, to be right
at all times rather than to be wrong.
Purity of spirit is something that is going
to come out of that climate, out of
that soil, prepared in this way.
Arising out of the quest for righteousness, there
emerges a new quality of spirit in the
individual concerned, because he is enabled to have
mercy on people.
Blessed are the merciful.
Having recognized the gravity of my own sin
against God, I do not now find it
so difficult to forgive the wrongs of other
people against me.
I'm not a God to be sinned against,
and no one has sinned against me as
I have sinned against God.
Therefore, logic and the new spirit of God
in my heart alike, require of me that
I should have mercy upon those who have
stepped on my toes, or said unkind things,
or thought unkind things, or whatever.
Have mercy, blessed are the merciful.
Now, the last step up to our text
this morning is this.
Now, there will now arise from the very
condition of the things that are going on
in our soul, there will now arise the
first fruits, the evident first fruits of heart
purity.
And heart purity springs out of this soil.
If you like, the picture here is this.
You want to grow something in your garden,
at the moment it's all just growing weeds.
The kind of dandelions we had in our
lawn earlier on, there's something even worse than
that.
What are you going to do with it?
Well, what Jesus is saying here is this,
you've got to deal with the soil.
And you've really got to put the spade
down very deeply, and you've got to turn
things upside down, and you've got to get
rid of the things that are evil.
Throw them outside, and the stones, and the
whatnot.
Take things up by the root.
But then when the soil is ready, and
you attend to it, you will find that
ultimately something will happen.
There will come in your soul a purity
of thought, a purity of desire, a purity
of ambition.
And across the whole thing will be written,
in due course, if you move in that
direction, holiness unto the Lord.
Now, this is a lifelong experience, let me
repeat, and a lifelong discipline.
But it is true that as men become
progressively pure in heart, so do they learn
also to hear the voice of God, to
see the face of God.
You know, that is what fellowship is, according
to the Old Testament way of looking at
it.
Come before my face, says the Lord.
That is what he means when he calls
his people to fellowship.
Come before my face, look up into my
face.
And the pure in heart can look into
his face.
I have read somewhere of the famous musician
Mozart, walking in the countryside with a friend,
a huntsman.
You've probably read of it too.
They were enjoying the walk together very much.
They came to a turn in the road
when the wind began to blow, and as
they passed a little copse, through which the
rising wind was heard to blow, the huntsman
said excitedly, look, it'll startle her.
After a brief silent, Mozart replied, in pensive
mood, listen man, he said, to that dire
pass on from God's great organ.
A lark shot upwards from its hiding place,
singing as it enjoyed its liberty of wing
in the sky, looks at the gamester, what
a lovely shot.
The musician replied, listen man, listen to the
thrill of that voice.
You see, each man saw or heard what
he was capacitated to see or hear.
The huntsman only saw the bird as a
good shot.
He didn't hear the sound, he didn't hear
the voice, or if he did, it didn't
come through.
Mozart had a different, a different attitude.
He was capacitated for something different.
Brothers and sisters, this is the major division
in human life.
Those who are blind to God and those
who can see him.
Those who are capacitated to see God now
and will see him hereafter, and those who
are not.
That may be dividing some of us in
the pew this morning.
You and I alone know before God whether
we're blind or whether we have the sight,
whether we have been capacitated by the grace
of God for this or for that.
I beg of you, if you know not
what it is to see God in anything,
pray for the gift of sight this morning,
the cleansing of your heart, the renewing of
your heart, the secret lies in the heart.
I'm coming to a close.
I remember reading recently about Francis Ridley Haverhill.
It's in a little book on Fanny Crosby,
a lovely blind hymn writer of the United
States.
Francis Ridley Haverhill had just heard at this
point of Fanny Crosby.
Who is this Fanny Crosby, she said, and
she received the reply, I quote, she's a
blind lady whose heart can see splendidly in
the sunshine of the love of God.
Miss Haverhill penned some lines of greeting to
her American fellow minister of song, both of
them being writers of hymns and poetry, and
from that, what she penned at that time,
I just want to give you these lines.
Must not the world be a desolate place
for eyes that are sealed with a seal
of tears?
Eyes that are open only for tears.
How can she sing in the dark like
this?
What is her fountain of light and bliss?
Her heart can see.
Well, may she sing so joyously, for the
king himself in his tender grace has shown
her the brightness of his face.
And who shall pine for a glow-worm
light when the sun goes forth in his
radiant night?
She can read his law as a shining
chart, for his fingers have written it on
her heart.
She can read his love, for on all
her way, his hand is writing it every
day.
Bright cloud, indeed.
Must that darkness be where Jesus only, the
heart can see?
My dear friend, have you ever for a
moment's vision been caught up with Jesus?
Has he caught your gaze?
That moment is the most momentous moment in
history, for when once you see Jesus as
the only Savior and receive him and trust
him and walk with him and obey him,
you are on the way to heart purity.
The way is open, and he is its
donor and its perfecter.
Let us pray.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God.
Oh, heavenly Father, we bow humbly before you,
first of all to acknowledge our sins.
Yes, the sins of which we have become
aware as we read your word, and as
we apply it to ourselves.
We may not have been aware of them
when we came into the sanctuary today, but
now we are.
And particularly of the block it places between
us and the vision of yourself, so that
we grope in the darkness as blind men,
though intellectually we know the way of life
and light.
Forgive us, we pray.
Oh, heavenly Father, lead us out of where
we are to where you desire us to
be.
And should there be within these sacred walls
this morning anyone who has yet to come
to Jesus Christ for cleansing and forgiveness, that
this process may begin.
We pray that you will draw such.
And as there are many of us who
have begun on that road and have somewhere
or other taken a wrong turn, take us
back to the junction and point us again
in the right way.
Breathe your spirit upon us and send us
forward into this new week with the capacity
to see what hitherto we've not been able
to see.
Father, hear our prayers in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Our closing hymn this morning is number 529.
529.
I would like to read.