A Pure Heart — Stephen Kaung

The Beatitude of a Pure Heart

The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 5, just one verse, verse 8. Matthew, chapter 5, verse 8. Blessed the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Psalm 139, Psalm 139. Verses 23 and 24. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Prove me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And finally, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy, chapter 2. Verses 21 and 22. 2 Timothy, chapter 2, 21 and 22.

If therefore one shall have purified himself from these, he shall be a vessel to honor, sanctified, serviceable to the Master, prepared for every good work. But youthful lest flee, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure.

Dear Heavenly Father, we are most grateful to Thee for giving Thy only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus, to us in such a way. Lord, we cannot thank Thee enough for it. Lord, we do praise and thank Thee for the privilege of remembering Thy Son at the table.

We pray that Thy love will always constrain us. We thank Thee for Thy presence with us, and we thank Thee for Thy precious words. We ask that Thy Holy Spirit will breathe upon Thy written word, and make them living and operative in our lives, that Thou mayst be glorified.

We ask in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Lately, my heart seemed to be attracted to Matthew 5, verse 8. Blessed the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We know this is the beatitude, the word that our Lord Jesus spoke to his own disciples.

And what he really wants to say to us is, you who are my disciples, this is the kind of person you are. Because this is what I am. Our Lord is the one who is pure in heart. That is his character. And his desire is that we, his disciples, will bear the same character.

In our lives. But brothers and sisters, according to the prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah chapter 17, verses 9 and 8, we are told that the heart is distinctful above all things. And it's impurable. Who can know it?

Only the Lord. He searches the heart. He tries the reins. And he will give to each according to the fruit of our doings. So, so far as our natural heart is concerned, it is impurable. It is wicked. And yet nobody knows it.

And yet, we do not know how evil is our heart. And we will not accept that it is impurable. And yet, this very fact shows that we do not know our heart. Only God knows our heart. He searches our heart.

The New Heart Given by God

But that doesn't mean that we are hopeless. Because we do thank God when we believe in the Lord Jesus, something happens. Now you remember in Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 25 to 27, he said that those, God will give us a new heart.

He will give us a new spirit. He will take us, take away our stony heart. And replace it with a heart of flesh. In other words, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, He gives us a new heart. It is a heart of flesh.

What it means simply, instead of being a stony heart, a heart that is hard, insensitive to God, now it is a heart of flesh that is soft, tender, sensitive to God. So we who believe in the Lord Jesus, thank God He has given us a new heart.

And this is our hope. We know heart, in the Bible, occupies a most important, our spiritual life. As our physical life is the center of our physical being, so the heart in the scripture, which does not refer to the physical heart, but to the spiritual heart.

And that heart is the center of our spiritual. In Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 23, we are told that keep your heart guarded above all things. For out of it are the issues. We know that out of the heart are the issues of life.

Just like in the old days, out of that natural heart, issues fall, everything, about. But now with a new heart, and out of this new heart will be the issues of the new life. But brothers and sisters, probably, when we read the scripture about the heart, we really wonder what the heart really is.

We know that when God created us, He created us with a spirit, a soul, a body. That we know. But what about the heart? The heart actually is the passage between the spirit and the soul. Or to put it another way, the heart includes some of the spirit function and all of the soul's functions.

Our brother read this morning Hebrews, chapter. Now if you turn to Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 22. Let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience, and washed as to our body with pure.

What you find so far as our heart is concerned, is that sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked. Now we know conscience is one of the faculties, one of the functions of our spirit. Conscience is in our spirit.

As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament time, you do not have the word conscience. You only have the word heart. So you remember the story, when David cut off a piece of the skirt of Saul, his heart smote him.

What it really means is, the conscience of his heart smote him. But in the Old Testament you do not have the word conscience. But when you come to the New Testament, we find the word conscience there.

It is part of the functions of our spirit. Often times we say the voice of the conscience is the voice of God. You know, so we cannot neglect our conscience. Especially we who have our wicked conscience purified.

Our conscience is now being purified. And God has become the standard of our conscience. Now formally, we have no contact with God. Therefore our conscience has lost its standard view, opinions. Becomes the standard of our conscience.

Therefore our conscience is so wicked, we do not know right and wrong. Because we have no standard. But after we are saved, we have a new heart. And the conscience of that new heart has God as its standard.

Because it has been purified. By the precious blood of our Lord Jesus. The wicked conscience, the evil conscience, the guilty conscience. Thank God, it's all being cleansed by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus.

So we have a clear conscience before God. So conscience is part of the heart. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 4, I will try to just limit myself to Hebrews. But actually you have many references in other places.

Now in Hebrews chapter 4, you read verse 12. The word of God is living and operative. And sharper than any two-edged sword. And penetrating to the division of soul and spirit. Both of joints and marrow.

And a discerner of the false and intense of the heart. The word of God is so sharp, so living. That it can penetrate into inner beings. Dividing the spirit and the soul. And is a discerner of the false and intense.

So here you'll find false belong to the heart. Now we know that false, that is our mind, is part of the faculties, functions, faculties of our soul. But here you'll find false is included in the heart.

And also intense. Intense is our will. What do we intend to do? Decide to do. And this is the will of our soul. And yet you'll find it is part of the heart. And then if you turn to chapter 3 of Hebrews 7 and 8.

Wherefore even as says the Holy Spirit, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. So you'll find here, harden your heart simply means your love, your emotion towards God. You know, if you do not listen to the word of God, then your heart will become hardened.

Emotionally hardened. You will not be soft affectionately towards the Lord. So here again you'll find the emotion. Now emotion is part of our soul. But it is within the heart. So the heart in the scripture includes conscience of the spirit.

With the will, the mind, the emotion of the soul. So you can see it is really the center of our spiritual being. So the heart is very very important. You know, in our spiritual life, the one that we, the thing that we need to be careful about is the heart.

We have to guard it, keep it. Guard it above all other things. Because out of it are the issues. What is a pure heart? Now a pure heart is more than just a clear heart, clean heart. A heart that has been cleansed, purified by the precious blood.

You know, oftentimes our conscience is under condemnation. We do something against what our conscience says to us. And when we are doing that, we have an unclear conscience, a guilty conscience. But thank God, there is the blood.

So whenever your conscience smites you, your prick in your heart, go to the Lord. Confess. And the blood of the Lord Jesus, he will cleanse us from. But a pure conscience, of course, it must be a conscience without offense.

That's important. But a pure conscience is more than that. It is more than just a clear conscience. There is nothing that accuses you before God or within yourself. But a pure conscience is not only a clean conscience, but it is an undivided, it is a single heart.

A Whole and Undivided Heart

You know, you read the Book of Kings or Chronicles, you find, say for instance, in chapter 11, it says Solomon, his heart is not as perfect as his father. You know, in the beginning, Solomon did have a perfect heart towards God.

He loved God with all his heart. And God gave him great wisdom, understanding. But unfortunately, when he got old, you know, he was enticed by his foreign wives, and his heart was not perfect anymore.

But David's heart was perfect. So a pure heart is a perfect heart. A heart that is perfectly centered upon God. So, you remember, in Acts chapter 13, we are told that David is a man after God's own heart.

And in the Kings and Chronicles, you find God always used David as a kind of criteria to measure the hearts of the other kings. You find there are kings who love the Lord, whose hearts were towards the Lord, but not as perfect as David.

But David has a perfect heart. Now, what is a pure heart? A pure heart actually is all, now that is a pure heart. I think, if I remember right, it is in, I mean, that all your heart is in Deuteronomy 6.

Deuteronomy 6. In Deuteronomy chapter 6, in verse 5, maybe we read from verse 4. Hear Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.

So a pure heart is an all heart. In other words, all your heart. It is not divided. It is not part of your heart, love the Lord, and part of your heart, love the world. A divided heart, but a pure heart is a whole heart.

And that is in Psalm 119. Under Psalm 19, verse 2. Blessed are they that observe his testimonies, that seek him with the whole. The whole heart is towards the Lord. So brothers and sisters, what the Bible tells us is, blessed the pure in heart.

What God desires is a pure heart. A heart that is perfect, that is all, that is whole, undivided, single, a virgin heart. You know, a heart that is holy towards the Lord. You know in Matthew chapter 6 we are told that the lamp of the body is the eye.

How true that is. If your eye is single, your whole body is light. But if your heart is double, if your eyes is double or wicked, then the whole body is dark. Now if you read the connection in chapter 6, that is verse 22 and 23.

But when you read verse 21, you find that where your treasure is, there is your heart. So in other words, what is a pure heart? A pure heart is single eye. You know the dove, dove's eye. They can only see one thing at a time.

So in the song of songs, you know, dove eyes is used to describe the virgin, whose heart is single towards the beloved. You know, so what the Lord really desires of us is that our heart is single. In other words, we see Him, Him alone.

We are not the double vision. We see Him and also we see other things, just as important, essential, precious, as treasure to us as the Lord Himself. Heart needs to be pure. Think of our Lord Jesus. Life on earth, how pure His heart is towards His Father.

You know, His whole life is governed by His Father. He always thinks of His Father. Whatever He does, whatever He says, is His Father. You see, I cannot do anything by myself, but because my Father is doing it, so I do it.

I cannot say anything out of myself, but I heard my Father say it. It is He who speaks within me. Your time is always ready, but my time, no, I have to wait for my Father's time. And if you remember Psalm 40, a prophecy about our Lord Jesus, it says, I come to do Thy will, and Thy law is written upon my heart.

You see, the whole life of our Lord Jesus is governed by that heart, purity towards His Father. And that is the way our Lord Jesus lived. So as He lived, this is the way we must live. This is the way that He expects of us, more than anything else.

Brothers and sisters, what the Lord is really looking in us, is only one thing, that purity. How about your heart? Now, when the Lord gives us a new heart, that new heart is pure. But unfortunately, as days go on, we find gradually that new heart being influenced, affected, defiled, corrupted by many things.

The Deceitfulness of Sin and the Love of the World

Sometimes it is said, in Hebrews chapter 3, we are told that today if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. And if you harden your heart, your heart will be hardened by the deceitfulness. Now, do not think that, well, it is a small sin for a believer to commit a hideous sin.

Probably it is not that easy, because your heart really will smite you and somehow you dare not do it. But it is the little foxes, you know, small things, well, small things. Then you think, well, that is nothing.

A little liar, maybe, or a white liar, it is okay, you know. And if you harden your heart, you do not know how sin is deceitful. It will deceive you. Through deception, your heart gets harder and harder.

So sometimes our new heart, which is pure, will become impure, will become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. So, brothers and sisters, especially young people, remember this. It is the little foxes that spoil the vineyard.

We need to be very sensitive before the Lord. Do not be deceived by sin. Get your heart hardened towards the Lord. Now, sometimes it may be the world. Love not the world, because if you love the world, the love of the Father will not be in you.

And what is the world? The thing, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. And in Matthew 6 we say, no one can serve two masters. You either love the one or hate the other. You cannot love God and love man at the same time.

And brothers and sisters, you will find the enemy of God will try to use the world to tempt you. The lust of the eyes. Now, of course, our eyes are made to see things, see the beauty of the Lord in the universe.

But when it becomes a lust, a lust, something that goes beyond it, you know there is something you should not see. And yet, there is a lust there. You want to see it. The lust of the flesh. You know it is not right, and yet your flesh lusts after it.

Be ordinate, affections and the pride of life. It is just want to feel great, better than other people. Try to compete, you know, and get on the top of it. To show off yourself, the pride of life. Now, this is the world.

And you find the world can divide your heart and make it impure. And of course, our flesh, our self. You know, how our self will contaminate our pure heart towards the Lord. We think of ourselves. Look at Peter.

He even before the other disciples said to the Lord, if the others, they will flee, they will leave you, never. I will never leave you. I am willing to go and die with you. And yet, before a little minute, he denied the Lord.

Why? Because he think of himself, self-love. So brothers and sisters, you find our heart can be contaminated. That pure heart can easily become impure, divided. I do not think that anyone here will say, now I do not love the Lord.

I believe every one of you will say, well, I love the Lord. Is it a divided life? Is it a pure, single? Now, that's the question. So, what should we do with our heart? Since our heart is so important to our spiritual life.

It is the source of it. You know, God looks upon the heart, not upon appearance. Man look at appearance. So far as you appear all right, it's okay. But God looks upon the heart. Always remember that. Otherwise, we'll live a double life.

Giving the Heart to God and Accepting His Search

Now, since our heart is so important, it can be impressed rightly or wrongly, so easily. So, what should we do with our heart then? Number one, you cannot keep your heart. It is beyond ourselves. The only right thing for you to do, is give your heart to the Lord and let him keep it for you.

You know in Proverbs chapter 25, I mean chapter 23 verse 26, it says, my son give me your heart and your eyes will delight in my ways. So, God is really calling us. He said, my son, give me your heart.

He will keep it for you. And if you give your heart to the Lord, then your eyes will delight in his ways. You will begin to see clearly. Paul said, I know whom I have believed and am fully persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him until.

Now, that's the preservation of the saints. Perseverance of the saints. You know, we cannot keep our heart pure, but give it to the Lord. He will keep it. I do hope that every one of us here have really give our heart.

If you haven't give your heart to the Lord, no matter what you have given to the Lord, it doesn't count. We have to give our heart. And when you give your heart to the Lord, you give all to the Lord. He will keep it for you.

Number two. The prayer I feel we should constantly pray. And that is the prayer of the psalmist in 139. Search me and know my heart. Truly, and know my thoughts. Now, actually, in Darby's footnote, he said the thoughts here has the meaning of conflicting thoughts.

You know, there are thoughts within you conflicting each other. You know, some thoughts come from God, other thoughts come from yourself, and they are combating each other, conflicting with each other, and you cannot stop them out.

The Lord said he will prove your thoughts. And see if there is any evil way in me, wicked way in me. Now, the wicked way, there is another translation, idolatrous way. Now, idolatry, that is serious, isn't it?

But if our heart is not pure towards the Lord, it is infidelity to God, that I may walk in the way everlastingly. So, brothers and sisters, I feel that we need constantly to pray this prayer. Give your heart to the Lord to keep.

Secondly, you need to really constantly ask the Lord to search your heart. Now, why do we need to pray such a prayer? Because even if you have given your heart to the Lord, it is very easy for you to take it back.

Because when the Lord search you, you try to flee away. Hide yourself among the forest, just like Adam and Eve. You do not want him to search you. Now, if you don't want him to search you, then your heart will gradually be adulterated, will be changed.

So, we need to express our desire, Lord search me. I'm willing to be searched, you know, that I may walk in your way. And thirdly, as you are doing that, now one thing you cannot avoid. Do not think that you can get by without bearing the cross.

Denying Self and Bearing the Cross

The Lord Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. This is the condition for discipleship. If you are not willing to deny yourself, if you are not willing to take up the cross daily, that is, whenever the Spirit of God is searching you, there will be a cross involved.

Because you have your thoughts, your ideas, your opinions, your wishes, your desires, your self-love, self-pride, self-preservation, and so on and so forth. So, there will be a cross there. And are you willing to take up the cross?

The Lord said, yoke with me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. Yoke with me, so you can learn from me. And I'm meek and lowly in heart. And there will be rest. So, brothers and sisters, these are the things that we need to do in order to keep our heart pure.

Seeing God Through a Pure Heart

Now, what is the blessing? Of the pure in heart. The Lord said, blessed the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Now, isn't that, is there anything in the world more valuable, more precious, more honorable than seeing God?

Isn't that the whole thing? That we see Him. That's the whole thing. And who can see God? Pure in heart. You know, in the Old Testament time, Moses, who was so privileged by God, because he was so faithful to God, so Moses dared to ask, show me thy glory.

Now, that's a great demand. The Lord said, no, no one can see me and live. You cannot see my face. I will let you see my back. You remember the story? The Exodus, chapter 32 and 33. So, God passed by Moses, used his hand to hide Moses, and after God passed by him, then Moses just heard God declare himself, his name.

Jehovah, gracious and merciful, slow to anger. In other words, Moses was privileged to see the back of God. But brothers and sisters, we today can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is because of the blood of our Lord Jesus.

It is because of the new and living way that He has opened for us. And it is because He is our great high priest. It is because the Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit. So, brothers and sisters, when we turn our hearts towards the Lord, with unveiled face, we can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

As in a mirror, and the reflection will be, we will be changed from glory to glory. As by the Lord, the Spirit. Now brothers and sisters, just think of that. The pure in heart shall see. It is just like pure water, when you go to a quiet water.

There is no waves, no foam, and when you look at it, it reflects. You know, so when we turn our hearts to the Lord with unveiled face, in other words, it is a pure heart. A true heart. When you turn to the Lord with a pure heart, then it is heart.

Then you see the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. And you get transformed. You know, you look at Him with a pure heart. You see Him, you see His glory, and it begins to reflect in your life.

And this is to be like His character becomes to be your character. So the first blessing is, you see God's face, you see His glory, you see His character. You see who He is and what He is, and it begins to reflect, reproduce, by the Holy Spirit in your life.

And also, when you see God, you see His heart. It is heart to heart. What it really means is, if you are pure in heart, you will see God's heart. You will see His mind. You will see His purpose. You will see what He really is after.

What is really He's doing. Because the secret of the Lord is revealed to those who fear Him, who are close to Him. He will tell you He is going to do. You know, just like Abraham. God said, now, can I hide it from Abraham?

I have to tell Abraham what I'm going to do. And brothers and sisters, with a pure in heart, you will see what His heart is after. What is in His heart? What is He doing? What is His mind? You will see it.

And by doing that, you are able. You know, we can only serve Him if we know what His heart is. Otherwise, we may do many things for Him, and yet, God's heart is still there. It's all useless. And seeing God is seeing His hand.

You see His hand. You see Him behind. Nothing will happen without His hand. You begin to understand, all things work together for good. To those who love the Lord, who are called according to God. Brothers and sisters, often times, we do not see His hand.

We see human hands. We even see the hands of the enemy. But we can see God's hand. It all works together for good. But you need the pure in heart. I think there is nothing more blessed than that. To see God.

And that's what we, I mean, what we really want, isn't it? To see Him. Now, brothers and sisters, we are living in the last days. Everything is changing and has changed. Not only the whole world is changing to the worst, but even among God's people.

Purifying Ourselves as Vessels for the Master's Use

The same thing is happening. And that's why I read 2 Timothy. You know, the church today, so-called church today, is like a big house. There are vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour. There are vessels of gold and silver and vessels of earth.

Earthen vessels and wooden vessels. Now, we live in such a time. Even in Christianity. Now, what should we do? We are told that if we purify ourselves from these. And these refer to vessels to dishonour.

There are believers in the house of God who are contented to be wooden and earthen vessels. Vessels to dishonour. Now, wooden, earthen simply means, even though they are the Lord's, they live according to the flesh.

According to the old nature. Earthly. They are contented to be such vessels in the house of God. But is it God's will? He wants us to be vessels to honour. And how can we be vessels to honour? Gold and silver vessels.

We have to purify ourselves from these. In other words, we are not contented to be wooden and earthen vessels. There is a holy discontentment. Now, of course, in another sense, we should be content with what the Lord has given us.

You know, we thank God for that. But there is a spiritual holy discontentment. And that is, we are not contented to just be a wooden and earthen vessels in the house of God. We want to be gold and silver vessels.

Vessels to honour. That we may be sanctified, we may be for the Master's use. Not for ourselves. For the Master's use. Now, brothers and sisters, do we have such a desire? If we have such a desire to purify ourselves.

Now, it doesn't mean we are to be separated from our brothers and sisters. It means we are separated in ourselves from that which is me. From that which is earthly. We need to aim to be vessels to honour.

Fit for the Master's use. To please the Lord. And what shall we do? We shall flee from youthful lusts. And pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace upon the Lord. Out. Now, this is what the Lord expects of us.

So, you see, it is not only that we individually need to seek to be of a pure heart. But we should seek righteousness, faith, love with those who call upon the Lord. This is what we should do in this last stage in church history.

And also, the last stage. So, may the Lord. Dear Lord, we believe that in Thy Word, Thou has show us, Thou has call us to be Thy disciple. To be pure in heart. As Thou art pure in heart. We thank Thee that Thou has promised us we shall see God.

Lord, this is our humble prayer and desire. We want to be among those who call upon the name of the Lord. Out.