In this sermon, Jesus concludes his teaching on the Beatitudes by declaring that his followers are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He emphasizes the importance of having a heart that is aligned with God's will and treasures that are focused on eternal things. The speaker gives examples of missionaries who have demonstrated this attitude by sacrificing their own treasures, such as their children, for the sake of spreading the gospel. He encourages the listeners to examine their own hearts and strive to be thoroughly right with God, so that they can be effective in their role as salt and light in the world.

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold. You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www.charityministries.org. If you would like a catalog of other sermons, please call 1-800-227-7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, EFRA PA 17522. These messages are offered to all without charge by the free will offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Greetings this morning. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Friday already. What a beautiful journey we've had this week. At least I have. We're to the last session here on our study of the Beatitudes. And I did change the name to the groaning chagrin of the tape ministry, but I did change the name because I believe that a title should say what's in it. And I don't know what else to call this whole study, but the jewel of humility, because that's what we've been looking at all week in so many different ways, so many beautiful ways. We've just been turning this jewel around and looking at it and realizing. I don't know if you have been, but I have been realizing that it should permeate every part of our life as a Christian, that our Christian life will not function properly if we do not have it. And we must get in this school while we are young and learn humility. Just like our Lord Jesus said to His disciples, He admonishes us today, Take my yoke upon you. Take my yoke upon you, young people. Bear my yoke in your youth, Jesus says. Take my yoke willingly upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And ye shall find rest for your souls, Jesus says. It's been a real exciting, interesting blessing to me to see how God has put the messenger through the mill this week, so that I've found myself so many times absolutely not knowing what to say or what to do next. And I believe it's only fitting that God do that to me, since I'm speaking about humility and brokenness and poverty. It wouldn't come out right if it were any other way. And so it is again this morning that God just turned my whole plan on me, just sitting here in the song, and we're just going to go by faith and trust God. We're going to look at three of the Beatitudes in a category, first of all this morning, and then come up in the end of this lesson with the last one. We're going to look at blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, and blessed are the persecuted, and then we will come back around and look at blessed are the pure in heart. Although as I looked at it, I see two categories there. I see five of the Beatitudes, they are mostly, they have to do with our relationship this way, and three of them have to do with our relationship this way. Five, the vertical toward God, and three, the horizontal toward man. Although there's a constant back and forth all the way through. But we're going to take, first of all, the three that deal with our relationship toward man, and finish with our relationship toward God. Because the one is very, very intricately connected to the other. So the title of the message this morning is this, Humility is laying down your life for others. Humility is laying down your life for others. John used those words, he used them twice. In the book of I John, first he said, speaking about Jesus, that Jesus laid down His life for us. And then he says, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Now I don't know if you can grasp what that really means, that little statement that Jesus laid down His life for us. But oh, if we could somehow take those thirty-three years of the life of the Lord Jesus and compact them in to about thirty seconds, we would see the Lord Jesus sitting on a throne in heaven, in all of His glory and all of His power. And He would get up out of His throne and He would lay aside His royal garments and all of the glory and all of the light and all of the power and all of the awesomeness of His holiness and His majesty. And He would lay them aside as He gets up off of His throne and go down to mankind and condescend down to humankind and walk in the midst of man and walk up to a cross which is laying on the ground and lay down His life there on that cross. That's what Jesus did. He laid down His life for us. That's humility, isn't it? The Bible says, I believe it's in Corinthians, that though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor, that in His poverty He could make many rich. And that's exactly what He has done for you and I. If we are in Christ Jesus today, we are rich. We have been raised up together with Christ. We have been made to sit together in heavenly places. We have been called the sons of God. We have been adopted into the family. We are children of our Father. We have an inheritance which is incorruptible in heaven waiting for us, reserved for us. We are so rich, you couldn't compare it to the biggest truckload of jewels that you could gather on this earth. We are that rich. We are that rich today. And now God says to us, in all your richness, I want you to do just what Jesus did for you. I want you to lay aside all of those riches. I want you to lay aside all of those talents. I want you to lay aside all of those things. And I want you to lay down your life for somebody else. And that's humility, isn't it? I'm sure, I'm sure that I couldn't describe that right. But oh, that God would open up our eyes and help us to see. Blessed are the merciful this morning, God says. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are those who are full of mercy. That's what the merciful is. Full of mercy. Mercy? What does the word mean? You know, I always thought it meant forgiving. And it does. But it's a whole lot more than that. Here's the definition that I found as I studied the word. It means to bend and stoop in kindness to another. To bend and stoop in kindness to another. That's the Old Testament. Here's the New Testament definition. To feel sympathy and act with sympathy on behalf of the misery of another. To feel and act with sympathy on behalf of the misery of another. Blessed are they who are full of mercy. Mercy means to be actively compassionate. I studied it, and seriously, I studied for two hours, trying to see if I was right or wrong in what I was beginning to see in the Scriptures. But the bottom line of the word mercy is love. It's love. Mercy. One who is full of mercy is one who is active and aggressive in love. Someone who is living for others. It's someone who is laying down their life, literally, moment by moment, day by day, living out their life, spending their life, giving up their life, giving away their life for somebody else. And it's very interesting to me that after I did all that searching, and, you know, I wanted to make sure that I'm saying the right thing here, I trembled. I tremble. I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to give the wrong impression. But as I looked and looked, I could see here that really all God was saying here is, I am a God of love, and you are to also be filled with love. And then I came out of the study and sat down, and Brother John, he's teaching somewhere in James, I can't remember where, but then he started quoting Luke chapter 6, which is the parallel Scriptures for the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Luke. And there, instead of, he mentioned this, if you remember there, instead of God's Word saying, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect, and those verses follow, all the verses about non-resistance and loving your enemies, and giving up and giving to those that ask, and going the second mile, and all those verses. And then he says, and in Luke it says, And I thought, that's it! That's it! It is that simple. It is that simple. What is humility? Let your life be full of bending and stooping in kindness to another. Let your life be full of bending and stooping in kindness to another. Let your life be full of feeling and acting with sympathy on behalf of the misery of another. And, of course, we know that's where love your enemies, and resist not evil, and forgiving, and the giving, and the secret praying, and giving, and fasting, and attitudes of not judging one another. You can't let your life be filled with these things, and walk in judgment of others. You just can't do it. You know, as I was studying it, and realized again that, oh, here's the word, this word, merciful, is love. And then God finishes it by saying, You will be blessed. I will pour out on you. I will make your life rich. I will make you spiritually prosperous. I will cause the grace of God to flow in your life. I will make you something that you never dreamed that you would ever be. As I realized that, I thought all over again. I thought to myself, That's right. That's right. That's why I'm so fulfilled. That's why I love life. That's why I'm so excited to be alive. That's why. That's why I'm hooked. And I can't get unhooked. That's why. Because God says, If you let your life be filled with a heart of merciful kindness, and sympathy toward those that are in misery, I will dump a bucket of blessings on you over and over and over and over again. That's what God says. The more you live for others, the more you will overflow with spiritual prosperity. And you know, I looked back on it then as I was refreshed from yesterday. My memory was refreshed of the years that I ran down the streets in the ghettos of North Chicago, up and down those hallways, and climbed the steps in those filthy apartments, and the smell and the stench, and dirty little babies with snot running all around their face, and chewing on it when it goes into their mouth, and all the filth that was there, and the cockroaches climbing around and jumping on my shoulder while I'm sitting in somebody's house, and all the things that I went through there. Those were the sweetest days of my life. I tell you, they were the sweetest days of my life. I look back on them and I think, Oh my, they were so sweet. So sweet. Why? That's why. Because God said, How low do you want to go? How far down do you want to go? I will bless. Blessed are those who are full of bending and stooping in kindness to another. Number two, blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers. And that simply means one who makes peace. One who makes peace. And the very title, peacemaker, infers that there is a conflict. Would you all agree with that? There is a conflict. God says, Blessed are the peacemakers, because there's a lot of conflict around. Now, the primary meaning of the word peace is not feelings. I thought that was very interesting when I was studying it. You know, we talk about, you know, the peace of God, and let the peace of God rule in your heart, and, you know, there's lots of words about peace, and peace is a feeling. It's a feeling of quietness and rest. It is that. But here's what the word peace means. To join. Remember, conflict, the word peace means to join. The word peace means to set at one again. To set at one again. Well, that just, you know, the lights started going off in my own heart, and I began to ponder that. To set at one again? Blessed are those who set their hearts to set at one again wherever there is a conflict. And that setting at one again brings a beautiful quiet and rest in the soul. But God doesn't just pour peace in there. The peace is a result of the set at one again. Whether it's between you and God, or somebody else and God, or somebody else and somebody else. The peace that comes is a result. The feeling of peace is a result of setting at one again. Now, as we said, it assumes that there's a conflict. This blessing that God is speaking about, this blessing has to do with people, first of all, in conflict. First, people that are in conflict with the God of Heaven. Secondly, it may be people that are in conflict with you, or thirdly, it may be people that are in conflict with each other. But either way, if you take people, if you take these two elements, the element of people, human beings, and you take the element of conflict, and you put the two of those together, and then in the midst of that, you put somebody in there to try to solve or settle or bring at one with that conflict, and I tell you what, you're in for an exciting adventure in humility, I promise you. But God says, blessed are the peacemakers. The peacemakers. You put someone in there to reconcile the conflict, and that person is in for an adventure in humility. You know, all the times people say, yeah, you got to watch these preachers, you can't give them too much encouragement, they get proud so easy, you know. I just haven't found it that way. I'm sure that you can get proud being a preacher, but you know, there's so much of this kind of stuff involved in being a preacher that there's so many humiliating and humbling situations. Your preacher could use a bit more of your encouragement. Don't sit back and say, I don't want him to get proud, so I'm not going to tell him what a blessing he is to me. You give him some encouragement. He's chosen to walk a low road. Now, a peacemaker, I'm sure you'll agree with me, by what I've laid out here before you already, a peacemaker can never have a high attitude about himself. You cannot have a high attitude about yourself and get in the middle of that conflict and try to make peace. It will not work. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them which make peace. A peacemaker often takes the lower place or becomes the least because their motivation is to make peace. They're the ones who will quickly say, I'm sorry. In fact, a true peacemaker will even say, I'm sorry, when they didn't do anything wrong. And I don't mean by that a compromise, but just a soft answer turning away wrath in a situation. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm sorry you're feeling this way. The peacemaker is often the one who is the doormat. The doormat. You know what the doormat is. You know. The peacemaker is often the doormat. Somebody may wipe their feet on you before you bring them to at-one-ment. But it's okay because you want to see peace in a situation. They're the ones that bear the hard words. And they bear them because they want peace. They bear them, the hard words. They're the ones that give the soft answers. They're the ones that even take this much blame when maybe they only had this much blame. And again, as we look at the subject of peacemaking in light of the Sermon on the Mount, again, these principles begin to flow out. Loving your enemies. Resisting not evil. Agree with your adversary quickly. Forgive. Bless those who curse you. And again, don't judge. And many other portions of Scripture from the Sermon on the Mount we could list. Blessed are the peacemakers. Now, we want to look at it in three ways here this morning. A peacemaker. A peacemaker who settles and sets himself to bring an end or bring reconciliation in a conflict between an individual and God. A conflict between an individual and them. And a conflict between an individual and someone else. But first of all, a conflict between an individual and God. 2 Corinthians 5 is where we want to read. It's the most beautiful description in the epistles of a peacemaker that I know. And I want to say this. I know that there are some who believe in this peace movement and they're trying to get governments to be at peace with each other and all of those things. And I'm not sure what to think about all that, but that's not what Jesus was talking about here. Jesus is talking about making peace number one between God and man and if anything would ever solve the wars and the striving and the fighting among nations, it's when the Prince of Peace would come and sit and rule and reign in the hearts of the people. Blessed are the peacemakers who set their hearts to bring people at onement with God. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18, Paul says these words, All things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. He has brought us to peace with God. And He hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry of making peace. Verse 19, To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself or bringing the world back to onement with Himself, God was in Christ Jesus bringing the world back to onement with Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and God hath committed or put in us the word of reconciliation. God has put that in our hearts and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. We have been called to be peacemakers. It's not just an option. Oh, you want a blessing? Be a peacemaker. No, God has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now then, Paul says, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. Now Paul is being a peacemaker there with the Corinthians. He's being a peacemaker. What is he saying? That now God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, but now God is in you and He wants to reconcile the world unto Himself through you! Blessed are the peacemakers! Blessed are the peacemakers! Oh, the beautiful peacemakers! Isaiah chapter 52 says it so beautifully. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Oh, listen. God says you have beautiful feet today if your feet are feet that go to those in the world who are not at one with God. They are not at peace with God. They have not been brought into a relationship with the God who made them. Blessed are your feet! Beautiful are your feet if you move in that path. God will pour out a bucket of grace upon you, young person, if you set your heart that way. He will pour it out upon you. And, He says, you shall be called the children of God. You shall be called the children that are like God. You shall be called the children that are like God. Isn't that beautiful? Blessed are the peacemakers! Number two, resolving conflicts between people and you. That is also peacemaking and these words come to us again. Agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him. God says to us, you have an adversary. You have someone who is in conflict with you. If you bring your gift to the altar, then there you remembereth that thy brother hath ought against thee. Leave there thy gift at the altar and go thy way first. Be reconciled unto thy brother and then come and offer thy gift, God says. That's being a peacemaker. Somebody is not at one with me. Someone has ought against me. Maybe I've done something wrong. Maybe I didn't do something wrong. But somebody has ought against me and I want to be at one with them. A peacemaker will not rest until that is clear. And number three, resolving conflicts between people. Between people. Oh, that God would fill the church of Jesus Christ with peacemakers who are concerned with thee at one again in the church of Jesus Christ. Oh, I want the church to be at one. I want the church to be at one. I'm concerned about the at-oneness of the church. Oh, that God would fill the church with peacemakers that go through the church putting out little fires of conflict with their words, with their actions, with a kind word here, with a word that gives the benefit of the doubt here, with a word of encouragement here. Just going around, you know. When you first see a little flame of conflict beginning to flicker, and many times that's the way it is at a church. You know, it's not like, you know, so-and-so came over to my house and shot my bull and went back to his house. You know, those kind of things don't happen in a church. It's a little fire over here and a little fire over there. But oh, blessed are the peacemakers as they move around through the church and there's a little fire over there. They blow it out with a kind word or a word of encouragement or a word of blessing or they walk into the middle of some gossip and they have something good to say. And oh, surely it wasn't that way. It must have been that they were. Instead of, is that right? Really? Oh, God deliver us. God deliver us from all that fleshly curiosity that wants to hear the story instead of get burdened to put the thing out. Blessed are the church. Blessed are the peacemakers. Make their way through the church just bringing together, bringing together. Oh, there are many things we could say. But alas, the clock. Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness, for righteousness' sake. The word persecuted means pursued against. Pursued against. Blessed are they which do bear patiently this evil that comes against them. And God says that all that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. So, I think it's very important for us this morning that we get a grasp of how to respond when persecution comes our way. Because God says, if we do ever decide that we're going to live a godly life, we will be persecuted. And it's so interesting to me as I have been perusing over these beautiful attitudes. You know, they kind of lead one to the next and to the next. And by the time you get down to the last one, and there's poverty in your life, and there's brokenness in your life, and there's submission in your life, and a hunger for holiness and holiness in your life, and a merciful heart, and a heart that wants to make peace, and a pure heart that's clean and pure, you'll be the salt of the earth. And sometimes the salt of the earth is not appreciated for their saltiness. Some people have open wounds and salt hurts when it falls in open wounds. And they'll fight back against you. And they will pursue against you. And they will want to drive you away from them. And we know that it's that way. And we know that it should be that way. And I promise you, if you are going to ever get serious with God, it will be that way. And there will be times, sad to say, there will be times when your persecution will come from the church. That doesn't make sense, but that's the way it is. And I believe we can solve it the same way. And what does God mean when He says, blessed are they that are persecuted? I believe that it's an assumed fact here that this persecution, when it comes, we're going to bear it patiently. We're not going to fight against it. We're not going to rise up and put things in order. The early church didn't do that. You know, I was meditating upon it this morning. You know, there was probably a time not too far down the road they could have showed up at the doorstep of the Sanhedrin when some of the apostles were taken in there. They could have showed up at the doorstep and said, we want vindication! But you know they didn't do that, did they? They didn't do it. They had a driving force. They could have got the attention of everybody in that city. But they didn't do that. They just went and got on their knees. Amen. They went and got on their knees. They bore patiently the persecution and they prayed. That's what they did. This is laying down our lives for one another, isn't it? When we bear patiently persecution that comes upon us, it's laying down our lives. It's suffering love. It's loving your enemies. It's where it really comes. This is where the rubber meets the road. Our lives get straightened out. Our lives get cleaned. They get pure. And all of a sudden, persecution begins to come upon us. What are we going to do with it? Oh, we're going to bear it patiently. We're going to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. We're going to feel and act with sympathy on behalf of the misery of another while they're persecuting us. We're going to feel and act with sympathy on behalf of the misery of the one who is hitting me. Why? To win them. Because we want to win them. Because we're a peacemaker. Because they're not at one with God. And we want to win them. And you may even have the blessed privilege of being a martyr. You think about it. Picture it. With all this sweet humility of the Beatitudes in the heart of a believer who is going to die for his faith. And there he is. He steps up to the chopping block. And he puts his head down there, you know, in the place where they wanted to go. And just before they cut his head off, he turns around and he looks up into the eyes, into the face of the one who's going to cut his head off. With all those sweet attitudes of humility and brokenness and love and mercy and forgiveness and patience and kindness, he looks up into the face of the one who's going to cut off his head. And he says, I love God. That's why the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. Because the church had these beautiful attitudes in them when they died. There was no fight in them. They did just like their blessed Savior and Lord. They did lay down their lives for somebody else. Young people. You may get to do that. You know, I thought about it many times. I thought, you know, I may get to do that, but many, many times more, you may get to do that. And think about it. These last three, the merciful, the peacemaker, and the persecuted, you walk in these three which has to do with humility in relation to mankind. And it will bring you time and time again back to the others. It will bring you again to poverty. It will bring you again to a place of mourning. It will bring you again to a place of given-upness, of entire yieldedness, of giving up your rights, of giving up your plans, of giving up your future. It will bring you there time and time and time again. And so, we see here such a beautiful school. You know, you walk down through it and God brings you back to the beginning and you go through the whole thing again and God brings you back to the beginning and this thing just keeps taking place and each time as you walk through your Christian life, God will take you deeper and deeper and He will put you in situations that you'll be able to bear them. He won't give them to you before you can bear them, but I guarantee you if you'll get in this school of humility, God will bring you deeper and deeper and deeper into situations where beautiful things will be wrought in your heart in life and you shall know God and you shall know the blessing of God and you shall know the grace of God. You will find that God is a fountain, a never-ending fountain of grace and blessing and prosperity upon those who know Him in these ways. Yes, truly, humility is participation in the life of the Lord Jesus. Participation in the life of the Lord Jesus. Now we come to the last of the four that we're looking at today and I put it at the end. I put it at the end because you will never do these other three that I've just spoken to you about. If things are not right with your heart, blessed are the pure in heart. God says, they shall see. They shall see God. What does the word pure mean? It means separate. Separate from all foreign matter. Separate from all foreign matter. I have a glass of water up here and you may not know it, but I know it because I've been standing up here in this pulpit for a lot of years, but this is not pure water. It is not separate from foreign matter. I mean, if I look at it now and I've been looking at it for a lot of years and taking drinks out of it, there's stuff floating around in the bottom of this glass. That's no big deal. I'm a missionary anyway. But it's not pure water because pure water doesn't have any foreign matter in it. It's like Brother John said yesterday about the sewage plant. Same thing. Pure is separate from all foreign matter. To be pure is to be free from mixture. Free from mixture. Oh, what a beautiful definition of pure. Amen? In this mixed up, grey, lukewarm, confusing Christianity in this USA where we live. What a beautiful definition for pure. But dear young people, God wants us to go a little further then to look at the mixture out there. God says, blessed are the pure in your heart. Blessed are you when your heart is pure. That's what God says. Pure. It also means free from moral defilement. Free from moral defilement. Without spot. A clear and a clean heart. Remember the definition that Brother John gave us? Pure religion and undefiled before God is this. Interesting. Those two words go together. Pure religion and undefiled. Visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. I'd like to apply this in three ways this morning. The purity of heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, first of all, in their love for God. Second of all, blessed are those who have a clean and a pure heart. And third of all, blessed are those who have pure motives in their heart. And all three of these are so clearly laid out in the Sermon on the Mount. When God starts talking about having a pure heart, He speaks in all three of these areas and I want to read those verses today. So let's look in the Sermon on the Mount. I know that I haven't been giving a lot of verses in the Sermon on the Mount, but let's turn to the Sermon on the Mount and read, first of all, blessed are the pure in heart in their love for God. And here, we want to look in chapter 6, in verse 21-24. Chapter 6, verse 21-24. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Now I know that in the context here He's speaking about money, but may I say that there are a lot of other things that we can make treasures besides money. But usually you have to have the money to get those other treasures, don't you? But where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That's so beautiful. That's so true. You know, it's been a blessing to me to watch different dear mothers send their children over to Africa, whether it's for a long time, whether it's for six weeks, or whether it's for six months, but in every situation, that father and that mother have a love for Africa like they never had. You know why? Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And I've watched their hearts leap over the ocean time and time and time again. Their hearts leap over the ocean. All of a sudden you've got a missionary mama sending emails back and forth to Sister Jackie wanting to talk about this. What's happening? Did you hear anything? Why? Because where their treasure is, there will their heart be also. And that's an illustration on the positive side, but what about the negative side? We shall not have any treasures. We shall not have any treasures, but God... See, well, I have other treasures. My children are my treasures. Ah, but you have to give them away. You have to give them away. Look at the context here. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye of your heart. The light of the body is the eye of your heart. If therefore thine eye be single, singly upon God, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind. He doesn't leave any room, does he? There's no room for anything else there the way I interpret that Scripture. If thine eye be single, God says, thy whole body shall be full of light. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven. But, if thine eye be evil, and I'd like us to notice here that God doesn't say double. He uses the word evil. Anything else but single is evil. If I understand that, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. No man can serve two masters. No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. You can't do it. So, what God is saying to us, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are those who love God supremely, who have set the eyes of their hearts upon God and upon God only, and I will love God, and I will serve God all the days of my life, and that's all I will do. Blessed are those. Number two, blessed are those who have a clean and a pure heart. Chapter 5, verse 27 through 32. Blessed are those who have a clean and a pure heart. A heart that has been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. Amen? And kept clean by the blood of the Lamb. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery already with her in his heart, God says. We are talking about a pure heart. And oh, look at the next verse. If you don't think this is a serious matter, look at the next verse. This matter of a pure heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, what are you doing with your right eye? Looking at a woman. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Did God say that? Oh, that's pretty serious. You mean I can't take ten years playing around with this thing before I get any victory? Yeah. You dare not take ten years. You mean I can't keep playing around with this thing and hope someday that I'll get me a wife and settle the whole thing? That's right. You better settle it before then. Young men, young ladies, look at the next verse. We're talking about a pure heart. A pure heart, friend. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. Cut it off. And cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife and let him give her a writing of divorcement, but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication caused her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committed adultery. And I tell you the context is the same. It has to do with a pure heart concerning our morality. And that's probably the biggest reason why there's so much divorce in this land of ours is because men are married and living with impure hearts. And women are married and living with impure hearts. And may I say this? Can I be so frank with you young people today? Self-abuse is sin. It's sin. Self-gratification is sin. What you do with your hand to satisfy your loss is sin. And you want to get the victory over this. And you can get the victory over this. I have watched it over and over again. Many, many young people struggle with things like this. Oh, it's the secret things. It's the things in the dark. But many, many young people struggle with these things. And I know it feels pretty uncomfortable in here right now. But I'm telling you, I'm talking to you about something that will make the difference of whether you're going to go on with God or whether you're going to sit there like a bump for another ten years. And that's the way it is, whether it's a young man or whether it's a young lady. Because that's the way it is. I've watched them. I've been a pastor a long time by now, you know. I've watched a lot of young men come up to those ages, you know, and all of a sudden these passions begin to stir in them and they don't know what to do with them. And then they begin to fail in these areas of morality. They fail with their eyes and they fail in other areas which we're speaking about and I'm trying to be careful. But I don't want to be so careful that you don't know what I'm talking about. But I've seen the young men and some of the young men rise up in their heart and say, by God's grace, I am going to overcome this. And I am not going to get married until I do. Boy, that would be a good commitment to make, young men. What a sick reason to get married, the other one. And you know what? The ones that do that, oh, it takes them a few trips to the cornfield. I'll agree. It probably does. It takes some humbling. It takes them some accountability. It makes them go to their parents at times and humble themselves in humiliation and say, I failed. But you know what? The ones that rise above it by God's grace, they just take off spiritually. They just take off spiritually. The ones who don't, plenty of them around, just sit like a bump. Oh, in time, they find a wife, fit in a church, but they never do anything for God. Because Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, they shall see God. Oh, young people, settle this matter of your morality and do it now. You'll do your marriage such a favor, and I mean both sides of the room. You'll do your marriage such a favor. You girls, throw those romance novels in a can and burn them. You are ruining your marriage every time you read them. Did you know that? A romance novel is a young lady's pornography. That's what she gets off with. Rise up by God's grace. Rise up by God's grace. Will you allow me to be so frank with you this morning? I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I hurt you. But I want to see you prosper. And so many never do. They never do. And thirdly, blessed are though the pure in spirit who have pure motives. Matthew chapter 6, and we'll just read verse 4. Take heed that you do not your alms your righteousness, your piety, your religion, the outworkings of your religion. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. That means those blessings, you know, that the pure in heart get, you won't get. You'll have no reward of your Father in heaven if you do it to be seen of men. If you go to somebody and you want to be, you would like to get their attention, so you give them $50, you know, and they say, oh, well, thank you! What a kind person you are! You just got your reward. You just got it. What a kind person you are. Instead of God dumping something on you. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. And that's far enough for us to read. We can just apply it in many, many ways here, but the time is fleeting away. The point I would like to make here is this. We need to keep our hearts open for God to purify our motives. It is that way. God will do that. God wants our motives to be for Him and for Him alone, not for us. And it's a trap. It's a trap that you can fall into so easily that you begin to do what you do to be seen of men. You go to a prayer meeting and at the prayer meeting, oh, you just wax eloquent and you weep and you cry and you say the right things and all of that, you know. But then when you get in your closet, you don't have anything to say. You have your reward. You have your reward. Everyone thinks you're a real spiritual person. That's your reward. Motives. God is very concerned about the motives of our hearts. And I know this is a whole sermon. I can't give you a whole sermon. But oh, the blessings. Hear the blessings that come. If you allow God to purify your motives continually, the result is you will see God. You will see God in life's trials. You will see God in life's prosperities. You will see God in His providential dealings. You will see God in creation. You will see God in the sacred pages. And you will see God in glory someday. You will see God, Jesus said. You will see God. I don't know of anything that's more rewarding than to see God. To see God. Alright, in closing, Jesus finished this awesome portion of His sermon by saying, Ye are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And I believe that by God's grace, if we can pour our hearts into these beautiful attitudes, that they become our attitudes, we will be salt and light. We will be salt and light. And I believe that a people, a Christianity without these beautiful attitudes is a Christianity that has lost its savor and that is where we live today. Will you join the ranks of all the rest of the Christians in this land who go through their motions and go to their churches and carry their Bibles and say their holy words and pray their holy prayers and take their communions and all those other things they do, but they have no life in them, no fire burning in them, no salt to the earth, no influence, no spiritual influence to those that are around them? Will you join the rest of all these Christians in this land of ours who are Christians who have lost their savor and the world looks on and laughs at them? Will you join the rest of them? I hope not. I hope not, young people. Ye are the salt of the earth. Oh, go get some savor, young. God has given you the tools for it. It's very weak. What a gold mine you have gotten. I hope you know it. Let's bow our heads for prayer. Our Father and our God, we joy to come to you again. We run to you, Lord. Where else can we go? In our hearts we run to you, Father. We bring all these dear young people to you. God, I pray you watch over every heart. Every heart, dear God. Today, watch over their hearts. Watch over the ones that are struggling. Oh, God, I pray that you will watch over this message that has been given to their hearts this morning. And I pray, oh, that they someway this week, before this weekend is out, that they, every one of them, will get thoroughly right with God. Oh, that heaven is open over them, Lord. That the eye of their heart is fixed upon the beauty of their God and nothing else. Lord, hear my cry, oh God. Attend unto my prayer. From the ends of the earth in Pennsylvania, I cry unto thee, God. Touch these young people, Lord. Touch them. That every one of them will get thoroughly right with God. I pray in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Thank you very much.