Pure in Heart

Now, I want to ask you a question today is, is there anyone that does not want to be blessed? Is there anyone that does not want to see God? Of course, it's a rhetorical question. We do want to be blessed, and we do want to see God. But turn with me, please, to Matthew chapter 5, verse 8. Matthew 5, verse 8. And this is one of the Beatitudes, and I have been going through a few sermons on the Beatitudes, and today we're covering this one in verse 8. Matthew 5, verse 8, which reads, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. For they shall see God. There's a lot of meaning behind, for they shall see God. Have you ever wondered about a deeper meaning of that? Well, today, brethren, I want to talk about this, the attitude about being pure in spirit, or, like a part of, pure in heart, pure in heart. And I want to talk about it from the point of view of looking at some examples about being pure in heart, and some of the implications of seeing God as He is. And how can we be more pure in heart? And so, to, like Clay Thornton did, let's start with the end. Let me do the same thing as well. Start at the end. What are the implications of seeing God as He is? And that is very well described in 1 John 3. 1 John 3. In 1 John 3, starting in verse 1. We all what manner of love the Father is bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God. Therefore the world has not known us, because it did not know Me. Beloved, we are the children of God. And it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, when Christ comes and He is revealed, we shall be like Him, because of all we shall see Him as He is.

Now, if we tie back with the Beatitude, those that are pure in heart will see God as He is. It's because we'll be children of God and we'll be like Him. Wow! You know, it's amazing when you start tying this and you see the value.

Now, the word pure in Greek is a word that means purified by fire. If you look at it physically, the word is actually kapharos, but it means purified by fire. It was not contaminated. You think about it. If you go to a hospital or if you want to disinfect something at home, what do you do? You put it on a flame and it produces, you want to use a needle for something, but you want to make sure it's disinfected. You put it on a flame to make sure it's nicely cleaned, it's infected. It's one of the ways of making sure that it's disinfected, it's cleaned, it's purified by fire. It's cleansed that way. In a analytical sense, pure or clean means something that is actually clean that can be used as opposed to unclean. You know, like you've got clean fluids and unclean fluids, something that's clean that can be used. Now, ethically, which is probably the one that we want to look at in more detail, something that is clean and pure, is that it's free from corruption, from guilt, from sin. Free from any mixture of faults. In other words, the absolute genuine, you know, mixture of faults with truth. Being blindness, being innocent, having no guilt.

On the other hand, the heart is the center, or the seat, of basically spiritual life. Think about it, it is the seat of our desires, of our sensitivities, our affections, our emotions. It's also the seat of our world and character. How mount of, our intent, the intent of the heart, as we talked about, our motivation. That is key. So, the heart basically is symbolic of what that which will last forever, if we are not to fail and be in the lake of fire. It's what will last forever. It's the character, the eternal character, that God will keep for us. And so, when we look and understand what a pure heart is, a clean heart is, it's a heart, it's a world, it's an intent, it's the desire. There is absolutely clean, guilt, pure, it's purified, it's like no scent, it's mixed with wrong motives, it's clean. The question we have is, is my heart like that? Is our heart like that? And it's something worth to consider and worth to meditate. Now, what does the Bible tell about our heart in its natural status? Jeremiah 17 describes it very nicely. 17.9, if you just turn there, it's a scripture that we all know very well. But Jeremiah 17.9 says that our heart is not that pure. In 17.9 he says the heart is the sequel about all things. And yes, pretty neatly. Who can know it? So, if we are really going to be sincere when we look at our heart, we need to know that there's a lot of things out there in the heart that have not been purified. But because the heart is the sequel, we think it's clean. I think my heart is clean. I mean, time is not clean. That's what it means. It's unclean, but I'm deceiving myself being in sleep. Well, as we've been in the church for many years or whatever, we repent, and here our heart has become cleaner. But, you know, in South Africa, we were able to go to what they call a gold mine museum. And it's quite amazing. You go into this gold mine museum, it's in fact, it's called Reef City. And it's outside of Johannesburg, and they've got the city as it was in those days, the houses as it was like 200 years ago, and things like that. And then they have an old mine that you can go down just to the first level, you know? And then they have a little area where they take a bar of gold.

They take a bar of gold. And then they put it in a furnace. And when they open that furnace, it's a pot. I mean, you can feel that. You're in a room about the size of this room, and the furnace is, okay, let's say out there where that cereal is and those things are there. And they open that furnace, and you just feel that breath of blowing of hot air just blows onto the whole room. Wow! Everybody! And then they take a container with big, like, think about like, big scissors, you know? Big thing that's like from yard to that chair. And then they pinch, and they grab that container, which has got molten gold. And then, in front of you, you can watch it. You can see when it's molten. You can think that the gold was pure, but when it's molten at the top, it's got a little layer. It's like, it's a liquid black layer of dark. And then they skim that thing, and then you've got pure gold in it, because it was needed, that fire, to take the impurities out of the gold to skim it. And then they pour it, and they mold it, and shape it, etc. But to purify gold, they have to, I mean, you look at the gold, it looks pure, they have to put it into that furnace, until it becomes liquid, and you really get this black layer, as I mentioned, to take it out. You've got to purify it in the fire. And sometimes our hearts also need to be purified in some tests and trials in our lives, to actually cleanse it. And sometimes we go through things, and then we say, wow, what is this that's come out of my mouth? You know, I didn't even know it was in there. Wow, I better look at myself a bit cleaner, you know. I need to look at myself. And so, we all sometimes go through things in life, thinking that our hearts are right, but maybe they're not. And so let's look at some examples in the Bible of man in the Bible, things they could, things they didn't do, and see how they shaped, and get some lessons from that. And the first one that I want to look at is an example of Solomon. Solomon, we're going to start in 1 Kings 9. In 1 Kings 9, we have when Solomon prayed, 1 Kings 9, we'll start reading in verse 1, It came to pass, when Solomon finished building the house of the Lord and the King's house, and all Solomon's desire, which he wanted to do, and the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him in Devion, and the Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you've made before me, and I've consecrated this house, which you've built, to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually. Now, if you walk before me as your Father died of war, in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do to all that I have commanded to you, and to keep my statutes and my commandments, then I'll have all these lessons for you. But if your heart is right, like your dad's heart was right.

And so, God told Solomon, what I want from you is a right heart, a good heart, a clean heart, like your dad's, and therefore, with that right intent and right correct motivation, do the right things, and then you'll have even more lessons. Now, look at what happened to Solomon, just two chapters later, in chapter 11. Chapter 11, 1 Kings 11, but King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh, the woman of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, you shall not eat and marry with them, nor they with you. Surely they'll turn away your hearts, often in God's. So, the answer is the same. You don't intermarry with people, and if you apply today to today's society, don't intermarry with people that are not in the faith, because they will take your heart out of the true faith. That's really what it's saying. But you do not listen to it, and therefore they took his heart, and his heart became untamed. Look at him first see. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. God had told him, keep your heart pure. Keep your heart clean. And what did he do? He did not. For it was so when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. And so, yeah, we have a lesson. Then we have to look after our heart. We've got to be sensitive to what interaction, who do we mix with, what we say, how we act with things, because those things can affect our heart. Now, didn't David say, yes, we know David said, he sent big time. But God still saw him as a man with a heart which had integrity, a heart that was upright. You see, God looks at the heart. He looks at the intent, at the mouth of it. And you and I ought to look at actions. And we don't see the mouth of it. We don't see the intent. We don't see the heart. And we see somebody is doing something right, and it may appear right, it may appear good, but what's the heart rate? What's the intent right?

You know, we've been in the church, some of us, for many years, and we've seen some very good people. They've done many good things. They're really good. But where are they today?

We don't see the heart rate, but God sees the heart. I want to look at another example in the Bible, which is quite interesting. It is the example of another great king, Hezekiah. And that is in 2 Kings 18. And we're going to start reading in verse 3, 2 Kings 18. And he's talking about Hezekiah, and he says, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. According to all that his father David had done, so he has actions. And he removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, and he cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days the children of Israel burned incense to the bronze serpent and called it Mehushitah. Verse 5, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor whom were before him, except of course for David. But after him or before him there's nobody except for David. For he helped pass to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord God had commanded Moses.

The Lord was with him, and he prospered wherever he went. What a compliment! What a compliment! He asked a king that he did everything right.

And God was blessing. But God sees the heart. You see, you and I look at it, and God was blessing, but was there something wrong? Well, we don't know. We can't see the heart. But now look at verse 13. Look at verse 13 in the same chapter. The Assyrians had attacked the northern kingdom, which was the Israel, and then in verse 13 says, And in the 14th year of King Hezekiah, so he had been king now for seven plus seven, twice seven, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, came against all the forty-five citizens of Judah.

Now, Assyria came against Judah. They had already now completely wiped out Israel, the northern kingdom, and now they came against Hezekiah, which was the southern tribe, Judah. And she came against the forty-five citizens of Judah and took them.

But now we just saw how he had done so many good things, and God had intervened for him, but now got them, because the cities were overtaken. The forty-five citizens of Judah and he took them.

Then there's a kind of king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria, and like He's saying, I've done wrong. I'm sorry, king of Assyria. I've done wrong.

You see, he was under a pressure. He was under a trial. He was under extra fire. Think about like that gold. It looks fine. But now there's a deeper trial. There's something still there that may not be right that God could see. And so it has to be under trial for it to come out.

And so what is the king of Judah, in other words, Hezekiah say? He says to the Syrian king, oh, I'm sorry. And whatever you impose on me, I'll pay. Whatever you want, I'll do.

And the king of Assyria says to Hezekiah, you know, Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. He says, that's what I want. You've got to pay so much silver and gold. You know, Mr. Dean, whatever. So many billion dollars or whatever that was. I don't know. Just a lot of money. And so Hezekiah, what did he do? He gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house. And at that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the pillars, which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gathered to the king of Syria. So He took from the temple, He took the gold from the temple and He gave it to the king of Assyria.

Quite a trial, of course, and it's easy for us to say, well, you know, we shouldn't have done that.

But the question is, why did He do that? And so what happens? The king of Assyria now puts more pressure on him. He puts even more pressure. And you look at that in verse 18.

You see, verse 17 comes up this leader from Assyria, a great army against Jerusalem. Now he's going to attack Jerusalem. So that was not enough to think about it. That golden given was like a bride, says, all right, I'm going to leave me alone. But it was not enough. Now he's going to attack Jerusalem. He's going to destroy Jerusalem. Because the trial now gets, you see, he succumbed a bit and says, okay, now I can go further.

You see, in verse 17, a great army against Jerusalem against King Hezekiah. And in verse 18, when they had called to the king, Eliah king, the son of Yalchiah, who was over the household, Shivner the Strap and Joah the son of Essep, the reporter came out to them. Then Rachshakai said to them, stand out as a king. That says the great king, the king of Assyria. What accomplices is this in which you trust? Who do you think you trust? You know, you say you're trusting in the God of yours? No, you must trust in me. I'm the king of Assyria. You see, he's putting more pressure, because he had already succumbed previously, and I was putting more pressure.

Let's look at John, verse 22. But you say to me, who you trust in the Lord our God? It's not he whose high classes and whose altars is a Chaius back in Hawaii, and said to Jude and Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem. You say you trust in God, but isn't it the one that you just took the gold out of, you gave it to me? And you still say you worship that God, and you tell the people, no, you must worship that God, but you just back in the gold and give it to me? So what is this? Double standard. What's wrong with you as a Chaius? So don't tell the people that you worship that God, and look in verse 26.

They tell this Rabbi Shacheh in D and they tell the people to you, just tell us quietly on the side, because we don't want to try to the people. He says, No, no, no, I'll talk in Hebrew. Come on, I want your people to know.

So now, it's a Chaius who's got the spade. He's getting the spade in the water. He's really getting the spade in the water.

And what is he doing? What does he do? So what he does, he then goes to God. He says, God, I'm in trouble. Help me out. Like we heard in the sermon, he appealed now to God's power. You should have appealed before. He appealed now to God's power. He realized that God does have that one whole power, and he appealed now to that power. And look at it in chapter 19, verse 20.

After God intervenes, he goes to God. God intervenes and says, There's a Chaius, the son of Ammon sent to it. After the prayer, that is, the Erasiah, the son of Ammon sent to the Chaius, saying, Thus is the Lord God, because you prayed to me against the sinecure of the kingdom of Assyria. I have heard. Because you prayed, I have heard.

And look in verse 35.

Look in verse 35. And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord, like we heard of the sermon, like those chariots of fire, the angel of the Lord, which in this way we understand it, which Christ himself, went out and killed in the camp of the Syrians, one hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when the people arose early in the morning, they were with corpses all there.

They didn't do anything. God fought for them.

They should have appealed to God. He should have appealed to God right up to the end. Now, is there a lesson? Because look, something was wrong. Can you see that something was wrong? Ezekiel was a wonderful king. He had done all these things right. Then the Israelites get taken as slaves to Assyria. Now he attacks Judah. He at first keeps them bold. He is not happy. He wants more. Now he's going to attack Jerusalem and then Ezekiel leads to God and God intervenes. But something is wrong here, isn't it? Something is wrong.

So what happens next? Ezekiel gets sick. Sick to death. He dies in chapter 20. Second Kings chapter 20. In those days, Ezekiel was sick and near to death. And outside a prophet, the son of Amos went to him and said, Thus is the Lord, said to you, as in order, for you're going to die and you're not going to live. That's it! You're going to die! Well, imagine, you sick, you're going to die. You've done all the right things. However, you allow them to take the gold, but the pressure came on and you plead to God and God keep your lead. And now you're going to die! And so when the prophet left, there's a kind, gently spaced towards the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, Remember, O Lord, I have, I pray to you, have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart. And if that was what was good in your sight, and you whipped the tomb. God, my heart has been right! I've been loyal to you! And he whipped the tomb. And so as the prophet was walking and he hadn't even got out of town, he got a message from God and he came back. But do you discern a problem now? Do you discern a problem now? Think about Jeremiah 17.9. The heart is deceitful. Jeremiah thought his heart was right. He said, My heart is loyal. Let's look at what God said in verse 5. God then told Isaiah the prophet to come back. And Isaiah the prophet now speaks to Zechariah and says, 20 verse 5. Return to tell Zechariah, the leader of my people, Thus is the Lord God of time with your Father. I have heard your prayer and have seen your tears. Surely I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. And I will act your days 15 years. I'll give you another 15 years. But what did God say? I heard your prayer and I saw your tears. What did God not say? I saw your pure heart. He did not say that. It's frightening, brethren. It's frightening because God looks in the heart, He's talking about motives, desires, intent, and He looks at that. So let's continue the story in verse 12 and 13. He got better. And at that time, Berudak Baladan, in verse 12, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters in a present to Zechariah, for he heard that Zechariah had been sick. And he got better. So he sent letters and says, well, congratulations on some glad new beta. And he sent an embassy. And Zechariah was a cantor to them and showed them all the house of his treasures, the silver and the gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory. All that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominion. And Zechariah did not show them. Do you see anything wrong? Do you discern anything wrong? Let's look at the parallel, parallel scripture in 2 Chronicles 32, 24, 25. Keep your fingers there because we're going to come back to it. Look at 2 Chronicles 32, 24, 25. 2 Chronicles 32, 24, 25.

In those days, Zechariah was sick and near to death, and near death. And he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord spoke to him and gave him a son. As you know, he lived another 15 years. But Zechariah did not reply according to the five of Shaanim, for his heart was lifted up. His heart was proud, was not humble. Therefore wrath was looming over him and over Judah and Jerusalem. You can go back to 2 Kings. There was pride in his heart. There was something wrong with his heart, and God could see it. It starts with pride, the first the attitude, which means we've got to be humble.

Then we've got to come to true crying and true mourning of repentance. And then with a teachable, weak attitude, hunger at first for true righteousness, and recognize that we've done wrong, so we've got to be merciful to others, but we've got to do it with a pure heart, with the right intent. Can you see how the attitudes build one upon the other? So let's go back to 2 Kings chapter 20 verse 14. You see, we just finished reading verse 13 when we show them everything. And then verse 14, 2 Kings 20, Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Zechai and said to him, What do these men say, and where do they come from to see you?

And Zechai said, Well, they came from a far country from Babylon. Well, Babylon was going to be the one that was taken to Judah and taken to slavery. And they said, What have they seen in your house? And so Zechai asked, They've seen all that is in my house. There is nothing about my treasures that I have not shown them. But remember what we saw in Chronicles. He was proud. He was boasting. He was showing off. Then Isaiah said to Zechai, verse 16, Hear the word of the Lord.

Behold, the days are coming. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and what your fathers have accumulated until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. They shall take away some of your sons with the sin from you whom you will be get. And they shall be enops in the palace of the king of Babylon.

And so Zechai said to Isaiah, The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good. What a comment! Can you see something wrong in the heart? For he said, Will there not be peace and truth at last in matters? In other words, he wanted peace in his eyes, he wanted to sign his scheme, but I don't care about my children. There was no true repentance there. There was no true humility. There was a problem. He did not have godly repentance. It is fearful, brethren, because the Isis thought of Zechai, he said, God, I followed you with a clean heart. My heart is fine.

But God could see, he heard his prayer and he saw his tears. But God could see the heart was not right. And, you know, all the time it comes up. God sees the heart, brethren. And it is a lesson for us, because we need to look at ourselves. We can deceive ourselves. I can deceive myself. And it's my heart blood. And we've got to question ourselves all the time. Look at the situation about the sparrow ball in Luke 18, that Christ said. Look at him. Look at him. Verse 9. Also, his spoke to the sparrow ball to the sun, who trusted in himself.

See, there's already something wrong here in the heart, you see, to trust in yourself. The wrong trust in the wrong place, instead of being God. And they were righteous and despised others. They were self-righteous. They were not hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they had it. They were righteous, so they were not hungry and thirsty. You see, when you're self-righteous, you're not hungry and thirsty for God's righteousness, because you think you've got it. And despised others.

And see, I was a Pharaoh. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a text-to-lipper. The Pharisee stood and prayed, does with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortionists, unjust adulterers, or even this text-to-lipper.

I pause twice a week. I give times of all that I possess. I am doing everything I know according to the Lord. And the text-to-lipper, standing upon all, would not as much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath, saying, God, be merciful to me as sinner. I tell you, said Christ, this man went down to his house justified rather than any other, for everyone who insults himself will be humble, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

You see, the Pharisee appeared right before God, before other people, but before God he was not right, because God so is hard. He appeared to obey God, but the heart was wrong. And that's why Christ said in Matthew 23, 23, when he was talking to the Pharisees, he said, you're a bunch of hypocrites, because outside you're one thing, but inside you're something else.

Outside you appear very righteous, very obedient, but inside you're completely wrong. And so in Matthew 23, 23, he says, well, to you, scrubs and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you, pay tithes of mint and anise and cumin, and you pay tithes of the smallest thing, which, yes, you should do, but you've neglected the weightier mantles of the Lord. You've neglected the big issues, that is, of being just and fair with people, of showing mercy to people, and to have faith, because you do it in faith, because you will be just and be merciful and trusting God. Have faith. Like God, he goes on in verse 24, who strain out and gnat and swallow, swallow the camel.

You know, in modern days, how could you compare it? It's like you go somewhere and eat, and you look in your spaghetti for a little crumb of pork. Obviously, you shouldn't eat pork, but you sit there and look at this, and in the meantime, you bring a cart to other people and treat them people in conflict. That's the example. In modern day, you can get finished with certain things, and you neglect the big things. And that's why it says in verse 25, "...won't you scribe and perish as hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside, in a heart." In a heart, you are full of extortion and self-indulgence.

The blind person first cleaned the inside of the cup and dish, and outside then will also be cleaned. So we've got to look at ourselves, and we've got to clean the heart first. Now, David was a man offered God's arm, so let's look at some of the things he did as well. And so we look at that in 2 Samuel, chapter 11. 2 Samuel, chapter 11. Let's look at some of the things he did. Now, it happened in the spring of the year, at the time when the kings were out to battle. So it's spring, and it's time to go to war.

In winter, now you kind of buckle up, go home, it's cold, we're not going to fight, but it's free. In summer, we have the wars. So that's what they did. And so they went, and David stood in his castle, and he looked at us, you know the story, looked at this beautiful woman out there, a terrorist, having a bath.

And maybe she questioned why was she having a bath in public, you know. But anyway, as we know, I don't have to go through all the story. He did something wrong, and next thing she realized she was expecting.

Next thing what he does, he says, whoa, get the husband home, and tell him to come home. Have a leave from active duty. Come home. Go home. And he doesn't go home. So he says, no, no, no, this. Just have a party, make him drunk, and send him home. So he still doesn't go home. He says, how can I do this? Because my brothers are dying to go. So then he says, no. So he writes a letter, and he says, get him in the front line, and get him killed.

And so he gets in the front line, and Joab puts Uriah in or rather sends the troops into an area where they should not go, because they send him right against the wall where people can shoot him and kill him. And you can see that that's what the story. And then Joab, and then Uriah gets killed, and then even you can read.

And Joab says to the messenger, well, if the king says, why did you endanger the troops? He says, well, but Uriah is also dead. He kind of shows a bit of Joab's attitude in there, and so on. That's another problem that had to be handled. But this happened, and on the end of that chapter, chapter 11, in verse 26, we can see that Uriah died.

And then when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah's husband was dead, that's in verse 26, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and born his son. But the thing that David had done was please return her. Now David did a great sin. His actions were not like the Pharisees where everything was clean. I mean, he had things wrong. But there's something about David. His heart was right. Let's look at what happens in the next chapter.

In the next chapter, you see God sent Nathan, the prophet, to David, and he tells the story. And other is this rich man that had many flocks and had all his sins. And it was this poor man that had nothing except this tiny little man, which he had brought up, was his pet lamb. He was slept with him in bed. He really took care of this man. And David, being a man from the fields, he said that he really felt for the sky.

And then he says, well, and the rich man had some travelers came, and then he didn't want to use his own sheep. So he went to this lamb, a visceral man, and took the lamb and killed him and made a feast with him. David was furious! Verse 5, So David was angry, was greatly aroused against the man, and he said, As long as the eternal looks, the man was done with his suctioning passion. Saff him up!

This is a pomeroyable! And the prophet, and the prophet in verse 7 says, And Nathan said to David, You are the man! Poof! It's like that. It's still strictly the heart. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed you, King of Israel. I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you a master's house, and you have lost his wives, and you have kept him. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.

And if that had not been too little of God, I would have not been enough. I would have given you much more. Why have you despised God's law, God's commandments, to do evil in his sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with a sword.

You have taken his wife to Beowah, and you have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon. Why have you done this? Do you know what other kings would have done? And you can read in the scripture. What other kings would have done? You, prophet, be quiet. I'm going to put you in jail. I'm going to kill you. Just shut up. I don't want to hear you, prophet. That's what other kings would have done.

They killed the prophets. But what did David do?

What did David do? In verse 13, so David said to Nathan, I have sinned against you, even not just to find self and says, well, but you know, she was out there and I actually happened to see her. There's no self-jacketation. I sinned.

Brethren, God desires truth in the heart. And he was truthful and he said, yes, I've done wrong. I should have done that. I'm sorry, God. I repent. I want to change. I don't know. You know, just before the announcement, we sang a song, which is a song of Psalm 51. Beautiful song. Very appropriate. You see, Matthew, today as well. Let's go to Psalm 51. Psalm 51. Beautiful song.

You usually sing that at the end of the psalm of service as well. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your ten immerses. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my translation. My sin is always before me, against you. You only have I sinned. Yes, you sin against Uriah. You sin against... But you sin first and foremost against God.

And you acknowledge Him. Look at it in verse 6. Behold, you desire truth in inward parts. You desire truth in the heart. In the hidden part, you will make me to show wisdom. Purge me with this, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. It was clean my heart, clean me, wash me. And it says in verse 10, Create in need a clean heart. O God. You know, in the sermon that we heard, we've got to look for God's wow factor. Well, God's wow factor is changing your heart and my heart from a wicked, desperately hard to a pure heart. That is a miracle. And that's what David is asking now. And God is prepared and He wants to do that in you and me and us, if we just do our part.

That is God's great power. He can change our heart. That's wow! That's the greatest miracle. Once He's done that, you will take... You look at all these planets, like it was mentioned, in all the planets, all the planets, and it will make a new heaven, a new earth. Why? Because you look at... And it's all desert, you know? You look at all these planets and pictures of other galaxies. He said that it's all desert. Imagine all blossoming with flowers. Somehow, you think today it's impossible because of the speed of those things. It's a exhibit. But He's going to renew it and He's going to make it beautiful. Just like earth is beautiful, He'll make the rest of the universe beautiful too.

Wow! Well, the biggest world is changing your heart and our heart. That is His miracle today, that you and I can be part of.

Create in the clean heart of God and renew a steadfast spirit with Him. Do not cast me away from your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Please, Father, have sinned. I need your Spirit. I need your power. I need your mind. Don't take it away from me.

It isn't amazing what God can do. It is the heart. It is the mountain. It is the intent that is important to God.

So, the question is, how can you and I get a pure heart?

And first and foremost, we've got to ask God to give us a clean heart, to give us a pure heart. For God to change our heart. Because you and I are being deceived by our own very hearts. We think our hearts are right. Meantime, they might not be. They might be.

But we need to ask God to please give us a clean heart. And so, the first step is we need to ask God for His Spirit.

Sure, we've been baptized to receive God's Spirit, but that model prayer, it says, give us our daily bread. And our daily spiritual bread is the Holy Spirit. And we have to pray daily for an additional blessing of that spiritual bread, which is the Holy Spirit. We need to die, besides the physical, but we need to think about the spiritual, too.

Look with me to Ezekiel chapter 26. Ezekiel chapter 26.

Ezekiel 36. I mean, 36. 36. 36. Ezekiel 36.

Verse 26. 36, 26. I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you. God is going to do that miracle in you and I.

I'll take your heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you keep my judgments. And you do. We need to ask God to give us more of His Spirit every day, so that through the power of His Spirit, we need to ask God then, secondly, to give us His true, true heart of life.

A true heart of life. Turn with me to 1st Timothy chapter 1. In 1st Timothy chapter 1, we've got a lovely Scripture, Yahweh, that I mention it in 4, but my wife and I, we like your ways. We remind ourselves of this. In verse 5, 1st Timothy chapter 1, verse 5, the purpose of the commandment is love. The purpose of God's love is love.

From a pure heart, from a pure heart, we need to ask God for that pure heart, that clean heart, that wants to do God's laws in outgoing concern, in care for others. Not to be self-righteous, but in a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere faith. From which some Australia have turned aside to idle talk. Yeah, people have turned aside with their own ulterior motives, with idle talk. Designed to be teachers of the law, ambitious to be teachers, why? To be seen, to be recognized, understanding neither what they say nor the things they affirm. For we know that the law is good if we use it locally. So there it is. Ask God for a pure heart. So ask God to change your heart by giving you the Spirit. Ask God to help you with that pure heart to exhibit the true Godly love. The true Godly love that comes from a pure heart.

And then ask God for the wisdom that comes from above. From the wisdom that comes from above, turn with me to James chapter 1. James chapter 1.

James chapter 1.

We're reading verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, lady must of God who gives all liberally and without reproach, and will be given clean. So when Solomon 5th started, yeah, his heart was okay, was right. And what was the first thing when God came to eat? What he wanted is to give you wisdom. And God gave him wisdom. But then his many wives turned his heart wrong.

So ask God with the pure heart for wisdom. So ask God for his prayer. Ask God for his love, a gaffer love from a pure heart, clean conscience. And ask God for his wisdom, dealing with things.

He says, lady must eat faith with no doubting.

No doubt. Doubt is like it. You believe what you don't believe. Doubting is, you believe that you ask because you believe that God's going to give you, but you doubt because you don't believe that, you know. Don't add that. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, tossed and driven by the wind.

For that man supposedly will receive anything from the rope, for he's double-minded and stable in all his ways. Now when we ask for wisdom, how is wisdom shown?

Wisdom is shown by what we say quite often, isn't it? Wisdom is shown when we say things, it shows us. Look how it angles on a little bit further. In verse 26 say, if anyone among you thinks is religious and does not rattle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is useless. So we've got to control our tongue. A lot of wisdom is controlling our tongue because if we don't, we're deceiving our heart. And you look at James, he goes on in chapter 3, he spends a lot of, a big section in chapter 3 in James, about controlling the tongue. And he says, in verse 2 of chapter 3, James 3 verse 2, For we all stumble in many things, but if anyone does not stumble in the world, he's a perfect man able to rattle the whole body. And so, ask God for wisdom, so he may give you the wisdom to say the right things, to control the tongue, because if you can't control the tongue, you can't control everything else. That's really what he says. And then, ask God to show you where you need to challenge. Ask God to show you where you need to challenge. Where does your heart need to challenge? I put a little comment in bracket 3, and say to God, please show it to me in mercy. In mercy, because we all have a lot of things to change. And I look at myself, if I saw all the things in one go, I'll be very discouraged. So in mercy, just a little bit at the top. So, Psalm 139.

Psalm 139.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought, the sorrow, the comprehending my thought, and my lying down. For there's not a word in my tongue, but to You, O Lord, You know it all together. You have etched me behind, and before, and you've laid Your hand upon me. You know what You protected me. You put a hedge around me. You protected me. And you continue that Psalm. It just praises God and thanks God. And look at in verse 13. You formed my inward thoughts. It was You formed my heart, You formed my liver, You formed all my insides. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your words. And when we see little children being born, when we see a tunnel by them being born, it's so beautiful. It's... it just... It wants you to say, thank God for such a beautiful connection. It really is beautiful. Marvelous are words. And that my soul knows very well. But look at it there in verse 23. He says, Search me, O Lord, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties. In other words, search me, test me like the gold, put it under the test, under the fire. But in mercy, please. You know, in mercy, please, because I don't want to go wrong. Please, in mercy. And if there is any wicked way in me, because I can't see, because the heart is deceitful, because my heart, I can't see the heart, I think my heart is good, like... There's a guy who says, well, I think good, my heart is fine, but me time is deceiving himself, and he doesn't know about it. He says, if there is any wicked way in me, lead me in the way of velocity. Lead me the right way. Show me in your mercy, in your kindness, in your gentleness, please, Lord. Show me, Sadhana, may I challenge? Sadhana, may I become a very person? This is what God desires in housebreaking. This is what David, when he sang in Psalm 51, when you read that Psalm 51, he says, God desires not sacrifice, but a broken and contrite heart. This is what God desires. So, brethren, for us to have a clean heart, let's ask God for His Spirit. Let's ask God for a pure heart of love. Let's ask God for true wisdom. You know, there's many other things I could have added to that. But then, and then ask God to show you where you and I need to challenge. And then, you will be able, will become like Him. You'll become like Christ, but not exactly yet until resurrected, because then we'll be like Him, and then we'll see Him, because we've been blessed, because we have struggled to have your heart.