We have been looking at the Bible and what it has to say about the heart, particularly about a fainting heart and a broken heart, a renewed heart, and then this Lord's Day we're going to be looking at a pure heart. And for our text in the Old Testament, please turn with me to the 24th Psalm, Psalm 24, where the text is verses three and four, but I would like to read the entirety of the Psalm, Psalm 24, beginning at the first verse. Here with enthusiasm, God's word. The earth is Jehovah's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? And who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood and hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from Jehovah and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek after him, that seek thy face, even Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come in. Who is the King of glory? Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come in. Who is this King of glory? Jehovah of hosts. He is the King of glory. And our New Testament text is Matthew 5, 8, which is found in the midst of the Beatitudes of our Lord Jesus. And I'd like to read the entirety of the Beatitudes beginning at verse 3. Matthew the fifth chapter at verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. And thus far, the reading of God's word. Because of personal problems and trials that the Lord has, in his providence, chosen to put your pastor through over the last few months, you know that I have had occasion to really be drawn close to the word of God and to be reading it in particular for what it has to say to the heart of one of his children, what it has to say to my own heart. I think maybe others have had this experience. Those of you who have heard me preaching the last three weeks have communicated that to me, that you know what I'm talking about and you have these experiences yourselves. Well, you know, in examining our hearts in circumstances where we tend to emphasize how we're overwhelmed and maybe fainting with experiences that are just too much for us, or examining our hearts when our hearts are broken. and we are really humbled before God. And remembering the need for hearts that are renewed and to be restored to our first love. I think we're inclined, I know I am, inclined to pay attention to my own personal needs, to look upon my heart and how I'm hurting or how I'm needing or how renewal must be there. But, you know, once God draws you into that introspection and you begin looking honestly inside, you know, there's one thing that we cannot miss when we do an examination of our hearts. And it isn't the sort of thing we like to emphasize, but the thing that we cannot overlook when we are now drawn, because of our broken condition, into true self-examination is that, you know, our hearts are very impure as well. We're all in desperate need of a pure heart. I think it's high time that we acknowledged the myth that is continued in the human race in every generation in one way or another, the myth that men are basically good. You know, that if you could just get beyond the social circumstances that bring them down, if you could just get beyond the poverty or the abuse that they've gone through or the oppression they have to endure, if you could just put them in a nicer environment, if you could just give them half a chance, then really that goodness, that basic resident human goodness that is in them would flower. That all people, underneath whatever dust has laid upon it, is a heart of gold. My friends, the Bible doesn't tell us that sort of thing. That is a fairy tale. And we should know that it's a fairy tale. We should know that it is really a worldly tonic that tries to dull our minds to the truth. We just think, well, everyone really has good will inside. Everyone is basically all right. We just need to have a better circumstance in which to live. Our kindness and our generosity and our human decency and our integrity would flourish if just given the opportunity. We need to get beyond that myth. Human beings are capable, if you know anything of history, if you know anything of what's happening in the world around you today, human beings are capable of exquisite cruelty. Human beings are capable of brazen deception. Human beings are capable of polluted passions, proud and godless arrogance, weaseling dishonesty, thoughtless unkindness, easy lies, alarming hatred, self-serving excuses, distasteful hypocrisy, and you know I could go on and on. A few weeks ago, I made the mistake of going to a movie. Maybe it wasn't a mistake to go to a movie, it was certainly a mistake to go to this movie, Casualties of War. I didn't need that, believe me. I don't know how many of you frequent movies, or how many of you would be familiar with that, but suffice it to say, it's a movie's rendition of an account that was given in a New York magazine during the Vietnam War. that tells us of a small American patrol that kidnapped a Vietnamese woman for a little, what they callously called, portable R&R, and raped her and eventually killed her to keep her quiet. The movie portrays this incident as well as the opposition of one particular soldier to this. When I left that movie, I don't know that I've ever had an experience quite that devastating. I left that movie, and I know this is going to sound strange, but it is very true. I left the movie ashamed that I was a human being. I walked out of that movie saying, how could the species of which I'm a member do the things that this movie has portrayed? And with the attitudes, and the arrogance, and the hard-heartedness that is seen there. Human beings are capable of things which are monstrous. This last week, a man who has been called the Night Stalker has been convicted of numerous counts of murder and sexual attack. That man shares your humanity. I think it is right to be morally outraged, and I hope that the full length of the law's provision of punishment will be visited upon him. So I'm not asking you to get soft upon this individual. I am asking you to realize that he is you, that you are human beings just like him. We think of the final solution that was pursued by Adolf Hitler to save the Western world with the most pious of intentions. How thousands, indeed millions of people could be killed and butchered and experimented upon. These are not people from out of space who came and did this. These are people who grew up in the same world with the same human nature as you who did these things. We think of the child molestation cases. I read things in the paper. I don't know. I think years ago, the paper would kind of make more euphemistic use of these sorts of cases. But we read things in the paper that sicken us, what people are capable of doing. We look at the drug wars that are going on. How would you like to be living in South America where it's just open war between the criminals and those who are supposed to stand for law and justice? And who knows who's corrupted the most? on either side. We look at the world around us, how can we possibly believe that everyone has a heart of gold if we would just treat each other nicely, if we just put a better, you know, environment out there to live in. But you know we have to bring the focus down from the news making events. to really the anonymous people that are living all around us. Not the people who make the news, you're not going to see them on the TV at six o'clock, you're not going to open your morning paper and find out about these. I just want you to think about the people that work all around you every day, the people you encounter every day, the individuals that you live with perhaps, the person you see in the mirror in the morning. Parts of gold, Do you have any idea of the hurtful statements that are possible to be made between human beings? The way people purposely hurt each other? The angry words that are spoken and convenient lies and excuses that we're able to make to one another? And we do that. We do that. We don't make the news, but we do that. Look at the me first priorities that are in our lives. The unfaithful thoughts or the unclean passions that you know very well you've probably never spoken to anyone about, but you are capable of. The disloyalty and the covenant breaking in families, the double standards and the insincerity, the unkind neglect of one another, and sometimes the malicious attention we give to one another. You know, when you think about it honestly and we strip away all of the Pollyanna attitudes, all the kind of whistle in the dark, make everybody happy feeling, the fact of the matter is, what you confront is not a heart of gold, but what Joseph Conrad called a heart of darkness. Joseph Conrad If we had a Christian literary society, I would suggest that, of course, there are many things we'd pay attention to, but Joseph Conrad would have to be studied. Conrad wrote a number of short stories and novels at the turn of the century and early in the century in which he explored the human condition, the alienation in that condition, but in particular, in The Heart of Darkness, he tells the story of a man who goes to the heart of Africa therefore the heart of darkness, but finds out that the darkness is not Africa at all, but it's the heart of darkness within. And one recalls vividly the line from the story where one cries out, the horror. There are no human words. There is nothing in the English language really to express it. But when we find out what is really inside, not just a Kurtz, but any of us, we scream out the horror of what we are, the hell that is within us, and the heart of darkness. In Titus 1, verses 15 and 16, the Apostle Paul tells us that the unbelievers' moral impurity is all controlling. It cannot be contained. I'd like to read that for you. Titus 1 at the 15th verse. To the pure, all things are pure, but to them that are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess that they know God, but by their works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." What a description of human nature. Where's the heart of gold here? Paul says, to those who are unbelieving, to the impure, everything is impure. If you ever wanted a text to memorize when someone challenges you about believing in total depravity, take them to this verse. Paul says, to those who are impure, everything is impure, and to every good work they are what? They are reprobate. But there's something in this passage that I hope caught your attention and should trouble you, because it troubles me. And that's that though Paul is talking here of unbelievers who are totally depraved and who cannot contain their impurity, he is speaking of them as religious hypocrites. You notice they profess that they know God, but by their works they deny him. He's not here talking about those who openly repudiate everything divine, who just deny the Word of God or shake their fist in the face of God. He's talking about those who profess to know God, and who would make wonderful excuses, creative excuses, for what they do and what's wrong with them, but by their works they deny Him. They are religious hypocrites, saying one thing with their mouth, but by their deed showing the very opposite. And yet he speaks of them as totally depraved, under every good work reprobate. And this morning I ask you to ask yourself whether that is possibly describing you, possibly describing me, who profess with our mouths the Lord Jesus Christ and take his name upon ourselves, but possibly take it in vain, lift it up idly and improperly, Because when we look at our works, what we see is that under every good work we are really reprobate. We put on a good show outwardly, but inside it's the horror that our hearts are not clean, are not pure, are not devoted to God at all. You see, purity of heart can be missing among those who even profess religious faith. Soren Kierkegaard wrote a number of things, and I don't recommend that you read them. He is a religious existentialist of the 19th century. But the title of one of the books that he wrote has always fascinated me and I think really is insightful and worth remembering. The title of the work is, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing. Keep that in mind. A pure heart is a heart that has single-minded devotion. In Psalm 86 verse 11, the psalmist said, unite my heart to fear your name. Think about that expression. Unite my heart. What's wrong with my heart? What's wrong with your heart? Well, the psalmist suggests that what's wrong with our hearts is that they're going all these different directions. I've got this love and this commitment and this thing I want to do over here, and I have all of these things going on. And the psalmist says, but draw it together, God. Unite my heart. to fear your name. Give me single-minded devotion to you. In Romans 7, Paul describes, and I do not agree with those commentators who write off the entirety of Romans 7 as the unregenerate experience. Paul describes the struggle even within the regenerate believer. of two laws, the one that wants to submit to the law of God and to please God, and yet the law of the flesh and the law of death that is there still struggling, pulling. Unite my heart. Take away the inner turmoil. Take away the distractions. Give me single-minded devotion, because purity of heart, as Kierkegaard said, is to will one thing. In James, the fourth chapter, verse eight, James says, cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. You notice purity of heart is tied with double-mindedness, that we're really living for two different things, if not more, rather than one. The one all controlling, supreme passion to love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. Jesus said in Matthew the sixth chapter, seek first, seek above all the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else. All these other concerns of life will be added to you, but seek that above all. First Corinthians 10, Paul said, whatsoever you do, whether you eat or drink, whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Now examine your hearts this morning, brothers and sisters, in light of that standard. Do you will one thing in life? Or when you get up in the morning, do you have all sorts of other things that get in the way of that one supreme, all-controlling passion to love God, to glorify God, to pursue His kingdom and its righteousness, to be pure in heart? Our whole lives, including our thoughts and our motives, must be unmixed with anything which is repugnant, anything which is devious, anything which is morally compromising, anything which is pure in itself and yet takes the place of putting God first. And I know that when I start looking into my own heart, when I'm hurting, maybe when I'm pitying myself for the overwhelming experience I go through, I find not just a heart that has been wronged, but I find a heart that is wronged. Indeed, I find that for all of the experiences that devastate me, God has been so merciful because if he really repaid me for what my heart was like, I wouldn't even exist. Examine yourself for the moral impurities that you live with, that lives within you all day long. In Psalm 24, where David is talking about those who will dwell with God, he says, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, hath not sworn deceitfully. Is covenant breaking something that you have to confess to? That you've lifted up yourself to falsehood, that you've made deceitful promises? James tells us that if we could control our tongues, we could control our whole bodies. That in a sense, if we could learn not to sin with our mouths, we might have the key to sanctification because then we would control the rest of our lives as well. And as I think about it, how much of our lives are polluted by not speaking properly, especially when we make commitments to one another. They don't have to be marriage commitments or even business commitments. They can be the slightest of things. But have you ever noticed how you and me and others are capable of finding the most incredible excuses for not living up to their promises and not keeping their covenants? That's why Psalm 15 says, blessed is the man who swears to his own hurt and changes not. You see, when we make a promise to someone, or when we formally covenant to do something, the whole idea there is that we are supposed to take account of that, that circumstances may change, and our feelings may change, and we may find out we've made a commitment that we wish we hadn't. But we don't dwell with God if we swear deceitfully, if we are covenant breakers, if we don't honor our promises, if we don't know what that feeling is to say, I said it and it makes no difference how foolish it was, how hasty it was, how painful it has now become, I will perform it. No matter what, for better or for worse, I will perform it. The one who has not sworn deceitfully, is the one who has a pure heart. Think about the lust that lives within you. In Matthew, the fifth chapter, Jesus said, to even look upon a woman and to lust after her is to have adultery of heart. Think about the revengeful feelings that you're capable of, that I'm capable of. In Romans 12, we are told not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good, to bless those who persecute us, to actually serve the most basic needs of our enemies. And I have to tell you, I don't find it easy to feel that way toward people who have wronged me, who have taken advantage of me, who have lied to me, who have hurt me, and yet I'm supposed to pray for them. to bless them, to serve them. If they're hungry, give them food. If they're thirsty, offer them something to drink. We are capable of breaking covenant, of lusting, of revengeful thoughts, of envy and covetousness as well. In Romans 7, Paul says that he would not have known sin except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. And I don't think, as some have said, that in Romans 7, Paul is just choosing one of the Ten Commandments, and he happens to land on number 10. I think there's a reason why number 10 is chosen, because that exposes Paul's heart. He may have been able to keep outwardly clean in terms of adultery, or murder, or stealing. But I'll tell you, when you get to that 10th commandment, it goes right to what? To the heart. To what kind of person you are inside. And I wouldn't have known what I was, Paul said. In fact, the law revived and I died, he said. Because when the law became alive inside me, I knew that inside me I was dead. Because it said, don't covet. But I covet all the time. We're capable of incredible self-centeredness. The law of God says you shall have no other gods before me, nothing else in front of me, nothing that takes precedence over me, that competes with me. And yet all of us have to confess that we put our desires first. We all have a tendency to want to follow the Bible, provided the Bible suits our present needs, provided the Bible fits in to the desires that I have developed. If it fits my preconceived direction in life, then I'm all for it. And boy, anyone else who gets in the way of that, be damned. We can be real hard on those who don't want to follow the Bible and the Bible saying what we want it to say. But you know, the minute someone brings to our attention the Bible says this and it stands against what you are doing or feeling or wanting or what you're going to do, We have an incredible ability to twist it and ignore it and to volley it away from us so we don't have to pay attention to that. Now let's get down to what's really important, other people's sins and other people's inconsistencies. Now I'm telling you, when you start looking at your own heart, it's just incredible the cesspool that's there. Just think of all the ways which you allow your life to fall short of the glory of God, not to love him with all that is in you. Think of the ways that you allow things in this world to get in the way of obeying God, no matter what the cost may be to you, no matter what the inconvenience or even the apparent unhappiness that it would bring you to obey God. Is your heart pure? Do you obey him only when what he says matches your desires? Psalm 24, David asks the question, who will see God? And I think the utter lack of purity in our hearts is never so evident as when we begin now, as you are doing right now, because I know you're a human being like me, and if I were hearing this, I'd be doing it too, as we begin now to make excuses for ourselves, for our words, and for our behavior, and for our falling short. We are able to rationalize and claim good motives and to compare ourselves to others and to do all these other games that people do so that we don't have to admit that we are polluted and guilty within. And that's why when David says, who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah, who shall stand in his holy place, he does not simply say the one who has clean hands. Clean hands are necessary. Clean hands are inadequate. David says, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, having condemned the Lord of glory to die the shameful death of the cross, what did Pontius Pilate do? He asked for a bowl to be brought to him that he might wash his hands of this nasty affair. His hands were outwardly clean. By the way, I don't know if it's true, but church history has a rumor in it that Pontius Pilate died trying to wash his hands. If it's not historically true, there's still something very important religiously and emotionally to catch on to there. Outwardly clean hands are not enough when the heart is not right with God. The purity must come from within, from the heart. And like little pilots, we are all able to make up just the best excuses for the unrighteousness of our conduct, for our inconsistencies. But God sees through it all. And that's why the rationalizations are such a waste of time. The only opinion that counts, ultimately and finally, is God's opinion. And nobody can fool God. Who then will dwell with God for all eternity? Who can stand in His holy presence and not be devastated by His righteous wrath toward sin? Only those who go beyond the purity of hands, the cleanliness of hands, to a purity of heart. External conformity to the demands of God's law will not be enough. That's why Jesus excoriated the Pharisees for that very thing, that they failed to take account of the demands of God's law upon their hearts. They failed to obey and to love God from within. And so outwardly they appeared so clean. Indeed, they appeared like whited sepulchers, right? And yet inside they were full of foulness and dead men's bones. Who will dwell in God's presence? Only the one who has clean hands and a pure heart. The question that David puts in Psalm 24, who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah, who shall stand in his holy place, is an indicting question. The question is put in terms which were common to the religious mentality of the Old Testament. David here is thinking of the ark, the covenant, coming to Jerusalem. He's thinking of the tabernacle of God, ultimately the temple of God, sitting there. God dwelling in the midst of his people, and he's asking, who can dwell with God? Who can be next to God? In Psalm 15, he asks a similar question. Jehovah, who shall sojourn in your tabernacle? Who shall dwell in your holy hill? He that walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart. He that slandereth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his friend, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor." Who of you could say that's true? You've never taken up a reproach against your neighbor? You've never slandered? You've never done evil to a friend? in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors them that fear Jehovah, who swears to his own hurt and never changes, who puts not out his money to interest, nor takes reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. In Psalm 17, we see the same kind of thing presented by David. He says that righteousness is a precondition for beholding the face of God. Verse 15, as for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake with beholding thy form. Who will see God? Who will dwell with him? Only the righteous, only those who speak truth from within, only those who have purity of heart. The same perspective is in the New Testament. Hebrews 12 verse 14 speaks of that sanctification, that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. But remember, as we come back to Psalm 24, that what provoked the question here about dwelling with God and seeing God, what provoked that question about standing before God was the coming of the ark to Jerusalem. The coming of the King of glory, Jehovah of hosts. That's what verses 7, 8, 9, and 10 are all about. As the people would sing, as the ark is being carried into the holy city up the holy hill, to be placed in the tabernacle of God. The people saying, lift up your heads, ye gates, and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors, because who is coming? Not just a gold box. But the King of Glory is coming. God is coming in to dwell in the midst of His people, in the capital city of His people. And if God will dwell in the very midst of us, what condition will He lay down for drawing near unto Him? You know, with the moving of the ark, the people could not possibly have forgotten the story of Uzzah, who just a short time before had thought that it was appropriate for him, a finite sinful man, to help God. And so as the ark was once being moved, and it is unstable, it appears to us, and he puts out his hand to help out, he is struck dead. Do you understand? The holiness of God, you do not come before the holiness of God. That's why there's a veil before the holy of holies. And only once a year, one man with the blood of sacrifice goes in because God is holy. Don't touch the ark. Now the ark's coming up to Jerusalem. What must we do to dwell in God's presence? What will he ask of us? And the answer David gives is purity of heart. For no one is acceptable to appear before God and to worship God except the one whose heart is pure in his sight, the one who is characterized by utter sincerity and utter integrity. And so who can dwell with God? Who meets the condition? Where's the pure of heart to be found? Psalm 130, if thou, Jehovah, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? None of us have pure hearts. Isaiah tells us that those very things that we would naturally take to be our righteousness is in the sight of God, filthy rags, indeed, mensculous cloth. Not clean, not pure, not acceptable, not even close. In Psalm 51, David openly confessed his need for a clean heart. He said, God create a clean heart within me. This isn't very encouraging. I look inside. hoping that God would bind up a broken heart, and what I find is a heart that's not acceptable to him at all. And yet, Psalm 24, when it talks about the coming of the ark to Jerusalem, is pointing head finally to the true appearance of the king of kings, the true appearance of the king of glory among us. Because what is being spoken of in Psalm 24 is but typological of the coming of Jesus Christ, God's dear son, into our midst, into human history. Christ, who is the King of Glory, has come, not now to Jerusalem to dwell on a hill, but he has now come to rule over all the earth and to be the Savior of mankind. And because the King of Glory has come in, nothing can be the same in history anymore. We all now live in the presence of the God who has visited us. of the God who is drawn very near to us, and the question presses upon each one of us as it pressed upon the Israelites of old. What must I do to qualify to dwell in his presence? The answer is the same, purity of heart. And so when Christ comes to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, it should not surprise you that he says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. In Psalm 24, after David had announced that, that we must have clean hands and a pure heart, verse five says, he shall receive a blessing from Jehovah. The word blessing is that which is used in the beatitudes. Blessed are those who are pure in heart. Jesus now comes to announce the beatitude, the blessing of God upon the pure in heart, but Jesus announces it as a gospel promise. Because when Jesus came to preach the coming of God's beatitude, Jesus knew that it would come only with him. There was no one else who qualified for the kingdom of God. There was no one else who could see God. There was no one else who was pure of heart, but Jesus. And we're reminded that blessed truth that brings us to our knees with tears of joy. that God's work of grace saves us, not only from the guilt of our sin, but from the pollution of our sin as well. How do we become pure in heart? Those of us who know the horror within. Romanist and other works righteousness promoters will suggest that if you do something for yourself, perhaps withdrawing into a monastery from the defiling world, or doing certain works, of penance laid upon you. If you pay a certain amount or say so many prayers that God might finally see you as pure. But you see, Romanism can't deal with the defilement within. It has never been able to do that. That's why Martin Luther beat himself and beat himself and beat himself because he might outwardly get clean hands by the works laid upon him, but he could never change his heart. Liberals in our day and moralists of all stripes suggest that you can work up goodwill within you and loving feelings within you. You can become better neighbors or bring your best self out by just thinking positive thoughts. But the cleanness cannot. The clean cannot come out of the unclean. The Bible tells us so. And all those optimistic views of human nature keep coming to grief in history, keep coming to embarrassment in history. Our only hope to achieve purity of heart, my friends, to achieve that purity that God requires is his own redeeming work. to purify us by his son. God must grant the purity that God demands of us, and this he does amazingly by the gospel. First John 1.9, the point comes where if you look within, you finally say, I give up, I confess, I am unclean, I am undone. and I can't do anything to save myself. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and what does it say? And cleanse us from all unrighteousness, not a little bit, not 20%, not 80%, not 99%, but all of that unrighteousness, all of that fileness that is within, God cleanses us of it. If we but confess our sins, Revelation 7 shows us the throne of the saved standing before the throne of God, beholding God and His presence forever. I want you to see what it tells us about these people. Revelation 7 verse 9, After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation, and of all tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands. Verse 13, And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These that are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I say unto him, My Lord, you're the one who knows. And he said to me, These are they that came out of great tribulation, and washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. How could they impure Though they were now stand in the blessed presence of God for all eternity, they had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Who will dwell with God? Only the pure in heart. And that means only those who are washed by the blood of Christ. Only those who confess their sins and accept the gracious work of God to grant the purity that we can't produce. Is your heart pure this morning? I dare say that you'd have to be asleep to think that it was. Maybe not physically asleep, maybe spiritually. Not just asleep, but dead. How could you believe that? And so turn from your sin. Turn from your moral compromise. Turn from your religious insincerity. Confess that you are foul and undone and unworthy. and trust the cleansing work of Jesus Christ. He's the only one, really, who can dwell in the presence of God forever. And we will only dwell with God if we dwell with Christ. And rely on the Holy Spirit's sanctifying work to change you, to give you that heart that you should desire above all in that purity. In 1 John, the third chapter, John tells us, That when we see Jesus, we're going to be like Him. That when we finally do behold God and see Him, we will be made like Him. And everyone who has this hope set on Him, John says, purifies himself. And so if you know the Gospel, if you know your utter dependence, if you know that cleansing comes only through the grace of God, in reliance upon the grace of God, and the power of his spirit and looking to Jesus to return for that day when we will finally see him, purify yourselves. Who among us can ascend the holy hill of God and stand in his presence? Except those who have Christ as their savior and his spirit as their strength. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming into this world to announce the purity that is now possible in you. Thank you for coming into this world and cleansing us from our sin. Thank you for giving up your precious life and shedding your own blood that our defilement might be removed and all barriers to fellowship with God taken down. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you lay down your life for us. And we do pray that your righteousness would not simply be imputed to our account legally, but that your righteousness might come more and more to dwell within us by the power of the Spirit, really, practically, and in demonstration that we are following you. We thank you that you care for us, that when we are overwhelmed, you are a rock that is higher than ourselves. And we thank you that you break our hearts, that we might know the humility that is an acceptable sacrifice in your sight. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you renew our hearts, indeed, day by day, creating a clean heart within us. And we thank you above all that you grant us hearts that are pure, pure in you, and therefore acceptable before God. Thank you for taking away the horror and placing honor in its place, the honor of our Savior, in whose name we pray. Amen.