"Blessed are the Pure in Heart"

A sermon by Pastor Volkhard Spitzer

Youth Meeting, December 28, 1974

Berlin Jesus Center, Nollendorfplatz 5.

Translated by Bill Price

This is one of Pastor Volkhard Spitzer's many messages that he gave before the Nolli Youth Group in the 1970's. I made a word-for-word transcript of the tape and have attempted to translate it into English so that it would read as if it had been given by an American. There are a few spots on the tape that were unclear; they are designated by question marks: [???].

In this message Pastor Spitzer explains to his listeners that God wants us to live with a pure heart, but at the same time He doesn't expect more from us than we can deliver. He deals with us according to the measure of our faith. If we do that, we are perfect in His eyes.

Part 1

First let's open up to Matthew, chapter 5, verses 1 through 14. Does anyone have a Luther Bible? Jürgen, come on up here. I need someone who has a good voice. Maybe you can just stand up and read out loud so that we can all hear. Matthew 5: 1-14. The topic tonight is going to be verse eight. We're going to be covering that later on, so pay attention when we get there.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they sahll obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men."

Could you read verse 8 one more time?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

And now Hebrews 12:14, too. Maybe you can sort of use your finger as a bookmark. Hebrew 12:14.

Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Our topic tonight is "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And then Hebrews 12:14, "Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." These are two direct statements, and this is what we'd like to talk about tonight. Maybe we could read Matthew 15 right away, too, as long as we're at it, and then we'll have it all together and all I'll need to do is just refer to it. Can you read that, too? Matthew 15, verses 7 through 10, and verses 19 and 20.

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men."

"For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

So we see, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." And then Jesus describes all the evil things that come out of the natural heart of man, namely verse 19, "evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication", or sexual excess, "theft, false witness, slander". That's what comes out of the heart of a man who's not born again.

When we take a look in the Bible, we see one thing, that God is a holy God. The Bible says, God is a holy God. And this word "holy" means the same as "perfect." There is nothing wrong or bad. He is perfect in everything that you can imagine. He is perfect. The Bible says, "all perfect gifts come from the Father of Light", from God. Everything that's perfect, everything that's good, everything that's pure. Everything that's perfect. That's God. That is what He Himself represents, and that's what He gives, too. He doesn't give imperfect gifts, but God is also perfect in his essence and his thoughts, and in everything that he does in our lives. Therefore the Bible says, "For those who serve God, who love God, all things work together for good, who are called according to his purpose.", because God's plans are perfect. God doesn't make any mistakes in what he does. And if our life is in God's hands and is being led by God, then we know that even if a lot of things are going wrong at the moment, God can still somehow make it all work together for the best. He has a plan for my best interest.

And the second thing is, the second message is, that God is a holy God. When we have dealings with God, with the God of the Bible, we have dealings with a holy God. The second basic message is "Christianity is a religion of the heart." Christianity is a religion of the heart. The Bible is constantly talking about the heart of man. "My son, give me your heart." "God will give us a new spirit and a new heart, and a new and right spirit." Over and over again God speaks about the heart, the heart, the heart. We're going to get into this later and talk about what God means when he talks about the heart. And Jesus is the only religious teacher who demands something from his followers, namely, a heart that's completely pure. Jesus wants a complete purity of the heart. It doesn't say that blessed are those who are 57 percent pure in heart, for they shall see God. Nor does it say that blessed are those who are 99.9 percent pure in heart, for they shall see God. The statement is absolute. "Blessed are the pure in heart, the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The Bible doesn't say that Jesus is coming for a stained bride, but for a bride without spot or wrinkle.

I once heard a really neat story along these lines, which made a tremendous impression on me. A lot of people always go around complaining and saying "Jesus, I want to be ready for your coming" and then when a little pressure comes from the outside they start whining, "Oh Lord, help me, oh Lord, help me, I can't take it!" And then they say again, "Oh, Jesus, there's so much filth in my life. Help me, help me!" And then God sends a little pressure on us again to cleanse us – "Oh Lord, oh Lord, I can't take it!" But when you think about it, when something has spots and wrinkles, how do you get the spots out? You wash it! How do you get the wrinkles out? You iron it! Ha ha ha! And so you get some hot pressure, some hot steam. And that's how it is. That's just an illustration of course. But it helps us to understand what we're praying for when we ask, "Jesus, get rid of my spots and wrinkles". And he says, "Okay, hop into the washing machine and afterwards I'll give you a good ironing!" So then don't scream when you start feeling a little funny.

He wants you to be pure in heart. Jesus teaches about a pure heart. He wants to get rid of all the dirt. And that's not always so easy. It's really easy, really easy to be converted. That can happen in a second. "Jesus, I come to you. Yes, I'm a sinner. Forgive me. And Jesus, I repent of my old ways. Give me a new spirit." That can take place in just a few seconds. But afterwards, to live it out – that's a completely different thing, isn't it? It's a very easy thing to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Whoosh - and you've got it. But afterwards, to live in the Spirit, to walk according to the Spirit, twenty-four hours a day. That's another matter altogether. And God values that. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

So many people have the notion that they can please God their own way, that God has a kind of scale, like you see in those illustrations, the blindfolded lady of justice holding the scales, – a scale on one side and a scale on the other side, and then your good deeds go into the one scale and your bad deeds into the other scale. And if I'm lucky at the end of my life, the scales will be tipped just a little more over onto the side of my good deeds, and then God is impressed. Then he's really satisfied, because my good deeds have outweighed my bad deeds. But that's not how it works at all. You may have every philosophical answer, you may have every theological truth. But if you don't live in fellowship with God, if you really don't have a relationship with Jesus and you don't live in this relationship, then it's all for nothing.

Truth without love is meaningless. Read I Corinthians 13. It has to do with love to God. Agape to God. I can do everything. I can even have my body delivered over to be burned, but if I have the wrong motivation (and we're going to be focusing on that later, the issue of motivation) then as far as God is concerned, it's all meaningless. There are Buddhist monks who have themselves burned. There are other people who have themselves burned because of political convictions. That's nothing special. Other people do this too. God is not concerned about that. He is concerned about your motivation. The important thing is your heart. So the basis for a life that's used by God, if you want to have the blessing of God in your life, if you want to be used by God, to be an instrument of blessing for others, if you are not satisfied just living for yourself (and God created you so that you can't be satisfied just by revolving around yourself), if you really want to have meaning, if you want to be able to say at the end of your life, "My life has been worth living. I have left behind a trail of blessing. Wherever I have gone people have been blessed because of me." Then the basis for this kind of a life of blessing is a pure heart.

Let's say, for instance, that I'm the devil. (Fortunately, I'm not! Okay?) – But if I were the devil, where do you think I would try to work? A lot of people say, "Oh, in nightclubs and bars, that's where the devil is, and in the movie theaters!" Where do you think I would try to work? Exactly! Here, with you. I would go to you. And that's just what he does, too. Hey, the devil isn't stupid. He's got two thousand or more years of experience. He knows all the tricks. He goes along with you to church. He goes along with you to the Christian conferences. And he doesn't go into the churches that are dead, because he's got them anyway, but he goes into a church that's alive, where people are seeking after God, where people are starting to pray, where people are starting to fast, where there's a spiritual awakening. Be careful, you in Minden! But you have more power than the devil, for "he that is in you stronger than he who is in the world" That's where he starts. Or he gets people distracted. He goes along with the old lady. And he keeps her from paying attention to the sermon and says, "She's got a new hat again? For heaven's sake, just look at her! Another new hat! Now let's see how much she puts into the offering plate. A dime! Well, that's the Christians for you! I knew it all along!" He goes along! He goes along! "And the preacher has some new striped socks on again, and the color doesn't match at all!"

Hey, I've experienced some of the craziest things. Once I was having a baptismal service. It was such a blessing and I thought to myself, "Everybody must have been thinking about Jesus." And then an old lady comes up to me afterwards and says, "You have such lovely feet!" [Laughter.] At least she took something away: my complexes – because up to then I'd always thought that I had ugly feet!

But you see, the devil goes along. He goes along. And right where there's Spirit-filled life, where people are working, where they're seeking God. That's where he goes along. And, hey, it's no coincidence so many oppressed people have been coming in here recently. Last night we had a prayer meeting here like none we've ever had. Six alcoholics, a person who was apparently perverse, and then a couple people, the woman said to me, "I called on Lucifer for help." And you could see it on her, too, that's just what she looked like. There were ten people like that sitting in the prayer meeting last night. The devil knows that he has to go to church, and specifically, to the church that has the most life. Why? If he can destroy them, then there's not much left.

And for that reason let's be careful when we go out on the streets. Let's work according to the measure of our faith. Let's not go up to all the transients and drug addicts and all those people if we can't even do anything for them. It's much worse if we bring these people in and don't have the power to serve them. And then they go out frustrated because they weren't helped. It's then worse than had they never been spoken to at all. But let's work according to the measure of faith that we have. And if it just happens to be that we have grace from God to work with simpler people and with the average person, they have a soul, too, and are on their way to damnation like anyone else. I always used to think "Yeah, the bad guys and the bums and the whores and so forth, they're on their way to hell." But the average Joe! The normal businessman. Just the average middle-class guy who has a nice family at home, he's lost too, if he isn't born again. The Bible says that unless a person is born again he can't see the kingdom of God. And so let's go after these people and get these people into the church, because otherwise we're just digging our own graves. We can't have a hundred oppressed people here and fifty that are healthy. In every rehabilitation work they know that in the ideal situation there has to be at least three healthy people to deal with one sick person. And that applies in the spiritual realm as well.

I just mention that on the side. I've gotten a little off the subject, but let's just be wise. Sometimes the devil sends people into the church. And we work overtime and worry ourselves sick trying to help them and don't even notice that he's stealing our time and leading us around by the nose, and that we're missing the real tasks at hand, because he's getting us distracted. I had to learn that. I had to learn it. But just simply because you have a feeling that you have to love everybody, you have to love everybody, but let the Holy Spirit lead you to the people you should help. Some people come just to take advantage of you. Last night we had a few who just wanted money. But when we started talking with them about themselves, their personality, their problems, then they didn't want to listen any more. They left. All they wanted was a handout. But they went along with everything else. They were lifting their hands and praying and everything. So be careful! The greatest danger for the devil is a Spirit-filled church. Amen? Okay.

If you were at war and were trying to destroy your enemy - and we are the devil's enemy – where would you start? At the head, of course. If you knock off the head, the people are confused. Then they don't have anybody any more. And for this reason you should pray for your pastor and pray for brother Müller and pray for the Sunday School leaders and for that matter for all of the co-workers here, because the first ones that the devil tries to knock off are the heads, because he knows that if he can chop off the heads, the rest of the people are confused. And the next thing is, then comes the next attack and the next attack, and he directs his first attack wherever most of the power is, because if he can get rid of them, then the whole thing is weak. So watch out and be careful.

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