Survey of the Beatitudes

Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes

0:03 And we turn again this morning to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew to resume our studies in this portion of Scripture which is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. We have seen thus far that this is a unique sermon in its length, in the breadth of subject matter which our Lord Jesus deals with. We have considered the fact that the command of Christ and the condition of the Church put us in such a position that we dare not avoid a detailed study of this marvelous sermon. Last week we looked at the introductory verses,

0:48 verse 1 and 2 of chapter 5, where there is set before us a reminder that the whole weight of the sermon, as far as our response to it, is conditioned upon our conscious understanding of God. When he opened his mouth, he taught them. And these words will not be received as God intends they should be received unless we continually keep before us the person who spoke, the Christ of supernatural power, the Christ of God. The few verses preceding this chapter set him before us

1:32 in his marvelous might and power. Amen. Then we considered for a few minutes those to whom he spoke, the multitude and the disciples. Then we closed our study last week by considering the manner in which he spoke.

1:49 He spoke with authority. He spoke with clarity. He spoke an instructive message to those who heard him. Now we begin this morning not a detailed study of this first section called the Beatitudes, but one that is called the Beatitudes.

2:07 What we might call is an overall survey of them. For as one of God's servants has said, and by the way, I'm deeply indebted to what he has written. Much of what he has written has become so much a part of me. There's times I don't know when he's talking and when I am, as far as this sermon is concerned, and I make no apologies.

2:25 Any fountain that I drink from that blesses me, then I feel I ought to pass it on to others, but I want to give due acknowledgement when such is the case. And he sets out what I think is the most reasonable, reasonable outline of this next portion that we call the Beatitudes. In verses 3 through 10, we have these eight blessed, which lay before us the character of the Christian described and considered. Then in verses 11 and 12, we have the character of the Christian, his essential character proved by the reaction of the world.

3:00 It speaks of persecution and having men say all manner of evil against us. And then in verses 13 to 16, we have the character of the Christian in its influence upon society or upon the world. We are salt, we are light, we are a city set on a hill. Now this morning we want to begin our study of this first division, the character of the Christian considered as we have it set forth in what we commonly call the Beatitudes.

3:32 Now the word Beatitudes is nothing but an English rendering of a Latin word for the word Beatitudes. Now I'll admit that I wasn't really sure of that until I looked it up in the dictionary just yesterday, I think it was. But that's what it means. It's the Latin word for blessed.

The Beatitudes as Authoritative Declarations of True Blessedness

3:49 And so these are the Beatitudes, the blessings given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we want this morning to take some of the obvious facts about these Beatitudes. And the first thing that strikes us as we read them through is that each of them is a statement of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the first thing that strikes us as we read them through.

4:08 And each one of them begins with this little word, blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek, and down through these eight blessings which our Lord Jesus deals with. What does this tell us? Well, the first thing it tells us is this, that the Beatitudes are an authoritative declaration concerning true blessedness.

4:36 The word blessed here is sometimes called or sometimes used of God. He is spoken of as the blessed God or the blessed God. And when it refers to God, it means that he is the holy God. He is the one set apart as no other, who is God, blessed forever, we read in another portion.

4:56 But when the word is used as it is in this passage, it means essentially happy, perfectly content. You remember in John 13, after the Lord Jesus had washed the disciples' feet, he said, I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. That's the same word.

5:19 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. We have in James the same form of the word where James speaks about happy is the man that endures temptation. Same word, blessed, perfectly content, perfectly happy. Now this desire for happiness or blessedness is common to all men.

5:43 Just as the fact that we have two eyes and two ears is a common physical trait, so this quest for happiness is a common trait of the human heart. I care not where you might go, wherever you find human beings, you will find this quest for happiness. The simple reason that God made us with this capacity for happiness and then he said, fill that capacity with himself. This is before sin entered.

6:16 So as Adam came from the creative hand of God, he came as a creature with capacity and yearning for happiness. He came as a creature who knew perfect blessedness and happiness for he found himself within the framework of the will and the plan and purpose of God. God was his portion. The will of God was his rule.

6:41 The rule of life and therein he experienced and knew true blessedness. Sin has entered and sin has marred this blessedness. Read the account in Genesis 3. And from the tremendous bliss of chapters 1 and 2, suddenly you find man utterly destitute of happiness and blessedness.

7:04 You find him running from God. You find him cowering behind a bush in the Garden of Eden, hoping that God won't find him. Sin destroyed the blessedness. But listen carefully.

The Devil's Counterfeit Happiness and Christ's True Way

7:16 Sin did not destroy man's capacity for blessedness nor his yearning for blessedness. And it's this very fact that the devil has capitalized on. He sees the human race with its capacity for blessedness and perfect happiness. He sees the human race with its desire for this happiness.

7:41 And what does he do? He does exactly what the fish are doing. He does exactly what the fisherman does with his bait. Now when I go fishing, which is very rare, I think it's been three or four times this whole year, I enjoy going but don't have too much opportunity to do that.

7:58 I take my hook and I put a worm on it. Or if I have an artificial bait, I clip it on the end of my leader and cast it out. And what am I doing? Well, I know that somewhere out there, at least I hope somewhere out there, there's a little creature with fins and gills, a bass or a sunfish, or something else, swimming around in those waters.

8:19 And I know that that particular creature, called the fish, has a capacity for and an appetite for what I'm putting on the end of my hook, namely the worm or the particular lure that I'm using. Maybe it looks like a frog or a little grasshopper, whatever it is. Now what am I doing? I'm not in the business of feeding fish.

8:38 No, no, I'm not going from here over to Denville to a little lake where I go fishing just to feed fish. If I wanted to do that, I'd just walk down the hill with some goldfish in that little pond down there, and I'd take some bread and season that. What am I doing? I have one goal in mind.

8:55 I want to get that fish into my frying pan via the hook, the net, the freezer, and the frying pan. Now that's my ultimate goal. Now how am I going to accomplish this? I'm using the innate capacity and the innate appetite of that fish for food to serve my own end.

9:19 So when I put that worm on the hook, I have one purpose. That's to get the fish ultimately on my table and into my tummy. I don't have to create the appetite. It's there.

9:33 I just capitalize on it. I don't have to create the capacity for the worm or for the other bait. I just capitalize on it, and I use it to my own end. This is exactly what the devil has done since the fall of man.

9:45 You and I were created with a capacity for happiness. We were created with a desire for happiness, the devil has come along with one purpose. Only one. Jesus gave the clearest description in John chapter 10.

10:01 The thief cometh not, and it's an allegorical reference to the devil, but for to kill, to steal, and to destroy. And the devil has one purpose for the life of every young person, every adult, I care not who you are in this building today, and that is to destroy your soul and mind and to bring it with him into ultimate destruction. Now, how does he accomplish this? He doesn't need to create a thing.

10:30 All he does is what I do with the fish. He capitalizes on this innate capacity for happiness and this yearning for happiness, and he holds out bait and says, this will satisfy that craving. When I throw my line into the water, I'm saying to the fish, what will satisfy you is on my hook. And if he hasn't heeded the warning, the warnings of his fishy mama, to beware of worms that are in the shape of a U, and he goes, he's going to get caught.

11:03 Perfect picture of what the enemy does. Do you want happiness? The devil says, here's how you get it, and he dangles the bait out before him. He doesn't need to create a thing.

11:19 All he does is offer something to us, and he says, happiness is found. What is the bait? We've stung the lust of the flesh. Happiness is found in feeding fleshly appetites.

11:33 And so we live in a generation that's seeking happiness through sex and physical pleasure. Or he holds out material prosperity, and so we live in a generation that are headlong, running after possessions and things, hoping that herein they'll find the pearl of happiness. Or he holds out to the beatnik. Happiness is found in being unconcerned and unconfirmed, and so be a nonconformist, and just lay around and do nothing and hope for nothing and think of nothing, and this will be happiness.

12:11 And the devil holds out the worm according to how he knows he can best get us, but the Lord Jesus is telling us there's only one true way of blessing. And so these beatitudes are an authoritative declaration concerning the only way that the innate capacity that you have and the innate hunger you have for blessedness and happiness can ever be attained. And remember, he who says these things made us. He knows the only way that blessedness can be attained in the creatures that he himself has created.

Self-Examination: Do I Measure Up to God's Blessedness?

12:53 And so the beatitudes are his authoritative declaration concerning the way of true and lasting blessedness. So if you want to know if you're accounted as blessed, read the beatitudes. For the Lord Jesus is going to tell us those who are accounted happy. He's going to say, blessed are, and then he's going to describe.

13:21 Do you want to know if God accounts you truly blessed? Then read the beatitudes. See if you measure up to what's his. Ask yourself, am I what I see described, poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting, merciful, pure in heart, God accounts this kind of person, the blessed man, the happy man.

13:45 Oh, my heart yearns especially this morning somehow for you dear young people. For the devil is holding out before you his gates and he's saying, you want blessedness? You want happiness? Well, you can have it.

14:01 Eat your flesh. Listen to me dear young person, young girl, young man. There's no blessedness in feeding and gratifying physical appetite. There's nothing but heartache and ruin and distress.

14:15 Oh, I plead with you precious young people, listen. Jesus is going to tell you how to be blessed. He's going to tell you. He's going to say, these are the people that are blessed and then he's going to set before us wherein this true happiness consists.

14:32 And as we begin our study of the beatitudes, I trust that the cry of all of our hearts will be, O God, show me if in your reckoning I'm a truly blessed man. Lord, show me if in your reckoning I'm a truly blessed man. Lord, show me if in your reckoning I'm a truly blessed man. Lord, show me.

14:52 I'm willing to match my life up with these things and to see if I'm accounted blessed. And then may the second attitude of our heart be, O God, I'm willing for you to show me the way of true blessedness as we study the beatitudes and as you show me that I'm going to trust you to conform me to that way of blessedness. And I say without any fear of contradiction because I say it on the basis of the word of my lovely Lord, there is no true blessedness or happiness that bypasses these three attitudes. It may seem like blessedness.

15:27 Sure, the moment that fish closes his mouth around the soft tissue of the worm, everything in him rejoices. Ah, I've found the satisfaction of my appetite. But when he's swallowed the worm and with it the hook and it's done its work, he finds to his chagrin, it wasn't what I thought it was. And while the devil's bait is in our mouths, blessedness, whether it's in the mere gratification of physical appetite or the accumulation of things or whatever way we think we can attain blessedness, when our teeth clung about the bait, it's sweet in our mouths.

16:10 But remember, there's a hook and the devil has but one purpose, the destruction and damnation of your soul and of mine. So I'm glad we can come to this study of the Beatitudes. I'm anxious to find out what it is that's going to be in the way of our Lord. I want to be a God-blessed man.

The Beatitudes as a Description of Every True Christian

16:35 I want to know true happiness. Our Lord is going to instruct us in the way. Now, there's a second general observation that we want to make this morning. We can't read them through even hurriedly without coming to this conclusion that the Beatitudes are not only an authoritative declaration about the way of true blessedness but the Beatitudes of a true Christian or of a true member of the Kingdom of Heaven.

17:03 Notice the opening words. Verse 3, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Then he goes down through the next seven Beatitudes, the six, and then the last Beatitude, verse 10, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness day for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. The first Beatitude speaks to those who are members of the Kingdom of Heaven.

17:34 The last Beatitude, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Letting us know that in between that first and last Beatitude attributed to those who are members of the Kingdom of Heaven, God is going to give to us a description of those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now because they depict the basic characteristics of a true Christian, they are, first of all, true of every real Christian. In other words, we don't go shopping in the Beatitudes and say, well, here's eight

18:19 and five out of eight is a pretty good average. I wouldn't mind batting that. If I were a ball player, five for eight, I might win the title of best Christian in the world. Now, the Lord Jesus is giving a symmetrical description of the members of this Kingdom.

18:40 And because this is so, these Beatitudes are to be true of every member of that Kingdom. In other words, God doesn't intend for a few super-duper hyper-spiritual people to conform to these Beatitudes. No, no. Anybody in the Kingdom of Christ is a blessed man.

19:01 He's a distinctive better laid out in the Beatitudes. So, don't anyone sit back and say, well, I'm batting pretty good. God wants every one of us to bat a thousand when we read these Beatitudes. For it's the work of Jesus Christ to produce in everyone that He makes a member of His Kingdom these characteristics of poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hungry and thirsty, purity of heart, and secondly, and this even drives it closer to home, not only are these things to be true of all Christians, all of them are to be true of each Christian.

19:45 He's hinted at this and I just want to state it in a clear way. It's sort of like Galatians 5, 22 and 23. We read, the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit plural, but the fruit of the Spirit. Wherever the Holy Spirit is present, He's going to produce fruit.

20:03 And when He says, gentlemen, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit. Now, wherever the Holy Spirit dwells in a man, this fruit will be evident. Now, it's true because of our infirmity and because of the fact that sin still resides in us. One Christian might show forth more of the characteristics of spirit- prompted love than we see.

20:37 But this doesn't make it right. As Martin Lloyd-Jones points out in his book, The Sermon on the Mount, this doesn't make it right. It's the purpose of God that wherever the Spirit is present, the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit will be manifested. It's just as true that wherever there is someone who's a member of the Holy Spirit, there's a person who's a member of the Holy Spirit who's a member of the Holy Spirit.

21:14 So, if we're truly the children of God and we say, Oh God, there's so little meekness, we're not going to be content. If we're Christians, we're going to say, this is huge. The Bible gives us a general overall view of the Beatitudes. They reveal to us that Christianity is basically concerned.

Christianity's Core Concern: Inner Character, Not Outward Actions

21:48 Now get this. This is so vital. Wouldn't to God if there's one message I could cry up and down the land. I think this is it, or part of it.

22:05 Next week For no one believes more firmly than I, and those who are here in the Sunday School class know that this is what we've been studying for four or five weeks now, in the marvelous objective work of salvation, that God has provided in Christ a perfect righteousness outside of me, a perfect righteousness put to my account when I come to Him in repentance and faith. No one believes that more firmly than I do. But the purpose for which God has provided this marvelous work outside of me is that He might do a marvelous work within me.

22:47 Did it? God has not provided this wonderful blessing of forgiveness of sins and justification just to balance up the record books of heaven. Oh no. He's provided all of this that He might do a marvelous work in you and in me.

23:06 That's why the promise of God is that He might do a marvelous work in you and in me. That's why the promise of God is that He might do a marvelous work in you and in me. That's why the promise of God is that He might do a marvelous work in you and in me. What Jesus came to enact as recorded in Ezekiel and Jeremiah and then quoted in Hebrews, God says, under the new covenant, I'm going to do two things that never were done under the old covenant, never were done, yes.

23:21 Number one, He says there's sins and iniquities I'll remember no more. Under the old covenant, every year the high priest went in and made atonement on the day of atonement. The scripture says there was this continual remembrance of sins, reminding the people that sinned. sin was not yet forever and finally put away. But now, through the Lord Jesus, I can come

23:44 confident that by one offering He has forever blotted out sin, and I can come, as the Scripture says, with a clear conscience to God, knowing that my sins will be remembered against me no more. God says there's a second thing in that new covenant, and the first thing has its goal, the second. Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. I will write my laws upon their hearts. And then you turn back to Ezekiel and you find the expanded part

24:17 in God's business. I'll take out the heart of stone, and I will give them a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within them, and I will cause them to walk in my statutes and to keep my judgments. What does all this tell us? 1. The Holy Spirit.

24:34 It tells us that Jesus Christ came and shed His blood, that giving to us, unrecognized, He might transform us and give us a new heart. And as I study the Beatitudes, I come to the conviction that Christianity is basically concerned with my inner character. Not primarily what I do, but what I am. And so as I read the Beatitudes, what do I find? Blessed are

25:07 what? It describes a character trait. It doesn't say blessed are they that do this, but blessed are the poor in spirit. That's a description of character. Blessed are they that possess?

25:20 No. Blessed are they that mourn? Blessed are they that have it easy? No. Blessed are they

25:27 that hunger and thirst. And the Lord Jesus, in describing these essential characteristics of a true Christian, reminds us of this principle that's so very important to us, and that's the principle that's so basic, Christianity is basically concerned with a man's inner character, the deep workings of the heart. Well, you see, it's in the heart that sin has done its drastic work. If our problem was only the fact that our hands did some things they shouldn't, and our mouths spoke some things they shouldn't, and our ears heard some things they shouldn't, our problem would be a fairly easy one to conquer. But Jesus

26:05 said, For from within, out of the heart, proceed adultery, fornication, murder, theft, idolatry, lying, theft, all of these things. They're but a revelation of a deep fountain of iniquity, the human heart. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And I pray again for you, dear young people, that God will help you to realize early in life that your basic problem is not the fact that you speak some bad words to brother or sister, or get in a fight with your fist, or your feet go somewhere where they shouldn't. The

26:41 problem's in your heart, and there's a deep fountain of iniquity and pollution. Let's know that the Lord Jesus wants to do a work. I thought for years that the problem was basically my hands and my feet and my eyes. And so I resolved again and again that I was going to live for Christ, and I was going to live right, and it didn't work. And

27:04 finally I had to recognize the problem goes deeper than my hands and my eyes and my tongue, it goes into the heart, and it's from the heart that these things proceed. And so God in His marvelous purposes of grace wants to touch not just the hands and the feet and the eyes, but He wants to go to that fountain of iniquity, the human heart, and there He's going to do His work. And oh, that we might cease this before Him. This is God's work, changing human hearts, changing the basic attitudes of the heart. I get so tired. In

The True Measure of Ministry Success: Producing Beatitude Characteristics

27:36 our generation, I don't know what it's like over in the United States, I don't know what it's like in Vietnam and what it's like down in Columbia, South America. I don't know if the churches there are inflicted, afflicted with the curse that we are here. We measure everything in terms of numbers. Now I believe if God is blessing, there's going to be numbers.

27:52 I believe that. That's why I'm encouraged to see the pick-up of attendance in all of our services. When God blesses, God will draw men, and where men are drawn, there's going to be increase of numbers. But listen, numbers do not mean anything of themselves. The essential

28:11 matter is this. Through all of our services, God will draw men, and where men are drawn, there's going to be increase of numbers. And when we bring it to you, there's going to be increase of numbers. And all of our services are brought into all of our crowds.

28:18 Poverty of spirits is being produced by the Holy Ghost. That's the test. Winning over sin is being produced in our great crowd. This is my first experience with Jesus. People

28:33 come to me and talk about their big young people's work. They've got this, they've got that. I want to ask them, can you point me to some, to all of your religious circus priests who've been broken before God. Can you show me some young people's works that who are hungry and thirsting, not for a good time, but for righteousness and holiness and godliness.

29:00 Can you show me some young people whom the Spirit of God is making hungry for righteousness? People can talk to me about their great crowds and their packed meetings, and I ask them, is it producing men and women with pure hearts,

29:17 mixed spirits, people who are sighing and groaning over the sin of their own hearts and the sins of our generation? The work of the kingdom of God, dear ones, the work that Jesus is engaged in, is in the work of producing these characteristics of the heart. That's his work. All this other stuff,

29:43 don't lay it at his feet. He doesn't want it. He doesn't want it. And I don't know how long God's going to keep me in ministry to this few people here.

29:53 As far as I'm concerned, I'd be happy to be kept in here a long, long time. I have no complaints.

30:00 God should move me out tomorrow. I trust this. One thing you'll never forget.

30:09 The work grows. You push the wall out. You build the building. Start a new group.

30:13 You have a junior choir, a senior choir, and four different young people's groups. Everything's booming. Everyone says, My, look at North Coralville Church. It's wonderful.

30:25 I pray in God's name, you'll stop and you'll ask yourself the question, how much poverty of spirit's being produced? How much meekness? How much hungering and thirsting? How much purity?

30:39 How much poverty of heart? And remember this. If with all the size and all the growth and all the apparent blessing, if it isn't being used of God to produce this, wipe it off. It's wood, hay, and stubble, and it'll go off its smoke at the judgment seat.

30:55 God help you young men to realize that as you go out into your ministry, this is the work producing these characteristics in those to whom you minister. May God help you and immunize you to the craving to get the crowds at any cost. I'm convinced God can move, to move the crowds to do this. I'm convinced He can do this work to ease inner working of the human heart.

The Beatitudes as God's Supernatural Work of Grace

31:24 There's another principle that's here, right on this surface, and that's why I want to deal with these things. Before we get into details, we want to deal with these basic principles. The next principle is this, that these Beatitudes are a description of God's supernatural work in grace. It's hinted at this, but I want to state it clearly.

31:48 It's hinted at this, but I want to state it clearly. It's hinted at this, but I want to state it clearly. When Jesus said, you want to establish right at the outset, and when the Lord Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, He was not saying perfectly happy is a man who by temperament can't look in the eye, holds his hands and bites his nails when he's in a crowd, and feels awfully uneasy when he's asked to do anything. That's not being poor in spirit, that's just being naturally timid.

32:15 When the Lord Jesus said blessed are the meek, He was not saying blessed are those who by nature have a capacity Let everybody run over them. There's some people that seem to thrive on being used as a doormat. It is made that way. It's made that way.

32:31 But when the Lord Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, perfectly happy, perfectly content are they that mourn, perfectly content and blessed are the meek, he is setting before us the very characteristics which he by his supernatural power produces in men. For if the Lord pronounced blessedness on natural characteristics, this would be unfair. Some of you by nature are so nice and quiet. It may not be that the Lord sanctified you and sanctified your temperament.

33:05 It may be you're just plain natural content and everybody thinks you're the fruit of the spirit and all of you are the fruit of Adam. That's all. You're just the way you are by nature. I've been fooled.

33:14 I remember Mrs. Elliot. Did I mention this last week? Sometimes I can't remember.

33:17 I think of things and I have to write them down. I know what I've told you and what I haven't. I have to listen. I have to listen to my case again, I guess.

33:23 Let's show the picture of this native. I think I did tell you that. Did I? Oh, yeah.

33:29 Someone's shaking their head, yeah. Well, for some of you who weren't here, I'll pass it out again. The rest of you can catch 30 weeks now if you need to get back to this. Let's show the picture of one of these Alta Indians down there in Ecuador.

33:40 He had a big old grin on his face, you know, and the dark skin and the bright shiny teeth. And boy, when she showed it in one place, someone said, oh, look at the light of Christ in the gospel and faith. Mrs. Elliot said, the light of the gospel.

33:52 Look at him. He's a man that's murdered, I forgot how many people, and he's just as unrepentant and hardened as any old sinner you'd ever see anywhere. Now, he was just naturally one of these with a big broad grin. That was him by nature.

34:05 See? Now, we've got to recognize when we come to the Beatitudes, the Lord is not pronouncing blessedness upon any natural characteristic. He's pronouncing blessedness upon the very characteristic that he himself works in men. That's why he's great.

34:24 All you need to do is tie together verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. With John chapter 3, except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And we'll see next week that kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, and many times are used interchangeably.

34:39 Even though Mr. Schofield in his notes says otherwise, we'll prove unmistakably that this is so. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

34:52 How do they get? To be poor in spirit, only by the new birth. And right down through all these characteristics as we shall see, are worked in us by the Holy Spirit. So this is encouraging to me.

35:06 What the Lord Jesus pronounces as a way of blessedness, he's willing to create in me that I might be blessed. What a marvelous Christ we have. Pronounces blessedness on a certain character, and then he says, I stand ready to create that very character. That's the inward, that you might be blessed.

The Essential Antagonism Between the World and the Church

35:27 And then the last principle that we have, lying here on the surface, and we want to deal with it before we dig into the specifics. These three attitudes reveal the essential. Now I'm using my words carefully. Some of you may think a lot of passages spout out words like a fire hydrant spouts out water.

35:47 But this is true. Now I'm trying to use my words thoughtfully. These three attitudes reveal the essential. The essential antagonism between the world and the church, or to make it personal, between the saved and the unseen.

36:06 Now there are a lot of differences or antagonisms between the saved and the lost that are on the outside. They're what we call peripheral. They're out here. But at the core, there are a few basic essential differences between the Christian and the non-Christian.

36:24 Between the world and the church. And these differences are nowhere more clearly delineated than in the Beatitudes. Now the word antagonism is a good word to use. We usually think, well, don't antagonize me.

36:36 Don't upset me. But that isn't what the word antagonize means. It literally means to strive against. It comes from two words.

36:44 One means to strive a struggle, and the other word means against. What is the basic struggle against the world and the church between the Christian and the non-Christian? If you want to know, go to the Beatitudes. For they reveal the essential antagonism between the Christian and the non-Christian.

37:05 You say, Pastor, in what areas? Well, let's just look at several. First of all, in the area of what they consider to be virtuous. Look at the first Beatitude.

37:15 Blessed are the poor in spirit. You mean the Lord Jesus pronounces blessedness upon an attitude called poverty of spirit? As we'll see next week. This is that conscious realization that I am nothing, I have nothing, I can do nothing apart from the grace of God.

37:38 Now, what's the world say? The world says, blessed are those that have the stuff and know they have it and can produce. You can take portions on how to increase your self-confidence. This is where the world puts value.

37:56 The world values as a virtue self-confidence. Not the Lord Jesus. In the kingdom of God. God is poverty of spirit.

38:05 That's a virtue. Read on a little bit. Blessed are those that mourn. You mean spiritual mourning, a sense in the right way of heaviness of heart over certain things, is the way of blessedness?

38:19 The world doesn't say that. All you need to do is flip on your TV set. Everybody's trying to get everybody to laugh.

38:27 Breaking their neck to get a laugh. At work. At school. Everybody's trying to get somebody else to laugh.

38:34 The way of blessedness is the way of joviality. It's the way of laughter. It's the way of license.

38:41 You see, there's an essential antagonism between the Christian and the non-Christian. Between Christ and the world.

38:49 The problem in our day is we've forgotten that. And we thought somehow maybe the world's got a little something to help us. So the church is trying to play the clown. And she's lost its power.

39:02 We never had capacity to make men blessedly happy until the church of Christ. We had the power to make them mourn. And to be broken over this.

Contrasting Pursuits and Rewards: World vs. Christian

39:13 So there's an essential difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. In what they consider virtuous. Secondly, in what they consider worthy objects to pursue.

39:25 What should the Christian pursue? Well, look down at verse 6. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst. That's just a figurative way of saying blessed are those which pursue with earnestness.

39:35 That's what? Righteousness. Oh, wait a minute. Righteousness?

39:39 That's holy. That's being like God. You mean? A worthy object of my pursuit and earnest endeavor and honest striving is to be holy, to be like God, to be Christ-like.

39:52 That's what Jesus said. He said the way of blessedness is in that way of pursuing a life of godliness. What's the world saying? Blessed are those that do hunger and thirst after possession, after standing, after reputation.

40:06 You take the avid man in the street and you come up to him all enthused after you leave the service this morning and say, Oh, I'm so blessed. I'm so blessed to have God creating in my heart a hunger to be holy. He'll look at you and say, No. You start talking about some new scheme you've got to make a little extra money after work on your own to buy that boat you want or something, and boy, he'll sit down and talk with you and say, Give me the in.

40:30 Where do you get the contact?

40:33 Isn't this true? Am I creating a picture on my own or is this true? It's true, isn't it? You see the essential difference between the Christian and the worldly?

40:43 Not only in what they consider virtuous, but in what they consider a worthy object of pursuit. And then last of all, in what they consider a satisfying reward. You come up to the avid man in the street and say, Look, listen. You know what I'm going to promise you as a reward if you'll be such and such?

41:02 That you'll see God. He'll say, Oh, boy, here I thought you were going to give me a hundred bucks. I thought you were going to promise me a free trip to Europe.

41:12 See God? Oh, give me something I can touch and feel and see and enjoy now. See God, pie in the sky. I don't have any time for that.

41:19 This is not a satisfying. You try to bait the guy at work. You want him to get him to do something. You promise him as a reward that he's going to experience the comfort of God or he's going to see God.

41:29 You're going to have to do something else. You won't get much response from him. But to the true child of God, if God should say, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall possess a billion galaxies. This would have no comparison whatsoever with this promise.

41:48 Blessed are the pure in heart. So they shall. See God. And the true Christian said, Oh, God, there's nothing more I count as a reward of greater value than to behold thee and look upon thee and rub thee with an unseemly heart.

42:05 And the Christian counts this reward the greatest thing that God's ever done. Isn't it true? You see the essential difference between the world and the Christian? In what they consider virtue.

Summary of Introductory Observations and Call to Application

42:18 In what they consider a worthy object of pursuit. In what they consider. In what they consider a satisfying reward. So we have these five introductory observations.

42:28 May I just roll with them for you? And then I want you to, if you can, as much as possible, I can't repeat them each week. I'll be making some casual references to them occasionally as we study on. But keep them before you.

42:42 Principle number one that we've considered. These beatitudes are declaring to us the only way of blessing. May you young people never forget the illustration about the fisherman.

42:56 The devil holds his bait out and says, this is the way to be blessed. And you adults as well. May you remember, if it's any way that contradicts the beatitude, it isn't true. If you've got to be unrighteous to be happy, remember, it's a baited hook.

43:10 Never remember. Never forget. Never forget. If you've got to sin in order to be happy according to the devil's way, remember, it isn't right for the pure in heart to be happy.

43:21 Never forget it. You adults, don't you forget it.

43:26 You think, oh boy, I'll be blessed. I can just get this or I can get that. Nowhere in here does he say, blessedness comes to those who have. This is God's authoritative declaration of the way of blessedness.

43:37 Secondly, it's a depiction of the character of the true child of God, of a member of the kingdom of heaven. Am I like this?

43:48 Is this what I am? If not, then it's because I'm not in the kingdom and I need to be born of the spirit. Thirdly, a reveal of Christianity. Christianity is essentially concerned with the condition of the human heart.

44:03 Our church, our Sunday school, our ministry, any ministry, is successful only to the extent that it's being used as a frog to produce the beatitudes in men and women. And if it isn't doing that, strike it off. Good hay. Double.

44:23 I'm not just preaching in you, I'm preaching in myself.

44:28 I can get enamored with the fact that repentance is increasing and other things. I can begin to think this. It's a success. All I need to do is stop and say, now wait a minute.

44:39 How about that one that's been coming, and this one, this one? Do I see the spirit of God producing the beatitudes in them, those characteristics? I know of nothing to deflate a preacher more than to just stop and do that. Just stop and do that.

44:55 And then fourthly, they describe God's mighty word. He who pronounces the blessing will create the very attitude and characteristics which is blessed. And then last of all, they reveal. They reveal the essential difference in the Christian and in the world.

Concluding Prayer and Encouragement for Further Study

45:12 Are you willing to face up to God's way of blessing? May God grant that all of us will. And then as we come next week, God willing, we'll consider the first of these beatitudes. Blessed are the four of you, for they are the kingdom of God.

45:33 Now we bow together in prayer.

45:43 Our Father, we earnestly plead with thee. For that which we've considered today. May it be burned into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

45:55 And that thou would lead us into the way of true blessing.

46:01 Father, I pray for these precious young people, especially today. As the devil would hold out to them blessedness in every other way but thy way. Oh God, may what they've heard this morning haunt them with a blessed haunting. Until they are shut up to thee.

46:21 And cry out to thee. To create in them. And then, the very ways of blessing. For each adult, for each parent, for each young married couple.

46:31 Oh God, may we not be so foolish to go after the bait of the enemy. But may we pursue the path set out by the Lord Jesus. Shield these words to our hearts. And be glorified in the answer to our prayers.

46:52 We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I do earnestly trust that you'll take time on your own to. Study these Beatitudes.

47:08 It'll mean so much more if when you come, your heart is already fine, so to speak. By some previous meditation, greetings. And then as God speaks things from his word. Through his servant, you'll say, ah, that's just what the Lord taught me.

47:24 That's the question I had. Thank you, Lord, for answering it. And the ministry of the word will mean so much more if you do that. And all of you who do not have another church home.

47:33 We welcome you back to our service tonight. As we should be meeting about the table of the Lord. Remembering him in the way that he's asked us to do. Trust you'll be with us.

47:42 And I know God will meet with us as we come expecting his blessing. Let us stand together and be dismissed with prayer.