Blessed are the Pure in Heart...

...for they will see God.

To Jews, there is nobody like Moses. This was the unlikely hero who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, the one who went up on the mountain and received the Ten Commandments from God. Moses talked directly to God – and heard from God. Listen in on this conversation between Moses and God as found in Exodus 33:12-20.

Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you
have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by
name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me
your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that
this nation is your people."

The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"

And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."

Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."

And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

Did you get that? No one may see God and live.

When Jesus proclaimed that the blessed would see God, he’s making quite a statement. After all, if Moses wasn’t good enough to see God, who could? Who would be so presumptuous to claim superiority over Moses?!

But this statement isn’t as ridiculous as it might seem at first blush. After all, to see God was one of the greatest hopes among the Jews.

In Psalm 42:1-2, we read the following: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"

In Job 42, after Job has been tested and has his encounter with God, he has this to say. "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you."

The hope of the Jews was to see God. Yet if even Moses wasn’t able to see God without the fear of death, what hope did anyone else have?

We find the answer in Psalm 24:3-4 "Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false."

The hope is to see God.

The path to seeing God is a pure heart.

Here’s the rub: It was a heart problem that caused God to destroy the world with a flood in Noah’s time. "The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."

Indeed, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ‘I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.’" (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

This heart problem didn’t just stop in Old Testament times; indeed, it still exists today. And because of this heart problem, we cannot see God. We find ourselves a people in desperate need for a heart transplant.

What kind of heart does God desire? God desires and blesses a pure heart. The Jews knew what purity meant. Their religion was all about purity – they had purity laws about everything: food; food preparation; skin diseases; clothing; you were never allowed to mix the pure with the impure. Here’s what happened: if something pure even came into the presence of something impure, it was all made impure.

There were special rituals required to become pure again, usually culminating with going to the Temple and offering a sacrifice.

A difficulty with this system is this: when you live in filth, a shower doesn’t help all that much.

When I was in Russia, our dorm’s showers were scary. Very scary. Then we went to a summer camp and the bathroom situation was even scarier. But one day we walked an hour through the woods to this bathhouse with wonderfully clean showers, a pool, a sauna… it was wonderful. I hadn’t felt so clean the whole time I was in Russia. But when we left the Banyo, we had to walk back through the woods for an hour back to the camp, and it was hot and sticky and buggy in the woods, and by the time we got to the camp, we were just as sweaty and gross as we had been before we cleaned up.

Likewise for those living in Jesus’ times. There were times for sacrifices, but these sacrifices were only temporary. But to these people, God gave hope. In Ezekiel 36, God says the following to his people in exile:
"For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness.
Ezekiel 36:24-29

Psalm 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Seeing God is greatest reward ever.