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Evangelistic Talks: 14 - Blessed are the Pure in Heart

By Gipsy Smith


      Matthew 5:8 -- "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

      Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and the pure heart is the goal of Calvary. The pure heart is the climax of the work of Jesus Christ for you and me. He can make your heart and mind pure. Now, please get that into your minds and get it into your heart that that's what He wants to do, and anything short of that is dishonoring Him.

               "A heart in every thought renewed,
                   And full of love divine;
               Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,
                   A copy, Lord, of thine."

               "Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart,
                   Come quickly from above,
               Write thy new name upon my heart,
                   Thy new, best name of Love."

      The pure heart is what the Holy Spirit was given to produce in you and me. Listen! I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh, and what some of you have this morning is a stony heart. I said to a man in one of my services not long ago, "My brother, when will you give your heart to God?" He said, "Gipsy Smith, I haven't got a heart. Mine is only a gizzard," and, mind you, he wasn't trifling. He was sincere. He got a vision of his heart, his own heart, and he was convinced how he felt it to be. It is a gizzard, and you know what a gizzard is; it is a. stony place. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. Your heart is stony, cold, lifeless, selfish, corrupt. The reason you are vile outside is because you are vile inside, and God wants to take your vileness out by giving you a clean heart, a pure heart.

      "Blessed are the pure in heart." Then God cart make your heart good and if your heart is good, you will be good outside.

      I have heard people talk about some when they do wrong, go wrong, break hearts, break up homes, wreck lives. I have heard them say, "You know, he is good at heart." Haven't you heard that? Why, it is a lie. They do these things because they are bad at heart. God wants to put your heart right and if you start, listen to me, if you start anywhere else, you will start at the wrong place. Get your heart right, and God wants to put your heart right, and He will and can make it good. Oh, but somebody says, "I was born with a devil in me." Well, you can be born again and this time with the devil out. So that is no excuse. Jesus undertakes your case. I was talking to somebody the other day, and he said, "I want to be good. But you don't know how bad I am."

      I said, "I don't care how bad you are. I know my Master, and I know He can make you good. Haven't you known Him to make bad people good?" "Yes," he replied, "I knew one man He made good." I said, "What did He make him good out of?" And he said, "Nothing." "Well," I said, "He can make you good out of what is left. Give Him a chance. All power is given unto Him in heaven and on earth; and He can make you good."

      You see the difference between you and an animal is that you are a moral agent, and God has an asset in you. He created you in His own image.

      When I was in France with the boys, one afternoon, I was taking a little walk just back of the lines. I had sought freedom from that village just to be quiet for a few hours, to get away from the horror, from the murder and the blood, and the suffering, and the tears, and the heartaches, and the sights, that tore my heart to shreds. I was walking in one of those lovely woods, those French woods, and in the center of that wood, I came across a mud hole, just a little pool. If the wind had been still I could have pitched a cracker across it, it was so small in circumference. The water in it was as black as ink.

      All around its sides it was fringed with bracken and autumn tints and the sun had cast that little pool, even though black, into a black diamond and the surface of that mud hole was covered with continents of purity, handfuls of glorious gems, and what do you think they were? They were water lilies and their roots were in the mud. And if God can bring lilies out of an ink pot whose roots are in black mud, if He can make little handfuls of purity enough to make angels thrill to the tips of their wings, He can make your heart pure.

      Don't you doubt His power. Don't you doubt His ability. God is almighty.

      Somebody was riding through the streets of London with Ruskin, on one occasion -- that great artist-that great classic writer -- that apostle of the truth long before his time --and looking out of the carriage (it was raining), his companion said, "What disgusting stuff this London mud is," and Ruskin replied, "Wait; there are in this disgusting mud, London mud, there are the soot, the sand, the lime, out of which God makes sapphires, opals, and diamonds." And if God can make sapphires, opals and diamonds out of London mud, He can make saints out of the men and women in front of me this morning. He can make within you a pure heart.

      Again I repeat Wesley, the same words,

             "A heart in every thought renewed,
                  And full of love divine;
             Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,
                  A copy, Lord, of Thine."

      But if you want to be like Him, you must keep close to Him. I know this much about my Lord, if you live with Him, you will get like Him, only keep close up to Him. The danger with us all is, we follow a long way off from Him.

      Why, I took an old root, one day, an old root out of a lane under the hedge, from the grassy, ivy covered bank, close to the spot where my beloved mother died. I wanted something in my garden from that! sacred spot that was consecrated by her death. So It took some ivy and planted it and it is growing around some of the old stumps in the garden, and I go and look at it till I am a Gipsy boy again, I am in the lane where I lost my mother.

      And I also took out of that bank an old root; it was only a root. You would not have known what it was; a gardener would, a horticulturist would have known, but the average person, or persons who didn't know gardening would have known nothing about that root. I took it home, wrapped up carefully in a piece of paper. When I got home I took it out of the paper, and I said to my wife, "Annie, come here," and I showed it to her. And she said, "Look at your fingers -- look at your dirty fingers. What have you got there-that old dirty root?" And I said, "Wait a minute, I am going to plant this. I won't tell you what it is, but I want you to watch it when I am absent -- watch it for my sake." I put it underneath a pear tree, on a little bit of a bank, which I knew would be sheltered from the northeast wind, but it would catch the first kisses of the spring sunshine. And one day I received a letter from home, in April, and my wife said, "Rodney, you know where you planted that dirty old root, there's the most lovely bunch of primroses you ever saw."

      Listen! the primroses were in the root all along; they only wanted the sunshine and the atmosphere. And you don't know what is in you. It only needs God to bring it out, and make it possible for the beautiful and noble and true. God can make you pure in heart. It is all there. Give God a chance with you. The capacity is there. The wildness has got you now. The wickedness has got you now. The Devil is in you now, the lying has got you now, the cheating has got you now, the unclean has hold of you now. Let God come and cast the Devil out, and then just as there was a calm after the storm, you will know the peace that comes, and just as that man was clothed and in his right mind, and stood at the feet of Jesus and told his friends and neighbors what great things the Lord had done for him, just that kind of a change will come over you when grace has had her perfect work, and made you right and pure, and good, a copy -- a copy of His great heart.

      Don't forget that God can do it for you. All things are possible to Him.

      I was staying with a London family some time ago. You know I pity folks who are born surrounded by bricks and mortar. You know nothing. I positively pity you. You people who just see bricks and mortar, and fine homes, and fine chairs to sit in, and money to spend, and nothing but jazz and nonsense, you don't know you were born. Come out with me, and live in God's woods and I will teach you a few things. Come out where the birds sing, where the stars shine, where God's wind blows through the brains and the soul, where the eternities whisper the secrets of the skies to you and you will learn things.

      Why, a rose -- I never talk to a rose, hanging in the garden, early in the morning, without seeing a tear in its eye, in the form of a dewdrop. It is always sympathetic. God's flowers -- well, they are His thoughts in colors and perfumes. Somebody said to me the other day, "What do you call a butterfly?" I replied, "God's flowers on the wing."

      I was in this home of culture -- I took something out of my pocket and I said to the young people, "What is that?" And one of them, about fifteen, said, "Why, that is an onion." I replied, "No, it is not an onion, it is a bulb." If I were to show some of you a bulb like that, you would think it was an onion. That's about all you know of nature. "It is a bulb," I said, and they asked, "A bulb, what is that?" I said, "Have you a flower pot?... Yes." "Get me a flower pot." "Have you any soil?" They said, "We have some in the back yard," and I said, "Have the pot filled with soil and I will plant that for you." And I kept the crown just a tiny bit above the soil and I dampened it. I said, "Keep that in the dark, don't drown it, just keep it damp and in the dark, until you see about half an inch of green above the surface and then bring it to the light and see what will happen." And in time I had a letter saying, "Oh, Gipsy Smith, we have the most lovely white hyacinth you ever saw." Why, that hyacinth was in that bulb all the while; it only waited for the power of the water and the soil. And the power of God co-operating with your soul will make it pure and beautiful.

      I wonder what you will be when grace has done her perfect work in you -- one thing I know, your heart will be pure and you will see God. You will be a good man, or a good woman, a beautiful soul, illumined, cleansed, purified, ennobled, by the incoming of the Son of God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Listen to me! The pure in heart see God everywhere. They see Him in the face of a little child, they see Him in the daisy, they see Him in the dewdrop, they see Him in the stars, they see Him in the sunbeam, in the wind that caresses their brow, they see Him in the morning light, in the evening zephyr breeze, yes, they see Him everywhere.

      The pure in heart are always looking for Him, don't you see? They are looking for Him. Have you seen God?" Listen! You see Him most in the face of Jesus. And whosoever looketh and believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

             "There is life for a look at the Crucified One,
                   There is life at this moment for thee.
             Then look, sinner, look unto Him, and be saved,
                   Unto Him who was nailed to the tree."

      If you feel this morning your heart is in need of cleansing, bring it to your Lord.

      I can see an old Scotchman now, seventy-five years old, walking down the aisle in the granite city in the heart of Scotland, Aberdeen. And the whole length of the aisle, as he walked, this tall, rugged, handsome, old man, was saying in his broad, Scotch brogue, this prayer, "Give me the heart of a little child. Give me the heart of a little child." "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven."

      This message is for you this morning. The new life demands a new heart and if you will come to God now, this moment, here and now, before you leave this building, He will take the stony heart out of your flesh and He will give you the heart of a little child. "A new heart will I give you and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep judgments, and do them."

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See Also:
   Foreward
   1 - My People Shall be Called by my Name
   2 - If Ye Abide in Me
   3 - I Am the Good Shepherd
   4 - Love
   5 - The Hope of Glory
   6 - What Shall I Do Then With Jesus?
   7 - And Lot Lifted Up His Eyes
   8 - Come
   9 - What Wilt Thou That I Should Do Unto Thee?
   10 - If Any Man Thirst
   11 - Who Hath Believed Our Report?
   12 - THere Shall Ye See Him
   13 - The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
   14 - Blessed are the Pure in Heart
   15 - Ye Shall Receive Power
   16 - He Pleased God
   17 - Then Drew Near Unto Him
   18 - The Wages of Sin is Death
   19 - The Understanding of the Prudent
   20 - Twenty Two-Minute Sermonettes

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