Beatitudes 4 - Blessed are the Pure in Heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

I was reading this beatitude of vision the other day when someone reading over my shoulder, unknown to me, abruptly asked “What does it mean to be pure in heart?”
Actually it was the very question I was asking myself and it seemed as though both our minds reached the same point at the same time. Isn’t it exactly the question this saying of Jesus prompts us all if we read it thoughtfully. Straight away it whisks us into a scene of dazzling brightness. We are with Moses, hiding in the cleft of a rock, as the glory of the Lord passes by or standing where Isaiah stood when the train of the Almighty filled the temple, or with the disciples bower and with our hands covering our faces before the glory of the transfiguration.
And we are a little awestruck and afraid. Maybe we find ourselves saying “How pure the soul must be when placed in thy all searching sight” Exactly! How pure? What does it mean?
The question is involuntary because the utterance is so searching. Our conscience recognises the justice of it too, Who but the pure in heart should see God? Can we hope for such a vision?
Yet isn’t it true that the age long desire of men has been to see God? ‘O that I knew where I might find Him’ cried the Psalmist of old. And Phillip years later, experiencing the same desire said “Show us the Father and it sufficeth us” and thus have men cried in each succeeding age, for even in the blindness of his sin and folly man has reached after this vision. He has made great sacrifices, sought in discipline and codes, and costly offering the place where he might see, not realising the blessing was to be found in these simple words of Jesus ‘the pure in heart shall see God’
In our own day men realise the defect in their vision I think, but instead of seeking a cure they try to find a pair of spectacles to remedy the defect. (Daily Newspaper discussion God and the War)  Men are inclined to blame the war on the existing state of evil things that they cannot see God while really all the time the reverse is true. The evil in the world is not the cause of man’s inability to see God so much as man’s misconception of God being the cause of the evil.
It is not a question of getting new spectacles with which to see God it is a matter of getting healed sight, or as Paul has it “A renewed mind” If men’s hearts were pure they would find God everywhere, it isn’t the great evil forces which hide us from God so  much as our own prejudices and  conventions, or own little selfishnesses and insincerities.
The Pure in heart shall see God.
Yes but my heart is already sullied. I need cleansing before I can see. Of course and when we recognise that and pray “Cleanse Thou me” in sincerity the sight healing process begins – God sees our desires for a pure heart, hears our cry and understands.
The Pure in Heart – yes that is where it begins, with the first sincere desire to cherish the high ideal and pure resolve.
The heart is the … - the fountain head
The heart may be pure tho’ the stream that gushes from it becomes sullied later on in contact with the world. We mustn’t sneer at good intentions, holy desires, “Man considereth the deeds whilst God weigheth the intentions” (An imitation of Christ – Thomas a Kempis) Edith Cowell  -  find consolation in lord self not as ‘man self’
“We may hope that our praise, Our God not only reckons
The moments when we tread his ways, But when the Spirit beckons -
That some slight good is also wrought, Beyond self-satisfaction
When we are simply good in thoughts, howe’er we fail in action.”

The Pure in Heart (Men of such intent) do see God, in fact, they have already seen him, and in that fact lies the explanation of the pure desires of their hearts. “At the cross, where I first saw the light” …....... thereby faith I received my sight.
Then a man’s whole vision is altered, he learns to see God everywhere and in all things. He meets the face of deity at every turn, every sound is the echo of his voice, he meets with Him in “every country lane and street” Just as kagawa meets him in the slums of Japan to-day, so this man who has seen God he sees Him in every means of grace, the church to him becomes the house of God, every Hymn the outward expression of the inward gladness of a purified heart, God becomes nearer than breathing, closer than hands or feet.
The way to Purity of Heart is by way of Bethlehem, Nazareth, along the hills and roads of Jesus, and onward to the steep green hill outside a City wall – it is the way of Jesus. As we walk with Him evil is purged from us and we see God dwelling in the midst of His people.
How eager we are to put the world in order, and how impatient we sometimes get, we much keep the vision splendid – must keep our spirits fresh, but it can only be done as we keep in company with Christ, and always there must be a willingness to climb that last will with Him and be prepared for such self-sacrifice ourselves.




Handwritten on back

O could I tell,
ye surely would believe it
O could I only say what I have seen
How should I tell or how can ye receive it
How, till He bringeth you where I have been.

Other passages written at top of sermon
Psalm 51
Ephesians 5:1-20
4:11-32.



Dates listed on back of sermon.
Sydney Street, 02/2/41
Rolleston 20/2/41
B 20/2/41
B 11/5/41
Pankell st 25/5/41
Horninglow 08/6/41
NEWHALL
Willington 26/7/41
Etwall 19/8/41

Also
Sydney Street Methodist Church
March 24th and April 28th 1946 folded together.

Beatitudes 3 - Blessed are the Merciful

“Blessed are the Merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” Matthew 5:7

The more I square life to these sayings of Jesus the more I become certain of the truth of the saying that ‘Christianity cannot be said to be a failure because it has never really been tried.’ If it had we should not hear the word that is cried out so much to-day “Reprisals”. In a world where God reigned the central spirit would be forgiveness.
So we find ourselves again faced with another of these simple but hard sayings of Jesus, and even to the most casual thinker it is plain that this on is of primary importance.
It is a grace essentially Christian. Modern war does not savour much of mercifulness but it is significant in to-days struggle that the Nations which have renounced God and Christianity have become revoltingly merciless. Nobody wants existence in such a world and we are prepared to fight to save it from such ancient savagery, but we must be very careful that we preserve in our own National and private lives the spirit we seek to save. The solution is – Christianity. Without it the world would be a pitiless place. True we may meet with mercy at the hands of many who make no profession of Christianity but that in no way affects the issue. It only proves that after 50 generations of Christianity the spirit of Christ is so engrained in the very blood of the race that it would take 1000’s of years of any other ‘ism’ to stamp it out. The fact is the spirit that Jesus brought into the world exerts its unconscious influence and without knowing it men act under the influence of Christianity.
Heathendom is destitute of such eloquence signs of mercy as like hospitals, asylums, almshouses etc with which civilization is so familiar and wherever we find them they mark the sign of the forward march of the Christ across the nations. Yet the most Christian people are only superficially Christian; the relics of barbarism slumber just beneath the skin. It is significant isn’t it that in lands like out own we have to have organisations such as the N.S.P.C.C. & N.S.P.C.A.  Every such organisation testifies to the spirit of Christian mercifulness and at the same time to the mercilessness of the individual that has been unaffected by, or has broken beyond the restrains of Christian influence. The only mercifulness that, in these days, will be strong enough to remain steadfast and reliable is that which is definitely Christian which has come along the way Christ has set out in the beatitudes. The way of poverty of spirit, of meekness and thirst of righteousness.
So As though He were afraid that we were most likely to fail at this point Jesus was always urging by both practice, precept, and parable the necessity of being merciful. To forgive even as we are forgiven – and He likens the merciless recipient of mercy to the wicked servant who although forgiven seized his fellow servants throat crying “pay me what thou owest”
So if I am to enjoy this state of felicity I am to keep heart that is slow to condemn, ready to forgive,
The emphasis that Jesus placed upon this necessity for forgiveness was due to the fact that he was a realist and knew that we should have to live our lives in a world of men and women who ignore and sometimes defy God’s purposes, and the fact is that without the spirit of mercy the evil in the world can never be eradicated and God’s purpose realised.
At the root of the power of evil lie wrong standards of values. Men worship power and wealth and the crimes that follow, avarice and selfishness, perpetuate themselves and cause social unrest, industrial dislocation and still wider National and international strife.
When and how can it all be brought to an end? This Beatitude suggests the way. Forgiveness break the spell of the vicious circle. Instead of being vindictive and spreading more poison forgiveness stems the flow and draws the poison from the wound. A man inflicts some evil upon his neighbour and thereby awakes the desire for retribution – may develop into a life long feud – increasing in bitterness – extending its sphere – But if the injured man chooses rather to forgive the entail is broken and the whole process is arrested. Or if after the wretched business has begun one turns round to forgive the entail is broken.
It is from this point of view we must view this spirit of mercy, as a positive and active thing -m
It is not easy to be merciful when we feel like exacting justice, it needs strength of character, but mercy will accomplish what justice never can.
C. F. Andrews – Christ in the silence - young sikh headman – requires strength of character.
Calvary cost Jesus Gethsemane. - His aim was not merely to condemn evil but to cure it, and to cure it you need forgiveness. In His ministry mercy – made men whole.
Divine mercy so perfectly expressed in Him was a wall against which the waves of evil broke, and broke finally, for the could go no further. Mercy alone frees men from evil. I.e the appeal of the cross.
Jesus taught us to forgive not that we might be forgiven, but rather because we are forgiven, and this much is true that in so far as we fail to be merciful we exclude ourselves from fellowship with God. That must be so or we keep the vicious circle moving.
The effort to overcome bitterness against one who has wronged us is often the hardest thing we have to do – it is easier to ask for forgiveness. But our difficulty should help us to understand what is cost Him to forgive us “while we were yet sinners.”
It was only as we learn the worth of God’s pardon and it wins its way in our heart, and mercy become to habit of our life, that God’s mercy can have perfected its work, - and we can truly be said to have obtained mercy,


Other passages written at top of sermon
Matthew 18.23
Proverbs 17.25, 21-25

Preached on the evening of 17th November 1940 at Sydney Street Methodist Church, Burton-on-Trent.

Also Unknown date Morning service location unknown

Dates on back of Sermon
Station St 1/12/40
Byrnley St 2/2/41
Rolleston 9/2/41
Winshill 9/3/41
Unknown church 4/5/41

Beatitudes 2 - Blessed are they that Hunger

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Matthew 5.6.

When Laura Bridgman, deprived alike of hearing and of sight was a small inmate of Dr Howe’s Asylum for the blind at Boston her teacher one day made some reference to the soul.
A look of bewilderment overspread the girl’s face and she slowly spelled out on her fingers the question, ‘What is the soul?’ ‘The soul’ replied Dr Howe, in the complicated language used in dealing with blind mutes, ‘the soul is that which thinks and feels and hopes!’ A look of rare discernment mantled the blind girl’s face. ‘And is it’ she immediately inquires with eager fingers ‘is it what which aches so?’
Exactly! And in that respect at least mankind is akin to God. We have so been made that we cannot find satisfaction in any fixed state and be truly happy. If the Soul within us be alive we experience Laura’s ache, or as Jesus puts it in this text we have a delicious hunger. Blessed are they that hunger etc. And so we see at once that
1. Self satisfaction is not a thing that receives His blessing.
Jesus made a startling statement once bidding men when “they have done all the  things which were commanded” to say “We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which it was our duty to do”.
It is a bit surprising isn’t it to be told after doing your duty to regard yourself as an unprofitable servant.
Surprising because it is so far removed from our ideas and standards of life. We are inclined to think that when we have done our duty we’ve done all that is required of us. ‘As though morality were a thing that could be exactly defined, a goal that could be reached’ so easily.
We all know the people who claim to be virtuous because they say, we pay 20/- in the pound, have done nobody any harm etc, There are quite a lot of such people in the world, but the surprising thing is that they don’t seem to rid the world of evil. * Pharisees in Christ’s day were similar +I’m not so sure that it wasn’t the cause of much evil.
I thought quite a lot about the old adage, “If  each before his own door swept, the village would be clean” during the snowy days last winter – some pavements were clean – what about roads?
No! When I face up to the truths of Christ’s Kingdom I begin to realise that no place is found for the self-satisfied spirit of Little Jack Horner – what a good boy am I.
I meet a whole realm of new requirements – If I merely do my duty I am an unprofitable servant.
Christ did His duty, but never do I find Him sitting down in satisfaction. He did more, and more and more, until finally He gave Himself. And such a life shows me that “Duty” - self-satisfaction, are not enough, but Love so amazing so divine demand my soul my life, my all. Jesus had little to say really about ‘Duty’ ‘Service” but He implores us to love God with, heart and soul and mind, and strength.
When love enters the heart service has another meaning – ’Service’ is no longer ‘Duty’ which is done to give self-satisfaction, it is a means of expressing LOVE.
What is it that Francis Xavier Sings:-
My God I love thee – not because, I hope for heaven thereby
Nor yet because who love Thee not Are lost eternally.
Not with the hope of gaining aught; Not seeking a reward
But as Thyself hast loved me, O ever loving Lord.
The difference is not just in the motive, but in the underlying spirit, and that’s why Jesus talks about Hungering and Thirsting after righteousness.
I can’t control the state of hunger and thirst by will.

So the follower of Christ does not obey a code to satisfy a just God and his own pride – he does what love impels.
And blessed are they say Jesus, that so ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’

2. Such a hunger is the sign of true life.
We have to be thankful for what men call morality, for standards of duty, and human conventions (they have their roots mostly in Christianity) but Jesus said “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
This implicates that I am to do my duty, to home and church and society but after tat I must still be hungry to go on as love shall direct.
If I feel that discontent, that hunger for a fuller life – then I’ll be thankful it is the sign of life.
If I’ve settled down to easy ways, no appetite for service, I’ve reason to be concerned for my place in the Kingdom.
We are not made so as to find satisfaction in anything fixed or prescribed but only in creative activity. The only satisfaction we can ever know is to blaze fresh trail, go the extra mile, and press to higher things.

3. The need of our age is to recapture this truth.
Everywhere men are seeking satisfaction, reaching after something bigger and better. The Hunger is there but we have not yet learned where it can be satisfied/ Shop of progress is fast on the sandbank. And why? -
Jesus has shown us the true way of satisfaction – we must give ourselves wholly to it.


Other passages written at top of sermon
Psalm 42.

Preached on the evening of 29th September 1940 at Sydney Street Methodist Church, Burton-on-Trent.

Also evening service on an unknown date
Methodist Church, Horninglow, Burton-on-Trent.

Beatitudes 1 - Blessed are the Meek

“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5

In these times of such wanton aggression, we find these words of Jesus increasingly difficult. Had He said Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, we might have found it easier to grasp. And maybe we never shall understand this most challenging beatitude unless we realise that words change their meaning during the progress of time.
I remember when I was a boy the hymn we often sang “gentle Jesus” never appealed to me because I thought it was sloppy. But the hymn was framed in days when gentle meant  - high born - “meek” - one who knew the secret of self mastery, and ‘Mild’ was a princely virtue.
A prominent radio preacher I remember took this text some months ago and spent most of his time in a vigorous attack on “meekness” - evidently thought the word stood for something nasty, mean, and despicable – That isn’t the meaning of the word Jesus used here otherwise I can find no merit in His claim to be “Meek and lowly of heart”
It is I suppose to His character that we must turn for a definition of the word and docility and insipidity cannot be ascribed to Jesus, but what we can say of Him is that He had learnt that “Humble creaturely attitude towards God” He knew what the nature of God was and surrendered His life to Him and the result of that self discipline was meekness.
You remember that it was said of Moses the Old Testament pattern of meekness that “Now Moses was very meek above all men which were on the face of the earth” and when I hear men talk of meekness as a spineless, sparkless quality I think of Moses and he shatters the illusion. In this early manhood meets – Egyptian slave-driver – too much for him – soon sand crimson with Egyptian blood – Does it look as though Moses had a placid nature? What happened?
Moses learnt to control and curb his powerful passions and harness them to lofty service. And turning again to the N.T. model of meekness I find that Jesus, could bare personal insults, wounds and even death, and only turn the other cheek, but when these wrongs were done against the helpless and weak, or men trifled with holy things his indignation was roused – meekness is not passive none-resistance, not just backing down to evil.
The fact is that Moses learned the nature of God earlier that many of his day, and Jesus who knew the nature of God controlled the actions of His life to show us that nature.
It isn’t easy to grasp. The disciples found the ways of Jesus very difficult – Samaritan village – Peter and cross -
It was hard for men to seek that God did not sit on a throne of Might – Seer of Revelation saw not Lion but Lamb slain.
I think we make many miscalculations because we do not realise that crucified love and not might is on the throne of the universe.
Most men believe God is on the throne of the world but they do not realise the kind of ruler He is. Isn’t it because men have not surrendered to the meekness of God’s nature that they still persist to believe in aggression. To many the way to possession is the way of aggression. To push seems the common sense way to succeed – the strong get the spoils. But Jesus shows the most perfect expression of meekness is a life that can be strong enough to master itself and say, however contradictory the immediate evidence, “Thy will be done” “He doeth all things well”
“Blessed are the meek” I can understand that in the light of Christ’s character – He is a happy many who has learnt that relationship with GOD, but that “They shall inherit the earth” is not so easy.

It seems today that pushful men with a certain thickness of skin, Masterful, Ruthless, inherit the earth – Mussolini would say not meekness but guns and gas bombs etc conquered Abyssinia – If Hitler has taken peace treaty in meekness, what then? Or can it be said even that the life of Jesus was a successful career, It would seem that His own life was a disapproval to the theory of victorious meekness.
It seems true enough that meek are not always successful, but after all that is not quite what Jesus promised. Success is not a word to be found in our [Christian] Xian vocabulary. What we often forget is that what we hunger for in life is not just possession but the satisfaction which possession gives. Jesus could have conquered the world by military force – but that would have been the Devils way – Can any conquered possess the vanquished? The world might have thought Christ had failed, but He has proved that they were wrong. History reverses the verdict of His judges. Everyone now admits he was right and they were wrong. And in this sense not only in spite of His failures, but through them, He inherits the earth – I will draw all men -

So we begin to perceive (if dimly that Gentleness not violence is the true law of life and progress means the substitution of the one for the other – this is civilization – and in spite of failures and disappointment I cannot falter in the faith that nothing can stop this spirit winning its victory in the earth.

In these words lie my hope – they are prophetic of the story of human civilization.

Preached on the evening of 18th August 1940 at Sydney Street Methodist Church, Burton-on-Trent.