Those people with heart conditions need to make regular trips to the cardiologist. An ECG will be taken and compared with the last one to see whether they are significant changes. If there are then you will have to be booked in for an angiogram for further investigation and if another artery is blocked, then a stent may have to be inserted or even further surgery. Well in the sixth beatitude Jesus tells us that God is a spiritual cardiologist and although we may be able to fool those around us, we can’t fool God because He sees our heart. Happy indeed is the person who can join David and pray Psalm 139:23-24, search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART
In Genesis 5:21-24 we read, when Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. In these few verses Enoch is twice said to have walked with God. When we think about Enoch we think of his miraculous exit from this world. He did not experience death. The bible is not as concerned with how Enoch left this world as it is with his faithful life in this world. Would it not be great if the same could be said about us one day? That we would best be remembered not for our careers nor so much for our spiritual giftedness but that we were men and women who walked with God. When the OT was translated into the Greek language the phrase in Genesis 5 that described Enoch as walking with God was translated, “Enoch pleased God.” The two phrases mean exactly the same thing. To walk with God is to please God. What then pleases God? In Psalm 24:3, 4 we read a good description, 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. Who are the people who will see God? Those with clean hands and pure hearts. That is what impresses God. In Psalm 51:6 David says it again, surely you desire truth in the inner parts. A good definition of hypocrisy is skin deep holiness and there is nothing more loathsome in God’s sight. He longs to see hearts that are pure. Mark Twain once said; “we’re like the moon. We have a dark side we don’t want anybody to see.” Charles Spurgeon walked a better road when he said, “you may write my life in the clouds! I have nothing to hide.” Here was a man who truly sought to cultivate purity of heart. There are times when it is easier to walk with God than others. In times of revival, where God is feared and His word is honoured, walking with God is easier than in morally depraved times. But what was the moral and spiritual climate of the world when Enoch walked with God? To answer that question we must turn to the book of Jude 14,15. “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: `See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” What is the word that keeps on recurring in these verses? It is the word, ungodly. Enoch was not privileged to live during times of revival, when public morals would be high and where men and women would be spiritually responsive. No, Enoch, like us dwelt in ungodly times. And in those ungodly times he is said to have walked with God for 300 years.
FOR THEY WILL SEE GOD
They will see God now through the eyes of faith and throughout all eternity they will behold His glory. This is why Jesus can confidently declare, happy are the holy. In Hebrews 12:14 we are charged; make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Jesus is saying that those who desire to be holy are rewarded by being admitted into the very presence of God. The last words of the great bible commentator Matthew Henry were, “life spent in fellowship with God is the pleasantest life in the world.” Happy indeed are those who desire holiness. But of course, this verse does not only apply to the here and now. It also points us to eternity. When we read the genealogy in Genesis 5 it sounds like a stuck gramophone record, and then he died, and then he died, and then he died. This phrase is like a drumbeat in a funeral march. But when it comes to Enoch, we read in vrs 20, altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. A short life by his families’ standards. Then he was no more, because God took him away. He did not experience death. What is the lesson we learn from this? Simply this. It is not how long you live that matters so much as how you live. Compared to his predecessors and his offspring Enoch lived for a short space of time. But in that time, he walked with God and God took him away. He saw God. This exhilarating prospect has warmed the heart of God’s people down through the ages. In Psalm 17:15 David declares; and I–in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.