Weekly Pastoral Message prepared by Rev. Murray Adamthwaite
for Sunday 15th November 1998

From the Pastor: Beatitudes and PC VII

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Matthew 5:8 During the days of Soviet Communism, a teenage girl of sweet disposition was continually pressured regarding her faith by her atheistic science teacher. The teacher boasted of the Soviet cosmonauts, and triumphantly taunted her, "Well Tanya, after all that space travel, our cosmonauts did not see 'God'. Surely that is proof that no such 'God' exists!" With a beautiful but wise simplicity she replied, "I don't know about that, but I do know that only the pure in heart can see God at all." Ruefully he backed off in silence. This beatitude insists that man in his natural state, with a heart full of evil thoughts, adultery, false testimony and slander (Matthew 15:19) can never enjoy the beatific vision of God, either now or hereafter. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? ... He who has clean hands and a pure heart." Psalm 24:3,4. The atheist will never see God, nor will the multitudes who follow the dictates of PC, for which trust in God is at most "a personal faith matter", for all practical purposes an irrelevance. PC, of course, extols the "liberty" which has brought in the vistas of violence, pornography, "gay" marches and screeching protesters, then deprecates the alleged "repressions" sought by the "ultra-right extremists". Two fundamentally opposed visions are on display here: the one seeks the sight and the dwelling of God; the other seeks the associations of Hell. However, to the latter there is no blessing; only woe and misery, and at the End, outer darkness. What do you think about when your mind, like a gearbox, slips into neutral? Pleasure? The next job? Some person you dislike? Set your mind on things above, where Christ is. Then there will be real blessing, both now, and at the End when we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).