The Pure in Heart

Tonight’s subject is “The Pure in Heart.” I think you are all familiar with it, the sixth beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” . I dare say that it would be unwise to pick and choose among the beatitudes, and yet I hear that most people look upon this beatitude as the brightest particular star in the heavens. It really seems the most inaccessible, not only the promise but the condition that must be met in order for the promise to be fulfilled: for we must be pure in heart to see God. And what wouldn’t man give to see God? And yet all he needs to do in this world is to fulfill the condition: to be pure in heart.133 ¶1

And so what do we mean by pure in heart, just what is it? First of all, may I tell you that you need not think of moral perfection; and certainly, it does not refer in any way to sexual purity. For we are told by the same one who uttered the beatitude that the harlot given to love will go into heaven before the Pharisee. The Pharisee was perfect in keeping these outward laws—the washing of the outside of the cup and the washing of the hands and feet. He abided by the law, outwardly, and yet he was told that the harlot given to love would go into heaven before he would. So it isn’t that.133 ¶2

So what is this purity spoken of: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”? You see, the Bible is a mystery; and although on the surface it seems so simple, anyone should be able to understand that simple statement, but anyone: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” But the Bible isn’t that simple. So what is this purity, and what is the heart? For the word pure is Tahor, which means clear, which means “unalloyed, pure, pure gold.” It was used as a tract of land completely cleared of trees, without structures, none whatsoever; but here, it is pure gold. But to understand it, we’ve got to go all over the Bible to get it.133 ¶3

And here in the seventy-third Psalm, the very first verse, “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” So right away he set up Israel as the pure in heart. And then in John 1, he sees Nathanael—Nathanael means “the gift of God”—and Nathanael looks at him. At the moment, he is not quite sure that anything good could come out of Galilee. And Jesus looking at him said, “An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile” . So that’s an Israelite, one in whom there is no guile, no deceit, and incapable of duplicity—that’s the true Israelite, and that’s the heart.133 ¶4

Now, in the 24th Psalm, the 3rd and 4th verses, the question is asked, “And who will ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” Then comes the response, “He who is of clean hands and the pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully.” So “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who could stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and the pure heart.” Then you are told in the next line exactly what he means by it: he doesn’t lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. So we bring the whole thing down just to one simple, simple voice: a man that is incapable of deceit for personal gain. If I tell you a story for amusement where you and I can laugh together, that’s not deceit. But if I do it for personal gain, say, in politics—whether politics being government or in religion or in business—anytime that I plot and plan a little scheme to get the better of another for my own personal gain, then I am not pure in heart.133 ¶5

So he’s looking for one who is pure in heart because no one but such a one can see God. No one can be brought into the presence of the Ancient of Days and be presented to him but the pure in heart. He may have no intellectual, social, or financial background, but nothing in the world of [...], but he is incapable of deceiving another for his own personal gain. That one has the heart of the Israelite. At the very moment that it’s observed by God, who sees all and knows all, he brings him right into his presence and you see God. When you see God, you see that only reality and you become what you see. At that very moment, like a seal upon wax, the impress is made and you bear the image of God. Not on this physical garment, but you bear it on your eternal garment, which was waiting for that moment in time when the heart was pure gold. It’s the unalloyed gold.133 ¶6

When you start with this homogenous substance called the body—for this is simply containing all, all minerals, all things—and then we are put through furnaces, furnaces of affliction as the Bible speaks of them. I’d rather speak of them as furnaces of experience. But every test in the world is given to the individual by himself (but he doesn’t know it) to do what is called, not the right thing but the loving thing, where you could never deceive. And when you’ve been put through all these tests and you’d still, in front of your own being and your own poverty, rather die than take advantage of another and that heart becomes pure gold, only it can receive the imprint of the King of kings.133 ¶7

Now he finds such a person. Now this is the mystery. He’s been looking and looking, and he finds him, and his name, he calls him David. After putting himself through all the furnaces, he extracts the pure gold that can take his imprint, and that he calls David. “I have found in David”—the 13th chapter, the 22nd through the 24th verses of the Book of Acts—“I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart.” Here, for the first time, I brought forth exactly what I wanted: “I found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart. Of whose posterity God has brought forth a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.”133 ¶8

Now the word Jesse actually means I AM. He is the father of David. So who is begetting that heart? “I am.” You put yourself unknowingly from your present level into every situation in the world to test that goal. So here you are embedded in this homogenous substance containing all things, but you’ve got to extract only pure gold. And that pure gold is David. So I have found in David—I brought him forward—the son of Jesse, the son of I AM. So I bring it out, and out of it now I make myself a pledge. This is the pledge that’s told us in the 7th chapter of the Book of 2nd Samuel, and I will now bring forth from your body your son. The words are “And when you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up after you your son, who shall come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son” .133 ¶9

And now the process begins. He’s found him; and from him, he’s going to bring forth now his own likeness. He’s found David, his only begotten son—that’s pure gold. Now God now begins the process of making what he has brought forth into his own image. Now, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” . You can’t make man until first you produce this pure metal, this pure gold. And so God became embedded in what is called a garment of flesh; and in it he moves through all the furnaces of experience until he can produce out of it the pure gold. Then from it he now brings forth himself. He’s going to make himself; and making himself, he’s making us, individuals. Now it doesn’t make sense, but you listen to it carefully.133 ¶10

In the 44th chapter of Isaiah, the very last verse, what is said of Cyrus is said of David, and the name only appears twice in the book, just a couple of times in the book, in the forty-fourth and beginning the forty-fifth of Isaiah. Cyrus is called “my shepherd.” That’s what David was called: I have found my shepherd and he will do all of my will. David will do all of my will, so you can see the two are as one. Now in a wonderful manuscript, which is used in the Apocrypha, also in the traditional books of our Bible; and Cyrus is made to say—it’s supposed to have this manuscript, this parchment—“I am Cyrus the king, the great king, the mighty king. I am the son of Cambyses the great king. I am the grandson of Cyrus the great king, exalted according to the beneficence of their hearts.” Now here we find Cyrus, Cambyses, and Cyrus. I make the claim that man awake matures completely when man becomes the father of his own father. He’s Cyrus; his father is Cambyses, and his grandfather is Cyrus. So Cyrus awakes, and he says, “I am Cyrus the king, the great king, the mighty king. I am the son of Cambyses the great king, the grandson of Cyrus the great king, exalted according to this love of their hearts.”133 ¶11

Now here we come back. David seems to be something that I begot. I promised myself I’m going to extract something that is gold, my very being. “I will raise up after you, raise up out of your very body, your son, who will come forth from your body.” Well, that’s gold. “I will be his father, and he will be my son.” Now we are told that he buried this in the mind of man. The word mind and the word heart are the same in Hebrew. When we are told in the 3rd chapter, the 11th verse of Ecclesiastes that “God has put the world into the heart of man, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end,” that word translated heart and the word translated world are now changed in the modern version of the Bible, and the word heart now becomes mind and the word world becomes eternity. So, “And God has put now eternity into the mind of man, so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” That same word translated world is now translated eternity, and the word translated heart, in the King James Version, is now translated mind. It’s the identical thing.133 ¶12

What did he put into the mind and the heart? The whole personality of a man is that gold. He had to first make him. When man becomes incapable of duplicity but incapable of deceit, he has the gold, and the gold is in that man. And now that’s placed in man by whom? By the one who brought it into being. Who is that being? Jesse. Jesse is producing David and David is pure gold, and “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart.” Now out of him I am going to actually extract my own being. I can’t extract it from anything but pure gold. And now he begins to make man in his image after his own likeness. And it takes that gold to take the imprint of God Almighty, of Jehovah himself.133 ¶13

So everyone in the world will do it because Jesse is buried in you as your own wonderful I-am-ness. If you should drop dead this very second, it doesn’t make any difference; the play goes on. And he’ll put you into situation after situation after situation until finally you become incapable of deceit. What you do sexually is not his concern, unless it is to deceive for personal gain. To marry someone with all the outer appearance of love, when basically you really want to get rid of them within twenty-four hours for what they have, that’s marrying for personal gain. That’s deceit.133 ¶14

But if you married a thousand people, if you lived without marrying to a thousand people, that’s not a thing to do with it. No matter how you are given to such love, you are told that you will get into heaven before the Pharisee, in the 9th chapter of the Book of Luke. But the question is asked to lead up to it. So I ask you a question, said he, “A man said to his first son, ‘Go into the vineyard and work.’ And he said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward repented and went into the vineyards. He said to a second son, ‘Go into the vineyard and work.’ And he said, ‘I’ll do it,’ but he did not. I ask you, who obeyed the will of his father?” They said, “The first one.” He said, “I tell you, the tax collectors and the harlots will get into the kingdom of heaven before you” . For you are just then like the second son; he says, “I’ll do it,” but you don’t do it. The first son repented. He said, “I won’t do it,” but he repented and changed his mind and he did it.133 ¶15

And so everyone in the world is brought into these unnumbered situations where they are faced with it, and though you starve, you still can’t take advantage of another. You’d rather be dispossessed; go through all the things of the world that would seemingly dishonor everyone. You’d rather do it than take advantage of another for personal gain. Can’t do it. When man comes to that point, he’s the pure in heart. And it hasn’t a thing to do with the moral code of the world. So don’t think of this in any way as moral perfection that is attained by an individual; and don’t think of it, as the world would naturally think of it, as sexual purity. Nothing has to do with sexual purity, as the world sees it; it is all to do with duplicity.133 ¶16

Can you really be double-minded and say one thing as a promise when you intend another, which is to get personal gain at the expense of the other, whether it be a party, an individual, a family, or a government? And so, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And that pure in heart is that when the gold is actually there, having been put through all the furnaces of experience, and finally, when I arrive at the point, “Just let me die. I haven’t eaten this day; I haven’t eaten this week, but let me die. But I can’t take advantage of another for personal gain.” At that moment, may I tell you, and I’m speaking from experience, that you are taken into the presence of the Most High.133 ¶17

For my experience, I go back to the days of the deep Depression. I mean that when I didn’t know where to find a nickel. There’s a lady in the audience tonight who, along with my wife, came to my very first meeting, and she knows the truth of which I speak. I would walk from my little place in the village in the hope of finding a friend, fifty blocks away—I couldn’t ride the subway; that was a nickel. In the hope I could find some friend who would give me—I couldn’t borrow it with collateral—in the hope that eventually someone would give me a quarter and I would make something and pay it back. For I had four mouths to feed—my dancing partner and her parents. If I could I find a quarter, I would buy vegetables and a little olive oil and walk back the fifty blocks. Many a day I couldn’t find a friend who had a quarter. But I would pass the places, and I couldn’t take one piece of lettuce. I could not take anything from these trays all exposed, I couldn’t. I’d go back hungry, just tell them of my experiences. I couldn’t lift a thing from anyone who I hadn’t paid. It wasn’t mine.133 ¶18

So I know exactly how this thing works. While I was in that state where I was incapable of stealing, but incapable of stealing, and I could not deceive for personal gain, one night, taken in Spirit right into the presence of the Ancient of Days, he asked me the eternal question, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” I was by him prompted what to say what I ought to say, and I simply repeated the 12th chapter, 12th verse of the Book of Luke. So when you’re brought into his presence, don’t be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. So in that moment, what I ought to say I said it, that the greatest thing in the world is love. Well, you couldn’t steal from one you love. You couldn’t steal from anything in this world if you loved them—you couldn’t. If you asked them for it and they had reasons, without explaining the reasons for not giving it, you couldn’t condemn them for their reasons they didn’t give it. You couldn’t condemn them for their actions and their reactions. So you accepted it; that was all right, perfectly all right.133 ¶19

So when you are brought into that state, it’s because the heart is guileless. And so he finds some Israelite. “Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile.” No guile whatsoever; he is guileless. And then he can see the face of God, for he looked into the face of God. But you’re told in the same book, the fourteenth chapter, “When you see me, you see the Father.” So he saw the Father because he was without guile. And his face was unveiled.133 ¶20

Now we are told in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the 2nd Corinthians, the 3rd chapter, “So take heart. Not one will despair. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the Lord, will be changed,” but rather, it is said in the present active sense: “we are being changed from one glory to another glory” by the Spirit . We are actually being changed by beholding the face from one glory to another glory. He uses the word advisedly, “We all, unveiled, beholding the Lord, are being changed into his very image from one glory to another glory.”133 ¶21

So I tell you, don’t despair. If today you think, well, it’s easier to get away with it than to face society and you get away with it, perfectly all right, do it. Tomorrow you’ll be faced with a similar situation, whether it be in this little world of ours or another world—there are worlds within worlds within worlds—but you will not come out of the furnaces until it’s pure gold. No one in the world gets away with anything, but no one. And so when we are told in that sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the poor… blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” believe it. Nothing but the unalloyed gold can come out.133 ¶22

Now, I just love all the beatitudes, but I must confess that this excites me. There are eight if you read it in one way; you could make them nine in another way; and at maximum, you could get ten of them if you read it in another way. Some are inclined to read them as ten because it gives the feeling of a new Torah, a new Ten Commandments. But that’s stretching it a bit; but we can—you can read it in ten. But there are definitely eight. You can’t miss the eight, and you can push them into nine, or even ten. But it is a new code, a new law, where causation becomes mental and not physical. As you’re told, “You’ve heard it said”—as the eight are given and then we go into an explanation of the eight—“you shall not kill” but I say unto you, to even entertain it in your heart is to have committed the act. “You’ve heard it said you should not commit adultery, but I say to look upon a woman lustfully is to have already committed the act in your heart with her” . Therefore, the whole thing is raised from the physical level, the Pharisee, where he doesn’t do it physically, but he does it mentally. And it’s now raised to the level of the mind where if you do it mentally you’ve done it.133 ¶23

To plot and plan to take advantage of another but to restrain the impulse because you contemplated the act along with its consequences to yourself and to your friends and your family and because you couldn’t stand the, well, embarrassment if you were caught, and then you restrained the impulse to do it, but that wasn’t good enough. Shouldn’t even entertain the thought! And so to entertain the thought is to perform the act with the new code. And so you can’t even entertain the thought. And when you can’t [...], do not restrain the impulse. So if I contemplate an act and it seems pleasant, I might be inclined to do it if I could get away with it; but if I contemplate it along with its consequences to myself and to others, well then, I may restrain the impulse. But I’m told that’s not good enough. You don’t even contemplate the act if the act is to take advantage of another for personal gain.133 ¶24

And may I tell you, maybe you’ve all had the experience and you’d rather die than steal. Maybe you’ve had that experience. If you haven’t had it, may I tell you that you’re not going to avoid it. So don’t think that man is judged today because of his fabulous wealth. Sometimes I think that God starts us on the play at the top of the ladder. If all the honors are given to the world and they receive all the mortal honors—things that vanish—and how they love them, and then the play unfolds because they aren’t strong enough as yet to withstand the temptation if they’re up against the pressures of things when they have more than their own mouth to feed. If you have your own mouth to feed and that’s the only mouth to feed, oh well, so what? You won’t die. You can just go to bed hungry—sleep it off. But when there are others that you love and they depend upon you to find that quarter and you won’t steal it, and so you come back without the quarter. And you all have to amuse yourselves with fun—just turn on the radio or something—and you haven’t even paid the rent. And just simply play the game until that moment in time when pure gold comes out and he found David.133 ¶25

Having found David, of pure gold, he leaves David in you and then out of you he brings himself. Well, who is the very being he’s bringing out? He’s bringing out Jesse. Well, who is Jesse? Jesse is the father of David. So he’s pulling Jesse out of his own being, and Jesse is I AM. So he leaves David. So who is the one that he placed in the mind in the beginning? In the beginning was when the gold became pure unalloyed gold; that was the beginning. So he leaves it in the mind of man. And then he pulls out now his own image and the image is Jesse, for his name is I AM and Jesse’s name is I AM. But Jesse is the father of David, so he’s pulling himself out of himself, and he sets up in himself a son called David, pure gold, a man after my own heart. You get it?133 ¶26

This is a mystery. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to reveal, but may I tell you that it’s the most glorious thing when you contemplate it. Here, God himself, his name is I AM, decides to make his own being and bring forth himself, the image of himself. He sinks himself in this we call the tent—in the Bible it’s called the tent—flesh and blood, with all of the passions; this complete state that contained everything, all the memory, all the fires of the world. But he can’t use them. He has to extract from it pure gold, and that pure gold is David. He can’t start his work until he brings David out. And finally, he brings David out and only David is pure gold. “I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.” And I will bring forth from him a Savior, Jesus, as I promised. And so he starts the work of bringing him forward; and bringing him forward, he brings forward himself, the father of David. So he first creates David, as told you in the 2nd chapter, the 7th verse of the Psalms, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.” And now out of this I’m going to bring that which is my real being, and he brings his own being out who is the father of the son, and the father is Jesse. Well, Jesse is the father of David, and Jesse is I AM.133 ¶27

And so, all of a sudden, this begins to unfold within you. But it will not start until you reach that point where the pure gold is produced within you through all the experiences, all the fires of experience, where you are guileless.133 ¶28

So let no one tell you that your excessive energy expressed in anything in this world is wrong. It isn’t wrong, unless it was expressed falsely. Let me quote you the words “Who will ascend the hill of the Lord? And who will stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully.” In any deceitful act on your part, there is still more fire that you must pass through, still more experiences, until finally, when you’re faced with everything and the world is against you and it means life or death, you still will choose death. You cannot violate your code of the guilelessness—you can’t. So when you could not raise a finger to take anything, then there’s harmony. It’s the harmony he’s looking for. Now he starts to mold it into his own image, as told us in the 1st chapter of Hebrews. Then he starts, and it takes on the imprint of God himself.133 ¶29

So don’t be concerned. It’s going to work because the one who does it is doing it in you. Your own wonderful I-am-ness that’s doing it. That’s the great Elohim, who sunk himself in you and began the process of extracting pure gold that he may work on it to mold his image upon it. And that’s you. So you believe it.133 ¶30

And when you go home—that 24th Psalm, it’s a short one and what a beauty! It begins with the words, “The earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof, the earth and those who dwell therein; he’s established it upon the seas, and founded it upon the rivers.” He tells you who you are. For right now, you’re going to come into his presence if you are one who cannot lift up your soul to that which is false.133 ¶31

And so he tells you who he is. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof and all those who dwell therein. [...]. And you’ll find it one day, the whole vast world, all yours. You appear to it. And then if you can fit that bill where you can actually rise into the presence of the Lord, it’s because you do not swear deceitfully. Regardless of the temptation, you couldn’t swear deceitfully. And then you’re brought in. And when you take off this little garment after that moment in time, you’ll take it off for the last time. And then you will read in that wonderful chapter, the 5th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, what is waiting for you and what body of glory is waiting for you . And so you’ll fit it. It’s all perfect.133 ¶32

But don’t despair and don’t be concerned. You won’t fail; may I tell you that no one in the world is going to fail. So if today we seem to be on different levels, forget it. We’ll all pass through similar levels, moving toward that one point in time when we are fitted to come into the presence of the Holiest of Holies. So who will stand in his holy place? You will. And when you stand, you’ll see him and you’ll be just like him. You’ll take the imprint of the being that you behold, and in that moment, you become one with the being you behold. And although when you put on the veil once more and return to this world, no one sees it; they see the being that they have always known, but you’re veiled. You’re veiled, and all are veiled. And when it’s taken off, it’s taken off after that experience for the last time.133 ¶33

So when he is asked the question after the statement is made, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have their nests; but the Son of man has no place to lay his head” . The Son of man is waiting for just such: it’s unalloyed gold in the hearts of man. Because, literally, a nest means this moving tabernacle, this thing called the flesh. He’s waiting for it to be just right. And at the moment when it’s just right, when you least expect it, he’s taken into the presence where he receives the imprint, just like a seal upon wax. He returns once more veiled, and no one knows because he’s the being that he was prior to that. But he’s not so to himself. He knows what he saw, and he knows what he became at that moment. He was like the molten gold that took it and returned to tell it.133 ¶34

So I tell you, don’t seek the opportunity because he in you, your own I-am-ness; he’s working it out for you. He’ll take you through all the experiences necessary to reduce you to pure gold. And chances are the majority of you here—maybe all of you, I hope—have reached that point. But don’t test yourself, don’t. Life does that; all the thing is moving. And the day will come that you’ll have the experience. When you can meet them, it doesn’t matter if you die or not, but you cannot be double-minded about it. Knowing you couldn’t be, well then, it’s done; and he sees in you the David he’s been looking for. He’s always looking for David.133 ¶35

So in the 89th Psalm, he said, “I have found David… he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’” And all these things are but true; they’re unbelievably true. Suddenly you actually have an experience that was written 4,000 years ago. These words were written and put on parchment thousands of years ago, and you thought they were relating some little incident of 4,000 years ago when they were not. They were telling God’s eternal mystery, how in everyone it happens, and suddenly you find him. Well, where was he all along? He was in you. After he has made you David: “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee,” now he hides him in the one in whom he made him. He hides him, as told you in the 3rd chapter, the 11th verse of Ecclesiastes, he hides him right into the mind of that man. But he so does it that that man cannot find out what he did from beginning to end—until that moment in time when he finds him—and there is David. And who is he?—your son. If he is your son, who are you? Jesse. And who is Jesse? I AM. That’s what the word means, just I AM. And that’s the name of God.133 ¶36

Now let us go into the Silence.133 ¶37