Please turn to Matthew 5 where we have begun to take a look at the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount as it is called. We read in Matthew 5:1-12:
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Two or three weeks ago, we took a look at the beginning verses of this passage and we saw that Jesus took His seat and began to teach. This is very fitting because God, and Jesus is Eternal God in the flesh, God loves to teach. He loves to teach His people. This is what the whole Bible is, through and through. It is God teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, about the truth of man’s condition, and so on. The Bible is a Book that instructs us and teaches us, and God delights in teaching.
So it is no coincidence that God’s people delight in learning. God’s people delight to hear the Bible, to hear the Gospel, to learn from the Word of God, to learn from the Bible. There is really no greater joy to a child of God then when he discovers truth, when he learns a certain teaching of the Bible, a doctrine, or a verse that was sealed up or closed to his or her understanding. Then, through study or through hearing another believer who studied it, a verse begins to make sense and falls into place. There is harmony with the rest of the Bible. God’s people delight in this. They really find joy in learning.
Let us continue on here. We begin this study in Matthew 5:7, where it says:
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
We need to keep in mind what this word “blessed” means, as in, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” “Blessed are the meek,” “Blessed are the merciful.” It means that someone has become a child of God; someone has become saved.
A good definition of this word is found in Psalm 133, which is a short little Psalm. Psalm 133:3 says:
As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
This is the blessing that the Bible is concerned with, and this is what Jesus is talking about in the Sermon on the Mount or the Beatitudes. This is the blessing that He is laying out. “Blessed are the merciful,” that is, they are truly saved. They have a new heart and a new spirit; they have life forevermore.
God does mete out temporal blessings. We have the blessing of a bright sunny day today and nice weather, and this blessing applies to everyone in this area. Whether saved or unsaved, just or unjust, everyone experiences this kind of blessing, but these are temporal blessings. God tells us that He “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Equally, we all receive this. Maybe we have physical health, as well as many of the unsaved. Or maybe we are wealthy. Maybe we have money in the bank and some of the things of this world. Well, so do the unsaved.
But what the Bible is mainly concerned about when it speaks of blessing is whether or not you are saved. Are you a child of God? If you are, you are “blessed.” It does not matter if you do not have a home. It does not matter if you have a disease. How much money you have does not matter. You are “blessed.”
On the other hand, you can have the things of this world. You can have money. You can have a comfortable life, possessing many things of the world. You can have good health. You can have all of this, but if you are not a child of God and if you are not truly born again, you have no blessing. You have no blessing in the sense of what the Bible is looking at, and that is whether or not you are going to live forever.
So here in Matthew 5:7, we read:
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
We always need to get God’s definitions for His words. We can not apply the world’s definition when we are reading the Bible. We can not think that we understand what it means to be merciful, for instance.
If we look at this from the world’s perspective, a merciful man is someone who gives to charity or someone who volunteers his time to the Red Cross. A merciful act is to send money to those who are starving in foreign lands in poor countries. A merciful thing to do would be to go over there and join the Peace Corps, like certain individuals have done. They have given of their lives to clothe those without clothing. If they are doctors, they have gone to give their time to try to heal people who have sicknesses.
Are these the definition of what it means to be merciful? This is the world’s definition. This is what the world looks at. But actually, the Bible’s definition of bestowing mercy or being merciful has to do with sharing the Gospel, sharing the Bible. This is mercy. This is what mercy is.
God has instilled in the people of the world to take care of temporal needs and temporal situations. Where there has been a catastrophe, God has raised up individuals in the world to provide for those kinds of needs. However, the believer recognizes a greater need and a more desperate need. So the believer is going to use his time and his money and his resources to try and minister to that need, which is that man is dead in sin and under the wrath of God and subject to spend an eternity in Hell.
Yes, but can you not do both? Can you not do both? Some Gospel organizations send people over to Africa to build homes and businesses for the poor people in that country. There are people who go there with the idea of taking care of their physical needs and ministering the Gospel at the same time. They share the Gospel at the same time. Is that not a good way of doing this? After all, if you are bringing the Gospel to people who live in poverty and are starving, how can you just share the Gospel with them? You have to take care of their physical needs also, do you not?
Actually, this is not correct. This is not correct. Believers need to focus on the greater need, which is the spiritual need. For instance, one way of looking at this is if you have $100 to spend. You take $50 for the printing of tracts and for getting the Gospel out. The other $50 you take and devote it to buying food and clothing and medicine. Right away, your resources are cut in half. Instead of buying 10,000 tracts with $100, now you can only buy 5,000 with $50. So you have already limited yourself, and there will be 5,000 less people that you will be able to meet and share the Gospel with so that they might, if it is God’s will, become saved.
A second way of looking at this is a way that I do not think that is too much of an exaggeration. When someone is in their sin and just living their life in the world, they may not even be aware of it but they are under God’s wrath and they are on their way to Hell. It is as though they are hanging from a very thin branch, more like a twig, and they are hanging there naked. They are hanging there without physical clothes. They are hanging there and they have a disease of some kind. They are hanging there in their poverty, physically. Beneath them from the twig is, for example, a pit of molten lava. The second that twig breaks, they are going to fall into that pit and they are going to die. When they die, they will be dead eternally because they are going to be cast into the pit of Hell.
So here you come and you have some resources. Are you going to try to clothe that man because he is naked while he is hanging from that branch? Are you going to try to feed him? He is most likely hungry while he is hanging there. Are you going to try to give him some medicine? What are you going to do?
His greatest need at that point is to get him to safety, to get him to a place where he is no longer threatened by the twig breaking and him falling into the depths of Hell—and this is the focus of the Gospel. This is the urgency of the Gospel. This is why believers, “knowing therefore the terror of the Lord,” try to persuade men through sharing the Word of God. Of course, the Word of God is what actually persuades man. It is God’s blessing His Word that will persuade a man and move in his heart, if he is one of God’s elect.
This is why believers focus and concentrate on sending out the Word of God, exclusively. If I have $100, $99 does not go to the sending forth of the Gospel and $1 to the physical needs of others. $100 goes to the sending forth of the Gospel, because this is the far greater need. Then, if they do become saved, they have everything at that point; they are blessed; they are a child of God; they now have the security of eternal life. They are going to live forever. This really dwarfs whatever our temporal situation is in this life. Whatever problems we are facing can not really be compared to the eternal blessing of salvation.
Again, in Matthew 5:7, it says:
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
God wrote it this way for a reason. Nothing in the Bible is really as simple as it seems.
Who will show mercy of themselves? If you could be merciful, you would obtain mercy. But this is not how it works. We do not go out to try to show mercy that we might be shown mercy ourselves, but when we demonstrate mercy in our lives as we are sharing the Gospel, it really originates and starts with God giving us that desire and moving us in that direction so that we do share the Gospel. This is just an indicator and an evidence that we are a child of God and that we have obtained mercy from God ourselves, that we have had our sins forgiven.
Moving on to Matthew 5:8, it says:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Again, this is the same kind of idea. Who is “pure in heart”? If we start with man, if we start with the people of the world, who is “pure in heart”? No one—no one who is alive and on the face of the earth. No person who has ever existed, except for the Lord Jesus, is “pure in heart.” Adam and Eve were at first when they were created. But following the fall, no man has this purity of heart. We are dead in sin.
What is the picture that the Bible paints of man’s heart? Man’s heart is “desperately wicked.” Man has a “stony heart.” Out of man’s heart proceeds all manner of evils. Adulteries, fornications, murders, and thefts all come out of the heart of man. Our heart is spiritually filthy. We are dead in sins.
This word “pure” is found in John 15:3, where it is translated as “clean.” It says in John 15:3:
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
So “clean” is the same word that is translated as “pure” in Matthew 5. Now we are “pure.”
How? How do we become “pure”? We become “pure” through the Word—through the Word of God. We become “pure” through the Bible, because when the Bible goes out into the world, God is seeking His elect and His Word will not return void. It will find His elect wherever they are. In whatever city, whatever state, whatever country of the world, God’s elect will be found by the sending forth of the Gospel, as God directs the course of His people who move as the “rivers of water,” turning here and there at God’s leading.
They will hear the Word, and God will, at some point, bless the Bible to their hearts and they will be born again. Immediately, immediately, the heart is cleansed. Right away—there is no slow progression. There is no sanctification in the sense that many theologians teach. Many theologians teach that you become saved and then through your life, you are getting holier and holier and holier, until finally you are ready to go to Heaven.
This is not taught in the Bible. Immediately, instantaneously, when God saves a person, they are washed. They are clean, because Jesus has paid for their sins. He has removed their sins from them, so they have received a new heart, a new spirit, a new resurrected soul, a brand new soul, without spot, and without blemish of any kind. The heart of the child of God is perfect. It is perfect and pure.
If you ever hear someone speaking about still having sin in their heart, they are basically saying that they are not saved, if they make this kind of a statement. When we become born again, all sin is removed. We are still a sinner because we are in the flesh and this is where sin resides after the point of salvation—in our physical bodies. But in the heart, there has been that spiritual operation of God, as He has transplanted us with a heart of flesh. He takes out the heart of stone and gives us a pure heart that is patterned after the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are immediately prepared and ready to go into Heaven, right then in our soul existence, because we have received a new spirit and a new heart.
Let us continue on in Mathew 5. We read in Matthew 5:8:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
This is one of the wonderful and glorious expectations of the child of God, that he or she will see God. One day, and that day is not that far off, we will dwell in God’s presence, or more accurately, He will dwell with us. He will be in our very midst, forever.
We find in 1 John 3:2:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
We will see him in the fullness of His glory, in the fullness of the greatness of the Almighty God, which man in this world has not seen. Remember that Moses wanted to see the glory of God, but God said, “For there shall no man see Me, and live.” So God hid Moses in a rock and said, “Thou shalt see My back parts.” Just a glimpse of the Person of God, of the incredible Being that God is, passed by Moses, and it was a tremendously glorious sight.
Imagine when God is seen face-to-face, as the face represents the actual presence of a person, and we are dwelling with Him and able to be in His presence because we have been washed, because all sin has been removed and we have that perfect soul. If we do not die before the Lord comes, when Christ returns on the Last Day, we will receive our new resurrected body, which will also be qualified to dwell in the presence of God. This will be an incredible experience for the one who has been redeemed, for the child of God.
This is one of the many expectations that each child of God has to look forward to—that we will be with God and that He will teach us about Himself, directly. Personally, He will speak to us, face-to-face, and we will be, surely, greatly blessed, forever, because this will be our situation, eternally.
If we go back to Matthew 5:9, it goes on to say:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Again, the world has its own idea as to what “peacemakers” are. According to the world, peacemakers get involved with disputes between countries. They try to settle things. There can be peacemakers in society and in politics. They try to get two sides together so that things do not erupt into chaos and violence.
This is the world’s idea because the world does not recognize or see or understand that there is a war going on. It is an ancient battle that has been continuing throughout the whole history of the world, since the fall of man, between the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of darkness, and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is this war waging, and every sinner born into the world is immediately within the kingdom of darkness.
This is the side that each one of us was on as we were “the children of wrath, even as others.” We were in that kingdom and rebelling against the great and glorious God of the Bible, shaking our tiny little fists at Him and doing things our own way, not being concerned about His commandments or that we were transgressing them and sinning against Him. But once we become a child of God, once we become saved, then there is peace. There is peace.
We can see this in Ephesians 2:13-14. It really goes on further, but we will just read these two verses:
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Jesus is The Peacemaker. He is our peace Himself, because He has offered up Himself. He has died for the sins of His people and paid for those sins, thus the ordinances, the transgressions that we had committed against God’s Law, are all removed. Now, there is nothing to stop God from bestowing His grace and blessings upon us and from looking at us, not as an enemy anymore, but as a creature that is His servant, someone who is His spiritual son or daughter. This is what is involved with the peace of God as we find peace through God’s salvation, as the Gospel saves a sinner. This is what we read in Matthew 5:9:
…for they shall be called the children of God.
Once we do receive that peace, once that peace is truly and earnestly ours through Christ, then we are going to demonstrate and show a characteristic of our Father, the One who is the Great Peacemaker. We will again fulfill the meaning of this verse by sharing the Gospel; we just share the Gospel with people. When someone hears the Gospel, when they receive a tract, they are still in rebellion and waging war against God. But if they are one of God’s elect, they read the tract. At some point, God can bless the Word and they become converted. They are instantaneously translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, and there is peace between them and God—and it is a tremendous blessing that there can be peace in this war.
Continuing on in Matthew 5:10:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We wonder if we are reading some of these statements correctly, because the blessings that God is laying out and speaking about in the Beatitudes are totally contrary to the world. They are foreign to the world.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit”? The world thinks, blessed are you if you are strong and proud. “Blessed are the meek”? This just does not fit into this world. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”? “Blessed” are people who are being persecuted? This just does not fit into this world’s philosophy. No, blessed are you when you make your nation strong and mighty and nobody can persecute you. Or yourself, you have such a personality that you are the strong and mighty one and no one is going to step on you!
You see, this is the idea of the world, but Christ just turns everything completely around. He is looking at the spiritual realm and what is going on spiritually in the world. So there is this blessing that is given, as it says:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…
This means for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, as He is the righteous One. He is righteousness Himself. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 that Jesus is Righteousness. This is an important qualifier, because there are all kinds of people who are persecuted and it is not for Christ’s sake. It is not for the Word’s sake. It is not for “righteousness’ sake.” It is for other reasons, and there is no blessing really associated with that.
For instance, if we go to 1 Peter 2:19-20, it says:
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
Or turn to 1 Peter 4:12-16:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye…
“Happy” is the same Greek word that is translated “blessed” in Matthew 5.
…[blessed] are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.
You see, there is a difference with suffering. As a matter of fact, everyone suffers. I do not think that anyone gets through this world without suffering. At some point, everyone, whether you are a child of God or not, every human being is going to experience suffering.
There are trials and tribulations and afflictions, but there are some sufferings and persecutions that we bring upon ourselves. This is because of our sin. We get ourselves into trouble. Our sins get us into trouble. God tells us that this is not the suffering that He is talking about. This is not the persecution that He has in view. If you are full of trouble and it is because of your sin, then that kind of suffering is unthankworthy. There is nothing good about that at all. There is nothing of that situation that glorifies God. You got yourself into trouble because of your sin.
There is another type of suffering, another way of going about things, which is to do things God’s way, desiring to be obedient to the Word of God. As a result of this, there comes persecution; there comes affliction; there comes suffering in our home, in our neighborhood, in our workplace, wherever it is—and this kind of suffering is thankworthy. This is praiseworthy. This is for righteousness’ sake. This is for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel.
But if you are involved in all kinds of trouble because of your own wrongs, then do not try to make it out that you are being persecuted for Christ. That has nothing to do with it. What is has to do with is that you are just not doing things God’s way and that there are consequences to wrong actions. There are consequences to sin.
Again, in this verse in Matthew 5:10, we read:
Blessed are they which are persecuted…
“Persecuted”—that is a familiar word. We have heard it a lot. What does it mean to be persecuted? If you get out the Concordance and you look up this particular Greek word, you are going to find that ten times it is translated as “follow” or “followed.”
For instance, in Romans 9:30-31, it says:
What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed…
This is the same Greek word that is translated as “persecuted” in Matthew 5.
…which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
In these two places, the word “followed” is the same Greek word that is translated as “persecuted.”
This really helps us to get a better understanding of what it means to be persecuted. Remember the Apostle Paul before God saved him? What did he do? He went about trying to find Christians. He was on their trail. He was like a bounty hunter who would track down his men. He was on the way to Damascus in order to find Christians to haul them off to prison, or even worse things that might come upon them.
So persecution is a seeking after, a pursuing, a following after a child of God. It is normally the unsaved who are the ones in pursuit, because Satan is really the one behind the scenes who is bringing these things about.
If we go to Revelation 12:13, it says:
And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth…
This “dragon” is Satan.
…he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
In Revelation 12, the woman who brings forth the man child is a picture of the body of believers, and the man child is Christ Himself. This is a spiritual image. After bringing forth the man child, the dragon, Satan, pursues the woman and he persecutes her, because this is all that he can do. This is all that he can do, and this chase has been going on since the Cross.
The believers have gone out into the world with the Gospel and hot on the heels of each child of God is Satan and his emissaries who are trying to stop the sending forth of the Gospel. They are trying to limit it or cause it to cease altogether. They are known as “adversaries” in the Bible, and they are the ones who are in opposition to God and His Word.
There are many different ways in the Bible that God paints this picture. Remember when the Israelites came out of Egypt? It was a picture of salvation, of deliverance, and it was not long before Pharaoh and his army was on their tail. He was chasing them right up until the Red Sea. This is pointing to the persecution—the following after—of the Christian, the true Christian, by the forces of Satan, by the enemies of God. He is always in opposition.
For instance, in 1 Corinthians 16:9, where the Apostle Paul is writing under the inspiration of God, it says:
For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.
They go hand-in-hand. If we are in the time of “latter rain” (and we are), if God is going to save a “great multitude” out there in the world (and He is), then we can expect that there are going to be enemies of the Gospel, enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are going to be persecuting the believers who are bringing the Gospel message to the world. They are going to come against them in any way possible and in any way imaginable, because Satan has always done this.
Jesus is just letting us know that this should really be our expectation. We should expect to be persecuted.
For instance, if we turn to Mark 10:28-30, it says:
Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
You can see how this word just kind of slid in there, as in, do not forget this. Yes, there are great blessing involved with being a Christian. Being a child of God, there are great untold spiritual blessings, abundant blessings, overflowing blessings that come forth from that wonderful cup of salvation that God just gives to us, with persecutions.
This is how it is. This is the nature of the Christian life. We can not escape persecution. It will come. It comes with the Word. If we have nothing to do with the Word, if we have nothing to do with the true Word, the true Gospel, if we shy away from sharing the Gospel or we are not involved with the sending forth of the Gospel, we may not notice any persecution and we might fit right in with the world. There may be no problem between us and the world, because we are not taking up our cross. We are not suffering for Christ’s sake. There could be suffering in our life but it just goes back to suffering for our own sins. However, to any degree that we are sharing the Word of God, the Gospel, faithfully, in accord with His Word, expect persecutions. Expect it.
Let us look at 2 Timothy 3:10-12:
But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
We can not get away from it. We can not escape it. All that live godly will suffer persecution. There is no getting around it. There is no escaping it.
This is why God says in Philippians 1:29:
For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
This is a gift of God. Just like God speaks of giving faith and giving repentance, He gives suffering for His sake. This happens. He says in John 16, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
It really comes down to show that the trials, the troubles, the afflictions, the persecutions that are legitimate, they are sincere and earnest persecutions because they have come about in our life due to the Gospel and because of the Word of God. As a result, maybe man is separating from us. A parallel verse to Matthew 5 is found in Luke 6, and it says that “men shall hate you.” “They shall separate you from their company.” They will “cast out your name as evil.” There will be reviling and reproaches, and so forth, “for the Son of Man’s sake,” “for righteousness’ sake,” “for Christ’s sake”—they are synonyms.
If we are suffering like this, it comes down to recognizing and observing that it is not really that big a deal. It is not that big a deal, if we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. If man is speaking evil of us, why would it be a big deal when we know what is in man? We know the condition of man’s soul. We know that spiritually man is dead, and so forth. More than this, if we were persecuted severely and greatly troubled by our family or anyone in this life, we always have that great comfort, that great knowledge, that yes, it might be for today and it might be for tomorrow or maybe for another year that we will still have to experience this, but a day is coming very soon when we are going to be transported, we are going to be transformed and lifted out of this world and changed and given that eternal life with all of the wonderful blessings that go along with it. So definitely, surely, we can put up with a little persecution, a little trial, a little trouble, for a short number of days. It is nothing at all.
Actually, the Apostle Paul makes reference to this in 1 Corinthians 4:3:
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
It is a small thing if man afflicts our bodies to the point of death. We can be afflicted, maybe physically, and we can be afflicted, perhaps, mentally or emotionally. But no one can touch our soul. Only God can destroy both body and soul. Man nor Satan nor all of his forces can touch our soul, if we are truly born again.
Going back to Matthew 5:10-12, it says:
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
You see, we are right where we ought to be. If we are sensing that things are heating up in our lives, if there are troubles coming from the left and right and all around us, and if they are coming for a just cause, for the sake of the Gospel, then we have strong evidence, strong evidence, that we are following the way of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are on the right path, and we are headed for Heaven itself. The Kingdom of Heaven is yours! Blessed are ye that are persecuted.