Good Cheer for the Needy
(No. 2878)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1904.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH
16, 1876.
"For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the
poor shall not perish forever." Psalm 9:18.
These words will fall upon different ears with quite different effects.
If any of you are, in the Scriptural sense, "poor and needy," God the
Holy Spirit will enable you to see much in these gracious sentences,
but if you fancy that you are "rich, and increased with goods, and have
need of nothing," you will care nothing whatever for such words as
these. You know right well that the value of a text to any soul depends
upon the condition of that soul. I know not how many stars may be
visible at the present moment. I do not think that I even looked up at
them before I came here and, perhaps, you have not. But to the mariner,
who needs to know his position when far out upon the sea, even one lone
star gleaming amid the clouds may be very precious. So, if you are
among the poor and needy ones, the Light of God in this text will be
most joyful to your heart! But if you are not among them, perhaps you
will scarcely condescend to look up to see its light. When Richard I
was shut up within the gloomy walls of a foreign prison, you remember
that he heard a song sung by his faithful friend who was traversing all
Europe, as a troubadour, to try to find him. There were many ears that
heard that strain and, possibly, some of the listeners had noticed the
sweetness of the music–yet there was nothing very special in it to
them. But the imprisoned king, when he heard that song, could sing the
refrain to it and, therefore, it had a peculiar value to him, for it
re-opened his communion with the world outside and ultimately led to
his release! So, it may be that my text has a refrain that you do not
know, and if it is so, you will not care for it. But if your heart is
very poor–if you are consciously very needy–if you are reduced to
spiritual destitution, then these simple words, "The needy shall not
always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish
forever," will awake echoes in your soul which will be the means of
bringing you great joy!
Here let me remark what a blessed thing it is to be poor in spirit and
down among the lowly in heart. The best things come to those who are in
such a condition! Up there, on the mountaintops, you are in a
conspicuous but very cold position. If there are any storms about, they
will be sure to gather around the mountain's brow, but if there are
brooks, they will be sure to flow down there in the quiet seclusion of
the valley where the nourishing grass grows for the feeding of the
sheep. He who dwells in the Valley of Humiliation lives in a place
where he may delight himself with safety because he is certain, while
he abides there, to give all the glory for his delight to his God. It
is not a land that every man chooses–it lies too low for some men's
tastes. There are those who love the high places of the earth where
they can exalt themselves. But he who is wise will choose to be
numbered among the hungry whom the Lord fills with good things and not
among the rich whom He sends away empty. He will delight to be reckoned
among those that are of low degree, whom God exalts, even the humble
and the meek–and he will not wish to be gathered with the proud,
against whom the Lord has registered His solemn declaration that He
will stain the pride of their glory.
If you look at our text as it stands, it bears, first of all, the
literal and natural meaning that God will take care of the poor and
needy. As a general rule, they are forgotten. In the regulations of
many kingdoms, no provision whatever has been made for the poor.
Christianity has done much to cause modern governments to make some
recognition of the rights of the poor and needy–and also to provide,
to some extent, for them–yet this provision is often handed out to
them with great coldness and sternness. Our poor laws are not, even
with the best intentions, always administered justly.
And there are lands where everything seems to be done to increase the
riches of the rich and to make the poor still poorer. Well, it will not
always be so! There are better days coming for you that are despised,
poor and needy. You need not fight, strive and be envious and make
discord–there is One in Heaven who is your Helper–and He is coming
down to earth again! And when He comes, "He shall judge the poor of the
people, He shall save the children of the needy and shall break in
pieces the oppressor." The reign of Jesus Christ, though it may seem to
be long in beginning, will assuredly come at the appointed time! And
when it comes, then all tyranny and oppression and wrong-doing shall be
speedily ended. "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and
abundance of peace so long as the moon endures." In His days shall no
man be robbed of his rights–no man be down-trodden–no man be
oppressed. Behold, the Lord has laid help upon One who is mighty! He
has exalted One chosen out of the people! His coming is the world's
hope! His appearing will be the signal for the world's deliverance from
all that is opposed to Him and to His Gospel!
But I am going to take our text in a spiritual sense and refer it to
those who are "poor and needy" in the Scriptural meaning of those
words. This is a description that is very frequently applied to the
people of God. They have been taught, by the Spirit of God, to realize
their poverty. They know it and they confess it. They also feel that
they have many needs–indeed, they seem to themselves to now have more
needs than they ever had before! And were it not for the Infinite
fullness which is treasured up in Christ, the very thought of their
needs would crush them and drive them to despair! "Poor and needy" is a
fair and full description of all those who have been taught of the Lord
to see themselves as they really are in His sight.
I want to give some good cheer to the poor and the needy, and my text
seems to me to refer to three pairs of things which concern them.
First, it speaks of two bitter experiences which will come to an end.
Then, two sad fears which are removed by the text And, thirdly, two
precious promises which are given to us in the text.
I. First, there are TWO BITTER EXPERIENCES which many of God's
people–no, allGod's people have more or less had, especially if they
happen to be poor and needy in temporal things as well as in spiritual.
The first bitter experience is that they have been forgotten. The text
says, "The needy shall not always be forgotten," plainly implying that
they havebeen forgotten–forgotten by those who used to know them,
forgotten by those who fed at their table and who landed and flattered
them in the days of their high estate. They do not know you now. You
are the same, but your coat is different, your house is different, your
purse is different and, therefore, though they loved you– oh, so
fervently!–their love is now gone because the various adjuncts, which,
after all, were the real ground of their love, have departed.
The leaves are withering, so the swallows, which gathered in the
summer, are all gone before the winter comes. Many friends are of that
sort–their friendship withers like the leaves of autumn and, like the
swallows, they are gone to find other summers somewhere else! If you
become prosperous, again, and get another summer, they will come back
and seek to ingratiate themselves with you again. Like dogs, they will
follow you as long as you have a bone to give them, but, unlike many
dogs, they will not stay with you even when you have nothing to bestow
upon them. If you are a poor man, who was once better off, you have
passed through this bitter experience, I have no doubt, and have been
forgotten because your circumstances have changed.
Possibly, you have been forgotten ever since you have been a Christian.
While you were self-righteous, like other men, they knew and respected
you. You helped to keep each other's self-righteousness up, just as
tradesmen, with their accommodation bills, help to keep each other
financially afloat. But you suddenly became poor in spirit–you began
to see that you needed a better righteousness than your own. They
called you melancholy and no wonder that they did, for you were,
indeed, melancholy! You were very uncongenial company for them. You
used to heave a deep sigh when they would rather have heard a noisy
laugh and now that you have gone right over, as they say, to the
Puritan Party, and left their merry-making, they have forgotten
you–they do not know you–they look down upon you and despise you!
They say, sometimes, "You are a canting hypocrite," and they have other
equally pretty names that they apply to you. If they remember you, it
is that they may scoff at you–but they say they have forgotten you and
it is a great mercy if they have! And it will be another great mercy if
you also forget them.
There is a message in the 45th Psalm which may be addressed to
you–"Forget also your own people, and your father's house; so shall
the King greatly desire your beauty: for He is your Lord; and worship
you Him." You are to go
outside the camp, bearing Christ's reproach, and to be forgotten by
your former friends and acquaintances because of your religion. It will
be a painful ordeal to you, but you may go through it without any very
serious loss.
Possibly, too, dear Friends, you have often thought that you have been
forgotten in the arrangements of God's people since you have come among
them. You are so needy, perhaps in pocket, but certainly in spirit,
that when arrangements have been made for the help and relief of
others, you fancy that you have been overlooked. Do not be quite
certain that it is so, for I have known some poor people who have been
a little too sensitive on these points and have suspected unkindness
when everything has been really planned for the best. Do not be ready
to misjudge your fellow Christians if they are better off than you are.
As it would be a sin, on their part, to be proud, it would be equally a
sin, on your part, to be envious. It would be wrong for them to be
unkind to you, but it would be just as wrong for you to be unkind to
them by thinking that they are unkind when they are not. Still, I
should not wonder if it does sometimes happen that you fancy yourself
forgotten even in the arrangements that are made in connection with the
House of God.
So, too, you may have had the experience of seeming to be forgotten in
various regulations which are passed by your fellow Christians. For
instance, someone has been declaring the proportion that every
Christian should give to the cause of God out of his substance. It has
been laid down by some, as a hard and fast rule, that nobody should
give less than a tenth–a good rule, mark you, and a rule applicable to
nearly everybody, but, sometimes there is a needy saint who says, "I
could not spare a tenth from my poor pittance. I can scarcely spare a
penny from the little that I have, so this rule presses hard upon me."
Well, then, give what you feel to be right, and do not trouble yourself
about the matter. When we speak to various classes, we cannot always
mention the exceptions–you know that there are exceptions to all rules
and we do not wish any rule to press hard upon anyone. The poor widow
gave her two mites and so may you, but do not fret and worry, though I
have no doubt it sometimes pains you when, in such utterances, you seem
to be forgotten.
It is also very painful to a Christian who is poor and needy in spirit,
when, in the preaching of the Gospel, there seems to be nothing for the
poor lame sheep, for the halting, for those that are weak-kneed, for
those who are ready to perish. I have heard sermons which have related
to very glorious experiences in which I have taken some delight. But I
have felt, all the while, "I wonder what the poor weaklings of the
flock think of this, when they hear about this experience and are told
that they can have it if they like, and that they must have it, or else
they have no real saving faith at all?" At such a time, my mind always
goes to those who can only touch the hem of the Savior's garment, or
say to Him, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." My witness is that
some of the best children in the whole family of God never have the
enjoyment of full assurance, but they are so careful, so watchful, so
sensitive that their very sadness of heart drives them close to Christ.
They seem to be so conscious of their own weakness and so afraid of
sinning against God, that though in them there is not the perfect love
that casts out fear–I wish it were–yet I would be the last to condemn
them.
There is One who will not condemn them–even He who carries the lambs
in His bosom and who is tender and full of pity to all the weak ones in
His flock. We must mind, when we are preaching experience, that we do
not so put the experience of the strong as to make it the standard for
the weak. That is almost as wrong as to make the experience of the weak
to be the standard of the strong, as some have done. The fact is, there
is no experience that is a real standard of the Christian life except
the experience of a change of heart and of simple faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Ah, dear Heart! I know what you mean when, after
listening to a sermon, you have said, "Alas, I am forgotten! There
seems nothing there for me. There are no crumbs for those who have lost
their teeth and have only sore gums! There is no bread and milk for the
children. It is all rounds of beef–strong meat for grown-up men, but,
woe is me, there is nothing that I can eat." I should not wonder if
that is what you have felt, but, if so, do not feel it any longer, "for
the needy shall not always be forgotten."
And, perhaps, up till now, you have even experienced a forgetfulness on
the part of Providence as you have understood the term. Others of your
family have risen in the world, but you have not. Your friends have set
up in business and have done well, but you have not. You have sought to
obtain a competence, but you have not secured it yet. You wished, at
any rate, to get out of financial trouble, but you are still in it and
you are apt to fear that when the Lord distributes His favors, He
forgets you–at least, as far as His Providential mercies are
concerned. Well, now, let this fear be gone, I pray you! Let this
bitter experience come to an end! Believe that you are not forgotten,
after all, by Him who is in Heaven and who beholds all His people–and
if you have experienced, in some measure, a sort of forgetfulness, real
on the part of man, but never real on the part of God–believe that it
will not last forever.
The second painful experience is that you have been disappointed, as
well as fancied that you have been forgotten. Our text says, "The
expectation of the poor shall not perish forever," which implies that
it has sometimes perished.
Now, dear Friend, I know that if you are a Christian, you have had some
of your expectations that have perished and a good many of them, too.
Why, you expected, at one time, to find your own way to Heaven–you
expected that your own righteousness would make you acceptable to God
and that you could do everything that was necessary to gain His favor!
That foolish expectation has perished forever, has it not? Your
self-righteousness is such a mass of filthy rags that you never mean to
try to patch those old rags together and make them into a garment to
wear in the sight of God.
Then, you thought that you might expect, when you believed in Jesus
Christ, that you would have perfect peace directly. Yet, possibly, you
did not have it. Believer as you were, you had to live by faith without
much experience of inward joy. And you also expected that you would
never be troubled any more with any sort of bitter experiences,
certainly not with any sins. You had lost your burden at the foot of
the Cross and you meant to go singing all the way to Heaven! In fact,
you imagined that you were to ride there in a carriage–in a most
luxurious and delightful style, having two heavens–one here–and
another hereafter! That expectation has not been realized, has it? You
have found that the way to Heaven is a rough road, that there are many
hardships in the pilgrim's pathway and that there are giants to be
fought and slain. Alas, also, there are sins within that have to be
contended with from day to day.
Perhaps you had even entertained some very high expectations that you
were going to be one of the brightest stars that ever shone among the
spiritual constellations of God! Oh, what wonders you were going to do!
You were going to be the leader among the people of God. There would be
no diminution of zeal in you–no lack of life in you, no declension
from Grace in you–no neglected prayer in you. You would be the very
paragon of virtue! You would push the world before you and drag the
Church behind you. I do not know how high your expectations soared, but
I would not wonder if some of them have perished before now and you
have come down to be, even in your own estimation, a very ordinary sort
of person! In fact, you have continued to grow smaller and smaller ever
since you have known Christ, till now you have come down to be
nothing–and you are on the way to being less than nothing! And you
will be wonderfully near the mark when you get down to that point.
How many human expectations turn out to be mere wind? As I studied my
text, turning it over and over again, it occurred to me that the needy,
the poor, are generally the people who have the greatest expectations.
I have talked with many poor men and I have found, over and over again,
that they have a great, great uncle somewhere or other, who may leave
them a lot of money some day. Or else they think they are entitled to
property somewhere, only the lawful owner keeps them out of it! They
have proofs that there was someone in their family who left–well, I do
not know whether it was some millions of money that now lie in the Bank
of England and they are expecting to get it! Ah, he that butters his
bread with such expectations will find it very dry. And he who waits
till expectations of that kind are fulfilled will, I am afraid, find
that he is waiting in vain. But poor people generally have plenty of
expectations and, as a rule, those expectations come to an end. This is
a part of the bitter experiences of life and always will be–so, let us
bear it patiently, for our text assures us that our disappointment
shall only be temporary.
II. Now, in the second place, there are TWO SAD FEARS WHICH THE TEXT
REMOVES.
The first sad fear is that, perhaps, we may be forever forgotten of
God. Oh, what, a sad day it would be for us if God should ever forget
us! You remember what varied experiences David had. Once he wrote, "In
my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by Your favor You
have made my mountain to stand strong: You did hide Your face, and I
was troubled." At another time, he wrote, "Has God forgotten to be
gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Ah, that is how
the greatest saints have to sometimes talk, but what a fall in the
barometer that indicates! From being up there at, "set fair," it has
gone down to, "much rain" and "storms." "Zion said, the Lord has
forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." This fear will come to the
child of God at certain times. It may take this shape, "What if God
should forget me in my present trouble? None but He can get me out of
it. I am so bowed down and distressed that without Divine Consolation I
know that I shall surely sink in the deep waters! Yet the consolation
does not come, the help I need does not arrive. I cannot see any way of
escape and I am as much in perplexity, now, as I was six months ago. I
have made it a matter of prayer and waiting on the Lord, but I
sometimes fear that He has forgotten me. What shall I do if He never
helps me? If it had not been the Lord who was on my side, I would long
ago have sunk into despair–but what shall I do if He deserts me now? I
can never escape out of this difficulty without Him."
Possibly the Believer is not so much in temporal trouble as burdened
under a sense of sin. He used to feel joy and peace through believing
in Christ, but he has wandered away from fellowship with his God and
God is walking contrary to him because he is walking contrary to God.
He is dwelling under his Father's frown–He is smarting under his
Father's rod. Now he says within himself, "What will happen to me if He
should never again give me the kiss of reconciliation?" He cries, "Deal
mercifully with Your servant, O Lord, and restore unto me the joy of
Your salvation!" Yet still he walks in darkness and sees no Light. He
is under a cloud and his cry is, "Oh, that I knew where I might find
Him whom my soul loves!" There comes to his heart the horrible fear
that God has forsaken him. It is a horrible fear, but it is quite
unfounded–there is no real reason for it. God cannot forget His chosen
ones whom He has engraved upon the palms of His hands. And though a
woman may forget her sucking child, God cannot forget any of His
people, sorrowful or sinful though they may be.
Then, too, this thought will come–"I am sick. My health is failing. I
have less strength every day and, soon I shall have to go through the
cold river of death. And what if, then, I should be without my God? It
will be hard to suffer and harder, still, to die–to leave the warm
precincts of this house of clay and, as a disembodied spirit, to be
launched into an unknown world. What if there should be no guardian
angels around my dying bed and no Savior to receive my departing
spirit? What if, after all, my hope should turn out to be a delusion,
my faith a fiction and my experience a dream?" I do not wonder, when
such thoughts as these cross your minds, that you should feel
distressed, as hundreds before you have been, "who, through fear of
death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." But our text is a
blessed cure for this sad fear–"For the needy shall not always be
forgotten."
The other dreadful fear is, lest, after all, your expectation should
perish. Your expectation, Beloved, is that since you have trusted in
God, you shall never be confounded–and that because you have relied
upon the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you shall be numbered with
His saints in Glory everlasting. Yet, sometimes you sorrowfully say,
"Shall I hold on to the end? Shall I be able to persevere? I am so
weak, so unstable, so apt to slip and slide, that I fear what will
happen to me. Will my hope endure to the end?" Then you look around and
see the strong temptations that beset your path– you live, perhaps,
where there are few Christians to help you and where everything seems
to go against your progress in the Divine Life and you say, "I shall
surely one day fall by the hand of the enemy. How can I hope to outlive
these many perils and dangers?"
Possibly your constitutional temperament is a hindrance to you and you
cry, "Woe is me, because I have such corruptions within–such a fierce
temper–such a cold heart–such a stingy disposition. Can I ever, after
all, be fashioned into the likeness of my Lord? Can such gritty granite
as my soul is made of ever be melted down and run into the Divine Mold,
or be turned like wax to the Divine Seal?" It does make you fear and
tremble, especially when trials come, the likes of which you never saw
before! And you say, "My expectation will perish. I thought that, by
God's Grace, I should leap over a wall and break through a troop. I
hoped that I should continue to trust in the Lord even though all
creature aid should fail. But now I tremble and fear! I have run with
the footmen and they have wearied me. What shall I do when I have to
contend with horses and, above all, what shall I do in the swellings of
Jordan?" Well, now, this is the sort of fear that arises in the hearts
of God's children–yet that fear need not be entertained for a single
moment! It is your duty and privilege to shut it out of your heart, for
thus says the Lord, "The expectation of the poor shall not perish
forever."
III. Now I come to our third and last point–TWO PRECIOUS PROMISES ARE
HERE GIVEN TO US.
The first is given to the needy and it declares that they shall not
always be forgotten. Possibly some of you think that you have been
forgotten in the arrangements of Providence. Listen, troubled one. If
you can only wait with patience and stand still and see the salvation
of God, you will find that the needy shall not always be forgotten.
Have you ever noticed how a father carves for a large family. You do
not expect him, at a single stroke, to carve enough to fill every
plate, do you? There is a little child who is ill, so there must be a
suitable portion sent away for that one. And, likely enough, that will
be the first portion sent from the table. Then the father serves his
other children according to a certain order which he has in his own
mind and there must be some who come after the others. I have known
carvers keep someone waiting till they have reached the most juicy part
of the meat–they only made him wait till they could give him something
especially choice! So, if you are kept waiting for your portion, you
will not lose anything by waiting a while. Patience is rewarded in due
season. If ships are longer on their voyage, we expect them to bring
home all the richer freight. If the trees are slower than usual, this
year, in putting forth their buds–if the peach blossoms or the
apricots are not visible as soon as
in other seasons–let us hope that it will be all the better for the
ultimate fruit-bearing of the trees. Be you content to come last rather
than first, for sometimes last is best and, "there are last which shall
be first, and there are first which shall be last." Poor as you are,
you shall not always be forgotten! There is a portion in reserve for
you–even for you.
You shall not be forgotten at the Mercy Seat. You have been there many
times without receiving an answer to your petitions. Perhaps, poor
heavy Heart, you have prayed seven times and no reply has yet come.
Possibly you have gone to your God as often as the poor widow went to
the unjust judge and you have gone as importunately as she went. But so
far there has been no sweet relief such as your soul longed for. Yet
you shall not be always forgotten, so, continue in prayer! If the
promise tarries, wait for it, for, in due season, the answer shall
surely come.
You shall not always be forgotten in the Word. You have been reading
it, yet no promise has seemed to comfort you. In fact, as you turn over
the pages of your Bible, you find bitter things recorded there, as if
they were written against you. But read on! Read on and one of these
days you will come to a passage that will seem to leap up out of the
Scriptures to meet you! It will woo you–the very sight of it will
fascinate you and you will say, "The Lord has spoken this message to my
soul–and I bless and praise His holy name!"
You shall not always be forgotten from the pulpit. Perhaps there is
someone here who has long been listening to the Gospel and who
sorrowfully says, "I find that others are comforted, but I am not. God
seems to give a portion to all the rest of His people, but none to poor
me. Alas, I come and I go, but it seems to be all in vain! I love to go
where I see others getting a blessing, yet I find no comfort there for
myself." Well, you shall not always be forgotten! God will bid His
servant drop a handful on purpose for you. Perhaps this very text is a
message to your heart just now!
You shall not always be forgotten at the Lord's Table. You have gone
there hoping that He who often reveals Himself to His servants in the
breaking of bread will be pleased to manifest Himself to you at His own
Table. Yet you have not had a smile from Him. You have sat with others
at the King's Table, but the King, Himself, did not seem to sit there
with you. You ate the bread, but you did not spiritually feed upon His
flesh. You drank the wine, but you did not spiritually drink His
precious blood. Well, you shall not always be forgotten! If you are
really trusting in Jesus, there are brighter days yet in store for you.
The King shall yet bring you into His banqueting house and His banner
over you shall be Love and you shall see such changes that you shall
sing–
"My mourning, He to dancing turns, For sackcloth, joy He gives, A
moment, Lord, Your anger burns, But long Your favor lives."
And you shall not always be forgotten in the service that you are
rendering unto God. You have not yet seen a soul converted through your
instrumentality, but you shall not always be forgotten in that respect.
And in the sufferings that you are called to bear for Christ's sake,
you shall not always be forgotten. Patience will yet have her perfect
work and the suffering will end when it has accomplished its purpose.
You are persecuted and despised, perhaps, but you shall not always be
forgotten. You shall yet learn the sweetness of being reproached for
Christ's sake. You may seem to be forgotten for a little while, but you
shall not really be so. God, the Holy Spirit, will not forget you–He
will sustain, instruct, illuminate and console you. God the Son will
not forget you. He paid too high a price for you to ever forget you.
You are His bride! He loves you as He loves Himself. You are part and
parcel of Himself, so He will never forget you. And God the Father will
not forget you. You have been His from all eternity and He has
"begotten you again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead." You will die soon, but you will not be
forgotten, for the holy angels will convoy you home to Heaven!
The rich man died and was buried with many waving plumes over his
mourning coach. His will was read, his property was squabbled over and
that was the end of him. Everybody soon forgot him. But the angels
carried Lazarus into Abraham's bosom! They had not forgotten Lazarus.
The dogs had licked his sores, but the angels had loved him! The
dunghill was his couch, but Abraham's bosom was his throne! If you are
a Believer in Jesus, you are not forgotten up in Glory! Rowland Hill,
when he was very old, used to like to go and see aged people when they
were dying and he used to say to them, "When you get to Heaven, give my
love to the three glorious Johns up there, and be sure to tell them
that poor old Rowley hopes they have not forgotten him." There is no
fear that they will forget any of you who are going there! There is a
crown in Heaven which will fit nobody's head but yours and that crown
must hang as a useless thing until you get there to wear it! There is a
mansion in Glory that nobody but you can inhabit and you cannot suppose
that it will be al-
lowed to stand empty forever, can you? Oh, no! Youmust be there to
occupy it and you may rest assured that He who is preparing the place
for His people will bring His people to it, for He has not gone to
Heaven to prepare a place for His people without resolving that His
people shall not perish on the way there!
"The needy shall not always be forgotten." They will be especially
remembered when Christ comes and He says to them, "Come, you blessed of
My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world." They will be remembered as they enter into the joy of their
Lord and then, throughout the eternal ages, they will never be
forgotten of Him! They may well bear whatever comes upon them now in
the anticipation of the Glory that is yet to be revealed!
The other promise in our text is that "the expectation of the poor
shall not perish forever " What is your expecta-tion–you who have
believed in Jesus, yet who feel very poor and needy? You have been
expecting to get peace, have you not? You shall have it in due time. A
friend said to me, quite recently, "Supposing a person has believed in
Jesus, but does not feel immediate peace, what then? Is that person to
believe that he is saved? What is his evidence that he is?" I replied,
"God says that whoever believes in His Son is not condemned, so I need
not ask to have peace within my soul in order to corroborate the
declaration of God. I am bound to take the Truth of God as it stands
and believe myself to be saved, whether I feel any peace or not. If I
will do this, then I shall have the peace. But if I say that I will not
believe myself saved till I feel peace, then I am not really believing
God at all–I am asking Him to give me peace to corroborate His
evidence, as if the evidence in the Word were not strong enough to
satisfy me." Dear Friend, it may be that you have not yet enjoyed peace
because your faith is not as simple and as clear as it should be. But
if you are really poor and needy and cast yourself on the promises of
God, you may depend upon it that the expectation that you have rightly
founded upon the Gospel shall not be disappointed. You shall have
peace! Yes, and you shall have perfect peace one day. "The peace of
God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and mind
through Christ Jesus."
You are expecting, too, that you shall triumph over sin. God has
promised that sin shall not have dominion over you. It may struggle
very hard and, for a while, you may seem to be under its power. No,
more–you may come under its power in a measure, but it never shall
reign over you! Sin may, for a time, conquer a part of Mansoul, but it
can never conquer the citadel of the heart! So rest assured of that.
"The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly," and you
shall yet feel the power of holiness and the mighty work of the Eternal
Spirit in your soul. "The expectation of the poor shall not perish
forever."
You have been expecting, too, to get out of trouble. Well, you shall
get out of trouble. You have been expecting to see good come out of
evil. Well, good will come out of evil. I cannot tell you when you
shall be delivered, but delivered you shall be, for thus it is written,
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him
out of them all." One of these days you will receive a warrant that
will set you free from all trouble forever and ever! How soon it may
come, I cannot tell, but, till it does, you may patiently wait and
quietly hope for the salvation of God.
You have also been expecting to enjoy the full assurance of faith and
your expectation, in that respect, shall not perish forever. The Lord
will make your faith grow–every day's experience will help to
establish it and even your difficulties and troubles will tend to
strengthen it. If a boy is apprenticed to a blacksmith, I should not
wonder if, for months, his arm aches dreadfully through swinging the
big hammer. But keep on, Boy, keep on! Your muscles will grow hard,
your sinews will get braced and you will become strong just where you
need to be strong. So, dear Friend, shall it be with your faith–you
shall become strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
You expected to have very special spiritual joys, did you not? You
expected that your soul would be made like the chariots of Amminadib,
did you not? You expected to be in such a condition that whether in the
body or out of the body, you could not tell. Well, you shall realize
all that in due season, for God will reveal it unto you when it seems
good in His sight. As for myself–and I may also speak for all who love
the Lord–I am expecting to be with Him where He is, to behold His
Glory. I am expecting to be like He and to overcome and sit with Him
upon His Throne, even as He has overcome and has sat down with His
Father upon His Throne.
And, Brothers and Sisters, if this is your expectation, it shall not
perish forever, but it shall be blessedly realized. I have told you
before some of the last words of my venerable grandfather, but I may
venture to repeat them to you. One of my uncles said to him, "You know,
Father, that hymn of Dr. Watts–
"'Firm as the earth Your Gospel stands,
My Lord, my hope, my trust If I am found in Jesus'hands, My soul can
never be lost'"?
"Ah, James!" he replied, "I do not like the metaphor that Dr. Watts
uses there, 'Firm as the earth.' Why, the earth is sinking from under
my feet! I need something much firmer than that. I like better what the
Doctor says when he sings–
"'Firm as His throne His promise stands,
And He can well secure
What I've committed to His hands,
Till the decisive hour.
"That will do for me now, James," said the dying saint, "that is Divine
Sovereignty. The Lord is King and, as surely as He is King and sits
upon His Throne, so surely will He fulfill His promise to a poor feeble
worm like I, so I shall behold His face with joy."