The Hunger and Thirst Which Are Blessed

The Hunger and Thirst Which Are Blessed

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 8, 1889,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
they shall be filled." Matthew 5:6.

BECAUSE man had perfect righteousness before the Fall, he enjoyed
perfect blessedness. If you and I shall, by Divine Grace, attain to
blessedness hereafter, it will be because God has restored us to
righteousness. As it was in the first Paradise, so must it be in the
second–righteousness is essential to the blessedness of man. We cannot
be truly happy and live in sin. Holiness is the natural element of
blessedness. And it can no more live out of that element than a fish
could live in the fire.

The happiness of man must come through his righteousness–his being
right with God, with man, with himself– indeed, his being right all
round. Since, then, the first blessedness of our unfallen state is gone
and the blessedness of perfection hereafter is not yet come, how can we
be blessed in the interval which lies between? The answer is, "Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Though they
have not yet attained the righteousness they desire, yet even the
longingfor it makes them a blessed people.

The massive blessedness of the past, and the priceless blessedness of
the eternal future, are joined together by a band of present
blessedness. The band is not so massive as those two things which it
unites. But it is of the same metal, has been fashioned by the same
hand and is as indestructible as the treasures which it binds together.

Of this hunger and thirst I am going to speak this morning. I feel so
unfit for the effort that I must correct myself and say that I hunger
and thirst to preach to you but, that is all the power I have. Oh, that
I, too, may be filled for your sakes! May the Spirit of the Lord
fulfill my intense desire to minister to you from this beatitude of our
Lord Jesus, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled."

First, then, in our text we have mention of singular appetites–"hunger
and thirst"–not for bread and water but, "after righteousness."
Secondly, we have a remarkable declaration about these hungering
people–Jesus says that they are "blessed," or happy. And beyond a
doubt His judgment is true. Thirdly, in our text is mentioned a special
satisfaction meeting their necessity and in its foresight making them
blessed–our Savior says, "they shall be filled."

I. To begin, then, we shall speak of SINGULAR APPETITES. In this case,
one insatiable desire takes different forms. They hunger and they
thirst–the two most urgent needs of the body are used to set forth the
cravings of the soul for righteousness. Hunger and thirst are different
but they are both the language of keen desire. He that has ever felt
either of these two knows how sharp are the pangs they bring. And if
the two are combined in one craving, they make up a restless, terrible,
unconquerable passion.

Who shall resist a man hungering and thirsting? His whole being fights
to satisfy his awful needs. Blessed are they that have a longing for
righteousness, which no one word can fully describe and no one craving
can set forth. Hunger must be joined with thirst, to set forth the
strength and eagerness of the desire after righteousness.

This desire is like hunger and thirst in constancy. Not that it is
always equally raging, for the hungry man is not always equally in
pain. But, still, he can never quite forget the gnawing within, the
burning at the heart. Blessed is the man who is always desiring
righteousness with an insatiable longing that nothing can turn aside.
Hunger and thirst are irrepressible. Until you feed the man, his wants
will continue to devour him. You may give a hungry man the best music
that was ever drawn from strings, or breathed from pipes–but his
cravings are not soothed–you do but mock him.

You may set before him the fairest prospect. But unless in that
prospect there stands conspicuous a loaf of bread and a cup of water,
he has no heart for flood or field, mountain or forest. They are
blessed, says Christ, who, with regard to righteousness, are always
seeking it and cannot be satisfied until they find it. The desire
toward righteousness, which a

man must have in order to be blessed, is not a faint one, in which he
feebly says, "I wish I could be righteous." Neither is it a passing
outburst of good desires. But it is a longing which, like hunger and
thirst, abides with a man and masters him.

He carries it to his work, carries it to his house, carries it to his
bed, carries it wherever he, himself, goes, for it rules him with its
imperative demands. As the horse-leech cries, "Give, give," so does the
heart cry after purity, integrity and holiness when once it has learned
to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

These appetites are concentrated upon one object–the man hungers and
thirsts after righteousness and nothing else. Theological works mostly
say either that this is imputed righteousness, or implanted
righteousness. No doubt these things are meant, but I do not care to
insert an adjective where there is none–the text does not say either
"imputed" or "implanted"–why need we mend it? It is righteousnesswhich
the man pants after–righteousness in all its meanings.

First, he feels that he is not right with God and the discovery causes
him great distress. The Spirit of God shows him that he is all wrong
with God, for he has broken the Laws which he ought to have kept and he
has not paid the homage and love which were justly due. The same Spirit
makes him long to get right with God. And, his conscience being
aroused, he cannot rest till this is done. This, of course, includes
the pardon of his offenses and the giving to him of a righteousness
which will make him acceptable to God–he eagerly cries to God for this
gift.

One of the bitterest pangs of his soul's hunger is the dread that this
need can never be met. How can man be just with God? It is the peculiar
glory of the Gospel that it reveals the righteousness of God–the
method by which sinners can be put right with God. And this comes with
peculiar sweetness to one who is striving and praying, hungering and
thirsting, after righteousness. When he hears of righteousness by faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, he leaps at it and lays hold upon it, for it
exactly meets his needs.

The hunger now takes another form. The pardoned and justified man now
desires to be right in his conduct and language and thought–he pines
to be righteous in his whole life. He would be marked by integrity,
kindness, mercifulness, love and everything else which goes to make up
a right condition of things towards his fellow creatures. He ardently
desires to be correct in his feelings and conduct towards God–he
craves rightly to know, obey, pray, praise and love his God. He cannot
rest till he stands towards God and man as he ought to stand.

His longing is not only to be treated as righteous by God, which comes
through the atoning blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but that he may be actually righteous before the heart-searching God.
Nor will this suffice him–not only must his conduct be right, but he
pants to be himself right. He finds within himself irregular desires
and he would have these utterly destroyed. He finds tendencies towards
unrighteousness. And although he resists these, and overcomes them, yet
the tendencies themselves are abhorrent to him.

He finds longings after pleasures that are forbidden. And though he
rejects those pleasures with loathing, his trouble is that he should
have any inclination towards them at all. He wants to be so renewed
that sin shall have no power over him. He has learned that a lustful
look is adultery, that a covetous desire is theft, and that wrongful
anger is murder. And therefore he craves not only to be free from the
look and the desire and the passion, but even from the tendencyin that
direction. He longs to have the fountain of his being cleansed. He
hungers to, "put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness."

He thirsts to be "renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that
created him." He cannot be content till he is himself like Jesus, who
is the image of the invisible God, the mirror of righteousness and
peace. But, mark you, if the man should even attain to this, his hunger
and thirst would only take another direction. The godly man hungers and
thirsts to see righteousness in others. At times, when he sees the
conduct of those around him, he cries, "My soul is among lions. And I
lie even among them that are set on fire." The more holy he becomes,
the more sin vexes his righteous soul and he cries, "Woe is me, that I
sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!"

He often wishes that he had "wings like a dove," that he might "fly
away and be at rest." Like Cowper, he cries–

"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of
shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or
successful war, Might never reach me more!"

He hungers for godly company–he thirsts to see the unholy made holy.
And therefore he cries in his daily prayer, "Your kingdom come. Your
will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." With hunger and thirst he
cries, "Lord, end the reign of sin! Lord, cast down idols! Lord, chase
error from the earth! Lord, turn men from lust and avarice and cruelty
and drunkenness." He would live for righteousness and die for
righteousness. The zeal of it consumes him.

Brothers and Sisters, I hope you have been able to follow, by your own
knowledge, the various movements of this absorbing passion for
righteousness, which I have thus feebly sketched for you. Note well
that these concentrated appetites are very discriminating. The man does
not long for twenty things but only for one thing and for that one
thing by itself. The hunger and the thirst are "after righteousness."
The man does not hunger for wealth–he would rather be poor and be
righteous, than be rich through evil.

He does not hunger after health–though he would wish to have that
great blessing, yet he would rather be sick and have righteousness,
than enjoy good health and be unrighteous. He does not even set before
himself, as his great object, the rewardsof righteousness. These are
very desirable–the respect of one's fellows, peace of mind and
communion with God, are by no means little things. But he does not make
these the chief objects of his desire, for he knows that they will be
added to him if in the first place he seeks after righteousness itself.

If there were no Heaven, the godly man would wish to be righteous. If
there were no Hell, he would dread unrighteousness. His hunger and
thirst are after honesty, purity, rectitude and holiness–he hungers
and he thirsts to be what God would have him to be. Always distinguish
between seeking Heaven and seeking God, between shunning Hell and
shunning sin. For any hypocrite will desire Heaven and dread Hell. But
only the sincere hunger after righteousness.

The thief would shun the prison but he would like to be once more at
his theft. The murderer would escape the gallows but he would readily
enough have his hand on his dagger again. The desire to be happy, the
wish to be at ease in conscience–these are poor things. The true and
noble hunger of the soul is the desire to be right for righteousness'
sake. Oh, to be holy, whether that should mean joy or sorrow! Oh, to be
pure in heart, whether that would bring me honor or contempt!
This–this is the blessed thirst.

Now, where there is this hunger and thirst, these will work in their
own way. Hunger and thirst are not the bed-makers of the house of
manhood. No, they ring the alarm bells and even shake the foundations
of the house. The starving man cannot bear himself. Ultimately, his
terrible needs may reduce him to a passive condition by the way of
faintness and insensibility. But while sense remains in the man, hunger
and thirst are fierce forces, which nerve him to the most intense
endeavors.

When a prisoner was set at the prison gate to plead for the poor
debtors, in the old time, he did plead. Himself reduced to a skeleton,
he rattled the box in the ears of persons passing by and cried most
piteously that they would give something to the poor debtors who were
starving inside. How a hungry man looks at you! His very look is a
piercing prayer. A man that hungers and thirsts after righteousness,
pleads with God with his whole soul. There is no sham prayer about him.

The man that is hungry and thirsty after righteousness is the wrestling
man. This makes him also the active man. For hunger will break through
stone walls. He will do anything for food. The worst of it is, that he
often attempts foolish things–he tries to stay his hunger with that
which is not bread, and spends his labor upon that which satisfies not.
Still, this only proves how energetic are these appetites and how they
call out every power of manhood when they are set upon righteousness.

Beloved, these are by no means common. Multitudes of people in the
world never hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some of you would
like to be saved. But you can do very well if you are not. A man that
is hungry and thirsty will never say, "I should like a meal but I can
do very well without it." And you do not hunger and thirst, if you can
rest without the blessing you profess to value. If you hunger and
thirst after righteousness, you want it at once–these cravings will
not bear delay–they clamor for immediate supplies. The hungry man's
tense is the present.

Oh, how many there are who, by their delay and by their carelessness,
prove that they never hunger and thirst after righteousness! I see also
others who are righteous already. They are as good as they want to be.
Hear the man talk–"I do not make any profession of religion but I am a
great deal better than many that do." Oh, yes, I know you, Sir. And the
Virgin Mary knew you, for she said in her song, "He has filled the
hungry with good things. And the rich he has sent

empty away." You will one day be emptied but you will never be filled.
Why should you be? You are so blown up with wind that there is no room
for the heavenly substance within your heart.

Many refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Bread of Heaven. No man
can be said to be hungry if he refuses wholesome food. When your child
sits down at the table and says that he does not want any dinner, he is
evidently not hungry. They that put Christ away and will not have His
atonement and His sanctification, are not hungry after righteousness.
Many criticize the little things of the Gospel, the insignificant
matters about the minister's voice and tone and appearance.

When a man sits down to dinner and begins to notice that one of the
dishes is chipped and one of the roses in the center has an insect on
it and the saltshaker is not in the right position to half an inch, and
the parsley is not nicely arranged around the cold meat, that fellow is
not hungry. Try a poor dockyard laborer, or, better still, his wife and
children, and they will eat meat without mustard, and bread without
butter. The hungry man will eat fat as well as lean, I guarantee you.
Preaching would not so often be submitted to silly remarks if men were
really hungry after the Truth of God.

"Give me a knife and a chance," says the man who is hungry. "Give me
the Gospel," says the anxious enquirer, "and I care nothing for the
eloquence." Beloved, I wish you may so hunger and thirst after
righteousness, that trifles may be trifles to you and the essential
Truth of God be your only care.

But alas, there are some that we are sure do not hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they do not care even to hearabout it. When
your boy stays out in the road at dinnertime, you may be sure that he
is not very hungry. The dinner bell is a very prevailing reasoner when
it finds its arguments within the listener. As soon as there is
notification that food is to be had, the hungry man hastens to the
table. I would to God we had more spiritually hungry people to preach
to. He would be a blessed preacher who preached to them, for he would
be preaching to a blessed people. "Blessed are they which do hunger and
thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."

II. I have very feebly given you the description of the character and
now I come to notice the REMARKABLE DECLARATION of our Lord. He says,
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness."

This is a paradox. It does not seem possible that people should be
hungry and thirsty and yet blessed. Hunger and thirst bring pain. I
know you, my Friend, you are here this morning and you are saying
within yourself, "Oh, that I could be right! I am a great sinner; oh,
that I were forgiven! Oh, that I could become righteous before God!"
Another is saying, "I trust I am forgiven and saved. But I feel a
dreadful fear lest I should fall into sin. O wretched man that I am, to
have sinful tendencies! Oh, that I could be perfect and altogether
delivered from this embodied death which surrounds me in the form of a
sinful nature!"

Or, perhaps, another friend sitting here is crying, "God has been very
gracious to me. But my children, my husband, my brother–they are
living in sin and these are my daily burdens. I have come here with a
very heavy heart because they know not the Lord."

Hearken, dear Friend, and be encouraged. Whatever form your hunger
after righteousness may take, you are a blessed person. Albeit that you
endure that pain about yourself and others, you are blessed. Hunger and
thirst often cause a sinking feeling and that sinking feeling sometimes
turns to a deadly faintness. It may be I am speaking to one who has
reached that stage. To him I say, "You are blessed." I hear you
sighing, "Oh, that I could be what I want to be! O wretched man that I
am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

"These inward corruptions, these evil imaginations, they will kill me,
I cannot bear them. God has taught me to love what is good and now to
will is present with me but how to perform that which is good, I find
not. Even my prayers are interrupted by wandering thoughts and my tears
of repentance have sin mixed with them." Beloved, I understand that
faintness and sinking, that groaning and pining. But, nevertheless, you
areblessed, for the text says it, and it is a very remarkable saying,
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness."

Why are they blessed? Well, first, because Jesus says they are. And if
He says it, we do not need any further proof. If, looking round on the
crowd, our Lord passes by those who are self-satisfied, and if His eyes
light on the men that sigh, and cry, and hunger and thirst after
righteousness and if, with smiling face, He says, "These are the
blessed ones," then depend upon it–they are so. For I know that those
whom He declares to be blessed must be blessed, indeed. I would rather
be one whom Christ counted blessed, than one who was so esteemed by all
the world–for the Lord Jesus knows better than men do.

The man hungering after righteousness ought to consider himself a happy
man, because he has been made to know the right value of things.
Before, he set a high value upon worthless pleasure, and he reckoned
the dross of the praise of men to be as pure gold. But now he values
righteousness and is not as the child who prizes glass beads more than
pearls. He has already obtained some measure of righteousness, for his
judgment reckons rightly. He ought to be thankful for being so far
enlightened.

Once he put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter–darkness for light
and light for darkness. But now the Lord has brought him to know what
is good and what it is that the Lord does require of him–in gaining
this right judgment he is a blessed man and on the way to still greater
blessedness!

Observe, further, that not only does he estimate things correctly, but
he has a heart towards that which is good and desirable. Once he only
cared for earthly comforts. Now he hungers and thirsts after
righteousness. "Give me a bit of meat in the pot," cries the worldling,
"and I will leave your precious righteousness to those who want it."
But this man prizes the spiritual above the natural–righteousness is
happiness to him. His one cry is, "Give me righteousness."

His whole heart is set on it and this is no mean privilege. He that is
filled with the desire of that which God approves, is himself approved.
To such a man is given a magnanimity which is of more than royal
nature, and for it, he should be grateful to God. He is blessed
because, in the presence of this hunger, many meaner hungers die out.
One master passion, like Aaron's rod, swallows up all the rest. He
hungers and thirsts after righteousness. And, therefore, he has done
with the craving of lust, the greed of avarice, the passion of hate,
the pining of ambition.

We have known sickly men to be overtaken by a disease which has driven
out their old complaints–a fresh fire has put out the former ones. So
men, under the influence of a craving for righteousness, have found
hunger for land, and hunger for gold, and thirst for pride and lust, by
God's Divine Grace, come to an end. The new affections have expelled
the old. Even as the Israelites drove the Canaanites into the
mountains, or slew them, God alone can give this hungering and
thirsting after righteousness. And it is one of its grand qualities
that it drives out the groveling and sinful lusting which otherwise
would consume our hearts.

These men are blessed by being delivered from many foolish delusions.
The delusion is most common that man can get everything that he needs
in religion out of himself. Most men are deluded in this way–they
think they have a springing well of power within from which they can
cleanse and revive and satisfy themselves. Try a hungry man, or a
thirsty man with this doctrine, "My dear fellow, you need not be
hungry–you can satisfy yourself from yourself." What is his answer? "I
have tied a hunger belt around myself to keep down the hunger. But even
that I did not find within myself. I am hungry and must have food from
outside, or I shall die."

He cannot eat his own heart, nor feed upon his own liver–it is not
possible for him to satisfy his hunger from himself. The common
spiritual delusion of men is of like kind. They imagine that they can,
by an effort of their own, satisfy conscience, make themselves pure,
and produce righteousness of character. Still do they dream of bringing
a clean thing out of an unclean. Let spiritual hunger and thirst come
upon them and they escape from this snare. The man cries, "Self-trust
is a refuge of lies, I must be helped from Above. I must be saved by
Divine Grace, or I shall remain unrighteous to the end." Spiritual
hunger and thirst are wonderful teachers of the Doctrines of Grace and
very speedy dispellers of the illusions of pride.

Once again–these men are blessed because they are already worked upon
by the Holy Spirit. Hunger and thirst after righteousness are always
the production of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural for man to love
the good and the holy. He loves that which is wrong and evil. He loves
the trespass or the omission, but strict rectitude before God he does
not seek after. When a man is hungry to be true, hungry to be sober,
hungry to be pure, hungry to be holy–his hunger is a gift from Heaven
and a pledge of the Heaven from which it came.

Once more–this man is blessed, for in his hunger and thirst he is in
accord with the Lord Jesus Christ. When our Lord was here, He hungered
after righteousness, longing to do and suffer His Father's will. His
disciples, on one occasion, went away to the city to buy meat. And He,
being left alone, thirsted to bless the poor sinful woman of Samaria,
who came to the well to draw water. To her He said, "Give me to drink,"
not only to commence the conversation but because He thirsted to make
that woman righteous.

He thirsted to convince her of her sin and lead her to saving faith.
And when He had done so, His desire was gratified. When His disciples
came back, though He had not touched a morsel of bread, or a drop of
water, He said, "I have meat to eat that you know not of. My meat is to
do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work."

Our Lord, on the Cross, said, "I thirst," and that thirst of His lips
and of His mouth was but the index of the deeper thirst of His heart
and soul that righteousness might reign by His death. He died that the
righteousness of God might be vindicated. He lives that the
righteousness of God may be proclaimed. He pleads that the
righteousness of God may be brought home to sinners. He reigns that
this righteousness may chase out of this world the iniquity which now
destroys it. When you hunger and thirst after righteousness in any of
the shapes I have described, you are in a measure partakers with Christ
and have fellowship with Him in His heart' s desire. As He is blessed,
so are you, for "blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness."

I think I must have astonished some who have been mourning and crying,
"Oh, that the Lord would give me to live upon His righteousness and I
would thank Him forever and ever!" Why, you are one of the blessed!
"Alas," cries one, "I am pining to be delivered from sin–I do not mean
from the punishment of it, Sir, but from the taint of it. I want to be
perfectly pure and holy." Do you? My dear Friend, you are numbered
among the blessed at this very moment.

A great professor at your side in the pew is saying, "Blessed be God, I
am perfect already" Well, I am not sure about that party' s
blessedness. That fine bird is not mentioned in my text. But I am sure
about yonder soul that hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for the
Word is clear and plain–"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst
after righteousness."

III. And now I close with the best of all, SPECIAL SATISFACTION.
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
they shall be filled."

This is a singular statement. They are to be blessed while they hunger
and thirst. If they become filled, will they still be blessed? Yes, and
what is more, they will still hunger and thirst. You say that is
strange. Yes, it is. But everything is wonderful in the kingdom of God.
Paradoxes, in spiritual things, are as plentiful as blackberries. In
fact, if you cannot believe a paradox, you cannot believe in Christ
Himself, for he is God and Man in one Person–and that is a paradoxical
mystery. How can one Person be infinite and yet finite? How can He be
immortal and yet die?

Ours is a Gospel wherein lies many an orthodox paradox. He that is
filled by Christ hungers more than he did before, only the hunger is of
another kind and has no bitterness in it. He that hungers most is the
man who is full in the highest sense–

"I thirst but not as once I did, The vain delights of earth to share.
Your wounds, Immnanuel, all forbid That I should seek my pleasures
there."

Lord, when I get what You give me of Your Divine Grace, then I feel a
new craving, which seeks after higher things! My soul enlarges by what
it feeds upon and then it cries, "Give me still more." When a man
leaves off crying for more, he may doubt whether he has ever received
anything at all. Divine Grace fills and then enlarges. Increase of
Grace is increase of capacity for Grace. Cry still, "Lord, increase my
faith, my love, my hope, my every Grace! Enlarge my soul, that I may
take in more and more of You!"

Now I am going to show you how it is that we can be filled, even now,
although still hungry and thirsty. For first, although we hunger and
thirst after righteousness, we are more than filled with the
righteousness of God. I do believe my God to be perfectly righteous,
not only in His Nature and Essence, in His Law and judgment, but also
in all His decrees, acts, words, and teachings. I sit down and
anxiously peer into the dreadful truth of the eternal perdition of the
wicked. But my heart is full of rest when I remember that God is
righteous–the Judge of all the earth must do right.

I cannot untie the knots of difficulty over which some men stand
perplexed, but I know that God is righteous, and there I leave my
bewilderments. God will see to it that the right thing is done in every
case and forevermore. Moreover, as I see how iniquity abounds in the
world, I am right glad that there is no iniquity in the Lord, my God.
As I see error in the Church, I rest in the fact that no error finds
countenance with Him. Wrongdoing seems to be everywhere–certain men
would rend away every man's property from him and the opposite order
would grind down the poor in their wages.

But this is our anchor–there is a power which makes for righteousness,
and that power is God. I am filled with joy as I see righteousness
enthroned in God. Do you not know this gladness?

Next, we are also filled with the righteousness of Christ. What if I am
sinful, what if I have no righteousness that I dare bring before God.
Yet–

"Jesus, Your blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress."
True, I have to cry with the leper, "Unclean, unclean." And yet, as a
Believer in the Lord Jesus, I am justified in Him, accepted in Him–and
in Him complete. God looks on me, not as Iam, but as Christ is. He sees
me through the perfect obedience of the Well-Beloved and I stand before
Him without condemnation., No, with full acceptance and favor. The more
you think of the righteousness of Christ, the more it will fill you
with grateful satisfaction–for His righteousness is far greater than
your unrighteousness.

Yet you will be crying all the same, "O Lord, perfect me in Your image,
and give me righteousness!" A fullness of Divine content, even to
running over, will be yours, while you sing, "There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." "Therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ." You will be satisfied, first, with the righteous character of
God, and next, with the plan of Divine righteousness revealed in Christ
Jesus.

Look at the sin of this world and groan over it. What a wicked world it
is! Read of wars and oppressions, falsehoods and superstitions. Or, if
you prefer, see with your own eyes the slums of East London, or the
iniquity of our great folks in West London. And then you will hunger
and thirst. But even concerning all this, you will be filled as you
think of the atonement of Christ and remember that it is more sweet to
God than all the sin of man is nauseous. The sweet savor of His
sacrifice has removed from the thrice-holy God the reek of this
dunghill world and He no longer says that it repents Him that He has
made man upon the earth. Because of Christ's righteousness, the Lord
God bears with guilty man and still waits, that He may be gracious to
the earth and make it anew in Christ Jesus.

Again, they that hunger and thirst after righteousness are filled with
the righteousness which the Holy Spirit works in them. I do not say
that they are satisfied to remain as they are, but they are very
grateful for what they are. I am a sinner but yet I do not love sin–is
not this delightful? Though I have to fight daily against corruption,
yet I have received an inner life which will fight and must fight and
will not be conquered. If I have not yet vanquished sin, it is
something to be struggling against it. Even now, by faith we claim the
victory. "Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ." Have you ever felt as if you were full to the brim, when
you knew that you were, "begotten again unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead"?

Have you not been filled with delight to know that you were no longer
what you used to be, but that you were now made a partaker of the
Divine nature and elevated into the spiritual sphere, wherein you have
fellowship with just men made perfect? Never despise what the Holy
Spirit has done for you. Never undervalue Divine Grace already
received. But, on the contrary, feel a Divine delight, a filling-up of
your heart, with what the Lord has already done. Within your soul,
perfection lies in embryo–all that you are yet to be is there in the
seed. Heaven slumbers in repentance, like an oak within an acorn. Glory
be to God for a new heart–glory be to God for life from the dead!

Here we are filled with thankfulness. And yet we go on hungering and
thirsting that the blessing which God has given may be more fully
enjoyed in our experience and displayed in our life.

Brethren, I can tell you when again we get filled with righteousness
and that is when we see righteousness increasing among our fellow men.
The sight of one poor child converted has filled my heart for a week
with joy unspeakable. I have talked frequently–I did last week–with
poor people who have been great sinners and the Lord has made them
great saints, and I have been as filled with happiness as a man could
be. A dozen conversions have set all the bells of my heart ringing
marriage-peals and kept them at it by the month together.

It is true that I might have remembered with sadness the multitudes of
sinners who are still perishing, and this would have made me go on
hungering and thirsting as I do. But still, a score or two of
conversions have seemed so rich a blessing that I have been filled with
joy even to overflowing. Then have I felt like good old Simeon, when he
said, "Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace: for mine eyes have
seen Your salvation." Do you not know what this means? Perhaps not, if
you are a big man and must do everything on a big scale.

But for a poor soul like I am, it has been Heaven enough to save a
single soul from death. I reckon it a great reward to save a little
child. It is bliss to me to bring a humble working man to the Lord's
feet and see him learning the way of righteousness. Oh, try it,
Beloved! Try and see if hunger after the souls of men will not be
followed by a fullness of delight, which will again lead on to further
hunger to bring back lost sheep to Christ's fold. You will never say,
"I have had many conversions, and therefore I am satisfied to have no
more." No, the more you succeed, the more you will hunger and thirst
that Christ' s kingdom may come in the hearts of the sons of Adam.

By-and-by we shall quit this mortal body and we shall find ourselves in
the disembodied state, "forever with the Lord." We shall have no ears
and eyes, but our spirit will discern and understand without these dull
organs. Set free from this material substance, we shall know no sin.
Soon will sound the resurrection trumpet and the spirit will enter the
refined and spiritualized body and perfected manhood will be ours. Then
the man will have his eyes but they will never cast a lustful glance.
He will have his ears, but they will never long for unclean talk. He
will have his lips but they will never

lie.

He will have a heart that will always beat truly and obediently–there
will be nothing amiss within his perfect manhood. Oh, what a Heaven
that will be to us! I protest that I want no other Heaven than to be
with Christ and to be like He is. Harps for music, and crowns for honor
are little as compared with the "kingdom of God and His righteousness."
Then shall we be filled with righteous society. You will not have to
watch your tongue, for fear somebody should make you an offender for a
word.

You will not be plagued with idle chit-chat and silly gossip when you
get to Heaven. You will hear no lying there, you will hear nothing that
derogates from the infinite majesty of the Most High. Everybody will be
perfect. Oh, will you not delight yourself in the abundance of
righteousness? And then your Lord will descend from Heaven with a shout
and the dead in Christ shall rise and He shall reign with them upon the
earth, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Then will come a thousand years of perfect peace and rest, and joy and
glory. And you will be there. What a swimming in a sea of righteousness
will be yours! You will then be like Christ in all things and all your
surroundings will agree with His. Heaven and earth shall link hands in
righteousness. Eternity will follow with its unbroken blessedness.
There shall be no impurity in the kingdom of the blessed God. No devil
to tempt, no flesh to corrupt, no want to worry, nothing to disturb.
But you will be–

"Far from a world of grief and sin, With God eternally shut in." Oh,
this will be to be filled with righteousness!

My Hearers, you will never be filled unless you hunger first. You must
hunger and thirst here, that you may be filled hereafter. If you are
hungering and thirsting, what should you do? Look to Jesus, for He
alone can satisfy you. Believe on our Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him
now, for He is made of God unto us righteousness. And if you want
righteousness you will find it in the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Only-Begotten Son of God.

I am sure those dear Friends who called out so loudly just now, will
join with me in crying out from the heart, "AMEN! AMEN!" May everybody
here begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness at once. Let us all
say, "AMEN."