By The Rev. CHARLES G. FINNEY

Modernized by Cliff Collins

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

In each of the first eleven verses of this chapter, Christ presents the distinctive features of the Christian character, and affirms the blessedness of those who possess them. Today’s passage is one of these: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

In today’s message, I will show--

I. What does being poor in spirit imply?

II. Why are the poor in spirit blessed?

I. What does being poor in spirit imply?

1. To be poor in spirit implies that we realize what our true spiritual state is like. Realizing what our true spiritual state is like implies that we understand our own guilt and helplessness, and we realize, as a practical fact, that absolutely nothing within us is good. In fact, nothing within us even wants to do anything that is good. Now, it is one thing to believe this in theory, and another thing to be strongly aware of this humbling fact. Most professing Christians will admit, in words, that they are completely helpless and destitute all by themselves, but few know and feel this helplessness as an abiding practical conviction that this is their true spiritual condition!

2. Being poor in spirit implies that we see the tendency in us to gravitate towards everything evil, in its true light. Being poor in spirit implies that we understand that the habitual tendency or the way that we behave is selfish, that our appetites and tendencies are selfish, our whole soul, with all its power continually wants to be selfish.

3. Being poor in spirit implies realizing, with all our heart, that we must rely on the grace of God for help. I know people believe, in theory, that salvation is all grace, and they really believe that they don’t doubt this; but I also know that very many of these same people don’t really believe it: they don’t see it in such a way that they realize it as fact. Suppose you ask them, “Do you expect to be saved by your own works”? They will certainly say no. Then if you ask them, “do you depend on the grace of God”? They will say, “Yes”. However, to believe it as part of your creed, and to realize it as God’s truth, are two vastly different things.

4. Being poor in spirit implies a conviction that we depend on faith in Christ as the only possible way to obtain help. Many people also believe this in theory, and many actually think that they understand it, and yet, they don’t really understand it at all. Let me ask those of you here today, who have come to realize this fact, haven’t you been astonished to see how superficially you once believed the truth concerning salvation? In such a situation, who has not been shocked to see how you used to hold all the truths concerning the importance of man so loosely and heartlessly. You now realize that everything you believed was mere theory, none of it ever really reached your heart at all. To be poor in spirit implies being properly aware of the fact that we must depend on faith in Christ as the only possible way to obtain help in our helpless condition.

5. Being poor in spirit implies, the conviction down in our heart, that we must depend on God for faith; that we must depend on the sovereign working of God’s Holy Spirit, and the sovereign grace of God that is manifested through Christ, to produce this faith. I am not saying that there is nothing for us to do. There certainly is, and from the nature of salvation, we must be willfully involved; but we must be aware that without the Spirit of Christ we will no more exercise this faith, than we will get to heaven by our own works of obedience to the law. It is one thing to hold this as the doctrine of an orthodox creed, and quite another to feel it in our innermost being.

My own experience speaks strongly here. I was led to contemplate unbelief as a distinct sin, and it is inexcusable and deserves infinite guilt. The question came to me one day, “do you believe God as you believe men? Do you take His word and trust in His promise as you take the word and trust the promise of men?” The answer was unavoidable; no, I do not. I do not trust God’s promises as I trust man’s promises. Suddenly, my infinite wickedness was revealed and laid open to me, that I was not willing to trust in God’s promises and rest in them, even as firmly as I would trust in the word and promises of men.

I now saw it clearly. I saw the God-dishonoring, damning (for that’s how I viewed it) the God-dishonoring, damning fact that while I knew, and confessed, and saw clearly that God would not and could not lie, I really did not believe fully and with all my heart. I would not accept the word of the Mighty God as I would accept the word of frail and fallible man. And then, being led to see my absolute unbelief, I felt, in spite of my unbelief, that unless God desired to reveal Himself to me, in such a way that I could throw my soul on Him, I would sink. If God would not enlighten me and draw me to Himself by placing before my soul His goodness and truth in such a way that it would induce me to cast myself on Him by faith, I would drown. I felt that unless He would give me faith in Him, I was as certain to be damned as that I existed. Now this is what I mean by being aware that you must depend on God for faith.

However, we must be willing to depend on God this way. We must not merely see the fact, but we must be willing to depend on Him. We must see that we are condemned and that we are justly condemned for not being right; and for not being totally hopeless and helpless, and not depending on the sovereign love of God to work what is well pleasing in His sight. If we don’t see this, it is because we are depending on the sovereign grace of God by our voluntary wickedness.

6. Being poor in spirit implies a deep and abiding sense that we absolutely need a Savior to deliver us from our complete wickedness, and our helpless and just condemnation. Our mind must see and feel our guilt in such a sense that we are certain that our salvation is out of the question unless Christ shall substitute His death for ours as a ransom for our souls. We must have such a sense of our own vileness that it places any hope for our salvation completely out of the question, except through the sacrifice of Christ. Oh, it is easy to say we are helpless and that Christ is our only hope and we must depend on Him. It is easy to recite as our creed, “I believe that salvation is totally through Christ alone”. But how hard is it to see our vileness and guilt? How hard is it to see our abominable filthiness, our loathsomeness, and our hopeless condemnation unless we apply Christ to our souls in His offices and in His relations as Redeemer, Savior, Sanctifier, Teacher, and King? Without Christ, this is as difficult to know as knowing the sights and sounds around us without eyes and ears.

7. Not only does this passage of scripture imply a sense of our dependence on Christ, and our helplessness outside of Him, but this passage implies that we are a willing to depend on Christ. Being poor in spirit implies being willing to cling to Christ in all of His offices and relationships. It implies setting aside self, loathing of one’s self, renouncing self in everything, casting away all hope in ourselves, abandoning all dependence on ourselves. Being poor in spirit implies relinquishing all trust in our own wisdom, our own righteousness, or our efforts at sanctification, and everything else that is our own. These things are implied in our passage today, which says, “blessed are the poor in spirit”. In short, being poor in spirit is a correct view of our completely helpless state, realizing that fact, and having disposition of soul that corresponds to those views.

It is now time for me to show:

II. Why are those who are poor in spirit blessed?

1. They are blessed because the kingdom of God is within them! Our passage says, “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. They already have the first elements of the kingdom of God within them.

2. They are blessed because flesh and blood has never revealed this to them. Before, they might have received it as mere doctrine after the flesh, but when they come to feel and realize their state in its dreadful manifestations, flesh and blood does not reveal this to them, but God uncovers the deep vileness of their souls with His own hand and commits Himself to their cure.

3. They are blessed because they have already overcome the greatest difficulty that stands in the way of their salvation. Christ provides them with a feasible method of salvation, so God can be just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. But the greatest problem today is to make humanity see their need for Christ. It is a tremendous work to make men feel hopeless, to humble them, to tear away their self-dependence and self-righteousness, and to destroy the notion that they have resources in themselves to do good things. God is constantly engaged in bringing about this result. When a man has come to know himself and to renounce all his self-dependence and hope in everything, then, trust me, he overcomes the greatest difficulty, and endures the most important discipline.

4. This part is also the most painful part. To slay him, to tear away the last fiber of hope in his own righteousness or in his efforts to seek after righteousness, and burn in on his soul a sense of his real abominable wickedness and hopeless ruin in himself, costs more trouble, more patience, and more loathing of soul and anguish of spirit than anything else. How many times must he be infinitely ashamed of himself? How far must he sink into the lowest pit of shame, before he hates himself with unutterable loathing! How often must he be compelled in agony to exclaim, “What an infinite wretch I was? How full of pride and of hell I was, and how little I knew about it”? God must mortify him so many times in order to empty him of himself. He must weep, agonize, grieve, and despair again and again. He must undergo a perpetual dying, for it is indeed a perpetual dying, as long as he is passing through this process of having his self revealed to himself. He sees this sin and that sin. He is ashamed here and ashamed there. He is mortified at every turn. He flirts with temptation, brakes his resolutions, falls into shameful sins, is vexed and angry with himself, and he is ready to spit in his own face. He stumbles, plunges, flounders, and falls, until, at last, all hope vanishes and the soul lies down, weary and worn out by vain struggles, and he gives up in despair.

All this is painful enough; but once he goes through this, be begins to understand himself thoroughly. He becomes poor in spirit, glad to renounce all self, ready to part with his own righteousness, wisdom, and self-dependence, because they all amount to nothing. When he is thoroughly crucified this way, the most painful work is done. If he falls from this, then he must start completely over; but let him remain in this state of mind, let him remain poor in spirit, and the rocks and breakers are almost completely behind him.

5. That person is blessed because he is now at the place where he is prepared for the Lord to apply the remedy for his disease. He now has an attitude that pleases Christ. Christ has been working towards the day when that person is ready to receive Him. Until now, Christ had been trying to crown Himself as Lord of his life, but his heart and soul has been all wrong and this is what Christ has been constantly and relentlessly battling. Christ would knock and knock, but, to use a weak analogy, he runs around trying to tidy up, and sweep out his heart, and trying to get his heart right like an untidy housekeeper, who is not willing to let Christ in until he cleans up his heart. He tries to make his life a little better instead of letting Christ in right away, and saying, “Lord, do you see the filth and rubbish that is in my life”? He forces the Lord to knock and keep knocking and to stand outside until His head is wet with dew, and His hair is dripping with moisture. The sinner is preparing himself because he wants to become righteous before he comes to be saved. But when Christ finally convinces him that he is completely helpless, and that the more he tries to wash and cleanse his polluted life, the more polluted he becomes, and everything he tries only sinks him deeper into the horrible pit. Then, then the soul is ready to receive Christ in all His offices and relationships. Finally, the soul is ready to receive a whole Christ, just like He is presented in the gospel.

6. This person is blessed because, in a sense, he has already learned what the remedy is. He has learned to reject himself, and that his dependence must be completely and forever on some one other than himself. He has learned how blessed it is to be nothing, to know and do nothing of himself, to be universally dependent on Christ for everything, for breath, for grace, for faith, for everything, and to have Christ as his “all and in all”. (See 1 Cor 15:28)

7. He is blessed because he learns how wonderful it is to trust Christ. He sees such fullness in Christ, that he doesn’t want any strength of his own. His wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption are in Christ, and he needs and wants no wisdom or righteousness of his own. Christ is all he needs, and he needs nothing in himself. He has everything he needs in Christ, and he is willing and glad to have these things in Him.

8. He is blessed because he has learned how to be composed in the midst of all kinds of trials. He doesn’t have to resort to trusting in himself. He knows in whom his strength lies. He knows who is his strong tower. He can depend on Christ for everything, and he knows that Christ cannot fail him. But let me say,

9. He is blessed because he has no self-interest. He knows by experience that he is perfectly destitute and worthless. He has no reputation to build up, he has no appetite to gratify, no passion to cater to, none of these to contend for or hold on to. He is emptied out, drained, and every particle of self-value is completely gone. He labors not for himself, but for Christ.

10. He is blessed because to be poor in spirit is to be rich in faith. He is poor in the proper sense, emptied of his dependence on self; but he is rich in faith.

REMARKS.

1. It is now easy to see what Paul meant when he said “When I am weak, then am I strong”. (2 Cor 12:10) Do you know that Paul had a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him? At first, he was very uneasy about it, and he sought the Lord three times to remove it, but Christ told him that “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness”. (2 Cor 12:9) It is as if Christ had said, “I will not remove that thorn. I gave it to you to keep you under such a pressure of infirmity that you will never forget your dependence on me.” Paul then gloried in his infirmity. He says he gloried in infirmities, tribulations, and persecutions, because they emptied him of himself, and made Christ his strength. They made him know his weakness and his strength. When he was weak in himself, he was strong in Christ. His trials kept a sense of his complete dependence on Christ alive within him, and thus it prepared him to do all things through Christ who strengthened him.

2. If you are poor in spirit, you are in a highly spiritual state. People are often in a spiritual state without even knowing it. In talking to Christians, I have often been stunned by the sad error they make concerning their spiritual frame of mind. They often regard certain pleasurable emotions as the highest spiritual states, while they treat the other emotional states, which can exist only under a high degree of the Spirit’s influence, as having little or no importance at all. Is a state, where people see themselves all empty and worthless, where they must depend on God’s goodness, a state of weak spirituality? Is this state, where they depend on God to make them into whatever He pleases, whether it is vessels of wrath or vessels of mercy, a state of poor spirituality? Is this state, where they see how infinitely reasonable it is for God to deal with them the way He does, a state of low spirituality? Is this state, where it is just for God to totally rely on His own wisdom and not consult His creatures at all, a state of deficient spirituality? Is this state, where they lie in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter, so that God can mold from those filthy lumps vessels of honor or dishonor as it seems good in His sight, a state of frail spirituality? When they feel like a piece of clay in the potters hand, and lie crucified and dead even to the least idea of self-dependence, is this a state of imperfect spirituality? No! Certainly not! A state that is more spiritual than this can hardly exist! If you are poor in spirit, you totally renounce self, and this is as far as possible from a carnal state of mind.

3. This state of spiritual poverty is a very healthy state of mind to be in. It is good for you for God to lay you in the dust, to empty, and strip you naked and bare, and lay you in the dust and keep you there. This is the only state of mind that is safe. I have great hopes for anyone who God keeps in such a state.

4. Certain forms or stages of this spiritual poverty are very disheartening. When Christ shows individuals the depths of their misery, it seems as if it is bottomless. Now if Christ doesn’t give the revelation of Himself, and the revelation of His intention to do for them everything He can possibly do, to give them a firm hope, they will feel greatly disheartened. They experience such a sinking away from all expectation in themselves, that unless Christ gives them an indication of His love, and opens a medium of communication between Him and them, a state of great misgiving and anxious suspense will result. They come into a state of mind where they do not rebel. They don’t murmur or weary themselves except in this; they don’t see their acceptance with God at the time. They feel that God would be just in casting them out, and they lie there with their eyes fixed on Christ, and so they cry, “If God does not pick me up, and by His self-moved goodness sanctify and save me, I am lost for all eternity”.

Although there is nothing in his mind, that he can grab a hold of as present evidence that Christ is his, his renouncing and emptying of himself will leave him somewhat depressed, but he is not in despair. I don’t really know how describe this. His mind is not joyful, nor is it in the agony that accompanies a desperate resistance to clear light; but it is depressed. It is like he is in mourning, and perhaps that is what the word “mourning” means in the next verse, “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted”. The soul mourns like that when it is completely emptied of all self-trust, but it hasn’t yet gotten such a hold on Christ that it feels assured of its interest in Him. It mourns for sin. It mourns for its own wickedness. It mourns at the thought of being separated from God. It mourns over its lost condition. It is a state of perfect mourning. If you have experienced it, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you have experienced what it is like to be driven out of self, and torn away from self, and crucified to self, before you had the faith to grab a hold of Christ and feel Him place you on solid rock, you know what I am saying. If you have ever been emptied of self, if you ever had no more expectation of helping yourself than you have of creating a universe, you can agree with what I say. If you have ever come to the place where you have no more thought or intention of trying to save yourself, or of doing anything effective for yourself, than you have of walking in mid air, or walking across hot coals, you no more think of helping yourself than of going on a journey to Europe by trying to cross the Atlantic on foot. Once you settle in your mind, that no matter what you do, you will never succeed in earning your salvation, any more than you would succeed in walking from the top of a house into mid air, what I have shared with you will become real to you. If you have gotten to this place in your life, yet, at the same time, the positions and relations of Christ have never been so revealed to you that it has enabled you to take advantage of them, then you know the mourning that I am talking about. It is anything but a worldly sorrow. It is anything but an ungodly sorrow. It is a sorrow after a godly sort that produces life. And remember, a person needs to be thoroughly emptied of self in order to come into the state of mourning that I have just mentioned. Most people have so much self reliance, so much complacency in self, and they know so little of themselves, that they cannot enter into this state. The only way this state can be produced is by showing a man his character and nothingness as they really are.

5. Such seasons as these very commonly come before great spiritual growth. Anytime you witness great spiritual growth, ask and you will find that the more deep and abiding this spiritual growth is, the more thorough and complete is the season of spiritual poverty. If one’s sense of poverty is slight, spiritual growth will be slight. The opposite is also true. If one’s spiritual growth is great, that person can tell you things that only spiritual minds can tell you. I am talking about the kind of experience that only the person who feels it knows, and the things that he will tell you will be anything but unreasonable. He sees what common eyes never saw. He has found out what all men should know, but what few have seen. If his spiritual growth lasts, he will have a rich history to share. He may not say a lot, but fish him out, get to the bottom of his heart, and he will drop his eyes and tell you what he found in himself. He will tell you how he found himself out, how he sank, and kept sinking from one depth to another, lower and lower, until he felt as if he were sinking into the bottomless pit itself. He was driven from his last hold upon himself, the last link was broken, and he fell into the arms of Christ and was saved. And Oh, the salvation! Such a salvation is worth having!

6. Christ has no pleasure in causing you to become poor in spirit, except it is the only way to get Himself before your mind. There is no other way. Only by revealing to us our own weakness and sin by bitter experience, can He make us renounce ourselves and cast our all upon Him. That is why He works this way in our lives. And I tell you, no man can have a more important revelation from God, than this revelation of self by the Holy Spirit. And no man sees God in Christ, or understands what Christ can do for the soul, until he sees himself, until he sees the old man as he really is, and he sees the need to put on the new man.

7. These periods of spiritual poverty are necessary if we want to hold on to Christ. Look at that young convert. Young converts know little about themselves or about Christ. They run well for a while, but they must be taught more about Christ, and they can only learn this by learning more about themselves. Christ begins His work in the convert. The convert is all joy at first, but his countenance falls. Poor child! Don’t scold him. He is sad; he is even afraid to indulge in a hope. What is the matter? He is sad and depressed. You encourage him to trust in Christ and rejoice in Him. But no, that will not solve the problem. That does not remove his burden.

Christ has begun a work in him. Christ has begun the work of revealing Him to that new convert, and the work will cost that poor soul many prayers, tears, groans, and a lot of loathing and heart searching. He prayed before for sanctification and he was astonished beyond measure. He received just about everything in the world but sanctification. He prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, and he really expected a beautiful experience. He thought he should see the heavens opened as Stephen did. But, instead of this, what happened? He feels as if he at the mercy of the tender mercies of sin. Every appetite and lust seems to rise up to attack him; his passions take over; he frets, and grieves, and vexes himself, and repents and sins again. He is shocked and ashamed of himself. He is afraid to look up. He is ashamed and confounded. Poor soul! He prayed for sanctification, and he expected Christ would smile right through the darkness, and light up his soul with unutterable joy. But no! Everything is confusion and darkness. He is stumbling, and sliding, and floundering, and plunging headlong into the mire, until his own clothes seem to hate him, and he is brought to the place where he cries out, “Lord, O Lord, have mercy on me!”

He expected some fantasyland! He expected to lie down in a bed of roses, but he found thorns. He found a desert: barren, dark, and full of traps, snares, and pitfalls. It seems as if the very earth itself is conspiring with the universe to ruin him. Child do not be discouraged. Christ is answering your prayer. Cold professing Christians may discourage you, but don’t be discouraged; you may weep and groan, but you are going through a necessary process. To know Christ, you must know yourself; to have Christ come in, you must empty yourself. How will He do this for you? He will, if you will only let go of yourself. If you will only believe everything that God says about you, and renounce yourself immediately, right now, you might be spared many a fall; but if you refuse, you will believe only by experience, and hence, Christ will make sure that you have that experience to the fullest. And now, listen: whoever expects to be sanctified without a full, clear, and heart-sickening revelation of his own loathsomeness, without being first shown how much he needs sanctification, is very wrong. Until you learn that, nothing you can do, can provide victory in you lives. You are not prepared to receive Christ as He is offered in the gospel.