Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matt. 5:3
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by
creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and
delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply
`things.' They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to
be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the
man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was
God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of
God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and
`things' were allowed to enter. Within the human heart `things' have
taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God
is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and
aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the
throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real
spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root
of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets
`things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns `my' and `mine'
look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is
significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better
than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms
of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into
things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have
become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's
gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset
by the monstrous substitution.
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His
disciples, `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall
lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.'
(Matt. 16:24-25).
Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it
would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at
our peril. Jesus called it `life' and `self,' or as we would say, the
self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words
`gain' and `profit' suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the
end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ's
sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life
eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective
way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross: `Let him take up his cross
and follow me.'
The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul
poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the
Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have
rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. They are `poor in
spirit.' They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward
circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is
what the word `poor' as Christ used it actually means. These blessed
poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the
yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by
surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess
all things. `Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'
Let me exhort you to take this seriously. It is not to be understood as
mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert
mass of other doctrines. It is a marker on the road to greener pastures,
a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God. We dare not
try to by-pass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit. We must
ascend a step at a time. If we refuse one step we bring our progress to
an end.
As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life
finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of
Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as
well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.
Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his
grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his
heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form
awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went
out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is
not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his
father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the
years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood
to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer
with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon
the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and
son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.
`Take now thy son,' said God to Abraham, `thine only son Isaac, whom
thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there
for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee
of.' (Gen 22:2) The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that
night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his
God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and
convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a
Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such
mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been
allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was
old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had
walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet
pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart
son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself
the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees.
How should he slay the lad! Even if he could get the consent of his
wounded and protesting heart, how could he reconcile the act with the
promise, `In Isaac shall thy seed be called'? This was Abraham's trial
by fire, and he did not fail in the crucible. While the stars still
shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac
lay, and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east, the
old saint had made up his mind. He would offer his son as God had
directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead. This,
says the writer to the Hebrews, was the solution his aching heart found
sometime in the dark night, and he rose `early in the morning' to carry
out the plan. It is beautiful to see that, while he erred as to God's
method, he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart. And the
solution accords well with the New Testament Scripture, `Whosoever will
lose... for my sake shall find...'
God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where
He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand
upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, `It's
all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the
lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I
might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that
existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him
and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that
thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.'
Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, `By myself I
have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless
thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the
heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall
possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.'
The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood
there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the
Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now
he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who
possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear
son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the
margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center; He chose
rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of
separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time.
It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.
I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man
rich? Everything he had owned before was still his to enjoy: sheep,
camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his
friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had
everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret.
There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in
the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook
this, but the wise will understand.
After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words `my' and
`mine' never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of
possession which they connote was gone from his heart. things had been
cast out forever.They had now become external to the man. His inner
heart was free from them. The world said, `Abraham is rich,' but the
aged patriarch only smiled. He could not explain it to them, but he knew
that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal.
There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of
the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is
rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are
tragic. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord
out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those
treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such
fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe
which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so
committed.
Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be
recognized for what they are, God's loan to us, and should never be
considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit
for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. `For who
maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst
not receive?'
The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will
recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to
find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough
within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what
should he do?
First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to
excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever
defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no
other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for
his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian
trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and
insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.
Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or
casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination
to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things
out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will
need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by
one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his
travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his
slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in
their dealings with God.
Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote
as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be
experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live
through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the
blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out
painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die
obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant
from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from
the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ
expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel
ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing
out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.
If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of
renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner
or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not
known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one
he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been
different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to
Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought
one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are
there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for
us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be
conditioned by the choice we make.
Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its
toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try
to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do
come. Please root from my heart all Those things which I have cherished
so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that
Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make
the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the
sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall
be no night there. In Jesus' name, Amen.