All right, we are in Psalm 86 tonight. As I was updating the notes, I decided to pull back and look at just verse one. I hope that doesn't disappoint you too much. We'll get into this tonight. Verse one of Psalm 86. I encourage you to memorize scripture. Sometimes when you read the same scripture many times, you just automatically remember it. Maybe not word for word, but at least the gist of it. And so perhaps this verse tonight will be one of those that we go over it enough that it will become part of your thoughts, your prayers, and you will recall it to mind and be comforted because it is God's word to us. But before we do that, I want to begin with a word of prayer. Keep Elaine Grimsley in your prayers. We were just talking to her. She had to go into the hospital Sunday and doctors are still searching to find out what the cause of that was. So keep Elaine and Jerry in your prayers. Also, our good friends Rick and Barbie. The doctors are still looking to figure out what's going on with him. He's up and around, but he's still experiencing different degrees of pain in his side due to whatever's going on inside of him. So keep Rick and Barbie in your prayers if you would also. Then, dear Deanne is suffering from the sadness of the loss of her husband, Cass, and even though that was last year, it's affecting her. And so, keep her in your prayers. Sadness is something that the Lord, we want the Lord to correct it. want to correct it with man-made solutions, we want the Lord to minister to her, so keep Deanne also in your prayers. Okay, we're going to open with a word of prayer and then we'll get into this study. Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ through whom and by whom alone we come to you. We trust that when He came to you, offering His precious blood, that He brought us with Him. That when He rose from the dead, that we were then with Him. That when He ascended on high and took His place at the right hand of God, having substituted Himself for us, that we then were to occupy that place with Him in glory. And Lord, we pray that Your will would be done. It's done in heaven. We pray that it would be done on earth in our experience and throughout the world, that you would glorify your name by calling your people to yourself through the gospel, directing us to your dear son, our savior, and that we would trust him in all things. Help those that we know who suffer affliction. We pray you'd be with Rick and Barbie. And Elaine and Jerry, especially Elaine and Rick, with their physical afflictions, and also dear Deanne Hodson, we pray you'd be with her too, Lord, and comfort her concerning her husband and concerning other things too. And we pray, Lord, that You would forgive us our sins, that You would be with those who have any pain and affliction of their bodies. We know so many in our congregation that do, and we pray that You'd be with them. It seems like everyone we know has some physical affliction. We pray that You would meet their needs. And direct our hearts to You, dear Lord, in all of our physical ups and downs and our troubles, we pray, Lord, that you would direct our hearts, our souls to you, and you would cause us to come to you through the Lord Jesus Christ. He it is whom we ask you would make our intercessor, our advocate, our answer, our surety, our all. And we pray these things for your glory, for your namesake, and for our salvation. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, Psalm 86, and I want to read verse 1 with you tonight. It says, Oh Lord, I'm sorry, Psalm 86, bow down thine ear, Oh Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. So we actually talked some about this last week, and we talked about the the outline of this psalm, how that the psalm itself opens in the first seven verses with all of these petitions. There are at least four or five requests that are made known here, and for each of the requests there's a corresponding reason that's given with this little word, for. So, for example, in this first one, he says, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy. And so the word for there is the reason that he, this man of God, gives in his prayer to God to bow down his ear and to hear him. We know when he asks the Lord to hear him, he's not asking him to just hear his voice, but to hear his need. and to meet his need, to do what he asks, what he really truly needs. And he's really asking the Lord to hear his need with God's wisdom. So it's one thing for us to think we know what we need, it's another thing to take our needs to the Lord and ask him to do what pleases him. And that's what we truly need is for Him to do all of His pleasure because truly our confidence, our trust, our assurance is in the Lord providing for us according to His will. If He is all holy, and we know that He is, if He is good and He can't do wrong, and we know that He is, if His word never fails, if His power is almighty, And if he does whatever he will from eternity to everlasting ages, then we know that we want the Lord to do his will in all of our lives. And so we pray this. So then I want to look though here, he's asking the Lord to bow down his ear. This is a very large request, isn't it? For God to hear a man is a great stoop on God's part. But I want to look at these words here when he says, Hear me, for I am poor and needy. Now, one of the things I want to point out here is that being poor and needy is God's description of all people in an objective sense. All of us really have nothing. It says in scripture that God not only created all things out of nothing, which if you think about it just for a moment, you realize therefore that God created us when we were nothing. And so that means that we had nothing when God created us and of his own will he created us. So that's true of all creation and it's true of all men. So in that sense, all people are objectively poor and needy. But we're also poor and needy in a spiritual sense because even though God created all things, he also made man in his own image. Adam was created in the image of Christ to come. And in that image of man, Adam fell. And so we all fell in Adam and we spiritually became even more poor and needy. Now we were spiritually in the dark. We were spiritually dead in our sins. So that objectively is true of all people. But there's another sense where the scripture often uses it, and in this case it does. Poor and needy not only refers to these things objectively, but to us in our own experience. And so when I think of it that way, it's our sense of being poor and needy. And sometimes this feeling of being poor and needy makes us distraught. It leaves us feeling poor and needy emotionally, physically, and that can actually lead to physical sickness. What does the proverb say? I think it says something like this, a broken spirit dryeth the bones. So it's true that when our spirit is brought low, then we suffer all over, because our soul is the center of what we are and who we are. And that sense of being poor and needy is a very difficult thing to bear. It's difficult to bear. And yet, There's something that is true in having this sense of our spiritual poverty that makes us call on the Lord. And that's what is being done in this psalm. The psalmist is calling on the Lord because he is poor and needy. And so when he says this in verse one, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me for I am poor and needy. That's why he's calling. Lord, I need you to bow. I need you to bow low. because I'm poor and needy. God has to bow very low to me because I am poor and needy. It's true of me and I have some sense of it as well. God has said so in his word that I'm poor and needy. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And he gave a parable in Luke chapter 7 of two men who owed a huge sum of money, and neither of them had anything to pay. And when they had nothing to pay, their creditor frankly forgave them both. And so that's a poverty that we have. The wages or the payback, if you will, what we earn, the wages of sin, what we earn by sinning against God is a debt. And that debt amounts to a payment that we have to pay. And that is our death. We have to endure death. And not just physical. but physical and spiritual and eternal death. And so that's the wage. That's what God pays us. That's the justice that we have to satisfy. That's what we have to pay back to God. We have to balance the scales, but we can't do it. We don't have anything to pay. So in that sense, we're very poor, aren't we? We're in debt and we have nothing to pay. It's not like we just have no money. That's true, too. We have no spiritual money. But we also are in debt, and so we have a deficit. But in this condition of being in debt to God because of our sin, debt of criminal debt, really, because we've sinned against the God of heaven, Our sin is against God, like David said in Psalm 51, I've sinned against thee and thee only have I sinned. That's true of us. We need God to stoop. And if God were to bow down and hear us, it has to be a very, very low stoop, doesn't it? A very low stoop. And so this man is praying that way. Is there any merit? Is there anything that we earn from God by being poor and needy? To ask the question shows the upside down thinking that we have. There's nothing that we gain by being poor and needy because we obviously are admitting we don't have anything. Job said, I am vile. He didn't earn something by coming to that recognition of his true condition. I am vile. And admitting it didn't make it go away, it didn't fix it. What he was just saying is that he's come to the same view, the same truth about himself that God has always known. And now he's expressing it, I am vile. Isaiah said, woe is me, woe is me. Woe, woe, woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the Lord. And so he knew something about his poverty before God. The Apostle Peter, when he saw Jesus, he said, depart from me, Lord, I am a sinful man. He felt his sin, that he was separate from God. He couldn't bear the thought of being in the presence of someone so holy, and yet the Lord didn't send him away, did he? So these are all expressions, and we can go on and on. This is the response of someone who realizes their poverty, but that doesn't earn them. bring anything from God, that doesn't compensate God, it doesn't pay Him back for anything, and it doesn't earn credit from God, that He would owe us anything. And this is something that's fundamental, but something we don't naturally realize until the Lord states it clearly in Scripture, and until we think about it by His grace. And that is, God is never any man's debtor. You see, this is something that's so fundamental. God never is a debtor. He's always a creditor. And so, if you think about scripture, like Acts 17, 24, and 25, where the apostle Paul told those people, on Mars Hill, God created all things and he gives to all life, breath and all things. And he's not worshipped with men's hands as if he needed anything. So because he gives everyone all that they have. He gave us life when we were, before we were created, he created us. When we were not conceived, he conceived us in the womb of our mother. He gave us life from our mother's womb. And he continues to sustain our life. So this is true, and it's a fundamental truth of scripture. No one has ever, no one has ever first given to God. that it should be paid back to him again. I'll read that to you from Romans chapter 11 and verse 35 and 36. He says this, verse 34 says, For who hath known the mind of the Lord, who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him? And it shall be recompensed to him again. There's that principle. God is never a debtor. He cannot be a debtor. And so that's the reason why God cannot justify anyone because of their works, because no one can pay God, no one can earn from God. He's always the giver. He's the giver and his gifts to us are of his own will, not of our earning. It says, who has first given to him and it shall be recompensed to him again, for of him and through him, talking about the Lord, of Him, of the Lord, and through the Lord, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. So that's the principle first. So our sense of our poverty, our sense of our need, therefore, can't earn us anything. First of all, because God will not be our debtor and we don't have any merit by being bankrupt. But secondly, even the sense of our need and the sense of our poverty, our spiritual poverty itself is the gift of God. God has to give it to us. He has to give us repentance. He has to give us life. He has to give us faith. He has to give us his spirit. And all these things come to us as a gift from God out of his grace because he gave all things to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So these gifts that we have of His grace that we know in our own experience, faith and this sense of our poverty and our need, our realization of our need, those are gifts from God. So no, they can't earn us anything. Our poverty doesn't earn us merit before God. How could we be meritorious when we're poor? We have nothing. To be poor means I have nothing. And that's why in scripture, like for example, Isaiah 55, it says, he that has no money, has no money, come buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without price and without money. Okay, so that's our situation. It's always coming to God as an empty handed beggar. Throughout all eternity, we will be on a welfare system. God will always be giving. We will always be receiving. And even our worship will be a gift from God to return to Him what is due to His name. And we need to carry that attitude deeply in our souls. And so this verse says it well, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me for I am poor and needy. And this sense of being poor and needy is what caused him to say to the Lord, to ask Him to bow down. I'm poor and needy, I have nothing, therefore you're going to have to stoop very low to me, because I'm a man. And for God to think I'm a man is a very low stoop. Okay, so that's the first thing. Now, in Psalm 69, in verse 29, it says this, and this is a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I could give you a few verses in Psalm 69 to show this to you. But in Psalm 69, for example, in verse 4, They that hate me without a cause, that's quoted in John 15 by the Lord Jesus, and applied to himself, they hated me without a cause according to the scripture. So that's one thing in this psalm. And he also says in this psalm, in verse 7, for thy sake I have borne reproach, shame has covered my face, and that was true of Christ. He says, I have become a stranger, in verse 8, to my brethren. I'm an alien to my mother's children. He says in verse nine, for the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. That's from John chapter two. And so, and then he says in, let's see, I was looking for this one. Oh, in verse 21, they gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. So you can see that this is speaking prophetically about the Lord Jesus. And I just want to establish that because look at verse 29. He says, I am poor and sorrowful. Let thy salvation, O Lord, set me up on high. I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with thanksgiving. The Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, depended on God, His Father, completely, 100%. He always depended upon His Father and His God. As a man, the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly trusted God. And he leaned, he rolled himself upon him. In Psalm 22, those words, if you have a Bible where they have the margins, and sometimes they explain the words in the margins. In verse 8 of Psalm 22, the enemies of Christ accused him of this. They said, he trusted on the Lord. that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. That was Christ's claim. The Lord delights in me and I delight in him. And he trusted. It means he rolled himself upon the Lord, his God. So in all these things, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ himself was poor and needy. And it's important that we see that because who is Christ to us? Well, he's many things to us, but one of the things he is to us is our master, our master. And as our master, one of the things he does is teach us. But he's not like an earthly master who says but doesn't do. Whatever the Lord says, he has done. He is himself what he teaches. He not only says it and does it, but is himself that that he teaches. Remember in Matthew chapter 11, he says, come unto me, all you, that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. You see, he's the master. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the master, is saying this about himself, that he is poor, he is needy. So when we, and he thanks God from Psalm 69, verse 29 and 30, he thanks God because he owes his God. As a man, he owes him life, he owes him everything, and he came to do his will as a servant. He's a son, yes, he's the son of man, and he came to serve his father. And we can establish that in many scriptures, but I'm not gonna do that right now. So Christ himself was poor and needy, and so we see that first of all. So let me ask this, why does the Lord, this question hopefully will give us insight into these things, why does the Lord, Why does he delight in the poor and the needy? If it's not a merit on our part, if it doesn't earn God to hear us, then God hears us for a reason. What is the reason? Why does God hear the poor and the needy? Is there something about us that makes him hear us? Or is there something in himself? And the answer, of course, is it's what he finds in himself. It's for reasons in himself. The first reason that God hears the poor and needy is because he is the giver of all. We already established that. No one first gives to him. to get a payback from Him. God always gives. God is the creditor. We're the debtors. And we're the ones who are indebted to Him with a debt that we owe of thanksgiving. We will always owe a debt of thanksgiving. We can never pay it. fully, but we will always be indebted. And it's not like we'll be under a sense of guilt because of this thanksgiving that we owe to God, but a sense of gladness that God provides us with the grace to know that we owe him this debt of thanksgiving and it's our highest privilege then to give him praise for it. In fact, as I thought about these things, this first verse of Psalm 86, bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me for I'm poor and needy. This is really a prayer that is a prayer of praise. This prayer for asking God to hear us is really praise itself to God. You see, when we realize that God is the giver of everything, then when we ask Him to give out of His goodness, out of His grace, out of His riches, and we own our own bankruptcy, our own poverty, even the guilt, the debt of guilt that we owe Him to His justice, then what are we doing? We are of the same mind of the truth revealed by God in Scripture, aren't we? And that's praise. to speak the same things as God, to confess our true condition as God has revealed it, and to confess and to own His character as He has revealed it. That's giving praise to God. That's glorifying God. And so the first reason then that God hears the poor and needy is because that's who God is, the giver of all things. And it is his glory to be the giver of all things. There's no other one but God who gives us all things. Idolaters will make their idols to be the giver of blessings and such, and people on earth commonly refer to creation as the giver of so much. The sun, the moon, the stars, these are just attributing to creation what, a credit that's due only to God the creator. So it's to the Lord that we owe all things. And we have to remember when we say these things that we know that God created all things by Jesus Christ. Remember Ephesians chapter three verse nine, God created all things by Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the one in Colossians 1.16 where it says, of him and through him are all things. He's before all things and by him all things consist. and all things were created by Him and for Him. So the Lord Jesus Christ is also God, because He also is the creator and also the giver of all things. So we come to God, first of all, and He hears us, first of all, because that's who God is. He's the one who hears those who have need. And this coming to Him as poor and needy is coming to Him with the gift of His grace to us to own our poverty and our need before Him. It's a good thing. It's a good thing to come to the Lord as a needy beggar, isn't it? Now, to convince us, one more verse I want to tell you about in Job 35, verses 6-7, that we don't give anything to God. Neither do we not give anything to Him, but we can't bring an injury to God. He says in Job 35 verse 6, If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? Or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou to him? Our sins don't hurt God, but he's not overthrown by our sins. God is You know, puny man can't hurt God. And the next verse in Job 35 verse 7, if thou be righteous, what givest thou him? Or what receiveth he of thine hand? So this is taking both sides. You're not going to benefit him. You're not going to injure him. The Lord is the Lord and his creation and all things have to answer to him. So that's the first reason. Now, I want to read a couple more verses to you about this poor and needy, so you can see how the Lord himself is revealing his own character and how he is delighted, how he is pleased to meet the needs of the poor and the needy. In Isaiah 66, Isaiah 66 and verse one, it says, thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where's the house that you build to me? And where is the place of my rest? That's saying the same thing we've been saying. How can you build me a house? The heaven is my throne. The earth is my footstool. What are you going to build me? Then he says in verse two, for all those things have my hand made and all those things have been, saith the Lord. But to this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word. So if we need something from God, what is the first thing that we need then? We need him to give us a poor, a contrite spirit, and a heart that trembles at his word. That's consistent with the fact that we're poor, that we're needy, that he's the giver of all, that him by giving to us these things, he is honoring himself as God. And we're utterly dependent upon Him. There's nothing we can do apart from His grace. So that's the first thing we ask Him. Lord, give me this, this poor and contrite spirit and cause me to tremble at Your word, not at man's word. Not a creation, but at your word. All right. The other thing is in Psalm 72. In Psalm 72, in verse 11, it says, Yea, all kings shall fall down before him. All nations shall serve him, for he shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also and him that has no helper. So who will God deliver? The poor, the needy, the one who has no helper. He shall spare the poor and the needy, and He shall save the souls of the needy. So that encourages me to go to the Lord and say, Lord, make me needy. See me in my need and save my soul. Because we don't have anything. We have to start with God. God has to do this. He has to see our need, he has to meet our need, and he's going to see our need and meet our need in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Psalm 72 going on in verse 14, he says, he shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. He said at the beginning, where I started reading there in Psalm 72 verse 11, all kings shall fall down before him and all nations shall serve him. And that's what in Psalm 86 and verse 9, if we were to go on further in Psalm 86 where we are tonight, in verse 9 he says, all nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee. So you can see that the coming of these nations to worship God is the result of God delivering the poor and the needy, those who have no helper, those he spares, those he saves. So these nations, therefore, must correspond to the poor and the needy. So they're the nations or the Lord's people out of all nations under heaven. All right, now I want to start from here. I want to consider some examples of those in scripture who are poor and needy. And I just want to take a few samples because there's a lot of them. Remember Joseph? Remember Joseph? His brother sold him as a slave into Egypt. First they were going to kill him, then they said, no, no, no. Judah said, no, no, don't kill him, let's sell him. And they agreed, okay, let's sell him, sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelites, who were obviously opposed to the descendants of Isaac. because Ishmael and Isaac were both born to Abraham, but one was the child of the bondwoman, one was the child of the free. Ishmael persecuted Isaac, and his children persecuted the children of the promise, which the Israelites were. But in any case, Joseph's brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites, who then sold him to Egypt. in Egypt as a slave, first to Potiphar, then from Potiphar he was cast into prison, and he served the prison guard in prison. So this was a low thing for Joseph, wasn't it? It was a very low thing. He served as a slave, under Potiphar and under the prison keeper, and yet it was God's design. Of course it was, because he was there. It had to be God's design, because it wouldn't have happened if it weren't his design, but it was. It was God's design for a special reason, and that reason was to save the disobedient sons of Jacob. Remember those who actually sold him into Egypt? The reason that God sent Joseph to Egypt was to save those rebels. those haters of Joseph. And how would God save them? Well, obviously it was through Joseph becoming a slave. The Lord designed to save Joseph's hateful brethren by sending Joseph into a state of humiliation as a slave. And it was at their hands. And so you can see in that when I say those words, hopefully you see that this is prefiguring Christ. Because it was, and according to Acts 2 and verse 23, it was by God's determinate counsel and foreknowledge that by wicked hands, Christ was taken and crucified, wasn't it? But again, Peter preached at that very reference to that fact that God designed the death of Christ to be by the wicked hands of those men who crucified him, God also sent Peter, the Lord Jesus sent Peter, to preach to those same men. And so you see that Joseph prefigured Christ. You see the humility of Joseph, don't you? By God's design and by God's arrangement, God arranged it, he was brought low, very low, for years. I think he was 32 or 33, I can't remember when he was appointed by Pharaoh over the land of Egypt, but he was 17 when he was sold, so there was a good 15 years or so where he was a slave. That's a long time. Alright, so there's Joseph, that's an example of a poor and needy man, you can see by God's design. It pleased God through the humiliation of Joseph to save a sinful people. That was God's design, just like it pleased God through the death of Christ at the hands of wicked men. crucifying him out of hatred, murderous hatred, to save some of them. Amazing, amazing grace. Then there was Daniel. Remember Daniel, who was taken into Babylon when God brought the entire nation of Judah and Jerusalem, the city, to Babylon by the Babylonians, King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel was one who was brought into that captivity. And what happened to Daniel while he was there? Well, one of the things that happened is that the presidents under King Nebuchadnezzar rose up and plotted against Daniel to have him killed. and they created this funny situation where King Darius was made to agree to a law that couldn't be changed, couldn't be undone, because that's the way the Medes and the Persians, the law of the Medes and the Persians was, once it was written down and the king signed it, it couldn't be changed or altered. And so the king was tricked into making this law that no one could pray or ask anyone anything except him. So Daniel, according to his faithfulness, he prayed to God. And these same men who plotted against Daniel accused him then to King Darius, and King Darius had to follow through. And Daniel was cast into the den of lions. He was brought low, wasn't he? He was brought under the sentence of death. And if you remember in the book of Daniel, Daniel, I mean, King Darius then laid awake all night wondering how he could deliver Daniel out of the lion's den, but he couldn't undo his word. So what happened? God delivered him. God stopped the mouths of the lions. And so this again is teaching us that the Lord Jesus Christ was delivered by God. Even though justice wouldn't let him go, God brought his people. and the Lord Jesus out of death. He overcame death in the resurrection of Christ because justice was fully satisfied. But then Daniel, after he was delivered, he prayed in Daniel chapter nine as an advocate for all of the nation and he made intercession to God and he himself owned the guilt of their sin when he prayed to God and asked God to deliver them for his sake, for the Lord's sake. And so, of course, the Lord did. And so Daniel was brought low and Daniel was heard by God. It pleased God. It delighted God to do this because this is God's nature to save people, to save His people through the humiliation and poverty of this poor man who was Daniel. Then I want to jump ahead to a couple of places in the New Testament. Remember the thief on the cross? The thief on the cross. I'm talking about the one that spoke to Jesus and asked the Lord to remember him. What was Christ's condition when the thief addressed Jesus while he was hanging on the cross? What was Christ's condition at that time? Well, he was obviously bloody. He was obviously nailed to the cross. He was about to die. He had been shamed, he was being mocked at the time, even the other thief, the thief that was on the other side of Christ, and he himself had been hurling accusations at the Lord, if you are the Christ, then deliver us, and let's get down. So they didn't believe him, but then this thief, when he did believe on the Lord, When he saw the Lord Jesus Christ in this condition, he saw him in his humiliation, didn't he? The Lord Jesus was in utter humiliation before men, because he was bloody, he was accused, he was spit upon and beaten, and his face was beaten by them, his back. He had a crown of thorns, everything. He was nailed to the cross. He was nailed there to die. They appeared to have power over him. He was humiliated, wasn't he? And yet, that's when the thief on the cross said, Lord, Lord, remember me. when you come into your kingdom, you see. So it was when the thief on the cross saw Christ in his humiliation that the Lord spoke to him and said, I tell you this day, you shall be with me in paradise. And so he gave him that promise of eternal life and to be with the Lord that very day in paradise, which says a lot about what happens to believers after death, doesn't it? were immediately with the Lord. But in any case, there's another example of someone who was poor and needy, and it was when he was poor and needy, the thief on the cross, and the Lord Jesus Christ, because he was poor and needy, that this thief was saved. He saw the Lord in his humiliation. in His willing humility to be made sin for His people as a man, and trusting God under that suffering and that death, trusting Him to raise Him with His people from the dead again. Remember Nicodemus that came to Jesus by night? And the Lord said to him in John 3 that all that he All that he trusted in before, he couldn't see. He would not enter the kingdom of God. He had to be born of God. And Nicodemus didn't know what to do. I don't know how this can possibly happen. And at one point he says, how can these things be? And the Lord said to him, that's when he gave him a revelation of himself. And what was that revelation that the Lord gave to him of himself in John chapter three? Let me read it to you. In John three and verse 13, he said this. He says, if I told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And now here's the heavenly thing. This is what we're talking about, the poor and the needy. Listen to these words. He says, no man has ascended up to heaven. but he that came down from heaven. You see that word down? No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven. And who was that? Even the son of man, which is in heaven. Now this is telling us, the Lord is telling us in that one sentence there, the whole of redemption. He's telling us that first Christ descended. then he would ascend up where he was before. But he descended first because it was his humility. God was pleased to save his people by the humiliation, the willing humility and the willing humiliation that Christ experienced as a man, as a servant to his people. bearing their sins and before God made lower than man. He said, I am a worm and no man. And so he speaks of that. He first descended. He alone is the one who ascended up and he's the one who is in heaven because the work of God was done when he ascended up and he reigns, he rules. But then in verse 14, Jesus went on to show his descent. He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Notice this next part. We know this is the account of the serpent in the wilderness and snakes biting the Israelites, and they were all dying. There was no remedy. God told Moses, make a serpent of brass, hammer it out, fasten it to a pole, everyone who looks shall live. That's Christ crucified. That's what Jesus is saying here. That's the Son of Man lifted up. But notice the next verse, John 3, 15. He says that whosoever believeth in him, you know what that is? That is being poor and needy. Because those who were bitten had no remedy. Their only hope was that God, who told Moses to hang that serpent on the pole, would, in the look of seeing what God said would heal them, that God would heal them. And of course, that's Christ crucified. God commanded his son, under the law, to be fastened to the cross, hammered out, as it were, through the press of the curse of God's law. and to believe on Him. What does that require? It requires God to humble us. so that we stoop like a thief on the cross and we recognize the one who is hanging here, bloodied and shameful, is the Savior. He is God in the flesh who descended and now he's going to ascend far up above all things. Look at John 6 and 62. After Jesus described that he was the bread of life and that you had to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he says in John 6, verse 62, he said, He says in verse 61, when Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at what he said, he said to them, does this offend you? Does this offend you? You see, human pride is offended by Christ's humility. Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? And then he gives this truth. It is the spirit that gives life, that quickeneth. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. That's where this is coming from, you see. The Lord Jesus Christ has to give us his life by his spirit through his word. That's where the riches of God's grace is given to us. By the word of Christ concerning Christ who descended, who would ascend because he suffered the curse in order to remove the curse from us. He substituted himself with our sins before God and endure the curse so that he who substituted himself for us in our place might bring us when he sat down at the right hand of God to his place. And that's humility, isn't it? God in Christ doing all to save sinners and bring them to glory. And then one more example. of this humility because these things are so delightful. Remember, I'll give you chapter 8, John chapter 8. Remember when Jesus stooped down, when the woman was taken in adultery and she was accused by these men who wanted to try to use her to get at Christ and destroy him. And he stooped down and he wrote on the ground and he rose up. And he said, he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone, he stooped down again. Two stoops, remember that? And then, of course, at the end of it, they were all gone and he justified the woman when he said, neither do I condemn thee. You can see in that stoop of Christ that he both sent out the enemies and he answered God's law for the woman and no longer condemned her. But that account is followed by John chapter nine. And in John chapter 9, there's a man born blind. Remember that? A man who had never seen. He was born blind. And no one, according to John 9, had ever opened the eyes of a man born blind. Now, the Pharisees thought they could see. They thought that God did not recognize their sin. They had no sin. God recognized their goodness. They thought they could see. And they knew the blind man, or at least they thought they understood, that he was blind because of his own sin. And so they saw the blind man in their pride, in the blindness of their pride. They saw themselves as righteous, and they saw the blind man as a sinner. But the Lord comes to the blind man, and the Lord then, when he sees the blind man, he says in John chapter nine, he passed by and saw a man born blind, and when he saw him, I'll skip over this, his disciples asked who sinned, but he said no one. His parents didn't sin, he didn't sin, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. That's why he was sent to do this. And so then the Lord, in John chapter 9 verse 5, he says, I'm the light of the world. The light of the world. Okay, so if you see, if you are blind and see, what are you going to see if you see the light? You're going to see Christ. He's the light of the world. If you don't see him, you don't see light. But then he says in verse six, John nine six, he says, when he spoke that he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind with the clay. I've often wondered about this. Jesus spit on the ground. He took the spit with the dirt, mixed it together and made clay. And then you would. This is strange. He smeared it on the eyes of the blind man. But he was already blind. If he could see, he wouldn't have been able to see. But he put the stuff, the dirt mixed with his spit on the eyes of the blind man to do what? To show that this blindness that the Pharisees thought the blind man had, What they were really blind to is that He, Christ, is the Son of God. But because of the blindness of their self-righteousness, they could not see it. So he smears this clay on the blind man's eyes. which as I said would have made him blind. But it represented the fact that the Pharisees were blind because of the humiliation of Christ. They were offended, they stumbled at the fact that the God of glory made himself of no reputation In order to save his people, and this being made of no reputation, being made like man, lower than man, servant, even a humiliation was represented by this clay mixed with spit and put on the blind man's eye. Christ applied himself, crucified to this man's eyes, and then he sent him to a pool to wash. The name of that pool was Siloam, and the name of Siloam means scent. It means sent because the Lord Jesus Christ is the sent one of God. And so the Lord sent him to himself. And when he got to the pool, he washed and he came seeing. And at the end of the chapter, the Lord Jesus comes to the blind man and he found him. He said, do you believe on the son of God? The blind man said, Lord, who is he? Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? See, that's asking for eyes to see, isn't it? The light of the world. And Jesus said to him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. Immediately, this man said, I believe. and he worshipped him." You see? He knew then, he's the son of God. The one who came in humility and suffered humiliation to save his people by the will of God, and which was a stumbling block to the Pharisees. That was the sight. That was what the Lord applied to his eyes that he might see. And so then Jesus said, for judgment I'm coming to this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind. And the Pharisees, or at least some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words and they said, are we blind also? Jesus said, if you were blind. then you should have no sin. But now you say we see, therefore your sin remains. They were blind and they stumbled because Christ was made low, because Christ was humble. They were proud. The only way to be saved is if the Lord makes us so low that we have to stoop to believe on him who was made lower than the angels, who was made a servant, a man, and we see in him our master. When he says to us, blessed are the poor in spirit, he preeminently was the one poor in spirit, and he speaks these things as one who is experienced in it, wasn't he? He willingly made himself of no reputation. All right, it's a great thing, isn't it, that the Lord says that He saves the poor and the needy. All those who are the Lord's are made poor and needy. They are poor and needy. but they're made to see their need of Christ who was made poor and needy and therefore they have to be extremely poor and extremely needy that he would so stoop according to the will of God that this was the only way to save the poor and the needy as Christ himself the Lord of glory the Prince of life would have to give up that glory and lay down his life in order to give us the riches of his grace. What an amazing thing it is. Let's pray. Father, we pray, Lord, that you would indeed, truly, according to your word, bow down your ear and hear us, hear our need. We have nothing, we can do nothing. We come to you for everything. We, in fact, are debtors. We owe you our life, our eternal death, and yet we can't pay one part of it. And if we were to suffer for all eternity, you would be no more bettered by our eternal death because we have offended you, the God of glory. And so we pray, Lord, glorify yourself in the Lord Jesus, who made himself of no reputation to save his people from their sins, who suffered on the cross, and yet by your people is seen to be our Lord and our Savior. Help us to trust him at all times. Be with our dear sister Deanne and Elaine, and help them, Lord, and that you would help all those who have any need tonight in Jesus' name we pray, amen.