Matthew chapter 5 now. I intended
to deal with at least two blessings, but we're just going to look
at one. We're in no hurry. There's so
much here. If anything, what I'm learning
from having fewer services is I get to dwell on things a little
longer, and more and more ideas and Scriptures come to my mind.
Read with me again. verses 1 and 2, seeing the multitudes,
the Lord, He went up into a mountain. And Mount Zion is where the Lord
meets with His people. It's where He speaks to us. And
He sat down. His disciples came unto Him.
And that's why we've come here tonight, isn't it? We've come
to Him. We don't go to church. We come to Christ, we come to
hear His voice. And He opened His mouth, this
blessed mouth. Everything He said from here
on was blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. His blessed mouth. Blessed Lord. He opened His mouth
and taught them. May the Lord teach us tonight.
The Spirit of God come and teach us. As said before, everyone
heard this and nearly everyone today has heard this sermon on
the Mount, but His disciples, they really hear. He's given
us ears to hear, a heart to receive it. The Gospel, the Word of God,
is the power of God. This is how God speaks. This
is how we sang, mold me and make me. This is how He molds us.
This is how He conforms us to the image of Christ, the new
birth by the Word of God. We're born again, not corruptible
seed, but incorruptible, the Word of God. So this is how he
speaks. This is how he creates a new
man. This is how he makes his people poor in spirit. This is
not natural. Being poor in spirit is not natural.
Pride is. Thinking you have lots of knowledge
and worth and this and that and the other. No. The Holy Spirit
has to take the Word of God and make you poor. Mourn. Blessed are they that mourn.
He said in verse For the Holy Spirit must convict us. And when
He comes, He convinces us of what? Sin. And what do we do? We mourn over it. Repentance
is what it is. That's the gift of God. Repentance
is the gift of God. It doesn't come naturally. That's
the gift of God. So we mourn over sin. And these are the first
signs of the new birth. Fear of the Lord. Realize you're
nothing but a sinner. And he mourned over your sin.
And the next thing is, in verse 5, in verse 4, they'll be comforted
by the gospel, those that mourn over their sin. They'll see Christ
crucified for their sins. And the next thing is, it goes
along with this, is blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. Meekness is humility, but it's
somewhat different from just humility. Listen to these verses
in Ephesians 4. Well, turn with me. Turn to these
scriptures. You need to know where these are. Scripture speaks
a great deal of meekness. We're going to close this with
what the Lord said in Matthew 11 about Himself. He's the Supreme. example of meekness. Ephesians 4, verse 1, you remember
this? I beseech you, I the prisoner
of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith you are called to be a son of God, a Christian, a
believer, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering. Forbearing one another in love.
Notice, he says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. That's another blessing in it.
Blessed are the peacemakers. The meek are peacemakers. Colossians
chapter 3. Look at this, just a few pages
over. Colossians 3. And Paul was in prison when he
wrote this, remember? And he said, I'm the prisoner
of the Lord, but Paul was a meek man. He took it patiently. And this is what meekness means.
Humility is having low thoughts of yourself, but meekness is
taking whatever comes your way, submitting to it, from God, from
man, knowing you're nothing, and you take it patiently. Paul,
why did he take patiently all the abuse of his pharisaical
brethren that wanted him dead and beat him to a pulp? Why did he take that? Because
he was one just like them. And so he was meek. We're going
to look at Moses. Why did Moses take whatever people... He was 40 years, he never gave
God a thought. He was in line to be the next
Pharaoh. That was his goal in life. Money
and power. But God. He made him the meekest
man on earth. Humility has to do with what
you think about yourself. Meekness is how you receive treatment
from others, from God, to yourself. You understand? If you're humble,
if you're broken, you realize, and I'm getting way ahead of
myself, but look at Colossians 4, and notice this, verse 12,
I'm sorry, 3, Colossians 3, verse 12. Put on therefore as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humility,
humbleness of mind, meekness, and the next thing is long suffering.
He put up with. Why? How long did God put up
with you? He continues to put up with us.
Forbearing one another, see? Meekness has to do with how you
handle people treating you and how you treat others. If you're
humble, you'll be meek. If you're poor, if you mourn,
you'll be meek. Go back to our text. You know,
meekness goes with humility. Every time we mention meekness,
you mention humility. They go together. They're wedded
together. And it's the opposite of pride.
You can't be meek and proud at the same time. And God hates
pride more than anything else. It's what Proverbs 6 says. And every believer mourns over
their pride. Because we all get proud every
now and then. And here's the thing, the Lord
is able to bring down those that are proud. And His people, He
will bring you down. He will do it. He's not going
to let you stay proud. And it's very humbling, humiliating. Meekness has to do with humiliation,
suffering humiliation, and taking it patiently. So, meekness follows being poor
in spirit, realizing that we're sinful, realizing we're weak,
can't do anything, our inability to believe, realizing that we
mourn our sin, we mourn our weakness, our inability to keep God's law,
we come far short of the glory of God. We've just lived a life
that hasn't given God much glory at all. And we mourn over that. And our rebellion against Him
still, we still murmur in our tents. And we mourn over that. And all of this should make us
meek. Take whatever God sends our way. Mad? Yes. Mad? This is Psalm 90. Make us glad
according to the days wherein you have afflicted us. Because
it's a light affliction. Didn't Paul say our light afflictions?
He believed that. And nobody suffered more than
Paul did. And why did he take it so meekly, so patiently? The Word, like in Psalm 37. Rest,
be silent to the Lord. Eli, when the Lord came and told
him what he was going to do to his sons, you know what he did?
It's the Lord. Why'd he do that? Because he
realized what a bad high priest he'd been. What a sorry father
he'd been. And I deserve it, and they deserve
it. Send what you will, Lord. That's
meekness. That's meekness. And it goes
with humility. Okay? Thoughts of self. Self-abasement. Just to deny yourself. What did
our Lord say? Any man will come after me. What's
the first thing He said? If it's me you want, if you want
to walk with me. Now two can't walk together except
they'd be aggrieved. You have to be aggrieved with
what God says about you. And it's not good. All right? And He said any man
will come after me, let him deny himself. Put down your self. Low thoughts of self. Because
this old fella's self is our whole problem. Really now, all
our problems come from this thing called self. All our anger, all
our wrath, all our bitterness, all our resentment, all our irritability,
everything. All our getting put out with
other people, self. And meekness is to be done with
self. You need this. This is why I couldn't get past
this, because I need this worse than you do. I've been so convicted
by this. It's to deny self. Abraham was
a meek man. Here's some examples of meekness.
And we're going to end with the example of meekness. which should
make us meek. Philippians 2. Abraham was a
meek man. You know what? The Lord came
to him. Seventy-five years he was an idolater. Seventy-five
years. Never gave God a thought. Never
thanked God one time. Oh, he had gods. He was just
going through the motions. Just being religious like everybody
else. Right? But God chose him, said Abraham,
and made this covenant concerning Abraham, and told Abraham what
all he was going to do for him, and how he was going to bless
him, his seed and everything he was going to carry all his
day, all that he was going to do for him. For what? For what?
Why? And Abraham, why? I'm going to give you, look at
that land, Abraham, I'm going to give it all to you. You're
going to inherit the land. It's all yours. Why? He didn't do anything to deserve
that. He did everything not to deserve it. So it made him a
meek man. So when it came to it, he and
Lot had a problem with it called their stuff. And there was strife
between them. What did Abraham say? You take
this stuff. Whatever stuff you want. Take
it, Lot. I don't need that. Let's not
have strife. Blessed are the peacemakers. I don't need this
stuff. God's told me, well, that he's
my portion. Take it, Lord. Let's quit arguing. He's a meek man. Moses. Well, Joseph. Joseph. Oh, my. Talking about meekness. How did his brethren treat him? How did his brethren treat him?
And then when they came to him, his heart yearned for them. How did he treat them? That's
meekness. You say, it doesn't say anything
bad about Joseph. Well, he knew. Joseph knew. He
knew himself. He's a sinner just like everybody
else. Moses. Moses. Forty years. Without a
thought for God. Like I said, he wanted to be
Pharaoh and money and all that. The first use of the word meekness
is referring to Moses. It's in Numbers chapter 12, where
Aaron and Miriam went against their brother Moses. They rose
up and said, you're not the only one that God has spoken to. He'll speak through us too. You
know, Moses didn't say that. Moses didn't argue. He didn't
defend himself. But God defended him. God did. And he called Aaron
and Miriam and said, you listen to me. Moses is my man. I'm going to speak to him face
to face. I'm going to speak to you through him. And he made
Miriam a leper. And he said, I would have spit
in your face. Boy, if that didn't humble her. And Moses didn't say a thing.
Because he realized I spent 40 years in Egypt chasing money,
wanting to be Pharaoh. And God did all this for me.
Whatever he sent, whatever anybody does to me, I deserve it. That's me. David. David, though
he was to be king. God chose David. And he knew
it. He came in, remember? Where had
he been when the Lord found him? Watching sheep. A young boy. Samuel came, you know the story.
And they told him, call David. We can't sit down unless he comes.
Oh, what a story. Anybody want to hear that preach?
But David came in from keeping the sheep, and he was red in
the face. What's going on here? What's going on here? And Samuel
said, everybody rise, this is the king. What? David looking
around. Me? I'm the king? But God in the meantime called
a man named Saul, and he was a bad man. How did David act
towards Saul? He said, he's God's king. I'm
not going to rise up against him. He's God's king. God put
him there. Bad man? God put him there. And
no matter what Saul did to him, how did he treat Saul? He could
have killed him. He had an opportunity to kill
Saul a couple of times. He didn't do it. His conscience
smote him. I can't do this. God will do
it. But he's my king. And when he
died, when Saul died, David mourned over him. That's Jesus. I'm greatly liking that, aren't
you? Jeremiah. He was sent to warn
all Israel. And he wept over him. He's called
the weeping prophet. Everywhere you look in Jeremiah,
it says, I weep, I weep, I weep. Lamentations, he wrote that.
Weep, weep, weep. They didn't weep over him. They
hated him. They put him down in the pit
in slime. Feed him with the bread of affliction,
the king said. Jeremiah prayed over the king. Stephen was stoning him. Lay not this to their children.
Who's that sound like? Who do these people sound like?
This is not natural. This is not natural. This is
not the way of man. Is this the way of man, David
said? No, it's not. Paul, the great example, greatest
of all, and I'm going to say Philippians 2 to the end, okay,
is our Lord Jesus Christ, greater than Joseph. Greater than David,
greater than Abraham. Moses wrote of him. How did Moses get so meek? Being
in the presence of Christ. That's it. Let me say a few things
about meekness. And then I want to read some
things that Martin Lord Jones said. Great. Just great. Meekness
is not weakness. Moses was anything but meek.
A weak. The meekest man on earth. And that was verse 3 of Numbers
12, right after Miriam. Meekness is not weakness. Abraham
was not weak. He fought. He fought and defeated
all the foes that took Lot. He went and rescued Lot. Meekness
is not weakness. Meekness is not laziness. Meekness is not sloth. Meekness
is not worthlessness. Our Lord was anything but that.
Meekness is not niceness, always nice. Oh, he's so nice, he's
just so meek. No, no, he's just not being just
a wimp. David wasn't always nice. He's
just not a cause. Somebody's got to fight this
battle. No, meekness. Meekness is usually quiet. A meek and a quiet spirit. If you're meek, you don't have
much to say. You shouldn't. Right? As I said, meekness is not natural.
It's the grace of God. It's a new birth. It's the Spirit
of God. Blessed are the meek. Listen. Our Lord said, blessed
are the meek. So blessed. And brothers and
sisters, All believers have this meekness, although it's in a
measure, according to the measure of Christ that He goes out, the
Spirit of God. But He gives more grace. It's
a grace that He gives more, doesn't it? If you ask, will He not give
you more? You need more? How much do you
need? You need to be like my granddaughter. I want too much.
I don't feel like I have any. That's the way we all feel about
ourselves. That's the way we ought to feel. Okay? But every
child of God has it in a measure, or they're not a child of God. You can't be proud and be a child
of God. It's a statement. You can't think too highly of
yourself and be a child of God. You can't be offended on all
points all the time and be a child of God. Everything everybody
did to him was an offense. Everything they said, all the
thoughts he heard, everything they said about him was a lie. And he didn't finish it. He said, I'm meek. Listen, you know, Christ had
the Spirit without measure. He is meekness personified. He's
meek. He who was rich yet for our sake
became what? Poor. Did he mourn? A man of
sorrows, quaint with grief. Why? He didn't have to. Johnny
didn't have to. He came down to this earth happy,
blessed, came down to this earth in the midst of all this mourning
and poverty and wickedness. Why? For us. And took our griefs
and our sorrows and he wept. We'd never cry another tear if
we didn't have to. We'd never go through another problem if
we didn't have to, would we? Our Lord did it willingly. Listen, blessed are the meek.
Listen to some scripture. It says in Psalm 76, 9, that
God will save all the meek of the earth. Every meek person
He's going to save. The wicked, you read with me,
the wicked cut them off. He kept saying that day. Cut
them off. Cut off. The Lord keeps giving, giving,
giving, giving. The rain falls on the unjust
as well as the just. The Lord keeps giving. He's kind
to the unjust as well as the just. And one of these days,
cut them off. No more. The wicked borroweth. That's why it said that. What
do we have that we have not received? And it's loaned. We don't get
to keep it. We don't get to keep anything.
And this will make you meek, realizing that everything you
have was given to you and you didn't deserve any of it. How
could you be proud of anything? You know, meekness is modesty. Shame-facing. Modesty is not
showing off your flesh, literally, or promoting, you know, wanting
people to see you and your beauty and your strength and, you know,
meekness is modesty. Meekness is a shame to your flesh.
Shame-facedness. Everybody wants to see their
face. Beautiful women see their bodies
and big men see their strength. God's people that are meek, they
want people to see His face. See His strength. See His beauty. Cover up. The angels covered
their... with two they did cover their
faces in humility. Covered their feet in modesty.
Flesh. Stop showing the flesh. Young
girl, don't do it. Meekness is modest. It's always
modest. Shamefaced. Hmm. Meekness. Meekness. Listen to this. The Lord lifteth up the meek.
He's going to cast down the wicked down to the ground. The meek
will He teach His way. The meek will teach His way.
We're going to read that. I promise you. Matthew 11, Philippians 2. Meekness is the opposite of arrogance.
Meekness is the opposite of pride. Meekness is usually quiet. Job,
when the Lord finally spoke to him, Job said, I've spoken once.
I've spoken twice. I'm going to put my hand over
my mouth. He started defending himself.
He was fine until he started defending himself. Meekness, meekness. Let me listen
to what Martin Lloyd-Jones said about it. This is so good. I
just read this today. A meek man is not proud of himself.
He does not in any sense glory in himself. He feels there's
nothing in himself that he can boast of. His only boasting is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. A meek man does not assert himself. Psychology of today says assert
yourself, express your personality. A meek man. And that's what all
this flesh is, you know, covering your body and tattoos and doing
this and that, the way you dress and all that. Look at me, aren't
I something to behold? You're a vile piece of flesh
and you need to cover it up. Our Lord wore a robe all the
time. And when God made him sin, what
did he do to him? Stripped him naked. But he wasn't
ashamed. He had no sin. He thought nothing
of shame. He was stripped naked. He had no sin. He was ashamed
of it. And man glories in that thing that's only used to cover
what came from sin. Adam and Eve didn't need clothes,
but when they sinned, they needed clothes. And now man's glory
is in his covering. You only need it because you're
sinful. You wouldn't lust after the flesh. Don't search yourself. Put yourself
down. A meek man does not demand anything
for himself. He doesn't make demands of His
privileges and His rights and His status, His place in life.
What is our place? What place should be reserved
for us? God ought to put us in our place,
shouldn't He? Right now. Right now. The wicked shall be
cast into hell. God is angry with the wicked
every day. Do you not feel your own wickedness? Then what's keeping
you out of hell? Anything you've ever done? Jesus
Christ. Because He was stripped naked. Because He came down here. Don't destroy her. Let's not
let her destroy herself. Destroy me, Christ said. Don't
forsake her. Don't leave her to herself. Christ
said, forsake me. Well, if that doesn't make you
meek, nothing will. If that doesn't make you cover your
mouth, cover your flesh, quit asserting yourself, quit wanting
people to see you, we ain't worth looking at. If that doesn't make
us quiet and stop our mouths, nothing will. The man who's truly meek, the
man who's truly meek, is he doesn't worry about himself and what
other people say about him. A truly meek man does not have
to defend himself. He finds out that he's nothing
worth defending. A truly meek man doesn't pity
himself. He's not sorry for himself. He
doesn't like to talk about himself. He doesn't talk to himself. He said a meek man doesn't should
not say, oh, you're having such a hard time, people are treating
you so bad, they just don't understand you. If they just understood
you more, they wouldn't treat you like that. If they understood us. Let's
put a screen up here and let's put our thoughts of today. Your thoughts, right up here
on the screen for everybody to see. Anybody? Since you've come
in this room. Why doesn't God do that? He blotted him out. How, John? Nails in our Lord's hands. Blood. That's it. Can't redeem, can't atone, can't
cover anything. Can't take it back. Can't cover
it up. He covered it up. Oh, man. He says, whoa, how many hours
and years we've wasted defending ourselves. To be meek means to
be finished with yourself. To come to see you have no rights,
you don't deserve anything. To be meek is to really see yourself. It doesn't matter what anybody
says about you. Anything anybody says about you is not too bad.
A person used to say, If somebody,
you know, exposes something about you, just be glad they don't
know the whole truth. Being meek is not worrying so
much about what men say, and you know you deserve worse. And
he said this in closing, I define meekness like this. A man who
is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God and man could
possibly think of him as well as they do and treat him as well
as they do. That's meekness. Anybody meek in here? Anybody? I wish I wasn't teaching this.
I need to lead by example. But
listen what it says in verse 5 of our text. Blessed are the
meek. It's the opposite of what the
world says. Blessed are the proud. Blessed are those that assert
themselves. Blessed are the boastful. Blessed are those that make themselves
known, put themselves out there, proud of themselves. The whole
world's going to, yeah, but you're going to be cut off. He says
in verse 5, they shall inherit the earth. Shall inherit the earth. And
you read all those times in Psalm 37, they'll inherit. And Ephesians
1, Ron read this, chose it well, talks about an inheritance. We've
obtained an inheritance. And it says that after all that
God did in choosing us and after all that Christ did in redeeming
us and forgiving us and doing all this, the Holy Spirit coming
and giving us the earnest of our inheritance, that we didn't
do anything to inherit. We inherit things because somebody
gave it to us because somebody died and left it to us. We're
going to get to heaven because Christ earned heaven and gave
it to us. Our righteousness. In 1 Peter 1, verse 4, he says
the same thing. Inheritance, undefiled, incorruptible,
undefiled. One time, somebody came to our
Lord and said, Lord, make my brethren split my inheritance. He's not giving me what I deserve.
He's not giving me what's coming to me. And the Lord said, that's
not what I came for. That's what the prodigal said.
Give me what's coming to me. He about got what's coming to
him. He about did, but the father left him, brought him back up. Holy Spirit brought him to himself.
Repentant. And when it's all over, All that
stuff he wanted and what was coming to him, God destroyed
him. But God brought him back, brought
him to himself. Poor, mourning, humble, meek,
contract. When he came home, what did he
say? Just give me a little place in the barn. I want to be a servant
from here on out. That's me. But no, the Father
bring the best robe. Killed a fatted calf, put the
ring on his hand, shoes on his feet. He's a son. He gets to sit and we're going
to have a celebration in honor of this no good, worthless,
rebellious, self-seeking, sorry son or daughter. Now isn't that
something? If that doesn't make you meek,
nothing will. They're going to inherit the
earth. You know, who would you want to spend eternity with?
The proud? Or the meek? Our Lord said, To
this man will I look. He is poor and of a contrite
heart, and trembleth at my word. A contrite heart the Lord will
not despise. Broken and contrite heart. Should
I dwell in a high and a holy place with him that is broken
and contrite? That's who God's going to spend
eternity with. That's who he dwells with now.
God's not in the midst of proud religion. God's not in the midst
of all this stuff that's a big show of entertainment and all
that, and everybody's showing off, and look at me, and listen
to me, and watch me. No, no, no, no. That's a form
of godliness and denying the power. The power there makes
you humble. It makes you fear God. It makes
you fear and tremble in His presence. It makes you just sit and shut
your mouth and hear about the mercy and grace of God in Jesus
Christ. That's what the gospel does. Philippians 2. Philippians 2. It says the meek
shall inherit the earth. Listen to this. Philippians 2.
Philippians chapter 2. Our Lord was meek. He said, our Lord said in Matthew
11, He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart. And he said, you will find rest
for your souls. Quiet submission. Oh, did he
not humbly submit to all of this? He did. Look at Philippians 2
in closing. This is the most glorious passage
in the Bible, one of them. He says in verse 2, Fulfill my
joy that you be like minded, having the same love, being of
one accord, one mind. Let nothing be done through strife
or vain glory, any glory is vain. And in loneliness of mind, let
each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man
on his own things. But every man also unto things
of others. Let this mine be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God. But he made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant. The king became a servant. Made
in the likeness of men, and we'll never fully understand what it's
like for God to become a man. Being found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself and became
obedient unto death. He didn't have to die. To keep
us from dying he did. Even the death of the cross,
the worst form of death, Wherefore, God also hath highly exalted
him, given him a name which is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, things in heaven, things
in the earth, things under the earth, every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."
And in another place it says, because he did this, God gave
him everything. He inherited the earth. Because he became poor. Because he came down here and
did what he did. Meek and lowly. Merciful. Blessed are the merciful.
He hungered. He thirst. He was merciful. He was pure. He made peace by
the blood of His... You know, God gave Him everything. He inherited the earth. And you
know what? We're joint heirs with Him. We get everything He did. Isn't that something? No. The Lord make us meek. Okay,
stand with me.