Proverbs 18 23 the poor useth
in treaties But the rich answereth roughly And this is the truth
that Manifests itself greatly in spiritual matters, of course,
it's true in an earthly sense in a natural sense and it's interesting
that Well, it's instructive in the way that all scripture is
regarding this, why the rule is that rich people are, the
word there is impudent. They answer impudently or in
a high and mighty way. They answer strong. And why is it not just the poor
useth in treaties but the rich do not? It's not that good, it's worse
than that. It's because we're all proud by nature, every one of us. One of the things that tends
to bring us down, though, is to be in want, and that's the
other word. It's from a root word that means
mercy. Remember naming the leper? 2nd
Kings chapter 5. He was the scripture says a mighty
man But he was a leper But when He heard of Elisha and
was sent to Elisha God's prophet He still thought of himself as
a mighty man In 2nd Kings 5 and verse 9 he
Let's turn over there, I think we'll have plenty of time this
morning to look at some scripture. 2 Kings chapter five. In verse nine. 2nd Kings 5 9
so Naaman Came with his horses and with his chariot and stood
at the door of the house of Elisha Naaman had had Became a leper And It was told him of course
that Elisha might be able to heal him and So here he comes
with his horses and his chariot, his entourage, you know, he's
a big shot. And Elisha sent a messenger unto
him saying, he's standing at the door, Elisha sends somebody,
a messenger out saying, go and wash in Jordan seven times and
thy flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be clean.
That sounds like really good news, doesn't it? Look at Naaman's
reaction. But Naaman was wroth and went
away and said, behold, I thought he will surely come out to me
and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and strike
his hand over the place and recover the leper. He wanted a cure that
was worthy of who he was, befitting of his great status, a spectacle. And he said this, are not Abana
and Farpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of
Israel? May I not wash in them and be
clean? And so he turned and went away in a rage. Can you imagine
somebody said, you won't be a leper anymore. You'll be clean. You can go back to being the
big shot idiot that you have always been. Naaman was wroth. Naaman answered
roughly because he was a big shot. He answered high and mighty. God hadn't knocked all the stuffing
out of him yet. And I wonder that about us. How
much stuffing do we still have left in us? Of course, as we see in all of
scripture, this is absolutely necessary. We must become poor
and needy in a spiritual sense, or we will die a spiritual leper. That is, we will die in our sins
before God. And don't make any mistake about
this. God is a God ready to pardon. God delights to show mercy, but
he delights to show mercy to beggars. He doesn't cleanse great men.
He cleanses lepers. There are no great men. It's
just in their mind He didn't come to call the righteous
but sinners to repentance Listen to David's play turn turn
to this one with me, please if you would to Psalm 109 21 and See what a what a lesson this
our verse this morning is for all of us Psalm 109 21 But do
thou for me O God the Lord do thou for me I It's for me, but he's gonna have
to do it. Because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me, save me,
for I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I'm gone like the shadow when it declineth. I'm tossed up and
down as the locust. My knees are weak through fasting,
and my flesh faileth of fatness. Became also a reproach unto them
when they looked upon me they shaked their heads What is the
poor do he useth in treaties look at him? Help me Oh Lord
my God Help me Oh Save me according to thy mercy Mercy is in the
definition of the word in treaty in our text and That's what the
poor do. They ask for mercy. They beg
for mercy. And this has nothing to do with
how much money you have. Being physically poor is only
a picture. It's an analogy of being poor
in spirit. Poverty of spirit, as our Lord
spoke of in what we call the Beatitudes. Most of us may have
learned the Beatitudes when we were in Sunday school. I was
maybe six or seven years old. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are they that mourn. Our Lord said, blessed are the
poor in spirit. And the poor are a picture of
that. The physically poor and material
things are a picture of that. What do they do? They beg. They beg. If you get poor enough,
if you ain't begging, you ain't poor. You can mark that down. Everybody thinks they are. I
think I'm poor a lot of times. You ever think about that? I'm
broke as a skunk. No, I'm not. I'm rich. Look how
rich we are. Look how rich we are. If you ain't begging, you ain't
poor. It has nothing to do with material
wealth. A very wealthy man, as far as
material value is concerned, may be quite poor in spirit if
the Lord has revealed to him what he is. And a man very poor
in material things may be very haughty toward God, resentful
that he doesn't possess what he feels like he deserves, you
know. But our Lord said, indeed, in
Matthew 5.3, blessed are the poor in spirit. And I want you
to listen to a couple more verses here in Matthew 5, because the
Beatitudes, the blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they
that mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are they that do hunger
and thirst after righteousness. These are not different groups
of people. This is not a list. of people who are blessed. These
ones are, these ones are, these ones are. This is a list of ways
to describe all those who are blessed of God. All of them are meek. There's not people that are meek
over here, people that mourn over here, and these are all,
but there are, though, in this world,
the rich and the poor spiritually. People who by God's grace are
poor and meek and hungry. They're all those things. You're
hungry because you're poor. You're meek because you're poor. To be poor in spirit is to hunger.
Not for earthly food, but for righteousness. They hunger and
thirst after righteousness. We're bankrupt in the righteousness
department. And we need righteousness more
than we need food. I don't think too many people
in this world realize that, do you? Well, we gotta eat. No, you don't, but you've got
to be righteous before God. In every way that you can express
the word got to in a meaningful way, you've got to be right in
the sight of God, got to. And I wanna just be as clear
as I can now. We don't need to do better. We
need righteousness. We don't need to just be sorry
that we're not righteous. We need to be righteous. And Christ is the only righteousness,
the only human righteousness there is, is the Son of God. and Son of
Man. If we have Christ, we are righteous
before God. We're in Him. Of God are we in
Christ Jesus, who is made unto us righteousness. If we have not Christ, we don't
just not quite have enough, we don't have any. When a sinner is shown this,
our great need of God, his son, our true condition before God
spiritually, he entreats. He begs for mercy. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. Look with me at Revelation chapter
three, please. Verse 17. Revelation 3 17 Because thou sayest I am rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest
not that thou are wretched and miserable and poor and blind
and naked and I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the
fire. I'm poor, I'm bankrupt. You said
I'm bankrupt, Lord. Yeah, but you're gonna have to
have gold and you're gonna have to get it from God. Got to have
it. That thou mayest be rich and
white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame
of thy nakedness do not appear. Anoint nine eyes with eyesight
that thou mayest see The shame of our nakedness is a picture
of our sin when Adam and Eve sinned They knew that they were
naked before God and they tried to do something about it themselves That didn't cut it with God God had to provide by the shedding
of blood and coats of the skins of animals, picturing that white
raven in which were clothed the righteousness of Christ. The riches that we lack, the
riches that the Lord says, this is what you need. You're gonna
have to have it and it's gonna come, it can only come from God.
You got to buy it from him. And there's not one currency
in heaven. There's just one currency for as much as you know that
you were not redeemed With corruptible things such as silver and gold
The word redeemed there means to be released upon payment of
a ransom payment pay up From your vain conversation received
by tradition from your fathers You were redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish without spot
That's how you stand before God in white raiment. Who are these
who are clothed in white? They've washed their robes and
made them white in the blood Their robes are white because
of what Christ did not because of anything they've done The Pharisee in Luke 18 was rich
and And he answered roughly, didn't he? He said, thank God
I'm not like that publican over there. That horrible man. Thank God I'm not like that.
High and mighty. He answered in a high and mighty
way. The publican, though, was poor.
I don't know how much money he had, but I know in the truest
sense of the word, he was poor. And he entreated. God be merciful
to me, the sinner. The centurion in Matthew 8, he
had done very well for himself in life. He was a leader of a
hundred soldiers. But in the presence of the king
of glory, he said, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should come
under my roof. But say the word only and my servant will be healed. The son who stayed home was well
off, wasn't he? He answered his father roughly.
He said, I've been here faithful to you and working in your fields
all these years, and you kill the fatted calf for that ranch?
For that nobody, for that loser? The prodigal, on the other hand,
had been eating the husks that the swine did eat. And he entreated. He said, I'm
not worthy to be called your son, if you could just make me
one of your hired servants. For I've sinned against heaven
in my sight. Blessed are they that lack righteousness,
but need righteousness, they hunger for it. The Lord's promise to them. by
His grace, know their need, feel their need, and must have Christ. He said, you'll be filled. You'll
be filled.