which is exceedingly violent
towards us through and in Christ. There is no blessing outside
of Christ. Psalm 72, 17. His name shall
be forever and men shall be blessed in him. There is no blessing
outside of Christ. Psalm 72, 18. Blessed be the
Lord, who only does many wonderful things. What are those wonderful
things? He shall bless his people. The blessings are only in him. Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heaven and places in Christ. The reason
I'm emphasizing that because there is no blessing but in Christ. He is our blessing, which is
a noun. Blessing is a verb. It's something that God favors
his people with. Again, there's no blessing outside
of Christ. What is the result of blessing?
The fruit of all blessing. is a praise unto the glory and
praise of the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of what they are.
Blessings are sovereign. Blessings are limited. I made
a statement last time I was up here about Joseph. He was blessed
to become the assistant pharaoh in all of Egypt. Then I asked
a question, and didn't answer it, Was Joseph being thrown in
the pit a blessing? Was Joseph sold into slavery
a blessing? Was Joseph cast into prison a
blessing? At the hand of God, it had to
be. It must be. So all these trials
and tribulations and adverse things that happen to us, we
don't view them as blessings. When I read scripture saying,
Paul, for example, I rejoice in my infirmities. I say, woe
is me. I don't think I've ever rejoiced
in anything that was like being cast into a pit or prison. Yet
look at the results of that. Paul, cast into prison for years. And what did he do? He wrote
the book of Ephesians and Colossians. What a blessing. Yet, Paul was
able to say, I rejoice in my infirmities. It takes the grace
of God for us to say, what a blessing under those circumstances. Blessings
are in Christ. Blessings are to his people and
only his people, because they're the only ones in Christ. So all
blessings are limited to God's children, God's elect, God's
people. Here is what the scripture says.
God says, I put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.
Israel is blessed. Egypt is not blessed. I put a
difference between the clean and unclean. All these sacrifices,
And all these rituals that the Old Testament set up was to separate
the clean from the unclean. The clean is blessed, the unclean
is not. I've put a difference between
sheep and goats. Authors of Scripture, these very
simple statements, declare that God's blessings are limited to
his sovereign choice of his people. I get right tickled when people
talk about, well, a goat can turn into a sheep. The scripture says an Ethiopian
can't change his skin and a leopard can't change its spots. So how
in the world can a goat become a sheep? It can't. God says,
I have my sheep. And outside of that, everyone
else is a gutter. God has put a difference between
the two. Jacob have I loved. Esau have I hated. God put the
difference. He limits his blessings to those
that he loves, his children, his sheep. Children of God, in Ephesians,
Paul makes this statement. We were once alien and strangers. We were awakened from the dead.
And he describes two people, one, the children of God, in
Ephesians 2.2, the children of disobedience, the children of
the prince of the world, which is Satan himself. God makes a
difference, the rich and the poor. Last week, Rupert talked
about, here is the rich man, said, I fast, I do all these
things, these self-righteous things. The poor man says, I'm
not even worthy to lift my eyes up to heaven. God makes a difference. His blessings, His favor, His
love, His mercy, His grace is limited to His people. How? by his sovereign choice and will,
by his pleasure. It pleased him to do that. So the point I'm making, the
only blessings, the only favor of God is limited to those he
loves, which is his children, which he has loved with an eternal
love. before the foundation of the
world and will continue all the way throughout glory. So blessings
are limited to his people. This first part of this so-called
beatitude is blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven. If you have the eternal Kingdom
of Heaven, you have Christ, you have life, you have life eternal. And who does God say are blessed
with that? The poor. The poor. What is a poor? It is a blessing
to be poor in spirit. What does poor in spirit mean?
It doesn't mean physically poor. It means spiritually poor. You
have nothing, you can do nothing, and are nothing. If you have
anything that promotes yourself, Christ is not everything to your
soul. If you can do anything, then you don't need Christ because
you can do it yourself. And if you think you are something,
the scripture said, when you think you are something, when
you're nothing, you are deceiving yourself. So the poor come before
God undeceived, saying, I am poor. I have nothing. I can do nothing. I am nothing. That's what poor means. Spiritually
poor. We have nothing whatsoever to
offer. Isaiah 55, 1. Oh, he that hath
no money, come and buy and eat. Oh, how can a poor man buy anything? It goes further. Yay, come buy
wine and milk without money, without price. That's a spiritual
poor. Someone who becomes God with
absolutely nothing in their hearts and their souls and their hands
to offer as merit to God Almighty. Nothing. That's poor. Who makes the poor? How does one become poor? Are
we born poor in spirit? No. We're born, saying to God
Almighty, I will not have you to reign over my soul. In Exodus
411, he was talking about Moses. Moses was moaning and groaning
because he had to stand up and speak to the children of Israel.
He said, I'm a poor spokesman. I can't do this. Here's the Lord's
answer to him. Who hath made man's mouth? Who
maketh it done? or death, or the seeing, or the
blind, and I'm going to add, or the poor, and I'll show you
why. Have I not, the Lord, made all these things? Job 39.4, rich or poor, for they
are all the work of His hand. A poor spirit is made or created
by the hand of God himself, and they are blessed, favored of
God. When God creates this new creature,
one of the first things he does And I'll take the first thing,
meaning that's the reason it's listed first here. He makes them
absolutely, utterly poor in spirit. That's the first part of his
creation. A dead man can do nothing, has
nothing, can offer nothing. And God creates that spirit.
How does he do it? Let me go to Paul and say this
is a blessing that is the fundamental blessings of all blessing. Rupert, I don't know whether
it's the most important blessing, but it is a fundamental blessing.
Without being poor, you have no need. The poor says, I am
needy. Without it, you can say, I may
need a little help, but no. The poor in spirit says, I am
needy. I can do nothing. When I say
that, I'm going to take another aspect of blessings. All blessings are in Christ.
All blessings are limited to his people. All blessings are good. Jeremiah 29, 11. My thoughts
that I think toward you, saith the Lord, are only peace and
never evil. My question is, okay, Joseph,
when you're in that pit, okay, Paul, when you're in that Okay,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when you're in that furnace, is that a blessing? God says,
my thought toward you is good. And when he thinks something,
he wills something, it happens. All these things happen at the
hand of God, yet there were tribulations, infirmities, adversities, All
these things, every one of them, I'm saying God sees the work
of His hands expressed by His thoughts and His will and says
it is good and not evil. It is peace. It is reconciling
man to God. He said all my thoughts toward
you, regardless of what those thoughts express is good. Can't get by without saying from
Romans 8, 28, all things work together for our good. Now I'm
going to use Joseph again. Cast in the pit, sold into slavery,
cast into prison, that was good. And Doug, I often wonder, was
just sitting there saying, oh Lord, how glorious it is to be
in this pit. I said, he may have said it,
but I'll tell you what I think he was saying. He was saying,
Lord God Almighty, have mercy and may I find grace in your
sight. Nothing about his physical condition,
nothing about being in a pit and no way to get out, Nothing
about why am I in prison. His prayer of a poor soul is,
Lord, have mercy on me. May I find grace in your eyes. And to me, that is the most common,
universal, and I would like to say absolute response to a child
of God under a blessing that causes, I'll say, problems in
this world. Not to get rid of the problem,
not that we don't pray that. Doug, I used to think these people
with arthritis, they're just a bunch of sisters. Until something
happened to me, I got arthritis in one knuckle, and I got it
bad. I mean, I couldn't even open
my hands. I thought to myself, that doggone
knuckle, that little bitty knuckle is totally incapacitating me.
And I thought to myself, if I wasn't poking fun at somebody else that
had authorities, it can't be that bad. Oh, I found out even
the smallest thorn in the flesh can be incapacitating. Yet, I
looked at it and said, Lord, Thank you, and don't give me
no more. But if he gives me more, he gives me the grace to come
to him in need and say, have mercy, not on my knuckle, not
get rid of arthritis, but have mercy and show grace on my soul. And that's all that counts. All things work together for
the good of them that love God, to them who are the call according
to His purpose. Simply repeating again, blessings
are limited to His people. Absolutely limited to His people.
What do these things do? These, I'm going to call them
trials, tribulations, afflictions, infirmities, chastisement, correction. There's so many terms for these
things in the scripture. But they all do one thing. They
declare to that poor person in spirit, you need the Lord Jesus
Christ. Every one of them do the same
thing. It creates a need. And what bigger blessing can
the soul have than to be absolutely, utterly, totally dependent upon
the mercy and grace of God? What a blessing. Yet, he calls
them trials and tribulations, afflictions, infirmities, chastisement
and correction. And I look at it again, all these
scriptures say these people rejoice in their infirmities and afflictions.
I don't think I've ever done that. And I, I don't think I've
ever done that. When I had open heart surgery
and couldn't even hardly breathe, you think I was thinking, Oh,
what a blessing. I was rejoiced in that. Nope. When I had open heart surgery
again to correct a diastectic aorta, I'd say, oh, what a blessing. Nope. When I had an abdominal aorta
corrected up at Duke Hospital, something that if erupted, you'd
die in about 30 seconds. Do you think I was saying, oh,
what a blessing? Nope. I was saying this, have mercy
on my soul, give me grace in the eyes of God. It created a
need for God Almighty. That's what every one of these
afflictions, infirmities, that's what they're designed to do.
to create that need to lay at the foot of Christ himself with
no ability whatsoever and say, have mercy on my soul. First
Thessalonians 3, 3. No man shall be moved by these
afflictions. No man should be concerned about
these conflicts. For you know that we are appointed
thereunto. Every one of these trials and
tribulations, afflictions, infirmities, chastisement or correction is
intended for our good. It's God's thought of goodness
towards us. It's God's expression of his
love towards us. And the purpose is to, again,
create that need. Lamentations 3.3. Paul says, don't be moved by
these afflictions. You know they're appointed. How
are they appointed? By the hand of God. What purpose? To create need through the praise
of His mercy and His grace. They are designed and appointed. Lamentations 333. These things
are directed by God. Septuagint 4, 3, 16 through 18. They are based on God's purpose
for our eternal good. Revelation 8. Tribulation, persecution, famine,
nakedness, peril cannot separate us from love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus. None of these trials and tribulations
and persecutions and perils and prisons and slavery, none of
these things can happen except it appointed by the hand of God
for our good. And they're all in the person
of Jesus Christ, the one that's meting out this mercy and this
grace, this favor, this blessing. Yet our perception of those things
is blessings are supposed to be good. Even the Declaration
of Independence said Every man had the right to the pursuit
of happiness. And that's what religion's about,
the pursuit of happiness. The word blessing means happiness
in Hebrew. Is that what we think blessings
are? Ninety-nine percent of the world said yes. I've heard people
come up to me, all the Lord's need I knew to them four chairs,
and all of a sudden they come up on the Craig list and there
it was, what a blessing. And every time I hear the term,
oh, have a blessed day, we don't even know what our blessings
are. How many blessings do you have every day? How many times
do you breathe every day? How many times does your heart
beat every day? To a child of God, they are blessings. It's Christ supplying our needs. Rupert has a song to count your
blessings. I don't know if we've ever sung
it here, but I've sung it before. It reminds me of something. If
you were to count your blessings, you'd be back on that back pew
28 hours a day, 385 days a year, just counting them. Reminded
me of something else. Martin Luther was Catholic, and
he went to confession. And confession in the Catholic
church was to be a time where you named all your sins. Well, Martin Luther goes in,
and I'll be a little bit facetious here, 6 o'clock in the morning,
well 6 o'clock in the afternoon, he was still going. And the priest
told him, you don't have to name all those things, minuscule things, and As a certain
preacher from Cherokee, they called him Manusha. But one sin, one piece of leaven,
destroyed the whole lump, corrupt the whole lump. One small sin. And Martin Luther wasn't ready
to quit yet. They finally kicked him out. And then the Lord opened
his eyes to faith in Christ. And he said, oh, what a joke.
What a joke. The nature, the duration, the
measure appointed for the people of God for their good, all by
the hand of God. Some Old Testament scripture
concerning these things that we don't view as blessings, but
are blessings. Job 5, 17, behold, Happy is a man. Blessed is a
man whom God correcteth. Suppose he let us go on our own
without any correction. What does it take to correct?
If you're like me, hard-headed and stubborn and ain't taking
nobody's advice for nothing, it takes the hand of God to straighten
it out. He corrects. Out of what? Out of his love
and for our good. My thoughts toward my people
is one of eternal love and not evil. It's all for their good. Behold, happy is the man whom
God corrected. Therefore, despise not thee the chastening of the
Almighty. Don't despise it. Recognize it
for what it is. What does it take recognize the
chastening hand of God. It takes the grace of God to
open our souls to see what it is. If we don't, we'll remain
just as blind as bats. It is the grace of God. Hebrews 12, 6. Whom he loves,
he chasteneth. and scourges every son whom he
receives." Not corrected, not chastened, not scourged. You
are not a child of God. He says, I do this for my sons. These blessings are so essential
to keep us at the feet of Christ. We should be begging for those
corrections every day of our lives. I don't. Why? Because I have no idea in
reality what all these things are to my soul, except for one
thing. It doesn't matter I don't understand
it. I don't know what his will is.
Till after it happens, when it happens, that was the will of
God. I know a lot of people say, well, it's not the will of God
for me to do a certain thing. I say, well, if you don't do
it, you're right. I don't know what the will of
God is. I do know this. He chastens whom he loves. So the chastening hand is the
expression of the love of God for his people. And he discourages
him. Isaiah 30, 20. The Lord giveth
you. And every time I see the word
the Lord giveth somebody something, I use the word graced. The Lord
graced you. Lord has given you bread of adversity
and water of affliction. Where did it come from? It comes
from the hand of God. And it is for our good. What is the result of this? In 2 Chronicles 33, Manasseh
was king of Ezra. And he created idols and disrupted
the temple. And God sent him to the Assyrians,
or God sent the Assyrians to him and took him captive to Babylonia. And when he did, and when he,
Manasseh, was in affliction, he sought the Lord and humbled
himself before the God of his fathers. Then Manasseh knew the
Lord, he was his God. Here he is, man, picked up and
carried and put in captivity. What was the result? God created
a need for what? To bow and submit to God Almighty
himself. Was that a blessing of Manasseh?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yet, look at the
circumstances. Isaiah 48, 10. Behold, I have refined thee,
but not with silver. I have chosen thee in the furnace
of affliction. Here is a very simple, straightforward
expression. You take something, you put it
in the furnace, you separate the other metals from gold and
silver, stuff like this, and the dross goes one way and the
silver and the gold go the other way. The Lord uses that very
simple analogy to say, I have chosen you in a furnace of affliction. What grace, what love, what a
blessing. Yet, we say, that can't be no
blessing. What did that guy do wrong? I've
heard that so much. When people get sick and this
kind of stuff, well, the Lord teaching them a lesson. To his
people, he is, they bow before him and beg for his mercy and
his grace. Jonah 2.2, I cry by reason of
my affliction unto the Lord. And what did he cry? The Lord
is my salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Here's
an application of an affliction that results in a praise and
honor and glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. That
is always the result for this people. Always the result. I'm going to ask this question. What is the greatest affliction
or blessing of God. And I hate to use terms like
the greatest, anything like that, but I'll say this. What is one
of the most fundamental blessings of God? First one, He kills you. What kind of affliction is that?
God kills us. Paul says it this way, I was
alive without the law once, Then the commandment, the word of
God came, sin revived, and I died. Oh, what a blessing. He died
so he could live in Christ. Sin became exceedingly sinful
to the point that Paul says, I am the chief of sinners. No
different than public sin. I am unworthy to even raise my
eyes to heaven. So one of the most fundamental
blessings of a soul that God gives is He kills it. Why? For our good that we may live
in and upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This life He gives. The blessing
of death results in the blessing of life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Quicken in the spirit to see
what? The glory of God in the person
of Jesus Christ. Blind, now I see. Job, I heard
with my ear, but oh my soul, I now sees who you are and I
abhor myself. That's a killing and a living
in the same breath. What is the worst affliction
while we are on this earth? And I'll just speak myself. The lack of seeing the presence
of God. I can't find him. He's not listening
to my prayers. Where did that come from? God deliberately blinds our soul
to his presence. To create what? A need. I must have Christ. Yet we can't find him. Yet he
says something else. I will never leave you, never
forsake you. So he's there, we just can't
see him, we can't find him. To me, that is the worst affliction
that we suffer on the face of this earth. Not being able to,
in your soul, see the beauty of Christ face to face in your
soul. It makes us say, me say, woe
is me, I'm undone. Lord, have mercy on my soul. There's a song on Solid Rock,
one verse. When darkness veils his levity
face, meaning when our soul's eyes can't see our savior. And the next line is, I rest
in his unchanging grace. I always look at that first part,
when darkness veils his lovely face, that is the affliction
I'm talking about. When you can't see the Lord Jesus
Christ in your soul, you're blind. He's there, but he's blind in
your eyes. And what joy When he comes and
says, here I am, see me. He opens our eyes. He opens our
understanding. That is when you rejoice in an
affliction. I was sitting here last Sunday.
Rupert sang a song. And I thought I had it copied
down here. Ripley, I don't even remember
what the name of the song was. Weak is the effort of my heart, and
cold my woman's thought. You ever felt that way? But when I see thee as thou art,
I'll praise thee as I ought. And that's what I'm trying to
say is here is a blessing that God gives us called affliction
to blind us so we can't see him, to make his glory, to be magnified
when he says, blind man now see, and we see. And it's all the
grace of God. I intended to read some from
1 Peter to end this, but let it give me the time. Let me see if I can find a verse. Let me read you verse 5. This
is 1 Peter 1 verse 5. Who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need
be, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations,
trials, affliction, tribulations. If need be, God applies it. That the child of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perishes, will be
tribed to fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ. When he opens our blind eyes,
even as believers, we see him That affliction of blindness
turned into one of joy to the praise and honor of the glory
of Jesus Christ. And it's based on me. And I'll
end there.