As we just read in the Gospel
of Matthew, our Lord Jesus Christ came to a place where A publican
named Matthew was collecting taxes. That's what publicans
were. They were tax collectors. And they weren't very highly
thought of, I might add. He called Matthew, as we read,
and Matthew arose and followed. When the Lord Jesus Christ affectionately
calls sinners, they'll arise and they'll follow Him. And many
publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.
was a publican. He was a sinner and all his friends
were. And they came and they sat down
with the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples. And no sooner
had they sat down, the religious Pharisees saw it. They began
to judge. They began to murmur and they
began to stir up trouble, as they always did. And immediately
they began to ask the Lord's disciples a very judgmental question. Why does your master eat with
publicans and senators? Oh, how pompous, how judgmental. how holier than thou these religious
men were. And I'll tell you, if you hadn't
experienced it yourself, and I'm sure you have, it's pretty
much still the same today. Most folks that have a mere form
of religion are the most self-righteous and judgmental people in the
world. Some of the meanest people I ever met in my life were religious
people. And our Lord heard these judgmental,
pompous, religious Pharisees ask the question. And He said,
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. You see,
our Lord was on a mission of mercy. From the time He started
His public ministry till they nailed Him on the cross, He was
on a mission of mercy. He was going to show mercy to
some. If Christ hadn't died for some,
there would be none in heaven. That's just a fact. His mission
was one of mercy, not judgment. And then he asked the question,
as we read, where he made this statement. He said, you go and
you learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Men sacrifice their time. They
sacrifice their money. They sacrifice all sorts of things. Religious men and women, it profits
them nothing. Salvation is a gift of God and
grace and mercy, undeserved and unmerited. I came not to call
the righteous, those that are okay in their own mind, those
that are doing just fine. No, I came to call sinners to
repentance. Those that are doing okay in
their own right, thinking themselves to be righteous and whole, they
need not a doctor. Who needs a doctor? The healthy
or the sick? The gospel, the good news from
God to man is for the sick, needy, and poor. Now the question you
need to answer for yourself is this. Do you see that you're
sick, needy, and poor? Do you see that? You see that
you have nothing to offer. If you do, I'll tell you this,
I have the absolute best news that you ever heard. The best
news you ever heard. If you're needy, poor, sick,
and helpless. Now if you'll turn with me to
Psalm 72. Psalm 72. I want to look at verse
12. Psalm 72, verse 12. Psalm 72,
verse 12. For he, being God, shall deliver
the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath
no helper. Now here we have a threefold
description of the type of people that God delivers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The needy, the poor, and ones
with no helper. The message of the glorious gospel
of Christ is for men and women who meet this threefold description. Needy, poor, and with no helper. So, let's consider the first.
Needy. Are you needy? Has God shown
you that you're needy? Are you poor? Has God shown you
that you're spiritually poor, bankrupt, without God and without
hope in this world? Do you see that naturally speaking
that you have no one on earth that can help you? No helper
at all. Not here. For those who meet
this description are told in this very passage that God shall
deliver the needy. the poor and those with no help. If He says He shall deliver you
and only He, the Almighty God, can show you that you are these
things, we're all in the same spiritual condition, friend.
All sinners There's none that do us good, no not one. All in
the same shape. None of us are seeking after
God. We've all gone our own way. In our state before, a thrice
holy God is one of need, poverty, and helplessness. In our infancy,
we are totally dependent on our parents for our provision. We
continue through our lives in a needy state. As we grow old,
our needs become even more apparent, for we see daily that our condition
has not improved. Now religious people think they're
getting better. You don't believe it, you ask
them. But the children of God believe they're getting worse.
And you know why? Because every day they see their
need. They see their poor and helpless
condition without Christ. And they lean ever more on Him. We see our horrific need daily. We are never one moment in our
lives without need. We wake up every day with the
need of a heartbeat, with the need of breath to fill our lungs,
and it's God alone that gives both. And when we lay down at
night, we need God's preservation until we arise and start all
over again the next day, and everything in between. Every
heartbeat, every breath must come from Him. In Him, the scripture
says, we live, we move, and we have our being. Now is that not
what that means? In Him, we live, we move, and
we have our being. If not for Him, I can't live,
I can't move. Throughout all the days of our
lives we are people who are full of need. The sad part, now here's
the sad part, is that the majority of people in the world don't
know it. They don't know that they're
needy, poor, and without help. It takes a divine revelation
from God to see it. And if God doesn't show it to
us, we'll never see it. Revelation 3.17. Let me read
this verse to you. Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. That describes
the majority of people in this world. They don't need anything.
I don't need anybody, much less God. And the Scripture says,
And knowest not that thou art wretched, miserable, poor, blind,
and naked. That's what we all are, spiritually
speaking. Men by nature do not know that
they're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. They
think they're rich, increased with goods, and have need of
nothing. Needy. Are you needy? Second
thing, poor. Has God shown you that you're
poor? Now naturally and physically,
a man or woman can be very needy and yet have sufficient wealth
to supply and fulfill his or her need, but not spiritually.
Not spiritually. Spiritually speaking, every man
and woman is poor. Plumb broke. We're not only needy,
but we're very, very, very poor. Poverty stricken. We're destitute
of everything that we spiritually need. Has God shown you that?
There's nothing within our reach that we can grab hold of to help
ourselves with. There's a great famine in this
land, friends, and we have great need of bread, and we can't purchase
it. We have great need of water, but no means which to attain
it. We're so poor that when we see our need, it only deepens
our sense of our poverty. Because of our inability to acquire
what we need, we see our poverty and our need even more, don't
we? You see, this spiritual famine that every man and woman faces
is just this. That bread that we need so desperately
in order to sustain life is Christ's body, which was broken for His
people. That water I so desperately need
is the everlasting fountain of life that flows from Christ to
solid rock. That garment that I need to cover
my nakedness, that's the righteous covering of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's everything I need. I'm so
poor that I cannot buy. I'm so crippled that I cannot
earn. And I'm so wicked that I definitely
don't deserve the things that I must have. The only way that
any can obtain these things that they so desperately need is the
hope that God might be pleased to give them to us. Very, very
needy. Very, very We need grace and
we need mercy. And then the third characteristic
here is there is no helper. Now there was a time when I felt
like I had many helpers. And so did you. Some of you maybe
thought that a priest could help you. There was a time when I
honestly thought that my parents were my help. But now they're
gone. One time I thought and I placed
some dependency on the ministry I attended and thought religion
might be of some help to me, but it failed to do that which
I needed. But the Lord, by His grace, has
shown me that I have no earthly helper. And neither do you. Let me read a few verses in Jeremiah
17 to you, verses 5-7. It says, Thus saith the Lord,
Cursed be the man that trusteth in man. There's no help to be
found there. Cursed be the man that trusteth
in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departed
from the Lord. So he shall be like the heath. And that word means one destitute
and stripped. in the desert, like a heath in
the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit
in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and
not inhabit it. But, verse 7, blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Friends, there's no help except
that which cometh from God. There's no helper but God. Putting
our trust anywhere else will absolutely shut us up to the
fact that there's no helper. There's no helper. Three characteristics,
needy, poor, having no help. Has God shown you that you're
those things? If He has, This is good news
to you. For it says very plainly, he
shall deliver the needy when he cry, the poor also and him
that hath no helper. Verse 13, he shall spare the
poor and needy and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall,
he shall, he shall. When a sinner saved by grace
is poorest in themselves. I'm convinced of this. It's when
they're richest in grace. When I'm weak. When I'm weak
and He's made strong. So let me ask you again. Are
you needy? Are you poor? Are you without a helper? If
you are, God's grace is not far from you. He shall spare the
poor and needy. Now the way to grow in grace
is to fill your poverty. Do you know that? That's how
we grow in grace. We fill our poverty. We see our
need of Christ. This perpetual condition of every
one of us is needy, poor, and a helpless one. It's perpetual. I'm needy, poor, and helpless
today, and you know what? Tomorrow I'm going to be needy,
poor, and helpless. in myself, in my own right, in
my own standing. May we learn to say with David
in Psalm 109 verse 122, he said, I'm poor and needy and my heart
is wounded within me. That's the kind of folks that
God saves. Alright, now I want you to turn
with me to Psalm 40 and we'll spend the remaining time we have
here. I want you to look at Psalm 40
verse 17. Psalm 40 verse 17, the last verse of the chapter.
David says, But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh
upon me. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. What a prayer that is. First,
He confesses what He is. I'm poor and I'm needy, but I
know by Your grace, by divine revelation that You thinketh
upon me. What is man that that would be?
Mindful of Him. Oh, it takes grace and grace
only. Now, men and women often say,
I don't pray as often as I ought. I've said that. I say that often.
I don't. Maybe I'm not poor and needy.
Maybe I'm still trying to help myself. Do you know when men
and women pray? I mean when men and women really,
really pray when they're in real trouble. Now let's just be honest. When you're in real trouble,
you're going to pray if you're a child of God. When hard trials
and terrible tribulations come, men and women pray. And usually
when the dust settles and the things improve, we stop again. And we go back to saying, I ought
to pray more. But friends, you're poor and needy, and you're without
help. Should that not cause us to cry
to God daily, every minute of every day? I'm in a perpetual state of poor
needy. There's nothing more than I desire
than to be delivered from this desperate and wretched condition
that I'm in. Like the Apostle Paul, I say,
Oh wretched man that I am, deliver me from this body of death and
destruction. I know this much, I thought about
this, whenever our children had a need or maybe it was just a
want or desire, you know children have a lot of things that they
don't necessarily need that they want and desire. But I'm going
to tell you this, one thing's for sure, they were never bashful
about asking, never once. Never once do I think that my
children desired or wanted or needed anything that I had to
find out from somebody else. They tell you right up front,
Daddy, Mommy, I want, I want, I need, I got to have. Could it be, I ask you, that
we don't ask God because we don't think we need it? Oh God of heaven
and earth, show us our need and our poor and helpless condition. Now stay with me. We have the
message this very moment for the poor and needy and helpless.
We have the good news. That's not the problem. The problem
is finding someone poor and needy. Now look at Psalm 40 verse 17
again. I'm poor and needy, yet the Lord
thinketh upon me. Now, hear me out for just a few
more minutes. Consider these things with me
and I'll be done. Joseph, the young man with the
coat of many colors that his brothers sold him to slavery,
told their father that he was murdered. He was sitting in the
deep, dark dungeon in Egypt. He'd been falsely accused of
rape. He didn't have one friend in
all of Egypt. He was unjustly accused and punished. And if there was anyone in all
of Egypt that was poor and needy, it was him. His father thought
he was dead. I'm sure by now that his brothers
did also because they had delivered him into slavery. But Joseph,
there's good news for you. The Lord thanketh upon you. What about Ruth? She was a Moabite
woman. She was a heathen. She came from
a heathen country, a heathen family that didn't believe or
worship Jehovah. And after the death of her husband,
she finds herself in Israel with her mother-in-law, Naomi, who
absolutely had nothing. Nothing. Didn't know where their
next meal was going to come from. Here she was in a strange land
with a strange language and her religion was strange. She'd been
reduced to a lonely beggar, ragged, poverty stricken, gleaning leftovers
in the field, gathering only enough to stay alive. But Ruth,
you're not alone. You're not alone. The Lord thinketh
upon you all as well. The apostles, most of them just
poor fishermen. They had ragged boats and worn
nets. It seems though, throughout Scripture,
they were always said to be mending their nets. They were hard laborers,
I'm sure dirty and smelly. They were looked upon as unlearned
men who would never amount to anything. Their complete livelihood
was totally dependent on catching fish. And many times they toiled
all night and caught nothing. And though they didn't know it
at the time, the Lord was thinking upon them, everything's going
to be alright. What about that Samaritan woman?
She having had five husbands and was presently living with
another man, lived in disgrace and she was at the top of the
town. As she walked in the day, the whole town whispered. She
lived in shame and in embarrassment. She went to draw water in the
heat of the day when the sun was at its most scorching to
simply avoid having to see anybody. Every day she left her house.
She was empty, alone, unhappy, in constant reproach. She was
tired, weary, friendless, walking towards that well, totally unconscious
that the Lord was thinking upon her. to do her good, to be gracious,
and to be merciful. And regardless of what everyone
else thought, and I can assure you, did nobody think good of
her. The Lord was thinking upon her
to do her good. that possessed man of the Gadarenes. Needy, helpless, poor, terrifying
everyone, running among the tombs like a madman. Everyone was thinking,
we wish he's dead. Scared and terrified while they
tried to bound him with chains and he'd break them. My goodness,
we wish he was dead. But the Lord was thinking on
his deliverance and his eternal well-being. The Lord, yet the
Lord thinketh upon thee. And there on the cross, the dying
thief. He was a habitual felon. He was
an outcast, despised, convicted, condemned. He's already nailed
justly to the cross to die. And there are people pointing
and laughing and mocking and happy that he's finally getting
what he deserved. Well, you know, he stole from
my cousin and he, while he my brother to within an inch of
his life, and they're sitting there rejoicing that he's hanging
on the cross. And they watch as his blood drips
down his hands and his feet onto the sand below. But no one cared. No one gives a second thought.
But somebody was thinking on him. The Lord was thinking upon
him. For he now saw that he was poor
and needy, and he said, Lord, when You come into Your kingdom,
will You remember me? the Lord was thinking upon him. And Saul of Tarsus, wrapped in
his religious robes full of pride and self-righteousness, personal
merit, he was somebody in the kingdom of God, he thought. He
hated God, he hated Christ, he hated everyone that identified
with him. He was a persecutor and really he was a murderer,
a murderer in the name of religion. And Saul was filled with Hatred,
but he's special to God. Saul, the Lord thinketh upon
thee. The Lord thinketh upon you. You
might say, well, I'm poor and needy. I'm falling in Adam. I'm
dead and trespassed in Sam. That's good. That's a good thing.
I'm poor with nothing to pay. I'm sinful and deserving of eternal
condemnation. There's none around me that can
help, for they are all in the same condition. Like Isaiah,
we say, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. And I dwell in the midst of a
people with an unclean lip. For mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of Hosts. There's no one that can help
me. Not here. Everybody around me is in the
same condition. I have nothing. I know nothing. I am nothing. Poor. Needy. Empty. Yet, the Lord thinketh
upon me. You see, dear sinner, He will
deliver the needy when he crieth. Isn't that what we read? Can
you cry unto God? Let me not only tell you that
you can, but let me say, if you've seen that you're needy and you're
poor and with you without help, you will. If you've truly seen
your condition before a thrice holy God, you can look and you
can live. And yet, for one reason and one
reason alone, just maybe, today, the Lord is thinking upon you.
Isn't that the best news you've ever
heard? I'm poor. I'm needy. I don't have any helper. Yet the Lord thinketh on you.