When this poor widow cast into
the treasury her two mites, which were the smallest coins in the
Roman Empire and the coins which had the least value, they were
worth less than a penny. When this woman cast in her two
mites, she never dreamed that this action would be recorded
in Holy Scripture and that we would be talking about it 2,000
years later. And there is not a clearer illustration
of faith in all of its nakedness. than this woman casting in her
two mites. And if you want to understand
what faith is, Well, pray for me that I'd preach this the way
it ought to be preached, and pray that the Lord would give
you hearing ears so you can truly understand just what faith is,
because we have such a clear illustration of faith in this
passage of Scripture. Now Mark's account says Jesus
sat over against the treasury and beheld how the people cast
into the treasury, not how much, But how? In what manner? What their motive, what their
attitude, what their spirit was? He watched how they cast the
money into the treasury. Proverbs 15, 3 says, The eyes
of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. The eyes of the Lord are here
right now, looking within every heart. How is so important? The Lord did not only say, take
heed what you hear. He also said, take heed how ye
hear. how you hear, what your attitude,
what your manner is. And he was watching the rich
men placing their gifts in the treasury. And Mark's account
says many that were rich cast in much. They gave very large
amounts of money. Who's going to criticize him
for this? I'm not. I'm glad they did. They cast
in much. Now giving is a very important
issue with the believer. 2 Corinthians 8 says giving proves
the sincerity of your love. If you want to know how sincere
your love is, what is your giving like? He says giving proves the
sincerity of your love. Somebody says, I can't afford
to give. That's why you can't afford.
That's why. That's precisely why. Giving
loves to give. You can't love and not give.
Now you can give without loving. but you cannot love without giving. Now, verse 1, and he looked up
and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury,
and he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two
mites. Now, a poor widow was a woman
who had been left destitute by her husband, and she had no means
of income. I want you to put yourself in
her place. She'd been left destitute. Her
husband died. He left her with nothing. She
didn't have the social agencies we have today. She had no way
of providing for herself. Now, I think it's interesting
when the word poor is used here. He saw a certain poor widow.
This is the only time this particular word is used in the New Testament.
And it means, literally, necessitus. A woman who had great needs. A woman, a poor woman with no
way of supplying herself But yet she was a woman with great
needs. The word in verse 23 is a different
word. When it says, Of a truth I say
unto you that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all.
The word there means reduced to beggary. Destitute. Without. Destitute of wealth. Destitute of power. and destitute
of influence. She was completely destitute
with great needs. Look in verse 4. For all these
of their abundance cast into the offerings of God, but she
of her penury. That means deficiency, her wanting,
her lacking. Now think of this poor woman.
She had great needs and she had absolutely no way of supplying
herself those needs. She was deficient. She was lacking. She was wanting. She was in bad
shape. She was poor and she was needy. You heard that before in the
scriptures? Poor and needy. Would that describe you? Poor
You don't have anything to bring to the table. You don't have
any merit, not even a penny's worth of merit. And you have
great needs. Such was the state of this woman.
Now what did she do? She cast in two mites, which
was the smallest coin in their currency, worth about a fifth
of a penny. Worth about a fifth of a penny.
Two fifths of a penny. Now, if somebody dropped two
cents back there in the box, how much help would it give or
do in paying our bills? It wouldn't even make a dent,
would it? I mean, it wouldn't help very much at all. But look at the Lord's assessment
of her gift. Now, somebody says, just give
them two cents, that's no sacrifice. I mean, if all I had was two
cents, I wouldn't mind putting it in the box because nothing
I can do with it anyway. What can you do with two cents?
Can't even get a piece of bubble gum for two cents. Well, this
woman could get more than that with this. But the point is,
this is to teach us something about what true saving faith
is. Now look at the Lord's assessment
of her gift. He says in verse four, in verse
three, he said, of a truth, I say unto you that this poor widow
hath cast in more than they all. For all these have of their abundance
cast in under the offerings of God, but she of her penury hath
cast in all the living." That's an important word. All the living
that she had. Again, the Lord does not look
at how much, but how. He was watching how this woman
cast in this gift. And the Lord sees what's behind
it. And he sees what's left. This
is a very important point. He sees what's left. How much
we give is seen more in how much we keep. The rich man, or the
rich men, gave of their abundance. They gave something that was
not felt, not missed, and made no difference in the comfort
of their lives. They gave of their abundance,
and there was no sacrifice involved. Did not David say, I will not
offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing? Now, I repeat, giving is a love
issue. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.
And it's a faith issue, this thing of giving. It's a faith
issue. I can't give that much because I might need the money
next month to pay my bills, or I might have some other great
need. My car might break down. This might happen. That might
happen. Can't we trust the Lord to meet our needs? We say we trust him for salvation,
can we not trust him in the smaller things like meeting our material
needs when I was a little boy? Not one time did I ever worry
about where the next meal was coming from. Not once. I knew
my father would take care of it, and I never worried about
it. But you didn't either, did you?
How much more should we trust our Heavenly Father to meet every
need? When this woman gave, here's
the point, when this woman gave, what did she have left? Nothing but complete dependence
upon God to take care of her. That's all she had left. And we admire this woman for
her faith that enabled her to trust God like this. But as I
said at the outset, this is one of the clearest illustrations
of the nature of faith, the true nature of faith that we have
in all the Word of God. Now, here's my first point. There's no place for faith where
there is not poverty, poverty of spirit, and great need. Faith only operates where there's
poverty of spirit, a bankruptness before God, and great need. Now this woman was poor, no resources,
no help. She had nothing. And not only
was she poor in resources, she was necessitous. Only time this
word is used in the New Testament. She had great needs. She was very poor and she was
very needy. Now, poor. I want to talk for
a few moments about being poor. Being poor. Poor before God.
Poor in spirit. If you're poor, you have no resources
and you, like this widow woman, don't have the potential to come
up with any. You see, this woman was a widow
and she didn't have the potential to come up with anything. A poor
widow. Now, if you're poor, you have
nothing to work with, nothing to bring to the table, absolutely
nothing to recommend you to God. You don't have a penny's worth
of merit that God could accept. You know that your righteousness
is as filthy rags, and you know that your will is chained to
an evil nature, and you cannot get yourself out of this predicament.
I read the funny papers every Sunday morning. I always do.
My favorite funny paper is... Gosh, I forgot it's now. I can't
believe I forgot that. What's the engineer's name? Dilbert,
Dilbert, best comic in there. But even today, this morning,
he said, I've been reduced to almost having to not believe
in free will. And I thought, everybody believes in free will,
except believers. Believers know better. I can't
will myself out of the predicament I'm in. That's the, you are reduced
to complete dependence on the charity of God. You really believe
yourself to be a sinner, and that's not some cliche statement.
You are reduced to being completely dependent upon the charity, the
charity of God. Are you poor? Poor. But not only was she poor, she
has great needs. And I think of my needs, my needs. And I'm not talking about material
needs right now. I have those, you do too, but I'm not talking
about material needs. First of all, I need to have
a need. I need to have a need. He healed them that needed healing. The whole need not a physician
but they that are sick. I need to have a need. I won't
even have a need unless he gives me that need. I'll go on my merry
way to hell without even knowing what's happening unless he gives
me this need. Oh, I need. I need to have a
need. I need a new heart. I need a
new spirit. I need faith. I need repentance. I can't come up with these things.
Like I said, I'm poor. I have nothing to bring to the
table. And I have all of these needs. I'm a real charity case. Let's take it farther. I need to be chosen of God. I need to be elected. With me,
I'm not arguing over election. Lord, let me be elected. I need
to be chosen of God. I need for Christ to keep the
law for me. I know that I can't come up with
that obedience. I need Jesus Christ to keep the
law for me. And I need Him to actually make
payment for my sins. I need Him to die for my sins.
I need Him to put them away. I can't bear them. If He doesn't
put them away, they're still on me, and there's not one thing
I can do about it. I need for Him. I'm talking about
what I need. I'm poor. I can't bring anything
to the table, and I need for Him. elect me, I need him to
keep the law for me, I need him to actually make payment for
my sins to where they're no longer there. They're put away, they're
separated from me as far as the east is from the west, cast behind
God's back. I need to be justified, and I
can't justify myself. Job said, if I justify myself,
my own mouth will condemn me. Now, everybody's always bent
on self-justification and self-vindication. I do that all the time. I know
that. I'm always going to try to justify myself. But before
God, I need to be justified. I need Him to declare me to be
justified because of what Christ did for me. I need His righteousness. I need His righteousness. If I don't have His righteousness,
I don't have any righteousness, period. I need to be born from above. I need Him to say to me, live,
and I live. I need this new heart and new
spirit that comes with the new birth. I need to be preserved. If he doesn't preserve me, I
won't persevere. I need him to enable me to persevere. I need
to be kept by the power of God. And I'm saying, Lord, I need
this for you to do this for me. I need to be kept by the power
of God through faith unto salvation. I need my sins forgiven. I can't express how bad I need
that. I need His grace. I need for Him to never leave
me nor forsake me. I need to be made both to will
and to do His good pleasure. You know I love that scripture,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it's God
that worketh in you both the will and to do his good pleasure.
You know what I say, Lord work in me both the will and to do
your good pleasure so I'll work out my salvation with fear and
trembling. I won't work it out with fear and trembling unless
you do this for me on the inside. That's what I need. I need to be made to fear him. Unite my heart to fear thy name. I need to not be left to myself
so that my heart will not harden. I know that if he, all he's got
to do with me is nothing, and I'll become hard as granite.
I need him, as David said, to cause me to do his will. I need him to make me willing
in the day of his power, and I can say this with conviction,
there's nobody before God that's poorer or has greater need than
me. And I have no doubt that every
believer says the same thing about themselves. This woman
was a widow. She had no way of providing for
herself. She was poor and she was needy. Don't you need Him to represent
you before the Father? When your name is called on Judgment
Day, don't you need Him to be your representative? Now I'm
talking about need. I'm talking about poverty. I
feel so convinced of this. If I've got to come up with anything
that I need to do before God will save me, then there's no
hope for me. I know myself better than that.
I know I won't do it. I know I can't do it. I need
Him to do for me that which I cannot do for myself. And I need Him. I need Thee. Oh, I need Thee. Every hour I need thee, O bless
me now my Savior, I come to thee. What great poverty and what great
need. Now that was the state of this
woman. She was a poor widow with great needs, with no way of providing
for herself. Now what did she do? She cast
in all her living. And with what this represents
is faith. She cast in all her living. And Mark's account says
she did it out of her want. Luke's account said she did it
out of her penury. Now what that means is there
is a conscience. I have nothing. Great needs,
great lacking. These two mites represent her
faith. All of her living, all of her living, she cast into
the treasury and she was now reduced or should we say enriched
with total dependence on God for everything. For everything. Now this is the character of
faith. In my want, in my need, in my
poverty, I trust Christ only because I have nothing else to
trust. It's not like I have any options in this thing. It's not
like I have a plan B. I love the way Paul put it in
2 Timothy 1.12, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I've committed to him. What have you committed Paul?
Same thing that this poor widow woman did all my living. I've committed it. I've entrusted
it to Him. You know what that means? That
means that if what He did and who He is is not enough to save
me, I won't be saved because I have committed it all, all
my salvation to Him. That's precisely what that woman
did. When she cast in her two bites,
what was she left with? Nothing. What do you have? What do you have? Nothing. The only thing I have is Christ. And you know I believe that with
all my heart. The only thing I have is Christ. What else would you need? Turn
with me to Genesis chapter 22. This poor widow woman, all she
could do is depend upon the Lord's provision for her because she
had nothing. How does that fit with you in
your faith? How does that fit with me? Am I this woman? Someone who
is completely dependent on the Lord to provide everything for
me in salvation. Completely dependent. Genesis
22 And it came to pass, after these
things, all these trials that Abraham had gone through, he
was an old man. He was an old man at this time. He'd been through
so much, and you'd think the Lord would have left him alone,
but no, he's going to be tried again. It could be that your
greatest trials are ahead of you. It could be that my greatest
trials are ahead of me. I'm glad I don't know what they
are. I don't want to know what they are. and came to pass after these
things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham, and
I can see Abraham wince, because every time he heard his name
called, it was before some big trial. And he said, behold, here I am,
and he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac. Ishmael
is never regarded as a son. Works are never regarded as a
son. Take now thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and
get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt
offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee And Abraham
rose up early in the morning. Now I admire that so much. He
didn't give space for disobedience. God told him to do this. If you
feel, or if I feel impressed to do something, if we wait long
enough, we'll lose the impression. But he didn't do that. He rose
up early in the morning. I dare say he didn't consult
with Sarah. What do you reckon Sarah would
have said if he said, let's go, I'm going to go offer up Isaac
for a burnt offering. Oh shoot, I put a stop to that,
you know that. He rose up early in the morning and saddled his
ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son,
And he made all the preparations. He claimed the wood for the burnt
offering and rose up and went under the place of which God
had told him. Then on the third day, what do
you reckon was going through his mind those three days? Knowing
he was being called upon to offer up his son as a burnt offering.
On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place
afar off. Now, which of us have not thought
that if God called me to kill my child, I could not do it? Every one of us have thought
that. But you could if you believed
what Abraham believed. Abraham believed that God would
raise his child from the dead. Because he knew that God had
promised that the Messiah would come through Isaac. And if Isaac's
dead, God's word wouldn't come to pass and that's not going
to happen. Now if God called upon you to
kill your child and you knew that God would raise him from
the dead, you'd do it. You'd do it. By the grace of
God, You do it. You know it's only by grace,
but you do it. Abraham had great faith. You would too. God giving
you the grace to do what he said to do. And look what he says
in verse 5. And Abraham said unto his young
men, Abide ye here with the ash, and I and the lad will go yonder
and worship and come again to you. There wasn't any doubt in
Abraham's mind that he and his boy would be coming back. And
I love the way he says, we're going to go and worship. We're
going to go and worship. Verse six, and Abraham took the
wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac, his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both
of them together. Now the, Typology is so obvious. Who else carried the wood of
his own execution up a mountain to be sacrificed? I mean, this
is so obviously a type of the Lord Jesus Christ and a type
of the gospel. And if I would understand the
gospel, I better understand Genesis 22. It's so clear here. Now,
verse 7, And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father, and said, My father? And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? You can have the fire. You can
have the excitement. You can have the wood. You can
have the structure. You can have the doctrine. But
with regard to everything we hear, where is the lamb? Where is the lamb for a burnt
offering? And look at Abraham's reply.
Did he know what he's saying? I believe he did. And Abraham
said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. Now listen real carefully. That woman was reduced to being
totally dependent upon God to provide. She had nothing else. all that God requires of you. God provides for you. You don't have to provide anything. It's a good thing. Because if
you did, you'd be out of luck. You'd be in bad shape. But everything
that God requires, He provides. You know, He requires you to
believe, and He gives you that faith. He requires you to repent,
and He gives you that repentance. He requires you to love, and
He gives you that love. He requires you to be perfectly
righteous, and He gives you that perfect righteousness. He requires
you to persevere to the end, and He gives you that perseverance.
All that God requires God provides. And what a provider he is. And
you can also look at that verse of scripture. God will provide,
he's the one who does the providing, and God will provide for himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. Now what that means is, for God
to do something for me or you, he first had to do something
for himself. He couldn't accept you the way you are. He couldn't
accept me the way I am. He couldn't love us unconditionally. People talk about unconditional
love. There's no such thing. God can't love you unconditionally.
He'd cease to be God if He did. He can't love someone so unholy
and evil and wicked and embrace them. That would be against His
character. For Him to do something for me. He first had to do something
for himself, and that's exactly what Christ did on Calvary Street.
He put away my sin and made it to where God could completely
embrace me. Now, He didn't do it to make
a way for God to love me. He did it because God did love
me, and He made the way for me to be lovable, for me to be accepted,
for me to be perfect in His sight. He provided for Himself. You know, Christ, I want to say
this the way I ought to say it. Christ didn't die for you. He
died for God. And you're the beneficiary in
that if you're a believer. But He didn't die for you. He died for
God. So God could be just and yet
justify the ungodly. God will provide for himself
a lamb for a burnt offering. And God will provide himself
as the lamb for the burnt offering. He is the lamb of his own providing. God provided himself. Now, what more can you want? If you're a poor widow, destitute,
with no means of support, you can bring nothing to the table,
nothing that God can accept, and you have great needs. You
need to have a need. You need for God to do something
for you. If that's the condition you're in, what more could you
want? Complete dependence upon Christ. I love being completely dependent
upon him. Verse 9, And they came to a place
which God told him of. And Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid
him on the altar upon the wood. Now I can't help but think that
Isaac didn't bite this. Abraham explained to him what
he's doing, explained to him that the Messiah was going to
come to him, and explained to him that God would raise him
from the dead. So be patient, my son. Be patient. And he willingly let his father
bind him. Verse 10, And Abraham stretched
forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the
angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said,
Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
unto him. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes,
and looked, and behold, behind him. The reason for salvation is always
behind you. It's behind you. He already did it. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked
and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And
Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt
offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name
of that place Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide. The Lord will see to it. He will take care of it. And that, my dear friends, is
the gospel. As it's said to this day in the
man of the Lord, it shall be seen. Now, I want to practice
the faith of this poor widow woman, don't you? I know that's
me by nature, by choice, by practice, what I am in and of myself, poor
with great needs. But what a blessed place it is
to be reduced or rather enriched to complete dependence on Christ
for everything. Let's pray together. Lord, how we thank you that you
provide that you're Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides. Lord,
we thank you that you provide all you require for us. We thank
you that you provided for yourself so that you could provide for
us. And Lord, how we thank you that
you yourself are the lamb that you provided. And Lord, truly, Heaven will be praising the Lamb
that was slain and who lives, the Lamb of thy providing. Bless
this message for your glory and for our good. In Christ's name
we pray.