A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

If every person knew what it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness there would be no war. Here is the only way to real peace.

One of the greatest tragedies in the life of the Church today is the way in which so many are content with these vague, general, useless statements about war and peace instead of preaching the gospel in all it's simplicity and purity.

'Blessed Are They Which Do Hunger And Thirst After Righteousness'. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statement of the whole of Scripture you can be certain you are a Christian. If it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.

We have been told that we must be poor in spirit, that we must mourn, that we must be meek.

Here we begin to look for a solution. For the deliverance from self for which which we long.

It is the great charter for every seeking soul.

It is doctrinal. It emphasises one of the most fundamental doctrines of the gospel, namely, that our salvation is entirely of grace, or by grace. That it is entirely the gift of God.

Remember 'blessed' means happy. The whole world is seeking happiness, but it is the great tragedy of the world that it never seems to be able to find it.

According to the Scriptures, happiness is never something that should be sought directly.

It is always something that results from seeking something else.

Whenever you put happiness before righteousness you will be doomed to misery. Put happiness in the place of righteousness and you will never get it.

Think of a man who is suffering from some painful disease. If the doctor only treats the pain, and does not discover the cause of the pain, and treat that, he is a very bad doctor. He is doing something that is extremely dangerous to the life of the patient.

We are not meant to hunger and thirst after experiences. We are not meant to hunger and thirst after blessedness. If we wabtr to be truly happy and blessed, we must hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Experiences are a gift from God, but we must covet and seek righteousness.

What is this righteousness then? It is not a sort of general righteousness or morality between nations.

Men wax eloquent about how countries threaten the peace of the world, break their contracts, yetr are disloyal to their wives and disloyal to their own marriage contracts.

There are those who say that righteousness means justification. It does.

But it also means santification.

It means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all it's forms and in it's every manifestation. A desire to be free from sin because sin separates us from God.

Our first parents were made righteous in the presence of God. They dwelt and walked with Him. That is the relationship a righteous man desires.

And it means the desire to be free from the power of sin. To get away from the power that drags him down in spite of himself.

It means a desire to be free from the very desire for sin. We find that the man who turly examines himself in the lift of the Scriptures is not only in the bondage of sin, more horrible yet is he LIKES IT, he WANTS IT! Even after he has seen it is wrong he still wants it.

To put it positively, to hunger and thirst after righteousness is nothing but the longing to be positively holy. He who does, is a man who wants to show the fruit of the Spirit in every action and in the whole of his life and activity.

But what does it mean to 'hunger and thirst'. It does not mean that we can attain this righteousness by our own efforts. That is the worldy view of righteousness which focusses on man and leads to the individual pride of the Pharisee.

It leads to those things that the apostle Paul describes in Philippians 3 as 'dung'. The first Beatitude tells us that we must be 'poor in spirit' so it cannot be that worldly view of righteousness.

It is a consciousness of our deparate need.

It is something that keeps on until it is satisfied. It is not just a passing feeling, a passing desire. It hurts, it is painful, it is like actual, physical hunger and thirst.

It is like a longing for a person. There is always a great hunger and thirst in love.

The Psalmist has summed it up perfectly in a classical phrase: 'As the hart panteth afcter the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, My soul thirsteth of God, for the living God.

As J. N. Darby said, 'when the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed upon husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.'

Finally, let's look at what is promised to the people who are hungry and thirsting for righteousness.

'They shall be filled'.

The whole Gospel is there. That is where the gospel of grace comes in. It is entirely the gift of God. You will never fill yourself with righteousness, you will never find blessedness apart from Him.

When you and I know our need, this hunger and starvation, this death that is within us, then God will fill us. This is an absolute promise. If you are really hungering and thirsting after righteousness you will be filled.

How does it happen?

It happens - and this is the glory of the gospel - it happens immediately, thank God. We are justified by Christ and His righteousness and the barrier of sin and guilt between us and God is removed.

You are no longer under the law, you are under grace.

God looks at you in the righteousness of Christ and He no longer sees the sin.

The Christian therefore should always be a man who knows that his sins are forgiven.

He should not be seeking it. He should know he has it. That he is justified in Christ freely by the grace of God.

Thank God it happens immediately.

But it is also a continuing process. The Holy Spirit, begins within us His great work of delivering us from the power of sin and from the pollution of sin. Christ will come into you.

And as He lives in you you will be delivered increasingly from the power of sin and from its pollution. You will be enabled to resist Satan, he will flee from you. You will be able to stand against him and his fiery darts.

Finally, this promise is fulfilled perfectly and absolutely in eternity. There is a day coming when all who are in Christ and belong to Him shall stand in the presence of God, faultless, blameless, without spot and without wrinkle. A new and perfect man in a perfect body.

But there is a paradox. At this moment I am perfect in Christ, and yet I am being made perfect.

The Christian is one who both hungers and thirsts AND IS AT THE SAME TIME filled! You reach a certain stage in sanctification but you do not rest on it. You go on changing!

From glory to glory to glory 'till in heaven we take our place'. Perfect yet not perfect. Hungering, thirsting, yet filled and satisfied, but longing for more, never having enough because it is so glorious and wondrous.

Fully satisfied by Him yet a supreme desire to know Him.

A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability, self-assurance and aggressiveness. Yet again, we are reminded that the Christian is altogether different from the world.

He is a new man, a new creation. He belongs to an entirely different kingdom. And if we are obviously different from the non-Christians around us, this tells us a great deal about of profession of the Christian faith.

The Jews that Christ was speaking to expected a materialistic and military kingdom, with Him on the throne. They were not expecting a kingdom of the meek. It was important to confront that.

The meek are NOT THOSE who trust to their own organising, their own powers and abilities, their own institutions, they are the reverse of that.

'Blessed Are The Meek'. These Beatitudes get increasingly difficult. It demands that we allow others to say critical things to us. We are happy to say we are a wretched sinner, but how do we feel when someone else tells us the same thing!

The Lord Jesus exemplifies meekness in the face of his enemies, and in his submission to His Father. He says that 'the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works'.

This meekness is not a natural quality. Every Christian is meant to be like this.

It is something that is produced by the Spirit of God.

It is compatible with great strength, authority and power. The martyrs were meek but never *weak*. God forbid that we should confuse this noble quality with something merely animal or physical or natural.

Meekness is a true view of oneself, expressed through attitude and conduct with respect to others.

You see how inevitably it follows being 'poor in spirit' and 'mourning'. The meek man is not proud of himself. He does not want to be. He is ashamed of it.

The meek man - for blessed are the meek - does not make demands for his position, his privileges, his possessions, his status in life. Christ did asset that right to equality with God. He deliberately did not. And that is the point to which you and I need to come.

The man who is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God and man can think of him as well as they do and treat him as well as they do.

It also means that we are ready to listen and learn - that we have such a poor idea of ourselves, our capabilities that we are ready to listen to others.

We learn to accept that 'vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'. He will repay. We have nothing to do

We who are meek have already inherited the earth. As Paul said 'having nothing, and yet possessing all things'.

But in the future kingdom 'do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?'. We will judge the world. We will judge angels!

Nothing but the Holy Spirit can humble us. Nothing but the Holy Spirit can make us poor in spirit and make us mourn because of our sinfulness and produce in us this true, right view of self and give us this very mind of Christ Himself. -- Dr M. Lloyd-Jones

A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

The world regards this as utterly ridiculous! "Forget your troubles" it says. But the meaning is entirely spiritual. He is happy who mourns in spirit.

Absence of this in the Church is one reason why it is failing to evangelize. As Christians more closely approximate the Beatitudes, they are more sucesful in drawing others in. But not false piety. To be religious is not to be miserable!

But we will not attract other to the faith through forced brightness and joviality. We fail to see the true depth of sin AND fail to understand true Christian joy. A double failure!

That results in a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate Christian life.

We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Conviction must precede conversion. A real sense of sin must come before there can be a true joy of salvation. That is the essense of the Gospel.

"Blessed are they that mourn".

People want joy without the conviction of sin. But that is impossible. It can never be obtained.

Why is there no record of Jesus ever having laughed?
He was a 'man of sorrows, aquainted with grief' - but why?

As I confront God and His holiness, and contemplate the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness. I discover my quality of spirit and immediately that makes me mourn.

Mourning is our reflection upon this wretchedness. Our state of sinfulness. We must ask ourselves 'what is it in me that makes me behave like that. Why am I not able to control myself'. We should hate it.

But we should also mourn the sins of others.

Mourn the state of society and the world. Know that it is all due to sin.

THAT is why our Lord Jesus mourned. Why he was a man of sorrows. It is impossible to be merry, to laugh, in the face of knowing ALL THAT SIN, the sin that he took upon himself on the Cross.

But for our mourning, we are comforted, by Christ's salvation, and the happiness and contentment that that brings. And the hope that lies in the new Kingdom, and Christ's return.

A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

The first, and the key to all that follows. It is an emptying. All others are a filling. The beatitudes are in a specific order for a specific reason. Pour out the old wine, before filling with the new.

There is no more perfect statement of the doctrine of faith alone. It at once condemns every idea of the Sermon on the Mount which thinks in terms of something you and I can do ourselves.

It is emphatically NOT 'Blessed in spirit are the poor'.

It IS 'not possessed by the worldly spirit'. It IS a poverty of spirit. Man's attitude towards himself. Genuinely putting God first, and pride second.

This is despised by the world. Self reliance, self confidence and self expression. The hubris of mankind!

Neither is this Beatitude popular in the Church today. Even in the Church today there is this foolish talk about 'personality'. And personality something purely fleshy and carnal, and a matter of physical appearance. Humility is assumed as lacking in personality!

But Paul in Corinth went in weakness, fear and trembling. People said he looked weak and his speech, contemptible.

But being poor in spirit does not mean retiring, weak or lacking in courage. It does not mean putting on false humility. Our personality must be true

True humility in the presence of God runs throughout the OT. Having had a vision, Isaiah said 'I am a man of unclean lips'. Paul in the NT was well aware of his own nature, his pride. That is why he uses the word 'boasting' so much.

That, then is what is meant by being 'poor in spirit'. It means a complete absence of pride, self-assurance and self-reliance. A consciousness that we are NOTHING in the presence of God.

The life we have lived or are trying to live, who we are, means nothing.