will
carry it. If you have no sense of need, the message that there is a
supply will fall perfectly ineffectual upon your ears. If you have not
realised the truth that whatever else you may be, of which you might be
proud--wise, clever, beautiful, accomplished, rich, prosperous--you have
this to take all the self-conceit out of you, that you are a sinful
man--if you have not realised that, it will be no gospel to you that
Jesus Christ has died, the just for the unjust, and lives to cleanse us.

Brethren, there is only one way into the true and full possession of
Christ's salvation, and that is through poverty of spirit. It is the
narrow door, like the mere low slits in the wall which in ancient times
were the access to some wealth-adorned palace or stately
structure--narrow openings that a man had to stoop his lofty crest in
order to enter. If you have never been down on your knees before God,
feeling what a wicked man or woman you are, I doubt hugely whether you
will ever stand with radiant face before God, and praise Him through
eternity for His mercy to you. If you wish to have Christ for yours, you
must begin, where He begins His Beatitudes, with poverty of spirit.

It is blessed because it invites the riches of God to come and make us
wealthy. It draws towards itself communication of God's infinite self,
with all His quickening and cleansing and humbling powers. Grace is
attracted by the sense of need, just as the lifted finger of the
lightning rod brings down fire from heaven. The heights are barren; it
is in the valleys that rivers run, and flowers bloom. 'God resisteth the
proud, and giveth grace to the humble.' If we desire to have Him, who is
the one source of all blessedness, in our hearts, as a true possession,
we must open the door for His entrance by poverty of spirit. Desire
brings fulfilment; and they who know their wants, and only they, will
truly long that they may be supplied.

This poverty of spirit is blessed because it is its own reward. All
self-esteem and self-complacency are like a hedgehog, as some one has
said, 'rolled up the wrong way, tormenting itself with its prickles.'
And the man that is always, or often, thinking how much above A, B, or C
he is, and how much A, B, or C ought to offer of incense to him, is sure
to get more cuffs than compliments, more enmity than affection; and will
be sore all over with wounded vanities of all sorts. But if we have
learned ourselves, and have departed