Poverty of Spirit #2 — Leonard Ravenhill

The Sermon on the Mount and the Kingdom of Christ

Going back to the Sermon on the Mount, the version that's given in the Gospel is recorded by Matthew in chapter 5, chapter 5. Read from verse 1, "...and seeing the multitudes, he went into a mountain, and there, when he was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.".

I've been trying to rethink some things about this period in the life of the Lord Jesus. We would say that he was riding a crest of popularity. He had come to a new peak in his life. People were flocking from Jerusalem and Judea and Tyre and Sidon, and I think the reason's pretty obvious, because they were getting healed, they were getting fed.

They were getting a lot of things for nothing, and you can always get a crowd when there's a lot of things for nothing. The second thing is that it was after he spent a night in prayer that he chose his twelve disciples.

If you read the Gospel as Luke interprets it, you'll discover that it could well call be the Gospel of prayer. Because in every crisis in the life of Jesus, Luke emphasizes what none of the other Matthew, Mark, or John emphasize.

For instance, in the Jordan, a dove, all the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, record this, but Luke says it was as he was praying a dove descended on him. He's the only one that makes that reference.

And then at the end of the journey, when Jesus is on the cross, it's Luke that says, as he was praying, he was praying even for the sinners round about him. In between, you'll find him choosing his twelve disciples, after he had spent a whole night in prayer.

I wonder how many deacons would get elected if he prayed all night before he selected deacons. But he had prayed all night, and then he selected the twelve disciples. It was after he had, it was while he was on the Mount of Transfiguration, Luke says, as he was praying, he was transfigured before them.

And so in every major crisis in the life of Jesus, Luke emphasizes this fact, that as he prayed, which I think is a very obvious thing to us, that in any crisis of life, we ought to major on prayer before we make a major decision.

And then, this is the only sense of organizing, I can see in the life of Jesus, first he chooses twelve, and then, immediately after that, he lays down the principles here of his kingdom. You see, it wasn't possible for him to delay this, because what Jesus is teaching here to his disciples, and after all, this is the word of God, through the lips of the Son of God, to the people of God.

It's true that there were other people round about, but he's speaking directly to his disciples here. And what he teaches here, right down here, right down through the whole chapter, right into the next chapter too, where he is teaching the principles of his ministry, and he's giving them guidance for their own lives.

I wondered as I thought of the disciples sitting immediately in front of Jesus, my, what a privilege it must have been to listen to him as a teacher. I wonder what their immediate reaction was, I wonder if a kind of a fire was burning, if they were saying, you know what, I believe, you know what I think, you know what, I've just come to a conclusion about, I believe he's the Messiah.

I've just been thinking over all that he's been doing in the past few weeks, because he's done it. He's done what Isaiah said, when he has come, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, and the lame leap as a harp, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.

And then after that, you'll remember that God said that I should go one before him. And this struck me forcibly, last Wednesday night I tried at least to preach on John Baptist, and as I prepared, and the Lord said to John, prepare ye the way of the Lord.

He didn't say, I'll send Gabriel, or Michael the archangel, or ten thousand angels, you prepare the way of the Lord. And I'm prepared, I believe, I'm convinced there is a human agency preparing the way for revival.

Why couldn't God send Gabriel? He sent Gabriel down to tell, to tell us that I, his wife, was going to bear a son. He sent an angel to tell, to talk with Abraham in the gate of the, in the door of his tent.

He sent an angel to speak to Lot before he was going to, why didn't he send angels? Because angels never, in my judgment, prepare the way for revival. They never prepare the true way of blessing. And so God says to John, prepare ye the way of the Lord.

And I think they might have turned this over and said, well look, he fulfills everything Isaiah said, and that's the truth. There's been a man called John preparing the way for him. It was essential at this point that they heard the basis of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

The Kingdom Founded on Love

You know, that makes me think of how many kingdoms there have been. There have been kingdoms founded on money, like the empire of the, of the Rockefellers. There have been kingdoms founded on force, like Napoleon's strategy and some of the great men in history.

There have been kingdoms that have been built on science. There have been kingdoms built in many areas. There is only one kingdom ever that has been built on love. And that is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is what Finney called a royal rule and reign of love. It establishes the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every other kingdom has death in it. His kingdom only has true life. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.

I like that. We're so tired of seeing things go up and come down. So tired of big governance. So tired of big empires. The world's proud empires pass away. And yet the kingdom, the empire of Jesus Christ, shall never pass away.

It is essential that they get to know right here what it's all about. Now, if you speak truth, the truth that blesses somebody will blast somebody else. The truth that heals one will hurt another. It's essential that they learn what the kingdom is all about here.

Now, when Jesus sits down, remember he's got a whole multitude around him. It's impossible to think that the Roman soldiers were not there, that the Greeks were not there, the Jews, the Pharisees, the scribes, and others.

And he's talking about meekness in the midst of arrogance. Who is more swashbuckling and parasitical than the Pharisees themselves? Or more haughty than the Sadducees? He's talking about meekness. Boy, that's a shock at the Romans there, isn't it?

And yet some of the others might have thought the same thing. You see, whichever way you preach truth, somebody will get hurt by it, somebody will get helped by it. Somebody will say, you were shooting at us, and somebody else says, no, forget it, he was shooting at us.

And again, I say, this is one of the bravest things, though Jesus always did brave things. He walked in the synagogue, went into the temple when there were 6 ,000 people there, and stood right in the middle of a feast where for 6 days they poured out water.

And the 7th day, the last day of the feast, he stood in the very place where they'd been pouring out water, reminding them of something that was historical, when God split the rock and he says, listen, I want to tell you, the water that you seek, I am that supply of water.

And if a man comes to me out of his inmost being, no, he didn't say that. That's what we teach, that's not what he said. He said, when he, the spirit of truth, is coming, he dwells you out of his inmost being.

Because if you get into a state of dryness and back-sickness, he's not going to pour out of you, however corrupt your or my theology may be, it's out of his inmost being. I like that phrase of Wesleyan, it's him, he's a lover of my soul.

I think it's rapturous, not just because it's English, but it is rapturous. Thou, O Christ, art all I want, and more than... And then he says, spring thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity. Do you think Rockefeller walks down New York wondering if he's going to get a loaf of bread or anything?

Do you think he's thinking next week of going on food stamps? I don't think he is, with all his ambitions. You know, you and I should, I know we're emotional, we have emotions, I know there are dry patches.

I know there are periods when God will shut you up into darkness to see whether you love his work, and love service, and love people more than himself. That's his prerogative. And yet if I say to myself, thou art life profound enough, spring thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity.

Stopping over here a minute, let's remember Chris, that we said that some people interpret this word, blessed as happy. But my good friend, Scaras of the Hyades, who is the head of the American Mission to Greece, and he was raised in Greek, and he speaks one or two different kinds of Greek, at least understands them, and he says there is no word in the whole New Testament, not in the Greek New Testament, which you can, with any justification, translate as happiness, as we know it.

I looked at my dictionary, all Noah there, not Noah's Ark, you know, Noah Webster. Noah said happiness, and he goes back and he says it belongs to Hap, Hap. Sometimes they say, well it was Happenstance.

I look for that, but that must be a modern American word, it's not in the dictionary. Happenstance. But happiness depends on happenings. You see, the people who are happy are governed by something external.

The people who are blessed are governed by something internal. You see, on the wall now, a bit like Texas this week, France, goodness me, that belongs up north, what are they doing down here? And so on the wall, you're beginning to realize the value of the thermostat.

You set it, you say, well I want my room at 75, you set it. Somebody leaves the door wide open, and the cold air comes in, and the more cold air comes in, that thermostat fights back and says you're not coming in here, you say, get out of here, and it puts on the pressure and puts on the pressure, and it fights to keep an even temperature of 75.

But if you put your thermometer outside, I think Kay was saying the other day, we have one somewhere, I think she'd look at the thermometer, all right, what does a thermometer do outside? It gets kicked around with all the weather.

It can't fight that. Now let me ask you a very simple, very painful thing. Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? Do you get pushed around by circumstances, or do you say, no, I'm the master in this, I'm the God?

You know what I feel like today? People say that sometimes, often say, no, I know what you look like, I know what you feel like. Well, I'll tell you how I feel. Now, feelings are the most treacherous thing in the whole world.

If you're going to live by feelings, you don't need faith. And if you have faith, forget feelings. You see, either I am controlled internally by God himself, and circumstances can go up and down, but I go up and down with them.

I'm not a thermometer. I'm a thermostat. I fight back. I think the great joy, the key of the life of the Apostle Paul was, none of these things move me, number one. Number two, this one thing I do. God is polarized on those things.

Poor in Spirit: The Foundation of Discipleship

And to step back, I think that the disciples must have been thrilled to death, really, when they realized what Jesus was saying. These are the basic things of his kingdom. And he's saying here, blessed are the poor in spirit.

I think it's essential that he taught this. He couldn't have taught this just before he went into the Garden of Gethsemane. They would never have understood. He was launching them out. And he was going to wean them.

And weaning is never easy, is it? You know, this made me think of how essential foundations are. I'm going to have a side kick here for a minute about new parents. Because last week, children were discussed twice in the groups we were in.

And I thought of how easy, in these days, and it's true speaking generally, how easily children get by in homes. And they were discussing this monster that's in nearly every house, the monster of the TV.

How much should there be of TV? How much should you control it? Not if the kids kick and scream and say, oh, well, go look at it, then forget it. You're the boss of the home. What foundations are we laying in lives for children?

Now we say they're born in depravity. I don't care what degrees of depravity you say. I'll leave that for you to sort out. But we shouldn't feed their depravity. We had a brother, Herb and John met him the other day from Switzerland, came into our meeting.

And in the course of talking, he mentioned TV. And he said, oh, in America, I so hate your TV. Every time I turn it on, it's violence and blood. It's horrible. You glorify it. You glorify it. At least you're pushing, you're training all the time in violence and blood and murder and all these things.

He said, there's only one thing worse. I said, what's that? He said, British TV. He said, we've got 60 of British TV over in New Zealand. And the emphasis is not on violence. The emphasis is on smut, on sex.

And he said, we've learned to come down on this thing. Now these guys were discussing TV, what they'd done. More than half an hour of TV any night. I think that's enough. Maybe too much. And no TV until all your homework's done.

Now I get tired watching it and saying, well, help me with this and do the other. One of our boys, I don't know about the others, don't remember too well, but I remember once Paul had a problem. And Mummy said, she's very good at maths.

And she said, I'll help you. He said, no, Mummy, if you help me, it's not my homework. I have to do it. Who was it recently? One big man, I forget his name. His wife is training as a lawyer. And she had a difficult exam.

And he said, well, listen, let me help you. She said, no, supposing you die, who's going to help me with law? I've got to get through on this myself. Now this is getting a serious thing, you see, because what you saw in the child's mind, it's an accepted psychological fact that 80 of the things that you hear, you forget.

I think it's 95 with me right now. But anyhow, 80 of the things that you hear, you forget. 80 of the things you see, you remember. You ask me, did I see a certain waterfall in New Zealand? I can see it now, tumbling down there.

You ask me about another place, another country, and immediately I get a mental picture of it. If you ask me what somebody said at the sight of that waterfall, I can't remember a thing about it. Now I'm saying that to say this, you see, that we should not feed the tendencies that there are in children to violence and other things.

It should be, in my judgment, it should be in your home that your children are every day confronted with the Word of God. And every week, they learn at least one verse of Scripture. If they don't, you don't rather pray on Saturday?

You say, that's hard. Well, what are you trying to produce? As a Christian, do you want somebody, a child equivalent with a kid across the road whose dad's a drunk and the kid knows every devilish thing that's going on, on TV and what not?

You see, the child's mind is so fertile. And I was thinking there, what we had to learn when we were children, and I'm glad we were conscripted to it. People say you shouldn't make your children do that.

Well, you shouldn't make them learn their ABCs, their logical. And don't learn them at twice, twos, four. Now, be consistent. If you want them totally ignorant, well, I'll go along with you. Forget it.

But don't be strong in one area and weak in the other. The most important thing is surely that our children learn character, and that they learn to fear God. I don't claim to be a saint, but I can remember at five years of age in church, I was not allowed to shuffle.

If I'd ever got spanked. I wasn't allowed just to go to church. And you should do this whether your children come to this meeting or the other. You should ask them when they go home what the meeting was about, what the Scripture reading was, how much they picked up in it.

Now, I'm quite aware that much of what we say is about the heads of these children. I'm quite aware, too, that when I was five years old, I picked up truth, that I could hardly see over the pew. I can remember singing a hymn, I'll praise my Maker while I breath, one written by Watts.

And there's a line that finishes in the hymn that says, Nor immortality endure. And you know, I never heard the preacher that night. I struggled with that word, immortality. I couldn't know it. I didn't know whether it was something you ate, or something that you bought, or what it was.

But when I got home, I asked some questions about it. My mother didn't know too much either, but it made her go searching for a while, and then she comes up and says, Well, Len, I want to tell you about this.

You know, we bypass children too long. The Japanese are smarter. You know, they teach the children the violin at two years of age. In Tokyo, there's a concert every Saturday morning of 2 ,000 children all playing the violin.

Now, don't ask me if I'd like to go in, because I certainly wouldn't like to hear 2 ,000 kids screeching cat gut across, or horse's tail across cat gut. I wouldn't like it. But, they say the potential is there.

I don't know, I think in America, what is it, 60 years of age you go to school, is it? Compulsory. Five in England compulsory earlier than that in some schools. Some of our kids went when they were three and a half.

The latent possibilities of a child's mind are almost indescribable. And when they grow older, oh, they'll kick now, sure they will. I'm thankful to God. I thank God today I wasn't raised in a TV age.

I'm really happy I'm not raising a family now. I'm too old. You get older, you don't have the same durability. I'm not saying it can't be done, because last week, I saw two little guys, one was seven, the other five, and I was amazed at the theological questions they asked.

I was amazed at the spiritual questions they asked. You see, if a boy lives with a bad use of football, and all he does is talk football. Jack Nicklaus has a boy. Jack Nicklaus is the world's greatest golfer, they say.

He has a boy 12. Jack Nicklaus says he's going to beat me one day. He is just a master at golf. But I put a golf club in his hand when he was about six. I've been showing him how to make strokes. I love to take him out.

I love to impart my knowledge. I know the man does that in the realm of science, but ours is the greatest of all. After all, the queen, theology is the queen of the sciences, in my judgment. The loftiest discovery that can be made this side of eternity is about the majesty and the holiness of God.

Teaching Children the Word of God

After all, your children are going to live forever and ever too. And it should be, again, I believe that... I was saying that we learn the second part. The first part of Psalm 119 is Aleph, and the second part is Beth.

And it begins, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, by taking he thereof according to thy word. And then that wonderful, wonderful verse there, in Proverbs chapter 3, Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them around thy neck, and write them upon the table of thine heart.

You know, a devout Jew today still has a little box. I remember being on a train from New York down to Miami, and I got up early in the morning. I didn't have a bed anyhow, but I got up out of my chair, and I thought, well, I'll go wash and freshen up.

And when I got there, there was a Jew just tying his, I think it's called phylactery, around his forehead, and scriptures around. He didn't care about other people in the washroom. He had his coat off, his sleeves rolled up, his scriptures and a Bible and a prayer shawl.

He was muttering away and muttering away and talking away and talking away. I thought, good for you, good for you. I may not agree with all you say, but I'm glad to be encouraged to do it. In the Reader's Digest a while ago, there's a picture there of a Greyhound bus stopping on the main way from Los Angeles to Frisco.

It was sundown, and the man on the bus pulled the cord and asked the driver, he said, please could you stop? Why do you want to stop? There's no restrooms, anything. No, no, and he said, it's time for me to pray.

I must pray. The sun's going down. Pray? Yeah, yeah, I'm a Mohammedan. And he got out, and he spread his rug on the side of the road, and everybody got out to take pictures. Oh, man, that dared to pray.

I wonder how many Christians dare do that. Because we've got a scripture. A scripture is enough to, you know, do your good works before men. But I wonder how many of us courageously dare go and do a thing like that, you see.

People talk about the repressed complex of your subconscious, what's hidden there. Forget it. Let's remember what Jesus said. Jesus said that if you learn the word of truth in your heart, he will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever ye have learned.

If you ask me what 2 Chronicles 7 .14 is, like Nancy, if you ask me what 1 Chronicles 7 .14 is, I don't know. And he won't tell me because I haven't learned it. He doesn't aid my laziness. Do the word of God into the minds of people.

How do you know your children won't go to concentration camps if the Lord tarries? How do you know they may not deviate from the line of truth? And that word is there, and someday that word will come back.

Write it upon the tables of your house. Dine it upon your net. Get it there. There is nothing more valuable, again, than knowing the word of God. And therefore I say again here that Jesus has to, Jesus is laying down the foundations in this fifth chapter.

He has to do it here at the beginning. He cannot do it at the end. He will not do it at the end. It's essential that they know what all this is about. What are the laws of this kingdom? It's a kingdom, again, founded on love.

The Inner Character of Christ's Kingdom

To me, this Sermon on the Mount is really the inner robe of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, in the days that Jesus was around, we're distinguished with the clothes, like they are today. Remember the man that wore purple and fine linen?

And we forget sometimes, I think, that every thread was put in by hand. They had no machines. And therefore only the rich people wore long, flowing robes, and only the very rich wore robes that had any purple or any coloring in them.

That was a distinction. That was social character, social casting. This is the inner robe. Jesus is not concerned about the outer robe. They're told he wore a peasant's garment. Not much to it. Not very expensive.

Maybe his mother made the whole thing. But here, to me, you get the inner robes of the Lord Jesus. Isn't it in Psalm 45 that the psalmist says, the king's daughter is all glorious within. A garment of a fine needlework and so forth.

The inner graces. And when Jesus talks about love, and talks about meekness, and talks about gentleness, all he's doing is showing us the inner character that he himself has. This is typical of his own nature, of his own life.

And these things have to be in the lives of these individuals who are going to manifest in the flesh, they're going to manifest that they're the children of God. That they're part of his kingdom. His eternal kingdom.

Jesus, thy robe of, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, we sang this afternoon. My beauty is my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds in these arrayed. You know, that's staggering if you sit down and think of it.

I say again, I wonder if the disciples, reflected as they sat there, you know what, we're entering the greatest kingdom that we'll ever be. This is the very Son of God. And if you think they missed it, let me ask you how many times you and I have sat still this week.

Just sat still and read the scripture, forgotten the scripture, and pondered on his majesty, and on the fact that you are part of an eternal kingdom. That forever and ever and ever, a million, billion, trillion, quadrillion years from now, you'll be in eternity in his presence somewhere.

Fabulous, isn't it? A kingdom which is constructed on purity, a kingdom which is constructed on righteousness. There never has been a kingdom like this. And the only way you can speak of it, really, is in superlatives.

No wonder that the poets go spilling off as they do when they get enraptured about his love, and enraptured about his holiness, and enraptured about his majesty, and enraptured about his purity. It's the most amazing thing in the whole world that we can know this.

That we can have this same nature within us because he took our human nature that we might be made partakers of the divine nature. He had more than divine nature because he was deity. I'm not deity, but I have a divine nature, so have you if you're born again.

In one of his hymns, Wesley says, Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart. Come quickly from above. Write thy new name upon my heart, thy new best name of love. Now, as I said before, he's approximating to the highest thing in the whole world.

He's going to lead us along into that place where he says, Blessed are the pure in heart. That sounds ridiculous. To me, as I see the true church of Jesus, and I don't see a steeple on it, and I don't see denominational labels, I believe that people are blood-bought and obedient, and the Holy Spirit is in them, they're part of the kingdom, they're part of his body.

But as I see that body, it seems to me the church today is just like a lily on a pile of dung. These disciples, and the other people around about me, they said, I mean, this guy, this fellow's crazy. He's talking about meekness.

Look at that soldier there, feeling of his sword and smirking. Talking about meekness. Look in religion. There's a Pharisee, a proud and arrogant man, as you'll find on the face of the earth. Look at the Sadducees.

Look at the others around here. And yet the fruit of the Spirit is what? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness. Paul writes later about the gentleness and meekness of Jesus Christ. It's a revolution, I think.

It is a revolution, without qualifying it by saying, I think it is a revolution. It is a miracle of miracles that Christ can be formed in us. And then he puts us where he wills, in a factory, in a home, on a foreign field, as we say, or somewhere, that the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ may be revealed in us and revealed through us.

The Meaning of Poverty in Spirit

All right? Jesus says, Blessed are the poor. Again, I say, it's a good thing he started there. Let's step back a minute. Verse 2. He opened his mouth and taught them. Well, you say, he couldn't teach them if he didn't open his mouth.

The issue here, again, is a pale English, sleepy Elizabethan English of the King James Version. I guess in the Greek it would tell you it's in the ingress of Ares X. It means he spoke with authority. And you remember that even sinners said that afterwards.

He speaks with authority, and not as one of the scribes. Oh, if there's anything needed in the ministry of God today, it's for men to speak with authority. Not to make you feel that we're presenting something which is optional.

You can take it or not take it. No, sir. If you don't accept it, then if it's a message from God, if you don't accept it, or if I don't accept it when I'm being taught, then I'm going to suffer consequences for it.

There is no waste in the economy of God. If he brings the truth to me, it must be that I'm at that stage in my Christian life where I can absorb that truth. Now he says, blessed are the poor in spirit.

Luke doesn't say that. He just says, blessed are the poor. Do you know there are degrees of poverty? You say, there's an old man who lives down there. He hasn't enough to live on. He's a pauper. Now if somebody asked you if you knew any Latin, you'd say no, but pauper actually is a Latin word for poor.

There is another Latin word, mendicant, from which we get the word mendicant, which means a beggar. There's all the difference in the world between a poor man and a beggar. There are people living in slum conditions in this country who are far too proud in spirit to beg.

Maybe they should beg, but they won't. But they're in extreme poverty, but they're not beggars. A man who is poor need not be a beggar, but a man who is beggar is usually the very rare exception. He's desperately, desperately poor.

And Jesus here is talking about a man here who is a beggar. He is a beggar. If you want it in the words of Abraham again, nothing in my hands I bring simply. And do you know what? I believe that's a perpetual situation for a believer.

He never steps up and says, well, of course, I'm not what I used to be. I know a lot more. I'm most of it. No, sirree. You have no more chance of licking the devil with your Bible knowledge tomorrow than you have before ever you were saved as far as I'm concerned.

There must be the quickening of the Spirit of God there. The spirit quickness. Bold shall I stand, I'm glad we chose that hymn today. Bold shall I stand in that great day. Wesley said, I shall need the atoning blood even when I stand there at the judgment.

I have no boldness accepting that. I'm a beggar. I need mercy every day. I need grace every day. I need strength every day. The man who is poor may have some resources. At least he's managing to keep a life.

The beggar says, I have nothing. I have no way of clothing myself. I have no way of sheltering myself. I have no way of feeding myself. I have no way of cleaning myself. Please, please. And you know, God loves that.

A psalmist wrote a lot of majestic things, but boy, he wrote some deep things too. He says, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him. Again and again he uses that phrase, I cried unto the Lord. Well, you cry in poverty.

You may not be able to diagnose that poverty one day like you do the other day, but it should be every day, I believe, the cry of our hearts. There is an area of poverty and I come to one who is able to supply all my need out of his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Again, plenteous grace with thee is found. Another scripture, the river of God is full of water. One of the embarrassments when we get to eternity, in my judgment, will be how little we've appropriated of what Jesus Christ purchased for us.

I used to sing a hymn years ago, The Purchase of La Devby. You can tell me all that Adam had. You can tell me all about the depravity that Adam brought upon us. And when you've done, I'll tell you that the last Adam has undone all the work of the first Adam.

If he didn't, he didn't give us a complete redemption. If he didn't, he isn't omnipotent, but he is. I said to the folk the other day, I'm ashamed that we live so much in waters just to the ankles instead of getting to the knees or to the loins or waters to swim in.

There's so much undiscovered territory. I'm not just poor. Oh, I'm poor, all right, but I'm a beggar. And this poor man cried and the Lord said to him, Bow down thine ear and hear me for I'm poor and needy.

Oh, come on, come on, you don't mean that. That's poisonous. Hey, you just, just go back, David, and look at that psalm you wrote yesterday. It's going to bless millions of people. You're suggesting that you're broke, that you're really spiritually broke.

You could write a hymn like that, but he says that was yesterday. Today I'm conscious of my need. You know, one of the wonderful things about the human body, and it might, it's got a lot of wonderful things, but it's amazing how hungry, you can feed, and somebody says, will you take a meal?

No, I can't take a meal, I'll just eat. You go to bed, get up in the morning, you haven't exercised, you haven't done anything, maybe you wake up with a ravenous hunger. And you know what? If somebody gives you bread and butter tomorrow morning of the same cereal they've had for the last ten years, in fact, if somebody changes it, oh, I can't take that.