New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 99
Delivered on Thursday Evening, September 25th, 1856, New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
“Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.”—Galatians 2:10.
POVERTY is no virtue; wealth is no sin. On the other hand, wealth is not morally good, and poverty is not morally evil. A man may be a good man and a rich man; it is quite certain that very frequently good men are poor men. Virtue is a plant which depends not upon the atmosphere which surrounds it, but upon the hand which waters it, and upon the grace which sustains it. We draw no support for grace from our circumstances whether they be good or evil. Our circumstances may sometimes militate against the gracious work in our breast, but it is quite certain that no position in life is a sustaining cause of the life of grace in the soul. That must always be maintained by divine power, which can work as well in poverty as in riches; for we see some of the finest specimens of the full development of Christianity in those who are the very meanest in temporal circumstances; far outshining those whom we should have imagined, from their position in society, would have had many things to assist their virtues and sustain their graces. Grace is a plant which draws no nourishment from the wilderness in which it grows; it finds nothing to feed upon in the heart of man; all it lives upon it receives supernaturally. It sends all its roots upwards, none downwards; it draws no support from poverty, and none from riches. Gold cannot sustain grace; on the other hand, rags cannot make it flourish. Grace is a plant which derives the whole of its support from God the Holy Spirit, and is therefore entirely independent of the circumstances of man. But yet, mark you, it is an undeniable fact, that God hath been pleased for the most part to plant his grace in the soil of poverty. He has not chosen many great, nor many mighty men of this world, but he hath “chosen the poor of this world—rich in faith—to be heirs of the kingdom of God.” We should wonder why, were we not quite sure that God is wise in his choice. We cannot dispute a fact which Scripture teaches, and which our own observation supports, that the Lord’s people are, to a very large extent, the poor of this world. Very few of them wear crowns; very few ride in carriages; only a proportion of them have a competence; a very large multitude of his family are destitute, afflicted, tormented, and are kept leaning, day by day, upon the daily provisions of God, and trusting him from meal to meal, believing that he will supply their wants out of the riches of his fullness.
Now, to-night, we shall first of all mention the fact that God has a poor people; secondly, the duty—we should remember the poor; and then, thirdly, the obligation for us to perform this duty; for there are sundry reasons why we ought to be specially mindful of the poor of the Lord’s flock.
I. First, then, THE LORD HAS A POOR PEOPLE—a fact notorious to us all, which daily observation confirms. Why does the Lord have a poor people? This is a question that might suggest itself to us, and we might not at all times find it easy to answer it, if we were poor ourselves. God could make them all rich if he pleased; he could lay hags of gold at their doors, he could send whole rivers of supplies, where now it is a desert, he could scatter round their houses abundance of provisions; as once he made the quails lie in very heaps round the camp of Israel, so now he could rain bread out of heaven to feed them. There is no necessity that they should be poor, only as it pleases his own sovereign will. “The cattle upon a thousand hills are his,” he could supply them; he could make the rich men of this world give up all their wealth, if he so pleased to turn their minds; he could make the richest, the greatest, and the mightiest, bring all their power and riches to the feet of his children, for the hearts of all men are in his control. But he does not choose to do so; he allows them to suffer want, he allows them to pine in penury and obscurity. Why is this? I believe that is a question we should not find it easy to answer, if we were in the circumstances, but seeing that many of us are out of the affliction, we may perhaps hint at one or two reasons why the Lord God has had, has, and always will have, a poor people in this world.
I. I think one reason is, to teach us how grateful we should be for all the comforts he bestows on many of us. One of the sweetest meals I think I have ever eaten was after beholding a spectacle of penury which had made me weep. When we see others wanting daily bread, does not our loaf at once taste very sweet? It may have been very dry; but we saw some one begging for bread in the streets, and we thanked God for what we had that day, when we knew that others wanted. When we take our walks abroad and see the poor, he must be but a very poor Christian who does not lift up his eyes to heaven and thank his God thus—