The Beatitudes - Thomas Watson
Spiritual hunger shall be satisfied
They shall be
filled.
I proceed now
to the second part of the text. A promise annexed. `They shall be filled'. A
Christian fighting with sin is not like one that `beats the air', {1Co 9:26} and his hungering after
righteousness is not like one that sucks in only air, `Blessed are they that
hunger, for they shall be filled.'
Those that
hunger after righteousness shall be filled. God never bids us seek him `in
vain'. {Isa 45:19} Here is an
honeycomb dropping into the mouths of the hungry, `they shall be filled'. `He
hath filled the hungry with good things'. {Lu 1:53} `He satisfieth
the longing soul'. {Ps 107:9} God will not let us lose
our longing. Here is the excellency of righteousness above all things. A man
may hunger after the world and not be filled. The world is fading, not filling.
Cast three worlds into the heart, yet the heart is not full. But righteousness
is a filling thing; nay, it so fills that it satisfies. A man may be filled and
not satisfied. A sinner may take his fill of sin, but that is a sad filling. It
is far from satisfaction. `The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own
ways'. {Pr 14:14}
He shall have his belly full of sin; he shall have enough of it, but this is
not a filling to satisfaction. This is such a filling that the damned in hell
have. They shall be full of the fury of the Lord. But he that hungers after
righteousness shall be satisfyingly filled. `My people shall be satisfied with
my goodness'. {Jer 31:14}
`My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow'. {Ps
63:5} Joseph first opened the mouth of the sacks, and then filled
them with corn and put money in them. {Ge
42:25} So God first opens the mouth of the soul with desire and then
fills it with good things. {Ps 81:10}
For the illustration of this, consider these three things: that God can fill
the hungry soul; why he fills the hungry soul; how he fills the hungry soul.
1. That God
can fill the hungry soul. He is called a fountain. `With thee is the fountain
of life'. {Ps 36:9} The cistern may be empty and
cannot fill us. Creatures are often `broken cisterns'.
{Jer 2:13} But the fountain is
filling. God is a fountain. If we bring the vessels of our desires to this
fountain, he is able to fill them. The fullness in God
is an infinite fullness. Though he fill us and the
angels which have larger capacities to receive, yet he has never the less
himself. As the sun, though it shines, has never the less light. `I perceive
that virtue is gone out of me'. {Lu 8:46}
Though God lets virtue go out of him, yet he has never the less. The fullness
of the creature is limited. It arises just to such a degree and proportion; but
God's fullness is infinite; as it has its resplendence, so its redundancy.' It
knows neither bounds nor bottom.
It is a
constant fullness. The fullness of the creature is a mutable fullness; it ebbs
and changes. I could, says one, have helped you, but now my estate is low. The
blossoms of the fig-tree are soon blown off. Creatures cannot do that for us
which once they could. But God is a constant fullness. `Thou art the same'. {Ps 102:27} God can never be
exhausted. His fullness is overflowing and ever-flowing. Then surely `it is
good to draw nigh to God'. {Ps 73:28}
It is good bringing our vessels to this spring-head. It is a never-failing
goodness.
2. Why God
fills the hungry soul. The reasons are:
(i) God will fill the hungry soul out of his tender
compassion. He knows that else `the spirit would fail before him and the soul
which he has made'. {Isa 57:16} If the hungry man be not
satisfied with food he dies. God has more bowels than to suffer an hungry soul to be famished. When the multitude had
nothing to eat, Christ was moved with compassion and he wrought a miracle for
their supply. {Mt 15:32} Much more will he
compassionate such as hunger and thirst after righteousness. When a poor sinner
sees himself almost starved in his sins (as the prodigal among his husks) and
begins to hunger after Christ, saying, `there is bread enough and to spare in
my Father's house', God will then out of his infinite compassions bring forth
the fatted calf and refresh his soul with the delicacies and provisions of the
gospel. Oh the melting of God's bowels to an hungry
sinner! `Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings
are kindled' {Ho 11:8} We cannot see a poor
creature at the door ready to perish with hunger, but our bowels begin to relent and we afford him some relief. And will the Father of
mercies let a poor soul that hungers after the blessings of the gospel go away
without an alms of free grace? No, he will not; he
cannot. Let the hungry sinner think thus, Though I am full of wants, yet my God
is full of bowels.
(ii) God will
fill the hungry that he may fulfil his Word. `Blessed are ye that hunger now:
for ye shall be filled'. {Ps 107:9 Jer 31:14 Lu
6:21} `I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, I will pour my
Spirit upon thy seed...'. {Isa 44:3}
Has the Lord spoken and shall it not come to pass?
Promises are obligatory. If God has passed a promise, he cannot go back. You
who hunger after righteousness have God engaged for you. He has (to speak with
reverence) pawned his truth for you. As `his compassions fail not', {La 3:22} so `he will not suffer his
faithfulness to fail'. {Ps 89:33} If the hungry soul should
not be filled, the promise would not be fulfilled.
(iii) God
will fill the hungry soul because he himself has excited and stirred up this
hunger. He plants holy desires in us, and will not he satisfy those desires
which he himself has wrought in us? As in the case of prayer, when God prepares
the heart to pray, he prepares his ear to hear; {Ps
10:17} so in the case of spiritual hunger, when God prepares the
heart to hunger, he will prepare his hand to fill. It is not rational to
imagine that God should deny to satisfy that hunger
which he himself has caused. Nature does nothing in vain. Should the Lord
inflame the desire after righteousness and not fill it, he might seem to do
something in vain.
(iv) God will
fill the hungry because of those sweet relations he stands unto them; they are
his children. We cannot deny our children when they are hungry. We will rather
spare it from our own selves. {Lu 11:13}
When he that is born of God shall come and say, Father, I hunger, give me
Christ; Father, I thirst, refresh me with the living streams of thy Spirit, can
God deny? Does God hear the raven when it cries, and will he not hear the
righteous when they cry? When the earth opens its mouth and thirsts God
satisfies it. {Ps 65:9,Ps
65:10} Does the Lord satisfy the thirsty earth with showers and will
he not satisfy the thirsty soul with grace?
(v) God will
satisfy the hungry because the hungry soul is most thankful for mercy. When the
restless desire has been drawn out after God, and God fills it, how thankful is
a Christian! The Lord loves to bestow his mercy where he may have most praise.
We delight to give to them that are thankful. Musicians love to play where
there is the best sound. God loves to bestow his mercies where he may hear of
them again. The hungry soul sets the crown of praise upon the head of free
grace. `Whoso offereth praise glorifies me'. {Ps 50:23}
3. How God
fills the hungry soul. There is threefold filling: with grace; with peace; with
bliss.
(i) God fills the hungry soul with grace. Grace is filling
because suitable to the soul. Stephen was `full of the Holy Ghost'. {Ac 7:55} This fullness of grace is in
respect of parts, not of degrees. There is something of every grace, though not
perfection in any grace.
(ii) God
fills the hungry soul with peace. `The God of hope fill you with all joy and
peace'. {Ro 15:13} This
flows from Christ. Israel had honey out of the rock. This honey of peace
comes out of the rock, Christ. `That in me ye might have peace'. {Joh 16:33} So filling is this peace
that it sets the soul a-longing after heaven. This cluster of grapes quickens
the appetite and pursuit after the full crop.
(iii) God
fills the hungry soul with bliss. Glory is a filling thing. `When I awake I shall be satisfied with thy image'. {Ps 17:15} When a Christian awakes out
of the sleep of death then he shall be satisfied, having the glorious beams of
God's image shining upon him. Then shall the soul be filled brimful. The glory
of heaven is so sweet that the soul shall still thirst, yet so infinite that it
shall be filled. `They who drink of thee, O Christ, being refreshed with sweet
torrents, shall not continue to thirst yet they shall thirst'.
What an
encouragement is this to hunger after righteousness! Such shall be filled. God
charges us to fill the hungry. {Isa 58:10}
He blames those who do not fill the hungry. {Isa
32:6} And do we think he will be slack in that which he blames us
for not doing? Oh come with hungerings after Christ
and be assured of satisfaction. God keeps open house for hungry sinners. He
invites his guests and bids them come without money. {Isa
55:1,Isa 55:2} God's nature inclines him and his promise obliges him to fill the hungry.
Consider, why did Christ receive `the Spirit without measure,?
{Joh 3:34} It was not for himself. He
was infinitely full before. But he was filled with the holy unction for this
end, that he might distil his grace upon the hungry soul. Are you ignorant? Christ
was filled with wisdom that he might teach you. Are you polluted? Christ was
filled with grace that he might cleanse you. Shall not the soul then come to
Christ who was filled on purpose to fill the hungry? We love to knock at a rich
man's door. In our Father's house there is bread enough. Come with desire and
you shall go away with comfort. You shall have the virtues of Christ's blood,
the influences of his Spirit, the communications of his love
There are two
objections made against this.
The carnal
man's objection. I have (says he) hungered after righteousness,
yet am not filled.
You say you
hunger and are not satisfied? Perhaps God is not satisfied with your hunger.
You have `opened your mouth wide', {Ps
81:10} but have not `opened your ear'. {Ps
49:4} When God has called you to family prayer and mortification of
sin, you have, like the `deaf adder', stopped your ear against God. {Zec 7:11} No wonder then that
you have not that comfortable filling as you desire. Though you have opened
your mouth you have stopped your ear. The child that will not hear his parent,
is made to do penance by fasting.
Perhaps you
thirst as much after a temptation as after righteousness. At a sacrament you
seem to be inflamed with desire after Christ, but the next temptation that
comes either to drunkenness or lasciviousness, you fall in and close with the
temptation. Satan but beckons to you and you come. You open faster to the
tempter than to Christ; and do you wonder you are not filled with the fat
things of God's house?
Perhaps you
hunger more after the world than after righteousness. The young man in the
gospel would have Christ, but the world lay nearer his heart than Christ.
Hypocrites pant more after the dust of the earth {Am
2:7} than the `water of life'. Israel had no manna while their dough
lasted. Such as feed immoderately upon the dough of earthly things, must not
think to be filled with manna from heaven. If your money be your God, never
look to receive another God in the sacrament.
The godly
man's objection. I have had unfeigned desires after God, but
am not filled.
You may have
a filling of grace, though not of comfort. If God does not fill you with
gladness, yet with goodness. {Ps 107:9}
Look into your heart and see the distillations of the Spirit. The dew may fall
though the honeycomb does not drop.
Wait a while
and you shall be filled. The gospel is a spiritual banquet. It feasts the soul
with grace and comfort. None eat of this banquet but
such as wait at the table. `In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto
all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees well refined.
And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him;
we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation'. {Isa
25:6,Isa 25:9} Spiritual mercies are not
only worth desiring, but worth waiting for.
If God should
not fill his people to satisfaction here, yet they shall be filled in heaven.
The vessels of their desires shall be filled as those water pots {Joh 2:7} `up to the brim'.