Matthew 5:3
We are living in a generation where the great prefix “self” rules!! Self-esteem, self-image, self-worth, self-sufficiency, self-help, self-knowledge, self-love, and so the list could go on...The Apostle Paul, writing some 2000 years ago under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit put it this way: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves…” (2 Tim. 3:1-2). To borrow from the great commentator Albert Barnes – “It shall be one of the characteristics of these times that men shall be eminently selfish”. The dilemma of our day is not that men have too low an opinion of themselves but rather that they have too high an opinion of themselves and se no need for God!!
This sermon is a vivid reminder of the need for the Church to abandon all self-reliance and self-dependency and instead to sense their great poverty of spirit and desperate need for the Saviour in the critical hour in which we live!! “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for there is the kingdom of heaven”.