Encouraged By Thy Word

Encouraged by thy word
Of promise to the poor;
Behold, a beggar, LORD,
Waits at thy mercy’s door!
No hand, no heart, O LORD, but thine,
Can help or pity wants like mine.

The beggar’s usual plea
Relief from men to gain,
If offered unto thee,
I know thou would’st disdain:
And pleas which move thy gracious ear,
Are such as men would scorn to hear.

I have no right to say
That though I now am poor,
Yet once there was a day
When I possessed more:
Thou know’st that from my very birth,
I’ve been the poorest wretch on earth.

Nor can I dare profess,
As beggars often do,
Though great is my distress,
My wants have been but few:
If thou shouldst leave my soul to starve,
It would be what I well deserve.

’Twere folly to pretend
I never begged before;
Or if thou now befriend,
I’ll trouble thee no more:
Thou often hast relieved my pain,
And often I must come again.

Though crumbs are much too good
For such a dog as I;
No less than children’s food
My soul can satisfy:
O do not frown and bid me go,
I must have all thou canst bestow.

Nor can I willing be
Thy bounty to conceal
From others, who like me,
Their wants and hunger feel:
I’ll tell them of thy mercy’s store,
And try to send a thousand more.

Thy thoughts, thou only wise!
Our thoughts and ways transcend,
Far as the arched skies
Above the earth extend:
Such pleas as mine men would not bear,
But God receives a beggar’s prayer.

John Newton 1779

If Truth is true – it is true in each and every generation and in all cultures.

How un-postmodern of me!  Let me say it in narrative and make it more relational; but it still won’t make it palatable.

John Newton knew himself all too well and he knew the cries of beggars in his day: ‘spare someone who has fallen on hard times a little of what you have’.  He knew the human heart and its false and fickle ways.  No less so today.  Once in a Cape Town, South Africa cafe a woman approached me, she looked wretched, dirty and smelly. She handed me a piece of paper, on it was scrawled “I am deaf and mute, God would bless you if you spare me a little of your money so that I can buy some milk for my children”.  Many times in Leeds, England, I was approached to help people ‘just to get the bus home/call my dying mother/take my dog to the vet’.

Many beggars appeal to pity and better nature on the basis of ‘there but for the grace of God’.  Ease your conscience…  give and make yourself feel better.,, even if you know you’re being conned.  I saw the woman from Cape Town later that same day, she was laughing and talking with a man, sharing a cigarette – neither deaf nor mute.  The appeals for help to get home came mostly from men who could have compromised my sobriety with their personal fumes and had no intentions of catching busses or contacting dying mothers unless either of those possibilities lead directly to more alcohol and/or drugs. (Don’t get me wrong – I’m not judging those individuals, just expanding on the words of the hymn and the insight they give us.  Truth is begging for money to buy alcohol is no more or less respectable than working full time with eyes set on getting drunk at the weekend as a ‘good night out’)

John Newton knew better and his words 320 years later shed light for us.  Our appeal is not for ‘help’ but for rescue.  We are not respectable, once in a while beggars, who need to get back on our feet.  We are not quiet and gentle folk reduced by the random happenstance of life or the cruelty of others. 

We are rebels who have ruined ourselves and chosen our ruin as though it were life itself.  We have revelled in our rebellion, dressed it up, painted it fancy colours and taken it out for walks.  We have fed our rejection of God as our Creator, Lord and King upon the fat of our pride and the saccharine sweetness of our own foolishness.  Our breath wreaks of death and destruction – we open our mouths and as though corpses lay hidden in our inner beings the intoxicating stench of death pours forth.

And thus is our lot explained and inescapably true. No matter the historic age, regardless of cultural baggage, the appeal is the same.  With nothing in our hands, nothing within or without to make us palatable to God we cry out for His saving mercy which dawned clear and beautiful in the coming the the Sovereign King in the Suffering Servant: Jesus.

We beg pleading only God’s Glory in Christ Jesus by the Spirit’s enabling – we plead his goodness and grace, not our misfortune and worthiness.  The sort of weak cry that provokes wrathful scorn in people (for it truly is wretched) – begging for our life before the Lord of Life Himself.

We beg, but we do so (if indeed we do beg of Him at all) not full of self-pity, thinking that He must respond because He is so tender hearted, but rather because He has acted and spoken and promised succour to all who do come in faith.  We beg for life itself and in Christ God reconciles us to Himself and so gives us Life in all its fullness.  Jesus is the only Saviour.  You may beg to differ, but you’d be wrong.

And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.”  And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:46-52