Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled – Matthew 5:6
The sermon on the mount came at the very beginning of the ministry of Christ immediately after He chose His disciples. Multitudes were beginning to gather and His fame was spreading throughout all Syria as a result of the miracles He performed (Matthew 4). But the healing and deliverance services had to be put on hold as He sought to set forth in order those things which constitute the upholding principles of the kingdom of God. Considering the ‘hard sayings’ in this sermon, Jesus could have waited until after His resurrection or just before He ascended to heaven but the Lord is unafraid and unashamed of telling us upfront the demands of the kingdom and the narrowness of the way which leads to life so that every follower is fully acquainted and well prepared for the journey.
Today, perhaps such sermons would get a back sit or be put in small prints on the back page while frivolities, entertainment and psychology is put forward first to help ‘maintain the crowd’. But thanks be to God who not only knows the need of our soul but at the first opportunity seeks to give us the meat which endures unto everlasting life. Later on in the sermon, the master would say that anyone who hears this message and does them will be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock. He provides us with the right building materials at the right time for Truth spoken at the wrong time may prove ineffective. There is such a thing as meat in due season and every preacher and teacher of Truth ought always to consider these words of the Lord in Matthew 24:45 – Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?
It’s been said that each of the seven Beatitudes rises above the one which precedes it, and rises out of it. For it is a higher thing to hunger and thirst after righteousness than to be meek, or to mourn, or to be poor in spirit. But no man ever becomes hungry and thirsty after righteousness unless he has first passed through the three preliminary stages—has been convinced of his soul poverty, has been made to mourn for sin and has been rendered humble in the sight of God. To be meek is to be completely submitted to the will of the Father so that our ambition is at the end and our desires are not for the things under the earth. Having therefore ceased to hunger and thirst for this world and its pleasures, we can thirst and hunger after a better one. It was said of the patriarchs of old that their minds were not full (mindful) of the country from where they came for they desired a better country, that is, an heavenly: therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He has prepared for them a city (Hebrews 11:15-16). Hunger for righteousness cannot be sandwiched between the hunger for other things. It just doesn’t work.
Blessed Are They….
Hunger is a feeling of discomfort, a pain, howbeit a pleasant pain because it points us to the direction of food. It is an indication that we are yet alive because the dead cannot be hungry. A dead soul cannot thirst after righteousness, for spiritual things are foolishness to the natural man. So it’s a blessing to be hungry because it is the first step towards satisfaction. In scripture we read that “A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry” (Proverbs 27:7). This beatitude is a promise not to the filled or satisfied but to the starving, to the man who is dissatisfied with his life of unrighteousness. It is not a blessedness to the Pharisee who prays with himself but to the Publican who stands afar off, bows his head and beats his breast pleading for mercy. It is a promise to the man who longs to see justice in the land and righteousness flowing like a mighty stream. For his soul is continually vexed with the unrighteous conversation of the wicked around him. He feels the aches of a world where righteousness is in short supply, where gain is preferred to godliness and where unrighteousness, insincerity, hypocrisy, falsehood, avarice, contention and every evil work flow in abundance even among those who claim to be followers of the righteous Man of Calvary. He cries out like the Psalmist – “My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword” (Psalm 57:4). His hunger is to see God’s kingdom come and His will done in his life and on earth as it is done in heaven. Such a man is blessed above all others and according to the Amplified version, he is to be envied.
Which Do Hunger and Thirst….
Esau is a bad example because the scriptures call him a profane person (Hebrews 12:16) but if only for the fact that he also is a seed of Abraham we look to learn something from his life, it will be the strength of his hunger for pottage. So intense was his hunger that he chose to give up his birthright and future inheritance to satisfy a present need. We should by no means sell our birthright for fleeting pleasures for that would mean to pacify our hunger with that which is not bread, and spend our labour upon that which does not satisfy, but as his hunger consumed all that was on its way, so should our craving for righteousness be. But instead of pottage of lentils, let our hunger be for righteousness and godliness and uprightness and integrity of heart. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men (Romans 14:17-18). Let our hunger for righteousness consume all fleshy desires and cravings and all worldly ambitions and passions.
In John chapter 6, Jesus offered bread and fish to the multitude and five thousand men ate and were full with 12 baskets left. But in the next chapter, He offers them the Holy Spirit but this time with a condition: ‘a thirsty heart’. If our hunger is for 5 barley loaves and 2 fishes, the only thing that is needful is to sit down. If you’re sitting, the bread and fish will come to you. But if our need is for living water, for the ever-flowing stream of righteousness, then there must of necessity be a thirst first as well as a coming to the Lord to drink. How many people are thus thirsty and hungry, who will not spurn the Lord’s invitation? According to Luke 14:15-24, a man was privileged to sit at meat with Jesus and heard His words and afterwards said to the Lord “What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the Kingdom of God!”. But Jesus replied with a parable about a certain man who organised a great supper and invited many but with one accord, they began to make excuses. And when He described what kept them away from the banquet, it was – ‘A piece of land’, ‘A yoke of oxen’ and ‘A wife’. In the parable of the sower Jesus said that some people hear the word and a desire for God is awakened within them but as they go on their way, the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful (Mark 4:19). The things that stifle our hunger for heavenly things may not be evil in themselves for such things as a piece of land, a wife or husband, a yoke of oxen, television, internet, food and sleep are necessary to life yet may be injurious to the soul that seek to pant after a righteous God. That is the reason the beloved Apostle said that if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For the world will always seek through any means to strangle and kill any desire and love for the Father. So if we must preserve our hunger for righteousness, we must deal with the deadening effects of the pleasures of this life.