A Poor Man’s Thanksgiving

What is more fitting to a poor man than thanksgiving? What is more touching for every beholder to observe? A poor man, who has received a gift, a blessing, a stipend, bathed in tears, humbly acknowledging his benefactor. Here is beauty in the midst of misery. Here the heart of a benefactor is drawn to repeat his deed of mercy.

“This poor man.” What is a poor man? Solomon says, “The destruction of the poor is their poverty” (Proverbs 10:15b). Poverty destroys a man. Why? Because poverty prevents him from escaping his miserable condition. Try as he may, a poor man cannot help or deliver himself. He has no power, no ability.

“This poor man.” Who is this poor man? This poor man is David, the man after God’s heart, a dear child of the Lord. “A poor man” is what he calls himself. Do you also call yourself a poor man? By nature, we do not. We say, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” We know not that we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. The Lord teaches His people their poverty, as David experienced. He was instructed in his inability to help himself or to deliver himself from his miserable condition.

“This poor man cried.” Is that not what a poor man does? Indeed, what else can he do? He can do nothing else but cry because he has no power to help himself. Did the Lord ever make you a truly poor man, my friend, one who could do nothing else but cry to Him?

David is probably sitting in the cave of Adullam. It is to this cave that he has escaped from the hands of Abimelech in the land of the Philistines. Here he reflects on what has taken place. Do we ever do that or are we too busy for reflection? Does not thanksgiving proceed from reflection— from reflection upon a day of prayer? That is what it was for David as he sat in the cave. Here he reflected upon the deliverance of the Lord in the day that he experienced he was a poor man, a man without power to deliver himself. It was a day that a cry went up out of his heart in his urgent need. No, it was not a day he was with the multitude in the house of the Lord as you and I on Thanksgiving Day. Nor was it even a day he was in his secret chamber, on his knees in prayer before the Lord. No, David reflected upon a secret cry, a cry unheard and unknown to any other man on earth, a cry which had burst forth from his heart in a great need. David reflected upon a day that he believed he would die. He was surrounded by enemies. They cast angry glances at him. They hurled hateful words. David was sore afraid; David had thought he would go to the land of the Philistines and not be recognized. Do you do that too, young people? Do you try to mingle with the world in a way that they will not recognize you, in a way that it will not be noticed that you are not actually from among them, that you do not actually belong to them? It does not work for David. “Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?” They recognize him. David was brought into great danger. David feared for his life. He could not die; nor did he want to die.

Oh, David. Why do you fear? Is it necessary to be afraid? Has the Lord not promised you the throne of the kingdom? Have you not received His anointing by His servant Samuel? Ah, friends, today, increasingly we hear even in our own circles, “You must believe, you must trust the promises,” but it comes too often from the easy chair. See here the reality in the life of God’s people. We can say to David now, ”Just believe, just trust the promise of the Lord,” but is it not true that one feels something of the difficulty here? It is not easy for David when he is surrounded by his enemies, and that is also the experience of the true Church. What they ought to do is not necessarily what they are able to do. How often they painfully experience the blessed truth that faith is a gift of God.

What does David do? He does not know what to do. Are there also readers who do not know what to do? Do you not know what to do when, in fear for your life, you see nothing but the enemy of sin within and without, threatening your destruction? Can you not find faith in your miserable condition to take hold of the promise of the Lord, which you formerly experienced to be your expectation and consolation? What does David do? Oh, when David sits in the cave and reflects upon what he did, then he is so ashamed of himself. That is what the true Church experiences. From their side it is all sin. David thinks about how he acted before the enemy. There he thought to help himself out of his predicament with his own sinful inventions. There he feigned himself mad. He scrabbled upon the doors of the gate and let spittle run down upon his beard. Oh, what a disgrace he has been in the land of the heathen, in mistrust and unbelief, shaming the Lord and His people.

And yet, yet? Scrabble and spittle were not all that David did. No, what does David say? “This poor man cried.” Oh, a poor man indeed. David could not deliver himself from Saul. He could not deliver himself from Abimelech. Neither could David deliver himself from David. No, not from his own unbelieving and sinful heart. Oh, what is the true Church but poor men crying? Poor men crying unto the Lord because they cannot deliver themselves from the world, from Satan, and from their own sinful hearts. Oh, in their own judgment all is wrong, all is upside down, there is nothing left of the fear of the Lord, but is it actually so? David says, “This poor man cried.” Is that not the way of a poor people? What does Zephaniah write? “I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the LORD.” No, David would not call it trust. From his side it is all unbelief; yet he cries. Oh, what a strange mixture there can be in the heart of God’s people—what a strange mixture of sin and godliness, of unbelief and faith, of despair and hope.

David sits in the cave. David reflects. “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him.” Ah, David marvels at this. It is such a wonder to him that the Lord heard him. He has not deserved that; He had forfeited all with his own unbelief and sinful actions. He had no right to expect it anymore. Oh, how the goodness, longsuffering, mercy and grace of the Lord appear to David now. How the people of the Lord sometimes marvel at the opening of the Lord’s ear to the cry of their poor, undeserving soul. How they must learn that the cause lies not in themselves, that the Lord may glorify Himself in the work of His dear Son.

“This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Is that so, David? Out of all your troubles? Do you not go too far now, in the ecstasy of the moment while your affections are enlivened so that you exaggerate the blessings bestowed? “Saved you out of all your troubles”? Why are you sitting here then, in this dark cave? Why do you not go home again to your land and people? Ah, no, David cannot go home. It is true, there are still many dangers that surround him. Every day he must watch for his life. And yet? David does not exaggerate when he exclaims, “and saved him out of all his troubles.” These words of David are spoken by faith. Faith in exercise views all things as they are in reality. By present deliverances, faith was enlivened in David, and at the same time rightly projected into the future. Yes, David shall receive the kingdom as the Lord has promised him. It cannot be otherwise. David may believe that now with all his heart. Whatever troubles still lie in the way, the Lord Himself will bring him through. Friends, this is what faith beholds in Christ, in the blessed moments of its exercises. These are moments that nothing is missing in their life though they be not yet home. The Lord makes them to possess all things by faith in the blessed Mediator. Therefore, Paul says, “We are saved by hope.” Neither shall this hope be put to shame but shall end in an eternal thanksgiving day.

On Thanksgiving Day we look back to Prayer Day. So often it is but custom, but sometimes the Lord makes a man feel his poverty when the fields dry up or when all is too wet to sow or harvest. Then a man feels his helplessness, yes, his poverty, his inability to help himself. He cries sometimes to the God of the Creation who is also the God of providence. Then sometimes Thanksgiving Day is made real and true in a natural way. If we may experience our spiritual poverty and cry from our poor soul in great need, then it is possible to experience the wonder of the salvation of the Lord to His Church. Truly, the Lord hears a poor man’s cries and saves him out of all his troubles, and He receives all the honor.

That is just a little beginning of an eternal thanksgiving day for poor crying men. It will be a day when they will wonder eternally that “the LORD heard” them. How they will magnify the work and offices and Person of Jesus Christ. How precious He will appear to them. Indeed, all their troubles will then be over. They will be saved from them all. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The consequences of sin shall be finished and sin itself shall be done away, for we read that there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth. What a thanksgiving day shall that be for a poor man crying—saved from a troublous world, a troublous devil, and troublous sin in self. In unison they shall sing one song that can only be learned by the hundred and forty-four thousand that are redeemed from the earth. “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Oh, will that be also the experience of each one of us? p

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