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The sermon distinguishes spiritual grace from earthly circumstances: neither poverty nor wealth produces or sustains true Christianity. Spurgeon connects the existence of poor saints with God’s sovereign choice, providence, and the testing of genuine faith. Poor believers also reflect Christ, who became poor and had nowhere to lay His head. Therefore, remembering the poor is a Christian duty expressed through prayer, recognition, visitation, generosity, and faithful stewardship, with special attention to aged believers in need.
Theological center: God sovereignly sustains grace and chooses His people independently of worldly status, while Christ’s own poverty gives poor believers a special resemblance to Him.
Applications: Pray for the poor · Notice the poor · Give practical assistance · Support aged Christian poor
Primary texts: Galatians 2:10 · Luke 9:58
PREACHED ON BEHALF OF THE AGED PILGRIMS’ FRIEND SOCIETY “Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.” Galatians 2:10 POVERTY is no virtue. Wealth is no sin. On the other hand, wealth is not morally good and poverty is not morally evil. A man may be a good man and a rich man. It is quite certain that very frequently good men are poor men. Virtue is a plant which depends not upon the atmosphere which surrounds it, but upon the hand which waters it, and upon the grace which sustains it. We draw no support for grace from our circumstances, whether they are good or evil. Our circumstances may sometimes militate against the gracious work in our breast, but it is quite certain that no position in life is a sustaining cause of the life of grace in the soul. That must always be maintained by divine power, which can work as well in poverty as in riches. For we see some of the finest specimens of the full development of Christianity in those who are the very lowest in temporal circumstances, far outshining those whom we would have imagined, from their position in society, would have had many things to assist their virtues and sustain their graces. Grace is a plant which draws no nourishment from the wilderness in which it grows. It finds nothing to feed upon in the heart of man. All it lives upon it receives supernaturally. It sends all its roots upwards, none downwards. It draws no support from poverty and none from riches. Gold cannot sustain grace. On the other hand, rags cannot make it flourish. Grace is a plant which derives the whole of its support from God the Holy Spirit, and is therefore entirely independent of the circumstances of man. But yet, mark you, it is an undeniable fact that God has been pleased for the most part to plant His grace in the soil of poverty. He has not chosen many great, nor many mighty men of this world, but He has “chosen the poor of this world—rich in faith—to be heirs of the kingdom of God.” We should wonder why, were we not quite sure that God is wise in His choice. We cannot dispute a fact which Scripture teaches and which our own observation supports, that the Lord’s people are, to a very large extent, the poor of this world. Very few of them wear crowns. Very few ride in carriages. Only a proportion of them have a competence. A very large multitude of His family are destitute, afflicted, tormented, and are kept leaning, day by day, upon the daily provisions of God, and trusting Him from meal to meal, believing that He will supply their needs out of the riches of His fullness. N…