THE BEATITUDES
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 5:5, MATTHEW 11:20-30
SEPTEMBER 23, 1990
The collapse of the German economic system following World War I ultimately catapulted Adolph Hitler into power. In 1919 when the Nazi Party was formed, the German mark was equal to 25 U.S. cents. Four years later, in 1923, it took 4 trillion German marks to equal one U.S. dollar. Hyperinflation. Almost overnight the middle class disappeared in Germany. Almost overnight savings accounts were worthless. Pension plans and retirement funds were worthless. People were destitute and desperate. The situation was ripe for any demagogue, no matter how twisted, who offered any measure of hope to arise. Adolph Hitler was that demagogue.
It was Lenin who said, “The surest way to overthrow a government is to undermine its currency.” That is what happened in Germany following World War I, and Adolph Hitler rose to power. He was not satisfied with power over Germany. He wanted power over all Europe. Many historians believe that Adolph Hitler wanted power over the earth. He was not the first to think like that.
Alexander the Great, Antiochus IV, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte. Each of these men dreamed of ruling the world. Each of them controlled a major portion of the earth’s surface. Adolph Hitler was not the first, and he will not be the last. In fact the Bible tells us an antichrist is coming. The Bible says that the spirit of antichrist is already in the land. The spirit of antichrist is already moving over the face of the earth, and one day the antichrist will arise—the son of perdition, the man of lawlessness. He will offer global solutions to the world’s problems. He will have power over an alignment of nations, but he will not be satisfied. The Bible says that the antichrist will seek power over every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He will seek to inherit the earth, but it will not happen. It will not happen because the Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5)
Who are the meek? I have two teachings this morning. The first is this. The meek are the tame. The word práos, the word translated meek in your Bible, literally means tame. In the beginning, humankind was given dominion over the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air. But our dominion is flawed. It is not complete.
There are a lot of wild animals on the earth. Some animals are more wild than others. In fact, zoologists tell us that there are eight animals that will kill and eat human beings. There are documented cases. The eight are the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the bear, the giant squid, the crocodile, the shark, and the piranha. There are other animals that will kill human beings but will not eat them. Some animals are scavengers; they will not kill human beings but will eat them once they are dead. But these eight, these eight, are perhaps among the most feared among people. Many of these animals are extremely wild and impossible to tame. We have lion tamers, and we have tiger tamers; but zoologists tell us they do not really tame these animals. They control them in some measure, but these animals never really become tame.
In the biblical world, in the first century, when an animal that was wild became tame, that animal, once wild, now tame, was called práos. That is the word the Greeks used to describe an animal that was wild and had become tame—the word práos, the word meek. The word meek does not mean weak. These animals that were wild and later tame had not become weak. They were just as strong as before. They had as much power and as much strength, but that power and that strength had been brought under control. That is what it means to become meek. Power under control, and more explicitly, in the Christian context as used in the Bible, power under the control of God. If you are meek, if you are truly meek, you are tame before God.
Al-Buraq was the famous horse of Muhammad. Allegedly it was Al Buraq that took Muhammad from earth to the seventh heaven. But there were other horses more famous with which Muhammad is associated, and those horses are the Arabian horses. You might know the story of how Muhammad allegedly bred the Arabian horses, how he searched the world over for one hundred of the finest mares. He brought them back to his native Arabia. He trained them to respond to the sound of his bugle. He would blow his bugle, and the horses would stop whatever they were doing and come to him. He then tested them by putting all one hundred of the horses in an enclosure on top of a hill that overlooked a freshwater stream, He denied the horses water until their thirst was great. When he decided their thirst was great, he opened the gates. The horses thundered down the side of the mountain towards the freshwater stream—their tails flying, hoofs pounding, mouths foaming. When they were almost to the water, he blew his bugle. Ninety-six of the horses continued into the water and drank, but four horses dug their hoofs into the earth and stopped. They returned to Muhammad, and from those four he bred the great race of Arabians. Perhaps you have heard that story. It illustrates the meaning of meek. Those four horses were meek. Jesus Christ is looking for people who are meek, people who are tame before Him, people who live to do His will no matter what the cost, no matter how great the test, no matter how great the trial. He is looking for people who are truly tame before Him.
Moses, in Numbers, chapter 12, Verse 3, is called the “meekest man on the earth.” This great lawgiver and leader of the Israelites led more than a million Jews out of bondage. He stood before the Pharaoh of all Egypt and said, “Let my people go!” Yet he was the meekest man on all the earth. Why was he meek? He was meek because he only lived to do the will of the Father. God’s will was his will. God’s will was his command. He was tame before God. He had power under control and was, therefore, empowered by God. That is the promise given to the meek. If you would be tame before Christ, His power will be released through you. Moses parted the Red Sea. He split the rock at Meribah. The power of God was released through him in his meekness.
Yet the meekest man who ever lived was not Moses. The meekest man who ever lived was Jesus Christ. “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). Jesus stood before the multitudes and said, “I am meek. I do nothing of my own authority. I seek not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38). Jesus was the meekest man who ever lived.
“Therefore God hath highly exalted Him, bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:9-11). One day the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord, and He shall reign forever and ever. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Jesus Christ is the heir of all things. He wants to share His inheritance with you if you would join the meek and become tame before God.
There are a lot of people in our culture, in our time, who live lives of disobedience, inequity, disregard for the values established and set forth in God’s word. They are wild not tame. The meek are tame.
This word meek not only means tame, but this word meek also means kind. If you are meek, you are kind. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth. He said, “Shall I come to you with a rod or shall I come with the love of the meek?” (1 Corinthians 4:21). The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and exhorted him in meekness; he told him that the meek are kind to all people (2 Timothy 2:24). This word práos not only means tame before God, but also it means kind towards others. If you are truly meek, you are tame towards Christ and kind towards others.
In our little drama this morning, it was pointed out that the meek are humble, not self-inflated, not self-effacing. They are not proud. Neither do they have low self-esteem. The reason is because they are not focused on self at all. Meek people have an outward focus. Meek people are focused first on the Lord, before whom they are meek, before whom they are tame. Then they are focused on other people towards whom they are kind.
In 1979, John and Dorothy Peckham of Los Angeles, California, decided to take a cruise from Mexico to Hawaii. They must have been kind of bored on the cruise. Maybe they were tired of eating four or five great meals a day. Maybe they were tired of playing shuffleboard or sitting around the pool. They decided to do something kind of flaky; they wrote a note and put it in a bottle. They put their names on the note and their address and promised a reward. Then they threw the bottle in the Pacific Ocean. They did not really think anything would come of it. Three years later, 9,000 miles away, a Vietnamese refugee named Nguyen Van Hoa reached down from a crowded little boat and took the bottle out of the North China Sea. He was feeling kind of low with very little hope. But when he read that note, he had hope. He had escaped from a Vietnamese prison camp. He was in a United States refugee camp. That note gave him hope. He wrote the Peckhams in California. They were stunned to get this letter.
John and Dottie Peckham began to correspond with Nguyen Van Hoa. They corresponded for a few years, and they became good friends. Finally in 1985, the Peckhams sponsored Nguyen Van Hoa’s immigration to the United States. He came with his wife and their little girl.
Some people think, what a wonderful story. I would like to submit to you that that story is a little bit tragic. It is kind of tragic that you would put kindness in a bottle and send it halfway around the world when somebody in the pew next to you needs kindness, somebody in the house next to you needs kindness, somebody at the desk next to you needs kindness, or somebody in the car next to you needs kindness. If you are a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, if you are called by His name, you are called to show kindness for Christ’s sake. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). When a man asked, “Who is my neighbor?,” Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan. Your neighbor is anybody in need. The good Samaritan was meek. He reached out in kindness towards the needs of another human being. The priest and the Levite had no meekness. Christ has called you to meekness. On your Jericho Road, there are a lot of injured people, a lot of wounded people. Blessed are the meek. God only knows how He might use your acts of kindness empowered by the Holy Spirit.
A month or two ago, Barb and I went to see Les Misérables. I confess. I did not want to go. I do not like plays. Normally, they seem too long to me and kind of boring. I am not really into art. My idea of culture is frozen yogurt. But Barb twisted my arm, and we went to see Les Misérables. I have to admit it was wonderfully done. It is a moving story written by Victor Hugo about a man named Jean Valjean whose only crime was that he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. For nineteen years he was incarcerated. During that time he became hardened. When he was released, he could not find work because who wanted to hire a convict. But he came across a godly bishop who showed him kindness. The bishop gave Valjean supper and a bed for the night. While at the bishop’s house, Jean Valjean became tempted, and he took silverware that belonged to the bishop because he knew they had great value. He stole them, and he fled.
He was apprehended. The authorities found the silverware on him and decided to take him back to the bishop’s house to clarify what had happened. To Valjean’s amazement, the bishop said, “I gave these to this man as a gift. He didn’t steal them.” The bishop said, “Jean, you forgot the silver candlesticks,” and the bishop gave Jean Valjean those as well. The heart of Jean Valjean broke. One act of kindness transformed his life. He was never the same. By the power of the Holy Spirit, that is what your acts of kindness can do. They can transform lives. They can transform the world.
“Come, ye blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was a stranger, you welcomed me. I was sick ,and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me . . . Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me” (Matthew 24: 34-36, 40). Blessed are the meek. Tame before Christ. Kind towards others. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; and they will transform the world. Let us close with a word of prayer.