The Beatitudes – Those who hunger

The Beatitudes give us a picture of true blessedness, and it differs a lot from what we see in movies or read in romance novels. True blessedness is not measured the size of your house or the top speed of your car. Instead, it is that happy state in which the believer experiences God’s favour. Blessedness is about our character, not our circumstances.

In the fourth beatitude, Jesus explains that the blessed “hunger and thirst”. We’ve all felt hungry and thirsty, but chances are we are only vaguely familiar with the kind of hunger and thirst Jesus describes in this beatitude. In the ancient Near East, the average working man would only eat meat once a week. Many people lived on the border of starvation. Water was even more precious than food, with most settlements built around or near a reliable water supply. It is said that a person can survive for 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.

Have you ever experienced that kind of hunger or thirst? Jesus is talking about a strong, passionate spiritual desire – a need that must be satisfied. Psalm 42:1-2 famously captures this kind of spiritual longing in its opening verses: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” David had a similar longing for God: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1). They longed for God’s presence as a dying man would long for food or water.

John Blanchard highlights a particular danger in modern Christianity. Many professing believers are like cars that are running on empty. From the outside there seems to be nothing wrong with the car, but the fuel light is on, and the driver isn’t paying attention. Suddenly the car starts to sputter and then it stops. Outwardly, many professing believers live respectable lives, attending church and using religious words, but they are empty. They have no sense of urgency or need. They do not hunger or thirst for God. Most dangerous of all, they may not even be aware of it (like the church of Laodicea; see Rev. 3:17).

Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives us a timely reminder: “I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this while matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of Scripture you can be quite certain that you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.” Hunger and thirst are signs of life and indicators of health (see 1 Pet. 2:2). A loss of appetite is usually not a good sign.

What does a loss of spiritual hunger look like? Thomas Watson gives several examples.
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• First, those who do not hunger for righteousness do not feel their emptiness. In other words, he lacks the awareness of the first beatitude. He writes: “None so empty of grace as he that thinks himself full. He has most need of righteousness that least wants it.”
• Second, those who do not hunger for righteousness do not feel a need for it. Related to the first, but here the professing believer thinks he or she can go without it for a season.
• Third, those who do not hunger for righteousness “desire rather sleep than food. They are more drowsy than hungry.” They are in a spiritual stupor and don’t want to wake up from it.
• Fourth, those who do not hunger for righteousness “refuse their food… Such are your fanatics and enthusiasts who put away the blessed ordinances and pretend to revelations… They live on airy notions”.
• Fifth, those who do not hunger for righteousness “delight more in the garnishing of the dish than the food.” They are more interested in the eloquence of the preaching than its content.
• Sixth, those who do not hunger for righteousness “prefer other things before it, namely, their profits and recreations.” 
• Seventh, those who do not hunger for righteousness “are more for disputes in religion than practice.”

Thomas Guthrie, a Scottish preacher, wrote: “If you find yourself loving any pleasure better than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of God, any table better than the Lord’s table, any person better than Christ, any indulgence better than the hope of heaven – take alarm!”
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Because of Christ,
Pieter