And what is it to be poor in spirit? No doubt some of you poor sinners are ready to say "I know what it is, for I am so wretchedly poor that I feel unworthy to set my polluted foot down anywhere in God's universe." Yes, that is it--you are dissatisfied with yourself, disgusted with yourself, weary of yourself; and you know you can not make your condition any better, for you have tried it and failed till you are heart-sick and hopeless. You are satisfied that neither your education, nor your wisdom, nor your shrewdness, nor your money, if you have any, nor your family, nor your friends, nor your strength, nor your will, nor all these put together and multiplied a thousand times can deliver you from soul-bondage and soul-darkness and satisfy your aching and breaking heart. Is that your feeling, my brother? Then you are the one I am talking to; nay, you are the one my Divine Master is talking to. But God said the same thing in other words away back yonder one thousand years before Jesus came to earth. Read it in Psalm xxxiv: 18: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Have your sins broken your heart? Does the recollection of them cast down your spirit? You are not far from the kingdom of God then. Only believe on Jesus Christ who was not only Divine Teacher but also sin-bearer, and see God's willingness to save sinners, in the scene enacted on Calvary's trembling summit. What did Jesus suffer for if not for you and your sins? Say, what for, if not for you and all sinners? Answer that question. Do not turn it away or put it off but _answer_ it. Did I say you were not far from the kingdom of heaven? My text says, if you have the spirit I have described that "yours is, _is now_, the kingdom of heaven." Read it again. Will you believe it? Oh, are you afraid to venture? Is it too good to be true? Well, I tell you I ventured and that with forty-two years of sin and crime on my heart to press me down and keep me back. Yes; I ventured and I found _such a welcome_ that I was constrained in the joy of my heart to give up all other employment and spend my whole time and energy in telling of it to others who are in the condition I was in. But if there are any here who are satisfied with themselves, who do not feel their need of help and cleansing and deliverance, then this message of comfort is not for you. If you think you know enough about eternity to risk going into it as you are, if you think you know enough about God to meet him as you are, then we have no message of consolation for you. It is not because we do not want you to have a message of consolation and salvation, but because _you_ do not want it.