From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
November 4 "He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the
beggar from the ash-heap, to set them among princes, and to make them
inherit the throne of glory." 2 Samuel 2:8 A man can never reach heaven unless he travels
heavenwards, Zionwards, in the way that God has marked out for his people to
walk in. It is a delusion to think that we are going to heaven unless we
know something of divine teaching in the soul. But if we know anything of
divine teaching, we know what it is to be poor and needy, we know what it
is, more or less, to have our mouth in the dust. But many people do so
mistake the way to heaven. The ordinary way is to set up a ladder to reach
from earth to heaven, and progressively clambering up the different rungs,
at last to climb up into the abode of God. But that is not the way of God's
people. They have to go down, down, down, that they may be raised up. It is
not with them first "up, up, up," to scale the battlements of heaven. Every
such step upwards in SELF is in reality only a step downwards; but, on the
other hand, every step downwards in self, downwards into the depths of
poverty, downwards into felt misery, downwards into soul-trouble and the
real groanings of a broken heart--every such step downwards in self is, in
fact, a step upwards in Christ. Until we get to the very bottom there is no promise. "He
raises up the poor out of the dust." But how? He does it in a moment.
The Lord does not raise up his people rung by rung, enabling them to clamber
and crawl with their hands and feet to him. But, when he lifts up the poor
out of the dust, he gives them a smile which reaches, so to speak, to the
very bottom of their hearts; and that smile has such a miraculous power,
such a drawing efficacy, that it lifts them in a moment out of the dust into
the very bosom of God. When, therefore, the Lord raises up the poor out of
the dust, he does not lift them up by a gradual process, step by step as
they went down. They were, perhaps, many years going down; but they are
raised up in a moment. The God of all grace, by one word, or by one smile,
lifts them up in a moment out of the lowest depths of felt degradation,
"sets them among princes, and makes them inherit the throne of glory."