The Sermon on the Mount_ The Key to Success in Life - Emmet Fox [12]
The true significance of the word “meek” in the Bible is a mental attitude for which there is no other single word available, and it is this mental attitude which is the secret of “prosperity” or success in prayer. It is a combination of open-mindedness, faith in God, and the realization that the Will of God for us is always something joyous and interesting and vital, and much better than anything we could think of for ourselves. This state of mind also includes a perfect willingness to allow this Will of God to come about in whatever way Divine Wisdom considers to be best, rather than in some particular way that we have chosen for ourselves.
This mental attitude, complex in analysis but simple in itself, is the Key to Dominion, or success in demonstration. There is no one word for it in common speech, because the thing does not exist except for those who are upon the Spiritual Basis of the Jesus Christ teaching; but if we desire to inherit the earth we must absolutely acquire this “meekness.”
Moses, who had such extraordinary success in prayer—he overcame the old-age belief to the extent of manifesting the physical body of a young man in the prime of life, when, according to the calendar, he was one hundred and twenty years old, and then transcended matter altogether, or, “dematerialized” without dying—was known preeminently for this quality—“as meek as Moses.” Moses, we remember, apart from his own personal demonstration, did a marvelous work for his whole nation, getting it out of Egyptian bondage in the face of incredible difficulties (for the successful Exodus was the “demonstration” of Moses and a few advanced souls who were helping him) and influencing the whole subsequent course of history by his teaching and his deeds. Moses had an open mind, ready to be taught new things and new ways of thinking and working. He did not reject fresh revelation because it was novel and revolutionary, as most of his self-satisfied colleagues in the Egyptian Hierarchy would have done. He was not, in the beginning at least, free from serious faults of character, but he was too big for intellectual or spiritual pride, and therefore he gradually rose above these defects as the new truth worked in his soul.
Moses thoroughly understood that to conform oneself rigorously to the Will of God, far from involving the loss of any good, could only mean a finer and better and more splendid life. He did not, therefore, think of it as self-sacrifice, for he knew it to be the highest form of self-glorification in the true and wonderful sense of the word. The self-glorification of the egotist is the mean vanity that leads at last to humiliation. True self-glorification, the glorification that is really glorious, is the glorification of God—“The Father in me, He doeth the works.” “I in Thee, and Thou in Me.” Moses had a wonderful understanding of the power of the spoken Word to call forth good, which is scientific faith. He was one of the “meekest” men who ever lived, and no one, excepting our saviour, has inherited the earth to a greater degree.
There is a marvelous Oriental saying that “Meekness compels God Himself.”
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
“Righteousness” is another of the great Key Words of the Bible, one of those keys that the reader must have in his possession if he is to get at the true meaning of the book. Like “earth” and “meek” and “comfort,” it is a technical term used in a special and definite sense.
Righteousness means, in the Bible, not merely right conduct, but right thinking on all subjects, in every