1204. God's Provision for the Hungry

God's Provision for the Hungry

"He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee" (Psa_81:16).

1. Hunger itself assures God's provision for the hungry. The very fact that the earth is filled with bounty, assures the fact that hungry mouths are to be fed.

If one has a yearning and a longing, a hunger in his soul, he may know that not far away is God's supply for his needs.

Before ever the earth had brought forth the living creature after his kind, the cattle, the creeping thing, and the beast of the earth after his kind, God had said: "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit." Thus, when the living beasts came, they found the earth a table spread with all good things for food.

Before ever God had said, "Let Us make man in Our own image," He had both covered the face of all the earth with every tree which was good for fruit, and with every beast and every fowl of the air, and He had said: "To you it shall be for meat."

Shall not He Who filled the earth with food for the physical man, feed the hungry soul? Will God feed the body and let the spirit starve? Nay; He knew that man should not live by bread alone, and thus He provided food for the hungry soul.

God led Israel in the wilderness and caused them to hunger, in order that He might feed them.

2. God's Call to the hungry. There are two outstanding Scriptures which all of us know and love–let us examine them.

(1) "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come, buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isa_55:1).

Men pay fancy prices for provisions. This is because they have made merchandise out of God's bounteous supply. Not so with God. God filled the earth with good things and said. "Freely ye have received." God put no "keep off the grass" signs upon His pastures; God never wrote: "No trespassing here" to the hunters for truth. God never wrote "Private grounds," to guard off tourists from His Beulah lands. He just turned over the great big world, luxuriant with Edenic blessings, and said: "I have given it to you for food."

God's spiritualities, the water for the thirsty, and the bread for the hungry, are just as free as His air. All is without money and without price.

(2) "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink–He that believeth in Me" (Joh_7:37-38).

This favorite passage presents the yearnings of our Lord towards the hungry. When Christ saw the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, He was moved with compassion toward them.

When Christ saw the hungry multitude, and when the disciples had said, "Send the multitude away that they may buy themselves victuals," then Christ said, "Ye have no need to send them away, give ye them to eat."

He Who freely fed the multitudes of yore, will just as freely feed every soul who hungers for the True Bread. The only ones who are sent empty away are those who are full and satisfied apart from Him.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR