Meat given to them that fear the Lord.
I. LITERALLY, THE DECLARATION OF THE TEXT IS TRUE. Each harvest as it comes round, the daily supply of needed food, all are in evidence to support the declaration. Three facts are noted concerning this.
1. It is the Lord who is the Giver. To speak as so many do about nature and law, as if they were the producers of our food, is merely an evasion, and a not always creditable one, of the real truth.
2. The gift is the special mark of the Divine favor to his people. At once the reply arises—But are not the wicked fed as well as, and often better than, the good? Yes, this is so; but as Sodom would have been spared had there been found ten righteous men in her, so the world of the godless is spared and fed for the sake of the people of God, the salt of the earth. Without these, wherefore should God keep the world going? Therefore, though the ungodly do share, and more than share, these Divine supplies, they do not take them as gifts from God at all; still less do they believe what is the truth, that it is not for their sake, but for the sake of "them that fear him," God vouchsafes these supplies. "All things are yours," said St. Paul to the believing people of God; and his word but echoes the truth before us now.
3. They are proofs of God's faithfulness and truth. He never fails to do his part, though at times, by the cruelty and mismanagement of men, the portion of meat designed for some of his children gets terribly diminished, and even intercepted altogether. But it is the duty of them that fear God to do their best to bring such wrong to an end.
II. SPIRITUALLY ALSO IT IS TRUE. We are authorized by our Lord to take the food of the body as symbol of the food of the soul; and so read, the text is still true, and, indeed, more so than read literally.
1. Christ is that living Bread. (John 6:1-71.) And as bread is that one food which all partake of because it ministers to the physical needs of all; so Christ, the Bread of life, meets the deeper spiritual needs of all, of every age, clime, rank, character, condition.
2. And how freely and abundantly it is given, and how indispensable is it likewise!
3. But as the bread for the body, so this Bread of life must be eaten, not merely talked about, if it is to do us any good. We must receive Christ into our hearts by a true faith, and we must do this day by day continually. If we do this we shall know how true the text is.—S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK