Vain expenditure on things.
Comp. Isaiah 44:20, "He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside." A very striking illustration of unsatisfying food is given by the Rev. H. Macmillan. "A strange plant, called the nardoo, grows in the deserts of Lento, Australia. Its seeds formed for months together almost the sole food of the party of explorers who, a few years ago, crossed the continent. When analyzed, the nardoo bread was ascertained to be destitute of certain nutritious elements indispensable to the support of a European, though an Australian savage might, for a while, find it beneficial as an alterative. And thus it happened that these poor, unfortunate Englishmen perished of starvation, even while feeding fully day by day upon food that served to satisfy their hunger." An old author, date 1600, says, "It is a thing that the Emperor Caligula is laughed at in all stories. There was a mighty navy provided, well manned and victualled, and every one expected that the whole country of Greece should have been invaded; and so it might have been; but the emperor had another design in hand, and employed his soldiers to gather a quantity of cockleshells and pebble-stones, and so returned home again. Just such another voyage doth almost every man make here in this world, were the particulars but truly cast up." J.A. Alexander makes an important distinction. "Observe, too, that he does not seek to remedy the evils which arise from perverted and unsatisfied desire, by the extinction of the appetite itself—of that immortal, inextinguishable craving, which can only cease by annihilation or by full fruition. This, indeed, is a distinctive mark of true religion, as opposed to other systems. Since the evils under which the human race is groaning may be clearly traced to the inordinate indulgence of desires after happiness, under the influence of 'strong delusions' as to that which can afford it, we are not to wonder that when unassisted reason undertakes to do away with the effect, it should attempt the extirpation of the cause; and you will find, accordingly, that every system of religion or philosophy, distinct from Christianity, either indulges, under some disguise, that perversion of man's natural desire after happiness which makes him wretched, or affects to cure it by destroying the desire itself." "While one voice cries to the. bewildered sinner, 'Cease to hunger, cease to thirst;' and another from an opposite direction bids him 'Eat and drink; for to-morrow we die;' the voice of God and of the gospel is, 'Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?'"
I. SOUL-HUNGER CAN NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH THINGS. It is easy to confuse the soul's hunger with the bodily cry for pleasure, the mental cry for knowledge, the society cry for place and wealth, or the aesthetic cry for the beautiful. Men readily enough mistake their own longings, their own unrest. There is much that we have not, and we think the craving is to get what others enjoy. Men need to have translated for them their own restlessness and desire. Augustine does it. "Man was made for God, and can find no rest till he finds rest in him." The hymn does it—
"My heart is pained, nor can it be
At rest till it finds rest in thee."
Things can never rest and satisfy souls. Angels cannot feed on man's broad. Things can satisfy some things in man—his taste, his passions, his sentiments—but not the man himself. They who have had the most of the good in things that this world can command have complained most deeply of the yawning and yearning of their unsatisfied souls. "If a man ask a fish, will ye give him a stone?" If a man wants love, what good is it to give him gold, or fame, or pleasure? The gains and honours and so-called "good" of this world are not only brief in their duration, but unsuited, in their very nature, even while they last, to satisfy the wants of an immortal spirit.
II. SOUL-HUNGER CAN ONLY BE SATISFIED IN A PERSON. Therefore Jesus said, "I am the Bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." On Christ, as the Gift of God to us, our souls may "eat, and live for ever." There is in verse 4 a first allusion to King David, but a further final allusion to Jesus. "He that hath the Son hath life." The points which may be illustrated and impressed are suggested in the following paragraph: "The prophet, speaking in the name of God, after calling men to come to him, to hear him that their souls may live, annexes to this gracious invitation the specific promises of a sure salvation—a salvation not contingent or fortuitous, but one provided by a gracious constitution on the part of God himself; a salvation promised and confirmed by oath; a covenant of mercy, eternal in its origin and everlasting in its stipulations, comprehending in its wonderful provisions the essential requisite of an atonement, a priest and sacrifice, an all-sufficient Saviour; not a Saviour whose performance of his office should be partial, or contingent, or uncertain from the change of person, but the one, the only Saviour—the same 'yesterday, and to-day, and for ever,' the Son of God, the Son of man, the Son of David." Soul-rest in the living personal Saviour finds expression in the familiar verse
"I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
I found in him a Resting-place,
And he has made me glad."
R.T.