Never turned away.
It is the disposition of some men so to act as if they should have it written up on their doors, "Him that cometh to me I always send empty away." Others go to the opposite extreme. They have the giving disposition, but they give without judgment. Here we are directed to a Giver, a Helper, who never turns a suppliant away, never says a harsh word to him, is always both able and willing to give, if only the needy will get themselves ready for what is offered. Such are the resources of Jesus, such his sympathy, such his insight into human need, that he can ever say, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The words are at once a fingerpost and a welcome.
I. REMEMBER DISTINCTLY THE DEPENDENT CONDITION OF ALL HUMAN BEINGS. We are, constantly, every one of us going to some one or other; and just as constantly others are coming to us. The dependence is none the less real because we come with money in our hands. Life begins with dependence and ends with dependence. We are members one of another. Jesus himself was not free from this great law of reciprocity in need. It was part of the fulness of his humanity that he should come to other human beings for the supply of common wants, just like all the rest of us. Even in the higher matters connected with his great spiritual purposes, there is a coming of Jesus to us. Not only do the branches come to the vine for the life that is to make them useful, but the vine also comes to the branches to find places where it may deposit and manifest its life. So when Jesus speaks of coming to him, this great fact of human dependence should excite in all of us the deepest interest in his words.
II. THE LIMITS OF THIS DEPENDENCE. There is a great difference between buying bread and begging bread. You will not be cast out as long as you have money to pay for the loaf. But go begging instead of buying, and you will soon be cast out. If you were to give to every one asking, turning not away from a single suppliant, such an army of askers would gather round you as would soon bring your giving to an end. A great deal must be done in the way of casting out for this reason, if for no other, that our resources are so limited. We are not as Elijah when he lodged with the widow at Zarephath. The secret of the unwasting barrel of meal and the unfailing cruse of oil is not with us.
III. WE HAVE ONE WITH UNLIMITED SUPPLIES. Jesus spoke to those who knew the attitude of the suppliant and the needy. A great crowd had come to him, hungering for the bread that perisheth, and he had not cast them out. But now he desired them to come, seeking for a better bread. We are not as concerned about spiritual life and spiritual sustenance as we are about natural life and natural sustenance. What greater calamity can happen to the natural life of men than that bread should become dear and scarce, and those who go seeking to find it cheap and plentiful should be, as it were, cast out? Such may happen in transactions over the bread that perisheth. Here is Jesus, speaking of the bread that endures to eternal life. As the appointed Donor and Custodian of that bread, he says no one coming to him will be cast out. You dare not write such an inscription over your door. The most capable of men, the man of largest resources, understands perfectly how he is in charge, not of a fountain, but of a reservoir. Jesus only can make the declaration without limit as to numbers or to time. Coming to him, we come to One who speaks out of the infinite and the eternal.
IV. THOSE WHO FAIL TO STAY WITH JESUS GO WITH A VOLUNTARY LEAVING.
"Many disciples went back, and walked no more with him." But they were not driven away, cast out; they went of their own accord. Jesus never turns any one back to sole dependence on the things of time and sense. If we like to call refusal of selfish desires and discouragement of frivolous pleasures a casting out, we may do so, but that is truly no casting out which is a voluntary going out. God seems to say to us every morning after our solid, substantial breakfast, "I have given thee the natural; wilt thou not also have the spiritual?" Days will come when all the abundance of bread will do our bodies little good. The flesh will fail. The outward man will perish. Jesus makes his declaration that the inward may be renewed day by day.—Y.