Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 418
Deuteronomy 8:3.
THIS notable text shall teach us two lessons this morning. Its first utterance shall be concerning Providence and its second, concerning the life of grace in the heart. Our blessed Lord once used this text with regard to Providence and therefore, we shall be justified in so interpreting it. When the foul fiend suggested to the hungry Savior that He should work a “preposterous miracle” to supply His needs, saying, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,” the Master met him, not with the wooden sword of human reason, but with this true Jerusalem blade, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, replying to him, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
Our glorious David took this smooth and shining stone out of the clear and silvery brook of Scripture and threw it at Goliath’s head—an example to us to meet temptations with the weapons of Scripture—not with the words or traditions of men.
I. Let us for one moment, that we may get the meaning of this text, with regard to PROVIDENCE, reflect upon the children of Israel in the wilderness. They were an exceeding great host, numbering somewhere between two and three millions. They had come forth out of Egypt on a sudden. They were poor, they were not therefore in circumstances to provide themselves with food even for a long march, much less for forty years. They had each of them brought what provender they had, for we read, “They took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.”
They crossed the Red Sea by miracle. Very soon afterwards all their provisions must have been exhausted. Picture their position—the kneading troughs are empty, the sterile wilderness of Sinai can hardly yield blades of grass enough for their flocks. How could it provide them with any sustenance for themselves? They have a long journey before them and where have they to look? There is no possibility of commerce by which to purchase food, neither can the land yield any. Every door is shut save one and that is the door of Heaven. All means have failed, but the God who works with the means can work without them if He pleases and therefore He opens the windows of Heaven and instead of a shower of rain there is a shower of food.
A substance like coriander seed fell round about the camp—“manna”—so they called it, for they were not sure what it was. They gathered it. They found it dainty to the taste, exceedingly nourishing and wholesome and they fed upon this bread of Heaven for forty years! Nor did the manna cease till they came unto the land of Canaan where they ate the corn of the land and had no need of miraculous supplies. The hunger which was thus supplied had its design—for, as hunger tames the wild and savage beast—so this was sent to humble the proud and carnal minds of the Israelites—an object of no mean importance.
But that was not the only lesson. The Lord taught them that the sustaining power by which man’s life is preserved is not necessarily in any one substance, but is dependent upon the Word of God. It is true that bread nourishes. And the philosopher would say that there is a nutritive power resident in it. But really there is no power of any sort anywhere but in God. The power of nourishing and sustaining bodily life is of God and He, by a continual flowing of His omnipotence, pours the nutritive quality into bread. But if He chose to, He could pour it into stones. If it were His will, He could make the very dust of the earth nutritious and supply the lack of man by new means, for He is no more shut up to bread now than He was in times that have gone by.
Naturalists speak of laws of nature—there is no power in a law, write it as you like, it has no power—the laws of nature are simply the Lord operating in a certain manner, producing certain effects by certain means. This is what we call Law—it is God in action—and the reason why bread sustains the body is because God puts His potency into it, by which it receives nutritive virtues and the body is sustained. Now the Lord, by the manna, said to the children of Israel, “Man is not fed by bread only. He is fed by God’s power that comes from Him into the bread and when the bread is lacking, He can infuse that power into the very dews of the night. And they, as they distil, shall become manna full of nutritive energy to sustain your frame and you shall know that the power to nourish is not in the second cause, but in the great First Cause—not in the corn, not in the bread—but in the Lord God Himself.” This was the lesson which they were required to learn.
Now, Brethren, this is a doctrine which may be rendered exceedingly useful to us. God has power to supply our needs and therefore there can be no necessity for us to do wrong in order that we may be fed for He is not tied to any means. He can supply the wants of His children, not in one way, but in fifty ways. No, not in fifty ways, but in ways as countless as the sands upon the sea shore. You know how in olden times the Lord occasionally showed this power in miracles. When Moses, Elijah and our great Lord Himself fasted forty days, their natural lives were sustained without food.