(EZEK. xxxiv. 15.)
I. “I will feed my flock.” This implies that the flock is hungry; nay more, that it hungers after that peculiar food which alone can satisfy it. Spiritual hunger is a sure mark of life. The Lord’s own words are, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Hunger, we may observe, has a peculiar relation to suitable food. The lion does not hunger for the food of the lamb, nor the dove for that of the eagle. “Feed me with food,” prays Agur, “convenient for me” (Prov. xxx. 8), literally, “appointed,” that is, suitable to my appetite, ordained by Thyself to satisfy it. Thus, a soul spiritually hungry cannot eat trash. God’s own mark against “a deceived heart” is, that it “feedeth upon ashes” (Isa. xlv. 20). A living soul cannot, then, feed upon the ashes of its own righteousness; for ashes, indeed, they will be found when the lightning stroke of God’s righteous law has burnt up all creature comeliness. Nor can it feed upon superstitious ceremonies, or the mummeries of Popish Paganism, either in the full court dress of the Catholic chapel, or the undress of the Puseyite church. Nor can it feed upon the “form of godliness,” upon the barren mountains of dead, dry Calvinism, any more than as it grows on the heaths and wilds of flat Arminianism. Nay, the Bible itself, that sweet and sacred record, that blessed revelation of the mind of God, even upon the letter of that the soul cannot feed unless God Himself turn it into food. For the promise runs, “I will feed my flock.” The food, the only real food of the soul must be of God’s own appointing, preparing, and communicating. The babe on the mother’s lap must be fed spoonful by spoonful, and that by the hand of the parent. The food must be put into the mouth, and such food only as is suitable for the growth of the babe. You can never deceive a hungry child. You may give it a plaything to still its cries; it may serve for a few minutes; but the pains of hunger are not to be removed by a doll. A windmill or a horse will not allay the cravings after the mother’s breast. So with babes in grace. A hungry soul cannot feed upon playthings. Altars, robes, ceremonies, candlesticks, bowings, mutterings, painted windows, intoning priests, and singing men and women—these dolls and wooden horses, these toys and playthings of the Puseyitish baby-house, cannot feed the soul that, like David, “cries out after the living God.” Christ, the bread of life, the manna that came down from heaven, is the only food of the believing soul: “He that eateth me,” says the Lord, “even he shall live by me.” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John vi. 51). A living soul knows when it hungers as much as the babe in the mother’s arms knows when it hungers; and knows, too, when it drinks down the pure milk of God’s word as sensibly and as truly as the natural child knows when its hunger is allayed by the mother’s breast. The Lord says, “I will feed my flock.” They shall, indeed suffer, first, the pangs of hunger to teach them to value it; for “the full soul loatheth the honeycomb.” Nay more, generally speaking, a certain painful experience is required to produce this appetite. Look at the labourer. What an appetite he has! How he relishes his food, coarse though it be! What gives him this appetite? Why, hard work. He is not your delicate invalid, or your fine lady, that lolls upon the sofa all day long, and whispers at dinner, “I think I can just pick the wing of a chicken;” but he has well earned it, for he has been working while you have been sleeping. So with the spiritual labourer, for such they are in the kingdom of God. “Come unto me, all ye that labour.” “Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life.” “In all labour there is profit.” To labour under a burden of sin against powerful temptations, a body of sin and death and a whole host of lusts and corruptions will make a man hunger after a righteousness better than his own. We rarely cry out for the living bread till brought down to the starving point. Then, when nothing will satisfy but Jesus, God steps in with this word, “I will feed.” Sometimes it shall be a promise, sometimes a glimpse of Jesus, sometimes a sweet assurance of interest in His blood and righteousness, sometimes a smile, sometimes a sip or taste of His mercy, goodness, and love. When any gospel truth is applied to the heart; when faith embraces it, hope anchors in it, and love flows toward it, then the soul is divinely fed. Hunger is then sensibly allayed; the word of God tastes sweet; Jesus is received into the heart; and as the sheep lies and chews the cud, so the soul meditates and ruminates on the truth of God and enjoys it over and over again.
WE regret that a notice of the late Mrs. Davidson, Tomatin, Inverness-shire, is unavoidably held over till next month.