|
Weaned from feeding on husks and ashes
(J. C. Philpot, "Zion's
Blessings" 1843)
"I will satisfy her poor with bread." Psalm 132:15
The Lord has given a special promise to Zion's
poor—"I will satisfy her poor with bread."
Nothing else? Bread? Is that all?
Yes! That is all God has promised—bread,
the staff of life.
But what does He mean by "bread"?
The Lord Himself explains what bread is. He says,
"I am the Bread of life. He who comes to Me will
never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will
never be thirsty. I am the living Bread who came
down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever." John 6:35,51
The bread, then, that God gives to Zion's poor is
His own dear Son—fed upon by living faith, under
the special operations of the Holy Spirit in the heart.
"I will satisfy her poor with bread." Psalm 132:15
But must not we have an appetite before we can
feed upon bread? The rich man who feasts continually
upon juicy meat and savory sauces, would not live upon
bread. To come down to live on such simple food as bread
—why, one must be really hungry to be satisfied with that.
So it is spiritually. A man fed upon 'mere notions' and a
number of 'speculative doctrines' cannot descend to the
simplicity of the gospel. To feed upon a crucified Christ,
a bleeding Jesus!—he is not sufficiently brought down to
the starving point, to relish such spiritual food as this!
Before, then, he can feed upon this Bread of life he must
be made spiritually poor. And when he is brought to be
nothing but a mass of wretchedness, filth, guilt, and misery
—when he feels his soul sinking under the wrath of God,
and has scarcely a hope to buoy up his poor tottering heart
—when he finds the world embittered to him, and he has no
one object from which he can reap any abiding consolation
—then the Lord is pleased to open up in his conscience,
and bring the sweet savor of the love of His dear Son
into his heart—and he begins to taste gospel bread.
Being weaned from feeding on husks and ashes,
and
sick "of the vines of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah,"
and being brought to relish simple gospel food, he begins
to taste a sweetness in 'Christ crucified' which he never
could know—until he was made experimentally poor.
The Lord has promised to satisfy such.
"I will satisfy her poor with bread." Psalm 132:15
|