THOU HAST LACKED NOTHING.
By F. W. Spies
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.) One of the most precious truths in the Holy Scriptures is that stated in Rom. 15:4, that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning;” and indeed the whole Scripture is designed to teach us God and His wonderful ways. And as we learn to know God, through His dealings with His people of old, we obtain the hope which gives us patience and comfort even in trial and tribulation. So the Lord spoke to His people of old: “The Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: He knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.” Deut. 2:7. When we study the record of rebellious Israel; when we see their constant unbelief and hardness of heart, their murmurings and complainings, and this, in the face of the wonderful miracles the Lord wrought daily to supply their needs; when we consider that this continued for forty years, how wonderful the long-suffering and patience of the Lord. And yet He says, “The Lord thy God hath blessed thee. . . . Thou hast lacked nothing.” Does it not seem strange that a people who had their every want supplied, should be constantly murmuring, and in dread lest they should come to want? But the Word says their history was “written for our learning.” While the Lord has abundantly blessed His people, so that they have never known want, how many, like ancient Israel, are fearful of trusting the Lord, lest they come to want? Perhaps this fear of trusting the Lord and coming to want leads some even to rob Him, in withholding tithes and offerings. Their fear that they may really see want, causes them to close their ears and hearts to the many and urgent appeals for men and money to enter the fields already white for the harvest, where precious souls must perish if help is delayed. Oh, what littleness of faith we often exhibit, while the precious word of God is so full of evidence of His care for us! We, too, like ancient Israel, are on our way to the land of promise, the heavenly Canaan; we, too, are in the wilderness of temptation, surrounded with wickedness and trials, suffering and sin. But are not we, like Israel of old, daily seeing God’s wonderful provisions for us? Are not we daily beholding His love and care for us? How ungrateful and unthankful is this unbelief! But what was the result of this unbelief of old? In Heb. 3:11 we read, “They shall not enter into my rest.” What a sad result—a sad end! “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you [us] should seem to come short of it.” But on the other hand, while we faithfully journey on, looking only to the Author and Finisher of our faith, even though the road be rough and thorny, even though many trials beset us, and at times the enemy presses us sore, seemingly so hard that we almost despair of overcoming, then let us cheer ourselves with the promise in Deut. 2:7: “He knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness,” and trust our Captain, who is going before us; for soon, with all the redeemed, in the earth made new, the heavenly Canaan, we shall enter into that eternal rest of which the rest from sin and the works of evil, given us here through faith in Jesus, is the pledge and surety.