GOD AS A PROVIDER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 43.

GOD AS A PROVIDER.

GOD “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things,” yet most men, even those who profess faith in His Word, are afraid to trust Him implicitly as a provider. They strive and worry, and defraud one another, and usurp God’s time, and withhold His means, in the effort to gain for themselves the necessaries of life. Now Jesus says this is the way the Gentiles do; so, notwithstanding a profession of faith, the man who devotes his time solely to the procuring of necessary things for this life, or even makes that the first business of life, places himself in the ranks of the Gentiles. And a Gentile, according to Paul’s definition, is one “having no hope, and without God in the world.” Eph. 2: 12.

Jesus draws the line between His disciples and the Gentiles on this very subject; so the two classes may be recognized by their attitude in this respect. He says to His servants, “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek); for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matt. 6: 31-33.

This is a plain, positive promise, and the Lord always means just what He says, and all that He promises He is “able also to perform.” Rom. 4: 21. All the promises of God are Yea and Amen, positively sure, in Christ (2 Cor. 1: 20), and He has all power in heaven and in earth at His command. Not only so, but God has demonstrated His care for His own, as also His willingness and ability to provide the necessaries of life.

When He delivered Israel from Egypt, they soon became alarmed lest they would starve in the wilderness. Ex. 16: 2, 3. “Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” Verse 4. This shows what the Lord can do when it is necessary in order to sustain His people. And the demonstration of it is in the fact that “the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.” Verse 35. Then it was no longer necessary for them to be fed in that manner. And as for clothing, that was also miraculously preserved. The Lord reminds them that “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.” Deut. 8: 4; Neh. 9: 21.

In the time of a great famine in the days of Elijah, the Lord said to His prophet, “Hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee.” Was He able to fulfil this promise?—Yes, abundantly able; for Elijah “did according unto the word of the Lord; . . . and the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.” See 1 Kings 17: 1-6.

But by and by the brook dried up because of the drought, and the Lord said to Elijah, “Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there; behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” Verse 9. Was the widow woman rich? was she well supplied with food? that the Lord should command her to sustain His servant?—We shall see. Elijah went to Zarephath, as directed, “And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks.” That was not much evidence of opulence, or ability to take another permanent boarder for charity’s sake.

Elijah asked the woman for a drink of water, “and as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.” And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

Some of our modern Elijahs would have looked farther in quest of the promised sustenance, hardly dreaming that one in such circumstances was prepared to entertain him during the famine. But Elijah was a man of experience in faith. He had been fed from day to day by the ravens, and did not lack for food. So he said to the woman, “Fear not; go and do as thou hast said; but make me a little cake thereof first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.”

What was the result?—Why the woman did as Elijah said, “and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah.”

Again, when Elijah fled from the wrath of Jezebel, and lay under a juniper tree in the wilderness, ready to perish, he was fed by an angel. After eating but two meals, he was enabled to go in the strength of that food forty days. See 1 Kings 19: 2-8. So the Lord is not limited in resources, nor in ways and means for sustaining His people.

And Jesus Himself demonstrated His power to feed the hungry, when with five loaves and two fishes He fed five thousand people, taking up more in fragments of food left over than there was at first. Also in feeding four thousand with seven loaves and a few little fishes, having seven baskets of food remaining after all had eaten and were filled. See Matt. 14: 15-21; 15: 32-38.

With all these illustrations before us, shall we doubt the ability of Him who feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies, to add the necessaries of this short life to those who will seek first His righteousness and the interests of His kingdom. If we believe God, it will be counted to us for righteousness, and put us in position to expect the temporal supply. Let us look to Him who creates and preserves all things, and recognize in Him the all-provider of our necessities.