p. 10 | HUNGER AND THIRST by H. A. St. John

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 50.

HUNGER AND THIRST.

By H. A. St. John

BY H. A. ST. JOHN.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” Matt. 5:6.

IN this land of plenty there are but few persons acquainted with the sensations of extreme hunger and thirst. Nevertheless all know, in some measure, what it means to be hungry or thirsty. See that man that is really hungry and thirsty. Approach him with a scheme for making money. Begin to tell him how by joining you, he may easily make hundreds of dollars for himself. And altho he has natural cravings for speculation—for money making—there is another paramount desire in his soul that seeks first for gratification. He meets your appeal with the cry, “Give me food, give me drink.”

Invite his consideration of a proposed pleasure trip, offering rare opportunities for sightseeing. Again he turns aside your proposition, with the earnest plea for food and drink. You decide to make one more effort to get his mind off that one question of food and drink. You endeavor to place before him a short pathway upon which he may enter, and very soon attain to great honor—exaltation, power, authority, even a crown and dominion. But all is futile and vain. What is all that to a hungry and thirsty man? Still he cries, “Give me food and drink, or I die, and then all else is lost.” If his hunger and thirst are intense, he will not give attention to anything else until that demand is gratified.

Now, reader, ask yourself the all-important question, Do I thus hunger and thirst after righteousness? Are you so intensely eager to obtain a fulness of the righteousness of Christ that all things else are secondary? Do you really and deeply feel that unless you are filled with this righteousness, you will eventually forever die, and then all is lost both for time and eternity? Examine yourself in the light of this great truth. How many of your conscious, wakeful moments each day are spent by a truly hungry and thirsty soul panting and pleading for the fulness of the righteousness of Christ?

If you are not filled, is it not for the obvious reason that you do not hunger and thirst for it? How sad to think there is so little desire for that upon which our present and eternal welfare and life depends. Jesus said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” His great desire was satisfied. If with like desire we shall long to be filled with the righteousness of Christ before we go hence, our desire will be fully satisfied.

Behold, Jesus with all His fulness is standing, knocking, and entreating, at the door of your heart. Bid Him enter without delay. If you are as anxious for Him to come in, as He is anxious to come in, you will open the door at once, and then He will enter and sup with you and you with Him. Then, being filled with Christ, you will be filled with His righteousness, and thus enabled to reveal Christ to the world in all that goes to make up your life. All your desires will then be rectified, justified, purified, sanctified, and eventually gratified, and forever satisfied.