In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat.
Christ knows and supplies our need
A little lad, during the American war, was his widowed mother’s comfort and joy. One day, as the poor woman was trying to scrape the flour from the sides and bottom of the barrel to help out the day’s supply, the lad cried, “Mother, we shall have some more very soon, I know! “Why do you say so, my boy?” asked the mother. “Why, because you’ve got to scraping the barrel. I believe God always hears you scraping the barrel, and that’s a sign to Him you want another.” And before the day was over the fresh supply had come.
Feeding the people
I. Now we read that some of our foremost scientists-men of learning and research, and I am not here to say one word against them or their noble labours-have, as it were, if not formally, tacitly agreed to banish God from His own creation. They continually declare we have nothing to do with God. He is the Unknown, and must remain forever Unknowable; we are Agnostics, we know nothing of Him. We summarise in a few words the net results of the development theory as applied to the food of man. Within the last ten years special investigations have been directed to the origin and growth of corn. I cannot now indicate the course and scope of these researches more than to say that we have two ways or prosecuting the inquiry-by the records of history, and by the deposits of geology. And their teachings in fine amount to this. Wheat has never been found in a wild state in any country in the world, nor in any age. It has no development, no descent. It has always been found under the same conditions as it is now-always under the care and cultivation of man-never existed where man did not cultivate it. Moreover, it has never been found in a fossil state. So, if we hearken to the teachings of geology, man existed long before his staff of life. The most minute investigations into the origin of wheat have failed to find it under any conditions in the least different from what it is with us today. The oldest grain of wheat in the world is in the British Museum, and this has been microscopically examined and subjected to the most searching analysis, but it is found to be in all respects exactly the same as the wheat you secured a fortnight ago in this parish in the Vale of Clwyd. So there has been no development within the records of history, and it has no existence in the deposits of geology. Again: the power and the means of perpetuating its own existence have been given to every living and growing thing, animal and vegetable, and this is carried on from age to age, without any interference on the part of man. The only great exception to this grand and beneficent law is the corn-the food of man. A crop of wheat left to itself, in any latitude or country, would, in the third or fourth year of its first planting, entirely disappear. It has no power to master its surrounding difficulties so as to become self-perpetuating. Thus it does not come under the law of the “survival of the fittest.” And what is still more singular-we have never more than a sufficient supply for some fourteen months or thereabouts, even after the most bountiful harvest, and it has been calculated that we are often within a week of universal starvation should one harvest totally fail. And how near this awful catastrophe we may have been this year even, God only knows. A shade too much, or a shade too little; and oh how little, and it might have been! And science informs us that the wheat has untold millions of enemies peculiar to itself. And no wonder it is a matter of universal rejoicings when another harvest has been scoured, and the farmer’s anxious labours have been crowned with success.
II. Man must work. And this is nowhere more evident than in the harvest. Man must plough and harrow, and sow and reap, and bind and gather into barns, and thresh and grind, and knead and bake, and the hundred and one other little things allotted as his honourable share in this grand concern; otherwise his body, with its mysterious relations to earth and sky, to time and eternity, to matter and spirit, will not receive the nourishment intended for its growth and work, though all the cycles of immensity were kept to shed their benign influences on field and meadow and homestead. And on the other hand, man may do all his part, and yet not one single grain could he gather into barn or rick if our heavenly Father did not cause the earth to revolve, the planets to move, the inconstant moon to wend its way along the star-bespangled firmament, the river to roll on its pebbly bed, the myriad laughing ocean in its cradle to ebb and flow, the entrancing landscapes of the sun-tinted clouds to sail in the balmy air, and the barriers of the dawn to be loosened that the golden rays of the lord of day may dance on the petals of the flowering wheat, and kiss the dew from the lips of the lily. Now sublimate this thought into the domain of the gospel, and you will have our part-our bodily and mental part, little though it be-in the spiritual and eternal life. For instance, you have power over your own limbs to come here to God’s house, to bow the knee, to blend your voice in psalm and litany, to kneel before the holy table and receive the visible symbols of His Divine presence, and demean yourselves in bodily and mental posture as men who feel that God is amongst you; but after all you will go away empty if the Holy Spirit be not here to carry the words from the lips of the preacher to the heart of the hearer, and your Holy Communion will be an ideal ceremony if God’s presence be not here to bless and satisfy the faithful worshipper. In one and the truest sense, all is of God, but He will not take you to heaven in spite of yourselves. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”
III. These miracles are characteristic of our Lord Himself, His life, His work. Contrast this miracle of feeding the multitudes with our Lord’s refusal, at Satan’s bidding, to convert the stones of the desert into bread for His own sake. Our Lord’s temptations and sufferings and death were all for the sake of others-of us-of me a sinner-of the human family. (D. Williams.)
God’s food the only satisfaction
“And they were filled.” No true wealth except the harvest. All the gold and silver are simply means of exchange: they have a purchasing power; nothing is true wealth but the harvest. The harvest alone enriches, the harvest alone satisfies. If the harvest once failed, your gold and precious stones would soon become only so much dross to be flung away. Riches, pleasure, fame, empires even, do not satisfy; these things only increase the hunger of the soul, created to have its enjoyment and satisfaction in God alone. The food in which God is present alone satisfies. If God be here you will not go away empty. The Divine presence gives eternal satisfaction. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life.” (D. Williams.)
Fragment gatherers
The apostles-the agents who were chosen to distribute amongst the multitudes the food which Jesus blessed-were privileged to gather the fragments. Oh, what precious fragments all who help to administer bread to the perishing souls receive back themselves! The preacher, the teacher, the district visitor, if their own hearts be in the right place, what lessons of encouragement, self-discipline, and mutual love! what precious fragments in the respect, gratitude, and affection from those amongst whom they minister, do they not receive! Virtue is its own reward. Do good, and the basket of fragments is yours. The less the material, the greater the number fed, the more fragments. Strange arithmetic! But it is the rule of three and practice of God. This is true of all lives. Those who have large means, and do but little, bare no fragments to gather. (D. Williams.)
How many loaves have ye
The miracle was made less startling, less striking, by the actual manner of performing it. The moment of its beginning was veiled. The first recipients took common bread. The multiplication was imperceptible. It was only reflection which would convince. The transition was so gradual from the natural to the supernatural, from the common into the miraculous, that careless or superficial observers might rise from the meal half unaware that a Divine hand had been working. In all this we see much that is Christlike. As no man (Prophecy said) should hear His voice in the streets, so no man should be forced to track His path in the self-manifestation of His glory. There was nothing glaring or for effect, nothing (as we should now say) sensational, even in His signs. Christ sought rather to show how alike, how consistent, are all God’s acts; those which He does every day in Providence, and those which He keeps commonly out of sight in grace. When that which began in eating common bread changed imperceptibly into eating food multiplied by miracle, that was a type of God’s “two worlds,” the one seen, the other unseen, yet each the counterpart and complement of the other, and separated each from each by the thinnest possible veil of present mystery. Christ might have wrought this miracle without asking for, without making use of, the seven loaves. But He did not. In like manner, Christ might now, in His Church and in His world, dispense with everything that is ours; might begin afresh. Instead He asks for the seven loaves that we have. The applications of this truth are many and various.
I. We see it in inspiration. When it pleased God to give us a book of light, it was in His power to have made it all His own. But the human element mixes with the Divine. Bring forth all your gifts, such as they are, of understanding and culture and knowledge and utterance; bring them forth, all ye holy and humble men of heart, Moses and Samuel, David and Isaiah, Ezra and Ezekiel, Paul and John, Luke and Mark, Matthew and Peter; and then Christ, taking them at your hands, shall give them back to you blessed and blessing, to be to generations yet unborn the light of their life and the consolation of their sleep and of their awakening.
II. That which is true of the Book is true also of the life. “How many loaves have ye?” Christ puts that question to the young man, whose course is not yet shaped definitely towards this profession or that, and who would fain so pass through things temporal that he finally lose not the things eternal. Christ bids him to ponder with himself each particular of his character and of his history; gifts of nature and of education, gifts of mind and body, gifts of habit and inclination, gifts of connection and acquaintanceship, gifts of experience and self-knowledge; and to bring these, like a man-not standing idle because he has not heard or felt himself hired: not excusing himself from obeying because his loaves are but seven, or because they are coarse or stale or mouldy-but to bring them to Him who made and will bless. How many loaves have ye? Nothing? Not a soul? not a body? not time? not one friend, not one neighbour, not one servant, to whom a kind word may be spoken, or a kind deed done, in the name, for the love, of Jesus? Bring that-do that, say that-as what thou hast; very small, very trivial, very worthless, if thou wilt: yet remember the saying, “She hath done what she could.” There are others but too confident in their gifts and in their doings. It is not without its risk, even a life of charity, even a life of ministry. Are you quite sure, that, bringing out your seven loaves, you brought them to Christ for that blessing which alone gives increase? Nothing works of itself-nothing by human willing or human running-but only by the grace of Him who giveth liberally, and who showeth mercy. Most of all, that which would help Christ’s own work-to seek and to save that which is lost. “How many loaves have ye?” The question is asked of the man-it is asked also of the community. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.)
Wherever there is anything new, unusual, or exciting going on, there the crowd is sure to collect. These people were in distressing bodily want. It seems a little singular that this multitude should have so forgotten themselves, as to hurry out thus unprovided into the empty wilderness. We should never see half the distress we do, if people were only a little more considerate and thoughtful. But it was to the credit of these people that the distress they suffered was incurred by what was commendable. With a right appreciation of Christ, it would be no unwisdom to perish in following after Him, rather than to live in ease by forsaking Him. There was no relief for the multitude in the common course of things. But man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. And what a picture is thus given us of the tenderness and goodness of our Lord! Jesus pities people in want of bread for the body, as well as those in want of food for their souls. He enters into our temporal as well as spiritual needs. Nor was His compassion a mere empty sentiment. It stimulated to action. It exhibited itself in deed. It set to relieve the distress that stirred it. It would not be right to expect such interpositions as a common thing. God has His own ways for dealing out to men their daily bread, which must be regarded; but his resources are not limited. But there is method in this marvellous relief. “So they did eat.”
1. There were directions given which had to be obeyed. And so there are commands to be observed in order to get the bread of life. There must be a coming down, a sitting in the dust at Jesus’ feet, a humiliation of self to His orders ant institutes.
2. He took what the people had, and added His power and blessing to it, and thus furnished the requisite supplies. They had seven cakes and a few small fishes. Grace was never meant to supersede nature, but to work upon it, to help it, bless it, and augment it. God is a frugal economist. He never wastes what already exists. He is never prodigal in His creations. We have eyes, and ears, and hearts, and understanding wills, which can be of good service in our salvation. All that they need is to be brought to Christ, submitted to His handling, bathed in His words of blessing, and filled with His power, to serve most effectually.
3. But the food He furnished was given to these hungry ones only through second hands. The bread and the fishes He “gave to His disciples to set before them, and they did set them before the people.” Christ has appointed a ministry-an office which is filled by men, who, by His authority and command, are set apart and ordained to officiate between Christ and their fellows. And where there has been no ministry, there has been no salvation. The bread of life no man can have, until it is ministerially conveyed to him. Be it through the living voice, or the written page, or the solemn sacrament, that voice implies a speaker, that page a writer, that sacrament an administrator, who is God’s appointed agent for the carrying of it to him who gets it. (J. A. Seiss, DD.)
Faith in Christ helpful against hunger
There be those who make sport of the thought that faith in Christ can help against the pangs of hunger, or the pinchings of bodily need. That a religious sentiment should serve to put bread in the mouths of the destitute, is to them ridiculous. And even unfledged apostles are often in such unfaith as to be in perplexity and doubt if He who saves the soul can also feed the body. The world, in its wisdom, does not know Christ, and so it doubts Him, and laughs at trust in Him. Well-meaning people get wrong in their Christology, and it sets them wrong at every other point. Let men learn that Jesus is the Saviour of bodies, as well as of souls; that He is the Lord of harvests and of bread, as well as of moral precepts and spiritual counsels; that He lives not only in a system of doctrines and religious tenets, but also in sovereign potency over all the products of land and sea, as well as over all the hidden principles of production; that He is not only a marvellous prophet of truth who lived in the time long past, but also an enthroned king of the living present, swaying His potent sceptre over all worlds, all nations, and all affairs, and dispensing His comforts, blessings, and rebukes untrammelled by laws in nature or the economies of earth; and doubt will cease as to whether faith in Him may not bring bread to the destitute, as well as pardon to the guilty, or hope of heaven to the dying. (J. A. Seiss, DD.)
A picture of man’s life
In the desert of this world he is in continual want, hungering and thirsting in the midst of its transitory delights, and longing to be filled with food. Sin offers itself, and the world tempts him with its barren show, but these cannot satisfy. Only when he follows Christ, knowing that he is sick, and owning that he is blind in soul, and maimed in will, and attesting by his stedfastness in continuing with his Saviour the earnestness of his desire for the help which comes from above, will Christ give him that water which whosoever drinketh thereof shall never thirst, and that bread, even Himself, which came down from heaven. In this miracle we are taught-
1. The promptness with which Christ succours us. We see this in His providing bread before the multitude hungered, and in His care lest afterwards they should faint by the way.
2. The motive causes for all God’s mercies to us, viz., our needs and our dangers.
3. The true effects of God’s mercy-what He gives us is that true food which really satisfies, and which alone can satisfy, the whole nature of man. (W. Denton, M. A.)
The multitude fed
Christ came into personal contact with human wants and woes.
I. Some characteristics of this miracle as contrasted with others.
1. The desire to grant this blessing originated with Christ Himself. How comforting to know that He does not mete out His mercies in the scant measure of our prayers.
2. A striking instance of prevention, rather than cure. From how many ills unthought of, dangers unseen, woes unimagined, are we daily delivered by the preventing grace of God.
3. Human intervention employed. Christ the source of supply; the disciples privileged to dispense His bounty.
4. Unbelief in the innermost circle of disciples.
5. A vast multitude were benefited.
II. The miracle itself.
1. Illustrates Christ’s care for the bodies of men.
2. The abundance of God’s bounty. The more we feed upon Christ, the Bread of Life, the more there is to feed upon.
3. The need of daily feeding on Christ. The miracle falls short here. To feed once for all is not sufficient. It is because they think it is that so many are spiritually sickly and weak. (R. W. Forrest, M. A.)
On the encouragement which the gospel affords to active duty
I. One singular feature in the character of our Lord-His superiority to all the selfish passions of our nature. This miracle demonstrated His power over nature, and taught those who witnessed it that if His kingdom were of this world He possessed the power to maintain it. They would naturally wish to assemble under such a Leader. It is at this moment, when all the vulgar passions of hope and ambition were working in the minds of the multitude, “that He sends them away;” to show them that His kingdom was spiritual.
II. The character of His religion. The systems of pretended revelation which prevail in the world encourage either superstition or enthusiasm, and have often separated piety from morality. They have drawn men from the sphere of social duty to unmeaning devotions. Christ assembles the multitude that He may instruct them.
III. We are the multitude described in this passage of the Gospel. We have heard that there was a great Prophet come into the world tot the purpose of spiritual improvement. He has spread before us, in the wilderness of human life, that greater feast, of spirit and of mind, which may save us “from fainting on our way.” The services we are called to perform in the cause of humanity. “That they who had eaten were about four thousand.” The number who have this day approached the same Lord, and heard the same accents of salvation, are countless millions of the family of God. (A. Alison, LL. B.)
Satisfaction for the food in the wilderness
I. Satisfaction. Is not the Church tired out, fainting? Is not the world a wilderness to you? Does not the Spirit of God make you feel the nothingness of everything upon earth? Christ the only satisfaction.
II. The thing that satisfies a man. Bread.
III. The place where these individuals were to have that satisfaction. (J. J. West, M. A.)
Second miracle of feeding the multitude
It could hardly have been without some special reason that the same miracle should have been worked twice by Christ with scarcely any variation of detail, and twice recorded with so very great attention to detail. In each case, too, Christ Himself drew from the miracle teaching of the highest importance. Notice these points of similarity.
I. In each case Jesus, beholding the multitude of people, has compassion on them. That is the origin and source of help for man. Because of His compassion-
1. He came from heaven to earth to bring to famishing men the Bread of Life.
2. He sends to us His Church, by and through the ministry of which He gives us all the means of grace. He takes just what we have, water, bread, wine-all insufficient of themselves-and by His power makes them more than sufficient for our needs.
3. He looks at us not in the mass, but one by one. It is the individual soul which is the factor in the mind of God.
II. In each case, before working the miracle, He draws from the disciples a declaration of their inability to supply unassisted that which was needed.
III. In each case He takes, nevertheless, that which they have, and makes it sufficient. “How many loaves have ye?” “Seven.”
1. The gift of baptismal grace-the germ of all graces.
2. The seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit, bestowed in confirmation.
3. The Holy Communion.
4. All the means of grace. The Word of God. Opportunities of public worship.
5. The power of repentance.
6. The gift of prayer.
7. The ministry of the Church.
So that we have, after all, a great deal: if we use these gifts faithfully, by God’s blessing they will more than suffice for the wants of our souls.
IV. In each case He commanded the multitude to sit down. We must come to receive God’s blessing obediently, quietly, calmly. Need of this lesson in a busy, energetic age, so restless and so excited. We need more repose of mind and character. It is good to be “up and doing,” but there are times when it is well for us to sit still. The life most free from feverish excitement is the life most likely to profit by God’s gifts.
1. “Sit down” before you say your prayers, if you would really have them answered. Recall your thoughts, be patient and quiet and humble, try to remember to Whom you are about to speak, and what it is you are going to ask, what you really need.
2. “Sit down” before your acts of public worship. Let there be more restfulness about your worship, more repose of thought, more concentration of thought on what you are about to do.
3. “Sit down” before each communion you make (1 Corinthians 11:28).
(1) Let me calmly, honestly, and thoughtfully look into my past life, especially examining that part of it that has been lived since my last communion.
(2) Let me see where I am, and what I am.
(3) Let me try my best to see my sins as they really are, and as they are recorded in God’s book.
(4) Let me truly repent of past sins, and make my humble confession to God, honestly purposing amendment of life.
V. In each case, either at His command or with His approval, the fragments are gathered up. God’s gifts, whether temporal or spiritual, are never to be wasted. He gives with a splendid liberality, but only in order that His gifts may be used. Gather up-
1. Fragments of time.
2. Fragments of opportunities.
3. Fragments of temporal goods.
4. Fragments of prayer, repentance, worship, grace. (Canon Ingram.)
Divine law of increase
Usually a single man needed three of these loaves for a meal, and here were more than a thousand supplied by each loaf. Nobody can tell how it was done, any more than we can understand how God began to make the world when there was nothing anywhere. It may be objected that the Lord does not feed us now in this way; that, if we want bread, we must work for it. But think about it, and you will see His power and kindness just as plainly in giving us food in reward for our labour. We plant single kernels of grain, and God makes each one grow into a great many. What is this but another way of multiplying the loaves? How hard and dead the seed looks when we put it into the ground. The rain and the sun find it there, and the yearly wonder begins. The seed swells and bursts; a wee pale root comes out and goes down into the earth; another shoots up to the surface. They look very tiny and weak, but a microscope shows that the tender cells are protected by tough coverings, sometimes even by particles of flint along the edges, so that they can push their way through the earth. One acre of soil, three inches deep, weighs a million pounds, and all that is stirred and lifted by these growing fibres. Up come the stalks, straight and slender, yet so tough and elastic that when the wind blows they can bend clear to the ground, and then spring back again, as the strongest tree can hardly do. Soon a spike of tiny flowers appears on top, then a cluster of kernels, and at last the whole gets yellow and ripe. Is not this work of God’s stranger and more beautiful than turning one piece of bread into a thousand just like it? (C. M. Southgate.)
So they did eat, and were filled
In the original it is, “They were fed to satisfaction.” That such a result followed, was the consequence of their being fed by Him alone who satisfies the empty soul, and filleth the hungry soul with gladness. There is need to be reminded of this in an age when men are pointed to other sources of satisfaction-to education, to culture, and to refinement, and bidden to find their highest enjoyment in these and such-like pursuits. If they bear no reference to Him towards whom all that is noblest and best in nature and art is designed to lead us, they will turn out to be but broken cisterns that hold no water. (H. M. Luckock, D. D.)
Help in extremity
May we not learn from this miracle how Christ will exercise acts of special providence to help and succour those who are following Him? Dean Hook mentions a striking instance of this. There was an individual who gave up a profitable employment, acting under advice, and not from the mere caprice of his own judgment, because he thought, taking his temptations into account, he could not follow it without peril to his soul. And after many reverses he was reduced to such a state of distress that the last morsel in the house had been consumed, and he had not bread to give his children. His faith did not, however, forsake him; and when his distress was at its height, he received a visit from one who called to pay him a debt he had never hoped to recover, but the payment of which enabled him to support his family until he again obtained employment.
Man’s food supply
The question of the disciples has been the natural question of all thinkers at all times. The foremost difficulty to be encountered everywhere is the difficulty of getting daily bread for self or others in this wilderness, this land of thorns and thistles. We, indeed, raised above our fellows by centuries of civilization, only partially feel the direct pressure of bodily hunger, only occasionally realize the paramount necessity which governs the life of man-the necessity of procuring food. But, in fact, a vast proportion of all human effort and anxiety is directed to this one point; whatever else is left undone, this must be bone: only if there is any time and vigour over when daily bread is secured can it be spent on other things, on comforts and adornments for the body, on learning and improvement for the mind. There is, perhaps, no animal that has to spend so large a part of his time in procuring the food he needs as man. And when he has got it, it will not satisfy him as their daily food will satisfy the other creatures. No sooner is he filled than he finds out that man cannot live by bread alone; that he cannot be satisfied from any earthly stores; that he wants something more, and has another kind of hunger. This is, of course, because God has made him with a soul as well as a body, and has so made this soul and body that each requires its own proper food. Indeed, we must acknowledge that we are the most dependent of all creatures; we cannot go a few hours without suffering pangs of hunger, which must be stilled at any cost or risk, or else we die; and when this craving is appeased, then the hunger of the soul awakes, and it demands to be satisfied with something-it knows not what, perhaps; for God has made us for Himself, mede us to be satisfied with nothing less than Himself, made us to be entirely dissatisfied and discontented without Himself. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)
This world a wilderness
Men often talk about this life as being a wilderness, and they are right; but do you know why, and in what sense? What is the wilderness to which our earthly life is like, the wilderness in which our Lord worked this and other miracles? Is it a great howling expanse of sand and rock, with nought but blazing earth below and blazing sky above? Is it the vast and terrible desert, where fiery death pursues the steps of the unhappy traveller, where doleful creatures cry, and whitening bones lie all about? If this were the wilderness, then would our life be very unlike one. The wildernesses of Palestine, like “the bush” in Australia, are not by any means always barren, or ugly, or desolate: often they are very beautiful, and very productive; only, their beauty and productiveness are so uncertain, so unreliable, so disappointing, that no one can live there or make his home there-unless, indeed, he receives his supplies from somewhere else. Now, our life is lust like the wilderness in this sense: very often it is full of beauty, of grace, of life, of promise; there are times when every element of hope and contentment seems present in abundance. But all this beauty and promise will not satisfy the soul of man, however much it may please his fancy and his taste. Suppose you found yourself in the wilderness among the grasses and flowers, could you feed on them? Could you sustain life on them? No; however lovely and luxuriant they might be, however grateful as elements in a landscape, they would not appease your hunger; your limbs would grow weak, your eyes would fail, your head would swim, and you would fall and starve and die amongst the dewy grasses and the many-coloured flowers. Even so would it be if you tried to satisfy your immortal souls with the pleasures and beauties, and joys and riches, of this life. We should be other than human if we did not like them, we should be very ungrateful if we did not give thanks for them-but, all the same, we cannot be satisfied with them; the old craving would return-we should feel ourselves discontented, miserable, perishing, amidst all the abundance of this world. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)
God alone can satisfy
It is easy enough to please people in the wilderness it you go at the right time; the beauty of the landscape, the buoyancy of the air, the exhilarating sense of freedom and expanse-all these are delightful. It is easy to amuse people in the wilderness, with so many new things to be looked at and admired; it is easy to lead them on further and further from home, into a region where there are no barriers and few landmarks. But to satisfy them-that we cannot do; that can only be done, in the wilderness, by the Divine power of Christ, He only can feed the myriads of famishing souls which, even in listening to His words, have only felt their hunger growing keener. He can and will, and it makes no difference to Him how many the people, how few the loaves, they shall all be satisfied and go home in the strength of that food; He can and will, and it makes no difference to Him how many millions of souls are waiting upon Him for spiritual food-how feeble, apparently, and paltry the means of grace by which He designs to feed them. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)
Scattering yet increasing
Good husbandry does not grind up all the year’s wheat for loaves for one’s own eating, but keeps some of it for seed, to be scattered in the furrows. And if Christian men will deal with the great love of God, the great work of Christ, the great message of the gospel, as if it were bestowed on them for their own sakes only, they will have only themselves to blame if holy desires die out in their hearts, and the consciousness of Christ’s love becomes faint, and all the blessed words of truth come to sound far off and mythical in their ears. The standing water gets green scum on it. The close-shut barn breeds weevils and smut. Let the water run. Fling the Seed broadcast. Thou shalt find it after many days-bread for thy own soul. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The conditions of increase
The condition of increase is diffusion. To impart to others is to gain for oneself. Every honest effort to bring some other human heart into conscious possession of Christ’s love deepens my own sense of its preciousness. If you would learn, teach. You will catch new gleams of His gracious heart in the very act of commending it to others. Work for God if you would live with God. Give the bread to the hungry, if you would have it for the food of your own souls. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)