THOSE classes of persons which suffer the most in times of temporal adversity are such as are most dependent on others for their daily bread. And so it is in Christian things. Those believers are the most starved, who depend the most for their spiritual prosperity on the men God has gifted to dispense His word to His people. Speaking generally, it must be confessed that there is a sore lack of good things in the church. We do not affirm that the lack is felt alike everywhere, for some do not suffer as do others; in spiritual, as in worldly affairs, some have riches, while others have not; yet here and there, where the lack exists, is a believer well fed, and in good spiritual health. How is this? Such an one has been alone with the Lord, who never sends empty away.
A few words given by the Lord in the secret of His presence sustain and preserve the soul in the worst of times. His grace is like the poor widow's pot of oil—there is no end to it. So long as need exists, His resources are availing for all times, and never more valued than in the season of famine. When the widow—very expression of human need and desolation—in the depth of her poverty shut up her sons and herself in her own house at the bidding of the prophet, she taught us a lesson. For what did her act signify? Simply this—that she went in faith direct to God with her wants. She, poor desolate one, shut her doors against the famine-stricken land around her, and filled the house with empty vessels. It was, in fact, saying to our God, "The olive has failed, famine is in the land; there is no help from without: see, O Jehovah, my house empty of food, filled with empty vessels, counting upon Thy resources.”
Hers was very striking faith, indeed! Would that we individually apprehended God in like manner'. We know the result, beloved readers; we know how God answered the widow. May we not say, there was only one way in which He could answer her? He had sent His prophet to her to teach her to trust in Him, or, rather, to prove Him: for there is a great deal in proving God. We often think we trust Him. Let us try Him—prove Him. "Prove Me now," are His own words. The widow did trust His word, and she proved Him who sent it to her. She and her sons went borrowing of empty vessels; the word to them being, "Borrow not a few.”
No one, we should think, would grudge the loan of an empty vessel in a day of famine to a widow! Emptiness was common property—people could give that away, or lend it freely. And in a day of spiritual dearth, no doubt, if any poverty stricken, starved soul had faith for it, he could fill his house with empty vessels—"not a few." Anyway, there are large numbers of God's people, whose continual cry is their poverty and want; but God has not changed, and His riches of grace are exhaustless.
“Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil," said the widow to the prophet. Now may we not say that such as would prove God, have the pot of oil in their own houses. And we are sure, if believers would only believe God, despite dull hearts and trying circumstances, and would only get alone with God for themselves, they would come round to the widow's words, and say with adoration, "Lord God, I have nothing left save Thy grace.”
When a believer comes to this, I have nothing left save Thy grace, he has come to all the riches of God Himself, and it is impossible for him to want. Even as David said, with the Lord before him, "I shall not want." And God oftentimes brings us to the faith of the fullness of His grace, by allowing us to realize our absolute inability to be truly nourished and enriched from any hand save His.
Now we say we know the result when the widow addressed herself to Jehovah, and brought all the empty vessels she could borrow to His grace, which the oil figures.
Jehovah filled every vessel. Great and small, costly and common, of whatever size and pattern, not one was beyond His resources. And the end for the widow was that she was far better off by the pot of oil and the famine than had there been no famine: for the God who became her resource was her sustainer until the end.
She had enough to pay her debts. For what are our debts—however heavy to human calculation—in the presence of His riches of grace? And she had enough to live upon—a store given her by Jehovah, who knew the widow's need— till, with the end of her pilgrimage, she should, at rest in His presence, need no more.
Yes, beloved reader, remember that God's grace is first for our debts. First of all, God in His grace pardons our sins. The knowledge of forgiveness of sins is the first great truth of which the believer should be assured. No more conscience of sins must be believed, and then we shall learn what God's grace for us in our everyday life is.
And here we would say to the believer, rejoicing in the grace of God in forgiving his sins, take heed to this word, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:99If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)) God's grace never supplants righteousness. Do you know His grace? If so, "Go: pay thy debts." Be at peace with your fellows; have no grudge against any; neither let any have quarrel against you; and then "live ... upon the rest"—live upon His grace; His grace, your God's grace.
Yes, live upon it. The widow, now no longer poor, but enriched by her God, had a sufficiency for her lifetime. God is a giving God. He began with us, in our depths of misery, by giving for us His only beloved Son. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." Ah! shall we even in heaven be able to express to God what this gift is? But what we cannot express by lip, we may have our hearts filled with. It is a blessed thing when a sinner saved by grace has his heart too full of thankfulness to God to be able to utter out its gladness and its intense gratitude. And how does God go on with us, fellow Christians? By giving. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:3232He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32).) So we say, live upon grace. As we live upon God's gifts of food and drink, so let as spiritually live upon His daily, hourly grace to us. We shall not be poor, half-starved believers then. In our Father's house there is bread enough, and to spare. Live upon His grace. All we have to see to is that we are empty vessels.
The widow could have told us, and no doubt will do so when we meet her in glory by-and-bye, "I would not have been without the famine for anything. I learned God by it and in it, as I could have done in no other way. He proved Himself to be to me—a poor, weak creature, without a helper on earth—the God who gives.”
But let us not forget that, before she got her wealth, she filled her house with vessels which declared the prevailing distress, and that before the oil began to run, the doors of her house were closed against the famine outside, and she and her poverty were alone with God and His grace. Let this fact be not only instruction, but also an example to ourselves. For then we shall find that having gone to God for our own need, and having been filled to the full with His grace, He has made us like Himself, givers, yes, givers, out of the exhaustless stores of His grace, to the empty vessels of which there are not a few around us. H. F. W.