Jesus said “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.”
“Thou bringest love and gladness forth
From Thine exhaustless store,
To me, deserving but Thy wrath,
The life for evermore.”
GOD knows the needs of men and as the faithful Creator He gives “rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness,” as Paul the Apostle told the Lycaonians many years ago. Thus He spreads a feast that our bodies may be nourished, even though some of us never thank Him. But men have not bodies only, they have immortal souls, and the need of the soul is infinitely greater than the need of the body. God gives the abundance of the earth for the feeding of the body, but for the soul! for the salvation of the soul He has given the abundance of the heavens―He has given His only-begotten Son. He could not have given more than that and less would not have done. And now He bids the hunger-stricken, sinful sons of men to come in to His Supper. “All things are ready”; there is enough for all, and all who come will be welcomed and saved and satisfied.
What is it that sinful men need first and most? When those four zealous friends of the palsied man brought him to the house where Jesus was, and let him down through the tiling at His feet, they thought that He would immediately work a miracle, and by a word put strength into the shaking limbs of their afflicted friend. We can understand their astonishment, and perhaps disappointment, when instead He said, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.” But the Lord knew better than they; He knew that the forgiveness of sins was that man’s greatest need; his sins first and then his sickness, his soul first and then his body. The forgiveness of sins is the first of many blessings that God offers to men, and all who enter the door and sit down at His Supper will find that this is the first of the dishes on the table. And I am glad to be able to make known the fact and describe it in the very words that Paul used in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia. They are Holy Ghost inspired words, and one thousand nine hundred years have not changed the need or taken the power out of the words. “Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man [Christ Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.” Acts 13:3838Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: (Acts 13:38). Of course there are many who despise this blessing; those Pharisees and scribes who scorned the Saviour’s grace, would not have taken a single step to get it, because they had never felt the burden of their sins; but we shall not listen to them or their ilk. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating” and only those who have tasted of this dish can speak of its sweetness and commend it to others. David was one of these. “Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven,” he exclaimed, and those who know tell us that his exclamation means, “Oh the blessedness’s of the forgiven man” His cup ran over with relief and joy, and, I should add, thanksgiving.
During the war, it was on the Sunday of the Dogger Bank engagement, I addressed a gathering of soldiers in South Shields. There was one lad of the Royal Engineers there who listened to my words with great earnestness—so much so that I made up my mind that I would speak to him when the meeting was over. He anticipated me and asked if he might have a talk with me. We sat down together and I asked, “What’s the trouble?” He broke down completely and said, “I’ve got a big sin on my soul.” “Tell me about yourself” I said. And he poured out a sad tale of folly and sin though he was only nineteen. “It seems to me, Edward,” I said, “that you have got a lot of big sins on your soul.” He confessed that he had, and sobbed out “I’m glad my mother is dead, she would have broken her heart over me.” He was ready for forgiveness, poor lad. “I want you” I said, “to read this verse,” and I turned him to Isaiah 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5). “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” I explained to him that the verse was about the Lord Jesus, and I put myself alongside him and told him how the great Saviour had suffered for our sins on the cross that we might be saved. He drank in the truth and feasted on the gospel story, and then we knelt and thanked God. As I shook hands with him that night outside his billet he said, “I haven’t been able to sleep for many a night, I’ve been so miserable; but I’ll be able to go to my bed tonight and say, ‘God has forgiven me’.”
Men were badly needed in Flanders and young as he was he had to go, and he found time to write to me perhaps the last letter he ever did write, for my answer came back, “Missing.” In that letter written during the worst of February weather, amid sleet and rain and cold and mud and all the miseries and dangers of the trenches, he wrote “I’m so happy.” Why was he so happy? Because he had entered the feast and was rejoicing in that first dish on the table―the forgiveness of sins. He had tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious; his sins were forgiven for His Name’s sake.
That is the beginning of the feast and there is more to follow. We read, “Being justified by faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” How well that dish suits the palate of those whose consciences have troubled them and who, like David, have said to God, “Against Thee, and Thee only have I sinned” and have longed to have peace with God. I knew a band of lads, I had almost said a gang, they were not Y.M.C.A. boys, nor the sort that you would expect to see rushing to the gospel meetings. But one of them was induced to go and hear an earnest evangelist who had come to the town, and he not only heard but believed. Of course he was the subject of many a jest. He did not mind that. The nightly gospel and not the variety show was now his delight, he had got into God’s feast. A week passed and he returned to his home from one of these meetings, and there was gathered this band of his old friends to greet him. The laughter started at once. “Now, parson,” they said, “preach us a sermon.” To their astonishment he stood on a chair, and said “I can’t preach, but I can sing,” and he began.
“O the peace my Saviour gives,
Peace I never knew before;
All my life has brighter grown
Since I learned to know Him more.”
Before he reached the end of his song there slipped from the room his own brother and another, and when they looked at each other outside the door, the tears were on both their cheeks. The joy of that lad as his soul feasted on the peace that the Saviour had given him, and as he poured out the story in his song, had broken them down, and they too pressed in to the feast. Yes, peace with God is a sweet dish, and I who know its sweetness would urge on all who don’t to enter into the feast and taste it now.
Did you ever read the story of those four leprous men who sat outside the gate of the besieged and starving city of Samaria? It is an interesting and instructive tale, and is told in 2 Kings 7. They sat there until death seemed to be closing in upon them on every side, and they decided that their only hope of life was to cast themselves on the mercy of the besieging army. But when they reached the camp of the enemy they did not find a single man there. They found instead, what they were needing most, plenty of good food. And the story tells us, “they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver and gold and raiment and went and hid it, and came again and went into another tent, and carried thence also.” I want to use the story as an incentive to those who have entered God’s feast, not to be satisfied with one dish, but to go from dish to dish, as those men went from tent to tent. God’s grace has provided this great feast of many dishes, and Faith appropriates what God has provided, and the more faith appropriates the more will God be delighted.
I speak of one more dish. It is set before us in John 3 “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God.” This carries us beyond all our expectations; we compare it with that Old Testament Scripture, “He brought me into His banqueting house and His banner over me was love. I sat down under His shadow, with great delight and His fruit was sweet to my taste,” and we say this is even better than that. This gives us the “bairns” place and assures us of a Father’s care as long as life shall last, and is the pledge that the best that heaven can give shall be ours forever. It tells us of the Father’s love which is the richest, sweetest portion that heaven can set before our souls.