Feeding on the word

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать грубую лексику.

На основании Вашего запроса эти примеры могут содержать разговорную лексику.

As healthy believers, we need to be feeding on His Word and not the food from this world.

Как здоровые верующие, нам необходимо питаться Его Словом, а не пищей этого мира.

So there is need of constantly feeding on the Word, the knowledge of which is eternal life.

По той же причине необходимо постоянное питание Словом, знание которого есть жизнь вечная.

I didn’t know I was feeding you the words that would lead to your breakup.

Я не думала, что мои слова приведут к расставанию.

The researchers tested the program by feeding it 142,000 words from 637 languages currently spoken around Asia and the Pacific.

Исследователям удалось восстановить целый комплекс протоязыков, опираясь на базу, насчитывающую 142 тысячи словоформ из 637 языков, на которых говорят сегодня в Юго-Восточной Азии, в тихоокеанском регионе и частях континентальной Азии.

Ничего не найдено для этого значения.

Результатов: 12077. Точных совпадений: 1. Затраченное время: 125 мс

Documents

Корпоративные решения

Спряжение

Синонимы

Корректор

Справка и о нас

Индекс слова: 1-300, 301-600, 601-900

Индекс выражения: 1-400, 401-800, 801-1200

Индекс фразы: 1-400, 401-800, 801-1200

FEEDING ON THE WORD BY PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME.

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

In Christianity, we emphasize studying and meditating on God’s Word because of what it produces in your life: ever-increasing glory! That’s what your life is for. The glory of God is in the Word, and that glory becomes more visible in your life as you consciously and consistently feed on the Word.

*SEND US YOUR PRAYER REQUEST*

The Bible says, “…Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2). 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” These verses emphasize the ever-increasing glory in our spirit as we contemplate the Word.

If you don’t give undivided attention to the study, meditation, and practise of God’s Word, you inhibit His glory in your life. This has happened to some people without them even realizing it. They exposed themselves to news and information from negative sources other than the Word of God.

Remember, you’re what you eat; you become more and more like the information that you feed on. The Word of God is the glory of God; therefore, feed on the Word and your life will be increasingly excellent and full of glory. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

GET MORE AFFIRMATION HERE

Take the Word of God as God’s vision, opinion, thought, idea, law or principle. Above all, take His Word as truth—absolute reality. Be inundated with the Word so that all you think and talk is the Word. That’s the sure path to a life of ever-increasing glory.

CONFESSION
I’m growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. My life isn’t separate from the Word, because the Word of God is my source; it makes my spirit buoyant with faith, hope and love. Through the Word, my life is conditioned for victory every day such that no matter the circumstances, I’m triumphant always. Amen.

FURTHER STUDY:
Luke 4:4; 1 Peter 1:23; Acts 20:32

1-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Acts 25:13-26:1 & Psalms 11-16

2-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Galatians 5:13-19 & Isaiah 38

“Every Child Is Your Child” To Support The Inner City Mission Hunger Action Initiative, Kindly Use The Link Below.

icm.ngo/ham-lcm

God Bless You.

CLICK TO SHARE YOUR TESTIMONY

PRICELESS ❤️

• MORE AFFIRMATIONS • YOUTUBE
• INSTAGRAM • FACEBOOK • TUMBLR
• TELEGRAM • TWITTER • WHATSAPP
• CEFLIX CHANNEL • KINGSCHAT • IMO
• PST’S TEACHINGS • YOOKOS • SUPPORT
• MUSIC CHANNEL • PRAYER REQUEST
• COMMUNITY • PRAYER OF SALVATION
• RHEMAFORTODAY • TALKINGSESSION 

Feeding on the Word

“Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” — Isaiah lv. 2.

How important it is that we should hear God, that we should have an attentive ear to his Word; and that it should, through our ears, reach our souls, and become to us, consciously, the living Word of the living God! The great gate of commerce between heaven and the town of Mansoul, is Ear-Gate. We can see but little of the things of the kingdom; but we can hear much concerning them.

     We are told, not only to “hearken” to God, but to “hearken diligently.” You cannot have too much hearing of the right kind of truth, nor too much of the right kind of hearing. Some people like few sermons, and those very short; but, when a soul is hungry after God and eternal life, it puts another meaning on this exhortation, “Hearken diligently.” It cannot hear too much; it cannot hear too often; it cannot hear too intensely. Faith comes by hearing; and hence, Satan tries to block up that gateway of mercy. If he can persuade men not to hear, then he can keep them out of the way of grace; but the exhortation of our text sets wide open this door of salvation, at which the Lord himself stands and cries, “Hearken diligently unto me.”

     You, dear friends, love to hear the Word of the Lord; therefore, I need not dwell upon that exhortation; but I do pray that no one may hear in vain. “Take heed what ye hear,” and “take heed how ye hear.” Do not be content merely to open Ear-Gate; but rest not satisfied until the King himself comes riding through that gate right up to the very citadel of the town of Mansoul, and takes possession of the castle of your heart.

     With this brief introduction, we will come to the consideration of our main text, which follows upon the exhortation. We are to “hearken diligently” to this message from the Lord’s lips, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Here are four things; first, the food; next, the feeding; then, the welcome; and lastly, the delight.

     I. First, here is FOOD: “Eat ye that which is good.”  

     I ask about this food, first, How is it presented to us? It is presented to us freely. The invitation is, “Come and eat.” There was a word about buying; but, as I said in the reading, that was soon covered up with, “Buy without money and without price.” Others are trying to get salvation by their own efforts. The rich man spends his money; the poor man spends his labour; but both of these ways come from self, and they mean self-salvation— every man his own saviour. This is not the method to which you are called; you are, indeed, put off that way. “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” You are called simply to hear, that your souls may live; and, having heard, you are bidden freely to partake of that which is good, and that which is rich, which God has provided. We need still to say that the grace of God is free. No merit is asked, nothing to fit you for its reception, nothing as a compensation to God for the gift of it. Grace is free as the air you breathe. Eternal salvation comes without a penny of cost to every hungry, needy, bankrupt soul that is willing to receive it.

     Further, while it is thus presented freely as to any labour with which to procure it, it is also presented freely as to its quality, its highest quality. You are not permitted to drink freely of water, and then to purchase wine. You are not invited to come and eat freely that which is good, and then to spend your labour for that which is fat. No, the richest dainties of God’s house are as free as the bread he gives to hungry souls. You think that you will be highly favoured if you are allowed to partake of the crumbs that fall under the table, and so indeed you will be; but the daintiest morsels on the table are as free to you as those crumbs. Sanctification is as much a gift of God as justification; and the highest perfection in heaven is as much the gift of grace as the first cry of, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” It is all graciously given; and you are invited to come, not only to the waters, but to drink wine and milk, to eat that which is good, and to delight yourselves in fatness.  

     This royal bounty is freely given; and freely given to the most undeserving. The only limitation is no limitation at all: “Ho, every one that thirsteth!” All of you who are dissatisfied, or discontented, who have not obtained what you wanted; who are longing for something, you hardly know what it is you do long for; you who have a thirst insatiable but yet indescribable, who came here to-night saying, “I wish I had it; others that I know have it; I hardly know what it is that they have; but oh, that I might have it!”— you will find out what it is when you have received it. You hardly know yet what the taste of wine and milk may be. You hardly know yet what the fat things full of marrow, that are part of Christ’s great gospel feast, can possibly be. You shall know them by-and-by; but, be you who you may, come and welcome; sinner, come. If thou hast nothing, Christ is everything. Though thou art unworthy, he is infinitely worthy; and so he presents to thee food to-night on the freest possible terms; or, indeed, without any terms or conditions at all, for he puts it thus, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     I ask, next, What is this food? I answer, first, it is the Word of God. The soul can never feed to the satisfying of the understanding, the conscience, the heart, except upon divinely-revealed truth. Thou must know what God would have thee know. Therefore attend, and hearken diligently, that the God-breathed truth may become nutriment to thy spirit.

     Better still, the food is the Incarnate Word of God; for Christ Jesus, the Son of man, the Son of God, is the Word. If men feed on him, they shall find that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed. Remember his own words, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this broad, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” This is God’s Bread given to you, his Only-begotten Son, clothed in human flesh, living and dying for the sons of men. Happy are they who feed on this heavenly manna.

     What is this bread? Well, it is the grace of God. As you read this chapter through, you find that the Lord refers first to his Word, and bids you hear it. Next, he speaks of his Son, whom he has given to be a witness to his people. Further on, he magnifies his grace, and speaks of wonderful changes which that grace works in those to whom it is given. Oh, how satisfying is the grace of God! “He giveth more grace.” We live upon grace; it is our daily bread, grace for every trial, grace for every duty, grace for every sin, and grace for every grace. “Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” This is the food for you. Thirsty with sin, thy sin is quenched with grace. May God grant us grace to feed upon grace, to live upon his Word, and to feast upon his Son!

     I ask yet another question, What is the nature of this food? It is good; it is good, in every sense of the word “good.” It is satisfying. It is pure; no harm can ever come by eating it. This heavenly food is good, and good for you, good for you to-night, good for you at any time, good for you living, good for you dying. All other foods that men seek after are unsubstantial; they can surfeit, but they cannot satisfy; they can cloy, but they cannot content; but the food that has come down from heaven, if a man does but take it into himself, shall be the best food he ever ate.

     Moreover, this food is described here as being fatness: “Let thy soul delight itself in fatness.” Within the Word of God, there are certain choicer truths; in Christ, there are certain choicer joys; in grace, there are certain choicer experiences than men at first realize. It is not merely bread and food, but it is marrow and fatness. There are “tit-bits” for the Lord’s children. “Let your soul delight itself in fatness.” “In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” I hope that, before we have done to-night, we shall have introduced some poor soul to the fatness, the choice, special parts of God’s most holy Word. It is not lean meat that God gives you, not scrapings from a bone; but he feeds us royally, he gives us of the best he has, and plenty of it. “He daily loadeth us with benefits.” He gives us meat to eat of which even angels do not know.

“Never did angels taste above,
Redeeming grace, and dying love.”

These things are our soul’s daily nourishment.

     II. But now, secondly, here is FEEDING. One of the most important words in our text is that little word eat: “Eat ye: eat ye.”

     Food is of no use until it is eaten; and here, often, is the crucial question with seeking souls. “I see that Christ is the Bread of life that I want; but how am I to eat him?” Well, now, really, you ought not to need any instruction on this point. We take a great many orphans into the Orphanage, and some of them are very ignorant, and we have to teach them a great many things; but we have no class for teaching them to eat. They all know how to do that, and to do it pretty heartily, too. If men were hungry, they would know how to eat, if they had the bread. It is because men are not really hungry on account of sin that they come and ask us, “What do you mean by this eating?” Yet it maybe that some are sincere in asking the question, so I will answer it.

     To eat is, first, to believe. To “eat” a truth, you must believe it to be true. To “eat” Christ, you must believe him to be the Christ of God. To “eat” the grace of God, you must believe it to be “the grace of God, which bringeth salvation.”

“Artful doubts and reasonings be
Nailed with Jesus to the tree.”

I will gladly lend you a nail or two, and the use of a hammer as well, for I like not these doubts. They are in the air like midges; they fly about everywhere, and certain brethren endeavour to multiply the pests. But, oh, that you, poor sinner, would have done with doubts, and simply believe! Believe what is certainly true, for God cannot lie, and what he reveals is infallibly sure. Believe it.

     Well, after you have done that, to eat is chiefly to appropriate. A man takes a piece of bread into his hand; but he has not eaten it till he has put it into his mouth, and swallowed it, and it has gone down into the secret parts of his very self, and has become his very own. When a thing is eaten and digested, it cannot be restored.

     You may take away my house; you may take away my money; but you cannot take away from me yesterday’s dinner. You must take Christ in the same way that you eat your food; that is, appropriate him. Say, “He is mine; I take him to be wholly mine. This Christ, this grace, this pardon, this salvation, I believe it; and I now trust in it, rest in it, appropriate it, and take it to be my own.” “Suppose that I should make a mistake in taking it,” says one. Nobody ever did. If thou canst take it, God has given it to thee. If thou hast grace to grasp Christ, though thou thinkest thyself a thief in doing so, there is no roguery in it. What God sets before thee, take, and ask no questions. Oh, what a blessed thing it is when a soul is enabled to feed upon the Word of God, to feed upon the Christ of God, to feed upon the grace of God! You cannot do wrong in so doing. It is written, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” This is to eat,— to appropriate.

     But after you have eaten, you know, the full process of eating includes digestion. How do I digest the Word of God? I know what it is to read, and mark, and learn it; but how do I inwardly digest it? When thou dost meditate upon it. Oh, what a blessed work is that of sacred meditation, turning the truth over and over and over in the mind, throwing it into the winepress of memory, and treading it out with the feet of thought, till the ruby juice flows out, and thou dost drink thereof, and art satisfied! Meditate upon the Word; think much of what God has done for thee. Think over his thoughts; turn over his words; and thus thy soul will grow strong.

     Feeding also means trusting yourself wholly to Christ. The man who cats his breakfast, goes about his business trusting to the strength which that morning’s meal will give him; and when noontide comes, and he feels faint, he eats again, without a doubt that what he eats will nourish him; and he goes back to his work, and uses muscle and sinew, trusting his food to supply him with power. It is just the same with Christ. Take him, and believe that he will help thee to go about thy business, to bear thy trouble, to meet thine adversary, to serve without weariness, and to run without fainting. This is to eat that which is good; it is to take freely into thine own self Christ, his grace, his Word, and to live thereon, that thou mayest grow thereby.

     I should like to make this plain to all of you; but I cannot make it any plainer than this. You have Christ before you; take him. “Oh, but I am not fit,” says one. A man who is very hungry might say that he is not “fit” for dinner; but, if he is a sensible man, he just falls to and eats. So let it be with you; whatever your unfitness may be, you are welcomed by the invitations of this chapter. Come along with you; enter the banquet-hall at once, and feed to the full.

     III. My third head is WELCOME. What does the Lord say? “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     Do you see, here is, first, no stint? “Eat, eat, eat, eat, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” It is not said, “Here is a pair of scales; here is a plate; here is a knife. The law allows so many ounces of meat to you, just so much, and you must not have half -an-ounce over.” Nothing of the kind. You are just taken to the table, and the exhortation is, “Eat to your heart’s content. Let your soul delight itself in fatness.” There is no stint.

     As there is no stint, so there is no reserve. It is not said, “Now you may eat those two things; but you must not touch that nice fat morsel over there; that is for Joseph; that is for the particular favourite, not for you.” No, poor soul, when God invites you to his table, you may have anything there is on the table. No matter though it be eternal life, though it be communion with Christ, though it be immutable love, thou mayest eat it. Take it, take it; for thou art not called here to sit, as they used to have it, “below the salt”, among the inferior folk; you are called to sit at the table like any of the princes, and the great King himself says, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     So, too, there is no end to the feast. “Eat; keep on eating. Delight yourself in fatness; keep on delighting yourself in fatness. You will never use it all up.” I read of a country once, though I hardly believed the description of it; for it was said that the grass grew faster than the cows could eat it. Well, there is a country that I know of, where the grass grows faster than the sheep can eat it. You may eat all you will out of the divine Word; but you will find that there is more left than you have taken; and it seems as if there were more after you had taken it, as if the grass grew deeper as you fed more ravenously upon it. You will find it so. God puts no reserve as to time. In the morning, feed on his Word; at noontide, drink to strengthen thy life out of the Sacred Scriptures; and at night, feed thy heart, yet again, upon thy evening portion.

     I want to talk to you a little about this feeding, and especially in reference to the fatness of divine truth. There are some of God’s people who do not live upon the richer meats of his Word. Poor souls, some of them never get a taste of them. Perhaps they attend a ministry where the richer meat is never brought out. The “clods and stickings” of the gospel they will get; but not the prime joints, not the best parts of the gospel. Well, well, if that is all that their ministers have to give them, it is well that they should give them that; but if any man has learned by experience to feed upon the deep things of God, and the meat that sustains the soul, let him not fail to put it in due season upon the children’s table. Why, some of you dare not make a good meal on the doctrine of election! If you did, you would find it to contain “fat things full of marrow.” The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, the doctrine of the immutable love of God, the doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ, the doctrine of the eternal purpose that can never fail— why, I have seen many a child of God sniff at these things! Well, well, well, we must not find fault with them. Babes, of course, do not like meat. Poor creatures, they have not teeth enough yet to bite meat, and we must give them milk. Only let not the babes kick at us who can eat meat. We must eat the strong meat, for it is the very food of our souls.

     Different foods are for different growths of grace; but it is a pity that the children of God should habitually neglect the richer joints of the gospel. There are some of them who measure themselves by others. I do believe that some of God’s people are afraid of being too holy, which fear need never haunt them much. Some of them are afraid of being too happy, because they know a dear soul, who is a kind of weather-glass to them, and she is not very often happy, and so they are afraid that they must not be. How many a person has set up Mr. Little-Faith to be his model, or Mr. Ready-to-Halt, with his crutches, to be a kind of pattern to him! Now, Ready-to-Halt was a very sensible man; he would not advise other people to use crutches. They were good for him; but he wished that he had never wanted them. So is it with a mournful child of God, there are some of the best who are of a sorrowful spirit; but I would not recommend you to be like them. If that man on the other side of the table dares not eat the marrow and fatness, that is no reason why you should not have your share if you can enjoy it.

     There are some people (I will not judge them), who always want to know, when they come to God’s feast, how little food will be sufficient, what is the minimum upon which a person could live. Dear, dear, I never tried that plan; and I do not recommend you to go to-night, and consult a doctor to know what is the smallest amount of food upon which a man could live. There are, I fear, a good many of you working out that problem with regard to your souls. You say, “Well, now, do you not think that one sermon on Sunday is quite enough?” Then, there is the prayer-meeting, and you say, “It is only a prayer-meeting; we shall not go to that.” So you go from Sunday to Sunday, sometimes, you one-sermon-a-week people, and you say, “I feel unhappy; I have many doubts and fears.” I should think you have. If you had only one meal a week, you would feel a little hollow here and there; and if you only get one spiritual meal a week, it is no wonder that you are weakly. The text says, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” It does not put to you that strange proposition of trying how little spiritual food you can live upon.

     There are others, who are very sincere, who always ask how much they may take. May I take a promise? Poor soul that I am, may I dare to call Jesus mine? Why, I am the very lowest of the people of God, may I dare to think about everlasting love? When you go to a feast, the question is not what you are, but what the host is; and, if he has spread the table, and invited you, make no “bones” about it, as men say, but eat what he sets before you. Ah, dear hearts! if we had not more than we deserved, we should not even be alive in the land of mercy. Everything that God gives is of grace, not of merit, not of desert; therefore, unworthy though thou be, take it.

     “Oh! but,” says one, “I am afraid of being presumptuous.” Oh, yes, I know! There are a great many who are afraid of presumption, and they make a mistake about what presumption is. I think I told you, one day, of two little boys, to whom their mother said, “Now, John and Thomas, I shall take you out next Monday for a day’s holiday.” Well, it was Thursday or Friday, and one of them began to talk about it with all his might: “I am going out for a holiday next Monday; I know I am; I am going out for a holiday next Monday.” His little brother was “afraid to presume”; so he said that he thought, perhaps, he might go out for a holiday next Monday, but he was afraid to presume. The other little fellow, when he got up on Saturday morning, said, “Mother, is it Monday yet?” and he was as happy as a lark with the idea that the Monday must come very soon. Now, which of the two was presumptuous? I do not think that the boy who believed his mother’s promise was presumptuous; I think that he was a good, humble, believing child; but I think that the other boy, who argued, “Well, you see, mother cannot afford to take us out; perhaps it will be wet; and mother, perhaps, will not keep her word; she will forget it.” I say, he was presumptuous, and did not deserve to go at all. You who doubt are vastly more presumptuous than you would be if you would simply believe.

     Let me encourage you, dear friends, to put in practice my text, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Feed your souls on precious truth. Do not say, “Oh, that is high doctrine!” My dear friend, you have no business to call doctrine high or low. If it is in God’s Word, believe it, and live upon it. “Oh, but those are deep things!” Some people even say that they are “Calvinistic.” Never mind if they are; they will not hurt you. I am of the mind of the old lady who said, when she heard a certain preacher, “I like to hear that kind of minister, he is a high Calvary preacher.” That was a good mistake to make; I would like to be a “high Calvary preacher”; and preach up Jesus Christ and him crucified with all my might. Do not be afraid to feed on anything that Christ is, or did, or promised. Fall to with a glorious appetite, “and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” If there are any high enjoyments, raptures, ecstasies, delights, if you lose yourself in heaven begun below, if you can feel the Lord very near you, well, be ready to dance for joy. “Let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     But as to holy exercises, such as prayer, and prayer continued, prayer strong and mighty, and such as praise, too, that is akin to the music of heaven, do not hold back from them. Go in for them with all your might. “Let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Oh, our poor starveling services, our weak, impotent drawings near to God! May we be delivered from them, and may we get into the marrow and fatness of real communion with the Most High!

     Above all, do not neglect to feed on what you have not yet received, but what is yours in the hand of Christ. On the glory yet to be revealed, on the glories of the Second Advent, especially, often dwell; and let your hearts take fire as you think of them, and let your spirit grow strong with an intense delight, because HE is coming. HE is coming quickly; and who knows when he may appear? Live upon the promise of his coming, and rejoice therein. “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     IV. Now, my time has gone, and therefore I will not preach upon the fourth head, which was to have been DELIGHT; but I will just say these few words on this part of my theme.

     There is no peril in holy joy, in delighting yourself in God’s Word, and delighting yourself in Christ. You may be as happy as ever you can be, and there will be no danger in it: for “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” The joy of the Lord is your safety; the joy of the Lord will be your restoration, if you have wandered away from him.

     There will be no idleness, or selfishness, produced by this fat feeding. The more you feed on God’s Word, the more you will work for the good of others. You will not say, “I am saved, and therefore I will let others perish.” Oh, no! You will have an intense, burning desire to bring others in to feed upon “free grace and dying love.” There are none who love the souls of men so much as those who love their Lord much. When they have themselves had much forgiven, and they know it, they go and seek their fellow-sinners, and try to bring them to the Saviour’s feet.

     Dear friends, may you get such meals upon the rich things of the Word of God that you may come to a sacred contentment, till you shall not say, like Esau, “I have enough,” but shall say, like Jacob, “I have all things”! May you be unable to wish for anything more! May you be so complete in Christ, so fully supplied in him, that you can say, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want”!

     May you also attain to a sense of holy security; not of carnal security, for that is dangerous; that is ruinous; but holy security, so that you can say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” “Of what persuasion are you?” said one man to another. “Of what persuasion am I? I am of this persuasion, that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.” This is a blessed persuasion. May you have it, and keep it all your days!

     Then, next, may you come into a state of perfect rest! “Best in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” “We that have believed do enter into rest.” “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” But there is a rest which they enjoy even now; may you get it!

     May you also come into a state of complete resignation to the will of God! If we sang with our hearts that beautiful hymn (Number 691) just now, we are able to leave everything with God, and let him do what he likes with us. May you just feel that your will is what God’s will would have it to be, and that God’s will shall be your will! Then you will lot your soul delight itself in fatness.

     Lastly, may you be filled with a happy expectancy! May you be able to say with our poet,—

“My heart is with him on his throne
 And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
‘Rise up, and come away.’ ”

Oh, to live in the suburbs of heaven, to get into the vestibule of God’s great palace, and to stop there, and hear the singing of the seraphim inside the walls! There is such a thing as feeling, on the Hill Beulah, the breezes from the distant Celestial City. When the wind sets the right way, you may often smell the spices of the glory-land where Emmanuel is King, and his beloved lie in his bosom for ever. I pray that you may all have this. Do not say, “We cannot.” Do not fear that you cannot, but rather listen to the text, and carry it out, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

     Oh, that some poor soul would get his first mouthful of Christ tonight! Take him. I have seen a hungry child sent by his mother to the baker’s. There is a little piece of bread put in as a “makeweight”, and the poor child eats it on the way home. I give you leave to do that to-night. Carry the truth away with you, and keep it; but eat a bit as you go home. Lay hold on Christ to-night, now, before you leave the Tabernacle. May his grace enable you to do it; and then sit down, and eat, and eat, and eat for ever of this precious, inexhaustible provision of God’s infinite love; and to him shall be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

No. 2278-38:493. A Sermon Delivered On Thursday Evening, May 8,
1890, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, October 16, 1892.

1.
How important it is that we should hear God, that we should have an
attentive ear to his Word; and that it should, through our ears,
reach our souls, and become to us, consciously, the living Word of
the living God! The great gate of commerce between heaven and the
town of Mansoul, is Ear-gate. We can see very little of the things of
the kingdom; but we can hear much concerning them.

2.
We are told, not only to “listen” to God, but to “listen diligently.”
You cannot have too much hearing of the right kind of truth, nor too
much of the right kind of hearing. Some people like few sermons, and
those very short; but, when a soul is hungry after God and eternal
life, it puts another meaning on this exhortation, “Listen
diligently.” It cannot hear too much; it cannot hear too often; it
cannot hear too intensely. Faith comes by hearing; and hence, Satan
tries to block up that gateway of mercy. If he can persuade men not
to hear, then he can keep them out of the way of grace; but the
exhortation of our text throws this door of salvation wide open, in
which the Lord himself stands and cries, “Listen diligently to me.”

3.
You, dear friends, love to hear the Word of the Lord; therefore, I
need not dwell upon that exhortation; but I do pray that no one may
hear in vain. “Take heed to what you hear,” and “take heed to
how you hear.” Do not be content merely to open Ear-gate; but do
not rest satisfied until the King himself comes riding through that
gate right up to the very citadel of the town of Mansoul, and takes
possession of the castle of your heart.

4.
With this brief introduction, we will come to the consideration of
our main text, which follows after the exhortation. We are to “listen
diligently” to this message from the Lord’s lips, “Eat what is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Here are four things;
first, the food; next, the feeding; then, the welcome;
and lastly, the delight.

5.
I. First, here is FOOD: “Eat what is good.”

6.
I ask about this food, first, How is it presented to us? It is
presented to us freely. The invitation is, “Come and eat.” There was
a word about buying; but, as I said in the reading, that was soon
covered up with, “Buy without money and without price.” Others are
trying to get salvation by their own efforts. The rich man spends his
money; the poor man spends his labour; but both of these ways come
from self, and they mean self-salvation — every man is his own saviour.
This is not the method to which you are called; you are, indeed,
taken off that way. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread?
and your labour for what does not satisfy?” You are called simply to
hear, that your souls may live; and, having heard, you are told
freely to partake of what is good, and what is rich, which God has
provided. We need still to say that the grace of God is free. No
merit is asked for, nothing to prepare you for its reception, nothing
as a compensation to God for the gift of it. Grace is as free as the
air you breathe. Eternal salvation comes without a penny of cost to
every hungry, needy, bankrupt soul that is willing to receive it.

7.
Further, while it is so presented freely with respect to any labour
with which to procure it, it is also presented freely with respect to
its quality, its highest quality. You are not permitted to drink
freely of water, and then to purchase wine. You are not invited to
come and eat freely what is good, and then to spend your labour for
what is fat. No, the richest dainties of God’s house are as free as
the bread he gives to hungry souls. You think that you will be highly
favoured if you are allowed to partake of the crumbs that fall under
the table, and so indeed you will be; but the daintiest morsels on
the table are as free to you as those crumbs. Sanctification is as
much a gift of God as justification; and the highest perfection in
heaven is as much the gift of grace as the first cry of, “God, be
merciful to me a sinner.” It is all graciously given; and you are
invited to come, not only to the waters, but to drink wine and milk,
to eat what is good, and to delight yourselves in fatness.

8.
This royal bounty is freely given; and freely given to the most
undeserving. The only limitation is no limitation at all: “Ho,
everyone who thirsts!” All of you who are dissatisfied, or
discontented, who have not obtained what you wanted; who are longing
for something, you hardly know what it is you do long for; you who
have a thirst insatiable but yet indescribable, who came here tonight
saying, “I wish I had it; others whom I know have it; I hardly know
what it is that they have; but oh, that I might have it!” — you will
find out what it is when you have received it. You hardly know yet
what the taste of wine and milk may be. You hardly know yet what the
fat things full of marrow, that are part of Christ’s great gospel
feast, can possibly be. You shall know them eventually; but, whoever
you may be, come and welcome; sinner, come. If you have nothing,
Christ is everything. Though you are unworthy, he is infinitely
worthy; and so he presents to you food tonight on the freest possible
terms; or, indeed, without any terms or conditions at all, for he
puts it like this, “Eat what is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness.”

9.
I ask, next, What is this food? I answer, first, it is the Word
of God. The soul can never feed to the satisfying of the
understanding, the conscience, the heart, except on divinely revealed
truth. You must know what God would have you know. Therefore attend,
and listen diligently, so that the God-breathed truth may become
nutriment to your spirit.

10.
Better still, the food is the Incarnate Word of God; for Christ
Jesus, the Son of man, the Son of God, is the Word. If men feed
on him, they shall find that his flesh is food indeed, and his blood
is drink indeed. Remember his own words, “This is the bread which
comes down from heaven, so that a man may eat of it, and not die. I
am the living bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eats of
this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is
my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” This is God’s
Bread given to you, his only-begotten Son, clothed in human flesh,
living and dying for the sons of men. Happy are those who feed on
this heavenly manna.

11.
What is this bread? Well, it is the grace of God. As you read this
chapter through, you find that the Lord refers first to his Word, and
tells you to hear it. Next, he speaks of his Son, whom he has given
to be a witness to his people. Further on, he magnifies his grace,
and speaks of wonderful changes which that grace works in those to
whom it is given. Oh, how satisfying is the grace of God! “He gives
more grace.” We live on grace; it is our daily bread, grace for every
trial, grace for every duty, grace for every sin, and grace for every
grace. “Of his fulness we have all received, and grace for grace.”
This is the food for you. Thirsty with sin, your sin is quenched with
grace. May God grant us grace to feed upon grace, to live upon his
Word, and to feast upon his Son!

12.
I ask yet another question, What is the nature of this food? It
is good; it is good, in every sense of the word “good.” It is
satisfying. It is pure; no harm can ever come by eating it. This
heavenly food is good, and good for you, good for you tonight, good
for you at any time, good for you living, good for you dying. All
other foods that men seek after are unsubstantial; they can surfeit,
but they cannot satisfy; they can cloy, but they cannot content; but
the food that has come down from heaven, if a man only takes it into
himself, shall be the best food he ever ate.

These things are our soul’s daily nourishment.

14.
II. But now, secondly, here is FEEDING. One of the most important
words in our text is that little word eat: “Eat: eat.”

15.
Food is of no use until it is eaten; and here, often, is the crucial
question with seeking souls. “I see that Christ is the Bread of life
that I want; but how am I to eat him?” Well, now, really, you ought
not to need any instruction on this point. We take a great many
orphans into the Orphanage, and some of them are very ignorant, and
we have to teach them a great many things; but we have no class for
teaching them to eat. They all know how to do that, and to do it
pretty heartily, too. If men were hungry, they would know how to eat,
if they had the food. It is because men are not really hungry on
account of sin that they come and ask us, “What do you mean by this
eating?” Yet it may be that some are sincere in asking the question,
so I will answer it.

I will gladly lend you a nail or two, and the use of a hammer as
well, for I do not like these doubts. They are in the air like gnats;
they fly around everywhere, and certain brethren endeavour to
multiply the pests. But, oh, that you, poor sinner, would be finished
with doubts, and simply believe! Believe what is certainly true, for
God cannot lie, and what he reveals is infallibly certain. Believe it.

17.
Well, after you have done that, to eat is chiefly to appropriate.
A man takes a piece of bread into his hand; but he has not eaten it
until he has put it into his mouth, and swallowed it, and it has gone
down into the secret parts of his very self, and has become his very
own. When a thing is eaten and digested, it cannot be restored.

18.
You may take away my house; you may take away my money; but you
cannot take away from me yesterday’s dinner. You must take Christ
in the same way that you eat your food; that is, appropriate him.
Say, “He is mine; I take him to be entirely mine. This Christ, this
grace, this pardon, this salvation, I believe it; and I now trust in
it, rest in it, appropriate it, and take it to be my own.” “Suppose
that I should make a mistake in taking it,” one says. No one ever
did. If you can take it, God has given it to you. If you have grace
to grasp Christ, though you think yourself to be a thief in doing so,
there is no roguery in it. What God sets before you, take, and ask no
questions. Oh, what a blessed thing it is when a soul is enabled to
feed upon the Word of God, to feed upon the Christ of God, to feed
upon the grace of God! You cannot go wrong in so doing. It is
written, “He who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.” “Let him
who is thirsty come. And whoever wills, let him take the water of life
freely.” This is to eat, — to appropriate.

19.
But after you have eaten, you know, the full process of eating
includes digestion. How do I digest the Word of God? I know what it
is to read, and mark, and learn it; but how do I inwardly digest it?
When you meditate upon it. Oh, what a blessed work is that of
sacred meditation, turning the truth over and over and over in the
mind, throwing it into the wine-press of memory, and treading it out
with the feet of thought, until the ruby juice flows out, and you
drink it, and are satisfied! Meditate upon the Word; think much of
what God has done for you. Think over his thoughts; turn over his
words; and so your soul will grow strong.

20.
Feeding also means trusting yourself entirely to Christ. The man
who eats his breakfast, goes about his business trusting in the
strength which that morning’s meal will give him; and when noon
comes, and he feels faint, he eats again, without a doubt that what
he eats will nourish him; and he goes back to his work, and uses
muscle and sinew, trusting his food to supply him with power. It is
just the same with Christ. Take him, and believe that he will help
you to go about your business, to bear your trouble, to meet your
adversary, to serve without weariness, and to run without fainting.
This is to eat what is good; it is to take freely into yourself
Christ, his grace, his Word, and to live on it, so that you may grow
by it.

21.
I should like to make this plain to all of you; but I cannot make it
any plainer than this. You have Christ before you; take him. “Oh, but
I am not fit,” one says. A man who is very hungry might say that he
is not “fit” for dinner; but, if he is a sensible man, he just starts
eating. So do the same; whatever your unfitness may be, you are
welcomed by the invitations of this chapter. Come along with you;
enter the banquet hall at once, and feed to the full.

22.
III. My third point is WELCOME. What does the Lord say? “Eat what
is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

23.
Do you see, here is, first, no stint? “Eat, eat, eat, eat, and
let your soul delight itself in fatness.” It is not said, “Here is a
pair of scales; here is a plate; here is a knife. The law allows so
many ounces of food for you, just so much, and you must not have
half-an-ounce over.” Nothing of the kind. You are just taken to the
table, and the exhortation is, “Eat to your heart’s content. Let your
soul delight itself in fatness.” There is no stint.

24.
Just as there is no stint, so there is no reserve. It is not
said, “Now you may eat those two things; but you must not touch that
nice fat morsel over there; that is for Joseph; that is for the
particular favourite, not for you.” No, poor soul, when God invites
you to his table, you may have anything there is on the table. No
matter though it is eternal life, though it is communion with Christ,
though it is immutable love, you may eat it. Take it, take it; for
you are not called here to sit, as they used to have it, “below the
salt,” among the inferior folk; you are called to sit at the table
like any of the princes, and the great King himself says, “Eat what
is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

25.
So, too, there is no end to the feast. “Eat; keep on eating.
Delight yourself in fatness; keep on delighting yourself in fatness.
You will never use it all up.” I read of a country once, though I
hardly believed the description of it; for it was said that the grass
grew faster than the cows could eat it. Well, there is a country that
I know of, where the grass grows faster than the sheep can eat it.
You may eat all you wish out of the divine Word; but you will find
that there is more left than you have taken; and it seems as if there
were more after you had taken it, as if the grass grew deeper as you
fed more ravenously on it. You will find it so. God imposes no
time-limit. In the morning, feed on his Word; at noon, drink to
strengthen your life out of the Sacred Scriptures; and at night, feed
your heart, yet again, upon your evening portion.

26.
I want to talk to you a little about this feeding, and especially in
reference to the fatness of divine truth. There are some of God’s
people who do not live upon the richer meats of his Word. Poor souls,
some of them never get a taste of them. Perhaps they attend a
ministry where the richer meat is never brought out. The “clods and
stickings” of the gospel they will get; but not the prime joints, not
the best parts of the gospel. Well, well, if that is all that their
ministers have to give them, it is good that they should give them
that; but if any man has learned by experience to feed upon the deep
things of God, and the food that sustains the soul, let him not fail
to put it in due season upon the children’s table. Why, some of you
dare not make a good meal on the doctrine of election! If you did,
you would find it to contain “fat things full of marrow.” The
doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, the doctrine of the
immutable love of God, the doctrine of the union of the believer with
Christ, the doctrine of the eternal purpose that can never fail — why,
I have seen many a child of God sniff at these things! Well, well,
well, we must not find fault with them. Babes, of course, do not like
meat. Poor creatures, they do not have teeth enough yet to bite meat,
and we must give them milk. Only do not let the babes kick at us who
can eat meat. We must eat the strong meat, for it is the very food of
our souls.

27.
Different foods are for different growths of grace; but it is a pity
that the children of God should habitually neglect the richer joints
of the gospel. There are some of them who measure themselves by
others. I do believe that some of God’s people are afraid of being
too holy, which fear need never haunt them much. Some of them are
afraid of being too happy, because they know a dear soul, who is a
kind of barometer to them, and she is not very often happy, and so
they are afraid that they must not be. How many a person has set up
Mr. Little-Faith to be his model, or Mr. Ready-to-Halt, with his
crutches, to be a kind of pattern for him! Now, Ready-to-Halt was a
very sensible man; he would not advise other people to use crutches.
They were good for him; but he wished that he had never needed them.
So it is with a mournful child of God, there are some of the best who
are of a sorrowful spirit; but I would not recommend you to be
like them. If that man on the other side of the table dares not eat
the marrow and fatness, that is no reason why you should not have
your share if you can enjoy it.

28.
There are some people (I will not judge them), who always want to
know, when they come to God’s feast, how little food will be
sufficient, what is the minimum upon which a person could live. Dear,
dear, I never tried that plan; and I do not recommend you to go
tonight, and consult a doctor to know what is the least amount of
food upon which a man could live. There are, I fear, a good many of
you working out that problem with regard to your souls. You say,
“Well, now, do you not think that one sermon on Sunday is quite
enough?” Then, there is the prayer meeting, and you say, “It is only
a prayer meeting; we shall not go to that.” So you go from Sunday to
Sunday, sometimes, you one-sermon-a-week people, and you say, “I feel
unhappy; I have many doubts and fears.” I should think you have. If
you had only one meal a week, you would feel a little hollow here and
there; and if you only get one spiritual meal a week, it is no wonder
that you are weak. The text says, “Eat what is good, and let your
soul delight itself in fatness.” It does not put to you that strange
proposition of trying how little spiritual food you can live on.

29.
There are others, who are very sincere, who always ask how much they
may take. May I take a promise? Poor soul that I am, may I dare to
call Jesus mine? Why, I am the very lowest of the people of God, may
I dare to think about everlasting love? When you go to a feast, the
question is not what you are, but what the host is; and, if he
has spread the table, and invited you, make no “bones” about it, as
men say, but eat what he sets before you. Ah, dear hearts! if we had
no more than we deserved, we should not even be alive in the land of
mercy. Everything that God gives is of grace, not of merit, not of
deserving; therefore, unworthy though you are, take it.

30.
“Oh! but,” one says, “I am afraid of being presumptuous.” Oh, yes, I
know! There are a great many who are afraid of presumption, and they
make a mistake about what presumption is. I think I told you, one
day, of two little boys, to whom their mother said, “Now, John and
Thomas, I shall take you out next Monday for a day’s holiday.” Well,
it was Thursday or Friday, and one of them began to talk about it
with all his might: “I am going out for a holiday next Monday; I know
I am; I am going out for a holiday next Monday.” His little brother
was “afraid to presume”; so he said that he thought, perhaps, he
might go out for a holiday next Monday, but he was afraid to presume.
The other little fellow, when he got up on Saturday morning, said,
“Mother, is it Monday yet?” and he was as happy as a lark with the
idea that Monday must come very soon. Now, which of the two was
presumptuous? I do not think that the boy who believed his mother’s
promise was presumptuous; I think that he was a good, humble,
believing child; but I think that the other boy, who argued, “Well,
you see, mother cannot afford to take us out; perhaps it will be
raining; and mother, perhaps, will not keep her word; she will forget
it.” I say, he was presumptuous, and did not deserve to go at all.
You who doubt are vastly more presumptuous than you would be if you
would simply believe.

31.
Let me encourage you, dear friends, to put into practice my text,
“Eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Feed
your souls on precious truth. Do not say, “Oh, that is high
doctrine!” My dear friend, you have no business to call doctrine high
or low. If it is in God’s Word, believe it, and live on it. “Oh, but
those are deep things!” Some people even say that they are
“Calvinistic.” Never mind if they are; they will not harm you. I am
of the mind of the old lady who said, when she heard a certain
preacher, “I like to hear that kind of minister, he is a high Calvary
preacher.” That was a good mistake to make; I would like to be a
“high Calvary preacher”; and preach up Jesus Christ and him crucified
with all my might. Do not be afraid to feed on anything that Christ
is, or did, or promised. Come with a glorious appetite, “and eat
what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” If there
are any high enjoyments, raptures, ecstasies, delights, if you lose
yourself in heaven begun below, if you can feel the Lord very near
you, well, be ready to dance for joy. “Let your soul delight itself
in fatness.”

32.
But as for holy exercises, such as prayer, and prayer continued,
prayer strong and mighty, and such as praise, too, that is akin to
the music of heaven, do not avoid them. Go in for them with all your
might. “Let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Oh, our poor
starveling services, our weak, impotent drawings near to God! May we
be delivered from them, and may we get into the marrow and fatness of
real communion with the Most High!

33.
Above all, do not neglect to feed on what you have not yet received,
but what is yours in the hand of Christ. On the glory yet to be
revealed, on the glories of the Second Advent, especially, often
dwell; and let your hearts take fire as you think of them, and let
your spirit grow strong with an intense delight, because HE is
coming. HE is coming quickly; and who knows when he may appear?
Live on the promise of his coming, and rejoice in it. “Eat what is
good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”

34.
IV. Now, my time has gone, and therefore I will not preach on the
fourth point, which was to have been DELIGHT; but I will just say
these few words on this part of my theme.

35.
There is no peril in holy joy, in delighting yourself in God’s
Word, and delighting yourself in Christ. You may be as happy as you
ever can be, and there will be no danger in it: for “the joy of the
Lord is your strength.” The joy of the Lord is your safety; the joy
of the Lord will be your restoration, if you have wandered away from
him.

36.
There will be no idleness, or selfishness, produced by this fat
feeding. The more you feed on God’s Word, the more you will work
for the good of others. You will not say, “I am saved, and therefore
I will let others perish.” Oh, no! You will have an intense, burning
desire to bring others in to feed on “free grace and dying love.”
There are none who love the souls of men so much as those who love
their Lord much. When they have themselves had much forgiven, and
they know it, they go and seek their fellow sinners, and try to bring
them to the Saviour’s feet.

37.
Dear friends, may you get such meals upon the rich things of the Word
of God that you may come to a sacred contentment, until you shall
not say, like Esau, “I have enough,” but shall say, like Jacob, “I
have all things!” May you be unable to wish for anything more! May
you be so complete in Christ, so fully supplied in him, that you can
say, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not lack!”

38.
May you also attain to a sense of holy security; not of carnal
security, for that is dangerous; that is ruinous; but holy security,
so that you can say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded
that he is able to keep what I have committed to him against that
day.” “Of what persuasion are you?” said one man to another. “Of what
persuasion am I? I am of this persuasion, that he is able to keep
what I have committed to him.” This is a blessed persuasion. May you
have it, and keep it all your days!

39.
Then, next, may you come into a state of perfect rest! “Rest in
the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” “We who have believed enter
into rest.” “Therefore there remains a rest for the people of God.”
But there is a rest which they enjoy even now; may you get it!

40.
May you also come into a state of complete resignation to the will
of God! If we sang with our hearts that beautiful hymn, “Freedom
From Care” {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Peaceful
Trust — Freedom From Care” 691} just now, we are able to leave
everything with God, and let him do what he likes with us. May you
just feel that your will is what God’s will would have it to be, and
that God’s will shall be your will! Then you will let your soul
delight itself in fatness.

Oh, to live in the suburbs of heaven, to get into the vestibule of
God’s great palace, and to stay there, and hear the singing of the
seraphim inside the walls! There is such a thing as feeling, on the
Hill Beulah, the breezes from the distant Celestial City. When the
wind blows the right way, you may often smell the spices of the
glory-land where Emmanuel is King, and his beloved lie in his bosom
for ever. I pray that you may all have this. Do not say, “We cannot.”
Do not fear that you cannot, but rather listen to the text, and carry
it out, “Eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in
fatness.”

42.
Oh, that some poor soul would get his first mouthful of Christ
tonight! Take him. I have seen a hungry child sent by his mother to
the baker’s. There is a little piece of bread put in as a
“makeweight,” {a} and the poor child eats it on the way home. I give
you permission to do that tonight. Carry the truth away with you, and
keep it; but eat a bit as you go home. Lay hold on Christ tonight,
now, before you leave the Tabernacle. May his grace enable you to do
it; and then sit down, and eat, and eat, and eat for ever from this
precious, inexhaustible provision of God’s infinite love; and to him
shall be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

{a} Makeweight: A comparatively small quantity added to make up
a certain weight. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Isa 55}

Tonight we shall read that precious chapter of gospel invitation, the
fifty-fifth of Isaiah, which, I hope, you all know by heart.

1. Ho, everyone who thirsts,

God would have the attention of sinners; he calls for it. Are not
sinners eager for God? Oh, no! It is God who is eager for sinners;
and so he calls “Ho!” Men pass by with their ears full of the
world’s tumult; and God calls, again and again, “Ho! Ho!” Whether
rich or poor, learned or illiterate, if you are in need, and
especially if you feel your need, “Ho, everyone who thirsts.”

1. Come to the waters,

There are only in one place waters that can quench your thirst; and
God calls you that way: “Come to the waters.”

1. And he who has no money;

Water is a thing that is sold, not given away, in the East; and he
who needs it, must buy it. But he who buys from God, has nothing to
pay: “He who has no money.”

1. Come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price.

What a cheering verse this is to begin with!

2. Why do you spend money for what is not bread? and your
labour for what does not satisfy?

If you spend your money for what is not bread, you are likely to be
disappointed. “Oh, but,” you say, “I have made many an effort.” Yes,
I know you have; but, if you labour for “what does not satisfy,” I
do not wonder that you are not satisfied. Let your past defeats drive
you to your God. If you have failed so far, so much the more reason
why you should listen to the Lord’s message. He says to you, —

2. Listen diligently to me,

Salvation comes through the ear, more than through the eye.
Listen; listen; listen diligently, with both your ears, with all your
heart, listen to your God.

2. And eat what is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness.

If we will hear, and will believe, we shall be satisfied; we shall be
delighted; we shall be overjoyed. The Lord can take our thirst away,
and in its place give a delight in fatness.

3. Incline your ear,

Hold it near the mouth of the gracious Speaker. Be willing to hear
what God has to say. Take out that wool of prejudice that has
prevented you from listening to God’s voice: “Incline your ear.”

3. And come to me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I
will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of
David.

“When you so live, I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
I am not the God of the dead, but of the living; and when once,
through hearing the divine Word, you have come to life, I will be
your God.”

4. Behold, I have given him

One greater than David, even the Beloved of the Lord, the
Only-Begotten, the Messiah Prince, the King of kings, even Jesus.

4. For a witness to the people, a leader and commander to
the people.

God did not give us an angel to lead us, but he gave us his Son; and
he did not merely give us his Son to be an example, but to die for
us, to bleed to death on our behalf, to be our Substitute, dying in
our room and place. “I have given him.” This is the greatest wonder
that ever was. “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten
Son”; not, “God so loved the saintly; God so loved the earnest; God
so loved the moral”; but “the world,” the commonplace, sinful world;
he so loved those who lay dead in trespasses and sins “that he gave
his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.” And the Father, in giving his
Son, gives him a promise: —

5. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and nations that did not know you shall run to you because of the
LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified
you.

So, brethren, the gospel must succeed. Christ must have whole nations
to come to him; they must come; they shall come; for God has
glorified his Son, and he glorifies him in this among other ways, in
bringing nations to his feet. The gospel is no experiment; there is
no question concerning its success. There may be dark days just now,
and our hearts may sink as we look around; but the Father will keep
his promise to the Son, and that encourages us to look up in the
darkest hour. This fact, which is more than a promise, will never
be altered, “He has glorified you.”

6. Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while
he is near:

Oh, may the Holy Spirit make every word I read to be powerful with
you! God himself speaks to you tonight, out of a Book which not only
was inspired, but is inspired; and he says tonight, freshly
from his own lip to you who have no rest of heart, “Seek the LORD
while he may be found.” He may be found; therefore seek him. “Call on
him while he is near.” He is near; therefore call on him.

7. Let the wicked forsake his way,

Do not let him wait until he has finished this thing, or done the
other, or until he has so much to bring in his hand. Let him run away
from his old master, and from his old way, and from his old self at
once. May God help him to do so!

7. And the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return
to the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God,

Whom we love, and in whom we trust, and who has pardoned us: “to our
God.”

7. For he will abundantly pardon.

The marginal reading is, “He will multiply to pardon.” He will
pardon, and pardon, and pardon, and pardon, and pardon, and pardon,
ad infinitum. Enormous as the sin may be, God’s pardon shall
suffice to put it all away. Is this message too hard for you to
believe? Oh, broken heart! does this divine truth seem to you to be
too good to be true? Oh, trembling one! does it seem impossible that
the righteous God can cast all your sins behind his back, and drown
them in the depths of the sea? Continue to listen to our Lord’s
gracious words

9-11. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts. For just as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
and does not return there, but waters the earth, and makes it
fruitful and bud, so that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to
the eater: so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth: it shall
not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it
shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God’s Word is not impotent. If you will hear it, it will bless you.
When God sends snow and rain, they do not go back again. The earth
receives them; they sink into her pores; they refresh her secret
life. Receive, oh black heart, the Word of God, as the earth receives
the snow! Oh you dry heart, receive the Word as the dry ground
receives the shower. It shall not go back again; it shall sink into
your innermost soul; it shall save you. God can save you. Believe it;
receive his Word into your heart, and it shall save you. Note who you
are, who are spoken to in the first and second verses, you who are
thirsty, you who have no money, you who have laboured, and are
disappointed with the fruit of your toil.

12. For you shall go out with joy,

You poor people who are invited to come to the waters, you who have
nothing of your own, “You shall go out with joy.”

12. And be led out with peace:

To some places you can “go” by yourselves; to others you must be
“led”; but in either case you shall have “joy” and “peace.”

12. The mountains and the hills shall break out before you
into singing,

They do not look like singing, do they? They look as if their only
music would be the howling of the wild winds around their brow, or
the roaring of the wild beasts along their sides; but for you, for
you, you thirsty ones, they shall break out into singing.

12. And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Trees seem to have little sympathy with weary hearts; but when weary
hearts find peace with God in Christ, as I trust some will tonight,
then even the trees of the field seem to be in harmony with man, and
they clap their hands in jubilant exaltation.

13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be
to the LORD for a name,

Yes, it shall make God’s name great when you are converted; for you
will talk about what the Lord has done for your soul, and that will
bring God fame: “It shall be to the LORD for a name.”

13. For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

The Christian, Sacred Gratitude

708 — “Return Unto Thy Rest”

1 My heart is resting, oh my God;

      I will give thanks and sing;

   My heart is at the secret source

      Of every precious thing.

2 Now the frail vessel thou hast made

      No hand but thine shall fill;

   The waters of the earth have fail’d,

      And I am thirsting still.

3 I thirst for springs of heavenly life,

      And here all day they rise;

   I seek the treasure of thy love,

      And close at hand it lies.

4 And a “new song” is in my mouth,

      To long-loved music set;

   Glory to thee for all the grace

      I have not tasted yet.

5 I have a heritage of joy

      That yet I must not see:

   The hand that bled to make it mine;

      Is keeping it for me.

6 My heart is resting on his truth,

      Who hath made all things mine;

   Who draws my captive will to him,

      And makes it one with thine.

            Ann Letitia Waring, 1850, a.

The Christian, Privileges, Unchanging Love

732 — The Firm Foundation <11s.>

1 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

   Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!

   What more can he say than to you he hath said,

   You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

2 In every condition — in sickness, in health,

   In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;

   At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,

   “As thy days may demand shall thy strength ever be.”

3 “Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismay’d!

   I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

   I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

   Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.”

4 “When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

   The rivers of grief shall not thee overflow:

   For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,

   And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”

5 “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,

   My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;

   The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

   Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

6 “E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove

   My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;

   And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,

   Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.”

7 “The soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for repose,

   I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

   That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,

   I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”

                        George Keith, 1787.

The Christian, Peaceful Trust

691 — Freedom From Care

1 I bow me to thy will, oh God,

      And all thy ways adore;

   And every day I live I’ll seek

      To please thee more and more.

2 I love to kiss each print where Christ

      Did set his pilgrim feet;

   Nor can I fear that blessed path,

      Whose traces are so sweet.

3 When obstacles and trials seem

      Like prison walls to be,

   I do the little I can do,

      And leave the rest to thee.

4 I have no cares, oh blessed Lord,

      For all my cares are thine;

   I live in triumph, too, for thou

      Hast made thy triumphs mine.

5 And when it seems no chance nor change

      From grief can set me free,

   Hope finds its strength in helplessness

      And, patient, waits on thee.

6 Lead on, lead on, triumphantly,

      Oh blessed Lord, lead on!

   Faiths pilgrim-sons behind thee seek

      The road that thou hast gone.

         Frederick William Fabry, 1852, a.

This Book of the Law (God’s Word) shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
NKJV Joshua 1:8

God is giving us the secret to success in this verse. He wants us to succeed at whatever we do. Notice, this principle works for anyone, not just preachers.

Psalm 1 says of the person who delights in the Word and meditates in it day and night,

And whatever he does shall prosper (Psalm 1:3).

This will work for a person no matter what they do. According to the Bible, your success as a Christian is directly related to your relationship with God’s Word. Will power alone is not enough to cause you to live the Christian life. Sheer determination will only get you so far. You need the power of God’s Word working in your life.

Thinking of God’s Word as spiritual food has helped me better understand the crucial role the Word plays in our lives. I believe that many of the problems we face today in the church are caused by spiritual malnutrition and could be solved as we give the Word its’ proper place in our lives.

The nutrients that the Word of God supplies are essential for your success. As you feed on the Word of God, it gets in you and when it does, healing, strength, wisdom and life comes out of the Word and goes into you.

The Word of God is full of God. Jesus is called the Word made flesh, so the Bible would be God in words. When you read the Word you are feasting on spiritual food. Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. (Matt 4:4)

Peter said we should desire God’s Word so we can grow:

1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.

If the Word is food, then meditating on the Word is eating the Word.

Jeremiah 15:16 Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;

Jeremiah found great joy in finding and eating God’s Words and so can we. In Joshua and the Psalms we are told that meditating on the Word day and night is the key to success.

Maybe you’ve seen those promises before and felt like you couldn’t qualify because you have a job and a family and you don’t have time to meditate on anything day and night. Maybe you thought this was only for people that didn’t have much to do. God wrote these promises to all of us and we can all meditate on the Word day and night and still have a life, a family and a job.

God doesn’t expect us to quit our jobs and join a monastery in order to meditate the Word day and night. He wrote His Word to normal people, busy people and it is possible for us to follow His directions in Psalm 1 and Joshua 1 and have good success. Once again the key to understanding this principle is to see the Word as spiritual food.

God didn’t say we had to meditate the Word every minute of the day and every minute of the night to succeed. He said “day and night”, when the sun is up and when the sun is down. That’s the way most people eat. They eat when it is dark and they eat when it is light, they eat day and night, not all day and all night, if they did that they wouldn’t have time to do anything else. People eat day and night and still have a life and you can feed on God’s Word day and night and still have a life.

No matter how busy we are, we still manage to work food into our schedule. Do the same with God’s Word. Feeding on the Word once or twice a week is not enough. We would never try to live on one or two meals a week. For the Word to do it’s work in your life, you need a consistent diet every day. He is telling us to work it into our lives. Don’t compartmentalize the Word and limit it just to church or one brief daily devotional time. To be successful we need a day and night pattern to develop.

Like food, the Word works when you put it in. You don’t have to tell it what to do. Just put it in your spirit and it goes to work in you. You don’t have to understand every word you read or become a greek scholar. Just read it slowly and think about it. Write down a verse or two to take with you during the day and read it from time to time.

The bible is not a daily horoscope. It doesn’t give specifics about what is going to happen today at work or school. We don’t read it for its’ poetic style or its’ literary value. It’s not a novel or just a history book. It wasn’t written to stimulate the mind, but to feed the spirit. That’s why unsaved people can’t appreciate the true value of the Word. When we as Christians feed on the Word as it was intended the results are powerful, it produces success

Enjoy your daily bible study time and don’t have unrealistic expectations. You don’t have to have some new revelation every time you read the Word. You don’t have to feel goose bumps or have some glorious, life changing experience every time you read the bible.

When you sit down to eat a meal, it doesn’t have to be the best meal that you’ve ever experienced to be effective. You may enjoy some meals more than others, but the purpose is to get some fuel in your stomach. It’s the same with God’s Word, there may be some devotional times that you enjoy more than others, but the goal is to get God’s Word in your spirit and that happens every time you read it. Relax and enjoy it and let the Word do the work.

Don’t try to overdo it. Maybe you feel you’re behind in your bible reading and this is just what you need. Don’t think you can get ahead by reading the whole bible today. It’s much like food for the body, no matter how much you eat today, you still need to eat tomorrow. In the same way, no matter how much you’ve had in the past, you still need your daily allowance today. Some people think they don’t need to spend much time in the Word because they’ve heard it or they love it or they agree with the pastor when he preaches it or they’ve heard so many sermons over the years. That’s like saying, “I don’t need any food, I’ve had so much over the years and God knows I love food and besides I know all about it.”

To be strong today, you need to eat today. It’s the Word you meditate day and night (right now) that will cause you to have good success. Most people just aren’t giving enough attention to the Word to get the full benefits that God has promised. One writer wrote, “Some Christians feed their bodies three hot meals a day and feed their spirits two cold snacks a week and wonder why they’re weak in faith.”

If there was a bottle of liquid in a health food store that could bring life and health to the body, peace to the mind and success in life, people would stand in line and pay millions of dollars and take it religiously. The vitamin and food supplement business is a multibillion dollar industry in the United States and it only promises health for the body. The Word of God will do much more and it’s free, but it has to be taken regularly and consistently.

God is very practical and gives us practical advice on how to get the Word in our hearts in the book of Deuteronomy:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.7 You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Deuteronomy 6:6

God knew we would be busy and have a limited amount of time to spend on spiritual things. So He’s telling us how to work the Word into our busy lives. Teach the Word to your children. When you’re having family time, spend some time in the Word.

When you sit in your house, you’re on your own time, take some time to talk about God’s Word. When you walk by the way or nowadays, drive down the street, talk about God’s Word. Take some scriptures with you throughout the day and be ready to mention them to another believer or whisper them to yourself, meditate them.

When you lie down at night remember God’s Word, when you get up in the morning feed on the scriptures. It doesn’t take any extra time out of your day to do this. These are times when you are talking or thinking about something anyway, just make a point to include God’s Word. This is how you meditate it day and night.

Get some good CD’s with the Word on them and put them in your car and home stereo. Get an iPod and listen to some good Word-filled sermons when you walk or work out or relax. You can even put the bible on many cell phones and have something to read when you’re standing in line or sitting in a waiting room.

There are many creative ways to get your daily recommended allowance of God’s Word without taking up any more time. The person who meditates on God’s Word day and night will make their way prosperous and have good success. This means the results are well worth the effort!