DIVINELY PROVIDED FOOD

A. Macdonald

Isaiah 30: 18–21; Luke 24: 41–43

I have been thinking a little since Lord’s day of how essential food is. We were looking at Joseph as being the great administrator and the word of Pharaoh to the people when they came for food was, “Go to Joseph”. And Joseph had the wherewithal. We have a great opening up when we come to Joseph, it says he “opened every place in which there was provision”, Genesis 41: 56. So in verse 20 that we read it is, “the Lord will give you the bread of adversity, and the water of oppression”, and it is beautiful to see the introduction to this as to the attributes of God, how great, how wondrous they are, grace and mercy and, as we have later on, blessing. God has this in mind. But I believe that the bread of adversity and the water of oppression are what would help us constitutionally; they are basic. It is a very simple thought that one had but I think this is where we start, with the bread and the water, the bread of adversity and the water of oppression. In one sense we in our generation know what this adversity and oppression are, truly not as much as others may have felt it, but I think it is a time of weeping and a time of pressure, yet it is wonderful that divine Persons move from Their side in relation to us coming into the blessing, not only finding relief, but understanding in a greater way the divine attributes and what mercy is.

I believe that each one in this room is here as the result of God’s infinite mercy. And we are maintained through His grace. He is not only able to extricate us and to liberate us, but He is able to maintain us, and for that we need grace day by day. So He wants to be gracious to us.

Wonderful divine attributes are spoken of before we have this thought of the bread of adversity and the water of oppression. Then it says, “the Lord will give you”, as though the Lord Himself is the great Administrator of the food supply and He would minister to us even at a time like this, seeking to build us up in our most holy faith, seeking to encourage us, seeking to bring in exhortation, a word that would comfort us and would help us to be here more definitely in relation to the precious interests of Christ.

Then we have, “And when ye turn to the right hand or when ye turn to the left, thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it”. I think that that would be a veiled allusion to the voice of the Spirit. How wonderful that is! how well we are provided for, beloved brethren, to know that divine Persons are for us. Thank God, they are not against us, They are for us.

I thought in turning to Luke just for a moment that it is not exactly the side of the end of John’s gospel, where the Lord provides the food, saying, “Come and dine”, but I would just make this suggestion that what the disciples have here is the result of what they had been through in pressure and adversity. What a time of sorrow it must have been for the disciples, for those beloved disciples, what a time of anxiety and uncertainty and pressure. And, beloved brethren, we have been through pressure and are still going through pressure and it may be an anxious time for many. It says earlier in the chapter that even when the Lord stood in their midst they were confounded and frightened, and the Lord says, “Why are ye troubled?” Well, I believe we have been, and may still be, in that area where there is a certain amount of uncertainty and our

hearts may be troubled and indeed our minds may be confounded, but one feels that if we make use of the bread and the water, that is, what divine love and grace and mercy have supplied, we shall be helped. He would give unto us the bread and water. I believe that if we feed on that, and are with God in the exercise, when the Lord comes to us and asks, “Have ye anything to eat?”, we shall not have to answer, as they did at the end of John, ‘No; we have toiled all night and have caught nothing’. I believe the Lord is going to get peculiar spoil at the very end of this dispensation, and, beloved brethren, it is going to come as a result of suffering and exercise and pressure. Oh may there be spoil for the heart of divine Persons!

So that they had something in Luke 24. What they had was very interesting, “And they gave him part of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb”. I think that would suggest that through all the pressure and the discipline through which they had been they would understand in some little measure the sovereignty of God. And that comes right down to where we are tonight. The brother that is sitting next to me; I have not chosen him and he has not chosen me, but the sovereignty of God has entered into it and that makes it all the more wonderful. So we are to love one another. Then the thought of the honeycomb; I believe that is how we work things out mutually. I had part of a honeycomb for breakfast this morning and one is amazed at it; none of the sweetness is lost, it is all retained in these cells provided by the bees themselves.

They make the cells and then they put the honey in these cells. I do not think one bee would say, ‘This is my cell and this is So-and-so’s cell, and that is So-and-so’s cell’. You cannot tell the cells apart. I believe it is what is mutual. Beloved brethren, it is a wonderful thing when we can sit down together and enjoy the work of God in one another and we can

enjoy what is mutual; there is something exceedingly sweet in enjoying together what is mutual.

That is all one had to say. Think of the grace on the part of the Lord; He took it and ate before them. It is a wonderful thing. I believe that the Lord would draw near to us in a meeting such as this and encourage our hearts and garrison our hearts so that we may not only know what the sovereignty of God is in His selecting one and another and setting us together—we are the Lord’s planting and He has set us together—but experience also freedom and liberty, the enjoyment of the sweetness of mutuality as the result of the work of God.

Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
11 October 1983