3. Christ’s Sufficiency

However blessed it is to be assured of our forgiveness, and to know that we have in Christ everlasting life, yet there is somewhat beyond this that belongs to God’s people.
The world is another place to a man immediately he knows Jesus; and heaven, too, becomes also another place to him; the world in his eyes is desolation; heaven―home. But whether the believer regards himself as a pilgrim traveling homewards through a scene of desolation, or whether he realizes his position in heaven in Christ, he equally needs the sufficiency, the sustaining, of Jesus Himself.
There is a famine on earth, and let the believer turn which way soever he will, there is not a particle of nourishment for his soul to be gathered from the earth; but the whole of his spiritual food is heavenly, the bread, which is Christ Himself. At the present time, man gathers for his need―as did the sons of the prophets in the dearth―what their hands may find; each goes to search for some good and pleasant thing. But sooner or later comes the woeful discovery that death has spoiled the sweetest things; and then, when the discovery is made by the soul as touching his own case, he is fain to cry out with the sons of the prophets, “O man of God, there is death in the pot.” Death in the pleasantest, in the loveliest, in the dearest things of earth; death in the family; death beneath the rosy cheek of childhood; death within the frame of strong manhood; death upon the gray hairs of age; death in business; death in the household; death everywhere, in everything, on earth. Heart-breaking discovery! Oh! who can eat of the things of life and earth! who can endure its sorrows! “O man of God, there is death in the pot, and they could not eat thereof.”
And how came death into the world? Sin entered, and death by sin, ―which knowledge, when the heart that hates sin discovers it as applied to itself, is bitter; bitter indeed.
Then where is the remedy? How shall we go through life’s sorrows and tears? The man of God gives the sons of the prophets the remedy. “Is there death?” “Then bring meal.” Now meal is a figure of Christ as a man on earth; and when we know Him in His tenderness and sympathy, when we consider Him who has gone through every bitter sorrow that human heart ever felt, then as the sons of the prophets could eat of the food which had death in it (for when the meal was put into the poisoned food, there was “no harm” in it), so can we pass through all the bitter things of our earthly way and find them sweet; yes, all sweet which once was bitter, when Jesus is known. Pain, sorrow, death, ―all, all sweet.
Beloved fellow Christian, know you Jesus thus as with you in all the circumstances of life? have you found His love and presence make everything sweet?
Yet, dear Christian, there is more in Christ than a sweetening of your bitter circumstances, more than friendship and sympathy for you as a tried soul on earth; for Jesus is not here any longer, His feet have left this weary scene; you may trace the imprint of His steps as the Holy Ghost has recorded them in God’s word, but Jesus Himself is risen. He has passed through death, and has reached the land of glory; He has left the sorrowful land, and has sat down in the home of unmingled joy; and His fullness in that rich place is yours.
The sons of the prophets ate of the loaves of the first fruits and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord God. There was an abundance in the supply which went beyond their need; for the supply was after Jehovah’s measure.
The loaves of the first fruits, the earnest of the harvest, the promise of coming abundance, tell us of our risen Lord. Christ the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15:23) is evidence of the end of the famine. Upon Him let us now feed our souls, and, feeding spiritually upon our risen Lord Jesus, know by the power of His Spirit of that fullness which far exceeds our earthly wants, which is exhaustless, which is heavenly, after the measure of the love, and grace, and power of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.