Deuteronomy 8:3-6 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know… I. THE AFFLICTIONS OF GOD'S PEOPLE — however complicated, however prolonged, of whatever materials they may be made — PROCEED FROM THE PUREST BENIGNITY OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. Suffering does not come from God at all. I know that He overrules it, and that He makes up, if I may so speak, of the briars and thorns which so plentifully grow in this wilderness a hedge by which His children are kept in and restrained. But He did not cause your sufferings. If man had continued in his primeval state of innocence, there would have been no aching heart. But suffering is to be considered as destructive or as corrective. Now, where it is destructive, it is an expression of displeasure. We know that punishment ultimately inflicted will be destructive; but, remember, afflictions may be considered also as corrective. Then they issue from love. Following up the beautiful idea of the text — that of parental discipline — I say they proceed from a solicitude to improve the child, to correct many vices, to form the character of the child as perfectly as it can be formed. Now, remember, that the love of your Heavenly Father regulates all this. II. YOUR AFFLICTIONS ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY DIVINE WISDOM — no chance, no accident. God cannot explain Himself to you, but before Him everything is arranged in the most exquisite order, in the most luminous combination. Not an atom floats without His permission; the hairs of your head are all numbered. III. ALL AFFLICTIONS WILL ISSUE IN YOUR HIGHEST GOOD. Yon must take God's word; "All things work together for good to them that love God." This is the secret — "to them that love God." God loves you — you love God; what is the consequence? God is employing His attributes for you; God is taking care that there shall be nothing hostile, however inexplicable may be the circumstances of your life. They shall work for your good — perhaps not for your gratification. The physician's prescriptions do not work for the pleasure of the party; the probing instrument of the surgeon gives the patient pain, but it is all for good. God is not absent from you; He is present. This is a consolatory thought: your Father never leaves you for a moment; He is educating you for Himself. (T. Lessey.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. |
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