July 8

I laid meat unto them. - Hosea 11:4.

WORDS in time vary a little in signification. The word meat is now almost exclusively applied to flesh; but in the Scriptures it means food at large. “He hath given meat to them that fear him.” Meat here signifies food, and it means food for the mind. Let us therefore consider the provision divine goodness has made for the relief and supply of his people.

There are some who have no more regard for their souls than if they had none. To get money and spend it-to dress and adorn their bodies-to nurse them in sickness, to pamper them in health-is all their concern. But God knows the infinite value of the soul, and therefore in the gospel he “blesses us with all Spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” To show the plenitude and the riches of the gospel provision, it is represented in the Scriptures by a feast; not a common feast, but a royal feast; not a common royal feast, but the feast of a great king at the marriage of his son; and even this does not go half far enough to express the amplitude of the feast which the great King of heaven and earth has made to display the magnificent goodness of his heart. Therefore it is said, “In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees, well refined.”

Our Saviour therefore mentions the duration of it. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life.” It is everlasting, not only in itself, but because it communicates immortality to those who partake it. “Your fathers,” said our Saviour, “did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” As if he should say, “There is in this provision a reality, an excellency, and a satisfaction that rises above all other enjoyment.

But where is this provision found? Where is it that our heavenly benefactor has laid this meat unto us? Why, he has laid it unto us in the Scriptures. Here is a book that tells us how we may save our souls: “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.” And this is the main subject-“I am that bread of life.” Jeremiah says, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them;” and, says Job, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” It is laid unto us in the preaching of the gospel. It is the delightful office of ministers to spread this provision before us, and to invite us, or to compel us to come in, that God’s house may be filled with inhabitants, and his table with guests. It is laid in every good book that treats on the subject, and that comes in our way. It is laid unto us in all the means of grace, and in all the ordinances of religion, and peculiarly so in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, where he is said to be made known unto us “in the breaking of bread.”