I
God's Peovision is always suitable to our Ciecumstances.
The manna was the best possible preparation to answer the nomadic life of the wilderness, where there was no land to sow or reap ; but when the land of promise was reached, where there was plenty of ground, and that needing to be tilled, to send down
^ Hugh Macmillan.
JOSHUA V. 12 117
manna from heaven would surely lead to a life of sloth and excess. Therefore, the old corn of the land was better than the manna in such a country ; and when the manna ceased, it was because God had better provisions to meet the new circumstances of His people.
Whatever might have been the nature and origin of the mysterious substance which God made use of, it is evident that the manna was intended to serve a wise and gracious purpose in the religious economy of the Israelites. They had followed Moses into the wilderness beyond the reach of ordinary food; where, owing to the nature of the soil and climate, they could neither sow nor reap, and where there was no native provision for their wants. They were in the wilderness, in obedience to God's com- mand, to be trained and disciplined under His own immediate eye, and amid simple and severe conditions favourable for the checking of all that was evil in them, and fostering all that was good, in order that they might be fit to occupy the Holy Land, and to become God's holy priesthood for the blessing of all the families of the earth. God therefore engaged to give them what they could not provide for themselves. He who said that if we seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness all other things that we truly need will be given to us, furnished a remarkable illustration of the truth of the promise in the experience of the Israelites.
But this supernatural life was not to last for ever. It was appropriate to the wilderness, God's special dwelling-place, as it were, where there was nothing but God and nature ; but it was not suitable to the Promised Land, in which all the conditions of a natural human life existed, and which was the haunt of man as well as the scene of nature's most beneficent operations. It was necessary when in the desert, where man could not sow, or reap, or procure support by his own efforts, that he should be fed with manna from heaven ; but in a region of agriculture, where man's ordinary labour sufficed to supply his ordinary wants, the manna would be altogether superfluous.
(1) God gives help where help is needed. — He gave manna when the Israelites could not provide their own food, and continued it only until they were able to supply themselves. Thus was it with our Saviour's miracles of healing. He removed the dis-
ii8 EXCELLENCE OF THINGS ORDINARY
abilities which prevented the sufferers from earning their own bread and helping themselves in the struggle of life. Those who were lagging behind their fellows in the race because of physical weakness and incapacity He brought to the front, and restored to them in full vigour the povt'er which would enable them henceforth to hold their own. And there His aid stopped.
(2) But God encunibers no one with help. — When our Lord was on earth He gave the subjects of His miraculous cures the power to help themselves. And as in natural, so does God act in spiritual, things. He helps us to help ourselves. We must work out our own salvation, for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. No one can truly know what it is to find his sufficiency in God but he who puts forth all the strength which he himself possesses. It is exactly in proportion as we strive to do all, and strive in vain, that we can have an experimental consciousness of God's almighty aid. And thus the believer feels that God's strength is made perfect in his own weakness.
^ I have my hands full, preparing to build our new boat. I have to cut the timber some twenty miles distant and have it carried here. You will probably be disgusted at hearing that I am busy just now making bricks to build a house in which to construct the vessel. Within the last fortnight we have made some ten thousand. That is doubtless poor work to be occupied with in the Mission field, but it must be done ; and in even such humble occupation I hope the good Lord will not withhold His blessing. Mission boats unfortunately do not grow of them- selves,— they have to be built, every inch of them. But trees have been growing for ages, of the Lord's planting; and as we fell them I like to think that He ordained them for this purpose.*
(3) And yet self-help is never independent of God's help. — The Israelites looked forward from the wilderness to the Promised Land as the place of consummation and rest. All conflict, hardship, and toil would there be over for ever; all hopes and desires would be fulfilled; and life would be one long holiday of ease and enjoyment in a land flowing with milk and honey. But they found that their former discipline in the new circum- stances was not ended, but only changed in its character ; that