(2) No one can read Holy Scripture without being struck by the variety of gifts which are bestowed by God. It was He who breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, so that man became a living soul. Wherever we see life — life in the plant, or in the bird that sings to us, or in the little child that is playing in our nurseries — there we see the handiwork of God. He makes men able to seek out curious inventions, and gives us also what is beautiful and wonderful in art. We are told that it was the direct inspiration of God that wrought in the artisans of tabernacle and temple, and made them cunning architects to build houses for God, fragrant with cedar, and beautiful with colour, and bright with ornaments of gold. And that same Spirit who gives us our treasures of art gives also what is beautiful in action. It was He who inspired in David his courage, and who gave to Samson his strength, and filled Gideon with his spirit of patriotism, and gave to Solomon his understanding heart. There are diversities of gifts. To some men God gives the ability to work miracles of healing ; to others He gives the power of great inventiveness ; to others skill to discover and interpret the secrets of nature; to others eloquence ; to others perhaps the best gift of all, the pure and simple heart. But in all these worketh the self -same Spirit of God, dividing to every man severally as He will.
(3) God does not give us only temporal gifts. Man does not live by bread alone, or by art or science, or the culture of his mind, or the successful use of his talents. He does not live either by the happiness of his home, or by honour in the sight of other men. He lives also by the spiritual graces of God.
JAMES I. 17 5
There is the gift of His Holy Spirit to those who earnestly desire and ask for it, to illumine our minds, to sanctify our hearts, to purify our sinful nature, to work in us Christian graces of disposition. There is the gift of His Holy Word to be the light to our feet, and the lamp to our path — " the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls." There is the gift of regeneration in the waters of Baptism, developed by after gifts of the Spirit into that renewal of our nature by which we become dead unto sin and new creatures in Christ Jesus. Shall we not add the blessing of a changed, converted heart ; of an awakened, serious mind ; of a tender, sensitive conscience ? There is the privilege of access to God through Christ in prayer; the blessing of answered prayer. There is the gift of spiritual strength by which we are enabled to resist temptation ; of faith by which we overcome the world ; of all those various graces which adorn the soul and are the varied developments of God's Spirit.
But God's greatest and most glorious gift is the gift of His beloved and only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. It is only in Christ Jesus that all these heavenly gifts and graces are ours — sins forgiven, hearts renewed, righteousness and adoption, honour and immortality, an inheritance incorruptible, and an eternal weight of glory.
*[{ In the prayer-meeting I am expounding the 103rd Psalm, The psalm is a delightful study. Have you ever made a list of the blessings the psalmist praises God for ? Just think of it : Forgiveness, soul-healing, redemption, coronation, satisfaction, perpetual youth, justice, revelation, mercy, tenderness, pity, and so on. No wonder when we think of it we need "all that is within us " to praise.^
2. God sends only good gifts. The words of the text were spoken, as the context shows, to refute and rebuke the notion that God may tempt to evil. And they accomplish their object by describing God as One who not only gives all good, but who gives, and from His very nature can give, only good ; whose " giving " always and necessarily is solely for good ; whose " boons," seeing that they must be like Himself, can have no faults in them. His gifts may be abused, but the abuse is no part of the gifts ; the goods He confers may become the occasion of temptations to evil,
^ George H. C. Macgregor, 121.
6 THE GOOD GIFTS OF THE FATHER
but as He cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man; in spite of the light from heaven we may stray, but the light from heaven never leads astray. God gives only good, never evil, as the sun gives only light, never darkness.
^ Is everything God gives us good ? Does He not give us trials, sorrows, separations, sickness, bereavement, death? Are these good gifts ? Yes, as they came from Him they were " good." If they are bad, it is we who make them bad. They have all a loving intention, and a loving power in them, and they are all to make, if not a present, yet a certain future of greater happiness, I feel sure we shall, one day, place highest among " the good gifts," as the very best gifts we have ever had, our heaviest trials, and our severest losses.^