Vcrs. 2-G.-The uses of adversity. His a great matter when in any experience of life wo can read the Divine purpose in bringing us through it. The speaker in these verses unfolds the design and lessons of the wilderness discipline. Our Lord, in the temptation, found an application to himself (Matt. iv. 4). Every believer will find the same in seasons of adversity. I. ADVERSITY A DIVINE ORDINANCE. (Ver. 2.) 1. Divinely sent. "The Lor<l thy God led thee" (cf. Matt. iv. 1). Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness. Adversity may como through natural laws, as the necessary result_ of sin or folly; ernn so it is of God's ordinance-the punitive expression of his will. But adversity is not necessarily punitive. The best man living may be led into straits of affliction, of which his own actions are not in the least the causes (Job i., ii.). It is God who has "Jed" him thither for some purpose of his own. 2. The duration of which is divinely determined; "these forty years." God marks for us the term of.our probations. Jesus was "forty days" without bread (Matt. iv. 2). II. THE GRACIOUS USES OF ADVERSITY, That of the Israelites was designed: 1. To humble them. It aimed at destroying the spirit of self-dependence, out of which comes pride and haughtiness (vers. 17, 18). It made them feel how absolutely they depended for everything upon God-taught them how at every step they hung upon his will. 2. Tu teach them reliance. Faith is reliance on a Divine Power working for us and in us. " What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" Faith cannot tell, but it waits God's time and God's way of providing, confident that in his own way he will provide. This was Christ's attitude in the wilderness (Matt. iv. 4). 3. To test obedience. Adversity acts as a test of the disposition. The end of God's discipline is to bring to light hidden lines of character, and to advance life to a crisis. It forces us to moral determination. Will we obey God or will we not? The younger gener.ation of Israel, whatever their faults, showed by their conduct then and thereafter (Josh. xxiv. 31) that the discipline of the wilderness had not been without good results. III. GoD 1s WITH us IN .ADVERSITY. Though bread failed, God fed them with manna (ver. 3). '!'heir every want was supplied. Jesus teaches us to trust the Father for the supply of all our needs (Matt. iii. 25, 34). His own trust, vindicated in the refusal to mnka stones into bread, was rewarded by angels ministering unto him (Matt. iv. 11), Ho" ate angels' food" (Ps. lxxviii. 25). Our wants are not supplied by miracle, but by providence, which is all-sufficient to provide for us in every ordinary case.-J. 0,
Ver. 3.-Not bread, hut God's Word. The lesson of the manna gathered up into one concise sentence. It teaches us- I. 'l'o SEE GoD IN SECONDARY CAUSES. The Word of God is as truly the creative and nonrishing principle in ordinary bread as it was in the extraordinary supply of munna. It_ is not bread, as something subsisting independently, but breud as the product of Divine power, and as possessing properties which the ,vord of God imparts to it anu upholds in it, which is tho staff of life and the object of our prayers (Matt. vi. 11). II. 'l'o BELIEVE rn GOD ACTING ABOVE NATURE AS WELL AS IN IT. If God wills life to be sustaine1l, ho cau sustain it iu other ways than by bread. He is not tied up to ono set of means. He can act, if it pleases him, independently of means altogether, the creative word being suflicient to sustain. This is the direct meaning of the text, and a part of the significance of Christ's answer to the tempter (Matt. iv. 4). III, 'l'o IlKCOGNIZE IN MAN THE EXISTENCE OF A. lllGHER LI.FE THAN THE PHYSICAL, DEUTERONOMY, ll L62 THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. [on. vm. 1-20,
'l'be physical is not the highest inns. \Ve do not live by bread alone. A higher life is f,,und in depending on God's "rord, in obeying it, and in abiding by it, whatever the inrnwdinte consequences. 'l'he lower life may need to be given up that the higher may he saved (Matt. xvi. 25).-J. 0.
Yer. 5.-God the Chasterier. I. CHASTISEMENT IS A NEOESSITY OF OUR MORAL NAT0RE. He is no wise parent who spares the rod when the good of the child requires that chastisement he administered. Gentler methods failing, the undutiful son ought to he clrnstis,d. He deserves it. He needs the discipline. It acts wholesomely upon him, a\\"nkening conscience, begetting respect for paternal authority, deterring from c1·il, leadin~ prnbnbly to penitence and submission. II. CrrASTISEME:KT I~ AN ESSENTIAT, PART OF GoD's TREATMENT OF HIS CIIILDREN. His clrnstiscments proceed from love (Heb. xii. 6). They are wis!Jly meted out, and are n1"-ays for our profit (Hcb. xii. 10). God can bear to punish. He will not allow our faults to slip. He will make us feel when we do wrong, hedging up our way, and laying stripes upon us. God's children have the comfort of knowing that they are thus in a Father's hand, and that in a.11 they suffer they are being chastened by unerring love and wisdom. III. CHASTISEMENT IS A PART OF Gou's DISCIPLINE OF us FOR WIIICH WE SilOULD DE c;RATEJl"UL. Kot murmuring, but submitting to it. Without this chastisement: 1, How fnrgctful of God would we soon become I 2. How haughty and self-willed I 3, How dilatory in duty !-J. 0,