Evening, June 8
Go To Morning Reading
“Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or
not.”
Numbers 11:23
God had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole
month he would feed the vast host in the wilderness with flesh. Moses,
being overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward means,
and is at a loss to know how the promise can be fulfilled. He looked
to the creature instead of the Creator. But doth the Creator expect
the creature to fulfil his promise for him? No; he who makes the promise
ever fulfils it by his own unaided omnipotence. If he speaks, it is
done—done by himself. His promises do not depend for their fulfilment upon
the co-operation of the puny strength of man. We can at once perceive
the mistake which Moses made. And yet how commonly we do the same!
God has promised to supply our needs, and we look to the creature
to do what God has promised to do; and then, because we perceive the
creature to be weak and feeble, we indulge in unbelief. Why look we
to that quarter at all? Will you look to the north pole to gather
fruits ripened in the sun? Verily, you would act no more foolishly
if ye did this than when you look to the weak for strength, and to
the creature to do the Creator’s work. Let us, then, put the question on the right footing. The ground
of faith is not the sufficiency of the visible means for the performance
of the promise, but the all-sufficiency of the invisible God, who
will most surely do as he hath said. If after clearly seeing that
the onus lies with the Lord and not with the creature, we dare to
indulge in mistrust, the question of God comes home mightily to us:
“Has the Lord’s hand waxed short?” May it happen, too, in his mercy, that with the question there may
flash upon our souls that blessed declaration, “Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or
not.”