stances and you will have faith enough to believe the staggering promise that I now renew: that Isaac shall yet be born to thee in thine old age.” God was anxious that Abraham should know Him as ‘‘The Enough God” and He has the same concern for every discontented, dis satisfied, and despairing soul today. Oh, that every one might be able to sing a chorus familiar to the Salvation Army lassies all over the world! They gather on the street corners in Australia, and this is their testimony in song: “Thou art enough for me, Thou art enough for me, Thou living, loving, mighty God, Yes, Thou art enough for me.” The writer of that chorus has reached the heart of the text. Let us think for a while on “The Enough God." We need to remember that the God of nature is the God of grace. The God of grace is the God of nature. All of nature speaks of the prodigality of God. I was told of a poor old woman who had never seen the ocean until she was taken there by a friend. After she had been a. while on the shore, her friend saw tears streaming down her cheeks, as she looked over the deep. “What do you think of it?” he asked. “ It is the first thing I have ever seen of which there seems to be enough,” was her reply. Some of us who have been on long voyages, after weeks at sea, know something of the enoughness of God’s nature. Have you ever thought what an inconceivably small fraction of the sunshine ever reaches our little world? What do you suppose the fraction is? You would have to divide one millionth part by 273, and then you would find the infinitesimal fraction that comes to this little world of ours. Where does all the rest go? It streams out into space. God certainly is not hard up for sun shine. Oh, men and women, think of the prodigality of the God of nature! * How marvelous is the God before whom we bow, the El Shaddai, “The Enough God” ! But the God of nature is the God of grace, and if the pro visions of nature are abundant, the provisions of grace are equally magnificent He Is Enough for Our Salvation Surely the atoning work of our glorious Redeemer is enough. Do you ever wonder whether the work of Calvary is really adequate to lean upon? Believe me, the God of nature is the God of grace, the God of the open hand who sent His only begotten Son to suffer and to die, and to all eternity, that grace should be our theme. Whatever grace may mean, God has an abundance of it, for He speaks of the “unsearchable riches of His grace.” Learn to say: “Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another’s life, Another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.” He Is Enough for Our Satisfaction We have recently seen in magazines and newspapers the pathetic pictures revealing the tragedy of long lines of little children, half clothed, almost starving, waiting for hours with little tin cups in their hands to be filled with soup, their daily ration: Every day and every hour getting more emaciated and more starved, they have less of life, are less satisfied physically. There is something more tragic and pathetic than that, for there is something far higher in the human life than the physical. There are millions of souls trying to satisfy the deepest desires of the human soul with the tin cup of weak philosophy, or some man-made useless help for the soul’s life. How can a man with a great heart and an immortal NOVEMBER, 1946
soul find afty satisfaction whatever in the things of this world? He was made for God. He was made for eter nity. Therefore, there is no satisfaction for that im mortal nature outside of a vital, personal experience with God—the God who is enough for our satisfaction. The tragedy of it all is that men have'never discovered the secret that God is their satisfaction, and that there is no other way to get it. The Lord Jesus, the El Shad dai in human flesh, talked to the woman at the well about this. She had tried everything. She had tried some things she certainly ought not to have tried. She had gone the limit to get satisfaction in what this world could give. This woman talked to Him, and He discov ered her secrets and immediately she saw that He was different from other people. What did Jesus tell her? “You are in the world where you are all the time getting thirsty. The more you drink, the more you want, but if you will drink of the water that I will give you, you will never thirst again.” What a message for those of us Christians who are half in the Church and half in the world. I am constantly asked if it is wrong to go to certain places of amusement. Jesus said: “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” Thank God, we will never thirst again if we will drink of the fountain of God’s love. He Is Enough for Our Security The God of nature who binds this earth in its rela tion to the sun so that it swings around its orbit without the variation of an inch of space, or a second of time, is the El Shaddai who binds the saved sinner to Himself. If gravity, the thing that holds this earth to the sun, is wonderful, how much more wonderful and marvelous is grace, the thing that holds us to the heart of God. It is divine favor, it is God’s love and mercy, it is God’s everlasting, eternal love that binds me to the heart of the universe. Blessed be His name! I can never be separated from it, for Jesus said, “No man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand... I and my Father are one.” Does God call you to His holy service? Then He will be your sufficiency, for He has said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” Did you ever hear that story about the young Scottish preacher who was visiting an old lady who knew her Bible pretty well? I suppose he thought it was his duty to leave a text with her, so he said, before he left the room, “What a lovely promise that is, ‘Lo, I am with you always.’ ” “Hoot, mon,” she replied, “it’s no promise; it’s just a fact.” Oh, brother, it is not “I will be with you.” That would be blessed, but it is more than that. It is “I AM with you”—the declaration of a glorious fact. If we could call the great heroes of faith to give witness, what do you think they would say in regard to the sufficiency of God? “Hudson Taylor, was God enough for you in the midst of the stress of battle, through all the years spent in China?” Can we question what would be his reply? If we could ask David Livingstone, who died on bended knee among the swamps of Bangweulu: “Living stone, amid all the loneliness and labors, your fevers and distresses, was He enough for you?” Surely his tes timony would be, “I found Him to be El Shaddai, the God who is enough.” David Brainerd, the pioneer mis sionary to the North American Indians, would surely give the same testimony. Ah, my friends, there are thousands of people who never read the Bible, but who do read us. Let them see that in all the busy circumstances of life, that you have a God who is sufficient for you, and they will say, “I would that God were my God, the Saviour my Saviour, the Spirit my Guide, and the Book my treasure.” Let us launch out upon the bountifulness of the salvation, satisfaction, security and strength of the El Shaddai. 5
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