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does' God provide food for the necessary nourishment of our bodies, but He has so ordained it that in partaking of food, an absolute necessity, we enjoy every moment’s tasting of that food. Well did Dr. Jowett say, “Jesus took commonplace, common bread, and associated it with God.” Jesus Gave Thanks to God for Answered Prayer Just before our Lord called Lazarus by name, and by His omnipotent power brought him forth from the grave, we read that He ‘‘lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me” (John 11:41). What does this mean? Well, first of all, it certainly means that God hears our prayers; what would we do if we did not have God. to whom to turn? I should think that today people without God would simply lose their minds. We need Him at every point of life for guidance, for deliver ance from temptation, for hope concerning the future, for power in our work, for comfort in sorrow, for wisdom, for forgiveness of sins, for eternal life, for the ultimate estab lishing of righteousness and for all those profound needs of the human heart, which man has never been able to supply himself. We should be grateful that an omnipo tent, omniscient, eternal, holy God is available to‘ seek in prayer. We too can say every day of our life, ‘‘Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me” ; but there is more here than mere gratitude to God for hearing prayer. We should be grateful to God for what we know He is about to do when we know He is going to do it. Certainly we know some things God plans to perform. If we sincerely ask Him for forgiveness of sins, we know that He will grant it. If we ask Him for pardon for a besetting sin, we must believe He is going to impart it. A minister has a right to thank God before he goes into the pulpit for the blessing of the service which is about to begin. When ever we undertake anything for God, knowing that we are in His Will, even before the work is accomplished, we should give thanks to Him for what He is about to do. Christ’s Thankfulness for God’s Method for Revealing Truth When the seventy returned with joy from their first missionary venture, declaring that even the demons had been subject unto them, our Lord uttered a prayer of thanksgiving which we almost never think of in these days of hurry and the neglect of meditation. “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes: yea, Father, for so it was well pleasing in Thy sight.” Years ago, that peer of all Biblical expositors of this century, Dr. G. Campbell Mor gan, preached a remarkable sermon on this text that may not be known to many today. It was buried away in a periodical seldom ever seen, and I take the liberty of quot ing from it. In my opinion, Dr. Morgan has given us the most satisfying interpretation of these words to be found anywhere in our language: “He saw through all the processes to the con summation. He saw how through all the diffi culty of the present hour He was moving in fel lowship with God to an assured and absolutely certain victory. He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. The light of the Divine thought and conception and understanding of all the problems of the hour fell upon His spirit; and His spirit rejoiced in the Spirit of God because He dwelt in such relation ship with that Spirit as to enable Him to see the meaning of the things that seemed to be so full of difficulty. "The Will of the Father “What was this consciousness? It was, first 3l all, perfect rest in the will of His Father. To say that, perhaps is hardly to say enough, and cer-
tainly is not to say the deepest thing,•Why-did - He rest in the will of His Father?- Why did He * say, T thank Thee, O Father „ . . that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understand- •- ing’ ? Why was He glad they were: revealed unto babes? I think if we are not careful,.we may • read that so as to misinterpret it altogether, and so as to make our hearts imagine that there was . a sort of satisfaction that certain classes of men • were refused light. Yet surely that is not the thought. Is there not rather here a statement, of- the fact that in the Spirit He saw the. infinite wis-. dom of the Divine method, that He was brought into fellowship with GOd by the Spirit so that He saw God’s way was the best, and God’s way was right? From whom were these things hidden ac- . cording to this word of Christ? From ‘the wise,’ ; i and the word indicates practical skill or acumen, From ‘the understanding,’ and the word here is a ? word which, if you will let me say So', means abil- . ity to put two and two together. The things of >v God were absolutely hidden from the. men.who came to them with a sense of their own ability to - comprehend them. They always a r e !. Jesus - Christ Himself and all the things of Gòd forever-. i; more elude the grasp of the intellect,, until that. ■ intellect is inspired by the Spirit Himself; and- i that can only be on one condition, and that condi tion is now named. ‘Thou didst reveal them. Unto babes,’ the not-speaking children, the immature little ones. To such, whether they be with John . in prison, or among the rulers, or on the out skirts in Capernaum, to such as .come .to .the : « things of God with - simple child-like heart and . open mind they are revealed. The condition-for. ? the acquirement of knowledge is always con scious ignorance. The one man you cannot' teach anything is the man who imagines he knows everything. “Ten years ago this month, I made a: cutting from a paper that I am not particularly.familiar with. Somehow it carnè into my hands. I read an article in it and made a. cutting. I am refer ring to ‘The Engineer.’ I am not going to inflict upon you the long quotation I have, but should like to take out of it a thought that expresses ( Continued on Page 407)
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