Physiologists can tell, by studying the dentition--the system of the
teeth--and the digestive apparatus of an animal, what it is meant to
live upon, whether vegetables or flesh, or a mingled diet of both. And
you can tell, if you will, by studying yourself, what, or whom, you are
meant to live upon. The poet said, 'We live by admiration, hope, and
love.' But he did not say on what these faculties, which truly nourish
man's spirit, are to fix and fasten. He tells of the appetites; he does
not tell of their food. My text does: 'In this mountain shall the Lord
make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the
less well refined.' Friends, look at these hearts of yours with their
yearnings, with their passionate desires, with their clamant needs.
Will any human love--the purest, the sweetest, the most unselfish, the
most utter in its surrender--satisfy the heart-hunger of the poorest of
us? No! Look at the capacities of grasping thought and truth in our
spirits, which are ever seek, seek, seeking for absolutely certain
foundations on which we may build the whole structure of our beliefs.
You have to go deeper down than the sand of man's thinkings and
teachings before you can reach what will bear without shifting the
foundations of a life's credence and confidence. Look at these
tumultuous wills of ours that fancy they crave to be independent, and
really crave an absolute master whom it is blessedness to obey. You
will find none such beneath the stars. The very elements of our being,
our heart, will, mind, desires, passions, longings, all with one voice
proclaim that the only food for a man is God.
Jesus Christ brings the food that we need. Remember His own adaptation
of this great vision of my text in more than one parable; such as the
supper that was provided, and to which all men were invited, and, 'with
one consent,' declined the invitation. Remember His own utterance,' I
am the Bread of God which came down from heaven to give life to the
world.' Remembering such words, let me plead with you to listen to the
voice of warning as well as of invitation, which sounds from Cradle and
Cross and Throne. 'Why will ye spend your money for that which is not
bread'--you know it is not--'and your labour for that which satisfieth
not?'--you know it does not. Turn to Him, 'eat, and your souls shall
live.' 'In this mountain is prepared a feast... for all nations.'
Notice that although it does not appear on the surface, and to English
readers, this world's festival, in which every want is met, and every
appetite satisfied, is a feast on a sacrifice. That touches the deepest
need, about which I shall have a word or two to say presently. But in
the meantime let me just press this upon you, that the Christ who died
on the Cross is to be lived on by us; and that it is His sacrifice that
is to be the nourishment of our spirits.
Would that the earnest men, who are trying to cure the world's evils
and to still the world's wants, and are leaving Jesus Christ and His
religion out of their programme, would take thought and ask themselves
whether there is not something more in the hunger of humanity than
their ovens can ever bake bread for! They are spinning ropes of sand,
if they are trying to lift the world clear of its miseries and of its
hunger, and are not presenting Jesus Christ. I hope I am no bigot; I
know that I sympathise earnestly with all these other schemes for
helping mankind, but this I am bound to say here--all of them put
together will not reach the need of the case, unless they start from,
and are subsidiary to, and develop out of, the presenting of the primal
supply for the universal want, Christ, who alone is able to still the
hunger of men's hearts. Education will do much, but university degrees
and the highest culture will not satisfy a hungry heart. Fitting
environment, as it is fashionable to call it, will do a great deal, but
nothing outside of a man will staunch his evils or still the hunger
that coils and grips in his heart. Competent wealth is a good-there 1s
no need to say that in Manchester-but millionaires have been known to
be miserable. A heart at rest in the love of husband, wife, parent,
child, is a blessing earnestly to be sought and thankfully to be
treasured by us all; but there is more than that wanted. Put a man in
the most favourable circumstances; give him competent worldly means; do
all that modern philosophers who leave religion out of the question are
trying to do; put in practice your most advanced Socialistic schemes,
and you will still have a man with a hungry heart. He may not know what
he wants; very often he will entirely mistake what that is, but he will
be restless for want of an unknown good. Here is the only thing that
will still his heart: 'The bread which I give is My flesh, which I will
give for the life of the world.'
Brother and sister, this is not a matter only for social reformers, and
to be dealt with as bearing upon wide movements that influence
multitudes. It comes home to you and me. Some of you do not in the
least degree know what I am talking about when I speak of the hunger of
men's hearts; for you have lost your appetites, as children that eat
too many sweets have no desire for their wholesome meals. You have lost
your appetite by feeding upon garbage, and you say you are quite
content. Yes, at present; but deep down there lies in your hearts a
need which will awake and speak out some day; and you will find that
the husks which the swine did eat are scarcely wholesome nutriment for
a man. And there are some of you that turn away with disgust, and I am
glad of it, from these low, gross, sensuous delights; and are trying to
satisfy yourselves with education, culture, refinement, art, science,
domestic love, wealth, gratified ambition, or the like. There are
tribes of degraded Indians that in times of famine eat clay. There is a
little nourishment in it, and it distends their stomachs, and gives
them the feeling of having had a meal. And that is like what some of
you do. Dear friends, will you listen to this?--'Why do ye spend your
money for that which is not bread?' Will you listen to this?--'I am the
Bread of Life,' Will you listen to this?--'In this mountain will the
Lord make unto all people a feast of fat things.'