Food For Thought

Wanting no good thing . .

Psalm 34.10 says: "They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing." Though the good thing intended here is what is spoken of in verse 22, "none shall be desolated," or in John 14. 23, "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" - for this is a good thing indeed - yet that which most readily comes to the mind in reading these words is some earthly good thing which we may desire. We think of some who are greatly burdened with trials and difficulties, and seem to have far more than their share of illness and suffering, and it might be hard to realise these were "not in want of any good thing".

Though this is not easy to explain by cold logic, yet the testimony of the poorest and most destitute brother or sister in Christ is: "I have wanted no good thing". The following, by Alexander Peden, dated 1682, surely explains this position:- "I remember, as I came through the country, that there was a poor widow woman, whose husband fell at Bothwell. The callous soldiers came to plunder her house, telling her they would take all she had: 'we will leave thee nothing,' said they, 'either to put in thee or on thee.' 'I care not', said she, 'I will not want as long as God is in the Heavens'."

Fruit of Evil

It has been suggested that it is quite within the power of an individual devoted to evil for its own sake to destroy his own capacity for repentance. Food for thought here! On the one hand, we hold firmly to the principle that whilst there is the least hope of the sinner turning from the error of his way, whilst there is anything at all left upon which Divine Love can work, God will not let go his hold on the erring one. Upon the other hand, Scripture is clear that there are circumstances in which it is impossible to renew a man to repentance, that for some there is reserved the "blackness of darkness for ever". There is hope of a tree, says Job, if it be cut down, that through the scent of water it will bud and become green again; that is because the life principle has not become altogether extinct in the stump and roots. A plant may wither and dry up in the scorching heat, and while life remains in it, rain will bring it renewed vigour, but if the life has gone, nothing can ever restore it.

May we then conclude that there is something in man, a capacity for appreciating the things of righteousness in goodness and purity, implanted there by God at the beginning, which can be smothered over, but need not be entirely obliterated in even the most degraded of men; but that continued obstinate hardening of the heart against every good influence in the favourable environment of the Millennial Age can utterly destroy that capacity and leave nothing of the man but an empty physical frame possessing the spirit of life but no preserving influence of good; and that the workings of sin in that physical body will eventually encompass its destruction without hope recovery? Thus seen, the "Second Death" is the inevitable result of a man's deliberate stifling of the powers of righteousness which God implanted within him. "It shall come to pass, that every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be cut off from among the people."