Matthew 15:34

Matthew 15:34

In this act of our Lord's there were two principles so fundamental that the Divine power of Jesus worked by them almost of necessity, so important that they must be made prominent even in all His impetuous eagerness to help those starving men. The first is the principle of continuity, that what is to be must come out of that which has been, that new things must come to be by an enlargement, a development, a change, a growth of old things; and the second is the principle of economy, that nothing, however little or poor, is to be wasted.

I. These two principles are stamped on all the operations of nature. Forget nature, and say, "Feed me, or I shall starve," and His question comes back to you, "How many loaves have you? Give me something to begin with, however little it may be." Drop the old remnants of a past life into the ever-fruitful soil, and all the possibilities of new life open.

II. The same truth appears in the use which God makes of men in the world. All history bears witness that when God means to make a great man He puts the circumstances of the world and the lives of lesser men under tribute. All earnest, pure, unselfish, faithful men, who have lived their obscure lives well, have helped to make him. It is the continuity and economy of human life. The great feast grows out of the few loaves and fishes.

III. In all training of character this law must be supreme. Not lawlessness, not slavish subjection to law, is the system under which we live. Progress and growth; but growth from old conditions, progress from the basis of the old life, this is our law. Is not this what many a poor creature needs to know? You understand that you are wicked. You understand what it is to be good. But the gulf between is dreadful, impassable. What is there in you that can grow into that? Nothing. The development out of the old still needs the mightier force. Evolution is not Atheism. God must do what must be done, but God will do it. God will make you good, by sending His light and love into this past of yours, and giving all that there is good in its true development and consecration.

Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord,p. 127.

References: Matthew 15:36. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 88. Matthew 16:1. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 157; Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. ii., p. 348. Matthew 16:2. R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons,vol. i., p. 284.Matthew 16:2; Matthew 16:3. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 411.Matthew 16:3. R. Thomas, Ibid.,vol. xii., p. 248; H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xiii., p. 392, vol. xiv., p. 10; J. Guinness Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 56; F. W. Farrar, Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 97; C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 429. Matthew 16:4. Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 114.Matthew 16:12. G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 216; R. Scott, University Sermons,p. 151.