The Provision of Prayer
Notes
Transcript
The Provision of Prayer
Text: Matthew 6:5–15 (KJV 1900)
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are:
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
9 After this manner therefore pray ye:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
( For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.)
Give us this day our daily bread. (6:11)
* Look with me now that the phrase that we will be dealing with this morning in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 11:
“Give us this day our daily bread”
* Although this phrase “Give us this day our daily bread” may have been a genuine concern in New Testament times, to many Christians in the western world today, such a request may seem needless and inappropriate.
* Why should we ask God for what we already have in such abundance?
* Why, when many of us need to consume less food than we do, ask God to supply our daily bread?
* To pray “Give us this day our daily bread” would be a completely understandable request of a Christian in Ethiopia or Cambodia, seems irrelevant on the lips of a well-fed American.
* Bread not only represents food but is symbolic of all of our physical needs. John Stott has observed that to Martin Luther, “everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace”
* It gives me great comfort to understand that the God who created the entire universe, who is the God of all space and time and eternity, who is infinitely holy and completely self-sufficient, should care about supplying our physical needs-and should be concerned that we receive enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest. God obligates Himself to supply our needs.
* I believe the Scriptures teach that God has made a world that can provide for everyone upon the face of the entire earth.
* Turn with me now to Psalm 104 and verse 10:
Psalm 104:10-28 (KJV)
10 He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. 11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;
17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. 20 Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 22 The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. 24 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
* God provides for all His creation in its natural state, but the Bible is full of promises by God to especially provide and care for the daily needs of those who seek God with a righteous heart, and humble themselves by acknowledging that everything they have comes from the hand of God.
* As we look at the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread,” we see that this part of the Lord’s Prayer is in the form of a petition- something that we are asking God to do for us.
* It may seem to a well-fed, well blessed society such as we live in here in America that there is not much need for us to pray to God to meet our daily needs.
* Do you know how blessed this country really is?
* Several years ago, when Russia invaded Afghanistan, America tried to exert some pressure against Russia for her invasion of Afghanistan
by withholding billions of tons of grain from Russia, grain which was earmarked for the feeding of animals, animals which were earmarked for the feeding of the Russian people.
* The grain production in Russia at that time was down at least 20% and we thought, since Russia was desperately in need of the grain that we could provide, not giving them this grain, supposedly would have an impact upon them.
* It was interesting that we had that much grain to give away, or to sell.
* In America, have more grain than we can possibly use, in fact if we didn’t unload this grain we didn’t sell to Russia, it would have driven the price of grain down so low that all the Americas farmer's would have went into a recession.
* Our government had to buy up the surplus grain from the farmers to prop the farmers up.
* Which means they printed print more money, and inflated all the rest of the money and so we were in the same mess anyway, but at least it spread the recession around, and the farmers didn’t have to bear the whole load.
* Now, I have said all that to say this- We produce so much surplus food in America, that most Americans don’t see the necessity to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.”
* Do you know how much grain we have in America? Well, we have grain in America that is absolutely beyond our power to conceive, because of our technology, because of the richness of the soil, because of the sophistication of the machinery.
* For example, we now have new kinds of corn and grain that recycle themselves and regenerate like grass does! You don't even have to
reseed them!
* Geneticists are now working on corn that will deposit back into the soil its own nitrogen and will save us something like 13 million tons of fertilizer which is made from natural gas and that save energy as well.
*They have now developed corn that grows with its ears in a different direction, so you can get the ears closer together and fields can double or treble their productivity.
*The equipment that we have in America also contributes to our ability to grow a surplus of food.
* Take, for example, the monstrous combines that can now spew out a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars’ worth of soy beans in a single day!
* The U.S. crops production levels, the result of near perfect weather and land, and technology, are beyond our imagination!
* Just to give you some idea of it, the corn alone would fill two million jumbo hopper train cars that would stretch thirteen times back and forth across the United States.
* And we have enough machines now, if they were all lined up wheel to wheel we could harvest the entire state of Iowa in one day!
* Normally to harvest Iowa if you did it by human beings would take thirty one million people using sixty one million horses!
* Technology has given us incredible amount of productivity in terms of food.
* And to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," is a little remote to our understanding.
* When we come to the statement, "Give us this day our daily bread," it may at first seem a little irrelevant to us.
* When is the last time you prayed, Lord, I plead with You to provide for me a meal.
* Most likely your last prayer may have been more like this:
- Lord, please prevent me from eating another meal!
- Lord, teach me self-discipline! Lord, I must lose weight!
- Lord, not only have I eaten enough for me, but I’ve eaten enough for several others too! Lord help me to remember not to do this again!
* It does seem a little unnecessary, for us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread” here in America, the land of plenty, doesn’t it?
* When was the last time we really got desperate about our food?
* You may think to yourself, this message ought to be preached in Bangladesh or Cambodia or Sahara or somewhere but not in America ... this is irrelevant to us here, because we live in a land of plenty.
* But that only illustrates our lack of understanding of the truth that is represented here in the phrase “Give is this day our daily bread.”
* In a land that is so blessed with food as we are here in America, then What does it mean to us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread?”
* What is this text saying to us?
* Should I just preach a sermon and say, well you're going to have to imagine that you didn't have any food, and then if you can only imagine that you don't have any food, then imagine that you're desperate and imagine that you're praying for some food.
* That's a stretch for most of our imaginations this morning.
* Does the phrase “give us this day our daily bread” say something more- something more significant to us this morning? I believe it does.
* I want you to see this morning that the phrase “give us this day our daily bread” is much more that asking God to give us food!
* When we pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” we are humbling ourselves before God, affirming that we believe that every good thing we have comes from the gracious hand of God (James 1:17).
James 1:16–17 (KJV 1900)
16 Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
* We have so much here in America that we tend to think that we have created all these blessings for ourselves!
* We have the mindset “I go to work, I pay for my food, I pay my house payment, I provide for my own self, I am self-sufficient!
* In the earlier phrases that we looked at Jesus taught us to guard ourselves against self-righteousness:
* Jesus taught us to pray with the attitude that prayer was all about God:
- Our Father which are in Heaven
- Hallowed by Thy name
- Thy Kingdom come
- Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
* Now in the phrase “give us this day our daily bread” Jesus is teaching us to guard against being self-sufficient!
* When the scribes and the Pharisees prayed, they were self-righteous, and they were self-sufficient! Jesus said “don’t pray like the hypocrites pray, full of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency!
* Once again we have come full circle to the main point of the Lord’s Prayer- praying is not about self! Praying is all about God:
* Now I want you to see that the praying of the scribes and the Pharisees did not meet God’s standards, because of a very specific and simple reason-
* The scribes and Pharisees had the attitude that prayer was for them! Their praying was all wrong!
* In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches that the true purpose of praying is that prayer is for God, and not about self!
* By telling us to pray “give us this day our daily bread” Jesus is teaching us to guard against being self-sufficient!
* To pray “give us this day our daily bread” is to pray with the attitude that we are totally dependent upon the provision upon praying for God’s provision for our every need.
* God provides for all of His creatures in general by how He has set up the earth to provide food for all of it’s inhabitants:
Psalm 104:10-28 (KJV)
10 He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. 11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
13 He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
14 He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. 16 The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted;
17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. 20 Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 22 The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening. 24 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good.
* God provides for all of His creatures in general by how He has set up the earth to provide food for all of its inhabitants,
* But God has given special promises to provide for all those who are righteous in their hearts, trusting in God- all those that and confess that, they are not self-sufficient, but dependent upon God:
Psalm 145:15–20 (KJV 1900)
15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; And thou givest them their meat in due season. 16 Thou openest thine hand, And satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways, And holy in all his works.
18 The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him,To all that call upon him in truth. 19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: He also will hear their cry, and will save them.20 The Lord preserveth all them that love him: But all the wicked will he destroy.
* You might say “If God provides for his creation, they why is there so much poverty and suffering around the world?”
* The greatest cause of famine and the diseases that come with poverty in the world, is not poor agricultural practices or poor economic and political policies.
* Nor is the root of poverty and starvation in the world caused by lack of scientific and technological resources, or even overpopulation.
* Those problems only aggravate the basic problem, which is a spiritual problem.
* Poverty, hunger, and disease are merely the symptoms of a greater spiritual problem.
* Only about fifteen percent of the farmable land in the world is used for agriculture and for only half of the year.
* Ever major area of the world, with the proper technology, is capable of supporting its own population and more.
* Those parts of the world that have no Christian roots invariably place a low value on human life.
* The poverty in India, for example, may be laid at the feet of Hinduism, the pagan religion that spawned a host of other religions.
* According to Encyclopaedia Britannica and Eerdman’s Handbook to the World’s Religions, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism come from Hinduism.
* To the Hindu, man is just the incarnation of a soul on its way to moksha, a kind of “final emancipation,” during which trip he goes through countless, perhaps unending, cycles of reincarnation in both animal and human form.
* In Hinduism, man works his way up to higher forms by good deeds and goes backward to lower forms by sinning.
* Poverty, disease, and starvation are therefore seen as divine punishments for which the persons involved must do penance in order to be born into a higher form.
* To help a person in poverty or sickness is to interfere with his karma and therefore do him spiritual harm.
* In Hinduism, all animals are considered to be incarnations either of men or gods.
* Cows are held to be especially sacred because they are incarnated deities- of which Hinduism has some 330 million.
* Cows not only are not to be eaten, but add to the food problem by consuming 20 percent of India’s total food supply.
* Even rats and mice, which eat 15 percent of the food supply, are not killed because they might be one’s reincarnated relatives.
* Just as paganism is the great plague of India, Africa, and many other parts of the world, Christianity has been the blessing of the West.
* Europe and the United States, though never fully Christian in any biblical sense, have been immeasurably blessed because of the Christian influence on political, social, and economic philosophy and policy.
* In this sense, we have been the light and salt of the earth where Christianity has influenced the nations of the earth, just as Jesus said.
* The great concerns for human rights, care for the poor, orphanages, hospitals, prison reform, racial and slave reform, and a host of other concerns did not come from paganism or humanism but from biblical Christianity.
* On the other hand, the current degraded view of human life reflected in the low view of the family we have in America, and the growing legal and social approval of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are the results of humanism and atheism in our society.
* Without a proper view of God there cannot be a proper view of man.
* Those who have a right view of God and also are in a right relationship to Him through Jesus Christ are promised the provision of their heavenly Father.
* In Matthew chapter 6 verse 25 and verses 32-33 Jesus said:
“For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? … For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you”
* God has sometimes provided for His children through miraculous means,
- like Elijah at the brook,
- and the widow who’s bottle of oil, and meal barrel would not go dry,
- or when God caused a gourd to grow over Jonah,
* But God’s primary way of providing for his people is through the productivity of work, for which He has given life, energy, resources, and opportunity. Jesus Himself worked as a carpenter.
* His primary way to care for those who cannot work is through the generosity of those who are able to work.
* Whether he does so directly or indirectly, God is always the source of our physical well-being.
* God makes the earth to produce what we need, and He gives us the ability to sift, gather, and manage the fruits of the earth.
* Psalm 33 verse 18 says:
"Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon those who fear him, upon those who hope in his mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine."
* Now it's amazing to me that God would literally, as a general rule, sort out His own people in the midst of a famine and preserve them.
* Now He may not do it with ravens or like Jesus, feeding Him with angels or He may not shelter them with a gourd that grows up over their head, usually He feeds His own people with other of His own people, doesn't He?
* But God says He takes care of His own, even in the midst of a famine.
* Psalms 34:9-10 says:
"Oh, fear the LORD, ye his saints; for there is no lack to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger; but they who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing."
* The Bible says that those who seek the Lord are not going to go hungry. What a wonderful exciting promise from God!
* In Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." And what is the result of it? Verse 8, "It'll be health to your navel, and marrow to your bones. Honor the LORD with your substance, and your first fruits of all your increase; and your barnswill be filled with plenty, and your presses will burst out with new wine."
* God makes physical provision, for our needs in His gracious care as a loving Father for His children.
* Proverbs 10:3 says, "The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he casts away the substance of the wicked."
* God then, makes it abundantly clear in the Scripture that He is committed to the care of His people, even when the rest of the world is in need.
* You say, well preacher, you're talking about Old Testament principles.
* No, I'm not, look at Matthew 7:7 and we'll get over into the New Testament for a moment.
* And what does it say? "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;"
* We usually equate that with spiritual things, in fact that verse is used often of someone coming to Christ and asking for salvation.
* Then it says in verse 8, "For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened."
* But just exactly what Christ is referring to is indicated in verse9:
"What man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? And if then, you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?"
* And what is the illustration of the good things? It's bread and meat!
* God is concerned with giving the very basics of life to His people, just as a father would be to his own.
* And that follows right on the heel of chapter 6 verse 25 which says you don't need to be worrying about what you eat or what you drink or what you wear, God takes care of that, you just seek first the kingdom and everything else will find its rightful place.
Conclusion:
* We have been following an outline for the Lords’ Prayer in this series of sermons on the Lord’s Prayer.
I. The Paternity of Prayer.
* The pattern Jesus gives us to pray correctly begins with God's paternity, Our Father who art in heaven.
II. The Priority of Prayer
* And then we see that prayer should focus on God's priority, His Holiness… hallowed be Thy name."
III. The Program of Prayer.
* And then we see we are to focus on God's program, "Thy kingdom come."
IV. The purpose of Prayer.
* And then we see that we are to pray according to God's purpose, "Thy will be done."
V. The provision of Prayer.
* And then we see that we are to pray for God's provision in His own way, "Give us this day our daily bread."
VI. The pardon of prayer.
* And then we are to pray remembering how that God has pardoned us, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…"
VII. The protection of Prayer.
* Then Jesus teaches us to pray for God's protection against evil, "Lead us not, but deliver us from evil…"
VIII. God’s preeminence in Prayer.
* And then Jesus teaches us that we are to pray see God's preeminence in prayer, He says “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”
* This morning we have focused on the fifth point “The provision of Prayer” in examining the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread”
* So what do we take away from our examination of the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread” this morning?”
* If you could only take home one thought this morning, it would be this:
* God desires that we acknowledge that our daily provision comes the Hand of God, not from our selves.
* If you could by chance take home two thoughts this morning, remember this also-
* Jesus in the Lord ’s Prayer emphasized “daily” bread.
* Jesus said worrying about any provision past today in not necessary.
Matthew 6:31–34 (KJV 1900)
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
* Do you take the time to acknowledge God for providing for you daily needs by praying before a meal? If you don’t, they you should start. It’s more important than you think.
* Do fail to enjoy the blessings of God’s provisions today because you are worried about tomorrow’s needs? Jesus says stop that and enjoy today!
God’s Provision
Give us this day our daily bread. (6:11)
Although it may have been a genuine concern in New Testament times, to many Christians in the western world today, such a request may seem needless and inappropriate. Why should we ask God for what we already have in such abundance? Why, when many of us need to consume less food than we do, ask God to supply our daily bread? What would be a completely understandable request of a Christian in Ethiopia or Cambodia, seems irrelevant on the lips of a well-fed American.
But this part of the Disciples’ Prayer, like every other part, extends beyond the first century to all believers, in every age and in every situation. In this pattern for prayer our Lord gives all the necessary ingredients for praying. We can see five key elements in this request for God’s provision: the substance, the source, the supplication, the seekers, and the schedule.
The Substance
Bread not only represents food but is symbolic of all of our physical needs. John Stott has observed that to Martin Luther, “everything necessary for the preservation of this life is bread, including food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government, and peace” (Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1978], p. 149).
It is marvelous to understand that the God who created the entire universe, who is the God of all space and time and eternity, who is infinitely holy and completely self-sufficient, should care about supplying our physical needs-and should be concerned that we receive enough food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to rest. God obligates Himself to supply our needs.
This part of the prayer is in the form of a petition, but it is also an affirmation-which is why it is as appropriate for those who are well-fed as for those who have little to eat. Above all it is an affirmation that every good thing we have comes from the gracious hand of God (James 1:17).
The Source
That leads us to the source, who is God. The Father is the one addressed throughout the prayer, the One who is praised and petitioned.
When all our needs are met and all is going well in our lives, we are inclined to think we are carrying our own load. We earn our own money, buy our own food and clothes, pay for our own houses. Yet even the hardest-working person owes all that he earns to God’s provision (see Deut. 8:18). Our life, breath, health, possessions, talents, and opportunities all originate from resources that God has created and made available to man (see Acts 17:24–28). After scientists have made all their observations and calculations, there remains the unexplained element of the design, origin, and operation of the universe. It is unexplained, that is, apart from God, who holds it all together (Heb. 1:2–3).
God provided for man even before He created man. Man was God’s final creation, and after He made and blessed Adam and Eve He said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you” (Gen. 1:29). Since that time God has continued to provide an abundance of food for mankind, in almost unlimited variety.
Yet Paul tells us that “the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, … and advocate abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:1, 3–5). The Word of God sanctifies it by way of creation, and we sanctify it when we receive it with grateful prayer.
Every physical thing we have comes from God’s provision through the earth. It is therefore the sin of indifference and ingratitude not to daily recognize His gifts in thankful prayer.
Supplication
Supplication is expressed in the word give. That is the heart of the petition, because it recognizes need. Even though God may already have provided it, we ask Him for it in recognition of His past and present provision as well as in trust for His future provision.
The only thing that could make Jesus’ instruction and our petitions valid is the promise of God. We could not expect God to give what He has not promised. We can pray confidently because God has promised abundantly. “Trust in the Lord, and do good,” David counsels us; “dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. … Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; … But the humble will inherit the land, and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity” (Ps. 37:3–4, 10–11).
God does not bind Himself to meet the physical needs of everyone, but only of those who trust in Him. In Psalm 37 David is speaking to believers who “trust in the Lord” (v. 3), “delight … in the Lord” (v. 4), “commit [their] way to the Lord” (v. 5), “rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him” (v. 7), “cease from anger,” and “do not fret” (v. 8). He says, “I have been young, and now I am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his descendants begging bread” (v. 25).
The Seekers
The us of Jesus’ model prayer are those who belong to Him. Speaking to believers, Paul wrote, “Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor. 9:10–11).
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life” (Luke 18:29–30). God irrevocably commits Himself to meet the essential needs of His own.
The greatest cause of famine and its attendant diseases in the world is not poor agricultural practices or poor economic and political policies. Nor is the root problem lack of scientific and technological resources or even overpopulation. Those problems only aggravate the basic problem, which is spiritual. Only some fifteen percent of the arable land in the world is used for agriculture, and that for only half of the year. There is no major area of the world that with proper technology is not capable of supporting its own population and more.
Those parts of the world that have no Christian roots invariably place a low value on human life. The poverty in India, for example, may be laid at the feet of Hinduism, the pagan religion that spawned a host of other religions. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica and Eerdman’s Handbook to the World’s Religions, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism come from Hinduism. Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, and Taoism do not.
To the Hindu, man is but the incarnation of a soul on its way to moksha, a kind of “final emancipation,” during which trip he goes through countless, perhaps unending, cycles of reincarnation in both animal and human form. He works his way up to higher forms by good deeds and regresses to lower forms by sinning. Poverty, disease, and starvation are therefore seen as divine punishments for which the persons involved must do penance in order to be born into a higher form. To help a person in poverty or sickness is to interfere with his karma and therefore do him spiritual harm. (For a discussion of moksha, or mokṣa, see Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia, VI, p. 972; for a more general discussion, see Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol. 8, pp. 888–908. Consult, also, Eerdman’s Handbook to World Religions [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982].)
All animals are considered to be incarnations either of men or deities. Cows are held to be especially sacred because they are incarnated deities-of which Hinduism has some 330 million. Cows not only are not to be eaten but add to the food problem by consuming 20 percent of India’s total food supply. Even rats and mice, which eat 15 percent of the food supply, are not killed because they might be one’s reincarnated relatives.
Just as paganism is the great plague of India, Africa, and many other parts of the world, Christianity has been the blessing of the West. Europe and the United States, though never fully Christian in any biblical sense, have been immeasurably blessed because of the Christian influence on political, social, and economic philosophy and policy. The great concerns for human rights, care for the poor, orphanages, hospitals, prison reform, racial and slave reform, and a host of other concerns did not come from paganism or humanism but from biblical Christianity. On the other hand, the current degraded view of human life reflected in the low view of the family and growing legal and social approval of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are the legacy of humanism and practical atheism.
Without a proper view of God there cannot be a proper view of man. Those who have a right view of God and also a right relationship to Him through Jesus Christ are promised the provision of their heavenly Father. “For this reason,” Jesus says, “I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? … For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:25, 32–33).
God has sometimes provided for His children through miraculous means, but His primary way of provision is through work, for which He has given life, energy, resources, and opportunity. His primary way to care for those who cannot work is through the generosity of those who are able to work. Whether he does so directly or indirectly, God is always the source of our physical well-being. He makes the earth to produce what we need, and He gives us the ability to procure it.
The Schedule
The schedule of God’s provision for His children is daily. The meaning here is simply that of regular, day-by-day supply of our needs. We are to rely on the Lord one day at a time. He may give us vision for work He calls us to do in the future, but His provision for our needs is daily, not weekly, monthly, or yearly. To accept the Lord’s provision for the present day, without concern for our needs or welfare tomorrow, is a testimony of our contentment in His goodness and faithfuln