Verse 5
Our Lord Jesus Christ, being about to work a miracle of omnipotent grace, first bids His disciples to count over their own little stores, to see what they have towards it; what they have, however trifling in amount, of the same kind and sort with the thing wanted; they producing that, He will do the rest; nay, He will do all, inasmuch as all that they can bring is absolutely valueless and of nought for the object. "How many loaves have ye?" is His preliminary question in everything. When the seven loaves are brought to Him, then and then only does He begin to work. The applications of this truth are many and various.
I. We see it in Inspiration. God condescended to use human infirmity as the vehicle of our enlightening, leaving it infirm, leaving it human, where it matters not that we should know, but strengthening it out of weakness and lifting it above earth wheresoever He willed that it should know the thing that is, inasmuch as it had in it the thing which we must do or the thing which we must be. "How many loaves have ye?" Then, using these, Christ will multiply and bless. Bring forth all your gifts, such as they are, of understanding and culture and knowledge and utterance, bring them forth; and then Christ, taking them at your hands, shall give them back to you blessed and blessing, to be to generations yet unborn the light of their life and the consolation of their sleep and of their awakening.
II. That which is true of the Book is true also of the life. "How many loaves have ye?" Christ puts that question, day by day, to each one of us. There be many that say, I have no work for Christ and no mission. Mine is no lofty station; mine is no large sphere; mine is no eloquent tongue or popular manner or telling influence. Let me live out my little day, and go back to the ground from which I was taken. Gravely, sorrowfully, yet earnestly and gently too, does Christ address Himself to you today, saying, Think yet once more how many loaves have ye? Nothing? Not a soul? Not a body? Not time? Not one friend or neighbour to whom a kind word may be spoken, or a kind deed done, in the name, for the love, of Jesus? Bring that do that, say that as what thou hast; very small, very trivial, very worthless, if thou wilt; yet remember the saying, "She hath done what she could."
C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons, p. 166.
Be the first to react on this!
