Does God Promise We Will Be Fed and Clothed?
00:00:00.000 | Especially given the age that we live in and in watching our brothers and sisters in the Middle East suffer at the hands of ISIS
00:00:06.460 | being driven from their homes and from their towns. This is a particularly relevant question from Kevin in California.
00:00:13.020 | Dear Pastor John, in Matthew 6 we read, "What shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?
00:00:19.800 | For the pagans run after these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
00:00:24.420 | But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."
00:00:30.100 | So if this is true, why are there still millions of people starving to death in our world?
00:00:35.680 | Some Christians are starving to death in certain countries, even though they seek first the kingdom.
00:00:39.900 | So how do we make sense of this promise, Pastor John?
00:00:43.380 | It is so crucial for Christians, especially Christian teachers and preachers, to take
00:00:49.660 | questions like this with utter seriousness.
00:00:52.460 | So often we use promises in the Bible which on the face of it seem
00:00:59.100 | unrealistic and yet we don't pause to give some plausible
00:01:03.660 | explanation of how those promises
00:01:06.440 | are to be used,
00:01:08.820 | realistically used. So we need a heavy dose of realism
00:01:13.700 | whenever we embrace promises like this. So let's get it in front of us. Matthew 6,
00:01:20.720 | 25 to 34, that glorious paragraph.
00:01:25.220 | Jesus' aim there is to give eight arguments, at least eight that I count, for why God's children
00:01:31.900 | don't need to have any anxiety.
00:01:34.180 | And the summary and climax of the arguments is in verse 33 that he quotes,
00:01:40.820 | "But seek first the kingdom of God and
00:01:44.300 | His righteousness and all these things will be added to you." And the "all these things"
00:01:51.420 | clearly is referring back to
00:01:54.620 | what are you gonna eat? What are you gonna drink?
00:01:56.780 | What are you gonna wear? And he's saying don't be anxious about any of those things.
00:02:00.780 | And now he ends by saying you're gonna have all of those that you need. So Kevin raises the question rightly, "Well,
00:02:07.820 | do Christians ever perish from exposure or starvation?
00:02:14.260 | Is Jesus promising that his followers who have faith will never lack food, never lack clothing?"
00:02:21.980 | That's what it sounds like.
00:02:23.900 | Now, several things should give us pause
00:02:26.980 | before we think that Jesus is naive or
00:02:31.140 | simplistic or false in this verse.
00:02:35.460 | Consider three other passages and let them really sink in. This is a reality check, not from
00:02:43.020 | experience over against Jesus. That's a bad way to do exegesis, but
00:02:48.940 | Bible and Jesus' words in particular over against Jesus
00:02:53.980 | clarifying what he means here. So for example, Luke 21
00:02:59.220 | 16 to 18. Jesus says, "You will be delivered up."
00:03:03.260 | He's talking to these people who don't need to be anxious about anything because every need will be met.
00:03:07.700 | "You will be delivered up by parents and brothers and relatives and friends and some of you they will put to death.
00:03:15.820 | You will be hated by all for my name's sake,
00:03:18.900 | but not a hair of your head will perish."
00:03:23.540 | So Jesus promises that some of his anxiety-free people
00:03:29.820 | will be put to death. Now, these are people who in Matthew 6 33
00:03:34.700 | have believed, trusting, "All the things will be given me that I need and they're gonna be killed."
00:03:41.420 | And it doesn't say how they're going to be put to death.
00:03:45.100 | Starved to death in prison? Killed by chaining them outside in below freezing weather with no clothes? It doesn't say.
00:03:52.300 | Persecution has assumed every imaginable form in the history of the church. And then he says, "Not a hair of your head will perish."
00:04:01.420 | Surely that promise is just as sweeping as, "All things will be added to you."
00:04:09.100 | Like,
00:04:10.860 | "Not only will they be added to you, not one hair is going to be hurt." And he says that
00:04:15.420 | what, 10 words after saying they're going to kill you. Killed, but no harm done.
00:04:20.220 | No ultimate harm done.
00:04:23.020 | Now that should give us pause.
00:04:25.740 | If Jesus can say, "Not a hair of your head is going to perish," right after he says they're going to kill you,
00:04:30.700 | we better be slow
00:04:32.620 | to say that all your needs are going to be met. Means you can't die of hunger. That's number one.
00:04:39.160 | Philippians chapter 4,
00:04:41.160 | 11 and 19. Here's Paul.
00:04:43.160 | "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low,
00:04:47.640 | and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I've learned the secret of facing plenty and
00:04:54.840 | hunger,
00:04:56.820 | abundance, and need. I can do all things to him who strengthens me. All things, including hunger."
00:05:02.920 | Verse 19, "And my God
00:05:05.960 | will supply
00:05:07.960 | every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." So verse 19 is very similar to Matthew 6,
00:05:15.640 | 33. One says, "All these things will be added to you," and the other says, "Every need you have will be met."
00:05:21.800 | And yet Paul has just said, "I know how to be brought low.
00:05:25.480 | I know how to face hunger." In other words, God's promise to meet every need
00:05:31.400 | does not mean providing all the food and clothing we think we need.
00:05:38.360 | One more text.
00:05:39.800 | Romans 8, 32 to 37.
00:05:41.800 | "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all,
00:05:46.120 | will he not with him freely give us all things
00:05:51.960 | with him?"
00:05:53.720 | Now that's the same as Matthew 6, 33. "All things." He's going to give you all things.
00:05:59.160 | What you eat, what you wear, what you drink. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
00:06:05.240 | Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or," here they are, "famine or
00:06:10.280 | nakedness,
00:06:12.680 | danger, sword, as it is written, 'For your sake we're being killed all day long, starved to death, put out in exposure.
00:06:20.220 | We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.'" No!
00:06:23.080 | In all these things, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. So
00:06:28.680 | Paul virtually says
00:06:31.480 | that some Christians will die of distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword,
00:06:36.520 | and
00:06:38.120 | what does he mean?
00:06:39.720 | God will give us all things.
00:06:41.720 | Now, here's my answer to that question.
00:06:43.960 | When I put all this together,
00:06:46.520 | Jesus' words and Paul's two texts, when I put all this together, I think the meaning of Matthew 6, 33 and Romans 8, 32,
00:06:53.740 | and other promises like this, and there are a lot of them, I think it means
00:06:58.980 | everything will be given to us that we need
00:07:02.580 | in order to do God's will,
00:07:05.700 | in order to glorify God most fully,
00:07:09.140 | even if it means
00:07:11.860 | death.
00:07:13.220 | Jesus isn't promising
00:07:15.220 | all the food, all the clothing, all the housing, all the health care, all the protection that we need to be
00:07:22.100 | comfortable or even to stay alive. He says we're going to die in his service. He's promising
00:07:29.140 | that we will have every single one of those things in exactly the right measure for doing
00:07:35.860 | his will and glorifying his name, even if it means perishing from exposure or starvation in the path of obedience.
00:07:43.960 | That is a sobering word. Thank you, Pastor John, for the question. Thank you, Kevin.
00:07:48.900 | The week has now come to an end, and we're going to break for the weekend now. On Monday,
00:07:53.140 | we address another difficult question from a listener in Arizona who wants to know, based on what he sees in 1 Thessalonians
00:07:58.660 | 5 19,
00:08:00.420 | what does it mean to not quench the Holy Spirit, and how do we quench the Holy Spirit in our lives?
00:08:06.660 | How do we know if we're doing that?
00:08:08.660 | That is on Monday. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a great weekend.
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