man are great; but the demands of a hungry soul are greater still; until that soul has the love and mercy of God revealed to it, it will always hunger and always thirst; though it had worlds given to it for mouthfuls, its hungry stomach would be still unsatisfied, for nothing except the Trinity can fill the heart of man; nothing except an assurance of the everlasting, immutable love of God, and an application of the most precious blood of Jesus, can ever satisfy the terrible hunger of the sinner’s soul.
7. Note, again: what these people needed was an essential thing. They did not lack clothes, that would have been a need, but nothing like the lack of bread; for a man might exist with only scanty covering. They did not need luxuries, — these they might want, and our pity would not be so much excited; they did not need tents, — without these they might be able to satisfy the cravings of nature; but they lacked bread — that without the fire of life would dwindle to a spark, which at last must die out in the darkness of death. “Bread! bread!” what a cry is that, when men gather together, and in the days of scarcity make that their war cry. “Bread! bread!” what is a more dreadful sound than that? “Fire! fire!” may be more alarming, but “Bread! bread!” is more piercing to the heart. The cry of “Fire!” rolls like thunder; but the cry of “Bread!” flashes like lightning, and withers one’s soul. Oh that men should cry for bread, — the absolute necessity for the sustenance of the body! But what is the sinner’s need? Is it not exactly this? — he needs that without which the soul must perish. Oh! sinner, if it would be health, if it would be wealth, if it would be comfort, which you were seeking, then you might sit down content, and say, “I can do without these”; but in this matter it is your soul, your never dying soul, that is hungering, and it is its salvation, its rescue from the flames of hell, which now demands your attention. Oh! what a need is that, — the need of the soul’s salvation! We talk about bread and about skeleton bodies? These are frightful things to look upon; but when we speak of a lack of bread, and of dying, perishing souls, there is something more frightful here. See, then, your case, you who are without the grace of God; you have great necessity, — necessity for essential things.
8. Yet again; the necessity of the sons of Jacob was a total one. They had no bread; there was none to be procured. As long as they had some of their own, they could stint themselves, and diminish their rations, and so, by moderation, maintain themselves. But they looked into the future, and saw their children dying with hunger, and not one crust with which to palliate their pangs. They saw their wives sickening before them, and their babes at their breasts, unable to obtain nourishment from those dry fountains. They saw themselves at length, solitary, miserable men, with their hands on their loins, bundles of bones, crawling about the tents where their children lay dead, and themselves without strength enough to bury them. They had a total lack of bread. They might have borne with scarcity: but a total lack of bread was horrible in the extreme. Such is the sinner’s case. It is not that he has a little grace, and lacks more; but he has none at all. By himself he has no grace. It is not that he has a little goodness, and needs to be made better, but he has no goodness at all, no merits, no righteousness — nothing to bring to God, nothing to offer for his acceptance; he is penniless, poverty stricken; everything is gone upon which his soul might feed. He may gnaw the dry bones of his own good works; but if the Lord has sent conviction into his heart, he will gnaw them in vain; he may try to break the bones of ceremonies, but he shall find that instead of marrow they contain gall and bitterness. He may hunger and hunger, because he has positively nothing with which he could fill his stomach. Such is your case, then. How abject is such a necessity as this: a total lack of an essential thing for which you have an immense need.
9. But yet worse: with the exception of Egypt, the sons of Jacob were convinced that there was no food anywhere. I believe the reason why they looked one at one another was this. At first one looked at the other as much as to say, “Have you not some to spare? Could you not give me some for my family?” Perhaps Dan appealed to Simeon, “Have you not some? my child is starving this day; can you not help me?” Another might look at Judah; and perhaps they might imagine that Benjamin the favourite would surely have some morsel stored up. So they looked at one another. But soon alas! the look of hope changed into the look of despair. They were quite certain that the necessities of each house had been so great, that no one could help the other. They had all come to poverty; and how can beggars help each other, when all are penniless? And then they began to look upon one another in despair. In speechless silence they resigned themselves to the woe which threatened to overwhelm them. Such is the sinner’s condition, when first he begins to feel a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, he looks to others. He thinks, “Surely the minister can help me; the priest may assist me.” “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.” But after awhile he discovers that the state of all men is the same, that all are without grace, that “no one can save his brother, or give to God a ransom for him.” And apart from Christ we, my dear friends, this morning might look at one another, aghast and in despair — might search the whole wide world over, and say “Where is salvation to be found!” Oh! if it lay in the very centre of the earth, we could dig through the rocks and into the very bowels of the earth to find it. If it would be in heaven, we would seek to scale it with some Babel tower, that we might reach the boon. If we had to walk through fire to gain it, we would gladly accept the burning pilgrimage. Or if we had to walk through the depths of the sea, we should be content to let all its billows roll over us, if we might find it. But if every man had to say to his companion, “There is no hope for us; we have all been condemned, we have all been guilty, we can do nothing to appease the Most High”; what a wretched world would be ours, if we were equally convicted of sin, and equally convinced that there was no hope for mercy! This, then, was the condition of Jacob’s sons temporally, and it is our condition by nature spiritually. We are in a land of famine; we have nothing of our own; we are hungering, we are dying of hunger, and our case seems totally hopeless; for on earth there is nothing to be found to satisfy the ravaging hunger of the soul.
10. II. Now we come, in the second place, to the GOOD NEWS. Jacob had faith, and the ears of faith are always quiet; faith can hear the tread of mercy, though the footfall is as light as that of the angel among the flowers. Though mercy should be a thousand leagues away, and its journey would occupy ten thousand years, yet faith could hear its footsteps, for it is quick of ear and quick of eye. Indeed, if God should give a promise which should never be fulfilled until the old rolling skies were dissolved, faith would look through all the generations, along the vista of the centuries, and see the spirit of promise afar off, and rejoice in it. Jacob had the ears of faith. He had been at prayer, undoubtedly, asking God to deliver his family in the time of famine; and by and by he is the first in his household to hear that there is grain in Egypt. Do you see the gathering? The venerable patriarch sits in the tent; his sons come to pay him their morning obeisance; there is despair in their faces; they bring their little children with them. All that the patriarch has he gives; but this morning he adds good news to his benediction, he says to them, “There is grain in Egypt.” Can you conceive how their hearts leaped? He scarcely needs to add, “Go down there, and buy for us from there; that we may live and not die.” Jacob heard the good news, and communicated it as speedily as possible to his descendants.
11. Now, we also have heard the good news. Good news has been sent to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. “There is grain in Egypt.” We need not die. There is salvation with God. We need not perish — there is mercy in the Most High. We do not need to think that we must necessarily be lost; there is a way of salvation; there is a hope of escape — do we not receive the tidings in joy? Do not our hearts rejoice within us at the thought that we are not hopelessly condemned, but that the Lord may yet have mercy upon us? Now, we have better news than even Jacob had; although the news is similar, understanding it in a spiritual sense.
12. First, we are told today by sure and certain witnesses, that there is grain in Egypt, there is mercy in God. Jacob’s messenger might have deceived him — idle tales are told everywhere, and in days of famine men are very apt to tell a falsehood, thinking that to be true which they wish would be so. The hungry man is apt to hope that there may be grain somewhere; and then he thinks there is; and then he says there is; and then, what begins with a wish comes to be a rumour and a report. But this day, my friends, it is