Christ's Preventive Ministry

I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. — Matt. xv. 32.

These words supply an illustration of what may be called the Freventive Ministry of Christ: not only does the Saviour deliver us from actual suffering, He guards us also fvom. possible danger. Thus He saved this great multitude from fainting: He did not wait until the people really did faint and then glorify Himself by an ostentatious display of restoring energy; He anticipated the possibility and so showed another aspect of His universal and benign power.

I. This peeventive ministry was originated by Christ Himself. The disciples had not suggested it, nor had the multitude desired it. This blessed and all blessing love sprang spontaneously in the heart of the Redeemer. Changing the figure,, it was a primary ray, not a secondary light. The action was in its impulse as independent as the sun, and in its operation as condescending as the morning: we did not light the brilliant flame, yet its brightness smiles familiarly through our windows, plays laughingly on every tender leaf, and turns the stream and the sea into spangles of silver. It is even so with Christ: He combines a solemn independence with a gracious familiarity, — the loneliness of the sun with the friendliness of light. The thought was His. It did not come from the friction of mind with mind. It was all Christ’s. What then? First, J5e must have been thinhing about the people; Second, He must have been thinking about the people in those aspects which would seem to he farthest removed from Sis mission amongst men. Did He not come to reveal God, to teach truih, and to show the way to higher worlds? Yes. Yet He stooped to save men from bodily faintness! He did not say,” The sooner these people die, the sooner they will go to heaven:’’ He cared for their bodies as if their bodies were to live for ever..

II. This preventive ministey was begun by Cheist

WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MULTITUDE. He did

not address the crowd, He addressed the disciples. The four thousand men were not aware that the

CHRIST S PREVENTIVE MINISTRY. n

Saviour was planning sometMng for their advantage on the way home. Is He not ever working for us in ways that we know not? We know the great fact of His mediation but what do we know of the subtle variations of that great fact? its loving devices, its little aside plans, its collateral and incidental service? We do not know all that summer does, how can we know all the doings of God,? We know that summer brings light and heat and beauty; but what of the drooping hopes which it cheers, the lonely lives which it gladdens, the anxious hearts which it soothes, and the innumerable little ministries which it exercises in unexpected ways? So with God. We do not know the evils from which he saves us by prevention. The railway accidentia reported: the shipwrecJc is published: the explosion is recorded in every journal: but what of the accidents, the shipwrecks, the explosions the collisions, the disasters of all kinds by night and by day, which are prevented? Is not every respiration a narrow escape from death? Is not the heart surrounded by deadly dangers in every beat? All this is unknown to us, but is not the less surely under the gracious control of the Redeemer. In this view of the Saviour’s ministry we see a new occasion for incessant and loving praise.

III. This preventive ministry was the form in WHICH Christ expeessed His compassion. ‘^I have compassion on the multitude.^^ He did not say lie wished to perform a miracle. Had the bread been equal to his compassion, no miracle would have been wrought; but compassion will move into the region of the miraculous rather than be thwarted in its gracious purpose. It has no particular wish to do the miraculous but it will do it if needful. It is so amongst ourselves. The mother’s love does miracles every day. When we yield ourselves to the best impulses of our hearts,, we surprise ourselves by our energy, our un-> selfishness, and spirituality.

Look at all human enjoyments through the medium of this suggestion. Jesus says, “I have compassion upon the multitudes,” — so I call them nightly to rest and oblivion; ‘^1. have compassion upon the multitudes,’^ — so I send the sun to make the earth fruitful for them, lest they faint by the way -, ^’ I have compassion on the multitudes,” — so I bid all nature work with them and for them, that they may have enough and to spare. Thus it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.^^

The subject gives us a point or two of urgent application. First: If Christ has given us all we have, what do tue owe in return? Second: if Christ’s ministry is preventive as well as redemptive, why not surrender ourselves fully to His care? Third: if Christ would do so much for the body, is it not like Him that He should do infinitely more for the spirit? All miracles dwindle into nothingness in presence of the miracle of the Cross!

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