GOD’S GIFTS TO MEN
‘[God] left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.’
Acts 14:17
These words come from one of St. Paul’s sermons. He was preaching to heathens, who, until then, had never heard of the true God. He was telling them that though they had never heard of God, yet they might have known what God was like because of the good things which were sent to them from God.
What good things does St. Paul tell them of?
I. God’s gifts to men.—The rain from heaven, the fruitful seasons, these are what he mentions. The rain and the harvest, the food which these things bring, and the gladness of heart which men feel when they have all their wants supplied: these things, says St. Paul, are God’s gifts to men, and from them men might have known, if they had cared to think, that God was good, and took a delight in making people happy. But the verse tells us more than this. It is not only that it is God that gives them, but that God intends us to take them as examples of His goodness. He intends us to see from these gifts how good He is, so that if a man had never heard anything about God, he might say, ‘I am sure there is a God, I am sure He is a good God, and I am sure that He takes care of me, for all the good things of life are His gift to me, the rain, and the fruitful seasons, and the food and gladness of my life.’
II. If they are God’s gift, we should acknowledge them to be so.—It is a rule in the Christian life that whatever we believe in our heart, we should confess with our month, and act on in our conduct. So the question is, How are we to acknowledge the gifts of Nature to be God’s bounty? The answer is twofold:—
( a) We must thank God for them, and
( b) We must also ask God for them. In every harvest thanksgiving we do confess with the mouth, and publicly act on the belief that it is God Who of His great goodness has given us the rain and the fruitful season, and filled our hearts with food and gladness. This part of the duty we do now, in most places, perform with some degree of care. We must ask for God’s gifts as well as thank Him for them; and I fancy that, in the case of the good gifts of Nature, this has been even less thought of than the thanksgiving. And yet God says to us through His Apostles—‘in everything, let your requests be made known unto God.’
III. This is what Rogation Days mean.—Rogation is only another word for praying or making petitions. And the particular petitions for which the Rogation Days were set apart were those for a fruitful season and a sufficient harvest. God has promised that, while the world lasts, ‘seed-time and harvest shall not fail.’ And God also intends that every seed-time and every harvest shall put us in mind of Him, and lead us to acknowledge His power and His goodness. It does us good to be reminded of Him. Ask yourselves when do you lead the best lives? When are your life, and mind, and thoughts and words, the best? Is it not when you remember God? And when does your conscience tell you that you have the most to be ashamed of? that you have lived the worst and fallen into sin the most? Is it not when you have got into the way of forgetting God, of thinking of Him only now and then, or not at all, of saying your prayers as a mere form, and then giving yourself up wholly to the affairs of this world? You know this, and God knows it too. And, therefore, God sends us reminders of Himself; things which will make us think of Him, speak to Him, remember Him.
Illustrations
(1) ‘Unless the harvest festival be accompanied by some real self-denial, it is apt to be somewhat unreal. A harvest festival is a pleasant thing. There may be a good deal of merely worldly excitement about it. It is pleasant to attend a bright, cheerful service in a gaily decorated church. It is at a time of year, too, when people are at leisure. All this is otherwise at Rogation time. To come to church and make prayers to God that His rain may be given in due season, and that the harvest which is to make food plentiful for the toiling millions of the poor, to whom a little more or a little less in the price of bread makes all the difference between health and something like starvation—this must be genuine. There is no self-deception here, It is sure to be true and sincere. This is sure to be a real acknowledgment of God’s power and God’s goodness, and God knows this, and this is why God looks for it. A harvest thanksgiving may be in some measure outside show. The Rogation prayer time is sure to be real and genuine.’
(2) ‘No one can read this speech of St. Paul without once more perceiving its subtle and inimitable coincidence with his thoughts and expressions. The rhythmic conclusion is not unaccordant with the style of his most elevated moods; and beside the appropriate appeal to God’s natural gifts in a town not in itself unhappily situated, but surrounded by a waterless and treeless plain, we may naturally suppose that the “filling our hearts with food and gladness “was suggested by the garlands and festive pomp which accompanied the bulls on which the people would afterwards have made their common banquet. Nor do I think it impossible that the words may be an echo of lyric songs sung as the procession made its way to the gates. To use them in a truer and loftier connection would be in exact accord with the happy power of seizing an argument which St. Paul showed when he turned into the text of his sermon at Athens the vague inscription to the unknown God.’

TRIAL, A HELP HEAVENWARD
‘That we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’
Acts 14:22
There are few things in the spiritual history of the child of God more really helpful heavenward than sanctified trial. He treads no path in which he finds aids more favourable to advancement in the Divine life, circumstances which more contribute to the development and completeness of Christian character—the teaching, the quickening, the purifying—than the path of hallowed sorrow—sorrow which a covenant God has sent, which grace sanctifies, and which knits the heart to Christ.
I. Trial is a time of spiritual instruction, and so a help heavenward. It is not blindly, but intelligently, that we walk in the ways of the Lord, and are travelling home to God. Great stress is laid by the Holy Ghost in the writings of the Apostle upon the believer’s advance in spiritual knowledge. St. Paul ‘counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.’ Now the school of trial is the school of spiritual knowledge.
( a) We grow in a knowledge of ourselves, learning more of our superficial attainments, shallow experience and limited grace. We learn, too, more of our weakness, emptiness, and vileness, the ploughshare of trial penetrating deep into the heart, and throwing up its veiled iniquity.
( b) Trial, too, increases our acquaintance with Christ. We know more of the Lord Jesus through one sanctified affliction than by all the treatises the human pen ever wrote. Christ is only savingly known as He is known personally and experimentally. Books cannot teach Him, sermons cannot teach Him, lectures cannot teach Him; they may aid our information and correct our views, but to know Him as He is, and as we ought, we must have personal dealings with Him.
II. Trial quickens us in prayer, and so effectually helps us heavenward. God often sends affliction for the accomplishment of this one end—that we might be stirred up to take hold of Him. To whom in sorrow do we turn, to whom in difficulty do we repair, to whom in want do we fly but to the Lord? If in prosperity we have ‘grown fat and kicked,’ if when the sun has shone upon us we have walked independently and proudly and distantly, now that affliction has overtaken us we are humbled and prostrate at His feet; retrace our steps, return to God, and find a new impulse given to, and a new power and meetness and soothing in, communion with God.
III. Trials are necessary to wean us from the world.—Perhaps nothing possesses so detaching, divorcing an effect in the experience of the Christian as affliction. The world is a great snare to the child of God. Its rank is a snare, its possessions are a snare, its honours are a snare, its enterprises are a snare, the very duties and engagements of daily life are a snare, to a soul whose citizenship is in heaven. When the heart is chastened and subdued by sorrow, when the soul is smitten and humbled by adversity, when death bereaves, or sickness invades, or resources narrow, or calamity in one of its many crushing forms lights heavily upon us, how solemn, earnest, and distinct is the voice of our ascended Redeemer, ‘If ye be risen with Me, seek those things which are above, where I sit at the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. I am your Treasure, your Portion, your All.’
IV. The moral purity of heart which chastened trial produces must have a distinct and prominent place in this enumeration of helps heavenward. Holiness, as it is an essential element of heaven, becomes an essential element in our spiritual meetness for its enjoyment. To this end let us welcome God’s purifying agent—sanctified trial. When He causes us to walk in the midst of trouble, let us be submissive, humble, obedient. Resignation to the Divine will secures the end God intends to accomplish—our personal and deeper holiness.
—Rev. Dr. Octavius Winslow.
Illustration
‘Jesus,’ tis my aim divine,
Hence to have no will but Thine;
Let me covenant with Thee,
Thine for evermore to be:
This my prayer, and this alone,
Saviour, let Thy will be done!
Thee to love, to live to Thee,
This my daily portion be;
Nothing to my Lord I give,
But from Him I first receive:
Lord, for me Thy blood was spilt,
Lead me, guide me, as Thou wilt.
All that is opposed to Thee,
Howsoever dear it be,
From my heart the idol tear,
Thou shalt have no rival there;
Only Thou shalt fill the throne:
Saviour, let Thy will be done.
Wilt Thou, Lord, in me fulfil
All the pleasure of Thy will;
Thine in life, and Thine in death,
Thine in every fleeting breath,
Thou my hope and joy alone:
Saviour, let Thy will be done.’