," has also said, "Be ambitious to be quiet and to do your own
business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; that ye
may walk honestly toward them that are without, and may have need of
nothing." (1 Thess., iv., 11, 12; R.V.)

How often the _flesh_ has led men to read (Phil, iv., 19): "My God shall
supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus,"
in a spirit entirely opposed to this exhortation. They have ceased to
labor with their hands, and, without warrant in the providences of God
and the judgment of brethren, have turned from doing their own business,
expecting the Lord to pay their debts and provide for their necessities.
The quotations of Scripture made by our Lord to Satan, "Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord, thy God," is surely applicable in all such cases. The
spirit of a "sound mind" (see 2 Tim. i., 7) will surely recognize this.

So in _all_ things, that which God has given me intelligence and power
to do, in avoiding evil or securing good, I am under direct command from
him to do, always depending upon His blessing to secure the needed
result. A _true faith_ in God will be made manifest by careful obedience
to known commands. An _intelligent_ faith can never allow dependence
upon means used to take the place of dependence upon the living God, who
alone makes them efficacious.

It must result in _presumptions_ faith, if obedience is neglected, and
the results only promised to obedience are expected. That God _can_ give
blessing, without the use of the ordinary means, on man's part, there is
no question. That he _has_ done so is a matter of record. Yet we should
remember that there were but _two_ miraculous draughts of fishes, and
_only twice_ did our Lord make bread without the use of seed-time,
harvest, grinding and baking. The _rule_ of Christ in his earthly
ministry was, most certainly, to receive the supply of his physical
wants from His Heavenly Father, in the use of means to secure the
results offered in the ordinary operation of the laws of God. He went
into the corn-field at autumn and visited the olive tree for sustenance
as did other men. And the question for his disciples is not what God
_can_ do, and not what he _has_ done (that he may be known as God over
all creation, blessed for evermore) in the suspension of natural laws,
but what has he revealed to us as his will during the time of the
present dispensation of the church on this earth, as to his children