It is an expression of His love for us, and of His care for us, that He provides us with the spiritual food we need. The Bible is given by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Spirit, as food for the soul. It is a part of His nourishing of us And all the ministry of the church, as chapter 4 reminds us, is designed for the same end. In other words, there is no excuse for the church when she is ignorant or under-developed or weak, or marasmic. There is likewise no cxcuse for any individual Christian. The Lord Himself is nourishing us.
Peter, in his Second Epistle, tells us that 'All things that are needful or necessary for life and godliness have been provided'. That is what makes the position of the complaining Christian such a serious one. We shall never be able to plead the excuse that there was not sufficient food because we were in a wilderness. The food is available, the 'heavenly manna' is provided; everything one can ever need is here in the Bible. Here is nourishment, concentrated, unadulterated, as Peter again puts it in his First Epistle in the 2nd chapter: "The sincere (unadulterated) milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby. The Lord has provided it. This is a wonderful thing for us to contemplate– that the Lord is nourishing the church. The husband in his care for his wife works to provide food and all that she needs. Parents take care that their children have the right food, and plenty of it, and at the right time. What concern they show in that respect! The Lord is doing that for us in an infinitely greater way.
How are we responding to it? Do we realize that He is nourishing us ? A part of His care is to provide acts of public worship. Public worship is not a human institution, a contrivance of man. It is not something that is run like an institution; and people do not come to the house of God - at least they should not – as a matter of duty. They should come because they realize that they cannot grow if they do not come. They come to be fed, to find food for the soul –'nourishment'. The Lord has provided it. God knows, I do not enter the pulpit because I just choose to do so. If it were not for the call of the Lord I would not be doing it. All I did was to resist that call. It is His way. He calls men, He separates them, He gives them the message, and the Spirit is present to give illumination. All this is a part of our Lord's way of nourishing the church.