The matter we discuss briefly this Sabbath morning I trust shall not be considered as too far removed from practical application to command your interest. The subject of this discussion was suggested by an episode in the early ministry of our Lord, and the title is taken from the memorable words addressed to His adversary on that occasion.

MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE  Matt. 4:4

It will be recalled that soon after His baptism by John in the waters of Jordan, Jesus retired into the wilderness where He sought communion with His Father. During this period of voluntary seclusion He engaged Himself in prayer and fasting. At the end of forty days, during which His body had been without bread or other physical sustenance, the tempter appeared and challenged Him to exercise His Divine Power to provide food for His famished body  Luke 4:1-4 with these words, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread"  Matt. 4:3

Suffering though He was from extreme physical weakness induced by prolonged hunger, the Master quickly discerned the treachery behind the tempting suggestion and the danger of providing bread on the terms proposed. Knowing that the strategy of the tempter's challenge would mean the provision of physical sustenance alone, to the exclusion of spiritual requirements, Jesus immediately replied, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"  Matt. 4:4

During forty long days he had been constantly aware that not only does the body of man need bread, but that the spirit of man needs God. Even without bread during an extended fast, communion with God sustained the Son of God though He suffered the throes of hunger like unto a son of man.

WORTH OF THE SOUL

Later in His ministry Christ was to remind His disciples that the soul of man was worth more than bread, more even than the wealth of the world. He said to them, "For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"  Matt. 16:26

A man's soul is too exorbitant a price to pay for bread alone, even if the whole world is his loaf.

A man's worldly wealth may determine his social standing which side of the tracks he will live on, which school his children will attend, which golf club he will belong to, the horsepower of his car, and which pew he will occupy in his church; but it is not the sole determining factor as to the fullness of his life. That is determined not by his material possessions, nor by his lack of them, but by his living by the words that proceed out of the mouth of God.

The supreme joy of living cannot be measured by a man's financial rating. It can be measured only by his willingness to accept a divine influence as the controlling force in his life. Neither the millionaire nor the pauper can live by bread alone, but both can live and enjoy living to the fullest degree if they will accept the spiritual influences that sustain the soul of man.

HAPPINESS IN WORD OF GOD

In unfurnished thatch-roofed huts in the South Seas I have witnessed greater peace of mind, more happiness and contentment, enjoyed by simple natives than exists in too many of the luxuriously appointed mansions of the rich.

In the humble native hut man is not existing by bread alone. The words of God play a great part in the program of his living. Each day is commenced by invoking the blessings of heaven upon himself and his family, and at the close of each day prayers of gratitude are offered for blessings received.

His profound knowledge of sacred books, which may be the only literature translated into his native tongue, is his most prized possession. The great value he places upon divinely inspired literature may be appreciated when one hears him say these words about his European brother: "When the white man came to these islands we had the land and he had the Bible. Now after a hundred years he has the land and we have the Bible, and we are still richer than he." His bread gives sustenance to his physical being only. The words of God give life to his soul.

GOLD WITHOUT GOD

On the other hand, in the homes where there is an abundance of the material things that gold will provide and where divine principles are rejected—where man is striving to live by bread alone—there may be an excessive gratification of physical appetites, but there cannot be a fullness of living.

There is deep damnation in the possession of gold without God.

The sorrow, the fear, the frustration and confusion which beset men all about us may be traced to an impulse, which is not restrained, to live by bread alone. Disruption of family ties, moral degeneration, addiction to the use of stimulants and narcotics, dishonesty in dealing with one's fellow men, and all other manner of crimes and vice are the natural concomitants to a bread-alone diet.

If living is not tempered by the divine will, man is not prepared to face unexpected losses of wealth and other forms of adversity. He finds it impossible to step down from living with the Joneses, and his life becomes of so little value that he takes it by his own hand, I need not remind you of the high incidence of suicide which cuts down the lives of men of financial means who thought they could live by bread alone. They simply cannot make the adjustment when the rations are reduced. Neither need I call to your attention the unethical, immoral, illegal and gangster methods which have recently been exposed by investigating committees, as the means whereby men in both high and low places give their souls in exchange for the goods of the world. Even their country's soul is considered not to be too high a price to pay.

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL NEEDS

If the individual cannot live by bread alone, neither can the nation. This great country owes its birth and preservation to men who were guided by spiritual values. The Pilgrim fathers who first set foot upon the rugged shores of New England and the great pioneers who conquered the mountains and deserts from the Atlantic to the Pacific were men of God. They survived the hunger and hardships incident to colonizing and pioneering because they were motivated by a quest for God rather than by a lust for gold.

They penetrated the forests and pushed on to forbidding waste lands with confidence that with the help of God they would live, and that without His help they would perish. They broke the scorched earth, turned the virgin soil, planted their crops and then called upon God to bring forth the harvest. They lived by His words and He provided them with sustenance.

LESSONS OF HISTORY

History records the decline and fall of great nations and empires, both ancient and modern, which have rejected God and denied man the right to live in accordance with His divine will.

The institutions of our own nation, which were founded by men who invoked divine aid, may be lost to future generations if the lessons of history are ignored. If God loses control in the affairs of this great nation, the decline and decay of its structure of freedom and liberty will surely follow. The loss of its soul will be inevitable because ours is a nation which cannot survive on material values alone.

To say that "it can't happen here" is to disregard the destructive forces of evil that are abroad in the land. If credence can be given to recent reports, then never before has the underworld wielded the influence that it does today. Its tentacles are reaching into the vitals of society on every level, into business institutions both large and small, and into both local and federal governments. The complacent attitude of decent people toward these diabolical practices indicates an almost universal rejection of God as the sustaining force in the lives of men.

LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION

At another time in the Nation's history when men were trying to live by bread alone and were forgetting God, Abraham Lincoln issued a timely proclamation which reads as follows:

"And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the holy scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

"And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation of a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

PRESENT SPIRITUAL NEEDS

This proclamation, which was timely in Lincoln's day, is certainly not untimely in our own. How well he himself knew the futility of trying to live by bread alone. Often in his own life, as he was wont to say, "I went to my knees because I had nowhere else to go." In his darkest hours he sought the sustaining influence which comes from God.

Is it out of order to assert that we need that divine influence and regenerating force in this day just as the nation did in Lincoln's time? Are we not passing through times more perilous than the darkest days of the Civil War?

Our nation is spending billions for defense against enemies beyond our borders yet, may I ask, what have we to defend if enemies within our borders are permitted to stalk abroad in the land and destroy our faith in God and induce us to live by bread alone? Is it not time that we all, like Lincoln, go to our knees and ask God to implement our armaments with His power and to give us the will to stem the tide which is carrying men to Caesar and turning them from God?

ORIGIN OF AMERICAN SYSTEM

An editor of Fortune Magazine, writing in the issue of January, 1940, had this to say, and I quote only in part:

"By no conceivable set of circumstances could materialism have produced the great 'solution' of the Eighteenth Century that we have come to know as the American System. The American System has its origin, on the one hand, in passionate religious sects who believed in the spiritual absolutes that today are lacking; and on the other hand in those rationalists of the Golden Age of the American colonies for whom reason was not merely mechanistic but divine. Similarly, by no conceivable set of circumstances, will it be possible to solve by materialism the titanic problems, domestic and international, with which humanity is faced today. The ultimate answers to the questions that humanity raises are not, and never have been, in the flesh."

In seeking a solution to our present difficulties, he concludes:

"The way out is the sound of a voice, not our voice, but a voice coming from something not ourselves, in the existence of which we cannot disbelieve. . . Without it we are no more capable of saving the world than we were capable of creating it in the first place."

THE WORD OF GOD

If man in his seeking for the word of God does not find it, it is not because God has withdrawn from man, but because man has withdrawn from God. I bear testimony that he has not left us without direction. Both in times of old and in our generation His voice has declared the way. To survive the ills that beset us on every hand let us lift up our eyes and lend listening ears to Him who said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"  Matt. 4:4