From the Midst of Heaven

They are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance.... I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.
PSALM 37:19, 25
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From the Midst of Heaven
[The righteous] may hunger indeed, but he will not die of hunger; for hunger exercises his faith in the Word, but then faith gains food also for the body. Therefore the splendid word of Moses stands: that God deals with His own by testing them with hunger and exercising them in His Word, and then feeds the believer from the midst of heaven if it cannot be done otherwise. Thus they are to learn by experience that they should not be concerned for their belly, and that life does not lie in the things we possess or in bread but in the Word by which we become rich toward God, as the Gospel says (Luke 12:15). For while we live by the Word in the heart, we force God, as it were, to feed the belly too. . .. To understand these and similar wonderful and faithful promises of God is truly to understand the promise of the First Commandment, in which He says: "I am the Lord your God." "Yours, yours," He says, "who will show and display Myself to you as God and will not forsake you, if only you believe this." All such promises depend on and flow from the First Commandment.

From Lectures on Deuteronomy (Luther's Works 9:94)
May 18
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