The Signs of the Times, vol. 23

April 1, 1897

“The Knowledge of Want” The Signs of the Times, 23, 13.

E. J. Waggoner

The Word says, “There is no want to them that fear Him.” That is because that when we know the Lord, we no sooner have a knowledge of want than the want is supplied. The revelation or sense of want comes from him. So when we feel the want in our soul, it is God’s way of saying he has that thing to give us. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.1

You want righteousness, do you? That is, you feel the lack of it. How did you find out that you wanted it? who told you your need?—The Lord let you know that want. How did he make you know it?—Simply by the revelation of the thing which will supply the want. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.2

If we were to go into the wilds of Africa, out of the tract of civilization entirely, where the people know absolutely nothing of the conveniences of modern life, should we find the people begging for watches, for instance?—Of course not; they would know nothing about such things. But in our cities a boy doesn’t get very old before he wants a watch. The knowledge of that thing, and the possibility of it, create the want. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.3

Why is it that you want righteousness?—It is only because the Lord has revealed righteousness to you, the knowledge of right; for there can be no knowledge of wrong without the corresponding knowledge of right. We know a thing is wrong because it is contrary to the right. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.4

In every heart there are desires, greater or less, for a better life. We do not know how many discouraged souls there are longing to be delivered from the degradation into which they have fallen. They do not know how to get deliverance; and the reason is that they do not know love. They have not learned that God is love, and they have not seen God’s love manifested in those with whom they have associated, and so they do not know how to have their longings supplied. But every desire of the human heart for anything better, every longing for righteousness, has been created by the Lord, and created in order that the soul might hold to him for the supply of the want. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.5

Whenever we want to be better than we are, the very moment that want comes, it is the plain language of God to us, saying, “Here is something that you lack; take it.” This is why there is no want to them that fear God; for every want is supplied in the very knowledge of it, if we but know it. In Christ there is everything, even the fullness of God. He is the “Desire of all nations,” and in him is all that men can desire. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.6

Illegitimate Desire

Men may, it is true, desire many things that are not in Christ. But we can all testify from our own experience that the receiving of those things did not satisfy the desire. There was still a want there. Then that was not the real thing that we wanted, after all. We thought it would satisfy us, but a trial of it showed that there was no satisfaction in it. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.7

It is as if we should sit at a table, hungry, and should try first one thing and then another, without finding the hunger satisfied. At last we find just the thing which the taste seemed to be calling for and which satisfied. There are longings as of the intemperate man for drink. He drinks; but he is not satisfied. The more he drinks, the more the longing is cultivated. There is this and that pleasure that men desire and indulge in, which do not satisfy. The Lord says, “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Isaiah 55:2. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.8

There is not a longing in man that is not, unconsciously to himself it may be, really a drawing out after God, and for something which God can supply. So David says, “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.” Psalm 84:2. The nature of the flesh is sinful, and always sinful. But all this longing of the flesh is dissatisfaction. There is only one thing that can satisfy, and that is God. He is the Desire of all nations, and he satisfies “the desire of every living thing.” SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.9

If you really do want to be better, if you want God’s righteousness, just stop and thank him that he has given it to you. “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.” E. J. W. SITI April 1, 1897, page 195.10