The following was written in 1912 by a former distinguished judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, while he was a passenger on the Steamship Carpathia. That famous voyage was interrupted by the distress call of the Titanic and the need to turn off course to take on survivors from the ship they said God, Himself, could not sink.
“Nourished up in the words of faith, and of good doctrine" (I Timothy 4:6)
"May we learn it is a very serious matter to slight the Word of God. To do so is to neglect the appropriate spiritual food which God, in His goodness, has supplied, in order that we might be strengthened and nourished to bear the trials of the way. Disinclination to feed on the Word is a common complaint among Christians, particularly among such as have fellowship with the mixed multitude of Christendom, who have no taste at all for the bread of life. Let us take careful note of this, and not permit either the habits of our neighbors or the pressures of things about us, to divert us from the daily, deliberate, meditative reading of the Word of God. Regular attention to this important matter will go far towards fitting us to overcome the severe trials that surely lie in our path.
The reading matter of the day (1912), that is devoured by the world, is utterly unfit for the people of God. Not only is it quite void of spiritual nutriment, but it vitiates the taste therefore. Much of the "religious" literature of the day is no better, and some of it is even worse. The attempt to make spiritual things palatable, by means of artistic and literary expedients, is sure evidence of a state of spiritual decline, which may end in apostasy. It is written of the Israelites that they subjected the manna to culinary expedients in order to make it more palatable, not relishing it in the state in which God gave it to them. For "the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it" (Numbers 11:8).
But that did not satisfy them; for eventually they came to such a pass as to say, “Our soul loatheth this light bread” (Numbers 21:5). To despise the provision which the Lord God has made for His people IS TO DESPISE THE LORD HIMSELF, as He said on the occasion we are now considering, “Ye have despised the Lord Who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt? (Numbers 11:20).
God has taken pains to teach us very plainly and forcibly the seriousness of neglecting our spiritual food, which He supplies, namely, “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). The incident of the preference of the Israelites for the food of Egypt is rehearsed in Psalm 78. There it is written, “And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust” (verses 17-18). And the reason is given, “Because they BELIEVED NOT in God, and trusted not in His salvation, though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of Heaven, and had rained down manna on them to eat , and had given them the corn of Heaven. Man did eat angels’ food” (verses 22-25).
The brief explanation is that, “THEIR HEART was not right with Him.”
— from “God’s Pilgrims,” by Philip Mauro