Biblical Illustrator Say ye that the Lord hath need of him. I. HE WANTS YOU FOR HIMSELF. Jesus loves you; you are to be the compensation to Him for all He suffered. Christ feels incomplete without you.II. HE WANTS YOU FOR HIS CHURCH. The Church is a building; you can never tell what stone the Great Master Builder may require next. It is a family — you complete the circle. III. HE WANTS YOU FOR HIS WORK. IV. HE WANTS YOU FOR HIS GLORY. When the Lord wants anything you will let Him have it. 1. Your money. If He takes it you will know that He had need of it. 2. Death. He has need of those dear to us. There is great comfort in the fact that when Christ sent to appropriate what was indeed His own, He sent also the constraining power of His own grace to overrule that it might consent to the surrender. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) I. THE PRINCIPLE WE HAVE STATED APPLIES TO ALL NEW UNDERTAKINGS IN WHICH WE ENGAGE AS SERVANTS OF OUR SAVIOUR, ACTING UNDER HIS DIRECTION. It was a new thing He asked them to do when He sent them to bring to Him the colt. Our Lord often asks us to do unlikely and unexpected things. God told Moses to go to Egypt. God asked Jonah to do a new thing. If God asks us to take a new departure, His hand will guide us. II. THE PRINCIPLE ILLUSTRATED HERE APPLIES TO UNDERTAKINGS WHICH ARE DIFFICULT AND MYSTERIOUS, TO WHICH OUR LORD CALLS US. What right had they to the colt? There was a touch of mystery — why such a beast of burden? God often calls His people to difficult and mysterious duties. Try to do it and all is well ordered. III. THE PRINCIPLE HERE ILLUSTRATED APPLIES TO ALL UNDERTAKINGS IN WHICH CHRIST'S SERVANTS ENGAGE DIRECTLY FOR HIS SAKE. "The Lord hath need of him." (A. Scott.)
And they spread their garments in the way. How are we to deal with religious emotions when they are awakened in a more than ordinary degree?1. We should make them subservient to the promotion of the rectitude of our nature and of our life. With the kindling of our religious emotions there comes strength for action, and our care should be to use that strength for right action. 2. It is not always safe to act under the impulse of strong feelings; therefore we need, at such seasons, to be more than ordinarily prayerful; and at such times conscience ought to be more than ever consulted. 3. If a man, under the influence of religious excitement, does not do what conscience and God's law clearly require of him, there is little reason to expect that he will do so when the excitement shall have passed away. There are certain lessons taught us by this subject.(1) That religious excitement has its sphere of usefulness in the development of religious life;(2) but it is a grievous mistake to regard emotional excitement as the very essence and substance of religion. (F. Wagstaff.)
And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves. I. THERE WERE MANY TREES WITH LEAVES ONLY UPON THEM AND YET NONE OF THESE WERE CURSED BY THE SAVIOUR, SAVE ONLY THIS FIG TREE. Here are some of the characters who have leaves but no fruit.1. Those who follow the sign and know nothing of the substance. 2. Those who have opinion but not faith, creed but not credence. 3. Those who have talk without feeling. 4. Those who have regrets without repentance. 5. Those who have resolves without action. II. THERE WERE OTHER TREES WITH NEITHER LEAVES NOR FRUIT AND NONE OF THESE WERE CURSED. There are many characters who are destitute of both religion and profession. III. WE HAVE BEFORE US A SPECIAL CASE begin with the explanation of this special case. 1. In a fig tree fruit comes before leaves. 2. Where we see the leaves we have a right to expect the fruit. 3. Our Lord hungers for fruit. 4. There are some who make unusual profession and yet disappoint the Saviour in His just expectations. IV. SUCH A TREE MIGHT WELL BE WITHERED. Deception is abhorred of God. It is deceptive to man. It committed sacrilege upon Christ. It condemned itself. (C. H. Spurgeon.) As if to show that Jesus the Saviour is also Jesus the Judge, one gleam of justice must dart forth. Where shall mercy direct its fall? The curse, if we may call it a curse at all, did not fall on man or beast, or even the smallest insect; its bolt falls harmlessly upon a fig tree by the wayside. It bore upon itself the signs of barrenness, and perhaps was no one's property; little, therefore, was the loss which any man sustained by the withering of that verdant mockery, while instruction more precious than a thousand acres of fig trees has been left for the benefit of all ages. (C. H. Spurgeon.) I am sick of those cries of "the truth," "the truth," "the truth," from men of rotten lives and unholy tempers. There is an orthodox as well as a heterodox road to hell, and the devil knows how to handle Calvinists quite as well as Armenians. No pale of any Church can insure salvation, no form of doctrine can guarantee to us eternal life. "Ye must be born again." "Ye must bring forth fruits meet for repentance." (C. H. Spurgeon.) When Christ came it was not the time of figs. The time for great holiness was after the coming of Christ, and the pouring out of the Spirit. All the other nations were without leaves. Greece, Rome, all these showed no signs of progress; but there was the Jewish nation covered with leaves. You know the curse that fell on Israel. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Like Jezebel with her paint, which made her all the uglier, they would seem to be what they are not. As old Adam says, "They are candles with big wicks but no tallow, and when they go out they make a foul and nauseous smell," "and they have summer sweating on their brow, and winter freezing in their hearts." You would think them the land of Goshen, but prove them the wilderness of sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Most readers of the Pilgrim's Progress will remember that the Interpreter took Christiana and her family into his "significant rooms," and showed them the wonders he had formerly exhibited to Christian; and then the story runs on thus: "When he had done, he takes them out into his garden again and had them to a tree whose inside was all rotten and gone, and yet it grew and had leaves." Then said Mercy, "What means this? This tree," said he, "whose outside is fair, and whose inside is all rotten, is that to which many may be compared that are in the garden of God; who with their mouths speak high in behalf of God, but indeed will do nothing for Him; whose leaves are fair, but their heart good for nothing but to be tinder for the devil's tinder box." This was John Bunyan's way of putting into an allegory what he had preached in his famous sermon on the "Barren Fig tree." It shows the force with which the narrative now coming under our study fastens itself in the popular imagination. I. Let us begin with the observation THAT GOD CHERISHES A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF FRUITFULNESS FROM ALL HIS CREATURES. Christ once told His disciples that He had chosen them and ordained them that they should go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain (John 15:16). 1. This story teaches that what the Almighty expects is only what is befitting and appropriate to the nature of the being He has made and endowed with a soul. 2. Then, next to this, the story suggests that what God expects is that every individual shall bring forth his own fruit. It is not vineyards that bear clusters, but vines. It is not orchards that produce figs, but trees. The all-wise One does not anticipate that one man or one woman, or that a few women and a few men, shall do the whole work in each community or in each parish. For there is nothing clearer in the Scripture than the declaration that every Christian is held accountable personally, and cannot be lost in a crowd. 3. The story also teaches that God expects a proportionate quantity of fruit from each person. And this would have to be reckoned according to circumstances. Suppose one fig tree is standing a little better in the sunshine than another; suppose one receives somewhat more of refreshing moisture than another; suppose one has deeper soil for its roots than another; the rule will be, — the higher the favour, the richer must be the fruit. The principle of the gospel is all in a single formula: "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." Superior advantages extend the measure of our responsibility for usefulness. 4. Once more: the story teaches that the Master looks for fruit in the proper time for fruit. In the case of this tree, "the time was not yet." Figs come before leaves on that kind of tree. So the appearance of leaves assumed the presence of fruit underneath them; but none was there. For some phenomenal reason this fig tree was a hypocrite. Hence, Jesus caught it for a parable with which to teach His disciples, and warn them off from mere profession without performance. God does not in any case come precipitously demanding fruit, as soon as trees are planted; He seems to respect the laws of growth and ripening. He never hurries any creature of His hand. But He gives help to the end He proposes. He certainly puts realities before shows; figs previous to leaves. And He has no patience or complacency for those who are always making ready, and preparing, and getting started, and setting about things, without any accomplishments or successes. II. This leads to a second observation suggested by an analysis of the narrative: GOD IS SOMETIMES MOCKED BY THE PROFFER OF MERE PROFESSIONS INSTEAD OF FRUITFULNESS. He comes for figs, but He finds "leaves only" (Matthew 21:19). 1. It is possible to put all one's religious experience into mere show. That is to say, it is possible to feign, or to imitate, or to counterfeit, all the common tokens of a genuine Christian life, and yet possess no realities underneath the pretence. Men may be traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. All this is predicted of these latter times (2 Timothy 3:1-7). Professors of religion may appear to love the Church of the Redeemer, and be nothing but sectarians. They may pray lengthily for a pretence, and devour widows' houses meanwhile. They may "repent" like King Saul, and "believe" like Simon Magus. They may speak "with the tongues of men and angels," and be no better in charity than a cymbal that tinkles. They may cry "Lord, Lord," and yet not do a single thing which the Lord has commanded. And with all this amount of loathsome hypocrisy in the world, the patient God forbears. 2. The sin of fruitlessness is always aggravated by the bold imposture of hypocritical cant. The Scriptures startle a timid student sometimes with their daring demand for clear issues, no matter where they will lead. Christ Himself is represented as saying, "I would thou wert cold or hot" (Revelation 3:15-16). Elijah cries out, "If Baal be God, follow him" (1 Kings 18:21). It is the temporizing, compromising spirit of Naaman which destroys the historic picture of him (2 Kings 5:17-18). And the higher up into conspicuous assumption of sainthood one rises, when his heart is bad, the more offensive are his character and public professions in the sight of a truth-loving God. "For sweetest things turn sourest by their deed; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." III. Thus we reach our third observation: GOD WILL IN THE END ASSERT HIMSELF AND VISIT ON ALL FALSE PROFESSORS A FITTING RETRIBUTION (Mark 11:21). At last the retribution is sure to come. The settled, calm, solemn decision is pronounced, from which there is no appeal. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) The verdict against the tree is, "nothing but leaves." 1. It is a remarkable description. It is the least offensive way of describing barrenness. Nothing but words, forms, profession. 2. It is an expression of disappointment. Leaves are promises. Christian profession is a promise to God and man. 3. It is a declaration of uselessness. There is (1) (2) 4. It is a sentence of doom. "Nothing but leaves." 1. Then our creed is vain. 2. Our religion is vain. 3. Our Bible reading is vain. 4. Our churchmanship is vain. 5. Our faith and hope are vain. 6. Our life is vain. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
I. AS TO OUR LORD'S BEING. It reminds us of the inseparable union between His humanity and His Divinity. 1. He was hungry, and came looking for something which did not exist; it bespeaks His liability to that which was common to man. 2. He cursed the tree by the fist of an irresistible will, and nature was arrested, and the fountain of life dried up. It marks the possession of a power which is shared by no mortal creature, but is the sole prerogative of Almighty God. II. AS TO THE JEWISH NATION. Jesus had often taught by word. Here He arrests attention by a parable in action. It was the sequel of the parable of the barren fig tree (St. Luke 13:6); a rehearsal, as it were, of the execution of the judgment then denounced upon the Jewish nation if they continued to bear no fruit. This tree had been refreshed by the dews of heaven; the sunshine had warmer it with genial rays; the sheltering hill, perhaps, had warded off the chilling blasts, and all the seasonable influences of Providence had ministered to its growth, but only to bring forth an ostentatious show of unproductive leaves. And, as with that hapless tree, so with the nation. All the care and culture of the Great Vine dresser had been bestowed in vain; there was nothing but a deceptive and pretentious display; they were forever giving promise of fruit, but yielding none; there was no return for unremitting attention; they cumbered the soil, their end was to be burned, they were nigh to cursing. (H. M. Luckock, D. D.)
1. BARRENNESS IS A VERY COMMON AND GRIEVOUS SIN. It is very common, because we think there is no particular harm in it. If we avoid committing actual wrong, we think it no great matter if we neglect the discharge of duty. Accordingly, many who would be shocked at being "sinful" are quite unconcerned at being useless. There may, however, be the greatest guilt in uselessness. "Ye gave Me no meat," "ye gave Me no drink," "ye took Me not in," are words which accuse of nothing but neglect, yet are followed by the doom, "Depart from Me, ye cursed." Sins of commission slay their thousands, but sins of omission their tens of thousands. 2. THE SIN OF BARRENNESS IS OFTEN ACCOMPANIED AND GREATLY AGGRAVATED BY GREAT PROFESSIONS. Performance and profession are apt to be in the inverse ratio of each other, for performance comes from a high standard, and a high standard never permits complacency or boasting; while a low standard permits poor performance, and sanctions complacency along with it. In human trees the combination is very frequent of pretentious foliage and poor fruitage. 3. ALL BARRENNESS LEADS TO DESTRUCTION. Nothing is permitted to exist except on condition that it employs its powers. Unused faculties decay; and unemployed opportunities are withdrawn. 4. THE PENALTY OF WILFUL BARRENNESS IS JUDICIAL BARRENNESS. The punishment of uselessness which is voluntary, is such withdrawal of grace as makes it fixed and absolute. Wrong is wrong's penalty. Going further astray is the penal result of going astray. (R. Glover.)
1. Reasons for regarding it in a symbolic sense.(1) Neither its fruitlessness nor its leafiness was a thing of its own volition, therefore the tree was not blameworthy.(2) But as a symbol it was full of instruction.(a) As a correct representation of the heirarchical party in Jerusalem, adorned with the leaves of a pretentious piety, but utterly barren of the real fruit of a holy life, or reverence for God's Son.(b) As a correct representation of all pretension to piety. II. REASONS FOR REGARDING ITS DOOM SYMBOLIC. 1. There was neither conscience nor heart in the tree to be hurt by its withering. 2. Fall of significance, however, as the type of the doom that awaits all those whom its fruitlessness represented. III. REASONS FOR REGARDING ITS SYMBOLIC DOOM JUST. 1. As a fig tree in good situation and covered with leaves, fruit was reasonably expected.(1) So with the Jewish people, as taught in the parable of the wicked husbandmen.(2) The fruitlessness of those whom the tree represented was blameworthy, and their guilt enhanced by their pretension. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
I. A LESSON FOR THE JEWS. They were full of the leaves of profession: proud of their religious ordinances, frequent fasts, long prayers, sacrifices; but they bore no fruit of holiness, meekness, gentleness, love. Nothing but leaves. II. A LESSON FOR ALL, WARNING US OF THE DOOM OF A FRUITLESS LIFE. Our blessings — what have we done to deserve them? We all remember what we have done for ourselves, how we have made our way in the world; but what have we done for God? Our religious professions — are they sincere, or are they kept for Sunday use only? Our talents-how are we employing them? Our time, intellect, bodily strength, wealth, influence? (H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M. A.)
(Bp. Brownrig.)
I. THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS DESECRATED AND DEFILED. 1. Look at the heathen world; behold there the strength of the corruption. The religious sentiment strong amongst them is abused; at least it operates through fear, distrust, and hate, instead of love, hope, and faith; at worst it is the tool of craft and lust. Thus the highest endowments bring about the lowest degradation. 2. Thus has it been with every mode of revealed religion. Thus it was with Judaism. The life-giving spirit had perished; its very form had become corrupt. Does Christianity present an exception to this desecration? What is the religion of many of you but a buying and selling in the temple! Self-interest has its office in religion, but it is not an element of religion itself. Indeed, there is no juster distinction between true and false religion than this: In true religion, self-interest is made the means of what is spiritual; in false religion, what is spiritual is made the means of self-interest. When religion appears as a ladder set up between heaven and earth for all God's angels to descend and minister to man, but not for aspirations and holy communions to ascend from man to God; when Christianity is contemplated as a scheme of political economy, and the Lord of all is regarded chiefly as the most useful being in existence, we make our hearts the scenes of degrading traffic. II. THIS DESECRATION AND DEFILEMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF GOD SHOULD CREATE HOLY AND VEHEMENT INDIGNATION. What is there in the scene we have surveyed to call for holy wrath? 1. It involves the abuse of what is best and highest — "My house," etc. His Father's house was polluted. The highest view to take of sin is always that it dishonours God; the man who dishonours God also dishonours himself. When is God more dishonoured than when the many gifts by which He may be felt, known, served, frustrate His purposes and misrepresent His being? As when faculties, whose sphere is spirit, feed and flatter the flesh. 2. It involves the promotion of the worst and lowest things — "A den of thieves." They who rob God can scarcely be expected to be very scrupulous in their dealings with men. The best things when abused become the worse; there is no devil like a fallen angel. The reasons are not far to seek. The best things are the strongest. The best things when abused have a natural tendency to exceed in evil. Still further, good when it is abused hardens the moral feeling. III. JESUS CHRIST APPEARS BEFORE US AS THE CLEANSER OF THE TEMPLE OF GOD. How does He effect it? 1. He comes into the temple of God as the living representative of Divine things. He appears as the Son of God in His "Father's house." 2. He makes an effective appeal to men on the true character and design of Divine things — "Is it not written, My house shall be called," etc. He draws attention to the nature and object of the sacred place. He forbids what is auxiliary to the condemned abuse. He "would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple." The purification of humanity is slow, but sure. (A. J. Morris.)
(Daily News.)
I. THE PLACE WHERE THE MARKET WAS HELD. It was not the temple properly so called; the Jews were scrupulous about their temple. Where, then, was the market? We will endeavour to explain this to you. In the time of our Saviour, the temple, properly so called, had three courts, each surrounding one another. These courts, with the building they encompassed, made up what was known under the general name of the temple. In the first of these courts stood the altar of burnt offering, and to this came none but the priests and Levites. The second, surrounding that of the priests, was the great hall which, though the Jews assembled to worship, was also open to those proselytes who had been circumcised, and had thus taken upon themselves the whole ritual of Moses. But the outer court of the three was called the court of the Gentiles, and was appropriated to such proselytes as had renounced idolatry, but who, not having been circumcised, were still accounted unclean by the Jews. The two first of these courts were accounted holy, but no sanctity appears to have been attached to the third; it was considered a part of the temple, but had no share in that sacredness which belonged to all the rest. And in this outer court — the court of the Gentiles — it was, that the sheep, and oxen, and doves were sold, and the money changers had their tables. As the Jews did not regard this court as possessing any legal sanctity, they permitted to be used as a market the temple of those who came thither to worship. If you have followed me in this there is good reason for supposing that it was on purpose to show their contempt for the Gentiles, that the Jews allowed the traffic which Christ interrupted. When Christ entered the court of the Gentiles, and found in place of the solemnity which should have pervaded a scene dedicated to worship, all the noise and tumult of a market, He had before Him the most striking exhibition of that fatal resolve on the part of His countrymen, and which His apostles strove in vain to counteract — the resolve of considering themselves as God's peculiar people, to the exclusion of all besides; and the refusing to unite themselves with converts from heathenism in the formation of one visible Church. Was not this, then, an occasion upon which to exercise the prophetic office? Was there not here an opportunity of inculcating a truth which, however unpalatable to the Jews, required, of all others, to be set forth with clearness, and maintained with constancy — the truth, that though God for a time had seemed neglectful of the great body of men, and bestowed all His carefulness upon a solitary tribe; yet were the Gentiles watched over by Him in their long alienation, and about to be gathered within the borders of His Church. And this truth we suppose it to have been which Christ set Himself to teach by the significant act of driving from the court of the Gentiles the merchants with their merchandise. He declared, as emphatically as He could have done in words, that the place where the strangers worshipped was to be accounted as sacred as that in which the Israelites assembled, and that what would have been held as a profanation of the one, was to be held a profanation of the other. By thus vindicating the sanctity of the spot appropriated to the Gentiles, as worthy of as much veneration as that appropriated to the Jews, when He expelled the merchants and money changers, He went far towards putting Jew and Gentile on the same level, and announcing the abolition of ceremonial distinctions. The Jews had allowed the desecration of the court of the Gentiles, because they regarded the Gentiles as immeasurably inferior to themselves, and defiled through the want of circumcision; and, therefore, unable to offer to God any acceptable worship. What, then, was meant by the resistance, on Christ's part, to this desecration of the court of the Gentiles, except that the Jews had fallen into the grossest of errors, in so supposing that the Gentile had been overlooked by God, or excluded from His mercies? The ground on which he stood to pray was as hallowed as that on which the sanctuary rose, and, therefore, he might himself be as much approved and accepted as anyone of that family which seemed for centuries to engross the notice of heaven. And when this has been determined, it is scarcely possible but to feel that the prophecy may glance on to future occurrences. We need not point out to you how little progress has yet been made, notwithstanding the struggles and the advancings of Christianity, towards the announced consummation that God's "house shall be a house of prayer for all people." "All people" have not yet flocked to its courts; but, on the contrary, the great mass of the human population bow down in the temple of idols. True, indeed, that the doors of the sanctuary have been thrown open, and the men of every land been invited to enter; but the prophecies in question speak of more than a universal offer of admission; they speak of what shall yet take place — the general acceptance of the offer; the pressing of all nations into the Church of the Redeemer. Consider, then, whether the expulsion of the buyers and sellers, as figuring the first accomplishment of the prophecy, when the Gentiles were admitted into the visible Church, may not also be significative of what shall occur at the close of the dispensation when Christianity shall be diffused throughout the earth. We have succeeded to the place of the Jews; for Christians are now the peculiar people of God, and what the Gentiles were to the Jews, that are the heathen to us — a race divided from us by external privileges, and not admitted into the same covenant with the Almighty. And what is it that Christian nations have done and are doing for the heathen? In our intercourse with lands where idolatry and superstition still hold the ascendency, has it been our main endeavour to introduce the pure gospel of Christ? or have we striven, where there was no room for direct assault upon the fabric of error, to exhibit Christianity in its purity, and beauty, and majesty? Alas, might it not be said, we have planted our markets rather than our churches in the court of the Gentiles; that we have crowded that court with our merchandise, but taken little pains to gain room within its area for the solemnities of truth; that even when the voice of the preacher has been heard, it has been overborne by the din of commerce, or contradicted by the lives of those professing Christianity? Indeed, we much think that putting, as we are bound to do, the Christian into the place of the Jew, there is little or no difference between the present aspect of the court of the Gentiles, and that which it wore when Christ was on earth — the same, at least, in a great degree; for what portion do our efforts bear either to our ability or the urgency of the case? The same inattention to those not born to our privileges; the same persecution; the same neglect or disregard of the interests of religion; the same supercilious notion of superiority in the midst of the non-improvement of our many advantages; and if Christ were now to return to the earth, as we believe He shall at the close of the dispensation, what measure could Christendom expect at His hands but that awarded to the Jews? It is in exact accordance with those delineations of Scripture which relate to the second coming of Christ, that we should consider the expulsion of the traffickers from the temple figurative of what will be done with the great mass of nominal Christians. We could almost think that in this, and other respects, the transaction represented how Christ would proceed in cleansing the temple of the heart. He comes into the courts of this temple — the heart of any amongst ourselves whom He desires to consecrate to Himself; and He finds it occupied by worldly things — carnal passions, ambitious projects, the affections all fastening on the creature, to the exclusion of the Creator. And there must be an expulsion from the temple of whatsoever defiles it, that it may indeed become a sanctuary fit for the indwelling of the Lord of the whole earth. But the purifying process is gradual. Nothing unclean can be suffered to remain; but it is not all at once that what pollutes is removed. The first assault, as it were, is on the oxen, and the sheep, and the tables of the money changers, as the more prominent of the occasions and causes of profanation. And with these He is vehement and forcible. Sensuality, covetousness, pride — these are for the scourge and the indignant expostulation; and no quarter can be allowed, no, not for an instant. But it is not only the oxen, and the sheep, and the tables of the money changers, which desecrate the temple of the heart. There are the doves — the gentler and kindlier affections of our nature; and these — even these — contaminate when God is not their first object, but their fervour and their freshness given to the creature. But it is in gentleness, rather than in harshness, that the Lord of the temple proceeds with us in effecting this part of the purification. It is not with the doves, as with the sheep, and the oxen, and the tables of the money changers — the scourging and the overthrowing, but rather by the mild expostulation — "Take these things hence," that He attempts the removal of what He cannot suffer to remain. Harshness might injure or destroy the affections themselves, just as the driving out the doves would have caused their being lost; but by continually setting before us the goodness of God, whether as manifested in creation or redemption, by teaching us how much more precious becomes every object of love when we love it not so much for its own sake as for the sake of the Giver — this cleanses the heart, and gradually inclines us to the substituting for affections chained to the finite, affections centering on the infinite; and thus persuades us to take away the dove on whose plumage is the dust of the earth, but only that its place may be occupied by one such as the Psalmist describes — "whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." The cleansing of the heart is not complete till God is supreme in its affections. It is not enough to mortify corrupt passions, and resist imperious lusts: this is but expelling the sheep and the oxen. We must give God the heart, delighting in Him as the "chief good;" ay, my brethren, we must act on the consciousness, and God grant that we all may! — we must act on the consciousness that the gentle dove may profane God's house, as well as the flocks whose pastures are of the earth; and that if the one — the sheep and the oxen — must be altogether ejected, the other — the dove — must be trained to the soaring upwards, and bathing in the free light of heaven. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
(Segneri.)
(H. M. Luckock, D. D.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) II. WE ARE TOO READY TO DEFILE THEM. We mix self-interest with religion, or trade with religion, for our own profit. 1. Preaching in order to get money. 2. Sale of livings. 3. Going to certain churches because it may be good for business. III. However the Saviour may seem to ignore such pollution, a time will come when HE WILL RESENT AND PURGE IT AWAY. (R. Glover.)
(H. R. Haweis, M. A.)
(Dr. Bushnell.)
1. Taking God at His word, about things unknown (Hebrews 11:7), unlikely (Hebrews 11:17-19), untried (Hebrews 11:28). 2. Trusting Jesus at His invitation. Trust your soul to His care; your sins to His cleansing; your life to His keeping. II. WHENCE FAITH COMES. 1. From God's grace (Ephesians 2:8; Romans 12:3) 2. From God's Word (Romans 10:17; 2 Timothy 3:15). 3. From God's working (1 John 5:1; Colossians 2:12). 4. Out of the heart (Romans 10:10). III. HOW FAITH WORKS. 1. It overcomes the world (1 John 5:4). 2. It purifies the heart (Acts 15:8, 9). 3. It works by love (Galatians 5:6). (J. Richardson, M. A.)
(G. Macdonald, D. D.)One winter morning, a poor little orphan boy of six or eight years begged a lady to allow him to clean away the snow from her door. "Do you get much to do, my little boy?" said the lady. "Sometimes I do," he replied, "but often I get very little." "And are you never afraid that you will not get enough to live on?" The child looked perplexed a moment, and then answered, "Don't you think God will take care of a boy if he puts his trust in Him, and does the best he can?"
(S. Cox, D. D.)
2. God's own character demands this faith. 3. God's gifts claim and warrant faith. 4. The way in which we specially honour Him is by having faith in Him. 5. Unbelief profits nothing. 6. Faith has dons wonders in time past, and it can do wonders still. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
(S. Cox, D. D.)
(G. Petter.)
(William Arthur.)
(M. F. Sadler, M. A.)
I. LOOK AT THE TEXT TO SEE THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES NECESSARY TO ANY GREAT SUCCESS IN PRAYER. There must be — 1. Definite things prayed for. No rambling, or drawing the bow at a venture. Use no mock modesty with God. Be simple and direct in your pleadings. Speak plainly, and make a straight aim at the object of your supplications. 2. Earnest desire. Plead as for your life. There was a beautiful illustration of true prayer addressed to man in the conduct of two noble ladies, whose husbands were condemned to die and were about to be executed, when they came before George I and supplicated for their pardon. The king rudely and cruelly repulsed them. But they pleaded again and again; and could not be got to rise from their knees; and they had actually to be dragged out of court, for they refused to leave till their petition was granted. That is the way we must pray to God. We must have such a desire for the thing we want that we will not rise until we have it, — but in submission to His Divine will, nevertheless. 3. Faith. No questioning whether God can or will grant the prayer. The prayers of God's people are but God's promises breathed out of living hearts; and those promises are the decrees only put into another form and fashion. When you can plead His promise, then your will is His will. 4. A realizing expectation. We should be able to count over the mercies before we have got them, believing that they are on the road. II. LOOK ABOUT YOU AND JUDGE BY THE TENOR OF THE TEXT. 1. Public meetings for prayer. How often, at these meetings, does this advice of an old preacher need to be remembered: "The Lord will not hear thee because of the arithmetic of thy prayers; He does not count their numbers: nor because of their rhetoric; He does not care for the eloquent language in which they are couched: nor for their geometry; He does not compute them by their length or their breadth: nor yet will He regard thee because of the music of thy prayers; He cares not for sweet voices and harmonious periods. Neither will He look at thee because of the logic of thy prayers — because they are well arranged and excellently comparted. But He will hear thee, and He will measure the amount of the blessing He will give thee, according to the divinity of thy prayers. If thou canst plead the person of Christ, and if the Holy Ghost inspire thee with zeal and earnestness, the blessings thou askest will surely come to thee." 2. Your private intercessions. There is no place that some of us need to he so ashamed to look at as our closet door. Shame on our hurried devotions, our lip services, our distrust. See to it that an amendment be made, and God make you more mighty and more successful in your prayers than heretofore. III. LOOK ABOVE AND YOU WILL SEE ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU — 1. Weep. God has given us a mighty weapon, and we have let it rust. If the universe were as still as we are where should we be? God gives light to the sun, and he shines with it. To the winds He gives force, and they blow. To the air He gives life, and it moves, and men breathe thereof. But to His people He has given a gift that is better far than force, or life, or light, and yet they neglect and despise it! Constantine, when he saw that on the coins of the other emperors their images were in an erect position, triumphing, ordered that his image should be struck kneeling, for, said he, "This is the way in which I have triumphed." The reason why we have been so often defeated, and why our banners trail in the dust, is because we have not prayed. 2. Rejoice. For, though you have sinned against God, He loves you still. You may not as yet have gone to the fountain, but it still flows as freely as ever. 3. Amend your prayers from this time forth. Look on prayer no longer as a romantic fiction or an arduous duty, but as a true power and a real pleasure. When philosophers discover some latent power they delight to put it in action. Test the bounty of the Eternal. Take to Him all your petitions and wants, and see if He does not honour you. Try whether, if you believe Him, He will not fulfil His promise, and richly bless you with the anointing oil of His Spirit, by which you will be strong in prayer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
II. Success for prayer depends on goodness; without the soul health of trust and love we cannot pray. III. Let our unanswered prayers be a mirror in which we see our faults. (R. Glover.)If our doubts do not prevail so far as to make us leave off praying, our prayers will prevail so far as to make us leave off doubting. (H. Hickman.)
(Anon.)
(F. Whitfield.)
(H. R. Haweis, M. A.)
(Bp. Bickersteth.)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
(T. Watson.)
(Bowden.)
(Ed. S. Attwood.)
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
1. The boundary line of faith. Faith is vast, recognizes the covenant of the promises, and whatever comes outside the promises for which she can find anywhere a direct engagement of Almighty God to do. Faith is the turning of an infinite future, into a present real receiving; it can go confidently when it treads on Scripture ground. So the Bible becomes, in a measure, prayer; .you must try to bring prayer up to the mind of God in it. 2. Desire has a gracious limit. A man well acquainted with God's Word lives under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and his mind is conformed to the mind of God, and his desires gradually blend with the wishes of the Almighty. II. PRAYER'S REACH. III. PRAYER'S WARRANT. The blood of Christ and the worth of this warrant. 1. It is personal. 2. It is present. 3. It is absolute. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
2. There is a second and more general lesson. Our daily life in the world is made the test of our intercourse with God in prayer. Life does not consist of so many loose pieces, of which now the one, then the other, can be taken up. My drawing nigh to God is of one piece with my intercourse with men. Failure here will cause failure there. 3. We may gather these thoughts into a third lesson. In our life with men the one thing on which everything depends is love. The spirit of forgiveness is the spirit of love. The right relations to the living God above me, and the living men around me, are the conditions of effectual prayer. (A. Murray.)
II. WE SHOULD FORGIVE BECAUSE IT IS NEEDFUL FOR OUR OWN PEACE. Revenge cherished is like a thorn in the flesh. III. FORGIVENESS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SIGNS AND ESSENTIALS OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH. IV. WE SHOULD FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER BECAUSE IT IS THE CONDITION OF OUR OWN FORGIVENESS. (Anon.)
(Anon.)Generous and magnanimous minds are readiest to forgive; and it is a weakness and impotency of mind to be unable to forgive. (Bacon.)
(J. Trapp.)
1. It is easy to show what our Lord does not teach in His repeated counsels on this point. The new revision gives a very interesting turn to the form of expression by throwing the verb into the past tense: "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." This intensifies the admonition, and enforces the condition that ensures success in our praying; for it demands that our pardon of injuries shall have taken place previous even to our coming to the mercy seat for ourselves. It cannot be that the passage we are studying means that our forgiveness of others is in any sense the ground for our remission of sins from God. It cannot be that the passage means that our forgiveness of others is to furnish the measure of our own pardon from God. 2. What then does our Lord mean when He gives this warning? How is a forgiving spirit connected with our prayers? If our having pardoned those who have injured us be not a ground for our own pardon nor a measure of Divine grace, what is it? For one thing, it may be used as a token. It can be looked upon as a hopeful sign that our transgressions have been removed, and that we are now heirs of the kingdom. "For, if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you." Such a token can be employed very easily. If used faithfully, it would set at rest many a doubt concerning religion in one's heart. For another thing, this passage may serve as an admonition. And it is likely that it will have in this its widest use. The petition of the great universal prayer cannot be pressed without its comment. In this demand for a forgiving spirit, there is nothing less than a permanent reminder that when we come asking for pardon, we must be prepared to exercise it likewise; if not, we are to turn on our track and seek preparation. II. This being the exposition of the verses, and the conclusion having been inevitably reached that we cannot even pres without the spirit of forgiveness, IT IS EVIDENT THAT WE MUST MOVE FORWARD TO A HIGHER PLANE OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR. So we inquire, in the second place, concerning the reach and the limit of the doctrine of forgiveness. 1. The reach of it is indicated in an incident of Simon Peter's life (Matthew 18:21, 22). 2. But now, with a sober sense of inquiry, and a sincere wish to be reasonable, some of us are ready to ask after the limit as well as the reach of this counsel. (Luke 17:3, 4.) Before this question can be plainly answered, we must be careful to see that forgiveness does not imply that we approve, condone, or underrate the injurious acts committed; we forgive the sinner, not the sin — the sin we are to forget. Nor does forgiveness imply that we are to stifle all honest indignation against the wickedness of the injury. Nor is it settled that we are to take the injurious man into constant companionship if we forgive him; Jacob and Esau will do better apart. What, then, are we to do? We are, in our very heart of hearts, to cease forever from the sore sense of a hurt; we are to shut our souls against all suggestions of requital or future revenge; we are to use all means for furthering the interests of those who have done us harm; we are to illustrate the greatness of God's pardoning love by the quickness of our own. All this before our wrongs have been atoned for; before our honest acts and decent deeds have been shown! It does seem a little difficult; but think over 's searching question: "Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and vindicated, and the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor his innocence vindicated?" It is related of the chivalric leader, the great Sir Tristam, that his stepmother tried twice to poison him. He hurried to the king, who honoured him as he honoured none other, and craved a boon: "I beseech you of your mercy that you will forgive it her! God forgive it her, and I do! For God's love, I require you to grant me my boon!" (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
II. LOOK AT THE PASSAGE FROM THE SIDE OF CHRIST. It was not His custom to be silent when men wished to learn. He received Nicodemus by night; reasoned with the Samaritan woman; Zaccheus. Christ says, "Neither will I tell you." These words are not mere resolution on His part to withhold information; but in their being unable to receive what He might tell them. On another occasion the Jews came to Christ and said, "If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." Christ's answer was, "I have told you before, and ye did not believe." In like manner the rulers had been virtually told before by what authority Christ had done these things. His words and works were His authority. This want of power to see the truth and to know it is the natural result of a spirit of unfaithfulness to former light and present convictions. Many people overlook this law of their spiritual being; they think that by neglect or carelessness they are at the most missing some advantage for a short season, and that when they please they can regain what has been lost. They forget that the loss is within, in the soul, character, and life, and that it is irreparable. When they wrong their inward convictions, they not merely defile their honour, but destroy the very powers of discerning right and wrong, truth and error. Each time that a man is unfaithful to the light within him he is laying a thicker film upon the spiritual eye. It is marvellous how men with an honest love of the truth are guided into it, and are led out of the labyrinth of darkness and perplexities which surround them. (A. Watson, D. D.)
(A. Watson, D. D.)
(E. Bersier, D. D.)
(H. R. Haweis, M. A.)
II. III. IV. (J. H. Godwin.). The Biblical Illustrator, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006, 2011 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. BibleSoft.com Bible Hub |