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I. TEMPERAMENT WAS THOMAS'S ONE TEMPTATION, AND HE DID NOT KNOW IT.

1. Perhaps he accounted as a virtue that critical temper which was his greatest defect and danger. When a man thinks far more of the touch of his ten-fingers than of the testimony of ten apostles, self-reliance becomes conceit. When a man talks much about liberty for his tongue, he seldom thinks about liberty for other people's ears. Whilst Thomas insisted on his right to be convinced in his own way, he never seems to have felt the indignity he put upon the honesty of his friends.

2. A man's fault is not so much that he is not fit, but that he refuses to believe that he is unfit. Trust is far more natural to some than others. To question with wrinkles in the forehead, and the grey eyes half-closed in meditative wonder, is as natural to some children as the uncontrolled, sunny, upturned gaze of the other child's most trustful and reverent love. The little Thomas as naturally cuts his drum open to see where the noise comes from as the little Mary believes without a suspicion every fairy story. Light will take its colour from the glass through which it passes, and truth will take its shape from the quality of the mind it passes through. We do not so much blame Thomas for being Thomas, only for not knowing that he was Thomas.

3. A man like Thomas ought to well know if at any time he should hesitate to judge, he should specially do so just when he had lost a dear friend. For Thomas, then, life had but one sense — touch. Sorrow, and morbid meditation had, for the time, robbed Thomas of all other faculties. There is a love born of mere touch, and there is a love that loss and death can never touch. There is a love dependent on circumstances, and there is a love that defies storm, and cloud, and death. If Thomas have the one and John the other, all we ask is that Thomas knows his condition, and not so readily assert his superior judgment. If a man of ordinary prudence gets to know that his weak heart says to him, "Never hurry," or that another organ says, "Never eat certain things;" so let us know if our condition disqualifies us for judgment, and let us trust others, and act with them, rather than argue and oppose. Most of the sceptics I have met in life were like Thomas — all disqualified for their work before they began it.

II. THOMAS WAS ABSENT FROM THE MEETING.

1. He was alone, who of all the eleven could least afford to be alone. Loneliness was health to Peter at times — it was always poison to Thomas. Whenever we get the list of the apostles, which is presumably in Christ's order, you always get Thomas bracketed with Matthew. Matthew was a man to celebrate his conversion with a great feast. If, now, Thomas had taken his Master's hint in always associating him with Matthew, he had reasoned now, "I must avoid loneliness, and keep close to the brightest of our company."

2. Why was Thomas absent? The fact that John gives no reason, and calls him Didymus, thus associating him with the previous references — all of a despondent character — shows that the cause was in Thomas, and not due to circumstances. Matthew is the type of the sociable nature, and Thomas of the unsociable. Such a man to-day would declare no one spoke to him in church; that the service was not what it ought to be. Gloomy imaginations are never at a loss for reasons for being dissatisfied. But love not only attends, but enjoys all the meetings; profits where discontent starves; and sees beauties where mere criticism can only snarl and pull to pieces.

III. CHRIST COMES TO MEETINGS WHEN HE DOES NOT GRANT PRIVATE INTERVIEWS. When Thomas does not want to go to church he often concludes "that Christ is not confined to churches, you can find Him in the fields, in the quiet of the home, in Bible study." True. But Christ has put special honour on the meetings of His people. How often have I known people begin to set a low value on religious services; and, as a result, the whole tenor, tendency, and aspect of their life has become changed.

IV. THE WAY TO GET ABSENT THOMAS BACK.

1. His absence was noted. The Greek indicates that the others sought out the absentee. Everybody likes to feel he is missed. Mother ought not to rest when the weakest and most short-sighted, too, hasn't come home. Would that the whole Church felt like the Shepherd, and went after every wandering sheep! "I have been a member of the Church nearly forty years," said one, "and now I have been absent a month and no one has called to see me." "Excuse me," said a shrewd observer of human nature, "during your forty years' membership how many have you gone to see?" "Not one," was the reply which truth insisted on. There Thomas received what he gave.

2. But far, far more turns on what they said to Thomas. They did not blame him or argue with him. They just went with positive testimony, "We have seen the Lord and are glad." To show a man that you are well and equal to any task is better than a dispute about medicine. Would that all of us were more ready to tell out what Christ has done for us, and less and less concerned to analyse texts!

3. They did not exclude him from their fellowship because he was faithless. Thomas knew that he had doubted about Lazarus, and yet Lazarus was raised. Christ had promised that He would rise again. He had here the abundant testimony of ten friends; yet, spite of all, he says, "I will not believe." Don't make little of the state of Thomas, and say: "Oh, but he was anxious to believe." Nothing of the sort. He does not say, "If I see I will believe," but "Unless. His mental attitude is negative and obstinate.

4. Thomas would surely have been lost to the Church if any harsh measures had been adopted towards him. A very slight hint that he was unfit for their fellowship because he cherished such doubts, and he would have told them how wanting they were in intellect. Words would have followed words, and that fellowship had been dissolved with bitterness. The Church should so treat doubt as not to intensify it. Doubt lives and thrives in isolation; opposition doubles its force. The Church must be as patient with Thomas as Christ was. Christ waited eight days for his slow faith to ripen. The Christian may not like the smell of smoking flax. To blow it out is easy; to blow it into a flame needs patience; but which is better and more Christ-like?

V. IN CHRIST'S TREATMENT OF THOMAS NOTE THAT ONE LOOK WAS ENOUGH. If we can bring men closer to Christ, then Christ Himself will and can do all the rest. Conclusion:

1. Doubting is a very easy process, requiring little capital. Once indulged it is of rapid growth, and feeds on its own unrest and misery.

2. Notice in the speech of Thomas that objectionable I and my." Pride and self-will are never lovely; but to find doubt indulged, and not find these two features prominent, is a very, very rare occurrence. Thomas was willing and glad to lose his doubts; but many doubters seem to be proud of theirs.

(R. H. Lovell.)

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KJV: But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

WEB: But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, wasn't with them when Jesus came.