Mark 5:24-34 And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him.… Why should the wonders He hath wrought be hid in darkness and forgot? When I look abroad upon nature, it is true I do not see nature fussily trying to make itself tidy for a visitor, as some professors do, who, the moment they think they are going to be looked at, trim up their godliness to make it look smart. But on the other hand, Nature is never bashful. She never tries to hide her beauties from the gazer's eye. You walk the valley; the sun is shining, and a few raindrops are falling; yonder is the rainbow; a thousand eyes gaze at it. Does it fold up all its lovely colours and retire? Oh, no! it shrinks not from the eye of man. In yonder garden all the flowers are opening their bejewelled cups, the birds are singing, and the insects humming amid the leaves. It is a place so beautiful that God Himself might walk therein at eventide, as He did in Eden. I look without alarming the bashful beauties of the garden. Do all these insects fold their wings and hide beneath the leaves? do the flowers hang down their heads? does the sun draw a veil over his modest face? does nature blush till the leaves of the trees are scarlet? Oh, no! Nature cares not for gazers, and when they come to look upon her, she doth not hasten to wrap a mantle over her fair form, or throw a curtain before her grandeur. So the Christian is not to be always wishing to expose what is in him; that were to make himself a Pharisee; yet, on the ether hand, if God has put anything that is lovely and beautiful and of good report in you, anything that may glorify the cross of Christ, and make the angels happy before the eternal throne, who are you that you should cover it? Who are you that you should rob God of His praise? What! Would you have all Nature's beauties hid? Why, then, hide the beauties of grace? (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jesus went with him; and much people followed him, and thronged him.WEB: He went with him, and a great multitude followed him, and they pressed upon him on all sides. |