Mark 6:5-6 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them.… What an idea it gives us of the wonder-working power of Jesus — that to "lay His hands on a few sick folk, and heal them," was not accounted as any very "mighty" thing. And how irrepressible must be that grace which, even where it was restrained, must go forth, and go forth savingly, to some. Happy some! who in the midst of that wilderness of faithlessness, retained their faith, and carried off faith's reward. A type of that little, blessed band in every age whom the Lord chooses, and the Lord heals — as if to show in them what all life had been, if only all life had had faith. Great and many are the things which God has done for every one of us, they are but as nothing in comparison with what He might have done, and would have done, if only we had let Him. Now remember that the place was Nazareth — the most privileged spot of the whole earth; for there, of thirty-three years, Jesus spent nearly thirty. There, His holy boyhood, and the piety of His early manhood, had shed their lustre. And now, mark this, brethren — true to nature, true to the experience of the Church — true to the convictions of every heart — in the minds of the men of Nazareth there was an unholy familiarity with holy things — with the name, and the person, and the work, and the truth of Jesus Christ. Therefore, in the minds of the men of Nazareth, there was the usual consequence of that kind of familiarity — they looked at the external, till they were absorbed in the external. They had no faith — the material view destroyed the spiritual. They grovelled in the confidence of an outside knowledge till they became steeped in unbelief. Am I wrong in my fear that the more light, the less love; and that faith has retired as knowledge has advanced? There are two great truths which we must always lay down as fundamental principles. One is, that the love and beneficence of God are always welling and waiting, like some gushing fountain, to pour themselves out to all His creatures. And the other, that there must be a certain state of mind to contain it — a preparation of the heart to receive the gift — both, indeed, of grace, but the one the moral condition of the soul previous and absolutely necessary to the other. Before you can have the gift, you must believe the Giver. Continually God is communicating the power to believe, in order that afterwards He may fill the vessel of your belief with every possible good. But then, all depends on the way in which you welcome and cherish that first imparting of the grace of the Spirit. Without it, not another drop will flow. You go to your knees in prayer, and, within the range of the promises, there is no limit to the answers which God has covenanted to that prayer. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. |
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