words naturally yield you this doctrine: Hypocrisy is a dangerous leaven, which ministers and people are chiefly and especially to beware of, and acquit themselves from. Hence you have a chapter of woes against it (Matthew 23.). And it is represented as that which renders odious to the Lord, and defiles, His choicest ordinances, and our best duties, if it cleave to them (Isaiah 1:11, 12; Isaiah 66:3); and puts God to sad complaints and exprobations of such a people (Hosea 6:4).

I. WHAT HYPOCRISY IS. Much of the nature of a thing is many times discovered in its name; the name is a brief description. The word " hypocrite" properly signifies an actor or stage-player, a personator of other men in their speech, habit, and action. The Hebrew word signifieth both "a wicked man" and a "deceiver." And it is observed that those whom David, the devoutest man, called "wicked," Solomon, the wisest man, calls "fools," and Job, the most upright man, calls "hypocrites": all is but one and the same thing under divers names. Hypocrisy, then, is but a feigning of virtue and piety, which it seems to put on, and vice and impiety, which it conceals and would seem to put off. It is indeed vice in a vizor; the face is vice, but virtue is the vizor. The form and nature of it is imitation: the ends are vainglory, to be seen of men, or some gain or carnal respects.

II. How IS HYPOCRIST RESEMBLED BY LEAVEN? Briefly thus:

1. Leaven is hardly discerned from good dough by the sight. And as hardly is hypocrisy distinguished from piety.

2. Leaven is very spreading. And so hypocrisy does a great deal of mischief; it spreads over all the man, and all his duties, parts, performances: and leavens all.

3. Leaven is of a sour taste and ungrateful smell. So is hypocrisy to God's man.

4. Leaven is of a swelling nature: it extends and puffs up the dough. So hypocrisy is all for the praise of men.

III. WHY IS IT CALLED "THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES"? Because they were leavened with it to purpose; they were exact and super-eminent in this devilish art of personating and counterfeiting to the life.

IV. WHEREIN IS THIS LEAVEN OF HYPOCRISY SO DANGEROUS THAT MINISTERS AND PEOPLE OUGHT FIRSTLY, CHIEFLY, TO BEWARE OF IT? There is great danger of it, and great danger by it.

1. There is great danger of it.(1) For we have the ground of the matter in ourselves. "Hearts deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know thy wickedness? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins," &c. (Jeremiah 17:9, 10). As if none beside the Lord knew the bottomless depths and deceits of the heart!(2) The devil watcheth night and day to set fire to this tow.(3) And that we may not be secure, there are before our eyes and in our view dreadful examples. Balaam, a great prophet; Judas, an apostle familiar with Christ; Saul, Jehu, Herod, and Agrippa, famous kings.

2. And there is great danger by it."(1) The loss of all. that,, is done. Christ will say, as to that young man, "Yet lackest thou one thing (Luke 18:22), sincerity: wouldest thou have heaven too? Why then didst thou all things for the "praise of men? Thou hast thy reward," and art overpaid. "Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:23).(2) Frustrating of hopes, great hopes, hopes of glory and heaven, and escaping eternal misery. All these hopes must "perish " to the "hypocrite" (Job 8:13); perish like a ship at the very mouth of the haven; perish while they are crying, "Lord, Lord"; perish into everlasting horror and eternal despair.(3) Full detection and manifesting of them in the sight and face of all the world.(4) And in hell the hypocrite shall be beaten with many stripes. For he knew his Master's will, and pretended he was doing it, and yet did it not.

(A. Bromhall.)

I. SOME WAYS IN WHICH THIS HYPOCRISY WORKS AND IS SHOWN.

1. Hypocrisy works in the bias of the mind. There is a secret end and aim with those in whom it works, apart from the glory of God. Self is always uppermost, even in religious acts and outward worship.

2. Hypocrisy shows itself in a resting in duties. Those in whom it thus works are satisfied to please self and others in them; they do not seek Christ in them; they go on in duties, but it is a bondage to them; their duties leave no savour on them; they are strict to a fault whilst engaged in them, and shame some gracious souls, who have not the self-command they show; but out of their duties they are light and frothy; there is nothing resting upon their spirits. View them at home, you see little or no difference between them and those who make no profession.

3. Hypocrisy shows itself in Weariness of religion. Many, with all their outward zeal, are secretly weary of religious duties; they get nothing in them; they go away as they came, unwatered and unrefreshed; their inward spring seems dried up; Christ's yoke is often grievous to them. This is a far gone stage of the disease; it is the heart departing from the Lord. They slave and drudge on at duties, but are nothing bettered by them; they rather grow worse; their spiritual appetite seems departing. But for shame, many would give in at this stage, and walk no more as the open followers of Jesus.

4. Once more: hypocrisy works much in prayer, open and private. It regards choice of expression and fitting words mere than the workings of desires in the heart, though the utterances are unconnected and broken. It depends on mental help more than spiritual assistance,

II. THE KINDS OF CHRISTIANS WHO ARE MOST PRONE TO THIS SIN, AND WHO OUGHT, THEREFORE, TO BE MOST ON THEIR GUARD AGAINST IT.

1. Christians whose avocations bring them much into the world should guard against this sin.

2. Persons that are naturally crafty and subtle have great reason to watch against hypocrisy in their religious acts.

3. Those have great reason to guard against this sin who have been brought comfortably and calmly into peace with God, who have not been under great terrors of conscience, nor laid long, if at all, under a broken law — those who have come to Christ on the first motions of godly sorrow, and found peace with God. It too often happens that those who have been so gently dealt with do not value the blessing aright; they do not see what it cost the Son of God to procure.

4. Those who are naturally superstitious have need to be on the watch. It is a great advantage to Satan to meet with a superstitious person under the power of religion; he will improve his advantage, and try to work upon their superstition, to bring them into bondage, and to make them hypocrites in numberless ways. He will try to give them too high an esteem for externals, to deaden, if possible, the power of religion in their souls. He will give them needless torment about little matters which in themselves are of no consequence or value, but he will try and magnify them in their eyes, and seek to persuade them to believe that much depends on them. They will be often led to believe that a scrupulous conscience is a tender one, whereas the two things are totally different; and a man may have a very scrupulous conscience in religious matters that yet never hated sin or loved God.

III. THE DANGER OF GIVING WAY TO THIS SIN, AND LETTING IT GAIN GROUND. This will also lead me to say a few words by way of caution how to prevent this.

1. It is a hateful sin in the sight of God. All hypocrisy is deception; and God is a God of truth, and loves truth, and will have those who worship Him " worship Him in spirit and in truth."

2. Hypocrisy is a very deceiving sin. Hypocrites go on in duties, because the most of their religion lies in duties. Thus their duties deceive them. They judge well of themselves, because of their duties: but God judges of them by the state of their hearts.

3. Hypocrisy is a very dangerous sin. It works, as the Saviour says, like leaven; it spreads over and taints, if unresisted and unchecked, all the healthy actings of the soul. It will, in the end, wear out all the sincere principles from which a professor once acted, and make him a confirmed hypocrite. There is danger of God giving up any who go on in this sin to a "reprobate mind"; not all at once, but little by little, their spiritual strength will wax less and less, till it dries up altogether. They may be given up secretly to some corruption which will eat as a canker. Their souls will wither, because by their sin they cut themselves off from Christ.

4. But now, not to discourage any, it is good to have hypocrisy discovered; the honest soul will be glad to know the worst, and never rest till he does. It is a bad sign to rest satisfied under uneasy feelings, hoping for a change, but without being stirred up to seek it. It is good to be severe with oneself, to sound our own hearts to the bottom, to beg of God and men to search and try us. It is only in this way — and that not now and then, or when pressed in conscience, but habitually — that hypocrisy will be kept under.

(H. M. Baker.)

1. The worldly hypocrite, who professes godliness from worldly motives.

2. The legal hypocrite, who resigns his vicious practices to win heaven, but has no love to God.

3. The evangelical hypocrite, whose religion is an acknowledgment of sin, but with no desire to lead a godly life.

4. The enthusiastic hypocrite, who has an imaginary notion of the Saviour, and relies on impulses and feelings, and yet clings to vicious deeds.

(Van Doren.)

Cain in the first age; Canaan in the second; Ishmael in the third; Esau in the fourth; Saul among the prophets; Judas among the apostles; Nicholas among the deacons; Ananias among the early Christians.

(Van Doren.)

— To profess a faith which you have net is to make yourself a deceptive trader, who pretends to be carrying on a very large business, while he has no stock, no capital, and is only obtaining credit on false pretences, and so is a thief. To make a profession, without having a possession, is to be a cloud without rain — a river-bed choked up with dry stones, but utterly without water; it is to be a mere play-actor, strutting about for an hour with the name and garments of a king, to be exchanged, behind the scenes, for the garb of poverty, and the character of shame; it is to be a rotten tree, green on the outside, but inwardly, as John Bunyan pithily puts it, "only fit to be tinder for the devil's tinder box." Be ye warned against fair pretensions where there is nothing to back them up. Above all things, eschew hypocrisy; stand aside from all mere pretence. Profess not to be what you are not, lest in that day when God comes to search the secrets of all hearts, you shall be condemned as reprobate silver, and consumed like dross.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

An old English writer says: — "The Emperor Frederick III., when one said unto him he would go and find some place where no hypocrite inhabited, told him he must travel, then, far enough beyond the Sauromatae or the frozen ocean; for yet, when he came there, he should find a hypocrite if he found himself there. And it is true that every man is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is lesson that every man readily takes in. All are not fit for the wars; learning must have the picked and choicest wits; arts must have leisure and pains; but all sorts are apt enough, and thrive in the mystery of dissimulation.

That which was the disease of the Pharisee was the disease of the time. Our Lord calls that disease "hypocrisy." We have a reasonable horror of the name. We consider that it is applicable only to the worst men in the worst times. There is good excuse for that opinion; yet it may rob us of the force of our Lord's warning — we may put it at a dangerous distance from ourselves. The hypocrite is the man who acts a part; there is no more evil significance in the word than that. And oh! how easy it is to be a hypocrite if that is his characteristic; how difficult it is not to be one! Do you not know with what terrible. quickness a child becomes an actor or actress? Do you not know what we do to cultivate the acting talent, the acting habit in them? Do you not know what a number of social influences and contrivances are at work to convince men and women that it is their business to be masquers, that their skill is to be shown in the devising of masks? To strike at the root of this hypocrisy, to point out the remedy, this is the work which we ask from the King of men, from Him who knows what is in man. Jesus struck at the root of all social hypocrisy, of all personal hypocrisy, in Palestine, when He traced it to the religion which prevailed there. Then He pointed out the remedy in this sentence of everlasting might: "For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither Lid that shall not be known." The religion of the Pharisees consisted in a series of attempts to please, flatter, and bribe the Ruler of the earth. If He could be persuaded not to look too curiously into the acts of His servants, not to probe the secrets of their hearts; if He could be induced to accept a compensation for this evil, on certain conditions to tolerate that; if His commandments could be shown to bear different constructions for different persons; if cases might be imagined to which they did not apply, or applied with various qualifications and mitigations; if the creature could succeed in keeping the Creator at a distance from him, so that his secrets should not be brought to the light; their religion had realized its highest objects. Such a religion was leavening the chosen people, as it was under other aspects, with the most dissimilar professions under heathen forms of worship, leavening the old Roman Empire. The priests and lawyers in Jerusalem, the Pontifiex and the Augur in Rome, were alike acting a part. They rehearsed their parts in private; they performed them in public. The Pharisees were at once the consummate practisers of the art and the most systematic instructors in it. But what if the Ruler of the earth could not be flattered or bribed? What if everything that is covered must be revealed, if everything that is hidden must be known? What if the very act of the Creator is to reveal, if He is bringing all things to light, if He hates darkness? There is the whole question. Is it a God of light you serve, or a God of darkness? Acting hypocrisy is an impossible kind of service with the first, the only suitable one with the second.

(F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

Grace is the Christian's new nature, and hypocrisy is the art that counterfeits it. The hypocrite affects the innocence of the dove to hide the cunning of the serpent. By the hypocrite good men are oft deceived, for "Goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems." The hypocrite, like Judas, may salute Christ, but it is to betray Him. The hypocrite's life is a falsehood to heaven and to earth. The hypocrite gives his tongue to virtue, but his heart to vice. If there be "the head of gold," there are also "the feet of miry clay." Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. The more plausible hypocrisy is before men, the more detestable it is to God. The hypocrite serves Satan, and from Satan receives his reward. The religious hypocrite is at best a man of dark deeds, though clad in garments of light. He may approach the portals of heaven, but he does not enter. A hypocrite was discovered at a royal supper, but the king rejected him from the banquet. Man esteems him hateful, because he seems not what he is; and God hates him, because he is not what he seems. The Christian's heart oft speaks without the tongue, but the hypocrite's tongue always speaks without the heart. The hypocrite, like a bird of prey, although his course be towards heaven, yet is always looking and longing for something upon earth. The Christian gives to God the fruit of his labours; the hypocrite gives to God the fruit of his lips. The hypocrite is led by ostentation, and not by a sanctified conscience. Hypocrites may be "Christians in the skin, but they are demons in the core"; "their rhetoric may be pretty, their logic witty, but their practice is naughty." Hypocrisy is insulting to the virtuous, and cruel to the poor and afflicted. For he who hides his vices by hypocrisy, suspects the virtues of others to be hypocrisy. And the poor and afflicted remain poor and afflicted, because the sin of the hypocrite closed the hand of charity, and in consequence thereof genuine sorrow is oft suspected in place of being relieved. An impostor who asks for alms is a hypocrite in the lower grade. Hypocrisy may prevail in morals as well as in creed. Some men are hypocritical in both. Hypocrisy shall be detected, as in the case of Saul (1 Samuel 15:14), Gehazi (2 Kings 5:26), Judas (Matthew 26:50), Ananias (Acts 5:3), Simon Magus (Acts 8:20, 21). Hypocrisy may be seen in the history of Jacob (Genesis 27:20), Pharaoh (Exodus 8:28, 29), Balaam (Numbers 23:10), Absalom (2 Samuel 15:7), Hazael (2 Kings 8:12, 13). Samaritans (Ezra 4:2), Herod (Matthew 2:8), High Priest (Matthew 26:65), Pilate (Matthew 27:24). Let the hypocrite tremble lest he perish by his own hypocrisy, for God is the God of Truth, Christ is the Word of Truth, and the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth. "The hope of the hypocrite shall be as the spider's web" (Job 8:13, 14). He is unwise who decries religion because some professing to be religious are hypocrites. None would take the pains to counterfeit pearls, if true ones were not of value. Men would not personate piety were it not of itself a noble quality. We best show our abhorrence of hypocrisy by holding the truth free from hypocrisy.

(Van Doren.)

Jesus, Peter, SolomonRoad to JerusalemBeware, Circumstances, Crowd, Crushing, Deceit, Disciples, Foot, Gathered, Guard, Heed, Hypocrisy, Innumerable, Insomuch, Leaven, Mean, Meantime, Meanwhile, Multitude, Myriads, Nothing, Numbers, Pharisees, Proceeded, Saying, Speak, Stepping, Streaming, Tens, Thousands, Towards, Trampled, Trampling, Tread, Trod, Trode, Yeast, Yourselves1. Jesus preaches to his apostles to avoid hypocrisy
13. and warns against covetousness, by the parable of the man who set up greater barns.
22. We must not worry about earthly things,
31. but seek the kingdom of God;
33. give alms;
35. be ready at a knock to open to our Lord whensoever he comes.
41. Jesus' disciples are to see to their charges,
49. and look for persecution.
54. The people must take this time of grace;
57. because it is a fearful thing to die without reconciliation.

Luke 12:1

     5279   crowds
     5919   popularity
     5920   pretence
     5978   warning
     7552   Pharisees, attitudes to Christ
     8736   evil, warnings against
     8749   false teachers

Luke 12:1-2

     8767   hypocrisy

Luke 12:1-3

     4554   yeast

October 23 Morning
A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.--LUKE 12:15. A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.--Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.--Godliness with contentment is great gain. Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 29 Morning
Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.--MATT. 25:34. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.--Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?--Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 26 Morning
The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods . . . to every man according to his several ability.--MATT. 25:14,15. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey? All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.--As every man hath received the gift, …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

May 14. "But God" (Luke xii. 20).
"But God" (Luke xii. 20). What else do we really need? What else is He trying to make us understand? The religion of the Bible is wholly supernatural. The one resource of faith has always been the living God, and Him alone. The children of Israel were utterly dependent upon Jehovah as they marched through the wilderness, and the one reason their foes feared them and hastened to submit themselves was that they recognized among them the shout of a King, and the presence of One compared with whom all …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Stillness in Storm
'... Neither be ye of doubtful mind.'--LUKE xii. 29. I think that these words convey no very definite idea to most readers. The thing forbidden is not very sharply defined by the expression which our translators have employed, but the original term is very picturesque and precise. The word originally means 'to be elevated, to be raised as a meteor,' and comes by degrees to mean to be raised in one special way--namely, as a boat is tossed by a tough sea. So there is a picture in this prohibition which …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Servant-Lord
Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth, and serve them.--LUKE xii. 37. No one would have dared to say that except Jesus Christ. For surely, manifold and wonderful as are the glimpses that we get in the New Testament of the relation of perfect souls in heaven to Him, none of them pierces deeper, rises higher, and speaks more boundless blessing, than such words as these. Well might Christ think it necessary to preface them with the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Fire on Earth
'I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled!'--LUKE xii. 49. We have here one of the rare glimpses which our Lord gives us into His inmost heart, His thought of His mission, and His feelings about it. If familiarity had not weakened the impression, and dulled the edge, of these words, how startling they would seem to us! 'I am come'--then, He was, before He came, and He came by His own voluntary act. A Jewish peasant says that He is going to set the world on fire-and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Rich Fool
'And one of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. 14. And He said unto him, Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you? 15. And He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. 16. And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Anxious About Earth, or Earnest About the Kingdom
'And He said unto His disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25. And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26. If ye then be not able to do that thing …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

The Equipment of the Servants
'Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; 36. And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord.'--Luke xii. 35, 36. These words ought to stir us like the sound of a trumpet. But, by long familiarity, they drop upon dull ears, and scarcely produce any effect. The picture that they suggest, as an emblem of the Christian state, is a striking one. It is midnight, a great house is without its master, the lord of the palace is absent, but expected back, the servants are busy in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Servants and Stewards Here and Hereafter
'Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching: Verily I shall say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing. 44. Of a truth I say unto you, that He will make him ruler over all that he hath. --LUKE xii. 37, 43, and 44. You will, of course, observe that these two passages are strictly parallel in form. Our Lord evidently intends …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

October the Nineteenth Ready!
"Let your loins be girded about." --LUKE xii. 35-40. Loose garments can be very troublesome. An Oriental robe, if left ungirdled, entangles the feet, or is caught by the wind and hinders one's goings. And therefore the wearer binds the loose attire together with a girdle, and makes it firm and compact about his body. And loose principles can be more dangerous than loose garments. Indefinite opinions, caught by the passing wind of popular caprice, are both a peril and a burden. Many people go through …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

True Harvest Joy.
TEXT: LUKE xii. 16-21. TO-DAY the harvest thanksgiving is celebrated through out the land, and it is most fitting that it should be with all of us a day of great and joyful giving of thanks. Although there are but few among the masses of people crowded together in this as in other great cities, who have any direct share in this great business of agriculture, yet we are all aware that it is the prime source of our common prosperity; indeed, I may say, the first condition of the development of our …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xii. 15, "And He Said unto Them, Take Heed, and Keep Yourselves from all Covetousness. "
1. I doubt not but that ye who fear God, do hear His word with awe, and execute it with cheerfulness; that what He hath promised, ye may at present hope for, hereafter receive. We have just now heard the Lord Christ Jesus, the Son of God, giving us a precept. The Truth, who neither deceiveth, nor is deceived, hath given us a precept; let us hear, fear, beware. What is this precept then: "I say unto you, Beware of all covetousness"? [3392] What is, "of all covetousness"? What is, "of all"? Why did …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xii. 35, "Let Your Loins be Girded About, and Your Lamps Burning; and be Ye Yourselves Like," Etc. And
1. Our Lord Jesus Christ both came to men, and went away from men, and is to come to men. And yet He was here when He came, nor did He depart when He went away, and He is to come to them to whom He said, "Lo, I am with you, even unto the end of the world." [3417] According to the "form of a servant" then, which He took for our sakes, was He born at a certain time, and was slain, and rose again, and now "dieth no more, neither shall death have any more dominion over Him;" [3418] but according to His …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke xii. 56, 58, "Ye Know How to Interpret the Face of the Earth and the Heaven," Etc. ; and Of
1. We have heard the Gospel, and in it the Lord reproving those who knew how to discern the face of the sky, and know not how to discover the time of faith, the kingdom of heaven which is at hand. Now this He said to the Jews; but His words reach even unto us. Now the Lord Jesus Christ Himself began the preaching of His Gospel in this way; "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." [3431] In like manner too John the Baptist and His forerunner began thus; "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

On Worldly Folly
"But God said unto him, Thou fool!" Luke 12:20. But one of these fools is commonly wiser in his own eyes "than seven men that can render a reason." If it were possible for a Christian, for one that has the mind which was in Christ, to despise any one, he would cordially despise those who suppose "they are the men, and wisdom shall die with them." You may see one of these, painted to the life, in the verses preceding the text. "The ground of a certain rich man," says our blessed Lord, "brought forth …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

On Divine Providence
"Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7. 1. The doctrine of divine providence has been received by wise men in all ages. It was believed by many of the eminent Heathens, not only philosophers, but orators and poets. Innumerable are the testimonies concerning it which are scattered up and down in their writings; agreeable to that well-knowing saying in Cicero, Deorum moderamine cuncta geri: "That all things, all events in this world, are under the management of God." We might …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

The Use of Fear in Religion.
PROVERBS ix. 10.--"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Luke xii. 4, 5.--"And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." The place which the feeling of fear ought to hold in the religious experience of mankind is variously assigned. Theories of religion are continually passing …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

Darkness Before the Dawn
"Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether."--SONG OF SOLOMON 2:17. THE SPOUSE SINGS, "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away," so that the beloved of the Lord may be in the dark. It may be night with her who has a place in the heart of the Well-beloved. A child of God, who is a child of light, may be for a while in darkness; first, darkness comparatively, as compared with the light he has some times …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 42: 1896

Hypocrisy
I am sure that every true child of God will stand at times in doubt of himself, and his fear will probably take the shape of a suspicion concerning his own state. He that never doubted of his state, He may--perhaps he may--too late. The Christian, however, does not belong to that class. He will at times begin to be terribly alarmed, lest, after all, his godliness should be but seeming, and his profession an empty vanity. He who is true will sometimes suspect himself of falsehood, while he who is …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

Our Requests Made Known unto God
OUR REQUESTS MADE KNOWN UNTO GOD ". . . Let your requests be made known unto God." -- Phil. 4:6. Paul, the pattern saint, would have us see the value of revealing our needs to God in prayer. We must not presume that the things required to sustain life will be granted without making our requests known unto God. Our requirements on earth and God's resources in heaven are meant for each other. If we ask, we shall receive. When we fail to ask, we fail to receive. The Word declares, "Ye have not, because …
T. M. Anderson—Prayer Availeth Much

Lii. Concerning Hypocrisy, Worldly Anxiety, Watchfulness, and his Approaching Passion.
(Galilee.) ^C Luke XII. 1-59. ^c 1 In the meantime [that is, while these things were occurring in the Pharisee's house], when the many thousands of the multitude were gathered together, insomuch that they trod one upon another [in their eagerness to get near enough to Jesus to see and hear] , he began to say unto his disciples first of all [that is, as the first or most appropriate lesson], Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. [This admonition is the key to the understanding …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Christianity Misunderstood by Men of Science.
Attitude of Men of Science to Religions in General--What Religion is, and What is its Significance for the Life of Humanity-- Three Conceptions of Life--Christian Religion the Expression of the Divine Conception of Life--Misinterpretation of Christianity by Men of Science, who Study it in its External Manifestations Due to their Criticising it from Standpoint of Social Conception of Life--Opinion, Resulting from this Misinterpretation, that Christ's Moral Teaching is Exaggerated and Cannot be put …
Leo Tolstoy—The Kingdom of God is within you

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