Some concise account of the nature of the disease of leprosy, of the place it held in the Jewish economy as the "sacrament of death," of the leading allusions to it in the Old Testament, and of the Levitical provisions in the event of a recovery or supposed recovery, may form introduction to discourse. Then dwell on some suggestions arising from the fact of -

I. THE FAME OF JESUS TRAVELLING TO A LEPER.

II. A LEPER TRAVELLING TO JESUS HIMSELF AT ALL RISKS. III. THE WELL-LEARNT HUMILITY OF THIS LEPER. IV, THE CLEAR DECISIVE FAITH OF THIS LEPER.

V. THE PROMPT AND PRACTICAL COMPASSION OF JESUS: HE TOUCHED THE LEPER. It was legal defilement to touch a leper, because he was a leper; but it was not defilement to touch a leper, if he thereby ceased to be such.

VI. THE PROBABLE REASON OR REASONS OF THE CHARGE OF JESUS TO HIM.

1. The reason may perhaps solely have had reference to what the Saviour knew of the real tendencies of the leper he had cleansed.

2. The reason may have had rather some outer aspect, and may have had it in view to obtain before men, and as a much-needed "testimony against" themselves, a true and unprejudiced and confessed verdict from the priests as to the genuineness of the great work of cleansing which he had accomplished.

3. The reason may have been strictly that, for Jesus, his "time was not yet ready," while the defence of the cleansed and happy, late leper, will ever be that he could not contain his joy, his praise, and his gratitude. - B.

I. LEPROSY AFFORDS A STRIKING REPRESENTATION OF THE CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.

1. This spiritual leprosy has rendered all our race unclean in the sight of God and in the judgment of His holy law.(1) It shuts us out from His presence,(2) and from a place among His people.

2. No skill or power of man can cure this disease.

3. This malady, if not healed, will issue in death. And remember, death is not cessation of being, but a state of awful terror, pain, and wretchedness. This is the issue to which sin is bringing its victims.

4. Yet, thank God, our case is not altogether hopeless; there is a cure.

II. OBSERVE THE STEPS TAKEN BY THIS LEPER TO OBTAIN A CURE. Thus we may learn what the disposition is, in which we should endeavour to approach the Saviour, who alone can heal our spiritual leprosy.

1. The first thing I would notice in this leper's conduct is the eagerness and haste with which he ran to Jesus immediately he met Him.

2. His reverential selfabasement. His eagerness in seeking relief did not cause him to forget what was due to the character of Him from whom that relief was sought.

3. The confidence he entertained of Christ's power. Have not we far stronger grounds for this than he had?

(J. Harding, M. A.)

I. Observe HOW MANY ANONYMOUS BELIEVERS THERE ARE IN THE BIBLE RECORD WHO GIVE HELP ALL ALONG THE AGES. Here are mentioned "multitudes," and among them two persons in particular — a leper and a paralytic. And that is all we know about any individual to whom that eventful day was the beginning of renewed life. No name, no history, no after. career; but we suppose that these cripples are in heaven now, and we know that their story has helped thousands to be patient and cheerful on the way thither. It is of little consequence who we are; it matters more what we are.

II. EVEN IN EXTREME HOPELESSNESS OF DISEASE ONE MAY EXHIBIT A SUPREME AND ILLUSTRIOUS FAITH. The cases of these two men were as bad as they could well be; yet did our Lord find in them faith enough to be healed. In the rooms of the American Tract Society, in New York, are still standing two objects which I studied for some meditative years, once a month, at a committee meeting. One is a slight framework of tough wood, a few feet high, so bound together with hasps and hinges as to be taken down and folded in the hand. This was Whitefield's travelling-pulpit — the one he used when, denied access to the churches, he harangued the thousands in the open air, on the moors of England. You will think of this modern apostle, lifted up upon the small platform, with the throngs of eager people around him, or hurrying from one field to another, bearing his Bible in his arms; ever on the move, toiling with Herculean energy, and a force like that of a giant. There, in that rude pulpit, is the symbol of all which is active and fiery in dauntless Christian zeal. But now, look again: in the centre of this framework, resting upon the slender platform, where the living preacher used to stand, you will see a chair — a plain, straight-backed, armed, cottage-chair — rough, simple, meagrely cushioned, unvarnished, and stiff. It was the seat in which Elizabeth Wallbridge, "the dairyman's daughter," sat and coughed and whispered, and from which she went only at her last hour to the couch on which she died. Here again is a pulpit; and it is the symbol of a life quiet and unromantic and hard in all Christian endurance. Every word that invalid woman uttered — every patient night she suffered — was a gospel sermon. In a hundred languages, the life of that servant of God has preached to millions of souls the riches of Christ's glory and grace. And of these two pulpits, which is the most honourable is known only to God, who undoubtedly accepted and consecrated them both. The one is suggestive of the ministry of speech, the other of the ministry of submission.

III. AN EXPLANATION OF THE MYSTERY AND THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING. Pain is a sort of ordination to the Christian ministry. Pure submission is as good as going on a foreign mission. Souls may be won to the Cross by a life on a sick-bed just as well as by a life in a cathedral desk.

IV. Hence, we may easily learn WHAT SHOULD BE THE CHIEF OCCUPATION OF AN INVALID. NO one can preach from any pulpit without the proper measure of study. He must thoughtfully ascertain what will make his efforts most pertinent.

1. He will study doctrine.

2. He will study experience, too.A month ago I saw a brave soldier of the Cross who had been passing through a fiery history of years with broken health, which had taken him from the pulpit of his usefulness and bidden him look into the grave season after season. He was now only able to stand, and sought a new field. Only yesterday he visited me again; in his feebleness he lay on my couch while he talked. He had just come from putting the wife of his manhood, his patient helper and the stay of his home, in the bedlam of a madhouse. Poor in spirit and poor in purse, broken-hearted and alone, he feared he should break again. Yet there he lay, and spoke hopefully and gently. Oh, that valiant brother, quivering in every muscle, but bold and firm in his trustful courage, preached to me in my study as I know I never preached in my church!

V. Some people recover from long illness; Christ heals them, as He did these men in the story. So there is one more lesson for convalescents: WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES HEREAFTER? "It is a solemn thing to die," said Schiller, "but it is a more solemn thing to live." We know the story of the Scotch mother, whose child an eagle stole away; half maddened she saw the bird reach its eyrie far up the cliff. No one could scale the rock. In distraction she prayed all the day. An old sailor climbed after it, and crept down dizzily from the height. There, on her outstretched arms, as she plod with closed eyes, he laid her babe. She rose in majesty of self-denial and took it (as she had been taught in that land) to her minister. She would not kiss it till it had been solemnly dedicated unto God I What shall a man do with a life given back to him?

(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

The divinely-offered key to a right appreciation of Christ's spiritual work, even to that which theologians call the Atonement, should be sought by observing how our Lord cleansed the lepers, made the blind to see, and the lame to walk. Let us endeavour to realize how He, whose name is the only name given under heaven among men whereby we may be saved, healed men's diseases, in order that we may understand, so far as it has been revealed, how He saves us from our sins.

I. CONSIDER, FIRST, WHY JESUS HEALED. Not to show that He could, but because He pitied the sufferer. When asked to work miracles to prove His ability to do so, He habitually declined. Every act of healing wrought by Christ was an act of pure compassion. He never healed to attract attention to Himself. He often commanded those He healed to say nothing of their cure.

II. CONSIDER, NEXT, HOW JESUS HEALED.

1. The fact that He had compassion upon them was itself the first step in the cure of many who came to Him. There are diseases in which recovery must begin by regaining lost self-respect. In Christ the most dissolute and disgraced found not only pity, but delicate considerateness. Think, e.g., of His treatment of this leper. We can scarcely conceive what the effect must have been upon a man who had for years been closeted with his loathsome self, or with still more loathsome fellow-sufferers — a man who might not eat with human beings unless the same deadly taint was upon them, nor appear in the street except jangling a bell to give warning of the peril his presence brought; who, if he patted upon the head a carrion dog, it must be instantly killed, lest it should brush against others and defile them, because he had touched it; who, if he saw his mother, his child, his wife approach, must fly or shout, "Unclean, unclean! Keep afar!" We can scarcely conceive what the effect must have been upon such a man, when he saw Jesus draw nigh. The multitude attending the Saviour falls back as men shrink from the plague; for crowds are always cowards. But the Master approaches, and, paying no heed to the jangling bell, the warning cry, lays His hand upon him. For the first time for years the leper feels the touch of a hand that is not hardened by the awful malady. That touch must have made the leper a new man in heart before the quickened pulse could shoot new life into the decaying limbs.

2. In healing, Christ made effort. One must be blind to read the New Testament, and fancy Christ's cures cost Him nothing because He was Divine. It was because He was Divine that they cost Him so much. If you would seek beings incapable of suffering, you must not go up toward the angels and the great white throne, for there you will find "the Lamb as it had been slain," but down among the oysters. Do you ask, How did Christ bear men's diseases? Thus: He sighed, He prayed, He lifted them in His arms, He put His hands upon them, He drew them to His bosom, He groaned, He felt His strength go from Him, to heal their bodies. If He had done less, He would not have made manifest the longsuttering God; and His saving men's bodies, His bearing their infirmities and healing their diseases, would have been no illustration of the agony with which He wrestled in Gethsemane for the salvation of their souls.

3. In many instances Jesus employed known remedies in physical healing. He manipulated the palsied tongue and the stopped ears — "put His fingers in the ears," "touched the tongue." He covered the blind eyes with moist clay, a well-known Egyptian remedy for ophthalmia. He inquired minutely the symptoms of the demoniac boy. He bent over those He healed, He touched them, as careful physicians do. Thus He encouraged, not the breach, but the observance of God's order. He put honour, by His example, upon the use of scientific remedies. At times He healed by a word, without approaching the sick one. But He seems to have dispensed with remedies only when to employ them was impossible, or when they would have been obviously useless, or when there was a special reason for neglecting them. His example said to those apostles to whom miraculous powers were given, "Use the best means; pray God to bless their use; and when you can do nothing more, pray." And that is what every wise and instructed Christian tries to do.

4. In all Christ's healings there was conspicuously revealed the authority of absolute power. When He spoke, devils obeyed, the dead heard, the despairing hoped, the lost knew that they were found.

(William B. Wright.)

A lady visiting an asylum for friendless orphan children lately watched the little ones go through their daily drill superintended by the matron, a firm, honest woman, to whom her duty had evidently become a mechanical task. One little toddler hurt her foot, and the visitor, who had children of her own, took her on her knee, petted her, made her laugh, and kissed her before she put her down. The other children stared in wonder. "What is the matter? Does nobody ever kiss you?" asked the astonished visitor. "No; that isn't in the rules, ma'am," was the answer. A gentleman in the same city, who one morning stopped to buy a newspaper from a wizened, shrieking newsboy at the station, found the boy following him every day thereafter, with a wistful face, brushing the spots from his clothes, calling a car for him, &c. "Do you know me?" he asked at last. The wretched little Arab laughed. "No; but you called me 'my child' one day. I'd like to do something for you, sir. I thought before that I was nobody's child." Christian men and women are too apt to feel when they subscribe to organized charities that they have done their duty to the great army of homeless, friendless waifs around them. A touch, a kiss, a kind word, may do much towards saving the neglected little one who feels he is "nobody's child," teaching it, as no money can do, that we are all children of one Father. When Christ would heal or help the poor outcast, He did not send him money, but He came close and touched him.

This man apparently had no doubt of our Lord's ability to heal him. It was about Christ's willingness that he was in doubt. As a rule, men do not naturally associate love and power; they believe in the existence of power far more readily than in that of love. Power seems to create distrust in love.

1. Perhaps because the world is so used to seeing power used arbitrarily and selfishly.

2. Because of the consciousness of sin. It was when Peter saw the Divine power of Christ displayed in the draught of fishes that he said, "Depart from me," &c. And in the light of this fact, the incident of our text has a peculiar force; for —

I. THE DISEASE FROM WHICH THIS MAN WAS SUFFERING WAS REPRESENTATIVE OF SIN. It was a decomposition of the vital juices, putrefaction in a living body; hence an image of death. The leper was treated throughout as a sinner. "He was a dreadful parable of death." The case of this leper, therefore —

II. GAVE OUR LORD AN OPPORTUNITY, NOT ONLY TO DO A WORK OF MERCY AND LOVE UPON A DISEASED MAN, BUT ALSO TO GIVE A SYMBOLIC TESTIMONY OF HIS WILLINGNESS TO DEAL LOVINGLY AND FORGIVINGLY WITH A SINFUL MAN. Let US see how Christ's willingness comes out in this incident.

1. It is not repelled by an imperfect faith.

2. It was shown in Christ's express declaration. How striking is the way in which He meets that timid "If Thou wilt" with "I will."

(M. R. Vincent, D. D.)

When the leper said, "If Thou wilt," he narrowed his appeal, and directed it to the will of Jesus. His faith in Christ's power was very much stronger that his faith in Christ's goodness. It contained much that was true, but did not contain much more that was equally true. Christ answered, not according to the imperfection of the appeal, but according to its possibility of being perfected. "If Thou wilt" is fitting language for us, not because we doubt His goodness, but because we believe in His wisdom. If we learn that it is God's will that we should suffer and have disappointment, we hope amidst our pain, and know that our disappointment is after all the appointment of the wiser still, and that, whatever may be in the meantime withheld, the answer will be given at last, "Be thou clean."

(J. Ogmore Davies)

I. PHYSICAL ASPECT.

1. White pustules — eat away flesh — attacking one member after another — at last the bones.

2. Attended with sleeplessness, nightmare, and hopelessness of cure.

3. A living death.

II. SOCIAL ASPECT.

1. Contagion.

2. Lived in a several house, or in bands at a distance from ordinary dwelling.

3. Went with head uncovered, crying, "Room for the leper."

III. RELIGIOUS ASPECT.

1. Excommunication — no communion with the commonwealth of Israel.

2. In every way a type of the impenitent sinner. For —

3. Sin is a living death; contagious, and separates from God.

(F. Godet, D. D.)

And He charged him to tell no man. Assume that the true state of the case was that Jesus wrought a cure, and left it to the priest to declare the patient cured, and all becomes clear, natural, and Christlike. Two things had to be done to make the benefit complete — the disease had to be healed, whereby the sufferer would be delivered from the physical evil; and it had to be authoritatively declared healed, whereby the sufferer would be delivered from the social disabilities imposed by the law upon lepers. Jesus conferred one-half of the blessing, and He sent the leper to the priest to receive from him the other half. He did this, not in ostentation, or by way of precaution, but chiefly, if not exclusively, out of regard to the man's good, that he might be restored, not only to health, but to society. Hence, also, the injunction of silence. The prevention of unhealthy excitement among the people was only a secondary aim. The primary end concerned the man healed. Jesus wished to prevent him from contenting himself with half the benefit, rejoicing in restored health, and telling everybody he met about it, and neglecting the steps necessary to get himself universally recognized as healed.

(A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

A certificate of the recovery of a leper could only be given at Jerusalem, by a priest, after a lengthened examination, and tedious rites. It will illustrate the bondage of the ceremonial law, as then in force, to describe them. With his heart full of the first joy of a cure so amazing, the leper had to set off to the Temple for the requisite papers to authorize his return, once more, to the roll of Israel. A tent had to be pitched outside the city, and in this the priest examined the leper, cutting off all his hair with the utmost care; for, if only two hairs were left, the ceremony was invalid. Two sparrows had to be brought at this first stage of the cleansing — the one, Go be killed over a small earthen pan of water, into which its blood must drop; the other, after being sprinkled with the blood of its mate — a cedar twig, to which scarlet wool and a piece of hyssop (Psalm 51:1) were bound, being used to do so — was let free in such a direction that it should fly to the open country. After the scrutiny by the priest, the leper put on clean clothes, and carried away those he had worn to a running stream to wash them thoroughly, and to cleanse himself by a bath. He could now enter the city, but for seven days more could not enter his own house. On the eighth day he once more submitted to the scissors of the priest, who cut off whatever hair might have grown in the interval. Then followed a second bath; and now he had only carefully to avoid any defilement, so as to be fit to attend in the Temple next morning, and complete his cleansing. The first step in this final purification was to offer three lambs, two males and a female, none of which must be under a year old. Standing at the outer edge of the court of the men, which he was not yet worthy to enter, the leper awaited the longed-for rites. These began by the priest taking one of the male lambs destined to be slain as an atonement for the leper, and handing it to each point of the compass in turn, and by his swinging a vessel of oil on all sides in the same way, as if to present both to the universally-present God. He then led the lamb to the leper, who laid his hands on its head, and gave it over as a sacrifice for his guilt, which he now confessed. It was forthwith killed at the north side of the altar, two priests catching its blood, the one in a vessel, the other in his hand. The first now sprinkled the altar with the blood, while the other went to the leper and anointed his ears, his right thumb, and his right toe with it. The one priest then poured some oil of the leper's offering into the left hand of the other, who, in his turn, dipped his finger seven times into the oil thus held, and sprinkled it as often towards the Holy of Holies. Each part of the leper which before had been touched with the blood was then further anointed with the oil, what remained being stroked on his head. The leper could now enter the men's court, and did so, passing through it to that of the priests'. The female lamb was next killed, as a sin-offering, after he had put his hands on its head, part of its blood being smeared on the horns of the altar, while the rest was poured out at the altar-base. The other male lamb was then slain for a burnt-sacrifice; the leper once more laying him hands on its head, and the priests sprinkling its blood on the altar. The fat, and all that was fit for an offering, was now laid on the altar, and burned as a "sweet-smelling savour" to God. A meal-offering of fine wheat meal and oil ended the whole; a portion being laid on the altar, while the rest, with the two lambs, of which only a small part had been burned, formed the dues of the priest. It was not till all this had been done that the full ceremony of cleansing, or showing himself to the priests, had been carried out, and that the cheering words, " Thou art pure," restored the sufferer once more to the rights of citizenship and of intercourse with men. No wonder that even a man like St. Peter, so tenderly minded to his ancestral religion, should speak (Acts 15:10) of its requirements as a yoke which "neither our fathers nor we are able to bear."

(Dr. Geikie.)

Unless we show ourselves to whomsoever is our priest after our healings and cleansings, and after the gift which is commanded us, we are less pure for having been so cleansed, and more diseased for having been so healed. There can be no greater evil than to be prosperous without being prayerful, and strong without being Godlike. You should never finish your successful commercial enterprise with the balancing of your account at the bank. The only duty of your restored vigour is not merely to pay your doctor's bill. Your healing and your prospering are from Israel's God; you had better tell Him of them, and tell Him without much ado with man by the way. Tell no man until you know how to speak devoutly, and see no man until you have seen God. You must obey with the new strength before you are free in the use of it.

(J. Ogmore Davies.)

James, Jesus, John, Levi, Peter, Simon, Zabdi, ZebedeeGalilee, Genneseret, Jerusalem, JudeaAnyone, Appointed, Bring, Charged, Clean, Cleansing, Commanded, Directed, Enjoined, Evidence, Law, Nothing, Offer, Offering, Ordained, Ordered, Orders, Priest, Proof, Purification, Sacrifices, Says, Shew, Testimony, Thyself, Witness1. Jesus teaches the people out of Peter's ship;
4. shows how he will make them fishers of men;
12. cleanses the leper;
16. prays in the desert;
17. heals a paralytic;
27. calls Matthew the tax collector;
29. eats with sinners, as being the physician of souls;
33. foretells the fasting and afflictions of the apostles after his ascension;
36. and illustrates the matter by the parable of patches.

Luke 5:14

     2333   Christ, attitude to OT
     7414   priesthood, NT
     7770   priests, NT tasks

Luke 5:12-14

     5285   cures
     7340   clean and unclean

March 25 Evening
Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.--LUKE 5:5. All power is give unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: . . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea. Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: necessity is laid …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 19. "Launch Out into the Deep" (Luke v. 4).
"Launch out into the deep" (Luke v. 4). Many difficulties and perplexities in connection with our Christian life might be best settled by a simple and bold decision of our will to go forward with the light we have and leave the speculations and theories that we cannot decide for further settlement. What we need is to act, and to act with the best light we have, and as we step out into the present duty and full obedience, many things will be made plain which it is no use waiting to decide. Beloved, …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

December 9. "Launch Out into the Deep" (Luke v. 4).
"Launch out into the deep" (Luke v. 4). One of the special marks of the Holy Ghost in the Apostolic Church was the spirit Of boldness. One of the most essential qualities of the faith that is to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God, is holy audacity. Where we are dealing with a supernatural Being, and taking from Him things that are humanly impossible, it is easier to take much than little; it is easier to stand in a place of audacious trust than in a place of cautious, timid …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Humility
LUKE v. 8. Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Few stories in the New Testament are as well known as this. Few go home more deeply to the heart of man. Most simple, most graceful is the story, and yet it has in it depths unfathomable. Great painters have loved to draw, great poets have loved to sing, that scene on the lake of Gennesaret. The clear blue water, land- locked with mountains; the meadows on the shore, gay with their lilies of the field, on which our Lord bade them look, …
Charles Kingsley—Discipline and Other Sermons

Instructions for Fishermen
'Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.'--LUKE v. 4. The day's work begins early in the East. So the sun, as it rose above the hills on the other side of the lake, shone down upon a busy scene, fresh with the dew and energy of the morning, on the beach by the little village of Bethsaida. One group of fishermen was washing their nets, their boats being hauled up on the strand. A crowd of listeners was thus early gathered round …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Fear and Faith
'When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' --LUKE v. 8. 'Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him,... and did cast himself into the sea.'--JOHN xxi. 7. These two instances of the miraculous draught of fishes on the Lake of Gennesareth are obviously intended to be taken in conjunction. Their similarities and their differences are equally striking and equally instructive. In the fragment …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Blasphemer, or --Who?
'And it came to pass on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. 18. And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before Him. 19. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

"The Moody and Sankey Humbug. "
There was a man, while we were in London, who got out a little paper called "The Moody and Sankey Humbug." He used to have it to sell to the people coming into the meeting. After he had sold a great many thousand copies of that number, he wanted to get out another number; so he came to the meeting to get something to put into the paper; but the power of the Lord was present. It says here in this chapter (Luke 5) that the Pharisees, scribes, and doctors, were watching the words of Christ in that house …
Dwight L. Moody—Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations

Absolution.
Preached June 2, 1850. ABSOLUTION. "And the Scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?"--Luke v. 21. There are questions which having been again and again settled, still from time to time, present themselves for re-solution; errors which having been refuted, and cut up by the roots, re-appear in the next century as fresh and vigorous as ever. Like the fabled monsters of old, from whose dissevered neck the blood …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

Carried by Four
When our Lord left his retirement he found the crowd around him exceeding great, and it was as motley as it was great; for while here were many sincere believers, there were still more sceptical observers; some were anxious to receive his healing power, others equally desirous to find occasion against him. So in all congregations, however the preacher may be clothed with his Master's spirit and his Master's might, there will be a mixed gathering; there will come together your Pharisees and doctors …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

The Secret of Success.
5th Sunday after Trinity S. Luke v. 5. "We have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word, I will let down the net." INTRODUCTION.--S. Peter and the other Apostles had been fishing all night, and had met with no success at all, then Jesus entered into the boat of Simon, and bade him launch out and let down his net. S. Peter did not hesitate. He had met with no success when fishing in the night, nevertheless now, at the word of Christ, he fishes again, and this time the net encloses a great multitude, …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

Christ the Great Physician.
"They that are whole have no need of a physician; but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Luke v. 31, 32). "For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them" (Matt. xiii. 15). "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted" (Luke iv. 18). …
Frank G. Allen—Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel

Jesus, Still Lead On.
"Jesu, geh Voran." "They forsook all, and followed him."--Luke 5:11. [7]Ludwig von Zinzendorf transl., Jane Borthwick, 1846, 1854 Jesus, still lead on, Till our rest be won! And although the way be cheerless, We will follow, calm and fearless. Guide us by thy hand To our Fatherland. If the way be drear, If the foe be near, Let not faithless fears o'ertake us, Let not faith and hope forsake us For, through many a foe, To our home we go! When we seek relief From a long-felt grief-- When oppressed …
Jane Borthwick—Hymns from the Land of Luther

Travelling in Palestine --Roads, Inns, Hospitality, Custom-House Officers, Taxation, Publicans
It was the very busiest road in Palestine, on which the publican Levi Matthew sat at the receipt of "custom," when our Lord called him to the fellowship of the Gospel, and he then made that great feast to which he invited his fellow-publicans, that they also might see and hear Him in Whom he had found life and peace (Luke 5:29). For, it was the only truly international road of all those which passed through Palestine; indeed, it formed one of the great highways of the world's commerce. At the time …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Penitence, as Explained in the Sophistical Jargon of the Schoolmen, Widely Different from the Purity Required by the Gospel. Of Confession and Satisfaction.
1. Errors of the Schoolmen in delivering the doctrine of repentance. 1. Errors in defining it. Four different definitions considered. 2. Absurd division. 3. Vain and puzzling questions. 4. Mode in which they entangle themselves. 2. The false doctrine of the Schoolmen necessary to be refuted. Of contrition. Their view of it examined. 3. True and genuine contrition. 4. Auricular confession. Whether or not of divine authority. Arguments of Canonists and Schoolmen. Allegorical argument founded on Judaism. …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Seventh Appearance of Jesus.
(Sea of Galilee.) ^D John XXI. 1-25. ^d 1 After these things Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and he manifested himself on this wise. 2 There was together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee [see p. 111], and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. [As usual, Peter was the leader.] They say unto him, We also come with thee. They went forth, and entered into the boat; …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Jesus Heals a Leper and Creates Much Excitement.
^A Matt.VIII. 2-4; ^B Mark I. 40-45; ^C Luke V. 12-16. ^c 12 And it came to pass, while he was in one of the cities [it was a city of Galilee, but as it was not named, it is idle to conjecture which city it was], behold, ^b there cometh { ^a came} ^b to him a leper [There is much discussion as to what is here meant by leprosy. Two diseases now go by that name; viz., psoriasis and elephantiasis. There are also three varieties of psoriasis, namely, white, black and red. There are also three varieties …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Disciples of Jesus.
In this terrestrial paradise, which the great revolutions of history had till then scarcely touched, there lived a population in perfect harmony with the country itself, active, honest, joyous, and tender-hearted. The Lake of Tiberias is one of the best supplied with fish of any in the world.[1] Very productive fisheries were established, especially at Bethsaida, and at Capernaum, and had produced a certain degree of wealth. These families of fishermen formed a gentle and peaceable society, extending …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Conflict with Evil
The Kingdom of God Will Have to Fight for Its Advance The great objective is the Kingdom of God. In realizing the Reign of God on earth three recalcitrant forces have to be brought into obedience to God's law: the desire for power, the love of property, and unsocial religion. We have studied Christ's thought concerning these in the foregoing chapters. The advance of the Kingdom of God is not simply a process of social education, but a conflict with hostile forces which resist, neutralize, and defy …
Walter Rauschenbusch—The Social Principles of Jesus

The Lake of Gennesaret; Or, the Sea of Galilee and Tiberias.
Jordan is measured at one hundred and twenty furlongs, from the lake of Samochonitis to that of Gennesaret. That lake, in the Old Testament, is 'The sea of Chinnereth,' Numbers 34:11, &c. In the Targumists, 'The sea of Genesar'; sometimes, 'of Genesor'; sometimes, 'of Ginosar': it is the same also in the Talmudists, but most frequently 'The sea of Tiberiah.' Both names are used by the evangelists; 'the lake of Gennesaret,' Luke 5:1; 'the sea of Tiberias,' John 21:1; and 'the sea of Galilee,' John …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Peter's Repentance
"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61, 62). That was the turning-point in the history of Peter. Christ had said to him: "Thou canst not follow me now" (John 13:36). Peter was not in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not been brought to an end of himself; he did not know himself, and he therefore could not follow …
Andrew Murray—Absolute Surrender

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