Expositions of Holy Scripture : St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII

Nor does the injunction mean that unconditionally we are to abandon all occupations in which there is danger. It can never be a duty to shirk a duty because it is dangerous. And...

It is universally true that obligation goes with capacity. It is especially true with regard to our relation to Jesus Christ. We are all bound to 'hear Him,' as the great Voice...

Now, if we take these three stages of this conversation we may learn some valuable lessons from them. I take the first form of the question as an example of that wholesome self-...

And, if I might venture to touch upon another matter, compassion and not curiosity is an especial lesson for the day to the more thoughtful and cultivated amongst our congregati...

II. Now comes the sharp-pointed test, which pricks the brilliant bubble. Mark tells us that Jesus accompanied His word with one of those looks which searched a soul, and bore Hi...

We have a Lord, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. 'Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.' We have not merely to look back to the life and death of C...

And without them no effectual work! It is no holiday task to cast out devils. Self-indulgent men will never do it. Loose-braced, easy souls, that lie open to all the pleasurable...

I have said that these hostile critics attest the reality of the miracles. I know that it is not fashionable at present to attach much weight to the fact that none of all the en...

'The disciple shall be as his master.' Do you make it your effort to be like Him? If so, then the saying is not only a law, but a promise, for it assures us that our effort shal...

What was bad in it? First, the characteristic pushing of himself to the front, and wish to be singled out from his brethren by some special token. 'Bid _me_ come.' Why should he...

The solemn foretelling of persecution, broken for a moment, goes on and becomes even more foreboding, for it speaks of dearest ones turned to foes, and the sweet sanctities of f...

And so the simple lesson to be drawn from that clear fact, about all our conduct, is this--let results alone. Never mind about what you cannot get hold of; you cannot see to the...

As for Ecclesiastes, though not his, it represents not untruly the tone which we may suppose to have characterised his later days in its dwelling on the vanity of life. The sadn...

Then come the awful words bidding that generation 'fill up the measure of the fathers.' They are like the other command to Judas to do his work quickly. They are more than permi...

There is something very beautiful and pathetic in the simple brevity of the unhesitating answer, 'Yea, Lord.' Sincerity needs few words. Faith can put an infinite deal of meanin...

I need not remind you how the same metaphor recurs frequently in the teachings of our Lord and of the Apostles. Sometimes the Old Testament collective point of view is maintaine...

And then comes another, and he says, 'I am Culture, and intellectual acquirement; or my name is Education, and I am going to make the tree good in the most scientific fashion, b...

Judas was simply a man of a low earthly nature, who became a follower of Christ, thinking that He was to prove a Messiah of the vulgar type, or another Judas Maccabæus. He was n...

and the most slenderly endowed Christian has some crumb of the bread of life intrusted to him to dispense. It is to be observed that watchfulness is not mentioned in this portra...

John tells us that the 'woman' was Mary, and the objector Judas. Both the deed and the cavil are better understood by knowing whence they came. Lazarus was a guest, and as his s...

What was the purpose of the Transfiguration? Matthew seems to tell us in that 'before them.' It was for their sakes, not for His, as indeed follows from the belief that it was t...

III. Having referred the choice to the 'multitude,' Pilate takes his place on his official seat to wait for, and then to ratify, their vote. In that pause, he perhaps felt some...

'You would sit on My right hand and on My left? You think of that pre-eminence as conferred because you chose to ask it--as given by a piece of favouritism. Not so. I cannot mak...

How little these women knew that, as they went back from the grave in the morning twilight, they were the bearers of 'great joy which should be to all people'! To them and to th...

'He began to upbraid the cities.' But oh! we shall misunderstand Him and His purpose if we think that that upbraiding was anything but the sorrowful expression of His own loving...

And have we not a right to generalise this wonderful fact, and to declare its teaching to be--that the love of God is extended to us all, and cannot be made to turn away from us...

Jesus very seldom took notice of His enemies' slanders. 'When He was reviled He reviled not again.' If ever He did, it was for the sake of those whom it harmed to distort His be...

'Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. 37. And He took with Him Peter and the two so...

I need not diverge here to point to that life from which my thoughts have taken their start in this sermon. Surely if there was any one characteristic in it more distinct and lo...

Verse 28 adds, with His solemn 'verily,' a confirmation of this announcement of His coming to judge. The question of what event is referred to may best be answered by noting tha...

Taking, then, into account the weaving together in this passage of the three figures from the Old Testament to which I have already referred,--the rejected stone, the foundation...

But stranger still is the conduct of the rest. Why should they kill men whose only fault was bringing them a hospitable invitation? The incongruity of the representation has giv...

Is this prohibition, then, meant to forbid the attempt to keep the Church pure from un-Christian members? The considerations already adduced are valid in answering this question...

Let me run over two or three points that show us that. That treasure is the only one that meets our deepest poverty. We do not all know what that is, but whether you know it or...

Only Matthew and Mark tell us of the two witnesses whose twisted version of the word about 'destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days' seemed to Caiaphas serious eno...

Hence its universal adaptation to mankind. It alone of all so-called faiths overleaps all geographical limits and lives in all centuries. It alone wins its trophies and bestows...

'I was afraid.' Yes, of course. If a man is not a fool, his emotions follow his thoughts, and his thoughts ought to shape his emotions. And wherever there is the twilight of unc...

The words of my text were spoken, according to the version of them in Luke's Gospel, in answer to a question from the disciples. Our Lord had been discoursing, in very solemn wo...

This word of encouragement, which exhorts to both cheerfulness and courage, is often upon Christ's lips. It is only once employed in the Gospels by any other than He. If we thro...

You must put both these commandments together before you get Christ's will for His children completely expressed. There are some of you who think that Christianity is only a mea...

The royal procession is also a revelation of the character of the King and the nature of His kingdom. A strange King this, indeed, who has not even an ass of His own, and for fo...

And I do not think that we rightly conceive the relation between the sacrifices of barbarous heathen tribes, or the sacrifices appointed in Israel, and the great sacrifice on th...

'He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.' And so in the case of the others. The active prophet, righteous man, or disciple, and th...

Our Lord's first answer is as profound as it is beautiful, and veils, while it reveals, a lofty claim for Himself and a solemn foresight of His death, and lays down a great and...

II. The next actors in the tragedy are Herodias and her daughter. What a miserable destiny to be gibbeted for ever by half a dozen sentences! One deed, after which she no doubt...

This fruitful principle will one day shape civil as well as ecclesiastical societies. For the present, our Lord draws a contrast between the worldly and the Christian notions of...

'At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2. And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of t...

Let me bring into connection with the scene of my text three others, gathered from various parts of Scripture. In the forty-fifth Psalm we find, side by side with the great word...

IV. We have the woman's retort, which wrings hope out of apparent discouragement, answered by Christ's joyful granting of her request. Out of His very words she weaves a plea. '...

Masters nowadays do not give servants their money to trade with, when they leave home; but the incident is true to the old-world relations of master and slave. Our Lord's consci...

The angel's words fall into three parts. First, he calms fears by the assurance that the seekers for Christ are dear to Him. 'Fear not _ye_' glances at the prostrate watchers, a...

As I suppose we are all aware, the Jewish Temple was divided into three parts: the Outer Court, open to all; the Holy Place, to which the ministering priests had daily access to...

And then, there is a difference between these two versions of the Parable in respect to their representation of the end of the seeking. The one says 'seeks until He finds.' Oh!...

When it was first heard, I suppose that the disciples and the women apprehended the salutation only in its most outward form, and that all other thoughts were lost in the mere r...

When you fathers and mothers forgive your children, what does it mean? Does it not mean that your love is neither deflected nor embittered any more, by reason of their wrongdoin...

The forgotten work and its workers are remembered by Christ. His faithful heart and all-seeing eye keep them ever in view. The world, and the Church whom these humble men helped...

'To him that hath shall be given.' If you will make that truth your own by loyal faith and honest obedience, if you will grapple it to your heart, then you will learn more and m...

But I would point out that the amount is stated in terms of talents, and _any_ talent is a large sum; and there are ten thousand of these; and the reason why the account is made...