PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 250,891 words · 361 reading sections
Brave Encouragements
'In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 3. Who is left among you that s…
699 wordsSECTION 122Brave Encouragements
The repetition of the one exhortation, 'Be strong, be strong, be strong,' is very impressive. The very monotony has power. In the face of the difficulties which beset every good work the cardinal virtue is strength. 'To be weak is to be miserable,' and is the parent of failures. One hears in the exhortation an echo of …
674 wordsSECTION 123Brave Encouragements
'Yet once, it is a little while.' How long did the little while last? There were, possibly, some feeble incipient fulfilments of the prophecy in the immediate future; for, after the exile, there were convulsions in the political world which resulted in security to the Jews, and the religion of Israel began to draw some…
704 wordsSECTION 124Dying Men And The Undying Word
* * * * * 'Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever? 6. But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers?'-Zechariah i. 5, 6. Zechariah was the Prophet of the Restoration. Some sixteen years before this date a feeble band …
742 wordsSECTION 125Dying Men And The Undying Word
Take another thought, that all these past hearers and speakers of the Word had that Word verified in their lives. 'Took it not hold of your fathers?' Some of them neglected it, and its burdens were upon them, little as they felt them sometimes. Some of them clave to it, and accepted it, and its blessed promises were al…
827 wordsSECTION 126Dying Men And The Undying Word
Another consideration to be drawn from this contrast is, since we have this abiding Word, let us not dread changes, however startling and revolutionary. Jesus Christ does not change. But there is a human element in the Church's conceptions of Jesus Christ, and still more in its working out of the principles of the Gosp…
739 wordsSECTION 127Dying Men And The Undying Word
Hold it fast. In this time of unrest make sure of your grasp of the eternal, central core of Christianity, Jesus Christ Himself, the divine-human Saviour of the world. There are too many of us whose faith oozes out at their finger ends, simply because they have so many around them that question and doubt and deny. Do n…
473 wordsSECTION 128The City Without Walls
'Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls.... For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.'--ZECHARIAH ii. 4, 5. Zechariah was the Prophet of the returning exiles, and his great work was to hearten them for their difficult task, with their …
710 wordsSECTION 129The City Without Walls
In spite of all the vauntings of people that have already discounted its fall, and are talking as if it needed no more to be reckoned with, that calm confidence is the spirit in which we are to look around and forward. It does not become any Christian ever to have the smallest scintillation of a fear that the ship that…
729 wordsSECTION 130The City Without Walls
The same thing is true, dear brethren, about individuals. For each of us the secret of joy, of purity, of knowledge, is that we be holding close communion with God. If we have Him in the depths of our hearts, then, and only then, shall we be 'light in the Lord.' And now look at the last point which follows, as I have …
692 wordsSECTION 131A Vision Of Judgement And Cleansing
'And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. 2. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? 3. Now Joshua was clo…
778 wordsSECTION 132A Vision Of Judgement And Cleansing
The second thought in this symbolic appearance of Joshua before the angel of the Lord is that the sins of God's people are even now present before His perfect judgment, as reasons for withdrawing from them His favour. That is a solemn truth, which should never be forgotten. A Christian man's sins do accuse him at the b…
686 wordsSECTION 133A Vision Of Judgement And Cleansing
The sentence is followed by the exchange of the filthy garments symbolical of sin, for the full array of the high priest. Ministering angels are dimly seen in the background, and are summoned to unclothe and clothe Joshua. The Prophet ventures to ask that the sacerdotal attire should be completed by the turban or mitre…
742 wordsSECTION 134A Vision Of Judgement And Cleansing
And what are the 'seven eyes on the stone'? That may simply be a vivid way of saying that the fulness of divine Providence would watch over the Messiah, bringing Him when the time was ripe, and fitting Him for His work. But if we remember the subsequent explanation (iv. 10) of the 'seven,' as 'the eyes of the Lord whic…
395 wordsSECTION 135The Right Of Entry
'I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by.'--ZECHARIAH iii. 7. A WORD or two of explanation will probably be necessary in order to see the full meaning of this great promise. The Prophet has just been describing a vision of judgment which he saw, in which the high priest, as representative of the nat…
914 wordsSECTION 136The Right Of Entry
Secondly, let us consider this promise as a pattern for us of what Christian life should be, and, alas! so seldom is. All privilege is duty, and everything that is possible for any Christian man to become, it is imperative on him to aim at. There is no greater sin than living beneath the possibilities of our lives, in…
655 wordsSECTION 137The Right Of Entry
Lastly, notice, not from my text but from its context, how any life may become thus privileged. The promise is preceded by a condition: 'If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge, then ... I will give thee access among those that stand by.' That is to say, you cannot keep the consciousness of God's…
344 wordsSECTION 138The Source Of Power
'And the Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, 2. And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are up…
680 wordsSECTION 139The Source Of Power
Now, there can be no doubt about the symbolism of the tabernacle lamp. It represented the true office of Israel, as it rayed out its beams into the darkness of the desert. It meant the same thing as Christ's words, 'Ye are the light of the world,' and as the vision of the seven golden candlesticks, in Revelation i. 12,…
677 wordsSECTION 140The Source Of Power
Such triumphant rising above difficulties is not presumption when it has been preceded by believing gaze on the source of strength. If we have taken to heart the former words of the Prophet, we shall not be in danger of rash overconfidence when we calmly front obstacles in the path of duty, assured that every mountain …
756 wordsSECTION 141The Founder And Finisher Of The Temple
Men might look with contempt on the humble beginning, but other eyes than theirs looked at it with other emotions. The eyes which in the last vision were spoken of as directed on the foundation stone, gaze on the work with joy. These are the seven eyes of 'the Lord,' which are 'the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into…
653 wordsSECTION 142The Founder And Finisher Of The Temple
I. There is, then, here a large truth as to Christ, the true Temple-builder. It is the same blessed message which was given from His own lips long centuries after, when He spoke from heaven to John in Patmos, and said, 'I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.' The first letter of the Greek alphabet, and the last…
845 wordsSECTION 143The Founder And Finisher Of The Temple
II. Notice, secondly, that we have here the assurance of the triumph of the Gospel. No doubt, in the long-forgotten days in which my text was spoken, there were plenty of over-prudent calculators in the little band of exiles who said, 'What is the use of our trying to build in face of all this opposition and with thes…
713 wordsSECTION 144The Founder And Finisher Of The Temple
IV. Lastly, here is a striking contrast to the fate which attends all human workers. There are very few of us who even partially seem to be happy enough to begin and finish any task, beyond the small ones of our daily life. Authors die, with books half finished, with sentences half finished sometimes, where the pen ha…
626 wordsSECTION 145The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
'He shall build the Temple of the Lord ... and He shall be a Priest upon His throne.'--ZECHARIAH vi. 13. A handful of feeble exiles had come back from their Captivity. 'The holy and beautiful house' where their fathers praised Him was burned with fire. There was no king among them, but they still possessed a represen…
683 wordsSECTION 146The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
I. The true hope of the world is a priest. The idea of priesthood is universal. It has been distorted and abused; it has been made the foundation of spiritual tyranny. The priest has not been the teacher nor the elevator of the people. All over the world he has been the ally of oppression and darkness, he has hindered…
699 wordsSECTION 147The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
And what is the priest whom men crave? The first requisite is oneness with those whom he represents. Men have ever felt that one of themselves must fill this office, and have taken from among their brethren their medium of communication with God. And we have a Priest who, 'in all things, is made like unto His brethren…
887 wordsSECTION 148The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
He does rule. 'The kingdom of Christ' is no unreal fanciful phrase. Take the lowest ground. Who is it that, by the words He spoke, by the deeds He did, by the life He lived, has shaped the whole form of moral and religious thought and life in the civilised world? Is there One among the great of old, the dead yet sceptr…
733 wordsSECTION 149The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
III. Our text still further reminds us that the Priest-King of men builds among men the Temple of God. The Prophet and his companions had become familiar in their captivity with the gigantic palaces and temples which Assyrian and Babylonian monarchs had a passion for rearing. They had learned to regard the king as equ…
734 wordsSECTION 150The Priest Of The World And King Of Men
In one of the mosques of Damascus, which has been a Christian church, and before that was a heathen temple, the portal bears, deep cut in Greek characters, the inscription, 'Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.' The confident words seem contradicted by …
259 wordsSECTION 151A Dialogue With God
'A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a Father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My Name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy Name? 7. Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar. And ye say, Wherei…
740 wordsSECTION 152A Dialogue With God
And as sin has but one root, it has many branches, and as working backwards from deed to motive, we find one common element in all the various acts; so working outwards from motive to deed, we have to see one common character stamped upon a tragical variety of acts. The poison-water is exhibited in many variously colou…
686 wordsSECTION 153Blemished Offerings
Let us not forget the New Testament modification of the divine accusation. 'In Christ' is the Name of God fully and finally revealed to men. For us who live in the blaze of the ineffable brightness of the revelation, our attitude towards Him who brings it is the test of our 'hallowing of the Name' which He brings. He H…
848 wordsSECTION 154Blemished Offerings
Contrast the trust that we put in one another, and the trust that we direct to Him. In the one case it is absolute. 'I am as sure as I am of my own existence that so-and-so will always be as true as steel to me, and will never fail me, and whatever he, or she, does, or fails to do, no shadow of suspicion, or mist of do…
696 wordsSECTION 155Blemished Offerings
II. And now let me come to another point--viz., that we have here suggested and implied the true law and principle on which all Christian giving of all sorts is to be regulated. And that is--give the best. The diseased animal was no more fit for the altar of God than it was for the shambles of the viceroy. It was the …
744 wordsSECTION 156Blemished Offerings
And there is another thing, and that is that, somehow or other, if not in the individual gifts, at all events in their aggregate, there must be present the fact of sacrifice. 'I will not offer unto the Lord burnt offerings of that which doth cost me nothing,' said the old king. And we do not give as we ought, unless ou…
706 wordsSECTION 157A Dialogue With God
Brethren! we all need to revise our scale of giving, especially in regard to missionary operations. And if we will do that at the foot of the Cross, then we shall join the chorus, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive _riches_,' and we shall come to Him 'bringing our silver and our gold with us,' rejoicing that…
759 wordsSECTION 158A Dialogue With God
The miseries and sufferings which follow our sins are self-inflicted, and for the most part automatic. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that'--and not some other crop--'will he also reap.' The wages of sin are paid in ready money; and it is as just to lay them at God's door as it would be to charge Him with inflicting the dis…
661 wordsSECTION 159The Last Word Of Prophecy
Our right response to God's merciful threatenings is to ask this question in the right spirit. We are not wise if we turn a deaf ear to His warnings, or go on in a headlong course which He by His providences declared to be dangerous and fatal. We use them as wise men should, only if our 'Wherefore?' is asked in order t…
774 wordsSECTION 160The Last Word Of Prophecy
The first point worthy of notice in this passage, then, is the concentration, in this last prophetic utterance, of that element of forward-looking expectancy which marked all the earlier revelation. From the beginning, the selectest spirits in Israel had set their faces and pointed their fingers to a great future, whic…
710 wordsSECTION 161The Last Word Of Prophecy
We next note the aspect of the coming which is prominent here. Not the kingly, nor the redemptive, but the judicial, is uppermost. With keen irony the Prophet contrasts the professed eagerness of the people for the appearance of Jehovah and their shrinking terror when He does come. He is 'the Lord whom ye seek'; the Me…
689 wordsSECTION 162The Last Word Of Prophecy
A new paragraph begins with verse 7, which is not closely connected with the promises preceding. It recurs to the prevailing tone of Malachi, the rebuke of negligence in attending to the legal obligations of worship. That negligence is declared to be a reason for God's withdrawal from them. But the 'return,' which is p…
447 wordsSECTION 163The Unchanging Lord
'I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.' MALACHI iii. 6. The scriptural revelations of the divine Name are always the basis of intensely practical admonition. The Bible does not think it worth while to proclaim the Name of God without building on the proclamation promises or command…
767 wordsSECTION 164The Unchanging Lord
II. The unchanging God as the foundation of our changeful lives. In the most literal sense our text is true. Because He lives we live also. He is the same for ever, therefore we are not consumed. The foundation of our being lies beyond and beneath all the mutable things from which we are tempted to believe that we dra…
801 wordsSECTION 165A Dialogue With God
'Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts. But ye say, Wherein shall we return?'--MALACHI iii. 7 (R.V.). In previous sermons we have considered God's indictment of man's sin met by man's plea of 'not guilty,' and God's threatenings brushed aside by man's question. Here we have the climax o…
761 wordsSECTION 166'Stout Words,' And Their Confutation
But the question of our text has often a nobler origin, and comes from the depths of a troubled heart. Not seldom does God's loving invitation rouse the dormant conscience to the sense of sin. The man, lying broken at the foot of the cliff down which he has fallen, and seeing the brightness of God far above, has his he…
782 wordsSECTION 167'Stout Words,' And Their Confutation
What was wrong in these 'stout words'? It was wrong to attach such worth to external acts of devotion, as if these were deserving of reward. It was wrong to suspend the duty of worship on the prosperity resulting from it, and to seek 'profit' from 'keeping his charge.' Such religion was shallow and selfish, and had the…
806 wordsSECTION 168'Stout Words,' And Their Confutation
No grander vision of judgment exists than Malachi's picture of 'the day,' lurid, on the one hand, with the fierce flame, before which the wicked are as stubble that crackles for a moment and then is grey ashes, or as a tree in a forest fire, which stands for a little while, a pillar of flame, and then falls with a cras…
530 wordsSECTION 169The Last Words Of The Old And New Testaments
'Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.'--MALACHI iv. 6. 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.'--REVELATION xxii. 21. It is of course only an accident that these words close the Old and the New Testaments. In the Hebrew Bible Malachi's prophecies do not stand at the end; but he was the la…
672 wordsSECTION 170The Last Words Of The Old And New Testaments
So there seems to emerge, and there is, a very real and a very significant contrast. 'I come and smite the earth with a curse' sounds strangely unlike 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.' And, of course, in this generation there is a strong tendency to dwell upon that contrast and to exaggerate it, and…
893 wordsSECTION 171The Last Words Of The Old And New Testaments
So, dear brethren, remember, if you tamper with the one you destroy the other; if there be no fearful judgment from which men need to be delivered, Christ has borne nothing for us that entitles Him to demand our hearts; and all the ascriptions of praise and adoration to Him, and all the surrender of loving hearts, in u…
697 wordsSECTION 172Contents
* * * * * _Chaps. I to VIII_ MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST (Matt. i. 1-16) THE NATIVITY (Matt. i. 18-25) THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME (Matt. i. 21) THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES (Matt. ii. 1-12) THE KING IN EXILE (Matt. ii. 13-23) THE HERALD OF THE KING (Matt. iii. 1-12) THE BAPTISM IN FIRE (Matt. iii. 11…
395 wordsSECTION 173Matthew'S Genealogy Of Jesus Christ
'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; 3. And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; 4. And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson…
969 wordsSECTION 174Matthew'S Genealogy Of Jesus Christ
The purpose of Matthew's genealogy is further brought out by its symmetrical arrangement into three groups of fourteen generations each--an arrangement not arrived at without some free manipulating of the links. The sacred number is doubled in each case, which implies eminent completeness. Each of the three groups make…
826 wordsSECTION 175The Nativity
'Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. 20. But while he t…
752 wordsSECTION 176The Nativity
The most stupendous fact in history is announced by the angel chiefly as the reason for Joseph's going on with his marriage. Surely that strange inversion of the apparent importance of the two things speaks for the historical reliableness of the narrative. The purpose in hand is mainly to remove his hesitation and poin…
928 wordsSECTION 177The Nativity
How different the world and his own life looked to Joseph when he woke! Hesitations and agonising doubts of his betrothed's purity had vanished with the night, and, instead of the dread that her child would be the offspring of shame, had come a divinely given certainty that it was 'a holy thing.' In the rush of the sud…
291 wordsSECTION 178The Name Above Every Name
'... Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins'.--MATT. 1. 21. I. THE historical associations of the name. It was a very common Jewish name, and of course was given in memory of the great leader who brought the hosts of Israel to rest in the promised land. There is no sharper cont…
692 wordsSECTION 179The Name Above Every Name
But who can tell how much of the modern world's estimate of the superiority of moral courage to mere brute force is owing to the history of the life of Christ? We find a further parallel in the warfare through which He conquers for us the land. His own struggle ('I have overcome'), and the lesson that we too must fig…
671 wordsSECTION 180The Name Above Every Name
We can discern the Jewish error in externalising and materialising the conception of salvation, but many of us repeat it in essence. What is the difference between the Jew who thought that salvation was deliverance from Rome, and the 'Christian' who thinks that it is deliverance not from sin but from its punishment? W…
518 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.