PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 250,891 words · 361 reading sections
The Sixth Beatitude
Whether you call it the vision of God, or whether you call it communion with God in Jesus Christ, or whether you fall back upon the other metaphor of God dwelling in us and we dwelling in God, it all comes to the same thing, the consciousness of His presence, the realisation of His character, the blessed assurance of l…
752 wordsSECTION 242The Sixth Beatitude
Brethren, I venture to say no word about the blessedness of that future. Heaven's golden gates keep their secret well. Even the purest joys of earth, about which poets have sung for untold centuries, after all singing need to be tasted before they are conceived of; and all our imaginings about the blessedness yonder is…
350 wordsSECTION 243The Seventh Beatitude
'Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.' MATT. v. 9. This is the last Beatitude descriptive of the character of the Christian. There follows one more, which describes his reception by the world. But this one sets the top stone, the shining apex, upon the whole temple-structure whic…
769 wordsSECTION 244The Seventh Beatitude
Brethren, the peacemaker who is worthy of the name must have gone through these deep spiritual experiences. I do not say that they are to come in regular stages, separable from each other. That is not the way in which a character mounts towards God. It does so not by a flight of steps, at distinctly different elevation…
755 wordsSECTION 245The Seventh Beatitude
We often hear in these days complaints of Christian Churches and Christian people because they do not fling themselves, with sufficient energy to please the censors, into movements which are intended to bring about happier relations in society. The longest way round is sometimes the shortest way home. It does not belon…
700 wordsSECTION 246The Seventh Beatitude
III. Lastly, note the issue of this peacemaking. 'They shall be called the sons of God.' Called? By whom? Christ does not say, but it should not be difficult to ascertain. It seems to me that to suppose that it is by men degrades this promise, instead of making it the climax of the whole series. Besides, it is not tru…
707 wordsSECTION 247The Eighth Beatitude
'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'--MATT. v. 10. We have seen the description of the true subjects of the kingdom growing into form and completeness before our eyes in the preceding verses, which tell us what they are in their own consciousness, what …
665 wordsSECTION 248The Eighth Beatitude
The seeds of the persecuting temper are in human nature, and they germinate in the storms which Christianity brings with it. 3. The phases vary according to circumstances. We have not to look for the more severe and gross kinds of persecution. The tendency of the age is to visit no man with penalties for his belief,…
701 wordsSECTION 249The Eighth Beatitude
II. God's Gift to the persecuted. 'The kingdom of heaven.' This last promise is the same as the first--to express completeness, a rounded whole. All the others are but elements of this. That highest reward given to the perfectest saint is but the fuller possession of what is given in germ to the humblest and sinfull…
677 wordsSECTION 250Salt Without Savour
'Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.'--MATT. v. 13. These words must have seemed ridiculously presumptuous when they were first spoken, and they have too often s…
697 wordsSECTION 251Salt Without Savour
But the example of Christian men is not only repressive. It ought to tempt forth all that is best and purest and highest in the people with whom they come in contact. Every man who does right helps to make public opinion in favour of doing right; and every man who lowers the standard of morality in his own life helps t…
853 wordsSECTION 252Salt Without Savour
If you take a red-hot ball out of a furnace and lay it down upon a frosty moor, two processes will go on--the ball will lose heat and the surrounding atmosphere will gain it. There are two ways by which you equalise the temperature of a hotter and a colder body: the one is by the hot one getting cold, and the other is …
713 wordsSECTION 253Salt Without Savour
III. Now I come to the next point, and that is the solemn question: Is there a possibility of re-salting the saltless salt, of restoring the lost savour? 'Wherewithal shall it be salted?' says the Master. That is plain enough, but do not let us push it too far. If the Church is meant for the purifying of the world, an…
803 wordsSECTION 254The Lamp And The Bushel
Brethren, remember this: Unless you go back close to your Lord, you will go further away from Him. The deadness will deepen, the coldness will become icier and icier; you will lose more and more of the life, and show less and less of the likeness, and purity, of Jesus Christ until you come to this--I pray God that none…
695 wordsSECTION 255The Lamp And The Bushel
I. First, just a word about the great conception of a Christian man's office which is set forth in that metaphor, 'Ye are the light of the world.' That expression is wide, 'generic,' as they say. Then in the unfolding of this little parable our Lord goes on to explain what kind of a light it is to which He would compa…
671 wordsSECTION 256The Lamp And The Bushel
To-day there is need, I think, that Christian men and women should not be reasoned or sophisticated or cowed out of their confidence that they have the light because they do know God. It is proclaimed as the ultimate word of modern thought that we stand in the presence of a power which certainly is, but of which we can…
817 wordsSECTION 257The Lamp And The Bushel
On the other hand, all deep experience of the purifying power of Christ upon character will show itself in conduct. It is all very well for people to profess that they have received the forgiveness of sins and the inner sanctification of God's Spirit. If you have, let us see it, and let us see it in the commonest, pett…
740 wordsSECTION 258The Lamp And The Bushel
And we can bury the light of the Word under cowardly and sheepish and indifferent silence. I wonder how many of us have done that? Like blue-ribbon men that button their great-coats over their blue ribbons when they go into company where they are afraid to show them, there are many Christian people that are devout Chri…
661 wordsSECTION 259The New Form Of The Old Law
How effectual such a witness may be none who have not seen its power can suppose. Example does tell. A holy life curbs evil, ashamed to show itself in that pure presence. A good man or woman reveals the ugliness of evil by showing the beauty of holiness. More converts would be made by a Christ-like Church than by many …
679 wordsSECTION 260The New Form Of The Old Law
The first thing that strikes one in looking at these verses is their authoritative tone. There may, even thus early in Christ's career, have been some murmurs that He was taking up a position of antagonism to Mosaism, which may account for the 'think not' which introduces the section. But however that may be, the swift…
680 wordsSECTION 261The New Form Of The Old Law
Verse 18. Next we have to notice the exuberant testimony to the permanence of the law. Not the smallest of its letters, not even the little marks which distinguished some of them, or the flourishes at the top of some of them, should pass,--as we might say, not even the stroke across a written 't,' which shows that it i…
842 wordsSECTION 262The New Form Of The Old Law
Verses 23, 24. The second part of this illustrative example intensifies the command by putting obedience to it before acts of external worship. The language is vividly picturesque. We see a worshipper standing at the very altar while the priest is offering his sacrifice. In that sacred moment, while he is confessing hi…
695 wordsSECTION 263'Swear Not At All'
A gospel is hidden even in these warnings, for it is distinctly taught that the offended law may cease to be our adversary, and that we may be reconciled with it, ere yet it has accused us to the judge. It was not yet time to proclaim that the King 'fulfilled' the law, not only by life, but by death, and that therefore…
844 wordsSECTION 264Non-Resistance
'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. 41. And…
757 wordsSECTION 265Non-Resistance
It is but a shallow stream that is worried into foam and made angry and noisy by the stones in its bed; a deep river flows smooth and silent above them. Nothing will enable us to meet 'evil' with a patient yielding love which does not bring the faintest tinge of anger even into the cheek reddened by a rude hand, but th…
634 wordsSECTION 266The Law Of Love
'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in…
855 wordsSECTION 267The Law Of Love
No doubt, partial anticipations of this precept may be found, buried under much ethical rubbish, elsewhere than in the Sermon on the Mount, and more plainly in Old Testament teaching, and in Rabbinical sayings; but Christ's 'originality' as a moral teacher lies not so much in the absolute novelty of His commandments, a…
780 wordsSECTION 268Trumpets And Street Corners
But the reference to the shrunken love-streams that flow among men passes again swiftly to the former thought of likeness to God as the great pattern. Like a bird glancing downwards for a moment to earth, and then up again and away into the blue, our Lord's words re-soar, and settle at last by the throne of God. The co…
678 wordsSECTION 269Trumpets And Street Corners
The reason for the warning goes on two principles: one that righteousness is to be rewarded, over and above its own inherent blessedness; another, that the prospect of the reward is a legitimate stimulus, over and above the prime reason for righteousness, namely, that it is righteous. The New Testament morality is not …
729 wordsSECTION 270Trumpets And Street Corners
II. We need not dwell at length on the second application of the general warning--to prayer; as the words are almost, and the thoughts entirely, identical with those of the former verses. If there be any action of the spirit which requires the complete exclusion of thoughts of men, it is prayer, which is the communion …
600 wordsSECTION 271Solitary Prayer
'Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret,'--MATT. vi. 6. An old heathen who had come to a certain extent under the influence of Christ, called prayer 'the flight of the solitary to the Solitary.' There is a deep truth in that, though not all the truth. Prayer is…
665 wordsSECTION 272The Structure Of The Lord'S Prayer
The thought of being alone with God will be a joy--or a terror. 'After this manner therefore pray ye.'--MATT. vi. 9. 'After this manner' may or may not imply that Christ meant this prayer to be a form, but He certainly meant it for a model. And they who drink in its spirit, and pray, seeking God's glory before their …
670 wordsSECTION 273The Structure Of The Lord'S Prayer
The sum of this first half is, 'Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so on earth.' Obedience to that will is the end of God's self-revelation. It makes all the difference whether we begin with the thought of the name or of the will. In the latter case, religion will be slavish and submission sullen. There is no more horribl…
784 wordsSECTION 274'Our Father'
'Deliver us from evil' is a petition which, in its width, fits the close of the prayer better than does the translation of the Revised Version. There seems an echo of the words in Paul's noble confidence while the headsman's axe was so near, 'The Lord will deliver me from every evil work.' Entire exemption from evil of…
717 wordsSECTION 275'Our Father'
'After this manner pray ye.' The question which is usually made prominent in thinking of these words is really a very subordinate one. Did Christ intend to establish a form, or only to give an example? Churchmen say, a form; Dissenters generally say, an example. But it would be better for both Churchmen and Dissenters …
680 wordsSECTION 276'Our Father'
How much of our prayer, even while truest, fails here! We may be distinctly conscious of our wants; our wishes may be right, and our confidence may be firm that God will give us what we ask; yet how often there is no vivid thought of Him filling the mind! How often our prayers are offered to a mere name! How seldom thr…
690 wordsSECTION 277'Our Father'
3. It draws our hearts and hopes to our Father's home. 4. It delivers us from worship of the visible and from worship by means of the visible. So the Name guards against placing stress on externals and secondary forms, places, times of worship. III. The Community of Brotherhood of the Worshippers. _Our_ Father. 1. …
367 wordsSECTION 278'Hallowed Be Thy Name'
'Hallowed be Thy name.'--Matt. vi. 9. Name is character so far as revealed. I. What is meaning of Petition? Hallowed means to make holy; or to show as holy; or to regard as holy. The second of these is God's hallowing of His Name. The third is men's. The prayer asks that God would so act as to show the holiness of …
571 wordsSECTION 279'Thy Kingdom Come'
'Thy kingdom come.--MATT. vi. 10. 'The Lord reigneth, let the earth be glad'; 'The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble,' was the burden of Jewish psalmist and prophet from the first to the last. They have no doubt of His present dominion. Neither man's forgetfulness and man's rebellion, nor all the dark crosses and …
663 wordsSECTION 280'Thy Kingdom Come'
Let us take these thoughts which I have suggested, as expressing the Scriptural meaning of this phrase, and by their help try to ascertain what this prayer suggests. I. God reigns, yet we pray for the coming of His kingdom. That is to acknowledge that the world has departed from Him. It is at once to separate ourselv…
758 wordsSECTION 281'Thy Kingdom Come'
The Christian doctrine does not make the facts, but only the Christian doctrine can explain them. It seems to me that if I believed that life as I see it in the world, and as I feel it in myself, is life as God meant it to be, I should either go mad or be a wise man, not a fool, if I were to look up at the unpitying st…
782 wordsSECTION 282'Thy Kingdom Come'
Then if I have any hearers who are fancying that the gospel is worn out, any who are glowing with the anticipation of great new things, who scarcely know how, but believe that somehow, the ills that have in all ages cursed humanity are to be exorcised by some new methods of social organisation or the like--I pray them …
652 wordsSECTION 283'Thy Kingdom Come'
4. We pray for a kingdom to come which cannot be fully realised on this side the grave. Large as are the capabilities of this scene, they are not large enough for the full display of all the blessedness that lies in that kingdom. And so it is not all a mistake when men say, 'Ah, this world can never do for us'; it is n…
259 wordsSECTION 284'Thy Will Be Done'
'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.'--MATT. vi. 10. It makes all the difference whether the thought of the name, or that of the will, of God be the prominent one. If men begin with the will, then their religion will be slavish, a dull, sullen resignation, or a painful, weary round of unwelcome duties and r…
655 wordsSECTION 285'Thy Will Be Done'
Religion in the form of thought and of emotion is intended to influence life. The ultimate result of God's revelation of Himself and of God's kingdom among men is the conformity of our life and actions with the Will of God. That is the test of our religion. Character and conduct are all important. Here is a lesson for…
713 wordsSECTION 286'Thy Will Be Done'
This petition, then, is a revelation as well. For the doing of God's will there must be spiritual beings, like ourselves. If our doing it like them is the highest last desire which He who came to do that will can form for us, and is the ultimate goal which, if reached, the world's history would be crowned, then these s…
412 wordsSECTION 287The Cry For Bread
'Give us this day our daily bread.'--MATT. vi. 11. What a contrast there is between the two consecutive petitions, Thy will be done, and Give us this day! The one is so comprehensive, the other so narrow; the one loses self in the wide prospect of an obedient world, the other is engrossed with personal wants; the one …
698 wordsSECTION 288The Cry For Bread
It is worth noticing how these two opposed halves make one whole; and as the former begins with contemplation of the fatherly greatness in the heavens, so the latter part, starting with the cry for bread, climbs slowly up through all the ills of life, and passing from want to trespass, human unkindness and hatred, and …
697 wordsSECTION 289The Cry For Bread
Then still further--the prayer is the recognition of God as the Giver of daily bread. 'Thou openest Thine hand,' says the old psalm, 'and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.' There is no part of the divine dealings of which the Bible speaks more frequently and more lovingly than His supply of all creatures' w…
654 wordsSECTION 290The Cry For Bread
Ah! dear friends, are we not all guilty in this? How utterly heathenish is our oblivion of God in our daily life! How far we have come from that temper which recognises Him in all joys, and begins every new day with Him! Daily mercies demand daily songs of praise. His love wakens us morning by morning. It follows us al…
702 wordsSECTION 291The Cry For Bread
So how, beside this prayer, does it look to see two men who have united in it, the one being Dives clothed and faring sumptuously, and the other Lazarus with scraps for his food and dogs for his doctors? There is many a contrast like that to-day. All I have to say is--that such contrasts are not meant as the product of…
799 wordsSECTION 292The Cry For Bread
IV. The prayer for bread suited to our needs. '_Daily_ bread' clearly cannot be the right rendering, for after 'this day' that would be weak repetition. The word is difficult, for it only occurs here and there in Luke. It may be rendered 'for the coming (day),' but that can scarcely be supposed to be our Lord's mean…
485 wordsSECTION 293'Forgive Us Our Debts'
'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.'--MATT. vi. 12. The sequence of the petitions in the second half of the Lord's Prayer suggests that every man who needs to pray for daily bread needs also to pray for daily forgiveness. The supplication for the supply of our bodily needs precedes the others, because it…
853 wordsSECTION 294'Forgive Us Our Debts'
III. The startling addition to the cry. '_As_ we forgive.' Is, then, our poor forgiveness the measure or condition of God's? At first sight that addition seems to impose a limit on His pardon which might well plunge us into despair. But reflection on the words brings to light more comforting, though solemnly warning, …
403 wordsSECTION 295'Lead Us Not Into Temptation'
'And lead us not into temptation.'--MATT. vi. 13. The petition of the previous clause has to do with the past, this with the future; the one is the confession of sin, the other the supplication which comes from the consciousness of weakness. The best man needs both. Forgiveness does not break the bonds of evil by whic…
659 wordsSECTION 296'Lead Us Not Into Temptation'
Temptation has two parts in it--the circumstances which lead to sin, the desire which is addressed by them. There must be tinder as well as spark, if there is to be flame. Fire falling on water or upon bare rock will kindle nothing. God sends the one, we make the other. The Prayer:-- I. Expresses our recognition of G…
669 wordsSECTION 297'Deliver Us From Evil'
Effect on grasp of truth. Effect on consciousness of relation to God. Effect on Future. So then we ought to desire not so much exemption from temptation, as strength in it. And He will always be at our side to grant us this. We should seek not freedom from furnace, but His presence in it; not to be guided away fro…
728 wordsSECTION 298'Deliver Us From Evil'
You cannot sophisticate a man into believing that he is not suffering when his flesh is racked or his heart wounded. It is evil to be in pain. It is evil to carry a heavy heart. It is evil to be stripped of what we have long been accustomed to lean upon. It is evil to be crushed down by loss and want. It is evil to sta…
746 wordsSECTION 299'Deliver Us From Evil'
That place implies that all human sorrows and sufferings are consequences of human evil. And that is true inasmuch as many of them are distinctly and naturally its results. Disease is often the result of dissipation, poverty of indolence, friendlessness of selfishness. How many of the miseries of our great cities, how …
658 wordsSECTION 300'Deliver Us From Evil'
Then shall this mighty prayer be answered, the prayer of God's children in all ages, the prayer which He offers before the Throne who on earth prayed, 'Not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil'; the prayer which the white-robed souls offer when they cry, 'How l…
321 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.