PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 20
James Hastings · 157,909 words · 162 reading sections
Section 1
Wpmcfy- OGIUALSf VJ.V^> ID 549 H35 v,20 piiii iillii pii| illi THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE THE GREAT OF THE BIBLE EDITED BY THE REV, JAMES 4iASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE' "THB DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND "THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETH…
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Did compass me, while I this vale was in: Yea, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets did lie My path about, that worthless silly I Might have been catch'd, entangled, and cast down. But since I live, let Jesus wear the Crown. The text is an ascription of praise unto Him whose love is — I. An Unceasing Love — " who…
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The great poems of the world have been love-poems; they have been poems of love betrayed, or unrequited, or they have been thunders wailed out over a dead and buried love. But the greatest love-story of all is of One who loves for ever because He lives for ever. The Lord Jesus Christ has awakened a passionate love in u…
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TI " He loveth us." That covers past, present, and future. The love of our Redeemer stretches from eternity to eternity. It had no beginning, and will have no ending. It is unchanged, unmodified, untouched, either by lapse of time or variation of circumstance. Utterly inexhaustible, it flows incessantly in undiminished…
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The bondage of circumstances, of the world, but chiefly of self, has at times seemed to me quite intolerable; the more because it takes away all one's energy to throw it oft and then the difficulty of escaping to God ! of asking to have the weight taken away ! Oh there is infinite comfort in the thought that * The Lif…
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If we lose the idea of the kin^d(nii we lose with it the most ^ W. T. Davison, Strength for tJie Way, 29. REVELATION i. 5, 6 13 valuable lesson of the passage. A kingdom denotes an organized, united whole. It implies consolidation and harmony. It is not enough that we should realize the individual Christian as a kin…
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» F. C. Hoggarth. REVELATION i. 5, 6 15 (chap, vi.) and the Psalmist's confession (Ps. 11.) represent the final teaching of the Old Testament on the matter. This spiritual idea of sacrifice runs throughout the New Testament ; e.g., " I beseech you therefore, brethren ... to present your bodies a living sacri- fice " …
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Westcott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 85. Wilberforce (B.), New (?) Theology, 236. Christian World Pulpit, Ixiv. 408 (E. H. Eland). Church of England Magazine, Ixxi. 368 (J. J. Cort). Contemporary Pulpit, v. 257 (W. Thomson). Literary Churchman, xxx. (1884) 510 (C. G. H. Baskcomb). National Preacher, xxxii. 382 (…
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Then, 0 my Lord, prepare My soul for that great day; 0 wash me in Thy precious blood. And take my sins away.^ 2. No truth, therefore, ought to be more frequently proclaimed, next to the first coming of the Lord, than His second coming ; and we cannot thoroughly set forth all the ends and bearings of the first advent…
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^ " And every eye shall see him " — All impelled in one direction, all looking in one direction. Even a very small crowd doing the same thing at the same instant has a thrilling, awful power ; as once when I saw the chorus of a numerous orchestra turn over their music-sheets at the same moment, it brought before me the…
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T[ " All kindreds of the earth shall ivail " is the reading of the Authorized Version. I cannot put into English the full meaning of that most expressive word, "wail." Sound it at length, and * Philip Doddridge. 26 THE SECOND ADVENT it conveys its own meaning. It is as when men wring their hands and burst out into a…
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promise, I do firmly believe it, and I have no doubt that an Amen will come out of it, and it will be an Amen." ^ 2. Thus the Book of Kevelation calls the Church to fix her eyes more intently upon her true hope. For what is that hope ? Is it not the hope of the revelation of her Lord in the glory that belongs to Him? …
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Moule (H. C. G.), Thoughts for the Sundays of the Year, 14. Nicoll (W. R.), Sunday Evening, 189. Ogden (S.), Sermons, 248. Paget (F.), Studies in the Christian Character, 32. Pearson (A.), The Claims of the Faith, 140. Rowland (A.), Open Windows, 20. Smith (D.), Christian Counsel, 53. Stanley (A. P.), Sermons on…
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^ Dr. Haegler, in his Expenditure and Repair of Vital Force, says that the night succeeding a day's labour does not afford a complete recuperation of zig-zag lines. The Monday line shows a man at his maximum strength. With each succeeding day the line is shortened a little. On Tuesday morning the workman, refreshed by …
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' George MacDouald. REVELATION i. lo 37 our duty, and of our need, of ourselves, as God sees us, and, above all, of His will, His ways. His mercy, and His justice. As is the Spirit, so is the Lord's Day. The one is pro- portionate to the other. You cannot make any day the Lord's Day for a man who has no Lord. You ca…
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^ Principal Alexander Whyte, in giving a New Year exhorta- tion in 1913, testified: "If my experience of the Lord's Day is of any value or any interest to any of you — well, here it is. I have had a long lifetime's experience of, on the whole, a somewhat scrupulously kept Lord's Day. And that day, so kept, has been to …
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1 H. W. Beecher. REVELATION i. lo 41 balanced humanity, is to shake himself loose as frequently as possible from the domination of an exclusive current of thought. Nothing more dangerous or more hostile to moral health than what the Germans would call a pampered subjectivity.^ ^ Among the counsels written by Mr. Gla…
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It seems strange to us that St. John, of all men in the world, should be afraid of Jesus. He had spent with the Master so many familiar days. He had talked with Him on the highways, and listened to His voice by the seashore. He had joined with the inner circle of the disciples on the transfiguration mount, in the death…
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(2) Men are oft overcome with fear as they face some great crisis in life. Again and again in life we are called to face emergencies, to take risks, to attempt the apparently impossible, to stand steadfast when confronted with opposition or trial or persecution. And the nobler the life is, the more numerous are the occ…
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* J. Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, 139. REV. — 4 50 FEAR NOT T[ Stevenson in his essays insists upon "being vital," as he calls it. Whatever else you are, he says, "be vital." He is encouraging and seeking to foster a brave and cheerful optimism. Do not trouble about death, says Stevenson, make the best of li…
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The actual words are, " I became dead " — a mysterious paradox, in which a most wonderful event is inserted, incorporated, into that eternity of being. In this short phrase He intimates the whole mystery of the Incarnation; but He presents just that aspect of it which sinful man, prone at His feet, most needs. He does …
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Here it is figured as being a great gloomy fortress, with bars and gates and locks, of which that " shadow feared of man " is the warder, and keeps the portals. But he does not keep the keys. The kingly Christ has these in His own hand. ^ When land on both sides of a river is held by the same farmer he also has the ri…
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T[ One of the most profound and suggestive legends of ancient Greece was the legend of the Sphinx. The Sphinx, according to the old story, was a monstrous creature, half human, half animal, who had a riddle to propound to any travellers who passed her way. What exactly the riddle was does not matter to us just now. All…
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62 THE TREE OF LIFE ment ; but even unto death would love continue, profounder, more ardent and more fit for service and sacrifice in the end than in the beginning — able to take up the glorious challenge, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or n…
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Eden had sun and moon to make her bright; But Paradise hath God and Lamb for light, And hath no night. Unspotted innocence was Eden's best; Great Paradise shows God's fulfilled behest, Triumph and rest.^ ^ The Paradise of God can no more be determined locally than the original Garden of Eden. It is no more invisible …
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■[f The tree of life was as significant a symbol of life-giving Divine power to the Asian Greeks as to the Jews, though in a different way. Trees had been worshipped as the home of the Divine nature and power from time immemorial, and were still so worshipped in Asia Minor as in the ancient world generally. On some sac…
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REVELATION ii. 7 69 be impressed by his own extraordinary mercies ; the element of grace in life, of things better than he has worked for, bulks largely in his view. And when he comes to the end, and the question of the wages due to him comes up for settlement, the thought of self- assertion is far away; for the least…
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REVELATION ii. 7 71 ever ; and for ever is His Kingdom enduring. And through all the endless ages which we have a right to hope we shall see, there will never come a point in which it will not remain as true as it is at this moment : " No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see him ; the only begotten Son, which is…
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If Bishop Welldon in one of his sermons to the boys at Harrow, of which famous public school he was for many years head -master, spoke of the many bright lads whom he had known as scholars — pleasant, popular, courteous, and frank — of whom every one spoke well, but who never dreamt of such a thing as self-discipline o…
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» E. F. Horton. ^ Ibid. REVELATION ii. 7 75 3. Lot Christ Himself be our example, whose whole life on earth was a warfare with the powers of evil ; who found its crises and its agonies in the hours when He was alone with the Father ; "who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with …
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^ A life of renunciation appeared to Francis as the goal of his efforts, but he felt that his spiritual novitiate was not yet ended. 1 Lilian Whiting, The World Beautiful, 161. a J. Moflfatt, The Golden Book of John Owen, 159. REVELATION ii. 7 >j^ He suddenly experienced a bitter assurance of the fact. He was riding…
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REV. — 6 82 FIDELITY AND ITS REWARD Smyrneans was generally known ; their reputation for faithfulness was well established. Accordingly, to those of them composing the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation of the Apostle would have the tacit force of a compliment, and would thus at once win their attention to the duty it…
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^ We, too, in our place and way and measure, may be called upon to suffer in reputation, substance, or even in health and life, for the sake of our absolute fidelity to our Master and His cause. Erasmus confessed that he was not constituted of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and many of us feel a similar misgiving…
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(2) The great Sender of the message makes the claim. We are bound to Him personally. He asks for our loyalty, our per- sonal loyalty to Him, and in that loyalty we shall conquer ; because the Christian life is sustained by faith in a personal life, a personal power, and a personal love. We are not supported by abstract…
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T[ In ancient heroic story there is one figure of which I often think. It is the figure of the old pilot who was sailing his boat in the crisis of a storm on the great tempestuous ^gsean Sea, and in his extremity he was seen to stand erect and cry, in his old pagan way, " Father Neptune, you may sink me if you will, or…
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' H. F. Henderson, The Eye Witiiesses of Christy 144. REVELATION ii. lo 91 transforming them, and uniting them in a wonderful way with the Lord's Humanity and Divinity.^ 2. Notice the compensation ! " Be thou faithful unto deaths and I will give thee the crown of life!' What thou sacrificest thou shalt receive again…
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REVELATION ii. lo 93 the other — meeting small temptations every hour, so that watch- fulness must never be relaxed; when no sooner is one wrong- doing laid in the grave than another rises up, so that, the sword of life is never in the scabbard ; when we know that this will go on for years till death comes — then, not…
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The Church at Pergamum, to which this promise is addressed, had a sharper struggle than fell to the lot of the two Churches whose epistles precede this. It was set "where Satan's seat is." Pergamum was a special centre of heathen worship, and already the blood of a faithful martyr had been shed in it. There were two h…
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He then drew a long analogy between physical and spiritual nutrition in the terms of physiology. " But the closest parallel I can draw is that which we see in life and read of in tales, where one man is the sustenance and life of another, or more often where a woman is the sustenance and help of a man. Something which …
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Silently it fell, Whence, no man might tell, Like good dreams from heaven Unto mortals given. Like a snowy flock Of strange sea-birds alighting on a shore of rock; Silent thus and bright Fell the manna in the night. Silently thus and bright. In our starless night, God's sweet mercy comes All about our homes; I…
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2. But there is another suggestion. In ancient times the white stone was often the symbol of acquittal. In the symbolism of colours, which, as having its ultimate root in the impression of pain or pleasure made upon the senses, might almost be called natural, and is, as a matter of fact, all but universal, white, in it…
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^ There is a lovely German poem of the Middle Ages, by one Wernher, which has not yet found a translator. It is something like this — REVELATION ii. 17 107 Thou art mine and I am Thine, I will make Thee sure of that, I will lock Thee in my heart, I will close its outer door, I will lose its little key. Thou canst the…
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^ The readers of this letter, who possessed the key to its comprehension, hidden from the common world, could not fail to be struck with the analogy between this New Name and the Imperial title Augustus. That also had been a new name, deliberately devised by the Senate to designate the founder, and to mark the foundati…
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^ When little children are baptized they receive a name, inalienable. Its possession means " given to God." Our surname is our old name. Our baptismal name, the name suggestive of our new nature is our new name for earth. When admitted into heaven, we shall receive a new name, Christ's name and ours. " I will write upo…
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O Name, all other names above, What art Thou not to me, Now I have learned to trust Thy love And cast my care on Thee ! What is our being but a cry, A restless longing still. Which Thou alone canst satisfy. Alone Thy fulness fill ! Thrice blessM be the holy souls That lead the way to Thee, That burn upon the mar…
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^ I remember on my first landing at a place [in West Africa] where there are three small factories only, but which I had seen marked large on the map, asking a resident white if this was all 1 Luther, TahU-Talk. REVELATION iii. i 119 the settlement. " Oh no ! " said he, " this is only the porter's lodge; I'll show yo…
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REVELATION iii. i 121 ^ In Staffordshire it is interesting and amusing to mark the contrast between the names of the places and their actual character; Eoseville, Swan Village, Daisy Bank, Bloomfield, Tividale, and so forth. Eoseville is utterly innocent of the garden queen ; Daisy Bank is a cinder heap ; the last cre…
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1 J. Kelman, The Road, i. 100. a W. L. Watkinion. REVELATION iii. i 123 purity. A peacock, the symbol of eternity, is seen sculptured on the walls, while over the window of the torture-chamber there is engraven a cross.^ 3. The , symptom) which is singled out in the letter to the Church as characterizing its conditi…
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11. Life for a Dying Church. We are justified in concluding that such a condition as that of the Church at Sardis is not final and irreversible. The very fact that this letter came to that comm-unity indicates that it was possible to restore and revive. They were not so utterly dead as moribund, as is seen from the f…
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3. One great channel through which spiritual life is imparted to a dying Church is suggested by the picture of our Lord as having "the seven stars." The "stars" are the "angels of the churches," by whom we are probably to understand their bishops and pastors. If so, then we have a striking thought symbolized by the jux…
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Tj If it turns out that the world is the Church, and the Church is the world, why, the Sinners must just forgive the Saints and the Saints must learn to stand being forgiven.^ 5. There is a note of wistful urgency in the epistle to the Church of Sardis to remember the past, to keep hold on what remains, and to repent.…
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„ „ Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, 216. Christian World Pulpit, x. 166 (J. S. Exell) ; xxxiv. 215 p. MacDonald) ; ^-Ixiv. 420 (L. A. Johnson) ;1xvi. 371 (E. Rees) ;Mxix. 387 (G. C. Morgan) j'^lxx. 173 (S. M. Crothers) ;" Ixxvi. 365 (N. G. Phelps); '-Ixxxi. 131 (A. H. McElwee) ; Ixxxiv. 216 (…
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It is coming more and more to be seen that such religious progress as man has made is not so much his endeavour to find God, as God's endeavour to find him ; that it is more satisfactory to represent man's religious history as a continuous knocking on the part of God at the door of man's heart than as a continuous spon…
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^ The boy Samuel, lying sleeping before the light in the inner sanctuary, heard the voice of God, and thought it was only the grey-bearded priest that spoke. We often make the same mistake, and confound the utterances of Christ Himself with the speech of men. Eecognize who it is that pleads with you ; and do not fancy …
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* W, Hay, God's Looking-Glass, 91. M^ THE WAITING GUEST of care. I said, ' Betty, what are you crying for ? ' * Oh,' she said, * Mr. Arnot, I am so afraid of the landlord. He came yesterday, and I hadna the rent, and I didila open the door, and now I am afraid of him coming ; for he is a hard man/ * Betty,' I asked, …
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^ Why does Christ not come in ? Is not this Divine Spirit omnipotent? Has He not power to enter where He will, to breathe where He chooses, to blow where He listeth ? Why, then, does He stand without, knocking at the door of a frail human heart? Could He not break down that door in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,…
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1. " I will come lq to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." These words speak to us in lovely, sympathetic language of a close, familiar, happy communion between Christ and our poor selves, which shall make all life as a feast in company with Him. We remember who is the mouthpiece of Jesus Christ here. It is th…
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^ J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, viii. 32. REVELATION iii. 20 149 to Him. He accepts the poorest from each, and He gives the richest to each. With One so condescending and communicative, the blessed soul in whom Jesus dwells ventures to be open too. With happy boldness we begin to tell Him everything. We…
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An Opened Book and a New Song. '53 Literature. Carpenter (W. B.), The Revelation (EUicott's New Testament Com- mentary), 76. Chapman (J. W.), Bells of Gold, 26. Gibson (E. C. S.), The Revelation of St. John the Divine^ 81. Jeffrey (R. T.), Visits to Calvary, 43. Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 242. Kuegele (…
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REVELATION v. 9 157 offered by earth and heaven to the Lamb, now flow together in one stream. All God's creatures join to sing the double hymn of creation and redemption, wherein the glory of God is complete. ^ The meaning of the passage has been obscured by the adoption in the received text of the Authorized Version…
901 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.