PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 20
James Hastings · 157,909 words · 162 reading sections
Section 61
1. It was a new song — new, because its topics were new ; for what so new and strange as God incarnate shedding His blood upon the cross, and by virtue of that offering redeeming the lost kindreds and nations of the earth ? — new, because it is the song of the new creation, the song of those to whom '* all things are b…
923 wordsSECTION 62Section 62
^ Dr. Magee, then Bishop of Peterborough, was one of the speakers at a discussion on Pessimism that took place at the 1 J. Wilbur Chapmau, Balls of Gold, 36. REVELATION v. 9 161 Manchester Church Congress of 1888. Christianity, he maintained, was at once both the most pessimistic and most optimistic of all the philo…
987 wordsSECTION 63Section 63
1 J. Wilbur Chapman, Bells of Gold, 38. 2 Richard Baxter. REVELATION v. 9 163 5. Four terms ("tribe," "tongue," "people," "nation") are employed, as if to give emphasis to the universality of redemp- tion, for four is the number of extension in all directions. The suggestion is that the redemption of Christ is world-…
1,014 wordsSECTION 64Section 64
2. " I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book . . . close sealed." There is a great and majestic Per- sonality seated upon the throne of all things, in whose right hand is a book which contains the answers to all our serious problems. There may be "clouds and darkness" round about Him, but * righteo…
1,062 wordsSECTION 65Section 65
1 H. H. Snell. 2 d_ Butler, Thomas a Kempis, 133. i68 AN OPENED BOOK AND A NEW SONG 4. Men who come to Christ always find the key to destiny in His hands. He has opened the book, and for them no longer fate but Jesus Christ is lord and master of their lives. It is not only the Lamb, but the Lamb slain that we see ; n…
906 wordsSECTION 66Section 66
* Michael Field, Mystic Trees, 131. The Redeemed. Literature. Alexander (W.), Verhum Grucis, 127. Barry (A,), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey ^ 247. Bonar (H.), Light and Truth : The Kevelation, 190. Brooke (S. A.), The Spirit of the Christian Life^ 237. Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 200. Dearden (H. W.…
938 wordsSECTION 67Section 67
Mies in Early Church History^ 150. REVELATION vii. 9, 10 175 2. But the vastness is the outcome of faith much more than of sight. In another place St. John states the impression which the physical eye receives : " We are of God, and the lohole ivorld lieth in wickedness." The eye of faith is the eye of that God who i…
920 wordsSECTION 68Section 68
There never has been a day of opportunity like this in the history of the Church and the world. The way is open ; the door is open ; the hearts of the nations are open. Will the Churches rise to the great call which summons them ? Will they, failing to obey Christ, and failing to communicate Him, themselves lose Him ? …
921 wordsSECTION 69Section 69
^ Principal D. W. Simon illustrates (Tivice Born, 194) the unity and diversity of the redeemed by quotations from the hymns of the world. First of all he shows how widespread is the accept- ance of a hymn like " Eock of Ages." Our English hymn-books, he goes on, teem with translations from the German, with transla- tio…
1,196 wordsSECTION 70Section 70
^ The Feast of Tabernacles commences five days after the Day of Atonement and lasts seven days. Its observance is com- manded in the Mosaic Law (Lev. 23^*), and its purpose is there explained as to commemorate the way in which the Israelites dwelt in booths {suhkoth) during their journey through the wilderness. Every …
908 wordsSECTION 71Section 71
What are these lovely ones, yea, what are these ? Lo these are they who for pure love of Christ Stripped off the trammels of soft silken ease, Beggaring themselves betimes, to be sufficed Throughout heaven's one eternal day of peace : By golden streets, thro' gates of pearl unpriced, They entered on the joys that wi…
941 wordsSECTION 72Section 72
1[ It is told of Eobert Burns that he could never read the closing verses of this chapter without tears. It is no wonder. The poet is a man of larger heart, of broader and keener sympathy than other men, and with a corresponding power of expression. What all men feel he feels more, and can express better. All of us fee…
1,005 wordsSECTION 73Section 73
11 Christ came not to send peace on earth but a sword ; against the restless and resistless force of the new religion the gates of hell should not prevail. But polytheism could not be dethroned without a struggle ; nor mankind regenerated without a baptism of blood. Persecution, in fact, is the other side of aggression…
919 wordsSECTION 74Section 74
4. The imagery of this book seems to suggest that the stages of the tribulation are so ordered that it achieves the ends of a great spiritual discipline. The convulsions which rend the earth are one and all determined by movements before the throne of God in heaven. The saints are sealed ere the restless forces of dest…
939 wordsSECTION 75Section 75
The palm, among many of the ancient nations, was an emblem of victory. Hence its branches were used to adorn triumphal pro- cessions. The general whose victories the triumph was intended to celebrate carried a small branch of it in his hand, and was thus recognized as a conqueror. Therefore when the redeemed are descri…
919 wordsSECTION 76Section 76
(1) White suggests the immaculate purity of character of the redeemed. White signifies perfection; it is not so much a colour as the harmonious union and blending of all the hues, colours, and beauties of light. In the characters of just men made perfect we have the combination of all virtues, the balancing of all exce…
1,199 wordsSECTION 77Section 77
3. How came they by their robes ? " They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Their robes were white, like the white and glistering raiment of Christ when He was transfigured. The robes express their condition, as a purple robe expresses royalty, or filthy garments a condition of sin and m…
954 wordsSECTION 78Section 78
(1) Mere tribulation will not necessarily make the robes white. Tribulation, or affliction, or oppression — call it which you will — is overruled by a miracle of Divine grace so as to benefit the believer, but in and of itself it is not the cleanser but the defiler of the soul. Affliction of itself does not sanctify an…
944 wordsSECTION 79Section 79
The Lamb as a Shepherd. 805 Literature. Body (G.), The Good Shepherdy 96. Bradley (C), Sermons, i. 22. Carpenter (W. B.), The Revelation (Ellicott's New Testament Com- mentary), 104. Cooper (T. J.), Love's Unveiling, 137. Foote (J.), Communion Week Sermons, 245. Fry (J. H.), Tears, 65. Gibson (E. C. S.), The R…
1,001 wordsSECTION 80Section 80
H All the universe and its forces are being administered for REVELATION vii. 17 209 purposes of redemption. The Lamb rules and He rules as the Lamb. How calming to feel this, to look up from the turmoil of this visible, flaring, and lying world — from the shows and shams and the tinted scene of the theatre ; from all…
975 wordsSECTION 81Section 81
REVELATION vii. 17 211 the heat of moral judgment, of sheer holiness — the heat of the Apocalypse.^ II. The Lamb as Shepherd. 1. Christ is the Lamb, and He is the Shepherd — that suggests not only that the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is the basis of all His work for us on earth and in heaven, but the very inco…
1,087 wordsSECTION 82Section 82
^ The rendering " unto fountains of waters of life " is more literal than that of the A,V. ; still more literally we might render, " unto life's water-springs " ; the emphasis is strongly on the word " life." In chap. xxii. 1, the water of life is as a river " proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." In co…
928 wordsSECTION 83Section 83
III. God as Comforteb. 1. The last touch in this picture sets forth the Eternal God as the Comforter of His saved people. "And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." Through all earthly vicissitudes He had been their light and salvation, illuminating their gloom, turning their mourning into joy, and appoint…
1,045 wordsSECTION 84Section 84
2i8 THE LAMB AS A SHEPHERD and that touch is given in the words which close this vision, which, beginning with tribulation, ends with tears, but leaves the whole space between calm and undimmed. The mighty Hand that bore away their sins, and led them in royal majesty, touches them with more than a mother's yearning. "…
977 wordsSECTION 85Section 85
^ It is " the kingdom " — not, as in the Authorized Version, "the kingdoms" — "of the world," which has become Christ's possession. The contest is not for the kingdoms, the separate nationalities ; the varying political systems might exist, as far as mere organization is concerned, under the rule of Christ; the contest…
909 wordsSECTION 86Section 86
2. The event concerning which the seventh angel of the Apocalypse "sounded," and which occasioned great voices of jubilation in heaven, is not an event which is happening in the region of heaven ; it is an event which is to happen on this earth. This wonderful transference is to take place in this very world in which w…
996 wordsSECTION 87Section 87
Say not, the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain. The enemy faints not, nor faileth. And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers. And, but for you, possess the field. 228 THE KINGD…
963 wordsSECTION 88Section 88
^ Max Mtiller, speaking as a scientific student of the world's religions, said in 1876, in Westminster Abbey: "Every Christian is, or ought to be, a missionary." Do we realize this ? Do we believe it ? Or is it not so, that we look upon the making Christ and His gospel known to all nations as something quite " outside …
973 wordsSECTION 89Section 89
III. The King's Eeign. 1. It is well that the Church should realize, in a way she is far from doing now, that the ascended Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords ; that He has established His Kingdom on the earth ; that He claims dominion over the whole human race, which He has redeemed by His blood; that the incre…
928 wordsSECTION 90Section 90
T[ A few months ago the country was held in the icy grip of winter. The reign of frost was supreme ; vegetation, river, lake, and even parts of the sea were slaves of this tyrant. The sun's rays seemed as helpless as a child's breath to soften the tyrant's heart or loosen his hand. A child, had he heard some prophet sp…
1,064 wordsSECTION 91Section 91
^ The religious temper of his mind shows itself in the medita- tions he recorded from time to time while at Tubingen, which abound in expressions of longing for closer communion with Christ. On the last evening of the year 1838 he thus unbosomed himself : — " I am quite full of the blessed nearness of the Saviour whic…
1,018 wordsSECTION 92Section 92
REV. — 16 242 THE DEAD IN CHRIST night by human torches; he may have stood beneath the cross on which St. Peter died, and beside the scaffold where St. Paul suffered for his Master. Yet, looking back from his Eastern home on these terrible and woeful things, and expecting more of them before the Lord should come, he …
920 wordsSECTION 93Section 93
* Letters oj the Rev. John Ker^ 336. 244 THE DEAD IN CHRIST it was not difficult to imagine that the shining ones were waiting about the doors." ^ 3. To " die in the Lord " — the lips murmuring His name, the eyes of the heart fixed upon His cross, the spirit commending itself to Him even as He commended His Spirit t…
975 wordsSECTION 94Section 94
246 THE DEAD IN CHRIST is but a veil between. The one family is never broken, though God has called some of them to rest in another room." ^ Tf Mrs. Carlyle had again written to Mazzini, and again received honourable and gentle counsel. On July 15 he wrote to her: " Yes ! Sad as death ; but not basely sad. . . . You…
1,214 wordsSECTION 95Section 95
^ In a certain lake in Munster, it is said, there were two islands; into the first death could never enter, but age and sickness, and the weariness of life and the paroxysms of fear- ful suffering were all known there, and they did their work till the inhabitants, tired of their immortality, learned to look upon the op…
902 wordsSECTION 96Section 96
^ My belief in the immortality of the soul springs from the idea of activity : for when I persevere to the end in a course of restless activity, I have a sort of guarantee from Nature that when the present form of my existence proves itself inadequate for the energising of my spirit, she will provide another form more …
950 wordsSECTION 97Section 97
^ M. Maeterlinck, RuyshroecTc and the Mystics, 84. 2 H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John, 187. REVELATION xiv. 13 253 2. The state of good men who died before the coming of Christ appears to be always spoken of in the Old Testament as one of true, but very imperfect, blessedness; a period, not indeed of unconscio…
957 wordsSECTION 98Section 98
* A. S. Peake, Christianity : Its Nature and Its Truth, 297. * John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 171. REVELATION xiv. 13 255 thing to this effect : — * Doubtless there are references to the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament, as was so well put before you in the forenoon. But just as he whose death we…
946 wordsSECTION 99Section 99
T[ " The Marriage of the Lamb " is a subject that can easily be vulgarized. It can be vulgarized for the same reason that the finest poems make the finest parodies. The higher you climb the deeper you fall. The subject is one of profound delicacy. Let us put the shoes from off our feet, for the place where we tread is …
948 wordsSECTION 100Section 100
4. And now we are able to understand what is meant by the marriage of the Lamb. It is the final and perfect blending in one unity of the life of Christ and His people. Just as in an earthly union the two become one flesh, so with the great spiritual union Christ and His redeemed are brought together. They are brought …
983 wordsSECTION 101Section 101
^ 6. Grote, iu The Contemporary Review, xviii. 139. REVELATION xix. 9 265 essential, yet the occasion is one of profoundly religious import. Marriage being a Divine ordinance, wedding festivities must in the nature of things also bear a decidedly religious character.^ 2. We dare not say that the feast is a promise t…
900 wordsSECTION 102Section 102
REVELATION xix. 9 267 all anticipate any such communication. The class of outcasts described in the Parable of the Great Supper is recognizable at all times. They are those who seem to be beyond help and hope — the maimed, the blind, the vagrant, the destitute, the criminal. Such descriptions are self-interpreting. Wh…
966 wordsSECTION 103Section 103
1 W. M. Taylor, The Parables of Our Saviour, 303. 2 Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 439. REVELATION xix. 9 269 of the Lamb. This invitation will be addressed only to the people of God, the saved. The other invitation is addressed to all men, and the date is — now. The command of the King to His servants…
1,101 wordsSECTION 104Section 104
^ The Life and Letters of Frederic Shields, 309. The Opening of the Books. REV.- Literature. Alexander (W.), The Great Question, 95. Booth (Mrs.), Popular Christianity, 144. Brooks (P.), Twenty Sermons, 60. Carroll (B. H.), Sermons, 396. Fuller (T.), Selected Sermons, ii. 276. Hatchings (W. H.), Sermon-Sketche…
1,009 wordsSECTION 105Section 105
^ The real significance of the scene lies in the vivid pictur- ing of that great and solemn truth that we must all stand before REVELATION xx. 12 277 the judgment-seat of Christ, and that before Him there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed. Then shall every human life appear in its true light, stripped of…
980 wordsSECTION 106Section 106
" The fundamental grace," says Godet,^ " is that of the forgive- ness of sins, and it presupposes no other moral condition than faith only. But this immense act of grace is no sooner granted by God, and accepted by man, than there results from it a new task, with the responsibility which attaches to it. This is the wor…
915 wordsSECTION 107Section 107
i. The Book of Character. 1. We must think, not of a modern volume, but of an ancient book. Such a book would consist of a long band of parchment, or other substance, written over usually on one side only, and rolled upon a roller, so that it would form a scroll, which on being opened out could present all that was wr…
1,030 wordsSECTION 108Section 108
^ We are all writing our life-histories here, as if with one of those " manifold writers," a black, blank page beneath the flimsy sheet on which we write ; but presently the black page will be taken away, and the writing will stand out plain on the page behind, that we did not see. Life is the unsubstantial page on whi…
910 wordsSECTION 109Section 109
In this " book of life " God has the record of our tears. There He may read the story of our private lamentings, our shame, our sorrow, our prayers, our cries, our protests against ourselves, our final humility of soul. And it is the message and gospel of this Scripture that those very things which, for the most part, …
906 wordsSECTION 110Section 110
But I resolve, when thou shalt call for mine, That to decline, And thrust a Testament into thy hand: Let that be scann'd. There thou shalt finde my faults are thine.* 1 Church Pulpit Year Book, 1913, p. 245. * George Herbert, The Temxjle. A New Heaven and a New Earth. REV. — 19 Literature. Banks (L. A.), Hidden …
1,047 wordsSECTION 111Section 111
2. It is well to remember the time at which the words were written down. The He v elation came to St. John in a time of the utmost danger to the Church. Jew and heathen were at last united in hatred to the name of Christ, and were putting forth all their power to destroy those who believed in Him. St. James, * J. Cucks…
995 wordsSECTION 112Section 112
1 J. G. Greenliough, The Doctrine of the Last Things, 234. 2 S. Harris, The Self-Bevelatim of God. REVELATION xxi. i 295 earth, thus changed, will be the final home of the righteous is no new idea, but one which has been taught from the beginning by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Theodoret, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, …
926 wordsSECTION 113Section 113
^ Arthur Symons, William BlaTce, 243. 2 phUlips Brooks. REVELATION xxi. i 297 and claw"; that He would never have allowed sin to come in and leave its foul trail in the Garden of Eden, and in all the gardens of the earth. Such people fail to understand that when God peopled the earth with men made in His own image, …
934 wordsSECTION 114Section 114
8. The vision of the new heaven and the new earth does not 1 Ruskin, Modern Painters, pt. ix. ch. xii. § 18 ( WorJcSj rii. 458). * John Brown Paton, by his Son (1914), 190. REVELATION xxi. i 299 necessarily suppose the annihilation of the old creation, but only- its passing away as to its outward and recognizable fo…
901 wordsSECTION 115Section 115
REVELATION xxi. i 301 am weary of these sweating-dens in old London; I am siek to death of looking for work day after day and finding none. I shall find a * new earth ' beyond the seas. I see pictures of men like myself who went out years ago, and they are new men to-day. I will go to the granary of the world, and I s…
905 wordsSECTION 116Section 116
The sun and spheres. * Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 477. * J. Brierley, Religion and To-Day, 45. REVELATION xxi. i 303 All things that be, all thought, all love, all joy Spell-bind the man As once the growing boy, And point afar — Point to some land of hope and crystal truth, Of life and light, …
910 wordsSECTION 117Section 117
Said the men of the sea. 11 The sea is our life's symbol, the port for which we sail, that heaven on which our hearts are set, and " we are as near heaven by sea as by land." Because we are a maritime people we symbolize the ultimate, to which we go, as a royal port. It is a simple affair to us to consider all our aid…
909 wordsSECTION 118Section 118
* John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and lAfe^ 119. 2 Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 286. REVELATION xxi. i 311 uncertain. It could not be counted upon. There was something akin to treachery in its moods. "It is the scene," says Dr. Macmillan,^ " alternately of the softest dalliance, and the fiercest rage of the el…
917 wordsSECTION 119Section 119
Tf On 18th May 1826, a couple of days after the death of his wife at Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott writes in his diary: "An- other day, and a bright one to the external world, again opens on us ; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves glittering. They cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural …
1,101 wordsSECTION 120Section 120
Then for the first time St. John hears God the Father speak : " Behold, I make all things new " (fresh). It is the voice of the Throned One, the One who rules over all things from the begin- ning, and who has presided over all the changing scenes of earth's history; it is He who makes even the wrath of man to praise Hi…
940 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.