PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 7
James Hastings · 189,784 words · 195 reading sections
Section 61
TI In one of the best and most widely known hymns on the crucifixion of Jesus — Isaac Watts' "When I survey the wondrous Cross" — attention is concentrated upon that pitiful spectacle of suffering, and a challenge is thrown out. The verse reads — See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled dow…
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2. What did the sorrow of Christ consist in ? Physical pain formed one of its ingredients ; but we should not allow our minds 1 J. Stalker, The Life of Jesus Christ, 23. LAMENTATIONS i. 12 167 to dwell too much upon that. It is a stupendous mistake to enlarge so much as some poets and painters and emotional pulpit r…
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public mind a sufficient amount of Messianic sentiment to make this announcement attract attention and excite enthusiasm. At first everyone would interpret it according to his own ideas of the expected kingdom; and so the rumour of the preaching of John and Jesus rang through the land, and all men were in expectation a…
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LAMENTATIONS i. 12 171 However deeply personal misunderstanding wounded Him, there is no trace of scar in the Man as we behold Him ; it was when "the kingdom" was misunderstood, when the spiritual was exploited in interests political or legal, when human life was cheapened, when the Magdalen's gift or the publican's h…
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Tf John Richard Green, before he began to write his history of England, was a curate in the East End of London, and he bore the burden of the East End upon his heart. He tells in one of his letters how he tried to reclaim some of the fallen, and he says that the appalling thing to him was this — to find that they were …
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1 C. W. Emmet. 176 THE PERFECTION OF SORROW suffering God's most holy service ; if patience and self-sacrifice have come in any way to be a habit of human life, — the power in this change has been Christ. But because these two — to say, " Thy will be done," and to sacrifice self — are for us men the hardest and the m…
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says, he told them, Behold, all souls are Mine ; each is of equal 179 180 THE DEATH OF THE SOUL and independent value ; as the soul of the father, so is the soul of the son ; the soul that sinneth, it shall die — U, and not another for it ; it alone, and only for its own conscious and inward wrong. Every man is a un…
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182 THE DEATH OF THE SOUL can resist the current! Eeveal to him the secret of his own personality — its secret and its awfulness ! Tell him to practise inflexibility, to practise resistance to the waters ! Bid him culti- vate determination, resolution, unwaveringness of purpose ! Teach him to train his will as he woul…
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2. Theories of circumstance are ready to affirm that we are what we are by evolution, and cannot help ourselves any more than we can help the shape of our limbs or the strength of our arms. But what human creature — in whom there is any higher life at all — does not know that the soul is mightier than circum- stance, a…
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1 Sir Henry Jones, Social Powers, 20. 11 1 86 THE DEATH OF THE SOUL and ill-doing are essentially individual. We cannot any of us live vicariously in the mass around us. We cannot do our duty by substitute. Even so let us remember that if we do ill we commit sin. Let no one think he can escape in the mass. For thoug…
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TJ What is meant by the death of the soul, human thought can not understand ; because we know not what man loses when he loses heaven. The two great elements of the death of the soul are the absence of all that constitutes life and the presence of everything that constitutes despair. There is for ever present to the so…
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5. This leads us to the thought that retribution for sin does not always end with the sinner. The hereditary taint is not to be denied because it is often abused. Conscious disobedience to a moral law whose authority we recognize as binding us weakens not only the will of the sinner himself, but the will of his descend…
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2. The death of Christ, " the Eternal Son of God," teaches us, as nothing else can, what sin is, and how awful is the purity and holiness of God. We begin to see why "remission of sins" belongs so especially to the death of Christ rather than to His Incarnation. We begin to see why the cross is so dear to the pardoned …
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Gibson (E. C. S.), The Old Testament and its Messages, 194. Kennedy (J.), in Modem Scottish Pulpit, i. 231. Kirk (J.), Sermons, 185. Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., i. 136. Lewis (H. E.), By the River Chebar, 62. Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, ii. 487. Spencer (I. S.), Sermons, ii. 285. S…
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Tj Mercy never bears so grand a look, or moves so majestically, as when she takes counsel of justice. No man is ever so magnifi- cently just as he that can be even tenderly merciful, no man so truly merciful as one that can hold steadily exact the balance of truth and justice. Our highest impressions of God's justice a…
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And it is when we look to God as He is manifested in Jesus Christ that we can see why God should speak with such earnest- ness as is expressed in the text before us. Jesus of Nazareth have pleasure in the death of the wicked ! Jesus of Nazareth leave men to perish when He could as easily save them as He could move His …
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TJ A young soldier, who had led a careless life, but had become afterwards a Christian, described very well the change that had been wrought in him when he said — " Jesus Christ said to me, Eight about face ! And I heard and obeyed Him in my heart." That is exactly what we call " conversion." It is a turning-about of t…
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T| Amiel is a classical instance of the man in whom culture or knowledge has weakened certain elementary powers, faiths, instincts, in the absence of which, nevertheless, a man ceases to be himself. He will not commit himself in any particular case — he sees so much on the other side and on all sides. He will not apply…
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3. The death of the soul is not a necessity, for an antidote has been provided. Those who have within them the sentence of death may feel the quickening touch of Christ and begin to live. It was the mission of Christ to bring life to dying men. " I am come," He says, " that they might have life." And Paul, writing to t…
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Tj Dr. William Taylor, of America, tells how, when he was a boy, he once heard a sermon on "appropriating faith." His first question on getting home was, "Father, what is appropriating faith ? " — a circumstance not very complimentary to the preacher. His father replied, " My boy, take your Bible and underline all the …
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2. In the verse preceding the text, Ezekiel speaks of the spiritual process of regeneration by which Israel is to be trans- formed into a true people of God. The prophet's analysis of the process of conversion is profoundly instructive, and anticipates to a remarkable degree the teaching of the New Testament. The first…
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2. The spiritual change indicated in the text is spoken of under the metaphor of the substitution of " an heart of flesh " for " a stony heart " — " stony," meaning hard, lacking sensitiveness to God's mystic touch, unresponsive to the calls Divine. Who that has a glimmer of insight into his own heart but will recogniz…
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Tj God called for my life and I offered it at His footstool ; but He gave it me as a Prey, with unspeakable addition. He called for my will, and I resigned it at His call, but He returned me His own in token of His love. He called for the world and I laid it at His feet, with the crowns thereof ; I withheld them not at…
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1 Thomas M'Cullagh, by his eldest Son, 81. 2 Jerry McAuley ; An Apostle to the Lost, 75. EZEKIEL xxxvi. 26 223 fruition " ; where he not only knows, but is, not only is, but acts. " My life," said St. Augustine, looking forward to that existence in God which he recognized as his destiny, " shall be a real life, bein…
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T| As the self-expression of the Divine life in the world con- forms to a rhythm too great for us to grasp, so that its manifesta- tion appears to us erratic and unprepared ; so is it with the self- expression, the emergence into the field of consciousness, of that fontal life of man which we have called the soul's spa…
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2. Conversion restores not only God to the heart, but also reason to her throne. Time and eternity are now seen in their just proportions — the one in its littleness, and the other in its greatness. When the light of heaven rises on the soul, what grand discoveries does she make — of the exceeding evil of sin, of the h…
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0 glory of the lighted mind How dead I'd been, how dumb, how blind. The station brook, to my new eyes, Was babbling out of Paradise, The waters rushing from the rain Were singing Christ has risen again. 1 thought all earthly creatures knelt From rapture of the joy I felt. The narrow station-wall's brick ledge, The w…
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2. Like many other visions, before and since, Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones was partly shaped by the circumstances of the times. The horrors of the Chaldaean invasion, which had resulted in the carrying away of the Jewish people into Babylon, were still fresh in the memories of men. In many a valley, on m…
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EZEKIEL xxxvu. 3 237 on giving that unites, not on greed that disunites. That is not the peace which the societies of earth desire at present. The peace they want now has other aims than the desire of brotherhood. It is peace for the further development of the greed of wealth — that is, for the fruitful source of jeal…
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EZEKIEL xxxvu. 3 239 through an American friend, Mrs. Carroll, and a German friend, Countess von B (a cousin of Humboldt), who was engaged in philanthropic church settlement work in New York. We hoped we had persuaded the millionairess to employ our poor seamstress, but I unluckily added that when she worked for Mrs…
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EZEKIEL xxxvu. 3 241 of this spirit may be seen in the motor-car and the aeroplane as they are often used. These indeed need not be ministers of paganism. The glory of swift motion and the mounting up on wings as eagles reach very near to the spiritual, if not indeed across its borderland, as exhilarating and splendid…
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1. Ezekiel was prepared for his part in this resurrection from the dead. He was prepared in a twofold way. (1) He had a vision of God. — In the first chapter of Ezekiel's prophecy we are told that he saw visions of God. He saw wings with human hands under them ; a vision of the Divine and the human — (the wing everywh…
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3. But in facing the facts Ezekiel did not acquiesce in them. The temptation of religious people everywhere is to recognize the wide extent of insensibility and to acquiesce in it. They mark where their neighbours are and, having given to each his badge, they let them be ; he that is righteous, let him be righteous sti…
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(3) He must also be a man of prayer, depending upon the Spirit of God to use the Word. The prophet was commanded to call upon the breath of God to breathe upon the valley of bones, and, while he spoke God's word, God's invisible power moved upon the valley. 1 Phillips Brooks, Essays cmd Addresses, 472. 248 LIFE FROM …
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250 LIFE FROM THE DEAD together, after sinew and flesh and skin had covered them ; after all the reformation had been effected that human preaching and moral influence could effect, God said, Prophesy now to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Come and breathe upon these bones, that they may live. It …
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252 LIFE FROM THE DEAD exceeding great army, the breath of life in their nostrils, and the light of life in their eyes, then they will know " that I am Jehovah." For those hopeless men of whom the sapless bones are the emblem do not yet rightly know what manner of God is theirs, and how by His mighty power He can revi…
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1 Stopford A. Brooke, Tennyson, 18. Open Windows. aSS Literature. Almond (H. H.), Sermons by a Lay Headmaster, i. 94. Arnold (T.), Sermons, iii. 175. Bernard (J. H.), Via Domini, 262. Burrell (D. J.), The Wondrous Cross, 114. Byrum (E. E.), The Secret of Prayer, 23. Campbell (R. J.), Sermons addressed to Indiv…
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DANIEL vi. 10 259 Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Bight well know I that Fame is half-disfame, Yet needs must work my work. The conspirators knew the weakness of their king. They said to him, " King Darius, live for ev…
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II. The Piety of the Open Window. 1. Daniel kneeled and prayed. He had arrived at an age when rash enthusiasm does not as a rule commend itself. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have refrained from making any open parade of his devotions. Who was to know, if he did not choose to tell, how Dani…
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Daniel prayed three times a day, and, more than that, he had a particular place for praying, and a particular window at which he prayed, and a specific point on the western horizon towards which his devotions were directed. All of this was quite mechanical and formal ; and yet we remember that Daniel was an exceedingly…
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^| Some of my children have learnt to feel the Presence of God, walking from here to there again and again. We move about in God. He is around us and within us. We are like tiny sponges immersed in the Ocean of God. To gain the sense of this Presence is His gift, to be prayed for, and sought by continually doing littl…
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2 R. C. Gillie, The Soul with a View, 13. 8 D. J. Burrell, The Wondrous Cross, 118. 268 OPEN WINDOWS niunity. There were Jews in the alien city where he ruled in magnificence; there were no doubt informal gatherings which were the rudimentary beginnings of the synagogue, but Jerusalem with its Temple and its sacrific…
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(W. A. Gray), 193 (D. Moore). Homiletic Review, xliii. 43 (B. D. Thomas) ; li. 53 (A. Maclaren). 273 A Promised Inheritance. But go thou thy way till the end be : for thou shalt rest, and shalt stand in thy lot, at the end of the days. — Dan. xii. 13. 1. Daniel was one of the favoured ones under the Old Testament d…
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DANIEL xii. 13 275 end." He was to get no more light at that time regarding the great events of the future. He had to be satisfied with the thought that, if the wicked should still do wickedly, many should be purified and made white; and that those should be blessed who should wait and come to the predicted period of …
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2. But there was another thing which Daniel wished, and it was this. Not only had he parted with his kinsmen, and seen them return without him ; he had received an announcement in figure of their future history. It was not all clear, this announce- ment, very far from it. It was mysterious, it was vague. One thing alon…
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0 God-possessed ! Thy raiment is not from the looms of earth, But has a Heavenly birth."1 3. The time of every man's service comes to an end. Some work for a longer and others for a shorter time in the vineyard, 1 T. E. Brown, Old John and Other Poems, 152. 28o A PROMISED INHERITANCE but with each one the night com…
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282 A PROMISED INHERITANCE turn out at the Last Day to have been the very hinges on which our lives turned, and that through them our Predestination has been worked out, and our Eternal Kest secured.1 IL Rest. " For thou shalt rest." 1. In the circumstances in which he was placed Daniel needed this word of comfort…
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3. Then there is the final rest — the rest after toil, when the day's work is done. " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours." Even the earthly part rests in the grave, where the "weary" are "at rest." But the better part, "sleeping in J…
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2. It is an individual lot — thy lot. God is the true inherit- ance. Each man has his own portion of the common possession ; or, to put it into plainer words, in that perfect land each individual has precisely as much of God as he is capable of possessing. " Thou shalt stand in thy lot." And what determines the lot is …
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DANIEL xii. 13 289 The true question to ask is this, " Has it helped any human soul ? " — Signor's own word — and he continued : " It is said of literature, but is equally applicable to art. I think the great sculptor of the Parthenon must have done so. Gothic cathedrals certainly have. Yet these which conferred actua…
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HOSEA ii. 15 295 souls — you took possession of all the inheritance of the saints on earth, and of their inheritance in heaven.1 II. The Valley of Trouble. 1. The valley of Achor became the scene of a great tragedy. Just after the capture of Jericho, at the time when the chosen people had invaded the Land of Promis…
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3. The sin was expiated. The " accursed thing " had brought upon the Israelites disaster and defeat. The accursed thing must therefore by Divine command be put away. And it was put away with unflinching rigour in the valley of Achor. A trying day it must have been for the Israelites when they were called upon to stone …
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The punishment of the transgressor in that case, and the putting away of sin in connexion with penitence and prayer, reopened, after defeat, the door of hope, and restored the enjoy- ment of Divine help. The discomfiture that so troubled the host of Israel was immediately followed by the victory at Ai, which inspired t…
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T| I remember once, in the south of Europe, descending about sunset into a deep solemn valley, circled in by precipitous mountains, and shadowed over with dark pine groves. It seemed as if we were about to lose sight of the day, and of the gladness of nature, and to descend, with Jonah, to the bottoms of the mountains.…
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1 W. L. Watkinson, The Ashes 0/ Hoses, 98. 3o4 THE VALLEY OF ACHOR " To what quarter in the large historic firmament can we turn our eyes with such certainty of being stirred and elevated to thinking better of human life, and of the worth of those who have been most deeply penetrated by its seriousness, as to the ann…
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Dew falls freely in some parts. Where it seldom rains it falls heavily, and is nature's only means of preserving vegetation in these thirsty regions of the globe, thus providing every leaf with its allowance of moisture, night after night, enabling it to grow and nourish. " In the South American forests," says Humbold…
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(1) The appearance of the dew has always filled men with a sense of mystery. The dew neither rises nor falls. It neither comes down from heaven nor rises out of the earth ; it is distilled from the air. As the sun sets, the air cools and deposits on the place of need the vapour it can no longer hold. The dew is thus ev…
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Tj The principal seasons when a provision of the nature of dew is needed in the Holy Land, and when it is so abundantly given, are summer and autumn. Then six consecutive months of drought occur regularly, even under the most favourable circumstances. From about the first week in May to the middle of October, in the us…
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3. "His branches shall spread." The branches of the cedar are spreading branches, and their grateful shade makes welcome provision for rest, for shelter, and for social assembly. It is this 1 J. N. Norton, The King's Ferry Boat, 186. 2 G. A. Smith. HOSEA xiv. 5, 6 315 aspect of the cedar that makes it so worthy a t…
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Growth is to be felt as well as seen. Our advancement in the Divine life is not always proclaimed as the addition of cubits to a man's stature may be told, or by such tokens as are hailed as proofs of material increase. No ; but by other media and through an appeal to other senses. For, just as in the palmy days of the…
1,016 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.