PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 7
James Hastings · 189,784 words · 195 reading sections
Section 121
2. The story from which the text is taken belongs to the reign of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, when the kingdom of Israel was at the height of its glory and its frontier extended beyond the farthest point reached in the brightest days of Solomon. This was a period of unexampled material prosperity for the Northern Kingd…
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T| Lotze and those who side with him, though they are Monists inasmuch as they believe that there is only one substance in the Universe, viz., Spiritual Life and Energy, yet at the same time believe that the Eternal God, who by the partial differentiation of His own essential being calls into existence the world of nat…
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2. The text does not speak of to-morrow. Its cry, " Prepare ! " has regard to the present. We are urged to the duty as a duty to be performed now. There is no " to-morrow " in the Christian's calendar, as assuredly there is none in the text's exhortation. There is perhaps no expression in our language that has done mor…
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He would thus bear, graven on his memory, a tried image against which the last agony would not prevail and from which 1 Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Brovming, 198. 328 A MEETING WITH GOD the phantom-stricken eyes would draw fresh comfort. Instead of the terrible prayer of the dying, which is the p…
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1 B. H. Hutton, Criticisms on Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, i. 234. 330 A MEETING WITH GOD officers of justice for some crime against the law ready to start at every knock which comes to the door of the house where he is staying ? Why does a criminal in prison dread the bar, and the judge, and the assize-day? To…
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1 Calvin, Commentaries on tht Minor Prophets, li. 244, 332 A MEETING WITH GOD These, contrition, confession, amendment, are the three parts of repentance.1 III. 1. But the text in its original setting bears no reference to death and judgment after death ; it is simply a warning of the destruction that was about to …
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334 A MEETING WITH GOD may rebuke, may deter, may guide, may strengthen, may comfort, may illumine, may consecrate and subdue the feeble and wayward impulses of his own heart to God's holy will and purpose ! " The "consciousness of an Eternal Presence" — that was the principle of his life. That made him strong; that …
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1 H. F. Henderson, Erskine of Linlathen, 136. 336 A MEETING WITH GOD there, the common property of the race. We must wait for their vision till we have reached their level.1 One feast, of holy days the crest, I, though no Churchman, love to keep, All-Saints, — the unknown good that rest In God's still memory folde…
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T[ I have read the Book of Jonah at least a hundred times, and I will publicly avow, for I am not ashamed of my weakness, that I cannot even now take up this marvellous book, nay, nor even speak of it, without tears rising to my eyes, or my heart beating higher. This apparently trivial book is one of the deepest and gr…
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1 John Ker, Thoughts for Htart and Life, 216. JONAH iv. 10, ii 343 for the love of God. There was nothing wonderful in the fact that a Hebrew prophet should desire that a Divine judgment should fall on a heathen city, and that Jehovah should be magnified in His mighty power. It was accordingly with very human, but by…
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JONAH iv. io, ii 345 to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever," — they are noble words, and breathe the very spirit of the Bible. " With thee is the fountain of life," says the Psalmist in highest adoration of God. Christ, in claiming for Himself that He is one with the Father, speaks of the life that is in Him, an…
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1 G. A. Smith, The Book of the Twelve Propliets, ii. 539. JONAH iv. 10, ii 347 for shading arbours ; and so rapid is its growth that it will often shoot a foot in a day. In the gardens about Sidon many an arbour of gourds may be seen. But the plant withers as rapidly as it shoots, and after a storm or any injury to t…
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Flowers of Thy heart, 0 God, are they, Let them not pass, like weeds, away. Tf In poor cottages, looking so destitute one hardly likes to enter them, women nurse flowers calling them "pets" and " beauties," and cherishing them as gently as though the flowers could smile on them, and repay them for their care. These wo…
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The perennial miracle of love is this, that it increases in the ratio of the expenditure of our pains, and thrives on sacrifice. The more we bestow — the more we are prepared to spend. God had put out and expended long-suffering and patience and grief and holy striving on His Nineveh. And is He to have no return ? No i…
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1 Hngh Price Hughes. JER.-MAL. — 23 354 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY Gave thee clothing of delight Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice ? Little Lamb, who made thee ? Dost thou know who made thee ? Then he tells the lamb who made it — God. God made the little…
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Isaiah and Micah agree absolutely in their essential teaching, but each contemplates the present and the future from his own standpoint. Micah, a humble-minded countryman, realized the special wickedness of the two great Hebrew capitals, Jerusalem and Samaria. He drew a graphic picture of the social vices of the time. …
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U In the eighth century B.C., in the heart of a world of idola- trous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. " And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to…
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2. What is our obligation to be just ? Is it the civil and criminal courts of law ? The large majority of unjust acts are not punishable by these courts. Is it the belief in a coming day of judgment ? That is an obligation to self-interest, not to justice. Is it the welfare of the greatest number ? In the order of natu…
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1 C. A. Row, Future Retribution, 24. 8 G. Matheson, The Bible Definition of Religion, 35. 366 LIFE FOR GOD if he could. Hence, while the prophet begins with doing, he reminds us that our doing justly must spring from a corresponding inward motive, which he describes as loving mercy. This is the only guarantee that w…
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He heard the call nor stayed : " My Master, here am I ! " His work was there, and he went to do his work and die. Hope to the hopeless he bore, and the comfort that comforteth To the hearts of men who lay in the vale of the Shade of Death. He has loved and worked for the lepers, it's now the four- teenth year, And the…
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T| Humility is the great ornament and jewel of Christian religion ; that whereby it is distinguished from all the wisdom of the world; it not having been taught by the wise men of the Gentiles, but first put into a discipline, and made part of a religion, by our Lord Jesus Christ; who propounded Himself imitable by His…
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The New Testament tells us of Jesus that He was full of Grace and Truth. Grace and Truth ! It must have been in the perfect meeting of those two elements in Him that His mediator- ship, His power to transmute the everlasting truths of God into the immediate help of needy men consisted. He was no rapt self- centred stud…
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He had spoken out his doubt and his distress, and therefore he had not to wait long for an answer. As one who stands upon a watch-tower, straining his eyes for the first gleam of the spears HABAKKUK n. 4 379 and helmets of a hostile or a friendly army, so he watched, as from the fenced place whence the vision of the …
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HABAKKUK n. 4 381 Hebrew term indeed is much larger than faith, and carries in itself the idea of firmness, steadfastness, faithfulness. It is used of the holding up of Moses' hands by Aaron and Hur (Exod. xvii. 12) : "his hands were steadiness"; of the stability of the times (Is. xxxiii. 6); of the trustworthiness of…
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HABAKKUK fir. 4 383 It was mystic, not dogmatic. It was of the soul and the experi- ence, not of the reason. Faith was not an act, but a being — not what you did, but what you were. The whole truth of the immanence of God and of the essential belonging of the human life to the Divine — the whole truth that God is a po…
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experience, swift as an arrow, sharp as a two-edged sword, in the controversy which he was then waging, was now seen in its bearing upon the wider questions of the religious history of man- kind. The history of the Gentile world showed that the witness of the eternal power and Godhead in the things that are seen was no…
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I know the plants that bear the noisome fruit Of burning and of ashes and of gall — From God's heart torn, rootless to man's they cling. 3. Faith remains as of old the condition of the highest life. To the prophet the supreme idea of life is safety, preservation from peril. To the Apostle the supreme idea is entire …
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TJ Tolstoy had decided that for him at least life was simply not possible without faith. And by the logic of the heart he moved up to that position which Pater, by a curiously similar process, attained: that since there are certain presuppositions, 390 LIFE BY FAITH postulates, beliefs, without which a man simply can…
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At the best it would have been a heavy task, but for that weak remnant it was overpowering. They had been bondsmen all their days, and the yoke had crushed them. Their spirit was broken, and their poor souls fainted in face of an ordeal which demanded not only a strong hand but, even more, a stout heart. It was a peril…
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398 THE CITY WITHOUT WALLS could resist attack, the guardian of the nation's throne and altar, wherein Israel might dwell secure from the heathen world out- side. On these lines, then, the city was to be measured out ; the first business was to see what should be the breadth thereof and what should be the length there…
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4oo THE CITY WITHOUT WALLS hand drew for our fathers, and to raise again the bulwarks behind which they sufficiently sheltered His shrine. Whether these ancient and sacred defences be dogmas or institutions, we have no right, God tells us, to cramp behind them His powers for the future. And the great men whom He raise…
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At last, in the second century B.C., we come to the Book of Daniel, and what do we find ? A life-and-death struggle going on between loyal Israelites and a wanton heathen persecutor of their religion. Death any day rather than eat the heathen meat, or profane the Sabbath, or sacrifice to idols, or neglect the hours of …
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Tj Bishop Montgomery has said, " the Body of Christ is a torso." Only when the glory and honour of all nations are brought into the Kingdom will the true greatness of the Kingdom be known. A meeting of devout Christians a little while ago was startled to hear a well-known missionary say something like this : " What are…
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1. Here is safety from all outward enemies. As long as the city obeyed and trusted God it was impregnable, though all the nations stood round about it, like dogs round a sheep. The fulfil- ment of the promise has passed over, with all the rest that characterized Israel's position, to the Christian Church, and to- day, …
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T| Each life lies overshadowed, enfolded, embosomed in the Spiritual Whole which is God ; eternity is our home ; we " cannot drift beyond His love and care " ; The eternal God is thy refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms. That is the Gospel of the transcendent God. Within each life the divine Spirit dwells…
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The Israelites were engaged in rebuilding the Temple, but notwith- standing their own zeal and earnestness, and the ostensible permission and encouragement of the Babylonian king, they found themselves making little progress. They were being continually thwarted. The work halted in their hands. We can well imagine the …
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3. It was not, however, his own personal transgressions alone of which Joshua bore the guilt. He appears here as the repre- sentative of a guilty people. The filthy garments with which he is clothed are the sins of the community ; and the charges urged 1 J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, i. 48. 4i6 BRAND PLU…
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^f In a letter to his friend F. J. A. Hort, Maurice writes : " You think you do not find a distinct recognition of the devil's personality in my books. I am sorry if it is so. I am afraid I have been corrupted by speaking to a polite congregation. I do agree with my dear friend Charles Kingsley, and admire him for the …
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42o BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE him. And this vision is the key which unlocks the secret of the entire history of the Christian Church. The cause of Christianity is the cause of Christ. He is, and has been throughout, as really involved in all that has been done ; He has throughout been acting as really, though invi…
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422 BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE as he knows, is only his Judge. That is the difficulty, and it is fearful. Is there any hope ? ^ In fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Satan is here ; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may ; and the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous. Do…
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424 BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE the accusing enemy. " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " That He chooses the sinner assures the righteousness of the choice. Even Satan is silenced. " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth." T[ Certain theologians have placed …
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1 Church Pulpit Year Book, 1909, p. 21. 426 BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE represented, is seen from what follows. Addressing Joshua, the Lord says, "Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee" — I have taken it away and delivered thee from it — "and I will clothe thee with change of raiment " (festive gar…
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1 J. Brierley, The Secret of Living, 126. 428 BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE a dreadful enemy of God and all that was good, and one of the most profligate and abandoned young men living ; but during that sermon there was a mighty transformation in me. Showers of tears poured down my cheeks, and from that hour I broke …
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Tj Here the angel bears witness — that the power of God alone is sufficient to preserve the Church, and there is no need of other helps. For he sets the Spirit of God in opposition to all earthly aids ; and thus he proves that God borrows no help for the pre- servation of His Church, because He abounds in all blessings…
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3. It is " not by might" That is a word of very comprehen- sive meaning. Sometimes it denotes an army, and is significant of brute force, of coercion, of sheer repression. In all Christian work force is no remedy. And sometimes it denotes wealth, and ZECHARIAH iv. 6 435 is significant of material substance, of buying…
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1 A. Maude, The Life of Tolstoy : Later Years, 36. 3 John Brown Paton (1914), 507. 2ECHARIAH iv. 6 437 the former rather than the latter would be a madman rather than a rational human being. All the same, however, there is no truth in a sort of vague, traditional feeling that material poverty is necessarily synonymou…
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ZECHARIAH iv. 6 439 saith the Lord of hosts," is the motto inscribed upon their hearts.1 2. One of the greatest dangers of modern life is that we tend to put more faith in the power of machinery than in the power of the Spirit. If we are wise, there will be a growing resentment in our minds at the way in which life i…
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altar with irregular, worldly-minded, self-complacent thoughts. Pray for me that I may free myself from all pride, all ambition, all uncharitableness. You cannot think how a little word which you dropped one day, the last we met together at Oxford, struck me, and how it has abode with me ever since. You cautioned me ag…
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Therefore, to rest on any other source of power is to lean on a bruised reed that will break and pierce the hand that leans upon it. What constitutes the power of a church ? Numbers ? God would rather have seven consecrated men and women than seven thousand who are living according to the course of this world. Where li…
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T| The keynote of the twenty-first annual convention of Christian Endeavour at Middlesborough was struck by the Eev. James Spedding of Birkenhead, who reminded the delegates that 1 G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 89. 446 THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL all the elaborate plans and programmes for the convention would…
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1. In this remarkable prophecy, dealing with national repent- ance, the state of things usually depicted in the Old Testament Scriptures is inverted ; for while we are generally shown a people undergoing misery and suffering, and then raised, as the result, to heights of prosperity, we see here a people delivered from …
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454 CONTRITION times troubled with regrets as to the past and fears as to the future. But as the heart when in the one state, that of uncon- cern, is in a sinful condition, so in the other state, of mere com- punction and fear, it is far from being in a healthy condition. We need the power from on high on the one hand…
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1 W. E. Biederwolf. s The Spirit of Father Fdber (1914), 39. 456 CONTRITION no hesitation in applying the prophecy to the piercing of the Saviour on Calvary's cross. ^| Many years ago there was a striking picture to be seen in one of the galleries of Paris. It was the picture of the dead Christ. On the left side was…
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458 CONTRITION I have pierced Thee ? " True penitents smite upon their breasts as they behold their Saviour bleeding on the tree. This is genuine contrition. They " shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitter- ness for his firstborn." The Israelite was specially sensitive con- cerning the death of his of…
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filled with the blood of an atoning victim, what the Jewish writer had evidently in his mind was a fountain filled with the tears of the people's genuine and deep contrition. Such was the fountain in which he conceived of them as losing " all their guilty stains." Like another Jewish writer, he had learnt to feel, " Th…
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"They that feared the Lord," he says, "spake one with another." It was their surest means, by God's grace, of resisting the temptations of their enemy, and so it is ours. It was the greatest earthly blessing of their lives, and so it is of ours. An earthly blessiDg indeed it ought scarcely to be called; for it reaches …
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MALACHI hi. 16 467 and the devil fear Him " (Luther, lvii. 56), but because he sees before his eyes the actual power of God giving him blessing ; and he fears to take one step beyond the sphere of that blessed power " as a good child fears, and will not arouse, its father's anger, or do anything that might not please …
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1 W. M. Punshon, Sermons, ii. 279. MALACHI in. 16 469 ^f The word " thought " is one of intense meaning, and I should like to trace it in one or two passages of Scripture in order that we may more clearly understand it. In the 17th verse of the 13th chapter of Isaiah we read: " Behold, I will stir up the Medes again…
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MALACHI in. 16 471 it, is it conceivable that we can speak freely of the weather, of events of our day, of politics, of commerce, of literature, of science, and can absolutely close our lips on the one topic which is not of time but of eternity ? Is there not something faulty if we cannot enjoy Christian intercourse w…
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4. The fourth motive is one which is suggested by a knowledge of human nature. It is notorious that in every condition of life there are those who are stronger and those who are weaker. Some are born to lead, others seem bound to depend on those who are stronger than themselves. If so, is it not criminal if we keep to …
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.