Ver. 17.-The common message of John and Jesus. Here is a fact of the records to which sufficient attention has not been given. Our Lord did not realize at once the individuality of his Messianic message. He began public labour by doing John's work and repeating's J oh.n's message. Both had this for their gospel, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Another remarkable fact needs to be noticed in this connection. When our Lord sent out his apostles on their trial-mission-a beginning of gospel-preaching for them, in which we expect them to deal with first principles- we find that he gave them John's message, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." L THE HONOU11, THUS PUT ON JoHN. It is usual to represent John's work as super- &eded by Christ's. It is not so. His work was carried on by Christ. The " repentance n he demanded was shown by Christ to be the permanent demand which must be ma.de of every man in all the ages. John never dies ; his voice is never silenced ; he reap- pears at Pentecost. "Repent and be converted." John is no mere passing voice. He speaks to the world to-day. His message is seen to be God's message for humanity when it gains repetition from the lips of the Lord Jesus. "Of those born of women there bath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." II. TBl!: noNotra THUS PUT ON REPENTANCE. It is seen to stand permanently in the very forefront of the Divine requirements. It is the strait gate at the very head of the Christian way. When the way of salvation is represented as easy, as a weak yielding oft.he Divine love, it is well to remember that door of repentance which blocks the entrance. So many now take up Christian profession on the persuasion of mere pa.ssi.Dg emotion, without any soul-bumblings through repentance. John and the Lord Jesus gave the first place to repentance. No man can ever apprehend what Jesus is, as the Forgiver of sin, who has not learned of John what is repentance of sin. The weakness of so-called gospel-preaching nowadays is the absence of Johe.nnine demands of repentance, which both the Lord Jesus and his apostles ma.de.-R. 'l.'. Ver. 19.-0hrist's call to service. "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." From John i. we learn that these men were previously ea.lied to discipleship. It was well that they should have a time of fellowship with Christ before they were further called to the service of Christ. Observe bow the full idea. of the Messiahship was gradually unfolded, stage by stage. Our Lord never hurried. He set a noble example of " doing the next thing;" and all the Divine plan for him gradually but surely unfolded. These men were fishers. Our Lord used a figure which was quite familiar to them, and would be very suggestive. These thoughts would surely have come to their minds. As the fish have to be gathered, to be skilfully gathered, and to be persistently gathered, so have men. Christ wants us to fish for men as, during these long years, we have fiBhed in this lake for fish. Here will come in careful descriptions of the boats, nets, and methods of the :fishermen of Galilee. L MElll HAVE TO BE GATHERED. Morally, and in view of their independence and eelf-willedness, men are like the fishes that roam free in the water, going this way or that at their own pleasure. But this freedom is moral peril. There are foes for men in their freedom., as there are for the fishes. Gather the fish and deliver the111 OH, v. 1-48.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTllEW. 145
from their foes. Gather the men into the allegiance of Christ, and so Jeli ver them from evil. II. MEN HAVE TO BE SKILFULLY GATHERED. Few occupations involve more skill than fishing, The fisherman must judge the weather, decide on his net or line, adapt his bait, and know the habits of the creatures, So the Apostle Paul, as the great gospel fisherman, would make himself" all things to all men," Illustrate by the conversions recorded in the New 'l.'estament, pointing out how different were the methods used in each case in order to effect the ingathering, IIL MEN HAVE TO DE PERSISTENTLY GATHERED. Because there is a natural resist- &nce which is too often successful, and must be dealt with again and again. Show where the fisher-figure fails. They who fish for men gather them in order that they may be everlastingly saved,-R. T. Ver. 23.-The healing mission of Jes'US. The excitement produced in the East by the occasional visits of a hakim, or physician, effectively explain the scenes described in our Lord's life, but seem very strange to us, and very difficult to realize. Dean Stanley has the following note: "It was after a walk through the village of Ehden, beneath the mountain of the cedars, that we found the stairs and corridors of the castle of the Maronite chief, Sheikh Joseph, lined with a crowd of eager applicants, • sick people taken with divers diseases,' who, hearing that there was a meu.ica.l man in the party, had thronged round him, 'beseeching him that he would heal them.' It was an affecting scene; our kind doctor was distressed to find how many cases there were which, with proper medical appliances, might have been cured." Some have thought that disease in our Lord's time took unusual and severe forms, but we probably need do no more than imagine the condition of a population living in unsanitary conditions, and with no scientific doctoring at command. All forms of disease were then thought of as irritations of evil and malicious spirits, and all healing was really " exorcism." Our Lord's bodily heatings seem to have been specially characteristic of the earlier ministry of Jesus; and it should always be treated as illustrative of his work, not as bis proper work. The healing mission of Jesus may be set in three forms. I. To CALL ATTENTION. It is a singular fact that almost immediately on Christ's beginning his ministry he was followed by crowds. He could not have gathered them as a moral Teacher, Nicodemus shows us what arrested attention. "No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him." So the heatings made a sphere for Jesus, in which he could do spiritual work. II. To SHOW HIS SPIRIT. Contrast with that of the Pharisees, who despised the people; and with the Eastern physician, who demands ruinous fees. JesUB sought the poor and the sick, and did his best to help them for nothing. It was a revelation of love to man. Ill. 'l.'o INDICATE ms MISSION. Wbich bore relation to the great sin-disease of the soul, aud was illustrated in these healings, deliverings, and redeemings, which bore rolatiou to meu's bodily disabilities. All disease is fruitage of sin. Christ came to deal with sin, both in root, and branch, and flower, and fruit.-R, 'l'.