The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 406

"and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon hia eyes, and his bands upon his hands, and stretched himself upon him." The contre.st is even seen in the matter of prayer. Elijah cried unto the Lord; and his prayer is given. Elisha prayed unto the Lord. But in two of the cases our Lord did not associate even prayer with the putting forth of hie power to recover the dead. II. HE RESTORED THE DEAD BY THE POWER OF A SIMPLE 00:r.l.MAND, In this case our Lord's actual words are given," Talitha cumi," At Nain, he simply said," Young man, I say unto thee, arise." At Bethany the words of power were, "Lazarus, come forth." What is clear is that Elijah and Elisha acted as servants; Jesus acted as Master. Ile claimed, and he exerted, power and authority over death. It had to take the place of one of his servants, respond to his commands, and do his bidding. What, then, must he be who can thus deal with the one power which man he.s, by the experience of long ages, learned to regard as irresistible ?-R. T. Ver. 29.-.According to faith. This expression was connected with a miracle of healing. Not all Christ's gracious deeds are recorded in our Gospels. Some are fully detailed. Some are briefly sketched. Some are merely summarized. The reason for the difference of treatment may be found in the degree in which any miracle afforded illustration of truth. This is not one of the fully developed cases, but it yields one point. Blindness is a common affliction in the East. Christ had just wrought a miracle. Its proper result was reached, for others were led to believe in Christ. These two blind men heard what Jesus had done, so they sought his help for themselves, He tests their faith, and gives accordingly. Why did Christ always require, and work for, faith? Because he healed diseases for the sake of healing souls, Calling out faith was healing the soul's sickness. The word "faith" often bewilders; ·better call it "trust." That is a simpler word, and helps us to connect religious faith with everyday faith. The spirit of trust is the spirit that puts ns ready to receive God's best blessings. But the text must not be read as if it meant that the conditions of blessing are all rearranged by Christ, and that we can have anything we like from God, if only we believe enough. I. HELPED TO TRUST; TllA.T IB THE BEGINNING OF CHRISTIAN Lll!'E, Take the familiar comm.and, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," and put " trust" for " believe,n then it means, "Give the whole matter of your soul's salvation into his hands." 'l'hat ill the beginning. · II. LEABNUG TO TRUST; TH.AT 18 THE GBEAT WOBK OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. There is a con.slant tendency to fall back on self-confidence, which needs to be watched and resisted. There is a constant demand for the culturing of weak trust into strength. All Christian discipline means development of trust. • IlL ACCORDING TO TRUST j TH.AT 18 THE L.AW OF DIVINE BLESSINGS lN THE CHRISTI.AN LIFE. Because that is the guarantee that gifts will be well used. If we were utterly self-willed, we should fling back the gift. Just in the measure of our self-will we are likely to use unworthily the gift. So far as we can trust, we are likely to use it rightly. Open souls welcome spiritual blessings.-R. T. Ver. 35.-0hrist', day-by-day dutiu. The more special and public acts and events of a man's life gain place in his biography, but the commonplace, everyday associations of a man give the true impression of him. It is eaid that "no man is a hero to his valet; " but he ought to be. The routine life of a man should be the best revelation of the man. We may dwell on the greater scenes of our Lord's life, and leam much; but we know him imperfectly until we fairly estimate how he bore the strain of daily, commonplace duties. Four terms are used to describe our Lord's everyday life. I. JOURNEYING. He "went about all the cities and villages." Galilee was very tbickly peopled at this time. Josephus exaggerates, but he says of Galilee, "'l'he cities here lie very thick, and the very many villages here and there are everywhere so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contained about fifteen thousand inhabitants." He reports two hundred and forty cities and villages in the district. This gives us an idea of our Lord's active labours. Notice that (1) he was concerned for the vi,ll,age as well as for the town; (2) that such itinerating work ii bodily exhausting; (3) that con,.tant fresh scenes and associations destroy soul• OIL .:r. 1-42.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST, MATTHEW. 403