II. THE UN00UNTED DEBT DUE TO JESUS CHRYST. The~e nine men having received the greatest goml one man could receive from another---deliverance from a living :lealh-failed to recognize their obligation, did not stop to consider it. They were not thu last to be guilty in this respect. 1. How much more do many owe to Christ than they think they do/ They say, "We do not choose to range ourselves under him and call him 'Master;' we can construct our own character, can build up rectitude and purity and benevolence of. spirit apart from his truths or his will; we can do without Christ." But suppose we subtract from the elevating and purifying influences which b.ave made these men what they are all those elements which are due to Christ, how much is left? How little is left? The influences that come from him are in the air these men are breathing, in the laws under which they are living, in the literature they ~re reading, in the lives they are witnessing; they touch and tell upon them at every point, they act silently and subtly but mightily upon them; tbey owe to Jesus Christ the best they are and have; they ought to come into direct, living, personal relations with the Lord himself. 2. How much more do some men owe to Christ than they stay to consider I These nine men would not have disputed their obligation had they been challenged, but they were so anxious to get home to their friends and back to their business that they did not stay to consider it. Have we stayed to ccmsider what we owe to him who, though he has not indeed cured us of leprosy, has at infinite cost to himself prepared for us a way of recovery from that which is immeasurably worse -from sin and death? to him who, "thou11:h he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich"? III. THE PERIL OF EARLY PRIVILEGE. It is significant enough that the tenth leper who did return to give glory to God was a Samaritan-was" this stranger." Taking this fact with that concerning the Roman soldier whose faith surprised our Lord, and that of the Syro-Phcenician woman whose importunity prevailed over every obstacle, we may conclude that the Hebrew mind was so familiarized with "signs and wonders," that those outside the sacred circle were far more impressed by what they witnessed than the people of God themselves. It is well to be the children of privilege; but there is one grave peril connected with it. We may become so familiar with the greatest of all facts as to become insensible to their greatness. The Swiss peasant who lives on the Alpine slopes sees no grandeur in those snow-clad summits on which his eyes are always resting; the sailor who lives by the sea hears no music in "old ocean's roar." We may become so familiar even with the story of the cross that our minds are unaffected by its moral grandeur, by its surpassing grace. It behoves us to take earnest heed that we fall not into this fatal snare; lest many should come " from the north, and the south, and the east, and the west, and sit down in the kingdom of God," and we, the children of the kingdom, be excluded.. We must do our utmost to realize the great truths which have eo long been uttered in our hearing.-C.
Vers. 20, 21.-Radical mistakes respecting the kingdom of God. Pharisaism took its hostile attitude toward Christianity because it entirely failed to understand it. It made two radical mistakes which completely misled it. I. THE MISTAKES WHIOH PHARISAISM MADE. 1. As to the character of the coming kingdom. It thought it was to be outward, earthly, political, temporal; it was looking and longing for the time when another David, another Judas Maccabreus, should come, should liberate the Holy Land from the grasp of the pagan power, and make Jerusalem the metropolis, the centre and glory of the earth. 2. As to the evidences and signs of its coming. It looked for a grand display of power, for overwhelming evidences that would strike every eye and startle and convince every mind that One was at band who shonld assume the sovereignty awaiting him. And so it came to pass that when Jesus was born at Bethlehem, a Babe cradled in a manger; when he grew up to be a Carpenter nt Nazareth; when be gathered no army, and struck no blow for naticnal deliverance; when there was no ostentation about his method; when he Jived to bless and teach individual men and women, and wrought his work quietly and unpretendingly ;-Phari- saism decided that he was not the Coming One, and that his reign was not to prove the kingdom of God. Pharisaism entirely mistook God's purpose, and fatally misinterpreted his procedure. Il. THE MISTAKES DITO WHICH WE ARE LIABLE TO FALL. Not, of course, the 102 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. [oH. xvn. 1-37.
same but similar, and equally disastrous. 1. ,Vhen we lo~k for blessedness in out- 'W~rd circumstances instead of in inward peace. We say," If I could but win that prize, pun that post, secure that friendship, earn that income, how briabt would bo my lot, how glad my heart, how radiant my life!" But we are wrong. Gladness of heart and excellency _of life are not to be foun~ in sunny circumstances, but in a pure heart, a heart that 1s at rest, a heart at home with God. "Out of the heart are the issues of life•" the fountain of lasting joy rises from our own breast; tbo kingdom of God is within us. 2. When we look for blessedness in the time that is beyond. "Man never is but always to be blessed." There is even an unchristian longing for the heavenly future. When" to abide in the flesh" is more needful for those for whose welfare we are largely responsible, then the "kingdom of God" for us is not in the distance; it is in the present sphere of duty; it is in present peace, present joy, present service in the blessedness which Christ gives to his servants ' •• Before they reach the heavenly fields, Or walk the golden streets," in those "heavenly places" of holy service and happy fellowship in which he "has made them to sit" (Eph. ii. 6). 3. Wl.ien we wait for heavenly influences to fall upon us instead of availing ourselves of those we have. Not only is there no need fo: any soul to wait for some remarkable and overwhelming influences before entering the kingdom, not only is it wholly unnecessary, but it is positively wrong to do so. It is in those quiet influences which are now working within your heart that God comes to you. He will never be nearer to a human soul than when his Spirit fills it with a holy longing, and makes it eager to know what it must do to enter into life. Wait not for anything that is coming: act on the promptings that are within you, and your feet shall then surely stand within the kingdom of God.-C.