Hebrews 12 - The Biblical Illustrator

Compassed about with so great a cloud

Great men:

The witnesses that God has set before the eyes of men are twofold, the witness of greatness and the witness of goodness, the witness of the hero and the witness of the saint.

To name these two together is at once to put the one far above the other. Without any argument we feel at once that the hero and the saint belong to different spheres, the hero to nature, the saint to religion; the hero to the earth, the saint to heaven if we examine what sort of a man we call great, we shall always find that it is one who leads his fellow-men. We do not call a man great simply for cleverness, nor for worldly success, the fruit of cleverness. Nor, again, do we call a man great for exceeding goodness, if he have nothing in him which makes that goodness a guide, and not merely a reverenced wonder to his fellows. A great man is he who stands out from others, not for some accidental difference, but for something which makes others follow his lead, acknowledge his power, accept his teachings, admire his course. Such a man will be sure to be marked with these characteristics; he will have a large mind, a strong conviction, and a firm will.

1. He must have a large mind to take in, and feel in full force the truths or the impulses which are dimly and dumbly moving in the minds of his fellow-men. This is the necessary condition of his being able to take the lead. In the great man all that is narrow and confined to himself is overpowered by what is large, what is shared and felt by thousands beside. He has room in his heart for many interests, for many impulses, for many aims; and he has that within him that shall comprehend and reconcile them all into one great purpose.

2. To this large soul he must add deep convictions. For he will be sure to meet with such obstacles as none but leaders ever meet. He will be aiming at that which is to last for centuries; but he will find straight in his path the passing passions of the day, roused to fiercer enmity by their own shallowness. Even when he is following the deep current, which none but himself is deep enough to feel, he will be stemming all the shallower currents which bear on their surface those that are living in his day. Hence it often happens that as long as he lives he sees no signs of success. He works his work; he sows his seed; but he never sees the harvest. What shall carry a man through all this? Nothing but faith. Be the great man a good man or a bad; be he like Elijah, a prophet and a faithful servant; or be he like Balaam, a prophet and a traitor, nothing can carry him through what he must often encounter but a deep conviction of the truth by which he lives; that truth, whatever it may be, of which he is the messenger.

3. The great man will need, besides a large heart and a deep conviction, a strong will. This is so indispensable a condition of greatness that we frequently fancy that strength of will is almost the whole of greatness, and are prone to admire that beyond all else that we see in a great man. And, indeed, if not the highest element in a great man’s nature, it is yet the one which saves the others from downright degradation. What spectacle is more contemptible than clear knowledge combined with weakness? What character is more universally despised than that of a coward? So absolutely necessary is courage to all true service that we have been made by God with a natural admiration even of wicked courage, in order, no doubt, that we should learn early to put on a piece of armour which we cannot do without, and that even nature should assist us in the first element of our spiritual lesson. What is the crown that must be added to all these qualities to make the great man true to his own greatness? It is loyalty to his true Master. (Bp. Temple.)

The cloud of witnesses

I. THE WITNESSES. And what are the truths they bear witness to?

1. They bear witness to the fact that their confidence in God was not misplaced. A man may fail, but God never.

2. They bear witness to the sufficiency of Divine grace. They had no more natural goodness than we; but they overcame it all, and it was in the strength of the Lord they did so.

3. They bear witness to the faithfulness of God to His promises.

II. THE APOSTLE’S ADVICE.

1. We are to “lay aside every weight.” I need scarce name particular things. In some it is vanity, in others worldliness, in others unlawful pleasure, in others a violent temper, others unholy attachments. It is, in fact, whatever deadens thy soul, and holds thee back when thou shouldest be pressing forward to the skies.

2. We are to renounce “the sin that doth so easily beset us.” To “beset,” means “to surround,” and the sin that so easily besets us is that to which we are most liable. Very often, indeed mostly, it is that sin to which we were most given before our conversion: as when a breach is made in a wall, it is easier to effect another breach in that place, although it may be built up again, than where stone has never been dislodged. With different constitutions, and with different ages, there are different easily besetting sins. With youth it is often passion--evil desire. With age it is often fretfulness--peevishness. With the rich it is often pride and grasping of power; with the poor it is often repinings against providence. With the healthy it is often forgetfulness of God, and of their latter end; with the sick it is often rebellion against Him who lays on the rod.

3. We are also to “ run with patience the race set before us.” If a thing take us a long time in doing, we are inclined to be impatient about it. Or, if the word may be more properly translated,” perseverance.” Then, if a journey is long, we are generally inclined to grow weary and loiter by the way. But if the road is long and dusty, we are to be patient. If the trial is severe, we are to be patient, and not allow our souls to be agitated. Sometimes the blessing we expect may be delayed, but we are to be patient in waiting for it. Sometimes our persecutions may be fierce indeed, but we are to be patient whilst we endure them. This grace is like the rivet that binds all the machinery together.

III. WE HAVE A GLORIOUS EXAMPLE SET BEFORE US. “Looking unto Jesus.” Christ endured the Cross, and He endured it patiently. (W. G.Pascoe.)

Good men in both worlds

I. THE GOOD THAT HAVE DEPARTED TO THE CELESTIAL WORLD.

1. They live.

2. They live in vast number’s. “Cloud.”

3. They live as spectators of their surviving brethren on earth. “Witnesses.” Though with the politics, commerce, and crafts of the world they have nothing to do, they are intensely alive to its spiritual interests and activities.

II. THE GOOD THAT ARE STILL LIVING ON THE EARTH.

1. Their life is like a racecourse. They both have their limitation, rules, intense activity, speedy termination.

2. Their life, to realise its end, requires great attention.

(1) There must be a divestment of all encumbrances.

(2) There must be a freeing oneself from besetting sin.

(3) There must be the exercise of great patience of soul in our efforts,

3. Their life should be salutarily influenced by the good who have departed. “Wherefore, seeing,” etc.

III. THE GLORIOUS REDEEMER OF THE GOOD IN BOTH WORLDS. “Looking unto Jesus,” dec. Christ is the chief example of human goodness.

1. He was pre-eminent as an example in the spirit that inspired Him. Self-oblivion.

2. Preeminent in the grandeur of soul with which He met unparalleled sufferings.

3. Pre-eminent in the exaltation which He ultimately met. (Homilist.)

Immortality

I. To any thoughtful and aspiring person, sensitive to fine influences, desirous of mental and moral advancement, eager for opportunities for culture or for usefulness, THERE IS ALWAYS A SENSE OF EXHILARATION IN FEELING HIMSELF CONNECTED WITH A VARIOUS, SPLENDID, WIDELY-EXTENDED, SOCIAL SYSTEM. It impels naturally to larger effort, gives expansiveness to the whole plan of life, furnishes incentives to nobler personal aspiration and hope. It dignifies, instead of dwarfing, the individual personality. It widens the whole horizon of thought and expectation, and makes one more sensible of both the responsibility and the privilege of life.

II. It is the privilege of the Christian to feel and know that he is associated NOT ONLY WITH SUCH SOCIETIES ON EARTH, BUT WITH VAST AND GLORIOUS AND PURE REALMS OF LIFE WHICH EYE HATH NOT YET SEEN, and of which there comes no whisper to us through the silent blue, yet with which our relations are already intimate, into which we are to pass at death, and in which we are to dwell thenceforth immortally. It cannot be said that there is a prophecy of this in human nature; but there is an instinct in human nature which prepares us for the reception of it when announced to us in the gospel. We can conceive of ourselves in any relation to others, imaginable--in any place on earth, in any position- but we cannot conceive of ourselves as non-existent.

III. THE MORE CLEARLY WE APPREHEND THESE HIGHER REALMS OF LIFE, THE MORE DEEPLY WE FEEL OUR PERSONAL AND VITAL RELATIONS TO THEM, THE MORE WILL THEY, BY THE INFLUENCE WHICH FALLS FROM THEM, ENRICH AND EXALT OUR DAILY LIFE.

1. For one thing they lessen the attraction of the world upon our minds and hearts. In our times this world seems to draw the spirit to itself, almost as the power of gravitation holds the body to the planet. Some months ago we had an ice storm. The gently descending rain froze as it fell, until it covered every tree and shrub with a raiment of brilliancy, as if it had been plaited in diamond and hung with diamond drops. It was superb to look upon, almost an apocalypse of natural beauty. Yet the very splendour broke the tree. The brilliant garniture overwhelmed that which was tender and vital in the shrub which it adorned. So it is with the great and splendid accumulations of wealth and the ornaments of pleasure that are so feverishly and anxiously sought. They destroy in us, often, by their very attainment, that which is finest and grandest in our spiritual nature. How shall we resist this encompassing influence? We cannot resist it by force of will; we might as well try to jump from the planet. We cannot extricate ourselves from the constant social influences which are around us, leading us to these results. We must somehow or other rise above it all. As long as we contemplate that into which we are to enter by and by, we are comparatively careless of that which is beneath. It ceases to make that masterful impression on our spirits which otherwise it had made, and which otherwise it must always make.

2. The contemplation of this superior life inspires, too, the noblest culture of character. As the sunshine of the morning lifts the mists, and reveal the landscape, and clothes it with a mantle of beauty, making the very rock burst into life and surround itself with verdure, so this influence from above, from the celestial realms which we have not reached, but toward which we are tending, and the gates of which Christ opens to us, disperses from the spirit what is malefic or obscure, and prints a new and vital beauty on it all.

3. This thought is also a vast incentive to the culture of power in us, of personal, moral, and intellectual power, for which there must be range in those circles of life which we are to join, if we are the disciples of the Divine Lord.

IV. Here, then, you see at once THE MISCHIEVOUS TENDENCY OF SCEPTICAL THOUGHT, WHICH TENDS TO OBSCURE THIS VISION OF THE WORLD TO COME, and to make it signify a mere fancy, a mere dream of the world’s youth, which, as the race goes on, will more and more be dissipated, as the tinted clouds of morning disappear when the sun rides higher and higher to the meridian.

V. HERE IS THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. I do not find the most striking prophecies of the future life in any mere words of Scripture. I find them in the fact that He who had the power of miracle in His hands surrendered Himself to death, that afterward He might open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. There is the supreme glory of the celestial realms manifested to me by the agony of that death! The gospel is not simply a philosophy of religion, or a law of living. It is an apocalypse showing the heavens to us, and bringing thus its Divine benediction on every life. Here is the Divine mission of preaching; here is the beauty of every sacrament; here the glory of every Church. Here is the hidden meaning and blessedness which the thought of heaven brings in the events which seem most painful. So when our beloved friends pass from us; so when misfortunes come upon us; this thought of the higher life comes to cheer and comfort. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)

The Christian runner in relation to his spectators

I. THE CHRISTIAN RUNNER IS AN OBJECT OF DEEP INTEREST TO HIS SPECTATORS.

1. The position of the spectators. They surround the Christian runner.

2. Their number. Vast.

II. THE CHRISTIAN RUNNER SHOULD PUT FORTH GREAT EFFORTS BECAUSE OF HIS SPECTATORS.

1. He should divest himself of every encumbrance. Ceremonialism, religious errors, business perplexities, fear of man, inveterate prejudices, sinful propensities.

2. He should avoid the sin to which he is most peculiarly prone.

Pride, covetousness, intemperance, evil-speaking, anger.

3. He should maintain great self-possession. “Run with patience.”

III. THE CHRISTIAN RUNNER HAS AN OBJECT BEFORE HIM, FROM WHICH HIS THOUGHTS SHOULD NOT BE DIVERTED by his spectators. “Looking unto Jesus.”

1. The work of Jesus.

2. The history of Jesus.

3. The exaltation of Jesus. (Homilist.)

The moral influence of departed saints:

The North American Indians believed that when the flowers faded in the forest and prairie their beauty passed into the rainbow: thus our kindred and companions, the joy and pride of our homes and churches, fade away; but, lifting our eyes, we see our lost ones blossom forth again in the holier beauty of the rainbow about the throne. The text reminds us that these exalted ones exercise towards us a morally helpful influence. We are not to think of our exalted brethren as forming in the midst of heaven a brilliant cloud, admirable in the eye of imagination, yet exercising no real practical influence over the earth; but as a cloud full of mystic rain and dew, imparting life and beauty to those who dwell on the earth. Our beatified friends become our moral helpers.

I. BY DIVERTING OUR ATTENTION FROM THIS TO THE ETERNAL WORLD. As the dove sent from the ark, returning no more, reminded Noah that a new world was blooming for him; so these departed ones who return no more, daily and powerfully remind us that another and brighter world is blooming for us beyond death’s cold flood, and in earnest we prepare to leave this storm-tossed ark. The “cloud of witnesses” cause us to look above the dust; gazing after their departing forms we find ourselves standing face to face with eternity, and thus acquire the seriousness, spirituality, and strength of the Christian character.

II. BY ENHANCING THE CHARM OF THE CELESTIAL WORLD. The departed saints humanise heaven, interpret it, render it more fascinating. It is true that the grand charm of the skies is the vision and fellowship of the glorious God, yet it is not less true that every saint who passes into paradise invests it with a fresh and powerful influence. Each crowned friend makes us understand heaven better, makes us prize it the more, makes us strive more ardently to reach its bright and wealthy plains.

III. BY INCREASING OUR SENSE OF SELF-RESPECT. Our departed ones are no longer before us in weariness and humiliation, but crowned with inconceivable and unfading splendours; and as we gaze upon them a new conception of our spiritual capacity takes possession of us--we feel that we belong to a race of conquerors and kings. It is said that the Kohei-noor diamond is only half its original size, the other half being in a distant country, where it was found in the possession of some one who used it as a common flint. Thus our churches, our families, are broken into two parts; one portion being exulted to the palace of the skies, the other fragment remaining in this lower realm, and used to ends apparently most commonplace and servile; yet we cannot contemplate the broken jewel, shining in the palace of the King, without thinking more highly of this other portion below, and watching it with intenser care lest its beauty should be dimmed, or its preciousness impaired, or its safety imperilled. Our celestial kinsmen minister to us, for they exalt our conception of the nature we possess, of the inheritance to which we are destined.

IV. BY GIVING US THE SENSE OF AN ABIDING SACRED PRESENCE. The Jewish legend relates that Joseph was saved by the spirit of his mother, when he was tempted to sin in the]and of Egypt. This legend is founded in the truth that the powerful and blessed memory of our dead is a preservative against sin, a strengthening to virtue. And this is the precise idea of Paul in our text. “We are surrounded,” says he to his Hebrew brethren, “by a great cloud of heroes; let us, under the eyes of these pure, noble, valiant spirits, act a worthy part; let us labour to be as pure, noble, valiant as they were.” Thus again are the glorified ones our helpers; these beatified spectators put upon us a sweet constraint to walk as they also walked, so that we may triumph as they also triumphed.

V. BY THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THEIR SYMPATHY. Altered in many respects, the glorified saints have still the same hearts, and profoundly sympathise with us in all our upward struggles. The “ cloud “ about us is composed not of cold and curious spectators, but of warm and interested friends. Is not this fact a blessed help to us? The transfigured ones beckon us onward! upward! and the knowledge of this sympathy is to us in the day of tribulation a fountain of strength.

VI. BY STIMULATING OUR HOPE AND COURAGE. Again and again Satan almost paralyses us with his lofty vaunts of the might and majesty of evil. Sin rises before us so strong, so subtle, so mysterious and awful, that we are almost ready to surrender at discretion. The evil of our nature, the evil of the universe, seems well-nigh omnipotent. How fatal is this idea to our spiritual life! Nothing shatters this destructive imagination more than the triumphant death and exaltation of the saints. To see our brother on the crystal walls I our sister crowned with amaranth! our friends with the palm and diadem! how this reassures us! We feel that Satan is not omnipotent, that sin is not invincible, that suffering is not unconquerable. (W. L.Watkinson.)

Lay aside every weight

Weights and sins:

There is a regular series of thoughts in this clause, and in the one or two which follow it. If we would run well, we must run light; if we would run light, we must look to Christ. The central injunction is, “Let us run with patience”; the only way of doing that is the “laying aside all weights and sins”; and the only way of laying aside the weights and sins is, “looking unto Jesus.” Of course, the apostle does not mean some one special kind of transgression when he says, “the sin which doth so easily beset us.” He is speaking about sin generically--all manner of transgression. It is not, as we sometimes hear the words misquoted, “that sin which doth most easily beset us.” All sin is according to this passage a besetting sin.

I. THERE ARE HINDRANCES WHICH ARE NOT SINS. Sin is that which, by its very nature, in all circumstances, by whomsoever done, without regard to consequences, is a transgression of God’s law. A “weight” is that which, allowable in itself, perhaps a blessing, the exercise of a power which God has given us--is, for some reason, a hindrance in our running the heavenly race. The one word describes the action or habit by its inmost essence, the other describes it by its accidental consequences. Then, what are these weights? The first step in the answer to that question is to be taken by remembering that, according to the image of this text, we carry them about with us, and we are to put them away from ourselves. It is fair to say, then, that the whole class of weights are not so much external circumstances which may be turned to evil, as the feelings and habits of mind by which we abuse God’s great gifts and mercies, and turn that which was ordained to be for life into death. The renunciation that is spoken about is not so much the putting away from ourselves of certain things lying round about us that may become temptations, as the putting away of the dispositions within us which make these things temptations. It is an awful and mysterious power that which we all possess, of perverting the highest endowments, whether of soul or of circumstances, which God has given us, into the occasions for falling back in the Divine life. Just as men, by devilish ingenuity, can distil poison out of God’s fairest flowers, so we can do with everything that we have.

II. And now, if this be the explanation of what the apostle means by “ weights”--legitimate things that hinder us in our course towards God--there comes this second consideration, IF WE WOULD RUN, WE MOST LAY THESE ASIDE. There are two ways by which this injunction of my text may be obeyed. The one is, by getting so strong that the thing shall not be a weight, though we carry it; and the other is, that feeling ourselves to be weak, we take the prudent course of putting it utterly aside. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Weights

I. THE “WEIGHTS”--what are they?

1. The “ weight” of unforgiven sin. How that hinders many. You have offended a father or teacher or friend--you have been guilty of disobedience or untruthfulness or dishonesty. How heavy it is! What a weight it is! If it has not been found out it lies like lead on your heart. How it hinders you in everything you put your hands to! Or the fault has been discovered, and you are in disgrace. Your dearest friends are displeased. You feel as if there were a great gulf between you and them. You are unhappy. You cannot get on with anything. You are just like one weighed down under a heavy burden. Whether it is work or play, company or solitude, there is a weight dragging you down in all. Now if it is so with sin as committed against man, what shall we say of sin as committed against God! How different your life would be if your sin were all forgiven; how different your worship would be; how different your work would be!

2. The “weight “ of unsubdued sin. 1 shall try to explain what I mean by this. I shall suppose we are setting out on a long voyage. We have storms and contrary winds to contend with, and sometimes icebergs and dangerous rocks and opposing currents. But we have what is even worse than these. Some of the ship’s crew are mutinous. They will not obey orders. They try to set the other sailors up against the captain. They damage the ship’s machinery. They reverse the engines. They put out the fires. They do everything they can to provoke and hinder. And the consequence is, the ship’s progress is seriously interfered with. Sometimes she comes to a stand altogether. In any case the voyage is slow and uncomfortable, as compared with what it should have been. At times it seems as if all on board must go to the bottom. Now what is wanted is, that the mutineers should be subdued--changed into obedient and right-hearted seamen, or put in irons and kept from doing harm. So long as they are unsubdued they are a “weight” that seriously hinders. Now, is there no “weight,” no hindrance of this kind with you? Is there no stubborn will that disobeys, and must needs be broken if things are to get on at all? What of your temper that bursts into passion on the slightest provocation, and in words or looks or actions gets outlet to itself, in a way that may well alarm? What of your pride and vanity? What of your selfishness, that disregards others and is always seeking your own gratification and pleasure? What of secret sins which you try to conceal, but which are always growing stronger, and if unsubdued will go on as they are doing, burning like a fire within, and eating out your very heart and soul? So long as these have the power which they have now, every now and then getting the better of you, your life can neither be happy nor good.

3. The “weight” of evil habits. I do not refer so much here to single acts that are out and out bad and sinful. I refer more to things that may seem so far harmless at the beginning, but are apt to be repeated and to grow upon one, till they become habits, and rule him and hold him in chains. There is, for instance, the habit of procrastination--of putting off, instead of doing a thing at once. That grows terribly upon one, and becomes a hindrance of a very serious kind. There is the habit of drinking. There is the habit of idle and unprofitable reading, not to speak of what is positively bad. It consumes precious time, it takes away relish for prayer and for the Bible and all solid reading, it excites without doing any good, it takes away the heart from God. There is the habit of keeping company with unprofitable companions.

4. The last “weight” I shall mention is that of care. Perhaps this may seem not very much in your way, and more for your fathers and mothers. And yet I know even young hearts have their care--about lessons, and work otherwise, often not knowing what to do--with sorrows which are sometimes heavy and bitter enough. I am sure there are none of you who do not know something about these “weights,” and could tell how they hinder you in what is good. They will have much to do in making you the men and women that you shall be. And hence the great importance of looking at the matter, and that at once.

II. WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH THE WEIGHTS? Our text says they are to be “laid aside”--put off--cast away. Now the question is, how is this to be done? and to this question I have various answers to give.

1. By coming to Christ. The first “weight” to be got quit of is that of unforgiven sin, and like “Christian’s” burden, that can only be got rid of at the Cross.

2. By drawing power from Christ. It is just like a man with all the resources of the bank at his call. He can have no fear of wanting anything. Christ has all that any of us can need, and He has it for us. Faith is just leaning upon Christ--looking to Christ--drawing upon Christ for everything.

3. By prayer. When we feel our own weakness, what can we do but cry to the Strong for strength?

4. By effort. We have the battle to fight, not in our own strength, but in the strength which Jesus gives. Now I wish to call special attention before closing to this--that we are to lay aside every weight. There is to be no sparing. Everything that hinders must go. (J. H. Wilson, D. D.)

Spiritual weights:

Spiritual weights are of many descriptions. They may originate in the very senses. Life in the world, in the enjoyment of good things, in the pursuit of wealth and position, may grow to such unwieldy proportions that the Christian conscience has enough to do to vitalise the mass, and cannot energise it to a race. Then the play of the ordinary human affections and social human instincts is allowed such preponderance, that the man becomes gregarious, has so absorbed the opinions and prejudices and criticisms of his circle, that swift, decisive, forward motion is impossible. He lies, like a great hulk in the wash of worldly opinion, without helm or sail. Big, human-hearted he may be, but power of initiative or incentive has he none. But some will add to their faith, tradition. They must keep on with usages which had been put away--aye, and add mere ordinances of men. And now, clogged in every organ of the soul, they are ready to give up in despair. The superinduced mass of ceremonial, imparting no strength, is closing round the vitals of living faith and hindering its every movement. But in addition to habits of mind and life hindering men from spiritual progress, there are weights imposed by men on themselves, which hinder advance and enfeeble the soul. They have their money in so many ventures, they are pursuing at one time so many schemes, or they are so engrossed in the one or two to which they have given themselves up, that they have little or no time for serious thought. Yea, they cannot shift their thoughts out of the worldly rut when they have time. They must have distraction, pleasure, society, travel, to relieve the jaded mind. And it is not merely in business that men put on weights. Some live in a whirl of social engagements, others to exalt their sense of self-importance, or from nobler motives heap on public engagements; yea, not a few in this our time are crowding on the back of every day so many spiritual or religious engagements that the life of God in them is weighted in its advance. They are dwindling under the pressure, or, at all events, they are not growing in life and thought and will as they might grow. What are we to do? Throw all our engagements away? By no means. Steam would be a useless thing if it were not generated within an engine. It is by working on through the engine’s means that it becomes a power. And so the life of grace needs an environment of work and service through which to reveal its power. It must be embodied in deeds, and there is no lawful sphere in which grace may not shine. What I say is, that you may overload your engine and that you may overweight your grace. What is holding you down and keeping you back? Are you doing futile and unnecessary things--that is, things which, though innocent, are merely for self, apart from Christ? You cannot be wrong in putting them away. Are you doing too many things, so that you are distracted, and thus retarded? Remember that you are running the race of perfection, seeking entire likeness to Christ, and your very work will come to suffer if this religious dissipation go on. Rearrange, economise, lay aside every weight. (John Smith, M. A.)

The sin which cloth so easily beset us

The besetting sin

1. We have to strive against the whole body of sin, everything which is against the holy will of God, “every evil inclination, all iniquity and profaneness, neglect and haughtiness, strife and wrath, passion and corruption, indolence and fraud, every evil motion, every impure thought, every base desire, every unseemly thought.”

2. We have all, probably, some one besetting fault, which is our own special hindrance. Both of these we must learn by looking into ourselves. They vary in all. No two persons have exactly the same temptations, as no two minds are exactly alike. And so we ought not to judge of others, nor can we judge of ourselves by them. We must look into ourselves. We have, then, these two searches into ourselves to make: one into every part of ourselves; the other into that part of ourselves which is the weakest, and through which we most often fall. Of these, holy men recommend that we should begin with our besetting fault. For this there are many reasons. It lies, most likely, at the root of many other faults. It burrows under ground, as it were, and comes up at a distance, where we look not for it. It branches out into other faults; it twines round and kills some grace; it hides itself behind other faults or virtues; it puts itself forth in the midst of them. It colours every other fault; it interferes with, or overshadows or overlays every grace. But the more this one fault spreads, the more, if you uproot it, you will clear of the field of your conscience, the more will your heart become the good ground, which, freed from thorns, shall bear fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundredfold, to life everlasting.

Thou hast, then, great reason to be most watchful to uproot thy besetting sin, because

1. It is the root of other sins, gives occasion to them, makes them as bad as they are, makes acts which would have no sin to be sinful, because they have this sin in them. And so, while thy besetting sin reigns in thy soul, it is the parent of many other sins; when it is destroyed many others die with it.

2. It is the sin which has most hold of thy mind, and so it is the cause why thou most often offendest God. It comes to thee oftenest, tempts thee most strongly, and where thou art the weakest and yieldest the most readily. It is called the besetting sin, because it continually besets thee--that is, it is always about thee, always on the watch for thee. It entangles thee at every step. More of a man’s sins are done through his besetting sin than through all besides. It becomes his companion. He becomes so inured to it that he does not think of it as sin, or justifies it, or, at least, pleads to himself that his nature is weak and that he cannot help it. Nature is weak; but grace is strong, yea, almighty.

3. Then, too, it is the occasion of a man’s worst sins, because a man yields his mind most to it, goes along with it, does it with pleasure. All sin is, to choose something else rather than God. But to choose a thing eagerly, with zest, taking delight in it against the wise love of God, this is the deadliest form of sin.

4. Then it will most likely be that, when not tempted in act, a man will be tempted to the thought of his besetting sin, both before and after. And so he acts his sin over again in thought, when he cannot in deed. Thus he may multiply his sin beyond all power of thought. Such, then, are grounds from the nature of the besetting sin itself, why thou shouldest earnestly and specially strive against it. It is thy deadliest enemy; that which most keeps thee from God, if unhappily thou art separated from Him; if not, still it is that which most offends Him, which hinders His love from flowing to thee and filling thee, which hinders thee from loving Him with thy whole heart. But then for thyself, too, it is thus that thou wilt have most courage to fight. It has been, no doubt, discouraging at some time to most of us that we could not become good all at once. Our garden, which we were to make clean, seemed full of weeds. They seemed to spring up fresh every day; how could we clean it? And so the weeds of our sins grew, as they would, left to themselves, with more luxuriant, foul rankness. It is said that one who thought thus, dreamed that He who had given him his garden to cleanse, came to him and asked him what he was doing. He said, “I lost all hope of cleaning my garden, so I laid down to sleep.” His Good Father said to him, “Clean every day as much as thou coverest, where thou art lying, and all will be in time cleaned.” So God speaks to us. “Set about some one thing for Me; set thyself to get rid of some one sin for love of Me, to become in one thing more pleasing to Me, and I will be with thee; I will give thee victory in this; I will lead thee on from victory to victory, from strength to strength; thou shalt run and not be weary; thou shalt walk, and not be faint.’” By the same strength by which thou prevailest over thy first enemy, thou shalt prevail over the rest. IN human warfare, those who fight are tired even by their victory; in Divine warfare, they are strengthened.

For they fight not in human weakness, but in Divine strength; and “ My strength,” He says, “is made perfect in weakness.” There is another good in fighting against thy besetting sin. Thou art gathered upon one point. Thou art striving with thy whole heart to please God in that point; thou wilt be asking for and using God’s grace for this. But therewith, secretly, thou wilt be transformed thyself. In learning to subdue one sin, thou wilt have been learning how, in time, to subdue all. Thou wilt have learnt the wiles of the enemy, the weakness of thy own heart, the force of outward temptations, the need to avoid, if thou canst, the outward occasion, but, in any case, the necessity of resisting in the first moment of assault. Thou wilt know, for thyself, the might which God gives thee when thou so resistest, the power of instant prayer. Thou wilt have felt the peril of tampering with sin, the value of watchfulness, the danger of security after thou hast conquered. Thou wilt have tasted the blessedness of gathering up thy whole mind to serve God, and giving thyself to Him morning by morning, to please Him in this, and not to displease Him. Thou wilt have known, in thine own soul, the value of obeying at once any suggestions which, by His Holy Spirit or in thy conscience, He giveth thee to avoid this or do that. (E. B.Pusey, D. D.)

Causes of propensity to peculiar vices

I. THE PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF OUR BIAS OR PROPENSITY TO SOME PARTICULAR VICE.

1. A propensity to particular sins may be complexional, derived from constitutional frame and temperament. Men are born with different propensities to pleasure, avarice, ambition, resentment, malice, envy, or the like. They may, indeed, by various methods be cultivated, and acquire vigour; but the seeds of them seem to be natural to the soil, and, in proportion to our neglect of them become still more difficult to be extirpated.

2. Another occasion of propensity to particular vices is, the power of custom or habit; which is commonly reputed a second nature, a kind of new nature ingrafted upon the former; and is often, in its influence and effects, not much inferior to it. It is to this principle, e.g., not to nature, that we may ascribe the vice of intemperance. Nature approves moderation; is disgusted and oppressed by excess. But custom leads men beyond the temperate limits marked out by nature into the extremes of intemperance; where, though nature denies them permanent pleasures, they form to themselves some that are fantastic, and subsist only in imagination. Another sin into which men are led by mere custom, and by nothing else, is the common practice of profaning the name of God.

3. Another occasion of a bias or inclination to some particular vice, may arise from our situation and condition of life. Every situation is exposed to some peculiar inconvenience; every condition of life to its own trials. Thus, affluence and poverty have each their respective inducements. And the same observation might be extended to the different periods of life, and to different professions and employments.

II. THE OBLIGATION INCUMBENT ON US, OF ENDEAVOURING TO CORRECT OR LAY IT ASIDE. The greater the propensity we feel in ourselves towards any culpable passion or failing, with the more care should we guard against it. It is in our power to maintain the authority of reason, to oppose the corruptions of our nature and the dominion of evil habits; to resist seducements from objects without, and temptations from passions within us. This is the proper work and business of religion: this the duty which God requires at our hands; and has therefore, undoubtedly, given us ability to perform. One great obstacle, indeed, to the correcting or guarding against the sin that most easily besets us, is the difficulty we often find in discovering and detecting it. Such likewise is the prepossession in our own favour, so flattering the glass that self-love holds before us, that this also prevents us from seeing our deformities, and marking the true features and complexion of the mind. Quick-sighted as we all are to the faults or foibles of others, we do not, or will not, with the same facility discern our own. Our passions are our apologists; they plead for our vices, and mislead our judgment. This may be a monition to us, to scrutinise with the strictest caution our own heart, to look well if there be any culpable inclination or passion lurking in it, that we may not be deceived by any flattering reports of our character made by self-partiality. To assist us in forming a Tight judgment of our conduct, and seeing it in a true light, the best method perhaps would be, to put ourselves as much as may be out of the question; to divest ourselves of all concern in it; and to suppose that we are passing judgment, not on ourselves, but on another person. (G. Carr, B.A.)

The besetting sin

I. THE BESETTING SIN IS A REALITY IN CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. Every character has its weak points, just as every fort and every line of battle.

II. THE BESETTING SIN HAS VARIOUS OUTWARD FORMS. Just as some diseases in the human system manifest themselves at one place in one person, and at another place in another person, so sinfulness in the moral system comes to the surface at different points in different people. To one person the besetting sin may be uncleanness of imagination; to another, irritability of temper. It not infrequently happens that several forms of the besetting sin afflict the same person. In some form or another we all have a besetting sin; and it greatly interferes with both our happiness and our usefulness.

III. THE BESETTING SIN CAN BE OVERCOME.

1. Learn what our weak points are.

2. Pray every day for special help at the weak points.

3. Guard these points with special care.

4. Cultivate holiness in general.

5. There is great hope for those who are struggling for the mastery over besetting sins. (The Preachers’ Monthly.)

A besetting sin dulls spiritual perception

David Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, was a great astronomer. He was skilful in measuring the sizes of planets and determining the position of the stars. But he found that, such was the distance of the stars, a silk thread stretched across the glass of his telescope would entirely cover a star; and thus a silk fibre appeared to be larger in diameter than a star. Our sun is said to be 886,000 miles in diameter, and yet, seen from a distant star, could be covered, hidden behind a thread when that thread was stretched across the telescope. Just so we have seen some who never could behold the heavenly world. They always complained of dulness of vision when they looked in the heavenly direction. You might direct their eyes to the Star of Bethlehem through the telescope of faith and holy confidence; but, alas! there is a secret thread, a silken fibre, which, holding them in subserviency to the world, in some way obscures the light; and Jesus, the Star of Hope, is eclipsed, and their hope darkened. A very small sin, a very little self-gratification, may hide the light. To some, Jesus, as Saviour, appears very far off. He shall be seen where the heart lets nothing intervene.

The danger of impediments:

At Sidler Tchiflik three men sprang on to the train just as it was starting, and clung to the carriage-doors. The guard saw them, but dared not push them off for fear of killing them, yet could not venture to stop the train on account of the delay this would have caused. He therefore beckoned to the men to creep slowly along the side of the carriages after him. It was a terrible walk, and made my blood run cold to see it. The poor men were wet, benumbed, and awkward. Each had a bundle on his shoulder--one on a stick, one on a gun, one on a sword. As they crept slowly along, hanging on for their lives, first one bundle, then another, dropped off, till at last, after an agony of suspense, they were safely landed in a cattle-truck, having lost the very little all that they possessed. (Lady Brassey.)

The injury of a besetting sin:

The old proverb hath it, “Here’s talk of the Turk and the Pope, but ‘tis my next neighbour that does me the most harm.” It is neither popery nor infidelity that we have half so much cause to dread as our own besetting sins. We want more Protestants against sin, more Dissenters from carnal maxims, and more Nonconformists to the world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Besetting sins

A man’s besetting sin is the one that jumps with his inclinations. Does he love mirthfulness? Then he must be careful lest he runs into excessive levity and play the harlequin. He will be tempted to make jests of sacred things. A minister ought not to be a monk; but neither should he be a social comedian. Does a man love ease? Then he always interprets those providences in his own favour which allow him to shirk hard work and swing in his hammock. Does he love flattery and eclat? Then he is tempted to seek applause, and to imagine that he is serving God when he is only burning incense on the altar of self-worship. The worst enemy is the one which wears an honest disguise, Look out for selfishness. It is the “old Adam” lurking behind every hedge. It will always keep place with you if you give it the upper baud. Keep no league with it; for Christ will never abide in the same heart with that subtle and greedy tyrant. A Christian is never safe, never strong, never true to Christ, unless he is constantly “collaring” ever sinful and selfish passion, and forcing it into unconditional surrender. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)

The deadly character of secret sin:

Canon Wilberforce said that one day, while walking in the Isle of Skye, he saw a magnificent specimen of the golden eagle, soaring upward. He halted, and watched its flight. Soon he observed by its movements that something was wrong. Presently it began to fall, and soon lay dead at his feet. Eager to know the reason of its death, he hastily examined it, and found no trace of gunshot wound; but he found that it held in its talons a small weasel, which, in its flight, was drawn near its body, and had sucked the life blood from the eagle’s breast. The same end befalls him who clings to some secret sin; sooner or later it will sap his life blood, and he falls. (C. W. Bibb.)

One sin the soul’s ruin

There was but one crack in the lantern, and the wind has found it out and blown out the candle. How great a mischief one unguarded point of character may cause us! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The race that is set before us

The race to heaven

I. OUR COMMENCING THIS RACE.

1. It is not any race, but a particular one. “The race set before us.”

2. The introduction to this race is by regeneration (John 3:2; John 3:7).

3. We must lay aside every hindrance that would impede our progress.

II. OUR PROGRESS IN THIS RACE.

1. We must keep the course.

2. We must keep on in the way.

3. We must go on patiently under all difficulties.

4. We must keep the prize in view.

5. We must persevere to the end.

III. OUR FINISHING THIS RACE.

1. The certainty of having the prize.

2. The prize will be a glorious and enduring one.

3. The prize will be a just one. “Crown of righteousness.”

4. The honour connected with the bestowment of this crown. (The Evangelical Preacher.)

I. RELIGION IN ITS ENCOURAGEMENTS.

The race

1. Those who have departed from us are existing. Death is not annihilation.

2. The dead are in a state of conscious activity. These men are not asleep, but observe.

3. They are not far from us, for we “are compassed about” by them.

4. They observe our line of life--are witnesses.

II. RELIGION IN ITS ACTIVITIES.

1. Religion requires self-denial.

2. Religion requires the conquest of sin.

3. Religion required personal effort.

4. Religion requires patience.

5. Religion requires thought and attention.

III. RELIGION IN ITS MODEL.

1. Our model is regarded as the inspirer of Christian life--“the author and finisher of our faith,”--the originator in us of the life of God, which life can never be brought into maturity unless He becomes, by His gracious presence in the heart, its finisher.

2. Paul then refers to the Saviour’s object in His life of toil--the object of His model life, “who for the joy,” etc.

3. Finally, the apostle refers to the many sufferings, mental and physical, connected with His model life. (E. Lewis, B. A.)

The Christian race

I. THE RACE is one of

1. Christian knowledge.

2. Christian experience.

3. Christian duties.

4. Christian sufferings. The phrase implies

(1) Exertion.

(2) Progression.

(3) Perseverance.

II. THE DUTIES connected with it. Lay aside every weight--sin of every kind--but particularly

1. Attachment to the company with which formerly connected.

2. Love of the world, and inordinate attachment even to our lawful calling.

3. Improper fear of man; accommodation and compromise of the fear of God. And the besetting sin!

III. THE ENCOURAGEMENT afforded.

1. The cloud of witnesses. These are testifiers as well as spectators.

2. Jesus Himself. And He as an example also, “who for the ,joy,” &c. Can we be tempted or suffer as He did? And remember, we, too, shall sit down on His throne. (J. Summerfield, M. A.)

Stripping for the race

I. THE SPEED OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. “Let us run.” We must not sit still to be carried by the stream. We must not loiter and linger as children returning from a summer’s ramble. We must not even walk as men with measured step. The idea of a race is generally competition; here it is only concentration of purpose, singleness of aim, intensity. How earnest men are around us! Newton poring over his problems till the midnight wind sweeps over his pages the ashes of his long extinguished fire. Reynolds sitting, brush in hand, before his canvas for thirty-six hours together, summoning into life forms of beauty that seemed glad to come. Dryden composing in a single fortnight his ode for St. Cecilia’s Day. Buffon dragged from his beloved slumbers to his more beloved studies. And the beloved biographer, who records these traits, himself rising with the dawn to prepare for the demands of his charge. In a world like this, and with a theme like ours, we ought not to be languid, but devoted, eager, consumed with a holy love to God, and with a passion for the souls of men. Then should we make progress in the knowledge of the Word of God, and enter into the words of one of the greatest spiritual athletes that ever lived Philippians 3:14).

II. WE MUST RUN FREE OF WEIGHTS. There would be little difficulty in maintaining an ardent spirit if we were more faithful in dealing with the habits and indulgencies which cling around us and impede our steps. Thousands of Christians are like water-logged vessels. They cannot sink, but they are so saturated with inconsistencies, and worldliness, and permitted evil, that they can only be towed with difficulty into the celestial port. There is an old Dutch picture of a little child dropping a cherished toy from its bands; and, at first sight, its action seems unintelligible, until, at the corner of the picture, the eye is attracted to a white dove winging its flight towards the emptied outstretched hands. Similarly we are prepared to forego a good deal, when once we catch sight of the spiritual acquisitions which beckon to us. And this is the true way to reach consecration and surrender. Do not ever dwell on the giving-up side, but on the receiving side. Keep in mind the meaning of the old Hebrew word for consecration, to fill the hand. There will not be much trouble in getting men to empty their hands of wood, hay, and stubble, if they see that there is a chance of filling them with the treasures, which gleam from the faces or lives of others, or which call to them from the page of Scripture. The world pities us, because it sees only what we give up; but it would hold its sympathy if it could also see how much we receive--“good measure, pressed down, and running over given into our bosoms.”

III. WE MUST LAY ASIDE BESETTING SIN. “Let us lay aside the sin which doth so closely cling to us” (R.V.). We often refer to these words; but do we not misquote them in divorcing them from their context? We should read them as part of the great argument running through the previous chapter. That argument has been devoted to the theme of faith. And surely it is most natural to hold that the sin which so closely clings to us is nothing else than the sin of unbelief, which is the opposite pole to the faith so highly eulogised. If that be a correct exegesis, it sheds new light on unbelief. It is no longer an infirmity; it is a sin. Men sometimes carry about their doubts, as beggars a deformed or sickly child, to excite the sympathy of the benevolent. But surely there is a kind of unbelief which should not meet with sympathy, but rebuke. It is sin which needs to be repented, to be resisted, and to receive as sin the cleansing of Christ.

1. Let us remember that the course is set before us by our heavenly Father, who therefore knows all its roughnesses and straitnesses, and will make all grace abound toward us, sufficient for our need. To do His will is rest and heaven.

2. Let us look off unto Jesus. Away from past failure and success; away from human applause and blame; away from the gold pieces scattered on the path, and the flowers that line either side. Do not look now and again, but acquire the habit of looking always; so that it shall become natural to look up from every piece of daily work, from every room, however small, from every street, however crowded, to His calm face; just as the sojourner on the northern shores of Geneva’s lake is constantly prone to look up from any book or work on which the attention may have been engaged, to behold the splendour and glory of the noble range of snowcapped summits on the further shores. And if it seems hard to acquire this habitual attitude, trust the Holy Spirit to form it in your soul. Above all, remember that where you tread there your Lord trod once, combating your difficulties and sorrows, though without sin; and ere long you shall be where He is now. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)

The race set before us:

“Go ahead” was only half of David Crockett’s motto--and not the most important half. “Be sure you are right” precedes. The faster the ship goes ahead, the greater the danger, if there is not a good watch on the bow and a strong hand on the wheel. To run well is of importance; to start right is of prime importance. “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” says the sacred writer. A great many men lose the prize by dropping out of the text altogether the clause which we have put in italics. Every man must find his own race before he begins to run. God has a work for every man that no other man can do quite as well; and he succeeds best who quickest finds what that work is, and sets himself to do it. Many a good writer has been spoiled to make an insolvent merchant; not a few good housekeepers to make execrable poets; now and then an execrable mechanic to make a poor preacher. A race has been set before me; and it is my duty to find out what that race is, and run it, and not waste life in regrets that I cannot run a different one, or life’s energies in unsuccessful attempts to do so.

Patient running

I remember once climbing a great Alpine peak. I was fagged and out of sorts, and the strain was considerable. I was not enjoying it, but I knew I should enjoy it at the top. I had not any spare energy to talk or look about, so I kept looking for a couple of hours at the heels of the guide, who was in front and above me. That is going with patience. It is the holding out till the next glimpse of light comes from above. It is the determination of the runner, when the afternoon sun is blinding his eyes, and the afternoon languor weighing upon him, that he wilt run on. (J. F. Ewing, M.A.)

Looking unto Jesus

Jesus the author and finisher of the Christian’s faith

I. “The author and finisher of faith” must be looked to as THE ONLY TEACHER OF RELIGIOUS DOCTRINES.

II. “The author and finisher of faith” must be looked to as THE PREACHER AND EXEMPLAR OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY.

III. “The author and finisher of faith” must be looked to as THE ALONE PROCURER OF SALVATION. (H. J. Stevenson, M. A.)

Looking to Jesus, the secret of running well our Christian race

I. THE PERSON” SET FORTH HERE IS JESUS; He, whose name is the light and glory of Scripture; whose coming and work formed the subject of ancient type, and symbol, and prophecy.

1. We are led to consider Him in His Divine nature and character.

2. The person set forth in the text is to be considered in His most gracious undertaking on behalf of men.

II. THE HABIT COMMENDED--“Looking unto Jesus.” This word expresses the mental posture, which the apostle would have all Christians maintain in relation to Jesus, their Saviour-God. It is not a single, unrepeated act that he wishes here to enforce, but a holy habit of soul. As the gaze of the mariner, steering his vessel through perilous seas, is perpetually fixed upon the compass, so we, voyaging to eternity through the treacherous waters of time, must have eye and heart centred on Christ, as the sole director of our progress. The word expresses a continuous and sustained action of the inner man. But it does more. It not only means “ looking,” as the translation gives it, but looking off, or away. We are taught to look away from all else to “Jesus only?’ Let the counter attraction be what it may, its power is to be resisted: its spell is to be broken, and the full gaze of the soul is to concentrate itself on Immanuel alone, Now, in the direction of the apostle, as thus expounded, I think we are called to note particularly three suggested thoughts.

1. The entire sufficiency of Christ to meet all human requirements.

2. It is the sad tendency of man, notwithstanding, to turn to other dependencies.

3. This tendency must be corrected, in order to Christ’s becoming all that He would be to any.

III. THE END CONTEMPLATED--that we may run well our Christian race; run it free from entanglement; run it with purity; run it with patience; run it with perseverance. Oh! is there anything that can compare with these objects in the estimation of a believer? We may well ask, then, how the “ looking unto Jesus” will enable us to compass these objects; in other words, how it will secure that we shall run well our Christian race? And here the answer is threefold.

1. “Looking to Jesus” supplies the strongest motive to run well our Christian race; that is, love towards Himself. You know that fire and force are the effect of a supreme affection; how it makes light of difficulties, and changes leaden feet into feet of angel swiftness. Love lightens toil, and makes even waiting more than endurable.

2. “Looking to Jesus” furnishes all needful strength for running well our Christian race. This is the act on our part that appropriates it for our various occasions and exigencies; just as plants, by opening out their leaves, to them the organs of assimilation, imbibe the light and dew, and distribute sustenance through their entire structure, so we, by “ looking to Jesus,” receive those communications of a spiritual kind, upon which the life of our souls and the vigour of our Christian walk depend.

3. “Looking to Jesus “ brings before us the highest example of a successful runner in the Christian race. When you are in doubt, ask, “What, in such a case, would my Master have done?” (C. M. Merry, B. A.)

Looking unto Jesus

I. WHY?

1. The best beings in the universe encourage it.

(1) Angels.

(2) Redeemed in heaven.

(3) Holiest on earth.

2. Our own needs demand it. We want a Mediator, Example,

Friend, such as He is.

3. The great God enjoins it.

II. How?

1. By the study of His biography.

2. By communion with Christly souls.

3. By friendship with Himself.

III. WHEN?

1. At the beginning of the Christian life.

2. In all the encouragements and discouragements of life.

3. At death. (U. R. Thomas.)

The rule of the race

I. First, then, we are to look to Jesus as THE AUTHOR OF FAITH. The apostle would have us view the Lord Jesus as the starter of the race. When a foot-race began, the men were drawn up in a line, and they had to wait for a signal. Those who were in the race had to look to the starter; for the runner who should get first by a false start would not win, because he did not run according to the rules of the race. No man is crowned unless he strives lawfully. The starter was in his place, and the men stood all waiting and looking. Our word at starting in the Christian life is, “Look unto Jesus.”

1. We have to look to Jesus, first, by trusting in that which He has wrought for us. It is described in these words: “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame.”

2. We also begin looking unto Jesus because of what He has wrought in us.

II. But now we must look to Jesus as THE FINISHER OF FAITH. As Jesus is at the commencement of the course, starting the runners, so He is at the end of the course, the rewarder of those who endure to the end. Those who would win in the great race must keep their eyes upon Him all along the course, even till they reach the winning-post.

1. You will be helped to look to Him when you remember that He is the finisher of your faith by what He has wrought for you; for the text saith,

“He endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” You also shall have heaven, for He has it; you shall sit upon the throne, for He sits there.

2. We are helped to run to the end, not only by what Jesus has done for us, but by what Jesus is doing in us.

(1) You that are in the middle of the race, remember that Jesus sustains you. Every atom of your strength for running comes from your Lord. Look to Him for it.

(2) We are not only sustained by looking unto Jesus, but we are inspirited thereby. A sight of the exalted Leader fires the zeal of each believer, and makes him run like a roe or a young hart.

(3) Looking unto Jesus, you will get many a direction; for, as He sits at the winning-post, His very presence indicates the way.

(4) Look to Jesus, for by that look He draws you. The great magnet up yonder is drawing us towards itself. Christ’s cords of love give us speed.

III. Let us next consider our Lord Jesus as THE PATTERN OF OUR FAITH. Run, as Jesus ran, and look to Him as you run, that you may run like Him. How did our Lord pursue His course?

1. You will see this if you first note His motive: “Who for the joy that was set before Him.” The chief end of man is to glorify God; let it be my chief end, even as it was my Lord’s. Oh, that I might glorify Thee, my Creator, my Preserver, my Redeemer! To this end was I born, and for this end would I live in every action of my life. We cannot run the race set before us unless we feel thus.

2. Wherein are we to imitate Jesus?

(1) First, we are to copy His endurance. He “ endured the Cross.” Ours is a trifling cross compared with that which pressed Him down; but He endured it. He took it up willingly, and carried it patiently.

(2) Imitate your Lord in His magnanimity. He endured the Cross, “despising the shame.” Shame is a cruel thing to many hearts. Our Lord shows us how to treat it. See, He puts His shoulder under the Cross; but He sets His foot upon the shame. He endures the one, but He despises the other.

(3) Our Saviour is to be imitated in His perseverance. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the Cross, despising the shame, and “is set down.” He never stopped running till He could sit down at the right hand of the throne of God; and that is the only place where you may sit down.

IV. Lastly, our text sets before us Jesus as THE GOAL OF FAITH We are to run “looking unto Jesus” as the end that we should aim at. True faith neither goes away from Christ Jesus, nor takes a roundabout road to Jesus, nor so much as dreams of going beyond Jesus. Now, we are to run towards Him, looking unto Him. Looking to Jesus and running to Jesus will look well and run well together. The eyes outstrip the feet; but this also is well, for the feet will thus be made to move the faster. Look you that you may see more of Jesus. Let us run towards Jesus, that we may grow more like Him. It is one of the virtues of Jesus that He transforms into His own image those who look at Him. He photographs Himself upon all sensitive hearts. Run, that you may come nearer to Jesus. Seek after more near and dear fellowship with Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Looking unto Jesus

The word denotes the unfixing of the eye from other objects, and the fixing it upon Him; the turning away of your vision from other attractions, either without or within, and turning them to Jesus only. This is the true position for the soul; and according as we occupy this position, will be the growth of our peace, of our holiness, of our strength and zeal.

1. The eye thus fixed upon Him must, however, be no divided eye, partly fixed on others, partly on Him. Nothing above or beneath must divide your eye, or withdraw Him from your gaze.

2. Again, it must be no wandering eye, as if it might roam over every object in the universe, provided only He were among the number. He must be the great central fascination, on which the eye fixes itself, and to which it ever reverts if for a moment it is withdrawn. There is no other object worthy of our gaze, no other fitted to fill our souls.

3. Again, it must be no careless or unwilling eye. A forced gaze there cannot be; a careless gaze on an object so Divinely glorious, so infinitely attractive, seems altogether incredible when you consider to whom you are looking. On Him all heaven is gazing, and can you turn away? On Him the Father is looking and saying, “Let thine eye rest where Mine is resting,” and can you turn away, as if not satisfied with that which satisfies the Infinite Father?

I. IN LOOKING, WHAT DO WE SEE? We see one who is the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person, the everlasting Son of the Father, yet, at the same time, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh--our kinsman, our brother. We see in Him God--God over all, yet an infant of days: God, yet a sorrowing man: God, yet a crucified criminal: God, yet a dying, buried man. The perfection of Godhead is in Him, yet the reality of manhood too. The infinite heart of God, yet the finite heart of man. Divine love, yet also human love. Condescending love as God, sympathising love as man. Paternal love as God, fraternal love as man. All excellency, all glory, all beauty, all perfection to be found in Him--unsearchable riches--for in Him “it hath p]eased the Father that all fulness should dwell.” But look a little deeper and what do you see? You see in this God-man, the Sin-bearer, “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” You see in Him one clothed and furnished thus, as I have described Him, but clothed and furnished for the very purpose of being a fitting and sufficient sacrifice; the propitiation for our sins. We see in Him one who can take our very place, one who can stand where we should have stood before God, one who can bear what we should have borne, one who can endure what we should have endured.

II. IN LOOKING, HOW ARE WE AFFECTED? These things are not fitted merely to call up wonder; they go down into the very depths of our spiritual being, producing there the mightiest results, and effecting the most wondrous revelations and transformations.

1. In looking, the first thing that strikes us is the difference and contrast between our character and His. The first glimpse we get of Him makes us feel the extent of our sinfulness, our unlikeness to Him; and there is nothing so effectual for giving a sense of sin, or for deepening a sense of sin as this looking to the Holy One.

2. But then, in looking, a second thing that startles us is the full provision that is made in Him for meeting and for removing all these imperfections in us; so that the more that, in looking, we are troubled at the sight of our own hideous sinfulness, the more are our consciences pacified by the view which we get of His sin-bearing work as the “ Lamb without blemish and without spot”--“the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

III. IN LOOKING, WHAT DO WE LEARN? We see in Jesus a model, and we begin to imitate Him. We see in Him the doer of the Father’s will, and we learn to do that will as He did it. We see in Him a willing sufferer for others, and we learn willingly to suffer. We see in Him a man that pleased not Himself, and we learn not to please ourselves. We see in Him a pattern of all meekness, and submissiveness, and gentleness, and kindness, and we learn from Him to be meek, and lowly, and gentle, and submissive, and kind, and humble--and thus it is that in looking to Him we are changed into His image from “glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Thus it is that in looking away from other objects we are prevented from imbibing the evil influences to which they have too long subjected us; and in looking to Him we are brought under the efficacious power of higher, purer, nobler, diviner influences. But the great feature in which the apostle presents Christ to us is His faith. He showed us how to believe, and believe even on this earth where there is everything to tempt our faith and to cherish unbelief. He showed us how to live by faith upon the Father, even in a world like this, that has cast off the Father. Let us look to Him then and learn of Him, let us look to His footsteps and walk in them, following where He has led the way, and planting our feet where we find that His have been planted before us. (H. Boner, D. D.)

Looking unto Jesus:

Here is a young man carrying something through a crowded Eastern market-place, or bazaar. It is a vessel with water in it. Observe how earnest and intent his face is, and how he never allows his eye to wander for a moment to what is going on round him I His teacher has told him to carry the vessel full of water--full to the very brim, through the bazaar, and to bring it back without having spilled a drop. And now you see the young man returning, pleased and triumphant, because he has succeeded in obeying the command. Not a single drop has been lost. The old teacher praises him, and then asks him what he saw as he was passing through the bazaar. “Saw! “ cries the young man, “why, I saw nothing.” “How can that be?” replies the teacher, “for I know that the very time when you were in the bazaar the Sultan with some of his chief attendants went by.” “Well, that may be,” said the young man; “but how could I see anything, or anybody, when I had my eyes fixed upon the water the whole time, and could think of nothing but how to carry it without spilling, as you told me to do?” “Ah!” said the teacher, “now you can understand how we may be so entirely occupied with some work that God has given us to do, as to be quite unconscious of the sinful pleasures of the world, which strive to attract our attention as we are passing through them.”

I. We regard the Lord Jesus AS OUR ONLY HOPE OF SALVATION. If we were standing on a wreck as it was settling down in the ocean, and a lifeboat were to come up alongside, what should we do? We should leave the wreck altogether--leave it behind us, “look away” from it, and jump into the lifeboat. Jesus Christ, then, is our only hope of salvation.

II. HE IS OUR ONLY EXAMPLE TO IMITATE. I have read somewhere of a traveller, who with his guide was crossing a high mountain in Switzerland. After journeying many miles, they came at last to a very dangerous pass, where just a little shelf of rock, and that partly worn away in places by the rain, ran round the face of a precipitous cliff, and was the only pathway by which they could possibly ascend to the top. Try to imagine their situation! Above them rose a steep rock, up the face of which no human being could climb, and below them was a precipice which went down straight, without a break, for nearly a thousand feet. And the traveller’s heart--though he was a courageous man--began to beat fast, and his head began to swim, until he was in danger of falling over and being killed. The guide seeing this, called out (I should tell you that the guide was walking in front), “Do not look up or down, or you are a lost man. Look away from everything at me. Keep your eyes fixed on me, and where I set my foot, there do you place yours.” The traveller obeyed this command; the dizziness and the fear went away; and both the men crossed safely over the terrible pass. This story has always reminded me of “ looking away” unto Jesus, and of His leaving us an example that we should follow His steps.

III. HE IS THE ONLY BESTOWER OF ALL THE BLESSINGS WHICH WE ENJOY. Every good gift, and every perfect gift comes to us through Him. He is the channel which connects us with God. If we think a good thought, or do a good deed, it is owing to Christ. Shall we run negligently, as if we did not care much about it? No; we will run earnestly. Shall we give up when we have run part of the way? No; for it is “ he that endureth to the end that shall be saved,” and it were better never to have begun at all, than to begin and then leave off. Shall we say, “How hard, how tiresome it is to run this Christian race?” No; for the Lord Jesus Christ is with us all the time, strengthening, encouraging, upholding us. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)

Looking unto Jesus

I. THE SPIRITUAL POSTURE IN WHICH CHRISTIANS ARE REQUIRED TO PLACE THEMSELVES.

1. “Looking unto Jesus,” in recognition of the relation of Jesus to us. As redeemed men this Jesus is all in all to us. He is called by various names: the last Adam, the Amen, the Alpha, the Omega, the Advocate, the Angel, our Apostle, Bread of Life, our Captain, our Chief Shepherd, the Chief Corner Stone, the Counsellor, the Day Spring, the Witness, the Great High Priest, the Head, the King, the Lamb, our Leader, our Life, our Light, the Star, the Morning Star, the Rock, the True Vine, the Way, the Word of God.

2. “Looking unto Jesus,” for direction from Jesus. He is our Master, and He appoints our services. He is our Teacher, He gives us our lessons. He is our Lord, He confers upon us all true honour and all real reward. He is our elder Brother; and acting the part of a Father. He provides for us, and He has charge of us.

3. “Looking unto Jesus” for the varied and constant help which He affords. Every name by which He is called represents some service which He is prepared to render to us, or is actually rendering us, or some particular aspect of some service. In truth, Christ is to you what you require Him to be, if you will only let Him be what you need Him to be.

4. “Looking unto Jesus,” in confident expectation of the fulfilment of all His promises. Looking, therefore, as an expectant of blessings. Well, this involves knowledge of His power and trust in it. Knowledge, too, of His veracity, and of His fidelity, and a corresponding confidence.

5. “Looking unto Jesus” for recognition and for sanction. Why is it that so many Christians are so miserable, so out of temper, so weak? You find the reason here: they are always looking for recognition and sanction from men, from the Church of God, from their fellow disciples, and sometimes where they never ought to look for it, from the men of this world. Do you see how this is forbidden by the text? You are not to live looking to the disciples, you are not to live looking to the Church for recognition and for sanction, but turning your eyes upwards you are to be in a position to say with Peter, “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” The mere professor does not think of thus “looking unto Jesus”; he keeps looking entirely at himself. The hypocrite, too, dare not look unto Jesus--he dare not. He has impudence enough, but he dare not look unto Jesus. He keeps his eye away from the eye of the Master. The backslider, too, he temporarily has ceased to look upon Jesus.

6. “Looking unto Jesus,” moreover, as an object of love. “Whom having not seen, ye love.”

II. THE REASON FOR IT. “Jesus is the author and finisher of faith.” Every wise man has a reason for his conduct, and every good man a good reason. A Christian should be the most intelligent, and rational of his class. If he be “looking unto Jesus,” he ought to know the reason why. Why look unto Jesus? Why not to himself? Why not to the cloud of witnesses? Why not to his fellows in the race? Why look unto Jesus? The apostle gives the answer. “Jesus is the author and finisher of faith.”

1. In the first place Jesus occupies a singular position as it respects faith. He is “the author, or prince of faith,” being Himself the highest example of faith. Does it occur to you that when Christ bids you believe, He bids you do what He did? He was a believer. His human nature had in it the strongest possible faith, and on this account you may call Jesus “ the prince of faith.” But He is “the prince of faith” in another sense.

2. We speak now of Christ as a man (not ignoring, however, His Divine nature), and we say of Him, that He is “the author or prince of faith,” because He is the first man who on this earth has maintained faith. The first Adam lost faith in God; and no man could set Adam the first up as a prince; but the second Adam maintained faith even in the severest trials, and, therefore, you may call Jesus “ the prince of faith.”

3. Again, He is “the prince of faith” as leading us into faith. He goes before us in the path of faith, and as leading us into faith, and as guiding us into this path, He is “the author,” or the “prince of faith.” Then, as Himself continuing in faith to the end, He is “the finisher.” And as maintaining and consummating our faith He is also “the finisher.” Is our race faith? God commands that faith to Himself. He says, believe on Me. Is our race faith? God draws that faith more and more strongly to Himself. He can keep it, and He alone can maintain it. Therefore in running this race of faith, it is our manifest duty to run, “looking unto Jesus” “the prince,” mark, in all these respects, “of faith.” (S. Martin.)

Looking unto Jesus

I. WHY SHOULD WE LOOK TO JESUS?

1. Because He is the supremest object of human interest. When we remember everything that goes to make up what we may call “the things of Christ,” the preparation for His coming, and all that centred in Him, the various movements of the preceding generations, the symptomatic changes alike in the political and religious condition of men; then His own history, when He went about living His life, speaking His words, doing His work; and then what He has since been, the place He has taken in human regard, the influence He has exercised upon human life--what a wondrous series of interesting objects we meet with!

2. Because we find in Him the answer to the deepest needs of our souls.

3. Because He is the dearest object of human love.

II. WHERE SHALL WE SEE JESUS?

1. Look at Him in the scenes of His earthly career.

2. Look at Him in the place of His atoning death.

3. Look at Him on the throne of His triumphant mediation.

III. WHEN SHALL WE LOOK TO JESUS?

1. In the time of your temptation.

2. In the moment of penitence. By thy side He stands with an arm extended, and will take thee back to His bosom and His love.

3. In the hour of need. That is every hour, for every hour am I needy, and always do I require that Saviour to be near. (L. D. Bevan.)

Looking unto Jesus:

The expression before us is one of the pithy golden sayings which stand out here and there on the face of the New Testament, and demand special attention. It is like “to me to live is Christ,” “Christ is all and in all,” “Christ who is our life,” “He is our peace,” “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” To each and all of these sayings one common remark applies. They contain far more than a careless eye can see on the surface. But the grand question which rises out of the text is this: What is that we are to look at in Jesus?

I. First and foremost, if we would look rightly to Jesus, we must look daily at His DEATH, as the only source of inward peace. We all need peace. Now there is only one source of peace revealed in Scripture, and that is the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and the atonement which He has made for sin by that vicarious death on the Cross. To obtain a portion in that great peace, we have only to look by faith to Jesus, as our substitute and Redeemer.

II. In the second place, if we would look rightly to Jesus, we must look daily to His LIFE OF INTERCESSION, in heaven, as our principal provision of strength and help. While we are fighting Amalek in the valley below, one greater than Moses is holding up His hands for us in heaven, and through His intercession we shall prevail.

III. In the third place, if we would look rightly to Jesus, we must look at His EXAMPLE as our chief standard of holy living. We must all feel, I suspect, and often feel, how hard it is to regulate our daily lives by mere rules and regulations. But surely it would cut many a knot and solve many a problem if we could cultivate the habit of studying the daily behaviour of our Lord as recorded in the four Gospels, and striving to shape our own behaviour by its pattern. We may well be humbled when we think how unlike the best of us are to our example, and what poor blurred copies of His character we show to mankind. Like careless children at school we are content to copy those around us with all their faults, and do not look constantly at the only faultless copy, the One perfect man in whom even Satan could find nothing. But one thing at any rate we must all admit. If Christians during the last eighteen centuries had been more like Christ, the Church would certainly have been far more beautiful, and probably have done far more good to the world.

IV. Fourthly, and lastly, if we would look to Jesus rightly, we must look forward to His SECOND ADVENT, AS THE TRUEST FOUNTAIN OF HOPE AND CONSOLATION. That the early Christians were always looking forward to a second coming of their risen Master, is a fact beyond all controversy. In all their trials and persecutions, under Roman Emperors and heathen rulers, they cheered one another with the thought that their own King would soon come again, and plead their cause. It ought to be the consolation of Christians in these latter days as much as it was in primitive times. (Bishop Ryle.)

A life-motto:

The great object on which we are to fix our gaze, all through life is--Jesus. It is with Him, above all else, that we must have to do.

1. “Looking unto Jesus,” we are to trust Him as our Saviour. The first thing we want is a Saviour. I once saw a ship at sea, off the east coast of Scotland, in a storm. Her sails were torn to tatters, her masts were broken, her anchor was dragging. It needed no signal of distress, for it was within sight of the shore. We could hardly keep our feet out of doors. The wind blew a hurricane and the rain pelted. Those of us who could, got into the shelter of the pier, and, glass in hand, watched the movements of the hard-pressed sloop. The lifeboat was launched and pushed through the surf, and after being carried past the vessel once and again, at length got alongside of those who so much needed help. That lifeboat came to them as a saviour. And how were they saved? By trusting it. But perhaps some of you say, “What has all this to do with ‘looking unto Jesus’? The text is about ‘looking,’ not trusting.” Well, but “looking” means trusting. A poor but respectable widow once called on me in great distress. She had fallen behind with her rent, and her landlord had threatened to sell every article of furniture she had, and to turn her and her children to the street. I told her I would see to the matter, and that she might look to me for her rent. She went joyfully home, and I can suppose her children to have said to her, “Mother, how are you looking so happy? Have you got the money?” “No,” she answers, “but it is all right. The minister said I might look to him for the rent, and I know it is as sure as if I had the money in my hand.” That just means--she trusted me for it. The looking and the trusting were one and the same thing. Now, the Lord Jesus bids you look to Him--away from all else--away from your own doing or deserving- away from the godliest and best friends you have. He says, “None of them can save you.” He says, “Look unto Me and be saved: for I am God.”

2. “Looking unto Jesus”--we are to copy Him as our pattern. Now in the chapter before that from which our text is taken (chap. 11.), you have a wonderful list of worthies. It is just like a portrait-gallery, containing the likenesses of some of the best men the world ever saw. And as you read the descriptions you might ask, “May we take these as our pattern?” Well, so far, and yet only so far. They were not perfect patterns, and so are not safe to be followed in everything. And so the writer points away from them all, and as it were, says, “Do not stop at these. Do not be content to copy these. I can give you better than any of them all--a higher, safer, surer guide.” You cannot keep too close to Him. You cannot copy Him too exactly. In the smallest things as in the greatest, seek to be what He was, to do what He did, to follow in His footsteps.

3. “Looking unto Jesus “-we are to lean upon Him as our strength. Perhaps you say, “It must be very difficult to be what Christ was--to do what Christ did. He was so good and I am so evil: He was so strong and I am so weak: He was so bold and I am so cowardly. Indeed, it seems impossible. I do not see how it could ever be.” But if He were to give you His strength, it would not be so difficult, would it? Sometimes when I have been coming home late at night, after a long day’s work, I have felt very tired, and the uphill parts of the road seemed very long and very steep. But a friend came alongside, and when I put my arm into his, and had his support and his company, the tiredness left me, and I could have walked half a dozen of miles, and sometimes did walk backwards and forwards for a good half hour. His arm and his company were strength to me. That is what Jesus does. He says, “Lean on Me! Lean hard!” He, as it were, lets you put your arm into His. He lets you draw upon His strength. (J. H. Wilson, D. D.)

Looking to Jesus

I. UNDER WHAT ASPECTS ARE WE TO LOOK TO JESUS?

1. Saviour.

2. Master.

3. Example.

II. IN WHAT SCENES ARE WE TO LOOK TO JESUS?

1. Common duty.

2. Times of temptation.

3. Difficulties.

4. Means of grace.

III. WHAT SORT OF LOOKS THEY SHOULD BE?

1. Trustful.

2. Obedient.

3. Loving. (The Weekly Pulpit.)

Advantages obtained by looking unto Jesus

1. The first of these is peace; peace with God, and peace in the conscience. True peace comes from God the Father, through the blood of Jesus; and can only be enjoyed by looking unto Him.

2. Humiliation is another advantage derived from looking to Jesus. The heart of man is naturally proud; and will never be effectually humbled, but by a believing contemplation of the greatest example of humility that ever appeared in the world. That humiliation, especially, which becomes us as rebellious creatures, will be best promoted by looking at a suffering Saviour, bending under the load of our guilt in the garden and on the Cross. Who can make a mock at sin, that beholds the awful severity of God in punishing it in the person of His innocent Son, our Surety? Who can be proud, when he sees the Lord of all, destitute of a place where to lay His head, and enduring poverty and shame for our sakes?

3. This also affords the best lesson of patience; and for this purpose particularly, we are exhorted, in the text, to look to Jesus; for, it is added, He “endured the Cross, despising the shame.” If we would be Christians indeed, we must “arm ourselves with the same mind” (1 Peter 4:1); and, according to His direction, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him (Matthew 16:24).

4. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and the most powerful principle of gospel holiness. But how shall this be obtained? We answer, By looking unto Jesus. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The love of our brother is closely connected with the love of God; the former can never exist without the latter, and always accompanies it. Looking to Jesus, the Friend of sinners, who came to seek and to save the lost, who went about doing good, is the most effectual means of curing the selfishness of our hearts, of softening the asperity of our tempers, and of exciting compassion and benevolence in our souls, towards all our fellow-men.

5. Looking to Jesus is the best expedient to destroy our inordinate regard to this present world. Christ was dead to it, and separate from it; and He says to His followers, “Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). A glance of His glory, and a sense of interest in His favour, will make us indifferent alike to its smiles and its frowns; and all the glittering objects that men pursue with such avidity, will appear as unworthy of our affections as the painted toys of children.

6. There is one more advantage to be expected from looking to Jesus; an advantage of such magnitude, that we may challenge the universe to equal it, and that is, ability to meet death with calmness and joy. Here is a triumph peculiar to the gospel; a triumph far superior to those of kings and conquerors; a triumph over the king of terrors. Looking to Jesus, who has borne the whole of the punishment due to our sins, we are no longer to consider it as penal; this is the sting of death, which He has extracted (2 Timothy 1:10). (G. Barrier.)

The necessity of looking to Christ:

The reason why the men of the world think so little of Christ is, they do not look at Him. Their backs being turned to the sun, they can see only their own shadows, and are, therefore, wholly taken up with themselves. While the true disciple, looking only upward, sees nothing but his Saviour, and learns to forget himself. (E. Payson.)

The inspiration of a good leader:

News had come from the left that Winter’s Brigade near the river was giving way. Stonewall Jackson rode down to see what it meant. As he passed on the brink of the ravine his eye caught the scene, and reining up in a moment, be said, “Colonel, you seem to have trouble down there.” Then he dashed on. He found that his old brigade had yielded slightly to overwhelming pressure. Galloping up, he was received with a cheer, and calling out at the top of his voice, “The Stonewall Brigade never retreats: follow me! “led them back to their original line. (H. O. Mackey.)

Jesus and faith:

“Is your faith strong?” a Christian man was asked a few days before his death. “No, but my Jesus is,” was his reply.

Deliverance by looking to Jesus

A lady had a dream, in which she fancied herself at the bottom of a deep pit. She looked round to see if there were any way of getting out; but in vain. Presently, looking upward, she saw in that part of the heavens immediately above the mouth of the pit a beautiful bright star. Steadily gazing at it, she felt herself to be gradually lifted upward. She looked down to ascertain how it was, and immediately found herself at the bottom of the pit. Again her eye caught sight of the star, and again she felt herself ascending. She had reached a considerable height. Still desirous of an explanation of so strange a phenomenon, she turned her eye downward, and fell to the bottom with fearful violence. On recovering from the effect of the shock, she bethought herself as to the meaning of it all, and once again turned her eye to the star, still shining so brightly above, and yet once again felt herself borne upward. Steadily did she keep her eye upon its light, till, at length, she found herself out of the horrible pit, and her feet safely planted on the solid ground above. It taught her the lesson, that, in the hour of danger and trouble, deliverance is to be found, and found only, by looking unto Jesus. (T. Guthrie.)

Look to Christ rather that to experiences

“Have you got it?” is a question often asked now. I remember being asked this, and I could not help replying, “I have got Him, and with Him all the its.” God does not give us Christ piecemeal, but wholly. We have a whole Christ, or no Christ. Now, while God does not give us a single blessing apart from Christ, yet in and with Him we have all spiritual blessings. As a matter of fact that is true to every believer, but as matter of experience it is not always so. “I have lost my peace,” groaned a saint one day. We replied, “Have you lost your Saviour?” “Oh, no!” “Well, then, He is our peace.” “I forgot that.” Just so, lose sight of Christ, and away go your feelings; and the way not to get your feelings back is to look for them, the way to get them is not to look for them, but to look to Him. Remember there is in Christ for you a fulness of acceptance, therefore do not doubt Him; there is fulness of peace, therefore trust Him; there is fulness of life, therefore abide in Him; there is fulness of blessing, therefore delight in Him; there is fulness of power, therefore wait upon Him; there is ful-ness of grace, therefore receive from Him; there is fulness of love, therefore be taken up with Him; there is fulness of teaching, therefore learn of Him; there is fulness of joy, therefore rejoice in Him; there is fulness of fulness in Him, therefore be full in Him; there is fulness of riches, therefore count upon Him; there is fulness of strength, therefore lean upon Him; there is fulness of light, therefore walk with Him; and there is fulness of energy, therefore be subject to Him. (T. E. Marsh.)

Looking to Jesus:

The painter who undertakes to copy some masterpiece of art, sits down before it, sketches the outline upon his own canvas, reproduces the colouring of the model, adds item by item to his picture, constantly looking upon the original, noting its qualities and the deficiencies of his work, till, by scrupulous care and untiring endeavour, he has produced a facsimile of the original. The Christian’s work is kindred. He has a better model, even Christ; but a harder task, for his canvas is treacherous and his work is life long.

Looking unto Jesus

Two boys were playing in the snow one day, when one said to the other, “Let us see who can make the straightest path in the snow.” His companion readily accepted the proposition, and they started. One boy fixed his eyes on a tree, and walked along without taking them off the object selected. The other boy set his eyes on the tree also, and, when he had gone a short distance, he turned, and looked back to see how true his course was. He went a little distance farther, and again turned to look over his steps. When they arrived at their stopping place, each halted and looked back. One path was true as an arrow, while the other ran in a zigzag course. “How did you get your path so true?” asked the boy who had made the crooked steps. “Why,” said the other boy, “I just set my eyes on the tree, and kept them there until I got to the end; while you stopped and looked back, and wandered out of your course.” Just so is the Christian life. If we fix the eyes of our hope, our trust, and our faith upon Jesus Christ, and keep them continually fastened thereon, we will at last land at the desired haven, with flowers of immortal victory at our feet. (C. W.Bibb.)

Jesus the only sight for the dying

The scene opens in a dark and silent chamber. Doctor Franklin is lying on his deathbed. For weeks and weeks he has been prostrate with disease. That active mind, which so long had been occupied with things of earth, was busied now with higher and nobler contemplations. He bids the nurse go down and bring a picture which he named, and fasten it on the wall opposite his bed, that he might look upon it when he pleased. And what think you that picture was? Some ancient historic heirloom, which he dearly prized? Some scene of stirring interest, in which he, the great philosopher of his age, had borne a conspicuous part? No! It was a picture of our blessed Saviour on the Cross; and Doctor Franklin, whom many, in these evil days, have desired to make an infidel outright, died while gazing upon it with wistful eyes, his whole countenance lighted up with a sweet and placid smile. Poor and pitiable are the hopes of the moralist or the philosopher who does not look to Christ Jesus as his Redeemer.

The Author and Finisher of our faith

The Commander of the faithful:

Consider the remarkable aspects and relationships in reference to our faith in which Christ is here set forth.

I. FIRST WE HAVE HIM AS LEADER AND COMMANDER OF THE GREAT ARMY OF THE FAITHFUL, JESUS, THE AUTHOR OF “OUR FAITH.” Christ is here represented, not so much as one who begins faith in men’s hearts, but as the Leader of all the long procession of those who live by faith. True, the heroes whose names are enrolled in the glorious catalogue of the preceding chapter were before Him in time. But the commander may march in the centre, as well as in the van, and even in order of time; He is the Beginner or Leader, inasmuch as He is the first who ever lived a perfect life of faith. We do not give sufficient prominence in our thoughts of Christ’s earthly life, to this aspect of it--that it was one of faith. He is our pattern in this as in all that belongs to humanity. His life was a life of faith, whose breath was prayer. For faith is dependence upon God, and surely never did human being so utterly hang upon the Father, nor submit himself so absolutely to be moulded and determined by Him, nor yield his will up so completely to that will. Faith is communion, and surely never did a spirit dwell so unbrokenly, in such deep and constant realisation of a Divine presence and a Divine sustaining, as did that Christ who could say “the Father hath not left Me alone, for I do always the things that please Him.” Faith is the vivid realisation of the unseen; and surely never was there a life lived amidst the shows and illusions of time which so manifestly and transparently was all passed in the vivid consciousness of that unseen world, as was the life of that Son of Man, who, in the midst of all earth’s engagements, could call Himself “ the Son of Man which is in heaven.” Faith is a life of assured confidence of an unseen hope, and surely never was there a life which was so entirely dominated by that unseen hope as His life, who, “For the joy that was set,” &c.

II. THERE IS ADDED A VERY SIGNIFICANT EXPRESSION, WHICH LEADS US TO CONSIDER CHRIST NEXT AS BEING SET FORTH HERE AS THE “FINISHER,” OR PERFECTER, “OF FAITH.” It would be a very poor affair if all we had to say to men was: “There is a beautiful example; follow it! “ Copybooks are all very well, but you want something more than copybooks, A so-called Christianity that has nothing more to say about Jesus Christ than that He is the perfect example of all human excellences, and of faith too, is not the one for a poor man that has found out the plague of his own heart, and the weakness of his own will. He wants something that will come a great deal closer to him than that. And so my text tells us that Jesus is not only “the Leader of faith,” but the “Perfecter” of it too. He will set you the pattern, and then, if you will let Him, He will come into your hearts, and make you able to copy the pattern. He will perfect faith by the implanting in your hearts of His own spirit and His own life. He will lead our faith to sovereign power in our lives, if we will only let Him do it, by another way, too--by the path of discipline and of sorrow; drawing away our hearts from earthly things and fixing them upon Himself; making the world dark that the sky above may be brighter, and revealing Himself to our loneliness as the all-sufficient companion. So He perfects our faith. And He will do it in another way too, by the rewards and blessings which He will give to the imperfect and tentative exercise of our confidence, over-answering our petitions, and flooding us with more than we expected when we tremulously tried to trust on Him; and so inducing us to be bolder in our confidence, and to venture further afield. Thus, He draws us further out into the great sea of His love. And not only so, but in another aspect that dear Lord is the Perfecter of our faith, inasmuch as He gives to our faith at the last that which is its aim and end. A thing is perfected when it either reaches its highest degree, or when it attains its object. And so Christ is the Perfecter of our faith, not only in the sense that He raises and educates it up to its loftiest form, but also that He bestows upon it at the last that which is, as Peter says, its “end,” or perfecting, even the salvation of our souls. And in this aspect we may almost take the word “Perfecter” here to be equivalent to that of the other idea of rewarder. Our faith is perfected when the unseen things are unveiled, when the communion with God is complete, when we shall see Christ as He is, and clasp Him in the close embrace of heaven, and when the crown of life is bestowed which He has promised to them that love Him.

III. THAT LEADS ME TO SAY ONE LAST WORD ABOUT THAT “LOOKING TO JESUS” WHICH IS THE INDISPENSABLE CONDITION OF “RUNNING THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US.” It must be a believing look. It must be a loving look. The occupation of heart and mind with Jesus Christ is the secret of practical Christianity. It is an education to love Him and live with Him. Transformation comes by beholding. The eye that looks upon the light has an image of the light formed upon its ball, and the man that looks to Christ gets like Christ, and “beauty born of” that gaze “shall pass into his face.” Look to Him as the sustainer of your faith. In your feebleness, when life is low, when hope is almost dead, when temptations are tyrannous and strong, think of Him, and think in trust. Look to Him as your rewarder, and be of good cheer, and let the prospect of that great crown stimulate and sustain and lift you above the ills and the sorrows of life. And last of all, there is an untranslated preposition in one of the words of my text to which, perhaps, it is not straining too much to give emphasis. The full rendering of the expression “looking” is looking away. That points to the need of looking off from something else, that we may look up to Him. It always takes a resolute effort fixedly to contemplate, and to bring heart and mind really into contact with unseen things and unseen persons. And it takes a very strenuous effort to bring the unseen Christ before the mind habitually, and so as to produce effects in the life. You cannot see the stars when you are walking down a town street, and the gas-lamps are lit. All those violet depths and calm abysses and blazing worlds are concealed from you by the glare at your side--sulphurous and stinking. So, my brother, if you want to see into the depths and the heights, to see the great white throne and the Christ on it who helps you to fight, you have to go out unto Him beyond the camp, and leave all its dazzling lights behind you. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

For the joy that was set before Him

Christ’s joy in living

I want to speak to you of the joyfulness of Christ Jesus, and of the genius of Christianity as resulting from this fact; and I speak, being conscious of the great misconception which has flowed, for at least a thousand years, down through the Church, and which has clouded the public sentiment of the Christian community to this hour--namely, that Christ was a sufferer through life, and that sorrow is the distinguishing characteristic of the Saviour’s experience; and that although there are gleams of joy in the Christian life, all who enter upon it must enter upon it with a distinct understanding that its characteristic element is sorrowfulness, or cross-bearing. Now, I aver that it happens to no individual in his lifetime to experience so much joy as was compressed into the life of Jesus Christ; and a very slight examination of His history would make it incontrovertible. You will bear in mind that He was born a Hebrew peasant, but that He was of a lineage very noble. In His veins ran the best blood of the Jewish nation. He was a favourite from the beginning; for blood told then in the estimation of men as much as it has ever done. You will observe that Christ had the ordinary experience which men have, of being a child, and of being loved by His father and mother and His brothers and sisters. He went through all the experiences of babyhood, of early boyhood, of youth, and came into full-orbed manhood without any moral disturbance of which we are aware--without any convulsion that threw Him out of the ordinary experience of a pleasant household, and entered upon His public ministration when He was about twenty-seven years old, dying at about thirty. Now, you will observe that when Christ entered upon His ministry the first step He took in it was toward social joy; for after the temptation in the wilderness He went north and joined His parents, and in Cana of Galilee attended a wedding. The first miracle that He ever performed was to help carry on a three-days’ social entertainment. That does not look much like His being a Man of Sorrows. John, His cousin, came neither eating nor drinking. He disdained amenities. He threw himself like a judgment-bolt into the face of rulers. He cut right and left, without mercy, saying “Peace to the perfect, and woe to the imperfect.” That was his career. Christ began immediately after him. Instead of dwelling in the wilderness, He went into populous cities. Instead of going away from all social intercourse, He participated in the highest festivity known to the ordinary life of a Jew--namely, a wedding service; and afterwards He lived in such social habits that the charge against Him was that He made Himself common with common folks, and that He was a glutton and a wine-bibber, and a friend of publicans and sinners. No such allegation as that could be made against an ascetic. But setting aside all this, which lies upon the very surface of the text, look at the career of the Saviour in another point of view. So soon as He entered upon His course as a public minister, He showed great aptness in teaching. Concomitant with this experience was another--that which was connected with the performance of His miracles of mercy. Now, is there any joy greater than that which is experienced by one person when he helps another person? He was not a stone man; He was a living soul, as full of sensibility and fire as the heart of God. Consider that He did these things every morning, every noon, and every evening. Consider that there were so many such cases that they could not be registered by name. And do you tell me that in the blessed work of teaching and mercy which He was carrying on, Jesus was not a joyful man? Why, such an idea is false to nature, as it is false to grace. But we have a more decided case yet. We perceive that He was of a nature such that He drew to Him good-livers. He did not disdain luxury: He partook of it. He did not disdain high society: He went into it, just as readily and familiarly as to the peasant s cottage, or to the abode of the poor and sick. He was a man among men; and if He looked up His look was radiant, while i[He looked down His look was light-bearing. He could not touch any side of human nature that His soul did not go out in sympathy with it. Now the attractiveness of the Saviour was Such that these men wanted Him, and called for Him. But no man who spreads a good table, and invites folks to dine with him, goes hunting for misanthropes. But that the rich men of His day did want Christ there is irrefutable evidence to prove. This shows that His bearing was sweet and attractive. And wherever He went where people were, He shed joy and happiness upon them. You will now ask, “What about the passion? What about the forty days?” Those are the very days over which the text goes. I think the joy was an awful joy; but I believe that Jesus Christ was never so joyful as during the mighty mystery of those forty days. Let us come to it step by step through experiences such as we have ourselves. When a man does a heroic action at some cost to himself, he knows that though it costs it counts. The highest reaches that any man ever has of joy in this world are those which he has through the ministration of grief and of sorrow. When those persons who went to the stake for their faith, and sang and rejoiced as the fire blazed about them, and sent out from their pulpit of flame joyous songs of hope, do you suppose they were sufferers? There is an ecstasy in a man’s soul at such a time which so affects his nervous system as to lift him above suffering. I do not doubt that there have been crowned hours when that martyr to the liberty of Hungary, Kossuth, though an exile, poor and alone, was not unhappy. I know that sometimes when men are misrepresented, and derided, and scoffed at, and kennels and sewers are opened upon them, there is a serene height into which they rise, where no one can any more touch them with sorrow than the fowler’s shot can touch the eagle that soars just under the sun. And do you suppose the Saviour knew what He suffered when, “for the joy that was set before Him”--the redemption of the world; an eternity of blessedness for the myriads upon myriads that should find life in His outpouring life; and the glory of the Godhead--“He endured the Cross”? Do not you suppose that this joy that He saw in the future made Him a man of joy, and not of sorrow? He “is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” For what? To do what the morning does--pour light over darkness. To do what the dews do--cool the parchedplants after a fervid day when they are well-nigh wilted. He sits there to bring sons and daughters home to glory. Where the father and mother have waited expectant for the dear children that have been long away to come home, does joy beat upon the instrument of the soul when they do come? and do you suppose that Christ, sitting on the eternal threshold, and seeing sons and daughters coming home to glory through His instrumentality, does not experience joy? He said in the hour of His deepest darkness, “Peace I give you-My peace.” If in the very acme and midnight of His suffering He had so much peace that He could divide it and share it with His disciples, do you not suppose that now, a Prince of Peace, He is also a Prince of Joy? (H. W. Beecher.)

The wiliness to the sustaining principle

I. Life is a journey; BUT LIFE IS SOMETHING MORE. Life is a work. It is the great opportunity for the artist who is toiling, by Divine assistance, at the world outside him; because, first, he is toiling at his own Soul. The Man of Sorrows--it is a strange paradox, but it is a fact--the Man of Sorrows supplies us with the sustaining principle, anticipated joy. Joy has a depth and a stillness far beyond mere merriment. Joy has a moral force, because it rises out of and combines real and constituent spiritual elements, loftier, more enduring than pleasure; it draws its life and gathers its strength from the most vigorous and the most varied faculties of our nature. Joy! It co-ordinates and harmonises all rays of moral glory; it has the sweetness and freshness of the music of Mendelssohn; it touches with the chromatic tenderness of Spohr; it unites the depth and splendour of the colouring of Titian, and the refinement and severity of Francia’s Christ. Joy! and the crucifix! Yes, it has its roots, remember, in a rugged soil. Travellers in the Tyrol, so an able writer tells us, noticed in the distance the crest of the mountains cinctured with a girdle of vivid blue. Was it a mirage, a magic deception, worked up by the mist and the light and the winds? Would it pause at the approach of invading footsteps, or would it--as all beautiful things in this low world--would it fade and be gone? They drew on, and found it not fainter, but clearer, not vanished, not gone, no trick of the sunlight, no passing effect of the cloud; it was a belt of vivid gentians, drawing strength from the rugged rock and unsympathising stone, taking the light and outfacing the heavens with the intensity of its burning blue. Now such is the joy of the spirit. Beautiful; not vanishing, but vigorous; anticipating what it knows to be certain, the final victory of truth and righteousness, having, therefore, its roots in “ eternal things.” This, too, this is preached from the Cross; hence, my brothers, what looks like a streak of sunlight on the unrestful ocean becomes a stimulating and sustaining principle in the labour of life.

II. This, then, may become the stimulating principle of a persevering life, and the question is, HOW CAN IT BE LEARNED? The answer is found in the twofold aspect of the Cross.

1. If we catalogue the various departments of the subject-matter of our Redeemer’s joy, we find in the Cross a revelation. It reveals the mystery of the Atonement. But a mystery it is, beautiful, wonderful, bringing life out of death, as spring flowers are the children of the winter, and forming the subject-matter Of our Redeemer’s joy.

2. And the Cross is an example. Speaking morally, it springs directly out of the self-sacrificing temper, gains, in fact, its unselfish colouring there, teaches us what is the temper, the prevailing atmosphere needful for a useful life. We know of no self-denial so personal to ourselves, so complete and lasting, as the self-denial of the Cross; and we read in the joy of the Conqueror not only the principle which stimulates His endeavour, but also the evidence of His love. He had a delight, indeed, not, to use a modern phrase, “in influencing the masses,” but in saving you and me.

3. And another subject-matter of that joy--we dare to say it, because His apostle taught us to do so--was the crowning in Himself of human perfection--the vindication of goodness. Goodness! the greatness of doing what you ought to do; goodness, the greatness of loyalty amid sorrow. This, the highest height of all human excellencies, is crowned on the throne of the Crucified, in the person of “ Him who liveth and was dead.”

III. WHAT THEN, WE ASK, ARE THOSE OPPOSING FORCES WHICH THIS PRINCIPLE IS REQUIRED TO BREAK AND CONQUER?

1. There is a force, fierce as an unfettered animal, wild as the wind, strong as the storm; it springs from the fever and fret of a restless heart needing and finding no satisfaction. Call it taedium vitae; call it ennui; call it a lazy weariness of spirit in the overworked toiler for this world, or in the blasé idler--whatever you call it, it is that mortal sickness of the human spirit, worn out with a life of unsatisfied desire, with the knowledge that riches and pleasure cannot gain for it a salvation or win for it a rest--possessions only of those who hold the hope of a future, itself the first dawning of supernatural joy.

2. We have another force in the pressure of the present. It surely comes to all either in failure of health, or overwork, or bewildering anxiety, or heartbreaking bereavement, or change of circumstances, or fading of dreams, or parting from others; it is felt in bereavement that has broken you, sorrow that has subdued you, change of circumstances, loss of fortune, forgetfulness of friends, disbelief in you by those whom you believed in, and, what is infinitely worse, disbelief in them when you have found them wanting, and the sad remembrance that you expected too much, and have been accordingly the victim of disappointment not undeserved. It may produce despondency; it may eventuate in a life of miserable murmuring and habitual discontent; or it may be made to yield the “ peaceable fruit of righteousness “ to them who apply the stimulating and sustaining principle.

3. And there is personal and spiritual and accomplished sin. Have you not felt the fierceness of desire, and the difficulty of its domination? Oh, it is when you get to the Crucified you see in the Atonement the way to penitence, the possibility of pardon, the path of peace.

4. And religious perplexity. You are in an age when Christianity is attacked with pitiless severity; you need fear no argument against the truth shaking your faith, though it assail your intellect, if the spiritual conditions are fulfilled; but the strength of your stand on the side of the Crucified is not the strength of your degree at Oxford or Cambridge, it is not the power of your intellect; it rests and will rest on moral grounds. Are you trying to do your duty? Are you living in communion with your Creator? Then you are in the way to keep alive a sustaining principle which will breast the religious difficulty of this great, and, I add it, of this bad time. If, yes, if we are to avoid the curse of Meroz, it is by the hope of a future, and the joy in God that we need to be stimulated, that we need to be sustained in coming “to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”

IV. YES, THE CONDITIONS OF PRESERVING SUCH A PRINCIPLE ARE NOT FAR TO FIND. On the Cross we have our example; in us it is a gift of the Holy Ghost sent by our ascended Master; and it is a fruit of the Spirit in its relation to God; it depends for its energy upon our faithfulness; it is not so much the quiet joy from an accomplished fact as the larger, bracing joy of anticipated victory; and it is preserved bright and sustaining in those who willingly make sacrifices for truth and duty. The sea sets onward through the Straits of Messina with a heaving swell, smooth, yet unflagging, even when the winds are silent and the skies are clear; the Tiber rushes onward, mad and swollen, century after century, by the Sylvan’s Cave; now like the restful, now like the restless waters, human waves unnumbered of the rising and falling peoples have swept over the hills and plains of Italy, have passed and disappeared; civilisations many, dim or brilliant, across the histories of Greece, of Syria, of the twilight East, have danced into the sunlight and died into the shade; but, in storm or summer stillness Soracte has towered above the dim Campagna and the Sabine Mountains, calm and stately and crowned with snow; and amid all human agonies and the tragedies of the peoples, the giants of the Abarim, folding round them their draperies of purple, have watched the starlight, or wrapped in their robes of roseate brilliance, have reckoned with the dawn. So human passions, troubles, sins, may flow onward in wild current, but principles, supernatural principles, stand firm. (Canon Knox Little.)

Joy triumphing

I. THE JOY OF OBEDIENCE. Can we understand this--a joy in doing another’s will, not our own? Yes--and no. As we naturally are we cannot take such a thing in--we want to do what we please--we fret at having any restraint put on us. And yet in proportion as we learn to love God through Jesus Christ, we learn to know what it is to be quite at God’s bidding, and yet to be in perfect freedom.

II. THE JOY OF LOVE. If it be asked, whom He so dearly loved that it was an intense joy to show His love to them, the answer is sinners; for them He came into the world: unlovely objects--lovers of their own will--sheep who had strayed out of a safe fold into a waste howling wilderness; yet in our unloveliness, and wandering, and wilfulness, though He grieved at it, He loved us.

III. THE JOY OF HELP. He knew that His own would not receive Him, yet to feel that His help was open to “ whosoever will”--that He was coming to bring pardon and deliverance and life even to the unthankful--was a joy that outwent the cold manger and the homeless wanderings and the spiteful conspiracies and the bitter Cross--the intense joy of helping the helpless.

IV. THE JOY OF VICTORY. He knew how He should meet the unconquered foe, Death, and by yielding awhile before him, turn and rout him all the more gloriously. He knew that for those sinners whom He so dearly loved, there would henceforth be but a crippled foe to be bruised under their feet shortly; and the chains of bondage struck off, that henceforth we should not be slaves to sin. He foresaw all this, and He heard by anticipation the notes, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates,” and the still more distant ones, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ,” and He girded Himself for the struggle as already a conqueror. (John Kempthorne, M. A.)

The Commander’s conflict and triumph

I. FIRST, THE COMMANDER’S CONFLICT: “Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame.” Now, there are three points about our Lord’s work set forth in thence three clauses, all of them somewhat unlike the ordinary tone in which it is spoken of. We have the motive of His sufferings presented as being an unseen reward for Himself, which He brought vividly before Him by the exercise of His faith. We have His sufferings presented, not in reference to their saving power, but solely as being an illustration of His heroic patient endurance. And we have the contumely and shame of His death presented, not as showing to us His willing self-abasement and His loving lowliness, but as revealing to us the scorn with which He looked upon all hindrances that would bar His path and shake His resolute will.

II. THE COMMANDER’S TRIUMPH, AND OUR SHARE IN IT. “Who is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” That “sitting” expresses rest, as from a finished and perfect work; a rest which is not inactivity; dominion extending over all the universe, and judgment. These three, rest, dominion, judgment, are the prerogatives of the Man Jesus. That is what He won by His bloody passion and sacrifice. And now what has that to do with us? We are to think of this triumph of the Commander as being, first of all, a revelation and a prophecy for us. A revelation and a prophecy. Nobody knows anything about the future life except by means of Jesus Christ. In His exaltation to the throne a new hope dawns on humanity. If we believe that the Man Jesus sits on the throne of the universe, we have a new conception of what is possible for humanity. If a perfect human nature has entered into the participation of the Divine, our natures too may be perfect, and what He is and where He is, there, too, we may hope to come. And, still further, Christ’s triumphal entrance into the heavens is not only prophecy of ours, but it is power to fulfil its own prophecy. He has gone up on high, sitting at the right hand of the throne of God to work for us. His work is not done. He works for us, with us, and in us, as Lord of providence and King of grace, sustaining and upholding us in all our weakness, and tending the smoky flame of our dim faith till it bursts into clear radiance. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The joy of Jesus:

Everything exists for an end--has its place in God’s wide world, and is intended to answer some purpose, to accomplish some end. Every rational being has an object “set before” it. The creatures that are not rational live and exist for an end, but the end is not “ set before” them. The end is ever before their Creator, and Master, and Ruler; but the end is not set before them. They have not eyes to see it; they have no powers, or faculties with which to pursue it; but every rational being has an object “ set before “ it. And it is important for us very often to ask, for what end were we made? and for what end have we been redeemed? In a state of prior existence our Redeemer had, as it respects this world, an object before Him, and that object He came, as you know, into this world to pursue. In the words before us is one view of the goal to which our Saviour ran, or of the prize for which His course was pursued. It is called “the joy”--that is, the cause and the occasion of the joy, “who, for the joy that was set before Him.”

I. Let us ask, WHAT IS THIS JOY--the joy that was set before Jesus Christ? God speaks of this in the whispers of prophecy; and according to prophecy the joy set before Jesus was the joy of bruising the serpent’s head; it was the joy of gathering together a scattered people; it was the joy of imparting knowledge to the ignorant upon the highest subjects; it was the joy of forming a perfect and everlasting kingdom out of lifeless and rebel souls. God exhibits it, too, in the pictures of the Levitical dispensation. It is the joy of pardoning the guilty, and of purifying the unclean; it is the joy of elevating those who have been cast down and downtrodden; it is the joy of educating those whose nature has been bruised and crushed. Jesus, too, Himself speaks of it. He speaks of it in parable. He likens it to the joy of a shepherd when having sought the lost sheep he has found it; and to the joy of a woman, who having missed treasure discovers it again; and to the joy of the father of a prodigal who is permitted to receive that prodigal in true penitence back again to his heart and to his home.

1. It was the blessedness of redeemed men. And what is their joy? It is the joy of coming out of darkness into light; it is the joy of passing from death, and from a death of which they are conscious, into life; it is the joy of coming out of wretched ignorance into sure and certain knowledge; it is the joy of rising from a state of distrust into a condition of confidence and faith; it is the joy of being converted from enmity, and alienation, and indifference towards God, into filial love.

2. The joy which redeemed men may diffuse, as well as the joy which they inherit. “Ye are the salt of the earth,” said Christ, and “Ye are the light of the world.” God alone can tell the blessedness which one redeemed man may be the means of communicating into others. How many tears may the hand of a true Christian wipe away?

3. The joy which the redemption of every sinner gives to the unfallen creation of God.

4. The joy of Jesus was the joy of God Himself in the salvation of the lost.

5. The joy set before Jesus was the joy which must be awakened in Jesus as the means of diffusing and spreading so much blessedness. “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” His joy was the joy too of being recognised as the great Joy Giver to a number of men which no man can number; and the joy of working out, even to its consummation, the greatest and most glorious work of Jehovah.

II. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JOY OF JESUS. It is the joy of love--not the joy of the miser; not the joy of the spendthrift; not the joy of the lover of sinful pleasure; not the joy of the unlawfully ambitious--it is the joy of the benefactor, it is the joy of the mother; and while it is the joy of love, it is the joy of that extraordinary variety of love which inspired men call grace--the strongest form, the most beauteous form, the divinest form. It is the joy of holiness, too, and of perfect goodness.

III. Let me remind you THAT SUCH BLESSEDNESS IS WON FOR YOU. The foundation of joy Jesus has laid; will you build upon it? or will you neglect the foundation? Will you neglect to build upon the foundation which this Jesus has laid for you? If you thus neglect to build, see, you are reflecting upon Him. You are bringing clouds upon His wisdom, His love, on His power. Or you are reflecting upon the foundation? You treat the foundation as though it were either unnecessary, or as though it were not worthy of your building upon it. What blessedness may be enjoyed by you and what blessedness may be spread by you! You can spread Divine joy--will you? Will you make the joy of others your goal? Archbishop Leighton has said somewhere, “It is a strange folly in multitudes of us to set ourselves no mark, to propound no end in the hearing of the gospel. The merchant sails, not merely that he may sail, but for traffic; and he traffics, not simply for traffic, but that he may be rich. The husbandman ploughs, not merely to keep himself busy, and with no further end, but ploughs that he may sow; and he sows, not for sowing sake, but sows that he may reap, and reap with advantage. And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful work fruitlessly--hear only to hear, and look no further? This is indeed a great vanity and a great misery, to lose the labour and gain nothing by that which duly used would be of all others most advantageous and gainful; and yet,” he says, “all meetings for religious purposes are full of this.” Well, now, we have heard in a few brief words a little of the joy which Christ set before Himself--and I ask, have we all a mark? Have we an end? Is my life and yours a race with a goal, and a prize and a judge, and a cloud of witnesses? Is it so? Is there a joy set before us? If there be a joy set before us, who has set it before us? And what is it? If your joy be Christ’s joy, and you make it your goal, and your prize, and if you run your race with patience, the day will soon come when you shall find yourselves not worn and weary on the course, but sweetly resting at the goal; and the day, too, will come when your feeble hands shall grasp the prize--your hands stretched out by the impulse of a heart filled with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. (S. Martin.)

Christ’s prospective joy:

Just as the sculptor, before he begins to chip the marble into shape, sees with his mind’s eye the figure which is first conceived by his genius and then fashioned by his skill--so with our Divine Redeemer. He from eternity, before man was created, beheld him coming into being, placed on his own footing, falling, redeemed, saved. And, as the result of His atoning work, there rises up, through His Spirit, the fulfilment of His own ideal, a new creation, a living Church. (C. Clemance. D. D.)

Christ’s joy varied as the relationship He sustains to men

May we not safely say that the joy will be as varied as the relationship which our Saviour bears to us? It will be the joy of the Sufferer whose agony is forgotten in the abundance of bliss--the joy of the Sower in reaping the abundance of the harvest--the joy of the Shepherd in seeing all the sheep as one flock, safe for ever in the heavenly fold--the joy of the Friend in seeing all His friends by His side in a union with Him and with each other that no misapprehension shall ever mar, and no sin shall ever stain--it will be the joy of the Warrior when the battle is over, when every enemy is still as a stone, and the summons to fight is exchanged for victorious rest--it will be the joy of the Leader, who has brought all His host into the promised land--it will be the joy of the Mediator, who has discharged His trust and surrendered it to the Father, saying “Of those whom Thou hast given Me I have lost none”--it will be the joy of the King who is to reign for ever over a kingdom in which revolt has been made impossible through the achievements of almighty grace--it will be the joy of the Redeemer when the redemption is complete, fulfilling His longings and His prayers--it will be the joy of the Firstborn Son at seeing every member of the new-born family safe in a happy home, which no sin can disturb and no death invade--it will be the joy of the Son of Man in witnessing the ideal of human perfection--it will be the joy of the Son of God, as to principalities and powers in heavenly places He reveals through a glorified Church the manifold wisdom of God, showing to worlds on worlds what infinite love devised and Infinite Power achieved! (C. Clemance. D. D.)

Endured the Cross

The Cross carried, and the shame despised by Jesus

I. WHAT WAS THE CROSS WHICH JESUS CHRIST ENDURED? Was not the whole life of Jesus cross-bearing from the beginning to the end? But there were three things which may emphatically be called the Cross of Christ.

1. His being made sin for us. God did not make Jesus sinful; but God treated Jesus Christ as though He were a sinner. Herein was a Cross.

2. Jesus was wounded by God for transgression, and bruised for iniquity.

3. Jesus Christ’s dying as a notorious malefactor, and thus dying for the ungodly was another part of His Cross.

II. WHAT WAS THE SHAME WHICH HE DESPISED? This was disgrace, reproach, with the passions and emotions which they are supposed to awaken, and which in all purity and power they did awaken in the human nature of your Saviour.

III. BUT WHAT WAS THE MANNER AND SPIRIT OF HIS ENDURANCE AND OF HIS CONTEMPT? For this chiefly is the point. Observe, He endured the Cross. He felt the Cross to be a Cross. He felt it as a man. Do not overlook the complete humanity of your Redeemer. He felt His Cross more than we could have felt it could we have carried it. Sinfulness blunts the susceptibilities of our nature: purity and holiness keep the pores of the spirit open. This was the case with Christ. He endured the Cross in its full weight. He looked at the Cross as it was presented to Him, and He lifted it, and sustained on His own shoulder its full weight; and I would say to you if you want to get any good out of cross-bearing, always let the full weight of it come upon your shoulder. I do not say let the full weight of it come upon your shoulder, you being unstrengthened by the Almighty power; but I say, use no artifice to escape the pressure of any trouble that God sends you. When God sends a trouble to you, let it come down upon you as He sends it, and employ no artifices to reduce its pressure. Jesus endured the Cross in its full weight, and he endured the Cross to the very end. He took it up, and to the close of life He carried it; but He endured it courageously, patiently, cheerfully, and effectually. “Despising the shame.” Jesus felt the shame. Did His cheek never redden, think you, or His lip never quiver when reviled? Was there no blush upon His cheek when men called Him a Sabbath-breaker, and a blasphemer, and said that He cast out devils by the prince of devils? Often, doubtless, did that cheek redden and that lip quiver, tie felt the shame: and, mark, to despise being despised is about the hardest thing in life. Why do you find some sincere Christians continuing in certain ecclesiastical connections into which their convictions would never lead them, and in which their convictions do not keep them? Because they cannot despise being despised. You may account for the anomalous position of hundreds of Christ’s disciples by this very circumstance--they have not learned, even from the Great Teacher of this hard lesson, to despise the shame; they have not learned to despise being despised. The shame was never seen to hinder Christ from saying a true word, or from doing a right thing. Now all this is the more remarkable because of three circumstances. First, Christ’s clear foresight of the Cross and of the shame. He saw both before Him, yet He yielded Himself to endure them. Secondly, His full appreciation of the Cross and the shame. And, thirdly, His deep and quick sensitiveness towards all cross-bearing and towards all shame. Now, bearing these things in mind, Christ’s enduring the Cross and despising the shame becomes exceedingly wonderful as they appear in our Saviour’s life. Having expounded the text, let us use the truths it contains for practical purposes. Observe, then, that this text exhibits something done in which you may find rest and peace. Jesus has endured the Cross; Jesus has despised the shame. Your cross which you could not endure He has endured; the shame which you never could have borne, and which would have overwhelmed you, He so bore as to despise it. And He asks you to believe this, and to act accordingly. He would not have you go about carrying the cross, say, of your own guilt. You are not to carry that cross. You have your cross to carry, but this is not yours. But, further, the text suggests that there is something yet to be done--a very different thing from the something done; but still there is something to be done. Every man is called to carry a cross, but not every man the same cross; nor is every shoulder equally sensitive or equally strong. Troubles vary, and the pressure of the same troubles is different upon different individuals-and you know why. The reason is to be found in temperament, in disposition, in the state of the body, in the condition of the spirit, in the character, in the pursuits, and in the circumstances of a man. But we all have our cross and our shame; and I have now to ask you, do we endure the cross? Do we despise the shame? (S. Martin.)

The Saviour’s endurance and joy:

There are two ways in which the history of Bible saints ought to stimulate our faith and courage. This purpose they serve when presented to our minds as examples. They prove that the truths which the Bible teaches are not airy fancies or musty theories, which cannot be reduced into practice, and shrink from the fiery tests of every-day life. The force of example is a thought which long ago has been coined into a proverb. The ancient Romans were accustomed to place the busts of famous ancestors in the vestibules of their houses, in order to remind young people, as they passed to and fro, of the noble deeds of those ancestors, and fire them with the laudable ambition to excel in wisdom, goodness, and valour. The life of a hero has been known to colour the spirit of an age. The life of Napoleon Buonaparte has kindled the love of military glory in many a youthful heart; the touching story of Howard’s labours has moved many a man to deeds of charity and kindness.

I. CONSIDER THE SEVERE ORDEAL, THROUGH WHICH HE PASSED. The atoning sorrows of Christ came from several sources or directions.

1. Strange as it may appear, much of the pain and grief came from human malice and opposition. I say strange, for one would have concluded that all the sympathy and help of men would most certainly be enlisted on His side, as soon as they were told that to save their souls was His gracious object.

2. Another element in the sufferings of Jesus was the malicious opposition of the devil and his angels. As a Divine Being, of course these rebellious creatures were subject to His power and could do Him no harm. But in condescending to assume human nature, and undertaking to work out the plan of salvation, Christ voluntarily exposed Himself to the power of these malignant spirits.

3. But the chief source of the Redeemer’s suffering was the wrath of His Father. As the fire which consumed the sacrifices laid upon Jewish altars came down from heaven, so the holy fire that consumed the sacrifice offered upon the altar of Calvary descended from God the Father. But although the Father’s wrath was not vindictive in its nature, and rested not on personal but public grounds, it pressed with fearful weight upon the Saviour. With the smile of His Father shining into His soul, and lighting up therein an abiding summer, Christ could have braved any trial to which He might be summoned without a moan or murmur. But why those shrinkings in Gethsemane from the task that was assigned Him? “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” That cup contained ingredients so bitter that none but God could have compounded them.

II. CONSIDER, AGAIN, THE SPIRIT HE DISPLAYED. It is true He did not covet suffering. He made no virtue of endurance. His courage was apparent through the whole course of His public life, but not with such a splendour of manifestation as in His dying hour. Some plants when pressed display more of their colours, and diffuse more of their fragrance. The diamond when broken into splinters glitters all the more; and despite the dishonours that gather so thickly around the Cross of Emmanuel, the lustre of His courage burst through the gloom, and shone with unwonted power. And if you seek the highest pattern of serene patience and fortitude, it is to the sufferer that hangs on the Cross of Calvary we point you.

III. CONSIDER, AGAIN, THE MOTIVE WHICH SUSTAINED HIM. “Who for the joy that was set before Him.” (J. H. Morgan)

Despising the shame

The shameful Sufferer

I. THE SHAMEFUL SUFFERER. The text speaks of shame, and therefore before entering upon suffering, I shall endeavour to say a word or two upon the shame. Perhaps there is nothing which men so much abhor as shame. We find that death itself has often been preferable in the minds of men to shame; and even the most wicked and callous-hearted have dreaded the shame and contempt of their fellow-creatures far more than any tortures to which they could have been exposed. It is well known that criminals and malefactors have often had a greater fear of public contempt than of aught else. In the Saviour’s case, shame would be peculiarly shameful; the nobler a man’s nature, the more readily does he perceive the slightest contempt, and the more acutely does he feel it. The eye that hath faced the sun cannot endure darkness without a tear. But Christ who was more than noble, matchlessly noble, something more than of a royal race, for Him to be shamed and mocked must have been dreadful indeed.

Besides, some minds are of such a delicate and sensitive disposition that they feel things far more than others. He loved with all His soul; His strong passionate heart was fixed upon the welfare of the human race; and to be mocked by those for whom He died, to be spit upon by the creatures whom He came to save, to come unto His own, and to find that His own received Him not, but actually cast Him out, this was pain indeed.

1. And behold the Saviour’s shame in His shameful accusation. He in whom was no sin, and who had done no ill, was charged with sin of the blackest kind. He was first arraigned before the Sanhedrim on no less a charge than that of blasphemy. Could He blaspheme? No. And it is just because it was so contrary to His character that He felt the accusation. Nor did this content them. Having charged Him with breaking the first table, they then charged Him with violating the second: they said He was guilty of sedition; they declared that He was a traitor to the government of Caesar, that He stirred up the people, declaring that He Himself was a king. What would you think, good citizens and good Christians, if you were charged with such a crime as this? Ah! but your Master had to endure this as well as the other. He despised the shameful indictments, and was numbered with the transgressors.

2. Christ not only endured shameful accusation, but He endured shameful mocking. When Christ was taken away to Herod, Herod set Him at nought. The original word signifies “made nothing” of Him. It is an amazing thing to find that man should make nothing of the Son of God, who is all in all.

3. He endured a shameful death. But this is the death of a villain, of a murderer, of an assassin--a death painfully protracted, one which cannot be equalled in all inventions of human cruelty for suffering and ignominy. Christ Himself endured this. Remember, too, that in the Saviour’s case there were special aggravations of this shame. He had to carry His own Cross; He was crucified, too, at the common place of execution, Calvary, analogous to our ancient Tyburn, or our present Old Bailey. He was put to death, too, at a time when Jerusalem was full of people. It was at the feast of the passover, when the crowd had greatly increased, and when the representatives of all nations would be present to behold the spectacle. Was ever shame like this?

II. His GLORIOUS MOTIVE. What was that which made Jesus speak like this?--“For the joy that was set before Him.”

III. I WILL TRY AND HOLD THE SAVIOUR UP FOR OUR IMITATION. Christian men! if Christ endured all this merely for the joy of saving you, will you be ashamed of bearing anything for Christ? Are there any of you who feel that if you follow Christ you must lose by it--lose your station, or lose your reputation? Will you be laughed at if you leave the world and follow Jesus? Oh! and will you turn aside because of these little things, when He would not turn aside, though all the world mocked Him, till He could say, “It is finished.” (C. H. Surgeon.)

Despise the shame!

Learn the practical wisdom of minimising the hindrances to your Christian career, pulling them down to their true smallness. Do not let them come to you and impose upon you with the notion that they are big and formidable. The most of them are only white sheets, and a rustic boor behind them, like a vulgar ghost. You go up to them and they will be small immediately! “Despise the shame! and it disappears.” And how is that to be done? In two ways. Go up the mountain, and the things in the plain will look very small; the higher you rise the more insignificant they will seem. Hold fellowship with God, and live up beside your Master, and the threatening foes here will seem very, very unformidable. Another way is--pull up the curtain, and gaze on what is behind it. The low foot-hills that lie at the base of some Alpine country may look high when seen from the plain, as long as the snowy summits are wrapped in mist, but when a little puff of wind comes and clears away the fog from the lofty peaks, nobody looks at the little green hills in front. So the world’s hindrances, and the world’s difficulties and cares, they look very lofty till the cloud lifts. And when we see the great white summits, everything lower does not seem so very high after all. Look to Jesus, and that will dwarf the difficulties. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Is set down on the right hand

Jesus enthroned

I. Let us look at the fact here presented to us--or at THE POSITION ASSIGNED TO JESUS CHRIST. He is said to be seated “at the right hand of the throne of God.” A place at the right hand of any person in authority and power is employed by the Sacred Writers to represent a position of high honour. It may be that you have a tendency to look chiefly to the Cross of Christ. Yon may be yourselves the children of sorrow, and often in affliction. Your own cross may be exceedingly heavy; it may tremendously oppress you; and your temperament and your natural disposition combining with your circumstances may lead you to look chiefly at the Cross of Christ. Believe that your Lord died and was buried; but do not keep your eyes fixed on the Cross and on the sepulchre, for He is not now on that Cross; He is not now in that sepulchre. And you in your thoughts of Christ, and in your feelings about Christ, are not to be merely crucified with Him, and dead with Him, but you must be risen with Christ, your affections being fixed on Christ as above. He dwells in the midst of the highest manifestations of Deity. He is worshipped in heaven with God--as God. His name is associated as no other name with that of Jehovah.He has Divine authority; and He has also Almighty power. Although distinct from Jehovah, He is and He appears to be one with Jehovah--one as an object of reverence, of fear, and of love--one in His administration of universal government. Thus is He seated “at the right hand of the throne of God.”

II. NOW SEE THE USE WHICH WE CHRISTIANS ARE TO MAKE OF THE KNOWLEDGE THAT JESUS IS IN THIS POSITION.

1. Here is a fountain of joy from which Christians may drink sacred pleasure. Jesus is set down at the right hand of the throne of God--then His work of atonement is finished; then His sacrifice is accepted; then His humiliation is terminated; then His sorrows are for ever fled away. We joy in this for His own sake. The Cross of Christ was a real cross to Him. When He is said to suffer, He did suffer. His soul was really troubled, and His spirit was exceedingly sorrowful. And now that He wears a crown, He feels to wear a Crown. But we may joy in this also for the Church’s sake--for just as Jesus carried the Cross to bless the Church, so does He wearthe crown to bless the Church. And we may joy in the coronation of Jesus for the sake of our individual well-being. We who trust our Saviour have a personal connection with His Cross; and we have a personal connection with His crown. And further, we may joy in this fact for the world’s sake. He has ascended on high and received gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell among them.

2. But here, too, is a motive to patience, and much help in cherishing patience. The course of the disciple is in some respects parallel with that of the Master. Like Christ’s, it is a fixed and definite course. And it is a course in which there are many hindrances to be laid aside and sorrows to be borne. But it is a course to which there is an appointed goal, and a course in which the goal as a rule may be seen. It is a course, further, which makes large demands upon patience. Hence the injunction “ to run with patience the race which is set before us.” But now, just see how the position of Jesus bears upon the cultivation of patience. Jesus is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Once He was running His race on this earth: now He is “set down.” Now He has no need of patience--He is sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. And if you run, if you wait, if you be patient, you will one day sit down with Him on His throne, even as He is seated on His Father’s throne.

3. And there is just one other thought which we would suggest to you. No forerunners helped Jesus--not one. He had not a being to look to who had run in any respect a similar course, and reached His goal--not one. There was the Father above Him, but the Father had not become man. He had not been a man of sorrows. There we angels ministering to Him, but no angels in the skies had attempted to do what Jesus had come to do. (S. Martin.)

Consider Him that endured such contradiction

Christ’s afflictions a lesson for His people:

All heaven considers or looks at Christ.

The angels look at Him with reverence and adoring wonder, as their Lord and King. All hell considers or looks at Christ. The devils look at Him with terror and alarm, as their Judge and the Author of their punishment. But neither heaven nor hell can get such precious views of Christ as can those whom Christ came to redeem. They consider Him as the Lawgiver who shows the path of duty, as the Redeemer who shows the way of life. They consider Him as the Physician who heals their spiritual diseases, as the Pattern after which they are themselves to copy. They consider Him who endured the contradiction of sinners, in order that they may be not wearied, nor faint in their minds. The flowers that bloom upon a thousand hills, in more than royal stateliness, are rich in fragrant moisture; but it is not every gaudy insect that can extract the honey they yield. So, Christ, however rich and precious He be to those who know Him, is rich and precious to them alone. The ungodly get nothing by their contemplation of Him, except, indeed, a greater aversion ever to contemplate Him again. Believers are always benefited by this exercise. They are made better, wiser, holier, happier, by it. Looking unto Jesus is the attitude of spiritual health, the posture of spiritual activity, the habit of spiritual enjoyment: it is a blessed exercise--it strengthens the soul, it animates the heart, it enlivens the whole frame of the inner man. And while it is beneficial to all who engage heartily in it, be their circumstances what they may, it is peculiarly beneficial to all those who are in distress or perplexity. The contemplation of Him who suffered the contradiction of sinners hinders the mind from becoming weary and faint.

I. LOOK AT THE PICTURE WHICH THE APOSTLE HERE EXHIBITS. It is the picture of Him who endured such contradiction of sinners. It is the picture of a mighty Being, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It represents Him, however, as man. It represents Him as suffering contradiction, that is, animosity, hatred, and persecution. It represents Him as suffering all this from sinners. It represents the suffering as being in every respect intense, aggravated, and indescribable. Let us seek to fill our minds with a sense of what He underwent.

1. The sufferings of Christ were Divinely appointed and tremendously severe. They were not the mere natural evils which are shed upon us, all in consequence of Adam’s disobedience. They were singular, peculiar, and transcendental. They had no like, no parallel. They were infinite sufferings.

2. The subject of Christ’s suffering is deserving of consideration because, had He chosen, He could have avoided them. But He did not so choose. He did not spare Himself. He gave Himself up to death for us all.

3. Again, in estimating the contradiction of sinners endured by Christ, let us remember that He was, through out the whole of it, actuated by disinterested motives.

4. Once more, Jesus did not deserve the punishment that was inflicted upon Him.

5. Lastly, the nature of Christ’s endurance will be still more strikingly manifested when it is recollected that it was borne for the sake of those who inflicted it.

II. Let us now speak of THE LESSONS CONVEYED BY THE PICTURE on which we have been meditating.

1. By looking to the afflictions of Christ we derive materials for encouragement, because we could not of ourselves do what Christ has done for us. We may endure contradiction of sinners, as Christ Himself did; but ours will never be such contradiction as His.

2. Again, by looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because we should not expect to be treated better than He Himself was.

3. By looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because, as our great Model and Exemplar, He has exhibited to us a specimen of patient endurance and submission under the most dreadful inflictions.

4. By looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because we find that, as our great High Priest and Redeemer, He is able to sympathise with us in all our afflictions.

5. Lastly, by looking to the tribulations of Christ we derive materials of encouragement, because, as He triumphed over all His enemies, so shall we if we be partakers of His salvation. Christians are one with their Redeemer. (Alex. Nisbet.)

The endurance of Christ

The contemplation of Christ’s sufferings may, or may not, be spiritually beneficial to us. It is possible to occupy our attention with the physical side of the Passion to the exclusion of the moral and spiritual, and to think almost exclusively of the sufferings and scarcely at all of the Sufferer. Such contemplation may work upon our feelings much in the same way as thrilling incidents in a powerful work of fiction, and create a spurious sympathy with the Sufferer which cannot produce the effect which the passion of our Lord ought to have upon our lives. The remedy is to be found mainly in “considering Him that endured”--in keeping before us the personality of the Sufferer. But we shall only rightly consider the Sufferer Himself when we keep in mind the purpose He had in His endurance. He suffers for sinners, as well as from sinners; and He suffers for the direct purpose of removing the contradiction which He endures--to take away sins. And all profitable contemplation of the sufferings of Christ ought to have in it the desire and willingness to have its purpose fulfilled in us. In considering Him we must keep in mind His faultlessness; the entire absence of any justification for the contradiction. He was not only faultless, but good. Although graced with the perfect qualities of human virtue, and rich in the beneficent works of goodness, He endured the contradiction of sinners. Remember, too, that within, and perfectly conjoined to, that holy humanity, was all the fulness of God. In every act of endurance there is the manhood which endures as human, and there is the deeper endurance of God underlying it all. The word “contradiction” is here used to include the whole of the opposition which our Lord experienced from sinners. The Cross was only the climax of a long and varied course of antagonism out of which it sprung, without which it would not have been reached, and by which alone it can be understood and duly estimated. The first contradiction Christ endured was in the unbelief which met Him. He was the True One and the Truth; but they affirmed Him either deceived or a deceiver--utterly untrustworthy. But this contradiction advanced to open condemnation. He was said to be “a gluttonous man,” &c. They said His power over evil spirits was due to a league between Himself and the prince of the devils. They charged Him with being the enemy of God and man, a blasphemer and an evildoer. Remember who it was against whom all these false and bitter things were spoken. Consider Him, and see His brave endurance. And there was an element in all this contradiction which added to its painfulness. It was not the result, in general, of a mistake, which could be excused by the Sufferer. It had its root in personal hate (John 15:24). And He knew the cause ofthat hate. It came out of a conscious moral antipathy. His pure, holy, humble, unselfish life made them conscious of the unreality and hollowness of their assumed excellence. And He endured this hate--He who combined in His own person all that is gracious in God and lovable in man. This antagonism and hate could not fail to proceed to acts of violence if occasion should arise. “They took up stones to stone Him”; and, think you, was it not as if He felt the blows of hardness of heart hurled at Him as He preserved Himself from this attempt upon His life? To Christ the spiritual was not less real than the physical; and in every infliction of suffering and wrong upon Him by the hands of wicked men He felt the spirit of the acts--the sin of the world--going right down deep into His soul. Yes, thepainful pressure of the crown of thorns, the piercing of nails and the anguish of the body, were means through which He bore in Himself the contradiction of sinners and of sin. One point more: This endurance of the contradiction of sinners was out of consideration to them. He might have saved Himself, and have made them to feel His contradiction against themselves. But He suffered Himself, instead of making them to suffer. His consideration for them was grounded in love--love to them and to us. In love He endured seeing them the opposite of that which He could love; endured receiving from them the reverse of what He had a right to expect, the opposite of that which His coming had made possible. If He could have hated and despised those who contradicted Him, it would have been less painful to His spirit to endure the contradiction. But the more He loved us, the more bitter became every experience, the more pointed and painful every act of wrong. “Consider Him who endured,” etc., and consider Him, with this fact in mind, that in thus enduring He was exhibiting and putting forth His gracious power to save us from sinning against Him. The purpose of His Cross is to reconcile us and all things to Himself; to bring us to harmony of mind and life with Him; to destroy our contradiction by enduring it. (R. Vaughan, M. A.)

The great source of courage:

“Consider Him.” Learn to look up. It is an exercise in which we have to be trained and drilled until we have mastered it. Unbelief gives a man a crick in the neck so that he cannot look up. But faith, like the eagle, sets her eyes on the sun and soars away until earth is lost in the mists below, and she lights on the highest mount of God. If we would have a life of singing and triumphant courage, we must get into this habit--the heavenly habit of considering Jesus. “Consider Him.” This is everything. In the Christian life Christ Himself is the Source and Strength of all. A man is a Christian exactly as he receives Christ into his thought, and heart, and life. And this is the order, through the thought into the heart and thence into the life. Therefore consider Christ--gather the thoughts in from other things, and set them upon Christ. In everything that we would get hold of thoroughly we must give our minds to it, as we say. And this means give your mind to Christ. Christ is to us what we will let Him be. If I will let Him into my life, He will fill it with light and blessedness, as the sun fills the heavens. “Consider Him”--not the truth about Him. Lectures on botany are poor things to put in place of flowers. Sermons and teachings about Christ are poor things indeed to put in place of Him. It is more than ever needful in times like these, when life is such a rush and whirl, that we make room and leisure in our lives to cultivate this art of considering Christ. Alas! what hurried and passing glimpses of out” great Master do content us! There is a bit of the country--than which, I think, there is nothing more lovely in all England--that I have often passed through in the railway carriage; eagerly I have looked out of the window, over the deep valleys, woods overhanging woods, going down to misty depths, and away to the moorland, stretching up to the rugged heights; then suddenly a bank of earth has blotted it all out; a narrow cutting has hemmed us in--and then the tunnel darkness. Out again and across some viaduct; looking down on the clear stream amidst the boulders below, another glance of the hills, and then a new obstruction. And some people call that “ seeing the country.” How much can one consider it amid such vexatious glimpses? But some fine day I have left the railway station and stepped out on to the moor, and in a few moments have stood amidst its stillness, the great unbroken stretch of earth and sky, the music of some little brook and the plover’s call not breaking the silence, only heightening it. Then I have gone up on to the granite height, and there under the blue heaven I have looked away, away on every side, over the miles of country, catching here and there the faint, silvery line of the sea. Then and then only I saw it--thus I could consider it. We must get away alone up into the mount of the Lord if we would consider Him. The busier you are the more you need it: this thinking about Him until He comes to reveal Himself. With many bow would half an hour of such considering transform the life I He, my Lord and Captain, my Friend and Helper, my Deliverer and my God. (M. G. Pearse.)

Suffering and glory:

No pain, no palm; no thorn, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. (Wm. Penn.)

Consider Him:

Our troubles are but as the slivers and chips of His Cross. (J. Trapp.)

Christ with us in trial:

One thing which contributed to make Caesar’s soldiers invincible was their seeing him always take his share in danger, and never desire any exemption from labour and fatigue. We have a far higher incentive in the war for truth and goodness when we consider Him wire endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Considering Christ in persecution

Li Cha Mi, a Chinese preacher, was nearly killed by robbers during the excitement against foreigners, in 1872. At a subsequent conference, he said; “You have all heard of my sufferings during the past few months. I wish to say that these sufferings were very slight. It was easy to endure pain when I could feel that I bore it for Christ. It is wonderful--I cannot explain it. When attacked by the robbers, and beaten almost to death, I felt no pain. Their blows did not seem to hurt me at all. Everything was bright and glorious. Heaven seemed to open, and I thought I saw Jesus waiting to receive me. It was beautiful. I have no words to describe it. Since that time I seem to be a new man. I now know what it is to ‘love not the world.’ My affections are set on things above. Persecutions trouble me not. I forget all my sorrows when I think of Jesus.
I call nothing on earth my own. I find that times of trial are best for me. When all is quiet and prosperous, I grow careless and yield to temptation, but when persecutions come, then I fly to Christ. The fiercer the trial, the better it is for my soul.” (The Christian.)

Lest ye be wearied

Spiritual weariness

I. THERE IS A CONFLICT WHICH STILL DEMANDS OUR FAITH AND PATIENCE, The great purpose of life should be to attain the highest excellent of which our nature is susceptible. This involves difficulties.

II. WE ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING HEART, AND GROWING WEARY IN THIS CONFLICT. Perhaps we may hardly wonder at this, if we think of the nature of the conflict itself, its continuousness, its unintermittent character. This result ensues, too, from the providential trials under which we are sometimes called to carry on the conflict. This danger also arises from the perpetual vigilance and resistance which are required to be exercised against custom, against kindness, against the slumbrous atmosphere in which we live.

III. THIS WEARINESS AND FAILURE OF SPIRITUAL DETERMINATION IS AN EVIL WHICH OUGHT TO BE STRENUOUSLY RESISTED. Weariness and exhaustion are fatal to real enjoyment. They are equally fatal to work. When worn down by fatigue, you have neither strength nor spirit for work. Moreover, there must be much danger in this state of weariness and exhaustion.

IV. THE REST MEANS OF AVOIDING THIS WEARINESS AND SPIRITUAL EXHAUSTION IS STEADILY TO CONTEMPLATE JESUS. Look upon Him in such a way as to call out comparison with),ourselves, and it will encourage you, and enable you to rise above this exhaustion and fear.

1. The greatness and nobleness of the Sufferer!

2. Consider the poignancy and the severity of His suffering.

3. Consider the innocency of the Sufferer.

4. Consider the spirit in which Jesus suffered. (J. C. Harrison.)

Discouragements in the Christian life

I. MANY PERSONS ARE DISCOURAGED AT THE GREAT DIFFERENCE WHICH THEY EXPERIENCE IN THEIR FEELINGS, WHEN THEY RECEIVE INSTRUCTION FROM THE MINISTRATION OF OTHER PEOPLE’S MINDS, AND WHEN THEY ARE OBLIGED TO FURNISH THEMSELVES WITH THE TRUTH WHICH IS REQUIRED FOR THEIR DAILY CHRISTIAN LIFE.

II. MANY ARE LIABLE TO BECOME WEARIED AND FAINT FROM POSITIVE REACTION, FROM DEPRESSION ARISING FROM EXHAUSTION.

III. PERSONS OF A TIMID NATURE, WHOSE RELIGIOUS LIFE HAS, EITHER BY EDUCATION OR FROM SOMETHING IN THEMSELVES, TURNED UPON CONSCIENCE, OR IN WHOM THEIR RELIGIOUS LIFE IS OF THE TYPE OF CONSCIENCE RATHER THAN OF LOVE, OR TRUST, OR HOPE, ARE PECULIARLY LIABLE TO DISCOURAGEMENT AND WEARINESS.

IV. GREAT DISCOURAGEMENT BEFALLS MEN WHO HAVE A RELIGION WITHOUT ANY SOCIAL ELEMENT TO CORROBORATE IT.

V. MANY PERSONS ARE BROUGHT INTO GREAT DISCOURAGEMENT AND UNCERTAINTY AS TO WHAT THEY SHALL DO, BECAUSE THEY HAVE MISTAKEN THE FULL PURPORT OF RELIGION.

VI. THE NEGLECT TO CONSOLIDATE RELIGIOUS FEELINGS INTO HABITS IS FREQUENTLY AN OCCASION OF DISCOURAGEMENT, BECAUSE IT LEAVES MEN SUBJECT TO ALL THE FLUCTUATIONS OF FEELING.

VII. MANY ARE CONVICTED OF SIN LESS DEEPLY AT THE BEGINNING OF THEIR CHRISTIAN LIFE THAN LONG AFTER CONVERSION; AND THIS NOT ONLY ALARMS, BUT SERIOUSLY DISCOURAGES THEM. (H. W. Beecher.)

Spiritual weariness and its antidote

I. THE LIABILITY OF CHRISTIANS TO SPIRITUAL WEARINESS. Arising from

1. The little advancement we seem to make in spiritual excellence.

2. The little good we seem to accomplish in all our efforts to serve our fellows.

3. The little difference which Providence in its dispensation makes between us and those who are the enemies of Christ.

4. The little influence which our best efforts seem to have in correcting the evils of our age.

II. THE ANTIDOTE OF CHRISTIANS TO SPIRITUAL WEARINESS. Reflection on Christ will renew our energies, reinvigorate the soul.

1. Consider what He endured. “The contradiction of sinners.”

2. Consider how He endured (1 Peter 2:23).

3. Consider why He endured. For His enemies. (Homilist.)

Liability of saints to faint-heartedness

It was stated some time ago, that a man had discovered an invention for making a form of crystallised carbon, which to all intents and purposes was a diamond; but his invention was useless, because of the difficulty and expense in getting any vessel strong enough to bear the intense heat to which it must be subjected during the process. And so with some of God’s saints, they faint beneath the trial, and the saintly virtue is not formed within their characters, because they have lost the power of endurance. (Canon Newbolt.)

Not yet resisted unto blood

The law of Christ’s service

I. THE LAW OF CHRIST’S SERVICE. Resistance unto blood.

1. This law is not an arbitrary enactment. It is because the strife is against sin, and sin is an evil so terrible and tremendous that we are to resist unto blood.

2. Christianity is distinguished by its estimate of sin: the character it gives to sin. The darkest death man can die is preferable to sin’s power and penalty.

II. THE MOTIVE TO OBEDIENCE. Christ’s own example. The argument is, Others before you, and, specifically, Christ Himself, have obeyed this law, fulfilled it in their blood, “Ye have not yet.”

1. The law of Christ’s service is a law obeyed in lower spheres of action. Love of freedom, love of country, love of friends, have proved stronger often than love of life. The Roman soldier swore to keep his eagles to the last drop of his blood, and history shows how nobly the oath was kept. Almost every year our hearts are thrilled by the story of men of our own name who have held honour and duty more sacred and precious than life and home.

2. The law of Christ’s service has been obeyed by the good and noble of all ages.

3. Chief of all, the law of Christ’s service is a law obeyed by Christ Himself. (W. Perkins.)

Resisting unto blood

I. SIN IS IN THE WORLD AS THE GREAT ANTAGONIST OF MANKIND. It is opposed to intelligence, to freedom, to progress, to peace--personal, domestic, social, national, and universal. It is the inspiration of all our foes, the virus in all our sufferings, the fountain of all our sorrows, the burden of all our oppressions.

II. THIS GREAT ANTAGONIST DEMANDS THE MOST STRENUOUS RESISTANCE OF MANKIND.

1. Because the overcoming of this is the overcoming of all enemies.

2. Because it is only by the most strenuous human effort that it can be overcome.

3. Because our great moral Commander thus strove against sin. How much more should we!

(1) He had done nothing to contribute to the sin of the world: we have.

(2) He could not have been injured by the sin of the world. (Homilist.)

Resisting unto blood

The Tabernacle was covered over with red, to note that we must defend the truth even to the effusion of blood. If we cannot endure martyrdom (if called thereunto) and sweat a bloody sweat for Christ’s sake, we cannot be comfortably assured that we are of His body. John Leafe, a young man, burnt with Mr. Bradford, hearing his own confession, taken before the bishop, read to him, instead of a pen took a pin, and so pricking his hand, sprinkled the blood upon the said bill of his confession, willing the messenger to show the bishop that he had sealed the same bill with his blood already. (John Trapp.)

Good standard-bearers

God wants standard-bearers who are willing to make a shroud of their colours. (J. Ker, D. D.)

The worst not yet experienced

The figure is changed; the Christian is a wrestler, a pugilist, struggling, fighting against sin; and the Jewish believers are told that up till now no “blood” has been drawn; that is, the fierce severity of the conflict had yet to come. They had no right, therefore, to give way, and no excuse for exhaustion. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

Striving against sin

Striving against sin

I. THE ENEMY AGAINST WHICH BELIEVERS STRIVE--Sin. The name of it is short and easily pronounced, but who shall fully declare its dreadful nature?

1. It is an old enemy. Hence in Scripture it is styled the Old Man. It is old, for it existed in us as soon as we began to exist. But it is much older than we are. It appeared in the world almost as soon as it was created--nearly six thousand years ago. Nay, sin is older even than this, for it appeared even in heaven, and ruined myriads of celestial intelligences. It is no new upstart power, then, that believers have to strive against, but a veteran foe long inured to the warfare, and possessing the accumulated experience of innumerable ages.

2. Sin is an enemy that is always near. When driven, as it is in the case of every believer, from the throne of the heart, it is not entirely dislodged from the soul. It still lives and lurks in the nature of believers.

3. Sin is a crafty and deceitful enemy. Its wiles and cunning devices to seduce men, and lead them to the commission of crimes, are innumerable.

4. Sin is an active enemy. It is unwearied in its exertions to extend its influence. It pollutes all we do, and mingles with all we are. As the heart never ceases from beating, nor the blood from circulating, so sin never ceases from operating. We may sleep, but it never sleeps.

5. Sin is a powerful enemy. We read of “the body of sin,” which implies its strength and vigour. Its “motions do work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” It often bursts through the strongest resolutions set up to restrain it, as a swollen river beats down its banks and sweeps away everything before it. You may see its strength by looking at the conduct of some of those in whom it reigns. Into what awful lengths in wickedness does it carry them!

II. THE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT ON STRIFE AGAINST SIN.

1. It is universal. It is directed against all sin. It is against secret sins as well as against open--against sins of the temper as well as against those of the tongue--against sins of the heart as well as against those of the life--and chiefly against sins of the heart, because from them proceed those of the life.

2. It is often a painful conflict. In piercing sin, the believer often feels a sword pierce his own heart. Sin can never be slain in him without his experiencing to some extent its dying agonies.

3. It is a constant and persevering conflict. There is no discharge in this war. It is a war of extermination.

4. This conflict is carried on in the Saviour’s strength. In their own strength believers could never carry the strife on.

5. This conflict is maintained by prayer. “When I cry unto Thee,” said the Psalmist, “then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know, for God is with me.” “In the day that I cried unto Thee, Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.”

6. This conflict is to be carried on with constant watchfulness, Prayer without watchfulness is almost a mockery of God, since in it blessings are solicited, for the attainment of which no care is exercised.

III. SOME OF THE MEANS BY WHICH BELIEVERS SHOULD STRIVE AGAINST SIN.

1. Let them seriously think how hateful and abominable sin is to God. Abominable and offensive as outward sins are to Him, indwelling corruption must be even still more so, for it is the source whence all these proceed.

2. They should check the first motions and workings of sin in their souls. They should give no quarter to criminal thoughts, or evil desires, or unholy inclinations, but endeavour, through the strength of grace, to banish and crush them. By such constant endeavours to strike at the root, indwelling sin will be weakened and its power and strength reduced and kept under.

3. They should carefully avoid temptations to sin.

4. They should do all in their power to preserve and promote sanctified frames of mind when these are experienced.

5. They should be often engaged in prayer.

(1) This prayer must be believing prayer. “All things,” says our Lord, “which ye shall ask in prayer, believe that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have them.”

(2) Further, it must be prayer offered in the name of Christ. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name,” says Christ Jesus, “I will do it.”

(3) Again, it must be humble prayer. We must feel a deep sense of our own weakness and proneness to sin if left to ourselves, and the absolute necessity of grace and strength to hold us up and keep us from falling.

(4) In a word, it must be fervent and importunate prayer.

6. They must, if they would be successful in striving against sin, strive against Satan. Sin is just the Old Serpent’s poison.

IV. SOME MOTIVES FOR STRIVING AGAINST SIN.

1. This is a strife or warfare which every Christian must maintain. The most shining saint has sin in him. He is only “fair as the moon,” and will never find his principles of holiness brightened with a sunlight lustre, until he enters the kingdom of his heavenly Father.

2. In this strife and warfare the Saviour’s honour is much concerned. Sin disgraces a religious profession.

3. You should strive against sin, for it offends God, and is the object of His infinite abhorrence. It cannot be otherwise, for it is enmity against Him, against His attributes, and against His government. It abuses His goodness, abhors His holiness, despises His love, vilifies His wisdom, denies His justice, defies His power, violates His law, and, if it could, would pluck Him from His throne, and deprive Him of His Being.

4. We should strive against sin, for it is seeking our own ruin. It is a foe, and not a friend. The man who cherishes sin cherishes a viper in his bosom, which will, unless timeously cast from him, turn and sting him to death.

5. Consider the reward they shall receive who truly, and believingly, and preservingly strive against sin. There is a reward for the righteous even now. Their striving against sin tends to their true comfort and enjoyment while here.

V. IMPROVEMENT.

1. Examine yourselves by what you have heard that you may ascertain what is your true state and character. These will turn upon your bearing in relation to sin.

2. While you strive against sin yourselves you should also strive against it in others.

3. Beware of that strife which is sinful. There is such a thing as not only sinful striving, but a sinful striving against sin. O how much of the contention about religious matters, both in doctrine and practice, may be thus characterised! Let, then, all such striving be avoided. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”

4. Strive with God. There is a striving with God which is unlawful and destructive, but there is a striving with Him which is allowable and necessary. It is by prayer and supplication.

5. Strive to enter in at the strait gate; the gate, that is, of conversion, faith, “rod repentance. Without engaging in the strife there can be no admission into heaven. (G. Brown.)

Striving against sin

I. How we are to strive against sin.

1. By constantly opposing the power of sin in our own hearts.

2. By a steadfast and constant profession of the Christian faith.

3. By a humble and holy dependence on the atonement of Jesus Christ, and a growing acquaintance with Scripture.

4. By directly and openly condemning it, whenever and by whomsoever it is committed.

II. WHY we should thus strive against sin.

1. Because of its destructive and fatal designs upon our best interests.

2. Because it is the greatest evil that can curse society.

3. Because it will cause us satisfaction in the review when we approach the world of spirits. There is no alternative between striving against and striving for it. Those who are at peace with sin now will find death at war with them. (D. Jones.)

How to strive against sin

1. By prayer. Let us pray against anger, pride, uncleanness, coveteousness, continually.

2. By Scripture.

3. By the subtracting of the nourishment of that sin. Let us strive against lust and uncleanness by a sober and temperate life.

4. By embracing the contrary virtue. Instead of pride let us embrace humility; instead of covetousness, liberality; of uncleanness, chastity, &c. (W. Jones,. D. D.)

Striving against sin:

The Red Indian will stand to have his flesh cut away by the knives of his enemies, and will not utter a sigh or groan--will not sue for mercy. Such is the fortitude of that iron will. If the pride of his heart enables him to bear such tortures without murmuring, surely the power of Christian motive is sufficient to cause us to pluck out the right eye, and cut off the right-hand sin, and cast them away from us, that we may present ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. In Christ crucified we see the abhorrence with which God regards sin. And when He brings us into communion with Himself in the Cross we shun it, or resist it, as our most deadly foe.

Striving against fierce sin:

Where are the heroes “ who resist unto blood striving against sin”? Should we weep or laugh at the foolishness of mankind, childishly spending their indignation and force against petty evils, and maintaining a friendly peace with the fell and mighty principle of destruction. It is just as if men of professed courage, employed to go and find and destroy a tiger or a crocodile that has spread alarm or havoc, on being asked at their return, “Have you done the deed?” should reply, “We have not indeed destroyed the tiger or crocodile, but yet we have acted heroically; we have achieved something great--we have killed a wasp.” Or, like men engaged to exterminate a den of murderers, who being asked at their return, “Have you accomplished the vengeance?” should say, “We have not destroyed any of the murderers; we did not deem it worth while to attempt it; but we have lamed one of their dogs.” (J. Foster.)

Not to be discouraged by violent conflict:

Whoever wishes to obtain the victory must not be discouraged by violent opposition. It is reported of Alexander, that when surrounded by his enemies, and sorely wounded, he still maintained his fortitude, and fought upon his knees. Sparticus did the same, covering himself with his buckler in one hand, and using his sword with the other. So the Christian, however wounded, must still persevere, fighting to the end the good tight of faith, that he may lay hold on eternal life.

Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord

How to bear afflictions

The proposition that ariseth from the words is this: It is the duty and best wisdom of afflicted Christians to preserve themselves from the vicious extremes of despising the Schastenings of the Lord, or fainting under them.

I. To “DESPISE THE CHASTENINGS OF THE LORD,” imports the “making no account of them,” as unworthy of serious regard, and includes inconsiderateness of mind, and an insensibleness of heart.

1. Inconsiderateness of mind with respect to the Author or end of chastenings.

(1) With respect to the Author. When the afflicted looks only downwards, as if the rod of affliction sprang out of the dust (Job 5:6), and therewere no superior cause that sent it.

(2) Inconsiderateness of the end of the Divine discipline is a great degree of contempt. The evils that God inflicts are as real a part of His providence as the blessings He bestows; as in the course of nature the darkness of the night is by His order, as well as the light of the day; therefore they are always sent for some wise and holy design. Sometimes, though more rarely, they are only for trial, to exercise the faith, humility, patience of eminent saints; for otherwise God would lose in a great measure the honour, and His favourites the reward, of those graces--afflictions being the sphere of their activity. But for the most part they are castigatory, to bring us to a sight and sense of our state, to render sin more evident and odious to us.

2. Insensibility of heart is an eminent degree of despising the Lord’s chastenings. A pensive feeling of judgments is very congruous, whether we consider them “ either materially as afflictive to nature, or as the signs of Divine displeasure”: for the affections were planted in the human nature by the hand of God Himself, and are duly exercised in proportion to the quality of their objects; and when grace comes, it softens the breast, and gives a quick and tender sense of God’s frown.

II. THE CAUSES OF THE DESPISING OF GOD’S CHASTENINGS.

1. A contracted stupidity of soul, proceeding from a course in sin.

2. Carnal diversions. The pleasures and cares of the world, as they render men inapprehensive of judgments to come, so regardless of those that are present (Luke 21:34).

3. An obstinate fierceness of spirit, a diabolical fortitude. Their hearts are of an anvil-temper, made harder by afflictions, and reverberate the blow; like that Roman emperor, who, instead of humbling and reforming at God’s voice in thunder, thundered back again.

III. I shall proceed to consider the other extreme, of FAINTING UNDER GOD’S REBUKES.

1. The original word signifies “the slackening and relaxing of things that were firmly joined together.”

2. It may respect the sinking and falling away of the soul like water, being hopeless of overcoming troubles. When water is frozen into hard ice it will bear a great burden; but when it is melted, nothing is weaker: so the spirit of a man, confirmed by religious principles, is able to sustain all his infirmities (Proverbs 18:14).

3. The causes of this despondency are usually

(1) Either the kind of affliction. When there is a singularity in the case, it increaseth the apprehension of God’s displeasure, because it may signify an extraordinary guilt in the person that suffers; and upon that account the sorrow swells so high as to overwhelm him.

(2) The number and degrees of afflictions. When, like those black clouds which in winter days join together, and quite intercept the beams of the sun, many troubles meet at once, and deprive us of all present comfort.

(3) The continuance of afflictions. When the clouds return after rain, and the life is a constant scene of sorrows, we are apt to be utterly dejected and hopeless of good.

(4) The comparing their great sufferings with the prosperity of these who are extremely vicious, inclines some to despair.

IV. TO PROVE THAT IT IS THE DUTY AND WISDOM OF THE AFFLICTED NOT TO DESPISE THE CHASTENINGS OF THE LORD, NOR TO FAINT UNDER THEM.

1. It is their duty carefully to avoid those extremes, because they are very dishonourable to God.

(1) The contempt of chastisements is a high profanation of God’s honour, who is our Father and Sovereign, and in that quality afflicts us.

(2) Fainting under chastenings reflects dishonourably upon God.

2. It is the best wisdom not to despise God’s chastenings, nor faint under them.

(1) The contempt of chastenings deprives us of “ill those benefits which were intended by them.

(2) The neglect of chastenings doth not only render them unprofitable but exposes to greater evils.

(a) It provokes God to withdraw His judgments for a time. This the sinner desired, and thinks himself happy that he is at ease. Miserable delusion l This respite is the presage of his final ruin.

(b) The slighting of lighter strokes provokes God sometimes to bring more dreadful judgments in this life upon sinners. No man can endure that his love or anger should be despised.

(3) Faintings under chastenings is pernicious to sufferers.

(a) It renders them utterly indisposed for the performance of duty. He that is hopeless of a good issue out of troubles, will neither ‘repent nor pray nor reform, but indulges barren tears instead of real duties. Besides, it often falls out, that the same affliction is sent from God’s displeasure upon His people for their sins, and is the effect of the rage of men against them upon the account of their professing His name.

(b) They are incapable of the comforts proper to an afflicted state. Those arise from the apprehension that God loves whom lie chastens Revelation 3:19); for the least sin is a greater evil than the greatest trouble, and His design is to take that away; and from the expectation of a happy issue. Hope is the anchor within the veil, that in the midst of storms and the roughest seas preserves from shipwreck. USE. The use shall be to excite us to those duties that are directly contrary to the extremes forbidden; namely, to demean ourselves under the chastenings of the Lord with a deep reverence and humble fear of His displeasure, and with a firm hope and dependence upon Him for a blessed issue upon our complying with His holy will.

USE

I. With a humble reverence of His hand. This temper is absolutely necessary and most congruous with respect to God, upon the account of His sovereignty, justice, and goodness, declared in His chastenings; and with respect to our frailty, our dependence upon Him, our obnoxiousness to His law, and our obligations to Him that He will please to afflict us for our good.

USE

II. Let us always preserve a humble dependence and firm hope on God for a blessed issue out of all our troubles.

1. The relation God sustains when He afflicts believers. He is a Judge invested with the quality of a Father.

2. It is a strong cordial against fainting to consider that, by virtue of the paternal relation, “He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” For no troubles are more afflictive and stinging than those that are unexpected. Now when we are assured that there is no son whom the Father doth not chasten, we are less surprised and less troubled when we meet with crosses.

3. The apostle represents the special prerogative of God as “ the Father of spirits” (verse 9). As a prudent physician consults the strength of the patient as well as the quality of the disease, and proportions his medicine; so all the bitter ingredients, their mixture and measure, are dispensed by the wise prescription of God, according to the degrees of strength that are in His people.

4. The apostle specifies the immediate end of God in His chastenings. God is pleased to fashion us according to His image by afflictions, as a statue is cut by the artificer, to bring it into a beautiful form. He is pleased to bring us into divers temptations to try our faith, to work in us patience, to inflame our prayers, to mortify our carnal desires, to break those voluntary hands whereby we are fettered to the earth, &c. (Wm. Bates, D. D.)

The Lord’s chastening

I. DESPISE NOT THOU THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD. YOU are guilty of this

1. When you shut your eyes to the Author of your affliction. Everything that takes place in the whole universe comes to pass either by His direct appointment, or by His equally direct permission.

2. When you inquire not the cause of your affliction. God “does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” If therefore He sends chastisement upon you there must be some adequate cause, which you are bound to search out and discover.

3. When you resist the design of your affliction. You have long, perhaps, been convinced that you ought to forsake sin, and turn wholly to the Lord. But sin has still kept its hold on you; and you have resisted the conviction of your conscience. At length, then, God interrupts your comforts-pours contempt upon your idols; or He comes even closer--chastises you with bodily sickness, sorrow, and pain.

II. FAINT NOT WHEN THOU ART REBUKED OF HIM.

1. Although God be the Author of your sorrows, it is as a Father that He sends them. All is not against you. Your heavenly Father is for you, and, if you trust Him, will make these “light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

2. Although sin be the cause of year sorrows, yet those sorrows are not the special penalty of sin. They may distress and scorch you, but you are not “ tormented in this flame.” Earth is not hell! Your Father is correcting you rather than punishing you.

3. Although conversion be the design of your sorrows, yet, it, was never intended that these should be, the only meads used by the Lord; and that you should be left, to do all the rest. The very expression, “when thou art, rebuked,” implies that other methods are also employed. He gives “grace for grace”--a Saviour to pardon-a Spirit to heal--promises to encourage and save your soul. (J. Jowett, M. A.)

Chastisement;

There are two dangers against which a person under the chastising hand of God should always be very careful to keep a careful look out. The one is despising the rod, and the other is fainting under it. We will begin with the first; “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord.”

I. THIS MAY BE DONE IN FIVE WAYS; AND IN DISCUSSING THE SUBJECT I SHALL PROPOSE THE REMEDY FOR EACH OF THESE AS WE PASS ALONG.

1. A man may despise the chastening of the Lord when he mumurs at it. Ephraim is like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; when a son of God first feels the rod he is like a bullock--he kicks at it, he cannot bear it. A want of resignation shows that we despise God’s chastening hand. A word with thee, O murmurer! Why shouldst thou murmur against the dispensations of thy heavenly Father? Hast thou not read that amongst the Roman emperors of old it was the custom when they would set a slave at liberty, to give him a blow upon the head and then say, “Go free”? This blow which thy Father gives thee is a token of thy liberty, and dost thou grumble because tie smites thee rather hardly? After all, are not Ills strokes fewer than thy crimes, and lighter than thy guilt?

2. We despise the chastening of the Lord when we say there is no use in it. It is always a providence when it is a good thing. But why is it not a providence when it does not happen to be just as we please? Surely it is so; for if the one thing be ordered by God, so is the other. It is written, “I create light and I create darkness, I create good and I make evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.” But I question whether that is not despising the chastening of the Lord when we set a prosperous providence before an adverse one; for I do think theft an adverse providence ought to be the cause of as much thankfulness as a prosperous one.

3. There is a third way in which men despise the chastening of the Lord, that is--we may think it dishouourable to be chastened by God. How many men have thought it dishonourable to be persecuted for righteousness sake! But, my son, thou dost not weigh the blessing rightly. I tell thee it is the glory of a man to be chastened for God’s sake. Now you who faint under a little trouble, and despise the chastening of the Lord, let me encourage you in this way. My son, despise not the persecution. Remember how many men have borne it. What an honour it is to suffer for Christ’s sake! because the crown of martyrdom has been worn by many heads better than thine.

4. Again, in the fourth place, we despise the chastening of the Lord when we do not earnestly seek to amend by it. Many a man has been corrected by God, and that correction has been in vain. Take heed if God is trying you, theft you search and find out the reason. Are the consolations of God small with you? Then there is some reason for it. I have sometimes walked a mile or two, almost limping along, because there was a stone in my shoe, and I did not stop to look for it. And many a Christian goes limping for years because of the stones in his shoe, but if he would only stop to look at them, he would be relieved. What is the sin that is causing you pain? Get it out, and take away the sin, for if you do not, you have not regarded this admonition which speaketh unto you as unto sons--“My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord”

5. Once more: we despise the chastening of the Lord when we despise those that God chastens.

II. The second evil is this: “NOR FAINT WHEN THOU ART REBUKED OF HIM.”

1. The first way of fainting is when we give up all exertion under the rod.

2. Again, the man faints when he doubts whether he is a child of God under chastisement. Remember the passage: “If we be not partakers of chastisement then are we bastards, and not sons.” Say not He has forgotten thee, but look upon thy trial as a proof of His love. Cecil once called on his friend Williams, and the servant said he could not see him because he was in great trouble, “Then I would rather see him,” said Cecil; and Williams, hearing it was his old pastor, said, “Show him up.” Up he went, and there stood poor Williams, his eyes suffused with tears, his heart almost broken, his dear child was dying: “Thank God,” said Cecil; “ 1 have been anxious about you for some time; you have been so prosperous and successful in everything that I was afraid my Father bad forgotten you; but I know He recollects you now. I do not wish to see your child full of pain and dying; but I am glad to think my Father has not forgotten you.” Three weeks after that Williams could see the truth of it, though it seemed a harsh saying at first.

3. Again, many persons faint by fancying that they shall never get out of their trouble. “Three long months,” says one, “have I striven against this sad trouble which overwhelms me, and I have been unable to escape it.” “For this year,” says another, “I have wrestled with God in prayer that He would deliver me out of this whirlpool but deliverance has never come, and I am almost inclined to give the matter up. I thought He kept His promises, and would deliver those who called upon Him, but He has not delivered me now, and He never will.” What! child of God, talk thus of thy Father! say He will never leave off smiting because He has smitten thee so long? Rather say, “He must have smitten me long enough now, and I shall soon have deliverance.” Say not thou canst escape. The fetters on thy hands may not be broken by thy feeble fingers, but the hammer of the Almighty can break them in a moment. Let them be laid on the anvil of Providence and be smitten by the hand of Omnipotence, and then they shall be scattered to the winds. Up, man! up. Like Samson, grasp the pillars of thy troubles and pull down the house of thine affliction about the heads of thy sins, and thou thyself shalt come out more than conqueror. Let me ask those who are afflicted and have no religion, where they get their comfort from. The Christian derives it from the fact that he is a son of God, and he knows that the affliction is for his good. But what does the worldling do when he loses his wife, when his children are taken away, when his health departs and he himself is nigh unto death? I leave him to answer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The aim of Divine chastisement

Whom He loves, He loves so much that He will not let them abide in the lower parts of their nature. He will rout them out; He will drive them up. Whom He loves He means to make more of. He means to ennoble them. A king ennobles a man by putting a crown on his head: but God ennobles men by putting dispositions in their hearts. Whom He loves He chastens and scourges. That is very severe. A man may be chastised with small whips, but no man is scourged except with cord, laid on with soldiers’ hands. It is a horrible operation. God both chastens and scourges men, and all because He loves them. Wonderful love that is! and yet it is just your love. You have not a child whose body is worth more to you than his mind. No child of yours ever told a lie under circumstances of great baseness, that you did not feel rising against him an utter indignation, not because you hated the child, but because you loved him. All your identification with the child pleads for punishment. You said, “It is my child, and he is not worthy of me; and he shall be worthy of me.” As I was reading, “For they”--that is, our parents--“verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.” Great pleasure they had in it, if they felt as I did! I would rather be whipped any time than whip my children. And when my father used to say, “Henry, I do not want to do it,” I used to say to myself, “What under heaven do you do it for then?” I did not want to be whipped; and if he did not want to whip me, it seemed to me a very unnecessary ceremony! But when I became a father, I felt that nothing in the world was more true. When I had children to bring up, they so far inherited my nature that they deserved to be whipped often, and they got their deserts! It was true that I would rather have taken five blows than to have given one; and yet I put it on to them. And I remembered the precept, “What your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Do not you know what that is? Are you not familiar with both sides of the experience? Paul says, “We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He”--God--“for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Here is the end that God is driving at continually, by such a grand sympathy, by such a tender personal connection with us, by such a constant interference and meddling with all that belongs to us, that we shall not be thralled in lusts and the lower parts of our nature, and depart from His will, and inherit the final remuneration; but that we shall escape, and go up and be made partakers of the Divine nature. (H. W. Beecher.)

Faint not when rebuked

1. To “faint” when we as “ rebuked” is to lose self-possession, or to be so overwrought, or overwhelmed with the trial, that we grow insensible to its nature, its extent, its punishment.

2. To “faint” when we are “rebuked” is under the pressure of the sorrow, to relax any duty--for praise or love--and especially to let go our holy confidences, and to take the eye off Jesus.

3. To “faint” when we are “rebuked” is to grow weary on account of its length, and not to let “ patience have her perfect work.” (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Submission under loss:

When John Flavel lost his wife and child in one day--root and branch cut off together--he acknowledged the bitterness of the cup, but said there was not a drop of injustice in it. Under the severest losses the Marquis de Renty was wont to go to his chamber, and drop on his knees to thank God that not his own but the Lord’s will was done.

Submission:

Stonewall Jackson was once asked, “Suppose that these unprofitable eyes of yours, that give you so much trouble, should become suddenly blind, do you believe your serenity would remain unclouded?” He paused a moment, as if to weigh fully the exact measure of every word he uttered, and then said: “I am sure of it; even such a misfortune could not make me doubt the love of God.” Still further to test him it was urged: “Conceive, then, that besides your hopeless blindness, you were condemned to be bedridden, and racked with pain for life; you would hardly call yourself happy then?” There was again the same deliberateness before he replied: “Yes, I think I could; my faith in the Almighty wisdom is absolute: and why should this accident change it?” Touching him upon a tender point--his impatience of anything bordering on every species of dependence--the test was pushed further. “But if in addition to blindness and incurable infirmity and pain you had to receive grudging charity from those on whom you had no claim, what then?” There was a strange reverence in his lifted eye, and an exalted expression over his whole face, as he replied with slow deliberateness: “If it was God’s will, I think I could lie there content a hundred years!” (H. O. Mackey.)

Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth

Suffering, the gift and presence of God:

This, then, is the first, most comprehensive, yet most special way, in which God is the consolation of the afflicted, that He has revealed, that sorrow is a token of His love. We have often thought perhaps, “If God did but tell me that He loves me!” If He has sent you sorrow or pain, He has told you that He loves you.

Suffering is in the order of our salvation; it is in order to our salvation. In the mercy of our God, it arrests the sinner; it deepens the loving sorrow of the penitent; it proves and advances the all-but-perfected. It exhibits us to ourselves; it enhances the love of our Redeemer; it is God’s instrument to make us of one mind with Himself. This, then, is the great comprehensive comfort in every ache of mind or body, that we know infallibly from God’s infallible Word that it is a token of His love. Be it disease or loss of bodily health or strength, or of clearness of intellect, the consequence of sin; be it the shame with which God “ filleth the face that they may seek Thy Face, O God”; be it the first terror of hell, which, by God’s grace, scares the yet unconverted sinner towards the wide-open arms of Jesus on the Cross, or the last sharp pang of death, which lets the imprisoned soul go free, to meet its God for whom it yearned and fainted, we know, by God’s own Word, it is His love. Yet it is not only love, working through some fixed or some general rule of His Providence. It is something far nearer, more tender, more blessed. It is God’s own personal act. It is our Redeemer’s own medicinal hand. “I have afflicted thee.” “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” “Happy is the man whom God correcteth.” “Blessed is the man whom Thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law.” This is the deep reassuring truth, that it is not man’s caprice, nor a fixed iron law, nor a combination of events, but our own God. This is the deep inward peace in every trial, that He orders each particular blow or weight of sorrow, or fretting care, or harassing discomfort or unrest, in His all-wise love, fitting each trial to our own particular temperament. He gives to each of us just our own trial, what, by His grace, will most amend us, what will bring us most to Himself, what will most draw out the good which He has implanted in us, or burn out the evil which would most estrange or ruin us. This too is not all. It is not an all-wise God, unseen, unfelt, at a distance, guiding all things in perfect wisdom for the good of each individual creature which He had made. Great were this, yea, in one sense, all; for it is His individual, infinite, personal love. He who loves us infinitely loves us individually. But this too not afar off, not only in the heaven of heavens (Psalms 91:15). Trouble is the special presence of God to the Isaiah 43:2). He who, present with them, soothed to the three youths the flames of fire, so that they fanned softly around them, and were to them an unharming robe of glory; He who, ever-present with His disciples, then appeared to them, when the storm was at its highest, and its waves were boisterous; He, still present to the soul, now soothes to His own the fire of affliction, that, while it burns out the dross, it should not touch the soul, but should yield it pure, transfigured and translucent with the fire of love. He who baptizes with a baptism of blood, holds His own, that, although immersed and sunk deep down, the waters should not come in to the very soul itself, but should only wash away its stains through His most precious blood. Can there be more yet than the presence of God with the soul? Yes, the end of the presence is more to the soul itself than that presence itself. For it is the earnest of His abiding presence, yea, of union with God. Suffering, the due reward of our deeds, becomes, by His mercy, the means of conforming us to the Son of His love. While we suffer for our own sins, and bear about us less than their deserved chastisements, God gives us yet an outward likeness to His Cross, in that it is suffering. For “ on Him were laid the iniquities of us all.” But we still hang, as it were, by His side; His healing compassionate look falls upon us; from His all-holy sufferings there goeth forth virtue to sanctify ours. Hence is deserved suffering by God’s mercy such a token of predestination, that it brings us near to, makes us partakers of, the sufferings of Christ. (E. B.Pusey, D. D.)

The mystery of suffering:

This, after its sort, is a kind of philosophy, a phenomenon of human experience. Everything in nature, according to the measure of its power, is happier than man. Men have been studying how to create happiness that should be unbroken in this world. They have invented a great many things, found out a great many medicines, but happiness has eluded their search. A steady flow of happiness, a soul that knows how to keep time as that watch knows how to keep time, has never been born, and does not live. We flit between light and dark blow, happiness is certainly, we may believe, the final end of creation. Whatsoever maketh a lie or causeth offence in the grand land of consummation will have been purged out, and happiness without alloy will yet be the end of every true life that by sorrow and suffering has been wrought out into the full possession of its birthright. The process or education of man in this world proceeds on the law of suffering--happiness the graduating point; suffering the academy, the seminary; and the best teachers are the teachers that inflict suffering on man. Clear down to the last vision they are highest that have been most suffering in the great school of this life. It is the law of education. Why it was made so, if you know, please instruct me. Why did God make things thus and so? Why did He make the law of suffering the law of education, rather than the law of happiness? This why pours into the gulf of ignorance. We don’t know. We are ignorant in proportion as we go back to the beginnings of things. These are secrets that no science will penetrate; at any rate, not for ages yet; these lie hidden in the bosom of God. But Christ is the type of the moral kingdom of God. It was necessary to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering, because He was leading the multitude, the whole world’s population, towards elevation through suffering, and He entered Himself under that august law of the universe, suffering. It is a badge of discipleship--suffering is. Men do not come to the fulness of their relation to God except through it. Now, look at the scale of suffering. The first is physical pain, which is the lowest; it is cautionary. The remembrance of it prevents a man violating some natural law; that is, some law that has its seat in the physical structure of the man’s own body. It teaches men patience; it teaches men to bear valiantly. Cheerfulness under physical suffering is a wonderful victory, repining is a defeat. If a man shirks down, if he sneaks into complaints and all forms of bewilderment, and dissipated faith, he is wretched indeed, and there is no moral end gained under such circumstances. Then, aside from the suffering which comes to us through our bodily organs, there is that suffering which comes to us through the law of evolution in ourselves. The law of conflict between the lower man and the higher man, or, as St. Paul phrases it, “between the flesh man and the spirit man.” If, in unfolding ourselves from childhood to manhood, the process goes on by which we subdue the animal that is in us, and the passions that belong to it, by the ascendency of higher social, moral and intellectual inspirations, then suffering is more immediately and perceptibly a schoolmaster. Men are driven up higher and higher towards the citadel of God, by the sufferings which take place in the conflict between the lower and the higher man. Living largely in the West in my early life, I had the opportunity of beholding phenomena that are good illustrations. When the great western rivers were suddenly swollen, and booming freshets came tearing down, flooding the country on either side, I have seen the river Ohio, that was not a quarter of a mile wide, ten miles wide in the flood. Nothing is more familiar to the settlers than the fact that the animals are all driven from the lower places, and frequently it is the case that they mount to some round hill and the water following surrounds it, and they are imprisoned on that hill. But they still go higher up, and higher up, and higher up, until they get a place that is a refuge. Suffering that teaches an animal to go up ought to teach a man to go up. Then suffering is still on another level, where we suffer by our social relations, where we suffer with and for each other, and here is the beginning of the grandeur of the kingdom of suffering. Vicarious suffering then, I may say at last, is the law of the universe. Christ entered into the world to partake of those very things that the race have passed through, “Tempted in all points like as we are,” tried into all points as we are; and as it is the law of social connection that one shall suffer for another, Christ suffered for men under the same great grand law of vicarious suffering. That is a wretched child, that is a wretched man, who has no one to suffer for him. Then, higher than this, or rather more extended in its relation, is the suffering which men have in civic relations. Men are not individuals. Man is a collective animal; every man stands on his own stem, but he also stands on the trunk which holds up a million stems, and if anything afflicts the root it afflicts everything at the top. Although blossom is not identical with blossom, nor fruit with fruit, human life is made up of individualisms; but collected and made into one great organisation. And so men must suffer when society suffers. Then, next and yet higher, men suffer on account of their moral relations that unite them to man and to God and to the universe. The progress of knowledge is through suffering. One man suffers, and leaves a glow of new truth behind him, which irradiates the whole of a generation. Thus far we can see and understand. But the world is the workshop of heaven. There we shall see the consummation of that which we see but feebly and understand but partially. Many there are on earth who see no outcome; they are underfoot, they are out of place; suffering seems not only to bring to them no relief and no inspiration, but it seems never to have declared its real nature to their surroundings or to their generations. Oh I there will be a land where these things will be known; there will be an interpretation to every pang and to every tear, and to every crushing sorrow; and as for those who suffer for a noble cause, who suffer for children, who suffer for those who have no parents, who suffer for the community, though they are accounted unworthy, and are east out by the community, though they be crushed out of life and hope, and go mourning all the days of their lives, there is a reckoning--that is to say, there is to be an unfolding of the reasons of their suffering, and the results of it which do not by any means all appear upon this mortal sphere and in this limited life--it is to be made known. You do not know what is going on, you do not know all the meaning of your sorrow; God does. Do you suppose that the wool on the sheep’s back knows what it is coming to when it is sheared? When it was scoured, and washed, and spun, and twisted of its life almost; when it went into the hateful bath of colour; when it was put into the shuttle, and was thrust back and forth, back and forth, in the darkness, and out came the royal robe, it did not know what it started for; yet that is what it comes to--kings wear it. The flax in the field sighs to be made into the garment of the saints. All right. Pluck it up; rot it, put it under the brick, thread it, weave it, bleach it, purify it; and the saints may wear it now. It came to honour and glory through much suffering. Suffering is God’s guardian guiding angel to those that will; it takes them up through the gate of trouble and trial to that land of perfectness and of everlasting peace. And you do not know what your suffering means? Yet you may rejoice in the general fact that somehow or other it is going to make you glorious if you are only worthy of it. Allow me still one more figure; for some may take one figure easily and some another. When this organ was built the lead and the zinc did not know what the men were about when they were melting them, and making them into pipes, and when the work was distributed through the different shops among different hands. Here you have the sesquialtera and the mixture--hideous stops unless they are masked or hidden under a great weight of sound. If you tried them in the factory you would run out with your fingers in your ears, and cry, “Lord deliver me from that sort of music! “ Then there are the flute stops, and the diapasons in their grand under tones. With all the different parts of the organ separately made, unconnected, nobody can tell what is coming except an experienced workman; but by-and-by, little by little, the frame is erected, the stops are all arranged and in connection with the wind-chest, and now that it is an organic whole every part plays into every other part. As a whole it is magnificent; but the separate steps were poor and weak and unsatisfactory. God makes stops on earth, but He builds the organ in heaven; and many a man will never know till he comes there what was the reason of that providence by which he was trained and fitted to be of that great band of music in the heavenly home. Thus far illustrated and explained the subject will give rise to some applications. And, first, no man should hunt after suffering any more than a man should hunt after sickness. Do not regard suffering as if it were in and of itself a means of grace. If it makes you better it will come of itself. Secondly, lower animal suffering is penalty for sin; but, going up the scale, it is not punishment, but the other way. Men suffer because they are so good; they are the vicarious sufferers for those who are not good, through sympathy, through pity, through endeavour to help them, through self-repression for the development of those that are round about. I have but one more thought, and that is final--not alone in this sermon, but final in creation. No imagination can conceive the wonder, the ecstasy, of the great hour of finding out. When we have borne our body, borne our allotted suffering and pain, borne our obscurity and our persecution, borne all the troubles that go to the making of manhood in this life, unrecognised, not rated according to our moral value, rated according to the law of selfishness in human society, when at last emancipated the pauper from the poorhouse, the debtor from the prison, the broken-down man in business, who has been living on the crusts of his former prosperity, mothers, nurses, servants, whose souls were greater than their places, when at last they shall come and stand in the light of the eternal heavens--oh, what a surprise, and oh, what a dismay, when the last tumble from their heights of imagined greatness, when the first shall be last, and the last first! But oh! when the suffering is all gone, and we come to find ourselves, and come to find that the work of life, racking, filing, sawing in various violent ways upon us, has made us perfect, and we stand in the light of the other life, to see the meaning of all that has taken place in our obscure life--oh, what an hour of joy and of consolation! (H. W. Beecher.)

The ministry of sorrow:

There is no fact in human life more certain than universality of suffering, and there is, perhaps, nothing for which man finds a greater difficulty to discover an adequate or satisfactory reason. The Bible does not solve the difficulty. The Bible deals with the subject practically, and only practically. The Bible never satisfies your speculative inquiry. No question is solved by the Book so as to answer everything that you can ask. It is only solved so that yon can live as faithful servants of the Eternal One. And the Bible shows us the relation of suffering to sin. But, finally, it bids us fall back upon God. He will do right, He will make all well, He is the great consoler of man. These are the three facts that lie in this text of ours: sorrow, discipline, love.

I. THE ACCEPTANCE OF GOD’S MERCY DOES NOT ASSURE THE BELIEVER FROM THE LOT OF THE SUFFERER. It is perfectly true we may promise to him who accepts the gospel much joy and much pleasure. For a man to place himself in harmony with the Divine law; for him to say, “No longer my will but Thine be done”; for him to seek no more his ends but the Divine ends; he will find therein the peace, the calm, the quiet restfulness, enter his spirit, and will give him infinite delight. Now, this is true; but at the same time the believer will not be exempt from the conditions of distress. They will come. Natural griefs will be yours. The imperfections of his own character will distress him; the ideal that we sometimes set before us, and then the real that is ours; the picture that we would paint, and the unhappy daub that is often the result of our best endeavour; the beautiful garments that we would set upon ourselves--the garments of righteousness and glory--richer and brighter than the garments that the angels wear--and then the poor tattered rags of the righteousness that we have lost, and the smear and smirch of the secular wrong or the sensual vice into which we have fallen. Oh the disappointment through which life seems to pass until it shall reach the blessed consummation which you hope for! I promise you blessedness, infinite blessedness; but the sorrows will conic.

II. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE BELIEVER ARE INTENDED TO BE DISCIPLINES OF LIFE AND MINISTRIES OF CHARACTER. They direct the soul to its true home and life. Life eternal, remember, is a quality; it is not merely a state; and you may enter into eternal life now. Your sorrows and your pains do not belong to the eternal life; and they are given to you that you may lift your spirit out of the surroundings of the present, and that you may clothe them with the glory and the blessedness that belongs to the life that lies beyond. Yes; and these sufferings limit and destroy the evil that remains. And think of the scope it gives for the practice and perfection of the Christian’s virtues.

III. THESE SUFFERINGS, BEING DISCIPLINARY, ARE THE PROOFS AND THE RESULTS OF THE DIVINE LOVE. They are signs that God has not forgotten us. One of the most famous men of this city one day said to me: “I know not how it is, I sometimes tremble at the success of my life. I have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; I have success in business phenomenal even in these days of success; I have a satisfaction and joy in my family life and in all the relations of my public life that I cannot describe; I sometimes tremble with fear and apprehension.” Within six months that man was smitten--smitten in what was the dearest part of his own self-consciousness; charged with an unworthy action, charged with base behaviour, and held up to obloquy because of things done in his name over which he had no control, and for which he was not responsible, but for which he suffered. Ah! God had not forgotten him. What is God’s will concerning you? It is not merely your joy; it is the bettering of your moral nature; it is the perfecting of all those virtuous characteristics that come out even in the midst of your sorrow. And it is always accompanied by some proof of peculiar favour. When sometimes your loved ones have entered into the place of sorrow, be silent; God is with them. “Far off, far off, ye profane ones!” was the cry of the ancient priestess. So, sometimes, should be the cry to your own souls when the presence of God is manifested in the sorrows of those you love. This is the spirit in which we should receive it, and this is the forecast of its complete removal. For the work of chastisement shall be perfected. All the dealings of God with us shall issue in the attainment of the highest conceptions of the Christian life. And when sorrow shall have done its work, we shall have entered into that infinite life where death itself shall die, and sin itself shall be forgotten, the life that issued even out of the sins and the sorrows and the death of this. (L. D.Bevan, D. D.)

Trouble for our good

The dealings of the Lord, which seem so mysterious to us, may be and often are, the answer to some forgotten petition for spiritual gifts or grace which we have desired. (Anna Shipton.)

Adversity the blessing of the New Testament:

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carried the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God’s favour. (Lord Bacon.)

Love in pain

Years ago I went into the operating room of University College Hospital, and once saw one of the most skilled of our surgeons removing a limb. It was my first sight of the movement of the surgeon’s knife. I could not keep back a shudder. It made me ill to note the writhing of the sufferer as the cruel instrument penetrated the quivering flesh. I looked at the surgeon’s face. Not a muscle betokened anxiety. His gaze was steady, his spirit calm. His larger vision of the issues, the beneficent issues of his work, filled him with strength, steadied his nerve, and delivered him from weakening fear. The sight of his countenance made me strong. I could look to the end in calm self-control. So have I often found an unspeakable consolation in the joy of God. If He, the Lord of this pain-filled, care-laden, sin-fettered life, where misery and sin and shame abound, and the struggle is so keen, and the strife so dinning; if He is glad and blessed amid all this, it is because He sees all and knows all. (D. Clifford, D. D.)

Afflictions precious:

When Munster lay sick, and his friends asked him how he did, and how he felt himself, he pointed to his sores and ulcers (whereof he was full) and said, “These are God’s gems and jewels wherewith He decketh His best friends, and to me they are more precious than all the gold and silver in the world.” (J. Trapp.)

Afflictions--tokens of Divine regard

Lawns which we would keep in the best condition are very frequently mown; the grass has scarcely any respite from the scythe. Out in the meadows there is no such repeated cutting, they are mown but once or twice in the year. Even thus the nearer we are to God, and the more regard He has for us, the more frequent will be our adversities. To be very dear to God, involves no small degree of chastisement. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Divine discipline

In Southern Europe grow the larches. When they were first introduced into England, the gardeners took it for granted that they needed warmth to cause them to grow; so they were placed in the hothouses, and at once began to wither and droop. The gardeners became disgusted, and threw them out of doors. They at once began to grow, and became trees of great beauty. So it ofttimes becomes necessary for Christ to throw us out of doors into the cold of reverses, disappointments, sorrow, and pain, that our Christian characters may be developed. It becomes at times necessary that God bring upon us sore trials and bereavements that we may be brought back to Him and His service. God does not willingly afflict His people; but in order to bless us it is often necessary to put us in a position to receive and to appreciate His blessings, though it may be through severe trials and galling crosses. (C. W. Bibb.)

Divine discipline:

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things. Far up the mountain side lies a block of granite, and says to itself, “How happy am I in my serenity--above the winds, above the trees, almost above the flight of the birds! Here I rest, age after age, and nothing disturbs me.” Yet what is it? It is only a bare block of granite, jutting out of the cliff, and its happiness is the happiness of death. By and by comes the miner, and with strong and repeated strokes he drills a hole in its top, and the rock says, “What does this mean?” Then the black powder is poured in, and with a blast that makes the mountain echo, the block is blown asunder, and goes crashing down into the valley. “Ah!” it exclaims as it falls, “why this rending?” Then come saws to cut and fashion it; and humbled now, and willing to be nothing, it is borne away from the mountain and conveyed to the city. Now it is chiselled and polished, till, at length, finished in beauty, by block and tackle it is raised, with mighty hoistings, high in air, to be the top-stone on some monument of the country’s glory. So God Almighty casts a man down when He wants to chisel him, and the chiselling is always to make him something finer and better than he was before. (H. W. Beecher.)

If ye endure chastening

Chastening: what is it?

“It is for chastening that ye endure”--such is the reading and translation in the R.V. That is the purpose sought and prized; an end that sufficiently justifies God in such dealing with His sons, and that sustains His sons in experience of His dealing.

1. But what is “chastening”? Supposing we had a word that meant child-training, son.training, and this under the direction of a father who would spare no pains necessary for its perfect realisation, we should have exactly the corresponding term. But unfortunately we have not, and so we are driven to put up with the poor substitute “chastening.” The father knows his child, his capacities, and, therefore, all the possibilities that are locked up in his being; his opportunities as they lie in the pathway of life, and therefore his obligations; his propensities and habits, and therefore his perils; his hindrances and helps, and therefore his chances. The father yearns over his boy; labours to secure the highest outcome of his life; guards and directs him; will do anything and bear anything for his advancement. He wants him to be an ideal son; his pride and joy in every faculty and feature of excellence. He wants to “make a man “ of him; so that the terms “father” and “son,” “son” and “father,” may never jar, as they dwell on each other’s lips, but may be as choice music to the ear, as beauty to the eye. For that end, with that hope, all is planned, all is done. It is at once the father’s care, he “trains”; and the son’s ambition, he “endures for the training.” The application is obvious. “It is for chastening that ye endure”; to be sons, not in name only, but in deed and in truth; to come up, to be urged up to the standard. Such an issue may well reconcile us to all the pains and humiliations of the “ chastening.” To have the mind enlarged, the heart purified, the life exalted, refined, transfigured! To lose all that is dross; to cast out all that is low and selfish!

2. Now for the word “endure.” This is no tame word. It Jeans something widely different from insensibility, or proud defiance. These Hebrews had joyfully taken the spoiling of their goods, not that they did not value them, not that their loss was no privation, but that they knew in themselves they had a better and an enduring substance in heaven. They had a boldness, a confidence, an exultation even. “Endurance” in them was the triumph of active faith in the recompense of reward. They were “exercised,” much “ exercised” in their afflictions, and the “exercise,” like a Divine alchemy, was turning every constituent of distress into gold.

I. WHO DOUBTS THE NEED OF CHASTENING? Sin in one or other of its myriad forms has aggravated all the imperfections of inexperience, so that we require far surer correction and direction than a childhood and youth of innocence had ever called for.

II. WHO DOUBTS SHE SPIRIT IN WHICH THIS CHASTENING IS INFLICTED? Dictated by love, directed by wisdom, aimed at the highest ends, it has every quality to keep us alike from despising it or fainting under it.

III. WHO IS NOT DRIVEN TO RIGOROUS SELF-EXAMINATION? There is no talismanic power in afflictions, in pains and penalties, that of itself can correct and transform. Would we realise the” profit” our Father seeks, we must be “ exercised” by our chastening. It calls for thought, for reflection, for faithful survey of our life, with its temper, aims, and spirit.

IV. WHO DOES NOT REJOICE IN THE ADVANCE OF CORRECTION AND GROWTH? The mastery of our evil tendencies, the due regulation of our desires, the elevation of our motives and aims, the higher and completer discharge of the claims of life, the stricter integrity, purity, and spirituality of our characters, the closer our likeness to Christ and our fellowship with God, these and kindred issues may well reconcile us to the pain, and sacrifice, and cost of the chastening, and make us “kiss the rod” with all praise. (G. B. Johnson.)

God’s medicine:

If a man be visited with a providential reverse of circumstances, if he be under oppression, if he be attacked by disease, if the delight of his eyes be taken away, methinks I hear God saying, “Take this medicine; it is exactly suited to your case; weighed out by My own hand; take this medicine from Me.” (R. Cecil.)

God dealeth with you as with sons

Life an education

I. GOD EDUCATES US BY MEANS OF OUR PHYSICAL NEEDS. Man is born naked and defenceless; if he would live he must obtain shelter from torrid suns and piercing cold; he must provide himself with food and raiment; he must, by means of his wits, be able to defend himself against enemies infinitely more powerful than himself. How is it that man alone, of all God’s creatures, is sent into the world unprovided with any of those things which are necessary to the support of physical life? It is because God dealeth with us as with sons. It is because life is meant to be to us, and to us alone, an education; and from the first we are pricked on by these goads of necessity. God has taken security that our work shall not be easy, that it shall not be mechanical; but that it shall tax our ingenuity and educe our mental powers to the uttermost. For man is born not only without instinct and without clothing, but without tools. Nature provides the lion with the claws and fangs which make it easy to seize its prey; the bee has in itself all the apparatus necessary for extracting honey, and carrying it, and building its cells, and acting out all its life-history; the spider has its wonderful film ready wound about its body, and the machinery for spinning many threads into one, and affixing it, and weaving its web; but man must first provide himself with external aid if he would hold his own, be it but a sharpened flint or a fishbone! Moreover, God has made man relatively one of the weakest of living things. His bodily powers are poor indeed compared with those of other creatures. What does it all mean? It means this, that God would educate us not chiefly in body, but in mind; it is by the brain that man has subdued the earth and become lord over all creation; it is the necessity of surmounting difficulties and guarding against dangers that has called forth all his resources and educated his faculties and perfected his powers. See, then, how large a part of man’s education is due to his bare bodily necessities! In the endeavour to meet these he has invented all the industrial arts and sciences. And it is not only mental gifts which labour educes. Patience, endurance, forethought, courage--these and many other moral qualities are the outcome of that necessity for work which God lays upon us all.

II. GOD EDUCATES MEN BY MEANS OF THEIR MENTAL NEEDS. He has implanted in nature that which awakens curiosity in man, and He has implanted in man a hunger and thirst after knowledge and truth, and the result is education. Man’s intellectual needs are not less imperative than his physical requirements; they must be satisfied at any cost. He must know all about the flowers at his feet; the science of botany is the result. He raises his eyes to the stars above; their mystery perplexes him; generation after generation he struggles with this mystery till little by little the secrets of the sky are discovered, and the great science of astronomy is pieced together. Curiosity awakened by shells and fossils has led to geology; curiosity about the antecedents of our race has led to history, and so forth. It is thus with all those departments of knowledge which are not purely utilitarian; they are all the result of the desire for knowledge implanted in us by God, acted upon by external nature. And there is in man another intellectual appetite nobler than any of these, which is most powerful in evolving his higher nature--I mean the love of the beautiful. God has clothed hill and vale, mountain and lake, sea and sky, with splendour of colour and form of which the eye never wearies. And further He has put something in the human heart to which these things appeal; there is a strange correspondence between the human soul and the beauties of nature; they were made for one another; there was meant to be action and re-action between them. When gazing on a sunset sky or a lovely scene we realise our immortality as at no other time; we feel that they have a message from God for us.

III. GOD EDUCATES US BY THE SORROWS AND TRIALS OF LIFE. In this matter also man’s position is unique. The lower animals are almost exempt from suffering. It is true that they are liable to physical pain, but there is abundant evidence to prove that this pain is much less acute than in human beings, and in their case there is neither anticipation nor retrospection. But man, to whom was given the dominion over the brutes, man, who was made but a little lower than the angels, how different is his lot! He is “ born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.” He alone has to endure those mental and spiritual griefs compared with which bodily sufferings are as nothing. All his life is leavened with pain, with forebodings, with vain regrets, with unsatisfied longings. Why is this? Because life is an education; because God dealeth with us as with sons. Men ask why sorrows are permitted. As well might the flower ask why clouds and stormy days are permitted. As well might one expect blossoms and fruit without rain as expect that men can bring forth the fruits of righteousness without the discipline of sorrow. The saintliest of men have been always those who have suffered most; and it behoved even the great Captain of our salvation to be made perfect through suffering in order to teach us that only be who drinks the bitter cup and bears the cross of shame can hope to wear the crown of glory.

IV. GOD EDUCATES US BY OUR SPIRITUAL NEEDS. The most imperative want of our nature is to know God. Everywhere there is a belief in a God or gods, the instinct of worship, conscience more or less developed. Everywhere is felt the necessity of propitiating and being reconciled to the Invisible Power whom transgression has offended. And the more a man advances in holiness and moral greatness, the more is he impelled to make the thought of the Psalmist his own: “Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God”; “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” And while he is ever hungering after God with a hunger which nothing on earth can appease, conscience is ever urging him to a closer and closer walk with God, and yet he never feels that he has fully attained or is already perfect. What is the reason why these strange desires and instincts have been implanted in man? What but the truth our text teaches that God dealeth with us as with sons? Just as God has given in the book of Nature that which educes and partly satisfies man’s intellectual needs, so He has given us in Holy Scripture that which educes and ministers to our spiritual needs. The correspondence between our craving for knowledge, and the revelation by which that craving is met, affords the clearest proof that both are from God, and that in sacred things as in secular the main purpose of our life is education.

1. It throws light upon the mystery of the present. This earth is but the lowest room in God’s school; in other spheres and at other times the education which circumstances thwarted and hindered here will be carried on under happier circumstances.

2. And it throws light upon the mystery of the future. It affords one of the strongest arguments for a future life. For, of course, the education which is commenced here can be at best but in its initial stage when death removes us. (A. M. Mackay, B. A.)

Correcting a son:

Like as if two children should fight, and a man passing by should part them, and afterwards beat the one and let the other go free, every one that seeth this will say that the child which he beat is his own son: even so when God chastiseth us, if we submit. (Cawdray.)

Adversity a purifier

God often uses adversity as a purifier. The wintry snows that lie before my window here (at Saratoga) this morning will kill the vermin; so God sends wintry seasons upon His children to kill certain species of besetting sins. (T. L. Cuyler.)

Severe discipline

A child was taken ill with that dangerous disorder the croup. It was a child most ardently beloved, and, ordinarily, very obedient; but, in this state of uneasiness and pain, he refused to take the medicine which it was needful, without delay, to administer. The father, finding him resolute, immediately punished his sick and suffering son. Under these circumstances, and fearing that his son might soon die, it must have been a most severe trial to the father: but the consequence was, that the child was taught that sickness was no excuse for disobedience; and, while his sickness continued, he promptly took whatever medicine was prescribed, and was patient and submissive. Soon the child was well. Does any one say that this was cruel? It was one of the noblest acts of kindness which could have been performed. If the father had shrunk from duty here, it is by no means improbable that the life of the child would have been the forfeit. (W. Abbott.)

The stripes of love:

Fear not: these stripes are the tokens of His love. He is no son that is not beaten; yea, till he smart, and cry; if not, till he bleed. No parent corrects another’s child; and he is no good parent that corrects not his own. O rod, worthy to be kissed, that assures us of His love, of our adoption. (Bp. Hall.)

Subjection unto the Father of spirits

Divine correction

I. THE DUTY IS SUBJECTION. “Shall we not be in subjection?” This is not opposed to insensibility. There is no patience, no resignation, in bearing what we do not feel. If you do not prize what you give up at the call of God, there can be no value in your obedience. But it is the repression of everything rebellious--in our carriage--in our speech--and in the temper of our minds.

II. Let us consider THE REASONS BY WHICH THIS DUTY IS ENFORCED. Here are four motives.

1. The first is derived from the relation in which God stands to us. He is our Father. But to what does this lead? The conclusion, says the apostle, is obvious. If He pre-eminently fills this relation, His claims to duty are proportionally great. You gave the fathers of your flesh reverence. And shall a man obtain more obedience than God?

2. This brings us to the second reason of submission. It is taken from the danger of resistance. “Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?” Clearly intimating that disobedience will end in death. There cannot be a more awful presage of future misery than to counteract the afflictive dispensations of Divine Providence, and “ despise the chastening of the Almighty.” It provokes the anger of God, and operates penally in one of these two ways. Either, first, it induces God to recall the rod, and give a man up to the way of his own heart, or, secondly,

He turns the rod into a scorpion, and fulfils the threatening: “If ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.”

3. The third motive is taken from the brevity of the discipline. They verily chastened us; but it was only “a few days.” The child soon became a man, and the course of restriction and preparation resulted in a state of maturity. This is to be applied to our heavenly Father, and contains an encouraging intimation, that the whole season of trial, when opposed to our future being and blessedness, is but a short period.

4. The last motive is derived from the principle and design of affliction. Men are imperfect, and their actions are like themselves. Hence, when as their children they chastened us, it was frequently “for their pleasure.” They would do it. It was to give ease to their passions; to vent their feelings. It was to show their authority, or maintain their consequence, regardless of our welfare. But this is not the case with God. “He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” He does it only “if needs be”--He does it “for our profit.” What profit? A profit that infinitely weighs down every other advantage, and which, above all things, yea, and by “ any means,” you should be anxious to secure: spiritual profit; Divine profit--“that you might be partakers of His holiness.” If God chastens us to make us holy, we learn

(1) The importance of holiness, and the value of it in the eye of a Being who cannot be mistaken.

(2) We learn how defective we all are in this attainment; seeing God deems such trying means necessary, in order to promote it.

(3) We learn that if anything can promise a happy deliverance from trouble, it is the sanctification of it: when the end is answered, the rod is laid by.

(4) We learn that whatever our afflictions may do for us, they have not fulfilled the Divine purpose unless they have made us more holy. (W. Jay.)

The purpose of Divine chastisements

In nothing, perhaps, is it so hard to feel for ourselves and to help others to feel that God is good, as in life’s great afflictions. We are so prone to look only at the present sorrow and forget the future joy. “Why is this so? Can it be that there is mercy in such seeming wrath?” God condescends to reason with us, from the analogy of parental affection, drawing both argument and illustration. We have often felt the beauty of the methods elsewhere used for presenting the same essential truth, as, for example, where God compares Himself to the refiner of silver, melting His people down in the crucible of affliction to “purge away their dross”; but in this comparison is couched the beauty of an unutterable tenderness. He addresses our parental instincts, and asks us whether we do not ourselves know that love and chastening are not contradictory or inconsistent. I need not say that this doctrine of love as the impulse and interpreter of affliction is peculiarly Biblical. When calamity befell a pagan he beheld in it a mark of Divine displeasure, and at once set himself at work to appease the wrath of Deity. Even the ancient people of God were very slow to accept the right view of God’s chastisements.

I. The first element of contrast suggested by the text is this. OUR HUMAN PARENTS PUNISH PASSIONATELY, AND NOT ALWAYS DELIBERATELY. Without meaning to, without, perhaps, being conscious of it, they are sometimes simply giving vent to impatient, excited, or even angry feeling, in chastising their offspring. The impatient impulse, the caprice of the moment, rules us and puts into the correction the severity, it may be violence, of an indignation by no means wholly righteous. God is not susceptible of anything like passion as we understand it--either in its impulsiveness, impetuosity, malice, or malignity. Even God’s anger is the unchanging hatred of evil--the anger of principle, not of passion--calm even in its fury, slow even in its haste, cool even in its heat. Our anger is like the agitation of a shallow lake, rippled with every breeze. All this is our assurance in affliction that God cannot deal harshly, severely, or unjustly with us. With the calmness of eternal patience, the steadfastness of eternal love, He afflicts us solely for our good.

II. Again, our earthly parents chastise us PUNITIVELY AND NOT CORRECTIVELY. They aim more to punish the offence than to correct the evil and reform the evildoer. Here is another way in which passion often inflicts chastisement. An earthly father is grieved and rightly angry because the son has offended against truth, virtue, honesty, integrity. This is a far nobler passion than the caprices of ill-temper, yet it is doubtful whether a parent can be sure of inflicting profitable correction under its influence. It hurries one into a method of punishment which hardens rather than softens which is ill-adapted to the peculiar temperament of the child, which may restrain from similar offences, if at all, only from fear of the rod, and not at all from love of the right. It should ever be borne in mind that the highest purpose of all punishment is not the vindication of a principle, but the reformation of an offender, or at least the salvation of others from similar sins. To contend for a principle is noble, but oh, how insignificant all else in comparison with the welfare of a soul! Oh, let us not forget that true love of the parent may help to kindle that true love of the right which is stronger than any fear of correction. The word here rendered “chasten,” means educate. All God’s chastening is meant to educate His children; His dealings are designed as a discipline. He must punish our offences; but the grand end He proposes to Himself is to secure our sanctification and salvation. God teaches us that with Him fatherly pity prompts His chastisements. In all God’s afflictions He consults the exact temperament of His children. He knoweth our frame. It is one of the most palpable facts of history that the men who have wielded the mightiest moral influence have been prepared for it by the severest Divine discipline. No less means would have subdued that great will and made its stubbornness an element of steadfastness anti stability. A degree of heat that must melt down the harder metals is far more intense than that which melts the softest; yet when made into vessels, that which it took the hotter fire to fuse is far the stronger and more serviceable; while you can bend and twist the other, this is unaffected by hard usage. So does God use the chastening rod with tender consideration for our temperament and constitution, adapting His discipline to our need. If we desire the largest fitness for service, we must submit to His wise chastening.

III. Again, our earthly parents chastens us IMPERFECTLY, NOT INFALLIBLY; according to their own fallible judgment of right and wrong. This thought is suggested in the text by the phrase, “according to their own pleasure,” literally according to what seemed good or right to them. Parental love is imperfect, and so is parental wisdom, so that with the best possible intentions grave mistakes may be committed in a child’s discipline. Hero appears perhaps the principal emphasis of the text: They, according to what seemed good: He, according to what is good for us. God reminds us that He cannot err. The chastening He inflicts is for our profit--and let us grasp the full meaning--not only for our profit is it designed, but adapted. Not what seems best, but what is best. Oh, let us remember the perfect fatherhood and fatherliness of God! This is the profit for which He chastens us, as He Himself defines it, “that we might be partakers of the Divine holiness.”

IV. Once more, our earthly parents chasten us TEMPORARILY, NOT PERMANENTLY, as the text says, “for a few days.” This phrase means more than it seems to imply. It probably refers to the fact that much of our parental training looks to immediate results, not remote ones--it is with reference to a few days, or at most to our short earthly life. The effect is transient, not permanent. Now, God’s chastening always looks to eternal results. That which is near at hand impresses us most vividly; we are therefore always emphasising present good and undervaluing the more precious things of the hereafter. How different must all this appear to God, whose omniscient eye sees the end from the beginning, and to whom the remotest future is as vivid as the present, the remotest result as real as the present process! (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)

Our virtues witnesses against us:

There is a very interesting argument involved in this saying of the apostle--the argument from what we are as men to what we ought to be as Christians. A dutiful child submits meekly to a father’s correction; why, then, do we not submit meekly to the correction of God? The mere fact of submission to the human goes far towards showing that it is not through any actual inability that we refuse submission to the Divine Parent. The reasoning, in short, is a reasoning from what men are as members of society to what they ought to be as creatures of God; and they may be brought under condemnation if they fail to act towards God, displaying Himself under certain characters, as they act towards their fellow-men, who bear those same characters, though only subordinately. And this reasoning is of very wide application--so that what we may term our social conduct will furnish overwhelming evidence against us at the last, if we are not found among those who have loved and served God. If God demand faith in His Word, are we not capable of believing? Are we not accustomed to believe, yea, and to allow our belief to influence our practice, whenever there is a sufficiency of testimony? And will not this, our capacity of believing, demonstrated as it is by facts of daily occurrence, justify our condemnation, if we fail to put faith in the declarations of Scripture? In like manner, if God demand from us gratitude and love, does He demand what we are unable to give? On the contrary, we are so constituted that we naturally feel thankful to a benefactor; and any one of us who could receive kindness, and yet show himself void of all affection towards the giver, would make himself an object of scorn and abhorrence, as wanting the common sensibilities which characterise our nature. If, then, God manifestly bring Himself into the position of a benefactor, it is very evident that He has right to ask from us in return gratitude and love; that in asking them He only asks what we continually prove ourselves able to give, and that, consequently, if we refuse what is asked of us, there will be needed nothing beyond our conduct in the several intercourses of life to prove us without excuse, if finally condemned for not giving God our hearts. And once more--if God asks obedience to His laws and submission to His authority, He asks only what we are in the daily habit of rendering to earthly superiors. He may surely appeal to our conduct in reference to earthly magistrates, as proving us without excuse if we wilfully violate His laws. Thus our text involves a principle of very general application; and we perhaps little think what material of condemnation we heap up against ourselves by the conscientious discharge of every relative duty, whilst we remain virtually strangers to the power of religion. Now, I have thus engaged you with the general argument, rather than with the particular case presented by the text. Now, however, we will confine ourselves to that case, the case being that of parents and children, and the implied argument, that the reverence which we show to our earthly father will be a swift witness against us, if we fail in the reverence which is due to our heavenly Father. There is no more beautiful and graceful affection of our nature than that which subsists between parents and children. We must admire this affection, even as exhibited amongst inferior animals. There is no page in natural history more attractive than that which tells how tenderly the wild beasts of the forest will watch their young, or with what assiduousness the fowls of the air will tend their helpless brood. And in the human race the affection goes far beyond this; for if not more intense at the first, it is abiding and reciprocal. And this affection of a parent for a child is not merely a graceful and beautiful sentiment, shedding a charm over the privacies of domestic life; it is one of the chief mainsprings of human activity, and contributes perhaps more than anything else to the keeping together the elements of society. It is quite extraordinary, if you come to think, how this single affection or instinct will tie down a man to unwearied occupation, so that he will toil night and day to gain subsistence for his family. He might betake himself to another scene, where, having only himself to provide for, he might live in comparative ease; but his young ones have nestled round his heart; he cannot be tempted by any prospect of relief to desert those who lean on him as a father, and therefore, with a heroism which would draw on itself intense admiration if it were not so common, will he employ all his energies, and wear down all his strength, in obtaining a sufficiency for those beneath his roof. Thus is society virtually knit together by and through the parental affection; and you have only to suppose this affection extinguished, so that fathers and mothers cared nothing, or only for a short time, for those to whom they gave life, and you destroy the fine play of a healthful activity, and slacken the bonds which make fast communities. And whilst parents are thus abidingly and profitably actuated by affection for their children, children maintain an affection towards their parents scarcely less graceful and scarcely less advantageous. This is not so much an instinct as a principle; and, accordingly, while the Bible contains no precept as to loving children, it contains a most express precept as to honouring parents, so that there is given to the latter the character of a high duty, to whose performance we are urged by a distinct and full promise. And the point to which I have to bring you is, that this duty is very generally and very faithfully performed. It is comparatively but seldom that children show want of affection towards a father and a mother, when that father and that mother have done their part as parents; whether it be in the highest or the lowest families of the land, there is generally a frank yielding to its heads of that respect and that gratitude which they have a right to look for from their offspring. There is no disputing the first statement of the text; for it is the general rule--“We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.” But how now as to the inference which St. Paul draws from this statement? How as to our subjection to another and a higher Father, “the Father of spirits”? If it be the common rule, the exceptions not being such as to bring the rule into question, that children give reverence to their fathers, surely, if God be a Father, He too will be reverenced. Once establish the relationship, and the reverence and submission will follow almost of course. Children! listen ye to this; parents! listen ye to this--children, who are never wanting in dutiful affection towards your parents; parents, who are never unmindful of what you have a right to look for from your children--children, who will do all in your power to soothe the declining years of a father or a mother, who feel it a privilege to pay back by labours of love the tenderness lavished on you from infancy upwards, who attach a sacredness to the every word and the every wish of persons so beloved and revered; parents, who feel cat to the heart by the ingratitude of a child, who are conscious of being robbed of your incontrovertible rights, whenever a son or a daughter is deficient in attachment and respect--yes, children and parents, listen ye alike to this; ye are self-condemned, ye are swift witnesses against yourselves, if as members of the universal family ye fail to be what ye are as members of particular households; and oh! ye must be speechless at the judgment, if the simple “argument of our text should be worked out against you--if the Judge should say to you, “Ye had fathers of your flesh, and ye gave them reverence,” and should follow this up by the thrilling and unanswerable question, “Why, then, were ye not in subjection to the Father of spirits, that ye might live?” I do not know whether you have been accustomed to follow for yourselves such trains of thought as the words of our text have thus led us to open; but we own that we regard the subject which has been under discussion as one of no common importance and interest, presenting, as it does, all that is amiable and admirable in domestic life as fraught with testimony to be delivered at the great day of assize. Is there the merchant amongst you of unimpeachable rectitude, who would sooner die than be guilty of a fraud? Why, that man’s ledger is one of the books that shall be opened at the judgment; the hatred of everything base which it displays will be a witness against him if he have robbed God of His due. Is there the tradesman who would abhor the overreaching a customer, whom nothing could persuade to use the false weight and balance? Why, that man’s shop will be referred to hereafter; it will prove him rigidly conscientious towards his fellow-men, and therefore self-condemned if he have defrauded his God. Or is there a patriot, who, with a fine love of liberty, would do and dare nobly to uphold the free institutions of his country? That man’s generous ardour will be quoted hereafter; could he be indignant against all lesser tyranny, and yet be excusable in making no struggle against the tyranny of sin? Is there the son or the daughter amongst you who has shown reverence to parents? That man or that woman will have nothing to plead when God shall affirm Himself to be a Father, but a Father neglected by His children. Or are there servants amongst you who answer the apostle’s description--“Obedient to their own masters, not answering again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity”? Their unblemished characters will rise against them at the judgment; so true to their employers, what shall be said for them if false to their Maker? Ah, it may sound strangely, but, nevertheless, we may confidently assert that virtues, the want of which must exclude us from heaven, may themselves doom us to a lower place in hell. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The Fatherhood of God in the sufferings of life

This chapter contains one of the clearest expositions in the Bible of the Divine philosophy of suffering. In this chapter we trace two great convictions which, when combined, form the apostle’s explanation of suffering--the belief in a Father, and the belief in His purpose to make man divinely glad. He does not attempt to explain this by any assertion of laws and penalties; he says nothing about inherited sin or transmitted judgment; his one solution is this--the Father is educating His child.

I. THE PURPOSE OF LIFE’S SUFFERINGS.

II. GOD’S PURPOSE IN SUFFERING IS TO EDUCATE MAN THROUGH HOLINESS INTO JOY. For the attainment of this end two things are requisite

1. The vision of a higher world. It is manifest that unless we are delivered from the thraldom of the present world, we cannot resist its temptations or escape its snares. Until we realise the world of God and the angels, we can reach no true holiness. And for this the discipline of sorrow fits us. It isolates us from the turmoil of the present, and opens the spirit’s eye.

2. Divine power is the second requisite for the full attainment of this joy. Until we are strong, we cannot be “partakers of His holiness.” We become strong by self-surrender, for self-surrender is self-control. We must glance at the practical lesson which is here suggested, “Shall we not be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?” The question arises, How can this be realised? In three ways

(1) By accepting the fact--by believing that all life is a discipline, that its sorrows and its joys are intended to train you into holiness, and therefore into blessedness.

(2) By endorsing it with your choice. Choose what God has chosen for you. Heartily accept His will as your will. Ask neither for joy or sorrow, success or failure, life or death.

(3) And then, lastly, by acting under that choice. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)

The proper view and improvement of affliction

I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH AFFLICTION OUGHT TO BE VIEWED BY CHRISTIANS.

1. As coming from God.

2. As merited by our sins,

3. As the effect of fatherly wisdom and love.

4. With a desire that His gracious design may be fulfilled in us.

II. THE TENDENCY WHICH AFFLICTION HAS TO BENEFIT US. “That we may be partakers of His holiness.” Now the way in which affliction tends to produce this great end is

1. By giving us a just idea, giving us a practical impression, of the evil of sin.

2. Affliction tends to convince us of the insufficiency of the present world.

3. Submission to the will of God.

4. Sympathy.

5. Affliction weans us from the world, and fixes our thoughts on another state.

Lessons:

1. Let the afflicted derive comfort.

2. Let those who have been afflicted seriously consider what has been the effect of their trials upon themselves. If no effect has been produced, what can they expect but “sorrow upon sorrow”? (R. Hall, M. A.)

Afflictions salutary

I have read of a mariner who got tossed by the storm, lost his reckoning, and was driven he knew not whither by the raging winds and darkness and danger. But when all was calm and clear he found he was actually nearer home than he could possibly have been under ordinary circumstances. Shall not I be glad, when my night of storm and trial is past, to find (which I think I shall) that I am nearer God and heaven than I should otherwise have been? (Geo. Brazier.)

The profitableness of chastisements:

Absalom sends once or twice to Joab to come and speak with him; but when he saw that he could not come, he commands his corn-field to be set on fire and so he fetched him with a witness; so children of God, when they stand off upon terms, and will not see His face, the fire of affliction will make them seek Him early and diligently. It is the custom of our gallants, when their horses be slow and dull, to spur them up. If iron grows rusty, we put it into the fire to purify it, and so doth God; in our backwardness to duties, He pricks us on, or, being in our filthiness, casts us into the hot embers of tribulation to purify us. (John Barlow.)

Suffering advantageous:

There is a great want in those Christians that have not suffered. (R. M. McCheyne.)

Afflictions salutary:

Bitter pills bring sweet health, and sharp winter kills worms and weeds, and mellows the earth for better bearing of fruits and flowers. The lily is sowed in its own tears, and God’s vines bear the better for bleeding. The walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; and camomile, the more you tread it the more you spread it. Aloes kill worms, and stained clothes are whitened by frosting. (J. Trapp.)

The Father of spirits:

Men are not animals plus a soul, but spirits with an animal nature. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

Submission

John Newton said he would rather be able to pronounce these three sentences in his mother tongue from his heart than be master of all the languages of Europe: “What Thou wilt; when Thou wilt; how Thou wilt.”

Gratitude for affliction

A lady, from injuries received in a railway accident, had to keep her bed in much pain and suffering for tong weary months. Upon the anniversary of the accident she gathered some of her most intimate friends into her room, and there, still a prisoner to her bed, she held a meeting of praise, counting up all the mercies of her year of sickness. (Mrs. Reaney.)

Subjection to God

A lady one day, in her husband’s absence from home, lost two children by cholera; but she laid them out with a mother’s tenderness, and spread a sheet over them, and waited at the door for her husband’s return. “A person lent me some jewels,” she said, when she met him, “and he now wishes to receive them again; what shall I do?” “Return them, by all means,” said her husband. Then she led the way, and silently uncovered to him the forms of his dear children. (C. Leach.)

The accepted will of God:

When Dr. Bushnell was dying, his wife repeated to him, slightly transposing the words of the text, “The good and perfect and accepted will of God.” He replied, “Yes, and accepted.” (Bushnell’s Life.)

Father teaches me:

Passing through a narrow street in an old town, under the shadow of an equally old church, with its tall spire pointing heavenward, a woman hurries on her way to the station with a troubled heart and a load of care, none the less heavy that it is more worry than trouble. Two little mites of children, happy and merry-looking, are peering over their school-lessons. She catches the words of one as she passes, spoken with the ring of a child’s loving pride, “Father teaches me”; and then comes the answer from the other child, “How nice to have a father to teach you!” with an emphasis on the name which showed that she knew something, small though she was, of what a father’s love and teaching might and should mean. The woman’s face brightened as she heard, and she turned with a grateful smile to the two little ones, pausing to look at them for a minute before she went hurrying on again. And as she went her face kept its brighter look, for she thought to herself, “Surely, many beside that little child can say, ‘Father teaches me.’”

That we might be partakers of His holiness

The benefit of afflictions

I. THE LIGHT IN WHICH AFFLICTIONS OUGHT TO RE VIEWED, AND THE DISPOSITION WITH WHICH THEY OUGHT TO BE RECEIVED.

II. CONSIDER THEIR TENDENCY, WHEN THUS VIEWED AND RECEIVED, TO PROMOTE OUR SPIRITUAL INTEREST. “That we might be partakers of His holiness”; that is, of the holiness which He requires. Holiness consists in conformity to the will of God. Afflictions have a tendency to promote the great work.

1. They teach you the evil nature of sin, on account of which they are sent, and point you to the Saviour. Practical lessons are the best of all lessons.

2. The utter insufficiency of this world, as a portion for the soul. In days of prosperity you may not be thoroughly convinced of this.

3. Afflictions excite and increase some of the most amiable and pious dispositions of the human heart. Such as resignation and patience.

4. When viewed in their true light, and received with a proper spirit, they are most satisfactory proofs of the love of God.

Remarks:

1. In the light of this subject we see the reason why so many instances of affliction fail to produce any good and lasting effect. The agency of God is not acknowledged in them.

2. This subject furnishes solemn reproof and warning to such as have experienced affliction, and yet have not repented.

3. This subject affords instruction and peculiar encouragement to Christians. Those who wear the white robes in heaven came out of great tribulation. (John Matthews, D. D.)

Sanctified affliction:

The following is from a letter of John Frederic Obeilin, pastor of Waldbech, to a lady, who had suffered many bereavements: “I have before me two stones, which are in imitation of precious stones. They are both perfectly alike in colour; they are of the same water--clear, pure, and clean; yet there is a marked difference between them as to their lustre and brilliancy. One has a dazzling brightness, while the other is dull, so that the eye passes over it, and derives no pleasure from the sight. What can be the reason of such a difference? It is this. The one is cut but in a few facets; the other has ten times as many. These facets are produced by a very violent operation. Nevertheless, the operations being over, it is done for ever: the difference between the two stones always remains strongly marked. That which has suffered but little is entirely eclipsed by the other, which alone is held in estimation, and attracts attention.

The profit of adversity:

Surely we deceive ourselves to think on earth continued joys would please. It is a way that crosses that which Nature goes. Nothing would be more tedious than to be glutted with perpetual jollities. Were the body tied to one dish always (though of the most exquisite flavour that it could make choice of), yet, after a small time, it would complain of loathing and satiety; and so would the soul, if it did ever epicure itself in joy. Discontents are sometimes the better part of our life. I know not well which is the more useful: joy I may choose for pleasure, but adversities, are the best for profit; and sometimes these do so far help me, as I should without them want much of the joy I have. (O. Feltham.)

Sanctified affliction for the future:

It is not so much by the symmetry of what we attain in this life that we are to be made happy, as by the enlivening hope of what we shall reach in the world to come. While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.(H. W. Beecher.)

The father loved for correction:

On one occasion a minister found it necessary to punish his little daughter. But Mary climbed into his lap, and throwing her arms around his neck, said, “Papa, I do love you.” “Why do you love me?” the father asked. “Because you try to make me good, papa.” It is in this spirit that God’s people should accept the chastisements He sends, remembering that it is in love He rebukes and chastens; not for His pleasure, but for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness.

Truth seen in adversity:

A diamond had slipped from its setting, and rolled away, none knew whither. Diligent search was made in every apartment where its owner might have been, but in vain. At length evening drew on, and, sitting in a careless mood, her eye caught the sparkle of a tiny ray, almost imperceptible, but bright as only a diamond’s glance can be. Out of the darkness it gleamed, and one might stoop and take that which daylight had failed to reveal, though sought with tears. And thus it is in the Christian’s experience. In the daylight of prosperity he seeks in vain for the precious presence of the Holy Spirit. Yet when the night of adversity draws nigh, suddenly there shines a light amidst the darkness of spiritual despondency which reveals to him “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness

Sweet fruit from a thorny tree:

When our heavenly Father “puts His hand into the bitter box” and weighs out to us a portion of wormwood and gall in the form of bodily pain, we very naturally ask the reason why.

Nature suggests the question at times in petulance, and gets no answer; faith only asks it with bated breath, and gains a gracious reply.

I. PAIN TEACHES US OUR NOTHINGNESS. Health permits us to swell in self-esteem, and gather much which is unreal; sickness makes our feebleness conspicuous, and at the same time breaks up many of our shams. We need solid grace when we are thrown into the furnace of affliction; gilt and tinsel shrivel up in the fire. The patience in which we somewhat prided ourselves, where is it when sharp pangs succeed each other, like poisoned arrows setting the blood on flame? The joyful faith which could do all things, and bear all sufferings, is it always at hand when the time of trial has arrived? The peace which stood aloft on the mountain’s summit and serenely smiled on storms beneath, does it hold its ground quite so easily as we thought it would when at our ease we prophesied our behaviour in the day of battle? When nought remains but the clinging of a weeping child, who grasps his father’s hand; nothing but the smiting on the breast of the publican, who cries “God be merciful to me a sinner”; nought but the last resolve, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him”--no real loss has been sustained, say, rather, a great gain has come to the humbled heart.

II. HEAVY SICKNESS AND CRUSHING PAIN SHUT OUT FROM US A THOUSAND MINOR CARES. We cannot now be cumbered with much serving, for others must take our place, and play the Martha in our stead; and it is well if then we are enabled to take Mary’s place as nearly as possible, and lie at Jesus’ feet if we cannot sit there. The Lord must do all, or it must remain undone. The weary head could only exaggerate the need; the sinking spirits could not suggest a supply. All must be left; yes, must be left. The reins drop from the driver’s hands, the ploughman forgets the furrow, the seed-basket hangs no longer on the sewer’s arm. Thus is the soul shut in with God as within a wall of tire, and all her thought must be of Him, and of His promise and His help; grateful if but such thoughts will come, and forced if they come not just to lie as one dead at the feet of the great Lord and look up and hope. This cutting loose from earthly shores, this rehearsal of what must soon be done once for all in the hour of departure, is a salutary exercise, tending to cut away the hampering besetments of this mortal life, and make us freer for the heavenly race.

III. SICKNESS HAS CAUSED MANY WORKERS TO BECOME MORE INTENSE WHEN THEY HAVE AGAIN BEEN FAVOURED TO RETURN TO THEIR PLACE. We lie and bemoan our shortcomings, perceiving fault where it had in healthier hours escaped observation, resolving, in God’s strength, to throw our energies more fully into the weightiest matters, and spend less of force on secondary things. How much of lasting good may come of this! The time, apparently wasted, may turn out to be a real economy of life if the worker for years to come shall be more earnest, more careful, more prayerful, more passionately set upon doing his Lord’s business thoroughly. Oh that we could all thus improve our forced retirements! Then should we come forth like the sun from the chambers of the east, all the brighter for the night’s chill darkness, while about us would be the dew of the Spirit, and the freshness of a new dawning.

IV. PAIN, IF SANCTIFIED, CREATES TENDERNESS TOWARDS OTHERS. Alone it may harden and shut up the man within himself, a student of his own nerves and ailments, a hater of all who would pretend to rival him in suffering; but, mixed with grace, our aches and pains are an ointment supplying the heart, and causing the milk of human kindness to fill the breast. The poor are tender to the poor, and the sick feel for the sick when their afflictions have wrought after a healthful fashion. Grief has been full oft the mother of mercy, and the pangs of sickness have been the birth-throes of compassion. If our hearts learn sympathy, they have been in a good school, though the Master may have used the rod most heavily, and taught us by many a smart.

V. PAIN HAS A TENDENCY TO MAKE US GRATEFUL WHEN HEALTH RETURNS. We value the powers of locomotion after tossing long upon a bed from which we cannot rise, the open air is sweet after the confinement of the chamber, food is relished when appetite returns, and in all respects the time of recovery is one of marked enjoyment. As birds sing most after their winter’s silence, when the warm spring has newly returned, so should we be most praiseful when our gloomy hours are changed for cheerful restoration. Gratitude is a choice spice for heaven’s altar. It burns well in the censer, and sends up a fragrant cloud, acceptable to the great High Priest. Perhaps God would have lost much praise if His servant had not much suffered. Sickness thus yields large tribute to the King’s revenue; and if it be so, we may cheerfully endure it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The effects of sorrow

It is of sorrow I would speak. None can escape it. A man unacquainted with suffering would be a monstrous exception. You have doubtless seen the famous painting of a modern artist, “The Call of the Condemned, during the Reign of Terror.” The prisoners, already sentenced by the revolutionary tribunal, are there, huddled up together in the vast hall and beneath the low arches of the Conciergerie. In the background, the door stands open, and the jailer, behind whom the fatal chariot is visible, reads the names written upon the list of death. All listen; some have already risen and press the hands of their friends in a farewell grasp; others, whose countenance is ghastly and full of anguish, wait; others veil their feelings beneath stoical scorn; they seem to say, “To-day or to-morrow, what matters? It is but a question of time.” Thus it is with each of us; we are doomed to suffer; none of us is forgotten on the roll of the elect of affliction. Well! here is a strange fact: this question of suffering, the most universal and individual, the most ancient and actual of all questions, remains one of those which natural reason is absolutely incompetent to elucidate. Interrogate the ancient world, the Greek or Roman societies with their most illustrious philosophers, and you will find that every one of them, in presence of suffering, has but one of two counsels to give man: dissipation with Epicurus, or indifference with the stoic Zeno. I cannot, however, forget that some few more clear-sighted souls have seen in affliction a mysterious instrument of Providence, a means of education for man; but these were only stray gleams, like flashes of lightning illumining the darkness of ancient philosophy. This is what Seneca writes to a mother who had lost her son by death: “Prejudice, which causes us to mourn so long, leads us further than nature commands. See how vehement are the regrets of dumb animals, yet how short is their duration! Cows that have lost their offspring moan but two or three days; mares pursue their wild and wandering course no longer. When the savage beast has followed the traces of her young and scoured the forest in every direction, when she has returned time after time to the den ravaged by the hunter, her fierce grief is very soon appeased. The bird that whirls with startling cry round her empty nest is quieted in an instant, and resumes her wonted flight. No animal long regrets its young; man alone loves to nurse his sorrow, and grieves, not by reason of what he feels, but in proportion as he has determined to grieve” (“Consolation to Marcia,” ch. 7.). Having read this page, open the gospel and, with adoration, acknowledge the debt of gratitude you owe to Jesus Christ. According to Holy Writ, suffering is neither a simply natural phenomenon nor an effect of the primordial will of the Creator. According to Scripture it is an anomaly. God did not ordain it; in the beginning God beheld His work, and lo, it was good. Suffering is the logical, inevitable consequence of the false relation in which man has placed himself with God (Hosea 14:2). But, if Scripture lays down this grand general principle that suffering is the consequence of sin, it affirms, none the less clearly, that in our earthly life sin and suffering are never fully equivalent; it forbids our drawing from exceptional affliction the inference of exceptional guilt; it interdicts our taking the Divine balance into our own hands and interpreting the judgments of God according to our imperfect knowledge of things. Such, in a few words, is the teaching of Scripture on what we might call the theoretical side of the problem of suffering. But if, looked at in this light, this teaching appears to us measured and limited; everything changes when we look at it from a practical point of view. Here light abounds: when we endeavour to demonstrate the providential action of suffering, its salutary effects upon souls, the various and often sublime ends to which God makes it serve, we feel that lessons gush forth from every detail, and that we are verily at the school of the Divine Educator. Let us, first of all, lay down a principle: Suffering in itself is not good. Suffering is what we make it. It can produce humiliation or revolt, it regenerates the heart or renders it a thousand times more vile; it is the pensive and gentle angel that brings us back to the true life, or the demon that beholds with a cynical sneer the nothingness of all hope; it causes the sacred source of repentant sorrow to gush forth, or, like a consuming fire, it parches and withers in the depth of the soul all the germs of the future. It is blessed or accursed, it raises to a new life or it kills. The two wretches agonising upon Calvary, one on Christ’s right hand and one on His left, are both crucified, but the one believes whilst the other blasphemes; the one repents whilst the other hardens his heart. In consequence, the point to be solved is, not only if we suffer, but if we accept affliction as coming from God. For those who bear suffering in this spirit I would show what it may be and what are the fruits it may yield. In the first place, I say that affliction gives us a fuller understanding of religious truth, Not that it teaches us anything which is absolutely new, but it makes realities of those beliefs which are often in danger of being considered by.us as pure abstractions. You will be convinced of this if, for a moment, you examine the notion which sorrow gives us of God, of others, and of ourselves. As regards the truth concerning God. For many God exists only as a cardinal notion, in truth, but as a mere notion nevertheless. What is required that He may reveal Himself to such, as a living and present Being, that truly religious faith may be joined, henceforth, to purely intellectual faith? A profound thinker (Schleier-reacher) has told us, Man must feel that he is dependent upon Him. Religion comes into existence together with the sentiment of dependence. Now, what is most sure of producing this sentiment within us? Affliction. Just as the darkness of night unveils to our gaze the splendours of the starry heavens, even so it is in the gloom of trial, in that night of the soul, that the eye of faith most clearly discerns the glories of Divine love. As regards the truth concerning men. This demands no proof. At all times it has been said: We know men only when we have suffered. As regards the truth concerning ourselves. Does a man know himself when he has not suffered? Does he take a serious view of evil when he has not felt its pangs? Can he have a correct idea of his weakness when he has not been vanquished? If death is the wages of sin, suffering is its humiliating earnest, and we may well discern in it the cruel effigy of the master to whom we have sold ourselves. Therefore affliction gives us a fuller understanding of the truths concerning ourselves, our fellow-men, and God. It does more, it acts upon conscience, it subdues the will. Would the idolatrous Canaanite ever have thought of coming to Christ if her heart had not been rent by the fearful spectacle of her demon-possessed daughter?

Would Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, have called the Saviour if he had not seen his child in the agony of death? Count those who followed Jesus during His ministry upon earth, question the innumerable multitudes which compose His retinue throughout the ages, and you will see that most of His disciples went to Him because they suffered. And as suffering has begun the work of their salvation, it serves also to continue and perfect it. Without it, pride, self-will, guilty passion would spring up again like vivacious roots, but the hand of the Divine husbandman passes and cuts them off, and the sap of life, which would spread with so much vigour in wrong directions, is forced to rise and spread itself out in holy affections. Thirdly, I have indicated the action of suffering upon the heart. We must consider this side of our subject for a few moments. There is a fact which we may observe daily; it is this: when a man is for the first time smitten with disease, for the first time also he thinks that others suffer like himself; this is for him a sort of discovery; he knew the name of the disease which lays him low, but he did not really believe in its existence. We have heard of deaf and blind individuals, of persons who have suddenly become poor; we have felt for them a sincere sentiment of superficial commiseration, but if we are unexpectedly threatened with one or other of these terrible trials, then the image of those whom it has before smitten starts up before our eyes, we are surprised to find they are so many, we reproach ourselves with having too long ignored them. From this experience flows sympathy, that Divine sentiment which signifies that we suffer with others, and which has become the mightiest power of consolation the world has ever known. It is to the afflicted that God has entrusted the sublime mission of consolation; the terms widow and deaconess originally signified one and the same thing, and, in the order of joy, as in the order of mercy, it is the prerogative of the poor that they are called to enrich others. What is it, in reality, that has produced the Church and transformed the world? A unique, incomparable, inexpressible grief which has found its consummation in the sacrifice of the Cross. Finally, I have said that affliction is the means which God makes use of to awaken and entertain within us the sacred life of hope. Hope is that virtue of the soul by which we affirm that the future belongs to God. Christian hope lies not at the soul’s surface, it dwells in its innermost depths, and appears, radiant and strong, in the hour when all things fail us. Now, is it not evident that hope is the daughter of affliction? It is not those that are satisfied who hope. Those that are satisfied find their reward here below, as Jesus Christ tells Matthew 5:5-16), and that is the manifest sign of their condemnation. See the Jewish nation under the old dispensation: two nations mingle in this one nation. Throughout the history of the Church I find these two nations; if the Church is still standing, if she has not died, dishonoured by the ostentation, pride, and pollution of her representatives on the earth, by so many crimes perpetrated in the name of Jesus Christ, we owe it to those of her children who from age to age have maintained the sacred tradition of voluntary suffering and of sacrifice, and who have never ceased to expect the reign of God in righteousness and in truth. There exists, in the Roman Catholic religion, an institution which has always impressed me strongly: it is what is called perpetual adoration: in certain monastic orders, nuns relieve one another day and night, so that there are continually some praying before the Holy Sacrament. (E. Bersier, D. D.)

Chastisement--now and afterwards

I. First, we have very clearly in the text SOME CHASTISEMENTS.

1. Keeping literally to the words of the text, we observe that all which carnal reason can see of our present chastisement is but seeming. “No chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.” All that flesh and blood can discover of the quality of affliction is but its outward superficial appearance. We are not able by the eye of reason to discover what is the real virtue of sanctified tribulation; this discernment is the privilege of faith. How very apt we are to be deceived by seemings! Understand that all that you can know about trial by mere carnal reason is no more reliable than what you can discover by your feelings concerning the motion of the earth. Nor are our seemings at all likely to be worth much when you recollect that our fear, when we are under trouble, always darken, what little reason we have. I remember one so nervous that, when going up the Monument, he assured me that he felt it shake. It was his own shaking, not the shaking of the Monument; but he was timid at climbing to an unusual height. When you and I under trial get so afraid of this and afraid of that that we cannot trust the eyesight of the flesh, we may rest assured of this, that “ things are not what they seem.” Besides, we are very unbelieving, and you know how unbelief is apt always to exaggerate the black and to diminish the bright. Added to this, over and above our unbelief there is a vast amount of ignorance, and ignorance is always the mother of dismay and consternation. In the ignorant times in this country men were always trembling at their own superstitions.

2. The text shows us that carnal reason judgeth afflictions only “for the present.” “No chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous.” It judges in the present light, which happens to be the very worst in which to form a correct estimate. Suppose that I am under a great tribulation to-day--let it be a bodily affliction--the head is aching, the mind is agitated, am I in a fit state then to judge the quality of affliction with a distracted brain?

3. This brings me to observe that since carnal reason only sees the seeming of the thing, and sees even that in the pale light of the present, therefore affliction never seemeth to be joyous. If affliction seemed to be joyous, would, it be a chastisement at all?

(1) It never seems to be joyous in the object of it. The Lord always takes care, when He does strike, to hit in a tender place.

(2) Nor is it joyous in the force of it.

(3) Nor as to the time of it.

(4) Nor as to the instrument.

4. Nay, more, the text assures us that every affliction seemeth to be grievous. Perhaps to the true Christian, who is much grown in grace, the most grievous part of the affliction is this. “Now,” saith he, “I cannot see the benefit of it; if I could I would rejoice. Instead of doing good, it really seems to do harm.” “Such a brother has been taken away just in the midst of his usefulness,” cries the bereaved friend. A wife says, “My dear husband was called away just when the children needed most his care.”

5. But now let me add that all this is only seeming. Faith triumphs in trial. There is a subject for song even in the smarts of the rod. For, first, the trial is not as heavy as it might have been; next, the trouble is not so severe as it ought to have been, and certainly the affliction is not so terrible as the burden which others have to carry.

II. We have spoken of sore afflictions; well, now, next we have BLESSED FRUIT-BEARING.

1. I want you to notice the word which goes before the fruit bearing part of the text. “No chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless.” Now what does that mean? That this fruit-bearing is not natural--it is not the natural effect of affliction. Trials breed discontent, anger, envy, rebellion, enmity, murmuring, and a thousand other ills; but God overruleth and makes the very thing which would make

Christians worse to minister unto their growth in holiness and spirituality. It is not the natural fruit of affliction, but the supernatural use to which God turns it in bringing good out of evil.

2. And then observe that this fruit is not instantaneous. “Nevertheless,” what is the next word?” Afterwards.” Many believers are deeply grieved because they do not at once feel that they have been profited by their afflictions. Well, you do not expect to see apples or plums on a tree which you have planted but a week.

3. Well, now, you will note in the text a sort of gradation with regard to what affliction does afterwards. “It brings forth fruit”; that is one step. That fruit is “the fruit of righteousness”; here is an advance. That righteous fruit is “peaceable”; this is the best of all.

III. And now for the third point, and that is FAVOURED SONS. “Nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness in them which are exercised thereby.” It is not every Christian who gets a blessing from affliction, at least, not from every affliction that he has. I conceive that the last words are inserted by way of distinction--“those that are exercised thereby.” You know there are some of the Lord’s children who, when they get a trouble, are not exercised by it, because they run away from it. There are others who, when under trouble, are callous and do not yield; they bear it as a stone would bear it; the Lord may give or take away, they are equally senseless; they look upon it as the work of blind fate, not as the fruit of that blessed predestination which is ruled by a Father’s hand. They get no benefit from tribulation; it never enters into them, they are not exercised by it. Now, you know what the word “exercised” means. In the Greek gymnasium the training master would challenge the youths to meet him in combat. He knew how to strike, to guard, to wrestle. Many severe blows the young combatants received from him, but this was a part of their education, preparing them at some future time to appear publicly in the games. He who shirked the trial and declined the encounter with the trainer received no good from him, even though he would probably be thoroughly well flogged for his cowardice. The youth whose athletic frame was prepared for future struggles was he who stepped forth boldly to be exercised by his master. If you see afflictions come, and sit down impatiently, and will not be exercised by your trials, then you do not get the peaceable fruit of righteousness; but if, like a man, you say, “Now is my time of trial, I will play the man; wake up my faith to meet the foe; take hold of God; stand with firm foot and slip not; let all my graces be aroused, for here is something to be exercised upon”; it is then that a man’s bone and sinew and muscle all grow stronger. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The good fruits of afflictions

I. WHAT ARE THOSE FRUITS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH THE DIVINE CHASTENINGS ARE SENT TO PRODUCE.

1. The mortification of our sinful lusts.

2. A more warm and active zeal and diligence in all the great duties of life and religion.

3. Another good fruit of affliction is manifest in the visible growth and improvement of those particular virtues and graces in which we have been too deficient.

(1) One great design of affliction is to revive our regards to God; and to engage us to seek our happiness from and fix our dependence only upon Him.

(2) Another Christian virtue which afflictions are very proper to cultivate is humility.

(3) Patience is another grace that is often much improved by afflictions. For without them it could have no exercise or trial.

(4) Another Christian grace which afflictions are sent to exercise and strengthen is faith.

(5) Submission and resignation to the will of God is another Christian grace that is often much improved by affliction.

(6) An increase of heavenly-mindedness is another good fruit that is often produced by afflictions. And to produce this indeed they have the directest tendency. For when the soul is well weary of this world it will naturally begin to look out, and long for a better.

II. WHY THESE ARE CALLED THE PEACEABLE FRUITS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

1. Because they will help us to bear afflictions with the most quiet and peaceable temper of mind whilst we are under them.

2. Because they give it an habitual peace and serenity afterwards,

III. WHO THEY ARE ON WHOM AFFLICTIONS HAVE THIS HAPPY EFFECT.

1. It is most certain that all who are under afflictions do not receive benefit by them.

2. It is not every good man that reaps all those advantages by his afflictions I before mentioned.

3. The meaning is that the Divine discipline has this design and tendency, that afflictions are in their own nature a powerful expedient to reform the mind and make the heart better, and to procure the greatest spiritual benefit to those who are exercised thereby. And

4. That they actually have this effect upon those who take a proper care to improve them. They take effect the same way that all other means do, that is, by being carefully used, attended to, and improved by us.

IV. WHAT IS NECESSARY ON OUR PART TO PROCURE THESE HAPPY FRUITS OF AFFLICTION, or in what manner we are to behave that they may actually yield to us the peaceable fruits of righteousness whenever we are exercised thereby.

1. The first thing necessary on our part in order to improve affliction is serious thought or deep self-reflection.

2. A constant watchfulness under our afflictions is equally necessary to our receiving real good from them.

3. Another means to get good by afflictions is frequent and persevering prayer.

Conclusion:

1. We hence learn that it is a great mistake to think, as some good Christians are ready to do, that all afflictions are sent in a way of anger, and are tokens of God’s.

2. From what hath been said upon this subject we may distinctly see what it is to have afflictions sanctified. Afflictions are then sanctified, and then only, when they increase our love to God, our humility, our patience, our faith, resignation, and heavenly-mindedness.

3. What reason have we to adore the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father in laying His children under those afflicting dispensations which are necessary to their true interest?

4. What hath been said may tend to prepare us to meet the future sufferings of life and teach us how to bear them.

5. How little reason have we to he very fond of a world so subject to vicissitude, anxiety, and sorrow! (John Mason, M. A.)

Beating out the air bubbles:

The first time I went to a potter’s house was in a very remote part of the Southern States. I do not know that what I witnessed there was a fair sample of the ruder forms of pottery, but I judge it was. I had never seen a vessel shaped on the wheel before, and I asked the potter to let me see him make one. He took a little lump of clay, but instead of putting it immediately on the wheel, he took it in one hand and began to give it very heavy blows with his fist. I almost thought he was angry with the poor clay before him, and I said, “What are you doing with it? I thought you were going to make a vessel.” “So I am, when I get it ready. I am getting the air bubbles out of it. If I were to put it on the wheel as it is, it would be spoiled ill a few moments. One of those little bubbles would mar all my work. So I beat it and beat it, and in this way get all the air out of it.” Ah! I thought, so does God have to treat us. The great difficulty with us is those little bubbles of self-conceit, of our own self-will, and sometimes of our self-righteousness--something that, in the process of God’s work, would wonderfully mar it. So He has to deal with us severely; but He is not angry with the poor clay before Him. He is not angry with us when He puts us through this process of adversity. He is only getting out of us all that would mar His blessed work. How wise it is, then, for us just to accept, with perfect simplicity, His will!

The use of a clouded sky

A sky never clouded would cause a barren earth. (Good Words.)

Experimental religion learned in sorrow:

Dr. Bushnell lost a son. When, a year or two after, he went into the country to preach for an old friend, the latter noticed an increased fervour in his preaching, and, in intimate talk, perhaps, alluded to it, when he said, earnestly, “I have learned more of experimental religion since my little boy died than in all my life before.” (Dr. Bushnell’s Life.)

Now and afterwards:

So it must ever be. Day out of night, spring out of winter, flowers out of frost, joy out of sorrow, fruitfulness out of pruning, Olivet out of Gethsemane, the ascension out of Calvary, life out of death, and the Christ that is to be out of the pangs of a travailing creation. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)

Advantage of adversity:

Of Anna, Lady Hacket, it was said that as a ball when forcibly struck down rebounds the higher, so what had beaten down her worldly hopes raised her faith to a more steadfast persuasion that God, who is the Comforter of those who are cast down, would still be her God and guide unto death. (H. Clissold, M. A.)

Afflictions winning the heart for God

I have been all my life like a child whose father wishes to fix his undivided attention. At first the child runs about the room, but his father ties up his feet; he then plays with his hands until they likewise are tied. Thus he continues to do, till he is completely tied up. Then, when he can do nothing else, he will attend to his father. Just so has God been dealing with me to induce me to place my happiness in Him alone. But I blindly continued to look for it here, and God has kept cutting off one source of enjoyment after another, till I find that I can do without them all, and yet enjoy more happiness than ever in my life before. (E. Payson.)

Affliction sanctified

Ulrich Zwingle was a convinced reformer, and a self-denying pastor, before the plague broke out in Zurich, but that visitation was to him as life from the dead. He had returned hastily, while still an invalid, from a watering-place where he was seeking health, to minister to the dying, till struck down by the scourge himself; but when he rose again, it was with such a sight of spiritual things, and such a power of ministry, as he had never had before, so that two thousand of his fellow-citizens were soon after converted by his preaching. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Uses of pain:

Robert Hall, although he had been admitted to membership in his father’s church at fourteen years of age, after “ a very distinct account of his being the subject of Divine grace,” believed that his moral transformation was effected much later by means of the terrible discipline of pain which interrupted his ministry, and even for a time unhinged his reason. “There can be no question that from this period he seemed more to live under the prevailing recollection of his entire dependence upon God, that his habits were more devotional than they had ever before been, his spiritual exercises more frequent and more elevated.” (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Divine harmony out of discord

As musicians sometimes go through perplexing mazes of discord in order to come to the inexpressible sweetness of after chords, so men’s discords of trouble and chromatic jars, if God be their leader, are only preparing for a resolution into such harmonious strains as could never have been raised except upon such undertones, Most persons are more anxious to stop their sorrow than to carry it forward to its choral outburst. (H. W. Beecher.)

Divine tuning:

Men think God is destroying them because He is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the siring upon the musical rack. (H. W. Beecher.)

The afterward of trial

The Rev. James Hog, of Carnock, an eminent minister, was long under deep mental distress. When he had lived in Holland for a considerable time, it pleased God unexpectedly to impart a great measure of light to his mind. “Oh, how sweet,” says he, “the light was to me, who had been shut up in a dark dungeon! for sometimes I could do nothing but cry, ‘Send out Thy light and Thy truth.’ After I had thus cried, not without some experience of a gracious answer, and expectation of more, I quickly found my soul brought out of prison, and breathing in a free and heavenly air; altogether astonished at the amazing mercy and grace of God.”

The schemes of Providence but partially seen:

There is a striking passage in which a great philosopher, the famous Bishop Berkeley, describes the thought which occurred to him of the inscrutable schemes of Providence, as he saw in St. Paul’s Cathedral a fly moving on one of the pillars. “It requires,” he says, “some comprehension in the eye of an intelligent spectator to take in at one view the various parts of the building in order to observe their symmetry and design. But to the fly, whose prospect was confined to a little part of one of the stones of a single pillar, the joint beauty of the whole, or the distinct use of its parts, was inconspicuous. To that limited view the irregularities on the surface of the hewn stone seemed to be so many deformed rocks and precipices.” That fly on the pillar, of which the philosopher spoke, is the likeness of each human being as he creeps along the vast pillars which support the universe. The sorrow which appears to us nothing but a yawning chasm or hideous precipice may turn out to be but the joining or cement which binds together the fragments of our existence into a solid whole! That dark and crooked path in which we have to grope our way in doubt and fear may be but the curve which, in the full daylight of a brighter world, will appear to be the necessary finish of some choice ornament, the inevitable span of some majestic arch! (Dean Stanley.)

After the tempest:

Keen students of nature, and especially of marine life in all its forms, often welcome the tempest, because after it they frequently get their choicest specimens. In the journal of the late Dr. Coldstream it is thus written: “This morning, as the storm had subsided, I determined to go down to the sands of Leith, that I might revel in the riches that might have been cast up by the deep after the terrible storm.” So it is with believers; their very richest experiences and the choicest tokens of Divine favour are often got in and after their stormiest trials.

Lift up the hands which hang down

Christian compassion:

The words of the text are taken from Isaiah 35:3-4, and are addressed to the believing Hebrews as an admonition to comfort and encourage one another.

The disheartened among them are compared to such as had been running in a race, or sustaining a protracted conflict till their knees began to tremble, and their hands to hang down: and in this condition, those who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.

I. NOTICE THE RELIGIOUS STATE OF THOSE WHO ANSWER TO THE DESCRIPTION GIVES IN THE TEXT. Were we to compare Christians in general of the present day with those of the first ages, it would appear that they are grown weak and faint. We have but little of the zeal and activity which characterised the primitive Church. The description, however, is more particularly applicable to certain individual cases and characters amongst us, who need the compassion of their brethren, under their various difficulties and discouragements.

1. Some are ready to faint under difficulties and troubles of a worldly nature.

2. Some are discouraged through distrust, and groundless fears of future ills.

3. Others are distressed not only with the difficulties of life, but from being under the chastening hand of God.

4. Some are disheartened by repeated opposition from the enemies of religion.

5. Some are greatly discouraged by inward conflicts, arising from the evil propensities of their own hearts.

6. A departure from evangelical truth has weakened the strength of some by the way, and left them shorn of their dignity and glory.

7. The despondency of some good people arises no doubt from a natural gloominess in their constitution, which disposes them to dwell on the dark side of every subject rather than on the other.

II. THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANS TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER UNDER THESE DISCOURAGEMENTS. “Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.”

1. In order to perform this duty aright, it is necessary to exercise much tenderness and forbearance towards those who are labouring under great discouragements. Let the strong bear the infirmities of the weak, remembering that they are a part of the mystical body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:21; 1 Corinthians 12:25). The compassionate tenderness of the great Shepherd of the flock is left as a pattern for our imitation (Isaiah 40:11;Matthew 12:20).

2. Another way in which our compassion may be exercised is to point out to one another the directions and consolations of the gospel, according as the case may require; and here the tongue of the learned is necessary to speak a word in season to him that is weary.

3. Let us be concerned to remove the stumbling-block out of the way, and so to “make straight paths for their feet.”

Let us learn from hence:

1. That all our difficulties and discouragements in the ways of God arise from ourselves, and from the evil that is in the world. His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace.

2. How lovely and how interesting is Christian society, whose object it is to strengthen and encourage each other in the way to heaven; and how wretchedly defective must it be, if it has not this tendency!

3. How essential to the Christian character are brotherly kindness, charity, and a disinterested but affectionate concern for the spiritual and everlasting welfare of our fellow-Christians! (Theological Sketch Book.)

Of conquering discouragements:

Hands which hang down--that is the gesture of discouragement. Gesture addresses itself to the eye. Articulate speech addresses itself to the ear. Both tell the thoughts, feelings, purposes of the inner spirit. Consider

I. WHY DISCOURAGEMENT SOMETIMES IS.

1. Ill health is a very frequent reason for a discouraged mood.

2. Necessary reaction from a great strain is a frequent reason for discouragement.

3. The slighter disappointments of life in most real way shadow the spirits. There are days when the sky wears a steadily disappointing grey, and when an east wind of discouragement blows steadily through all its hours.

4. The haunting fear that in some great matter which vitally affects us we have made mistake is a frequent cause of discouragement.

5. Hostile circumstances are causes of discouragement.

6. A frequent cause of spiritual discouragement is allowed sin. We talk about the hiding of God’s face from us. Oftener we have ourselves hidden ourselves from God by doing what we know He cannot smile on.

II. SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH WE MAY TRIUMPH OVER THIS SO COMMON MOOD OF DISCOURAGEMENT. And we must triumph over discouragement. If we do not triumph over it, it will triumph over us. And no man can be well or do well who is in the perpetual gloom of a shadowed heart. “It is safe to say that no great enterprise was ever yet inaugurated, sustained, or completed in any other spirit than that of hope. The Suez Canal was not built, nor the ocean cable laid, nor the great war of a quarter of a century ago brought to a successful termination by men who were easily discouraged.” All these undertakings, and all undertakings of any sort, must have their root in hope. There are two ways of conquering the discouragement.

1. By the law of opposites. For example, if one finds himself shadowed by ill health, he will increase both his ill health and the shadows which it casts by perpetual thought of it and constant attention to its symptoms. The way is, as far as possible, to front health, and in all right ways to determine to reach it. The man who persistently thinks toward sickness is the man who will gather about himself the gloom of sickness. The man who persistently thinks toward health is the man who will soonest get both into it and into its sunshine. I read once of a woman who said that she always went through at least two hours of worry and despondency about her trials, and when she had cried until she had a wet handkerchief spread out to dry on every chair in the room, she thought she might cheer up a little, but she never expected to be happy in this life. “Why,” she said, “if I were happy I should think I had lost all my religion.” Too often such is the Christian notion. But God wants us to be happy; and the way out of the gloom of petty disappointments is by thought of Him and our many blessings. For example again: Nobody need be discouraged by sin, if only one will repent of it. “There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.”

2. Also, we can overcome discouragement by the law of faith. One tells how, in his youth, he and a young companion became lost in the maze at Hampton Court; they wandered about tired and discouraged, but they felt sure that they would find their way out presently, and they thought it would seem foolish to ask direction, though they saw an old man working not far off. They utterly failed, however, in getting out, and at last came to ask the old man if he could possibly tell them the path out of the maze. “Why,” he answered, “that is just what I am here for. Why did not you say you wanted to get out before?” And he put the young men at once on the right track. And that is what our Lord Jesus is for. The steady asking of Him and the following of His directions will deliver from many of life’s mazes and from its gloom. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)

Encouraging others:

At the battle of Five Forks, a soldier, wounded under his eyes, stumbled and was falling to the rear, when General Sheridan cried, “Never mind, my man; there’s no harm done.” And the soldier went on with a bullet in his brain until tie dropped dead on the field. (H. O.Mackey.)

Stimulating the discouraged:

Arago ascribes his success to words found on the paper cover of his book when greatly discouraged. They were, “Go on, sir; go on! The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increased clearness on your path,” written by D’Alembcrt. “That maxim,” says Arago, “was my greatest master in mathematics.” Following out these simple words, “Go on, sir; go on!” made him the first astronomical mathematician of his age. What Christians it would make of us! What heroes of faith, what sages in holy wisdom, should we become, by acting out that maxim, “Go on, sir; go on!”

The joy of sympathy:

Happy is the man who has that in his soul which acts upon the dejected as April airs upon violet roots. Gifts from the hand are silver and gold, but the heart gives that which neither silver nor gold can buy. To be full of goodness, full of cheerfulness, full of sympathy, full of helpful hope, causes a man to carry blessings of which he is himself as unconscious as a lamp is of its own shining. Such a one moves on human life as stars move on dark seas to bewildered mariners; as the sun wheels, bringing all the seasons with him from the south. (H. W. Beecher.)

Make straight paths for your feet

The Christian’s footprints

I. THE CHRISTIAN’S CORRECT WALK. Beasts, birds, and fishes make different tracks, and in a museum you will find specimens of each in the rocks which have been strata of the earth, made probably before the creation of man. And we do not have to ask which were tracks of birds or quadrupeds--it is evident. And if, in the future, somebody should find your footprints, will they be tracks of a worldling or a Christian? “He left half a million when he died,” it will be said of one. “He turned many to righteousness,” it will be said of another. Ah! that is a Christian’s track. “He toiled to destroy the works of the devil.” “He gave his goods to feed the poor.” There is one Example--Christ. He never swerved a single iota. Straight as the path of a sunbeam was His journey from the footstool to the throne.

II. THE CHRISTIAN’S HELPFUL INFLUENCE. HOW tenderly the Lord cares for the lame! You are strong, and have no need to be afraid of rough places; but perchance there is a weak and crippled brother coming after you, who will stumble and fall where you tread firmly. Think of him, and act accordingly. A father, climbing up a steep and precipitous cliff at a summer watering-place, says that, to his astonishment, he heard his little boy calling out behind him, “Take a safe path, father, for I am coming after you.” What was safe for the strong nerves and sturdy strength of the father, might be exceedingly perilous for the weak and unpractised step of the child. Therefore, the father must “make straight paths for his feet,” &c. It is a lesson running through all life and conduct. (A. J. Gordon, D. D.)

Lame sheep:

There are some believers of strong and vigorous faith. Fleet of foot, they can run and not be weary, or with steady progress they can walk, and not faint. But all are not so highly privileged. I suppose there is seldom a family which has no sickly member.

I. IN GOD’S FLOCK WHERE ARE ALWAYS SOME LAME SHEEP. There is a peril intimated here; “lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.” This is only too likely to happen. Lame sheep will commonly be found even in the tiniest flock. It will be necessary, then, to be tender of their infirmity. Some of these people of God who are compared to lame sheep seem to have been so from their birth. It is in their constitution. Do you not know some friends of yours who naturally incline to despondency? For them the road is always rugged, the pastures unsavoury, and the waters turbid. You will find such unhappy souls in all our Churches; people who seem from their very conformation to be lame as to the matters of faith, and full of doubts and fears. Besides, have you never noticed a constitutional tendency in some professors to stumble and get lame? If there is a slough, they will fall into it; if there is a thicket, they will get entangled by it; if there is an error, they will run foul of it. Good people we trust they are, and they do believe in Jesus, but somehow or other they do not see things clearly. Can you not detect, too, some who are lame in point of character? They seen to have been so from their very birth. There is a something about their gait that is unsteady. With some it is a cross temper; with others it is a general moroseness, which it does not seem as if the grace of God itself would ever cure in them; or it may be a natural indolence oppresses them; or it is quite possible that habitual impatience harasses them. Now, the grace of God should eradicate these vices; it can and will, if you yield to its influence. Other sheep of Christ’s flock are halt and lame because they have been ill-fed. Bad food is the cause of a thousand disorders. Many a sickly man, instead of being dosed with drugs, needs to be nourished with wholesome meat. Had he something better to feed upon, he might conquer his diseases. May God supply us constantly with strong meat, and sound health to digest it. Full many of the Lord’s sheep are lame because they have been worried. Sheep often get worried by a dog, and so they get lamed. It may be I am addressing some poor child of God who has been beset by Satan, the accuser of the brethren, and frightfully tormented. Oh, what trouble and what terror he can inflict upon us! Others, too, have been harassed by persecutors. Many a poor woman has lost her cheerful spirits through a harsh, ungodly husband, who has excited her fears or vexed her with sneers; and not a few dear young children have been broken down for life through the hard treatment they have had for conscience sake to endure at home. Some precious saints I have known have grown lame through a rough and weary way, just as sheep can be lamed if they are driven too fast, or too far, or over too strong a ground. To what an excess of trouble some children of God have been exposed! The Lord has graciously helped them through all their adversities. Still the trouble they have had to endure has told upon their hearts. Perhaps more still are lamed through the rough road of controversy. If you are a child of God, and you know your bearings, keep always as much as ever you can out of the jingle-jangle of controversy. Little good ever comes of your subtle disputations, but they do gender much strife. Full many of the Lord’s sheep have become lame through negligence, faintness, and the gradual declension of spiritual health. They have backslidden; they have been remiss in prayer, and forsaken communion with God, so it is no marvel that their walk betrays their weakness. Beware of catching a chill in religion. Lameness is not unfrequently the result of a fall. Saddest, most sorrowful, of all the causes of lameness this which comes through a fall into any sin. Heaven spare us from turning aside to folly!

II. DO YE ASK, THEN, WHAT HE SAYS WE ARE TO DO FOR THESE LAME ONES? Evidently, we ought to comfort them. Lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. Cheer the hearts when the limbs are weak. Tell the doubting that God is faithful. Tell those that feel the burden of sin that it was for sinners Christ died. Tell the backsliders that God never does cast away His people. Tell the desponding that the Lord delighteth in mercy. Tell the distracted the Lord doth devise means to bring back His banished. But will you please give heed to the special instruction. We are to make straight paths because of lame people. You cannot heal the man’s bad foot, but you can pick all the stones out of the path that he has to pass over. You cannot give him a new leg, but you can make the road as smooth as possible. Let there be no unnecessary stumbling-blocks to cause him pain. Do you ask me how you can observe this precept? If you have to preach the gospel, preach it plainly. Would you make straight paths, then take care that your teaching is always according to the Bible. And, in all our walk and conversation let us make straight paths to our feet as those who aim at holiness of life. Unholy Christians are the plague of the Church. The inconsistencies of professors spread dismay among weak, desponding believers. Once more let me admonish you. Do not be negligent when your Lord is so vigilant. The Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, evidently cares for the lame ones. The charge He gives is a proof of the concern He feels. He bids us to be considerate of them, because He Himself takes a warm interest in their welfare.

III. WHAT NOW SHALL I SAY TO YOU WHO FEEL YOUR OWN WEAKNESS AND INFIRMITY? YOU lame ones who cannot walk without limping, I know bow you complain. “Ah,” say you, “I am no credit to Christianity. Though in all sincerity I do believe in Jesus, yet I fear that after all he will disown me.” When Mr. Greatheart went with Muchafraid and Feeblemind on the road to the celestial city, he had his hands full. He says of poor Mr. Feeblemind, that when he came to the lions, he said, “Oh, the lions will have me.” And he was afraid of the giants, and afraid of everything on the road. It caused Greatheart much trouble to get him on the road. It is so with you. Well, you must know that you are very troublesome and hard to manage. But then our good Lord is very patient; He does not mind taking trouble. In the Divine economy the more care you require the more care you shall have. Besides, you know somewhat of our blessed Redeemer’s covenant engagements. Did our Lord Jesus Christ fail to bring His weak ones home, it would be much to His dishonour. In your weakness lies your great strength. Jesus Christ will be sure to cover you with His power, so that when you are utterly defenceless you shall be most efficiently defended. “Ah,” says another, “I have had a weary life of it hitherto.” Yes, but you have brighter days to come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Follow peace.

., and holiness

The winnowing fan

I. TWO THINGS TO BE FOLLOWED. We are to follow peace and holiness; the two are consistent with each other and may be followed together. Peace is to be studied, but not such a peace as would lead us to violate holiness by conforming to the ways of unregenerate and impure men. We are only so far to yield for peace sake as never to yield a principle; we are to be so far peaceful as never to be at peace with sin: peaceful with men, but contending earnestly against evil principles. Courtesy is not inconsistent with faithfulness. It is not needful to be savage in order to be sanctified. Follow holiness, but do not needlessly endanger peace. Having thus hinted at the connection between the two, and how the two together make up a complete character, let us now take them one by one.

I. Follow PEACE, “peace with all” says the text--an amplification of the expression. Follow peace with all the Church. Hold what you believe with firmness, for you are not to trifle with God’s truth; but wherever you see anything of Christ, there confess relationship, and act as a brother towards your brother in Christ. Follow peace with all, especially with all your own relatives and friends at home. Call we that man a Christian who will not speak with his own brother? Follow peace with all your neighbours. & Christian man should not make himself hated by all around him, yet there are some who seem to fancy that they are true to their religion in proportion as they make themselves disagreeable. Win your neighbours by your willingness to oblige; disarm their opposition, if possible, by courtesy, by charitableness, by kindness. Follow peace with all--even with persecutors. The anvil after all breaks the hammer, because it bears every stroke and returns none; so be it with the Christian. The text says

II. �erstition, and wicked customs of the world, and all this out of love to Christ. To bear this cross is not merely to suffer any ways, but to suffer the worst man can do unto us with patience, with constancy, with joy, and to think ourselves happy and much honoured that we are counted worthy to suffer for so great a Saviour, and in so noble a cause. This requires a Divine faith well grounded upon the word and promises of God, and a special assistance of the Divine Spirit; for these will strengthen our hearts, and make us willing to suffer anything before we offend our God and lose our Saviour. (G. Lawson.)

Bearing His reproach

Christ’s reproach

It is called Christ’s reproach in sundry respects: as

1. The union that is betwixt Him and His Church. So as the reproach of the body or of any member thereof is the reproach of Christ Himself.

2. The sympathy which is betwixt Christ and every of His members. He is sensible of that reproach which is cast upon any of them (Acts 9:4).

3. The account which Christ hath of the reproaches of His saints; He doth account them as reproaches cast upon Himself.

4. His undertaking to revenge such reproaches and wrongs as are done to His members (Romans 12:19).

5. The cause of the reproach which is here meant, and that is Christ Himself, a profession of His name, a maintaining of His gospel, and holding close to His righteousness. In this sense an apostle calleth sufferings in such cases Christ’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:14; Acts 5:41).

6. That resemblance that is betwixt the reproaches of saints and Christ.

This reference of reproach to Christ in this phrase, “His reproach “ is for limitation, direction, consolation, and incitation.

1. It affordeth a limitation, in that it restraineth it to a different kind of reproach, which is Christ’s reproach. It is not every kind of reproach that can be counted a matter of glory, wherein a man may rejoice; but Christ’s reproach. I may in this case say of reproach, as the apostle doth of buffeting: “What glory is it, if when ye be reproached for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” (1 Peter 2:20).

2. It affordeth a direction in showing how we ought to bear reproach, even as Christ did; for we are in this case to look unto Jesus, who despised the Hebrews 12:2).

3. It ministereth much comfort, in that no other thing is done to us than what is done to our Head before us. Herewith doth Christ comfort His disciples (Matthew 10:25; John 15:20).

4. What greater motive can we have to incite us willingly and contentedly to bear reproach than this, that it is Christ’s reproach? If honour, if profit may be motives to incite us to a duty, these motives are not wanting in this case. What can be more honourable than to be as Christ was? and if we be reproached with Him here, we shall enjoy with Him hereafter a crown of glory; what more honourable? what more profitable? (W. Gouge.)

Reproach incurred by Christians:

The following are the chief grounds on which the first Christians were called to bear reproach, and on which we also may be called to bear the same.

1. They suffered reproach, as being followers of a crucified Saviour.

2. A second ground of the reproach suffered by the first Christians was that they forsook the ways of an evil world.

3. Christians are reproached by many on account of their general seriousness and spirituality of character.

4. Lastly: those who adopt any peculiar mode of religious observance have been at times exposed to ridicule on that account. (R. Hall, M. A.)

Bearing Christ’s reproach

Sheriff--was the child of a Christian mother. He had lived to be over sixty years of age without openly confessing Christ. Some time ago he “became interested in his spiritual welfare, and after attending some meetings in the city where he lived, he arose and openly acknowledged his intention to be a Christian. The positiveness of his expression, and his prominence in the community, caused a reporter to insert an item in the next morning’s paper that the sheriff had been converted. When he went into the court-house in the performance of his duties, he was saluted by one of a throng of godless men with the remark, “Well, sheriff, we hear you are going to leave us.”

“Leave you?” said he. “What do you mean?” “Why, we heard,” said the man, “that you were going to leave the world, the flesh, and the devil.” The sheriff hesitated only an instant, and said, with great emphasis, “That’s just what I’m going to do.” One of the men then said, “How do you like its being printed in the paper that you have been converted?” He said, “Was that in the paper? I think that is grand. I wish that they’d print placards about it and put them up all over the city, so that people might know about it at once, that I mean henceforth to be a Christian man.” It is needless to say that from that time he was a devoted and faithful follower of Christ.

Prizing the Cross:

Tacitus reports that though the amber ring among the Romans was of no value, yet, after the emperor began to wear it, it began to be in great esteem: it was the only fashion amongst them. So our Saviour has borne the Cross, and was borne upon it. Once a disgrace, even, it comes to be a boast to the true believer. We should esteem it more highly than many of us do, and bear it daily in remembrance of Him. (E. P.Thwing.)