Bible Commentaries

Isaiah 3:10-11 — WORKING FOR GOD: THE END OF CHRISTIAN LIFE ‘Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.’ Isaiah 3:10-11 Including under the term in the text of ‘our doings’ not only our external acts, but our will, our faith, our voluntary thoughts, desires, purposes, and intentions:— Let us observe— I. Their connection with one another. We have a tendency to look

Daniel 12:13 — ‘AT LAST IT RINGETH TO EVENSONG’ ‘Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.’ Daniel 12:13 God said one word to Daniel—the last word in this Book: ‘Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.’ Sweet word for the servant of God closing a life of devotedness to Him! Such shall be

Joel 2:26 — UNASHAMED ‘And My people shall never he ashamed.’ Joel 2:26 There are three respects in which the promise of our text may be regarded as applying to those who answer to the description of the people of God. The believer has no cause to be ashamed: (1) When he searches into himself; (2) when he stands before the world; (3) when he stands before God. I. It is proved by daily experience that, when his own heart is laid open to a man, he shrinks from the scene of foulness and deformity, and could not

Jonah 3:1 — ‘THE SECOND TIME’ ‘The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh … and preach.’ Jonah 3:1 I. ‘The second time.’ This implies that there had been a first time.—Jonah must have paused after writing these first words of a new chapter in his life-history, and gone back in thought to the earlier call at Gath-hepher, and the terrible consequences

Matthew 15:14 — UNCONSCIOUS BLINDNESS ‘Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’ Matthew 15:14 The pathos of the perverted conscience, of the misdirected sincerity, of disastrous loyalty! Here, in a vivid picture, we see and feel the misery of it all. It is the Pharisee who suggested the picture. I. The blind leader.—Our Lord is thinking,

Matthew 17:27 — LOVE ‘Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an book, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for Me and thee.’ Matthew 17:27 This text presents an impressive illustration of the Christian law of love—the rule of using our liberty in things not intrinsically wrong, allowable in themselves, under the control of love, so as to keep our lives and actions from misleading

Matthew 3:16-17 — up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ Matthew 3:16-17 I. Why did Christ need this manifestation of the Spirit? ( a) That witness might be borne to His Sonship. It was to assure, not Himself indeed, but others, of His Sonship. Though He needed no assurance of His Sonship, there are many of God’s children

Matthew 3:8 — Take care that your religion neither begins nor ends in a feeling or in a service. Amend your own ways. Give God His own. Observe the Lord’s Day by attendance at the Lord’s own service. Pray and work for unity. —The Rev. James Vaughan. Illustration (1) ‘As the length of the roots of a tree under the ground, so is the width and the breadth of its branches above; and the flavour of the sap may always be detected in the grain. Just so it is to be in that beautiful plant of godly sorrow. There must be

Matthew 6:9 — hallowed.—By asking that they may be ‘hallowed,’ we mean that they may be made known and glorified. The glory of God is the first thing that God’s children should desire. It is the object of one of our Lord’s own prayers: ‘Father, glorify Thy name’ (St. John 12:28). ( a) It is the purpose for which the world was created. ( b) It is the end for which the saints are called and converted. ( c) It is the chief thing we should seek, that ‘God in all things may be glorified’ ( 1 Peter 4:11). —Bishop J. C. Ryle.

Mark 1:30-31 — A DOMESTIC DRAMA ‘But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell Him of her. And Be came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.’ Mark 1:30-31 In these verses we have a brief, beautiful, and interesting drama. The more dire dispensations of Providence may nevertheless be those around which may circle, and out of which may grow, many blessings. I. Telling Jesus.—The Saviour knew all

Mark 10:45 — THE ATONEMENT ‘The Son of Man came … to give His life a ransom for many.’ Mark 10:45 There can be no doubt at all that the main message of the New Testament is the Death, Passion, and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the attendant circumstances which led up to the crowning fact. I. The view of Holy Scripture.—The

Mark 2:1 — CHRIST IN US ‘It was noised that He was in the house.’ Mark 2:1 We are all houses, whether we will or no. The only question is, Who shall inhabit us? It is a blessed thought that Christ died not only to redeem us, but to dwell in us. I want to point out some marks, suggested by the narrative in this chapter, by

Mark 3:14 — THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING “He ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach.’ Mark 3:14 Such is the Evangelist’s brief account of the origin and purpose of the Apostolate. I. The decay of preaching.—Does the preaching of the message of Christ, does the preaching of Christ, hold anything like its proper place at present among us of the

Mark 6:5 — contain it—a preparation of the heart to receive the gift—both, indeed, of grace, but the one, the moral condition of the soul, previous and absolutely necessary to the other. Before you can have the gift you must believe the Giver. Illustrations (1) ‘You have been engaged in some work to do good to a fellow-creature, and you have laboured long and hard, and you have not succeeded. Why? You have distrusted the issue. You thought you were distrusting yourself, but you were distrusting God. You said,

Luke 11:29 — ASKING FOR A SIGN ‘This is an evil generation: they seek a sign.’ Luke 11:29 We see here the desperate unbelief of the Jews in our Lord’s time. We are told that though they ‘gathered thick together’ to hear Christ preach, they still professed to be waiting for a sign. They pretended to want more evidence before they believed.

Luke 17:26 — THREE CRITICAL DAYS ‘And as it was in the days of Noe … when the Son of Man is revealed.’ Luke 17:26; Luke 17:28; Luke 17:30 The subject is the Kingdom of God. A number of Pharisees had forced themselves upon our Lord with the question, ‘when the Kingdom of God should come?’ And our Lord answered them. ‘The Kingdom of God,’ He said, ‘cometh not

Luke 17:28 — THREE CRITICAL DAYS ‘And as it was in the days of Noe … when the Son of Man is revealed.’ Luke 17:26; Luke 17:28; Luke 17:30 The subject is the Kingdom of God. A number of Pharisees had forced themselves upon our Lord with the question, ‘when the Kingdom of God should come?’ And our Lord answered them. ‘The Kingdom of God,’ He said, ‘cometh not

Luke 17:30 — THREE CRITICAL DAYS ‘And as it was in the days of Noe … when the Son of Man is revealed.’ Luke 17:26; Luke 17:28; Luke 17:30 The subject is the Kingdom of God. A number of Pharisees had forced themselves upon our Lord with the question, ‘when the Kingdom of God should come?’ And our Lord answered them. ‘The Kingdom of God,’ He said, ‘cometh not

John 1:29 — THE LAMB OF GOD ‘The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin of the world.’ John 1:29 John stands before the ministry in the same attitude as that in which the herald angel stands before the infancy, both the one and the other appealing to us to join our song with theirs—‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will

John 14:27 — THE PEACE OF CHRIST ‘My peace I give unto you.’ John 14:27 The word peace in the Hebrew seems to have the idea of completeness—something which if a man has, he wants no more; it is a word in which all good is summed up; we should call it happiness. ‘My peace I give unto you.’ These are the Words of the