The Acts of the Apostles Acts 1:1 The keynote to the book of the Acts of the Apostles lies in the word ἢρξατο of the first verse. That ἤρξατο is not pleonastic. It is the acts 'which Jesus began,' but has not finished . Dr. John Duncan, Colloquia Peripatetica, p. 138. Reference. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 162. Witnesses of the Resurrection The Message to a Few Acts 1 It would seem that our Lord gave His attention to a few, because, if the few be gained, the many will follow. To these few He showed Himself again and again. These He restored, comforted, warned, inspired. He formed them unto Himself, that they might show forth His praise. This His gracious procedure is opened to us in the first words of the book of the Acts. 'To the Apostles whom He had chosen He showed Himself alive after His Passion by many infallible proofs; being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.' Consider, then, if we may state the alternative reverently, which of the two seems the more likely way, even according to a human wisdom, of forming preachers of the Gospel to all nations the exhibition of the Resurrection to the Jewish people generally, or this intimate private certifying of it to a few? And remember that, as far as we can understand, the two procedures were inconsistent with each other; for that period of preparatory prayer, meditation, and instruction, which the Apostles passed under our Lord's visible presence for forty days, was to them what it could not have been, had they been following Him from place to place in public, supposing there had been an object in this, and mixing in the busy crowds of the world. J. H. Newman. References. I. 1. Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 387. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 238. I. 1, 2. A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 9. Easter Commands Acts 1:1-3 It is these Easter commands of our Lord Jesus Christ that I want to bring before you. They have all to do with service and with active work. They are very different to the Gethsemane commands. The Gethsemane commands had to do with resignation, with submission, with warfare. 'Watch and pray.' 'Pray that ye enter not into temptation.' 'Put up thy sword into the sheath.' I. The first Easter command, the great Easter command, we had almost said the only Easter command, because it stands out pre-eminently above all the rest, is simply this: Go and tell. It is repeated again and again, but, alas! not once too often, as the lethargy of the Christian Church for nineteen hundred years doth signify. It is addressed to all classes. Go and tell. And the command comes to us today. It is given to all, to the women, to the men, to the Magdalene, to the Apostles, to the whole Church. II. The second Easter command you will find in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Luke, and in the thirty-ninth verse. 'Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.' Jesus Christ will not have you go forth and obey the first command without having given you the means, first of all, to satisfy yourself as to the truth of the message which you are to deliver. You are to be thoroughly convinced yourself. III. The third command you have in the twentieth chapter of St. John, and in the twenty-second verse. Jesus Christ, we read, 'breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.' This third command seems to teach me this: If you are to Go and tell, you must not only be intellectually convinced, you must be essentially united to your Lord and Master Himself, you must have His life flowing through your life. IV. The fourth command is in the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Luke, and in the forty-ninth verse. 'Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.' Christian work is no mere fanatical enthusiasm, Christian work is no mere feverish running hither and thither. Christian work is going forth calmly and quietly, living, speaking, working in the power of God the Holy Ghost. E. A. Stuart, The True Citizen and other Sermons, vol. ix. p. 177. References. I. 2. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 314; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 235. I. 3. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 42. Bishop Westcott, Village Sermons, p. 147. G. Bellett, Parochial Sermons, p. 177. Scottish Review, vol. ii. p. 412. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. pp. 145, 508. The Promise of the Father (For the Sunday after Ascension Day) Acts 1:4 In old time this Sunday was sometimes called Expectation Sunday, because on it the Church recalls our thoughts to the disciples of our Lord waiting in expectancy for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. We are told that those days of waiting were days of gladness and rejoicing, days of worship and prayer and praise. But surely they must also have been days tinged with anxiety, days of wonder when the great experience of which they had been warned would take place. Those men and women had passed through great experiences, moral and spiritual, during the year or two that was passed. Entirely new views of life and religion had opened out to them. Sin and moral evil had acquired new aspects. They had learned that God was to them a Father tender, loving, patient, forgiving, claiming and seeking the response of their devotion. They were coming to see that as they stood related to Him whom they had owned as Teacher and Friend, so they were related to God and to eternity. But they had had experiences of another kind also. They had had great hopes, and their hopes had often been disappointed. Once indeed on the dark day of Calvary their hopes had been utterly dashed to pieces. Then came the unspeakable thrill of the unimagined surprise of the Easter Day. Surely that must be the climax, they would think. Could there be anything greater or richer or fuller in human experience than the moment when they saw the risen Lord? Then followed the wonderful experiences of the Forty Days, so blessed, so reassuring, when all unexpected Jesus would be standing in their midst, breathing upon them His benediction of peace, teaching them that they lived on the frontier of two worlds, or, if you prefer it, teaching them that this firm, solid earth was interpenetrated by the spiritual. And so experience upon experience was theirs, and yet there was still a greater, the greatest of all, to follow the coming of the Spirit. How could they help asking questions? How could they forbear wanting to know more? What may be the end of it all? Direct answers were denied them. They were told to wait to wait and see to endure the discipline of expectancy which would in the Providence of God unfold its revelation and bring its own experience and power and blessing. I. The Age-Long Lesson. 'Wait for the promise of the Father.' This is the agelong lesson that each generation of man has to learn as it steps on the stage of human history, and it is a lesson that seems as difficult to learn now as ever it was in the far-off Old Testament times, when the years and the centuries went by and the redeemer came not. In every age the hearts and hopes of earnest men are strained to breaking-point because it seems to them that the cause of the Christ moves too slowly, and that the apparently unheeding God seems not to hear nor to answer. How good men must have felt this impatience in the fourth century, when the Arian heresy was ever raising up its head! How good men feel it today when they consider the difficulties and the slowness which beset the advance of the kingdom of Christ in the world, or hinder the reunion of our divided Christendom! But the truest goodness is content to wait for the promise of the Father, casting its burden upon the Lord, knowing that the cause is His, and that, to use Bishop Butler's words, 'He accomplishes His ends by slow, successive steps'. II. The Command to Wait. 'Wait for the promise of the Father' that is the word, the impression that I would seek to leave with you. Wait! Ah! of course we have to wait, you may cry, for we cannot help ourselves; but none the less does our nature rebel against the delay. We hate the word and method alike in our hurrying, impatient time, when we desire to solve our problems and win our experiences the day after tomorrow. Yet it is both Christ's Word and Christ's method. It is the Word and method we need, not only for our great public questions, whether of Church and possibly of State, but certainly for the inward experiences of the soul's life. Who of us is not seeking fuller, richer personal knowledge of God and of His Holy Spirit's working? Who of us does not long to be more sure of Christ as Saviour and Lord, more sure of the things which are unseen and eternal? We sometimes look up with straining eyes and ears, but the heavens are as brass above us. What can we do? One thing it is clear we cannot do. We cannot force or manufacture spiritual experience any more than the disciples could by themselves obtain the Spirit which only God could bestow. Like them we must 'wait for the promise of the Father'. But like them we must learn, if we would go on from strength to strength, that waiting is no mere idle, listless dreaming or gazing up into heaven, but rather the maintenance of the attitude, the making of the atmosphere, in which alone the still small voice of the Spirit of God may reach our consciences, and strengthen our wills, and purify our affections, and inspire our souls. The Primus of Scotland (Dr. Robberds, Church Family Newspaper, 2nd June, 1911). Waiting (For Ascension-tide) Acts 1:4 That deep spiritual intention, which we have seen to underlie all the incidents of Christ's life, extends itself, no less, to that remarkable interval of 'ten days' that followed its close. That parenthesis between the ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Ghost, in other words, between the visible and the spiritual presence of Christ in His Church, always appears to me a passage which it is very important to read aright It was a singular one at least, it must have appeared very singular to the disciples at the time. Look at the circumstances, place yourselves in the disciples' position, and you will reel the peculiar character of that 'waiting'. God appoints intervals, intervals as they relate to our little minds, though all an equal part in His great plan; and the right view and the proper duty of these intervals is an essential part of the Christian's education. I. It may be you are a Man Lately Awakened to a deep sense of sin You have gone, as you never went before, as a sinner to Christ you have cast yourself at His feet you have believed on Him as your Saviour, and assuredly you are at this moment a forgiven man. You have entered into the promise. God loves yon, and you are quite safe. But do you feel it? Do you realise your forgiveness and your acceptance? Are you forthwith happy? Perhaps not at all. You cannot receive it. You are at peace with God; but you do not feel you are at peace. You are reconciled; but you are not comforted. Jesus has done all for you; but you do not know it. And this may go on for, what seems to you, a weary while. I cannot say how long. Forgiveness, but no joy grace, but no rest till the Spirit comes till the Spirit comes and reveals it to your heart, and makes you to see and feel that all along it was a fact, but it was a fact hidden from you, till the Spirit showed it you that Christ is yours and you are Christ's. Need I say that that interval between Christ's cleansing and. the Spirit manifesting it is a very critical period in a believer's life? II. Or you have been Praying, and that for a strictly promised thing. It has not been for anything worldly; it has not even been for another's soul; it is not for any imaginary good; but it has been for a covenanted grace to your own soul. Say, it has been for a victory over a particular sin say, it has been for some gift, in which you feel yourself particularly deficient. The prayer has been repeated often earnestly, trustingly, importunately. It has gone up, again and again, in the commanding name of Jesus. But you have no response. You are none the better. The struggle is as severe the sin is as strong the desired gift is as far off as ever. What shall we say? It is another interval subject to that law. It is a repetition, in your heart, of the history of Ascension and Pentecost. III. How are those Intervals to be Used? (a) It is well to have in the mind that it is an interval an ordained interval with a defined boundary line; as much a part of God's counsel in the matter, as the issue, when it comes; or the means that you are now employing to obtain it. (b) Being God's own 'waiting time,' we must watch carefully; and we must honour Him. Shall the great God, all-wise and prudent, be hurried by one such as us? 'Tarry thou the Lord's leisure.' It is the path of reverence. (c) Do, in the interim, just what Christ told His little Church to do in the great model of a 'waiting time' keep in the appointed path of duties and ordinances. Be where all good comes. 'Stay in Jerusalem' (d) Look to it that you are united, like them, among yourselves 'with one heart'. (e) And, above all, be much in prayer. Nothing passes time like prayer. Nothing provokes the great actions of heaven like prayer. And, as far as may be, united prayer that prayer has a double promise. (f) And let it be always the most determined in your minds that, however late it may seem to you, you do nothing but what God has told you to do till you have your answer. Do not be in a hurry to set out. Do not let the man who has his hand on the bow of prayer be in haste to stop his arrows till he is 'endued with power from on high'. References. I. 4. F. B. Cowl, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 238. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. i. p. 274. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p. 98; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 112. The Baptism of the Spirit Acts 1:3 We do ill to brush aside the thought of the Trinity as a mere speculation of religious metaphysics. It is the most practical thing in the world. By it is measured not so much the distance between Christianity and other religions that might be purely intellectual but the difference between Christianity as a theory or scheme of thought, and Christianity as a living and potent experience. Have ye received the Holy Ghost? is a question in life rather than in theology. I. Christianity, as it appears in the New Testament, is identified with the reception of the Spirit. Christianity itself, once emptied of this meaning and power, is as lifeless as Buddhism, and may become as corrupting. Some of the ancient Churches, from which the Spirit is withdrawn, the Syrian Church in India, the Coptic in Egypt, the Nestorian in Persia, are not only powerless, but seem to lie like an incubus on the populations. The Christian life, wherever it is real, means a freshening tide of life which flows like a river and the river flows from under the throne of God. And this life of the Spirit, as it comes from the experience of salvation, issues in the salvation of others. II. But as we recognise the very definite result, and realise the equally definite cause; as we see that Christianity is a spirit-filled life, a life which begins, and is continued and ends in the Spirit, we cannot too resolutely set our hearts on that experience which constitutes all the difference between a dead and a living religion. Come, let us, like that man of a stout countenance in the Pilgrim's Progress, buckle on our armour, and set our face to battle our way through. III. And now, what are the conditions of this heavenly baptism? They are the same conditions as those on which all God's gifts depend, Faith and Obedience. They are the simplest conditions possible, if the will is set on fulfilling them; they appear difficult and even impossible until the will is summoned to undertake them. (1) 'He therefore that ministereth to you the spirit,... doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?' (Galatians 3:5 ). It is certainly by the hearing of faith. (2) But hand in hand with faith goes obedience. 'The Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him,' we read in Acts 5:32 . Faith without obedience is illusion; obedience without faith is blindness. It is not so much an act as an attitude of obedience. To use an image, it is the soul emerging from the slough of self and planting a foot on the rock of the will of God. There are two wings on which the soul mounts to heaven, says the Imitatio, purity and obedience. R. F. Horton, The Trinity, p. 211. References. I. 5. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 197. I. 5-12. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 110. I. 6. H. S. Holland, God's City, p. 273. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 413. I. 6-8. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No. 2330. I. 7. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 349; ibid. vol. x. p. 121; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 411; ibid. vol. iv. p. 380; ibid. vol. vi. pp. 246, 398. I. 7, 8. Bishop Wordsworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 324. I. 7-10. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 377. Spiritual Power Acts 1:8 I. The question of all questions- for each of us to consider is: 'How am I to make my life the home and embodiment of this power from above?' If we turn to our Lord's own example, or to the life of Paul or any other of His followers, or to any life we have known and felt to breathe around it this same power of the Spirit, some things become at once very obvious and clear to us. (1) That supreme example and those lives declare that whoever desires to have his soul purified and invigorated, to be charged with this Divine electric influence, must have something of separateness and independence in his life; he must feel himself as not merely one of a crowd moved by the desires, aims, hopes, tastes, and ambitions which may chance to prevail around him, but as a separate soul in direct communion with the Spirit of God. (2) But if we are to realise this in our own life, it means that our times of daily prayer, whether in private or in public, are times at which we lay open our secret life to the Divine presence and influence; it means that we give some real thought and meditation to this presence of God in our life, and that we thus feed our souls continually on wholesome spiritual food. II. But the hindrances that are always acting to undermine or destroy any such spiritual power in us are manifold, and seldom far away from our life. (1) The world outside is always with us and acting in this way, distracting thought, setting up its own standards, drawing us into its channels, and deadening the spirit in us. (2) We contract a dullness of spirit, so that spiritual things have no interest and faith has no living power in the heart; and all this very often not because any person or anything outside of us can be said to have led us away and entangled us, but simply because we have taken no pains to keep our life within the range of spiritual influences; we have let prayer slip out of it; we have lived in no spiritual companionship; we have done nothing to keep our soul alive in us. (3) But worst of all hindrances to the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit in any life is the harbouring of sensual appetite or craving, passion or indulgence. Bishop Percival, Sermons at Rugby, p. 179. The Witness of Personal Service Acts 1:8 These words have no exhausted their meaning; they are still the living message of the living Christ. I. Surely these words mean nothing less than this that we who have received the gift of power, in whom the Spirit dwells, shall witness for Christ by our protest against all that tends to lower the standard of human life. II. But mere protest, mere refusal is not enough. There is a call to each to active participation in that ministry of personal service for which Christ gives us the power of the Spirit. This ministry of personal service will mean (1) Sympathy. (2) Then your time and money. (3) And then to some the Saviour's command means much more; it may mean the surrender of a life, of earthly prospects, and much that you now deem absolutely necessary, in order that you may be free to give your whole being to Christ in this ministry of personal service. Bishop Cornish, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 728. A Witnessing Church Acts 1:8 In these words we have defined for us the mission of the Church of Christ in the world. She is to represent her Master upon earth, while He represents her in heaven. She is called to be a witness for her risen and ascended Lord. 'Ye shall be witnesses to Me.' The great need of the Church today is to discharge more simply her office of a witness. I. Qualifications for Witnessing. There are three qualifications which are necessary to constitute a witness. a. The first is knowledge. A witness must have personal experience of the facts to which he deposes. b. The second qualification is courage. A witness must speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to do this under all circumstances is not so easy, especially if the truth in question be unpopular. 'Not to shun to declare the whole counsel of God,' requires courage. Happy he who so lives in the presence of God as always to exhibit it. c. There should be found in every witness consistency. II. Power for Witnessing. All 'God's biddings are enablings'. He never sends us to battle at our own charges. What is this power with which Christ promises to endue His witnesses? It was the Holy Ghost power. But you say, 'These men were converted men, had they not received the Holy Ghost already?' We answer 'Yes,' and 'No'. Yes, for 'no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost' (1 Corinthians 12:3 ), and they could say it, and did say it, 'We believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God' (St. John 6:69 ); and No, for as yet the Holy Ghost had fallen upon none of them (cf. Acts 8:16 ). There is all the difference in the world between receiving the Word of God for life (Acts 8:14 ) and receiving the Holy Ghost for purification (Acts xv.) and for power (Acts 1:8 ). Well, but you say, 'If I have Christ I have all'. Again we answer, look at the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Is He not the Eternal Son? When He was born of the Spirit as man would you not have said He had all? Did not the Holy Spirit dwell in Him from the moment of His birth; and yet what do we read of Him? That He did not enter upon His public ministry, upon His missionary career, until He was 'anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power' (Acts 10:38 , with St. Luke 4:18-21 ). The Church is languishing for lack of a Pentecost, and while she is disputing the world is laughing, and contrasting 'the foundations of Christianity with its superstructure'. And no wonder, for it is not the Gospel, but the Gospel preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven (1 Peter 1:12 ) that is the power we need today. The Marks of the Saintly Life (For All Saints' Day) Acts 1:8 What does it mean? First I. The Witness of Faith. We think of those who have gone before us in the way; what was the secret of it all, of that patience, that high courage, that steadfast endurance? The secret of it all was the vision of God; they saw Jesus. Sometimes when the light of faith grew dim they yet had been able to see beyond the dark clouds the face of God. If we are to follow the way of all the saints we must pray God to give us clear vision, that we may see Him, that we may bear witness by our faith. II. The Witness of Worship. The saints! ah yes, you turn your pages over and you read story after story; here in some fascinating, beautiful way the life of a great saint is given to you, and you are enamoured of it, charmed by it. Such wonderful stories, such varied experiences of rich and poor, young and old, learned and simple, they are all there; but they are all one in this, that they found the inspiration of their life in prayer. You come to it again and again, the life of prayer, the life of communion, the witness borne by worship. And it must be so, must it not? How is the world to be won? it can be won only through the constant bearing of the witness to the truth as it is in Jesus. III. The Witness of Suffering. The word is indeed the word 'martyr'; ye shall be My witnesses, My martyrs not only because the bearing of the witness must so often lead to the baptism of blood, but because none can bear witness truly who has not the martyr spirit. The mark of a saint, says Bishop Westcott, is not that he is free from faults, but that he has wholly surrendered his will to God. It is true, as we know, for thousands who 'loved not their lives unto the death'; true in our own time in Milanesia or Central Africa, or China, or Japan; true here in England today of some lad in an office who comes to his Communion and is guiding his life by the thought of the Lord's indwelling presence; of the woman in society who wishes above all other things to remember her Lord, His day, His church, His rule of life. IV. The Witness of a Holy Life. Saints; there is something of the reflection of the Divine image in those who have been with their Lord. A holy life: we cannot explain it; you and I look on, but it stimulates while it shames us; we long to be something like that, we long to follow such an one as he follows Christ. Witness for Jesus Acts 1:8 I. It at once strikes us that our Lord Himself in His sacred Person is the truth, the reality, the glorious power to which His servants are to bear their witness. II. But you ask, How can we bear witness to a Person? Let me suggest another question in turn. Can we be witnesses to each other? Unquestionably we can, for we can know each other. And by this knowledge we mean not knowledge of the form and colour of the body or features, but knowledge of that which gives to features or form their interest knowledge of the invisible spirit which underlies them. That which interests man lastingly in his brother man that which is the seat and the object of human interest is the soul. The eye can rest on nothing beneath the sun so deeply interesting as the face of any child of Adam. Every human face is a point at which we obtain an insight into an unseen world; since every human face, not less by its reserves than by its disclosures, records the play of thought and person within a subtle immaterial spirit. Through a man's language, his actions and his countenance, his soul speaks to the soul of his brother man; and while the essence of the soul is still necessarily hidden, the outward effects of its action convey a living and accurate impression of its secret life. III. Now in Jesus Christ, God made use of this provision of His creative wisdom to enter into communion with His creatures. That He might embrace His fallen creatures with a revelation of His beauty so intelligible and so captivating that resistance and rejection should seem wellnigh impossible; therefore, that in characters which from long practice man would read at sight, God might reveal to man His inmost life; the Most High robed Himself in a human body and a human soul. This was the Incarnation. One only has succeeded in creating an impression which is as fresh in the hearts and thoughts of His true disciples at this moment as it was eighteen centuries ago; and as we listen to His words and watch His actions, and almost seem to gaze on His face, irradiated with superhuman beauty in the pages of the Gospels, we feel that He, as none other, had a right to command distant and unborn generations to echo the enthusiasm of His first followers, and to say to us Englishmen of the nineteenth century, 'Ye shall be witnesses unto Me'. IV. It is a most solemn question; is there anything in our life, or our language, anything that we do, or anything we endure, that really bears witness before the eyes of our fellow men to the life and work of our ascended and invisible Saviour? This witness is the debt which all Christians owe to Jesus Christ our Lord. In the witness of suffering, and of silent persevering obedience, we see the central element of the growth and victory of the Church. Argument may have done something, but the masses of men have no time for argument, and are inaccessible to its force. Miracles actually witnessed may have done more, but the Gospel history itself may convince us that the evidence of miracle cannot alone carry conviction to a stubborn unbeliever; he has many resources for evading it. But the Christian life, in which the love of Jesus Christ has dethroned and cast out the natural selfishness of the human soul, exerts a silent but resistless fascination over at least a large number of those who are brought into close contact with it It is not the influence of high education or of vigorous intellect, or of vigorous will. It is moral beauty which is seen, as you gaze at it, to be true and to be strong, and which compels first admiration and love and afterwards reverence and submission. The scattered company of His faithful witnesses are the true monument of the Lord Jesus; they represent to other men something of the glory of their invisible Lord. H. P. Liddon. References. I. 8. T. Parr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 74. Bishop Stonewigg, Church Times, vol. lix. p. 799. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 118. Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 229. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 26. The Record, vol. xxvii. p. 2. Bishop Winnington-Ingram, A Mission of the Spirit, p. 139. Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p. 9; ibid. (6th Series), vol. i. p. 120; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 20; ibid. vol. viii. p. 235; ibid. vol. ix. p. 268. Clouds That Hide Christ Acts 1:9 The Ascension is the final and crowning event in the redeeming life of Christ. What I want to bring before you is that though 'The cloud received Him out of their sight'; though they ceased to behold Him with the eyes of sense, they had Him in their heart; losing Him did not fill them with sorrow, with alarm, with hopelessness, as we should have thought it would have done. The angel's message filled them with a new courage. Now this cloud which received Jesus out of their sight, and concealed Him from their eyes, is a kind of parable. It is a parable which is going on now. There are three directions in which I wish to indicate its force and value. I. First of all as to the fact of His Being. Nobody doubts that Jesus of Nazareth once was bora into the world; was the greatest phenomenon the world has ever seen; lived a life that all admired, and died a death which all deplored. The question is what happened afterwards. There are three possible interpretations three possible answers to the question of questions which underlies all revelation of faith in God; and that is this Where is Jesus Christ? There is one possible answer of which I have disposed already. That He is still living on the earth, no one thinks that for a moment; but the two other answers divide what we may call the thinking world between them. One is that He is still in Joseph's tomb, and the other is that He is at the right hand of God in heaven. Why do you and I rest on the fact that Christ ascended, and that a cloud received Him out of sight? (1) The visible Church. (2) Because He lives in our hearts. II. There is another respect in which a cloud hangs over the Church and the world. We cannot get behind the throne to see the sceptre in the King's hands, to observe and to understand the wheels of His providence. If there is a cloud upon the wisdom of God's providence, even on the righteousness of His providence, let us be quite sure that it is only a cloud, and that behind the cloud the sun is shining. III. There is one other matter upon which a cloud seems to hide Jesus from us, and that is the reality of His love. IV. Let me impress upon you what the Apostles did, and what we have to do. The angel did not exactly rebuke the disciples for looking up to heaven after their Master. Still there is a sort of latent admonition, with something of a rebuke about it, when they said: 'Why stand ye here gazing up into heaven?' It was what we call a practical lesson. What it meant was you will not get any good from that. You have got to work, you have got to pray; to wait for the promise of the Father; to found a Church in the world. (1) The first lesson we learn is the power of prayer. (2) The duty of active exertion for Christ. (3) Hope. Bishop Thorold, The Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p. 289. A New Point of View (The Ascension Day) Acts 1:9 The story of the life of Jesus falls into three parts: (1) a man on earth like other men; (2) still on the earth, but now unearthly and occasional; (3) free from the earth and identified with the life of God. The Ascension narrative marks the change from the second to the third of these, cutting off His earthly from His heavenly life. The stories of the days after the Resurrection tell of an experience which was indeed comforting but yet perplexing. Men were sure that Jesus still lived, but they needed a further assurance which would give stability and the sense of permanence to faith. They had been living, both before and after His death, in the constant expectation of surprises. But now no surprise could happen any more. Peace had come, such as can come only when the Best is also the Highest, when the Son of God is at God's right hand. The eye cannot follow Him on that day when a cloud receives Him out of our sight. But certain things remain, truths about God and our human life, for which the story stands. Four of these are: I. Earth's View of Heaven. ('Gazing up into Heaven.') Heaven has ever seemed a place inaccessible to earth. The truth is, when we speak frankly, that spirituality is beyond us. Some chosen spirits make us feel that for them the heavens are impatient; and these, with their pale, eager faces of the dying, show us far glimpses through the open gates. But above all the dying, Jesus Christ did this for us when He went to His own place. As the Resurrection silences for ever all talk of a 'lonely Syrian grave,' so the Ascension keeps us from losing Him among the sombre mysteries of death. II. Heaven's View of Earth. ('Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.') Earth's view of earth is always local. We see the part around our feet, but from the rest we are hedged in by all manner of barriers. But the Ascension of Jesus has taught us the heavenly point of view for earth, at which all local barriers are lost sight of. III. The Power of the Unseen. ('All power is given unto Me,' etc.) One would think that power, in the sense of influence, must be measured by visibility. What we see most clearly we feel most powerfully. Yet even in the material world there is abundant evidence that the greatest powers surrounding us are the invisible forces of nature. And the access of spiritual power that came upon Christians after Jesus was no longer visible to their eyes, is one of the most remarkable facts in history. IV. The Presence of the Absent. ('Lo, I am with you always.') The parting of Jesus from His friends really united them to Him. The earthly life had set limits of all kinds upon Him. He was here and not there, cut off from His friends by absence of the body. Now, He was free in the spiritual land. He was with them always, not occasionally as before. John Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, p. 131. The Ascension of Our Lord Acts 1:9 Luther said: 'It was a marvellous thing that Christ should ascend out of the sight of the Apostles. What did these good comrades think? "We ate and drank with Him, and now He is hidden from us, carried away on high! What if He were a mere juggler!" I love Jonas, but if he were now to ascend into the air, and pass away out of our sight, what should I think?... I cannot believe it and yet I teach others. I know it is true, but I cannot grasp it. I think sometimes, "You do teach the truth; you are in the ministry and vocation, and you bring profit to many and glory to Christ, for we preach neither Aristotle nor Caesar, but Jesus Christ." But when I consider my infirmity that I eat and drink and jest and am a good companion, then I begin to doubt. Ah, if one could only believe it!' E. Kroker, Luther's Tischreden (1903), No. 7. References. I. 9. G. St. Clair, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 203. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 1. E. J. Boyce, Parochial Sermons, p. 311. Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 127. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year (2nd Series), vol. i. p. 252. A. Maclaren, After the Resurrection, p. 116. I. 9, 10. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Apocalypse, p. 176. I. 10. E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 388. I. 10, 11. F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Beading, p. 185. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1817. This Same Jesus (A Good Friday Sermon) Acts 1:11 How edifying to bring together the whole spectacle of the Crucifixion the Birth, the Resurrection, the Cross in the middle. We shall miss much of the spiritual music and spiritual figure if we think of the Birth as a solitary event, and the Crucifixion as a solitary event, and the Resurrection as an event by itself; we shall gain stimulus and edification if we think of the three events as a most pathetic and tragic series of occurrences. How wonderfully alike they are, especially the Birth and the Resurrection! I. Putting the two angelic ministries together, the singing angels and the speaking angels, we get two great facts, that the Gospel is music, and that it is doctrine. Notice the angelic ministry, therefore, in both cases, for both events were announced by angels. 'Glory to God in the highest!' sang the angel band; 'He is not here, He is risen!' sang the angel apostles; see the place where the Lord lay, the very tomb, the forsaken rock. Who knows what part the angels take in the ministry of grace in our own day? Are the angels empowered by God to stimulate the mind of man and to make that mind abound in true reason, philosophy and gospel, perception and love? Where do the ideas come from? Who are the letter-carriers of heaven who bring the ideas, thoughts, impulses, enthusiasms, which make a great religious service the grandest function possible to the mind and the heart of man? Who are we that we should by some broom of our own making sweep the shore-line clear of the angels and live within the boundary of our own sand and pebble shore? Why not throw open the windows and invite the breezes and hail the coming sunlight, and look out for the angels? There are no angels to the blind heart; there are no flowers to the blind eyes: the blind must not rule us; we must follow the seeing ones, not the blind ones. II. In all the religions of the world man is seeking God; in the religion of Christ God is seeking man: a complete definition, a most pictorial contrast. Paganism cries out for God, known or unknown, stone or tree or shining star; in the Christian Gospel God is always seeking man. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth; the Father seeketh such to worship Him. It is not enough that we should be seeking God; undoubtedly that is a point to begin with, and undoubtedly it is a real and pregnant point; no paganism ought to be ruthlessly or wantonly despised; the idol ought not to be taken from the arms of the idolater until you have something better to put within that hug; but the Gospel notion is that all men have gone astray and God has come after them that He may recover them from their sin; God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Paganism comes down; the Gospel extends and ascends and conquers because it is full of love. A do trine that has no tears in it will never save the world. III. The difference, furthermore, between the Birth and the Resurrection may be found in the fact that the Birth was a promise, the Resurrection was a command. Something had been done, from Bethlehem a great process was about to start; how it would end was more or less matter of speculation, wonder, conjecture, but when Jesus Christ came back again from the dead He said, 'All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth'. What, then, dear Lord? what wilt Thou make of all power? wilt Thou smite Pilate blind? wilt Thou send paralysis upon the mob that hanged Thee? Hear the answer: 'Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations'. The Resurrection thus became a command, the final sign, the Serbal that lifted itself up to the great clouds from the top of which all-conquering sorrow proclaimed the gospel of all-redeeming love. It is a marvellous consummation! The Incarnation a problem, the Resurrection a solution, and the solution was worthy, worthy of the occasion. We rejoice at Bethlehem, we are glad at the garden tomb vacated by the triumphant Lord, but what about the intervening day? Have we been crucified with Christ? If we have not been crucified with Christ we can never rise with Him, it is crucifixion that must precede resurrection. It is not enough for me to sing about my Lord's sorrow, I must enter into it, and in my degree feel what He felt. Christianity is first an agony, then an anthem and an immortality. Acts 1:11 The feast of the Ascension is the feast of the desire for heaven. Jesus has finished His life; He has redeemed the world by His sufferings, by His cross; the hour of His glory and of His eternal rest is come. He ascends before the eyes of the Apostles, and enters into His heavenly kingdom. What an emptiness in the heart of the Apostles who were left alone upon earth! what an emptiness above all in the heart of Mary! The Scriptures show them to us with their eyes fixed upon that heaven into which their loved Master has just disappeared, and from which they are unable to withdraw their gaze. An angel has to come and dismiss them, so to speak, reminding them that they must work and suffer for Christ before they can share His glory. Lettres de l'Abbé Perreyve, p. 364. References. I. 11. W. F. Shaw, Sermon Sketches for the Christian Year, p. 72. W. C. Wheeler, Sermons and Addresses, p. 181. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 85. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 187. H. H. Almond, Sermons by a Lay Head Master, p. 247. D. Heagle, That Blessed Hope, p. 15. R. J. Campbell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p. 369. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 422. I. 12. G. A. Bennett, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 405. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 211; ibid. vol. viii. p. 429; ibid. vol. xi. p. 172. Enthusiasm Acts 1:13 The Zealots were a knot of political irreconcilables, fiercely opposed to the dominion of Rome. Their name may have been suggested by the words of the dying Mattathias, the father of Judas Maccabæus: 'Now, therefore, my sons, be ye zealous for the law, find give your lives for the covenant of your fathers'. In their attitude to the established government of the day, they may be compared to the Carbonari of Italy in Mazzini's time. It was to this band of political enthusiasts, that Simon once belonged; he left them to join the disciples of Jesus. I. Never be ashamed of your enthusiasms. For all of us there should be a something by which we can be rapt clean out of ourselves, a something that can awaken all 'the slumbering host' within us. All this is, I know, clean contrary to some persons' notions of what is right and proper. Their ideal is to be 'faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null'. Such a temper ends at last in cynicism, to which all things, even the best, are vanity. Let us never lend a hand to damp down the fires of any man's enthusiasm. We owe far more to one of these hot-headed, blundering men men like Peter, for example who sometimes err along the line of their real greatness, than to a whole regiment of respectable nobodies, who never violated a single law of propriety. 'For God's sake,' cries Robert Louis Stevenson, 'give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself.' If only the Church of Christ had always known how rightly to use her enthusiasts how to direct their wise extravagances, their magnificent indiscretions.' II. Keep the strength of your enthusiasm for the best things. What is best at one time is not always best at all times. 'The true wisdom is to be always seasonable.' He only has rightly learned to live who has learned how to distribute himself, where to place the emphasis, when to give and when to withhold. Are we making the most of what is most worthy? Let your zeal be according to knowledge. III. Consecrate your enthusiasm to the service of Jesus Christ. The service of Christ calls for, as it is worthy of, our loftiest enthusiasm. Few things are to be more lamented today than that so little a mere trickle of the daring, the enterprise of the modern commercial world has found its way into the Christian Church. 'Mr. Chairman,' cried an enthusiastic colleague of mine once in a Church meeting, 'I move we move the world.' Magnificent! The early Christians not only moved the world; they turned it upside down, as even their very enemies confessed. You who have not yet yielded yourselves to Christ, remember He can find room in His service for every gift you possess. Jackson, First Things First, p. 147. References. 1.13. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 135. I. 14. Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 247. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 143. Bishop Jacob, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p. 21. S. Chadwick, ibid. vol. lxxii. p. 187. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 404; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. pp. 37, 468. I. 15. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 113. I. 16-25. Ibid. vol. i. p. 388. I. 18. C. Perren, Outline Sermons, p. 194. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 221; ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. p. 131; ibid. vol. ii. p. 215. I. 19. Ibid. p. 10. St. Matthias Acts 1:20 It seems very probable that St. Matthias' Day is fixed for 24th February, so that, as a rule, this Saint's day may fall in Lent, and there must necessarily be, as it were, a Lenten gloom associated with the observance of the festival, for when we come to think of St. Matthias being appointed to be of the number of the Twelve Apostles, our thoughts naturally turn to him in whose stead St. Matthias was appointed. So that we commemorate not only the choice of another Apostle, but also the tragedy of Judas Iscariot. Both the Collect and the Epistle for St Matthias' Day connect together the light and the darkness. I. The Fall of Judas. An Apostle fell who had all the advantages of a Saviour's example and a Saviour's teaching, and how can men presume to say or to think, as some do say and think, that they are safe, and that they cannot possibly fall from grace? Judas had all the opportunities of close association with Jesus Christ; yet, as other disciples came closer, he the more and more receded. He gave way first of all to his besetting sin, for he was a thief and had the bag, and so it was that gradually the purity and the holiness of Jesus which attracted others repelled him. He slighted all warnings, he was without excuse, a terrible example to those who today prefer their besetting sin, and are not attracted by the spectacle of the purity and the holiness of Jesus. We must advance or we must recede, and if we are not advancing, then we must be going back in the spiritual life. The history of Judas is to be read, not so much with pity or with abhorrence as with fear and with awe, as being a warning to ourselves, with watchfulness against our own shortcomings and for our own safety, lest, after all, we too should be II. God's Dealings with Others. Look for a moment at God's dealings with others who disobeyed the law. Turn back, for instance, and see the story of Saul, King of Israel. He was chosen by God; he had great opportunities, yet just as Judas was cast out, and as Matthias was elected to his place, so Saul was condemned, and David came in as King over Israel. Or look at the story of Eli which we read on St. Matthias' Day. Eli did not fall in himself, but he was weak in his behaviour towards his sons. What a warning to the parents of today! Turn again to the Seven Churches which were in Asia to whom St. John sent messages. These churches, which had most likely been all of them founded by St. Paul, and were later presided over by St. John, should have had a glorious future. And yet the messages sent by St. John were full of stern warning and reproof. They were already leaving their first love; they broke the covenant, they turned away from the strait path, and so their candlestick was removed out of its place. Visit those coasts today, and what will you find? Some few Christians, indeed, a remnant, but they are broken, poor, and downtrodden, the Turk holds sway, and not yet have they expiated their apostacy. And how many other churches are there like them and like Judas who have forsaken God and God has forsaken them. When they ceased to let their light shine before men, then their light was put out. Where is the once thriving Church of Carthage? Where is that most learned Church of Alexandria over which St. Mark at one time presided? The whole of the north coast of Africa as it borders the Mediterranean was at one time the site of many flourishing local churches, churches which showed how that the African, though he may be black, can produce instructed and devout Christians. Where are all these churches today? They have disappeared, swept away by the deluge of Mohammedanism which offered them death or apostacy. Many of them chose apostacy, and few chose death. III. God's Warning to the Church. So as we think of these things we are reminded of the words of St. Paul, 'Behold the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off'. God then gives us warning both as a Church and as individuals. References. I. 22. Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 141; ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. p. 406. I. 23-26. James Moffat, The Second Things of Life, p. 89. I. 24, 25. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints' Days, p. 79. His Own Place (For St. Matthias' Day) Acts 1:25 It was not Judas alone that went to 'his own place'. St. Matthias, when he gloriously ended his course, being shot to death with arrows, went to 'his own place'. St. Paul, who 'laboured more abundantly than they all,' when he was beheaded for the name of Christ, went to 'his own place'. St. Peter, the greatest of the Apostles, when he was crucified with his head downward, went to 'his own place. Our Lord Himself, when He had cried 'It is finished' and again, when He had said, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit' He also, I say it with all reverence, went to 'His own place'. So we are taught that every man is preparing an 'own place' for himself hereafter every one is making ready a home for himself by the deeds he is doing here, whether they be good or bad. What our home is in the other world depends on what we are doing in this. I have read of a dream which a wicked man once had, and which, whether it were true or not, may at all events read us a lesson. He was one who was altogether given up to the engagements of this earth, putting all his pleasure in it, caring for nothing beyond it, wishing that it might last for ever. He slept, and in his dream he thought he was in hell. It was a large, magnificent room, like a nobleman's drawing-room, with gold, and lights, and music; and he thought to himself: 'Then what they have always told us about hell is not true; it is not a place of misery after all'. He saw numbers of people whom he had known; drunkards sitting over their wine; gamblers playing at cards or dice, the little heaps of gold rising or falling at their sides; men whom he remembered to have led lives of pleasure still engaged in their amusements, and their tales, and their jestings which are not convenient. At last he stepped up to one of his friends, and asked him to leave off his game for a few minutes, and to talk to him. 'No,' he said, with a look of anguish, 'what we would do on earth, we must do here. We rest not day nor night. That which was our pleasure in the world is here our exceeding and eternal torment. We have no power to stop; we must go on; we cannot pause; and so it will be for ever and ever.' The dreamer woke; God's grace touched his heart, and he became a different man from that day forward. J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 256. The Sureness of God's Ways Acts 1:26 There is one marked difference between St. Matthias and the rest of the Apostles. He was not appointed by our Lord in person. He was elected by the eleven to fill the place of Judas. As our Lord was busied during the great forty days between Easter and the Ascension in teaching His Apostles how to found His kingdom, we cannot imagine they would have filled it up if He had not bidden them to do so. Still, the remarkable point is that He left them to do it, and did not do it Himself. I. The Ministry. It seems, then, first of all that in this history we have God the Holy Ghost intending to teach us that Christ intended that His Church should have with her always persons whom she was to regard as successors of the Apostles, even though not visibly appointed by Him who chose the first Apostles. It would have been so easy as we say for Christ, in one of those conversations with the Apostles, to have chosen some one to take the place of Judas, or at least to have said whom He would choose to fill it. But He did not do that. This is our standing lesson for all time, and every year, as St. Matthias' Day comes round, we should think of Christ taking care that the new Apostle should be appointed in the ordinary way of things, and then be numbered with those whom He had appointed by His own word, in order that we may learn that every time His Church with prayer and faithfulness fills up a vacant place, she is only doing what St. Peter and the others then did under His sanction and guidance. II. Method of Election. How did they elect? They chose two, they cast lots, they took the one on whom the lot fell, believing thoroughly that he must be the right one to take. Casting lots, or drawing lots, was in those days so perfectly the regular way of proceeding that it was the natural thing to do under the circumstances quite as natural as our ways of electing are with us. It would be strange and unusual now. It was the common way then. The Apostles took whatever was the common customary way, nothing doubting but that Christ would guide them right, through the means which the custom of the times dictated. It was as easy for Christ to guide the lot so as to fall upon the name which He had chosen as for Him to signify His pleasure in any other way. The Apostles believed this and acted on it. Common custom, when followed in the fear of God and with the prayer of faith, may be trusted to without fear and without rashness. III. The Sureness of God's Ways. It is a very comforting lesson that such a history as this should come so soon after Christ had left His Apostles and disciples alone, as they might call it, in the hostile world. For years they had been led by Him in all things. Now all was changed. They had seen Him go away into heaven, and they were left to be His witnesses. Doubtless they would remember His last great Intercession. They would remember His bidding that whatsoever they should ask, in His name, would be granted them. But they could not help feeling the difference at first, even though faith would triumph over feeling. And what was His first lesson to them? What was the first instance, so far as we are told, of the united body of the faithful making its petition unto Him? It is the history of this day's Epistle, when in what we call chance the whole body of His disciples committed themselves to His promised guidance and decision. This great lesson of God's hand in all the changes and chances of life is at least one of the many teachings of this day's commemoration. There are many of us who say, 'If I could but be sure that so and so were God's will about me, then I could be content'. But the questions are, What comes most naturally to you in the course of Providence? And are you leading a prayerful life? If you are, then what comes to you in the natural course of things (as men call it) cannot help being God's real will about you. References. I. 26. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-tide Teaching, p. 70. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 56. I. 33. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 176. II. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 111. The Lesson of Pentecost Acts 2:1 We must realise what went before the record which begins with this word 'and' because it has in it a lesson that we have need to learn first, of the patience and entire confidence in the fulfilling of the promise of God, and then of 'the prayer and supplication' which penetrated that patience and helped toward the realisation of their hope. I. The lesson needs learning that while the apostolic ministry has its due part and special place, the ministry of the service of speech, the ministry of utterance, the ministry of making known and spreading the glorious news of the Gospel is not confined to those who are commissioned and set apart for this peculiar service, but includes and involves in privilege and responsibility every member of the Body of Jesus Christ. II. There is renewed recognition in the world today of the well nigh forgotten truth of the personality of the Holy Ghost. He is the Comforter, but in the true meaning of that word, the strengthener, the giver of life and of power. III. All can find here, in prayer to and in dependence upon the Holy Spirit of God, guidance to Know and grace to do God's Holy Will. Bishop Doane, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 522. The Day of Pentecost (For Whitsunday) Acts 2:1 To-day we commemorate the birthday of the Church; but in matters spiritual as in matters physical, birth is not the beginning of life. And it must never be forgotten, in matters spiritual birth is not the end of life. Thus is it with the founding of the Church on the day of Pentecost. Do not mistake, then, the meaning of the birthday of the Church; it was not the foundation of the Church, Christ was the Foundation of the Church. I. In all that Christ is and in all that He does we Perceive the Work of God the Holy Ghost. It is in the power of the Holy Ghost that the blessed Lord is conceived in the womb of the Virgin; it is in the power of the Holy Ghost that He lived the spotless life of His boyhood and manhood; it is through the Holy Ghost descending upon Him that He is acknowledged at His baptism by John the Baptist to be the Son of God; it is by the power of the same Holy Spirit that He is led into the wilderness to stand there as our Champion and to fight out the battle in which the first Adam was defeated; it is by the power of the same Holy Spirit upon Him, as He Himself expressly declares, that He preached to the people; it is by the power of the Holy Ghost, as it is recorded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us; and as is asserted twice at least in the Epistle to the Romans, it is by the Holy Ghost that He is brought back in triumph in the Resurrection from the dead. The Gospels, therefore, are not only the record of the life of Christ, but of the Holy Spirit of God working in the life of Christ. It is the unimagined, the stupendous beginning of the new creation for man which we witness here to day. II. But not even this was the End of the Preparation made. The Lord chose a few who should be the means of spreading the knowledge of His grace; He chose, He taught, He watched over, He searched out the innermost mind, He moulded the very minds of the men whom He thus chose in order that through them He might become known better to men; they were to be the vehicles of the message that came from God; and the name, the almighty name, the name of God was manifested unto them in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those men were to be the living stones of the temple, but they were sent out to build others into that temple; they were to be the beginning of His Body the Church, but that Body was to grow until it should embrace all mankind; they were to be branches of the true vine, but that vine was to fill the land. III. The Day of Pentecost. The promise is fulfilled with the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the power came upon those men and those associated with them, and the new society is vital with a new life, and the power was realised to be so great by all those who witnessed that which followed this bestowal of the Spirit of God. It became visible in the very change of the men; the cowardice was gone from one who had quailed before the laughter of a servant-maid. The determination was so great in every one of them to preach the ineffable name of the love of God in Jesus Christ; the desire to live and die for Him was so apparent in every one of them, every one of them realised the power. IV. This same Power is as much for us as it was for them , and if we have failed to realise it, it is because we have not yet grasped the fact that God has indeed sealed to us these gifts, that we were baptised into this same Spirit, that we at our Confirmation were sealed with this same blessing, the mark that God has made us His own and then calls on us to use the life which He has bestowed upon us. References. II. 1. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1783. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 13. II. 1-3. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i. p. 361. The Spirit of Power Acts 2:1-4 I. Whitsuntide is the celebration of Pentecost. If the Church is to observe a Christian year and to keep festivals, the greatest festival of all ought to be Whitsuntide, for if it be not the way of the Church's birth, it is certainly the day of the Church's power, and rightly understood it is the most spiritual of all her feasts. The gift of the Holy Ghost is the pledge of the Church's victory, and while the Church knows His power she need never tremble nor be afraid although all the hosts of the world are against her, for against a Church endowed with God's Spirit the gates of hell shall not prevail. II. In the passage under consideration the Holy Ghost is spoken of as appearing on the day of Pentecost in the semblance of wind and of fire. The wind is a favourite Biblical image for the movements and goings of God's spirit. But the wind has got at least two functions. (1) One of the Psalmists speaks about God bringing the wind out of His treasuries. That must be the wind that bloweth healthily our sicknesses to heal; whose every kiss is tonic, whose very rude and wild embrace is strength. Its very buffetings are health. Now that is what God's Spirit is to the spirit of a man. It is life and health and peace. But He also comes as a mighty rushing wind, as He came of old, and then He comes with great and stirring power. (2) But there is another function of the wind. It is sometimes a winnowing wind, separating chaff from grain, the false from the true; or it sometimes comes as a blight. III. The other image for the coming and action of the Holy Spirit is fire. What fire is in the material world God's Spirit is, can be, and will be in the Church; and in the Church of today as in the olden time. But how did man come to use fire, and to such mighty and startling purpose? He did it by obedience. Immediately man obeys the conditions of the forces of Nature they are his servants, and so long as man is obedient to all the conditions of fire it will do almost anything for him How? By obedience. And so must man obey if he would have the power of the Holy Ghost, the mighty fire that has been in the Church in the past, and can be with us still. D. L. Ritchie, Peace the Umpire and other Sermons, p 123. The Coming of the Spirit Acts 2:1-4 The day of Pentecost was an epoch-making day. It initiated the Christian dispensation, and. like all initiating days, it was a sample day. The day of Pentecost reveals every quality, every energy, and every condition of the Spirit's presence and work in the world. With these facts in view let us consider concerning the Spirit: I. The Preparation for His Coming. There was an extended and an immediate preparation. The world had been preparing for Pentecost from the days of Paradise. All the movement of the Old Testament was a march towards Pentecost. The immediate preparation was in the work of Christ: His Death, Resurrection, and Exaltation. The coming of the Spirit involved the preparation of a people to receive Him. Here again there was an extended and an immediate preparation. The extended preparation of the disciples covered the whole course of Christ's ministry and fellowship. As the end approached, He prepared their minds for His coming by definite instruction and promise. The final stage of their preparation was in united and believing prayer. II. The Occasion of His Coming. The form in which the Spirit comes is indicative of the work He comes to do. When He came upon Christ He came as a dove, but when He comes to the disciples it is as wind and fire. The elect symbol of the Spirit is fire. It is the chosen sign of the Divine Presence, from the flaming sword of Paradise to the tongues of flame at Pentecost. What is meant by fire? Fire stands for enthusiasm, rapture, and passion. The Holy Ghost is fire. The heart in which He dwells, burns. Christianity is fire. A cold church is a corpse. At Pentecost the fire took shape, and set upon each of them a cloven tongue of flame. The sign of Christianity is not a cross but a tongue of fire. The fire is given for speech. III. What were the Immediate Effects of His Coming? The greatest miracle of that day was the transformation wrought in those waiting disciples. Their fire-baptism transfigured them. What was the effect of Pentecost in the world? It gathered crowds who were astonished, amazed, and perplexed with the things they saw and heard. Some mocked and attributed it to drink as they had attributed the Master's works to the Devil, but others were convinced, awakened, saved, and added to the Church of the living God. That is the sample day of the Church of Christ. Wherever there is a community of Christians baptised with the Spirit of Fire, they leave the upper room and go out proclaiming the Gospel to the people. Fire may always be relied upon to bring a crowd. Every man knows on which side of Pentecost he lives and works. The Spirit can be given only where Christ is glorified. S. Chadwick, Humanity and God, p. 205. References. II. 1-4. W. Wakinshaw, Preacher's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 366. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 511. S. Chad wick, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p. 187. II. 1-4, 6. J. H. Jowett, The Transfigured Church, p. 9. The Ministry of a Transfigured Church Acts 2:1 ; Acts 2:4 * ; Acts 2:6 * What we need, above all things, is the continuous marvel of an elevated Church, 'set on high' by the King, having her home 'in the heavenly places in Christ,' approaching all things 'from above,' and triumphantly resisting the subtle gravitation of 'the world, the flesh, and the devil'. It is not only multitudes of decisions that we want, but pre-eminently the heightening of the life of the saved, the glorification of the saints. Now, what is the explanation of the comparative poverty and impotence of our corporate life? Why is the Church not laden with the impressive dignities of her destined heritage? Look at the manner of our fellowship. Is it such as to give promise of power and wealth? When we meet together, in worshipping communities, do we look like men and women who are preparing to move amid the amazing and enriching sanctities of the Almighty? Take our very mode of entry. It is possible to lose a thing by the way we approach it. I have seen a body of flippant tourists on the Rigi at the dawn, and by their noisy irreverence they missed the very glory they had come to see. 'When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hands, to trample My courts?' That loud and irreverent tramp is far too obtrusive in our communion. When I listen to our loud and irreverent tramp, when I listen to so many of our aweless hymns and prayers, I cannot but ask whether we have lost those elements from our contemplation which are fitted to subdue the soul into silence, and to deprive it of the clumsy expedient of speech. We leave our places of worship, and no deep and inexpressible wonder sits upon our faces. We can sing these lilting melodies, and when we go out into the streets our faces are one with the faces of those who have left the theatres and the music-halls. There is nothing about us to suggest that we have been looking at anything stupendous and overwhelming. Far back in my boyhood I remember an old saint telling me that after some services he liked to make his way home alone, by quiet by-ways, so that the hush of the Almighty might remain on his awed and prostrate soul. That is the element we are losing, and its loss is one of the measures of our poverty, and the primary secret of our inefficient life and service. And what is the explanation of the loss? I. Pre-eminently our impoverished conception of God. 'And He had in His right hand seven stars:' yes, we can accept that delicate suggestion of encircling love and care! ' And His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength:' yes, we can bask in the distributed splendour of that sunny morn! ' And out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword! ' and is that too in our selection, or has our cherished image been deprived of the sword? Why leave out that sword? Does its absence make us more thoughtful and braver men, or does it tend to lull us into an easefulness which removes us far away from the man who, when he saw Him, 'fell at His feet as dead'? II. But our impoverished conception of God is not the only cause of our comparative poverty and enfeeblement. The life of the Church is expressed in two relationships, the human and the Divine. The Divine fellowship has been impoverished by lack of height; the human fellowship has been impoverished by lack of breadth. We have not drunk the iron water from the heart of the mountains, and we have therefore lacked a healthy robustness; we have not accumulated the manifold treasures of the far-stretching plain, and we have therefore lacked a wealthy variety. Our fellowship with God has been mean: our fellowship with man has been scanty. Nay, would it not be just the truth to say that the human aspects of our Church fellowship suggest a treasure-house which has never been unlocked? The Church is poor because much of her treasure is imprisoned; but she herself carries the liberating key to the iron gate! Our riches are buried in the isolated lives of individual members instead of all being pooled for the endowment of the whole fraternity. And I for one think it not impossible to cultivate this larger, richer, more social and familiar fellowship, and at the same time to create an atmosphere in which invasive perils shall be unable to breathe. Under God, everything depends upon your leader; and under God, cannot wise leaders be grown? leaders who shall be able, with a rare delicacy of tact, born of deep and unceasing communion with God, to draw out the individual gift of witness and experience, and by the accumulated treasure to enrich the entire Church. Our Church is comparatively poor and unimpressive; here is a storehouse of untouched resources which I am convinced would immeasurably enrich and strengthen our equipment in our combined attack against the powers of darkness. We need to get higher up the mountains. And we need, too, to get further out upon the plains. 'O, for a closer walk with God!' And 'O, for a closer walk with man!' Closer to the great and holy God, that we may be possessed by a deepening and fertilising awe; and closer to our brother, that we may move in the manifold inspiration and comfort of 'mutual faith' and experience. J. H. Jowett, The Transfigured Church, p. 9. The Coming of the Spirit Acts 2:2 I. The working of the Spirit will always be a mystery. The Holy Ghost maintains His place as a Sovereign, and He wraps Himself round with mystery. There is no power that earth knows that can cause the wind to alter its direction, and so it is with the Holy Spirit. II. The working of the Spirit is bound to attract attention. The noise 'as of a rushing mighty wind' was heard all over Jerusalem. When God sends a blessing we cannot keep it quiet. III. The working of the Spirit will always be accompanied with fervour. When the Spirit of God comes, whatever else may be lacking, there will always be fire. A. G. Brown, The Baptist, vol. lxxi. p. 377. References. II. 2. H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 47. II. 2-4. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1619. Acts 2:3 There were others, again, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books, and by patient thought, and etherealised, moreover, by spiritual communications with the better world, into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages, with their garments of mortality still clinging to them. All that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples, at Pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolising, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. These fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, the tongue of flame. N. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, ch. 11 Whit-sunday Acts 2:4 When our Lord manifested Himself to His disciples for the last time before His Ascension into heaven, He reminded them that He had promised to send the Holy Spirit to take His place as their Guide and their Strengthener, and to abide perpetually in their midst It was natural, it was in harmony with all that had gone before, and it was necessary for their instruction and the confirmation of their faith, that the arrival of this new Power should be marked by special signs of its manifestation, and so, in the record of the Acts of the Apostles, we find that a threefold manifestation took place on the day of Pentecost. By three symbols, by wind, by fire, by voice, the Spirit declared His presence. I. The Manifestation by Wind. First of all by wind, 'There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind'. The stirring power of the Spirit was thus symbolised. Wind is a mysterious force, invisible to men and beyond their control, discoverable only by its results, and so a sudden rush of strong wind might fitly symbolise that a Power more than human was moving men in spite of themselves. Both in the Hebrew and in the Greek language there is one word by which Spirit on the one hand, and breath, or wind, on the other, is signified, and so the words, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth,' might equally well be translated, 'The Spirit breathes where He wills'. Accordingly, a sound as of a wind for if we read the record carefully we observe that we are not told that a wind actually was there, but a sound as though of a wind was a fitting emblem of the Spirit's presence. It signified the moving power, the stirring force which had come among men. II. The Manifestation by Fire. Then, secondly, 'There appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire'. Fire is another of the forces of nature, full of significance. Inanimate though it be, it seems mysteriously endowed with a kind of living force, and in Holy Scripture fire is specially spoken of as an agent of cleansing and purification. The fire which appeared to rest on the heads of the disciples indicated the purifying power of the Spirit's presence. 'He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,' was the promise and the warning which summed up the Baptist's message Not actual fire again, but tongues like as it were of fire, was the symbol which emphasised the purifying power of the Holy Ghost. III. The Manifestation by Voice. And then, once more, 'They began to speak with tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance'. The second symbol leads fitly into the third, and by this the unifying power of the Spirit's presence was signified, for differences of language form the strongest barriers which separate men from each other. The gift of the spirit. To stir, to purify, to unite. As we say the words, we feel that this is what we need today. Acts 2:4 When Luther was asked whether the Apostles could speak in diverse languages, or whether their hearers from various countries could understand the Apostles when they used their native Hebrew, he answered, 'Ah, that is a difficult question! How much disputing there has been over it! Many have thought that the people who spoke various foreign tongues could understand the Apostles, who used their mother language, but the text gives the other meaning, and it happened in this way: They could speak diverse languages, and to whatever nation they wished to preach, they were perfect masters of its language, just as we see that Peter wrote his Epistle in good Greek, yet he was a Galilean.... This was one of the greatest miracles that ever happened, that poor fishermen should receive such splendid gifts. It is just as if I were to awaken a stone and make it talk in all manner of languages.' Some one suggested: 'If the Holy Spirit were now to work in this direct manner, there would be lazy students'. The Doctor: 'Ah, but God wished at the beginning to establish His dear Gospel through this miracle'. E. Kroker, Luther's Tischreden (1903), p. 325, No. 633. Acts 2:4 On Whit-Sunday morning, 1738, John Wesley went to the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and heard the rector, preach 'A truly Christian sermon 'on 'They were all filled with the Holy Ghost'; Wesley assisted the rector with the Communion. Soon after the sermon he heard the joyful news that his brother Charles, then lying ill in 'Little Britain,' had found spiritual rest. This was the text chosen by Wesley himself for his last University sermon in 1744. References. II. 4. W. C. Wheeler, Sermons and Addresses, p. 188. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 269. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 196. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. i. p. 39. Bishop Westcott, Village Sermons, p. 213. Acts 2:6 Père Gratry says: 'Do not let us forget this, to speak to every man in his own language is a gift of the Holy Spirit; audiebat unusquisque lingua sua illos loquentes . The Spirit of love speaks all languages through that great law which causes a mother to speak the language of her new-born child.' References. II. 8. T. Hancock, A Lent in London, p. 20. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 278. II. 9. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 404. II. 14. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, pp. 65, 67. II. 14-36. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 106; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 346. II. 14-40. Ibid. vol. vi. p. 462. II. 16. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 305. Expositor. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 407. II. 16-21. E. Bayley, Sermons, on the Work and Person of the Holy Spirit, p. 162. Inspiration and Outlook (For Whit-Sunday) Acts 2:17 * ; Revelation 21:2 * We might call our subject the Holy Spirit and the human outlook. 'I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.' That was the vision of the Spirit Let us accept it as it is given to us. Let us not try to spiritualise it. It is quite spiritual enough. Our business is to try to understand it Sometimes when we think we are spiritualising a thing we are really vapourising it, and there is our mist again. I. St. John called the city New Jerusalem. I can find it in my heart to be almost sorry that he named it It shows his vision was practical; but it has helped to make our vision vague and remote. When St. John spoke of the New Jerusalem, do you think he had completely forgotten the old Jerusalem? Don't you think he thought it was time that they had a new city? Don't you think his vision taught him it could be made new? By what authority, pray, have we translated this expression New Jerusalem by that vague word heaven? It is all wrong. For the last three years I have been calling it Birmingham. My friends, we shall do no good in the world until under the practical dominance of the Divine Spirit we come to know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the holy city is not something to be longed for in the heavens of God, but something to be builded in the earth which is His also. That is the work of the Spirit. We are not to be singers of 'glory songs,' we are to be builders of the city of God in the earth. II. 'I saw the holy city coming down from God out of heaven.' Perhaps we have been too much concerned with where the Holy Spirit can lift us to and prepare us for, to see as we should the vision of what that Spirit has for us to do here and now. We are very anxious that earth should go to heaven; we do not always realise that the great purpose that God the Spirit is to accomplish is just the opposite. He is to bring heaven to earth. He is to make heaven in our lives. III. There is a fathomless mystical story of the Spirit that no man can tell. There is all the infinite grace and mystery that must belong to the life of God living itself out through the mind and heart and character of them that trust Him. There are anointings for special work, and baptisms of knowledge ana power for individual souls. But all these things issue in the fact that the Spirit of God in our hearts will first of all and always make us look for the holy city and work for it. It will make us bold to claim here and now all that belongs to it. The holy city can only come through the holy citizen. That which is to be the light and law of the city must first be the light and law of the house. I mean the house of life. The coming of the holy city may be discussed in the larger councils of men it can only be decided on each man's own threshold and in each man's own heart. On this great Festival day of the Spirit and in every day that dawns and dies it is yours to accept or reject the grace of the Holy Spirit offered to your heart; and so, doing the one or the other as you must, you hasten or retard the building of the holy city in the life of the world. P. C. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church, p. 218. References. II. 17. Hugh Price Hughes, Preacher's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 74. John Watson, The Inspiration of our Faith, p. 60. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 51. H. D. Rawnsley, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 320. H. M. Butler, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 93. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 806. II. 17, 18. H. S. Seekings, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 214. The Holy Spirit in This Dispensation Acts 2:18 The Holy Spirit was in the world before the birth of Christ, but Christ, in His earthly life, revealed the laws of His operation, so that anybody and everybody in the true Church may now avail himself of the power of the Holy Spirit, which previously was reserved for an Isaiah or a Daniel, or some other favoured person, This was anticipated by Joel, who said that in the last days God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. I. Man should accept this power. If a man is clean and pure in thought and lives near God, he can always count on the operation of the Spirit of God. In your home you touch a spring or turn a key and the whole room is filled with light. Just as surely you can be filled with the light of the Spirit of life if you will obey the law. II. The lesson of Christ's baptism. When Jesus Christ received the Spirit, He received Him for His Church, and for you and me. He gave Him to His Church, to be its permanent possession during the present age; and He waits to give each individual member of that Church his or her share in Pentecost, on the one condition of applying for it by faith. The Spirit of God came suddenly upon the Church at Pentecost. I believe, therefore, that the soul may suddenly receive and apprehend the great power of the Holy Spirit. III. There are just five tests by which you may know that you have received this infilling. (1) Is the Lord Jesus Christ a living reality to you? (2) Have you assurance that you are a child of God? (3) Have you victory over known sin? (4) Have you power in witness-bearing? (5) Have you the spirit of holy love? If not, there are three steps necessary confession, surrender, and faith. F. B. Meyer, The Soul's Ascent, p. 245. Reference. II. 18. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 120. The Easy Way Out of It All Acts 2:21 In St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost we read, 'I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' Does not the last verse 'break with laughter from the dark?' Is it not like a bird's song rising suddenly after the passion of tempest? Wonders of grace have been contending with wonders of nature. Old men are dreaming dreams, young men behold visions, and maidens prophesy. There are wonders in heaven the sun turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. Blood and fire and vapour of smoke colour the astonished earth. Yet there need be no fear. Only catch at God's skirts and pray, and the danger is over. The true world within the world is safe, that world of which ours is but the bounding shore. Even when the storm rises not calmly, quietly, gradually, but suddenly, and with terrific manifestation, it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I. In a sense this is true of every crisis in personal life and in the life of nations. It is true even to the point that the deliverance comes in an instant. One cry, and the life is lodged in the Lord's arms. But it is true in the manner of the Gospel story where it is written they willingly received Him into the ship, and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. Literally it was not so. The storm ceased, and there was a great calm, but they did not at once attain the shore. They had reached their rest notwithstanding. Jesus is the true land to which His people go, and once receiving Him they were safe and blessed. II. This sudden salvation granted for a mere cry how often is it verified in the storms that wreck the house! Whether we should covet long and peaceful years it is hard to say, for 'whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,' and it is the nearest and the dearest that He calls first into the burden and heat of the day. Sometimes, perhaps often, the channel, as Tennyson phrased it, is long smooth. The years of random youth are passed safely. With the full current of life runs the full man. There are kindly curves at last, and the river falls through quiet fields before the deep comes where all is still. But even such homes of secure and sacred peace are invaded at last by the swift and dreadful Jordan. Or, to change the figure, the inmates who cling closely together, who dare not trust their wings, who tremble to leave their nests, are driven forth and thrown out into the vacant air. Then if they believe, they find that the Lord upholds them. But for the great majority vicissitudes are continual. The promise, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation,' is made good from the beginning to the end. St. Bernard asks whether Mary's sitting still in the house was a mere expression ©f her quiet trust in her Lord's power or the listlessness of earthly grief. And he answers, 'I will believe that it was a full and sweet reliance on the Spotless Lamb'. This verily is our assurance and peace. We do not know how St. Paul demeaned himself by the bedside of the departing, but one might fancy that the Apostle going to comfort the pale sufferer and the weeping friends had in his heart and on his lips the words which expressed his purpose when he faced great and hostile crowds. Never, surely, have we more occasion than by the door of the dying to say, 'I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified'. III. What holds for the home will hold for the wider life. Every one striving for great public ends in the service of Church or State will approach the time of terror St. Peter spoke of, the time of fainting and paling lights, of disarray, of apparent disaster and defeat. Then, too, will the word be made good, 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved'. When they were building Seville Cathedral they said, 'Let us raise such a work that they who come after us shall take us to have been mad'. And this in its measure is a fit resolution for every Christian. He must be ready to fight every battle, and yet fight it in perfect peace, like that French leader who would not be discouraged by the opposition or the indifference of men, by the delays of time and God. He must be ready to fall and die enveloped in his own solitary flag. It is all so easy upon our side, but this is because it has been so hard upon God's side. Every relief, every succour, every comfort, every reward, comes to us straight from Calvary. 'He bowed His head low,' said one, 'that His bride might kiss Him with the kisses of her mouth.' It is because He suffered His own agony that He can be with us in ours, and the shadow under which we sit with great delight is the shadow of His cross. For us He fought the last battle with death and hell, and slept as the seed life of the world in the rocky grave that stood out from the young green, and rose again, and divided the Red Sea of death when He passed over. It is still divided; the crystal walls still stand right and left for His redeemed, and we seek His presence on the else terrible journey. * Be content, I pray Thee, go with Thy servant. And He said, I will go. * W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 383. References. II. 21. H. J. Windross, Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p. 180. D. C. A. Agnew, The Soul's Business and Prospects, p. 428. II. 22. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 180; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 336. II. 22, 23. G. Campbell Morgan, The Bible and the Gross, p. 3. II. 23. Expositor (4th Series), vol. v. p. 183; ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p. 280; ibid. vol. vi. p. 138; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xii. p. 55. Escaping Entombment Acts 2:24 The writers of the New Testament set forth the Resurrection of our Lord as a Fact, as a Doctrine, and as a Parable. I. Let us consider the Resurrection as a Fact. The miracle of the Resurrection constitutes the keystone of the Christian position. (1) The first, and to my mind the greatest, proof of the Resurrection is the existence of the Christian Church itself. (2) The existence of the Christian Sunday is another proof of the Resurrection. II. Let us next consider the Resurrection as a Doctrine. It is an article of faith in the creed of Christendom that we should believe in the doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead. The Resurrection power of Christ has vanquished the tyrant Death, for is it not written, 'Christ hath abolished death'? We know, since Christ has risen, that death is but an episode in life. III. Lastly, we consider the Resurrection as a Parable. The Resurrection of Christ mystically sets forth the eternal law that spiritual power, spiritual energy, cannot beholden of death, that it is impossible to entomb spirit. (1) We see this in the experience of the individual Christian. (2) We see the same great law at work in the history of the Church. T. J. Madden, Tombs or Temples? p. 61. References. II. 24. R. J. Wardell, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 129. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvii. No. 2712. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. pp. 243-48; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. pp. 39, 440; ibid. vol. vi. p. 423. II. 24-32. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 220. II. 26. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 220. II. 28. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 120. II. 29-31. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 199; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 156. II. 30. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 167. II. 32. J. Berry, Preacher's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 145. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 156. H. Alford, Easter-tide Sermons, p. 1. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 20. II. 33. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 309. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 236. II. 36, 37. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No. 2102. II. 37. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, p. 79. W. H. Evans, Sermons for the Church's Year, p. 27. II. 37-39. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 325. II. 38. Ibid. Sermon Outlines, p. 185. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 398; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 43. II. 38, 39. R. J. Campbell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 406. II. 39. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iv. p. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliv. No. 2586. II. 41. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 28. Christian Worship Acts 2:42 I. What is Christian worship? Christian worship, depends, first of all, upon admiration and love and reverence for the character of Christ; and, secondly, upon the belief that that character was the express image of the Godhead. But while recognising that the acknowledgment of Christ's divinity is the essence of the Christian creed, and so must be the one bond of fellowship in the Christian Church 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism' many Christians nowadays seem to think that there is no necessity for giving to this worship a united expression. They are disposed to seek Christ in the desert or in the secret place, instead of in the congregation of the faithful. If that is at all a common experience, the question is at least worth asking whether the blame may not to some extent lie with our methods of public worship. II. We must make the worship in all our churches as real as possible and as appealing as possible. (1) How may it be made real? We should undoubtedly gain something in reality by the omission of any phrases in prayers and collects which do not express our actual present-day feelings; or, again, by the omission of any Psalms which offend our modern and Christianised conscience; or, again, of any lessons which appear to state as matters of fact what we no longer believe to have been matters of fact. (2) We must ask how can the services be made more appealing to the spirit? Attempts in this direction are always being made. George Herbert recommended that the minister who read the prayers should lift up his hands and eyes and use all other gestures to express a hearty and unfeigned emotion, that, being first affected himself, he may affect also his people. Others have wished to substitute extempore for recited prayers. Well, it is quite clear that while some men might be attracted by these practices, others would be repelled. And this fact may show us that what the case requires is not a single panacea, but a recognition that men are not all made alike, of one emotional nature, and, moreover, are on very different levels of intellectual culture, so that they cannot all worship with a free heart in the same manner. III. We ought to do our best to permit variety of ceremonies in the Church, so long as the unity of the faith within our own borders is not imperilled. H. C. Beeching, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 716. References. II. 42. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, p. 90. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 24. Bishop Alexander, Verbum Crucis, p. 145. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 145. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 93. II. 43. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, p. 101. II. 44. H. S. Holland, God's City, p. 295. II. 46. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 28. II. 46, 47. T. Arnold, The Interpretation of Scripture, p. 180. Praising God Acts 2:47 To praise Him is to serve Him, and fulfil, Doing and suffering, His unquestioned will; 'Tis to believe what men inspired of old, Faithful, and faithfully informed unfold; Candid and just, with no false aim in view, To take for truth what cannot but be true To learn in God's own school the Christian part, And bind the task assigned thee to thine heart; Happy the man there seeking and there found, Happy the nation where such men abound! Cowper, Expostulation (643 f.) Speaking of the English poets, in one of his prefaces, Goldsmith observes that 'in that department, namely, the praise of our Maker, by which poetry began, and from which it deviated by time, we are most faultily deficient'. References. II. 47. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 177. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1167. C. Brown, God and Man, p. 30. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 250. III. 1-10. C. McEvoy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 250. III. 2. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. ii. p. 367. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 374. G. M. Drew, ibid. vol. lxxviii. p. 293. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 17; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 228. III. 6. Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 99. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 362. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Apocalypse, p. 136. III. 6-8. C. Bradley, Faithful Teaching, p. 106. III. 12-16. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 36. III. 13. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 29; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 237. III. 14. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 185. III. 14, 15. G. Campbell Morgan, The Bible and the Cross, p. 3. III. 14, 15, 17. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 225. III. 15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2139. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 140. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 386; Mi. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 152. Healing and Suffering Acts 3:16 Perfect soundness! Of this there was no doubt. The rulers themselves acknowledged they could say nothing against it. The fact was patent to all. But the marvel was 'perfect soundness' in a moment of time after a lifetime of lameness. The secret was faith in His name. Not faith in the unreality of lameness. Not faith in the non-existence of a twisted limb. Not faith in the doctrine of illusion by which a man who has been really always able to walk has been since his birth under the absurd infatuation that he was a cripple. No; it was not that under the suggestion of St. Peter he made a successful attempt to deny all his previous experience and say, 'How foolish to think I was lame when I could walk!' Not this, but faith in the name, the name of a Person, a Person Who had been crucified in that very city not two months ago, Whom he had probably seen entering the Temple on Palm Sunday, and Who he heard was now King of kings and Lord of lords. Braced by the words of St. Peter, he had called with all his spiritual energy upon the sacred name, and had immediately felt an inrush of strength which had lifted him on to his feet. The name, through faith in the name, had made everything possible. It is not unnatural for men to ask as they are now asking, Was this loss of power in accord with the will of God? Was the gift of healing intended only to last during the infancy and childhood of the Christian Church, or ought we to have it today? And these questions are asked the more insistently because, both within the Church and without it, faith-healing, as it is called, is practised with some remarkable results. And it has been hastily assumed that these successes are only typical of what could be done on a very large scale if only the doctrines and principles on which they are based were more widely held. I. Now in the first place we must freely admit that the old, strong, clear faith in the Sacred Name is not in this twentieth century what it was in the first, and that the exercise of it, whether individually or still more corporately, would result in a large increase of restorations to health. But whilst we fully admit this, we must also remember that Christ's office was not to abolish sickness and suffering. He was necessarily a wonderful Physician of the body; He cured probably every disease or functional disorder known to Palestine, and He sent forth His disciples to do the same; but there must have been large numbers like those in Nazareth who were never healed at all. Healing, valuable as it was, was only subordinate to another and higher object, the awakening of the soul to the love of God through faith. This our Lord confessed to be infinitely harder than the physical healing of the body, and surely infinitely more valuable. 'Whether is easier to say,' He asks of His critics, 'Arise and walk, or Thy sins be forgiven thee?' To heal the body cost Him power virtue went out, left Him weakened for it had to overcome the hesitancy of doubt and distrust; but to heal the soul, to give forgiveness, that needed far more difficult work repentance, self-surrender, restitution. II. If we asked the beloved physician St. Luke, why we had lost the gifts of healing, might he not reply, 'Lost! but they are here! Whence comes all this that I have seen, this that has awakened such profound astonishment, this discovery of laws, principles, and remedies? Are they not the gifts of healing always latent in the Body of Christ, but called out by suffering? This marvellous manipulation of the fingers and instruments, this superb self-control that pursues its end with such unflinching determination, though it knows the slightest deviation may mean the loss of a valuable life; these splendid powers of eye and hand; this rare combination of tenderness and decision, of sympathy and calm indifference. Nay, is it not your failure to see in these some of the ripest fruits of the Incarnation, of Christ indwelling us and our indwelling Him, that has led to this manifestation of healing in such unexpected quarters.' Those who have seen devout Quakers living a lofty and unselfish life without the grace of Sacraments are not surprised to see the weak become strong, the diseased become healthy, without the blessings God has given through medicine. When we abuse His means of grace He works without them till we can use them again with reverence. This, then, seems to be what we see through the New Testament as interpreted by the life of the Christian Church. Bishop Walpole, The Guardian, 17th June, 1910. References. III. 16. Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 167. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliv. No. 2592. III. 17. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1498, p. 121. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 107. An Advent Exhortation Acts 3:19 The performance of a miracle created the opportunity St. Peter took to preach the sermon of which our text is the application. He attributes the miracle just wrought entirely to Christ, Whom the Jews in their blind bigotry and hate had betrayed and murdered. And then he calls on them to repent, to hate their sin and renounce it as a necessary condition of pardon. I. Repentance is a Universal Duty. II. The Primary Result of Repentance is Pardon. III. A Secondary Result of Repentance will be Times of Refreshing from the Presence of the Lord. IV. The Ultimate Result of Repentance will be the Second Coming of Christ. Christ will be revealed in flaming fire to the ungodly, and 'except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish'. Without sin and unto salvation He is coming to His saints. If you would see Him, would meet Him, would join His train, then 'what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness'. References. III. 19. John Watson, The Inspiration of our Faith, p. 72. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 804. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 227. III. 19-21. J. Keble, Sermons for Lent to Passion-tide, p. 318. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 374. J. Bowstead, Practical Sermons, vol. ii. p. 237. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 211; ibid. vol. x. p. 198. Acts 3:21 Luther had a dog named Tölpel, who was very dear to himself and his children. Some one questioned him about the restitution of all things, and asked whether in the heavenly kingdom there would be dogs and other animals. He replied: Certainly. For the earth in those days will not be void and empty, and Peter in Acts 3 calls that day 'the day of the restitution of all things.' Seeing then that the heavens and earth are to be changed, as in other passages we are more clearly told, He will create a new heaven and a new earth, and He will create new Tölpels, whose skin will be golden and their hair of pearls. There God will be all in all. There no creature will devour another. Serpents, toads, and other animals which on account of original sin are poisonous and harmful, will not only be harmless then, but even agreeable and pleasant to us, so that we shall play with them. How is it that we cannot believe the Word of God, although the things that the Scripture says have come true up to this article of the Resurrection. The cause lies in original sin. E. Kroker, Luther's Tischreden (1903), p. 360, No. 700. References. III. 21. D. Martin, Penny Pulpit, No. 1625, p. 50. E. A. Stuart, The New Commandment and other Sermons, vol. vii. p. 25. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 31; ibid. vol. ii. p. 381. III. 22. Ibid. vol. i. p. 85; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 223. III. 25, 26. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 381. III. 26. A. Tucker, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 561. Penny Pulpit, No. 1671, p. 407. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 406. R. J. Campbell, New Theology Sermons, p. 204. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 17. IV. 1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 86; ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p. 324. IV. 2. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i. p. 319. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 121. IV. 3. G. T. Newton, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 211. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 140. IV. 3-6. G. Gladstone, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 22. IV. 5-7, 18-20. J. Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables, p. 283. IV. 6. Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 184. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 329. IV. 7. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Apocalyse, p. 167. IV. 11. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 37. No Other Name Acts 4:12 I wish to give reasons, deep and abiding reasons, for believing that the Apostles spoke, under the guidance of the Spirit, an eternal truth. It is by understanding the idea of salvation that we see the justice of this exclusive claim. There are four points out of many on which we will dwell just now. I. God the Father is only known through the Son. Plato recognises, but does not know God. The heart of the stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, is brave and resigned, but utterly uncomforted. And, as it was in the beginning, so it is now. You find it in modern literature and in intercourse with men; to be without Christ is one and the same thing as to be forlorn and without personal knowledge of God in the world. For, not only is the Father unknown except through Christ; we may be sure that the Father is unknowable except through Him. Fatherhood implies sonship. Until the Son was seen the Father could not be known. II. Only by Him do we understand the will of God that we may do it. Christ the Way is the one clear light and certain strength of mankind. The will of God is that we should love Him, and love one another, that we should live an inward life of purity, of truth, of service, that we should take up our cross to follow the Ideal, that we should live free from worldliness and care, that our eyes should be on the heavens; and that all should be realised by faith in Christ our Lord. III. Only by Him are we saved from sin and reconciled to our own conscience. Consider what is meant by deliverance from sin. Think of it, if you will, only as the reconciliation of the soul with itself, the quiet conscience, the growth and power possible when the conflict within is stilled. Nothing is more certain than that this inward reconciliation is not found elsewhere if it is not found in Christ. Christ delivers men from sins. Vices are overcome. Ancient deeds of ill are blotted out. Habits are broken. The nature is changed. The conscience is at peace. IV. Only by Him can we have assurance of pardon, communion with God, certainty of immortality. These are wrought in us by the Spirit, but only it seems by the Spirit in direct connection with the person of Christ. R. F. Horton, The Trinity, p. 191. References. IV. 12. H. P. Liddon, Sermons Preached on Special Occasions, p. 267. J. P. Lange, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 185. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 209. IV. 112, 13. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 297. The Boldness of Peter and John Acts 4:13 The text is one which rarely gets justice paid to it. I have heard it very many times, and I have very rarely heard it quoted with the significance which is due to it. We pray for love, we pray for meekness, we pray for holiness, and we pray that men may take knowledge of us at least those of us who wish it to be so that we have been with Jesus. It is right that we should pray thus; yet, if you look into this text you will see that it is none of these things in the disciples that reminded the enemies of Jesus that these men had been with Christ; we read not when they saw their love, not when they saw their tenderness, not when they saw their holiness but 'when they saw their boldness they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus'. And yet men say that Christianity is for womankind only! I. The Result of Contact with Christ. Peter and John were imprisoned because they refused to cease teaching the people. The morning brought them before the great Council, and what was Peter's answer? He would not budge an inch; he abated not one jot or one tittle of those tremendously high and lofty claims which he had made for Christ, his Saviour, Lord, and King, but he charged his judges with having crucified Christ. Do you wonder that that Council was astonished at the boldness of these men? The Council turned and saw in front of them men, unlearned, ignorant, but bold, and they put it down to the fact that they had been communing, had been in friendly converse, with Jesus. I do not think they meant it as a compliment at all; they remembered Jesus and they hated them for the very memory. In whatever sense we take these words we have this thought, that being with Jesus will make a man. II. The Boldness of Christ. Let us look at Christ's character in one or two of its phases. There is an incident in St. Matthew 12:16 which shows us our Lord's moral character. If you want moral courage in your life you will find the example in Jesus Christ. Neither in word nor deed did Christ regard those men who came to entangle Him in His talk. Then remember that one of His first acts in the Temple, where He found the money-changers and bargainers trafficking in unholy traffic, was to take a whip of small cords, and, single-handed, to lash them from the House of God. See, again, how fearlessly the Lord told His enemies the truth, even though at that moment they were going to kill Him: 'Ye are of your father the devil'. Look again when the Lord was before Pilate: 'Thou couldest have no power at all against Me'. Is it not such a Master as that that we can serve? What think you of this Christ? Can we not serve Him and follow Him, and if we do serve Him, can we ever be craven-hearted again? III. Strength in the Lord. Perhaps we do not realise how truly strong Christ was until we see two things combined in Him strength combined with a wonderful, delicate sympathy, kindness and love. Some have one, some have the other they are both spoilt unless mixed in the proper proportions in Christ they were perfect. Christ Jesus is the perfect man, and true manliness can stoop as well as soar. Bismarck once said: 'We Germans fear God and nothing else in the world'; and you will find the most splendid examples of fearlessness, the most wonderful examples of heroic devotion among those whose chief joy it is to call Christ Jesus Lord. There is no other source of abiding strength than this, strength in the Lord. Let the Holy Spirit so guide the lives of all in this church, so that in the towns or cities, or wherever you may go, 'they may take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus'. Boldness Acts 4:13 I. Who were the men upon whom this masculine grace was found? (1) 'When they beheld the boldness of Peter.' That is an astonishing conjunction! It is one of the phrases which describe the wonderful ministry of grace. It records a Gospel miracle. I know that our hardest rocks, the igneous rocks, are just transformed mud, mud that has passed through the ministry of terrific fire. And here is Simon Peter, once as yielding as mud, not bearing a feather's weight, but now having passed through the discipline of flame, the fire of an intense affection, he is firm and irresistible as rock. 'Thou also wast one of His disciples!'... 'I know not the man!' That is the yielding mud! And it is this man, transformed in the very fibres of his being, who now arrests the thoughtless indifference of the world, and by the spectacle of a magnificent boldness startles it into a great surprise. 'When they beheld the boldness of Peter they marvelled.' (2) ' And of John!' I cannot say that the artist's John very frequently conveys to me a sufficient conception of the bosom friend of Christ. The artist usually figures him as of mild and gentle countenance, with far-away dreamy eyes, and of most effeminate mien. Well, I think that any true portraiture of John must include some of these things: there must be a suggestion of mysticism, and in the face there must be a large and winsome gentleness to which we feel we could expose our wounds and our broken hearts; but the gentleness must not be effeminate, it must be strong and masculine, and in the face must be charactered elements with which the flippant could no more trifle than he could play with fire. If John is light he is also lightning! 'And He surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder!' Perhaps the character of the Apostle John might find its appropriate symbol in a lovely dale in Derbyshire through which I have often strolled. There are the soft, sweet, grassy slopes, a welcome delicacy for tired feet; but, rising sheer out of the luscious green there tower the bare, stern, rocky crags, revealing to us the character of the hidden foundations in which even the quiet springy turf finds its bed and rest. John leaned on the Master's breast; he went to Patmos for his faith! 'When they beheld the boldness of Peter and John... they marvelled.' II. This boldness was a phenomenon. They could not fit it into any of the current explanations. It was clear that it was not the product of the schools. It was not the fruit of culture. They 'perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men'. They could not fit these men anywhere into the hierarchy of official teachers, and so they relegated them to the ranks of the unrecognised, the mere quacks, and labelled them 'unlearned and ignorant men'. And yet here the men stood, with fine spiritual serenity, with an unshaken strength of assurance, with a firm definiteness of thought, with an unwonted precision of speech, and a magnificent irresistibleness of life! Schooled or unschooled this had to be accounted for! Fisherman or rabbi, this character demanded explanation! III. What was the explanation of this character which so perplexed the world? You must turn back to the eighth verse, and you will find the secret. 'Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost!' That is the explanation of the boldness. It is Peter plus the Infinite! A man who is filled with God can be none other than bold. IV. There is great and peculiar need of this apostolic 'boldness' today. The times imperatively demand the military attitude in the soul. The Christian character must be conspicuous for strength, intelligence, decisiveness, attack. Whatever may be allowed to lie in obscurity, or hidden away in secret and mystical depths, the masculinity of Christian discipleship must stand out in bold and flaming relief. (1) 'When they beheld the boldness!' That is the character with which we must confront the world. We need to display * boldness of assurance. * (2) And we need to display boldness of will. Look again at these Spirit-filled men. 'Let us straitly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.'... ' We cannot but speak.' How magnificent the response! They felt their wills to be caught in the sweeping current of the Infinite! They were impelled by a mighty imperative, constrained by an all-encompassing and irresistible necessity. J. H. Jowett, The Transfigured Church, p. 181. The Manliness of Christ Acts 4:13 Many are alienated from Christianity because they have never realised that the ideal Christian life and the ideal manly life are one and the same thing. Unfortunately, there are all too many unmanly Christians. Yes: but if there are unmanly Christians, read your New Testament and tell me if you find there an unmanly Christ. Christ is the ideal of religion. Therefore, if you would do all that may become a man, if you would be brave and true, and strong and tender, if, in Milton's magnificent phrase, you would learn 'to hate the cowardice of doing wrong,' follow Him. I will mention one or two of the facts which illustrate for us the true manliness of Christ. I. His moral courage. Neither in deed nor in word did He regard the person of man. One of the first acts of His public ministry was to enter into the Temple where the bargainers and money-changers carried on their unholy traffic, and with a whip of small cords, single handed, to lash them from the house of God. II. Note, further, Christ's steadfastness of purpose 'The characteristic of heroism,' says Emerson, 'is persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world.' Try Christ's life by that test and see what is the result. III. And yet, perhaps, we never truly feel how nobly strong Christ was until we have seen how in Him strength united with the most wonderfully delicate refinement of feeling and perfection of sympathy. Christ Jesus is the perfect Man; for true manliness can stoop as well as soar; it knows how to be gentle and unresisting, and how to be bold and self-assertive; it can forgive and forbear, as it can also be angry and condemn. Tennyson sings of 'that gentleness which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man'. I venture to affirm that you will find the most splendid examples of simple fearlessness and heroic self-devotion among those who have counted it their chiefest joy to call Christ Jesus Lord. This word above all let us lay to heart all that Peter and John gained by communion and fellowship with Christ we may gain too. G. Jackson, First Things First, p. 81. References. IV. 13. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. i. p. 280. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i. No. 21. W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 106. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. ii. p. 77. J. H. Jowett, The Transfigured Church, p. 181. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 116. IV. 15. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 70. IV. 18-20. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 48. IV. 19. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. ii. p. 379. IV. 19, 20. H. Smith, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 421. J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (4th Series), p. 138. Ibid. Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 284. The Irrepressible in Christian Testimony Acts 4:20 The words are those of Peter and John before the Jewish Council when they were examined concerning the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. There was that in them that would not allow them to keep silence. I. Let us seek for an explanation of this irresistible impulse. We are familiar with it in other departments, and our knowledge of it there may help us to the analysis of it here. (1) Sometimes this constraining impulse to a certain course is to be traced to that subtle thing which we call genius, so that in spite of all obstacles that may be in his way the man at length finds vent for what is in him, and rises to eminence. It is thus, for example, with the poet and the artist, the musician and the engineer. (2) In others this irrepressibility is the result of emotion. (3) The same thing is seen in the matter of love; and the mother for her child, or the friend for his friend, or the philanthropist in the cause of suffering humanity, are all alike self-forgetting, and incapable either of being restrained by others, or of holding back themselves when circumstances require their exertion. (4) So, too, there is an uncontrollable element in sorrow. (5) But strongest of all, perhaps, in their power to compel their external expression are the dictates of conscience, when that faculty is enlightened by the truth and quickened by the Spirit of God. Now when we turn to the case of the Apostles in the text, we find at the root of that irrepressible impulse to testify to Christ the greater number of those influences which I have specified. II. But now having analysed and accounted for this peculiarity in the two Apostles, we shall find in that itself the explanation of many other things about them. (1) Thus to begin with, it fully accounts for their earnestness. (2) It largely explains their courage. (3) This quality goes far to explain their persistence. (4) So once more it explains their naturalness. III. It becomes then a most important question for us all, how we are to get to this most desirable state of heart and mind, how we are to attain to such a disposition concerning the Gospel that we shall feel that 'we cannot but' speak it in some way or other to our fellow-men. (1) As an indispensable factor to the production of this irrepressibility I name positive convictions as to the truth itself. Uncertainty of belief from the very nature of the case produces hesitancy of speech. Doubt leads to dumbness. (2) A vivid realisation of the fact that without the Gospel our fellow-men are perishing. (3) A sense of personal responsibility. Missionary Motives Acts 4:20 I will deal very simply with some of the motives which ought to urge us on to do our part in the great missionary work left us by our Lord Jesus Christ. I. I would begin with the very lowest motive in fact I am not sure that I ought to mention it at all, for I know well there is no one who is drawn to take part in the work from this motive alone. But still, perhaps, we ought to mention it. One motive is self-interest. Our self-interest advises us to take part in this missionary work. II. In the second place, duty demands it Because, in the first place, there is the command of our Lord, His last command, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature'. And then you have been put in trust with the Gospel. III. But a third motive surely is this pity compels us to preach the Gospel. IV. And then, in the fourth place, surely gratitude prompts us to preach the Gospel, the love of Christ constrains us. Think what the Gospel is to you. The Gospel being precious to your soul, you must surely proclaim that which you have seen. V. And then, lastly, life requires you to preach the Gospel. The Divine nature is to give, and if you have the Divine life, life requires you to give. A fire which has no vent will very soon have no flame, a spring which has no outlet must find an outlet somewhere, and if you have the Divine life within you, then you must speak that which you do see and know; you cannot help it. E. A. Stuart, The One Mediator and other Sermons, vol. xi. p. 81. References. IV. 20. Bishop Galloway, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p. 168. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 389; ibid. vol. vii. p. 394. IV. 21. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 213. Over Forty Acts 4:22 'The man was above forty,' that was the wonder of it. When our life crosses a certain line we regard the forces of recuperation as reduced. When life attains to a certain age we regard its habits as finally fixed, and nothing short of a miracle can alter a man's course and disposition. But this miracle typifies that spiritual transformation which can be worked upon men even when their lives are established in rigid habits. There are none too old for the ministries of grace. And yet we must not lose sight of the great truth that the best time to enter into covenant with the Lord is in the period of habit-formation, and not when habit has been fixed by the ill practices of the years. I. For what friendly forces are we prone to lose as we grow older? (1) We are always in peril of losing the ministry of an active wonder. (2) Ready confidence. (3) Simple love. II. But besides the things that we lose there are also hostile forces that we acquire with the years. (1) In the first place, there is a deadly familiarity with the truth. (2) And then there is the terrific power of worldly gravitation. (3) When we come to the age of forty we are reaching the season when life becomes fixed. We get into a groove, and our groove becomes our grave, and we cannot get out. III. What shall I say then? Surely it is far away the best thing to close with Christ early. IV. But what of those from whom youth has passed, and upon whom these hostile forces are waging incessant war? Can the miracle of redemption be wrought? The Scriptures just laugh in ecstatic joy as they declare the possibilities of the old. 'Your old men shall dream dreams!' 'They shall bring forth fruit in old age.' And how shall it all be done? By the renewing efficacy of the Christ of God. J. H. Jowett, The British Congregationalist, 21st November, 1907. The Lame Man Healed Acts 4:22 This 'miracle of healing' is the first recorded miracle wrought by the Apostles after the Pentecost. This act of healing is to be looked upon not simply as a miracle or as an act of Divine power, but also as a speaking parable, a sign. The Man Lame is a sign of the decrepitude and helplessness of the soul under sin; the Man Healed is a sign of the higher healing which Christianity brings to souls afflicted with sin. I. The Man. 'A certain man lame from his mother's womb' (3:2). (1) He was helpless. The ankle bones were supple and soft and could not sustain the body. This man was born in this condition. His lameness was not the result of accident or disease. (2) The man was moreover poor. Judaism provided no hospitals for the sick and decrepit, and no homes of benevolence for the poor, and in the absence of such institutions the helpless and needy gathered around the Temple and synagogues and appealed to the worshippers as they passed by. The physical condition of this man is a true type of our moral condition. Like the lame man, we are not only helpless but poor. This is very humiliating to our proud nature. II. The Miracle. The man was healed. (1) The healing was unexpected. Our redemption comes from an unexpected source. The penitent under a sense of sin finds it easy to believe in God's justice, but difficult to believe in God's mercy. (2) This miracle of healing was Divine. The great work of soul healing is God's. (3) The healing was conditional. Jesus Christ demands faith, receptivity, a will to be saved and faith in Him that He can save. (4) The healing was complete. When Christ saves, He renews the will, purifies the affections, hallows the thoughts, gives a right bias to the whole nature, so that the man becomes a new creature, a new creation, all things become new. III. The Showing. The effect of this Divine working was marvellous on all concerned. (1) On the man himself. (2) The effect of the miracle on the people 'They were filled with wonder and amazement' (3:10). Nor is this all. Peter took the opportunity of preaching Christ to the people. He based his address on the miracle, but more especially on the fact that the miracle was wrought in the name of Jesus Christ. (3) The effect on the authorities. (4) What was the effect of all this on the Apostles themselves? Richard Roberts, My Closing Ministry, p. 289. ** The Name Above Every Name ( For St. Peter's Day ) Acts 4:22 ** I. Look at this poor man lying at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. This was scarcely a year after our Lord's Ascension; and the first thing that strikes me is this: How came Jesus of Nazareth, He that went about doing good, to have passed this poor creature by? He was above forty years old; a cripple, therefore, before our Lord was born; laid daily at the gate of the Temple. Did Jesus Himself never go to the Temple? 'I was daily with you,' He Himself says, 'in the Temple.' Both daily there! And how came the cripple never to have seen the Great Physician? Shall we say that our Lord never went by that particular gate? We cannot Why not? Why, you are to understand that the Beautiful Gate of the Temple led into Solomon's porch or cloister; and in that gate the poor man was daily laid. But one day in the winter before His Passion, it is written, 'Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon's porch'. Up and down, backwards and forwards, still in sight of the poor man, the Saviour of the world went on and yet without one gracious word: 'Be made whole of thy disease'. This priest, the great High Priest, when He saw him, passed by on the other side. Why this poor man was not healed by our Lord I cannot tell you. It might be that he did not ask at all. If he did ask, then he was heard; only his petition was put off a little. II. Then you may learn a lesson that, though God is the God of all times and all places, still there are some times at which and some places in which He seems easiest found. Here, you see, the place was the Temple; the time, three o'clock in the afternoon; which was that of our Lord's Passion. In that Temple where Jesus Himself had so often walked, at that hour in which He had offered up the evening sacrifice of the world, then His two disciples went up to pray. And in that Temple and at that hour came the first Apostolic miracle. III. Look at Peter's speech. 'Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee.' If you had lived in pagan times, and had wished to serve an idol, and had sent to the priest, and had said: 'Silver and gold have I none,' you would have found that he cared very little about anything else you had. But He, that was poor Himself so poor as not to have where to lay His head He that, though all the beasts of the forest were His, and His the cattle upon a thousand hills, was oftentimes an hungered He who chose poor men, unlearned and ignorant men, to be His servants and courtiers, to Him you may safely go and say, 'Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I Thee'. J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 298. References. IV. 23. G. H. Morrison, Scottish Review, vol. i. p. 90. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 224; ibid. vol. x. p. 280. IV. 24. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 202. IV. 27-30. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 67. IV. 30. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 545. IV. 31. J. W. Weddell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 215. IV. 31-33. C. A. Berry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 257. The Church of God Acts 4:32-33 In order that we may realise afresh something of what the Church of Christ ought to be, we will take the picture of the primitive Church as it appears in our text, and try to discover some of those elements which ought to characterise the life of the Church today. I. Reality of Inward Life. 'The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.' Christianity always works from within, and as a consequence we see here two great elements of spiritual reality in the inward life of the Church. (a) The Church was characterised by spiritual unity, 'the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul'. It is worthy of note that they were a 'multitude,' a large number, and doubtless with great varieties of temperament, capacity, and antecedents. Yet they were united by faith in Christ, they were all characterised by this simple trust, they were a multitude that 'believed'. (b) The Church was also characterised by remarkable unselfishness. The original is very striking, 'Not even one said that anything he possessed was his own'. Out of the spiritual relationship to Christ came a social relationship to one another. As cause is to effect, so the unity was to the unselfishness; the two could not be separated. Here we find a genuine Christian socialism as the result of individual unity, a socialism which was the spontaneous expression of the love of God in their hearts. Systematic provision for the poor was unknown in heathenism, and had been very largely neglected by the Jews notwithstanding the commands of the Mosaic law to remember the poor and the stranger. It must therefore have been astonishing to the people of Jerusalem to see so many voluntary givers. This picture of Christian socialism is very striking; it shows the difference between the socialism which is Christian and the socialism which is not Christian. Thus by unity and unselfishness this primitive Church was marked by the possession of intense spiritual reality; their inward life was right with God and with one another. II. Prosperity of Outward Life. 'And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.' Spiritual life always expresses itself; and reality, as we see it here, leads to genuine prosperity. (a) Mark the power of the Apostolic Testimony: 'With great power gave the Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.' (b) Mark the power of the Christian Life. 'Great grace was upon them all.' III. Spirituality of Upward Life. * (a) Their life was a life lived in prayer. (b) Their life was a life lived in the Holy Spirit.* Thus we find this primitive Church life characterised by Reality, Prosperity, and Spirituality, the last being the explanation of the other two. IV. What has all this to do with us today? Just this: that in proportion as our Church life reproduces these elements, the cause of the Gospel will be powerful and triumphant; and in proportion as these elements are absent will the cause of Christ be weak and even defeated. References. IV. 32, 33. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 177. IV. 34, 35. R. F. Horton, ibid. vol. lxxiii. p. 312. IV. 36. J. Baines, Sermons, p. 227. J. S. Bartlett, Sermons, p. 138. W. J. Hills, Sermons and Addresses, p. 83. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints' Days, p. 120. IV. 36, 37. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-tide Teaching, p. 121. Proprietorship Or Stewardship (For St. Barnabas' Bay) Acts 4:37 This incident in the life of St. Barnabas suggests to our minds the true principle of possession. We are stewards of the things we possess, not owners. This, surely, is the principle of property within the Church of Christ. I. God Permits us to Possess, but not to Call the Things which we Possess our own. They are His. How are we to use them? Not with exclusive reference to self, but with that expansive desire for others' good which is after the example of our loving Lord. So St. Paul bids the Ephesians 'work, that they may have,' not have to call their own, but 'have to give to him that needeth'. The Socialistic negation of property contradicts the necessities of human nature as it is, and has no guarantee against human selfishness. II. Christianity Anticipates the Glory of Human Nature as it is to be, and invokes against self-seeking the authority and the power of God Himself. Practically, the evil spirit of exclusiveness in possession can only be cast out by making the Lord Jesus lord not of our property only, but of our heart first. On the other hand, if we want to have Him 'dwelling in our hearts by faith,' we have to see to it that our hearts are not preoccupied and hardened by a habit of calling our possessions our own, and excluding Christ's needy brethren from their right in the enjoyment of them. III. Let us Acquire the Habit of Living in Christ and Christ in us, and as a part of this let us learn to look upon the things which we possess as not our own but His. Then shall we use them conscientiously, with a sense of trust concerning them. References. V. 1. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 314. V. 1, 2. Christianity in Daily Conduct, p. 183. V. 3. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. ii. p. 392. V. 6. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 442. V. 14. Ibid. vol. ix. p. 469. V. 17. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 86. V. 19. Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 55. V. 19, 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2032. R. F. Horton, The Hidden God, p. 113. Definite Religious Teaching (In St. Lawrence Jewry, to the Association of Head Masters, 11th January, 1907) Acts 5:12 What were they doing there? Worshipping is the answer which used to be made; holding the primitive Divine service out of which have grown our liturgies. The unlikeliness of this answer does not need drawing out. We shall most of us agree that the meetings of the groups of Christians in the Temple's cloister must have been for conference on the affairs of the community on some few occasions, on most occasions for instruction. The scene can be reproduced with ease and with much assurance that our reproduction is correct. A visitor to the Eastern Mediterranean, when he traverses the court of a university or loiters in the vestibule of a mosque, and sees a cluster of scholars seated on the ground round the little platform of a teacher, and echoing after him the texts which the instructor drones out to them, can feel sure, in lands where the outward course of life seems not subject to fashions or development, that the scene before him is a sound interpreter of the scene of Christians met with one accord in Solomon's porch. It is worth while to summon up to the eye, if we may, the spectacle of a Peter, a John, a Thomas, each with his score of listening faces in the rich dusk of the famed portico, because in looking on this we are looking on the beginnings of the Christian school. I. Peter's teaching was, in whatever degree dogmatic, certainly practical. In his speech at Pentecost, the dogma (as perhaps we may call it) of the Resurrection, 'This Jesus did God raise up,' has its practical result on the fate of men at once enforced: 'He hath poured forth this which we see and hear'; and the hearers are called on to connect their fate with it: 'Repent... be baptised... and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost'. 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation' So it is with the dogmatic teaching in Solomon's porch, his object-lesson of the lame man at his side 'walking and leaping and praising God'; it is at once applied: 'Repent ye... that your sins may he blotted out... that He may send the Christ'. So is it in the house of Cornelius: 'Can any man forbid the water that those should not be baptised which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?' That is, the practical event of union with God in Christ has happened to them, therefore they are in the faith; their doctrinal position is true and adequate; give them the official seal of it. II. Shall not we do well if, instead of thinking first and last of doctrine, we think first and last of human fate? If, like Peter, we teach the doctrine, or fact from which the doctrine flows, not as itself, not as a proposition setting forth a particular event in the life of the universe or a general law in the world of things, but as a fact in the life of our scholar, a law which will be illustrated by his personal destiny? All of us must desire to make known in our classes a Christ Who is in the heart: Who, whatever heavens must receive Him since His Passion, must, if He be a Christ, abide with us all the days and abide in each. III. Then the method, Peter's method, can it also be ours? It can be, and no other can, if we are to do something more than teach a subject, are to convey a faith. We may expound the doctrine, as we must, in the terms of human fate and human will, illustrate it from human experience, and fire it with the zest of a man's interest in what happens to the man. But we cannot thus expound, illustrate, and fire our lesson by any other art than that which Peter used in the school of Solomon's porch. We also must be the thing we teach, have the faith within us which we communicate, believe ourselves the lesson we read to our class. It is not our lucidity as teacher, but our force as believer, which will write the record on the fleshy tables of their hearts. J. Huntley Skrine, Sermons to Pastors and Masters, p. 47. Benign Shadows Acts 5:15 I. A man's shadow is the result of his position with regard to the sun. Its length and its sort depend on where he stands in relationship to the shining rays. Similarly the influence of a man's character is entirely conditioned by his relationship to the Son of righteousness. What I am toward Jesus Christ determines also what I am toward men, for relationship with Him controls the quality of my entire life. And just as in the sunlight a shadow is silently cast without the putting forth of any effort and is often quite unnoticed by the man of whom it is cast, so in the nature of the case is our unconscious influence. It is silent, effortless, and unavoidable, and falls either this way or that upon all who are in our pathway. It is therefore not a matter of option but of compulsion that we who are professed disciples of the Lord should lay to heart this fact and should seek that our lives in their unconscious outgoing may at all times minister to His glory. II. It is of great importance that we bear in mind that while the Gospel of Christ calls us into personal relationship with Him, it is a relationship which nevertheless has social consequences. We must remember that while His blessing begins with us it by no means ends with us, for 'no man liveth unto himself'. We must recognise that while we are units in the kingdom of God, we are nevertheless joined to an innumerable company of similar units, and that our influence is for ever spreading, just as leaven spreads in a lump. This fact affords us at least a partial interpretation of much that is otherwise inexplicable in life, for God is always ordering our lives with a view to making their shadows helpful to others. It is not, for instance, merely that we may ourselves learn some lesson of faith and trust, or be purified in some needed measure, that we are put into the furnace of pain. It is also that our attitude of surrender and submission of love and of glad trust shall be seen of those who behold us. It is to make our shadow reach to some who need just its ministry. These experiences, whatever their nature, are all directed toward bringing us into closer fellowship with Him, that is into such new relationship with the Sun as shall cause our shadow to be a blessing to those who are always watching us and are forming their conception of Christ from our lives. It is true that in a certain sense our lives, like His own, are vicarious in character. Our sufferings mean eventually a longer shadow; and a longer shadow means fuller blessing for other lives. J. Stuart Holden, The Pre-Eminent Lord, p. 81. References. V. 20. Bishop Talbot, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 27. Archbishop Alexander, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p. 41. V. 28. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 133. V. 30, 31. Bishop Browne, Sermons on the Atonement, p. 85. The Prince and His Saving Gifts Acts 5:31 I. Peter's words cast an instructive sidelight upon the motives which rule the order of the heavenly world. The Father governs it in pity to His rebellious people, and the invisible, no less than the visible, spheres above us distil blessing upon a thankless race. The Father expresses at once His own compassion towards a rebellious people, and answers to the unfathomed deeps in the soul of His Son, by making Him the crowned servant of the human race which had despised and rejected Him. It was to help men, even the rebellious also, that He was uplifted to His throne, as well as to His cross. II. Simon Peter's words give us a new sense of the beneficence of Christ's character. When he described Jesus as exalted for the express purpose of drawing men by His princely gifts to a better mind and a nobler destiny, he bears his testimony to the infinite unselfishness of Jesus. The superstitions of the human race everywhere express a low judgment of human character, and show that in the past no such ideal of forgiveness as this had ever been dreamed. III. In virtue of what new power and authority does the exalted Prince bestow this gift? By redeeming men and standing as their representative at the right hand of God. He opened for Himself fresh avenues of access to the human conscience. He has been invested with authority to send and direct the Spirit who brings to men new light, new energy, new persuasion, new demonstrations of the eternal righteousness, and a new sense of sin. He can now reinforce the moral sensibilities from within, and so make repentance possible to the most obdurate. IV. Repentance ushers in the remission of sins, for it is a law of this mediatorial grace that a second gift lies hidden within the first. Repentance is as surely linked with remission as stars in the same constellation are bound together and co-ordinate. Repentance and the Divine forgiveness are immutably paired. It is true a man may forfeit the first gift by wilful neglect; but so long as he keeps it he has an earnest of the second. This faithful pitying Prince cannot lead men into a sorrow which has no happy issue. V. The fact that repentance is the gift of the exalted Saviour should give us a wholesome confidence in the better dispositions which arise within us. We must surrender ourselves bravely to the new impulses He creates. Till we reflect that there is something better than our own wisdom and virtue beneath the relentings which visit us in our more thoughtful hours, we cannot do this. If the gifts of repentance and remission can be lightly snatched away from us, the very motive of the exalted estate to which Jesus has been upraised suffers defeat. The forces of the Supreme King are with the penitent in His struggle toward better things. Reference. V. 31. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1301. The Witnessing Spirit Acts 5:32 I. The Subject-matter of the Witnessing. 'These things.' The Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ (vv. 30, 31). We of today are called not so much to testify of the facts as of the great truths they teach and prove the completed atonement for human sin, the vindication of the dignity and power of Christ and of His exaltation as the Divine Prophet Priest, and King. II. The Character of the Witnessing. It is twofold human and Divine. 'We and also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey Him.' Human testimony is defective. But when the Divine Spirit is joined to the human, when the evidence is the testimony of the Spirit in and through man, it is unmistakable. (1) The spirit inspires the witness with boldness. The spirit strengthens our natural faculties, so that we apprehend truth clearly, and believe and hold it with a certainty and power that nothing can shake. (2) The Spirit inspires the witness with humility. The spirit guards us from all boastful parade, and endows us with the meekness of wisdom. (3) The Spirit imparts to the witness sanctified common sense. Thus we are taught when and how to witness, whether by speech or silent action to choose the time, the place, the manner. (4) The Spirit again gives continuity to the witnessing. The Spirit takes care that the succession of witnesses for Christ is unbroken. Application. (1) We are prompted to the duty of witnessing for Christ by the instinct of self-preservation. (2) By gratitude. (3) By the love we bear to Christ, and our ardent desire that others should love Him. G. Barlow, The Preachers Magazine, vol. v. p. 225. References. V. 34. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 33. V. 37. C. S. Robinson, Simon Peter, p. 76. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 93. V. 38, 39. G. F. Pentecost, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 139. G. MacKenzie, ibid. vol. 1. p. 170. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 61. P. M'Adam Muir, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx. p. 205. V. 39. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 395. V. 42. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii. No. 369. C. M. Betts, Eight Sermons, p. 85. VI. 1. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 73. VI. 4. G. Bladon, The Record, vol. xxvii. p. 2. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 278. VI. 5. G. A. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p. 24. VI. 6. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 391. VI. 7. J. B. Meharry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 329. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 802. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 270. VI. 9. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. ii. p. 404. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 448; ibid. vol. v. p. 412; ibid. vol. vi. p. 379. VI. 10-12. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 91. VI. 13. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 382. VI. 14. Ibid. vol. x. p. 395. The Angel in Man Acts 6:15 The angels seen in the New Testament are described as having glorious countenances. The probability is that at this wonderful moment in the life of this remarkable man he was in a measure transfigured. There is in the countenance of Stephen a manifestation of something within him that may be called angelic. I. In the first place, I would consider the angel in human life in its universal latency. You may put it in another way, viz.: In every human being born into this life of ours there is a possible angel. It may be no new truth, but it is a truth the majesty of which is too often forgotten. Man is fearfully and wonderfully made however you regard him. It is said of one if my memory serves me well it is Goethe the great German it is said of one great man that he never stood in the presence of a group of children without baring his head. Childhood for him was awe-inspiring, not because of what it was so much as because of its latent possibilities. It is only a fallen angel that can make a devil. II. How is this angel in human life to be quickened and developed? I turn to Stephen. 'A man full of faith.' That is the first step. The angel belongs to the sphere invisible, and the very first step in the quickening of it is faith. For faith involves that a man should begin to live in the eternal, should begin to realise his relation to God, should begin to trust in the Infinite for help and life and love. It may be very ignorant, very crude, very narrow, and very imperfect at first. But where there is a true perception of the invisible and the eternal the angel lives. III. We next come to consider the manifestation of the angel in this earthly life. (1) The first characteristic of the angelic life is heavenly-minded-ness. (2) The angel life manifests itself further as a life of service. (3) Note particularly the manifestation of the angel in the countenance. The face is a wonderful vehicle for expressing the state of the emotions of the soul. IV. Consider the ascent of the angel into its liberty and glory. (1) The first thing to be said on that head is that death obviously cannot touch the angel. 'I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' Who saw it? Why the angel saw that. (2) But there is something yet more glorious to tell than that death cannot touch the angel. Death liberates the angel. John Thomas, Myrtle Street Pulpit, vol. m. p. 67. References. VII. 7. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 121; ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p. 449. VII. 11. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 49. VII. 14. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 112. VII. 14-43. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2631. VII. 16. Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p. 249. VII. 22. F. B. Cowl, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 239. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 442. VII. 26. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 64. VII. 35. G. Trevor, Types and the Antitype, p. 83. VII. 37. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1627, p. 65. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 85. VII. 38. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. pp. 236, 240. VII. 41. H. J. Bevis, Sermons, p. 176. VII. 42. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 428. VII. 43. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 121; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 25. VII. 47. W. Cunningham, Christian World Pulpit, vol.) xliv. p. 118 Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 117. VII. 53 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 385. St. Stephen's Death Acts 7:55 Stephen is the first of whom we read that he died after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and entered into his glory. The first martyr was now to obtain his crown of life. Now it is a remarkable thing that, with the exception of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the death of St. Stephen is the only death about which we have any details in the New Testament Scriptures. We read that Stephen was filled with the Holy Ghost. Now what did the Holy Spirit do for Stephen? I. It enabled him to see Jesus. This is the precious eye-salve which will enable us to see our Lord. The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, but God reveals them to us through His Spirit. When Stephen looked up above all the sorrow and the suffering that was gathering round him, what was it that the Holy Spirit enabled him to see? (1) In the first place, you are told, he saw 'the heavens opened'. (2) He saw Jesus. (3) He saw Jesus 'standing'. (4) He 'saw the glory of God'. This was what a man filled with the Holy Ghost saw. Can we see it when we have to suffer? II. The Holy Ghost enabled Stephen not only to see Jesus, but to pray to Jesus. It is always when we are most suffering and most tried that we lay firmest hold of the sympathy and love of the Incarnate Christ of God. III. The Holy Spirit taught Stephen to trust Jesus. 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' He, as it were, gave his spirit over into the hands of Jesus Christ, so that Jesus Christ might do what He pleased with him. IV. It enabled him also to imitate Jesus. As he died he breathed out the Lord Jesus Christ's own prayer, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'. The Holy Spirit taught Stephen to imitate the forgiving love of Jesus, it taught Stephen to pray for his murderers, even as Jesus prayed. We need not wait till death for the Holy Spirit to teach us those four things. E. A. Stuart, The New Commandment and other Sermons, vol. vii. p. 57. St. Stephen's Vision Acts 7:55 Let us note one or two lessons for ourselves. I. We are to see the same Jesus Standing at the Right Hand of God standing with eyes fixed on His servants in their conflict below, ever ready, when need comes, to show Himself to them, to inspirit them by the vision of Himself, to fill them with His own courage, His own calm, His own mind, His own peace. Christ has not gone away from where St. Stephen saw Him. Christ did not do anything for St. Stephen, or in St. Stephen, which He will not do for you, and in you. II. A Miraculous Calm, a real Supernatural Peace, amid the most Outrageous Catastrophes, Troubles, and Violences, is a Thing which a Servant of God may Pray for in his soul, as much as ever men of old came and asked Christ to work miracles on their bodies. Stephen's dying body lay mangled and smashed on the hard earth; yet his soul was passing away as peacefully as our consciousness fades out in our falling asleep. That was a miracle if ever there was one; a miracle wrought by the power of Christ on the mind and soul of Stephen. And it was written for our admonition, that we may know what miracles Christ is standing ready to work still upon the minds and souls of His people now. III. Observe how Christ Timed this Visible Manifestation of Himself in His active working and supply of supernatural strength to His suffering servant. Up to this moment, Christ had not openly manifested Himself in His glory and His exaltation. Now, at the outbreak of persecution, He lets Himself be seen. The violent death of the first Christian departure opens heaven, and we see the exalted form of the Victor over death. The Vision of Christ Acts 7:55 The appeal of our faith is not to feeling, but to fact. The Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension of our Lord are facts of history attested by evidence as complete and as satisfactory as can be adduced in support of any other facts of history on record. No more striking illustration of them is afforded in Scripture than by this story of the death of St Stephen, the first on the roll of 'the noble army of martyrs 'of the Christian Church. Here, indeed, was a practical result of the ascension in St. Stephen's vision of his Lord. I. How did Christ Appear to St. Stephen? (a) Suddenly. The veil that hides the unseen world was in a moment lifted. (b) Sublimely. The vision was glorious, the manner of it was glorious. Christ was glorified, and Christ was at the right hand of power. St. Stephen saw the glory of God, he saw an open heaven. If we did but know it, it is the grace of the glorified Christ that we are made partakers of, and it is the privilege of every Christian to live under an open heaven. Blessed is he who can rise above circumstances and trials and see that the living Christ is on the throne. In those dark hours when sorrow and suffering darken your pathway, and when the shadow of death falls upon your home, at such times if you would endure you must see Him who is invisible. To see Him is to be strong. II. Christ was 'Standing on the Right Hand of God'. Standing is the attitude of (a) Interest. All heaven was standing up that day. Angels were straining their eyes to gaze. It was the attitude of interest. (b) Respect and Honour. If we may so express it, Christ stood to welcome His brave warrior to his reward. It was to say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'. (c) Intercession. Christ stood to plead. He, the great High Priest, was interceding for St. Stephen; it was the attitude of prayer. 'I have prayed for thee, Stephen, that thy faith fail not.' He was praying that he might fight this last battle and win the day. (d) Interference. We shall not be wrong if we say that Christ stood to restrain the fury of the foe. It was the attitude, not of indifference, but of interference. 'Thus far shalt thou come and no further.' Certainly Christ measured the flight of every stone. The stones rained like hail, but only those struck Stephen that Christ allowed to reach him. As the soldier says, 'Every bullet has its billet.' Do you suppose Christ was not watching every blow that fell on the martyr's quivering frame? He did not stop the stoning, but He certainly controlled it. He would not rob His servant of 'the ruby crown,' and therefore the martyrdom went on; but He would take care that every detail of His death was supervised. III. What were the Effects of the Vision? It gave St. Stephen: (a) Courage. He was dying for the Truth and he knew it. (b) Confidence. He died calling upon the name of the Lord. (c) Conformity. Was there ever such likeness to the Lord? We remember Christ's words, 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do' (St. Luke 23:34 ). And what do we read here? 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge' (ver. 60). St. Stephen forgave his murderers. That is the highest round in the ladder. There is nothing higher in Christian life than to love your enemies. When we have come to that, we have reached the only Christian perfection which is attainable here. (d) Calmness. Then there was calmness. 'When he had said this he fell asleep' (ver. 60). If we are Christ's then death is not death; it is sleep. Martyrdom of St. Stephen Acts 7:55 The life and death of St. Stephen, whom we commemorate today, are full of lessons for those who would be faithful, loyal, and true Christian workers. I. The Qualification for Service. St. Stephen could bear his witness to the Lord in the midst of an ungodly and unbelieving world, where everything seemed against him, because he was 'full of the Holy Ghost'. The great need of the Church today is of men and women who are so filled with the Holy Ghost that they must testify for Christ in whatever circumstances they find themselves placed. No one needs to pray more earnestly than the Christian worker, 'O God, for Jesus Christ's sake give me thy Holy Spirit'. No real effective service for Christ can be done by any of us unless we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. That is the first and greatest qualification for service. II. The Inspiration for Service. And as we go on bearing testimony for the Master we need to get fresh strength, fresh inspiration every day. Whence may it be obtained? St. Stephen 'looked up stedfastly into heaven,' and there he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. No wonder, with that precious vision before Him, he testified more potently than he had ever done, and that when he was stoned he could pray for his murderers. If we want to feel an inspiration for service, if we want to be strengthened for our work, let us always 'look up' even to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. It is those who keep their eyes on the ground, and contemplate the difficulties and trials of service, who become weak and ineffective. Ever look up! That is one message St. Stephen gives us today. III. The Reward of Service. St. Stephen had his reward, even though his life seemed a failure. To him was granted the blessed privilege of being the first Christian martyr, and so long as the world lasts so long will his name be honoured. But the greatest of all rewards was that just when the last stone killed his body he 'fell asleep,' and awoke in the Paradise of God. There he saw the King in His beauty. And that reward may be ours. And, oh, the glory and the joy of it! 'The sufferings of this present time,' says St. Paul, whom we may well believe was more or less prepared for the vision that overtook him as Saul on the way to Damascus by what he had seen of the constancy and faith of St. Stephen, 'are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us'. May it be ours so to work for Christ and so to suffer with Him that we may hereafter reign with Him. Reference. VII. 65, 56. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No. 740. Supreme Moments Acts 7:56 I want to ask three questions about this declaration. They are questions that can be answered broadly, definitely, and to those of us who want healing they can be answered most healingly, so as to recover us from the plague of unbelief and send us forth, after, it may be, some deep dipping in God's own river, with our flesh as the flesh of a little child. I. The first question is, Who saw the heavens opened? It would be a poor answer to reply, The name of the man was Stephen. I do not care for his name; that is not the man of whom I am in quest. His name is nothing to me if it simply be so many letters written on so much paper. If that were the man, then why do not all see the heavens opened? But that is not the man how is he described in the text? 'A man full of the Holy Ghost' That is the keyword. Do not tell me about Stephen or Peter and James and John; these are but so many vocables or mean syllables, having on them, considered strictly in themselves, no morning dew, and there exudes from them, in themselves strictly limited and considered, no fragrance for the inhalation of the whole world. The name is right: but what is the character? Everything depends upon character. Stephen might have been called by any other name, so might any of the Apostles: but what is the inner and permanent quantity? We have the answer in the text: 'A man full of the Holy Ghost'; a man bathed in the Holy Ghost, plunged as if in an infinite ocean of bliss. We want to begin at the wrong end; we want to see the heavens opened, and then we will believe in the Holy Ghost; we want to see the blessed God standing out on some infinite glorious beam of light, and then we will believe in the Godhead. Why should we invert the way of Providence? why should we attempt to make a small turnpike road marked Private No Thoroughfare, which we ourselves alone can tread? The law is laid down; there is no alteration of the terms; 'full of the Holy Ghost' is the condition of all beneficent power. That is my first question, and its answer: Who saw the heavens opened? The answer is: 'A man full of the Holy Ghost'. II. I will ask a second question: When did this man, full of the Holy Ghost, see the heavens opened? The answer is threefold. (1) First, after a great testimony. I do not know where to find the equal of this grand oration delivered by Stephen, the first martyr of the cross. When the people heard Stephen they took up stones to stone him. Here is the double effect of true preaching; the great joy of those who believe in its doctrine, and the mortal hatred of those who are averse to its discipline. We should be rich in our own historians. The great Apostles built themselves upon historical foundations. Wherever the Apostle Paul was called upon to preach, he said: 'Men, brethren, and fathers, I will tell you how the case stands; I was in such and such a place, with such and such a purpose, and such and such was the issue'. Historical, personal, experimental that is the true preaching, to know that though the form may not be autobiographical, yet such fire can only be accounted for by internal conviction, passionate enthusiasm, and personal certitude as to the reality of friendship with God. (2) And in the next place the heavens were opened to the expiring martyr when he was in apparent defeat. He had delivered his speech, and it would appear almost as if everybody had left his side. The case was going against him; the case, likening it to a written brief or testimony, was torn to pieces before his eyes and thrown away and spat upon before the fire seized it to consume it for ever. It was then the dying martyr saw the heavens opened. Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear Him Who can cast or kill both body and soul in hell. (3) And thirdly, and last of all, it was when heaven seemed to have abandoned him. So the unbelievers have mocked the martyr; so they have said in wickedness: God cared nothing for His martyr. III. My third question is, What did the great vision for Stephen? It enabled him to offer the finest priestly prayer but one recorded in biblical history. 'And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and then the weary man 'fell asleep'. That was one of the supreme miracles: the stones struck him, the blood flowed, life reeled, and in these last moments the grace of God so operated upon Stephen's heart that he forgave his enemies and asked God to forgive them, saying, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'. It was an echo of the cross, it was the cross glorified. This was a mightier deliverance than if some strong angel had avenged his suffering on the spot and delivered him back to life again, he not having the spirit of forgiveness. Joseph Parker. References. VII. 56. S. H. Fleming, Fifteen Minute Sermons for the People, p. 143. W. P. S. Bingham, Sermons on Easter Subjects, p. 204. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v. p. 59. Ibid. The Acts of the Apostles, p. 85. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 31; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 172; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 80. VII. 58. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. li. No. 2948. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 343; ibid. vol. v. p. 441. The First Christian Martyr (St. Stephen's Day) Acts 7:59 St. Augustine dwells on the significance of this festival occurring on the day after that of our Lord's Nativity, alluding to the martyrdom of a saint being called his birthday. 'The birthday of the Lord,' he says, 'when He put on the clothing of our flesh, that of His servant, when he laid that clothing aside; that of the Lord when He was made like unto us, that of His servant when he was brought most near unto Christ. For as Christ being born was united unto Stephen, so Stephen by dying was united unto Christ.' Why has the Church assigned to St. Stephen the first place among the three festivals that immediately follow Christmas? Not simply because he was the first martyr. There are other reasons, and they are significant. I. As an Encouragement to those in the Lowest Station and Office. St. Stephen was a deacon only, a newly-made deacon, and therefore the very lowest in ecclesiastical degree. II. As an Encouragement to All Believers. Having never known Christ in the flesh, but coming to view as it were after the days of the Son of Man upon earth were ended, St. Stephen may be considered to represent the whole body of believers who have lived since the Gospel. III. He was the First Believer in Christ who Sealed his Faith with his Blood. He reminds us that the sufferings of Christ's martyrs are very precious indeed in Christ's sight; that the crown of martyrdom brings him who wears it very near indeed to his Lord. IV. St. Stephen was a Martyr both in Will and Deed. The Holy Innocents underwent martyrdom in deed but not in will, and the Evangelist St. John in will but not in deed. The Martyrdom of Stephen (St. Stephen's Day) Acts 7:59 The early martyrs were affectionately revered by the members of the early Christian Church because of their sincere and lasting devotion to the cause of their glorified Lord. Hence, among others, the anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, which occurred in the thirty-fourth year of the Christian era, was duly and meetly observed. Some have spoken of him not only as the first of Christian martyrs, but as the greatest of all Christian martyrs. I. His Character. He was a man of good repute. This is evident from the office he sustained in the Apostolic Church. He was elected to be a deacon in it; and, according to the Fathers, he held the primacy over the other deacons. He was also a man of strong faith. It is Divinely said that he was 'full of faith'. This kept the eye of his soul fixed on Jesus, fitted him for earth, and matured him for heaven. He was likewise a man of deep piety. St. Luke affirms that he was 'full of the Holy Ghost'. Full of light and love because full of Deity, his peace flowed like a river. He was a man of great courage. The advocacy of the truth as it is in Jesus exposed him to fierce persecution, but he stood up nobly for it. And when he exclaimed with rapture, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God,' they stopped their ears, and with one accord fell upon him, cast him out of the city, and stoned him. II. His Martyrdom. The tragic punishment they inflicted upon him was one legally denounced against notorious criminals. This was the punishment of a blasphemer, and to this awful kind of death St. Stephen yielded himself. Yet how fiendish the conduct of the men who accomplished it! But this death, albeit inhuman and diabolical, was met with prayer. No better proof could be given of the power and goodness of the religion of Jesus Christ. Death, though it came to Stephen in this merciless way, was but a sleep. This beautiful representation is indicative of rest and peace. Stephen had done his work, had accomplished his warfare. 'Absent from the body,' he was 'present with the Lord.' Acts 7:59 In the midst of the acute bodily pain which he endured during that night and the succeeding morning, he expressed his resignation and confidence chiefly in the language of Scripture, and often repeated favourite sentences from the Psalms in Hebrew.... Perceiving nature to be nearly exhausted, his friends requested him to give them a token that he departed in peace; upon which he repeated the last words of the martyr Stephen, and breathed gently away. McCrie's Life of Andrew Melville, vol. ii. p. 440. References. VII. 59. J. Hartill, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 116. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 155. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints' Days, p. 26. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2644. VII. 59, 60. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1175. VII. 60. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Notes of Sermons for the Year, pt. i. p. 33. VIII. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 118. VIII. 1. Ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 203. VIII. 1-4. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 388. VIII. 2-5. R. F. Horton, The Hidden God, p. 127. VIII. 4, 5. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 96. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2044. VIII. 5. E. J. Boyce, Parochial Sermons, p. 143. VIII. 8. R. H. Baynes, True Revival, p. 42. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No. 2352. VIII. 10. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 276. VIII. 12. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 45. VIII. 14. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 351. VIII. 16. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. x. p. 249; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 43. VIII. 17. E. A. Stuart, His Dear Son and other Sermons, p. 145. VIII. 18. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 83. VIII. 21. B. Fay Mills, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 378. H. Allen, Penny Pulpit, No. 1592, p. 131. VIII. 22. W. Forster, Penny Pulpit, No. 1649, p. 233. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 274. VIII. 26. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 55. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 9. VIII. 26-38. J. Bush, Joseph Bush: A Memorial, p. 138. VIII. 26-39. E. Bersier, Sermons in Paris, p. 152. VIII. 26-40. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 375. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 127. VIII. 27, 28. H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 92. A Story of Conversion Acts 8:27 * , etc. * Philip the deacon was one of the most active Evangelists. Only one or two scenes in his obedient and strenuous career find a place in the panorama of Acts; but these make it clear that he was a man of whom, had there been space enough, the New Testament might well have told us a great deal more. I like the hopefulness of Philip, as he advances to his new task. Remember, he had just been imposed upon by a bad man at Samaria, when Simon the Sorcerer, a kind of false Christ, had tried to buy the Holy Spirit. That was a bitterly disappointing case, yet Philip went on evangelising just the same. He would not throw up his mission in disgust, because Simon had turned out a sham; here he is, a few days later, guiding an earnest man to the Redeemer. I. The eunuch for whose help Philip had come was seeking God. He was not by birth a member of the Jewish race; but by choice he had become, so to speak, an associate-member; or, in more technical language, a proselyte And now on his way home he held open before him the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, and was reading it attentively. In the circumstances nothing was more natural than for Philip, the lonely traveller, to join the larger caravan; and, as he moved close up to the chariot, he heard the treasurer reading reading aloud, as the Eastern way is reading that deep and moving lyric of vicarious sorrow, the fifty-third chapter, which delineates the sufferings of the Servant of the Lord. How the scene stands out! the patient earnest-faced reader, with lines of perplexity on his brow, as he cons the verses over and over again; and near by, keeping pace with the wheels, biding his time, Philip, the man of wise counsel and big heart, Christ's true preacher and ambassador. II. The eunuch had no sooner got Philip seated at his side, than he began to ply him with questions about salvation. How afraid we all are of religious talk! How we pride ourselves on our reserve, and how ready we are to freeze up any warm, eager soul who is not quite so taciturn as we are! There was an Indian gentleman who once came to this country because he had been filled with an insatiable desire to learn all he could about immortality, and he supposed people in England could tell him something. He went to London, and to his neighbour at table one evening he said: 'I should like to know what you think about immortality'. He received the answer, 'Ah! in this country we don't talk about these subjects at dinner'; and that was the end. I wonder what you would or could say, if at any time some one who really meant it were to ask you, 'What must I do to be saved?' Could you put the matter in a few plain words? Could you speak as one man to another? And could you speak in the tone of one who is passing on the Gospel that has first redeemed himself? III. It was the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah that Philip made his text that day. It is one of the holiest spots in all the Bible, at which a great multitude of souls have found God. We, as we read it, feel the wondrous tenderness and power with which it portrays Christ's sacrifice, and all the virtue of His redeeming sympathy. Just then the Ethiopian knew nothing of all that: yet he, too, was melted and subdued by the picture of the Man of Sorrows. He read once more the description of the great Sin-bearer the verses in which it is clearly predicated of Him that His greatness is the result of His being, not the founder of a new school of thought, or the leader of a social reformation, nor even possessed of personal saintliness, but of His being a Sufferer. And in view of this description, so moving in its mystery, he asked the question, going right to the heart of things: Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Yes; the question for religious faith, the question best worth asking, and the answer to which answers at the same time all the others, is just that which confronts us here: Who is the Bearer of human sin? It was a great Gospel text; none better could have offered, in all the Old Testament; and Philip was not the man to miss the opportunity. So he took the other where he found him, and from that spot led him on. No Christian worker can miss the lesson. Accept people just where they are; and seek the path that leads to Christ precisely from where they stand. IV. On the swift conversion followed, as swiftly, an eager confession of new faith. For acts of trust have sequels. Everywhere in that day, of course, as in heathenism still, the obvious and natural mode in which a man could signify his personal belief in Jesus was an open and deliberate submission to the rite of baptism. None of the elements of publicity were lacking now; one can see the officers and servants of the retinue crowding round to watch and comment and remember. In some pool or streamlet by the wayside, then, the sacrament took place, and the new disciple took the words of Christian confession on his lips. V. Then, when they were come up out of the water, 'the eunuch went on his way rejoicing. He had found Jesus Christ, and realised Christ's personal love for him; and depend upon it, whatever else he understood of Christian doctrine, he knew this, that Christ had become his inseparable companion for ever and for ever. Far away in distant Ethiopia he would never feel forsaken or bewildered any more, for the great secret was now his. That touch on the hem of Jesus's garment had made him whole. And therefore, as he went his way back into the heathen darkness, perhaps to meet a cruel fate, it was with a soul made brave and glad by the presence that solves all difficulties and satisfies all hearts. H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God's Plan, p. 102 References. VIII. 28-32. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 55. VIII. 29. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 110. VIII. 30, 31. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p. 92. J. Baines, Sermons, p. 241. VIII. 30-33. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1792. VIII. 31. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 125. VIII. 33. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 121. The Ethiopian Convert Acts 8:34-35 Our theme is the marvellous story of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. Three factors go to make up this eventful narrative. I. The Ethiopian eunuch as the subject. He constitutes the central figure of the story. (1) Who then is he? He was an African, a swarthy descendant of Ham the father of Canaan the cursed, and by descent is connected with Nimrod, the first founder of the ungodly empires of the world (Genesis 10:6 ; Genesis 10:8 ). (2) Whence came he? He came from Ethiopia, a country called Cush in the Old Testament, including what now is known as Nubia and Abyssinia. (3) What is he? He was an eunuch. Among Oriental nations eunuchs were numerous; but in Israel they were forbidden. By a special law they were excluded from the congregation of the Lord. They were disqualified for membership in the Jewish Church. If Moses rejected them, Jesus Christ received them. His office was honourable and lucrative. 'He came to Jerusalem for to worship.' However distinguished his rank, or honourable his office, or vast his revenue, there was a conscious need within, which neither rank nor honour nor wealth could satisfy. II. Let us glance at Philip the Chosen Instrument. Not the Apostle of that name, but Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven deacons solemnly set apart for the diaconate by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the Apostles (Acts 6:5 ). Philip is called 'the Evangelist,' that is, a preacher of the Gospel, a proclaimer of the good news of salvation for the lost. He was the first to proclaim the Gospel of good news outside the holy city, the first to preach that Gospel to the Samaritans. To this busy, successful Evangelist God sent an angel, to bid him leave at once his important field of toil and go to minister to this solitary Ethiopian courtier while on his homeward journey from Jerusalem. Why did not the angel go himself direct and teach the Ethiopian courtier? Why send Philip? The angel had not the requisite fitness for such a mission. God has wisely and graciously appointed men and not angels to preach to us sinners the Gospel of salvation. III. God is the active agent, the Prime Mover in and throughout the whole of this marvellous story. (1) We see the agency of God directing him to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, containing explicit reference to the substitutional atoning sufferings of the Messiah. (2) We see God again working to provide a suitable agent to instruct and guide the anxious inquirer. (3) We see much of God in Philip's prompt obedience. (4) We see God again in the selection of the place where and the time when the Evangelist and the eunuch should meet. Learn (1) How graciously God cares for the soul that seeks Him. (2) Do not despise your mission, even if God send you only to a solitary soul. (3) The joy of the soul when it finds Jesus and His salvation. Richard Roberts, My Closing Ministry, p. 245. Acts 8:35 The preachers of the cross told, indeed, of a Healer, but of a rejected Healer. They told of a houseless wanderer, of harlots and sinners, of shepherds and sowers and fishermen, of the wine-press and vinedressers, of father and mother and of family life, of marriage and festival, of the bridegroom and his friend. They spoke of suffering and of failure and of unrecognised death. Then men saw in all this something different from the bright sun-god of the Hellenes, or the fated Balder of the chivalrous North, and said with whispered breath to themselves and to each other, 'This is the God we need'. J. H. Shorthouse. References. VIII. 35. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2044. VIII. 36. F. S. Webster, The Record, vol. xxvii. p. 676. VIII. 36, 37. J. Keble, Village Sermons on the Baptismal Service, p. 154. VIII. 37. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvii. No. 2737. VIII. 39. Archbishop Temple, Christum World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 361. J. Keble, Sermons for the Sundays after Trinity, p. 240. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 264. A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 212. VIII. 40. Ibid. p. 42. Acts 9 Dr. Marcus Dods wrote at the age of sixteen to his sister Marcia: 'Do you ever get any Greek read now? I can tell you what I think a most beautiful passage Saul's conversion in the Acts; you should read it, and also "Your old men shall dream dreams, etc."' Early Letters, p. 30. Reference. IX. 1, 2. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 120. The Making of an Apostle (The Conversion of St. Paul) Acts 9:1-9 This is the story of one of those profoundly significant events in history, on which the whole complexion of future thought and the course of future progress turn. St. Paul is one of those Titanic figures of the past about whom everything was on the large scale, both for himself and for the world. Intellectually, his views of truth have become a fundamental statement of the creed of nineteen centuries; practically, he is the master empire-builder of the kingdom of God in the world. He laid hold upon the largest conceptions of his time the Hebrew religion and the Roman Empire and he transformed them into the Christian Church. But it was not by the natural development of his genius that he did this. Up to a certain moment in his career his powers were running to waste, spending themselves in the most futile ways. At that moment something occurred which revolutionised his whole life, an upheaval of the very foundations of the man. The word 'conversion' is sometimes so lightly used that many earnest people are inclined to avoid it. It often means simply the memory of an emotion, which has left the man without a master, and without a task. But the greatness of this man's nature ensured the thoroughness of the change in him. Such a man's conversion is a tremendous affair. I. It is to the questions that Paul asked that day that we turn with even deeper interest. The first of them was, 'Who art Thou, Lord?' He bad felt before that all this persecution, this harrying of people at once so blameless and so inflexible, was far too cheap and easy a solution. Behind the new faith lay some mysterious power, that was good and not evil, associated with the name of Jesus. But though he had often before asked the question who Jesus was, yet it had been prejudice which asked it, while now it was conscience. He had been aggravated by the power of the dead Nazarene who thwarted him at every turn. Who was he, this haunting ghost, this troubler of his times? But now irritation has given place to shame, and conscience asks, Who art Thou, Lord? That change from prejudice to conscience was one point in which his question sets the type for such questions for ever. II. Another is, that he asked it of Jesus himself. He had formerly asked it of the Rabbis of his day, and now he might have inquired of the Apostles. But he was done with the Rabbis now, and he expressly tells us that it was three years before he met the Apostles. It is this that explains his power. His truth was not a doctrine learned up by study; it was his direct experience, his first-hand knowledge of Jesus Christ. III. Paul's second question is practical, 'What wouldst Thou have me to do?' As the former sets us beside the springs of his thought, so this reveals the sources of his activity. For such a man as Paul, conversion without commission would have been a sham and therefore an impossibility. But the great point to notice is that it was as a commission that he received his lifework, and in that light that he always regarded it. John Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, p. 27. Acts 9:3 What intensity of light, what brilliancy of vision, would be sufficient to change the belief and character of a modern man of the world or a professional politician? Paul had that in him which could be altered by the pathetic words of the Crucified One, 'I am He whom thou persecutest'. The man of the world or the politician would evade an appeal from the heaven of heavens, backed by the glory of seraphim and archangel. M. Rutherford, Miriam's Schooling, p. 118. The Conversion of Saul Acts 9:3-6 I. All who are brought into Christ's kingdom are not brought by the same agency, but in the case of Saul of Tarsus there was need of very special agency. There was need for some such vision as this, for the essential qualification of an Apostle was that he should be an eye and an ear witness of Jesus as risen from the dead. II. Now, secondly, there can be no question that this visit was supernatural. God draws and man consents; God teaches and man learns; God gives and man accepts. III. Then the third point of interest is this, that the conversion was sudden. IV. Further, we have in this case an illustration of the necessity of conversion. V. We have here an illustration of the uneasiness of the sinful lot. VI. Here we have an illustration how the best and the most can be made of a man. G. Gladstone, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 22. Conversion of St. Paul Acts 9:4-6 Of all the followers of Christ, surely none had a life so full of interest and none had so great influence for the cause of Christ as St. Paul. I. The Apostle's Early Days. We are told that he was born of God-fearing parents. He early learned to keep righteousness and to walk according to the Law. In his early days he showed great promise and he was sent to Gamaliel to be trained and educated. The education of those days was different to that of our days. There was a prejudice against the use of any books except the sacred writings. At a meeting of learned men some passage of the Scriptures was taken as a text and made the subject of their conversation. Various interpretations were given, allegories were told and suggested, and the ancient writings on the subject quoted. At this discussion young students were present to listen and to ask questions, and it is probable that from this system of education St. Paul acquired his power of argument and his fluency of speech. We do not know of the social position of St. Paul's parents. It is not possible to say whether they lived in affluent circumstances or whether they were people of humble origin. St. Paul speaks of his trade as being that of a tent-maker, but this does not necessarily imply that he had to labour with his hands for his living, for it was the custom amongst the Jews that every boy should be taught a trade. II. His Conversion. The stoning of St. Stephen no doubt was a turning-point in the life of St. Paul. Augustine says that the Church owes St. Paul to the prayer of St. Stephen at that time. The spectacle of so much constancy, so much faith, so much love, could not possibly be lost. St. Paul went his way, but conscience began to work within him. To drown his conscience he took up the cause of persecution, and sought for letters patent to enable him to go to Damascus to arrest those he found of this Way, whether they were men or women, and commit them to prison. But he could not go on like this for ever. He could not for ever stifle his conscience. In the very midst of his work, as he was journeying to Damascus, the Lord met him, and his conversion changed the whole course of his life. Instead of persecuting Christians, he was to teach the faith which once he denied. III. His Ministry. Immediately after we find St. Paul going forth and speaking to the people of Damascus, proving that this was the very Christ. But he could not remain in Damascus. As soon as the Jews got over their first astonishment at seeing this man, on whom they had relied to exterminate the Christians, as soon as they found that he himself was a Christian, they began to persecute him. He went into Arabia, the mountainous country where God spoke to Moses and Aaron and Elijah. He dwelt in solitude, conversing with his Lord and being instructed upon his future teaching. He went back to Jerusalem, however, and taught. His mission was to the Gentiles, and he began a life of suffering; but he was always full of zeal, full of energy, preaching the Gospel of Christ, teaching others that Christ had died for them, and bidding them turn from their evil ways, showing them that a life of surrender and devotion to Christ's service is the life to be desired on earth. IV. A Pattern to Us. This true and noble service for Christ should inspire us to be more like St. Paul, and to be more earnest, more fervent, more zealous in our daily life in upholding the cause of Christ, in striving to live such a life that we may turn others to Christ and let others take knowledge that we have been with Christ May we grow daily more like St. Paul, devoting and surrendering our lives to the service of Christ. References. IX. 4-8. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 356. IX. 5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii. No. 709. J. G. Greenhough, The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, p. 260. IX. 5, 6. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1520. IX. 6. Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 184. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 68. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints' Days, p. 58.. R. S. Storrs, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 302. H. Wilmot-Buxton, Notes of Sermons for the Year, pt. i. p. 101. IX. 7. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 192. Acts 9:10 Me. Robert Hichens in The Holy Land (1910, p. 82) says: 'The so-called house of Ananias, which is one of the few "sights," is now a subterranean chapel, small and remarkably ugly. It has two altars, and belongs to the Latins, who celebrate mass in it every Thursday. The floor is of stone, the diseased-looking roof is stained with patches of blue and white. A few wooden benches stand before the altars. A chapel on this site is said to have been the first chapel used for Christian worship.' References. IX. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1838. IX. 11. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-tide Teaching, p. 55. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 1. No. 16, and vol. xxxi. No. 1860. IX. 13-16. Ibid. vol. xvi. No. 944. IX. 15. Bishop Talbot, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 196. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons, (3rd Series), p. 1. Acts 9:15-16 It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things: none can aspire to act greatly, but those who are of force greatly to suffer. Burke. Acts 9:16 Luther wrote on 10th July, 1518, to Wenceslaus Link of Nürnberg: '... But I hope I am a debtor to Jesus Christ, who perhaps says to me also: "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake". For if He does not say that, why has He placed me in the invincible office of this word? or why did He not teach me something else that I should say? This was His holy will. The more they threaten, the more I trust; my wife and my children are provided for; my fields, my house, my whole substance are all disposed of; my glory and fame already vanished. One thing only remains this weak and broken little body. If they destroy that, they will perhaps rob me of an hour or two of life, but they will not take away the soul. I sing with John Reuchlin, "He who is poor has naught to fear, for nothing can he lose, but he is joyful in hope, because he expects to gain".' Enders, Luther's Briefwechsel, vol. 1. p. 211. References. IX. 16. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p. 48. Bishop Westcott, Preacher's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 36. Archbishop Alexander, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 10. IX. 18. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 252; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 188. IX. 19-22. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 231. IX. 19-25. Ibid. vol. i. p. 78. IX. 20-22. Ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 204. IX. 23-25. Ibid. vol. x. p. 351. IX. 26-28. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 137. The Man of Generosity Acts 9:26-27 Barnabas is one of those minor characters of Scripture who at once gain and lose by their proximity to a greater figure. He gains doubtless much from his relation to the gigantic figure of Paul, for it was in company with him that his best work was done. And yet, perhaps, he suffers more; for the friend with whom he walks is so colossal that we forget all when we see him. Barnabas suffers more than this. He is known as the man who quarrelled with the great Apostle. The two men differed about Mark and parted, so far as we know, not to meet on earth. The Bible says nothing of the right and wrong of that quarrel. It states the matter impartially, and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. But our sympathies naturally go with the man we like best, and Barnabas has had less than justice from the lovers of Paul. It has been said that he was weak and Paul strong, and that he was justly punished by his after obscurity. Or at best, it is said, both were wrong and both suffered. For my part I take a different view. I think Barnabas was in the right in this quarrel. A study of the passages where he is mentioned in the New Testament will, I believe, show that, and show that his motives there as elsewhere were of a noble kind. These passages are mainly three. There is, first, his selling his land for the poor; there is, secondly, his taking the suspected Saul by the hand and introducing him to the Apostles; and there is, thirdly, his quarrel over Mark, where he insists on giving that unfortunate young man another chance. These passages are all of a piece. They set Barnabas before us as emphatically ' the man of generosity'. The first is generosity of the hand; the second is generosity of the mind; the third is generosity of the heart. Let us look at these three generosities to-night. They bring before us one of the finest types of manhood we can imitate the truly generous man. I. Consider, first, his generous hand. He sold his property, and gave it all for Christ. The generosity of that deed is measured not by what he gave, but by what he left. That is always so. Generosity is not a sum in addition. It is a sum in subtraction. A poor man's penny is more than a rich man's shilling. Christ sits over the treasury still, and to Him the two mites may be more than two sovereigns. Some of the most generous givers I have known were servant girls. Barnabas is the man of generosity, not only because he gave much, but because that much was his all. Can you do that? II. I pass now to the second phase of the generosity of Barnabas * generosity of the mind. * It does not always happen that the man who is generous with his wealth is generous in his judgments of men. On the contrary, the wealthy giver is apt to be the narrow giver. He tends to become self-important, and is therefore apt to be got at by men who flatter him or further his cherished nostrums. Anything, therefore, that is out of the line of his accustomed thoughts is suspected and frowned upon. Hence, not always, but often, a generous pocket does not mean a generous mind. It is a beautiful addition to the character of Barnabas that his mind was as open as his hand. A strange convert has come to the disciples the strangest ever seen. Barnabas came forward. He took the young disciple by the hand, and gave him the weight of his influence the influence of wealth and character. He told of his wonderful conversion, of his retirement into Arabia, where for two years he had been wrestling with the problem of redemption by grace. 'It is not sudden at all,' he said. 'Accept him, I beseech you,' he added to the leaders of the Church. 'Believe me, he is a gift from God. Let not prejudice mar "a chosen vessel" of the Holy Spirit.' That saved Paul, and when at Antioch a little later a new move was started, it was the same Barnabas who sought him out again, and put him to the work. He was the introducer of the Apostle of the Gentiles to his life's work. III. Once more we see in Barnabas, not merely a generous hand and a generous mind, * but also a generous heart. He made allowance for the weaknesses of men. * This brings us to the most painful thing in his life his difference with Paul. In his first mission tour he had taken so prominent a place that the Lystrians had called him 'the King of the Gods,' while Paul was only his 'chief speaker'. But now Mark has come between them. He had played the coward in that first journey, and gone home 'to his mother'; but he was very sorry, and wanted to make amends for the past. 'But no,' says Paul He that will not when he may, When he will, he shall have nay. 'Ah, but you must not be too hard,' says Barnabas. 'Though he failed once, he need not fail a second time' 'I can't help it,' said the great Apostle. 'This is a difficult service. I must have reliable men.' 'I will answer for him this time,' said Barnabas. 'No,' was the reply. 'It must not be. He won't come with me!' And the quarrel was so sharp that they parted, never in Scripture story to meet again. Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul took Silas and sailed into the world. Never again do we hear of him visiting the isle, where, tradition says, Barnabas laboured faithfully till he died. Be generous in hand, in mind, in heart that is the threefold message of Barnabas. W. Mackintosh Mackay, Bible Types of Modern Men, p. 89. Reference. IX. 29. W. H. Evans, Sermons for the Church's Year, p. 232. Acts 9:31 The history of the nineteenth century cannot be concluded in the words, 'Then had the Churches rest'. Unquestionably there are numbers within them who have found rest... Undoubtedly there are numbers of men whose reflections are naturally directed into healthy and spiritual channels, and are undisturbed by the seethe and turmoil of the age. We are, however, engaged not in considering our age as a whole, but one feature of it that of unrest. And no one with any just appreciation of his day will deny that there are hundreds of men, and especially of young men, who might be giants in the cause of righteousness and purity, but who are inefficient because they find no solid ground beneath their feet. T. J. Hardy, The Gospel of Pain, pp. 24, 25. References. IX. 31. Archbishop Benson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 182. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 89; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 92. IX. 32-35. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1315. IX. 34. Brooke Herford, Courage and Cheer, p. 178. IX. 36. A. H. Bradford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 28. Acts 9:36 * ; Acts 10:4 * Compare Charlotte Bronte's criticism of Miss Kavanagh's Women of Christianity: 'She forgets, or does not know, that Protestantism is a quieter creed than Romanism; as it does not clothe its priesthood in scarlet, so neither does it set up its good women for saints, canonise their names, and proclaim their good works. In the records of man, their almsgiving will not perhaps be registered, but heaven has its account as well as earth.' References. X. 1. A. 6. Mortimer, The Church's Lesson for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 80. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iv. p. 194. X. 2. Christianity in Daily Conduct, p. 31. X. 2-4. Expositor ( 5th Series), vol. ix. p. 219. X. 3. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 448. Almsgiving Acts 10:4 Sermons on almsgiving aim at setting forth the rationale of giving to God; and they are not so frequent as they ought to be, considering the prominence given to the subject in Holy Scripture; because (a) they are unpopular. People who never forget themselves are apt to do so when asked for money. (b) There is a dread lest by preaching upon almsgiving the preacher should not appear to be preaching the Gospel; lest He should seem to attribute efficacy to something else besides the blood of Jesus. I. Let us Appeal to Holy Scripture. Our Lord taught this duty indirectly by parables, e.g. Dives and Lazarus; the steward; directly, 'Give alms of such things as ye have' (St. Luke 11:41 ). 'Sell that ye have and give alms' (St. Luke 11:33 ). In the Sermon on the Mount He alludes to it as an acknowledged duty. St. Paul says: 'Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him' (1 Corinthians 16:2 ). 'He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. God loveth a cheerful giver' (2 Corinthians 9:6-7 ; Ephesians 4:28 ). 'Charge them that are rich in this world that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute' (1 Timothy 6:17-18 ; Hebrews 6:10 ; Hebrews 13:16 ). Also, in solemn pictures of the Last Judgment, the virtue of showing mercy, sympathy, unselfishness, that is, in its broadest sense, almsgiving, is extolled by our Lord, and contrasted with its opposite, the vice of selfishness. From these passages we gather three things: (a) Our Lord does not command us to give alms, He assumes it as a duty: to assume is stronger than to command, for to command presupposes an indisposition to do what is commanded. ' When ye do your alms'; ' When ye pray'; ' When ye fast'. He assumes these duties and puts forward the pure motive for doing them. (b) Almsgiving and prayer are mentioned side by side. 'When ye do your alms' and 'When ye pray'; 'Thy prayers and thine alms': not the one without the other, but the one as the correlative of the other, the alms as one wing of the prayers. (c) A certain spiritual force is attributed to almsgiving 'Break off thine iniquities by showing mercy' (Daniel 4:27 ). 'Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven' (St. Matthew 6:20 ). 'Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things are clean unto you' (St. Luke 11:41 ). 'Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens which faileth not' (St. Luke 12:33 ). 'God loveth a cheerful giver' (2 Corinthians 9:7 ). II. How shall I Give? Moved by strong appeals or by personal interest, we give; but why, as a rule, is it necessary to resort to bazaars, entertainments, charity dinners, and sermons to raise money for Christian objects? Because too many require to be amused, attracted, aroused, provided with something in return for their money, before they will give. (a) We must give on principle and not on impulse. We must give systemically. (b) What rule then shall we adopt in our almsgiving? We ought to give a fixed proportion of our income every year. This proportion will vary according to a man's means; to his own Master each of us must stand or fall. (c) How shall I distribute my alms? First of all, poor relations: then sick and poor in your own parish; then the parochial funds, the Church fund; then the missions of the Church at home and abroad. Then the support of those institutions of the land which care for those who are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other infirmity. There are two ways by which we can best carry out the duty of almsgiving: through the offertory, in secret, so that our left hand knows not what our right is doing; and by subscriptions, that we may exert the power of example, and stimulate those who are not giving as they should, and induce them to do so when they see our good works. References. X. 6. J. Parker, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 60. S. King, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 262. X. 7. E. H. Bickersteth, Thoughts in Past Years, p. 295. X. 10. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 376. The Vision of the Great Sheet Acts 10:11-12 In this great sheet we see the winding-sheet of all that is transient, and ceremonial, and narrow. That meeting between Peter and Cornelius at Cæsarea was more than a casual meeting between two individuals; it was the union of the Jewish and Gentile races in that new Centre of humanity Jesus Christ. Let us study together the Lessons of the Great Sheet. I. The Divine Origin of Christianity. We read that 'Peter saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him as it had been a great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth'. The Gospel has not sprung up from the ground, it has come down to us from the skies. And it bears innumerable evidences of its Divine descent From this Gospel, as from a fountain of eternity, has flowed a living influence, carrying health, and freshness, and beauty, and blessedness wherever it has gone. But mark this: it is the Christianity of Christ that is going to renovate the world, and not the Christianity of Christendom. Alas! the Christianity of Christendom has not always been the Christianity of Christ, but its counterfeit. Let us go right back to the Fountain-head, for the world never longed so much for Christ, 'the flower of man and God,' as it does today. II. The Divine Origin of the Human Race. The sheet, with its miscellaneous contents, came down from above, and this suggests to us the Divine origin of all men. The Gospel that gave the world a new conception of God has also given it a nobler conception of man. In its respect for man, as man, the Gospel stands alone among the great religious systems of the world. III. The Universality of the Gospel. The 'sheet' was a great one, fastened at the four corners; or, as Dean Alford has it, 'held by four rope-ends'. All other religions are little sheets, because territorial; but the Gospel is a great sheet, because universal. It will have the whole Pantheon to itself, so that it is at one and the same time the most universal, and yet the most exclusive, of all religions. Truth is truth in all the worlds of God, and it must be disseminated at all cost. True religion, like true art, knows no frontiers. IV. Man is the Heaven-sent Ambassador to Man. In this story, we have Cornelius sending to Joppa for Peter. And God expects every saved soul to be a soul-saviour. We must be finders of men. The incoming blessing must be followed by the outgoing energy. It is an undeniable truth that a Church grows downward in firmness and upward in holiness, in proportion as it grows outward in Divine compassion. Kepler once said that he was thinking over again the thoughts of God; and we must feel over again the feelings of Christ. J. Ossian Davies, Old, Yet Ever New, p. 159. References. X. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1823. X. 22. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 223. X. 28. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 148. Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p. 147. X. 29. E. G. Gange, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 153. X. 30. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 350; ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. p. 15. X. 33. J. Bowstead, Practical Sermons, vol. ii. p. 208. X. 34. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 50. X. 34, 35. F. B. Woodward, Sermons (2nd Series), p. 37. X. 34-43. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 122. X. 35. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxx. p. 353. X. 36. B. J. Snell, The Widening Vision, p. 3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi. No. 952. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 190. The Good Physician Acts 10:38 There are many beautiful titles which at various times have been ascribed to Jesus Christ, but there is none perhaps more beautiful and more appropriate than that of The Good Physician'. This title is not, indeed, directly bestowed on our Lord by any New Testament writer; yet it is inevitably suggested, not only by several isolated passages as, for example, the saying, 'They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance' but also by the general tenor of the Gospel narrative. Our Lord is there consistently depicted as the Physician of mankind. His life was an epic of healing. Wherever He went He radiated health. The sick bodies were made sound, the feeble souls grew strong, the doors of God were opened to the spirits about to perish. Such was the historic manner of the epiphany of Christ, of His manifestation to His own contemporaries. 'He went about,' records the first Evangelist, 'preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing.' 'Who went about doing good and healing,' says St. Peter. I. Now when the Gospel of the Good Physician went out into the Roman world, that world in a curious way had been made ready to receive it. For in the age of the Cæsars the people, it would seem, were much taken up with the question of healing. They had somehow become distractingly aware of sickness. They felt that they were ill; ill in body, ill in soul; mortally ill. And they longed to be made well. So they turned in their need to religion, and (as Harnack has pointed out) there took place about this time a great revival of the cult of Æsculapius, the pagan god of healing. Men made pilgrimages to his temples as they travel to sanatoria and watering-places today. They brought gifts to the god and dedicated their lives to him. In their physical and spiritual infirmities they prayed to him as one who was 'most loving toward men,' as 'God the Saviour'. Do you remember a passage in the Epistle to Titus which speaks of 'the kindness of God our Saviour and His love toward men'? The phraseology is interesting, since the title 'God the Saviour' was the familiar name for the healer Æsculapius, while the adjective of the noun translated 'love toward men' was the peculiar, standing epithet of that heathen deity. Into this sick Roman world, then, with its terrible sense of disorder and its feverish quest for health, Christianity made its way. It adapted itself deliberately to the necessities of the time. Deliberately it presented itself as the religion of recovery, as the means, the sole genuine means, of sanity and salvation. It offered the sick world health. The Church was declared the hospital of invalid humanity; its doctrines and observances were the salutary remedies: its sacred books- -how full they are of medicinal expressions! held the prescriptions for all cures. And in the wards of the great infirmary, attending on the patients, the faith of the early Christians saw a Good Physician no quack doctor like Æsculapius, but a true Physician imparting new life, new joy, new hope, to body and mind alike new energy and power. 'There is hut one Physician,' St. Ignatius cries, 'Jesus Christ our Lord.' 'The Word of the Father,' says Clement of Alexandria, 'is the only Physician for human infirmities and the Holy Charmer for the sick soul.' II. So much for the past. Let us look now to the present. Let us see, if we can, in what manner Jesus Christ is already, or may become, the Good Physician of the suffering men and women of our day. Now, into the subject of physical healing I cannot here enter in detail. Yet a very few words in passing I desire to say. Our Lord, I ask you to notice, was in the habit of healing not only the souls but also the bodies of men. The Apostles, again, in the Spirit of the Lord, healed not only the souls but also the bodies of men. And both our Lord and His Apostles very evidently anticipated that physical healing would be one of the results of the working of Christ's Spirit in the Christian Church. Nor even now, among the children of that Church, has the belief in Christ's action on men's bodies quite died out; in our own Communion, at least, on every occasion that the Eucharist is administered the formula is said, 'The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ that was given for thee, preserve thy body' thy body 'and soul unto everlasting life'. Ana after all, is not this doctrine that the Good Physician cures even physical diseases intrinsically reasonable? It is right without doubt to pay homage to the science and skill of our doctors; but it is simple folly not to reckon with the truth that there is in recovery a spiritual as well as a material factor, and that no one so effectively as Jesus Christ can get in motion this curative force. Yes, even today Christ does in a real sense heal the bodies of men; nor, I think, do we receive the full Gospel of the Good Physician so long as that comforting fact be not acknowledged. III. But the healing of the body, after all, is secondary. Our chief and most pressing interest is the restoration of the soul. This is our foremost business. This is our great concern. Here is the sphere in which the whole process of healing must of necessity begin. Now it seems to me that the men of the twentieth century, no less than the men of the Roman imperial era, are keenly alive to the fact that their soul is in need of healing. 'Humanity up to this day,' writes Maeterlinck, 'has been like an invalid tossing and turning on his couch in search of repose'. We are conscious in our nature of a radical disorder. Our music is out of tune. Our flowers have lost colour and fragrance. Our sunshine is flecked with shadow. Maxim Gorky, speaking of the histories of his Russian outcasts, writes: 'Each story was unfolded before us like a piece of lace in which black threads predominated'. And the description might, perhaps, not unfairly be applied to all the story of the modern spirit. The black predominates. Through the sweetest melody of modern poetry, through the grandest achievements of modern art, through the deepest utterances of modern science and philosophy, through the manifold different expressions of the spirit of the age, there run those threads those gloomy strands of ruin and of wrong. Can we really deny, then, that the soul of us is sick? Surely the old lament of such a one as St Bruno has not lost its force. 'It is not merely the weaker part of my nature which fails me,' he cries. 'It is the very strongest. My understanding, will, and firmness, my spiritual might, all that is or may be virtue, is by my sin enfeebled.' But for us, as for the men of old, the Good Physician waits. For us, as for them, is the healing power of God put forth in Jesus Christ. Let us never forget that God wills us to be well. His purpose for us is perfection and life; His work is salvation. 'This,' says Clement of Alexandria, 'is the greatest and most royal work of God, the saving of mankind.' F. Homes Dudden, The Guardian, 14 th January, 1910. References. X. 38. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p. 252. Bishop Perowne, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 56. Bishop Alexander, Verbum Crucis, p.. 129. Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol xlv. p. 387. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi. No. 655, and vol. xvi. No. 929. W. Sinclair, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 187. H. C. Wallace, ibid. vol. lxxiii. p. 172. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 250; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 57. X. 40, 41. W. J. Hills, Sermons and Addresses, p. 36. X. 41. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 504. X. 42. J. M. Whiton, Beyond the Shadow, p. 141. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1476. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 404. X. 42, 43. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1540. X. 43. Bishop Alexander, Verbum Crucis, p. 129. Bishop Browne, Messiah as Foretold and Expected, p. 1. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 422. X. 44. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 201. X. 44, 45. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 103. X. 48. Ibid, (6th Series), vol. v. p. 43. XI. 2. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 295. XI. 15. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 363. XI. 16. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 14. XI. 17. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 160. XI. 18. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii. p. 235. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i. No. 44. XI. 19-26. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 246. XI. 20. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 60. XI. 20-26. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 457. XI. 21. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1282. XI. 22, 23. J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints' Days, p. 234. St. Barnabas' Exhortation Acts 11:22-23 A very great work had been going on in Antioch. There had been many signal conversions. It was after this 'Mission' and these conversions that Barnabas, an older minister, came to Antioch. I. What St. Barnabas Saw. He saw the real, secret spring, the very essence of it all. 'He saw the grace of God,' the free workings of God's own love, the decrees of God's sovereignty, the acting of God's omnipotence. 'And he was glad.' 'Glad' not only and so much that men were made happy, or that men were saved, but that God was glorified, that His 'grace' was manifested. 'When he had seen the grace of God, he was glad.' What did he do? He was very jealous that this 'grace of God' should continue, * continue and be magnified. * II. His Exhortation. 'That with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.' The advice fits Christians of today. (a) Purpose of heart. This may have many objects in view. i. Purpose of heart. This may have many objects in Whom you serve. ii. That some besetting sin may be conquered. iii. That there shall be greater earnestness in devotion. iv. That there shall be more love in daily life. v. That there shall be more regularity and more frequency of attendance at Holy Communion. (b) ' Cleave unto the Lord.' To 'cleave to the Lord' means to be feeling that He is your very life, that you are making Him your very necessity, and to be always trying to make Him closer, and closer, and closer, till you are actually one with Christ. It is God's word for marriage: 'A man shall cleave unto his wife'. It is David's cry, when he could not raise his thoughts or disentangle himself from his worldliness: 'My soul cleaveth to the dust'. It is like the limpet to the rock. It knows that once separated from that rock it dies! St. Barnabas the Apostle Acts 11:22-24 After the martyrdom of St. Stephen there followed 'a great persecution against the Church,' so that its members were scattered abroad into many regions. But those who had been scattered 'preached the Lord Jesus' in Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, 'and the hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed,' especially at Antioch. These tidings coming to the ears of the Mother Church at Jerusalem, so gladdened the hearts of its members that they sent Barnabas on a special mission to Antioch; and no better man could they despatch to ascertain the truth or otherwise of what they had heard. The writer of the Acts describes his characteristics. (1) 'He was a good man.' 'Good,' not in the common acceptation of the term, but in the Divine. If a man lives morally; if he pays that which he owes; if he bestows his goods to feed the poor; if he conforms to the rules of society and the forms of religion, whatever his motives for so doing, by universal consent he is denominated 'a good man'. Now the goodness of Barnabas involved all this. He was of the tribe of Levi; a son of consolation as his name signifies, and as he was surnamed by his fellow-Apostles; and so kind and charitable that he sold all his lands at Cyprus, and laid the money at the Apostles' feet at Jerusalem, that they might distribute to the necessities of the poor. But the goodness of Barnabas was Divine the creation of the Holy Spirit; for He makes all really good men (John 1:12-13 ). (2) He was 'full of the Holy Ghost'. Not that he was with the Twelve, when, on the day of Pentecost, 'they were all filled with the Holy Ghost'; but it has been surmised that he was one of the converts made on that glorious day. Be this as it may, the same Divine privilege was granted to him. And it had the same sanctifying effect in him, though not accompanied by the gift of tongues. (3) He was also 'full of faith'. He was 'strong in faith, giving glory to God'. And because he believed in God he had faith in his mission. He knew and felt that Christianity was God's living remedy for the world's deadly ills, and therefore must ultimately prove efficacious in healing them. With this firm conviction, the offspring of his faith, he laboured most abundantly to spread it. Of his visit to Antioch the Acts tells us two things: (1) The triumphs of Divine grace made him glad. He saw that the work was genuine, and that precious souls had been converted that the cross of his despised Lord had prevailed. He was a perfect contrast to Jonah, who, because Divine mercy spared 'more than six score thousand persons 'in Nineveh, foolishly and angrily charged God for His 'great kindness'. He was rather like David, who, when he had seen the doing of the Lord, exclaimed, 'Thou hast made me glad through Thy work; I will triumph in the work of Thy hands'. This is a primary evidence of true saintliness. (2) He exhorted the newly made converts to steadfastness. He knew that the same hostility and persecution would be shown to those of Antioch which had been shown to their brethren at Jerusalem; but he also knew that, like the Captain of their salvation, they must be 'made perfect through suffering'. So he exhorted them to Christlike steadfastness. The staple of his animating address was 'that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord'. The need of this was paramount. Barnabas was himself an impressive example of the principle he taught. Ever did he 'cleave unto the Lord'. From the moment of his call to the ministry (Acts 13:2-3 ) to the moment of his death he was found doing so. Nay, at his death he seemed more than ever the steadfast Apostle of Jesus. According to tradition, he ended his life where he began it at Cyprus. One day he went into the synagogue of Salamis, and began, as was his wont, to preach Christ to the assembly. Certain Jews, who had come over from Syria to the island to stir up the people against him, laid their hands on him, and confined him in the synagogue until night, when they dragged him forth, stoned him to death, and then tried to burn his body to ashes. But his body is said to have resisted the power of the flames, though it did not that of the stones, and St. Mark buried it. Such a man takes rank as a leader among 'the glorious company of the Apostles' and 'the noble army of martyrs'. References. XI. 23. H. Arnold Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 20. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 201. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p. 88. The Character of St. Barnabas (For St. Barnabas' Day) Acts 11:24 Such, in these few brief words, is the character of St. Barnabas 'For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost'. There is no chance connection between the two parts of this sentence, 'He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost,' and there are two things which it might be well for every one of us to take to heart: First of all, that all goodness is the gift of the Holy Ghost 'Who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God'. And the converse of that truth, so to speak, we might also bear in mind not only that all goodness must come from the Holy Ghost, but also, that where there is goodness there is always the work of the Holy Ghost. This was the great sin, the great offence, of the Pharisees, as you will remember, in the time of our Lord, that they saw His goodness but would not allow it; that they ascribed His goodness not to the Holy Spirit, but to the work of devils. That was the last and the lowest mark of their failure. Those thoughts seem naturally to suggest themselves as one reads the account of St. Barnabas: 'He was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost'. Yet men may be good and weak, and St. Barnabas would certainly seem to have an element of weakness in his character, which came out in two ways: I. First of all, in the matter of eating with the Gentiles. You will remember how at Antioch he and St. Peter, with others, forgot their own prejudices and customs and had boldly sat down to eat with the Gentile Christians; but when there came certain Jewish Christians, we are told that first of all Peter (who in many respects was notoriously weak) silently and gradually withdrew himself, and ate no more with them; and even Barnabas, says Paul with some indignation, 'was carried away with their dissimulation'. II. And, secondly, his weakness came out in another and still more famous episode in his life that which was connected with St. Mark. On one lonely journey, St. Paul and St. Barnabas determined to take with them Mark, the young cousin of Barnabas, who may have had a soft training, being the only son of a rich widow, living, perhaps, in a villa of Gethsemane outside Jerusalem. This young man, who had been brought up in considerable luxury, when the crisis of his life came, when he found himself face to face with the robbers and other unpleasant accompaniments of travel in Asia Minor in those days, losing heart, returned to Jerusalem. Then, later on, having, perhaps, gone through some silent struggle of his own, he offered himself again for the service, and Barnabas wished to take him, but Paul refused, and the quarrel waxed hot between them. Here Barnabas was weak. The young man had forfeited their confidence, but Barnabas said, like many others, peace at any price. So we even have here the beginning of a system known as nepotism, or the favouring of relations the preference of kinsmen for this place or for that. So there came that great Apostolic quarrel. And they parted, those two Apostles, and after this parting from St. Paul, St Barnabas disappears altogether from the pages of sacred history, or remains the good-natured man. The merely good-natured man does very little, and, on the whole, gets very little thanks for what he does. It is the men who have principles to which they must stick, and for which, if necessary, they are prepared to die, who make a mark on their contemporaries and on history. III. Yet, after all, when we have made these deductions for St. Barnabas' weakness and good-nature, these are the important words words which remain: 'He was a good man'. And his goodness was shown in more ways than one. There are three instances I would give you: (1) First, it was shown in the recognition of the work of the Holy Ghost among the Gentiles. (2) And, secondly, his goodness is seen in this that he was a peacemaker. 'Blessed are the peacemakers.' Twice Barnabas saved Paul for the Christian Church. It was this gentle, good man, 'full of the Holy Ghost,' a peace-lover, who, in the first instance, when all were suspicious of this terrible persecutor, took him by the hand and brought him into the Apostolic band. Let that be written down for Barnabas, that he served the Church by saving a greater man to serve it. (3) And, thirdly, there is the love of the brethren shown by a capacity for selfsacrifice. No cheap religion for this Barnabas. The love of the brethren had to be shown by selfsacrifice. And by selfsacrifice the history of the Church began, as with selfsacrifice it must go on until the end. Here is always a sign of the love of the brethren, and of sincerity. Are men ready for any measure of selfsacrifice? And so we may take this Apostle for example to ourselves. References. XI. 24. A. 6. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 92. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons (2nd Series), p. 135. XI. 25. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 197; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 429; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 232. Acts 11:26 Christian has become one of the vaguest epithets in the language. Leslie Stephen, English Thought in Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 395. I dare not call myself a Christian. I have hardly met the man in all my life who deserved that name. Max Müller. References. XI. 26. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 328. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 172. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 117. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 127. XI. 27-30. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 114. XI. 28. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 127; ibid. vol. x. p. 281. XI. 29. Ibid. vol. ix. p. 225; ibid. vol. x. p. 198. XI. 29, 30. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 298. XI. 30. Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 84, 225. XII. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 92. XII. 1. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p. 307; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 293. XII. 1, 2. J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints' Days, p. 314. The Martyrdom of St. James (For St. James the Apostle's Day) Acts 12:2 I. The close of St. James' career reminds us that the Bible, as a rule, does not dwell so much upon the persons of those who worked with the Lord as upon the work which they were instrumental in bringing out. The author of the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that, in the former treatise which he wrote, he set forth all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up; and surely this second book might be described as having for its theme all that Jesus intended to do and to teach after He was taken up. The theme of the remainder of the books of the New Testament is the life, and the work, and the personality of the eternal, the Incarnate Son of God, and so it matters not very much by whom or through whose instrumentality the work was carried on. James and the other ten Apostles appear, perhaps, every now and then, as elements and factors in that work they are not really the persons by whom that work was accomplished. II. And then we are reminded, too, of what is really and truly the littleness of posthumous fame. What does it matter, as regards ourselves, whether in future ages our deeds or our own sufferings are known and thought of? What does it matter to any apostle today? James and John are household words, they are names which are familiar to us all, and yet, beyond just a few circumstances here and there in the books of the New Testament, we know very little whatever about them. III. Again, the martyrdom of St. James speaks to us forcibly of the littleness of that which we call death. He passed out of this world, 'Herod killed James the brother of John with the sword'. To all outward appearances his work is done. Is that really so? His activities certainly in this life have come to an end, but his work is not over. The Apostles are the foundations of the Church of God, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone. The work which they accomplished during the years of their mortal life, being done in His name, and by His power and influence, is a work which survives those who were instrumental in its fulfilment. The work of St. Peter, and St. James, and St. John, is day by day reaping its fruit; day by day producing some active and living effect in the Church of God. Their mortal life may be over, but that which they effected during its continuance in the name and by the might of their Divine Master goes on and on. References. XII. 2. A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 51. XII. 3. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 144. XII. 4. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 381; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 263. XII. 5. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 52. Bishop Bickersteth, Sermons, p. 124. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 130. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon Sketches (2nd Series), p. 51. C. Brown, God and Man, p. 223. St. Peter Asleep Acts 12:6 J. M. Neale takes this text along with St. Matthew xvi. 17, 19, 'I will give unto thee the keys,' etc. He says that St. Peter 'was not spending the night in complaining that the promise made to him had not been fulfilled; no, nor yet in reminding our Lord of it, and therefore praying to be delivered. He was asleep; and very likely the only Christian in Jerusalem that was asleep that night. Peter, having committed himself to his Master's hands, knew that he had work to do for Him on the morrow which would require all his strength. Therefore he used the means which God has appointed for the refreshment of our bodies; he lay down and slept. I read of Peter's sleeping three times; once when our Lord was in His greatest earthly glory, namely, at His transfiguration; once in His deepest humiliation, namely, at His agony; and once in his own great need. Those two first times were not sleeps which did him honour; the spirit might be willing but the flesh was weak. But the last showed Peter's faith and love. He knew that he was to die on the morrow, as James had died before him; he knew that he was shut out from all earthly hope; he knew that the little church of Jerusalem needed him; but he left everything in Christ's hands, knowing that He would keep that which was committed unto Him. He had seen His Master asleep in the midst of great fear and danger, and now He followed His example. If our Lord had said, "Simon, sleepest thou?" there would have been no upbraiding in His words now. So you see, we may sometimes do good service to God, and be working out our own salvation, even while we sleep.' Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 78. Acts 12:6 Compare Macaulay's description of the Marquis of Argyle ( History of England, chap. v.): 'So effectively had religious faith and hope, co-operating with natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits, that, on the very day on which he was to die... he lay down, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might be in full vigour when he should mount the scaffold. At this time, one of the Lords of Council came to the Castle with a message from his brethren, and demanded admittance to the Earl. It was answered that the Earl was asleep. The Privy Councillor thought that this was a subterfuge, and insisted on entering. The door of the cell was softly opened; and there lay Argyle on the bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid sleep of infancy.' Reference. XII. 6. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 79. St. Peter's Deliverance (For St. Peter's Day) Acts 12:7 The early Church at this time seemed to be in a very bad way. Herod, son of the Herod who slew the Innocents, vexed the Church, and it might have been wellnigh blotted out if it had not been Divine. Just as the old Herod, slaying the Innocents, would have slain the Saviour, so this Herod would have blotted put the early Church. He took James, the brother of John, and slew him with the sword. He had got Peter in the darkest, deepest dungeon, and he was quite determined that he should not escape. The Apostle was chained between two soldiers; four quaternions, i.e. sixteen more soldiers, kept the prison, besides the keepers at the gate. All was made safe and sure, as sure as man could make it. The time had nearly come when Peter was to be brought out and slain. Nothing seemed more certain than that Peter was to be murdered in the morning. But 'man proposes and God disposes'. I. Ready to Die. What was Peter doing? Reposing in the arms of God. He was fast asleep between the two soldiers. Was not his mind disturbed? No, not in the least. It is one of those beautiful pictures that the Scriptures give us. He was loved of God, and 'so He giveth His beloved sleep'. We cannot help remembering what happened on the lake the day when Christ was asleep. Peter woke Him up and said, 'Master, carest Thou not that we perish?' What a change! He was afraid of death then; here his death was imminent but all fear had gone. Peter was asleep. It is well for us just to pause and wonder whether our religion will stand us as well as that when our time comes. Once Peter was afraid of death and called it 'perishing,' now he cares not in the least. He has learned to know and trust the Saviour. That is it. Peter or the prison is a different man from Peter in the boat. It is a man whose manhood has come to the 'stature of the fulness of Christ'. He knows in whom he has believed, and he is quite persuaded that it is all well. And so he sleeps. II. Praying Friends. Well now, we have seen what Peter was doing. What were Peter's friends doing? Their very best. They were praying. They had met together, as the beautiful little bit of Scripture tells us, in a house to pray earnestly for Peter. If you look in the margin you see how instantly, how earnestly they were pouring out prayer to God to save Peter. He was so much to them then. James was just slain, and Herod was going to slay Peter. What would become of the early Church? Was it a wise thing, do you think, to stay at home and pray? Could not they have done something better than pray? What could they do? Could they not have made a collection and sent a bribe to the guards? No; no bribe that they could offer would be accepted by the guards, for if the guards let him out their lives would be demanded. What was the law? If a prisoner escaped they must suffer for it. You cannot bribe men with money against their lives. What could they do? They could pray. And they did. There are some circumstances that we cannot help. There are certain difficulties that we cannot forestall. There are certain people that we cannot save. What are we to do? If they prayed Peter's chains off, you can pray like them. See the forces. Herod, the soldiers, the prison, the chains, the locks, the warders that is the force on the one side. And the force on the other? The poor little Church kneeling down in a room to pray, 'Lord, deliver him! Lord, deliver him! have mercy upon us and help us!' See the two forces, earth's force on the one side, and heaven's on the other. III. Peter's Deliverance. Weil then, of course you know the story well, the chains fell off and Peter was delivered. The angel of the Lord came just as the angel went into the lions' den and shut the mouths of the lions and awoke Peter at midnight, and as he got up the chains fell off his hands. Peter himself was amazed. He thought he saw a vision and was walking in his sleep. But the first ward was passed, and then the second ward was passed, and then the great gate of the prison opened with a clang of its own accord, and they passed out into the open air. Then Peter knew that it was not a dream. With the fresh air about him the fancies had gone, the free air of God had blown away the dream, and Peter knew of a surety that the Lord had sent His angel and delivered him out of the expectation of the Jews. Peter then went to the prayer meeting. I do not think they were astonished at his deliverance, for I am sure they prayed in faith, and they knew prayer could overcome all things. But what did astonish them was the way his deliverance was accomplished. They did not expect him to appear while they were praying. But the triumph was complete. Bolts, bars, wards, chains, soldiers, keepers, dungeons, were overcome; Peter was free. The Angel and the Sandals Acts 12:8 There is a vividness of detail about this story which assures us that facts are being recorded. No imagination, however lively, could have conceived the scene that is presented here. These words are rich in spiritual suggestion. I. In the first place, they are the angel's argument that what had happened was actually true. Not by remarkable and striking proofs, nor by the doing of anything uncommon; not in such ways was Peter made to feel that all that had happened to him was reality. It was by doing an ordinary deed girding his cloak and putting on his shoes but doing it now in the light the angel brought, a light that 'never was on land or sea'. That angel-argument with Peter is one that ought to be powerful with us all. There is no such proof that the new light is real as just the use of it for common deeds. II. Then once our text suggests what I might call the Divine economy of power. 'Gird thyself, do not expect me to do it; what thou canst do for thyself, that thou must do.' We see this same economy of power when we study the miracles of Jesus Christ. It is an added evidence for Jesus' miracles that the miraculous is kept down to the lowest point. He makes the wine, but will not fetch the water; it is in the power of the servants to do that. Do you see the meaning of that Divine procedure? It makes us fellow-workers with the Highest. Peter needed the angel for his rescue, but for the rescue the angel needed Peter. III. Lastly, the text suggests to me a certain leisureliness in God's procedure. We know the kind of man that Peter was, and how ardent and impulsive was his nature. Alive to his danger and to his opportunity, can you wonder if Peter clean forgot his sandals? And then the angel, calm amid that tumult, with a calmness born of fellowship with God, said: 'Gird thyself and put thy sandals on'. When Peter came to look back upon it all, he would see the meaning of the angel's conduct, and learn the lesson (which is so hard to learn) that there is no hurry in the plans of God. G. H. Morrison, The Wings of the Morning, p. 228. Reference. XII. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 526. The Departing of the Angel Acts 12:10 Behold the angel of the Lord came upon Peter, and a light shined in the prison. And the angel touched Peter, and the chains fell off him. And the angel led him out from ward to ward. And the iron gate swung back upon its hinges, and Peter was out under the stare again. And the angel and Peter passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. Now, do you see why the angel left the disciple then? I think it is not difficult to see why. The angel's work was done; that is the point There was the presence of Christ for Simon Peter now; there was God in His eternal law and love; but there was no need for the angel any more. I. I wonder if you grasp, then, what I should venture to call the helpful doctrine of the departing angel? It means that in extraordinary difficulties we may reasonably look for extraordinary help. But when the clamant need goes, so does the angel. The angel departs, but the love of Christ remains. II. I want then to take that suggestion and bring it to bear on various phases of life. (1) And first we shall think of Israel in the wilderness. Out of the dungeon and prison-house of Egypt they were carried by the constraint of irresistible power. But then, when they reached Canaan, and had, as it were, passed through one street of it, forthwith the angel departed from them. Jehovah was with them still in love and law; the mystical presence of Jesus was their shield. (2) Or we might think of the history of the Christian Church in this light. We might compare Pentecost with after centuries. There was a radiance and a spiritual glory about Pentecost that remind us at once of Peter and the angel. And then the Church passed on through one street mystical, and forthwith the angel departed from them. We are out in the streets now, under the stars of heaven; miraculous ministries would simply ruin our manhood. Now the Lord is our Shepherd and our stay: the grace of an abiding Christ suffices. (3) I think, too, that we become conscious of this truth in the unfolding of our individual life. If at every turn the angel met us, and the vision of a dream enchanted us, we should lose heart and nerve and power for the struggle and be like the lotus-eaters in ignoble quietude. The angel may go, but duty still remains. (4) I think we may swing this thought like a lamp over the dark chamber of the grave. It may be there is some one here who, looking backward, remembers an angel presence. You thought it was going to be a lifelong comradeship; you would travel on through all life's streets together. But you only passed on through one street, and forthwith the angel departed from you. Remember the doctrine of the departing angel, when the heart is empty and the grave is full. G. H. Morrison, Sun-Rise: Addresses from a City Pulpit, p. 74. References. XII. 10. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 153. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 121. XII. 11. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p. 126. Honour Retrieved Acts 12:12 Not the least interesting way of studying the Bible, as you may have found, is to fix upon one of its many minor characters, and trace out, in ordered detail, all that can be known about him. Often it is surprising that so much should be ascertainable, and that so adequate a picture can be drawn of his life and personality. Let us try to write the life, in outline at all events, of John whose surname was Mark; and we shall discover, I think, that there are facts in this life which are also side-lights on our own. Our information about Mark, limited as it is, falls into four distinct parts, each covering years, and each contributing a suggestion. If we simply follow the narrative, in the chronological order of its divisions, we get a full impression of what the man was in himself, and what his career means for us. Look then at the chapters of the story. I. First, Mark's home. This is chapter one in every biography; and about Mark's birthplace and early years also we have intelligence enough to make it the first section of our study. The passage where our text occurs tells us all we know. He was the son of a Christian woman in Jerusalem, whose name was Mary. By the time we are dealing with she may have been a widow, since we hear not a word about the father; and it is possible she was a person of substance, for her house in the city was large enough to contain quite an assemblage of believers. Indeed, she appears to have occupied rather an outstanding position in the little Christian society. The atmosphere of her house, too, must have been charged with warm and attractive Christian faith, for we find the disciples gathered there for prayer always a good sign while after his escape from prison St. Peter went straight to her door as a matter of course, and was received familiarly, as an old friend. In short, we have presented to us, in one of those natural vignettes of which the Bible is full, the picture of a Christian family of the best type. Well, no one starts in life with so immense an advantage as the man who had been bred in a Christian home. Nothing else that could be named or thought of would have given him a send-off like that. For one thing, all the chances are in favour of his becoming a Christian himself, as Mark did. I do not say that redeeming grace is hereditary, or that religion can be handed down like family jewels from father to son; but I do say that on this subject there are wonderful promises in the Gospel, and that parents whose dedication of their children to God in baptism is a reality, and who trustfully fulfil their vows of religious nurture, are justified in expecting their sons and daughters to grow up * in Christ. * II. Mark's hour of desertion. Here then you have an instance of what happens now and then the sudden breakdown of a Christian man, with all its bitter disappointment for his friends and its grief for his Divine Master. I am not going to dwell on its shame or guilt; let me rather point out one or two of its consequences. (a) For example, it brings an interruption of usefulness. Do you see how instantly Mark drop out of the story of Acts? Not a syllable about him for years after; the main stream of events pushes him aside. That one surrender to weakness robbed him of promotion, in soldier's phrase, and reduced him to the ranks. So the lesson meets us squarely that success in God's work is endangered terribly, and may be lost outright, by some conscious indulgence of our lower nature. The sin may cripple us for life. The memory of failure may haunt us to the end, with stains so deep upon the soul that years' repentance cannot wash it out. Think of that when the voice of the tempter sounds pleasantly. Think of the power for God and for righteousness you will lose if you consent. 'Ah! me,' says one of the best of men, 'ah! me, for the saints of God that are pinioned and powerless, because of some secret compact with the enemy.' Such things we do in the stupor or frenzy of passion, and wake to find they have robbed us of our strength. (b) Then, over and beyond that, Mark's weakness caused a quarrel between two good men. On the one side was Barnabas, eager that his nephew should have a second chance, on the other Paul maintaining as firmly that the runaway was untrustworthy. So the two friends parted in anger all because of Mark's cowardice or slackness or both. (c) Moreover, for the time being at least, Mark lost the regard of his fellow-Christians. The feeling of distrust, to which St. Paul gave expression, seems to have spread further. From a passage in an Epistle written twelve years later we learn that in the Church at Colosse, for example, there was still some reluctance to give Mark a cordial welcome. Apparently they too had heard of that old fault, ana the evil odour of it still hung about him. III. Thirdly, note Mark victorious and restored. Our information for this chapter in the story comes from one of the last letters ascribed to St Paul, the second Epistle to Timothy. There, not far from the end, we read: 'Only Luke is with me: take Mark, and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry'. Well, there are few pleasanter things in the New Testament than this elevation of Mark right to a place in what you may call the personal body-guard of St. Paul. It is delightful, as well as touching, to see the lonely old man, with death not far off, full once more of desire for Mark's affectionate care. We like the story to end so; nothing else would have been worthy of them both. For a time they had 'stood apart, like cliffs that had been rent asunder'; but now all that was cast behind them and forgotten, and the bonds of friendship knit and sealed afresh. So that it is possible to efface a blemished past. It is possible to expiate early faults, and regain what has been lost. Let no man think that old days and old sins must hang a dead-weight on his neck and cripple him hopelessly for ever. The burden can be flung off in God's name, by faith and penitence, and a new start taken. There is forgiveness with God. There is power with Him to turn the shadow of death into the morning; to restore the soul; to cast our failures and our trespass into the depths of the sea. Christ, the crucified, comes to us with the message that grace can undo the past, and lift off the old load, and bring back the fruitless years. The old sin can be blotted out of sight; and more, the weakness that led to the sin can be overcome. H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God's Plan, p. 59. References. XII. 12. J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints' Days, p. 214. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1247. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 223; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 3. XII. 12-25. Ibid. vol. vi. p. 81. XII. 13. J. W. Burgon, Servants of Scripture, p. 88. Acts 12:17 * ; Acts 28:30-31 * Both Peter and Paul drop out of Acts suddenly. The reader would have liked to know what became of them, but Luke apparently has no interest in recording the close of their career. Peter departed and went into another place. Paul taught for two years in Rome, no man forbidding him. And that is all. Evidently Luke's concern with both Apostles was not biographical. His aim was to depict the expansion of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, and with the record of that his work is done. Hence, while we learn incidentally of the death of Herod the persecutor, there is not a syllable about the death of Peter or of Paul within his pages. As Harnack observes, in a recent essay on Die Zeitangaben in der Apostelgeschichte des Lukas (p. 23), 'Soli deo gloria! What Luke is occupied with is not Peter or Paul, but the Divine process of impenitence on the part of the Jews and of Gospel-preaching to the Gentiles throughout Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and then Rome, as well as the receptivity wrought by God among the Gentiles for this message. Αὐτοὶ καὶ ἀκούσονται .'When Luke wrote, they were hearing in still greater numbers throughout the empire. The earlier workmen had been buried, but God's work was going on. The glad cadence of the last four words of Acts ( μετὰ πὰσης παῤῥησίας ἀκωλύτως ) and the dramatic position of the closing adverb justify Harnack's remarks, in another essay ( Lukas der Arzt, p. 116, Eng. trans, pp. 163 f.), upon the undaunted optimism of the book. 'What a trumpet-note of joy and courage and victory resounds from the first page to the last of the Lucan history! Vexilla regis prodeunt! We listen in vain for this note in the other Evangelists. They are all burdened with a far more heavy load of cares, ideas, and doctrines than this Greek enthusiast of Christ, who strides forward bravely surmounting every difficulty.' The full significance of ἀκωλύτως ; is seen in the light of a passage like Luke 11:52 , where the writer has substituted ἐκωλύσατε for Matthew's οὐκ ἀφίετε in Christ's word upon the scribes, or υομίκοι , who prevented other people from entering the kingdom. James Moffatt. References. XII. 17. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 277. XII. 21. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 301. Acts 12:22 What illuminations and conflagrations here kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns had risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels, and terrestrial locks of straw! Profane princesses cried out, 'One God, one Farinelli!' and whither now have they and Farinelli danced? Carlyle, Essay on * Sir Walter Scott. * References. XII. 24. J. B. Meharry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 329. XII. 25. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 185. XIII. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 33; ibid. vol. v. p. 30; ibid. vol. vi. pp. 163, 373. St. Barnabas the Apostle (For St. Barnabas' Day) Acts 13:1-3 We keep today the memory of St. Barnabas the Apostle. These men were not only inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon them this voice of ministration, but they were solemnly consecrated to the ministry of apostleship by the outward ordination by the then rulers of the Church. I. Love for Missionary Work. These words suggest just two or three points first the beginning of missionary work among the Gentiles. These men are commissioned by the Holy Ghost to go forth and carry the Name and Gospel of Jesus, the salvation of Jesus to the world, and the results are everywhere. If there are any in this church today who are not really interested in mission work, I would say begin to be so at once. Think, and fight, and pray. Do something for the Lord Jesus outside just your own immediate work something in return for the effort of those who laboured to give the message of salvation to the world, to you and me. II. Reverence for Church Order. Just ponder this one sentence 'so they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed,' and then read in the text a confirmation of our belief in order and propriety and the great principles in Scripture. Even the express designation of the Holy Ghost does not supersede the outward form of ordination. The ministry is a work, a business, and it needs the authority of the accredited representatives of the Church of Christ. Just as the Church at Antioch fasted and prayed, and laid on hands in solemn benediction before they sent forth the new Apostles to their work, so the Church of England, with its historic and spiritual claim to follow the teaching of the Apostles, acting under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, offers prayers for those to be ordained. III. The Unction of the Holy One. There is no department of our life, individual or corporate, which is not ruled over and controlled by the mighty influence, the unction of the Holy Ghost. Let us try and believe that there is nothing done that does not begin from an idea, and that nothing therefore is too small or too great for us to pray that the Holy Ghost may take part in it and enrich it with His grace. Everyone may not be called to a sacred office; yet there are hundreds called to offices which man does not regard as sacred, but which really are so. To those who have eyes to see, God's Spirit is everywhere. Our Collect today reminds us that He who endowed His Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts the Holy Ghost will not, if we earnestly beseech Him, leave us destitute of His manifold gilts in our sphere of life, and thought, and business, nor yet of the grace to use them to the honour and glory of Christ Jesus, our Lord and King. References. XIII. 1. J. Baines, Twenty Sermons, p. 57. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 306; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 413. Worship and Service (For the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul) Acts 13:2 In this thirteenth chapter of the Acts we are told about the visit of St. Paul and St. Barnabas to the Church which was in Antioch. It was no ordinary work that they did. They 'ministered to the Lord,' and this expression meant a great deal. Ministering to the Lord nearly always carries with it a service to one's brethren. This is brought before us in various ways, and, taking the word 'ministered' in its technical sense, it is especially brought before us in this chapter. But, if we understand the word aright, we find that it represents also the Divine Service and highest act of worship in the Christian Church. I. There is a Distinct Call to Worship in God's House. It is part of the system of the Christian Church. Would that that could be brought home to the people of England today. People who are against the forms which the Church has taken to guide itself are against God. People imagine that these forms are unspiritual, whereas they are nothing of the kind. Let us learn from St. Paul's own experience, and not confine ourselves to some small section of his writings. II. Note now the Blessing that came to St. Paul and the whole Gentile world when Jesus Christ called him to immediate preparation to work for His sake. St. Paul was always a good man. He persecuted the Christian Church because he honestly believed it to be inconsistent with God's teaching. After his conversion we read that he made use of his privileges as a Jew that he might gain Jews for Christ. Saul the persecutor became Paul the Apostle. He was a devout worshipper both at public service and in private prayer. Then, by the grace of God, let us try to follow him and engage in both. How do we devote our powers and energies during Divine service? The answer may be that many of us do not realise that that service calls for powers and energies; but, if that be the case, it is not the right way to think of religion. We must throw our whole energies and interest into our public as well as private worship. III. When the Call comes to you as it came to St. Paul, try to follow in his footsteps. His call came direct to him through the agency of the Church, and that is the way it may come to you. But it also came to him in answer to a life of intense earnestness truly mistaken as it was at first and if you should hear the Master's call you must put away indifference. You must prepare yourselves with the first great prayer that St. Paul offered for the first time on the way to Damascus, 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' References. XIII. 2. R. W. Dale, The Epistle of James, p. 278. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 31; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 345. XIII. 2-50. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 26. XIII. 3. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. i. p. 349. XIII. 4. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 84. XIII. 6. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 386; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xii. p. 105. XIII. 7. Ibid. vol. x. p. 113. XIII. 8. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. p. 144. XIII. 9. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 225; ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 455. XIII. 10. Ibid. vol. viii. p. 36 XIII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1781. XIII. 13. J. D. Jones, Elims of Life, p. 239. T. Barker, Plain Sermons, p. 242. XIII. 14. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 167; ibid. vol. x. p. 1; ibid. (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 188; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 324. XIII. 14, 16, 27. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 25. XIII. 16-26. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 238. XIII. 20. Ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 560. The Man After God's Own Heart Acts 13:22 These words are the definition and the description of the model human life. The general truth of these words is simply this: that the end of life is to do God's will. God has given us two sides of this model life: realised in the Living Word: analysed in the written Word. Let us search our Bibles to find this ideal life, so that copying it in our lives, reproducing it day by day and point by point, we may learn to make the most of our life, and have it said of us, as it was of David, 'A man after Mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My will'. I. The first thing our ideal man wants is a reason for his being alive at all. What is he here for? And the Bible answer is this: 'I come to do Thy will, O God'. (Hebrews 10:7 .) II. The second thing an ideal man needs is sustenince. After he has got life, you must give him food. Now, what food shall you give him? Shall you feed him with knowledge, or with riches, or with honour, or with beauty, or with power, or truth? No; there is a rarer luxury than these. It is this: 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me'. (John 4:34 .) III. The next thing the ideal man needs is society. He needs friendships. Now, whom will you give him? The answer trembles on the lip of every one who is trying to follow the ideal life: 'Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' (Matthew 12:50 , Mark 3:35 .) IV. Now we have found the ideal man a Friend. But he wants something more. He wants language. He must speak to his Friend. Every one knows what his prayer will be. Every one remembers the words of the ideal prayer: 'Thy will be done'. (Matthew 6:10 .) Now mark the emphasis on done. It is not that God's will may be borne, endured, put up with. There is activity in his prayer. V. But the ideal man does not always pray. He is too full to speak, so his heart bursts into song, 'Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.' (Psalms 119:54 .) VI. The next thing the ideal man wants is education. 'Teach me to do Thy will' (Psalms 143:10 ). This is the true education. And now we have almost gone far enough. These are really all the things the ideal man can need. But in case he should want anything else, God has given the man after His own heart a promise. VII. So God has given the ideal promise: 'If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us... and we know that we have the petitions that we desired from Him.' (1 John 5:14 ) VIII. There is only one thing more which the model man may ever wish to have. We can imagine him wondering, as he thinks of the unspeakable beauty of this life, how long this life can last. But God in the riches of His forethought, has rounded off this corner of his life with a great far-reaching text. 'He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.' Henry Drummond, The Ideal Life and other Addresses, p. 217. References. XIII. 22. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 126. XIII. 26. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 1. No. 2899. F. St. John Corbett, The Preacher's Year, p. 120. XIII. 32. F. Harper, Preacher's Magazine, vol. x. p. 411. W. M. Sinclair, Words from St. Paul's (2nd Series), p. 119. XIII. 34. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No. 2366. XIII. 36. John Watson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 417. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No. 2243. C. A. Berry, Vision and Duty, p. 135. G. G. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p. 68. Forgiveness of Sins Acts 13:38 This was St. Paul's first public utterance since his conversion. He was the Barnabas of the Synagogue, and, as the custom of the Synagogue was, he was asked to speak, and up he got, and the Holy Ghost was upon him, and he poured out this most significant speech. Notice that the speech follows very closely on that of St. Stephen's dying utterance. Compare the two. They both begin with the history of God's Covenant with the Jewish nation, and they both end by preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. St. Paul heard that speech of Stephen's, and he modelled his own after it He never forgot that eloquence, and was never likely to, as he had stood by and seen the eloquence of Stephen's death, which was greater even than the eloquence of his dying speech. The portion I have taken for the text is': 'Be it known unto you.' That is, about this matter there is to be no agnosticism whatever. It is to be 'known unto you'. You must know this, that the Holy One being dead saw no corruption, that He was raised from the dead, and that through Him is preached the forgiveness of sins. That is the matter about which you and I must have no doubt whatever. There is no agnosticism permissible on this point. I. First, then, I should like upon this subject to say, it is the forgiveness of sin that is preached in Christ's name. It is not forgiveness of crime. A great many make a mistake here Crime can be appraised, and the punishment due to it meted out. Sin may be committed without crime, but crime can never be committed without sin. A man has committed a crime. It is expiated. For six months, say, he has been in prison. The doors are open, he is free, and, because he has expiated his crime, I hope there are none of you here would be so ungenerous as to throw it in his teeth, as there may be many crimes you and I have committed which are never expiated. But, if the man has a soul, there is the dishonour and the stain still there. If he has expiated his crime, society is bound to forgive him. But what about God? And then comes this Gospel, 'Through this Man is preached unto you forgiveness of sin'. He may say, 'I can never forget that I did it, the consciousness of my guilt still remains'. And it is to such an one that the Gospel comes home. II. Forgiveness of sins is through Jesus Christ complete. Our religion is not a metaphysical argument or archæological study. It is a Gospel good news. To those who feel that they cannot forgive themselves, He comes as the Saviour Christ. We are forgiven of God. So the Gospel is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the love of God, which is the fellowship of the Holy Ghost III. And another point is this: when God forgives sin, He forgets. Without forgetting there can be no real forgiveness. We say, 'Well, of course, I forgive you, but you know I can never forget; it is not possible.' But the forgetfulness I speak of here is forgetfulness of the heart, not of the intelligence. The essence of God is love. God is love, and therefore, God being love, with Him forgiveness is forgetfulness. The Bible expression for this is, as you know, that God puts sin behind His back. How far is that? Where is that? As far as the east is from the west. How far is that? You cannot measure it; it means utter, complete, entire. 'I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' References. XIII. 38. W. M. Clow, The Cross in Christian Experience, p. 268. XIII. 38, 39. J. T. O'Brien, The Nature and the Effects of Faith, p. 49. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 257; ibid. vol. vii. p. 17. XIII. 39. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 287. XIII. 40, 41. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 197. XIII. 41. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 120. XIII. 43. J. Arnoid, The Interpretation of Scripture, p. 188. XIII. 46-48. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2045. XIII. 49. Ibid. vol. ii. No. 76. XIII. 50. Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p. 276. XIII. 51. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 404. XIII. 52. A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 212. XIV. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 20; ibid. vol. v. p. 30; ibid. vol. vi. pp. 294, 373; ibid, (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 411. XIV. 1. Ibid. p. 282. XIV. 2. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. pp. 140, 272, 276, 284. XIV. 4. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 74. XIV. 9. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p. 267. XIV. 9. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x. No. 559. XIV. 11. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 212. XIV. 20. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 429. XIV. 22. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 105. S. Pearson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 13. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i. p. 217. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii. p. 131. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 294. Spiritual Forces Acts 14:23 My text is rich in the suggestion of the main influences by which the Christian life should be guarded and stimulated, and by which it may be caused to receive an influx of power. I. The influence to which my text first calls attention is that of spiritual leadership. The two great apostolic missionaries saw to it that they did not leave any of these Churches before they had arranged in each a definite spiritual leadership, which should afford guidance, direction, and spiritual instruction to the general body of the converts, and furnish personal leaders in every good word and work. The progress of a community depends largely upon its possession of large-hearted, far-sighted, and strong-willed leaders. Carlyle's affirmation that the history of the world is the history of its great men may require qualification, but the essence of it is true. The duty of leadership does not begin and end with the appointed officers of a church, nor can a man evade the obligation of spiritual leadership by not occupying an official position. II. In addition to appointing spiritual leadership in these Churches, Paul and Barnabas employed on their behalf the forces of spiritual intercession and sympathy. They 'prayed with fasting'. We need to renew our faith in the efficacy of prayer. There is much in it that we cannot explain; yet even the world of science is beginning to perceive that the influence of mind upon mind, and of spirit upon spirit is as comprehensive as it is mysterious, and that subtle forces wing their way from man to man without regard to time or space. Experience has demonstrated that the 'fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much in its working'. III. The cardinal power in which Paul and Barnabas trusted was the grip of the Lord Christ upon the believing soul. It may be asked, if the grip of the Christ upon the believer is sufficient, why should we trouble to exort subsidiary influence? The need arises from the fact that the human spirit is not coerced even by the grip of the Christ. God is the perfect Comforter of the human soul: yet he has ordained that man's reception of that comfort shall be greatly influenced by the ministrations of human sympathy. Similarly, the hand of Christ is the perfect security for the believer; but He has ordained that the grip of that hand shall be more fully realised through the leadership of human hands, and through the earnest power of human prayers. John Thomas, Concerning the King, p. 115. References. XIV. 23. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 349; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 298. XIV. 24. Ibid. vol. x. p. 1. XIV. 27. J. G. Paton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 277. Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 652. J. Hedley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxfi. p. 26. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 115. XIV. 27, 28. J. Travis, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxi. p. 310. XIV. 28. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 78. XV. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 104; ibid. vol. iii. p. 175; ibid. vol. iv. pp. 43, 58. XV. 1. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 223. XV. 1, 2. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 94; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 457. XV. 1-24. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 117. XV. 1-33. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 326. XV. 5. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 457; ibid. vol. viii. p. 76. XV. 6. H. Wace, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 198. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 232. XV. 8. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 141. XV. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1350. XV. 11. Ibid. vol. xiii. No. 765. XV. 12. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 246. XV. 15-17. Ibid. p. 85. XV. 16. Ibid. vol. x. p. 377. XV. 17. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 120; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 46. XV. 18. A. T. Pierson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 331. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 32. XV. 21. Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 25, 29; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 24. XV. 22-29. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 7. XV. 23, 24. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 36. XV. 25. Bishop Welldon, The Gospel in a Great City, p. 241. XV. 25, 26. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 99. XV. 26. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 116. XV. 28. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 117. Bishop Welldon, The Gospel in a Great City, p. 241. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 48. XV. 29. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 70; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 372; ibid. vol. viii. p. 372. XV. 32. Ibid. vol. vi. p. 392. Self-inquiry in Religion Acts 15:36 This was a proposal made by St. Paul to Barnabas after their first missionary journey; he suggested revisiting the Churches they had founded, to see if their members were continuing steadfast in the faith, growing in grace, advancing in the spiritual life standing still, or falling away. It was both a wise and useful proposal. And we, nineteen centuries after, may apply it to ourselves; let us 'consider our ways,' and find out how things stand between ourselves and God; for if ever self-inquiry in religion was needed, it is needed now. I. Do we ever think about our souls at all? Thousands cannot answer satisfactorily. They never give the subject of religion any place in their thoughts. They are absorbed in the pursuit of business, pleasure, politics, money, self-indulgence; and death, judgment, eternity, heaven and hell, and the Resurrection are never seriously regarded. II. Do we ever do anything about our souls? There are multitudes in England who do occasionally think about religion, but never get beyond the thinking. These people are always meaning, purposing, and resolving; they say they 'know 'what is right, and 'hope 'to be found right at the last; but there is no actual separation from the service of the world and sin; no 'doing' in their religion they never attain to action. III. Are we trying to satisfy our consciences with mere formality? How many are making shipwreck on this rock! They are punctual in the observance of the outward forms and ordinances of religion, even the most solemn; yet all this time there is no secret heart in their Christianity. Of these our Lord's words are true (St. Matthew 15:9 ). IV. Have we sought and received the forgiveness of our sins? Forgiveness has been purchased for us by the eternal Son of God, Who became incarnate, lived, died, and rose again, as our Substitute, in our behalf. But this forgiveness is a thing which each must lay hold on, appropriate, and make his own by faith. Jesus is able and willing to save, but man must come to Him in faith; without believing there is no forgiveness. V. Do we know anything by experience of conversion to God? Without conversion there is no salvation. Sense of sin, deep hatred of it, faith in Christ, and love to Him, 'hungering and thirsting after righteousness,' detachment from love of the things of the world these are some of the signs of true conversion. VI. Do we know anything of practical Christian holiness? 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord '(Hebrews 12:14 ). Holiness is not absolute perfection, freedom from all faults. That is for heaven and not earth, where we have a weak body, wicked surroundings, and a busy devil ever near at hand. Yet Christian holiness is a real thing, with distinct characteristics; it is seen more than heard: humility, kindness, gentleness, unselfishness, consideration for others, meekness, a forgiving temper, the faithful performance of duty, the rising to the test alike of trial or prosperity; this is practical Christianity. But it is never attained or maintained without a struggle, a constant conflict. VII. Do we use and enjoy the 'means of grace'? God has graciously appointed certain means to be the channels of Divine grace to man's heart, to maintain his spiritual life. Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible study, private prayer, public worship, attendance at the Holy Communion, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on what road he is travelling. VIII. Are we preparing for, and looking forward to, the Second Coming of our Lord? The Bible emphatically declares this glorious fact, that He shall return with power and great glory to raise the dead, to judge the souls of men, and to set up a kingdom where sin and death shall have no place. The late Bishop Ryle. References. XV. 36. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p. 25; ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 366. XV. 37, 38. J. D. Jones, Elims of Life, p. 239. XV. 37-39. Expositor (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 206. XV. 39. C. Vince, The Unchanging Saviour, p. 263. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 243. XVI. 1. H. A. Smith, Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p. 345. Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p. 17; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 446. XVI. 1, 3. Ibid. vol. i. p. 107. XVI. 4. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 266; ibid. (6 th Series), vol. ii. p. 298; ibid. vol. viii. p. 419. XVI. 5. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 284. XVI. 6. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 404; ibid. vol. viii. p. 325; ibid. vol. ix. pp. 45, 294, 332; ibid. vol. x. p. 6; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 11. The Baffling of the Spirit Acts 16:7 Paul was on his second missionary journey when he was hindered thus by the Spirit of his Lord. He had made up his mind to go northward to Bithynia, when somehow he was Divinely checked. How the door was thus shut on him we are not told: it is one of the wise reticences of Scripture. Perhaps he was warned by some prophetic voice, or visited by irresistible conviction. On the other hand, if one prefer it so, we may think of the pressure of circumstance or health, for Paul would never have hesitated to find in these the checking power of the Holy Ghost. Whatever form the prohibition took, you may be sure it was very dark to the Apostle. Paul was not at all the kind of man who took a delight in being contradicted. When he had set his heart on going northward, not selfishly, but in the service of his Lord, it was a bitter experience to be so checked, and to have the door shut in his face. But the point to note is that though it was dark for Paul, it is bright as the sunshine of a summer morn for us. He was never more wisely or Divinely guided than in the hour when he thought that he was baffled. What would have happened to him had the door been opened and he suffered to go into Bithynia? He would have turned away home again through lonely glens, with his back to the mighty empires of the West. He would never have landed on the shore of Europe; never have lifted up his voice in Athens; never have preached the riches of his Saviour beside the Roman palace of the Cæsars. Paul was a true Jew in this respect: he had no ear for the calling of the sea. He would a thousand times rather have lived in inland places than by the surge and thunder of the ocean. And it was only when every other path was barred that he was pushed unwillingly to Troas, where for him and for Europe everything was changed by the vision of the man from Macedonia. He was checkmated, and yet he won the game. He was thwarted, and it led him to his crown. Eager to advance with his good news, there rose before him the Divine 'No Thoroughfare'. And yet that hour when he was hindered so was the hour when God was honouring him wonderfully, and leading him to such a mighty service as at his highest he had never dreamed of. G. H. Morrison, The Return of the Angels, p. 268. Bithynia and Jerusalem (A New Year Sermon) Acts 16:7 * ; Luke 9:51 * 'They assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.' 'He set His face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem.' We take Bithynia and Jerusalem as places in the geography of the spirit. At the beginning of a new year it is well to think where we are, about the aim and drift of our lives. The year, for multitudes of us, has been good. Many can close it with the voice of passionate praise, and in every Christian heart there should at least be a religious joy and gratitude. Life may have been higher and richer for us than we figured it in our early dreams, or, more likely, it may have been darker, and full of frustration. We love our own wills and our own forecastings often better than the better thing that has taken their place. At this stage the most successful see many failures, while others make no secret even to themselves of the fact that they have not succeeded. The kind, deceiving light no longer deceives, and the misfortunes of the past and the terrors of the future often come upon us with a fresh and sudden rush of feeling at a time when we ought to be strongest. Those who know us merely from the outside know very little. 'It is in the soul that things happen,' and we have appeared unto men to rejoice when the storm was loudest in our spirits. Take the life history suggested by these phrases, and see whether it has not a parallel and a lesson for us at this new year. I. We assayed to go into Bithynia, and we could not There was an obstacle against which we beat our wings in vain. We can define Bithynia for ourselves. It recalls our aspirations, our disappointments. Most likely it means the land of outward prosperity, or it may mean the land of love, or it may mean that land in which we felt that our best work could be done. However it may have been, we were foiled. All that could be done was done, but as wave after wave falls baffled from a rock-bound coast, so all we did came to nothing. The charges of the fierce and condensed will were repulsed. Perhaps we imagine that now we see what we should have done in order to succeed. But we did not succeed, and we shall see at last that we were not meant to succeed. How large a part of life this word covers we assayed to go into Bithynia! If we could say with the sacred writer, 'the Spirit of Jesus suffered us not,' all might be lightly borne, but there may be twenty-five hard years between the first part of the sentence and the second. We assayed to go into Bithynia, that is all we are able to say. But the Kind Spirit suffered us not. When we can say that, the sting is drawn from the pain. But how hard it is to say it with a full and joyous sense of its truth! II. What are we to say and do meanwhile? Let us follow the way of Jesus, who set His face steadfastly to go unto Jerusalem. Jerusalem, our dear Mother, is within our reach. It is not possible for us to attain it by way of Bithynia, as we had once hoped to do. By a rougher road and through gloomier lands we must betake ourselves to the city. But we are to seek it, and we may find it, and finding it we shall have all. So, then, we are not to chafe with restrained passion, and far less are we to suffer the passion to darken into despair. These dreams, we say, are vanished and outworn, but there is one goal we may reach. It may all end with us God grant it may in the light and triumph and peace of the city of the morning. Nor is this journey to be pursued with mere resignation, without hope of happiness in this world. There is something that touches the heart in the homesickness of the great mediaeval writers. The appellation of man, Viator the Traveller, the application of the word Patria as a technical name for heaven, the use of such words as illic and ibi without any other explanation, as if there could be but one there to a Christian, are very notable. But life outside of Bithynia is full of merciful wonders, of gladdening surprises. Even here those who stand still may see the salvation of the Lord. There is to be no weariness of life. Dr. Maclaren has pointed out the significant connexion of the words, 'We have an Altar.... We have no continuing city.' We have no continuing city, that is true, but we have an Altar, and therefore we have enough for life and for praise. Much that surrounds us is not of the everlasting order, but the Altar is the Altar to which we can have recourse continually, and of which we are to eat. Nevertheless it remains, 'They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country'. We are to seek Jerusalem, and to be found it must be sought. He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem the words spoken of the earthly city are as true of the heavenly. That is, we must choose one life-object, and collect and concentrate our forces round it. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 315. References. XVI. 7. Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 99. A. Rowland, ibid. vol. xlvi. p. 83. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 93. XVI. 7, 8. R. H. Coats, Baptist Times, vol. liv. p. 515. XVI. 8. J. M. Gibbon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 283. XVI. 8-10. A. M. Fairbairn, ibid. vol. li. p. 273. Visions Acts 16:9 It is not expressly said that this vision given to Paul was supernatural; but that it was so is certainly the most natural inference from the words of the historian in the tenth verse: 'Immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel unto them'. We cannot, therefore, place quite on a level with that anything of a similar nature that may come to ourselves. But yet within certain limits we may speak of those beckonings toward future labours in life, or achievements in character, which may be given to us in God's ordinary Providence, which become our ideals for the time, and after which we strive with all the earnestness and enthusiasm of our souls as visions not unlike that which was here given to Paul. Now concerning these visions, we may learn two things from the case of Paul in my text. I. The first is that they commonly take their colour from the character, history, and habits, of the individual before they come to him. It is to the heart already ambitious that the visions of conquest and imperial honour come. Just as the landscape shapes itself differently according to the disposition of the spectator, seeming to one enfolded in melancholy and to another bright and jubilant with gladness, so the vision is as the soul that sees it. What a man is, therefore, has a great deal to do with determining the sort of visions which will be forceful, or if you will forgive the word, fateful in his life. II. Visions of the kind of which I have been speaking, very largely dominate the lives of those who have received them. A man is ruled by his ideals. Now if these things be so, if our ideals dominate our lives, and if our ideal are themselves rooted in our character, habits, and history, what a powerful motive have we in these considerations for giving good heed to the character which we acquire, the habits which we form, and the history which we make. Suffer me now to gather up and preserve for you, as pointedly as I may, a few important principles worthy of being constantly remembered. (1) It is bad to have no ideal in life, for then your life will be little better than mere existence. (2) But it is worse to have a bad ideal. (3) It is a sad thing when a man has overtaken his ideal. Let us see to it, therefore, that we adopt an ideal that we shall never lose by overtaking, and that is to be found alone in the character and example of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is absolute perfection. The Cry of the Heathen Acts 16:9 It seems strange, at first sight, that you should have here this appeal, 'Come over... and help us'. It is Europe appealing to Asia, 'Come over... and help us'. There was a time, doubtless, when we should not have been astonished at the appeal. Long before the time that Homer sang of Achilles and Agamemnon, Asiatic monarchs consolidated mighty empires, Asiatic sages tried to solve the mysteries of human life. But this was now all past and gone. The balance of power had passed over from the sons of Shem and the sons of Ham to the sons of Japheth. Rome had at this time long ruled the world. Greek art had spread beauty and culture. Greek philosophy had laid the foundations of many truths. And yet in this man of Macedonia, see cultured Europe crying out to despised Asia, 'Come over... and help us'. And was it not just the help which this man of Asia could bring that Europe wanted at this time? It is so in all ages. The best help that you can give to any nation is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Greek art, Greek philosophy, Roman power all wanted this help which the Apostle Paul alone could give. Here is the cry, 'Come over... and help us'. In what spirit are we to go? I. We are to go, in the first place, in the spirit of faith. It is no use our going to save men unless we firmly believe that which we profess to believe. It is good advice which an American preacher gives to his young men: 'Young men,' he says, 'believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts, but never fall into the habit of doubting your beliefs and believing your doubts'. II. In the second place, you must go in the spirit of obedience, absolute surrender. We speak of crosses. Now you will never find crosses (in the plural) in the Bible. There is only one cross in the Bible, and that cross is selfsacrifice for your brother's sake, it is the cross which Jesus Christ endured, it is the cross which He calls all His followers to take up, to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their brethren. III. And, thirdly, you must go in the spirit of love. You must not go as a member of a superior nation. As the great General Gordon said to the three missionaries whom he welcomed at Khartoum: 'If you want to win my people you must love my people'. And the world is calling out for such men. E. A. Stuart, The New Commandment and other Sermons, vol. vii. p. 73. Acts 16:9 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded in the reign of William III. Dr. Stoughton says that there was prepared in 1701 'a symbolical seal, representing a ship in full sail, with a gigantic clergyman, half-mast high, standing by the bowsprit with an open Bible in his hands, whilst diminutive negroes, in an attitude of expectancy, are sprinkled on a hilly beach. Overhead is one of those awkward scrolls, devised to convey words uttered by the persons introduced; and here it contains in Latin the Macedonian prayer, which the little blacks are supposed to be offering: "Come over and help us". At the top is a face surrounded by sunrays, apparently intended to denote the presence and benediction of God vouchsafed to the undertaking.' History of Religion in England, vol. v. p. 261. References. XVI. 9. T. J. Lawrence, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 387. H. R. Heywood, Sermons and Addresses, p. 174. Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 67. Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 133. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 189. F. W. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p. 142. XVI. 9, 10. T. Davies, Sermonic Studies, p. 143. J. Warschauer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 341. XVI. 10. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 230. XVI. 10-17. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 343. XVI. 11. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 31. XVI. 12. E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 374. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 320; ibid. vol. x. p. Ill; ibid. (6th Series), vol. i. p. 105; ibid. vol. ii. p. 335. XVI. 13. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 29; ibid. vol. v. p. 22. XVI. 13, 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 544. XVI. 14. F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Beading (2nd Series), p. 146. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No. 2222. XVI. 14, 15. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1st Series), p. 83. XVI. 19. B. J. Snell, The All-Enfolding Love, p. 113. XVI. 23. Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p. 17. XVI. 28. J. Reid, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 73. XVI. 29. H. S. Holland, Old and New, p. 23. XVI. 29-31. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 255. A. Bradley, Sermons Chiefly on Character, p. 94. XVI. 30 H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 337. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 278. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 35. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p. 47. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i. p. 1. W. E. Skinner, A Book of Lay Sermons, p. 261. Paul and Silas Acts 16:30 We read that one of the early Methodists, John Nelson, was flung into a filthy dungeon at Bradford. He says: 'My soul was so filled with the love of God that it was a paradise to me. I wished my enemies were as happy in their houses as I was in the dungeon.' A New History of Methodism, vol. 1. p. 315. Assurance of Salvation Acts 16:30-31 I. To be saved by Christ means that He brings in His hand to the penitent soul a pardon signed and sealed for the offences of the past. It may be admitted at once that no one understands the full meaning of the Atonement, and that no genius has as yet been able to construct a theory which leaves no difficulty to the thoughtful mind. Nevertheless, thank God! we receive our pardon not from any theory of the Atonement, but by reason of the fact of it; and even if no other statement had been made by the Saviour when He came, this should have been enough 'The Son of man is come to give His life for many,' for the sins of the whole world. II. Belief in our Lord Jesus Christ admits us into a fresh power of life. Heaven is not full of merely pardoned felons, but of holy saints, and we become holy by the life of Christ within us. III. A living faith in Jesus Christ lights up the valley of the shadow of death, and dissipates the pessimism of the man who seems to see everything lying under the dominion of ruthless chance. Do we ask how this great moral miracle comes to pass? Simply because Christ Himself is to the faithful as a great rock in a weary land. Bishop Winnington-Ingram, Under the Dome, p. 86. References. XVI. 30, 31. A. Maclaren, After the Resurrection, p. 281. J. Warschauer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 243. XVI. 31. J. T. O'Brien, The Nature and the Effects of Faith, p. 1. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 293. F. B. Woodward, Sermons (1st Series), p. 22. O. Bronson, Sermons, p. 165. XVI. 32-34. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No. 1019. XVI. 33. J. Wright, The Guarded Gate, p. 67. XVI. 33, 34. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No. 2275. XVII. 1. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 269. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 33. XVII. 1-3. T. Binney, King's Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p. 113. XVII. 2, 3. G. F. Irwin, The Record, vol. xxvii. p. 732. XVII. 3. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. pp. 110, 256; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 123. XVII. 6. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 193. R. S. Drummond, Faith's Certainties, p. 361. Acts 17:6-7 Trust is the postulate of the capacity to help ourselves in any great or noble work. It becomes impossible to do our part bravely without this perfect reliance on the co-operation of God.... No man will dare to follow a gleam of conviction which tends to overturn a world, unless he is sure that he is the interpreter of a Power who gave him that conviction, and who can guard it after his interpreter is gone. R. H. Hutton, Theological Essays, p. 13. References. XVII. 9. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 115. XVII. 10. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 328. XVII. 10, 11. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 29. XVII. 10-12. Penny Pulpit, No. 1620, p. 9. Neglect of Reading the Bible Acts 17:11 If we are Christians, we believe that God spoke to the writers of the Old and New Testaments in a way by which He has spoken to no other minds however exalted. There is another light in which I think we are bound to regard the Old and New Testaments; and that is given us in a word used by the Hebrew historian Josephus, and constantly since his time. The word is 'Theocracy,' the special government by God Himself. God governs the whole earth, the whole universe; but in a special way, through inspired prophets, priests, and kings, He governed His people Israel, and prepared them for the full and complete knowledge of His truth. If we do not study such a unique collection of writings with the utmost reverence and attention, where is our Christianity? 'They searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so'. I. That was the mind of the Apostles. Every doctrine, every teaching of the New Testament is founded on the Old, and depends on it. 'I came not to destroy the Law,' said our Lord, 'but to fulfil.' To all the Apostles, to all the Christians throughout the New Testament, the written word of the old Sacred Oracles is the very breath of the spiritual life, the ground and confirmation of all their hopes, the sanction and authority of all their beliefs. II. That is entirely and absolutely the mind of the true Catholic Church. That is the mind and habit of all the Fathers. If you ask what about the early Church after the time of the Apostles? Did they treat the writings of Christ's companions and Evangelists with the same awe and reverence with which Christ and His disciples had treated the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament? Nothing can be more absolutely certain than that they did. III. That was the mind of all the great Councils of the Church. Scripture was the standard of orthodoxy; Scripture the test of heresy. Every one of the Fathers who has left writings behind him proves every one of his opinions by appeal to the revealed word. When we come to our own Church, its view of Scripture is equally clear. If you ask in what spirit we are to apply the great and varied lessons of Holy Scripture, no two answers are possible to a Christian. From the time of the Fathers downwards it has been recognised that on the one hand there should be humble prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and great deference to the interpretations of the greatest theologians; on the other side a right and proper use of Reason. W. M. Sinclair, Difficulties of Our Day, p. 62. References. XVII. 11. H. H. Henson, The Value of the Bible, p. 83. Archbishop Benson, Living Theology, p. 19. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 128. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p. 289. XVII. 15. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 164. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 470. XVII. 16. W. H. Lyttelton, Missionary Sermons at Hagley, p. 41. D. Macrae, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 326. XVII. 17. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 269. The Implications of the Resurrection Acts 17:18 The fact of Christ's Resurrection being understood as actual and literal, let us ask, then, what are the great truths it implies and symbolises? The Resurrection of our Lord, recognised as historic fact, has demonstrated its power in some other resurrections. These other resurrections are mighty witnesses to the fact and glory of the primal historic Resurrection. I. First, then, mark the power of Christ's Resurrection in the Sphere of Truth. (1) Mark its revivifying action upon Judaism. Compared with the religions of the surrounding nations, the faith of the Jew was pre-eminent; its revelation of the righteous God, its insistence on the principle of holiness, its foreshadowing of immortality, invested it with unique authority and glory. Yet in course of time it 'waxed old,' it became ineffective and obstructive, it cumbered the ground, and the torch of Titus cremated it. But in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Judaism arose from its ashes in transfiguration splendour. Its sacred literature palpitated with a strange power; from being a petrifaction, its temple became a living Church; its laws were vivified by the law of the spirit of life; from the insignificance of a provincial cult, it passed into supreme and universal authority and influence. 'The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.' (2) Once more. Only as the gospel of the Resurrection is preached in heathen lands will the various faiths of the pagan pass into fulfilment. It was by this thought that St. Paul was guided in dealing with the Athenians. He recognised the merit and failure of their natural theology, and 'preached Jesus and the Resurrection' as the fulness of the truth after which they were striving. So will it be with the present moribund faiths of the Oriental nations: they will find their consummation in becoming related to the gospel of the Resurrection. (3) Again, many truths held by our scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and social reformers assert themselves feebly, if they assert themselves at all. They are called by Lord Bacon 'bedridden truths'; but they are even worse than that: they lie frigid and passive in shrouds, coffins, and catacombs; if not forgotten as dead men, they move society no more than do the dead. What will give them life? The enforcement and reception of the doctrines symbolised by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So much truth is paralysed and powerless because it has been divorced from the love, righteousness, and promise of the living God; and it is only as the risen Christ relates it once more to God and eternity, and baptises it with fire, that it lives, flashes, kindles, coerces, consumes, and transfigures. II. Consider the power of Christ's Resurrection as demonstrated in the Sphere of Righteousness. The great design of the Advent was to establish among us a Divine righteousness; and the distinct teaching of the New Testament is, that in Christ's death lies the destruction of sin, and in His Resurrection the power of holiness. Everywhere in the New Testament the Resurrection enforces the claims of righteousness. It does not address our curiosity as clearing up certain intellectual problems which perplex us; nor does it excite the imagination with dramatic splendours, as it might so easily have done; but it appeals directly and exclusively to the conscience. It calls for righteousness sincere, essential, living righteousness in spirit and conduct. 'We were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.' Purity of the body, of the life, of the mind, such purity as will bear the Divine eye, is the obvious implication of the Resurrection. III. The power of Christ's Resurrection as demonstrated in the Sphere of Civilization. According to Carlyle, 'A nation of degraded men cannot be raised up except by what we rightly name a miracle'. This is the doctrine of Scripture. A nation of degraded men can be raised only by a miracle, and that miracle is the Resurrection of our Lord, which gives to the people a new conception of themselves, awakes in them lofty hopes, and opens to them new fountains of moral strength. The nations will not be saved by any number of little political tricks; nothing short of a resurrection suffices for their regeneration and glorification, and their resurrection becomes an accomplished fact in the power of Christ's Resurrection. The trumpet of the Gospel proclaiming the truth of Easter Sunday is the trumpet of national resurrection. W. L. Watkinson, The Fatal Barter, p. 144. References. XVII. 18. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 36. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 282. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 238; ibid. vol. ii. p. 222; ibid. vol. ix. p. 373. XVII. 18-23. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 263. XVII. 18-33. Ibid. p. 209. XVII. 20. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 233. XVII. 21. F. Hastings, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 58. XVII. 22. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii. p. 294. H. H. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 372. XVII. 22, 23. J. Wordsworth, The One Religion, Bampton Lectures, 1881, p. 153. T. Binney, King's Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p. 113. XVII. 22, 31. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 259; ibid. vol. x. p. 110. XVII. 23. F. W. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 374. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, p. 27. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 397; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 280. XVII. 24, 26, 27 J. Wordsworth, The One Religion, Bampton Lectures, 1881, p. 75. XVII. 24-28. C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 238. G. A. Smith, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 321. Groping After God Acts 17:26-27 Here we have the exquisite thought that God is brooding over the great races of men, that there never was a great nation no kindred, no people, no tongue, no tribe which was not dear to the Father's heart quite as much as the Jewish people. Paul, in his great sweep of inspiration and Christian statesmanship, was able to think of every nation and race as having been located upon the earth's surface, and as having been subjected to every blessed influence, that successively every race and every nation might grope after and find God. You must see how great and comprehensive God's purpose was as conceived by the Apostle that every race was located and circumstanced that it might best find Him. So that brings us naturally to see: I. The Divine incentive to the human soul. That is, God has been moving over men and attracting them to Himself. (1) By His work and creation. (2) There are the daily mercies of Providence. (3) There has been the instinctive craving of the heart, for just as when you bring a shell from the ocean shore and place it in some room of yours in your home in a Midland county, it does not forget the ocean depth from which it came, but as you place it to your ear you are able to detect the roaring and sighing of the great sea, so the heart of man, torn from God, sighs for Him incessantly. (4) God sent great prophets. (5) I come back to Paul's original conception, history, the stress of war, the incidence of famine, or pestilence, the struggle for supremacy, the failure of a nation to realise its desires, its patience under crushing defeat, its extension, the diminution of its territory, its collision with adjacent tribes, the struggle for survival all this was of God, all this was intended, all this was part of a Divine purpose, by the discipline the awful discipline of history, to drive men to seek Him. II. Look for a moment at the limitations of natural religion. (1) You will notice that the heathen has a very inadequate idea of God; he is not sure of Him. (2) Natural religion has its limitations here; that men never know when God is satisfied with their offerings; always giving but never satisfied, never sure that their offerings are accepted or their souls forgiven. (3) The heathen mind is not sure about the future. (4) And, chiefly, never forget this, the state of the world is what it, is because natural religion has no dynamic. It is ethic, but not dynamic. III. The Apostle came upon a familiar theme when he talked about the Man. How can I talk about that Man whom God has ordained? Because there is the evidence that all through the centuries Jesus Christ has influenced and saved men and loosed them from their sin. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 209. Reference. XVII. 26-31. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v. p. 111. The Nearness of God Acts 17:27 I. He is near to us in His essential Presence. As the Eternal Spirit, we believe His presence pervades all space. You remember the inscription on Ruskin's monument near Derwentwater: 'The Spirit of God is around us in the air we breathe; His glory in the light we see, and in the fruitfulness of the earth and the joy of His creatures'. This essential presence of God is recognised by every true believer, and is a sustaining power in his life as a Christian man. But it must be recognised as a precious fact of experience; it must be realised to be enjoyed. II. He is near to us in the workings of His * Providence. * III. He is near to us in the manifestation of His Divine * Pity. * IV. He is near to us in His spiritual Provision. T. J. Madden, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 32. References. XVII. 27. Basil Wilberforce, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 376. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No. 1973. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p. 224. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 101. Acts 17:28 This text occurs very often in the private letters of Melanchthon. Along with two others, 'The hairs of your head are all numbered,' and 'None shall pluck My sheep out of My hand,' it may be called the favourite text of his later years. We take a characteristic example of its use from a letter of 1554 to his son-in-law, Dr. Caspar Peucer, who was absent from Wittenberg at the time: 'Dearest Son, By God's favour, your daughter, your son, and their mother are all alive and very well. When I look at them and think of the weakness of humanity, I feel indeed how true it is that God is the guardian of our race, for so great is our weakness that we could not be preserved by our own natural strength. Let us, therefore, pray for protection and help from God, remembering that the Son of God said, "The hairs of your head are all numbered," and it is written, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee". I have written this beside the cradles and amid the crying of the babies. May God keep them, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.' Corpus Reformatorum, vol. viii. No. 5581, col. 266. References. XVII. 28. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 65. T. Sadler, Sunday Thoughts, p. 114. J. S. Boone, Sermons, pp. 90 and 107. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 383; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 393; vol. ix. p. 39. XVII. 28, 29. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 58. XVII. 29. R. F. Horton, This Do, p. 89. Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 271; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 38. XVII. 30. Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 143. J. Martineau, Endeavours After the Christian Life (2nd Series), p. 29. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p. 62. XVII. 30, 31. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. L p. 96. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 406. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 17. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 14. XVII. 31. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 275; ibid. vol. vi. p. 10; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 128. XVII. 32. Ibid. vol. vii. p, 296. XVII. 34. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 172. XVIII. 1. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 164. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 293. XVIII. 2. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 418. XVIII. 1-4. T. Binney, King's Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p. 113. XVIII. 4-7. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 238. XVIII. 5. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 9. XVIII. 8. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 346. XVIII. 9, 10. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 116. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1666. XVIII. 10. W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life, p. 62. Acts 18:11 Much depends on your not flinching when the moments come which may be the outlets to new and glorious labours, or which may offer you new clues to be followed out Find out how to lay Christian hands on the men and classes that seem to have drawn away from us.... Learn to serve Christ on the great scale, and even, if the scene of your work be narrow or obscure, serve Him on the grand principles which make life strong, noble, and spacious. Principal Rainy. References. XVIII. 12. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 103. XVIII. 13. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 117. XVIII. 17. F. C. Spurr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 52. W. H. Evans, Sermons for the Church's Year, p. 242. G. W. Brameld, Practical Sermons, p. 264. XVIII. 18. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 58. XVIII. 19. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 303. XVIII. 21. G. R. Fetherston, A Garden Eastward, p. 55. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 37. XVIII. 23. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 148; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 18. XVIII. 24-28. Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 318. XVIII. 25. J. Parker, ibid. vol. liii. p. 312. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 184; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 114. XVIII. 27. Spurgeon Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2138. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 403; ibid, vol. ii. p. 371. By What Authority Acts 18:28 Man must have some kind of authority. He must assume something; he must begin. The proof is not always in the beginning palpable and undeniable; the beginning contains the end, but until the end is reached we do not know the full value and true force of the beginning. What is there in all your life which does not rest upon an assumption? The whole scheme of life seems to rest upon some airy, beautiful, fragile bubble. You think at a certain part of your process of life that you are acting upon definite proof and authority; but you are doing nothing of the kind; you are basing your whole selfhood upon an assumption. I. From the beginning God has been endeavouring to incarnate Himself in various proofs and authorities suitable to the growing mind of man. So he has made all nature a parable, a panorama, an open secret; upon every door of nature He has written, Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Then came a book, The Book, the Bible or Revelation. For God's sake and your sake, give it a fair chance 1 Let it prove its irreligiousness or its insanity, but remember that it is a book that wants to do you good; therefore it may have come from a good source. If it were a book of dreams and imaginings only you might receive it as such, but it is a book of discipline, a book of army orders; no soldier is to invent his own book; whatever the book may be, it tries to do us good, to dry our tears, to direct our way, to sustain us in our misfortune and distress; yea, it holds a lamp above the grave and frightens death into deeper gloom. Let it therefore have a fair chance. After the book comes Manhood, which is, so to say, the result of the book. The book has been sown as seed in our minds and hearts, and after it has come to fruition we have manhood. So the incarnation advances from nature to intellect, to character. It is a progressive revelation; it proves itself by itself. Revelation which is true never goes backward, it always has some larger kingdom, it always preaches a warmer, a larger welcome to the growing mind and the enlarging heart. These are the proofs. Let it be assumed that the Bible is the book of God and spoken by God, full of God, leading to God; let that assumption be nothing but an x to work with, but let us try how that assumption works out; then we must believe, commit ourselves to certain propositions and doctrines, receive a certain testimony and witness into our hearts; then we must indicate a certain discipline of humiliation, depletion, bereavement, mockery, disappointment; the whole time healing a voice saying, Hold on, be faithful unto death; do not let go; keep the commandments, follow the Christ, though it cost thee right hand and right eye; persevere. Then see what the upshot is; what are the sheaves we have brought, what the tokens, the signs, the proofs or the disproofs of our spiritual education; and I now say in view of human history and Christian experience that the result of that assumption, faithfully believed and faithfully carried out, is manhood, virility, and masculine nobleness. We began with an assumption, we proceeded to a conviction, we ended with a new manhood. II. How profitable it would be if instead of going to the library to borrow a very large book to prove that Christ is the Son of God, and that Christianity is the sum of all virtue and spiritual excellence, we would simply go down where the work has been realised and brought into eloquent and impressive life. We do not need the book to prove the argument; the argument proves itself. I have seen no other religion produce anything like this; other theories I may have intellectually accepted on approbation for purposes of speculative inquiry and titillation, but I have seen this Christianity do such things, and do such things by the very necessity of its own nature; I have seen this decalogue work such and such results, and these beatitudes realise themselves in such and such forms of heroism and martyrdom, patience and beneficence, that I have living, breathing, imperishable proofs and authorities. Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. iii. p. 50. There Is a Holy Ghost (For Whit-Sunday) Acts 19:1-2 This singular incident is remarkable as showing that in the apostolical age, as now, there were persons and bodies of persons in possession of fragments of revealed truth, yet altogether strangers to some of its most essential features. I. Real belief in the Holy Ghost implies an habitual sense of the reality of a spiritual and super-sensuous world. If any one thing is certain about Christianity, it is that Christianity is an appeal from the visible to the invisible. Christianity is a constant appeal from the importunity of sense to the presence and action of the Eternal Spirit. Nay, it is more; for it presupposes a spiritual world of which nature and the better philosophy is cognisant; and then it proclaims the introduction within this world of a higher power and principle which raises it above its original level, and thus constitutes the supernatural. Surely Christianity, as being strictly a supernatural religion, is à fortiori the religion of the spiritual; and yet how constantly does the empire of materialistic ideas force its way into the sanctuary of Christian thought. II. There is such a thing as a materialised estimate of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. The idioms of Eastern speech, the scenery of the hills and lakes of Palestine, the flora, the climate, the customs of the unchanging East, all are summoned by the highest literary skill that they may place vividly before us the exact circumstances which surrounded the life of Christ. But here too often the appreciation of that life really ends. Men learn habitually to think of Christ as one who belongs only to human history. Now belief in a communion with the Holy Spirit rescues the life of Christ in the thought of a living Christian from this exclusively historical way of looking at it. For the Holy Spirit perpetually fulfils Christ's promise in the Church and in souls. 'He shall glorify Me for He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you.' The life of Christ is transferred by the Spirit from the region of merely historical studies, where it is appreciated only by the natural intelligence, to the region of spiritual experiences, where it speaks directly to the soul. III. Belief in the Holy Ghost rescues us from a merely earthly and materialised estimate of the Christian Church. The Church is not a mere material corporation, but a spiritual society. Surely her indefeasible powers would only be put forth with greater energy when temporal succour was withdrawn; and it may be that she would gain in moral vigour, in clearness of faith, in intensity and unitedness of purpose, what she must have lost in the countenance of the powerful and in the wealth committed to her by past generations of her children. IV. Once more, there is such a thing as materialised worship, and this is a danger from which those who believe most earnestly in the realities of the kingdom of the Spirit do not always escape. Let us give of our best to the Churches and the service of our God, but let us ever remember that since, even in the realm of the Incarnation, He is a Spirit, they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Surely to realise the presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul and in the Church, is to be anxious that that communion with God which cannot be uttered in language should be more constant and fervent; that the inner realities of worship should as far transcend its outward accompaniments, as the kingdom of the invisible transcends the world of sense. Not to feel this anxiety is to be virtually ignorant of the meaning of the Spirit's presence; it is practically not to have heard, at least in one department of our spiritual existence, whether there be any Holy Ghost. V. A living belief in the Holy Ghost implies a correspondent elevation of character. The Eternal Spirit has set up in the world a school of morals, and He whispers a deeper and purer code within the soul than nature dreams of. H. P. Liddon. Behind the Spiritual Times Acts 19:1-3 What is the relevancy of this to our own time? No such impoverishing ignorance prevails among the modern disciples. We know that the Holy Ghost has been given. We know. Ah, I am using a New Testament word, and I must attach to it the wealth of New Testament significance. We may 'know' in the way of cognition; and we may 'know' in the way of a living fellowship by real and practical experience. As a matter of cognition, of merely mental enlightenment, we may live in the spacious days of Pentecost; but in daily usage and common experience we may be living in the lean and straitened days which preceded it. I. Much of the mental attitude and spiritual pose of the modern Church is pre-pentecostal, and in this thin and immature relationship is to be found the secret of our common weariness and impotence. (1) If I go into one of our assemblies of praise I find that we are still 'tarrying at Jerusalem,' waiting for 'the promise of the Father'. If I listen to the phraseology of the hymns, I discover that the outlook of the soul is frequently pre-pentecostal Descend with all Thy gracious powers, O come, great Spirit, come. (2) When I listen to some of our prayers I can scarcely realise that the One with whom we are dealing is 'a gracious, willing Guest, where He can find one humble heart wherein to rest'. (3) But when I look a little more deeply at this mental temper, I find that we are still more profoundly allied with the imperfect mood and inclination of the pre-pentecostal day. Is it consistent with the Christian inheritance that we should so commonly conceive of the spirit as an influence, a force, an energy, an atmosphere, an impersonal breath? The all-compassing glory of the Christian day is this, that we are dealing not with an energy, but with a Person; not with 'it,' but with 'Him!' (a) You cannot, by fellowship with an energy, produce that exquisite little flower called 'heart's-ease,' which was so prolific and abounding in the life of Paul. (b) You cannot, by fellowship with a force, produce the exquisite grace of Apostolic tenderness. II. There is a certain compulsory impressiveness of character which attaches to profound spirituality, and which is commandingly present in those who walk in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. I know not how to define it. It is a certain convincing aroma, self-witnessing, like the perfume of a flower. It is independent of mental equipment, and it makes no preference between a plenteous and a penurious estate. Ours is the Pentecostal inheritance. Let us assume the Pentecostal attitude of zealous and hungry reception. Above all, let us cultivate a sensitive ministry with the Holy Spirit. J. H. Jowett, The Sunday School Chronicle, vol. xxxiii. p. 926. References. XIX. 1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. pp. 404, 416; ibid. vol. ii. p. 144. XIX. 1-7. Ibid. vol. ix. p. 84. The Office and Work of the Holy Ghost Acts 19:2 The Holy Spirit testifies of Christ. To manifest Him, to draw men to Him, to bring them into captivity to His easy yoke and light burden this is the Spirit's operation in the human heart. And this it could never be before Jesus was glorified. The testimonies to a Saviour to come were necessarily vague and enigmatical; not the subjects of firm personal reliance nor of blessed assurance, but only just prophetic glimpses into the far distance, enough for those days, to keep the saints waiting on the Lord their God, but not to be compared for an instant with the work of the Spirit now. The whole office and work of the Spirit became new and of a higher order, inasmuch as the truths with which it is now concerned were before unknown. I. The Testimony of the Spirit. The Spirit has wrought since the day of Pentecost as He never wrought before, in the testimony which He bears in the heart of every individual believer. We do not read of any such direct access to God granted to individual men in ancient times. This is another great characteristic of the dispensation of the Spirit, that all hierarchical distinctions between man and man is for ever abolished, all sacrifice superseded, except the abiding efficacy of the one sacrifice shed abroad in the heart of the spiritual man. II. The Wisdom of the Spirit. Again, the indwelling Spirit of these latter days of the Church is eminently the Spirit of wisdom. The humble child, walking by the light of this Spirit, is wiser than his teachers if they have Him not. The matured believer, rich in experience as in years of the Lord's service, is enabled to look down on the world and all that is in it, and count it but dross in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. III. The Transforming Power of the Spirit. Lastly, the Spirit of God now abiding among us is a transforming Spirit; not merely enlightening, nor merely comforting, nor merely conferring the adoption of sons, but changing us into the image of God, begetting in us a thirst to be like Him whose sons we are, to have done with sin, and to cast off corruption and to put on perfect holiness. And the end of this progressive change will be the fulness of assimilation to our glorified Redeemer, in that day of which it is said, 'When He shall appear we know that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is'. References. XIX. 2. W. M. Sinclair, Christ and our Times, p. 181. J. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv. p. 198. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches (2nd Series), p. 169. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i. p. 380. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1790. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 14. XIX. 5. J. Keble, Village Sermons on the Baptismal Service, p. 1. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 43. XIX. 7. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 146. XIX. 9. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 121; ibid. vol. viii. p. 405. XIX. 10. Ibid. vol. ix. p. 22. XIX. 11. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 148. XIX. 16. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 134. Acts 19:19 When George Borrow found the Spanish servant girl Geroncina in possession of Volney's Ruins of Empires, he told her that 'the author of it was an emissary of Satan and an enemy of Jesus Christ and the souls of mankind'. She listened to his exposure of the book, quietly. 'She made no reply, but going into another room, returned with her apron full of dry sticks and brushwood, all which she piled on the fire, and produced a bright blaze. She then took the book from my hand and placed it upon the flaming pile; then sitting down, took her rosary out of her pocket, and told her beads till the volume was consumed. This was an auto-da-fé in the best sense of the word.' References. XIX. 19. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 55; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 380. XIX. 20. J. B. Meharry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 329. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 228. R. H. Baynes, True Revival, p. 29. XIX. 21. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 149; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 303; ibid. vol. vii. p. 122. XIX. 22. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 30; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 77. XIX. 23. Ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 342. XIX. 24. Ibid. p. 1. XIX. 24, 25. Ibid. vol. i. p. 414. XIX. 27. J. Baines, Sermons, p. 29. B. J. Snell, The All-Enfolding Love, p. 113. XIX. 32. A. Ainger, Sermons Preached in the Temple Church, p. 142. Diana of the Ephesians Acts 19:34 How did St. Paul regard the tumult? He watched it with the insight of one who comprehended the various life of the motley society round him, as well as with the mind of saintly love. We may be sure he was not for one moment dismayed. To him was granted what most of us have always to fight for the discernment of the strong and the true. I. But although gazing on with Christian gentleness, the Apostle could not forget the words of Demetrius the silversmith. 'Ye know that by this craft we have our wealth... so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.' How strangely mixed is the argument: our craft is in danger, and our religion is being despised. Doubtless many of the rioters were zealous for both. But their zeal for religion was mightily raised by the thought that religion helped their craft. What cries we have heard from those who profess to defend liberty and the public-house who would rather see a people free than sober. What frenzies of zeal on the part of rich brewers for the poor man's right to his beer! 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. It is not our wish to give pain, and we shall not carry illustrations further. Only even in assemblies of good men who cry, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' it is not too much to say that Diana is not first in the minds of her devotees. 'The craft in danger' is the real thought; and a man easily persuades himself that the universe is in perilous plight if his own trade is threatened. It is but too true that the hint of pecuniary loss will often change a reasonable man into a madman. II. St. Paul could not but perceive that the clamour signed a failing faith. The voices grew hoarse, then they fell silent. And after? The reaction would weaken the whole foundation of idol worship. It would be seen that the mere repetition of the words did not make them surer. It showed that they had been challenged seriously challenged. Indeed, whenever any interest musters and clamours in that fashion, it has been first shaken by the thrill of a coming doom. There are fools who, intoxicated by a momentary advantage, persuade themselves that the world is going to turn backward, that men are to pause finally in the march towards the new earth, and forge again the chains snapped for ever. But the wiser among reactionaries are never so much dismayed as when some threatened wrong rises in strong defiance. They feel, with a death-like chill of the heart, that there is an impending upheaval in the affairs of the world. III. Of one thing we may be sure: St. Paul was not tempted to cynicism by things which might easily have evoked it in a lower nature. Is it by accident that we read, 'After the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them'? There was hypocrisy in Ephesus as well as vast delusion. There were men whose religion was a shield for their ill-gotten gains. There were others almost hopelessly given over to superstition. These all joined in a miserable, childish, superstitious bawling. There was something in the whole business that might move one to despair of human nature. St. Paul knew better. He knew that even then and there a deeper life had risen steadfast to endure. 'He called unto him the disciples and embraced them.' W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, p. 221. References. XIX. 34. B. Hunt, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 42. XIX. 38. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 57. XIX. 39. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 137. XX. XXI. Ibid. vol. v. p. 202. XX. 4. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 259. XX. 5. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 336; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 101; ibid. vol. iv. p. 34. XX. 7. J. M. Lang, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 20. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 62. The Sunday Sleeper Acts 20:9 In considering Eutychus, I purpose looking first at the things which may be said in excuse of his famous sleep, and then pass on to look at what was blameworthy in it. I. And first of all, in excuse of this poor young man, I must remark (1) that he was listening to a very long sermon. It is said that on one occasion a child in the Sunday-school was asked by her teacher, 'What does the story of Eutychus teach?' and she promptly replied, 'That ministers should not preach too long sermons!' Well, that was an unexpected lesson to learn from the Bible; but there can be no doubt that it had something to do with Eutychus's famous sleep on this occasion, for we are expressly told that Paul 'continued his speech until midnight'. No doubt he had a good excuse for so doing. He was only spending one Lord's day at Troas. That city, you remember, was famous as the scene of his wonderful vision of 'the man of Macedonia'. Paul therefore had a peculiar affection for the city; and now that a Church of Christ was established there, we can well fancy him expatiating on his wonderful mission to Corinth, and Philippi, and Thessalonica. He could not stop, and if he suggested doing so, most of them would cry as we do to a favourite politician, 'Don't stop. Go on!' But it was too much for our young man. He fell asleep with fatal results. The sermon was too long. 'Paul continued his speech until midnight.' Now the lesson we learn from that is one rather for preachers than hearers, but even so I am not afraid to give it. It is this, that no preacher should continue his discourse much beyond half an hour. (2) Another thing that must be said in excuse of this young man's delinquency was the probably illventilated character of the building. Luke puts his finger on that too when he says, 'There were many lights burning in the upper chamber.' They had not the grand churches of these days. It was still the Christianity of the upper room. But they had warm, loving hearts. They were eager to hear the Gospel, and so the place was full to the door. Every seat was occupied. The air, we may imagine, would be stifling; and its character would not be improved when, as the twilight deepened into night, they would light the lamps one by one, and the already limited oxygen would be still more exhausted. 'There were many lights burning in the upper chamber.' I am not going to dwell on this, but I do think it is a Christian duty for deacons and managers of churches and halls to do what they can to keep the air as sweet and fresh as possible. Much of the torpor with which men listen to the message of God, much of the listlessness of children in a Sunday-school may be traced to the lack of ventilation. It is not always a want of grace. It may be simply a want of oxygen. 'There were many lights burning in the upper chamber.' II. So much in extenuation of this young man; but when we have said that, there remains not a little cause for blame. (1) For, to begin with, note the fact that this sleeper under the Gospel was a young man. If he had been an old man or old woman we could have understood it better, and excused it more easily; but surely it is not a little strange that the one who falls asleep in that company is a young fellow in the flush of youth. (2) He was listening to a very good preacher. He was listening to the Apostle Paul. How little Eutychus must have realised that he was listening that night to one of the noblest spirits then in the world, that he whom he was sleeping under was one whose words would be treasured up to the end of time, whose life would never be forgotten! Had he done so, he would have been more wakeful. Had the emperor Nero been speaking that night, we may be sure Eutychus would have been all attention; but because it was only Paul, he slept on. And behind that preacher to whom you listen with such dull ears there may be Christ Himself, saying, 'O sleeper, why sleepest thou? "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."' III. * The danger and loss which the Sunday sleeper may incur. * Am I exaggerating when I say that the attitude of many to things spiritual, to all the higher questions of the soul, is one of practical sleep? They may not deny them, but they are quite indifferent to them. Their lives are passed in sin and self-indulgence. They do not walk as children of light. They are asleep, as the children of the night. The preacher tries to waken them, but they sleep on. Providences come to them bereavement, sickness, impending death but they sleep on. What can waken them? It would seem, nothing. They are sunk in fatal lethargy. A distinguished professor of psychology once told his class of a striking case of somnambulism. It was that of a man who awoke one night, or seemed to awake, and went downstairs to the door of the house in which he dwelt, and yet he was asleep all the time. He opened the door and stepped out into the village street, and so strong was the somnambulistic trance that still he slept He passed along the street and out into the open country, and still he slept. Not till his naked feet touched a little stream that crossed his path did he awaken to the darkness of the night and the strange unfamiliar scene. There are souls like that! They never waken till they touch the cold waters of death, and feel the night winds of mortality arouse them to the darkness of their night and the strange unfamiliar scenes of eternity and judgment. W. Mackintosh Mackay, Bible Types of Modern Men, p. 254. References. XX. 9-12. J. Owen, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 395. XX. 15. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 275. XX. 16. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 323. St. Paul's Charge Acts 20:17 I wish to speak to you on the happenings recorded in Acts 20 , which mainly deal with St. Paul's charge to the Church at Ephesus. I. St. Paul had a clear Conscience. He had faithfully discharged his duty (verses 19 and 31). True humility can always be connected with intense earnestness. Are we humble of mind? If so, are we earnest in spirit? Surely the faith that we profess should intensify our earnestness. This earnest man of God was undoubtedly used because of his earnestness, and I appeal to you as well as to myself, living in an ungodly world and living in an age when indifference marks everything surely there is the call to us to be whole-hearted in the spirit of serving the Lord. If the intellectual Apostle could speak with tears, if he could say to the Ephesian elders, 'Night and day I was serving with tears,' well may we ask ourselves how far are we actuated by an earnestness of faith in the life we now live? God's spirit alone can give us this earnestness; and again let us remember that if He gave it to the Apostle, He will give it to us. We may not have the intellectual qualifications that Christ gave to this great man, but we can all be in earnest, and our words and our deeds, and our looks and our lives as a whole should testify to the reality of our faith in the Saviour Whom we profess to serve. II. The Apostle emphasises the Fundamental Principle of His Faith. (a) To those Ephesian elders he said, 'Testifying to the Jews as well as to the Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ'. The liturgy of the English Church, at the opening of morning and evening prayer, requires, before anything else, repentance and faith. Surely we should ask ourselves, Am I more repentant today than I was yesterday? Repentance is truth because it is taught by God. Are we able to say of sin, 'I renounce sin, I turn from it; I have faith in Christ, and I cling to Him'? If these two great subjects are never lost sight of they must necessarily help us a great deal in our Christian life and in being what we want to be, living witnesses of a living Saviour. (b) The Gospel of the grace of God. Here again is a fundamental truth. We know the subject was always upon the Apostle's mind; yet it is one of the points which even Christian people lose sight of. (c) The coming kingdom. In verse 25 he says: 'I have gone preaching the kingdom of God'. Here, then, is another point which is interesting in view of the future grandeur of the coming of our King. In his letters St. Paul referred to the second advent of our Lord. Christ is coming, and His kingdom is to be set up here on earth; so let us, as Christian workers, never forget that kingdom and preach and proclaim it privately and publicly. III. The Apostle utters Words of Solemn Warning. 'Take heed' (verse 28). The exhortation there is very interesting. It was used by Moses again and again, which will be noticed if you turn to Deuteronomy 4 . It was also used by our Lord several times. See now He used it in connection with the parable of the sower. We may even apply it to this very service, and, as far as that goes, to every service we attend. 'Take heed.' Are not these messages necessary today? (a) Take heed what ye hear. Bring every book and every periodical that you may read to the test of Christianity, and if it will not bear the test of God's Holy Word banish it from your reading, have nothing to do with it Do not let the novel of the day absorb your attention except that novel will bear the scrutiny of the Word of God. We cannot take poison in our food without impairing our health and our bodies; we cannot poison our minds without seriously endangering the spiritual life. (b) Take heed how ye hear. When we pray together and listen to the Word of the Scriptures, may we take heed that we hear the Word, and that it is not caught away by the enemies of the soul; that the tares of this life do not choke the Word; that when we receive the Word it will not fall on stony ground, but that we may receive it with joy. (c) Watch and pray (verse 31). What does this imply? It implies confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot watch unless you have confidence in Him. And watching and praying means more than this. It implies certainty certainty in the Lord Jesus Christ. References. XX. 17. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 378. XX. 18. Ibid. vol. xi. p. 65. XX. 19. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii. No. 365. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 148. XX. 19, 20. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches (2nd Series), p. 63. XX. 20-29. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 422. XX. 20-59. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 28 XX. 21. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No. 2073. Measuring a Ministry Acts 20:24 To be a minister is the master-purpose of Paul's life; to be a faithful minister his supreme ambition. We, too, have a ministry; we, too, call others our ministers: then let us examine our ideals, and see what it is we mean. I. Now, behind this Christian conception of ministry, there are two other conceptions, those of the priest and the prophet (1) We may dislike the word priest, because it has become associated with evil meanings, but do not let us forget that the priestly man has always been a fact in human life. There is a sweetness of disposition about them, a delicacy of fibre, a moral sensitiveness, a spiritual susceptibility, which marks them out amid a multitude as the anointed of the Lord. (2) Again, there is the conception of the minister as the prophetic man. The priest moves in the world; the prophet stands aloof from it. The priest is the reconciler between God and man; the prophet has no element of reconciliation in his nature. The priest allures, constrains, charms; the prophet terrifies, alarms, overwhelms us. It was because the prophet and the priest were joined in Paul's ideal of ministry, because he conceived that to serve the world in the fullest sense, it was necessary not only to comfort the weary, but to attack with unsparing purpose the shams, the pretensions, the deadly hypocrisies of daily, customary, permitted and respectable life, but men rejected his ideal and slew him. II. And now go one step farther, and you reach the vision of the ideal ministry which Paul exemplifies. He is a servant and a witness. (1) And what is a servant? We have advanced a long way, no doubt, since the day when the servant was a serf, whose very life was in the hand of his master; but far as we may advance in brotherhood and compassion, the essential restrictions of service still remain. (2) The ministry meant for Paul one other thing, and the chief of all it was a testimony. He was a witness to two things: that once he was a sinner, that now he was a sinner saved. And that is the crowning element in the Christian ministry. We base everything upon the experience of the individual. III. From this whole conception of the ministry is not another thing clear: that he who lives in closest touch with his fellow-men is the truest minister of Christ? We want two things today; the secularisation of the ministry, and the socialisation of the churches. The minister must throw off his professionalism or parish; and the church must throw off her ideals of respectability. IV. Now let us mark Paul's final estimate of his lifework. Life is to be measured by its end, its spirit, its achievement; and life for Paul has had so supreme an aim that to attain that aim death itself is a price worth paying. W. J. Dawson, The Comrade Christ, p. 297. References. XX. 24. T. F. Crosse, Sermons (2nd Series), p. 234. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix. No. 1734. A. G. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxviii. p. 402. J. G. Greenhough, The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, p. 268. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 33. XX. 25. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 3. XX. 26. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 139. XX. 26, 27. C. G. Finney, Penny Pulpit, No. 1685, p. 519. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p. 303. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 289. The Sacrifice of God the Father Acts 20:28 Let us consider the sacrifice of God the Father in the redemption of the Church of God. I discern three elements in it which we shall take in order. I. The first element in the sacrifice of God the Father was the impoverishment of the Godhead. One of the strange and repeated statements of Scripture is that the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. That statement is clear enough in its meaning, but it shades off into dark and inscrutable mysteries. The mysteries are those involved with the creation of a world which should require the slaying of the Lamb. But the plain meaning is that the purpose of redemption lay as a burden and a sorrow and a sacrifice on the heart of God long before the morning stars sang together or the sons of God shouted for joy. But the hour came when the purpose which had lain as a burden on the heart of God was manifested in time. As Milton sings so choiringly in his noble hymn: The Shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row, When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet As never was by mortal fingers struck. For Christ was born in Bethlehem. But was there no minor strain in the music in the heart of God the Father? What did it mean to the Godhead to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost when the Son passed out and left the Father and Spirit behind? It meant the impoverishment of the Godhead. The sacrifice of the Incarnation was not only the pain and loss of Christ, but the pain and loss of God the Father also. 'Behold I show you a mystery.' And yet we can dimly realise the impoverishment of the Godhead when the Son emptied Himself of His glory and left the throne. The relationship and the intimacy of God the Father and God the Son can never be fully figured by earthly things. For it was not simply as the loss of the dearest child or of a beloved wife. It was the sending forth of a part of Himself, whereby the Godhead was impoverished. Therefore Paul in the rapture of his inspiration said, 'The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood'. II. The second element in the sacrifice of God the Father lay in His infinite sympathy with the sufferings of Christ. There is a sympathy which may be intense, heartbreaking, reaching to torture. Given a strong imagination which can discern another's pain, and a tender and unselfish heart to feel it, the suffering of sympathy may be as poignant and as hard to bear as the actual stroke. John Howard seldom entered one of the dismal dungeons of Europe without tears. He often stood among prisoners, whose state was one of abject wretchedness, the most miserable man of them all. Macaulay tells us that his father when Governor of Sierra Leone could not see a company of female slaves pass him by, and realise, with his vivid sympathy, the lives of shame and torture to which they were doomed, without being dazed and stunned for hours. The biographer of Mrs. Booth asserts that she could not see a neglected sore or witness a ruthless wrong without a pain which sometimes became physical nausea. It may be questioned if the pang of sympathy be not greater at times than the actual suffering itself. III. The third element in the sacrifice of God the Father is * His share in the agony of the Cross. * There are two truths which stream from this rich vein of doctrine. (1) The first is the simplest yet deepest truth of the Gospel. It is this the proof * given of the almost incredible and quite inexhaustible love of God. * (2) The second truth is * God's infinite pain at sin. * W. M. Clow, The Gross in Christian Experience, p. 14. References. XX. 28. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1st Series), p. 51. Bishop Welldon, The Gospel in a Great City, p. 220. Expositor (4th Series), vol. v. p. 184; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 277; ibid. vol. x. p. 280. XX. 28-32. J. Parker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 391. XX. 29. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 287; ibid. vol. ix. p. 221. XX. 30. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 194. XX. 31. J. Thew, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 246. XX. 32. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 30. O. J. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 238. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 67. XX. 34. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 259. XX. 35. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 282. H. R. Heywood, Sermons and Addresses, p. 202. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 314. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 298. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. ii. p. 1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. pp. 352, 421; ibid. vol. ix. p. 101; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 375; ibid. vol. vi. p. 267; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 45. XX. 37. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p. 149. XX. 38. Dinsdale T. Young, The Gospel of the Left Hand, p. 237. XXI. XXIII. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 152. XXI. 5. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 21. XXI. 7, 8. A. P. Stanley, Canterbury Sermons, p. 134. XXI. 8, 9. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 275. Acts 21:13 Surely there is a time to submit to guidance and a time to take one's own way at all hazards. Huxley. In ch. 1. of Les Misérables, Mdlle Baptistine, after describing the apparently hazardous methods followed by the good bishop, adds: 'We leave ourselves in the hands of Providence, for that is how you must behave to a man who has grandeur in his soul. Reference. XXI. 13. H. Arnold Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 57. The Peace of Defeat Acts 21:14 There are compensations often for the vanquished; between the triumph of victory and the peace of defeat there may be little to choose. When a lawsuit that has been dragged over years comes to its close, there is an end, even for the defeated, of the protracted misery, the weary and racking suspense of delay. Though the worst has come to the worst though the days of existence must be henceforth colourless when they are not harsh and sad it is something that the strain upon fortitude has been relaxed for the moment. When some long-dreaded evil smites us into the dust, we may be amazed by our own calmness. Certainty, of whatever kind, relieves those worn with the effort of being deaf to the footsteps of fate. The truth terrible as it is falls on the dim, dull, puzzled brain with some strange sense of rest. But there is a Christian peace in defeat, higher than the mere relief of overtaxed nature. We ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done. There is a moment when effort should cease, because the issue is clear. That moment should carry us straight into the silence and rest of God. I. There comes an hour to men perhaps it comes to the most successful when they accept the truth about themselves. They have hoped and striven for long to achieve something in life. Their hearts have been set on some shining mark. It may be that the whole endeavour and drift of many years have been to attain a certain definite position. In any case they have never thought to rest where they are. What has been is a preparation for what is to be tolerable as such, but not otherwise. Gradually, with a slow distinctness, a dull pain, it has become evident that the issue is more doubtful than it seemed. Then come fervent efforts, silent conflicts of the spirit. And at last the end is plain. Even those who have hitherto protested with a fond vehemence of defence are silent. Ours, we find, are not the talents of the few, but of the many. Youth has gone, and taken away with it much that we dearly prized. It is the common lot. In every profession there are comparatively few whose early dreams come to fulfilment. The vast majority have to content themselves with humble aims, slow advancement, an uninteresting career, and a nameless memory. We can bear but little success, and little is given to us, and the day comes but too early when we know that the ascent of life has ceased, and that henceforth we must decrease. Such defeat, if trustfully accepted, brings its own peace. There is an end of the long, lonely misgivings, of the ambition which has drawn such hard breath under the weight of self-distrust. There is a certain stage of life in which men naturally generous and warm-hearted are tempted to a little patient envy. It is when they hear the footsteps of the young hard behind them, and realise that those who come after are preferred before them. Accept the will of God, and all the bitterness goes. II. Surely when Christian faith is more powerful in the world we shall alter our attitude towards the inevitable. Going forth to meet it, we shall be conquerors, not conquered. Why keep out of life the rich and deep memories it might hold if we did not fear to speak what is in the heart? A day dawns when human skill owns itself foiled; when the journey before the loved one is of few and measured steps. Then faith may grow into resignation, which a Roman Catholic writer has justly called the last term of Christian activity. It is in a true resignation that the Christian displays all his resources, brings all his powers into play. And Christian resignation there cannot be till we understand and believe that resignation is applicable only to things that pass away. We resign nothing that endures. We may have to part with it for more or fewer years; but it waits us in the world of eternal and complete restitution. W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, p. 51. Divine Guidance Acts 21:14 We are all conscious of the need of guidance at the cross roads of life when alternative courses of action lie in front of us, and we must, in spite of ourselves, take a decision which shall determine in one way or another the character of the following years. We inevitably cast about for some assistance in making up our minds. We shrink from the responsibility which yet is unmistakably ours. In the passage from the Book of the Acts from which my text is taken we have set before us a critical episode in the career of the Apostle Paul. He had to take a most important decision on which he plainly saw that the course of his ministry depended, and which, as the sequel showed, more than justified his estimate. Should he or should he not go up to Jerusalem? The Apostle was of all men the most sensitively loyal to the indications of Divine purpose, and these so far from allowing and confirming his own perception of duty seemed to be uniformly unfavourable. The Apostle has to resist the most formidable pressure conceivable. He has to set his own conviction, not of truth but of his personal duty with regard to a practical matter which could not, it may be thought, properly challenge the great name of conscience, against solemn and reiterated protests from those who claimed, and from St. Paul's own standpoint, claimed rightly, to speak with Divine authority. Prophecy, we know, held in the Apostolic Church a supreme place. We are assured that the Apostle was well accustomed to shape his conduct by these Divine intimations. Yet when all the recognised and hitherto rigidly obeyed signs of Divine leading opposed his resolution to go to Jerusalem as the first step towards Rome, the same Apostle decisively rejects them and persists in his own purpose. St. Paul was a genuine hero, and he disdained to take account of his personal fortunes when the cause of his Master was in question. Given sufficient reason for thinking that the kingdom would be advanced by his perilous journey and nothing more was needed to justify the risk. I. The Need of Guidance. We are all conscious of the need of guidance. In our case, as in the Apostle's, the justification of our persistence will be in the inherent superiority of our own perception of duty. In the absence of any interior certitude, we may nay, we must be led by the lesser and lower leadings of circumstance, and I know no valid reason why we should demur to the sacred writer's description of these leadings as also in their measure truly Divine, but when once that interior certitude is ours all the other instruments of guidance must be set aside in its favour. That is how I understand St. Paul's behaviour. Up to a certain point in his history he was dependent from day to day on the indications of God's will. But then was granted an immediate revelation of his personal duty. He saw the goal towards which his efforts were to be directed, he realised his purpose in life, he understood God's will in him. Henceforward he was set free from the uncertitude and inconsistencies that marked his course. His career became the steady and continuous working out of a definite project which made it intelligible. II. Divine Guidance Vouchsafed. Granting that extraordinary vocations which stamp on human careers a sublime aspect are but few, must we therefore conclude that from most Christians that interior certitude as to personal duty is withholden? Must the multitude of disciples live without the illumination of assured direction from God? I do not believe it. On the contrary, I hold that there is none of us who confesses that his true lot of life must be to do the will of God, and with that conviction surrenders himself wholly and deliberately to the control of God's Spirit, who does not receive the guidance he seeks. We fail, not from lack of leading, but from lack of courage to obey the leading we have. III. But the Heart must be Free. At the risk of using language which may seem unreal and conventional, I would ask how can the consciousness of Divine guidance maintain itself in hearts filled with the unsatisfying distractions of that pursuit of amusement which in all classes of the community has become among us a consuming passion? St. James tells us that God gives wisdom to those that seek for it, but not to those distracted seekers whom he likens to the wind-driven waves of the sea. 'Let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.' We have to begin to become serious by giving to the things of the Spirit the importance which belongs to them, by making the Divine claim on our lives the standpoint from which to regard them, by cultivating the opportunities of usefulness which come to us, by refusing to acquiesce in the idle and unordered course of living, by insisting at whatever cost on cleansing our lives from conscious insincerity. Then at least we have come within the sanctuary where oracles of guidance are vouchsafed, where watchfulness and obedience gain outward pledges of Divine leading. References. XXI. 15, 16. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 213. XXI. 15-18. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 115. XXI. 16. W. Brock, Midsummer Morning Sermons, p. 186. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 371. XXI. 20. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 271. XXI. 21. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 139; ibid. vol. xii. p. 106. XXI. 23. H. S. Holland, God's City, p. 317. XXI. 27, 29. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 149. XXI. 28. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 120. XXI. 39. H. L. Thompson, The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, p. 24. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxx. p. 305. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 109; ibid. vol. xi. p. 39; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 195. XXII. 3. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 437. XXII. 5. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 212. XXII. 8. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 182. XXII. 9. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 192. XXII. 10. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 314. God Shaping Man's Course Acts 22:14 There is one word in this passage which is of supreme importance. It is the keyword of the passage, and all the meaning of the passage depends on it. It is an unusual word in the New Testament in the original, though we are familiar with the word by which it is translated. It looks a simple word, but it is very broad, and deep and full. 'Chosen 'is the word. If it meant only what we are accustomed to read in it, it would mean a great deal. Here was a man who had been miraculously intercepted on his wilful way, had seen visions and heard voices which others had not seen and heard. After three days of absolute darkness one comes to him, inspired of God to come and this is the authoritative explanation which he brings of all that has happened: 'The God of our fathers hath chosen thee. The God who called Abraham, and blessed Isaac, and multiplied Jacob, and trained and raised up Moses, hath chosen thee.' There is not a person here whose heart would not be unspeakably thrilled if a voice should come from the unseen, a voice authoritative and absolute, saying 'The eternal God, in whose hands all things are, in whose existence thou hast dimly, faintly believed, hath chosen thee for this or that particular task. He calls thee now, to undertake it' I. God calls thee; requires thee; and this or that event in life the breaking down of health, the disturbance of friendship, the failure of thy plans, the hedging up of thy path is God's way of arresting thy attention, directing thy mind to the fact of His reality and His thought of thee, and His purpose for thee. It is a wonderful fact, a fact to which we are often blind which, if we were alive to it, would greatly solemnize and dignify and sanctify life that God is always choosing and calling people, this man for that position, and that for the other: one to know the perils of outward success, another those of outward failure; one to know the bliss and pain that belong to family relationships of wife, husband, and parent, of union and separation the health and sickness, the coming and going of those dearer than life another to know the different pain of solitude and its compensating freedom for the service of others; one for the high and public place, with its excitements and burdens, another for the lowly position, with its peculiar trials and delights; one to go abroad, another to stay at home. II. The Word means more than calling and choosing at the moment. It refers to the past as well as the present It does not mean that Paul grew mischievous to the Church, and had to be stopped. It does not mean that the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro in the earth, saw this man the product of circumstances this man of extraordinary power and enthusiasm; saw how useful he would be in the service of the kingdom, and because of what he was chose him then and there, as a Church chooses and calls one minister out of a number whom it has never seen before. It means that Saul had never been out of the sight of God. That the Divine Disposer of events had been looking for ward to that hour on the way to Damascus from before the birth of the babe into the Jewish family at Tarsus. A literal translation of the word would be, 'The God of our fathers hath had thee in hand' for this very thing. While the Holy Child was growing up in the home of Nazareth, this child was born in the home at Tarsus, and as truly as the Most High God had His purpose for the One, He had His purpose for the other also. II. The great lesson coming from this example the lesson that puts so many of us to shame is that of being ready to embrace the Divine Will when it is made known to us. Charles Brown, Light and Life, p. 9. References. XXII. 14. H. Drummond, The Ideal Life, p. 257. XXII. 14, 15. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 103. XXII. 15, 21. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 236. XXII. 16. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons in Outline, p. 83. XXII. 17. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 359. XXII. 17, 21. Ibid. vol. viii. p. 231. XXII. 21. T. Arnold, The Interpretation of Scripture, p. 284. XXII. 23. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 222. XXII. 25. H. S. Holland, Old and New, p. 101. XXII. 27. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 426. XXII. 28. E. M. Geldart, Echoes of Truth, p. 66. J. H. Jellett, The Elder Son, p. 189. XXIII. 1. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 174. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon Sketches, p. 210. XXIII. 2. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 99. XXIII. 3. Ibid. p. 301. XXIII. 6. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 415; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 40. XXIII. 8. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 146. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 384; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 444. XXIII. 11. H. S. Holland, God's City, p. 251. H. Bailey, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 131. Acts 23:21 Compare Carlyle's sarcastic remark on Markham, in Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago. 'For the rest, having "vowed never to eat supper nor to take the sacrament" till he was revenged on Holler, he did not enjoy either of these consolations in this world.' References. XXIII. 26. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 67. XXIII. 27. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 362. XXIII. 30. Ibid. vol. viii. p. 32. XXIII. 35. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 403. XXIV. 4. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 287. Acts 24:5 Compare Clarendon's description of Cromwell: 'Without doubt, no man with more wickedness, ever attempted anything, or brought to pass what he desired, more wickedly, more in the face and contempt of religion and moral honesty'. References. XXIV. 5. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 325. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1632. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p. 116. The Resurrection of the Body Acts 24:15 The differences between our bodies as they are now and as they will be in the resurrection are only three; let us see what they are. I. In the first place, they can no more sin. This is certain, because, if they could sin, we might be cast out of heaven. But if we once enter that blessed place, we can never be driven out. Heaven would be no heaven if we could lose it. But we are told expressly that 'he that is dead hath ceased from sin'. The body, which was always hindering us in God's service here, will there help us in it. It cannot grow weary, it cannot interrupt us by its own feelings; there we shall truly and perfectly 'glorify God in our body and in our spirit, which are God's'. II. The next great difference is that the body will be incorruptible. This does not only mean that it will never die, but it tells us a great deal more. Here, in this world, our bodies are wearing out day by day, and therefore day by day we have to keep them up by food and by rest. But there they cannot wear out, therefore they will not want food nor rest; at least, that is the belief of the Church. It is certain there can be no weariness; it is certain there can be no sickness; 'the inhabitant,' says Isaiah, 'shall not say I am sick'; it is certain there can be no old age or decay. III. All in heaven will be perfect. The belief of the Church is that the old will be raised again, not withered and decayed and worn out, but as they were when they were in the best part of their earthly lives; and that children will be raised, not as they were when they were laid in the grave, but as they would have been if they had been spared to their full growth and strength. Isaiah, speaking of heaven, says: 'There shall be no more thence an infant, nor an old man'. And St. Paul says that we shall all be in 'the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ'. Now our Lord died for us in the very prime of life at thirty-three years of age according to the flesh, therefore holy men have thought that at our resurrection we also shall wake up in the prime of life, even as our Lord did at His. J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 46. References. XXIV. 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. No. 66. XXIV. 15, 16. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (2nd Series), p. 86. Acts 24:16 This text is associated with the dying moments of Sir Harry Vane. Dr. Stoughton gives the following description of his end: 'A noble victim perished two months afterwards. It has been with Sir Henry Vane as with Oliver Cromwell: having disliked each other in life, they have shared a common fate in the judgment of posterity: for, after years of odium, the names of both are raised to honour. Vane's Republicanism rendered him impracticable, and his mysticism, although undeserving the reproaches of Baxter and Burnet, threw a haze over his speculations, which makes them somewhat unintelligible; but the piety and genius of his Meditations, and the purity and virtue of his life, render him an object of reverence and love He was tried for compassing the death of the King; yet, whatever he might be in other respects, he was no regicide. The evidence on his trial only proved that he had held office under the Commonwealth, that he had been a member of the Council of State in 1651, and had belonged to the Committee of Safety in 1659. To make the condemnation and sentence of Vane the more unrighteous, the King, after solemnly promising to spare the life of the Republican, had written to Clarendon, saying Vane "is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way". The spirit of the prisoner appears in a letter which he wrote to his wife. "This dark night, and black shade," he observes, "which God hath drawn over His work in the midst of us, may be, for aught we know, the ground colour to some beautiful piece that He is now exposing to the light." His execution was an ovation. From the crowded tops and windows of the houses, people expressed their deep sympathy, crying aloud, "The Lord go with you, the great God of heaven and earth appear in you and for you"; signs of popular feeling which sustained the sufferer, who gratefully acknowledged them, "putting off his hat and bowing". When asked how he did, he answered, "Never better in all my life"; and on the scaffold his noble bearing so affected the spectators that they could scarcely believe "the gentleman in the black suit and cloak, with a scarlet silk waistcoat (the victorious colour) showing itself at the breast, was the prisoner". Frequent interruptions from the sound of drums drowned his voice, which, as Burnet says, was "a new and very indecent practice". The officers, as they put their hands in his pockets, searching for papers, exasperated the populace, whilst Vane's calmness led a Royalist present to say, "he died like a prince". Before receiving the last stroke, he exclaimed, "I bless the Lord, who hath accounted me worthy to suffer for His name. Blessed be the Lord, that I have kept a conscience void of offence to this day. I bless the Lord I have not deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer." "Father, glorify Thy servant in the sight of men, that he may glorify Thee in the discharge of his duty to Thee and to his country." One blow did the work. "It was generally thought," remarks Burnet, "the Government had lost more than it had gained by his death." Pepys declares the people counted his constancy "a miracle"; adding, "The King lost more by that man's death than he will get again for a good while". Thus fell the noblest mystic of the age, next to George Fox.' History of Religion in England, vol. iii. pp. 253-255. References. XXIV. 16. J. H. Holford, Memorial Sermons, p. 41. R. J. Wardell, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 266. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 161. J. H. Jowett, From Strength to Strength, p. 29. XXIV. 17 Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 331. XXIV. 24. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 277. Bidding Good-bye to God Acts 24:25 What would you think of a man who had plainly heard the voice of God heard it so plainly that it made him tremble and who yet had the awful courage to reply, 'Go away for the present. When I have a convenient season, I will send for thee'? We hold our breath at the very thought of such stupid, lordly defiance of Almighty God; and then we breathe more freely again as we bethink ourselves that such a thing could not be. It could not be? Nay, but it has been. There was a man who rolled those very words off his thoughtless tongue, and there are other men have we not ourselves been among them? who have cherished such thoughts in our hearts, and sighed for God to go away, though the blasphemous words may never actually have crossed our lips. I. Felix was the man the cruel, the powerful, the gorgeous Felix. Beside him is a prisoner speaking to him with deadly earnestness of a judgment to come. The voice is Paul's but the words are God's, and they smite with terror into his seared Roman conscience. Paul is right, God is right, and Felix can stand it no longer. 'Go away,' he says, in a sudden access of terror. 'Go away for the present. When I have a convenient season, I will send for thee.' It is to Paul that he is speaking, but what are those awful words but a tragic farewell to God, the God who was pleading with him through the mighty presence of Paul? What a prayer! 'O God! go away.' It is a fearful thing to bid good-bye to God, but, oh! the presumption, the pathetic, the unspeakable presumption, of expecting that the God to whom we have haughtily said good-bye will come back at our summons, and alter His plans to suit our convenient season! II. Procrastination is the secret of failure. A noble thought, a holy resolution, visits us. It stands knocking at the door. But it will disturb our comfort if we suffer it to enter and possess our life, and that will not do. So we give it a courteous dismissal. 'Go thy way for the present. When I have a convenient season, I will send for thee.' And before that season comes, we may have reached some place where there is no repentance though we seek it carefully with tears. III. Warnings enough there come to every man. Every time we are appalled, like Felix, at the thought of the judgment to come; every terror that shakes our conscience; every funeral procession that passes up the busy streets, with its silent mockery of their crowded haste; every experience that awes and humbles us is another voice of the God who loves us too dearly to leave us alone. The man who says to such a voice, 'Go thy way for the present,' is either a coward or a fool a coward if he cannot bear to look at those stern facts with which he will one day have to make his bed, and a fool if he supposes that the God whom he is deliberately rejecting will come in mercy when he summons Him. 'When I have a more convenient season I will send for Thee.' Yes, but will He come? He will come indeed, be sure of that; but, when He comes, He will demand the uttermost farthing. J. E. Macfadyen, The City With Foundations, p. 221. Acts 24:25 The observation of every day will give new proofs with how much industry subterfuges and evasions are sought to decline the pressure of resistless arguments. Dr. Johnson. References. XXIV. 25. G. W. Brameld, Practical Sermons (2nd Series), p. 19. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 105. W. Brock, Midsummer Morning Sermons, p. 127. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p. 231. W. H. Evans, Short Sermons for the Seasons, p. 62. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 171. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 12. XXV. 1. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 98. XXV. 13. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. x. p. 17; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 293; ibid. vol. x. p. 444. XXV. 18, 19. J. H. Jellett, The Elder Son, p. 175. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2016. XXV. 22. Expositor (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 288. XXVI. 5. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. x. p. 132. Reasons for Doubt Acts 26:8 That is a new apologetic; that is a Strategic move of the first order. This is new to me; that is a masterstroke. What a sagacious statesman was the Apostle Paul! Hitherto we had been thinking that it was the place of faith to give reasons; the Apostle pushes the war to the other side, and says, You must give reasons for your doubt. Why, that opens a wide field of criticism and observation and profitable comment. It is the Apostle who says, Stand up, and defend yourself; you are a doubter why do you doubt? give a reason for the doubt and the fear or the unbelief within you. I. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that all these outward and sensuous things were created? Tell me, be downright frank with me, why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should have created the universe? I think it is about the most believable statement that can be made; it seems to me, compared with any other theory, the simplest of all philosophies. If I want rest on all these subjects I read Genesis first chapter and first verse: 'In the beginning'. When was that? The dateless date. ' God.' I like that word; it is a kind of sanctuary word, temple word, there is something in it. ' created.' That word is the best I have yet heard upon this subject All material forces, magnitudes, splendours, utilities were created, set agoing, shaped, vitalised by a Personality equal to the occasion. I like that explanation best. Sirs, it is the most rational explanation. I must have mystery on the one side or the other; I will either have the mystery of light or the mystery of darkness, and I prefer, let me repeat, the mystery of light. Whoever shaped all these things must have been greater than the things he shaped; if so, how great! II. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that all these things are ruled by a gracious and tender and most minute Providence? If you tell me they are so, you give me rest, and you give me peace, and that peace rises into singing joy. III. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that we are going on through Christ Jesus, Man of the cross, Man of the redeeming blood, to a blessed and ever-growing destiny or future? Let me say that it would be more difficult for me to believe that the grave ends everything than to believe that angels will come for me and whisper to me and promise me a great future of service in the world unseen. IV. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should create, sustain, redeem everything? I believe it is easier to defend the faith than to defend doubt or to defend unbelief. I believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, God the Son, the redeeming, universal, eternal Saviour of the world. More than that: I will not listen to any man who comes to preach about his doubts. He ought to be in the congregation, and not in the pulpit; and if any of you, my brother ministers, want to tell your doubts, I would advise you to tell them in the open air a well-ventilated place, and an opportunity which any earnest-minded man might covet. References. XXVI. 8. A. Ainger, Sermons Preached in the Temple Church, p. 196. W. H. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 168. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1067. XXVI. 10. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 438. XXVI. 11. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 212; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 202. XXVI. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 202. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 197; ibid. vol. vii. p. 126. Is It Worth While? (A Missionary Sermon) Acts 26:15-18 These words must ever form one of the great charters of missionary work; they are wonderfully comprehensive. They were, indeed, originally the charter with which the Divine Head of the Church delivered to the great Apostle his commission to preach the Gospel first to his own kinsmen, and then to the Gentile world; but they contain, as we should expect, the germs of the commission which will be needed by the Gospel messenger till the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled, and Israel has been grafted in again, and the number of the elect completed until the militant kingdom is over. One of the greatest temptations by which the devil hinders the spreading of the Gospel in the present day is the apparently simple but fatal suggestion, 'Is it worth while?' It is indeed no new trial. The dull reception of the missionary of our own day is the same in kind with that which awaited the Divinely commissioned Apostle on his arrival at the great centre of the heathen world. 'We neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came showed or spake any harm of thee.' Could any reception be less inspiring or fall more flat? Indeed, we might rise far higher and say that this is but following the example of Him who 'came to His own, and His own received Him not'. But this temptation under the simple form of the question, 'Is it any good?' is, I believe, specially a temptation of the missionary of the present day. The reaction from our former state of ignorance regarding the religions of the heathen world has led to an undue valuation of the fragments of the truth which they undoubtedly contain: the high spiritual aspirations of the Vedas, the theism of the Koran, the practical maxims of Confucius, the careful asceticism of the Buddhists all this and more with which you are all acquainted, has left a tendency on some minds to minimise unduly the difference between the Christian and non-Christian state. The same tendency also follows from the separation in our day of Christianity from education; the immediate advantages to the uncivilised world even of secular education are so manifestly great that there is a tendency to ask 'What more is needed?' We have been civilising the world this century more diligently than Christianising it, and we are in danger now of being dazzled by sparks of our own kindling. In striking contrast with this danger stands the great mission charter which I have chosen for my text. I. The charter begins and ends with the personal Jesus. 'I am Jesus,' are the opening words, 'Faith in Me,' is the close. This is the beginning and end of the missionary's power and message: Jesus, His Birth, His Death, His Resurrection, His Ascension, the living, reigning Jesus. Whatever agencies are used, whatever secondary methods may be necessary war, conquest, civilisation this is the Α and Ω of it all, from Him, and in Him, and to Him all must be, or all will fail. II. Next, the great heathen world, as seen by Him who is the Light of the World, who lighteneth every man that cometh into the world, is nevertheless declared to be in a state of darkness they are blind, they do not see the real abiding objects of sight; the Apostle was to go and open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light; οὐδὲὺ φαινόμενον καλόν nothing visible is good was the saying of one of the earliest of Christian martyrs, and it is true relatively to the invisible. The soul, the mind, the heart, the inner powers of the heathen man were known to Him who made them, and have unused capacities like rudimentary sight-powers which have never been developed by their true use in the light. III. But further, in the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, all things are naked and open. Both systems of creation lie plain before Him. He is the Maker of all things, invisible as well as visible. We cannot see these things as He sees them, but He sees the hosts of evil spirits, the principalities and powers which, under the power of their chief, make up the army of the evil one; and the heathen world He tells us is in an especial way under their sway. Therefore another object of the charter is declared to be 'to turn them from the power of Satan unto God,' 'to deliver them,' as the Apostle afterwards himself expresses it, 'from the power of darkness, and translate them into the kingdom of the Son of His love'. The great heathen world, as Christ sees it, is living in an especial way under the organised power of Satan. IV. A fourth condition of the heathen world, as it lies beneath the eye of God, is also given in this great charter of missionary work a condition which we might have expected from what has been already said, the condition, namely, of sin. The heathen world needs forgiveness and sanctification, and this is not accomplished by the varnish of modern civilisation, even though it be laid on by Christian hands. The charter tells us how, and how only, it is to be done 'by faith that is in Me' 'that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me'. It was to take the light, the light which was 'to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of the people Israel,' that the great Apostle was commissioned and went. It seemed to him worth while. If χωρὶς Χριστοῦ implied the life of vanity and uncertainty, a life of alienation from God the life ἐν Χριστῳ he knew most certainly implied a real belief in God; an access laid open to the presence of God; a conscious nearness to God; restoration back again to God. 'O God, Thou art my God.' Unity, reunion between man and God, and man and his fellow-men, peace on earth, man indwelt by God. References. XXVI. 16. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 268. XXVI. 16-18. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p. 91. XXVI. 16-20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1774. XXVI. 18. J. D. Thompson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 131. St. Paul's Vision of Christ's Body Acts 26:19 I. The Pauline Message. This was no sudden revelation to St. Paul in its final form. It was the outcome of a life of discipleship. He was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, and so it grew and expanded before his spiritual eyes until it left nothing outside its range, until it offered to him that unity after which all thinkers are consciously or unconsciously striving, and in the end he was able to conceive it as a whole, to express it, however inadequately, in terms of human language, and to propose it for all time to come as the profoundest and the most ennobling philosophy of the life of mankind. II. The Heavenly Vision. We must consider the heavenly vision as it first smote on St. Paul's astonished eyes. For what he then saw and heard held in germ all that he was to learn hereafter. The Lord's first words to him contained implicitly the whole mystery of the Father. It was not merely that the Lord appeared and spoke to him. It proved that He was still alive in spite of death. That indeed was much. It was enough to make him feel that he was found fighting against God, as his master Gamaliel had once feared might be the case. But the Lord's words here, as elsewhere, are instinct with love. They go out beyond the first suggestion of their meaning, and they find their full significance only in the light of the truth which St Paul was himself destined to proclaim. When once we have grasped the corporate relation of Christ and His disciples, the words are discovered to be profoundly significant. If we were to inquire what made the truth implicit we should have to study his whole life for the answer; we should have to consider the three elements of his manhood which fitted him for his peculiar vision. Paul the Hebrew, Paul the Greek, Paul the Roman all these went to the making of Paul the Apostle. This was the man whose many-sided being found satisfaction in the Christ, when it pleased God to reveal His Son to him. III. The Pauline Mission. This was the man who was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Plainly such a man as this was a man to be claimed for a great cause, was a chosen vessel to bear the name of Christ to the Gentiles. Not only had he the large mind which could carry everywhere Stephen's liberal designs, but he knew what he was doing in accepting a mission to those who were beyond the frontiers of Judaism, and he intended absolute unity between Jew and Gentile from the very first, and could never surrender it, no, not for an hour. He could never allow the possibility of a broken Christianity, which should admit of two Churches, Jewish and Gentile. The Gentile was co-heir and concorporate with the Jew or he was nothing at all. In one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same function. The individual must know his place in that body, and fill it with deference and self-restraint. He must recognise that others are as necessary to the body, though they do not serve it with a gift like his. The life of the body is one, though its manifestations are various. It takes all members to make a body, and no member is living at all apart from the whole body. The body is Christ. Thought and Action Acts 26:19 St. Paul is now looking back from near the end of his career to the day of his great change. From that day to this his life had been summed up in the two words, vision and obedience. I. The first apparent view of any life is presented by its output of deeds. The Christian life is not that of visionaries, it is a life of action. The first thought of those who live it day by day is of something immediately to be done. It is this practical quality of the Christian life which keeps it both healthy and honourable. For the soul as for the nation, service is the highest honour. A right man's view of his profession can never be merely that it is a means of gain, but that it is a chance for service; and the same thing is true of even our most intimate and private actions. Yet this cannot be all. Every one remembers Langland's immortal figure of Haukyn the active man, who has not time to clean his coat Mephistopheles is Goethe's great incarnation of fierce and clever action wholly without contemplation. And these are but extreme forms of what is seen around us every day. St. Paul had no magic secret that kept labour sweet to him; he had only vision and obedience. But he had them in that order vision first, and obedience following from it. It is not mere action that is the secret of a healthy life, but action performed in loyalty to something we have seen. II. In a still wider application the same principle is true, for the inward thought invariably affects the outward life and expresses itself sooner or later there. Not that one necessarily carries out into deeds all one's cherished thoughts. Dr. Bain affirms the 'possibility of leading a life of imagination wholly distinct from the life of action'; and Mr. Lecky says that 'a course may be continually pursued in imagination without leading to corresponding actions'. This is undoubtedly true, but it is a thoroughly dangerous fact. On the one hand, it produces dreamers whose dreams are so far apart from their conduct as to rank them among the hypocrites. On the other hand, if the dreaming be bad, the danger is very great that in times of temptation the man will fall. For the most part, in temptation, little depends upon the will at the moment; we stand or fall according to our habitual thoughts, which either hold us back or predispose us then. And apart from that, there can be no doubt that there goes out from every life upon those around it, a constant and subtle influence which is determined almost wholly by the inner life of vision the life of imagination and thought. Thoreau has wisely said: 'If ever I did a man good... it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil I am constantly doing by being what I am'. A man's atmosphere and spirit are always more powerful influences than his deeds and words. Thus it is not surprising that the matter on which Christianity lays most stress is vision. The thoughts and imaginations of the heart; a taste for fine and clean things, and an instinctive shrinking from their opposites; above all a clear conception of Jesus Christ and a definitely accepted relation between the soul and Him these are the Christian fundamentals. John Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, p. 34. Loyalty to Vision Acts 26:19 St. Paul's career as a Christian began in two supreme events a vision and a commission. To the end he goes back to them, and traces their effect upon his future, telling and retelling the story of his conversion. Yet no reader of his writings can fail to see that vision blends and alternates with action throughout his course. The Epistles are constantly turning from marvellous lights of revelation to most practical directions for living. Thus from him we learn loyalty both to past and present light. I. Loyalty to past vision. The management of thoughts and swift imaginations is proverbially difficult, and there is much disloyalty to the visions of the past. Apart from anything for which we are responsible, we are so constituted as to live in a constant change and flux both of moods and of intellectual and spiritual powers. Such changes depend on bodily health, surrounding circumstances, and countless other causes which we cannot wholly command. Accordingly it will often happen that we have to remember what we have once seen, and to carry out the resolutions which then we formed. In such an hour idleness is fatal. If we cannot see to do the highest things, let us at least do something. 'If the energy, the clearness, the power of intuition, is flagging in us, if we cannot do our best work, still let us do what we can for we can always do something... if not vivid and spiritual work, then the plain needful drudgery.' But besides that there is often the necessity for dogged perseverance in a course whose value we can no longer see. II. Loyalty to present vision. The grim and cheerless course we have just described is not, however, the normal way of Christian living. There is a snare in trusting to the past too much, and striving to be faithful to brilliant spiritual experiences which are no longer any more than memories. The Christian ideal is loyalty to a vision constantly seen at the time of action. It may be necessary sometimes to fight today's battle by the light of other days, but as a rule of life that is unsatisfactory and insufficient. It is good to remember God's grace in the past, and to recall His promises for the future, but it is better to have some clear vision at the hour. As Constantine saw the cross on the field of battle, so we should see our spiritual help and backing at the time of our practical need. John Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, p. 39. References. XXVI. 19. A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, pt. iii. p. 165. A. H. Bradford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 81. Church Times, vol. lx. p. 58. J. A. Robertson, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 612. M. G. Glazebrook, Prospice, p. 123. J. G. Greenhough, The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, p. 241. XXVI. 19, 20. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i. p. 157. XXVI. 22. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 244. XXVI. 22, 23. Ibid. vol. xii. p. 170. XXVI. 23. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 373. XXVI. 24. M. G. Glazebrook, Prospice, p. 173. XXVI. 25. Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 134. XXVI. 28. G. Bellett, Parochial Sermons, p. 43. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 11. W. H. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 175. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 871. J. Tolefree Parr, The White Life, p. 216. XXVI. 28, 29. C. Bradley, The Christian Life, p. 305. J. M. Lang, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 264. The Christian Life Worth More Than All Things Else Acts 26:29 There are only two scenes in the New Testament which are finer than this, and they are in some respects similar scenes; Christ before Herod, and again before Pontius Pilate. With that exception there is nothing more admirable in history than the Apostle's attitude and language here. He had to plead his cause before an august audience. They were a wholly unsympathetic audience. But Paul was one who feared God and feared no one else, and who, when he got on his favourite theme of Christ, lost himself in it. There he stood, with his rough, much-worn garments, his thin, scarred face, with all the marks upon him of privation and ill-usage, and chains on his hands and feet. And Paul, lifting up his manacled arms in face of all their splendour, said: 'Would to God that you could be as I am'. He had taken the proper measurement of those men and women. He knew that his life was as much greater, fuller, and happier than theirs as the power of a Cæsar was more and wider than that of the meanest slave in his empire. I. It is in the spirit of these words that every real Christian speaks today and makes his appeal to his fellow-men and women. In the spirit of these words he measures and judges all things. In his deepest heart he does not believe that any man or woman is to be envied, no matter how greatly favoured by fortune, or that any condition of life is to be desired, however splendid and attractive its advantages, if there is no Christian faith and Christian hope as its centre and foundation. We who are Christians do not always put the true estimate upon our privileges. We envy the wise, the distinguished, and even the easeful and luxurious who seem to have no crosses and no cares. But suppose some magician were to come and say: I will give you all that, and take away all your crosses; I will make your house a palace of wealth and your names illustrious, if you will just sell me your bit of faith and your hope in God, if you will let go the heavenly light by which you walk. Not for all the world would you consent to that awful sacrifice. No, you would turn from the tempter to look up in the face of Christ and say: Take from me anything Thou wilt, but go not Thou away. II. We know beyond all question that the Christian life has far more in it than any other. It has more of the things which make for real joy. It has more true friendships. It has far larger objects to strive for. It has greater hopes to stimulate it. And hence you can understand the fervour and the very passion with which we appeal to others to be reconciled to God and to make the Christian life their own. J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, p. 201. References. XXVI. 29. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (2nd Series), p. 163. XXVI. 30. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 293. XXVI. 31. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 117. XXVII. 1. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 124. XXVII. 6-14 H. Smith, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 417. XXVII. 9. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 350. XXVII. 12. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 131. XXVII. 13, 14. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (1st Series), p. 90. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. ii. p. 485. XXVII. 18. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (1st Series), p. 109. XXVII. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1070. Paul in the Storm Acts 27:22 We have here a page out of an ancient log-book, and it cannot fail to be interesting even to a dry-landsman. I. In this strange world the good and the evil alike must endure their share of tribulation. On board this corn-ship we have a miniature world. How impartial the tempest. Fire burns the saint as well as the sinner. Storms have no favourites. II. The world often rejects the sage counsel of the man of God. Paul advised them to steer the ship into the Fair Havens; but the master advised that they should make for Phenice and winter there. The man of God has ever been the despised and rejected of men. III. The mocking world will discover sooner or later that it is sheer madness to ignore the warnings of the man of God. Paul's true value will yet be recognised. Some men are greater in storms than in calms. The greatness that lives and thrives in a raging tempest is real and lasting. IV. God honours His servants by using them as His media of communication with the world. The angel of God stood by Paul and not by the captain. 'Them that honour me I will honour.' God seldom employs aliens, so that if you wish to be His Ambassador you must first be His * child. * V. The sublime calmness of the Man of God in the face of danger. The tempest revealed the cowardice and cruelty of the soldiers and sailors, but it also revealed the moral grandeur of Paul. Religion is never so divinely grand as in a storm. Paul saw on the crest of every prancing wave the words: 'Jehovah-Jireh,' and he was strengthened in spirit. VI. No storm can thwart the eternal purposes of heaven. 'Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Cæsar.' It was God's must, and it had the full power of the great throne behind it. Whatever God promises will surely come to pass. Rome must be reached. 'Blessed are the homesick, for they shall reach home.' J. Ossian Davies, The Dayspring from on High, p. 207. References. XXVII. 22, 23. F. B. Meyer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 342. XXVII. 24. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 1. No. 2952. XXVII. 24, 31. W. H. Harwood, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 24. XXVII. 25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1335. XXVII. 25, 26. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (1st Series), p. 126. XXVII. 30, 31. J. M. Neale, Occasional Sermons, p. 44. XXVII. 31. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons, p.301. J. Aspinall, Parish Sermons (1st Series), p. 73. XXVII. 34. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 270. J. G. Greenhough, The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, p. 276. XXVII. 39. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 362. XXVII. 41. A. H. Bradford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 147. XXVIII. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 79. Quality of Service Acts 28:2 'No little kindness.' The Revised Version gives us another word, perhaps a richer: 'No common kindness' but a kindness to be remembered, specialising itself in our memory; we can never forget the attentiveness and civility of these barbarous people; truly to the end of the chapter we shall think of all their courtesy as no common kindness. This was not an everyday affair, but wholly special, finely and highly marked by Christian courtesy, as we should say; the marvel of it being that the people who showed it were not Christians. We must take care lest these barbarians get ahead of us. They tell me now that some people say there are better people outside the Church than there are in it. We have a hard fight to conduct, and a hard race to run. If you are kind to those who are kind to you, what of it? are not even the pagans the same? If you pray for those who pray for you, what of it? what does it amount to in spiritual and Christian quality? do not even the Gentiles the same thing? Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye cannot see the kingdom of God. It is matter of common report that there are good people who do not go to your church, or to mine, or to any other church. They are full of kind deeds, sweet thoughts, charities that do not wither in the east winds. There ought to be some difference between a man who is crucified with Christ Jesus and a man who never heard of Him. The power of Christian character over every other power is in its distinctiveness. Not where Christianity is part and parcel of a common civilisation, but where it stands out in an individuality of its own, do we find its power and its grace. Who speaks of these barbarous people? The greatest man who ever spoke of any nation or kindred or tongue. The Apostle Paul speaks of the uncommon kindness of the barbarous people of an obscure island. My Lord said they shall come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and ye yourselves shall be shut out. Let us take care how we roll our fur and silken and crimson robes about us, and think we are so much better than other people. What if at the last it should be found that the last shall be first and the first shall be last? I. Here is an Apostle who has found an island where there is no need of missions. The people were greatly taken with their own opportunity of doing good; they showed us no common kindness. What do you think they did? 'They kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.' Surely they were not far from the kingdom of Him who said, Whoso shall give a cup of cold water to you in the name of a disciple shall in no wise lose his reward. Here is a people that have devised new plans and seized new opportunity. They have lighted a fire. Jesus spake about giving a cup of cold water to religious people; they seem to have made in some sort an advance on the idea of Jesus Himself. II. We have, then, to do not with service, but with quality of service. There is service and service; there is a way of doing a thing so as to undo it; there is a reluctance that destroys all worthfulness and grace in deeds done to other people; there is, on the other hand, a way of doing a little thing which makes it great, a gracious, sweet, kindly way which multiplies the thing that is done, not only by increasing its quantity, but mainly and spiritually by refining its quality. Not what was said so much as how it was said, is an expression we often hear in some form or other. Not what he gave, but the way in which he gave. III. It is reasonable to expect no common service from Christians because they are men and women of no common character. The Church is not a gallery of wax-works; the congregation is not a crowd of artistically made and framed bodies; the Church is a gathering of self-sacrificing souls. The character of the Christian is not a question of artifice or of fine manufacture or of school culture; the character of the Christian is a work of God, is a miracle of the Holy Ghost, is a jewel not made with hands. From such a character what do we expect? We expect no common kindness, no little, usual, offhand service; we expect service that means something, that conveys something, service that is red with an inner crimson, with the blood of Christ. We render no common service because we have no common Saviour. The saved man must in his own possible degree be of the same quality as the Saviour that redeemed him. We represent Christ. Sometimes by our misrepresentation we raise the question, Is this your Christianity? ha, ha! what do ye more than others? You say you represent Christ? Let it be so, then we have a right to examine and cross-examine you in order to know what stuff you are made of, because we want to find this Christ and to judge Him for ourselves: stand forth, witness of His, that we may vivisect and dissect you and discover your real quality. Reference. XXVIII. 2. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 130. The Viper on the Hand Acts 28:3 The incident contains a lesson full of value and importance in the right guidance of all our life, social, religious, business, intellectual, or political. Everywhere in the pursuit of duty we must expect the viper to dart out upon us. Well for us if we are on our guard, and ready instinctively to shake off the attacks, and, God-protected, by Divine grace feel no harm. I. The Viper in Business Life. Business is one of the most necessary things in the world. It supplies the needs of human life. It creates some of the most valuable parts of human character. Energy, quickness, power of organisation, invention, discovery, method, calculation, experience, soberness of mind these are some of its results on character. Those engaged in such duties may well seem, like St. Paul, energetically and characteristically helping to do something in the rain and cold, easing and ameliorating the condition of human life. But how often do we see the viper dart out of the midst of the work, and fasten on a man's hand! II. The Viper in Knowledge. Or look at knowledge in its many branches. What is more fascinating or delightful? It moves at will up and down the history of the world, entering into all the great events, revealing the motives and actions of the greatest of mankind, making the past almost as real as the present. It penetrates into the deepest and closest recesses of man's being. What more fascinating and delightful than knowledge as it opens up worlds on worlds, and makes us feel the truth of the Apostle's words, 'All things are yours'! But even here be on your guard! Even here the viper darts out and is ready to fasten on the hand. For there are spheres of truth which reason can only enter hand in hand with faith, and reason is apt to rise in rebellion, and flash scorn on that which is beyond its ken, and glory in its ignorance, or, as it prefers to phrase it, its agnosticism. III. The Viper in the Church. The serpent has penetrated paradise, and all man's life is henceforth lived in his presence. The Church is the paradise of God on earth. It is the nearest meeting-place of man with God. It is the Home of Grace. It is the refuge of penitent sinners. It is the resting-place of God's revelation. It is the soul's best and truest home. It is here that you can do the greatest works for God. It is here that you can lead others to know the happiness that you have found. It is here that you may be 'The light of the world,' and 'the salt of the earth'. It is here that you may be God's band of labourers, 'fellow-workers with God'. Yet here, too, beware of the dart of the serpent Here he fastens upon and wounds the hand. Here sometimes narrowness, bitterness, obstinacy and self-will, proud contemptuousness, prejudice, jealousy, and littleness of spirit may mar and spoil what God has intended. IV. To Shake off the Viper. St Paul shook off the venomous beast into the fire, and felt no harm, because he did it instinctively the moment the dart was made and because he was God-protected by the last promise of our Lord to His disciples. It is only by the religion of Jesus Christ that we can cast off the serpent. References. XXVIII. 3. W. F. Shaw, Sermon-Sketches for the Christian Year, p. 105. XXVIII. 3-5. Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 332. XXVIII. 5. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p. 216. XXVIII. 7. Expositor (4th Series), vol. in. p. 221. Sympathy Acts 28:15 We have here an illustration of a great principle of the Divine economy. The supernatural, the extraordinary may awaken, arouse, direct, and fix the attention; but it is the natural and the ordinary which cheers the heart and guides the conduct. St. Paul's sense of the overruling providence of God marked out for him the work that was to be done, the course that was to be pursued; but the sympathy of men like himself, and the sense of human companionship were necessary to endow him with perfect courage, and aroused a more heartfelt gratitude to God than did even the wondrous preservation of his life from danger. I. There are manifest dangers in the way of an attempt to acquire or exercise sympathy. The evils of its defect are obvious: the evils of its excess are not so apparent. Yet every one will recognise that sympathy is useless unless it is entirely genuine. It will not bear unlimited demands. If excessive display of sympathy is to be guarded against for the sake of him who gives, it is equally to be avoided for the sake of him who receives. There is a class of moral invalids who clamour for sympathy, just as hypochondriacs try to cure their imaginary ailments by relays of quack medicines. We have to learn, sometimes by painful experience, that our well-meant efforts to heal are only feeding a moral malady. You must not be sympathetic at the expense of truth. II. The consideration of these limitations leads to the conclusion that sympathy is not a quality which can be pursued by itself. Fellow-feeling is an emotion which owes its direction and its guidance to the principles which it expresses. What are those principles? I cannot answer better than by following the analysis of St. Peter: 'Be ye all like-minded, "sympathetic". Like-mindedness is the recognition of the truth of the brotherhood of man in Christ; sympathy is the expression of this truth in our daily conduct. The tendency of this our age is strongly towards philanthropy, towards grappling with the problems of our common life. I think that an observer would conclude that these efforts were effective in proportion as they embodied the Christian Spirit. Many movements, excellent in themselves, clearly fail to influence those for whom they are designed, because they do not rest on like-mindedness, because they are not set forth in terms of sympathy. The late Bishop Creighton, The Heritage of the Spirit, p. 19. References. XXVIII. 15. John Watson, The Inspiration of our Faith, p. 310. H. Win dross, The Life Victorious, p. 219. XXVIII. 16. F. D. Maurice? The Acts of the Apostles, p. 337. XXVIII. 17-28. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 416. XXVIII. 20. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 220. XXVIII. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiii. No. 1970. XXVIII. 24. D. C. A. Agnew, The Soul's Business and Prospects, p. 178. F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Reading (2nd Series), p. 187. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 516. XXVIII. 28. C. S. Home, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 280. J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 195. XXVIII. 30, 31. A. Maclaren, The Wearied Christ, p. 9. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 277. XXVIII. 31. Bishop Drury, The Prison Ministry of St. Paul, p. 13.