The Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews is just such a performance as might naturally have come from an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures; in whom the intelligence, and the powers of combining, type-finding, and expounding, somewhat dominated the religious perceptions. The Epistle to the Hebrews is full of beauty and power; and what may be called the exterior conduct of its argument is as able and satisfying as Paul's exterior conduct of his argument is generally embarrassed. Its details are full of what is edifying. Matthew Arnold, in * St. Paul and Protestantism. * The object of the Epistle to the Hebrews was to prove the superiority of the Christian religion; the object of the Epistle to the Romans to prove its * necessity. * Coleridge. I cherish the thought of the richness there was in the first days of the Church, when even the writer of such an Epistle as this should be a forgotten man. Westcott. * Hebrews 1:1 * In the fulness of time both Judaism and Paganism had come to nought; the outward framework, which concealed yet suggested the Living Truth, had never been intended to last, and it was dissolving under the beams of the Sun of Justice which shone behind it and through it The process of change had been slow; it had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, 'at sundry times and in divers manners'; first one disclosure and then another, till the whole evangelical doctrine was brought into full manifestation. Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua (ch. I.). 'Here,' Mr. Gladstone writes in his introduction to Sheppard's Pictorial Bible, 'we perceive one of the high prerogatives of the Scriptures which helps to explain their close and elastic adaptation to the progressive needs of our race. No other sacred books are so minutely and exactly divided by periods and by authorship. No others cover so vast a range of time and of diversified human history. They began for a family, and they ended for a world. Not given at once and in stereotype, but "at sundry times and in divers manners".' A great number who chose to write on subjects that came within the relations of the Christian system, as on the various views of morals, the distinctions and judgments of human character, and the theory of happiness, with almost unavoidable references sometimes to our connection with Deity, to death, and to a future state, ought to have written every page under the recollection that these subjects are not left free for careless or arbitrary sentiment since the time that 'God has spoken to us by His Son'; and that the finest composition would be only so much eloquent impiety, if essentially discordant with the dictates of the New Testament. John Foster, On the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion (ch. VII). References. I. 1. H. Martin, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 159. Bishop Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p. 277. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 39; ibid. vol. vi. p. 409; ibid. vol. vii. p. 86. I.1, 2. E. J. Hardy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 203. T. F. Crosse, Sermons (2nd Series), p. 1. R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, p. 1. Christianity and Judaism Hebrews 1:1-3 * (R.V.) * These verses contain two main divisions of thought: I. A contrast between the Old Revelation and the New. II. The Nature and Work of the Son of God. 1. A Contrast between the Old Revelation and the New. Bishop Westcott writes: 'The contrast between the Old Revelation and the New is marked in three particulars. There is a contrast (a) in the method, and (6) in the time, and (c) in the agent of the two revelations.' 'God, having of old time spoken to the fathers in the prophets, in many portions and in divers manners, hath spoken in these last days in His Son.' The law of progression, which is stamped on creation, seen in God's providential government of the world, and experienced in the work of the Spirit in the individual soul, is clearly evidenced in Divine revelation. God did not at once open up the fulness of His mind, and unfold to view the treasures of His grace. His revelation was given 'piecemeal' in numerous portions ( πολυμερῶς ). Each fragment is in advance of that which went before. 'God, having of old times spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son.' The same voice spoke in both; but in the utterances of the prophets there were but partial gleams, glances, aspects, and scattered fragments of revelation. In the Son there was unparalleled fulness. This stage of revelation is in vast advance of earlier stages of Divine communications. 'The perfect manifestation takes up into itself the broken and imperfect voices. The dream fades in the reality, the vision melts in the tangible image, the type is lost in the antitype, the historical event is merged in One who professes to be the source of all history.' The prophets were the chords through which the heavenly music sounded; the Incarnate Son of God was the complete instrument which gave to man the perfect melody of heaven. 'Every prophet added his own touch to the glorious picture of the days of the New Covenant, until, after sufficient elaboration of the main figure, the painters all withdrew, and let fall the curtain for awhile. The Person is already depicted, who shall raise this curtain again, and with His own hand trace for His contemporaries the fulfilment of the prophecy.' The Son of God unites in Himself the whole of God's revelation. 2. The Nature and Work of the Son of God. I can only comment on the grand sentences, 'Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance,' with great brevity. Dr. Newman, in his Arians, says that the word 'effulgence' expresses 'the essentially ministrative character of the person of the Son'. Dr. Owen writes: 'The words denote the Divine nature of Christ; yet not absolutely, yet as God the Father in Him doth manifest Himself to us'. A luminous body is perceived by the splendour which streams forth from it. The Son is 'the brightness of the Father's glory'. The verse which we are now considering is an epitome of the first two chapters of this Epistle. The first chapter is one continued argument for the Deity of Christ; the second chapter for His humanity; and then in the first verse of the third chapter the writer bids us consider how by reason of His twofold nature He is fitted to be the 'High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus'. He is human, and can suffer in the same nature that sinned. He is Divine, and therefore He is able to meet the requirements of a law promulgated by an infinite Being, and to offer a sacrifice of an infinite value. Christ, in His twofold nature, is a bridge which spans the abyss which separates a holy God from sinful man. The ultimate reason for the Incarnation is to be found in the sin of man The effulgence of 'God's glory' and 'the very image of His substance' in our nature 'put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He 'Himself purged our sins'. In this passage we are standing on the mountain-summit of the Incarnation, and we see around us seven mighty peaks in this Alpine region of thought. Let us gaze upon the first group of four. (1) The God-man is the end of all history. He 'is appointed heir of all things'. (2) He is the beginning of all history. In Him and for Him God made 'the world' the ages all that exists and moves in time. He is the spring from which all the streams of time have risen, as well as the sea into which they flow. He is the final cause of all human life. He is not only the goal of Judaism, but the climax of the world's history. (3) He is before all history. He is from everlasting, 'the brightness of God's glory, the express image of His person'. The Son is co-eternal with the Father. 'In order to the being of a Son there must be a Father; but it is no less true that in order to the being of a Father there must be a Son. Fatherhood is no older than Sonship, the one is only as the other is.' (4) He is throughout all history. He 'upholdeth all things by the word of His power'. J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p. 45. Hebrews 1:2 Where can you find the mind of the Christian theologian of that early day better set forth than in the Epistle to the Hebrews, whoever may be the writer? And what position does he take up? Hebe-gins by stating that the Son of God is the 'heir of all things, through Whom also He made the worlds'; 'Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; having become so much better than the angels, as He hath inherited a more excellent name than they'; and then he goes on to argue at length that whereas the higher spiritual orders of being whom the Jews called angels, and who were God's ministers, though not bound by earthly conditions, all rank beneath the Son of God, this Son of God nevertheless manifested Himself in this petty world of ours to purify us from sin, and obtain for us the blessedness which sin forfeits. Of course I do not dream of attributing to any writer of the first century speculations like Professor Whewell's on The Plurality of Worlds. But I do say that such writers had gathered, probably from the time of the Babylonian exile, a very steadfast belief in a vast hierarchy of beings in power far superior to man, and that their belief in this hierarchy of superior beings in no degree affected their conviction that the redemption of man from sin is a work worthy of the Divine Incarnation, and of that Divine suffering to which the Incarnation led and in which it was fulfilled. R. H. Hutton, Contemporary Thought and Thinkers, vol. 1. pp. 293, 294. References. I. 2. H. Wace, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 140. I. 2, 3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2635. I. 3. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon Sketches (2nd Series), p. 162. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 77; ibid. (6tb Series), vol. viii. p. 201; ibid. vol. x. p. 198; ibid. vol. xi. p. 447. I. 6. F. St. John Corbett, The Preacher's Year, p. 13. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 82; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 150; ibid. vol. x. p. 113. Hebrews 1:7 There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives when the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and grey fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the Invisible Power that has been the object of lip-worship and lip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew poet, making the flames his chariot and riding on the wings of the wind.... Then it is that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something else than a private consolation. George Eliot, in * Daniel Deronda. * References. I. 9. Expositor (6th Series), vol. xii. p. 66. I. 10. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 248. 1. 10-12. H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p. 69. Hebrews 1:11 In Dr. Andrew Bonar's study hung the text he was so fond of, and had had printed for himself, But Thou remainest. A lady called to see him one day in great sorrow and depression of mind. Nothing seemed to bring her any comfort. All at once, as they talked together, Dr. Bonar saw her face light up, and she said, 'You don't need to say anything more, I have got what I need,' and she pointed to the words of the text which had caught her eye, * But Thou remainest. * Reminiscences, p. 93. Reference. 1.11. J. W. Whiton, Beyond the Shadow, p. 3. Hebrews 1:11-12 The generations of man are but the hours of a season, a little longer than a single year. The memory of them is trampled in by the million feet of their successors, themselves in turn to be trampled in as swiftly and cared for no more. But the stars which we see are the stars which they saw. Time has not dimmed their brilliance, or age made them loiter on their course. Time for them is not. They are themselves the measurers and the creators of time. Have they too their appointed end? 'They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure. They all shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.' Is this true? No answer peals to us out of the abysses of space. No evidence can be alleged to satisfy a British jury. Froude, Oceana (ch. 11). References. I. 12. W. Richmond, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 12. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 280. St. Michael and All Angels Hebrews 1:14 The attitude of the average Christian towards the angels is usually that of indifference. They do not much care whether they exist or not! They do not take their Bibles to find out the facts God has told them about the angels. They take little or no pains to establish relations with them, they are careless about the blessings which God intends to send us through them. So the Church, trying to rescue us from our persistent blindness, has established this festival of St. Michael and All Angels' Day, and it should act as a reminder of their ministry to us. That God has given to us in the holy angels a great means of grace we cannot afford to ignore. I. The Ministry of Angels. I would ask you to think whether the angels are not designed to have great power over us, for what I should call the service of the Invisible Altar of Trust. Yes, there is an Invisible Altar of Trust, and there is not a person in this church that has not been made better at some time or other in their lives, and who has not known what it is to be strengthened by somebody's power of belief in them. Possibly the belief is in no way justified, yet the fact alone that the belief was held by somebody has stirred many a man and woman up to better things. There is always somebody who thinks well of us, and hopes well for us, and if we do not care much about ourselves (not well enough to do or be our best for very long together), that fact may always serve to consecrate us afresh. Now if we can once get it into our minds and imaginations that the angels think well of us, always see the best of us, always grieve for anything that is less than the best for us, that the angels are always thinking the best for us, and working the best for us, there is a whole world of consecration in the realisation of this thought. II. God's Messengers. The angels always can choose, because they see our Father's face, perfectly catching His expression and those suggestions for our good which the Father sends for us in that way through them. How wonderful to think of the angels always observing the Father's face with such understanding of every shade of expression of it; always able to decipher the meaning of every alteration in that expression; always able to catch the Father's Will for the salvation of some poor wayward child of His on earth. It makes all life different if we try to learn about, and to put into practical use, our belief in such things as these. They are worth thinking about; they are based upon what is revealed! III. Treasures of God's Love. The Bible will help us to work out more and more the problems which God has brought within our reach, and within the sphere of our experience if we choose to read and pray and to work and believe about them. On the other hand, if we shut our eyes to all these mysterious truths what is life for? Is life given to us that we go on missing every day all the treasures of His ingenuity and love? I suppose, when we get beyond death, and see more clearly than we can see here, and understand more widely than we can understand now, all that God has planned for our salvation from the beginning of eternity I suggest, I say, there will be nothing more absolutely painful, nothing that will make a more complete hell, than the consciousness of all we have missed, the conviction beyond death of the value of all we have ignored this side of the grave. Do not let it go on until it is too late! Why should we miss, and go on missing, these treasures of God's love? From today let us just register the fact that God is reminding us that this is irreparably lost for those who have no eye open to the glory of the angels, and no ear open to the wisdom of the angels, and no willing response to the loyalty of the angels, and no cooperation with the ministry of the angels. Hebrews 1:14 And is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace, That may compassion of their evilles move? There is: else much more wretched were the cace Of men then beasts. But O! th' exceeding grace Of highest God that loves his creatures so, And all His workes with mercy doth embrace, That blessed Angels he sends to and fro, To serve to wicked men, to serve his wicked foe. How oft do they their silves bowers leave, To come to succour us that succour want! How oft do they with golden pineons cleave The flitting skyes, like flying Pursuivant, Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant! They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, And their bright Squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward. O! why should heavenly God to men have such regard? Spenser's Faerie Queene (II. VIII. 1, 2). Hebrews 1:14 Cardinal Vaughan says: 'We are touched by the love of our God as shown towards us in the ministry of His hidden angels, but I think the exhibition of His love is even more touching as vouchsafed through those who are our fellow-travellers along the road of life.' References. I. 14. R. F. Horton, The Hidden God, p. 183. W. P. S. Bingham, Sermons on Easter Subjects, p. 134. I. 31. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 132. Hebrews 2:1 There is nothing I so hardly beleeve to be in man as constancie, and nothing so easie to be found in him, as inconstancy.... Our ordinary manner is to follow the inclination of our appetite this way and that way, on the left or on the right hand; upward and downe-ward, according as the winde of occasions doth transport us; we never thinke on what we would have, but at the instant we would have it: and change as that beast that takes the colour of the place wherein it is laid. What we even now purposed we alter by and by, and presently returne to our former biase. We goe not, but we are carried: as things that flote, now sliding gently, now pulling violently, according as the water is, either stormy or calme. Montaigne ( Florio ), II. 1. Drifting From Christ Hebrews 2:1 The counsel is one to Christian men to beware of drifting from Christ Such is our theme Drifting from Christ. But perhaps it is natural we should speak of another thing first. I. It must be a long while now since men began to speak of their life as a running stream. It was inevitable the figure should suggest itself to them as soon as they began to think; we all feel its aptness as often as we reflect upon the ceaseless vicissitude that laps our lives round. Of course, it would be a mistake, and worse than a mistake, to think of this ceaseless movement in which we are all involved as if it were a mere brute fate to which simply we must perforce submit. 'Life,' says the Apostle to Christian believers, 'life,' with all its elements and conditions, 'is yours'. This continual change to which we are all committed is for one thing the condition of progress. And besides, how flat and stale life would otherwise be! And yet I believe every one will feel that were there nothing but ceaseless change in our earthly lot, no anchor sure and steadfast for us anywhere, life would be terrible indeed! Ah, it is everything for us to have attached ourselves to Jesus Christ! everything that by strong cords of trust and loyalty we should be fast moored to Him! II. But it is time to speak now, in the second place, of what is meant by drifting from Christ. Of those who once were alongside Jesus Christ, how many that we could name have drifted very far! It is not easy even for Christian people always to have the Lord Jesus Christ for the fixed centre of their lives. Too often their relations to Him grow relaxed somehow, and His sublime Figure recedes into the distance, threatening to pass out of view an unhappy process which comes about in very various ways. Thus for example (1) A storm may have broken out in their life and driven them away from Christ. It may have been a storm of doubt, or a storm of trouble. (2) Or again, it may be an influence less obvious that does it. (3) When neither of these influences succeeds in detaching us from our Lord, there is another influence that may an influence more slow and subtle and secret still. A thousand varying cares and moods and occupations agitate the surface of our lives. And with this there comes a chafing and a fretting which may by slow degrees wear out the strands of loyalty that bind us to our Lord. III. How can a Christian who has drifted away from Christ regain his moorings once more? It is by no violent efforts, no strong beating up against the adverse forces of his life, still less by any weak complaining of them, that any man will regain his old attachment to Jesus Christ; but just by giving 'earnest heed the more earnest heed to the things which he has heard about Him'. A. Martin, Winning the Soul, p. 31. Drifting Hebrews 2:1 * (R.V.) * There is as much need for this exhortation today as when it was first written. There are many signs of religious decadence which we shall be wise to heed, lest we ourselves, caught in the prevailing current, drift away from the truth of God, from the day of God, and from the Christ of God. John Ruskin was not far wrong when he said that a Red Indian, or an Otaheitian savage, had a surer sense of Divine existence round him, the God over him, than the plurality of refined Londoners and Parisians. Allowing that there is some exaggeration in this, I fear that there is too much truth in it. I. With a view to our spiritual help, let us see what those things are which we have heard, and then glance at the danger of losing them and the means of holding them fast. (1) Among the new truths these Hebrews had heard was the readiness of God to receive all who came to Him. (2) Take another example of what this writer alluded to the truth that suffering is often as much a sign of God's love as success. (3) Think also of Christ's revelation of the spiritual nature of acceptable worship. (4) But all this resolves itself into the possibility of losing our hold on the living God, for it is the fact of His Fatherhood which constitutes the brotherhood; it is because He is a God of Love that we are sure our troubles are overruled for good; and it is because He is a Spirit that we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. II. The danger of loosening our grip on spiritual realities is serious. The nature of spiritual truths and things is such as to make them elusive. They are not evident to our senses. III. How, then, shall we safeguard ourselves against this peril? The answer is here by taking more earnest heed to the things we have heard. (1) Could you not give more time to the study of God's Word? (2) Again, you will be taking more earnest heed to things you have heard when you live as if you believed them. (3) Above all, strive to keep up in prayer, here and alone, such personal communion with God in Christ that your affection as well as your intellect may grasp Him. A. Rowland, Open Windows and other Sermons, p. 88. References. II. 1. J. H. Jowett, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 150. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 336. S. A. Selwyn, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xiv. p. 52. E. Griffith-Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 408, and vol. lviii. p. 292. J. Bowstead, Practical Sermons, vol. ii. p. 15. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 205. II. 2-4. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. p. 133. Neglecting the Great Salvation Hebrews 2:3 The object of the writer of this Epistle was to show to the Jews how much belter the Gospel dispensation was as compared with the old covenant The keynote of the Epistle is the word better a better priest, a better tabernacle, a better sacrifice, are to be found in the new covenant. There are two points to which I wish to direct your attention. I. Why this salvation is called great. (1) It is called great on account of its great author. It was the conception of the great heart of the great God of heaven and earth. Think of the greatness of our God. Take the telescope and sweep the heavens with it on some clear, starry night. What a revelation of God's greatness we have there! Let us turn to the microscope and there we see the perfection of God's workmanship, how the tiniest of His created things (unlike man's workmanship) will bear the minutest inspection. I turn from God the Creator to God the Ruler of the earth, and there too in the pages of history I see His might and His power. (2) It is a great salvation because of its subject a lost world. The loving arms of God seem to enclasp this sinful, this rebellious world, and we hear His voice of love saying, 'Not one of these sons and daughters of Mine shall perish' so God loved the world. (3) It is a great salvation because of the great object it has in view. It is not only to redeem a world lost, ruined, and cursed, but to redeem man in that world. (4) It is a great salvation because of the great price paid for it. There is no arithmetic, no numbers, by which we can calculate the great price of this great salvation. (5) And the end makes it great, even eternal glory. The purpose and plan was to bring many sons to glory. To be in His presence, to behold His glory, to be transformed into His image this is the great salvation. II. The serious consequences that follow from neglecting it. If the Jew perished with less light and fewer privileges, how shall we escape! Alas! we are busy about everything but the one thing needful. How shall we escape if we neglect? There is nowhere in this universe where we may escape to. We cannot hide from God. T. J. Madden, Tombs or Temples p. 119. References. II. 3. H. Allen, Penny Pulpit, No. 1584, p. 65. II. 4. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 141. Hebrews 2:5 In a letter to Lady Elgin, written in 1833, Erskine of Linlathen points out the distinction 'between the dispensation of Christ and the dispensation of ἄγγελοι (Heb. I. and II.). The dispensation of Christ embraces in it a oneness with the mind of God not merely a readiness to do His will, when we know it, but a participation in His mind, so that, by a participation in the Divine nature, we enter into the reasons of His will, and do not merely obey the authority of His will'. Reference. II. 5-9. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 184. II. 6. J. N. Friend, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 458. II. 7. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 435; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 385. Hebrews 2:8 You can remember that text, you have not ability enough to forget it. But we remember many things intellectually which we forget morally and sympathetically. 'Not yet' why it sounds like a song of hope; there is no despair in this strain. The meaning is, We shall by and by perhaps round the next mountain shoulder we shall see the holy land, the garden of God. 'Not yet;' we are waiting for it; the night is cold and long, but it will expire, and then we shall see the morning and feel its friendly warmth. 'Not yet,' but after a while; a few more struggles, and then the victory. We fight in the hope of the triumph. In mere fighting there is nothing but heartache and disappointment, but in the things that are beyond the morning is the smile. Let us see if we can paraphrase and amplify this most beautiful thought. I. 'Not yet, but' broken music, but God's music. All things we know of God are broken. Oh, the broken instruments that are lying on the floor of this orchestra, broken trumpets, broken organs, broken lives broken, all broken; they shall all be gathered up and put together again, and God's band shall be one loud sweet anthem-song. We do not see the whole world converted to the faith. They say it would be, but it is not There are atheists, there are cannibals, there are heathen, there are pagans, there are savages, who would dine off you if they could. You promised the earth should be green, and behold it lies in waste lands. Hold on! What do you see? Why, we see one man, and he only of the poor sort, believing. That is enough; why speak scornfully of the solitary specimen? He is an instance, he grows in the soil of his soul the plant of faith enough! Why do you lose heart in missions foreign and home? Is there only one man in all the world who believes? then the cause of Christ must be in a bad way. Not at all; that one man does believe, he keeps up the continuity of faith, he comes out of the secret places of the Most High, he is walking back to the sanctuary that is invisible, and in his tarrying here for a moment, he irradiates the planet with a strange mystic glory. We do not yet see all the land covered with summer flowers; it is but February, and cold icy February, and the very devil's in the air blackening it with his unholy blight. Talk about summer! Yes, we do. We do not yet see the spring and the summer in all their full blossoming, but this little girl was out this morning, and she found this little blue violet She did? Yes. In the open air? Yes. Sure? Quite. Not grown under glass? No, in the open air. Then the spring is here in that violet; that is enough, it took the whole solar system to grow that violet. You are taking a poetical view of things. Not at all, I am taking a prosaic view of things; because that violet is here in the open air the whole land shall glow with summer. There is a proverb like most of the proverbs, half a truth or a whole lie which says that one swallow does not make a summer. Yes, it does; that one swallow is the prophet of the Lord: He cannot come alone, you do not see his following. II. If these things be so, what follows? Patience is one of the things which follow. God always takes time. I do not know how long it was before He came to look upon chaos. Chaos has no history, chaos keeps no archives, no records. But in due time, called by the prophet-poet, 'The beginning,' the dateless date, He came and looked and shaped the universe into music and meaning. I do not wonder at our being impatient. We have but a handful of years at our disposal, some seventy a few more or a few less, what matters? We want everything done in our day and generation, and the Lord never hurries Himself. He who breathes eternity need not be worried and fretted by feverish time. Patience! I never ask any man to join the Church, I never urge any man to come to the communion of the Lord's Supper; I never dig up the seed I have sown to see how it is getting on. Foolish man who takes up the roots to know whether they are growing and how fast they are growing. Son of man, go forth and preach the preaching that I bid thee; whether the people hear or forbear is no business of thine. You want to see immediate results. That is a sign of impatience: fall into the music of the universe, fall into the solemnity and the peacefulness of God's intention. The earth is redeemed, that fact is accomplished, and one day He will come to claim his redemption, and it will be all there. Confidence is another of the things which well becometh us under the inspiration of this meditation. It will all come to pass; we cannot even hinder the truth in any permanent or enduring sense. We can hinder it for a time and in a place, but a very limited hindering is the hindering that is possible to man. 'We can do nothing against the truth but for the truth.' It hath pleased God that His economy shall work in that way. He has made us fellow-labourers in His great husbandry, and at the last He will credit us with the whole; He will say, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole'. His harvest is the fruition of thy faith. Condescending God, merciful God, Person of the dear Jesus, He told the cripples that came to Him in the days of His flesh that they had made themselves whole by their faith a wondrous cooperation of pity and love. Participation is another of the things which belongs to this series of thoughts. We shall be partakers of His glory. We shall reap where He has sown, His furrows shall be our harvest, and we shall have great delight together. Oh for that harvest day, that day of the laden wains, and the merry singing Harvest Home! Every one of us credited with having grown some of the corn, so big, so overflowing is the Divine love. Have you seen the resurrection? No. Yes, you have. No, I have not seen the resurrection. You have, you have seen these flowers: this is the resurrection. If these things, so shapely, comely, beautiful, and fragrant, came out of the cold black earth, the argument for the resurrection is complete. I have not seen the resurrection, you say. No, but you have seen one white lily out of the black earth. It is enough; if He brought that lily out of the earth, He can bring your child up too. I have not seen the resurrection. Yes, you have. Where? Why, in that arum lily that you pointed out to me the other day, that beautiful arum lily, so graceful, so spotless, that I said to it, Whence comest thou? Out of the earth almost into heaven. The text is I saw some persons come in late who ought to have been here in time the text is, 'Not yet, but'. Joseph Parker. Reference. II. 8. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii. p. 84. Man As King Hebrews 2:8-9 I. 'We see not yet all things in subjection to man.' 'Not yet,' but we are to see it This supremacy is the final goal of humanity. The threads of the ages have been woven in the great loom of Time with the weft of the Divine purpose and the warp of human experience, and on the web is traceable in clear characters the God-given sovereignty of man. II. 'Not unto angels has God subjected the coming world.' Not to them, but to men like ourselves, who have to do with sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field, with cotton and calicoes, with science and art; whose life is as 'fragile as the dewdrop on its perilous way from a tree's summit,' and yet so strong that it destroys itself by sin; man, 'made a little lower than God, and crowned with the glory' of a present participation in His nature, and therefore by and by to be invested with the 'honour' of sharing His rule. III. But if to man, to what man is this sceptre of dominion finally granted? The conquering race is the godly race, of any colour, or country, or time. Not 'the great white race,' but the great Christian race, rises to joint-heirship with Christ Jesus in the salvation and service, and sovereignty of the future of humanity. IV. Though eighteen centuries have elapsed since that forecast of the destiny of man was quoted, endorsed, and explained by the writer to the Hebrews, amid the wreck and overthrow of Judaism, we have, alas! to adopt the writer's lament, and say, as we look on man and his world today, 'not yet do we see all things subjected unto him'. He is only slowly learning that he is a spirit, and is for large breadths of his time and in wide areas of his life the slave of 'things'. V. But surely, that is not all we see! Recognise fully the prodigious loss due to man's forfeiture of his predestined royalty; tabulate the miseries he owes due to his falls; omit no item in the tale of the poorness of his life, the selfishness of his spirit, and the fecundity of his sin; yet that is not all the whole human fact. On this earth and amongst men 'we see Jesus,' and though, in seeing Him, the first glimpse may only confirm the impression that man has not yet fully entered on his inheritance, yet the deeper look assures us that he is on his way to it, has already been anointed with the oil of joy above his predecessors and contemporaries, and, though suffering, is really ascending by suffering to the throne from which he shall rule for evermore. In what ways do men come to sovereign spiritual power? The Epistle to the Hebrews is the full and inspiring answer. The rule of life comes to the builders of the city of God; the men who, in glorious succession, work out the Divine purpose of redemption on the earth, and find the Author and Finisher of their work in the Christ Authority is in the revelation of God, and it increases till in the 'new covenant' it is at its maximum of light and power. World-rulers are men of ethical glow and passion, who believe in the invisible, and work for righteousness with self-sacrificing devotion. Seeing Jesus, we see these four paths to the sovereignty of the Christian race, and of the Christian religion through that race; the path of history; of Divine revelation; of saintly character; and of self-suppressing enthusiasm for the welfare of the world. J. Clifford, The Secret of Jesus, p. 199. The Crowned Christ Hebrews 2:8-9 We have in these words a contrast between the greatness of man and the supremacy of Christ The writer of the Epistle admits the greatness of man, but suggests that he had fallen short of the ideal he had not yet realised his dominion: 'We see not yet all things subjected to him'. Then he proceeds, on this alleged greatness, to suggest an argument for the supremacy of Christ. Man, though great, had failed, but 'we see... Jesus... crowned'. We find the writer asserting two things: I. That Man has not yet Realised Universal Dominion. See how true this is (1) In the realm of matter. Since the Epistle was written, how great has been the progress of Science! The dominion of man over matter is vast and most wonderful. A Kepler has traced the orbit of a planet, and with awe exclaimed, 'I thought over again the thought of God!' A Franklin has drawn lightning from the clouds, and directed its course. A Young has suggested the wave theory of light A Newton has discovered the force of gravitation. A Harvey has revealed the circulation of the blood. A Darwin has collected the facts on which the theory of natural evolution became possible. And yet, with all these wonderful discoveries of man in the realm of matter, how true it is, 'We see not yet all things subjected to him'. (2) In the sphere of life. (3) In the sphere of mind. (4) In the sphere of the spiritual. II. That Christ is Destined to Realise this Universal Dominion. The writer sees clearly that the coming of Christ makes possible for man the heights of life that now he may win a closer fellowship with God, and, defying evil, march to the great future as a Son of God. He sees Christ crowned on the heights because He made all this possible for man, and in Him he sees the ultimate victory of the race. But on what does this splendid vision rest? The vision rests on the three granite pillars of the Christian Gospel (1) The Incarnation. (2) The Redemption. (8) The Priesthood. Though we see not yet 'all things subjected to him,' we see Jesus crowned, and the crowning of Christ involves the ultimate making and crowning of man. On these three pillars of the faith we may build our great hope and win the vision of man complete in Him. If redemption were a failure, Christ would lose His crown. The crown of man as a returning Son of God is the crown of Christ J. Oates, The Sorrow of God, p. 108. Hebrews 2:8-9 It is this which gives such terrible, even blighting power to the words and writings of unbelievers, which barbs and sends home many a dull scoff that would otherwise fall harmless; that they touch a conscious, ever-rankling wound. What they urge against Christianity is true. The believer knows, already knows, all that the infidel can tell him; the eye of love can see as clearly as that of hate, and it has already warmed over all the other exults in; has seen springs sink down suddenly among the sands of the desert; has looked upon bare and stony channels, now ghastly with the wreck and drift of ages, yet showing where once a full, fair river bore down life and gladness to the ocean. The Christian would fain explain, account for these long delays, this partial efficacy, this intermittent working. He feels that he is in possession of the key which is to open all these intricacies, but at present he finds that, like that of the pilgrims, 'it grinds hard in the lock'. He sees Jesus, but he sees not yet all things put under Him. Dora Greenwell, in * The Patience of Hope. * The Taste of Death and the Life of Grace Hebrews 2:9 I. Jesus Christ not only died, but He tasted death as incredible bitterness and penury of soul. II. He did so because He died for every man. He experienced in a Divine life the universal death. III. Yet this desertion and agony of death was a gift and grace of God not only to us but to Him. And He knew it was so. And that faith was His victory and our redemption. P. T. Forsyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LVIII. p. 296. Ascension Day Hebrews 2:9 Thoughts of joy and gladness mingle with all our meditations of Ascension-tide. Christ is now seen to have all things put under Him. In this Jubilee of the Saviour's coronation, we may forget for a moment all our preceding commemorations. Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary, the manger, the wilderness, the cross, the grave, they are only so many beautiful memories stages in that triumphant progress by which the Holy One ascends to the Throne. Our eyes 'see the King in His beauty,' and they can fix their gaze on nothing else: 'We see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour'. I. What was the glory here spoken of? First, there was the glory of a great salvation for the lost children of men. The anticipation of this honour entered into that intercessory prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John. Now this joint glory of the Father and the Son consisted in bringing many sons into glory. And in order thereto, Christ was to be set as a King upon His holy hill of Zion. 'The government was to be upon His shoulder.' He was to become the centre of ten thousand times ten thousand redeemed and happy beings who had been washed from their sins in His own Blood, and who should live only to cast their crowns at His feet. And there were means and agencies for carrying out these objects to be employed upon the Throne. No sooner had Christ ceased to drink of the brook by the way, and had sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, than the sun of His Godhead shone forth with all the effulgence of its original and eternal brightness. Men were to see the glory, both of the Father and of Christ. The triumphs of the cross shall be made manifest. The victories of the Holy Spirit shall begin. The work of the all-prevailing intercession shall go on within the veil. There shall be, as it were, a mighty revival in heaven, all the powers therein wondering at the extending reign of righteousness and the fruits of the outpoured gifts of the Ascension on the hearts of the sons of men. 'Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy Kingdom is a right sceptre: Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.' II. 'Crowned with glory and honour,' in that, all things, both in heaven and earth, shall be subject to the kingdom of mediation (see Ephesians 1:20-23 ); and again, 'All things were made by Him and for Him'. 'For Him,' observe, that is, in His character as Mediator. The kingdom of mediation embraces the visible and the invisible; the whole of our present mundane system was constructed with a view to afford a theatre magnificent enough for the work of Christ, and for the training of suitable instruments for the accomplishment of His great purposes. The Saviour's exaltation reminds us then that we are subjects of the Mediator's world; that the earth is the platform of an achieved redemption; that all things were made for, and put under the dominion of the Crucified: 'All power is given to Him in heaven and in earth'. All power to seal pardons; to impart gifts; to quicken, sanctify, redeem, save. It was needful that in all things He should have the preeminence. All beings, all worlds must see Him 'crowned with glory and honour'. 'Crowned with glory and honour,' in that on the ascended Saviour should be concentrated all the homage and adoration of the heavenly world (Phi 2:10 ), plainly affirms the dominion of Christ over all worlds, intelligences, and kingdoms. He is 'God over all, blessed for ever'. D. Moore Hebrews 2:9 When I think of our Lord as tasting death it seems to me as if He alone ever truly tasted death. And this, indeed, may be received as a part of the larger truth that He alone ever lived in humanity in the conscious truth of humanity. But when I think of death as tasted by our Lord, how little help to conceiving of His experience in dying do any of our own thoughts or anticipated experiences seem fitted to yield! What men shrink from when they shrink from death, is either the disruption of the ties that connect them with a present world, or the terrors with which an accusing conscience fills the world to come. The last had no existence for Him who was without sin: neither had the world, as the present evil world, any place in His heart. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement, pp. 259 f. Hebrews 2:9 Bishop King of Lincoln wrote: 'We cannot understand the mystery of sorrow. We can "see Jesus" the "Man of Sorrows" and see how His earthly ministry apparently was a failure. They did not care for Him wonderful and purifying example for us all, warning us against the dangers of popularity and apparent success.' Spiritual Letters, p. 64. References. II. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No. 771, and vol. xxv. No. 1509. J. T. Parr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 4. R. W. Church, Village Sermons (3rd Series), p. 85. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 132; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 375; ibid. vol. ix. p. 472; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xii. p. 45. II. 9, 10. C. Kingsley, The Good News of God, p. 340. Hebrews 2:10 Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of Pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind; true effort, in fact, as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is Thought. In all ways we are 'to become perfect through suffering '. Carlyle, Heroes (lecture III.). References. II. 10. J. G. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 22. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii No. 478, and vol. xlv. No. 2619. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. p. 51. C. S. Macfarland, The Spirit Christlike, p. 127. Archbishop Cosmo Lang, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 235. Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 256. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 200. H. Bushnell, Christ and His Salvation, p. 219. J. Farquhar, The Schools and Schoolmasters of Christ, p. 145. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 143; ibid. vol. iii. p. 370; ibid. vol. iv. p. 34; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 386. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 229. II. 10-18. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 428. II.11. J. Keble, Sermons for Lent to Passiontide, p. 288. C. D. Bell, The Power of God, p. 40. J. Bowstead, Practical Sermons, vol. i. p. 298. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 124. II. 11-13. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xli. No. 2418. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 239. II. 11-17. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p. 59. II. 12. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 118; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 197. A. Martin, Winning the Soul, p. 319. II. 13. H. Varley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 237. II. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 166. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 37. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints' Days, p. 181. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 47; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 222. Emancipation From the Pear of Death Hebrews 2:14-15 Death is a subject which may at present be remote from our thoughts, but it is an experience in which we shall all one day or other be interested. To be frequently in the contemplation of death is perhaps the mark of a feeble rather than of a robust spirit, yet we ought not to refuse the calls which in God's providence invite us to consider death. And, if it be extravagant to demand that a large part of our life should be consumed in contemplating its end, we may, like Nelson, while fighting on deck yet keep our coffin in our cabin. It is well to be assured that one of the purposes served by the mission of Christ was to dispel the fear of death by destroying that which gave it power to terrify. The fear of death is here represented as a bondage, a condition of slavery out of which every child of God must be emancipated. I. If we analyse this fear we find that there are various causes producing it First of all there is the bodily pain, which frequently precedes death, and may in our own case do so. Dread of pain increases with age, as we learn more of the capacity for suffering which our body possesses, and as we see more of the terrible forms of disease by which life is slowly worn out It is human nature to shrink from long-continued and hopeless weakness, from months of uselessness and slow decay, from the gradual extinction of all the functions of life, and the constantly renewed misery of the medical or surgical appliances which we know can but prolong for a short time a life that has become torture. But this cause of fear may be left to be dealt with by common sense and nature. For it is unreasonable to distress ourselves with prospects of such a kind. For all we know, death may find us in sleep or may have passed before we were conscious of its approach, or in our case it may come with none of these attendant horrors. Dr. Hunter, in his last moments, grieved that he 'could not write how easy and delightful it is to die'. The late Archbishop of Canterbury quietly remarked, 'It is really nothing much after all'. II. A second cause of this fear is a more reasonable one. We fear death because it brings to an end the only life we know experimentally. But if we believe what both nature and Christ teach us, that this life is but the training-ground for another, that the powers here cultivated and the tools here whetted are for use in a larger and intenser existence; if we consider that once this life was as strange and new to us as any other can be, and that death is really the bursting of the shell that hinders us from entering the ampler air of our true and eternal life, we have surely cause enough to throw such regrets and fears to the winds, and even long, as some have longed, to learn what the true life of God and God's children is. III. But this leads us to the most fruitful cause of fear, the consciousness that after death comes the judgment. Whatever men hold regarding the last judgment or the mode of it, all men feel that at death there is a judgment, that death ushers them into a fixed, final, eternal state. This is the instinctive apprehension of untaught men as well as the warning of revelation. The natural boldness which confronts death cheerfully, or sullenly submits to the inevitable, disappears when this added knowledge of the significance of death enters in. Mere natural courage is irrelevant in facing judgment. This letter was written 'to the Hebrews,' to men who had lived under a legal religion, and who could expect to escape punishment only if they had complied with all that the law commanded. But to be sure of this was impossible, and the result was that we find them exclaiming, 'In this life death never suffers a man to be glad'. Our emancipation from bondage to this fear is accomplished by 'the destruction of him that had the power of death, that is, the devil'. The devil was considered to be the counsel for the prosecution, the embodiment of an accusing conscience. Death was looked upon as the result of the primal curse, as separation from God and from all good on account of sin; a just and true view. The devil had the power of death in the sense in which the state has the power of the sword to inflict punishment on evildoers. The devil used the common idea of death to terrify and appal and separate from all hope in God. The Jew was haunted with such visions as Zechariah had when he saw the high priest himself clothed in filthy garments. This was the sting of the serpent; but in Christ the primeval promise was fulfilled, the serpent's head was crushed. The devil's weapon is struck from his hand. He can no longer persuade the children of God that death means separation from God and entrance upon a life of suffering. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 238. Hebrews 2:14-15 'At another time,' says Bunyan in Grace Abounding (116), 'as I was set by the fire in my House, and musing on my Wretchedness, the Lord made that also a precious word unto me, Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. I thought that the glory of these words was then so weighty on me that I was, both once and twice, ready to swoon as I sat; yet not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace.' Hebrews 2:15 In the preface to Colloquia Peripatetica (p. lxxv.), Prof. Knight remarks that, for all the genuineness of Dr. John Duncan's faith, 'nevertheless, it is true that he was "all his lifetime subject unto bondage". His spirit did not live in the sunshine. Though he would have appreciated Luther's saying, 'I sit and sing, like a bird on a tree, and let God think for me," he never entered into the core of that experience.' 'O! Who will deliver me from this fear of death? What shall I do? Where shall I fly from it? Should I fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it? A wise man advised me some time since, 'Be still and go on'. Perhaps this is best, to look upon it as my cross; when it comes, to let it humble me, and quicken all my good resolutions, especially that of praying without ceasing; and at other times, to take no thought about it, but quietly to go on 'in the work of the Lord'. Wesley's Journal (January, 1738). References. II. 14, 16. A. Ainger, Sermons Preached in the Temple Church, p. 87. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 391. Hebrews 2:15 In 1518 Erasmus lay dangerously ill at Louvain. After his recovery he wrote to Beatus Rhenanus: 'When the disease was at its height I neither felt distressed with desire of life, nor did I tremble at the fear of death. All my hope was in Christ alone, and I prayed for nothing to Him except that He would do what He thought best for me. Formerly, when a youth, I remember I used to tremble at the very name of death.' Hebrews 2:16 He does not forsake the world, But stands before it modelling in the clay, And moulding there His image. Age by age The clay wars with His fingers and pleads hard For its old, heavy, dull, and shapeless ease. W. B. Yeats. References. II. 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. No. 90. II. 17. R. M. Benson, Redemption, p. 86. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 369; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 155; ibid. vol. x. p. 182. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 249. Hebrews 2:17-18 In a letter, written during May, 1851, V. W. Robertson tells a correspondent that, 'except in feeling a fellowship and oneness with that Life, and recognising parallel feelings and parallel struggles, triumphantly sometimes, I do not see how life could be tolerable at all. He was Humanity, and in Him alone my humanity becomes intelligible.... Was not He alone in this world? unfelt, uncomprehended, suspected, spoken against? and before Him was the cross. Before us, a little tea-table gossip, and hands uplifted in holy horror. Alas! and we call that a cross to bear. Shame! Yet still I do admit, that for a loving heart to lack sympathy is worse than pain.' References. II. 18. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. i. p. 331. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 487; vol. xxxiii. No. 1974, and vol. 1. No. 2885. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 373. II. 26. A. Tucker, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 230. Revelation in a Son Hebrews 3:1 The text of the Epistle to the Hebrews will be found in the first verse of the third chapter, 'Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus'. Like all Christian teaching, it finds its centre in the historic Personality and Life, which is the constant element because it is the Divine Fact. I. It is of the utmost importance to make clear to ourselves the fact that the work of Christ is essentially a unity, that He is not at one time concerned with making known the name of God, at another with fulfilling His Will in the redemption of mankind. He manifests the love of God, as He could not fail to do, in fulfilling the Father's loving purpose of reconciliation through death. The Fact of Christ crucified, the work of Calvary, the Death of the cross is itself God's word, God's message. It is this position, established in the first two chapters, that justifies the author in proceeding to his theme. 'Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.' II. When God speaks in the prophets, He does so indirectly, mediately, through the interposition of the human voice. When God speaks in a Son, He does so directly, immediately, through the facts themselves, which the human voice more or less imperfectly represents. It is the difference between nature and science, between reality and representation, between the actual world and the lesson-books which describe its processes. Prophecy interprets God's purposes: facts realise them. III. It is important to remember that the union of the messenger and the priest was already portrayed in the pages of that Old Testament prophet the fulfilment of whose ideal in Jesus the Messiah was the characteristic discovery of the Apostolic Church. The second Isaiah is the great anticipator of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is he who fixes for ever the sacrificial idea as the only adequate expression of the deliverance, the opening of the prison to them that are bound, which the Messenger and Servant should preach as a gospel to the poor. For this elect and beloved representative of Jehovah was to be, not like the prophets a preacher of righteousness, but a bringer of salvation, and as such a man of sorrows, led as the sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, bearing the iniquity of His people, and, because He had poured out His soul unto death, dividing the spoil with the strong. I think we shall best represent the difference between the work of the Servant and the work of that long line of 'servants in the house,' from Moses onwards, who had preceded Him, if we say that, while the prophets declared the righteousness of God, in the Suffering Servant that righteousness was to become redemptive. IV. The priestly mediation of Jesus, of which His death is the embodiment, and His exaltation the Divine acceptance, is not only the subject of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but is itself the message of the Gospel. He is God's Apostle in His capacity as priest. This means an entirely different view of the proportions of the Christian Faith from that with which we have been made familiar by the teaching, for example, of the late Bishop Westcott, whose interpretation of this Epistle is, if my view be correct, prejudicially affected by the general point of sight which he adopts. There is, as I believe, in the New Testament no Gospel of the Incarnation as such, far less a Gospel of creation. The Scriptures give us no warrant for speculation as to whether the Word would have become flesh independently of the actual conditions under which God intervened in human life. Christ is not presented as the necessary consummator of a development which, apart from the fact of sin, would have been incomplete without Him. We simply do not know what such a development would have meant. But He is the reconciler, His death being the essential feature in this historical manifestation: 'I am the living one, and I became dead'. To acknowledge this is of the highest importance if we are to appreciate the self-surrender and voluntary love of God, the debt we owe Him, and the dependence in which we stand towards His Christ, who for our sakes became poor, took upon Him (the exact expression which follows should be noticed) 'the form of a slave,' and endured the cross. And it enables us to understand what the writer of Hebrews means by God speaking to us in a Son. He does not mean us to dwell upon the Incarnate Son as an object of contemplation, His personality, His teaching, His self-expression as a revelation of the Eternal Father, and then to go on to consider His redeeming work. He has not really omitted to develop in detail the work of the Son as the Apostle, referring us, as it were, to the Gospel according to St. John for a fuller treatment of the subject. No, God's speech is nothing else but the facts of the sufferings of Christ and the glory in which they issued. 'When He had made purification of sins, He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.' J. G. Simpson, Christus Crucifixus, p. 51. References. III. 1. G. Trevor, Types and the Antitype, p. 206. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 258. Consider Above all, Romanes,' said Darwin to G. T. Romanes, cultivate the habit of meditation.' Hebrews 3:4 * ; Hebrews 3:6 * 'Life,' says George Macdonald, 'is no series of chances with a few providences sprinkled between to keep up a justly failing belief, but one providence of God.' Reference. III. 5, 6. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 28. Hebrews 3:6 Had we fast-hold on God by the interposition of a lively faith; had we hold-fast on God by Himselfe, and not by us; had we a divine foundation; then should not humane and worldly occasions have the power so to shake and litter us, as they have. Our hold would not then yeelde to so weake a batterie: The love of noveltie; the constrainte of Princes; the good success of one partie; the rash and casuall changing of our opinions, should not then have the power to shake and alter our beleefe. We should not suffer the same to be troubled at the wit and pleasure of a new argument, and at the perswasion, no, not of all the rhetorike that ever was: we should withstand these boistrous billowes with an inflexible and unmoveable constancie. Montaigne ( Florio ), II. 12. References. III. 6. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 410. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 268. III. 7. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1160. III. 7, 8. John Watson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 81. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 305. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 275. III. 8. H. D. M. Spence, Voices and Silences, p. 247. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1st Series), p. 52. Hebrews 3:12 The commonest sort of fortitude prevents us from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it is from weakness unknown, but perhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake in every bush, from weakness that may lie hidden, watched or unwatched, prayed against or manfully scorned, repressed or maybe ignored more than half a lifetime, not one of us is safe. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (ch. v.). The parting of Life's road at Doubt and Faith! How many pilgrim feet throughout the ages, toiling devoutly thus far, have shrunk back before that unexpected and appalling sign! Disciples of the living Lord, saints, philosophers, scholars, priests, knights, statesmen what a throng! What thoughts there born, prayers there ended, vows there broken, light there breaking, hearts there torn in twain! Mighty mountain rock! rising full in the road of journeying humanity! Jas. Lane Allen. Hebrews 3:12-13 A proper sense of public duty will prompt endeavours to stop abuses the moment they become visible, without waiting for them to become serous. The misdoings which, in course of time, make useless or mischievous this or that administration, begin with trivial derelictions of duty, which no one thinks it worth while to protest against. Each increment of mischief, similarly small, is passed over as unimportant; until at length the evil is found to have grown great and perhaps incurable. Spencer, Principles of Ethics (§ 470). References. III. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, xliv. No. 2552. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 128. III. 13. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 13. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 87. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi. No. 620, and vol. xxxvi. No. 2130. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 285. III. 14. Ibid. p. 295. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1042. III. 15. H. Windross, Preacher's Magazine, vol. x. p. 272. III. 16. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iv. p. 157. Hebrews 3:19 In the first chapter of The Saints' Everlasting Rest, which is based on Hebrews 4:9 , as its text, Baxter observes: 'When God would give the Israelites His Sabbaths of rest, in a land of rest, He had more ado to make them believe it than to overcome their enemies, and procure it for them'. Reference. III. 19. G. H. Morrison, Scottish Review, vol. i. p. 130. A Bible Reading Hebrews 4 * etc. * I want to conduct, so to say, a Bible reading, and to fix upon one or two special and pregnant words which invite us to the larger light, to the fuller opportunity, to the diviner joy. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is an eloquent man; I do not know his name, I do not care to inquire into it, but he is a man of marked power of expression: he uses words uniquely, and with a personal accent, and he surrounds us with a radiant, most exhilarating atmosphere. His favourite word in this chapter, and in one or two other places that I shall quote presently, is 'Let us'. Here is something for ourselves to do; let us pull ourselves together, and do it; now is your opportunity, seize it. These imperatives are not stern as all imperatives would appear of necessity to be; they are persuasive, gentle, full of hope; they give the very courage which they invite. How much depends upon how a thing is said! I have often taken occasion to say that the word 'woe' as pronounced by Jesus Christ might have a tear in it. We always associate the word 'woe' with some snowstorm, some bolt of fire, some cloudy look that has anger in it. But that might not be so necessarily; Jesus might be simply revealing the results of certain sowings and preparations, and He might say in a gentle whisper, 'Woe is in that act; I warn you of it, do not do it, refrain from repeating it; even you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, actors, may be warned in time; this woe is so pronounced as to invite you to escape it'. I always try to read the New Testament with tears; it is a book whose music only yields itself to gentle entreaty. When Jesus seems the most severe He may be most gentle: take that as a hint, and write it upon your New Testaments, and in your studies, and in the market place and on the highway; read the New Testament in the light of that suggestion. 'Now let us therefore fear,' because some people did not enter into rest and they might have done so (Hebrews 4:1 ). He was grieved forty years with them; their carcases whitened the wilderness. They could not enter in because of unbelief; let us therefore fear, let us learn something from history. All these carcases rotting in the wilderness are appeals; on each of them is written the word Beware, take care, do not let history pour its waters upon barren rocks or barren sands. Let us fear lest a promise being left us we should permit it to escape our attention. You see the very ground written all over with promises; they hang upon the fruit trees in the orchard, they drop from the little breasts of the birds as they sing their morning psalms. Let us look out for promises; they are filling the air. Promises are where we least expect them; turn over that leaf that seems to be hiding nothing, but simply seems to be lying on the ground, and under it you may find a blossom of a promise. Blessed are they who expect God; blessed are they who have appointments with Christ; O! thrice blessed and heavenly their estate who can find Him even at the grave. Why, methinks He is more at the grave than He is at the feast. One of His great forerunners said: 'The house of mourning is better than the house of feasting'. I wonder what he meant; he was not delivering an opinion, he was laying down and inculcating by example and experience a profound philosophy. You are better after you have cried than after you have laughed. The fool will tell you differently, the fool will tell you that your tears are vain, it is no use grieving needlessly, you cannot do anything, the event is past and gone, and therefore be up and doing and follow the band. O thou swollen fool! 'Let us therefore fear,' lest a promise should escape us; take care, those bushes in the heavenly gardens are full of birds, little birds, that one day will be great birds; let us go a-birding, and see what we can catch in the hedges of the promises. Do you keep your Bible close to your heart? do you keep your memory in your heart rather than in your intellect? is yours a memory that clings to promises, prophecies, poetries? is yours a spiritual power that can raise up out of the stones children unto Abraham? is yours an anthem-music that can make the stone walls dance as if in merriment? I. 'Let us fear therefore.' Fear is wonder, expectation. Let us be covetous, economical see, there is a crumb, gather it, put it into the great basket. Our hunger will need it some day. There is not a promise in all the Bible that we do not at some time or another want. We need all the promises of God, and they are described as exceeding great and precious. Have you ever written upon a long card all the promises? Why, there is a promise for every mental mood, there is a promise that exactly fits the ever-changing experience of the day. God's jewellery fits every finger, and looks well, for it is the jewellery of love. II. Now, thus saith the Apostle, 'Let us labour therefore' (Hebrews 4:11 ). He is as fond of the word 'therefore' as he is fond of the word 'let us'. In the first verse, 'Let us therefore,' in the eleventh verse, 'Let us labour therefore'. What would he have us labour for? Why, he says in a very remarkable form of expression, 'Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest'. Rest can only be entered into by labour. No man enjoys himself who does not labour. Any man who resigns all labour gives himself up into the hands of the devil. Why, it is your work that keeps you alive. Work is wine, medicine, food, stimulus, joy. 'Well, but,' say you, 'I could do with a little less work.' That is perfectly possible; some people are overworked, some hearts are overborne. When we speak thus we speak a human language and with human limitations. Even here is a great promise. Now the Apostle says, 'Fall not and be not too much discouraged and overborne, for there hath no temptation or trial happened unto you but God will make a way of escape.' He will enable you to bear your burden; then it will not be too much; it the burden cannot be lessened, the grace can be increased, and the increase of grace is a lightening of the load. III. Let us hear how this wonderful logician goes on. 'Let us hold fast our profession.' 'Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession' let us get hold of Him with both arms, both hands, all fingers, and hang on to Him if we can do nothing better. The writer said in the first verse, 'Let us therefore fear'; in the sixteenth verse he says, 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace'. 'Let us therefore fear,' 'Let us therefore labour,' 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace'. Christianity is logic, Christianity is not sentiment; Christianity has a great chain of reasoning, persuasion, conviction behind it and along with it. The Apostle Paul was fond of the word 'Therefore'. He could not have written any of these Epistles if he had not employed that logical term, and Apollos, if Apollos wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, has the same formula; he was credited with being an eloquent man, but he was a logician as well. Some people cannot imagine that any man can be more than one thing. You never can get into their heads ideas in couples, they are stupid themselves, and therefore they think everybody else must be stupid: all lunatics think all men mad; it is a sign of insanity. The Apostle who wrote this Epistle is described as an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures. He mightily persuaded men that he had got hold of the living Christ. So I will ask you to go through this fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and say whether you are not in the hands of a man who uses the word 'Therefore,' for this reason, on this account, obey. He is a soldier and a general who gives the reasons for his orders. IV. And then in the twenty-eighth verse of the twelfth chapter the Apostle says, 'Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear'. 'Let us' always 'let us'; because the Apostle says in effect, 'This is possible, you can do it, but you can only do it by doing it'. Ah, it is hard to teach that lesson! You can only swim by swimming; you will never learn to swim standing shivering on the river-brink, you must fling yourself into a river or sea as into a mother's arms, and the sea is a great nurse, and a most gentle monster. 'Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear' in a better way with more refinement, with more meaning, with more reality. O let us, brethren, let us let us enter into this covenant, let us say, This year shall be the very best year in our lives, God helping us. But then we shall have to pay (ch. 13:13). This is the final stroke. 'Let us go forth therefore.' I thought he was an eloquent man, but he is a logician, he has got me in his grip, he is a master; I thought we should have tropes and flowers and music and pictures and dancing sunshine making pictures for us on the wall or on the meadow, and with this man it is always, 'Therefore, therefore, therefore; because you did this thing, therefore do that'. I went to him because they told me he was an eloquent man, and a mighty orator, and with a great gift of musical expression. I find that he is a disciplinarian, a logician, a reasoner. I like my preacher to be rich in anecdotes that never happened. I like illustrations that I can throw off. Why does the preacher not give us such illustrations? This Apollos, if he were Apollos, is eternally saying, 'Therefore, therefore, therefore'; I cannot get rid of these 'therefores'. One of two things must be done; I must get rid of this man, or I must wisely accept logic set to music, music strengthening into logic. Christianity is a great argument Do not make any mistake about this matter. It means all you can give it; it will never rest until it has taken from you all your strength and all your devotion, and having given God all, then, says this same man, do not give up your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward: for God is not unfaithful to forget your work and labour of love; He knows every strain you have made, every effort, and He says to you in the time of your apparent exhaustion and sinking depletion, 'Gather up the fragments'. What fragments? These. Why, I never saw them until now. Gather them up against the next day of hunger, and you will find that you have more at the end than you had at the beginning. A paradox, but a most glorious fact! Joseph Parker. References. IV. 1, 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1177. IV. 2. Ibid. vol. xxxv. No. 2089. IV. 3. T. Arnold, Christian Life: Its Hopes, p. 223. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 866, and vol. xxxv. No. 2090. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 303. IV. 3, 7. Expositor (5th 8eries), vol. v. p. 386. IV. 3-9. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 87. IV. 7. John Watson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 241. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 280. C. G. Finney, Penny Pulpit, No. 1636, p. 133. Hebrews 4:9 Notwithstanding fair prospects and outward distinction, he clung more and more passionately to his quiet country home; the 'far off look,' the longing for rest and reality, and for the unfolding of the mystery of life, grew stronger upon him, and, though always bright and cheerful with his children, he said more frequently to his wife, 'How blessed it will be when it is all over, to lie down in that dear churchyard together!' Charles Kingsley's Life (ch. XVIII.). References. IV. 9. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 279. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 133. Hugh Price Hughes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 184. A. Coote, Twelve Sermons, p. 116. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i. p. 112. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 134; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. pp. 229, 325. IV. 9, 10. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 312. The Sabbath of the Son Hebrews 4:10 There are three great Sabbaths. There is the Sabbath of the Father, when His work of creation is completed, and He rests on the seventh day from all His works. There is the Sabbath of the Son, when His state of humiliation is ended, when His work of travail and redemption is complete, when He dieth no more, when He also hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His. There is, lastly, the Sabbath of the Holy Ghost, when the Son has delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He has put down all rule and all authority and power, when death is destroyed, when the Son Himself is made subject unto Him that did subject all things unto Him, that in the unity of the Eternal and Adorable Trinity God may be all in all. Our subject is the Sabbath of the Son. I. Through these chapters in Hebrews we hear continually the sweet chimes of rest. Those to whom the words were spoken lived, as we are living in the twentieth century, in an age of care and change. It was a time of upheaval, a time of distress, a time when men's hearts failed them for fear of what was coming. So the inspired writer speaks continually of rest, rest passing from one stillness to another yet more calm, of a peace becoming steadily more golden and more glowing till the last rest is reached. The First Rest is the rest that comes to those who hear Christ saying, 'Hither to Me,' who in faith obey Him as He calls them. 'Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' This is the rest of faith. In this Rest are received, no matter how broken it may be, the remission of sins and the gift of eternal life. II. There is the Rest of those who hear Him out to the end of His promise, and obey Him when He says, 'Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.' These are they who enter into the Second Rest, the rest after rest, 'the rest of the man who is already at rest, the repose of a man who has received a given rest, and now discovers the found rest'. Spurgeon says: 'The Lord Jesus gives to His people a priceless casket called the gift of rest; it is set with brilliants and inlaid with gems, and the substance thereof is of wrought gold; whosoever possesses it feels and knows that his warfare is accomplished, and his sin is pardoned. After a while the happy owner begins to examine his treasure. It is all his own, but he has not yet seen it all, for one day he detects a secret drawer, he touches a hidden spring, and, lo! before him lies a priceless Kohinoor, surpassing all the rest. It had been given him, it is certain, but he had not seen it at first, and therefore he finds it. Jesus Christ gives us in the gift of Himself all the rest we can ever enjoy, even heaven's rest lies in Him. But after we have received Him we have to learn His value, and to find out by the teaching of the Spirit the fulness of the rest which He bestows.' The Second Rest is a rest in service. It is the rest of those who take Christ's yoke and burden upon them. III. But beyond that rest is the rest, or rather the Sabbath Rest of the Son. I have taken the text, with Alford and Maclaren, as referring to Him. In a sense His redeeming work is over. Never again can men smite Him. Never again can death touch Him. He has entered into His rest, into His Sabbath, and has ceased from His own works, as God did from His. But of Christ it is true that He is united to His people, and that they share His destinies. Professor Bruce has remarked that the keyword of this Epistle to the Hebrews is 'forerunner'. He shares in our experiences, and He draws us on by His grace to share in His. As He has entered His Sabbath, so perhaps even on earth may we. If we have borne the cross in patience, may there not come to us one day a new lightsomeness, when we are aware of no yoke and of no burden? May we not awake in that day and think out the hours before us in a quite different fashion? May we not long to penetrate farther into the mystery of the Divine revelation, to go to our books with eagerness and with rapture, counting all other interests secondary or dead? May we not be so full of the Spirit of God and so conscious of His power that we shall long to go to those people who have tried us and to bring them the sympathy, the patience, the warning, the encouragements that they need? May not our hearts come to be so wrapped up in the progress of the kingdom that we shall hear eagerly of its news, hardly thinking about the way in which it is communicated? May we not come to be above law, above plans, and above rulers, and bring forth fruit naturally and unconsciously and in due season? In other words, may we not cease from our own works, as God did from His, and as Christ did from His when He fell asleep on the cross? I think that there is much in the recorded experience of believers which encourages this hope. Was it not true of John Wesley that for many years he abode in this Sabbath of the Son? As I read his Journals, and especially the later volumes, I seem to 8ee that he was not any longer a worker, but simply a fruit-bearer. From all his many journeys he carried and wore the white rose of rest. Nothing irked him, nothing disturbed him. He was at peace. Even here he had entered the Sabbath Rest that remaineth for the people of God. And I may venture to say that Dr. Andrew Bonar, both in his life and in his printed words, left on my mind the same impression. He was dead to the solicitations and even to the weariness of the flesh. He had ceased from his own works, and men gazed on him and marvelled at the fruit-bearing Tree of God. I am encouraged still further to believe in it by the remainder of this chapter, for the note is taken up unmistakably in its closing verses. 'He is a priest forever.' How precious is that 'for ever!' 'He that is entered into His rest, He also hath ceased from His own works, as God did from His.... Seeing, then, that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.' Let us come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, for He hath ceased from His own works. He has, as it were, nothing else to do but to hear us and to bless us. In the clay of His flesh, when He was in the fiercest trial of His own works, there was one who sought Him while He might be found, and called upon Him while He was near. This was the thief on the cross, and the thief, coming boldly unto the Throne of Grace, was heard. But now how much more may we come boldly, for though the cross was His Throne, He hangs on the cross no longer. He is on the Throne. He Who knows our infirmities, Who was in all points tempted like as we are, to Whose eyes all things are naked and open, is calling to us. He is on the Throne, unwearied, unwounded, all-knowing, all-pitying that He may give us rest. IV. There is next the Rest of Heaven. However few and feeble and short our steps have been in the Kingdom of Grace, we pass from it to the Kingdom of Glory. By faith and by death we attain the perfect rest. We become very full of rest. We are at rest in the Lord. We are among the people who have clean passed over Jordan, and our enemies have no more that they can do, and Satan is bruised under our feet. Of that rest we can only speak as the Scripture teaches us, but we know that it is not a rest of inactivity. V. Then there is the Sabbath of the Holy Ghost beyond the Sabbath of the Son, when the number of the elect is accomplished, when the kingdom is fully come, when the deep and wide Sabbath of eternity breaks, never to change or end. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest. The desire for the final rest of God is no ignoble craving for immunity and repose. It is a search after God's deepest bosom. And I would be where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p 1. References. IV. 11. J. Bannerman, Sermons, p. 343. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 323. The Duty of Studying the Bible Hebrews 4:12 Believe me, nothing can be a substitute for the study of the Bible. Our own meditation will show us something of Divine truth, the written and spoken words of others will show us more, but the immediate revelation of the Divine character and methods and purposes is given us in the Bible alone. I believe we do not realise sufficiently that we must always be very patient, and at times simply passive, in our devotional use of the Bible. Take the short sayings of Christ, such as that you have heard interpreted this term, 'Where the body is thither shall the eagles be gathered together'; or the mysterious vision of the prophet, such as that of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones; or the historical narrative, such as the perplexing story of the old prophet who misled his brother prophet whatever it may be, take it and saturate your mind with it, leaving aside all commentaries and human explanations, and then wait till the light comes to you, and the message which God means to send you through His teachers or through His Son. Patience is the first requisite, and humility is the second. You must be content to learn, and in learning to forget yourself. The Bible has so much that is strange at first sight and unlike our own circumstances, that we are tempted to turn from it and choose what specially suits ourselves, or that in which our own preconceived ideas seem to be reflected and corroborated. Rather beware of your favourite books, and passages, and texts in the Bible; the others which you do not care for have probably a more vital and a more humbling message for your soul, just because it is distasteful to you. Therefore regularity is a third requisite, lest you should leave out any part that does not specially appeal to you, and so keep back some of the counsel of God to your own soul. And above all, read with prayer: prayer before for the guidance of the Holy Spirit of truth, prayer after for strength to do what God has shown us by His Word. There is nothing that so helps to fix and impress a truth upon the mind as the resolute translation of it into practice; and every period of such devotional study as I have tried to describe should, if it is to leave a permanent mark behind it, end with prayer that you may carry out the sacred teaching in your daily life. Patience, humility, regularity, prayer: thus aided and prepared you will, though it may at first seem dark and hard, come to feel all that the saints, all that the Psalmists found in God's Word. It will be to you 'a lantern unto your feet, and a light unto your eyes': it will show you your 'secret faults': by the love of it you will be led into 'great peace'. A. T. Lyttelton, College and University Sermons, p. 290. The Rule of Our Thoughts Hebrews 4:12 If you desire to be kept from yielding to temptation, you must be very careful of your thoughts. I. Keep thy heart clean. You keep your wealth, you keep your home, you keep your health, you keep your character, but above all these things keep your heart. Why? Because out of it are the issues of life. When Bunyan depicted the character of Ignorance, he made him say: 'I think my heart is as good as anybody's heart, and as for my thoughts, I take no notice of them'. He shows at once that he does not know himself, and that he is exposed to every temptation that crosses his path. 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he' (Proverbs 23:7 ). The thoughts lay down the tram-lines upon which presently the tram-car makes its way. Just as the tram-car will pass up and down the rails in a great city, so does the act follow along the track of the thought. Butler in his Analogy says there are three steps in the formation of character act, habit, character. Thackeray amplified this saying thus: 'Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap character; sow character, reap destiny'. II. In dealing with our thoughts, two things are necessary: (1) We need to be able to sift out bad thoughts from good thoughts; to know the traitor, however well he is dressed, and keep him out. We need discernment. Why? Because 'the god of this world hath blinded the minds,' that is, the thoughts, 'of them that believe not,' that is, the unregenerate (2 Corinthians 4:4 ). Man is blind. Next, we find the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through ignorance (Ephesians 4:18 ). 'He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,' or, as the Revised Version has it, 'he who is spiritual discerneth all things' (1 Corinthians 2:15 ). (2) We need keeping power. Just as Jesus commended His spirit to His Father, so do you, when you leave your room in the morning, commit the keeping of the gateway of your soul to Him. F. B. Meyer, The Soul's Ascent, p. 139. Hebrews 4:12 How 'quick and piercing' is the word in itself! Yet many times it never enters, being managed by a feeble arm. What weight and worth is there in every passage of the blessed Gospel! Enough, we would think, to enter and force the dullest soul, and wholly possess its thoughts and affections; and yet how often does it fall as water upon a stone! The things of God which we handle are Divine; but our manner of handling is human. There is little we touch, but we leave the print of our fingers behind. Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest (ch. III). References. IV. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2010. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 203. E. M. Geldart, Echoes of Truth, p. 79. IV. 12, 13. G. A. Bennetts, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 263. J. B. Lightfoot, Cambridge Sermons, p. 150. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 68. Him with Whom We Have to Do Hebrews 4:13 I. We have to do with God in the operations of nature. It is true, indeed, that the advance of science has revealed order, regularity, and law in the physical universe; but that is only what we might have anticipated, if, as the Bible declares and we believe, the world was called into being at the first, and is still sustained by the power and wisdom of the Most High, for God is not the author of confusion. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that He proceeds upon fixed principles; but we must beware of allowing that which we call a law to hide from us the ever active agency of Him whose orderly method of operation that law is. II. We have to do with God in the overtures of the Gospel. If we want to avail ourselves of the force which God has put into and maintains in electricity, we must comply with the conditions on which it is generated and becomes operative. The man of science investigates by patient research the methods of its operation, and then sets himself in conformity with these to avail himself of its help. Now, in the same way, if the Gospel is God's power for a certain purpose, and we wish to take advantage of it for that purpose, we must comply with its conditions and laws. These are faith in Jesus Christ, as the only Mediator, Redeemer, Sacrifice, and Lord, and repentance unto life. If you have to do with God in the overtures of the Gospel, then the bearing of its proclamations assumes a very serious character indeed. For in such a case you have to answer not the herald, but God. III. We have to do with God in the dispensations of Providence. By Providence I understand God's overruling care over all events in nature and all the actions and circumstances of men. Now if we assent to the doctrine that God's Providence is in and over all events, it will give a new importance in our view to every occurrence. Ah! if we only had more faith in the truth that it is with God we have to do in the losses and crosses of our lives, there would be less of worry and despondency in our hearts. IV. We have to do with God in the duties of daily life. Our responsibilities in society and business are not to each other merely, or to the laws of the State alone, but to God. We are under obligation to our fellows, indeed; but we are so because God has laid these obligations on us. V. We shall have to do with God in the awards of final judgment. The judgment is absolutely certain; for 'it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment'. It is to be universal; for before the judge shall be 'gathered all nations'. The judge is to be the Omniscient One who is acquainted with the secret things of each man's heart and life, and the righteous one who shall render to every man according to his works. And His awards are to be eternal; for the wicked 'shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life everlasting'. Hebrews 4:13 'Lastly,' says Butler in his sermon before the House of Lords, 'the consideration that we are the servants of God reminds us, that we are accountable to Him for our behaviour in those respects in which it is out of the reach of all human authority; and is the strongest enforcement of sincerity, as all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Artificial behaviour might perhaps avail much towards quieting our consciences, and making our part good in the short competitions of this world; but what will it avail us considered as under the government of God?' References. IV. 13. J. M. Whiton, Summer Sermons, p. 143. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p. 242. G. Bellett, Parochial Sermons, p. 297. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 437. Hebrews 4:14 At first, one's conceptions of Him are abstract to a large extent; they ought to become more and more concrete. To find ourselves any nearer the belief that we have an High Priest, once a man, now passed into the heavens, and whom the heavens will contain till the restitution of all things, ought to be a glad thought. We feel His workings, His efficacies. James Smetham, Letters (pp. 85, 86). Hebrews 4:14 The word ἀρχιερες , 'high priest,' to which the Epistle to the Hebrews gave currency as a worshipful term applied to Christ, shows how a cult-word that was certainly developed within Primitive Christianity from Jewish premises entered spontaneously into the usual parallelism as soon as it found itself in the world. It was by this word, as numerous inscriptions have shown, that the title pontifex maximus , borne by the emperors, was translated in the East. Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, pp. 369, 370. Reference. IV. 14. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. p. 187. Ascension Day Hebrews 4:14-16 In His Ascension our Lord entered heaven, not only as a King of Glory, but He entered the highest heaven on our behalf as our great High Priest. Almost the whole of the book of the Epistle to the Hebrews deals with this matter the entrance of our Blessed Saviour into the highest heaven. And writing to the Hebrew people, as we should expect, the Apostle goes on to show in a good deal of detail how all the old sacrifices found their fulfilment in and their perfection in His Sacrifice upon the cross. And in the Epistle you will note that we find there a sketch of the perfect priest, and how our Lord represents to us the Perfect Priest. The priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ began with the beginning of His earthly life. The Holy Child in the manger at Bethlehem was our great High Priest, and the manger of Bethlehem was like the altar of His sacrifice, and all the way through His life there went up on our behalf the priestly offering of a perfect sacrifice. The sacrifice appears in its greatest and highest and most perfect form upon the cross, where once for all He gave His life and shed His precious Blood for us, and as at this time He entered heaven to present on our behalf that great sacrifice of His life, and of His death upon the cross. Again and again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews and in the Epistle to the Romans, we read of the priestly work of intercession. The word 'intercession' means to go between; our Lord's intercession is a going between man and God, between man who has sinned and God against Whom man has sinned. And He stands there between the living and the dead, between God and His sinful creatures, that He may bring us back to God, and may obtain from the Father our pardon and our healing. I. So at this time we think of our Lord entering into heaven to continue for ever a work on our behalf, His work of endless intercession. That intercession is of two kinds: There is the intercession of His simple presence, the fact that in heaven He bears our own nature, the nature of those who have sinned against the Eternal Father, that in His own hands, and feet, and side He bears the mark of that which He has endured for our salvation. The simple presence of His wounded human nature is a perpetual intercession on our behalf. Beyond that there is the actual pleading for us. He speaks for you and for me, One Who knows what we need, Who knows our own helplessness, and has made Himself our champion. That help is going on ceaselessly. II. What are the fruits of His priesthood? What does He obtain for us? Well, first of all, He obtains on our behalf mercy for our sins. It is an endless intercession, claiming on our behalf the Divine mercy of our Father, and His forgiveness. So in the hymn we plead: Look, Father, look on His anointed face, And only look on us as found in Him. Then His intercession takes up into itself the imperfection of our own prayers and of our own works. The best that we can do is poor and worthless; but, caught up into the intercession of our great High Priest, the feeblest prayers have their value, and they prevail with our Father. The best that we can do in the way of life and good works, how poor a thing it is, how imperfect! And yet, caught into the stream of His intercession, it gains worth, and merit from His merit, and becomes acceptable to our Father. Yet again, His intercession upon the Throne of heaven pleads endlessly for us just the graces that we need for our daily life grace which will help us to outgrow our weakness and our faults, and grow in likeness to the perfect life of Jesus. Then there descends upon that intercession the rain of His grace, which shall help us to escape above ourselves, and to come nearer Jesus. III. What is the consequence and fruit of all this? We have in the text, 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace'. If the intercession of our Lord is to avail for us, if its fruit is to abound in us, then we must come to Him. There it all is the immeasurable good of what Jesus has done and is doing on our behalf; but it awaits our claiming. 'Come,' the Apostle says, 'and claim your share in the intercession of Jesus, in the merit of His life and His death. Come boldly to the throne of grace.' Do not let your past failures discourage you from coming near. It may have seemed that heaven has been deaf to your prayers that you have sent up. Do not think this, but come without discouragement, boldly, to the throne of grace. 'For,' he says, 'we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.' You come to an Infinite Compassion, to One Who knows, and Himself has felt, and is therefore able to deal with you. Come with boldness, cast yourself simply on His mercy and place yourself in His keeping, and that which you need shall be done. The Great High Priest Hebrews 4:14-16 There is no portion of Holy Scripture which deals so especially with the consequences of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ as does this Epistle to the Hebrews. I want you, therefore, to notice the three practical exhortations which the Apostle founds upon this Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. I. In the eleventh verse he says: 'Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest'. Our Lord Jesus Christ is likened to Joshua. He has conquered our foes, He has overcome death, He hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and now He has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. But these victories are not for Himself alone. Let us therefore labour to enter into that rest. It is sometimes a charge brought against the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, that it produces carelessness and indolence; that the victory of our Lord and the introduction of our surety into the heavenly home is only an invitation to us to sit still upon our knees. My brethren, the argument is all the other way. Without a Saviour who hath overcome death, and opened for us the gates of heaven, we might well sit down in despair. II. The second practical exhortation he gives is in the fourteenth verse: 'Let us hold fast our profession'. He is speaking here to the Christian, he feels that sometimes the Christian may be inclined to give up his profession, but he urges him to hold on fast, to cling to it, to let nothing whatever check his hold upon that profession of his faith. III. And then the third practical exhortation is this: 'Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.' Here he is thinking not so much about the glory of the High Priest, as about the sympathy of the High Priest. Remember it is a throne; therefore come with reverence and with Godly fear, for you are a sinner, a man of unclean lips. But it is a throne of grace; so that, though your prayers may be unworthy, the faults in your prayers will be overlooked; though you yourself may be unworthy, your unworthiness will not stop His ear. E. A. Stuart, The Great High Priest and other Sermons, vol. XII. p. 33. Reference. IV. 14-16. C. M. Betts, Eight Sermons, p. 75. Hebrews 4:15 'Every believer,' says James Smetham, 'realises by experience that Christ is the only perfect sympathiser. "I'm not perfectly understood," says everybody in fact. But if you are a believer you are perfectly understood. Christ is the only one who never expects you to be other than yourself, and He puts in abeyance towards you all but what is like you. He takes your view of things, and mentions no other. He takes the old woman's view of things by the washtub, and has a great interest in wash-powder; Sir Isaac Newton's view of things, and wings among the stars with him; the artist's view, and feeds among the lilies; the lawyer's, and shares the justice of things. But He never plays the lawyer or the philosopher or the artist to the old woman. He is above that littleness.' References. IV. 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2148. W. J. Brock, Sermons, p. 97. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 179. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 62. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 1. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 30; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 166. IV. 15, 16. J. S. Maver, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 412. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons in Outline, p. 53. The Throne of Grace Hebrews 4:16 There is a science of prayer. In the words 'the Throne of Grace' may be found the beginning and the end of the same. Today we deal with the beginning, and the point to be emphasised is that the soul approaches in its need not a throne of mere justice, nor a throne of criticism, but a Throne of Grace. It is not needful at the start to lay down the full method and the perfect way of prayer. Our Lord Himself with loving boldness said at the beginning: 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened'. It is after this manner that the Christian teacher should begin. I. Prayer in the fullest sense, the prayer that is wrought in us by the Spirit and presented by the Christ of God prayer that wins the King's ear is the last triumph of the life of grace. Prayer in the noblest sense implies a concentration of all man's united energies. Coleridge shortly before his death said these words to a friend who has recorded them: 'I do not account a solemn faith in God as a real object to be the most arduous act of the reason and the will. Oh, no, my dear sir, it is to pray with all my heart and strength, with the reason and with the will, to believe that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do the thing He pleaseth thereupon. This is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian's warfare on earth. "Teach us to pray, O Lord." Here he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray for him.' The highest energy the human heart is capable of is to pray, like St. Paul, with the spirit and the understanding. But few may reach this victory, and it is deeply consoling to remember that it is a Throne of Grace before which we kneel, and that though our prayers may be marred and faultful, yet our Mediator interprets them in the ears of our loving Father, while the Spirit helps our infirmities and gives life and power to the failing, dying heart. II. While we recognise that there is such a thing as formal prayer, and even such a thing as the blasphemous mimicry and caricature of prayer, we remember also that the throne is a Throne of Grace, and that the weakest and most sinful human cry will reach it. May I pray when I doubt? Monrad says: 'I once had an acquaintance an intimately trusted friend 1 could scarcely call him and as often as we met our conversation turned as a matter of course upon questions of deepest interest questions that stirred our inmost feelings. "Do you think," he once said to me, "that it is right for us to pray to the Lord God without really believing in Him?" I replied that if we do not believe in Him we shall scarcely be inclined to pray. "You are right," he answered, "for this reason it is something rare, yet so it is with me. I have a desire to fold my hands and say, 'If Thou existest, O God, hear me. If Thou hast a heart for the cares and anxieties of a poor mortal, incline Thine ear and hear what I would say to Thee.' But I know not whether I ought to pray thus, whether it is not sinful." On this I observed all depends on the motive. Some one might perhaps desire to speak thus in order in a sense proudly to challenge the Almighty, and, if he remains unpunished, to proclaim the impotence of God under the foolish notion that man is able to force the Almighty to a display of His power. But if no evil motive of this kind lay at the bottom of his wish, he need feel no scruple about carrying it into effect. "On thy responsibility be it," he exclaimed, and broke off the conversation.' It is right to pray even in deep doubt, it is right to express our dumb yearnings in a world we cannot read, for a God we cannot find. Many a soul is dimly searching and feeling after God that it may fill up the awful consciousness of blank and isolation. Let that soul turn to the Throne of Grace even though it cannot behold its brightness. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 339. Hebrews 4:16 The secret of goodness and greatness is in choosing whom, you will approach and live with, through the crowding obvious people who seem to live with you. Browning. What makes religion vital is not the stern proud thinkings about it; it is the 'drawing near unto God'; it is the 'coming boldly to the throne of grace'. Smetham. References. IV. 16. W. L. Alexander, Sermons, p. 287. W. J. Brock, Sermons, p. 109. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No. 1024. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. pp. 132, 143; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 179. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 333. V. 1. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 328. V. 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No. 1407; vol. xxxviii. No. 2251; vol. xliii. No. 2529. V. 3. A. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 372. V. 4. G. Trevor, Types and the Antitype, p. 168. V. 5. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 376. V. 7. R. M. Benson, Redemption, p. 61. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 256; ibid. vol. iii. p. 224; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 414. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 342. V. 7-10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No. 1927. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 48. V. 7-11. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 214. Hebrews 5:8 God had but one Son free from sin; but none of all His sonnes free from correction. Herrick. Contrast the erroneous view of the Theologia Germanica (xxx), which affirms that Christ's 'words and works and ways, His doings and refrainings, His speech and silence, His sufferings, and whatsoever happened to Him, were not forced upon Him, neither did He need them, neither were they of any profit to Himself". References. V. 8. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvii. No. 2722. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 193. Archbishop Cosmo Lang, ibid. vol. lv. p. 235. V. 8, 9. A. T. Guttery, ibid. vol. lvi. p. 317. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 34; ibid. vol. ii. p. 16. V. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1172. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 74. V. 9, 10. R. M. Benson, Redemption, p. 152. Christian Growth Hebrews 5:11 This writer addresses the Hebrews in very plain language. He calls them babes. He upbraids them with being content with a milk diet. They had been some time alive, but they had not grown; and no wonder, for they had never discovered that they had teeth. They ate no solid food; they preferred what others had digested for them; they preferred being dandled in the arms of others, and shrank from using their own limbs. That is to say, they were content with rudimentary knowledge of Christian truth and with traditional teaching, and made no effort to think for themselves and to advance into the infinite of spiritual realities. I. In correction of this common fault of backwardness and indisposition to learn, this writer bids us observe two facts: (1) That growth is expected in the Christian. In fact, he tells us that if we are not growing we are dying. There is no third condition: he has in view only the alternative, either we are going on to perfection, or we are falling away. 'Let us go on unto perfection, for it is impossible to renew those who fall away.' This is the law of all life. Nothing is born mature. It passes through a period of growth, and it must grow or die. The parent who is delighted with the innocent helplessness of his child, and rejoices in its efforts at speech, becomes seriously alarmed if this lisping, tottering, help-requiring state threatens to become permanent. II. The second fact regarding the Christian life which this writer wishes us to observe is that this growth, which is essential, depends on the truth we receive. He compares Christian truth to food; that is, Christian teaching does for the inner man what food does for the body. The body cannot grow without food; neither can the spirit come to maturity save by the reception of spiritual truth. But he divides Christian truth into two grand kinds, and these he represents by milk and solid food. Milk represents traditional teaching; it is the product of that which has been received and digested by others, and is suitable for those who have no teeth of their own and no sufficiently strong powers of digestion. Like infants, they can only receive what others have thought, having no independent power of their own to investigate for themselves and form their own opinion about things. This milk, or traditional teaching, is admirably adapted to the first stage of Christian life, but cannot form mature Christians. The other kind of teaching he compares to solid food, which the individual must chew and digest for himself. It is true, physically, that poor and thin diet makes poor and thin blood; that if a man is to spend much strength he must eat heartily. Spiritually it is equally true. Growth comes by nutrition. Without partaking of sound and wholesome truth the spirit cannot grow or be strong. If we are not to be spiritual imbeciles, if we are to be strong and helpful men in Christ, we must seek nutriment in Christian truth. The vigorous and healthy soul does not need to be told this, as little as the strong, hard-working man needs to take tonics or be directed what to eat. But many of us do need, and most urgently, the direction here given us, to keep the mind feeling about for new ideas. The sea anemone is the emblem of the healthy Christian, fixed firmly to the rock, but with many feelers freely floating around to apprehend all that can be used. What nutrition, then, are you giving to your spirit? Is it such as is likely to secure your growth? What do you read? Tell me what a man reads and I will tell you his spiritual condition. Newspapers and magazines admirably serve their ends, but these ends are not spiritual nutrition. The Bible read carelessly and formally, so many verses a day, will work no charm any more than any other book so read. But the Bible read with expectation, interest, thought and personal application will yield nutriment of the most various and stimulating kind. No language in the whole Bible is more stringent or alarming than that which this writer uses of those who fall away. So alarming is it, so firm in its prediction of inevitable perdition, that men have striven in every way to turn its edge. But in vain. The fact is, there are conditions of spiritual growth and health as there are conditions of physical growth; and carelessness in the one case is as certainly followed by disaster or by death as carelessness in the other. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 214. Hebrews 5:11 'I am at present,' says James Smetham in his Letters (p. 170), 'on the Epistle to the Hebrews. The great difference of such a subject from all others is that all the interests of Time and Eternity are wrapped up in it. The scrutiny of a title-deed to £100,000 a year is nothing to it How should it be? Is there a Christ? Is He the heir of all things? Was He made flesh? Did He offer an all perfect sacrifice? Did He supersede the old order of priests? Is He the Mediator of a new and better Covenant? What are the terms of that Covenant? There are no questions like these. They raise, in their very investigation, the whole soul into the Empyrean. All other interests seem low, trivial, petty, momentary.... I am astonished at the imperative tone of this Epistle, and the element of holy scorn against those who refuse to go into those great questions carefully.' References. V. 11, 12. Marcus Dods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p. 139. V. 11-14. Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 119. Hebrews 5:12 'The wisdom from above has not ceased for us,' says Coleridge in the introduction to his Lay Sermon; '"the principles of the oracles of God" are still uttered from before the altar! Oracles, which we may consult without cost! Before an altar, where no sacrifice is required, but of the vices which unman us! no victims demanded, but the unclean and animal passions, which we may have suffered to house within us, forgetful of our baptismal dedication no victim, but the spiritual sloth, or goat, or fox, or hog, which lay waste the vineyard that the Lord had fenced and planted for Himself.' References. V. 12-14. Archbishop Temple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 148. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 31. V. 13, 14. Bishop Bethell, Sermons, vol. i. p. 386. V. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 506. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 268. The First Principles of Christ Hebrews 6:1 The combination of repentance and faith meets us in the earliest proclamation of the Gospel by our Lord Himself, and it continues to sound all through the pages of the New Testament. As a man's faith is set upon God so he repents of dead works. I. How does such Faith in God Originate? Our author gives us the answer in the epithet of God which he introduces when he repeats this phrase and speaks of being 'cleansed from dead works to serve the living God'. 'The living God.' In that epithet lies the whole secret. It is the realisation that God is alive that calls out our faith. Faith cannot create itself, still less create its object; it must always be the response to a revelation God makes. Our God is a living God see what He has done! see what He is doing! II. Faith Depends most upon Experience. There are special ways in which God reveals Himself to us today, and convinces us that He is a living God. (1) To some, perhaps to many, the revelation of God that comes home first and most keenly, is found in the love of our parents not least of our mother perhaps when they are taken from us and we see their character in the light of eternity. (2) To others, the most convincing revelation of God today is their own existence and personality; that is to them the 'main miracle,' that 'I am I'. (3) To others again, the revelation of God's living will comes most securely not from within, but from the contemplation of the world without. (4) To others it is not so much the Life or the purpose of the world that reveals the Maker as its beauty; beauty of colour, beauty of form, beauty of sound. In ways like these our own daily reflection on experience may kindle our faith in a living God. H. C. Beeching, Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 220. References. VI. 1. H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2nd Series), p. 98. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. pp. 51), 179. VI. 1-12. C. Gutch, Sermons, p. 42. VI. 2. E. W. Attwood, Sermons for Clergy and Laity, p. 407. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. pp. 34, 209. Hebrews 6:4-5 The heavenly gift is God's loving forgiveness of sins, the supreme boon of the Christian dispensation, in which all believers participate. The good word of God means the sure, kind promises made by Him to human faith for the future, and this is bound up with the experience, here and now, of the powers of the world to come which are already operating within the present age. Such a description of the normal Christian experience of God's Spirit is intelligible enough in the first century, when the strong eschatological hope of Christendom still throbbed within the Churches. Rut is the latter a reasonable element for ourselves? Is this 'l'avant-goût de l'éternité,' as Reuss calls it, this ardent eschatological expectation possible and desirable still? Cannot the taste of forgiveness which restores us to our place with God suffice by itself, without the other taste? Does not the modern outlook on the world compel us to drop the forward anticipation and to content ourselves with the present assurance of a heavenly Father's love such as Jesus taught? Instead of looking for a new heaven and earth, why should we not be satisfied with a God who has numbered the very hairs of our head? Would not this be at once more spiritual and more consonant with that view of the universe which we are bidden accept from modern science? Dr. Kolbing, the distinguished Moravian scholar, raises this crucial question in a recent pamphlet on Die bleibende Bedeutung der urchristlichen Eschatologie (Göttingen, 1907, pp. 25 f.), and seeks to answer it in the negative. Whatever details of the primitive eschatology have a merely temporary value, he does not believe that we are obliged to curtail this description of the Christian position, as if 'eschatological faith, in the strict sense of the term, were merely the expression of a specifically Jewish and antiquated view of the universe'. His reasons are as follow. He begins by pointing out that, wherever the apocalyptic ideas of primitive Christianity may have been quarried, the religious source of its eschatology lay, as it still lies, in the sure knowledge of God's fatherly love to men which Jesus brought into the world. He then points out that this forward look of faith is justified for ourselves today by the believing man's experience of the world as a hindrance to the full development of spiritual life. 'In the light of the knowledge of God which Jesus has conferred on men, the Christian must ever and anon have the feeling that this earthly world has a variety of ways in which it can hinder any one who lies within its sphere from entering into fellowship with the Father in heaven.' The Christian can indeed experience the supernatural reality of God, but it is an experience which is exposed to thwarting doubts and recurring obstacles. The witness of history and the record of the Church are enough to prove this up to the hilt. Furthermore, as 'the Christian recognises that the dominating element in the spiritual life of Him who is Lord of the world is His holy and fatherly love,' he must also admit the conscious and unconscious opposition to God's moral will which starts up in society and in the individual. The progress of God's good reign is slow, and the actual facts seem often to contradict the idea of His royal love. 'Few are chosen,' and even the few meet difficulties of all sorts in the practice of their fellowship with God. What can justify the Christian's confidence, as he faces such untoward facts, and 'overcomes the world,' but the glad certainty, now as in the primitive days of Christianity, that a new world of unclouded vision and unhindered service awaits God's children? This certainty of hope, with its perspective of the future, Dr. Kolbing argues, springs always from the faith of Jesus. It enables the weak and sinful here to glory already in the coming bliss, since such people Know that God's forgiving and controlling grace can enable them, even through the trials and evil of the present, to inherit the world to come. 'If this is so, then we must decide that to taste the powers of the world to come is an element essential to the moral and religious faith of Christianity in God's holy love to sinful men. In other words, the eschatological character of primitive Christian faith is not a merely adventitious and transient element which was due to the Jewish view of the world; it possesses a permanent significance for the religious life of the Christian Church.' On this view, those who taste the heavenly gift of God's forgiveness do so, in the fullest sense, as they also taste the good word of God's promise for the future and the powers of the world to come, since the experience of forgiveness involves a reach and a range of faith in God's holy purpose which extend beyond the limits of a world-order where His power and love cannot fully come into play. The present experience thus stands in a vital relationship to the future hope. The stars come nightly to the sky, The tidal wave unto the sea, Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, Can keep my own away from me. And part of this own possession is the future. The present experience of the Spirit, with its assurance of Divine forgiveness and fellowship, not only transmutes the trials of today into opportunities of moral growth for the life of God, but provides a foretaste of that new order which will correspond, as this world cannot, with the just requirements of the believing soul. James Moffatt. Reference. VI. 4, 6. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 477. Hebrews 6:4-6 'Consider,' wrote Samuel Rutherford to the Presbyterians of Ireland in 1638, 'how fair before the wind some do ply with up-sails and white, even to the nick of "illumination" and "tasting of the heavenly gift"; and "a share and part of the Holy Ghost"; and "the tasting of the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come". And yet this is but a false nick of renovation, and, in short time, such are quickly broken upon the rocks, and never fetch the harbour, but are sanded in the bottom of hell.... A white skin over old wounds breaketh our under-coating conscience. False under water, not seen, is dangerous, and that is a leak and drift in the bottom of an enlightened conscience; often falling and sinning against light.' References. VI. 4-6. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 182. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. No. 75. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. pp. 367, 443; ibid. vol. viii. p. 119. VI. 5. G. F. Pentecost, Marylebone Presbyterian Church Pulpit, p. 3. John Watson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii. p. 113. Ibid. The Inspiration of Our Faith, p. 324. Never Too Late to Mend Is It? Hebrews 6:6 'Impossible' and yet we say it is 'never too late to mend'. 'God is good; His mercy endureth for ever,' that, happily, needs no discussion; so far we are at one. But does universal love imply universal salvation? Is the love of God the only needed factor in the salvation of man? My sin cannot chill or change the love of God; but what if it so change me that all that love never stirs me, never touches me, never wakens within me one answering throb? 'Never too late to mend'? look where I will, I can find confirmation of it nowhere: contradiction, refutation of it everywhere. I. It is not the doctrine of the New Testament. And when I say the New Testament, I mean the whole of the New Testament. The New Testament is a much sterner book than some of us like to think. There are shadows here that will not flee. Christ spoke of 'an eternal sin,' of which, if a man be guilty, he 'hath never forgiveness'. Note not merely the 'proof-texts' but the 'proof-trend' (as some one has named it), not merely the 'Biblical ripple,' but 'the Biblical gulf-stream'; and if you do that, you will neither yourself believe, nor teach others to believe, that it is 'never too late to mend'. II. Nature does not encourage us to believe that it is 'never too late to mend'. Gash a tree up to a certain point and kindly Nature will heal the wound; but go beyond that point, and the tree will wither and die. III. What say the great students of human nature? Milton pictured Satan a free agent, and yet saying: All good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good. Hear the guilty king in' Hamlet'; prayer is useless: What then? What rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it * when one can not repent? * O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged! IV. And now if from these we turn to some of the awful facts in the life of men about us, will they bid us to hope that it is 'never too late to mend'? I have read of an habitual drunkard who said, 'If a glass of spirits were put before me, and I knew that the abyss was yawning between me and it, I must still take it'. He who will not at last cannot. G. Jackson, Table Talk of Jesus, p. 253. References. VI. 7. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 349. VI. 8. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. pp. 66, 382. Hebrews 6:9 Dr. Neale wrote to his friend E. J. Boyce, whose sermons he was criticising: 'One thing in particular I admire: the manner in which you speak to your congregation, when mentioning their religious state. You are far more like St. Paul in that matter than you are like Owen. Owen said in one of his discourses, "My brethren, I am well aware that a great many more of you that hear me now will be damned than will be saved". St. Paul said, "But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak".' References. VI. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 152. J. Bateman, Sermons Preached in Guernsey, p. 112. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 359. The Assurance of Salvation Hebrews 6:9-12 I. We learn from our text the proper spirit with which to regard the Christian course of salvation. There are two modes in which life can be observed. In our times, two rather high-sounding names have come to be common, and they fairly well express these contrasted sentiments; we call them Optimism and Pessimism. Christianity has for the most part proved itself to be optimistic, and notwithstanding the fact that its theology and its commonly received creed have contained much that was terrible and full of pain, yet there has always been the side of bright and cheerful expectation, with the hope that in the final issue there would be a vast and enormously preponderating excess of good over evil, right over wrong, and blessedness over misery. Where the prevailing doctrine of Christianity has been kept nearest to the Scripture and has been less affected by theological and ecclesiastical developments, and a return has been made to earlier and more distinctly primitive faith and teaching, this has been especially the case, and the general spirit of Christian thought has been that expressed by the writer: 'We are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak'. It is thus we should regard the condition of the Church, the spiritual outlook of our friends, and especially our own prospects. II. And what are the grounds for this glad persuasion? (1) In the first place, this joyous hopefulness of the Christian is fixed upon God. (2) With that eminent practicality which marks the Christian teacher, our text shows us that this trust in God manifested in work and love toward His name is best shown in the ministrations of kindliness and brotherly love in which the believer engages toward the saints. (3) It is with wonderful insight, therefore, that our author refers to this ministration to the saints as the proof of the love which Christian people have for the Divine Name. III. And the final source of this Christian optimism, the undying hope, is to be found in that activity and self-devotion which will bring those who possess it to share in all that is enjoyed by those who have already found the fulfilment of the promises. Three things mark Christian endeavour: Diligence, hopefulness, and continuance to the end. A great writer has said: 'I love the man who whistles as he works: no man will whistle as he works who does not give himself to his effort with completeness and devotion'. Llewelyn D. Bevan, Homiletic Review, vol. LI. p. 60. References. VI. 10. J. C. Easterbrook, The Riddle of Life and How to Read it, p. 85. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 447; ibid. vol. xi. p. 433. VI. 11. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 367. VI. 11, 12. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1st Series), p. 235. VI. 12. W. J. Adams, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 166. W. J. Brock, Sermons, p. 147. J. Wright, The Guarded Gate, p. 161. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 377. VI. 17. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 182. Hebrews 6:17-18 Rational, sensible men, as they consider themselves, men who do not comprehend the very notion of loving God above all things, are content with such a measure of probability for the truths of religion, as serves them in their secular transactions; but those who are deliberately staking their all upon the hopes of the next world, think it reasonable, and find it necessary, before starting on their new course, to have some points, clear and immutable, to start from; otherwise, they will not start at all. They ask, as a preliminary condition, to have the ground sure under their feet; they look for more than human reasonings and inferences, for nothing less than the 'strong consolation,' as the Apostle speaks, of 'those immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,' His counsel and His oath. Christian earnestness may be ruled by the world to be a perverseness or a delusion; but, as long as it exists, it will presuppose certitude as the very life which is to animate it. Newman, Grammar of Assent (ch. VII.). References. VI. 17, 18. H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1st Series), p. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 893. W. L. Watkinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxviii. p. 300. VI. 17-20. C. O. Eldridge, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 180. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1294. VI. 18. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, pp. 246, 247. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii. No. 1352, and vol. xlvi. No. 2704. J. Beaumont, Penny Pulpit, No. 1706, p. 687. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 384. Within the Veil Hebrews 6:19 'Hope, the anchor of the soul,' is now one of the most familiar phrases in Christian thought and literature. It originated, however, with this inspired writer, and is an evidence of his inspiration; for we do not naturally think of hope as giving steadfastness of life, but rather as giving it impetus. Any hope, if it be fixed on what is real, attainable, and good, is a God-sent angel; but the hope spoken of here is better than every other, because this angel never leaves our side, nor ever will, even though we pass through the valley of the shadow of death. Instead of leading up to any disappointment it will end in a fruition beyond all conception. The evil, which death only can remove, hides from us our exalted Saviour, in whom our hope is fixed, and hides also all those whom He is gathering round Himself. I. First, we should reflect on the fact here hinted at that, as yet, heaven is veiled from us. It is quite true that, as compared with the Old Testament as well as with heathenism, the Lord Jesus has brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel; but, beyond the certainty of heaven, and the assurance that Christ Himself is the centre and ruler of it, we know very little indeed. For some wise reason it was not the method of Christ and His Apostles to give us any specific or philosophical knowledge of heaven, even although that reticence might lead some to agnosticism and infidelity. Paul himself though he was once caught up into the third heaven, and heard words which it was not lawful for a man to utter made this confession: 'Now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I have been known'. While John through whom we have the Apocalypse itself, with its splendid imagery and mystic symbols frankly says: 'It does no yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is'. II. Now it appears to me that in these Scriptures we have (so far as the future world is concerned) appeals to our heart through our imagination; and I wish to lay stress on this, because we have sometimes involved ourselves in greater darkness through mistaking figures for facts. Do not question for a moment the certainty of the home of bliss because the details of its economy are hidden behind the veil, and cannot yet be revealed to us as they are. Knowledge of details is not necessary in order to a living hope fixed in what lies before us, which, like an anchor, is holding us fast and drawing us nearer. A. Rowland, The Burdens of Life, p. 261. Reference. VI. 19. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 394. He Descended Into Hell (for Easter-tide) Hebrews 6:20 In this Easter meditation we shall not enter into controversies which, for complexity and bitterness, have hardly been equalled even in Christian theology. In one of Sydney Dobell's fine fragments, he makes an awakening soul say: This is hell, then And He descended into hell. There have been manifold speculations as to Christ's open triumph over principalities and powers as to His preaching to the spirits in prison, and much besides. Let it suffice us that He descended into Hades, the abode of the departed. Thus He took our journey over the 'tracts unknown' which lie between this world and that. Even there shall His hand lead us and His right hand hold us. He shared for the space of three days what is the experience of all the saints, save those who remain unto His coming. He submitted Himself to the whole law of the human lot His spirit was free among the dead, while His body waited the appointed day. Forasmuch as the children were partakers... He Himself took part of the same, and so He holds the keys of all our possible experience. We have to think, then, of the words as illuminating the unknown way, and as teaching us what waits when the new gate opens into life, and we are in the unveiled presence of the Incarnate Word. I. First, then, because His spirit has gone before, He can say to each believer, in the article of death, Follow Me. We have to pass 'across the wilds that no man knows' to the awful worlds of the future. It is the mysterious journey not the end from which many a humble, faithful soul shrinks. 'I have no fear of going to heaven,' said one, 'but the crossing, the crossing!' As we near the end, that great gulf between the familiar world and the hills of heaven stretches dark and wide at our feet. But 'He descended into Hades'. Christ died in the light. His body was anointed for burial by trembling and stained hands. But for His soul's journey He needed no chrism: He was going home. 'O God, when Thou wentest forth before Thy people, when Thou didst march through the wilderness... Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance when it was weary.' II. His presence with the faithful dead is the presence of the Incarnate Christ. It is not enough to say that our Lord is conscious and supreme. The expression, indeed, is perhaps a tautology, for it is hard to see how He could be supreme without being conscious. What we can say is that He is incarnate and supreme. A spiritual presence of Christ in Paradise is not enough. If no more is vouchsafed, then Palestine nineteen hundred years ago was a place of greater opportunity. He was nearer the disciples who trusted Him during His earthly life than He is to those who have come up out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes in His blood. But it is not so. The faithful now behold Him clothed in the dear familiar raiment which is more than raiment, which is part of life, and are strengthened to wait the restitution of all things which God, who cannot lie, promised by His holy prophets since the world began. III. This continual presence of Christ is primarily a friendship. Even here, without love, without friendship, there is no true life. The call of affection, and that only, awakens the soul. No man knows what he can do till he has learned to love. Love blows the trumpet of resurrection over the graves where his faculties are buried, and wakens them into energy and fruitfulness. Love teaches him how he can work, and think, and feel. But in the full sense, we have no friend but our Saviour. He, and He only, touches our natures at every point. Else why the deep craving for sympathy of which the world is full? Why are the closest ties so sharply sundered? These needs and pangs turn us to Christ; but even so we give Him no perfect answer. It is only in death, only when sin has been finally purged out, that our souls yield themselves at every point to His grace. He descended, our Forerunner, into Hades. He will return to claim from Death those bodies with which we trust Him on the sickbed, and of which He is possessor by an elder and a stronger right. He will return ere then, according to His word, to receive our souls. As the natural force abates, we shall be reinforced with life from its Prince and Fountain, and when we are called to take the great journey, another will go with us One who knows the way. W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, p. 79. References. VI. 20. J. Baines, Twenty Sermons, p. 207. VII. 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1768. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 1. VII. 4. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1835. VII. 7. J. C. M. Bellew, Christ in Life: Life in Christ, p. 289. VII. 8. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 359. VII. 11. Ibid. vol. viii. p. 382. VII. 12. T. Binney, Penny Pulpit, No. 1617, p. 331. Hebrews 7:15-16 If God dwells in the heart, and is vitally united to it, He will show that He is a God by the efficacy of His operation. Christ is not in the heart of a saint as in a sepulchre, or as a dead saviour that does nothing; but as in His temple, and as one that is alive from the dead. For in the heart where Christ savingly is, there He lives and exerts Himself after the power of that endless life that He received at His Resurrection. Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (pt. iii. ch. XII.). References. VII. 14. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 450; ibid. vol. vi. p. 96. VII. 15, 16. Archbishop Alexander, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi. p. 17. VII. 16. Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 136. Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p. 451; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 430. VII. 18. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. viii. p. 111. VII. 20-22. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1597. Hebrews 7:22 His honour, and His great court in heaven, hath not made Him forget His poor friends on earth. In Him ho ours change not manners, and He doth yet desire your company. Take Him for the old Christ, and claim still kindness to Him, and say, 'O it is so; He is not changed, but I am changed'. Nay, it is a part of His unchangeable love, and an article of the new covenant, to keep you that ye cannot dispone Him, nor sell Him. He hath not played fast and loose with us in the covenant of grace, so that we may run from Him at our pleasure. His love hath made the bargain surer than so; for Jesus, as the cautioner, is bound for us. Samuel Rutherford, to Lady Kenmure (26th November, 1631). References. VII. 22. F. B. Cowl, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 380. VII. 23. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 443. VII. 23-25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No. 1915. Hebrews 7:24-26 The name of priest has been desecrated, till the very word, in some degree, carries with it the idea of something either spiritually despotic, or drily ecclesiastical and official; yet what word, what thought is in reality so tender as that of a Man, brought nearer than other men are, at once to man and to God 1 When applied to our Lord Himself, no other of His offices seems to bring and keep Him beside us in so intimate and human a relation as that of His 'unchangeable Priesthood'. 'He is a Priest for ever'; one separate from sinners and undefiled; and yet, through this very separation, drawn into the closest union with Humanity. Christ, when on earth, was upbraided for His freedom and accessibility. 'Behold, this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them;' and yet, like Joseph, the very type of bounty and brotherhood, He is one 'that is separated from His brethren,' drawing their souls after Him, while He withdraws from their presence. The heart desires one who is greater, purer, kinder, freer than itself, one standing aloof from its conscious falseness, its self-confessed littleness; therefore is Christ, because he is lifted up, able to draw all men unto Him; to draw as none other can do, close to Humanity, and to draw it close to Him. Dora Greenwell, in * Two Friends. * The Power of Christ to Save Hebrews 7:25 We have here a brief but explicit statement, on the one hand, of the ability of Christ to save, and, on the other, of the ground on which that ability rests. I. As to the ability of Christ to save this is considered under two different aspects: as to its extent or range, and as to its intrinsic efficacy. (1) It extends to all those who come to God by Him. For though the word 'all' does not occur in the passage, it is of course implied. The phrase is precisely analogous to our Lord's own words: 'Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out,' which is equivalent to saying: 'Every one that cometh to Me shall certainly be received'. No doubt He has power to save even those who neglect or refuse to come. But this thought is not present to the mind of the writer, who is contemplating the completeness of the salvation provided tor those who come to God to obtain it, not the possibilities that are open to those who do not. (2) But Christ's ability to save, not only meets us at the threshold as it were of our approach to God, and assures of its sufficiency to bring us into His fellowship, it also assures us of His power to complete the process which He thus begins. He is able to save to the uttermost. This does not mean to the end of life, or up to the time of the Second Advent, though that is no doubt involved in the words. The idea rather is that His power is adequate to secure the perfect salvation of all who come to Him, so that nothing shall be required for its completeness which He is unable to supply. And this is the assurance that we need. II. But we have still to consider the ground on which this saving ability of Christ rests. (1) It rests upon the fact of His ever living to make intercession. In this respect He presents a contrast to the Levitical priesthood. It passed from one to another as death removed the successive occupants of the office. But Christ abideth for ever, and there is no interruption to the continuity of His mediation. (2) Again, we may gather that the power of Christ's intercession springs from His atonement. This is, so to speak, the basis on which it proceeds, the great argument which makes it conclusive. And what can make it more so? It is true our sins cry out for vengeance, but Christ's blood cries still louder for mercy. And its cry continues sustained, penetrating through all obstructions, resistless, clear, never failing to enter into the ears of God. C. Moinet, The Great Alternative and other Sermons, p. 139. Hebrews 7:25 'If the person,' says Guthrie of Fenwick, in The Christian's Great Interest, 'have a heart to come unto Him through Christ, then He is able to save to the uttermost. Yea, it is more provoking before God, not to close with Christ when the offer comes to a man, than all the rest of his transgressions are.' References. VII. 25. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 327. T. D. Barlow, Rays from the Sun of Righteousness, p. 110. J. Keble, Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 42. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 86. G. A. Sowter, From Heart to Heart, p. 219. J. Keble, Sermons for Lent to Passiontide, p. 386. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. No. 84. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 421. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 355. VII. 26. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 297; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 423. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 10. VII. 27. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvi. No. 2693. VIII. 1, 2. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 20. Heaven's Teaching on Earth's Duties Hebrews 8:5 The experience of Moses on Mount Sinai, to which our text refers, was a remarkable example of communion between God and man. We may thankfully accept it as a symbol of spiritual truth, and typical of recurring experience. Fellowship with God is not peculiar to any age, or clime, or race; and access to the Father is now far more generally enjoyed than in Mosaic times; for since then the world has seen and heard Him who said: 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me'. This verse reminds us I. That nothing is too trivial for God to notice. Moses was instructed in the mountain about the making of bowls, and dishes, and spoons, and staves, and tables. And if this fact suggests no other truth, at least it may remind us that the God of Jews and Christians is essentially unlike the God imagined by Epicureans ancient and modern; for there is nothing too insignificant to be cared for by Him. Human knowledge, especially of late years, has been going in the direction of the trivial. While the Son of God was on earth, what small things He cared for! He who spoke with angels noticed children playing in the marketplace. Now, if this be so, we ought not to wait before going to Him for help until some crushing sorrow comes to break us down. II. We may speak to God about ordinary affairs in seasons of highest communion. If we are conscious that Christ goes with us, as He went with His disciples, to street, and marketplace, and home, we may speak to Him about every grief and anxiety that comes. III. Even slight deviations from Divine directions are forbidden. I fear we must acknowledge with shame that even professedly Christian people, in dealing with those outside the Church, have sometimes deliberately set aside the principles they profess; and the Sermon on the Mount has been condemned as impracticable and absurd. If it be true that even slight deviations from Divine directions are forbidden, we must guard ourselves against those forms of sin which we generally condone. IV. What God calls us to do has more depending on it than we suppose. God expects of His servants what we, with less right, expect of ours absolute fidelity and thoroughness in work, even though we do not see the object of it A. Rowland, The Burdens of Life, p. 209. The Pattern in the Mount Hebrews 8:5 Here is a man who has left the multitude, with all its disturbing heats and clamours, and has sought the unperverting coolness of solitude, and on the cloud-capped height has found communion with his God. Now, one of the richest gifts with which God has dowered the race is the gift of mountain-men, men whose dwelling-place is on high, to whom the rarified atmosphere is their native air, who are finely perceptive of heavenly callings, and who are keen-eyed to discern the ideal tracings of the finger of God. There are the poets. What are these but mountain-men? And, then, there are the prophets, men again who have been cloistered on the heights with their God, and who descend into our mean discords with 'the voice of the great eternal' ringing in their mighty tones. There are mountain-moments in every life, when our tiny circle is immeasurably enlarged, when the cloud-rock breaks, and we see things as they are in the radiant glory of God. I. Now in those mountain-moments we are all idealists. For what is an idealist? An idealist is one who sees the true idea of a thing. (1) In our mountain-moments we see the true idea of life. We see that the ideal life is a life of sublime fellowship, with sensitive perceptions and correspondences with the Highest. (2) And in these mountain-moments we see the true idea of the means of living. (3) And in these mountain-moments we see the true idea of society, as being a sacred fellowship, a gracious combination where competition does not poison or bruise, a fertile altruism in which the individual surely finds his appointed crown. (4) And so, too, we have the true idea of the fallen, the idea of the prodigal and the Magdalene, the pattern in the mount for her and him; God's design in heaven for thee and me. (5) And we have the true idea of little children, as princes and princesses of royal blood, who are called to sovereign eminence and service in the inheritance of the saints in light The command is laid upon us as upon the men to whom the words were first spoken: 'See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount'. II. And how are we to set about the task? (1) Let us keep our imaginations freshly and vividly furnished with the ideal we wish to realise. A great friend of Westcott's wrote this great word about him: 'He was only strong because he saw, and took time to see'. Amid all our jostling and clamouring realities let us take time to contemplate the vision on the mount (2) If we would retain the vision of the ideal, and be ministers of its incarnation, we must avoid all disgusting habits, whether the vulgarity be obtrusively bold or concealed beneath thin and superficial refinements. Above all, we must cultivate the fellowship and the friendship of the Lord Jesus Christ in that glorious communion, in that supreme ministry of grace, it is possible for us to keep a clear eye and a ready and obedient hand. J. H. Jowett, The British Congregationalist, 4th June, 1908, p. 554. Hebrews 8:5 'Emerson,' says Mr. Santayana in Poetry and Religion (p. 218), 'was not a prophet who had once for all climbed his Sinai or his Tabor, and having there beheld the transfigured reality, descended again to make authoritative report of it to the world. Far from it At bottom he had no doctrine at all. The deeper he went and the more he tried to grapple with fundamental conceptions, the vaguer and more elusive they became in his hands.' References. VIII. 6. T. M. Morris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 314. B. J. Snell, The Virtue of Gladness, p. 121. Bishop Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, p. 141. W. Moore Ede, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 332. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 437; ibid. (5th Series) vol. vi. p. 381. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 29. VIII. 6. Ibid. vol. x. p. 237. VIII. 8. W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p. 168. VIII. 9. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 119. The Articles of the New Covenant * 1. God's Writing on the Heart Hebrews 8:10 * We can scarcely estimate the shock to a primitive Hebrew Christian when he discovered that Judaism was to fade away. Now, the great object of this Epistle is to insist on that truth, and to calm the early Hebrew Christians under it, by showing them that the disappearance of the older system left them no poorer but infinitely richer, inasmuch as all that was in it was more perfectly in Christ's Gospel. I. Let us first try to ascertain what exactly is the meaning of this great promise. These two clauses mean two things the clear perception of the will of God, and the coincidence of that will with our inclinations and desires. (1) How is that wonderful change upon men to be accomplished? 'I will put, I will write.' Only He can do it. (2) It comes to substitute for all other motives to obedience the one motive of love. The secret of Christian morality is that duty is changed into choice, because love is made the motive for obedience. (3) This great promise is fulfilled in the Christian life, because to have Christ shrined in the heart is the heart of Christianity, and Christ Himself is our law. (4) This great promise is fulfilled, because the very specific gift of Christianity to man is the gift of a new nature, which is 'created in righteousness and holiness that flows from truth'. (5) This great truth has to be held with caution. (6) There is nothing in this promise which suspends the need for effort and for conflict. II. Note the impassable gulf which this fulfilled promise makes between Christianity and all other systems. It is a new covenant, undoubtedly an altogether new thing in the world. For whatever other laws have been promulgated among men have had this in common, that they have stood over against the Will with a whip in one hand, and a box of sweets in the other, and have tried to influence desires and inclinations, first by the setting forth of duty, then by threatening, and then by promises to obedience. There is the inherent weakness of all which is merely law. But here is a system which says that it deals with the will as from within, and moves, and moulds, and revolutionises it. The peculiarity of the Gospel is that it gives both the knowledge of what we ought to be; and with and in the knowledge, the desire; and with and in the knowledge and the desire, the power to be what God would have us to be. St. Augustine penetrated to the very heart of this article when he prayed: 'Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt'. III. Note the freedom and blessedness of this fulfilled promise. Not to do wrong may be the mark of a slave's timid obedience. Not to wish to do wrong is the charter of a son's free and blessed service. IV. The condition of the fulfilment of this promise to us. What is there to do? First, and last, and midst, keep close to Jesus Christ. When the astronomer wishes to get the image of some far-off star, invisible to the eye of sense, he regulates the motion of his sensitive plate, so that for hours it shall continue right beneath the unseen beam. So we have to still our hearts, and keep their plates the fleshy tables of them exposed to the heavens. Then the likeness of God will be stamped there. Be faithful to what is written there. This is a promise for us all. A. Maclaren, Triumphant Certainties, p. 80. The Articles of the New Covenant * 2. Their God, My People Hebrews 8:10 * 'I am thine: thou art mine,' is the very mother-tongue of love, and the source of blessedness. This mutual surrender, and, in surrender, reciprocal possession, is lifted up here into the highest regions. 'I will be their God, they shall be My people.' That was the fundamental promise of the Mosaic dispensation laid at Sinai, 'Ye shall be unto Me a people for a possession'. So, the writer here, falling back upon the marvellous prophecy of Jeremiah, regards this as being one of the characteristics of Christianity, that what was shadowed in Israel's possession of God and God's possession of Israel, is, in substance, blessedly and permanently realised in the relations of God to Christian souls, and of Christian souls to God. I. 'I will be to them a God.' That is God's gift of Himself to us. The words go far deeper than the necessary Divine relation to all His creatures. (1) All that lies in that majestic monosyllable, which is shorthand for life, and light, and all perfectness, lived in a living person who has a heart, that word God, all that is included in that name, God will be to you and me, if we like to have Him for such. (2) It says, too, that all that Godhood, in all the incomprehensible sweep of its attributes, is on my side, if I will. (3) This giving of God to us by Himself is all concentrated in one historical act. He gave Himself to us when He spared not His only begotten Son. II. And now we have to take the giving God and make Him our God. III. We have to give ourselves to God. God comes first with the love that He pours over us poor creatures, and when 'we have known and believed the love that God hath to us,' then, and only then, do we throb back the reflected, ay, the kindred love. What is the surrender of the man who receives the love of God? In what region of my nature is that giving up of myself most imperative and blessed? In my will. The will is the man. IV. God takes us for His. That is wonderful. It sometimes seems to me that it is more wonderful that God should take me for His than that He should give me Himself for mine. A. Maclaren, Triumphant Certainties, p. 90. Hebrews 8:10 On 22nd June, 1655, Cromwell wrote thus to Fleetwood: 'Dear Charles, my dear love to thee; and to my dear Biddy, who is a joy to my heart, for what I hear of the Lord in her. Bid her be cheerful, and rejoice in the Lord once and again: if she knows the covenant, she cannot but do so. For that transaction is without her; sure and stedfast, between the Father and the Mediator in His blood: therefore, leaning upon the Son, or looking unto Him, thirsting after Him, and embracing Him, we are His seed; and the Covenant is sure to all the seed. The compact is for the seed; God is bound in faithfulness to Christ, and in Him to us: the Covenant is without us; a Transaction between God and Christ. Look up to it. God engageth in it to pardon us; to write His Law in our hearts; to plant His fear so that we shall never depart from Him. We, under all our sins and infirmities, can daily offer a perfect Christ, and thus we have peace and safety, and apprehension of love, from a Father in Covenant, who cannot deny Himself. And truly in this is all my salvation; and this helps me to bear my great burdens.' References. VIII. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliii. No. 2506. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 36; ibid. p. 46. The Articles of the New Covenant * 3. All Shall Know Me Hebrews 8:11 * In old days there had been some direct communication between God and a chosen few, the spiritual aristocracy of the nation, and they spake the things that they had heard of God to the multitude who had had no such communication. My text says that all this is swept away, and that the prerogative of every Christian man is direct access to, communication with, and instruction from, God Himself. I. I ask you to look with me at what this great promise means. 'They shall know Me.' We all know the difference between hearsay and sight. We all know the difference between hearsay and experience. To come still closer to the force of my text, we all know the difference between hearing about a man and making his acquaintance. There is all the difference between knowing about God and knowing God; just the difference that there is between dogma and life, between theology and religion. We may have all articles of the Christian creed clear in our understandings, and may owe our possession of them to other people's teaching; we may even, in a sense, believe them, and yet they may be absolutely outside of our lives. And it is only when they pass into the very substance of our being, and influence the springs of our conduct it is only then that we know God. I maintain that this acquaintance with Him is what is meant in our text. The whole case for Christianity cannot be appreciated from outside. 'Taste and see.' II. Notice how far this promise extends. 'They all, from the least to the greatest, shall know.' This is the true democracy of the Gospel the universal possession of the life of Christ through the Spirit. (1) Now, if that be so, then it is by no means a truth to be kept simply for the purpose of fighting against ecclesiastical or sacerdotal encroachments and denials of it, but it ought to be taken as the candle of the Lord, by each of us, and in the light of it we ought to search very rigidly, and very often, our own Christian character and experiences. (2) But whilst thus the great promise of my text, in its very blessedness and fulness, does carry with it some solemn suggestions for searching self-examination, it also points in another direction. For consider what it excludes, and what it permits, in the way of brotherly help and guidance. It certainly excludes, on the one hand, all assumption of authority over the consciences and the understandings of Christian people, on the part either of churches or individuals, and it makes short work of all claims that there continues a class of persons officially distinguished from their brethren, and having closer access to God than they. (3) But brotherly help is not shut out. III. The means by which this promise is fulfilled. (1) Jesus Christ's blood, the seal of the Covenant, is the great means by which this promise is fulfilled, inasmuch as in that death He sweeps away all the hindrances which bar us out from the knowledge of God. (2) By His mission and death there is given to the whole world, if it will receive it, and to all who exercise faith in His name, the gift of that Divine Spirit who teaches in the inmost spirit the true knowledge of His Son. (8) The one way by which every man and woman on earth may find him and herself included within that 'all, from the least to the greatest,' is simply trust in Christ Jesus. A. Maclaren, Triumphant Certainties, p. 98. The Articles of the New Covenant * 4. Forgiveness the Fundamental Blessing Hebrews 8:12 * The introductory 'for' in my text shows that the fulfilment of all the preceding great promises depends upon and follows the fulfilment of this, the greatest of them. Forgiveness is the keystone of the arch. Strike it out, and the whole tumbles into ruin. I. Forgiveness deals with man's deepest need. It is fundamental, because it grapples with the true evil of humanity, which is not sorrow, but is sin. The true notion and essence of forgiveness, as the Bible conceives it, is not the putting aside of consequences, but the flow of the Father's heart to the erring child. If a man has sinned, no Divine forgiveness will ever take the memory of his transgressions, nor their effects, out of his character. But the Divine forgiveness may so modify the effects as that, instead of past sin being a source of torment or a tyrant which compels to future similar transgressions, pardoned sin will become a source of lowly self-distrust, and may even tend to increase in goodness and righteousness. When bees cannot remove some corruption out of the hives they cover it over with wax, and then it is harmless, and they can build upon it honey-bearing cells. Thus it is possible that, by pardon, the consequences which must be reaped may be turned into occasions for good. But the act of the Divine forgiveness does annihilate the deepest and the most serious consequences of my sin; for hell is separation from God, the sense of discord and alienation between Him and me; and all these are swept away. II. This forgiveness is attained through Christ, and through Him only. The Christian teaching of forgiveness is based upon the conception of Christ's work and especially of Christ's death, as being the Atonement for the world's sin. Of course, my text itself does show that the very common misrepresentation of the New Testament evangelical teaching about this matter is a misrepresentation. It is often objected to that teaching that it alleges that Christ's sacrifice effected a change in the Divine heart and disposition, and made God love men whom He did not love before. The mighty 'I will' of my text makes no specific reference to Christ's death, and rather implies what is the true relation between the love of God and the death of Jesus Christ, that God's love was the originating cause, of which Christ's death was the redeeming effect. III. This forgiveness is fundamental to all other Christian blessings. A Christianity which does not begin with the proclamation of forgiveness is impotent A Christianity which does not base forgiveness on Christ's sacrifice is impotent also. A Christianity which does not build holiness, delight in God's law, conscious possession of Him and possession by Him, and deep, blessed knowledge of Him on forgiveness, is woefully imperfect. A. Maclaren, Triumphant Certainties, p. 109. References. VIII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii. No. 1685. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 62. IX. 1. J. Caird, Sermons, p. 272. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 136. IX. 1-10. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p. 379. IX. 4. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 194. IX. 5 . Ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 337. IX. 7. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. i. p. 88; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 158; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 56. On Modernising Christianity Hebrews 9:10 While in a very real sense Christianity was a new religion in the days of St Paul, in another, following his suggestion, it was a corrective, a revision and a modernisation of the old. The centuries have moved onward and our faith is no longer young. There are those among us who think that Christianity is now over-antiquated, that she is too old-fashioned, and that possibly there ought to be done for her what she in her youth did for the Jewish religion and for the cults of the pagan world. How far, then, and in what particulars is the Church bound to respect the time-spirit? Or, to phrase it differently, in what ways and within what restrictions is the modernising process allowable? I. What are the changes needed? (1) Christianity should modernise her speech. Now, as on the day of Pentecost, every man has the right to hear the Gospel in the current language of the day, and the folly of talking in an unknown tongue is as pronounced now as when St Paul condemned it. (2) Christianity, likewise, should modernise her thought I do not say that she should abandon it, corrupt it, hide it, or in any way betray it. She can preserve it practically intact, and yet by rendering it less antiquated commend it to the time-spirit of the twentieth century. (3) Christianity ought further to modernise her activities. 'New occasions teach new duties,' and she, with open eyes for the vision, should not hesitate to employ whatever legitimate weapons are within her reach. II. Let me point out some restrictions, some limitations, which may guard us from the excesses and from the extravagances that scandalise and vitiate the movement we are commending. (1) Christianity must be careful not so to modernise herself as to obscure her distinctive character. She is of the heavens, heavenly, and has no business to become earthy. It is no more necessary to be untrue to herself than it is for a man to be false to his deepest convictions. (2) Christianity, while preserving her character, must be mindful not so to modernise herself as to conceal her essential message. St. Paul gloried in the cross; and it will be a bitter day for humanity when the Church shall hide it, apologise for it, and explain away its only possible meaning as though it were her shame. (3) Christianity, finally, must be heedful not so to modernise herself as to becloud her supreme object That the Church should strive for social amelioration, that she should do her utmost to improve temporal conditions, and that she should antagonise each specific evil and wrong of the time is cheerfully conceded. But she has a programme of her own. Her theory is: Cleanse the sources and the river will be pure; maintain the power in the power-house and traffic will keep on the move; supply and fill the reservoir and the homes of the citizens will not lack for water. This is her supreme object. G. C. Lorimer, The Modern Crisis in Religion, p. 13. References. IX. 10. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 46; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 398. IX. 11. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 193. Our Lord's Sacrifice Hebrews 9:11-12 I. The idea of sacrifice is almost co-extensive with the idea of God. The universality of the sacrificial idea can only be accounted for either by some primeval revelation from God, or by the fact that God, who endowed man with the religious instinct, implanted in him the notion of sacrifice. Before the Fall, when man's conscience was unclouded by sin, sacrifice was the expression of love alone. Now that man's heart is stained by sin, sacrifice is the expression of penitence, and yet still of love; for all true penitence is the utterance of love, telling God of sorrow, not for what the penitent has lost, not for the punishment incurred, but of that sorrow which is the expression of love in the presence of sin. Sacrifice consists of an inward and an outward part, of which, while the inward may be the more important, the outward is absolutely necessary to perfect the sacrifice. True sacrifices are those inward feelings of love and obedience which form the very foundation of religion; but those feelings are not in themselves proper sacrifices: in order that they may become so, they must find some external means of expression. A true sacrifice is one in which the religion of the heart is expressed by some outward symbol or rite acceptable to God. In our Lord Jesus Christ the inward part was present from the first moment of His incarnate life (Hebrews 10:9 ). It was the life of perfect love and unwavering obedience, which, as the inward part, found its outward expression in the death upon the cross, and made our Lord's a proper sacrifice 'a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world'. II. In the Epistle to the Hebrews our Lord's sacrifice upon the cross is compared with the sacrifices under the Jewish law. Let us observe how perfectly our Lord fulfilled the sacrificial types, and where His sacrifice differs both from the Jewish sacrifices and the ritual of the Day of Atonement. (a) There was the presentation of the victim by the offerer (Leviticus 1:3 ). Two points here demand attention: the offering was to be without blemish, and it was to be a voluntary offering (Hebrews 9:14 ). It was, then, a voluntary offering; and the act of presentation may be referred either to our Lord's high-priestly prayer (John XVII.), or to that prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:26 ); or we may consider both these actions to belong to the presentation of the victim. (b) The second stage in the offering of the Jewish sacrifice was the identification of the victim with the offerer (Leviticus 1:4 ). By this action the offerer expressed his desire that the offering should be accepted in his place. The victim, however, was only a symbolic substitute for the offerer; but our Lord was, in the truest sense, representative of the human race. The sacrificial offering offered by Christ is a real and equivalent substitute for all mankind, on whose behalf it is sacrificed. (c) Then came the effusion of the blood. The offerer himself slew the victim. The priest took the blood and sprinkled it (Leviticus 4:5-7 ). The blood of each sin-offering was sprinkled against the veil, and symbolised the separation which sin had caused between God and man that there was no free access to God. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, and so the blood was sprinkled, but the veil remained unmoved. The precious blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, so when it was sprinkled the veil of the Temple was rent in twain, signifying that the barrier between God and man was removed, and access to God secured through the precious Blood of Christ. (d) There was the burning upon the altar of certain parts of the victim, which thus went up as a sweet savour to God. And so our Lord (Ephesians 5:2 ). (e) There was a feast upon the sacrifice, and this is fulfilled by our Lord's gift of His Holy Body and Blood to be our food in the Eucharist. There we feast upon the Christian sacrifice. III. Holy Scripture teaches to associate the idea of life with the blood, and therefore forbade the Jews ever to eat blood (Leviticus 17:10-11 ). So that, as all sacrifice pointed to our Lord's sacrifice, this injunction pointed to the fact that it was the precious Blood which was to make atonement for sin, which was to redeem the world. By this inauguration of the new dispensation, a new and living way is opened to the Throne of God, opened by the precious Blood. From that Blood each baptism gains its efficacy, from it each absolution derives its power; the precious Blood of Christ the means of redemption, applied to our souls through the Sacraments of the Church. A. G. Mortimer, * Lenten Preaching. * The Priesthood of Christ Hebrews 9:11-12 The priestly work of the Lord Jesus is the glorious theme of our text, but more especially the superiority of His Priesthood over that of Aaron. Four points of superiority are alluded to in the text Superiority of the Person, the Place, the Plea, the Privileges. I. The Superiority of the Person. The allusion in the text is to the high priest and to his work, especially on the Great Day of Atonement The Levitical law made high priests of those who had infirmities, moral defects. Hence the high priest had to observe manifold and solemn rites of purification before he entered on the duties of the Great Day of Atonement All these rites indicated his natural unfitness for the duties of his holy office. But Christ our High Priest had no need of ceremonial cleansing: He was clean already. II. The Superiority of the Place where our High Priest Officiates. 'A greater and more perfect tabernacle." (1) 'Greater.' The figures of our arithmetic fail to describe its vastness. There will be as much room for the inhabitants to roam without colliding as there is in space for the stars to wander. (2) Not only greater but also a 'more perfect' tabernacle. No human art helped to build the tabernacle where our High Priest sits enthroned: no angel hand ever put a stone into it. The Builder and Maker is God. III. The Plea of our High Priest is Superior to that of the Aaronic Priesthood. 'Not the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood.' One man is of more value than all animals, but this was the blood of the God-man. IV. Under Christ we have Superior Privileges. He is 'the High Priest of good things to come'. (1) The things under the law were only shadows: the good things under the Gospel are substantial and enduring. (2) Immediate access to God is one of the good things brought to us by Christ. (3) Christ hath obtained eternal redemption eternal freedom. Freedom from what? (a) Freedom from the ceremonial law with all its burdensome and costly rites. (b) Christ hath obtained for us eternal freedom from sin. Richard Roberts, My Closing Ministry, p. 224. References. IX. 11, 12. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 280; ibid. (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 225. IX. 11-14. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. i. p. 148. G. Body, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 185, and vol. lix. p. 192. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 72. IX. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No. 2076. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 444; ibid. (7th Series), vol. v. p. 390. IX. 13, 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1481, and vol. xxxi. No. 1846. Hebrews 9:14 We know not the truth of humanity we know only its perversions while we are living the life of self and enmity and are as gods to ourselves. What it is to be a man, what we possess in humanity, we never know until we see humanity in Him who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement (pp. 147, 148). Hebrews 9:14 'We know,' says Faber, 'that the service of God is the grand thing, or rather that it is the only thing about us which is great at all.' References. IX. 14. Bishop Alexander, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 134. W. M. Clow, The Cross in Christian Experience, p. 206. Walter Lock, The Guardian, 27th January, 1911. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. pp. 34, 442; ibid. vol. ii. pp. 138-142; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 405. IX. 16. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. i. p. 34. IX. 15-28. Ibid. p. 351. IX. 16. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 373. IX. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1567. Gethsemane, the Rose Garden of God Hebrews 9:22 I do not use the complete sentence. It is true even upon the lowest plane that without shedding of blood there is nothing, no mighty result, no achievement, no triumph. Every worthy deed costs something; no high thing can be done easily. No great thing can be accomplished without the shedding of blood. Life is just our chance of making this great and strange discovery. Many of us never make it. We begin by trifling, by working with a fraction of our strength. We soon see that nothing comes of that. At last, if we are wise, we see that all the strength is needed. What have we besides this? We must disrobe ourselves. We do it; yet our object remains ungained. What more have we to give? We have our blood. So at last the blood is shed, the life is parted with, and the goal is reached. We are happy if we know that everything noble and enduring in this world is accomplished by the shedding of blood, not merely the concentration of the heart and soul and mind on one object, but the pruning and even the maiming of life. Young men are being taught this lesson now, and unless all signs are false they will be taught it more sternly in the future. I. Blessing comes from blood-shedding; that is, our power to bless in the highest sense comes from our shedding, as it were, great drops of blood. We need not shed them literally, though the Church has justly placed the martyrs first. The Church of Rome never prays for the martyrs, but makes request for their prayers. The martyrs it sees before Christ in robes of crimson, and the saints in white. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. We cannot atone, but we can bless. We cannot have a share in the one perfect Oblation, the Evening Sacrifice of the world, but we fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. Of every great servant of Christ it is true that the Lord says, 'I will show him how great things he must suffer for My Name's sake'. It would not be right to say that it is the suffering that counts, and not the labour. What is true is that the labour without the suffering does not count, that the two in a fruitful life are indissolubly joined. We are familiar with the great passages in which the Apostle is driven to use the awful language of the Passion, where he says, 'I am crucified with Christ, I die daily'. And it is true that all along the way there are sacrifice and blood-shedding. But I believe it is equally true that there is but one great Gethsemane in the lives of Christ's blessed servants. Many have none, and their work comes to little, but the elect have one that stands above all, one shedding of blood, one death, after which the rest seems easy. The Gethsemane may be, and often is, the rooting out of some cherished ambition that has filled the heart and occupied every thought. It may be the shattering of some song, the breaking of some dream. It may be, and often is, the great rending of the affections, the cutting of the soul free from some detaining human tenderness. Anyhow, the full agony cannot last more than a little, though the heartache may persist through a lifetime. 'Could ye not watch with Me one hour? ' I sometimes think that blood-sheddings are far more common than we are apt to imagine, and that they take place in the most unlikely lives. In the memoir of Dr. Raleigh, a prosperous suburban minister with every earthly ambition realised, there is a significant passage. When he was at the zenith of his fame he said that ministers came and looked round at his crowded church, and envied his position. 'They do not know what it cost me to come to this.' So, in James Hamilton's life, we are permitted to see how he parted, for Christ's sake, with his great ambition. He wished to write a life of Erasmus, and devoted many years to preparation, but other claims came and baulked him of his long desire. He says: 'So this day, with a certain touch of tenderness, I restored the eleven tall folios to the shelf, and tied up my memoranda, and took leave of a project which has sometimes cheered the hours of exhaustion, and the mere thought of which has always been enough to overcome my natural indolence. It is well. It was a chance, the only one I ever had, of attaining a small measure of literary distinction, and where there is so much pride and haughtiness of heart it is better to remain unknown.' I think we may easily see where the Gethsemane was in Henry Martvn's life, and I think one may also see it in John Wesley's life, though I should not care to indicate it. But the heart knoweth its own bitterness. What we know is that the Gethsemanes in the Christian life come in the course of duty, and in obedience to God's will as it is revealed from day to day. II. The bloom and perfection of life to the missionary come from the shedding of blood. Observe that I am not speaking here of the blessing to others, but of the blessing that is meant to come to ourselves in the great enrichment of the spiritual life that should follow, and abundantly make up for, the impoverishment and expenditure of the natural life. What comes after the parting with the natural life, after the shedding of blood, after the death to the world? Various things come, but what ought to come is the resurrection life, which the shedding of blood has made room for. It does not always come even to the servants of God whose lives are faithful. Their work is fruitful, never without result, but they themselves have not the full blessing of the resurrection life. (1) Often the Gethsemane of the soul means a brief tarrying in this world. It seems as if too much had gone, as if the spirit could not recover its energies. There are a few books peculiarly dear to the heart of the Church which I may call Gethsemane books. The chief are the lives of Brainerd, Martyn, and McCheyne. All of these died young, not without signs of the Divine blessing, but prematurely rich and fervid natures exhausted and burnt out I do not overlook physical causes and reasons, but in each case there was a Gethsemane. (2) Sometimes the earthly life parted with is not fully replaced by the resurrection life, and a long drawn melancholy ensues. It is so, I venture to think, in the life of Charles Wesley. It will be granted by the most ardent admirers of that great saint and supreme Christian poet that the last thirty years of his life will not compare with those of his mighty, strenuous, ardent youth. They were sad years in the main, spent in comparative inaction, and with many weary, listless, discontented days. The text of Charles Wesley's later years, the text that must ever be associated with his name, was, 'I will bring the third part through the fire'. He thought that one third part of Methodists would endure to the end. He never sought an abundant entrance for himself into the heavenly kingdom, never asked more than that 'I may escape safe to land on a broken piece of the ship. This is my daily and hourly prayer, that I may escape safe to land.' Our Gethsemanes are not meant to end in gloom and melancholy. They are meant to give us, by the grace of God, a richer, even an eternal life in the place of that which we have lost. Our sufferings must be well used, for 'in this mortal journey wasted shade is worse than wasted sunshine'. (3) No, the bloom of life should come out of death. The resurrection life should pour into the depleted veins, and fill them with strength and peace. That was eminently the experience of John Wesley. Branch after branch was withered, but every time the new life rushed through all the arid fibres, and they bloomed again. There is no book, I humbly think, in all the world like John Wesley's Journal. It is pre-eminently the book of the resurrection life lived in this world. It has very few companions. Indeed, it stands out solitary in all Christian literature, clear, detached, columnar. It is a tree that is ever green before the Lord. When the world has become one great Gethsemane, we shall see over it all the flowers that grow, and grow only, in the garden where Christ's brow dropped blood. The Church of Christ must be in an agony, praying more earnestly, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood, before the world can be brought to Christ. We give nothing, until we give what it costs us to give, life. There is no life without death. Gethsemane is the rose garden of God. W. Robertson Nicoll, The Lamp of Sacrifice, p. 55. References. IX. 22. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 134. M. Biggs, Practical Sermons on Old Testament Subjects, p. 43. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 118, and vol. li. No. 2951. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 462. IX. 23. Bishop Bickersteth, Sermons, p. 182. IX. 24. J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 277. Hebrews 9:26 No fact in man's moral history is more certain than this, that the simple statement of Scripture, 'Christ has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,' has been found efficacious to reach down to the lowest depths of men's souls beyond any other truth ever uttered on this earth. J. C. Shairp, Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, pp. 419, 420. References. IX. 26. S. Bentley, Pariah Sermons, p. 100. E. A. Stuart, The One Mediator and other Sermons, vol. xi. p. 201. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No. 759, vol. xvi. Nos. 911, 962, and vol. xxxviii. No. 2283. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vi. p. 139; ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p. 277. ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 458; ibid. vol. x. p. 319; ibid. (7th Series), vol. vi. p. 428. IX. 26-28. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No. 2194. Hebrews 9:27 Speaking of Plato's three great myths, Jowett, in his introduction to the Gorgias, observes that they 'are a substitute for poetry and mythology; and they are also a reform of mythology. The moral of them may be summed up in a word or two: After death the Judgment; and There is some better thing remaining for the good than for the evil'. We must die and give an account of our life; here in all its simplicity is the teaching of sickness! Amiel. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelist, coming to him, and asked, Wherefore dost thou cry? He answered, Sir, I perceive by the Book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to Judgment, and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second.' Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (pt 1). 'The hope of a future life,' says Sir John Seeley in Natural Religion (pt 2Ch 3 ), 'is still strong in men's minds, and has, perhaps, been expressed with more ardour in this age than in any other. But the legal and penal ideas which used to be connected with it have almost disappeared. "In Memoriam" speaks in every line of a future state, but of a future judgment it is absolutely silent.' References. IX. 27. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 102. J. Keble, Sermons for Advent to Christmas Eve, p. 68. R. Scott, Oxford Lent Sermons, 1868, p. 113. G. W. Brameld, Practical Sermons, p. 15. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i. p. 104. IX. 27, 28. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No. 430. IX. 28. H. Bushnell, Christ and His Salvation, p. 352. X. 1. T. F. Crosse, Sermons (2nd Series), p. 53. X. 1-3. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 338; X. 1-18. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. i. p. 436. X. 2. H. Bushnell, Christ and His Salvation, p. 260. X. 3. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 348. Hebrews 10:4 To a modern these words have an antiquated sound. The world of ideas which they suggest has passed so entirely away that we look back upon the stage they represent as a stage far below us, so far, indeed, that it is barely conceivable. But they were originally the apex of a long ascent The quiet decisiveness and even scorn with which the writer sets down this conviction breathe a feeling of relief, after the long centuries of persistent and unavailing sacrifices. Humanity is drawing breath after a prolonged nightmare. The primitive ritual of purification was based on the belief that the blood of animals could wipe away sin, 'because the animal that has been consecrated by contact with the altar becomes charged with a Divine potency, and its sacred blood, poured over the impure man, absorbs and disperses his impurity'. Thus, as Dr. Farnell continues ( The Evolution of Religion, pp. 120 f.), the cognate idea of the pure heart was 'not necessarily wholly ethical,' as yet, but often 'co-existent with the ideas of sin that do not clearly recognize moral responsibility or the essential difference between deliberate wrongdoing and the ritualistic or accidental or involuntary sin.' 'The final point is reached when it is realized that the blood of bulls and of goats cannot wash away sin, that nothing external can defile the heart or soul, but only evil thought and evil will. This purged and idealised concept will then in the progressive religions revolt against its own parentage, and will prompt the eternal antagonism of the prophet against the ritual priest, of the Christ against the Pharisee.' James Moffatt. References. X. 5. J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 183. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 42; ibid. (5th Series), vol. x. p. 62; ibid. (6th Series), vol. v. p. 62. X. 5-7. R. M. Benson, Redemption, p. 1. G. Trevor, Types and the Antitype, p. 220. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No. 2202. X. 7. R. J. Campbell, New Theology Sermons, p. 133. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, pt. i. p. 66. Hebrews 10:9 The Man, Christ Jesus, was of all created beings as far as we know their history the only one who chose his own destiny, who foreknew and accepted its full conditions; who saw a great need and responded to it: 'Lo! I come? My leave,' said the acute Frenchwoman, 'was not asked before I came into the world' a saying in which all that the human heart can urge against God and His appointments lies hid. Why should I be called upon to endure, to forego so much? Had the choice been permitted me, I might possibly have declined it. Our Saviour's leave was asked. His fulfilment of His Father's will was voluntary; He saw the end from the beginning. Dora Greenwell, The Patience of Hope, pp. 12, 13. References. X. 9. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvi. No. 2698. X. 9, 10. H. Drummoud, The Ideal Life, p. 279. Hebrews 10:10 When man finds that if he would do God's will, however imperfectly, he must offer up this continual sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own will, his thoughts are irresistibly carried to rest upon that One offering up of a higher than any human will, by which Christ has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. The more deeply we feel the existing contradiction between God's will and that of His creature, the deeper becomes our sense of the need of somewhat to take it away, so that the heart draws near to a truth unapproachable by the intellect * the necessary death of Christ. * Dora Greenwell, The Patience of Hope, pp. 29, 30. References. X. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1527. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i. p. 235. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii. p. 32. X. 11, 12. C. Bosanquet, Tender Grass for the Lambs, p. 73. X. 11, 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1034. X. 12. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 245. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p. 263. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 76. The One Offering Hebrews 10:12-13 Look at these two verses, and see three things: I. The Work which our Lord has Accomplished. His death was the great purpose of His Incarnation. He came from heaven to die because there was no one else who could possibly have died a sacrifice for sin. There was only one Being Whom we know of Who could have possibly made that sacrifice for sin; it was the Incarnate Son of God, the Creator of the world Himself. If He was willing to become responsible for the sins of the world which He had created, then Justice, we conceive, might be satisfied with Him as the sacrifice for sin. That the Christ of God willed to do. He who was Very God of Very God He willed to become the sacrifice for sin. Then mark: II. The Position which He is Occupying. Having accomplished that work, the text tells us He 'sat down on the right hand of God'. Is it not strange to think that Jesus Christ 'sat down'? We look about us today, and is it not too much to say that more than one-half of the human race has never heard of that sacrifice which Jesus Christ made upon the cross. Do you not wonder then, that, He has 'sat down'? Jesus Christ made that atonement, that sacrifice for sin, because, as we have seen, there was none other who could make it But God never does what we can do. We could not make the sacrifice, therefore Christ came, and made it; but we can proclaim the message, and therefore He now rests. Here, then, is the awful responsibility which rests upon us that God has ordained that the work of the Saviour Himself shall be left so far incomplete, because it is the will of your Heavenly Father that you and I shall complete it. No generation ever had such splendid opportunities of doing this work as have we ourselves. The Christian nations, so called, of the world today are not only the most civilised, but they are also the most powerful. We, to whom God has given all this, are to go and evangelise the uncivilised and the weak nations of the world. Mark you, we have nothing to do with the conversion of the world that is not our work, it is the work of God the Holy Ghost but the evangelisation of the world is our work. 'This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come' (St. Matthew 24:14 ). III. Mark, then, the Hope that He is Cherishing. He Who is now seated on the right hand of God and waiting, He is expecting, He is 'expecting until His enemies be made His footstool'. And He is expecting that His Church will be so filled with gratitude because of the sacrifice He made, so filled with compassion because they have caught something of His Spirit He is expecting that His Church will be so longing for His Coming, that they will hasten to perform His wish, and tell every creature that He has died. E. A. Stuart, * Assurance of Life. * Christ's Expectation Hebrews 10:12-13 I would ask you to look at these two verses, and see these three things. First, the work which He has accomplished; secondly, the position which He is occupying; and thirdly, the hope which He is cherishing. I. First of all, then, the work which He has accomplished. Eighteen hundred years ago our Lord died upon the cross for all mankind. He came down from heaven, He took upon Himself our nature, He lived a life of sorrow and of suffering, and at last He died upon the cross. That death was the great purpose of His Incarnation. He came from heaven to die, because there was no one else who could possibly have died as a sacrifice for sin. He willed to become the sacrifice for sin. II. And having accomplished that work, the text tells us He 'sat down'. That is the position which He is now occupying, He 'sat down on the right hand of God'. What does the Apostle mean? He means that, having accomplished that work, He now rests! He had finished the work which it was given to Him to do. God never does what we can do. We could not make the sacrifice, therefore Christ came and did it; but we can proclaim the message, and therefore Christ sits down. Now think what this means. It means this; that there is no miracle that God was unwilling to do to procure the salvation of man, for what miracle can be compared to the Incarnation of Christ? there is no sacrifice which God is unwilling to make to procure the salvation of the world, for what sacrifice can be compared to the cross of Calvary? But when it comes to the proclamation of that Gospel, God is willing to sit down and wait; willing to sit down all these centuries, because God is not willing to do your work and my work. Here is the awful responsibility which rests upon us. III. And, Jesus Christ is expecting! He is expecting that His Church will be so filled with gratitude because of the sacrifice He made, He is expecting that His Church will be so filled with compassion because they have caught something of His spirit, He is expecting that His Church will be so longing for His coming that they will hasten to perform His wish and tell every creature that He has died! E. A. Stuart, His Dear Son and other Sermons, vol. v. p. 25. References. X. 12, 13. J. Fletcher, The Prophetic Vision of the Exalted Christ, No. vii. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. No. 91. X. 14. E. A. Stuart, The New Commandment and other Sermons, vol. vii. p. 89. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 78. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 232. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 84. X. 15-18. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii. No. 714. X. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii. No. 1685. Hebrews 10:19 In the account of Wesley's Last Hours, written by one who was present, it is recorded that, one day towards the end, 'he slept most of the day, spoke but little, yet that little testified how much his whole heart was taken up in the case of the churches, the glory of God, and the things pertaining to that kingdom to which he was hastening. Ever in a low, but very distinct manner, he said, "There is no way into the holiest but by the blood of Jesus". Had he had strength at the time, it seemed as if he would have said more.' References. X. 19, 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2015. X. 19-22. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1606, p. 247. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 141. X. 19-25. J. G. Greenhough, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 337. X. 19-31. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 131. X. 20. A. B. Wilberforce, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 148. Let Us Draw Near Hebrews 10:22 Taken in its very simplest sense, the exhortation is very beautiful. It reminds us that we were once far off from God; that our sins had separated between us and God; and that the worst of it was that we were getting farther and farther away from God. We did not want to be brought near to God! But now the exhortation comes to us, 'Let us draw near to God'. It is almost as if we heard our Father speaking, 'Come near to Me, My children'. Now, I want you to notice the four things which the Apostle tells us we have, to enable us to draw near to God; and then the four things which we require so that we may draw nearer to Him. I. The four things that we have. (1) The very Holiest is open to us. 'Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest.' The Apostle tells us that we have access into the very Holiest by faith in Christ. Here you may taste your Father's love, here you may see something of your Father's holiness, here in the holiest of all you detest sin, you despise the world. And further, here you have perfect peace you can worship, you can adore. (2) The Apostle tells us that not only is the way to the Holiest open, but he tells us that we have this boldness through the blood.' Mark you, not the boldness of irreverence, but the boldness of perfect confidence. (3) He goes on to tell you the third thing that you have, Jesus Christ has shown you how 'There is a new and a living way which He hath consecrated for you through the veil, that is to say, His flesh'. Christ has shown us by His death, by His daily death, He has shown us how we are to get into the very Holiest. It is by self-sacrifice, it is by rending the flesh, it is by crucifying the flesh. (4) You have, high above all, a great High Priest. II. And what is required? Well, just these four things. (1) You must have a perfect heart. (2) You must draw near in the fulness of faith in the full assurance of faith. (3) You must have a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience. (4) And then, lastly, you must draw near with your body washed with pure water. Not only has the heart to be cleansed within, but the life has to be cleansed without. It is no use to say the heart is clean, if the life is impure. Look to your eating, to your drinking, your sleeping, labour, recreation; for these outward things have a very great deal to do with your spiritual life E. A. Stuart, The New Creation and other Sermons, vol. III. p. 9. Hebrews 10:22 In a note to 'The Church Porch,' in his edition of George Herbert's Poems, Dr. A. B. Grosart points out that 'in pie-Reformation times, a stoup or bowl of holy water (socalled) was placed at the entrance of churches to remind the worshipper to have his heart " sprinkled from an evil conscience," in order "to serve the living God.'" Heare but a discourse of philosophy read, the invention, the eloquence and the pertinencie, doth presently tickle your spirit and moove you. There is nothing tickleth or pricketh your conscience; it is not to her men speake. Is it not true? Ariston said that Neither Bath nor Lecture are of any worth, except the one wash cleane and the other cleanse all filth away. Montaigne ( Florio ) vol. III. p. 9. Hebrews 10:22 'We need a more forward moving Christianity,' said Dr. John Duncan, 'with more of the πληροφορία πίστεως in it; which is not "in full assurance of faith," but "in the full sail of faith" bearing right on with the wind; all canvas up.' References. X. 22. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 24. X. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii. No. 1897. Hebrews 10:24 Again, in the preface to A Priest to the Temple, Herbert remarks that 'it is a good strife to go as far as we can in pleasing Him who hath done so much for us'. 'Do you ask,' says Schleiermacher, 'how we can stir up one another to love? In no other way than this, that we ourselves show love towards him in whom we wish to excite it. If we consider one another with hearty, brotherly love, and try to understand one another without yielding to any unfavourable prejudice, so that we cast no look on our brother save that of a love which seeks to serve him, it cannot but be that he will become aware of that love, of its considerate efforts to do something suitable for him; and when he does so, our love will not return to us empty, but will produce some fruit in his heart. Perhaps hitherto we have rather tried to move men to stronger expressions of love by severe words and harsh judgments, by representing the advantage they would desire from so doing, or the harm they would avoid. If so, let this be past and gone, with other errors. For nothing creates love save love itself.' References. X. 25. Bishop Creighton, University and other Sermons, p. 90. F. C. Spurr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 92. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 194. X. 27. F. E. Clark, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 1. p. 230. Hebrews 10:29 The neglect of public worship, at which the writer hints, is due not so much to worldly indifference or to a fear of the risks involved in a church connection, as to the fascination of some other cult. The danger was that these Christians should regard Christianity as a semi-philosophic or religious sect or phase which could be exhausted and then left behind for something higher. The writer insists that it is not one of the contemporary schools or cults. It is final. Beyond its revelation, nothing higher can be looked for, and the Christian must resist any specious attempt to detach him from a close and permanent relationship to the church. Compare Harnack's remark ( History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 151, note 1): 'If we remember how the Greeks and Romans were wont to get themselves initiated into a mystery cult, and took part for a long time in the religious exercises, and then, when they thought they had got the good of it, for the most part or wholly to give up attending it, we shall not wonder that the demand to become a permanent member of a Christian community was opposed by many'. This is elaborated in the same writer's Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums (1st ed. pp. 312 f, Eng. tr. II. pp. 50 f.), and Hatch has some apposite remarks upon it in his Organisation of the Early Christian Churches (pp. 29, 30). The historical point of the saying is unmistakable. But modern civilisation offers instances of the same tendency to regard the worship and revelation of Jesus as a phase which requires to be supplemented. There are people today who, from the same motives of vainglory and untrained curiosity, imagine that they have exhausted Christianity, or that they can secure and appropriate for higher ends its spiritual content. The words of this verse reiterate, as the rest of the Epistle does, the finality of Jesus Christ for men, and the truth that no advance of humanity can afford to dispense with Him. For God has other words for other worlds, But for this world the Word of God is Christ... Who is there that can say, My part is done In this: now I am ready for a law More wide, more perfect for the rest of life?' Forsake not, do not abandon, your tie with other Christians, the writer pleads. It is a strain, in view of the centrifugal tendencies of the world, to maintain Christian fellowship, but it is a healthy strain, for this effort keeps you in touch with all that is central and satisfying in religion. A movement whose motto is 'A greater than Christ' may be imposing and seductive, but it has no future in this world of God and of his Christ. James Moffatt References. X. 29. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 174. X. 30. Ibid. vol. ix. p. 421; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 388. X. 31. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii. No. 682. T. Arnold, The Interpretation of Scripture, p. 253. C. F. Aked, The Courage of the Coward, p. 171. Hebrews 10:31 Here also are ejaculations caught up at intervals, undated, in those final days: 'Lord, Thou knowest, if I do desire to live, it is to show forth Thy praise, and declare Thy works'. Once he was heard saying, 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!' This was spoken three times, says Harvey; 'his repetitions usually being very weighty, and with great vehemency of spirit'. Thrice over he said this; looking into the Eternal Kingdoms: 'a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!' Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. III. last chapter. It is a fearful thing, said the Hebrew, to fall into the hands of the living God; and it is a fearful thing for a malefactor to fall into the hands of an ever-living poet. The injured Caesars of Rome Tiberius, for example, and Domitian have not even yet been delivered by the most conscientious efforts of German and Anglo-German Caesarists out of the prison whose keys are kept by Juvenal. Swmburne, in A Study of V. Hugo, p. 141. References. X. 32. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 447; ibid. vol. xi. p. 433. Hebrews 10:34 Writing on the great Ejection of 1662, Dr. Stoughton says: 'It required much effort in the minds of Puritan clergymen to brace themselves up to meet what was at hand. One prepared for the crisis by preaching to his congregation four successive Sundays from words to the Hebrews: "Ye took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance". Another, who had a wife and ten children "eleven strong arguments," as he said, for conformity remarked that his family must live on the sixth of Matthew: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on". A third, when asked what he would do with his family, replied: "Should I have as many children as that hen has chickens," pointing to one with a numerous brood, "I should not question but God would provide for them all".' References. X. 34. Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 97. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p. 49. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 92. X. 35. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1263. Hebrews 10:36 There is a proverb that it is the first step which is the most difficult in the achievement of any object, and the proverb has been altered by ascribing the main part of the difficulty to the last step. Neither the first nor the last has been the difficult step with me, but rather what lies between. The first is usually helped by the excitement and the promise of new beginnings, and the last by the prospect of triumph; but the intermediate path is unassisted by enthusiasm, and it is here we are so likely to faint Mark Rutherford, The Deliverance (ch. v.). What duty is made of a single difficult resolve? The difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences that mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation to be suppressed or shame to be endured. George Eliot, in * Daniel Deronda. * References. X. 36. C. Parsons Reichel, Sermons, p. 220. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 168. X. 37. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 394. X. 38. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 891, and vol. xlviii. No. 2809. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 281. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 120. X. 39. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 98. Christian Faith Hebrews 10:1 I. What is Faith? Clearly the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews does not look upon faith as opposed to reason. Faith is with him the basis of all intelligent knowledge of things, the key to the rational system of the universe. The world which we see is temporary, changing, unreal; but behind the unreality of the phenomenal world is the reality of law. What enables us to learn this? Reason, intelligence. What enables us to believe it? Faith. What enables us to act on this belief? Faith. On the one side are the world of the senses and the life of the senses; on the other the world of the reason and the life of the reason; and faith is the ally of reason against sense. Faith is that quality in men which more than anything else lifts them above the attractions of what is sensuous, pleasant, easy, attractive, to what is lofty and noble, which makes them trust the highest discoveries of reason and intellect, and yield to the principles of an austere morality. II. But what is it that Creates Faith? I would answer religion, especially for us Christianity. Faith is a strong moral and personal force, which is called into being above all by devotion to a person, and that is what Christianity gives. A. C. Headlam, Church Family Newspaper, vol. XIII. p. 906. The Beginning of Faith Hebrews 11:1 As we hear these words we seem to penetrate down through all the differences and distinctions of outward forms and ceremonies to that which lies at the very root and foundation of religion the sense that beyond and behind the visible there is an invisible; that all that we see is but a reflection, a broken image of an unseen Divine ideal; that all around us and above us and within us there are mighty agencies ever working, regulating, creating, controlling not only our own little lives, but the entire universe of things from eternity until now, and from now until eternity. I. This is the Beginning of Faith. Without such a consciousness religion does not and cannot exist Before man can take any step at all in religion he must feel convinced of the reality of the unseen world and of spiritual things. He must not only have a mere vague belief in their possibility, but he must learn to feel as sure of this as he is of his own existence. And when once this assurance becomes realised, then, but not before, is the foundation solid on which to rear the superstructure of that definite creed, the materials for which are provided in that revelation of Himself which it hath pleased the High and Holy One Who inhabiteth Eternity to make to us Himself in the pages of the Book which is known to us as the Bible or Holy Scripture. II. It follows as a Corollary to this that it is because such faith is either altogether wanting or very imperfectly developed that the attitude of so many minds towards the Holy Scriptures as a Divine revelation, towards the creeds which are the Church's authoritative interpretation of the teaching of those Holy Scriptures, is one of critical suspicion and aloofness, more or less hostile and incredulous. Many even of those who have in a hazy and halfhearted way received the Gospels as a Divine revelation, and who would resent the imputation that they were not Christians, yet shrink from any positive definition of belief, and they are affrighted when called upon to make public avowal that the Catholic Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance, accompanied by the declaration that the holding of this faith is necessary to sound spiritual health. Such a tenet, they say, is incapable of demonstrated proof. III. The Main Cause of Difficulty Lies in the Misapprehension of that which you say you cannot comprehend. It would be much more strange if you could comprehend it In the book of Proverbs there are many striking sayings, and in the present connection I will adapt one to my text and say, 'Take this short piece of advice, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise"'. We all know what marvellous little creatures ants are, and how in their diminutive way they reproduce many of the features characteristic of human life different classes of society, regulated industry, mutual help. These creatures must have considerable intelligence and more reasoning power, and yet within their confined space, to which of necessity their experience extends, what can they comprehend of the vast globe, with its oceans and its continents, on which they dwell, still less of the Being whose dominion stretches over all its lands and seas, Who could at a single blow overthrow the place of their habitation and bury them in its ruins? And yet the distance between the ant and the man is as nothing compared with that between man and his Creator. We cannot go beyond or outside God's own revelation of Himself to man as it is gradually unfolded in Holy Scripture. Progress in Religious Conviction Hebrews 11:1 All religious conviction proceeds from God and cannot proceed from man, because whatever there is in man that is good is put into him by God. I. The First Stage Repentance. The first stage in the progress of spiritual conviction is repentance; a man has to find out that he is in the wrong before he can be set right. The foundation of all spiritual conviction rests in a knowledge of one's sins, because we shall never desire new things until we have found out our inability to do good or to act rightly without the grace of God. We must know our true selves to bring about this change; to reach this stage in spiritual conviction. We see that spiritual conviction is to find out our true selves, and, by the grace of the Spirit of God we change our minds and we see our selves to be miserable sinners undeserving of anything but death, for 'the wages of sin is death'. II. The Second Stage Faith. We will take for granted that we have all changed our minds about ourselves now, and we will pass on to examine the most glorious passage in spiritual conviction, which I trust every member of this congregation will be able to lay to heart. 'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Why is faith absolutely necessary? The reason is given to us in this very chapter: we are told that without faith it is impossible to please God. No words can be stronger. When St. Paul is imprisoned in the city of Philippi, and there is a terrible earthquake, and the doors of the prison are opened, the Philippian jailor, a man who had never troubled his head about religion, fears that his prisoners are lost to him, and knowing that he will be put to death if this proves to be the case, determines to make an end of himself. Just as he is in the act St. Paul sees him, and says, 'Do thyself no harm, for we are all here'. No doubt the man had never met with such speech as that, and conviction takes hold of him, and he realises that he himself is a sinner, and what would have happened if he had put an end to himself in his condition. So he turns to the Apostles and says, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' And St. Paul makes answer, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved'. If the Apostle had said, 'You must do some good work; you must do something that is pleasing to God,' we should not have connected with it faith, which is the one thing necessary. Is it not true that faith is the one thing? I know that we must do the work, and we must wrestle and fight and pray, but there is one thing needful when we have been convicted of our sin, and that is faith in the blessed work of our Saviour. III. The Third Stage Assurance. Let us take the words just as they stand! 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for.' What is substance? There is a great deal of difference between a mere speculation and reality. Substance is reality. We say that, as we are met together in the name of the Lord Jesus, He is present with us. Perhaps some of you say that you hope. He is present. I can go further than that; I can say that He is here. He is here in the spirit and we are in the body, and so cannot see Him; there is the necessity for faith. Hebrews 11:1 To walk staunchly by the best light one has, to be strict and sincere with oneself, not to be of the number of those who say and do not, to be in earnest this is the discipline by which alone man is enabled to rescue his life from thraldom to the passing moment and to his bodily senses, to ennoble it, and to make it eternal. And this discipline has been nowhere so effectively taught as in the school of Hebraism. The intense and convinced energy with which the Hebrew, both of the Old and of the New Testament, threw himself upon his ideal of righteousness, and which inspired the incomparable definition of the great Christian virtue, faith the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen this energy of devotion to its ideal has belonged to Hebraism alone. Matthew Arnold, preface to * Culture and Anarchy. * 'He had faith in God,' says Dr. John Brown, in Horae Subsecivae, of Dr. Chalmers; 'faith in human nature faith, if we may say so, in his own instincts in his ideas of men and things in himself; and the result was, that unhesitating bearing up and steering right onward "never bating one jot of heart or hope" so characteristic of him. He had "the substance of things hoped for". He had "the evidence of things not seen".' Contrast Mr. R. H. Hutton's verdict upon George Eliot ( Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith, p. 278): 'There were some of her characteristics which were in the deepest sense Christian; but by this powerlessness to believe that of which she had no immediate evidence before her, whether in things human or Divine, George Eliot was exceptionally distinguished. The "substance of things hoped for" was to her no substance at all; she had no buoyancy in her nature. "The evidence of things unseen" was a shadow as to the various possible causes of which she could speculate at large with little confidence and no satisfactory result.' The true martyrs and all the saints, who by their holy practice under great trials declare that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, can speak in the style of witnesses; need not only say that they think the Gospel is Divine, but say that it is Divine, giving it as their testimony because they have seen it to be so.... There is no true or saving faith, or spiritual conviction of the judgment of the truth of God, that has nothing in it of this manifestation of its internal evidence in some degree. The Gospel of the blessed God does not go abroad a-begging for evidence, so much as some think; it has its highest and most proper evidence in itself. Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (pt. iii. ch. v.). References. XI. 1. J. T. O'Brien, The Nature and the Effects of Faith, p. 27. Archbishop Temple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 66. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 1. J. Laidlaw, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 102. J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No. 1608, p. 263. E. J. Hardy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 123. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 153; ibid. vol. vii. p. 392. Hebrews 11:2 Good men are the stars, the planets of the age wherein they live, and illustrate the times. God did never let them be wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of the world, and contemned the play of fortune. Ben Jonson, Discoveries (LXXXVI.). Reference. XI. 2. J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No. 1633, p. 109. Hebrews 11:3 We prescribe Him limits, we lay continuall siege unto His power by our reasons. We will subject Him to the vaine and weake appearances of our understanding: Him Who hath made both us and our knowledge. Because nothing is made out of nothing: God was not able to frame the world without matter. What? hath God delivered into our hands the keyes, and the strongest wards of His infinit puissance? Hath He obliged Himselfe not to exceede the bounds of our knowledge? Suppose, oh man, that herein thou hast been able to marke some signes of His effects. Thinkest thou He hath therein employed all He was able to doe, and that He hath placed all His power and ideas in this peece of worke? Thou seest but the order and policie of this little cell wherein thou art placed. The question is, whether thou seest it. His divinitie hath an infinit jurisdiction far beyond that This peece is nothing in respect of the whole. Montaigne ( Florio ) II. 12. References. XI. 3. C. J. Graham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p. 147. J. Gumming, Penny Pulpit, No. 1659, p. 311. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 250; ibid. vol. ix p. 79; ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p. 156. XI. 3, 4. W. J. Knox Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 212. The Faith of Abel Hebrews 11:4 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews begins the series of examples, by which he illustrates his conception of faith, with the case of Abel. There are various difficulties raised by the passage into which I need not enter, since I have discussed them elsewhere. Nor do I deal with the problems which the narrative of Genesis presents, since I am concerned not so much with it as with the view taken of it by the author. It is not clear in what he considered the superiority of Abel's sacrifice to lie, but probably it was for him less a question of quantity than of quality. In other words, while his language might well be interpreted to mean that Abel presented a more lavish sacrifice than the niggardly offering of Cain, it is perhaps rather more likely that he laid the stress on the fact that it was an animal and not a vegetable offering. The sacrificial efficacy of blood is prominent in his thought, and it is quite natural that the distinction in the material of the offerings should seem to give the clue to the acceptance of one and the rejection of the other. While the death of the animal and the manipulation of its blood could not liberate man's conscience from the burden of his guilt or restore to him communion with God, it brought home to him the fact of guilt and the problem of reconciliation. It thus prepared the way for the supreme sacrifice of Christ by which the problem received its adequate and final solution. And its very inadequacy was itself an unconscious prophecy, for the tormenting sense of alienation from God which it expressed was itself a prediction that God would ultimately deal with the question in a radical way. The constant reminder which men received of their sins and their helplessness in dealing with them deepened the sense of sin and quickened the longing for an adequate redemption. It would not therefore be contrary to the general drift of the writer's argument to consider that he detected in Abel's selection of an animal victim the outcome of his faith. I. This faith did not go without Divine recognition. The word of God bore witness to him. We read, 'And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering'. The writer apparently understood this to mean that Abel's sacrifice secured the approval of God because it exhibited the quality of faith. This is suggested by what he says in connection with the next example, that without faith it is impossible to be pleasing unto Him. The problems which this raises were, perhaps, not before the writer's mind, though they can hardly fail to strike ourselves. At present, however, it is our task to look at things from his point of view. That witness was borne to those who had faith is a thought which has been already expressed in the words, 'By it the elders received a good report,' and much the same is said with reference to Enoch. II. The author proceeds to tell us that through the faith he thus manifested he still speaks to us. In order to understand this we must bear in mind the writer's doctrine of Scripture. Scripture is for him the living and active word of God, so that its utterances belong not simply to the past but to the present. And therefore, although from the point of view of the historian the speech of Abel might seem to belong to the past, to the author it belongs to the present in virtue of its record on the page of Scripture. The voice of Abel is the voice of his blood which called to God from the ground. It is a thought for which we have many parallels that blood spilt upon the earth cries for vengeance. We find it in Job's passionate appeal to the earth not to cover his blood and thus stifle his cry, and in Ezekiel's reference to the blood of Jerusalem which had been set on the bare rock by God that it should not be covered and thus go unredressed. III. To ourselves no doubt the words of the author convey more naturally the impression that even though he is dead, Abel still speaks to us by his example. And though this does not quite hit his meaning, the thought itself is one which ought not to be forgotten. Shakespeare put into the mouth of the sophistical Antony the words: The evil that men do lives after them, The good is soft interred with their bones. Happily that is not the case. While it is true that evil things and evil memory are a baleful legacy left by the wicked, yet it is also true that the memory of the just is an inspiration and their deeds are still potent for good after they have been taken from us. And thus the memory of those who, in the dim twilight of revelation, were faithful to the light they received and prepared for the coming of the dawn, has still its message for us whose lot is cast in a happier time and on whom the ends of the ages have come. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 30. Hebrews 11:4 Men cannot benefit those who are with them as they can benefit those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture (VI). References. XI. 4. J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No. 1681, p. 487. D. Young, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 350, and vol. liv. p. 54. The Escape From Death Hebrews 11:5 I. Although the author gives us no explicit help in solving the problem why the treatment of Enoch was so exceptional, we can perhaps detect to some extent the link that was in his mind between the faith of Enoch and his translation. Faith, I have said, is a conviction of the unseen realities. In the next place, it is a stronger power than hope, since it makes the future present Even before the veil is removed, it, so to speak, abrogates it. It carries us in spirit within the veil, and makes us even now participate in the joys of the world to come. Then as the wings of faith grow more feeble, our strong flight draws to its close, and we find ourselves back again on the earthward side of the veil. Perhaps, however, it might be possible, the writer may have thought, for that faith which gives us this transient experience of heaven to secure a permanent triumph. Thus a man whose faith was of unusual intensity might escape to the unseen realm without passing through death, and find in it his abiding home. The thought may seem fanciful, but it may be along these lines that we ought to look for our solution. The statement that he walked with God helps us rather more. It testifies to the close, unbroken intercourse between God and His servant which death could not destroy. The thought that faith conquers death comes out elsewhere in the chapter. Yet we are told of others, to whom this exceptional privilege was not vouchsafed, that they walked with God. I have accordingly no complete explanation to offer of the unique experience through which Enoch is said to have passed. II. It was not unnatural that the words 'Enoch walked with God' should have led to the belief that God took him into His confidence, and revealed to him many mysteries. These mysteries, which touched the constitution of the universe, the fate of the wicked, the world's future history, were enshrined in an elaborate literature which began to grow up about him in the second century before our era. Quotation is made from it in Jude, but not elsewhere in the New Testament It is possible that the original text of 1 Peter contained a reference to an experience of the patriarch. Some scholars have suggested that the preaching to the spirits in prison was really a preaching by Enoch to the angels imprisoned on account of the transgression recorded in the sixth of Genesis, and Dr. Rendel Harris has recently championed this view with great vigour. The correction of the text involved is quite easy, and its acceptance would remove a really serious difficulty. My main reason for hesitating to accept it is that in the following chapter we have the statement that the Gospel was preached to the dead. I find it hard to believe that the two passages refer to entirely different events. But it is obvious that the latter has no reference to Enoch's preaching to the imprisoned angels, for this was a preaching of condemnation, and they could not be described as 'the dead'. Accordingly I think we must allow the passage in Jude to stand by itself in the New Testament At the same time it is hardly likely that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews can have been ignorant of this literature. Dr. Charles, in fact, thinks that our passage must depend in some way upon the book of Enoch, though this view does not rest on very strong grounds. But whether this be so or not, it is, at any rate, noteworthy that the author makes no allusion to Enoch's initiation into the secrets of God. He lays the stress on conduct rather than on knowledge. His silence reminds us that in our study of Scripture we should direct our attention not only to what it says but to what it does not say. III. When we consider the story of Enoch's escape from death and try to draw a practical lesson from it for ourselves, we must remember how different our attitude towards death is from that current among the Hebrews. The view which dominated their attitude throughout almost the whole of the Old Testament was of a very gloomy character. For them death was no mere incident, still less a granting of fuller light and more intimate fellowship with God. The dark and hopeless night closed in even after the happiest and the longest day and put a period to man's communion with God. The later Old Testament writings disclose to us the gradual lifting of the shadow and relief from the horror coming along various lines. The deepest thought which the saints of the Old Covenant achieved grew directly out of their religious experience. Their immediate sense of the love and the grace of God was so strong that their faith rose to the great conviction that this love was stronger than death. Thus they could have anticipated Paul's ringing declaration that not death itself can separate us from the love of God. But Paul could add 'in Christ Jesus our Lord,' and thus give the weakest Christian a confidence which may have been a comparatively rare experience among the saints of the Old Covenant In creating this loftier Jewish doctrine I think that the story of Enoch had its part to play. In the forty-ninth Psalm the words 'For He will take me' are, I believe, a direct allusion to the words 'God took him' in Genesis. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 38. References. XI. 6. J. Bannerman, Sermons, p. 1. Penny Pulpit, No. 1687, p. 533. XI. 6, 6. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1307. Hebrews 11:6 'Faith,' says Lacordaire in one of his Paris Conferences, 'is not only a virtue that is to say, a generous and efficacious effort towards what is good it is the sacred portico through which all the virtues pass. There is no act of devotedness, no act of love, no honourable or holy action which was not at first an act of faith.... Therefore when St. Paul pronounced that sovereign sentence, "without faith it is impossible to please God," we may add and men.' References. XI. 6. R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, p. 1. J. Laidlaw, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 214. S. Cox, Expositions, p. 226. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 107; vol. xxxv. No. 2100; vol. xliii. No. 2513, and vol. xlvii. No. 2740. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 75. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year (2nd Series), vol. ii. p. 33. J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No. 1690, p. 559. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p. 188. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 429. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 106. He Condemned the World Hebrews 11:7 Noah had to maintain his faith in face of an unbelieving world. He alone among his contemporaries was pronounced righteous by God. The narrative gives us no hint of active opposition. It is often a stimulant to a man's faith when he has to suffer persecution and hostility. He is thrown on his defence, his combative instincts are aroused. It may not always be easy to face a frowning world, but it is certainly much harder to face a scoffing world. I. When we consider the lapse of time, the constant wear to which his faith was exposed from trivial incident and unheroic commonplace, the strain placed upon it from the prolonged and prosaic character of his task, the keen shafts of ridicule, and the wet blankets of indifference, we may rate highly the patience of his faith. The things of which he was warned were not seen as yet when the warning was given, but they still remained unseen through all the slow process of construction until the whole was complete. And still no sign was made as, amid the blank unconcern or the unrestrained hilarity of his doomed contemporaries, he entered into the ark. Then, when he was safe, the windows of heaven were opened, that the waters from the heavenly ocean above the firmament might pour through, and the fountains of the great submarine abyss might be broken up. Thus the waters which had been separated at Creation were mingled once more, and Chaos for a brief period resumed her ancient sway. II. The writer tells us that thus Noah condemned the world. He does not mean that by constructing a shelter simply for himself and his family he doomed the rest of mankind to destruction. His thought is rather that the faith of Noah stood out in glaring contrast to the world's unbelief. Just as Lot seemed to those who were to marry his daughters as a mere jester when he told them that God would destroy Sodom, so Noah must have seemed to those who heard his prophecies of disaster. They could not believe his prediction of judgment, they met it all with incurable optimism. And so in our Lord's words, 'They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all'. And how often history repeats itself, how many there are whose blind infatuation has carried them gaily forward to the very brink of ruin, and cast them down to destruction in a moment! III. Noah condemned the world by the spectacle of his unshrinking faith, but he made no impression upon it. And it is this quality in the world which makes the effort to reform some people seem so hopeless. I always feel that we have least hope of success with those whom we cannot get to take life seriously. Those who are set in their antagonism to goodness, who throw themselves into active opposition, are less to be despaired of. For with them there is a certain earnestness and seriousness, a concentration of purpose, though directed to wrong ends. In short, they have character, though it be bad character. And there are numerous examples to show what valiant and loyal soldiers of righteousness they may prove if they can once be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. But what are we to do with the flippant and the frivolous, in whose nature there is no depth, no reserve to which one can appeal? What can be done with the shallow, irresponsible people to whom the gravest moral and spiritual issues are less than an idle tale? There are many Sunday school teachers who would gladly prefer the bad boy, as he is called, to the frivolous boy, and too often the frivolous boy becomes a frivolous man. It is now many years since I read a passage in Demosthenes which made a permanent impression on me. The great orator, looking back over the time when the power of Philip was steadily growing, says that the Greek States realised that trouble was coming, only, he adds, 'not upon themselves'. In other words, they could read the signs of the times with sufficient clearness to perceive that the power of Macedonia threatened the independence of the other Greek communities, but they could never bring themselves to believe that they would be the victims of the same disaster. Such is the unwillingness of human nature to face the stern realities of life, such men's incredulity that the disaster they see to be inevitable for others will overtake themselves. By our noble seriousness we may condemn the world's frivolity. By our steadfast conviction of the unseen we may reprove its crass incredulity, and become heirs 'of the righteousness which is according to faith'. Hebrews 11:7 Belief in principles is the only intelligible interpretation I have ever been able to attach to the word faith. A man with faith in principles, even if they be not first-rate, is sure to succeed. The man who has no faith in them is sure to fail. Nothing finer, after all, can be said of faith than that which is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and no finer example can be given of it than that of Noah there given. Noah was warned of God that destruction would visit the impious race by which he was surrounded. He quietly set to work to build his ark. There is no record that it was built by miracle, and he must have been a long time about it... Would it come true? Would he have to walk out again down those planks with the clean beasts and unclean beasts after him, amidst the inextinguishable laughter of all his pagan, God-denying neighbours? But in a week he heard the first growl of the tempest. He was justified, God was justified; and for evermore Noah stands on a Divine type of what we call faith. This is really it. What we have once heard, really heard in our best moments, by that let us abide. There are multitudes of moments in which intelligent conviction in the truth of principles disappears, and we are able to do nothing more than fall back on mere dogged determinate resolution to go on; not to give up what we have once found to be true.' Mark Rutherford in The Deliverance, pp. 162, 163. References. XI. 7. H. P. Liddon, Sermons Preached on Special Occasions, p. 243. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No. 2147. Expositor (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 319. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 112. XI. 8. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p. 139. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 213. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p. 313. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1242; vol. v. No. 261; vol. xxxvii. No. 2195. F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 21. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 57. The Tent and the City Hebrews 11:9-10 The faith which we profess should dominate us as Abraham was dominated. That man is not to be reckoned a religious man whose religion is shown in a few shining hours. Like the glow of health which spreads through a man's whole being, it must show itself in every deed and every day. The temple may manifest it, but so must the tent Abraham, then, was a dweller in a tent; that fact had made a deep impression on the writer; and immediately he tells us the secret of that tent-life he looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. I. It is the tent which makes the city precious. We see at a glance that it was so with Abraham. It was the very insecurity of that tent-life, the isolation of it and its thousand perils, that made the dream of a city so infinitely sweet After all the important thing is not what we live in; the supremely important thing is what we look for. If life is to be redeemed from sense and time, and brought under the powers that are eternal, the eyes must be opened somehow to God's city. How shall I open them? says the Almighty. How shall I make the unseen city precious? The answer to that lies in the tent of Abraham so insecure, so perilous and so frail. From which I learn that much of life's harder discipline, and many a dark hour that men are called to, is given to humanity, by Abraham's God, that hearts may begin to hunger for the city. (1) For example think of sickness in that light. Is it not often the tent that makes the city precious? (2) In the same light also we may look on death. (3) Nor can I leave this subject without pointing out how it bears evangelically upon the fact of sin. Many a man is brought to see his need of Christ by the same experience as was vouchsafed to Abraham. II. It is the city which explains the tent You will never understand that tent, never know why Abraham chose it, until you are told the secret of his heart. It is his vision which interprets his conduct. You will never know a man until you know the hopes which animate him. It is because we are ignorant of the secret of our brother, and of all that is stirring and calling in his heart, that so often we judge him very falsely. It makes all the difference in the world what you and I are looking for. It is by what our hearts are set on and by what our thoughts are given to that the tent we dwell in is glorified or cursed. G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, p. 122. References. XI. 9, 10, Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No. 2229. A. Maclaren, Exposition of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 120. Hebrews 11:10 I am a wanderer: I remember well One journey, how I feared the track was missed, So long the city I desired to reach Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive My transport. Soon the vapours closed again, But I had seen the city, and one such glance No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present A few dull hours, a passing shame or two, Destroy the vivid memories of the past. Browning, * Paracelsus. * 'By what methods,' asks Carlyle in his essay on Boswell's Johnson, 'by what gifts of eye and hand, does a heroic Samuel Johnson, now when cast forth into waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest of things, a mingled Phlegethon and Fleet-ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, and mud-spectres shape himself a voyage; of the transient driftwood, and the enduring iron, build himself a sea-worthy Lifeboat, and sail therein, undrowned, unpolluted, through the roaring "mother of dead dogs," onwards to an eternal Landmark and City that hath foundation? This high question is ever the one answered in Boswell's Book... Glory to our brave Samuel! He accomplished this wonderful problem; and now through long generations, we point to him and say: Here also was a Man; let the world once more have assurance of a Man!' The vision of the prophets differed from the vision even of the greatest of the philosophers in the ever increasing clearness with which its reality was apprehended. The spirit of hope, so distinctive of the Jewish people, the invincible optimism which survived every disappointment, sustained them to the last. They laid hold of the future as their own possession with a confidence unapproached by any other nation, unless we may find a distant parallel in the exhilaration of tone with which the Roman poets forecast the imperial greatness of Rome. To the Greeks the future is dim and inscrutable. The future is the secret belonging to the gods, and it were presumptuous for man to seek to penetrate it. His duty is to seize the present with its limitless possibilities, and to use it with that rational energy and forethought which are born of an enlightened experience. It is a temper of mind wholly unlike that of the Jew, the loss of whose earthly country seemed to point him forward with a more victorious certitude to the city which hath foundations, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Prof. Butcher in his Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects, pp. 40, 41. References. XI. 10. J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 458. XI. 12. Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 271. Hebrews 11:13 'And thus closes,' says Sir James Stephen, in his essay on the Clapham Sect, 'though it be far from exhausted, our chronicle of the worthies of Clapham, of whom it may be said, as it was said of those of whom the world was not worthy, "these all died in faith". With but very few exceptions, they had all partaken largely of those sorrows which probe the inmost heart, and exercise its fortitude to the utmost.... They died in the faith that for their descendants, at no remote period, was reserved an epoch glorious, though probably awful, beyond all former example. It was a belief derived from the intimations, as they understood them, of the prophet of Israel.' All true good is Christian by its goal and by its origin, though neither may be seen by the doer, Christ, 'whom He hath appointed heir of all things' (the goal), 'by whom also He made the worlds' (the origin). The development of the race corresponds to this. There was a world travelling to Christ, of which it is said, 'These all died in faith'. They were judged by their direction. Dr. John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, p. 107. Hebrews 11:13 Speaking, in the fourth chapter of his volume On Compromise, of these 'who attempt, in however informal a manner, to construct for themselves some working system of faith, in place of the faith which science and criticism have sapped,' Mr. Morley adds: 'In what ultimate form, acceptable to great multitudes of men, these attempts will at last issue, no one can now tell. For we, like the Hebrews of old, shall all have to live and die in faith, 'not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and being persuaded of them, and embracing them, and confessing that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth'. References. XI. 13. T. Arnold, Christian Life; Its Hopes, p. 231. T. Stephens, Sermons by Welshmen, p. 340. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p. 268. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p. 143. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 129. XI. 13, 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi. No. 1825. XI. 13-16. Archbishop Maclagan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. p. 337. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (2nd Series), p. 216. XI. 14. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons (2nd Series), p. 282. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 138. Hebrews 11:15 In Defoe's Seasonable Warning and Caution, he expostulates thus with Britain on her tendency to relapse into Popery. 'Let us reason a little together on these Things, and let us inquire a little, why, and for what Reason, Britain so lately the glory of Europe; so lately the Terror of France, the Bulwark of Religion, and the Destroyer of Popery, should be brought to be the Gazing-Stock of the World? And why is it that her Neighbours expect to hear every hour that She is going back to Egypt, and having given up her Liberty, has made it her own Choice to submit to the Stripes of her Taskmasters, and make Bricks without Straw.' Reference. XI. 15, 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1030. Hebrews 11:16 After preaching (at Alnwick) I rode on to Newcastle. Certainly, if I did not believe there was another world, I should spend all my summers here; as I know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness. But I seek another country, and therefore am content to be a wanderer upon the earth. Wesley's Journal (4th June, 1759). References. XI. 16. J. J. Cox, A Lent in London, p. 93. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3rd Series), p. 26. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No. 2633. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 147. Hebrews 11:17 'The faith of Abraham,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'with respect to this supreme trial, appears to have been centred in the one point, that he would trust God to all extremities, and in despite of all appearances..... He who had probably learned through the tradition of Enoch that God had modes of removal for his children other than death, may well have believed that some such method would at the critical moment be devised for Isaac; and what is commended in him by the Bible is not the intention to slay his own son with his own hand, but the ready assent to the privation he was to undergo in the frustration of the promise that the Messianic line should descend from him.' Death-bed Faith Hebrews 11:20 * ; Hebrews 11:22 * There is a peculiar eminence attaching to a deathbed faith, to the faith which triumphs over the weakness of nature; and, while the vital forces are dying down to a glimmering spark, itself burns with a clear and steady flame. It is faith maintained under supreme difficulty. And whereas a deathbed repentance implies a previous life of sin, the kind of deathbed faith to which I am referring implies that faith has been the rule of life. It must have strong roots in a man's past to face unbroken the final storm. Hence, when the author singles out in the case of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph the closing scene, he is tacitly saying to us that here we have a life of faith on which death placed a fitting crown. Indeed, he has already told us as much about two of them when he said that Abraham dwelt in tents, with Isaac and Jacob heirs with him of the same promise. Their faith in God's fulfilment of His promise had been manifested in this that, like Abraham, they clung to the nomad's mode of life, refusing to seek on earth a fixed abode. And in the case of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph it is specially with the promise that the author is concerned. I. Of the first we read, 'By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come'. At first sight the statement is very puzzling, for the story in Genesis tolls us that Isaac blessed Jacob in mistake for Esau. The whole story jars upon us as we read it. First of all, there is the favouritism betrayed by the parents towards their children. In the case of Isaac this quality, always reprehensible, seems to become even contemptible because of the reason which is given for it Esau was a hunter, who gratified his father's selfish love for savoury food, and on this squalid basis his preference for Esau reposed. But Jacob turned away from the adventurous life which charmed his brother, and led a quieter, tamer life. In the author's significant words, 'He sod pottage'. He was what we should call a domesticated man; he dwelt in tents, we are further informed, and we can read between the lines that he had won his mother's heart, and become her favourite by stopping at home and helping her in the house-work. We need have no hesitation in recognising that the faith of Isaac was at least displayed in this, that he held fast to the confidence that God's promise would be fulfilled. The fact that he made a mistake as to the Divine designation is not of such moment. It is true that we may put down his mistake to a lack of insight, yet his lack of insight is of an intellectual rather than of a spiritual kind. And there was much to suggest that Jacob could not be the heir to the promise. Yet it is true that he blessed Jacob by faith; for, when he was undeceived and learnt how he had been duped, he did not call back his blessing and substitute a curse. Indeed, the whole attitude of antiquity towards the curse and the blessing would have been against his doing so. Men of the ancient world thought of the curse and the blessing as passing beyond a man's control once he had uttered them. And Isaac also felt that, once the blessing had been pronounced, he could not recall it: it would surely work out its own accomplishment. 'I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed.' We may indeed suppose that, in the exalted utterance with which he had blessed his son, he saw the evidence of an inspiration higher than his own. At any rate, he had the faith to recognise that Jacob, and not Esau, was the chosen of God. Yet he also blessed Esau. At first he shook under the shock of his discovery and saw, with cruel lucidity, all the pathos and tragedy of Esau's rejection. He could see no alleviation. And even the words of his blessing sound, at first, more like a curse. Far away from the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven Esau's dwelling is to be, his living must be won by the sword, and he shall be in bondage to his brother. But the blessing comes at the end. He is at last to break loose and shake his brother's yoke from his neck. II. From the case of Isaac the author passes to that of Jacob, and in this instance also he speaks only of the last scenes. If it is not paradoxical to say so, there are two things which seem surprising. One is that, Jacob being what he was, the author should have included him at all; the other that, having selected him for inclusion, he should say no more about him. The story of Jacob leaves upon the modern reader, at any rate, a singularly unpleasant impression. In some ways he is one of the most repulsive characters in Biblical history. Yet it would be a mistake were we to turn from Jacob with loathing, and give him no credit for loftier qualities. The fact remains that Jacob, and not the more attractive Esau, was chosen to be the heir of the promise, and the reason for this we should seek to understand. And this leads me to the second point which I have described as surprising. When the author had once decided to include Jacob, we are astonished that he made so little of him. For while Jacob stands very low in the moral, he stands high in the religious scale, and peculiarly in the very quality which the author commends to our notice. With Isaac, the blessing, according to the view of antiquity, has something magical about it it brings about what it predicts. But in Jacob's blessing a higher note is struck. The crossing of his hands is not caprice or favouritism, it is a reverent recognition of the Divine choice, in harmony with which he acts. Thus, at the close of a life which he describes as a pilgrimage, whose days have been few and evil, in Canaan a wanderer, for long years a sojourner in the East, and now a dweller in Egypt, he yet holds fast to his belief in the promise. Not only does he see for his descendants a return to Canaan, but a lofty destiny for the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. III. It is the same interest which leads the author to select the closing scene in the life of Joseph. He too joined with his father in the belief that God would bring them out of Egypt, and, as the author tells us, he gave commandment concerning his bones. In that hour of triumph when they escaped from Egypt, he desired, so far as that could be, himself to participate. To our point of view, for which all lands are alike sacred, Joseph's desire appeals much less. For us, too, the physical tabernacle which we shed at death is not of such significance as it was in Egypt; perhaps in his request we may detect the influence of the Egyptian environment. There is one point of interest which may be touched on in closing. Jacob wishes to be buried in Canaan by his sons; Joseph, however, desires that his body may abide with his people till the Divine summons to leave Egypt should come to them. Perhaps nothing more is implied by this than that Jacob had ties with Canaan much closer than those of Joseph. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 82. References. XI. 21. J. Banuerman, Sermons, p. 41. Spurgeon, ibid. vol. xxiv. No. 1401. XI. 22. Ibid. vol. xvi. No. 966. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 99. XI. 23. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No. 1421. The Choice of Moses Hebrews 11:24-26 It is noticeable that the Old Testament heroes mentioned in this chapter are exhibited to us, not in the general tenor of their lives, but each at a single turning-point The light is flashed always upon one moment in the story. Here, then, one moment in the life of Moses, like the rest, is lifted into the light. We are made to see the crisis at which he decisively flung himself on God's side, so fixing the destinies of life. I. Note first the choice asked of Moses. It was a choice rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. To put it otherwise, his act was not the outcome of mere impassioned heat; it had a moral meaning; it was based on resolute and grave determination. The blow that struck down the petty tyrant may have fired the mine unexpectedly; nevertheless what the two parties before him stood for was clear enough. On the one side the people of God, unresisting, craven, trodden under foot, but with a destiny stretching out illimitably in the future; on the other side, sin, with its fleeting pleasures, in the court and life of Egypt This was the parting of the ways for ever; and we have to think of him weighing the issue, reckoning the price 'this accomplished courtier, this child of luxury and pride, this man of letters and of mighty deeds'. In the essentials of the matter it might have happened yesterday; perhaps it did happen yesterday, to you or me. Human nature changes little with the ages, and moral issues never vary. The distinctions of right and wrong, faced by these old fathers of grey time, are like the stars or the mountains to which they lifted up their eyes, and on which men look still and find them eternal and unchanging. Then or now, he who would buy everlasting life must pay for it with sacrifice. The gate that leads to life is narrow; which signifies at least this, that many things must be left outside that we would fain carry through. To a few the sacrifice is easy; by some happy gift of nature they find an instinctive joy in choosing Christ; but to many more, perhaps to most, the thing is hard. How often is a noble life built on the grave of a darling sin! II. Note, secondly, * some features of Moses' act. * (1) Mark, for one thing, that the sacrifice was made at the acme of his powers. He was forty. The harvest of life was just beginning to be reaped; youth's hasty fervours had subsided; he had arrived at that age when, as Froude observes, 'ambition becomes powerful in men, and takes the place of love of pleasure'. Is it not a great thing when those begin to serve God upon whom life has heaped its bounties lavishly? (2) Then besides that, Moses made this surrender just when the people's lot was at its lowest. Look on him now, at this turning point, and that word of his later promise glows wonderfully into meaning: 'A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me'; for in the silent grandeur of his self-abnegation he is indeed a far-shining type and symbol of a greater far than he, One who for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. III. What is the dominating note in Moses' great act? How shall we name it briefly? In a word, it is renunciation. It is the casting away of that which is full of charm and sweetness, the adoption of a neglected and despised cause. Note the underlying motive of faith. And here the first words of my text reach over and join hands firmly with the last: 'By faith Moses... had respect unto the recompense of the reward'. 'The reward' some one will say; why, then, after all Moses was not wholly disinterested. Even his eye was fixed and bent upon the coming profit. It is as we said; unselfish religion is a dream. But stay one moment. His eye was bent upon the future; that, of course, is part simply of what is meant by faith. But that very future, how must it appear? Could it promise anything to tempt ambition or gratify mere self? Nothing, as we have seen; nothing but labour, grief and disappointment, and at last a friendless grave. Yet none the less there was a great reward, a recompense past all computation. Look deeper, and it becomes plain that inwardly he was ever more and more possessed, inhabited by God; and for him that was enough. Yes! though in the end every human face withdrew, and not a hand was left to close his eyes, for this man it was enough that he had God and that God had him. H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God's Plan, p. 15. References. XI. 24-26. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p. 143. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1063, and vol. xxxiv. No. 2030. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. pp. 234, 243 and 258. E. H. Bickersteth, Thoughts in Past Years, p. 151. XI. 24-27. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 156. Hebrews 11:25 In the preface of his essay on Milton, De Quincey speaks of the sacrifice cheerfully made by the English poet in returning from Italy's pleasures to take part in his own country's service. 'The sacrifice was that he renounced the heavenly spectacle of the Ægean Sea and its sunny groups of islands, renounced the sight of Attica, of the Theban districts, of Judea; next of that ancient river Nile, the river of Pharaoh and Moses, of the Pyramids, and the hundred-gated Thebes; finally he renounced the land of Syria, much of which was then doubtless unsafe for a Frank of any religion, and for a Christian of any nation. But he might have travelled in one district of Syria, viz., Palestine, which for him had paramount attractions. All these objects of commanding interest to any profound scholar, Greece, the Grecian isles, Egypt, and Palestine, he surrendered to his sense of duty; not by any promise or engagement, but by the act then and there of turning his face homewards; well aware at the time that his chance was small indeed, under his peculiar prospects, of ever recovering his lost chance.' Hebrews 11:25 Only those who despise the pleasures can afford to despise the opinion of the world. R. L. Stevenson. Hebrews 11:26 A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many years distant such as wealth or fame but none for an end that may be close at hand as the joys of heaven. Hawthorne. References. XI. 26. R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p. 150. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. p. 276. The Secret of Greatness Hebrews 11:27 What we call public men, men who are in the public eye, are well known to us all, yet in another sense they are unknown. In their official public life they are known to us, but in what is called the inner life, the hidden life of the soul, they are absolutely unknown. In this inner life they are known thoroughly and truly only to God. In it they hardly know themselves. And it is in this inner life that the power of God is made manifest. So lung as man is true to his spiritual life and inspiration, so long will his public life be regulated by God. Moses was what is called a public man. All his actions in the sight of the people were dictated by God. I. If we Look to the Inner Life of this Great Man we find the key to his greatness. I think we find the key to it in this text, 'He endured as seeing Him Who is invisible'. He lived by faith. He lived the hidden life of the soul. He was no mere organiser, no mere materialistic performer; he had an intense love for the spiritual life. He might have said with St. Paul, 'The things that are seen are temporal, and the things which are not seen are eternal'. Moses endured that life which you all know so well. He went on day after day, week after week, month after month, with all the trials and troubles and worries which then, as now, are the characteristics of a statesman's life. He endured. He endured because he had the power which comes of spiritual being. He saw Him who is invisible. II. It is for us to see Him Who is Invisible. We all believe, and rightly so, in making the very best use of our talents, but we must not lose sight of the great moving principle of the spiritual life which is found in the lives of these men of old, who were all lovers of the inner life of the soul. Let us pray that we may follow in their footsteps. In their lives and in their death they were devoted to the Lord Jesus. There is a far better death than the physical death; there is the death which makes man a new man. Let us pray to God that in the hour of death we may live truly live. Let us pray that after we have gone through what man calls death we may leave this land of our earthly lives and dwell with Him in Paradise. In our Church life and in our life of our daily calling we must ever remember that He is before us. As we live our daily lives, what road are we on? Are we loving God and the hidden life of the soul? Do we realise that we are, through God, members of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven? Do we look upon the prayers we utter as a matter of course? Yet prayer is our most great and glorious privilege, as it brings us into close union with Him. God moves in a mysterious way. He tries so many ways and means to bring us to Himself. And we on earth can please God as one family in Christ joined together with one heart and one voice in the service and praise of God, and endure joy, strength, and hope in this world of ours, as seeing Him Who is invisible. Hebrews 11:27 What is the outward discipline for him who, bidden to travel on the highways of life, can take no step heavenwards, unbeset or unobstructed by wealth, power, admiration, or popularity? How shall faith preserve her dominion over Him to whom the world is daily offering whatever can most kindle the imagination, engage the understanding, or gratify ambition? There is but one corrective. It is to be found in that unbroken communion with the indwelling God, in which Mr. Wilberforce habitually lived. He 'endured as seeing Him Who is invisible,' and as hearing Him Who is inaudible. When most immersed in political cares, or in social enjoyments, he invoked and obeyed the voice which directed his path, while it tranquillised his mind. That voice... taught him to rejoice as a child in the presence of a Father whom he much loved and altogether trusted, and whose approbation was infinitely more than an equivalent for whatever restraint, self-denial, labour or self-sacrifice, obedience to his will might render necessary. Sir James Stephen, * Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography. * The conceptions of most of us are dull; the power of presenting the future to our minds (in the accurate and analysed sense of the expression), of making it present to us, of 'seeing Him Who is invisible,' is a faculty whose strength depends greatly on training, which is vouchsafed to different individuals in very different measure, and to most of us in very scanty measure. W. Rathbone Greg, Enigmas of Life, p. 248. References. XI. 27. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, p. 113. H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2nd Series), p. 361. Hebrews 11:30 'It is surely very remarkable,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in his essay on Ingersoll, 'that, in the whole of this recital, the Apostle, "whose feet were shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace," seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress upon the exploits of warriors. Of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet, or declarer of the Divine counsels. It is yet more noteworthy that Joshua, who had so fair a fame, but who was only a warrior, is never named in the chapter, and we are simply told that "by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven times". 'Up to his time,' says Newman, 'many instances as there were of the faith of saints, there is no instance recorded of the faith of a sinner.... Down to Joshua's day, no instance appeal's but of the faith of saints, but in the next verse, and in Joshua's history, we have a different specimen.' Hebrews 11:32 Such men are raised to station and command, When Providence means mercy to a land, He speaks, and they appear; to Him they owe Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow, To manage with address, to seize with power The crisis of a dark decisive hour. So Gideon earned a victory not his own, Subserviency his praise, and that alone. Cowper, Table Talk (355 f.). References. XI. 28. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 143. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p. 348. XI. 30. H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2nd Series), p. 222. XI. 31. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No. 119, and vol. xviii. No. 1061. A. Martin, Winning the Soul, p. 47. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p. 98; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p. 419. Hebrews 11:32 'It is not a little remarkable,' says Mr. Gladstone in the fifth chapter of his Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, 'that the enumeration by name of the great historic heroes of faith, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ends in the person of King David, with the first youth of the monarchy. The only later instances referred to are the prophets, named as a class, who stood apart and alone, and were not as a rule leaders of the people, but rather witnesses in sackcloth against their iniquities. Taking the history from the Exodus to the exile as a whole, the latter end was worse than the beginning, the cup of iniquity was full; it had been filled by a gradual process; and one of the marks of that process was a lowering of the method, in which the chosen people were governed; it became more human and less Divine'. References. XI. 32. A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p. 162. XI. 32, 33. Ibid. p. 161. Faith's Heroic Doing Hebrews 11:32-34 Compress it as much as he would the writer of the great history of the heroic deeds of faith felt that it was impossible to tell half the story. Time would fail even to run through the names of the Old Testament saints, and show how faith shaped the lives of those great workers, and laid the foundation of their heroic exploits. I. The crowded canvas teaches that every life devoted to God is an illustration of the power of faith. The writer who wishes to inculcate this lesson of faith is able to lay his hand on every life of the Old Testament which was acceptable to God, and to show that it was an illustration of that principle. These are the names of men whose heroism sends a thrill of wonder through every heart. Each of the names that he mentions lives for evermore, and names that he has not been able even to mention rise to one's mind as the glorious passage rolls on. No truly acceptable life but is an illustration of the might of faith. Into all the various walks of life which God's providence calls us to tread we may bear the Spirit which will win us a place in the roll of faith's heroes. II. The great deeds of faith include the loftiest achievements in every field. Set together here they dazzle mind and heart. All the great workers were men of faith; all these great deeds, for which the annals of the world have no parallel, were trophies of faith's mighty working. What realm of life is not lighted up by the heroic deeds of faith? The grandeur of these results overwhelm us. What light shines around the saddest and roughest road when we remember what faith has done! No trouble can overwhelm, no enemy can overthrow the life that has this foundation. Faith was strong for these great deeds because she had hold of the arm of God. She moved the arm that moved the world. Be strong in such thoughts for your life-struggle. J. Telford, The Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p. 269. Hebrews 11:32-34 This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/expositors-dictionary/ A Besetting Sin (a Lenten Sermon) Hebrews 12:1 Sin is a very difficult thing to define; it is so complex, so subtle. The Greek word which we translate for 'sin' means 'missing the mark'. What a true name that is for any sin which any of us commit! How sure it is, sooner or later, to 'miss the mark' for which we meant it. We do it with the idea that in some way or other it will give us pleasure. But does any sin, in the long run, give pleasure? Sins are very various, and of an infinite number of degrees. I. But there is One Sin that is Predominant, it rules and characterises the whole man. It would be difficult to say how that particular sin began, and how it has attained its great power. No doubt it has a good deal to do with our physical temperament, even with our bodily state, our outward circumstances. And if you would trace its rise and its early course, you must go back to your early days. Since then, it has almost daily grown through a daily indulgence, if not in the act, the thought. And so it is that now whether others know it or not, you know and God knows that this sin has attained a very strong hold upon you. It meets you everywhere; everything seems to play into it; and though you have often fought against it, and often prayed about it, and been determined and in earnest to conquer it, still it is dominant, it meets you everywhere. It is * your besetting sin! * II. Satan's Mode of Warfare with us is to Concentrate his Attack on one Spot in our character. He finds a weak point, and he plays upon it. Hence first, perhaps, by natural consequences, and afterwards by Satan taking advantage, the weak point turns into a positive sin. The sin recurs at intervals which become shorter and shorter, till it becomes 'the besetting sin' of our character. It grows stronger and stronger, until, as it ever must do, it turns into a habit; and when that sin is once dominant, Satan will even leave us alone in other things. He will let us be ever so good, that thereby he may give us a false estimate of ourselves, and make us careless of the one point where he is carrying on his deep wiles to ruin us for ever. III. In Lent let each Ask Himself 'What is my besetting sin?' and to deal with the question very practically. Not to be satisfied with an indefinite, vague answer. 'What is my besetting sin?' Do you know what your besetting sin is? If you do not, ask God to show it to you, for it is the office of the Holy Spirit to 'convince of sin'. And if you have any friend or relation faithful enough, and wise enough, to help you, ask him to help you. It is a question, a solemn, religious matter to be dealt with before God, in your own room, in church, in your most sacred hours, with the great judgment day and eternity before you. Satan will try to confuse you, to complicate the question; but do not be satisfied till you have an answer which approves itself to your own conscience, which tallies with facts, which you can bring confidently to God, * confidently to God. (a) When you know the occasions,* and the opportunities, and the persons, and the times, and the circumstances which have been specially dangerous to you in your past life, avoid them, if you can; if you cannot, put on a double guard at those times and seasons. Make a greater effort when you come to those points, and never venture into one of them before you put on your armour. Crush the first thought that may arise. (b) But do not be simply negative. A vacuum is a very dangerous thing. Occupy the place in your heart where that sin was, with something, something very definite; something that will interest you; something that will employ you; something that will satisfy you; something very great and very good. If the house is empty the enemy will come back sevenfold, and take his old place, and you will find yourself worse off than before! Cultivate the opposite grace. Set about it in real earnestness, and be characterised by the virtues which you have hitherto failed to possess. The Christian Society Hebrews 12:1 When St. Paul spoke of Christians as being all members one of another, and as therefore bound to the duties of brotherly help and consolation, he was expressing a thought which lies at the very centre of Christianity. And I desire to draw your attention to this side of the revelation which we have received in Christ, as to the conception of Christianity as a social system, in which no man dare live to himself, in which no man can live to himself even if he would. I. This conception of a mysterious bond uniting all men in one great fellowship is itself contained in the fact of the Incarnation. The brotherhood of all men is revealed in the Person of Him who calls all men His brethren. It may perhaps seem a trite thing to say, an obvious inference, hardly necessary to indicate to intelligent or Christian people. Nay, have we really learned the lesson yet? has the world, has the Church, really accepted this inference, and given it practical expression? No; we have not learnt yet the significance of the teaching of the Incarnation in relation to human society. II. And so it appears that the lesson is not altogether easy to apply. And God, who is always better to us than we are to ourselves, has not left us to work it out for ourselves. For when Christ revealed His truth to men, He did not leave it there for them to appropriate, here a fragment, there a fragment, as they best could; but He left behind a Society which was to be at once its keeper and its symbol. The Church was to teach the truth; more than that, it was itself the expression of the great fundamental truth of the Incarnation, that all men are brethren in the sight of God, for they all have but one Redeemer who is the Brother of each. III. The Church is, then, the Society through whose life we best realise at once our own relation to God and our own duties to our fellows. Let me suggest three lines of responsibility which we must face, if we be true to our inheritance. (1) We must face the social message of the Incarnation, which it is the Church's duty, our duty as members of the Church, to interpret to the world. (2) We must face the doctrinal message of the Incarnation in reference to our own intellectual attitude to our religion. We need to remind ourselves from time to time that, whatever side issues may be raised, the fact that God became man is the really important matter, the one answer to the puzzles of life here, the one hope for a future of holiness and service hereafter. (3) We need to face the message of the Incarnation in relation to our own spiritual life in a more personal fashion still. Called to be saints; all of us are so called. Social, intellectual, spiritual responsibilities with what encouragements shall we face them? Let the Apostle answer, 'Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses' is our watchword. J. H. Bernard, Via Domini: Sermons for Christian Seasons, p. 285. The Cloud of Witnesses Hebrews 12:1 We are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses not merely the faithful of long past ages, but the saints of God in every period of the Church's history. I. How clearly it reminds us that goodness is possible, and is within the reach of all. You and I have a life to live, a race to run, which is beset with many difficulties, many temptations, many sorrows. It is not, it cannot be, easy. But when we remember that this life has been lived, this race been run, by countless others, who have not lived and run in vain, is there no encouragement for us to press forward with fresh zeal and hope? They are God's true witnesses; they show us what He intended all men to be, and what by His all-prevailing grace we ourselves may yet be. II. Their very presence with us is a continual call to lift up our hearts, and not to allow ourselves to become wholly engrossed in the things of this world. We know what a real danger that is. John Bunyan has drawn the character for us in one of his immortal pictures the man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand, and, standing over his head, an angelic being with a celestial crown in his hand and proffering him that crown for the muck-rake; 'but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor'. How ready we are to fall into the same error! If nothing else will rouse us, may not the thought of our unseen witnesses do so? They supply us with the standard, not of earth, but of heaven, by which all our actions should be measured. III. Be assured of their never-failing sympathy and love. We believe do we not? that our dead are now with Christ, and therefore that they are entering ever more fully into His mind and spirit. But if so, and if, as we are taught, Christ can still be 'touched with the feeling of our infirmities' (Hebrews 4:15 ), and is still pleading for us with an all-prevailing intercession before God (compare Hebrews 7:25 ), what more certain than that His people are engaged in the same great ministry of love? They have not, they cannot have, forgotten us. IV. We rise up through His people to our Lord Himself; we look beyond them to Him who is 'the author and finisher of our faith'. One of the grandest of old Greek myths tells us how on stated days human souls follow in the train of the gods, and, rising above the world, gaze on the eternal and the absolute. It is only by strenuous effort that they can gain for a brief space this vision, and then they fall to earth again, and their life on earth corresponds with the range and clearness of the heavenly impressions they retain. 'For us,' says Bishop Westcott who recalls the story, 'the revelation of Christ has made this dream a truth.' G. Milligan, The Divine Artist, p. 97. Hebrews 12:1 'Consider,' says Ruskin in the third volume of Modern Painters (ch. IV.), 'what are the legitimate uses of the imagination, that is to say, of the power of perceiving, or conceiving with the mind, things which cannot be perceived by the senses. Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and see, as if they were now present, the souls of the righteous waiting for us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover among those whom we most desire to be with for ever.' Let us therefore turn our youthful imaginations into great picture-galleries and Walhallas of the heroic souls of all times and all places; and we shall be incited to follow after good, and be ashamed to commit any sort of baseness in the direct view of such 'a cloud of witnesses'. Would you know what faith means, leave Calvinists and Arminians to split straws about points of doctrine; but do you read and digest that splendid eleventh chapter of the Hebrews, and you will escape for ever from the netted snares of theological logomachy. Prof. Blackie, in Self-Culture, p. 82. The blessing is ours of their love for great and noble things. We may not all be gifted with the divinest fires of their nobler insight and wider imagination, but we may learn to live as they did, and to seek a deeper grasp of life, a more generous sympathy. Overwhelmed we may be with self-tortures, and wants, and remorses, swayed by many winds, sometimes utterly indifferent from very weariness, but we may still return thanks for the steadfast power of the noble dead. It reigns unmoved through the raving of the storm; it speaks of a bond beyond death and beyond life. Miss Thackeray, in * Old Kensington. Hebrews 12:1 * 'My heart,' says Augustine ( Confessions, ch. 1. of book seven), 'cried out vehemently against all my phantasms, and with this one blow I tried to beat off from my mind's eye the unclean troop which buzzed around it. And lo, being scarcely driven away, in the twinkling of an eye they again gathered thick around me, flew against my face, and beclouded it.' References. XII. 1. J. Parker, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p. 117. Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p. 325. Christianity in Daily Conduct, p. 309. Marcus Dods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 166. J. W. Houchin, The Vision of God, p. 92. E. E. Jenkins, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 92. J. Watson, Scottish Review, vol. iii. p. 331. B. J. Snell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 1. R. F. Horton, ibid. p. 193. Archbishop Temple, ibid. vol. liii. p. 321. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 177; ibid. p. 186. ** Many Mansions ( for All Saints' Day ) Hebrews 12:1-2** * ; John 14:2 * Lord Beaconsfield, in his 'Venetia,' describes the aged tutor of the son and heir of a noble house as leading his pupil into the picture gallery of the castle. As he pointed out one portrait after another he reminds the youth that no single one of his ancestors had brought dishonour to the family name. He did this in order to stimulate and encourage him to walk in the steps of those who had gone before. The author of this Epistle, writing to Hebrew Christians tempted to apostatise from the faith, leads them to the portrait gallery of the heroes of faith. He compares them in number to the 'cloud' of spectators at the Isthmian games, looking down on the arena and watching with keenest interest the runners in a race. Bishop Lightfoot has told us that the Greek word for 'witnesses' is never used simply of spectators. Here they are those who bear testimony to a certain truth. They are not the Light, but they reflect the Light. 'Jesus Christ is to me,' said Tennyson one day, 'as is the sun to yonder flower.' 'So must it be to us,' said Canon Ainger, who authenticates the story, 'for power comes from the source, not from the colour, beauty, charm of the reflection.' 'And the Light was the life of men.' I. Condition of the Glorified Saints. 'In My Father's house are many mansions;... I go to prepare a place for you.' Christ, in these words, is clearly speaking of the intermediate state. 'My Father's house' was the name which He gave to the Temple. He draws an analogy between the earthly and the heavenly sanctuary. The Temple had 'many mansions,' which were used for a threefold purpose. (a) I need not say that the Temple was a place of worship. St. John, in the Apocalypse, sneaks especially of this aspect of heaven. On the background of the Temple services he depicts the joyous praises of the glorified saints. In the Benedicite we chant: 'O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever'. (b) Just as the Mosque of St Sophia, in Constantinople, is not only a place of worship, but also a Mohammedan college, so the Temple was a great school of instruction. In its 'mansions,' its chambers and corridors, were the celebrated schools of Simeon and Hillel, and other Doctors of the Law. It was in the Temple that St. Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel. It was in one of the 'mansions' of the Temple courts Joseph and Mary found the boy Jesus 'in the midst of the doctors, both hearing and asking them questions'. The dying Moses exclaimed, 'All the saints are in Thy hands, and they sat down at Thy feet' the Eastern attitude of the scholar 'every one shall receive of Thy words'. The mightiest intellects have sat at the feet of Christ the Teacher, but the genius of a Pascal, the logic of a Butler, the splendid scholarship of a Lightfoot, or the spiritual insight of a Liddon have never learned on earth the truth of God as it is learned by the saints who are sitting at the feet of Jesus in the heavenly school. (c) The Temple, like the Vatican, which with its many chambers is the dwelling of the Pontifical household, was the home of a priesthood. When a priest left his Levitical city, in the order of his course, and entered the gates of Jerusalem, he had not, like a stranger, to seek for lodgings. His 'mansion' or chamber was prepared for him within the precincts of the Temple. Our Lord specially refers to this fact I ask you to notice that Christ used a technical term for 'mansion'. What the bungalow or rest-house is in India today the mone (the word used by Christ) was on the great roads of the Greek Empire a place of rest and refreshment for the passing traveller. On the Roman roads these bungalows were called mansiones, and hence through the Latin Vulgate the word 'mansion' is found in our English version. Our Lord, by the use of this term, distinctly taught that the 'intermediate state' is not the final goal of human existence. The word mone implies both rest and progress. The saints in heaven are a stage nearer the final home, where in glorified bodies they shall stand in the presence of Him who is 'the Resurrection and the Life'. We cannot understand a disembodied spirit, and hence the universal instinct, when we think of reunion with loved ones whom we have lost, is to think of reunion in a resurrection state. The words of an old Scotch song often pass through my own mind, especially at this season of the Church's year: Sweet the lav'rock's note and lang Lilting wildly up the glen: Will ye no' come back again? Will ye no' come back again? Better loved ye canna be. Will ye no' come back again? We cannot bring our loved ones back again, but God can and will. II. An Argument from Nature. I must at once call your attention to a simple argument from nature founded on the words, 'I go to prepare a place for you'. Everywhere in the natural world we see a wonderful adaptation, even in the lowest forms of organic life, to their surroundings. When a little bird breaks its shell, its skin is one of the tenderest things in nature. The quill feathers of the parent bird, with which it flies, are hard, and would hurt and bruise the wee fledgeling if they touched it. So beneath these feathers there are others which are very soft we call them down. They form a coverlet which comes between the hard feathers and the tender skin. 'Are ye not much better than they?' I ask parents who have lost little ones, if God thus provides for the little birds, can you doubt that in the nursery of heaven He will make the tenderest provision for these undeveloped intelligences? A Huguenot officer, seeing Admiral Coligny lying sorely wounded on the battlefield of Moncontour, whispered in his ear, 'Yet, God is very gentle'. Bereaved parents, do not forget the gentleness of God. III. I must at once apply the chief thought which my first text suggests. The author of this Epistle bids us beware of the sin of unbelief, the entangling robe which most impedes our course. At this festival of All Saints, with all its hallowed memories, we are reminded of our own mortality. This faith of which I speak is a simple trust in One who alone can give peace in a dying hour. Let us once more, in the study of the Word, and in the use of the Ordinances which our beloved Church so richly supplies, rekindle the flickering embers of our faith at the altar-fires of heaven. J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p. 11. All Saints' Day Hebrews 12:1-2 'Seeing that we are compassed about' whether we see it or not it is a truth. There are so many people who seem to live quite unconscious of environment. And what is true of ordinary things is also true of the kingdom of God. Some Christians are so very unsympathetic to environment, and there are some whose eyes are open and they see Jesus at the right hand of God. It is like that beautiful Old Testament story of Elisha's servant. But what are we compassed about with? The writer of this Epistle has before him the circus of Rome and the tiers, row upon row, filled with spectators. Those who strive, who are they? We can supply the answer ourselves. Who are the angels? They are spectators, they are observers. They take an interest in the contest, and their faces behold the face of our Father which is in heaven. And yet these are not the spectators St Paul alludes to. He does not say that we are compassed about with a great cloud mark the word 'cloud' of spectators, observers; no, he says witnesses. And the word 'witness' means not a spectator, an observer, but one who testifies, a martyr. We might render it, 'We are compassed about with so great a cloud of martyrs'. They are not cold, critical observers of the struggle; no, they are those who themselves have struggled and fought, and run, and have won the victory. Now mark the word 'wherefore'. The eleventh chapter, which precedes this, is the great chapter of the saints of old, who waxed valiant in the fight, who were stoned, tempted, sawn asunder, and who confessed that they were only strangers and pilgrims who sought a better country, and that a heavenly, who were destitute, tormented, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy, of whom it is said, 'Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God'. The martyrs are the saints, the Church triumphant, witnessing the Church militant. Now you can understand the expression, 'Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses'. Then just let me follow the text out in the simplest way. What are we to do? I. First of all we are to 'lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us'. The word 'us' is not in the original. It does not mean sin within us at all. We are to lay aside every weight and the sin which is always at us. That is the first thing to do. We are not to give in to the circumstances that are round about us, however evil they may be. Lay them all aside, strip yourself of them, and run free. It is the circumstances that are round about us that would prevent us gaining the crown. Now the circumstances of sin round about us steal away our faith. Who is there here who does not know in running the race the difficulty we have to maintain our faith clear to the end? The saints and martyrs are there all round, and of them it is written, 'These all died in faith'. The coldness, the atmosphere round about us, the indifference in high places, the criticism of the Word of God itself lay them aside. You cannot run unless your faith is true. II. And then the second point is this run with patience the appointed course. There is where the happiness comes in. You yourself are placed on the course by God it is all His choice. He made you, and He has made the conditions in which you have got to run. It is the appointed course. He has chosen the race for you. It is all His doing. You were born at the moment He chose, and you die the moment He chooses. Your times are in His hands. You are His from the beginning to the end of the course, entirely His, wholly His, completely His, wherever the circumstances of your life may be. And is not that a help? It is His course, His race, you are His runner. III. And, then, last of all, 'Looking unto Jesus'. Keep your eye in the right direction. How strong here is the preposition! It is not looking unto exactly. There is a little word which in the Greek means looking into Jesus, right into Him, not looking only at His words, His works, His miracles, and His beautiful Life; something more than that, looking right into Him and reading His heart. When Peter fell cursing and swearing in the hall of the Judgment Seat, Christ looked at him. Peter saw it How did Peter know that Christ was looking at him? Because Peter was looking at Christ. And when Christ looked at him and Peter looked at Christ, Peter looked right into His Heart and went out and wept bitterly. That is an example of looking into the Saviour. Then comes the last beautiful expression of the text, 'the Author and Finisher of our faith'. Now, is not that a complete text? See how complete it is, coming after chapter XI. The Lord Jesus is the author of faith, and the end of faith, too. If we have faith in Jesus, He put it there. He is the Author of it It is His faith in us. He is the Author of your faith, and He is the Finisher of your faith. He Who has begun the good work in you will continue it unto the day of His coming. Hebrews 12:1-2 'Spinoza,' says Professor Royce in his Spirit of Modern Philosophy (pp. 54, 55), 'is not a man of action; his heroism, such as it is, is the heroism of contemplation.... Unswervingly he turns from the world of finite hopes and joys; patiently he renounces every sort of worldly comfort; even the virtue that he seeks is not the virtue of the active man. There is one good thing, and that is the Infinite; there is one wisdom, and that is to know God; there is one sort of true love, and that is the submissive love of the saintly onlooker, who in the solitude of reflection sees everywhere an all-pervading law, an all-conquering truth, a supreme and irresistible perfection.' References. XII. 1, 2. Marcus Dods, Christ and Man, p. 61. R. W. Church, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 346. R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p. 211. G. A. Bennetts, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 398. C. Gutch, Sermons, p. 280. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. i. p. 197. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i. p. 63. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2037. A. B. Davidson, Waiting upon God, p. 305. Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p. 960. XII. 1-29. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 194. Author and Finisher Hebrews 12:2 Let the Apostle, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, read the Old Testament to us. We do not want a new Bible, we want a new reader. Who has this gift of vocal light and heart music who will read to us the Old Testament? That man is the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is the sublimest commentary on the Pentateuch ever written, the only true commentary on the Pentateuch. A man of such piercing insight and such long intellectual foresight, with such a gift of music, he comes into the house without opening the door. That is always true pastoral visitation to enter the sickroom without a noise, to approach without a creak. Will the Apostle read to us the Old Testament? He will. 'By faith Abel.' I thought faith never occurred in the Old Testament. Yes, faith occurred, but not the word. Yet some persons only know things by the word. They only think a sermon is evangelical if it mentions the name of Jesus Christ five and twenty times; that they call Gospel preaching. It may be; it may not be. Oh, the fools that block our way to heaven! 'By faith Enoch... By faith Noah... By faith Abraham... By faith Rahab... By faith Isaac... By faith Jacob... By faith Joseph... By faith Moses...' Why, it was all faith, and we were told that faith was not so much as mentioned in the Old Testament; it now appears that there is nothing else mentioned. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. I. No one man can hold all the faith. That is the lesson of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By a certain aspect of faith Abel...; by a certain phase of faith Enoch...; by a certain degree of faith Isaac...; by another degree of faith Moses humbled the pride of Egypt, scorned its offers, went away to sup with the people of God. Now let us read the text, and take out of it the word 'our,' that word you so much prized, let it go; it is not in the original language of the text. 'The Author and Finisher of faith'; not 'our' faith, which is but an aspect of the true faith, and in so far as it is a true aspect of the true faith is justly referred to the miracle-working power of the Holy Ghost But the great text is Faith, not our faith, not His faith, but all the faith you can gather together multiplied by infinity; and Jesus is the Author and Finisher of faith the new life, the life that refreshes itself in the life of God, the new mode of life. We have all read, speaking in the language of charity, the great work of Prof. Tyndall on Heat as a Mode of Motion. Who will write a kindred book relating to a higher science faith a mode of motion, a mode of life, a mode of suffering, a mode of conquest? As the great Doctor found motion in heat, so we find the soul's motion in faith. We are saved by faith; faith is the gift of God. II. You must distinguish between faith and the quantity of faith. Faith may be a quality rather than a magnitude. 'Great is thy faith' may be an expression which means, true and grand is the quality of thy faith. How much there is in quality! and how foolish, viewed in this light, is the absurd doctrine that all men are equal even in the sight of God! They are not. We are not equally whole men. Some man will touch me with his loving hand, and make a new creature of me in relation to passing circumstances. Another man will look at me, and add ten years to my life, my age, and the burden of my misery. 'Great is thy faith,' therefore, may be a reference quite as much to quality as to magnitude. Do not let us contemn men for want of faith, for in some aspects and directions they may have more faith than we. I have envied some people the way in which they can carry the burdens of life. I cannot do so; I go from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fall among temptations and assaults and hindrances, and I am left naked and half dead on the inhospitable roadside. But Jesus comes and recognises what is in me, knows me to be a man, a man saved, a man with the crimson upon him which flowed from one fount alone. We show our faith in different ways and in different degrees; but it may be the real saving faith after all. III. Suppose we say that the subject is light rather than faith; how then would the illustration run? This little candle is not light, but a light; I can see that. This dim oil-lamp is not light, it is a light; this electric jet is not light, it is a light, an aspect of light, a part-light, it belongs to the great family called light. But you must understand the distinction and the difference between these. Now there is beyond all these aspects and phases of light the true light itself, God's light, not a twinkling star or a dying sun, but Light, the thing itself, the essential glory. That is the meaning of the text. By faith Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the rest of the grand heroes did this and that conquest; these were lights, each was a light, but God is Light, and all light comes from God. Do not mistake the little twinkling candle for light in the true sense of that term. It is just the same with yourself, and with Christians generally. I am but a little sparklet, hardly worthy to be called a sparklet; if you want to see light see Jesus, listen to Him, what saith He? 'I am the light of the world.' So we must make these broad and vital distinctions. Let each shine with his own lustre, let no lamp envy any other lamp, let no light depreciate any other light, let no preacher depreciate any other preacher. All the preachers are necessary; all the voices are not in the one voice; all the gamuts run up into one ineffable music. Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. IV. p. 146. Looking and Looking Off (for the New Year) Hebrews 12:2 Life is not given to us all at once as a full cup, to be slowly drained as the years pass, to become less palatable, less delightful, more flat, more weary. It is, on the contrary, given to us, and to all creation as it is needed, fresh from the hand of God. And, further, it is not meant to be dully continuous or gradually to sink away. It is to be new every morning, with fresh stalls, fresh enrichments, and fresh hopes. It is one of the blessings of a new year that the break compels us to think of this. We cannot help dreaming between the end and the beginning, between the shining and the shading. Perhaps at first the thought of change, and loss, and disappointment is what suggests itself most powerfully. We say to ourselves that the past has taught the unwisdom of expecting, of darting thought and hope into the unknown future. We keep our hold, and may make it faster on all that is really precious if we look up. We may run the race with patience, looking unto Jesus. The phrase in the original means not only looking but looking off'. We have to look away from many things that draw the eyes, and look up to the Author and Finisher of our faith. So looking the cloud is lifted off our spirits, and we spring back to the old energy, and our youth is renewed like the eagle's. I. This new year, however, it may find us, may, if we will, leave us richer, wiser, stronger, and calmer. Over much that will happen to us we have no control. But there is a great region which our own wills may possess and command, drive the winds as they list. If we seek more wisdom, it will be given to us. How few of us seek to press steadily towards a full possession of Christian truth! Many of our chief teachers, in their desire to reach these outside, have gone to the very circumference of Christianity. No doubt they may be nearer thus to those whom they are seeking to call. No doubt they do much, and very much, if they bring some of those who hear them even within the border. But why should they remain there as if there were nothing to be found further within? There is no truth of Christianity, however elementary, that does not show itself more mysterious, more beautiful, and more powerful in proportion as it is brooded over. There is no revelation that is not worth summering and wintering with. In order to know what we think we know, there must be concentration. There must be the looking off from many things, from many studies, from many labours, perhaps even from many Christian labours, before the final loveliness unveils itself. And besides, there are new truths in Christianity which we have not yet come to know, which we have perhaps regarded for years with doubt or suspicion, or even with dread, but which, mayhap, are to be the light and glory of our last years. To win possession of Christian truth there must be intellectual labour, though intellectual labour is not enough. The new discoveries about the Bible do not mean that we are to discard it, but that we are to study it more deeply and wisely until we understand, as we may now understand better, the true order and content of God's gracious converse with His people. Only it is ever to be remembered that the intellect can only guide us to spiritual truth. It is the Holy Ghost who must lead us into truth, lead us where the intellect leaves us, where human teachers cease to instruct us, where all light fails but His. We may master the lover's lexicon, but only love will teach us what love is, and sorrow what sorrow is, and death what death is. Even so, the Holy Ghost puts us in possession of the things of Christ by making them matter of our own experience. And the lessons we learn from Him are lessons never to be unlearned. II. The new year may, if we will, bring with it a growth of strength. What are we to say about our moral progress? Do the wheat and the tares still twist and twine together in the garden of our souls? True, the wheat and the tares grow together unto the harvest. But it is the law of the life in Christ that as the wheat ripens, the tares gradually die out. Our business is to uproot them, to extirpate them, to make no treaty with them, to aim at no line of modified goodness, but to strive for perfection. We have learned to think soberly of what we can do, but looking off from our own weakness and up to Jesus we learn that we are not fighting alone. We must look off from ourselves, cease that diseased introspection that so confuses and dims the Christian life. We must look away from the old desires that affrighted us, from the old matters on which we must speak to the Lord no more. We must cherish the great ambitions that are granted to all who seek, that may be found whatever our worldly circumstances may be. We must look upward and forward to that future so much larger and greater than our past has been, that future in which we shall attain more than the heights of our dreams, that future in which all the sins, and sorrows, and struggles of mortality shall vanish like a thing of nought. 'Oh, the winds of repentance, and reconciliation, and atonement that will blow from garden to garden of God in the tender twilights of His kingdom!' W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 83. The Shame Hebrews 12:2 Our Lord, going down into the chill passages that ended in the cross, and speaking with the full determination of eternal love, said: 'If any man will come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up bis cross, and follow Me'. We know, in part, the meaning of His words. We know that it is not our business to seek crosses or to make them. The cross lies in our path, and our duty is to lift it The Christian has to deny self, and take up his cross cheerfully. 'Dragged crosses are very heavy, but carried crosses are very light.' Crosses lifted bravely and in the strength of Christ can be carried, even although it is true that every day brings its cross, not the same cross necessarily, but a cross always that has to be borne with gentle firmness through evil report and through good report up to the very end. I. There are various ingredients in the cross. There is labour, there is pain, and there is shame. The cross of labour is the easiest to carry, if the labour is accomplished with some measure of recognition, of stimulus, of success. Many men need these. General Grant, writing of his great antagonist in the Civil War, said: 'Lee was a good man, a fair commander, who had everything in his favour. He was a man who needed sunshine.' He could go on with his task as long as he was treated like a demigod. It is small merit to work so long as work is delightful, so long as the air rings with plaudits. The exercise of power is very dear to certain natures, and may be no part at all of the Christian burden. So in the kingdom of God men have to sow in tears, and oftentimes wait through frustrated and broken years for the day when they shall reap in joy. Another element in the Christian cross is pain. The cross may mean physical suffering. It may mean bereavement. It may mean great sacrifice of things prized and dear. But it is wonderful what even unassisted human nature can do in bearing pain. Stoicism was by no means a complete failure. All through the history of the world there have been palmary instances of men who with an end in view did not shrink from suffering, did not rebel or flinch, went steadily through great exactions and bitter agonies in order to reach their end. But we venture to think that there is in the Christian cross something more than labour and pain, something far harder to encounter than any of these, something that tests finally, something that divides between the sheep and the goats. There is shame. In every cross there is something humiliating, something that lingers, something that stings like a whiplash, what is called in Scripture 'the shame,' the reproach of Christ. There are multitudes who cannot bear that. They cannot endure contempt; they are strong enough for labour, strong enough, it may be, for pain, and yet not strong enough for shame. II. Our Lord and His Apostles were fully aware of this, but even as the Lord Himself took the weight of shame, so His followers must. It was the shame of the cross that was our Lord's extreme trial. The deeper we go into the mystery of the Saviour's life, the more we shall understand this. It was the actual essential part of His discipline. He made acquaintance during His ministry with contempt and hatred and calumny, and after so many leagues of weary road He came in full sight of the tree. He was betrayed by His Apostle, sold for a slave's price, scourged, crowned with thorns, reckoned amongst the transgressors, made a spectacle to the world, and to angels and to men. Who shall declare His humiliation, tell what it all meant to Him as He hung naked there? Even though from His cross He looked far and wide through time and eternity, over all kindreds and nations, even though He saw the sure fulfilment of His lifelong dream as He prayed that God would remember all His offering and accept His burnt sacrifice, nevertheless it was true that reproach broke His heart He knew that it was shame that would most divide His followers from Him in the days to come, and in the cross that has struck its print so deep there is still nothing so terrible to flesh and blood. His Apostles encountered it and triumphed over it St. Paul himself often employs the word. He speaks of crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame. He knew that the followers of Christ could endure shame just in so far as they were His followers. Because He had borne shame for them, they were to bear shame for Him. Because He had not been ashamed of them, they were never to be ashamed of Him. Yet so hard was the battle that St. Paul speaks very soberly, very quietly, the words of his utmost triumph 'Nevertheless I am not ashamed'. He had said, 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ,' he had said, 'Hope maketh not ashamed,' he had blessed a brother who was not ashamed of the Apostle's chain. 'Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.' Unto Him is the central word. What matters it though it be without the camp? What matters it if it is unto Him? What matters the reproach if He bore it? As He did, for He endured the cross, despising the shame. The life of Jesus is to be made manifest in our mortal flesh. And the writer to the Hebrews uses the word Jesus, the name of Christ in His humiliation, the name so often used in scorn.' W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 111. Hebrews 12:2 I mean by happiness, man's true well-being that of his higher, not his lower nature that of his nature, not for a moment, but for ever. With such happiness, duty, however stern, must always ultimately coincide. I say, man was formed to desire such a realisation of the possibilities of his nature, that to bid him cease or slacken in this desire is a cruelty and folly, and that the will of God ought never for an instant to be conceived as hostile to such well-being. If He were, why hear we of Redemption? And I may point with reverence to the Incarnate Perfectness, 'who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross'; He would die to know the blessedness of restoring to us our life. Only the most sublime self-sacrifice could account for such a result or recompense; and that recompense he did not refuse to keep constantly in view.' Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, vol. II. p. 284. It is not alone the amount of suffering implied in the treatment to which our Lord was subjected that we must fail to estimate aright, unless we see that suffering in the light of the life that was in Him. It is still more as to the nature of that suffering that we shall err. This we feel the moment we turn from contemplating it as physical suffering on the part of men and physical endurance on the part of Christ, to contemplate it in its spiritual aspect as the form of the response of enmity to love. There is surely very special instruction for us here in the fact that shame indignity is so marked a character of the injuries inflicted on Christ... Indignity and contumely, that is to say, all that would most touch that life which man has in the favour of man, and which strikes more deeply than physical infliction, because it goes deeper than the body, wounding the spirit is the most distinguishing feature of the evil use made by sinful men of the power that they received over the Son of God when he was betrayed into the hands of sinners. All along, the relation of the cross to shame was ever present to the Lord's mind. M'Leod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement, pp. 229 f. The Outward Look Hebrews 12:2 One of the main sources of strength of what we are accustomed to call the evangelical view of Christianity is its consistent emphasis of the outward look. To my thinking, Thomas Carlyle was never a wiser and stronger teacher than when he dealt with the endless and useless torments which mankind has suffered in its efforts to fulfil the Socratic precept 'know thyself. 'Long enough has that poor self of thine tormented thee. Thou wilt never get to know it, I believe. Know what thou canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules; that will be the better plan.' It is nothing less than the honest truth that the self cannot be known by self-analysis and self-examination. I. If I had time to make the review, I think I should be able to show you how strong and wise and healthy is the objective note all through the Old Testament heard like a clarion in its greatest passages. The call of the Psalmist is for an outgoing of the soul in praise and prayer. They are the noblest vehicles of public and private worship, because committed to these Psalms the spirit of the worshipper is lifted out of its broodings and disquietudes, and self-pityings, and carried away in imagination and faith towards its Maker and Redeemer. The message of the Psalmist and Prophet is one everywhere; it is the great cry that utters itself still from the pages of Isaiah. 'There is no God but Me; a just God and a Saviour; look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.' II. When we turn to the New Testament we find that this Gospel of the Outward Look is more and more proclaimed. John the Baptist deals searchingly, mercilessly with the sins of his day, but he concludes by pointing his hearers not only away from himself, but away from themselves: 'Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world'. Christ directed the gaze of the world from sin and its consequences to sin and its salvation. III. Equally striking and consistent is the Gospel of the Outward Look in the Apostle's preaching. I think we cannot but be impressed with how little the Apostles seemed to trouble about their own souls. There is no counsel on which it is more necessary to insist than to rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Look out steadily, believingly, obediently to the Christ of God; for in that look is self-forgetful-ness, life, and peace. IV. Nothing grows clearer to my mind than that, in the religious life, to be self-centred is to fail. Introspection breeds pessimism and every morbid phantasm of fear and folly. There is no safety for any of us but in following Christ and in going about doing good. C. S. Horne, The Soul's Awakening, p.l. References. XII. 2. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 236. W. J. Knox-Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 184. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p. 330. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 300; ibid. vol. x. p. 75; ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p. 434. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 199. XII. 3. G. A. Sowter, From Heart to Heart, p. 228. J. Keble, Sermons for the Holy Week, p. 67. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1073. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 137. Hebrews 12:4 Compare Charles Lamb's letter, of 23rd December, 1822, to Bernard Barton the Quaker, in which he observes: 'You have no martyrs quite to the fire, I think, among you; but plenty of heroic confessors, spirit-martyrs, lamb-lions'. What sayest thou, son? Cease to complain, when thou considerest My passion and that of other saints. Thou has not yet resisted unto blood. It is but little which thou sufferest in comparison of those who suffered so much, who were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and harassed. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the heavier woes of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thine own small troubles. Thomas À Kempis, Imitation of Christ (IV. 19). And who among the saints hath ever taken that castle without stroke of sword? The chief of the house, our elder Brother, our Lord Jesus, not being excepted, who won His own house and home, due to Him by birth, with much blood and many blows. Samuel Rutherford, to Lady Kenmure (15th Nov. 1633). Reference. XII. 4. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 209. Hebrews 12:5 'When there is a keeping in any measure from a despising of the Lord's chastening,' Rev. H. Davidson wrote, in 1728, to Thomas Boston of Ettrick, 'yet I find no small difficulty to bear off from the other rock, a fainting under His rebukes. Faith's views, that it is the Lord, will prove quieting. A sight of His sovereignty, wisdom, righteousness, and faithfulness, works up the soul into a holy acquiescence in, and composure under, the eternal decree now revealed in the event.' Sometimes the fire of adversity warms a cold heart, and then the story is not all sorrowful. The saddest story is that of some ice-bound souls, whom the very fires of adversity cannot reach. Miss Thackeray, in * Old Kensington. * Reference. XII. 5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i. No. 48. The Chastisement of the Christian Hebrews 12:5-6 Retribution is necessary to salvation; chastisement and punishment must come before salvation. There are three great necessities for salvation. I. A man must be brought into a certain state of mind and will; a certain mental attitude towards sin. So far as retribution shows that God is not Love, it is one of the most convincing proofs, if intelligently understood, that God is Love. II. Man must be revealed to himself. And sometimes he is taught to know himself by a hard, painful process. III. We must not be individuals. Our sympathies must be called out A man may be great, but without sympathy he cannot be good. The only way to get a contrite heart is to get a broken heart. Reuen Thomas, British Congregationalist, 30th August, 1906, p. 104. Hebrews 12:6 We all want religion sooner or later. I am afraid there are some who have no natural turn for it, as there are persons without an ear for music, to which, if I remember right, I heard one of you comparing what you called religious genius. But sorrow and misery bring even these to know what it means, in a great many instances. May I not say to you, my friend, that I am one who has learned the secret of the inner life by the discipline of trials in the life of outward circumstance? I can remember the time when I thought more about the shade of a colour in a ribbon, whether it matched my complexion or not, than I did about my spiritual interests in this world or the next. It was needful that I should learn the meaning of the text, 'whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth'. Since I have been taught in the school of trial I have felt, as I never could before, how precious an inheritance is the smallest patrimony of faith. O. W. Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table (ch. VII.). Reference. XII. 6. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 118. XII. 7. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 172. Hebrews 12:8 'I am better off now than I have been for years, God be thanked!' Charles Kingsley wrote in 1857 to Thomas Hughes. 'God grant, too, that I may not require to be taken down by some terrible trouble. I often fancy I shall be. If I am, I shall deserve it, as much as any man who ever lived. I say so now justifying God beforehand, lest I should not have faith and patience enough to justify Him when the punishment comes.' Hebrews 12:9 'Small as the amount of prayer is,' says M'Leod Campbell, 'its usual character is a still sadder subject of thought than its usual amount I mean its being so much a dealing with God simply as a Sovereign Lord, a Governor, and Judge, and so little a dealing with Him as the Father of our spirits.' Reference. XII. 9. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p. 38. The Uses of Suffering Hebrews 12:10 It is a great mistake, and one which deceives many, to suppose that suffering will, of itself, be any use. Suffering is never negative. But it often hardens. And suffering turned to no account, or turned to a bad account, is the most grievous of sins! There must be a supernatural agency working with the suffering before it will be of any use to the sufferer. The Holy Ghost must do His own work in the soul. Therefore, at the very threshold, ask two things: one, that the God of grace will work with the God of providence to make the trial effective to spiritual ends; and the other, that whatever be the special purpose for which the trial is sent, it may not pass away till you have learnt your lesson and the purpose is fulfilled. This done, we may look for * the uses. * I. All Suffering is Intended to be to the Mind what Physical Pain is to the Body. When you feel a pain in any part of your body, it is sent for this purpose, to say to you, 'There is mischief going on here; attend to it'. It is the same to the soul, with every suffering which our heavenly Father ever sends us. It comes to say, 'There is something which needs correction'. There is something latent. But you must probe it, and examine it, and treat it seriously. The Holy Ghost, working in your conscience, will show you what it is. II. Sufferings are not always Intended for the same Uses. The suffering of Manasseh was for conversion; of Jacob, for correction; of Job, for humiliation; of David, for restoration; of St. Paul, for experience; of Christ from a human point of view for sympathy and pattern. So sufferings, coming in their various forms, come each to train another and another grace in the human mind. Every suffering has its own particular message to each particular heart St. Paul has drawn us a chain: 'Tribulation' brings with it 'patience'; 'patience' brings with it a present 'experience' of God's love; the present 'experience' of God's love shows us the future: 'Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope'. III. One Reason why Suffering: is so Beneficial and so Essential to a high Christian Standard is that it almost always separates us awhile, and brings us, if not into solitude, into more quietness and retirement. Suffering, in its very nature, is generally attended with isolation. This is what we want. To be more alone with ourselves and God; to be brought more face to face with our conscience and with Him; to be still enough to hear the whispers. And it is a wonderful and most comforting thought for every sufferer in the school of Christ 'My Master was chastened for His profit; and He, even He, "the Captain of my salvation," was "perfect through suffering".' Hebrews 12:10 It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God's scholars till we die. R. L. Stevenson. Evan had just been accusing the heavens of conspiracy to disgrace him. Those patient heavens had listened, as is their wont They had viewed, and had not been disordered by his mental frenzies. It is certainly hard that they do not come down to us, and condescend to tell us what they mean, and be dumb-foundered by the perspicuity of our arguments.... Nevertheless, they to whom mortal life has ceased to be a long matter, perceive that our appeals for conviction are answered, now and then very closely upon the call. When we have cast off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our claims on mad chance; when the wild particles of this universe consent to march as they are directed, it is given them to see if they see at all that some plan is working out: that the heavens, icy as they are to the pangs of our blow, have been throughout speaking to our souls. George Meredith, Evan Harrington (ch. X.). Reference. XII. 10. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 216. Hebrews 12:11 How the eternal Justice might see fit to deal with other souls, why he had been singled out for so peculiar and conspicuous a fate, Richard did not pretend to say. All that had become curiously unimportant to him. For he had ceased to call that fate a cruel one. It had changed its aspect. It had come suddenly to satisfy both his conscience and his imagination. With a movement at once of wonder and of deep-seated thankfulness, he, for the first time, held out his hands to it, accepting it as a comrade, pledging himself to use rather than to spurn it He looked at it steadfastly, and, so looking, found it no longer abhorrent but of mysterious virtue and efficacy, endued with power to open the gates of a way closed to most men, into the heart of humanity, which, in a sense, is nothing less than the heart of Almighty God Himself. And this brought to him a sense of almost awed repose. It released him from the vicious circle of self, of sharp-toothed disappointment and leaden-heavy discouragement, in which he had so long fruitlessly turned. Lucas Malet, in Sir Richard Calmady (bk. VI. ch. VI.). References. XII. 11. J. G. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 22. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No. 628. XII. 13. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlix. No. 2864. ** Holiness of Life ( for Ash Wednesday ) Hebrews 12:14 ** Our subject is holiness; personal holiness which shows itself in the daily life; that personal possession of something which leads us day by day to live according to God's laws. No subject of greater moment could engage our attention on this the first day of Lent. I. A Life of Holiness is a Life not Ruled by the Body but by the Spirit, and if our lives are ruled by the Spirit of God then we shall be holy. But if our life be ruled by the body and by the lust of the flesh and by our own evil desires, then we shall have no holiness and righteousness. We shall be of the earth earthy, for the rule of the body is antagonistic to the rule of the Holy Spirit II. How shall we Obtain this Holiness? We can never lay claim to holiness until we have each one of us been cleansed of our own sins, and the right holiness of life is shown in the life of Christ We are the possessors of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we have received not only forgiveness of the past but cleansing. So the life of Christ is in our lives. We become partakers with Him, and His Spirit dwelleth in us. It is necessary for us to start from the only starting-point; we begin in Christ, we go on in Christ and end in Christ when we become partakers of the joy of eternity. It is necessary for each one to come to Jesus Christ and to be partakers of eternal life through faith in a personal Saviour. III. Our Bounden Duty. It is bound upon us to aim at holiness and to possess it because we are not our own. We belong to God, we must do the works of God, and we must try and live the life of Christ because He has saved us by His own most precious blood. We know that many socalled Christians are leading a sham life so far as their religion is concerned. Their religion lacks sincerity. We know how sincere we ought to be, and how we ought always to cast out by the power of the Holy Spirit the sham and the hypocrisy both in our profession and in our practice. We ought to be very circumspect in our daily lives, and to be regular attenders at the house of God and take care to observe the Holy Sacrament. IV. Yet it is not in Externals that Holiness Lies. There must be form, but we must never leave out the inward and spiritual grace. Jesus Christ defined His Church in these words: 'the Kingdom of God is within you'. Such is holiness. It is something within. It is set up and cultivated by the Spirit in the heart, and because it is in the heart therefore it is in the life, and you do certain things because it is in your heart to do them. Holiness is something within; it is that inward joy which shows itself in the life of Christ. Our hearts are inclined to fault, but when they are touched by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit enters and they are cleansed, then there is holiness. From the heart proceedeth good desires and right impulses, all these being the movement of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 12:14 If we wished to imagine a punishment for an unholy, reprobate soul, we perhaps could not fancy a greater than to summon it to heaven. Heaven would be hell to an irreligious man. We know how unhappy we are apt to feel at present, when alone in the midst of strangers, or of men of different tastes and habits from ourselves. How miserable, for example, would it be to have to live in a foreign land, among a people whose faces we never saw before, and whose language we could not learn. And this is but a faint illustration of the loneliness of a man of earthly dispositions and tastes, thrust into the society of saints and angels. How forlorn would he wander through the courts of heaven! He would find no one like himself; he would see in every direction the marks of God's holiness, and these would make him shudder. He would feel himself always in His presence. He could no longer turn His thoughts another way, as he does now, when conscience reproaches him. He would know that the Eternal Eye was ever upon him; and the Eye of holiness, which is a joy and life to holy creatures, would seem to him an Eye of wrath and punishment. J. H. Newman. Hebrews 12:14 He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together. Jeremy Taylor. References. XII. 14. G. Davidson. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv. p. 204. J. B. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 231. C. D. Bell, The Saintly Calling, p. 79. E. J. Boyce, Parochial Sermons, p. 257. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. 1. No. 2902. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 58; ibid. (5th Series), vol. v. p. 137. XII. 14, 15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi. No. 940. Hebrews 12:15 Describing his tour to South Africa with his wife and a cartographer, Mr. Theodore Bent, in The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (p. 5), observes that 'we three left England at the end of January, 1891, and returned to it again at the end of January, 1892, having accomplished a record rare in African travel, and of which we are justly proud namely, that no root of bitterness sprang up amongst us'. References. XII. 15. J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (4th Series), p. 42. Ibid. Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p. 152. The Sensualist Hebrews 12:16 Esau was very far from being 'the lowest of the low'. On the contrary he possessed noble qualities, which make his ultimate fate all the more pitiful. He is a big, generous, open-handed fellow, who forgives the brother who has done him the most deadly injuries and loads him with generosity. Does not such a man stand out in marked contrast to the scheming Jacob, who traps his brother in a moment of passion? If Jacob be the religious man, and Esau the worldling, who would not choose the world? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/expositors-dictionary/ Hebrews 13:1 Only love rooted in sympathy and expressed in action to the point of a complete destruction of self-will is Christian love. Wagner's Letters (1880), p. 339. References. XIII. 1. T. C. Finlayson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 401. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons in Outline, p. 134. Hebrews 13:1 * ; Hebrews 13:13 * People are not most conscious of brotherhood when they continue languidly together in one creed, but when, with some doubt, with some danger perhaps, and certainly not without some reluctance, they violently break with the tradition of the past, and go forth from the sanctuary of their fathers to worship under the bare heaven. R. L. Stevenson, in * Men and Books. * Unaware of Angels Hebrews 13:2 In a recent novel, where great power is on the whole misdirected, there is one sentence that cannot easily be forgotten. A stern old mother has a daughter given to writing. The mother disapproves, but when the daughter dies we are told that what her mother used to speak of as verses she always afterwards called poems. That is what death does for our loved ones. It changes their verses into poems. Were we to write for ever we could not say a word more. Everything is then transfigured and stands out in a new light, a light in which we could not see it while the dear ones were yet with us. In this dim world of clouding cares We rarely know, till wildered eyes See white wings lessening up the skies, The angels with us unawares. But we know them then. I. The Ideal was once among us, and we beheld His glory, and did not know it for the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. While He tabernacled among men they doubted Him, questioned Him, criticised Him, scorned Him. It was not till He was taken from them that the full truth burst upon their sight. He knew that it would be so. As He neared the Great Altar where He offered up the Perfect Sacrifice, He said that He would send the Spirit to reprove the world of righteousness, 'because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more. In a hush of love and reverence He was laid in His new tomb, and since that hour He has been the Hope, the Glory, the Ideal, and the Crown of our fallen humanity. II. It was so, as each of us knows, with our own beloved. However much we cared for them, however deeply we understood them, however we looked up to them, we know them better now. Even here we understood their truth and pity and patient loving kindness, but now everything comes more nearly and dearly home. In a measure our eyes were holden, but they have been open long since. Now that the past is cast upon a ground of wonder it seems comprehensible, and we marvel that we were so dull. The loves that have been taken from us, the venerating regard of childhood, the passion of youth, the restful affection of mature years, the trust of lost little children, the kind, true friendships that we hoped would bridge all the changes over we know how to prize them as we sit with our yearning and sometimes remorseful thoughts. Were they faultless? Perhaps they were not, but whatever there was of frailty, imperfection, ignorance, was no true part of their redeemed being, and has all fallen from them now. Others may recall such things, but we cannot. Our forgetfulness is even as the forgetfulness of God, Who casts our sins behind His back, and neither remembers them nor, if we may dare to say it, can remember them. So much besides is clear to us that in the old time we never saw. They were dead in Christ while they were living here, and their life was hid with Christ in God. Now it seems to issue from Christ and to be part of Christ's glory. But all this is true in Christ and in Christ only. It is in Him that the dead are living and the lost are found. It is in Him that We give blind grief and blinder sense the lie, And say, 'They did not live to die'. It is in Him that the golden hope of immortality, so often clouded, springs unbaffled from its sleep. In Him the soul's prevision in its moments of intensest life is true, the very truth of truths. It is through Him we know that we cannot idealise the dead, that they are more lovely and gracious than our loveliest and most gracious dreams. In Him the promises of God are Yea, and in Him Amen. And so it is to Him, to His Cross, and His Resurrection that all our hopes are nailed. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 53. The Larger Hospitality Hebrews 13:2 Reading this verse for the first time, it almost seems as if this plea for hospitality were based upon a selfish motive. Are we to do good that we may win good? Not so. If a man be hospitable on the bare chance of entertaining angels, he is no hospitable man. But if a man be hospitable from loftiest motives, sooner or later, God will bring angels to his door. Our text tells the joy of every open home and heart and mind. It reads the doom of every closed door. Shut it and bar it! You will shut out a hundred vagabonds. One day you will shut out an angel. And it were better to be deceived a score of times than miss a heavenly messenger like that. I want to take this thought and run it out into three realms. I. And first, the realm of home. Are all the angels dead? Have none in the garb of strangers ever appeared on your horizon? To answer that, we have to ask, What is an angel? An angel is a messenger of God. And every word that ever cheered you from a stranger's lips, and every thought that ever reached you from a stranger's heart, and every Christlike sight that ever touched you in a stranger's home, these have been angel ministries to you the messengers of God. Entertain strangers. It is the noblest hospitality. Sooner or later you shall find, by the tokens of a larger heart and fuller life, that you have been entertaining angels unawares. II. Now, look at the realm of experience. For years life is one uneventful drudgery; we wake, we eat, we work, we tire, we sleep. But the day comes when at our doors there stands a stranger. Perhaps it is poverty. Perhaps it is sickness. Perhaps it is death. How will you treat that stranger? that is the question. Some men rebel. And some grow bitter. And some despair; but they are brave, and plod along without a prayer, without a hope, till men say, 'See how resigned they are!' They do not know it is the resignation of a broken heart. There is a nobler way. Be not forgetful to entertain the stranger: you shall be entertaining angels unawares. God's blessings come in strange disguises. III. Lastly, I want to take our text into the realm of thought. It is amazing what cold entertainment the world has always given to great thoughts, when first they came as strangers. But do not quarrel with the world. Perhaps that same inhospitality is yours and mine if not today, tomorrow. 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good,' that is the Christian attitude. G. H. Morrison, Flood-Tide, p. 271. Hebrews 13:2 I was a little acquainted,' says Boswell in his Tour to the Hebrides (Saturday, 21st August), 'with Mr. Forbes, the minister of the parish. I sent to inform him that a gentleman desired to see him. He returned for answer, "that he would not come to a stranger". I then gave my name, and he came. I remonstrated to him for not coming to a stranger; and, by presenting him to Dr. Johnson, proved to him what a stranger might sometimes be. His Bible inculcates, "be not forgetful to entertain strangers," and maintain the same motive. He defended himself by saying, "He had once come to a stranger, who sent for him; and he found him a little worth person!" ' References. XIII. 2. S. A. Tipple, The Admiring Guest, p. 166. H. J. Bevis, Sermons, p. 120. Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p. 71. XIII. 3. C. O. Eldridge, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 37. Hebrews 13:4 Discussing the origin of the Canons of Nicaea ( History of the Eastern Church, lect. v.), Dean Stanley relates how 'a proposition was made, enjoining that all married clergy (according to one report, including even sub-deacons) were to separate from their wives. The opposition came from a most unexpected quarter. From amongst the Egyptian bishops stepped out into their midst, looking out of his one remaining eye, and halting on his paralysed leg, the old hermit-confessor, Paphuntius or Paphunte. With a roar of indignation rather than with a speech, he broke into the debate: 'Lay not this heavy yoke upon the clergy. Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled. By exaggerated strictness you will do the Church more harm than good. All cannot bear such an ascetic rule...' His speech produced a profound sensation. His own austere life of unblemished celibacy gave force to every word that he uttered; he shared that rare excellence of appreciating difficulties which he himself did not feel, and of honouring a state of life which was not his own. Neither Left Nor Forsaken Hebrews 13:5 I. 'I will never leave thee.' The nearest and the dearest even cannot say this to us. Life is full of partings, and we come to feel at last, with Ruskin, 'That word goodbye shakes me from head to foot'. Even when the closest relationship has been reached, when two have walked side by side through life, and have shared every variety of existence, when the warmer passion has passed and is replaced by something deeper and truer, till the duality of being becomes a unity, one must die, and the other, stranded and helpless, must go on living. It is the constant experience that such partings leave behind them something more than sorrow, something of compunction, which may even be remorse. It is the universal testimony that the strength of a dear bond is never known till it is broken, till the ancient depths are stirred, till the vanished faces appear upon the background of the young spring skies. The heart reaches far back and vainly into the forgotten years, and longs to recover them, not so much to fill them more fully with love as with the signs and tokens of love. But there is a far greater tragedy than that of the death parting. There is such a thing as living together and yet drifting farther and farther apart. The heart may stray, and a river broader and deeper than Jordan may lie between those who outwardly are close together. Better to look with love and reverence and yearning and gratitude and repentance across the straits of death than to feel that in the home the cruel grave of the dead love has been dug and filled. But our Lord's promise means that no matter how we are impoverished we have left to us His presence and His heart. No matter how sorely broken we may be with the assaults of life, no matter by what separations we may be left lonely, He never leaves us, and never forsakes us. When that becomes a weight which was once no weight at all, when we have less and less to do with things around us, when, as the phrase has it, our day is over, there is One Who remains, One on whom our dying eyes may rest, one hiding place from the wind, one covert from the tempest. II. For the promise is not only 'I will not leave thee;' it is also 'I will never forsake thee'. We change ourselves. This is at once the misery and the blessedness of life. We shall all be changed, says the Apostle, to those who had already changed much. Think how we have altered from our childhood in body and mind, in thought and in feeling. All our life has been made up of stages of one long change, and what would happen if Christ changed, too? But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. His love burns on through the storms as steadily as a lamp in a windless place. We have suffered cruelly from the loss of the living and the loss of the dead. Friend and lover have gone far from us and have found others to care for; but He never changes. He bears with our falling, with our wandering, with our forgetfulness, and His love is as ardent and forgiving and helpful at the last as it was at first. It is not only that He never leaves us; it is that He neither leaves us nor forsakes us. So it is with trial. It is this the writer to the Hebrews is thinking of, and we can almost see the sudden light leaping into those steadfast eyes, that had faced the worst which time could do, as he spoke. He had told his fellow-Christians to imitate the faith of the martyrs whose faith imitate, considering the end of their conversation, considering how it brought them to that to the hard bed, with its pillow of sharp thorns, on which the Redeemer fell asleep. They died the death of the Righteous, and their last end was like His, and they found Him as good as His word. We vex and weary ourselves thinking what we shall do, how long we shall be able to work, what will happen when we are perforce idle, how we shall bear the pains and partings that are to be. He wants to put an end to all this by His promise that whatever befalls we shall neither be left nor forsaken. He tells us to do the duty of the moment in the moment, and for the rest to hold by him. And when the last bonds are loosened, and we are delivered from our earthly troubles, we shall be for ever with the Lord, and we shall be like Him, for we shall sec Him as He is. The blessedness of that vision, who can tell but those who stand before Him? W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 97. Hebrews 13:5 I find that the Spirit of God taught the writers of the New Testament to apply to us all in general, and to every single person in particular, some gracious words which God in the Old Testament spake to one man upon a special occasion in a single and temporal instance. Such are the words which God spake to Joshua; 'I will never fail thee, nor forsake thee,' and upon the stock of that promise St. Paul forbids covetousness and persuades contentedness, because those words were spoken by God to Joshua in another case. Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying (ch. v. sec. 5). But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts; I daily read the word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state. One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words, 'I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee'. Immediately it occurred that these words were to me; why else should they be directed in such a manner, just at the moment when I was mourning over my condition, as one forsaken of God and man? Well then, said I, if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me; seeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and should lose the favour and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss? Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, pt. 1. (ch. III.). Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have felt thus forsaken; when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day; that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter, and the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the suffering soul recognise, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and faith in God: God will never deceive, never finally desert him. 'Whom He loveth, He chasteneth.' These words are true, and should not be forgotten. Charlotte Bronte, Shirley (chap. XX.). References. XIII. 5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No. 477; vol. xxxii. No. 1880. XIII. 5-6. A. Maclaren, After the Resurrection, p. 291. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No. 1449. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 277. Hebrews 13:7 Imitation: it enters into the very fastnesses of character; and we, our souls, ourselves, are for ever imitating what we see and hear, the forms, the sounds, which haunt our memories, our imaginations. Pater, Plato and Platonism, p. 272. References. XIII. 7. T. Arnold, The Interpretation of Scripture, p. 310. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 98. XIII. 7, 8. G. Campbell Morgan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 3. Discipleship Hebrews 13:8 What do the Gospels certify to have been the character of original Christianity? The answer is on the surface. Original Christianity was a discipleship to Jesus Christ. I. The followers of Christ are in the Gospels commonly described as His disciples. Discipleship implied the frank acceptance of Christ's personal claims, and the power which won that acceptance was the power of Christ's personal influence. But what did discipleship practically involve? Obviously, at the time to these first disciples, peril, loss, temporal ruin. Nothing could be sterner or more threatening than the prospect which He unfolded before His disciples. Discipleship goes deeper than the external circumstances of life. 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day, yea and for ever'. The terms of His service reflect His changelessness. II. Discipleship is the abiding aspect of Christianity. Churches and creeds, as such, have no immunity from the law of change, but if the essence of Christianity be not the membership of a church, nor yet the acceptance of a system of belief, but rather discipleship to a living Person, then it seems possible to hope that Christianity may possess an indestructible life. Discipleship, in the common experience of mankind, terminates in one of two ways. On the one hand, the disciple may outstrip his teacher, learn all he has to teach, and advance into regions where he has no message. On the other hand, the disciple may lose confidence in the teacher, shake off the spell of his personal influence, set himself free from his moral and intellectual control. Can either of these contingencies happen in the case of the Christian discipleship? Are there any signs that Christians have outgrown the teachings of the Master? Is the world growing weary of the Ideal presented in the Gospel? As far as I can see, the evidence points in the opposite direction. III. The changes of Christianity which, at first sight, perplex and distress us, are not only intelligible, but even necessary, when Christianity is conceived as a discipleship. For discipleship must always include the notion of advance. In truth, not to advance is to cease to be a disciple. IV. Finally, it is in realising our Christian profession as before all things a discipleship to Christ that we shall recover fraternity. The nearer we draw to our Master, the nearer we draw also to one another. H. H. Henson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LXI. p. 17. The Unchangeable Christ Hebrews 13:8 I. The Christian Conception of God Involves Immutability. Capricious divinities abound in the history of the race. They are the creatures of imagination. The idea of a changeable God is an absurdity to the Christian mind. The Divine nature suffers no variableness. The Divine purpose is unchangeable also. (1) The physical universe suggests Divine immutability. The universe is under the dominion of law which is absolutely universal, penetrating all spheres, space and time. Behind the law is the lawgiver in Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (2) This is supported by the moral law. Righteousness, justice, truth, goodness, love, these are the same everywhere in God, and in man; and every moral being everywhere. (3) The unchangeableness of God is emphasised in the Scriptures. II. The Unchangeable Christ is the Gospel we Preach. He is the Author, Finisher, and essence thereof. The permanency of the Gospel is secured in Him who is from everlasting to everlasting the same. The unity of truth is secured in Christ The Gospel is essentially the same in all ages, and under all conditions of life. It is preached to the barbarian, and to the civilised, everywhere the same Christ the Saviour of man. This is quite consistent with variety of forms, expressions, and methods. All truth is in Christ, the garment in which it is clothed is of many colours. Unity of essence, and diversity of expression are not inconsistent. The old Gospel is always new. Divers and strange doctrines present themselves on every hand, but there is no substitute for the old Gospel. We may speak in other terms. The pronunciation of some words is not precisely the same, but the unchangeable Christ abides. The worlds revolve around Him still. The Unchanging Christ Hebrews 13:8 I. We must take account of the supreme claim which is enshrined in the declaration that, amid all the chances and changes of the world, Jesus Christ is always the same. This could not be true if He were but as the great saints and heroes of history. They assuredly change dramatically. We alter our minds about them; the reason and conscience of men goes away from them; they cease to appear worthy of homage; they come to be the symbols of delusion, and the beacons of warning. Of none of them could it be truly said that they change not as the ages pass. But when we come to the Master, whom Apostles and saints worshipped and strove as best they could to follow, we have reached fixity at last. His supremacy remains secure and unchallenged through all the revolutions of thought and sentiment. There is but one explanation of this sole and unchallenged prerogative of unchanging power. It is the core of the Christian creed, the truth on which the Church stands, by which the Christian lives. Jesus Christ is not as the rest. He is the unique, the only-begotten of the Father, God Incarnate. II. We must observe that this supremacy, absolute and immutable, is independent of ecclesiastical systems, and of specific theologies. The emphasis placed on the various parts of the scheme of Christian doctrine is constantly changing. Yet through all the changes the one assured and unalterable factor is precisely the sole and incommunicable supremacy of Christ. III. This unchanging and unique supremacy of Jesus Christ is not disallowed by the larger view of religion, which is now everywhere laying hold of men's minds. It is not the Church alone, but all mankind, speaking through its infinite variety of spiritual utterances, which says to Christ with St. Peter: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.' IV. Finally, if we turn from every outward sphere and enter within the sanctuary of our own minds, and there face the anxiety which rises on our thought from the knowledge of our own weakness and falsehood, it is still the same fact on which we must build our hopes. Being what I know myself to be, we ask, How dare I make the profession of Christianity at all? The only justification in reason and in religion for the venture of discipleship is found, not in ourselves, but in the unchanging Christ. 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, yea, and for ever.' Courage, then, though memories of failure hang darkly on our minds, and our hearts fail us as we listen to the Babel of conflicting voices, and are shocked by the reckless vehemence of unloving zeal, or chilled by the questionings of an age which has forgotten God! The Ever-living Christ Hebrews 13:8 In the context the author of this Epistle exhorts the Hebrew Christians not to forget their guides and leaders who had spoken unto them the Word of God. Some, like St. Stephen and St. James, had won a martyr's crown. Many had been scattered by persecution as fallen leaves before the autumn wind. But let them remember, said he, this grand and blessed truth: ministers may die or be removed, but 'Jesus Christ' the object of their faith and the subject of their preaching 'is the same yesterday, and today, yea and for ever.' Over the vast gateway of the deserted city of Futtypore Sikri, in Northern India, is an Arabic inscription to this effect: 'This world is but a bridge; pass over, build not thy dwelling there'. The statement is true; the exhortation is wise. And yet in that sentence lurks a great sorrow. The antidote to that sorrow lies in the words of the Psalmist: 'Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,' and in the words of my text, 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, yea and for ever'. For a moment observe the names of our Lord which we have here. Jesus, His personal name; Christ, or the 'anointed one,' the name which speaks of His official capacity which tells that He was set apart by God for the complete and perfect salvation of His people, and which opens out to us His offices of Prophet, Priest and King. I. Prophet. The title of Prophet was given to Christ as the great Revealer and Teacher of the will of God. Moses predicted that this Prophet was to be a man like unto himself. 'Unto Him shall ye hearken.' All the leaves of prophecy, like one great sunflower, turn to Christ the Light. Like its author, the Bible is the same 'yesterday and today'. 'Other books,' writes the Archbishop of Armagh, 'pass away; but of that the silver cord shall never be loosed, nor the golden bowl broken, nor the mourners that go about the streets proclaim that at last the great book is dead and carried to the charnel-house of dead religions.' The Prophet teaches, as I have said, not only by the written word, but by a Divinely appointed ministry. Because Christ ever lives the Gospel ministry will never die. II. Priest. Christ is 'a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec'. By the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross the God-Man took the 'Divine anathema against sin upon His own immaculate head'. He suffered 'the just for the unjust'. 'We have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.' The atonement proclaims an accepted world, a reconciled Father, a redeemed humanity. In these days, when an ethical revival is the great need of the Church and the world, and when by the law of reaction there is a growing danger of the divorcement of duty from dogma yes! and when the hearts of men are craving for a morality which they do not possess we must summon them afresh to the cross of Christ as the fulcrum of a moral life and the mainspring of holiness. Earthly ministers, like the Mosaic priests, are by succession. The time comes when we must die or be removed. Our voices are hushed, and the footfall of our steps is no longer heard in the street It is my comfort to speak of one whose Priesthood is unchangeable: who, seated amid the heavenly glories, ever pities, ever intercedes, ever pardons, ever helps, ever blesses. III. King. If the Jew in the old dispensation looked for a Messiah who was to reign as King and not for a Messiah who was to suffer as Priest, we in this dispensation continually think of Christ as Priest almost to the forgetfulness of Christ as King. Do not forget that Christ is King as well as Priest Turn your thoughts ofttimes from the pathetic beauty of the sunset on Calvary to the glorious sunrise on Olivet. Amid the clouds of night let us look for the brightness of the coming dawn. This kingdom is yours if you will but accept its conditions. J. W. Bardsley, Many Mansions, p. 349. Hebrews 13:8 Is it conceivable that the God who made the seven stars and Orion, and who is without variableness or shadow of turning, played off caprices on the narrow seaboard of Asia Minor in the centuries before our era, which, having come to another mind, or being weary, He has ceased to enact in modern days, cowed and overfaced by steam and penny newspapers reeled off without stopping? Is the strength of Israel lying or repenting now the world has waxed older and wiser and more scientific, and is clothed in cloth, and builds magnificent clubrooms in Pall Mall, where His name goes for nothing? James Smetham, Letters, p. 347. References. XIII. 8. Reuen Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p. 107. H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, Phi 1 and 269. A. Coote, Twelve Sermons, p. 12. T. Rider, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p. 40. J. Cartwright, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 180. Bishop Nickson, The Record, vol. xxvii. p. 1084. A. H. Stanton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii. p. 7. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No. 170; vol. xv. No. 848, and vol. xl. No. 2358. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i. p. 36. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 290. C. Vince, The Unchanging Saviour, p. 1. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 285. XIII. 8, 9. W. Alexander, Primary Convictions, p. 3. XIII. 9. Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 143. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 294. XIII. 10, 15. Ibid. p. 303. XIII. 11, 12. J. Bannerman, Sermons, p. 219. XIII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvi. No. 2660. XIII. 13. Ibid. vol. x. No. 577. Hebrews 13:12-13 In early times the graveyards and cemeteries were always outside the towns or villages, partly and here is shown our forefathers' likeness to us for the greater healthiness, partly and here is shown their romance, which we have lost in realisation that all men are strangers and pilgrims upon earth, and because of the great sacrifice 'offered without the camp'. J. H. Shorthouse. Hebrews 13:14 From this text Becket preached in the chapter-house of Canterbury Cathedral in December, 1170, on returning from France after his hollow reconciliation with Henry II. 'The cathedral,' says Dean Stanley, 'was hung with silken drapery; magnificent banquets were prepared; the churches resounded with organs and bells; the palace-halls with trumpets; and the Archbishop preached in the chapter-house on the text, "Here we have no abiding city, but we seek one to come". On Christmas Day, he preached from the words, "on earth, peace to men of goodwill". He began by speaking of the sainted fathers of the Church of Canterbury, the presence of whose bones made doubly hallowed the consecrated ground. "One martyr," he said, "they had already Alfege, murdered by the Danes, whose tomb stood on the north side of the high altar. It was possible," he added, "that they would soon have another." The people who thronged the nave were in a state of wild excitement; they wept and groaned; and an audible murmur ran through the church. "Father, why do you desert us so soon? to whom will you leave us?" But as he went on with his discourse, the plaintive strain gradually rose into a tone of fiery indignation. "You would have thought," says Hubert of Bosham, who was present, "that you were looking at the prophetic beast, which had at once the face of a man and the face of a lion."' Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury, pp. 66, 67. Hebrews 13:14 Life is not designed to minister to a man's vanity. He goes upon his long business most of the time with a hanging head, and all the time like a blind child. Full of rewards and punishments as it is so that to see the day break or the moon rise, or to meet a friend, or to hear the linnet call when he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys this world is yet for him no abiding city. Friendships fall through, health fails, weariness assails him; year after year, he must thumb the hardly varying record of his own weakness and folly. It is a friendly process of detachment R. L. Stevenson, in * A Christmas Sermon. * And so it came about that John Gladwyn Jebb left both Mexico and this land where we have 'no abiding city,' almost as naked of the world's goods as when he entered it.... He was too sanguine, too romantic, too easily deluded by others, and too mystical a curious vein of mysticism was one of his most striking characteristics for this nineteenth century. As a crusader, or as a knight-errant, doubtless, he would have been a brilliant success, but as a manager of companies and a director of business matters it must be confessed that he was a failure. Would that there existed more of such noble failures the ignoble are sufficiently abundant for then the world might be cleaner than it is. It matters little now: his day is done, and he has journeyed to that wonderful Hereafter of which during life he had so clear a vision, and that was so often the subject of his delightful and suggestive talk. Rider Haggard, in The Life and Adventures of J. G. Jebb, pp. xxiv, xxv. Hebrews 13:14 Perhaps one fact which lies at the root of all the actions of the Turks, small and great, is that they are by nature nomads. It is their custom to ornament the walls of their houses with texts instead of pictures, and, if they quoted from the Bible instead of the Koran, no words would better characterise their manner of life than 'Here have we no continuing city'. Sir Charles Eliot, Turkey in Europe, p. 89. References. XIII. 14. R. W. Church, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 10. E. M. Geldart, Faith and Freedom, p. 117. E. T. J. Marriner; Sermons Preached at Lyme Regis, p. 63. F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Reading (2nd Series), p. 225. The Sacrifice of Praise Hebrews 13:15 'The sacrifice of praise.' We are apt to pass over the words and miss their deep meaning. The sacrifice of praise is not the mere natural expression of joy. The word carries a red stain. Praise in a world like this, and from creatures such as we are, must often be sacrificial if it is to be continual. Continued thanksgiving carried through a life of faith is a sacrifice which may be laid upon the altar where the Perfect Oblation was offered up for the sins of the whole world. When the father of Principal Cairns died, after protracted suffering, there was a short pause till each of the family circle had realised what had happened. Then the mother in a broken voice asked that 'the books' might be laid on the table, and gave out the verse: The storm is changed into a calm At His command and will; So that the waves that raged before Now quiet are and still. It was her voice that raised the tune. Then she asked her eldest son to read a chapter of the Bible, and afterwards to pray. When they knelt down the son made a strong effort to steady his voice, but failed utterly, and 'the dear mother herself lifted up the voice of thanksgiving for the victory that had been won'. That was the sacrifice of praise. I. To understand the words fully we turn back to the place where they are used, the last chapter in Hebrews. 'We have an altar,' says the Apostle. That Altar is Christ upon His Cross. It is an Altar whereof those who remain in Judaism and serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. But what is denied to them is the privilege of Christian believers. They feast upon the sacrifice. 'He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.' Christ for us becomes Christ in us. By eating of the sacrifice, the supernatural life is sustained, and the years are turned into one long thanksgiving. Our Altar stood without the gate of Jerusalem. 'The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the High Priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own Blood, suffered without the gate.' Even as the Christian Church of those days was cast out of the Jewish Synagogue, so the Christian Church is to be separated from the world that it may be united to Him. It is detached from the visible order that it may be united with the invisible. Its true home is not here, not even without the camp, where its Altar stands. That is a stage on the way to the stable city beyond the sea of death, where the eternal order holds, which we seek,' 'for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come'. So then, being outside the gate, and exiles by the Christian Altar, we are to offer up our sacrifices, not the sacrifice of propitiation, but the sacrifice of praise. It is a sacrifice, seeing that it has to be offered continually. It is also a sacrifice, seeing that it is the fruit of lips that make confession of His name. Confession when the Apostle wrote meant much, and it is not well with us if it means little now. II. To offer the sacrifice of praise, is to bless the Lord at all times, to give thanks in everything, to make the mornings, noons, and midnights of life one Eucharist. How different is the sacrifice of praise from the mere exultation of youth! Youth, with its profuse illusions, demands happiness as its right, and even if it recognises God as the giver of joy, turns away from Him when the shadow falls. Youth demands victory, and cannot wait. It grows weary in a long and losing fight. But if we have learned to offer the sacrifice of praise upon the Altar, we need not covet youth. God has provided some better thing for us. We know it even when we see ourselves grey haired and wrinkled in the mirror, and feel that the battle is as much as ever we can fight, and the race as much as ever we can run. We have learned to give thanks as the tide of battle rolls this way and that. The inner life wells up as the outer sinks into the ground. There is within us something better than the light-heartedness of youth, a joy, a buoyancy, a confidence which the world cannot give and cannot take away. We have learned to drink in the sunlight when exposed to it, and give back that light in the brightness of the night. To offer the sacrifice of praise is to give thanks, as the Lord gave thanks when He took the bread and blessed it and brake it. He gave thanks for the wayfaring behind and the Cross before. III. We learn, too, as life goes on that the Christian sacrifice of praise means much more than the acceptance of sorrow in the hope that it may pass and be succeeded by. gladness. There is less meaning for the Christian Church than there was for the Jewish in the words, 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning'. It is Jewish rather than Christian to watch the unbidden guest Sorrow with impatience and wretchedness, taking comfort in the thought that her presence must pass with the dreary night, that at morning she will be gone, and we shall find Joy in her room. There is an element of truth in that view. Mornings of joy, even in this life, sometimes follow nights of weeping. When the worst comes to the worst, men say things mend, and they say also that it is always darkest before dawn. But we have come to know that Sorrow does not pass even though Joy enters, and those who can offer the sacrifice of praise do not even pray that she should pass. They learn to make room for the two angels, the veiled angel and the shining. Both are welcome guests, both are sent from God, both will work for us a gracious ministry if we will only suffer it. For the veiled angel we are to praise God, though it must be the sacrifice of praise. W. Robertson Nicoll, Sunday Evening, p. 867. References. XIII. 15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2048. J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, p. 337. Hebrews 13:15-16 'His tenderness,' says George Eliot, of Adam Bede, 'lay very close to his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the other.' References. XIII. 15, 16. C. S. Laird, Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p. 79. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 323. XIII. 16. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 222 XIII. 17. E. H. Bickersteth, Thoughts in Past Years, p. 39. J. H. Holford, Memorial Sermons, p. 228. G. Matheson, The Sunday Review, vol. i. p. 105. XIII. 18. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. i. p. 36. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima Ash Wednesday, p. 411. W. Robertson Nicoll, Ten Minute Sermons, p. 181. Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p. 25. The Five Scholars of Lausanne Hebrews 13:20 These words are associated with the martyrdom of the Five Scholars of Lausanne, whose names are among the most honoured in the French martyrology. They were executed at Lyons on 16th May, 1553. Earnest appeals had been made on their behalf by the Swiss Cantons, but Henry II. refused to pardon them. Their progress to the place of execution was marked by the recital of psalms, the benediction, 'The God of peace, that brought again from the dead,' etc., and the Apostles' Creed, and after mutual embraces and farewells, their last words, as their naked bodies, smeared with grease and sulphur, hung side by side over the flames, were: 'Be of good courage, brethren, be of good courage'. Dr. H. M. Baird says: 'Their mission to France had not been in vain. It is no hyperbole of the historian of the Reformed Churches, when he likens their cells to five pulpits, from which the word of God resounded through the entire city and much further. The results of their heroic fortitude, and of the wide dissemination of copies of the confession of their Christian faith, were easily traced in the conversion of many within and without the prison, while the memory of their joyful constancy on their way to the place of execution which rather resembled a triumphal than an ignominious procession and in the flames, was embalmed in the heart of many a spectator.' Hebrews 13:20 This text has an association also with the great Ejection of 1662. Dr. Stoughton says: 'Pepys, who liked to see and hear everything which was going on, walked to old St. Dunstan's Church, at seven o'clock in the morning, but found the doors unopened. He took a turn in the Temple Gardens until eight, when, on coming back to the church, he saw people crowding in at a side door, and found the edifice half-filled, ere the principal entrance had been opened. Dr. Bates, minister of the church, took for his text, "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect". "He making a very good sermon," reports the Secretary, "and very little reflections in it to anything of the times." After dinner, the gossip went to St. Dunstan's again, to hear a second sermon from the same preacher upon the same text. Arriving at the church, about one o'clock, he found it thronged, and had to stand during the whole of the service. Not until the close of this second homily did the preacher make any distinct allusion to his ejectment, and then it was in terms the most concise and temperate. "I know you expect I should say something as to my nonconformity. I shall only say thus much, it is neither fancy, faction, nor humour that makes me not to comply, but merely for fear of offending God. And if after the best means used for my illumination, as prayer to God, discourse, study, I am not able to be satisfied concerning the lawfulness of what is required; if it be my unhappiness to be in error, surely men will have no reason to be angry with me in this world, and I hope God will pardon me in the next."' References. XIII. 20. H. Alford, Easter-tide Sermons, p. 32. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 277. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 34; ibid. (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 60. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Hebrews, p. 332. XIII. 20, 21. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ix. p. 239. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx. No. 1186, and vol. xxiii. No. 1368. XIII. 22. Expositor (6th Series), vol. xi. p. 435. XIII. 24. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. iii. p. 393; ibid. vol. x. p. 159. XIII. 25. Ibid. (4th Series), vol. ii. p. 143.