Category: EXPOSITIONS

          ‘For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that          it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My          grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is          made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore          will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the          power of Christ may rest upon me.’–2 COR. xii. 8,          9.This very remarkable page in the…

          ‘Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we          wake or sleep, we should live together with          Him.’–1 THESS. v. 10.In these words the Apostle concludes a section of this, his earliestletter, in which he has been dealing with the aspect of death inreference to the Christian. There are two very significant usages oflanguage in the context…

    ‘And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and    the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the    tables were written on both their sides; on the one    side and on the other were they written. 16. And the    tables were the work of God, and the writing was the    writing of God, graven upon the tables.…

          ‘Walk worthy of God.’–1 THESS. ii. 12.Here we have the whole law of Christian conduct in a nutshell. There maybe many detailed commandments, but they can all be deduced from thisone. We are lifted up above the region of petty prescriptions, andbreathe a bracing mountain air. Instead of regulations, very many andvery dry, we have…

    ‘… Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy    holy habitation.’    EXODUS XV. 13.What a grand triumphal ode! The picture of Moses and the children ofIsrael singing, and Miriam and the women answering: a gush of nationalpride and of worship! We belong to a better time, but still we can feelits grandeur. The deliverance has made…

    ‘And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened    Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters,    which are here; lest them be consumed in the iniquity of    the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon    his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the    hand of his two daughters; the Lord…

          ‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the          lust of the flesh.’–GAL. v. 16.We are not to suppose that the Apostle here uses the familiar contrastof spirit and flesh to express simply different elements of humannature. Without entering here on questions for which a sermon isscarcely a suitable vehicle of discussion, it may be…

    ‘… The mighty God of Jacob. From thence is the Shepherd,    the stone of Israel.’–GENESIS xlix. 24.A slight alteration in the rendering will probably bring out themeaning of these words more correctly. The last two clauses shouldperhaps not be read as a separate sentence. Striking out the supplement‘is,’ and letting the previous sentence run on to…

          ‘Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed          for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord,          my dearly beloved.’–PHIL. iv. 1.The words I have chosen set forth very simply and beautifully the bondwhich knit Paul and these Philippian Christians together, and the chiefdesire which his Apostolic love had for them. I venture to apply them…

    ‘All that enter in to perform the service, to do the    work in the tabernacle.’    NUM. iv. 23.These words occur in the series of regulations as to the functions ofthe Levites in the Tabernacle worship. The words ‘to perform theservice’ are, as the margin tells us, literally, to ‘war the warfare.’Although it may be difficult to say…