A Goodly Heritage

Was he a miracle--this little Samuel? No--in the view characteristic of the Bible he is the real and normal aspect of humanity. So normal is he that Christ says we must all return to his state before we can become seers. What, think you, does Jesus mean when He declares that we can only realise the beauty of the Kingdom through the eyes of a little child? Is it not simply this, that to see the beauty of anything we require a first eye? Take the Bible itself. To see the beauties of the Bible, one would require to say to us what the prophet said to Hezekiah, “Let the shadow go back ten degrees.” We should need to be transported back into life’s morning, to divest ourselves of all preconceived opinions, to imagine that we were reading the record for the first time. That is precisely the standpoint which Christianity promises to create. It professes to make old things new, in other words, to let us see the old things as they looked when they were new, and so to give us a true sense of

In the days when the High Priest Eli was judge of Israel, there appeared in the sanctuary of Shiloh a wonderful child: his name was Samuel. It was a dark and stormy time; there were fears within and fightings without. Israel was climbing a steep hill--arduously, painfully. Her progress was slow; she was alternately worsted and victorious. And the struggle was more arduous from the fact that there was no prophecy. It was an age of materialism. The hands of Moses were no longer uplifted on the mountain; the eyes of Moses no longer gazed on a promised glory. Religion had become a form; its spirit had fled. There were few remains left of that heroic time when Joshua had fought for God, and Deborah had sung for God. The nation had lost its poetry, and had lost its faith, these had to be rekindled anew at the lamp of heaven. Where was the new kindling to begin? Where was the Divine spirit to touch the world once more? In the heart of the sage? No. In the breast of the old man? No. In the

It will be a solemn thought to-night, when, in your own room, you open that holy volume, and think, “This Bible, that is being now preached, this Bible which I am reading, is the highest, best, last, only means by which God undertakes and promises absolutely to convert, teach, comfort, edify, save me. What then? If the hearing and reading God’s Word have not turned my heart, then the resurrection would not do it I nothing would do it!” And with this conclusion, I am confident that all experience will agree. Great events, surprises, sorrows, bereavements, will, by God’s grace, bring a man to his Bible, and then his Bible will bring him to God; and then it would seem as if those events converted him; but the truth is, that God’s Word did the work--the rest only brought him there. But let us understand clearly what this Book is. What is the Bible? It is the likeness which the Holy Spirit has taken of the mind of Christ. And what is Christ? The likeness of the mind of the Father. Then

1.  The fact that we are sinners is no reason why we should stay away from our God. 2.  We do not require to work some good thing in us before God can love us. The sinner may come to God just as he is, through Jesus Christ. The parable firsts represents man in his departure from God. The son was at home, surrounded with all the comforts of home, and secure in the affection of his father; but he became dissatisfied, and wished to depart and be independent. How like to man’s conduct towards his God I There have been vast efforts of learning and of metaphysical skill put forth to account for the origin of evil, but we will find nowhere a better explanation than that furnished by God Himself: “God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.” When the prodigal had apostatized in heart from his father, he then went and demanded his portion of goods. He is going to set up for himself, and demands his rights. As has been observed, his demand sounds as if he had been consult

The sheep that was lost and found I.  THE NATURALNESS OF GOD’S SEARCH FOR THE SINNER. “What man of you,” saith Christ, with that touch of surprise that we so often trace when He found men blind to truths that seemed to Him clear as day, “having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost?” What else could he do? What could be more natural? He would be certain to go; his duty, his thought of loss to himself, his affection for the animal he had so long taken care of, his thought of all the poor thing was suffering, all would urge him forth. The inference followed, none could mistake it, that God would do the same for His erring and lost children, that He could not do otherwise, that to do otherwise would be unnatural. A similar relation to that which the shepherd bore the sheep, God bears to men. Let one of them lose himself, and it would be impossible for God to rest till He found the lost one. Duty,

  JESUS RECEIVING SINNERS. 1.  This was and is a great fact--our Lord received, and still receiveth sinners. A philosopher wrote over the door of his academy, “He that is not learned, let him not enter here”; but Jesus speaketh by Wisdom in the Proverbs, and says “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, let him eat of My bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled” ( Proverbs 9:4-5 ). He receives sinners as His disciples, companions, friends. “This man receiveth sinners”; not, however, that they may remain sinners, but to pardon their sins, to justify their persons, to cleanse their hearts by the Holy Spirit. 2.  I want your attention to another thought--namely, the consistency of this fact. It is a most consistent and proper thing that this man should receive sinners. If you and I reflect awhile we shall remember that the types which were set forth concerning Christ all seem to teach us that He must receive sinners. One of the earlie

God’s supper is ready, and the call to it is pressed with urgency, but people make excuses, and do not come. People have no mind for salvation. The many have too much to do, too many pressing cares, too many honourable engagements pre-occupying their attention, and so cannot comply with the calls of God. Such useful citizens, such respectable men of business, such thinkers for the comfort of their fellow-citizens, and for the welfare of the State, are, forsooth, not to be expected to give their time and thoughts to piety and to God! Of course,  they  are to be excused! But, alas for thee, deluded man, if with thy lands, or thy oxen, or thy “material interests,” or even with thy learned investigations, though they should be in divinity itself, thou hopest to compensate for thy neglect of the calls and invitations of thy Maker! But others are so happy in the objects of their earthly affection, so blessed with things of their own, that they see no reason to disturb or burden themselve

.  By these “poor” some understand those who are literally beggars. One cannot doubt but that Hannah’s heart did bear on the remembrance of her own comparatively obscure condition; I cannot doubt for a moment, that she had in her mind the consciousness that this Samuel was to be a judge, and a prophet in Israel; I do not for one moment doubt, that she remembered Gideon taken from his threshing floor by the wine press to be a judge in Israel. It is not generally true that God “takes the poor out of the dust, end lifts the beggar from the dunghill.” The instances are rare in which He “sets them among princes, and makes them inherit thrones of glory.” And I think the next verse takes us something above the mere letter; “He shall keep the feet of His saints” Some understand by it the Church of God in its low and lost condition; as fallen children of a fallen father. No doubt there is great glory in that interpretation. A sinner is poor man; be is indeed one of the needy, in his poverty.

Outraged and disgraced by the crimes of its ministers, religion sank into public contempt, and, almost mortally “wounded in the house of its friends,” seemed ready to expire. At first indignant, and in the end demoralised, the people deserted the house of God and abandoned the profession of a religion which the crimes of its priests had made to stink in their nostrils. “Wherefore,” alluding to Hophni and Phinehas, it is said, “Wherefore the sin of the young men was great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.” But even in those days God did not leave himself without a witness. There were some who felt that His, like other good causes, has never more need of support than when it is betrayed by its supporters. Such an act closed the life of Colonel Gardener, the grand old Christian soldier, who, deserted by his own regiment on the fatal field of Prestonpans, and seeing a handful of men without an officer bravely maintaining the fight, spurred his horse through a sh

Arise, and let us go up at noon. That spirit-stirring call of the text, so needful to arouse the Chaldeans on their march to the ancient, is as needful for us on our pilgrimage to the new, Jerusalem. 1.  In other passages, the early years of childhood and youth are pointed out as the special time for God’s service. While the heart is warm and pliant. Ere the hardening influence of a selfish world, having closed it to the Saviour’s call, has swept and garnished it for tenantry of evil. 2.  “Arise, and let us go up at noon.” It is midday with you, to whom the text is speaking. It is the period for active endeavour. Now the calls of the world are dinned most loudly into your ears. In the earlier hours, and at the close of your passing day, you were and will be alike incapable of prolonged toil. Now the requirement is made of you, and to what behests does it bid you attend? Make the most of your time. Are you poor? Strive for independence. Are you rich? Strive for place and power

This season of spring, with its ploughing, and sowing, and opening of life, typifies the time which God has given for forming in us enlightened principles and virtuous habits, holy motives and pure desires, and for becoming possessed of the grace and goodness which Jesus has to impart, in order that we may grow up into the Divine life of God, which shall abide with us through old age as the source of true enjoyment, and as the first beginnings of eternal glory. The ploughshare of the Divine Word must pierce into us, and break up our hardness and indifference, and make us impressible and movable, to fit us for bringing forth the fruits of righteousness. For example, the seedtime of life, like that of spring, regulates and determines the moral results which the future shall unfold, whether in time or in eternity. Our life on earth is the scene of moral causes and operations--the sowing time of our spirit--the period for the earnest cultivation of our moral nature; and it is to us all

Jeremiah 2:21 How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant. A mysterious action is this of spiritual deterioration. It does not set in with obvious energy all at once, so that in one short week a man ceases to be a healthy and fruit-bearing vine; but little by little he goes down, his tone changes, his prayers are depleted of elements that once made them rich with spiritual significance; a carelessness comes upon all his personal discipline; we say, he is no longer the man he once was; then he falls again, and still further he goes down, until at last we begin to be ashamed of his society, or to say that we never come near him without being chilled: once he was so warm, so cordial, so affectionate, so spiritually-minded, that to touch him was to receive virtue; but now all is changed,--his talk has fallen to a lower level, and there comes now and then a look into his face which means that the better self is being displaced by another identity. “What I say unto one,” said

Broken cisterns I.  The first cistern which attracts our attention is one of sensualism. The youth who is working at it with mallet and chisel, and with hot and fevered face, dreams that the highest enjoyment of life is that which comes through the senses. He will inform you that he regards man as an animal more than anything else, and that it behoves him to listen to the cry of his passions and to satisfy it. He will demand of you why his passions were lodged in his heart, if they were not to govern him. But the sensualist reasons as if he forgets two most important points. He forgets that the passions are no longer what once they were. He reasons as if the soul were still as it was when it came bright and sinless from its Creator’s hands; as if its original harmony and balance were undisturbed; as if there had been no obscuration of the moral sense and no inflammation of the passions. And he forgets, too, that while the soul has passions they have their due place assigned them

Ask what thy work in the world is. That for which thou wast born, to which thou wast appointed, on account of which thou wast conceived in the creative thought of God. That there is a Divine purpose in thy being is indubitable. Seek that thou mayest be permitted to realise it. And never doubt that thou hast been endowed with all the special aptitudes which that purpose may demand. God has formed thee for it, storing thy mind with all that He knew to be requisite for thy life work. I.  The Divine purpose. “I knew thee . . . I sanctified thee . . . I have appointed thee a prophet.” In that degenerate age the great Lover of souls needed a spokesman; and the Divine decree determined the conditions of Jeremiah’s birth and character and life. How this could be consistent with the exercise of personal volition and choice on the part of the youthful prophet we cannot say. We can only see the two piers of the mighty arch, but not the arch itself, since the mists of time veil it, and we ar

I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. God knows His people where nobody else will take any notice of them. You do not know a man until you know him in the wilderness. There is but little revelation of character in laughter. So long as a man is living in rioting and wantonness, in great abundance and prosperity, having only to lift his hand to command a regiment of servants, you cannot really tell what his true quality is. Men show themselves in the darkness; men cry out of their hearts when they are in distress; it is in the nighttime of life’s bitter sorrows that men’s true quality is revealed. God never forsakes His people in wilderness and in desert places; He is more God and Father to them there than ever. No man knows God who only knows Him theologically. It is impossible to read much about God; you must read the writing in your own heart The world is within you; you carry the universe in your own bosom. Unless you have the faculty and genius of in

That   we may persevere, diligently and yet humbly, in the path of religious obedience, it is requisite that we look, with the feelings of dependence and trust, to Him from whose power and wisdom alone we can derive ability to persevere. I.  Then, religious perseverance may be set forth under a twofold view, as the continuing free from all sin, and advancing to the perfection of righteousness. “to be kept from falling” denotes the one, and “to be presented faultless in the presence of the Divine glory with exceeding joy” intimates the other. “Falling,” when used with reference to the Christian course, expresses in the most alarming sense of which it is susceptible, the sin of apostasy. It then describes the rejection of all the evidences which have been provided, both in the history of the gospel and in the experience of its efficacy, to satisfy us of its Divine origin. Apart from this extreme instance, however, there are degrees to be marked on the general subject, all of whic

The revelation of God in Christ--whose contents are the object of Christian faith and are therefore described as the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints--does not consist merely in additional knowledge concerning God. Christ is the Saviour as well as the teacher of men. A large part, perhaps the larger part, of the revelation of God which has come to the race through Christ consists in the actual redemption of men from sin and eternal death. Those who receive the Christian gospel are not only brought under the power of great and pathetic and animating truths concerning God--they enter into the actual possession of a redemption which God has achieved for the race. To them the faith was once for all delivered. That is, the revelation of God in Christ, the Christian gospel, which is the object of the faith of all Christians, and which is here described as “the faith,” is committed to the trust of all who have been actually redeemed and restored to God by Christ. They

Peter seeing John saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do? Christ had just foretold to Peter that he should in his old age die a martyr, and with that before him, the apostle left the thought of his own suffering and inquired respecting the destiny of John. 1.  It is not easy to determine the spirit of the question. Some suppose that Peter argued from Christ’s silence that John’s course would be free from fierce trouble, and inquired with a kind of envious dissatisfaction. Not so. Peter’s generous nature would prompt him to forget his own troubles in devotion to his friend, and remembering the recent incident it is hard to infer discontent here. Most probably the question sprang from earnest anxiety. Having learned the glory of his Saviour’s cross, he was concerned lest John should lose the honour. It is easier for such impetuous souls to trust their own lot to God than their brother’s. 2.  It is not easy to explain the reply. Some have emptied the words of all their m

THE REPRESENTATION WHICH IS HERE GIVEN OF GOD’S MODE OF DEALING WITH MEN. “He cometh and knocketh.” Where? At the “door” of our hearts. Then the door is by nature closed against God. And this applies equally to all. We allow all that can be asked of us, in regard to a vast difference between man and man; but only with reference to their characters and their conduct as members of society. When we try them by their love to God, by their willingness to submit to Him, by their desire to please Him, we contend that there is no difference whatever, but that all must be equally included under one emphatic description--“Enemies in your minds by wicked works.” This truth it is which we derive from the words of our text--the truth that the heart of every one amongst us is naturally barred against God, so that though it will be readily opened at the touch of friendship, or the call of distress, yet does it obstinately exclude that Creator and that Benefactor, who alone can fill its mighty capac