Expositions of Holy Scripture Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the Expositions of Holy Scripture novel. A total of 204 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : Expositions of Holy Scripture.by Alexander Maclaren.THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL CHAMBERS OF IMAG
Expositions of Holy Scripture.by Alexander Maclaren.THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY 'Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery!'--EZ
- 101 I. Note first the meeting (verses 25-28). Somewhere on the slopes of Carmel, commanding a view of the plain stretching away in the blue distance eastward, sat the prophet. His eye was keen, though probably he was now old, and he recognised the lady at a d
- 102 Elisha's answer begins with the solemn adjuration which we first hear from Elijah. In its use here, it not only declares the unalterable determination of Elisha, but reveals its grounds. To a man who feels ever the burning consciousness that he is in the
- 103 V. We may throw together the remaining parts of the incident, as showing how the fulfilled promise was received. These four lepers had heard nothing of it, when despair made them venturesome. How reckless they were, and how they harp on the one gloomy wor
- 104 Expositions of Holy Scripture.by Alexander Maclaren.SAINTS AND FAITHFUL 'The saints which are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus.'--Eph. i. 1.That is Paul's way of describing a church. There were plenty of very imperfect Christians in the comm
- 105 The standards of length are kept at Greenwich, the standards of capacity are kept in the Tower; but there are local standards distributed throughout the land to which men may go and have their measures corrected. And so besides all these lofty thoughts ab
- 106 And if the incompleteness is so blessed, what will the completeness be?A s.h.i.+lling to a million pounds, Knowledge which is partial and intermittent, like the twilight, as contrasted with the blaze of noonday, Joy like winter suns.h.i.+ne as compared wi
- 107 Ah, brethren! neither the sensuous metaphors which, in accommodation to our weakness, Scripture has used to paint that future so that we may, in some measure, comprehend it, nor the translation of these, in so far as they refer to circ.u.mstances and exte
- 108 Scripture paints man as he is, in darker tints, and man as he may become, in brighter ones, than are elsewhere found. The range of this portrait painter's palette is from pitchiest black to most dazzling white, as of snow smitten by sunlight. Nowhere
- 109 SALVATION: GRACE: FAITH 'By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of G.o.d.'--Eph. ii. 8 (R.V.).Here are three of the key-words of the New Testament--'grace,' 'saved,''faith.&
- 110 'Created in Christ Jesus unto good works.' That is what life is given to you for. That is why you are saved, says Paul. Instead of working upwards from works to salvation, take your stand at the received salvation, and understand what it is for,
- 111 If it thus prophesies the perfectness of heaven, it also shows us how the two communities of earth and heaven are united. They, as we, live by derivation of the one life; they, as we, are fed and blessed by the one Lord. The occupations and thoughts of Ch
- 112 Oh! what a contrast to that idea of a perpetual unbroken inhabitation of Jesus in our spirits and to our consciousness is presented by our ordinary life! 'Why shouldst Thou be as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?' may well
- 113 We have no measure by which we can translate into the terms of our experience, and so bring within the grasp of our minds, what was the depth of the step, which Christ took at the impulse of His love, from the Throne to the Cross. We know not what He fore
- 114 There are two difficulties that at once start up.People will say, does such a prayer as this upon man's lips not forget the limits that bound the creature's capacity? Can the finite contain the Infinite?Well, that is a verbal puzzle, and I answe
- 115 And we can only fulfil that high purpose in the measure of our union with Christ. 'In Him' abiding, we manifest G.o.d's glory, for in Him abiding we receive G.o.d's grace. So long as we are joined to Him, we partake of His life, and ou
- 116 The Apostle here makes a swift transition from the thought of the unity of the Church to the variety of gifts to the individual. 'Each' is contrasted with 'all.' The Father who stands in so blessed and gracious a relations.h.i.+p to th
- 117 Now that 'If so be' is not the 'if' of uncertainty or doubt, but it is equivalent to 'if, as I know to be the case,' or '_since_ ye have heard Him.' Away there in Ephesus, years and years after the crucifixion, thes
- 118 Moralists may preach, 'Unless above himself he can erect himself, how mean a thing is man'; but all the preaching in the world is of no avail.The task is an impossibility. The stream cannot rise above its source, nor be purified in its flow if b
- 119 GRIEVING THE SPIRIT 'Grieve not the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.'--Eph. iv. 30.The miracle of Christianity is the Incarnation. It is not a link in a chain, but a new beginning, the entrance into the cos
- 120 WHAT CHILDREN OF LIGHT SHOULD BE 'Walk as children of light.'--Eph. v. 8.It was our Lord who coined this great name for His disciples. Paul's use of it is probably a reminiscence of the Master's, and so is a hint of the existence of th
- 121 The main effort ought to be to get more of the light into ourselves.'Abide in Me, and I in you.' And so, and only so, will fruit come.And such an effort has to take in hand all the circ.u.mference of our being, and to fix thoughts that wander, a
- 122 Think of men going empty-handed into another world, and saying, 'O Lord!I made a big fortune in Manchester when I lived there, and I left it all behind me'; or, 'I mastered a science, and one gleam of the light of eternity has antiquated it
- 123 The two metaphors of my text coincide in suggesting another thing, and that is the awful contrast in the average life between what is in a man and what comes out of him. 'Dormant power,' we talk about. Ah, how tragically the true man is dormant
- 124 Most of us feel but little the stern reality underlying the metaphor, that the whole Christian life is warfare, but that in that warfare there are crises, seasons of special danger. The interpretation which makes the 'evil day' co-extensive with
- 125 In the first case--'the preparedness of the Gospel'--it states the origin of the thing in question. That condition of being ready comes from the good news of Christ. In the second case--'the Gospel of peace'--it states the result of th
- 126 I. The Salvation.Once more Old Testament prophecy suggests the words of this exhortation.In Isaiah's grand vision of G.o.d, arising to execute judgment which is also redemption, we have a wonderful picture of His arraying Himself in armour. Righteous
- 127 Then, remember further that the faith which is the foundation of everything is essentially personal trust reposing upon a person, upon Jesus Christ. You cannot get hold of a man in any other way than by that. The only real bond that binds people together
- 128 _EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE_ ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D.FIRST AND SECOND PETER AND FIRST JOHN CONTENTS THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER PAGE SOJOURNERS OF THE DISPERSION (1 Peter i. 1) 1 BY, THROUGH, UNTO (1 Peter i. 5) 7 SORROWFUL, YET ALWAYS REJOIC
- 129 THE SERVANT AS HIS LORD (1 John iv. 17) 338 LOVE AND FEAR (1 John iv. 18) 347 THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION (1 John iv. 19) 355 I. PETER SOJOURNERS OF THE DISPERSION 'Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered ...'--1 Peter i. 1.
- 130 Further, why is it that I must have faith in order to get G.o.d's power at work in me? Many people seem to think that faith is appointed by G.o.d as the condition of salvation out of mere arbitrary selection and caprice.Not at all. If G.o.d could sav
- 131 I believe experience teaches the most of us, if we will lay its lessons to heart, that the times when Christian people grow most in the divine life is in their times of sorrow. One of the old divines says, 'Grace grows best in winter'; and there
- 132 III. Once more, here we have Christ and His Cross as the study of angels.'Which things the angels desire to look into.' Now, the word that Peter employs there is an unusual one in Scripture. Its force may, perhaps, be best conveyed by referring
- 133 So every way it is better indefinitely to approximate to that great likeness, though with many flaws and failures, than to say it cannot be reached, and so I will content myself down here, in my sins and my meannesses. No! dear brethren, 'we are save
- 134 Obedience purifies the soul, while, on the other hand, a man that lives ill comes to think as he lives, and to become tenfold more a child of evil. 'The dyer's hand is subdued to what it works in.' 'Ye have purified your souls,' i
- 135 Ah! brethren, these bad principles have teeth to bite very close into our daily lives. How many of us, young and old, have 'fleshly l.u.s.ts which war against the soul'? How many of you young men have no heart for higher, purer, n.o.bler things,
- 136 Now a word about the second part. The sufferings of Christ as represented here in the text are not only for our gain but our pattern, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. We are not concerned here about the general principles of Christia
- 137 The prospect of that end will sweep away many illusions as to the worth of the enjoyments of sense, and be a bridle on many vagrant desires.Self-control in all regions of our nature is implied in the word. Our various faculties are meant to be governed by
- 138 Not he. That is what a great many of us do. Though we sometimes are not honest enough to say it to ourselves, yet we do let the absence of 'recognition' (save the mark) influence us in the earnestness of our Christian work to far too great an ex
- 139 But it also gives a hint as to the obligation springing from the circ.u.mstances in which Christian people are set, to cultivate the sense of belonging to a great brotherhood. Howsoever solitary and surrounded by uncongenial a.s.sociations any Christian m
- 140 Consider the worth of faith as a means of purifying. This very Apostle, in his great speech in Jerusalem, when vindicating the reception of the Gentiles into the Church, spoke of G.o.d as having 'purified their hearts by faith.' And here again,
- 141 So there are two states--a life plunged in putridity, or a heart touched with the Divine nature. Which is it to be? It cannot be both. It must be one or the other. Which?A man that has got the life of G.o.d, in however feeble measure, in him, will flee aw
- 142 There are the tyranny of sin and the subjugation of the n.o.bler nature to base and low and transient needs. All these fetters, and the scars of them, drop away. Joseph comes out of prison to a throne. The kingdom is not merely one in which the redeemed m
- 143 But pa.s.sing from that thought, which, however interesting it may be as a matter of speculation, is of very small practical importance, notice, still further, the essential part of the hope which the Apostle here sets forth--viz., that that order of thin
- 144 There is also the hindrance of mere indolence, and there is the hindrance arising from absorption in the world and its concerns.If all your strength is going thither, there is none left to grow with.Many professing Christians take such deep draughts of th
- 145 WALKING IN THE LIGHT 'If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellows.h.i.+p one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.'--1 John i. 7.John was the Apostle of love, but he was also a 's
- 146 And not only so, but perpetually with the increasing sweep and stringency of the obligation will be felt an increasing sense of our failure to fulfil it. Character is built up, for good or for evil, by slow degrees. Conscience is quickened by being listen
- 147 All that I want to do is to wake you up to preach it to yourselves, for that is the only thing that is of any use.'So pa.s.seth, in the pa.s.sing of an hour Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower.'But besides this transiency external to u
- 148 I have already referred to the clause added in the Revised Version, 'and such we are.' As I said, it is a kind of 'aside,' in which John adds the Amen for himself and for his poor brothers and sisters toiling and moiling obscure among
- 149 And that is not only a characteristic of St. John's teaching, but it is a characteristic of all the New Testament morality--its highest revelations are intensely practical. Its light is at once set to work, like the suns.h.i.+ne that comes ninety mil
- 150 May I say again, my text suggests conduct, and not verbal wors.h.i.+p. You and I, in our adherence to a simpler, less ornate and aesthetic form of devotion than prevails in the great Episcopal churches, are by no means free from the danger which, in a mor
- 151 Is there anything, then, within the glory to which I, in my poor, struggling, hampered, imperfect life here on earth, can feel that my character is being shaped? Yes, surely there is. I have no doubt that, in the words of my text, the Apostle is rememberi
- 152 THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION 'We love Him, because He first loved us.'--1 John iv. 19.Very simple words! but they go down into the depths of G.o.d, lifting burdens off the heart of humanity, turning duty into delight, and changing the aspect of al
- 153 242: added closing quote after "like Lebanon." 260: added closing quote after "all sin." 297: added closing quote after "My Father;" 308: added closing quote after "at His coming" 313: corrected 1 John iv. 9 to 1 Jo
- 154 Expositions of Holy Scripture.by Alexander Maclaren.THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS THE STORY OF HAZAEL 'So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him,
- 155 And so the old promise that ye shall be clothed with strength from on high is the standing prerogative of the Christian Church. There is not merely some partial communication, as when hand touched hand, but every organ is vitalised and quickened; as in th
- 156 And this is the thought which is most operative in many minds, though it is veiled in more seemly phrases, and which darkens and injures all those on whom it lays hold. Need I spend time in showing you how, point by point, this picture is a picture of man
- 157 And on the other hand, let us learn that all attempts to be obedient to a divine will which do not begin with trust and cleaving to Him are vain. There is no other way to get that conformity of will except by that union of spirit. All other attempts are b
- 158 Especially does that crash of Jerusalem's fall thunder the lesson to all churches that their life and prosperity are inseparably connected with faithful obedience and turning away from all worldliness, which is idolatry. They stand in the place that
- 159 These words come from the muster-roll of the hastily raised army that brought David up to Hebron and made him King. The catalogue abounds in brief characterisations of the qualities of each tribe's contingent.For example, Issachar had 'understan
- 160 David had established an elaborate organisation of royal officials, details of which occupy the preceding chapters and interrupt the course of the narrative. The pa.s.sage picks up again the thread dropped at chapter xxiii. 1. The list of the members of t
- 161 Each day has its tasks, and if we do not do the tasks of each day in its day, we shall fling away life. If a man had L. 100,000 for a fortune, and turned it all into halfpence, and tossed them out of the window, he could soon get rid of his whole fortune.
- 162 The text puts in a striking form another lesson well worth learning, that, in the greatest crises, no time is better spent than time used for prayer. A rush on the enemy would not have served Abijah's purpose nearly so well as that moment's paus
- 163 But our text lays emphasis on the whole-heartedness of the people's seeking of G.o.d. The search must be earnest and engaged in with the whole energy of our whole being, if any blessing is to come from it.Why! one reason why the great ma.s.s of profe
- 164 No syllable is left to tell us what Amasiah did to win this praise.Probably the words enshrine some now forgotten memory of his cheerful courage, some heroic feat on an unrecorded battlefield. Particulars are not given nor needed. Specific actions are uni
- 165 'Believe in the Lord'; hold fast by Him with a tight grip, continually renewed when it tends to slacken, as it surely will, and then you will be established.We might run out into any number of figurative ill.u.s.trations. Look at that little chi
- 166 PRUDENCE AND FAITH 'And Amaziah said to the man of G.o.d, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of G.o.d answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this.'--2 CHRON. xxv. 9.
- 167 I. First, then, let me ask you to notice how this narrative ill.u.s.trates for us the crowd of vain helpers to which a man has to take when he turns his back upon G.o.d.If we compare the narrative in our chapter with the parallel in the Second Book of Kin
- 168 'Then they went in to Hezekiah the king, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord, and the altar of burnt-offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the shew-bread table, with all the vessels thereof. 19. Moreover, all the vessels, which
- 169 'Well roars the storm to him who hears A deeper voice across the storm.'There are large tracts of Scripture which have no meaning, no blessedness to us until they have been interpreted to us by losses and sorrows. We never know the worth of the
- 170 The permanence of the written Word, the providence that has watched over it, the romantic history of its preservation through ages of neglect, and the imperishable gift to the world of an objective standard of duty, remaining the same from age to age, are
- 171 There are people, even among so-called Christians, who try the same immoral and impossible division of what must in its very nature be wholly given to One Supreme. To 'serve G.o.d and mammon' is demonstrably an absurd attempt. The love and trust
- 172 Still more important is the next point mentioned. The work was done 'according to the commandment of the G.o.d of Israel.' There is peculiar beauty and pathos in that name, which is common in Ezra. It speaks of the sense of unity in the nation,
- 173 That symbolic phrase, 'the hand of our G.o.d,' as expressive of the divine protection, occurs with remarkable frequency in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and though not peculiar to them, is yet strikingly characteristic of them. It has a certai
- 174 corresponds to the end of November and beginning of December. 'The twentieth year' is that of Artaxerxes (Neh. ii. 1). 'Shushan,' or Susa, was the royal winter residence, and 'the palace' was 'a distinct quarter of the c
- 175 The condition of our great cities has lately been forced upon public attention, and all kinds of men have been offering their panaceas. I am not about to enter upon that discussion, but I am glad to seize the opportunity of saying one or two things which
- 176 For them, every new morning will dawn with new strength, and every evening be calm with the consciousness of 'something attempted, something done.'AN ANCIENT NONCONFORMIST '... So did not I, because of the fear of G.o.d.'--Neh. v. 15.I
- 177 THE JOY OF THE LORD 'The joy of the Lord is your strength.'--Neh. viii. 10.Judaism, in its formal and ceremonial aspect, was a religion of gladness. The feast was the great act of wors.h.i.+p. It is not to be wondered at, that Christianity, the
- 178 Nehemiah had no false notion of his own goodness; for, while he asked for recompense for these good deeds of his, he could not but add, 'Spare me according to the greatness of Thy mercy.' He who asks to be 'spared' must know himself in
- 179 All these are inferior considerations which do not avail to determine duty and do not go deep enough to const.i.tute the real foundation of our obligation. They are considerations which can scarcely be shut out, and should be taken in determining the weig
- 180 THE BOOK OF JOB SORROW THAT WORs.h.i.+PS 'Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'--JOB i. 21.This book of Job wrestles with the p
- 181 In like manner the next blessing, that of a numerous posterity, does not depend on moral or religious condition, as Eliphaz would make out, and in modern days is not always regarded as a blessing. But note the singular heartlessness betrayed in telling Jo
- 182 In the sense in which the speaker meant them, these words are not true. They mean little more than 'It pays to be religious.' What kind of notion of acquaintance with G.o.d Eliphaz may have had, one scarcely knows, but at any rate, the whole mea
- 183 The close of the Book of Job must be taken in connection with its prologue, in order to get the full view of its solution of the mystery of pain and suffering. Indeed the prologue is more completely the solution than the ending is; for it shows the purpos
- 184 The divine source of all, and the correspondence between the human and the divine nature, are taught in the residence of this personified Wisdom with G.o.d before she dwelt with men. The whole of the manifold revelations, by which G.o.d makes known any pa
- 185 The whole fair picture is summed up in verse 18: 'She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.' This is a distinct allusion to the narrative of Genesis. The flaming sword of the cherub guard is sheathed, and access to the tree, which gives immo
- 186 And so in all these ways, and in many others that I need not now touch upon, Scripture lays it down as a rule that life in the highest region, like life in the lowest, is marked by continual growth. It is so in regard to all other things. Continuity in an
- 187 The view of human experience set forth, especially in the second clause of this text, directs our gaze into dark places, into which it is not pleasant to look, and many of you will accuse me of preaching gloomily if I try to turn a reflective eye inwards
- 188 But the ancient vision of the Jewish thinker antic.i.p.ated the perfect revelation of the New Testament still further, in its thought of an unbroken communion between the personified Wisdom and G.o.d. That dim thought of perfect communion and interchange
- 189 Now that the press has multiplied the power of speech, and the world is buzzing with the clatter of tongues, we all need to lay to heart the responsibilities and magic power of spoken and printed words, and 'to set a watch on the door of our lips.'Then
- 190 I. It teaches, first, the responsibility of small gifts.It is no mere accident that in our Lord's great parable He represents the man with the _one_ talent as the hider of his gift. There is a certain pleasure in doing what we can do, or fancy we can do,
- 191 Many of our earthly joys die in the very act of being enjoyed. Those which depend on the gratification of some appet.i.te expire in fruition, and at each recurrence are less and less complete. The influence of habit works in two ways to rob all such joys
- 192 A slight thread of connection may be traced in some of the proverbs in this pa.s.sage. Verse 22, with its praise of 'Wisdom,' introduces one instance of Wisdom's excellence in verse 23, and that again, with its reference to speech, leads on to verse 24
- 193 There is only one thing that will keep us peaceful and unharmed, and that is to trust our poor shelterless lives and sinful souls to the Saviour who has died for us. In Him we find the hiding-place, in which secure, as beneath the shadow of a great rock,
- 194 But whilst all that is quite true, I want you, dear young friends, to lay this to heart, that if you do not yield yourselves to Jesus Christ now, in your early days, and take Him for your Saviour, and rest your souls upon Him, and then take Him for your C
- 195 The Book of Proverbs seldom looks beyond the limits of the temporal, but now and then the mists lift and a wider horizon is disclosed. Our text is one of these exceptional instances, and is remarkable, not only as expressing confidence in the future, but
- 196 What is called the missionary spirit is nothing else than the Christian church working in a particular direction. If a man has a conviction, the health of his own soul, his reverence for the truth he has learnt to love, his necessary connection with other
- 197 But if these counsels are taken absolutely and without reference to Christ and His work, they are 'counsels of despair,' demanding what we cannot give, and promising what they cannot bestow. When we know Christ, we shall know ourselves; when He
- 198 Promptly she avails herself of these, and is at work while it is yet dark. She has a household now, and does not neglect their comfort, any more than she does their employment. Their food and their tasks are both set them in the early morning, and their m
- 199 'That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the l.u.s.ts of men, but to the will of G.o.d. 3. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.'--l PETER iv. 2, 3.If you will look at t
- 200 See to it, that you plant truth in your hearts, under which you may live sheltered for many days.Then again, you are planting character, which is not only habit, but something more. You are making _yourselves_, whatever else you are making. You begin with