John 12:3 Church Building and Church Decoration I. I only remember reading in the Old Testament of two collections being made, and both of these were for what we might call Church Building and Church Decoration. The one we shall find at the end of the Book of Exodus, and the other at the end of 1 C... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:8 These sayings remind us I. That we have in Christ One who is human, yet Divine. II. One whose death as our Saviour is all important, and not less his life. III. One who presides over the world where we are going, and over the world in which we now are. J. Ker, _Sermons,_2nd series, p.... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:10 Two questions here suggest themselves: What was it in Jesus Christ which so deeply stirred the enmity of the Pharisees? And what was it in Jesus Christ which made it true in any sense, that the world was gone after Him. I. The Pharisees ought to have examined the commission of Christ, as... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:12 Christ's Entrance into Jerusalem I. We, too, like the people in the text, should go forth to meet our Saviour, whenever He comes to us. So we would go forth to meet Him, some may perhaps be thinking, if He would indeed come to us, as He came to Jerusalem, in the body, that our eyes migh... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:20 , JOHN 12:23 I. "The hour is come." The culminating hour of His life, that hour which is to explain all that has happened, to reveal all that is unknown. "It behoved Him thus to suffer, and to enter into His glory." And His glory has been increasingly manifest ever since His death. From t... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:20 , JOHN 12:23 I. "The hour is come." The culminating hour of His life, that hour which is to explain all that has happened, to reveal all that is unknown. "It behoved Him thus to suffer, and to enter into His glory." And His glory has been increasingly manifest ever since His death. From t... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:24 Let us try to grasp this principle in its simplicity and strength. In nature "a corn of wheat" is what it is itself alone. The burial in the ground and death make a wondrous change in the wheat; it is no longer itself alone; it gathers more, it multiplies itself, it comes out, associated... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:26 The Ascension, our Glory and Joy I. All the mysteries of the "Word made flesh," have their special comfort for us, and so has the mystery of the Ascension. It were little for us, compared to this, that God the Son had taken our nature, if then (as misbelievers said of old) it had been d... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:27 A peculiar interest must ever attach to these words in the record of the events that led up to, and immediately preceded, the passion of our Lord. It is impossible to read this incident in St. John's narrative, without being struck by its intensely graphic features, and its inimitable ori... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:28 The craving of sinfulness is for self-glorification. The thirst of godliness is for the glory of God. He who sees God's Name and comprehends it, hears God's Name and understands it, looks at it and reads it, listens to God's Name and rejoices in it, and sees in his own name part of God's... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:29 Misinterpretation of the Voice of God I. When we read the history of our Blessed Lord's first coming into the world, and thoroughly realise who He was that came, it is almost impossible not at times to feel that it must have been a very severe trial for the men of that generation to beli... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:32 I. In these words our Lord foretells the gathering out and knitting "together of His mystical body, which is the Church. From the time of His ascension into heaven, and the shedding abroad of the Holy Ghost, He has been working unseen upon the spirits of mankind; He has been drawing toge... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:32 The Atonement I. Christ came to remit _sin_the debt incurred by man to his God. Punishment, as St. Paul speaks of it, is not an arbitrary penalty for sin, having no direct reference to the sin; but it flows directly from the offence, even as a plant from the seed that is sown. "Whatsoeve... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:34 What is the force of this name, as applied to Himself, by our Lord? I. We have in it, Christ putting out His hand to draw us to Himself, identifying Himself with us. II. We have, just as distinctly, Christ, by the use of this name, in a very real sense distinguishing Himself from us an... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:35 The True Light and the False The desire for light is one of the deepest natural instincts of man. The heathen man prayed that if he were to be smitten, he might be smitten in the light, and not in darkness. And the idea of Christ's Gospel is, that it is a light shining in a dark place,... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:43 I. It is an obvious question, Why is it wrong to love the praise of men? For it may be objected, that we are accustomed to educate the young by means of praise and blame; that we encourage them by kind words from us, that is, from man; and punish them for disobedience. If, then, it may be... [ Continue Reading ]
John 12:47 _(with John 12:22)_ Christ the Saviour Both these passages convey a truth of very great importance, and which requires to be fully received; and both taken together, give us the exact view of Christ's dealings with mankind. "He came not to judge the world, but to save the world" here is... [ Continue Reading ]