Matthew 16:24

Matthew 16:24

One of the proofs of the truth and of the Divine origin of our religion is that it gives such a distinct notice of the difficulties which its followers will have to encounter. What other religion could affordto speak like this?

I. " Deny himself." As in the natural character selfishness and affection are two such opposite principles that the man that is selfish can never be truly affectionate, and the man that is affectionate will never be long selfish, so in the spiritual life self and the Divine love are the two great antagonists which do battle in a man's heart. Between these two, from the moment that any one is really in earnest in religion, there is contest, severe and unceasing, even to death, till ultimately either self, being allowed, stifles grace, or grace, being cherished, gradually swallows up self, till all self loses itself in Jesus.

II. " Daily."What is the cross? What is it that a man is to take up? Not some very great thing which is to come by-and-by. Against that idea Christ appears especially to have guarded us when He added the word "daily." The cross must be a trial which has something humiliating in it, something which brings a sense of shame, something which lingers, something which is painful to the old nature, for that is exactly what the cross was.

III. " Follow Me." What is it worth to deny one's self how much soever, or to take up a cross however hard, if it be not done in reference to Christ with an express intention towards Christ? But to do all these things with the eye only to Jesus as all our righteousness and peace; to do them because He wishes it and as He did it, that He may be magnified this is to obey a doctrine while we fulfil a command, and therefore this is in the spirit of the requisition to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 282.

The command which the text contains is based upon the great principle of the imitation of Christ. Unlike all other legislators, His lifeis the law of His people.

If we would gain the root of the matter, then we must contemplate suffering as manifested in Christ Himself.

I. The great primary fact, upon which all the essential peculiarities of our religion are founded, is that God became strangely, inconceivably connected with pain; that this Being, whose nature is inherent happiness, by some mysterious process entered the regions of suffering, crossed the whole diameter of existence, to find Himself with His own opposite; bore, though incapable of moral pollution, the dark shadow of pollution, even anguish unspeakable; and though unsubdued by the master, Sin, exhibited Himself, to the wonder of the universe, clad in the weeds of the servant, Death.

The main reason of this fact is to be found in the necessity of atonement. But the Divine Person also visited the regions of pain in such a sense as to be our Example;for so the text presents Him.

II. Must we not think that there is something in the sorrow, thus cordially and perpetually chosen by our Master, that is eminently adapted to elevate and purify our being? Must there not be something divinely excellent in that which was deliberately chosen by a Divine nature as its peculiar tabernacle out of all the world afforded, the sad but awful cloud above the mercy-seat in which, while among us, His glory was to dwell? This special excellence is not hard to discover. Humbleness of spirit, the most pervading and universal of all graces, is in the Christian code the very essence of perfection, and sorrow borne with resignation has a direct tendency to produce it. Now, because our Redeemer knew, what it is so hard to persuade even His avowed followers, that in this direction lies the true perfection of man that a gentle, unmurmuring submission is his truest, brightest heroism therefore did He, in His own person, adopt the way that leads to it. He daily suffered, because suffering subdues the pride of human hearts, and He would teach us to accomplish that conquest.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical,p. 27.

References: Matthew 16:24. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 394; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 36; vol. ii., p. 44; H. G. Bird, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 151; J. M. Nelson, Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 200.