Reading: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” Hebrews 2:12 These are the words of Jesus quoted by the apostle from a prophetical psalm concerning Him. Praise is an element of the gospel. It entered essentially, if not prominently, into our Lord’s personal life. [...]
Reading: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34 If the Christian precept of forgiveness be estimated by the magnitude of the injury forgiven, then these words of Jesus present to our view a forgiveness of an inconceivable and unparalleled injury. The greatest crime man ever committed was the crucifixion of the [...]
Reading: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Mark 1:35 To whom can this impressive picture of high devotion properly apply but to Him whose life was one continuous act of prayer; whose vital and all-pervading atmosphere was communion with [...]
Reading: “Now My soul is deeply troubled.” John 12:27 Soul sorrow was our Lord’s greatest suffering. Compared with this, the lingering, excruciating tortures of the cross, the extended limbs, the quivering nerves, the bleeding wounds, the burning thirst, were as nothing. This was physical, the other spiritual. Let a vessel traversing the ocean keep afloat, and [...]
Reading: “And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” John 16:32 There is a sweetness in every cup, a light in every cloud, a presence in every solitude of the Christian’s experience. It was so with Jesus, who will mold all His followers like unto Himself. We have just considered Him in [...]
Reading: “And shall leave me alone.” John 16:32 Jesus, for the most part, lived a lonely and solitary life. There was much in His mission, more in His character, still more in His person, that would baffle the comprehension and estrange from Him the interest and the sympathy of the world, compelling Him to retire within [...]
Reading: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 My soul, was it not enough that your Lord should be forsaken of man in His sorrow? Was it essential to the accomplishment of your salvation and to your support and comfort in seasons of soul desertion and darkness that He should likewise [...]
Reading: “Then all the disciples forsook Him, and fled.” Matthew 26:56 Jesus’ time of suffering at the hand of the multitude has now come, but we read that “all His disciples have forsaken Him, and fled.” Is there nothing, my soul, in this significant fact from which you may gather much that is instructive and consolatory [...]
Reading: “He was oppressed.” Isaiah 53:7 The Hebrew word here rendered “oppressed” signifies to exact or demand payment. It is so rendered in the following passage: ”The creditor shall not exact of his neighbour....” The word taskmaster comes from the same root, and as there is no noun prefixed to the original, the words may be [...]
Reading: “He was afflicted.” Isaiah 53:7 Jesus was born for affliction. In the righteous arrangement of God, sin and suffering, like holiness and happiness, are one and inseparable. He came to destroy the works of the devil; and sin, being Satan’s master-work, Jesus could destroy only as He Himself suffered, just as He could “abolish death” [...]