“It is good for us all to mark well this case of Capernaum. We are all too apt to suppose that it needs nothing but the powerful preaching of the Gospel to convert people’s souls, and that if the Gospel is only brought into a place everybody must believe. We forget the amazing power of unbelief, and the depth of man’s enmity against God. We forget that…
Call To Worship January 29 2017
“We should learn, for one thing, from these verses, that the worst and most wicked acts may be done under a show of love to Christ…Conduct like this, unhappily, is not without its parallels. The pages of history record many an instance of enormous wickedness wrought out and perfected under the garb of religion. The name of God has too often been pressed into the service of…
Call To Worship January 22 2017
“There is something unspeakably solemn in the thought that the Lord Jesus knows all things. There is an eye that sees all our daily conduct. There is an ear that hears all our daily words. All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him, with whom we have to do. Concealment is impossible. Hypocrisy is useless. We may deceive ministers. We may fool our family…
Call To Worship January 15 2017
“We read that “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!” At the sound of that voice, the king of terrors at once yielded up his lawful captive, and the insatiable grave gave up its prey…Here, in open day, and before many hostile witnesses, a man, four days dead, was restored to life in a moment. Here was public proof that our Lord had absolute power…
Call To Worship January 8 2017
“The chapter we have now begun is one of the most remarkable in the New Testament. For grandeur and simplicity, for pathos and solemnity, nothing was ever written like it. It describes a miracle which is not recorded in the other Gospels–the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Nowhere shall we find such convincing proofs of our Lord’s Divine power. As God, He makes the grave itself…
Call To Worship January 1 2017
“Bartimaeus was blind in body, but not in soul…Let us strive and pray that we may have like precious faith. Like Bartimaeus, we are not allowed to see Jesus with our bodily eyes. But we have the report of His power, and grace, and willingness to save, in the Gospel. We have exceeding great promises from His own lips, written down for our encouragement. Let us trust…
Call To Worship December 25 2016
In reading these verses, let us first notice the TIMES when Christ was born. It was in the days when Augustus, the first Roman emperor, made “a decree that all the world should be taxed.” The wisdom of God appears in this simple fact. The scepter was practically departing from Judah. (Gen. 49:10.) The Jews were coming under the dominion and taxation of a foreign power. Strangers…
Call To Worship December 18 2016
“We see, thirdly, in these verses, how great is the kindness and condescension of Christ. No sooner was this poor blind man cast out of the Jewish Church than Jesus finds him and speaks words of comfort…He now revealed Himself more fully to this man than He did to anyone except the Samaritan woman. In reply to the question, “Who is the Son of God?” He says…
Call To Worship December 11 2016
Mark 9:14-29 “The contrast between these verses and those which precede them in the chapter is very striking. We pass from the mount of transfiguration to a melancholy history of the work of the devil. We come down from the vision of glory, to a conflict with Satanic possession. We change the blessed company of Moses and Elijah, for the crude communion of unbelieving Scribes. We leave…
Call To Worship October 16 2016
J.C. Ryle speaking of John 6:28-34, “We should observe, for one thing, in these verses, the spiritual ignorance and unbelief of the natural man. Twice over we see this brought out and exemplified. When our Lord instructed his hearers to “labor for the food which endures to eternal life,” they immediately began to think of ‘works to be done’, and a goodness of their own to be…