1 John 3:1 The Love that calls us Sons. Notice: I. The love that is given. We are called upon to come with our little vessels to measure the contents of the great ocean, to plumb with our short lines the infinite abyss, and not only to estimate the quantity, but the quality, of that love which in... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:2 Consider the short word "now." What is time present? What is the meaning of "now"? I. This is a matter not so plain, nor lying so much on the surface, as we might at first sight imagine. Time is altogether a mysterious thing. There is every reason to believe that time is nothing more th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:2 The Believer's Sonship. It is a law of our nature, or rather of our mental constitution, that in looking at any particular truth or subject we unconsciously present it in that aspect which strikes ourselves most forcibly, or which is the most congenial to our own minds. Take, for example... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:3 What is the effect of this hope upon him who entertains it? I. "Every man that hath" that possesses "this hope in him," this hope resting on him, "purifieth himself, even as He is pure." All hope rests upon some ground or other, if it be a hope of which any account can be given. This hop... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:8 Why Christ came. I. We are carried here into the very heart of the Gospel; we are told why Christ came, why there is a gospel. Some one may say that the object of the Gospel is to destroy the works of the devil, which is, I suppose, a Hebrew form of words for sin, and thus the amount of... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:14 Our True Orbit. I. History tells us for how many thousand years men believed that the sun went round the earth. History tells us how men went on century after century inventing new theories to account for the different new facts which this belief had to account for as their knowledge gr... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:15 The Peril of Unlawful Venture. I. Self-control is a thing which we can perfectly well understand in its effects, in its sources, perhaps, not so well. In frail, unassisted man, self-control is a weak and poor safeguard against temptation. Passion and self-interest are too strong for it... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:19 The Good and the Bad Conscience. There is many a text concerning which it may be said that, without an earnest study of the whole chapter, of the whole context, or of the whole Epistle to which it belongs, it would be impossible to get at its depth and fulness. But happily, as St. Augus... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:19 God Greater than Our Heart. I. The subject with which these verses deal is an accusing conscience and its antidote. St. John does not say that the heart may not accuse justly. He does not say that a child of God is sinless by virtue of his relation as a child, and that his self-accusat... [ Continue Reading ]
1 John 3:24 The Abiding Witness. I. The first lesson which these words convey is the dignity not only of the state of the saint, but also of the evidence by which he is assured of it. This state consists in the abiding presence of God, and this not only above us, though this is true, not only aroun... [ Continue Reading ]