Hebrews 11:27

Hebrews 11:27

Enduring as Seeing the Invisible One.

I. What is this virtual seeing of Him who is invisible? There must be wrought in me, between Him and me, some sympathy, some good understanding and fellow feeling about the matter spoken of. There must be established between Him and me some personal relation of mutual confidence and unity. There must, in a word, be formed a certain close unity of faith working by love. Then will that quasivision " as seeing" be realised; that vivid sense and keen grasp of "my Lord and my God," as personally present to my eager gaze, my touch, my embrace, which compensates, and far more than compensates, for my never having set on Him my bodily eyes.

II. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Not only at the Communion Table do you rest, but in the field of toil or of battle you endure, as seeing Him who is invisible. So Christ Himself, the man Christ Jesus, endured. The secret of His endurance was that with the eye of faith He always saw the Father. The Holy Ghost strengthens us to endure as seeing the unseen Saviour, even as He strengthened Him to endure as seeing the unseen Father. It is in the felt and realised presence of a Divine person, unseen in one sense, but in another virtually and vividly seen, that your strength to endure lies. And He is to be seen by you, not merely as an object of contemplation in a leisure hour, but as in the time of danger, standing beside you, conversing with you, calling you by name, and bidding you be strong and of a good courage.

R. S. Candlish, Sermons,p. 125.

References: Hebrews 11:27. A. Raleigh, The Way to the City,p. 293; E. P. Hood, Sermons,p. 67; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 5; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 331; Ibid.,vol. xix., pp. 100, 225; Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 161; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 21.Hebrews 11:30. Homilist,vol. i., p. 95; J. Vaughan, Sermons,14th series, p. 93.