Luke 3:2 I. How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, and his actions. We must put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all, those in which Ra... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:3 I. The teaching of St. John the Baptist, as it is described to us in Scripture, was perhaps different to what many would have expected. He had not only been sanctified to God in the world, and had been born of holy parents and kept unspotted from the world; but when he came forth to preach... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:4 It may be that many have never clearly understood what was meant by John being Christ's forerunner, why any forerunner was needed, and what truth is declared to us in this part of God's dispensations, which showed that he was needed. I. The subject is very vast, and might be illustrated b... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:4 Earnestness. Of all men that ever lived, John the Baptist was one great concentrated earnestness. The earnestness of which I wish to speak consists in a "prepared way" and straight paths. I. Before there can be earnestness, there must first be: (1) A fixed conviction that God loves you; t... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:10 Duty. The final stage of religion is duty. Everything else, however comforting, however holy, however true, is only its cradle. The maturity of man is his obedience. If I had to define duty, I should say that it is doing what is right that is, what conscience and the Bible tell us to do... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:10 I. St. John's three answers all go upon the principle of "doing our duty in that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call us;" but they are the more striking as coming from a person like St. John, a person so entirely out of the ordinary course, to whom any of the names with wh... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:16 Expectation. Have you never observed that everyone's character is determined by what he is living up to? Why is the Mohammedan an idle and self-indulgent man? Because he lives up to a corporeal and indolent and sensuous heaven. Why is the Brahmin a man of apathy? Because, after all his t... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:17 Judaism and Christianity. Christ came and hewed out for the waters of the old Judaism a new and fitting channel. He led it away from the political groove where it would have been destroyed by uniting it with a spiritual kingdom. He added to it other and deeper thoughts. Instead of saying... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:21 Christ's Baptism, a Token of Pentecost. Without all question, there is a deep and mysterious connection between the baptism of our Saviour and the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. They are, if we may so speak, parts of the same wonderful work of God, the saving Christian peopl... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:22 The descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove was an emblem of the new dispensation which the Saviour came to announce; and instead of the fiery law, delivered in the midst of blackness and darkness and tempest, and the deafening sound of the trumpet, the blessed Spirit descended in... [ Continue Reading ]
Luke 3:23 The Divinity of Christ. Our discourse will turn upon the words, "As was supposed." Our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was "supposed" to be the son of Joseph. But the words of the text seem to imply that He was not actually the son of Joseph: they are an indirect testimony to that... [ Continue Reading ]