Mark 4:3 Waste. The sower went out to sow, and, as he sowed, there was a great waste. Much precious seed fell, to his right hand and to his left, on ground unprepared to receive it. Ground hard as the nether millstone was one part of the surface on which the germ of food and life fell. It lay ther... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:7 , MARK 4:18 Prosperity a Trial. I. The growing occupation of time, although apt to be overlooked, is one of the most serious clangers of prosperity; for usually money is not made, social circumstances are not made, influence of any kind is not gotten among our fellow men, without great eff... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:7 , MARK 4:18 Prosperity a Trial. I. The growing occupation of time, although apt to be overlooked, is one of the most serious clangers of prosperity; for usually money is not made, social circumstances are not made, influence of any kind is not gotten among our fellow men, without great eff... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:22 The Manifestation of Hidden Things. I. We all know that such is necessarily the imperfectness of human legislation, that a great deal of crime passes undiscovered, and that what is discovered often goes unpunished; and whilst an active system of government represses or prevents much wick... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:26 Mysterious growth. We little think how much is always going on in what we may call the underground of life; and how much more we have to do with those secret processes which underlie everything, than might at first sight appear. I. For we are all, whether we realize it or not, always ca... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:26 We have in this parable: I. A most simple, yet striking representation of the business, and, at the same time, the helplessness of the spiritual husbandman. To the ministers of the Gospel, who are the great moral labourers in the field of the world, there is entrusted the task of prepari... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:26 Christ's Idea of Christianity. I. The kingdom of God, or the beginning of a truly religious life in the soul of a man, may be obscure, imperceptible and unconscious. When a man is building a house he sees it as it goes on. That is an outside matter. A man goes into his garden and plants s... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:28 The seed cast into the ground is undoubtedly to be understood of the knowledge of good which may be at any time laid before the mind of another. We have an opportunity, it may be, of doing this; a person is with us for a certain time, and then perhaps is removed from us; we must even leav... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:30 The kingdom of God is not the Church, but a far wider, vast, outlying region; where Jehovah's omnipotence and wisdom with, indeed, all His glorious attributes reign absolutely. The Church is the centre of this kingdom; the kingdom, the outlying territory of the Church. I. This doctrine of... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:30 I. Observe the minuteness of the seed which is ordinarily first deposited by God's Spirit in man's heart. If you examine the records of Christian biography, you will find, so far as it is possible to search out such facts, that conversion is commonly to be traced to inconsiderable beginni... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:33 This text may be used as supplying three lessons as to the duties of the Christian teacher. I. He must adapt himself to his hearers. II. He must consider his hearers rather than himself. III. He must increase his communication of truth and light according to the progress of his scholar... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:35 Veiled under some real fact in our Lord's life on earth, lie all the revelations of His will in faith and doctrine concerning His Church and His children throughout the ages; so I seem to trace the spiritual teaching of Advent under the storm that befel the disciples on the lake long ago.... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:35 There are various instances in Sacred Scripture of the effect produced by the revelation of God to man, sometimes by mere power, sometimes by terror, sometimes, as in the drama of Job, by a long discourse of natural history. But here it was the mercifulness, the sympathy, the succour whic... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:36 The toiling Christ. Among the many loftier characteristics belonging to Christ's life and work, there is a very homely one which is often lost sight of; and that is, the amount of hard physical exertion, prolonged even to fatigue and exhaustion, which He endured. "They took Him even as H... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:38 I. Look at the illustrious sleeper. The greatest of all slept. Thus was He in all points like unto His brethren; the substance of His body was wasted and was repaired, renewed and restored by food; the brain and nerves were exhausted, and their power was renewed by sleep. A morbid piety an... [ Continue Reading ]
Mark 4:41 Our Divine Saviour teaches us sometimes by deeds, sometimes by words, sometimes by silence. His silence speaks more than the words of other men; His words do more than all men's deeds together; while His deeds themselves possess moreover an infinite eloquence. We have in this miracle, as... [ Continue Reading ]