Matthew 11:1 Jesus and His Doubters. I. The doubt. It is not at all clear who doubted, whether John or his disciples, or indeed whether they all did. The stoutest faith has often failed before now; ours has often failed us in circumstances far less grievous than these. John was indeed a prophet, bu... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:3 Doubting. I. There is no sin in doubting. Some doubts are sinful. They are so when born of irrational prejudices or bred of an ill-regulated life. But doubt, of its own nature, cannot be sinful. For what is it? It is a certain fluctuation of the mind, this way and that way, while as y... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:5 I. We may always find Holy Scripture, in its endeavours to make men good, using such arguments and taking such methods as are within the understanding of the poorest and most unlearned, if they have but a will to please God. When it would teach us to love God it does not require of us t... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:10 I. Consider this text as referring to ourselves. Every Christian man, woman, or child is a messenger of God, sent to prepare the way for Christ's coming. We are all of us, in one sense, apostles that is, sent forth to help each other nearer to God. Our part is to build up the Church o... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:11 I. The first thing which demands our notice in John the Baptist seems to be his singleness in carrying out the work which God appointed him. Consider the time when he appeared. It was no ordinary season. Many eyes were eagerly looking for the dawn of the kingdom of God. The Deliverer t... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:12 _(with Luke 16:16)_ The Virtue of Violence. We shall try to draw the character of the βιαστής, or man of violence, as Christ here introduces him, in two or three of his relations to the kingdom of grace. I. The "royal" life, or it would not be such, is a life, in part, of renunciati... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:16 The Baptist and Christ. I. When John appeared to Israel, and made his voice heard from the wilderness, the stern reality of such a life struck all imaginations; the hope he held out of a teacher who should subdue all hearts, and lift off the weight of sin, his own short, well-defined... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:19 I. The idea of the essential badness of pleasure has been very commonly held and advocated by the propounders of ethical and religious systems. The religions of the Hindus and the Buddhists aim at the gradual suppression of the body, and the entire eradication of desire. Like many oth... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:23 I. Consider first what is implied by the denunciation of Capernaum as exalted unto heaven. The Bible finds man in a garden, it leaves him in a city. We cannot but think that it is here intimated to us that the highest kind of life is social life; that man, in the noblest development of... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:25 I. Note, first, the Master's words when He thanks God that He "has hid these things from the wise and prudent." A man may have understanding and wisdom enough on certain of life's matters without having them on all. Everything must be known after its kind, and under its condition as kn... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:25 I. The word which our English version renders "I thank Thee" is in reality of more extended meaning. It means something of this kind, "I confess, I acknowledge, Thy great wisdom." There was something in the dispensation of God's providence, of which our Saviour speaks, which at once c... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:25 Why God reveals to babes. The babe is the representative of the receptive spirit. Its characteristic is trust, openness to impression, and freedom from prejudice. Childlike men may be powerful in intellect and capable of a bold initiative quite as much as those of a contrary character... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:26 I. There are some occasions of life and times of perplexing difficulty and sorrow when the mind, which was at first paralyzed, by degrees awakes and recovers itself to see reasons merciful, satisfying reasons why God did these things. That is one of the paths which lead out of the low... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:27 I. We can know Christ, and yet we cannot. It seems a strange contradiction to say so, yet it is a contradiction which applies to a great many even of created things. We know them, and we know them not. We know how they act; we have seen, or can image to ourselves a notion of them, but... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:28 I. Restlessness. (1) We have all known the misery of restlessness in its physical, its bodily working. (2) There is a restlessness of mere suspense. (3) There is a suspense and a restlessness accompanying doubt, more trying still. (4) There is the restlessness of sin. (5) There is the... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:28 One does not know whether tenderness or majesty is pre dominant in these wonderful words a Divine penetration into man's true condition, and a Divine pity, are expressed in them. Jesus looks with clear-sighted compassion into the inmost history of all hearts, and sees the toil and the... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:28 In the little word "come" is folded up the whole morality of the sentence, the very ethics of the Gospel. I. "Come unto Me;" wherefore the all-important question is, How are we to come? We hear the call, we kindle into fervour at the Divine promise; but what are we to do? how are we t... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:29 I. Let us set it down as a first principle in religion that all of us must come to Christ, in some sense or other, through things naturally unpleasant to us; it may be even through bodily suffering, or it may be nothing more than the subduing of our natural infirmities and the sacrifi... [ Continue Reading ]
Matthew 11:30 This passage has in it some far-reaching things, which do not strike us on a mere cursory reading. (1) It sets before us very clearly the Saviour's constant attitude of invitation. (2) It reminds us that we become learners in Christ's school only through the process of obedience. (3) I... [ Continue Reading ]