Matthew 11:5

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 to plunge ourselves into deep and high thoughts of what He is in Himself, but it tells us what He is to us;our Father, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we would understand how we are to love our neighbour, the Bible tells us that it must be as we love ourselves. Would we know how we are to renounce the world and cleave to Christ, it must be with such a love as causes a man to leave father and mother, brethren and sisters, and to cleave unto his wife i.e.,with our very best and most entire affection. Now this is quite as much within the reach of the poorest and meanest as well as of the wisest and wealthiest among us.

II. Consider our Lord's manner of teaching, and see whether the same be said of that also. We must be, most of us, too well aware how sadly our attention first fails us, and afterwards our memory, when we are to receive instruction in a set speech or sermon; how apt we are to let go the thread of the preacher's meaning, and how difficult it is to gather it up again. How thankful, then, ought we to be towards that best of masters, that best of instructors, who has left for our use so many short and plain sayings, any one of which, rightly received into an upright heart and seriously considered, will be found to contain the whole way to heaven in a very few words.

III. Again, the Gospel is preached to the poor especially by means of the great abundance of examples with which it is stored. When we tell a poor untaught person, who has not been much used to consider the meanings of words, that he must be merciful, contented, humble, devout, it is not to be wondered at if he often goes away without any very clear notion of what is expected from him. But when we bid him be merciful like David, contented like St. Paul, humble like the blessed Virgin, devout like St. John, and all like the holy Jesus, then, if he know anything of his Bible, he cannot fail to understand us in some measure, and he knows where to turn that he may understand us better.

IV. But the greatest privilege of all which the poor my find in the Gospel, if they will, is this: that our Master and only Saviour, when He was upon earth, chose to be one of them chose to be so poor and needy as not to know where to lay His head. A rich man, when he is considering how to use his wealth, has to take thought how his Saviour would have acted if he had been rich in this world. A poor man, when he is considering how to bear his poverty, has only to look and see how his Lord actually did bear His, and how, in spite of it, He made Himself, even humanly speaking, most useful to the souls and bodies of all around Him. God give us all grace to make the most of those inestimable privileges which the meanest of us here enjoy.

J. Keble, Sermons Occasional and Parochial,p. 143.

Consider the answer of our Lord to John. Jesus was to show that He was the Messiah. He was to send to His poor suffering, despairing friend and cousin a true message of hope and reassurance. He says to the two messengers, "Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see;" and one of these things is this, "The poor have the Gospel preached to them."

I. This, then, is one of the signs that the Son of God has come into the world. There is a Gospel for the poor. There are glad tidings for those who need them most. And of necessity, also, this is one of the marks and notes of the Church of Christ. She can hardly be a faithful handmaid of the Master who sent such a message to His poor afflicted servant, if it be not true of her that "to the poor the Gospel is preached."

II. If the preaching of the Gospel to the poor be so plain a duty of a church which would follow the example and obey the command of Christ, is it quite certain that we are rightly and fully grasping the meaning of the Gospel which is to be preached, and that we thoroughly understand how to preach it? I hold that the Gospel is larger than men are wont to think. I cannot confine my Gospel to the death of Christ, and shut out the life of Christ. I cannot teach a Gospel of the crucifixion, and ignore the Gospel of the resurrection. And yet the central light and glow of the Gospel is gathered round the cross of Calvary. And it is such a Gospel which is the one great spiritual need of the poor. The one thing which will brighten and beautify the darkest, meanest lives is the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the bringing home to these poor souls of the love and tenderness and sympathy of our personal Saviour, the opening up to these of visions of a life of purity and peace in Him. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," is the sort of sermon which encourages and strengthens the oppressed and exhausted toilers. It should ever be pointed out to them that Christ was a toiler Himself, personally acquainted with the difficulties and sufferings of the most abject of our race, and that He is as full of love and as ready to assist and comfort the needy as He ever was; that despotism and oppression are no part of the Gospel of Jesus. These would be the sermons, that the Gospel, which would fill our churches.

Bishop Walsham How, Cambridge Review,Feb. 11th, 1885.

References: Matthew 11:5. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iii., No. 114; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 172; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 157; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 163; Bishop Magee, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 17; J. J. S. Perowne, Contemporary Pulpit,p. 207. Matthew 11:6. J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons,p. 17; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiv., No. 1398; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 155; Bishop Moorhouse, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 257; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve,p. 362.Matthew 11:7. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 108; J. C. Hare, The Victory of Faith,p. 351; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 359; H. P. Liddon, Christian World, Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 369; Ibid., Expository Outlines of Sermons on the New Testament,p. 12.Matthew 11:7. A. B. Bruce, Expositor,1st series, vol. v., p. 98. Matthew 11:9; Matthew 11:10. F. W. Robertson, Human Race and Other Sermons,p. 143.