Alexander Maclaren

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1.) A Confession and a Warning
      THE FIRST WORDS OF these wonderful discourses were, "Let not your heart be troubled." They struck the key-note of the whole. The aim of all was to bring peace and confidence unto the disciples' spirits. And this joyful burst of confession which wells up so spontaneously and irrepressibly from their hearts, shows that the aim has been reached. For a ...read more

2.) A Pattern of Prayer
      WHEN YE PRAY, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do" -Matthew 6:7. But earnest reiteration is not vain repetition. The second is born of doubt; the first, of faith. The prayer that springs from a deep felt need, and will not cease till that need is supplied, may say the same things over a hundred times and yet they shall not be vain. Rather, ...read more

3.) Anxious Care
      FORESIGHT AND FOREBODING ARE two very different things. It is not that the one is the exaggeration of the other, but the one is opposed to the other. The more a man looks forward, in the exercise of foresight, the less he does so in the exercise of foreboding. And the more he is tortured by anxious thoughts about a possible future, the less clear v ...read more

4.) Christ "Must" Die
      The work of Jesus Christ could not be done unless He died. He could not be the Savior of the world unless He was the sacrifice for the sins of the world. . . . It was because of the requirements of the divine righteousness, and because of the necessities of sinful men. And so Christ's was no martyr's death, who had to die as the penalty of the ...read more

5.) Hope Perfectly
      Christianity has transformed hope and given it a new importance by opening to it a new world to move in and supplying to it new guarantees to rest on. There is something very remarkable in the prominence given to hope in the New Testament and in the power ascribed to it to order a noble life. Paul goes so far as to say that we are saved by it. To a ...read more

6.) Jehovah Jireh
      AS THESE Two, Abraham and Isaac, were traveling up the hill, the son bearing the wood and the father with the sad burden of the fire and the knife, the boy said: "Where is the lamb?" and Abraham, thrusting down his emotion and steadying his voice, said: 'My son, God will provide Himself a lamb." When the wonderful issue of the trial was plain befor ...read more

7.) Love And Fear
      JOHN HAS BEEN SPEAKING of boldness, and that naturally suggests its opposite-fear. He has been saying that perfect love produces courage in the day of judgment, because it produces likeness to Christ, who is the Judge. In my text he explains and enlarges that statement. For there is another way in which love produces boldness, and that is by castin ...read more

8.) Take Up the Challenge
      ANOTHER PSALMIST PROMISES TO the man who dwells "in the secret place of the Most High" that "he shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh at noonday," but shall "tread upon the lion and adder." These promises divide the dangers that beset us into the same two classes as ou ...read more

9.) The Absent Present Christ
      THE SWEET AND GRACIOUS comforting with which Christ had been soothing the disciples' fears went very deep, but hitherto they had not gone deep enough. It was much that they should know the purpose of His going, whither He went, and that they had an interest in His departure. It was much that they should have before them the prospect of reunion; muc ...read more

10.) The Cross the Proof
      GOD COMMENDETH HIS LOVE. That is true and beautiful, but that is not all that the apostle means. We "commend" persons and things when we speak of them with praise and confidence. If that were the meaning of my text, it would represent the death of Christ as setting forth, in a manner to win our hearts, the greatness, the excellence, the transcenden ...read more

11.) The Gradual Healing Of The Blind Man
      THIS MIRACLE, which is only recorded by the Evangelist Mark, has about it several very peculiar features. Some of these it shares with one other of our Lord's miracles, which also is found only in this gospel, and which occurred about the same time; that miracle of healing the deaf and dumb man recorded in the previous chapter. Both of them have th ...read more

12.) The Guiding Piller
      THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL in the wilderness, surrounded by miracle, had nothing which we do not possess. They had some things in an inferior form; their sustenance came by manna; ours comes by God's blessing on our daily work, which is better. Their guidance came by this supernatural pillar; ours comes by the reality of which that pillar was nothing b ...read more

13.) The Measure Of Immeasurable Power
      THE RICHES OF THE GLORY OF the inheritance" will sometimes quench rather than stimulate hope. He can have little depth of religion who has not often felt that the transcendent glory of that promised future sharpens the doubt-- "and can I ever hope to reach it?" Our paths are strewn with battlefields where we were defeated; how should we expect the ...read more

14.) The Shepherd - The Stone Of Israel
      A SLIGHT alteration in the rendering will probably bring out the meaning of these words more correctly. The last two clauses should perhaps not be read as a separate sentence. Striking out the supplement "is," and letting the previous sentence run on to the end of the verse, we get a series of names of God, in apposition with each other, as the so ...read more

15.) Water of Life
      The condition, the only condition, and the indispensable condition, of possessing that water of life--the summary expression for all the gifts of God in Jesus Christ, which at the last are essentially God Himself--is the desire to possess it turned to Jesus Christ. . . But it is not enough that there should be the desire. It must be turned to H ...read more