Bible Commentaries

Chapter29

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee that thou hast sent thy Son to our broken-heartedness, our mourning, our unutterable distress and fear. Thou didst not send him to our greatness and power, but to our littleness and weakness and utter insufficiency. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost—we bless thee for this, for in that word "lost" we find our own true state. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way, there is no man to stand up before thee and challenge thy righteousness—each of us puts his hand upon his mouth and his mouth in the dust, and says, "Unclean, unprofitable, unworthy." We see Jesus Christ, the Man we need, the Angel of the covenant, the Minister of light and hope, the Priest who offers his blood. Thou dost no longer require at the hands of man the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop—there is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and for uncleanness, and to that fountain we now repair. Lord, meet us every one, and give us cleansing of heart, sanctification of thought and will and purpose and hope, and make us without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, complete in thine own holiness, beautiful with thine own light.

Thou hast been with us in the days that are gone, thou hast given us indeed to see the grave, but the tomb has been in a garden: we would look at the garden rather than at the grave, for all that sleep in Christ are roots that shall blossom and come to great fruitfulness in thine own heavenly harvest. O thou, who dost sow the earth with the dead, thou wilt surely put in thy sickle and reap, and the harvest shall live for ever.

Thou hast smitten us sorely, and thou hast mingled some of our cups so bitterly that we shrink from tasting them, for surely they are full of what men call death—but thou hast strengthened us to drink those cups even to the dregs, and in the drinking of them there has been health. Thou hast led the blind by a way that they knew not; thou hast holden our eyes sometimes that we might not know thee, that we might accost thee as a stranger, and tell thee our complaint, in the bitter tone of despair. Thou hast dealt wondrously with us, our hearts have been ungrateful, our eyes have been quick to see the disadvantages of life, but our vision has been slow to discern the beauty of the divine presence, and the certainty of the divine way. We will fill our mouth with mourning because our heart is full of accusation, and each of us will say, "God be merciful unto me a sinner," for every breath is evil and there is a taint even in our prayers. Keep us evermore at the Cross, bind us to the sacrifice offered thereupon; other hope we have none, out of that great darkness there streams a startling light, and out of that infinite woe there comes infinite reconciliation. Help us to find in the Son of God, God the Matthew 8:1-4

1. When he was come down from the mountain great multitudes followed him.

2. And behold there came a leper ( Matthew 8:5-13

5. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion (captain of100 foot-soldiers) beseeching him.

6. And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. ("He declares himself ready to come to the Centurion's servant: he does not promise that he will do so to the nobleman's son.")

8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this Matthew 8:8.—Not worthy. "The proud hill tops let the rain run off; the lowly valleys are richly watered."—Augustine.

Matthew 8:14.—"Peter's wife was still living twenty-five years afterwards, when St. Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthian Church, 1 Corinthians 9:5. Probably all the apostles were young men, not much over thirty."—Conder.

Matthew 8:21.—Suffer me first. "These words imply, what St. Luke expressly records, that Jesus had laid on him the command to follow him, which accounts for the subsequent rebuke. The command, moreover ( Luke 9:60), to go and preach the gospel, implies that this was not his first call, but that he had been a disciple for some considerable time. Some special occasion, therefore, is indicated;—perhaps that of the news being brought of the father's death. The explanation, that the disciple wished to go and reside with his father until his death, though ancient, is plainly wrong (as Stier and Alford show); the father was just dead, and he wished to postpone obedience to Christ's command to filial respect. Had this brief delay been granted, another hindrance, equally pressing, might have presented itself. The Lord's reply, though at first sight it surprises us by its sternness, simply carries out the principle that no plea whatever can bar Christ's claim to immediate obedience: no "first" can take precedence of that."—Ibid.

Matthew 8:26.—Rebuked the winds and the sea. "This seems to have been almost, so to say, our Lord's formula in working miracles; the fever ( Luke 4:39), the frenzy of the demoniac ( Mark 9:25), the tempest, are all treated as if they were hostile and rebel forces that needed to be restrained. St. Matthew 8:14-17

Working All Day

"And when Jesus was come into Peter's house." The centurion would not hear of the Lord Jesus Christ going to his house: it was beneath so great a worker and teacher: it was a humiliation not to be permitted by the sense which the centurion had of Roman dignity and Roman majesty. Said Matthew 8:18-22

18. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side.

19. And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

20. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests (literally shelter), but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

21. And another of his apostles said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

The Conditions of Discipleship

"He gave commandment." There was always in him some sign of lordship. He did not receive instructions, he gave them; though in one moment more his mouth was to be opened in a confession of the fact that he had not where to lay his head, yet he gave commandment. This kind of writing does not come of the uninspired human fancy, nor hold together with sufficient artistic cohesion, to be the child of the mere imagination. Yet there is a rugged and vital unity about it, which is the seal of truth. A peasant and the son of a peasant and without any signs of power about him such as are reckoned of consequence by earthly Matthew 8:23-27

23. And when he was entered into a ship his disciples followed him.

24. And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

25. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. (They record their own helplessness.)

26. And he saith unto them, Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little faith. Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

27. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?

Christ's Inward Peace Controlling Outward Storms

"He was asleep." Think of the sleep of the dad man; tired O with doing evil with both hands, weary in the cause of wickedness, having done his last bad trick, having worn out his last energy in following that which is evil and forbidden, he falls asleep. Who will talk to him in his dreams—what images will he see in the visions of the night? Suppose he should never awake, and men should come in the morning to see how he left his work—with a bad purpose broken off, with a programme inscribed to the devil half wrought through—who would care to bury him? Would it not disgrace a horse to carry such bones to the grave? Is it not a prostitution of human decency to touch so foul a thing?

Think of the sleep of the good man; weary in his work of noble benevolence, the spirit willing but the flesh giving way, with the tear half dried that he was just going to cleanse utterly from the eye of sorrow, with the word almost broken off at the middle syllable that he was just speaking in the ear of great distress—overcome by weariness he falls down into a dead sleep. Suppose he should never wake again—who then could tell the world's loss—who could add up in figures the deficiency that would befall the average of the world's intelligence and piety and beneficence? When some men die, they make the world poor, they leave such great gaps behind them: it is as if altars had been broken down and ways to heaven had been shut up, and light that lighted the darksomeness of life had been put out with a rough hand suddenly.

Do not account too much of the bad man's sleep, or of the good man's sleep—no argument is to be founded on the sleep of either. The murderer has slept on the night of his crime, the condemned criminal has slept on the night before his execution, the good man has lost many a night's sleep by anxieties which he could not control. We are not therefore to make any moral use of sleep or of sleeplessness in the case of particular persons, but all men do sleep, and many may never awaken out of their slumber, and I ask you whose sleep would you like to have, the bad man's sleep—a weariness that comes out of evil practice, the high and venturous pursuit of forbidden and disastrous prizes, or the good man's sleep—weary in his work but not weary of it, only going down into the depths of sleep that he may come up as one refreshed, to renew all that was sweetest and noblest and best in his life's toil.

"Let me sleep the sleep of the righteous, and may my slumber be like his." So say we all, but if we would sleep well, we must work well, if we would have the angels at night we must have God during the day. If the darkness is to be jewelled by stars, then must we toil with filial love and ever-heightening delight while the sun lasts, to make men wiser and truer and altogether better. Sweet is the sleep of the labouring Matthew 8:28-34.

The Supreme Miracle

This is decidedly the worst case that has yet come up in the sacred narrative. There is always a testing case in every ministry. There are critical hours in every life. Jesus has been with wondrous placidity dealing with diseases of many kinds, touching them, and healing them, and driving them away; but most of the cases appear to have been what we should term of an ordinary kind, though there was nothing ordinary in them from any point of view but his own. That which is commonplace to him is a miracle to us; that which is a miracle to us was a commonplace to him. We do not occupy the same ground, we do not look at things from the same angle of vision. Here is a test case, and it makes me tremble. I have never seen Christ confronted after this sort before.

The men were exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. There was no mistake about the terribleness of this possession. The devils had been in the man a long time: he was naked; no house could hold him; he dwelt in the tombs; he was driven of the devil into the wilderness—the case was extreme; it makes me tremble; it turns all other incidents into ordinary events. How will Jesus Christ do now? We have put that question regarding one another in critical circumstances when great distress has come upon the life, when a loss of property has been threatened, when particular audiences have assembled for the purpose of giving judgment—in many other varieties of human experience we have asked concerning our friend, How will he carry himself now?

Whilst we are wondering what Jesus will do there is a cry of fear from the other side. He was working when we did not suppose he was doing anything; he was giving one of those silent looks which eloquence cannot follow in descriptive terms; he was troubling the hidden devils with light which they only could see. The cry of distress comes from hell. Is there something in Christ's face that troubles the evil one? Is there anything in that calm, serene, majestic look which makes hell afraid? He alone was quiet. By-and-by it will be seen that this is the exact relation between parties in the universe: the good triumphant, the wicked cowardly and afraid. It does not look so now, because the wicked are too demonstrative to show their real character: they make a noise to keep their courage up, they fill their ears with their own vulgar din, and imagine that there is no other voice appealing to them. If I look at society from one point of view I am utterly disheartened—my hope goes out of me: it is evidently devil-ridden and hell-bound, and nothing can stay it in its awful course; perdition must enlarge its borders to receive our enlarging civilisation. When I gather into one all the evil thinkers and evil doers that are in the world I feel that evil has the upper hand, and that God himself is but a theological term.

Then, again, we come upon incidents that give a new point of view and a new reading of human events. We see that God is not dethroned: when the true collision comes the result is won by a look. God is to do wonders by the brightness of his face: the silent glance is to be as a sword before which nothing that is evil can stand. The ever-speaking but ever-silent face, gleaming with light, glowing with fire, is to make its way through the universe, and to leave heaven behind it. Oh, thou speaking man, and book-writing man, evangelist, apostle—call thyself by what name thou wilt, this conquest is not to be won by our noise, or fuss, or high demonstration of religious zeal—all this is right enough in its own place; it is part of the plan; it hath pleased God to do certain things by the foolishness of preaching; but the devil is to be burnt out with the divine look. Hold thy little light aloft; speak thou mightily or gently, in thunder or whisper as thou wilt, and do what little lies within the scope of thy little power; but understand that the final disposition of the devil, and the ultimate setting up of the dominion that is divine and beneficent, is to be done by the breath and the power and the glory of God. A nation shall be born in a day, the light shall fill the heavens in a moment, and the earth shall lose her cold shadows, and in the new warmth that shall penetrate her veins she shall give up her dead, and be scarred and seamed no more by tombs and sepulchres and sanctuaries of death.

Read the histories as given by Matthew and by Luke , and regard them as completing one another, and as forming substantially the same incident, and you will see from its graphic colouring what man may become. Do not make little local anecdotes of these divine histories; do not let the years grow between you and the Book of God till they separate you as by a thick wedge from all that is venerable and true in history. This incident is occurring today. If I have to wander over a wilderness of eighteen hundred years to get at it I shall tire on the road. It occurs next door—to-morrow it may occur in our own house.

See here what man is, what, man may become—what man really is in the sight and estimate of God. If you would profit by this incident see yourself in it. It is an evil temptation, one that will deplete you of every true sympathy and right conception of history and of the future, which leads you to think that this incident occurred once for all, and became an exciting and romantic anecdote in the neighbourhood in which it took place. You are the demoniac: I am the possessed with devils: they have never awakened yet altogether, but some of them are beginning to open their eyes, and to turn in restlessness, as if about to rise. Why will you put the Bible away from you thousands of years, and talk of Moses as if he were a dead man, and of the evangelists as though they lived only in epitaphs? These things are round about us now. When John Newton, the celebrated clergyman, saw a man being taken away to the scaffold to be hanged, he said, "There goes John Newton but for the grace of God." You cannot tell what you are; that is no merely earthly fire that burns in your blood. If you want to see what you may become go to the madhouse. It is an awful church, it is a terrible sanctuary; but if you want to see what you are made of go to the madhouse, into its very vilest and most appalling quarter, where no wise word is spoken, where no noble look ever illumines or elevates the human face, where no prayer to heaven is ever spoken, where there is violence extreme, cruelty only kept from its proper issues and outcomes by iron and granite, and all the forces of the most watchful civilisation. Pick out the worst specimen of that madness, and see yourself in those eyes of fire and those cheeks livid with excitement, and in that whole frame shaken and torn by passions that cannot be controlled. I am afraid you have been too daintily reared: I tremble lest you are the victims of your own respectability. There is no respectability in the sight of God. We see the contrast between the madman and the philosopher. That contrast is nothing as compared with the contrast between the sinner and what God meant him to be when he made him a man, and that appalling contrast is for ever in the sight of him that made us.

When I take this view of human nature, which is the only fundamental and profound view, all others being shams and tricks of an inventive immorality, I see our need of Christ. The doctor can heal my skin, the nurse can cool my brow, a friend may be able to lull me to momentary sleep in which I may forget my troubles; but when it comes to the point of agony, and I see the heart as it really is, and feel it as if it were on fire of hell, then I know that no water can quench it, but only blood can answer the great distress. You may whiten the sepulchre, you may make the outside of the cup and platter clean, you may look good to the eye that rests upon the skin, but to the eye that reads the inner life and sees every filament of your heart—to that eye we are wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.

The physiologist tells me that in every two square inches of the human brain there are two hundred million of fibres, each of which can receive a mental impression. I am lost in these astronomical figures. A hundred million of fibres in one square inch of the human brain! No theologian told me that, but the physiologist, a man whom everybody is ready to believe. That these should be kept for one hour is surely the supreme miracle of heaven. That these should be wrong and think amiss, and move the whole life in a forbidden direction, what is it but a tragedy that might make all heaven rain oceans of tears? It is a terrible thing to live, it is an appalling thing to be a man; there is but a step between the best of us and madness—yea, they who make psychology a study tell us that thin is the veil that separates genius from insanity.

There are people who would rather have devils in the land than have Jesus Christ. The whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. The devils have to ask their places at Christ's hand: their power of trespass is great, but it never impairs the divine dominion over them. "Do not drive us out of the country, suffer us to go into the swine, tell us where we have to be;" and he says, "Back." He orders them behind: like hounds that are afraid of his voice they make way for him. No man had passed that way before; when the Son of man passes that way he clears a space for himself. You have seen "Christ leaving the Prætorium"? The dominant idea of that grand picture to me is that as he comes down the steps the whole space enlarges to let him through—nothing comes within touch of him. Somehow the great painter has thrown back the space and given him room enough to show the King in.

Now that his great conquest is completed the people who had lost their swine came to him and besought him that he would depart out of their coasts. It was not impiety; it was a great fear. There are some people who can only live in the commonplace; who hide themselves in the cellar when it thunders and lightens. They could do with a great excitement in the neighbourhood if it were far enough off, somewhere among the tombs, with a noise now and then caught in the wind that made them get closer together; but the great fear that came into their hearts when Jesus came was too much for them, their commonplace was rudely shaken, and they could not live in the excitement of such a presence. It is one of two things with this Christ when he comes into a place: it is deadly fear or infinite rejoicing: he is a savour of death unto death, or of life unto life. He never comes in merely as a respectable citizen a few inches higher than his neighbours: when he comes the land cowers in great fear or lifts itself up in jubilant delight and religious rapture. Do not believe in your Christianity if your hearts are cold. Christianity is nothing if it be not the supreme passion of life. If Christianity does not put everything else down and set its regal foot upon them, you have only entered into the letter, you have not come under the inspiration and blessed dominion of its spirit.

Are there not those who beseech Jesus Christ to depart out of their coasts because of the effect of high religious conviction and noble Christian sentiment? Are there not persons who put trade above man? What is a man compared to a good balance-sheet? What does it matter what becomes of the man if the master is all right? What do I care what becomes of my servant if I am happy? Of what concern is it to me what becomes of the weak so long as I am strong? There are cases which come before me as a public man which cannot come before you in your strictly private capacity, which make me weep with sadness, and I blame some of you for some cases of oppression and distress which disfigure and debase our civilisation: I include myself in the waiting curse. That women should be sitting and making twelve of your carpet bags for eighteenpence, that women should be standing day by day behind the counter till their limbs swell and blacken and they can stand no longer, that women should be made to decorate your apparel at wages which will not give them one single hour of relaxation or wholesome country air—what is this but preferring devils to Christ? I do not know where the wrong is, altogether: it is not a wrong you can lay your fingers upon and throttle, it is a widespread wrong, and nobody is responsible. Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider? When he maketh inquisition for blood will he not identify this and that man and yonder fine lady and demand the price? It is not an easy question; there are faults on many sides, and probably the whole fault cannot be accumulated and set down at any one man's door. Therefore I would speak with forbearance as to the direct application of these doctrines in particular instances, but do not let us run away from the solemn fact that there are people in the world who would set trade above man.

There are those who calculate the expense of social regeneration, there are journals that calculate how much the missionary societies have expended, how many conversions they can trace, and they have divided the one set of figures by the other. What can you expect from such men? Incapable of religious enthusiasm, they are incapable of social justice. There are those who would ask how many swine there were and how many men were cured, and they would divide the one set of figures by the other, and talk about the statistical result. I hold that if one soul can be converted in this house, it was worth building the place for, if it should be burnt down today. We should work for men; our whole passion should be human; if one poor little child could say to me, "Till your church was built I never knew Christ: having come to it I see him now to be fairest among ten "thousand and altogether lovely, and I give myself right to him, if he will take so unworthy a thing"—if that could be the result of this ministry, it was worth all the trouble and all the money, ten thousand times ten thousand over and over again, and multiplied by the number of all the stars of heaven. Let us take this view of our work. It is something to enliven a human heart, to lighten one human burden, to dry one human tear. If I could have the joy of thinking that this had been done by any exposition of this narrative, whatever might be set upon the other side would be less than the small dust of the balance.

The people besought Christ that he would depart out of their coasts. They accorded him a negative treatment: they did not violently thrust him out, they courteously besought him that he would go away. I have more hope of those who violently treat him than of those who politely decline to have anything to do with him. You are sitting there today saying of yourself, "I have never made any profession of religion." The greater your shame. You have besought Jesus to depart out of your coasts: you have no high feeling against him, you never profaned his name by vulgar desecration; you attend a religious place of worship, but you make no profession of Jesus Christ's name. You, on the other hand, say that you leave all religious questions alone. You have besought Jesus that he would depart out of your coasts intellectual, speculative, imaginative, practical, ideal. He is not within your coasts at all—you have besought him to go away.

Read the next verse in the next chapter. "And he entered into a ship and passed over." He may go then? Truly. We can get rid of him? Yes, yes. He will not be an eternal torment? No. He will not always strive with me—I can shake him off? Yes, you can—will you? I can banish him? Yes, yes—you can stab him to the heart, you can spit upon him, you can smite him on the head, you can crucify him, you can get rid of him—but if you do get rid of him do not come at last and beg to be admitted into the heart that you have wounded. Be consistent throughout. Will you get rid of him? Come, say, "My Lord, my God, cast the devils out of me, make me a sanctuary, a living temple—abide with me." That is the better course. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.

Come into our house, Jesus, and dine there, and sup there, and stop the night there, all the night, the life-night, till the day dawn and the shadows flee away.