Religious Liberty & Politically Correct Tyranny

Posted on July 2, 2021 by The Editor

2 Corinthians 3:17; Judges 21:25

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I think worldly men ought to be told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them—the influence of religion won them their liberties.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): We have reason to be thankful for our religious liberty, to the good providence of God—We breathe the air of civil liberty.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): There is also another kind of “liberty,” when people obey neither the laws of God nor the laws of men, but do as they please. This carnal liberty the people want in our day.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): It opens the door for every form of licentiousness.

PHILIP MAURO (1859-1952): We have, in the days of the Judges, the only democratic period of the history of Israel. Therefore, while those who believe God and look to His Word for their light and guidance in this dark world will study the period of the Judges mainly for the spiritual lessons to be learned, it would be the part of wisdom for those who are shaping—or trying to shape, at least, the political destinies of the world at this critical hour, to learn from that book what conditions must inevitably develop in any society where there is no king, and where every man claims liberty to do “that which is right in his own eyes.”

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): In reading their history, we may peruse our own.

C. H. SPURGEON: I have heard very stupid people say, “Well, I do not care to read the historical parts of Scripture.” Beloved friends, you do not know what you are talking about when you say so.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): A man who has no respect for history is a fool, and he will soon discover that, when he finds himself repeating the errors of those who have gone before him—“As they were in the days of Noah,” Christ says, “even so they shall be in the days of the Son of Man,” Luke 17:26. “As they were in Sodom,” He says, “even so they shall be.” That’s our Lord’s view of history.

PHILIP MAURO: According to man’s most cherished notions, the change from the autocracy of Moses and Joshua to the democratic era of the Judges was a great advance, and it should have introduced a period of unparalleled prosperity and progress in all departments of human activity. No conditions could be imagined more favourable to the development of all the possibilities of what is called “self-government.” The people of Israel had a splendid start, a land abounding in the richest products of the earth, and the incomparable advantage of good laws.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): But although they lived in God’s good land, yet because [they lived] not by God’s good laws, nor had any supreme magistrate, therefore all was out of order.

PHILIP MAURO: The days of the Judges were days of increasing moral corruption and violence.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Sodomites were also in the land, Judges 19:22,23.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): “They do what is right in their own eyes,” without inquiring whether it be right in God’s sight or not.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674): Licence they mean when they cry Liberty.

WILLIAM PRINGLE (1790-1858): Licentious freedom.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): They who are slaves to their lusts are the worst of slaves.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: From the point of view of morality, the problem is not so much immorality but the total absence of morality—amorality, a tendency to doubt all types of moral standards. Indeed, some would go so far as to say that all those who acknowledge moral standards live an incomplete life and do an injustice to their personalities. These people claim that what was once called sin is nothing but self-expression. The old foundations are being shaken, and the old boundaries and hedges are being swept away. This has become an amoral or a non-moral society. The very category of morality is not recognized at all, and men and women are virtually in the position of saying ‘evil be thou my good.’

CHARLES SIMEON: The language of their hearts is, “Who is Lord over us?”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): When wickedness abounds, and goes barefaced, under the protection and countenance of those in authority―then “the wicked walk on every side,” Psalms 12:8; they are neither afraid nor ashamed to discover themselves; they declare their sin as Sodom and there is none to check or control them.

JOHN TRAPP: Now may they do what they will―for no man must find fault.

C. H. SPURGEON: Deep is our shame when we know that our judges are not clear in this matter, but social purity has been put to the blush by magistrates of no mean degree.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): Nay, we glory in this as “progress,” “culture,” and “enlightenment,” as freedom from the bigotry of other centuries and the narrowness of our half-enlightened ancestors.

C. H. SPURGEON: Sodomites cannot have much love for righteous men.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Innate corruption always carries with it a contempt for religion, and a spirit of licentiousness.

JOHN NEWTON: The religion of the Gospel was, perhaps, never more despised and hated than at present.

JOHN CALVIN: “Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time,” Amos 5:13. When therefore Amos says, that the time would be evil, he means, that such audacity would prevail, that all liberty would be denied to wise men. They would then be forced to be silent, for they could effect nothing by speaking, nay, they would have no freedom of speech allowed them: and though they attempted to discharge their office, yet tyrannical violence would instantly impose silence on them. Similar was the case with Lot―he was constrained, I have no doubt, to be silent after having often used free reproofs; nay, he doubtless exposed himself to many dangers by his attempts to reprove the Sodomites. Such seems to me to be the meaning of the Prophet, when he says, that the prudent would be silent, because these tyrants would impose silence on all teachers—visiting them with some punishment, or loading them with reproaches, or treating them with ridicule as persons worthy of contempt.

C. H. SPURGEON: What is this but trampling upon liberty of conscience with arrogant tyranny?

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Wicked men ever study to dress up religion and its professors in the most forbidding colours, while every glaring vice is palliated with some soft name, or pleaded for as commendable.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men,” Acts 5:29. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,” Acts 4:20. Their grand words are the Magna Charta of the right of every sincere conviction to free speech.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The very genius of Christianity is a spirit of freedom, and all its precepts are opposed to tyranny.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): No man has any right to enforce his opinions upon his fellow. This is plain enough and we have to bless God for the inestimable privilege of civil and religious liberty.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): The necessity of liberty for the Gospel, and of the Gospel for liberty, is now acknowledged by all thoughtful men.

C. H. SPURGEON: And if we are ever to maintain our liberty—as God grant we may—it shall be kept by religious liberty—by religion!

 

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The Severity of a Merciful God

Posted on June 25, 2021 by The Editor

Deuteronomy 7:1,2; Deuteronomy 20:16-18

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them…

In the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  They must “show them no mercy.” Bloody work is here appointed them, and yet it is God’s work, and good work, and in its time and place needful, acceptable, and honourable.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): How does God, the Father of mercies, give His sanction to indiscriminate bloodshed?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that He might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses,” Joshua 11:18-20. What could be plainer than this? Here was a large number of Canaanites whose hearts the Lord hardened, whom He had purposed to utterly destroy, to whom He showed “no favour.” Why did not Jehovah command Israel to teach the Canaanites His laws and instruct them concerning sacrifices to the true God? Plainly, because He had marked them out for destruction.

JOHN CALVIN: When God had destined the land for His people, He was at liberty utterly to destroy the former inhabitants, so that its possession might be free for them. We must then go further, and say that He desired the just demonstration of His vengeance to appear upon these nations. Four hundred years before He had justly punished their many sins, yet He had suspended His sentence and patiently borne with them, if haply they might repent. That sentence is well known, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full,” Genesis 15:16. After God showed His mercy for four centuries, and this clemency had increased their audacity and madness, so that they had not ceased to provoke His wrath, surely it was no act of cruelty to compensate for the delay by the grievousness of the punishment.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In God’s dealings with the nations, in connection with His people Israel, we are reminded of the opening words of Psalm 101, “I will sing of mercy and of judgment.” We see the display of mercy to His people, in pursuance of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and we see also the execution of His judgment upon the nations, in consequence of their evil ways. In the former, we see divine sovereignty; in the latter, divine justice; in both, divine glory shines out.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Behold therefore the goodness, and severity of God,” Romans 11:22. The consideration of both the grace and kindness of God to some, and His severity or strict justice towards others, is very proper to abate pride, vain glory, and haughtiness of spirit; and to engage to humility, fear, care, and caution.

JOHN CALVIN: Why should we wonder that God in His character of Judge exercised extreme severity?

C. H. MACKINTOSH: We have the deluge in the days of Noah, when the whole earth, with all its inhabitants, with the exception of eight persons, was destroyed by an act of divine government. Then we have in the days of Lot, the cities of the plain, with all their men, women and children consigned to utter destruction, overthrown by the hand of Almighty God.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Is not this total destruction of the enemies of the church, a lively emblem of the everlasting overthrow of the ungodly in the day of God’s vengeance? See 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.

A. W. PINK: “The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” Proverbs 16:4. That the Lord made all, perhaps every reader will allow: that He made all “for Himself” is not so widely believed. That God made us, not for our own sakes, but for Himself; not for our own happiness, but for His glory, is nevertheless repeatedly affirmed in Scripture—see Revelation 4:11. But Proverbs 16:4 goes even farther: it expressly declares that the Lord made the wicked for the Day of Evil: that it was His design in giving them being. But why? God has made the wicked that, at the end, He may demonstrate His power by showing what an easy matter it is for Him to subdue the stoutest rebel and to overthrow His mightiest enemy.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: The seven nations of Canaan, men, women, and children, were given over into the hands of Israel, for unsparing judgment; nothing that breathed was to be left alive. Now, the question is, Are we competent to understand these ways of God in government? Is it any part of our business to sit in judgment upon them?

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Our conceptions of right are not the absolute measure of the divine acts.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Can we—are we called upon, to account for the tremendous fact of helpless babes involved in the judgment of their guilty parents?

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): For this action I account simply on the principle that God, the Author and Supporter of life, has a right to dispose of it when and how He thinks proper, Romans 9:21-23; and the Judge of all the earth can do nothing but what is right, Genesis 18:25.

CHRISTOPHER NESS (1621-1705): Infants are not innocents, being born with original sin—otherwise infants would not die, for “death is the wages of sin,” Romans 6:23

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Some persons, influenced by a morbid feeling and false sentimentality, rather than by an enlightened judgment, find difficulty in the directions given to Israel in reference to the Canaanites. It seems to them inconsistent with a benevolent Being to command His People to smite their fellow-creatures, and to show them no mercy. They cannot understand how a merciful God could commission His people to slay women and children with the edge of the sword. It is very plain that such persons could not adopt the language of Revelation 15:3,4. They are not prepared to say, “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of nations.*” They cannot justify God in all His ways; nay, they are actually sitting in judgment upon Him. They presume to measure the actings of divine government by the standard of their own shallow thoughts. In short, they measure God by themselves. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” This, we may rest assured, is the only true way in which to meet such questions. If man is to sit in judgment upon the actings of God in government—if man can take upon himself to decide as to what is, and what is not worthy of God to do, then, verily, we have lost the true sense of God altogether.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Depend upon it, God will never do an unjust thing.

JOHN CALVIN: Away, then, with all temerity, whereby we would presumptuously restrict God’s power to the puny measure of our reason.

C. H. SPURGEON: “The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works,” Psalm 145:17. Let His doings be what they may, they are in every case righteous and holy. This is the confession of the godly who follow His ways, and of the gracious who study His works.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Is the reader troubled with difficulties on this subject? If so, we should much like to quote a very fine passage which may help him. “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever…To him that smote Egypt in their first-born; for his mercy endureth for ever.” Psalm 136:1,10.

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*Editor’s Note: In the King James Bible, the phrase of Revelation 15:3 is translated “thou King of Saints,” but the margin note more accurately translates it as “nations” instead of “saints.”

 

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The Goodness of Our Heavenly Father

Posted on June 18, 2021 by The Editor

John 20:17—John 16:27; Matthew 7:11

Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God…For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Christ declares that we have this in common with Himself, that He who is His God and His Father is also our God and our Father. “I ascend,” says He, “to my Father, who is also your Father.”

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): We are so prone to fix our admiring and adoring gaze on the incarnate Son, so prone to attach our exclusive affections to Him, Who for us “loved not his life unto the death,” and thus come short of the stupendous and animating truth that all the love, grace, and wisdom that are prominent and striking in salvation have their fountain head in the heart of God the Father! May we not trace the holding of this bias to the hard and injurious thoughts of the Father’s character and those crude and gloomy interpretations of His government which so many of us bear towards Him?

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He knows what little understanding we have of Him.

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): Our heavenly Father “knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust,” Psalm 103:14; and He pities us under all our sorrows and trials.

JOHN TRAPP: So great is the goodness of God to His people, that He dealeth with us as with His little children. “I taught Ephraim also to go,” Hosea 11:3. A child he was, and like a child I dealt with him, teaching him how to set his feet—pedare, to foot it, as nurses do their little ones: “He will keep the feet of His saints,” 1 Samuel 2:9; He “guideth their feet in the way of peace,” Luke 1:79. And He takes us up in His own arms, when we come to a foul or rough place, helping us over the quagmires of crosses, and the difficulties of duties.

THOMAS SCOTT: But He will also rebuke and correct us for our sins.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our heavenly Father is no Eli: He will not suffer His children to sin without rebuke, His love is too intense for that…When God sees men doing wrong, He often permits the wicked to go unpunished in this life; but as for His own people, it is written, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities,” Amos 3:2. Our heavenly Father’s hand still holds the rod, and uses it when necessary; but it is in love that He corrects us. Your father loves you quite as much when he treats you roughly as when he treats you kindly. There is often more love in an angry father’s heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind. Give me a father that is angry with my sins and that seeks to bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have got a Father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when He is angry as when He smiles upon you.

THOMAS SCOTT: He will indeed thwart our wayward inclinations, and will not indulge us to our hurt.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Our children, through their want of knowledge and judgment to discern between things that are good or evil for their bodies, may ask of us, and cry unto us, for things that are hurtful, yet we, who know that they would not ask for them if they had the use of their reason, and well knew their noxious quality, considering their circumstances, will not give them to them. So our heavenly Father, though He heareth us crying for such things as He knoweth, considering our circumstances, would be mischievous and hurtful to us, yet He will not give us any thing of that nature.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Earthly fathers know but what are earthly good things, and of them they give to their children such things as they judge best; but God judges as a heavenly Father, and so of what is best as in relation to heaven, and thy coming thither, and His thoughts are herein as far above earthly fathers as heaven is above earth. He hath also declared, that all things shall work together for thy good; but what particular dispensation shall work for good to thee, and how, this He says not, nor dost thou know. It may be the contrary to what thou desirest shall work for good.

WILLIAM GOUGE (1575-1653): If God speaks to them as to children, they have good ground to fly to God as to a Father and in all time of need to ask and seek of Him all needful blessings; yea, and in faith to depend on Him for the same, Matthew 6:31,32. What useful things shall they want? What hurtful thing need such to fear? If God deal with us as with children, He will provide for them every good thing; He will protect them from every hurtful thing, He will hear their prayers, He will accept their services, He will bear with their infirmities, He will support them under all their burdens, and assist them against all their assaults.

THOMAS SCOTT: And He cannot want power to relieve His afflicted children.

WILLIAM GOUGE: Though, through their own weakness, or the violence of some temptation, should they be drawn from Him, yet will He be ready to meet them in the midway of their turning to Him—instance the mind of the father of the prodigal towards his son, Luke 15:20.

JOHN TRAPP: Whereas we fall seven times a day, and in many things fail all; He taketh us up after that we have caught a knock, and cherisheth us in His bosom.

JOHANN TARNOW (1586-1629): We are supported, admonished, taught, led, guided, protected, assembled, forgiven, carried, and comforted.

THOMAS GOODWIN: If, therefore, we at any time think we may have any degree of confidence upon the mercies and pities that are in creatures, even in the nearest and dearest relation to us, as fathers—of whom Christ says, “Though evil, they yet know how to give good things to their children,” and so likewise to pity them, then how much more may we be encouraged to rely on God, who is an heavenly Father to us, the only true and loving Father, as He only is the true and living God, and is withal styled “the Father of mercies,” 2 Corinthians 1:3.

C. H. SPURGEON: Essentially, He is goodness itself—He is good beyond all others; indeed, He alone is good in the highest sense; He is the source of good, the good of all good, the sustainer of good, the perfecter of good, and the rewarder of good. For this He deserves the constant gratitude of His people. “For He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever.” When God calls Himself our Father, He means it. There are some fathers in this world, who do not act at all as fathers should—shame upon them! But that will never be said of our Heavenly Father. He is a true Father and He has a heart of compassion towards His children.

JOHN CALVIN: It is, unquestionably, an invaluable blessing, that believers can safely and firmly believe, that He who is the God of Christ is their God, and that He who is the Father of Christ is their Father. And certainly we ought to imitate the goodness of our heavenly Father.

 

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Matthew Henry’s Commentary

Posted on June 11, 2021 by The Editor

Ephesians 4:8,11,12; 1 Peter 4:10,11

When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men…And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Being fully persuaded of these things, I conclude that whatever help is offered to good Christians in searching the scriptures is real service done to the glory of God, and to the interests of His kingdom; it is this that hath drawn me into this undertaking, which I have gone about in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, lest I should be found exercising myself in things too high for me, and so laudable an undertaking should suffer damage by an unskillful management.

WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER (1808-1884): Matthew Henry was the Prince of Commentators.

ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): Matthew Henry’s Commentary should be in every household in the land.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is the poor man’s commentary, the old Christian’s companion, suitable to everybody, instructive to all.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): He is allowed by all competent judges, to have been a person of strong understanding, of various learning, of solid piety, and much experience in the ways of God. And his exposition is generally clear and intelligible, the thoughts being expressed in plain words: It is also found agreeable to the tenor of Scripture, and to the analogy of faith. It is frequently full, giving a sufficient explication of the passages which require explaining. It is in many parts deep, penetrating farther into the inspired writings than most other comments do. It does not entertain us with vain speculations, but is practical throughout: and usually spiritual too, teaching us how to worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth.

C. H. SPURGEON: He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy. You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, superabundant in reflections. He delights in apposition and alliteration; he is usually plain, quaint, and full of pith; he sees right through a text directly…He is deeply spiritual, heavenly, and profitable; finding good matter in every text, and from all, deducing most practical and judicious lessons.

MATTHEW HENRY: I desire that I may be read with a candid, and not a critical eye. I pretend not to gratify the curious; the summit of my ambition is to assist those who are truly serious, in searching the Scriptures daily. I am sure the work is designed, and hope it is calculated, to promote piety towards God and charity towards our brethren, and that there is not only something in it which may edify, but nothing which may justly offend any good Christian.

RICHARD CECIL (1748-1810): The man who labours to please his neighbour for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different would things be if this spirit prevailed!

MATTHEW HENRY: If any desire to know how so mean and obscure a person as I am, who in learning, judgment, felicity of expression, and in all advantages for such service, am less than the least of all my Master’s servants, came to venture upon so great a work, I can give no other account of it than this: It has long been my practice, in what little time I had to spare in my study from constant preparations for the pulpit, to spend it in drawing up expositions upon some parts of the New Testament, not so much for my own use as purely for my entertainment; because I knew not how to employ my thoughts and time more to my satisfactions. “Every man that studies hath some beloved study, which is his delight above any other;” and this is mine. It is that learning which it was my happiness from a child to be trained up in by my ever honoured father, whose memory must always be very dear and precious to me. He often reminded me, that a good textuary [one well informed in the Bible] is a good divine; and that I should read other books with this in my eye, that I might be better able to understand and apply the Scripture.

C. H. SPURGEON: Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through once at least—you will acquire a vast store of sermons if you read with your notebook close at hand; and as for thoughts, they will swarm around you like twittering swallows around an old gable towards the close of autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter you have just been reading, your people will wonder at the novelty of your remarks and the depth of your thoughts, and then you may tell them what a treasure Henry is. William Jay’s sermons bear indubitable evidence of his having studied Matthew Henry almost daily. Many of the quaint things in Jay’s sermons are either directly traceable to Matthew Henry or to his familiarity with that writer. I have thought that the style of Jay was founded upon Matthew Henry: Matthew Henry is Jay writing, Jay is Matthew Henry preaching.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): How sweetly did my hours in private glide away in reading and praying over Matthew Henry’s Commentary upon the Scriptures! Whilst I am musing on and writing about it, the fire I then felt again kindles in my soul.*

MATTHEW HENRY: If any receive spiritual benefit by my poor endeavours, it will be a comfort to me, but let God have all the glory, and that free grace of His which has employed one utterly unworthy of such an honour, and enabled one thus far to go on in it who is utterly insufficient for such a service. Having obtained help of God, I continue hitherto in it, and humbly depend upon the same good hand of my God to carry me on in that which remains—one volume more, I hope, will include what is yet to done; and I will go on with it, as God shall enable me, with all convenient speed.

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Matthew Henry did not live to put a finishing hand to the exposition. He had made ample preparations for the completion of the work, but the providence of God, though mysterious, is always wise.**

C. H. SPURGEON: The latter part of his Commentary was completed by other hands. The writers were Evans, Brown, Mayo, Bays, Rosewell, Harriss, Atkinson, Smith, Tong, Wright, Merrell, Hill, Reynolds, and Billingsley, all ministers. They have executed their work exceedingly well, have worked in much of the matter which Henry had collected, and have done their best to follow his methods, but their combined production is far inferior to Matthew Henry himself, and any reader will soon detect the difference.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Good Matthew Henry said, as he was expiring, to his friends in the room, “You have heard and read the words of many dying men―and these are mine; I have found a life of communion with God, the happiest life in the world.”

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*Editor’s Note: During his lifetime, George Whitefield read through Matthew Henry’s Commentary four times, often on his knees, as he prayed over what he was reading.

**Editor’s Note: Matthew Henry began writing his Bible Commentary in 1704, and began publishing it in 1710. By Henry’s death in 1714, he had completed Genesis to Acts. Working from Henry’s own notes, his minister friends completed Romans to Revelation.

 

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The Promise of God’s Great Covenant Oath

Posted on June 4, 2021 by The Editor

2 Corinthians 1:20; Psalm 89:3,4; Psalm 89:28-36

All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.

My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Why did God not swear by His truth, His wisdom, or by His Power? He was about to proclaim a great truth to the house of David, and, intending to impart the greatest force, solemnity, and beauty to that truth, He swears by His “holiness.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  It appears that it was not a matter of small importance; it being certain that God would not interpose His holy name in reference to what was of no consequence. He affirms that He sware “by His holiness,” because a greater than Himself is not to be found, by whom He could swear.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): It is the beauty of the Divine Being Himself; not so much a separate attribute of His nature, as the perfection of all His attributes.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: It is as if He said, “Holiness is my most illustrious perfection, my grandest attribute; and by it I swear that I will make good my word, that I not lie unto David.” For as “men, verily swear by the greater,” Hebrews 6:16, so He swears by His holiness, His greatest perfection and highest glory.

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (1713-1778): Do you suppose that this was spoken to David, in his own person only? No, indeed; but to David as the antitype, figure, and forerunner of Jesus Christ…And they are the “sure mercies” of our spiritual David—Christ. “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David,” Isaiah 55:3.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Saints of the Most High who are standing in the region of doubt and are enshrouded by dark providences and are led to ask, “Will God make good the promise upon which He has caused my soul to rest?” should look much to this great truth: God has sworn by His holiness that He will not lie.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): In seasons of deep affliction, when, through unbelief, we are ready to think that God has forsaken and forgotten us, it is well to look back to God’s covenant engagements, whereon, as on a rock, we may stand firm amidst the tempest that surrounds us.

THOMAS LYE (1621-1684):  When our heavenly Father is forced to put forth His anger, He then makes use of a father’s rod, not an executioner’s axe. He will neither break His children’s bones, nor His own covenant. He lashes in love, in measure, in pity and compassion.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod.” Not with the sword, not with death and destruction; but still with a smarting, tingling, painful rod. Saints must smart if they sin, and God will see to that. He hates sin too much not to visit it, and He loves His saints too well not to chasten them.

WOLFGANG MUSCULUS (1497-1563): He does not say, I will visit “them” with the rod; but, I will visit “their transgression” with the rod. We ought to think perpetually, what it is that the rod of God visits in us, that we may confess our transgressions, and amend our lives.

JEAN DAILLÉ (1594-1670): God here says two things—first, that He will chastise them; Next, that He will not, on that account, cast them out of His covenant. “Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.”

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): What a blessed “nevertheless” this is, and how sweetly doth it come in here, to give relief to a poor sin-beaten, tempted, and fallen soul! Though poor and wretched, and wanderers from the Lord, as the best of Christ’s children are in themselves, yet in Jesus are they still viewed—and in Him, the Beloved, they are accepted. God the Father hath an eye to His covenant engagements, to His word, to His oath, to His own free everlasting love, and to the ransom which He hath received for their redemption…There is everlasting efficacy, everlasting worth and virtue in the blood of the Lamb; and His blood and righteousness plead more for thee than all thy infirmities cry against thee. Oh, precious Jesus! Oh, gracious God and Father in Christ!

JEAN DAILLÉ: The heavenly Father loves the blood and the marks of His Christ which He sees upon them, and the remains of faith and godliness which are preserved hidden in the depth of their heart; this is why He will not cast them off.

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY: “His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” Therefore, the promise imports that Christ shall reign, not simply as a person in the Godhead (which He ever did, ever will, and ever must); but relatively, as a mediator, and in His office-character as the deliverer and king of Zion. Hence it follows, that His people cannot be lost.

OLIVER CROMWELL (1599-1658): God is bound in faithfulness to Christ, and in Him, to us. The Covenant is without us; a transaction between God and Christ. Look up to it. God engageth in it to pardon us; to write His law in our heart, to plant His fear so that we shall never depart from Him. We, under all our sins and infirmities, can daily offer a perfect Christ; thus we have peace and safety, and an apprehension of love, from a Father in Covenant—Who cannot deny Himself. And truly in this is all my salvation; and this helps me to bear my great burdens.

JOHN CALVIN: It is a token of singular loving-kindness for Him, upon seeing us prone to distrust, to provide a remedy for it so compassionately. We have, therefore, so much the less excuse if we do not embrace, with true and unwavering faith, His promise which is so strongly ratified, since in His deep interest about our salvation, He does not withhold His oath, that we may yield entire credence to His Word. If we do not reckon His simple promise sufficient, He adds His oath, as it were, for a pledge—the oath is irrevocable, and that therefore we have not the least reason to be apprehensive of any inconstancy.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): And there needs no second oath, the one already made is of endless obligation.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: He has bound Himself by this solemn oath to make good to the letter His very precious promise.—You have the warrant and the encouragement to trust in God, to confide in His Word, and to resign yourself and all your interests into His Fatherly, faithful, though chastening hands.

WILLIAM GREENHILL (1591-1677): Man’s faith may fail him some; but God’s faithfulness never fails him: God will not suffer His faithfulness to fail.

JOHN STEVENSON (1798-1858): Who dares deny that the promise of the living God is an absolute security?

HUDSON TAYLOR (1832-1905): He means just what He says, and will do all that He has promised.

ROBERT HAWKER: Think of these things; give thyself wholly to the meditation of them.

 

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The Cure for the World’s Deadliest Virus

Posted on May 28, 2021 by The Editor

Psalm 51:1-5

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The expression intimates that we are cherished in sin from the first moment that we are in the womb.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): I believe David speaks here of what is commonly called original sin; the propensity to evil which every man brings into the world with him—The Hebrew word translated “shapen,’ means more properly, I was “brought forth” from the womb; and the word translated “conceive” signifies “made me warm,” alluding to the process of the formation of the fetus in the uterus—the formative heat which is necessary to develop the parts of all embryos; to incubate the ova in the female, after having been impregnated by the male; and to bring the whole into such a state of maturity and perfection as to render it capable of subsisting and growing. “As my parts were developed in the womb, the sinful principle diffused itself through the whole, so that body and mind grew up in a state of corruption and moral imperfection.”

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Nor do I see how it could be otherwise, when she first cherished him in her womb. I shall not easily be persuaded to think, that parents, who are sinners themselves will be very likely to produce children without transmitting to them those corruptions of nature with which they themselves are infected—“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one,” Job 14:4.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Man’s very nature is corrupted…Thus it is clear that when Christ declared, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” John 3:6, He signified that which is propagated by fallen man is depraved, that whatever comes into this world by ordinary generation is carnal and corrupt, causing the heart itself to be deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” Jeremiah 17:9.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): That child which has just experienced the first birth has been made partaker of “corruptible seed.” The depravity of his parent lies sleeping within him. Could he speak, he might say so—he receives the evil virus which was first infused into us by the Fall—the virus of evil is in him.

CHRISTOPHER NESS (1621-1705): Infants are not innocents, being born with original sin— otherwise infants would not die, for “death is the wages of sin,” Romans 6:23; and the reign of death is procured by the reign of sin, which hath reigned over all mankind except Christ. All are sinners, infected with the guilt and filth of sin.

RICHARD CAPEL (1586-1656): Hence no sooner do we speak, but we lie. “The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies,” Psalm 58:3. As we are in the body, subject to all diseases, but yet, some to one sickness rather than to another: so in the soul, all are apt enough to all sin, and yet some rather more to one vice than to another—but all are much inclined to lying.

A. W. PINK: No child has to be taught to lie—it comes naturally to him—he is born corrupt at the core of his being. This is the just entail of the Fall. Our first parents preferred the Devil’s lie to God’s Truth—and all of their descendants inherit the poisonous virus which then entered into them. By nature both writer, and reader, are liars.

JOHN CALVIN: Indeed, every sin should convince us of the general truth of the corruption of our nature.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): You see, the trouble with all mankind is not that they become sinners by sinning, but they sin because they are sinners. We are born in sin and are shapen in iniquity. The virus of sin is in our being, from the moment we draw our first breath. We readily disobey God and go from one sin to another because of the sinful nature with which we are born.

THOMAS COKE: And I should think that there is need of no other proof that we are all born in such a state, than our own experience, and the present condition of the world we live in.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): As united fires burn the fiercer, and the concentrated virus of many people thrown into the same room infected with the plague, renders the disease more malignant—so a sinful community grows in impiety, as every member joins his brother’s pollution to his own. Nothing is so contagious as bad morals!

H. A. IRONSIDE: We do not all sin in exactly the same way, but the Scriptures say that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23.

A. W. PINK: Precisely, what is the nature of human depravity?

C. H. SPURGEON: The virus of sin lies in its opposition to God—that it is sin against God.

A. W. PINK: This supplies the key to such passages as we have just quoted above in Psalm 51…Here, then, is the terrible nature of human depravity—that his heart is desperately wicked, that his mind is filled with enmity against God, that his will is antagonistic to Him, that he is altogether unconscious of the deadly virus of sin which has corrupted every part of his inner being, and which has completely unfitted him for any communion with the thrice Holy One.

C. H. SPURGEON: The sin that lies within us is not an accumulation of external defilement, but an inward, all-pervading corruption! The taint of secret and spiritual evil is in man’s natural life. Every pulse of his soul is disordered by it. The eggs of all crimes are within our being—the accursed virus, from whose deadly venom every foul design will come—is present in the soul. Not only a tendency to sin, but sin itself has taken possession of the soul, and blackened and polluted it through and through till there is not a fiber of the heart unstained with iniquity!

A. W. PINK: The criminal darkness and delusion which fill every soul in which sin reigns cannot be removed by any agent but God the Spirit—by His giving a new heart and enlightening the understanding to perceive the exceeding sinfulness of sin…Awakened souls were made to feel iniquity cleaving to them like a girdle, and inward corruption like a deadly virus poisoning their very nature, breaking out continually in unholy tempers, defiling all they did or attempted, and thus destroying all hope of justification or acceptance with God on the ground of personal conformity to His requirements. Alive to the truth of an ineffably holy and infinitely perfect God, they were also alive to painful misgivings and fears of guilt; and hence their confessions of sin, sobs of penitence, and cries for mercy.

C. H. SPURGEON: Beloved, if you would be cured of any sin, however spreading its infection, fly to Jesus’ wounds!—“With His stripes we are healed,” Isaiah 53:5. It is a universal medicine. There is no disease by which thy soul can be afflicted but an application of the bruises of your Lord will take out the deadly virus from your soul.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,” 1 John 1:7. Remember it is all sin—even yours. It can wash, it can pardon, it can justify even thee. Take it now, for cleansing and salvation.

 

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Pentecostal Fire

Posted on May 21, 2021 by The Editor

Psalm 29:7; Jeremiah 23:29; Acts 2:1-4

The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.

Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.” Pentecost is a suggestive commentary upon this verse.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Some refer this verse, in the figurative and mystical sense, to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai—but rather this may be applied to the cloven, or divided tongues of fire which sat upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, as an emblem of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit bestowed on them.

CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH (1807-1885): “The voice of Jehovah cutteth out flames of fire,” that is, “sendeth out divided flames of fire.” This is, as Theodoret* observed, very descriptive of the divine action at Pentecost, sending forth divided flames, in the tongues of fire which were divided off from one heavenly source or fountain of flame, and sat upon the heads of the apostles, and which filled them with the fire of holy zeal and love.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The sign given was fire, that John Baptist’s saying concerning Christ might be fulfilled, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” Luke 3:16—with the Holy Ghost, as with fire. They were now, in the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the memorial of the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; and as that was given in fire, and therefore is called a “fiery law,” Deuteronomy 33:2. The Word of God is like fire.

JOHN GILL: The legal part of it is as fire—like fire, it is quick and piercing, and penetrating into the hearts and consciences of men; and works wrath there, and raises a fearful expectation of fiery indignation; it threatens with everlasting fire; it sentences men to the fire of hell; and the righteous Judge, in the execution of it, will be a consuming fire to wicked men.

MATTHEW HENRY: Fire has different effects, according as the matter is on which it works; it hardens clay, but softens wax; it consumes the dross, but purifies the gold. So the Word of God is to some “a savour of life unto life, to others of death unto death,” 2 Corinthians 2:16. God appeals here to the consciences of those to whom the Word was sent: “Is not my word like fire?” And of the gospel Christ says, “I have come to send fire on the earth,” Luke 12:49.

JOHN GILL: The Gospel part of the Word is like fire, on account of the light the entrance of it gives to sinners; by which they see their own impurity, impotence, and the insufficiency of their own righteousness, and the way of life and salvation by Christ; and by the light of this fire saints are directed in their walk and conversation; and by it immoralities, errors, and superstition, are detected: also on account of the heat of it; it is the means of a vital heat to sinners, the savour of life to them; and is warming and comforting to saints, and causes their hearts to burn within them; it inflames them with love to God, Christ, and one another, and with zeal for truth and the interest of a Redeemer.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Let any one, that has ever noticed its effects, say, whether it is not “like fire,” which dissolves the hardest metal; and “like a hammer, which breaks in pieces.” Go to the populous city of Nineveh, and see all orders of men, from the greatest to the least, dissolved in tears at the preaching of one single prophet, Jonah 3:4-10; or look back to the day of Pentecost, when, by the preaching of Peter, three thousand persons, with their hands yet reeking with the Saviour’s blood, were converted to the Lord. Are not these instances sufficient to shew what wonders the Word of God is able to effect?

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): But however we understand the words, let us take heed lest we think, as some have thought and affirmed, that the sacred writings are quite sufficient of themselves to enlighten, convince, and convert the soul, and that there is no need of the Holy Spirit. Fire itself must be applied by an agent in order to produce its effects; and surely the hammer cannot break the rock in pieces, unless wielded by an able workman. And it is God’s Spirit alone that can thus apply it.

MATTHEW HENRY: From the Spirit we have the Word of God, and by Him, Christ would speak to the world. He gave the Spirit to the disciples, not only to endue them with knowledge, but to endue them with a power to publish and proclaim to the world what they knew; for “the dispensation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal,” 1 Corinthians 12:7.

JOHN GILL: It seems best of all, as before, to understand this of the voice of Christ in the Gospel, which cuts and hews down all the goodliness of men, and lays them to the ground, Hosea 6:5; and is of a dividing nature, and lays open all the secrets of the heart, Hebrews 4:12.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): And as even flames of fire, at the voice of God are divided, so the heart of a sinner is divided and separated, in that day when Jesus speaks to the conscience, from all its idols.

JOHN GILL: Like flames of fire, it has both light and heat in it; it is the means of enlightening men’s eyes to see their sad estate, and their need of Christ, and salvation by Him; and of warming their souls with its refreshing truths and promises, and of inflaming their love to God and Christ, and of setting their affections on things above, and of causing their hearts to burn within them—though it has a scorching and tormenting heat to wicked men, and fills them with burning malice and envy; and, through the corruption of human nature, is the occasion of contention and discord, for which reason Christ calls it fire—it is the occasion of dividing one friend from another, Luke 12:51-53.

C. H. SPURGEON: Note that the emblem was not only fire, but a tongue of fire, for God meant to have a speaking Church.

MATTHEW HENRY: These tongues were cloven, to signify that God would hereby divide unto all nations the knowledge of His grace. “We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God, ” Acts 2:11. It is probable that the apostles spoke of Christ, and redemption by Him, and the grace of the gospel; and these are indeed the great things of God.

C. H. SPURGEON: Babel’s curse was now removed—not by a reversing of God’s curse, for God’s curses and blessings are both like the laws of the Medes and Persians which never can be altered; men still spoke the tongues of confusion, but the apostles were able to speak to them all after receiving that miraculous gift of tongues.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In Genesis 11:6,7, divers tongues were given as a judgment upon man’s pride. In Acts 2:3, divers tongues were given in grace to meet man’s need. And in Revelation 7:9-12, the various tongues are all found united in one song of praise to God and to the Lamb.

___________________

*Editor’s Note: Theodoret was born in 393 AD, and was a theologian of the School of Antioch; he was the Bishop of Cyrrhus in Turkey, from 423 until his death in 457 AD.

 

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Heavenly Housing

Posted on May 14, 2021 by The Editor

John 14:1-3

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Our Saviour here intends the encouragement and comfort of His disciples, by assuring them, that in the place whereto He was going before them, there was ample room to receive them and everything to accommodate them in the most delightful manner.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): A hope of future happiness affords strong consolation under present trials. The children of God, if destitute of this, would be “of all men most miserable;” but this renders them incomparably more happy, even under the most afflictive dispensations, than the greatest fullness of earthly things could make them.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We have, secondly, in this passage, a very comfortable account of heaven, or the future abode of saints.

CHARLES SIMEON: We shall consider our Lord’s description of heaven. Our Lord thus describes it: “My Father’s house of many mansions.”

J. C. RYLE: Heaven is “a Father’s house.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): And His Father is our Father, to Whom He was now ascending; so that in the right of their elder brother, all true believers shall be welcome to that happiness, as to their home.

J. C. RYLE: This is one idea of heaven. It is, in a word, home: the home of Christ and Christians. This is a sweet and touching expression. Home, as we all know, is the place where we are generally loved for our own sakes, and not for our gifts or possessions; the place where we are loved to the end, never forgotten, and always welcome.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There are many mansions, but they are all in our Father’s house.

CHARLES SIMEON: Here seems to be an allusion to the temple at Jerusalem: God dwelt there in a more especial manner; around it were chambers for the priests and Levites. Thus in heaven God dwells, and displays His glory; there also are mansions where His redeemed people “see Him as He is.”

JEREMY BURROUGHS (1599-1647): Heaven would not be heaven without the presence of God.

J. C. RYLE: Heaven is a place where Christ Himself shall be present. He will not be content to dwell without His people—“Where I am, there ye shall be also.” We need not think that we shall be alone and neglected. Our Saviour—our elder Brother—our Redeemer, Who loved us and gave Himself for us, shall be in the midst of us forever. What we shall see, and whom we shall see in heaven, we cannot fully conceive yet, while we are in the body. But one thing is certain: we shall see Christ. Let us note that one of the simplest, plainest ideas of heaven is here. It is being “ever with the Lord.”

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Christ is the centre of attraction in heaven.

J. C. RYLE: Heaven is a place of “many mansions.”

MATTHEW HENRY: There are many mansions, for there are many sons to be brought to glory, and Christ exactly knows their number, nor will He be straitened for room by the coming of more company than He expects.

THOMAS COKE: The Greek word μοναι signifies “quiet and continued abodes,” and therefore seems happily expressed by our English word mansion, the etymology and import of which is just the same.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): “Mansions” means places of permanent abode. There is only one other occasion in this Gospel in which the word here translated “mansions” is employed, and it is this: “abode,” John 14:23.—“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

J. C. RYLE: Heaven is a place of lasting, permanent, and eternal dwellings. Here in the body we are in lodgings, tents, and tabernacles, and must submit to many changes. In heaven we shall be settled at last, and go out no more. “Here we have no continuing city,” Hebrews 13:14. Our house not made with hands shall never be taken down.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Noah’s ark was furnished with “rooms” or “nests,” Genesis 6:14. In every other passage in the Old Testament where that Hebrew word occurs, it is translated “nest.” We hesitate to press the spiritual signification here; yet, we have seen that the ark is such a striking and comprehensive type of our salvation in Christ we must believe that this detail has some meaning, whether we are able to discern it or no. The thought which is suggested to us is, that in Christ we have something more than a refuge, we have a resting place; we are like birds in their nests, the objects of Another’s loving care. Oh, is it that the “nests” in the ark look forward to the “many mansions” in the Father’s House? which our Lord has gone to prepare for us. It is rather curious that there is some uncertainty about the precise meaning of the Greek word here translated “mansions.” Weymouth renders it, “In My Father’s house are many resting places!”

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Mansions of love, peace, joy, and rest, which always remain.

J. C. RYLE: Chrysostom, Augustine, and several other ancient writers think the “many mansions” means the degrees of glory…That there are degrees of glory in heaven is undoubtedly true, but I do not think it is the truth of this text. The modern idea, that our Lord meant that heaven was a place for all sorts of creeds and religions, seems utterly unwarranted by the text. From the whole context He is evidently speaking for the special comfort of Christians. There will be room for all believers and room for all sorts, for little saints as well as great ones, for the weakest believer as well as for the strongest. The feeblest child of God need not fear there will be no place for him. None will be shut out but impenitent sinners and obstinate unbelievers.

JOHN MASON (1646-1694): In heaven there is the presence of all good and the absence of all evil.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Heaven is a garment of glory, that is only suited to him that is holy. God, who is truth itself, and cannot lie, hath said it, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord,” Hebrews 12:14. Mark that word “no man.”—without holiness here, no heaven hereafter. “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,” Revelation 21:27. God will at last shut the gates of glory against every person that is without heart purity.

J. C. RYLE: It does seem clear that heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise.

ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): If an unholy man were to get to heaven, he would feel like a hog in a flower garden.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): Heaven is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Our mansion is in God. So ask yourselves, Have you a place in that heavenly home?

JOHN MASON: How can we expect to live with God in heaven if we love not to live with Him on earth?

 

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A Mother’s Law

Posted on May 7, 2021 by The Editor

Proverbs 6:20-23

My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): The church began at first in a family, and was preserved by the godly care of par­ents in instructing their children and household in the truths of God, whereby the knowledge of God was transmitted from generation to generation; and though the church is not confined to such strait limits, yet every private family is as a little nursery to the church. If the nursery be not carefully planted, the orchard will soon decay.

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): Parents are, by the constitution of things, in an important sense mediators between God and their children for a time. What you give them they receive; what you tell them they believe. This is their nature. You should weigh well what law, and what practice you impress first upon their tender hearts. First ideas and habits are to them most important. These give direction to their course, and tone to their character through life.

WILLIAM GURNALL: Consider it hath ever been the saints’ practice to instruct and teach their children the way of God. David we find dropping instruction into his son Solomon: And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind,” 1 Chronicles, 28:9. Though a king, he did not put it off to his chaplains, but whetted it on him with his own lips. Neither was his queen Bathsheba forgetful of her duty, her gracious counsel is upon record, Proverbs 31:1-31; and that she may do it with the more seriousness and solemnity, we find her stirring up her motherly bowels, to let her son see she fetched her words deep, even from her heart: “What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?” Proverbs 31:2. Indeed that counsel is most like to go to the heart which comes from thence. Parents know not what impression such melting expressions of their love mingled with their instructions, leave with their children.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Who can estimate the worth of a Christian mother?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): What amazing affection does a mother feel toward her child which she cherishes in her bosom, suckles on her breast, and watches over with tender care, so that she passes sleepless nights, wears herself out by continued anxiety, and forgets herself!

WILLIAM ARNOT: A father’s commandment is the generic form, and is usually employed to signify parental authority; but here, in addition to the general formula, “the law of a mother” is specifically singled out.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The “law of thy mother” is mentioned to show that the same respect is to be had to a mother as to a father, the commandment and law of them being the same, and they standing in the same relation; which yet children are apt to make a difference in, and while they stand in awe of their father and his precepts, slight their mother and her directions, which ought not to be.

WILLIAM ARNOT: The first feature that arrests attention in this picture is, that effects are attributed to the law of a mother which only God’s law can produce. The inference is obvious and sure; it is assumed that the law which a mother instills is the Word of God dwelling richly in her own heart, and that she acts as a channel to convey that Word to the hearts of her children. The mother should be much with the children herself—so as to drink in what you contain; the only safety is that you be by grace led into Christ, so that what they get from you, shall be not what springs within you, but what flows into you from the Spring-head of holiness. To the children, it is the law of their mother, and therefore they receive it; but in substance it is the truth from Jesus, and to receive it is life. It is the law which converts the soul and makes wise the simple, poured through a mother’s lips into infants’ ears.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Babes receive impressions long before we are aware of the fact. During the first months of a child’s life, it learns more than we imagine. It soon learns the love of its mother and its own dependence—and, if the mother is wise, it learns the meaning of obedience and the necessity of yielding its will to a higher will. This may be the keynote of its whole future life. If it learns obedience and submission early, it may save a thousand tears from the child’s eyes and as many from the mother’s heart.

WILLIAM ARNOT: In the pliant time of childhood, character is molded chiefly by the mother. Many melting stories are told on earth, and I suppose many more in heaven, about the struggle carried on through youth and manhood, between present temptations and the memory of a mother’s law. Almighty grace delights to manifest itself in weakness; and oft the echo of a woman’s voice, rising up in the deep recesses of memory, has put a legion of devils to flight.

C. H. SPURGEON: From a very child Timothy had known the sacred writings, 2 Timothy 3:15. This expression is, no doubt, used to show that we cannot begin too early to imbue the minds of our children with Scriptural knowledge…The Holy Scripture may be learned by children as soon as they are capable of understanding anything. It is a very remarkable fact which I have heard asserted by many teachers, that children will learn to read out of the Bible better than from any other book—we make a mistake when we think that we must begin with something else and lead up to the Scriptures.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): The grand point in dealing with children is to insist upon obedience. It is of great importance. If this be carried out from the very first, it will save a world of trouble to both parents and children…Parents are to beware of provoking their children to wrath by arbitrary conduct, by exhibiting partiality towards one more than another, and by needless crossing of the will of the child merely to make a display of parental authority. The child should ever see that the parent has his real interest at heart and that true love is the motive spring of every act. But we must insist on the obedience of children, even in this age of independence—an age specially marked by disobedience to parents and by gross disrespect.

WILLIAM ARNOT: There is in the spiritual department something corresponding to the birth, when the parent travails again until the child be born unto the Lord; and there is here also, something corresponding to the nursing. Great must be the delight of a mother, herself renewed, when she becomes the channel through which the “milk of the Word” flows into her child, 1 Peter 2:2; more especially when she feels the child desiring that milk, and with appetite drawing it for the sustenance of a new life. Oh, woman, if it cannot be said, great is thy faith, even although it should be small as a grain of mustard seed, yet great is thy opportunity!

 

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Tax Time

Posted on April 30, 2021 by The Editor

Luke 21:25; Daniel 11:20; Matthew 22:17

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity…

Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of taxes.

What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “Distress” is now no longer confined to any one people but is international and earth-wide in its reach. The “distress” and suffering caused by the exorbitant cost of living when it is becoming more and more difficult to secure even the bare necessaries of life. The “distress” occasioned by increasing taxation and the accumulation of national debts which must prove intolerable burdens for future generations to bear.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): We often hear it said that there is nothing more certain than death and taxes. Taxes seem to be quite certain.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Our Saviour, when asked by the Jews whether it were right to pay tribute to Caesar, the Roman Emperor, replied, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Luke 20:25.

A. W. PINK: God requires us to render submission to human government: to be obedient to its laws, to pay the taxes it appoints, to cooperate in upholding its authority.

H. A. IRONSIDE: As they were about to scourge the apostle Paul, Acts 22:25, he stood on his right as a Roman citizen. I believe there is a lesson for us in that…Since it was right for Paul to claim Roman citizenship in order not to suffer scourging, then it was also incumbent on him to fulfill the responsibilities of that citizenship. And this is true of any citizen of any country in this world. In other words, if I am to have certain protection as a citizen, I owe it to my country to act accordingly when it comes to fulfilling my responsibilities—so, I am to be loyal to my government, pay my taxes…It would be unthinkable that one would be entitled to claim protection from a country if he did not loyally respond to the rightful demands of its government.

EDWARD PAYSON: The justice, and propriety of these commands, is obvious. There is an implied contract, or agreement between a government and its subjects, by which the subjects engage to give a portion of their property in exchange for the blessings of protection, security, and social order. So long as they enjoy these blessings, they receive a valuable consideration for the sums which they contribute for the taxes which they pay for the support of government.

H. A. IRONSIDE: They were willing to use Caesar’s money; they were ready to profit thereby. Then they should pay such taxes to Caesar as he demanded.

A. W. PINK: Evasion in paying taxes is another form of theft.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The general principles of reason would be quite sufficient to prove its criminality. But the New Testament has added the authority of revelation to the dictates of reason; and thus made it a sin against God, no less than a crime against society, to defraud the revenue. “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom,” is the authoritative language of Paul, Romans 13:7. This precept derives great force from the consideration that it was delivered at a time, and under a government, in which the taxes were not imposed by the people themselves—but by the arbitrary power of a despot, the Emperor Nero. Certainly if, under those circumstances, it was the duty of a Christian to pay the tribute money, any effort which we make to evade it, must be additionally criminal, since we are taxed by the will of our representatives.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It is true, we feel the pressure of the taxes as a burden…But all the functions of government also must of necessity be attended with expense, which the public of course must support. Hence there must be taxes of different kinds, some stated, as “tribute,” and some occasional, as “custom,” upon articles of commerce.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Tribute and custom,” These two words include all sorts of levies, taxes, subsidies.

EDWARD PAYSON: It is also evident, that the man who possesses a large share of wealth, derives greater advantages from the laws of the land, and from the protection afforded by civil authority, than the man who possesses little or nothing. Or, to place the subject in a little different light—civil governments insure to their subjects the protection of their rights and property from injustice and violence; of course, they have a right to demand a premium for this insurance. This premium ought to be greater or less, in proportion to the property thus insured; in other words, every man is bound in justice to contribute to the support of law and government, in proportion to his property.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): You would have found, probably, that Lot was reported to be the richest man in Sodom, and if they had to pay income tax, his would have been the highest.

EDWARD PAYSON: The man who by artifice or deceit avoids contributing in proportion to his property, is guilty of injustice and dishonesty. He not only defrauds the government, but does in effect defraud his fellow citizens; for if he contributes less than his proportion, others must contribute more to make up the deficiency.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Most men are more concerned how to save their money than their souls.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Waste is a worse tax than the income tax.

EDWARD PAYSON: It is vain to plead, as an excuse for these things, that government may waste, or misemploy the sums, which are put into their hands. Permit me, before I dismiss this part of my subject, to express a hope, that no one will endeavour to give these remarks a political bearing.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: The excuses usually made in justification of this practice, only serve to show how far even some good people may be imposed upon by the deceitfulness of the human heart. Every time we have made a false return on the schedule which regulates our measure of taxation; or that we have purchased knowingly a contraband article of food, beverage, or dress—we have violated the precepts of the New Testament, have brought the guilt of a complicated crime upon our conscience, and have subjected ourselves to the displeasure of God.

A. W. PINK: Christians especially should set an example as law-abiding citizens, rendering to Caesar that which he has a right to demand from his subjects. They are Divinely enjoined to “render tribute to whom tribute is due,” and thus to pay their taxes promptly and unmurmuringly.

JOHN GILL: Payment of taxes is not a mere matter of prudence, and done to avoid dangerous consequences, but it is, and ought to be, a case of conscience. “They are God’s ministers,” Romans 13:1-4. This is another reason why tribute should be paid them, not only to testify subjection to them, and keep conscience clear, but because they are called unto, and put into this high office by God; for promotion to such honour and high places comes not from east, west, north, or south; but is by the providence of God, who puts down, and sets up at pleasure; they are His vicegerents, they act under Him, are in His stead, and represent His majesty; and therefore, in some sort, what is done to them is done to Him.

 

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