Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Luke 12:17

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Luke 12:17. He thought within himself — Began to be puzzled in consequence of the increase of his goods. Riches, though ever so well acquired, produce nothing but vexation and embarrassment.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

63. Concern about safety and security (Luke 12:4-21)

Some teaching that Jesus gave to the twelve apostles is repeated in other parts of the Gospels. This may have been given to the followers of Jesus in general, particularly those instructions and warnings that concerned putting loyalty to Jesus before the desire for personal safety (Luke 12:4-12; see notes on Matthew 10:28-33 above).

On one occasion when a crowd was listening to such teaching from Jesus, there was one person who showed no understanding of what Jesus was saying. Contrary to Jesus’ teaching, personal safety and security were his main concern. He wanted Jesus to force his brother to give him a bigger share of an inheritance they had received. Jesus was not a rabbi who settled disputes about the law; he was a teacher from God and he was concerned about people’s greed (Luke 12:13-15). He therefore told the story of a rich but foolish farmer who thought only of his prosperity, security and comfort. Suddenly the farmer died. Not only was his wealth of no further use, but it had prevented him from obtaining true heavenly riches (Luke 12:16-21).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do, for I have not where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do; I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

First, let it be observed that when blessings were multiplied upon this man, it only served to increase his covetousness. "Experience teaches that earthly losses are remedies for covetousness, while increases in worldly goods only arouse and provoke it."Richard C. Trench, op. cit., p. 340.

Behold also the blight of covetousness, signaled by the use of the first person singular pronouns eleven times in these few times! Barclay had a priceless analogy: "Edith lived in a little world, bounded on the north, south, east, and west, by Edith."William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), p. 168.

I have not where to bestow my fruits … A very ancient commentator has this:

It is mischievous error with which he starts, "I have not where to bestow my fruits"; and he (Ambrose) has answered well, "Thou HAST barns, — the bosoms of the needy, — the houses of the widows — the mouths of orphans and of infants."Richard C. Trench, op. cit., p. 341.

This man forgot God, his eternal soul, and others. The parable enables us to know what he said to himself, "Soul, … take thine ease, etc." But the parable also enables us to know what God was saying at that very same time, "Fool, this night is thy soul required of thee."

Particularly, this man failed to recognize his status, not as the true owner of his goods, nor even of his soul, which were "his" only in the sense of his being temporarily a steward of them. The loan of an immortal spirit from God was about to be recalled, and the stewardship of his worldly possessions would pass, that very night, to others.

This night is thy soul required! "How awful do these words of God peal forth as thunder from the bosom of a dark cloud."H. Leo Boles, op. cit., p. 253. The contrasts in the parable are dramatic: "many years" vs. "this night," "much goods laid up" vs. "Whose shall these things be?" etc.

So is he that layeth up … for himself, and is not rich toward God … The person who is not rich toward God is poor indeed, due to the ephemeral nature of all earthly wealth, as well as of life itself. How pitifully brief is the span of life; how suddenly does the sun of life sink into the void; how quickly does the hope of mortal life decline! And, in the light of all this, which every man certainly knows, how obtuse must he be accounted who vainly imagines that he is assured of many years of pleasure, ease, and prosperity!

The most logical deduction that could be drawn from such a tragic story as that of the parable is that human anxieties about earthly possessions are futile and unrewarding. Christ promptly made that deduction the basis of the fourth warning in this sermon.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

He thought within himself - He reasoned or inquired. He was anxious and perplexed. Riches increase thought and perplexity. Indeed, this is almost their only effect - to engross the thoughts and steal the heart away from better things, in order to take care of the useless wealth.

No room - Everything was full.

To bestow - To place, to hoard, to collect.

My fruits - Our word “fruits” is not applied to “grain;” but the Greek word is applied to all the produce of the earth - not only “fruit,” but also grain. This is likewise the old meaning of the English word, especially in the plural number.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

17.What shall I do? Wicked men are driven to perplexity in their deliberations, because they do not know how any thing is to be lawfully used; ⁽²⁶⁹⁾ and, next, because they are intoxicated with a foolish confidence which makes them forget themselves. Thus we find that this rich man lengthens out his expectation of life in proportion to his large income, and drives far away from him the remembrance of death. And yet this pride is accompanied by distrust; for those men, when they have had their fill, are still agitated by insatiable desire, like this rich man, who enlarges his barns, as if his belly, which had been filled with his former barns, had not got enough. At the same time, Christ does not expressly condemn this man for acting the part of a careful householder in storing up his produce, but because his ravenous desire, like a deep whirlpool, swallows up and devours many barns; from which it follows that he does not comprehend the proper use of an abundant produce.

(269) “Pource qu’ils ne scavent point quel est le droit et legitime usage des creatures de Dieu;” — “because they know not what is the proper and lawful use of the creatures of God.”

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn in our Bibles to Luke's gospel, chapter 12.

We are dealing with the final month in the ministry of Jesus. He has returned to Jerusalem. He will soon be leaving Jerusalem to go down to the area of the Jordan River beyond Jericho. Where He will sort of absent Himself from the authorities, until such a time as He comes back for the feast of the Passover, and makes His triumphant entry on the Sunday before the feast of the Passover. So just where, here in Luke's account, does Jesus leave Jerusalem, is not declared by Luke. John tells us about this little time that He spent down at the Jordan River. It was while He was there at the Jordan River that He got the message from Mary and Martha concerning the death of Lazareth, which perpetrated His return. And then, of course, soon after that His triumphant entry, His trial, and crucifixion. Probably chapter 12, no doubt, still happened while He was in Jerusalem. And around chapter 13, as He is there in a synagogue, it could be that He has moved from the precinct of Jerusalem at that point.

So in the mean time, when they were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people ( Luke 12:1 ),

They beginning to really press upon Him, and thronged Him. So bad were the crowds,

that they were stumping on one another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy ( Luke 12:1 ).

Now leaven was that yeast, actually, that they used in the baking of their bread. And it caused the bread dough to rise by the process of fermentation. And so actually, it was a rotting of the leaven or of the yeast that causes it as it rots to release these little bubbles of air, which puff the bread up. And all you need is just a little bit of leaven within the lump of dough, and that little leaven will exercise its influence upon the whole lump of dough. The whole lump will be putrefied or fermented by just a little peace of leaven. So they had what they call their starters, like the sourdough. Where they put just a little bit of it into the new dough, and they always save a part of it to put in the batch that they would make tomorrow. And just a little leaven was all they needed to leaven the whole lump.

Paul warns about the leaven in the church. A little leaven leaventh the whole lump, therefore purge out the leaven. Jesus is here warning of the leaven of the Pharisees, which He said is hypocrisy. It's amazing how hypocrisy can spread, just a little bit of it. It has that effect of rotting and spreading.

For there is nothing covered [Jesus said], that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon on the housetops ( Luke 12:2-3 ).

Now I don't know that I appreciate that. There are some things that I have said in confidence that I really don't want published abroad. But the Lord is really just telling us basically to keep yourself open and straight, don't be hypocritical.

Somewhere a story was spread that we had received some tape recordings of some private evangelist in Israel. We had taken a tour over there. Of course, in Israel a lot of things are bugged. Your hotel rooms are, you never know. But somehow these evangelists got word that we received from our friends over there, who are involved in the Israeli government, that we had received from them some tapes that were made of some of the stories they were telling, and things that they were saying about the people that were on their tours. And they were quite upset, because according to the story that came to them, we were going to use these tapes to expose them. Very interesting, I don't have any tapes. I never had any tapes. I am not interested in any tapes of private conversations.

But this thing of being one thing to a person's face, "Oh, you precious little darlings." And then when you get alone say, "Did you see them? Can you believe that?" That 's what Jesus said, this business of hypocrisy. How tragic that this is one of those evils that seems to permeate the religious systems of men.

Years and years and years ago, before many of you were born, when radio was still in it's infant stages, there was an announcer on a children's program that use to read the comic strips to the children. And oh, he was so gushing and all in his talking to the children, and so personable on his show. Well, it so happened that he thought that they had caught off his mic and they didn't. And he began to express his true feelings concerning kids. And that was the end of his career.

Beware of hypocrisy.

"That which is spoken in secret," Jesus said, "will be shouted from the housetops."

I say unto you my friends, Don't be afraid of those who can kill your body, and after that they have no more that they can do. I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear him, which after he had killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings ( Luke 12:4-6 ),

Now two farthings equals about a penny, so sparrows aren't worth much.

and not one of them is forgotten before God? ( Luke 12:6 )

Though they are so insignificant, yet your Father God is concerned. Not one of them is forgotten before God. God is very interested in you. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, none are forgotten before God.

But even [He said] the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not therefore: for you are of more value than many sparrows ( Luke 12:7 ).

And so He is comforting now the disciples with the fact that the Father knows our needs. The Father is concerned with us. The Father keeps interesting statistics about you. He is concerned with even insignificant things of your life.

Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denies me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven ( Luke 12:8-10 ).

Now these are things that we have studied in other gospels of the sayings of Jesus. Luke is just sort of grouping together. And Jesus probably is just grouping together a series of thoughts and principles that He has previously amplified upon. And so on another occasion Jesus amplified this subject of the sin against the Holy Spirit and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And in other places He amplified on the confessing Him and denying Him.

Now when they bring you into the synagogues, and unto the magistrates, and the authorities, take no thought how or what thing you are going to answer, or what you're going to say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in the same hour what you ought to say ( Luke 12:11-12 ).

And so this divine inspiration of the Spirit in the moment of peril.

One of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And Jesus said to him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? ( Luke 12:13-14 )

But he used the occasion to warn now against covetousness.

He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things he possesses ( Luke 12:15 ).

This is an opposite of the popular conception of the world around you. As far as the world around you is concerned, a man's life does consist in the abundance of things that he possesses, and thus, men are trying to amass more things to themselves. But Jesus is declaring that you've got to be careful of covetousness. Because a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. What then does a man's life consist of? It consists of relationships, which are more important then possessions. For what should it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Your relationship with God is more important and more valuable than all of the possessions you could possibly amass to yourself. It is tragic that many people, in order to amass to themselves vast possessions, many men who have been caught up with this covetousness, because of their greed and covetousness, their drive to amass a fortune, they have alienated themselves from any meaningful relationships. How many families have been broken because the husband was so driven by that desire to get ahead, to amass for himself vast possessions, that he neglected his relationships at home. How many men have driven themselves until they had a heart attack. It's a very common ailment among executives, men who drive themselves until they destroy their health. And covetousness is something that just can't be satisfied. It will continue to drive you harder, harder, harder, until it destroys those things that are important. Those things of which life does consist, life's consistent relationships, primarily your relationship with God, which then affects your relationship with others. And covetousness can destroy these things. So beware of covetousness.

And then to illustrate it, He gave them a parable.

He said, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room to bestow my fruits? And he said, I know what I'll do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there I will bestow all my fruits and goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, [you've got it made] you've got a lot of goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee ( Luke 12:16-20 ):

Interesting, the man's opinion of himself, and God's opinion of him. His opinion of himself was: I've got it made. God's opinion of him was: thou fool. Now notice this: this man was still in the dream state, not the fulfilled state. He had not yet built the bigger barns; these were only plans. "As soon as I have the bigger barns, as soon as I fill them, then I will be able to say: alright you've got it made, kick back, eat, drink, and be merry. Take it easy; you've got it made." He never did arrive at that point.

I would dare say that when, if he had not died that night, and he had continued to live, and he went ahead and tore down his barns and build the bigger barns and filled them, that he still would not have been satisfied. And at that point could not have said, "Well, you've got it made, kick back." Very few people ever arrive at that point in life. Where they can say, "Well, I have enough." There is a proverb about those things that are never full. And one of these is that desire, never full, never satisfied.

The question then, of course, is propounded by the Lord: "Tonight your soul is required of you, so who is going to be able to enjoy all of the goods that you have amassed?"

whose shall these things be, which you have provided? So is he [the parable now is of that man] who lays up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God ( Luke 12:20-21 ).

This is whom the parable is addressed to. Those people who have been so careful to lay up treasures for themselves, but are not rich towards God. Their relationship with God has suffered as a result or consequence.

And he said to his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, [don't be covetous] Take no thought for your life, what you are going to eat; for your body, what you are going to put on ( Luke 12:22 ).

That is, take no anxious thought, or better translated, don't be worried about what you are going to eat, or what you're going to wear. For life doesn't consist in things.

Life is more than meat, the body is more the clothes. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have store houses or barns; and God feeds them: how much more are you better than the fowls? And which of you [by worrying] taking anxious thought can add to his stature one cubit? ( Luke 12:23-25 )

Now if you happen to have a pituitary gland that hasn't functioned at full capacity, and you happen to be short, and you're so concerned because you can't reach the top shelf in the cupboard, which of you by facing this kind of a problem, sitting down and just being so worried, and so concerned, about, "I am so short, oh, wish I weren't so short." And which of you by giving a lot of anxious thought of this can add eighteen inches to your height? That's what Jesus is saying. You can't even add one inch to your height, much less eighteen.

Now if you're not able to do the simple things, then why are you worried about the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow: they don't toil, nor do they spin ( Luke 12:26-27 );

And, of course, the idea is the woman at the spindle, making the yarn, and making the cloth and all. Using the spindle to make the threads to make to cloth, and the whole thing.

But look at the lilies how they grow. They don't toil, they don't work, they fingers aren't toiling, and working at the spindle.

yet, Solomon in all of his glory [with all of his wealth, with all of his grandeur] wasn't dressed as beautifully as one of these. Now if God so dresses the grass, which today in the field, and tomorrow is burned; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? ( Luke 12:27-28 )

And so really in this whole area, Jesus is talking about life, and He is talking about the Father's concern and care for His children. Sparrows are almost worthless little animals in the sight of man. You can buy five of them for a penny from the little boys in the streets. Yet, there is not a sparrow that falls to the ground, but your Father doesn't take note of it. Your Father takes account of these little animals. Now if your Father takes account of these little animals, how much more does He take account of you? He knows the number of hairs on your head. And so you don't have to worry. You're going to have problems, but don't sit down and dream up your little speeches what you are going to say. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. The Father is going to take care of you in every situation. And beware of this thing of covetousness. You don't have to worry about the material things.

Now here is the answer to the whole thing, in verse Luke 12:29 , or going on from there.

And seek not what you are going to eat, or what you are going to drink, or be of a worried mind. For all of these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knows that you have need of these things ( Luke 12:29-30 ).

I like that: your Father knows all about you. And He knows you have to eat. He knows that you got to wear clothes. He knows all about the issues in your life. Your Father knows all about these things.

So rather [than seeking these things as the primary issues of life] seek first the kingdom of God; and all of these things will be added to you. Don't fear, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom ( Luke 12:31-32 ).

You don't have to worry about these things. You just seek the kingdom of God, because it's the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

So sell what you have, and give to the poor; and provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that fails not, where no thief can approach, neither can moth corrupt. But where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning ( Luke 12:33-35 );

This business of loins girded about is a phrase that was particular to their culture, for the men wore long robes. And to work in a long robe is cumbersome. To run is cumbersome. And so when a man was ready to go to work, he would pull his robe up and tie a sash around it. Making it knee length, or above the knee length, rather than down to his ankles. And this facilitated his ability to work or to run.

So Jesus is saying, "Prepare yourself for service, for work, gird up your loins. And let your lights be burning."

And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord ( Luke 12:36 ),

Now here Jesus is giving to us a concept of life, which should be the concept of life of every child of God. A person's concept of life is extremely important, because it determines his attitude and his actions. People express their concepts of life with various figures of speech. Life is a journey. Life is a race. Life is a war. Life is a party. A man expresses his concept of life. Jesus said your concept of life should be, "Life is like a servant waiting for his lord." That 's what your life should be. Like a servant who is waiting for his lord, for his lord may appear unannounced at any time. Therefore, you should be living your life with the anticipation of our Lord coming at any moment. And if you do live your life with this expectation, it will markedly alter your actions and your attitudes. Especially towards the worldly things, of which Jesus is just been speaking.

What is my attitude towards material things? What if the Lord comes tonight, then what value are all of these material things going to be to me? If my Master comes for me tonight, all of these things that I've been worried about, all of these things that I've been giving so much time to, what value will they be to me at that point?

Now the way to maintain my proper attitude towards the material world is to be as a servant who is waiting for his Lord. If I am living with that concept of life, then I don't have to worry about an improper attitude towards material things. I have the proper attitude, because I am not going to be caught up in the material things. Because I realize that they are not important. My relationship with God is all important. And I am like a servant who is waiting for his Lord. And when my Lord appears, I want to be ready for Him, and able to open the door immediately.

so that when the lord knocks, they may open to him immediately ( Luke 12:36 ).

Jesus said that's the way you should be. Not a lot of unfinished business when the Lord comes. "Oh wait, oh I wasn't ready, Lord. Oh, you caught me by surprise. Would you mind waiting for a few hours, while I get things cleaned up here?"

Now our Lord is coming at any moment. Every other concept of life has its goal in view. And you can pretty well ascertain when it will be achieved. Life is a race. If you are running a race, you know where the goal is. You know how many laps you have finish before you come to that finish line. Life is an education, you know how many more units you need to graduate. But I don't know when the Lord is going to come. I don't know what is the climax. The climax can take place at any moment. It can take place before I get home tonight. It can take place before I wake up in the morning. And when He comes there will be two sleeping in the bed. It could be that I be asleep in bed when the Lord comes knocking, and I want to be ready to just go immediately. Good thing to just clean the slate before you go to sleep at night. Take care of it. "Lord, I commit myself to you." He may come before morning. And that's the way the Lord wants you to live, because it creates a greater urgency to everything I do. Because this may be my last opportunity to do it. My last opportunity to share the love of Jesus Christ. My last opportunity to serve the Lord. My last opportunity to lay up treasures in heaven. And so your concept of life is as a servant waiting for his Lord. It has a lot to do with my life, as far as purity is concerned.

"For we are now the sons of God, but it doesn't yet appear what we are going to be: but we know, when He appears, [at any moment, at any time] we are going to be like Him; for we will see Him as He is" ( 1 John 3:2 ).

And he who lives by this concept, he who has this hope in him, purifies himself, even as He is pure. It is a purifying influence living this concept of life. I want to make sure that I am pure. I want to make sure that I am right. I want to make sure that I am ready to meet my Lord at any moment. So that when He comes, you may open immediately.

And blessed are those servants, who when the lord comes he will find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them ( Luke 12:37 ).

Now that's the thing that just absolutely is hard for me to really conceive. The Lord's reward for His faithful servants who are girded, waiting for their Lord. Ready to open, watching for Him to come. What's He going to do? He is going to gird Himself and serve them. The glorious marriage feast of the lamb. The Lord is going to be there and say, "I am going to be here to serve you." Oh, my.

Now if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch ( Luke 12:38 ),

And these are watches during the night, you don't know what watch He is going to come, the second, or the third, but the thing is, be ready. So that whatever time the Lord may come, you will be ready.

and if he finds them girded [waiting for the Lord], blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and he would have not allowed his house to be broken in through. So therefore be ready also: for the Son of man is coming at an hour when you think not ( Luke 12:38-40 ).

Now how many of you believe that the Lord is coming in the next hour? Honestly, I don't think any of us believe He is coming in the next hour; we probably wouldn't be sitting here. There is a little bit of unfinished business I'd like to take care of, you know. A few calls I want to make. Watch out. The very fact that you don't think He is coming in the next hour makes it a good candidate. For the Son of man is coming in an hour when you think not.

Then Peter said unto him, Lord, is this parable for us, or is it for everybody? And the Lord said, Who is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? ( Luke 12:41-42 )

Who is that faithful servant that the Lord is going to make a ruler in His household in the kingdom of God?

Blessed is that servant, whom the lord when he comes shall find him so doing ( Luke 12:43 ).

So doing what? Watching for the Lord. As a servant, girded, waiting for his Lord.

Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him the ruler over all that he has ( Luke 12:44 ).

Jesus said, "And in that day I will say unto them on the right hand, 'Come, ye blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundations of the earth'" ( Matthew 25:34 ).

As John is describing Jesus in the first chapter of Revelation 1 , he said, "Unto Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, who has made us on to our God a kingdom of priests, and we shall reign with Him, upon the earth." He said, "I will make him the ruler over all that I have."

But here is a warning:

If that servant says in his heart, [Oh,] My lord is going to delay his coming ( Luke 12:45 );

"The Lord isn't going to come until after the revelation of the antichrist. He is going to delay His coming until the tribulation period, or until after the tribulation period. Or He is going to delay His coming until Russia moves, or whatever." Hey, the Lord can come at any moment, and He wants you to be ready for Him to come at any moment.

Now there is always a danger of saying the Lord is delaying His coming. That is a dangerous and pernicious doctrine and thought. Because the effect of it is so often slothfulness. The Lord is delaying His coming; let's have a big party.

and he begins to beat the menservants and the maidens, and he begins to drink, and be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he is not looking for him, at an hour when he is not ready, and he will cut him in two, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew the lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, will be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. [And here is the key:] For unto whom much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of them they will ask the more ( Luke 12:45-48 ).

God holds you responsible for your knowledge. Knowledge creates responsibility before God. And having the knowledge that you have, brings you into a greater responsibility before God. God holds you responsible.

Now there are oftentimes questions asked concerning that poor man in the jungles of New Guinea who has never heard the name of Jesus Christ. And who is killed in a battle with other men, and he is eaten by them, what happens to him? Is he lost forever because he didn't believe in Jesus Christ? How could he believe in Jesus Christ when he never had a chance to hear? Is it fair that God would punish him with eternal punishment when he had never had a chance to hear? Jesus answers that for us here. Showing that all punishment is not going to be the same. Those who have heard have a greater responsibility, and thus, a more severe degree of punishment. Whereas those who did not hear, yet did things worthy of stripes, because they did not know, a lesser degree of punishment. They will be punished for the knowledge that they have. So you better quit worrying about that poor little man in New Guinea, and start worrying about yourself. Because you have heard, you do know, you are responsible for what you know. And having received the greater knowledge, if you do not act in accordance to that knowledge, then there shall come the greater degree of punishment.

I know there is a lot of issues in this you would like me to address myself to tonight, but I am not going to.

Jesus said:

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it already is kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I might straitened until it is accomplished! ( Luke 12:49-50 )

He is talking about the fire of hell that was really burning against Him in the hearts of the people. It's already kindled this fire, the fire of judgement. And He has a baptism, that baptism of death.

When the mother of James and John said, "Lord, I'd like a favor. Let my one son sit on one side, and the other on the other side of You when You are sitting there in the glory of Your kingdom." And Jesus said, "Are they able to be baptized of the same baptism?" "Oh, yes, Lord," the boys said, "you bet you. We can." Jesus said, "Well, that may be, but to grant that request is the Father's prerogative." Talking about His death, His baptism. "And I am straitened until it's accomplish, I am set towards it."

Do you suppose that I've come to give peace on earth? I tell you, No; a division ( Luke 12:51 ):

The Gospel of Jesus Christ divides men. Those who are saved, and those who are lost. Those who believe, and those who do not believe. Those who have a hope in eternal life, those who have no hope of eternal life. The Gospel of Christ is a divider of men. Families are divided by it.

And so from now on there will be five in one house divided, three against two, two against three. The father divided against his son, the son against his father; the mother against the daughter, the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ( Luke 12:52-53 ).

This division that the Gospel created, and especially so in the Jewish home, where so often to receive Jesus Christ wrought a complete ostracizing from the rest of the family. What a division their faith in Jesus Christ did create in an orthodox Jewish home. Where many times they would have a funeral for that child and considered them dead, because they dare to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the chosen one of God. The division.

Now He is talking to His disciples up to this point, now He turns to the crowd.

And he said to the people, When you see a cloud rise out of the west, immediately you say, Oh there is going to be a shower; and so it is. And when you see the south wind blow, you say, Oh, it's going to be a hot day today; and it comes to pass ( Luke 12:54-55 ).

Over there, of course, from the west would be coming from the Mediterranean Sea. So like here, when you got the clouds coming in from the ocean, you say, "Oh, oh, we are going to have a shower." You get the Santa Ana winds blowing, you say, "Oh, oh, it's going to be a hot one today." So over there, much the same.

And Jesus said,

You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that you can't discern this time? ( Luke 12:56 )

In other words, you are able to tell by the signs in the heavens what kind of a day it's going to be, rainy, or hot. Why is it that you haven't been able to read the signs that God has placed for the time of the coming of the Messiah?

And He rebuked them, because they had not known the time of His coming. They should have.

Now I feel that the same is true for us today. The Lord has given ample evidence by prophesy, telling in advance the things that would exist at the time of the return of Jesus Christ. Having given us the signs of these things, He said, "Now when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh" ( Luke 21:28 ).

And yet, there are people who are able to make predictions of the stock market, or able to make weather predictions, or they can predict and forecast many things, but they are not aware of the fact that we are in the last days. And in the end of time. And the same kind of spiritual blindness over the return of Christ. And even many ministers will sort of mock the idea of the immanency of the return of Jesus Christ. How sad that people are just as ignorant of His second coming as they were His first.

He said,

Yes, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? ( Luke 12:57 )

Why can't you yourself make a good judgment?

Now He said,

When you go with your adversary to the magistrate ( Luke 12:58 ),

You've got problems; you are being involved in a suit.

as you are in the way, give diligence that you may delivered from him ( Luke 12:58 );

Seek an out of court settlement is what the Lord is saying.

lest he hale you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, who cast you into prison. I tell you, you won't get out, until you paid the very last mite [which is one eighth of a cent] ( Luke 12:58-59 ).

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The importance of the eternal perspective 12:13-21

Jesus continued to teach His disciples the importance of following Him faithfully. Responding to a request from someone in the crowd, presumably not a disciple, Jesus warned against greed. Greed is one of the greatest temptations that disciples as well as other people face. It has lured many disciples from the path of faithfulness.

"If in the earlier section the hypocrisy of the Pharisees introduced teaching for the disciples on avoiding hypocrisy and being fearless in confession, Jesus now uses the avarice of the crowd to introduce teaching for the disciples on trust in God and freedom from greed for material possessions (Luke 12:22-34)." [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 521.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Jesus told the parable of the rich fool to illustrate His point (Luke 12:15). He presented the rich man as an intelligent farmer. The farmer did only what was reasonable. Jesus was not faulting him for his plans. Likewise the man’s concern about his inheritance was a legitimate concern (Luke 12:13).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The parable of the rich fool 12:16-21

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 12

THE CREED OF COURAGE AND OF TRUST ( Luke 12:1-12 )

12:1-12 In the meantime, when the people had been gathered together in their thousands, so that they trampled on each other, Jesus began to say first of all to his disciples, "Be on your guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing covered up which will not be unveiled, and there is nothing secret which shall not be known. All, therefore, that you have spoken in the dark shall be heard in the light; and what you have spoken into someone's ear in the inner room will be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and who after that are not able to do anything further. I will warn you whom you are to fear--fear him who after he has killed you has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for 1/2 pence ? And yet not one of them is forgotten before God. But as for you--even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows. I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, him will the Son of Man acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. If anyone speaks a word against the Son of Man it will be forgiven him; but he who speaks irreverently of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they bring you before synagogues and rulers and those set in authority, do not worry how you will defend yourself or about what defence you will make, or about what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what you ought to say."

When we read this passage we are reminded again of the Jewish definition of preaching--charaz ( H2737) , which means stringing pearls. This passage, too, is a collection of pearls strung together without the close connection which modern preaching demands. But in it there are certain dominant ideas.

(i) It tells us of the forbidden sin, which is hypocrisy. The word hypocrite began by meaning someone who answers; and hypocrisy originally meant answering. First the words were used of the ordinary flow of question and answer in any talk or in any dialogue; then they began to be connected with question and answer in a play. From that they went on to be connected with acting apart. The hypocrite is never genuine; he is always play-acting. The basis of hypocrisy is insincerity. God would rather have a blunt, honest sinner, than someone who puts on an act of goodness.

(ii) It tells of the correct attitude to life, which is an attitude of fearlessness. There are two reasons for fearlessness.

(a) Man's power over man is strictly limited to this life. A man can destroy another man's life but not his soul. In the 1914-18 war Punch had a famous cartoon in which it showed the German Emperor saying to King Albert of Belgium, "So now you have lost everything"; and back came Albert's answer, "But not my soul!" On the other hand, God's power is such that it can blot out a man's very soul. It is, therefore, only reasonable to fear God rather than to fear men. It was said of John Knox, as his body was being lowered into the grave, "Here lies one who feared God so much that he never feared the face of man."

(b) God's care is the most detailed of all. To God we are never lost in the crowd. Matthew says, "Are not two sparrows sold for 1/4 pence ?" ( Matthew 10:29.) Here Luke says, "Are not five sparrows sold for 1/2 pence ?" If you were prepared to spend 1/2 pence you got not four, but five sparrows. One was flung into the bargain as having no value at all. Not even the sparrow on which men set not a 1/4 pence value is forgotten before God. The very hairs of our head are numbered. It has been computed that a blonde person has about 145,000 hairs; a dark-haired person, 120,000; and a person with red hair, 90,000! The Jews were so impressed with the individual care of God that they said that every blade of grass had its guardian angel. None of us needs to fear for each can say, "God cares for me."

(iii) It tells us of the unforgivable sin, which is the sin against the Holy Spirit. Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus spoke about this sin immediately after the scribes and Pharisees had attributed his cures to the prince of devils instead of to God ( Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:28-29). These men could look at the very grace and power of God and call it the work of the devil. To understand this we must remember that Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit as the Jews understood that conception, not in the full Christian sense, about which his audience at that time obviously knew nothing.

To a Jew, God's Spirit had two great functions. Through the Spirit he told his truth to men, and it was by the action of the Spirit in a man's mind and heart that he could recognize and grasp God's truth. Now, if a man for long enough refuses to use a faculty he will lose it. If we refuse to use any part of the body long enough it atrophies. Darwin tells how when he was a young man he loved poetry and music; but he so devoted himself to biology that he completely neglected them. The consequence was that in later life poetry meant nothing to him and music was only a noise, and he said that if he had his life to live over again he would see to it that he would read poetry and listen to music so that he would not lose the faculty of enjoying them.

Just so we can lose the faculty of recognizing God. By repeatedly refusing God's word, by repeatedly taking our own way, by repeatedly shutting our eyes to God and closing our ears to him, we can come to a stage when we do not recognize him when we see him, when to us evil becomes good and good becomes evil. That is what happened to the scribes and Pharisees. They had so blinded and deafened themselves to God that when he came they called him the devil.

Why is that the unforgivable sin? Because in such a state repentance is impossible. If a man does not even realize that he is sinning, if goodness no longer makes any appeal to him, he cannot repent. God has not shut him out; by his repeated refusals he has shut himself out. That means that the one man who can never have committed the unforgivable sin is the man who fears that he has, for once a man has committed it, he is so dead to God that he is conscious of no sin at all.

(iv) It tells us of the rewarded loyalty. The reward of loyalty is no material thing. It is that in heaven Jesus will say of us, "This was my man. Well done!"

(v) It tells us of the help of the Holy Spirit. In the fourth Gospel the favourite title of the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete. Parakletos ( G3875) means someone who stands by to help. It can be used of a witness, or an advocate to plead our cause. In the day of trouble there need be no fear, for no less a person than the Holy Spirit of God stands by to help.

THE PLACE OF MATERIAL POSSESSIONS IN LIFE ( Luke 12:13-34 )

12:13-34 One of the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." He said to him, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbitrator over you?" He said to them, "Watch and guard yourself against the spirit which is always wanting more; for even if a man has an abundance his life does not come from his possessions." He spoke a parable to them. "The land," he said, "of a rich man bore good crops. He kept thinking what he would do. 'What will I do,' he said, 'because I have no room to gather in my crops?' So he said, 'This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns and I will build bigger ones, and I will gather there all my corn and all my good things; and I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years. Take your rest, eat, drink and enjoy yourself.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is demanded from you; and, the things you prepared--who will get them all?' So is he who heaps up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God."

It was not uncommon for people in Palestine to take their unsettled disputes to respected Rabbis; but Jesus refused to be mixed up in anyone's disputes about money. But out of that request there came to Jesus an opportunity to lay down what his followers' attitude to material things should be. He had something to say both to those who had an abundant supply of material possessions and to those who had not.

(i) To those who had an abundant supply of possessions Jesus spoke this parable of the Rich Fool. Two things stand out about this man.

(a) He never saw beyond himself. There is no parable which is so full of the words, I, me, my and mine. A schoolboy was once asked what parts of speech my and mine are. He answered, "Aggressive pronouns." The rich fool was aggressively self-centred. It was said of a self-centred young lady, "Edith lived in a little world, bounded on the north, south, east and west by Edith." The famous criticism was made of a self-centred person, "There is too much ego in his cosmos." When this man had a superfluity of goods the one thing that never entered his head was to give any away. His whole attitude was the very reverse of Christianity. Instead of denying himself he aggressively affirmed himself; instead of finding his happiness in giving he tried to conserve it by keeping.

John Wesley's rule of life was to save all he could and give all he could. When he was at Oxford he had an income of 30 British pounds a year. He lived on 28 pounds and gave 2 pounds away. When his income increased to 60 pounds, 90 pounds and 120 pounds per year, he still lived on 28 pounds and gave the balance away. The Accountant-General for Household Plate demanded a return from him. His reply was, "I have two silver tea spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more, while so many around me want bread."

The Romans had a proverb which said that money was like sea-water; the more a man drank the thirstier he became. And so long as a man's attitude is that of the rich fool his desire will always be to get more--and that is the reverse of the Christian way.

(b) He never saw beyond this world. All his plans were made on the basis of life here. There is a story of a conversation between a young and ambitious lad and an older man who knew life. Said the young man, "I will learn my trade." "And then?" said the older man. "I will set up in business." "And then?" "I will make my fortune." "And then?" "I suppose that I shall grow old and retire and live on my money." "And then?" "Well, I suppose that some day I will die." "And then?" came the last stabbing question.

The man who never remembers that there is another world is destined some day for the grimmest of grim shocks.

(ii) But Jesus had something to say to those who had few possessions. In all this passage the thought which Jesus forbids is anxious thought or worry. Jesus never ordered any man to live in a shiftless, thriftless, reckless way. What he did tell a man was to do his best and then leave the rest to God. The lilies Jesus spoke of were the scarlet anemones. After one of the infrequent showers of summer rain, the mountain side would be scarlet with them; they bloomed one day and died. Wood was scarce in Palestine, and it was the dried grasses and wild flowers that were used to feed the oven fire. "If," said Jesus, "God looks after the birds and the flowers, how much more will he care for you?"

Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God." We saw that God's kingdom was a state on earth in which his will was as perfectly done as it is in heaven. So Jesus is saying, "Bend all your life to obeying God's will and rest content with that. So many people give all their effort to heap up things which in their very nature cannot last. Work for the things which last forever, things which you need not leave behind when you leave this earth, but which you can take with you."

In Palestine wealth was often in the form of costly raiment; the moths could get at the fine clothes and leave them ruined. But if a man clothes his soul with the garments of honour and purity and goodness, nothing on earth can injure them. If a man seeks the treasures of heaven, his heart will be fixed on heaven; but if he seeks the treasures of earth, his heart will be thirled to earth--and some day he must say good-bye to them, for, as the grim Spanish proverb has it, "There are no pockets in a shroud."

BE PREPARED ( Luke 12:35-48 )

12:35-48 "Let your loins be girt and your lamps burning. Be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that, when he comes and knocks, they will open to him immediately. Happy are those servants whom the master will come and find awake. This is the truth that I tell you--he will gird himself; he will make them recline at table; and he will come and serve them. Happy are they if he finds them so, even if he comes in the second or third watch. Know this--that if the householder knew at what time the thief would come he would have been awake and he would not have allowed his home to be broken into. So you must show yourselves ready, for the Son of Man comes at an hour you do not expect."

This passage has two senses. In its narrower sense it refers to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; in its wider sense it refers to the time when God's summons enters a man's life, a call to prepare to meet our God.

There is praise for the servant who is ready. The long flowing robes of the east were a hindrance to work; and when a man prepared to work he gathered up his robes under his girdle to leave himself free for activity. The eastern lamp was like a cotton wick floating in a sauce-boat of oil. Always the wick had to be kept trimmed and the lamp replenished or the light would go out.

No man can tell the day or the hour when eternity will invade time and summons will come. How, then, would we like God to find us?

(i) We would like him to find us with our work completed. Life for so many of us is filled with loose ends. There are things undone and things half done; things put off and things not even attempted. Great men have always the sense of a task that must be finished. Keats wrote,

"When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain."

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote,

"The morning drum-call on my eager ear

Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew

Lies yet undried along my field of noon.

But now I pause at whiles in what I do,

And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear

(My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon."

Jesus himself said, "I have accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do" ( John 17:4). No man should ever lightly leave undone a task he ought to have finished, before night falls.

(ii) We would like God to find us at peace with our fellowmen. It would be a haunting thing to pass from this world at bitterness with a fellow. No man should let the sun go down on his anger ( Ephesians 4:26), least of all the last sun of all and he never knows which sun that will be.

(iii) We should like God to find us at peace with himself. It will make all the difference at the last whether we feel that we are going out to a stranger or an enemy, or going to fall asleep in the arms of God.

In the second section of this passage Jesus draws a picture of the wise and the unwise steward. In the east the steward had almost unlimited power. He was himself a slave, yet he had control of all the other slaves. A trusted steward ran his master's house for him and administered his estate. The unwise steward made two mistakes.

(i) He said, I will do what I like while my master is away; he forgot that the day of reckoning must come. We have a habit of dividing life into compartments. There is a part in which we remember that God is present; and there is a part in which we never think of him at all. We tend to draw a line between sacred and secular; but if we really know what Christianity means we will know that there is no part of life when the master is away. We are working and living forever in our great task-master's eye.

(ii) He said, I have plenty of time to put things right before the master comes; there is nothing so fatal as to feel that we have plenty of time. Jesus said, "We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night comes when no one can work" ( John 9:4). Denis Mackail tells how, when Sir James Barrie was old, he would never make arrangements or give invitations for a distant date. "Short notice now!" he would say. One of the most dangerous days in a man's life is when he discovers the word "tomorrow."

The passage finishes with the warning that knowledge and privilege always bring responsibility. Sin is doubly sinful to the man who knew better; failure is doubly blameworthy in the man who had every chance to do well.

THE COMING OF THE SWORD ( Luke 12:49-53 )

12:49-53 Jesus said, "I came to cast fire upon the earth. And what do I wish? Would that it were already kindled! There is an experience through which I must pass; and now I am under tension until it is accomplished! Do you think I came to give peace in the earth? Not that, I tell you, but division! From now on in one house there will be five people divided--three against two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

To those who were learning to regard Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed one of God, these words would come as a bleak shock. They regarded the Messiah as conqueror and king, and the Messianic age as a golden time.

(i) In Jewish thought fire is almost always the symbol of judgment. So, then, Jesus regarded the coming of his kingdom as a time of judgment. The Jews firmly believed that God would judge other nations by one standard and themselves by another; that the very fact that a man was a Jew would be enough to absolve him. However much we may wish to eliminate the element of judgment from the message of Jesus it remains stubbornly and unalterably there.

(ii) The King James Version and the Revised Standard translate Luke 12:50. "I have a baptism to be baptised with." The Greek verb baptizein ( G907) means to dip. In the passive it means to be submerged. Often it is used metaphorically. For instance, it is used of a ship sunk beneath the waves. It can be used of a man submerged in drink and therefore dead-drunk. It can be used of a scholar submerged (or sunk, as we say) by an examiner's questions. Above all it is used of a man submerged in some grim and terrible experience--someone who can say, "All the waves and billows are gone over me."

That is the way in which Jesus uses it here. "I have," he said, "a terrible experience through which I must pass; and life is full of tension until I pass through it and emerge triumphantly from it." The cross was ever before his eyes. How different from the Jewish idea of God's King! Jesus came, not with avenging armies and flying banners, but to give his life a ransom for many.

There was a Knight of Bethlehem,

Whose wealth was tears and sorrows,

His men-at-arms were little lambs,

His trumpeters were sparrows.

His castle was a wooden Cross

On which he hung so high;

His helmet was a crown of thorns,

Whose crest did touch the sky.

(iii) His coming would inevitably mean division; in point of fact it did. That was one of the great reasons why the Romans hated Christianity--it tore families in two. Over and over again a man had to decide whether he loved better his kith and kin or Christ. The essence of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth. A man must be prepared to count all things but loss for the excellence of Jesus Christ.

WHILE YET THERE IS TIME ( Luke 12:54-59 )

12:54-59 Jesus said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'Rain is coming.' And so it happens. When you feel the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat.' And so it happens. Hypocrites! you can read the signs of the face of the earth and the sky. How can you not read the signs of this time? Why do you not for yourselves judge what is right? When you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, make an effort to come to an agreement with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the officer, and the officer will throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not come out from there until you have paid the last farthing."

The Jew's of Palestine were weatherwise. When they saw the clouds forming in the west, over the Mediterranean Sea, they knew rain was on the way. When the south wind blew from the desert they knew the sirocco-like wind was coming. But those who were so wise to read the signs of the sky could not, or would not, read the signs of the times. If they had, they would have seen that the kingdom of God was on the way.

Jesus used a very vivid illustration. He said, "When you are threatened with a law-suit, come to an agreement with your adversary before the matter comes to court, for if you do not you will have imprisonment to endure and a fine to pay." The assumption is that the defendant has a bad case which will inevitably go against him. "Every man," Jesus implied, "has a bad case in the presence of God; and if he is wise, he will make his peace with God while yet there is time."

Jesus and all his great servants have always been obsessed with the urgency of time. Andrew Marvell spoke of ever hearing "time's winged chariot hurrying near." There are some things a man cannot afford to put off; above all, making his peace with God.

We read in the last verse of paying to the last farthing. We have already come across several references to money; and it will be useful if we collect the information about Jewish coinage in the time of Jesus. In order of value the principal coins were as follows:

The Lepton; lepton ( G3016) means the thin one; it was the smallest coin, and was worth about one thirty-second of 1 pence. It was the widow's mite ( Mark 12:42) and is the coin mentioned here.

The Quadrans ( G2835) was worth two lepta and therefore worth about one-sixteenth of 1 pence. It is mentioned in Matthew 5:26.

The Assarion ( G787) was worth a little less than 1/2 pence. It is mentioned in Matthew 10:29 and Luke 12:6.

The Denarius ( G1220) was worth about 3 pence. It was a day's pay for a working man ( Matthew 20:2); and was the coin that the Good Samaritan left with the innkeeper ( Luke 10:25).

The Drachma ( G1406) was a silver coin worth about 4 pence. It was the coin which the woman lost and searched for ( Luke 15:8).

The Didrachma ( G1323) or Half-shekel was worth about 7 pence. It was the amount of the Temple Tax which everyone had to pay. It was for thirty didrachmae--about 2 British pounds--that Judas betrayed Jesus.

The Shekel ( G4715) was worth about 15 pence, and was the coin found in the fish's mouth ( Matthew 17:27).

The Mina ( G3414) is the coin mentioned in the parable of the Pounds ( Luke 19:11-27). It was equal to 100 drachmae; and was, therefore, worth about 4 British pounds.

The Talent ( G5007) was not so much a coin but a weight of silver worth 240 British pounds. It is mentioned in Matthew 18:24 and in the parable of the Talents ( Matthew 25:14-30).

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And, he thought within himself,.... And foolish thoughts they were; he did not think of God, or that there was one, and much less that he was the author, of all his outward prosperity and plenty; and was still further off of thinking of returning thanks to God for it: or of asking counsel of him, what he should do with it; but he consults himself only, and thought only within, and for himself; and not at all of his poor neighbours, or for the good of others; nor did he think even of his own soul, but altogether about his worldly substance:

saying, what shall I do? he does not say what shall I do for God? for his interest service, and glory? for the poor, the hungry, and thirsty, and naked? or for my own soul, that that may be eternally saved? but what shall I do with my goods?

because I have no room where to bestow my fruits: he had gathered in his harvest, and filled his barns as full as they could hold, so that they had no room for more; and yet had still an abundance to lay up, and about which he was anxiously concerned; not thinking of the empty bellies, barns, and houses of the poor, where he might have stowed much.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      13 And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.   14 And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?   15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.   16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:   17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?   18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.   19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.   20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?   21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

      We have in these verses,

      I. The application that was made to Christ, very unseasonably, by one of his hearers, desiring him to interpose between him and his brother in a matter that concerned the estate of the family (Luke 12:13; Luke 12:13): "Master, speak to my brother; speak as a prophet, speak as a king, speak with authority; he is one that will have regard to what thou sayest; speak to him, that he divide the inheritance with me." Now, 1. Some think that his brother did him wrong, and that he appealed to Christ to right him, because he knew the law was costly. His brother was such a one as the Jews called Ben-hamesen--a son of violence, that took not only his own part of the estate, but his brother's too, and forcibly detained it from him. Such brethren there are in the world, who have no sense at all either of natural equity or natural affection, who make a prey of those whom they ought to patronize and protect. They who are so wronged have God to go to, who will execute judgment and justice for those that are oppressed. 2. Others think that he had a mind to do his brother wrong, and would have Christ to assist him; that, whereas the law gave the elder brother a double portion of the estate, and the father himself could not dispose of what he had but by that rule (Deuteronomy 21:16; Deuteronomy 21:17), he would have Christ to alter that law, and oblige his brother, who perhaps was a follower of Christ at large, to divide the inheritance equally with him, in gavel-kind, share and share alike, and to allot him as much as his elder brother. I suspect that this was the case, because Christ takes occasion from it to warn against covetousness, pleonexia--a desire of having more, more than God in his providence has allotted us. It was not a lawful desire of getting his own, but a sinful desire of getting more than his own.

      II. Christ's refusal to interpose in this matter (Luke 12:14; Luke 12:14): Man, who made me a judge or divider over you? In matters of this nature, Christ will not assume either a legislative power to alter the settled rule of inheritances, or a judicial power to determine controversies concerning them. He could have done the judge's part, and the lawyer's, as well as he did the physician's, and have ended suits at law as happily as he did diseases; but he would not, for it was not in his commission: Who made me a judge? Probably he refers to the indignity done to Moses by his brethren in Egypt, with which Stephen upbraided the Jews, Acts 7:27; Acts 7:35. "If I should offer to do this, you would taunt me as you did Moses, Who made thee a judge or a divider?" He corrects the man's mistake, will not admit his appeal (it was coram non judice--not before the proper judge), and so dismisses his bill. If he had come to him to desire him to assist his pursuit of the heavenly inheritance, Christ would have given him his best help; but as to this matter he has nothing to do: Who made me a judge? Note, Jesus Christ was no usurper; he took no honour, no power, to himself, but what was given him, Hebrews 5:5. Whatever he did, he could tell by what authority he did it, and who gave him that authority. Now this shows us what is the nature and constitution of Christ's kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom, and not of this world. 1. It does not interfere with civil powers, nor take the authority of princes out of their hands. Christianity leaves the matter as it found it, as to civil power. 2. It does not intermeddle with civil rights; it obliges all to do justly, according to the settled rules of equity, but dominion is not founded in grace. 3. It does not encourage our expectations of worldly advantages by our religion. If this man will be a disciple of Christ, and expects that in consideration of this Christ should give him his brother's estate, he is mistaken; the rewards of Christ's disciples are of another nature. 4. It does not encourage our contests with our brethren, and our being rigorous and high in our demands, but rather, for peace' sake, to recede from our right. 5. It does not allow ministers to entangle themselves in the affairs of this life (2 Timothy 2:4), to leave the word of God to serve tables. There are those whose business it is, let it be left to them, Tractent fabrilia fabri--Each workman to his proper craft.

      III. The necessary caution which Christ took occasion from this to give to his hearers. Though he came not to be a divider of men's estates, he came to be a director of their consciences about them, and would have all take heed of harbouring that corrupt principle which they saw to be in others the root of so much evil. Here is,

      1. The caution itself (Luke 12:15; Luke 12:15): Take heed and beware of covetousness; horate--"Observe yourselves, keep a jealous eye upon your own hearts, lest covetous principles steal into them; and phylassesthe--preserve yourselves, keep a strict band upon your own hearts, lest covetous principles rule and give law in them." Covetousness is a sin which we have need constantly to watch against, and therefore frequently to be warned against.

      2. The reason of it, or an argument to enforce this caution: For a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth; that is, "our happiness and comfort do not depend upon our having a great deal of the wealth of this world." (1.) The life of the soul, undoubtedly, does not depend upon it, and the soul is the man. The things of the world will not suit the nature of a soul, nor supply its needs, nor satisfy its desires, nor last so long as it will last. Nay, (2.) Even the life of the body and the happiness of that do not consist in an abundance of these things; for many live very contentedly and easily, and get through the world very comfortably, who have but a little of the wealth of it (a dinner of herbs with holy love is better than a feast of fat things); and, on the other hand, many live very miserably who have a great deal of the things of this world; they possess abundance, and yet have no comfort of it; they bereave their souls of good,Ecclesiastes 4:8. Many who have abundance are discontented and fretful, as Ahab and Haman; and then what good does their abundance do them?

      3. The illustration of this by a parable, the sum of which is to show the folly of carnal worldlings while they live, and their misery when they die, which is intended not only for a check to that man who came to Christ with an address about his estate, while he was in no care about his soul and another world, but for the enforcing of that necessary caution to us all, to take heed of covetousness. The parable gives us the life and death of a rich man, and leaves us to judge whether he was a happy man.

      (1.) Here is an account of his worldly wealth and abundance (Luke 12:16; Luke 12:16): The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully, chora--regio--the country. He had a whole country to himself, a lordship of his own; he was a little prince. Observe, His wealth lay much in the fruits of the earth, for the king himself is served by the field,Ecclesiastes 5:9. He had a great deal of ground, and his ground was fruitful; much would have more, and he had more. Note, The fruitfulness of the earth is a great blessing, but it is a blessing which God often gives plentifully to wicked men, to whom it is a snare, that we may not think to judge of his love or hatred by what is before us.

      (2.) Here are the workings of his heart, in the midst of this abundance. We are here told what he thought within himself,Luke 12:17; Luke 12:17. Note, The God of heaven knows and observes whatever we think within ourselves, and we are accountable to him for it. He is both a discerner and judge of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We mistake if we imagine that thoughts are hid and thoughts are free. Let us here observe,

      [1.] What his cares and concerns were. When he saw an extraordinary crop upon his ground, instead of thanking God for it, or rejoicing in the opportunity it would give him of doing the more good, he afflicts himself with this thought, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? He speaks as one at a loss, and full of perplexity. What shall I do now? The poorest beggar in the country, that did not know where to get a meal's meat, could not have said a more anxious word. Disquieting care is the common fruit of an abundance of this world, and the common fault of those that have abundance. The more men have, the more perplexity they have with it, and the more solicitous they are to keep what they have and to add to it, how to spare and how to spend; so that even the abundance of the rich will not suffer them to sleep, for thinking what they shall do with what they have and how they shall dispose of it. The rich man seems to speak it with a sigh, What shall I do? And if you ask, Why, what is the matter? Truly he had abundance of wealth, and wants a place to put it in, that is all.

      [2.] What his projects and purposes were, which were the result of his cares, and were indeed absurd and foolish like them (Luke 12:18; Luke 12:18): "This will I do, and it is the wisest course I can take, I will pull down my barns, for they are too little, and I will build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods, and then I shall be at ease." Now here, First, It was folly for him to call the fruits of the ground his fruits and his goods. He seems to lay a pleasing emphasis upon that, my fruits and my goods; whereas what we have is but lent us for our use, the property is still in God; we are but stewards of our Lord's goods, tenants at will of our Lord's land. It is my corn (saith God) and my wine,Hosea 2:8; Hosea 2:9. Secondly, It was folly for him to hoard up what he had, and then to think it well bestowed. There will I bestow it all; as if none must be bestowed upon the poor, none upon his family, none upon the Levite and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, but all in the great barn. Thirdly, It was folly for him to let his mind rise with his condition; when his ground brought forth more plentifully than usual, then to talk of bigger barns, as if the next year must needs be as fruitful as this, and much more abundant, whereas the barn might be as much too big the next year as it was too little this. Years of famine commonly follow years of plenty, as they did in Egypt; and therefore it were better to stack some of his corn for this once. Fourthly, It was folly for him to think to ease his care by building new barns, for the building of them would but increase his care; those know this who know any thing of the spirit of building. The way that God prescribes for the cure of inordinate care is certainly successful, but the way of the world does but increase it. Besides, when he had done this, there were other cares that would still attend him; the greater the barns, still the greater the cares, Ecclesiastes 5:10. Fifthly, It was folly for him to contrive and resolve all this absolutely and without reserve. This I will do: I will pull down my barns and will build greater, yea, that I will; without so much as that necessary proviso, If the Lord will, I shall live,James 4:13-15. Peremptory projects are foolish projects; for our times are in God's hand, and not in our own, and we do not so much as know what shall be on the morrow.

      [3.] What his pleasing hopes and expectations were, when he should have made good these projects. "Then I will say to my soul, upon the credit of this security, whether God say it or no, Soul, mark what I say, thou hast much goods laid up for many years in these barns; now take thine ease, enjoy thyself, eat, drink, and be merry," Luke 12:19; Luke 12:19. Here also appears his folly, as much in the enjoyment of his wealth as in the pursuit of it. First, It was folly for him to put off his comfort in his abundance till he had compassed his projects concerning it. When he has built bigger barns, and filled them (which will be a work of time), then he will take his ease; and might he not as well have done that now? Grotius here quotes the story of Pyrrhus, who was projecting to make himself master of Sicily, Africa, and other places, in the prosecution of his victories. Well, says his friend Cyneas, and what must we do then? Postea vivemus, says he, Then we will live; At hoc jam licet, says Cyneas, We may live now if we please. Secondly, It was folly for him to be confident that his goods were laid up for many years, as if his bigger barns would be safer than those he had; whereas in an hour's time they might be burnt to the ground and all that was laid up in them, perhaps by lightning, against which there is no defence. A few years may make a great change; moth and rust may corrupt, or thieves break through and steal. Thirdly, It was folly for him to count upon certain ease, when he had laid up abundance of the wealth of this world, whereas there are many things that may make people uneasy in the midst of their greatest abundance. One dead fly may spoil a whole pot of precious ointment; and one thorn a whole bed of down. Pain and sickness of body, disagreeableness of relations, and especially a guilty conscience, may rob a man of his ease, who has ever so much of the wealth of this world. Fourthly, It was folly for him to think of making no other use of his plenty than to eat and drink, and to be merry; to indulge the flesh, and gratify the sensual appetite, without any thought of doing good to others, and being put thereby into a better capacity of serving God and his generation: as if we lived to eat, and did not eat to live, and the happiness of man consisted in nothing else but in having all the gratifications of sense wound up to the height of pleasurableness. Fifthly, It was the greatest folly of all to say all this to his soul. if he had said, Body, take thine ease, for thou hast goods laid up for many years, there had been sense in it; but the soul, considered as an immortal spirit, separable from the body, was no way interested in a barn full of corn or a bag full of gold. If he had had the soul of a swine, he might have blessed it with the satisfaction of eating and drinking; but what is this to the soul of a man, that has exigencies and desires which these things will be no ways suited to? It is the great absurdity which the children of this world are guilty of that they portion their souls in the wealth of the world and the pleasures of sense.

      (3.) Here is God's sentence upon all this; and we are sure that his judgment is according to truth. He said to himself, said to his soul, Take thine ease. If God had said so too, the man had been happy, as his Spirit witnesses with the spirit of believers to make them easy. But God said quite otherwise; and by his judgment of us we must stand or fall, not by ours of ourselves, 1 Corinthians 4:3; 1 Corinthians 4:4. His neighbours blessed him (Psalms 10:3), praised him as doing well for himself (Psalms 49:18); but God said he did ill for himself: Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee,Luke 12:20; Luke 12:20. God said to him, that is, decreed this concerning him, and let him know it, either by his conscience or by some awakening providence, or rather by both together. This was said when he was in the fulness of his sufficiency (Job 20:22), when his eyes were held waking upon his bed with his cares and contrivances about enlarging his barns, not by adding a bay or two more of building to them, which might serve to answer the end, but by pulling them down and building greater, which was requisite to please his fancy. When he was forecasting this, and had brought it to an issue, and then lulled himself asleep again with a pleasing dream of many years' enjoyment of his present improvements, then God said this to him. Thus Belshazzar was struck with terror by the hand-writing on the wall, in the midst of his jollity. Now observe what God said,

      [1.] The character he gave him: Thou fool, thou Nabal, alluding to the story of Nabal, that fool (Nabal is his name, and folly is with him) whose heart was struck dead as a stone while he was regaling himself in the abundance of his provision for his sheep-shearers. Note, Carnal worldlings are fools, and the day is coming when God will call them by their own name, Thou fool, and they will call themselves so.

      [2.] The sentence he passed upon him, a sentence of death: This night thy soul shall be required of thee; they shall require thy soul (so the words are), and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? He thought he had goods that should be his for many years, but he must part from them this night; he thought he should enjoy them himself, but he must leave them to he knows not who. Note, The death of carnal worldlings is miserable in itself and terrible to them.

      First, It is a force, an arrest; it is the requiring of the soul, that soul that thou art making such a fool of; what hast thou to do with a soul, who canst use it no better? Thy soul shall be required; this intimates that he is loth to part with it. A good man, who has taken his heart off from this world, cheerfully resigns his soul at death, and gives it up; but a worldly man has it torn from him with violence; it is a terror to him to think of leaving this world. They shall require thy soul. God shall require it; he shall require an account of it. "Man, woman, what hast thou done with thy soul. Give an account of that stewardship." They shall; that is, evil angels as the messengers of God's justice. As good angels receive gracious souls to carry them to their joy, so evil angels receive wicked souls to carry them to the place of torment; they shall require it as a guilty soul to be punished. The devil requires thy soul as his own, for it did, in effect, give itself to him.

      Secondly, It is a surprize, an unexpected force. It is in the night, and terrors in the night are most terrible. The time of death is day-time to a good man; it is his morning. But it is night to a worldling, a dark night; he lies down in sorrow. It is this night, this present night, without delay; there is no giving bail, or begging a day. This pleasant night, when thou art promising thyself many years to come, now thou must die, and go to judgment. Thou art entertaining thyself with the fancy of many a merry day, and merry night, and merry feast; but, in the midst of all, here is an end of all, Isaiah 21:4.

      Thirdly, It is the leaving of all those things behind which they have provided, which they have laboured for, and prepared for hereafter, with abundance of toil and care. All that which they have placed their happiness in, and built their hope upon, and raised their expectations from, they must leave behind. Their pomp shall not descend after them (Psalms 49:17), but they shall go as naked out of the world as they came into it, and they shall have no benefit at all by what they have hoarded up either in death, in judgment, or in their everlasting state.

      Fourthly, It is leaving them to they know not who: "Then whose shall those things be? Not thine to be sure, and thou knowest not what they will prove for whom thou didst design them, thy children and relations, whether they will be wise or fools (Ecclesiastes 2:18; Ecclesiastes 2:19), whether such as will bless thy memory or curse it, be a credit to thy family or a blemish, do good or hurt with what thou leavest them, keep it or spend it; nay, thou knowest not but those for whom thou dost design it may be prevented from the enjoyment of it, and it may be turned to somebody else thou little thinkest of; nay, though thou knowest to whom thou leavest it, thou knowest not to whom they will leave it, or into whose hand it will come at last." If many a man could have foreseen to whom his house would have come after his death, he would rather have burned it than beautified it.

      Fifthly, It is a demonstration of his folly. Carnal worldlings are fools while they live: this their way is their folly (Psalms 49:13); but their folly is made most evident when they die: at his end he shall be a fool (Jeremiah 17:11); for then it will appear that he took pains to lay up treasure in a world he was hastening from, but took no care to lay it up in the world he was hastening to.

      Lastly, Here is the application of this parable (Luke 12:21; Luke 12:21): So is he, such a fool, a fool in God's judgment, a fool upon record, that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God. This is the way and this is the end of such a man. Observe here,

      1. The description of a worldly man: He lays up treasure for himself, for the body, for the world, for himself in opposition to God, for that self that is to be denied. (1.) It is his error that he counts his flesh himself, as if the body were the man. If self be rightly stated and understood, it is only the true Christian that lays up treasure for himself, and is wise for himself,Proverbs 9:12. (2.) It is his error that he makes it his business to lay up for the flesh, which he calls laying up for himself. All his labour is for his mouth (Ecclesiastes 6:7), making provision for the flesh. (3.) It is his error that he counts those things his treasure which are thus laid up for the world, and the body, and the life that now is; they are the wealth he trusts to, and spends upon, and lets out his affections toward. (4.) The greatest error of all is that he is in no care to be rich towards God, rich in the account of God, whose accounting us rich makes us so (Revelation 2:9), rich in the things of God, rich in faith (James 2:5), rich in good works, in the fruits of righteousness (1 Timothy 6:18), rich in graces, and comforts, and spiritual gifts. Many who have abundance of this world are wholly destitute of that which will enrich their souls, which will make them rich towards God, rich for eternity.

      2. The folly and misery of a worldly man: So is he. Our Lord Jesus Christ, who knows what the end of things will be, has here told us what his end will be. Note, It is the unspeakable folly of the most of men to mind and pursue the wealth of this world more than the wealth of the other world, that which is merely for the body and for time, more than that which is for the soul and eternity.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The ninth chapter opens with the mission not the setting apart, but the circuit of the twelve sent out by the Lord, who therein was working after a fresh sort. He communicates power in grace to men, chosen men, who have to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick; for in this Gospel, although it be at first in Israel, it is the working of divine grace that is evidently destined for an incomparably larger sphere and yet deeper objects. This mission of the twelve in the Gospel of Matthew has a decidedly Jewish aspect, even to the very end, and contemplates the messengers of the kingdom occupied with their work till the Son of man come, and therefore entirely leaves out what God is now doing in the call of the Gentiles. Here we have clearly the same mission presented in a wholly different point of view. What is peculiarly Jewish, though all was then to the Jew, disappears; what makes known God, and this, too, in mercy and goodness towards needy man this we have fully in our Gospel. It is said here, "Preach the kingdom of God." Instead of leaving man to himself, the intervention of divine power is the central thought of God's kingdom; and instead of man being left to his resources and wisdom to take and keep the upper hand in the world by the providence of God, as if he had a certain vested right in the realm of nature, God will Himself take up this scene for the purpose of introducing His own power and goodness into it in the person of Christ, the Church being thus associated, and man thus exalted truly, and blessed more than ever. This will be displayed in what we commonly call the millennium. But meanwhile the twelve were to go out as Christ's messengers; for God always gives a testimony before He brings in the thing that is testified of. Attached to this apostolate was power over all demons, and the cure of diseases. But this was only accessory. The chief and evident aim was no display of deeds, though He did arm the messengers of the kingdom with such energy as that the powers of Satan should be defied, as it were, though this is more detailed in Matthew. Not, of course, that there is silence here as to the miraculous powers of healing. But we do not find in Luke the especial details of Jewish appeal up to the end of the age, nor the vacuum as to intermediate dealings with Gentiles. What the Holy Ghost singles out and brings into prominence here is all that manifests the goodness and compassion of God towards man in both soul and body.

We have along with this the solemnity of refusing, the testimony of Christ. Indeed, this is true even of the gospel now, where it is not merely the kingdom preached, but the grace of God; and, in my opinion, it is an accompaniment of the gospel that never can be severed from it without loss. To preach love alone is defective. Love is essential to the gospel, which assuredly is the very brightest manifestation of God's grace to man in Christ; for it is a message of love which not only gave the only begotten Son of God, but dealt with Him unsparingly on the cross in order to save sinners. To preach love alone is another and serious thing, a different gospel which is not another. Yea, to keep back the awful and ruinous consequences of indifference to the gospel, I do not mean absolutely rejecting it, but even making light of the gospel, is fatal. Never is it real love to keep back or hide that man is already lost and must be cast into hell, unless he be saved through believing the gospel. To occupy men with other things, however seemingly or really good in their place, is no proof of love to man, but insensibility to the grace of God, the glory of God, the evil of sin, the truest deepest need of man, the sureness of judgment, the blessedness of the gospel. This neglected, God in vain is otherwise shown out in His goodness. To return, however, we see that in this part of our Gospel the Lord is testifying to the Jews in view of His rejection, the disciples being invested with the powers of the world to come.

Then we have the working of conscience shown out in a bad man. Herod even, far removed as he was from such a testimony, still was so far moved by it as to enquire what it all meant, and whose power it was that thus wrought. He had known John the Baptist as a great personage, who struck the attention of all Israel in his day. But John was gone. Herod had good reason to know how it was an evil conscience that troubled him, particularly as he heard what was going on now, when men pretended, among various rumours, that John was risen from the dead. This did not satisfy Herod; he had no sense of the power of God, but, at least, he was disturbed and perplexed.

The apostles tell the Lord on their return what they had done, and He takes them into a desert place, where, on their failure to enter into the character of Christ, He displays Himself as not only a man who was the Son of God, but as God, Jehovah Himself. There is no Gospel where the Lord Jesus does not show Himself thus. He may have other objects, He may not always manifest Himself in the same elevation; but there is no gospel that does not present the Lord Jesus as the God of Israel upon earth. And hence this is a miracle found in all the Gospels. Even John, who ordinarily does not give the same sort of miracles as the others, presents this miracle along with the other evangelists. Hence, it is plain, that God was showing His presence in beneficence to His people on the earth. The very character of the miracle speaks it. He who once rained the manna is here; once more He feeds His poor with bread. It was the Jew particularly, but still the poor and despised, who were like sheep ready to perish in the wilderness. Thus we find that, while it is perfectly in harmony with the character of Luke, it nevertheless comes within the range of all the Gospels, some for one reason and some for another.

Matthew was given, I suppose, to illustrate the great dispensational change then imminent; because Christ is there shown us as dismissing the multitude, and going to pray on high, while the disciples toil on the troubled sea. There was no real faith in the poor Jews; they only wanted Jesus for what He could give them, not for His own sake. Whereas faith receives God in Jesus; faith sees the supreme glory of a rejected Jesus: no matter what the outward circumstances may be, still it owns Him; the multitude did not. They would have liked such a Messiah as their eyes saw in His power and beneficence; they would have liked such an One to provide and fight their battles for them; but there was no sense of God's glory in His person. The consequence is, the Lord, though He feeds them, goes away; the disciples are meanwhile exposed to toil and tempest, and the Lord Jesus rejoins them, calling out the energy of one who symbolises the bolder ones in the last days. For even the godly remnant in Israel will not then have precisely the same measure of faith. Peter appears to represent the more advanced, going forth out of the ship to meet the Lord, but like him, no doubt, ready to perish for their boldness. Although there was the work of affection, and so far of confidence, to abandon all for Jesus, still Peter was occupied with the troubles, as they undoubtedly will be in that day. As for him, so for them will the Lord mercifully interpose. Thus it is evident that Matthew has in view the complete change that has taken place: the Lord gone away and taking another character altogether above, and then rejoining His people, working in their hearts, and delivering them in the last days. Of this we have nothing in M Mark or Luke. The scope of neither admitted of such a sketch of circumstances as could become a type of the events of the last days in connection with Israel, any more than of the present separation of the Lord to be a Priest on high, before He returns to the earth and especially to Israel. We can easily understand how perfectly all this suits Matthew.

But again, inJohn 6:1-71; John 6:1-71, the miracle furnished the occasion for the wonderful discourse of our Saviour, occupying the latter part of the chapter, which will be touched on another occasion. At present my point is simply to show, that while we have it in all, the setting, so to speak, of the jewel differs, and that particular phase is brought out which suits the object of God's Spirit in each Gospel.

After this, as indeed is found everywhere, our Lord calls out the disciples more distinctly into a separate place. He had shown what He was, and all the blessings reserved for Israel, but there was no real faith in the people. There was, to a certain extent, a sense of need; there was willingness enough to receive what was for the body and the present life, but there their desires stop; and the Lord proved this by His questions, because these revealed the agitation of men's minds, and their want of faith. Hence, therefore, the reply of the disciples to the Lord's question, "Whom say the people that I am? They answering, said, John the Baptist; but some say Elias; and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again." Whether it were Herod and his servants, or Christ with the disciples, the same tale meets the ear of varying uncertainty but constant unbelief.

But now we find a change. In that little group which surrounded the Lord, there were hearts to whom God had unveiled the glory of Christ; and Christ loved to hear the declaration, not for His own sake, but for God's, and for theirs too. In divine love He heard their confession of His person. No doubt it was His due; but in truth His love desired rather to give than to get, to seal the blessing that had been already given of God, and to pronounce a fresh blessing. What a moment in God's eyes! Jesus "said unto them, But whom say ye that I am?" Peter then answers, unequivocally, "The Christ of God." At first sight it might seem remarkable that, in the Jewish Gospel of Matthew, we have a far fuller acknowledgment. There he owns Him not only to be the Christ, but the "Son of the living God." This is left out here. Along with the acknowledgment of that deeper glory of Christ's person, the Lord is reported as saying, "Upon this rock I will build my Church." As the expression of the divine dignity of Christ is left out here, so the building the Church is not found. There is only the acknowledgment of Christ as the true Messiah, the anointed of God; not one anointed by human hands, but the Christ of God. The Lord, therefore, entirely omits all intimation of the Church, that new thing which was going to be builded, just as we have here the omission of Peter's brightest confession. "And He straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing." It was no use to proclaim Him as the Messiah. After prophecies, miracles, preaching, the people had been altogether at fault. As the disciples themselves told the Lord, some said one thing, some said another, and no matter what they said, it was all wrong. No doubt there was this handful of disciples who followed Him; and Peter, speaking for the rest, knows and confesses the truth. But it was in vain for the people, as a whole; and this was the question for the Messiah, as such. The Lord accordingly, at this point of time, introduces that most solemn change, not dispensational, not the cutting off of the Jewish system, and the Church building coming into view. That, we have seen, comes in the Gospel where we have ever found the question of dispensational crisis discussed. In Luke it is not so; for there is found the great moral root of the matter; and after such a full I would not say adequate, but abundant testimony had been rendered to Christ, not merely by His intrinsic energy, but even by communicated power to His servants, it was altogether in vain to proclaim Him any longer as the Messiah of Israel. The manner in which He had come as Messiah was foreign to their thoughts, their feelings, their preconceptions, their prepossessions; the lowliness, the grace, the path of suffering and contempt all this was so hateful to Israel, that such a Messiah, though He were the Christ of God, they would have nothing to do with. They wanted a Messiah to gratify their national ambition, and to meet their natural wants. Earthly glory, as a present thing too, they desired, being simply men of the world; and whatever struck a blow at this, whatever brought in God and His ways, His goodness, His grace, His necessary judgment of sin, His introduction of that for faith now, which would, and alone could, stand throughout eternity, was abhorrent to them. Of all this they had no sense of want, and One who came for these ends was altogether odious to them. Hence, then, our Lord acts upon this at once, and announces the grand truth that it was no longer a question of the Christ accomplishing what had been promised to the fathers, and which, no doubt, would yet be made good to the children in another day. Meanwhile He was going to take the place of a rejected, suffering man the Son of man; not only One whose person was despised, but who was going to the cross: His testimony thoroughly discredited, and Himself to die. This, then, He first announced. "The Son of man," says He, "must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes (it is not here the Gentiles, but the Jews), and be slain, and be raised the third day." On that, I need not say, hangs not merely the glorious building of the Church of God, but the ground on which any sinful soul can be brought to God. But here it is presented, not in the view of atonement, but as the rejection and suffering of the Son of man at the hands of His own people, that is, of their leaders.

One must carefully remember that the death of Christ, infinite in value, accomplishes many and most worthy ends. To reduce ourselves to a single particular view of Christ's death, is no better than voluntary poverty in the presence of the inexhaustible riches of the grace of God. The sight of other objects met there does not in the least degree detract from the all-importance of atonement. I can perfectly understand, that when a soul is not thoroughly free and happy in peace, the one thing desired is that which will set such an one at ease. Hence, even among saints, the tendency to shut oneself up to the atonement. The looking for nothing else in the death of Christ is the proof that the soul is not satisfied that there is still a void in the heart, which craves what has not yet been found. Hence, therefore, persons who are more or less under the law restrict the cross of Christ only to expiation, i.e., the means of pardon. When it is a question of righteousness, so thoroughly d Mark are they, that anything beyond the remission of sins they must look somewhere else for. What is it to them that the Son of man was glorified, or God glorified in Him? In every respect, save that there is a place left for atonement in the mercy of God, the system is false.

Our Saviour speaks not as putting away man's guilt, but as rejected and suffering to the utmost because of man's or Israel's unbelief. It is here not a revelation of the efficacious sacrifice on God's part. The heads of earthly religion kill Him; but He is raised the third day. Then comes in, not a development of the blessed results of the atonement, however surely this was what God was going to effect at that very time; but Luke, as his manner is, insists, in connection with Christ's rejection and death, on the great moral principle: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself." The Lord will have the cross true, not only for a man, but to him too. Blessed as it is to know what God has wrought in the cross of Christ for us, we must learn what it writes on the world and human nature. And that is what our Lord presses: "If any man will come after me, let him deny Himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." We have here a remarkable fulness of glory spoken of in connection with that great day when eternal things begin to be displayed.

"But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." Here, therefore, as in the first three Gospels, we have the scene of the transfiguration. The only difference is, that in Luke's Gospel it appears to come a great deal earlier than in the others. In Matthew's case there is the waiting, as it were, till the last. I need not say that the Spirit of God had the exact point of time just as clearly before His mind in one as in another; but the ruling, object necessarily brought in other topics in one Gospel, as it put them aside in another. In a word, the point in Matthew was to show the fulness of testimony before that which was so fatal for Israel. God, I may say, exhausted every means of warning and testimony to His ancient people, giving them proof upon proof, all spread out before them. Luke, on the contrary, brings in a special picture of His grace "to the Jew first" at an early time; and then, that rejected, turns to larger principles, because in point of fact, what ever might be the means through the responsibility of man, it was all a settled thing with God.

John does not introduce the details of the offer to the Jews at all. From the very first chapter of John's gospel the trial is closed, and all decided. From the first it was apparent that Christ was thoroughly rejected. Therefore most consistently the particulars of the testimony and the transfiguration itself find no place in John: they are not in the line of his object. What answers to the transfiguration, as far as anything can be said so to do in the Gospel of John, is given in the first chapter, where it is said, "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Even if this be conceived to be an allusion to what was beheld on the holy mount, it is here mentioned only in a parenthetical way. The object was not to speak of the glory of the kingdom, but to show that there was a glory deeper far in His person: the kingdom is abundantly spoken of elsewhere. The theme of this Gospel is to show man completely worthless from the very first, the Son all that was blessed, not only from the beginning, but from everlasting. Hence it is that there is no room for the transfiguration in the Gospel of John.

But in Luke, the effect being that He displays the moral roots of things, we have it put much earlier as to its place. The reason is manifest. From the time of the transfiguration, or immediately before it, Christ made the announcement of His death. There was no question any longer about setting up the kingdom in Israel at that time; no object consequently in preaching Messiah as such or the kingdom now. The point was this: He was going to die; He was about shortly to be cast off by the chief priests, and elders, and scribes. What was the use then of talking, about reigning now? Hence there is gradually made known in prophetic parables another kind of manner in which the kingdom of God was to be meanwhile introduced. A sample of the kingdom as it will be was seen on the mount of transfiguration; for the system of glory is only postponed, and in no wise given up. Thus that mount discloses a picture of what God had in His counsels. Before this, as is manifest, the preaching even of Christ was of One presented on the footing of man's responsibility. That is, the Jews were responsible to receive Him and the kingdom that He came with title to set up. The end of this was what is seen uniformly in such moral tests man, when tried, always found wanting. In his hands all comes to nothing. Here, then, He shows that it was all known to Him. He was going to die. This, of course, closes all pretension of man to meet his obligation on the ground of the Messiah, as before on that of law. His duty was plain, but he failed miserably. Consequently we are at once brought here in view of the kingdom, not provisionally offered, but according to the counsels of God, who had of course before Him the end from the beginning.

Let us then look at the peculiar manner in which the Spirit of God presents the kingdom through our evangelist. "And it came to pass about an eight days after these saying's, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray." The very mode of presenting the time differs from the others. All may not be aware that some men have found a difficulty here: where will they not? It seems to me a small difficulty this, between "after six days" (in Matthew and Mark), and "about an eight days after" (in Luke). Clearly, the one is an exclusive statement of time as the other is inclusive: a person has only to think in order to see that both were perfectly true. But I do not believe that it is without a divine reason that the Spirit of God was pleased to use the one in Matthew and Mark, and the other only in Luke. There appears to be a connection between the form, "about an eight days after," with our Gospel rather than the others; and for this simple reason, that this notation of time brings in that which, spiritually understood, goes beyond the work-a-day world of time, or even the kingdom in its Jewish idea and measure. The eighth day brings in not only resurrection, but the glory proper to it. Now this is what connects itself with the glimpse of the kingdom we catch in Luke, more than any other. No doubt there is that understood in the others, but it is not so openly expressed as in our Gospel, and we shall find this confirmed as we pursue the subject.

"And as he prayed, (that is, when there was the expression of His human perfectness in dependence upon God, of which Luke often speaks,) the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering." The appearance set forth that which will be wrought in saints when they are changed at the coming of Christ. So even in our Lord's case; though Scripture is most guarded, and it becomes us to speak reverently of His person, yet surely was He sent in the likeness of sinful flesh; but could He be so described when it was no longer the days of His flesh when risen from the dead, when death has no more dominion over Him when received up in glory? What then was seen on the holy mount, I judge to be rather the anticipatory semblance of what He is as glorified the one being but temporary, while His present condition will endure for ever. "And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease [departure] which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." Other elements of the deepest interest crowd on us; companions of the Lord, men familiarly talking with Him, yet appearing in glory. Above all, note that when the full character of the change or resurrection is more clearly attested, and even beheld more distinctly than anywhere else, the all-importance of the death of Christ is invariably felt just as the value of the resurrection rises. Nor is there any better device of the enemy for weakening the grace of God in Christ's death than to hide the power of His resurrection. On the other hand, he who speculates on the glory of the resurrection, without feeling that the death of Christ was the only possible ground of it before God, and the only way open to us whereby we could have a share with Him in that glorious resurrection, is evidently one whose mind has taken in but a part of the truth. Such an one wants the simple, living faith of God's elect; for if he had it, his soul would be keenly alive to the claims of God's holiness and the necessities of our guilty condition, which the resurrection, blessed as it is, could in no way meet, nor righteously secure any blessing for us, save as founded upon that departure which He accomplished at Jerusalem

But here no such thoughts or language appear. Not only is the glorious result before our eyes, the veil taken away, that we might see (as it were in company with these chosen witnesses) the kingdom as it will be, shown us here in a little sample of it, but we are admitted to hear the converse of the glorified saints with Jesus on its yet more glorious cause. They talked with Him, and the subject was His departure, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. How blessed to know that we have that same death, that same most precious truth, nearest of all for our hearts, because it is the perfect expression of His love, and of His suffering love; that we have it now; that it is the very centre of our worship; that it is what habitually calls us together; that no joy in hope, no present favour, no heavenly privilege can ever obscure, but only give a fuller expression to our sense of the grace of His death, as, in truth, they are its fruits. Peter, and they that were with him, were asleep even here; and Luke mentions the circumstance, as especially introducing to our notice the moral state. Such, then, was the condition of the disciples, yea, of those who seemed to be pillars; the glory was too bright for them-they had scanty relish for it. The same disciples, who afterwards slept in the garden of agony, then slept in the mount of glory. And I am persuaded that the two tendencies are very closely akin, insensibility indifference; he who is apt to go asleep in the presence of the one indicates too plainly that you cannot expect from him any adequate sense of the other.

But there is more for us to see, however passingly. "And when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; not knowing what he said." How little human, natural honour for Christ can be trusted even in a saint! Peter meant to magnify his Master. Let us trust God for it. His word brings in not now glorified men, but the God of glory. The Father could not suffer such a speech to come from Peter without a rebuke. No doubt Peter sincerely meant by it to honour the Lord on the mount, as Matthew and M Mark relate how he failed similarly just before; it was the indulgence of traditional thoughts and human feeling in view both of the cross and the glory. So many now, too, like Peter, intend nothing but honour to the Lord by that which would really deprive Him of a special and blessed part of His glory. The word of God alone judges all things; but man, tradition, heeds it little. So it was with Peter; the same disciple who would not have the Lord to suffer, now proposes to put the Lord on a level with Elias or Moses. But God the Father speaks out of the cloud that well-known sign of Jehovah's presence, of which every Jew, at least understood the meaning. "There came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him." Hence, whatever might be the place of Moses and Elias in the presence of Christ, it is no question of giving signal and like dignity to them all three, but of hearing the Son of God. As witnesses, they vanish before His testimony who was the object testified of. They were of the earth, He of heaven, and above all. To the Christ as such had they borne witness, even as the disciples hitherto; but He was rejected; and this rejection, in God's grace and wisdom, opened the way and laid the ground for the higher dignity of His person to shine as the Father knew Him, the Son, for the Church to be built thereon, and for communion with the heavenly glory. The Son has His own sole claim as the One to be heard now. So God the Father decides. What, in effect, could they say? They could only speak about Him, whose own words best declare what He is, as they only reveal the Father; and He was here to speak without their aid; He was here Himself to make known the true God; for this He is, and eternal life. "This is my beloved Son: hear him." Such is what the Father would communicate to the disciples upon earth. And this is most precious. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." For it is not merely the glorified speaking with Jesus, but the Father communicating about Him, the Son, to saints on earth; not to saints glorified, but to saints in their natural bodies, giving them a taste of His own delight in His Son. He would not have them weaken the glory of His Son. No effulgence which shone out from the glorified men must be allowed for a moment to cause forgetfulness of the infinite difference between Him and them. "This is my beloved Son." They were but servants, their highest dignity at best to be witnesses of Him. "This is my beloved Son: hear him. And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. And they kept it close."

Yet have I omitted another point that ought not to be left without special notice. While Peter spake, even before the Father's voice was heard, there came a cloud and overshadowed them, and they feared as they entered the cloud. And no wonder; because this was something entirely distinct from and above the glory of the kingdom for which they waited. Blessed as the kingdom is, and glorious, they did not fear when they saw the glorified men, nor Jesus Himself, the centre of that glory; they did not fear when they beheld this witness and sample of the kingdom; for every Jew looked for the kingdom, and expected the Messiah to set it up gloriously; and they knew well enough that, somehow or another, the saints of the past will be there along with the Messiah when He reigns over His willing people. None of these things produced terror; but, when the excellent glory came, overshadowing with its brightness (for light was there, and no darkness at all) the Shechinah of Jehovah's presence, and when Peter, James, and John saw the men with the Lord Jesus entering that cloud, this was something entirely above all previous expectation. No person from the Old Testament would gather such a thought as man thus in the same glory with God. But this is precisely what the New Testament opens out; this is one large part of what was hidden in God from ages and generations before. Indeed, it could not be disclosed till the manifestation and rejection of Christ. Now, it is that which forms the peculiar joy and hope of the Christian in the Son of God. It is not at all the same as the promised blessing and power when the kingdom dawns upon this long benighted earth. As star differs from star, and there is a celestial glory as well as a terrestrial, so there is that which is far above the kingdom that which is founded upon the revealed person of the Son, and in communion with the Father and the Son, now enjoyed in the power of the Spirit sent down from heaven. Accordingly we have, immediately after this, the Father proclaiming the Son; because there is no key, as it were, to open that cloud for man, except His name no means to bring Him there save His work. It is not the Messiah as such. Had He been merely the Messiah, into that cloud man never could have entered. It is because He was and is the Son. As He therefore came, so to speak, out of the cloud, so it was His to introduce into the cloud, though for this His cross too is essential, man being a sinner. Thus the fear of Peter and James and John at this particular point, when they saw men entering into and environed by Jehovah's presence-cloud, is, to my own mind, most significant. Now, that is given us here; and this, one may see, is connected very intimately with, not the kingdom, but the heavenly glory the Father's house as entered in communion with the Son of God.

The Lord comes down from the mountain, and we have a picture, morally, of the world. "A man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him." It is a picture of man as now the object of Satan's continual assault and possession; or, as elsewhere described, led captive of the devil at his will. "And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not." It grieves the Lord deeply, that though there was faith in the disciples, that faith was so dormant before difficulties, that it so feebly knew how to avail itself of the power of Christ on the one hand, for the deep distress of man on the other. Oh, what a sight this was to Christ! what feeling to His heart, that those who possessed faith should at the same time so little estimate the power of Him who was its object and resource! It is exactly what will be the ruin of Christendom, as it was the ground of the Lord closing all His dealings with His ancient people. And when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on the earth? Look at all now, even at the present aspect of that which bears His name. There is the recognition of Christ and of His power, no doubt. Men are baptized in His name. Nominally His glory is owned by everybody but open infidels; but where is the faith He looks for? The comfort is this, however, that Christ never fails to carry on His own work; and, therefore, though we find the very gospel itself made merchandise of in the world, though you may see it prostituted in every way to minister to the vanity or pride of men, God does not therefore abandon His own purposes. Thus He does not forego the conversion of souls by it, even though grievously fettered and perverted. Nothing is more simple. It is not that the Lord approves of the actual state of things, but that the grace of the Lord never can fail, and the work of Christ must be done. God will gather out of the world; yea, out of its worst. In short, the Lord shews here that the unbelief of the disciples was manifested by their little power to draw upon the grace that was in Him, to apply it to the case in hand. "And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither." And so after a manifestation of Satan's power, the Lord delivers him again to his father.

"And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God." But Jesus at once speaks about His death. Nothing can be sweeter. There was that done which might well make Jesus appear great in their eyes as a matter of power. At once He tells them that He was going to be rejected, to die, to be put to death. "Let those sayings sink down into your ears; for the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men." He was the Deliverer from Satan's power. The disciples were as nothing in the presence of the enemy: this was natural enough; but what shall we say when we hear that the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men? Here unbelief is ever at fault never knows how to put these two things together; it does seem such a moral and mental contradiction, that the mightiest of deliverers should be apparently the weakest of all beings, delivered into the hands of men, His own creatures! But so it must be. If a sinner was to be saved for eternity if the grace of God was to make a righteous basis for justifying the ungodly, Jesus, the Son of man, must be delivered into the hands of man; and then an infinitely fiercer fire must burn the divine judgment when God made Him sin for us; for all that men, Satan, even God Himself could do, comes upon Him to the uttermost.

The Lord, then, having Himself shown what He was, not only in His power which vanquished Satan but also in that weakness in which He was crucified of men, now reads a lesson to the disciples on the score of their reasoning; for the Spirit of God brings this in now, their discussion which of them should be greatest a vain, unworthy contest at any time, but how much more so in the presence of such a Son of man! It is thus, one can see, that Luke brings facts and principles together in his Gospel. He makes a child, despised of those who would be great, to be a rebuke to the self exalting disciples. They had been little enough against Satan's power: would they be great in spite of their Master's humiliation? Again, He lays bare what manner of spirit was in John, though not giving it in the point of view of service, as we saw in Mark. It may not have been forgotten, that there we had it very particularly as the vehicle for instructing us in the weighty duty that we are to acknowledge the power of God in the service of others, though they may not be "with us." But that point does not appear in Luke at least not its details, but simply the moral principle. "Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us."

Then, again, we have His censure of the spirit of James and John in consequence of the affront the Samaritans put on our Lord. It was the same egotism in another form, and the Lord turns and rebukes them, telling them that they knew not what manner of spirit they were of; for the Son of man was not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. All these lessons are plainly impressions, so to speak, of the cross its shame, rejection, anguish, whatever men chose to put on the name of Jesus, or on those that belong to Jesus Jesus who was on His way to the cross; for so it is expressly written here. He was steadfastly setting His face to go to Jerusalem, where His departure was to be accomplished.

Accordingly we have given here another set of lessons closing the chapter, but still connected with what went before the judgment of what should not work, and the indication of that which ought to work, in the hearts of those that profess to follow the Lord. These are brought together after a notable manner. First, "A certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." Here it is the detection of what was cloked under an apparent frankness and devotedness; but these seemingly fine fruits were entirely after the flesh, utterly worthless, and offensive to the Lord, who at once puts His finger upon the point. Who is the man that is really ready to follow the Lord whithersoever He goes? The man that has found all in Him, and wants not earthly glory from Him. Jesus was going to die Himself; here He had not a place where to lay His head. How could He give anything to him? "And he said to another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto Him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." Now, here is real faith; and where this exists, it is more than a theory difficulties are felt. Thus the man begins to make excuse, because he feels, on the one side, the attraction of the word of Jesus; but at the same time he is not freed from the force that drags him into nature; he is alive to the seriousness of the matter in conscience, but realises the obstacles in the way. Hence, he pleads the strongest natural claim upon his heart, a son's duty to a dead father. But the Lord would have him leave that to those who had no such call of the Lord. "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." To another, who says, "Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home in my house." The Lord replies that the kingdom of God is necessarily paramount, and its service all-engrossing; so that if a man has put his hand to the plough, woe to him if he look back! He is unfit for the kingdom of God. Throughout who can fail to see the judgment of the heart, man's nature proved, however fair the form? What death to self the service of Christ implies! Otherwise, what personal faithlessness, even if one escape the evil of bringing in rubbish into God's house and, it may be, of defiling His temple! Such is the fruit of self-confidence where Satan acquires a footing.

Luke 10:1-42. Next comes before us the remarkable mission of the seventy, which is peculiar to Luke. This has, indeed, a solemn and final character, with an urgency beyond that of the twelve, in chapter 9. It is an errand of grace, sent out as they were by One whose heart yearned over a great harvest of blessing; but it is clothed with a certain last warning, and with woes here pronounced on the cities where He had wrought in vain. "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." This gives it, therefore, a serious and peculiar force, yet withal suitable to our Gospel. Without dwelling upon the particulars, I would simply remark that, when the seventy returned, saying, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name," the Lord (while he saw in clear vista before Him Satan fallen from heaven, the casting out of devils by the disciples being but the first blow, according to that power which will utterly put down Satan at the end) at the same time states that this is not the better thing, the proper subject for their joy. No power over evil, however true now, however in the end displaying in full the glory of God, is to be compared to the joy of His grace, the joy of not merely seeing Satan turned out, but of God brought in; and meanwhile of themselves, in the communion of the Father and of the Son, leaving their portion and their names enrolled in heaven. It is a heavenly blessedness, as it becomes more and more manifest that is to be the place of the disciples, and that in Luke's Gospel more than in any other of the synoptists. "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Not that it is the Church which is here revealed, but at the least a very characteristic feature of the Christian place which is breaking through the clouds. In that hour Jesus accordingly rejoiced in spirit, and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."

Here you will observe it is not, as in Matthew, in connection with the break up of Judaism. Not only was the total destruction of Satan's power before Him, the woman's Seed, by man, for man; but, diving deeper than the kingdom, He explains those counsels of the Father in the Son, to whom all things are delivered, and whose glory was inscrutable to man, the key to His present rejection, and the secret and best blessing for His saints. It is not so much here the Christ rejected and suffering Son of man: but the Son, the revealer of the Father, whom the Father alone knows. And with what delight He congratulates the disciples privately on that which they saw and heard (ver. 3, 4), though we find some declarations coming out more emphatically afterwards; but still it was all clear before Him. Here it is the satisfaction of the Lord in the bright side of the subject, not merely the contrast with the dead body of Judaism, as it were, which was completely judged and left behind.

What we find after this is an unfolding of the Sabbath-days, in which the Lord demonstrated to the unwilling Jews that the bond between God and Israel was broken (seeMatthew 11:1-30; Matthew 11:1-30; Matthew 12:1-50): for this was the meaning of the apparent breach of the Sabbaths, when He vindicated the disciples in eating of the corn on the one, and healed the withered hand publicly on the other. But here we meet with another line of things; we have, according to Luke's manner, one who was instructed in the law weighed and found wanting morally. A lawyer comes and says, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?"

This sets forth, then, the difficulties of the legal mind; it is a technicality: he cannot understand what is meant by his "neighbour." Intellectually it was no such feat to penetrate the meaning of that word, "neighbour." But the consequences morally were grave; if it meant what it said, had he ever in his life felt and acted as if he had a neighbour? He gave it up, therefore. It was a mysterious something that the elders had nowhere solved, a case that was not yet ruled in the Sanhedrim, what was meant by this inscrutable "neighbour." Alas! it was the fallen heart of man that wanted to get out of a plain duty, but a duty which demanded love, the last thing in the world he possessed. The great difficulty was himself; and so he sought to justify himself an utter impossibility! For in truth he was a sinner; and the thing for him is to confess his sins. Where one has not been brought to own himself, and to justify God against himself, all is wrong and false; everything of God is misunderstood, and His word seems darkness, instead of light.

Mark how our Lord puts the case in the beautiful parable of the good Samaritan. It was, if I may so say of Him as a man, the single eye and the heart that perfectly understood what God was, and enjoyed it; that never, therefore, had difficulty in finding out who was his neighbour. For, in truth, grace finds a neighbour in every one that needs love. The man that needs human sympathy, that needs divine goodness and its clear testimony, though it be through a man upon the earth, he is my neighbour. Now, Jesus was the only man who was walking in the whole power of divine love, though, I need not say, this was but a little part of His glory. As such, therefore, He found no riddle to solve in the question, Who is my neighbour?

Evidently it is not the mere dispensational setting aside of the ancient people of God, but the proving of the heart, the will of man detected where it used the law to justify itself, and to get rid of the plain demand of duty to one's fellows. Where in all this was love maintained, that necessary answer in man to the character of God in an evil world? Certainly not in the lawyer's question, which betrayed the duty unknown; as surely was it in Him whose parabolic reply most aptly imaged His own feelings and life, the sole perfect exhibition of God's will in love to a neighbour, which this poor world has ever had before it.

The rest of the chapter belongs to the eleventh, properly and naturally following up this truth. What a mercy that, through us then, in Jesus, there is active goodness here below, which, after all, is the only thing that ever accomplishes the law! It is very important to see that grace really does fulfil God's will in this: "That the righteousness of the law," as it is said, "might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The lawyer was walking after the flesh; there was no perception of grace, and consequently no truth in him. what a miserable life he must have been living, and he a teacher of God's law, without even knowing who was his neighbour! At least, so he pretended.

On the other hand, as we are next taught, where there is grace, everything is put in its place, and it shows itself in two forms. The first is the value for the word of Jesus. Grace prizes it above all things. Even if you look at two persons who may both be objects of Christ's love, what a difference it makes for the one whose heart delights most in grace! And where there is the opportunity of hearing the word of God from Jesus, or of Jesus, this is the chief jewel at the feet of Jesus. Such is the true moral posture of the one who knows grace best. Here it was Mary who was found sitting, at the feet of Jesus, to hear His word. She had decided rightly, as faith (I say not the believer) always does. As for Martha, she was distracted with bustle. Her one thought was what she could do for Jesus, as One known after the flesh, not without a certain thought, as ever, of what was due to herself. No doubt it was meant for, and after a certain style was, honour to Him; but still it was honour of a Jewish, carnal, worldly sort. It was paid to His bodily presence there, as a man, and the Messiah, with a little bit of honour to herself; no doubt, and to the family. This naturally comes out in Luke, the delineator of such moral traits. Still as for Mary's conduct, it seemed to Martha no better than indifference to her many anxious preparations. Vexed at this, she goes to the Lord with a complaint against Mary, and would have liked the Lord to have joined her, and set His seal to its justice. The Lord, however, at once vindicates the hearer of His word. "But one thing is needful." Not Martha, but Mary, had chosen that good part which should not he taken away from her. When grace works in this world it is not to bring in what suits a moment of passing time, but that which ensures eternal blessing. As part of God's grace, therefore, we have the word of Jesus revealing and communicating what is eternal, what shall not be taken away.

Remark another thing next. It is not only the all-importance of the word of Jesus, not man's misuse of the law (which we have seen but too clearly in the lawyer, who ought to have taught, instead of asked, who my neighbour is), but now we have the place and value of prayer. This is equally needful in its season, and is found here in its true place. Clearly I must receive from God before there can be the going out of my heart to God. There must first be what is imparted by God His revelation of Jesus. There is no faith without His word. (Romans 10:1-21) My thoughts of Jesus may be ruin to me; indeed, I am very sure, if they were only my thoughts of Jesus, they must deceive and destroy my soul, and be injurious to everybody else. But here we find the weighty intimation, that it is not enough that there should be the reception of the word of Jesus, and even at the feet of Jesus. He looks at the disciples need of the exercise of heart with God. And this is shown in more ways than one.

Luke 11:1-54. First of all we have prayer, according to the mind of Jesus, for the disciples in their actual wants and state; and a most blessed prayer it is, leaving out the millennial allusions ofMatthew 6:1-34; Matthew 6:1-34, but retaining all the general and moral petitions. The Lord next insists on the importunity or perseverance of prayer, with the blessing attached to earnestness with God. Thirdly, it may be added, that the Lord touches on the gift of the Spirit, and in connection with this only in our Gospel "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give [not merely good things, but] the Holy Spirit [the best gift] to them that ask him?" Thus the great characteristic blessing to the Gentiles (compare Galatians 3:1-29), and of course to the believing Jew also, was this gift which the Lord here instructs the disciples to ask for. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given. There was exercise of heart Godward. They were really disciples; they were born of God, yet had they to pray for the Holy Spirit to be given them. Such was the state going on while the Lord Jesus was here below. It was not only (as in John 14:1-31) that He would ask the Father, and the Father would send; but they too were to ask the Father, who would assuredly, as He did, give the Holy Spirit to them that asked Him. And I am far from denying that there might be cases at this present time, of what some might call an abnormal kind, where persons were really convinced of sin, but without the settled peace which the gift of the Holy Ghost imparts. Here, at the very least, the principle of this would apply; and for this it might be of moment, therefore, that we should have it plainly in the Gospel of Luke; because this was not the dispensational instruction as to the great change that was coming in, but rather filled with profound moral principles of larger import, though to be influenced, no doubt, by the development of the great facts of divine grace. Thus the sending down of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost brought in an immense modification of this truth. His presence from that moment undoubtedly involved greater things than the heavenly Father giving the Spirit to the individuals who sought it of Him. And there was the grand point of the Father's estimate of the work of Jesus, to which the Spirit's descent was an answer. Therefore, a person might be brought in, so to speak, all at once; he might be converted and rest upon the redemption of Jesus, and receive the Holy Ghost, practically, all at once. Here, however, it is the case of the disciples taught to ask before the blessing had ever been given. Certainly, at that time, we see the two things distinctly. They were born of the Spirit already, but were waiting for the further blessing the gift of the Spirit: a privilege given them in answer to prayer. Nothing can be plainer. There is no good in enfeebling Scripture. Evangelical tradition is as false to the Spirit, as popish is to Christ work and its glorious results for the believer even now on earth. What we need is, to understand the Scriptures in the power of God.

After this, the Lord cast out a dumb devil from one who, when delivered, spoke. This kindles into a flame the hatred of the Jews. They could not deny the power, but wickedly impute it to Satan. In their eyes or lips it was not God, but Beelzebub, the chief of the devils, who cast them out. Others, tempting Him, sought for a sign from heaven. The Lord thereon spreads out the awful consequence of this unbelief and imputation of God's power in Him to the Evil One. In Matthew, it is a sentence on that generation of the Jews; here on wider grounds for man, whoever and wherever he may be; for all here is moral, and not merely the question of the Jew. It was folly and suicidal for Satan to cast out his own. Their own sons condemned them. The truth was, the kingdom of God was come upon them; and they knew it not, but rejected it with blasphemy. Finally He adds, When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first." There is no application specially to the Jew, as in Matthew; it is left general to man. Hence, "So shall it be with this wicked generation , disappears.

Thus, although the Lord was as yet dealing with a remnant, and was here in view of the doom of that Christ-rejecting generation of the Jews, for this very reason the Spirit of God makes His special design by Luke the more apparent and undeniable. It would have been natural to have left these instructions within those precincts. Not so: Luke was inspired to enlarge their bearing, or rather record what would deal with any soul in any place or time. It is made a question here of man, and of the last state of him whom the unclean spirit has somehow left for a season, but without salvation, or the positive new work of divine grace. He may be a changed character, as men say; he may become moral, or even religious; but is he born again? If not, so much the more sorrowful so much the worse is his last state than the first. Supposing you have that which is ever so fair, if it be not the Holy Ghost's revelation to, and the life of Christ in, your soul, every privilege or blessing short of this will surely be proved to fail. And this the Lord follows up afterwards, when a woman, hearing Him, lifts up her voice and says, " Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked." Immediately He answers, "Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." It is evidently the same great moral lesson: no natural link with Him is to be compared with hearing and keeping God's word; and so our Lord pursues next. Were they asking for a sign? They proved their condition, and lowered themselves morally beneath the Ninevites, who repented at Jonah's preaching. Did not the report of Solomon's wisdom draw from the utmost parts of the earth a queen of the south? Jonah is here a sign, not of death and resurrection, but by his preaching. What sign had the queen of Sheba? What sign had the men of Nineveh? Jonah preached; but was not Christ preaching? That queen came from afar to hear the wisdom of Solomon; but what was the wisdom of the wisest to compare with Christ's wisdom? Was He not the wisdom and the power of God? Yet, after all they had seen and heard, they could ask a sign! It was evident that there was no such guilt of old; but, on the contrary, these Gentiles, whether in or from the ends of the earth, spite of their gross darkness, repulsed the unbelief of Israel, and proved how just would be their doom in the judgment.

Our Lord here adds an appeal to conscience. The light (set in Himself) was not secret, but in the right place: God had failed in nothing as to this. But another condition was requisite to see the state of the eye. Was it simple, or evil? If evil, how hopeless the darkness before that light! If received with simplicity, not only is light enjoyed, but shines all around, with no part dark. To the Pharisees, who wondered that the Lord washed not His hands before dining, He pronounces a most withering rebuke upon their care for exterior cleanness, and indifference to their inward corruption, their jealousy for details of observance, and forgetfulness of the great moral obligations, their pride, and their hypocrisy. To one of the lawyers, who complained that thereby He reproached them, the Lord utters woe upon woe for them also. Tampering with the law and holy things of God, where there is no faith, is the direct road to ruin, the sure occasion of divine judgment. A like doom awaits Babylon as then was about to fall on Jerusalem. (Revelation 18:1-24)

In Luke 12:1-59 the Lord furnishes the disciples with the path of faith in the midst of men's secret evil, open hatred, and worldliness. On His rejection their testimony must go on. First, they were to beware of the Pharisees' leaven, which is hypocrisy, and to cherish the consciousness of the light of God to which the believer belongs (ver. Luke 12:1-3; Luke 12:1-3). This, then, is the preservative power. Satan works by deceit as well as by violence. (ver. Luke 12:4). God works not only in light, as we have seen, but by love (Luke 12:5-7), and the confidence He invites to in Himself. "But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." Then immediately guarding against the abuse of this, which is always true, and true for a believer, although it be, so to speak, the lower end of the truth the Lord brings in the love of the Father, asking, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows."

He shows next the all-importance of the confession of His name, with the consequence of denying Him; then, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which would not be forgiven, whatever grace is shown to those who blasphemed the Son of man; and in contrast with this the promised succour of the Spirit in presence of a hostile world-church (ver. Luke 12:8-12; Luke 12:8-12). Then a person appeals to the Lord to settle a question of this world. This, however, is not His work now. Of course, as Messiah, He will have to do with the earth, and will set the world right when He comes to reign; but His actual task was dealing with souls. For Him, and for men too, did not unbelief shroud their eyes, it was a question of heaven or hell, of what is eternal and of another world. Hence He absolutely refuses to be a judge and divider of what appertained to the earth. It is that which many a Christian has not learned of his Master.

Next the Lord exposes the folly of man in his covetous desire after present things. In the midst of prosperity, suddenly, that very night, God requires of the rich fool his soul. "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." The Lord then shows the disciples where their true riches should lie. Faith is meant to deliver from anxiety and lust. It is not food and raiment. He who fed the uncareful ravens would not fail His children, who were far more to Him than the birds. Such care, on the contrary, is the plain evidence of poverty Godward. Why are you so busy providing? It is the confession that you are not satisfied with what you have got. And what does it all come to? The lilies outshine Solomon in all his glory: how much does God interest Himself in His children? What occupies the nations who know Him not is unworthy of the saint who is called to seek God's kingdom, sure that all these thing's shall be added. "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."

Again, this leads me to notice briefly the way in which this ineffable love is shown, not only by the Father, but by the Son, and that in two forms the Son's love to those that wait for Him, and to those that work for Him. The waiting for Him we have in verses 35, 36: "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately." It is the heart filled with Christ; and the consequence is, Christ's heart goes out towards them. When He comes, He seats them, so to speak, at table, does everything for them even in glory. But then there is working for the Lord: this comes in afterwards. "Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all? And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath." It is not "so watching," but "so doing." It is a question of working for Him. and this has its own sweet and needed place. Still remark that it is secondary to watching: Christ Himself always, even before His work. Nevertheless He is pleased to associate the Gospel with Himself; very graciously, as we know in the Gospel of Mark; and it is exact]y there we might expect it, if we knew its character: He binds up the work, so to speak, with Himself. But when we come in Luke to moral analogies, if I may so term it, instead of giving it all together, like the Gospel devoted to the workman and the work, here we listen to One who unfolds to us distinction of heart and hand in relation to His coming. Blessed he who shall be found working for the Lord when He comes: surely he shall be made ruler over all that the Son of man has. Yet mark the difference. This is exaltation over His inheritance. As for those that are found watching for Him, it will be association -joy, rest, glory, love with Himself.

Observe another thing in this part of Luke, and strikingly characteristic too. Blessed as all we have heard is for those that are His, what will it be for those that believe not? Accordingly, and in a form that commends itself to the conscience, we see the difference between the servant who knew his master's will and did it not, and the servant who knew not his master's will (ver. 47, 48). Neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor John, of course, say anything like this. Luke here sheds the light of Christ on the respective responsibility of the Gentile graffed into the olive tree and of the Pagan world. As there is in Christendom the servant cognizant of his Master's will, but indifferent or rebellious, so on the other hand, outside Christendom there is the servant wholly ignorant of His will, and, of course, lawless and evil. They are both of them beaten; but he that knew his Master's will and did it not shall be beaten with more stripes. To be baptized, and to call on the Lord's name in outward profession, instead of lightening the burden in the day of judgment for the hypocrites, will, on the contrary, bring on them so much more severity. The righteousness and the wisdom of this dealing, is so much the more remarkable, as it is the exact opposite of the early doctrine of Christendom. A notion prevailed, perhaps universally after the first century or two, that while all persons dying in sin would be judged, the baptized would have a far better portion in hell than the unbaptized. Such was the doctrine of the fathers; Scripture is dead against it. In what we have just had before us, Luke gives the Lord Jesus not only anticipating but completely and for ever excluding, the folly.

Next, whatever may be the fulness of Christ's love, the effect would now be to kindle a fire. For that love came with divine light which judged man; and man would not bear it. The consequence is, that the fire was already kindled. It did not merely await another day or execution from God, but even then was it at work. Assuredly the love of Christ was not produced by His sufferings, any more than God's love. Ever was it there only awaiting the full expression of man's hatred before it would burst all bounds, and flow out freely in every direction of need and misery. Such is our Lord's wonderful opening out of great moral principles in this chapter. Men, professors, heathen, saints, in their love for Christ, and service too, all have their portion.

The state, then, was the worst possible utter, hopeless, social ruin. which His coming and presence had brought to light. How was it they had not discerned this time? Why even of themselves did they not judge aright? It was from no lack of evil in His adversaries, or of trace in Him. The close of the chapter takes up the Jew, showing that they then were in imminent danger, that a great question pressed on them. In their suit with God, the Lord advised them, as it were, to use arbitration while He was in the way: the result of despising this would be their committal to prison till the uttermost farthing was paid. Such was the admonition to Israel, who are now, as all know, under the consequence of neglecting the word of the Lord.

Luke 13:1-35 insists on this, and shows how vain it was to talk of the objects of signal judgments. Except they repented, they must likewise perish. Judgments thus misused lead men to forget their own guilty and ruined condition in the sight of God. He urges, therefore, repentance strongly. He admits, no doubt, that there was a term of respite. Indeed, it was Himself; the Lord Jesus, who had pleaded for a further trial. If; after this the fig tree should be unfruitful, it must be cut down. And so it was: judgment came after grace, not law. How little they felt that it was a most true picture of themselves, Christ and God Himself so dealing with them because of Him. But the Lord subsequently lets us see that grace could act in the midst of such a state. Accordingly, in His healing, of the woman bowed down with the spirit of infirmity, he displays the goodness of God even in such a day when judgment was at the doors, and rebuked the hypocritical wickedness of the heart that found fault with His goodness, because it was the sabbath day. "Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him." As ever, the heart is made manifest in Luke the adversaries of the truth on the one hand, and those on the other whom grace made the friends of Christ or the objects of His bounty. But the Lord also shows the form that the kingdom of God would take. It would not have power now, but rather from a little beginning become great in the earth, with noiseless progress, as of leaven conforming to itself till the three measures were leavened. And such, in point of fact, has been the character of the kingdom of God presented here below. It is here no question of seed, good or bad, but of the spread of doctrine nominally, at least, Christian. How far such a progress meets the mind of God, we must compare facts with Scripture in order to judge aright. If Israel was then in danger of a judgment which would surely come, what would be the case with the kingdom of God outwardly in the world? In truth, instead of occupying themselves with the question whether those destined to salvation (or the godly Jews) were few, it would be well to think of the only way in which any one could be put morally right before God; it was by striving to enter in at the strait gate: without the new birth none can enter. Many might seek to enter in, but would not be able. What is here meant? Is it a difference between striving and seeking? I doubt that this covers the true bearing of our Lord's language; for thus he who throws the stress upon striving or seeking, makes it a question of energy, greater or less. This does not seem to me what our Lord meant; but that many would seek to enter into the, kingdom, not at the strait gate, but by some other way. They might seek to enter in by baptism, by law-keeping, by prayer, or some vain plea of God's mercy: all these unbelieving resources dishonour Christ and His work.

The striving to enter in at the strait gate implies, to my mid, a man brought to a true sense of sin, and casting, himself upon God's grace in Christ repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Himself is the strait gate at least, Christ Himself received thus by faith and repentance. So our Lord, in opening out this, proclaims the judgment of Israel indeed, of any who should like well the blessing, but refuse God's way, even Christ. He presents, accordingly, the Jewish people cast aside, the Gentiles coming, from east, west, north, and south, and brought into the kingdom of God. "Behold, there are last which shall be first, and first which shall be last." And then the chapter closes with the Pharisees pretending zeal for Him: "Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee." But the Lord proclaims in their ears that He would not be hindered in His service till His hour was come; and that it was not a question of Herod and Galilee, but of Jerusalem, the proud city of solemnities; it was there the prophet of God must fall. No prophet should be cut off except at Jerusalem; such is its painful, fatal peculiarity, the honour of providing a grave for God's rejected and slain witness. Men might say, as they did, that no prophet arose out of Galilee; and it was false; but certainly this was true, that if a prophet fell, he fell in Jerusalem. Yet the Lord then mourned over such a Jerusalem, and does not leave the Jews absolutely desolate, except for a time, but holds out the hope that the day should come when their heart should turn to Him (2 Corinthians 3:1-18), saying) "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." This closes, then, the Lord's dealings in reference to Jerusalem, in contrast with the heavenly light in the disciples' portion. He depicts grace from first to last, save only in those that had no faith in Him; and on the other hand, he lets us know, that whatever might be the yearnings of grace over Jerusalem, this is the end of it all in man's hands.

The Lord is seen, in Luke 14:1-35 resuming the ways of grace. Once more He shows that, spite of those who preferred the sign of the Old covenant to Messiah in the grace of the New, the sabbath day furnished Him an opportunity for illustrating the goodness of God. In chapter 13. it was the spirit of infirmity the power of Satan; Here it was a simple case of human malady. The lawyers and Pharisees were then watching Him, but Jesus openly raises the question; and as they held their peace, He takes and heals the man with the dropsy, and lets him go, answering their thought by an irresistible appeal to their own ways and conscience. Man who seeks to do good to what belongs to himself, is not entitled to dispute God's right to act in love to the miserable objects that He deigns to count His.

Then the Lord takes notice of another thing, not man's hypocritical selfishness, which would not have God to gratify His love to suffering wretchedness, but man's love of being somebody in this world. The Lord brings into evidence another great principle of His own action self-abasement in contrast with self-exaltation. If a man desires to be exalted, the only ways according to God, is to be lowly, to abase himself; it is the spirit that suits the kingdom of God. So He tells the disciples that, in making a feast, they were not to act on the principle of asking friends, or men who could return it, but as saints called to reflect the character and will of God. Therefore it should be rather those that could make no present requital, looking to the day of recompense, on God's part, at the resurrection of the just.

On some one crying, out, What a blessed thing it must be to eat bread in the kingdom of God! the Lord shews the fact to be quite the contrary. For what is it that the Lord has been doing ever since? He is inviting men to eat bread, as it were, in His kingdom. But how do they treat the invitation of grace in the gospel? "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse." Difference is observable. In Luke there is the omission of Matthew's first message. But, besides that, the excuses are gone into individually. One person says, "I have bought a piece of ground," which he must go and see; another man says he has bought five yoke of oxen, which he has to prove; another says he has married a wife, and on this account he cannot come. That is, we have the various decent plausible reasons that man gives for not submitting to the righteousness of God, for delaying his acceptance of the grace of God. So the servant comes and reports to his lord, who thereupon, being angry, says, "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room." Thus the persistence of grace, spite of just displeasure, is a characteristic and beautiful feature of this Gospel. The lord sent his servant thereupon to the highways and hedges (or enclosures), compelling them to come in, that, as it is said, "my house may be filled." Of this we hear nothing in Mark and Matthew. Indeed, Matthew gives us quite a different aspect from that which we have here. There the king is seen sending forth his armies, and burning up the city. How marvellous the wisdom of God, both in what He inserts, and in what He leaves out! Matthew adds also the judgment of the robeless guest at the end the man who had intruded, trusting to his work, or to any or all ordinances, or to both, but who had not put on Christ. This was peculiarly in its place, because this Gospel attests the dealings of grace which would take the place of Judaism, both externally and internally.

After this the Lord turns to the multitude. As He had shown the hindrance on man's part to coming, so He gravely warns those that were following Him in great numbers, and says, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." The moral difficulties are most earnestly pressed upon those who were so ready to follow Him. Would it not be well and wise to sit down first and count the cost of building the tower completely? to consider whether, with the strength they had, they could cope with the vastly greater forces against them? Yet is it no question of mustering resources after a human way, but of forsaking all one's own, and so being Christ's disciple. There is such a thing as persons beginning well, and turning out good-for-nothing. "Salt is good;" but what if it becomes savourless? Wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is fit neither for land nor dunghill. They cast it out (or, it is cast out). "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

Then follows a profound and lovely unfolding of grace in Luke 15:1-32. In the close of the preceding chapter, the impossibility for man in flesh to be a disciple was made evident. Such was the great lesson there. But now we have the other side of grace. If man failed in attempting to be a disciple, how is it that God makes disciples? Thus we have the goodness of God to sinners brought out in three forms. First, the shepherd goes after the wandering sheep. This is very clearly grace as shown in Christ the Son of man, who came so seek and to save that which was lost.

The next parable is not of the Son who bears the burden; for there is but one Saviour, even Christ. Nevertheless the Spirit of God has a part, and a very blessed part, in the salvation of every soul brought to God. It is not as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life, nor as the Great Shepherd brought again from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant, laying the sheep once lost, now found, on His shoulders rejoicing, as it is presented in Luke only. What we have here is the figure of a woman that lights a candle, sweeps the house, and uses the most diligent exertion till the lost thing is found. Is not this in beautiful harmony with the function of the Spirit as to the sinner's soul? I cannot doubt this is seen in the woman's part (not, if I may so say, the prominent public actor, who is ever Christ the Son). The Spirit of God has rather the energetic agency, comparatively a hidden power, however visible the effects. It is not One that acts as a person outside; and this therefore was most fitly set forth by the woman inside the house. It is the Spirit of God working within, His private and searching operation in secret with the soul however truly also the candle of the word is made to shine. Need I remark that it is the Spirit of God's part to cause the word to bear on men as a shining light? It is not the Shepherd who lights the candle, but He bears the stray sheep on His shoulders. We know very well that the Word of God, the Shepherd, is looked at elsewhere as the true light Himself; but here it is a candle which is lit, and therefore quite inapplicable to the person of Christ. But it is precisely that which the Spirit of God does. The word of God preached, the Scripture, may have been read a hundred times before; but at the critical moment it is light to the lost one. Diligence is used in every way; and we know how the Spirit of God condescends to this, what painstaking He uses in pressing the word home upon the soul, and causing the light to shine exactly at the right moment where all before was dark. In this second parable, accordingly, it is not active going away from God which is seen; a condition worse than this appears a dead thing. It is the only parable of the three which presents the lost one not as a living creature, but as dead. From elsewhere we know that both are true; and the Spirit of God describes the sinner both as one alive in the world going away from God (Romans 3:1-31), and as dead in trespasses and sins. (Ephesians 2:1-22) We could not have a proper conception of the sinner's condition unless we had these two things. One parable was needed to shew us a sinner in the activities of life departing from God, and another to represent the sinner as dead in trespasses and sins. Here exactly these two things are seen, the lost sheep shewing the one, and the lost piece of money the other.

But in addition to these, there is a third parable necessary: not only a strayed sheep and a lost inanimate piece of money, but, besides, the moral history of man away from the presence of God, but coming to Him again. Hence the parable of the lost son takes man from the very first, traces the beginning of his departure, and the course and character of the misery of a sinner on the earth, his repentance, and his final peace and joy in the presence of God, who Himself rejoices as truly as man objects. Practically this is true of every sinner. In other words, there is a little yielding to sin, or desire to be independent of God a farther and farther depth of evil in every person's history. I do not believe that the chapter discusses the question of a backsliding child of God, though a common principle of course, here and there, would apply to the restoration of a soul. This is a favourite idea with some who are more familiar with doctrine than with Scripture. But there are objections, plain, stronger, and decisive, against understanding the chapter thus. First, it does not suit, in the smallest degree, what we have just seen in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of money. Indeed it seems to me impossible to reconcile such an hypothesis even with the simple and repeated expression "lost." For who will affirm that, when a believer slips away from the Lord, he is lost? The most opposed to this, singular to say, is the very school most prone to that misinterpretation. When a man believes, he is a lost sheep found; he may not run well, no doubt; but never does Scripture view him afterwards as a lost sheep. Just so is it with the lost drachma; and so, finally, with the lost son. The prodigal was not, in the first instance, an unfaithful saint; he was not a backslider merely, but "lost" and "dead." Are these strong figures ever true of him who is a child of God by faith? They are precisely true, if we look at Adam and his sons, viewed as children of God in a certain sense. So the apostle Paul told the Athenians, that "we are also his offspring." Men are God's offspring, as having souls and moral responsibility to God, made after His similitude and His image here below. In these and other respects men differ from the beast, which is merely a living creature that perishes in death. A beast, of course, has a spirit (else it could not live); but still, when it dies, the spirit goes down to the earth, even as its body; whereas a man's spirit, when he dies (no matter as to this whether lost or saved), goes to God, as it came directly from God. There is that which, either for good or evil, is immortal in the spirit of man, as being breathed directly and immediately from God in the nostrils of man. Of the evangelists, Luke is the one who most speaks of man in this solemn light; and this, not only in his Gospel, but in the Acts of the Apostles. It connects itself with the large moral place he gives man, and as the object of divine grace. "A certain man had two sons;" so that man is looked at from his very origin. Then we have this son going farther and farther away from God, till he comes to the worst. There lay the opportunity of grace; and God brought him to a sense, not perhaps deep but most real, of his distance from God Himself as well as his degradation, sin, and ruin. It was by the pinch of want he was brought to himself by intense personal misery; for God deigns to use any and every method in His grace. It was shame, and suffering, and wretchedness, which led him to feel he was perishing; and wherefore? He looks back to Him from whom he departed, and grace puts into his heart the conviction of goodness in God as of badness in himself. This was really wrought in him; it was repentance repentance towards God; for it was not a mere conscientious judgment upon himself and his past conduct, but self-judgment from God, to which His goodness led Him led him by faith back to Himself "I will arise"' then he says, "and go to my father, and say, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight."

However there is no need at present to dwell on this, which no doubt, is familiar to most here. This only it may be well to add, that we have here evidently a moral history; but then there is another side, and that is, the ways of Christ, and the Father's grace with the returned prodigal. Accordingly we have this in two parts: first, the reception of the prodigal; next, the joy and love of God the Father, and the prodigal's communion with it when he had been received. The father receives him with open arms, ordering the best robe, everything worthy of himself, to be brought out in honour of the prodigal. Afterwards, we see the son in the father's presence. It sets forth the joy of God reproducing itself in all that are there. It is not a sketch of what we shall taste when we go to heaven, but rather the spirit of heaven made good now on earth in the worship of those who are brought to God. It is not at all a question of what we were, save only to enhance that which grace gives and makes us. All turns on the excellent efficacy of Christ and the Father's own joy. This forms the material and the character of the communion, which is in principle Christian worship.

On the other hand, it was too true that the joy of grace is intolerable to the self-righteous man; he has no heart for God's goodness to the lost; and the scene of joyful communion with the Father provokes in him outrageous opposition to God's way and will. For he is not a self-righteous Christian, any more than the prodigal represents a believer overtaken in a fault. No Christian is contemplated as cherishing such feeling as these though I deny not that legalism involves the principle. But here it is one who would not come in. Every Christian is brought to God. He may not fully enjoy or understand his privileges, but he has a keen sense of his short-comings, and feels the need of divine mercy, and rejoices in it for others. Would the Lord describe the Christian as outside the presence of God? Accordingly, the elder brother here, I have no doubt, represents such as condemned Jesus for eating with sinners; the self-righteousness more particularly of the Jew, as indeed of any denier of grace.

The next chapter (Luke 16:1-31) opens out distinct and weighty instruction for the disciples, and this in reference to earthly things. First of all, our Lord explains here that the tenure of earthly things is now gone. It was no longer a question of holding a stewardship, but of giving it up. The steward was judged. Such was the truth manifest in Israel. Continuance in his old earthly position was now closed for the unjust steward; and for him it was simply a question of his prudence in present opportunities, with a view to the future. The unjust steward is made the vehicle of divine teaching to us how to make the future our aim. He, being, a prudent man, thinks of what is to become of him when he loses his stewardship; he looks before him; he thinks of the future; he is not engrossed in the present; he weighs and considers how he is to get on when he is no longer steward. So he makes a wise use of his master's goods. With people indebted to his master, he strikes off a great deal from this bill and a great deal from that, in order to make friends for himself. The Lord says this is the way we are to treat earthly things. Instead of tenaciously clutching at what you have not yet got, and keeping what you have not yet got, and keeping what you have, on the contrary, regard them as your master's goods, and treat them as the unjust steward in the parable. Rise above the unbelief which looks at money, or other present possessions, as if they were your own things. It is not so. What you have after an earthly sort now belongs to God. Show that you are above a Jewish, earthly, or human feeling about it. Act on the ground that all belongs to God, and thus secure the future.

This is the grand point of our Gospel, from the transfiguration more particularly, but indeed all through. It is the slight of present treasure on earth, because we look on to the unseen, eternal, and heavenly things. It is the faith of disciples acting on the prudence of the far-seeing steward, though of course hating his injustice. The principle to act on is this, that what nature calls my own is not my own, but God's. The best use to make of it is, treating it as His, to be as generous as may be, looking out against the future. It is easy to be generous with another's goods. This is the way of faith with what flesh counts its own things. Do not count them your own, but look at and treat them as God's. Be as generous as you please: He will not take it amiss. This is evidently what our Lord insists on; and here is the application to the disciples: "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail [or, it fails], they may receive you into everlasting habitations." You are not going to be on the earth long Other habitations are for ever. Sacrifice what nature calls its own, and would always hold fast if it could. Faith counts these things God's; freely sacrifice them, in view of what shall never pass away. Then he adds the pregnant lesson "He that is faithful in that which is least (after all it is only the least things now) is faithful also in much." Indeed there is more than this. It is not only the littleness of the present compared with the greatness of the future, but besides "If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another's (I leave out the word "man's", it is really God who is meant by it), who shall give you that which is your own?" What can be of its kind a more wonderfully divine touch than this? Exactly where man counts things his own, faith admits God's claim, another's; exactly where we might count things only God's, it sees one's own. Our own things are in heaven. He that is faithful in the little now will have much entrusted then; he that knows how to use the unrighteous mammon now, whose heart is not in it, who does not value it as his treasure, on the contrary, will have then the true riches. Such is the Lord's remarkable teaching in this parable.

Next, He gives us the rich man and Lazarus; which brings all out to view, the bright and dark side, in appearance and in reality, of the future as well as of the present. See one sumptuously faring every day, attired in fine linen and purple, a man living for self; near whose door lies another, suffering, loathsome, so abjectly in want and so friendless that the dogs do the service which man had no heart for. The scene changes suddenly. The beggar dies, and angels carry him into Abraham's bosom. The rich man died, and was buried (we hear not that Lazarus was); his funeral was as grand as his life; but in hell he lifted up his eyes, being tormented. There and then he sees the blessedness of him he had despised in presence of his own grandeur. It is the solemn light of eternity let into the world; it is God's estimate underneath outward appearances. The truth is for souls now. It is given not to think of in hades, but here; and yet we have, as most fitly winding up the tale, the earnest pleadings of the man who never before thought in his life seriously of eternal things. Hear now his anxiety for his brothers. There was no real love for souls, but a certain anxious desire for his brothers. At least one learns how real a thing his anguish was. But the Lord's comment is decisive. They had Moses and the prophets; if they heard not them, neither would they hear if one rose from the dead. What a truth, and how thoroughly about to be verified in His own rising from the dead, not to speak of another Lazarus raised in witness of His glory as the Son of God! Those who believed not Moses rejected Christ's resurrection, as they consulted to put Lazarus also to death, and sunk themselves under their own base lie (Matthew 28:11-15). even to this day.