Loading...
92 illustrations — Lessons from history, biography, and world events
To the officers sent by the Pharisees—men animated by hatred, restrained only by inexplicable awe—His declaration 'Whither I go, ye cannot come' becomes a triumphant assertion of invulnerability.
SermonWise.ai generates complete sermon outlines for any passage across 17 theological traditions. Try it with John.
The material vine one might observe by the wayside becomes merely shadow; the truth resides in Him alone.
Maclaren asks the penetrating question: why did they not seize Him?
First, Christ freed this ancient law from false Jewish glosses that had corrupted its meaning (Matthew 23:43-44).
Yet Christ's response cuts through all such speculation with sovereign authority: 'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
The Greek word *parakletos* means 'one who is summoned to the side of another'—a Champion clad in celestial armour, dispatched directly from God's throne.
The first—mere acceptance of His Messianic claim—is what Maclaren calls 'shallow,' proven by these same believers taking up stones to stone Him before the chapter closes.
These men had condemned an innocent man to death—yet their conscience remained untroubled.
To gird oneself is to prepare for action, yet Maclaren expands this to something far richer: the faculty of bright imaginations about one's future course.
This abiding requires retaining our attachment: by keeping Christ in our thoughts continually, fixing our desires and will upon Him, and manifesting our love through comportment and speech.
Eight ancient stone steps descend to waters that supplied Jerusalem's citizens for millennia.
How can Christ command what must spring spontaneously from the heart?
The Jews, having exhausted rational debate with Jesus, abandoned discourse for violence.
*Didymus* means "the twin," derived from his sibling relationship—whether brother or sister named Lysia, born simultaneously with Thomas.
The pedigree of true believers consists of two movements: first, they were once *in* the world, characterized by practical atheism (living without God in spirit and conduct), imperial materialism (recognizing no spiritual universe), and dominant selfishness (each governed by selfish...
They possessed no human sympathy for the sufferer whom hope deferred had made sick and hopeless.
The Word visited men before the Incarnation through nature and conscience, came fully at the Incarnation, and still comes through the Spirit who interprets His name (John 14:25; 16:13).
The world swarms with 'all unrighteousness and wickedness, lust and immorality, intemperance, cruelty, hatred; all manner of buzzing evils that stink and sting around us.' Yet our Lord 'passes them all by and points to a mere negative thing, to...
Jesus hung 'in the midst' of two robbers—a placement orchestrated by Pilate's mockery, yet divine in its symbolism.
The crowds, seeing their bellies filled, wanted to make Him king—a prophet useful for material provision.
The outward event communicates spiritual and religious truth through what he calls the 'semi-transparent' visible fact.
Her posture reveals the soul's constraint in desolation—constrained to cling to One who sticks closer than a brother.
Christ presents a paradox: the disciples are clean, yet they require continual cleansing.
What is implied in being a branch in Christ?