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17 illustrations for sermon preparation
The accumulation of light things becomes overwhelmingly ponderous.
The Greeks and Romans witnessed friendships that shaped both statecraft and individual virtue—Scipio and Laelius, Cicero and Atticus, Achilles and Patroclus.
Exell's Victorian commentary illuminates why envy surpasses even explosive anger in spiritual danger.
This principle governs both body and spirit: we lose taste for what satisfies us to excess.
There is more hope of a fool than of him." The Scriptures overflow with denunciations against human self-sufficiency, and Solomon's writings particularly stigmatize the absurdity and guilt of a self-willed, self-sufficient spirit.
The coward's shame lies not in what he speaks, but in what he leaves unsaid—his refusal to act.
Exell's 1887 commentary illuminates this paradox of proximity: practical presence surpasses emotional kinship when assistance is required.
The flattery here is not gentle commendation but *kelalah* (curse)—a loud, vaunting display that intrudes itself on all occasions with busy, demonstrative energy.
Proverbs 26:4 contrasts two forms of encounter: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." The ancient cynic Diogenes carried a lighted lantern through Athens at midday, searching for "a man"—a true friend....
This principle, drawn from Proverbs 26:27, establishes a sobering truth: every child of Adam, until renewed by Divine grace, presents to Omnipotence and Omniscience the same moral aspect.
This scientific curiosity illuminates the proverb's moral force: corruption can masquerade as brilliance.
As Joseph Exell clarifies in *The Biblical Illustrator* (1887), the proverb means: "Unsteady as the sparrow, as the flight of the swallow, is a causeless curse; it cometh not to pass." Exell identifies two categories of causeless imprecations.
Yet inevitably the accumulating pressure breaches the barrier, and the stream resumes its accustomed course with redoubled force.
The Victorian scholar John Devotion, M.A., observed that genuine, unfeigned praise—bestowed for commendable conduct useful to the community—serves as a precise measure of moral and religious character.
The flatterer operates with calculated self-interest, stripping the novice he has coaxed and living upon the deceived.
The seeds of alteration are everywhere sown, yet by strange deception, each man believes himself exempt from this universal law.
The proverb reads: "As he that throweth a stone at an idol, so is he that giveth honour to a fool." Colonel Conder first identified the true translation, revealing the comparison's power.
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