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Our Lord moves far in advance of His followers, His fixed purpose stamped upon His face, a strange haste in His stride that casts astonishment and awe over the silent, uncomprehending disciples.
The same Almighty One who fed Elijah in the terrible days of dearth, and who delivered Daniel from the power of the lions, still watches over and provides for His people.
Yet the most penetrating insight concerns what seems like deprivation—that He shall depart.
It is insufficient to cherish conviction privately or confess only to sympathetic friends.
Consider Pharaoh—his wise men, his armies, his chariots—plunging into the Red Sea like lead, sinking beneath the waters.
The Biblical Illustrator identifies four root causes of such backsliding: opposition and fear from religion's enemies; worldly conformity that erodes conviction; self-confidence in spiritual attainments; and neglect of private devotional duties.
The margin reads, "Set your heart to her bulwarks." This is no passing glance or negligent inspection; it demands wholehearted attention and deliberate investigation.
Maracleren observes that all earthly teachers—however towering—accomplish limited, transient work.
Exell identifies three distinct enemies arrayed against the believer's sanctification.
The warm-hearted, impulsive fisherman who once denied knowing Jesus now speaks with 'calm, fixed determination, which wastes no words, but in its very brevity impresses the hearers as being immovable.' Maclaren observes that this man—once prone to wrong-headedness—has laid down...
Among those who reverently buried the martyr were devout men—not disciples, but Hellenistic Jews, perhaps from the very synagogue whose members had disputed with Stephen and dragged him before the council.
Consider any discipline of human knowledge: a man who disbelieves the principles of astronomy or geology yet pretends to teach these sciences will find his teaching rendered useless by his own heartlessness.
Maclaren captures the precise moment when courage evaporates: Peter had already 'repented now of, and alarmed for what might happen to him on account of, his ill-aimed blow at Malchus,' compounded by 'the nipping cold' that 'had taken all his...
Christ's death, which scattered His avowed disciples, paradoxically shamed these secret believers into action.
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.
These unnamed men, bearing no vision, no command from Jerusalem, no precedent to guide them—only truth in their minds and the impulses of Christ's love in their hearts—solved the question that had vexed the apostles: whether salvation belonged to Gentiles.
God's purpose is explicit: "God hath sent His Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved." Yet formidable obstacles obscure this gracious design.
The Sanhedrin spoke solemnly of 'putting down error' and maintaining doctrinal purity, yet their true motive was *zelos*—jealousy, not genuine zeal.
Yet Maclaren observes that this solitude, rather than paralyzing the Apostle, clarified his method.
When Jesus enters the locked room where the disciples huddled 'for fear of the Jews,' He greets them: 'Peace be unto you!' This first peace addresses their terror—the dread that what they witnessed was mere phantom, a ghostly visitation.
Years before, Elijah had anointed him king over Syria—a word that had festered in his ambitious heart while the decrepit Ben-hadad still nominally held the throne.
Yet Christ Himself declared He came not with peace, but with a sword.
An able minister requires two foundational elements: natural endowments and spiritual qualities.
In Adam's family stood Cain; in Christ's family, Judas; in the earliest Church, deceivers.