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188 illustrations
The Greek word *ergastērion* (workshop) reveals where this transaction occurs—in the very matrix of falsehood itself.
Our Lord justifies His parabolic teaching method on the principle that immediate revelation is not always desirable.
Yet a great intellect dissociated from moral control becomes a scourge and terror.
Temporal possessions obtained in harmony with God's will and employed in benevolence produce genuine happiness.
Exell identifies the distinguishing mark of such hollow speech: the avoidance of Scripture's most penetrating term—*sin* (*hamartia*, missing the mark before God).
See here the woeful effects of refusing Elohim's free offers of grace.
Under the Levitical dispensation, tithes, firstfruits, and firstlings were consecrated to the Lord.
Livingstone discovered among Africa's rudest tribes: even those without Scripture readily admit their sinfulness.
In primitive times, merchants practiced fraud through inadequate measures, systematically shortchanging customers with each transaction.
The Heavenly Physician addresses those who neglect His healing: those depending upon their own moral virtue, those trusting in religious duties alone, and those resting in correct doctrine without transformation.
No kingdom—evil or good—consciously engineers its own destruction.
The Biblical Illustrator identifies this legion as anger, malice, intemperance, murder, impurity, unfaithfulness, dishonesty, hypocrisy, ingratitude, disobedience, envy, covetousness, blasphemy, and atheism.
God's method of punishment is not arbitrary cruelty but divine permission—He lets us punish ourselves.
God announces Himself the witness and judge of all mankind.
These are few, extraordinary, and universal in scope.
Exell's 1887 commentary frames this as a mirror for self-examination in two categories.
Why may we multiply requests before the throne?
Across continents and centuries—from China's imperial annals recording the discovery of "bread-stones" during famine, to the West African coast where the yellowish earth called "caouac" sustains entire populations, to the banks of the Orinoco where Humboldt documented indigenous peoples kneading...
The pulpit offered dull platitudes while Christ's followers never asked: How would He have acted if He had vegetables to sell or horses to drive?
This breath infused intelligence in the brain and vitality in the heart, making man a moral being capable of virtue and responsible for his actions.
Joseph Spurgeon Exell observes that this man may pray correctly with his lips while harboring two catastrophic beliefs: first, "I shall not be moved"—immunity from consequence; second, "God hath forgotten.
The guilt of forsaking God rests upon a fundamental truth: man is bound by the law of his nature to obey the Almighty Being who made him an intelligent and immortal creature.
Their judgment surpasses that of Sodom, for they rejected not ignorance but revealed truth.
The children of Israel polluted Yahweh's inheritance by filling it with the carcases of their abominable things—idolatries, wicked inventions, and corrupt ways.