To Christian Workers. I. Without sacred travail-in the sense of labour, sacrifice, patiencethere is never any profound and abiding satisfaction. Nothing precious in the world can be obtained without sacrifice; and this is just as true in the kingdom of God (a). So it is with God. Creation and Providence may be the recreations of Omnipotence, but Redemption could be accomplished only by infinite cost (8). Let us not dream of doing anything effective for ourselves or others cheaply. II. Wherever there is sacred travail there is always abiding satisfaction. This lesson is as true as the other. No Christian labour is ever lost; it may seem lost, but it is not. Even when Christ re-ascended to heaven, His incarnation, His life, His death seemed to have been thrown away. A mere handful of disciples seemed the only result of it all. But was Christ's travail lost? Every century that has since rolled away has been revealing how much was accomplished by it. His cross has been a tree of life in the midst of the garden bearing all manner of fruits-in that it has reconciled man to God; that it has reconciled man to man; that it reconciles us to our earthly lot; that it sweetens every other cross; that it reconciles us to our duty. So will it be with all who labour for Christ. Whatever travail of love or consecration you or I can put into our life and labour, none of it will be lost; but there will be a divine satisfaction infinitely ample, enduringly grand, compensating for it all (7). III. The salvation of man is the satisfaction of God. Let this thought cheer the soul oppressed by guilt: God will delight to save you. Let it cheer the Christian worker; surely it should animate us in going forth to any work, that God is on our side, and that He finds His satisfaction in saving men. IV. The salvation of men will be on such a scale as to give complete (a) We all would like that the law of Christian, and, indeed, of other life and success, was very different from this, and just as in the world people would like to get wealth without paying the price of it in labour, and would like to gain influence without rendering service by which it alone is won, and would like to get the love of their fellow-men without the life of friendliness that attracts it, so in spiritual things we would like cheaply, easily, to gain the precious things on which we set our eyes-forgiveness without repentance, perfect sanctity without the gradual and laborious self-denial by which alone it can be reached; usefulness we would like to get in some cheap and easy way without any sweat of agony, and without any strain of sympathy. We would all like in this way to get various things that are good-forgiveness, usefulness, raptures, light, conviction, assurance, without any travail. Now I do not know any lesson that it is more requisite for the young to learn, and more requisite for older men to keep themselves from forgetting than this-that without travail there is no abiding satisfaction. — Glover. (8) When He aims at the greater objects that engage His heart and tax His powers, when He would not make but save the world, when He would get back to Him the love of His suspicious and wandering children, when He would fill His house with guests, and when He would make these guests eternally worthy of His fellowship and capable of communion with Him, then not easily even for Him can that work be done; but between Him and this joy that He sets before Him there is the travail of Bethlehem, with its loneliness, of His lonely pilgrim path of mis. understanding, of the weakness of feeble hearts, and the bitterness of hateful foes, There is Gethsemane, there is Calvary. Without travail there is no satisfaction.-Glover. (7) There may be travail in other directions Travail for wealth without any satisfaction. often leaves a man in poverty; travail for the sake of honour leaves him still insignificant and unknown. Do not spend your labour for that which will not profit, but aspire to the grand reward, to the noble results of existence, and put forth the sacred travail which, exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, is rewarded and blessed of heaven.-Glover. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT JUSTIFIES. liii. 11. By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many. "Of whom speaketh the prophet this?" (Acts viii. 34). Only of One, in all earth's history, could these things be said. Is not His name "Wonderful"} Here we have I. THE FATHER'S RIGHTEOUS SERVANT. "My righteous servant," says God, as if He had never had another. "Servant," is a name of subjection and obedience, yet also of honour, according to the rank of him whom he serves. As servant He is the doer of the Father's will; the Father's servant for us, and in this sense our servant (Luke xxii. 27; Matt. xx. 28). As servant He is the fulfiller of the Law; the obedient One in all things; not pleasing Himself, nor doing His own will. "My righteous Servant," says God, as delighting in Him; for never before had He got such service and such righteousness; Divine, yet human service; Divine, yet human righteousness. It is of this righteous Servant that the whole chapter speaks. Wondrous servant! Gracious service! What or where should we be without such a servant and such a service? All we need is ministered to us by Him freely, liberally, lovingly! II. THIS RIGHTEOUS SERVANT JUSTIFIES. He is no common servant. He is the great Judge of all; the Justifier. of the sinner; He who acquits and pardons the guilty. He acted as such on earth (John viii. 11; Matt. ix. 2, &c.); He acts as such in heaven. Our justification is in His hands; we go to Him to be justified. In one aspect it is the Father that justifies; in another, it is the Son. He "justifies many." All power is given Him-judicial, royal, priestly. We get acquittal and acceptance from His priestly-royal hands. "Let us then come boldly," &c. His justifying sentence reverses the law's condemning sentence. It is with the condemned that He deals; it is them that He pardons. There was justice in the condemnation ; there is no less justice in the pardon. The Justifier is the Father's Servant; the Word made flesh; the Son of God, who came in the name of the Lord to save us. Grace and righteousness in all their fulness are to be found in Him. III. THIS RIGHTEOUS SERVANT JUSTIFIES BY HIS KNOWLEDGE. The "knowledge" is the link between the "many" and justification. He justifies them by giving them the knowledge of Himself as the Justifier, and of His work as the justifying thing. Knowledge is not here used in the sense of wisdom or understanding. It means that which He teaches them to know. We are justified by knowing the "righteous servant." It is not by working, or praying, or suffering, but by knowing, that we enter on the state of acceptance (John xvii. 3). This is one of the simplest aspects in which the Gospel is presented to us. There is no mystery or darkness here. To know Jesus is to be justified! The justified man can say nothing in his own behalf; nothing good has he found in himself, in his works, feelings, character. The knowledge of "God's righteous servant "has brought him into the state of "no condemnation." Satisfied with that knowledge, though satisfied with nothing about himself, he can say with certainty and gladness, "Who is he that condemneth?" IV. THIS RIGHTEOUS SERVANT JUSTIFIES BY BEARING THE INIQUITY OF THOSE WHOM HE JUSTIFIES. He justifies as a judge; as a judge giving righteous judgment; righteous judgment in acquitting the unrighteous The ground on which He justifies is not mere grace, it is also righteousness. Not that sin is trivial; but that He has borne iniquity in the room of righteousness. God has given us a testimony to the work of His Son; and He has added the promise, that whosoever believes that testimony is straightway justified We believe and It is the simple conclusion we draw THE WORK AND THE REWARD OF CHRIST. liii. 12. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, &c. Both the work and the reward of the Saviour were included in the prophecies concerning Him. I. HIS WORK. 1. Its culminating act. "He hath poured out His soul unto death." Not His incarnation, poverty, miracles, teaching, obedience. All these necessary. But the grand act was His death. 2. Its humiliating circumstances. "He was numbered with the transgressors." On the cross as a malefactor with malefactors. 3. Its vicarious character. "And He bore the sin of many." This conducts our thoughts farther than the outward spectacle, to the reason of it. 4. Its mediatorial power. "He made intercession for the transgressors" (Luke xxiii, 34; Heb. vii. 25; 1 John ii. 1, 2). II. HIS REWARD. "Therefore will I divide Him," &c. The allusion is to the conqueror receiving as his reward a portion of the spoils taken in war. Christ's triumphal entry into heaven and seat upon the throne. His acquisition of the souls rescued from the power of the enemy. Illustrate by the progress of the Church from small beginnings to the present time. Also its further progress as indicated in prophecy as yet unfulfilled. This includes a multitude which no man can number; and all the intellect, wealth, holy character, talent, power of usefulness of each. CONCLUSION.-1. These glorious results will be secured by human agency. 2. The work is committed to the Church of Christ, every member of which is responsible for his proper portion of it. 3. The strongest motives to engagement in this enter VOL. II. prise exist. They are the united obligations of love and loyalty.-J. Rawlinson. Be careful not to mistake the pleasure with which you listen to a subject like this for real religion and acceptable devotion. Many weep over Christ's sufferings who never weep over their sins, &c. The true feeling with which we should contemplate His work. I. Christ as a sufferer. This chapter forms rather a history of His passion, than a prophecy. It appears to be a part of God's procedure that the most important blessings should arise out of suffering. Christ has consecrated and ennobled the path of suffering. 1. Christ's sufferings were penal. Ours are salutary. We have many alleviations under them, and have cheerful hopes of benefit by them, but Christ was unsustained by the prospect of any moral benefit to Himself. 2. Christ's sufferings were vicarious. 3. Christ's sufferings were chiefly intellectual. Some of the advantages arising from the fact that our Saviour was a sufferer.-(1.) It reconciles us to the endurance of trial. (2.) It secures to us support and sympathy under the pressure of our various trials. (3.) It leads us to anticipate a final conquest over trial. Glory preceded by humiliation, &c. 2 M II. Christ as a conqueror (Col. ii. 15; Phil. ii. 9). Innumerable multitudes shall enjoy the benefits of His death. He is still conquering. The final triumph is certain. III Christ as an intercessor. In Christ we have a complete and all-sufficient Saviour.-Samuel Thodey. 541 LESSONS AT THE CROSS. (For Good Friday, or Sacramental Service.) Of all wonderful deaths, that of the Son of God is the most wonderful. Let us take our stand at the cross, and gather up some of the lessons taught by His death I. THE IMMEASURABLE DEPTH OF MAN'S MISERY. He had sunk so low that he could sink no lower, except he sank into hell. He might justly have been left to perish, and must have perished but for the interposition of the Son of God, who assumed the nature that had sinned, &c., and "poured out His soul unto death" on the accursed tree. He alone could rescue man from Satan's grasp, &c. (Isa. xlix. 24-26). II. THE INFINITE ENORMITY OF SIN. It is evident that to a God of perfect purity sin must be infinitely hateful. Call to mind the destruction of fallen angels, the expulsion from Eden of the parents of our race, &c. The Apostle Paul maintains that sin subjects the sinner to temporal, spiritual, and eternal death, by a law perfectly holy, just, and good, and is consequently set forth in its true colours as "exceeding sinful"-out of measure, beyond all expression or conception sinful (Rom. vii. 13). But the crowning evidence is seen in the cross of Christ: not so much in the fact that impenitent sinners are damned by it, as that the immaculate Son of God died for it. What must be its enormity when God's mercy could not consistently pardon it till His own Son had undergone its punishment-a person of infinite purity, dignity, and worth, &c. Cease to regard sin as a trifle, &c. Put yourself in the line of God's view of it. A right estimate of sin is a vital point in the process of personal salvation. Repent, and believe on Christ, or you must perish eternally, for "there is no other sacrifice for sin." If God spared not His own sinless Son, when He bore the sins of the guilty, much less will He spare impenitent sinners when they bear their own sins. ATONE III. THE ALL-SUFFICIENT Christ did not die as a martyr, or IV. THE SUPREME REVELATION OF DIVINE LOVE. All other manifestations are but faint compared with the love exhibited in our redemption. Either Christ must assume our nature, &c., or the race must perish. Will God's love to a world. of sinners induce Him to give His Son? The everlasting interests of humanity were suspended upon that question (Rom. viii. 32; John iii. 16, and others). He might have formed a more glorious world, &c., but He could not manifest His love in a higher degree than He has done. What more convincing proof can you want that God loves you? Can you continue to grieve such love? Yield to His love's allconquering power. Let us, then, often visit the cross to learn the depth of our misery, &c.; the one great theme of all true Christian preaching, and the supreme object of Christian glorying (Gal. vi. 14, 15; P. D. 595).-A. Tucker. THE FRIEND OF SINNERS. liii. 12. He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. A vague notion is abroad in the world that the benefit of Christ's passion is intended only for good people. How inconsistent is such a supposition with the whole teaching of Scripture. Consider the plan itself. It was a plan of salvation and of necessity, it was intended to bless sinners. The plan was based in grace, but how "grace," unless it was meant for persons who deserve nothing? Moreover, think of the work itself. The work of Christ was to bring in a perfect righteousness. For whom? For those who had a righteousness? That were a superfluity. And then look at God's end in the whole work. It was to glorify Himself; but how could God be glorified by washing spotless souls, and by bringing to everlasting glory by grace those who could have entered heaven by merit? Our text, in its threefold character, shows the intimate connection which exists between Jesus and sinners, for in none of its sentences is there meaning unless there be a sinner, and unless Christ has come into connection with him. It is this one point I want to work out. I. CHRIST IS ENROLLED AMONG SINNERS. In what sense are we to understand this? He was numbered with them1. In the census of the Roman Empire. There went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed, and the espoused wife of Joseph, being great with child, must travel to Bethlehem that Christ may be born there, and that He may be numbered with the transgressing people, who, for their sins, were subject to the Roman yoke. "they 2. In the scroll of fame. Ask public rumour "What is the character of Jesus of Nazareth?" and it cannot find a word in its vocabulary foul enough for Him. "This sometimes said; and our translators have inserted the word "fellow," because in the original there is an ellipsis, the Evangelists, I suppose, hardly liking to write the word which had been cast upon Christ. Fame, with her lying tongue, said He was a drunken man and a wine-bibber, &c. 3. In the courts of law. The ecclesiastical court of Judaism, the Sanhedrim, said of Him, "Thou blasphemest;" and they smote Him on the cheek. Written down among the offenders against the dignity of God and against the security of the Jewish Church, you find the name of Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified. The civil courts also asserted the same. Pilate may wash his hands in water, and say, "I find no fault in Him,' but still, driven by the infernal clam |