The Journey to Samaria
John 4
We are all attracted by the journey which the Prodigal takes from the distant land of his degradation and misery, home to his father's house, in Luke 15. It is a touching picture of the return which a sinner makes under the quickening and conduct of the Spirit, back to God, and then finding in Him a forgiving Father.
There is, however, a ...read
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The Kinsman
The Kinsman under the Law had to do two services to redeem either the person or the inheritance of his brother, if either had been sold to a stranger; to avenge the wrong done to his brother, whether (I may say) it were captivity or death.
These things are seen in Leviticus 25 and Numbers 35, where (as the Englishman's Hebrew Concordance shows us) ...read
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The Link between Heaven and Earth
Isaiah 6.
The link between heaven and earth has been signified from the beginning in various ways. Visions, dreams, and audiences, introducing the spirit of man to unseen regions, did this in their way. Angelic visits did it still more palpably. But more strikingly still, the appearances of the Son of God at all times; in patriarchal days very s ...read
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The Lord Jesus in John 11, 12
These chapters show us in what different channels the Lord's thoughts flowed from those of the heart of man. His ideas, so to speak, of misery and of happiness, were so different from what man's naturally are.
The eleventh chapter opens with a scene of human misery. The dear family at Bethany are visited with sickness, and the voice of health and ...read
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The Lord Jesus in John 1: 43--John 2
The Lord may be traced in this scripture, as One Who ranges, if I may so express it, through different regions of divine glory, in the calm and perfect sense of this, that they all belong to Him, and are fully and properly His own.
In His intercourse with Nathanael, the Lord Jesus shows Himself to be the One Who touches the deep springs that are i ...read
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The Lord's Supper
We should, on divine authority, and in spiritual, scriptural intelligence, hold to it, that the Lord's supper is the due characteristic expression of the Lord's-day--that which should then be made principal. If we read Luke 22: 7-20, we shall learn that the passover of the Jews and the supper of the Lord being then exhibited successively--the one a ...read
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The Lord's Supper: A Memorial of Christ
The Lord's supper is to be eaten as a memorial or remembrance of Christ.
This is His own interpretation of it. The bread was mystically His body, the cup His blood, accomplishing the remission of sins. To eat and to drink of this feast was to partake of the virtues of His sacrifice, or to express such participation (1 Cor. 10: 18); and it was thus ...read
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The Manner of the Love of Jesus
Matt. 9; Mark 2; Luke 5.
God was showing His rich and various mercy in the old times; but this was done after a peculiar manner. He forgave sin, He healed disease, He fed His people. But all this was done after a peculiar manner. There was a certain distance and reserve, as it were, a remaining still in His own sanctuary--still in the heavens, t ...read
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The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
Introduction.
It is the Moral Glory, or, as we speak, the character of the Lord Jesus, on which I meditate in these pages. All went up to God as a sacrifice of sweet savour. Every expression of Himself in every measure, however small, and in whatever relationship it was rendered, was incense. In His Person (but surely there only) man was reconcile ...read
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The Mornings of Scripture
The soul is the dwelling-place of the truth of God. The ear and the mind are but the gate and the avenue; the soul is its home or dwelling-place.
The beauty and the joy of the truth may have unduly occupied the out-posts, filled the avenues, and crowded the gates--but it is only in the soul that its reality can be known. And it is by meditation th ...read
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The Mount of God
Exodus 1 - 13.
I separate these chapters because they present us, I judge, a distinct subject for meditation, and afford us some of the grounds on which it is that Horeb, or Sinai, in Arabia, is called in scripture "the Mount of God."
They open with Israel in Egypt, and that land is seen in her guilt before God, for it is here written of her, " ...read
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The Nearness of the Glory
The thought of the nearness of the glory should be deeply cherished by the heart. And we need be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us richly in the Word. The place of the glory is near us, and the path by which it can either come to us or we go to it is short and simple, and the moment for the taking of the journey may be prese ...read
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The New Creation
The twelfth and following chapters of John's Gospel were prophetic when they were written. Not so now. What was then anticipation is now realized. What was then in anticipation was the risen life--the new creation.
Now if we look at John 12 we shall see a fine principle which introduces this thought. In that chapter we get the risen family as a sa ...read
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The Obedience of Faith
Romans 1, 5.
Deeply and justly prizing our Authorized Version, yet alterations are at times well suggested--as on this verse, which should rather be, "By whom we have received grace and apostleship to the obedience of faith among all nations."
We might religiously judge that nothing could be more acceptable, to God, than the services of love. W ...read
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The Parable of the Cedar and the Two Eagles
Ezekiel 17.
Discipline preserves us for future blessing, but it does not exalt us in this present world.
Connected with this thought, let us read this parable.
This cedar is Judah, or the house of David; the two eagles are the king of Babylon and the king of Egypt.
This cedar had incurred the discipline of the Lord, and the Lord used the king ...read
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The Person and Deity of the Holy Ghost
My Dear Sir,
I felt myself much drawn to you from the little intercourse we had on Sunday, so that the apprehension, as it grew upon me, of anything that might prove a necessary hindrance to further intercourse, I need not say, was painful to me.
I have since further meditated on the subject that was then between us, and have committed the guidan ...read
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The Pilgrim Fathers
Hebrews 11: 13-16.
What is declared in these verses of the Epistle to the Hebrews of the fathers in the book of Genesis, is beautifully exhibited, and thereby fully verified by their histories. I feel anxious to consider this a little carefully, the Lord leading the heart (as through circumstances I trust He graciously has done lately) a little ...read
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The Potter's Broken Vessel
Jeremiah 18, 19.
I feel and judge very distinctly that there is a special character in this present time through which we are passing. The great powers which are destined to fill out the action of Christendom's closing day are practising themselves, each in its several sphere, with great earnestness and skill. I mean the civil and the ecclesiast ...read
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The Queen of Sheba
"The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here."--Luke 11: 31.
This "elect lady" stands in a line of loved and honoured women, who, now and again, from the beginning ...read
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The Queen of Sheba and the Eunuch
1 Kings 10; 2 Chr. 9; Acts 8.
These two narratives, found in distant parts of the Word, in common illustrate truths which are as clear and important to us in this distant age and place as ever they were, whether in the time of 2 Chronicles 9 or of Acts 8. In the queen of Sheba and the Ethiopian eunuch, who belonged it may be to the same country, ...read
J.G. Bellet