Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. 
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head,
​and gave up the ghost. Joh 19:29-30
Christ Drinking the Vinegar

"​He wished to die sober, so He refused the wine, intended to deaden pain; but the vinegar was an insult.
He took it, nevertheless. In some lives the saccharine seems to predominate. Life is sunshine on a bank of flowers. But in others there are not so many sugars as acids. A man who is always well cannot sympathize with the sick. But the fact that Christ took the vinegar makes Him able to sympathize with those whose cup is filled with the sharp acids of this life. There is the sourness of-

​Application:
1. To all those to whom life has been an acerbity, I preach the omnipotent sympathy of Christ. Do not carry your ills alone. When you have any trouble, take it to Jesus, knowing that for our sakes He took the vinegar.
2. My utterance is almost choked at the thought that people refuse this Divine sympathy, and drink their own vinegar. (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)

"These three words, "It is finished," are in the original a single word. That has been called the greatest single word which ever broke upon the ear of man. Often, when one is preaching, it is not the whole sermon that God uses. It is a single word or thought coming home with power to the hearer. The one word Yes uttered by a woman may alter the whole future of a man and lead his life to power or ineffectiveness. A single word has changed the course of history and affected the destiny of empires. Who can exhaust the heartbreak and the tears that are hidden in the word Farewell ? But the greatest of all single words that ever broke upon the ear of man is this word of Jesus upon Calvary. Finished was His work on earth for God, finished His work for man. Finished were those sufferings which made His face marred more than any man's. We have security and peace and joy, not less than absolution and release, in the finished work of our Redeemer.

The First Utterance of Jesus Was about His Life's Work
As we read this word our thoughts go winging back to the first recorded utterance of Jesus. He was a lad of twelve when He said, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Some people saunter through the world; their great ambition is an easy life. But our Lord, even in His boyhood, had an intense conviction of vocation. The claims of home and the appeal of family were submerged in the intense conviction that He must be about His Father's business. What that conviction meant to Him in boyhood it is impossible for us to estimate. It would grow with every prayer He prayed; it would deepen as He pored over the Old Testament. But even then it mastered and controlled Him, and to the end this was His burning thought: "I must work the works of him that sent me." It is always a quietly glad thing to complete the task even of a day. But when the task is lifelong and has absorbed the years, far greater is the gladness of completion. That is why we never really penetrate the gladness of this cry of Jesus till we remember that His labor was His life. It was not a service of selected hours. It was a service that included everything. His sufferings and His prayers were part of it as surely as His teaching on the hill. There was in it an obedience which was passive as well as an obedience which was active—and now that work for God and man was ended.

The Joy of Performing One's Work Faithfully
Again, we reverently remember the fidelity with which that work was done, and done in the teeth of every temptation, for He was tempted in all points like as we are. When we do the humblest bit of service faithfully there is always a certain joy when it is done. Perhaps there is no joy to equal that, unless it be the happiness of home. It does not matter what the task may be, whether in the kitchen or the college—to do it faithfully sets the joy-bells ringing. The man who is unfaithful in his duty is continually defrauding other people. But he is doing something even worse than that—he is continually defrauding his own soul. For him the joy-bells never ring, nor does he hear the music of high heaven, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Now think of the fidelity of Christ, tempted in all points like as we are; tempted by weariness and by His friends and by all the appearances of ghastly failure, yet through the bitterest and darkest hours faithful to His vocation till He cries on Calvary, "It is finished."

Jesus and His Work Were One
Again the moment of this cry reveals to us that Jesus and His work were one. His work was not finished even in Gethsemane: it was finished in the article of death. There are multitudes whose work is over before the hour when they are called to die. The teacher must retire at the age limit; the preacher must hand his scepter to another. And there are many whose work is just beginning, like some fair flower opening in the garden, when "comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears, and slits the thin-spun life." With Jesus it was different. He cried, "It is finished," and gave up the ghost. His task was not ended before the final breath, nor did death smite Him and leave it incomplete. Bound together into a radiant unity were the vocation of our blessed Lord and the life and death appointed Him of God. You cannot separate Jesus from His words, and you cannot separate Jesus from His work. I am the Way, the Truth, the Life. Come unto Me and I will give you rest. That is why all fellowship with Christ gives us a richer conception of His work and why the humblest sharing in His work gives us a deeper knowledge of His person.

The Finishing of Christ's Work on Earth Was the Beginning of Another in Heaven
But the finishing of work, in our experience, is not invariably a happy thing. If we have loved our work and given our hearts to it, the hour of ending may be an hour of sadness. There are well-known instances of writers who laid down their pen with an infinite regret. They have told us that as they wrote the closing sentences their eyes were wet with tears. And sometimes when one resigns his post and honorable men convene to do him honor, no praiseful fellowship can quite conceal his bitterness that the career is over. One thing alone can dissipate that bitterness. One thing alone can banish it entirely. It is the assurance that what we call an end is in another aspect a beginning. And for Jesus there was that full assurance, for did He not say to the penitent thief on Calvary, "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise"? He was dead and is alive forevermore. The end was the beginning. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. In pardoned sin, in present fellowship, in the conquering power of His completed work, He sees of the travail of His soul." (Devotional Sermons)

"​The words of dying men, says the great dramatist, “enforce attention.” How much more the words of the dying God-Man. Note:

I. THE LIGHT CAST BY THIS UTTERANCE ON CHRIST’S WORK ITSELF. It exhibits to us-
A great work. It is not of any ordinary or trifling act that we use this stately phrase; it belongs to what we regard as an achievement to get off our hands. And never was it more worthily applied than to the work of redemption. What is great, if that is not? The Hebrew equivalent of this expression, and which concludes Psa_22:1-31. (from which probably our Lord took it), is the same as we have in Gen_2:3. That voice from the cross marked the termination of a work far greater in its nature and issues than the work of Creation. It made known the manifold wisdom of God in a way which no creative acts could do. It unfolded the very heart of God, and revealed Him to be Love as well as Light.

A difficult work. A work may be great and yet not difficult—the Creation
“He spake and it was done.” But who can imagine the feeling of infinite relief represented by “It is finished.” Christ’s human nature quailed before it. “Father, if it be possible”. But now that the last drop has passed His lips; now that the justice of God is satisfied, He gives vent to the relief felt in these words.
A definite work. He knew when it was done. It had a beginning, certain well-marked stages, and an unmistakable termination. He often spoke of it as something prescribed. “The work Thou gavest Me to do.” The same is implied in His Messiahship. Ambassadors have always definite instructions. This view is needed in these days of theological vagueness when Divine mercy is panegyrized, but no positive statements forthcoming as to how a sinner is to be accepted of God. We are twitted with our theology being hard and dry, but when solid footing is wanted these qualities are preferable to quicksands and quagmires. The Savior’s work was definite in its nature, objects, and results.
 A perfect work. A definite goal was reached, and all up to that point was perfect, and could never again be reopened or improved. And the Scripture leaves us in no ignorance of what was perfected—the Atonement." Heb 10:7-10; Heb 10:14).  (Excerpt from James Moir, M. A.)
​
Heb 10:7  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 
Heb 10:8  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 
Heb 10:9  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 
Heb 10:10  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 
​​Heb 10:14  For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 

​The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them. Mic 2:13

THE HARVEST OF GREED AND INJUSTICE

Micah ch 1:1-16 ​dealt with sins against the first table of the law; ch 2 deals with those against the second. Evil must sooner or later befall those who devise evil against their neighbors, covet their goods, and oppress their persons. So absolute would be the destruction, that estates would no longer descend from father to son, or be measured by lot, Mic_2:5; and the people would become hard and callous to the prophet’s voice, Mic_2:6. Yet through it all God’s Spirit would yearn over His people, Mic_2:7-13; His words would still comfort humble souls. But the cruelty of men who despoiled their poor neighbors, not only of their ornaments but of the tunic next their skin, would bring disaster upon the entire nation. The guilty people must prepare to arise and depart, for Canaan could no longer be their home.
But even from captivity God would restore His people, breaking the way through walls of difficulty. Our Breaker is the Lord Jesus who broke the way for us from the prison-house of death. Let us follow Him as He passes on His way to victory.  (F.B. Meyer)

"Micah lived near the time of the Babylonish Captivity. It is a prominent subject in the prophetic writings. Resembling, as it did, the spiritual captivity of God’s people, it is made the groundwork of many glorious predictions relating to the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation. In this light commentators regard the prediction of the text. It has a reference to the captive Jews, and their liberator Cyrus; but it looks further. In Christ and His ransomed people it has its real, complete fulfilment.

It sets forth the Lord Jesus:
I. As interposing for His people in a peculiar character. “The breaker.” The demolisher. One who beats down before them all barriers and impediments that obstruct their way. The figure places us where we really are, far off from God and His kingdom, with many obstructions lying in between God’s kingdom and us; with more than distance to be got over—with barriers and obstacles to be surmounted. What are these?

Some of them lie out of us, some within us. Out of us is:
1. The judicial displeasure of God. It is our guilt which has subjected us to His wrath.
2. The opposition of Satan. By Satan is meant, not just one being, but a numerous host of beings in the spiritual world opposed to our happiness. Through this difficulty Christ breaks. Not, as we might have supposed, by exterminating these enemies of our salvation, scattering them out of our path; but in first making His own way to heaven in man’s form through them, and then by communicating strength to His people to do as He has done—withstand these enemies, force their way through them, and tread them down. Within His people, what is there to impede them in their way to heaven? We may say that everything within them is an impediment to them in their way. There is nothing within fallen man, naturally, that does not tend to carry him away from God, rather than to lead him to God.

See:
1. The natural self-sufficiency and pride of heart, which we may call self-righteousness. But Christ comes, and touches the proud heart of man, and this barrier in it falls down.
2. There is the unGodliness of the heart. Almost as stiff a barrier in the way of our salvation as its pride. Here too the heavenly Breaker comes in. He opens the sinner’s heart, communicates to it a holy principle; and this principle, warring against the unholiness in him, gradually breaks its strength, masters and dethrones it.
3. The unbelief of our hearts. This leads to hesitation and delay, under one excuse after another.

II. The escape of God’s Israel in consequence of Christ’s interposition for them. Two remarks:
1. A great change has taken place in the spiritual condition of Christ’s people, in consequence of what He has done for them.

2. The people really delivered by Christ cooperate with Him in their deliverance. You must be warned against imagining that you have one particle of spiritual ability or strength of your own. But you must be warned as earnestly against taking up with what may be termed a passive religion.

III. The high privilege of these escaped liberated men after their escape. “Their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.” This is more than saying we shall have the Lord for us, we shall have Him with us. It indicates not merely the presence, but the near presence of the Lord. It may be a figure taken from the cloudy Pillar hanging over Israel, overshadowing them. It is an assurance at once of discipline and of safety on our way to heaven. (Charles Bradley, M. A.)

"The great work of our Divine Redeemer, by which He has broken for the captives the prison house of their bondage. Many of us know not the bondage in which we are held. We are chained by sin, chained by the habit of evil with a strength of which you never know till you try to shake off.

Jesus Christ as the Opener, and the Path, to God. Our condition is not only one of bondage to evil, but also one of separation from God. We do not know God as He is, except by Jesus Christ. It is only the God manifest in Jesus Christ that draws men’s hearts to Him. That God that is in Christ is the only God that humanity ever loved. He, by the fact of His Cross and Passion, has borne and borne away the impediments of our own sin and transgression which rise forever between us and Him, unless He shall sweep them out of the way.

Christ is the Breaker as the Captain of our life’s march. “When He putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them.”

He is the Breaker for us of the bands of death. Christ’s resurrection is the only solid proof of a future life. It is not possible that we should be holden of the impotent chains that He has broken."
(A. Maclaren, D. D.).

Charles Spurgeon-Morning and Evening
"The breaker is come up before them." — Mic_2:13​

"Inasmuch as Jesus has gone before us, things remain not as they would have been had he never passed that way. He has conquered every foe that obstructed the way. Cheer up now thou faint-hearted warrior. Not only has Christ travelled the road, but he has slain thine enemies. Dost thou dread sin? He has nailed it to his cross. Dost thou fear death? He has been the death of Death. Art thou afraid of hell? He has barred it against the advent of any of his children; they shall never see the gulf of perdition. Whatever foes may be before the Christian, they are all overcome. There are lions, but their teeth are broken; there are serpents, but their fangs are extracted; there are rivers, but they are bridged or fordable; there are flames, but we wear that matchless garment which renders us invulnerable to fire. The sword that has been forged against us is already blunted; the instruments of war which the enemy is preparing have already lost their point. God has taken away in the person of Christ all the power that anything can have to hurt us. Well then, the army may safely march on, and you may go joyously along your journey, for all your enemies are conquered beforehand. What shall you do but march on to take the prey? They are beaten, they are vanquished; all you have to do is to divide the spoil. You shall, it is true, often engage in combat; but your fight shall be with a vanquished foe. His head is broken; he may attempt to injure you, but his strength shall not be sufficient for his malicious design. Your victory shall be easy, and your treasure shall be beyond all count."
​
"Proclaim aloud the Saviour's fame,
Who bears the Breaker's wond'rous name;
Sweet name; and it becomes him well,
Who breaks down earth, sin, death, and hell."

​Rev 7:17  For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. 

Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. 
He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? 
Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. 
And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. 
Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. 
For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him,
Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. 
He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night. Joh 13:24

The Kindness of the Traitor

In the circle of the Twelve, Judas represented the carnal idea of the Messiah, which was directly opposed to the spirit just manifested in the washing of their feet. If he would not humble himself and renounce that spirit, Judas must depart; and a great sense of relief must have been experienced by our Lord, and to an extent by them all.
The people of the East lay rather than sat at table, each guest having his left arm on a cushion, so as to support the head, the right being at liberty for eating. Thus the head of each was near the breast of his companion on the left. Such was the place of John with regard to the Master at the Last Supper, and it was easy to whisper the inquiry of Joh_13:25. In the course of the Paschal meal, the father would offer to the guests pieces of bread dipped in a sauce of fruit, representing the fruits of the Promised Land. It was a sign of special attention, and was one more appeal to the conscience of Judas. He might yet have found pardon. But John saw, as his attention was attracted to him, a change pass over his features, which indicated that the traitor had finally cast the wavering balance on the side of Satan.
​(F.B. Meyer)

He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night — Joh_13:30
He Made His Bed in Hell

What first strikes us here is the utter loneliness of Judas. No word-painting, however vivid, could give a deeper impression of that than these few words of John: "He ... went immediately out: and it was night." Within, there was light and gladness, and the richest fellowship this world had ever known. For Christ was there, and John was leaning upon Jesus' bosom, and the talk was on high and holy themes that evening. Outside was fierce hostility. Outside was dark. And no man drove out Judas. No push and curse hurried him to the door. It was the momentum of his own heart and life that impelled him to choose the darkness rather than the light.
​
Shall we follow Judas into the dark street? He turns and looks, and the light is gleaming from the window of the upper chamber. He hurries on, and the streets are not empty yet. A band of young men, like himself, goes singing by. The sounds of evening worship come stealing from the houses. And everything that tells of love, and breathes of fellowship, and speaks of home, falls like a fiery rain on Judas' heart. The loneliness of Judas was intolerable. He had made his bed in hell. A friend of mine was once preaching on that text in the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. And when he left the hall and was stepping homewards, a young man rushed across the street and grasped him by the arm and cried, "Minister, minister, I have made my bed in hell," and disappeared. And the lonely misery of that cry will ring in my friend's ears till his dying day. There was a loneliness in it like that in Judas. He was estranged, apart. "He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night."

In a Sense Everybody Is Lonely
There is a sense in which every person is lonely. Each has his different road, his different trial, his different joy; and these differences are invisible barriers between us, so that even in fellowship we walk apart. We say we know that woman thoroughly, and we believe we do, till someday there comes a new temptation to her, or a new chance to be heroic, and all our reckoning are falsified, and there are depths our plummet never sounded. I cannot utter forth all that I am. Gesture, speech, even music are but rude interpreters. The dullest has his dream he never tells. The very shallowest has his holy ground. There is an isolation of the soul that brings the note of pathos into history, and makes me very reluctant to judge my friend, and leads me to the very feet of Christ.
​
In a Sense Christ Was Lonely
For there is a deep sense in which Christ was lonely too. And it is strange that on the night of the betrayal, perhaps the two loneliest figures in the world were the sinful disciple and his sinless Lord. But oh, the world of difference between the two! Christ lonely because He was the Son of God, bearing His cross alone and going out into the glory. And Judas lonely because he was the son of perdition, with every harmony destroyed by sin, and going out into the night. Now towards which figure are you making, friend? For towards one or the other your feet are carrying you. There is a loneliness upon the mountain top. There is a loneliness in death and in the grave. And the one is the isolation of the climbing heart, and the other the isolation of the lost. Towards which are you headed? Is it "To the hills will I lift up mine eyes" or "The wages of sin is death"?

This, then, is one continual effect of sin. In every shape and form, in every age and country, it intensifies the loneliness of life. We talk of social sins. All sin is ultimately anti-social. We hear of comradeship's based upon common vices. All vice in the long run grinds the very thought of comradeship to powder. Sin isolates, estranges, separates; that is its work. It is the task of God ever to lead us to a richer fellowship. It is the work of sin, hidden but sure, to make us lonelier and more lonely till the end. From all that is best, and worthiest, and purest, it is the delight of sin to separate. And I want to touch on the three great separations that sin brings, making life a lonely thing.

Sin Separates Man from His Ideal
First, then, sin separates man from his ideal. When I have an ideal, I can never be quite lonely. When I have the vision beckoning me on, when I have something to live for and to struggle for higher than coin or food, there is a fervor in my common day, and a quiet enthusiasm for tomorrow, that are splendid company for my secret heart. And even if my ideal be a dream, it is so. In the famous battle between the clans on the North Inch of Perth, rendered immortal in the story of Sir Walter Scott, you will remember how the old chieftain Torquil sent out his sons to fight for Hector. And as one son after another fell under the smiting blows of Hal of the Wynd, the old chief thundered out, "Another for Hector," and another of his sons stepped forward to the battle. And they were all slain, every one of them, for Hector—and Hector was a coward. Let the ideal be a dream, yet men will fight for it; and fighting, the heart forgets its loneliness.

And the work of sin has been to separate the world from its ideals—to blot out the vision and to say to men, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Sin lays the emphasis on what I see. Sin holds me back from what I would be, and binds me a prisoner to what I am. Until, at last, through years of weary failure, all that we hoped and longed to be is gone, and the beckoning hands have vanished, and the vision is fled, and we are alone with our own poor selves. Sin separates a man from his ideal. Judas had his ideal once, but the devil entered him, and the ideal died out; and from that hour Judas drew apart.

Sin Separates Man from Man
Not only does sin separate man from his ideal, it separates man from man. When Cain slew Abel, he became an outcast. When David fell, he had to fly. When Peter denied Christ, he went out and wept bitterly. Sin broke life's ties for them, sundered the bonds that bound them to their fellows. Read over every narrative of sin within the Bible, and underneath the outward form of it—it may be passion, envy, treachery, revenge—you will detect, from Genesis to Revelation, the sundering of ties between man and man.
​
And sin is always doing that. There is not a passion, not a lust or vice, but mars and spoils the brotherhood of life, and tends to the loneliness of individual souls. God meant us to be friends. God has established numberless relationships. And God is righteousness and God is love, and the Spirit of righteousness and love inspires them all. And sin has been unrighteous from the first, and shall be cold and loveless till the end. O sin, thou severing and separating curse! There is no tie so tender but my vice will snap it. There is no bond so strong but sin will shatter it. It separates the father from his child; it sunders hearts; it creates distances within the home, till the full harmonies of life are lost, and the deep fellowships of life impossible. And the world is lonelier because of sin.

And Jesus Christ knew that. Christ saw and felt sin's separating power. And so the Gospel, that rings with the note of brotherhood, centers in Calvary upon the fact of sin. The social gospel is but a shallow gospel, false to the truth and alien from Christ, unless it roots itself in the divine forgiveness and the inspiring power of the Holy Ghost. The poet Whittier tells a story of the Rabbi Nathan, who long lived blamelessly but fell at last, and his temptation clung to him in spite of his prayers and fastings. And he had a friend, Rabbi Ben Isaac, and he felt that his sin had spoiled the friendship. But he would go to him and speak to him and tell him all. And when they met, the two embraced each other; till Rabbi Nathan, remembering his sin, tore himself from his friend's arms and confessed. It was the separating power of sin. But when Rabbi Ben Isaac heard his words, he confessed that he too had sinned, and he asked his friend to pray for him as Rabbi Nathan had asked himself. And there in the sunset, side by side, they knelt and each prayed with his whole heart for the other. "And when at last they rose up to embrace, each saw God's pardon in his brother's face."
Sin, separation—pardon, brotherhood; it is the order of the universe and God.

And so sin separates a man from his ideal and a man from men. But the most awful separation of all, the one that reaches the very heart of loneliness, is this: sin separates a man from God.
I can never be lonely in God's fellowship. When I detect His glory in the world, and trace His handiwork in field and sunset; when I recognize His voice in conscience, when I feel the power of His love in Christ; "there is society where none intrudes," there is the sweetest company in solitude; and I may dwell alone, but I can never be a lonely man. "For me to live is Christ," said the apostle Paul; and the friendship of God was so intense for him, that even in the prison at Philippi he had society.
​(Devotional Sermons)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DEALING WITH LONELINESS | DR. PETER S. RUCKMAN (AUDIO ONLY) | NEVER ALONE | NOVEMBER 3, 1980
https://youtu.be/WIplOwFrvIA?si=KHvYCWJYyZPtf1Su

​But from the first it has been sin's great triumph to separate the soul from God; and the deepest loneliness of sin is this, that it blinds me to One whom not to see is death, and bars me from the fellowship of Him whose friendship is of infinite value to my heart. If in the sky and sea, if in the call of duty, if in the claims of men, if in the love of Christ, if in all these I see and hear no God. this is a lonely world. And sin has blinded me, and made lonely, as the prodigal was lonely when far from his father and father's home. Shall I arise and go to Him tonight? Shall I return by the way of Calvary to God? I have been separated from holiest and the best. I have been living far from goodness and from God.

But -Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
—Charlotte Elliott

Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save;
neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins
have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. 
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. 
None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity,
and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. 
They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth,
and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Isa 59:1-5

"Much of our suffering in life results from our sins, which cut off God’s health and help. Let us not blame Providence, but set ourselves to discover the cause of controversy. When the law courts-the fountains of justice-are demoralized, the community is in a hopeless condition, Isa_59:3-4. Instead of stamping out evil in the egg, the sinful heart hatches it out, and it yields the poison of vipers, Isa_59:5. Ah, the hapless state of the ungodly! Their feet, and their thoughts, and their paths, are fatal to the peace of others and to their own. The way of peace can be entered only at the Cross, and maintained only by constant watchfulness. See Luk_1:78-79.
Luk 1:78  Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, 
Luk 1:79  To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. 

Israel’s confession, Isa_59:9-15:
Isa 59:9  Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. 
Isa 59:10  We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men. 
Isa 59:11  We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. 
Isa 59:12  For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; 
Isa 59:13  In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. 
Judgment and Redemption
Isa 59:14  And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. 
Isa 59:15  Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. 

Here the stricken people pour out their complaint before God, confessing, first, the bitterness of their sufferings and then the blackness of their sins. The roar of the hungry bear for food and the dove’s mourning for her mate, Isa_59:11, are apt descriptions of the complaint of the penitent soul. It is a good sign when a man cannot lift up his eyes to heaven and beats upon his breast." Luk_18:11-13.
​(F.B. Meyer)

Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 
Luk 18:12  I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 
Luk 18:13  And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 
Luk 18:14  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 

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​"They weave the spider's web." — Isa_59:5

​"See the spider's web, and behold in it a most suggestive picture of the hypocrite's religion. It is meant to catch his prey: the spider fattens himself on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are easily entrapped by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the more judicious cannot always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose guileful declaration of faith was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise, advancement, and other flies, are the small game which hypocrites take in their nets. A spider's web is a marvel of skill: look at it and admire the cunning hunter's wiles. Is not a deceiver's religion equally wonderful? How does he make so barefaced a lie appear to be a truth? How can he make his tinsel answer so well the purpose of gold? A spider's web comes all from the creature's own bowels. The bee gathers her wax from flowers, the spider sucks no flowers, and yet she spins out her material to any length. Even so hypocrites find their trust and hope within themselves; their anchor was forged on their own anvil, and their cable twisted by their own hands. They lay their own foundation, and hew out the pillars of their own house, disdaining to be debtors to the sovereign grace of God. But a spider's web is very frail. It is curiously wrought, but not enduringly manufactured. It is no match for the servant's broom, or the traveller's staff. The hypocrite needs no battery of Armstrongs to blow his hope to pieces, a mere puff of wind will do it. Hypocritical cobwebs will soon come down when the besom of destruction begins its purifying work. Which reminds us of one more thought, that such cobwebs are not to be endured in the Lord's house: he will see to it that they and those who spin them shall be destroyed for ever. O my soul, be thou resting on something better than a spider's web. Be the Lord Jesus thine eternal hiding-place."
​(Charles Spurgeon-Morning & Evening)

 The Dangers of Self-Deception
​ Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal 6:7

​"Man is both deceitful and deceived; and being so, it is difficult to undeceive him. We have also to do with a deceitful enemy. Moreover, everything around us is deceitful. Riches are so. Favor is deceitful. The heart also is deceitful. Sin also is said to be deceitful; and there is therefore great need of the caution in the text—“Be not deceived.”

Consider some of the instances in which we are liable to be deceived. Men in general have mistaken apprehensions of the character of God. We are also much deceived about our fellow-creatures. We call the proud happy, and regard the poor as miserable: we despise those whom God honors, and applaud those whom He condemns. But, above all, we are in danger of being deceived about ourselves.
1. Those are certainly deceived who entertain lessening apprehensions of the evil of sin, saying of this and the other transgression of God’s holy law, as Lot did of Zoar, “Is it not a little one? and my soul shall live.”
2. Those are deceived who think that the wrath of God against sin is represented in too strong a light.
3. Those who amuse themselves with the hope of a death-bed repentance, are in danger of being deceived.
4. Those who flatter themselves with the idea of safety, while they continually expose themselves to danger, are under great deception.
5. Those are awfully deceived who think their state to be good when it is really otherwise. Many imagine that they are justified and pardoned when they are in a state of wrath and condemnation.

Consider the evil and danger of self-deception.
1. It leaves us in a state of painful uncertainty. Those who are under the power of it will still be in suspense, and never attain to full satisfaction: they will be continually fluctuating between hope and fear, neither enjoying the pleasures of sin nor the contentments of piety.
2. Remember, God cannot be deceived. He knoweth them that are His, and them that are not so.
3. Those who are deceived will one day be undeceived, and that perhaps when it will be too late.
4. Self-deception discourages from the use of means. Those who fancy themselves safe and right, though they have the greatest need of a Savior, are not likely to apply to Him.
5. Present deception will aggravate future misery. None sink so deep in hell as hypocrites and self-deceivers.

Hence we may learn--
1. The necessity of self-examination.
2. The advantage of a soul-searching ministry.
3. When we have examined ourselves, and have been tried by others to the utmost, still there is a need to prostrate ourselves before the throne, and to pray with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts!” (Psa_139:23-24) (B. Beddome, M. A.)

"There is none to whom so much mockery is offered as God. Men walk on His earth and deny His existence. Others acknowledge His existence, but by their lives defy His power. Men come to His house of prayer, and there, amidst the rising accents of supplication and praise and the descending message of His word, they think of their farm and their merchandise, or follow in fancy their worldly desires. They go thence, and not a word of that which they have asked is remembered with a view to its answer. And even to the spiritual ordinance of the body and blood of Christ do not men not unfrequently bring unclean hands and an unhallowed heart, and even when the signs of forgiveness and immortality are being administered to them, are they not living in unrepented sin and the bondage of corruption? But with all this, God is not mocked. His Divine majesty dwells in light unapproachable, far above any stain of pollution or danger of insult from us, the creatures of His almighty will. It is not God, it is our souls, that we mock when we thus tamper with their best and dearest interests. It is ourselves whom we expose to shame and everlasting contempt.

​How this is the case, the second fact announced by the Apostle may explain to us: "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The present life is our seedtime. Our hearts and consciences are the field to be sown. By the seed are meant those living principles, whether good or ill, which sink down below the level of the surface, not what men profess, but what men follow. Those seeds spring up and bring forth fruit of one kind or other; that is, they become put into practice in men’s lives by the words of their tongues and the works of their hands. The great harvest is the end of the world, when every man’s principles shall be judged by every man’s works, the seed by the fruit which it shall have brought forth. What he has sown, not what he has professed to sow, will then be seen. The great harvest day shall declare what each man’s principles have been in the deep chambers of his heart, and according to that declaration shall his eternal lot be, for happiness or for misery."
(H. Alford, Sermons, p. 113)
​1Co 6:9  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 
1Co 6:10  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 

And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them,
Peace be unto you. 
But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 
And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not
​flesh and bones, as ye see me have. 
And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. 
And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? 
And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 
And he took it, and did eat before them. Luk 24:36-43

​Peace Be Unto You

"Jesus Himself! We need nothing else when we are terrified and afraid. You may be fearing the consequences of your sin; fearing the approach of your enemy; fearing the future with its unknown contingencies; but Jesus Himself is the antidote of fear. He keeps the soul that trusts Him within the double doors of peace. See Isa_26:3.
Isa 26:3  Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. 
​
This was not an apparition, but the clothing of the spiritual body, which evidently repeats the general outlines of the physical body, though in a rarer and more subtle substance. Does this incident not teach us that when we also are clothed in the spiritual body we shall not be wholly dissimilar from what we are today? We shall be recognizable by our beloved and they by us, 1Co_15:44.
1Co 15:44  It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 
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What was it that made those hands and feet distinctly His own, except that the print of the nails was in them? Joh_20:27.
Joh 20:27  Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 

​“In the midst of the throne… a Lamb as it had been slain,” Rev_5:6."
​Rev 5:6  And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. 
(F.B. Meyer)

"We may learn from this text, first, that the Resurrection will be the restoration of the whole man, in spirit and soul and body; a restoration of all in which consists the integrity of our nature and the identity of our person. And this is emphatically the hope of the Gospel. The light of nature could not show this mystery. The heathen reached only to the immortality of the soul, and even that they saw but dimly, and often doubted. It was seen, too, that even the elder Church saw this mystery in broken and uncertain lights. Without doubt, they saw, as it were, the refracted light of the coming mystery; but in some sense their eyes were holden, while they ministered to us greater things than they themselves conceived, for Paul declares that life and immortality are brought to light through the Gospel.

It is plain that, among those that are raised from the dead, there shall be a perfect recognition, and that not limited to the blessed, but, like the Resurrection itself, comprehending the wicked also. It follows, inseparably from the law of personal identity, and the law of individual responsibility, that it should be so.

​This doctrine throws a great light upon the true doctrine of what the Church is. It is not a form, or piece of mechanism, moulded by the human will, or put together for the uses and expedients of men and nations; but a mystery, partaking of a sacramental character, framed and ordained by God Himself. In a word, the Church is the root of the new creation which shall be raised in its fulness at the last day; it is in part earthly, in part heavenly; there is one body and one spirit. And it is ever putting off its mortal shroud, casting its sere leaves upon the earth, and withdrawing its vitality into its hidden source. The earth is sowing with holy dust, and the world unseen replenishing with the souls of the righteous. Even now already, in the clear foresight of the Everlasting, to whom all things are present in their fullness, the Church is complete in Christ. But to us who see only in part and by broken aspects, and on the outer surface, it is imperfect and to come; yet flowing on, and continually unfolding itself from age to age.
(H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. i., p. 364)

"Ten appearances of the risen Lord are recorded in the New Testament, and of these no fewer than five occurred on the day of resurrection. Of the ten appearances Luke narrates three--
(1) that to the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luk_24:13-35);
(2) that to the ten apostles and others (Luk_24:36-49);
(3) that on the occasion of the Ascension (Luk_24:50-51)
Separated by an interval of days from the preceding one, though we might not gather that from a hasty reading of the chapter. Let us remember, too, that from resurrection to ascension there elapsed a period of forty days, and let us recall how often a like period had figured in the story of the Bible. For forty days Moses was on the Mount, preparing for his deliverance of the law. For forty days Elijah was in the wilderness before he came forth for his great work in Israel. For forty days Jesus Himself was in the desert, tempted by the devil, at the beginning of His public ministry. May it not be that these forty resurrection days were a preface to that glorious ministry in heaven, which Jesus is to carry on forevermore?

They Believed Not for Joy
The disciples then were gathered together, probably in that very upper chamber which was now hallowed with all manner of blessed memory, when Jesus (though the doors were shut for fear of the Jews) appeared in their midst and said, "Peace be unto you." One marks the suddenness of Christ's procedure now. He had suddenly left the two disciples at Emmaus. He suddenly stands amid the ten disciples here. In the action and movement of the risen Jesus there is an unexpected and arresting swiftness that we do not find in the days before the cross. The disciples were scared (for the Greek word means that). It was Jesus, but so altered that He seemed a spirit. And once again we can do nothing but marvel at the timely and wise compassion of the Lord. He did not rebuke them—He knew that they were dust. He bade them touch Him and look at His hands and feet, and handle Him. It was only to a worshipping and adoring Mary that He could say, "Touch me not (thy faith hath made thee whole), for I ascend unto the Father." They touched Him, and never forgot that touch. One touch of a hand will alter a life sometimes. I think that John was living this hour again when long years afterwards he began his priceless letter by speaking of what our hands have handled of the Word of Life (1Jn_1:1). Then a great joy, like a tide, swept over them. And they could not believe, they were so glad. Not long ago Christ found them sleeping for sorrow (Luk_22:45), and now He found them disbelieving for joy. Do not forget, then, that joy can hinder faith. It may be as great a foe to faith as sorrow sometimes is. There was no door to shut or open here, as there was with little Rhoda in the Acts; yet when Rhoda opened not the gate for gladness (Act_12:14), she was like the ten, who believed not for joy.

That One Hour
But Jesus is very tender with such unbelief, for it is as if the sunshine (and not sin) were blinding men. He called for food, and they gave Him a piece of fish. Jerusalem was always well supplied with that. And I dare say the two who had walked with Him to Emmaus, thought He would break it, and suddenly disappear. But "God fulfills Himself in many ways," and Christ had other purposes to serve. He took it, and did eat before them. Who of them now could say this was a spirit? Once many had believed (on the hillside) when Christ made others eat. Now they believed because He Himself ate. Then Jesus led them into the heart of Scripture. He went back to the law and the prophets and the psalms. He read that old story in the light of all that happened till their hearts burned and glowed at the interpretation. Can you wonder that in the Book of Acts the disciples should be so mighty in the Word? A single hour will sometimes teach us more than the dull strivings of half a score of years. And in that one hour, in the upper chamber with Christ, Scripture became a new book to the disciples. Never forget how earnestly and constantly our Lord appealed to the testimony of the Word. Jesus dwelt deep in history and Psalm and prophecy. There never was such a student of the Scripture. He used it as His weapon in the desert. He confuted His enemies with their own sacred books. He found His solace in it. He read His mission there. He went back to its deep words when hanging on Calvary. He taught it more urgently than ever when He rose. The Bible was full of authority and power for a Savior who had risen from the dead.

A Fitting Departure
Then when the forty days were over, and the closing counsels and commissions had been given, Christ led His disciples through the streets of Jerusalem, and over Kedron, and past the shadows of Gethsemane. I think the little company were all silent; their hearts were too full of memories for speech. Then they passed out to the upland ground near Bethany, and Jesus lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And while He blessed them, a cloud gathered, and parted them, and Jesus was carried up into heaven. How simple and how reserved is the whole scene! There is no chariot of fire; no sound of music. It was a fitting departure of One who would not strive nor cry, and who had come down on the mown grass gently as the rain. And did the disciples sorrow or lament? They returned to Jerusalem with great joy (Luk_24:52). Christ had not left them; He would be with them still. Their Lord and they would never be parted again. A little before, they could not believe for joy. Now they were joyful just because they believed."  (Devotional Sermons)

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 
For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother,
​and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 
And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. Mat 10:34-38

Total Surrender

"​Earthly love may be a worse foe to a true Christian than even the enmity of the dearest; and that enmity may often be excited by the Christian subordination of earthly to heavenly love. So our Lord passes from the warnings of discord and hate to the danger of the opposite-undue love.
He claims absolute supremacy in our hearts. He goes still farther, and claims the surrender, not only of affections, but of self and life to Him. What a strange claim this is! A Jewish peasant, dead nineteen hundred years since, fronts the whole race of man, and asserts His right to their love, which is strange, and to their supreme love, which is stranger still. Why should we love Him at all, if He were only a man, however pure and benevolent? We may admire, as we do many another fair nature in the past; but is there any possibility of evoking anything as warm as love to an unseen person, who can have had no knowledge of or love to us? And why should we love Him more than our dearest, from whom we have drawn, or to whom we have given, life? What explanation or justification does He give of this unexampled demand? Absolutely none. He seems to think that its reasonableness needs no elucidation. Surely never did teacher professing wisdom, modesty, and, still more, religion, put forward such a claim of right; and surely never besides did any succeed in persuading generations unborn to yield His demand, when they heard it. The strangest thing in the world’s history is that to-day there are millions who do love Jesus Christ more than all besides, and whose chief self-accusation is that they do not love Him more. The strange, audacious claim is most reasonable, if we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, who died for each of us, and that each man and woman to the last of the generations had a separate place in His divine human love when He died. It is meet to love Him, if that be true; it is not, unless it be. The requirement is as stringent as strange. If the two ever seem to conflict, the earthly must give way. If the earthly be withdrawn, there must be found sufficiency for comfort and peace in the heavenly. The lower must not be permitted to hinder the flight of the heavenly to its home. ‘More than Me’ is a rebuke to most of us. What a contrast between the warmth of our earthly and the tepidity or coldness of our heavenly love! How spontaneously our thoughts, when left free, turn to the one; how hard we find it to keep them fixed on the other! How sweet service is to the dear ones here; how reluctantly it is given to Christ! How we long, when parted, to rejoin them; how little we are drawn to the place where He is! We have all to confess that we are ‘not worthy of’ Him; that we requite His love with inadequate returns, and live lives which tax His love for its highest exercise, the free forgiveness of sins against itself. Compliance with that stringent law, and subordinating all earthly love to His, is the true elevating and ennobling of the earthly. It is promoted, not degraded, when it is made second, and is infinitely sweeter and deeper then than when it was set in the place of supremacy, where it had no right to be.
But Christ’s demand is not only for the surrender of the heart, but for the giving up of self, and, in a very profound sense, for the surrender of life. How enigmatical that saying about taking up the cross must have sounded to the disciples! They knew little about the cross, as a punishment; they had not yet associated it in any way with their Lord. This seems to have been the first occasion of His mentioning it, and the allusion is so veiled as to be but partially intelligible. But what was intelligible was bewildering. A strange royal procession that, of the King with a cross on His shoulder, and all His subjects behind Him with similar burdens! Through the ages that procession has marched, and it marches still. Self-denial for Christ’s sake is ‘the badge of all our tribe.’ Observe that word ‘take.’ The cross must be willingly and by ourselves assumed. No other can lay it on our shoulders. Observe that other word ‘his.’ Each man has his own special form in which self-denial is needful for him. We require pure eyes, and hearts kept in very close communion with Jesus, to ascertain what our particular cross is. He has them of many patterns, shapes, sizes, and materials. We can always make sure of strength to carry the one which He means us to carry, but not of strength to bear what is not ours." (Alexander Maclaren)

He that loveth father or mother more than me,.... The design of these words, is not at all to lessen the due affection of children to their parents; or to detract from the respect and esteem, in which they ought to be had by them: it is the duty of children, to love, honor, and, obey them; who have been the means of bringing them into the world, and of bringing them up in it; nor do any of the doctrines of Christ break in upon the ties and obligations of nature, or in the least set aside any of the duties of natural religion: but the intent of this passage is, to show, that as Christ is infinitely above all creatures, he is to be loved above the nearest and dearest relations and friends; being God over all blessed for ever, and also the Savior and Redeemer; which itself, makes him more amiable and lovely than a common parent. That man therefore, that prefers father and mother to Christ, and their instructions, and orders, to the truths and ordinances of Christ: who, to please them, breaks the commands of Christ, rejects his Gospel, and either denies him, or does not confess him, our Lord says-
Is not worthy of me; or, as in Munster's Hebrew Gospel, he is not ראוי לאותי, "fit for me": it is not fit and proper, that such a person should name the name of Christ, or be called by his name, and should be reckoned one of his disciples; he is not fit to be a member of the church of Christ on earth, nor for the kingdom of heaven, but deserves to be rejected by him, and everlastingly banished his presence: for otherwise no man, let him behave ever so well, is worthy of relation to Christ, and interest in him; or of his grace, righteousness, presence, kingdom and glory. The same is the sense of the following clause-
And he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me: whoever, to gratify a child, drops the profession of Christ, renounces his Gospel, and neglects his commands, it is not proper and convenient that he should bear the name of Christ, be accounted one of his, or be treated as such, but all the reverse.  (John Gill)

Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven: The disciple must confess Jesus publicly - before men. If we will not be public about our allegiance to Him, we cannot expect Him to be public about His allegiance to us.

"Everyone Jesus called He called publicly". There is really no such thing as a “secret” Christian, at least not in a permanent sense. This is a contradiction in terms - an oxymoron.

"Each individual Christian life should supply enough evidence" - evidence that can be seen by the world- that they are indeed Christians. It is to be feared that many modern Christians, if arrested for the crime of following Jesus and tried in a court, would have the charges dismissed for a lack of evidence.

 “What Christ is to you on earth, that you will be to Christ in heaven". I shall repeat that truth. Whatever Jesus Christ is to you on earth, you will be to him in the day of judgment. If he be dear and precious to you, you will be precious and dear to him. If you thought everything of him, he will think everything of you.” (Charles Spurgeon)
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​
Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword:
The message of Jesus - as reflected in the Sermon on the Mount – is indeed a message of peace. Yet since it calls the individual to a radical commitment to Jesus Himself, it is a message of peace that divides between those who choose it and those who reject it. The division between these two choices explains how Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword.

'For I have come to “set a man against his father”…and “a man’s enemies will be those of his own household”: The dividing line between those who accept Jesus and those who reject Him would even run through families. The sword Jesus spoke of would sometimes cut through families.

"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me": In strong terms, Jesus explained that the disciple must love and follow Jesus supremely. Our devotion to Jesus must come above even our own household.

"We should expect that normally, following Jesus makes us better husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, sons, daughters and so forth." Yet there are times when the presence of Jesus divides rather than unifies.

"The greatest danger of idolatry comes not from what is bad, but from what is good"  like love in family relationships. The greatest danger to the best comes from second best.

"Take his cross and follow after Me" The disciple must follow Jesus even to the place of taking his cross. When a person took a cross in Jesus’ day, it was for one reason: to die. The ancient Roman cross did not negotiate, did not compromise, and did not make deals. There was no looking back when you took up your cross, and your only hope was in resurrection life.

His cross: Your cross isn’t really your particular trial or trouble. The cross means one thing: death - death to self, but resurrection life unto God.

"This is the first mention of the cross in Matthew’s Gospel, and it is not directly associated with Jesus' own crucifixion". Such an extreme statement – likening discipleship with the horror of crucifixion, something too terrible to be mentioned in polite company – must have jarred the disciples.

"Yet they knew what the cross was all about". “Crucifixion itself was not an uncommon sight in Roman Palestine; ‘cross-bearing’ language would have a clear enough meaning, even before they realized how literally he himself was to exemplify it.” (France)
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"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it" The disciple lives in a paradox. He can only find life by losing it, and he can only live by dying. Resurrection life can only come after we take up our cross to follow Jesus.

“Bearing the cross, we are to follow after Jesus"- to bear a cross without following Christ is a poor affair. A Christian who shuns the cross is no Christian; but a crossbearer who does not follow Jesus equally misses the mark.” ( Charles Spurgeon)

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost,
​whether he have sufficient to finish it? 
 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it,
all that behold it begin to mock him, 
Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Luk 14:27-30

Life Is a Building
It is notable that in this little parable, and in the one which directly follows it (Luk_14:31), which deal with the great endeavors of the human soul, our Lord brings in the figure of the builder, and of a king making war upon another king. Christ always took human life at its best and kingliest, and even His illustrations have a royal touch. But the point to note is that Christ compared life to building. Life was like architecture or like war. Building and battling—these are the Master's figures; and I do not think the world has ever bettered them. There are rare souls that seem to grow, not build. And it may be some of us have known one saint—our mother perhaps—who bore no marks of conflict anywhere, and seemed to have reached the highest without a struggle. But for most of us it is the other way. Effort on effort, failure after failure, we have to forge and hammer ourselves towards what is honorable. And there are days when we seem to be building up a prison-house, until God in His mercy shatters that to fragments. Just note, then, that it is in a little parable of building that our Savior teaches us to count the cost.

Christ's Yoke Is Easy
Now, anyone who has read much in religious literature must have been struck by a kind of contradiction in it. He must have been arrested by two opposite conceptions of what religion really demands. I read some sermons, or I listen to some preaching, and religion seems exquisitely sweet and easy. I thought there was a cross in our religion, but when I read some of our current literature—if there be a cross it is so wreathed with honeysuckle that a poor soul can stumble past it easily. The valley of the shadow seems to have grown antiquated; we are to walk on the delectable mountains all the way. Mark you, we never can insist enough on the true joy of the religious life. We never can forget that to the heavy-laden, Christ said, and says forever, "My yoke is easy." But that is so interpreted sometimes, and the harder and sterner sayings are so evaded, that religion seems to walk in silver slippers.

Christ Promises a Cross
But when I turn to another class of teachers—and some of the greatest of every age are in it—what impresses me is not the ease of things, but the depth and difficulty of religion. The gate is narrow; the way is strait and mountainous; the cross is heavy, and the flesh cries out against it. Read Dr. Newman's sermons to see that view of the religious life expressed in matchless English. That, then, is the seeming contradiction. These are the two opposite conceptions. The one says, "If I come to Jesus, happy shall I be." The other says, "If I find Him, if I follow, what His guerdon here? Many a sorrow, many a labor, many a tear."

Well, in our text there can be little question that our Lord leans to the latter of these views. It is a great thing to be an earnest Christian, it is a high calling to be a knight of that round table; let a man, says Jesus, deliberately sit down and count the cost, lest the fair fame of it be smirched and sullied by him. Nothing impresses us more in Jesus Christ than His insistence on quality, not quantity. He never hesitated to set the standard high, even though men should be offended at Him. It is better to be served by twenty loyal hearts, than by half a hundred undisciplined adventurers. Think it all out, says Christ. Sit down, count up the cost, find what it comes to. Rash promising is certain to make shipwreck. I want you to be still, and know that I am God.

Now I think it immensely increases our reverence for Jesus to find Him dealing thus with human souls. He never veils the hardship of His calling, He is so absolutely certain of its glory. When Drake and the gallant captains of Queen Elizabeth's time went out into the streets of Plymouth to get sailors, they told them quite frankly of the storms of the Pacific, and of the reefs in it, and of the fevers of Panama. They honored their brave Devonshire comrades far too much to get them to sign on under any false pretences. But then there was the Spanish gold and treasure, and the glory of it, and all England to ring with it. And the men counted the cost and signed for that daring service, in the spacious times of great Elizabeth. And I honor our Captain for dealing with men like that—that press-gang is an un-Christlike instrument. Christ says: You are a free man; count the cost. Life is before you: choose whom you will serve. I offer you a cross, also a crown. I offer you struggle, but there shall be victory. You shall be lonely, yet lo, I am with you always. You shall be restless, yet I will give you rest. Was there ever a leader so frank, so open, so brave, as the Master who is claiming you tonight?

Counting the Cost
And it is just here that the service of our Lord stands at opposite poles from the service of sin. For the one thing that sin can never do is to say to a man, "Sit down and count the cost of it." Do you think that tonight's drunkard ever counted the cost when men called him such splendid company twenty years ago? Do you think that the man who has tried for, and missed, life's prizes counted the cost when he was sowing his wild oats? Sin is too subtle, too sweet, too masterfully urgent, to give a man time for that arithmetic. "Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart." If that young student will only deliberately count the cost; if he will only remember he is in the grip of law that no repentance ever can annul; if he will think that as he sows, so will he reap, I think he will shake himself and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." It is true that you cannot put old heads upon young shoulders. But don't we begin counting when we are little children? And half the battle of a man's life is won when he sits down and counts the cost. Sin will keep a man from that, by hook or crook. But "come and let us reason together," saith the Lord.

Of course we must distinguish this wise deliberation from a merely calculating and cowardly prudence. It is often the man who has counted the cost most earnestly, who shows a kind of splendid imprudence to the world. I mean that what the world calls prudence is very often a somewhat shallow thing. It does not run its roots into the deeps; it is really a kindlier name for selfishness. And the man who has dwelt alone with the great things, and who has been touched by the hand of the Eternal, is not likely in that sense to be worldly wise. I dare say that everybody thought John Knox imprudent when he insisted on preaching in St. Andrews, though the Archbishop had warned him he would slay him. I dare say everybody thought Martin Luther imprudent, when he said he would go to the Diet though every tile on the housetops were a devil. But Knox and Luther had been alone with God; it was deliberate action, and not reckless folly. They had counted the cost for Scotland and for Christendom.

The fact is, that in all the highest courage there is the element of quiet calculation. The truest heroism always counts the cost. The bravery of passion is not a shining virtue. I think that a very ordinary man could storm a rampart, if he were a soldier. They tell us there is a wild forgetfulness of self in that last rush that would fire the blood and thrill the most timid. The test of courage is the long night march, under the fire of invisible guns; it is the sentry duty in the darkness, when the shadows and silence might shatter the strongest nerve: I think that the man who deliberately faces that, who goes through it quietly because it is his duty, is just as worthy of the Victoria Cross as the man who has won it in some more splendid moment. No man, said one of Oliver Cromwell, no man was a better judge than Oliver of what might be achieved by daring. Yet the true heroism of that noble soul was not the heroism of the rash adventurer. He never let texts do duty for tactics, says Mr. Morley. I always admired the answer of that man who was going forward with a comrade to some dangerous duty. And his comrade looked at him, and saw that his cheek was blanched. And he laughed and said, "I believe you are afraid." And the other, looking straight forward, said, "Yes, I am afraid, and if you were half as afraid as I am, you would go home." Do not forget, then, that when Jesus says, "Count the cost," He is really sounding the note of the heroic. He does not want anyone on false pretenses. He will not issue any lying prospectus. He comes to you and says, you are a thinking man, with powers that it will take eternity to ripen. Look life in the face. Look death in the face. Sum it all up, measure the value of things. And if you do that quietly and earnestly, with sincere prayer to God to enlighten you, My claims, Christ means, shall so tower above all others, that I shall have your heart and your service from that hour.

The Secret of Calm Persistence
I have been struck, too, in studying the Scriptures, to note how the great men there learned to count the cost. They were not suddenly dragged into the service. There was no unthinking and unreasoning excitement. God gave to everyone of them a time of silence before their high endeavor. It was as if He laid His hand upon them and said, "My child, go apart for a little, and count the cost." Moses was forty days alone with God. Elijah was in the wilderness alone. Paul, touched by the finger of the Lord whom he had persecuted, took counsel of no flesh, but departed into the loneliness of Arabia. Moses, Elijah, Paul—yes, even Simon Peter going out into the night—were learning the deep lesson of our parable. And whenever I read of the temptations of Jesus, and of how the Spirit of God drove Him apart, and how Satan came and showed Him all the kingdoms, and taught Him a less costly way to sovereignty than by the sweat of Gethsemane and the water and blood of Calvary—whenever I read that and recall how He stood fast, I feel that our Savior had counted the cost Himself. We shall never understand the calm persistence of the glorious company of martyrs and of saints till we go back to that quiet hour at the beginning when they faced every difficulty, weighed every cross, forecast the future, looked at life whole, and then, having counted the cost like reasonable men, took up their stand upon the side of God. A blind acceptance may be justifiable sometimes. But the great hearts were never led that way.

Now I want you to join that reasonable company. I do not know that that is popular doctrine, but I want to get the young men back to the Church of Christ again, and I am willing to risk unpopularity for that. "Come, let us reason together," saith the Lord. "Sit down and count the cost," says Jesus Christ. I do not ask any man to become a Christian blindly. It is the most reasonable act in the whole world. For the sake of a saved life and of a rich eternity you ought to make that reckoning immediately.
(Devotional Sermons)

Go Forward
And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel,
​that they go forward: 
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. Exo 14:15-16

"Imagine, O child of God, if you can, that triumphal march! The excited children restrained from ejaculations of wonder by the perpetual hush of their parents; the most uncontrollable excitement of the women as they found themselves suddenly saved from a fate worse than death; while the men followed or accompanied them ashamed or confounded that they had ever mistrusted God or murmured against Moses; and as you see those mighty walls of water piled by the outstretched hand of the Eternal, in response to the faith of a single man, learn what God will do for His own.
Dread not any result of implicit obedience to His command; fear not the angry waters which, in their proud insolence, forbid your progress. Above the voices of many waters, the mighty breakers of the sea, "the Lord sitteth King for ever."
A storm is only as the outskirts of His robe, the symptom of His advent, the environment of His presence.
Dare to trust Him; dare to follow Him! And discover that the very forces which barred your progress and threatened your life, at His bidding become the materials of which an avenue is made to liberty."
(F. B. Meyer)