THE KING’S BUSINESS
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turned out into the street for non-payment of rent, by the landlord who was a member of Dr. Spencer’s congregation. That was plain sailing, loo. How: does our Lord feel, think you, about the Belgian and the Armenian atrocities?. Have you ever heard of the little girl who told the Lord all about some poor children she had seen that day, and added to her prayer, “but it is nohe of my business, Lord” ? Jesus thought it was His business. He was grieved as well as angry. The cure was instantaneous, as all our Lord’s 'were. There is nothing said about the man having any faith, but that he had is shown by his obedience. Jesus’ love was the cause of the cure rather than the man’s faith. When Jesus commands, the impossible becomes possible. Works of mercy, as well as works of necessity, are lawful on: the Sabbath day as on other days. Angry in their supposed devotion to the law;, the Pharisees became lawbreakers in plotting His death, (cf. the Roman Inquisi tion. See Matt. 5 :21-26). How are you- observing the Sabbath? How are you honoring the law ? Horton. freedom of action. He removed the shackles and released them from the bonds which the formalist Fathers had laden them with. The Jewish teachers had read the Scrip tures, but they had never seen the truth so clearly set forth in David’s experience. Jesus proclaimed principles, not rules. Sabbath means cessation, rest. The Sabbath was for man’s rest day. God, in grace, provided for. Israel a rest day. It was designed as a blessing for man. The day was not made for God; He was not thinking ,of Himself; He was thinking of man and of his need. What, then, is a man to do on the Sab bath Day? Jesus tells them. “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath Day.”
Jesus was in the synagogue. See Luke 4:16. It was a good place for the crippled man to be, also. His disability evidently had not driven him away from the house of wor ship; let us .hope it had drawn him closer to tfie God he came to worship. There was always an interested congre gation when Jesus was present, and there always will be. Then, as now, the interest had varied motives back of it. Some were interested because of their hostility to Jesus and because they were anxious to catch Him in some wrongdoing. Others had better motives. What do you go to church for?, Do you first pray for a blessing? The scribes hoped to corner H im ; but see how He cornered them. Could it be wrong to do good even on the Sabbath? Is helping the suffering ever opt of order? They had no answer. Can you find any other place where our Lord w,as angry ? I cannot He could read their hearts, however, and so did not mis judge them. We might safely get angry if we knew men as He did. Old Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn,, told a parishioner one day that he was mad, for he had just found a poor woman and her children B y T. C. H ERE we have the Emancipation Proc lamation of the Son of God concern ing the Jewish Sabbath Day. He proclaims Himself as Lord of the Sabbath, and He tells us what He made it for. He made it for men. The Son of Man is greater than Moses, and greater than the Jewish temple. Our Lord made short shrift of rabbinical ordinances. . He could eat and drink with publicans and sinners and ignore man-made feast days. Early in His ministry He began to sweep the cobwebs of Jewish tradition from' the eyes of the people, and to let in the pure light of the truth. He began to take- the people off from the treadmill of forms and ceremonies, and give them
HEART OF THE LESSON
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