is done shall come to His ears; .(b) all the Injuries to His saints and servants He will take note of; (c) all our fears and sorrows we may tell to Him; (d) though great leaders and teachers fall, we have Jesus left. MINISTRY OF JESUS AND MISSION OF THE TWELVE Lesson X. Matthew 9:35-10:15. September 8th. I. JESUS' MINISTRY. 1. His circuit. (1) He did not wait till sought. He went after the sheep; and "was found of them that sought Him not." It is not enough to invite men in to us; we must go out to them. (2) He went to villages as well as to oities. Noted ministers and evangelists hear no calls from small churches or towns. Jesus went to the "next towns" (Mk. 1:38). A great preacher willing to "bury" himself in a small town might leave it a monument to the grace of God. In big cities big men are small and make slight impression. 2. Teaching. Current evangelism neglects teaching. Converts soon "per- ish for want of knowledge." The same may be said of many pastors and Sun- day School teachers ( ? ). Ethics and exhortation are not enough. We must, indoctrinate. 3. Preaching. He "heralded the Kingdom." Not only taught great doc- trines on which it is founded, by which it is established within and without, now and hereafter, but kept it before them as an imminent and blessed hope. 4. Healing. He cured, instant and complete, all kinds of bodily ills; be- cause (1) He could; (2.) He pitied; (3) it sealed His word of pardon. (Mk. 2: 10); (4) it fulfilled the prophets; (5) It vindicated His claims; and (6) was an earnest of the new creation, and the powers of the Kingdom of God. II. JESUS' COMPASSION. 1. "He saw the multitudes. He was moved with compassion." His eye is upon us. Jesus loves poor sinners, and pities them though "they forsake their own mercies." He knows men's sor- rows and is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hb. 4:14-5:2). "They fainted," "were scattered," "were shepherdless." "All, like sheep, were gone astray" (Isa. 55:6). There was none to defend them, or bind them up; to lead them to peace, or to pasture (Eze. 34:1-6, 30, 31). We, too, should have compassion. Look as Jesus did and we shall see sorrow, sick-
pledged with an oath, anything, to "the half of the kingdom." 2. Salome consulted her mother, and to gratify that vengeful and savage na- ture, returned to demand the head of John. 3. "Exceeding sorry." Probably not because he cared, but because he feared to add .so great a crime to his heavy record. 4. " For his oath's sake." (a) Not that he cared for his word. He would have broken a score of oaths to save his own skin or add to his worldly wealth. (b) "And those that were with him." He cared more for the good opinion of bad men, than for a good deed, and the life of a good man; for the "code of honor" than the code of righteousness, which teaches the dull- est mind that a bad oath is better broken than kept; that to observe it is to add to one infamy another worse. 5. The deed. The executioner was dispatched. John bent his neck and it FIVE—KINGS BUSINESS B7-18.... was done. That glorious head was the price of a wanton's dance, a libertine's revel, and an adulteress' lust of flesh and blood. Truly the world is "topsy turvy." The martyrdom and murder ghost at his banquets. "The terrors of hell gat hold 1 upon" him. It "sat heavy on my (his) soul." As if he said "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a vil- lain." John was not risen, but Herod's con- science was, and will never die. 2. Wine, women, and the world. The drunken revel, the lewd women, and the world's opinion, conspired to stifle the voice of the preacher, the warnings of conscience, the aspiration after better things; and Herod lost his kingdom, his pleasures, his soul. John the Baptist had not risen, but Jesus the Avenger of His saints was cause enough for Herod's alarm. V. "THEY WENT AND TODD JESUS." 1. Thrown out from the castle, for dogs to devour (Josephus), the body of John was taken and devoutly buried a n d— 2. They went and told Jesus. (1) A fearful fact for Herod, (2) an instruc- tive one for us; (a) all the wrong that were accomplished. IV. CONSCIENCE. 1. "John—is risen" (v. 16). Jesus' supernatural works filled Herod with superstitious fear. It was Banquo's
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