Luke 17:11-19 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the middle of Samaria and Galilee.… Three impressive and instructive pictures are described in this gospel. I. A CONGREGATION OF SUFFERERS, whom affliction influenced to much seeming goodness and piety. It is a beautiful and comforting truth, that there is no depth of suffering, or distance from the pure and the good to which sin may banish men in this world, where they are debarred from carrying their sorrows and griefs in prayer to God. A man may be guilty, leprous, cast out, cut off, given up as irretrievably lost; and yet, if he will, he may call on God for help, and the genuine, hearty, earnest, and real cry of his soul will reach the ear of God. II. A MARVELLOUS INTERFERENCE OF DIVINE POWER AND GRACE for their relief, very unsatisfactorily acknowledged and improved. Dark-day and sick-bed religion is apt to be a religion of mere constraint. Take the pressure off, and it is apt to be like the morning cloud and the early dew, which "goeth away." Give me a man who has learned to know and fear God in the daytime, and I shall not be much in doubt of him when the night comes. But the piety which takes its existence in times of cloud and darkness, like the growths common to such seasons, is apt to be as speedy in its decline as it is quick and facile in its rise. There are mushrooms in the field of grace, as well as in the field of nature. III. AN INSTANCE OF LONELY GRATITUDE, resulting in most precious blessings superadded to the miraculous cure. There was not only a faith to get the bodily cure, but a faith which brought out a complete and practical discipleship; an earnest and abiding willingness, in prosperity as well as in adversity, to wear the Saviour's yoke. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. |
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