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I. SPECIFY SOME OF THESE ATTACHMENTS. Those whose attachment is influenced.

1. By custom. It was the fashion of the hour to be interested in Christ (vers. 12, 19). May we not truly say that the power of fashion has something still to do with assembling men about Christ.

(1) For His sake only ought we to worship in the sanctuary; but we go also because the respectable multitude is there.

(2) For His sake only ought we to give; but are not our givings prompted and regulated by social considerations?

(3) For His sake only ought we to work; but do we not cast side glances at the public and reckon somewhat on their approbation?

2. By intellectual considerations. "For my sake," i.e., personal love to Christ ought to bind us to Him, and prompt all our obedience and service. "But that they might see Lazarus" — intellectual interest — learn something per. chance about the unseen world. Not for His own sake, but because of the light He may shed on great questions. How many in our day congregate about Christ as a prophet, and only faintly realize in Him a Saviour!

3. By secular considerations. Interest sways men in the matter. Virtues are valued as they pay; and Christ is chosen not for His own sake only, but also because of the immediate bearing that Christianity has on our worldly interest (chap. John 6:26).

4. By a regard to moral aesthetics. Not loving Christ only, enamoured with His grace and righteousness, but "cultivating holiness as so much personal adornment." Not loving Christ because He is the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, but admiring Christianity because it fashions noble nations. Thus there may be much that is false and mixed in the feelings which lead men to throng Christ. Fashion is there, because Christ has acquired social credit: intellect is there, because Christ can satisfy some of the hunger of its curiosity: taste is there, because in the shadow of Jesus it can realize some of its ideals: and prudence and policy are there, not because Christ is truth and love, but because He creates loaves and fishes of which they eat and are filled.

II. THE PLACE AND VALUE OF SUCH ATTACHMENTS.

1. They may be allowed as the starting point of Christian discipleship. Many are drawn to Christ not by the highest, and yet by legitimate, motives. Their first ideas, motives, and hopes, mixed and inferior, and yet leading on to what is purer and more perfect. As Matthew Henry says, "God makes the best of the green ears of wheal"; and because He does so, the green ears become golden, fit for the garner of God.

2. But the prize to which we must all press is that of a personal love to Christ. For His sake only. Not only when He will answer our mental questionings, but also when He is silent; not only when He is fashionable, but when He is forsaken; not only when discipleship insures honour and wealth, but when it involves poverty and disgrace; not only because He makes us perfect, but because He is perfection. Conclusion — Jesus only.

1. Here we are safe.

2. Here we are supremely joyful.

3. Here we, forgetting everything else, shall find far more than we have forgot.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

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KJV: Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

WEB: A large crowd therefore of the Jews learned that he was there, and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.