In these words the apostle dwells on his own part in carrying out Christ's work of reconciling men to God. That he does this in no boastful spirit goes without saying; but that he does so without any affectation of reserve or of modesty is equally plain. Indeed, he sets forth with unusual oral basis the glory of the Word the apostle has to proclaim, and the greatness of the work that proclamation involves: that Word, he shows, is a sublime mystery; that work a manifold ministry.

I. THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY IS THE PROCLAIMING OF A BLESSED MYSTERY, The term "mystery," as Paul here twice uses it, and often in this Epistle, does not describe what is essentially incomprehensible, but rather what was hidden but is now revealed. The gospel is a mystery, but a mystery that is to be preached fully, as Bishop Lightfoot renders the word "fulfil;" a mystery that is made manifest, a mystery into which (as the word borrowed from the ancient mysteries, in ver. 28, suggests) every man may be initiated.

1. The gospel a mystery. All religion deals with mystery. Genuine mystery is the stamp of a religious divinity; false mystery is the counterfeit superstition stamps. In its aspect towards the vast, the infinite, the Divine, religion must always have some mystery to man.

2. The gospel a mystery that was long secret from man. "Hidden things belong to God." There are hidden facts and laws in nature that science has only gradually discovered or is now only gradually discovering; hidden moral meanings in nature and history that poet's sight only can descry and poet's song only describe. There were hidden things in religion that only holy men of old moved by the Holy Ghost could reveal.

3. The gospel is a mystery that is now fully revealed. Whatever may have been the guesses of nobler pagans, or the anticipations of patriarchs, or the predictions of prophets, all was only the pale light of very early dawn upon the hills of ancient time. It was noon when Christ lived, taught, died. The seal was broken, the secret was revealed. What secret?

4. The gospel is the revealed secret of God's universal redeeming love. Christ is fully proclaimed. And Christ is the Mystery. In him are all the treasures, all the wealth, of God stored away.

(1) All the mystery is revealed in Christ. As the rainbow has all possible colors in its wondrous arc, as the fabled music of the spheres has all possible tones in its chord, so in Christ is all the wisdom, all the righteousness, all the love, of God.

(2) All men may receive the blessings of this mystery. Christ, and Christ freely given to the Gentiles, and Christ freely given to be an indwelling Power in them, is the great Mystery, which, as Paul dwelt on it, made him proclaim it with newer and deepening joy. "Now," when I see the full extent of God's mercy - "now," when I ponder his mighty, all-sufficient, all-embracing love, I rejoice, not only to proclaim, but to suffer untold sacrifices in proclaiming it to men. Anything, Paul felt and said, was worth doing, anything was worth suffering, if he might but preach the whole gospel without reserve, to all men without restriction. This leads us to notice -

II. THIS WORK INVOLVES COMPLETE CONSECRATION ON THE PART OF ITS MINISTERS. This consecration may, indeed often does, involve:

1. Intensity of suffering. Very bold does the assertion of the apostle seem about "filling up what is behind of the sufferings of Christ." Were his sufferings incomplete, then? No and yes. Yes; for he left work to be done that involves suffering. There must be suffering sympathy, suffering self denial, sometimes suffering death, in carrying on the work of bringing men to God. This consecration will involve:

2. Manifoldness of labour. There is the threefold function of the Christian worker denoted here. This consecration is the result of:

3. The highest constraint. - U.R.T.

Man's final blessedness depends on —

I. HIS UNSWERVING CONTINUANCE IN THE FAITH. There is implied a continuance in —

1. The doctrines of the faith. What a man believes has a powerful influence in moulding his character. Unbelief lures the soul from its confidence, sets it adrift amidst the cross currents of doubt, and exposes it to moral shipwreck. The soul's safety is ensured not by an in fatuated devotion to mere opinions, but by an intelligent and constant faith in Divine verities.

2. In the profession of the faith. The believer is a witness for the truth, and it is imperative that he should bear his testimony (Romans 10:9, 10; Matthew 10:32).

3. The practice of the faith. Faith supplies the motive and rule of all right conduct.

4. Continuance in the faith must be permanent. "Grounded and settled." In order to permanency in the faith, the truth must be —

(1)Apprehended intelligently.

(2)Embraced cordially.

(3)Maintained courageously.

II. HIS UNCHANGING ADHERENCE TO THE GOSPEL HOPE.

1. The gospel reveals a bright future.

2. The gospel to be effectual must come in contact with individual mind. "Which ye have heard." Epaphras had declared to them the Divine message.

3. The gospel is adapted to universal man. "Which was preached to every creature which is under heaven."

4. The gospel invested the apostle with an office of high authority. "Whereof I, Paul, am made a minister." There is an implied possibility of relinquishing our hold of gospel hope. The multiplicity and fulness of our blessings may prove a snare to us; prosperity tempts to relax watchfulness. Our retention of the gospel hope is rendered immovable —

(1)By constant prayer;

(2)Growing acquaintance with the Word of promise;

(3)Continual anticipation of future bliss.

(G. Barlow.)

In the end of vers. 22 and 28 we learn the great object of salvation. We should be fellow-workers with God in this (Philippians 2:12). Like an artist student copying the work of a great master under his superintendence, we must "work out" the beauty of Christ in our lives, though the great Master Himself must give the finishing touch and make it perfect. Here we are told what the Christian's course of conduct must be if this end is attained.

I. THE FOUNDATION, the starting-point, "the gospel."

1. From various expressions in the chapter we can learn what Paul means by "Gospel."(1) News of a personal Savior. (ver. 20, 28, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:11).(2) The blood of the Cross (ver. 20; cf. Hebrews 9:22).(3) An indwelling Saviour (ver. 27). The searching medicine; the healing balm; the pledge and security of salvation.

2. The responsibility of the Colossians in connection with this gospel.(1) "Which ye have heard." The hearing has put them in a new position (John 15:24).(2) It was preached universally. Every one now has the offer.(3) Paul a minister of this gospel. The gospel you have heard from Epaphras your minister is mine. I got it by the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12).

3. This gospel demands faith and hope. These, like light and heat, go together; the two poles on which Christian life turns. Faith fixes the lower end of the ladder on the Rock, and Hope rests the higher end in the promised glory.

II. PERSEVERANCE THEREIN.

1. Faith must be kept in continual exercise. Religion is a life of faith.(1) Continuance a necessary consequence of true faith. Three things are wanted for a good harvest — good seed, soil, sunshine, and shower. Having these the harvest is a necessity. So in spiritual things; the only thing We have to do with is the soil; the seed is good, and sunshine and shower are assured. If the soil "receives" and retains the Word, there must be "first the blade, then the ear," etc.(2) Here, then, is the test of faith. Is it the faith that continues and overcomes the world? That opens the soil, and draws down the roots into its bosom? That keeps the vessels filled with oil while the virgins wait? That draws the fruit-bearing sap from the True Vine?(3) The connection of faith is not loose and wavering. "Grounded" like the foundation of Eddystone — a grip — an identification. "Settled" — seated, restful, satisfied, un-doubting.

2. Hope meanwhile is steadily maintained. We have the object of hope in two words — "with Him," "like Him." That consummation we are never to lose sight of. Faith helps here; it makes substantial the things hoped for, and makes evident the things not seen: the telescope which brings within the range of hope's vision the unseen. Conclusion: —

1. There is danger implied in this waning, and experience shows how real it is.

2. Steady progress inculcated. To move on the only way to keep from moving away. The unseen should act as a magnet drawing us to itself. "Looking for and hasting unto."

(J. J. Black, LL. D.)

It has cost many a soul a great struggle to obtain this hope, and when attained do not think that the conflict is over. It then becomes more fierce. Be not moved away, however —

I. FROM THE SUBJECT OF THAT HOPE. What is that? It is the hope —

1. Of full salvation, that we shall be "presented holy, unblameable," etc. "He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself," etc.

2. Of final perseverance, that He who has begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

3. Of the resurrection. Christ brought not one-half, but the whole trinity of our manhood.

4. Of the second advent.

5. Of being, not in purgatory, but for ever with the Lord.

II. FROM THE GROUND OF THAT HOPE.

1. The rich, free, sovereign grace of God. He who could save the dying thief can save all.

2. The merit of Christ, which is the only ground on which God saves men.

3. The Divine pledge that whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish, etc.

4. The immutability of God.

5. The infallibility of the Scriptures.

III. How WE MAY BE MOVED AWAY FROM THAT HOPE.

1. By a conceit of ourselves. "Let him that thinketh he standeth," etc.

2. By despondency. Satan does not mind whether you jump up or jump down from the rock. The least sin ought to make you humble, the greatest ought not to make you despair.

3. By false teaching. If you have been persuaded that Christ is not Divine, or not the only Priest, or that you have merit of your own, you are removed.

4. By hoping to live by feelings instead of faith.

5. By a dazzle of intellect and "modern thought."

6. By persecution, sneers, and ridicule.

IV. WHY WE WILL NOT BE MOVED AWAY FROM THAT HOPE.

1. Because there is nothing to take its place.

2. Because if we did we should soon be in bondage.

3. Because we should become mean, miserable wretches who have deserted their Saviour.

4. Because it would be something like a soldier entrenched in an impregnable fortress accepting an invitation to come out.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. ITS DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS.

1. It is in harmony with God's plan of salvation.

2. It springs from the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart.

3. It is grounded on the truth and power of God. Not upon impressions and feelings — no, but upon the declarations, promises, and Almighty power of Him who has "laid up the hope for us in heaven.

II. ITS INVARIABLE INFLUENCE.

1. It produces holiness (1 John 3:2, 3).

2. It begets Christian resignation (Hebrews 6:18, 19).

3. It enkindles pious zeal (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

4. It lights up the valley of death.Reflections: —

1. It is dismal to be without hope (Ephesians 2:12).

2. It is madness to deceive ourselves.

3. It is necessary to be watchful and persevering.

(Congregational Pulpit.)

Oh, how many there are that are never settled. The tree which should be transplanted every week would soon die. Nay, if it were moved, no matter how skilfully, once every year, no gardener would expect fruit from it. How many Christians there be that are transplanting themselves constantly, even as to their doctrinal sentiments. There be some who believe according to the last speaker; and there be others who do not know what they do believe, but they believe almost anything that is told them. Men have come to believe that it does not matter what they do believe — who are like the weathercock upon the steeple, they will turn just as the wind blows. As good Mr. Whitfield said, "You might as well measure the moon for a suit of clothes as tell their doctrinal sentiments," for they are ever changing. Now, I pray that this may be taken away from any of you, if this be your weakness, and that you may be settled.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

, when on his road to suffer martyrdom, was told by the emperor that he would give him time to consider whether he had not better cast a grain of incense into the fire, in honour of idols, than die so degraded a death. The martyr nobly answered, "There needs no deliberation in the case." John Huss was offered a pardon when at the stake, about to suffer for his attachment to Christ, if he would recant; his reply was, "I am here ready to suffer death." Anne Askew when asked under similar circumstances to avoid the flames, answered, "I came not here to deny my God and Master." Mr. Thomas Hawkes, an Essex gentleman, said, on a like occasion, "If I had a hundred bodies, I would suffer them all to be torn in pieces, rather than recant." When the cruel Bonner told John Ardly of the pain connected with burning, and how hard it must be to endure it, with a view to leading the martyr to recant, he replied, "If I had as many lives as I have hairs on my head, I would lose them all in the fire, before I would lose Christ." Galeazius, a gentleman of great wealth, who suffered martyrdom at St. Angelo, in Italy, being much entreated by his friends to recant, replied, "Death is much sweeter to me with the testimony of truth, than life with its least denial."

(Arrine.)

Which was preached to every .

creature. — There may be seven observations gathered out of this speech of the apostle.

1. That doctrine only is true which is agreeable to the doctrine of the apostles, by which the world was converted to God.

2. That no power is like the power of the Word of God. Here it converts a world in a short time. And our eyes have beheld that it hath almost in as short time restored a world of men from the power of antichrist.

3. That the words "all" and "every one" are not always in Scripture to be understood universally of all the singular persons in the world, as the universalists conceive.

4. They were but a few fishermen that did this great work, and they were much opposed and persecuted, and in some less matters they jarred sometime among themselves. Whence we may observe that doctrine may be exceeding effectual, though

(1)but few teach it;

(2)though they be but of mean estate and condition;

(3)though it be opposed by cross and contrary teaching;

(4)though it be persecuted;

(5)though the people be indisposed and nozzled in sin and superstition, as the Gentiles were;

(6)though the preacher be often restrained;

(7)though there be some dissension in less matters.

5. That in the conversion of sinners God is no respecter of persons; men of any age, nation, sex, condition, life or quality, may be converted by the gospel.

6. It is that preaching is the ordinary means to convert every creature, so as ordinarily there is none converted but by preaching.

7. If any one ask what shall become of those nations, or particular persons, that never yet heard of the gospel, I answer, the way of God in divers things is not revealed, and His judgments are a great deep. It belongs to us to look to ourselves to whom the gospel is come.

(N. Byfield.)

Colossians, Epaphras, Paul, Thessalonians, Timotheus, TimothyColossae, PhilippiAbide, Appointed, Based, Continue, Creation, Creature, Established, Faith, Firm, Firmly, Foundation, Founded, Glad, Gospel, Grounded, Heaven, Held, Holding, Hope, Indeed, Minister, Ministrant, Moved, News, Paul, Preached, Proclaimed, Provided, Rests, Safely, Servant, Serve, Settled, Shifting, Stable, Steadfast, Stedfast, Tidings, Whereof, Yourselves1. After salutation Paul thanks God for the Colossians' faith;
7. confirms the doctrine of Epaphras;
9. prays further for their increase in grace;
14. describes the supremacy of Christ;
21. encourages them to receive Jesus Christ, and commends his own ministry.

Colossians 1:23

     5335   herald
     5522   servants, work conditions
     5891   instability
     7944   ministry, qualifications
     8459   perseverance
     9613   hope, as confidence

Colossians 1:21-23

     8022   faith, basis of salvation
     8707   apostasy, personal

Colossians 1:22-23

     5953   stability

Colossians 1:23-25

     8344   servanthood, in believers

February 11. "Strengthened with all Might unto all Patience" (Col. I. 11).
"Strengthened with all might unto all patience" (Col. i. 11). The apostle prays for the Colossians, that they may be "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, and seem to say with every wrinkle, "Why does not somebody sympathize with me?" It is another to endure the cross, "despising the shame" for the joy set before us. There are some trees in the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 18. "Christ in You" (Col. I. 27).
"Christ in you" (Col. i. 27). How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in one of our hospitals was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had only irritated it, and driven the foreign substance farther still into the delicate nerves of the sensitive organ. At length a skilful young physician thought of a new expedient. He …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Fourth Sunday after Trinity Prayer and Spiritual Knowledge.
Text: Colossians 1, 3-14. 3 We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'All Power'
'Strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy.'--COL. i. 11 (R.V.). There is a wonderful rush and fervour in the prayers of Paul. No parts of his letters are so lofty, so impassioned, so full of his soul, as when he rises from speaking of God to men to speaking to God for men. We have him here setting forth his loving desires for the Colossian Christians in a prayer of remarkable fulness and sweep. Broadly taken, it is for their perfecting …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Thankful for Inheritance
'Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'--COL. i. 12 (R.V.) It is interesting to notice how much the thought of inheritance seems to have been filling the Apostle's mind during his writing of Ephesians and Colossians. Its recurrence is one of the points of contact between them. For example, in Ephesians, we read, 'In whom also were made a heritage' (i. 11); 'An earnest of our inheritance' (i. 14); 'His inheritance in the saints' …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saints, Believers, Brethren
' . . . The saints and faithful brethren in Christ.'--COL. i. 2. 'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,' says the Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by outsiders, and like most of the instances where a sect, or school, or party is labelled with the name of its founder, it was given in scorn. It hit and yet missed its mark. The early believers were Christians, that is, Christ's men, but they were not merely a group of followers of a man, like many other groups of whom the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Christian Endeavour
'I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.'--COL. i. 29. I have chosen this text principally because it brings together the two subjects which are naturally before us to-day. All 'Western Christendom,' as it is called, is to-day commemorating the Pentecostal gift. My text speaks about that power that 'worketh in us mightily.' True, the Apostle is speaking in reference to the fiery energy and persistent toil which characterised him in proclaiming Christ, that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gospel-Hope
'The hope of the Gospel.'--COL. i. 5. 'God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them,' says the old proverb. And yet it seems as if that were scarcely true in regard to that strange faculty called Hope. It may well be a question whether on the whole it has given us more pleasure than pain. How seldom it has been a true prophet! How perpetually its pictures have been too highly coloured! It has cast illusions over the future, colouring the far-off hills with glorious purple which, reached, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Next Performance is Mainly Directed against Faith in the Church...
The next performance is mainly directed against faith in the Church, as a society of Divine origin. "The Rev. Henry Bristow Wilson, B.D., Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts," claims that a National Church shall be regarded as a purely secular Institution,--the spontaneous development of the State. "If all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be swept from the face of the Earth, they would soon be reproduced [76] ." The Church is concerned with Ethics, not with Divinity. It should therefore …
John William Burgon—Inspiration and Interpretation

All Fulness in Christ
The text is a great deep, we cannot explore it, but we will voyage over its surface joyously, the Holy Spirit giving us a favorable wind. Here are plenteous provisions far exceeding, those of Solomon, though at the sight of that royal profusion, Sheba's queen felt that there was no more spirit in her, and declared that the half had not been told to her. It may give some sort of order to our thoughts if they fall under four heads. What is here spoken of--"all fullness." Where is it placed--"in him," …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Thankful Service.
(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.) COL. i. 12. "Giving thanks." In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a lonely and dangerous part of the mine. One day a visitor to the coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I sing." My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings which the loving …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Twenty-Third Day for the Holy Spirit in Your Own Work
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Holy Spirit in your own Work "I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily."--COL. i. 29. You have your own special work; make it a work of intercession. Paul laboured, striving according to the working of God in him. Remember, God is not only the Creator, but the Great Workman, who worketh all in all. You can only do your work in His strength, by Him working in you through the Spirit. Intercede much for those among whom you work, till God gives …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Knowledge and Obedience.
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. 9-12. The Epistles …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Inheritance.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.--Ep. to the Colossians i. 12. To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has, goes to increase the possession of the rest. Hear what Dante puts in the mouth of his guide, as they pass through Purgatory:-- Perche s'appuntano i vostri desiri Dove per compagnia parte si scema, Invidia muove …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

The Disciple, -- Master, if Thou Wouldst Make a Special Manifestation of Thyself to The...
The Disciple,--Master, if Thou wouldst make a special manifestation of Thyself to the world, men would no longer doubt the existence of God and Thy own divinity, but all would believe and enter on the path of righteousness. The Master,--1. My son, the inner state of every man I know well, and to each heart in accordance with its needs I make Myself known; and for bringing men into the way of righteousness there is no better means than the manifestation of Myself. For man I became man that he might …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

Victory Found
AT THE close of this little volume it seems fitting to recount again a wonderful personal experience, narrated in The Sunday School Times of December 7, 1918. I do not remember the time when I did not have in some degree a love for the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. When not quite twelve years of age, at a revival meeting, I publicly accepted and confessed Christ as my Lord and Master. From that time there grew up in my heart a deep yearning to know Christ in a more real way, for he seemed so unreal, …
Rosalind Goforth—How I Know God Answers Prayer

section 3
But we will go back from this glimpse of God's ultimate purpose for us, to watch the process by which it is reached, so far as we can trace it in the ripening of the little annuals. The figure will not give us all the steps by which God gets His way in the intricacies of a human soul: we shall see no hint in it of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of …
I. Lilias Trotter—Parables of the Christ-life

Christ and Man in the Atonement
OUR conception of the relations subsisting between God and man, of the manner in which these relations are affected by sin, and particularly of the Scripture doctrine of the connection between sin and death, must determine, to a great extent, our attitude to the Atonement. The Atonement, as the New Testament presents it, assumes the connection of sin and death. Apart from some sense and recognition of such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of Christ can only appear an arbitrary, …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

The Mystical Union with Immanuel.
"Christ in you the hope of glory." --Col. i. 27. The union of believers with Christ their Head is not effected by instilling a divine-human life-tincture into the soul. There is no divine-human life. There is a most holy Person, who unites in Himself the divine and the human life; but both natures continue unmixed, unblended, each retaining its own properties. And since there is no divine-human life in Jesus, He can not instil it into us. We do heartily acknowledge that there is a certain conformity …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising
'If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' - Col 1:23. Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' I. It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. II. The best way for Christians to be settled is to be well grounded. I. It is the duty of Christians …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Fourthly; all the [Credenda, Or] Doctrines, which the True, Simple, and Uncorrupted Christian Religion Teaches,
(that is, not only those plain doctrines which it requires to be believed as fundamental and of necessity to eternal salvation, but even all the doctrines which it teaches as matters of truth,) are, though indeed many of them not discoverable by bare reason unassisted with revelation; yet, when discovered by revelation, apparently most agreeable to sound unprejudiced reason, have every one of them a natural tendency, and a direct and powerful influence to reform men's minds, and correct their manners, …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den? …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Rise of the Assyrian Empire
PHOENICIA AND THE NORTHERN NATIONS AFTER THE DEATH OP RAMSES III.--THE FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE: TIGLATH-PILESUR I.--THE ARAMAEANS AND THE KHATI. The continuance of Egyptian influence over Syrian civilization after the death of Ramses III.--Egyptian myths in Phoenicia: Osiris and Isis at Byblos--Horus, Thot, and the origin of the Egyptian alphabet--The tombs at Arvad and the Kabr-Hiram; Egyptian designs in Phoenician glass and goldsmiths'work--Commerce with Egypt, the withdrawal of Phoenician colonies …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 6

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