And when he had opened, etc. By common consent this is a sketch of departed martyrs, i.e. men "that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held." If they bad been slain for anything else they would not have been martyrs.

I. THEY LIVE IN SACRED SECURITY. "I saw under the altar the souls of them." The "souls," not the bodies; the bodies had been destroyed, their ashes were left Souls can exist apart from the body - a wonderful fact this. These souls were "under the altar." They were in a position of sacred security. No one could touch them there, safe forever from their persecutors.

II. THEY LIVE IN EARNEST CONSCIOUSNESS. They have an earnest consciousness of the past. "How long, O Lord, most holy and true." They remember the earth, remember the cruelties they received on the earth, and long, not maliciously, but benevolently, for justice being done to their persecutors. No doubt their desire was that God should strike such a moral conviction into their hearts on account of their wickedness that would lead them to repentance.

III. THEY LIVE IN HOLY GRANDEUR. "White robes were given to them." Or more probably, "a white robe," emblem of purity and conquest.

"Their blood is shed
In confirmation of the noblest claim -
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To walk with God, to be divinely free
To soar and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown

Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew
No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song.

And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates, indeed,
The tyranny that doomed them to the fire,
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise."

(Cowper.) D.T.

I. St. John, we here read, was allowed to behold the souls of the martyrs, and they were living beneath the altar of the Lord. What, then, is the altar? In answer we say, that it is the place of a glorious and a happy security. It was to the altar that the murderer ran and clasped its horns, when the avenger of blood was in hot pursuit; it was to the altar, with all its beautiful accessories, the laver, the sacrifice, the shew-bread, and the golden candlesticks, that every mourner in Israel looked. Weary-hearted men, oppressed with the load of life, or weighed down by care, or burdened by sin, looked there and found an unfailing asylum. The martyrs are beneath the altar; they are under the security of its holy seal; they are hanging upon its strong horns; the persecutor's arm cannot reach them; the avenger of blood dare not come near them; they are kept by the power of God. The dust and defilement of earth, the fierce heat of flame, the lion's tooth, and the serpent's strangling coil, are all past; there is heaven's own calm; their souls are under God's care, and under the seat and the seal of Christ.

II. But what is their state of feeling? Are they in a state of passive rest, or earnest enjoyment, or tranquil or animated hope? "They cried with a loud voice, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Is it possible that they desire vengeance? Did Jesus pray for His murderers? Did Stephen, the martyr, echo and repeat the prayer? And have not the rest of the glorious band of martyrs learned and used it? It cannot be that the martyrs should be under the altar of the Lamb, and yet have hearts for vengeance. It is the cry of their blood for vengeance, not of their hearts. Just as the blood of Abel cried from the ground against Cain, so does this blood cry for vengeance on that Cain-like satanic power which made them martyrs. But it may be objected that this destroys the very notion of the activity of their spirits. The picture before us is that of altar-covered souls asking for a certain consummation. And no doubt, for a consummation we may truly believe they do both wait and long. But that consummation will be with such vengeance as is here alluded to. And this shows us that while the sin of the persecutors, written in the blood of the martyrs, calls for vengeance, the cry of the martyrs may well be only for the day of Christ, and for the redemption of the bodies of the sons and saints of God. They long for the day of Christ, "because it is the year of His redeemed." But then it may be also said, and history will bear us out, that there is a certain cry of sympathy in behalf of friends and fellow Christians trodden down and persecuted, which issues by a kind of necessity in a cry of vengeance upon their persecutors. In the persecution which preceded that of Diocletian, we read how St. addressed the African proconsul in the following words: "Be assured that whatever we suffer will not remain unrevenged; and the greater the injury of the persecution, the heavier and more just will be the vengeance." Nay, this very prophetic anticipation of vengeance upon the enemies of the Church of Christ is only a phase of that conformity of the mind of the saint with the will of God, which will form the very essence and perfection of the heavenly state. If God in His justice comes forth for vengeance upon sinners, every saint must give the hearty "amen" of an entire concurrence to the infliction. So it ought to be on earth, and so it must be in heaven.

III. The explanation which we have given of the longing of the blessed departed for the year of Christ's redeemed shows us, at any rate, the activity of their souls. It tells us that being dead, they do not sleep, or even in a dream; nay, that they are well awake, and full of all that constitutes the life and activity of a living soul. They think of the past, for they refer to it; they refer to the blood that has been shed; it is past, but they have not forgotten it. They know something of the present; for it is because the great consummation lingers, because they know that it does so, because the world still drives on in its wickedness; it is because of all this present continuing iniquity that the souls of the martyrs cry out. Again, they look to the future; their question discovers this; they are conscious that the day of vengeance and the year of redemption must come, and they earnestly inquire when it shall arrive.

IV. Consider further the answer which they received.

1. First, white robes were given them; their dishonoured names are all enshrined in honour; they were dressed as in preparation for the marriage feast of the Lamb; and when thus arrayed, words of peace were spoken to them. They are told to rest, and we may well imagine them sitting in the tranquillity of a blissful hope. They were to walt fill their brethren's arrival, which was to be through the same stormy straits as they had passed.

2. But then, is it only the martyrs that are thus reserved? Is it only they that wear white, and in that white array await the consummation? Nay, for there is a daily dying, which in many instances is no less precious in the sight of God than the glorious setting of a martyr's sun. Our beloved friends that have died in faith are thus before Him, they are in His very presence, they have the sunbeams of His radiant countenance shining directly upon their beatified spirits.

3. And they too, like the martyred spirits, are looking forward. They, like them, remember the past, and muse upon the present, and look to the future. And if so, they remember what they did on earth, and more than this, they remember those whom they loved, and whom they have left here. Death and forgetfulness do not affect that which is innocent and sinless.

4. And this thought is a sweet and holy solace.

(C. E. Kennnaway, M. A.)

We may gather with all certainty from this wonderful revelation of the inner mysteries of the heavenly court, first, that God has a fixed time for the end of the world. It is also here revealed to us that God has fixed that time according to the measures of the work which He has to finish; even as Christ had a work to finish on earth; so that we read, again and again, that His "hour was not yet come." In like manner now in heaven, He has a definite foreseen scheme for the administration of His mediatorial kingdom; and according to the accomplishing of this work will be the time of His coming.

1. He has shadowed out to us the nature of the work that He has to do before the end comes; that is, to make up a certain number whom God has foreseen and predestinated to life eternal (Malachi 3:17; Matthew 24:31; Hebrews 11:13, 40). Whether this secret number be measured by the fall of angels, as some of old were wont to believe; whether the companies of angelic ministers shall be filled up by the redeemed of mankind, we know not, but we know certainly that, until the foreseen number is completed, the course of this turbulent world shall still run on.

2. Again, in this gathering out of the mystical body of His Son, God is carrying on the probation of mankind. In the inscrutable secrets of His providential government, He is so ordering the strife of the seed of the woman with the seed of the serpent, of the Church with the world, as to fulfil the manifold purposes of love and of long-suffering.(1) And, first, we see that this long-permitted strife is ordained for the perfecting of His saints. By it our patience, meekness, faith, perseverance, boldness and loyalty to Christ are ever tried; and by trial made perfect.(2) And this mysterious work, as

2. has an aspect of love towards the saints, so it has an aspect of long-suffering towards sinners. It is thus that God gives them a full season for repentance. He gives all things for our salvation — warnings, blessings, chastisements, sorrows, sicknesses, words of fire, and sacraments of love; He stays His hand, and leaves the sinner without excuse, that at the winding up of this weary life, "every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God."

3. And now, from all this, we see what ought to be the master-aim of our lives, that is, to make sure of our fellowship in that mystical number.

(Archdeacon Manning.)

The souls under the altar represent the whole company of the oppressed. The former troubles were general; all the world suffers, whether it knows it or not, from conflict and selfishness and want and mortality; and its suffering is expressed before the throne by the representatives of all the animate creation. Now it is the voice of one part which is heard, the voice of the oppressed. It is not the whole of human life which is involved, as in the opening of the first four seals. "The altar" is an altar of sacrifice, on which victims are offered. The appeal of the souls is not an articulate voice from blessed spirits in Paradise. It is just like that tremendous phrase in Genesis, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." It is certainly not a vision of the blessed saints cherishing a spirit of common revenge, but a cry to Christ, as in former cases, from the personified life of sufferers on account of right. It is a cry, in oppression, of the Christian world concerning the unchristian, of the believing world concerning the unbelieving. Christ proclaimed it years before: "If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." And the unbelieving world's weapons are very various. Because we have passed the times of persecution by the sword, at least in the civilised world, we cannot say that the force of this vision of St. John is spent. The world claims education. We need not put down the Faith by common violence, if we can destroy it at its foundation in the education children. Are we awakened rightly yet to the reality of this oppression? These are the two chief ways in which, at the moment, the principle of St. John's vision is being worked out in Christendom. But there are many individual lives that can enter in a wonderful way into the meaning of it. "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." Many a martyr-spirit is suffering to-day, so that none but God and the holy angels mark the suffering. The souls' cry for vengeance to the Lamb is of the same order as Christ's vengeance on St. Paul: that the spirit of the Lamb of God should take possession of the world, that the thoughts and desires of it may be brought, as St. Paul was, "into captivity to the obedience of Christ." Avenge our blood with this glorious vengeance, O Thou Master, upon all them that dwell on the earth! There is, in this case, an immediate answer. "And white robes were given," etc.

(A. H. Simms, M. A.)

I. Thev live in SACRED SECURITY. "I saw under the altar the souls of them." The "souls," not the bodies; the bodies had been destroyed, their ashes were left behind. Souls can exist apart from the body — a wonderful fact this.

II. They live in EARNEST CONSCIOUSNESS. They remember the earth, remember the cruelties they received on the earth, and long, not maliciously, but benevolently, for justice being done to their persecutors. No doubt their desire was that God would strike such a moral conviction into their hearts on account of their wickedness that would lead them to repentance. Souls in heaven do not forget the past.

III. They live in HOLY GRANDEUR "White robes were given to them." Or, more properly, a white robe, emblem of purity and conquest.

(Homilist.)

Calvin had this speech always in his mouth, breathing out his holy desires in the behalf of the afflicted Churches, with whose sufferings he was more affected than with anything that befell himself.

(J. Trapp.)

I. John, being in the spirit, could see spirits. Men, indeed, clad in flesh, can hardly imagine how a soul can have existence out of the flesh. Eagles can see that which owls cannot; so is that visible and credible to a spiritual man which to a natural is invisible, incredible. And yet even nature's dim eyes have been clear enough to see this truth. The soul's eternity is an inbred instinct in the souls of men.

II. Now if this much revived John to see the soul's continuance after death, how much more to see their safety and rest under the altar; that is, under Christ's protection and custody. The phrase alluding to the altar in the tabernacle, which gave the offerings grace and acceptation; and partly to the safety of such as fled from the avenger to the altar.

III. If John had seen souls at rest, though in poor and mean condition, yet were a corner of a house with peace to be preferred to a wide palace with disquiet. But behold, he sees not naked, beggarly, ragged souls, but adorned with white robes; that is, endowed now, and glorified with perfect righteousness, purity, clarity, dignity, and festivity, of all which white apparel hath ever been an emblem and symbol in Divine and human heraldry, a clothing of princes in their great solemnities of coronation, triumphs and ovations. The lilies, and Solomon, in all their royalties, not like unto the meanest of them.

IV. Were heaven nothing else but a haven of rest, we know how welcome the one is to a seasick weather-beaten traveller, and may by that guess how desirable the other should be to a soul that long hath been tossed in the waves of this world, sick of its own sinful imaginations, and tired with external temptations.

(T. Adams.)

I. THE WORDS AS FROM MAN TO GOD. Looking up to God, man breathes the deep-drown sigh, "How long?" (Psalm 6:3; Psalm 13:1; Psalm 35:17; Psalm 74:10; Psalm 79:5; Psalm 89:46; Psalm 90:13; Psalm 94:4; Habakkuk 1:2; Revelation 6:10). These are the chief passages in which the expression occurs. Instead of dwelling on each in succession, let me thus sum up and classify their different meanings. It is the language —

1. Of complaint. The righteous man feels the burden and the sorrow and the evil that have so long prevailed in this present evil world, and he cries, "How long?" Have these not lasted long enough? Would that they were done! In this complaint there is weariness, and sometimes there is sadness — almost despair — when unbelief gets the upper hand. Creation groans. Iniquity overflows. Death reigns. The wicked triumph.

2. Submission. While impatience sometimes rises, yet the cry does not mean this. It is really a cry of submission to a wise and sovereign God. It is the cry of one putting all events, as well as all times and seasons, into His hands.

3. Inquiry. In all the passages there is an implied question. It is not merely, Oh that the time would come! but, When shall it come?

4. Expectation. It is the voice of faith, and hope, and longing desire. The present is dark, the future is bright; God's Word is sure concerning the coming glory; and so we, looking for and hasting to that glory, and depressed with the evil here, cry out day by day, "How long?"

II. THE WORDS AS FROM GOD TO MAN. I note the following instances (Exodus 10:3; Exodus 16:28; Joshua 18:3; 1 Kings 18:21; Psalm 82:2; Proverbs 1:22; Proverbs 6:9; Jeremiah 4:14). Taking up these words of God as spoken to different classes, we would dwell on the following points:

1. Long-suffering. Jeremiah's words to Jerusalem are the words of a long-suffering God, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

2. Expostulation. How long halt ye between two opinions? How long shall ye be of deciding? How long of trusting Me?

3. Entreaty. How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? God beseeches man; He entreats him to give up his sin, to come and be saved. How long will ye refuse My love?

4. Earnestness. God's words are all sincere. He means what He says, and says what He means. "Ye will not come to Me!" "How often would I have gathered thy children!" "O that thou hadst known!"

5. Sorrow. Every moment's continuance in unbelief is vexing and grieving the Spirit.

6. Upbraiding. There is the land, the kingdom, why do ye not go in? The door is open; the way is clear.

7. Warning. How long will ye persist in your unrighteousness and unbelief? The day of grace is ending. The day of wrath is coming. Be warned. Flee from the wrath to come.

(H. Bonar, D. D.)

First, the righteous are taken away, and no man regardeth it, as the prophet says (Isaiah 57:1). Their days are cut short by violence and cruelty, and yet their persecutors live and are mighty. What did the heathen say to this, who had good report for their moral conversation? Is there no justice in heaven? Yes, here is the best assurance that can be demanded, a scene, as it were, acted in heaven, wherein is represented that the wrongs of the saints are fresh in memory, and shall never be forgotten. The poor oppressed is more likely to obtain redress against his enemy when he is dead than when he was alive. His soul is then most precious to the Lord, his prayer most fragrant, he is so near to Christ that he is next to the altar; his understanding is so enlightened that he knows what to ask and never fail. Here you have a petition, then, put up to a mighty King by some persons that had sustained injury. First, Consider TO WHOM THE SUPPLICATION IS PREFERRED, to one from whom there lies no appeal, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And the words are so laid together that the souls under the altar do beseech Him by His three mighty attributes. He is the Lord, therefore they implore Him by that power which can do all things. He is holy, therefore they solicit Him by that goodness which detests oppressions. He is truth, therefore they urge Him by those promises made, which He cannot but accomplish. It is the Lord, holy and true, into His hands they commend their petition. He that makes his address to God, let him begin with His praise, let him commemorate His excellent greatness, let him delight to rehearse His titles of Majesty. No man can speak of the King of heaven according to His due honour, but it will procreate devotion and reverence; no man doth advance the name of God in the preface of his prayer, but it is a tacit confession that he prefers the glory of his Maker before his own necessity. I come to THE PRAYER ITSELF: the souls under the altar cry out unto the Lord to judge and avenge their blood. This is a voice which came not from earth but from heaven, and therefore we must maintain it.

1. First of all, vengeance being not usurped by the hand of a private man, but prosecuted under the shelter of lawful authority, like usque quo Domine. In this place it is not unlawful. It is a stirring up of that part of justice which distributes punishments to them that deserve them, and to demand it in a regular way is in no wise rugged to the law of charity.

2. But it is a second conclusion that the spirits of good men departed may cry out to have judgment pass upon tyrants for the effusion of their blood, because they can ask nothing inordinately; they that are confirmed in grace and cannot sin, they cannot make a petition that is over-balanced with the least grain of rancour or partiality.

3. The third conclusion is so cautious to give no scandal, so circumspect not to open the least window to malice and hatred, that it resents the word revenge in this place to be of improper signification; and that which the souls departed sue for is not revenge, but deliverance. Deliverance? Of what? Not of themselves, who are out of harm's way, but of their brethren tormented here beneath. As who should say, How long, O Lord, wilt Thou not deliver the blood of our brethren, the poor members of the militant Church, from them that rage upon the earth? So I leave this point with a probable assent, but no more, that the saints desire not the vengeance of the ungodly, but the deliverance of the righteous. The next point is almost of the same piece, and very conjunct with the petition itself, it is THE MANNER OF PREFERRING IT which, to the greater terror of them that live by wrong hostility, is done WITH ALL VEHEMENCY AND IMPORTUNITY, with a loud voice, and a solicitous iteration. The heathen poets fancied that the souls in the Elysian fields did not utter their mind with audible and vocal sounds, but with a low whispering, as if reeds were shaken with the wind. Sometimes they would strive to speak out, but all in vain. This is fiction, and not philosophy; for separated souls speak not with corporeal organs, but with their wills and affections. Their words which they utter are their desires, which they send forth; and therefore David says, "Thine ear hath heard the desire of their heart." Oppression and tyrannizing over the poor and helpless make the loudest clamours of any sins in the ears of God. Not the martyrs themselves, but the wrongs which they endured exclaim against their enemies.

(Bp. Hackett.)

I. THE MARTYR-CRY. It is the widow's cry, "Avenge me of mine adversary." "How long, O Lord (or, O Master), holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth!" This has been that long and bitter cry of the ages. It may seem" narrow," or worse than narrow — it may be called bigotry, or worse than bigotry — to sympathise with such sentiments; but these words stand. Let modern sentimentalists tell us what they mean, or else boldly proclaim them false and cruel.

II. THE MARTYR-HONOUR. "White robes were given them." What a contrast to the poverty of their raiment here, as they came out of prison; to the blood-stains and filth upon their earthly apparel!

III. THE MARTYR-REST. They get immediate rest as well as honour. "To you who are troubled," the apostle says, "God will recompense rest with us" (2 Thessalonians 1:7). The fulness of the rest — the Sabbatism (Hebrews 4:9) — is a reserve for the Lord's revelation from heaven; but rest, meanwhile, is theirs; rest, how sweet after the torture and toil of earth! It may be that there is peculiar rest for the martyr-band; and yet there is rest for all who are the Lord's, even though they may not have passed to it through the flames.

IV. THE MARTYR-HOPE. It is not expressly mentioned here. It is something which shall be given when the whole band is gathered; the whole martyr-band from the beginning. The seven epistles reveal that hope; and the three closing chapters of this book unfold it more fully. It is the hope of the first resurrection; of reigning with Christ; of entry into the celestial city; of the crown of life; of the inheritance of all things.

(H. Bonar, D. D.)

It is their blood that cries; it is the wrong done to them that demands reparation. In so far as they may be supposed to cry, they have in view, not their enemies as persons, but the evil that is in them, and that manifests itself through them. At first it may seem difficult to draw the distinction; but if we pause over the matter for a little, the difficulty will disappear. Never do we pity the sinner more, or feel for him with a keener sympathy, than when we are most indignant at sin and most earnest in prayer and effort for its destruction. The more anxious we are for the latter, the more must we compassionate the man who is enveloped in sin's fatal toils. When we long, therefore, for the hour at which sin shall be overtaken by the just judgment of God, we long only for the establishment of that righteous and holy kingdom which is inseparably bound up with the glory of God and the happiness of the world.

(W. Milligan, D. D.)

I. White robes remind us of INNOCENCE. It is a grand thing to be innocent; it is more glorious to be virtuous. Each part of yonder powerful locomotive and of that stupendous tubular bridge has been tried by great pressure, and stood the test. So a man who has been tried by the pressure of temptation, and has stood the test, is virtuous. Never blame any human bridge or broken human engine unless you have been tested with a similar pressure. But what a blessing to know that though a man has fallen, God does not lay him aside as useless! The glory of the gospel is that it offers the white robes of innocence to guilty men and women. The sinner is not only forgiven, but transformed. His second nature is of a higher kind than the first.

II. White robes also remind us of SUCCESS. It is only the few who seem to succeed in this world. Carlyle speaks of men as being "mostly fools," while another writer describes the world as being "strewn with human wrecks." As a rule, a successful man possesses genius and enthusiasm. How seldom one sees a perfect man or a perfect work! How grand to be successful as a man, a father, a brother, a friend! Alas! how few are really successful! You set forth to be a pure and honourable man; as such, have you been a success? Are you a failure? Alas! it is true; the world is strewn with the wrecks of human resolves and aims. But the white robe of success is placed once more within your reach. The Lord will work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure, and you shall be successful as a Christian.

III. White robes also remind us of BEAUTY.

(W. Birch.)

JohnPatmosAltar, Borne, Broke, Death, Fifth, Foot, Held, Kept, Killed, Lamb, Maintained, Opened, Sacrificed, Seal, Slain, Souls, Stamp, Testimony, Underneath, Undone, Witness1. The First Seal: Rider on White Horse
3. The Second Seal: War
5. The Third Seal: Famine
7. The Fourth Seal: Death
9. The Fifth Seal: Martyrs
12. The Sixth Seal: Terror

Revelation 6:9

     7302   altar
     8495   witnessing
     8498   witnessing, and Holy Spirit
     8730   enemies, of believers

Revelation 6:1-12

     5518   seal

Revelation 6:9-10

     7460   tabernacle, in NT
     8450   martyrdom

Revelation 6:9-11

     5568   suffering, causes
     8678   waiting on God
     9110   after-life

"For if Ye Live after the Flesh, Ye Shall Die, but if Ye through the Spirit do Mortify the Deeds of the Body, Ye Shall Live. "
Rom. viii. 13.--"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Though the Lord, out of his absolute sovereignty, might deal with man in such a way, as nothing should appear but his supreme will and almighty power, he might simply command obedience, and without any more persuasions either leave men to the frowardness of their own natures, or else powerfully constrain them to their duty, yet he hath chosen that way that …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Departed Saints Fellowservants with those yet on Earth.
"I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets." The revelation made to St. John in the isle of Patmos, was a comfort to the suffering apostle, and a blessing to the church. "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the word, of this prophecy." The beginning indeed was dark; the prophetic sketch, was for sometime, gloomy: It unfolded a strange scene of declensions and abominations, which were to disgrace the church of Christ and mar its beauty; and dismal series of woes on woes, …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects

God's Dealings with the Earth During the Tribulation Period.
The interval of time which separates the removal of the Church from the earth to the return of Christ to it, is variously designated in the Word of God. It is spoken of as "the day of vengeance" (Is. 61:2). It is called "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:7). It is the "hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world" (Rev. 3:10). It is denominated "the great day of the Lord" (Zeph. 1:14). It is termed "the great tribulation" (Matt. 24:21). It is the time of God's "controversy with the …
Arthur W. Pink—The Redeemer's Return

Opposition to Messiah Ruinous
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel T here is a species of the sublime in writing, which seems peculiar to the Scripture, and of which, properly, no subjects but those of divine revelation are capable, With us, things inconsiderable in themselves are elevated by splendid images, which give them an apparent importance beyond what they can justly claim. Thus the poet, when describing a battle among bees, by a judicious selection of epithets …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

An Advance Step in the Royal Programme
(Revelation, Chapters iv. and v.) "We are watching, we are waiting, For the bright prophetic day; When the shadows, weary shadows, From the world shall roll away. "We are watching, we are waiting, For the star that brings the day; When the night of sin shall vanish, And the shadows melt away. "We are watching, we are waiting, For the beauteous King of day; For the chiefest of ten thousand, For the Light, the Truth, the Way. "We are waiting for the morning, When the beauteous day is dawning, We are …
by S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation

An Awful Contrast
"Then did they spit in his face."--Matthew 26:67. "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away."--Revelation 20:11. GUIDED BY OUR TEXT in Matthew's Gospel, let us first go in thought to the palace of Caiaphas the high priest, and there let us, in deepest sorrow, realize the meaning of these terrible words: "Then did they spit in his face." There is more of deep and awful thunder in them than in the bolt that bursts overhead, there is …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 42: 1896

"So Then they that are in the Flesh Cannot Please God. "
Rom. viii. 8.--"So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." It is a kind of happiness to men, to please them upon whom they depend, and upon whose favour their well-being hangs. It is the servant's happiness to please his master, the courtier's to please his prince; and so generally, whosoever they be that are joined in mutual relations, and depend one upon another; that which makes all pleasant, is this, to please one another. Now, certainly, all the dependencies of creatures one upon …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

From the Supplement to the Summa --Question Lxxii of the Prayers of the Saints who are in Heaven
I. Are the Saints cognizant of our Prayers? II. Ought we to appeal to the Saints to intercede for us? III. Are the Saints' Prayers to God for us always heard? I Are the Saints cognizant of our Prayers? On those words of Job,[267] Whether his children come to honour or dishonour, he shall not understand, S. Gregory says: "This is not to be understood of the souls of the Saints, for they see from within the glory of Almighty God, it is in nowise credible that there should be anything without of …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

Christ's Kingly Office
Q-26: HOW DOES CHRIST EXECUTE THE OFFICE OF A KING? A: In subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. Let us consider now Christ's regal office. And he has on his vesture, and on his thigh, a name written, "King of kings, and Lord of lords", Rev 19:16. Jesus Christ is of mighty renown, he is a king; (1.) he has a kingly title. High and Lofty.' Isa 57:15. (2.) He has his insignia regalia, his ensigns of royalty; corona est insigne …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Prophet Amos.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. It will not be necessary to extend our preliminary remarks on the prophet Amos, since on the main point--viz., the circumstances under which he appeared as a prophet--the introduction to the prophecies of Hosea may be regarded as having been written for those of Amos also. For, according to the inscription, they belong to the same period at which Hosea's prophetic ministry began, viz., the latter part of the reign of Jeroboam II., and after Uzziah had ascended the …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Seventh vision "In Heaven"
H^7. Chap. xix. 1-16. The final heavenly Utterances and Actions. We now come to the last of the seven Visions seen "in Heaven," which is the subject of chap. xix. 1-16, giving us the final heavenly Utterances and Actions which lead up to, explain, and introduce the five concluding judgments which close up the things of Time, and pass on to what we call the Eternal State. This last Vision "in Heaven" is divided into two parts, each having its own independent construction. The first contains the words …
E.W. Bullinger—Commentary on Revelation

The Second Coming of Christ.
^A Matt. XXIV. 29-51; ^B Mark XIII. 24-37; ^C Luke XXI. 25-36. ^b 24 But in those days, ^a immediately after the { ^b that} ^a tribulation of those days. [Since the coming of Christ did not follow close upon the destruction of Jerusalem, the word "immediately" used by Matthew is somewhat puzzling. There are, however, three ways in which it may be explained: 1. That Jesus reckons the time after his own divine, and not after our human, fashion. Viewing the word in this light, the passage at II. Pet. …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

"There is Therefore Now no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. "
Rom. viii. 1.--"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There are three things which concur to make man miserable,--sin, condemnation, and affliction. Every one may observe that "man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," that his days here are few and evil. He possesses "months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed" for him. Job v. 6, 7, vii. 3. He "is of few days and full of trouble," Job xiv. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Consolations against Impatience in Sickness.
If in thy sickness by extremity of pain thou be driven to impatience, meditate-- 1. That thy sins have deserved the pains of hell; therefore thou mayest with greater patience endure these fatherly corrections. 2. That these are the scourges of thy heavenly Father, and the rod is in his hand. If thou didst suffer with reverence, being a child, the corrections of thy earthly parents, how much rather shouldst thou now subject thyself, being the child of God, to the chastisement of thy heavenly Father, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Meditations of the Blessed State of a Regenerate Man in his Death.
When God sends death as his messenger for the regenerate man, he meets him half-way to heaven, for his conversation and affection is there before him (Phil. iii. 20; Col. iii. 2.) Death is never strange nor fearful to him: not strange, because he died daily--not fearful, because whilst he lived, he was dead, and his life was hid with Christ in God (1 Cor. i. 31; Col. iii. 3;) to die, therefore, is to him nothing else in effect, but to rest from his labour in this world, to go home to his Father's …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Messiah Worshipped by Angels
Let all the angels of God worship Him. M any of the Lord's true servants, have been in a situation so nearly similar to that of Elijah, that like him they have been tempted to think they were left to serve the Lord alone (I Kings 19:10) . But God had then a faithful people, and He has so in every age. The preaching of the Gospel may be compared to a standard erected, to which they repair, and thereby become known to each other, and more exposed to the notice and observation of the world. But we hope …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

In Reply to the Questions as to his Authority, Jesus Gives the Third Great Group of Parables.
(in the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, a.d. 30.) Subdivision C. Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. ^A Matt. XXI. 33-46; ^B Mark XII. 1-12; ^C Luke XX. 9-19. ^b 1 And he began to speak unto them ^c the people [not the rulers] ^b in parables. { ^c this parable:} ^a 33 Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder [this party represents God], who planted a vineyard [this represents the Hebrew nationality], and set a hedge about it, and digged a ^b pit for the ^a winepress in it …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Death by Adam, Life by Christ
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. F rom Mr. Handel's acknowledged abilities as a composer, and particularly from what I have heard of his great taste and success in adapting the style of his music to the subject, I judge, that this passage afforded him a fair occasion of displaying his genius and powers. Two ideas, vastly important in themselves, are here represented in the strongest light, …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Being Made Archbishop of Armagh, He Suffers Many Troubles. Peace Being Made, from Being Archbishop of Armagh He Becomes Bishop of Down.
[Sidenote: 1129] 19. (12). Meanwhile[365] it happened that Archbishop Cellach[366] fell sick: he it was who ordained Malachy deacon, presbyter and bishop: and knowing that he was dying he made a sort of testament[367] to the effect that Malachy ought to succeed him,[368] because none seemed worthier to be bishop of the first see. This he gave in charge to those who were present, this he commanded to the absent, this to the two kings of Munster[369] and to the magnates of the land he specially enjoined …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh

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