The words, "How beautiful are the feet!" are plainly a figurative expression. This expression signifies the delight with which the messenger of peace is hailed, or, in other words, how welcome is the message which he brings. In Isaiah (
Isaiah 52:7) it reads, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, as if the reference was to the inhabitants of some beleaguered city looking out for the messengers of peace, and as they behold them appearing, fleet of foot, upon the mountain-top, they exclaim, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!" Such a description the apostle here applies to the messengers of the gospel
I. THE GOSPEL IS BEAUTIFUL IN THE TRUTHS IT TEACHES. The truths of the gospel are here called "glad tidings of good things." This, in fact, is the very meaning of the word "gospel" - glad tidings or good news.
1. Think what the gospel teaches us about the one true God. What a contrast to the helpless idols of heathenism! How beautiful to think that God is a Spirit who is everywhere present, who knows all our circumstances, and to whom we can always draw near in the assurance that he hears us, and is able and willing to help us! What a contrast to the unknown god of even the best forms of heathenism, to the unconscious and unsympathetic Brahm, the god of Hinduism! I heard a missionary to the Red Indians, speaking in Dr. Storrs' church in Brooklyn, mention how the chief of an old Indian tribe, seven thousand in number, had come seven times in fifteen months a distance of a hundred and fifty miles to a mission station, to ask that a missionary might be sent to tell them of "the white man's God." How beautiful to them that sit in darkness is the glad tidings of the true God, the loving and merciful Father in heaven!
2. Think what the gospel teaches us about the human soul. The gospel does not permit us to regard man as one of the beasts that perish, as he is under so many of the heathen religions. Some of these have no idea of the existence of a soul at all; but in the best of them the soul is either annihilated at death, or transferred to some other creature, or absorbed into the universal being as a drop into the ocean. The gospel, on the other hand, teaches that man was made in the image of God; that he has an immortal destiny; and that, when he had destroyed his own present happiness and future prospects by his own sin, so great value did God place upon him, so great love did his heavenly Father cherish for him, that he sent his own beloved Son to live and die for man's salvation. The gospel which proclaims the greatness, the majesty, the holiness, the glory of God, proclaims also the dignity and the immortality of man
II. THE GOSPEL IS BEAUTIFUL IN THE INFLUENCE IT EXERCISES. This we might expect from the beauty and grandeur of the truths it teaches. There is nothing very elevating about the worship of an idol of wood or stone. There is nothing very inspiring. in the thought that life must end at the grave, or that I shall be absorbed into the universe. It may be very poetic to sing, as Shelley did of his departed friend Keats -
"He is made one with Nature. There is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird.
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light in herb and stone;
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own." But such a thought would bring little comfort to the bereaved parent or sorrowing widow; and how very slight would be its influence upon character and life, compared with the thought that I am a responsible being, that I must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and that my life as an immortal being hereafter will be determined largely by my life as an individual now! As a matter of fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ has exercised an elevating, purifying, beautifying influence wherever its power has been felt. Take, for instance, the treatment of woman. Mohammedanism and heathenism have both kept woman in humiliation and degradation. By keeping her in seclusion, they have at once injured her own moral and spiritual being, and deprived the community of the healthful influence which good women can exercise. Christianity has raised woman to respect and honour; it has promoted her own personal happiness; and it has enabled her to exercise a mighty power for good in the family, and in society at large. Mohammedanism and heathenism are the props of slavery. It was Christian missions that first aroused the Christian conscience on this subject. Sir William Hunter, one of the most distinguished scholars and statesmen of our day, speaking at the great Missionary Conference in London, June, 1888, said, "I recognize in missionary work a great expiation for the wrong which the white man has done to the dark man in the past; and I recognize also a pledge of national fight-doing in future. During the past century missionaries have marched in the van of all our noblest national movements. When the time came for the great wrong of slavery to be redressed, it was the missionary voice which first stirred up the nation against the slave trade. That voice is now awakening the national conscience against the terrible evil which is being done by our liquor traffic among the darker and less civilized races." How long shall the Christian public of mighty England stand meekly by, while slavery's chain is still clanking, and slavery's lash still falls? How beautiful is that gospel which has lifted woman out of her degradation; which has emancipated already so many millions of slaves; which has abolished cannibalism in so many islands of the sea; which has put an end to the suttee and other cruel ceremonies in India; and which is drawing the nations of the earth together in a universal brotherhood of good will and peace! III. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL THING TO BE A BEARER OF THIS MESSAGE. "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace!" What share are we taking in this glorious work? "Consecrated capital," says Dr. A. T. Pierson, "is not only potent; it is well-nigh omnipotent. To have and to use money well is to multiply personal power a thousandfold, nay, to multiply one's self a thousandfold.. The giver is potentially wherever his gift is. Sarah Hosmer's frugal savings educated six young men to preach the gospel in Oriental lands, and where they were, she had her representatives and preached through them. A man recently died in New York whose noble benefactions had spread so far, that in not less than two hundred and fifty different places he was represented by a mission Sunday school, a church, an asylum, a hospital, a college or seminary, or some other form of beneficence: his money made him virtually omnipresent as a benefactor." Oh that individual Christians would awake to their opportunities! Oh! that they would realize the moral grandeur and glory of being a bearer of the gospel message, and a helper in the gospel cause! - C.H.I.
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
I. SALVATION BY GRACE.1. We all hope to be saved. Salvation cannot be of merit for anybody that you or I have ever known. It must be of grace, if grace be possible: there is no other way. And there is this way — an old way, an eternal way — prepared and opened far back behind all time, when the Lamb was slain. This takes us back into mysterious and awful depths. But revelation leads the way. Surely we narrow God, unless we think of Him as Triune. Surely we slander God, unless we make atonement as much the work of the Father and the Spirit, as of the Son.
2. How to be square and clean, how to be considerate and generous, how not to be selfish and self-willed; how not to be afraid or ashamed to die: this is the great problem of life. Tell me how to do this and you will tell me how to be saved. Grace tramples down no law. Salvation by grace is through faith, working by love, which, like fire, cleanses the heart and cleanses the life.
3. The salvation of society, menaced now, menaced always, by human appetite and passions in their disorganising play, must come by the same road. No one form of government rather than another, no mere selfish forces, is the thing required. Till society shall have become unselfish it has not been saved, nor can it be. And to become unselfish, it must learn, not of socialistic reformers, who pronounce unselfishness impossible, but of Him who was unselfishness incarnate.
II. THIS SALVATION MUST BE PREACHED.
1. Christianity is one of the great Book-Religions, of which there are pre-eminently three — Judaism and Mohammedanism being the other two. This word "Book-Religion" means a great deal.(1) It means, that we have something definite and immutable by which to measure whatever calls itself Christian, holding it to the rule.(2) It means that the poor, swearing, shipwrecked sailor that floats ashore on his chest, if he has in that chest the Bible his mother gave him, and dries its leaves in the sun, and reads the third chapter of John's Gospel, with streaming eyes, and breaking, believing heart, may be saved all alone there on the sandy beach of the desert island. And if he dies there all alone, no ship sailing that way to see his signal of distress, he will go as straight to heaven as Whitefield himself went from the sermon he preached in Exeter.
2. And yet Christianity did not start as a volume, but as a voice. Christ Himself probably wrote nothing, not a line. Meanwhile, the kingdom of Christ has been marching and conquering, north and south, towards the rising and towards the setting sun. Its snow-white banners, chasing the Roman eagles, had outflown those eagles beyond the Danube, the Euphrates, and the Indus. What wrought that triumph? The foolishness of preaching wrought it. Christ is no Confucius, or Socrates, or Solon, but God Incarnate. He that saves us spake, and as never man spake. So the sacred message ran, and runs, from lip to lip. It is in the air all the time.
3. A Bible in every human habitation is something well worth trying to achieve. But I can tell you of something better still. It is Christ Himself, in any one of the humblest of His disciples, casting His shadow on the wall. Breathing men, not breathless books, must carry salvation round the globe. It must be preached; preached by men who have had it preached to them; preached to sinners by men who have sinned themselves; by dying men to dying men.
III. THE PREACHERS MUST BE SENT.
1. Our text does not say by whom, but the context makes it plain enough. God must send them.
2. Whom God sends to preach, He first converts. And then He kindles in him, beyond the average, what we have been in the habit of calling a love for souls; call it, if you please, enthusiasm, a great, good heart, quick sympathy with men as men, and with the daily wants and ways of men.
3. In the apostolic and early Church, which wrought such wonders, preaching was not exclusively an official prerogative. Strictly speaking, there was no order of preachers. Anybody might preach who had anything to say worth saying. Not till near the close of the fourth century were laymen forbidden to preach. And then the Church had got far along in the bad way. I confess I do not see how Christianity is ever to carry the day, unless the great bulk of our Church membership becomes also a ministry. A Grecian army, with or without leaders, might possibly have stood its ground all the same at Marathon, saving Greece, and saving the civilisation of the Occident. But Miltiades alone there, with his handful of officers, would not have stayed for a moment the Persian march on Athens.
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Belief is impossible, where it is impossible to convey any knowledge of the subjects of belief; the body cannot digest without nutriment to engage its digestive functions; the mind cannot believe without facts and propositions to occupy its believing faculty (ver. 17). The voice of God, the hearing of man, the consequent belief, are the three necessarily successive links in the golden chain of revealed salvation. Sever the continuity of any two, and the electric spark cannot be transferred across the interval.()
How shall they hear without a preacher?
I. ITS ADVANTAGES.1. Economy of exertion. How much is done with comparatively little speaking.
2. Many receive religious instruction who would otherwise have none.
3. Religion is kept a conspicuous thing.
4. All are made witnesses to all they have heard.
5. There is something in it for popular opinion to lean upon.
6. It tends to secure for religion deep study, at least in some parts of the community.
II. ITS REQUISITES.
1. Power of thought.
2. Facility of expression.
3. Knowledge of the Scriptures.
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I. THE NECESSITY OF A MINISTRY TO OFFICIATE IN THE CHURCH OF GOD.1. The settling and preserving a ministry to officiate in the Church is an instance of our respect to Almighty God. God is the God of order, not of confusion, and expects that His service should be performed after a regular and decent manner, free from negligence on the one hand and foppery on the other; especially He requires that acts of public adoration should be accompanied with a reverence and solemnity suitable to the majesty of such a presence. Now this cannot reasonably be supposed to be so exactly performable by those who are frequently embroiled in the affairs of the world, and by that means have their thoughts and affections the more estranged from heavenly contemplations. It has therefore been the universal practice of all nations to appoint some peculiar persons to attend upon God's service more immediately, who, by continually applying themselves to such things as were acceptable to Him, were supposed to have some interest in Him, to be qualified to understand His will, and to be authorised to reveal it to others. Now as this was done by the common consent of all heathen nations in relation to their false divinities, so was it more eminently put in practice by those who had a clearer notion of the true Deity; one tribe in twelve being set apart by the Jews and consecrated to the service of God and His Temple, no worldly concerns being suffered to interfere, but the whole employment and business of their lives being to study His will and the methods of His worship.
2. I proceed, next, to enforce the necessity of a ministry to officiate in the Church of God from the great advantages accruing thereby to the other members of Christ's body.(1) Consider it in relation to prayers or intercessions for the obtaining of mercies or diverting of judgments.(2) A second advantage which accrues to the whole Church from the office of the ministry is that of instruction and reprehension, the impartial declaring of their duty to them and seasonably reproving them for the neglect of it.
II. THE AUTHORITY BY WHICH THEY ACT. "How shall they preach except they be sent?" Our blessed Saviour, in order to carry on the universal design of our redemption, thought fit to select a certain number of men to be His missionaries or apostles, investing them with some part of His own authority (Mark 3:14). From Him, then, "who is a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" is derived to His ministers a plenitude of power proportionable to the majesty of so august a Founder. We have His own Word for it, who cannot lie (John 17:18). Since, therefore, the Author and Finisher of our faith has thus expressly testified in relation to His ministers that as He was sent even so did He send, the questioning that authority by which they act will cast an imputation upon Christ Himself, and a doubting the validness of their mission will unhappily glance and reflect upon His. I shall now close up all that has been said with a word or two of application. Can they not hear without a preacher? Is the necessity and advantage of an established ministry so very great? Let us, then, most heartily pray the great Lord of the harvest that He will still continue to send forth able labourers into His harvest. Let us also consider how many miserable souls are deprived of those benefits which we possess. And let this consideration cause in us gratitude and thanksgiving for the happy enjoyment of such inestimable blessings. Can they not preach except they be sent? Can they not officiate except their calling be from above? Then it extremely stands them upon to make good their mission. And the surest way of proving that to be undeniably true is by accommodating their doctrine to the Word of God and squaring their lives according to their doctrine. But farther — Is their commission so full and their authority so large? This, then, should oblige us to put some distinction between those who come so duly authorised and others who intrude into the same employment.
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You take up a book and read a poem. Slowly, carefully you distil the meaning, admire it, appropriate it. Very likely you imagine that you have obtained the author's full significance, and extracted therefrom all the enjoyment and profit possible. But let some friend recite it, enunciating clearly, articulating sympathetically, giving to each line its appropriate expression, and the probability is that you will see and feel more than you did previously. An experienced and able missionary has remarked, "I have never seen a Chinaman weep over a book; but I have seen a Chinaman weep under a sermon. I have myself many times made a Chinaman weep by the proclamation of the gospel." We have the sermons of George Whitfield and the orations of Edward Irving, and what is the first experience of those who peruse them? In the majority of cases it is disappointment. "Can this be the renowned man who moved so mightily the spirits of his contemporaries?" Such is our astonished question. Yes, it is the renowned man; but cannot you see how it is that you are not affected by his discourses as others were? It is because they heard, whereas you only read. Wisely, then, is it ordained that the gospel shall be preached.()
1. Preaching is God's ordained method of communicating Divine knowledge.2. Without Divine knowledge men cannot believe.
3. Without faith men cannot call upon God.
4. Without calling upon God they cannot be saved.
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The gospel should be preached to every creature it being a universal message from heaven to earth. A commission thus universal should have had at our hands a universal fulfilment; but we have only to open our eyes and see how palpably short it has come of this. And yet we affect to wonder that the blessings of Christianity are limited to so small a portion of the human family. But surely it is not time to charge the Almighty, or to arraign the methods of His administration — till we have inquired in how far this precept has been carried into operation; and then what the instances are in which, when the precept was fully acted up to, this promise has ever been withheld. Verses 14, 15 give the first and readiest answer to the question — How is it that the whole earth is not Christianised? God could, by an act of sovereignty, achieve this result at the instant bidding of His voice — even as He said Let there be light, and there was light. But God hath, in the exercise of a wisdom, in perfect analogy with the many processes of nature and providence, chosen to ordain an instrumentality for the diffusion of the Christian religion over the world. Now it so happens that men are the chief parts of this instrumentality; and we should first inquire how they have done their part — so as to ascertain whether it be not we the men who are in fault, before daring to lay the fault upon God. It is a sound doctrinal theology which acknowledges, amid the countless diversity of operations around us, that it is God who worketh all in all. But God worketh by means; and when a certain prescribed human agency enters into that system of means which He hath instituted, it is a sound practical theology to labour as assiduously in the bidden way as if man worked all. God could have worked a saving faith in the heart of Cornelius by an immediate suggestion from His own Spirit, or through the mouth of an angel. And He did send an angel to Cornelius, not however that he might preach the gospel to him, but that he might bid him send for Peter, and receive that gospel at the lips of a fellow-mortal. And God also sent to Peter a communication from heaven to prepare him for the message — thus doubling as it were the amount of miraculous agency, in order that the gospel might be heard by a yet unconverted child of Adam, not through the medium of a supernatural and angelic, but through the medium of a natural and a human utterance. Yet not so as that the natural should supersede or displace the super-natural — for while Peter spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them who heard. The function of Peter was the same with that of a minister or missionary in the present day — it was to tell Cornelius the words by which he and all his house should be saved. And the function of the Holy Ghost for the purpose of giving demonstration and efficiency to the word, is the same now as ever — He falls on us still even as He did on them at the beginning. Let no man put asunder the things which God hath joined. The application of all this to the question of missions, whether home or foreign, is quite obvious. Let these be multiplied to the uttermost, yet all will be useless and effete, if unblest or unaccompanied by the Spirit of God, Some there are, men of devotion, who have a contempt for machinery, and who think to succeed by prayer alone for the extension of our Redeemer's kingdom. Others there are, men of bustle and enterprise, who think to succeed by the busy prosecution of schemes and societies. Both must be conjoined, and it is to this prolific union of devout and desirous hearts with busy hands, that the Church of Christ stands indebted for all its prosperity.()
And how shall they preach except they be sent?
It is not a man's skill in state affairs that makes him an ambassador, nor ability in the law that makes him a magistrate, but the call to these places: neither do gifts make a man a minister, but his mission.()
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace! — This is a picture on the canvas of the imagination. In a time of intense anxiety and imminent peril, many are the earnest and wistful looks that are directed to the mountain pass in the distance. At length when hope deferred was turning into despair, the messenger is descried. He is striding in haste, waving a token of the glad tidings he is commissioned to communicate. The feet which bear him rapidly along, are beautiful to behold — beautiful to the eyes of the hopeful.The preacher's feet beautiful: — Three things make them so:
1. The preciousness of his message.
2. The ardour of his zeal and love.
3. The holy consistency of his life.
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I. HIS COMMISSION.1. From God.
2. From the Church.
II. HIS MESSAGE.
1. Glad tidings.
2. Of peace.
3. Of good things.
III. HIS WELCOME.
1. By the perishing world.
2. By the penitent sinner.
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I.HOW NECESSARY HIS MISSION!II.HOW WELCOME HIS COMING!III.HOW GLORIOUS HIS MESSAGE!IV.HOW BEAUTIFUL HIS TRACK!()
Essex Congregational Remembrancer.
I. THE GENERAL IMPORT OF THE GOSPEL. Good news, or glad tidings. A message which bears this designation —1. Must relate to something that is really and substantially good. Bad news may find the ear open, but the heart will be shut. Now the gospel unfolds what is truly good for our immortal souls. Its promises and provisions are inestimably precious. It lays pipes close to the fountain of goodness, and through them pours a profusion of blessings.
2. Must relate to a good that immediately concerns us. To tell a man in penury, of abundance; or a man in sickness, of healing; or a man in danger, of deliverance, which is placed utterly beyond his reach, is but to aggravate his distress. But the religion of Jesus supplies healing and help and adequate relief.
3. Must be true and certain. What avail great and good things, held out to us in a precarious manner? The good news, which we publish, is well authenticated. Omnipotence has confirmed and ratified it.
II. SOME REASONS WHY THE SACRED WORD IS EMPHATICALLY CALLED THE GOSPEL OF PEACE. Peace is a blessing of the highest value. In our text it is used in its most comprehensive acceptation, as denoting —
1. Peace with God, or reconciliation (Colossians 1:19-21). The terms of this reconciliation are set forth in Romans 5:1-3.
2. Peace with ourselves, or peace of conscience. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." They try a variety of expedients, which all utterly fail of success. It is necessary that the gospel be actually received, to tranquillise the heart (Hebrews 10:19).
3. Peace with our brethren, or the peace of amity. Christianity is a religion of peace. It allays the fury of those passions which are the springs of strife and bitterness. Its doctrines and principles of Christianity breathe a spirit of universal benevolence.
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1. The effect of the preaching of the gospel is joy in them which hear it. So at Antioch there was great joy; so in Galatia, and elsewhere.2. This effect is set forth under a comparison of the less; for Isaiah (Isaiah 52:7) speaks of the royal receiving of the messengers of Israel's deliverance from the captivity of Babylon. If, then, the tidings of such temporal deliverance was so welcome, much more must be welcome the glad tidings of the gospel: and as those messengers were from God, so much more these. In these words are two things.
I. A COMMENDATION OF THE GOSPEL. "How beautiful" — as if he were not able to express such beauty — "are the feet!" Some take feet for men; some for the affections, being that to the soul which feet are to the body: these affections appearing in the apostles, by their sweet delivery and utterance; some for the velocity of the apostles in converting the world; some their constancy and courage. Some take beauty for the holiness of the apostles; some for a fleshly beauty by ornaments, as slippers embroidered with gold and pearl; as this Scripture is abused to the consecrating of the Pope's toe. But the plain meaning is that the coming of the apostles with the glad tidings of salvation was acceptable: he saith feet because they are the instruments of going; as we familiarly say of poor men, they get their living by their fingers' ends, which are the instruments of their labour. Beautiful. The Hebrew word may signify to be desired and longed for, or beautiful and welcome. The beauty of a thing causeth it to be desired, as the beauty of Christ makes the Church sick of love. The Greek term comes of a root which signifies —
1. Time. Generally time, or seasonable time: and so some read it, "How seasonable!" A word spoken in season is beautiful. Everything is beautiful in his season. Many of our daintiest meats are not, but the gospel is always in season; in the winter of adversity, in the summer of prosperity, in the spring of youth, and autumn of age.
2. The spring: and therefore some have compared the coming of the preachers of the gospel to the spring. For as the fields in the spring begin to be adorned with flowers, in which all creatures rejoice, so the preaching of the gospel turns our winter-like barrenness into fruitfulness, making us to flourish with heavenly graces and virtues.
3. Ripeness, and so some have likened the coming of the apostles to ripe fruit. Unripe fruit is dangerous, and not so well coloured, but that which is ripe is both well tasted and well coloured. No dainty-coloured fruit so beautiful and wholesome as the gospel.
4. Comeliness; that which we call the pride and flowers of life; also youth, wherein is that mixture of white and red which is called beauty. As Christ is said to be fairer, so also is the gospel.
II. A REASON. Because it is the gospel of peace and glad tidings of good things. This redundance serves to make us the more to esteem of it. It is the Ghost's spell, a comforting and soul-saving word.
1. Peace. We are by corruption of nature enemies to God; the gospel reveals a threefold peace — with God, with ourselves, with men; according to the song of the angels at the birth of Christ.
2. Good things. Yea, the best in the superlative degree, celestial good things: a freedom from all evil of sin, of punishment.Conclusion: Nothing should be so welcome as the preaching and preachers of the gospel. That Christ came to save sinners is a faithful saying, and worthy of the best welcome (1 Timothy 1:15). It is called the word of life, of salvation, the gospel of the kingdom. Even the key of heaven; for life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel (2 Timothy 1:12).
1. The essential duty of a minister is to preach the gospel. The law is to be preached also, both as an introduction to the gospel, and for a direction how to lead our lives when we have received the gospel, because sin breaks God's peace; but chiefly we are sent to preach the gospel.
2. Not riches, nor dignities, but to preach the gospel is the chief honour and beauty of a minister, who, though highly advanced, if he preach not the gospel, shall be despised.
3. Some love their ministers because they keep hospitality, which is commendable; some because they gain by them, which is carnal; some because they never preach, which is abominable; some because themselves would be well accounted of, which is hypocritical. But to love them for their work's sake is conscionable, and according to the commandment (1 Thessalonians 5:13). It is an argument of great corruption to esteem meanly a preacher; when he that brings tidings of a good bargain, or is an instrument of our pleasures, shall be highly welcomed and rewarded.
4. If the minister have weak gifts, yet if he preach the gospel thou must account his feet beautiful. It is not the gifts of men, but the Word of God which works the feat in our conversion.
5. If it be the gospel of peace, the professors are to be peaceable.
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What music is there ever heard in this world to be compared with the music of the gospel? It goes to the heart of universal humanity. It is richer in its tones than all the voices of men. It is more thrilling far than all the symphonies of Handel and Mozart, of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Rossini, and of all the mighty masters of song. It is softer than the murmur of the evening breeze; more soothing than the sound of the distant waterfall. It is sweeter than the warblings of summer birds; more harmonious than the chorus of the forest's rustling leaves. It is grander than the hallelujahs of the waves of the ocean; more overpowering than the organ roll of the reverberating thunder. Aye, and more melting and delicious than the harping of those heavenly intelligences whom God designates as the "morning stars." The gospel steals over the bosom of the desolate and inexpressibly sad. It drops its assuaging balm on the ear of the broken and the weary, the forsaken, the bereaved, the solitary. It charms away the despondency of the labouring and the heavy-laden. Its minstrelsy penetrates within the prison bars of the captive, and floats to the ear of tyranny's fettered victim in the subterranean dungeon. Its solace cheers those who sit in ashes, who are clad in the vestments of mourning, and are swooning under the spirit of heaviness, It comes with resistless force to the bankrupt, the ruined and undone, to the guilty, the betrayed, the despairing, the polluted, and the lost. When all other voices are still, with gentler than a mother's accents, it breathes out hope and retrieval for the fallen and the outcast. No fabled Orpheus ever so affected rocks, trees, and wild beasts, by harp and song, as Christ by the music of the gospel has drawn after Him, in blissful captivity, the dullest, rudest, and most savage of mankind, constraining them to leave their carnal instincts, their habits of depravity, their ways of sin, so that, forsaking all besides, o'er all the world they follow Him.()
It is a great mercy to enjoy the "gospel of peace," but a still greater to enjoy the peace of the gospel.()
The meanness of the earthen vessel, which conveys to others the gospel treasure, takes nothing from the value of the treasure. A dying hand may sign a deed of gift of incalculable value. A shepherd's boy may point out the way to a philosopher. A beggar may be the bearer of an invaluable present.()
People
Esaias, Isaiah, Israelites, Paul, RomansPlaces
RomeTopics
Announce, Beautiful, Bring, Except, Glad, Gospel, News, Peace, Preach, Preachers, Proclaiming, Tidings, Unless, WrittenOutline
1. The difference between the righteousness of the law, and that of faith;
11. all who believe, both Jew and Gentile, shall not be shamed;
18. and that the Gentiles shall receive the word and believe.
19. Israel was not ignorant of these things.
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Romans 10:15 2428 gospel, descriptions
4040 beauty
5151 feet
5307 envoy
7725 evangelists, identity
8425 evangelism, nature of
Romans 10:13-15
7726 evangelists, ministry
Romans 10:14-15
1445 revelation, responses
2427 gospel, transmission
6628 conversion, God's demand
Romans 10:14-16
5426 news
8836 unbelief, response
Romans 10:14-17
6183 ignorance, of God
8025 faith, origins of
Library
The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2The Progress of the Gospel
Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world. T he heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1) . The grandeur of the arch over our heads, the number and lustre of the stars, the beauty of the light, the splendour of the sun, the regular succession of day and night, and of the seasons of the year, are such proofs of infinite wisdom and power, that the Scripture attributes to them a voice, a universal language, intelligible to all mankind, accommodated to every capacity. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2
How Can I Obtain Faith?
May the Spirit of God assist us while we meditate upon the way by which faith cometh. This shall be followed by a brief indication of certain obstructions which often lie in that way; and then we will conclude by dwelling upon the importance that faith should come to us by that appointed road. I. First, then, THE WAY BY WHICH FAITH COMES TO MEN. "Faith cometh by hearing." It may help to set the truth out more clearly, if we say, negatively, that it does not come by any other process than by hearing;--not …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872
Christ the End of the Law
The reason why many do not come to Christ is not because they are not earnest, after a fashion, and thoughtful and desirous to be saved, but because they cannot brook God's way of salvation. "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge," We do get them by our exhortation so far on the way that they become desirous to obtain eternal life, but "they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Mark, "submitted themselves," for it needs submission. Proud man wants to save …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 22: 1876
A Simple Sermon for Seeking Souls
Now, I think, I shall not this morning err in his point of view, for I shall assume that some of my congregation, at least, are totally unacquainted with the great plan of salvation. And you that know it well, and have tried its preciousness, will bear with me, I am sure, whilst I try in the simplest words that human lips can put together to tell out the story of how men are lost, and how men are saved according to the words of my text by calling upon the name of the Lord. Well then, we must begin …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857
Barriers Broken Down
YOU THAT HAVE YOUR BIBLES OPEN, kindly follow me from the first verse of the chapter. It begins, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." If you really desire that men should be saved, pray for them. It is an empty wish, a mere formality, if you do not turn it into prayer. Every loving desire for any man or woman should, by the believer, be taken before God in prayer. We cannot expect that God will save men unless his people pray for it. There must …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 37: 1891
Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility
The system of truth is not one straight line, but two. No man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. I am taught in one book to believe that what I sow I shall reap: I am taught in another place, that "it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." I see in one place, God presiding over all in providence; and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858
"Thou Shall Keep Him in Perfect Peace, Whose Mind is Stayed on Thee, Because He Trusteth in Thee. "
Isaiah xxvi. 3.--"Thou shall keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." All men love to have privileges above others. Every one is upon the design and search after some well-being, since Adam lost that which was true happiness. We all agree upon the general notion of it, but presently men divide in the following of particulars. Here all men are united in seeking after some good; something to satisfy their souls, and satiate their desires. Nay, but they …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Seances Historiques De Geneve --The National Church.
IN the city of Geneva, once the stronghold of the severest creed of the Reformation, Christianity itself has of late years received some very rude shocks. But special attempts have been recently made to counteract their effects and to re-organize the Christian congregations upon Evangelical principles. In pursuance of this design, there have been delivered and published during the last few years a series of addresses by distinguished persons holding Evangelical sentiments, entitled Séances …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World
Confirmation.
In our studies concerning the methods of Grace, or the application of the Salvation purchased by Christ, to the sinful race of Adam's children, we necessarily had to begin with the new-born child. We noted the first known operations of Grace at the baptismal font. We traced the infant through the holy influences received at a Christian mother's knee, and in the nurture of a Christian home. We followed up through the lessons and influences of the Church's nursery, the Sunday-school, and from thence …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church
Faith in the Sacred Scriptures.
"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." --Rom. x. 10. Calvin says beautifully and comprehensively that the object of saving faith is none other than the Mediator, and invariably in the garments of the Sacred Scriptures. This should be accepted unconditionally. Saving faith is possible, therefore, only in sinful men and so long as they remain sinful. To suppose that saving faith existed already in Paradise is to destroy the order of …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit
Which Sentence Dishonoreth the Holy Martyrs, Nay Rather Taketh Away Holy Martyrdoms Altogether. ...
3. Which sentence dishonoreth the holy Martyrs, nay rather taketh away holy martyrdoms altogether. For they would do more justly and wisely, according to these men, not to confess to their persecutors that they were Christians, and by confessing make them murderers: but rather by telling a lie, and denying what they were, should both themselves keep safe the convenience of the flesh and purpose of the heart, and not allow those to accomplish the wickedness which they had conceived in their mind. …
St. Augustine—Against Lying
Or Haply is it So, that He who Plots in this Way to Find...
13. Or haply is it so, that he who plots in this way to find out Priscillianists, denies not Christ, forasmuch as with his mouth he utters what with his heart he believes not? As if truly (which I also said a little above) when it was said, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," it was added to no purpose, "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation?" [2398] Is it not so that almost all who have denied Christ before the persecutors, held in their heart what they believed of Him? …
St. Augustine—Against Lying
Christ Our Righteousness.
"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (I. Cor. i. 30, 31). In this language Paul affirms that Christ is our righteousness. This is a momentous thought. It goes to the heart of the scheme of redemption. How is Christ our righteousness? What does Paul mean by the affirmation? The very life of Christianity is involved in the answer. …
Frank G. Allen—Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel
Letter v. Yes, My Dear Friend, it is My Conviction that in all Ordinary Cases the Knowledge...
Yes, my dear friend, it is my conviction that in all ordinary cases the knowledge and belief of the Christian Religion should precede the study of the Hebrew Canon. Indeed, with regard to both Testaments, I consider oral and catechismal instruction as the preparative provided by Christ himself in the establishment of a visible Church. And to make the Bible, apart from the truths, doctrines, and spiritual experiences contained therein, the subject of a special article of faith, I hold an unnecessary …
Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc
Receive, My Children, the Rule of Faith, which is Called the Symbol or Creed. ...
1. Receive, my children, the Rule of Faith, which is called the Symbol (or Creed [1762] ). And when ye have received it, write it in your heart, and be daily saying it to yourselves; before ye sleep, before ye go forth, arm you with your Creed. The Creed no man writes so as it may be able to be read: but for rehearsal of it, lest haply forgetfulness obliterate what care hath delivered, let your memory be your record-roll: [1763] what ye are about to hear, that are ye to believe; and what ye shall …
St. Augustine—On the Creeds
Moreover Moses in Deuteronomy Says that the Gentiles Should be the Head...
Moreover Moses in Deuteronomy says that the Gentiles should be the head, and the unbelieving people the tail. And again he says: Ye provoked me to jealousy with those that are no gods, and angered me with your idols: and I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation, and with a foolish nation will I anger you. (Cf. Rom. x. 19) Because they forsook the God who is, and worshipped and served the gods who are not; and they slew the prophets of God, and prophesied for Baal, who was the idol …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
Epistle xvi. To Mauricius, Augustus.
To Mauricius, Augustus. Gregory to Mauricius, &c. Seeing that in you, most Christian of princes, uncorrupt soundness of faith shines as a beam sent down from heaven, and that it is known to all that your Serenity embraces fervently and loves with entire devotion of heart the pure profession in which by God's favour you are powerful, we have perceived it to be very necessary to make request for those whom one and the same faith enlightens, to the end that the Piety of our lords may protect them with …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great
St. Paul's Wish to be Accursed from Christ.
"For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Few characters more remarkable than that of St. Paul, are to be found in history. He is introduced to our acquaintance on a tragical occasion--the martyrdom of Stephen, where he appears an accomplice with murderers--"he was standing by and consenting to his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him." The circumstances of Paul's conversion to Christianity were very remarkable, and …
Andrew Lee et al—Sermons on Various Important Subjects
Twenty-First Day for God's Spirit on the Jews
WHAT TO PRAY.--For God's Spirit on the Jews "I will pour out upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and Supplication; and they shall look unto Me whom they pierced."--ZECH. xii. 10. "Brethren, my heart's desire and my supplication to God is for them, that they may be saved."--ROM. x. 1. Pray for the Jews. Their return to the God of their fathers stands connected, in a way we cannot tell, with wonderful blessing to the Church, and with the coming of our …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession
God's Glory the Chief End of Man's Being
Rom. xi. 36.--"Of him and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever." And 1 Cor. x. 31--"Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." All that men have to know, may be comprised under these two heads,--What their end is, and What is the right way to attain to that end? And all that we have to do, is by any means to seek to compass that end. These are the two cardinal points of a man's knowledge and exercise. Quo et qua eundum est,--Whither to go, and what way to go. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God," &C.
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God," &c. II. The Christian's chief employment should be to seek the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. "Seek first," &c. Upon this he should first and chiefly spend his thoughts, and affections, and pains. We comprehend it in three things. First, He should seek to be clothed upon with Christ's righteousness, and this ought to take up all his spirit. This is the first care and the chief concern. Did not this righteousness weigh much …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning
Regeneration and Faith.
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."--1 Peter i. 23. There is a possible objection to what has been said above concerning regeneration. It is evident that God's Word, and therefore our symbols of faith, offers a modified representation of these things which, superficially considered, seems to condemn our representation. This representation, which does not consider children, but adults, may thus be stated: Among a …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit
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