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Sermons, Homiletical Expositions, and Leading Thoughts on Texts of Scripture
Sermons Homiletical Expositions and Leading Thoughts on Texts of Scripture Author:Thomas Davies General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1882 Original Publisher: Elliot Stock Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can se... more »lect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The POWER OF THE CROSS. " And I, if I bt lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die? -- John xii. 32, 33. jjT was not mere presentiment, but a foreknowledge, that enabled him to speak in such precise terms of the manner of his death. Our death lurks in that dark future, advancing with a firm step, but we know neither the time when, the place where, nor any of the attendant circumstances of its appearing. Not so with the Saviour of the world; death was mentally present to him in every step of life. The shadow of the cross followed him from Bethlehem to Calvary. As death was the consummation of his life, especially his obedience to the divine will, it must not be absent from his thoughts, but lend a realizing power, and an intense interest to his sermons, his miracles, and his works generally. By this, I do not intend to convey the impression that his soul was perpetually enveloped in the gloom of dying, but I do wish to convey the thought that his life was stretched at every point to its utmost tension that it might become worthy of the cross. To the thoughtless death is an accident, and the life which precedes it, " Vanity of vanities." To the gloomy and pensive death is a dire necessity, and the life which pre- B cedes it a chain of regrets. To the thoughtful, however, death is the goal, and the life which precedes it is a pressing "towards the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The Saviour thought, and spoke, and wrought under this high pressure; hence his life is more real a...« less