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What benefits affliction can confer on the soul. We read, that anxiety about a son led the nobleman to Christ, in order to obtain help in time of need. Once brought into Christ’s company, he learned a lesson of priceless value. In the end, “he believed, and his whole house.” All this, be it remembered, hinged upon the son’s sickness. If the nobleman’s son had never been ill, his father might have lived and died in his sins. Affliction is one of God’s medicines. By it He often teaches lessons which would be learned in no other way. By it He often draws souls away from sin and the world, which would otherwise have perished everlastingly. Health is a great blessing, but sanctified disease is a greater. Prosperity and worldly comfort, are what all naturally desire; but losses and crosses are far better for us, if they lead us to Christ. Thousands at the last day, will testify with David, and the nobleman before us, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” (Psa. 119:71.) Let us beware of murmuring in the time of trouble. Let us settle it firmly in our minds, that there is a meaning, a needs be, and a message from God, in every sorrow that falls upon us. There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction. There is no commentary that opens up the Bible so much as sickness and sorrow. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit.” (Heb. 12:11.) The resurrection morning will prove, that many of the losses of God’s people were in reality eternal gains.

Be not ashamed: He said this, because the confession of the gospel was accounted infamous; and therefore he forbids that either ambition or the fear of disgrace shall prevent or retard him from the liberty of preaching the gospel. And he infers this from what has been already said; for he who is armed with the power of God will not tremble at the noise raised by the world, but will reckon it honourable that wicked men mark them with disgrace.

God’s purpose is to rule by a man. The King both of earth and heaven is to be son of David and son of Abraham. ‘The man Christ Jesus’ is heir of the throne of David as well as possessor of the throne of heaven. The crown of all the earth is to be placed on the head of a man. Human hands are to wield the sceptre of the universe .... God’s purpose is to link heaven and earth together by a man. It is in the man Christ Jesus that the reconciliation takes place between them. It is by this man that the nearness is to be maintained for ever. He is the bridge, the ladder, the chain, the golden clasp that is to knit together the heavenly and earthly regions and races. Round this human centre the universe is to revolve. Glad tidings! The woman’s seed has at length come to our rescue from the hands of our great enemy! Glad tidings! Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. Glad tidings! Jesus, the son of Mary, of David, of Abraham, of Adam, is our Saviour; our prophet; our priest; our king. Oh, has not God loved man?

God’s purposes concerning earth have always unfolded themselves by election and selection,—of men, of places, of nations. Church-history is the record and manifestation of the electing and selecting will of a Sovereign God. There are elect nations and countries as well as elect souls. Israel was God’s elect nation of old, Canaan his elect land, Jerusalem his elect city, and Zion his elect hill. This national election began with individual election,—Abraham. From the day of his being chosen, God’s purpose centred in a nation,—the nation that was to spring from him. The Jew was chosen to be the first of nations,—to rise above the civilised Greek and the mighty Roman. The Jew was to be the centre of God’s workings and teachings. The Jew was to be the race with which Godhead was to be connected. Messiah was to be son of Abraham,—son of the great believer. And it was so; the seed of Abraham was that portion of the seed of the woman from which Messiah came. Jesus was a Jew; a son of Abraham; a scion of that race to whom God had committed his oracles and his covenant; in connection with whom the true history of our race is connected: ‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the Son of Abraham.’

He is of David’s royal stock, the God-selected family, for whom Israel’s crown was destined for ever. God first narrows the circle of humanity to Abraham’s race; then He limits that circle to the tribe of Judah; then he selects from that tribe David’s family. Kingship in Israel was to be connected with David and his line. Messiah came not only as the son of Judah, but as the of son David, heir to Israel’s crown, heir apparent to the throne of the world. Jesus of Bethlehem, Jesus of Nazareth is our King; son of David as well as son of Abraham. The crown of the world, nay, of the universe, is on the head of a Jew, a son of David, a son of Abraham.

He is of the same stock as we are, the same ancient root, the first man Adam, whom God created. He is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh … In everything that is truly human He is one of us. He “knew no sin”; He was ” that holy thing” yet was He all the more human because of the absence of sin for sin is not an original part of our nature. As man, then, He sympathises; He pities; He loves. As man, He “loved his neighbour as himself,” and so “fulfilled the royal law of love.” As man, He was born, He lived, He “grew in stature, and in wisdom, and in favour with God and man.” His was thoroughly a human body and a human soul; his was thoroughly a human life and a human death. His was human hunger and thirst, human sleep and waking, human weariness and rest. His words were human words, issuing from human lips, and the utterance of a human heart. His looks were human looks, his tones were human tones, his tears were human tears. He was man all over, yet sinless; man all over, living in man’s world, yet not partaker of that world’s evil; man all over in every step He took, and every word He spoke; man all over in his daily intercourse with his fellow-men, and in his fellowship with his Father in heaven.

He is son of David and Solomon, the last of a long line of kings. He is the root and offspring of David; the rod from the stem of Jesse, the branch from his roots. All that is regal in a human pedigree is here. In one sense this is but a small thing; yet it was befitting Him who is King of kings to be thus honoured, and to have his divine prerogatives symbolised by his human.

These verses describe the miraculous cure of a sick man. A centurion, or officer in the Roman army, applies to our Lord on behalf of his servant, and obtains what he requests. A greater miracle of healing than this, is nowhere recorded in the Gospels. Without even seeing the sufferer, without touch of hand or look of eye, our Lord restores health to a dying man by a single word. He speaks, and the sick man is cured. He commands, and the disease departs. We read of no prophet or apostle, who wrought miracles in this manner. We see here the finger of God.

He has an imperfect ancestry … Even these holy men from whom he sprang were very imperfect, as we see in the sins of David and Solomon … Among his ancestors are many open sinners and idolaters, kings of Judah such as Rehoboam, Ahaz, and Jehoiakin, … of whom it is said that they did evil in the sight of the Lord. Yes; his genealogy is a very mixed one; but all the more on that account indicative of that which He had come to do, and of those whom He had come to save,—the ungodly, the chief of sinners, the lost, the unrighteous .... These all died. Their connection with him did not make them immortal. Whether shepherds, or patriarchs, or kings, or carpenters, they were mortal. For out of the mortal was to come the immortal; life out of death; the everlasting One out of those whose life is a vapour; the resurrection and the life out of those who were dust and who returned to dust. Thus He is linked with our sin, though He is sinless; with our curse, though He is the blessed One.

His whole ancestry is as thoroughly human as ours can be. Every link of the chain is human … It is a long chain, sometimes almost broken or worn through; but thus all the more thoroughly human. He is the seed of the woman; the man Christ Jesus. He is very man, out of the loins of Abraham, and of the substance of the Virgin; son of Mary and son of Adam.

Thus is Jesus in all respects fitted for his mighty work of redeeming. He is very man and very God. He is the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the son of Mary, yet God over all, blessed for ever. Thus He can bear our sins; He can sympathise with our sorrows; He can fight our battles; He can love as a man, a fellow-man, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.

Let us learn a lesson from the centurion’s example. Let us, like him, show kindness to every one with whom we have to do. Let us strive to have an eye ready to see, and a hand ready to help, and a heart ready to feel, and a will ready to do good to all. Let us be ready to weep with them that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice. This is one way to recommend our religion, and make it beautiful before men. Kindness is a grace that all can understand.—This is one way to be like our blessed Saviour. If there is one feature in His character more notable than another, it is His unwearied kindness and love.—This is one way to be happy in the world, and see good days. Kindness always brings its own reward. The kind person will seldom be without friends.

An appeal to the well-recognized fact that it was thus and thus only that Timothy received his call from God, is nothing other, then, than to cast him back on the Almighty arms and to make him poignantly realize that it is God and not he who is conceived as carrying through the work so begun. ‘O Timothy,’ says Paul, in effect, ‘Faint not! It is not your own strength—or rather weakness—that is here in question; it is the power of Almighty God. Do not you remember how you were brought into relations with this God? Was it of yourself that you were called with this holy calling? Nay, no works of your own entered in. It was of His own purpose that He called you; the grace that has come to you was given you from all eternity. What has come to you in time is only the manifestation of what was eternally done. It is this Almighty God who is using you as His instrument and organ. Nothing depends on your weakness; all hangs on His strength. Take courage and go onward.’ Thus Paul strengthens Timothy for the conflict before him.

The rich have afflictions as well as the poor. We read of a nobleman in deep anxiety because his son was sick. We need not doubt that every means of restoration was used that money could procure. But money is not almighty. The sickness increased, and the nobleman’s son lay at the point of death. The lesson is one which needs to be constantly impressed on the minds of men. There is no more common, or more mischievous error, than to suppose that the rich have no cares. The rich are as liable to sickness as the poor; and have a hundred anxieties beside, of which the poor know nothing at all. Silks and satins often cover very heavy hearts. The dwellers in palaces often sleep more uneasily than the dwellers in cottages. Gold and silver can lift no man beyond the reach of trouble. They may shut out debt and rags, but they cannot shut out care, disease, and death. The higher the tree, the more it is shaken by storms. The broader its branches, the greater is the mark which it exposes to the tempest. David was a happier man when he kept his father’s sheep at Bethlehem, than when he dwelt as a king at Jerusalem, and governed the twelve tribes of Israel. Let the servant of Christ beware of desiring riches. They are certain cares, and uncertain comforts. Let him pray for the rich, and not envy them. How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of God! Above all, let him learn to be content with such things as he has. He only is truly rich, who has treasure in heaven.

As we take Matthew’s history literally, so do we take that of John. If we allegorize the first chapter of the one evangelist, we must allegorize the first of the other. If John does not mean that Christ was very God, Matthew does not mean that He was very man. The divine side of Christianity is as strongly shewn in the one evangelist as the human side in the other. He whom we call Lord and Master, Saviour and Redeemer, is one in whose Person the extremes of all being unite. All Godhead and all creaturehood are in Him; the fulness of the finite, and the fulness of the infinite; all the excellence of the created and the uncreated.

Man is born to trouble: and it is of the greatest importance to him that he should know where to turn his eyes in the day of adversity. The Gospel directs us to a reconciled God in Christ Jesus, who has engaged to be our support and comfort under every distress. The Christian has many trials peculiar to himself: but the Gospel is fully adequate to his necessities. Its power to support him may be seen in the passage before us. St. Paul is exhorting Timothy to steadfastness in the cause of Christ: and, for his encouragement, he tells him what was the ground of his own consolations under the heavy afflictions which he was now enduring for the sake of Christ. He tells him, that, notwithstanding he was immured in a dungeon, and in daily expectation of a violent and cruel death, he was neither ‘ashamed’ nor afraid: for that he had a firm persuasion of God’s ability to keep him; and that persuasion afforded him ample support.

Sickness and death come to the young as well as to the old. We read of a son sick unto death, and a father in trouble about him. We see the natural order of things inverted. The elder is obliged to minister to the younger, and not the younger to the elder. The child draws nigh to the grave before the parent, and not the parent before the child. The lesson is one which we are all slow to learn. We are apt to shut our eyes to plain facts, and to speak and act, as it young people, as a matter of course, never died when young. And yet the grave-stones in every churchyard would tell us, that few people out of a hundred ever live to be fifty years old, while many never grow up to man’s estate at all. The first grave that ever was dug on this earth, was that of a young man. The first person who ever died, was not a father but a son. Aaron lost two sons at a stroke. David, the man after God’s own heart, lived long enough to see three children buried. Job was deprived of all his children in one day. These things were carefully recorded for our learning. He that is wise, will never reckon confidently on long life. We never know what a day may bring forth. The strongest and fairest are often cut down and hurried away in a few hours, while the old and feeble linger on for many years. The only true wisdom is to be always prepared to meet God, to put nothing off which concerns eternity, and to live like men ready to depart at any moment. So living, it matters little whether we die young or old. Joined to the Lord Jesus, we are safe in any event.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not great or mighty men; they are but shepherds, dwelling in tents. So was David a shepherd boy, taken from among the flocks. So was Joseph, and so was Mary,—poor in this world; a carpenter and his wife. There is a singular mixture of the high and low, of the rich and poor. For He is the Saviour of rich and poor. His gospel is equally for both.