Gold Nugget 124 - Faith-Love-Hope

      Faith is the commencement of the spiritual life, love its progress and continuance, and hope its completion; faith is the foundation, love the structure, and hope the top-stone of God’s spiritual temple in the soul. …

      Faith refers to the past, love to the present, and hope to the future.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Thessalonians p.5, I Thessalonians 1:3, (P. J. Gloag)

 

Gold Nugget 124

Faith-Love-Hope

Gold Nugget 125 - A Manly Courage

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      Christianity is no religion for cowards.  It is a gross error to suppose that it unmans its followers.  The greatest heroes of the first century were the Christians.  A manly courage is much needed in the present day.  The gospel should always be declared clearly, positively, and confidently by those who have a sure faith in it themselves.  It is a great mistake to think that a timid, apologetic tone will be more conciliatory.  We have no need to be thus timidly apologetic for the gospel, if it is true; but if it is not true, we have no right to defend it at all.  In either case a weak, half-hearted advocacy is culpable.

      Enmity is best overcome and ridicule shamed by courage.  It is most foolish for the Christian advocate to be afraid of boldly stating his beliefs before his skeptical opponent.  Let us, however, distinguish true boldness from heedless provocativeness on the one hand, and from mere insolence on the other.  Christians are to be wise as serpents, to be courteous, and as far as in them lies to live peaceably with all men.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Thessalonians p.48-49, I Thessalonians 2:2, (W. F. Adeney)

 

Gold Nugget 125

A Manly Courage

Gold Nugget 127 - A Perfect Maze

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      We are surrounded by many influences tending either to lead us into error and delusion, or into skepticism and infidelity.  We must add to our faith knowledge, and seek to be rooted and grounded in the faith.  The truth ought to be the great subject of inquiry.  Let us cultivate the love of the truth; let us pursue the truth wherever it leads, lest we should render ourselves liable to the condemnation of those who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness; and lest we should be led from error to error, and be lost in a perfect maze of falsehood.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, II Thessalonians p. 28, II Thessalonians 2:3, (P. J. Gloag)

 

Gold Nugget 127

A Perfect Maze

Gold Nugget 128 - The Creature of Our Own Thoughts

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      Men who reject the Bible are sometimes ready to believe anything except the Bible; they will greedily accept any legend, any scientific hypothesis, though evidently not more than a provisional hypothesis, which seems to contradict the Bible; they will deify humanity, they will worship the idol which is the creature of their on thoughts rather than the living God. …

      There is such a thing as honest doubt; such were the doubts of Asaph, of Thomas.  But unbelief in a very large measure comes from moral causes.  Sin darkens the heart and the mind; sin always leads to practical, often to intellectual, unbelief.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, II Thessalonians p.37, II Thessalonians 1:3-12, (B. C. Caffin)

 

Gold Nugget 128

The Creature of Our Own Thoughts

Gold Nugget 131 - The Purified Heart

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      In the order of nature, faith must be placed first.  The apostle follows in the order of practical working.  Furthest down in man’s inner nature is the deep well of a purified heart; then the love, as it comes forth into exercise, must be arrested on its way by a good conscience, to receive restraint and regulation; then, to sustain the vigour of love in its continuous exercise, there must be faith unfeigned, grasping the promises of God, and in intimate relation to things not seen. …

      How often does the heart determine the bias of the mind!

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Timothy p. 11, I Timothy 1:5-7, (T. Croskery)

 

Gold Nugget 130

A Purified Heart

Gold Nugget 132 - Out of the Heart

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      There must be passion in all true life.  As Mr. Ruskin truly says, “The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things; not merely industrious, but to love industry; not merely learned, but to love learning; not merely pure, but to love purity; not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after righteousness.

      Taste is not only a part and index of morality; it is the only morality.  The first and last and closest trial-question to any living creature is – What do you like?  Tell me what you like, and I’ll tell you what you are.”  Exactly!  So says the gospel.  “Out of the heart are the issues of life;”  “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”  This is a true teaching, and may open up a new view of moral and spiritual life to the thoughtful mind. …

      You must watch life in its temper and spirit at all times and in all places.  You may be deceived by good actions. … Think of this.  Good actions do not make a good man; it is the good man that makes the good actions.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Timothy p. 17-18, I Timothy 1:5, (W. M. Statham)

 

Gold Nugget 132

Out of the Heart

Gold Nugget 133 - Belief In Humanity

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      We must believe in humanity before we can love men.  Believe, that is, that there is an ideal of God in every man; that underneath his depravity and degradation there is a moral nature which can be renewed, and a life which may be transfigured into the glory of Christ.  For man’s conscience was made to know the truth, his heart to feel it, and his will to be guided and energized by it.  If we think of men cynically or contemptuously, then there will be no earnest efforts to save that which is lost.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Timothy p. 28, I Timothy 1:5, (W. M. Stratham)

 

Gold Nugget 133

Belief in Humanity

Gold Nugget 134 - Glory, A New Meaning

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      Paul gives a new significance to the word “glory.”  On his lips glory takes a new meaning.  He had seen the glories of the Caesars, who raised their thrones on hecatombs of human lives, and filled their courts withy unbounded luxuries and lusts.  Surrounded by soldiers and courtesans, their glory was in their shame.  He had seen the glories of the architects, sculptors, and artists, at Athens , Corinth , and Rome .  But the glory of which he spoke was in a life that gave itself – that came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and that on the cross died for the sins of the whole world.  It was the glory of goodness, the glory of compassion, the glory of self-sacrifice.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Timothy p. 19, I Timothy 1:11, (W. M. Statham)

 

Gold Nugget 134

Glory, A New Meaning

Gold Nugget 135 - Shipwrecked

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      “Some have made shipwreck.”  Words sound differently to different men.  Language is a “word-picture,” and we must see the facts before we understand the word.  Paul chooses a metaphor applied to character, which is so terrible when applied to disasters at sea.

      Many a beautiful vessel has arrested the gaze of admiring spectators as she spread her sails to the favoring breeze, and breasted the waters like a thing of life.  But on another shore, her shivered timbers and her shattered prow have been washed up as the wreckage of a once gallant ship, her half-defaced name the only testimony to her fate.

      So Paul had seen men wrecked on the breakers of self-indulgence, vice, and folly.  Paul associated loss of character with loss of faith.  “Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away have made shipwreck.”

      Shipwreck sometimes comes at the very commencement of the voyage.  The ship scarcely leaves the river before she runs aground.  There has been too much self-confidence, and the Divine Pilot has not had the ship in hand.

      Shipwreck sometimes comes at the close of the voyage, when the ship is almost home; when from the masthead land was almost in sight.  But the watch has not been kept.  In the voyage of life we may have the cross on the flag, and the chart in the cabin, and the compass on the deck; but we sleep, as do others, and we are wrecked with the land almost in sight.

      Shipwreck affects the very highest elements of our being.  “A good conscience,” the sweetest meal to which ever a man sat down!  The noblest heritage that a Moses could sacrifice Egypt for!  A conscience cleansed by Christ’s blood, enlightened by the Word of God, and quickened by the Holy Ghost. 

      “A good conscience!”  Wealth cannot purchase it, envy cannot steal it, poverty cannot harm it, and nought but sin can denude it of its crown.  It is the strength of the confessor’s endurance, the luster of the sufferer’s countenance, the peace of the martyr’s heart.  “A good conscience.”  Wreck that, and all is lost; and the sun of the moral firmament sets in darkness. 

 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Timothy p.21, I Timothy 1:19, (W. M. Statham)

 

Gold Nugget 135

Shipwrecked

Gold Nugget 136 - All Things Are Pure

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      Pure-heartedness.  “Unto the pure all things are pure.”  The gospel centres morality as well as religion in the heart.  Men of corrupt tastes cannot have correct morals, because a man may sin against himself as well as against society.  An impure heart makes an impure world of its own within; and that, if it hurts none else, hurts the man himself, wrongs his own soul.  Here we see that the eye sees what it wishes to see, or what the inward taste desires to see.  A pure man does not understand the double entendre; does not see the vision of evil beneath the veil of words or the disguise of art. …

      A bad man will find impure suggestion anywhere and everywhere – even in religious literature, even in the unsuspecting words of holy men – for his heart is not renewed.  So possible is it for men to find evil even in things good. …

      All waters take the colour of the soil over which they pass.  The stained windows make a stained light.  An impure heart colours everything – thought, imagination, observation, and common life. … Their mind and conscience are defiled.  They feel it.  They know it, and at times they confess it.  Many shrink from themselves who have never had resolution to seek him who can “create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within them.” …

      Redemptive truth.  The substratum of the gospel is not merely truth, but redemptive truth.  Truth, not merely to enlighten the intellect and to discipline the mental faculties, but to raise the human soul from spiritual ignorance to intelligence, from spiritual bondage to liberty, from selfishness to benevolence, from materialism to spirituality, from the “prince of darkness” to the true and living God.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Titus p.17, Titus 1:15, 2:1-4, (W. M. Statham, D. Thomas)

 

Gold Nugget 136 – All Things Are Pure