---

I. GOD AND THE WORLD.

1. God.

(1) His relationship — "Father." No relationship is more intelligible, attractive, morally assimilating. It means causation, affection, resemblance. Christ's God was not a cold King upon the throne, but a loving Father whose heart yearns for His prodigal children.

(2) His character — "righteous."

(a)  His existence is the foundation of all right.

(b)  His will is the standard of all right.

(c)  His works and Word the revelation of all right.

(3) His character is not opposed to His relationship. Righteousness is love resisting all that will injure the moral universe: love uprooting weeds out of the paradise of virtue.

2. The world — unregenerate humanity. This ignorance is —

(1) Most universal.

(a)  The barbarian world hath not known Thee. It is sunk in idolatry, superstition, and sensuality.

(b)  The civilized world. When this was said, Egypt, Greece and Rome had done their best; but even in Athens God was "unknown."

(c)  The conventionally Christian world. Its science denies; its literature, politics and commerce ignore; its creeds and Churches misrepresent God.

(2) Most inexcusable. Men may have just excuses for not being scholars, &c., but no excuse for this. Nature is made to reveal God and the soul. The blindness of the man who shuts his eyes to the sun is not more inexcusable than this.

(3) Most ruinous. The man ignorant of God is in moral midnight — the blackness of darkness.

II. CHRIST AND HIS SCHOOL,

1. Christ, "I have known Thee." From any lips but His how presumptuous would this sound! Who among the world's geniuses or sages could say it?

(1)  No one had the opportunity of knowing God that Christ had. He was in the "bosom of the Father." He knew the motive that prompted the creative act, and the plan on which the whole was organized.

(2)  None the capacity. What is the greatest intellect to His.

(3)  None the heart — the true organ of knowledge. Christ and His Father are one in heart, spirit and purpose.

2. Christ's School "they have known" —

(1)  By the mighty works which Christ wrought.

(2)  By the sublime doctrines He propounded.

(3)  By the matchless purity of His character.

III. THE PREACHER AND HIS MISSION (ver. 26). What Christ did is the genuine work of every true preacher. What was it?

1. A persistent declaration of the Divine character. To declare self, or theories and speculations about God is what some do: but to declare His "Name," His moral character, the essence of which is love, is Christ's work.

2. A persistent declaration of the Divine character in order to transfuse Divine love into human souls.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

WEB: Righteous Father, the world hasn't known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.