I. FALSE STEPS. (Ver. 17.)

1. Unlawful relations.

2. Resisting the messenger of God.

II. CONFLICTING INFLUENCES. (Vers. 19, 20.) The fearless court-preacher and the woman he denounced. The messenger of Truth and the associate in pleasure and vice. Representative of the way in which evil and good incarnate themselves, and work upon the heart of every man. The temptation to which Herod was subject was great; but he was not left without moral witness and aid.

III. SATAN'S INSTRUMENT AND OPPORTUNITY. (Vers. 21-25.)

1. The instrument is in a sense self-prepared, coming as it does out of the very heart of moral complication and love of unhallowed pleasure.

2. Yet is it also chosen and armed by the evil one.

3. It is an instrument calculated to work insidiously, unsuspectedly, and yet surely and irrevocably. Who would imagine that a damsel would wield such tremendous destinies? The weakness of every man is thoroughly understood by the enemy of souls, and unscrupulously appealed to. The works of Satan are rather hidden than manifest.

4. The attack is made when the moral sense is drowned in sensual pleasure and excitement. Company, wine, the fascination of the dance, and the flattering of pride by the presence of the Galilean nobles. What importunity cannot secure, a skillful manoeuvre may attain by surprise. The end is gained, provisionally, in the royal offer to the maid; a concealed, implicit pledge of what is not at the moment realized. Indefinite promises like this are full of danger; they cover so many unthought-of possibilities, and carry with them the illegitimate show of obligation even with respect to things not contemplated when the promise is given. The moral sense which is insensible to real duties avenges its perversion by manufacturing fictitious obligations, and attributing chief importance to them. "Honour" is the counterfeit of morality in many minds. A promise made as Herod made his is foolish and wrong, yet it cannot bind its maker to the performance of a further wrong. If men were only a tithe as attentive to their vows to God as to their vain and boastful promises and challenges to one another, they need fear no consequences. We bind ourselves with our own ropes. It was a birthday on which Herod committed spiritual suicide. Many a parallel to this may be found in the lives of men.

IV. THE CATASTROPHE. The career of sin has been likened to playing the devil with his own loaded dice. The thoughtless word of Herod committed him according to his perverted sense of honor, and the sequel was already predetermined and inevitable.

1. In sanctioning John's death, Herod violated the deepest instincts of his nature, and rejected the voice of God.

2. Crowned a life of sin by a heinous and irrevocable crime.

3. (Humanly speaking) Destroyed his own hopes of salvation. His history henceforth is one of steady degeneration and ever darker crime. In many lives there are determining circumstances like this of Herod; they put mountains and abysses between the sinner and the God he has dishonored. "John the Baptist is risen from the dead;" "Whom I beheaded - John: he is risen," are discoveries which lighten not one whit the burden of his guilt, and bring no hope to his despair. They are the wails of a remorse from which has departed the grace and power of repentance. Yet is Christ greater than John, and able to save from even greater crimes than the murder of John, if he be but recognized and believed. - M.

Herod feared John, and did many things; had he feared God, he would have laboured to do everything.

(Gurnall.)

The chains of love are stronger than the chains of fear. Herod's love of Herodias was too hard for his fear of John.

(Gurnall.)

? —

1. The consideration of the excellent gifts which they discern in them, especially natural gifts. These draw them into admiration, and so cause them to esteem and reverence them.

2. Some worldly good or benefit which they reap by the acquaintance or society of such faithful ministers of God.

3. The holy lives of God's faithful ministers.

(G. Petter.)

I. HOW MYSTERIOUS AND COMPLEX IS THE CHARACTER OF MAN! In the same individual what a variety of qualities, apparently the most opposite, are sometimes combined. How important it is that we should "know" ourselves and the sins which so easily mislead and overcome us; looking meanwhile for guidance to Him who searcheth the reins and trieth the hearts of men.

II. HOW STRONG IS THE IMPRESSION WHICH REAL EXCELLENCE OF CHARACTER MAKES, EVEN ON THE MINDS OF WICKED MEN. With all his abandonment of principle and looseness of practice, Herod could not help admiring and respecting John.

III. YET A MAN MAY GO FAR IN HIS ADMIRATION OF GOODNESS, WHILE HE REMAINS PRACTICALLY UNAFFECTED BY IT. The precise extent of John's moral influence over Herod we do not know; but it is plain that he did follow his guidance in some respects, and, so far, for good; but, in spite of all, there was no real, decided, permanent change in his heart and character. He had mistaken the semblance of religion for its reality — the husk for the kernel. Consequently, when temptation came, it made him tenfold more the child of Satan than before.

IV. LEARN FROM THIS THE DANGER OF YIELDING TO FAVOURITE SINS. Until met by the home thrust, "It is not lawful for thee to have her," all went on smoothly and pleasantly between Herod and John; but the exposure of his darling vice turned his friendship into enmity.

V. THE DANGER OF TRIFLING WITH SERIOUS IMPRESSIONS AND ACTING CONTRARY TO CONSCIENCE. Herod's association with John ought to have brought him to a humbling sense of sin and a decided change of heart. But he trampled on his convictions; and fatal was the result. Let us be warned by his example. Every funeral that passes, solemn and slow, along the streets; every visit of disease and death to your family circle; every season of holy communion with God; every prick of conscience; these are all so many instruments which God puts in operation for your well-being. Attend to these faithful monitors; cherish them; and they will be productive of lasting benefit to your soul.

(R. Burns, D. D.)

This wicked and despotic man, though he appointed for himself no bounds of morality, had moral sensibility lying within him. In the midst of vice and crime he had a conscience. More than that: this man whose very name has come down as a synonym of all that is corrupt and oppressive, had, in the midst of vices and crimes, a kind of yearning for goodness. He had heard John; he had heard him gladly; he wanted to hear him again; and, after the momentary flash of passion and anger was over, he wanted to save him. He was sorry that he was to be executed. There was something in this despotic king which yearned towards justice and goodness. And woe be to every wicked man who, in his wickedness, never finds a single spark of virtue to illuminate his life. I have reason to believe that the men who follow vice have hours in which they look out from themselves longingly, and wish they were better; and that men who are given over to the power of their passions have hours and days in which no outward condemnation is comparable to that which they themselves pass on themselves. Men, because they are wicked, are not necessarily dead. Because they violate rectitude, they do not necessarily destroy their conscience utterly. It sleeps or is drugged; but it has its revenge. Nay, more; it is this dormant or latent sensibility to that which is in contrariety to their whole course of life, that lays the foundation for hope of the recovery or reformation of men. There are hours when many a man, if he had power to regenerate himself, would speedily do it. Oh! that we only knew those hours. Oh! that some friend could approach every such man at these periods when the doors of his prison are thrown open for a time, and lead him by the hand. How many men might be rescued from the abyss which finally overwhelms and destroys them, how many men might be brought up from their degradation and peril, if only we were wise to seize the hours in which they are impressible. The acute and watchful physician knows that a disease runs to a crisis, and that there are points of time when, if the patient is carefully nursed and tended, curative tendencies will set in, and his health may be restored. Now, men are in the same condition spiritually; and if there were rely some oversight of them, they might be saved; but, alas! they themselves cannot perpetuate these hours; they will not; and we stand outside, and know nothing of them. So in every street, and in every community, there are men who are secretly burning out the very vital substance of their life; who are walking in ways, the beginnings of which are pleasant, but the ends of which are death; who are going down through the community, moaning as they go, sighing for something better, and at times holding up hands of prayer and saying, "God, help me!" Nevertheless, there are men who, with all these experiences, are utterly destroyed. Here was this man Herod — as bad a man as could well be pictured, in many respects; and yet there were in him elements that could have reformed and restored him.

(H. W. Beecher.)

It is curious and instructive to observe that Herod is set before us here in the good points of his character — at least, in the best points that he had. It is in the Holy Gospels that one of the vilest wretches in human history is set before us in a somewhat amiable and interesting aspect. He feels a sincere respect for religion. He is not so far gone but that he knows honesty and faith and self-devotion when he sees them in another man. And he does not respect these the less, but a great deal the more, when the just and holy man does not spare his own sins, but denounces them to his face. Not only this, but he takes the preacher under his protection; and declares, doubtless with much hard swearing, when one and another of the courtiers propose to stop the prophet's insolence by taking his life, that no man shall hurt a hair of his head. And I have no doubt that he took enormous pride in it, too, as many a swearing, drinking, cheating reprobate nowadays will pride himself on hiring a pew in a most puritan church, where righteousness and temperance and judgment are faithfully preached to him, and will insist, with profuse expletives, that no man shall say a word against his minister. The case is common enough. But we should do Herod injustice if we should suppose this to be all. Herod listened to the preacher of righteousness and repentance with a genuine personal and practical interest. He applies John's teaching to his own case — to his own sins and his own duties — so far as anything was left to his ingenuity in the matter of application, for John's teaching was sufficiently direct and pointed in itself. Herod did lay the word of the Lord to heart with reference to his own amendment, and did obviously begin to make such a difference in his course of life as to give Herodias reason to fear that he would not make an end of reforming until he had reformed her and her devil's imp of a daughter out of the palace altogether. "He did many things" in consequence of John's preaching — many just and upright things such as were strange enough to hear of in the vice-regal court of Palestine; beneficent and public-spirited things, making his reign, for the time, a less unmitigated curse to that afflicted country; merciful things, using his princely wealth and power for the relic of the distressed. What a thing to give thanks for was even this partial repentance of Herod, for the good it did, for the pain and outrage that it saved! Let no one think that the preaching of God's kingdom is a total waste, even when no man yields to it his unreserved submission. The whole work of Christ's gospel in any community is not to be summed up in the net number of converts or communicants. How many a soul is saved from being just such an abandoned wretch as Herod was; how many a decent home from being such a sty of uncleanness as Herod's palace was; how many a State from being defiled with blood and turbulent with wrong, just through some men's standing in awe before the holiness of Christ, and hearing Him gladly, and being willing to "do many things"!

(Leonard W. Bacon.)

In all his doing of right things, Herod does nothing right; for in all that he does he is Herod. The things that he does in obedience to John's preaching are right in the abstract, considered independently of the man that does them. But as a matter of fact, these actions in the abstract never get done in actual life. We can think about them, and reason about them; but we never really see or know of an action that is not done by somebody. The action is the man acting. Strictly speaking, it is not actions that are right or wrong; it is men. And when the question is, — Did the man do right? we have to look at the man as well as the deed. And the honest conscience has no doubt on this point: No man is right in his doing, so long as he is cherishing a fixed, conscious purpose to do wrong, or not to do altogether right. This is a rule that does not work both ways. The hidden thought of the heart is like the morsel hidden in the garment (Haggai 2:10-14); it can pollute a good act, it cannot sanctify an evil act. Here is Herod resolutely protecting the sternest of God's prophets, eagerly listening to him, heeding him, obeying him in many things, but standing out obstinately in his incestuous and adulterous love against that word of the Lord, "It is not lawful for thee to have her." How does the case stand with him, just now? It was right, wasn't it? for Herod to "do many things" at the preaching of John. He was a pretty good man for the time being, wasn't he? Wasn't it quite like heroism — moral heroism — backed up by political caution, when he stubbornly refused to permit the killing of John, and said to Herodias, "No! I will not! I will agree to lock him up in prison, but not one step further will I go!" Was he not rather the pattern of what we should call a good member of society — a man with a sincere respect for religion, and a great interest in the church, and a strong attachment to his favourite minister; — a man who is willing to subscribe handsomely, and do many things, and deny himself many things, but of course, not everything? Now I do not find that the gospel has any dealings with this kind of goodness. It does not appear that Jesus Christ has any advice or encouragement for those who would like to be rid of a part of their sins. He is not a specialist in spiritual maladies; He is a Great Physician. It is not worth your while to go to Him with a request for partial and local treatment — to hold up before Him your infected, swollen limb, and say, "There! give me something for that! Don't touch the rest of me. I am all right. I only want that arm cured." He will not treat the case on any such terms. Your case is constitutional, not local. If you would have the help of Jesus Christ; you must surrender the case to Him; and prepare for thorough treatment, perhaps for sharp surgery.

(Leonard W. Bacon.)

Your success is very much connected with your personal character. Herod "heard John gladly," and "did many things," because he knew the preacher to be a just and holy man. Words uttered from the heart find their way to the heart by a holy sympathy. Character is power.

(R Cecil.)

A ship that is not of the right make can not sail trim, and a clock whose spring is faulty will not always go true; so a person of unsound principles cannot be constant and even in his practices. The religion of those that are inwardly rotten, is like a fire in some cold climates, which almost fries a man before, when at the same time he is freezing behind; they are zealous in some things, as holy duties, which are cheap; and cold in other things, especially when they cross their profit or credit; as Mount Hecla is covered with snow on one side, when it burns and casts out cinders on the other: but the holiness of them that are sound at heart is like the natural heat, — though it resorts most to the vitals of sacred performances, yet, as need is, it warms and has an influence upon all the outward parts of civil transactions. It may be said of true sanctity, as of the sun, "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." When all the parts of the body have their due nourishment distributed to them, it is a sign of a healthy temper. As the saint is described sometimes by a "clean heart," so also sometimes by "clean hands," because he has both; the holiness of his heart is seen at his fingers' ends.

(G. Swinnock.)

A man may be acknowledged to be just and holy, and for that very reason he may be dreaded. You like to see lions and tigers in the Zoological Gardens, but you would not like to see them in your own room; you would very much prefer to see them behind bars and within cages; and so very many have respect for religion, but religious people they cannot bear.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Herod was a foxy man. We sometimes meet with these foxy people. They want to go to heaven, but they like the road to hell. They will sing a hymn to Jesus, but a good roaring song they like also. They will give a guinea to the church, but how many guineas are spent on their own lust. Thus they try to dodge between God and Satan.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. THE HOPEFUL POINTS IN HEROD'S CHARACTER. He respected justice and holiness. He admired the man in whom he saw justice and righteousness. He listened to John. He obeyed the word to which he listened. He continued to hear the preacher gladly. His conscience was greatly affected.

II. THE FLAWS IN THE CASE OF HEROD. Though he feared John he never looked to John's Master. He had no respect for goodness in his own heart. He never loved the Word of God as God's Word. He was under the sway of sin. His was a religion of fear, not of love.

III. WHAT BECAUSE OF HEROD. He slew the preacher whom he respected. This Herod Antipas was the man who afterwards mocked the Saviour. He soon lost all the power he possessed. His name is infamous forever.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

He was like a bird taken with lime twigs: he wanted to fly; but, sad to say, he was willingly held, limed by his lust.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

I. THE BLESSEDNESS OF HEARING THE WORD. The preaching of the gospel is represented by the sowing of seed — casting the net into the sea — it is the bread of heaven — it is the light of the world.

II. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE HEARER OF THE WORD.

III. THE NEEDFUL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF HEARING THE WORD.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

When you take hold of a piece of india rubber, you may make any impression that you like all over it, but after all it resumes its old shape. There are hosts of hearers of that kind: very impressible, but they quickly return to their old tastes and habits.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Herod was a king; John was a subject. Herod was in a palace; John was in a prison. Herod wore a crown; John most probably did not even own a turban, Herod wore the purple; John wore camlet, as we should call it. John was the son of an obscure Jewish country priest and his wife: the child of their old age. There is no hint that John had any wealth, or name, or fame, or education, or influence, when he began his life as a man. He comes on the scene as a rough, angular man, with not many words and not many friends. Herod began to reign just about when John began to live, so that there was no preponderant age in the priest's son over the king's son: that was all on the other side. Indeed, by all mere surface facts, principles, and analogies, John ought to have feared Herod; he ought to have bated his breath and bent his head before him. Now, I propose to discuss at this time the roots of this power and weakness, to see what made Herod so weak and John so strong, and to ask this question, What can we, who are set as John was, in the advance guard of reformers, do to make a deep, clear mark? And I note for you that John had three great roots of power: First, HE WAS A POWERFUL MAN BY CREATION — a with a clear head, a steady nerve, and a nature set in a deadly antagonism to sin and meanness of every sort and degree. He was the Jewish John Knox or John Brown.

"When he saw a thing was true,

He went to work and put it through."He could die, but he could not back down, Every time I meet a man who is a man, and not a stick, I ask myself one question: "Why are you the man you are? Whence does your power hint itself to me? Whence does it come." And while the ultimate answer has never come out of Phrenology or Physiognomy, or any of the sciences that profess to tell you what a man is by how he looks, yet the indicative answer has always lain in that direction. In the head, and face, and form of a man there is certainly something that impresses you in some such way as the weight, colour, and inscription of a coin reveal to you, with a fair certainty, whether it be gold, or silver, or — brass and it is possible, too, that the line in which a man has descended, the country in which he is born, the climate, the scenery, the history, the poetry, and the society about him, have a great deal to do with the man. The father, in Queen Elizabeth's time. as I have known in old English families, may be twenty-two carat gold; and the children in Queen Victoria's time may be no better than lead. That mysterious antagonism that sows tares among the wheat, sows baseness in the blood; and if there be not forever a careful and most painful dividing and burning, the tares will in time come to nearly all there is on the soil. But still forever the great mint of Providence beats on, silently, certainly, continually, sending its own new golden coins to circulate through our human life, and on each of them stamping the infallible image and superscription that tells us "this is gold." Nay, the same great Providence makes not only gold coins, but silver and iron too; and if they are true to their ring, they are all Divine; as in all great houses there be divers vessels, some to more honour and some to less honour, but not one to dishonour if it be true to its purpose; for while the golden vase that holds the wine at the feast of a king is a vessel of honour, so is the iron pot that holds the meat in the furnace; the Parian vase that you fill with flowers is a vessel of honour, and so is the tin dipper with which you fill it at the well. For me, it is a wonderful thing to study merely the pictures of great men. There is a power in the very shadow that makes you feel they were born to be kings and priests unto God. But if you know a great man personally, you find a power in him which the picture can never give you. I suppose this good Jewish country parson, the father of John, flora the little we can glean about him, was just a gentle, timid, pious, retiring man, whose mind had never risen above the routine of his humble post in the temple. But lo! God, in the full time, drops just one golden ingot down into that family treasury, pure, ponderous, solid gold. Yet I need not tall you that there is a theory of human nature that busies itself forever in trying to prove that our human nature in itself is abominably and naturally despicable. Now, this primitive intrinsic nature, I say, was the first element that made John mightier in the prison than Herod was in the palace. The one was a king by creation; the other was only a king by descent. And then, secondly, there comes into the difference another element. Herod made the purple vile by his sin; John made the camel's hair radiant by his HOLINESS. And in that personal truth, this rightwiseness, this wholeness, he gained every Divine force in the universe over to his side, and left to Herod only the infernal forces. It was a question of power, reaching back ultimately, as all such questions do, to God and the devil. So the fetter was turned to a sceptre, and the sceptre to a fetter, and the soul of the Sybarite quailed, and went down before the soul of the saint. Then the good man, the true, the upright, downright man of power, goes right on to the mark. Let me tell you a story given me by the late venerable James Mott, of Philadelphia, whose uncle, fifty years ago, discovered the island in the Pacific inhabited by Adams and his companions, as you have read in the story of "The Mutiny of the Bounty." I was talking with him one day about it, and he said that, after staying at the island for some time, his uncle turned his vessel homeward and steered directly for Boston, — sailing as he did from your own good city, — eight thousand miles distant. Month after month the brave craft ploughed through storm and shine, keeping her head ever homewards. But as she came near home, she got into a thick fog, and seemed to be sailing by guess. The captain had never sighted land from the time they started; but one night he said to the crew, "Now, boys, lay her to! I reckon Boston harbour must be just over there somewhere; but we must wait for the fog to clear up before we try to run in." And so, sure enough, when the morning sun rose it lifted the fog, and right over against them were the spires and homes of the great city of Boston! So can men go right onward over this great sea of life. The chart and compass are with them; and the power is with them to observe the meridian sun and the eternal stars. Storms will drive them, currents will drift them, dangers will beset them; they wilt long for more solid certainties; but by noon and by night they will drive right on, correcting deflections, resisting adverse influences, and then, at the last, when they are near home, they will know it. The darkness may be all about them, but the soul shines in its confidence; and the true mariner will say to his soul, "I will wait for the mist to rise with the new morning; I know home is just over there." Then in the morning he is satisfied; he wakes to see the golden light on temple and home. So God brings him to the desired haven. New John was one of those right-on men. Had there been a crevice in John's armour, Herod would have found it out and laughed at him; but in the presence of that pure life, that deep, conscious antagonism to sin, that masterful power, won as a soldier wins a hard battle, this man on the throne was abased before that man in the prison. Then the third root of power in this great man, by which he mastered a king, — by which he became a king, — lay in the fact that he was a TRUE, CLEAR, UNFLINCHING, OUTSPOKEN PREACHER of holiness. Some preachers reflect the great verities of religion, as bad boys reflect the sun from bits of broken glass. They stand just on one side, and flash a blaze of fierce light across the eyes of their victim, and leave him more bewildered and irritated than he was before. Such a one is your fitful, changing doctrinaire, whose ideas of right and wrong, or sin and holiness, of God and the devil, today, are not at all as they were last Sunday: who holds not that blessed thing, an ever-changing, because an ever-growing and ripening faith, but a mere sand hill of bewilderment, liable to be blown anywhere by the next great storm. Then there is another sort of preacher, who is like the red light at the head of a railway night train. He is made for warning; he comes to tell of danger. That is the work of his life. When he is not doing that, he has nothing to do. I hear friends at times question whether this man has a Divine mission. Surely, if there be danger to the soul, — and that question is not yet decided in the negative, — then he has to the inner life a mission as Divine as that of the red lamp to the outer life. And I know myself of men who have turned sharp out of the track before his fierce glare, who, but for him, had been run down, and into a disgraceful grave. But the true preacher of holiness, the real forerunner of Christ, is the man who holds up in himself the Divine truth, as a true mirror holds the light, so that whoever comes to him, will see his own character just as it is. Such a man was this who mastered a king. His soul was never distorted by the traditions of the elders, or the habits of "good society," as it is called. On the broad clear surface of his soul, as on a pure still lake, you saw things as if in a great deep. He had no broken lights, for he held fast to his own primitive nature, and to his own direct inspiration.

(R. Collyer.)

Elias, Elijah, Herod, Herodias, James, Jesus, John, Joseph, Joses, Judas, Jude, Mary, Philip, SimonBethsaida, Galilee, Genneseret, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Sea of GalileeAfraid, Awe, Conscious, Ear, Enjoy, Fear, Feared, Fearing, Gladly, Greatly, Hearing, Herod, Holy, John, Keeping, Kept, Liked, Listen, Listening, Observed, Perplexed, Perplexity, Pleasure, Protected, Puzzled, Righteous, Safe, Stood, Troubled, Upright, Watch, Yet1. Jesus is a prophet without honor in his own country.
7. He gives the twelve power over unclean spirits.
14. Various opinions of Jesus.
16. John the Baptist is imprisoned, beheaded, and buried.
30. The apostles return from preaching.
34. The miracle of five loaves and two fishes.
45. Jesus walks on the sea;
53. and heals all who touch him.

Mark 6:1-56

     5357   journey

Mark 6:14-29

     5098   John the Baptist

Mark 6:16-29

     8450   martyrdom

Mark 6:17-20

     5737   sisters

Mark 6:17-28

     5714   men

Mark 6:17-29

     8828   spite

January 6 Evening
The apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things they had done.--MARK 6:30. There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.--The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.--Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. When ye shall have done …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

September 4. "Come Ye Yourselves Apart" (Mark vi. 31).
"Come ye yourselves apart" (Mark vi. 31). One of the greatest hindrances to spirituality is the lack of waiting upon God. You cannot go through twenty-four hours with two or three breaths of air, in the morning, as you sip your coffee. But you must live in the atmosphere, and you must breathe it all day long. Christians do not wait upon God enough. It needs hours and hours daily of spiritual communion with the Holy Spirit to keep your vitality healthful and full. Every moment should find you breathing …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

January 8. "It is I, be not Afraid" (Mark vi. 50).
"It is I, be not afraid" (Mark vi. 50). Someone tells of a little child with some big story of sorrow upon its little heart, flying to its mother's arms for comfort, and intending to tell her the story of its trouble; but as that mother presses it to her bosom and pours out her love, it soon becomes so occupied with her and the sweetness of her affection that it forgets to tell its story, and in a little while even the memory of the trouble is forgotten. It has just been loved away, and she has taken …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Herod --A Startled Conscience
'But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.'--Mark vi. 16. The character of this Herod, surnamed Antipas, is a sufficiently common and a sufficiently despicable one. He was the very type of an Eastern despot, exactly like some of those half-independent Rajahs, whose dominions march with ours in India; capricious, crafty, as the epithet which Christ applied to him, 'That fox!' shows; cruel, as the story of the murder of John the Baptist proves; sensuous …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Master Rejected: the Servants Sent Forth
'And He went out from thence, and came into His own country; and His disciples follow Him. 2. And when the Sabbath day was come, He began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing Him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto Him, that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands? 3. Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary, the Brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon! and are not His sisters here with us? And they …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Martyrdom of John
'For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her. 18. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. 19. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: 20. For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. 21. And when …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The World's Bread
'And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Christ Thwarted
'And He could there do no mighty work, save that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And He marvelled because of their unbelief.'--Mark vi. 5,6. It is possible to live too near a man to see him. Familiarity with the small details blinds most people to the essential greatness of any life. So these fellow-villagers of Jesus in Nazareth knew Him too well to know Him rightly as they talked Him over; they recognised His wisdom and His mighty works; but all the impression that these …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

On Attending the Church Service
"The sin of the young men was very great." 1 Sam. 2:17. 1. The corruption, not only of the heathen world, but likewise of them that were called Christians, has been matter of sorrow and lamentation to pious men, almost from the time of the apostles. And hence, as early as the second century, within a hundred years of St. John's removal from the earth, men who were afraid of being partakers of other men's sins, thought it their duty to separate from them. Hence, in every age many have retired from …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

The Epistle of Saint Jude.
V. 1, 2. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James, to those that are called to be holy in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. This Epistle is ascribed to the holy Apostle, St. Jude, brother of the two Apostles, James the Less and Simon, by the sister of the mother of Christ, who is called Mary (wife) of James or Cleopas, as we read in Mark vi. But this Epistle cannot be looked upon as being that of one who was truly an Apostle, …
Martin Luther—The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained

The First Sayings of Jesus --His Ideas of a Divine Father and of a Pure Religion --First Disciples.
Joseph died before his son had taken any public part. Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called the "son of Mary."[1] It seems that having, by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3] was a little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at the foot …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Chronology
45. The length of the public ministry of Jesus was one of the earliest questions which arose in the study of the four gospels. In the second and third centuries it was not uncommon to find the answer in the passage from Isaiah (lxi. 1, 2), which Jesus declared was fulfilled in himself. "The acceptable year of the Lord" was taken to indicate that the ministry covered little more than a year. The fact that the first three gospels mention but one Passover (that at the end), and but one journey to Jerusalem, …
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

The Friend of Men 223 in Nothing Does the Contrast Between Jesus and John the Baptist Appear More Clearly than in their Attitude Towards Common Social
I The Friend of Men 223. In nothing does the contrast between Jesus and John the Baptist appear more clearly than in their attitude towards common social life. John had his training and did his work apart from the homes of men. The wilderness was his chosen and fit scene of labor. From this solitude he sent forth his summons and warning to his people. They who sought him for fuller teaching went after him and found him where he was. They then returned to their homes and their work, leaving the prophet …
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

Twelve Baskets Full of Fragments Gathered from the Miracle of Christ Feeding the Multitude.
1.--MAN NEEDS HELP. "They have nothing to eat." (Mark vi. 36.) 2.--GOD IS BETTER THAN GOOD MEN. "Send them away," said the disciples. (Mark vi. 36.) "They need not depart," the Lord replied. (Matt. xiv. 16.) 3.--MINISTERS SHOULD ALWAYS BE ON THE LOOK-OUT FOR THE CHILDREN, THEY GIVE HELP AS WELL AS TROUBLE. Andrew said, "There is a lad here." (John vi. 9.) 4.--YOUTH CAN GIVE TO JESUS WHAT NO ONE ELSE POSSESSES. "There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves." (John vi. 9.) 5.--UNBELIEF …
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread

The Historical Books. 1 the New Testament...
CHAPTER XXIX. THE HISTORICAL BOOKS. 1. The New Testament, like the Old, is not an abstract system of doctrines and duties, but a record of facts involving doctrines and duties of the highest import. This record does not constitute an independent history, complete in itself, and to be explained in its own light. It is rather the necessary sequel to the record of the Old Testament. It interprets the Old Testament, and is itself interpreted by it. The two constitute together an organic whole, and can …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Right to Privacy
"There were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat."--Mark 6:31 "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them."--Matthew 9:36 I had just come back from a strenuous month in the country. Mr. and Mrs. Sprightly, the young married couple who were in charge of the mission station, and I were relaxing around the tea table. I told about the work I had been doing, and answered interested questions. Finally the talk drifted into lighter channels, and …
Mabel Williamson—Have We No Rights?

Set at Liberty.
(MARK VI. 27.) "Hush my soul, and vain regrets be stilled; Now rest in Him who is the complement Of whatsoe'er transcends our mortal doom, Of baffled hope and unfulfilled intent; In the clear vision and aspect of whom All longings and all hopes shall be fulfilled." ARCHBISHOP TRENCH. The Genesis of a Great Crime--The Strength of Evil Influences--An Accomplice of Satan--The Triumph of Hate--The Baptist Beheaded--A Place of Repentance The evangelist Mark tells us, in the twenty-first verse of this …
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

The King's Courts
(MARK VI.) "The number of thine own complete, Sum up and make an end; Sift clean the chaff, and house the wheat; And then, O Lord, descend. "Descend, and solve by that descent This mystery of life; Where good and ill, together blent, Wage an undying strife." J. H. N. Under Royal Surveillance--"It is not Lawful."--The Revenge of Herodias--The Upbraidings of Conscience--Devotion to Truth--"A Sin unto Death." Our story brings us next to speak of the Baptist's relations with Herod Antipas, son of the …
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

Rejected in his Own Country
"And He went out from thence; and He cometh into His own country; and His disciples follow Him." MARK 6:1-6 (R.V.) WE have seen how St. Mark, to bring out more vividly the connection between four mighty signs, their ideal completeness as a whole, and that mastery over nature and the spiritual world which they reveal, grouped them resolutely together, excluding even significant incidents which would break in upon their sequence. Bearing this in mind, how profoundly instructive it is that our Evangelist …
G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark

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