Part 2

AN ATTEMPT TO ACCOUNT FOR JESUS (Matt. xii. 24)

'MAKE THE TREE GOOD' (Matt. xii. 33)

'A GREATER THAN JONAS' (Matt. xii. 41)

'A GREATER THAN SOLOMON' (Matt. xii. 42)

FOUR SOWINGS AND ONE RIPENING (Matt. xiii. 1-9)

EARS AND NO EARS (Matt. xiii. 9)

'TO HIM THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN' (Matt. xiii. 12)

SEEING AND BLIND (Matt. xiii. 13)

MINGLED IN GROWTH, SEPARATED IN MATURITY (Matt. xiii. 24-30)

LEAVEN (Matt. xiii. 33)

TREASURE AND PEARL (Matt. xiii. 44-46)

THE MARTYRDOM OF JOHN (Matt. xiv. 1-12)

THE GRAVE OF THE DEAD JOHN AND THE GRAVE OF THE LIVING JESUS (Matt. xiv. 12; xxviii. 8)

THE FOOD OF THE WORLD (Matt. xiv. 19, 20)

THE KING'S HIGHWAY (Matt. xiv. 22-36)

PETER ON THE WAVES (Matt. xiv. 28)

THB CRUMBS AND THE BREAD (Matt. xv. 21-31)

THE DIVINE CHRIST CONFESSED, THE SUFFERING CHRIST DENIED (Matt. xvi. 13-28)

CHRIST FORESEEING THE CROSS (Matt. xvi. 21)

THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY (Matt. xvii, 1-13)

THE SECRET OF POWER. (Matt. xvii. 19, 20)

THE COIN IN THE FISH'S MOUTH (Matt. xvii. 25, 26)

CHRIST'S ENCOURAGEMENTS

'Son, be of good cheer.'--MATT. ix. 2.

This word of encouragement, which exhorts to both cheerfulness and courage, is often upon Christ's lips. It is only once employed in the Gospels by any other than He. If we throw together the various instances in which He thus speaks, we may get a somewhat striking view of the hindrances to such a temper of bold, buoyant cheerfulness which the world presents, and of the means for securing it which Christ provides.

But before I consider these individually, let me point you to this thought, that such a disposition, facing the inevitable sorrows, evils, and toilsome tasks of life with glad and courageous buoyancy, is a Christian duty, and is a temper not merely to be longed for, but consciously and definitely to be striven after.

We have a great deal more in our power, in the regulation of moods and tempers and dispositions, than we often are willing to acknowledge to ourselves. Our 'low' times--when we fret and are dull, and all things seem wrapped in gloom, and we are ready to sit down and bewail ourselves, like Job on his dunghill--are often quite as much the results of our own imperfect Christianity as the response of our feelings to external circumstances. It is by no means an unnecessary reminder for us, who have heavy tasks set us, which often seem too heavy, and are surrounded, as we all are, with crowding temptations to be bitter and melancholy and sad, that Christ commands us to be, and therefore we ought to be, 'of good cheer.'

Another observation may be made as preliminary, and that is that Jesus Christ never tells people to cheer up without giving them reason to do so. We shall see presently that in all cases where the words occur they are immediately followed by words or deeds of His which hold forth something on which, if the hearer's faith lay hold, darkness and gloom will fly like morning mists before the rising sun. The world comes to us and says, in the midst of our sorrows and our difficulties, 'Be of good cheer,' and says it in vain, and generally only rubs salt into the sore by saying it. Jesus Christ never thus vainly preaches the duty of encouraging ourselves without giving us ample reasons for the cheerfulness which He enjoins.