So that our Lord was supported by the voluntary offerings of his followers. He did no more work at the carpenter’s bench, when he began to preach the gospel: his ministry required all his time and strength. It is noble in men, like Paul, to labour at their trade while preaching, but if believers were as generous as they should be, such drudgery would not long be necessary.
Matthew 12:38-40, 43-50
The evil spirit cannot rest. He is so malicious that unless he is doing mischief he cannot bear himself.
The devil is represented as going out of the man of his own will, and, therefore, when he wills he returns. He calls it “my house” because he had not been expelled from it by divine grace, neither had Jesus taken possession. So men who become moralised and improved entirely of their own accord, and in their own strength, return to their old sins. When grace comes and turns out the devil by force of divine love, he never returns, but unrenewed nature soon welcomes back the tempter.
Many men’s lives are swept from the fouler vices, and garnished with pretty human virtues; but they are not inhabited by the Spirit of God, and hence evil soon gets the upper hand, and the soul becomes worse than before.
Idolatry left the Jewish nation after the captivity in Babylon, but formalism, superstition, and self-righteousness ruled over them, and made them harder to deal with than their idolatrous fathers.
His nightly watches and daily labours were wearing him out, and his relations, conceiving the idea that he must be out of his mind, planned to seize him, and withdraw him from public work. The kindest of men cannot comprehend the zeal of a real fervent heart; they call it enthusiasm, and speak of the possibility of “going too far,” and being too earnest: so are the best men least understood. Our Lord’s mother seems to have had some hand in this mistaken project: blessed as she was she was, not infallible.
The spiritual relationship outweighs the natural one. Believers are the true “Holy Family.”
Lord, what are we and what our race,
That thou dost us for brethren own,
Crown’d thus with dignity and grace
To brightest cherubim unknown?
What can we do to make return,
Or half our gratitude express?
To thee our souls’ affections turn,
With all our hearts thy name we bless.
StopAndPrayTV 