1. Forward, ye troops of God, and take the line of fortification farthest out, which is prejudice against ministers and churches. There are men who, for various reasons, do not believe in these things, and from that outward entrenchment contend against Christ. My reply to this is, seek out a Church and a minister that you do like. Amid all the denominations there must be one place where your soul will be blessed. This very church, to some of you, shall be the way to heaven, and through this one break in the long fortification of your prejudice I pass through with the battle-cry of the Cross, feeling that, though these prejudices have been the troop that overcame Christ, He shall overcome at the last.

2. Forward, ye troops of God, to the next entrenchment! It is a circumvallation of social influences. There are hundreds of people here to-high, whose surroundings in the world are adverse to the Christian religion. Evil companionship has destroyed innumerable men. Through this high battlement no human force can break, but, oh! that the Lord Jesus might storm it tonight.

3. Forward, ye troops of God, to the third line of entrenchment, namely, the intellectual difficulties about religion. A hundred perplexities about the parables; a hundred questions about the ninth chapter of Romans; passage set against passage in seeming contradiction. You pile up a battlement of Colenso on the " Pentateuch," and Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," and Renan's "Life of Christ"; and some parts of the wall are so high that it would be folly to attempt to take them. But there is a hole in the wall of fortification, and through that hole in the wall I put my right hand, and take your own, and say, "My brother, do you want to be saved? "And you say" Yes." "Well; Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost." Scepticism seems to do quite well in prosperity, but it fails in adversity. A celebrated infidel, on shipboard, in the sunshine caricatured the Christian religion, and scoffed at its professors. But the sea arose, and the waves dashed across the hurricane-deck, and the man cried out, "O my ,God, what shall I do? what shall I do?" A father went down to see his dying son in a Southern hospital during the war. Finding that the boy was dying, he went to the chaplain and said, "I wish you would go and see my boy, and get him prepared for the future." "Why," said the chaplain, "I thought you did not believe in religion!" "Well," said he, "I don't, but his mother does; and I would a great deal rather the boy would follow his mother. Go and get him prepared." Scepticism does tolerably well to live by, but it is a poor thing to die by. The fortification of your soul this hour gives way; and the Christ, who seemed to have been overcome by argument, and by profound questions, and elaborate analysis, now, by the force of love, overcomes at the last!

4. Forward, ye troops of light, to the next circumvallation of the heart, namely, pernicious habit. I do not believe that it is necessary to be a teetotaller in order to be a Christian (although I wish all were teetotallers), but I do say that a man who is excessive in the use of strong drink cannot love Christ. He will not dispute with you the supremacy of the bottle. Some years ago, when the cholera was raging in New Orleans, a steamer near nightfall, put out from the city, laden with passengers escaping from the pestilence. The steamer had been but a little while out when the engineer fell at his post with cholera. The captain, in despair, went up and down among the passengers, asking if there were any one there who could act as engineer. A man stepped out, and said that he was an engineer, and could take the position. In the night the captain was awakened by a violent motion of the steamer, and he knew that there was great peril ahead. He went up, and found that the engineer was a maniac; that he had fastened down the safety-valves; and he told the captain that he was the emissary of Satan, commissioned to drive the steamer to hell. By some strategy, the man was got down in time to save the steamer. There are men engineered by maniac passions, sworn to drive them to temporal and everlasting destruction. Every part of their nature trembles under the high pressure. Nothing but the grace of Almighty God can bring down those passions, and chain them. A little while longer in this course, and all is lost. Whatever be the form of evil habit, Christ is able fully and finally to deliver that man. Where sin abounded, grace does much more abound. Victory over thy sin! Victory through the Lord Jesus Christ! Through many a long year thy appetites overcame Him, but He has overcome at the last!

5. Forward, ye troops of light, to the last and the mightiest line of fortification — the pride and the rebellion of the natural heart. This entrenchment must be taken, or all the rest of the contest is lost. This is the crisis of the battle.

(Dr. Talmage.)

2. Men who are overcome should be encouraged.

3. Apply this to beginners in business — in Christian life — in the reformation of bad habits.

4. Apply this to spiritual doubt. Do not too readily describe men as infidels. Even may at last believe.

5. Hope for your children.

(J. Parker, D. D)It may seem, as we look at it spiritually, strange that the fact of being "overcome" by foes should be part of the blessing of God's people. And yet through the darkness to the light is the order everywhere in God's kingdom of nature, providence, and grace; and to be "overcome" is as truly a needed discipline for the soul as to be a triumphant conqueror. The type of nature's strength is not the hot-house plant needing constant care and watchfulness to keep it alive. It is the pine-tree rocked by Norwegian winds which threaten every moment to imperil its existence by uprooting it. Thus, too, it is in the Christian life; and without such dealing the very best of us would be but dwarfs, stunted and crippled, and incapacitated for that warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil by which we win our way to the kingdom, Nor does the Holy Spirit leave us in any doubt as to this. "A troop shall overcome him" are the words. Not a solitary foe, but many. Sometimes wave upon wave of trial rolls over the soul until we know not what it means. But the cup is measured out. Not one drop is in it beyond what is absolutely needful for the soul's welfare. And the end is the same in every case-to lead us up out of self wholly into God. Nor let us suppose for a moment that it is because of some sin in us that this bitter cup is put into our hands. It may be this indeed, for God will be quit of sin in us at any and every cost. The gravitation of every believer is earthward, and the quick pruning-knife of the Husbandman can never be unused long without the soul suffering damage. The process of restoration may lie in a constant succession of small trials pressing upon the spirit to draw it nearer to God, or in some sharp quick operation of the knife that makes itself felt for years, turning the hair grey, and making the body stoop. But it is not always to get rid of sin in us that these strokes are sent. It may be to mould us more into the likeness of Christ. Every follower of the Lamb must be a cross-bearer. It is the branch that bears fruit which is pierced and purged, and not the unfruitful one. It may be because you are so like Christ you are made to feel the pruning-knife — in order that you may become more like Him. And how blessed the assurance of our God that we "shall overcome at last!" It is not that we shall overcome at the end of life. It is that the issue of every conflict shall be victory. This Divine assurance of the certainty of victory receives its explanation from Romans 8:35-39.

(F. Whitfield, M. A.)

     1335   blessing
     7266   tribes of Israel

Genesis 49:1-33

     5095   Jacob, life

Joseph Attacked by the Archers
Joseph is dead, but the Lord has his Josephs now. There are some still who understand by experience--and that is the best kind of understanding--the meaning of this passage, "The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." There are four things for us to consider this morning. First of all, the cruel attack--"the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

Instability
Now, my brethren, if it be so in earthly things, it is so also in spiritual. Instability in religion is a thing which every man despises, although every man has, to a degree, the evil in himself, but stability in the firm profession and practice of godliness, will always win respect, even from the worldly, and certainly will not be forgotten by him whose smile is honor and whose praise is glory, even the great Lord and Master, before whom we stand or fall. I have many characters here to-day whom …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 3: 1857

The Messianic Prophecies in the Pentateuch.
In the Messianic prophecies contained in Genesis we cannot fail to perceive a remarkable progress in clearness and definiteness. The first Messianic prediction, which was uttered immediately after the fall of Adam, is also the most indefinite. Opposed to the awful threatening there stands the consolatory promise, that the dominion of sin, and of the evil arising from sin, shall not last for ever, but that the seed of the woman shall, at some future time, overthrow their dreaded conqueror. With the …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Balaam's Prophecy. (Numb. xxiv. 17-19. )
Carried by the Spirit into the far distant future, Balaam sees here how a star goeth out of Jacob and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and how this sceptre smiteth Moab, by whose enmity the Seer had been brought from a distant region for the destruction of Israel. And not Moab only shall be smitten, but its southern neighbour, Edom, too shall be subdued, whose hatred against Israel had already been prefigured in its ancestor, and had now begun to display Itself; and In general, all the enemies of …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Bunsen's Biblical Researches.
When geologists began to ask whether changes in the earth's structure might be explained by causes still in operation, they did not disprove the possibility of great convulsions, but they lessened necessity for imagining them. So, if a theologian has his eyes opened to the Divine energy as continuous and omnipresent, he lessens the sharp contrast of epochs in Revelation, but need not assume that the stream has never varied in its flow. Devotion raises time present into the sacredness of the past; …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World

Appendix viii. Rabbinic Traditions About Elijah, the Forerunner of the Messiah
To complete the evidence, presented in the text, as to the essential difference between the teaching of the ancient Synagogue about the Forerunner of the Messiah' and the history and mission of John the Baptist, as described in the New Testaments, we subjoin a full, though condensed, account of the earlier Rabbinic traditions about Elijah. Opinions differ as to the descent and birthplace of Elijah. According to some, he was from the land of Gilead (Bemid. R. 14), and of the tribe of Gad (Tanch. on …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

His Throat is Most Sweet, Yea, He is Altogether Lovely. This is My Beloved, and this is My Friend, O Daughters of Jerusalem.
The good qualities of ordinary things may be sufficiently well expressed by ordinary phrases of commendation, but there are some subjects so above expression that they can only be worthily admired by declaring them above all praise. Such is the Divine Bridegroom, who, by the excess of His perfections, renders His Bride dumb when she endeavors most worthily to praise Him, that all hearts and minds may be attracted to Him. Her passion causes her to burst out into the praise of some of the excellencies …
Madame Guyon—Song of Songs of Solomon

The Debt of Irenæus to Justin Martyr
If we are to proceed with safety in forming a judgment as to the relation between Justin and Irenæus in respect of the matter which they have in common, it will be necessary not merely to consider a number of selected parallels, but also to examine the treatment of a particular theme in the two writers. Let us set side by side, for example, c. 32 of Justin's First Apology with c. 57 of the Demonstration. Justin has been explaining to his Roman readers who the Jewish prophets were, and then …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

'Fruit which is Death'
'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3. For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Blessing of Jacob Upon Judah. (Gen. Xlix. 8-10. )
Ver. 8. "Judah, thou, thy brethren shall praise thee; thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; before thee shall bow down the sons of thy father. Ver. 9. A lion's whelp is Judah; from the prey, my son, thou goest up; he stoopeth down, he coucheth as a lion, and as a full-grown lion, who shall rouse him up? Ver. 10. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto Him the people shall adhere." Thus does dying Jacob, in announcing …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

General Notes by the American Editor
1. The whole subject of the Apocalypse is so treated, [2318] in the Speaker's Commentary, as to elucidate many questions suggested by the primitive commentators of this series, and to furnish the latest judgments of critics on the subject. It is so immense a matter, however, as to render annotations on patristic specialties impossible in a work like this. Every reader must feel how apposite is the sententious saying of Augustine: "Apocalypsis Joannis tot sacramenta quot verba." 2. The seven spirits, …
Victorinus—Commentary on the Apocolypse of the Blessed John

The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. ...
The Holy Spirit and the Incarnation of the Word. We are so familiar with the part assigned in our Creeds to the Holy Spirit in connection with our Lord's birth, that the passage now to be quoted from Justin may at first sight seem very surprising. It may be well to approach it by citing some words from the learned and orthodox Waterland, who in 1734, in his book on The Trinity (c. vi: Works, III, 571: Oxford, 1843), wrote as follows in reference to a passage of St Irenæus: "I may remark by …
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

The Growth of the Old Testament Prophetic Histories
[Sidenote: Analogies between the influences that produced the two Testaments] Very similar influences were at work in producing and shaping both the Old and the New Testaments; only in the history of the older Scriptures still other forces can be distinguished. Moreover, the Old Testament contains a much greater variety of literature. It is also significant that, while some of the New Testament books began to be canonized less than a century after they were written, there is clear evidence that …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Jewish Dispersion in the West - the Hellenists - Origin of Hellenist Literature in the Greek Translation of the Bible - Character of the Septuagint.
When we turn from the Jewish dispersion' in the East to that in the West, we seem to breathe quite a different atmosphere. Despite their intense nationalism, all unconsciously to themselves, their mental characteristics and tendencies were in the opposite direction from those of their brethren. With those of the East rested the future of Judaism; with them of the West, in a sense, that of the world. The one represented old Israel, stretching forth its hands to where the dawn of a new day was about …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising
'If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' - Col 1:23. Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' I. It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. II. The best way for Christians to be settled is to be well grounded. I. It is the duty of Christians …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Fifthly, as this Revelation, to the Judgment of Right and Sober Reason,
appears of itself highly credible and probable, and abundantly recommends itself in its native simplicity, merely by its own intrinsic goodness and excellency, to the practice of the most rational and considering men, who are desirous in all their actions to have satisfaction and comfort and good hope within themselves, from the conscience of what they do: So it is moreover positively and directly proved to be actually and immediately sent to us from God, by the many infallible signs and miracles …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

Gamala. Chorazin.
These things determine the situation of Gamala:--1. It was "in lower Gaulon," in which, as we have seen, Bethsaida was. 2. It was "upon the lake [of Gennesaret]." 3. It was "over-against Tarichee." Compare the maps, whether in their placing of it they agree with these passages. Here was Judas born, commonly called 'Gaulanites,' and as commonly also, the 'Galilean.' So Peter and Andrew and Philip were Gaulanites; of Bethsaida, John 1:44; and yet they were called 'Galileans.' While we are speaking …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

What Messiah did the Jews Expect?
1. The most important point here is to keep in mind the organic unity of the Old Testament. Its predictions are not isolated, but features of one grand prophetic picture; its ritual and institutions parts of one great system; its history, not loosely connected events, but an organic development tending towards a definite end. Viewed in its innermost substance, the history of the Old Testament is not different from its typical institutions, nor yet these two from its predictions. The idea, underlying …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy.
The fact of Covenanting, under the Old Testament dispensations, being approved of God, gives a proof that it was proper then, which is accompanied by the voice of prophecy, affording evidence that even in periods then future it should no less be proper. The argument for the service that is afforded by prophecy is peculiar, and, though corresponding with evidence from other sources, is independent. Because that God willed to make known truth through his servants the prophets, we should receive it …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Prophet Jonah.
It has been asserted without any sufficient reason, that Jonah is older than Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah,--that he is the oldest among the prophets whose written monuments have been preserved to us. The passage in 2 Kings xiv. 25, where it is said, that Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, prophesied to Jeroboam the happy success of his arms, and the restoration of the ancient boundaries of Israel, and that this prophecy was confirmed by the event, cannot decide in favour of this assertion, …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

On Genesis.
[1139] Gen. i. 5 And it was evening, and it was morning, one day. Hippolytus. He did not say [1140] "night and day," but "one day," with reference to the name of the light. He did not say the "first day;" for if he had said the "first" day, he would also have had to say that the "second" day was made. But it was right to speak not of the "first day," but of "one day," in order that by saying "one," he might show that it returns on its orbit and, while it remains one, makes up the week. Gen. i. 6 …
Hippolytus—The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus

The Sixth Commandment
Thou shalt not kill.' Exod 20: 13. In this commandment is a sin forbidden, which is murder, Thou shalt not kill,' and a duty implied, which is, to preserve our own life, and the life of others. The sin forbidden is murder: Thou shalt not kill.' Here two things are to be understood, the not injuring another, nor ourselves. I. The not injuring another. [1] We must not injure another in his name. A good name is a precious balsam.' It is a great cruelty to murder a man in his name. We injure others in …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

The Plan for the Coming of Jesus.
God's Darling, Psalms 8:5-8.--the plan for the new man--the Hebrew picture by itself--difference between God's plan and actual events--one purpose through breaking plans--the original plan--a starting point--getting inside. Fastening a Tether inside: the longest way around--the pedigree--the start. First Touches on the Canvas: the first touch, Genesis 3:15.--three groups of prediction--first group: to Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3; to Isaac, Genesis 26:1-5; to Jacob, Genesis 28:10-15; through Jacob, …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus