Sermons by the Monday Club Mark 1:5 And there went out to him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan… When he is conscious that he is sent of God as a messenger of glad tidings to the poor and needy, how relatively unimportant all other business appears! When he realizes that all the wealth and blessings of the kingdom of God are to be his forever, how trifling are the few temporary burdens he is called to bear! how petty the sacrifices he is asked to make! It is said that when Pliny saw from a distance the eruption of Vesuvius, he forsook his occupation and launched his boat and rowed toward the flaming mountain, forgetting the labour and the peril in the fascination of the sight; and when one sees, even from afar, the light of the city of God, there is such longing to get nearer the brightness, that approach, at any cost, seems cheap. You remember the old legend, which has been so beautifully done into verse by one of our poets, of the monk who was charmed from his cell door by the singing of a bird, and, though the sweetness of the song was such that it seemed to him that he only walked an hour, yet on his return he found that a hundred years had passed. When we are in such spiritual condition that we hear heavenly voices calling us, no way of duty seems long or hard. The most exhausting service is a delight. What the Church wants is to know, like John the Baptist, that its responsibility is its privilege, and then it will have zeal enough for its opportunity. What the individual Christian wants is to realize the grandeur of his position and the greatness of his mission, and he will need no other urgency to faithfulness. (Sermons by the Monday Club.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. |
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