repentance:

8. Bring forth therefore fruits a meet for fruit

And

worthy of

our

9. and think not to say within yourselves, 1We have A'bră-hăm to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abră-hăm.

I John 8: 33, 39.

a Or, answerable to amendment of life.

you to come, you who are so satisfied with yourselves, who pose as the leaders and teachers of God's people? The wrath to come. The punishment that must come upon the guilty nation and the sinful individual unless they forsook their sins. (Mal. 3: 2; 4: 5; Luke 21: 5-26; Matt. 22: 13; Rom. 2: 9). The result was as certain as the laws of God. This was not denunciation, but warning. It was the cry of love. Its object was to keep them from suffering the wrath to come.

MOTIVES FROM THE LIFE TO COME. Not long ago, at a council, one of the ministers asked the candidate if he would use the life beyond the grave as a motive to persuade men to become Christians. The implication was that that motive was not very effective in our day. But that depends. To use it exclusively does not appeal to man as effectively as in former days, but our constant appeal to the young looks to the time beyond the present. The motive to faithfulness in school or college is enforced by the life for which they prepare. The motives of spring work are made effective by the thought of the autumn. The effect of motives belonging to this life is greatly reinforced by the continuance of life and character in the life beyond.

ILLUSTRATION. Professor Bowne in his great work on Personality just issued, relates this story which fits those who are living in these rushing times without thought of the future.

"Mr. Huxley tells of an Irish cabman who was told to drive fast. Without waiting to inquire where he was to go, he drove off furiously. When the passenger asked him where he was going he replied, I don't know, your honor, but anyway I am driving fast.'"

THIRD. MOTIVES REINFORCED BY ACTION. 8. Bring forth therefore, if you really wish to be saved, and to escape. If you wish to be baptized. Fruits meet for repentance. The fruits that grow out of true repentance, and prove it true, as good fruit proves the tree to be good. Compare Gal. 5: 19-24 and Luke 3: 10-15. Some of these fruits are stated in Luke in John's answer to those who asked, "What shall we do then?" as honesty, generosity, faithfulness, contentment, refraining from violence and oppression. Slightly altering what has been said of a great modern, we may much more truly say of the Baptist,

"He took the suffering human race,

He read each wound, each weakness clear:
He struck his finger on the place,

And said: "Thou ailest here, and here." "

Doing good works, bearing good fruit, not only proves repentance, but strengthens the new life.

Set every Sunday school scholar to work.

Give every young Christian something to do.

FOURTH MOTIVE. SWEEPING AWAY FALSE HOPES. 9. And think not to say within yourselves, as a reason for not seeing the necessity of repentance and its fruits in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. We have Abraham to (for) our father. We are the direct descendants of Abraham and inheritors of the promises made to him. Therefore, we already belong to the kingdom, and do not need repentance in order to enter. But this was an utterly false hope, for God is able of these stones, "doubtless pointing to the stones that lay on the shore of Jordan, where he was baptizing. May there not be a play on the words banim (children), abanim (stones)?"-Cambridge Bible. To raise up children unto Abraham. God can have his kingdom filled, and his promises fulfilled, without taking into it those who inherit their race from Abraham, but do not inherit his character and faith. "God can as easily make sons of stones as of a brood of vipers. Spurgeon. Indeed, he did change the stony hearts of publicans and sinners into children of God. (Ezek. 11: 19.) Compare Mark Antony's speech:

"There was an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny."

is

axe

1 therefore

also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: now bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and

every tree

which therefore that

cast into the fire.

II. 2I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear : 3 he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:

1 Matt. 7: 19.

2 Mark 1:8; Luke 3: 16; John 1: 15; Acts 1: 5.

7

Palestinian Axes.

3 Isa. 4: 4; 44: 3; Acts 2: 3, 4.

10. The ax is laid (is lying) unto (at) the root of the trees, all ready to cut them down when the time came. As if a farmer, looking over his orchard, and seeing a tree fruitless or with only poor fruit, should lay his ax at its roots for his servants to cut the tree down. It was laid there as a warning. Hence there was a brief respite, with the possibility of such a change into fruit bearing that the ax need not be used. Compare the parable, Luke 13:

6-10.

The Jewish church was this tree. The ax was laid at its root. The forces were already in operation which led to the destruction of the Jewish nation forty-four

years later. The same is true of each individual sinner.

Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down. Because it takes the place of something better. Moreover, in Palestine the fruit trees are all taxed, whether they bear fruit or not. So that a fruitless tree brings its owner into debt. New influences or a new graft might make the tree fruitful again, at the cost of cutting off many a limb. But the Jews, as a nation, were not willing to receive the scion that would have saved them.

FIFTH MOTIVE. THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH.

"John was like the breeze before sunrise, which springs up, as crying 'The Dawn! The Dawn!' and dies away.". Maclaren.

We see more fully in John 1: 19-37 how John bore witness to Jesus as the Messiah, to the Pharisees, and pointed out Jesus to his disciples as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."

II. I indeed baptize you with water. I give you the sign and symbol, but the Coming One will bring the reality. I call you to repentance, but he that cometh after me,

Shoes and Sandals Showing "Latchets."

12.

and

floor, cleanse threshing-floor;

1 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly er his he will gather his wheat into the garner; but he will 2 burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

he will burn up

1 Mal. 3: 3.

one who is so much mightier than I that I am not worthy to do the most menial service for him, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you, consecrate you, fill you full with the Holy Ghost, who is as the fire of the sun in spring changing the deadness and coldness of winter into warmth and life in which all the fruits of the Spirit" grow and flourish.

SIXTH MOTIVE. DAY OF JUDGMENT. 12. Whose fan is in his hand, the winnowing fan, a kind of forked shovel by which the mingled chaff and wheat is tossed up so that the breeze blows away the chaff and allows the heavy grains of wheat to fall upon the floor.

THE THRESHING FLOOR represents the world of men into which Jesus has come, with its mingled wheat and chaff. His wheat. The good, the true members of his kingdom. Into the gar

ner.

Granary; the right place for the wheat; the kingdom of heaven; heaven. But... the chaff. The refuse; the useless, representing all who continue in sin, unrepentant, good for nothing, harmful. Those who refuse to be converted, and thus to be made into good wheat. He will burn up. with unquenchable fire, that no power can put out or enable them to escape. The only possible hope of wicked men is in ceasing to be wicked.

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light."

LESSONS IN THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICE.

Let us prepare the way of the Lord's coming in our own hearts and in the community. Let us obey the summons to repent and do the works meet for repentance.

Let us open our hearts for the reception of the Holy Spirit of life.

Let us say with R. W. Gilder:

"If Jesus Christ is a man,

And only a man, I say,

That of all mankind I cleave to him,
And to him will I cleave alway.

"But if Jesus Christ is God,

And the only God, I swear,

I will follow him through heaven and hell,
The earth, the sea, the air."

LESSON II.

January 9.

THE BAPTISM AND TEMPTATION OF JESUS.

Matthew 3: 13-17; 4: 1-11.

COMMIT vs. 10, 11.

GOLDEN TEXT. In that he hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. - HEB. 2: 18.

Odyssey, best told for children in Hawthorne's exquisite Tanglewood Tales. The Greek story of the Sirens told by Homer. Trench's Poems, "Orpheus and the Sirens," illustrates the two ways of overcoming their fascination. "The Prophet of the Silver Veil" in Moore's Lalla Rookh. Virgil's story of Troy and the wooden horse. In George Eliot's Romola, Tito gradually deteriorates by yielding to temptation. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, "The Battle with Apollyon."

Quoting Scripture to defend sin, Richard III, 1:3; Merchant of Venice 1: 3; the Templar in Scott's Ivanhoe; Kipling's "Dream of Duncan Parrenness."

3: 13. 1Then cometh Jesus from Găl'i-lee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.

forbad

14. But John would have hindered him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?

1 Mark 1: 9; Luke 3: 21.

2 Matt. 2: 22.

THE MESSIAH-KING PREPARING TO ENTER UPON HIS WORK OF REDEMPTION.

I. The Training School of His Early Life. Jesus was both human and divine, the Son of God taking upon himself the nature of man. He could reveal the nature and

the will of God, because he personally knew God and eternal life and therefore could speak with the authority of perfect knowledge. But the human nature must grow, and be trained so as to become the fitting instrument of the divine.

THE SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS OF THE YOUNG JESUS. 1. The grace of God was upon him.

2. He was brought up in the atmosphere of a deeply religious home.

3. He was a student of the Bible, and a member of a Sabbath school.

4. He was an attendant at the synagogue, the counterpart of our church.

5. He lived in a patriotic atmosphere, and was familiar with the history of his country,

its great men, its great deeds, its divine guidance, and its Messianic hopes.
6. He had the manual training of regular daily work in a carpenter shop.

be drudgery."

"Blessed

7. He had contact with "the wide, wide world" and its temptations, for Nazareth not only had its bad people, but was within hearing distance of the great routes of travel.

8. He went to the great religious meetings, and came into contact with the great leaders. 9. His home for thirty years was in a village, where he could practise the daily virtues before launching out upon the stormy ocean of public life.

66

NOTE, that through all this he was growing in grace and in favor with God and

man."

NOTE, that all through these years he was "tempted like as we are," and gained the victory; and that these lesser victories were an essential preparation for the great crises and battles with temptation.

II. The Baptism of Jesus: His Public Announcement of His Position on the Side of Religion and Righteousness. - Matt. 3: 13-17. Cometh Jesus from Galilee, from his Nazareth home. To Jordan, probably at the ford near Jericho over which passed the great route of travel from the north and east to Jerusalem. To be baptized of (by) him, who was introducing the kingdom of God. The announcement and the one announced came together.

14. But John forbad, was in the act of preventing him, was protesting. I have need, etc. I am the sinful one, not you; as in v. II. " It was his whiteness against their