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00:23Let us pray.
00:48Let us pray.
00:54And that all sinful passion and affection being destroyed within me, I may be renewed in perfect innocence of life.
01:26Let us pray.
01:36Let us pray.
01:50Let us pray.
01:58Let us pray.
01:58Let us pray.
02:05Let us pray.
02:24Let us pray.
02:34Let us pray.
03:37Let us pray.
03:54Let us pray.
04:04Let us pray.
04:11Let us pray.
04:14Let us pray.
04:45Let us pray.
04:51Let us pray.
04:54Let us pray.
04:54Amen.
05:21Let us pray.
05:25Let us pray.
05:28Let us pray.
05:34Let us pray.
05:48Let us pray.
05:51Let us pray.
05:53Let us pray.
05:58Let us pray.
06:07Let us pray.
06:13Let us pray.
06:16Let us pray.
06:19And you are from generation to generation.
06:30Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
06:41as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
06:51world without end. Amen.
06:59Amen.
07:35Amen.
08:06Amen.
08:37Amen.
08:59Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
09:12as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
09:22world without end.
09:30Amen.
09:42A reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
09:45chapter 10, verses 24 to 42.
09:52A disciple is not greater than his teacher,
09:57nor is a slave greater than his master.
10:00It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher,
10:04and the slave like his master.
10:10If they have called the head of the house Beelzebub,
10:13how much more will they defame the members of his household?
10:19Do not be afraid of them,
10:21for nothing is hidden that will not be revealed,
10:24and nothing is secret that will not be made known.
10:29What I say to you in the dark, tell out in the light,
10:32and what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftop.
10:38Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
10:43Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
10:50Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
10:53And yet not one of them falls to the ground,
10:56apart from your father's will.
11:00Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.
11:04So do not be afraid.
11:06You are more valuable than many sparrows.
11:11Whoever then acknowledges me before people,
11:13I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.
11:17But whoever denies me before people,
11:20I will deny him also before my Father in heaven.
11:27Do not have the thought that I have come to send peace on the earth.
11:32I come not to send peace, but a sword,
11:34for I have come to put a man against his father
11:37and the daughter against her mother,
11:39and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
11:43A man will be hated by those of his own house.
11:49He who has more love for his father or mother than for me
11:52is not good enough for me.
11:55He who has more love for son or daughter than for me
11:58is not good enough for me.
12:00And he who does not take up his cross and come after me
12:03is not good enough for me.
12:07He who has the desire to keep his life will have it taken from him.
12:12And he who gives up his life because of me
12:14will have it given back to him.
12:18He who gives honour to you gives honour to me,
12:21and he who gives honour to me gives honour to him who sent me.
12:26He who gives honour to a prophet in the name of a prophet
12:30will be given a prophet's reward.
12:33And he who gives honour to an upright man,
12:35in the name of an upright man,
12:38will be given an upright man's reward.
12:43Whoever gives to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only,
12:47in the name of a disciple,
12:49truly I say to you,
12:51he will not go without his reward.
12:56This is the word of the Lord.
12:59Thanks be to God.
13:05We find here in this reading some general rules
13:09applicable to all the Lord's disciples of whatever status.
13:16First of all we learn of the potential for conflict.
13:21Disciples must be patient,
13:24looking only to Jesus.
13:26He is our example, our master and our Lord.
13:30He is in all things above us,
13:33immeasurably and beyond comparison,
13:36in his divine power and majesty,
13:38in his transcendent holiness,
13:40in his perfect love.
13:45He was despised and rejected of men,
13:48and his people must expect the same treatment.
13:52We are his disciples, his servants,
13:55and the great aim of our life should be
13:58to be to like him.
14:02To draw nearer and nearer,
14:04though always at an infinite distance,
14:07to that pattern of exalted goodness.
14:11We should not look for the high places of the world
14:14when the Lord endured the cross.
14:17We must not look for praise
14:19when he was so cruelly insulted.
14:23We must expect our best deeds to be misrepresented.
14:29People ascribed to the Lord's miracles of love,
14:33the agony, the agency of Satan.
14:38It is enough for the disciple
14:40that he be as his master.
14:44It is good for Christians to be blamed,
14:47to be despised, to be slandered.
14:51It is a discipline of meekness.
14:53It leads them to look into their hearts,
14:58to see their own sins and their shortcomings.
15:04And above all things,
15:06it makes them increasingly like their master.
15:10It brings them, if they take it patiently,
15:14into closer relations with their suffering Lord.
15:20And we have a duty of holy boldness.
15:24Suffering becomes a blessing,
15:26if it makes men like their Lord.
15:28And therefore they must not fear.
15:31Fear not is the Lord's commandment.
15:33His word of gracious encouragement.
15:38Fear not the misrepresentations of men.
15:42In the great day the secrets of men's hearts will be revealed.
15:46The falsehoods, the malice, the hypocrisy,
15:49the wickedness of the persecutors,
15:51of the faith, the purity, gentleness, charity
15:56of the Christian.
15:58Men will be seen as they truly are.
16:01The mask will be torn from the hypocrites.
16:05Unreality of every kind will be exposed.
16:09Therefore the Lord says,
16:11Be real and be true to your God and to yourselves.
16:14Speak out and fear not.
16:17The Lord prepared them for their work in private,
16:21in a little corner of Palestine.
16:24But they were to make his teaching public.
16:26He was to teach them secretly,
16:29in their hearts,
16:30by the guidance of his spirit leading them into all truth.
16:34But they were to proclaim openly and fearlessly
16:38the gospel message for the conversion of the world.
16:44Fear not those who kill the body.
16:48An agony of persecution would be at hand
16:51and the Lord prepares his servants for it.
16:55Do not fear them, says the Lord,
16:58for they cannot hurt the soul.
16:59Their power cannot reach beyond the grave.
17:04But there is a holy fear,
17:06a fear which is the beginning of wisdom,
17:09a fear which casts out all other fears,
17:11the fear of God.
17:14The power of the persecutor is but for a moment.
17:18He is the kingdom and the power and the glory
17:21forever and ever.
17:23They can kill the body only.
17:25Do not fear them.
17:29He can destroy both soul and body in hell.
17:33Fear him.
17:36This is not the fear which has torment.
17:38It is not a slavish fear.
17:40It is that deep, loving reverence
17:43which gives true dignity to the Christian life,
17:46which leads the believer to try always to realize the awful presence of God.
17:52To live in fear of displeasing him.
17:55To walk before him in lowly and reverential obedience.
18:02This fear is not cowardice.
18:04It is the highest courage.
18:06It strengthened the martyrs of the Lord in their cruel trials,
18:10in torture and in death.
18:13And today it strengthens the true Christian.
18:19And we have a duty of trustfulness.
18:22God's mercy is over all his works.
18:26He cares for all his creatures,
18:28even the smallest and the most insignificant.
18:32Much more, he cares for those precious souls for which he gave himself to die.
18:39The smallest of circumstances in our lives are not beneath his notice.
18:43The very hairs of our head, we are told, are all numbered.
18:48Every little trial, difficulty, vexation of our daily lives are known to him.
18:58Therefore, let us trust him in all the almighty protector,
19:03who notes the fall of every little sparrow.
19:09Fear not, says the Lord, fear not persecution, fear not sickness, pain, death.
19:16Not one of these things can separate us from the love of God,
19:19which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
19:24Right dear in the sight of the Lord,
19:27is the death of each and every one of his saints.
19:35And we learn of the end of this conflict,
19:38and the recognition of the conqueror.
19:42It costs much to confess Christ before men,
19:46in the days of fiery trial,
19:48even now it is not easy.
19:51It is to own him as our master and our Lord,
19:54not as the many who say to him,
19:56Lord, Lord,
19:58but as the few who confess them deeply in their hearts,
20:02in their day-to-day lives.
20:04The whole life,
20:05both the outward life of word and deed,
20:07and the inward life of thought and motive,
20:10has to be ordered by the obedience of Christ.
20:15Both are alike open to the searching,
20:18ever-watchful eye of God.
20:23Both must evince the confession of the heart that Christ alone is Lord.
20:29The whole life must be drawn around him as its centre.
20:33It must own him by ready, cheerful submission to him as its only king.
20:40The reward is not great.
20:42Such men will confess before his Father.
20:45In the glory of the great day before the assembled universe,
20:49the Almighty Judge, the Most Highly Saviour,
20:52will own them as his own true sheep,
20:56his redeemed.
20:58It is a lofty hope,
21:00and may it be all of ours.
21:05We learn of the rejection of the disobedient.
21:09Those who deny him, he will deny.
21:12Not those who, like Peter, having once denied have repented,
21:16with a true and contrite heart.
21:20But those who deny them in their lives,
21:23deny him in their lives,
21:25though they may profess that they know him.
21:28But those who do not show a willingness to obey,
21:31have no love, no self-denial.
21:34Those he will deny.
21:36Their profession may be loud, he tells us.
21:40Their display of religion may indeed be great.
21:43But he will deny them before his Father.
21:46For he knows their hearts,
21:48and they are not his.
21:53The conflict will be bitter.
21:57The Lord is the Prince of Peace.
21:59The angel, the anthem that celebrates his incarnation,
22:03dwelt on the gift of peace.
22:06But glory to God came first.
22:08Glory to God in the highest.
22:13Necessarily precedes peace upon earth.
22:17The second cannot be attained but through the first,
22:20and the conflict which secures it.
22:23Peace on earth was the object of the Lord's coming,
22:26but the sword must come first.
22:29The wisdom that is from above is first pure,
22:33then peaceful.
22:34The purity of Christ's holy teaching,
22:38its absolute originality,
22:40its utter difference from the established modes of faith and worship,
22:45would excite our most violent of opposition.
22:49The zeal of the Christian would arouse the zeal of the persecutor.
22:54And there would be sharp divisions even within the family circle.
22:58And sometimes it is even so today.
23:02And it is truly a bitter trial.
23:06But Christ must come first in our hearts,
23:09in our love, whatever the cost.
23:13He set nothing above our salvation,
23:16and in the same way we must set nothing above his love.
23:20Human love is very precious,
23:22but not so precious as the love of Christ.
23:26All other love must be subordinated to that one highest love.
23:34In truth, they love their earthly friends the best,
23:37who, loving Christ above all others,
23:40love mother or wife or child in Christ,
23:44and for Christ according to his will.
23:47But the heart must be truly given to Christ,
23:49who gave himself for us.
23:52You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.
23:55It is the first of all commandments,
23:58the deepest and the holiest.
24:00But from this spreads love to one and other.
24:08And let us remember the cross.
24:11For the first time we meet with that great word,
24:14the word once so hateful and now so sweet and so holy.
24:21The Lord looked forward with prophetic vision,
24:24seeing himself bearing the cross.
24:27He sees his faithful followers,
24:30each with his own cross,
24:32moving onward in long procession to the glory crown.
24:36The cross, the burden, his toil of life.
24:42His words must have seemed very dark and strange.
24:46The apostles looked to him with the utmost of reverence
24:50and now he, their king, spoke of the cross,
24:53that thing so totally loathsome.
24:57He said that they must take it up.
25:00He called it their cross.
25:03He implied that he himself would bear it.
25:05But they could not have understood him then,
25:09but they knew afterwards.
25:12We know his meaning.
25:14There is no crown without the cross,
25:17no heaven without the self-denial for Christ's sake,
25:21no salvation without the burden carried,
25:26the burden of faith.
25:32And in this we inherit the true life.
25:36If this life is dear to us,
25:39the life to come should be yet dearer by far.
25:43Our present life will be continued in the life beyond the grave.
25:47Our personality is one.
25:49Our life here and hereafter is one life under two different forms.
25:55Here is the Christian paradox.
25:57He who finds loses, but he who loses finds.
26:02He who sets his love upon this earthly life
26:05and does not take up his cross,
26:07loses the higher life.
26:11His life continues, but in it it becomes death, utter death,
26:15to all that makes life worth living.
26:17And he who loses finds.
26:20He who counts all things as dross that he may win Christ,
26:25finds Christ,
26:27and in him finds the true life,
26:30the life that can never die.
26:36So let us conclude by reflecting on the dignity of the apostolic office.
26:42The apostles were the ambassadors of Christ.
26:46They represented him.
26:48They carried his message.
26:50But more than that, the Lord was forever with them.
26:54Therefore, to receive them in Christian love and hospitality
26:57was to receive the Lord Christ himself.
27:01He comes with his true servants.
27:03He fills their hearts.
27:05He inspires their words.
27:06And therefore, let us receive them ourselves in love,
27:11that in receiving them and their message,
27:14we may receive into our hearts the one who sent them.
27:19He himself is the one true apostle and high priest of our call.
27:25He that receives me receives him that sent me.
27:31And so are prophets and righteous men.
27:35All Christ's true servants bear witness for Christ.
27:40Some by their words, some by the silent eloquence of a holy life.
27:45But all bring a blessing with them to such as are worthy.
27:51They who receive a prophet because he is a prophet and so speaks for God.
27:56They who receive a righteous man because he is righteous,
28:00a servant of the Lord,
28:02shall receive the reward of the prophets or a righteous man.
28:07For in honouring them, they are honouring God.
28:10In helping their work, they are helping the word of God.
28:15How these words of Christ ought to stimulate us
28:19to assist all faithful missionaries,
28:23all earnest self-denying men of God.
28:27When we help those with our arms and our prayers,
28:30we are sharing their work, making it in a measure our own work.
28:34And the Lord himself tells us,
28:38we all share their reward.
28:44For think of the dignity of all the Christians.
28:48All belong to Christ,
28:50not only apostles and prophets and righteous men,
28:53but also the little children,
28:55the smallest of whom Jesus loved so well,
28:59whom he took up in his arms and blessed,
29:02who he bade us to bring to him.
29:05They are his,
29:06and therefore the gift of love given to them,
29:09because they belong to Christ,
29:10shall never lose its reward.
29:13The smallest deed of holy love is precious
29:17in the sight of the one who is love.
29:21So let us care for the little children.
29:24Let us tend the sick and the forsaken.
29:27Let us teach the ignorant.
29:32Orphanages,
29:33children's hospitals, Sunday schools are good,
29:36and Christian institutions.
29:40And those who help the little ones,
29:42because they belong to Christ,
29:44shall not,
29:44the Lord has promised it,
29:47lose their reward.
29:53So what can we conclude?
29:56We must be content to be despised as the master was despised,
30:01for the disciple is not above his master.
30:05We should fear God,
30:08fear nothing else but God,
30:10be bold in bearing witness for the truth.
30:15God cares for us in every one of our trials,
30:19great or small.
30:21We should and must bring them all before him
30:25in trusting prayer.
30:28What must be the unutterable blessedness
30:32of those whom Christ will confess in the last day?
30:36Let us confess him now and every day.
30:41The cross, our suffering,
30:44is the very emblem of our religion,
30:47our faith,
30:48our heart.
30:50We must take it up right now
30:53and never let it down
30:55as we look up toward the cross of Jesus Christ.
31:19We praise you, O God,
31:23and may I ask you to be our Lord.
31:27All the earth now worships you,
31:31O Father, everlasting.
31:36God's emp Ephesians and to the Holy Spirit,
31:38O person hymns the Him of our sin.
31:45Fromunes, form and组 thought the joy of God,
31:51and toujours hearted.
31:52May I pray for you, O Son,
31:59and may I pray for you and my grass,
35:42Amen.
35:48May the Lord bless us and keep us from all evil bringing us to everlasting life.
35:55Amen.
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