Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr19/olbpnt1.zip/PNT.001/V02450

Text File | 1993-04-21 | 16KB | 420 lines

02451
 # Lu 15:7
    \\Joy shall be in heaven.\\ The Father rejoices and the Son
 and the angels with him.
    \\Over one sinner that repenteth.\\ That "comes to himself,"
 decides to leave off sin and to serve God. Repentance means a
 change of mind or heart.
    \\Than over ninety and nine righteous persons.\\ Over those
 who are already in Christ, safe, and need no repentance. It is
 the saving of the lost that brings the greatest joy.
 (PNT 284)
02452
 # Lu 15:8-10
    \\What woman having ten pieces of silver?\\ It is the custom
 of the East to have a string of coins for a bracelet, necklace,
 or headdress. The joy of finding the lost piece again
 illustrates the joy of heaven over the lost sinner.
    \\Light a lamp.\\ Because Eastern rooms, often only lighted
 by the doors, are very dark.
 (PNT 284)
02455
 # Lu 15:11
    The Parable of the Lost Son (vv. 11-32). The two preceding
 parables represent Christ seeking for the lost; this, the sinner
 seeking for the Father's house; all three, the rejoicing over
 repentance.
    \\A certain man had two sons.\\ There is something in this
 inimitable parable which goes straight to every human heart. It
 is almost impossible to refuse an entrance to it. It storms the
 strongest fortress of the soul, by its appeal to the latent
 sensibility to impression, that dormant or sepulchred humanness
 which underlies in every man his surface of passion or pride; it
 makes its way to the sympathy of the rudest, and surprises the
 most callous into the emotion which finds its best relief in
 tears. The child loves to hear its simple and affecting story,
 and many a criminal whom crime has done its worst to harden has
 been subdued by some stray hearing of its experience, it seemed
 so like his own.--Punshon. In this parable the father is the
 Heavenly Father; the elder son, the self-righteous, in this
 case the Pharisees and scribes; the younger son, the sinful, in
 this case the publicans and sinners.
 (PNT 284-285)
02456
 # Lu 15:12
    \\Give me the portion of goods.\\ A selfish and unfilial
 demand, suitable to the sinner who demands of God to give, but
 returns no gratitude.
    \\He divided to them [his] living.\\ The elder would receive
 two shares and the younger one.
 # De 21:17
 (PNT 285)
02457
 # Lu 15:13
    \\Into a far country.\\ Wandered far away from the Father's
 house, from God.
    \\Wasted his substance.\\ All do in that far country. The
 worldly life is a wasted life. It is more baneful to waste our
 spiritual opportunities and resources than to waste earthly
 goods.
 (PNT 285)
02458
 # Lu 15:14
    \\There arose a mighty famine.\\ There is always one afar
 from God. The world cannot satisfy the soul.
    \\He began to be in want.\\ Many a lost one who has wasted
 all feels the want so deeply as to destroy his life. Byron is
 said to "have died of wretchedness."
 (PNT 285)
02459
 # Lu 15:15
    \\To feed swine.\\ The lowest possible occupation for a Jew.
 (PNT 285)
02460
 # Lu 15:16
    \\With the husks.\\ The pods of the carob tree. The husks of
 animal pleasures cannot satisfy the soul.
 (PNT 285)
02461
 # Lu 15:17
    \\When he came to himself.\\ Sin is an infatuation, a craze.
 When the blinded eyes of the soul are opened no man is content
 to abide in sin; that is, in destruction.
    \\How many hired servants.\\ The son was now himself a hired
 servant; so are all sinners, and the service is a hard one.
 (PNT 285)
02462
 # Lu 15:18
    \\I will arise and go.\\ This resolve is repentance, the
 change of purpose and heart. He is led to it by his sense of
 need, the burden of sin.
    \\Father, I have sinned.\\ His change of heart, or
 repentance, must be followed by confession.
 (PNT 285-286)
02463
 # Lu 15:19
    \\Am no more worthy.\\ His own claims of worth are gone. He
 has proved worthless. He is willing to take the humblest place
 in his father's house. Humility and consecration follow genuine
 repentance.
 (PNT 286)
02464
 # Lu 15:20
    \\He arose, and came to his father.\\ The sinner comes by
 faith, repentance, and obedience to Christ. The spirit must
 come. To come he must turn, leave the far country, sinful
 associations, and enter into spiritual union with Christ by
 baptism.
 # Ga 3:27 Ro 6:3,4
    \\His father . . . ran . . . and kissed him.\\ No sternness,
 no need of prayers; the father no sooner saw the wanderer coming
 than he rushed to meet him. How often is it written of Christ.
    \\Had compassion.\\ So, too, of the Father for the penitent
 sinner; the father does not even wait for the confession the son
 had resolved to make. Love cannot wait when it recognizes the
 purpose.
 (PNT 286)
02466
 # Lu 15:22
    \\The father said.\\ He interrupted the confession of the
 prodigal.
    \\Bring forth the best robe.\\ He had returned in
 rags. The best robe is the white robe of the righteous Christ.
    \\A ring on his hand.\\ A ring with a seal was a symbol of
 authority, of sonship.
    \\Shoes on [his] feet.\\ Servants went barefoot, but the
 shoes were a symbol of freedom.
 (PNT 286)
02467
 # Lu 15:23
    \\Bring here the fatted calf.\\ For a feast of welcome. To
 make such preparations was common in the simple life of the
 East. See
 # Ge 18:6-8
 (PNT 286)
02468
 # Lu 15:24
    \\For my son was dead, and is alive.\\ See
 # Eph 2:1-6
 It was a spiritual resurrection.
    \\They began to be merry.\\ Gladness should be manifested by
 all saints at the repentance of sinners.
 (PNT 286)
02469
 # Lu 15:25
    \\Now his elder son.\\ The Pharisees had complained of Jesus
 that "he receiveth sinners."
 # 15:2
 So the elder son complains that the father had welcomed the
 prodigal.
    \\Music and dancing.\\ In the dance of Judea the sexes did
 not intermingle. It was usually performed by hired professional
 dancers.
 (PNT 286)
02472
 # Lu 15:28
    \\He was angry.\\ So the Pharisees were with Christ for
 receiving sinners. So, too, the eminently respectable self-
 righteous in the church often are still when the publicans and
 sinners, the despised and outcast, are converted.
    \\His father came out, and entreated him.\\ So God in Christ
 still entreats all such to join in the welcome of the
 impenitent. It shows his long suffering.
 (PNT 286)
02473
 # Lu 15:29
    \\Neither have I at any time transgressed.\\ Here is the very
 spirit of Pharisaism, a self-righteous spirit. His charges show
 while nominally with the father, he was far away from him in
 spirit.
 (PNT 286)
02475
 # Lu 15:31
    \\Son.\\ The father pleads with the envious brother and tries
 to bring him to a better frame of mind, as Christ pleads with
 Israel.
    \\All that I have is thine.\\ "If a son, then an heir, and a
 joint heir with Christ."
 # Ro 8:17
 (PNT 286-287)
02476
 # Lu 15:32
    \\This thy brother.\\ If a son, then the returned sinner is
 his brother. Unless he, too, can welcome him, then \\he\\ is the
 lost son.
    "Those who object to all use of fiction must explain, as best
 they may, this story, for such it is. There is not even an
 application attached to it; the reader is left to make that for
 himself. As a representation of redeeming love it has been well
 called the Gospel in the Gospel. In comparison with others, it
 is the Crown and Pearl of all parables."--Stier.
 (PNT 287)
02477
 # Lu 16:1-7
  SUMMARY OF LUKE 16
  \\The Rich Man and Lazarus\\

  The Unjust Steward
  His Shrewd Forethought
  Making Friends with the Unrighteous Mammon
  The Scoffing of the Covetous Pharisees
  The Rich Man
  The Beggar at His Gate
  Death--One in Abraham's Bosom; the Other in Hades
  The Rich Man's Petition
  The Great Gulf
  Hearing Moses and the Prophets

    \\There was a certain rich man.\\ The three parables of the
 last chapter, the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son,
 are a rebuke of the self-righteousness of the Pharisees: the two
 of this chapter are directed against their covetousness.
    \\Had a steward.\\ An officer who had charge of his estates.
 Eliezer was the steward of Abraham; Joseph that of Potiphar.
 # Ge 24:2-12 39:4
 A man of business to take charge of the property is still common
 in the Old World on large estates. The Christian, to whom God
 has entrusted the earthly care of property that belongs to the
 Creator, is thus described.
 # Mt 25:14-30 Lu 19:11-27
    \\Had wasted his goods.\\ Dishonest; an embezzler.
 (PNT 287)
02478
 # Lu 16:2
    \\Give an account.\\ All will be called to such an account,
 at death, or sooner. Sometimes, because we have proved
 faithless, God takes the property out of our charge sooner.
 Dismissal from God's service, whether at death or sooner, is the
 consequence of wasting the Lord's goods.
 (PNT 287)
02479
 # Lu 16:3
    \\I cannot dig.\\ He was not accustomed to, or willing to
 come to, hard labour.
    \\I am ashamed to beg.\\ He ought to have been more ashamed
 to prove faithless to his trust.
 (PNT 287)
02480
 # Lu 16:4
    \\I am resolved.\\ "All at once, after long reflection, he
 exclaims, as if striking his forehead: I have hit it."--Godet.
 Many a rich man reaches a similar resolve when about to die.
    \\They may receive me.\\ He will put his Lord's debtors under
 such obligations to him that they will give him a home.
 (PNT 287)
02481
 # Lu 16:5
    \\He called every one.\\ The debtors; those that owed rent or
 on account.
 (PNT 287)
02482
 # Lu 16:6
    \\A hundred measures of oil.\\ Olive oil, one of the
 commonest products of Palestine. The measure contained about
 sixty pints.
    \\Take thy bill.\\ The contract.
    \\Sit down quickly.\\ In great haste, lest the dishonest
 transaction might be interrupted.
    \\Write fifty.\\ The throwing off of fifty measures would be
 equivalent to several hundred dollars.
 (PNT 287)
02483
 # Lu 16:7
    \\Hundred measures of wheat.\\ The wheat measure was about
 eleven bushels; the twenty remitted would be 220 bushels.
 (PNT 287)
02484
 # Lu 16:8
    \\The lord commended the unjust steward.\\ Commended not his
 faithfulness, but his wisdom in looking out for a home when
 about to lose his place. The one point taught is a prudent
 foresight that uses earthly resources to provide for a time when
 these resources will fail us.
 (PNT 288)
02485
 # Lu 16:9
    \\And I say to you.\\ The parable has ended and Christ now
 makes the application.
    \\Money of unrighteousness.\\ Mammon is equivalent to money,
 or wealth; called the "mammon of unrighteousness," not because
 it is acquired unrighteously, but because most use it
 unrighteously, treating it as their own, when they are only
 stewards.
    What is the use the Lord charges us to put it to? It is:
 "Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of
 unrighteousness (riches), that when it shall fail (when you can
 use it no longer), they shall receive you into eternal
 tabernacles" (heaven). It is strange that there is any
 difficulty over this passage, as translated clearly in the ASV.
 The only friends who can receive us into heaven are the Father
 and the Son. These are, then, the friends we must secure. During
 life our means must be so used as to please God and to lay up
 eternal treasure. If we use it as a trust of the Lord we will
 secure such a friend. Instead of hoarding we must make heavenly
 friends.
 (PNT 288)
02487
 # Lu 16:11
    \\If therefore ye have not been faithful.\\ If one is
 faithless in an earthly trust, how can he expect to receive a
 heavenly trust?
 (PNT 288)
02488
 # Lu 16:12
    \\Another man's.\\ That which belongs to God. All who have
 property should understand that it is another's.
    \\Your own.\\ The true riches, because they become a part of
 our being, the inalienable possession of the redeemed.
 (PNT 288)
02489
 # Lu 16:13
    \\No servant can serve two masters.\\
    See note on "Mt 6:24"
 (PNT 288)
02490
 # Lu 16:14
    \\The Pharisees . . . derided him.\\ They understood the
 parable as an attack on covetousness and, like the worldly wise,
 thought his doctrine foolish.
 (PNT 288)
02491
 # Lu 16:15
    \\Is  abomination.\\ Man exalts wealth, but the love of
 wealth, "the root of all evil," is "an abomination in the sight
 of God."
 # 1Ti 6:10 Lu 16:15
 (PNT 288)
02492
 # Lu 16:16
    \\The law and the prophets.\\
    See note on "Mt 11:12"
 (PNT 288)
02493
 # Lu 16:17
    \\Easier for heaven and earth to pass away.\\
    See note on "Mt 5:18"
 (PNT 289)
02494
 # Lu 16:18
    \\Every one that putteth away his wife.\\
    See note on "Mt 5:31"
 (PNT 289)
02495
 # Lu 16:19
    The Rich Man and the Beggar (v. 19-31). A parable, also,
 showing the consequences of a worldly spirit and the worldly use
 of wealth. "Here, as in other cognate parables, great wisdom is
 displayed in bringing the whole force of the rebuke to bear on
 one point. It is not intimated that this man made free with
 other people's money, or that he had gained his fortune in a
 dishonest way. All other charges are removed, that the weight
 lying all on one point may more effectively imprint the intended
 lesson. To have represented him as dishonest, or drunken, would
 have blunted the weapon's edge. Here is an affluent citizen, on
 whose fair fame the breath of scandal can fix no blot. He had a
 large portion in the world, and did not seek--did not
 desire--any other. He spent his wealth in pleasing himself, and
 did not lay it out in serving God or helping man."--Arnot.
    \\A certain rich man.\\ Not one whom the world would call
 great, but eminently respectable; one whom the worldly would
 admire, while the poor man was one whom the covetous world
 despise.
    \\Clothed in purple.\\ The purple was anciently the royal
 colour, the gorgeous hue of the imperial robes, and hence the
 very term, "the purple," is still used to signify the royal
 dignity.
    \\Fine linen.\\ The finest apparel.
    \\Fared sumptuously every day.\\ Enjoying not only the most
 sumptuous fare on the table every day, but every sensual
 enjoyment. How the world would admire his lot in life!
 (PNT 289)
02496
 # Lu 16:20
    \\A certain beggar.\\ Beggary, such as is here depicted, is
 much more common in the East than with us, and, in the absence
 of any more systematic provision, alms-giving to the poor was
 insisted upon by the OT.
 # Job 29:13 Ps 41:1 112:9 Pr 14:31
    \\Named Lazarus.\\ "Does not Christ seem to you to have been
 reading in that book where the found the name of the poor man
 written, but found not the name of the rich? For that book is
 the Book of Life."--Augustine.
    \\Laid at his gate.\\ Carried there because unable to walk.
 At the gate, where so many were passing, would be a favourable
 place for alms.
    \\Full of sores.\\ Cutaneous sores are most common in
 connection with abject poverty.
 (PNT 289)
02497
 # Lu 16:21
    \\The dogs came and licked his sores.\\ How abject his lot!
 Helpless, a beggar, glad to get crumbs, the dogs around him
 licking his sores! Such a lot the world would despise.
 (PNT 289)
02498
 # Lu 16:22
    \\The beggar died.\\ What became of his body is not stated.
 It may have been vast into the potter's field.
    \\Was carried by the angels.\\ Here is one who in his life
 had not a single friend, and now, suddenly, not one, but many
 angels wait upon him.--Luther. His body may have had no
 pall-bearers, but angels carried his soul.
    \\Into Abraham's bosom.\\ The place of rest where Abraham
 welcomed his children; heavenly bliss. The Jews spoke of those
 who went to Abraham's heavenly abode as in Abraham's bosom.
    \\The rich man also died, and was buried.\\ We are to infer
 that he had a splendid burial; his body was placed in a costly
 tomb, but where was he?
 (PNT 289)
02499
 # Lu 16:23
    \\In hell.\\ The abode of departed spirits, and to the
 wicked, a place of punishment.
    \\Being in torments.\\ His wealth has failed him; his good
 things have departed.
    \\Seeth Abraham . . . and Lazarus.\\ A proof of recognition
 beyond the grave.
    \\Afar off.\\ Widely apart in condition, character, and
 space.
 (PNT 289)