The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little
Sermons
Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His
disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated
and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that
devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at
their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to
the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of
themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and
self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,
half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thus
identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic
ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that the
demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names
are written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege and
power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote
humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.
We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--a
lesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.
It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of
egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to
self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Ye
shall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which
beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before
them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never
trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival
Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated
and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its
attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer
paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the
gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain
into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of
sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty
king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm
splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which
dulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the East
lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his
self-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I have
built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for
the honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!
In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening
judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was
compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven
is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow
of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his
throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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