Song of Songs: The Greatest Love Story in the World

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 19        The Setting of the Pearl               The book of the generation of Jesus Christ--Mat 1:1               The Fact of Jesus--Mark's Gospel              It is generally agreed that the Gospel of St. Mark is the earliest of the four Gospels, and it is notable that in this earliest Gospel there is no genealogy at all. St. Mark does not give the ancestry of Christ, nor does he say a word about His lineage. He stands beside the flowing river, and never seeks to trace it to its source. St. Mark, from the very outset, has his gaze fixed upon the Savior, and brings the reader face to face with Him. There is no attempt to explain the fact of Christ, by relating it to the long past. All that will come in s...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 17        The Note of the Heroic               His eyes were as a flame of fire--Rev 1:14              It is notable that in this vision of the ascended Savior, the eyes should have been as it were a flame of fire. That is hardly the characteristic we should have expected after hearing of hair that was as white as snow. The snow-white hair suggests to us venerable age; it hints at the passing of unnumbered years with the inevitable quenching of the fire of youth; but when we should look for eyes that were very gentle or that were filled with the wise tenderness of age, we find that His eyes were as a flame of fire. Now that contrast at once suggests to me this thought. In Christ there is not only a beauty as of silvered age; there is also a fire and a heroism as of ...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 16        Contrasted Environments               I was in the isle that is called Patmos I was in the Spirit--Rev 1:9-10              The two brief texts which I have chosen suggest the two environments of life, and do so in a very vivid way. For John, the one environment was Patmos, a rugged and inhospitable island where the sound of the breakers was never far away and everything was desolate and dreary. But along with that there was another, unseen and yet intensely vivid, for John says, I was in the Spirit. He was moving in a spiritual world, living in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. He was engirdled by the love of heaven and by all the promises of God. And there is one very delightful little touch that reveals to the discerning heart which was the real environ...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 14                        Have You Tried the Way of Love?               He that dwelleth in God, and God in him--1Jo 4:16              In a thoughtful book I came across a striking suggestion about Jesus. It is that the question He is always asking is, "Have you tried the way of love?" His teaching was infinitely varied and exquisitely adapted to the moment. He couched it in a hundred forms according to the demand of the occasion. But the question He was always asking, and which He is always asking still, is, Have you tried the way of love? There is nothing radically new in this, for love is native to the human heart. In the dimmest past and in the darkest spot some spark of love is found. Th...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 13        The Omniscience of Love               For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things--1Jo 3:20              There are some texts of Scripture, and this is one of them, which are very generally misinterpreted. This does not speak of a condemning God, but of a God whose name and character we love. As commonly and perhaps naturally understood, the whole verse has to do with condemnation. We rise from the condemnation of ourselves to the far severer scrutiny of God. If our own imperfect consciences condemn us, how much more awful must the condemnation be of One who is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Now if the verse stood in any other context, that would be quite a reasonable rendering. We know that the heaven...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 12        The Crowning Vision               We shall see him as he is--1Jo 3:2              Whether we shall see God as He is, is a question that has been often agitated in the schools. No man hath seen God at any time. That we shall know Him with a knowledge intimate and satisfying is the Scriptural hope which we all cherish. God doth so interpenetrate all heaven that to be in heaven is to be in God. But whether we shall see Him face to face, and have an immediate vision of His being, is a question on which men have reverently differed. Even the seraphim around the throne veil their faces with their wings before Him. These mighty creatures, the bodyguard of heaven, cannot brook the glory of Jehovah. And so it has been reverently questioned whether it will ever be p...

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons Devotional For December 11        The Necessity of Acknowledging Sin               If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar--1Jo 1:10              This text is just a little difficult to understand, and the difficulty is of a peculiar kind because it is not quite so easy to see what is the connection between the conclusion and the premises. "If we say that we have not sinned," that is premise; and "we make God a liar," that is the conclusion. There are some texts in Scripture a little difficult to understand because the phraseology is difficult, and there are some texts hard to understand because they seem to contradict our highest moral sense; but this is one of those numerous texts where it is a little hard to see the connection between the conclusion and the premises. If John ha...