Classic Sermon Outlines (continued)
CLASSIC SERMON OUTLINES — Alexander Maclaren
B. Present Modes of Utterance. utterance will cease. With new Be erienies see come new ened of communication; as a man can speak and a beast can only growl or bark. So a man in heaven, with new experiences, will have new methods of communication.
2. The comparison between the present mode of communication and that of the future. The comparison between that mode of utterance which we now have and that which we shall then possess will be like the difference between the old-fashioned semaphore that used to wave about clumsy wooden arms in order to convey intelligence, and the telegraph.
II. THE THINGS THAT ARE PERMANENT.
A. Faith.
1. Its rel fe at daclevieulcenesae gece Ce eee the singular. Do not correct the grammar and spoil the sense, but discern what he means, that the two latter come out of the former and that without © it they are nought and that it without them is dead.
2. Its essence. The essence of faith is not the absence of the person | trusted, but the emotion of trust which goes out to the person, present or | absent. In its deepest meaning of absolute dependence and happy confidence, faith abides through all the glories and the lustres of the heavens.
B. Hope.
1. The difference between earthly and Christian hope. Our hopes, apart from the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, are but the balancings of proba-. bilities and the scale is often dragged down by the clutch of eager desires. Only the Christian has a rock foundation on which he can build his hope.
2. The reason hope abides. The future presents itself to us as the continual communication of an inexhaustible God to our progressively capacious | and capable spirits. In that continual communication there is continual progress. Wherever there is progress there must be hope.