Category Archives: James Stalker
Suffering Is Part of God’s Will
Suffering is the will of God. It is his chief instrument for fashioning His creatures according to His own plan. While by our work we ought to be seeking to make a bit of the world such as He would have it to be, by our suffering He is seeking to make such as He would have us to be. He blocks up our pathway by it on this side and on that, in order that we may be kept in the path which He has appointed. He prunes our desires and ambitions; He humbles and makes us meek and acquiescent. By our work we help to make a well-ordered world, but by our suffering He makes a sanctified man; and in His eyes this is by far the greater triumph.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 153.
True Repentance
True repentance is not the mere honor and excitement of a terrified conscience: it is the call of God; it is letting go the evil because the good has prevailed; it includes faith as well as fear.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 78.
Christ’s Sufferings Are a Rebuke
Christ’s sufferings are a rebuke to our softness and self-pleasing. It is not, indeed, wrong to enjoy the comforts and the pleasures of life. God sends these; and, if we receive them with gratitude, they may lift us nearer to Himself. But we are too terrified to be parted from them and too afraid of pain and poverty. Especially ought the sufferings of Christ to brace us up to endure whatever of pain or reproach we may have to encounter for His sake. Many would like to be Christians, but are kept back from decision by demand of the laughter of profane companions or by the prospect of some worldly loss. But we cannot look at the suffering Saviour without being ashamed of such cowardly fears. If the crown of thorns no becomes Christ so well as to be the pride and the song of men and of angels, be assured that any twig from that crown which we may have to wear will not one day turn out to be our most dazzling ornament.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 64.
The Difficulty of Doing Nothing
To do nothing is often more difficult than to do the greatest things, and to submit requires more faith than to achieve.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 153-154.
Christ, the Word of God
Only the Christ of the Scriptures could have brought us the salvation of the Scriptures.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 174.
The Kind of Saviour We Have
It is not our sin that makes us weep; it is when we see what kind of Saviour we have sinned against.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 32.
This the Power of the Cross
The power that kept [Christ] on the cross was a far mightier one than would have been necessary to leave it. It was not by the nails through His hands and feet that He was held, nor by the ropes with which His arms were bound, nor by the soldiers watching Him; no, but by invisible hands — by the cords of redeeming love and by the constraint of a divine design.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 108-109.
The Cruelty of a Christless Religion
Those who have in any degree shared the company of Christ can never afterwards be as if they had not enjoyed this privilege; and religion, if it does not save, will be the cruelest element in the soul’s perdition.
James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966), 77.
Life Is Worship 