Weakness and strength for God's service.
I. FEAR OF THE REJECTION OF THE MESSAGE WE BEAR FOR GOD MAKES ITS DELIVERANCE IMPOSSIBLE. The tidings he was to bear were so wonderful that he believed his words would be listened to with utter incredulity. Our Gospel is more wonderful still. To speak it, our eye must rest less on the message, and more on God's power to chastise and to bless. We are not critics of, nor apologists for, the Gospel: we are messengers sent before God's face. Our Master is behind us.
II. MIRACLES BELONG TO THE INFANCY OF FAITH. The signs are given because of unbelief. Elijah and Elisha work miracles among the tribes which had almost wholly forsaken God; Isaiah, Jeremiah, John, work none. The Apostles alone were empowered to bestow miraculous gifts, and these died out with the men who received them from the Apostles' hands. To bring again the age of miracles would be retrogression, not advance.
III. THE MIRACLES AS SIGNS.
1. The rod cast upon the ground becomes a serpent; the serpent dealt with in obedience to God s command becomes a rod. They who reject God's guidance will be pursued by his terrors, and if we deal with our foes as God directs us they will help, not harm us.
2. The hand put in the bosom (the attitude of determined indifference) becomes leprous; placed again in obedience to God's command, it is made whole. God can make the strength of the disobedient a burden and horror; and if we rest in him our loathsomeness and weakness will be changed into health and strength.
3. The sweet Nile waters changed into blood. The delight of the land to which unbelief will cling will become a loathing and a curse.—U.