their full accomplishment in Himself. They are very familiar to our
ears. If we would understand their startling audacity we must listen
to them with the ears of the Nazarenes, who had known Him ever since
He was a child. 'This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.'
Now, it seems to me that this first sermon of our Lord's to His old
fellow-townsmen brings into striking prominence some characteristics
of His whole teaching, to which I desire briefly to direct
attention.

I. I note Christ's self-assertion.

To begin in Nazareth with such words as these in my text was
startling enough, but it is in full accord with the whole tone of
our Lord's teaching. If you will carefully search for the most
essential characteristics and outstanding differentia of the words
of Jesus Christ, even if you make all allowance that some make
for the non-historical character of the Gospels, you have this left
as the residuum, that the impression which He made upon the men that
were nearest to Him, and that caught up most fully the spirit of His
teaching, was that the great thing that differentiated it from all
other was His unhesitating persistence in pushing into the very
forefront, His testimony about Himself. I do not think that there is
anything parallel to that anywhere else amongst the men whom the
world recognises as being great religious geniuses or great moral
teachers. What characterises as perfectly unique our Lord's teaching
is not only the blessed things that He said about God or the deep
truths that He said about men and their duty, or the sad things that
He said about men and their destiny, or the radiant hopes that He
unveiled as to men and their possibility, but what He said about
Himself. His message was not so much 'Believe in God and do right,'