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- Luke 9:51 56. James And John Betray A Revengeful Spirit.
Favell Lee Mortimer
Favell Lee Mortimer (July 14, 1802 – August 22, 1878) was a British author and educator whose evangelical writings preached salvation and moral instruction to children across the 19th century. Born in London, England, to David Bevan, a Barclays bank co-founder, and Favell Bourke Lee, she was the third of eight children in a wealthy Quaker family that moved to Hale End, Walthamstow, when she was six. Raised under evangelical influences like Rev. George Collison, she oversaw religious education on her father’s estates in Wiltshire and East Barnet, deepening her faith after a conversion in 1827. Mortimer’s preaching career took shape through her pen after marrying Rev. Thomas Mortimer in 1841, a popular London preacher whose ministry she supported until his death in 1850. Her sermons emerged in best-selling books like The Peep of Day (1833), which sold over 500,000 copies and was translated into 37 languages, delivering simple gospel truths to young minds with a stern emphasis on sin and hell. Works like Line Upon Line and More About Jesus extended her reach, blending education with evangelistic zeal, while later geographic titles like Near Home reflected her moral worldview. Widowed, she adopted a son, Lethbridge Charles E. Moore, and died at age 76 in West Runton, Norfolk, England.
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Favell Lee Mortimer preaches about the dangers of a revengeful spirit, using examples from the Bible such as the apostles James and John desiring to consume the Samaritans with fire and Jonah's desire for the destruction of Nineveh. Mortimer emphasizes the importance of interceding for sinners rather than invoking vengeance, highlighting how even Jesus prayed for His murderers while on the cross. The sermon urges self-reflection on our own spirits, encouraging the pursuit of charity that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 9:51-56. James and John Betray a Revengeful Spirit.
And was it the gentle apostle John who proposed to consume the Samaritans with fire? Yes, it was even that apostle whom Jesus loved; that apostle who leaned on his bosom at supper, who stood by his cross, and who became a son to the Messiah's bereaved mother. Yes, even John once indulged a proud, passionate, and revengeful spirit. When the Samaritan villagers refused to receive the Lord, the apostles James and John thought that they showed a holy zeal in desiring to revenge the insult. How easy it is to deceive ourselves respecting the motives of our actions! Party spirit often appears like holy zeal; but it is of an opposite nature, and comes from a different place. The Lord felt compassion for these ignorant Samaritans. They refused to receive him into their houses; but had they known who he was, and what he could bestow, they would have asked of him, and he would have received them into everlasting habitations. But they knew him not; they looked upon him as their enemy, because he belonged to the Jewish nation. The sin of the well-instructed apostles James and John was much greater than the sin of the ignorant Samaritans. When Moses and Aaron once said to the Israelites, "Must we fetch water for you rebels!" the Lord was so much displeased with the passionate speech, that he permitted neither of these eminent saints to enter the promised land. Yet was not the spirit of the brothers James and John like the spirit of Moses and Aaron on that occasion? The two leaders of Israel would have permitted the thirsty host to languish for lack of water; the two apostles were anxious to consume the Samaritan villagers with fire. There was once another prophet who indulged the same wrong spirit. Jonah desired the destruction of Nineveh. God expostulated with the prophet upon his cruelty in wishing so large a city, containing so many little children, to be destroyed. God loves better to hear his people intercede for perishing sinners, (as Abraham did for Sodom,) than to hear them plead for their destruction. It better becomes a creature, who deserves himself to be consumed, and who has been snatched by the arm of divine mercy as a brand from the burning—it better becomes such a one to ask mercy for his fellow-sinners, than to invoke vengeance. When Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume the captains that the king had sent to take him, he spoke in the power of God's Spirit, and not after his own will. When Elisha turned and cursed the children of Bethel, he acted by the direction of God. When David in his psalms denounces dreadful curses upon the wicked, he speaks in the person of Christ, and foretells the sentence which the Lord will pronounce upon His own enemies at the last day. There is not a word in the Bible, from the beginning to the end, to sanction a revengeful spirit. But nothing can show the hatefulness of such a spirit so clearly as the example of Christ. Even when nailed upon the cross, he prayed for his murderers, saying, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Do not we feel ashamed of the harshness and heat of our own spirits? Are we not too soon provoked, and too slowly pacified? All who know their own hearts lament that they have not yet attained to that charity which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. But let us not be discouraged. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit may sanctify our hearts, and subdue those proud tempers and angry feelings that disturb our peace, dishonor our profession, and displease our Savior.
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Favell Lee Mortimer (July 14, 1802 – August 22, 1878) was a British author and educator whose evangelical writings preached salvation and moral instruction to children across the 19th century. Born in London, England, to David Bevan, a Barclays bank co-founder, and Favell Bourke Lee, she was the third of eight children in a wealthy Quaker family that moved to Hale End, Walthamstow, when she was six. Raised under evangelical influences like Rev. George Collison, she oversaw religious education on her father’s estates in Wiltshire and East Barnet, deepening her faith after a conversion in 1827. Mortimer’s preaching career took shape through her pen after marrying Rev. Thomas Mortimer in 1841, a popular London preacher whose ministry she supported until his death in 1850. Her sermons emerged in best-selling books like The Peep of Day (1833), which sold over 500,000 copies and was translated into 37 languages, delivering simple gospel truths to young minds with a stern emphasis on sin and hell. Works like Line Upon Line and More About Jesus extended her reach, blending education with evangelistic zeal, while later geographic titles like Near Home reflected her moral worldview. Widowed, she adopted a son, Lethbridge Charles E. Moore, and died at age 76 in West Runton, Norfolk, England.