1 Peter 4:17-19 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us… Suppose, in the place of God as Creator, we substitute chance, or fate, or law, what a blank we have at once in the highest regions of thought and feeling! If you are only the offspring of a blind, unintelligent, unknown force; if you are the product of something that men call "a tendency" or law, are you not immediately let down from a conscious dignity, which has been one of the most ennobling factors and influences of your life? As a child of God you have a supreme motive to be Godlike; as a creature of force you are deprived of all such motives. I. GOD THE CREATOR IS FAITHFUL IS HIS RELATIONS TO US HIS CREATURES. It is surely not a presumptuous thing to assert that God has assumed, by the very act of creating us, something like responsibility for our well-being. We cannot conceive of a God calling sensitive creatures like ourselves into existence, and then leaving us to our own poor hapless devices. We reason from analogy — we say, in the common arrangements of society, that parentage involves the idea of obligation. But let us come to declarations and facts — the declarations of Scripture and the facts of human life. In the Book we read, from one end to the other, that God has the charge of our existence; that He acknowledges our claim, as His creatures, as His children, on His bounty and wisdom and love. We take the third step in the inquiry, and look at the facts of life. Just as a parent will seek to adapt the surroundings of a child to its powers and capacities, to place him in a position where he shall obtain all the enjoyment that is compatible with his growth and development; so God has provided the things that are. He has furnished the world as the fitting nursery and schoolhouse for the family of man that He is educating for an immortal and perfect life. II. GOD THE CREATOR IS FAITHFUL TO THE GREAT PURPOSE FOR WHICH HE MADE US HIS CREATURES. We here and now cannot see what the design in the creation of mall is — that is, not to the full of what God purposes to make of us; how He intends by and by in another state of being to use us. We are here only preparing for the sublime work of some future, preparing to fulfil what our Father has had in view for us from the beginning. It could have been for no insignificant position and service that He did actually make men in His own likeness, giving them the high honour of resembling Himself in those spiritual characteristics which constitute the essence of His being. Some time since I stood looking with melancholy interest on the magnificent desolations of Kenilworth Castle. It was a spectacle that filled the heart with regret, but beneath one part were some workmen busily engaged in introducing new layers of stone. On inquiring what they were doing, I was told they were supporting the ruin to prevent its getting any worse. That was all that the owner of that once famous place could do — support the ruin! With that he must be content; but it would not be surprising if he left it alone to the swift process of decay. Human nature is ruined, but not left to decay, not simply kept from getting worse. The will of God is complete recovery, restoration to even greater glory in all its parts, and to this end nothing the Divine Father could expend that would serve this purpose has been withheld. A faithful Creator! Who is like unto Him? He has never left and never forsaken us. And He will not until we again reflect His glory in the fullest measure, and are prepared to take that high place and do that grand service for which we were originally designed. Being faithful to us, can we not trust Him and commit our souls to Hint? (W. Braden.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? |
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