1 Peter 1:17-21 And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work… I. First, I would remind you of THE AWFUL NATURE OF THAT "FATHER" ON WHOM YOU PROFESS TO CALL. 1. Engaging, indeed, is the title under which your religion addresses you. But that God, that Father, to whom you must one day go, is a Being so pure that even the heavens are tainted in His sight. 2. It is not only your appearance before Him on that distant day that makes your sojourning on earth so fearful; for every hour of your existence here this incomprehensible and unseen Being is about your path. No retirement by night is so dark but His eye can penetrate it; no walk by day so intricate but He can follow it; no secret of the soul so hidden but He can see it. II. To the nature of that heavenly Father, into whose inheritance we are invited, the text directs us to add THE JUDGMENT TO WHICH WE SHALL ONE DAY BE SUMMONED. III. The third argument which the apostle uses for religious fear is drawn from THE MEANS ADOPTED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST FOR THE EVERLASTING SALVATION OF OUR SOULS. IV. THE NATURE OF THE WORLD IN WHICH WE DWELL, AND THE WEAKNESS OF THE HUMAN HEART. All the warnings that are given us, all the hopes that are held out to us, remind us of the danger of the state in which we dwell. The world, by professing to he Christian, is more dangerous; because it has lost the appearance of enmity, and has greater power over us by its failures. Look into your own heart, and, remembering yourself as a being designed for immortality, think on its wanderings, its coldness, its impurity, its inconstancy, and say if anything was ever so poor, so frail, so blind, so unprepared to meet its God! (G. Mathew, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: |
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