Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul… Christ cautions His disciples against three particular things. 1. Bodily torments. 2. Disgrace. 3. Death.Which last He cautions against for these three reasons. 1. Because it is but the death of the body. 2. Because hell is more to be feared. 3. Because they live under the special care of God's ever-seeing Providence, and cannot, therefore, be taken away without His permission.The words of the text pregnant with great truths. 1. That it is within the power of man to divest us of all our temporal enjoyments. 2. That the soul of man is immortal. 3. That God has absolute power to destroy the whole man. 4. That the thought of damnation ought to have greater weight to engage our fears than the most exquisite miseries that the malice of man is able to inflict. The prosecution of this lies in two things. I. IN SHOWING WHAT IS IN THOSE MISERIES WHICH MEN ARE ABLE TO INFLICT THAT MAY LESSEN OUR FEARS OF THEM. 1. They are temporal, and concern only this life. 2. They do not take away anything from a man's proper perfections. 3. They are all limited by God's overruling hand. 4. The good that may be extracted out of such miseries as are inflicted by men is often greater than the evil that is endured by them. 5. The fear of those evils seldom prevents them before they come, and never lessens them when they are come. 6. The all-knowing God, who knows the utmost of them better than men or angels, has pronounced them not to be feared. 7. The greatest of these evils have been endured, and that without fear or astonishment. II. IN SHOWING WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BODY AND SOUL IN HELL WHICH MAKES IT SO FORMIDABLE. It is the utmost Almighty God can do to a sinner. When tempted, ponder man's inability and God's infinite ability to destroy. The case of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. (R. South, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. |
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