A London Suburban Minister 1 Peter 4:3-5 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have worked the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts… Life! What mystery is wrapped up in life! How great the power needed to originate it! What transcendent worth be longs to human life! to — I. "OUR LIFE." "Our life" is redeemed life. It was great to speak a world from nought; greater to create moral life and fashion it after the Divine original; greatest to redeem. II. "THE PAST OF LIFE." How little we know of the past — taking the word in its comprehensive relationship to the world! As question of history we know something of the world's civilisation, science, art, human laws, etc. But what do we know of the individual experience of mankind — its joys and sorrows? But there is a past for which God holds us responsible — an individual past. III. "THE TIME PAST OF OUR LIFE." Nothing that I have is my own. I belong to God, in body, soul, and spirit. I am, therefore, accountable to Him for my time. Life is God's loan to man, and time man's "life rent of the world." In the great day we are to stand before God to give an account of our stewardship. The "life rent" which the great Proprietor claims is service. He has put us into His beautiful world to make it more beautiful by adding moral to material beauty. If we fail to render this service we shall lose our life, in a sense which human language is not adequate to express. "And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing — Time? — that men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious irreparable hour of it in the garden of Gethsemane — they go to sleep! What opportunities have we lost! What privileges forfeited! What work for God neglected!" The secret of all the failures which have been enumerated is expressed by the apostle in one word, self-will — "the will of the Gentiles." Man doing his own will is the history of the world's sin and woe. Adoption into the family of God does not exempt us from its insidious workings. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" asks us to let the past "suffice to have wrought the wilt of the Gentiles," to renew our early vows, our first love, to be henceforth inspired with the holy ambition to be "conformed to the image of His Son." To attain unto this we must yield our wills to God. What are we living for? — for God or for self? (A London Suburban Minister.) Parallel Verses KJV: For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: |
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