1. The end of your earthly engagements is at hand.
2. The end of your worldly enjoyments is at hand.
3. The end of trial and sorrow to the godly is at hand.
4. The end of our privileges and opportunities is at hand.
5. The end of our probation is at hand.
II. The important considerations founded on this truth.
1. Be sober.
2. Be watchful.
3. Be prayerful. (Pulpit Studies.)
The end of all things at hand
“The end of all things is at hand.”
1. This is literally true of all those objects which we see or which are obvious to any of our senses. They are temporal; they have had a beginning, they shall have an end. The material universe, in all its beauty, forms but a single link in the plans of that adorable Being who is without beginning of days or end of time; and its whole duration is but a single step in the march of that government which is from everlasting to everlasting.
2. The end of all things earthly is at hand, so far as we are concerned with them, or take an interest in them, because we shall soon leave them all behind. To each of us the time is short. Our days are but an hand’s breadth. Shall we devote ourselves to pursuits we must so soon abandon? Shall we heap up treasures in this world as if it were our eternal home, when we know not at what moment we shall be summoned to bid a last adieu to all things earthly?
3. The end of all things is at hand, because all the objects of time and sense are frail and fluctuating; human society, in all its relations and interests, is full of change; and the world itself, with everything fair and excellent that it contains, is constantly fading and dying around us. And now what practical lessons ought we to learn from the view we have thus taken of ourselves, as dying creatures, and of this as a fading world? Surely we ought to give heed to the exhortation, “Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.” Shall we not subdue and restrain within the strictest bounds of temperance those appetites and passions which belong only to these dying bodies, and which, if indulged, will destroy our souls? But the subject should teach us lessons of devotion as well as of soberness. “Watch unto prayer.” Shall we forget that awful eternity on whose very threshold we daily walk, or fail to recognise our relations to that adorable Being whose glorious perfections will so soon break in unclouded splendour upon our souls? Forbid it, reason, duty, conscience; forbid, Parent of our mercies. (W. J. Armstrong.)
The nearness of eternity
I. The end of all things is at hand. Nothing abides around you. Like the stream which wanders through the valley, everything is flowing by. A single year is often sufficient to change the whole complexion of life. The Christian contemplates, if with awe, yet in peace, the breaking up of all human schemes, and societies, and pleasures, and gains, and losses. He anticipates the wreck, but he feels himself to be in the ark.
II. The practical influence of this consideration.
1. Sobriety of mind is that temperate use of all earthly things, and that moderate estimate of their worth, which disposes the Christian rather to detach his affections from present objects, than to be inordinately excited by them. The near view of eternity peculiarly assists him in this moderation as to worldly enjoyments.
2. Prone, however, to be misled by his senses, he feels the necessity of incessant watchfulness. “Be ye therefore sober, and watch.” His natural love of ease, his reluctance to self-denial will but too readily dispose him to adopt the theory rather than the practice of sobriety. Hence it becomes his duty to be ever vigilant over his own spirit, to examine candidly the actual habit of his mind; to watch diligently lest he act inconsistently with his professed principles; lest the world exert an undue influence over his heart; lest self-delusion put him off his guard.
3. But the apostle directs believers to connect this sobriety and this vigilance with prayer. Indeed prayer is the only source of this sobriety and this watchfulness of mind. The brightest impressions fade from the soul if they are not renewed continually by the grace and blessing of God. Hence prayer is to the Christian the very life and health of his soul. (G. S. Noel, M. A.)
The nearness of eternity
There is a great contrast between the believers of the apostolic age and ourselves. The voyager detects the near proximity of land by the fresh land breeze which breathes in his face, wafting the sounds and scents of forest, or prairie, or heather covered hill. So through these Epistles we inhale another atmosphere than that with which we are so familiar in Christian societies. We live in the world and pay occasional visits into the unseen and eternal; they lived in the unseen and eternal, and paid periodic necessary visits into the world. We conform to the world; they were transformed by the daily renewing of their minds. We read the society papers, discuss society gossip, send our children into society, and strive to hold our own in dress and appointments with the cream of society around us; they, on the other hand, were thought strange and ridiculous, because they lived amongst men as “the children of the resurrection.” Surely the contrast is not to our credit, although we vaunt our fancied superiority. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Waiting for the end
The warning of the apostle meant one thing to the Jew, another to the Christian. To the Jew it meant that the end of his nation, as a nation, had come. It meant that all the types and signs of the Messiah had been fulfilled in Christ, the true Light had appeared, and the shadows must flee away. But for the Christian the text moans more. For each of us, in one way or another, it is true that “the end of all things is at hand.” Yes, of all things which belong to this life.
1. The end of earthly greatness, or wealth, or pleasure, is at hand. We read of our most famous heroes, conquerors, statesmen, and all we can see of them is a tomb in our calm cathedral. When the famous General and Conqueror Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was old they used to beguile the tedious hours by reading aloud the history of his own campaigns. Then he would turn to the reader and ask the question, “Who commanded?” He had forgotten all the glories of Blenheim, and of Ramillies, of Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. I saw but lately a lock of King Charles I’s hair, that is all that remains of the martyr king of England. The end of earthly greatness is at hand.
2. Again, the end of earthly friendship and connections is at hand.
3. Next, the end of our opportunities is at hand. Ah! make the most of your chances; once lost, they come not back again. Wisely did the old Greeks write upon the walls of one of their temples, “Know thy opportunity.”
4. Once more, the end of our time of trial and waiting is at hand. Peter bids us prepare ourselves for that great beginning which commences when this life is ended. He bids us to be sober, to be watchful in prayer, to have fervent love for one another, and to show it in deeds as well as words. You would not expect the flowers to grow in your garden if the weeds were allowed to have the upper hand. Neither can you expect the graces of the soul to flourish if your body is your master. And not only should we be sober in our bodily passions, but in our words. There are many good people, sober people in other things, who are very intemperate in their talk. And again, we need to be sober in our religion, especially in these days. I do not mean that we are to be idle and indifferent, but we need not be noisy. Next, we are bidden to watch unto prayer. (H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M. A.)
Be ye therefore sober.-
Soberness and watchfulness
I. The solemn fact, by the mention of which it is evidently the design of the apostle to arouse thought, to set the religious imagination on the full stretch of all its powers. “The end of all things is at hand.” Different interpretations have been put upon this expression. Some understand it of Christ’s coming at the end of the world; others only the dissolution of the Jewish ecclesiastical polity, then about to receive its last blow at the hands of the armies of Vespasian. The predicted accompaniments of the destruction of Jerusalem were so overwhelmingly awful, that, for all practical purposes to the men of that generation, the event might as well have been the winding up of the present economy-the termination of the life of all human kind. And we see at once the force of the motive drawn from this reference to “the end of all things.” It is to make us connect with everything belonging to our present state the idea of unsettledness; to keep our hearts from growing to particular places, or being bound up with particular forms of happiness; to make us feel that everything we love or look upon, in the present state, is waning, shifting, and of doubtful life. Oh! surely the anticipation of future good things should elevate, purify, solemnise, bless. It should teach moderation. It should incite to diligence.
II. Consider what duties devolve upon us in view of these expected consummations.
1. “Be sober.” The expression may be taken in many ways. For instance, we are to be sober in the use of God’s providential gifts. It is constantly assumed, in Scripture, that all habits of luxurious living, all undue con cessions to the desires of the lower nature, have an injurious effect upon character. They tend to impair the delicacy of the religious susceptibilities. They induce a dislike and reluctance to spiritual employments. They incapacitate for sympathy with distress and need. They tend to degrade and sensualise the whole man.
2. Again, the text may be considered as warning us to be sober in our aims of life; to keep clear of an entangled, perplexed, and cumbered spirit; not to raise the scaffolding of our worldly hopes too high, nor to have too many buildings going on at the same time. The reason for the admonition is to be found in the tendency of these overheated contests in the race of life to enslave, and pervert, and unspiritualise the best affections of the heart.
3. Further, I think the text would teach us to be sober in our griefs-whether in time of sickness, or sorrow, or adversity, or bereavement.
III. “And watch unto prayer.” The exhortation to “watch” supposes danger, weakness, a proneness to fall asleep, or the near presence of a foe. The text seems to point especially to certain dangers or hindrances we are liable to in the exercises of devotion: we are to “watch unto prayer.”
1. Thus we are to watch against weariness, and coldness, and faintings of heart in prayer. If prayer be the soul’s strength, the heart’s repose, the world’s antidote, the devil’s dread, why is it that we pray, not only so languidly, but so little? It is therefore languidly, because little. We do not tarry long enough in the exercise to realise that without which prayer is no prayer-namely, mental communion with the Infinite, something in our heart felt to be reciprocated and returned by the heart of God. To watch against the stealthy encroachments of the world, we shall do well to be early with our devotions.
2. Again, we should watch against the distracting influence of an over-anxious and careful spirit in prayer. A perplexity, a disappointment, a fancied grievance, a slight difference with a friend, an issue hanging in suspense, a feared evil which may never come-any one of these, if not watched against, may rob us of all peace in devotion for days together. But we must learn to drive these intruders from the altar, as Abraham drove the fowls away. A Christian is to commit his way unto the Lord, and all his way-his burden, and all his burden. And having cast his care upon the Lord, he leaves it where it is cast.
3. Further, we must watch against any unsubdued tendencies to evil in our own hearts, in prayer. These tendencies may show themselves either in act or in spirit; and, in either case, will raise up a cloud between us and the eternal throne, which no prayer can pass through.
4. Lastly, I would regard our text as an exhortation to watch against Unbelief in prayer; against any allowed misgivings of Christ’s love to pity or of His infinite ability to save. (D. Moore, M. A.)
Christian sobriety
There are sins of the spirit as well as sins of the flesh which the truly sober man will abstain from. The temperance commended in the New Testament is no one-sided, one-limbed virtue. It forbids the lust of wealth, and an extravagant devotion to business, and an inordinate indulgence in recreation, as truly as it forbids excess in drinking or gluttony in eating. It commands a wise self-government and a strong self-restraint in relation to all earthly pursuits and enjoyments and honours. The Puritanism that still lingers amongst us does not think too much about the quality, but it does think too little about the quantity of pleasure that is pursued. It is too often overlooked that probably people are spiritually damaged more by the extravagant amount than by the questionable character of their recreations. We prescribe some and we permit others; but discrimination as to the quality needs to be supplemented by an equal care as to the quantity. The exhortation of the apostle could be enforced by many facts from modern experience. Some wander away along the path of excessive pleasure-taking, and so the name is legion of those who, if they confessed truly, would have to say-
“The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
(C. Vince.)
Watch unto prayer.-
Watchfulness and prayerfulness
In explaining this injunction we shall show the importance of a watchful and prayerful spirit by considering the innate disposition of the human heart.
I. The first characteristic of man’s sinful disposition, requiring watchfulness upon the part of a Christian, is its spontaneity. This is that quality in a thing which causes it to move of itself. The living spring spontaneously leaps up into the sunlight, while standing water must be pumped up. Were man reluctantly urged up to sin by some other agent than himself, there would be less call for watchfulness. But the perfect ease and pleasure with which he does his own sinning calls for an incessant vigilance not to do it. The imperfectly sanctified Christian needs not to make a special effort in order to transgress. Can religion in the heart conquer sin in the heart if we do not bring the two into close contact and conflict?
II. A second characteristic of man’s sinful disposition, requiring watchfulness and prayerfulness in the Christian, is the fact that it can be tempted and solicited to move at any moment. How easily is the remaining sin in us drawn out into exercise by tempting objects, and how full the world is of such objects! A hard word, an unkind look, a displeasing act on the part of another, will start sin into motion, instanter. Wealth, fame, pleasure, fashion, houses, lands, titles, husbands, wives, children, friends-in brief, all creation-has the power to educe the sinful nature of man. Consider what inducements to forget God, and to transgress His commandments, come from the worldly or the gay society in which we move. Is not the powder in the midst of the sparks? If unwatchful and prayerless, it is inevitable that we shall yield to these temptations.
III. A third characteristic of man’s innate disposition, requiring watchfulness and prayer, is the fact that it acquires the habit of being moved by temptation. It is more difficult to stop a thing that has the habit of ,notion, than one that has not, because habit is a second nature and imparts additional force to the first one. This is eminently true of sin, which by being allowed an habitual motion becomes so powerful that few overcome it. The cravings of unresisted sin at length become organic, as it were. For though the will to resist sin may die out of a man, the conscience to condemn it never can. The “ruin” of an immortal soul is no mere figure of speech. There is no ruin in the whole material universe to be compared with it, for transcendent awfulness. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was a great catastrophe; but the decline and eternal fall of a moral being, originally made in the image of God, is a stupendous event. (J. T. Shedd, D. D.)
Watchfulness associated with prayerfulness
The word “watch” is a military term. It teaches us that the same alacrity and watchfulness which distinguish the soldier on duty and the sentinel at his post ought to characterise the Christian; and, as you know, the safety of an army, the chance of a victory, the success of a campaign may all be endangered without watchfulness on the part of the soldier and the sentinel. A like contingency may befall the Christian who is not watchful. Now, I would say, there are three ways in which this watchfulness is to be exercised. There is to be watchfulness over ourselves, watchfulness against our enemies, and watchfulness that we get Divine assistance to help us in our struggles. I would liken the Christian to a general commanding a besieged fortress, who has to watch that he may keep down mutiny within the garrison, who has to watch that he may repel the assaults of the enemy assailing the garrison from without, and who has to watch that he may get assistance from friends who are advancing to help him. And now notice, there is to be prayer in addition to watchfulness. Prayer is the breath of the soul, the life of the spirit, without which you can no more conceive of the Christian existing than of an eye seeing without light, or an ear hearing without being subjected to the sense of sound. Prayer is to the soul of the Christian what his senses are to his body. He not more surely tells his natural wants and gets them relieved, looks upon the beautiful objects in nature, holds intercourse with his friends, and feels himself in contact with the material world by means of his senses, than he tells his spiritual wants and gets them relieved, and holds intercourse with the Former of his body and the Father of his spirit by the exercise of prayer. And what is calculated to enhance the value of prayer is this, that while my senses permit me to look upon many beautiful objects, and urge me to possess them, because they are not mine, I am not permitted to enjoy them; whereas there is not a single possession within the wide domain of the spiritual world that is not placed at my disposal by prayer. If the Christian be weak, then he is strengthened by prayer. If he be in doubt, then his doubts are removed by prayer. If he be in difficulty, his difficulties are surmounted through prayer. But I have to tell you, in order to issue in such gracious results, prayer must be possessed of certain qualities.
1. And here I would say, first of all, prayer must be intelligent. In all cases, our first prayer needs to be, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
2. Further, I have to say, besides being intelligent, prayer must be humble. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth (and, of course, in answer to prayer) grace unto the humble.”
3. But, besides being intelligent and humble, prayer must be offered in faith. Just as you cannot get your diseased bodies cured without submitting to the prescriptions of your physician, which implies faith in his skill, so you cannot get your sick souls healed without faith in the Saviour’s willingness and ability to heal. You must approach Him as David did-and this implies faith-when he prayed: “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.”
4. Further, I would say prayer must be in earnest. It is only the fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous man that availeth much. God only promises to answer earnest, importunate prayer.
5. I observe finally, here, that prayer must be constant. We have thus looked at these words separately. We will now look at them in their relation to each other. Like those other two features of our religious character-faith and works-which act and react upon each other, so that in proportion to the strength of our faith will be the number and excellency of our works, so in proportion to our spiritual watchfulness will be our prayerfulness. This, I hold, must be so from the necessity of the case; for the man who watches over himself is the man who discovers his own failings, the obstacles that impede his progress in the life of faith, and the number, the strength, and the power of his spiritual adversaries. What is the reason of the vast number of petitions that are presented to the Commons House of Parliament? Why, the inhabitants of these islands have watched the working of the British Constitution, and they have discovered that they have wants to be relieved, and grievances to be redressed, and think the Commons of England in their wisdom can relieve these wants and sweep away these grievances, and hence the table of the House is being constantly flooded with petitions. Well, the Christian watches and discovers his own weakness and liability to fall, the number, the vigilance and wiles of his spiritual foes, and he prays for Divine help to overcome them all. He watches, and, as a necessary consequence, prays. Indeed, such is our condition that we do not simply need to watch and pray to resist temptation, but to watch and pray that we may not enter into it, for there is every reason to believe that, were we to enter into it, we would yield to it; so that the only true course is, avoid it, and pass away. (J. Imrie, M. A.)
Watch unto prayer
Strange words for Simon Peter to use! For him, the impetuous, the thoughtlessly self-confident, to say, “Be sober,” seems a strange contradiction. Well were it for us if our failures led to a similar recovery. Human nature is impatient; we would overleap all barriers, and plunge at once into the full transport of enjoyment, just as the soldier prefers the dash of a sudden assault to the tediousness of a regular siege. Delay looks to us like defeat, like sure disappointment. Why should we have to wait when God might conclude all in an instant? Surely, though the Saviour has ascended up on high, there is enough of tits influence left in the world to sustain our courage for a little further delay. Why, with such precious gifts around us, should we avariciously demand the bestowal of all His store? It is “the patience of the saints” that God is looking to; He would see what we can bear for His sake, how long we can stay without doubting the sureness of His Word. I deny not the tryingness of waiting, but in that the real benefit of waiting consists. We fret for peace in the world, and men try, in one way or other, to force the current of the river and spread the fertilising waters over tracts so high that the forced stream cannot stay in the upland where they wish it to remain. Some would crush out the violence of nations and put down war by the sheer force of superior strength. The remedies to be used are-
1. Be sober. The universe cannot bend itself to your will, therefore look not for too great results.
2. Pray. The only instrument which man possesses for hastening on the triumph of good, the only reliable argument for converting the world, the only channel for peace to ourselves, is prayer.
3. Watch unto prayer. How is it that men become disheartened and cease to pray? The wish is uttered with all earnestness, but it is the convulsive effort of a moment, not sustained, nor followed up. And often the prayer is heard, but the suppliant heeds it not. Watchers see where others notice nothing, their senses are more acute. Act on the firm faith that every earnest prayer is heard, and then you will receive insight enough to trace the coming answer. Wait for it if it comes not at once; it will surely come, it will not tarry. Blows that would crush others will only prove the buoyancy of your faith. Failure in business, beggary, friendlessness, will not prevent your knowing the riches of contentment and of spiritual blessings. (G. F. Prescott, M. A.)
Watching in relation to prayer
How often it happens that when night comes a man prays rather from force of custom than from a sense of need. He has no prescribed form of prayer, and yet he finds himself continually repeating the same things. His supplications lack variety and force and definiteness. He is “as one that beateth the air.” This comes in a great measure from the fact that he does not “watch unto prayer.” He has taken little notice of his own spirit, and therefore he knows not his own weakness and his own necessities. The events of the day are not so remembered as to give form and colour and life to his evening supplications. The prayer that suits one day cannot effectually serve for all other days. Changes in ourselves and in our circumstances call for changes in our petitions. If a man pass through the day observing himself and increasing his self-knowledge, his devotions cannot always keep in old formal and familiar ruts, but they must sometimes flow with new vigour along the new channels which the new facts have made for them. We frequently confess that we know not what to pray for. Sometimes this ignorance is a weakness for which we are to be pitied. We cannot tell what tomorrow will bring forth, and therefore cannot tell what special grace to pray for. But sometimes our ignorance is our sin. We know not what to ask for because we have not by watching acquired the wisdom which guides supplication. (C. Vince.)
Watching for answers to prayer
Whenan archer shoots his arrow at a mark he likes to go and see whether he has hit it, or how near he has come to it. When you have written and sent off a letter to a friend you expect some day that the postman will be knocking at the door with an answer. When a child asks his father for something he looks in his face even before he speaks to see if he is pleased, and reads acceptance in his eyes. But it is to be greatly feared that many people feel when their prayers are over as if they had quite done with them. Their only concern was to get them said. Sailors in foundering ships sometimes commit notes in sealed bottles to the waves for the chance of their being some day washed on some shore. Sir John Franklin’s companions among the snows, and Captain Allen Gardiner, dying of hunger in his cave, wrote words they could not be sure anyone would ever read. But we do not need to think of our prayers as random messages. We should therefore look for reply to them, and watch to get it. (J. Edmond, D. D.)
Fervent charity.
The preeminence of charity
I. What charity is. It is not easy to find one word which adequately represents what Christ and His apostles meant by charity. Charity has become identified with almsgiving. Love is appropriated to one particular form of human affection, and that one with which self and passion mix inevitably. Philanthropy is a word too cold and negative.
1. Let us define Christian charity in two sentences.
(1) The desire to give. Let each man go deep into his own heart. Let him ask what that mysterious longing means which we call love, whether to man or God, when he has stripped from it all that is outside and accidental, when he has taken from it all that is mixed with it and perverts it. Not in his worst moments, but in his best, what did that yearning mean? I say it meant the desire to give. Not to get something but to give something. And the more irrepressible this yearning was, the more truly was his love. To give-whether alms in the shape of money, bread, or a cup of cold water, or else self. But be sure sacrifice in some shape or other is the impulse of love, and its restlessness is only satisfied and only gets relief in giving. For this, in truth, is God’s own love, the will and the power to give.
(2) The desire to bless. It wishes the well-being of the whole man-body, soul, and spirit, but chiefly spirit. And the highest love is the desire to make men good and Godlike; it may wish, as a subordinate attainment, to turn this earth into a paradise of comfort by mechanical inventions; but far above that, to transform it into a kingdom of God, the domain of love, where men cease to quarrel and to envy, and to slander and to retaliate. “This also we wish,” said St. Paul, “even your perfection.”
2. Concerning this charity we remark two points.
(1) “Fervent.” Literally intense, unremitting, unwearied. Give us the man who can be insulted and not retaliate, meet rudeness and still be courteous; the man who, like the Apostle Paul, buffeted and disliked, can yet be generous and make allowances and say, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you the less I be loved.” That is “fervent charity.”
(2) It is capable of being cultivated. When an apostle says, “Have fervent charity among yourselves,” it is plain that it would be a cruel mockery to command men to attain it if they could do nothing towards the attainment. How shall we cultivate this charity? Now I observe, first, love cannot be produced by a direct action of the soul upon itself. You cannot love by a resolve to love. That is as impossible as it is to move a boat by pressing it from within. Love is a feeling roused not from ourselves, but from something outside ourselves. There are, however, two methods by which we may cultivate this charity.
(a) By doing acts which love demands. It is God’s merciful law that feelings are increased by acts done on principle. Let a man begin in earnest with I ought, he will end, by God’s grace, if he persevere, with the free blessedness of I will. Let him force himself to abound in small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all those for God’s sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul. By and by, walking in the conscientiousness of refusing to retaliate when he feels tempted, he will cease to wish it; doing good and heaping kindness on those who injure him he will learn to love them.
(b) By contemplating the love of God. You cannot move the boat from within, but you may obtain a purchase from without. You cannot create love in the soul by force from within itself, but you may move it from a point outside itself. God’s love is the point from which to move the soul. Love begets love. It is easy to be generous and tolerant and benevolent when we are sure of the heart of God, and when the little love of this life, and its coldness and its unreturned affections are more than made up to us by the certainty that our Father’s love is ours.
II. What charity does. It covereth a multitude of sins.
1. In refusing to see small faults. That microscopic distinctness in which all faults appear to captious men who are forever blaming, dissecting, complaining, disappears in the large, calm gaze of love. And oh! it is this spirit which our Christian society lacks, and which we shall never get till we begin each one with his own heart. What we want is, in one word, that graceful tact and Christian art which can bear and forbear.
2. Love covers sin by making large allowances. In all evil there is a “soul of goodness.” Most evil is perverted good. Now there are some men who see all the evil, and never trace, never give themselves the trouble of suspecting the root of goodness out of which it sprung. There are others who love to go deep down and see why a man came to do wrong, and whether there was not some excuse or some redeeming cause, in order that they may be just. Just, as “God is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” Now human life, as it presents itself to these two different eyes, the eye of one who sees only evil, and that of him who sees evil as perverted good, is two different things. Take an instance. Not many years ago a gifted English writer presented us with a history of ancient Christianity. To his eye the early Church presented one great idea, almost only one. He saw corruption written everywhere. In public and in private life, in theology and practice, within and without, everywhere pollution. Another historian, a foreigner, has written the history of the same times, with an intellect as piercing to discover the very first germ of error, but with a calm, large heart, which saw the good out of which the error sprung, and loved to dwell upon it, delighting to trace the lineaments of God, and discern His Spirit working where another could see only the spirit of the devil. And you rise from the two books with different views of the world: from the one, considering the world as a devil’s world, corrupting towards destruction; from the other, notwithstanding all, feeling triumphantly that it is God’s world, and that His Spirit works gloriously below it all. You rise from the study with different feelings: from the one, inclined to despise your species; from the other, able joyfully to understand in part why God so loved the world, and what there is in man to love, and what there is, even in the lost, to seek and save. Now that is the “charity which covereth a multitude of sins.” It understands by sympathy. It is that glorious nature which has affinity with good under all forms, and loves to find it, to believe in it, and to see it. And therefore such men-God’s rare and best ones-learn to make allowances, not from weak sentiment, which calls wrong right, but from that heavenly charity which sees right lying at the root of wrong.
3. Lastly, charity can tolerate even intolerance. St. Paul saw even in the Jews, his bitterest foes, that “they had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” St. Stephen prayed with his last breath, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Earth has not a spectacle more glorious or more fair to show than this-love tolerating intolerance, charity covering, as with a veil, even the sin of the lack of charity. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Fervent charity
I. A description of charity.
1. A sincere love to God as the spring of our love to our Christian brethren.
2. Charity comprehends such a habit of benevolence in the soul as disposes us to wish all good to others in all their capacities, in respect either of their souls, their bodies, their reputation, or their estate.
3. Wherever this benevolent principle is it will discover itself by a readiness to assist and relieve all men, especially those who stand in need of our help, according to our abilities.
4. That our charity may be complete, and deserve to be called fervent charity, it must extend to all men, even to our enemies.
II. Some arguments to improve and strengthen all tendencies in us to charity.
1. Fervent charity of all other things is most beneficial to society, nay, it is absolutely necessary to the good order, peace, and happiness of every society. And in this respect charity well deserves to be called the bond of perfectness.
2. The exercise of charity is agreeable to our natures. By being charitable we gratify the noblest of our inclinations and appetites.
3. It naturally follows from the former argument that the exercise of charity is the most delightful exercise we can choose for ourselves.
(1) This satisfaction doth not only just accompany a charitable action, but it is permanent, and endures as long as our lives.
(2) This pleasure and joy that attends charitable actions doth herein exceed all fleshly delights, that it is then at the highest when we stand in most need of it.
4. To be charitable, to wish, and to do good to others, is the most God-like qualification that we are capable of.
5. Another argument to excite us to the exercise of charity is taken from the command of Christ, the author of our religion. This is a very powerful consideration when we reflect what He hath done for us, and upon the example which He hath left us for our imitation.
6. We all partake of the same human nature, and are all born for society, so I might persuade to charity from this consideration, that we are all the children of the same heavenly Father, we have all the same Saviour, we have all one faith, and we expect to attain to the same perfect happiness in the end.
7. Let us exercise charity that we may adorn our Christian profession, and cause it to be well spoken of in the world.
8. To persuade us to exercise fervent charity among ourselves, let us consider that charity is the main part of the Christian religion, and as we shall be found to have or want charity, so must we stand or fall in the great day of judgment. Charity is the most acceptable sacrifice we can offer or service we can perform to God. It is said to be the fulfilling of the whole law. (P. Witherspoon.)
Dissuasives from uncharitableness
I. Your own character and habits.
1. Remember that you have the very same feelings which led to those faults you usually rail at, to their vices whose vices you condemn. Did vanity lead them to folly? that same vanity dwells with you. Did pride overthrow them? pride dwells royally with you. Did selfishness make them mean? are not you selfish? Did their appetites seduce them? are not those same seducers at work in your bosom?
2. But there is an additional reason for forbearing uncharitable censures in the multitude of your actual overt transgressions. They may not, to be sure, be of the same kind as those which you unfeelingly reprehend. Are they slovens? Perhaps you are wasters. They may be fickle whom you blame, you may be obstinate. If we looked as sharply at ourselves as we do at censured persons we might find their faults matched in every point in ourselves.
3. Even this, however, does not exhaust the point in hand. For in weighing relative guilt circumstances are always to be considered. Men may be so situated that a foible will be less excusable in them than a vice in others. While you freely rail at all around you perhaps God is putting you down, with all your proud morality, as the less excusable creature of the two. You may have a better mind, you may have been better trained, you may have been better educated, you may be in better circumstances, you may be surrounded by the influence of better associates, you may have ten restraints to others’ one, they may have ten temptations to your one.
4. The fourth particular is the remembrance of our past mischiefs as a motive for leniency of judgment.
II. The indignation experienced in view of evil is in a large proportion of cases selfish, and sometimes hypocritical and detestable, in the sight of God. I suppose that the feeling of condemnation is frequently more wicked than the thing condemned.
1. The first bill purporting to be a true indignation at evil has the plainest marks of a clumsy counterfeit. The feeling has no respect whatever to the moral qualities of the evil it chastises. It is simply an outcry raised to contrast our own excellences with the censured evil. Some men inveigh against squandering because they are economical. Some rail at parsimony because they are open handed. Some cry out at indolence that men may note their industry.
2. On the success of this device may issue another counterfeit of moral indignation. They are clamorous against evildoers to hide the fact that they themselves are such.
3. Vociferous indignation is not unfrequently the mere creation of fashion and of sympathy with bad feelings. Each clamours because all the rest do.
4. A seeming virtuous indignation is often only an ebullition of wounded pride and vanity. Is there a misstep from virtue? The guardian angel weeps, mercy flies swiftly to the penitent, and Christ says, “Neither do I condemn thee, only go, and sin no more.” Not thus do fellow mortals of like passions. All the slights and petty offences, all the ignoble strifes of envy and sensitive vanity, are raked out of the embers, and the bitter taunt is but the revenge of these covered with the garb of virtue. A hated rival is down, a haughty head a little higher than mine is in the dust, superior beauty is humbled, the wearer of better clothes, the recipient of more pointed attentions, the immovable rival, the one who once said this or that of me-these are the real archers lurking in the ambush of virtuous or religious indignation which bend the bow and infix the venomous shaft.
5. Revenge is almost invariably cloaked under the guise of moral indignation. And of this, as of almost all that I have mentioned, it may be said, the uncharitableness of the censor is often more malignantly guilty than the offence of the sinner.
III. Reasons against censoriousness and uncharitableness springing out of the feelings and affections of the victim.
1. Severity exercised without pity tends to provoke rather than reform the transgressor. That man is the most influential against vice who, to a hearty abhorrence of it, adds a cordial desire to rescue the evildoer. Uncharitableness promotes evil, while pity reforms it.
2. Then, me thinks, our pity should flow out with our indignation in view of the sufferings often of those whom we scourge. There is something peculiarly touching in that vice and crime which prevail among the ignorant and neglected. Multitudes have had no childhood instruction. Others have been too fatally taught by renegade parents. Look in, then, upon the motley throng of ignorant and vicious. Are they happy? Does the fulness of the cup of pleasure take away the necessity of pity from you? Of all the sun shines on, none need pity more than those whose career of vice and crime is near to its close. Suffering has made every feature haggard, and there is war in every limb, anguish in every nerve, and groaning at every bone. Want torments them. Their own demoniac passions scorch them. (H. W. Beecher.)
Fervent charity
I. The exhortation.
1. The Apostle urged upon the Christian converts the importance of charity. It was the exercise of a grace, and not merely good temper, upon which he insisted.
2. This love is a Divine virtue. Philanthropy may exist in the sphere of nature, but love, in this higher sense, can only exist in the sphere of grace. This charity is a Divine thing, the work and a fruit of the Spirit in the soul.
3. This charity was to be kept “fervent.” It is a word which implies great earnestness and intensity (Luk_22:44). It was to be some thing very unlike cold propriety. The metal was to be kept glowing, and the chill of selfishness warded off. It was to be continuous in its exercise, and its exercise was manifold.
4. The sphere of this charity: “among yourselves,” that is, among Christians. As natural love, as a rule, is governed by propinquity, so is spiritual. This “fervent charity” was to be exercised primarily amongst those who had the closest union, inter se, through their union in Christ.
5. The Apostle marks the momentousness of his precept: “above all things.”
II. The result of its fulfilment.
1. The interpretations that the love in question is God’s love for man, or Christ’s love in His Passion, cannot certainly be accepted, though, of course, true in themselves. It is quite evident that the Apostle is speaking of the effect of mutual love.
2. The word “cover” does not simply mean “hides,” the sins leaving them where they were, but causes their remission, in fact, obliterates them.
3. Whose sins does the text refer to?
4. Charity covers over our sins in the sight of God, because charity is to sin what water is to fire-it puts it out. It is written of St. Mary Magdalene, “Her sins which are many are forgiven her; for she loveth much.” Love is the soul of contrition. An act of fervent charity can obliterate the sins of a life. It is the solvent of guilt and of penalty. But repentance does not purchase pardon. It is the condition of receiving it, not its source. Christ gives remission of sins in ways of His own appointment.
5. Charity also covers the sins of others. It has a way of seeing the good in people rather than the bad: “Charity thinketh no evil” (1Co_13:5). (W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)
The greatness of love
Love is like gravitation, the great attracting power, keeping all things in their place. Without gravitation the universe would become a chaos, without some measure of love society would be impossible. The world could perhaps rub along somehow without philosophy, but I defy it to do so without love, as animals can exist without light but not without warmth. Love is the water of life, of which whosoever will may take freely without money or price; it is the heaven springing stream which quenches all thirst, removes all impurities, and also, as in the case of Naaman, the very simplicity of the means causes the proud to disdain it. But like the grand and wonderful simplicity of the laws of nature, fulfilling themselves in the greatest and least phenomena, so is the law of love, prompting equally the widest public service man can perform and the smallest act of private friendship. No matter how deformed or twisted a man’s way of thinking if love once gets access to him, for, like water, it will find its level in the most crooked as in the best proportioned vessel. Like snow falling so quietly and equally on all manner of objects, however mean or base, creeping in at every crevice, so also is love, its voice not heard in the streets, covering a multitude of sins, insinuating itself into every cranny that selfishness leaves open. (P. H. Sharpe.)
Above all things-love
It were better to dispense with all else in the Christian’s character and work than to miss love, though, in point of fact, where this is in operation all that is likely to impress and touch men must be present also. This love must, of course, go forth in its sympathies and activities to all the world, but it should begin at home. We must have love among ourselves as believers in the same Lord before we can presume to speak of our love to the great world of men around. Nor must it be a platonic love, a love of the cold light of reason, it must be fervent, at boiling point, on full stretch, going to the farthest extents of love, and in doing so learning the breadths and lengths of the unsearchable love of God. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Love must be fervent
The manner or kind of love required is a large, continued, stretched out, constant love. As a cloth folded up is in a little room, but when it comes to be cut is stretched out into many men’s uses, so our love must be stretched out to many persons, to many duties; as in giving and doing good to body, soul, goods, good name, and that not sparingly, but liberally, so in forgiving both much and often, neither must this be only when we can well do it, or when we have nothing else to do, but when it is against our profit, pleasure, ease, etc., so as we neglect not ourselves too much, and thereby more pleasure may be done our neighbours than hindrance come to us. (John Rogers.)
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.-
Love covereth all sins
It is strange that this verse should have been so often misunderstood. This is closely parallel with that last verse in St. James, “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death,” and, as a necessary part of that conversion, “shall hide a multitude of (that converted man’s) sins.” “Love shall cover multitudes of sins” from God and man. Only observe carefully, not our own sins; never, in any sense, does love do that; but other men’s sins, love, by silence and by veiling, hides from man; and by prayer and by converting, hides from God. And yet, in all ages of the Church, and in every Church, people have built from my text the fallacy, that a man’s charities are, in some way, a set off against his sins. So some people of the world take a satisfaction every day, that, if they are living rather too gay lives, they are kinder than others who are called serious. It is often put thus, that Christ’s righteousness covers our unrighteousness, i.e., in other words, that His obedience is accounted to us in place of our disobedience. But I would much rather say that Christ Himself-His own immensity-comes in and covers us. Then the view of you, passing through Him, comes out to the eye of God a beautiful object. It is all white, the dark places are not seen. And when I think of the immense amount of evil, which now, and at the day of judgment, will thus be hid, never to be seen by God, through that interposition of Jesus Christ, what an emphasis may it throw into the words, “Love shall cover the multitude of sins.” We are, therefore, never nearer to Christ than when we are making ourselves, in any way we can, the coverers of sin. Now there is a way by which a man can cover sins from God. In the same sense in which I can convert a man I can cover that man’s sins from God. Your mission as a Christian is to be a coverer of sins. There is seldom a greater thing done in this world than when we can manage anyhow to put a sin out of sight. Therefore, let me offer to you one or two rules respecting this high duty. If you know anything to anyone’s detriment, hold it as a sacred deposit, to be used religiously. Do not tell it unless the necessity be urgent, or the utility great. Never tell of a man what you have not first told to the man. Never think that you can make yourself great by making another less. Make a principle of always putting in the foreground persons’ good qualities. If a fault be mentioned, see and mention the extenuating circumstances, the palliating considerations. Look out for them, and you will find them. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Charity covering a multitude of sins
And wherefore does the apostle inculcate this precept so earnestly? It is not that the duties of self-denial and humility, of soberness and prayer, can be dispensed with in the formation of a truly Christian character; it is not that charity alone will suffice to atone for our deficiencies in other respects; but charity is the distinguishing mark of a Christian spirit; our Lord Himself has said that “by this should His disciples be known.”
I. First, for the force of the apostle’s injunction, “Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves.” I have before called charity a disposition of the mind; and it is of importance that we should remember that it is such. Our grand errors on this point arise from our mistaking the effects for the cause; in making no distinction between particular acts of a charitable nature, and that disposition which produces them. When the favour of God, the present blessings of this life, and the eternal joys of another, are promised to charity, it is not such and such special acts of benevolence which shall be so signally rewarded; but it is the earnest inclination to benefit our fellow creatures, and the continual and diligent habit of doing good which are of such high price before God. Our conduct will, of course, have more or less influence upon the good and the happiness of mankind, according to the circumstances under which we act, and the situation which we occupy in society. But though a charitable disposition may in one case have a wider sphere of action than it has in another, still the disposition itself is altogether independent of these external circumstances. The desire to benefit mankind may be as sincere and as fervent in him whose means are limited, as in the richest and the most powerful of the sons of men. And though the practical consequences of that disposition may not be as extensively felt in the one case as in the other, still God regards the sincerity and the fervency of that love, which prompts us both to labour and to endure, in such sort, as the particular duties of our station may require. Two truths are to be deduced from what has been said: first, a few acts of a charitable nature do not necessarily prove the existence of a charitable spirit in him who performs them-because these may be prompted by very different motives, and because true charity is not exemplified merely on a few particular occasions, but in the general tenor of our conduct, and in the habitual discipline of our tempers. The second truth we learn is this: no man can possess a spirit of genuine charity who does not seize every opportunity of being actively beneficial to his fellow creatures; and so many opportunities are there of this kind, which every one, even the poorest among us, must possess, that it is easy for any man, who will take the trouble of examining into the tenor of his daily intercourse with those around him, to determine whether he indeed possesses “that most excellent disposition of charity, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before God.”
II. But, in the second place, the apostle says, in the text, that charity “shall cover the multitude of sins.” Now it is evident, from the definition which we have just given of this disposition of the heart, that they cannot be the sins which we commit against our fellow creatures that charity shall cover; for did we possess this grace in perfection, we should not trespass against our fellow creatures at all. True charity would lead us to the unfailing fulfilment of all the duties which we owe to our brethren. It is equally certain that charity towards men cannot atone for our sins against God; for though the love of our neighbour be a characteristic badge of our Christian profession, though it is vain to pretend our love towards our Heavenly Father, whilst we hate our fellow creatures; though the second commandment necessarily springs from the first, and is like unto it in its nature, still it cannot be made in any degree to supersede it. It can only mean, therefore, that charity will cover, or conceal, and forgive the sins which they commit against us. And this will appear yet more evidently if we consider, in the first place, from whence St. Peter quotes this proverbial expression; and in the next, if we attend to the general object of this Epistle. First, then, we must remark that these words are quoted by St. Peter from the Book of Proverbs. In the twelfth verse of the tenth chapter, the wise man says, “Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins.” Here the opposite line of conduct which is suggested by hatred and love is sufficient to guide us to a right interpretation of the passage. The one stirreth up strifes, it dwells upon them, and rouses them up afresh, and does not allow them to be forgotten. But the contrary disposition of love covereth all sins; it is desirous that offences should be hidden and die away, and instead of enmity and dissension, is anxious for peace and goodwill, and mutual forbearance. It follows, then, that as St. Peter introduced into his Epistle this latter part of the proverb, he intended it to be understood in the same sense in which it stood in the original language of Solomon. This is, moreover, still further confirmed if we regard the general tenor of St. Peter’s Epistle. It seems to have been one of his principal objects to reprove and reform those dissensions and disputes, which, even in those early days, prevailed in the Christian world. (T. Ainger, M. A.)
Love covers sins
The whole conception may have been based on the filial act of Noah’s sons, of whom it is recorded that they took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward, and covered their father’s drunken sin.
1. Love forgives. We are to be imitators of God in the swiftness and completeness of His forgiveness.
2. It avoids giving occasion for sin. It has been said that if you have a favourite horse, which always takes fright and shies at a certain point in the road, you are careful to come along another road, if possible, or to coax him, by speaking to him kindly, to go by without fear. So if you are aware that a certain subject will always invoke an outburst of hot temper in your friend, true love will lead you to avoid it. You will not needlessly incite to sin if you know how to avoid giving the first inducement.
3. It is quick to discern some generous construction to put upon the fault, or to quote some consideration to weigh in the opposite scale. “True, he was unpardonably dull and slow, but then how trustworthy and reliable.” “Yes, he was very irritable and abrupt; but, then, remember what a strain he has been under lately in his business, not leaving the factory or counting house till late at night, and going back early in the morning, with no recreation or respite.” “Granted, that he is now becoming soured and crabbed; but, then, what a glorious man he was in those earlier days, when he stood in the breach.” “Are you sure that there is not some other explanation possible for his action?” In some such ways as these, Christian love argues with itself and others, and, as the result, many a sin is hindered on its way, and many a fault condoned.
4. It rebukes with great tenderness. There are eases where duty demands public censure. The sore must not lie covered up lest it prove to be deadly. It must be lanced or it cannot be cured. But the lancing is done with exquisite tenderness. The wrong-doer is reproved, rebuked, and exhorted, hut with all long-suffering (1Ti_4:2). The man overtaken with a fault is restored in the spirit of meekness (Gal_6:1). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Charity covering faults
“Dear Moss!” said the Thatch on an old ruin, “I am so worn, so patched, so ragged; really, I am quite unsightly. I wish you would come and cheer me up a little; you will hide all my infirmities and defects, and through your loving sympathy no finger of contempt or dislike will be pointed at me.” “I come!” said the Moss; and it crept up and around, and in and out, till every flaw was hidden, and all was smooth and fair. Presently the sun shone out, and the old Thatch looked glorious in the golden rays. “How beautiful the Thatch looks!” cried one. “How beautiful the Thatch looks! “cried another. “Ah!” cried the old Thatch, “rather let them say how beautiful is the loving Moss, that spends itself in covering all my faults, keeping the knowledge of them all to herself, and by her own grace making my age and poverty wear the garb of youth and luxuriance.” (Great Thoughts.)
Use hospitality one to another.-
Uugrudging hospitality
To God the intention of the heart is all-important. He loveth a cheerful giver. He takes such delight in doing good that He has no sympathy with anything like reluctance. Not that hospitality should necessarily he profuse; for, if it be, it is difficult to maintain, besides reminding the guest that he is regarded as a stranger; only that which is done should be done freely, gladly, with the whole heart. There is no hospitality so grateful as that which makes the stranger feel at home, because there is nothing forced or restrained, and he is permitted to feel completely at his ease. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The warmth of hospitality
If the two hands be plunged, one in water at the temperature of 200°, and the other in snow, and being held there for a certain time are transferred to water of the intermediate temperature of 100°, this water will appear warm to one hand and cold to the other-warm to the hand which has been plunged in the snow, and cold to the hand which has been plunged in the water at 200°. The anomaly is easily explained. The sensation of heat is relative. When the body has been exposed to a high temperature, a medium which has a lower temperature will feel cold, and when it has been exposed to a low temperature, it will feel warm. Now this fact will suggest, by analogy, a way for testing hospitality. It is not uncommon to hear a man speak about the warmth of somebody’s hospitality. Perhaps that same “warmth” seemed very much like coldness to us. How are we to explain the difference in the sensations of our friend and ourselves? Simply by remembering that hospitality, like heat, is a relative thing. A man who has just come out of the cold house of Mrs. Niggard will feel the tepid house of Mrs. Moderate to be quite a warm, hospitable place. On the other hand, a man who goes to Mrs. Moderate’s house after a prolonged stay at the genial mansion of the generous Lady Bountiful, will feel that establishment to be rather chilly in its hospitality. (Scientific Illustrations.)
As every man hath received the gift.-
Gifts
I. The number and variety of spiritual gifts in the Church. The term “gift” represented by nine different words in the Greek, occurs in three different shades of meaning, viz., “a present,” “an offering to God,” and “a personal endowment.” The last is evidently the gift of our text.
1. Every believer has a gift, and his own gift (Luk_19:13; Mat_25:15). The little wheels in an engine, the little stones in a building, and the little gifts in the church, occupy a place for which the larger would be quite unsuitable. An organism is healthy only when all its members perform their functions; and efficiency in the whole is the gross result of efficiency in every part.
2. The gifts of the Church are a revelation of the manifold grace out of which they spring. “Gifts,” the most general class, such as wisdom, knowledge, and faith, are referred to the Father. “Administrations,” a more limited class, as healing, prophesying, and speaking with tongues, are referred to the Son. “Operations,” the smallest class, such as miracles, discerning of spirits, etc., are referred to the Holy Ghost. Individual character determines largely individual spiritual gifts. A ray of light passing through
