1 Peter 4:7-11 But the end of all things is at hand: be you therefore sober, and watch to prayer.… When an 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.WEB: But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer. |
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