1 Peter 5:5-7 Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility… I. THERE IS NO ONE TO WHOM THESE WORDS SHOULD NOT COME AS A MESSAGE OF COMFORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT. For care is one of those things which fall to the lot of everybody, young and old. Poverty and wealth alike entangle us in the meshes of anxiety. This arrangement of Providence by which every man succeeds to a heritage of care has been ordained by God for the wisest and most gracious ends. There is a story told of an ancient king that he stood one day before the door of a husbandman, and called upon the husbandman to come out to him. But being busy with something else he refused to come out, or even to open the door so that the king might come in. And so, to bring the man to his senses, the king lit a firebrand and cast it into the husbandman's granary. And that brought him out. Now that is the function of our cares. They lead us out to God, and they bring God into us. They show us the poverty of our own resources, and they reveal to us the unsearchable riches of Christ. II. The great question is, WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH OUR CARE? We are to cast our care upon God. Two thousand years ago, this same question was very much debated by the learned men of Greece and Rome. Some of them thought that the remedy for care was to banish from their minds all thought of future trouble, and to enjoy the pleasures of the passing moment as long as they were capable of enjoying them. But what a pagan doctrine that is. It tells a man to enjoy life while he can; but it has no word to say to those who are under the cloud of trouble, and are enjoying it no more. There was another school of those ancient moralists who tried to remedy that defect. They taught that poverty and wealth are the mere accidents of life. If a man becomes poor, the man himself, in his own true nature, is no worse; and if he becomes rich, he is no better. So it is with sickness and health. They are the mere accidents or appendages of life. Man himself is greater than they. The true wisdom of life, therefore, is to be indifferent to them. That doctrine is very much like Dr. Johnson's cure for toothache — to treat it with contempt — a very good cure when we are not suffering from toothache. Now Peter, in the text, is no speculator nor theoriser. He knows that it is not in human nature to be insensible to these things, and he comes forward, like a practical man, with a definite direction as to how we are to treat a real evil which we cannot ignore, and that direction is that we are to cast our care upon God. But now, how is this to be done? Our cares are manifold, and there are different ways of transferring them to Him who has promised to bear them for us. Some people find that they can best get rid of their cares by carrying them to God through the avenue of prayer. "Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee." Some cares will best be escaped by rising above them on the wings of praise. For songs are not always the expressions of gladness, and if you read the Psalms of David you will find that many of them were wrung out of his soul by the visitations of care. There is one other method which will hardly fail to dispel them, and that is, to allow God to speak to us. This is done by reading the Word of God, and the effectiveness of this exercise as a care remover is one of the commonest experiences of the Christian life. III. THE KIND OF CARES WHICH GOD WILL BEAR FOR US. And we learn from the text that they are not confined to any particular class: for we are enjoined to cast all our care upon Him. Many of our cares are trivial. The greatest care that a man can feel is the burden of sin. God careth for you (Isaiah 1:18; 1 Peter 2:24). If God frees us from the greatest care of all, you may rest assured that He will also free us from every lesser care (Matthew 6:25-34). IV. We have to notice THE REASON WHY WE SHOULD CAST OUR CARE UPON GOD. It is stated in the text, and is both intelligible and satisfactory. Peter boldly asserts that we are the objects of the Divine solicitude. There is no truth of which men of faith have been more firmly assured than this same truth of the loving kindness of God, and of His tender care for His children. It sheltered Abraham when, in the greatest trial of his life, he said calmly to his son, "The Lord will provide." It was to Moses the secret place of the Most High when, in the prospect of death, he exclaimed, "The Eternal God is a refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." And nowhere more than in the Psalms of David do we trace the cheering, and soothing, and strengthening influence of a firm faith in God's loving care. (J. L. Fyfe.) Parallel Verses KJV: Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. |
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