1 Thessalonians 4:8 He therefore that despises, despises not man, but God, who has also given to us his holy Spirit. The things set at nought are not specified, because the apostle wanted to draw our particular attention to Him whom in them we despise. It is, however, easy to see that they are all religious duties, moral laws and precepts, the observance of which makes up the sum total of a religious life. 1. Instinctively our thoughts turn first to that low value which many persons enter. rain of life. They live to waste, or, as they say, using an almost criminal expression, to "kill" time: they occupy themselves with worthless books or newspapers, and regard reading solely as the diversion of the hour; they take up some work which is good in itself, but having no perseverance, fling it aside unfinished the moment they are weary of it; they spend their days in one long course of pleasure, harmless or harmful they care not which, and at the end ask themselves the question, "Is life worth living?" They are earnest, if earnest at all, only about the things of time and sense, and treat all matters merely as pastimes, means by which serious thoughts of death and eternity may be diverted. 2. There is another more open, yet possibly not more perilous way of despising than the above. There are those who from their youth, if not from their childhood, have been steeped in the sins of the flesh, who not only commit such things, "but have pleasure in those that do them;" forgetful, it may be, of the apostle's words, that "the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." 3. Then there are those who are living in unbelief — open scoffers of things Divine — men who do not want to believe in a Lawgiver, because, if they did, they would feel obliged to keep His laws; men who ridicule religion in order to deny its claim on their lives; who think, or pretend to think, that religion is not true, because in their case the wish is father to the thought. To them this question should be brought home. Be honest with yourselves and say, what if, after all, the God whom you affect to deny be the Lord of the universe, the Sovereign to whom you owe allegiance? what if you find at the last that you have had light enough, and you are forced to admit then that you have had no excuse for your obstinate unbelief? How will it be with you then, when you shall see eye to eye, and the truth, no longer hidden beneath the veil of your own weaving, shall stare you in the face in all its tremendous reality? To refuse to see and hear Him is to despise Him to whom nature pays her willing homage; for when the voice of man is dumb, "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handywork." (C. W. H. Kenrick, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. |
    |