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… We might have thought that such a command as this was somewhat unnecessary. We might have supposed that it needed but for God to stretch out His hand, and every creature would go down into the dust before Him. But no one who has accurately watched the working of any affliction upon his own or another's heart will say this. There are three ways in which the chastening hand of God may be wrongly received. You may not see it all. This is what Israel did when Isaiah put up his plaint — "Lord, when Thy hand is lifted up, they will not see" — but he sternly adds, "They shall see." Or you may see — but you may think but very little of it. "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." Or, at a lower point than both — you may see, and estimate the judgment, and the very sense you have of it may harden your heart into pride and rebellion, irritating your temper and making you more resolute for evil. This is what Pharaoh did and Ahaz. Strange that it should be so! Yet all history bears witness to the fact that times of national suffering, of famine, or plague, have been times of extraordinary wickedness: for "the sorrow of the world worketh death." All evil that is in the world is traceable at last to one primary cause; the right relationship has been interrupted between God and His creatures. If man goes up too high, or God is put down too low, then evil is sure to follow. Therefore the first thing is to rectify this. We must be lower, and God must be higher. Hence the primary law of all affliction, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God." Now it is quite certain that no man does really "humble" himself under anything which he does not recognise and feel to be "the hand of God." No one "humbles" himself to an accident. No one "humbles" himself to a punishment; but to "the hand" which deals it. And the more that "hand" is admired and loved, the deeper will be the abasement, and the easier it will be to make it. Therefore it is all-important, in every trial that comes upon you, nationally or individually, that you should at once see — not natural causes, not even the scourge itself — but only "the hand of God" is upon you. It is a grand image — "the mighty hand of God." Very "mighty" must it be, when "He measures the water in its hollow, and meets out the heaven with its span." (J. Vaughan, M. A.) 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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