Plain Sermons by Contributors to the, Tracts for the Times 1 Peter 5:8-9 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:… When people are sick, and in bad pain, we know how apt they are to imagine, Surely never anyone was so afflicted as I am. Thus St. Peter encourages his suffering brethren, when a time of trouble was coming on; much as St. Paul had before encouraged the Corinthians. "There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man": nothing that is beyond human strength, assisted by the grace of the Holy Ghost, to bear. This is the answer to those who think the commandments of the gospel too strict, too pure to be obeyed. "Your Father which is in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." And if that be not enough, look at the lives of the saints: look and see how good and penitent persons, from time to time, have really been helped to keep these commands which you think too hard, and to resist these temptations which you think too strong. On the other hand, that roaring lion, who is ever seeking whom he may devour, will be busy encouraging in you just the contrary of these good thoughts. If you are in trouble he will try to make you feel as if no other person was ever in so bad a condition. If he can, he will persuade you that all or a great part of your trouble arises from such and such a person's ill-usage, and so he will make you spiteful and envious. Other persons, who are not so ill-used, may do well to be forgiving and meek: but your case, he will whisper, is really too hard, too bad. What is the use, they will say, of such exact goodness? you may as well give it up; for you see it does not save you from ill-usage and suffering. Thus the enemy moves us to discontent, when we are afflicted or ill-used: but still more does He encourage us to sin, when we are in strong temptation from our own passions, or the evil example of others. He will at such times set us on thinking, that surely our passions are stronger than other men's, and therefore there is more excuse for our giving way to them. This is how the devil would beguile us, and a very serious temptation it is: he would have us believe, either that there never were any saints, any persons really good and holy, or that if there have been any, they were such by a kind of miracle. To be afflicted, then, is a mark of Christian brotherhood: it is a token that we belong to God's family. If anyone were quite exempt, he would almost feel it unfair: might he choose, he would rather take his share, relieving, if so it might be, his brethren. Or take the case of comrades and fellow soldiers — what sort of a spirit is he thought to have who draws back and spares himself when the rest are entering upon labour and danger? And here comes in the other word, by which, as I said, St. Peter in the text would stir us up to a godly jealousy of the saints. The word I mean is "accomplished." Their afflictions are accomplished, ours but just beginning. To conclude: whereas the apostle's word is, that whatever we suffer, the same afflictions are accomplished "in our brethren that are in the world," we understand that when they are once out of the world, there is an end of their affliction and care forever. (Plain Sermons by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: |
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