Peter Barnes | 1 Peter 4:7-9
SERMON NOTES
LIVING BEFORE THE END
1 Peter 4:7-9
1. The end of all things is near.
– 4:7; Jay Adams and John Brown interpret this to mean the end of the Old Testament order of things. That seems strained. See 1 Peter 1:20; James 5:8.
– time rushes by. James 4:14. Hence 2 Peter 3:10-12.
2. Be of sober mind so as to pray.
‘Therefore is the connection between belief and practice. Believe in nothing and the result is 4:3-4
3. Love to cover a multitude of sins.
– 4:8. Love is ‘above all’ – 1 Cor.13:13; Gal.5:22.
– There are sins that love will cover – not atone for (see 2:24; 3:18), not ignore when they cannot be ignored (cf. Prov.28:13; Matt.18:15-17) – but absorb, as it were, for the sake of the people of Christ.
– Robert Leighton: ‘I pray you think, is it not a token of a tender sickly body, to be altered with every touch, from every blast it meets with? And thus it is a sign of a poor weak sickly spirit, to endure nothing, to be distempered at the least air of an injury; yea, with the very fancy of it, where there is really none.’ Kenneth Wuest: ‘How much gossip is eliminated when we love each other.’
4. Show hospitality without grumbling.
-4:9; Acts 16:14-15; 3 John 5-6. Matt.25:35; Rom.12:13; Heb.13:2.