'Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be,
ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.'--1 Peter i. 6.
You will remember the great saying of our Lord's in the Sermon on the
Mount, in which He makes the last of the beatitudes, that which He
pronounces upon His disciples, when men shall revile them and persecute
them, and speak all manner of evil falsely against them for His sake,
and bids them rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is their reward
in Heaven.
Now it seems to me that in the words of my text there is a distinct echo
of that saying of Christ's. For not only is the whole context the same,
but a somewhat unusual and very strong word which our Lord employs is
also employed here by Peter. 'Rejoice and be _exceeding glad_,' said
Christ. 'Ye _rejoice greatly_,' said the Apostle, and he is echoing his
Master's word. Then with regard to the context; Christ proposes to His
followers this exceeding gladness as evoked in their hearts by the very
thing that might seem to militate against it--viz., men's antagonism.
Similarly, Peter, throughout this whole letter, and in my text, is
heartening the disciples against impending persecution, and, like his
Lord, he bids them face it, if not 'with frolic welcome' at all events
with undiminished and undimmed serenity and cheerfulness. Christ based
the exhortation on the thought that great would be their reward in
Heaven. Peter points to the salvation ready to be revealed as being the
ground of the joy that he enjoined. So in the words and in the whole
strain and structure of the exhortation the servant is copying his
Master.
But, of course, although the immediate application of these words is to
Churches fronting the possibility and probability of actual persecution
and affliction for the sake of Jesus Christ, the principle involved
applies to us all. And the worries and the sorrows of our daily life
need the exhortation here, quite as much as did the martyr's pains.
White ants will pick a carcass clean as soon as a lion will, and there
is quite as much wear and tear of Christian gladness arising from the
small frictions of our daily life as from the great strain and stress of
persecution.
So our Apostle has a word for us all. Now it seems to me that in this
text there are three things to be noticed: a paradox, a possibility, a
duty. 'In which ye rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are
in heaviness through manifold temptations.' Look at these three points.