Galatians 4:1-2 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; This whole world is a training school, and all life is discipline. Understand your position. You are "an heir," an heir of an estate whose value no numbers can represent; an heir of a kingdom! But you are a "child;" whatever age you be, you are in the infancy of your existence. And the great end of your being is preparation for your majority — which lies the other side the grave. And therefore, all is laid out here — by your wise and loving Father — for your education. You are at home in your own household, and all is going on day after day, in the ordinary round. You meet in the morning; you sit together at meals: you join in the evening circle. It all seems very commonplace. But what and if in all this you are placed, by God, to prepare yourself for "the family" in heaven? Or, you go about in all the activities and businesses of your earthly calling. Have you bethought you that they are all to cultivate the accuracy, and the energy, and the faithfulness which will make you fit for higher trust and heavenly engagements, and more than angelic offices, in another stage of your immortality? Or, you walk among the beauties of God's creation: or you sit down and you study the pages of Divine lore: and what is the whole universe, what is it but a lesson book in which you are to read, day by day, something of the character, and the wisdom, and the love of God? Yet, all you read now, is only like a little child learning his alphabet. Those pains and troubles, what are they? Correctives. Not very general correctives that will do for every one. That would not be the way of a good "tutor," or a wise "governor." But the particular grief, the particular happiness, which is exactly suited to your special case, and still more to your destined place and portion which you are to occupy in another world. Are not the poor, and the sorrowful, the "tutors" who are sent to prepare you for the higher exercises of heaven? — for the missions and the ministrations of the redeemed! (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; |
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