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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 71. Paul's Advice.
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Paul's Advice.
Paul set down a great rule about the appetites. There were many things which he might justify himself in doing, but he said he would not be brought under the power of anything. Whatever habit brings me under its power, and so lessens my own power, is a bad habit to me. The habit of good, such as prayer, or doing kindness, in bringing me under its power is also increasing my own power of self-mastery. What injures my body is wrong for me.
If the use of tobacco or alcoholic drink in any shape affects the action of the heart, or lessens my staying powers, or unsteadies my nerves, this clearly to me is wrong. And the best physicians, backed abundantly by science, and by constant illustrations from life, have spoken very positively here. In the light of what specialists say it would seem that any indulgence is bad. Sooner or later its effect will be felt in the body and so in the life.
With the conditions of life prevalent to-day there is no question at all regarding strong drink for the man who would be Jesus Christ's true preacher to men. Total abstinence is the only safe rule for a sound body, a clear brain, a strong will, and for the influence upon the great crowd of our fellows on a road very slippery and slanting.
The Church of Corinth fairly bristled with questions about matters of conduct. They gave the earnest people there great concern. They concerned Paul very greatly, for these people were his spiritual children, whom he had brought into new life through hard travail. These people write to Paul for advice and help in the perplexity The first nine chapters of his first epistle to the Corinthians are largely devoted to these matters. Some of the questions raised were about abuses concerning which there was very explicit command from God. Regarding other matters there was no such command, and so Paul is advising them as in his judgment is best. And he feels that he is being guided in his advice by the Spirit of God.
He says that if doing something causes his brother to stumble he will not do that thing while the world stands. The passion of service burned that into his heart. The love for the Master who had sent him to serve was yet greater. The eager longing to win men up to the highest life overruled all his own tastes and preferences.
His controlling principle in settling all such questions was love; a tender, intensely practical love for all men. Love is the great test of the Christian life. Knowledge puffeth up; we all know that, and are constantly reminded of it. Love buildeth up. We need more of that.
Paul says, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient." It is not wrong to do certain things, but it is not best. It is not a question of right and wrong here. That test belongs lower down. Up here it is a matter of doing only what is best, and rigidly leaving the rest. Some of these questioned things are not necessarily wrong, but they clearly are not best. And if we judge a thing to be wrong then it is wrong for us, for we are doing the thing we think to be wrong. The hurt to the character is as great as though it were wrong.
If the inner Voice has said to me not to do a certain thing, and I do, I break off the intimacy of contact with the One who is wooing me into the inner intimacies of His friendship. I become less sensitive to His voice. The next time I will not hear so easily what He is saying. It does not affect my salvation, of course. But then, who would use the friendship of Jesus as a convenience or as insurance!
If witnessing a play tends to make me get used to sin, and so think lightly of it, or to make impurity less repugnant to me, or to loosen to any degree my hold upon the highest ideals of life, clearly to me it is not good, and so it is positively bad.
There is with many a fear of being thought peculiar. Yet one of the fine, distinguishing marks of Christ's followers is that they are a peculiar people. That does not mean peculiar in an offensive sense, in criticizing all who differ with us, nor in setting up standards for others; not peculiar in oddity of habit or expression of opinion; but peculiar in the purity of the life, the lovableness of the spirit, the sweet charity of forbearance and thoughtfulness of others, in modesty of bearing, and in the earnest willingness to help and serve.
But these questions can never be settled satisfactorily by a negative policy. It will not do merely to cut things off from without. They must be pushed off from within. Jesus said that when the unclean spirit is cast out of a man he comes back, and if the man is empty within the outcast spirit secures the co-operation of other spirits and re-enters the empty house, and now holds the man more strongly under his sway than ever. If on returning, he had found in his old place the gracious, mighty spirit of God in possession, he would quietly have slunk away to other haunts.
A man needs a great, absorbing passion to fill and grip and control his being and life. There is the one great passion, that which absorbed Jesus—love. That reaches eagerly up to Himself; it reaches quickly within to remove what He doesn't like; it reaches warmly and earnestly out to tell others of Him. This love—Jesus Himself enthroned within—fills one so satisfiedly that things not congenial are crowded out. It lifts one up to such a level that small things are seen in their smallness and so their hold loosens. It drives one with such intensity out into service for men that whatever hinders is stripped quickly off and thrown aside.