| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 22 |
Page 4 |
In the thirteenth verse we come again upon intemperance, “Let us walk … not in reveling and drunkenness.” Whatever anyone may say about the Bible’s position on the question of wines, there is not a shadow of doubt where it stands concerning drunkenness. It puts it down among the most debasing of sins, the most degrading, the most ruinous of all vices. Can there be anything more unworthy of a man with an immortal nature than to get drunk: Of course, no one intends to get drunk when he begins to drink. But the story is familiar to need writing out — of the end of nine cases out of ten of moderate drinking. The only absolute safety is total abstinence.
The only true way to get rid of the wrong things in our life is to put on Christ. Being good merely by not being bad is not enough. There is a striking parable of an expelled evil spirit. He went out of the man under some pressure, and wandered, desolate and restless, through deserts until, finding it torture not to be injuring some one, he wandered back to his old place and found the man in whom he had dwelt. He found his old house swept and garnished, but empty yet, and gathering up some other demons worse than himself, he reentered the unoccupied house, and the last state of that man was worse than the first. It is not enough to put out the demon; we must also admit the Christ into our heart’s house. Emptiness is always a condition of peril.
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