THE KI NG ’ S BUSINESS (2) The Despotism of Intemperance, vs. 29-32. (3) The Delirium of Intemperance, vs. 33-35. In the prophecy of our Lord Jesus concerning the last days, He cited the days of Noah. (Luke 17:26): “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” Eating and drinking, sensual indulg ence, the temptations of the table,— some men go to perdition in one way and some 1 in another. Some drink to excess; some eat to excess; some are drunkards; some áre gormandizers; both are gluttons. The body of a man is a temple either of God or of Satan. The body can be destroyed by eating to excess, drinking to excess, or excess of lust or pleasure. Greed of gain will lead men to sacrifice their bodies. Love of worldly pleasures will lead to such ex cess that the body will be broken down and the mind disqualified for service. One may drink too much wine; another eat too much rich viands; another may ruin his body and become a nervous wreck by using too much coffee or tea; another may sap vitality by over work in greed for gain or through am bition for place and power. The drunk ard is not the only inebriate. Fashion able functions and evening dinner par ties have incapacitated many popular preachers who could preach well on keeping the body under, but who, in practice, kept the body under the dinner table. Paul says in 1 Cor. 9:25: “And every, man that striveth for the mas tery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.” “ Be temperate in all things,” and the injunction to elders is equally ap plicable to all Christians. (Titus 1:7-8): “ For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.” Don’t damn the drug vender and the druffkard if you fail to deny yourself.
874 be teaching about the use of wine drink ing when it is al- LESSON most impossible to EXPOSITION get any alcoholic li- T. C. Horton quor. The hours for giving and impress ing lessons are so few in the year and the need is so great that any teacher with a sense of the deep need of boys and girls and men and women would be justified in diverting their class to some more definitely needed passage of Scrip ture. We are a unit in thanksgiving to God for the answers to years of prayer and sermons in behalf of the temper ance cause in which we had the pleasure of commencing when six years old; and we must all stand guard against any and all efforts of the enemy to bring back the bottle, but we must also re member that there are other foes to fight as dangerous and damaging as al cohol, and to always bear in mind that Satan is on the alert and always be forehanded. There is the deadly cigarette, more formidable and fatal. There is the de luding dance carrying tlie young people off their feet and plunging them into the heat of the hottest hell. There is the subtle seductive emissary of Satan in the schools poisoning the minds of the boys and girls with devilish doc trines and denial of God’s Word. There are the movies, enticing and alluring, fanning the flames of lust and passion. There are the prayerless homes, and worldly parents; children who will never be touched with a Gospel message unless the Sunday School teacher brings it home to the hearts of the scholars, brings it as teachers should bring these messages from burdened hearts for their scholars. We could suggest a score of things, intensely important, but will try to give something out of Prov. 23 that may be made to apply to a present need. OUTLINE (1) The Danger of Intemperance, vs. 19-21.
Made with FlippingBook HTML5