Temperance Lesson

Deuteronomy 5:32, 33; 11:26-28; Isaiah 28:1-6; Habakkuk 2:12

GOLDEN TEXT: “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”—Proverbs 14:34

THOSE who prepared the Sunday School Lessons for today, no doubt did so with the thought of emphasizing the importance of temperance with respect to intoxicating liquors. While we agree that the Prophet Isaiah in the 28th chapter might possibly have referred to drunkards amongst the people of the ten tribed kingdom, known as Ephraim, or as Israel, we do not understand that this was the Lord’s object in giving this message of which our lesson is a part.

We believe that He was rather giving a lesson to us, His spiritual house of sons of the Gospel Age. The lesson surely is either a literal statement, respecting literal intoxication, or a figurative one respecting figurative intoxication. If literal, the whole connection should bear this out by being similarly literal; if figurative, the whole connection should bear it out thus.

We cannot think that the drunkards of Ephraim were so numerous or so highly esteemed as to be “the crown of pride” of that nation, nor tat those particular drunkards lay at “the head of every fat valley,” nor that the Lord gave so much more attention to those drunkards than He does to drunkards of our day, that He would make a special demonstration against them. On the contrary, we must assume that while intemperance may have been one of the faults of the people of Israel, pride was another and perhaps the greater one.

They were intoxicated with pride and self-sufficiency, and did not properly appreciate their dependence upon the Lord. Hence it was that a few years after the date of this prophecy that proud people were carried captive by their enemies into Syria. It was the coming of this enemy that is figuratively referred to as a tempest of hail; a destroying storm, a flood of mightly waters that cast down the crown of pride of those people intoxicated with self-conceit.

In our study of the apostle’s words we have learned that nearly all the Old Testament prophecies were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come, and in many instances those who uttered the promises, and those who heard them, comprehended them not. (I Pet. 1:12) The prophecy at present under consideration we understand to be of this kind—specially applicable to spiritual Israel, though not without a meaning to natural Israel at the time of its writing.

Today we see the Christian world intoxicated, bewildered and confused with the wine of false doctrine mentioned so explicitly in our Lord’s last message to His people, the Book of Revelation. There it is clearly set forth that the great mother of harlots would make the nations of Christendom drunk with the wine of her fornication.

The crown of pride and the fat valleys of her possessions are easily seen from this standpoint. Churchianity today is intoxicated with its material prosperity, its power and dignity in the world. It wears a crown of pride and self-sufficiency, and as one who is literally intoxicated, is blind to its real condition. Thus our Lord pictures nominal Christianity of the present day as the Laodicean Church, and declares, “Thou art wretched, miserable, blind and naked,” though “Thou saith, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” The prosperity of Churchianity is, however, like the fading flower—its beauty and fragrance will soon pass away; it will soon be swallowed up like a first ripe fig.

But at the same time that the glory passes away from the nominal system a proportionate special blessing will come to the Lord’s faithful, consecrated people who are not of this intoxicated class; Instead, they are following the apostle’s exhortation to be “sober, girding up the loins of their minds and pressing along the narrow way for the prize.

These will now have a spirit of a sound mind; as the apostle expresses it, enabling them to comprehend the divine plan, and enabling them to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. These will be faithful in their defense of the truth, and “turn the battle to the gate”; that is to say, the citadel of truth will be preserved, notwithstanding the fall of the masses of nominal Churchianity.

This is in accord with the prophetic statements that, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not cone nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked, because thou host made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation.”—Psalms 91:7-10

Where do we find ourselves, dear brethren, as we investigate this picture, so applicable to our day? Are we among those intoxicated with the spirit of the world, the spirit of Babylon, that has a “form of Godliness but denies its power”? Or, are we classed with the Lord and therefore being filled with the spirit of a sound mind?

And are we standing faithful as good soldiers in the defense of the truth, not suffering any false doctrine to intrude upon us? Are we insisting that every doctrine shall be decided by the Bible and by the Word of the Lord, and also by the Golden Rule, and with the Ransom? As we examine our hearts and our course in the present testing time, our prayer is that we can assure ourselves that we are with the latter class, faithful to the Lord’s Word and the great light He has permitted us to enjoy, and humbly and consistently walking in the footsteps of our Master.

QUESTIONS:

Is there more than one kind of drunkenness referred to in the Bible?

In what sense can it be said that Churchianity today is intoxicated?

How can the Lord’s consecrated people avoid spiritual intoxication?

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