We are twofold
beings. The real man, the man who will live forever, the
man who is made in the image of God, is not the man that
our eyes gaze upon. For a little while we are dwellers in
a body of clay. In regard to our physical body we have no
preeminence over the beasts: it is made of clay, and it
will return to the dust from which it came. Our bodies
correspond very closely to those of the animal creation:
theirs and ours have practically the same function; they
are subject to the same physical laws. So far as his
physical being is concerned, man differs from the animal
only in being more highly organized.
We must not suppose, however, that because we have an
animal body the body is necessarily impure. Such is not
the case. Nothing of God's creation is impure. The body
becomes impure only when it becomes defiled in some way
through the sin of the soul, but the body considered by
itself is pure, perfectly pure from a moral standpoint.
Every part and every organ of the body was created for a
pure and holy purpose. They all fulfill God's purpose.
They are, therefore, as pure as God.
All the natural functions of our bodies are good. We
ought to distinguish carefully between privacy and
impurity. Some functions of the body, we naturally feel,
belong to us alone; others include also those nearest us;
and still others are public in their nature and have to do
with our fellow men in general; but all these functions
are God-created and pure. Do not allow yourself to believe
that they are otherwise. It is proper and necessary that
there should be a standard of modesty relating to these
functions. It is proper that we should regard the standard
of modesty and not deviate from it, but we wrong ourselves
whenever we attach to any of these functions the idea of
impurity. Our bodies are pure. Let us use them as such and
keep them as such.
The desires that naturally arise from these functions
are all pure. Get this thought firmly fixed in your mind:
it may sometime save you serious trouble. When I was first
saved, I did not understand myself, and I supposed that
certain of these functional desires would cease when I was
converted. As they did not, I became troubled and thought
I was not right. I supposed that if I were really right in
the sight of God, those functional desires would have
ceased, and the fact that they had not ceased was evidence
to me that I was not right with God. This misapprehension
caused me great distress of mind and doubts and fears and
perplexities. I prayed much, but found no way out of my
difficulty. It was not until I learned that salvation does
not destroy the natural functions of our bodies that I
arrived at a point where I could have a settled
experience.
Such desires have no spiritual significance. They are
neither moral nor immoral; they are unmoral. To be thirsty
is not to be sinful. This is only nature's way of calling
for what she needs. It is only her way of making known the
things that are needed for the proper functioning of the
body. So all other natural desires and appetites arising
from the body have to do only with its proper functioning
and are pure and holy. Do not allow yourself to think that
they are not. You will do yourself an injustice if you do
and make for yourself much trouble. These desires are
every one necessary. You could not spare a single one of
them and be normal.
The gratification of these functional desires in a
lawful way is pure and beneficial. These functions and the
desires arising from them were made for man and pertain
only to man. They have no spiritual significance whatever.
They have no more relation to God than have such desires
in an animal. Spiritually we are none the worse if we have
them, and none the better if we do not have them.
But God has seen that it was fitting and wise to impose
upon us certain restrictions in the gratification of
natural desires. These restrictions are for man's good.
The restriction is upon willing and choosing, and not upon
desire. We have no choice as to whether we shall have
these desires or not, but we do have a choice as to how
they shall be permitted to manifest themselves. The will
regulates their gratification, and if they are given
improper gratification, it is the will becomes
responsible, and it is the will that is defiled. The
improper use of our physical functions, improper
gratification of desires, may make those functions and
desires abnormal. It may require the exercise of
considerable will-power to restrain them within proper
bounds, but even in such a case the desire itself is not
evil. It is only unlawful gratification that is evil.
Sometimes we have desires that we wish we did not have.
Sometimes desire is hard to control. It asserts itself
with force and clamors for gratification. We may wish that
it did not do this, but, as already stated, such desire is
not impure. It only requires that we keep it within the
bounds that God has set for its gratification. Sometimes
desire becomes abnormal, as desire for liquor or tobacco
or narcotics. Such desires cannot be defiling so long as
the will says no to them. Sometimes the procreative
function originates strong desire. This is sometimes true
where the body is in an abnormal condition. The principles
already stated apply in such a condition also. There is no
impurity unless the will fails to properly control desire
when it might and should control it.
Do not lose sight of the fact that God created all the
functions of your body and that you may gratify all these
functions in a lawful and pure way with his approval upon
you. To associate the idea of impurity with these
functions or the desires arising from them or the lawful
gratification of these desires is to charge God with being
the author of impurity.
All these physical desires will persist so long as our
bodies function properly. I have known men to teach
publicly that after we are sanctified certain of these
desires never manifest themselves again. There is no
warrant for such teaching. It implies that such desires
are impure. God will never take out of us anything that he
put in us. He will never condemn us for doing that which
he sees necessary for our well-being. Sanctification
purifies us and renders us holy in body and spirit, but it
does not make us anything but men. It does not make of us
something different from what God intended us to be, and
in the beginning he made us what he intended us to be.
All these functional desires must be guided by
intelligence and restrained by the will. God has given us
judgment, and he expects us to use it in the right way. He
expects us to keep under our bodies and bring them into
subjection so that we may be holy and without blame before
him in love. He has given us the power to judge and
discriminate between the right use of and the abuse of our
faculties and proclivities. We should use this
intelligence. We do not need superhuman intelligence for
this; we need only common sense. If we go to extremes in
any way, nature will exact the penalty. The presence of
the Spirit of God in our hearts will oftentimes have a
modifying effect upon our physical desires; especially is
this true where these have become abnormal.
During life there is a constant warfare between the
flesh and the spirit. The man who is ruled by the flesh
and has desire for his master, works that which is evil in
the sight of the Lord, but the man who has "power
over his own will" (that is, the will to use his
power of self-control) and brings himself into subjection
to the Spirit of God, will live righteously and godly in
Christ Jesus. Appetite knows nothing of property rights
nor of the laws of God or man. It knows no distinction of
right and wrong, of purity and impurity. If I am hungry,
any appetizing food will attract me, and desire will reach
out after it. Who owns that food does not matter; desire
wants it. Desire knows nothing of ownership nor does it
care about the owner. Intelligence knows and recognizes
property rights; therefore intelligence and will must
control appetite. If they do not and appetite gains the
mastery, then the man becomes a sinner. As long as the
spiritual man is in the ascendancy, as long as he rules,
he keeps under the physical; but when the physical gains
the ascendancy, the spiritual man ceases to be innocent
and pure, and becomes sensual. That is, either the spirit
must give up its way or the flesh must surrender to the
spirit where their desires are contrary. This warfare is
not a warfare of sin against righteousness; it is a
warfare of the spirit against the flesh, of the spiritual
against the natural. This warfare is not a thing of a day
or a month, but it is a thing of a lifetime. Natural
desire runs out to any object that can gratify it. The
spirit's task is to limit it, and gratify it only in a
right manner. When this is done, purity is maintained. If
we fall to do this, we become defiled and sinful.
The Mental Constitution
Mentally man is a trinity, composed of reason, will,
and the sensibilities. We might compare him to a
steamship. His body is the hull and the power-plant.
Reason or intellect is, or should be, the navigator. The
will is the engineer and pilot. The sensibilities are the
heating and refrigerating plants. It is in reason and will
that man rises farthest God ward. These are the really
important things in his constitution; everything else is
secondary. It is through these that he knows God and obeys
him. It is through these that we are made moral creatures
and are subject to moral law and can know and understand
moral problems and principles. It is through these that we
draw nigh to the animals. When God illuminates the
intellect and controls the will, he has a man for his
service. These are the citadels of man's soul, and it is
to them that God's appeal is made and through them that
man becomes godlike.
The place of treason is in the chart-house of our
vessel. God has given us a chart - his precious Word.
Reason must study this chart and from it lay life's
course. It must choose the port to which we shall sail and
the course over which we shall sail. It must watch for the
dangers that lie in the way. It must know the hidden
rocks; it must know the shoals, the currents, and the
various other dangers of navigation. It must read the
weather-signs, so that we may know when the storms are
coming and how to prepare for them and how best to weather
them when they come. It must take the observations and
locate our position on the voyage of life. It must decide
all the problems of navigation. It must find the way out
of all difficulties and dangers. Reason, illuminated by
the Holy Spirit, is our only safe navigator. If we trust
to anything else, we shall run upon the rocks and be lost.
The will must steer our vessel upon its course. Our
lives must not be left to chance, but must be guided by a
steady hand. Many dangerous rocks lie hidden in the in the
sea of life. Unless a strong hand holds the wheel and
obeys the voice of the navigator, we may make shipwreck.
We dare not let every current carry us whither it will. We
dare not let ourselves drift wherever the wind would blow
us. We must keep straight upon our course. Knowing this,
God has given us our wills to be the helmsmen of our
vessels and to steer them in the straight and safe course
that leads to the port of everlasting glory. The will must
have the directing control of all the energies of our
vessel. It must keep its hand upon the throttle of our
lives. It must direct all our energies in the proper way.
If any of our energies are not subject to our will, there
is certain to be disorder in our lives. The will must be
absolute master of our powers.
We need never expect to come to the place where our
powers will always work good automatically. There is no
such thing as an automatic Christian. Doing right is a
matter of willing to do right and bringing the forces of
our being into subjection to our will so that they work
what the will has decreed that they shall work. We must
often use our wills to compel ourselves to do that which
is right, against our natural inclination. The Bible takes
no account of our feelings. It points out duty. It says,
"Do this" or "Do not do this." It
says, "Be this" and "Do not be that."
It does not say, "Feel patient"; it says,
"Be patient." It does not say that we shall not
feel tempted; it says that we shall not yield to
temptation. When it points out any duty, it does not say,
"Feel inclined to do this duty"; it says,
"Do this." It lays upon the will the whole
responsibility for the conduct. We are never judged by our
feelings, but are judged by our wills. If reason and will
are on the side of right, then the individual is judged as
being right, and his conduct is approved.
The will must be subject to the orders of reason and
resolutely carry them out. The reason that so many people
are evil-doers is not because they have not enough
intelligence to know the right, but because their wills do
not act in harmony with their intelligence. They know what
is right, but they do not will to act according to their
knowledge. In many things they go contrary to their
judgment; they do things that they know are unwise. They
deliberately set aside their reason and do that which they
know will bring the condemnation of God upon them and will
be ruinous to their lives here and hereafter. When the
will chooses its own course regardless of the reason, it
always makes shipwreck of the life. It is imperative,
therefore, that you make your will subject to the dictates
of your reason. If you do not, only disaster awaits you.
Our Sensibilities and Emotions
I have likened our sensibilities and emotions to the
heating and refrigerating plants of a steamer. All the
warmth in life comes through our feelings; all the joy,
peace, gladness, mirth, contentment, brightness,
happiness, and other similar things come to us through our
feelings. Without emotions life would be a cold, bleak
waste. They are the things that make life worth while.
They are as needful in their sphere as reason and will in
their spheres. Not only does the warmth and charm of life
come through our sensibilities, but also all that chills
in life. Sorrow, pain, sadness, gloom, discouragement,
despondency, remorse - all these have their seat in our
sensibilities. From these come both the sunshine and the
clouds of life. They bring to us both the bitter and the
sweet.
Our emotions are always active, or at least rarely in a
state of rest, during our waking hours. They are in a
great measure independent of control. They work as they
will. The will can influence them, but its control is
limited. We cannot feel any certain way just because we
will to do so. We cannot feel pleased or happy or
contented just because we desire to do so. Our feelings
are creatures of influence and circumstances. Whatever
acts upon our feelings will produce results, no matter
what it is that acts nor in what manner it acts. The
feelings have no power of judgment, no discretion; they
respond to whatever influence works upon them. They have
no power of choice. They are like the strings of musical
instruments, which respond to every touch and likewise to
the quality of the touch. Circumstances may strike sweet
melodies and rich harmonies of rejoicing, or they may
strike discords of pain and sorrow. The chords that sound
out depend more upon the player than upon the instrument;
for the same instrument is capable of sounding forth many
differing chords.
I said that the will could influence our feelings, but
not rule them. The extent to which it may affect them
depends upon the strength of the will. It may affect them
in different ways. It may repress them for a time. It may
put a brake upon them and prevent their free action. It
may often set bounds to limit them, even though it has not
perfect control over them. It may also set up a contrary
influence through some other emotion by bringing some
influence to bear upon it, and thus make one emotion
balance or restrict the other. This is something that
every Christian needs very much to learn. We may turn the
attention away from that which is exciting some emotion to
the contemplation of something that will either quiet the
emotion or set up another kind. If we are sad or
discouraged or despondent, and we let our minds run in the
channel of our feelings, we shall only feel worse and
worse. We should deliberately turn our minds from the dark
side of the picture to that which is bright and uplifting.
Look upon God and the beautiful things of his character.
Look at the promises of his Word - look at the things that
are in our favor. Look at hopeful things. Look away from
the gloom and darkness, and you will soon find that the
things at which you look react upon your feelings and that
the gloomy feelings pass away. Giving your thought and
attention to these brighter things will set up an emotion
contrary to that which has been working, and it will
balance or restrict the former, or possibly entirely
overcome it.
Have you ever seen a person who had some trouble
physically and who seemed to delight in telling his
trouble to everybody he met? It was a favorite topic of
conversation with him. Of course, the more he would talk
about it, the more he would feel it and the more conscious
of it he would be. Probably if he had quit talking about
it and forgotten it, he would soon have felt all right. It
is the same with our spiritual feelings: the more we think
about our troubles, and the more we tell them, the greater
they become. Never let bad feelings hold your attention.
Turn you mind resolutely away from them. As often as it
comes back to them, turn it away to something else, until
you form the habit of thinking of that which is good and
uplifting and encouraging. In such things as these we are
what we make of ourselves. Gloominess is a habit; so is
cheerfulness. We cannot prevent bad feelings from coming
sometimes, but we need not give them place or pet them
when they do come. There are too many good and too many
beautiful things in life, too many things enjoyable, for
us to allow our minds to run on the dark side of things
very much. Whatever occupies our attention, shuts out
other things. Therefore if we let the dark side of the
picture occupy our attention, we cannot see the bright
side; but if we will turn out eyes away from the dark
side, we shall find that there is a bright side at which
we may look. As we look at the bright side, it will react
upon our emotions, and we shall be joyful instead of being
in heaviness. We may be glad instead of being in mourning.
We may be encouraged instead of being discouraged. Say to
your emotions resolutely, "Thus far shalt thou go and
no farther." Set a bound for them beyond which they
may not pass, and repress all bad feelings, and so make
way for good ones.
The sensibilities are active and very often try to
usurp the place of reason and the will. There is danger in
permitting this. If we decide by our feelings what is
right and what we ought to do, our feelings may soon
change, and we shall think something else is right or that
we ought to do some other way, and so we shall be
unsettled. One time we shall feel as if we should do a
thing, and shortly afterwards we may find that we feel as
if we should not do it. At one time we may feel that a
thing is right, and soon come to question it when we feel
some other way. Reason must be the master. It is the one
that is to lay out our course. Reason should decide for us
what is right and what is wrong. Do not let your feelings
usurp reason's place. Try to understand the principles
that are involved. Decide the rightness or wrongness of
the thing by these principles, not by your feelings. This
is the only safe way. It is only by doing this that you
can ever be settled in any course of conduct very long at
a time.
The feelings are blind. They cannot observe the
compass; they cannot see the chart; they cannot see where
the dangers lie. Hence they cannot lay a safe course.
Suppose the captain of a vessel should place a blind man
in the pilot-house, and this blind man should trust to his
feelings to mark out the course and steer away from the
rocks. Should you like to trust your safety to such a
pilot? This is exactly what you do when you trust your
feelings to be your pilot on the sea of life. Whenever we
let feelings usurp the place of reason, we have a blind
pilot. That is why so many persons make shipwreck and why
so many get into trouble. If the feelings give the will
orders how to steer and how to use our energies, only
disaster can come; but this is just what thousands are
doing. They give more heed to their feelings than to
anything else. The Word of God counts less than feelings.
No matter what it says, if their feelings do not agree
with it, they cannot trust it.
Too many people let feelings make the observations in
their lives. When they want to know where they are, they
consult their feelings. They feel that they are so and so,
and they conclude that feeling knows. They must be as they
feel, they think, or they would not feel so. Suppose you
were on a ship when you knew that the captain was running
the vessel according to his feelings. He would suppose
himself to be where he felt he was. He might have ever so
much confidence in his feelings, but would you feel really
safe? could you make yourself believe that his feelings
were a safe guide for the ship? If our feelings are not
safe guides in natural things, are they in spiritual
things? Notwithstanding the folly of such a course, many
persons judge themselves almost exclusively by their
emotions. When they feel all right, they think they are
all right; when they do not feel so well, they do not have
such confidence in themselves.
Reason has its chart and compass, its sextant and its
astronomical tables, and all other things necessary to
make observations with accuracy and certainty. Feeling
only guesses. Shall we take the ready and impulsive answer
of our feelings, or shall we wait for reason by its more
sure means to tell us the facts? When reason speaks and
feeling contradicts it, which is the safer to believe?
Which is the safer guide? Sometimes people know from the
standpoint of their reason and the Word of God that they
are doing what is their duty to do as Christians, but at
the same time their feelings are not what they suppose
they ought to be. In fact, they may not feel as they
desire to at all. Their feelings may be exactly opposite
to the testimony of their understanding. Such persons are
often prone to accept the testimony of their feelings
rather than that of their intelligence. This is always an
unwise course. Our sensibilities are blind; they have no
power to discriminate between fact and falsehood. Whatever
we accept as truth or probable truth has upon our emotions
all the force of things known to be facts. If I believe my
friend is dead, I shall have the same feelings as though
he were dead, no matter if he is in perfect health. If we
believe that we are wrong in something, we shall feel that
we are wrong, whether we are or are not. Do not be a
creature of your feelings. Do not be ruled by them. Do not
let them mar your peace. Settle your condition from some
other standpoint. Take the Word of God. It will not
deceive you, but your feelings may if you trust in them.
Evidence of Feelings Unreliable
We may feel safe when we are in grave danger. Two men
were recently walking across a piece of ground. They felt
very much at ease. There appeared to be no danger
whatever, but just in front of them was a heavy charge of
dynamite with a burning fuse attached. Only the earnest
cries of a man who knew the danger saved them from walking
right upon it and being killed. On the other hand, we may
feel that we are in danger when we are perfectly safe. The
sinner often feels very safe in his sins, when, in truth,
he is in the very greatest danger. Some Christians feel
themselves in grave danger, but they are perfectly safe if
they will but trust God.
Sometimes people feel very bad when they do not know of
their having done anything amiss. Again, some feel
condemned when they have done something that they know was
not wrong. Their reason tells them that it was not wrong.
The Bible does not condemn it, and yet someway, somehow,
they feel condemned over it. The adversary delights to
take advantage of us at such times if we will permit him.
If we do anything that is wrong, the Spirit of God will
show us what we have done that is wrong and why it is
wrong. He will not leave us to wonder and question. He
will put his finger on the thing and say, "There it
is; there is the trouble." God makes things plain to
us. The adversary brings confusion. He generally leaves us
in uncertainty. He cannot point out anything, or usually
does not. The most he can usually say is, "You have
done something. There is something wrong. "Your
feelings are ready to join right in with him and echo the
strain. Yes, you have done something, but what? You may
argue, "If I were saved, I should not feel this
way." How do you know that you should not? The
question is not, "How do you feel, but, How are you?
Feelings must give place to reason. Whenever you judge
your condition and spiritual standing by your feelings,
whether those feelings be good or bad, whether they be in
your favor or against you, you are doing a very unwise
thing. Base your salvation upon something more substantial
than feelings. I have seen more than one sinner so
enthused that he could leap and shout and praise the Lord.
I have seen more than one good saint crushed down until he
could not raise his head.
We cannot tell conditions by feelings. Some very
dangerous diseases produce practically no suffering. I
have known cases where the danger was very grave and where
the patients could not be prevailed up on to think that
there was anything seriously wrong with them. Some things
that are very painful are not dangerous, and in fact
represent disorder of a very minor character. True
Christians sometimes have bad feelings when these feelings
are no index whatever to their spiritual condition. Read
the life of John Bunyan. See the things that he suffered
through his sensitive feelings. Sometimes he would feel
that he was a great sinner and just ready to drop into
hell. He was not such; he was a pious and holy man.
Thousands of others have had similar experiences, and the
writer is one.
