8) If there is any kind of disposition whatever of avoiding the cross, run to be delivered from that deadly thing, for "whosoever will save his life shall lose it." The apostle Paul was eager that he might find his glory and boast only in the Cross. Do you avoid the cross? Or, if not, is there a desire to avoid it? Is there a disposition of wanting to shun reproach? A lady said she liked the holiness folks when they acted nice; but when they got on a rampage, oh, my! Do you seek for someone else to do the disagreeable task? Do you go the way of least resistance? That will certainly prove your undoing sooner or later if you allow it to remain; for what gangrene is to the physical man. the carnal mind is to the soul or spiritual man.
9) Another outcropping of the carnal mind is a something within that wants to become angry. It may not always show itself on the surface, but there is a stirring within when things do not go just as we think they ought to go. Or it may be a feeling of resentment when we are prevented from having our own way about things. Many lives that would have been useful have been spoiled by that something in their hearts. Perhaps every pastor of a few years' experience knows what it is to have someone on the official board who wants to dictate the policy of the church and, if he is not allowed to have his way, will try to "upset the wagon" and ruin the whole plan. He wants to be the whistle. If he can't be that, he will become an obstruction in the way. A Sunday-school teacher was trying to teach her class the meaning of unity, that each is different from the rest, yet all have a place to fill. Said she, "Now, children, we will imagine that this class is a locomotive pulling a long train. One is a wheel, one the throttle, another the piston, etc. Now what part of the locomotive would each of you like to be?" All were silent in thought for a few seconds. Then one little fellow held up his hand. "Very well," said the teacher, "what part of the locomotive would you like to be?" "The whistle," responded the lad. There are those in the church who always want to be the whistle. But it is a fact that the locomotive can pull just as heavy a load, and climb the grade just as easily, without a whistle as it can with one. In fact, if the whistle is used the grade will be climbed with greater difficulty, for it wastes steam and dissipates power.
When you are out about your own labors and something "goes wrong," is there a feeling of anger on the inside? If so, deadly carnality is lurking there and endeavoring to do its work. When the wrench slipped while you were trying to tighten that nut, did you feel like saying something ugly? When the clothesline broke, did you feel like singing the doxology, or did you "fly off the handle"? We once saw a man up on a roof shingling. While driving away at his work, for some cause or other he drove a shingle nail through his thumb. The first words he uttered were, "Glory be to God!" There was glory in his soul, and a circumstance a little different from the usual brought some of that glory to the surface. When ugly words are spoken, it is because there is something ugly in the heart. Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The German translation reads thus: "What the heart is full of runs over at the mouth."
Anger is an awful, deadly thing. It deadens body and spirit. It is spiritual poison within that causes anger, and then anger causes physical poison that is deadly to the body. We can all remember that time, before we were sanctified, when we were really angry. It caused a feeling of weakness to come over us. Our appetite disappeared. Some of us can remember that we were sick for some time after the "spell." That was due to a poisonous secretion within the body because of the spell of anger. We all know that tears contain common salt, but tears that are shed when one is angry contain many times the amount of salt that tears do that are shed when. one is in a good mood. Rev. A. G. Jeffries once told the writer of a woman in California who, in a spell of anger, nursed her infant child. Soon the child became ill. A doctor was sent for, but the child died in a few hours. The doctor declared that the woman had poisoned her own child by nursing it while in a fit of anger. But this thing is many times more deadly to the soul than it is to the body. You say, "Can I be delivered from that thing?" There is balm in Gilead, and there is a Physician there. Thank God!
10) Another trait of the carnal mind is that disposition that does not want to be patient. The apostle Paul says, "Be patient toward all men." It is sometimes quite a proposition to be patient "toward all men." It is not so difficult to be patient toward some people, but there are others who are a real trial. Perhaps none are more aware of this than the minister of the gospel, especially the pastor. The schoolteacher also soon learns that there are those who seem to have no other ambition in life than to try the patience of their instructor. However, that spirit of impatience will do much harm if allowed to remain. Patience enables us to bear affliction and calamities with constancy and calmness of mind, and with a ready submission to the will of God. It will enable us to bear long with such as have greatly transgressed, and continue to expect their reformation. But lack of patience destroys these beautiful graces of the Christian's life.
We have no doubt but that the good Lord allows some disagreeable people to come into our lives in order that the sweet spirit of patience may be better cultivated in us. We would urge everyone to make the very best use of such golden opportunities.
11) Then, too, we find that something that is touchy and sensitive, that something that wants to be petted; and, if someone fails to give us the recognition that we think ought to be given, we are offended. Someone with whom we are acquainted met us on the street and did not bow and scrape his feet to us. It may be he was in deep study on some momentous problem of life that was his to solve; but we do not think of that, but only of the fact that we have been slighted. We know there are some people who are very important and should never be slighted, no matter what the occasion; but it is a dangerous thing for even the important ones to "have their feelings sticking out."
12) There is also that disposition to find fault and grumble. This or that is not right and does not please us. Whatever someone else does, he did not do it in the right way, or should not have done it at all. We ourselves could have done it so much better! That disposition not only greatly decreases our usefulness, but surely must displease the Father in heaven, who looks on and sees the disease in the heart that causes the attitude, as well as the act itself. Here let us also mention fretfulness and peevishness. Though people try to help us and do their best to please us, we are of such a disposition that they cannot please us. O brother! run to the Cross. Do not allow that thing to make your life, as well as the lives of those about you, miserable any longer, and bar you from heaven at last
13) Do you have a love for human praise? Do you desire that people brag on you a little more than they do on others? Do you desire that they should say more good things about your singing, or your preaching, or your rendition of some kind, than they do of what someone else did? Is there an inner impulse to go about seeking compliments? Or are you willing that others should be praised, perhaps even for some noble deed that you did? Because no public mention was made of the fact that you contributed a few dollars to the church and its program, did you withhold your means? When your efforts or your money or your utterances were the cause back of some accomplishment, did you demand that people, or the church, should give you due and full credit? In the second chapter of I Peter we have these words, "This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." This tells us that there is such a thing as suffering for having done well, suffering because we did the thing that we should have done, being persecuted because we obeyed the Spirit of God. It also implies that it is possible to take such suffering or persecution patiently. It also tells us that only when we take it patiently do we receive any credit from God.
14) Along with love for human praise, yet somewhat different, is the spirit of secret pride -- a feeling that my talents and gifts are a little superior to those of someone else. By this we do not mean that sense of satisfaction that one has because of having accomplished a difficult task, but that feeling that I am naturally superior to you. We may never express it in words, or let anyone else know that we harbor such feelings; yet the presence of such feelings indicates that the carnal mind is still alive and active. In Proverbs 8:13 we read, "Pride do I hate." And in Proverbs 29:23, "A man's pride shall bring him low." Proverbs 16:18: "Pride goeth before destruction." In I Timothy 3:6 Paul warns, "Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil." John tells us that the pride of life is not of the Father, but it is of the world. It will blight and wreck and curse what might have been a useful life, for pride is a plant that does not take its origin in divine love, but springs forth from the carnal mind. Here let us also include family pride, that feeling that my family has somewhat redder blood than yours, that my children are naturally better than your children; in fact, if it were not that my children are forced to associate with your children, my children would be very nearly perfect -- that feeling that I am somewhat of a privileged person because my father or grandfather was a doctor, or a lawyer, or perhaps served a term as justice of the peace. Do you find in your heart such feelings as these? They are symptoms of a deadly disease now lurking in your members, and sure to result in death sooner or later.
We have listened to people who use the "perpendicular pronoun" a great deal, and who like to tell about the noble members of their family, how great and brilliant their uncle, or their father, or their cousin was. This is distasteful to the listener, to say the least. Especially is this distasteful when it comes from the pulpit.
It would not be amiss, at times, to forget about the noble ones in our family ancestry and think of the "black sheep" that have marred the fair pages of the history of our forebears. Perhaps some of them will be traced back to the rogues' gallery. That would have a tendency to humiliate us a little, and then we would feel more like praising the good Lord for noticing us at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment