“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such, there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-33)
Those are famous verses. Virtually every Christian has heard them quoted hundreds of times and has heard many messages on the theme of the fruit of the Spirit. There is a lot of really good insight given on those verses by Bible teachers and commentators to provide us with strength and encouragement in our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is one thing about the teaching that has always bugged me. Now that I have a blog, I can get things like this off my chest, and you have to live with my spouting off. Most of the commentators and all of the new versions of the Bible change the last word “temperance” to “self-control”. That has always bothered me. This is the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is what God produces in our lives as we yield ourselves to his direction in our lives. What part of “self” belongs in that discussion? How can self-anything be considered a product of God’s work in our lives?
The seventeenth amendment to the Constitution was passed nearly 100 years ago outlawing the sale and consumption of liquor in the United States. It was a noble attempt, but failed to really address the issue. You cannot change the heart of man by legislation. Only the Spirit of the living God in a believer can change man’s behavior. Once we know Jesus as our Saviour, God has a platform from which to work. His Spirit will produce fruit when we give our lives to his control and leadership. The Prohibition movement was immortalized in song by Frank Sinatra when he sang about the “toddlin’ town” of Chicago. He boasted that it was the “town that Billy Sunday could not shut down”. Billy Sunday was one of the main preachers during Prohibition, and one of my all-time favorite role models. Billy Sunday “shut down” sin and wickedness in a lot of cities by the plain preaching of the word of God. Now that both Billy and Frank are dead, I wonder if “Ol’ blue eyes” wouldn’t mind trading places with Billy.
They called Prohibition the “Temperance Movement”. It was not self-control of the alcohol industry, it was government control. Imagine the feds saying to Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, “You guys need to control yourselves with the production of this hooch. We will let you operate however you feel like, just keep it under control.” Talk about the fox watching the chicken coop! How in the world can my flesh (self) control my flesh? I know myself better than that. Maybe you are deluded enough to think that you can control yourself, but I am smarter than that. I need God to control me. That is temperance – the control of the Spirit of God over the raging fire of my old nature. It is a fruit of God’s Spirit in the life of a believer, and can no more be produced by “self” than you can produce fruit in a factory. There is no assembly line that can crank out tomatoes, and there is no person who has the power to manufacture the fruit of the Spirit by his own self-control.
One of the best parts of being a Christian is the daily presence of the Spirit of God in our lives to conform us to the image of the Son of God. Yes, we get a home in heaven secured for us, and a deliverance from the torment of an eternal hell is certainly the greatest benefit of our Saviour’s love for us. But he did not just cut us loose after that to fend for ourselves. We would drown in the massive sea of life. I would have no chance to bring glory to my Lord if it was all left up to me and my abilities. His Spirit in us can and will change our personalities and our lives to live as God designed man to live. As we yield ourselves to his control, we can manifest genuine love and peace and faith and all the other items on the list. As we let God be in control, we learn what true “temperance” is: the conformance of our lives to the image of Jesus Christ. He knew how to really live. So can we when we let his life shine through us.
No comments:
Post a Comment