The Plea for a Blameless Life
“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” — i Peter ii. ii, 12.
PT^?^* now pass from the more purely doctnnal to the practical. All the Apostles begin their Epistles
,^/(VVlfiT by laying adamant foundations of Gospel truth, “^^^/^f o” which they erect a superstructure of exhorta-C^’^ tions to practical Godliness. Perhaps this divixp sion is less noticeable in the writings of the
Apostle Peter than in those of his “beloved brother Paul.” Still there is clearly a transition at this point. The sermon that has no personal application is a failure. Doctrine without precept tends to dry speculation. Precept without doctrine tends to a sapless formalism, destitute of power.
How tenderly these exhortations are expressed! It is not easy to realize that Peter, the strong rock-man, is speaking here. But years of sorrow have done their work, in mellowing and toning the roughness of his character. And there is a gentleness in his voice, as he beseeches his dearly beloved ve?ideYs, which must have been one of the strongest persuasives to the life for which he pleaded. This plea for a blameless life must have gone home with double effect, because the shaft was winged with feathers drawn from love’s gentle breast. The force of the expression is the greater, because it is not often that we find Peter pleading thus. Christian love does not always require the use of tender and effusive expressions. There is always a danger of their losing their meaning and power through incessant repetition; but there are occasions, especially when we yearn for the welfare of others, at which, though we might be bold enough to enjoin them that which is convenient, yet, for love’s sake, we rather beseech them.
Fleshly lusts are enumerated in detail in several passages of the Word of God (Gal. v. 19-21). Lust is inordinate desire — the desire for too much of a good thing, or for any of a bad one. Fleshly lusts are those which seek their gratification through the avenues of the physical nature with which God has endowed us. We are all provided with certain natural instincts and desires, which have been implanted for right and useful purposes, and are innocent and right when regulated by the will of God. But these natural appetites are constantly fretting against restraint, yearning for unlawful gratification, seething and foaming as the sea-waves against a harbour bar. If you yield to them; if you love anything outside the circle of God’s will; if you follow your own wild instincts, irrespective of the self-restraint demanded by conscience; if you indulge any on side of your nature out of the due balance and equilibrium of the whole; if you allow an undue monopoly of taste or thought in one direction — then beware! You need especially to be on your guard against the fleshly lusts of which the Apostle speaks.
They war against the soul. — That word “war” is full of meaning. It gives the idea of the march of an army against a city, as of the Greeks to surround and capture Troy — an assault which began with open war and ended by the stratagem of the wooden horse, from which the armed warriors descended into the heart of the city at dead of night. Of course we should all admit that excessive indulgence in any appetite injures the body, and especially the organs through which the sin against the whole fabric has been committed. But we may not all realize how destructive these fleshly lusts are to the inner life. They attack and conquer it, and lead it into captivity, impairing its energies sullying its purity, lowering its tone, and cutting off the locks of moral strength. Remember then, when tempted to yield to some unholy prompting, even though you only indulge the thought or wish, that you are exposing yourself to a certain diminution of spiritual force, which will inevitably
S6 fjjc flea for a giamdesa fife.
cripple your endeavours, and show itself in failure and defeat. No act of sensual indulgence is possible without inevitable injury to our true selves. It may be forgiven, and put away, through the forgiveness of God, by the blood of Jesus; but the soul can never be quite what it would have been had the temptation been overcome, and the grace of self-restraint exercised.
How many there are around us, eminently fitted by their gifts, to lead the hosts of God, who, like Samson, grind in the prison-house, making pastime for their foes, because they have been mastered by appetites which they should have controlled, as the horseman his fiery steed! Is theie not a deep spiritual truth in the notion of the savage warrior, that the strength of a fallen foe enters the arm which has smitten him to the dust? Indulge the flesh — and you are weak. Curb it by self restraint — and you are strong.
We need, however, to notice how this abstmence from unholy indulgence may be realised. And it may be helpful to remember the following points: —
(i) Let us u?iderstand that self-restraint is possible. — . is quite true that we are children of a sinning race, and come into life with the taint of evil in us. This is not a matter for argument, but of each man’s individual experience. Though the third chapter of Genesis and the first chapter of Romans had never been penned, we must have felt that somewhere there had been an awful lapse in the story of our race, or that it had been the sport of some malign fate. From the first there is in us all an hereditary tendency to gratify to excess the promptings of the natural appetite. Besides this we have deepened and intensified these inherited tendencies by our actual transgressions. There have been repeated yieldings, each one of which has nourished and fostered their strength. And we resemble an athlete, who has permitted himself to be bound around with threads of cotton, any of which could be snapt in a moment, but all of which together hold him like an iron chain.
But, notwithstanding this, it is true that no temptation can happen to us but such as is common to man — none with which “ore than (Konquerora.” 87
God cannot deal. It would be impious to say that God has permitted evil to arrive at such a pitch that He cannot cope with it; or that there is any sin, usurping his throne in the inner realm, which He cannot quell.
It is immaterial how strong may be your inherited tendencies towards evil, or the habits which you have formed by successive acts of sin — God is able to give you deliverance, and to keep you from being overcome. It is possible even for yo2i to abstain from the fleshly lusts which have been subjugating your soul, as Moabites and Philistines did the fair land of Israel in the days when the Judges ruled. Every command carries a promise at its heart; and this loving entreaty for a better, purer life hides a Divine undertaking that you shall yet be more than conqueror, putting your foot on flesh and self, and reigning where now you groan in slavery. Take heart! it is possible even for you to abstain from fleshly lusts, because God is able to keep.
(2) CJioose death. — There is a sense in which we all died in Jesus Christ our Lord, when on the cross He yielded up his spirit to his Father. There is also another sense in which we must die daily, in the constant denial of self But, besides this, there must be one definite moment in each Christian’s life when death is definitely chosen for all that is selfish, worldly, fleshly, and of the devil. This is surely the meaning of the Apostle, when he says, using a tense which signifies a definite past act: “They that are of Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof” (Gal. v. 24).
Too many of us never come to that point. We accept the incursions and reign of evil things too much as an inevitable experience to which we must ever be liable in this world. We yield, and repent, and curse ourselves, and yield again. Christians often speak of their besetting sins as natural infirmities which they cannot help, but which must be borne as the diseases incident to childhood. There is too little of the rising up of a holy and almost fierce determination to be free.
Or if there be such a resolve, it often lacks completeness. It shuts the front door but not the back door of the nature, against the thought of possible indulgence. It leaves an almost invisible thread of communication between the soul and the evils of which it would fain be rid, and along it the contagion is still free to pass. And as long as there is the smallest flaw in the integrity of the soul’s purpose, there is no hope of deliverance. We must cut all connection, close every aperture, and abandon all thought of fleshly indulgence in every shape and form. In short, we must choose death.
Is not this the secret of your repeated failure? You have heard about the keeping power of Christ, and have appealed for it. But you have not been kept. You have been overcome in spite of your cries for help. And you will never get right until you go down into the grave where Jesus lay, and place yourself on that rough rocky niche, whilst the heavy stone shuts you away from all that you held dear. And when you count all things dross for his sake, you will win Christ. Through the grave you will come to the Easter dawn. Death will be the gate of life. Having been crucified with Christ, you will discover that his life will flow into you- triumphantly.
With much earnestness do the pages of the New Testament appeal to us to come to this definite resolution. But especially is it the keynote of that marvellous sz’xf/i chapter of Romans which appeals to us as having died with Christ, and as therefore being free from sin. Expressions are employed, from which we would have shrunk, as being too forcible, too extreme, in order to show how complete the deliverance is for those who have been with Christ in the likeness of his death. There is not the least doubt that our deliverance from the power of all fleshly lusts is in the precise measure in which we have embraced that idea of complete severance from them, which is suggested in the one final, all-severing, awful word — Death.
(3) Walk in the Spirit. — There are Christians who live in the Spirit, but who do not walk in the Spirit (Gal. v. 25). The distinction is an obvious one. We live in the Spirit, because only in Him we share at all in the life of Christ, a life which is everlasting and Divine. But how few of us walk in the Spirit from hour to hour; pausing at each step, so that He may work or speak; looking to Him for guidance ung in tljc spirit.” 89
at each turn of the path; and adopting the track which He indicates, as by the cloud in old tinie, while moving over the desert sands!
But nothing less than this will suffice. “Walk in the Spirit,” says the Apostle, “and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” It is not enough to resolve to abstain: the mere resolution will not be sufficient to keep the door shut against the pressure of temptation. We must have something positive. Not the water of a negation, but the fire of a possession. The indwelling and pre-occupation of the Holy Spirit in his fulness can alone suffice for our need. And this can only be had by a reverent and perpetual communication being maintained between the soul and Him; as air must be pumped into the diver’s helmet at every movement he makes on the ocean floor.
But when the soul is pervaded perpetually by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, it is easy to abstain. The soul loses its very taste for things in which it formerly delighted. It detects them when yet far distant, and shudders at their approach. Satisfied with the provision of the Father’s house, it turns v;ith disgust from the husks of the swine-trough.
TJie motives for this abstinence are more than sufficient, (i) We are sfratigets and pilgrims. — “Consider what you are. If you were citizens of this world, then you might drive the same trade with them, and follow the same lusts; but seeing you are chosen and called out of this world, and invested into a new society, made free of another country, it is very reasonable that there be this difference betwixt you and the world, that while they live as at home, your carriage be such as becomes strangers; not glutting yourselves with their pleasures, not surfeiting upon their delicious fruits, but living warily and soberly.”
However gay or comfortable the hostelry may be, the traveller hastens homewards. It is not for him to entangle himself with the fascinations and allurements of the towns through which he goes. Indeed, he has no time to be allured; before the meshes of the net enwrap him he is gone. And the attractions of the beloved circle which await him so engage and monopolize his heart that he has no desire for the unholy baits which are offered to him. What then have we in common with fleshly lusts, when our citizenship is in heaven, whence we are looking for the Saviour?
(2) We must consider our influence on the %vorld. — Our behaviour among the Gentiles must be hofiest, i.e., fair or beautiful, not only for our sake, but for theirs. Followers of Jesus must never be surprised to find themselves spoken of as evil doers. They called the Master “Beelzebub”; how much more will they malign the slaves of Christ’s household! The most monstrous stories were circulated throughout the Roman Empire of the rites which Christians were said to perpetrate in their secret meetings; and on the ground of those stories they were punished with torture and death.
Such baseless charges are sometimes made still, and we must take care not to give any occasion for them in our behaviour. Nay, we must so live, that, in the day of crisis and trial, men may be compelled to acknowledge the worth of our religion, and to glorify God for having enabled us so to bear and suffer and endure.
There are arguments being built up in sick-chambers, and in the furnaces of trial through which Christians are called to pass, which silence detractors, and compel them to admit the presence of a strength, a patience, and a fortitude, for which their philosophy cannot account. And in many such cases has blasphemy been turned to adoration, and railing to praise.
With such motives to animate us, let us give a favourable response to this touching and earnest plea for a stainless and blameless life.