Surfeiting and drunkenness
Gluttony and drunkenness to be avoided
I. I will attempt to show you THE EVILS AND MISCHIEF OF THESE SINS WHICH OUR SAVIOUR HERE CAUTIONS US AGAINST. Be it known to you, then, that miserable are the effects and fruits of these vices. Gluttony and greediness drove our first parents out of Paradise. They tell us that Heliogabalus used to bring his parasites into dining-rooms that had deceitful floors, and thence they fell and were destroyed. This is but an emblem of the ruin which attends those who are addicted to immoderate eating and drinking. Besides what I have said already, I will farther show you the pernicious effects of this luxurious practice in these five particulars.
1. This vice is generally fatal to men’s estates, as the wise man observes, and therefore dissuades from this folly (Proverbs 23:20-21).
2. How unspeakably pernicious is this sin to the body as well as the estate!
3. This sin is injurious not only to the body of man, but to his mind and soul, his better and move refined part. Its operations are stifled and choked, its faculties are rendered dull and useless, and the excellent spirit which was made to look up to heaven bows down to the earth, becomes gross and carnal, and is plunged into dirt and mire.
4. Luxurious eating and drinking are the nurses of wantonness and uncleanness.
5. Contempt and disgrace are the just reward of luxury.
II. I am to lay down CERTAIN RULES AND DIRECTIONS WHEREBY YOU MAY ORDER YOURSELVES ARIGHT IN THE USE OF THE PLEASURES OF MEAT AND DRINK. These are things natural and necessary, and therefore lawful and innocent in themselves.
1. Offend not as to quantity; eat and drink no more than what is requisite. Nature is content with slender provision, and Christianity maintains the same moderation.
2. Offend not as to quality, that is, be not over-curious in the choice of your meats and drinks.
3. Desire not to fare more costly than is agreeable to your condition.
4. Be careful that you spend not too much time in eating and drinking.
5. (And which is near a-kin to the former rule) Make it not your grand business to eat and drink.
6. Then these bodily refreshments of meat and drink are lawful and commendable, when they are accompanied with charity towards the needy.
7. Let your eating and drinking be attended not only with charity, but with all other testimonies of religion and serving God. Among the pagans their tables were sacred. It should be much more so among Christians, that is, we should make them serviceable to virtue, and to the promoting of our own and others’ spiritual good.
III. I will propound to you some HELPS AND ASSISTANCES.
1. That you may not offend God by the extravagant use of meats and drinks, begin within, and strive to check your undue appetites there.
Intemperance and luxury begin at the heart; stifle it there.
2. You may be helped in the discharge of the duty which I have been treating of, by understanding your selves aright, by considering your excellent nature and make.
3. To antidote you against this immoderation in meats and drinks, think seriously of the dreadful judgments of God which attend this sin (see Isaiah 5:11; Amos 6:1, etc.).
4. Think of death and judgment, and the serious consideration of these will be serviceable to check you in your intemperate courses.
(John Edwards, D. D.)
Ruined by drink
The following fact is related by a worthy clergyman, who lived and officiated not far from this place. “There are persons so hardened in sin, and so totally given up of God, that neither sickness nor death can make any impression on them. I remember one of this unhappy description, in the county of Essex, whom I both visited during his illness, and interred after he was dead. He was a clever fellow, and of good family, but so totally depraved, that when one of his bottle companions wrote to inform him that he was about to die and go to hell, and desired to know what place he should bespeak for him there, he sat down and gave him for a reply, that he did not care where it was if there was only brandy and rum enough. Thus he lived, and soon after died a martyr to spirituous liquors, cursing and blaspheming, notwithstanding all that could be done to bring him to a better mind. Being possessed of two bank bills, of the value of ten pounds each, which was all the little property he had left,--‘Now,’ said he to a person who stood by, ‘when I have spent these in brandy and rum, I shall be content to die and go to hell.’ He sunk, however, before they were expended, and left just enough to bury him.” (Essex Remembrancer.)
The luxury and worldliness of the present age
I. First, THE WARNING. To whom is that warning addressed? “Take heed to yourselves;… for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.” You see there is a contrast drawn between yourselves and the whole earth. “Yourselves” shows us to whom the warning is spoken--it is to the Church. To His own washed, saved, sanctified ones, He says, “Take heed to yourselves.” He says to them, “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life.” Mark that expression, at any time. It would seem as though the prophecy has a continuous bearing, from the time that it was delivered up to the end of the world--that this warning is spoken to the Church of God in all ages. Take notice here that the heart is spoken of as meaning the inner life of a Christian. Take heed lest the springs of spiritual life be weakened by the cares, or the frivolities, or the ease, or the luxury, or the gains, or the occupations of this present life. The word “overcharged” literally means “weighed down.” You see that not only surfeiting and drunkenness are spoken of, but “the cares of this life.” On the one hand the Lord speaks of all the glare of earth, on the other hand He speaks of the toil of earth.
II. Now, see THE REASON OF THE WARNING--“For as a snare shall it come upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth.” The meaning of this is, that the day of the Lord will take the world by surprise.
III. Thirdly, we come to speak of THE PRECEPT GROUNDED UPON THE WARNING, and the reason of the warning--“Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and stand before the Son of Man.” You may have marked in history, that before empires fell, or great capitals were destroyed, luxury in the empire or in the capital had reached a climax. It was so at Herculaneum and Pompeii; it was the case at Rome. Every species of indulgence, luxury, and comfort seemed to be gathered together by the inhabitants around, when the burning mountain poured forth its flames, while streams of lava buried the cities, and hurried the people into eternity. And so, when Rome was taken by the Goths, or northern nations, it had reached the highest point of luxury, pomp, and pride. So Babylon is described in the Revelation--whatever that Babylon means--it is described as saying, just before it is destroyed--“I sit as a queen, and am no widow.” In the very heigh of her pomp--in the very zenith of her pride--in the midst of her magnificence, God casts her down, and she sinks likelead in the mighty waters. It will be so, doubtless, with the nations of the world--with the kingdoms of professing Christendom--with the great capitals of Europe; there will be pride, and luxury, and magnificence, and men will be passing their time in ease and affluence, and self-indulgence, “when sudden destruction shall come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.” Watch ye, therefore; watch against the prevailing taste for show--watch against the prevailing love of ease--watch against the selfishness of the age, the luxury that creeps even into the Church; watch and take heed, brethren, lest you tread in the world’s footsteps. (W. Pennefather, M. A.)
A heart overcharged with care
I. Let us, think, then, in the first place of WHERE THIS INJUNCTION REALLY APPLIES TO US--When is the heart “overcharged with care”? Distinguish between care and sorrow. Goal sends sorrows but He never sends cares. No one can doubt the necessity Or sorrow, it has a part in our development which nothing else can fulfil, and, there fore, as long as God loves us and would do His best for us we may be sure we shall suffer, and that such suffering never need be a curse, but care always must. Who are the most miserable to-day? Not the sorrowful, but the careworn. When Christ said “Take heed lest your hearts be overcharged with care,” He pointed to life’s great tyranny. When, then, does this concern us? The word means “oppressed,” “weighed down.”
1. Then it is true when the heart is not able to rise. Spiritual aspirations have not quite died out nor are heavenward promptings ever felt, but the soul cannot respond to them; response needs thought, time, effort, and these cannot be spared, so life is absorbed by the earthly, and the higher things are as though they were not. Then, indeed, the heart is overcharged (oppressed, weighed down) with care.
2. So, too, is it when the heart has no room for the play of its best affections. So I say is it right to be so absorbed by business that we are practically lost to everything else, are practically slaves to money-getting, and deadened to those influences and enjoyments by which our better nature is developed and the deep places of our heart satisfied? We cannot believe it is.
3. And so, too, when the heart finds care to be a burden that crushes it. God means us to be free from oppression. His promises and requirements and the provisions of His grace all point to that: “Come unto Me and I will give you rest,” says He, “peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you,” “be careful for nothing,” “take no anxious thought,” “the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your heart and mind.”
II. Consider WHAT OUR LORD SAYS ABOUT THIS STATE. “Take heed!” He says, “take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with care.” That is, you may fall into this state unawares, to avoid it needs much watchfulness. Glance at two or three facts which blind us to the perils of a care-burdened heart.
1. For instance, it seems inseparable from duty. The tendency of our time is opposed to calm life, and even to calm pauses in the midst of life. How seldom one sees a really quiet face! Care need not be, that is. Let us not be misled into it with the idea that it is unavoidable, that we cannot perform our proper task and keep our proper place without being oppressed by it. Christ’s “Take heed!” means that if we will, for all appearance to the contrary, we may escape the evil.
2. Them, it seems consistent with devotion to Christ. That is another point which makes us think lightly of care--there seems to be no sin in it. But see the company this keeps in the text: “Hearts overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares!” “Surfeiting and drunkenness and cares”--these are classed together in the mind of Christ. Then failure in these matters, as much as failure in the other, is to be abhorred as disloyalty to God. Care springs from very evil roots, from unbelief and waywardness and very often from an idolatrous spirit. Therefore let us not go into it or live in it deceived as to its nature, as though it were harmless, but let us shrink from it alarmed at our Lord’s warning: “Take heed!”--“Take heed lest at any time your heart be overcharged with care.”
3. Then, too, it seems the natural result of temperament. That is another fact which blinds us to its evil, for we are apt to excuse certain forms of wrong-doing if we have, as we think, a tendency to them. Let us give up making light of the sin of care because it is natural, and of thinking that because it is natural it is unconquerable. Consider, thirdly,
III. WHAT THIS WORD OF OUR LORD YET FURTHER IMPLIES. The command not under any circumstances to have “hearts overcharged with care,” is a most solemn assurance that this is possible. We can rise to some measure of it at once, but its full measure is the fruit of spiritual culture. Briefly notice the lines this culture must take.
1. We must train ourselves to undertake nothing but at the bidding of God. Cares are largely due either to a consciousness that we have taken our affairs into our own hands and must be responsible for the result, or to a feeble realization that having obeyed God we are His servants and are thus under His protection. Deliberate obedience is one of the great secrets of peace.
2. And we must train ourselves to commit our cares fearlessly to Him. Many of them are self-imposed, and, as I implied, it will not be easy to lose their burden. We must avoid such.
3. I need only add that we must train ourselves to regard communion with God as our first duty. For that communion is the basis of the faith I speak of. (C. New.)