Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith,
(Theodore Parker.)
Temperance
W. C. E. Newbolt.
Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith,
(W. C. E. Newbolt.)
Order has been called the first law of God. And order implies
perfect control on the part of intelligence over all things within
its domain. And we know — slight as our real knowledge is of
the natural forces that are around us in the earth and air and
waters under the earth — how essential that the bond which
binds all forces together in orderly connection should not be cut
or weakened in a single strand. The nobility of self-control, as
well as the absolute necessity of it, is perceived in the study of
the nature and the administration of God. It can also be seen as
we study the nature and doings of man. Now, man has his
realm, In it he is sovereign; and his realm is first his own
nature, and secondly the space circumscribed within the
influences which that nature exerts. In the first place, I say, man
must have control over himself. He must treat himself as a
force that needs control, as a collection of energies that need
restraint and direction, as a being of emotions that must not rise
save in certain directions, as a creature of appetite which must
be kept subordinate; and by appetite we mean any strong
desire, any urgent craving after a thing. In looking into the
matter of human appetites, perhaps the most prominent fact you
discover is that they are natural. They are found imbedded in
the organic structure of man. The physical appetites reveal
themselves first; but the mind has its native cravings as truly as
the body. The spirit also — by which we mean that faculty in
us which holds relations to the moral realm — has its natural
characteristics. Neroes and Caligulas are born. Their
gratification in cruelty made them monsters. Even time, that
rounds off so many angles and mellows so much that is garish,
refuses to soften a single line of their harsh vices, or soften the
fierce and baleful expression of their career. Bonapartes and
Caesars are born as truly as drunkards — born with the appetite
for fame, for glory, for power. History tells us to what excesses
these mental appetites can carry persons, and into what miseries
they can plunge mankind. These men and their like were born
with violent appetites, unruly desires, an inordinate craving
after prominence, power, and the splendour of a great career.
What to them were sacked cities, burning villages, and blazing
hamlets? What to them the dying agonies of slaughtered troops,
the widow's wail, the orphan's cry, the imprecations of men and
the indignation of God? These men knew no moderation. Their
appetites, uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable by mortal
power, urged them into such excesses that Justice, forgetting
her function in her righteous rage, smote their memories with
her scales as if she would not deign to weigh them in her
balances; and Mercy herself refused to champion their cause,
being utterly alienated in her sympathy by the number and
magnitude of their dreadful crimes. Observe, now, the actions
of physical appetites. How gross the spectacle of the animal
exhibition we behold! In our country gluttony is not in vogue;
but the time has been when it flourished in nations of highest
civilization, and I think it may be said, as a natural adjunct of
the civilization. In our age intemperance crops out not in eating
but in drinking. We stimulate the nerves instead of gorging the
stomach. We sin against the mind more directly than against
the body. The sin of intemperance springs from two causes: a
physical appetite and a mental habit. The mental habit is
acquired, and is especially acquired by brain-workers. But the
question may be asked — and I have often asked it myself —
why did the Creator make us so? Why did He who designed our
structure and mingled the elements of our nature, not make us
more moderate, self-contained, and less impulsive? Why did
He kindle in us such fiery heats, or build, as it were, into the
very walls of the edifice such combustible material? In reply.
Our creation, as it seems to me, is as it is because it is one of
power and dignity. Greatness is great because of the strength of
its tendencies, the warmth of its emotions, and its liabilities to
overdo and go astray. We could have been made more
moderate if we had been made weaker; but we could not have
been made more moderate and possessed the strength, the
force, the impulsive and emotional energies that we do. Now
and then you come across a man who is all moderation; not
because of any masterly control he has over himself whereby
he holds the outgoing forces of his nature back with benevolent
restraint; but because he lacks the force and energy. What small
sinners some people are! They sin weakly. Their morality is
limp. It takes a great angel to make a great devil. It takes great
strength to be monumentally virtuous or monumentally wicked.
It seems to me, then, that we were made as we are in order that
we might become truly great. And how do men and women
become great? They become great through great resistances,
great struggles, and great victories. One must wrestle with the
angels of light and the angels of darkness both, if he would be
thewed and corded with spiritual power. Therefore,
temperance, or a wise and noble control of one's nature
touching every outgoing of one's power, does not imply
negation, but the strongest kind of affirmation. And again: Self-
control is the only kind that really covers the whole man. Laws
control the actions; but actions are only the results of emotional
causes. And while the actions can be dictated to by law, can be
checked — yet the emotional causes strike their roots deeper
into the nature than the hand of law can reach. You may arrest a
thief and put him into the prison cell, and thereby restrain his
thievish actions; but his thievish instincts remain untouched,
remain in all their force laughing from the depths in which they
are imbedded at your attempts to reach them, when you only
pass your hand, as it were, over the surface far beneath which
they lurk. Nothing short of, nothing less penetrative, nothing
less potent or radical than, the Spirit of God can put its arrest
upon the instincts of man. The central idea of the word
temperance, which in our text is named as one of the fruits of
the Spirit, is self-control. And this self-mastery relates first and
with greatest emphasis to ourselves. It is the foundation on
which all nobility of nature must be builded. Without it,
character is essentially unsound and likely to become corrupt.
For your own selves, therefore, for your peace of mind, for
your self-esteem, for that satisfaction in living which comes
from the consciousness that you are living rightly, we should
all alike make it the first object of our endeavours. To be able
to stand up against the pressure of any current, from whatever
direction it may come, and with whatever force it may strike us
— to be able to bit and bridle our passions and control the
otherwise wild and runaway forces of our nature — is a
consummation so devoutly to be wished that all others may be
regarded as subordinate. Nor should we fail to put ourselves in
connection with any helpful agencies. If Christianity can help
us, then we should avail ourselves of the teachings, and above
all of the spirit, of Christianity. If the power needed for such a
sublime service can only be received from heavenly
bestowment, then heaven should not go unbesought of us. If the
Father can help us, then the Father's aid should be invoked.
This is a conclusion in respect to which I feel confident,
whatever may be our views and opinions touching subsidiary
questions, we can unite in common and hearty agreement. But
we cannot and we do not live alone. The social structure of the
world, based upon our social natures common to all men,
makes isolation impossible to us. We are knitted and knotted
together. We are interwoven as threads when they have been,
by the skill of men and the pressure of machinery, incorporated
into one fabric. We cannot help influencing others, nor can we
protect ourselves from that interaction of influences which, as
we affect others, causes others to affect us. We mar or make the
happiness of many. The joy of many lives holds to us the same
relation that the flowers in spring-time hold to the sun. From us
they receive those warm and vivifying influences which, and
which alone, make them floral. We can be the sun or we can be
the frost unto thousands. We are strong enough in our
capacities of imparting pleasure to make them happy. We are
strong enough in our capacity to impart pain to make them
wretched. If we hold ourselves in such control that the going
forth of our natures is salutary and blessed to them, then do we
indeed make their lives, If, lacking this self-control, the forces
of our natures go forth lawlessly, then it is not only their
happiness, but even the existence of their virtue, put in peril.
How solemn, therefore, is the exhortation which comes to us
from these grave and tender considerations that we become
temperate in our lives; that we surrender our natures to the
influences of that Spirit that worketh out in them so desirable a
result! For what is the use of living unless we can make some
one happy? Why do we draw breath? Why do we toil? Why do
we pile our backs with burdens? Why do we fill our mouth with
laughter, and yield our eyes to tears, unless in so doing we
supply our own souls with their natural food for good, and give
unto others the support, the pleasure, and the consolation that
they need?
Self-Control
T. G. Selby.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
A river is usually an unmixed blessing to a country. It fertilises
adjacent lands. It presents a matchless highway for commerce.
But there are exceptions to the rule. One of the largest rivers in
the world is known by the name of "China's sorrow." The banks
through which the Yellow River flows for nearly a thousand
miles of its course are so low and so friable that, with the first
flash of the spring floods, away they sink, and thousands of
square miles of country are laid under water. It is not hemmed
in by granite or limestone gorges like its great and
incomparably useful neighbour the Yang Tsze. Its torrents are
unrestrained. Within historical times it has shifted its course
altogether, and discharges itself into the sea some hundreds of
miles away from the old mouth. Although a river of first-class
dimensions, counted by the volume of water it discharges, for
nearly a thousand miles of its course it is scarcely navigable. It
is a colossal power for good wasted through the lack of strong,
binding power in its banks. And there are not a few people who
are like this capricious river in the career they follow. We
might, perhaps, describe them as the "Church's sorrow." There
is uncommon virtue or potency in their characters, and they are
not altogether wanting in knowledge. But through the lack of
this temperance or "self-restraint" they break out at given
periods like "China's sorrow," and make schism and faction in
the Church, and fritter away their own capacity for usefulness,
and possibly in the end shift their course into altogether
unexpected channels. Um rio geralmente é uma bênção sem
mistura para um país. Fertiliza terras adjacentes. Apresenta uma
estrada incomparável para o comércio. Mas há exceções à
regra. Um dos maiores rios do mundo é conhecido pelo nome
de "tristeza da China". As margens pelas quais o Rio Amarelo
flui por quase mil milhas de seu curso são tão baixas e tão
friáveis que, com o primeiro lampejo das inundações da
primavera, afundam e milhares de quilômetros quadrados de
país são colocados debaixo d'água. Não é cercado por
desfiladeiros de granito ou calcário, como seu vizinho grande e
incomparavelmente útil, o Yang Tsze. Suas torrentes são
irrestritas. Nos tempos históricos, mudou completamente seu
curso e se lança no mar a algumas centenas de quilômetros de
distância da antiga boca. Embora um rio de dimensões de
primeira classe, contado pelo volume de água que descarrega,
por quase mil milhas de seu curso, é dificilmente navegável. É
um poder colossal para o bem desperdiçado pela falta de poder
forte e vinculativo em seus bancos. E não há algumas pessoas
que são como este rio caprichoso na carreira que seguem.
Talvez possamos descrevê-los como a "tristeza da Igreja". Há
uma virtude ou potência incomum em seus personagens, e eles
não são totalmente necessários em conhecimento. Mas, pela
falta dessa temperança ou "autocontrole", eles surgem em
determinados períodos como "a tristeza da China", e fazem
cisma e facção na Igreja, e desperdiçam sua própria capacidade
de utilidade, e possivelmente no final do turno. naturalmente
em canais completamente inesperados.
(T. G. Selby.)
Versos
2 Pe. 1:6
At. 24:25
2Tm 3:3
Self-Government
A. Maclaren, D. D.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
Self-Mastery
U. R. Thomas.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
1. Hereditary.
2. Surrounding.
3. Inherent.
(U. R. Thomas.)
Temperance
W. R. Williams.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
(W. R. Williams.)
Temperance
Thomas Adams.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
3. In meats.
(1) For the manner; this is merely circumstantial, and may thus
he expressed: too Soon, too late, too daintily, too fast, too
much, is gluttony.
(a) Grossness.
(3) Rottenness and death. The finest food shall make no better
dust.
4. In drinks.
(a) Because we are men. While the wine is in thy hand, thou
art a man; when it is in thy head, thou art become a beast.
(Thomas Adams.)
Temperance
Joseph P. Thompson.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
(3) I exhort you to this self-control for your own peace of mind.
(4) Your duty to Christ and your professed hope in Him require
that you shall govern yourself in His spirit. "He died for all,
that they should not henceforth live to themselves, but to Him
who died for them and rose again."
(Joseph P. Thompson.)
Temperance
D. J. Hamer.
2 Peter 1:5-7
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;
and to virtue knowledge;…
(D. J. Hamer.)
Desenvolvendo o autocontrole
Conclusão
2. Extravagance of speech.
3. Rashness of conduct.
2. Avoidance of temptation.
V. Applications.
An Unwalled City
Alexander Maclaren
Proverbs 25:28
He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is
broken down, and without walls.
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is
broken down, and without walls.' -- PROVERBS xxv.28.
But, while all this is true, it is too sadly true that the
accomplishment of this ideal is impossible in our own strength.
Our own sad experience tells us that we cannot govern
ourselves; and our observations of our brethren but too surely
indicate that they too are the prey of rebellious, anarchical
powers within, and of temptations, against the rush of which
they and we are as powerless as a voyager in a bark-canoe,
caught in the fatal drift of Niagara. Conscience has a voice, but
no hands; it can speak, but if its voice fails, it cannot hold us
back. From its chair it can bid the waves breaking at our feet
roll back, as the Saxon king did, but their tossing surges are
deaf. As helpless as the mud walls of some Indian hill-fort
against modern artillery, is the defence, in one's own strength,
of one's own self against the world. We would gladly admit that
the feeblest may do much to 'keep himself unspotted from the
world'; but we must, if we recognise facts, confess that the
strongest cannot do all. No man can alone completely control
his own nature; no man, unenlightened by God, has a clear, full
view of duty, nor a clear view of himself. Always there is some
unguarded place:
but no man can so lift himself so as that self will not drag him
down. The walls are broken down and the troops of the spoilers
sack the city.
'The gates shall not be shut day nor night,' for 'every thing that
defileth' is without. We know but little of that future, what we
know will, surely, be theirs who here have been 'guarded by the
power of God, through faith, unto salvation.' That salvation will
bring with it the end for the need of guardianship; though it
leaves untouched the blessed dependence, we shall stand secure
when it is impossible to fall. And that impossibility will be
realised, partly, as we know, from change in surroundings,
partly from the dropping away of flesh, partly from the entire
harmony of our souls with the will of God. Our ignorance of
that future is great, but our knowledge of it is greater, and our
certainty of it is greatest of all.
No man can be said to have attained complete rule over his own
spirit who has not under his habitual control the tenor of his
thoughts, the language of his lips, and motions of lust and
appetite, and the energy of his passion. This shows you at once
the extent, and the division of our subject.
(J. S. Buckminster.)
Self-Government Essential to Wisdom
J. Abernethy, M.A.
Proverbs 25:28
He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is
broken down, and without walls.
Moral Invectives
E. Johnson
Proverbs 25:23-28
The north wind drives away rain: so does an angry
countenance a backbiting tongue.…
Aplicando a lição:
E agora?
Situação 1:
Situação 2:
Situação 3:
Situação 4:
Situação 6:
Situação 7:
Sua mãe não quer deixar você ver televisão até mais tarde
porque já está na hora de dormir, mas você quer ver.
Situação 8:
Sua mãe chama você para tomar banho, mas você está no
meio de uma brincadeira muito divertida e não quer parar.
FAÇA UM TESTE DA PRIMEIRA VONTADE:
Situação 9:
Seu pai chama você para escovar os dentes, mas você está
desenhando e não quer parar.
Situação 10:
Situação 11:
Situação 12:
Situação 13:
Situação 14:
Sua mãe está falando ao telefone e você quer falar uma
coisa com ela. Em vez de esperar ela terminar, você começa
a falar bem alto para ela ouvir. Ela faz sinal de silêncio
(psiu!) com o dedo e pede pra você esperar.
Situação 15:
Situação 16: