Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler Part 23

(_b_) _Riches._

Oh, how deceitful riches are. We think we don't love them, but let us be asked to part with them, as Christ asked the young man, and _we see_.

John Wesley said, "As wealth increases, religion decreases," and he was right.

(_c._) _Pleasure._

The pleasure of fine, rich living, fas.h.i.+onable life, fine dress, theater-going, b.a.l.l.s, parties, flirtations, the admiration and praise of others etc., etc.

4. The last cla.s.s are those who _count the cost_, go in with their eyes open, who _won't_ let cares, riches or pleasures draw them off, but who work, and serve, and pray with _patience_ even unto the end.

II. CORINTHIANS, II: 11.

"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices."

The New Testament everywhere teaches that there is a personal evil spirit of wonderful cunning and deep malignity toward G.o.d and the human race. Hence, our conflict is not with flesh and blood; not against our own inclinations to evil, nor against sin in the abstract, but it is against the G.o.d of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

Therefore, yielding to sin is no small matter, for it is yielding to an enemy of unfathomable hatred toward us, and of the deepest cunning, who, in everything, has for his purpose our ruin and G.o.d's disappointment, and who, however lightly he may let his chains lie upon us while we are led captive by him, at his will, always draws them so tight, when we attempt to escape from him, that only Almighty G.o.d can break them off and set us free.

It makes a vast difference whether sin is only the indulgence of a pa.s.sion which can have no intelligent design to damage and to ruin us, and which pa.s.ses away when it is gratified, to trouble us no more, or whether it is the means adopted by an invisible but awfully real and h.e.l.lish foe to lure us to an unforeseen ruin.

Yes, sin is not a mere pleasure whose effects are ended when the enjoyment is over, but it is the bait that hides the cruel hook thrown out for us by the artful fisherman of h.e.l.l. And he is all the more dangerous because we can not see him and realize always his ultimate purpose.

The skillful fisherman keeps himself out of sight and lets the fish see only the tempting bait, and so the poor, deceived creature is lured by a harmless looking pleasure on to agony and death.

And Satan not only controls the world, but he continually tempts Christians; those who have just recently escaped out of his snares and are on their way to heaven.

And now, what are some of his devices?

1. He makes a grand effort to persuade young Christians that they have never been converted. He almost invariably attacks them with this temptation. He sometimes pursues them for years with this fear, that they have never really experienced a change of heart. And, if he succeeds in persuading them of this, he has gained a grand point toward their fall. For to find that one is mistaken in the belief that he has pa.s.sed from death unto life, is the most discouraging, disheartening thing he could experience.

I have known old ministers of the Gospel say that the first thing Satan ever tempted them with was this suggestion, that they were mistaken in believing that they had pa.s.sed through that wonderful change which makes a sinner an heir of G.o.d, and fits him for heaven.

So, my brother, you are in the line of G.o.d's true servants if the enemy has troubled you with this temptation. Don't, therefore, let it discourage you. And do not, by any means, give up to it. Say to your tempter that your Lord says he is a liar from the beginning, and that you can not believe him, but you prefer to believe G.o.d.

And the very fact that you are strongly tempted to believe you are not converted is one proof that you are. For if you were really _not_ converted, but still in the flesh, the devil would tempt you to believe you _were_ converted, in order to make you rest satisfied and deceived with your unsaved condition. As he _does_ tempt many worldly-minded church members to believe they are changed enough to be safe, and so they rest satisfied in their unsaved condition, and perish.

So, there are many church members who become irreconcilably offended if you dare to suggest to them that you don't believe they are really children of G.o.d. Their temptation then is to believe the falsehood, that they are really converted and in a safe condition.

And if a man's temptation is to believe he is _not_ converted, it is one proof that he _is_ converted.

Besides, if the devil tempts you to believe you are not converted, you can cut the matter short by saying: "Well, then, I can be in a moment.

For whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ hath everlasting life, and I do here and now believe on Him, and will hold on to Him by faith in spite of earth and h.e.l.l." Old Brother Bottomly, a preacher in the Louisville Conference, was tempted to doubt his conversion the night after it occurred, as he was lying on his bed. He recognized Satan at once as the author of his temptation, and he said: "Well, Satan, if I have not been converted, as you say, I will be." And he got out of his bed, and down on his knees, and he gave himself to G.o.d, and he believed on Jesus, and prayed, and soon he was rejoicing in full a.s.surance, and the devil fled away out of hearing with his hara.s.sing temptation.

2. He tries to make them believe and feel, after the glow of the first love has subsided a little, that the service of G.o.d is hard and trying, and that it has nothing in it to satisfy the heart and to compensate for the pleasure of sin, which they have given up.

And if you begin to yield and to slacken your earnestness or zeal, he gets a great advantage and you lose the joy of religion by letting yourself lag away at a doubting distance from Christ, and then it does seem like the devil is telling the truth, because you don't keep close enough to Christ and put soul and will enough into His service to get the joy of it. Christ says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

And if your heart or your enemy says the contrary, tell them that they are false.

But don't allow yourself to be tempted to try if you can not find an easy way to heaven. It will get sweet and easy by a patient and whole-souled perseverance in it, but _not_ by slackening your carefulness and experimenting with worldly pleasure to see how far you can go therein.

3. But his grand scheme for ruining young Christians, and the one he generally succeeds with, is the suggestion that there is no need of being so particular and so regular in everything and so rigid in the performance of duty and in the avoiding of all appearances of evil.

In other words, a sort of reaction comes, and a dangerous thing it often proves to be. Now, the temptation is to give up the regular and rigid performance of duty because you don't _feel_ as much like doing it as you did at first, or because some of your well-meaning, but unrenewed, friends say they can't see the need of being so particular and strict.

There's no use of going to prayer-meeting every time, no use going to church twice every Sunday, no use having prayer at home every day, etc.

But if you miss any duty once it will be much easier to miss it the second time and you will be much more likely to neglect it again. And you can't afford to take such a dangerous risk in so important a matter.

And then we begin to think that there is no use being so particular about abstaining from the very beginnings of evil, or else we persuade ourselves that we have grown so strong and have been so changed we can be men now and enjoy things in moderation which formerly we could not use without going to excess.

Ah, brother, you are walking right into one of Satan's unseen traps. O, beware! For your happiness' sake, beware! for your family's sake, beware! Satan says, "It's no harm to take a dram if you don't get drunk; no harm to go to the race track if you don't bet; no harm to go to the ball-room if you don't dance," etc.

But we know that even in case of a youth who has never been in the habit of indulging in sins, they have a growing charm and power over him if he yields once or twice; how much greater the danger for one who has been the slave of these sins and has only recently broken off from them!

I heard a recently converted man say to a friend who was starting away on a trip, "Dunc, don't let the devil say to you 'Now, just take one drink and then stop.' For I tell you, if you take one drink you are gone." Now, this man understood the case and the danger.

There is no possibility of compromise. No possible middle ground in these things, especially for us who were once the slaves of our evil pa.s.sions.

I have heard of a man who _for years_ had abstained from drinking and his father, thinking he was safe, invited him to drink toddies with him.

The son did so, and he went back to his old habit of drunkenness, had delirium tremens, forced his wife to get a divorce and brought distress and disgrace and anguish on his family as well as himself. That was a Mr. D., who has several times been to our Mission.

So, my brother, though you may think you would be safe to trifle with sin, and try to practice moderation, it is such an awful, awful risk you had better not make the experiment. Remember, it is only the bait of Satan to lure you to certain ruin.

For your sake, for your father's sake, for your mother's sake, for your wife's sake, for your children's sake, for Christ's sake, don't do it.

COMPARISON OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND WICKED.

PSALM I: 1-2.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of G.o.d, and hence it is profitable for instruction and a.s.sistance to those who will attentively consider it. This Psalm is a part of the Scripture, and we may expect to find it instructive and helpful. It contains a description of the righteous man.

1. It tells what he does _not_ do. He does not walk in the counsel of the unG.o.dly. This is the beginning of an evil life--to go among those who are unG.o.dly and to listen to their opinions and views and counsels.

There is no sin, our evil hearts suggest to us, in merely going with worldly people, if we do not pattern after their ways and do as they do.

We can go with them and yet not do as they do. But the history, the sad history, of many a struggling soul, shows that this is a great mistake.

We can't go with bad a.s.sociates and not be harmed by them. The very fact that we want to go with wicked people shows that there is in us an inclination toward sin which is dangerous, and which ought to be severely watched and kept down rather than encouraged. More men have been ruined by their a.s.sociations than by any other one cause. And let me say by way of warning that if any of you, my friends, are purposing and trying to lead a new life, you will have to give up the a.s.sociations of your old life and choose new ones, as I had to do, and did do.

But did you observe the word _walk_ here in this verse? That word is intended to show that in the first part of a sinful life there is restlessness and uneasiness. The man who is just beginning to sin against light and conscience and G.o.d is uneasy about it. He can not be still. It is something new and strange, and his conscience rises up against his conduct; and till he goes on to the deadening of his conscience, it gives him distress and anxiety.

But it says, the good man does not "stand in the way of sinners." This is the second stage. When a man pa.s.ses through the first stage and gets to this second one, then he not only listens to the conversation and counsel of those who are unG.o.dly--that is, who make no professions of religion--but he goes now with open _sinners, in the way_ with evil doers, violators of law, criminals against G.o.d and man. And now observe he takes a "_stand_." It is no longer "walk," for the restlessness and uneasiness have about pa.s.sed away, and he takes a deliberate _stand_ among wicked men, who do not fear to commit any sort of crime. And, my young friend, this is always the way with sin. It grows upon a man; and before he is aware of it, he has grown fond of it, sees no evil or danger in it, and deliberately chooses it as his course of life. Beware, then, of _beginning_ in the way of evil.

But it says, in the third place, that he does not "sit in the seat of the scornful." Ah, here we have the third stage of the downward course of sin. First, there was a restlessness in even a.s.sociating with unG.o.dly people; second, a deliberate stand among sinners, evil doers, as one of their number; and now it is _sitting down_ in the seat of the _scornful_. When men have silenced the voice of conscience, and spent years in the practice of evil, they come at last to lose faith in everything--in G.o.d, in man, in virtue, in goodness; and they become cold and sneering scorners of everything that is called good. Have you not known men who have gone through this downward road? Nay, do you not know now some who are traveling this ruinous pathway? I have known young men to go among gamblers just to _look on_. They would have _feared_ to touch the implements of sin, but they became familiarized with the sight, and then took part; and from bad to worse, have gone on and on, till it makes me shudder to know what they are to-day. I tell you, my friends, the course of sin is down, down, down. You may as soon expect to get in a boat on the current of Niagara above the falls and stand still, as to expect that you can launch yourself on the current of sin and not go down toward swift and certain ruin. Beware then! Hear the voice of warning before you have gone too far ever to return.

2. In the next place, this Psalm tells what a _good_ man does. His delight is in the law of the Lord. He is satisfied that in sin there is only ruin; and turning with fear and dread away from sin, he yearns to find G.o.d, who alone can deliver him from sin and keep him from it and furnish him a satisfying portion instead of it.

But where can we find G.o.d, and how? Not in nature; for there is nothing clear enough in nature to teach anything about G.o.d or how to come to His presence. But he can expect to find G.o.d in that revelation which G.o.d has made of Himself in His word. So he goes to that, and he finds there encouragement and instruction and tender invitations and promises of mercy and help; and the more he seeks the more he finds to draw him on, to satisfy his yearning heart and to charm his poor soul away from the love of sin. As he practices what he finds in G.o.d's word, he realizes the blessedness of it. It brings peace, purity, deliverance from darkness, uncertainty and fear; and so he longs to know more and more of it and he studies into it. Do you know that to one whose heart is changed the word of G.o.d is like a whole California of gold mines? He is _always_ finding treasures there. Every time he reads it there is something new and rich and blessed. The deepest and most devout students of G.o.d's word say that there is no end to its wealth of instruction and consolation. If you want to know G.o.d and His salvation, you ought to set apart a certain time _every day_ to prayerfully read and study into His word, always asking His guidance and help.

And it will soon come to pa.s.s that, as the text says, you will "_delight_ in the law of G.o.d." Do you ever deliberately, carefully, studiously, humbly and prayerfully read the Bible? You say, "No." Then how can you expect to know anything of G.o.d? How can a physician know anything of the nature of the human body unless he studies into it? And how can you know anything of G.o.d and His wonderful mercy unless you go and search where G.o.d has revealed this for man? There are some men who will not read the Bible because they can't understand it. Of course they can't understand it all, but, if they can understand one verse in a chapter, let them take that and study on it and believe it, and keep reading, and soon more and more will open out to their understanding, and it will be a constant surprise and delight to find the undreamed-of beauties and comforts of the word of G.o.d. Promise G.o.d now that you will _patiently_ read some every day. You will then find your desire for sin and sinful a.s.sociations leaving you.