1 Corinthians 9:25

1 Corinthians 9:25

Christian Temperance.

I. To be temperate, in the primary sense of the word, is to be under command, self-governed, to feel the reins of our desires, and to be able to check them. It is obvious that this of itself implies a certain amount of prudence, to know when, at what point, to exercise this control. There is such a thing as negative as well as positive intemperance. God made His world for our use; He gave us our faculties to be employed. If we use not the one and employ not the other, then, though we do not usually call such an insensibility by the name of intemperance, it certainly is a breach of temperance, the very essence of which is to use God's bounties in moderation, to employ our faculties and desires, but so as to retain the guidance and check over them. And such being the pure moral definition of temperance, let us proceed to base it on Christian grounds, to ask why and how the disciple of Christ must be temperate.

II. Our text will give us ample reason why. The disciple of Christ is a combatant, contending in a conflict in which he has need of all the exercise of all his powers. He has ever, in the midst of a visible world, to be ruled and guided by his sense of a world invisible. For this purpose he needs to be vigilant and active. He cannot afford to have his faculties dulled by excess, or his energies relaxed by sloth. He strives for the mastery, and therefore he must be temperate in all things.

III. A Christian man must be temperate in his religion. It is not a passion, carrying him out of his place in life and its appointed duties; nor a fancy, leading him to all kinds of wild notions, requiring constant novelty to feed it and keep it from wearying him; nor, again, is it a charm, to be sedulously gone through as a balm to his conscience. It is a matter demanding the best use of his best faculties. Temperance must also be shown in the intellectual life, in opinions and in language. The end of all is our sanctification by God's Spirit to God's glory; the perfection, not of stoical morality, but of Christian holiness.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 199.

References: 1 Corinthians 9:26 . E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 191. 1 Corinthians 9:27 . C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 108. 1 Corinthians 10:1 . G. T. Coster, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 141. 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 . Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 481; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iv., p. 89. 1 Corinthians 10:1-6 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. i., p. 22; vol. viii., p. 88. 1 Corinthians 10:3 , 1 Corinthians 10:4 . J. Edmunds, Fifteen Sermons, p. 164. 1 Corinthians 10:4 . C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 282; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 176; C. J. Elliott, Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 53; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iii., p. 87. 1 Corinthians 10:6 . Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Church of England Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 109. 1 Corinthians 10:7 . T. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 1; R. L. Browne, Sussex Sermons, p. 95.