p. 9 | UNHALLOWED DIVERSIONS by The Christian Advocate

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1892

UNHALLOWED DIVERSIONS.

By The Christian Advocate

No spiritually-minded man needs the restraints of law to keep him from participating in diversions which are hostile to the Spirit of Christ. Having once taken such amusements into his life, he knows that when he did find pleasure in them it was alloyed with anguish and vexation of spirit. He was stung by the pangs of an angry conscience. His consciousness taught him that, instead of contributing to the elevation of his higher nature, they strengthened his ignoble passions, and tended to the degradation of his manhood. More than this, in becoming a Christian he received Christ into his soul. His Lord's indwelling became a fountain of spiritual life within him—"a spring of sparkling water, springing up into eternal life," a love begotten by the eternal Spirit, constantly aspiring to its divine Source, and fully satisfying the need of his higher, nobler nature.

The rich delight of this new spiritual life quenched his thirst for diversions which minister to the desires of the carnal mind. He illustrated in himself the verity of Christ's saying, that whoever receives him "shall never thirst" for the things which were once his delight. He is dead to them. His will is set on minding the things of the Spirit. Should he unhappily become conscious of a rising desire for diversions hostile to his hidden life in Christ, he would be alarmed at it as a symptom of declining spirituality, and would bid it get behind him. Thus the spiritually-minded man needs no restraining law to keep him from participation in amusements offensive to Christ, since Christ's will is his law in his hours of recreation as at all other times.

—The Christian Advocate.