p. 491 | BIBLE TEMPERANCE by M. C. W.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 22, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 37.

BIBLE TEMPERANCE.

By M. C. W.

INTERNATIONAL LESSON NOTES.

(Dan. 5:1-6; September 28, 1890.)

THE lesson given is the account of the feast of Belshazzar on the eventful night of the fall of Babylon. Briefly stated, the circumstances were these: For nearly two years previous to this time (538 B. C.), Cyrus had besieged the city of Babylon and subjugated most of the surrounding country. The king of Babylon was Nabonadius, who had associated with him on the throne his son Belshazzar. Nabonadius had left the city to meet the enemy, and had been conquered. Belshazzar had been left in sole command, king of Babylon.

HE thought that Babylon never could be taken. Its walls were eighty-seven feet thick, and two hundred and fifty feet high, surrounded by a moat of equal cubic capacity with the walls. The gates which led into the city were huge gates of brass, and of course in a time of war were closed. On either side of the river Euphrates, which ran through the city, were mighty walls and gates, of such strength as to render them an insurmountable barrier to any foe who might gain entrance to the river-bed.

BUT in the idolatrous feast the wine flowed freely, caution fled, king, officers, guards, became fools; and while they, in drunken revelry, were blaspheming the God of heaven and earth, the troops of Cyrus were marching down the bed of the Euphrates River, the water of which had been diverted for a time to a great artificial reservoir which had been excavated for that purpose. The gates which opened to the river were, according to the prophecy of two hundred years before, left open. See Isa. 45:1, 2.

THE king and after generations were not left to infer from circumstances alone the cause of this fall of Babylon. Right in the midst of the drunken revelry, the hand of a messenger of God was seen writing upon the wall of the palace. The king had just committed his crowning act of folly and sin. When his heart was lifted up with wine, he "commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein." "They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone." Then came the divine witness to his drunken blasphemy, which immediately sobered the wicked king. His guilty soul felt that it was some divine retribution.

THE wise men of the kingdom are baffled, even as they were in the days of Nebuchadnezzar; they cannot read the characters of fire. By the advice of the queen, presumably the mother of Belshazzar and daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, the beloved of God, now supposed to be about eighty years old, is called. He tells the king of the faithful warnings God had given, of the disregard of those warnings on his part, even to the act of high blasphemy in which he had just indulged. And then he proceeds to read the writing: "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN"—Numbered, Numbered, Weighed, Divided,—these were the words and their meaning; and the prophet interprets them thus: "And this is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. This is the interpretation of the thing: Mene: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." And that very night it was fulfilled.

WHAT a contrast is here presented between the two chief characters of this lesson—Daniel the prophet, Belshazzar the king. We go back to the beginning of Daniel's career, and we learn one important part of the foundation on which he built—he had temperance and self-control. While he might have been fed on royal dainties and quaffed royal wine, he "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat [food], nor with the wine which he drank" (Dan. 1:8), but contented himself with "pulse to eat, and water to drink" (verse 12). God blessed the devotion to duty, and the principles which actuated the young prince—principles which governed him all through his life. Belshazzar was reared in all the luxury of an Eastern court. He had, unlike Cyrus, been a wine-drinker from his earliest days. He was luxurious, sensuous, unwise, just what intemperance always makes men. The one was filled with wisdom; the other with folly.

THERE is nothing that man can do which so preserves the finer sensibilities of the moral nature as does a life of temperance. The physical powers are preserved, the functions of the body are normal, no one part of the system is built up at the expense of the others; and if the individual is connected with God, he is in that condition where God can impress his mind, mould his character, and draw out his affections. The opposite of this is also true. He who indulges his appetite in things unhealthful, or overindulges in things which are good in reasonable quantities, soon becomes gross in body, gross and coarse in mind and heart. The drunkard cares for himself. He will see home become destitute, children become beggars, vagabonds, thieves, wife die of broken heart, and his benumbed senses appreciate it but little, if at all. Indulgence of appetite has brought him to that condition. And this is just as true in a measurable degree of indulgence in other things. Whatever enslaves a man benumbs his moral sensibilities.

IT is for these reasons that God has given directions at various times respecting the indulgence of appetite. In Lev. 10:9-11, the Lord gave the following instruction to those who ministered in holy things: "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations; and that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses."

A DISREGARD of these injunctions always brought sure and sad results. Nadab and Abihu had evidently been indulging in appetite when they took the strange fire and died before the Lord in consequence. See Lev. 10:1-3, 9, 10. The man who was dedicated unto the Lord as a Nazarite was to drink no wine or strong drink. Num. 6:2, 3. John the Baptist was a total abstainer. Luke 1:15.

THE Bible rule of temperance is to be "temperate in all things" (1 Cor. 9:25), to eat and drink to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), to do nothing which would defile the body and render it an unfit dwelling for the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 3:16, 17; 6:19, 20). Whatever benumbs, narcotizes, intoxicates, or in any way destroys the finer sensibilities of a man's nature, which makes him less a true man, less keenly alive to other's rights and feelings, is wrong, whether it be the use of alcohol, tobacco, opium, absinthe, tea, coffee, or cocoa. Said a Methodist brother one time: "If the Spirit of God had to choose between a tobacco-user and the open air, I believe it would choose the open air." And is it not true? The best rule, the only rule, is

Christ. Would he use intoxicants? Would he smoke? Would he indulge in appetite for the sake of appetite? We all know he would not. Our only true way, therefore, is to walk as he walked, and say, with his devoted servant: "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." Rom. 14:21. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Such a course will repay a thousand fold. Intemperance always yields evil results.