LESSON XIV.—SABBATH, SEPTEMBER 30, 1893.
Memory Verse.—"Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10: 31. 1. For what was man created?
"For I have created him for my glory." Isa. 43: 7. 2. What is this glory elsewhere called?
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power." Rev. 4: 11. 3. What kind of pleasure is the pleasure of God?
"According to the good pleasure of his will." Eph. 1: 5. 4. Did man continue to live for God's glory?
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 3: 23. 5. Is it the pleasure of the Lord that man should be afflicted and die prematurely?
"For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." Lam. 3: 33. 6. What have been the moral results of intemperance?
"Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away as I saw good." Eze. 16: 49, 50. 7. What is the certain fate of the drunken and intemperate?
"They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Gal. 5: 21. 8. Who is classed with the drunkard?
"Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." Prov. 23: 20, 21. 9. To whom do we belong? Ans.—To God.
"Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." 1 Cor. 7: 23; see also Gal. 3: 13. 10. What is the price which has been paid for us?
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1: 18, 19. 11. What does God design our bodies to be?
"What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" 1 Cor. 6: 19. 12. How should we use them?
"Therefore glorify God in your body." 1 Cor. 6: 20. 13. What does God desire as regards health of body?
"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 2. 14. For what purpose should we eat and drink?
"Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!" Eccl. 10: 17. 15. How are the mind and conscience sure to be affected by intemperance?
"And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, 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." Lev. 10: 8-11. 16. How did a disregard of this affect Aaron's sons?
"And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." Verses 1, 2; see also Isa. 56: 9-12; Eze. 22: 26. 17. What is one of the fruits of the Spirit of God?
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Gal. 5: 22, 23; see also 2 Peter 1: 5-8. 18. How should we regard these lusts of appetite and passion?
"Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." 1 Peter 2: 11; see also Col. 3: 5. 19. What warning and admonition are given us for the last days?
"Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying." Rom. 13: 13; see also Luke 21: 34, 35. 20. What should we do?
"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Rom. 13: 14; see also 1 Cor. 9: 24-27. 21. Are those free men and women who are bound by useless or hurtful habits of any kind?
"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Rom. 6: 16. 22. How should those who know the truth live?
"But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation." 1 Thess. 5: 4-8. 23. Against what are we exhorted?
"Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." Rom. 14: 13. 24. What is ever a safe rule?
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10: 31. INTEMPERANCE is by no means to be confined to indulgence in alcoholic or fermented liquors. Whatever it is to which man stoops in blind submission, upon which he wastes his powers of mind or body uselessly, is a master, and he is a slave, and the repeated act of indulgence is intemperance, fraught with the same direful consequences, bondage of soul and body, and at last irretrievable ruin. Thus tobacco in its various forms holds millions in its power. Tea and coffee hold millions more in bondage. Of course the last two are not as bad as the use of alcohol, opium, absinthe, and tobacco, but, though milder, they do no good, they enslave the mind, blunt the finer sensibilities of the soul, and so unfit it to appreciate the glorious truths of God. Freedom in Christ is freedom from every enthralling habit.