It lays down the safe rule for appetite as entire abstinence from intoxicating drink, tobacco, narcotics and stimulating beverages, not touching, tasting or handling them at all with no least indulgence or experiment with a supposed safe amount. For wine, cider and spirituous liquor it forbids even moderate or so-called harmless use, requiring them to be left at once and forever without half-way work, because moderate use educates the appetite and opens the highway to drunkenness. These substances are to be wholly avoided because they irritate the stomach, poison the blood and excite the nerves with borrowed power followed by depression, always tending to excess and educating craving until indulgence becomes habit and the will is overborne. Total abstinence keeps reason in government over animal appetites and passions, while indulgence benumbs the intellect, deranges judgment, debases mental and moral powers, weakens power to do right and brings disease, crime and family trouble. Keeping this rule is possible through decided self-control strengthened by God's grace, fleeing to Jesus who has overcome, resisting temptation with Scripture, and persisting until craving ceases and nature rallies to do her work nobly.
Context and False Humility
The second chapter of Colossians is a treasure house of encouragement to the believer, impressive and encouraging when read prayerfully and carefully for understanding, holding the rich, full, abundant and assuring promises of God to be received. It exposes the folly of turning from Christ to humanity for help, showing that power comes when Jesus is appreciated and the salvation of God is seen, and showing what Christ is to believers and what believers may be to Him as His helping hand. It calls believers to walk in Christ as they received Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith with abounding thanksgiving. The heart filled with gratitude overflows in love to refresh others, overlooking little grievances and meeting larger difficulties in the spirit of Christ, and praying to God for patience, perseverance and forbearance.
True service makes believers self-denying and self-sacrificing, keeping individual holiness and consecration in view. Through the sanctification of the truth they abound in works of benevolence to the uplifting of others. The thankful heart continually overflows in blessings to others like living water springing up into everlasting life.
Human-made restrictions are not to be treated as duties God requires. Fanatical acts of voluntary humility, such as creeping when one could walk, are manufactured tests with no sanction in God's Word and are not requirements for His children. God's true tests and duties are found in His Word and elevate His sincere followers.
With its context, the verse exposes self-chosen humility and self-made worship as outward show that puts self on exhibition instead of Christ. Refusing common fellowship at the table and eating apart to attract attention to extra holiness, with noise and harsh shouts, while lacking love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance, and having no tenderness for the weak, is of Satan and not led by the Spirit of God. Boasting over others and raging when corrected belongs to such religion, which is a dangerous tool of the devil to mislead the flock. It is permitted only to heat the furnace of affliction in which the true Christian is refined to reflect the meekness and purity of Christ.
Total Abstinence Command
Touch not, taste not, handle not is the safe rule for appetite, requiring complete abstinence from tea, coffee, wine, beer, brandy, cider, tobacco, opium, spirituous liquors, narcotics and alcoholic drinks, with no touching, tasting or handling at all, no experimenting to find a supposedly safe amount, no least indulgence of perverted appetite, and a firm stand on the side of temperance rather than entering the path of danger. In relation to tea, coffee, tobacco and alcoholic drinks this is the only safe course, for tea, coffee and similar drinks tend in the same direction as alcoholic liquor and tobacco, and in some cases the habit is as difficult to break as it is for the drunkard to give up intoxicants. Their use is a positive evil, and complete abstinence from stimulants and narcotics taken as food or drink is commanded.
For intoxicating liquor, wine and cider even moderate or so-called harmless use is forbidden, and they must be left at once and forever with no half-way work and no gradual abstaining, not even a drop of the liquor that sets depraved appetite on fire. The little openings where moderate use begins must be guarded, thereby closing the highway to drunkenness, because moderate use of the dangerous article educates the appetite and makes common drunkards of men of station, talents and ability who felt secure, while a single glass of wine can open the door to habits of drunkenness. Letting liquor entirely alone with no moderate or temperate use allowed is the safe path for all to travel, and total abstinence does great and wonderful things for society.
The reason for total avoidance is bodily, for these stimulants and narcotics irritate the stomach, poison the blood and excite the nerves. Even the least indulgence of perverted appetite excites the nervous system with borrowed power followed by reaction and depression, gives temporary agreeable excitement always followed by reaction, always tends to excess, actively promotes physical degeneration and decay, and educates appetite to crave stronger stimulus until indulgence becomes habit and the will is overborne. Those prone to their effects should avoid tea, coffee, wine, beer, brandy and other stimulants entirely because they can excite the nerves, lead to depression, foster dependence and craving, and risk progression toward drunkenness. Greater moral strength is now needed to resist, because earlier generations by use of stimulants transmitted weakened appetites, passions, depraved tastes and depraved appetites to their children, so self-control is weaker and the need is twice as great as several centuries ago.
Such abstinence keeps reason holding the reins of government to control animal appetites and passions, allows reason to govern appetites and passions, protects reason and self-control, and helps keep appetite and passion under control. Firm denial of appetite is the only path of safety as part of being temperate in all things, and total abstinence from spirituous liquors, stimulating drinks and narcotics is the law of temperance in all things that secures health, increases longevity and establishes happiness. Where they are not used the mind is calm and tranquil and sees all things in their proper light, and strict lifelong avoidance of them with proper diet, exercise and temperance can keep a person largely free from disease and can overcome even inherited weakness and predisposition to disease from unhealthy or intemperate parents.
Where they are used the mind is put under animal excitement, judgment is marred by false reasoning, the passions become wild as the winds and raging as the waves, moral virtue is lost, and mental and moral powers are debased into servitude to the animal. Reason is paralyzed, the intellect benumbed, judgment deranged, animal and base passions excited, the power to do right weakened and the power to do wrong increased, so that a man is made worse than a brute and dragged below the level of brutes, doing under its influence things which when sober he would have shuddered to think of. There is then no security against crime of the most debasing character, health is destroyed, most diseases and interruptions to health follow, and trouble is brought upon the wife and family that calls for pity.
The rule extends beyond intoxicating drink to abstaining entirely from what is harmful and using judiciously only food that is healthful and nutritious, guiding people to avoid harmful foods and other indulgences that injure the body or foster unnatural cravings. It reaches manufactured appetites and habits that violate the natural laws God established for the whole body and for the whole person, which weaken and disease the body, dull the faculties given for wise use, and dishonor the Creator. On the health institution table it means total abstinence from meat with no touching, tasting or handling it even once to gain patronage or to educate gradually while still serving it, because a first introduction would establish continued use as new patients keep coming and would later require expulsion, and because practice must match lectures on the meat question and prove true health reform.
The verse is the only safety for youth, commanding total abstinence from intoxicating drink and all selfish indulgence of appetite with the rule abstain, restrain, deny, forbidding even the first step toward indulgence because one step in that direction is one step to ruin and perdition. It is a motto for all, and especially for men in legislative councils and courts of justice who hold human life and death and punishment in their power and need clear brains and sharp, clean-cut reason with an eye single to the glory of God, while temperance is required in eating but liquor requires complete refusal to touch. Christian ministers are to teach this truth plainly by both word and example as applied to intoxicating drink and tobacco, with the laws of physical health reinforcing its warning. For those who profess to be reformers and light-bearers example and influence must be fully on the side of reform, abstaining from every practice that blunts conscience or encourages temptation and opening no door for Satan to reach a human mind formed in the image of God, so that the temperance reformation becomes strong, permanent and thorough.
Keeping the verse requires thorough change of habits and feelings to perfect Christian character, shown by an entire cutting off of every least indulgence that would lead into temptation, banishing intoxicating beverages and all stimulants from house and sight, spending no money on them for any purpose, and refusing even one drop to another. It includes signing the temperance pledge even when in no personal danger, to bear testimony for temperance and to influence and save wavering souls in danger of indulging in the social glass. It means fixed resolution to be firm to principle through self-denial and temperance in all things, especially in eating and drinking, refusing every invitation to intemperate indulgence and sin with a decided no, shunning the society of the depraved and worthless and all depraved society and influences that drag back to intemperance and slavery to Satan, refusing to be led by taunts, jeers, speeches and influences into wrong ways of life, speech and thought, and instead loving God, fearing Him, loving truth and purity, keeping conscience unsoiled and heart unpoisoned, and arming with watchfulness and prayer in order to keep character, peace of mind, family happiness and the prospect of heaven.
Obedience is possible through self-control and power of the will strengthened by the grace of God to withstand the temptations of Satan, and by fleeing to Jesus for power out of and beyond self, for He has overcome for helpless sinful ones, so that in His strength the tempted can be thorough, honest, faithful men true to their Maker. It requires resisting Satan as Christ resisted him with Scripture instead of bowing to temptation to indulge appetite. It requires deliberately deciding to be true and to be a man, freeing oneself from every lust warring against the soul, adopting right principle of action in all things, reverencing and obeying God, making it life's purpose to be all God designed, and letting no temptation swerve from principle, and then God is a present help and gives His wisdom to guide the feet. Those who attempt to leave off these stimulants will for a time feel a loss and will suffer without them, but by persistence they will overcome the craving and cease to feel the lack, for nature may require a little time to recover from the abuse she has suffered, but given a chance she will again rally and perform her work nobly and well.
Intemperate habits of appetite after worldly customs injure health of body and soul, becloud the brain, and make clear pure thoughts and growth in spiritual knowledge impossible until habits and practices accord with God's laws in nature. Keeping total abstinence as the law of life from beer, fermented wine, tea, coffee and tobacco therefore cooperates with Christ, who gave His life to save, redeem and elevate humanity, and calls for self-restraint and for keeping one's table free from anything intoxicating.
It lays down the safe rule for appetite as entire abstinence from intoxicating drink, tobacco, narcotics and stimulating beverages, not touching, tasting or handling them at all with no least indulgence or experiment with a supposed safe amount. For wine, cider and spirituous liquor it forbids even moderate or so-called harmless use, requiring them to be left at once and forever without half-way work, because moderate use educates the appetite and opens the highway to drunkenness. These substances are to be wholly avoided because they irritate the stomach, poison the blood and excite the nerves with borrowed power followed by depression, always tending to excess and educating craving until indulgence becomes habit and the will is overborne. Total abstinence keeps reason in government over animal appetites and passions, while indulgence benumbs the intellect, deranges judgment, debases mental and moral powers, weakens power to do right and brings disease, crime and family trouble. Keeping this rule is possible through decided self-control strengthened by God's grace, fleeing to Jesus who has overcome, resisting temptation with Scripture, and persisting until craving ceases and nature rallies to do her work nobly.
Context and False Humility
The second chapter of Colossians is a treasure house of encouragement to the believer, impressive and encouraging when read prayerfully and carefully for understanding, holding the rich, full, abundant and assuring promises of God to be received. It exposes the folly of turning from Christ to humanity for help, showing that power comes when Jesus is appreciated and the salvation of God is seen, and showing what Christ is to believers and what believers may be to Him as His helping hand. It calls believers to walk in Christ as they received Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith with abounding thanksgiving. The heart filled with gratitude overflows in love to refresh others, overlooking little grievances and meeting larger difficulties in the spirit of Christ, and praying to God for patience, perseverance and forbearance.
True service makes believers self-denying and self-sacrificing, keeping individual holiness and consecration in view. Through the sanctification of the truth they abound in works of benevolence to the uplifting of others. The thankful heart continually overflows in blessings to others like living water springing up into everlasting life.
Human-made restrictions are not to be treated as duties God requires. Fanatical acts of voluntary humility, such as creeping when one could walk, are manufactured tests with no sanction in God's Word and are not requirements for His children. God's true tests and duties are found in His Word and elevate His sincere followers.
With its context, the verse exposes self-chosen humility and self-made worship as outward show that puts self on exhibition instead of Christ. Refusing common fellowship at the table and eating apart to attract attention to extra holiness, with noise and harsh shouts, while lacking love, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance, and having no tenderness for the weak, is of Satan and not led by the Spirit of God. Boasting over others and raging when corrected belongs to such religion, which is a dangerous tool of the devil to mislead the flock. It is permitted only to heat the furnace of affliction in which the true Christian is refined to reflect the meekness and purity of Christ.
Total Abstinence Command
Touch not, taste not, handle not is the safe rule for appetite, requiring complete abstinence from tea, coffee, wine, beer, brandy, cider, tobacco, opium, spirituous liquors, narcotics and alcoholic drinks, with no touching, tasting or handling at all, no experimenting to find a supposedly safe amount, no least indulgence of perverted appetite, and a firm stand on the side of temperance rather than entering the path of danger. In relation to tea, coffee, tobacco and alcoholic drinks this is the only safe course, for tea, coffee and similar drinks tend in the same direction as alcoholic liquor and tobacco, and in some cases the habit is as difficult to break as it is for the drunkard to give up intoxicants. Their use is a positive evil, and complete abstinence from stimulants and narcotics taken as food or drink is commanded.
For intoxicating liquor, wine and cider even moderate or so-called harmless use is forbidden, and they must be left at once and forever with no half-way work and no gradual abstaining, not even a drop of the liquor that sets depraved appetite on fire. The little openings where moderate use begins must be guarded, thereby closing the highway to drunkenness, because moderate use of the dangerous article educates the appetite and makes common drunkards of men of station, talents and ability who felt secure, while a single glass of wine can open the door to habits of drunkenness. Letting liquor entirely alone with no moderate or temperate use allowed is the safe path for all to travel, and total abstinence does great and wonderful things for society.
The reason for total avoidance is bodily, for these stimulants and narcotics irritate the stomach, poison the blood and excite the nerves. Even the least indulgence of perverted appetite excites the nervous system with borrowed power followed by reaction and depression, gives temporary agreeable excitement always followed by reaction, always tends to excess, actively promotes physical degeneration and decay, and educates appetite to crave stronger stimulus until indulgence becomes habit and the will is overborne. Those prone to their effects should avoid tea, coffee, wine, beer, brandy and other stimulants entirely because they can excite the nerves, lead to depression, foster dependence and craving, and risk progression toward drunkenness. Greater moral strength is now needed to resist, because earlier generations by use of stimulants transmitted weakened appetites, passions, depraved tastes and depraved appetites to their children, so self-control is weaker and the need is twice as great as several centuries ago.
Such abstinence keeps reason holding the reins of government to control animal appetites and passions, allows reason to govern appetites and passions, protects reason and self-control, and helps keep appetite and passion under control. Firm denial of appetite is the only path of safety as part of being temperate in all things, and total abstinence from spirituous liquors, stimulating drinks and narcotics is the law of temperance in all things that secures health, increases longevity and establishes happiness. Where they are not used the mind is calm and tranquil and sees all things in their proper light, and strict lifelong avoidance of them with proper diet, exercise and temperance can keep a person largely free from disease and can overcome even inherited weakness and predisposition to disease from unhealthy or intemperate parents.
Where they are used the mind is put under animal excitement, judgment is marred by false reasoning, the passions become wild as the winds and raging as the waves, moral virtue is lost, and mental and moral powers are debased into servitude to the animal. Reason is paralyzed, the intellect benumbed, judgment deranged, animal and base passions excited, the power to do right weakened and the power to do wrong increased, so that a man is made worse than a brute and dragged below the level of brutes, doing under its influence things which when sober he would have shuddered to think of. There is then no security against crime of the most debasing character, health is destroyed, most diseases and interruptions to health follow, and trouble is brought upon the wife and family that calls for pity.
The rule extends beyond intoxicating drink to abstaining entirely from what is harmful and using judiciously only food that is healthful and nutritious, guiding people to avoid harmful foods and other indulgences that injure the body or foster unnatural cravings. It reaches manufactured appetites and habits that violate the natural laws God established for the whole body and for the whole person, which weaken and disease the body, dull the faculties given for wise use, and dishonor the Creator. On the health institution table it means total abstinence from meat with no touching, tasting or handling it even once to gain patronage or to educate gradually while still serving it, because a first introduction would establish continued use as new patients keep coming and would later require expulsion, and because practice must match lectures on the meat question and prove true health reform.
The verse is the only safety for youth, commanding total abstinence from intoxicating drink and all selfish indulgence of appetite with the rule abstain, restrain, deny, forbidding even the first step toward indulgence because one step in that direction is one step to ruin and perdition. It is a motto for all, and especially for men in legislative councils and courts of justice who hold human life and death and punishment in their power and need clear brains and sharp, clean-cut reason with an eye single to the glory of God, while temperance is required in eating but liquor requires complete refusal to touch. Christian ministers are to teach this truth plainly by both word and example as applied to intoxicating drink and tobacco, with the laws of physical health reinforcing its warning. For those who profess to be reformers and light-bearers example and influence must be fully on the side of reform, abstaining from every practice that blunts conscience or encourages temptation and opening no door for Satan to reach a human mind formed in the image of God, so that the temperance reformation becomes strong, permanent and thorough.
Keeping the verse requires thorough change of habits and feelings to perfect Christian character, shown by an entire cutting off of every least indulgence that would lead into temptation, banishing intoxicating beverages and all stimulants from house and sight, spending no money on them for any purpose, and refusing even one drop to another. It includes signing the temperance pledge even when in no personal danger, to bear testimony for temperance and to influence and save wavering souls in danger of indulging in the social glass. It means fixed resolution to be firm to principle through self-denial and temperance in all things, especially in eating and drinking, refusing every invitation to intemperate indulgence and sin with a decided no, shunning the society of the depraved and worthless and all depraved society and influences that drag back to intemperance and slavery to Satan, refusing to be led by taunts, jeers, speeches and influences into wrong ways of life, speech and thought, and instead loving God, fearing Him, loving truth and purity, keeping conscience unsoiled and heart unpoisoned, and arming with watchfulness and prayer in order to keep character, peace of mind, family happiness and the prospect of heaven.
Obedience is possible through self-control and power of the will strengthened by the grace of God to withstand the temptations of Satan, and by fleeing to Jesus for power out of and beyond self, for He has overcome for helpless sinful ones, so that in His strength the tempted can be thorough, honest, faithful men true to their Maker. It requires resisting Satan as Christ resisted him with Scripture instead of bowing to temptation to indulge appetite. It requires deliberately deciding to be true and to be a man, freeing oneself from every lust warring against the soul, adopting right principle of action in all things, reverencing and obeying God, making it life's purpose to be all God designed, and letting no temptation swerve from principle, and then God is a present help and gives His wisdom to guide the feet. Those who attempt to leave off these stimulants will for a time feel a loss and will suffer without them, but by persistence they will overcome the craving and cease to feel the lack, for nature may require a little time to recover from the abuse she has suffered, but given a chance she will again rally and perform her work nobly and well.
Intemperate habits of appetite after worldly customs injure health of body and soul, becloud the brain, and make clear pure thoughts and growth in spiritual knowledge impossible until habits and practices accord with God's laws in nature. Keeping total abstinence as the law of life from beer, fermented wine, tea, coffee and tobacco therefore cooperates with Christ, who gave His life to save, redeem and elevate humanity, and calls for self-restraint and for keeping one's table free from anything intoxicating.