1307. A Debased Idea of Life
A Debased Idea of Life
"Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Mat_6:25).
The highest conception of life, with many, is no more than "food and raiment." It is for these things that the Gentiles seek. Yet why should men be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" (Mat_6:31). Does not our Heavenly Father know that we have need of all these things?
Let us consider two illustrations of this false view of life.
1. The Book of Ecclesiastes. The Book of Ecclesiastes discusses this very subject. The preacher sought to find out what was good for a man, all the days of his vain life, which he spendeth as a shadow.
The Book answers the question from the "under the sun" viewpoint. It never looks at life, in its relationship to the life above.
Concerning the "spirit" it is in doubt, and almost despair. The Book scarcely gets any higher than "let us eat, drink, and be merry," it presents God's pen photograph of one who stresses the "soul-life" and ignores the "spirit;" it therefore emphasizes only "that which is done under the sun."
2. The rich young farmer (see Luk_12:16-31). The parable describes the rich man, who sought to put into practice the Ecclesiastes philosophy of life.
His idea was that "life" consisted in the abundance of the things which a man possesses. When he had nowhere to bestow his fruits, he said: "This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry" (Luk_12:18-19).
No sooner had the rich man uttered this debased idea of life, than God spoke unto him and said: "Thou fool, this night thy soul (life) shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" (Luk_12:20).
How strongly, then, does the Spirit urge: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat * *. The life is more than meat" (Luk_12:22).
The nations of the world still seek after "eating and drinking." Alas! Alas! Life surely holds a far deeper significance than mere feasting.
Akin to what we have written are the very things which many a young man imagines, form "real living." He who says, "I must enjoy life, I must have my fling, I must taste of the sweets of life," will soon find that such things will eat like a gangrene into his very being, and spoil his life.
The Bible plainly says, "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul" (1Pe_2:11).
What a debased idea of life is that which concedes that life consists in satisfying the desires of the flesh and of the mind!
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR