1 Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is… I. A MAN QUICKLY LEARNS IF HE WISHES TO LIVE PROFITABLY HE MUST HAVE REGARD TO LAW. We cannot violate law without suffering for it. Disobedience entails destruction, obedience informs with life. II. Let us carry this examination into greater detail. THE MOST PROFITABLE HUMAN EXISTENCE IS THAT EXISTENCE WHICH SECURES THE GREATEST BENEFIT TO THE GREATEST NUMBER OF FACULTIES. If we resolve a human being into its elements, we shall find it divisible into body, mind, and soul, or, as some would put it, moral instincts. The true philosophy of living consists in the development of this tripartite. We pass, then, to consider the influence of rigidly religious life upon these sides of our nature. 1. If we practise the precepts of the gospel we will eschew those evil acts which occasion uneasiness and remorse; our temperament will maintain an even tranquility, our happiness will be full and satisfying. It has been truly said that an atheistic age is a barren age. We may safely say, then, that for the growth of the mind a godly life is best. 2. But the mind sends down its roots deep into the encompassing body upon which it acts and is acted upon. Physiologists tell us that a healthy mind conduces to a healthy body. If a Christian life produces vigour and clearness of intellect, then it must have a similar effect on the body. A religious life, then, we assert to be physically beneficial. 3. Passing to the region of the spiritual we are relieved from all necessity for discussion. Spirituality can only exist amid holy influences. The man who sins deadens his moral instincts, makes them useless here, and entails the penalty which such misuse is visited with hereafter. 4. But we cannot have obtained anything like a reliable knowledge of the relative value of two courses of life if we have excluded from our calculations all thought of suffering and sorrow. As we cannot by human device stave off sorrow, it behoves us to consider how it can be most successfully met. Mr. Spurgeon has said that if we take our troubles to God He will carry them for us; but if we take them anywhere else they will roll back again. III. Passing from the individual man to his business interests, we proceed to CONSIDER WHETHER GODLINESS IS INIMICAL TO WORLDLY SUCCESS. NOW, all that Christianity enforces is the necessity of strict honesty. Religion will not transform the dunce into a genius, but sinfulness will transform the genius into a dunce. And if all things are considered, I feel confident that the just man gains in more than mere clear-headedness. Deceit is a most deceitful helper. Henry Ward Beecher tells a story of a man in the Canadian backwoods who, during the summer months, bad procured a stock of fuel sufficient to serve the winter's consumption. This man had a neighbour who was very indolent, but not very honest, and who, having neglected to provide against the winter storms, was mean enough to avail himself of his neighbour's supplies without the latter's permission or knowledge. Mr. Beecher states that it was found, on computation, that the thief had actually spent more time in watching for opportunities to steal, and laboured more arduously to remove the wood (to say nothing of the risk and penalty of detection), than had the man who in open daylight and by honest means had gathered it. And this is oftener the case than we are disposed to allow. What appear to be short cuts to wealth are never safe ones, and very generally they prove to be extremely circuitous. Relaxation, too, is necessary for all men. Consider, then, whether the frivolous and enervating gaiety so frequently indulged in, or the innocent and energizing merriment of the godly, will best enable a man to recuperate the waste occasioned by business life. IV. WE CANNOT ISOLATE OURSELVES FROM OTHERS; WE ARE BOUND BY INNUMERABLE BONDS TO THE SYSTEM OF HUMAN INTERESTS. Our welfare is knit up with the welfare of the world. The man, then, who strives to suppress swindling, and who by the nobility of his own character rebukes all cheatery, is doing a grand service for mankind. He is making property more secure, and society more stable. If irreligion was crushed prosperity would visit this country with her brightest blessings and most permanent happiness. The gospel is also the more potent than all the antidotes which economists prescribe for the diminution of crime. V. IT IS TRUE GODLINESS, NOT SHAM OR SELFISH GODLINESS, THAT PROVES PROFITABLE. VI. Having thus glanced at the profitableness of religion in this life, LET US BESTOW A MOMENT'S THOUGHT UPON THAT OTHER LIFE WHICH IS ETERNAL. If we lose this, what profit is it that we have been successful in business! We have gained the lesser by losing the greater. The course which in the end will prove profitable cannot be a selfish one. Love to God is indissolubly intertwined with love to man, and the glory of God must issue in man's exaltation in the best and truest sense. (J. G. Henderson.) Parallel Verses KJV: For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. |
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