II. The guilt and danger which attend the vice.—1. It is an ungrateful abuse of God’s bounty. 2. It divests the man of his native dignity and sinks him below the brutal herds. 3. Is injurious to the body as well as mind. 4. Consumes men’s substance. 5. Wastes a man’s conscience as well as his substance. 6. Intemperance generates other vices—impure lustings, angry passions, profane language, insolent manners, obstinacy of heart, and contempt of reproof. 7. Has most lamentable effects on families. 8. The Scripture abounds in solemn warnings against this sin. 9. This sin must be renounced, or the end of it will be death.—Lathrop.
Being filled with the Spirit.—1. It supposes a sufficiency and fulness in the Spirit and His influences every way to fill our souls, to supply all our spiritual wants, and to help our infirmities. 2. It imparts an actual participation of His influences and fruits in a large and plentiful measure. (1) As men come to have every power and faculty of their souls more subject to the Spirit’s authority and under the influence proper to it. (2) As they grow to experience His operations in all the several kinds of them. (3) As His agency comes to be more stated and constant in them. (4) As His grace becomes more mighty and operative in them, so as actually to produce its proper and genuine effects. (5) As they taste such a sweetness and delight in the measure of participation attained that they reach forward with greater ardour toward perfection. 3. That every one should esteem the fulness of the Spirit a desirable thing. (1) It puts us into a fit posture of mind for daily communion with God. (2) Would settle our minds in the truest pleasure and peace. 4. That we should look upon it as an attainable good. (1) From the Spirit’s own gracious benignity and His declared inclination to fill our souls. (2) From the purchase and intercession of Christ. (3) From the nature of the Spirit’s work in consequence of redemption (4) From the Gospel being described as the ministration of the Spirit. (5) From the declarations of God concerning the Spirit. (6) From the instances of His grace already made in others. (7) From the beginnings of His saving grace in themselves, good men may conclude the greatest heights attainable by them, if they be not wanting to themselves.—John Evans.
On being filled with the Spirit—
- Implies that the Spirit has been largely given to the Church.
- That as God has given the Spirit largely so He has been abundantly received.
- Is to be possessed by His graces in all their variety.
- Is to be wholly guided by His influence and subject to His control.
- Is to be the instrument of fulfilling His mission on earth.
- Is to have God as the only portion of the soul.—1. The Spirit is God on the earth. 2. To be filled with the Spirit is to be fully occupied with God.—Stewart.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 19–21.
Spiritual Enjoyment—
I. Expressed in heartfelt praise to God.—“Speaking . . . in spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (ver. 19). Men filled with wine seek their enjoyment in singing bacchanalian odes and songs; but the men of the Spirit find a higher and more satisfying joy in chanting psalms and hymns of praise to God. The holiest excitement seeks expression in music and song. In the praise meetings of the Ephesians we have the beginnings of Christian psalmody. The psalms of the Old Testament were sung, accompanied by musical instruments. “Singing and making melody” means singing and playing, voice and instrument blending in joyous strains of praise. Then would follow hymns expressing the great ideas of the Gospel. Regarding the early Christians Pliny wrote: “They are wont on a fixed day to meet before daylight—to avoid persecution—and to recite a hymn among themselves by turns to Christ, as being God.” There might not be much artistic taste in the music, either of voice or instrument; but the sincerity of the heart was the true harmony. The contrast of the verse is between the heathen and the Christian practice. Let your songs be not the drinking songs of heathen feasts, but psalms and hymns; and their accompaniment, not the music of the lyre, but the melody of the heart. Is any merry, let him sing, not light and frivolous songs, breathing questionable morality, but psalms. The glad heart is eager first to acknowledge God.
II. Largely consists in thanksgiving.—“Giving thanks always for all things unto God” (ver. 20). God is the active Source of all blessings in creation, providence, and grace, and should be constantly acknowledged in grateful adoration. The thankful heart is the happiest; and it is the happy who sing. Thanksgiving is the predominating element in praise; and praise is the essence of true worship. Prayer is not the essence of worship, though it is an important help. Prayer becomes worship when it merges into praise. The reading and exposition of God’s Word are not worship. Preaching accomplishes one of its loftiest functions when it incites to praise. Music is not worship but it may become a valuable accessory. Christianity has taken hold of music and consecrated and elevated it to the highest uses of worship. It has produced the greatest musicians and the grandest music. All true music is the outward and melodious expression of our dearest and most sacred thoughts and feelings. The musical artist touches what is deepest and best in us. Nature has no false notes. When we praise God aright, worship becomes an act of the highest intelligence, calling forth and exercising our noblest powers. We are to sing with the Spirit, and we are to sing with the understanding also. Worship is acceptable to God as it is the joyous expression of the soul, brimming over with thankfulness and reverence. We are then brought under the spiritually transforming power of the Being we worship; the worshipper becomes like the object worshipped.
III. Soberly recognises the relation in which we stand to each other and to Christ.—“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (ver. 21). In the fear of Christ—so read all the old MSS, and authorities. The believer passes from under the bondage of the law to be the servant of Christ, which through the instinct of love to Him is really to be the Lord’s freeman, for he is under the law to Christ. Thus reverential fear of displeasing Him is the motive for discharging our relative duties as Christians. The Church should be a pattern and an example of harmony and peace, and this can only be by the members submitting themselves one to another “in the fear of Christ.” The man with the most distinguished gifts must not be above submitting himself to the judgment and will of his fellow-members. Preacher, organist, choir, and congregation must vie with each other in harmonious rivalry in the service and worship of God.
Lessons.—1. Spiritual enjoyment is not dependent on fictitious excitement. 2. Expresses itself in holiest song. 3. Is unselfish.