When Paul
wrote Timothy about the qualifications for church leaders, he included
self-mastery as an important requirement (1 Tim 3:2). Though David had his
shortfalls, he demonstrated self-restraint on one occasion. David’s son,
Absalom, led a rebellion against his father’s kingdom. David had to flee
Jerusalem. As David and his company of loyal followers traveled, they
encountered a descendant of Saul named Shimei. Shimei took advantage of this
opportunity to let David know how he really felt about him, “He pelted David
and all the king's officials with stones, though all the troops and the special
guard were on David's right and left,” and he cursed David, "Get out, get
out, you man of blood, you scoundrel!”(2 Samuel 16:5-6).
One word from
David and his warrior soldiers would have eliminated the annoyance for good.
David refrained his soldiers from killing the man, and he refrained himself
from abusing his authority. David’s men and the people watched how David
controlled himself that day and behaved as Solomon said, “Better a patient man
than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city” (Proverbs
16:32).
C.S. Lewis
so capably illustrates what self-mastery is in his book The Great Divorce. He writes about a young man who is badgered by a
red lizard that just sits on his shoulder and talks to him. This lizard is
antagonistic, and he often mocks the young man. The lizard represents the inner
struggle that we all have with our sinful natures.
An angel appears
and proposes to liberate the young man of the irritating lizard. The young man
is delighted at the offer until it slowly dawns on him that this will not be
painless. The angel will use fire to kill the lizard. The young man is fearful
of what the fire will do to him, so he begins to counter-offer the angel.
“Maybe it won’t be necessary to kill the lizard completely; maybe we can just
wound him. Maybe another time would be better—a later date? The angel says, “In
this moment are all moments. Either you want the red lizard to live or you do
not.”
As soon as
the lizard sees the hesitancy of the young man, he begins to reason with him. “Be
careful. He can do what he says. He can kill me. One fatal word from you and he
will. Then you’ll be without me forever and ever. It’s not natural. How could
you live? You’ll only be a sort of a ghost, not a real man as you are now. He
doesn’t understand. He’s only a cold, bloodless, abstract thing. It may be
natural for him, but it’s not natural for us. I know there are no real pleasures,
only dreams, but aren’t they better than nothing? I’ll be so good. I admit I’ve
gone too far in the past, but I promise I won’t do it again. I’ll give you
nothing but really nice dreams, all sweet and fresh and almost innocent.”[1]
That young
man is any of us, and that conversation with the red lizard is a snap shot of
our conversations with our own sinful natures. It’s how we reason and
rationalize, “Just this time and then I’ll put a stop to this. It’s not that bad really. God will forgive me.”
These are ways we compromise with the lizard that we know too well.
Bryan Chapell
writes:
The angel in
C. S. Lewis’s story does grasp the lizard and with fiery hands begins to choke
it so that it finally dies and falls to the ground. But when it hits the
ground, it becomes a stallion, and the young man gets on it and rides. What had
been the ruler is now ruled. What had been his master, he now masters. What had
ridden him, he now rides. It’s C. S. Lewis’s great expression that when we
actually kill the sin, the things that were so hard actually become good and
freeing and wonderful to us. Secular surveys of the sexuality in our culture
say that those with monogamous, faithful marriages claim greater sexual
fulfillment than those who are promiscuous. How can that be? Because God is
saying that to honor him is to actually find the greatest fulfillment, the
greatest riches that we were made to find.[2]
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