The Ohio Independent Baptist, June/July 1971

se. by Dr. John G. Balyo Based on the following Scripture; "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness. "Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. ''Envy ings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, "Meekness temperance: against such there is no law." Recently I heard a radio broadcast and two men were discussing some popular views of Christianity and the Church. Four statements were made that I would like to discuss with you. The first statement was: ''Tradition– al values are gone.'' That statement is not accurate. They aren't gone! They are there and some people at least still believe in them. It is true that a great many people have rejected them, but that does not mean the old values are antiquated and worthless. Nobody has proven them false or even ir– relevant. In fact the weight of the evidence is on the other side. The more modern we have become in the matter of morals, the bigger me§s we have made for ourselves and for society. If the old virtues were ever worth any– thing, they still are. Man's environment may have changed, but man himself has not. He has not changed physio– logically, psychologically, morally or spiritually. He is not fundamentally 4 JUNE-JULY, 1971 Galatians 5: 19-23 different from his ancestors and his fundamental needs are unchanged. Man therefore very desperately needs what he has always needed. He needs God and he needs morality, and he can't have one without the other. If you have historical perspective you know that the t\VO can not exist separ– ately. And Walter Lippman in his book, Preface To Morals, made the point quite effectively. Without belief in God morality always goes. You can't sustain real morality without be– lief in God. But let us be specific instead of deal– ing in generalities. Give attention to the virtues listed in Galatians 5: 22, virtues people need as much as they ever did. "The fruit of the Spirit is Jove." Now man needs love as much as he ever did; without it he is bound to live selfishly. The antonym of love is not hate, it's selfishness. Selfishness may produce hate, jealousy, strife and a great many things; but the opposite of love is selfishness. Love is genuine concern for somebody else's welfare Dr. John Balyo and happiness; selfishness is the op– posite of that. Well, if we ever needed unselfishness, we need it today. You can't say that it is a traditional value that is irrelevant to society. Joy is the next virtue. Perhaps you have not thought of joy as a virtue but it is. It takes the grace of God to have joy in this complicated world of temptation and pressure and prob– lems and difficulty and tears. Thus joy is a virtue. To maintain your equilibrium and be cheerful is a virtue . that you get from God. Surely being a sad-sack is no virtue. Unhappiness contributes to moral delinquency. It is easier to be good, if you are happy, and if you are miserable you are pro– bably mean also. They seem to go together. The next virtue is peace. Do you think we still need that in human hearts and also demonstrated in inter– personal relationship - or would you rather have conflict? Do you want peace? As long as you are agitated on the inside, you are going to project it into your every-day living, and there will be conflict. You can't live at peace if you don't possess peace. Do you think we need that today? Or is that one of the traditional values that is gone, a value we don't need any more. Did we outgrow it? Or did we get too sophisticated to admit we need it? Patience is next on the list. Maybe this is one of the hardest virtues to come by. It seems we Ii ve in a world of instant every thing. Not only in– stant coffee and instant tea, but in– stant satisfaction and instant gratifi– cation, right here and right now. It's a sign not only of immaturity but of sin. Do you want patience or would you prefer to be fretful? You either maintain your tranquility in patience or you are petulant and fretful, and that means you are awfully hard to live with. I suspect we could do with THE OHIO INDEPENDENT BAPTIST •