Break the Bottle

“An elderly Christian lady had the habit of drinking a little glass of whiskey every evening, just to warm her up a little. She had doubts about whether this should be the last act of a child of God before falling asleep. But she said to herself, “what is wrong with it? We old people feel cold. I do it in my bedroom and take just a little bit. I don’t get drunk. I do harm to no one. I don’t lose my mind. It is just for warming up my stiff bones.” But then she doubted again if it was right. One evening she smashed the bottle and the glass. From that moment on she knew that she had been wrong.”

“If you have doubts about moral matters, smash the bottle.”

“Every one who debates a question within himself is already divided, and He should not be.” “There is within him the questioner and the questioned.” — all taken from Richard Wurmbrand, ” Answer to Half a Million Letters.”

James 1:8 gives us “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. “

The double-minded man is two-souled, and is “at variance with one’s self, hesitating, doubting.” Thayer

He exists as a “diakrino” person — he wavers between belief and unbelief.

Psalm 107:27  in the Berean Bible says “They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and all their skill was useless. ” KJV says “at wits end.”

But Abraham was not so, He staggered not at the promise of God, see Romans 4:20. He was a “plērophoreō,” completely assured. Not entertaining the “impossible” aspect of a positive outcome, and doubting in a depraved soul; instead persisting in affirmation of God’s promise. Did he never question God? Yes, recklessly. His wife even laughed. But his faith renewed itself again and again.

What’s the point? The legalist places onus on Abraham’s faith-ability. But Paul told Timothy in second letter, 2:13,

“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” 

Two Souls? One the questioner, one the questioned — Wurmbrand

Both questioner and questioned keep alive the me-soul. In this soul it is my mind, my will, my emotions, my conscience, my consciousness. This me-soul, peppered with questions, finds no answers, since it is also the me-soul doing the questioning. The conflict is within, but the result stays within. It is a yoke of bondage. The double mind moves from faith vs. unbelief to eliminate any faith at all.

But glorious liberty sets me free from “the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2 I am crucified with Christ. see Gal 2:20. The Spirit brings that liberty and I am finally free from me. I can look and continue in that perfect law of liberty. I will fail at times still. but:

 ” …thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.  For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? 2Corinthians 2:14-16

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