What’s Wrong with It - Glenn Conjurske

“What’s Wrong with It?”

by Glenn Conjurske

“What’s wrong with it?” is a question which is heard altogether too often in the church of God. The question itself is low and petty, and usually betrays a wrong state of heart in those who ask it. This question is the common language of the carnal and the worldly, whose Christianity consists of nothing more than a free ticket to a heaven to which they have no desire to go—-for they have no delight in anything in it, unless perhaps the gold. Whenever a faithful preacher of the word of God labors to call men to devotedness to the cause of Christ, and to a little of self-denial as a means to that devotedness, or an expression of it, he is met with the question, “What’s wrong with it?”

The answer to that question may well be, “Nothing.” Nothing is wrong with it. “All things are lawful.” But lawfulness is not the test of devotedness. Lawfulness dictates what is absolutely required of us—-it determines the bare minimum—-and those whose standard consists of a determination not to yield anything more than is absolutely required of them are so mean and niggardly that it is difficult to suppose them Christians at all. “We love him,” the Bible says, “because he first loved us.” His love for us moved him to give up all the glories of heaven, and to forgo even the common comforts of life on earth, in order to save our souls. Was there anything wrong with the glories of heaven? When the Father sent the Son into the world, and in so doing expected him to give up his heavenly glory, can anyone imagine the Son of God saying, “What’s wrong with it?” He loved us, and devoted himself to our cause, and therefore freely relinquished a host of things which were good. Christians profess to love him in return, and yet will stint to give up anything for him, unless they perceive it to be positively evil.

But the plain fact is, God expects us to give up things which are lawful and good. Scripture grants that all things are lawful. There is nothing wrong with them. This, of course, must be understood to refer to all things which God has created and sanctioned, and not to all the sinful pleasures of the world. But for my present purpose, I need only say, Make the application of this verse as wide as any carnal heart may please. “All things are lawful.” So says Paul. But this is not all he says. “All things are lawful for me,” says Paul, “BUT all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, BUT all things edify not.” (I Cor. 10:23). The fact, then, that there is nothing wrong with it is really immaterial. The plain implication of Paul’s words is this: we must have better reason to indulge in anything, than the mere fact that it is lawful. Those who ask only “What’s wrong with it?” are asking the wrong question. They ought rather to ask, “Is it expedient?” “Does it edify?”

Now observe, the word “expedient” has acquired a rather unwholesome connotation, and may therefore fail to communicate to us the meaning of the original. The word is elsewhere translated to be profitable, or to profit. Thus:

Matt. 5:29—-it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

I Cor. 7:35—-and this I speak for your own profit.

I Cor. 10:33—-not seeking mine own profit.

The meaning of I Cor. 10:23, then, is this: “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not profitable; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” Let those who claim to be Christians, then, cease to ask, “What’s wrong with it?” Let them rather say, “Does it profit? Does it edify?” But profit for what? It is hardly necessary to say that the profit and the edification of which Paul speaks are spiritual. Such and such a thing is lawful, but is it of any profit to my soul, or to the souls of anyone else? Does it edify myself or the church of God? If not, I have no business with it. I am here to devote myself to the cause of Christ as he devoted himself to my cause, and not merely to render to God the bare minimum which righteousness requires of me.

But in the light of this it plainly appears to me that the standards of the evangelical church in our day are defective in the extreme. Evangelicals will refuse all such activities as they suppose to be unlawful, while they defend and freely indulge in those which are in fact unprofitable.

With all of this I suppose most Christians will agree. Yet I have long observed that many will cordially agree when we preach abstract principles, and forcefully disagree as soon as we apply those principles to anything specific. The preacher’s work, therefore, is not done when he has preached principles, nor when he has secured assent to those principles. Even the ungodly will very often assent to the principles of truth. Many of them will agree to every word, so long as we preach repentance to them in the abstract, but as soon as we begin to apply the doctrine to their own particular sins, they will defend every one of them. I aim, therefore to apply these principles to those specific unprofitable and unedifying things which are usually freely indulged under the carnal and worldly standards of modern Evangelicalism.

At the head of the list I may speak of making money, as this may serve to bring clearly into view what is meant by profit. To the worldling, profit is money, and their thoughts can scarcely rise above this, but the Lord says, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” And what shall it profit a Christian to make money, if his soul is dwarfed in the process, or if the souls of his neighbors or his children are lost? To make money takes time and thought and energy. Is this profitable? Does this edify? It is necessary to make a certain amount of money, and this is certainly lawful, but there must be some reasonable bounds to this, in the face of the Lord’s solemn command that we “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.” (John 6:27). Some years ago I was reproached by a fellow Christian (behind my back, of course) for not making all the money I could. Such reproaches have not the weight of a feather to me. If I were to make all the money I could I certainly would not be publishing this magazine, for I make no money at it, and if I had chosen for all these years to make all the money I could, I would certainly have no ability to edit such a magazine as this. The making of money, beyond what need requires, or beyond what we have occasion to lay out in the cause of Christ, I have judged to be unprofitable—-and those who have engaged in such pursuits may best judge whether it is edifying.

I speak next of classical music. I observe that it is the universal practice of Christians who have no proper ideas concerning what the world is to distinguish between the clean and the unclean things in the world. They thus make a distinction where God makes none, for God says, “All that is in the world…is not of the Father.” All that is in the world has taken its rise from man in alienation from God, led by Satan, and the tendency of all of it is to draw the heart away from God, and to provide pleasure and satisfaction without God and without reference to him. But Christians are determined to hold to the distinction between the good and the evil in the world. While they therefore condemn the popular music of the day, they defend classical music, or some other sorts of music which may appear to be free from the moral corruption of the popular music, always asking, “What’s wrong with it?”

Well, suppose nothing is wrong with it. We have yet two questions to ask. Is it profitable? and Does it edify? Does classical music profit your soul? Does it build up your soul in the faith, in the love of God, in the love of saints or sinners? Is it not rather a distraction, a hindrance, a detriment? Does it not waste your time, and draw your mind away from solemn and heavenly meditation? Do you “pray without ceasing” while you listen to classical music? Perhaps twenty years ago I had the pastor of a flourishing Reformed Baptist church over for supper. He and his church were very favorable to what is called “culture,” which is the cleaner side of worldliness. He had evidently heard a few things about me, and began to interrogate me. He asked me what I thought of classical music. I responded, with deep feeling, that I have one little drop of time between two eternities—-one little drop of time in which to determine the issues of eternity, for myself and for others—-and I am not going to spend it listening to classical music. He evidently felt the force of this, and answered not a word.

I speak next of classical literature. Under this head we may include secular literature of all sorts. I will not contend that all of this is unlawful, nor even that all of it is totally unprofitable. A man whose heart is thoroughly devoted to the cause of Christ may find profit in almost everything. He may draw honey from the rankest weed, and turn all that he touches to gold. Nevertheless, all things are not equally profitable. There is doubtless some small profit in secular history and biography, though there is precious little in fiction of any kind. But granting that secular or classical literature may yield some profit to a man of God, what business do we have to pursue things of small profit, when we might find greater profit elsewhere? Our life is a vapor, which appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. This lays upon us a solemn obligation to redeem the time, and so of course to spend that time in those things which yield the most profit, though some profit might be gleaned in almost everything. Suppose we find a company executive spending hours every day playing marbles with the boys in the alley. We question him, and he tells us that this is profitable, that he has won sixty-three marbles already, all of which shall be faithfully applied to the profits of the company. We quickly conclude that he is not devoted to the profit of the company at all, but only to his own pleasure. Yet this is an apt illustration of the ways of many Christians, and of how they justify those ways. To spend our time in things of little profit, when we might spend it to better advantage, is trifling with our responsibility, and with the little vapor of life which God has given us.

So exactly was classical literature regarded by the good John Newton. Upon his conversion, while still a sailor, he began to study “the classics.” “In short,” he says, “in the space of two or three voyages I became tolerably acquainted with the best classics; … I read Terrence, Virgil, and several pieces of Cicero; and the modern classics, Buchanan, Erasmus, and Cassimir. At length I conceived a design of becoming Ciceronian myself, and thought it would be a fine thing indeed to write pure and elegant Latin. I made some essays towards it, but by this time the Lord was pleased to draw me nearer to himself, and to give me a fuller view of the ‘pearl of great price,’ the inestimable treasure hid in the field of the Holy Scriptures; and for the sake of this, I was made willing to part with all my new acquired riches. I began to think that life was too short (especially my life) to admit of leisure for such elaborate trifling. Neither poet nor historian could tell me a word of Jesus, and I therefore applied myself to those who could. The classics were at first constrained to one morning in the week, and at length quite laid aside.”

“Give attendance to reading,” says Paul. “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all.” (I Tim. 4:13-15). But can any man be so far from the mind of the Lord as to suppose that this “reading” is to apply to heathen classics, whether ancient or modern, or that “thy profiting” refers to thy proficiency in Greek and Latin roots?—-while thy poor soul withers and dries? This is not wholly unprofitable, but is of so little profit in comparison to spiritual reading that we quite agree with Newton in calling it “elaborate trifling.”

But if the classics are elaborate trifling, what can we say of much of the reading of the modern church? Fiction is the steady diet of many. This is trifling indeed, though not elaborate. Yet those who love this pleasure will defend it, saying “What’s wrong with it?” Let them rather ask, Does it profit? Does it edify? And let them answer these questions honestly, in the presence of God and eternity.

Others spend their precious time reading the newspaper. I will not contend that this is unlawful—-though I dare say Abraham had little interest in The Sodom Daily News. Yet I look at a newspaper occasionally myself. I cannot contend that this is unlawful. There is some little good to be gleaned there, as there is in secular history, and indeed in all that takes place under the sun. But the return is so small for the time expended, that we must certainly contend that this is generally unprofitable.

Another of those unprofitable things in which Christians delight to spend their time is sports, and many of them have stretched their ingenuity to the limit to justify this. Most of their arguments, however, are weak and foolish. I have heard men defend playing baseball on the basis that our bodies need exercise. It is very difficult to believe such reasoning is anything other than hypocrisy. Your body needs exercise. Therefore you will spend several hours playing a baseball game. Half of that time you spend sitting on the bench, while others bat. Most of the rest of the time you spend standing idle in the field, waiting for the ball to come in your direction. Unless you are the pitcher, you probably get more exercise trotting from the field to the dugout and back, than you do playing the game. You could get more exercise taking a walk in the woods, and meditate and pray besides, which you can surely do little of on the ball field. The plain fact is, you play ball for pleasure, and excuse the waste of time by claiming you need the exercise.

But some other sports provide more exercise than baseball. There may therefore be some small profit in them, to the body if not to the soul. What then? Can you honestly call them profitable and edifying, in the obvious sense in which Paul uses these terms? If it is bodily exercise you need, there are few sports which will provide it any better than riding a bicycle, and this you may do on a quiet country road, alone with God, with your thoughts engaged in the cause of Christ, and your prayers rising to your heavenly Father. This I often do myself. Is your mind thus engaged while you play tennis or football? Will you stand before God when you are called to give account of yourself, and seriously and honestly contend that these sports were profitable or edifying? I trow not.

I have one uniform answer to all those who plead that there is nothing wrong with such sports. If these are lawful and right, if they are good and pure and holy, then by all means let us play at them when we get to heaven. There we will have no battles to fight, no sin to conquer, no souls to save, no need to wrestle in prayer, no time slipping away from us—-nothing to do but enjoy ourselves for ever and ever. Then (if it be lawful), let us play tennis, and baseball, and ping pong, and soccer. We have something more profitable to do here.

But the church today has sunk lower than playing at sports, and justifying it by pleading the profit of bodily exercise. There are thousands of Christians who spend countless hours watching others play on television, or listening to the games on the radio. Not even bodily exercise can be argued in favor of this. Supposing this to be lawful, by what stretch of imagination could it be proved profitable? How is it edifying?

Yet so low are the standards of the modern church that watching these sports is the common practice, and no man troubles himself concerning whether it is profitable or edifying. There are now Christian radio programs devoted entirely to the world’s major league sports. I happened to hear a little of one not long ago, conducted by an unspiritual man who was so absolutely destitute of spiritual sense as to suggest that God is a Packer fan! For thirty years I have believed that modern Christianity is hopelessly sunk in worldliness, but I was not prepared for anything so low as this. Such a profanation of divine things has not existed on the earth since Belshazzar brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord, and drank wine in them, and praised the gods of gold and silver. But that profaneness was perpetrated by the ungodly, this by the godly, or those who profess to be so. At any rate, this man and his guest, one Reggie White of the Green Bay Packers, were talking about hunger. No, not spiritual hunger, not the hunger which the Bible speaks of, nor anything remotely resembling it, but hunger to win the championship. And all this by some stretch of imagination drawn under the umbrella of Christianity. But no: those major league sports are the world—-in the world, of the world, wholly worldly in spirit and in aim, with no more of God in them than there is in Hollywood—-and yet I have just learned that an evangelical Baptist church in town has moved its Sunday evening meeting to three in the afternoon, so the people can watch the championship football game.

But my zeal carries me beyond the scope of this article. I surely believe that these sports are unlawful for a saint of God. But suppose you think them lawful. Do you think them profitable? Do you think them edifying? Do they build you up in faith and love? How exactly do they edify you? Do they increase your zeal for the cause of Christ? Do they so much as contribute one whit of anything spiritual to your soul? I have never known any defender of these sports who would dare to affirm it, though I have heard some very lame excuses. I was knocking on doors a few years ago, and came to the house of a Baptist preacher, a typical modern Evangelical. Somehow we fell upon the subject of watching major league sports. He evidently felt that this was unprofitable, but defended it by saying that he did it in order to see how bad the world was! I was quite unable to believe in the sincerity of such an excuse, for if he really wished to see the evil of the world, he ought to have watched the soap operas, and not the ball games. And not only so, but as I said, “Do you have to watch the games every day in order to understand the evil of the world? Would not one game suffice?”

Yet I will grant that it may be lawful to take the pulse of the world once in a while, though we hardly need go out of our way to do so, nor spend much time at it either. I spent a few minutes in a hospital waiting room some time ago, where a television set was spewing forth its corruption. In the few minutes that I was there I suppose a hundred shots were fired on that screen, and every one of them with murderous intent. On another recent occasion I was shopping in the local Wal-Mart store, and was obliged to spend a few minutes adjacent to a television set. The young ladies on the screen, playing volleyball, were dressed (or undressed) in provocative garb, and their talk was smutty and suggestive, while the camera purposely concentrated on every sensual motion. This is enough for me. I do not need to watch the screen by the hour to know the evil of the world. And as for finding any good on the television screen, supposing we could grant that some exists, who would wish to go fishing in a cesspool? I can remember the time, perhaps forty years ago, when most of the Christians I knew would not own a television set. Evidently the moral character of the television has very much improved in the past forty years.

But again, I am wide of my subject. I can scarcely grant that it is lawful to watch television. If lawful to watch it, it is certainly unlawful to enjoy it, and who watches it for any other purpose? And among those who believe it lawful, how many sincerely believe it profitable? How many believe it edifying? If it is not profitable and edifying, Christians have no business with it. It was for this reason that I gave up listening to major league sports when I was converted, over thirty years ago. I did not then suppose this to be unlawful, but I quickly perceived it to be unprofitable, and a waste of my precious time. When I was a student at Bible school I had roommates who could not bear to miss a ball game. I could not understand this, and I could not bear to listen to what they could not bear to miss. So, in the good providence of God, these ball games contributed something to my spiritual life, for all during one summer, whenever my roommate would turn on the ball game, I would pack up my brief case with a few of my precious books, and drive out to Lookout Point, where I spent the afternoon with my God and my books. Thus these ball games served to strengthen my love of solitude, which has doubtless been a large factor in promoting my meditation and my walk with God. Can those who watch or listen to these ball games claim as much profit to their souls?

We might mention also another kind of sport, namely hunting and fishing. I would not so much as hint that this is unlawful, but is it profitable? In some cases there may be at least some temporal profit in it, if men hunt or fish for food, but I question whether they might not better spend their time and money to buy a side of beef. I once spent a little time with a young Independent Baptist preacher in South Dakota. He and his wife both had good jobs, and yet he claimed that he was obliged to hunt in order to put meat on the table. Very well, if true. If he was hunting bison, and could take one in a few hours’ time, this might be a very profitable way to put meat on the table. But no, he was hunting mourning doves!—-of which he ate only the breasts. I frankly doubt there was enough meat in one of these birds to pay for the shot required to kill it, to say nothing of licenses, guns and other equipment, gasoline to drive to the country to hunt them, and hours of time to stalk them. The plain fact is, most men do not hunt and fish primarily for the meat, but for sport and pleasure. I have known plenty of fishermen who usually give away the fish which they catch. They do not want them for food, but catch them for sport. Hunters may eat the meat which they take, but their primary reason for taking it may be the sport, or the rack of antlers. We would hope that Christians who do so would at any rate have the honesty to acknowledge the real reason for their hunting, and not play the hypocrite by contending they do it for the meat. We would further hope they would seriously reflect upon whether the practice is actually profitable, even from a temporal standpoint.

But I must speak of yet another common unprofitable practice among Evangelicals. I refer to dining out. I have not the slightest question that this is lawful, at least when necessity requires it. But the kind of dining out which is commonly practiced has nothing to do with necessity. It is recreational dining out. Lawful this may be, but is it profitable? Does it edify? A valued correspondent complains of the music and the immodest dress of the women, to which he is subjected in the restaurants. Perhaps we must endure this when we are travelling, and far from our own home and kitchen, but what moves Christians to choose such places, over their own home and fireside? Is it edifying to dine in such an atmosphere?

Methinks this is nothing other than worldliness, directly against the quiet life, against the home life, against home hospitality, and promoting laziness and gadding about. It is expensive also. Eight or ten years ago I was talking with a fellow Christian on a Saturday afternoon. He told me that he and his wife had gone out to eat the night before, and that he had spent his last twelve dollars for their meal. Said I, “That is very interesting. It so happens that I also spent my last twelve dollars last night—-but I spent it for blank tapes, to record my sermons.” I will not contend that what he did was unlawful, but I will contend that what is lawful is not the measure of devotedness to Christ. All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable. All things are lawful, but all things edify not.

And I must insist on one more thing in this connection. It seems to me that most who profess to be Christians begin at exactly the wrong end in this business. They do not first inquire as to what is profitable and edifying, for their own souls and the cause of the gospel, and determine to spend their time and their energies in those things. They rather do as the world does, choosing to indulge in those things in which they find pleasure, and then cast about for some means by which to justify their conduct, by affecting to find some scrap of profit in their activities. This is hypocrisy, and will not stand for a moment before the judgement seat of Christ. “What’s wrong with it?” they say. Perhaps nothing, but those who are determined to indulge in their pleasures are really incapable, for lack of a single eye, of objective judgement as to what is lawful, and those who make lawfulness the measure of their devotedness thereby proclaim that they have little or none of the latter. Let a man tell his wife that he loves her, and will therefore render to her all that the law requires of him, and she will tell him that he does not love her at all. The man who professes devotedness to Christ, and will yet render to him no more than righteousness requires, has only deceived himself. The enthralled lover may say, “We cannot be always kissing,” but he will soon add, “but I wish we could.” The carnal, by contrast, have been saying for centuries, “We cannot be always praying”—-and are evidently glad of it.

Many will doubtless think me far astray in supposing we ought to do nothing but what is profitable or edifying, but any other supposition makes Paul’s exhortation meaningless and void. When Paul wrote, “All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable,” did he write merely to fill up paper?—-or to teach us to refuse that which is unprofitable, though it may be lawful? Certainly the latter. Further down in the same paragraph (I Cor. 10:31) he says, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Does he mean we should do unprofitable and unedifying things to the glory of God? Let him believe it who can.

Glenn Conjurske