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Does One Have a Right to His Own Belief? / Whoso Findeth a Wife - part 7
Does One Have a Right to His Own Belief?
(by Eugene W. Clevenger)
A question that we often hear asked is, “Does every person have a right to his own belief?” I cannot answer that question honestly and completely with a simple “Yes” or “No,” because to me the answer is both “Yes” and “No.” Looking at it from the human standpoint, as far as our constitutional rights are concerned as citizens of the United States, there can be no doubt about it: everyone does have a right to his own belief. Our democracy was founded on religious tolerance, and every freedom loving American desires its continuance. Also, in a very true sense, the Scriptures teach that an individual has the right to choose what he will believe or disbelieve. But the point that many overlook in discussing this question is, the Bible teaches that if one chooses to believe error and disbelieve Truth, he must suffer the consequences of his choice.
God has made man a free moral agent with the power and permission to choose what he will believe and how he will live in this life. God uses no force whatsoever to compel a man to believe something or do something against his will. In this sense, man does have a right to what he will believe. But every man has placed before him right and wrong, truth and error. If man wills to believe that which is wrong and that which is error, he must suffer the consequences of his choice. In this sense, man does not have a right to his own belief; that is, he cannot believe anything he simply wants to believe and still be Pleasing in the sight of God.
The Right of the Atheist – For example, a man who does not believe in the existence of Jehovah God says, “Everyone has a right to his own belief, and I choose not to believe in God.” The question is, Does that atheist have a right to his own belief? Yes, as far as God’s forcing him or anyone’s forcing him to believe in God Almighty. He has a right to his own belief or disbelief in that sense. But if when he says, “I have a right to my own belief,” he implies that he will not have to suffer the consequences for such atheism. I maintain, the Bible being true, he does not have a right to his own belief.
The Right of the Infidel – Here is a person who denies the tenets of Christianity, and especially the deity of Jesus Christ. He does not believe that Jesus was the divine Son of God, but accepts him as a mere man. We try to show him by the Bible that Jesus was God manifested in the flesh, but he replies, “Everyone has a right to his own belief, and I choose not to believe in the deity of Jesus.” Does he have a right to that belief? Surely he does! No one in heaven or earth will compel him to believe against his will that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He is a free moral agent; he can choose to believe what he wants to believe. But if when he says, “I have a right to my own belief,” he means that he will not have to suffer the eternal consequences for such infidelity. I affirm positively he does not have a right to his own belief. If he thinks he is as pleasing to God in his infidelity as I am in my belief in the deity of Christ, he is wrong! He has a right to his own belief as far as coercion is concerned to make him believe otherwise, but that is the only sense in which he can truthfully say he has a right to his own belief.
The Right of the Denominationalist – Here is one who denies that baptism has anything at all to do with one’s salvation from sin. He maintains that a sinner can be saved, die and go to heaven without submitting to baptism. We try to reason with that person by showing him that Jesus said, “He – that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” and that Peter said, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins,” but he replies by simply saying, “Everyone has a right to his own belief, and I choose not to believe that baptism has anything to do with salvation.”
Does that person have a right to his own belief? Yes, to be sure, he does if by that expression he means that no one has the right to force him to believe in baptism. God has made him a free moral agent with the right to choose what he wants to believe. Before him are placed God’s Word on the one hand and man’s opinion on the other. God has given him the intellect to learn of both, and God has likewise given him the will to decide which he will believe. Here is God’s Word as clear as the noon-day sun when it says, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins,” and here on the other side is man’s prejudiced opinion equally clear when it says, “Baptism is not for the remission of sins.” The choice as to which we will believe is given by God to all of us. He will not compel us to accept his Truth, but he leaves the decision up to us. In that sense, everyone has a right to his own belief.
But here is the truth that is overlooked – if, when one stands up in the face of God’s clearly revealed Word and ridicules the command of Christ to be baptized and scoffs at its importance, and then to ease the conscience he tries to pass it off by saying, “Well, we all have a right to our own belief in religion,” he ought to realize before he stands before the Christ in judgment that he is fooling nobody but himself. If, by his affirming that he has a right to his own belief, he implies that at the judgment he will stand just as acceptable and approved as the man who had enough faith to obey that command, he is unmistakably wrong! My sincere plea to all is: let us not use the liberty that God has given us to choose between truth and error to believe and practice that which is false, because it is possible for us to believe a lie and be damned. [The Preceptor, April 1952]
Desire of the Eyes “Whoso Findeth a Wife” – Part 7
(by Dene Ward)
In Ezekiel 24:16, Jehovah refers to Ezekiel’s wife as “the desire of your eyes.” Too many wives miss the significance of that description. We think that once we have caught ourselves a man, we don’t have to worry about our appearance. If this verse means anything, it means that Ezekiel loved to look at his wife, that her appearance pleased him. That doesn’t just happen. In some manner, she paid enough attention to herself to stay attractive to him.
Now, that verse also says a lot about Ezekiel. She was the desire of his eyes, no one else. She was the one he wanted to look at, not every other woman who might display herself in an inappropriate way. He wasn’t in the market for another woman. Notice also, Ezekiel was thirty when the book began, and no more than 36 when it ended. He was not an older man with a decreased libido. To even a young Ezekiel there was one woman and one woman only. But that still doesn’t take away from the idea that a godly woman is careful about her appearance. I am not going to tell you that you have to stay a size 4—if you ever were to begin with. Carrying his children and preparing his meals, plus the added responsibility of hospitality that in the Scriptures always involved sharing a meal, precludes any notion of a girl-like figure lasting through fifty years of marriage. I am, however, supposed to be a living sacrifice, Rom 12:1. That means I take care of my health as surely as it meant keeping those animal sacrifices healthy and unblemished. It means I exercise self-control in all things, Gal 5:23; 2 Pet 1:6. I heard one woman say, “To lose weight I have to be hungry, and I just won’t do that.” With that attitude, Jesus would have turned the stones into a four course meal.
Yet even the most conscientious of women put it on. Unless you are genetically predisposed to thinness, there comes a time when either your metabolism has slowed too much with age or you are under activity restrictions for medical reasons which make it more difficult to exercise it off. Discouragement is constant. Men can leave the butter off their bread and lose ten pounds in a month. You can leave out both the butter and the bread, and maybe you will lose half a pound that month, but you will gain it and four more back the next weekend when you have company or cook for a church potluck. You simply accept that your waistline will thicken, and a good man will understand. But a Christian always exercises moderation and self-control, and always cares for her Temple, 1 Cor 6:19-20, even a slightly larger one. But if your figure is the only thing that makes you the desire of your husband’s eyes, you obviously picked the wrong man. Watching your weight is only a small part of a woman’s appearance and, except in cases endangering health, probably the most superficial. A lot can be said for just staying presentable. Are you clean and sweet-smelling? Is your hair clean and combed? Are your clothes clean, pressed, and mended? It is just as impossible to live with a woman and never see her in curlers and cold cream as it is to live with a man and never see him sweaty and unshaven, but is she still shuffling around in those dingy scuffs and ratty terrycloth robe at noon? Does she save her nice clothes, makeup, and hairdos for others, and always wear holey jeans or frumpy house dresses and leave her hair scraggly and unkempt for him, even when it isn’t window-washing, bean-picking, or floor-scrubbing day?
The worthy woman made “for herself carpets of tapestry, her clothing is fine linen and purple” Prov 31:22. We certainly do not advocate living beyond one’s means, but the wife should make some effort to look nice—for him. It costs more time and money than most of us have to look glamorous, but just a little time and effort would give some husbands a welcome change, plenty enough for him to call her “the desire of my eyes.” The most important way for women to stay beautiful is to “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety, not with braided hair and gold or pearls, but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works” 1 Tim 2:9-10. Many a plain woman has become beautiful to me as I came to know her because of her character shining through, but no amount of makeup has hidden for long the ugliness of others.
One cannot make her features more regular or remove the flaws from her skin, but she can clean up her soul and with God’s help, keep it white as snow. She can keep from becoming hard and bitter. She can keep her voice from screeching and whining. She can keep her face from scowling and sneering. A man has no business expecting his fifty-year old wife to look twenty-five, but he has every reason to expect her character to grow younger until she becomes “as a little child” Mark 10:15. As the king advised in Proverbs 31:10: Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised. “Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:4)
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