Men often ask: "How can I keep from swearing?" I will tell you. If God
puts His love into your heart, you will have no desire to curse Him.
If you have much regard for God, you will no more think of cursing Him
than you would think of speaking lightly or disparagingly of a mother
whom you love. But the natural man is at enmity with God, and has
utter contempt for His law. When that law is written on his heart,
there will be no trouble in obeying it.
When I was out west about thirty years ago, I was preaching one day in
the open air, when a man drove up in a fine turn-out, and after
listening a little while to what I was saying, he put the whip to his
fine-looking Steed, and away he went. I never expected to see him
again, but the next night he came back, and he kept on coming
regularly night after night.
I noticed that his forehead itched--you have noticed people who keep
putting their hands to their foreheads?--he didn't want any one to see
him shedding tears--of course not! It is not a manly thing to shed
tears in a religions meeting, of course!
After the meeting I said to a gentleman: "Who is that man who drives
up here every night? Is he interested?" "Interested! I should think
not! You should have heard the way he talked about you today." "Well,"
I said, "that is a sign he is interested."
If no man ever has anything to say against you, your Christianity
isn't worth much. Men said of the Master, "He has a devil," and Jesus
said that if they had called the master of the house Beelzebub, how
much more them of his household.
I asked where this man lived, but my friend told me not to go to see
him, for he would only curse me. I said: "It takes God to curse a man;
man can only bring curses on his own head." I found out where he
lived, and went to see him. He was the wealthiest man within a hundred
miles of that place, and had a wife and seven beautiful children. Just
as I got to his gate I saw him coming out of the front door. I stepped
up to him and said: "This is Mr.--, I believe?" He said: "Yes, sir;
that is my name." Then he straightened up and asked--"What do you
want?" "Well," I said, "I would like to ask you a question, if you
won't be angry." "Well, what is it?" "I am told that God has blessed
you above all men in this part of the country; that He has given you
wealth, a beautiful Christian wife, and seven lovely children. I do
not know if it is true, but I hear that all He gets in return is
cursing and blasphemy." He said, "Come in; come in." I went in. "Now,"
he said, "what you said out there is true. If any man has a fine wife
I am the man, and I have a lovely family of children, and God has been
good to me. But do you know, we had company here the other night, and
I cursed my wife at the table, and did not know it till after the
company had gone. I never felt so mean and contemptible in my life as
when my wife told me of it. She said she wanted the floor to open and
let her down out of her seat. If I have tried once, I have tried a
hundred times to stop swearing. You preachers don't know anything
about it." "Yes," I said, "I know all about it; I have been a
drummer." "But," he said, "you don't know anything about a
business-man's troubles. When he is harassed and tormented the whole
time, he can't help swearing." "Oh, yes," I said, "he can. I know
something about it. I used to swear myself." "What! You used to
swear?" he asked; "how did you stop?" "I never stopped." "Why, you
don't swear now, do you?" "No; I have not sworn for years." "How did
you stop?" "I never stopped. It stopped itself." He said, "I don't
understand this." "No," I said, "I know you don't. But I came up to
talk to you, so that you will never want to swear again as long as you
live."
I began to tell him about Christ in the heart; how that would take the
temptation to swear out of a man,
"Well," he said, "how am I to get Christ?" "Get right down here and
tell Him what you want." "But," he said, "I was never on my knees in
my life. I have been cursing all the day, and I don't know how to pray
or what to pray for." "Well," I said, "it is mortifying to have to
call on God for mercy when you have never used His name except in
oaths; but He will not turn you away. Ask God to forgive you if you
want to be forgiven."
Then the man got down and prayed--only a few sentences, but thank God,
it is the short prayers, after all, which bring the quickest answers.
After he prayed he got up and said: "What shall I do now?" I said, "Go
down to the church and tell the people there that you want to be an
out-and-out Christian." "I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to
church except to some funeral." "Then it is high time for you to go
for something else," I said.
After a while he promised to go, but did not know what the people
would say. At the next church prayer-meeting, the man was there, and I
sat right in front of him. He stood up and put his hands on the
settee, and he trembled so much that I could feel the settee shake. He
said:
"My friends, you know all about me. If God can save a wretch like me,
I want to have you pray for my salvation."
That was thirty odd years ago. Sometime ago I was back in that town,
and did not see him; but when I was in California, a man asked me to
take dinner with him. I told him that I could not do so, for I had
another engagement. Then he asked if I remembered him, and told me his
name. "Oh," I said, "tell me, have you ever sworn since that night you
knelt in your drawing-room, and asked God to forgive you?" "No," he
replied, "I have never had a desire to swear since then. It was all
taken away."
He was not only converted, but became an earnest, active Christian,
and all these years has been serving God. That is what will take place
when a man is born of the divine nature.
Is there a swearing man ready to put this commandment into the scales,
and step in to be weighed? Suppose you swear only once in six months
or a year--suppose you swear only once in ten years--do you think God
will hold you guiltless for that act? It shows that your heart is not
clean in God's sight. What are you going to do, blasphemer? Would you
not be found wanting? You would be like a feather in the balance.