What is escapism?

Verse 18. "And be not drunk with wine," etc. Natural excitement, its stimulants and effects, are now contrasted with those of the Spirit. Men indulge in excesses as a refuge from the tedium of an unsatisfying life. Having no lasting source of joy in themselves, or in the circumstances which surround them, they seek in the wine-cup a factitious and deceptive solace of their cares. A Christless man has no peace in sobriety. If he reflects, he is unhappy. Something of sufficient power to lull him into forgetfulness of God and of himself, is to an unbeliever almost a necessary of existence. Wine stands in this verse as a special representative of natural indulgence; but there are other kinds of intoxication, which are not less alien to the joy of God. Wine, which is a mocker of the fool, is to be used by the wise-hearted believer, with every other gift of the Divine bounty, in the holy liberty of redemption. We are to use to God what nature might abuse to its own destruction. But while the old sources of enjoyment are now to be touched warily, and with a new intention, the believer is directed to a spring whence he may drink abundantly, with praise instead of blame. We are exhorted to be filled with the Spirit. We have been already warned not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. That warning stood in close connexion with another, which admonished us to purity of speech. In contrast to that, we are now taught to seek such an experimental fulness of the Spirit as shall find vent for itself in thanksgiving and praise. We have in this sentence a striking confirmation of the doctrine already enforced at an earlier page (notes on Eph. 1:17, seq.), namely that our own concurrence and personal effort are requisite (as a general rule) to our enjoyment of the Spirit's presence as the full river of God. Though He is in us, He withholds the comfort of His presence so long as we walk in a careless forgetfulness of our calling. As the gratification of the flesh afflicts the Spirit, so self-denial sets Him free to comfort us according to the fulness of the consolations that are in Christ. If we seek to God for our pleasures, we shall find no disappointment of our hope.

There is nothing which the men of this world dread more than solitude and reflection. They would rather be over pressed with engagements than have leisure for thought. The conscience, ill at ease, will at such times lift up its voice; but its warning voice must be hushed by that convenient word duty, and its honest speech is soon and willingly forgotten. Sins — many sins — are there, and the thought of God as the judge of sin is dreadful. The condition of the soul is such that it cannot bear the light, therefore darkness is loved. The activities of this present life are sought and welcomed, that the crushing weight of reflection may be escaped. The pleasures of the world, too, in due time and place, serve a similar purpose.

None, surely; the harm is in the heart of man, who uses these things to make himself happy without God, forgetting Him, flying from Him, seeking to content himself in a world of sin, and to drown the misery of this condition of alienation from God, by hiding himself in the corruption that reigns there. The elegance which man affects makes him, only too often, slip insensibly into this corruption, which he seeks to conceal with mirth.

Man's heart, alienated from God, tries to make the earth, where he was set at a distance from God, as pleasing to himself as possible; and, in order to accomplish this, he uses God's gifts and creatures to be able to do without Him. It is said that there is no harm in these things: - this is true, but this is not the question. They are good as being created things; it is said (as a figure) that there will be music in heaven also; but in heaven it will not be employed in order to divert the mind without God. It is a question of the use we make of these things. For instance, there is no harm in strength, but in the manner of employing it; with it one does harm to one's neighbour. Is it not true that the world which knows not God uses all kinds of pleasures to enjoy itself without Him? The heart which has not God in it endeavours to amuse itself, and for this it employs all the things which are seen, heard, and invented; as for instance, the theatre, music, and every kind of thing, because it is empty and sad and cannot satisfy itself; and after a few years, during which it has kept up its natural spirits, it finds itself tired and weary, even of trying everything, and says with Solomon after having essayed all, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." God is neglected, and the soul lost.

When a sinner’s ear is opened, and the distant roar of impending judgment falls upon it, his impulse is to rush somewhere, to do something to escape the threatened disaster. One commences diligent church-going, with its attendant confirmation and sacrament-taking. Another puts aside pipe and novel, and makes for the prayer-meeting. A third goes in quite a different direction, rushing into the whirl of pleasure in its many forms, and there attempting to drown all serious thought. Yet another commences a course of reformation and attempted self-improvement, vainly hoping thus to reach safety and peace.

We know not, reader, whether you have been awakened to your need; nor, if you have, do we know whither you have turned for refuge. But we want to lovingly warn you that all these refuges to which natural impulse leads us to flee are misleading and dangerous. Works, efforts, prayers, reformations, and a thousand things of that sort, are no shelter at all from judgment, and by turning to them for forgiveness and shelter, you are but rushing right into disaster and death, and not fleeing from them, as you fondly imagine.

Many a saint tried with much sorrow longs to be away. It is a blessed thing to long to be with Christ. It is far better to depart and be with Christ. But that is the question; is it to be with Christ or away from the world? If only the latter it is different from the prayer of the Lord on our behalf, "I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil." To long to he out of the world merely because we are weary is not submission to His will. It was weariness that made Moses wretched and say, "kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand," and that made Elijah say, "It is enough, take my life, I am not better than my fathers." That is, notwithstanding his mission as a prophet, he was in no better condition than those who went before him.

He went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die. It is not but what we see the man of God, but still the man who was tired of life. That was not a feeling of faith. There is very often much more faith in being willing to live than in wishing to die. Wishing to die is not the proof of faith at all. I grant you that no man that knows what death is, that knows what judgment is, that knows what sin is, that knows what God is, could wish to die unless he knew the Saviour. But having known the Saviour we may wince under the trial to which we are exposed in this world. Elijah did, and he wished to die, wished to get out of the trial — certainly a most unbelieving wish. The Lord never did. And there was the perfection of it. If the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane had wished to die it would have been the same failure. It could not be, and God forbid such a thought, but on the contrary the perfection of the Lord Jesus was that He did not wish to die — "Not my will, but thine be done." On the contrary, He felt death, and He felt the gravity. I grant you, there was all the difference between the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and that of any other. In any other case death is a gain. Death to a believer is gain, but still we ought not to wish to gain till the Lord's time comes for it. We ought to wish to do His will, the only right wish for a saint. He said, "It is enough; now, O Jehovah, take away my life." He was impatient. "Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." Yet he was running away from Jezebel. He was vexed; he was unhappy. He now fails after his testimony. He, was miserable now, but after all he wanted not to die when Jezebel wanted to take his life, and now that he is here he wants to die.

This request of Elijah's was a prayer of depression and not a prayer of faith. It was also a purely personal prayer. He requested "for himself" that he might die. For a brief moment Jezebel and not God filled his mind's eye, and he felt he would like to be out of the conflict. This is just the type of prayer that goes unanswered. It is also just the type of prayer that many of us frequently offer. We want to be out of trouble; we are swayed by personal preferences; we utter our cry, but we are not heard.

Christian! ponder well your heavenly calling — it is the only thing that will give full deliverance from the power and influence of worldliness. Men may seek abstraction from the world in various ways, but there is only one in which to attain separation from it. Again, men may seek to render themselves unearthly in various ways; there is only one way in which we can become really heavenly. Abstraction is not separation; nor is unearthliness to be mistaken for heavenliness. The monastic system illustrates very fully the distinction between these things. A sincere monk is unearthly, in a certain sense, but by no means heavenly; he is unnatural, but by no means spiritual; he is abstracted from the world, but by no means separated from it.

This book is not an appeal to ‘go into a monastery’ (or any modern equivalent with a similar purpose). The idea of monastic seclusion is based on the assumption that one needs only to eliminate external obstructive influences to obtain the strength to meet high standards. This approach ignores the fact that sin still dwells in us – or that we have the strength to overcome it as long as there is no hindrance from outside. This way would definitely equally prove a failure and only lead to discouragement for oneself and others. As C.H. Mackintosh once said: ‘The question is not whether we should become monks, but whether we wish to be Nazarites.’