Let us go back to 4 Maccabees 2-3 for a moment to fully understand the nature of reason controlling our emotions. Starting at 4 Maccabees 2:1 in the NRSV, we read.
[1] “And why is it amazing that the desires of the mind for the enjoyment of beauty are rendered powerless?
[2] It is for this reason, certainly, that the temperate Joseph is praised, because by mental effort he overcame sexual desire.
[3] For when he was young and in his prime for intercourse, by his reason he nullified the frenzy of the passions.
[4] Not only is reason proved to rule over the frenzied urge of sexual desire, but also over every desire.
[5] Thus the law says, “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
[6] In fact, since the law has told us not to covet, I could prove to you all the more that reason is able to control desires. Just so it is with the emotions that hinder one from justice.
[7] Otherwise how could it be that someone who is habitually a solitary gormandizer, a glutton, or even a drunkard can learn a better way, unless reason is clearly lord of the emotions?
[8] Thus, as soon as one adopts a way of life in accordance with the law, even though a lover of money, one is forced to act contrary to natural ways and to lend without interest to the needy and to cancel the debt when the seventh year arrives.
[9] If one is greedy, one is ruled by the law through reason so that one neither gleans the harvest nor gathers the last grapes from the vineyard.
In all other matters we can recognize that reason rules the emotions.
[10] For the law prevails even over affection for parents, so that virtue is not abandoned for their sakes.
[11] It is superior to love for one’s wife, so that one rebukes her when she breaks the law.
[12] It takes precedence over love for children, so that one punishes them for misdeeds.
[13] It is sovereign over the relationship of friends, so that one rebukes friends when they act wickedly.
[14] Do not consider it paradoxical when reason, through the law, can prevail even over enmity. The fruit trees of the enemy are not cut down, but one preserves the property of enemies from marauders and helps raise up what has fallen.
[15] It is evident that reason rules even the more violent emotions: lust for power, vainglory, boasting, arrogance, and malice.
[16] For the temperate mind repels all these malicious emotions, just as it repels anger—for it is sovereign over even this.
[17] When Moses was angry with Dathan and Abiram, he did nothing against them in anger, but controlled his anger by reason.
[18] For, as I have said, the temperate mind is able to get the better of the emotions, to correct some, and to render others powerless.
[19] Why else did Jacob, our most wise father, censure the households of Simeon and Levi for their irrational slaughter of the entire tribe of the Shechemites, saying, ‘Cursed be their anger?’
[20] For if reason could not control anger, he would not have spoken thus.
[21] Now when God fashioned human beings, he planted in them emotions and inclinations,
[22] but at the same time he enthroned the mind among the senses as a sacred governor over them all.
[23] To the mind he gave the law; and one who lives subject to this will rule a kingdom that is temperate, just, good, and courageous.
[24] How is it then, one might say, that if reason is master of the emotions, it does not control forgetfulness and ignorance?
4 Maccabees 3:1 now starts.
[1] But this argument is entirely ridiculous for it is evident that reason rules not over its own emotions, but over those of the body.
[2] No one of us can eradicate that kind of desire, but reason can provide a way for us not to be enslaved by desire.
[3] No one of us can eradicate anger from the mind, but reason can help to deal with anger.
[4] No one of us can eradicate malice, but reason can fight at our side so that we are not overcome by malice.
[5] For reason does not uproot the emotions but is their antagonist.
[6] Now this can be explained more clearly by the story of King David’s thirst.
[7] David had been attacking the Philistines all day long, and together with the soldiers of his nation had killed many of them.
[8] Then when evening fell, he came, sweating and quite exhausted, to the royal tent, around which the whole army of our ancestors had encamped.
[9] Now all the rest were at supper,
[10] but the king was extremely thirsty, and though springs were plentiful there, he could not satisfy his thirst from them.
[11] But a certain irrational desire for the water in the enemy’s territory tormented and inflamed him, undid and consumed him.
[12] When his guards complained bitterly because of the king’s craving, two staunch young soldiers, respecting the king’s desire, armed themselves fully, and taking a pitcher climbed over the enemy’s ramparts.
[13] Eluding the sentinels at the gates, they went searching throughout the enemy camp
[14] and found the spring, and from it boldly brought the king a drink.
[15] But David, though he was burning with thirst, considered it an altogether fearful danger to his soul to drink what was regarded as equivalent to blood.
[16] Therefore, opposing reason to desire, he poured out the drink as an offering to God.
[17] For the temperate mind can conquer the drives of the emotions and quench the flames of frenzied desires; it can overthrow bodily agonies even when they are extreme, and by nobility of reason spurn all domination by the emotions.” 4 Maccabees 2:1-3:18
The writer of 4 Maccabees gives many examples in which the reason of the mind, or “rational judgment,” is sovereign over the emotions or the flesh. The illustration of Joseph rejecting the advances of Pharaoh’s wife is particularly poignant. “In his prime for intercourse, Joseph overcame his sexual desires via mental efforts.” Joseph reasoned in his mind that it was ill-advised to “covet” the wife of Pharaoh no matter what her desires were. That is because God’s Word says, “Thou shalt not covet.” When you walk with God, you are obedient to His truth, and you don’t rationalize away your lust; you tame it. You confront your lust [or other sin] with reason, the kind of reason, truth, and wisdom that comes from understanding God.
An ex-president of the United States, who totes his Bible into many churches, would do well to consider these simple teachings on reason and its relationship to wisdom. It can help control his sexual urges as God also says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
The information on reason and wisdom from the Apocryphal Book of 4 Maccabees should be enough for you to obtain a Bible with these forgotten books. Most of the Apocryphal books are in the Catholic Bible. However, I only found 3 & 4 Maccabees in the NRSV Apocrypha. The other three translations in my Parallel Bible did not have these books. Protestant Bibles began omitting the Apocryphal books around 1300-1500 CE.
You will find some wonderful writings in the Apocryphal books, so I highly recommend them. Apocryphal is a term that refers to questionable authorship, and the reason these books were excluded by Protestants is their inability to verify their authenticity or authorship. Having read them, I certainly feel they are of comparable writings to the rest of the Bible.
The United States Senate collectively rationalized and condoned adulterous sexual behavior at the very highest level of government in the United States. The Democratic Party in the Senate, functioning in solidarity, could not find the collective wisdom to admonish and remove a president who dishonored the office he was sworn to uphold. Instead, during the sexual fiasco of President William Jefferson Clinton, the leaders of the Democratic Party sought repeatedly to isolate his moral behavior from his ability to govern as president. Should we now elect immoral Presidents in the United States? Is that the kind of leadership we want? Yet isn’t this the thinking in much of our society now? There has been a huge moral shift in the last fifty years. I bear witness to God to society's increased immorality.
Just sixty-five years ago, Democrats were concerned about whether John Kennedy, a Catholic, could be elected President. Now, at the beginning of a new millennium, Democrats seek to rationalize immoral and indecent behavior in the highest elected office of our land. Do you also rationalize President Clinton’s behavior? Are boys just being boys like a lot of women think? You know, boys can’t help themselves? What about the other immoral aspects of the Democratic Party and other political parties? Do you rationalize the killing of babies as a woman’s right? What about euthanasia?
God Expects Reason Not Rationalization!
For most of our U.S. history, the world could reason correctly that the United States was a moral nation. Now almost half of the U.S. voters will vote for immoral candidates and for laws that support licentiousness. Does politics matter to God? We do have moral people in this country. But make no mistake about it, we can no longer be reasoned as a moral nation by much of the world today. Much of the world now has to rationalize the idea of the United States as a moral nation. Why? It is because of the unchecked rise in immorality across the U.S. We have a long way to go to get back to the point where the rest of the world again would universally recognize the United States as a moral nation.
Can The United States Remain A Moral Nation?
Before I knew God, I reasoned that abortion was okay. For me, it was the simple matter that no one should tell my wife what she could do with her own body. I wasn’t into morality; I was into my family’s legal rights. I just assumed she would never want to abort my children. But what if she had? How would I have felt about that? After all, it is her body, isn’t it? What she does with her body isn’t anyone else’s business, is it? I can certainly tell you that whatever you do is God’s business. He is looking, and He sees it all. Nothing is hidden from God, and “the wages of a continued life style of willful sin during our earthly journey ends in an eternal spiritual death.”
Was I reasoning or rationalizing about abortion? I was rationalizing because reason has to take into account God’s Word on the subject. That is what wisdom is all about. Remember, you get half the picture or less if you operate only from a human perspective. You must also consider the Divine to get the total picture. What can be reasoned from God’s Word? What does mankind rationalize?
4 Maccabees is not the only good book in the Apocryphal collection. Consider the following verses from the Book of Sirach.
“If you fear the Lord, you will accept His correction.” Sirach 32:14
“Study His Law, and you will master it, unless you are insincere about it, in which case you will fail.” Sirach 32:15
“If you fear the Lord, you will know what is right …” Sirach 32:16
“Sinners have no use for correction, and will interpret the Law to suit themselves.” Sirach 32:17 GNB
Do you remember that President Clinton stated he studied the Bible and couldn’t find any oral sex in it? And that is why he concluded that he wasn’t really having “a sexual relationship” with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky? He was rationalizing his sexual sin, wasn’t he? There is no limit to the rationalization of mankind. God knows that “sinners have no use for correction, and will interpret the Law to suit themselves.” And God knows that lawyers like to parse words and twist the common meaning of the language. Clinton said in his testimony that whether or not he was lying depended on whether the word “Is” — is in the past or the present tense. Would Jesus think or talk that way? I don’t think so!
Is mankind dumb? We think we are being cute and that no one will find out about our sins because we sin in the privacy of our Oval Office. But mankind has always engaged in the same sins, and sexual immorality is well addressed in the Bible. Indeed, it is Jesus who said, “There are no excuses.” Jesus means that there will be no rationalization [excuses] for your sin with God. Remember what God said in Isaiah 1:18 about reasoning?
“Come Let Us Reason Together,” Says the Lord!
If you are going to reason with God, you have to understand God’s Word because that will be the basis of your ability to reason correctly. Ignorance cannot be pleaded, as God has placed His Law on our hearts and in our minds. You can rationalize with man, but you cannot rationalize with God. He knows the inner workings of your heart and your motives.