Proverbs 25:16 stresses that moderation is the best policy. Of all the fruits of God's Holy Spirit, self-control is the most difficult to attain. Many people, having a faulty, Aristotelian two-valued orientation, think that temperance means abstinence instead of moderation. As an example of the consequence of such errant thinking, consider that the vast government overreach in prohibiting all use of alcoholic drinks, rather than establishing public policies limiting intake to reasonable levels. Because people do not retain God in their personal evaluations of their behavior, God has turned them over to a reprobate mind, one which enslaves them to gluttony, alcoholism, sexual perversions, and other aberrations. God has given us free moral agency, not so we can give free reign to our impulses, but instead to facilitate the freedom to choose what is helpful. Through falling into excesses, we learn the appropriate boundaries, and can discipline ourselves as spiritual athletes to glorify God in our emergent righteous behavior.