Christian conduct?
b. 1 Peter 1:15,16
c. 1 John 2:3-6
2. In what way are the reasons for godly living in Christianity different from the reasons for good conduct in other religions and philosophies?
3. Why is religious hypocrisy so dangerous? (Matthew 15:7-9; Philippians 3:17-19; James 1:22-24,26)
4. What kind of influence, do you think, has your life had on others — for Christ, or against Christ? Why?
5. What will you do to sustain your desire daily to keep up your Christian conduct?
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How to Handle the Temptations
of the Non-Christian World
(Matthew 4:1-11)
There was once a little boy who wanted very much to own a computer game. He asked his parents if he could have one, and they told him that if he wanted a computer game, he would have to save up money on his own to buy one. So he began to save every cent he could spare for this. And at night, before he went to bed, he prayed, "Dear Lord, please help me to save enough money to buy a computer game, and please don't let the ice-cream man come down this street!" The reason of course, was that if the ice-cream man came he would be tempted to spend his savings on ice-cream, which he was also very fond of.
This illustration shows us something which is common in our day to day experience. It shows us the unavoidable aspect of the Christian life, called temptation. None of us is exempted from it. Temptation assails everyone, saint and sinner alike. Temptation is no respecter of persons. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was on earth faced temptation.
Temptation comes from many sources. Satan makes use of the environment we live in. Our senses are bombarded daily with the sights and sounds of the non-Christian world that tempt us with promises of fame or riches. Temptation may come from our nonChristian friends and colleagues, persuading us to join them in activities which are not pleasing to God. Many young people have succumbed to this kind of peer group pressure. Sometimes, even our
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loved ones tempt us to sin. This is a particularly hard temptation to resist. Adam might have been able to withstand the serpent's temptation in the Garden of Eden by himself, but he yielded when Eve, his own wife whom he loved, offered him the forbidden fruit. And last but not least, temptation also comes from within ourselves — the flesh — through our own pride and selfish desires for gratification.
With all of these things against us in our daily lives, we now realise how easily we can fall into sin if we are not constantly vigilant and watchful in what we say, do or think. Temptation must be dealt with, and dealt with decisively. God's will for us is that we should resist temptation. God's will for us is that we should overcome temptation. God's will for us is that we should not yield at all to temptation.
But how are we to do this? How can we deal effectively with the temptations which we encounter daily? What can we do to keep ourselves from falling into sin? God's effective answer to us is that we can only do so through our Saviour, Jesus Christ. He alone has gone through all the different trials of temptations in this world and yet emerged completely sinless. He alone can strengthen us now in spirit to resist the urge to yield to temptation. And He alone has set the example for dealing effectively with temptation which is eternally recorded for us in God's Holy Word.
And so if we pay close attention to the means which Jesus employed in dealing with the attacks of Satan in His temptation, we will not fail to gain important insight into the way to deal effectively with temptation. These words of Scripture in Matthew 4 were specially given for our instruction in righteousness: that as God's people we will be thoroughly equipped to do God's will by learning from the excellent example of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 4:1-11 records the temptations of the Lord, we first consider the question 'What were the circumstances that led to this event of Christ's temptation?' (v.1): "Then was Jesus led up of the
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spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered."
The first thing we note, is that Christ was led by the Holy Spirit of God to be tempted. In other words, it was God's will that Jesus should be tempted. Now, we know that God will never do anything or condone anything that would violate His own holiness. What we must understand, therefore, is that there is nothing wrong or sinful about being tempted. Temptation itself is not morally wrong, but yielding to temptation is. The Lord will judge sinners for yielding to the temptations they face, and not for facing temptations. In fact, temptations can sometimes be used by God for a good purpose. Sometimes, God sees it fit within His plan, to bring us into temptation: though He is not the one who tempts us. Let us be fully assured: He has a purpose for allowing us to be tempted, just as He had in the case of Job.
A Puritan writer put it this way: "God sometimes permits Satan to assail His dear children, the more to strengthen them in His spiritual graces, and to confirm them more fully in the assurance of His love and their salvation. For, as a city which has been once besieged and not sacked, will ever after be more strong to hold out if it be assailed by the like danger . . . so those who are besieged and assaulted by their spiritual enemies will ever after more carefully arm themselves against them with the graces of God's Spirit, that they may not be overcome nor foiled by them."
Temptations are therefore allowed in our lives by God as a means to prove and test our faith and character. And because of this fact we can rest assure that we will never face any temptation in this world that is too great for us to bear. The Lord knows exactly how much we can take. He will not allow Satan to tempt us beyond our resistance. One example of this are the trials that God allowed Satan to afflict Job with. At first, Satan was allowed to take everything Job had, but not allowed to harm Job himself. When Job successfully resisted the temptation to sin, Satan was then allowed to harm Job. His success in resisting the temptation to sin in his first trial may
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have strengthened him to be successful in his second one. Perhaps if God had allowed Satan to take everything and harm Job at the same time, he might not have been able to resist the temptation so well.
God's Word in 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." You know, this is one of the most comforting verses in the Bible. How wonderful it is to know that God is in full control. So even though the temptations we face in this world may be very difficult and trying to us at times, and make us feel that our earthly pilgrimage is so difficult, we can be encouraged, if we know that we will be able to bear them and regard them as the refining fires specially designed to purify our faith, and to prepare us for our heavenly home.
In Matthew 4:1-11: we also note that in this event, Christ was led into the wilderness to be tempted. Traditionally, this wilderness was a place known as the Wilderness of Judah on the North-western side of the Dead Sea. This is a very hot and desolate place that none of us would want to be in. In the months of July to September the average daytime temperature here is above 38 degrees C (hotter than body temperature). It would be very uncomfortable to be there. But Christ spent no less than 40 days in this place, without any conveniences, food, shelter or companionship. Such extreme circumstances would really stress and weaken any man in body, mind and spirit and render a person more susceptible to temptation.
It is not in times when we are alert and strong but in times of great stress and weakness, when we are drained of spiritual vigour and vitality, that we become most vulnerable to the suggestions of the Evil One. Like a roaring lion, Satan strikes when he perceives that his prey is weak, as this gives him the best opportunity for overpowering us. We, therefore, ought to be more careful of his attacks when we are weak.
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The prophet Elijah succumbed to the temptation of fear and depression after his glorious victory at Mount Carmel. Why did this happen? Probably because he was physically and mentally exhausted, having spent all his energies from morning until evening facing the Baal prophets, praying for rain, and then running from Mt Carmel to Jezreel. When he heard that Jezebel sought to kill him, he ran away and became very depressed. When a person feels depressed, he may be tempted to abuse the precious gift of life and commit suicide. When a person has to endure great physical and mental stress, he is tempted to do anything just to get out of the difficult or unpleasant aspects of the training.
Therefore, if we know that we are about to go through a time of physical and mental stress or any trying experience, we would do well to prepare ourselves for it. Later, we will see how Jesus was well-prepared to face his time of testing. He had done two things to prepare Himself: firstly, He filled His mind with the Word of God and secondly, He filled His heart with a firm resolve to obey it.
Now we will look at the three temptations that Jesus faced: first, an appeal to physical needs and desires; then, an appeal to the pride of life, and finally, an appeal to power and ambition. You will observe that each of them was different in nature, and they show us that Satan is quite skilful at employing different ways to get us to sin.
An Appeal to Physical Needs and Desires
"If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread." (Matt 4:3). I think we can imagine how hungry Jesus was after 40 days of fasting, and if He wanted to satisfy His hunger He could have done it very easily by supernatural means, just as He later satisfied the hunger of 5,000 people with just 5 loaves and 2 fishes.
But why did Jesus not do this? The reason is found in the reply Jesus gave from Scripture: "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (v.4). God's Word takes precedence over one's physical needs. Apparently at this
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point, Jesus had received God's Word of command that He should not eat any food for forty days. Keeping God's Word was more important to Him than His immediate pressing physical need for food.
And this should be our conviction as well. Have you sometimes given in to the temptation of putting your immediate physical needs above the Word of God? Sometimes, when we wake up in the morning, instead of getting up immediately to start the day with God in our Quiet Time, we feel urged to go back to sleep.
When I was a Sunday School teacher, one of the excuses that was heard most often in Sunday School for absences by students is "I am so sorry but I just could not wake up!" But the strange thing is that when it comes to going to school or to work during the rest of the week, waking up does not seem to be a problem. Let us not allow our physical tiredness prevent us from spending time in the Word of God. Let us be like Jesus, who did not allow His hunger to prevent Him from keeping the Word of God. He understands our physical needs perfectly well because He Himself had the same physical needs here on earth, but He will not condone the meeting of physical needs at the expense of keeping God's Word.
We need to get our priorities right, so that we will not fall when Satan tempts us by appealing to our physical needs. And our priority should be based on the Scriptural principle used by Jesus: "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Earlier, I mentioned Job and how he resisted the temptation to sin. How was he able to do this? Let us look at Job 23:12, "I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." God's word ought to take priority in our lives. Obeying it is our most basic necessity. Keeping it is our most urgent requirement. Meeting our physical needs is useful only for this short present life. Meeting our spiritual needs with God's Word is useful both for this present life as well as for eternity. Let us therefore give God's Word greater priority.
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Having seen how Jesus used a Scriptural principle to deal with Satan's first temptation, we now come to the second temptation.
An Appeal to The Pride of Life
"Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." (vv.5, 6).
Here we see something interesting — the Devil himself quoting from scripture. Evidently Satan also studies God's Word — probably to see how he may distort it to his own advantage. And if we are going to deal with a devil who knows scripture, then I think we had better strive to know it better than he does.
If we compare what he quoted here with the original verses in Psalm 91:11, 12 we will see how he distorted God's Word. Firstly, he omitted the words "to keep thee in all thy ways". Matthew 4:6 should read "He shall give His angels charge concerning thee to keep thee in all thy ways." Secondly, he added the words "at any time." The last part of verse 6 should read "lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Thirdly, when we look at the original context of Psalm 91, we see that the protection of God is promised for dangers that we cannot avoid. It is not giving us permission to be careless or to put ourselves in danger.
Here, Satan was challenging our Lord to prove God's faithfulness to Him by jumping down from the highest point of the Temple to force God to save Him from being killed. The implication here is that if God's hand can be forced to do his bidding when Christ purposely puts himself in danger, then Christ can feel that He must be someone very great and special. This was therefore an appeal to self-centred pride, exalting itself at God's expense.
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Now, this appeal to the Pride of Life has been used by the Devil even from the very beginning. When he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, he enticed her to eat the forbidden fruit by saying "in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good an evil." (Gen 3:5) Satan himself fell from his original position as an angel because of this same cause: he yielded to his own pride and said, 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." (Isaiah 14:14)
Today, he is still persuading people to exalt themselves at God's expense. He is still appealing to the Pride of Life. He is telling people — "You can be as gods." The non-Christian world we live in is saturated with this. It is the basic premise of the eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, whose adherents believe that if they live well enough, they will move up the ladder to divinity. It is becoming popular in the West now in the New Age Movement. You know, to most of our non-Christian friends, God is merely a means to an end — to be used to obtain all the good things in life for oneself and to fulfil one's own dreams and wishes.
How dishonouring to God this is! But do you know that this kind of teaching is actually coming into some churches today? It is known as the Health-Wealth or Prosperity gospel and it claims that all Christians have a right to use faith to claim healing and to claim riches and material prosperity from God because God has supposedly bound Himself to provide these things to them in His Word.
It is sad to see Christians falling into this error. To say that we have a right to make claims from God like this is really amounting to telling Him, "My will be done". We have no right to impose our wills upon God and make use of Him for our own purposes. To do so would be to do exactly what Satan tempted Jesus to do and that is to tempt the Lord (to put Him to the test), and to violate the Scriptural principle quoted by Christ from Deuteronomy 6:16, "Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God."
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We must always remember that we stand in a subordinate relationship to God. We are to do His will and not He, ours. He has given us a privilege to ask in prayer, but not a right to demand or claim by faith. If our Lord Jesus Christ, who was God's only begotten Son who is so close to the Father, did not dare to test His Father's power and claim deliverance, how much less should we dare to do the same. Be careful when an appeal is made to pride in your life, to receive honour that is due to God alone. Remember the scriptural principle: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
An Appeal to Power and Ambition
We now come to the third and last temptation."Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." (vv.8, 9).
Here Satan tempts Jesus with an appeal to Power and Ambition by offering Him all the kingdoms of the world. He promises to give Jesus total power and full jurisdiction over all these kingdoms if Jesus would only fulfil one easy requirement — to bow down and worship Satan. In order to entice Jesus, he made a full display of all the kingdoms and their splendour, rich cultures and impressive cities.
The devil probably showed our Lord the greatness of the Empires that existed then. In the west, He would have seen the great superpower called Rome, whose territories included Egypt, Syria, North Africa, Western and Southern Europe and England. In the near east, he would have seen a kingdom which had resisted Roman conquest, called the Parthian empire. This empire became rich through its control of the trade-routes.
Far in the East, our Lord Jesus would have seen China flourishing under the Han dynasty which lasted for 400 years, a time when China was united by an excellent administration and was experiencing rich cultural development. All of these and more were
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displayed before our Saviour's eyes with the promise that they would all be His possession and domain if He would only bow down and make obeisance to the Devil.
One thing we might like to know is how Satan could possibly offer these kingdoms to Christ. What right did he have to do this? The Bible tells us that Satan is the prince of this world or the god of this world (in John 14:30; Eph 2:2; 2 Cor 4:4). In fact he has his own organisation of fallen angels and the OT book of Daniel gives us the impression that each of the world's kingdoms seems to have been assigned a fallen angel to influence or control. In this sense, Satan did have the right to offer Jesus these kingdoms.
But why was this offer made to Jesus? Was Jesus at all interested in gaining the world's kingdoms? Yes, He was. According to 1 Corinthians 15:24 the ultimate mission of Jesus was to gain all the world for His Kingdom, so that He could finally deliver it up to God. In the process, Jesus would also destroy Satan's power over the world. But the means that had been ordained for Jesus to do this was by His death on the cross, and the resurrection from the dead. According to Philippians 2, Christ's obedience unto death, even the death on the cross, would be the cause of His exaltation over all principalities and powers, when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
What we see in the temptation, therefore, was that Satan was trying to offer Jesus an opportunity to fulfil this ultimate mission without having to die upon the Cross, without having to submit himself to all the suffering of Calvary for our sins. Satan was tempting Jesus to take the easy way out, the path of least resistance, and this would make his offer so attractive.
Let us learn from this. Are you sometimes tempted to take the easy way out? As Christians living in the midst of a non-Christian world, we are sometimes offered an opportunity to gain something great, something we want very much if we would only compromise our standards a little, like giving a bribe, or overlooking an error that
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should be reported. The temptation to take this offer can be very great because of the big advantages and conveniences we would stand to gain.
In the newspapers, you will often see reports of people who have been caught and convicted for doing something illegal just because they had the opportunity to gain wealth and power. But while many are caught, there are many more who do not get caught, and think that they are lucky. And this same attitude pervades the whole nonChristian world we live in. It is found in the rank and file of almost every secular institution and place of work.
A good friend of mine was being trained a long time ago in OCS (Officer Cadet School). One day he came back from field training and when he unpacked his full pack he found to his horror, a live grenade that he had somehow not returned. He could be charged and face severe punishment for this offence.
All his non-Christian section-mates advised him to get rid of it secretly at a nearby rubbish dump, and no one at all would then know about it. But because of his firm Christian convictions, he decided not to take the easy way out, but report the matter to his officer. He was prepared to face the worst — several weekend confinements or extra duties. But to his surprise, his officer, who was amazed at his honesty, just asked him to do a few push ups and let him go. And on the day that he passed out of OCS, my friend received a sword of honour.
So whenever we are tempted by the world to take the easy way out, let us remember that the end does not justify the means used to attain it. And this is why Jesus refused to agree to the condition laid down by Satan. The worship that he required would grossly violate the most important scriptural principle: worship belongs to God alone and to no one else. Jesus replied "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." (Deut 10:20).
We must never do anything ethically or morally questionable or dishonouring to God, even though this might mean losing something
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we want very much, and though it would mean forsaking some great opportunity to gain power or fulfil our ambitions. Our foremost consideration should always be: "Will the Lord be pleased with what I am doing?" And if we cannot answer "Yes" with a clear conscience, we must reject it.
To summarise the three temptations of Christ, we have seen the appeal made to physical needs and desires, the pride of life and power and ambition.
Now that we have seen them, we will be able to understand a little better how He dealt with them effectively. You will notice that there is one common denominator in the way that Christ handled all three temptations. This common denominator is the presence of three words, "It is written" In His first reply to Satan, Jesus says, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone" In His second reply, He said, "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." And in His final reply, He said, "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
These three words "It is written" refer to nothing else but the written Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. Our Lord, therefore, consistently used the Scriptures to deal with His temptations. By this example, He teaches us about the importance of knowing the Word of God to deal with our own temptations. Christ prepared Himself well by memorising scripture.
The key to dealing effectively with temptation is the knowledge and application of the Word of God. Unless we take the time to know the Word and resolve in our hearts to apply it, we would not be strong to resist temptation.
If we choose to neglect studying the Bible or spend only a little time reading it, then I am afraid, we will find ourselves vulnerable and weak when faced with temptation. And if we see a Christian always yielding to temptation, it is highly probable that he is not spending enough time in the Word of God or that he is not taking it seriously enough. But if we choose to give time and effort to learn
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from the Word of God and resolve to keep it in our hearts, we will soon discover renewed ability to withstand the temptations of the non-Christian world we live in, because we would have solid scriptural convictions to withstand them. A good illustration of this is found in the man called Daniel. Daniel was a young Jew who was taken into captivity and forced to serve in the court of the Babylonian King. There he faced temptations like eating food that was forbidden to the Jews by God's Law. The Babylonian food might have been offered to the idol gods of Babylon before it was laid on the table. Daniel could have taken the easy way out and just eaten the food if he was afraid of offending the king. Daniel 1:8 tells us that he "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat." As a result of his firm convictions, he and also his Jewish friends were able to resist the temptation and were blessed with better health than all the other captive young people in the court.
The psalmist said, "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." (Psalm 119:11) So important is the knowledge of God's word in our conflict with sin and Satan that Paul designates it the foundational piece of our spiritual armour, namely "the Belt of Truth" (Eph 6:14). The word of God is also the "Sword of the Spirit," the only weapon effective enough to counter the attacks of the Devil.
One of the latest teachings coming now from Charismatic circles is that playing the tambourine in prayer and praise services is a mighty weapon that believers can use against the Devil.
They teach things like "Every stroke of the tambourine is a knock on Satan's head, until he gets dazed and drops down." It is no wonder then that some churches are now offering courses in tambourine-playing. But if tambourines are really effective to defeat Satan, we wonder why our Lord Jesus did not bring one with Him when He was being tempted by him. The only thing that Jesus brought with Him was the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit, which he had carefully hid in His heart, ready for immediate use.
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