CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 10
Difficulties Concerning Temptations
Certain great mistakes are made concerning this matter of temptation in the practical working out of the life of faith.
First of all, people seem to expect that after the soul has entered into salvation through Christ, temptations will cease; and they think that the promised deliverance is to be not only from yielding to temptation but even also from being tempted. Next, they make the mistake of looking upon temptation as sin and of blaming themselves for suggestions of evil, even while they abhor them. This brings them into condemnation and discouragement. And continued discouragement always ends at last in actual sin. Sin makes an easy prey of a discouraged soul, so that we fall often from the very fear of having fallen.
To meet the first of these difficulties, it is only necessary to refer to the scripture declarations that state that the Christian life is to be throughout a warfare. It is to be especially so when we are “seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” and are called to wrestle against spiritual enemies, whose power and skill to tempt us must doubtless be far superior to any we have ever encountered before. When the children of Israel first left Egypt, the Lord did not lead them through the country of the Philistines, although that was the nearest way. “For God said, ‘Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.’” But afterward, when they had learned how to trust Him better, He permitted their enemies to attack them. Moreover, even in their wilderness journey they met with but few enemies and fought but few battles compared to those they encountered in the land of Canaan, where they found seven great nations and thirty-one kings to conquer, besides taking walled cities and overcoming giants.
They could not fight until they went into the land where these enemies were. The very power of your temptations may perhaps be one of the strongest proofs that you really are in the land of promise you have been seeking to enter because they are temptations peculiar to that land. Consequently, never allow them to cause you to question the fact of your having entered it.
The second mistake is not quite so easy to deal with. It seems hardly worthwhile to say that temptation is not sin, and yet much distress arises from not understanding this fact. It is the enemy’s grand ruse for entrapping us. He comes and whispers suggestions of evil to us—doubts, blasphemies, jealousies, envyings, and pride—and then turns round and says, “Oh, how wicked you must be to think such things! It is very plain that you are not trusting the Lord, for if you had been, it would be impossible for these things to have entered your heart.”
This reasoning sounds so very plausible that we often accept it as true and so come under condemnation and are filled with discouragement. Then it is easy for temptation to develop into actual sin. One of the most fatal things in the life of faith is discouragement. One of the most helpful is confidence. A very wise man once said that in overcoming temptations confidence was the first thing, confidence the second, and confidence the third. We must expect to conquer. That is why the Lord said so often to Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage.” “Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.” “Only be thou strong and very courageous.” And it is also the reason He says to us, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” The power of temptation is in the fainting of our own hearts. The enemy knows this well, and he always begins his assaults by discouraging us, if he can in any way accomplish it.
This discouragement arises sometimes from what we think is a righteous grief and disgust at ourselves that such things could be any temptation to us but which is really mortification coming from the fact that we have been indulging in a secret self-congratulation that our tastes were too pure or our separation from the world was too complete for such things to tempt us. This mortification and discouragement, though they present an appearance of true humility, are really a far worse condition than the temptation itself, for they are nothing but the results of wounded self-love. True humility can bear to see its own utter weakness and foolishness revealed because it never expected anything from itself and knows that its only hope and expectation must be in God. Therefore, instead of discouraging the humble soul from trusting, such revelations drive it to a deeper and more complete trust. But the counterfeit humility that self-love produces plunges the soul into the depths of a faithless discouragement and drives it into the very sin with which it is so distressed.
An allegory illustrates this wonderfully. Satan called together a council of his servants to consult how they might make a good man sin.
One evil spirit started up and said, “I will make him sin.”
“How will you do it?” asked Satan.
“I will set before him the pleasures of sin,” was the reply. “I will tell him of its delights and the rich rewards it brings.”
“Ah,” said Satan, “that will not do. He has tried it and knows better than that.”
Then another imp started up and said, “I will make him sin.”
“What will you do?” asked Satan.
“I will tell him of the pains and sorrows of virtue. I will show him that virtue has no delights and brings no rewards.”
“Ah no!” exclaimed Satan. “That will not do at all, for he has tried it and knows that ‘Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.’”
“Well,” said another imp, starting up, “I will undertake to make him sin.”
“And what will you do?” asked Satan, again.
“I will discourage his soul,” was the short reply.
“Ah, that will do!” cried Satan. “That will do! We shall conquer him now.”
But if we fail to recognize the truth about temptation, fleeing from discouragement is impossible. If the temptations are our own fault, we cannot help being discouraged. But they are not. The Bible says, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation,” and we are exhorted to “count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations.” Temptation, therefore, cannot be sin. The truth is, it is no more a sin to hear these whispers and suggestions of evil in our souls than it is for us to hear the wicked talk of bad men as we pass along the street. The sin comes, in either case, only by our stopping and joining in with them.
A dear lady once came to me under great darkness, simply from not understanding this. She had been living very happily in the life of faith for some time and had been so free from temptation as almost to begin to think she would never be tempted again. She had lived a very sheltered, innocent life, and these thoughts seemed so awful to her that she felt she must be one of the most wicked of sinners to be capable of having them. She began by thinking that she could not possibly have entered into the rest of faith and ended by concluding that she had never been born again. I told her that these dreadful thoughts were purely and simply temptations, and that she herself was not to blame for them at all. She could not help them any more than she could help hearing if a wicked man should pour out his blasphemies in her presence. And I urged her to recognize and treat them as temptations only and not to blame herself or be discouraged but rather to turn at once to the Lord and commit them to Him. She grasped the truth, and the next time these blasphemous thoughts came, she said inwardly to the enemy, “I have found you out now. It is you who are suggesting these dreadful thoughts to me, and I hate them and will have nothing to do with them. The Lord is my helper. Take them to Him and settle them in His presence.” Immediately the baffled enemy, finding himself discovered, fled in confusion, and her soul was perfectly delivered.
Another great mistake about temptations is in thinking that all time spent in combating them is lost. Hours pass, and we seem to have made no progress because we have been so beset with temptations. But it often happens that we have been serving God far more truly during these hours than in our times of comparative freedom from temptation. For we are fighting our Lord’s battles when we are fighting temptation, and hours are often worth days to us under these circumstances. We read, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” Nothing so cultivates the grace of patience as the endurance of temptation, and nothing so drives the soul to an utter dependence upon the Lord Jesus as its continuance. And finally, nothing brings more praise and honor and glory to our Lord Himself than the trial of our faith that comes through manifold temptations. We cannot wonder, therefore, any longer at the exhortation with which the Holy Spirit opens the book of James: “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
The way of victory over temptation is by faith. We have discovered our own utter helplessness and know that we cannot do anything for ourselves. And we have learned that our only way, therefore, is to hand the temptation over to our Lord and trust Him to conquer it for us. But when we put it into His hands, we must leave it there. It seems impossible to believe that the Lord can or will manage our temptations without our help. To go on patiently “enduring” the continuance of a temptation without yielding to it and also without snatching ourselves out of the Lord’s hands in regard to it is a wonderful victory for our impatient natures, but it is a victory we must gain if we would do what will please God.
We must then commit ourselves to the Lord for victory over our temptations, as we committed ourselves at first for forgiveness. And we must leave ourselves just as utterly in His hands for one as for the other.
Thousands of God’s children have done this and can testify today that marvelous victories have been gained for them over numberless temptations, and that they have in very truth been made “more than conquerors” through Him who loves them.