Discipleship I “Lead Us Not Into Temptation”
Discipleship I
“Lead us not into temptation”
We have reached the last of the three requests that relate to our needs as believers.
The request for bread deals with our present needs and the request for forgiveness with our past sins. Now we have before us the request for guidance and protection, which involves our future activities. When we pray “lead us,” we are submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ as his disciples, for a disciple is a follower. “ ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said [to Peter and Andrew], ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him” (Matt. 4:19–20).
At once they became disciples! The crisis of the call led to the process of learning and living that is discipleship. Peter and Andrew didn’t ask how many hours they would serve each day or what the fringe benefits were, nor did they ask for a contract. They simply obeyed. Until that day, they had been their own bosses, but now Jesus would be giving the orders. “The first duty of every soul,” wrote P. T. Forsyth, “is not to find its freedom but its Master.”26 When Jesus is our Master, we have in him the freedom we need to live, serve, and grow. We are free to experience all that will make us what we were born to become. “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas—a rock” (John 1:42).
The prayer begins with “Our Father” and climaxes with Jesus, our Master. Our relationship is one of love, so there’s nothing to fear. “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways” (Prov. 23:26). True discipleship involves giving all that we are and have for all of our life so we can receive all that God has planned for us. Perhaps the best modern equivalent of disciple would be apprentice, for apprentices love their work and their mentor, and they learn by listening, watching, and obeying. Jesus taught his disciples God’s truth, they watched him as he ministered to various kinds of people in different circumstances, and then he sent them out to serve and find out for themselves how much they had really learned. The historian Will Durant was correct when he wrote, “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” The disciples’ ignorance was exposed for all to see whenever one of them tried to tell Jesus what to do.
The word translated “temptation” in Matthew 6:13 can also mean “trial” or “testing.” James 1:13 makes it clear that “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.” James opened his letter by exhorting his readers, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. . . . Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him” (1:2–4, 12).
The Father never tempts his children to do evil. However, he does test our faith, because a faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted. Faith is only as good as the object of that faith, and our faith is in the one true and living God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whenever anyone makes a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, they will soon enter a time of trial and testing so they can learn whether or not their faith is real. In the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1–9, 18–23), Jesus pointed out that there are people who “hear the word and at once receive it with joy.” But the soil of their hearts is shallow and their faith has no roots; therefore, their response is emotional and temporary. “But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root” (Matt. 13:6). Sunshine is good for plant life only if the plants have roots. Trials bring blessings to true Christians but not to shallow “professors.”
God’s true children benefit from trials. They have their roots in God’s Word, and trials only deepen those roots. Paul and Barnabas said, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus told his disciples. “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). In my years of ministry, I have known people who were zealous for the Lord for a short time and then cooled off and went their own way. They didn’t lose their salvation. They never had it.
“[E]ach of you is tempted,” James wrote, “when you are dragged away by your own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (1:14–15). How we respond to trials will determine whether or not they test us or tempt us, build us up or tear us down. The wrong kind of responses will transform trials into temptations. Then our own desires will entice us, and we will abandon prayer and God’s promises and disobey the Lord. In that way lies grief, not growth.
The Bible gives us many examples of true believers who didn’t persevere under testing and instead “gave birth” to sin because they failed to trust God.
Let’s begin with Abraham (Genesis 12). “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham,” Stephen reminded the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 7:2), and when that happened, Abraham abandoned his idols, trusted the true God, and started off for the land God promised him. When he arrived there, he discovered a famine in the land. Surely the Lord wouldn’t send his child into a famine! Instead of building an altar and waiting for God’s directions, Abraham escaped to the land of Egypt, where he almost lost his wife. Instead of trusting God, he lied about his wife and lost his testimony before a pagan ruler and his court. This is a lesson all believers must learn: faith is living without scheming. Abraham sinned because he turned a trial into a temptation.
The people of Israel refused to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 13–14), so God chastened them by making them wander in the wilderness for thirty-eight years until the older generation died off. During that “extended funeral march,” God often tested his people, and very often they failed the test. As circumstances became difficult, the people usually complained to God and criticized Moses instead of turning to God by faith and praising him. They stood frightened at the Red Sea because Pharaoh’s army was coming up behind them; and then God opened the sea and they passed through (Exodus 14–15). When they were hungry, they wept and said, “If only we had died at the Lord’s hand in Egypt!” For the next thirty-eight years, God sent them manna to eat (Exodus 16). When they were thirsty, they argued with Moses, who cried out to God and then brought water out of the rock (Exod. 17:1–7). The people as a whole resisted the authority God had given to Moses, and once even his own brother and sister opposed him.
Why did the Lord permit these times of difficulty? Moses tells us in Deuteronomy 8: God was testing the Israelites and revealing their own sinfulness to them. He was encouraging them to trust him and not be afraid. These times of testing could have been a means of grace and blessing that would have increased their faith and their love for God. But their hearts were full of unbelief and their constant prayer was “How can we get out of this?” instead of “What can we get out of this?” They wanted to go back to Egypt and settle for slavery instead of following God’s leading, growing in grace, and inheriting their land.
Moving to the New Testament, we see the disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee during a storm, but Jesus is not with them (Matt. 14:22–33). At dawn Jesus shows up, walking on the water, and the disciples are terrified. They had already seen him calm a storm (Matt. 8:23–27), and he had just fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, but the disciples’ faith was still small. Peter had faith enough to get out of the boat and walk on the water to Jesus, but then he was distracted by the dangerous circumstances around him, turned a test into a temptation, and began to sink.
Let’s move to Acts 12 and look at a contrasting experience in Peter’s life. He has been arrested and put into jail and is guarded by sixteen Roman soldiers. The next morning he is to be killed. What does Peter do? He goes to sleep! He was in such a deep sleep that the angel had to strike Peter on the side to wake him up! (Imagine having an angel for an alarm clock!) Why was Peter so calm? Because he knew Herod could never kill him. Jesus had already told Peter he would die by crucifixion in his old age (John 21:18–19). Peter’s faith was tested, and this time he passed the test. He didn’t doubt God’s promises and turn the trial into a temptation.
Acts 16 gives us another prison testing, this time involving Paul and Silas. Paul was a Roman citizen and could have escaped the pain and humiliation of a beating and a night in prison. Instead, he chose to suffer for the sake of the infant church he and Silas had planted in Philippi. Rather than complaining, the two men prayed and sang praises to the Lord, and the Lord set them free. They turned the testing into triumph and not only were delivered from prison but had the joy of leading the jailer and his household to faith in Jesus Christ.
The key, of course, is faith. If as Jesus’s disciples we follow him and do his will, he promises to take care of us. If we respond by complaining and scheming (“How can I get out of this?”), we turn the trial into a temptation and our unbelief limits what the Lord can do. How many times has the Lord said to us, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matt. 8:26). Faith means obeying God’s will no matter how we feel, no matter what the circumstances are around us, and no matter what consequences lie before us. To walk by sight instead of by faith (2 Cor. 5:7) means looking within, looking around, and looking ahead—and being afraid! Throughout Scripture this one fact stands out: Every believer who was used of God was tested, and they trusted God and did not turn their trials to temptations. To the glory of God, they did the impossible!
So when we pray “lead us not into temptation,” we’re saying to the Lord, “Give me the faith I need to accept this trial and use it for your glory. Deepen my roots, increase my faith, and help me turn this testing into triumph and not temptation.” Then we rest on his Word, because that is the source and strength of our faith.
It isn’t a sin to be tempted or to be tested, but it is a sin to complain and scheme instead of asking the Father for faith to overcome (1 Cor. 10:13). “Lead us not into temptation” means “As we, your disciples, follow you, may we respond in such a way that we not turn opportunities of testing and growth into tragedies of temptation and defeat.” The godly Scottish pastor Samuel Rutherford once wrote to a friend, “It is faith’s work to claim and challenge lovingkindnesses out of all the roughest strokes of God.” After all, that’s what Jesus did throughout his ministry, and especially on the cross.
Peter gives us a word of encouragement in 1 Peter 1:6—“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials” (NASB). To begin with, the Lord never permits temptations or trials unless they are necessary. We may not understand why God allows us to suffer, but we don’t live on explanations—we live on promises. Early in the Lord’s Prayer we pray “Your will be done,” and if we really mean that prayer, we will accept what he sends us and by faith transform trials into triumphs, not temptations.
Second, God knows how much we can take and therefore how long our trials should last. Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation [testing] has overtaken you except what is common to us all. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted [tested] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted [tested], he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Third, our trials may distress us, but there is always cause for rejoicing. While we are human and we feel pain, God can enable us to rise above pain and perplexity and to rejoice in him and all that we have in Christ. To quote P. T. Forsyth again, “It is a greater thing to pray for pain’s conversion than for pain’s removal.”27 Paul pleaded three times that God would remove his painful thorn in the flesh, but instead God converted the pain into power and transformed Paul’s weakness into strength (2 Cor. 12:1–10). What a conversion experience that is!
For us to abandon faith and turn life’s trials into temptations means not only that we tempt ourselves but also that we tempt the Lord’s people and perhaps even the Lord. Defeated Christians waste their opportunities for growing in grace, glorifying God, and bearing witness to Jesus Christ and the gospel. Instead of being stepping-stones and bringing people closer to Jesus, they become stumbling blocks that cause others to fall. According to Luke 17:1–3, it’s a serious matter to cause other people to stumble.
To tempt God means to behave in such a self-centered and arrogant way that we are daring the Lord to stop us. It means deliberately disobeying him so that he must intervene in some way to keep us from harming ourselves and others and getting in the way of what he wants to do. When Abraham went to Egypt, God had to intervene to protect him and Sarah so that they could one day bring Isaac into the world. The day after God judged Israel because they refused to enter Canaan, the people decided to “go it alone,” and they were humiliated and beaten by the enemy (Num. 14:39–45). Their “attack” was presumptuous sin, not an act of faith in the will of God.
New Testament Christians can tempt God and grieve him just as the Old Testament Israelites did. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation” (Heb. 3:7–10; see also Ps. 95:8–10 and 1 Cor. 10:6–10). Imagine God being angry with an entire generation! God called Israel’s years in the wilderness “the time of testing” and “the rebellion.” What should have been a victory march became a funeral march.
It’s serious to play with sin and tempt ourselves (Prov. 7:6–27), and it’s dangerous to tempt other people; but it’s disastrous to defy God and tempt him. The most severe judgment God can permit is to let us have our own way.
How will Jesus characterize our lives when he reviews them at his judgment seat? Will he see them as years of testing and rebellion, or years when he smiled upon us and was pleased with us?
The Father wants to lead us, but how does he do it? Primarily he leads us from the inspired Word of God as we are taught by the Holy Spirit in fellowship with his people. Remember that the key pronoun in this prayer is us and not me . Throughout the centuries the Spirit has given teachers to the church, and the written records of their experiences and their expositions of Scripture are a treasury of truth for those who will mine them. This doesn’t mean that what they wrote is equal to the Scriptures in accuracy and authority, but only that we can learn from others as we follow the Lord. We need each other as we walk life’s path.
King David understood this when he wrote Psalm 23:3— “He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” The Hebrew word translated “paths” means “deep ruts such as caused by a heavily-loaded cart.” The way of safety and blessing is a well-traveled way in the deep ruts that have been proved by God’s people for centuries. Beware of new and easy paths that contradict the old paths trodden by the heroes of the Bible and church history! “My steps have held to your paths,” wrote David; “my feet have not stumbled” (Ps. 17:5). There are modern paved paths that are shallow and devious, and we must avoid them (see Proverbs 2, especially v. 15). “Give careful thought to the paths for your feet,” warns Proverbs 4:26, not only because God is watching us (Prov. 15:3) but also because others are following us, and we don’t want to lead them astray. The broad road that leads to destruction is popular and pleasant, but the narrow road that leads to life is a deep rut that is unpopular and difficult (Matt. 7:13–14). But it is the safest and happiest place to be for Christians who want to honor the Lord.
I’m grateful to the Lord for Christians who introduced me to some of the “deep ruts” early in my Christian life. This includes the couple who gave me a volume of Spurgeon’s sermons when I was in high school, a friend who told me about Bonar’s Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, my Uncle Simon who gave me a copy of Campbell Morgan’s The Crises of the Christ, and my girlfriend (later my wife) who honored my twenty-first birthday with a copy of Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. Over these many years of preaching, teaching, and writing, I have devoted myself to challenging Christians in general and younger pastors in particular to get off the easy detours and move into the deeper ruts on the path of God’s choosing.
Please notice why we obey God and walk in the deep ruts and not on the enticing new detours: it is “for his name’s sake” (Ps. 23:3). God is glorified when we immerse ourselves in his Word, love it, learn from it, and obey it. He is glorified when we become acquainted with the spiritual leaders he blessed and used in the past, people who have walked in these ruts and have so much to teach us—Augustine, Wesley, Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, Amy Carmichael, Frances Ridley Havergal, Oswald Chambers, to name but a few.28
Read what Charles Haddon Spurgeon had to say about walking in the “deep ruts” with the giants of the past:
It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others. . . . The temptations of our times lie rather in empty pretentions to novelty, than in a slavish following of accepted guides. A respectable acquaintance with the opinions of the giants of the past, might have saved many an erratic thinker from wild interpretations and outrageous inferences.29
We will not turn trials and testings into temptations if we stay in the right ruts, and the Holy Spirit of God is with us to help us.