Chapter 10: The Hour Of Temptation
Chapter 10: The Hour Of Temptation
"God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." - 1 Cor. 10:13
TEMPTATION IS THE trying or testing of the soul. Satan tempts with evil to make us fall; God tries us by putting into our lives occasions for laying aside evil, and engaging in heroic acts for Him. We have thus the frequent opportunity of learning what is really in our hearts, and of stepping up into a sweeter, purer, stronger life.
Every pure soul is an offence to every evil one; and therefore, those who are themselves evil, are always endeavouring to drag down the good to their own infamous level. Perhaps there is a deeper reason why the Christian soldier is beset by the principalities and powers of darkness. The devil and all his demon emissaries hate Jesus Christ with a malignity and fury that flame the more intensely as they know their efforts against Him are futile. They cannot reach Him; the Father has put them under his feet in the mighty victory of the cross and the ascension; He sits at the right hand of power, all rule and principality and power being beneath Him forsever; so they seek to strike at Him by striking at those who believe in him. Therefore the glory of Jesus Christ is involved in every temptation by which we are threatened, and for his sake, if not for our own, we must stand firm.
Do not think that temptations prove that you are deteriorating in the divine life. On the contrary, the fierce temptation of the wilderness succeeds immediately on the opened heaven and the voice of God. Have you been declared to be the beloved son of God? then the Spirit will drive you into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil; as though by suffering, the blessed revelation shall be wrought more deeply into the fabric of the soul. The more ripe fruit there is in the orchard of your heart, the more violent will be the attempt to steal it. The closer you are identified with your Captain in the thickest of the fight, the more will be your exposure to the heaviest fire of the foe.
God permits us to be tempted. The Evil One is always considering the saints, as he did Job, but he cannot approach them unless God permit; and that permission is not given, unless our Father knows that we have grace enough to withstand. The pressure of temptation is always carefully adjusted to our power of resistance. He is faithful, and will not suffer us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear; but with the temptation will .send us his all-sufficient grace, or show the way of escape (2 Cor. xii. 9). Our Lord taught us to ask that we should not be led into temptation; therefore we know that if we are led in, we shall be sustained in the fight, and led out without a scratch.
God is our Father, and loves us infinitely; there must therefore be the best of reasons why we are so frequently exposed to the fierce ordeal of temptation. Is it to burn in the colours his Spirit lays on us, as men do with porcelain? Is it to teach us the art of spiritual warfare, to make our sinews lissom, our eye quick, our frame agile, as lads are trained in the gymnasium or fencing-school? Is it to force us by our very necessities to avail ourselves of his succouring might? This at least is clear - there is no necessity for us to fall or sin before temptation. Our Lord was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. It were possible for a soul to go through hell itself, so full of the love of God, so environed by his protection, that it would come out on the other side without even a hair singed or the smell of fire upon it.
The devil likes to find us alone. Seclusion in the caves of the Thebaid did not relieve the old hermits from the assaults of evil, but rather intensified them. When Eve was apart from Adam, the serpent spoke to her: Jesus was alone when the devil came to Him. Beware, then, of hours of solitude; but know that your Father is in secret: cry to Him, and He will be your very present help.
The power of the tempter lies in surprise. No bell rings in heaven to tell us that the dark squadrons are stealing around our castle. No storm-signal hangs out to warn against the approaching depression. Only the watcher angel that loves us, and certainly the good Shepherd who pleads for us now as for Peter on Olivet, detect the stealthy approach of the enemy of our souls. Let us watch, therefore, and pray, lest we enter into temptation. I have invariably found that, when I have congratulated myself on being secure from any special form of temptation, I have been exposed to its full fury within twenty-four hours.
If you carefully watch yourselves, you will find that failure in temptation is always preceded by some permitted evil, which took place perhaps days before. The final assault is sudden, but the sappers and miners had been at work long before. The tree fell unexpectedly in the hurricane which swept over the forest in the night; but the borer-worm had been at its heart for weeks before the final crash. Peter's fall was prepared by the dispute in the upper chamber as to the greatest. Be very careful against the slight spores of disease that float in the air, and insinuate themselves into the system; so only will you escape in the epidemic. The first flitting suggestion, the thought which is inserted into the heart - as thieves put a trained child in at a window that it may go round to open the door to the gang - the permitted look of desire, these are to be feared, because they breed in the nest of the heart. Listen to the genealogy of evil: "Lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death" (James i. IS).
Yielding is the result of previous decline. The sin that breaks into manifestation, bad and black as it is, and needing confession and restoration, has far-reaching roots; and to be dealt with properly we must not only confess the one act, but go back to the first evil suggestion which we permitted to lie within us uncondemned. Bankruptcy is the climax of months of bad trading. Rapid consumption brings to light the disease which had long been undermining the system. Keep in perfect soul-health, robust and hearty, well nourished by the food of the Word, and inspiring deep breaths of the heavenly air, and you need fear no sudden shock of disease.
The tempted may dwell between double doors. First, he is in Christ; second, Christ is in him. If you are in Christ, you are above the devil; for the devil is put under his feet. If, then, you are only at his feet, you are above your great adversary. Abide in Christ. As long as you do, you cannot sin consciously and willfully. The whole energy of hell is to seduce men from abiding in Christ. If by permitted sin, by neglected Bible reading, by rushing out after the sweetness of earth, by worrying as to the future, we leave our shelter in the clefts of the rock, we become an easy prey to Satan. But as long as we live in fellowship with Him, casting on Him our care, studying and feeding on his Word, living up to all known duty, and cultivating the spirit of charity to all, we remain inside our citadel, and are safe.
Also, Christ is in us as a treasury of unknown grace and blessing; our light and salvation; our life and strength. If we cannot hold the door against the devil, the Stronger than he can do it for us, and will do, at the feeblest call of our faith. Let us put Christ between us and temptation. Let us not be content with resistance, but take more of Christ's grace as the antidote. Christ's purity, amid suggestions of impurity; Christ's strength, in hours of fearfulness and trembling; Christ's meekness, when tempted to pride or vainglory; Christ's gentleness, when about to judge or act harshly; Christ's prayerfulness, when thoughts wander and' the soul cleaves with folded wing to the earth.
So shall be realized the ancient predictions of Psalm xci. Dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, and abiding under the shadow of the Almighty, there will be no reason why we should fear the terror by night or the arrow by day, the lion or adder, the young lion or the serpent. Only set your love on God, and you shall be delivered.