Chapter 12
CONCERNING TEMPTATION
Certain very great mistakes are made concerning this matter of temptation, in
the practical working out of this life of faith.
First of all, people seem to expect that,
after the soul has entered into its rest in God, temptations will cease; and to
think that the promised deliverance is not only to be from yielding to
temptation, but even also from being tempted. Consequently, when they find the
Canaanite still in the land, and see the cities great and walled up to Heaven,
they are utterly discouraged, and think they must have gone wrong in some way,
and that this cannot be the true land after all.
Then, next they make the mistake of looking upon
temptation as sin, and of blaming themselves for what in reality is the fault
of the enemy only. This brings them into condemnation and discouragement; and
discouragement, if continued in, always ends at last in actual sin. The enemy
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 the Christian life
is to be throughout a warfare; and that, especially when seated in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, we are to wrestle against spiritual enemies there,
whose power and skill to tempt us must doubtless be far superior to any we have
ever heretofore encountered. As a fact, temptations generally increase in
strength tenfold after we have entered into the interior life, rather than
decrease; and no amount or sort of them must ever for a moment lead us to
suppose we have not really found the true abiding place. Strong temptations are
generally a sign of great grace, rather than of little grace. When the children
of Israel had 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 afterwards, when they learned better how to trust Him, He permitted their
enemies to attack them. Then also in their wilderness journey they met with but
few enemies and fought but few battles, compared to those in the land, where
they found seven great nations and thirty-one kings to be conquered, besides
walled cities to be taken, and giants to be overcome.
They could not have fought with the Canaanites,
or the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites, until they had gone into the land where these enemies were. And the
very power of your temptations, dear Christian, therefore, may perhaps be one
of the strongest proofs that you really are in the land you have been seeking
to enter, because they are temptations peculiar to that land. You must never
allow your temptations to cause you to question the fact of your having entered
the promised "heavenly places."
The second mistake is not quite so easy to deal
with. It seems hardly worth while to say that temptation is not sin, and yet
most of the distress about it arises from not understanding this fact. The very
suggestion of wrong seems to bring pollution with it, and the evil agency not
being recognized, the poor tempted soul begins to feel as if it must be very
bad indeed, and very far off from God to have had such thoughts and
suggestions. It is as though a burglar should break into a man's house to
steal, and, when the master of the house began to resist him and to drive him
out, should turn round and accuse the owner of being himself the thief. 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 of such things! It
is very plain that you are not trusting the Lord; for if you were, it would
have been impossible for these things to have entered your heart." This
reasoning sounds so very plausible that the soul often accepts it as true, and
at once comes under condemnation, and is filled with discouragement; then it is
easy for it to be led on into actual sin. One of the most fatal things in the
life of faith is discouragement. One of the most helpful is cheerfulness. A
very wise man once said that in overcoming temptations, cheerfulness was the
first thing, cheerfulness the second, and cheerfulness the third. We must
expect to conquer. That is why the Lord said so often to Joshua, "Be strong and
of a 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 he troubled neither let it be afraid." The power of temptation is in
the fainting of our own hearts. The enemy knows this well, and always begins
his assaults by discouraging us, if it can in any way be accomplished.
Sometimes this discouragement arises 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 a mortification arising 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. We have expected something from ourselves, and have been
sorely disappointed not to find that something there, and are discouraged in
consequence. This mortification and discouragement are really a far worse
condition than the temptation itself, though they present an appearance of true
humility, 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 soul
from trusting, it drives it to a deeper and more utter trust. But the
counterfeit humility which springs from self, plunges the soul into the depths
of a faithless discouragement, and drives it into the very sin at which it is
so distressed.
I remember once hearing an allegory that
illustrated this to me 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 spirit 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." And they did.
An old writer says, "All discouragement is from
the devil"; and I wish every Christian would just take this as a pocket-piece,
and never forget it. We must fly from discouragement as we would from sin.
But this is impossible if we fail to recognize
the true agency in temptation. For 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;
and 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 swearing or wicked talk of bad
men as we pass along the street. The sin only comes in either case by our
stopping and joining in with them. If, when the wicked suggestions come, we
turn from them at once, as we would from wicked talk, and pay no more attention
to them, we do not sin. But if we carry them on in our minds, and roll them
under our tongues, and dwell on them with a half-consent of our will to them as
true, then we sin. We may be enticed by evil a thousand times a day without
sin, and we cannot help these enticings. But if the enemy can succeed in making
us think that his enticings are our sin, he has accomplished half the battle,
and can hardly fail to gain a complete victory.
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 any more. But suddenly a very
peculiar form of temptation had assailed her, which had horrified her. She
found that the moment she began to pray, dreadful thoughts of all kinds would
rush into her mind. 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 she could
not possibly have entered into the rest of faith, and ended by concluding that
she had never even been born again. Her soul was in an agony of distress. I
told her that these dreadful thoughts were altogether the suggestions of the
enemy, who came to her the moment she kneeled in prayer, and poured them into
her mind, and that she herself was not to blame for them at all; that 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 from the enemy; not to blame herself or be discouraged, but to turn at
once to Jesus and commit them to Him. I showed her how great an advantage the
enemy had gained by making her think these thoughts were originated by herself,
and plunging her into condemnation and discouragement on account of them. And I
assured her she would find a speedy victory if she would pay no attention to
them; but, ignoring their presence, would simply turn her back on them and look
to the Lord.
She grasped the truth, and the next time these
thoughts came she said 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 Saviour; 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 thing also. The enemy knows that if a
Christian recognizes a suggestion of evil as coming from him, he will recoil
from it far more quickly than if it seems to be the suggestion of his own mind.
If Satan prefaced each temptation with the words, "I am Satan, your relentless
enemy; I have come to make you sin," I suppose we would hardly feel any desire
at all to yield to his suggestions. He has to hide himself in order to make his
baits attractive. And our victory will be far more easily gained if we are not
ignorant of his devices, but recognize him at his very first approach.
We also make another great mistake about
temptations 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.
Temptation is really more the devil's wrath against God, than against us. He
cannot touch our Saviour, but he can wound our Saviour by conquering us, and
our ruin is important to him only as it accomplishes this. We are, therefore,
really 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"; and I am sure this means enduring the
continuance of it and its frequent recurrence. 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 dearest Lord Himself,
than the trial of our faith which comes through manifold temptations. We are
told that it is more precious than gold, though it be tried with fire, and that
we, who patiently endure the trial, shall receive for our reward "the crown of
life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him."
We cannot wonder, therefore, any longer at the
exhortation with which the Holy Ghost 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."
Temptation is plainly to be the blessed
instrument used by God to complete our perfection, and thus the enemy's own
weapons are turned against himself, and we see how it is that all things, even
temptations, can work together for good to them that love God.
As to the way of victory over temptations, it
seems hardly necessary to say to those whom I am at this time especially
addressing, that it is to be by faith. For this is, of course, the foundation
upon which the whole interior life rests. Our one great motto is throughout,
"We are nothing, Christ is all." And always and everywhere we have started out
to stand, and walk, and overcome, and live by faith. We have discovered our own
utter helplessness, and know that we cannot do anything for ourselves. 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
must be as real a committing of ourselves to Him for victory, as it was at
first a committing of ourselves to Him for salvation. He must do all for us in
the one case, as completely as in the other. It was faith only then, and it
must be faith only now.
And the victories which the Lord works in
conquering the temptations of those who thus trust Him are nothing short of
miracles, as thousands can testify.
But into this part of the subject I cannot go at
present, as my object has been rather to present temptation in its true light,
than to develop the way of victory over it. I want to deliver conscientious,
faithful souls from the bondage into which they are sure to be brought, if they
fail to understand the true nature and use of temptation, and confound it with
sin. I want that they should not be ignorant of the fact that temptations are,
after all, an invaluable part of our soul's development; and that, whatever may
be their original source, they are used by God to work out in us many blessed
graces of character which would otherwise be lacking. Wherever temptation is,
there is God also, superintending and controlling its power. "Where wert thou,
Lord I while I was being tempted?" cried the saint of the desert. "Close beside
thee, my son, all the while," was the tender reply.
Temptations try us; and we are worth nothing if
we are not tried. They develop our spiritual strength and courage and
knowledge; and our development is the one thing God cries for. How shallow
would all our spirituality be if it were not for temptations. "Blessed is the
man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried he shall receive the crown
of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him." This "crown of
life" will be worth all that it has cost of trial and endurance to obtain it;
and without these it could not be attained.
An invalid lady procured once the cocoon of a
very beautiful butterfly with unusually magnificent wings hoping to have the
pleasure of seeing it emerge from its cocoon in her sick-chamber. She watched
it eagerly as spring drew on, and finally was delighted to see the butterfly
beginning to emerge. But it seemed to have great difficulty. It pushed, and
strained, and struggled, and seemed to make so little headway, that she
concluded it must need some help, and with a pair of delicate scissors she
finally clipped the tight cord that seemed to bind in the opening of the
cocoon. Immediately the cocoon opened wide, and the butterfly escaped without
any further struggle. She congratulated herself on the success of her
experiment, but found in a moment that something was the matter with the
butterfly. It was all out of the cocoon it is true, but its great wings were
lifeless and colorless, and dragged after it as a useless burden. For a few
days it lived a miserable sickly life, and then died, without having once
lifted its powerless wings. The lady was sorely disappointed and could not
understand it. But when she related the circumstance to a naturalist, he told
her that it had all been her own fault. That it required just that pushing and
struggling to send the life fluid into the veins of the wings, and that her
mistaken kindness in shortening the struggle, had left the wings lifeless and
colorless.
Just so do our spiritual wings need the struggle
and effort of our conflict with temptation and trial; and to grant us an escape
from it would be to weaken the power of our soul to "mount up with wings as
eagles," and would deprive us of the "crown of life" which is promised to those
who endure.