8/28/55

Scripture: I Corinthians 10: 12-31

Text: I Corinthians 10: 13; “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

Most of us have learned Our Lord’s Prayer at an early age. And so we may repeat it, in familiarity with each phrase, much of the time giving little thought to the meaning of what we say. Now and then, someone suffers a mental rebellion against praying “Lead us not into temptation.” The idea that a good God should subject his own children to temptation is a hard one to accept -- particularly when we reap the consequences of having yielded to temptation.

Of course, at the outset of our thinking, we need to remember that the Christian religion is not an easy faith. It is challenging and full of rigors. No one, for instance, escapes temptation -- not even the Christ himself! One of the most vivid accounts in Scripture is a description of some of the temptations of Jesus. And they came to him immediately after what you might suppose to have been the most fortifying and purifying experience of his life -- his baptism.

How would he use his God-given powers? Might he take the easier, more spectacular, more ego-satisfying course? He rejected it, with effort and determination, because it lowered the standard he had set for himself, or the standard he felt God had set for him.

Jesus shared the experience of severe temptation with us and all mankind. Temptation is one of the inevitables of mortal life. None of us faces even the possibility that we will not be tempted. But it is not a battle that we are left to fight alone in our own puny strength unless we elect to try to do it that way. For divine power is available; Christ’s presence is near.

It is not true for anyone to say “my temptations are greater than I can bear.” For, with the temptations, God provides a way of escape, that we may be able to endure them. As the book of James puts it: “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.” [James 1: 12].

Paul assured the Corinthian folk that “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

The question for our lives is not that we may escape temptation, but that we may endure it and keep it in control, instead of being controlled by it. The philosopher, William James, has remarked that no one has ever really graduated in the school of life until he has been well tempted.

As for the thoughtful use of Our Lord’s Prayer, I sometimes like to put the emphasis of my mind more upon the meaning of the word “lead” than upon the word “temptation” -- “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Is not the faith that God can deliver you and me by helping us to overcome, the most important part of that petition?

All of us have some experience with temptation. And our encounters with it frequently come when we least expect them. When days are sunny, and life seems to have the lift of freedom, it is easy to do right. We can sing “Rejoice, ye pure in heart. Rejoice, give thanks and sing.”

And then quite unexpectedly, we are tripped up by temptation and find ourselves groveling in the dirt where we are ashamed to be. And we are embarrassed, disgusted, perhaps discouraged, wrong, weak and unhappy. The most appropriate hymn we can think of is “Just as I am, without one plea, except that thy blood was shed for me.” And perhaps we don’t even feel like singing that in moments of deeper remorse.

There is a stiff righteousness among some folk which assumes that anyone who yields to temptation so debases himself that he can never rise again. That we debase ourselves in yielding to temptation, is correct. But that we can not rise again is incorrect. For forgiveness is one of the great realities, fundamental to the Christian faith.

Now, what can we do with temptation and debasement, since they are realities in every life? Surely it is not the part of the Christian soldier to assume that, since every life is tempted, and none escapes evil, then some evil can be condoned and so one need not worry too much about it. That leads to no real happiness at all.

Let us begin with one proposition that the psychiatrist, as well as any thoughtful Christian layman can recognize. If you are to get anywhere in the control of your temptations, remember that you are not wicked just because you are tempted! Temptation is common to all. Moses was tempted; David was tempted; Peter was tempted; the President of the U.S. is tempted; the bishop, and the tavern keeper, and the book keeper are tempted. Particularly remember again that Jesus was tempted. And you think none the less of him because he was tempted more than once.

The damage comes to our lives not when we are tempted but when we yield to temptation. Temptation itself is not necessarily a mark of wickedness.

Now, you may ask “what shall I do when I am tempted?” Well, what does anyone do, when he faces something hard? Keep up the effort to overcome.

I once knew a fellow who tried to master Greek in college. He wanted to be a minister - and knew that he would need a knowledge of Greek in the seminary he expected to attend. He had a frightful time with it. As a matter of fact he failed to pass it. And he had to enter seminary with a deficiency at that point. But he kept at it, until finally he had done well enough with it so that he could apply his seminary credits in Greek back to the college and graduate as he wished to do.

This determination to “keep at the good” is the characteristic with which we must meet temptation. For the wrongness of a situation is not so much in the fact that you have fallen in the dust, cast down in spirit, and sorrowful over failure. What is really wrong is to be content to stay there. When you are tempted and fall, pick yourself up and dust yourself off and go ahead. “Forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” is the way Paul puts it. [Philippians 3: 13, 14].

First, then, you and I do well not to be resigned when we are tempted and fall, but to be determined to get up and try again. After all, that is the chief difference between a sinner and a saint.

The second thing each of us might do is to examine ourselves as to exactly how honest we are in dreaming of being a good person. Some of us know how it goes with dieting to keep down our weight to where it should be. The resolve to start dieting after Christmas, or next week is not of much consequence. If any of us is honest about dieting down that weight we will start now, will we not?

I know a fellow who long ago seemed convinced that he smoked too many cigarettes. He told me 12 or 14 years ago that he ought to cut down on his smoking. He believed that it was not a good thing to have to smoke a cigarette first thing in the morning before he even shaved; and to keep it up at a corresponding pace throughout the day. He even had it all figured out that he could save the price of at least one good suit of clothes each year if he did not smoke at all.

But he didn’t quit, or so far as I know, even start to quit. And he smoked more and more cigarettes. It was 14 years before he decided that he would stop smoking entirely. And then he did quit completely.

It is so with all of our temptations. Unless we are honest enough to really want to conquer them, we make no headway.

The time to do something about them is right at the beginning; when we know the difference between right and wrong there at the beginning. It is far more honest to tackle them then, than to kid ourselves, after we have succumbed, that we will never do that again!

You and I have a better chance of beating temptation if we ask ourselves at the very moment we are tempted if we really are sincere in our desire for what we believe to be good. Too many of us foul up our lives in the cynical observance that “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken; and isn’t it great if you weaken just a little bit?”

We say that we want to be patient, generous, kind as a friend, morally brave like Lincoln, unselfish like Schweitzer, persistent like Pierre and Marie Curie, trustful, and so on. But are we willing to give up our desire to indulge ourselves just a little bit?

And then there is another thing we must do with temptation, and that is resist! In one of Anatole France’s stories, the Lord asks the devil how he dared to tempt a beautiful girl, and the devil replied that she came into his territory.

Surely we step into the devil’s territory when we take a second look at that which tempts us to do wrong. It is the second look that trips us up.

William Knapp, in making this point, reminds us of the story of Eve - and Adam - in the garden of Eden. Did Eve turn her back on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did she? Or did she just let its fascination grow upon her? Read it: “So when the woman saw [she must have been looking right at it to see it] that the tree was good for food [see how she begins to rationalize] and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired” - -- Well, how could she run away when she had gone that far? [Genesis 3: 6].

Is it not always that way? If you and I are to overcome temptation, we must resist it, remembering that each moment of resistance carries us nearer to victory over it.

When a man, who was deeply conscience-smitten, came to Dwight L. Moody and told all the harrowing facts about his degradation, he concluded the sorrowful tale by asking Mr. Moody, “What would you do in such a situation?” Before trying to help the fellow, Moody replied forthrightly, “I never would have gotten into it.” Does that mean that Moody was never tempted? Not at all! He knew temptation, but he resisted it!

Jesus resisted it, too --- sometimes very sharply, as when talking to a disciple, he exclaimed “Get thee behind me, Satan.” “Get out of my sight.” Why? Because as soon as you resist the temptation, getting it out of sight, you are well on the way to breaking its power over you. Resist! Don’t take a second look!

And then, further, another thing that you can do is to establish such strong good habits that they will save you when you are thrust into difficult places. As I understand it, the principle upon which much of the training of men in the military forces is based, is that they are drilled hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in responses, so that their officers can at length be sure that in a crisis they will react automatically. They will keep that form and do what is expected of them.

The Bible says: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” [Proverbs 22: 6]. The principle cannot be beaten. Cultivate the habits of living that will fortify you against temptation.

And then, also, it is well to recognize that one is known by the company he keeps. Keep the right kind of company; be choosy.

If an alcoholic gets in the wrong company, he will very soon be invited to have a drink. And then he will take his “second look” and “second drink” and it will already be too late to save himself from an awful spill. But if he chooses the company of other men in Alcoholics Anonymous, when he feels the awful urge to drink, he can go to the phone and say, “Bill, I’m in a jam. Will you come over?” And Bill goes over -- not only Bill, but Joe and Jim and Jake whom they also know, and who know what they all face together. They sit with their friend. They surround him with understanding, and in that atmosphere, the crisis finally passes. He finally come out the victor over that encounter; and the company he keeps is vitally important to the victory.

The fellowship in the Church, of people who have desired to live right, is the finest sort of fellowship. It saves many of us from countless pitfalls if we regard it as a fellowship of the folk who, though far from perfect, are determined to seek, and perform, the good.

In the company of those who care and who try, and who cultivate the presence of Jesus Christ, you can sing:

I need Thee every hour, Stay Thou near by,

Temptations lose their power, When Thou are nigh.

For when God enters, and Christ is present, evil goes. Those who keep close to the Almighty find in Him their strength.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, August 28, 1955

Wisconsin Rapids, June 17, 1962