Meeting Temptation: Conflict
THE experience of temptation is universal. Every -*- life must grow up amid unfriendly and opposing influences — some of them subtle and insidious like miasma in the air, some of them fierce and wild like the blast of storm or the rush of battle. Much is said in exhortation about the solemn nature of death; yet really it is not half so perilous a thing to die as it is to live. No child of God was ever lost, or even harmed, in the experience of dying:
“The grave itself is but a covered bridge Leading from light to light through a brief darkness.”
But life is full of peril. To live truly we must battle day by day. Satan is no mediaeval myth, but an actual foe, powerful, cunning, treacherous, terrible. Danger lui’ks in every shadow.
The question in life is not how to escape temptation, but how to pass through it so as not to be harmed by it. Christ’s way of helping us is not by keeping us out of the conflicts. All the best things in life — the only things worth grasping — lie beyond the fields of struggle, and we can get them only by overcoming. It would be no kindness to us were God to withdraw us into some sheltered spot whenever there is danger, or if he were to fight our battles for us, thus freeing us from all necessity to struggle.
“He who hath never a conflict hath never a victor’s palm, And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm.”
We must meet temptation, and we must make up our minds to fight. Not to fight is to lose all. And there is really no need to yield. The weakest child may move unharmed through the sorest strifes. It is possible to meet the strongest temptations and not be hurt by them. It has been done. Men have met the fiercest enemies, the most unrelenting oppositions, passing through the hottest flames, and have come out, like the Hebrew children from the king’s furnace, without even the smell of fire on their garments. Whatever may be said of the weakness of human nature unhelped and unsustained, there still is no need for any trembling soul to faint in the strife or to fall in its fury. There is a divine Helper who himself went into the thickest of the strife and passed through it unharmed. He was “tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin ‘^ — that is, victoriously; and because he was thus victorious he is able not only to understand human struggles and to sympathize with every one who is tempted, but also vo give “grace to help in time of need.^’ We have the assurance that the faithful God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation make the way of escape that we may be able to endure it.
There is, therefore, a way of so living in this world as to miss harm from even the fiercest temptations — to pass through them and not be touched by them. There is even a way of so meeting temptations as to get benefit and blessing from them. An apostle said, “Count it all joy when ye fall into manifold temptations: knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience;’^ “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved he shall receive the crown of life, wbicli the Lord promised to them that love him.”
Rightly meeting and victoriously resisting puts new fibre into the soul. The Indians say that when a warrior kills a foe the spirit of the vanquished enemy enters the victor’s heart and adds to his own strength. This is true in spiritual warfare. We grow stronger through our struggles and victories. Each lust conquered, each evil subdued, adds to the strength of our soul.
The question, then, is how to meet temptation so as to overcome, and thus win the blessing there is in it. We must remember, first of all, that we are not able in ourselves successfully to fight our battles. If we think we are, and go forth in our own name and strength, we shall fail. Life is too large, and its struggles and conflicts are too sore, for the strongest human power unaided. We must settle it once for all that we can conquer only in the name and by the help of the strong Son of God. We may come off the field more than conquerors, but only through Him that loved us. We can pass safely through all the fierce dangers of this world and be kept unspotted amid its sin and foulness, but only if we have with us Him who is able to guard us from stumbling and set us before the presenty of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy. Self-confidence in times of temptation is fatal folly.
Then we must be sure that the temptation we are meeting really lies in the path of our duty — that God calls us to meet it. We pray each morning,” Lead us not into temptation f we must, then, be sure that we are following our Father’s leading when we enter any way of temptation. Only when the temptation comes in the path over which the divine Guide takes us have we the assurance of protection in it. There are temptations the only way of escape from which is avoidance.. We have no right to meet them.
Lord Macaulay tells us that at the siege of Naumur, while the conflict was raging, William, prince of Orange, who was giving his orders under a shower of bullets, saw with surprise and anger among his staff-officers Michael Godfrey, the deputy governor of the Bank of England. He had come to the king’s headquarters on business, and was curious to see real war.
“Mr. Godfrey,” said King William,” you ought not to run these hazards. You are not a soldier; you can be of no use to us here.’’
^’ Sir,” answered Godfrey, “I run no more risk than Your Majesty.”
“Not so,” said William. “I am where it is my duty to be, and I may without presumption commit my life to Gods keeping; but you —”
Before the sentence was finished a cannon-ball laid Godfrey dead at the king’s feet.
The king’s words were true, and the truth is just as applicable to temptations and spiritual dangers as to the perils of war. When duty calls us into any place, we are safe: God will protect us; but otherwise we venture without any promise of shelter. We must face danger only when God and duty unmistakably lead.
Then, when we find ourselves in the presence of temptation, we must not forget that we have something ourselves to do in getting the victory. Men and devils may tempt us, but men and devils cannot force us to yield. We are sovereigns in our choices while the right and the wrong stand before us. Other wills may seek to influence us — may plead, entreat, persuade — but they cannot, compel. We cannot avoid being tempted, but we ought to avoid yielding to temptation. Luther used to say, “We cannot keep the birds from flying around our heads, but we can prevent them building their nests in our hair.’^ So we cannot keep temptations away from our ears nor prevent them whispering their seductive words close by us, but we can hinder them making their nests in our hearts. We are not passive in this matter. We must not expect God to fasten the door and all the time hold his hand upon the lock. The shutting and opening of the door is our part of the responsibility. Even God himself will never come into our heart unless we voluntarily open it to him. He stands without and knocks, waiting with all his wealth of love and all his power to bless until we bid him welcome. We with our frail weakness can keep even Omnipotence outside. And, as divine grace cannot enter to do us good unless we open, neither can satanic evil enter to work ruin in our souls. Thus the final responsibility is with ourselves. Our duty, therefore, in temptation is unwavering resistance — an unreversible “No!’^ to every solicitation to sin. If we settle this point, we have learned one of the greatest lessons in spiritual warfare —” having done all, to stand.’’
Besides this, nothing more is needed but faith and prayer. When the temptation comes in the path of duty, and when we resist it with unflinching determination, we may with simple confidence commit our safety to God. No evil can ever harm us if we cleave unfalteringly to Christ; “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’’ Still better: “The Lord is thy Keeper.” “I have known a timid traveler,” says one, “whose route lay across the higher Alps, on a path that, no broader than a mule’s foothold, skirted a dizzy precipice, where we saw the foaming river, far below, diminished to a silver thread, find it safest to shut his eyes, nor attempt to guide the course or touch the bridle where a touch were fatal, throwing the steed and rider over, to bound from shelf to shelf and be dashed to pieces in the valley below. And there are times and circumstances when to be saved from falling... the believer must, if we may say so, shut his eyes, and, committing his way to God, let the bridle lie on the neck of Providence, and walk, not by sight, but fiiith.... When we are walking in darkness and have no light, there is nothing for it but to trust in the Lord and stay ourselves on God.”
There come times in every life when this is just the picture for us — when all we can do is to shut our eyes and let God lead us through the peril. Indeed, in all hours of darkness and danger, this is our privilege and our duty; and if we thus commit our way to God, he will bring us safely through the last peril and the last struggle into the light and joy of victory on the heavenly plains.
Then it will be seen that it has been no misfortune that we have had to fight sore battles on the earth. Old war-veterans are not ashamed of their scars: these are marks of honor; they tell of wounds received in battling for their country. In heaven the soldier of Christ will not be ashamed of the scars he has gotten in his warfare for his Lord on the earth; his crown will be all the brighter for them. They will shine as the King’s medals, decorations of honor — “the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
When an army marches home from a victorious field, it is not the bright, clean, untorn flag that is most wildly cheered, but the flag that is pierced, riddled and torn by the shot and shell of many a battle. So in the home-coming in glory it will not be the man who bears fewest marks of suffering and struggle and the fewest scars of wounds received in Christ’s service who will be welcomed with the greatest joy, but the man who bears the marks of the sorest conflicts and the greatest sufferings for the honor of his Lord and for his kingdom.