Shrinking from Temptation

“Carrisd in Him and for Him, can thty harm Or press thee sore, or prove a weary weight f Nay, nay; into thy U/e his blessed calm Shall drop, and thou no more be desolate,

‘* No more wUh downcast eyes go faltering on. Alone and sick at heart, and closely pressed. Thy chains shall break, thy heavy heart be gone. For He who calls thee. He will *gioe thee rest.*

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ORGIVENESS of sins does not take us into heaven. We must stay yet longer in this world, because our work here is not finished. We must be tempted again. But we should seek, while we walk through earth’s dusty ways, to keep the cleansed garments clean and white. Very fitting, then, is this prayer after we have found forgiveness, “Bring us not into temptation.*”

Yet the form of the petition is surprising. It is a prayer to our Father, and we plead, “Bring us not into temptation.*” Surely God would not bring his children into temptation. He is good and loving, and his will for us is never our endangering or om* harming, but always the keeping of our life unspotted from the world. We [195] are sure that God never inclines us to do evil. St. James says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man.*”

Yet it is St. James who says also, “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life.*” Again the same apostle says, “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience.*” It is clear, therefore, that good may come out of temptation. It is not said that it is blessed to be tempted — the beatitude is for him who endureth temptation. We are not told to count it joy merely when we fall into manifold temptations, but when we have gathered the finiit of the proving in new patience. It will help us to understand the spirit of the prayer to remember that the word “temptation does not mean primarily to allure to sin. [196]

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To tempt is to try, to test, to prove. New ships are proved before they are intrusted with lives or treasure upon the sea. Anchors axe tested before they are allowed to become the only hope of a vessel in the peril of a storm. God proved Abraham, putting his faith and obedience to the test. After the trial the angel said to him, “Now I know that thou fearest Grod.*” Abraham had stood the test. Jesus was tempted before he began his public ministry, that he might be a proved deliverer. The temptations to which we are exposed continually are primarily provings, testings, to see whether we will be true to God or not. Indeed there is no experience that we meet in life which is not in a sense a testing. Every moment we are required to make a choice, and our choices prove us. Here is a duty; shall we do it or not? Here is a call to service; shall we accept it, or decline it.’^ Here is an impulse to something worthy; shall we yield to it, or repress it? We have money; shall we use it for God, or shall [197] we clutch it for ourself? Sickness tries us; shall we bear it patiently, and take from it the gifts of God it brings us, or shall we chafe and repine, and leave our sick-room harmed by the experience?

Even sweet and pure human love tests us; many are held back by it from self-sacrificing duty. Thus Peter, in love for his Lord, sought to keep him from going to his cross.” Get thee behind me, Satan,^ was our Lord’s answer. Many others in the warmth and tenderness of their affection, have become the tempters of their friends, and ofttimes have kept them back from costly duties or perilous service to which Grod had called them.

Thus testing always implies the possibility of failure. There is no experience in which we may not sin. There is a wrong alternative in every call to that which is right. Instead of doing the duty, we may neglect it. Instead of making the self-denial or sacrifice, we may decline it. Instead of resisting the sin, we may [198]

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3deld to it. Temptation always brings an opportunity to overcome, to grow stronger. But if we fail to use the opportunity we sin. Robert Browning puts it thus: —

Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray “Lead us into no such temptations. Lord!” Yea, but, 0 thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the hand and hair. Reluctant dragons, up to who dares Jigfit, That so he may do battle and have praise.

Looking at temptation in this broader way gives a new meaning to the pi-ayer, “Bring us not into temptation.*” Part of Christian faith is the committing of the life to Grods guidance. We sing: —

^’ Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on”

We put our hand into God’s in the morning,

and we ask him to lead us through the day.

We know not what experiences may come to

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us and we ask him not to bring us into sore testings. The prayer is a request that in the doing of Gods will for the day we may not be brought into places where it will be hard for us to be faithful.

Some tell us that it is cowardly to offer such a prayer. A soldier should not shrink from battle, for this is the very business of his life, that to which he is called, that for which he enlisted. Only in battle can he test the qualities of his heroism or train himself for the service to which he has devoted himself. A soldier who has never been in an engagement may be brave, but no one can be sin of it — he cannot yet be sure of it himself; his courage has not been tested. An untempted virtue is only a possible virtue; it is not certain yet that it will stand the test. We must meet temptation, and win the crowns which are only for the overcomers. Is it not cowardly, then, to plead with Grod any morning not to be brought that day into places where we must fight.’* Are we to wish to [ 200 ]

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be soldiers who shall miss conflict, danger, and hardship? Is that the kind of heroism Christ would teach his followers? He himself did not seek such a life. He shrank from no conflict and sought to be spared from no hard battle; and would he have us plead not to be brought into trial?

There is a sense in which this view is correct. If we are following Christ fully we will not hesitate to go with him into any experience, however perilous it may be. “He that saveth his life shall lose it.*” Yet so much is involved in temptation, such possibilities of defeat and failure are dependent on the issue, that we dare not desire to enter into it. It is presumptuous to clamor to be led into the conflict. More than once Jesus warned his disciples to watch, that they might not enter into temptation. He knew how inadequate their courage and strength would prove in battle with the evil one, how their faith would fail in the moment of assault. We read of soldiers sick of [ 201 ] camp, and chafing to be led against the enemy, but the Christian who is impatient to be tempted is very fooUsh. Temptation is too terrible an experience to be rushed into, unled by God.

It is right, therefore, for us to shrink from sore testing, not to be disobedient to any call of God, but even to ask to be spared the experiences, knowing something of the fearful peril there is for us in them. If Peter had gone to Gethsemane that night, praying this prayer, “Bring me not into temptation,^ instead of boasting that it was not possible for him to fall, he would not have fallen. May we not say, indeed, that our Lord’s own prayer in the Garden was precisely in the spirit of what he taught his disciples in this petition to ask? He pleaded there that he might not be brought into the terrible trial on whose dark edge he was then kneeling. Yet he did not plead rebelliously. He did not decline to accept the cup if it was not possible for it [ 202 ]

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to be taken away. He only prayed that if possible, if it were in accordance with his Father’s will, he might not be led into the terrible trial.

Our prayer should be in the same spirit. While we ask that we may not be brought into sore testing, we still express our readiness to accept God’s will for us, though it be that we go right on into the heart of the struggle. The petition certainly teaches that it would be presumptuous for us to seek temptation, to ask to be led into it, or to rush into it unbidden of God. If we do this we court peril and we have no promise of divine protection. When God leads us anywhere we go under his sheltering care and need not fear, but when, without his guidance, we go of our own will into places of danger, we take our life into our own hands. Soldiers led by their commander into battle are doing their duty; their place is in the danger. If they fall they fall at their post, they fall under the divine shelter. But if one [ 203 ]

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not a soldier, having no call to enter the battle, no duty on the field, presses forward among the fighting ranks, he is without promise of divine keeping, and if he falls he has thrown his life away.

The same is true of all who in any way expose themselves to peril. The mother, the niu the physician, whose duty it is to be with the child sick with diphtheria are not to think of the danger. God brought them into the place of peril because their duty was there, and they may leave to him the matter of their keeping. But any one who, uncalled by duty, exposes himself to contagion in the sick-room is tempting God and cannot claim the divine protection. If he contracts the disease he cannot speak of his illness as providential, resigning himself to it as something Gxxl has sent to him. God did not send it to him. He went where he had no divine call to go, into danger when he had no duty there, and he can claim no promise of help.

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We should never shrink from any experience of testing into which duty brings us. If it is the will of God that we should stand where our principles or our character must be tested, we need not hesitate to meet the trial, for we shall have the divine protection.

^’ Just where you stand in the conflict, There is your place!

Gird on your armor I he faithful

At toil or rest,
WMcheer it he, never douhting

Gods way is hest.
Out in thejight or on picket,

Stand ^rm and true:
That is the work which your Master

Gives you to do”

But if we venture into places of temptation when duty does not lead us there, we put ourself outside the divine shelter. One of our Lord’s temptations was that he should cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, [ 205 ]

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trusting to the promise of God to give the angels charge concerning him. But to this suggestion our Lord’s reply was, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy Grod.*” This answer implies that the promise of angel protection avails only when we are walking in the way of divine guidance.

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