Desires and Temptations: Why there is No Easy Road to Freedom

‘and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God’ Acts 14:22b.

Don’t Despise the Day of Small Things

In their early years a few Bible College students make a vow to be like their famous apostle Paul (including myself). They announce from rooftops that, ‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman.’ But then they leave college. And today most of them are married. If you ask them what happened they say simply - ‘Reality.’

Now I don’t want to laugh at them. For ‘I am also a man,’ and people living in glass houses should not throw stones.

But I’m also aware that we live in an age where a man can say one thing today and another thing tomorrow – and still he will not lose friends (or sleep) over such a small thing. Rather he will gain more, especially if they be men.

And that troubles me. Because it does not raise but it lowers the moral bar by which all Christians are called to live by.

So the men who say that reality hit them are not so brave or inspiring. Who can trust them if a war broke out? And does this not prove true that money and sex (flesh) are still the greatest temptations for any living Christian, whether married or single?

To be or not to be Honest that is the Question

Now there are things which (we were taught) are very hard to recover when once they are lost – and the chief one is character. But men (even Christian ones) don’t take these things very seriously today. But have we come all this way only to be felled by our own sabers and at such a time as this?

For Christ can still be heard saying, ‘But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.’ And ‘No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’ 

The reason why Jephthah is celebrated as a hero of faith (Heb 11:32) is because when the time of his hottest trial came Jephthah played the man. He did not flinch. And he was not alone as most Old Testament saints also never wavered in their faiths, ‘and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.’ Another lesson we were taught is that the beginning is nothing, but how the end will look like. These saints proved themselves men from the beginning to the end. As David sang: ‘LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?... He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not’ (Psa 15:4b). 

In the end what do you and I wish to be remembered for - as faithful servants or unfaithful ones?

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. Heb 10:35 

For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end. Heb 3:14 

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Heb 4:14  

Christ’s temptations appealed to three things, which John the Evangelist calls: ‘the lust of the flesh (hedonism), and the lust of the eyes (materialism), and the pride of life (egoism)’ – which ‘is not of the Father, but is of the world.’ These are the same tricks Satan uses to tempt us (as he did with Eve) even up to today. But Christ overcame, showing us that we too can.

For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted. Heb 2:18 

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Heb 4:15

My brethren, 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. Jas 1:2-3-4   

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. Jas 1:12 

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: Jas 1:13 

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Jas 1:14  

Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Jas 1:15  

Be Proud to be Different

One girl vowed she would be married in church. She stayed for years until people wrote her off. At last she did, almost on the ‘eleventh hour.’ But God had been faithful. He still is.

Loneliness is real. It bites hard. But ‘weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ God gives the grace. He gives a way to escape – ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ (1Co 10:13).   

The disciples in John Chapter Six were awed by Christ’s teachings. They asked, in effect: ‘Who can believe such?’ And many stopped following him.

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Heb 10:38  

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Heb 10:39  

Stick there. Hold up to the end. God is still able to furnish a table in the wilderness.