Pastor John Jewell tells about a 20/20 episode sometime back in which some children of about four years of age were forced to deal with the ancient scourge of temptation. They were left alone in a room. Sitting in front of them was two or three M&Ms. They were told they could have a whole package of M&Ms if they would wait five minutes for a bell to ring before devouring the two or three M&Ms in front of them. The struggle of temptation was recorded through a two way mirror. The result was hilarious, says Jewell, as these poor kids twitched, fidgeted, wiggled and twisted their faces up in knots trying not to grab those M&Ms. About half made it and half said in effect, “To heck with it, I want what I want when I want it!” (1)
We all know about that struggle, don’t we? Maybe not for M&Ms, but all of us have our weak spot. Even Jesus had to struggle with the Tempter.
After his baptism, Luke tells us, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Note that. Jesus had just come off of a spiritual high. He had just been baptized by John the Baptist. He was full of the Holy Spirit. And that’s when the Tempter came. That is so true to life. You go off to a church retreat. You have a spiritual mountaintop experience. You’re feeling closer to God and closer to others than you have ever felt before. Beware! That is the time when you may be the most vulnerable to temptation.
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. Here, too he was vulnerable. A physical need needed to be met. And so the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
It was a reasonable response to Jesus’ hunger. He had power over nature. The stilling of the storm proved that. And stones were abundant there in the wilderness. He could use his extraordinary gifts to meet his physical needs. But Jesus knew that was not what he was sent to do. His gifts were to be used to do the work of his Father. So Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
And that’s true. Many people today have their physical needs met but they are shriveling and dying on the inside. Physical needs have an urgency, but spiritual needs are every bit as critical.
Having failed to tempt Jesus with his stones to bread routine, the devil takes a different tact. He leads Christ up to a high place and shows him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he says to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Who could resist being handed the power and the status that would come with ruling over all the kingdoms of this world? It is every politician’s dream. And you have to wonder how many politicians have been willing to bow down to Satan in order to achieve such dreams.
Jesus was offered all the kingdoms of this world and all he would have to do would be to bow down to the devil. But it was too high a price for him to pay. Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
The devil thinks to himself, “Rats! Foiled again!” But he has one more weapon in his arsenal.
The devil leads him to Jerusalem and has him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he says, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
And Jesus answers, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
You do understand, don’t you, that this was exactly what Satan was doing? He was testing Jesus. That is what temptation is. It is a test. Fail the test of temptation and you become even weaker spiritually. Pass the test and you become infinitely stronger.
Jesus passed the test with flying colors. Then note Luke’s words, “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him UNTIL AN OPPORTUNE TIME.” Satan wasn’t finished with Jesus. None of us ever gets to the point where we are beyond being tested. Even Jesus did not reach that point. His struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane proved that.
In Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of The Christ, we see the nature of the Tempter quite vividly. This isn’t a scene from the Bible. It is a fictional account, but it is quite powerful. Jesus is shown at Gethsemane, agonizing over his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. A shadowy figure appears and says to him, “No one was meant to save so many. No one can. It is too much. You cannot.” The presence whispers these words over and over, trying to split Jesus from his relationship with God. Finally, Jesus gets up, steps on the head of a snake the tempter has dropped near him, and goes off. The Tempter is unable to turn Jesus from his destiny and calling. There would be other temptations later. But for now the Tempter had been defeated. (2) But even Jesus was tempted tempted without sinning.
There are some things about temptation we need to see. The first is that temptation is universal. We joke about temptation, because it is part of the human condition. Everyone has to deal with temptation.
An unknown wit once said, “Most people who fly from temptation usually leave a forwarding address.”
“Opportunity only knocks once,” someone else has noted. “Temptation leans on the doorbell.”
One student of the human dilemma put it like this, “I’ve noticed that women generally flee from temptation while us men kind of crawl away from it in the cheerful hope that it might overtake us.” There’s probably a lot of truth in that observation.
Temptation goes all the way back to the first man and the first woman according to the first chapters of Genesis. I like the way an old spiritual tells it,
“Long came a serpent six foot three. Dem bones gonna rise again.
Wrapped himself around that tree. Dem bones gonna rise again.
He wrapped himself around that trunk. Dem bones gonna rise again.
And his eye at Eve he wunk. Dem bones gonna rise again.
My those apples sure look fine. Dem bones gonna rise again.
Take one, the Lord won’t mind. Dem bones gonna rise again.”
But, of course, Eve did take one and paradise was lost. Temptation is one inescapable fact of life upon this earth. And it is no joking matter.
Peter Gomes, popular author and one-time pastor at Harvard’s Memorial Church, once stated that “temptation is the single greatest source of human anxiety.” That is quite a dramatic statement. He further stated that in the thousands of people with whom he had counseled over the years of his ministry, he had found the problem of temptation to be at the heart of their personal anxiety. (3)
Think about it for a while and you will see that what he says is true. Think of the tests you and I face every day at work, in our family life, among our friends. We are constantly making decisions. At heart many of these are moral decisions. Should we speak the truth when a falsehood would serve our purposes better? Ought we to cut corners in order to maximize our profits? What is the harm in a seemingly innocent flirtation? Can we stay on our diet? The list goes on and on, but many of these decisions represent one temptation or another. And should we give in to temptation, much can be lost.
The Greek philosopher Plato once told a story of a carriage drawn by a pair of young and spirited steeds. In the vehicle, the driver holds the reins and guides the horses on the straight and smooth road.
One day a heavy drowsiness comes upon the driver and he falls fast asleep. The horses, not feeling the restraint of the reins, go off the right path, and soon they are bouncing over bush and brush, to the edge of a deep pit, a bottomless abyss. A man
standing nearby, seeing the threatened danger, calls out to the driver in a loud and mighty voice: “Wake up! Save yourself!”
With a start, the driver suddenly awakens. In a moment he realizes his peril. Pale and trembling, he hastily grasps the reins, and, exerting almost superhuman effort, he succeeds in swerving the horses to one side, thus saving his own life and those of his animals. Plato says the moral of the story is this: the fiery steeds are the appetites, desires, lusts, and passions to which the heart of the human inclines from youth. The driver is the wisdom, understanding, and intelligence with which God has endowed human life that we might rule over our appetites and desires and have dominion over our self-destructive impulses. (4)
Woe to us if we never hear the voice of conscience, the voice of God, telling us to wake up before we destroy our lives. Temptation is universal and potentially deadly.
Here’s the second thing we need to see. With God’s help temptation is resistable. The biggest lie that the Tempter tells us is that we are helpless when faced with temptation. We do not have the strength that Christ had to resist temptation, but it can be done, although sometimes we do need help.
Many of you basketball fans are familiar with former all-pro basketball player Charles Barkley. Barkley is now a popular sports commentator, but at one time he played for the Philadelphia 76ers where he was known as “The Round Mound of Rebound.”
When Pat Croce became the physical therapist for the Philadelphia 76ers he instituted a new diet and exercise program for the team. At 6’ 5” and 300 pounds, Charles Barkley resisted. He had no desire to pay the price to lose weight and get in shape. After all, he was a phenomenal player, even with the extra flab.
Croce is famous as a motivator; it didn’t take him too long to coax Barkley into an exercise program. But Charles’ eating habits were another story! He had been known to eat a one-pound bag of M&Ms in one sitting. He had a serious love affair with pizza. So Pat Croce decided to take some drastic steps to get Charles in shape.
He waited outside Charles’ mansion one night and ambushed the pizza delivery man. The delivery man had two pizzas for Charles. Pat took one and one-half of the pizzas away. He also threatened to do serious bodily harm to the delivery man if he ever delivered more than one-half of a pizza to that address in the future. Charles got the message. That season, he lost fifty pounds. (5)
Wouldn’t it be great if all of us had a Pat Croce in our lives, someone who would be there for us each time we are tempted?
That, of course, is the genius of Alcoholics Anonymous. They are there for each other in times of temptation. Many times in the middle of the night a member of this group will be called to sit with a buddy and help him fight the cravings that would destroy him. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous also know what it is to rely on God. They know that the key to turning their lives around is admitting their weakness, admitting that they were, are, and always will be powerless over alcohol. But they believe that a Power greater than themselves can restore them to sanity, and so they make a decision to turn their will and their lives over to the care of God.
No one knows how many lives have been saved by this organization. Hundreds of thousands? Millions? How many families have been saved? How many potentially abused children have been spared? How many battered spouses? No one will contend that any temptation can be resisted without a terrible struggle, but if you are willing to reach out to a friend, and if you are willing to throw yourself in complete surrender on the grace of God, the Tempter can be resisted.
Of course, the ultimate key to lessening temptation’s hold on your life is to love God with all your heart and with all your mind.
Pastor and author David Jeremiah states it like this: “Over time I believe I’ve discovered that temptation isn’t so much a matter of what we do but of whom we love. Knowing Christ really knowing Him, not simply knowing about Him changes everything. More often than not, power in the time of temptation comes because we’ve filled our minds with His magnificence, and there’s not room for the world’s shabby offerings. There’s power in the name of Christ, and there’s power in His presence as well. Worship and fellowship with God in the morning actually make it difficult to walk right out into the world and commit some transgression. Knowing that we’ve just been in the presence of the Lord of creation, and that we’re carrying Him with us, makes it very difficult to sink to our lowest levels. The best escape Jesus provides is His own embrace.” (6)
David Jeremiah is right. The best escape from temptation is to turn your gaze toward Jesus.
Leslie Dunkin once told about a dog he had when he was a boy. This was an unusually obedient dog. Periodically his father would test the dog’s obedience. He would place a tempting piece of meat on the floor. Then he would turn toward the dog and give the command, “No!” The dog, which must have had a strong urge to go for the meat, was placed in a most difficult situation to obey or disobey his master’s command.
Dunkin said, “The dog never looked at the meat. He seemed to feel that if he did, the temptation to disobey would be too great. So he looked steadily at my father’s face.”
Dunkin then made this spiritual application: “There is a lesson for us all. Always look up to the Master’s face.” (7)
That dog was smarter than most people I know. Temptation is universal, and some temptations are deadly if they are not reined in. But with God’s help, and sometimes with the help of a really close friend, temptations are resistable. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face; then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” (8)
1. http://www.lectionarysermons.com/zun1l.html.
2. Dan Fowler,
http://www.fortbraggpresbyterian.org/html/sermons/sermon2‑13‑05.html.
3. Quoted in The Minister’s Manual for 2000, p. 167. Cited in a sermon by Dr. Mickey Anders.
4. http://www.boydspc.org/sermons/20070304Philippians3,17-4,1.pdf.
5. Pat Croce, with Bill Lyon. I Feel Great, and You Will Too! (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2000), pp. 97-98.
6. MONDAY FODDER, http://family-safe-mail.com/
7. Rev. Adrian Dieleman, http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/jam1v13-18.html.
8. Lyrics by Helen H. Lemmel.