The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum What Sins Are You Struggling With?

Some children of God, whom I know of, are very greatly troubled because they are tempted. They think they could bear trial if it were trial dissociated with sin, though I do not see how we can, as a general rule separate trial from temptation, for every trial that comes to us has in it some kind of temptation or other either to unbelief, or to murmuring, or to the use of wrong means to escape from the trial. We are tempted by our mercies and we are tempted by our miseries; that is, tempted in the sense of being tried by them; but, to the child of God, the most grievious thing is that, sometimes, he is tempted to do or say things which he utterly hates. He has set before him in a pleasant aspect, sins which are perfectly abhorrent to him; he cannot bear the very name of them. Yet Satan comes, and holds before the child of God the unclean meats which he will never touch; and I have known the devil to tempt the people of God by injecting into their mind blasphemous thoughts, hurling them into their ear as with a hurricane. Ay, even when you are in prayer, it may happen to you that thoughts the very opposite of devotional will come flocking into your brain. A little noise in the street will draw you off from communion with God; and almost before you are aware of it, your thoughts, like wild horses, will have gone galloping over hill and dale, and you hardly know how you shall ever catch them again. Now such temptations as these are dreadfully painful to a child of God. He cannot bear the poisoned breath of sin; and when he finds that sin stands knocking at his door, shouting under his window, pestering him day and night, as it has occurred with some,--I hope not many,--then he is sorely beset, and he is grievously troubled.



It may help such if I remind him that there is no sin in being tempted. The sin is that of the tempter, not of the tempted. If you resist the temptation, there is something praiseworthy about your action. There is nothing praiseworthy about the temptation; that is evil, and only evil; but you did not tempt yourself, and he that tempted you must bear the blame of the temptation. You are evidently not blameworthy for thoughts that grieve you; they may prove that there is still sin remaining in you, but there is no sin in your being tempted. The sin is in your yielding to the temptation, and blessed shall you be if you can stand out against it. If you can overcome it, if your spirit does not yield to it, you shall even be blessed through it. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation." There is a blessedness even in the temptation, and though for the present it seemeth not to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth blessed fruit to those who are exercised thereby.



Moreover, there are worse things in this world than being tempted with painful temptations. It is much worse to be tempted wiht a pleasant temptation,--to be gently sucked down into the destroyer's mouth,--to be carried along the smooth current, afterwards to be hurled over the cataract. This is dreadful; but to fight against temptation,--this is good. I say again that there are many worse things than to be tried with a temptation that arouses all the indignation of your spirit. An old divine used to say that he was more afraid of a sleeping devil than he was of a roaring one, and there is much truth in that observation; for, when you are left quite alone, and no temptation assails you, you are apt to get carnally secure, and boastfully to say, " I shall never be moved." I think no man is in such imminent danger as the man who thinks that there is no danger likely to befall him, so that anything that keeps us on the watch-tower, even though it be in itself evil, is, so far, overruled for good...I think then, that to be tempted with painful temptations, those that goad the spirit almost to madness,--bad as that trial is,--grievous as it is to be borne,--may be, spiritually, not the worst thing that can possibly happen to us...



Temptation has sometimes laid hold of you, like a garroter takes a man by the throat, on a sudden. It has seized you--perhaps that is as correct a word as I can use--temptations has seized you , unawares, pinioned you, and seemed to grip you fast; and yet, up till now, the temptations you have had to endure, have only been such as are common to man.



First, they are such as have been endured by your fellow-Christians. I know that you are tempted to think that you are a lone traveller on a road that nobody has ever traversed before you; but if you carefullly examine the track, you can discover the footprints of some of the best of God's servants who have passed along that wearisome way. It is a very dark lane you say,--one that might truly be called, "Cut-throat Lane." Ah! but you will find that apostles have been along that way, confessors have been that way, martyrs have been that way, and the best of God's saints have been tempted just as you now are. "oh, but!" says one,, "I am tempted, as you said a little while ago, with blasphemous and horrible thoughts." So was Master John Bunyan; read his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and see what he had to pass through. Many others have had similar experiences, and among them are some of us who are alive to tell you that we know all about this special form of temptation, yet the Lord delivered us out of it. "oh, but!" says another tried soul," I have been even tempted to self-destruction." That also has not been an unusual temptation even to God's dearest saints; and , though He has preserved them, and kept them alive, yet they have often felt like Job when he said, "my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life." "Ah!" ciies another, "I am tempted to the very worst sins, the foulest sins, I should not dare even to mention to you the abominations that Satan tempts me to commit." You need not tell me; and I trust that you will be kept from them by the almighty power of God's Holy Spirit; but I can assure you that even the saints in heaven, if they could speak to you at this moment, would tell you that some of them were hard beset--even some of the bravest of them who walked nearest to God were beset by temptations which they would not have told to their fellow-men., so troubled were they by them. Perhaps yet another friend says, " I have been actually tempted to self-righteousness, which is as great a temptation as can befall a man whose whole confidence is in Christ." Well, so was Master John Knox, that grand preacher of justification by faith. When he lay dying, he was tempted to glory in his own bravery for Christ, but he fought against that evil thought, and overcame it, and so may you...