I would like this morning to deal with
a practical problem.
I served in World War II as a
chaplain with the 13th United States Air Force.
I remember once a pilot, a Christian airman,
came to me and he said, I wish
you'd pray for me.
I'm going through a lot of temptation and
it really makes me feel miserable.
He was quite taken aback when I said,
cheer up, you ought to feel happy.
Happy?
He said.
What is there to be happy about in
temptation?
He said, I thought temptation was a sin.
So I told him quite bluntly, no, you're
quite wrong.
In the epistle of James it says, content
nothing but joy.
When you fall into different temptations.
I'm going to read that passage to you
so that you'll get the context.
In chapter one, in the epistle of James,
right at the back of the Bible.
Content all joy, my brethren, when you fall
into different temptations.
For you know that the testing of your
faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that
you may be perfect and complete, lacking in
nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him
ask God, who gives to all men generously
without reproaching, and it will be given him.
But let him ask in faith with no
doubting, for he who doubts is like a
wave of the sea that is driven and
tossed by the wind.
For that person must not suppose that a
double-minded man, unstable in all his ways,
will receive anything from the Lord.
Down to verse 12.
Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for
when he has stood the test he will
receive the crown of life which God has
promised to those who love him.
Let no one say when he is tempted,
I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot
be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts
no one.
But each person is tempted when he's lured
and enticed by his own desire.
Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth
to sin.
And sin, when it is full-grown, brings
forth death.
That's the background of the passage.
So I said to the airman, count it
nothing but joy when you fall into different
temptations.
He asked me, well isn't it a sin?
I said, listen, it says, the Lord Jesus
Christ was tempted in all points, like as
we are, and yet without sin.
That shows you that to be tempted is
not a sin.
I like the old hymn that we used
to sing, yield not to temptation, for yielding
is sin.
To yield to temptation is a sin, but
temptation itself is not sin.
Well, said this Christian airman, I wonder why
Christians have to go through temptation anyway.
Wouldn't we be better Christians if we weren't
distracted in such a way?
Distracted from the right thing?
Is there some kind of purpose in temptation?
I said, let's look at the verse.
The testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Now in the King James Version it says,
patience.
The Greek word is upeminos, but it means
staying power.
Stake out ability.
Steadfastness.
A man who can say no to temptation
is actually stronger than the man who has
not been tempted.
A man who can say no to lying
is stronger than the man who has never
been tempted to lie.
A man who can say no to impurity
is stronger than the boy that doesn't know
the facts of life.
I went on to tell this friend of
mine my family experience.
My father died of tuberculosis.
He died when I was ten.
I never knew him when he wasn't a
sick man.
He had broken his leg when he was
a boy.
It brought about hip joint disease, tuberculosis of
the bone.
Finally he had tuberculosis of the lungs.
My older brother, who took his place as
the breadwinner of the family, developed tuberculosis also.
He was six foot tall, he was quite
a sportsman, played for Ireland against England and
Scotland.
But somehow or other he contracted pleurisy and
developed TB.
I never contracted tuberculosis as far as I
know, but I had what was called a
predisposition towards it, meaning that there was someone
in my family and some people thought that
I would catch it too.
But my mother saw that I took plenty
of cod liver oil and malt and so
forth, all sorts of concoctions.
However in the providence of God I started
out at the age of 21 to become
an evangelist.
I started out on a bicycle.
I had 65 cents in my pocket.
I had nothing but the plainest food.
I had plenty of fresh air and plenty
of good exercise.
And it must have done something to me.
I cycled against rain and sun, fog, snow,
wind, frost.
The result was when I took an examination
for a commission in the United States Air
Force, the doctor told me my health was
perfect, except for a little bit of myopia
in my eyesight.
I did want to get into the Air
Force, but my sight wasn't too good.
2200 in the left eye, 2400 in the
right eye.
You're supposed to have 20-20 in the
Air Force.
The doctor said, read that chart.
So I started with a big E and
went right down to the bottom line.
He got suspicious.
He said, read it backwards.
I read it all the way backwards.
Then I told him I learned it backwards
as well as forwards.
So he said, well you seem to be
determined to get into the Air Force.
I don't see why a chaplain should have
perfect eyesight, so he said, I'm going to
pass you.
You'll have to wear steel-rimmed glasses in
combat, otherwise you're in.
I said, doctor, how do you account for
my good health, considering my family history, tuberculosis?
Well, he said, you were exposed to the
disease while you were a boy.
No doubt when your father was dying, you
were exposed to it, and you developed a
resistance.
He said, in fact, you're stronger than the
average healthy man in this respect.
A farmer could get a bad chill and
develop pleurisy and then go into consumption.
He said, that's not likely to happen to
you.
So I told my friend, the sergeant, it's
the same way regarding temptation.
If you're exposed to evil, if you're exposed
to temptation and you resist it, you're stronger
than if you'd never been tempted in the
first place.
That sort of shook him.
He said, well, are you trying to tell
me there's some kind of purpose behind temptation?
I said yes.
Then he said, well, there must be somebody
responsible for it, then.
Is God responsible for temptation?
I saw what he was thinking.
In other words, it is tempting to say,
well, God's responsible, it's his fault.
No, no.
Scripture is very clear about this.
God doesn't tempt us.
It makes it very clear in the scripture.
Now, I explained to my friend, the airman,
there are two distinct purposes in temptation.
The purpose of the evil one is to
make us to fall into sin.
But the purpose of God in his permissive
will is to allow us to be strengthened
in Christian character.
Now, how would you illustrate permissive will?
Well, I could illustrate it very simply from
my experience in the war.
I saw pretty rough things in World War
II.
I hate war.
But you couldn't say that God plans war.
God permits evil.
It says very simply, let no man say
when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by
God, for God cannot be tempted with evil,
and he himself tempts no one.
God is not the author of temptation.
Now, you'll find that the scripture explains that
the devil, Satan, is the author of temptation.
It was Satan who tempted our first parents.
It was Satan who tempted King David.
It was Satan who tempted the Lord Jesus
Christ himself.
And as far as an external source is
concerned, Satan is the author of temptation.
But don't get a wrong impression.
Some people picture the devil as a wicked
-looking creature with horns and hoofs and a
tail.
You know, if somebody wants to draw a
little sketch of the devil, they always end
up with the same sort of evil-looking
creature.
Some people think the devil is trying to
make good men into drunkards and good women
into prostitutes.
But that's far from the case.
I knew of a man who neither drank
nor smoked nor gambled.
He was a vegetarian.
He didn't even eat meat.
He was very strict in a lot of
his personal habits.
I had the chance of meeting him.
In fact, someone wanted to arrange an appointment,
but something came up that the thing fell
through.
He didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't gamble, didn't
eat meat.
His name was Adolf Hitler.
He was more useful to the devil without
being drunk.
The devil doesn't mind if you're respectable.
In fact, the worst enemies of the gospel
are not drunkards and harlots.
Sometimes they are sort of an advertisement in
reverse for a good life.
When you see them, you think, well, that
doesn't appeal to me.
The devil has more use for respectable men
and women who have been seduced into refined
sin.
Some people congratulate themselves that they're not such
terrible sinners.
All they mean is that their sins are
not vulgar.
They're refined.
Satan doesn't mind how trivial the sin is
so long as he breaks that person's fellowship
with God.
Some people, of course, don't believe in a
personal Satan.
Things are different today than they were when
I was growing up.
Fifty years ago, sixty years ago, people had
to sort of defend their belief in a
personal devil.
Nowadays we've got Satan worship, and we know
there's a personification of evil.
But I remember growing up on Ireland, a
lot of people didn't believe in the devil.
I remember hearing two little boys talking about
it.
One said, I don't believe in the devil.
The other little boy said, well, I do.
If you don't believe in the devil, who
is the devil anyway?
The other little boy, the first one, said,
well, I think it's just like Santa Claus.
It's your father.
But although we recognize that the devil is
the author of temptation, we mustn't forget that
he's not the only author, not the sole
author.
Here's what it says in the passage I
read to you.
Every man is tempted when he's drawn away
by his own desire and enticed.
We are fallen creatures by nature, and the
devil gets a beachhead in our souls because
of our own desires.
How could I illustrate this?
I was born in Ireland, of an American
father and a British mother, and I didn't
come to this country until I was twenty
-three years of age.
But I liked it here.
I think I could say from the mountains
to the prairies to the oceans, flecked with
foam, God bless America, my home sweet home.
I'm an American by choice.
I chose to come here, to live here.
But I might as well be frank.
There's some things about America I don't like.
One is this habit of putting mayonnaise on
everything.
I don't like mayonnaise.
I have seen people take good bread and
spread mayonnaise on it.
Butter, margarine, I can see those things, but
mayonnaise.
I used to camp up at Forest Home
in the summer, that Christian conference center that
was started by Henrietta Mears.
And I've seen a woman there in the
kitchen, hard-boiled eggs, and they'd scoop the
yolk out and mix it with mayonnaise and
put it back in again.
They call those deviled eggs.
Now if I should go to your house
for lunch, and you brought me a bowl
of mayonnaise as a temptation, it's no temptation
to me.
I don't like it.
The same way, remember that your temptations come
along the lines of your own desires.
If, for example, you like the good things
of life, you may be tempted to steal
or to embezzle.
But if you are the affectionate type, your
temptations will come along certain lines.
For instance, the hospital patient who has a
social disease finds himself there because he has
enjoyed sexual indulgence too much.
It's along the lines of his desires.
You can take similar illustrations.
I remember once writing to a couple back
home from New Guinea during the war.
They'd written to me as chaplain to find
out how did our son die.
I hadn't the heart to tell them he
was murdered by his tent mate.
His tent mate got drunk on some concoction
and murdered his best pal.
I wrote back and said your son lost
his life in a tragic accident, but I'm
not free to tell you the circumstances.
Had to leave it at that.
But the fellow who murdered him was addicted
to drink, because he liked it.
Therefore, I think every Christian should remember that
private enemy number one is self, and public
enemy number one is Satan.
And Satan can't progress very far without human
cooperation.
When I preached to soldiers, I used to
startle them by telling them that every temptation
to commit evil begins without exception in the
imagination.
They thought that was too much of a
generalization.
But we'd sit down and talk about it.
We had plenty of time sometimes around a
campfire.
We find it's true.
Stealing begins with covetousness.
If you don't covet, you're not guilty of
stealing.
I well remember going to Norway during the
middle of winter for meetings.
It's a very snowy country in winter, like
Minnesota.
And I found I was always bothered about
wearing galoshes.
In California, we don't use galoshes.
I don't see a single person here with
galoshes.
But in Minnesota, in the middle of winter,
just as in Norway in the middle of
winter, everyone wears galoshes, for very obvious reasons.
But because I wasn't used to it, I
was always leaving my galoshes behind in meetings.
Then my wife and I would have to
drive back, and did anybody see my galoshes?
I remember vividly on one occasion we had
a clergy and ministers.
The Bishop of Oslo chaired the meeting.
I was the guest of a Salvation Army
officer, stayed with him, and at the end
of the meeting there were four of us
shaking hands with the ministers as they came
out.
The Bishop shook hands with everyone, that was
expected.
I shook hands with everyone, I was the
speaker.
The Salvation Army officer shook hands with those
who greeted him.
But this fourth man looked everybody up and
down and then shook hands with them.
So when we were driving back, I said
to my friend the Salvation Army officer, who
was that fellow who was shaking hands with
everyone?
Not the Bishop, the other fellow.
Oh, he said he was a reporter.
I said, do reporters shake hands with everyone?
Well, he said it was different with him.
He said he told me that some minister
had stolen his galoshes, and he was determined
to find out who did it.
So I laughed, I said, well he didn't
apparently find out.
No, he said he was baffled, couldn't find
out who had his galoshes.
He said he was going to write an
article in the paper about it.
So we both laughed about it.
Then a thought struck me, I said, by
the way, would you look behind my seat?
He said, what, nothing there?
I said, nothing?
I was a little relieved.
He said, nothing but an old pair of
galoshes.
I said, whose galoshes am I wearing?
I sent them back to the man, but
he had already written an article, My Favorite
Galoshes.
And he told how he had gone to
minister's meeting and all the rest of it.
But I didn't feel convicted.
I hadn't stolen.
I'd taken them all right, but I hadn't
stolen them.
There was no intent in my heart.
You see, before you steal, you must carve
it.
It's in your imagination.
Before you lie, you must have an intent
to deceive.
You might say, have you any relations over
in the old country?
I've got a brother living in London, in
Beckenham.
He said, I'm going over, I'll look him
up, I'll phone him and tell him I
was talking to you.
Supposing you find out he's moved to Dublin.
Did I tell a lie?
No.
Well, what I said wasn't true.
But I didn't intend to deceive.
I said what I thought was true.
So that you cannot lie without an intent
to deceive.
And you cannot commit adultery without lust.
It always begins in the imagination.
Why?
Because the imagination is often stronger than the
will.
Psychologists tell us that.
And the devil has been studying human psychology
for thousands of years.
That's why he tries to get an entrance
to our imagination.
Now, during the Depression, none of you remember
that, of course, that goes back fifty years
or more.
A couple of young fellows in my home
city wanted to have a vacation.
In Ireland, there's no point of the country
more than a hundred miles from the sea.
So a lot of people go to the
shore to relax and enjoy themselves.
But when they went down, they found the
hotels were too expensive.
Even the boarding houses were out of their
reach.
So they walked out into the country.
They found a farm.
They went up to the farm and said,
we see you've got a little cottage down
there.
Is it for rent?
Well, he said, the old folks used to
live there, but they're dead and gone now.
Nobody uses it.
But it's supposed to be all right in
the middle of summer.
You can have it for very little.
So they rented this little cottage.
But the windows had become jammed, probably through
dampness, and the chimney was blocked.
They didn't want to leave the door open
because of mosquitoes.
So the room got a little stuffy.
During the night, one young fellow lying next
to the wall dreamed he was suffocating.
It was so vivid that he wakened up
and said, open the window quick, Jimmy, I'm
choking.
The other fellow was dreaming, but not about
the same thing, of course.
So he got out in the darkness.
He wasn't sure where he was, what direction
to go, but he put out his hands.
Then he saw a little reflection of glass,
and he staggered over until his hands touched
the cold thing.
He fumbled with it.
The man shouted at him, why don't you
open that window?
He said, I can't get this latch undone.
He said, pull it, man, pull it.
He gave a wrench, and the glass broke.
Now you see what you made me do.
The other fellow said, I'll pay for it.
So thinking they had taken care of their
problem, they both went sound asleep until they
awakened at daybreak.
Then they discovered they had broken the glass
of the bookcase, not the window.
But why did they go to sleep again?
Imagination.
Imagination will do that to you.
The devil knows that.
If he can get you thinking about something
that's not right, he's scored a point.
If he can get you coveting something, you
say, well I know it's wrong to steal.
But if he can get you to think
about it, I wish I could do it,
he has weakened your will.
I remember a young fellow at college whom
I counseled, having been tempted deliberately by a
girl, but he said to me, honest, nothing
happened.
I said, what do you mean nothing happened?
You can't get it out of your mind,
man.
The power of an unfulfilled desire is almost
worse than the sin itself.
The devil knows this.
All the devil wants to do is to
get you to think about it.
One of my friends in London, in fact
he was publisher of my first books, Fine
Christian Man.
He had served in World War I, so
he wasn't called up for World War II.
But he served as a fire watcher during
the Blitz.
My mother was in London during the Blitz,
so I asked him, what was it like?
Oh, he said it was dreadful.
The Luftwaffe came and just dropped these incendiary
bombs to try to burn London down.
I said, what were you supposed to do?
He said, well, we were supposed to sit
on the roof and wait for the incendiary
bombs.
He said, you couldn't go away for a
cup of coffee.
You had to be there with a bucket
of sand to smother it, because water wouldn't
put it out.
It was so intensely hot, you had to
just smother it in the bucket of sand.
And he said, if you weren't there, it
would catch hold, and the building would be
so engulfed in flames that the firemen would
simply isolate it and keep it from spreading
to somewhere else.
So you had to be watching all the
time.
You've heard the saying regarding our political liberties,
eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
You've got to keep watching, because someone's trying
to take it away from you all the
time.
It's the same with temptation.
All the devil wants is to get a
little fire going, temptation in your soul.
I quoted the scripture to you, when desire
has taken hold, it produces sin, and sin
when it's full grown produces death.
When desire has taken hold, that's
the same and sin when it's finished with
you produces death.
You can't keep the birds from flying over
your head, but you can keep them from
building nests in your hair.
President Edmund of Wheaton College, Billy Graham's college
president, used to say, I still remember, it
isn't the first look that's sin, it's the
second look.
And you can remember that.
All the devil wants is to get the
idea into your mind, he has weakened your
will, if you entertain that idea in any
way.
Now, it wouldn't be fair to talk about
temptation as such a dangerous thing if I
didn't tell you how to overcome it.
I want to talk about the conquest of
temptation.
Here's the revised version, translation of James 1
.4, let steadfastness have its full effect, that
you may be perfect and complete, lacking in
nothing.
You could recognize the nature of temptation, its
purpose, its beginnings, but it doesn't mean a
thing if your defeat is inevitable.
But the apostle Paul tells sin shall not
have dominion over you.
What does that mean?
Sin doesn't need to be your boss, so
we are encouraged to hope for victory over
temptations as they arise.
I'm going to quote again from the latest
revision in 1 Corinthians, no temptation has overtaken
you that is not common to man.
You don't have special temptations.
People excuse themselves by saying, well, that temptation
was special.
It's not special.
If you're tempted to lie, millions of people
have been tempted to lie.
If you're tempted to steal, millions of people
have been tempted to steal.
If you're tempted to commit adultery, millions of
people have been tempted to commit adultery, even
temptation to murder.
I heard some Christian interviewed on TV recently,
and this man said, well, tell the truth,
have you ever considered divorce?
He said, never.
Oh, come on now, you've never considered divorce?
He said, never.
Murder, yes, but never divorce.
Well, that was being a little facetious, but
I don't think we can afford to be
facetious with the commonness of murder today.
I went over to help Billy Graham in
Amsterdam this year, then I spent a week
up at Oxford doing some research in the
Bodleian Library, and I came away with one
fact in my mind.
The total number of gunshot murders in England,
Scotland, and Wales, Great Britain, last year was
four.
In the United States, 9,800.
You heard what happened in Edmond, Oklahoma, a
couple of days ago.
But no one has been tempted to murder
before he hated.
Murder begins in rage.
But here's the rest of the verse.
No temptation has overtaken you that's not common
to man, but God is faithful.
He will not permit you to be tempted
beyond your strength, but with the temptation he
will also provide a way to escape that
you may be able to endure it.
When I was growing up in Ireland, I
met a converted drunkard who told me that
after he was converted, knowing his weakness, he
prayed that God would take away the craving
for alcohol and give him a chance.
And he said the craving for alcohol left
him the day of his conversion.
Never wanted to touch the stuff again.
But I met another man who said that
wasn't the way it was with me.
When he was converted, he asked God to
take away the temptation, but God answered him
in a different way.
The craving remained.
He told me how bad it was.
Especially Friday night, coming home with his pay
in his pocket.
Every time he passed a pub, a tavern,
call them public house over there, he felt
tempted to go in.
Now, the tavern owners in Ireland have a
very sneaky habit.
During the day they collect the dregs of
drinks.
Instead of washing them away, they'll take maybe
a little bit of whiskey or a little
bit of brandy or whatever, whatever's been left
in the glasses, and they'll pour it into
a bucket.
And then at five o'clock in the
evening, they fill it with scalding water, and
they swill it over the sidewalk.
So the men coming home will smell the
stuff, and if that's their weakness, they go
in and have a quick one.
Now, you can understand what it was for
a man who had a craving for drink,
just being converted.
He told me what a temptation it was.
But he said, I prayed about it, and
he said, the Lord helped me and I
helped the Lord.
So I said, how did you help the
Lord?
Well, he said, it was the smell of
the stuff that bothered me.
So he said, I kept a clothes peg
in my pocket, and every time I came
to a pub, he said, I put it
on my nose.
Why was it that in one case the
Lord took away the man's craving for drink,
but he left it in the other case?
It's very simple.
It says, he will not let you be
tempted beyond your strength.
One man couldn't take it, so the Lord
took the temptation away.
The other man could take it, so the
Lord let it remain with a building up
of his character.
This applies quite generally, and it's worth keeping
in mind.
Therefore, we ought to reassure ourselves, if the
next time you are tempted, you say to
yourself, the fact that God has allowed this
temptation to come to me is proof that
I can stand it.
Otherwise the scripture is a lie.
It says, God will not let you be
tempted more than you are able to bear.
That means if you are tempted, you can
stand it.
If you say otherwise, you are making God
a liar.
But the trouble is that Christians fool around
with temptation.
I'm quoting a lot from my experience as
a teenager, but when I was growing up,
I worked in an office which had an
elderly manager, 14 girls, and me.
It cured me of any romantic tendency for
about several years.
This was a bakery office, the office attached
to a very large bakery.
Sometimes we were troubled with mice.
I found girls don't like mice.
Now, when I'm in Africa, I've read about
some woman being mauled by a lion.
Who ever heard of a woman being attacked
by a mouse?
But most girls don't like mice.
So I would hear some little squeal, there's
a mouse there, there's a mouse there.
I said, well, never mind, it won't bite
you.
Oh, that wasn't enough.
So I had to get, being the man
of the office, I had to get a
big ruler, and I'd go after the mouse.
Just like St. George and the dragon.
Except for one thing, it was fun.
All the girls were screaming and standing on
top of stools and giggling and so forth.
We didn't have coffee breaks in those days,
so this was our coffee break.
It was fun to me, and I think
it was fun to the girls too, but
it wasn't fun for the mouse.
The mouse didn't fool around.
The mouse didn't run circles around me or
say, hi, you didn't get me that time.
Oh no.
The mouse knew it was in danger.
It was only concerned with one thing, that
was the way to escape.
So it looked for a way to escape.
And if somebody suddenly opened the door, the
mouse just streaked like that, and was gone.
The mouse was concerned with only one thing,
the way to escape.
I wish Christians were like that.
When you realize you're tempted, look for the
way to escape.
It says so here, God will not let
us be tempted above what we're able to
bear, but with every temptation he makes a
way to escape.
There is some way to escape.
I wish Christians were like mice, but instead
of that they're more like moths.
Have you ever been camping and using candlelight,
or a lamp, and some silly moth comes
in and flutters around?
You bat it away and say, get away.
But it comes back again, back again, back
again, until finally it comes too close, singes
its wings, falls down useless, or dead.
This moth-like behavior of professing Christians impressed
my mind very forcibly during the Pacific War.
Some of our fellows were really tired of
combat in the jungle, and they looked forward
to their furloughs in Australia.
Each one, Christian or non-Christian, had his
own code of behavior.
Muslims said, I know how to take care
of myself, I know how far I can
go.
But they always went further.
They seemed to like skating around thin ice.
And when they skated too far, they fell
into sin.
Don't flirt with temptation.
Realize that you're in danger.
Don't flirt with it.
Look for the way to escape.
I had a friend at Oxford who was
a great student evangelist.
He started InterVarsity in Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
and India.
A great student evangelist.
He told us once that when he was
a teenager, he was tempted with unhealthy thoughts.
He prayed a lot about it, but the
more he prayed, the worse it got.
Even when he was praying, it was almost
as if Satan were standing behind him and
saying, I don't mind you praying about this
as long as you think about it.
He was using, Satan was using his introspection
to bring the sin before him again and
again and again, until he hit on an
idea.
He had a cousin in China as a
missionary.
He thought, the next time I'm tempted to
impurity of thought, I'm going to pray for
my cousin Henry in China.
And even if he were walking down the
street and a sudden thought struck him, he
would start to pray aloud.
He did it aloud.
Oh God bless Henry Guinness in Kaifeng.
His wife and children, protect them in the
smallpox epidemic, give them opportunity.
And by the time he'd finished praying for
Henry Guinness, the devil had left him in
confusion.
The devil just wanted to make him miserable,
but instead of that, he was stirring up
a lot of prayer for China.
If you're tempted, just you say, Lord bless
the team down in Chile at the moment,
give them great opportunity in the ministers meetings
and the public meetings.
And by the time you're finished praying, the
devil won't know what to do.
He doesn't want you to pray for Chile
or anywhere else.
Therefore, if you learn not to pray about
your temptation, but to simply say no and
say, I'm going to pray about something else.
This is one of the best ways to
resist.
The writer of the epistle of James says,
if any of you lacks wisdom, let him
ask God who gives to all men generously
and without scolding.
God won't say, look at you again.
No, no, he won't scold you.
He'll give you generously if you need wisdom
and he'll help you.
Sometimes I miss the old hymns.
And if you remember the one, yield not
to temptation or yielding a sin, each victory
will help you some other to win.
Fight manfully onward, dark passions subdue.
Look ever to Jesus.
He will carry you through.
And the chorus, ask the Savior to help
you, comfort, strengthen and keep you.
He is willing to aid you.
He will carry you through.
But let him ask in faith without doubting.
For the man who doubts is like a
wave of the sea that's driven and tossed
by the wind.
That person must not suppose that a double
-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will
receive anything from the Lord.
Now we talked about this problem of temptation,
but there's something that must be stressed.
That is, you know there's a reward for
enduring temptation?
A present reward and a future reward.
The present reward is happiness.
When a child of God finally says no
to Satan, and when the tempter departs, his
heart's not left in a vacuum.
It's flooded with love, joy, and peace.
It says, blessed, the word in Greek is
makarios, happy is the man who endures temptation.
You may ask the question, well then is
it possible to get victory over temptation?
Oh yes.
I'm not thinking of any sinless perfection, but
I'd say it's a common experience when you
resist the devil and say no, no, no,
no, no again, he gets tired of tempting
you in that point.
He may watch for an opportunity when you're
weak, but he's much more likely to switch
to some other kind of attack.
Maybe I could give a personal testimony.
I told you I'm Irish by birth and
upbringing.
What are the Irish noted for?
Two things.
Good humor, bad temper.
Irish people are quite tempered, there's no doubt
about that.
I had both.
In my teenage days I had a surly
bad temper.
I used to lose my temper in the
office and some of the girls would say,
look at the Christian now, temper, temper, temper.
I'd say it's not temper, it's righteous indignation.
I thought it was bad temper.
It was one of the things I had
to deal with.
Yes, I had a bad temper, all right.
I remember trying to commit suicide at the
age of 11.
You might say that was very young to
contemplate self-destruction.
Yes, but mother had thrashed me.
My father died when I was 10 and
mother tried to be father and mother.
She thrashed me and I thought, I'm not
appreciated around here.
I'll throw myself in the river.
It was over some trivial little affair.
Mother thrashed me for taking two pennies out
of her purse and buying a box of
matches and trying to set fire to two
other boys.
So I decided I was going to commit
suicide.
In my imagination I could see the headline
in the paper, boys, body, found in river,
home difficulties.
I thought they won't treat me like that
again.
So I went down to the river to
commit suicide, but the water was too cold.
Back in the Middle West I've told people,
I've heard of some folk who have jumped
off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
to end it all.
But I have never heard of anyone committing
suicide at Duluth in Lake Superior.
The temperature of the water there in July
is 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but it discourages suicide.
So I didn't commit suicide after all.
Well, that's obvious.
But I had a bad temper and I
had to learn it wasn't righteous indignation.
If you're in the right, you don't need
to lose your temper.
If you're in the wrong, you can't afford
to lose your temper.
But I got victory over that.
I remember at the age of 21 when
I made a total commitment in my life
to the Lord.
Romans 12 and 1, present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, your reasonable
service.
That issue of my bad temper came up
and I decided that I was going to
commit this to God.
Before that I'd made New Year's resolutions, but
they never worked.
Sometimes you can keep your temper until January
the 6th, but by January the 12th it's
pretty hard.
And then you say, what's the use?
You say, well, doesn't this sound a bit
like sinless perfection?
No.
It became a habit.
I've been married nearly 50 years now.
I think my wife is coming to the
third service.
I don't mind if you ask her, but
the Lord gave me victory.
But a month after I got the victory,
way back in those days when I was
21, I kept my temper for a month.
I began to congratulate myself and brag about
it.
Then the Lord said to me, now you're
proud and that's worse.
The devil had switched his ground, was attacking
me some other way.
I learned a lesson from cycling.
Any of you remember when you got your
first bike?
I didn't get my first bicycle until I
was 17.
Our family was so poor.
Well, if it had been the 1950s instead
of the 1920s, I would have said we
were so poor we could have been adopted
by a Korean family.
Of course, the Koreans are quite prosperous today,
but they were poor in the 50s.
But we were so poor I didn't get
a bicycle until I was 17.
I was ashamed to let the little kids
seeing me learn to ride, so I wheeled
it out of the city, out into the
country.
I chose a lane with a nice soft
mossy bank where I could fall easily.
I hesitated a long time, then I pushed
off.
I was told all you need to do
is to steer and pedal.
But when I pedaled, I forgot to steer
and I ran into a tree.
When I steered, I forgot to pedal and
I fell down.
But I didn't lie on the ground, I
got up and got on again.
And that's the lesson regarding temptation.
You can get victory over these habits that
pull you down.
I wonder how many of you remember Dr.
Henrietta Mears, that great Sunday school teacher who
had the biggest Sunday school in the world
at Presbyterian Church?
She and I were talking about a mutual
friend who had a lot of temptation with
the opposite sex.
I remember I spoke to this friend of
mine pretty bluntly, and I said, I've never
known of anyone who risks so much for
so little.
He got angry and he said, you don't
have the temptations that I have.
I said, what do you mean, you mean
I'm not red blooded?
I said to Ms. Mears, why did he
say that?
She said, poor boy, you see, he hasn't
made up his mind yet.
When he's tempted, he doesn't know whether he's
going to say yes or no.
So it's always a fight, always a struggle.
She said, in your case, you've learned to
say no, and your disposition will change.
The battle never ends, but perhaps that particular
temptation ceases to be a temptation anymore.
Quite frankly, I would find it difficult to
work up that temper now.
I couldn't say that when I was a
teenager.
I'd fly off the handle at the slightest
provocation.
But it doesn't mean I'm not without temptation.
After I learned to ride a bicycle, I
had to learn to drive a car.
When the fellow who taught me to drive
said, now you're on your own, I had
a strange feeling I was going to end
up in the ditch.
That prophecy was fulfilled.
But I never think of driving in a
ditch today.
Never occurs to me even.
But I can't fly a plane yet.
And so it goes on.
Says, when he has stood the test, he
will receive the crown of life which God
has promised to those that love him.
Now quite frankly, I don't know what the
crown of life is.
I don't know any Bible scholar who knows
what the crown of life is.
The scripture seems to teach that there'll be
degrees of reward in heaven, but it doesn't
specify what this means.
In other words, if you resist temptation, not
only are you going to be happy now,
but you're going to receive a special prize
in the future.
Those of you who have children, have you
ever watched their faces on Christmas morning?
I still remember my older boy, my older
boy is an engineer up in Seattle.
He was in charge of the installation of
the Alaska pipeline.
He loves his work.
But I knew he wanted an electric train.
And I didn't tell him I was going
to get him that.
That was his desire.
But this particular Sunday morning, after the kids
were in bed, I laid the whole thing
out on rails and had it ready just
to pull the switch.
He was speechless when he saw it.
He said, am I a lucky boy?
I had a lot of fun with that
train.
I enjoyed it too.
But it says he will receive the crown
of life.
He asked me, what are you going to
give me for Christmas?
I said, never you mind, you'll be a
surprised.
He was surprised all right.
The Lord has said, if you learn to
resist temptation, I've got a prize for you.
He calls it the crown of life.
Now there's a connection between living a victorious
life and this problem of temptation.
Without the problem of temptation, there wouldn't be
a victorious life.
So what does it matter if the fire
is hot, or the tongs nip, or the
hammer hurts, the anvil is hard?
God allows these things to shape us.
I'm not going to argue with anyone as
to what holiness really means.
But I'll state my own definition very simply.
I wrote it down.
I believe that the gracious purpose of God
to make us in this life more and
more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was tempted in all points like as
we are, yet without sin.
We know we'll fall short of his record,
but his grace is sufficient for us, because
God is working out his purposes in our
lives in spite of and because of our
temptations.
God can solve your problem.
So all I can ask is, do you
face temptation?
What is your most recurring temptation?
Well, look for it along the lines of
things you like, the lines of your own
desire.
But make quite sure that the next time
the devil shoots a fiery dart into your
mind, smother it, and perhaps learn to pray
about something else.
This has been a practical sort of talk.
I hope it'll be help to someone.
Let us all pray.
We love you, Lord.
We thank you for our salvation.
We did nothing to deserve it.
Lord, we want to be more like the
Lord Jesus Christ, even before we get to
heaven.
Help us to recognize that it's not a
sin to be tempted, but it is sin
to yield to temptation.
Help us, Lord, to look for temptation occurring
along the lines of our greatest desires.
Help us to smother the wrong thoughts that
bother us, to nip temptation in the bud.
Then help us, Lord, to get victory over
these things, that we may be more Christian
in our ways, and better able to serve
thee among those whose temptations seem to be
so much worse.
Lord, grant that every one of us may
be able to get a victory for the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.