|
THE ART OF COPING WITH TEMPTATION
Click
here for a PDF printable file
Click here to download your PDF reader - FREE
Preached at
First Presbyterian Church Villa Rica 1/19/03
Luke 22:39
through Luke 22:46 39And He came out and proceeded as was
His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed
Him. 40When He arrived at the place, He said to them,
“Pray that you may not enter into
temptation.” 41And He withdrew from them about a
stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, 42saying,
“Father, if You are willing, remove this
cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 43Now
an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. 44And
being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became
like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. 45When
He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them
sleeping from sorrow, 46and said to them,
“Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that
you may not enter into temptation.”
I appreciate the story of a little
boy named Bobby who badly wanted a new bicycle. His plan was to save
his nickels, dimes, and quarters until he finally had enough to buy
a new 10-speed. Each night he took his concern to the Lord. Kneeling
beside his bed he prayed, "Lord, please help me save for my new
bicycle and please Lord, don't let the ice cream man come down our
street tomorrow."
Jim Grant in an issue of Reader's
Digest told about an overweight business associate of his who
decided it was time to shed some excess pounds. He took his new diet
seriously, even changing his driving route to avoid his favorite
bakery. One morning though he arrived at work carrying a gigantic
coffee cake. Everyone in the office scolded him, but his smile
remained cherubic.
"This is a very special coffeecake,"
he explained. "I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning
and there in the window were a host of goodies. I felt this was no
accident, so I prayed, 'Lord, if you want me to have one of these
delicious coffee-cakes, let me have a parking place directly in
front of the bakery."
"And sure enough," he continued,
"the eighth time around the block, there it was!"
Temptation is a part of the human
condition. But temptation is not sin. It is being led into the
temptation that involves us in sin.
I read about a young woman out in
Colorado who had herself sent to jail in order to avoid being
tempted to marry. She asked a juvenile judge to place her in jail in
order to prevent her wedding that was scheduled later in the month.
She was only 17 years old and was in love with an older man. She
knew that it was not in her best interest. Still, she couldn't
resist him when in his presence. We don't know what happened to her
after she was released from jail. We do know, though, what it is to
be tempted.
I. JESUS WAS TEMPTED.
A. All though his life Jesus was
tempted. As he began his public ministry he was led out into the
wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. His strength then was what it
had always been before and after; he relied upon the sword of the
Spirit, the Word of God, and upon prayer. He is the only person who
successfully resisted every temptation. We ought to learn from him
the art of coping with temptation.
B. As he came to the greatest
crisis of his life the hour of betrayal, arrest and all the events
that led up to the crucifixion he was tempted. He anticipated that
he would be tempted.
We are not always taken by surprise
when we are tempted, although we may be tempted at times when we are
not expecting it. But because he knew the scriptures he knew all
that was to befall him. He knew that he would be taken as a lamb to
the slaughter. His concern was that he would not weaken, that he
would not yield to the temptation to doubt the love of His Father,
that He would not seek to evade or avoid the will of God, and that
He would exercise faith throughout the whole experience. He told his
disciples just before he went to the Mount of Olives, to be prepared
for Calvary,
Luke 22:37
37“For I tell you that this
which is written must be fulfilled in Me, ‘and
He was
numbered with transgressors’;
for that which refers to Me has its fulfillment.”
The Son of God recognized that
temptation begins in the thoughts of the heart. We must keep our
hearts from those thoughts that would lead us into temptation. In
the Lord's Prayer he taught the disciples to pray "lead us not into
temptation." We may spend more time praying for forgiveness than we
do in praying not to be led into the temptation that makes it
necessary to seek forgiveness.
There is a connection between the
thought and the deed. He taught in the Sermon on the Mount "You have
heard it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you
that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart."
Surely we miss the point if we try
to make that mean we never look at the opposite sex in order to
avoid temptation. It means we are to recognize that sin begins when
we yield to an improper desire, which originates in the heart, in
the thought life.
When Jesus went to the Garden of
Gethsemane for the last time he knew that the struggle was with
himself. His human side would want to find a way to avoid the cross.
He would be tempted to doubt his Father's love, His Father's wisdom
in decreeing that the atonement for sin could only be handled by his
going to the cross. He therefore sought the strength and grace that
comes through prayer and only through prayer. He prayed,
"Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My
will, but Thine be done."
Scripture tells us that he
was in an agony. He was praying most fervently. His sweat became
like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. This was not a
quiet, nodding-off-to-sleep prayer. He was truly desperate for help
from heaven. He needed the assurance that comes only from God, which
comes only through prayer. In answer to his prayers an angel from
heaven came and strengthened him.
C. Notice that as he rises from
prayer he finds the disciples sleeping. It says they were sleeping
from sorrow Vs. 45. How often we do that same thing. We have a
problem. We face a crisis and we go to bed. We don't have the faith
to pray. We just do what the disciples did. Jesus told them for the
second time --
“Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into
temptation.”
Vs. 46.
He had warned them of the impending
hour of suffering. He had told them to get on their knees and seek
the strength that comes only through prayer in order to avoid
yielding to temptation. Peter thought he would never deny the Lord,
and he would not have denied him had he done what the Lord counseled
him to do -- pray, Peter, don't sleep, pray. But he did not, and
when the hour of trial came he had no strength for it.
II. THE BEST DEFENSE AGAINST
TEMPTATION IS PRAYER
A.
We must recognize that temptation is bound to
come and that the sins that
temptation leads to are destructive. We can be like the train
locomotive that decided it was tired of running back and forth on
the same boring track. The unhappy train thought of the adventure
and excitement it was missing because it had to run on tracks.
However, jumping the tracks resulted in a horrible crash.
My dear friends, terrible crashes do
take place when people decide that they can ignore God's laws. You
can make shipwreck of your life by trifling with temptation.
A young married woman sits in her
pastor's office. She describes to him a marriage gone stale, a
husband with misplaced priorities, and a situation in which she has
excessive time on her hands and a longing for romance in her heart.
"Yesterday I had lunch with a fellow I almost married," she
confesses. I hadn't seen him in years. Did I do wrong?" Her question
is itself a confession that she recognized the danger of the
situation.
What would Jesus have told her to
do? Our text gives the answer --
“Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
Pray that you may be content with your marriage. Pray that you may
not break faith with Christ by looking around for something to
stimulate and excite you that you know is wrong.
The world snickers when the actress
in the musical Oklahoma
sings, "I'm just a little girl who couldn't say no" We may
Join the world in smirking when Mae West sighs seductively, "to
err human but it feels divine." The Devil would have you believe
that you are missing fun if you live for Christ a life of fidelity
and faith. However, when white collar crime is counted in the
billions of dollars, when young lives are being drained and often
destroyed by drugs and alcohol, when untold millions live their
lives in emptiness and despair, guilt and brokenness, in a day in
which the media presents and the internet gives access to and even
glorifies fornication, adultery, homosexuality and violence, in a
day that one out of two new marriages will end in divorce, when
record numbers of children will grow up in broken homes, it is time
we deal with the power of the tempter in our lives.
When we pray not to be led into
temptation, when we seek God's strength to resist the temptations
that come to us to have resentment, to doubt God's love, to dispute
with God's Providence and question His wisdom and will, we are
declaring that sin is destructive to our lives. We also are
affirming that there is One whose power is greater than that of the
Tempter and the course he would suggest that would take us away from
a good and loving God. The apostle wrote
1 John 4:4
greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
In ancient mythology there are many
stories about the island where the sirens lived. When ships sailed
close to their island, the sirens sang so beautifully that the
enchanted sailors would steer their ships upon the rocks to their
destruction. The sirens then would collect their spoils from the
wreckage. However, one day a ship came past on which the sailors did
not heed the song of the sirens and sailed on in safety. The reason
the sailors were not interested was that Orpheus, the god of music,
was on board and he sang a sweeter song than any known to the
sirens.
That is an imperfect analogy of what
happens when we entrust our lives to Christ. The best antidote for
temptation is to be so filled with his song, his salvation, his
service so that there is no room for temptation. However, that does
not relieve us of the burden of praying daily for his divine care.
If Jesus, the Son of God, found it necessary to pray for strength in
trials and temptations, how much more ought we weak believers to
rely on prayer?
The battle against sin never ceases
in this life. We go from battle to battle and victory to victory.
Some of you, like the disciples of old, may be sleeping when you
should be praying. You have sorrow or heartache, or trouble that you
find disagreeable and disappointing. So you give in to feelings of
despair and discouragement. In that attitude you are sure to fall
victim to temptation. You are to rise up and pray. You are to resist
the Devil so that he will flee from you. You are to be like the
importunate widow in Christ's parable who persistently went to the
unjust judge and finally got relief, for he says in his parable that
if the unjust judge would grant relief because of her crying and
tearful entreaties, how much more will the heavenly Father grant
deliverance to his elect.
You certainly won't be
praying according to scripture unless you pray in Jesus' Name. And
you won't be praying in Jesus' name unless you know him and believe
in him as your Savior and Lord. Have you prayed the sinner's prayer
and asked him to be your Savior and your Lord, to forgive you of
your sins against him and come to know the peace that he alone can
give? If not, come to him today and begin the life of a disciple of
his. I invite you in his name to pray with me as I close this
service and ask him into your heart.
Hymn # 674 "I Need Thee Every Hour"
Back to the Top
The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review
and distribution. We only request that
proper web page attribution be
provided if distributed for any
reason. Please be gracious to forgive
typos and errors of expression. These
notes are faithful approximations of
what has been preached. May God be
glorified in the preaching of His
Word. |