Israel and Temptation

God called the children of Israel out of Egypt, and before crossing the Red Sea things started looking difficult, so they complained about the hardness of their way to Moses: "And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (Exd. 14:11-14). We all find ourselves in narrow straits sometimes, and there are always demons present that will suggest to us that we are going to fail and that God is not going to come through for us. Those demons masquerade as our own thoughts and feelings, when in fact it THEIR thoughts and feelings that are being pressed upon us. We are new creatures in Christ if we have been baptized into Christ with his Spirit (II Cor. 5:17; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27). We are born again by FAITH in Jesus and his completed work for us, not by the unbelief that comes through with demonic thoughts and feelings. Faith is what God has given us, not unbelief (Eph. 2:8). The scripture tells us that "[we] are complete in [Christ]," and that completeness does not include disbelief of God's love, care, and power toward us (Col. 2:10). Demonic unbelief comes from all angles to undermine the very faith that first delivered us from our sins and vices, and landed us in Christ as complete new creatures. There are a thousand different kinds of challenges to our faith that we can face in terms of circumstances, but the way to victory is always the same. That way is to resist the thoughts and feelings that are trying to convince us that things are not going to turn out well, and not be moved to the turbulence that would distract us from our faith in God's faithfulness to us.

Actually the remedy is the same one that Moses gave to the children of Israel: "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day." Fear is the main culprit and enemy to our faith because it is fear that tries to assure us that nothing good can come from the bad things that are going on. But faith tells us, "And we know that ALL things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Fear is always a lie and it is not from God, as the scripture also confirms: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Tim. 1:7). Fear cannot produce a sound mind or love, but rather turbulence and anxiety; neither of which things can lead us to victory over anything. It takes a lot of praying to be able to "stand still" in the midst of hard circumstances, and to "see the salvation of the Lord" for us. That is why Jesus told us, "that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Lk. 18:1). When people faint they cannot stand and the result is that they fall. That is how it is in spiritual things as well, and if we don't always pray we will faint. It's just that simple. Trying to follow the Lord's instructions without much prayer is like trying to drive a car in a race, which car we haven't sufficiently fueled. So we can't carry out God's plan of victory for us if we aren't doing our part by seeking him diligently for his strength and guidance. But if we are seeking him diligently we CAN follow his map to victory for all of our situations, which very much includes the following: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you" (Jas. 4:7,8). The point here is that the "sound mind" that God has given us is the same thing as the stillness of mind and spirit that comes by exercising our faith in all that Jesus has suffered and died for us to have, namely victory over the ills of this life, and ultimately victory over death. We are moving toward our victory over death with every victory we obtain over the challenges to our faith by means of adverse circumstances. The test is always to maintain a pure heart and conscience, and allow nothing to abide in our spirits or minds that is contrary to God's love and holiness. That is the objective of the entire Gospel, as we are also told: "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned" (I Tim. 1:5).

The term holiness is synonymous with having a pure heart, and the scripture clearly tells us, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). Jesus confirmed that holiness and a pure heart are the same thing when he said, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Mat. 5:8). So if we expect to be saved in the end and raised from the dead to eternal glory, we cannot afford to be overcome in our trials that we face. That's not to say that if we do fail that we won't get another chance, because most likely we will. But we can't allow failure to become the norm, and we must learn how to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord" for us. How to obtain victory is not a difficult thing to understand if we are honest of heart, but it can be very challenging at times to see it through. One point of consolation is that there is no trial that we can face, or demon that we are challenged by, that has not already been overcome by faithful saints: "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" (I Cor. 10:15). As the children of Israel who after being delivered from Egypt and crossing the Red Sea were faced with having to overcome giants and walled cities in order to enter the promised land, so we face the same things in the spirit realm now (Eph. 6:12). But unlike the overwhelming majority of them, who disbelieved God's promise to them, we need to be like Joshua and Caleb who told them all, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it" (Exd. 13:30). No wonder Jesus gave the same kind of admonition to each of the messengers of the congregations in Asia: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels" (Rev. 3:5). Truly God is with us to give us the land my friend, so let's be sure to "give diligence to make [our] calling and election sure" (II Pet. 1:10). And remember what God also said by Isaiah, which was in agreement with what Moses told the children of Israel, "Their strength is to sit still" (Isa. 30:7). Amen.