When we live the Christian life, we have an enemy who wants us to fail with all his might. Satan doesn’t care much about us or our happiness. His main focus is on hurting God. And since He cannot do anything to God personally, he chooses to attack God where it really hurts- in what He loves.
So, Satan will come at us in any way he can. And we are not ignorant of his devices, are we? Often, it’s not the big attacks that we fall victim to; rather, it’s the drip, drip drip of the temptations we face day after day that wear us down. We fight and we pray and we hold his attacks at bay with the help of Jesus, and then one day we give in. And when we do, Satan is just as thrilled with the fall as he would be if we failed in one massive attack.
But we have a Savior who is ready to serve as our High Priest and take away the sin when we stumble after we succumb to the drip, drip, drip that Satan brings to us. Still, part of our growth as Christians is to learn to do better with the never-ending small daily assaults that Satan brings to us. That means that we need to prepare for these day-after-day assaults that the enemy sends our way.
We have an example of someone who had to deal with this drip, drip, drip of temptation in Genesis 39. Joseph was a young, handsome man who found himself a slave to the second most powerful man in the world. Potiphar was the Captain of the Guard to the Egyptian Pharaoh, a very powerful position. But Joseph was also a servant of the one true God. And God was with Joseph, even in slavery. And because God was with him, everything Joseph did caused Potiphar to prosper.
But Potiphar was married to an evil and sexually perverse woman who wanted to have her way with Joseph. Joseph resisted and told her that he couldn’t sin against her husband or against God. So, he fought the temptation and won… at least for a moment.
Then the drip, drip, drip came:
“And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.” (Genesis 39:10 ESV).
Did you see that? The temptress didn’t give up but came at Joseph day after day. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Joseph to have to deal with this every day? Of course, you can. How many of us have to deal with our own “day by day” temptations? How many times do we wake up knowing we will have to steel ourselves against the same volley of attacks that we faced yesterday, the day before, and the day before that? This is a common device that Satan often uses as he attempts to wear us down or catch us in a moment of weakness.
And yet, Joseph found his strength in the same place we will find ours. In God. God will walk with us and give us the power to overcome sin, even the drip, drip, drip temptations that we face every day. And if we do stumble, John reminds us that we still have help:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 ESV).
And lest we are too hard on ourselves, let’s remember that this drip, drip, drip device that Satan uses so effectively was even used on our Savior. When Satan tried to get Jesus to sin in the wilderness, Jesus fought every temptation successfully. And when it was over, Satan fled… but he’d be back.
“And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4:13 ESV).
“Until an opportune time.”
Drip, drip, drip.
So, my friends, we are in good company when we experience the day-after-day temptations that we have to constantly prepare ourselves to endure. And as we do, let me leave you with these three truths to hold on to.
1. These temptations have been shared by many others before us. Indeed, there is no temptation we face that is not common to man. And if this is true, then it means that others have resisted, as Joseph did, and so can we.
2. God will be there when we face them. Our Savior will not allow the drip, drip, drip that Satan uses to wear on us so much, that we will not have the ability to resist. In fact, God will actively stop Satan when he starts to put a burden upon us too heavy for us to bear.
3. God will always give us a way of escape to help us bear the temptations. With Joseph, it was through the door and into the street without his coat.
God gives us everything that we need to fight against all the temptations that Satan will use to try to get us to fall. But we have a backup plan from our God. If, in spite of all that He gives us to be successful, we still give into the temptation, then He is ready to forgive us of the sin. If we are willing to confess and repent, then He is willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of Satan and still make us victorious.
What a wonderful Savior we serve. If we continue to walk with Him, then He will continue to keep us safe from the evil one. Even when the evil one continues to drip, drip, drip upon us day after day.
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV).
I had a wonderful surprise in the mail Monday. Mark Roberts sent me a signed copy of his book, “Romans for Everyone” in his “Coffee and the Bible Series.” Yesterday, I picked it up and started to read it, intending to read about a chapter a day and get through it in a couple of weeks.
Well, Mark wrote the book in a way that made it hard to put down. Imagine that… a religious book written on Romans that made you want to read just one more chapter before putting it down. It was almost like reading a good novel that you wanted to keep reading, only this was not a story or a piece of fiction.
Well, I made it through a third of the book before calling it a night. It’s made me want to go back and read the entire book of Romans in one sitting. But here is what pulled me into the book. Mark set the context for the church that existed in Rome. The church started as most had. Jews were the first converts, followed by Gentiles. But there came a time when the emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, including Christian Jews. Among them were Aquila and Priscilla, who Paul met in Corinth. But under Nero, the Jews were later allowed to return to Rome.
But for 5 to 7 years, the church continued to exist and grow with only Gentiles. No Jews or their experiences as God’s people to influence them. Gentiles took up the responsibilities to fill the leadership roles and continue spreading the Gospel to other Gentiles in the city. By the time the Jews were able to return, they undoubtedly stepped into a congregation much different from the one they had left. This would naturally cause tension between the Jews who wanted to return things to the way they were before they left, and the Gentile who probably thought they were doing just fine.
So, Paul begins his letter to a divided church. And the Spirit leads him to begin his letter to them with a strong case for unity. Only this appeal to unity is probably something they least expected to hear. We are all sinners, Jews and Gentiles. We all have fallen short of the glory of God. No one can look at anything we have done and claim to be superior in the eyes of God. We are all worthy of condemnation in the eyes of God.
That is the basis of unity that Paul starts with as he begins his letter. But he also says that we all have been justified through the same faith in Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles. We were all given the same gift of grace that took both Jews and Gentiles, who were worthy of death in God’s eyes, and had their faith counted to them as righteousness because of the blood of Jesus.
This is the basis of unity that Paul begins his letter to this predominantly Gentile church that had a large Jewish membership infused back into it. As I said, I am a third of a way through Mark’s book, and I am eager to finish it. I want to thank Mark for his gift, and so far, I highly recommend it to anyone who might be intimidated by Romans.
And Mark, I took your advice and read your book with a simple cup of coffee- a few cups to be precise.
I love this thought. When the book named after him started, Job was a wealthy man. He was so rich that the text tells us that he was the greatest of all the people of the east:
“There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.” (Job 1:2-3 ESV).
Now, I’m not going to talk about his suffering, bankruptcy, the loss of all his children, or the challenge Satan put to God that brought about his hardships. But when the book was over, God doubled his blessings:
“And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters.” (Job 42:12-13 ESV).
Until recently, I always wondered why God didn’t double his number of children. In the end, he had just as many children as he had at the beginning. But then I realized that God did, indeed, double his children.
You see, when Job lost his sheep, his camels, his oxen, and his donkeys, they were gone forever. So when He rewarded Job, he doubled the blessings He had given him before his ordeal.
But the ten children who died in the tornado were never lost. Job knew where they were. And when Job died an old man, full of days, and when the last of his second set of children died, Job was reunited in the presence of God and the angels with all of his children; all 14 sons and 6 daughters.
We all need to ensure that we don’t get so caught up in the here and now that we neglect the age to come. Job reminds us that it may seem like we lose in this life, but in the next life, we will have treasures that pale what this world offers.
God has put man on the earth with everything we need to know Him, spiritual things, and eternity. I am afraid that sometimes we are tempted to buy into the things that man- “who God has given over to exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”- what these men teach.
Not only has God given us His special revelation so that we know His mind and what His will is for us, but he also has taught us about Him in His creation. For the heavens declare the glory of God. And as the Ecclesiastes writer says, He has also set eternity in our hearts.
We are spiritual creatures living in a physical world. We, by nature, seek after Him. He has made Himself easy to find if we seek with a pure heart. But once we reject the things of God- His nature, His attributes, His sovereignty over us and over all things- then we will follow a path away from Him and take His revealed will and conform it to us, rather than conforming us to His will.
God has created us to know Him, through what we can observe about Him and what we can read about Him. Many are no longer looking for Him. Let us be careful to the voices we are listening to, whether the voices of men who have been given over to exchange the truth of God for a lie, or to the testimony of His creation and His revealed word.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV).
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1b ESV).
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Hebrews 1:1-2 ESV).
Before I use my hands to do things I shouldn’t do, I need to think about the hands of Jesus that were pierced on the cross for me.
Before I use my feet to take me to places I know I shouldn’t go, I need to think about the nail that was driven through the feet of Jesus on the cross for me.
Before I use my mind to think about sinful things like impure sexual thoughts, hate, and envy, I need to think about the crown of thorns placed upon Jesus’ head as His enemies prepared to kill Him on the cross.
Before I pull things close to my bosom and choose what I hold dear to me, I need to think about the spear that was thrust into Jesus’ side by a Roman soldier when He finished the will of God upon the cross.
Before I do anything, I need to think about what Jesus did for me on the cross and let His sacrifice for me dictate what I do, where I go, what I think, and what I embrace.
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 ESV).
The best I can tell, it was roughly 2000 years from creation to Abraham.
It was roughly 2000 years from Abraham to Jesus.
It’s been roughly 2000 years since Jesus to us today.
Now, I know we cannot predict the timing of the second coming of Jesus.
It will be like a thief in the night.
But it will happen.
It’s been 2000 years since the promise of the return of Jesus.
It may happen today or it may be another 2000 years before our King returns.
The big question is not, “When will Jesus return?”
But
“Am I ready if He comes today?”
“And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11 ESV).