BENEFITS DERIVED FROM TEMPTATION

     There is a blessing promised to him that "endureth temptation." It is God's design and your privilege to come out of every trial in a better state than when you went in. If this is not your experience, then you have suffered defeat just to that extent.

     While upon earth Jesus met and defeated the devil at every turn, and in like manner every one who is made partaker of His "divine nature" can do the same today. "Because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

     Rev. R. T. Williams says, "Jesus did not employ more divinity, more divine power, in His own fight than He will give any poor struggling soul in the fight with temptation. Heaven will be richer and sweeter to us for having been tried and tempted here."

     So long as faith turns everything to God, puts all in God, and takes all from God, Satan can not carry the city of the soul by either strategy or storm. Luke 22:31, 32; Rev. 12:11. Standing watchful and well-armed in the full panoply of heaven, verily "One shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight" (Deut. 32:30).

     Unswerving fidelity to God and His Word is more essential than to know the extent of the enemy's power, or the subtleness and magnitude of the temptation. A perfect Christian would rather wrap himself in the blood-stained banner of the cross and die on the field of battle than to betray the glorious name of Jesus, by which he is called.

     One benefit derived from temptation is an increase of humility. To look back and see the many different things which combined toward making a way of escape for you, while others more talented were drawn under, and to feel that but for the grace of God, you would have been overcome, this will naturally produce a humble effect upon the soul.

     Another benefit derived from temptation is an increase of watchfulness and prayer. Jesus said (first) "Watch and" (then) "pray lest ye enter into temptation." The more a soul becomes acquainted with the weakness of human nature and the power of the devil, the more it drives him to "renewed and redoubled watchfulness and prayer."

     Another grand benefit to be derived from temptation is an increase of wisdom and ability to help others.

     It is a blessed thing to be able to assist immortal beings as they struggle through a thousand difficulties, discouragements, and besetments along the path of duty to heaven and eternal life. Happy indeed is the man who can speak the word which will put strength into the faltering feet. There are such people, and we have invariably observed that they are individuals who have been tossed about in many a spiritual storm, and walked in furnaces of fiercest moral trial. "If the reader will turn to the biographies of the most devout men he will be struck with their description of sore temptation and dreadful personal attacks of Satan upon their souls, which would have swept them from their feet, but for their steadfast looking to Christ and calling on God. Concerning the preeminent usefulness of these men, history leaves not a shadow of doubt. To such Christian characters we would rather go for help in time of great spiritual trial than to any other class of God's people."

     "The battle-scarred veterans of the cross, the men and women who have had frequent and awful fights with Satan, are the best counselors. Many and various temptations have prepared them to be helpers indeed."

     "With every triumph on this line comes not only a sweet and delicious inward joy, but a realization of growing inward power. In this manner we go from strength to strength. In no way can we more quickly come into greater measures of spiritual vigor than by victory over temptation. It is the gymnasium where moral muscle is developed, or the campaign experience which makes the veteran."

     We read that David first killed a bear; after that a lion, and later a giant. So it is still; we begin with small victories, but grow mightier with every triumph and finally get to slaying giants easily.

     Under such a progressive life, the things which moved us a few months or years ago, can not do so now. Plains are traversed, rivers crossed, and mountains climbed we once thought impassable, insurmountable. A wall is leaped over, a troop is run through or overcome, and Satan's attempted bonds are snapped like thread.

     Suppose it were so, that the strength of every conquered athlete should go into the victor; then by and by who could stand before him? And suppose that the physical force of every animal slain would go into the body of the hunter and slayer, what a marvel of physical power the man would become and nothing could withstand his onset.

     Something like this takes place in the spiritual life. The force of the thing conquered becomes in a deep, wonderful sense our own; and with every new triumph we advance still farther with increasing strength until finally with bears, lions, and giants strewn, conquered, and dead behind us, and filled with a blessed sense of victory over every new foe, and all foes, we cry with John, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

     "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen" (Jude 24,25).