Tried and Triumphant

Dr. James Boice: On the subject of temptation, there is some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that everyone is subject to temptation of one kind or another and anyone can fall. But the good news is, nobody has to.
Mark Daniels: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet program with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Anyone who thinks that, because of their age or their time spent walking with the Lord, they'll not be touched and won over by temptation, well, they're a fool, and a fool who stands contrary to Scripture. But there is good news. Stay with us as Dr. Boice examines the apostle Paul's writing on the plague that affects all of us and the remedy God has provided for man to gain victory over it.
Dr. James Boice: I don't know of any book of the New Testament that's more practical than First Corinthians. Any book that deals with sexual immorality, marriage and divorce, lawsuits, pride, what you eat, and what you don't eat has got to be a very practical book. But of all those practical matters that are handled in this letter, I suppose the most practical and far-reaching of all is this matter of temptation, which Paul discusses in Chapter 10. That's because it affects everybody. Food might be a problem for some people, but not for everyone. Some people are involved in sexual immorality, but not everyone. And there are marriage problems and all of those things, but temptation, which is the all-inclusive category, concerns absolutely every person in the human race. If you're not tempted, you're dead. And if you don't struggle against temptation, you're spiritually dead. Now Oscar Wilde was physically alive but spiritually dead. He made light of temptation. He said in *The Picture of Dorian Gray*, "The only way to escape temptation is to yield to it." And in *Lady Windermere's Fan*, he had a character say, "I can resist anything except temptation." That's the sort of thing an unbeliever can say glibly. But anyone who is a Christian, which is to say, anybody who is indwelt by the holy life of the Lord Jesus Christ, knows what it is to struggle against the temptations that come to every member of the human race. If you're not struggling against the temptations to sin that you find all about you in your culture, you are not born again. You can just lie down in sin, as it were. You are not possessed of the life of Christ. And yet if you are, you know that that in itself does not free you from the temptations, but you have to struggle against them. And how you achieve the victory is a very important matter. Now this 10th chapter of First Corinthians, in a certain sense, has within it all of the bad news about temptation and at the same time all of the good news. Here's the bad news: anybody can fall. That means you, whoever you are. Anybody can fall. That's the bad news. And then the good news is this: nobody has to. Now that's what Paul is saying in this chapter. Now when he begins to talk about anybody being able to fall, he brings forward the Israelites as an example. Paul writes with a great knowledge of the Old Testament, with the stories of the Old Testament always in his mind. And as he thinks back, as he must have as he composed this chapter over the Old Testament history, it occurred to him that there is no greater example anywhere in any of the sacred literature than the things that happened to the people of Israel during the years of their desert wandering. And the reason that's such a good example is that there is a sense in which they were all at least visibly members of the people of God. He talks about that in very interesting language. This is one of the most difficult passages of the letter. And anybody who has read this and tried to wrestle through the imagery he's using knows how difficult it is to sort it out. He says, and I want to read this, "I don't want you to be ignorant of this fact, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea." The emphasis, you see, is upon all of them. "They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered over the desert." Now in general terms, you understand what he's saying. He's saying all these people went out of Egypt, all of the Israelites at the Exodus. And they all accompanied Moses during those years of the wandering. And so far as you could tell, looking at that externally, all of those people were in the company of God. They all had a certain kind of spiritual baptism, they all ate a certain kind of spiritual food, and yet many of them perished in the way he's going to describe in the next paragraph. And the point, you see, at least this much we understand, is if that was true of them, then it is quite possible for somebody today to be within the visible church of Jesus Christ, to participate in the sacraments, to do all the right things and nevertheless fall as they did. Now it's worth talking about some of the imagery he uses because it really is interesting, very helpful. This matter of baptism in Verse 2 has confused a lot of people. They were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and it's been handled in very strange ways by commentators. Those who are Baptists say, "Well, you see, they were all baptized in the sea. That's talking about immersion." They overlook the fact that it was the Egyptians who were immersed and not the Israelites. I suppose that's foolish, but at this particular point, there have been those who do not believe in baptism by that particular mean, some Presbyterian commentators among them, that said, "No, no, you haven't read it closely enough. It says they were all baptized in the cloud and in the sea. Now how in the world are you baptized with the cloud? Obviously when it sprinkles on you. So it's not talking about immersion." Well, I think even if we don't understand what this means, it should be evident that that's not what it means. I think the understanding of it is in the nature of this word baptism. It's true that in the Greek language, the word bapto means to immerse. And from that came the word baptizo, which is where we get our word baptize. But as is often the case in the Greek language, when you have a simple word and then you have a word that's related to it but slightly more complex, usually the more complex word involves a slight change of emphasis, or it involves an overtone that's not present in the simpler word. Bapto, immerse. Baptizo, well that's something else. And what I have suggested at greater length in other places is that baptizo has to do with what happens when you immerse something, but not strictly through immersion. What happens when you immerse a piece of white cloth in dye? Well you change the nature of it. You change the color. It becomes identified with the color of the dye by the immersion. And so baptizo is used in that particular way. This is what I think's involved with this word baptizo from which we get our word baptize in the English language. It involves the question of identity and a change that comes about because of that identity. Now it may be, and Baptists would certainly argue this, that a proper and very symbolic way of doing a baptism is by immersion, and I think that does teach certain important things. And others would argue, "Well no, there are other ways of doing it," and I would defend sprinkling on the basis of the Old Testament forms. But in a certain sense, those are secondary matters. Because what happens in our baptism is not that we're sprinkled or immersed, but rather that we are identified with Jesus Christ by our testimony, or in the case of infants, by the testimony of our parents who commit them into the hands of the Lord. Now this is what Paul is talking about here. He's saying, "Look, when they passed through the sea and were defended and overshadowed by the cloud, they were identified with Moses in the Exodus." From that time on, you see, they were separated unto him. There was no going back. They were part of the new people. And in the same way when he talks about spiritual food and spiritual drink, he's alluding in certain overtones to the sacraments within the Christian church. But he's saying, you see, the point is in the wilderness they all had the same experience and that included in a symbolic way participation in the communion by the spiritual food that God provided. And yet you see, although every one of them had that experience, some nevertheless fell and fell irretrievably. This would just be a case of Paul saying as it says elsewhere in the New Testament and as he says here in his own language a little bit later on, "Let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." You are not one of the Lord's simply because you've been baptized. You are not one of God's people simply because you participate in the communion service. You are the Lord's if you are born again. And whether you are born again shows up in the way you handle the temptations that come into your life. So this is what he's talking about. Now in the next paragraph, he begins to give illustrations of that. And as he does this, he certainly has examples from those early books of the Old Testament in mind. He gives four examples. He says in Verse 7, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were." He says in Verse 8, "We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did." In Verse 9, "And we should not test the Lord as some of them did." And in Verse 10, "Do not grumble as some of them did." In each case he's thinking of a particular failing of the people during those years of their wandering. Now the idolatry is probably a reference to the 32nd chapter of Exodus. That's the story that tells how when Moses was up on the mountain receiving the law—and the law we remember began with the Decalogue, which said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any image of anything in heaven above or in the earth beneath or the waters under the earth, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy upon thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments"—the law began that way. And yet at the very time Moses was up on the mountain receiving the law, the people were down in the valley breaking that very commandment. They were making the golden calf and falling down and worshipping it. And the apostle Paul says, "Remember that even though they were identified with Moses in the Exodus, even though they were numbered visibly among the people of God, they committed idolatry and were judged for it as the story tells us happened there in the book of Exodus." He talks about sexual immorality. This is something he's talked about earlier in the letter. It's something no doubt that also grows out of that story of the worship of the golden calf because the worship of false gods always leads to a false or debased morality. And this is what happened as the people worshipped the golden calf. Their worship eventually turned into what we would call an orgy. And all kinds of sexual immorality was practiced. He says they did that and they were judged for it. He talks about testing the Lord. Now we have a reference to what this is because of the example he gives of the judgment. He says, "We should not test the Lord as some of them did and were killed by snakes." There's only one place in the Old Testament where snakes come into the picture and that's in the book of Numbers. And you turn back to that, you find that what they were doing was complaining. They were saying to Moses—not directly to God, but to Moses who was his spokesman in the situation—"Why did you bring us out into this desert to die here? We're out here where there's no water. We're out here where there's no food. And besides this food that we've been given," they were referring to the manna, "is a detestable thing. We just can't stand it." That's the way they put it. And it says that God pronounced a judgment on them because of that. Isn't that interesting? They had been led out of Egypt into one of the most inhospitable environments on earth and God had done absolutely everything to protect them and guide them. He had given them that great cloud which spread out over the camp to give them shade from the heat of the sun in the daytime, and it turned into a pillar of fire at night which both guided them and illuminated the camp and provided warmth. He provided water from the rock which is described here in this passage. He sent down manna from the sky for them to eat and they're complaining because God wasn't doing it quite the way they wanted. And we say, "Oh, how bad they were," until we think that we do the same thing. And God provides for us in many wonderful ways and we say, "Oh God, why have you done that? Why have you brought me into this mess where I'm not happy?" And that, according to the interpretation of the apostle Paul, is to tempt him. It comes very close to what is also described next in Verse 10: "Do not grumble as some of them did." Some of the translations say murmur. Murmur is one of those words that's based upon the sound. When you murmur it sounds like murmuring. In literature that's called onomatopoeia, it's a word that sounds like the thing. And when people murmur, that's what it's like. They don't like it and so they go "mumble, mumble, mumble." That's murmuring. It's what children do when you say it's time to go to bed. They say, "Mumble, mumble, mumble." Paul says look, some of them were judged for that as well. You see, it wasn't enough for them to be in the company of the people of God. It wasn't enough for them to have had what was their equivalent of baptism, identification with Moses through the Exodus. It wasn't enough for them to participate in what Paul alludes to here as spiritual food and spiritual drink. What was necessary is that they stand against temptation. And yet they didn't all do it, many of them fell, and so this first part of the story, the bad news part, concludes with that warning: anyone, anyone, anyone, and that includes you and me, can fall. Anybody who thinks, "Well, I'm strong in the Lord, I've lived a long time, I'm a Christian who's been around and I've seen a lot of things and therefore this temptation never touched me," anyone who thinks that way is a fool and furthermore is standing contrary to Scripture. Wisdom in this matter begins with the fact of recognizing that in ourselves, you and I can do absolutely anything at all. And furthermore, if the temptations had come to us that have come to some other individual that we see and say, "Well, they've made a great mess of their lives," it's quite possible that you and I would have fallen far sooner than they did. And so as I say, a part of wisdom comes in recognizing that great truth. And yet there's this second truth as well and it's what's in this magnificent Verse 13. I suppose after a new Christian has memorized John 3:16 or perhaps Romans 3:23 or Romans 6:23, a new Christian should memorize this verse: "There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation also provide a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." That's a verse you should memorize and get in your mind early in the Christian life. Because you see what that verse says, it says temptation is common. Just because you're a Christian you're not going to escape temptation. Temptation comes to everybody, but that verse goes on to say God provides the way of escape for Christians when the temptation comes. And if I can translate it into the language that you and I can all understand, it's this: if you fall into sin, it is not God's fault. You say, "I just couldn't help it." That's a lie of the devil. You could, because God gave you the way of escape. It says it here. Temptation is common, temptation is going to come, but in the life of a Christian, when temptation comes, God gives you the way to escape. The reason why so many of us fall so often is that we're not looking for that way, we're looking at the temptation. Here's the devil saying, "There it is, wouldn't you like to do that?" and over here is the open door to escape and we say, "God, close the door, I think I'd be a little more interested in the temptation." That's why we fall. And so if we do, we have to recognize that God has made the way of escape and it's not God's fault when we sin. Now it talks about a way of escape. And at that point, it's really worth thinking about the ways. Because as you study the Scripture and study what it has to say about temptation, one thing the Scripture says is that temptation comes to us from different sources. Some temptation is fleshly, temptation to fleshly sins. We think of sexual sin as part of that, rightly so, but there are other fleshly sins as well. Overeating is a fleshly sin. People who are inclined to that. Other things fit that category. Laziness, staying in bed instead of getting up in the morning, that's a fleshly sin. There's that category of sin that can be very serious. There's sins that come to us from the world as the world tries to force us into its mold. This is to think like the world, to have the world's priorities, to make choices the way the world does, to try to get to the top of your profession at the expense of other people, to put on airs at a party, to cut other people down because you think it makes you look better. That's worldliness. And then there are temptations that come to us directly from the devil. And those are dangerous as well. It's interesting as you study what the Bible has to say about those different sources of temptation that we are given different instructions in resisting them. In other words, there is to be a different strategy in each category. Take this matter of fleshly sins first of all. What does the Bible say that we're to do in that case? Well, Paul was writing to Timothy in his first book to that young man and he was talking about sexual immorality and he gave him advice that any young man or any young woman should heed in similar situations and it's very simple. He said, "Flee sexual immorality." That means run away. If you find yourself in a situation where you're tempted to a fleshly sin, don't stand around and debate it. Get out of that situation. Why? Because in other situations, you always have your reason on your side. You know, if you're tempted to cheat on your income tax, you can say, "Well yes, I might be able to get away with not paying a certain amount of tax, but you know, I read the other day that they audit one out of 10 returns or something like that, and I suppose there's a one out of 10 chance that they're going to audit me and the computers are pretty accurate, they might find me out. And you know, I might be able to get away with a little bit but it really doesn't make sense to risk my reputation and that kind of aggravation over a little bit of money." So I won't do it. Your reason is an ally and comes to offset the thing. But you know, if you're tempted to sexual sin, to give just one example of a fleshly sin, you know that your reason doesn't have a whole lot to do with it. I doubt very much if a couple ever got into sexual involvement outside of marriage after sitting down and reasoning it all out. It just doesn't work that way. And so what Paul says is when you're in that situation, run away from it. And get that in your mind that that's what you're going to do because that's the way that particular sin is to be resisted. Same thing goes with overeating. The only way to resist overeating is to stop eating, get up from the table, go away. If you're indulging in too much television, the only thing to do is get up, turn off the television. See, those are all fleshly sins and that's very practical advice. What do you do with sins that come from the world? Now that's quite a different thing. That's what Paul talks about in the 12th chapter of Romans where he says, "Don't let the world force you into its mold, but what? Be transformed from within by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." What he's saying there is you have to live close to God in the Scriptures and allow God as you grow in the Christian life to enable you increasingly to think as God thinks rather than as the world thinks. And that takes time, you see, that's a matter of Christian maturity. That's why in a certain sense because none of us are completely mature, we are all worldly and involved in worldly sins. So what we need to do, because we can't run away from that, would mean running away from ourselves. What we need to do is draw near to God and allow the Holy Spirit to do that kind of transformation which makes us different people as the new life of Christ comes to fruition within us. And then finally there's those sins that come to us from the devil. James talks about that in James in the fourth chapter, Verse 7 has instructions as to what we're to do. He says, "Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you." You see, here's the case not of fleeing the sin because if it comes to you from the devil, the devil isn't going to flee by himself, he's stronger than you are. But what James says is first of all submit yourself to God and then resist the devil and then the devil will flee from you. If you want an example of that, you find it in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have that story of the Lord's temptation told in Matthew 4 and also in the fourth chapter of Luke. We're told how the devil came to the Lord on that occasion. The Lord had certainly submitted himself to God the Father, how? By prayer, by meditation over the 40 days in which he was in the wilderness fasting. And then when the devil came, having submitted himself to God the Father in that way, he resisted him. And the way he resisted him was by the Scriptures. See, the Scriptures are the Christian's offensive weapon. It's the sword of the Spirit. And this is what our Lord used three times in that temptation when Satan came to him. He replied to the devil by quoting from the Old Testament, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." It was from Deuteronomy. And he said in response to the second temptation, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." And in response to the third, again quoting from Deuteronomy, he said, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." And it was at the end of that kind of submission and resistance that the devil fled. You and I are going to resist the devil. It's going to be by our submission to God and by our knowledge of Scripture and by our faithful use of it. Now in the latter portion of this section of the chapter that we're looking at, Verse 14 through Verse 22, Paul gives one specific example of what needs to be done. And this ties these chapters together because he's back here again in a certain sense talking about this matter of food that's been offered to idols. He already talked about it in the eighth chapter where he said an idol is nothing, and whether you eat or don't eat doesn't have anything intrinsic to do with your spirituality. Therefore it's a matter of indifference whether you eat or not. Though for the sake of somebody who's weaker in the faith, you perhaps should abstain in order that they might grow strong. He intensified that to the end of chapter 9 saying, "Yes, and what that really involves is self-discipline and everyone should be self-disciplined." Now he comes back to it at the end here, but he takes it a step further because what he's saying is this: he's saying, "I've said that in the case of food that's been sacrificed to idols, if that has been sacrificed and then sold in the marketplace and you go to the marketplace and buy it, you're buying it in a store like everything else, it really doesn't matter whether you eat it or not." Or if you have a pagan friend who buys it and then serves it in a home and you're there to eat, you don't have to be overly scrupulous, you don't have to say, "Where'd you get it? Where was it sold? Was it ever offered to an idol?" Just eat it, it's alright, he says. But you see, here's a case where somebody would say, "Well, if it's a matter of indifference then it doesn't really make any difference at all what I do where idols are concerned." And perhaps if the neighbor says to me, "Yes, but we're having a great big party to Minerva tonight up in the temple and I'd like you to come along and we're going to have a feast and food's going to be offered there to the god and then we're going all sit down and eat it," "Ah," says Paul, "now you see that's something quite different." Because when you eat, it's a matter of fellowship and participation. And you have to remember that while Minerva is nothing and while Zeus is nothing and all of the other pagan gods, there are nevertheless demons in the world and the demons stand behind these pagan religions. And to participate in that way really means participating with the demons in this kind of debased demon worship. And so Paul says you mustn't do that. I think that relates to this matter of temptation because what he is really getting at with his final illustration is this: are you going to go God's way and determine to do everything you can to be as righteous as you can and follow Jesus Christ, or are you going to quibble over little details and say how close can I get to sin without actually transgressing the law? I heard a story years ago about a little girl who kept falling out of bed. And somebody said to her, "Why do you keep falling out of bed?" She said, "I suppose it's because I always stay too close to the place where I got in." A lot of Christians do exactly that. Don't stay as close as you can to the edge. As long as you're on the edge, it might not be sin, but that's not where you should be. You should be going on with Jesus Christ as fast as you can and as strongly as you can. And that's the evidence, of course, of the life of Jesus Christ within. Let us pray. Our Father, bless these principles to our hearts and minds. Where it's a matter of knowing what we should do, impress it upon our minds. Where it's a matter of wanting to do what's right, impress it upon our hearts. And grant that by Your grace, we might be different men and women than we would be otherwise because You've been with us and because we have the life of Jesus Christ within. We pray in His name. Amen.
Mark Daniels: You're listening to The Bible Study Hour featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice. Jesus chose to use the same tools we have available to us in His encounter with Satan, and therein lies the key to victory in our own temptations. Learn how to put those same keys into practice in your own bouts with the enemy in our CD offer, also by Dr. Boice, entitled *How to Defeat Temptation*. This free CD is our gift to you. To receive it, call 1-800-488-1888 and we'll be pleased to send you a copy of *How to Defeat Temptation*. That number again is 1-800-488-1888. Furthering God's work through prayer and support is one of the many ways of helping to keep us focused on the things of God and to keep our mind off the temptations that surround us in the world. Would you commit to pray for The Bible Study Hour and consider making a generous donation online at thebiblestudyhour.org? You might prefer to call us at 1-800-488-1888. And our mailing address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Thank you for your support. We are indeed grateful that you listen to The Bible Study Hour. When you reach out to us, please mention the call letters or dial position of the radio station you're hearing or if you listen online, take note of the website address. Knowing how you connect with The Bible Study Hour will help us serve you better. I'm Mark Daniels. When we talk about freedom, most people have in mind the ability to do anything they want and if there are any restrictions in any area, then they're not really free. God's view of freedom, on the other hand, is something quite different. Join Dr. James Boice as he explains the biblical concept that true freedom is the fulfilling of the destiny to which God has called us. That's next time on The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.