Too Great A Temptation?

2 – The Life, Teachings, Suffering and Victory of Jesus Christ

Exodus 32:1-10 Psalm 19 Luke 4:1-13

January 20, 2019 Second Sunday After Epiphany Dr. Edwin Gray Hurley

The bad news is; you will never get beyond temptations in this life! The good news is; you can conquer temptations day by day with God’s help! Paul writes,

“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. There is no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to everyone. But God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond your strength; but will with the temptation also provide a way out, that you may be able to endure it.”i

Back in the 1990’s a rising star preacher in the Southern Baptist world was Joel Gregory. He became of a large Baptist Church in Ft. Worth, Texas. He was broadcast on TV at 7:00 Sunday nights, and as I was just a few years into the ministry, trying to learn all I could about preaching I began to tune in Sunday nights and listen. Joel Gregory had something to say. He was tremendous, deep, thoughtful, and theological. Larry Michael affirmed to me that Gregory truly was getting lots of national attention among in those days. So much so that the First Baptist Church of Dallas, the largest Baptist Church in the nation, invited him to become Co-Pastor there with the legendary Dr. W.A. Criswell – sometimes called “the Baptist Pope.”

First Baptist was the home church of . W.A. Criswell had been Pastor there for almost 50 years and at age 78 was supposedly being pressured into retirement. So they sweet-talked Joel Gregory into coming, telling him that Dr. Criswell would be retiring in six months or so, and the Co-Pastor approach was simply a means of making a smooth transition for this multi-million dollar congregation of over 10,000 members.

The transition never came. It turned out Dr. Criswell had no intentions of retiring, and was intent on serving there for 50 years, which he did. I remember watching those Sunday night services there on TV too, with Gregory now preaching at First Baptist. He would step into the historic pulpit where Woodrow Wilson once spoke, and sitting in a large pulpit chair just to the right of the pulpit as Gregory preached would be W. A. Criswell wearing his trademark white three piece suit, week after week.

Gregory tried to come to an understanding, but none came, and he really was never acknowledged as the Church’s Pastor. Dr. Criswell never even moved out of his palatial office suite. Finally, two years into this arrangement at a Wed. night service, as he stepped up to preach, instead Grrgory read a brief resignation letter, saying none of what the Church had promised him had been followed through on. When he finished he stepped down from the

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pulpit, and walked out the door, followed by a private duty policeman he hired to be sure he got out alive, and drove off in his car, never to return again.

Joel Gregory wrote a book about his experience entitled Too Great A Temptation, where he acknowledged his own mixed motives of pride, and desire for fame, being more a part of his decision than any sense of genuine calling to pastor these people at First Baptist, Dallas. He wrote,

“It is a strange emotion to feel. I had just divested myself of a religious empire. There are 44,000 Southern Baptist churches; and twice that many preachers. Many of them would have paid any price, undergone any struggle, and faced any contempt to keep what I had just surrendered. Most of them would think I had lost my mind. But as I threaded my way through the traffic (that night) I felt an intermingled sense of relief and personal power.”

My childhood neighbor Lynn Lassiter Shoop, a Presbyterian, who moved to Dallas sent me a copy of that book a few years ago. She said she found it at a yard sale for $2.00. She didn’t say exactly why she sent it to me! Maybe, just to be a warning lest I ever get the big head! It’s good to remember, as Rick Warren, another big time Baptist preacher and author, who also came out of Dallas’ First Baptist Church, wrote in his opening line of his best seller, The Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not all about you!”

I Temptations come in all shapes and sizes and we are all susceptible, to think life is all about us. As Jesus begins his public ministry after that dramatic encounter with his Father after his baptism at the Jordan River, when the heavens had opened, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and a voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”ii He is then led by this same Spirit out into the Judean wilderness where he is tempted by the devil.

For 40 days he ate and drank nothing and faced the Evil One who tempts him in areas of food: provide bread to hungry people, political power: be in charge of the whole suffering world, and spirituality: do a dramatic miracle that will convince everyone.

All these interestingly are temptations upward, not temptations downward. All these are good things, given the right context. But all these things call for Jesus to acknowledge the devil, not the Lord God,” as his orienting point. You can do this seemingly good thing if you will just turn your focus, your worship, your attention to me. Worship me, and it can all be yours.

Jesus resists each temptation, drawing deeply upon Scripture, “It is written.” “It is written.” “It is said.” Scripture is deeply imbedded within Jesus. He knew it. He lived out of it. And when the devil himself quotes Scripture, yes the devil can quote Scripture; Jesus draws back upon the God who precedes Scripture, the God who guides us in the interpretation of all Scripture. “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”iii As Shakespeare once put it, “There is no error so gross but that some sober brow will bless it with a proper text.”

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II This 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness parallels other 40 day and 40 year periods in the Hebrew Bible, marking times of transition. Moses spends 40 days up on the mountain with God receiving the Ten Commandments. The Israelites wander in the wilderness 40 years. Like these before him Jesus too has his time of testing. These others all fail at one point or another: the Israelites making a golden calf idol and worshiping it in ecstatic revelry while Moses had been away; Moses breaking out in anger at them when he comes down. Way before that in the Garden of Eden, the first Man and the first Woman each failed the test when God set generous boundaries they are not to go past, and which they do by eating of the tree in the middle of the garden, and so becoming not creatures “under God” but creatures “like God”. Which does not mean creatures created in God’s image but creatures created, if they could be, in their own image. It has been said, in the beginning God created man and woman in his own image and ever since man and woman have been seeking to return the favor!

Psalm 106:6 nails us all, “Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.” All but this one, Jesus of Nazareth. As the book of Hebrews says, He was “One who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”iv “Because He himself was tested by what He suffered, He is able to help those who are being tested.”v

We would wish, if we were writing the script, that Jesus did not have to go through this time of temptation. Certainly we would wish that we did not have to go through our times of temptation, much less yield to them. But fact is we do, and we can therefore be very grateful that He too has faced them and is our strength when we face our own.

I mean, but for what Scripture tells us Jesus did in withstanding, would we not be more susceptible ourselves to a little compromise here, a little yielding there. In our day and time to identify ourselves with Jesus over the prevailing cultural view, the golden calves that are being worshipped wherever we turn, is truly a radical decision.

It is not easy, but it is so important that we who are Christ Followers, while living in the world, and loving the world, do not cave in to the world, do not become slaves of the world, of these lesser gods. Instead - as Jesus in his time of testing, say, and live, like Him.

“One does not live by bread alone.” Food, clothing, shelter, stuff is not enough. We are more than flesh and blood beings.

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” As we do that we recognize where real glory and authority and power reside.

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Jesus’ final word to the devil. God’s final words to us!

III What can we take from this profound face-to-face encounter between Good and Evil, Jesus and the devil, that will help us in practical ways? Here are a few things:

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First recognize that we are in a lifelong battle. Evil is real, but so is Good. The devil is real and not simply a silly character in a red suit, but so is God. And the two are not equal! We are never not susceptible of falling to temptation. In a spiritual sense we are always in battle mode. We have lived through enough horrors in the wars of the 20th Century to be assured, if ever we dreamed it otherwise that evil is real. While we might wish life were all one Woodstock La La Land or Magical Mystery Tour, reality sets in, and evil raises its ugly head. The Air Force has a slogan worth remembering, “Ready Alert.” Always be ready, alert and prepared for temptations to come, and stop them at the door.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his Nazi prison cell, during the Second World War to his infant nephew on the occasion of his baptism,

“We have constantly exaggerated the importance of reason and justice in the course of history. You who are growing up in a world war which 90 percent of mankind did not want, but from which they have to risk losing their goods and their lives, are learning from childhood that the world is controlled by forces against which reason can do nothing; and so you will be able to cope with those more successfully… You know that you have enemies and friends, and you know what they can mean in your life.”vi

First remember we are in a lifelong battle with temptation.

Second, remember the importance of desert times. Jesus needed them and so do we. Times away from life’s hustle and bustle, time to reflect, and amid reflecting weigh whether you are heading in the right direction that God is calling you. We tend to focus only on Jesus’ confrontation with the devil during his desert time, but also He had time alone with God, time of immense exaltation, seeking to make some sense of what had just happened at the Jordan River, and the destiny He is called to fulfill. Moses needed his time on the Mountain. Paul needed his three years of lonely preparation after his conversion and Jesus needed His 40 days in the desert. Remember to find those times in a desert or on a mountain or near a lake or beachfront, not only to confront those temptations that come at you, but to confront and listen for God.

Third, remember to Pray, in the desert and in the middle of life’s hectic activities. Prayer is the key. Most essential. Through prayer you bring your worries, fears, hopes, dreams to God, but also you listen for God, for that still small voice that will direct you.

Fourth, remember Scripture. Take time to immerse yourself in this Book, this Book of Books that has stood the test of time. Listen for what God is saying not only to Jesus and Moses and the heroes of old but to you through them. That takes time. That takes focus. That takes deciding intentionally, as one classic prayer says to, “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest Holy Scripture, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,”vii

Fifth, remember your Friends - the importance of friendships, relationships. Those who know, love and care about you, your personal and family friends, and also your spiritual friends who can help you with a temptation at the outset before it worms its way in deep. In Alcoholics

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Anonymous those who participate are given a sponsor, a mentor and friend who will walk with them, someone they can call at 3:00 in the morning when a temptation rises to a danger point. We need that in the Church, to be there for one another. This is not a solo performance organization. We are a Body, who need and depend on one another.

Sixth, remember to be thankful for your temptations. Now this may sound odd, but fact is, you learn more from adversity than from ease. You learn and are stronger, Coach Saban would agree, from struggles and setbacks. While you should never seek out temptation, never put yourself in a place where you know you will be more vulnerable to temptation, and always pray to be delivered from temptation, recognize its value when it comes. What have you learned from it that you would not have otherwise?

A monk in the 1400’s Thomas A Kempis wrote in the most widely read book other than the Bible ever read across history, Imitation of Christ,

“As long as we live in this world we cannot avoid trial and temptation… Nevertheless temptations are often very profitable to us, even though they are troublesome and grievous, for in them a man is humbled, purified, and taught”viii

Temptations will come. Falling to them has painful consequences. Joel Gregory’s life was never the same again. After he left Frist Baptist, he got a job selling burial plots! Holding fast through them makes us stronger. As Jesus reminded Simon Peter, knowing that he would fall into temptation and deny Jesus that last night, “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Yes, temptations will come, but there is hope. We have a Lord. We have a Savior. We have A Scripture. We have a Prayer.

Amen.

Prayer,

Lead us not, O God into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Keep us centered not on ourselves, not on that which would destroy, but on You who love us, save us, and deliver us. For truly, the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory belong to you alone, forever. Amen.

i 1 Cor. 10:12-13 ii Lk. 3:21-22 iii Lk. 4:12 iv Heb. 4:14

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v Heb. 2:18 vi Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 298 vii Book of Common Worship, p.91 viii Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, p.20

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