1. God’s Limiting
The first comfort, even in great trouble, is that we have not, after all, been tried in any very unusual way. ‘There hath no temptation [or trial] taken you but such as is common to man.’
You may think, my dear brethren and sisters, that you have been tried more than others but it is only your lack of knowledge of the trials of others which leads you to imagine that your own are unique. There are many others, besides yourself, in the furnace, and in quite as hot a part of it as that in which you are now placed.
Note what Paul says: ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.’ It is a human temptation, not a superhuman one, which has assailed you; that is to say, one which can be withstood by men, not one that must inevitably sweep them away.
Satan has tempted you, young man, but God has allowed you to be assailed in a way which is suitable as a test to you. The trials that have come upon you have been moderated to your capacity as a man. The Lord knows that you are but animated dust, so he has not permitted you to be treated as if you were made of steel or iron. He has himself dealt with you as an earthen vessel – a thing of clay in which he has caused life to dwell. He has not broken you with his rod of iron, as he would have done if he had smitten you with it.
‘But I am very sorely tempted,’ says one. Yes, perhaps you are; but the Lord has given you the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness, to let you see that you have not been tempted more than they were. ‘Ah!’ says another, ‘but I find myself placed in a very peculiar position, where I am greatly tried. I have to labour hard, and I have much difficulty in earning my daily bread, and I am beset with trials of many kinds.’ Well, dear friend, even though what you say is perfectly true, I am not certain that your position is any more likely to bring temptation than was that of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
‘Ah!’ you say, ‘but they did not have to work to earn their bread. The manna came to them every morning, and they had only to gather it, and to eat it. They were not engaged in commercial transactions; there were no markets in the desert – no Corn Exchange, no Stock Exchange, no Smithfield, no Billingsgate – no taking down the shutters in the morning, and putting them up again at night, and going a great part of the day without any customers. They were separated from all other nations, and were in a peculiarly advantageous position.’
Yet, dear friends, you need not wish to be placed in such a position, because, advantageous as it was in some respects, the Israelites there were evidently tempted to all sorts of sins, and fell into them very grievously. Having often read the story of their forty years’ sojourn in the wilderness, you know their sad history. With so favourable a position granted to them, under the Lord’s own special guardianship, and enriched with many choice mercies, we might have expected that they would have been free from temptation – or, at any rate, that they would not have fallen into its snare. Yet it was not so, for the devil can tempt in the wilderness quite as well as in the city, as we know from the experience of Christ himself.
The devil would tempt you even if your bread were given to you every morning, instead of your having to earn it; he would tempt you if you had no business to attend to, and never had to go into the world to meet with your fellow men. In fact, the story of the Israelites teaches me that it is best for you to work, and best for you to be poor, and best for you not to make money as fast as you would like, and best for you to be surrounded by cares of various kinds.
To what, my dear brethren and sisters, are you tempted? Are you tempted to lust after evil things? They lusted for the meat that was not suitable to the climate, nor good for their health; and they despised the manna, which was the very best food they could have. Do you ever get a craving for what you ought not to desire? Are you growing covetous? Do you long for ease? Do you wish for wealth? Do you love pleasure? Well, dear friends, this temptation has happened to others before; it happened to those people in the wilderness.
You are not the first to be tempted in that fashion; and if divine grace has helped others to overcome the covetous desire, and the lusting of the spirit, it can help you to do the same. But, mark also that if others have fallen through such temptations, and perished in the wilderness, you, too, apart from divine grace, will do the same. Therefore you have urgent need to cry to the Strong for strength, lest you also should fall even as they did.
Are you tempted to idolatry? It is a very common temptation to make an idol of a child, or of some particular pursuit in which you are engaged. Is there anything in the world that is so dear to you that the very thought of losing it makes you feel that you would rebel against God if he took it away from you? Remember what John was inspired to write: ‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.’
But if you are tempted to idolatry, do not forget that this is a thing that is common to men. In the wilderness, the Israelites were tempted to set up a golden calf, and to worship it, and even to practise other idolatrous rites which were too foul for me to describe. They were tempted to idolatry, so it is not an uncommon temptation; and if you also are tempted in a similar fashion, you must cry to God for grace to resist and to overcome the temptation.
Are you tried, sometimes, even with that terrible temptation which is mentioned in the verse where Paul says, ‘Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed’? Has strong passion sometimes suggested to you that which your soul abhors? Have you been, at times, forced to the very brink of that dread abyss of uncleanness, till you have had to cry, with the psalmist, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped’? Ah! this temptation also is not uncommon to men; and even those who live nearest to God, and are the most pure in heart, sometimes have to blush before the Lord that such evil suggestions should ever come into their minds.
And have you, too, been tempted ‘to tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents’? They wanted God to change his plans and purposes concerning them; and they found fault with him, and said that he had brought them into the wilderness to destroy them. Do you feel that your present troubles are too severe – that they should not have been sent to you – at least, not so many and so heavy as they are?
If so, and if you feel that you have a cause for complaint against the Most High, and that you want him to change his methods of dealing with you so as to suit your whims and fancies – alas! sad as such a state of mind is, it is only too ‘common to man’.
And, possibly, you may also have been tempted to murmur, ‘as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.’ I must withdraw that word ‘possibly’, for I am greatly afraid that many professing Christians do murmur, and that they do not always realise what a gross sin it is to murmur, seeing that it is an act of distinct rebellion against God.
But, should you at any time feel a murmuring spirit rising up within your heart, you must not say, ‘This is a trial which nobody else has ever experienced.’ Alas! it is a very human temptation, which is exceedingly ‘common to man’.
So, summing up all that I have been saying, and looking round upon this congregation, and upon all of you who know the Lord – although it would be impossible for me to recount all the different forms of temptation and trial through which you have gone, yet this is a matter of fact – ‘there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.’
We are all in the same boat, brothers and sisters, so far as temptation and trial are concerned. We are all warring the same warfare; your duty may call you to one part of the field, and mine may call me to another part, but the bullets whiz by me as well as by you. There is no nook so quiet but it has its own special dangers, and there is no Valley of Humiliation so lowly but it has its peculiar temptations.
Sins are everywhere; they sit down with you at your table, and they go with you to your bed. Snares are set for you in your home and in the street – in your business and in your recreations. Snares are not absent from your pains, and they are abundant in your pleasures.
Everywhere, and under all circumstances, must we expect to be tried; this experience is common to men. The remembrance that it is so ought to be somewhat of a comfort to us in every time of trial and temptation.
The first comfort, even in great trouble, is that we have not, after all, been tried in any very unusual way. ‘There hath no temptation [or trial] taken you but such as is common to man.’
You may think, my dear brethren and sisters, that you have been tried more than others but it is only your lack of knowledge of the trials of others which leads you to imagine that your own are unique. There are many others, besides yourself, in the furnace, and in quite as hot a part of it as that in which you are now placed.
Note what Paul says: ‘There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.’ It is a human temptation, not a superhuman one, which has assailed you; that is to say, one which can be withstood by men, not one that must inevitably sweep them away.
Satan has tempted you, young man, but God has allowed you to be assailed in a way which is suitable as a test to you. The trials that have come upon you have been moderated to your capacity as a man. The Lord knows that you are but animated dust, so he has not permitted you to be treated as if you were made of steel or iron. He has himself dealt with you as an earthen vessel – a thing of clay in which he has caused life to dwell. He has not broken you with his rod of iron, as he would have done if he had smitten you with it.
‘But I am very sorely tempted,’ says one. Yes, perhaps you are; but the Lord has given you the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness, to let you see that you have not been tempted more than they were. ‘Ah!’ says another, ‘but I find myself placed in a very peculiar position, where I am greatly tried. I have to labour hard, and I have much difficulty in earning my daily bread, and I am beset with trials of many kinds.’ Well, dear friend, even though what you say is perfectly true, I am not certain that your position is any more likely to bring temptation than was that of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
‘Ah!’ you say, ‘but they did not have to work to earn their bread. The manna came to them every morning, and they had only to gather it, and to eat it. They were not engaged in commercial transactions; there were no markets in the desert – no Corn Exchange, no Stock Exchange, no Smithfield, no Billingsgate – no taking down the shutters in the morning, and putting them up again at night, and going a great part of the day without any customers. They were separated from all other nations, and were in a peculiarly advantageous position.’
Yet, dear friends, you need not wish to be placed in such a position, because, advantageous as it was in some respects, the Israelites there were evidently tempted to all sorts of sins, and fell into them very grievously. Having often read the story of their forty years’ sojourn in the wilderness, you know their sad history. With so favourable a position granted to them, under the Lord’s own special guardianship, and enriched with many choice mercies, we might have expected that they would have been free from temptation – or, at any rate, that they would not have fallen into its snare. Yet it was not so, for the devil can tempt in the wilderness quite as well as in the city, as we know from the experience of Christ himself.
The devil would tempt you even if your bread were given to you every morning, instead of your having to earn it; he would tempt you if you had no business to attend to, and never had to go into the world to meet with your fellow men. In fact, the story of the Israelites teaches me that it is best for you to work, and best for you to be poor, and best for you not to make money as fast as you would like, and best for you to be surrounded by cares of various kinds.
If divine grace has helped others overcome the covetous desire, and the lusting of the spirit, it can help you do the same...I think I judge rightly that the people of God, the saved ones, do not fall into such gross sins as the Israelites did in the wilderness; so that the saints’ position, though it may appear worse than that of Israel, is really better.
To what, my dear brethren and sisters, are you tempted? Are you tempted to lust after evil things? They lusted for the meat that was not suitable to the climate, nor good for their health; and they despised the manna, which was the very best food they could have. Do you ever get a craving for what you ought not to desire? Are you growing covetous? Do you long for ease? Do you wish for wealth? Do you love pleasure? Well, dear friends, this temptation has happened to others before; it happened to those people in the wilderness.
You are not the first to be tempted in that fashion; and if divine grace has helped others to overcome the covetous desire, and the lusting of the spirit, it can help you to do the same. But, mark also that if others have fallen through such temptations, and perished in the wilderness, you, too, apart from divine grace, will do the same. Therefore you have urgent need to cry to the Strong for strength, lest you also should fall even as they did.
Are you tempted to idolatry? It is a very common temptation to make an idol of a child, or of some particular pursuit in which you are engaged. Is there anything in the world that is so dear to you that the very thought of losing it makes you feel that you would rebel against God if he took it away from you? Remember what John was inspired to write: ‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.’
But if you are tempted to idolatry, do not forget that this is a thing that is common to men. In the wilderness, the Israelites were tempted to set up a golden calf, and to worship it, and even to practise other idolatrous rites which were too foul for me to describe. They were tempted to idolatry, so it is not an uncommon temptation; and if you also are tempted in a similar fashion, you must cry to God for grace to resist and to overcome the temptation.
Are you tried, sometimes, even with that terrible temptation which is mentioned in the verse where Paul says, ‘Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed’? Has strong passion sometimes suggested to you that which your soul abhors? Have you been, at times, forced to the very brink of that dread abyss of uncleanness, till you have had to cry, with the psalmist, ‘My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped’? Ah! this temptation also is not uncommon to men; and even those who live nearest to God, and are the most pure in heart, sometimes have to blush before the Lord that such evil suggestions should ever come into their minds.
And have you, too, been tempted ‘to tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents’? They wanted God to change his plans and purposes concerning them; and they found fault with him, and said that he had brought them into the wilderness to destroy them. Do you feel that your present troubles are too severe – that they should not have been sent to you – at least, not so many and so heavy as they are?
If so, and if you feel that you have a cause for complaint against the Most High, and that you want him to change his methods of dealing with you so as to suit your whims and fancies – alas! sad as such a state of mind is, it is only too ‘common to man’.
And, possibly, you may also have been tempted to murmur, ‘as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.’ I must withdraw that word ‘possibly’, for I am greatly afraid that many professing Christians do murmur, and that they do not always realise what a gross sin it is to murmur, seeing that it is an act of distinct rebellion against God.
But, should you at any time feel a murmuring spirit rising up within your heart, you must not say, ‘This is a trial which nobody else has ever experienced.’ Alas! it is a very human temptation, which is exceedingly ‘common to man’.
So, summing up all that I have been saying, and looking round upon this congregation, and upon all of you who know the Lord – although it would be impossible for me to recount all the different forms of temptation and trial through which you have gone, yet this is a matter of fact – ‘there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.’
We are all in the same boat, brothers and sisters, so far as temptation and trial are concerned. We are all warring the same warfare; your duty may call you to one part of the field, and mine may call me to another part, but the bullets whiz by me as well as by you. There is no nook so quiet but it has its own special dangers, and there is no Valley of Humiliation so lowly but it has its peculiar temptations.
Sins are everywhere; they sit down with you at your table, and they go with you to your bed. Snares are set for you in your home and in the street – in your business and in your recreations. Snares are not absent from your pains, and they are abundant in your pleasures.
Everywhere, and under all circumstances, must we expect to be tried; this experience is common to men. The remembrance that it is so ought to be somewhat of a comfort to us in every time of trial and temptation.
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