The Lord’s Presence in Temptation

The Lord's presence is His Divine Providence. Since He is present everywhere, His Providence governs all things. As the Psalmist says, "O Lord .... Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off ... Wither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there." (Ps 139:1,2,7,8)

The Lord provides that we can choose heaven or a bed in hell. In heaven we love the Lord and others. In hell we love ourselves and the world. The freedom to choose who or what we will love makes us uniquely human. The Lord in His providence guards that freedom with all His Divinely Human power. Our freedom is the key to our humanity, essential to our ability to think and to love.

Of course the Lord wills that all of us should choose heaven. He knows that choosing heaven is the only way that he can share His love for us and give us lasting happiness and peace. But He also knows that there can be no love for others, no happiness, no lasting peace in our hearts, unless we freely choose it so that we feel it as our own.

If, for example, a man is lured by lust into a relationship, the heat will all too soon grow cold. But if he freely chooses a partner in a covenant with the Lord to try to make that one partner his forever, the warmth of that love can grow and be sustained to all eternity. But to feel that initial choice as his own, and to confirm it in his heart involves the man's shunning the lust for others. Such a relationship involves a lifetime of day by day cultivation. It involves seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, and day and night. (Gen 8:22)

The Lord does not will the cold and the night. But he does permit them. He permits those ups and downs, those highs and lows in order for us to see the high good states and choose them if we will. But what He permits is also under the laws of His Divine Providence. In the cold and in the night, He is there. Even if we choose to make our bed in hell, He is there. In appearance it is as we read in the book of Lamentations: "But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies." (Lam 3:33) The Word speaks according to the appearance, that because the Lord is omnipotent He causes the grief. It speaks that way because we must first acknowledge the power, the omnipotence of God, or He is not God. But His compassion and the multitude of His mercies must also be acknowledged or He is not a truly Human God of love. He is both omnipotent and all loving and merciful. This is easy to acknowledge when things are going well. This is the Lord Jesus Christ Who displays mercy and love, yet to Whom all power is given in heaven and on earth.

But there is affliction and grief. Our nation is being confronted with it. And each of us in our own way is as well. Each of us is confronted with sadness and doubt now, because of present events, but also we are confronted again and again in our personal lives. But the next verse in Lamentations leads to fuller understanding: "For He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." (Lam 3:33) Not willingly. He does not will these things. Every one of us can think of countless afflictions which seem to violate mercy and love. But our merciful and loving God does not will them. He permits them. And we ask over and over again, "Why?"

In the Word we are often called children. We as parents sometimes let our children make mistakes so that they will learn. At our work places, even in our sports we say that we can learn from our mistakes. When we learn from a mistake, we often see our limitations for the first time. We can therefore address them freely and so in time the lesson sticks. Why does the Lord permit affliction and grief? One basic reason is so that we will learn from it. Again Lamentations answers, "Wherefore doeth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord." (Lam 3:39-40)

Trials and temptations are permitted so that we will search and try our ways, so that we can see evil and its consequences, so that we can choose to let truth and good rule rather than evil and falsity, so that we can learn to let internal and spiritual concerns rule over external and worldly cares. Temptations even to despair are permitted so that we will learn to get out of the way and let the Lord come into our lives. Temptations are permitted mercifully not only that we may gain understanding, but so that we may learn to truly love our Lord and others.

When we reach the depths of despair, in anguish we may even cry out against life itself. In times of extreme trial externals loom so importantly that it seems as if the Lord has forsaken us, as if He does not care, as if He is not present. We fight with all our might, and still keep slipping downwards, ever downwards.

And then it dawns on us that we need the Lord. When we really see that we need Him, He's right there to help us, right there where He has been all along, but our eyes were closed. The Lord is indeed present during temptation, very closely present. From deep within He comes in and is conjoined with us, just as soon as we open the door. When we shun the evil confronting us, it is as if the Lord comes back to us. He makes His Coming in our hearts, in much the same way as when He actually came into an alien world. He confronts the evils there even as He confronted the scribes and Pharisees. But He gathers together all the states of good, like faithful disciples, forgives all the repentant, like the woman caught in adultery. Our lesson from Isaiah put it; "Though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger was turned away, and Thou comfortest me." (Is 12:1)

And as the trial passes we say in our hearts, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and m song; He also is become my salvation." (Is 12:2) In that day as the Lord comes into our lives, there is great consolation. And there is enlightenment, when we see the cleansing and healing power of truth. As Isaiah says, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Fountains of living water, truths springing up out of the Word to inspire, console, and to save. springing up to bring us ever closer to our God and our Lord, so close that His will becomes the very heart beat of our lives.

Then for a time we feel the joy and with grateful hearts acknowledge our absolute dependence on the Lord. Isaiah prophesies, "And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exhalted. Sing unto the Lord; for He hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth." (Is 12:4-5)

Does the Lord have all power? If He can help any and every person who is sinking into the depths, surely, He has infinite power. Is the Lord loving and merciful? If He is always there to help, waiting patiently deep within us until we open the door, then surely He loves us. If He never allows temptation and grief unless we can learn from it and good can come out of it, then surely He is most merciful.

But love grows by little and little. It grows stronger with each lust and each wicked thought that is cast out. Step by step, by little and little, our eternal character is 49)formed, cold and heat, summer and winter – day and night. We love, we serve, and we love serving, - all inspired by the Lord, yet we feel it as if it were our own.