Wilderness Temptation

Vital Choices - Self or God 3/21/43

Scripture: Matthew 4: 1-11

Text: Matthew 4:10 “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

If we take seriously the opportunity, offered in the Lenten season, for spiritual direction and growth, we may want to follow Jesus through the eventful period during which he “steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Or we may let our minds follow him even earlier, as he prepared for his ministry.

After growing up in a devout home and learning the religious thinking and literature of his people, he was baptized in the river Jordan, by his cousin John, who is called “The Baptist.”

The New Testament relates that, when he came up from the water of the river, it was as if the heavens were opened and some heavenly voice said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” It would seem that this was a great milestone; that Jesus had “arrived,” so to speak. And so it is disconcerting to read, in the very next verse, that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted --- tested --- by the devil.

The baptism was hardly a culmination. Rather, it was the beginning for Jesus’ great service. And it was the Spirit that led him through all of this preparation.

There is nothing unusual about this fact that temptation comes on the heels of a great decision and experience. I think of a young man who had become rather well established in the business of which he was a part. Then came the promotion which meant a new job -- recognition of his possible worth in experience and ability -- and opportunity to handle a much bigger responsibility. He welcomed it, but at the same time he felt tested by it. And, for a while, his greater regularity at church and his eager search for spiritual depth were evidence of the effort he was putting forth to be ready for the new duty.

After self-dedication, there is often a time of moral testing. One night in May of 1738, John Wesley had a great spiritual awakening. He had secured a very good British education. He had become a priest, or minister, of the Anglican Church. He went to a colony in the new world for a time in an effort to be a missionary to the colonists and to the American Indians. But he went back to England thoroughly dissatisfied. Then, on that night in May, as he sat in meditation in a little Moravian chapel, his heart was strangely warmed, and he really became a new man. And yet he has said that on that very night he was “much buffeted with temptations;” and two days afterward was “in heaviness because of manifold temptations.”

Spiritual triumph cannot be won without effort and struggle. One makes a great decision and feels lifted by the experience. Then he finds himself tested, tempted with various trials.

Dwight L. Moody resolved to “see what God can do with a fully surrendered life.” It was a great decision. But he still had to make good on this resolve.

The Bible habitually uses picture language to set forth spiritual experience. We see this readily in such examples as this: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress --- my buckler, --- and my high tower;” [Psalm 18: 2]. Or this: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.” [Psalm 23: 2]. Or this: “If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” [Psalm 139: 9-10].

There is some of that in these temptations of Jesus --- particularly in the one in which he is taken in imagination in to the city of Jerusalem, placed on its highest point, and invited by the evil one to jump off in order to show everybody that he had some special immunity against harm.

Nevertheless, the first temptation appears to be quite earthy and natural. In his struggle to be prepared for his task, Jesus apparently forgot food for a time. And then he was hungry. The first of the testings mentioned is, then, the temptation to turn stones into bread, for his own needed nourishment.

The temptations in the wilderness do no follow any set pattern. One must struggle with them as they come, in the form in which they appear, during guarded moments or days, or in the unguarded times of our ease or self-satisfaction.

The choice that Jesus was fighting out, there in his wilderness, is one that each one of us has to fight out in our own wildernesses --- the choice between self or God.

[the original sermon starts below]

Every universe has a center around which it revolves. Around the sun moves not only our earth, and all that lies upon it, but hundreds of other heavenly bodies large and small. They all fit into the orbit in relation to the sun, which is in the center.

Our personal lives have a center. To an extent, we may choose the center around which we shall attempt to revolve. The story of Jesus in the wilderness is the story of his struggle with this problem. Around what center was his life henceforth to revolve? It was clear by now that he had been endowed with some rare personal gifts. How was he to use them, and for what accomplishments?

The gospel account says that he spent forty days and nights out in the solitude of the wilderness, fasting and wrestling with the problem. We read that Jesus was there “tempted of the devil.” In his physical weakness from hunger, there came to his mind the suggestion that he use his powers to secure bread from the stones. It was a deceptive urge (the devil is always a liar) and Jesus resisted the temptation in the recognition that here was no proper use for his gifts.

He was tempted to “show off” in order to have a following. People will always flock in droves to see that which seems impossible. Perhaps if he should jump from the top of the temple, landing unhurt at the bottom, people would flock around and acclaim him. Jesus knew that it was all a false suggestion to his mind and resisted it with something better, something sane.

Then came a temptation, perhaps not so easy to resist - the possibility of great power and personal glory for himself; the chance to rule and direct; to be famous, acclaimed by many. Who is not attracted by such a possibility?

But Jesus knew his powers were not for that purpose. He settled once and for all this problem in definite decision. He had had to choose a center of interest. Was he to be concerned with himself, for his lifetime; or was he to have a better center of reference? He chose a better center - the will of God - and kept self-interest where it could not control the issues of his life.

Now it is easy to become silly over a matter like this - to make broad statements about the wickedness of selfishness, statements which are untrue, or only partly true. The complete denial of self is not desirable or right. “Self is a thing of infinite possible worth - our own selves and the selves of others. It is the thing we are out to protect, preserve, develop.” [G. Ashton Oldham]. The old ascetic is as wrong on one hand as is the greedy and power-thirsty person on the other. Life has no meaning to us apart from ourselves, for we are the instruments by which we know our world.

Bishop Oldham puts it this way: “”When we open our eyes as babies, we see the world stretching all around us; we are in the middle of it all; all proportions and perspectives in what we see are determined by the relation - distance, height, and so forth - of the various visible objects to ourselvves. This will remain true of our bodily vision as long as we live. I am the center of the world I see; where the horizon is depends on where I stand.” A good deal of our mental and spiritual vision is the same. Some things hurt us and we call them “bad;” we hope they will not happen again. Some things please us; we call them good, and we hope they will happen again. Each of us takes his place at the center of his own world.

Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick points out that we have many “selves.” The better organized we become the more nearly we become one self. But most of us struggle all our life with more than one self. In the story of “The Moon and Sixpence” we see the life of a man who, until he is past forty, is a good father, a decent husband, a retiring and somewhat dull social being, and a fair bread-earner at business. Then another self emerges on top and we see him as utterly unfit for family life in his indifference and antipathy to wife and children, his cynical and brutal disregard for others, his antisocial behavior, his lack of interest in more than bare bread, and his passion for painting. Two selves are in the same man. First one is on top; then another; an finally, by the time he dies, perhaps a third.

The “saint” in a man constantly struggles with the “sinner” in the same man. As Dwight L. Moody remarked: “I’ve had more trouble with DL Moody than with any other man I know.” That great Christian organizer and peerless missionary, the apostle Paul, spoke of himself seriously as “chief” of sinners. [I Timothy 1: 15]. Many a strong man is a “civil war” within the being of his “selves.” His problem is how to get organized into a single effective and right self. At least he will try to get the right kind of self in control as Dr. Stephen Tyno apparently had done when he remarked to a fellow who had rebuked him for his rough manner, “Young man, I control more temper every 15 minutes than you will in your whole lifetime.”

I am reminded of a newspaper editor who had a hot temper. He had “fired” altogether too many good reporters and office personnel during his own uncontrolled fits of anger. At length he decided ruefully that this wouldn’t do. He would lose all of the good help he needed unless he could control himself. Thereupon he decided on his own form of self control. When he felt quick heat rising under his collar, he would stuff his handkerchief into his mouth. From that time on, the whole force knew that when the “chief” strode through the room to, or from, his editorial office with a corner of white hanging out of his mouth, they had better attend to their own typewriters and let him alone until he had had time to “cool off” again.

In writing “On Being a Real Person,” Dr. Fosdick observes that “self-regard” is not to be despised or suppressed but educated and used.

Avarice and vanity spring from wrong self-regard. One must indeed be empty, or merely cynical, if he be like the author and composer of an opera [Mascagni - “The Mask”] who dedicated his work in these words: “To myself, with distinguished esteem and unalterable satisfaction.”

There are two ways of handling our troublesome selves that are not desirable nor right. One is to become ascetic and try simply to deny ourselves. That is a purely negative answer, and a simple negative never solves any problem or seals any accomplishment. There are many occasions when we ought to say “no” to our own selfish desire, but, to have any value, that discipline must be coupled with a positive purpose.

It is true that Jesus said that if one would be his disciple, “let him deny himself.” But the emphasis is on the positive determination: “and take up his cross and follow me.” [Matthew 16: 24].

If ascetic self-denial is not desirable nor right, neither is the free expression of selfish whims and desires. I take issue with the theory that the free expression of my selfishness and that of every other person in the world will strike a balance which it is assumed will, for the most part, be good. The balance of such power is too delicate to be dependable; and when the conflicting powers of selfishness are thrown out of balance we have such desperately evil results as we have witnessed in the slaughter of international war.

There are two ways of handling our selves that are desirable and right. One is to get our selves into proper perspective.

To the friend who wrote, “It seems to me that to put one’s self in the second place is the whole significance of life,” Turgenev had a better answer when he replied, “It seems to me that to discover what to put before one’s self, in the first place, is the whole problem of life.”

After remarking that we are each the center of his own little world, Bishop Oldham hastens on to say, “But I am not the center of the world, or the standard of reference as between good and bad; I am not - and God is.”

And so the second desirable and right way of dealing with self is to recognize God as the center of our orbit. We have no business putting ourselves in God’s place. Our selves, and the little worlds that revolve around them, must take their appointed places in the great orbit of which God is the center.

That is the right perspective; the objective thing to do.

Those of you who were raised in childhood in the Presbyterian Church may have learned that magnificent line in the Westminster catechism which states that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” This does not minimize the importance of self, or of service to humanity. It just puts each in its right place. The true order is given us in the Master’s summary of the commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ..... and thy neighbor..” [Matthew 22: 37-39]. For this, our “selves” were created.

In the long run, human welfare is dependent on putting God first. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven.” [Matthew 6: 33]. These other things may be added unto you, but without the kingdom, they would prove useless. Things are in the only right perspective when they fit the phrase we use at the end of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever.” Amen.

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dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, March 21, 1943

W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, June 7, 1943

Planning conference, Racine, April 23, 1946

Wisconsin Rapids, March 6, 1960