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LOOK AT ME, MA! #5

MISSING YOUR EXIT ON PURPOSE

There's an old line where a dad is filling out a job application for his son. And he puts down on the form: "Freddie is not afraid of hard work." There's a P.S. he doesn't add, but he thinks it to himself: "‘Course, he's never been CLOSE enough to hard work to ever have to BE afraid of it."

And many of us trying to live the Christian faith almost have a similar confession to make. What is it like to resist a REALLY HARD temptation — the so-called impossible kind? Well, we don't honestly know . . . because we've generally given in much earlier. We cave in when it's still easy; nothing very hard has ever come our way.

Yesterday we studied together one of the key texts in the New Testament: First Corinthians 10:13. Here it is again for your consideration:

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

Do we believe these words of promise? WILL God "make a way of escape," as the King James Bible puts it? And if so, exactly how does that happen? Yesterday I shared a kind of miracle story, where a temptation simply evaporated for someone; one minute it was there, the next it was gone. Problem solved. But that's a rarity and we all know it. So how do we work WITH God to find His promised escape routes?

First, a few words about the HARDNESS of temptations. In his book, The Nature of Christ, Roy Adams writes compellingly about the plain fact that most of us DO NOT resist temptation to the point of their being very hard. Now Jesus, our Savior and Example, who NEVER sinned . . . felt the FULL force of EVERY attack. On a hurricane scale of one-to-ten, because He never gave in, He felt the full brunt of every TEN, where you and I might be knocked over before any temptation reaches a three or a four. They say in a marathon, it sometimes doesn't really hurt until you get to Mile 20, and if you quit every year at Mile Number THREE, it's never going to be that difficult.

But in your own life, friend, you might feel the PAIN of Satan's relentless attacks. For you it IS hard. In fact, you're ready to claim that it's IMPOSSIBLE. "First Corinthians 10:13 just doesn't apply to me," you cry out. "I get hit in the very areas where I'm weakest — and heaven doesn't come to my rescue. This is an empty promise!"

I'd like to draw from several sources today as we explore this important issue. How do we find that way of escape? Our writer/producer, David Smith, is the author of an ambitious ten-book Christian series written for teenagers, The Bucky Stone Adventures. And in Volume Nine, just released a few months ago, appropriately entitled Fire in Paradise, the hero of the saga, high school senior Bucky Stone, finds himself in a Honolulu hotel room with a former girlfriend. Now, he shouldn't have been there; he knows that. He should have said no to about ten previous temptations, ten EARLIER forks in the road. But he gave in to the tinier moments of seduction, and now he's alone with her on the 19th floor, Room #1929; her parents aren't going to be back for six hours.

And he feels completely overwhelmed! How can he resist? Romantic things are happening — PHYSICAL things, and he feels absolutely powerless to say no to Deirdre. "It's not really your fault," something seems to whisper to him. "What can you do? When a tidal wave washes right over you, you can't fight it." And he feels trapped by all of his earlier compromises PLUS the fact that HE WANTS TO DO THIS THING! He WANTS to commit this sin. If it weren't desirable, of course he wouldn't have a problem. He wouldn't even be there! Everything in him says "Do it!"

Hitting the pause button on that nearly illicit moment, let's go to another scenario, this one written by bestselling author and pastor Marvin Moore. He writes about the fact that struggling Christians often don't even LOOK for the way out of a temptation because then we might be deprived of the pleasure of the sin! He tells about a friend named Gary who became convinced that for him, his addiction to many, many cups a day of full-strength caffeinated coffee was actually a sin. He knew it was unhealthy for him; he knew he was addicted and that the overdose was a detrimental thing. In fact, as long as we're here in First Corinthians chapter ten, we might as well skip ahead to verse 31 and notice this P.S. to the chapter:

"So whether you eat or DRINK or WHATEVER you do, do it all for the glory of God."

And frankly, this young Christian was convinced his addiction to gallons of coffee was NOT glorifying God. But every day, when he said to God, "Please help me to stop drinking coffee," hey, it wasn't happening. He was failing in that temptation seven days a week, and getting pretty discouraged about it.

So he asked Pastor Moore, "What am I doing wrong?"

And Marvin said to him, "Gary, I think you're praying the wrong prayer."

"What do you mean?"

And he told him, "Tomorrow, instead of asking God to help you not to drink coffee, try saying, ‘Please help me not to WANT coffee right now.'"

And Gary, after thinking about that for a second, said, "But if I did that, I might not get my cup of coffee!"

And Marvin concludes: "Folks, that's our problem — yours AND mine. We enjoy our sins, and we don't want God taking away that pleasure." God promises us an escape route, and we almost close our eyes, hoping we won't see the exit sign on the freeway. "Oh dear, I guess I missed it." And we're not really that sorry.

Marvin goes on a couple of paragraphs later and gives what I think is an outstanding spiritual diagnosis. Here it is word for word:

"The key to overcoming these sins is to make a conscious choice at the moment the temptation is strongest. That choice is to say a very specific prayer: ‘God, please help me not to WANT this sin. Take away the desire RIGHT NOW.'"

And of course, that's a prayer we don't want to pray, isn't it? We're asking for something that runs completely COUNTER to our desires. But friend, IF we grow to the point where we love Jesus Christ enough that we would rather have HIM than keep on with that sin, we WILL pray that prayer, and we WILL get an answer, and we WILL find the escape that the Word of God promises us.

Speaking of escape, the Bible also makes it clear that we have two legs and two feet and God expects us to use them. First Corinthians 10:13 isn't talking about an escalator or a helicopter rescue, but it DOES describe a fire exit that you have to get up and walk THROUGH. In James 4:7 we find this two-part strategy:

"SUBMIT YOURSELVES, then, to God." And here's Part Two: "RESIST the devil, and he will flee from you."

Which is true, but maybe we should focus also on that word FLEE . . . and decide to do some of it ourselves. There are places the Christian should flee from and people whose company you should flee from as well. In fact, going back to our teen story of young Mr. Bucky Stone in that hotel room, there's a verse in the very Bible book we're studying, First Corinthians — this is in chapter six — where that word comes in again.

"FLEE from sexual immorality."

This young man had a spiritual obligation to FLEE from that room, to get up and walk out and ride the elevator back down to the lobby. God wasn't going to do that for him, but He was going to give that young teen Christian the strength to do it.

A reformed ex-con who went on to direct a dynamic prison ministry once received this advice from a fellow parolee who saw his friend indulging in risky behavior that was about to land him BACK in prison. "Bill," he said, "stop throwing rocks at the front gate of San Quentin." And many of us who want for God to keep His word here in verse 13 need to physically MOVE AWAY from danger zones. Former alcoholics need to pour the booze down the drain and stop hanging around both the bars AND the bar-hoppers. If you've been involved in an inappropriate relationship, you need to break it off and maybe even change jobs. Throw away those novels that fill your mind with thoughts of anger and intrigue. In other words, once you've been pardoned from San Quentin, MOVE AWAY from the front gate!

But friend, most of all, if you want escape from temptation, here's the thing to do: fill your life with Jesus. FEED your mind on His words; let the stories of His life, His miracles, His teachings become a part of your daily experience. Let the Son of God FILL UP your life so completely that other things are crowded away.

Let me close this week's program by taking you back AGAIN to that young man, Bucky Stone, and his moment of temptation. He was about to be overwhelmed; he was moments away from surrender. And then, all at once, a bit of panorama flashed through his mind. Four years of walking with Jesus. Four years of having Jesus help him with his day-to-day problems there at the local high school. Ever since his freshman year — and here it was almost graduation time — Jesus had been the answer to his problems, his times of loneliness. Was this moment of sexual pleasure, this little fling, this FLICKER of fun, going to be worth all of THAT?

Well, friend, the answer was no, and Bucky Stone left that hotel room. God gave him a way of escape, and because his love for Jesus was ENOUGH . . . he TOOK that way out.

That's how it can be for us too.