“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.” Revelation 3:21.
The other evening as I was working at my computer, I became aware of something gently flickering in the darkness outside my window. When I turned the lights off, what I saw held me in wonder for quite some minutes. There is a laurel hedge at the bottom of our garden and each glossy leaf, as it was stirred in the breeze, was catching the light of the full moon. The effect was of hundreds of little silver lights flickering in the darkness. Suddenly I realized that this full moon was the Passover moon, and it was under this same moon that Christ knelt in Gethsemane. In His anguish, His face showed no beauty that we should desire Him, and His body knelt clutching the cold ground with no form or comeliness that would appeal to us. From His face there fell great drops of sweat consisting of blood.
Alone
For so much of His life Christ had thought of others, but on this night He prayed for Himself. “‘Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.’” Luke 22:42. At this point, His life was almost crushed from Him. He had asked for human company to support Him as He had supported them, but they slept. He bore this anguish alone. They had noted nothing more than that He had become “sorrowful and very heavy.” Matthew 26:37. “Not My will, but Thine, be done” was the cry of His heart. Three times He prayed this prayer, but each was preceded by the greatest struggle of His life; His own will in opposition to that of His father.
Above Him, did the olive leaves flicker with the same little silver lights in the moonlight? Was there beauty in nature even while our Saviour, on the ground beneath, fought the greatest of battles? “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame.…”
Do you even begin to understand this experience in your own life? It is not an experience that can be quietly and calmly undertaken, something to be ticked off as another victory over temptation—a clinical step on the Christian road. There may be times when we have overcome and we can look back on our lives with praise to God for victories won, but in each life there is the big problem, the one that keeps returning time and again. What about victory over this? The habits of a lifetime have wrapped their silken threads around us and to break free requires a different experience.
We Must Also Face Our Gethsemane
The Holy Spirit is working with each one of us and leading us to this point. This means we have to face our Gethsemane too. We have to face squarely our temptations, also.
What held Christ in submission to His Father’s will? He knew the purpose for His life; He knew the time on the clock of the Great Controversy—the prophecies that were to be fulfilled in Him, the salvation of the world that lay in those decisions. Is it any different for us? Do we know the time in which our struggles take place? Do we know the prophecies that are to be fulfilled in us? This last generation, us, today, who could be alive to see Jesus come, is the generation that the angels and the prophets have awaited through the years. The three great powers of heaven, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, have worked for this moment in time, a time when all the strands of all ages of prophecy and salvation history will be gathered together and an end can be made of sin.
The character of God has been maligned through many centuries. All heaven is looking to us. Will we do it? Or will the challenge have to pass to another generation to reveal the character of God before the universe and demonstrate the miracle of God’s power in the weakest of human lives? Does God ask the impossible? In this, potentially the greatest of earth’s history, where are we? Do we know what it means to call ourselves a follower of Christ? Are we overcomers with Christ?
What is Your Purpose?
Unless we see the greatness of our purpose and the time in which we live, all our thought patterns will not be strong enough or focused enough to see the temptation and the sin to which it leads, with all its consequences for God and for ourselves. We have the records of Bible characters to show us how they responded to God’s will. Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.” Daniel 1:8. The three Hebrew young men “trusted in Him…and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.” Daniel 3:28. Ezra, who knew what it was to have the good hand of his God upon him, had “prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it.” Ezra 7:10. These men knew what rested on their lives, in their time.
One of the laws of life is that we have to yield our wishes, our desires, our lusts, and our toys, now, for the greater good of a godly character and an eternal outcome. We cannot live in both spheres at the same time. This is what it means to be a hypocrite, and the world recognizes this state very quickly. Jesus says to us, in these grand and awful times, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Matthew 16:24. This involves the initial struggle and yielding to God, to be followed by a life of cross bearing.
Victory Today—More Battles Tomorrow
The devil does not leave us after the first great victory. He returns again and again, and we have to choose and choose and choose again—on rainy days, on sick days, on bad, hormonal days, and on pressurized days.
When our lives are still bound around with those threads of habit, and yet another fine thread continues to attach us to the world, our consciences can be confused. We argue in our hearts and the whole situation is unclear. Justifications for our actions come very readily to our minds, and often we act on those without another thought. Through the Holy Spirit, whose task it is to convict of sin, the day comes for each of us when we long to be clean and have done with the wrongdoing. As we take our courage and go before the Lord to ask for freedom from these shackles of confusion, the power and pleading of the Holy Spirit fills our hearts.
The big choice to be made cannot now be mistaken. There are many smaller choices each day, but when the crucial one comes, we recognize it. The Holy Spirit has shown us clearly what it is that must be denied. What will be our response? It is so easy to say what we will do when we are not in the struggle, but we must prepare our hearts to say a clear and strong NO. During the temptation there is just a little gap, enough to allow us to gather our thoughts and find the perspective we need to be able to say NO. God will not allow us to be overcome and swept away without the ability to choose. Even during this time the devil will try to send confusion of thought. It is at this time that we need to talk to the Lord earnestly and ask, is this the situation you want me to overcome; is this the time you want me to say NO; is this plan of action the one that will keep me out of sin; please make it clear for me, and please give me the power that you have promised. This is not a crisis to cope with alone in human will power, but the occasion to talk to the Lord, second by second, and follow His guidance. His power will not say that NO for you, but it will make it possible for you to walk away without a backward thought, or to throw it away, when you have made the firm and purposeful decision to say NO.
Cutting the Threads that Bind
This process is a cutting of one of the threads that binds us. It hurts. There may be clenched fists, tight shoulders, quickened shallow breathing, sweat breaking out into clammy hands. All of us, deep inside, want it just one more time, and we know we should say NO. But to say NO, talking to God all the time, and claiming verses of Scripture—”make not provision for the lusts of the flesh,” “whatsoever He saith unto you do it.” “let a man deny himself,” “he that overcometh shall inherit all things,” “blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” (See Romans 13:14; John 2:5; Luke 9:23; Revelation 21:7; James 1:12.) We may have only split seconds to think like this, but it is a time of intense mental activity between heaven and earth, between the will of God and our desires, between the Holy Spirit and our decision. “Not My will, but Thine, be done.” At these times the three great powers of heaven, and ministering angels are on our side, but we must make the decision for ourselves. That is the dignity of humankind. We have a choice.
When the choice is made and our heart rests, after the activity, on the side of the Lord, what a peace is ours—and quietness, humility, and exhaustion, too. As we look back on the past few seconds, we know how easily we could have chosen the other way, the way that would have brought dishonor to God. But we have faced the “big one,” and we have overcome. Can you imagine the singing and the rejoicing in heaven? We forget that! Heaven and earth are very close at such times. We may experience tears, but heaven sings!
That gap, for thinking time, is very small, but this is one of the reasons that God shows us a healthier lifestyle, with more fresh fruit and vegetables, clear water to drink, exercise in the sunshine and fresh air. Good sleep is essential too. Can you respond quickly in times of drowsiness and lethargy? A clear mind, the health gifts of God’s creation and a will that we have given to God in advance and asked Him to strengthen, will divinely lengthen that split second gap and make our NO more firm. Every victory is one cord broken, and another habit pattern begun. We are one step nearer the Second Coming of Jesus and the vindication of His character, as the miracle of grace is seen by men and angels, and additional power is given to the Gospel words we speak.
When Jesus Comes—The Tempter’s Power is Broken
For now, the victory is won, but it is easy to relax too far. The devil will soon be back, and he will come again and again. This is the reason we must carry the cross of self-denial as long as we live in this world. But when Jesus comes, the power of the devil will be gone forever. The burden will be lifted from us, and we will not have to make those constant choices. It is then that we shall be able to sing of deliverance, the song of Moses and the Lamb. It will be a song that the angels cannot sing; it will be uniquely ours. Will you make that decision today? The decision that you will meet the “big one” when the next temptation comes, and that you will take up your cross and follow the Saviour until He comes?
“‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.’” James 1:12.