Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [66] No More Temptation

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

Imprisoned by both the Nazis and the Communists

Being Alone is Very Hard to Bear

"To be in solitary confinement under the Communists or the Nazis is to reach the peak of suffering. The reactions of Christians who pass through such trials are something apart from everything else...

"Solitary confinement under the Communists is something new in church history. It cannot be compared with the Roman or even the Nazi persecutions....."

I've been reading a lot of Richard Wurmbrand during this Coronavirus outbreak to understand what being all alone is really like.

It is surely a significant fact that evil men thought they had devised the most agonising form of torture, not by beating the body, but by isolating the soul.

You and I would have thought that beatings and tortures every day would be the best way to break a man, but no, the trick is to isolate him from every other human being all day long.

The guards wore soft slippers so that even the potentially comforting sound of human feet would be unheard.

Let us all remember those on their own in this season of lockdown for it is they who are possibly suffering the most.

Let us remember all the lonely people, the Eleanor Rigbys and Father Mckenzies, as Lenon and MacCartney named them. 

Made in the image of a social God, we are wired for fellowship and we need other people around us.

Temptation to Doubt

For Richard Wurmbrand, all alone in a cell thirty feet under the ground, his temptation was doubt.

If there is no human around, we can be sure that Satan will fill the empty void of silence with his lies and half lies. And chief among those Richard faced was doubt. Was God really good? Had all the Christians in the world abandoned him? Does God really care? Is he just? (We must not judge a Job until we have walked a mile in his moccasins.)

What are your greatest temptations today? Perhaps in lockdown they are similar to Richard's: does God care?, do my church family care?, and so on.

If that is the case, we should meditate on the days to come when there will be no temptation, because there will be no "flesh", no "world" and no "Devil" in heaven.

The Glory of Heaven

Here's our promise for the day:

"Nothing impure will ever enter it (the New Jerusalem, heaven), nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." (Revelation 21:27)

In the previous chapter Satan and his crew have already been bound eternally.

Heaven will be heaven, not only because of the presence of Christ and the atmosphere of love and purity, it will be heaven because of the total absence of anything evil.

There will be no "flesh" in heaven - no fallen sinful nature within us. Our sinful desires are a frequent source of temptation, but we will have new bodies which will be the spring of nothing but good desires and holy thoughts.

There will ne no "world" in heaven - the world is the combined influences of the people, the world-views and culture all around us.

There will be no "devil" in heaven - he will have been bound and his eternal sentence of doom will have begun. Satan is a master of finding the right lie to place in the right ear. His evil voice will have been silenced.

He whispered in Eve's ear that God was not good and both she and Adam bought the lie. And he whispers all manner of evil lies in our ears, about God, about ourselves, about the future, about our circumstances and about our brothers and sisters.

No temptation in heaven!

Summing it All Up

What is your greatest temptation at the moment? How does Satan repeatedly "get to you?" Be honest?

In lockdown it could so easily be discouragement, depression or that deadly one, me-itis.

Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Did you know that? Tell him to go away once, then if he continues, tell him, in the name of Jesus to go away again, and keep that up. The promise of God is that if we resist the devil he will flee from us. (James 4:7)

And then reflect on your future life, your real life, your eternal life: no more temptation in heaven. No twisted lies from within, no evil world from without and no deceiving devil from below.

A SONG FOR THE DAY
Heaven is more than "the absence of evil" although it is that. Heaven is much more the presence of  Jesus Christ in all his glory. For that reason we worship with this hymn today:

Jesus, the Name high over all,
in hell or earth or sky;
angels and mortals prostrate fall,
and devils fear and fly.
Jesus, the Name to sinners dear,
the Name to sinners giv'n;
it scatters all their guilty fear,
it turns their hell to heav'n.

O that the world might taste and see
the riches of His grace!
The arms of love that compass me
would all the world embrace.
Thee I shall constantly proclaim,
though earth and hell oppose;
bold to confess Thy glorious Name
before a world of foes.

His only righteousness I show,
His saving truth proclaim;
'tis all my business here below
to cry, "Behold the Lamb!"
Happy, if with my latest breath
I may but gasp His Name,
preach Him to all, and cry in death,
"Behold, behold the Lamb!"

Charles Wesley

You can hear it HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our Loving Father in heaven,

Hallowed and Holy be your Name. We pray that you will be glorified in our lives, in our churches and in our families.

We pray in  particular for those who are on their own today, and especially where loneliness has been made worse by lockdown. Help us to love and reach out to and care for the lonely.

We ask that you will help us resist the devil. We pray that we might trust the promise that when we resist him he will run away.

And we thank you for the prospect of the new heavens and new earth where there will be no temptation from within, without or below.

We pray for our brothers and sisters across the world imprisoned this very hour for their faith. Watch over them and comfort them we pray.

We ask these things in the Triumphant Name of Jesus

Amen.