Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the Temptation of Joseph from Genesis 39
“Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant.
Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’ But he refused. ‘With me in charge,’ he told her, ‘my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’
And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’ But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.’
She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: ‘That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.’ When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, ‘This is how your slave treated me,’ he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.”
Imagine an army recruitment program, in wartime, that told only of the benefits: free travel, free clothes, technical skills, fine pension, and comradeship. How distorted, then, if you were given no inkling of other things: not only boot camp and sergeants yelling at you, but death in the trenches, dirt, cold, hunger, being maimed, horror, bug-infested jungles, and flea-infested trenches.
That is why, in wartime, recruitment drives appeal to heroism, not self-interest and to sacrifice, not to travel. In the United States, there are these old World War II posters: “Uncle Sam needs You!” There are similar John Bull ones I’ve discovered in this country, which is not too surprising. Appeal is made to love of family and nation, not to personal advantages. It’s quite different today when the army wants you to join. Just watch the TV adverts.
Now the church of Jesus Christ, especially in the West, has not always learned this lesson because we tend not to think of ourselves as being in warfare. So our recruitment drives (for which, read: evangelism) tend to appeal, rather regrettably, to self-fulfillment, victory, well-being, the peace of the Lord, the bliss of forgiveness, fellowship, the abundant life (this expression comes from in John 10; it has to do with eating a lot of grass, meaning you’re a fat sheep), and victorious Christian living.
I should mention that fellowship basically means friendship with Christians. If you have tea with a non-Christian, it’s friendship. If you have tea with a Christian and talk about the same thing as you talk about with the non-Christian, it’s fellowship! Which isn’t exactly what Paul had it mind.
On the whole, there is precious little focus on the sheer godhood of God, and for our purposes, precious little emphasis on self-discipline, spiritual warfare, wrestling in the spiritual arena, being dishonored by the world, or the struggles of temptation and sin. Think of Jesus’ words at the end of Luke 9. Somebody rushes up and says, “I’ll follow you wherever you wish.” “Oh great! I’ll baptize you, and you can give your testimony on Sunday night.”
“Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man doesn’t have any place to lay his head.” Go have a think: How many people have you turned away in your ministry and said, “Quite frankly, you’re not ready yet. Go away. I won’t talk with you yet. You haven’t counted up the cost. Go away.”
It’s not that I want to depreciate the glories of the gospel, the privileges of being a Christian, the blessings of the age to come already infecting this whole age, or the church as the outpost of heaven. However, if we don’t get our balance right in this area, we have a kind of over-realized eschatology that slides off into triumphalism and forgets the nature of Christian warfare. Gurnall could argue The Christian in Complete Armor and spend about 1,500 pages expounding six versions of Ephesians 6, but by and large, that’s not within our frame of reference.
Now amongst the areas of Christian warfare (which, by and large, Western Christians have not yet come to terms with) is the warfare over temptation, especially in the sexual arena. We’re embarrassed by the lapses, we’re aware of our own weaknesses, but we tend not to think of this as warfare in which we must be actively engaged or we are, in fact, losing the fight. Let me direct your attention to …
1. The power of Joseph’s temptation.
Joseph’s temptation was strong because it was subtle, flexible, and persistent. Put yourselves in Joseph’s place. He had been sold, as a teenager, by his own family. When he arrived in Egypt, he was at the bottom rung of the slaves. When he started in Potiphar’s household, he was not put in charge right away. Undoubtedly, he was at the bottom rung of all the slaves, taking out the slops and other such things. He didn’t understand the language or the culture.
He had no prospects of marriage, of freedom, or of ever seeing his family again. Yet, the text says the Lord was with him. Over years and years and years of slavery, he climbed the social ladder, as a slave, in this one officer’s household. Eventually, he learned the language and the culture, and he gained a reputation for faithfulness and integrity, such that eventually (not as a teenager, but perhaps now in his late-20s), he is gradually given more honor and position, as a slave, until he’s put over all the other slaves.
Now Potiphar’s wife approaches Joseph, undoubtedly appealing to his pride and alleviating his loneliness. It was confirmation, perhaps, that all was finally going his way (please the boss’ wife, and you might actually win your freedom). If Joseph could not be coaxed, perhaps he could be stormed. If he could not be stormed, then … persistence, persistence, persistence. She spoke to Joseph, we read in verse 10, day after day. Water on a rock will eventually cut a Niagara gorge. In temptation, it is easier to win once than again and again and again. Ask Samson. Ask Balaam.
Many are the Christians who are courageous on one front and fail elsewhere, or fail when the persistence goes on and on and on. First of all, there is quiet contemplation of it. Eventually, there is an act of consideration of the possibilities. Finally, the defenses are all down, and you succumb. Dare I say it? I am very sure, in a congregation this size, that some of us in this room have fallen or, I dare say, are in the midst of that sort of relationship right now.
2. Reasons why Joseph successfully resisted temptation.
Before we look at the larger global picture here and what this passage is trying to say to us today, let us look at some reasons why Joseph successfully resisted this temptation.
A. Because of who Joseph was.
I do not mean by that that he was intrinsically superior to others. I mean, rather, to direct your attention to the very peculiar reasoning in verses 8–9: “He refused. ‘With me in charge,’ he told her, ‘my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife’ ”
Do you see how he might have reasoned here? From exactly the same phenomena, he might have reasoned, “With me in charge, my master does not concern himself with anything in this house. Therefore, I can get away with it. I can arrange the schedules of all the underlings so that they won’t know what’s going on.
He’s withheld nothing else from me; surely he won’t mind too much about this. A few personal questions, I suppose, but what he won’t know won’t hurt him. Everything he owns, he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. I have my deserts too. I’m a human being; I’m made in the image of God. Why should I, as a slave, be deprived of my normal sexuality? Hasn’t God created sexuality?”
Freedom from supervision? Well, from that, you can draw the inference that you have the right to be irresponsible. Or you can draw the inference that you should, therefore, be loyal and fruitful and faithful. Rapid promotion? It has corrupted other stewards. (Read Isaiah 22:15 and following; read Luke 16.) Or does it generate still greater faithfulness? His recognition that one realm was closed to him: one person would argue, “Well, why can’t I have that area too?” and he argues, instead, “It is closed to me, so I will respect its closure.”
His reasoning reflects a certain total worldview. You can come to exactly the same set of circumstances in life. One person will face those circumstances and draw one set of inferences, and another person will face those circumstances and draw another set of inferences. The difference between the two is not the circumstances but the kind of person you are … not intrinsically, but the kind of person based on the kind of framework and the worldview in which you live.
I know an Englishman who, about 30 years ago, felt called to the ministry. Eventually, he obtained some theological training and became pastor of a church in this country. He seemed to have some gifts as a preacher and teacher. The church began to grow. He was caught out in adultery, and he immigrated to Canada, where I met him. Nobody checked too closely into his background. He spent a couple of years at the seminary where I was a student, and he eventually became pastor of a church in Canada.
The church began to grow. I became pastor of a church on the west side of Canada. Then I heard, through the grapevine, that this fellow had been caught out in the act of adultery and had been dismissed. He disappeared off the face of the earth, as far as I was concerned. I was 3,000 miles away, in any case. I hadn’t known him all that well, and he was one of those people who sort of disappeared. I moved to England and moved back to Canada.
After a number of years, I moved down to Trinity, where I now teach. When I arrived there, the seminary said, “There is a church nearby that has recently had a bit of a traumatic experience. I wonder if you’d be willing to fill in. Their minister there, who was quite a gifted chap and was preaching the gospel and seeing a lot of people converted, has just been caught out in adultery. They’re distraught. Would you go and help? You guessed it: same chap. It says something about the way we vet ministers in some circles.
If you talk to this fellow today, he is in Ohio selling computers. He will tell you God is a liar. He says, “The Bible says, ‘There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able to bear, but will, with the temptation, provide a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.’ I wasn’t able to bear it. Therefore, God is a liar.” That’s what he’ll tell you.
What inferences has he drawn from these circumstances? How has he reasoned? How does he think? The issue is never simply a particular concrete temptation against a kind of person who is tabula rasa, where you’re starting off fresh and clean. It’s where you are as a total person in your walk with God that is the issue. That will become clearer and clearer as we press on, for the second reason why Joseph triumphed was …
B. Because Joseph was prepared to call a spade a spade and a sin a sin.
What does he call it in verse 9? “This wicked thing.” If you do not think, if you do not train and discipline yourself to think, of the sins to which you are attracted as wicked things, you are going to succumb.
Perhaps you are tempted to bloating self-promotion and pride. If you think it’s because, after all, you are a little better than others … you are intrinsically a little stronger, and you do have superior genes and a better education … then you will be an arrogant person, full of hubris.
But if, instead, you discipline yourself to look at sin as “this wicked thing,” then it becomes more difficult to find sin attractive. The Devil does not come along and say, “Here is something really ugly, deceitful, and despicable. Here you can break all your covenantal vows, hurt your family, and cheat on your spouse. Go ahead. Do it.”
No, he comes and says, “She really doesn’t understand anymore, does she? She’s so bound up in her own world. She doesn’t really care about you anymore. It’s very lonely in the ministry, you know. You’re not doing anything wrong. After all, we all need love, affection, gentleness, and compassion, don’t we?” At what point do you look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Don, this is a wicked thing.” If you don’t say that, you’re setting yourself up for adultery. It’s as simple as that.
C. Because Joseph feared God and saw the act with reference to him.
Verse 9: “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” Now of course, it would be a sin against Potiphar. It would be a betrayal of trust. But it is, first and foremost, a sin against God. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and that we are to live our lives here as strangers in reverent fear. When God describes the wicked person in Psalm 36, he says of him, “There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
What this means, practically speaking, is that there must be an ongoing walk with God, a deepening knowledge of God, such that we fear his frown, we fear his judgment, we fear the withdrawal of his blessing, and we fear his disapproval. This is because we understand that sin’s real heinousness is not at the social level but as an offense against God.
Isn’t that what David understood? He seduced Bathsheba. He arranged to have Uriah killed. There was judgment on the nation. The baby that came out of the adulterous union died. All the people that were damaged, the social downfall, the military defeat, and yet David writes, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”
The truth of the matter is that if we see the evil of evil only in the social dimension, which is what the world wants us to see, then we will not see the evil of evil. Sin becomes heinous only when we see it as an act of defiance against the God who made us. Sin becomes disgusting, revolting, not cute, not attractive, and not a temporary lapse or a peccadillo. This happens only when we see that it is an example of one of God’s image-bearers shaking his puny fist in the face of his Maker and saying, “I don’t care! I’ll do it my way.”
Joseph feared God and saw the act with reference to him. Those who truly fear God become the best employees or, for that matter, slaves. Because they fear God, their commitment to their Maker enhances their loyalty to their masters.
D. Because Joseph knew not to play with fire.
Verse 10: “Though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.” In other words, he started finding reasons for going somewhere else, for being out of her company. He knew this was just too dangerous. Proverbs 5 says, “Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house.”
The person drawn to holiness will not try to see how close to wickedness he can get without getting burned. Nowhere is this truer than in the sexual arena. I went to a seminary in Toronto, Canada. One of the lecturers in pastoral theology was a chap called Don Loveday. Don Loveday was one of those earnest men with a whole lot of pastoral experience behind him,
He was not terribly gifted, in some ways, as a lecturer. He was not God’s gift, it has to be said, to intellectual biblical theology, but he had all the experience on the ground of a faithful pastor and a godly husband. His lecturing style, I have to tell you, bored me to tears. Partly because I came out of a manse myself, and a lot of the practical lessons I had already learned.
He lectured like this: “Today we are going to talk about hospital visitation. Number one: Wear soft shoes. Number two: Don’t sit on the bed. Number three: Don’t stay too long. Number four: Try to share some Scripture and pray with the person.” I didn’t need to be told those things! I’m sure there were some people who wanted to wear stiletto shoes or something on a hospital floor, but I wasn’t one of them, and I didn’t find this a very appealing approach to pastoral theology.
But I have to tell you, I have never forgotten his lecture on temptation in the sexual arena. “Today,” he said, “I want to talk to you about counseling women.” This was a class of all men. “Number one: Stay behind the desk. Number two: If she starts to cry, pass her a box of Kleenex. Number three: Stay behind the desk. Number four: If she continues to cry, wait till she stops. Number five: Stay behind the desk.” There were 37 points, and every second one was, “Stay behind the desk”!
Well, I graduated and became involved in church planting and that sort of thing, and I did my fair bit of counseling along the line. The first week that I became pastor of a church in Vancouver (some time later), in walked a young woman who sat down in front of me and burst into tears. Now this was before there were computer screens, but I could see scrolling up in front of my eyes: “Stay behind the desk. Stay behind the desk. Stay behind the desk.” I passed her a box of Kleenex. She continued to cry. I sat there and waited.
Let me tell you, there have been many times when I have thanked God for Don Loveday. Out of that have come a number of rules that I use in my own life. Now I’m not laying these down as a kind of new Ten Commandments or something like that, but I find them helpful for me on the principle that if you get too close to fire, you’re likely to get burned, so stay away! They include:
First, apart from an emergency (like a tube strike), don’t ride alone with a woman in a car unless she’s your wife. Second, don’t develop a prayer partnership with just a single woman, or a married woman, unless she’s your wife. Third, don’t go to a restaurant alone with a member of the opposite sex, unless there is some overwhelming reason to do so (then you tell your spouse about it afterwards, preferably before, as well, and only do it the once).
Now I’m on the road a fair bit. I arrived in Japan, and somebody set me up with a woman translator that was going to take me around the place. Well, I was happy with a woman translator, so long as there were lots of people around, but not if she was going to start showing me around town. It’s not because I doubted her motives. I’m afraid of mine. I want my wife to trust me. My wife knows what my rules are. I want her to trust me when I’m on the road, and I’m afraid of me.
Now that’s sin in that area, but there are other areas, of course, where you equally have to be careful. The first person under whom I worked as an assistant minister was an ex-hockey player. Now in Canada, you must understand, hockey means what you call ice hockey. Hockey is ice hockey. It’s Canada’s national sport. If you think that people go crazy over football (which we call soccer), you ought to see Canadians go crazy over hockey (which you call ice hockey).
He was at the national level. The Lord broke his ankle twice before he was converted, and eventually, he became a missionary to French Canada, where I started out. Twenty years later, you stuck him on ice and he still beat all the 18- or 20-year-olds, skating rings around them. He was really class.
But he rarely skated and almost never watched TV because, he said, it was still so much in his blood, still so important to him, that it could devour him if he gave it too much time again. Now it doesn’t devour me, quite frankly. I can watch a hockey game, turn it off in the middle, and never lose a moment’s thought. But he couldn’t. If you’re serious about holiness, don’t play with fire. That will affect the things you think about, your priorities.
E. Because Joseph was transparently more concerned for his purity than for his prospects.
He wasn’t stupid. It wouldn’t have taken much intelligence to guess what a woman like this would do with his cloak left behind. But he runs. If that means leaving the cloak behind, so be it, because, at the end of the day, he was more concerned for his purity than for his prospects. In fact, in this case, his flight saved the former and lost the other. A coward’s flight would have reversed the priorities.
3. Ways of God hidden behind this temptation that we must perceive if we are to cope well with temptation.
There are two points.
A. God often chooses to bless us in difficult circumstances rather than place us in happier ones.
Have you noticed how this chapter is built? Look at the symmetry of the first six verses and the last five. Joseph is sold into slavery. What are we told in verses 2–6? “The Lord was with Joseph.” I’m sure there were moments when Joseph thought, “If this is what it means for the Lord to be with me, quite frankly, I’d rather go on my own.”
He was sold into slavery, but the Lord was with him, we are told. In consequence, he prospered. “When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant.” He eventually becomes a senior slave. Why? Because the Lord was with him.
Then you move to the closing verses (verses 19 and following). Joseph lands up in prison, and what do we read in verse 20b? “While Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him.” The first night, there must have been a few moments when Joseph doubted it, but “… the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness …”
Now again, we’re not to think of this as if it happened overnight (“Oh, here’s Joseph. Great, we’ll put him in charge.”) Just as it had taken years for Joseph to grow even to the level of head slave. He spent years in prison. We know that there were at least two years between the episode of the cupbearer and the baker in chapter 40, and his subsequent release. He spent years in prison. He had to start all over again.
Psalm 105 tells us, “His feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in chains of iron,” but the Lord was with him. In consequence, he lived such a life of quiet integrity that he built up a reputation for honor, reliability, courtesy, faithfulness, and fairness, that he eventually had a certain kind of in-house status with the prison warden. That’s a remarkable passage.
In our day … when so often we are taught that if God blesses us, we will immediately be peaceful and rich and prosperous, everything will be happy, we’ll be fruitful, we’ll have wonderful ministry, our children will be well-behaved, there will be no major illness in our lives, and everything will be wonderful and pleasant … the blessing of God is measured by not only temporal circumstances but by immediate temporal circumstances.
Here, the blessing of God is measured by conduct, faithfulness, and reliability, which in consequence, gradually earns its way in the world, even in prison (and even then, not immediately, but over years and years and years). That’s how the blessing and presence of God were measured.
How much did Joseph know at this point? I don’t know. There were those dreams when he was a teenager: “Someday your brothers will bow down before you. Even your mother and your father will bow down before you.” The heritage of a godly family, the promises of the Abrahamic covenant passed on and taught, and still, somehow, in all of these adverse circumstances, he believed, and the Lord was with him.
B. God wants us to be faithful while trusting his wisdom and his providence.
There is a larger category here. You see, you must not only read Genesis 39 observing the beginning of the chapter and the end, but you must ask yourself … What is Genesis 39 doing in the flow of the argument of the book of Genesis? What comes before Genesis 39? Well, there is Genesis 38.
There is Judah, Joseph’s brother, a co-conspirator in selling him into slavery. When his wife dies, eventually, he ends up sleeping with a woman who he thinks is a prostitute, but who is, in fact, a daughter-in-law. He has double moral standards. It’s a disgusting, sleazy story. Thus, Genesis 39, in many respects, is a foil to Genesis 38. One man, in freedom and blessing and family solidarity, makes all the wrong moral choices. The other man, in prison, betrayed, a slave, and abominated, makes all the right choices.
Oh, but there is still more, of course. What’s this chapter doing in the book? We know how this all comes out. He couldn’t have, at the time. He remembered the dreams; that’s all he had. We know what comes next, that eventually this becomes part of God’s provision to bring Joseph to the right place in Egyptian history (to the right court, to the right Pharaoh, to the right moment) such that he saves not only the Egyptian nation, but also his own family, from starvation.
In consequence of which, the people are in Egypt for many years, which leads finally to the Exodus and then the giving of the Law, 40 years in the wilderness, the taking over of the Promised Land, and ultimately, the coming of the Messiah. Humanly speaking, the entire family probably would have been wiped out in the famine. Did Joseph understand all of that?
Well, supposing God had come up to him and said, “Joseph, I know you’re only 17, and this one is a bit of a biggie, but I’d like to propose something to you. You put up with the following miserable list of things for the next 13–15 years, and this is what’s going to happen.” He lays out not only the salvation of his family but the future history: the coming of the Messiah, the death on the cross, the redemption that would follow, and the glory still to come.
Even at 17 years old, the next 15 years don’t look too promising, but I can live with that. I wouldn’t mind being a hero of that order. But it’s not what happened. He didn’t know. He had the dreams. He had the knowledge of the Abrahamic promises, given to the fathers. How it was all going to work out, he did not have a clue. Yet he was faithful, and God is wise.
One of my best friends in Australia is Peter O’Brien. He’s a lovely man. Peter grew up in a family where neither his mother nor his father was a Christian. Humanly speaking, his mother became a Christian because down the street from where they lived, there was a Christian woman who was semi-literate and no great theologian. She had one of those miserable long-term, incurable diseases that made her suffer day and night for years and years, but she suffered as a Christian.
It so impressed Peter’s mother than she became a Christian (humanly speaking), and because of that, Peter became a Christian. Peter eventually went to theological college, eventually did a PhD in this country, and became a missionary in India for years and years. He did evangelism and taught Indian students at a seminary in Yavatmal, as it then was located.
For the last years, he’s taught at Moore College. He’s a fine biblical scholar of the very front rank and faithful in evangelism. He reared his family. He has written perhaps the best commentary in the English language on the epistle to the Philippians in the NIGTC series, an excellent commentary on Colossians, and several other very important books. He is godly, faithful, and reliable.
Now supposing you had said to this semi-literate suffering woman up the street half a century ago: “I have a bargain for you. You learn to face this suffering for Jesus’ sake, and in consequence, there will be Indians converted, ministers of the gospel all around the world that will read godly books and first-class commentaries, tens of thousands of sermons preached, because you suffered. Will you do it for me?”
But that’s not the way it works. That would become a kind of bargain of getting, wouldn’t it? It’s not what God wants at the end of the day. He wants us to trust him. But we are to trust that this God is wise and providential in his rule. He is no one’s debtor. At the last day, when he discloses his providential wisdom and decisions, we’ll discover how there have been little old ladies who have suffered and thus brought about the conversion of some Afghanistani.
It may be that because you resist temptation … because you stand faithfully to a spouse who is not all that convenient (quite frankly, with a bad temper and a bit nasty) but, so help you God, you will honor him or her, you will be faithful, you have made covenant vows before God, you have not asked for a life of ease, you have promised before God that you will be holy for Jesus’ sake …
It may be that because of that (humanly speaking), your son will be a Christian, who will go to college and win in a friend to the Lord, who will witness to his mother, who will become a Christian and witness to her cousin, whose grandson will become a Christian, who will be the next George Whitefield.
Now for that sake, would you be holy? I don’t know that you would be. Sometimes we just want to do the immediate. Yet, it does change the perspective a bit, doesn’t it? We don’t know the end from the beginning. We see so little of all the interweavings. I do know this: I have been a pastor long enough and have seen enough broken homes and smashed families to see the destruction, the soul-destroying damage, the children who are ruined, the chaos, and the moral anarchy that comes because ministers of the gospel are unfaithful in their vows.
Listen, God is no one’s debtor. He expects us to struggle. He expects us to fight. He expects us to fear him. He expects us to rely upon him. When we are tempted, we are to go him for the blessed Holy Spirit whom he has bequeathed to strengthen us from within. When we slip in our imagination or in our word or in our deed, we are to return again and again to the cross and ask for forgiveness.
We are to remember that we live with eternity’s values in view. We speak the truth. When we make a vow, we keep our vows for Jesus’ sake. We will leave the results to him. One day, we will see how every small victory for Jesus’ sake has worked out in his wise providence to bring good to the people of God and glory to Christ. Any other vision is paltry and small and petty, far too small to keep us from sin.
Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
Brothers and sisters, we are in a war: against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Engage with all the arsenal that God has given. For the good of the people of God and the glory of our Redeemer. Let us pray.
Forgive us, Lord, when we are so easy on ourselves and make excuses. Grant that sin may become, before our eyes, more and more heinous, more and more odious, and uglier and uglier because we learn to look at it as you look at it. Help us learn to see it as an offense against you, our glorious Maker and Redeemer, to learn to see it in relation to what it cost your dear Son that we might be redeemed from it. Strengthen us, Lord God, for all that is good, right, clean, transparent, godly, and self-disciplined.
Forgive us our sins, which are many. Lead us into holiness, so that holiness itself becomes utterly desirable and attractive to us, sheer God-centeredness, until the day we stand before you face to face, hungering to hear from the blessed lips of the Master, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord.” For this eternal perspective, we beg of you a constant vision. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
