It was a beautiful sunny day in Ostrava Czech Republic a city of 300,000. It was 1995 and I had just moved there to take an intense Czech language course and after half a day of Czech grammar I was tired. I got on the tram and spaced out for my 20 minute ride to the suburbs where I lived. As usual the tram stopped, people got on and off and it continued on its way. But suddenly I noticed that after the last stop, everyone got off and no one got on. The doors closed and then the tram went around the corner into some dead end and stopped. The driver in the first car got off and left. To my shock I was left alone – trapped and locked into this Czech tram. It was not a good feeling.
Have you ever been trapped? Panicked? Alone?
Abraham and Sarah certainly seemed to experience something like that as they waited for God’s promise of a child. Year after year passed and they got older and older.
He was the great Abraham, the friend of God. He heard God’s voice and multiple times was personally called by God. He was blessed by Melchizedek the priest and king of the Most High God. And as we saw last week, Abraham heard the promises again from the Lord that he would have a son and a great land.
Despite all these blessings and promises, Abraham still struggled with the trap of temptation. He struggled to obey and trust in God’s promises. Temptation to sin was lurking around every corner. And so it is for every single person who trusts in Christ as their Lord and Savior. Just because you’re a strong believer and mature doesn’t mean you will escape the trap of temptation.
What does Scripture reveal to us about temptation? First, that TEMPTATION FOLLOWS THAT WHICH MAKES SENSE.
God had promised that Abraham would have his own son – not adopted but from his own flesh. But the problem is that Sarah has had no children. She says: “The Lord has prevented me from bearing children.”
Here Sarah is 75 years old. Many of you are not yet 75 but can YOU imagine having a child? It’s of course impossible and Sarah knows it. Abraham knows it and God didn’t say anything about Sarah becoming pregnant. After all – it’s a closed door!
So the thought is this: They know that Abraham will have a son but maybe it’s not with Sarah. What about another woman? This must be what God meant.
If temptation didn’t make sense, we certainly wouldn’t ever sin. We are under the impression that this is the logical way to solve problems.
• Break the window and escape the tram.
• If you don’t get along – break the marriage.
• You need to protect someone – lie.
• If you can’t afford to support a child, have an abortion.
• If you love someone, live together and try out the relationship.
It makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Temptation follows human logic almost every time!
What else does Scripture teach about temptation? TEMPTATION FOLLOWS THAT WHICH IS NORMAL IN THE WORLD.
Temptation would not be appealing if it was unacceptable in society. But when most people encourage us to break God’s word, it seems okay.
This is clear in the situation with Abraham and Sarah. What they did was part of their world. In fact, according to the custom of that time, a barren couple can have their own child through another woman such as a slave or servant who would be something of a surrogate mother. This was normal behavior in this time period. When a woman married she brought her servant with her as something of an insurance policy in case she couldn’t have children.
So Sarah has thought it through. She’s figured out a way to fulfill the promise of God. It falls right in line with what everyone else does in this situation. She suggests to her husband to sleep with her maid servant in order to have a child through her.
Now, I don’t know anyone (although I am sure there are some out there in the world) who would do this thing today. Can you imagine encouraging your husband to sleep with another woman? It’s scandalous! Couples get divorced for that. Such behavior might even result in a report in the city newspaper: “Local man has two wives.”
But keep in mind, this was practiced all the time. It was NORMAL, accepted, not frowned upon. Good men and women practiced this – several times it happens in the Bible where men have more than one wife including Jacob, David, and Solomon. It was part of their culture. Does that mean it is ok?
Let’s be reminded what Scripture tells us: WE ARE NOT CALLED TO DO WHAT IS NORMAL IN THIS WORLD or in our culture. WE ARE CALLED TO BE DIFFERENT. We have a higher calling. It may seem obvious to us and horrible what Abraham and Sarah did but we today in our contemporary society do these kinds of things ALL THE TIME.
It’s NORMAL for a couple to express their love for each other through sex without any commitment whatsoever. It’s acceptable and in fact expected for a couple that is attracted to each other to sleep together sooner or later. It’s normal for a young man or woman who has reached the age of say 15 or 16 to lose his or her virginity. In fact, if you don’t, you’re considered an oddball. Someone who waits until marriage – people wonder what’s wrong with you.
The idea of saving yourself for marriage – for a virgin marriage is laughed at as archaic today and ridiculous. It’s certainly not applauded. The world tells us to do what comes natural – practice before marriage. Live together and even have children. Don’t commit to marriage. Why? Because then you can break up and find another partner much easier. This is normal today but not normal to our creator. That’s not how he made us.
Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” Did you hear that? ONE flesh. One flesh is for life! It assumes that even a fling in the back seat of the car makes one flesh. It assumes a commitment of life! You can’t be one flesh with three, four, or ten people and not expect consequences.
The point here is that we are not to follow the norm for our world – we follow the norm that God gives us in his word.
The norm in the world is to fight your enemies and destroy them. We take an eye for an eye. We get back at those who hurt us. But the Lord has a higher standard for us doesn’t he? Luke 6:27-29 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.” That’s insane according to the world. You sue! You get them back! But Jesus says “pray,” “do them a favor.”
The norm in the world is to rebel against our authority. This is an easy one to justify because our authorities are so obviously evil or just plain wrong. They are leading our country in the wrong direction, promoting abortion, getting us in terrific debt, lowering the moral standards. The list goes on. We strike! We protest! We shake our fist and curse our leaders.
Is that what Jesus did? Is that what the Apostles did? Yes, Jesus stood for the truth but he humbly accepted the authorities over him. He never spoke from hate. He didn’t rebel or disobey. Instead he allowed them to arrest him and even put him to death.
The Apostles did the same! The authorities told them to stop preaching the Gospel. What was their response? “We must obey God rather than man!” And they continued to preach the Gospel not out of rebellion, anger, or spite. But they also still humbled themselves under their authority as under God. How do we know this? Because they were arrested and eventually killed as martyrs. They were not of the world – they had a higher standard!
The question you need to ask is this: What is God’s “normal”? That’s our standard – not what the world says.
The third teaching of Scripture concerning temptation? TEMPTATION SEEKS TO GO AROUND THE WORD OF GOD instead of waiting and trusting in God.
Returning to Abraham – we find that he had this constant temptation as he sought to follow God – the temptation to go around the word of God in order to complete the promise.
What was the promise to Abraham? “You shall be a great nation.” Translated for him that meant – “you will have a son.” So this is his life goal – his ultimate vision – a son!
• Abraham arrives in the land of promise – no sooner had he arrived when there was a famine. A test of his faith. He leaves the land and heads for Egypt instead of waiting upon God to provide for his family.
• He enters Egypt and is afraid for his life because Pharaoh might kill him in order to take Sarah as his wife. So what does he do? Instead of trusting in God he lies about his wife – he says she is his sister. He nearly loses her forever as his wife as Pharaoh takes her.
• Now, 10 years later they still don’t have children. They’ve waited a long time. The thought is to have a child through Hagar instead of wait any more for God. And Ishmael is born.
Friends, do you notice a pattern here? Over and over again he refuses to wait upon the Lord but through his cleverness, plans, and ideas coming from the wisdom of the world he finds a way out of each problem WITHOUT God. He sees each problem like a wall in the way of fulfilling God’s covenant promise. And so in order to go ahead, he finds a way over the wall.
What is the wall blocking our way? Not the problem but the Word of God. The WORD OF GOD.
• The Word of God says, “Do not bear false witness” – don’t lie about your wife to Pharaoh.
• The word of God says, “You shall not commit adultery.” Don’t sleep with Sarah’s maid.
And so many agree with Abraham - that sometimes we simply have to go around the Word of God in order to accomplish something good. We believe that we need to tell a little lie, sneak a few dollars from the account, marry that non-believer – in order to do something good for God.
Listen carefully: if you have to break any of God’s laws in order to do anything good – it’s a sin. God does NOT endorse it. God is not pleased! It is NOT his will. We believe the lie every day that there is no other way but to break the law of God. It’s NOT true!
1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
I think of the popularity of Prison Break a few years ago. I actually got hooked on it for a few episodes because you see how these guys are innocent and you want to see them get out of prison.
Go back with me for a moment to Peter and John who obeyed God and were arrested and thrown into prison. It certainly wasn’t their goal to be in prison. They were to be evangelizing the world. But they ended up stuck in prison. But Acts 5:19-20 says “during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said,’ Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.’” And they obeyed.
God provided a way of escape and they were back to preaching - so too with every one of you. With every temptation – with every impossible situation where it looks like there is no way out – God promises that he will provide a way of escape. Wait for it!
Our perspective is so often like Abraham and Sarah – we see only dead ends – walls left and right and it seems like God just closes us in all the time. He seems to make life difficult. But the reality is that every wall can be a door to God. Wait upon Him. He is faithful. Trust in Him.
• Don’t follow what makes sense – follow the Word of God
• Don’t follow what is “normal” – you are called to be different
• Wait upon God’s help – he will provide a way of escape everytime!
