One of the chief courses of instruction in the School of the Holy Spirit is that of temptation. Victory over Satan is a very glorious achievement, but it is only half, and so far as our earthly life is affected, the smaller half, of God's purpose in sending and permitting temptation. He means us in every battle to gain a knowledge of self, a knowledge of our weak points, that realizing them our wills may be incited to co-operate with His to re-enforce them.[[6]]
(1) One of the first lessons it is needful for us to learn is that when great difficulty is experienced in resisting a temptation we are to regard the point of this particular assault as one that requires strengthening. How wonderfully does the divine wisdom force Satan himself to be our instructor and, in permitting him to buffet us, compel him to proceed according to a principle which teaches the soul its own needs, and so turns to his own undoing, and to the profit of the one who is tempted.
Even when, for the time being, he gains a victory, the same principle holds good. After true penitence has come to make good the breach, how much has the soul learned, how sensitive it is at that particular point, how alert to perceive any renewed attack, how full of a holy desperation that the same disaster come not again.
Satan's desire is to keep us in ignorance of our weakness, and he would persuade the sinner that his relation with God is at all points what it ought to be. Then, having soothed the soul with the opiate of deception, he would bind us hand and foot. But whatever he may be able to do with those who have submitted themselves to his unholy will, God will not have it so with those who are seeking to be faithful, but forces Satan to act as His messenger to warn us.
"Temptations," it has been said, "are often very profitable to us though they be troublesome and grievous."[[7]] We have much to learn in the consideration of this saying. Why should a child of God who is daily and consciously receiving and enjoying the gifts of a loving Father find the direct solicitation to offend Him so difficult to overcome? If one whom we knew to be our enemy should try to persuade us to commit some act that would be a deep dishonour to a loving earthly parent, we should not find it hard to repel the suggestion. More than this, the fact that such a thing had been proposed would instinctively impel us to some immediate word or act of devotion, that would leave no shadow of doubt upon our love and loyalty.
An answer to this question comes from the Holy Ghost in the very temptation that is vexing us, for in it He would teach us two truths:
(1) The first is a very humiliating one, namely, that although our reason recognizes our relation and duty to God, yet somewhere in our nature there is a powerful tendency to choose evil rather than good, the service of Satan rather than the love of God.
The Apostle describes his own experience in his letter to his Roman converts. "That which I do, I allow not," he says, "for what I would, that I do not, but what I hate, that I do.... The good that I would, that I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do."[[8]]
Nor need we be in the dark concerning its extent, for the struggle for the right is always grievous in proportion to the strength of the tendency to choose what Satan offers.