Every occasion of temptation is pregnant with graces and heavenly favours which God has in store for the victor. Calling us forth to the battle is just His way of calling us to lay hold of some increase of strength He has prepared for us.
(3) Great comfort is laid hold of by the soul in contemplating that in temptation God is but furnishing us the opportunity to carry out His commands,—"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven";[[16]] and, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."[[17]] Unless such commands are fulfilled there can be no redemption for us. God has done His part and done it perfectly. So far as His work is concerned, He could, when yielding up His soul on the Cross, most truly cry, "It is finished,"[[18]] for everything necessary for God to do in order that man might lay hold on salvation was accomplished. But man must have his part. Salvation can come to no soul that does not labour for it, and temptation is the opportunity definitely prepared and presented to us by a loving God that the work of the Cross may not for us have been wrought in vain. Therefore great consolation must come with every assault, and as we feel the weight and thrust of the awful conflict, let us joyfully cry, "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation! Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me! Look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh!"[[19]]
(4) The greater and more prolonged the temptation, the greater should be our consolation. The fact that the assault is fierce and persistent gives the blessed assurance that the soul has been faithful in the little temptations. The tempter realizes that if he is to have us at all, it must be at great cost and labour; that we are not going to sell ourselves cheap.
(5) We sometimes hear men complain against God's justice because He permits souls to be so beset by the Evil One; but as a matter of fact his antagonism reassures us on this very point. Temptation is Satan's tribute to the divine justice. He is the Accuser of the brethren, and in tempting us he is acknowledging that he must have something real wherewith to accuse us at the Judgment.
(6) When strange, terrible, and unaccustomed flashes of temptation come, we learn with great joy that the tempter is puzzled concerning us. Our steadfast service of God has baffled him, and he can only experiment with us, as it were, hoping a weak point may by some means be discovered. Such temptations, in many cases, mean that the tempter is working in the dark.
(7) Great comfort must be found in the thought of the victory that awaits us if we are faithful. This should not arise merely from the sense of relief at escaping a fall, but from the happy thought that in every such victory, great or small, Satan is weaker in my life than he was before, and God and His love are stronger. True, great conflicts may be still in store for me, but I have greater strength than ever before for meeting them and overcoming. So while the warfare continues, the soul grows keener for the struggle, and finds greater joy in it, because it realizes its strength, and rejoices, as does every strong man, to use it.
Many other points of consolation may be found in the spiritual combat, but these will suffice to show us how much of joy there is in the active, militant life of the Christian, if we only try to find it.
Let us, then, thank God for temptation, and if it presses us hard, let us rejoice the more, for it is His way of sending us the pledge of our peace with Him, the guerdon of His love.