Tempted

“ Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. ”

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That's a familiar prayer. Does God really tempt us, and why should we ask Him not to? It sounds like entrapment , a sting operation, when the one enticing you to commit a crime is a police officer, prepared to arrest you when you do the thing he is suggesting.

Morgan is a 28 year old wfa , in police parlance a white female adult . Last Thursday I was riding with police officer Jose Lara as a chaplain to the Chico Police, and in the midmorning he was assigned to join the Butte County Interagency Narcotics Task Force on a drug raid of a house just 1 block from this church. The occupant of that house, Morgan, had made buys of methamphetamine from the BINTF agents and they were sure she was dealing. The Narcotics officers were equipped with helmets, a battering ram and a handy device like a fancy crowbar they called a “hooligan.” Officer Lara and I were simply to cover the rear door of the residence while the others entered at the front door.

The raid went well, as the officers shouted “Police, open up!” and began to beat down the front door with the ram. At the same time, Officer Lara in front of me applied his knee to the back door, and low and behold it opened. Here came Morgan, out a bedroom door, and he ordered her to stop and submit to handcuffs. I saw a door slowly close behind him on the same hallway and alerted him to the presence of another. Her boyfriend, I guess, came out from the same doorway she had, and he was also abducted. We got the third man out of the bedroom to our left, and then here came the dog. It was a pit-bull, and running around the house, it came right for me. However, I'm pretty good with animals and I grabbed his collar and began petting him and made him a friend, calming him down. It was over in less than a minute.

The three were set in the living room while police searched the house. A balance beam scale was found in a room full of probably stolen computer equipment, where a surveillance system had been actively watching the front door. Drug residue was found on the scale, and it was clear we had a dealer in the deadly drug methamphetamine. Officer Lara and I took the young man and Morgan to the police station and booked them in. The young man had outstanding warrants for his arrest.

Now, it may seem unfair for a young woman to be tempted into buying drugs and then arrested for it by the agents offering them to her. It may seem that the broken front door is more than law enforcement should be allowed to do for someone who simply bought narcotics from them. But this is not the whole story. This was not the first time I had encountered Morgan, or her dog.

About the middle of last year, I was driving toward the parking structure to park in my spot on the third deck when a flurry of fire engines and ambulances came up Salem and stopped at the south end of the structure. About eight fire fighters and paramedics ran into the room at that end, which I knew to be a police substation, recently under renovation. I parked and walked down to see what was happening, and to offer assistance. A fireman told me it was a baby, a little boy less than a year old, inside. His mother had brought him in, concerned that he might be dead. I told him I was a police chaplain, although I was simply wearing day clothes for a priest, and offered my help. Though he hesitated, Officer Sharon O'Quin saw me and motioned me into the room. The baby's mother was holding her hands to her tear stained face, and it was a picture of mingled sorrow, fear and guilt. A paramedic was attempting CPR on the baby which lay very pale and cold on a countertop. Officer O'Quin told me quietly that it didn't look good for the child. After the baby and mother were given a ride to the hospital in an ambulance, I was given the task to walk her dog, a pit-bull, home on a lead. The young mother was Morgan. The baby had died in that drug house.

It may seem that God is unfair when He puts us to the test. Why should He allow, or even cause some tempting situation to come across our path? Why should we be responsible for how we react, if it is He who laid it there for us to find? I was once working on the sprinkler system out front here and had set a screwdriver down next to the sidewalk. A young man walking by had seen it, picked it up, and walked with it to a waiting line of busses. My co-worker ran after him and confronted him on it. He gave it back with the explanation, “I just saw it lying there.” Do we make equally lame excuses for our transgressions, as though the existence of evil is God's fault?

That may not be the whole story. God may have witnessed many of our sins and negligences. He may be aware of something we might have done or will do if we are not arrested in our path of sinfulness by coming across a chance to do ill, and being caught red handed, be stopped. Does God tempt us in these ways? He does. Why does He do it? Because He wants us to stop. Morgan wasn't always a bad girl. She didn't always hate the cops, feel ill used by narcotics agents, neglect her baby until it died, and sell deadly chemicals to kids. But now she does, and it has to stop. The story needs another ending than the one she was writing. God stopped her from doing any more.

But does God tempt us? God doesn't make the offer for us to sin. But He does put us into circumstances where temptations may come our way. He lets us be tested like this so we may know what we are made of, or we may prove our trust in Him. Eve saw the fruit, and that it was good to eat. God made the fruit and the commandment not to eat it. God set the test, and she failed, as did her husband. Do we then lay the blame at His feet?

Whether we do or not, He takes responsibility for us at that juncture. God did not destroy the human couple, but set them in a world of tests and hardships. They needed the experience, and to see what their disobedience cost them. In time He would send His Son to become man and to take the whole mess upon His own shoulders, giving us the greatest test of all: Who is Christ to you?

“We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16 Our high priest, Jesus, feels, as we do, the terrible tug of temptations, and He was tempted to His own limit. He triumphed, but He can sympathize with our trials. “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” Hebrews 2:18

It was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus onto the desert to be tempted, or tested. I'm sure that when the devil made his rude suggestions to Christ, he found our Lord's lowest moment, and His greatest weaknesses to exploit. It wasn't bread for Himself that was offered, but miracle bread for people who might follow Him for bread. A miraculous flying act to impress the religiously hungry, who were crowding the temple. A swift and easy access to the entire human race spread below Him as cattle in a corral. His mission would be accomplished in a flash, without the suffering, without Gethsemane.

In Gethsemane, Jesus was tempted to His limits again, by the coming day and its tortuous outcome. We don't hear the tempter's voice in the Gospel accounts, but rather Jesus' desperation before His Father. He wants out. He wants to see if there might be some other way. But His perfect submission, despite His obvious pain, is where He broke through the suffering that was yet to come.

When we are tempted, we need to already have submitted our lives into the hands of the Father. Let whatever pains of testing come then, and He will have victory in us. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Rev. 3:10-11

So, if we can win over temptation, when it comes, we have an opportunity to show the love of God and bring glory to Him. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted.” James 1:12-14 “ Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 1 Cor. 10:12-13 “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God… Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God… Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” St. Matthew 4

God doesn't tempt us, or suggest sin to us. That's someone else's job. God puts us in a world of tests, however, and keeps us here until we prove whom it is we serve. We have failed many times, and He understands such failure, because in His Son He has faced the fire of temptation. But He also knows and has told us that with every temptation, He is there to rescue us, if we would only cry out and ask for Him instead of the sin. If we know Him, if we understand His promises, His Word is in us, and we will withstand the most terrible temptations, happy to please Him, overjoyed to finally be able to withstand the test.

PFH+