Welcome back to an old friend!
Dear Friends,
Lately I have been working on the book of Isaiah in preparation for teaching it to an adult Sunday school class in the church of which I am a member. Since I had never taught Isaiah before and had to prepare to teach about four chapters a week in 45 minutes, I had to work hard to prepare for that. I usually try to read a sermon a day by Spurgeon but had to let that go to prepare for the course. You have seen the notes that were the result. But I sure missed Spurgeon and hope you did too. Well, he’s back. I have started reading a sermon a day again and today’s devotional is a result. When are you in the most spiritual danger? Today’s devotional will answer that question. God bless you.
Because of Calvary,
John Janney
I Corinthians 10:13
I Corinthians 10:13 ESV
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 Corinthians 10:13
“…There are worse things in this world than being tempted with painful temptations. It is much worse to be tempted with a pleasant temptation, — to be gently sucked down into the destroyer’s mouth, — to be carried along the; smooth current, afterwards to be hurled over the cataract. This is dreadful; but to fight against temptation, — this is good. I say again that there are many worse things than to be tried with a temptation that arouses all the indignation of your spirit. An old divine used to say that he was more afraid of a sleeping devil than he was of a roaring one, and there is much truth in that observation; for, when you are left quite alone, and no temptation assails you, you are apt to get carnally secure, and boastfully to say, ‘I shall never be moved.’ I think no man is in such imminent danger as the man who thinks that there is no danger likely to befall him, so that anything that keeps us on the watch-tower, even though it be in itself evil, is, so far, overruled for good. The most dangerous part of the road to heaven is not the Valley of the Shadow of Death; we do not find that Christian went to sleep there when the hobgoblins were all about him, and when he found it hard to feel the path, and keep to it; but when he and Hopeful came to the Enchanted Ground, ‘whose air naturally tended to make one drowsy,’ then were the pilgrims in great peril until Christian reminded his fellow-traveler that they were warned by the shepherds not to sleep when they came to that treacherous part of the way. I think, then, that to be tempted with painful temptations, those that goad the spirit almost to madness, — bad as that trial is, — grievous as it is to be borne, — may be, spiritually, not the worst thing that can possibly happen to us.”
[Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLV, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1899), p. 3]