The Christian's Two Conflicts

(The Pastor's Letter November 1973)

Dear Friends,

There is hardly another thing that puts the reality of our spiritual life more to the test than the inner conflicts of temptation that arises within us due to the outward circumstances that so often surround us. Very often, we miss this point, and we are inclined to imagine that the outward evil of a situation in which we find ourselves is the great issue with which we must first contend, and yet, this is very often not the case at all. Invariably, the real issue of an outward trial, or circumstance, or situation is not the outward aspects of it, but the inward reactions that it is going to produce on our hearts and minds and, therefore, on our spiritual well-being and existence. Thus, we say, in fact, that the reality of our spiritual life is put to the test, not by the outward things that surround us, but by our inward reactions to these things.

This principle of Christian living is beautifully borne out in that famous eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. We all readily recognise that chapter as setting forth the great conquests of faith wrought at the hands of those gallant Old Testament saints. And, indeed, it is all that. How it should ever inspire the Church of Christ to realise that she is “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” Those people, whom Calvin says, “were guided to heaven by only a shaft of light.” And as we read of them being “stoned”, and “sawn asunder”, and “slain with the sword”, and being “scourged” and “destitute” and “afflicted”, let it always be retained in our minds that they were flesh and blood just as we are. They were not “paper people” – the creation of some talented author; they were the people of God, under persecution for the sake of God.

Now, once we come to terms with that, then, we will begin to see this principle of Christian living which we have mentioned. For, you see, tucked away there in that 37th verse of that eleventh chapter of Hebrews is one very telling little phrase. Says Paul, “they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted … ”

That's the phrase; they “were tempted.” In other words, the outward aspects of the stonings and everything else, were one thing, but there was something else, as well: there was an inner conflict and crisis of faith as they were forced to weigh up what was happening to them. And because they were flesh and blood, then, says the apostle rightly, “they were tempted.” The stones beat down upon their bodies, the swords made great gashes in their flesh, but there was another conflict capable of inflicting deeper and more lasting wounds, and it was being fought out in their innermost souls and could only gain the victory through faith beholding “the evidence of things not seen.”

When we read any of the accounts of those who “suffered” for the faith, let us never forget what their hearts and minds had to overcome. We get one of the most moving passages in all of the volumes of John Bunyan when he relates in his Grace Abounding how he was affected for his family, and especially his little blind daughter, as he was about to be led away to enter his imprisonment in the town of Bedford. He has many tokens of God's upholding, he tells us, but, nevertheless, he discovered himself to be, Oh, so human. “But notwithstanding these helps,” he says, “I found myself a man, and compassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children, hath often been to me in this place, as the pulling the flesh from the bones … because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with should I be taken from them – especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all besides; Oh! The thoughts of the hardship I thought my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.”

Well might such a passage break any of our hearts. And yet, you see, the thing that we are to understand from it is this, that martyrdom doesn't lie – nor never lay – primarily in what is done to the body, but what is very often undergone in the soul. And that makes martyrdom ever contemporary for the Christian in whatever age he find himself – even in this century, and in this year. If any of the Lord's suffering people of the past had, first of all, yielded to the temptations fought out in their hearts and minds, they would never have undergone that suffering. And the reality of their spiritual life was put to the test, not by the outward circumstance – no matter how extreme that circumstance was– but by the inward reaction to it.

In this country today, we have no stakes, or bonds, or imprisonments for the sake of the gospel, but we do have temptations. We are faced with issues, and pressures, and accepted standards which cause a turmoil in our hearts and minds, and it is within our hearts and minds that we are still first called to be martyrs, just as surely as Bunyan, and all the saints, were. How tempting it is to comply with that which is most easy and pleasing to our self-life; and how many arguments our natures set before us to persuade us to do just that.

How often poor old Noah must have felt the pressure of public opinion as he laboured away on what had, no doubt, been branded as the production of a religious maniac. And how Abraham must have had to fight tooth and nail, both with the natural feelings of his own heart towards his son “his only son, Isaac,” and even in relation to those promises that God Himself had given him, for all those promises resided in the future life of Isaac, and, surely “that Eleazar” was not to be the heir of his house? Remember, too, the men who walked round Jericho until, at their shout, the walls fell down. How crucifying to human endeavour; never did they fight such a fight in their whole conquest of Canaan than they did with their own hearts and minds concerning the taking of that city. And what of the “martyrs” already mentioned? Those who were stoned, and sawn asunder etc.? How was their faith put to the test, and the reality of their religion proved? “They were tempted,” as well. The wondering look of a child, must surely have pierced much deeper into a father being dragged away for the sake of the gospel than any spear that would later on enter into his body. Or, the crushing aspect of seeing other professors of the faith of Christ drawing back from the stake, and taking the more “flowery path of ease.”

These and a dozen more temptations beset the road of all the saints in all the ages. And although the outward circumstances and the outward conclusions vary from age to age, nevertheless, the inward warfare is ever present, and there, – in the inward man – the true reality of our spiritual life is vindicated or questioned. The world taunts yet, in a dozen-and-one ways, just as it did in Noah's day.

The promises of God are very often shrouded in God's “mysterious ways”, just as surely as they were for Abraham when he led Isaac up that mountainside. The means of spiritual conquest are still every bit as trying to the desire to resort to the “arm of flesh” as they were for Israel's army camped just over from Jericho. Disappointments and disillusionments with others who profess to having “a like precious faith,” will always be as barbs to the conscience, and there will always be the nagging suspicion that if these careless, disinterested and workless souls are going to end up in heaven at last regardless of what they do, or fail to do, then, why on earth should I not opt for that “flowery path”, as well?

Ah, but then, we are on dangerous ground. Remember Christ's words – and, no doubt, many tempted along that line have remembered them – “What is that to thee? Follow thou Me.” “The cause makes the martyr,” and although we can't all be “stoned”, or “sown asunder”, for the “cause” we can all be tempted for the cause, and therein lies the battle for true spirituality. Circumstances may change; but no matter how they change, they will still react on the inner life of the child of God, and there the child of God is tempted, and so, must learn not to “yield” to temptation, regardless of the cost in taunts, trials, mortifyings, or disappointments. How Moses must have felt the “pull” of the prestige of being the son of Pharaoh's daughter, or the “ease” which the treasures of Egypt would have afforded him, or the disillusionment of the squabbling and ineptitude of his own country-men. Yet, he came forth from the fray to the glory of God. How? Says Paul, “he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” It is always faith alone that must interpret the seen into the unseen – the temporal into the eternal – the physical into the spiritual. So that it is not really the outward circumstances that dominate our lives, but our inward assessments and reactions to those of circumstances So that we are enabled to say with Paul – “we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”

Before those old saints overcame the sword, or the stone, or the rack, or the stake, they, first of all, had to overcome the heart, and the mind, the emotions and the flesh, the thoughts and the feelings; they “were tempted.” And the Lord's people are ever tempted, and will ever know the worlds temptation. But there is “a victory that overcometh the world, even your faith.” And – By faith, Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and the martyrs, and the tempted, and the Lord's people in every generation till Christ shall come, shall see God; for “the just shall live by faith.” Let our faith ever interpret the circumstances, and forbid that our circumstances should misinterpret our faith.

The Lord Reigns,
Yours Sincerely,
   W.J. Seaton