Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1528
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, March 14, 1880
“They were tempted.” Hebrews 11:37.
LAST Lord’s-Day I tried to draw the fair portrait of a believing man [Sermon #1526, The Fair Portrait of a Saint] putting his feet into God’s steps and keeping God’s way even unto the end. This morning we shall show in what circumstances such men were produced. We shall discover that they were not nursed upon the lap of ease, but were born and reared and perfected amid storms of opposition. We shall again see “the lily among thorns.” The gracious characters of which we read in Scripture were not created by favorable circumstances—they owed nothing to their position or age— their character was formed from within. Their faith was not produced by the tenderness of Providence—they were not put into a conservatory like fair flowers which cannot endure the frost—we might rather say that they were helped to their robustness by the rough winter blasts which swept over them.
They were warriors of peace—pilgrims who traveled armed to the teeth making no holiday march, but contending with giants and dragons. Whoever else may find life a sport, the saints have found it to be real and earnest. Their path has been no mere parade, but grim and grisly dangers have beset them—“they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were slain with the sword.” One form of the opposition which they encountered is the subject of this morning’s meditation—“They were tempted.” Do not forget that the leading principle of a godly man is faith and, according to this chapter, faith is the force by which brave deeds are done and great sufferings are endured.
All the world appears to be in arms against the man of faith. Ishmael, the child of human strength, mocks Isaac who is born by the power of faith according to promise. Yet faith is able to bear all attacks and to flourish under them, even as the Israelites in Egypt multiplied the more as their oppressions were increased. The sufferings of Believers, which are mentioned by Paul, are varied and exceedingly intense. And this is one of them—“they were tempted.” The speedy weapon of stone, or sword, or saw gratified the malice which sought their death, but tempting them satisfied a subtle hate which stabbed at their character and their faith.
In temptation there is for the soul all the deadliness which the slaughter weapon brings to the body. It is blessed to observe that the faithful also survived this danger. A torrent roared against them and they stemmed it with resolute confidence. They did not drift with the current, nor drown in its floods. Dealing with this one form of opposition, “they were tempted,” I shall be able to say a great many more practical things than if I were preaching upon, “they were stoned,” or, “they were sawn asunder,” for those things happen but now and then. But this record that, “they were tempted,” is repeated in us all and, especially in you who have lately set out on the heavenly pilgrimage. You have got far enough to discover that you are not to be allowed to go to Heaven if Satan can prevent it, nor suffered to remain a Christian if by any means the men of this world can cast you down.
You are being tempted. May the practical words I shall be able to speak be applied with power by the Holy Spirit to your comfort and help.
I. First I will call attention to THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH OF THE STATEMENT now before us. It is not true that all the saints were scourged, nor all imprisoned. Neither were all stoned, nor all slain with the sword. But it is true of the whole cloud of witnesses that they were all tempted. The word, “tempted,” bears two meanings. First of all, that of being tried or afflicted and, secondly, that of being persuaded or enticed to sin. In the first aspect of it God did tempt Abraham, that is, He tried him and this He does with all His people. God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trial!
“What son is there whom the Father chastened not?” “Of which you are all partakers,” says Paul, when he speaks of chastening. “For whom the Lord loves, He corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights.” His own elect are
made to feel His refining fires, for He declares of each one “I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” All the sheep of Christ bear His private mark—He sets the cross of affliction upon them all. “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” “In the world you shall have tribulation.” Before you shall find me a man who has never known trouble I think you will have ridden many a horse lame and searched far and wide for, “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” And I will guarantee that the wonderful untried person is as much a stranger to God as he is to affliction!
Within the sacred enclosure of the elect of God you shall not be able to discover one whom the Lord has not, in some way or at some time afflicted in love. Count it not, therefore, a strange thing, my dear Brothers and Sisters, that you should have a cross to carry! Do not begin to kick against the pricks as though some unusual suffering were laid upon you when the Lord touches you with the goad of sorrow. You are one among many and among the many there are worthy ones who bear heavier loads than yours! Envy none, but feel a brotherhood with all the faithful, for they, too, “were tempted.” As for the other sense of the word, “tempt”—the bad and hard one. In that sense, also, the statement is universally true. All the people of God have been tempted to sin. Satan no sooner perceives a child of God renewed in heart and cleansed from defilement than he endeavors, if he can, to mar the work of the Holy Spirit; to ruin the happiness of the Believer and to weaken his usefulness by leading him into sin.