Presumption

Deliver me from Presumptuous Sin, prayed the Psalmist.

WHEN Christ was led into the wilderness he had to undergo three temptations. Evidently all the temptations that can come to man can be found in the three basic kinds of temptations. This should not be strange since God is a trinity, the Devil may also copy an infernal evil counterpart, even as there is a good Christ and an evil Antichrist.

The first was a temptation of the Flesh. Jesus was anhungered, having fasted forty days, extremely weak even, on might feel, unto death. Then Satan tempted Jesus with food, sugar coating the temptation in quotations from the Scripture. Jesus resisted the temptation, also quoting a more fitting passage.

The devil also spread out the riches, power and glory of the world in a temptation of pride and lust of power.

We often hear of the evils: the World, the Flesh and the Devil. There again, the trinity of evil. The first temptation we mentioned was that of the Flesh, whether hunger, pain or sexual fleshy appetites. The pride of the sinful world and its power to tempt the children of God is also universal and easily recognized.

But what is the other great temptation to be aware of and to be guarded against, forewarned? This is known as Presumption, and means, in the Bible though not by Webster, Seeking to use God and His power for one's own purposes, or, following your will rather than the will of God.

Jesus was tempted to "prove" by demonstration of divine power that He was God's Son or representative. Later on Jesus might have called a "legion of angels" to protect Himself, but He did not. He suffered instead. All through His ministry He was careful to differentiate between using divine power to teach faith to the hungry hearted, and yet refrain from forcing those who did not wish to believe.

Every one of us who has ever witnessed to a sinner or preached to a crowd, has been tempted by a great urging desire to almost force our skeptics to admit the reality of God and our own ministry.

St. Paul in preaching in a new place usually suffered every indignation publicly, but then quietly and patiently after much time would see the forming of a nucleus of believers. He preached and witnessed but then recognized humbly, that God moved on certain chosen ones to accept the Gospel and the new birth.

There were miracles all along the way, but they were the benefit of certain individuals and the Church, but could not force a hostile crowd to have a mass change of heart. When a miracle became apparent to one crowd they wanted to offer sacrifices, but not to God, Christ or Jehovah, but in the names of their own idols. And When Paul would not accept this, they turned in a moment from worship to attempt to kill him.

The Early Church had many great miracles, the jails were burst open, and there were also every kind of healing, yet also that strange balance, they were beaten with stripes, with rods, stones, and often in prisons not miraculously opened. It must needs be that we enter the Kingdom of Heaven with much tribulation.

Paul prayed for more strength and health and better eyesight. The Lord gave his just enough strength sufficient for that day. He healed others, but he himself was never released from his thorn in the flesh. Many passages in his writings relate his continual sufferings, sharing the suffering of Christ, his Lord. We must pray for divine healing for ourselves and for others, but we MUST ALWAYS ADD SINCERELY, not my will but Thine be done.