To Stay Out of Despair

Scripture References: 1 Chronicles 15:16; Luke 7:18-19

The Green Beret prisoner crouched in a small shipping crate in which his Vietnamese captors forced him. The incredible heat, the infernal mosquitoes, and the constant poking from sharp bamboo poles nearly drove him mad. To escape his limitations, he sang. He pretended to be Elvis Presley and sang “Hound Dog,” or other recording artists and sang their songs. Music was the answer to insanity, he said, and he surrendered himself to it instead of to the fears terrorizing him. In the month before he escaped he found in music a positive companion stronger than the negative forces closing around and threatening him with depression and suicide.

Christians face the temptation to qualify their faith, to rely on their own understanding, to claim God’s benefits even when they are being unfaithful to him. The master’s wilderness experience offers us three principles that enable us to escape all temptation unscathed and triumphant. First, we must have a sound knowledge of the Bible. Second, we must be willing to trust God for our provisions even when it seems he has overlooked us. Third, we must resolutely refuse to compromise any spiritual truth in exchange for some proposed gain. Applying the Master’s three principles will blunt temptation’s attack and allow the Holy Spirit to counterattack.

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
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