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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 081. Two Lines of Approach
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Two Lines of Approach
But the chief thing we are to talk together about now is his tactics in dealing with us personally. And here he has two avenues of approach—he tempts, and he attacks. The temptation is an attempt to induce us to do wrong, to lead us, by much or by little, aside from the one right path. The attack is an attempt to injure us regardless of our consent. He tempted Eve in Eden. He attacked Job. He did both with our Lord. Every weapon at command was used against Him. Jesus met every sort of temptation and attack on our behalf. He was tempted in the Wilderness, and when the Greeks came. He was attacked by that unusually violent Galilean storm; and in Gethsemane, and on Calvary.
The temptation is for all, the attack is for those resisting the temptation. When he fails in tempting, he tries attacking. Of course it is true that the attack itself may become, and often does become, simply a subtler form of temptation. It throws a flood of light upon the character of Job that he was attacked by Satan. Those attacks told this story, that Job had been tempted and had resisted. He had become skilled in recognizing and fighting the tempter's temptations. Then the tempter, having failed so largely there, cunningly changes his line of approach.
In temptation he seeks our consent to his proposals. In his attacks he does what he is allowed to, acting within the limitations set by God, to injure without seeking our consent. So the attack itself becomes a temptation, usually a temptation to doubt God, or to depart from the path of obedience in seeking our own comfort or ease or protection. The attack is really the second hard drive when temptation fails.
In these temptations and attacks, he is sometimes subtle, like a snake crawling along in the tall grass to strike its fangs in when you least think it is there. Sometimes he comes with the rush of a sudden wild storm down the valley, in an attempt to sweep you off your feet.