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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 092. Hiding Behind Natural Desires
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Hiding Behind Natural Desires
Mark first of all this: the tempter hides behind natural appetites and desires. There are certain bodily, and mental, and social, functions and appetites and desires with which we have been endowed. The appetite for food and drink; the sense of taste that appreciates fine flavours; the longing for and delight in personal companionship; the desire to fit into the scheme of life and play one's full part in it; the sense of beauty that can appreciate and enjoy and be uplifted by the beautiful in landscape and in artistic handiwork—these are perfectly natural tastes and desires.
The tempter comes along these natural pathways of our being. He prefers such roads. They make easier travel for him. He seeks to push us to an extreme, this way or that, in satisfying these natural desires. He appealed to Eve's sense of beauty, her sense of taste, and her desire for knowledge. Had he openly told her why he had come, and what the result of her following his suggestion would be, she would have promptly turned away. But behind these disguises she was deceived, and so fell into the tangling snare laid at her feet.
The approach to Job was very cunning. The aim of the tempter was to make Job doubt God's love. He came up behind Job's love for his home, for his children, and for peace and prosperity. This was a perfectly natural love, implanted in Job's heart by God. The impression made upon Job was that God was taking away his children, breaking up his home, and taking away his peace and prosperity. The natural tendency was to have his sense of trust in God rudely shocked. The approach of the tempter was behind those natural God-given desires.
In the Wilderness the first approach of the tempter was behind a bodily need. The desire for food was a right thing, of course. The tempter sought to use a right desire to make our Lord do that which it would have been wrong for Him to do, because contrary to His Father's plan at that time. The second approach was through something yet higher up. Our Lord said He would trust the Father to care for His bodily needs. Through that spirit of trust in God's loving watch-care the tempter comes up with his second proposal. Our Lord refused to go to the extreme of a foolhardy going where He had not been led.
Again, the third approach was hidden behind a natural desire. World-wide dominion was a perfectly natural thing for our Lord Jesus. It was doubly so. As a man merely He had a right to such dominion, even such as was given to Adam, and lost by him. As the new head of the race all things had been given into His hands. (Mat_11:27) But he would take possession of his world-wide dominion in His Father's way, and time, and only so. (Eph_1:20-21.) The approach was behind a true natural instinct, the desire for world-wide dominion.
So the tempter is still doing. It is one of his settled ways of coming to us. Along the path of what is right he comes to push us to some extreme, and especially to push us from the narrow path of obedience to the Father's plan, and way, and time. Our safety lies in remembering that every right desire is to be used only for our Father's glory and as He guides.
The natural desire is never to be an end in itself. It is to be used only as a means to a high end. That end is to carry out God's purposes, and reveal the more His glory. The tempter continually tries to sway us over to using these proper natural desires as ends in themselves. The one thing he is driving at is to sway us away from God's plan by little or by much. It is a cunning disguise.