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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 082. The Outworks
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The Outworks
Now notice, please, the rule he follows in these temptations and attacks. He always aims at the weakest point; that is by weakest I mean the point where he is most likely to succeed. If successful there, of course, his point is achieved. If defeated at that point of approach he proceeds to the next likeliest, and so on. In Eden his first approach was successful. It is rather humiliating that our oldest kinsman yielded at the first point of approach. In the Wilderness he went from one point to another, until having failed in each he was obliged to leave. But note, too, that though he may fail at some one point of approach, he is sure to come back to that same point in some changed guise.
It is always good tactics for us to guard our weak points, or our likeliest points of approach. And as a man's strong point is quite likely to become his weak point through over-confidence, therefore guard all points, but especially the weak, the likeliest points of approach.
Then mark that it is a favourite method with the tempter to come through our bodies. He tempts through the natural appetites and desires. He attacks through weakness or sickness or disease. Eve was tempted first by the appeal to a perfectly proper bodily desire. When that temptation was yielded to, the next came likewise in the realm of the body, to use a proper function for a purpose not intended.
Our Lord was tempted first in the appeal to His sense of hunger. It was a bodily temptation. It is striking that the tempter made no headway with Job until he attacked his body. Job remained true through the disasters that came by war, and storm, by loss of children and property, but when his body was touched his strength of resistance began to weaken.
Many a man who would scorn to yield to what he recognizes as a sin in the bodily realm will over-use his bodily strength in doing God's service, or will eat imprudently, or eat such things as are not wholesome, not thinking of these as temptations. But the result is that he is either weakened in his work, or set aside from doing it. And that is, at least, a partial victory for the tempter. When we come to realize that whatever weakens our bodies is a temptation to be resisted, we shall have gone far in defeating the evil one, at one of his subtlest points of approach.