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What the Bible says about Putting Oneself in Tempting Situations
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Exodus 15:26

As God's children, we can call upon Him for healing. He is our Healer and promises to keep us from the terrible diseases of this world if we obey Him. He assures us in Psalm 103:3 that He is the One "who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases." During His ministry, Jesus healed everyone who asked "according to [their] faith" (Matthew 9:29). He gave Himself in sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, and it is by His stripes that we are healed (Isaiah 53:5; I Peter 2:24). John writes, "And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (I John 3:22), showing that our healing is conditional upon obedience and right living.

This is wonderful promise! These days, it is a welcome relief to know that God is the Great Physician and our Father. We can conduct our lives confidently, knowing that we can rely on God's protection.

On the other hand, we should not be foolish, stupid, or careless in these matters. Certainly, we should not put ourselves in harm's way or tempt God to force Him to act in our behalf (Deuteronomy 6:16; see Matthew 4:7). There may be no quicker way to invoke the wrath of Almighty God (Exodus 17:1-7)!

So we should ask ourselves when we are sick and tired and in need of God's healing, "What have I done to bring this on? Have I tempted God with my lifestyle? Has He withheld His protection so that I might get sick and have the opportunity to learn a lesson and repent of a sin?" If we are honest with ourselves, we will find ourselves answering, "Yes" to several or all these questions.

If so—if we have not been treating the temple of God's Holy Spirit properly—if we have been burning the midnight oil or the candle at both ends—if we have been feeding it low-quality fare, skipping meals, or overindulging in sugary or fatty foods—if we have been skipping even moderate exercise, such as taking walks—if we have been carrying too much weight, etc.—then we need to do something about it! That is the essence of repentance: change!

For too long, I feel, members of God's church have not put enough emphasis on this last part of the process. We are happy and eager to take advantage of God's mercy and blessing to be healed, but too often we have not made the necessary changes to show Him that we indeed have learned our lesson and wish to please Him by living healthfully from then on.

The process works the same physically as spiritually because it is a universal, eternal law. If we do wrong and seek forgiveness, God by His grace and mercy forgives and leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). But He cannot repent for us! That is our job. He takes us as far as He can along the way, but we must make the changes so that repentance actually occurs. We must, by whatever strength we can muster with God's help, bear down and change.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Sick and Tired

Psalm 91:1-16

Psalm 91, traditionally credited to Moses, follows the well-attested Psalm 90. Because the former has no title, commentators reason that the Psalms' editors want the reader to understand that Psalm 91 also came from Moses' pen. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary even terms it a "companion poem" to the previous psalm.

Its theme deals primarily with the safety and protection God's people can expect from Him. Verse 3 is typical: "Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence." Verse after verse presents positive, reassuring proof that our God will keep us from harm, illness, war, deceit, dangerous beasts, and evil in general. Satan, in fact, quotes verses 11-12 out of context to Jesus during the Temptation in the Wilderness in an attempt to persuade Him that God will save Him even from an act of pride and foolishness (Matthew 4:5-6).

Our Savior's response teaches us that the promises found in this psalm are not automatic and unconditional. He quotes from Deuteronomy 6:16: "You shall not tempt the LORD your God," meaning that God cannot be forced to act on our behalf. He does not take kindly to mere humans testing Him to see if He will respond (Psalm 78:17-22, 40-41, 56-64; 95:7-11).

We can depend on His protection, but we must also remember that the law of cause and effect still exists. We will reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7-8). God is under no obligation to save us from the consequences of our own sinful or imprudent actions. He may from time to time deliver us from certain situations because He has more to teach us, but we do not have it guaranteed.

From the first words of the song, Moses wants to dissuade us of this notion of a guarantee. These promises fall upon the one "who dwells in the secret place of the Most High" (Psalm 91:1). What is this "secret place?" The most probable answer is that it refers to the Holy of Holies, the earthly type of God's throne in heaven. In the Tabernacle/Temple, the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary, was closed to everyone except that high priest, and he could enter it only once a year on the Day of Atonement—and then only to discharge his mediatory duties!

How, then, can anyone dwell "in the secret place of the Most High"? Under the Old Covenant, it was nearly impossible, except for those few whom God called, like Moses and the other prophets, kings, and patriarchs. However, under the New Covenant, the blood of Jesus Christ has opened the way into the Holy of Holies (Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 9:8, 11-15, 24-28; 10:19-22). Converted Christians can dwell in God's secret place and rely on His protection!

A last point of note is that within Psalm 91 Moses provides us three observations on how we can enter the "secret place." These three are complementary rather than exclusive.

The first appears in verse 2: "I will say of the LORD, 'He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.'" Essentially, this is faith. We must believe that God is faithful: What He says He will do. This leads us to live by faith, not by the allurements and deceptions we see around us (II Corinthians 5:7).

The second we read in verse 9: "Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation." Today, we might say, "You have made the LORD your life"; in other words, total devotion to Him. Without getting into detail, this point covers obedience to God's laws and principles in all areas of life—in effect, to live with Him we must live as He does.

The third occurs in verse 14, where God is speaking: "Because he [the individual] has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him." Obviously, loving God with all our heart, soul, might, and mind (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37) is chief on the list of traits of God's children (I Corinthians 13:13). This, too, has a practical application in that Jesus Himself tells us that if we love Him, we must keep His commandments (John 14:15).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Moses, Psalmist (Part 2)

Proverbs 13:6

This verse seems like a fairly straightforward statement of a truth repeated in various ways dozens, if not hundreds, of times throughout the book of Proverbs. Those who practice righteousness will ultimately succeed, while the sinfulness of the sinner will be his undoing. The way Solomon composes this proverb, however, brings out a few particular points.

First, the emphasis in the first half of the couplet is not necessarily on the godly man's success but on the fact that his practice of goodness shields him from adversity (compare Proverbs 2:11; 4:6; 13:3). A practitioner of God's way of life is protected by the fact that he does what is right. If a person does good things, avoiding what is evil, he will be drawn into adverse situations far less frequently than those who dance on the edge of the cliff.

For instance, the Christian who lives by the injunction found in the seventh commandment—"You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14)—will not put himself or herself in tempting situations; and on the rare occasion that a temptation of that nature presents itself, he or she will, like Joseph, run in the other direction (Genesis 39:12). Such a person's righteousness—his right doing—guards him from the destruction that sin causes, and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). We could also understand this to suggest that a person who walks uprightly shelters under the protection of God, who is pleased with those who practice righteousness (Colossians 1:10; Hebrews 13:16).

The second half of the verse communicates the exact opposite: He whose conduct is determined by sin is bound to fall into destruction. The sinful way of living offers the sinner no protection at all; the course of sin will run unchecked through his life all the way to death (see James 1:14-15)—provided that God Himself does not arrest it through His calling. This is the course of the world that we see every day on the street (Ephesians 2:1-3).

We can take this principle to the bank. Even though we see in various places in Scripture (for example, in Psalm 10), and even in our own experience, that the wicked seem to prosper, we can be assured that their prosperity is only temporary (Psalm 37). The evil that they do will catch up to them in time and begin to take its toll. The corrupt always pay the piper.

The Hebrew text contains a pair of technical oddities in this verse's second half, making it difficult to translate into English but bringing out a significant point. The oddities are that both nouns, "wickedness" and "sinner," are abstract nouns in the original. The NKJV translators, as in many translations, chose to render only one of them as abstract, "wickedness," and changing the other to a concrete noun, "sinner." Literally, though, this part of the verse should be read as "wickedness overthrows sinfulness."

The point this brings out shows just how pervasive sin is once committed. There is no such thing as a partial sinner; one is either righteous or sinful. In practicing sin, the sinner is perfectly wicked—he is sinfulness, nothing but sin, a mass of evil and corruption. James puts it another way, writing that if we break one commandment, we break them all (James 2:10-11). Jesus, speaking both to His disciples and to His audience of Jews, calls them "evil" (Matthew 7:11; 12:34). Paul writes of all humanity, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). James states the simple truth that we all stumble (James 3:2).

Each time we sin, then, we become evil and require the gracious forgiveness of God through the blood of Jesus Christ to become clean once again. The lesson in this proverb is to make it our practice to do what is right and good in God's eyes, and that will greatly diminish our chances of falling into sin and straining our relationship with God.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh


 




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