_'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, More life and fuller that I want,_
The lingering on in life of a temptation, which, if not born of past sin, at any rate has been intensified by self-indulgence, affords us our only chance of expressing penitence to God for failure in loyalty to Him in this respect or that. How can the man, in whom the fires of passion are dead, express before God his sorrow for sins against purity in days that are gone? It is easy to conceive of such a person entreating God to give him back his temptation, that, by a reversal of former decisions, he may prove the reality of his penitence. So far as we can see, the one chance a man has of regaining a lost virtue, is through the very temptation by means of which he was robbed of it. Excessive resistance wins back, slowly but surely, what was lost by excessive indulgence. What is needed is not freedom _from_ but freedom _in_ temptation. This latter is possible for every Christian.
(_b_) Freedom in the life of temptation is achieved by meeting every enticement to sin with an upward rise toward virtue. It is quite inadequate to beat off temptation. We must spoil the strong man and possess ourselves of his goods. One sad feature of life is that we always undershoot the mark, and for the most part perfection in purpose results in nothing better than mediocrity in achievement. It is the sure fate of the man that is contented to view temptation merely as an invitation to hell which must be declined, that he will yield at least occasionally to the sin to which he is tempted. Only he who flings himself upward when the pull comes to drag him down, can hope to break the force of temptation. Temptation may be an invitation to hell, but much more is it an opportunity to reach heaven. At the moment of temptation sin and righteousness are both very near the Christian; but of the two the latter is the nearer.
Walk in the spirit and you put yourself in such a position as to be unable to fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Meet the negation of sin with the affirmation of righteousness. When Satan challenges you to wrestle with him, turn about and wrestle with God for a blessing.
(_c_) There is no reason to be afraid of temptation, that is to say if it is not a temptation into which we have entered unnecessarily, but one that is consequent upon the fulfilment of duty. God does not allow us to be tempted beyond our powers. But this is not all. Our fearlessness should show itself in our attitude. We must meet our temptations face to the foe. The temptations of Jesus never struck Him from behind but always smote Him in the face. There is only one kind of temptation which we are advised to run from, and that is the temptation to fleshly lust. Evasion is for the most part a sign of defeat, not of victory. The man who would gain freedom in temptation must be