It was a painful meeting.
She was a married woman, with a young family; a professing Christian.
She was also pursuing an adulterous affair.
My wife and I – two frail, fellow sinners, but redeemed by the blood of Christ – pleaded with her from God’s Word.
As a final plea, I reminded her of a former church leader we knew who had hurt everyone, and left his family devastated, when he scandalously left his wife for another woman. “Please, think – you don’t want to go down that road do you?”
Her response still rings in my ears today:
“But if he, a leader in the church, could not resist temptation, how could I?”
Yes, it was just an excuse to cover her sin.
And, no, it is no excuse.
But it reminded me again of how many others we affect when we sin. How many use (misuse) our sin as an excuse for theirs.
But also, how many are encouraged to fight on in this battle when we resist sin and temptation.
Forty Wrestlers for Christ
In the days of the Roman Empire, when Christians were being persecuted, there was a band of soldiers known as the Emperor’s Forty Singing Wrestlers. Before each contest in the Roman amphitheatre, they would chant:
We, the wrestlers, wrestle for you, O Emperor,
To win for you the victory and from you the victor’s crown.
But when the Roman army fought in Gaul, the Emperor heard that some of his soldiers were turning to Christ. He sent word: “Any soldier who clings to the faith of the Christians must die.”
It was winter; the soldiers were camped on the edge of a frozen lake. So, the military commander demanded: “Are there any among you who cling to the faith of the Christians? If so, let him step forward.”
The Forty Singing Wrestlers stepped forward. The commander was aghast; he begged them to renounce their faith so he would not have to execute them. Though he pleaded with them over and again, he could not get one man to back down.
Finally he told them, “The decree of the emperor must be carried out. I am not willing that your blood be on your comrades. March out on the lake ice. I shall leave you to the mercy of the elements. Fires, however, will be waiting for any who want to renounce their faith.”
The Forty were stripped of their clothing; then fell into columns and marched out on the lake ice. As they marched, they began to chant as they had done in the arena – but this time:
Forty wrestlers, wrestling for You, O Christ,
To win for You the victory and from You the victor’s crown.
They continued to encourage one another like this, singing of their victory in Christ.
Then, suddenly, there was a break: one of their number gave in and crawled back across the ice to the waiting fire.
The singing died away.
But, at the edge of the frozen lake stood another soldier, a secret Christian.
So moved was he by the testimony of his fellow believers, and so distraught at the disappointment of his fellow believers, that he at once stripped off his own clothes, and walked across the frozen lake, to take the place of the deserter.
Immediately, his companions, reinvigorated in their faith, took up the strain:
Forty wrestlers, wrestling for You, O Christ,
To win for You the victory and from You the victor’s crown.
They continued to sing, till one by one, they all perished.
The above is one of many versions of the story. It does seem to have a factual basis (see eg. here), though I am not vouching for all the details or the subsequent superstitions that accrued around it (see eg. here). I include it here simply as an illustration of how we, and many others, are encouraged to fight on in this battle when we resist sin and temptation.
The Bible abounds in the examples of such who persevered in the fight, and thereby strengthened others to do so.
Who in Israel was not inspired when Eleazar rose up to fight?
He was “one of the three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle, and the men of Israel had retreated. He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day…” (2 Sam 23:9-10)
Who among us is not encouraged to continue to fight in this spiritual warfare, when we see a fellow believer, against all odds, persevering in resisting temptation to his besetting sins “until his hand is weary, and his hand has stuck to the sword.”
Who among us is not discouraged in the fight, when we see a fellow believe succumb to temptation, perhaps the very same temptation that we ourselves struggle with. How ashamed I am when I have succumbed and caused others to stumble.
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. (Gal 5:16-17)
I was reminded of this reading the following post by Tim Challies last week:
The Joy of Not Sinning
I think it is a question every Christian would all like to ask God, given the opportunity.
It is an honest question.
A humble one, I hope.
“If you have the ability to immediately destroy and remove all of a Christian’s sin the very moment he puts his faith in Jesus Christ, why don’t you? Why didn’t you?”
There is always a good bit of debate in the Christian world about exactly how God sanctifies us and how human effort relates to divine work.
Whatever we believe about sanctification, we know it is a lifelong battle and we know it is a difficult one.
The difficulty is related to the extent of our depravity, the fact that the effects of sin extend to our every part, to our minds, our hearts, our wills, even our bodies. We could give every moment of every day to the battle against sin and still die as deeply sinful people.
Every Christian will die much more holy than he was when he first put his faith in Jesus Christ, but a lot less holy than he would like and probably a lot less holy than he would have imagined.
The Bible is indispensable in sanctification. Literally.
You cannot and will not grow in holiness without reading God’s Word, without submitting yourself to God’s Word, without applying its truths to your life.
And yet the Bible does not zap away sin any more than my salvation does.
I have discovered in my own life that there are not a lot of texts in the Bible that instantly obliterate a particular sin.
Rarely do I hear a text preached and see an instant, substantial advance against a sin.
Never do I read a text and see my sin immediately and irreversibly melt away.
Rather, the Bible:
– provides the categories for my sin,
– it displays my sin in all its ugliness,
– it displays holiness in all its beauty,
– it exposes me as a sinner,
– it convicts me of my need to do battle against this sin,
– it gives me the desire to destroy it,
– it arms me to do so,
– and gives me hope through the gospel that this sin–even this sin with such a grip on me–is powerless before the indwelling Holy Spirit.
And then begins the long and difficult task, the moment-by-moment battle,
– of killing it,
– of going back to the Bible again and again and preaching its truths to myself,
– of relying on the Spirit,
– of calling out for his help,
– of waging war against my own flesh, my own desires, my deep-rooted habits, my mind, eyes, ears, heart, hands, feet, and everything else I am.
Putting sin to death is never easy – life does not bring much that is the rare combination of easy and worth doing. Sanctification is no exception.
Yet few things are more rewarding, more encouraging, than seeing victory over sin, seeing a pet sin begin to look ugly, seeing its power erode, seeing its prevalence diminish.
Few things bring so great a sense of God’s pleasure and so great an opportunity for worship than not sinning in the face of what was once a near-irresistible temptation.
I don’t know why God did not sovereignly remove all my indwelling sin the moment I became a Christian.
I don’t know why he does not zap it away through a simple encounter with Scripture.
What I do know is that sanctification is a battle, but a battle always worth fighting.
Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin;
Each vict’ry will help you, some other to win;
Fight valiantly onward, evil passions subdue;
Look ever to Jesus, He will carry you through.
Shun evil companions, bad language disdain;
God’s name hold in rev’rence, nor take it in vain;
Be thoughtful and earnest, kindhearted and true;
Look ever to Jesus, He will carry you through.
To him that o’ercometh, God giveth a crown;
Through faith we will conquer, though often cast down;
He who is our Saviour, our strength will renew;
Look ever to Jesus, He will carry you through.
Ask the Saviour to help you,
Comfort, strengthen and keep you;
He is willing to aid you,
He will carry you through.
. – Horatio R. Palmer