Yield Not to Temptation / Horatio R. Palmer
Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin;Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Luke 20:19-26, 45-47:
Each vict’ry will help you some other to win;
Fight manfully onward, dark passions subdue;
Look ever to Jesus, He’ll carry you through.
Ask the Savior to help you,
Comfort, strengthen, and keep you;
He is willing to aid you,
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’ll 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 Savior, our strength will renew;
Look ever to Jesus, He’ll carry you through.
The Parable of the Tenants
…The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?”
25 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent…
Whose Son Is the Christ?
…While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, 46 “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 47 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”
My Understanding: I asked the Lord to grant me his understanding of how he wanted to apply this passage of scripture to my life and/or for me to share with others the truth from it that he would want me to receive and/or to share, especially in relation to this song he placed into my mind when I awoke this morning.
The words to the song that really jumped out at me this morning were “dark passions subdue” and “shun evil companions,” as well as the words to the chorus in its entirety. Going along with that, the words in the passage that particularly stood out to me were “who pretended to be honest,” “He saw through their duplicity,” “for a show” and “Beware.” So, the main message I believe the Lord wants me to focus upon this morning is this idea of those he says we must “beware” who pretend to be honest, who have divided hearts (duplicity), who do things for show, who are evil in nature, and who yield to dark passions. If we are to “beware” and/or to “shun” such people, we need to understand the meaning behind each of these phrases and we need to look at what God’s word teaches concerning how this is to be done in all practicality. So, I want to examine each of these phrases.
Dark Passions Subdue – Dark means “having little or no light; angry; hostile; evil or wicked; hidden from others” (Encarta); “shadowy (secretive; a spy); obscure” (MS Word Thesaurus). Passion means “intense or overpowering emotion; intense enthusiasm; strong emotions” (Encarta); desire; hunger; appetite; craving; lust (MS Word Thesaurus).
I believe we can say that “dark passions” are thus the evil, secretive, and/or hostile things we are the most intense about, that we have strong feelings about, and that represent our heart’s desires, the things we crave, hunger after and/or lust after. So, to subdue those dark passions would mean to “subjugate; conquer; vanquish; defeat; overpower; crush; quell and overcome” them (MS Word Thesaurus). We can’t play games with evil.
Shun Evil Companions – Evil means “profoundly immoral or wrong; deliberately causing great harm, pain, or upset; malicious; connected with the devil or other powerful destructive forces” (Encarta); “sinful; vile; wicked” (Thesaurus). A companion is a “friend; buddy; mate; cohort; acquaintance; and/or confidant” (Thesaurus); or “somebody who accompanies or shares time with another” (Encarta). To shun someone means “to avoid somebody or something intentionally” (Encarta).
So, this is saying that we should avoid our friends who we know, for a fact, are living immoral, sinful, and wicked lives. I believe implied here is the idea that these are people who know better, yet are intentionally and willfully choosing to live in such a manner. Since these are words in a song, I want to see what God’s word teaches on this subject:
Eph. 5:11:
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.2 Tim. 3:1-5:
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.I Co. 5:9-11:
I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.II Co. 6:14-18:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”These are hard teachings and difficult to know how to apply. Obviously there are people in our lives we can’t totally avoid, such as coworkers, family members, people in public places, etc. I believe the overall idea here is that we are not to remove ourselves completely from the world, meaning the physical world, but we are to remove ourselves from worldly and evil influences, as much as is within our power to do so. We are not to avoid the people of the world entirely, but we are not to make them our close companions (yoked together), either. And, those who are our close companions who say they are believers but are choosing to live in open rebellion against God, we are to not associate with, as much as is within our power to do so, both for the purpose that we are not drawn into their sin with them and so that we also do not give approval to their actions by our continuing to hang out with them. This would be for the purpose of helping them to see the error of their ways and to turn back to God in faith – repentance and obedience.
“Therefore come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”
“I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”
It appears to me here that the Lord is narrowing this message to those who are outwardly religious and who give a show (a form of godliness) of being righteous, and in particular are those who are in positions of spiritual leadership over others, i.e. that these are the ones who are following dark passions that must be subdued, and they are the ones who are our evil companions with whom we must avoid close association.
Beware – “to be on guard against somebody or something” (Encarta).
Who Pretended to be Honest – Pretend means “to claim untruthfully or exaggeratedly to be or to have a particular thing, or imply something in this way; to act in a way intended to make somebody believe something untrue or misleading” (Encarta). Honest means “morally upright - never cheating, lying, or breaking the law; expressing or embodying the truth” (Encarta). So, to pretend to be honest means to imply that you are telling the truth when in fact you are telling a lie. This goes along with “duplicity.”
He Saw through Their Duplicity – Duplicity means “the fact of being deceptive, dishonest, or misleading” (Encarta); “disloyalty; unfaithfulness; betrayal” (MS Thesaurus).
For a Show – “an appearance given, either as an outward display of an emotion or trait, or as a demonstration of falseness and pretense” (Encarta).
So, we are to be on our guard against those who claim to be teachers of the Word, who are in positions of authority over us spiritually, or who are outwardly religious but inwardly are giving way to wicked acts. We are to watch out for those who have duplicity of heart, i.e. who are dishonest and deceptive yet who give the appearance of honesty and trustworthiness. Jesus saw through their duplicity. He was discerning, in other words. This does not mean we go around accusing people of telling lies unless we can prove they have lied. This is not about being judgmental but it is about being wise and guarded against evil in all forms, but in particular against those who would deceive us into believing a lie.
We are to take a stand against evil in all its various forms, not give way to it, not believe the lies, not be deceived, not compromise with it, not placate it, and not make it or its cohorts our close companions and friends.
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
We are not to try to do this in our own strength, though, because we are all sinful human beings who are vulnerable to sinful desires of our own. We must ask Jesus to help us, and he is the one who will carry us through, because when we truly decide to take a stand against evil and to not make it or its cohorts (supporters, accomplices, etc.) our close companions, we will meet with resistance and we will lose friends and will have people hate and despise us and even plot evil against us, so we must rely upon the strength of the Lord.
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