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run straight back to the Heart of God, the City of refuge.

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Flee! Off with you! Stay not a moment. Look not behind you! And then, in case of any other temptation, ask God to give you strength to bear it. Oh, how beautifully it is said in the Psalms: "O ye that love the Lord-ye that love the Lord-see that ye hate the thing which is evil" (Ps. xcvii. 10). Not only that you avoid it, but "see that ye hate it." Oh, how earnestly should we all pray: "Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy Presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." "Give Thy Holy Spirit to me." Oh, that is the thing-not only that we avoid the sin, but that the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts makes us positively hate it.

"Upon the wings of the wild sea-birds,

My dark thoughts would I lay,

And let them bear them out to sea,
In the tempest far away.

Each wave that broke upon the rocks
Would seem to break on me:

And he who stands an outward shock
Gains inward liberty." 1

Dear brethren, you all share the difficulty of temptation with your poor preacher. Let us one and all love

1 Faber's Peevishness,

this beautiful passage, and never forget it. Hang it round your heart; or, rather, put it into your hearts— learn it, and see that you say it over and over and over again, so that the palate of your soul may taste the sweetness of this word of God.

GOD'S PRESENCE IN TEMPTATION

"But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine.

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When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

"For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." -Isa. xliii. 1-3.

I SPOKE to you on the first Monday evening about the compassion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in temptation. And then, last time, I spoke to you about His help to us in temptation-His providence. He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it (1 Cor. x. 13).

And now I want to say a few words to you about our Lord's presence with us in temptation: "Fear not, for I am with you"; because I want you to feel this-that Christ is All in all to us under any circumstances, even when we are fighting with Apollyon in the Valley of Humiliation. The Lord Jesus Christ is with us in all our temptations, as He is with us in all our suffering. We have a suffering Saviour. And a wounded heart clings to a wounded Christ; and a tempted heart clings to a tempted Christ. And there

is something more than that: a tempted Christ clings to the wounded heart.

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I know that those words were spoken first of all to the Jewish nation at that great time when they passed through fire and water. Though they were spoken to the Lord's own people first of all, yet they belong to every single believer, individually. God's promises are like crystals; when you break a crystal, each little fragment takes the shape and the characteristics of the piece from which you have broken it. You may take any one of God's promises to His people generally, and you will find that they exactly fit the individual believer. And so is it the case here. The first thing is, Christ says, "Fear not: I am with thee." Fear not for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine." Don't you make any mistake, O tempted men and women, about your being the children of God! To be, is to be tempted; and to be a Christian is to be tempted as a son of God. Never forget that "then": After Christ was baptized, "Then was He led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil" (S. Matt. iv. 1). "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers in Christ's sufferings " (1 Pet. iv. 12). At any rate, you will admit the verse is a beautiful one, and one we should always remember, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee."

And so, too, with the fire: through the fire and the water, the Master will be with us. In all our trials and temptations, not only will He be with, but He

is with us. And when the disciples (in the passage I read to you) were in the boat-the Master was not with them, and they were tossed about, and could make no headway in the storm-do you think He did not see them? His eye was upon them the whole time. Although He was away there on the mountainside, He knew exactly what was going on, and was with them, and at the right time He came to them. And so He Who is on the mountains above, "He ever liveth to make intercession for us" (Heb. vii. 25). In whatever temptation-however bad it may be the Master is never away from His people. We find the greatest comfort in temptation, in knowing our election in Christ: "I have chosen thee-I will be with thee. I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine." Because you exist, you are tempted; and because you are the child of God, you are tempted with the devil. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." It is a mark of your sonship.

Well then, first, I should like to say this: Our temptations come, perhaps, out of the fiery temptations of life-the fire we must pass through; but He will be with us. Our temptations first of all are allowed by, and ordered by, Almighty God Himself. They are temptations which come from God. Although He tempteth not any man, yet He allows us to have temptations (Jas. i. 13). The sons of Levi must be purified, and we must be purified. Purgatory is not only a matter after the grave, but now. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Mal. iii. 3). There is the furnace, and there is the molten silver. It is getting hotter and hotter. It bubbles in the

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