The Golden Chain - Robert J. Wieland
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attle with "I" or "self like we have?<br />
It's impossible for us to "look unto Jesus"<br />
meaningfully unless we understand this. Without<br />
exception all our temptations to personal sin<br />
involve that "I" or "self." Here is the sinner battling<br />
with a terrible temptation to indulge self. If you<br />
remove the Saviour from that identity with his<br />
temptations, you set Him "afar off," and the sinner<br />
is left only with a vague sense that Jesus was<br />
tempted in ways far different from his temptations.<br />
You throw a smoke screen between him and his<br />
Saviour. However he may be told that Christ's<br />
temptations were "greater" or "more intense" than<br />
his in a totally different realm, if he is robbed of<br />
the conviction that He was tempted "in all points<br />
like as" he is, he will inevitably fail of the succor<br />
Christ wants to give him. Tell the gambler, the<br />
cocaine addict, the alcoholic, the adulterer, the<br />
embezzler, that Christ was not tempted as he is but<br />
that He was instead tempted in totally irrelevant<br />
ways like turning stones to bread, jumping off<br />
pinnacles without a bungee, etc.,—how can the<br />
embattled sinner relate?<br />
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