'There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.' 1 Corinthians 10:13
The word "temptation" has come down in the world; we are apt to use it wrongly. Temptation is not sin, it is the thing we are bound to meet if we are men. Not to be tempted would be to be beneath contempt. Many of us, however, suffer from temptations from which we have no business to suffer, simply because we have refused to let God lift us to a higher plane where we would face temptations of another order.
A man's disposition on the inside, i.e., what he possesses in his personality, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the nature of the one tempted, and reveals the possibilities of the nature. Every man has the setting of his own temptation, and the temptation will come along the line of the ruling disposition.
Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim - not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good. Temptation is something that completely baffles me for a while, I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to is lust deified, and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before.
Temptation is not something we may escape, it is essential to the full-orbed life of a man. Beware lest you think you are tempted as no one else is tempted; what you go through is the common inheritance of the race, not something no one ever went through before. God does not save us from temptations; He succours us in the midst of them (Heb. 2:18).
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Oswald Chambers (1874 - 1917)
Oswald Chambers was not famous during his lifetime. At the time of his death in 1917 at the age of forty-three, only three books bearing his name had been published. Among a relatively small circle of Christians in Britain and the U.S., Chambers was much appreciated as a teacher of rare insight and expression, but he was not widely known.While there are more than 30 books that bear his name, he only penned one book, Baffled to Fight Better. His wife, Biddy, was a stenographer and could take dictation at a rate of 150 words per minute. During his time teaching at the Bible College and at various sites in Egypt, Biddy kept verbatim records of his lessons. She spent the remaining 30 years of her life compiling her records into the bulk of his published works. His daily devotional: "Utmost For His Highest" has sold millions of copies and is well known in modern evangelicalism today.
Oswald Chambers was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.
In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to troops from Australia and New Zealand as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.
Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better, more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband's death she labored to give his words to the world.
My Utmost For His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.
Oswald Chambers was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on July 24th, 1874, to Clarence and Hannah Chambers, the seventh of seven children. Years earlier, Hannah converted to Christ under the dynamic preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Both she and Clarence were baptized by Spurgeon; and Clarence was one of the first students to enroll at Spurgeon’s Pastor’s College at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
After accompanying his father to hear C.H. Spurgeon preach, Oswald surrendered his life to Christ, and was duly baptized by Rev. Briscoe. At Rye Lane Baptist, he faithfully attended Bible classes and prayer meetings. Anxious to apply his newly-acquired knowledge, he engaged in street evangelism and preached at missions.
In 1895 he received an Art’s Master’s Certificate. Thereafter he pursued his education at the University of Edinburgh, where he excelled in rigorous classwork as well as successfully maintaining a balanced devotional life. Attending a gathering of the Christian Union, he heard Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission, preach winningly on the faithfulness of God, nudging Chambers yet further toward ministry. After much prayer, he surrendered to missionary service.
On October 29th, 1917, Chambers, suffering severe pains in his abdomen, was rushed to a Red Cross hospital in Cairo where an emergency appendectomy was performed. Recovering somewhat, he relapsed from a blood clot, and died on November 15th, 1917.