"Go There!" but "Don't Go There!"

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10: 8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

One person's favorite pastime easily can be another's worst nightmare. For instance, Linda and I enjoy canoeing. We've been down several of Michigan's rivers. But, I'll never forget the trip that we took down the Chippewa river, not too far from Saginaw about five years ago.

In fact, it was on this particular trip that we took the youth group from the church at Corunna. Along with that youth group went a friend of ours, a junior high school teacher named Linda, who, as we found out later, had never been in a canoe in her life, and was deathly afraid of water. But, she had decided to go for the sake of her niece, Jenny, who also had never been in a canoe and was afraid of water. And, besides, Linda felt she really should go, since she was the adult counselor for the youth group.

I remember how we got to the canoe livery with all the kids and how nervous Linda and Jenny looked. But, the two of them got into a canoe together and headed into the current of the river, along with the other canoes of our group, as my wife, Linda, and I got into a canoe, ourselves, taking up the rear of the pack. It was our job to make sure that everyone made it to the departure point on the river.

Everything was going smoothly for about five minutes or so, when as we came around the bend of the river we saw Linda sitting on a log in the middle of the river, Jenny standing on the river bank, angry, scared, and soaking wet, and the canoe about as swamped as I have ever seen one.

To me, a canoe hitting a log and tipping over is pretty much what you expect out of a canoe trip. But, for Jenny and Linda they were acting like they had suffered a tragedy of tremendous proportions. Jenny was talking about hitchhiking home and Linda was wondering how in the world she was going to get off the log.

It must have surprised them to no end when they saw me calmly get out of my canoe and swim over to their swamped canoe, pull it ashore and dump out the water. Next I retrieved their paddles and within a couple of minutes I was actually sitting in their canoe, paddling out to get Linda off the log. Very carefully, very gingerly, she got back into the canoe and then I paddled the canoe over to the river bank to get Jenny. After a few minutes of coaxing, we had Jenny back into the canoe, as well. And then the four of us continued down the river. Only this time Linda and I stayed within just a few feet of the other canoe in order to give advice, and encourage them around the obstacles. In spite of their inexperience in the canoe and their fear of water, after about three hours, the four of us got down the river without much more happening. But, even today, our friend Linda continues to say that we'll never get her into a canoe, again.

Or take the sport of Orienteering, for example, a sport of following directions, taking accurate compass readings, and moving about a mapped-out course with precision, speed and an unerring sense of where you are at all times. There are people who actually like to do this kind of thing and will spend a weekend in the great outdoors with a map and compass in hand doing nothing but finding the course that has been laid out for them. For some people it's like a treasure hunt, a mental contest, and a great hike all wrapped into one. In short, they love it.

But, on the other hand, for those of us incapable of determining north from nowhere, and who still depend on landmarks to get us home, nothing sounds more torturous than spending an entire day, let alone a whole weekend, intentionally trying to follow directions like "proceed for one-quarter mile at eight degrees southwest of the previous checkpoint." For some, orienteering has made a sport out of the arts and sciences of navigation. But for the directionally disabled, and there are quite a few of us out there, it is nothing but an endless litany of "go there . . . no, don't go there."

Those without an inborn sense of direction have to work consciously at developing the requisite skills and senses to find their way in the world. To guide us about the physical terrain, people have invented a series of ever more sophisticated navigational tools. Sonar readouts have replaced sextants among sailors. Precise computer imaging has made compasses obsolete in a pilot's cockpit. Instead of navigating by the stars, soldiers now use infrared night goggles to find their way. And some cars now come with a Global Positioning Satellite system with hookup capability to ensure that you take the right turn on your journey.

All these advancements are giving us more detailed pictures of our world and where we stand in it. They let us know with more and more accuracy when we should "go there" and when the data declares "don't go there."

Thankfully, for us with no physical sense of direction, there is an unerring method for determining how we should direct our moral behavior for guiding the growth of our soul. Divine guidance is given to us in the Scriptures, which have been at our disposal for thousands of years. The only "addition" came about 2,000 years ago with the advent of Jesus the Christ -- God in our midst.

Today's "temptation text" demonstrates how Jesus himself found nothing more necessary than Scripture to defend himself against the devilish assaults he encountered in these wilderness tests. Jesus remains wholly obedient to the words of faith and trust first revealed to the Israelites as they struggled to find direction in the wilderness. Although the Devil repeatedly tries to lure him into taking advantage of his godhead status, Jesus steadfastly refuses to usurp the Father's authority for his own benefit.

We've all found ourselves in the middle of a conversation when our intuition has suddenly warned us that the next line to be uttered will take us someplace we don't want to go. If we want to stay safe and not step into the middle of something we will be sorry for later, we "don't go there" or we chide the speaker, "Don't go there." Likewise, each of us has walked into a room and felt the chill wind of unwelcome and beat a hasty retreat. We don't need a flashing sign to tell us "Don't go there."

But sometimes life can seem ambiguous. Our intuition fails us, or the trespasses into treacherous territory appear so harmless or attractive or even sensible that we don't see what could go wrong if we "go there."
-- It couldn't hurt to skip out of work, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to fudge the numbers, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to take on this rich but sleazy client, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt not to tell my spouse where I've really been, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to take out my frustrations on the kids, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to focus only on the bottom line, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to act now, pray later, just this once.
-- It couldn't hurt to leave God's law and Christ's love out of my decision-making loop, just this once.

Although some situations may seem to challenge our commitment to God's authority in tiny, even inconsequential ways, for Jesus there was no such thing as being "kind of" obedient to God. We are either "for God or against God." If even our shaky human intuition can accurately inform us when we should ". . . go there" and ". . . don't go there" in many situations, how much more should we trust the Word of God and the witness of Christ to reliably guide us at all times and in all situations!

Despite our high-tech world, high-octane lifestyles, high-stress jobs, and the high-risk stakes that challenge us today, the temptations we face are still surprisingly the same as those three insidious "tests" the devil put before Jesus in the wilderness.

The first of these was the temptation of turning a stone into bread. We do this whenever we use our special gifts or special status to obtain benefits solely for ourselves without considering the impact these actions might have on others or on God's plans for the world.

For instance, does our "specialness" as Americans make our insatiable appetite for consuming more and more goods, using more and more of the rest of the world's resources, limiting the possibilities for growth and health in numerous undeveloped countries, justifiable? Aren't we guilty of being successfully tempted into turning this earth into our own personal "loaf of bread"?

Or, then, there is the temptation of worshiping and serving a power other than God. This takes place whenever we give final authority and ultimate control to a force, an individual, a group or an ideal in our life other than the Word and world of God.

The devils that usurp God's authority in our world today rarely appear with cloven hooves or pointy tails. Instead, we worship and give our primary allegiance to such gods as building up our social status, satisfying our craving for new and ever more thrilling experiences, believing that more is always better, needing to feel in control, in charge, and on the top of the heap at all times. We are guilty of this whenever we have been successfully tempted into worshiping all these demanding devils, leaving service and devotion to God's authority on a far back burner.

But, then, there is also the third temptation, which is putting God to the test. We do this by putting requirements on our faithfulness, "checking up" on the power and presence of God in our life.

Does your faith have faith? Or is it only as strong as the last demonstration of God's power you can pinpoint in your life? Faith is faith because it does not demand God perform on cue, because it believes in God's promises, because it accepts that God's presence is always at hand, no matter what our circumstances or challenges.

How important it is for us and for the ones we love to be attuned to the One who knows the correct way to go! Jesus was an orienteer who clearly was comfortable with the unerring sense of direction which Scripture provides. With God's Word in our hearts, we, too, can know the difference between "Go there," and "Don't go there."	Amen.