“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” — Matt 26:41
“… this people draw near with their mouth And honour Me with their lips, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their fear of Me is in the command of men learned by rote” — Isa 29:13
We have before us two seemingly unconnected verses of scripture. The first, Jesus’ instruction to His disciples when they slept through His agony at Gethsemane. The second, Yahweh’s indictment of His people through the prophet Isaiah. The first deals with the avoidance of temptation. The second, with worship that is but a masquerade.
Puritan pastor, John Owen, helps us connect these dots in his classic work, ‘On Temptation’: "... is your heart not warmed with the love of God and to God … Are you negligent in the duties of praying, or hearing the word? … Does your delight in the people of God faint and grow cold? … If you are drowsing in such a condition as this, take heed: you are falling into some woeful temptation that will break all your bones ..."
In other words, a heart grown cold in worship and other duties, is a heart that is ripe for temptation (if it hasn’t succumbed already). Meaning, if we are to obey the instruction of Christ and not “enter into temptation”, we must be vigilant over our own hearts. Especially, if we find that our worship is becoming an outward show of piety without any inward experience of contrition and humble submission. This was Yahweh’s complaint about His people: their worship was a pretence; a cover up. Elsewhere, He puts it like this: “... you are to them like a love song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; for they hear your words but they do not practice them” (Eze 33:32).
May it never be that God’s Word simply becomes aesthetically pleasing to our ears without being spiritually convicting to our hearts. May we be ever watchful, always in prayer, that the Lord would expose any wicked way in us so that we may repent, take appropriate corrective action, and walk in the way that is everlasting (Ps 139:23-24).