At church yesterday the Old Testament reading was about the Temptation of Adam (what Milton wrote about in “Paradise Lost”) and our New Testament reading was about the Temptation of Christ (what Milton wrote about in “Paradise Regain,” a great work hardly anyone reads). Our pastor pointed out that Satan’s most serious temptations are not to encourage us to commit individual sins but, as he does in both of these pivotal Biblical events, to attack our faith: to lead us to distrust God, to disbelieve His Word, to stop looking to Him for our needs, to put our faith in ourselves instead of in Him. For Pastor Douthwaite’s profound sermon on these temptations and how our sins reveal our underlying unbelief, go here.
Speaking of our old evil foe, a Catholic priest, in co-operation with the church of Rome is opening an