by Mrs. Anastasia Rebello
Introduction
“TEMPTATIONS”. Which of us here can say that we are not tempted? None of us can say so? The dictionary meaning of Temptation is to Lure ,to entice, to attract…. Today we want to talk about winning the battle over temptation, the battles and struggles we fight daily within our selves. There isn’t a day that goes by in our lives where we aren’t tempted in some way. Temptation comes packaged in a variety of ways; we are tempted to lie, cheat, gossip, over eat, to hold grudges, to steal, and yes, not give the Lord the first fruits of our treasure, time and talent.
Let us refer to the scriptures in the book of James 1:12-18
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."
Temptations comes through the tempter----Satan & also our own carnal self. Its sometimes very easy for us to blame people or situations and rarely take responsibility for ourselves. One must remember that we will face temptations daily but whether we give into them or resist is something that depends on us. Temptation is not a sin but giving into temptation leads us into sin.
Lets us first see how Satan attacks us. He basically focuses on two major aspects:
The desire of the world
- To make material blessings our security : Sometimes we make / put conditions like only if I have a good house or a good car will I be happy and with that we cannot resist the temptation to do things at any cost, to achieve these But 1 John 2v 15 says “DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD OR ANYTHING IN THE WORLD . If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
- To make honor and recognition the most important goal of our life: Here brings to mind a story that I read a few days ago.
The emperor and the seed…
An emperor in the Far East was growing old and knew it was time to choose his successor. Instead of choosing one of his assistants or his children, he decided something different. He called the young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you.” The kids were shocked! But the emperor continued. “I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next emperor!”
One boy named Ling was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the story. She helped him get a pot and planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Ling kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, 4 weeks, 5 weeks went by. Still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants but Ling didn't have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by--still nothing in Ling's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn't say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow. A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But honest about what happened, Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace. When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other youths. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kids laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, “Hey nice try.”
When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown,” said the emperor. “Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!” All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. “The emperor knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me killed”, Ling thought. When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. “My name is Ling,” he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down. He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, “Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!” Ling couldn't believe it. Ling couldn't even grow his seed. How could he be the new emperor? Then the emperor said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!”
- Author Unknown
When everyone else is doing wrong, be encouraged to do what is right. Never get discouraged when you see others doing wrong and still seem to go unpunished for their actions. There is a season in a person’s life when Sin seems pleasurable, but never listen to the enemy's lies when he tells you, “Everyone's doing it”. The end of that person's life is sure to lead to destruction. I encourage you to do that which is right in the eyes of God because your reward will be one that lasts not for a season, but for Eternity. (Hebrews 11:24-27) (James 1:13-17) (Matthew 25:21)
The desires of the flesh.
Through Christ work on the cross, the true Christian is delivered from the results of sin and the power of sin but the he still lives in his physical body that is subject to his natural appetites. ( Romans 6:6-14). Satan won the original victory in the areas of the world and the flesh through Adam & Eve & their sin. We have inherited sin through our first parents.
Compare Eve ‘s Temptation with this verse
Genesis 3:6 1John 2:16
Good for food Lust of the Flesh
Pleasing to the eye Lust of the eyes
Desirable for gaining wisdom Pride of Life.
But Christ won the Victory for us.
Jesus was tempted in every way but yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He too faced the same temptations as we faced but He did not give into sin.
We can compare Jesus temptation with this verses :
Luke 4:1-13 1John 2:16
Stones to bread Lust of Flesh
Kingdoms of the earth Lust of the eyes
Pinnacle of the temple Pride of Life.
There are four undeniable facts that one can draw out after reading these text.
1. Temptation is inevitable : A 4-year old girl was caught by her Mom standing on a stool in the kitchen eating cookies. Her Mom had told her that she was not to be eating those cookies until after dinner. When caught red-handed and confronted by her Mom, she said “Mom, it’s not my fault, honest! I climbed up on that stool because I just wanted to smell them, and my tooth got caught!”
You can count on it! You can depend on it! It’s going to happen. Notice what James said in the first line of verse 13 – “Let no man say when he is tempted….” – notice James didn't say “if” he is tempted, he said “when he is tempted.
Now it would be wonderful if we could live life without facing temptations, but the simple fact is that we cannot. Just as sure as hardships are an unfortunate reality of life which we all must face at one time or the other, so is temptation.
Now if you think you've found some wonderful, peaceful place or location where there is no chance that you will be tempted there, my advice to you is that you don’t go there, because when you do you’re going to spoil it! You see, the problem is that when you go there you will take with you your mind and your thoughts – and these are the vehicles of temptation. We will never be in a place on earth where there is no temptation. As long as we live within these fleshly bodies and in this world we will face temptation.
It can be any person, a nun who lives in the monastery / cloistered Carmel, a businessman in the Stock exchange, a housewife in Mumbai, a student in College, a Professor of the Bible College, or even a priest who stands at the altar – we all face temptation.
And sometimes when God allows us to suffer, we have a tendency to use our trials as an excuse for sinning. Hard times can often lead to temptation. When we are suffering the evil one is quick to come to our aid and offer us one of his solutions.
Sometimes he whispers in our ear that we need some pleasure in our life that will numb the pain. So what if it’s illegal! The Devil will tell us that we should be angry with God – that a loving God would never make us suffer such an overwhelming loss in our life, such a tragedy. Sometimes he tells us to be bitter and that we should resent God!
The Devil knows all the tricks and he’ll use his best ones on us when we are at our weakest
2. Temptation is never directed by GOD.
When tempted, no one should ever say. “God is tempting me.” Look at the rest of verse 13 in James – “When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; How are you at accepting responsibility for your actions? When you do something, wrong do you admit it ? or do you blame someone else?
Parents – your child comes home from school with a bad grade on a paper. How many times have you heard them say “It was that dumb teachers fault! He didn’t clearly explain to us how to do that!”
Something happens and you get angry and lose control. How many times have you heard someone say, “I was minding my own business. I wasn’t going to say a word, but they just went on and on and finally I just lost control and put them in their place! It was their fault. They made me lose it! Serves them right!"
There is an epidemic in our society today of people failing to take responsibility for their own actions, and also for their own inactions. Everyone blames everyone – it really wasn’t my fault!
And this, my friends, is the way it has always been since the days of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
As soon as Adam and Eve heard the sound of God walking in the garden, what did they do? They ran off and hid. And the Lord called out to Adam, “where are you?” Adam answered and said “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adam answered and said “the woman that YOU put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” Adam blamed God! It was his fault because he had given him Eve. Then he blamed Eve because she had given him the fruit from the tree. But he didn’t have to eat it, did he? So in reality, whose fault was it? Of course, it was Adam’s fault. He had yielded to temptation.
Yes, God permits temptation, but He never directs it. God does not direct us into sin. He has given us a free will to make our own choices in life.
God hates sin! In I John 1:5, the Bible says, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. What this means is that God cannot fellowship with sin. He cannot tolerate it, nor does He direct us into it. When we sin, we sin by our own choice.
3. Temptation is an individual matter : Back to the Garden of Eden again – after God questioned Adam, he turned to Eve and asked her, “What is this that you have done?” Eve said, “the serpent deceived me and I ate it.” Who was Eve trying to blame? Certainly not herself! She was the first person to truly coin the phrase “the devil made me do it!” Yes, the devil tempted her. No, he didn’t force her to eat of that fruit. And ever since that day when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, sin has been a part of this world. It’s what we have come to call “the Adam nature” that is in all of us, for we are all descendants of Adam.
Where does temptation really come from? James answers that question in verses 14 and 15. “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death".
It was Adam and Eve that brought sin and death into this world. And it was God’s gift of grace through His Son, Jesus Christ, which gave us the opportunity to overcome sin and death, and to share Heaven with God. When you and I yield to temptation, it’s an individual decision, and we can’t place the blame on anyone other than ourselves. Nothing outside of ourselves is strong enough to cause us to sin, not even Satan. The Devil didn't make us do it, we made ourselves do it.
4.Temptation that leads to sin always follows the same pattern : Assuming that most of us at one time or the other have done some fishing and in order to become a good fisherperson, we have leaned that we must provide a bait that interests and entices the fish. Depending on what type of fish we want to catch, we may use night crawlers, minnows, corn, shrimp, or some other bait. We bait our hook and cast our line into the water.
Now here comes this fish casually swimming around and he sees this bait. And the fish thinks “wow! That looks great! I’d like to have some of that. Now at this point the fish has to make a decision. He can stay in his hiding place, safe and secure, or he can go after the enticing bait. If he yields to his temptation, goes after the bait, and gets caught and we all know what is the outcome.
He ends up cooked and fried and becomes someone else’s dinner. Similarly temptation works in our lives. The bait is dropped and it is something that looks really good to us, appeals to us and interests us. And we have a choice to make as we look at that bait dangling there before our eyes, its our choice to bite or not to bite.
And let there be no mistake about this at all – the best fisherman in the world is Satan. He knows weakest area. He knows what temptations we are likely to give into. He knows the best bait to use on each of us and he uses it.
How do we handle the temptation in our lives ?
There are places we need to stay out of too. For example an overweight lady who has decided to diet goes to pastry shop and says I will resist temptation. I think she will be fooling herself. Let me be more specific; if certain movies make you weak and cause you to have certain desires that you cannot always handle, you’re setting yourself up to tempted, and like the fish, cooked and fried. For example pornography on the internet. Cut the connection
If you are weakened by relationships that you have with certain people, you need to avoid them. If you have a problem with gambling don’t hang out near a casinos clubs! If you have a problem with drinking, don’t hang out near the bars and nightclubs! Temptation to sin is nothing to play around with – there are places and situations you need to stay out of.
David didn’t walk away from temptation, he walked towards it. He knew exactly what he was going to see when he went up on that rooftop. David played around with the thing that made him weak.
A person is a fool when they know what weakens them but they feed on it anyway. By constantly bringing temptations before your eyes, by driving around the block and letting them sit in your mind, you are playing right into the hands of the devil.
Just as all sickness is not cured by the same medication, not all temptation is handled by the same resistance. If we are tempted to gossip, God has an answer for that too, don’t do it! A bridle isn’t an answer for gossip, a muzzle is. Stop talking about them. Say nothing. Don’t kid yourself into saying, “we just need to talk about so and so in order that we can pray more intelligently, or because we are so concerned for them that you feel it’s your duty to tell someone about these awful things happening in someone’s life. No! Tell the Lord. He will keep it a secret.
Tips to resist temptations:
When you face sensual sin – run! (Like Joseph flees from Potiphar's wife in the Old Testament. He flees from temptation).
- When you face the sin of gossip – hold your tongue!
- When you face the sin of laziness – work!( Be diligent)
- When you are filled with the sin of bitterness – forgive!
- When your sin has been holding back and not giving the Lord What is rightfully His – give generously!
Is sin pleasurable? Yes it is. So much so that people will risk their reputations, their careers, even their families just to taste its flavor. If the bait on the end of that hook did not look like something good to eat then the fish would never bite the hook. Sin is fun and it does feel good. However, as pleasurable as it is, this enjoyment only lasts a short time. You sow, and then you reap what you have sown. Sometimes temptations bring in temporary joy for life time pain.
Running around with your friends drinking or taking / trafficking drugs may seem like a good time. But when you see the flashing blue lights, or your car wrapped around a tree, or the tragic loss of life caused by your drinking the pleasure was not worth it. Do you think David experienced pleasure that night with Bathsheba? Sure he did, but do you think it was worth it to him when, his child died and the guilt ate away at him, stealing his strength, energy and joy.
When sin looks so appealing to us – when it’s pleasure is dangling on a hook right in front of us, we have to remind ourselves that the pleasure of sin is temporary. And we need to use this truth to help control our desire.
Have you ever seen someone slowly die from a disease? It’s not pretty – and that’s what sin does to us spiritually. I think that we have all been there more than once – with God on one side and sin with its pleasures on the other side. We must at these times remember that the pleasure of sin is temporary and the pain of sin is deadly.
In conclusion, keep the Right focus in Life and claim Christ's victory over every situation in your life. God will help you because Christ won victory…
- Over the world (1 John 5:4) for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
- Over the flesh (Galatians 5:16) So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
- Over the enemy (Ephesians 6:11,13) Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Prayer : I thank God For His promise to deliver me during times of temptation. I commit myself to respond to His help which is always available to me so that I can live in victory. I will also share this truth with others.
Amen