Temptation pt 1
By Chap Bettis

Two weeks ago, we began a series on the basics of the Christian life.

· Two weeks ago, we looked at how Jesus handled temptation.

o He expected to be tempted.

o He knew his enemy.

o He knew the enemies strategies.

o He fought back with a scripture and the Spirit.

· Some would say the Christians should be more relevant. But is there anything more relevant than temptation

On the sports page this week, there was the story of the father of a teenage tennis player who drugged the water bottle of two of his child’s opponents. The father of two tennis prodigies has been arrested in France for allegedly drugging their opponents and inadvertently causing the death of a man. Christophe Fauviau, 43, is accused of using an anti-depressant which made his children's rivals sleepy. Suspicions were first aroused when a 25-year-old school-teacher was killed in a car crash after apparently falling asleep at the wheel. The teacher had just been playing tennis with Mr Fauviau's 15-year-old son Maxime and had abandoned the match, saying he felt too tired to continue. Traces of an anti-anxiety drug called Temesta were found in the dead man's bloodstream. He is accused of spiking the water bottles of his children's rivals with the drug.

o This week in the news a restaurant owner drugged the drink of a lottery winner who he had seen carrying his cash around.

o Temptation Island is a hit TV reality show.

· Whether or not people use the name, temptation is a reality.

· Misunderstandings regarding temptation:

o Temptation itself is sin.

o We fall into temptation.

o God is disappointed and displeased when we are tempted.

o To be strongly tempted means we are as guilty as if we had actually committed sin.

o We overcome all temptation by separation from it.

o When I am spiritually mature, I will no longer be harassed by temptation.

o Charles Stanley, tape AU146, In Touch, June 1988, p. 13

What else can we learn about temptation?

1 Corinthians 10:1-14, especially v12-14

Temptation happens most easily when we think we are doing fine.

· v.12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.

· It is the nature of sin to deceive us. Paul seems to say that the very moment we think our walk with the Lord is going well, we are in the most danger of falling.

o Charles Hedge said There are... few stronger indications of ignorance of the power and evil of sin than the confident assertion of our ability to resist and subdue it.

· That’s why we are commanded to pray, Lead us not into temptation.

o The issue is not one of God leading us to be tempted.

o James 1:13 says that God does not tempt anyone but each of us is tempted by our own desires.

o Instead this is what grammarians call a litote (lie’-te-tee) – stating something negatively to say something positively.

§ How was the food? Not bad = good.

§ So the prayer here is keep me from temptation.

o We need to use this prayer to remind us of temptation.

When temptation comes, it seizes us.

· v.13 No temptation has seized you, overtaken you.

· Story of being in the boat with Jesus. Mark 4:35-40

o And when these tempting thoughts come upon us, they can come upon us so strongly that we feel overtaken, like a storm overtakes a boat.

· Tempting thoughts can come upon so violently that it feels we are captured by them.

o We are not masters of our own feeling, but we are by God's grace masters of our consent. -- Francois Fenelon, Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 1.

o In fact Scripture says that Jesus suffered when he was tempted. Temptation is a form of suffering.

Why is that true?

· Because even though God has changed us on the inside, we still live in a body of sin.

o There is still a sinful disposition that lives within you.

o If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come. 2 Cor 5:17

o But Paul said “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind.

o For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:22-25) Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.

o We can understand that verse if we substitute habit, pull. Compare to the law of gravity.

o Let me illustrate this pull or habit of sin. How many of you have seen the new toothpaste containers that sit upright? They are driving me nuts. For nine years, every night when I brush my teeth I have reached into the second drawer on the right to take out the toothpaste. Now the new toothpaste container sits on the top of the counter. So every night I reach into the second drawer on the right to take out the toothpaste only to realize that the toothpaste is not there. Arrgh!

· The experience of temptation is one of conflict. The idea of getting beyond conflict whether inwardly or outwardly is an escapist dream.

o Paul says to Timothy, Fight the good fight of the faith.

o Paul says of himself I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race.

· Our minds are the world’s smallest battlegrounds. Every sinful action is the result of sinful thoughts and every sinful thought starts first with a tempting thought.

o Master, we are going to drown.

o We start to believe and act on lies.

o John Piper says that sin (lust for example) "gets its power by persuading me to believe that I will be more happy if I follow it. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier." E. Lutzer, Putting Your Past Behind You, Here's Life, 1990, p.54.

o Some counselors have their Christians keep a self-talk journal. Helping them write down the lies they are saying to themselves.

o Bruce Wilkinson talks about repenting as renewing his mind so that he thinks differently. Yes the rubber band occasionally pulls him back to sin, but he keeps going in the new direction until the “rubber band” is broken or stretched never to return to its original shape.

o Realize and expect that temptation will come upon you like a storm. Resisting temptation will cause pain in the short run but happiness in the long run. Giving in to tempting thoughts will cause happiness in the short run and pain in the long run.

Every temptation that comes upon you, someone else has had.

· Except what is common to man.

· The wrong desires that come into your life are not new and different. Many others have faced the same problems before.

· Why is this an encouragement?

o Because sin and the devil desire to get you alone. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.