How do seeds give birth?
Seeds. Seeds are baby plants. One of Jesus’ most well-known parables is the parable about the Sower. Jesus describes God as a farmer who liberally sows seeds. He casts seeds where other farmers wouldn’t waste their time and seed … pathways, rocky places, weed patches. But God is not the only one sowing seeds. In Matthew’s gospel, the parable of the Sower is immediately followed by Jesus’ parable of weeds or tares among the wheat:
“The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well” (Matthew 13:24-26).
The same ground that produced wheat also produced noxious inedible weeds (or tares, which look like wheat but are poisonous). The practice of sowing weeds or tare-like plants in someone’s field was so despicable and reprehensible that even the Romans prohibited and punished anyone caught doing it, even if they sowed the weeds in the fields of Rome’s enemies.
In the parable of the Sower, Jesus said that the seeds were “the Word of God” (Matthew 13:18; Luke 8:1`4). The “soil” was the hearts and minds of those listening to the Word of God. But the same soil … the same hearts and minds … can also produce noxious, deadly weeds. The seeds of sin are temptations of various kinds and the enemy, like God, is very, very liberal in sowing the seeds of sin!
I agree with Pastor and Author Tom L. Eisenman that Satan has been busier than ever. “I think the struggle against sin and its power,” says Eisenman, “might be a tougher fight for us now than at almost any other time in recent history … [we] used to have to go out of [our] way to give ourselves to sin.” I’m going to give away my age here … you older folks will know what I’m talking about … you younger people will find this strange … but you really did have to go out of your way to give yourself to sin. You could only find “dirty magazines” and X-rated movies in a certain part of town … the “seedy” part of town. They didn’t sell them in convenience stores, and we didn’t have the internet with every kind of porn imaginable available with the click of a few keys. You had to go to “that part of town” to buy booze or go to a night club. And you never saw or heard the kind of stuff we see on TV today. “Today,” says Eisenman, “the possibilities for sin are present absolutely everywhere … we are exposed daily to an incredible variety of opportunities for disobedience in thought and action.”
Thought and action …
“You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully” … thought … “has already committed adultery” … action … “with her in his heart.” A thought … a seed … is planted in the mind and in the heart. “One is tempted by one’s own desire,” says James. And that thought, that desire, takes root and it “conceives” … it produces … it gives birth to sin (James 1:15).
Temptations are the seeds of sin. If I were to put a seed right here, guess what? Nothing would happen. In order for it to grow it has to be planted in the ground. And, if the conditions are right, a process begins. The potential plant inside the seed begins to stir and cracks the shell that encases it. It begins to swell and grow … putting down roots while the infant plant begins to find its way to the things it needs to survive … sun, rain, and air. Once it breaks through the soil, it continues to grow until it becomes a mature, rooted plant that does what? Produces seeds … which produce more plants.
So too with sin. Before a sin is committed, it must have a starting point … a genesis. You may never have noticed this but the first book of the Bible is what? “Genesis” … which means “beginning.” Beginning of what? Yes … the universe, creation, humanity. But what else has its “genesis”… its beginning … its birth … in the first book of the Bible? Sin!
What Jesus is saying is that adultery has a “genesis” … a beginning. It’s birthed with a thought and that thought, says James, starts with an enticement … a temptation. Proverbs 7 gives us a perfect example of what James is talking about. The proverb stars out by describing a “young man without sense” (Proverbs 7:7). Hmmm … know any “young men without sense”? Any of you ever a young person without sense? I’m sure I’m not alone in this, amen? “Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart. She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home” (v. 10-11). I love that image … her feet do not stay at home. Sin … temptation … is like the Devil, prowling around like a “roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1st Peter 5:8).
The first mistake that the “young man without sense” makes is that he passes near the corner where she lives (v. 8). As “luck” would have it, she happens to come out of her door right at the very moment that he is passing by. As further luck would have it, her husband is gone on a long business trip. “With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly” … love it! “Suddenly” … like a lion pouncing … “he follows her as an ox goes to slaughter, as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool., until an arrow pierces through his liver” … so graphic yet it makes its point doesn’t it? … “as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7: 21-23). So graphic but not over-stated if you ask my opinion. “How many victims she has cast down, and numerous are her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death” (v. 26-27).
Enticement leads to entrapment. “But one is tempted by one’s own desires," says James, “being lured and enticed by it” (v. 14). The Greek word that James uses for “lured” is a hunting term. It describes an animal that has been snared in a trap – and not a ‘have-a-heart’ trap. The Greek word he uses for “entice” is a fishing term that means “to be lured by the bait.” Again, a graphic image of a fish or an animal being lured … tricked … either to its demise or servitude to its captor. “Combing both concepts [enticing and luring] and viewing them as metaphors for fishing,” says seminary professor Homer Kent, “one can visualize the fish being first aroused [enticed] from its original place of safety and repose, and then being lured to the bait that hides the fatal hook.”
Satan knows how to use the right bait for each one of us. He knows our weaknesses and he knows how to hide his hook in the bait in such a way that we will be enticed to take a bite. Here’s the really sick part. We often know that we are being enticed. It looks too good to be true … and it always is, amen? We suspect that there is a hook in what Satan offers us but we keep sniffing around the bait … examining it … poking it … touching it … taking a little nibble … and another little nibble … until …. BANG! Hooked!
Once we are ‘hooked’ … once a seed is ‘planted’ … a process begins. At first, it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening … no apparent consequences. But below the surface a lot is going on. “People don’t lead moral lives one day and have an affair the next,” says author Lois Mowday Rabey. I want you to hear that. You don’t just find something in your pocket that doesn’t belong there. You stole it. You don’t just end up having an affair … there’s a dance, there’s a process that begins with flirting and fantasizing. “The process is often overlooked,” she says, “because some stages are not obvious to us, the viewer, and thus they are difficult to detect. That’s why it seems to happen overnight.” And here’s the truly scary part. She goes on to say that “anyone of us could be in the process right now” and not even know it. “None of us are immune.”
When a seed is planted, it grows in two directions. The plant grows up and the roots grow down. The same happens when sin takes root in our lives … only with sin, the direction is inside-out and outside-in. Jesus explained in Mark 7:21-23 that our first response to sin comes from within our hearts. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” Whew! “All these evil things come from within and defile a man.
The inward person is also responding to provocation from the outside. “We engage in temptation,” says Eisenman, “when something in us responds to stimulation from the outside. If there was nothing in us that could feel the draw toward worldly powers and pleasures, there would be no temptation.” I love chocolate. When I smell it … when I see in the store … it talks to me. Some of you might not care all that much for chocolate … I can’t imagine that … and it doesn’t talk to you like it talks to me. For some, beer is something that you drink once or twice a year or now and then, but same beer screams a siren song for others.
Eventually what goes on below the surface shows itself, amen? “… when that desire has been conceived,” says James, “it gives birth to sin” (v. 15). In the case of a plant, a shoot appears. In the case of sin, actions appear. By the time we’ve started acting out on our sin, sin has put down roots. Sin might be exciting … at first … until we discover that our plant is not wheat but a tare, a poisonous weed that has taken over our hearts or our minds or our lives.
How can we tell the difference? Remember what happened in Jesus’ parable of the tares among the wheat: “… the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them’” (Matthew 13:27-29). I want you to picture that. The roots of the tares mingled with the roots of the wheat. Sin mingles and insinuates itself into our hearts and our minds.
Lois Mowday Rabey has what sounds like useful advise: “The earlier danger signals can be detected and responded to, the easier it is to change direction. If you love potato chips and you know that you can’t stop eating them until the bag is empty, you are better off not taking the first bite.” Man, I wish with all my heart that it were that simple, amen? But even Rabey has to admit that some steps to immorality “are not wrong in and of themselves, yet those very steps may be the first potato chip for some people.”
Satan wants to take our routine desires and turn them into runaway desires. “The desires or yearnings we experience are not in themselves wrong,” says Eisenman. “God created the earth and all that is in it for our enjoyment and pleasure. What is wrong,” says Eisenman,” is that we often try to satisfy our cravings in ways that are inappropriate, unhealthy, and contrary to God’s will for our lives.
Since the wages of sin is death, it behooves us to learn how to tell the difference, don’t you think … and then know what to do once sin rears its ugly head in our lives? James starts Chapter 1 talking about trials … Remember last week’s sermon? Of course you do. James says: “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy” (James 1:2). Trials come from God. Temptation comes from Satan. The Greek word that James uses for “trials” and “temptation” is the same. The word is “peirasmos.” In verses 2 and 212, James uses “peirasmos” as a noun. The noun “peirasmos” describes the outwardness of trials. In verses 13 and 14, he uses “peirasmos” in the verb form … pointing to the inwardness of temptation. By doing this, James is trying to tell us to be careful. Like wheat and tares, troubles and inward enticements look an awful lot alike.
When Satan tempts us, it is like Consumer Reports taking a car or a microwave and running some tests on it. The purpose of the tests is to bring out the flaws and the faults of that product. But when God tests us, it is like General Motors running tests on their own cars to prove and demonstrate our good qualities. When a fiendish murderer uses a knife to slash the flesh of his victim, it is for the purpose of hurting and destroying the person. But when a skilled surgeon uses a blade to cut the flesh, it is for the purpose of healing. Satan is a murderous tempter … our Lord is a skilled surgeon. In other words, Satan tempts us to bring out the bad (James 1:13-15) … God tests us to bring out the good (v. 2-12).
Christians have the external world, the internal flesh, and the infernal Devil to deal with every day. If you have been a Christian for any length of time, then the Tempter is no stranger to you. As he roars about like a hungry lion seeking to devour, I’ll wager that he’s passed your way more than a few times, am I right?
Most of us are not all that shocked when we hear of others falling prey to temptation but we sure are surprised when we have to face it … which is surprising in itself, since temptation is inevitable. No one escapes it. The more we grow toward the Lord, the more Satan’s gonna come at us. Author John White reminds us of the inevitability of temptation: “You will be tempted. The kinds of temptation may change … candies for kids … sensuality for the young … riches for the middle-aged … and power for the aging. The Evil One can ring the changes with greater skill than any advertising agency. He knows the Achille’s heel … of every microbe. You will be tempted continuously. You will be tempted ferociously at times of crisis. Therefore,” says White, “temptation itself need not dismay you. It was your Savior’s lot and it will be yours. As long as you live,” promises White, “you will be tempted.”
Oswald Chambers rescues the concept of temptation from its totally negative connotations with these words from his classic devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest”: “The word ‘temptation,’” says Chambers, “has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use it in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Temptation is not something that we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else – what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptation … He sustains us in the midst of them.”
When you overcome temptation, says James in verse 12, you receive the crown of life. When you give into temptation, however, you receive death. You can choose how you want to live. You are free to choose the actions, but not the results. You are free to have your kicks, but not to avoid the kickback from you actions. You are free to make choices, but not to avoid the consequences
Verse 17 is pivotal to James’ whole discussion on temptation: Every generous act of giving, every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Up to this point, James has been concentrating on the evil of temptation. Now he begins discussing the goodness of God, reminding us that anything fulfilling … anything worthwhile … anything good or proper is found in the Lord. In contrast to the evil intentions that come from within us, all good gifts are from God who is over us, and they come down to us in a steady stream from the Father of Lights. James’ reference to God as the “Father of Lights” refers to the stars in the heaven and reminds us of God’s eternal and unchanging nature. He is trustworthy. He is the Giver. And, ultimately, He is the gift.
So, we’re back to our original problem: How do we uproot the tares or the weeds without uprooting the wheat? To begin with, we should not only refrain from thinking about gratifying our desires but also avoid focusing on not gratifying our desires. If I say right now, “Don’t picture an elephant,” what are you picturing right now? So, if I’m lusting after a person in my thoughts, I’m thinking about them. If I think that I shouldn’t be thinking lustful thoughts about a person, I’m not only thinking about that person but I am also thinking about the lustful thoughts I shouldn’t be having about that person. Either I’m undressing them with my mind or I’m trying not to think about undressing them with my mind. Either way … they end up naked in my mind.
The way to deal with temptation is not to grit your teeth and power through it. The way to deal with it is to refocus your thoughts. The more you fight a feeling, the more it grabs you. What you resist tends to persist, amen? Since temptation begins with your inner thoughts, change your thoughts. Believe it or not, only God can think more than one thought at a time. We humans, fortunately, can only think one thought at a time … so we can use that to our advantage, amen? You can’t be thinking about Jesus, mediating on His Word, praying, and lusting after your neighbor’s or co-worker’s possessions at the same time. You can only do one or the other … the choice is yours.
Anyone who has trained a dog to obey knows the secret of focus (or re-focus). A bit of meat or food is placed on the floor near the dog and the master says “No!” As long as the dog focuses on the meat or food, he or she is going to be tempted more and more. By saying “no” you break the dog’s concentration. When the master says “no” it forces the dog to look away from the temptation and look at their master’s face. Get it? When we look at the temptation, it tempts us. When we look at our Master’s face … temptation gone! This is what James is trying to tell us to do … look at our Master’s face!
Bible scholar William Barclay put it this way: “The Christian can so hand himself over to Christ and to the Spirit of Christ that he is cleansed of evil desire. He can be so engaged in good things that there is no time or place left for wrong desires. It is idle hands for which Satan finds mischief to do. It is an unexercised mind,” says Barclay, “which plays with desire and an uncommitted heart which is vulnerable to the appeal of lust.”
In verse 15, James says that temptation conceives sin … and sin gives birth to death. In verse 18, he states that God gives us birth through the Word of Truth. Love it. And because of who we are … because we are “the first fruits of His creatures” … because we are God’s special people … Satan is tempted to come after us! “Brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy” (James 1:2). Or, as Tom Eisenman puts it: “The danger lies in the possibility that we might be tricked into doubting the authenticity of our relationship with Christ on the basis of the fact that we struggle with sin. The truth is,” says Eisenman, “the struggle itself is proof that God is very close to us. Our sensitivity to sin is a gift of God’s Spirit. It is a sign of our salvation. There would be no inner battle if we were truly lost. Only when we can sin without remorse, with no experience of inner tension, only when sin becomes easy for us are we in real danger.” I pray with all my heart that that doesn’t describe any of you here this morning. “Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (v. 12).
Let us pray …
