Temptation is a fact of life for all of us. As we know, even Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. So, the question arises, why are some people able to withstand the temptations while others are not? Why do some people come through temptation unscathed while others are completely ruined by temptation?
Now, I feel compelled to mention that temptation isn’t just a miniature devil whispering in your ear, “Do this. Do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do that.” Oftentimes, our temptations are simply derived from the circumstances of life.”
Let’s look at an example. Many times people who are believers have a tragedy in their families. It is often someone dying at a young age, or of an especially horrible disease. The temptation in the circumstance is to blame, and even resent, God because of what has happened. And many people do end up hating God after such tragic events. Countless others, however, rely on God for strength in these trialsome temptations and come out with an even stronger love for God. Why is it that some people can make it all the way, while others cannot? What is the secret?
In order to understand this issue more fully, it will help to look at three fallacies about temptation that the Bible addresses. I would suggest that those who fall, do so because they have bought into one (or more) of these lies. Those who make it all the way with Jesus are the ones who cling to the truth, because they recognize and reject these lies when they come. These lies are addressed by Paul in
1 Corinthians 10:13, “But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you cannot stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.”
Lie #1: NO ONE ELSE GOES THROUGH WHAT I’M GOING THROUGH
I actually heard of a pastor one time who was caught having adulterous affairs with several of his church members. Instead of repenting, as he should have, he explained to the church that his actions were excusable because his drive was much greater than that of normal men. So instead of voting to kick him out, they should have compassion on him because of his special condition. Thankfully, the church didn’t buy the same lie this pastor did. There is NO SUCH THING as “special cases” when it comes to sin. There are no people who are excused from sin, because they have more or different temptation than others. 1 Cor. 10:13 says, “But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience.”
Satan would love to convince you that you are alone in your temptation and alone in your trials for at least two reasons.
A. Some people attempt to justify their sin because of their special circumstances, as the pastor I told you about. Not only is this destructive because it leads a person into sinning instead of resisting temptation, but it is also destructive, because if someone doesn’t think they’re guilty they won’t confess, and as John says in 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.”
I don’t believe that a single unconfessed sin will send a believer straight to hell. But, by this person not confessing their sin, they are destroying their relationship with God. Eventually the sin will so rule in their life that there is no room for God.
B. When people think that they are the only one experiencing a particular temptation, they will be reluctant to seek help from other believers. As we know, God’s design for the church is to be a body of believers helping one another. One of the major functions of the church is to be an encouragement to each other.
Romans 14:19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.
1 Thessalonians 5:11,14 11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing. 14 Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
When I’m going through temptation, I should be able to count on the church to help me through. But when someone gets the idea that nobody else will understand, because nobody else is going through what they’re going through, they won’t go to other believers for help. Without that help, there is a very slim chance of them making it through the temptation. Many of the most difficult sins to break free from are also “shameful” sins. People are afraid to seek help, because they think that other people won’t understand, and that because of that, others will judge them.
Now, part of the blame for this problem does lie with the fact that the church often does judge people harshly when they are open about their struggles. Let me tell you, if you look down on someone because eof their sin, you are just as big a hypocrite as the Pharisees were in Jesus’ day. All of us are where we are only because of the grace of Jesus Christ. The Bible says,
Romans 3:10 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one;
Let me tell you that there are things in my past that I will probably never tell anyone in this room about, because they’re too bad. But those things are under the blood. When I see someone who is a believer caught up in sin, my heart breaks for them. Because I look at them and I know. I know how tough it is for them. I know what they’re going through. I know how torn up they are inside. And if not now, I know how torn up they will be. How dare I EVER look down on anyone for sin? Instead of judgment for the sake of judgment, our attitude toward other believers must always be to bring them back. In Scripture, there is a time for judgment, but it’s always for the purpose of restoring that person to faith. We must never feed the idea that they’re all alone.
Lie #2: THE TEMPTATION IS TOO STRONG FOR ME TO RESIST.
There was a high profile evangelist who had a public moral failure. In response to the failure, he sent out a video to some pastors with whom he wanted to salvage a relationship. On the video, he explained a dream that he had. In the dream, he saw a cobra that was about up to his chest. It was a pretty big cobra, and it was in the strike position, aiming at him. Then the dream flashed to another scene. Again he was faced with a giant cobra trying to strike him. Only this time the cobra was about four stories tall. He tried to slay the cobra, but it was just too big. After relaying the dream, he explained his interpretation of the dream. He said that the snake represented the temptation for him. His excuse was that just like the cobra was way too big for him to handle, the temptation was too much for him to resist. Therefore, people should be merciful to him and overlook his sin, because it was just plain too big to handle.
This sort of excuse for sin is all too common. People think that the problem of sin is just plain too big to handle. It is too much for them. Therefore, they excuse themselves from their sin, because they “couldn’t help themselves.” After all, we still have a sin nature, right?
However, 1 Cor. 10:19 says, “And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it.”
The reason that this lie has so much appeal is that it used to be true. Before we were redeemed from sin, we were so enslaved to it that we could not help but sin. It was just too much for us. In fact, it was our very nature to sin. But Romans 3:24 says that Jesus has redeemed us by his blood. This statement would have made very good sense to the people of Rome, to whom Paul was writing. It would have invoked in them a picture of the slave market. The slave market was a thriving sector of the Roman economy. When a person was a slave, of course, they were completely subject to their master. They had no choice. They had no opportunity for freedom. And so it was with us when were in sin. We had no choice. We had no opportunity to be free from sin. At that point, we could use the excuse that the temptation to sin was just too much for us.
Believe it or not, in the days of the Roman Empire, there were some good people who didn’t believe in slavery. They knew what kind of life people would live in slavery, and they wanted to do anything possible to alleviate the problem. Some of these people were rich, so they would go to the slave market and buy slaves for only one purpose: to set them free. Because the price of the slave had been paid, the slave could be set free. The Romans even had a word for this practice, the Greek word “apolutrosis.” That word is the same word that is used in Romans 3:24, and is translated, “redeemed.”
While we were enslaved to sin, we were completely under the control of sin. We were being sold on the open market to the highest bidder. And Jesus came, had compassion on us, and paid the required price, which was his own sinless life’s blood. Because he has paid for us, we are now free. We are no longer under the control of sin. We are no longer naturally compelled to sin.
The problem is that some people do not feel like they are free from sin. They feel like it still has control over them. Because we don’t have slavery, we may not understand that illustration as well as the Romans did. Let me give you a different example to explain this problem.
Imagine that you’re a kid again, about 11 years old. Now imagine that there is a widow who lives across the street, who can’t do a lot of heavy lifting. So in the wintertime when it snows, your parents tell you to shovel her driveway. Even if you don’t want to do it, because you are a child, and you must obey your parents, you really have no choice. Your parents control you. What they tell you to do, you must do. So you have to shovel the snow whether you like it or not.
Now, imagine that you’ve grown up. Across the street from you lives the same woman. However, now, you are not with your parents, so nobody is forcing you to shovel the snow for her. No matter how much she wants to, she cannot make you shovel her snow. You are now free from your parents’ control. You can make your own choice. Now let’s imagine that she offers you $100 to shovel her snow. You still don’t have to shovel. There is still nothing forcing you to shovel. However, you may choose to shovel the snow, because you want the incentive she offered you.
Now, shoveling snow for a widow is not a sin. Please don’t get that lesson from this story. The child who must shovel the snow represents us when we are enslaved to sin. We have no choice. We must sin. The adult represents us when we have been set free from sin. We no longer have to sin. We have the ability to sin if we want to, but we have the choice. And often, just like the woman offered $100, the Devil offers us all kinds of things to entice us to sin. He can make sin look very beneficial for us. Hebrews speaks of the pleasures of sin, although they are passing pleasures. Heb 11:25 He chose to share the oppression of God’s people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin.
But we don’t have to say yes. We ALWAYS have the choice to say NO. Even if the woman had offered $1,000, $10,000, or $1,000,000 to shovel the snow, you could always say no. In the same way, no matter how much Satan tries to tempt us with, it is never too much to say no.
Of course, simple common sense says that anybody would shovel this woman’s snow for $1,000,000. Most would do it for $10,000. Some would do it for $100. Very few would do it for $10. I would say that each individual has a “breaking point,” a point where they just would not be able to say no to her, no matter how hard they tried. And it’s the same way with temptation. We each do have a point where our will just isn’t strong enough. We just would not be able to resist beyond that point. So, certainly, one might say, we can’t condemn people who give in after that point, but 1 Cor. 10:13 says, “And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you cannot stand up against it.”
The good news is that God knows exactly what your breaking point is. And because he is merciful, he promises that he will never let the temptation get beyond that point. If you are being tempted, it must be a temptation that you are strong enough to resist, because otherwise God would not have allowed it to come. As long as we do our part and resist the temptation that does come, God promises that he will ensure that the temptation never gets too strong for us to resist.
1 John 5:3, 4 3 For our love for God means that we obey his commands. And his commands are not too hard for us, 4 because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our faith.
The only way for the temptation to get too strong for us is to give in to it. When we succumb to temptation one time, the next time it gets bigger, and then bigger, and then bigger still, until eventually it’s out of control like the four-story-tall snake. But we can hardly blame God for that. He did not allow that to get out of control. We are the ones who allow it to get out of control by giving in to it. Returning to the story of the evangelist who dreamed of the snake, one particular minister wrote a letter to him and explained that he had the interpretation all wrong. Yes, the snake did represent his temptation. However, he had failed to take into account the first appearance of the snake, when it was only up to his chest. The real interpretation of the dream was, “Kill the snake when it is small and it won’t grow to be too big to handle.” Even when it grows to big to handle, it is out of our control, but not out of God’s control. When we repent, he will help us to overcome that sin and temptation. The evangelist in the story has since found victory over sin, not through his own strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God will allow us to be tempted, because it is withstanding trials that makes us strong, but he will never allow that temptation to become so strong that we cannot handle it. There was an experiment done some time ago. Some scientists wanted to create an entire ecosystem that would survive in a “bubble.” They ran into a problem with the trees, though. They were all too weak. They would grow for a while and then they would just topple over. They discovered something, that they had not accounted for in their plans: the wind. You see, wind if it’s too strong, like a hurricane, will destroy trees, but it is the wind that beats against the tree that forces that tree to grow strong and sturdy. It is the constant resistance to the mild and medium winds that makes a tree able to grow strong enough to not only support itself, but to withstand the occasional strong gusts of wind. Trials and temptations are like the winds of our life. It is when we overcome them that we gain strength to stand up. If we never had any trials, we would be weak like the trees in the experiment. We would crumble at the slightest difficulty. But because God knows what’s best for us, he allows the storms to come that we can handle, because they make us stronger.
Lie #3 THERE IS NO WAY OUT… EXCEPT TO GIVE IN…
Some months ago, I was talking with a Christian boy who seems to have a problem with getting into a lot of fights. I must first tell you that I did ask his permission to use his story as an illustration. While he did recognize that it was wrong, he said an awful lot of things like, well they start with me, so I have to fight them. He painted a picture that pretty much seemed like no matter how he tried to get out of the situation, he just couldn’t. I have to admit that I felt very bad for him. Happily, unlike the other examples I’ve given, he didn’t use this to try to justify or excuse his sin. Nonetheless, for him, this was a very difficult struggle. Now, I don’t know all the details of his situation, but I do know that he cannot possibly be trapped with no way out, as it seems, because
1 Cor. 10:13 says, “When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.”
Looking back at the boy’s situation, it seemed like there was no way out. However, that is because we like to think of pleasant escapes. However, there is no statement or implication that the way out will be pleasant.
Let’s look at an example from the Bible. Joseph was a young boy, about 17, who had been sold into slavery. However, everything he did was successful so he was promoted to the head of Potiphar’s house. For a slave, he had it made. He had everything he wanted. Then Potiphar’s wife took a liking to Joseph. One day she came after him and grabbed him. Joseph was far, far away from his father’s authority. He had nobody looking over his shoulder. She was the wife of his master. Shouldn’t he obey her? Furthermore, she had him by his shirt. He was physically trapped. Joseph was a young man, and young men have urges. He must have been tempted to use the excuse that he was trapped. And he had the perfect excuse, he was trapped. If ever there was no way out of temptation, it was now. But Joseph refused to buy into that lie. He found the way out and he took it. He Ran.
We know the whole story, so we know the end, but let’s pretend we don’t for a moment. In the immediate future, the result of running was that he was thrown into prison for years. The way out from sin can be very costly, like it was for Joseph. But it can become an easy choice. It is a matter entirely of priorities. If your priority is to live a holy life, then you will find the way out no matter what the consequence of that way out. If you really don’t have your Christian walk as a high priority; if comfort, or convenience, or money, or relationships, or what other people think of you, or anything else is more important, then it will be easy for you to believe the lie that there is no way out. But there is always a way out.
It may seem unfair when these things happen, but there are two important truths that shed some light on this issue. First, if everything was fair, we would all be immediately struck dead. We are all sinners condemned before a holy God, deserving of instant annihilation. It is only because God is merciful (i.e. unfair) to us that we are even still here. How, then, could we dare to complain about injustice or unfairness to God. I must admit, that while this is true, it doesn’t provide much comfort in the midst of what we think are unfair circumstances. The second observation should make you feel much better. In the end, every wrong will be made right. Every injustice will be paid for. If not by the blood of Jesus then by the Final Judgment. There is not ONE WRONG EVER COMMITTED THAT WILL GO UNPUNISHED!
Romans 12:19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
We see a beautiful example of this promise when we read the rest of the story of Joseph. Joseph spent 14 years in prison, where he had ups and downs, but even in the ups, I’m sure that prison life was never as pleasant as Potiphar’s house. But in the end, his time in prison led to his elevation to the second in command of all of Egypt. This position helped him to save his entire family in a time of famine, not to mention the rest of the known world. Joseph summed it all up when he said to his brothers, Genesis 50:20 But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.
The Pentecostal revival, of which I am a part, was birthed out of a holiness movement. For many years, we were caught up in legalism that was way overboard. Everything was sin. As the new generations came, they recognized that it was too much, so they started moving into the opposite direction. We’ve moved so far now that it seems that the mentality of the church is that we can never achieve holiness so why bother. But that’s not what the Bible says. The Bible says that we can do it. We have allowed the pendulum to swing too far. We are content to rely on grace while we remain in debauchery. The Holy Spirit would say to his church, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!” It’s time to return to holy living. Not a senseless list of rules that can never be kept. The Old Covenant already proved once for all that holiness cannot be regulated. Instead, we must realize that we have been given the power, through the Holy Spirit, to live a holy life. Not through our own efforts, but because God has promised it.
Who cares what the world tells us?
Who cares what our culture tells us?
Who cares what our ministers & the church tell us?
The Bible, God’s authoritative word (do you believer it? I mean REALLY believe it), the Bible says that we CAN SUCCEED IN LIVING A HOLY LIFE!
1 Corinthians 15:57 How we thank God, who gives us victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord!
