How to Resist Life’s Greatest Temptations
Surviving the School of Hard Knocks
July 2, 2000
We’re going to talk this morning about man’s oldest problem and what God has to say about it. In fact, you can go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and find that “TEMPTATION”, has been a thorn in man’s side since the very beginning.
There’s not a person who’s ever walked the face of the earth, (including Jesus Christ Himself), who at one time or another hasn’t faced temptation of some kind.
How many of you have found that even when you know what’s right, it’s hard to say, “NO”? At the core, that’s what temptation is, acting out right desires in the wrong way…
I can think of at least 3 Types of Temptation that fall under that definition…
1. MATERIAL Temptation:
Having material things isn’t sin, but never having enough and lusting after having more and more is! It might be as large as a house, or as small as a ring.
It might be as bright and dazzling as a brand-new Porsche, or as dull and dusty as an antique roll-top desk.
And then there’s…
2. PERSONAL Temptation
The lust for fame, authority or power over others. There’s nothing wrong with titles like CEO, president, doctor, or admiral… but if your motivation is for personal glory or control… it’s only going to lead to trouble!
And then 3rdly there’s…
3. SENSUAL Temptation
This is the lust for another person’s body. Sex isn’t wrong…it’s a God given desire, but ONLY when it’s protected by the commitment of marriage.
We live in a world today that’s constantly pressuring us to do wrong, with very few rewards for doing what’s right. To the pt. that some people think that the only way to get rid of temptation is to “give in to it!”
Sounds easy until you realize that everytime I give into a temptation, it brings me closer to a habit, and when I sow a habit, I create a character, and when I sow a character… I create a life!
People who routinely give in to temptation eventually live a life full of grief, pain and guilt! God wants to spare you from that kind of life and so He’s given us some powerful tools for resisting temptation in His Word the bible.
If you’ve been with us the past two weeks then you know that we’re taking our lessons out of the life of Joseph, in the book of Genesis. And this morning, we’re going to be looking at the “4 Don’ts” of temptation, from Josephs experiences.
Now Joseph was the favored (& spoiled) son of Jacob. His brothers (in an act full of jealousy), without any warning, grabbed him, stripped him of the beautiful robe his father had given him and dumped him into a deep, dirty pit.
He was rescued from that situation, only to be sold to hardened slave traders, and sent on a slow caravan to Egypt.
The pride and joy of his parents was now set on the auction block and sold to a man named Potiphar like a cheap piece of merchandise.
Read Gen.39:1
Now Potiphar is described here as the “captain of the bodyguard”. Pharaohs bodyguard were an elite, courageous band of rugged soldiers, and Potiphar was in charge of them.
As their captain, he was also in charge of all the royal executions. It was his job to imprison (and if necessary kill) all of Pharaohs political enemies.
Potiphar was probably short on household servants so he bought Joseph and brought him into his house. It wasn’t long though until he noticed that Joseph was no ordinary slave.
He was a hard working diligent young man. To the pt. that Potiphar increased his responsibilities and authority. He handled everything that Potiphar threw at him, and before long he was putting him in charge of his entire household.
So Joseph went from 1 common slave among dozens, to running the household of the top military man in Egypt!
Which leads us to the 1st “DON’T” when it comes to avoiding lives greatest temptations…
1. Don’t be weakened by your SITUATION.
Joseph was getting noticed all right… but not by just Potiphar! Potiphar’s wife began to gain an interest in him too! Gen. 39:6 tells us…”Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.”
The L.B. puts it this way… “Joseph by the way, was a very handsome young man.”
The Chris Kelly version puts it this way… “Joseph was a STUD! ” Ladies… he made Mel Gibson look like Quasimodo!
And Potiphar’s wife had made up her mind to have him!
(Read Gen.39:7…) No beating around the bush with her!
Now I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that Josephs greatest temptation came at the moment of his greatest success to this pt.
He had come to the place where his master trusted him with everything he owned… his money, his home, even his wife.
Here was a slave who’d earned the right to be respected and trusted… He was ripe for an attack from the enemy, and the attack came with laser-like accuracy!
Listen very carefully… I want to say this to the up and coming executive. To the person who’s at the top of their game. To the individual who’s experiencing the good things of life. Promotions, respect, recognition… BEWARE!!! You are a target!
With great success comes great trust, and with great trust comes even greater times of unguarded vulnerability.
I think of State Commisioner Quackenbush, a guy who had risen to a top political position, given a tremendous amount of trust by the people of CA., only to be caught with his hand in the “Insurance Cookie Jar!”
Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish essayist was right when he said, “Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man… but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a 100 that will stand adversity.”
In otherwords, the temptations that come with prosperity are much more dangerous than the temptations that come with adversity. Do you believe that? If you don’t, you’re being set up for a big fall!
Don’t let your current situation weaken you. Whether it’s adversity or prosperity… realize that like II Peter ______ says, “Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”, and he’s seeking to devour YOU!
He especially loves to stalk the respected person, the person who’s quoted by others, the trusted partner, the godly man or woman.
Potiphar’s wife was shamelessly aggressive. “Joseph, come to bed with me. Let’s have sex!”
Which leads to the 2nd “DON’T” of temptation…
2. Don’t be deceived by the PERSUASION.
Now a lot of men would have been caught off guard and maybe even a little flattered by such a seductive statement. But not Joseph! Not even for a second.
He turned away her advances.
The problem is, she refused to take “no” for an answer. She continued to seduce Joseph day after day. (READ Gen. 39:10)
Whatever it is that tempts you this morning. Don’t think that it’ll just show up once and then go away forever. Sorry, it’s not that easy! It’ll keep coming back, again and again…
And every time your tempter or temptress comes, it’ll have just the right words at the right time. Persuasive words like…
“Just this once, it’ll never happen again.”
“My husband doesn’t meet my needs the way you do!”
“Who’s gonna find out? We’re completely alone!”
“God will understand, after-all He’s the one who put me in this situation in the first place.”
You say, “Well, how did Joseph resist Potiphar’s wife? Was he some kind of a stone mummy?”
No, in fact he was just the opposite! He was a red-blooded young man in his late 20’s. Then, how did he do it? How was he able to turn away time after time after time?
Two things… and we touched on them a little bit last week.
1) His loyalty to his master
2) His loyalty to his God.
Read Gen. 39:8-9 with me….
He said, “My master trusts me. I’ve been give responsibility for everything he owns. I could never betray his trust!”
Giving into temptation always betrays someones trust. And trust is the foundation of any relationship.
Whether it be a spouse, an employer, a child, or a cause… there are people all around us who depending on us. They’re trusting us, and we need to remain faithful to that trust.
Because once trust is broken… it’s very hard to get it back. It’s one of those things that you don’t realize you need, until it’s gone.
And then, more importantly… Joseph was able to resist temptation day after day, because of his loyalty to God!
He said, “How could I do this great evil, and sin against God?”
Did you notice that Joseph never tries to rationalize his actions or take God out of the situation?
He doesn’t call it a “harmless affair”… instead, he calls it what it is… “A GREAT EVIL! A sin against God!”
He calls a spade a spade. Sin is sin. So many times I think we get sucked into temptation, because we refuse to call sin by it’s real name… we begin to camouflage the meanings of words…
Adultery becomes… a fling!
Abortion becomes… a choice.
Homosexuality becomes… an alternative lifestyle
Pornography is transformed into… adult entertainment
Prostitutes are now called, “sex workers”
Gambling is … having fun!
Anything that implies that what we’re doing is wrong… is re-named!
I love Abraham Lincolns response to a critic who was calling something that’s “evil”…”good”…
He said, “How many legs does a cow have?”
His critic replied, “Four.”
“Well, if you call her tail a leg, how many does she have?” asked Lincoln.
He answered, “Five”
“Nope!” Lincoln said, “just calling a tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg!”
Joseph called a leg a leg! I believe that if we’d stop fooling ourselves, and call our temptations what they really are… (“A great evil, a sin against God”), that we’d be able to stand against them better!
Instead of bringing God into a situation though, what do we do? We excommunicate Him! We totally forget about Him.
Think about the last time you were tempted to give into your secret sin. Have you ever noticed that when we’re right in the middle of being tempted, that God is that LAST person we think about?
He should be the first! But He’s not. Satan doesn’t fill our minds with a hatred of God, he fills our minds with a forgetfulness of God!
To the pt. that all I can think about are my own needs, my own desires, my own satisfaction. It’s like we go into some kind of a fog, (have you been there?) and the only thing we see, is what we want to see! The present!
The future consequences of our actions never even cross our minds!
The reason Joseph was able to resist his greatest temptation was because instead of ignoring God… He brought Him into the room!
An old story tells how when Joseph began to talk about God to Potiphars wife, she flung her skirt over the bust of the god that stood in her bedroom and said, “Now, God will not see!”
But Joseph answered, “MY GOD SEES!”
Remember that the next time you’re tempted to do wrong… OUR GOD SEES! If you’ll remember that, it will give you the will–power to resist.
The 3rd ‘DON’T” we need to know in order to resist temptation is…
3. Don’t be taken by your IMAGINATION.
So far, so good. Joseph had refused Potiphars wife time and time again. He refused to yield to her advances. He didn’t even want to be around her. But then… she set a trap for him!
READ Gen.39:11,12
Joseph came into the house to do his work (as always), but this time he noticed that the house was suspiciously quiet…
Hmmmm? Where’d everybody go? Are they all on errands somewhere? That’s strange!”
And then she makes her move! She jumps out at Joseph and physically grabs a hold of him.
Shocked, Joseph rips himself away from her grasp, while at the same time ripping his outer robe off. But he doesn’t let that slow him down for one second. He runs through the house and out onto the street with nothing but his “integrity” still intact.
You know there’s some good advise in the bible about dealing with temptation and Joseph acts it out perfectly here. In I Cor. 6:18
it says, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” Flee from sexual immorality!!!
Whenever the N.T. talks about the subject of sexual temptation, it only gives us one command…. “RUN! Run for your life!” And that’s exactly what Joseph does.
Joseph doesn’t hang around and try to reason with her. He doesn’t quote bible verses to her… he just picks up and hightails it outta there!
Listen, if you try and play around with temptation, whether they’re lustful thoughts, images, or ideas … you’ll eventually give into them! Play around with fire long enough, and you’re going to get burned!
When are we going to learn that we’re out of our league when it comes to temptation? To fool ourselves into thinking, “Hey, I can handle it!”… is a joke!
In fact, I’d say it’s more than that! It’s what you get when you cross a crocodile with an abalone … A “Croc- A –Baloney”!
We can’t afford to be anywhere near temptation, because it’s always targeted at our weaknesses! And the longer we’re near it, the weaker we get!
See temptation is a process. And James writes that it’s a process that starts in the mind. READ James 1:13, 15
Did you catch the different stages there?
First, there’s the DESIRE Stage… James says, “we’re carried away and enticed by our own lust”.
It all starts with a natural, normal desire like eating, sleeping, drinking, acceptance, or sex. But like we said, “temptation takes a legitimate desire and tries to fulfill it in an illegitimate way!”
Satan takes a “routine” desire and turns it into a “runaway” desire!
Next there’s the “DECEPTION Stage”… That term, “dragged away” in the grk. is a hunting term that means, “to ensnare in a trap”, just like the trap Potiphar’s wife set for Joseph.
The word “enticed” that James uses means “to be lured with bait”.
Now, I’m not a very good fisherman, but even I know the secret of catching fish… the secret of great fishing is in the bait! The right kind of bait for the right kind of fish.
Now listen… Satan is a great fisherman! And he knows which kind of bait each one of us will jump at. In fact, if you have a secret desire, Satan will make sure that he baits his hook with it!
Deceptive baits are dangling around us every day, and they don’t all come from individuals. Some of them come from a cable T.V channels, some come in the form of the Internet, others come from peer pressure or colleagues at work.
You’ll hear Mrs. Potiphar’s deceptive words all around you. And she’ll make you feel like a prude, a fish out of water. But just remember… it’s all a lie! Under every bait… there’s a hook.
You drive out into the desert and come across these bright shining lights, flashing and sparkling so brilliantly it almost looks like daytime. It all looks so enticing, so exciting and so inviting.
Adventure, riches… But you know what Las Vegas really is? One big gigantic lure! And believe me… it’s hooked a lot of suckers!
If sin wasn’t fun, nobody would want to do it! Right? So Satan always makes sure it’s very well disguised!
But like someone once wrote…”Sin is 1st appealing, then appalling. First alluring, then alienating; first deceiving, then damning; it promises life and produces death; it is the most disappointing thing in the world.”
Now it’s important for you to know that sin is not in the bait… it’s in the bite! Being tempted in itself isn’t sin. It’s when you take the bait and give into the temptation that causes sin.
James says, “after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.” He’s telling us that temptation always moves from the emotions (desire) through the intellect (deception), and eventually to the will.
It always starts with a desire, moves quickly to deception, and before we know it we’ve moved to the 3rd stage of temptation… DISOBEDIENCE!
We take the bait! What began innocently in our minds, now grows legs and takes action.
People say, “Well, I’m just thinking about it, I haven’t done anything!” Don’t worry, you will!
“What’s wrong with a harmless fantasy every once in a while? After-all I buy the magazine for the articles!” Right!
“What’s the harm in an occasional drink? I can handle it!” Right!
The harm is, “What you flirt with, you’ll eventually fall for!”
Desire always leads to Deception, Deception always leads to Disobedience and Disobedience always leads to stage 4… DEATH! James writes, “and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death!”
The bible’s not just talking about physical death here, but emotional and spiritual death as well.
Whether it’s material, personal or sensual… giving into temptation will eventually kill you and everything you touch. It will slowly suck the life out of life, and leave you hanging, unfulfilled and bitter.
You’ll end up becoming a slave to whatever you give into. Drugs, sex, food, whatever… Instead of possessing material things, they end up possessing you!
It’s soooo true that,
“Sin will take you further than you want to go,
Keep you longer than you want to stay…
And cost you more than you want to pay!
One of the most powerful illustrations of sins destructive power that I’ve ever heard comes from Paul Harvey, as he tells of how an Eskimo kills a wolf.
“First”, he says, “the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood.
He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder, the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night
So great becomes his craving for blood, that the wolf doesn’t notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his OWN tongue!
Nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood.
His carnivorous appetite just craves more – until the dawn fids him dead in the snow!
When the bible says that it’s possible for us to be “consumed by our own lusts”… it’s not joking around! Temptation is nothing to play with! When faced with it, the best advise I can give you is… FLEE! Run… (lit.) for your life!
Get out of that bar! Get off that computer! Turn off that T.V.!
Get out of that strange man or woman’s arms…and never go back!
Don’t give your imagination time to think about it… just GO! … …NOW!
That’s exactly what Joseph did. He ran out into the street, and Potiphar’s wife was left standing there, rejected again, with his clothes in her hands. She was ENRAGED!
Every ounce of Mrs. Potiphar’s lust turned to fury. First she lusted after him, now she despised him!
Joseph was to soon find himself worse off than he’d ever been before…
Which is why the last “DON’T” of temptation is…
4. Don’t be confused by the CONCLUSION.
Standing there with his clothes in her hand, fuming… all this scorned woman wanted now… was revenge! To accomplish this, she built a false case against Joseph, using a piece of circumstantial evidence… his robe!
She screamed out to her household servants, “This Jew my husband brought into this house tried to rape me! Look here’s the evidence! I tore off his robe as I was struggling against him!” (Ya gotta give it to the lady, she’s pretty slick, isn’t she?)
Joseph was absolutely innocent, but the circumstances were stacked against him. Potiphar’s wife had his robe and her position as the Master’s wife in her favor.
I thought as I read this story, “God, if you’re ever going to do something… do it now! Reward him somehow for …“just saying NO!” Get him out of this mess!” But God stands silently by and doesn’t do a thing! (at least on the surface!)
When Potiphar returns home, he gets her whole trumped-up story …and now Potiphar is irate!
Now, I personally don’t think that all of Potiphar’s anger was directed just at Joseph. I think he knew his wife, and he knew Joseph… and he didn’t completely believe her story.
Besides, if he really believed that Joseph had tried to rape his wife, as chief executioner, do you think he would have merely thrown him into prison? No way! He would have loped off his head on the spot!
Instead of having him tortured or put to death, however, Potiphar had Joseph put “into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.”
Seems to me that Potiphar was angrier over losing his best servant because of a wife he knew was unfaithful. (That’s just my opinion, take it or leave it at no extra charge!)
Nonetheless, Joseph still ends up behind bars.
See God’s ways aren’t our ways, the Bible says. God wasn’t through with Joseph yet. He sees into the future and knows what kinds of changes need to take place in Josephs life, and how to bring them about.
And the same is true with you! See, you don’t know what the final outcome is going to be. And neither did Joseph! He hadn’t ever read Gen. 41 and found out that in a few years he’s be the prime minister of Egypt.
All he knew, as he sat there in his lonely cell, was that he’d done right and suffered wrong for it!
But somehow, in the midst of this unfair situation, God assured him that his hand was in all of this.
In Gen. 39:21, the bible tells us that, “the Lord was with Joseph”.
I can imagine He came to him, in his deepest moment of depression, and whispered to him (like He does), “Joseph, don’t worry… You’re mine. Just wait, I’m still with you. I’m not ignoring or rejecting you. Believe me, you’ll be a better man as a result of this accusation against you… just hang tight. I’m not through with you yet!”
Maybe God is saying that to you this morning. If you’ve suffered wrong for doing what’s right… The Lord wants you to withhold judgment... He’s not through with you yet!
Don’t be confused by the immediate results… you may lose your job. You may lose your lover (if you want to call them that), you may be ridiculed by friends at school. You may be the only one who’s not “doing it”…
But regardless of what happens… stand strong! Even if it means demotion or a loss of stature… Get out! You owe it to your character… you owe it to your family… and mostly, you owe it to your God!
It may be that you’re facing temptation right now. Maybe you’ve already given in…
If that’s you, make the decision this morning from this point on, “I’m going to stand for God!”. Whatever the situation, no matter how alluring or how pleasurable the bait looks… don’t take it!
Claim the supernatural strength that only comes from knowing Jesus Christ, and operating under the control of His power.
Right now, at this very moment… determine to be a Joseph!
1. Don’t be weakened by your situation…
2. Don’t be deceived by the persuasion…
3. Don’t be taken by your imagination…
4. Don’t be confused by the conclusion!
Maybe you need some accountability, ect.
PRAY>>>
