TEMPTATION

TEMPTATION - James 1:2-8,12-15

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. 12 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. 13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. NIV. 

The two source of temptation

a.     Divine/God

b.     Satan/sin

Persecution brings perfection? Writing to Jewish Christians who had fled persecution, James urged them to take a positive view of their trials; focusing on the character development those trials can produce. "Trouble" or "trials" (1:2) come to test faith (1:3; see Gen 22:1; Ex. 20:20; Deut. 8:2-3). From 1:2 we learn three things about such trials:

*     They are certain to come. James says "when," not "if."

*     They can come suddenly; thus we "fall" into them (KJV).

*     They can come in several ("various," NASB) forms, such as financial, physical, spiritual, mental, or social.

Why should the Christian rejoice in trials?

a.     They discover what kind of faith they really possess.

b.     They also develop our faith and Christian character.

c.       One of the best tests of Christian maturity is tribulation.

What is God's purpose in trials?

It is the perfection of Christian character in His children. He wants His children to be mature (perfect), and maturity is developed only in the laboratory of life. Trials can produce patience (see Rom 5:3), which means "endurance"; and endurance in turn leads the believer into deeper maturity in Christ. God put young Joseph through thirteen years of testing that He might make a king out of him. Peter spent three years in the school of testing to be changed from sand to rock! Paul went through many testings, and each one helped to mature his character. Of course, it takes faith on the part of the Christian to trust God during testings, but knowing that God has a divine purpose in mind helps us to yield to Him.

This is a negative approach, but it is an important one. James said, "Look ahead and see where sin ends - death!" Do not blame God for temptation. He is too holy to be tempted, and He is too loving to tempt others. God does test us, as He did Abraham (Gen 22); but He does not and cannot tempt us. It is we who turn occasions of testing into temptations.

A temptation is an opportunity to accomplish a good thing in a bad way, out of the will of God. Is it wrong to want to pass an examination? Of course not; but if you cheat to pass it, then you have sinned. The temptation to cheat is an opportunity to accomplish a good thing (passing the examination) in a bad way. It is not wrong to eat; but if you consider stealing the food, you are tempting yourself.

We think of sin as a single act, but God sees it as a process. Adam committed one act of sin, and yet that one act brought sin, death, and judgment on the whole human race. James described this process of sin in four stages.

Desire (v. 14). The word lust means any kind of desire, and not necessarily sexual passions. The normal desires of life were given to us by God and, of themselves, are not sinful. Without these desires, we could not function. Unless we felt hunger and thirst, we would never eat and drink, and we would die. Without fatigue, the body would never rest and would eventually wear out. Sex is a normal desire; without it the human race could not continue.

It is when we want to satisfy these desires in ways outside God's will that we get into trouble. Eating is normal; gluttony is sin. Sleep is normal; laziness is sin. "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge" (Heb 13:4).

Some people try to become "spiritual" by denying these normal desires, or by seeking to suppress them; but this only makes them less than human. These fundamental desires of life are the steam in the boiler that makes the machinery go. Turn off the steam and you have no power. Let the steam go its own way and you have destruction. The secret is in constant control. These desires must be our servants and not our masters; and this we can do through Jesus Christ.

Deception (v. 14). No temptation appears as temptation, it always seems more alluring than it really is. James used two illustrations from the world of sports to prove his point. Drawn away carries with it the idea of the baiting of a trap; and enticed in the original Greek means "to bait a hook." The hunter and the fisherman have to use bait to attract and catch their prey. No animal is deliberately going to step into a trap and no fish will knowingly bite at a naked hook. The idea is to hide the trap and the hook.

    

James 1:13-16

Temptation always carries with it some bait that appeals to our natural desires. The bait not only attracts us, but it also hides the fact that yielding to the desire will eventually bring sorrow and punishment. It is the bait that is the exciting thing. Lot would never have moved toward Sodom had he not seen the "well-watered plains of Jordan" (Gen 13:10ff). When David looked on his neighbor's wife, he would never have committed adultery had he seen the tragic consequences: the death of a baby (Bathsheba's son), the murder of a brave soldier (Uriah), the violation of a daughter (Tamar). The bait keeps us from seeing the consequences of sin.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan, He always dealt with the temptation on the basis of the Word of God. Three Ones He said, "It is written." From the human point of view, turning stones into bread to satisfy hunger is a sensible thing to do; but not from God's point of view. When you know the Bible, you can detect the bait and deal with it decisively. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.

Disobedience (v. 15). We have moved from the emotions (desire) and the intellect (deception) to the will. James changed the picture from hunting and fishing to the birth of a baby. Desire conceives a method for taking the bait. The will approves and acts; and the result is sin. Whether we feel it or not, we are hooked and trapped. The baby is born, and just wait until it matures!

Christian living is a matter of the will, not the feelings. I often hear believers say, "I don't feel Like reading the Bible." Or, "I don't feel Like attending prayer meeting." Children operate on the basis of feeling, but adults operate on the basis of will. They act because it is right, no matter how they feel. This explains why immature Christians easily fall into temptation: they let their feelings make the decisions. The more you exercise your will in saying a decisive no to temptation, the more God will take control of your life. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil 2:13).

Death (v. 15). Disobedience gives birth to death, not life. It may take years for the sin to mature, but when it does, the result will be death. If we will only believe God's Word and see this final tragedy, it will encourage us not to yield to temptation. God has erected this barrier because He loves us. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" (Ezek 18:23)

These four stages in temptation and sin are perfectly depicted in the first sin recorded in the Bible in Gen 3.

The serpent used desire to interest Eve: "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5). Is there anything wrong with gaining knowledge? Is there anything wrong with eating food? Eve saw that "the tree was good for food" (Gen 3:6), and her desire was aroused.

Paul described the deception of Eve in 2 Cor 11:3. "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." Satan is the deceiver, and he seeks to deceive the mind. The bait that he used with Eve was the fact that the forbidden tree was good and pleasant, and that eating of it would make her wise. She saw the bait but forgot the Lord's warning: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17).

Eve disobeyed God by taking the fruit of the tree and eating it. Then she shared it with her husband, and he disobeyed God. Because Adam was not deceived, but sinned with his eyes wide open, it is his sin that plunged the human race into tragedy (read Rom 5:12-21; 1 Tim 2:12-15).

Both Adam and Eve experienced immediate spiritual death (separation from God), and ultimate physical death. All men die because of Adam (1 Cor 15:21-22). The person who dies without Jesus Christ will experience eternal death, the lake of fire (Rev 20:11-15).

Whenever you are faced with temptation, get your eyes off the bait and look ahead to see the consequences of sin: the judgment of God. "For the wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23).