Tempted By God
Notes
Transcript
What does it mean to be tempted? Can temptations be good or bad? I can be tempted to buy a new car, I can be tempted to order a steak, I can be tempted to eat chocolate ice cream… But I also can be tempted to steal, cheat, commit adultery… You see there can be what we consider to be minor temptations all the way to serious temptations. If we look at the biblical definition of temptation, it means to test or to entice to do wrong.
The first temptation we read about is in Chapter 3 of Genesis, and we all know how that turned out. Now, we could look at the method behind the temptation such as causing one to question their morals. Temptation was introduced to challenge truth. Temptation caused mankind to question all they knew as being right. Temptation caused enough confusion that mankind failed by sinning against God.
Notice this temptation was not a temptation BY God, even though it was allowed by God. We are created by God to have the choice to follow Him, love Him, obey Him. Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in the 1700’s, related “Free choice” for as doing what one desires, and God is the Author of the heart’s desires. Notice...what our heart desires. Where our heart is determines what our choices will be. Will we choose righteousness, or will we choose sin?
But what happens when we choose to do wrong? Do we ever blame God for “letting” us do wrong? God allowed us to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. God shouldn’t have allowed the wrong people around us. God shouldn’t have allowed… But in reality we are thinking of it wrongly. It isn’t God… but it is us. It is our heart...and its desires...that put us in the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong decision… We can even see how sin affected Adam and Eve - they started blaming everyone else except for taking responsibility of their own sin. Temptation is not of God.
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
We seldom take responsibility for our own actions, especially our sin. We blame each other, a spouse blames the other spouse, a child blames their parent, the parent blames the child. The student blames the teacher, the teacher blames the school...it can go on and on. we seldom take responsibility for having taken it. What we do is justify our behavior and try to quiet our conscience by blaming our wives, husbands, employers, lovers—just someone other than ourselves.
Interestingly, when we sin we blame God. We do not want to accept responsibility for our own actions. We do not like to accept blame. For our own inability to control our hearts desire when our desire is in the wrong place. But God cannot be tempted with evil. God is holy, righteous, and pure. By His very nature God can have absolutely nothing to do with evil or temptation. To tempt a person is an evil thing to do. It takes a selfish, carnal, self-seeking, and evil person to try to entice and seduce another person to do sinful things. God is the very opposite. God’s holiness does not allow Him to be tempted to do evil; and He cannot be tempted to tempt man to do such an awful and unholy thing.
Not only can God not be tempted by evil, but God does not tempt any person. God loves, cares, and seeks to save man, not to damage or destroy his body and spirit. When a person is tempted to do the forbidden or harmful thing, the urge and craving is not of God. God wants the person to turn away from temptation, not to give in to it.
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.
Notice where temptation TRULY comes from - our own evil and sinful desires. Now we can desire many things, there are good and there are bad desires. This word used for “lured and enticed” literally means to “bait” as we would a fish or an animal to a trap. The very beginning of sin starts with a bait - something to draw us away from the truth and leads us to look and/or think about things that are sinful. It becomes a focus of our attention, and we start to think about it, and then we soon are drawn away. This leads to us planning and plotting, whether physically or in our mind, to do what is wrong or forbidden. It starts to change our hearts desires from what God desires for our life, to what WE desire. When we allow ourselves to start thinking or looking at what we desire, it is sin. You see, temptation begins with normal and natural desires becoming something more. Our mind drifts, and soon we lust after things we shouldn’t. Instead of turning away from these thoughts and desires, we turn towards them and sin is born. Wrong is committed first in our minds, and our heart is turned to the forbidden. Even though we may never act out, we have still had the thoughts and desires leading to a turning away from what God desires for us.
28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
So, how do we “not” become deceived? If our sins start in our thoughts, we have to guard our minds and place our thoughts in other places, in a place where God wants - focus our thoughts on Christ and His Word. If sin comes from our other senses - seeing, hearing, tasting, and touching, then we have to turn our eyes, ears, and body away from the temptation and focus back on Jesus. One of the easiest ways is to focus our mind and heart on prayer and reading of Scripture. If our focus is ON God, then it becomes harder to turn away FROM God.
Just like the beginning, sin led to death - spiritual separation from God, separation from God’s perfect provision for us, and physical death. When we were created, God did not create us to die, but because we chose sin we also chose death. I think one of the reasons we, as humans, have such a hard time with death is because we know it is not normal. We become separated from loved ones through death. More importantly, we are separated from God and the purpose in which He intended for us.
The physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body. It is when we cease to exist on this earth and the physical body is buried.
Spiritual death can be referred to as the walking dead. 1 Timothy 5:6 “6 but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.” This death is where we find each and every one of us in our natural state (without Christ). Before salvation, we are still living in sin and dead to God. When we focus on our natural desires, we live a life where we are spiritually dead. Sin brings spiritual death.
Eternal death is the separation of mankind from God’s presence forever. This is what the Bible refers to as the second death - the eternal state of being separated from God. You see, if we continue living in sin, and never repent of those sins and accept Jesus as our Savior then our physical death then becomes our eternal death, or the second death.
God’s desire for all mankind is to to reunited with Him physically, spiritually, and eternally. He provided a way for this life to be restored by sending a perfect gift from above, if we believe in Him.
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
God is good, and He is perfect. There is no way He could be God and NOT be good and perfect! When we say God, we acknowledge our perfect Creator! Being good and perfect, God can have absolutely nothing to do with temptation and sin. Therefore, He is not the One who tempts man. God is the One who gives man every good and perfect gift that man receives.
God is the Father of lights and He is unchangeable. Temptation leads men into darkness, into the darkness of guilt and shame, of personal disappointment and accusation, of hurting and damaging others, of destruction and death, of secrecy and hidden affairs, of the night and closed doors, of hidden and secret acts. It is temptation that leads men into such a world of darkness, not God. God is the Father of lights, the Creator of the sun, moon, and stars and of light itself. And they are all unchangeable. By their very nature each gives off and reflects its light. So it is with God, except more so. God is light, perfect light—so perfect that there is not even a variation or shadow of turning with God. There is with the heavenly lights, but not with God. God is unchangeable.
God is said to be “the Father of lights.” He is our Father; He never leaves us in the dark, groping and grasping to know the truth. He always opens up the light of the truth to us. He gives us every good and perfect gift because He is THE good and perfect Father.
God wills only to see us born again. He wills for us to know the Word of truth. If we ever hear the word of error, it is not of God. All humanistic and false teaching about truth are not of God. It is of some other source, some source that is out to tempt man away from God and His truth. God wants man to be born again. Man has been physically born—every man—and the way of physical birth is death. Every human person shall die. But God’s will is what the Word of truth proclaims: that man can be born again. He can experience a spiritual rebirth and live forever with God in the new heavens and earth. We can all become one of His new creatures, a new man who is going to be perfected and live forever and ever. We can all be like the first fruits of the vine, a new fruit, a new creature that is unlike the physical creature that we are upon this material earth. We can be made into one of God’s new creatures—made into a perfect being who will live forever to worship and serve God in the new heavens and earth.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Closing
Closing
While we choose to think God places us in places or situations, or around people who cause us to sin, James tells us God does not tempt us. Because of our free will, though, we have to guard ourselves against sin. Through our protecting our hearts, where our true thoughts and desires are, we can overcome any and all temptation we may endure. One of the toughest desires we face, though, is the desire of self. We want our way, we want our desires, we want our outcome… and at times it is hard to humble ourselves enough to realize we are not enough. We can’t live a good enough life by ourselves because we are spiritually dead and as you know someone dead can’t think, can’t see, can’t even hear… until God calls. As God knocks on the door of our heart, He comes not offering a magazine subscription or a vacuum cleaner, but eternal life - salvation through His Son Jesus.
Today, if you are spiritually dead, He offers you life…
