Sermon Tone Analysis

*James 1:13-15*

*When I Surrender to Temptation*

 

“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.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”[1]

College boys, and perhaps even college girls, will, on occasion, recite an old saw, “Lead me not into temptation; I can find it myself.”

No doubt, college students, and some individuals well past college age, find such sentiments amusing.

Tragically, the old saw is not merely amusing; it is stunningly accurate.

Temptation is not sin; yielding to temptation */is/* sin.

The Christian is taught to master his desires; failure to do so results ultimately in death.

At no time are we more susceptible to surrendering to our desires than during extremes the experiences of life.

When we are elated, we are susceptible to do what feels right at the moment and getting things wrong.

When we are dejected, we are equally vulnerable to embracing our darkest desires, resulting in lingering and perhaps unanticipated costs.

Bear in mind that James was writing to Jewish Christians that were even then experiencing intense persecution.

The ill-treated saints were at risk of losing everything normally associated with comfort in this life.

Their homes and possessions were seized, they were forced to vacate long-standing social networks to become wanderers, their very lives were threatened, all because they avowed faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

Under such extreme harassment, it was no doubt tempting to seek relief through compromise.

Perhaps they could find some middle ground that would lessen the hostilities they faced.

Because of the danger of seeking compromise in pursuit of righteousness, James was compelled to address forthrightly our response to temptation.

What he wrote to these harried and harassed saints of so many years ago is applicable to this day for all who seek to follow the Son of God.

 

*The Genesis of Temptation* — “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.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.”

What does it mean to be tempted?

To say that one is tempted implies a choice.

Though temptation may indeed have a physical side, temptation always has a moral dimension.

Practically speaking, it is not temptation to be faced with a decision between two equally righteous choices.

Youth frequently struggle with whom to marry.

Frankly, the Bible views such a decision in a neutral light, so long as the decision facing an individual is to choose between people who are righteous.

In other words, individuals have complete freedom in the issue of whom to marry, so long as you marry in the Lord.

So long as your boyfriend, or girlfriend, is a believer seeking to serve the Master, you have liberty.

Paul addresses this situation in his first letter to the Corinthians Christians.

Perhaps you will recall the apostolic instruction provided in *1 Corinthians 7:25-31*.

“Concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.

I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is.

Are you bound to a wife?

Do not seek to be free.

Are you free from a wife?

Do not seek a wife.

But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned.

Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short.

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

For the present form of this world is passing away.”

He concludes this portion of his letter by advising wives who are freed from marriage through death, to marry only in the Lord [*1 Corinthians **7:39*].

Of course, the principle would apply in all situations—for males and females, as well as applying to the formerly married and the never married.

So the biblical principle promotes freedom in all things where there is no unrighteousness.

Likewise, though there may be consequences of varying natures, where you attend church is a matter of freedom, so long as the congregation honours the Lord and the pulpit and people adhere to biblical truth.

In such an instance, the freedom implies that your responsibility is to honour the Lord through seeking truth.

In other words, choices that carry no moral liability assign no possibility for temptation.

However, if a choice is between acting ethically or unethically, morally or immorally, then temptation may well be attached to the choice facing the individual.

Mankind is ingenious in employing linguistic terpsichore or moral subterfuge to justify unrighteousness.

Simply because an action is legal does not make it moral.

Slavery was once legal; but slavery is never moral.

Abortion is now legal; but slaughter of the unborn is never moral.

So temptation is always a solicitation to do what is unrighteous.

Whilst temptation in western thought often attaches to choices relating to sexual activity, or perhaps to ethical decision making resulting in fraud or theft, the Christians to whom James wrote were probably tempted to compromise the expression of their faith in an effort to lessen or halt persecution.

This is not the only time such temptation would be presented to people of the Faith; such temptation has been common throughout history.

On January 3, 250 a.d., the Emperor Decius issued an edict demanding that the entire empire worship the ancient gods.

Many Christians, and even whole churches, sacrificed to the pagan gods in order to avoid persecution.

Church leaders were targeted, and many, such as Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, went into hiding.

Many Christians suffered the consequences of refusal to adopt pagan worship merely to avoid persecution.

After Decius’ death, numerous Christians that had compromised assumed they could revert to Christianity, only to discover that there was considerable opposition to such efforts.

Post-baptismal sin was seen as extremely serious and could not simply be excused.

There were consequences attached to compromise.

Similar persecutions brought about widespread compromise at various times throughout history, but perhaps nowhere has such overt pressure to renounce faith and compromise godliness been witnessed more than in various Communist countries during the twentieth century.

Soviet Russia and her satellites, Communist China and Viet Nam have been especially egregious in compelling Christians to compromise in my lifetime.

In modern Canada, we do not face immediate physical persecution if we fail to compromise, but we do nevertheless face threats and pressure to compromise.

Consequently, many churches and many Christians readily compromise the Faith in order to have a better standing in the eyes of peers and in the estimate of social leaders.

Contemporary Christians succumb to subtle pressure to be likeable, to avoid offending prevailing social attitudes, to increase the numbers attending services through affirming people in their sins—and the appeal to make such compromise is almost irresistible.

To be certain, we must be cautious not to give offence flagrantly, but we must also be aware that Christ is “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence” [*1 Peter 2:8*].

Teaching the Word of God and preaching the message of Christ will prove offensive to the unregenerate.

If the people hearing Jesus in His days on earth “took offence at Him” [*Matthew **13:57*], we should not be surprised that our commitment to Him will prove equally offensive.

After all, He warned that “a servant is not greater than his Master” [*John **15:20*].

Temptation arises from within as the focus of life shifts from honouring Christ to seeking personal ease.

Inevitably, temptation is a moral issue as an individual is faced with the choice to either continue honouring God or to serve his or her own interests.

When a congregation values social acceptance over sound biblical doctrine, that church has succumbed to temptation; they are dishonouring the Lord.

When a Christian chooses to resort to political means to obtain results that he or she imagine to be vital to the welfare of the congregation, that Christian has surrendered to temptation.

You see, despite popular sentiment to the contrary, ends do not justify means, but rather righteousness is demanded if we will honour the Lord in all things.

There is an old saw that is often quoted in the southern United States; it cautions, “It is never right to do wrong to do right.”

God is not glorified through misguided efforts to embrace error in order to advance His Kingdom.

Conservative Christians often attempt to carry out the work of God through earthly means.

They assume that organising noisy marches, participating in boycotts, urging letter-writing campaigns and other such activities are necessary to advance the cause of Christ.

However, we have no mandate to politicise the biblical call to be righteous.

Our mandate is unchanged: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” [*Matthew 28:19, 20**a*].

When we attempt to make the world to love us through endeavouring to do the work of God using the methods of this dying world, we have succumbed to temptation, and God must cease blessing us.

Churches are particularly prone to make the decision to employ the world’s methods to fulfil the commands of Christ.

We adapt our music to the preferences of the world, choosing tempo over theology, or selecting syncopation over sanctification; then we marvel that we are unable to build strong saints.

We preach to felt needs instead of confronting our fallen condition, and then we marvel when believers compromise their witness during times of hardship.

I want to spare you sorrow, so I warn you against those individuals who conclude that God is blessing them merely because no one speaks against them and everyone appears to love them.

Jesus warned, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you” [*Luke **6:26*].

This is but one in a series of warnings provided in the Word of God.

Listen to some of the other warnings against surrendering to the temptation to be liked.

Speaking to His disciples, Jesus warned, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” [*John **15:19*].

To seek approval from the world is to seek what cannot be given to the child of God.

Again, in His High Priestly prayer, Jesus confessed to the Father, “The world has hated [My disciples] because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” [*John **17:14*].

In just a few chapters beyond our text, James will confront the temptation for Christians to seek accommodation with the world when he writes, “You adulterous people!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” [*James 4:4*].

His words anticipate the words John would write near the end of that first century of the Church Age, “[Those imbued with the spirit of antichrist] are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them” [*1 John 4:5*].

I have focused on the more realistic temptation we Christians face.

I know that there are all sorts of temptations to gratify sexual lusts—we live in a world that worships at the shrine of Eros.