Becoming An Overcomer
Becoming An Overcomer
Notes:
The Bible teaches that all temptation can be summed up in three areas; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. When the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in all things as we are, it is referring to these three areas.
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever (bold mine). -I John 2:15-17
When the Bible speaks of "every temptation," or "all that is in the world," it is not meant to be interpreted as every specific temptation that has ever been, or ever will be, experienced. As referenced earlier this would clearly be impossible. The proper interpretation of "every temptation" is just as I John 2:15-17 defines it. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. Every specific temptation that man ever experiences can be categorized in one of these three areas.
Well then, using I John 2:15-17 as our definition, can we now resolve the dilemma that Jesus Christ was “tempted in all things as we are?” Indeed we can. Scripture clearly teaches that Jesus was tempted in the “all things” that I John 2:15-17 describes: namely, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. Our prooftext is found in Matthew 4:1-11, and again in Luke 4:1-13, commonly referred to as the “Wilderness Temptation.” Luke 4:3 describes the first temptation:
And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
The context of this passage is that Jesus had not eaten for 40 days. He was hungry! The desire of His physical body was to eat! Thus, Jesus was being tempted in the area of THE LUST OF THE FLESH. The second temptation that Jesus experiences is as follows:
And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” -Luke 4:5-6
Here Jesus is being tempted with THE LUST OF THE EYES. Satan tempted Jesus by SHOWING Him all of the kingdoms that he had authority to give Him, but Jesus would not succumb to such temptation. As you might have guessed, the third and final temptation involves THE BOASTFUL PRIDE OF LIFE. Luke 4:9-11 reads:
And he led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, ‘He will give His angels charge concerning you to guard You, and on their hands they will bear You up lest You strike Your foot against a stone.”’
Here Satan is tempting Jesus to use the power and authority that He had access to as the Son of God, but which He had committed not to use for the sake of His purpose here on earth (see Phil. 2:6-7). If Jesus had given in to this temptation He would have been acting out of the BOASTFUL PRIDE OF LIFE, rather than the humble submission to the Father's will to which He knew He had been called.
The amazing truth of scripture is that Jesus succeeded where Adam and Eve failed. A careful study of Genesis chapter 3 will show that Adam and Eve were tempted in "all things" just as Jesus was. Genesis 3:6 reads:
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented “all that is in the world.” A careful study of the preceding passage reveals that Adam and Eve were tempted with the lust of the eyes, “it was a delight to the eyes,” the lust of the flesh, “the tree was good for food,” and the boastful pride of life, “the tree was desirable to make one wise.”
In conclusion, the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus was tempted in all things. However, the interpretation of such a statement does not mean that He experienced all of the perverse manifestations of the temptations that exist in the world, but that He was tempted with the three root issues from which all sin originates. Likewise, when the Bible says that "all temptation" is common to man it does not mean that all men experience the same perverse manifestations, but that they are all subject to the same three root issues, namely, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. All men and women do not experience the temptation to rob a bank, nor is it likely that Jesus ever experienced such a temptation. All men and women do not experience the temptation to murder, nor do I believe that Jesus ever experienced that temptation.
http://www.willowspringchurch.org
NEIL ANDERSON DAILY DEVOTIONAL
from Freedom in Christ Ministries
April 24
Satan's Threefold Temptation
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:16).
You will be better prepared to resist temptation in your life when you realize that, according to the Scriptures, there are only three channels through which Satan will entice you to act independently of God. They are summarized in John's instructions to believers concerning our relationship to this world: "Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:15-17).
The three channels of temptation are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The lust of the flesh preys on our physical appetites and their gratifications in this world. The lust of the eyes appeals to self-interest and tests the Word of God. The pride of life stresses self-promotion and self-exaltation. Satan confronted both the first Adam and the last Adam through each of these three channels of temptation.
Notice how Satan used precisely those three channels to deceive Eve: "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food [lust of the flesh], and that it was a delight to the eyes [lust of the eyes], and that the tree was desirable to make one wise [pride of life], she took from its fruit and ate" (Genesis 3:6).
The first Adam failed miserably and we still suffer the results of his failure. But the last Adam--Jesus Christ--met Satan's threefold temptation head-on and succeeded triumphantly. In Him we have the resources and the power to conquer every temptation Satan throws at us.
Dear God, please tear down any pride or self-deception I may have concerning Satan's strategies of temptation. I know I can never become complacent about spiritual warfare.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/3349.htm
The Nature of Sin and Temptation
Now the Serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
And the woman said to the Serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
Then the Serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing Good and evil."
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:1-6
While we have all read plenty of commentary on the Garden, the Serpent, the Woman and the Man, and a lot about whether God did or did not say what Eve claims, and even what the Serpent claims, there has been little enough about the meaning of verse 6.
Please note the three ways in which the fruit was a temptation for her:
- Good for food
- Delight to the eyes
- Desirable to make one wise
Now we fast-forward to a time closer to us, when the Serpent is at it again, with a totally different result.
Then Jesus [after His baptism by John], being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the Devil. And in those days, He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
And the Devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."
But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'"
Then the Devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the Devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."
And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"
Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you,' and 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'"
And Jesus answered and said to him, "It has been said, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God'" Luke 4:1-12
Too often, what is missed in commenting on this passage is each of these temptations was specifically linked to one of the notorious Messianic Expectations. During the 400 Years of Silence the popular Jewish writings proposed all sorts of ponderous things that the Messiah would do for His People. These "prophecies" included that he would see to it no Son of the Law ever went hungry again. Indeed, the opulence of food would boggle the mind. Bread would become more common than the flat stones of the Judean Wilderness -- which, by the way, bore a striking resemblance to the flat round bread everyone ate in the Mediterranean Basin those days. There was also the obvious hope the Messiah would conquer every political foe, making the Jews rulers of the whole world. Finally, this Messiah would announce himself with stunning miracles, to include specifically leaping off the Pinnacle of the Temple -- that far southeastern corner of the Temple terrace some 70 feet (213 meters) above the valley over which it extended -- and land safely.
Note again here, the nature of the temptations:
- Abundant food
- Amazing spectacles to see
- The arrogance of world rule
The Apostle John, arguably the one of the Twelve that first and best understood Jesus' teachings, wrote in his first letter:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15-17
Note how he characterizes the nature of worldliness:
- Lust of the Flesh
- Lust of the Eyes
- Pride of Life
I believe it is no coincidence. This is the trinity of fleshly desire, of fallen human nature. John founded his teaching on the clear pattern of Scripture. It's not some wild speculation to build a theology from this.
Lust of the Flesh: The appetites of the flesh are not inherently sinful, for so long as there is a way to fulfill them righteously. What John is referring to here is the desire without restraint. In the Spirit, we know that we dare not quench our lust for sex in ravishing every delectable cutie that crosses our path. The desire is not itself wrong, but the lack of restraint is. How could the purposes of God be fulfilled in that? So it is with food. Paul says,
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 1 Corinthians 6:12-13
The question is not whether the fleshly appetites are evil, and if so, which ones. They are part of God's plan and are essential for human life. The question is: Who rules? Who decides when and how those appetites will be fulfilled?
Lust of the Eyes: This one is a little less obvious. We can understand the appetites of the flesh we share with lesser creatures of earth, but they don't suffer from this one so much, it seems. What we have here is a perversion of the natural human inquisitiveness. Were it not for our curiosity, all humanity would still be living in caves and relying on hunting and gathering for sustenance. It is our nature to seek out something we have not yet seen or experienced, and it has brought us many great wonders of discovery and advancement.
Sadly, this can also be twisted to our hurt. Ever notice yourself drawn by fascination, and at the same time repelled by horror, at some particular sight? Ever wonder why so many people slow down at the scene of grisly auto crashes? Admit it: Don't you want to see? The responding policemen know this, but having worn rubber gloves all too often while collecting bits of human flesh, they are hardly curious anymore. Indeed, if you could hear them chatter, you'd be shocked at the casual language -- and even jokes -- with which they discuss the job.
We could go on and connect this to the way pornography addictions work, but obviously the answer is that we have to stop somewhere, to draw the line. We have to let the Spirit rule in our hearts and obey when He says, "Don't go there. You don't need to see that." Again: Who rules?
Pride of Life: Most of us are likely to think we know this one. We would do well to recall pride in accomplishment is no sin. If one is able to achieve by self-discipline and persistent effort against the odds, some pride is just. Such have earned their place, and they are unlikely to use it for harm.
Clearly, John warns against pride in a position unjustly gained. Holding a noble title does not make one noble in every sense of the word. By God's grace, we know that the ideal for those of noble birth was to be truly a cut above the rabble, to rule by right, not simply demand the right to rule. Try telling Queen Elizabeth the famed Eton is merely an academic institution like any local school. Eton is not known for turning out store clerks and soccer hooligans. History and legend alike are filled with ample material in this vein.
We are all tempted to gain an advantage in life over things that would frustrate us. In pursuit of the first two above, we might willingly seek some leverage denied others, and join the self-indulgent motto of the cartoon character, Hagar the Horrible: "I got mine!" Never mind whether we might seek that advantage for ostensibly noble causes. Tyranny is never so foul to you as when it seeks to do what's in your best interest. Over every ruler, at every level, who does not acknowledge the Lordship of Christ as King of Kings, there is a dark cloud of evil waiting to drench all, including the ruler. Yet again: Who really rules?
Virtually every temptation of man can be associated with one or more of these three. Each is but a perversion of some righteous gift from God. That is, of course, no surprise: Satan creates nothing. He can only twist and pervert what God has done. He is the Master Pervert of the Universe.
http://ed.asisaid.com/bible/trisintempt.html
THE HEART OF TEMPTATION
by Ray C. Stedman
In our present series on Understanding Man we have gone back to the very beginning, to the Garden of Eden, and there we are seeking to understand the mysterious power which we call temptation.
Yesterday I found myself tempted to steal. I was in a mountain cabin at Forest Hills Conference Grounds in Southern California, and I saw a little coffee carafe that was provided in each room for coffee. It was a very nice little container, and, when I looked at it, the thought flashed into my mind, "It would fit very neatly into my suitcase." Immediately I rejected the desire to put it there, and I confess (with perhaps a certain amount of pride), that it was not because the first thought that occurred to me was: "What would people say if the speaker of the conference stole something out of his room?" I resisted on the ground that it was not right, it was not pleasing to God.
You may be surprised to know that I have temptations like that. I also have many others. I am tempted to pride. I am tempted to lust. I am tempted to bitterness. I have been tempted often to envy. I am tempted to laziness, and to a great many others just like you!
The process of temptation is always the same with me, as it is with you. It is that process we are looking at in this third chapter of Genesis. This is why this passage is so wonderfully relevant to us for it speaks right to our situation.
As we saw in our last study together, temptation occurs in three stages or steps, which James clearly and plainly describes for us. He says that
...each person is tempted when he is lured or enticed by his own desire. [Stage 1] Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; [Stage 2] and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. [Stage 3] {Jas 1:14-15 RSV}
We have already traced Step 1: We watched Eve in the Garden of Eden being assaulted in mind and will by the Tempter in the form of a Shining One who appeared to her and sought to arouse a desire in her for the forbidden fruit. This pointed up the basic nature of temptation. It is always a pressure upon us to exceed the limitations which God has placed upon us. It is an urge within, a desire aroused, for us to move out beyond the limits which God has established for us. God has placed these limitations upon us, not out of cruelty or unkindness, but out of love and grace. They are necessary to our humanity. But the character of temptation is to utilize this limitation to make us restive and discontent and to move us out beyond the limits. We saw also that the Tempter actually accomplished this with Eve.
He aroused a desire by first creating a sense of unfairness in her. This is most revealing in the light of the situation we find so widespread today, when many are seething in a ferment of discontent and restlessness, suffering from a sense of being treated unfairly (oftentimes justifiably) but allowing that resentment to take over control of the thought and mind. The Tempter's second step is to deny, blatantly and openly, the truth that God had declared. He can only do this after he has created a sense of unfairness, for then the mind is prepared to receive the thought that God is not trustworthy and does not really love. The third step was to present to her an incomplete and misleading statement of truth -- to twist it, distort it slightly.
Thus her desire was aroused for the forbidden fruit. We closed our study last time with Eve standing before the fruit, aroused and deceived, drooling before the tantalizing mystery of it.
Now Stage 2 in temptation occurs. In many ways this is the most important of all. Before this stage was reached it was quite possible for Eve to resist the temptation that had been aroused within her, but after Stage 2, it becomes even more difficult, in fact, practically impossible. This stage is given to us in one verse:
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. {Gen 3:6 RSV}
The picture that James gives us of this particular stage of temptation is one of conception and birth. The seed of an aroused desire has been planted in the heart, and there follows then a process of growth and development. The mind now must come into play. Up to this point the Tempter has worked upon Eve's feelings and aroused a strong desire within her for the forbidden thing. But now the mind must come into action. It is the function of the mind to pass upon the logic of the situation.
Our mental faculties are a tremendous gift from God. Basically they are the ability to reflect on circumstances and facts, and relate our attitude or activity to these. There is a logicality that must prevail. The question of the mind is always: Is the action about to be taken, or the attitude about to be formed, a rational one? Is it consistent with the facts? In many respects this amazing ability to reason, to exercise rationality, is God's supreme gift to mankind. Rationality demands that the whole man become involved, that one acts as a total being. Irrationality, or insanity, is the action of a person based on only part of his being -- only his emotions, or even the direct activity of the will, apart from the exercise of mind or emotions. But rationality insists that the total man be involved, therefore the mind must come into play.
So it is at this point that the mind of Eve is engaged. But already a terrible thing has happened to her. She does not realize it, but it is evident from this account that the arousing of her emotion, the strong desire to have this fruit, which hangs there in all its tantalizing mystery and lure, has already prepared her will to act. Even before her mind comes into play she wants the fruit, and, secretly, has determined to have it. Thus, when her mind comes into action, it can no longer do so rationally. It cannot now consider the facts as they are, but must act on the facts as they appear to her. Since it can no longer act rationally it must rationalize. That is the deadly power of the mind in man. It has an amazing ability to rationalize, to twist the facts so that they accord with desire, to satisfy the urge that is springing up within by justifying it, even though it must slightly distort the facts of the situation.
Notice the process here: The first thing is that Eve looked at the fruit and said to herself, "It is good for food (i.e., it is profitable). It is something that will help me; it is physically profitable. Never mind the long range effects -- I'm not interested in that -- it will satisfy a present and immediate need, and what can be wrong with that?" Secondly, she saw that it was "a delight to the eyes," which means it was pleasurable, it satisfied the esthetic sense. It titillated her senses and was a pleasurable experience.
This element is always present in temptation. Each of us is well aware, because we are all experts in this, that sin is always fun -- for awhile! It has an element of pleasure about it and there is no use trying to blind our eyes to that fact. It is the pleasure of sin which makes it so enticing and alluring to us. The desire to have that pleasure, at whatever cost, is really the essential element of temptation. You know this is true. It feels good to indulge myself. I love the feeling of splurging, of doing something that gives me pleasure. It feels great. That is why I do it, even though my mind may be telling me that it may be ultimately harmful.
It feels good to act on pride. It satisfies me in some way. It feels good to lose my temper. Have you ever had the perverse delight of telling somebody off? Oh, how good that feels -- for awhile! It feels good even though you do not do it to someone's face, but go out in the woods to do it. Even that relieves the pain for a bit. It feels good to hurt my wife when she has done something that displeases me. There is pleasure in sin.
Howard Butt, a well-known Christian layman, puts it this way:
It's my pride that makes me independent of God. It's appealing to feel that I am the master of my fate. I run my own life. I call my own shots. I go it alone. But that feeling is my basic dishonesty. I can't go it alone, I have to get help from other people. And I can't ultimately rely on myself. I'm dependent on God for my very next breath. It's dishonest of me to pretend that I'm anything but a man, small, weak, and limited.
There lies the deceitfulness of sin. It offers pleasure. As Eve saw the fruit she said, "It is good for food, and it is a delight to the eyes. It gives me an esthetic sense that is pleasant."
Finally, she saw that it was "to be desired to make one wise." It ministered to the ego. It was an ego-satisfying thing. Again, in the book of James, we have a reference to the wisdom that is in view here, ("desired to make one wise"). Yes, says James, but there are two kinds of wisdom. There is the wisdom that is from above, from God: and there is a wisdom which is from below, which, he says, is "fleshly, sensual, devilish," {cf, Jas 3:15b KJV}. Notice the threefold division there: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes (sensual, pleasurable), and the pride of life (the Devil) {cf, 1 Jn 2:16}. For the snare of the Devil is pride of heart, the ego in man.
This is what Paul calls in another place "the wisdom of the world," {1 Cor 1:20, 2:6, 3:19}. It appears to be alluring, satisfying, giving tremendous results. How much of the philosophy of the world around us is based upon this. We must discover ways of building ourselves up, enhancing self, taking special courses by which we can develop the powers of our personality or going to school to develop charm or poise -- a Dale Carnegie course, or a Powers school. All of this is ministering to that pride of life, the satisfying of the ego.
When Eve felt all this she did not realize that her mind had played a trick upon her. It had taken the apparent facts which the enemy had set before her and had justified them, so that they looked reasonable, rational. The thing to do then, of course, is to give in. After all, anything that is good for food, pleasurable to the senses, and ministers to the satisfying of the ego, what can be wrong about that? But this is nothing less than the prostitution of the mind! It is reversing God's order.
Perhaps there is no element in the fallen nature of man more revealing than this single thing -- in fallen man, you have man operating in a different order than God intended him to operate. In man as God made him, the order is to be, first, an appeal to the mind, then, out of that, the stirring of the emotions based upon the facts presented to the mind, and then the two working together, the mind and emotions, to move the will. This is why throughout the Scriptures, you invariably discover that the appeal of the gospel, the good news from God, is addressed first to the mind.
The first appeal of the gospel is never to the emotions, it is always to the mind, to the understanding. It is a presentation of certain historic facts which have significance, and the significance of those facts is what constitutes the good news. Paul says, "this is the gospel which we declared unto you, how that Christ died for our sins," {1 Cor 15:3}. He died (the fact), for our sins (that is the significance of it): and he rose again, to be a living Lord imparting himself to us. This is what constitutes the good news, that Christ died to solve the problem of our rebelliousness and our estrangement from God, and he rose again, to minister to us constantly of his life, of his grace, and of his strength. Upon these facts we can then make a decision. These facts move us and stir us -- they ought to, they are designed to. But there must constantly come first the appeal to the mind. That is why any evangelism which does not begin with teaching is a false evangelism. Any evangelism which moves directly to an appeal to the will to act, or to the emotions to feel, is a distorted evangelism and results in abortion instead of birth.
This technique of reversal prevails throughout the world: This is the technique of Madison Avenue and the advertising business. Thumb through a magazine and notice that all the advertisements are designed to arouse desire first. There sits a beautifully designed and painted sports car, displayed in living color. You cannot look at these beautiful advertisements without beginning to drool a bit. There is a color TV set, the color so real it is unbelievable. Then you look at your drab, black-and-white set over in the corner, all covered with dust, and you think, "How can I put up with a thing like that any longer?" All showrooms and windows of stores are designed to short circuit the mind and appeal first to the will through the emotions. This is the technique of politicians and propagandists of every school. They too seek to arouse an emotional reaction first. They cleverly and carefully think through what will make appeal to the emotion first and they start on that note.
Someone wishes to move students, so they begin talking about war, the draft, or Vietnam. When the emotions are properly stirred then they present their plea for action, whatever the cause may be. With Negroes, there are certain emotional words that immediately arouse them, civil rights, black power, etc. To white middle classes, the propagandists talk about property values, free enterprise, and the "American way of life." By this sloganeering they attempt to arouse emotions first, with the realization that when the mind comes into play (as it will), it will not think rationally but will rationalize, it will take facts and distort them to justify the desire that has been aroused.
This explains why the propaganda which has appeared recently about the hazard of cigarette smoking has been relatively ineffective. Cigarette smoking is not based upon rational observation. If it were, no one would smoke. Who wants lung cancer? But the only way by which the effects of cigarette advertising can be counteracted is by fighting fire with fire -- by arousing emotions in the opposite direction. That is why we are now seeing so many articles on the terrible effects of throat and lung cancer, these vivid descriptions of what it feels like to have no throat, to have the larynx removed and to feed yourself through a tube. All this is with the hope that the emotion of fear aroused will turn people from the dangers of cigarette smoking. But why do people smoke? Why do boys begin to smoke? I remember my own boyhood and my attempts at smoking. Why? Because I thought that in some way it made me a man. It ministered to my sense of pride and my desire to be a grown-up individual. That is the reason that most boys smoke. You can see how this kind of thing permeates society.
It would be entirely wrong to get the idea from this account that everything that is pleasurable is wrong, and everything that is right is boring, dull and flat. That, of course, is what the Enemy would like to have us believe about God; anything God wants for us is very dull, uninteresting, and lackluster, and the only exciting things are the things that are wrong. But nothing could be more mistaken about that. After all, it is God who designed our emotions. He made us to have feelings, and he intends to satisfy them. There is nothing wrong. Desire is wrong when it is contrary to the facts, and thus prostitutes the mind, and subjects it to a rationalizing process, trying to justify facts in terms of that aroused desire. That is what is wrong.
See this in the Lord Jesus Christ: He, too, went through a time of temptation and notice how he handled it. He experienced the same order of attack that Eve did -- not in the garden this time, but in a wilderness, in a barren place removed from all the comfort, luxury, ease, and pleasantness of a garden. There in the barren wilderness, after forty days of fasting, he was tempted like Eve. The first temptation came on the same level as it did to her. She was tempted with regard to food, and the Tempter also came to the Lord and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread. You need bread. After forty days and forty nights your body is crying for bread. Surely God wants you to have bread; therefore turn these stones into bread," {cf, Matt 4:3}. But Jesus' answer was, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone'" {Matt 4:4}, i.e., bread is not be used for spiritual satisfaction. If you try to use it for that you are distorting the way God made man. That is not the purpose of bread. It is better to starve to death than to use it for a purpose God did not intend. So he used the facts of the situation, the way God made man, and rejected the Enemy's appeal, saying, "It's not right, and I won't do it."
Then the Enemy took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, in all their pomp, glory, and majesty {Matt 4:8}. This dream has entranced men for centuries. Some have caught a vision of even part of the kingdoms of the world and have fallen in love with the power, majesty, and glory of it. But Jesus was shown all the kingdoms of the world in their alluring glory, with the suggestion that if he would fall down and worship the Enemy he could have all this. This was clearly a delight to the eyes, something to titillate the senses and give a feeling of power. But our Lord rejected it because it was not in accordance with the facts, {Matt 4:10}. The facts are that man is made to worship God and God alone.
Then the Devil took him up to the Temple and suggested he cast himself off in order to display the power he had. When the people saw that he could do this without physical damage, they would acclaim him as a divine being and he would gain popular appeal, the pride of life. Again he rejected it on the basis of the facts. He said. "No, no. It is written, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' God is in charge of life, and I will not allow anything to enrich me but what comes through his hands," {cf, Matt 4:7}. Thus he rejected the temptation.
Now at this point it is important to note that Eve had not yet sinned. Even though her desire is aroused and her mind has justified it, still it is possible for her to recover herself, though it would be very difficult. But, as James tells us, desire when it conceive gives birth to sin. And at this point it is recorded that, when she saw that it was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was desired to make one wise, "she took of its fruit and ate." She acted on a lie, and thus fell into the sin of becoming her own god, of making up her own rules in violation of her humanity.
But now notice something else: Adam had not yet fallen, only Eve. There was still hope for the race. Thus the scene now shifts to Adam because it is not in Eve that the race fell. It is in Adam that the responsibility ultimately lies. A battle has been lost, but the war has not yet been lost. But then we read that, after she took of the fruit and ate, "she also gave some to her husband, and he ate." The ease with which Adam fell is dreadfully hard on the male ego. Think of it. Here is this whole account of the struggle of the Tempter to reach through to Eve, and but one little line about Adam, "she gave to him, and he ate." Yet in those innocent but ominous words, "and he ate," there begins the darkness of fallen humanity. The fatal twist now appears as mankind is transformed by this psychedelic drug (the forbidden fruit), and all men become the victim of a reverse psychology, mastered by emotional urges, no longer rational beings.
The lie is apparent in that man thinks himself to be rational. Because we can put our minds to certain tasks and think them through, we believe we draw logical conclusions from them that are based upon the facts, but it is not true. The record of history is powerfully to this effect -- that man operates from what Paul calls "deceitful lusts" {Eph 4:22 KJV}, urges, emotionally aroused urges within, which twist the facts by rationalizing and distorting so the mind is prostituted to false purposes.
In the next account we shall trace the meaning of the fall and the results that come from it. This is the third stage of temptation, the death that follows when sin completes its full growth. But we must close this study by asking ourselves: What is the value of this for us today? The answer, of course, must be that we see here that what Jesus says of the race is true: It is the victim of a distortion and twist which it is helpless to remedy by itself. We cannot change our basic natures. The fall has rendered us victims of emotional urges, and we cannot change that, no matter how desperately we try. We try urgently to be rational about things, but we cannot see the facts rightly. We do not even see the whole range of facts, and, ultimately, we find ourselves the unconscious victim of emotional twisting.
What can we do about it? If anything points up the absolute necessity for the new birth, it is this. As Jesus said, there is no other way out for humanity except through him. "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me," {cf, John 14:6}. There is no way to see reality apart from Jesus Christ. It is he who opens the eyes, it is he who restores balance to life, it is he who redeems my humanity, and helps make it possible for me to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.
My little six-year-old daughter put it very plainly the other day. She said, "It's good that we've got God, because otherwise, how would we know whether we were doing right or wrong." Is that not the basic question here?
How would we know, if it were not for God? How do we know how to look at life except we look at it through the eyes of Jesus Christ? How do we know which is right, among the welter of voices that call to us today from every side, unless we judge them all by the voice of Jesus Christ? How can we find our way through the morass of this present day, through the swamps of relativism that abound on every side, unless we are listening to the voice of the one who loved us and gave himself for us, that he might redeem us by destroying the works of the Devil?
Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that we might see once again, plainly and clearly, that there is no hope for us apart from the Lord Jesus and our following of him, trusting his love, and yielding ourselves to his redeeming grace. We pray that any who have not begun with him may begin by saying to him now, "Lord Jesus, save me. Come into my heart and life and begin your redemptive work with me. Make me different. Deliver me from the distortions of a fallen nature and grant that I, too, can see things as they really are." For those of us, Lord, who have already begun, grant that we may now resolve anew to follow him, to obey him, to trust him, to day by day listen to what he says and follow him. We ask in his name, Amen.