Temptation
is often a prelude to sin. In fact, many a sin has been committed after temptation has reared its ugly
head. That is not to say that temptation always
leads to sin; it doesn’t. Nor is temptation always necessary for sin to occur;
it isn’t. Sometimes people intentionally sin without being tempted to do so.
It’s in our nature, and those without salvation have a predilection for sin
that does not always require temptation. However, we must remember temptation
and sin are kissing cousins, so to speak. Sin is often accompanied by
temptation, especially in the lives of Christians. In fact, the purpose of
temptation, from our enemy’s perspective, is to cause one to sin.
The history of sin began with the temptation of Even in the
Garden of Eden. As we all know, Eve succumbed to temptation, which was based on
deception, and sin entered the world. Since then, it has permeated society and
sent it spiraling downward. Ironically, the history of salvation began with the
temptation of Christ, who resisted its presence. I define deception as an
intentional distortion of the truth for a desired purpose. Now we really don’t
know for sure because Jesus resisted, but I believe the temptation he faced was
also based on deception. That is, what Satan offered was not quite as he made
it out to be, as in the Garden of Eden. Deception coincides with temptation in
that it allows our intellect the opportunity to, quite often, incorrectly
evaluate a given situation. In other words, temptation provides the opportunity
to deceive ourselves.
I’ve examined my own life and the
temptations I face. One of my professors, a brilliant man named Corne Bekker,
remarked to my class during our second-year residency that if we had
experienced temptation during our program, we were indeed in the right place
and doing God’s will. The point he was making was in regard to spiritual
warfare and our role in the Kingdom of God. In other words, if we have
potential to serve in the kingdom, we are a target; if we are strong in our
faith, we are a target; and if we are seeking to fulfill our God-given purpose,
we are a target. The use of temptation is employed in order to steer us off
course and indirectly pit us against God. It is a spiritual weapon of mass
destruction.
You see, our enemy doesn’t have to
work very hard to keep the people he’s already got. They squalor delightfully in
their sin and perpetuate its presence in society. No, our enemy is fixated on
us. It’s his goal to distract us from seeking and achieving our God-given
purpose. He can’t take away our salvation, but he can certainly tempt us to sin
and impede our ability to do the work of God.
So, what is temptation? Well,
because of its close association with sin we might want to lump the two
together and see them as nearly the same thing, but that’s not the case.
Temptation is not sin. How do we know
that? Because Jesus was tempted before he began his ministry, yet he never
sinned. To my original question, temptation, as I see it, is comprised of three
components: perception, cognition, and action.
First, temptation must be perceived.
That is, it must be recognized, known and understood by the individual in the
situation. It is the proverbial fork in the road that necessitates a decision.
Second, it has a cognitive aspect. It involves the intellect, which involves
rational and emotional thought. Temptation is given its due consideration. Pros
and cons are carefully weighed in the balance before, third, action is taken.
After the temptation has been perceived and carefully considered, a decision is
made to either proceed in a sinful direction or to turn from it.
Certainly this is a simple way of
looking at temptation, and there are those who might argue temptation is
comprised of more than three simple components. However, my goal is to identify
when temptation becomes sin and understand the process in order to protect
oneself from succumbing to it. Merely engaging in the cognitive process of
perceived temptation isn’t itself sin, though it perhaps could be depending on
what kind of thinking one does in regard to a particular temptation. Proceeding from cognition to action is where sin occurs. It occurs
with the decision to disobey God. When we choose to
disobey and follow through on that decision, we sin.
In the life of a Christian,
temptation is one of the biggest weapons in Satan’s arsenal because temptation
is a slippery slope, and he knows it. If he can find our weakness, our area of
vulnerability, he can continually bombard us with temptation after temptation
enticing us to sin. But you’re saying, “So what if I give in to temptation once
and a while. I’m human. I have salvation and am forgiven.” Indeed you have
salvation and are forgiven, but that is not the point. The point is that
temptation in a Christian’s life is there to prevent him from achieving his
God-given purpose. It’s a sideshow on the road to nowhere. Temptation is the
grand distraction that can cause us to question our faith and salvation when we
give in to it. So lost can we become in our self-examination and introspection
that we are rendered nearly useless to the kingdom. We spend our time and
energy trying to decipher temptation’s presence in our life and fail to
accomplish the task God has set before us.
Yes, if we succumb, we can repent
and know we are forgiven. All of our sins, past, present, and future, were
taken away on the cross even before we existed. We were born into sin and will
live in sin until we die even though we have been forgiven. However, we must
remain vigilant for temptation’s presence in our lives. We must perceive it and
decide against it in order to continue in the work of the Lord. Christians must
refrain from allowing temptation to become a prelude to sin.
The problem with sin is we like it.
It’s in our nature. It’s akin to gravity. Physicists might explain gravity in
terms of large objects, such as the earth, having a gravitational force such
that when smaller objects are placed in close proximity to them, they develop
an attraction, which increases as the objects get closer. Sin operates and acts
very much like a gravitational field. When we’re around it, we want to
gravitate toward it even if we are Christians. As Christians, we’re to be
repentant. In Genesis, God told Cain that he needed to master his sin before it
mastered him. Boice (1982) concluded, “If we would master sin, we must first be
mastered by Him who mastered it” (p. 202).
In my own life, there were certain areas of sin I would fall into; we
all have our vices. We may not talk about them in any great detail, and I don’t
intend to do that here, but we have them. I will simply state there is an area
of sin I would often fall into. I would tell myself I wasn’t going to do that
anymore.
As awful as the sin itself was, that wasn’t the problem. That
may sound a little off-kilter, but consider this. All of my sins – past, present,
and future – have all been forgiven. They’ve all been erased. It’s like erasing
a blackboard, and even if I write something new on it, it’s immediately wiped
clean. The saving and redeeming blood of Jesus Christ on the cross has erased
it. I know this; Christians know this, and Satan knows it too. And that can be
a real problem because he puts it in the back of our mind that, hey, you know
what, keep sinning, keep falling into temptation. You’re saved and you’re going
to go to heaven. Perhaps it won’t be the ‘good part’ of heaven, as it were, but
you’ll get in. Now that may or not be completely accurate, and some may wish to
debate the issue. However, what I will say is the real problem in my life was
not the sin itself. The real problem in my life was the aftermath of the sin.
You see, I would sin, but then I wouldn’t pray. I wouldn’t pray about it or ask
for forgiveness for days because I was ashamed. I was ashamed that, I, a
Christian, someone who believes in the forgiveness of sins, believes in Jesus,
and has accepted him as my savior, didn’t want to turn to him when I
needed him most. Much like a child, I feared going to my Savior and feeling his
disappointment that would come not just because I had done something wrong, but
because I had done something wrong repeatedly. So, not only did I know it was
wrong, but I continued in this behavior and fell into a never-ending battle
with temptation in which I won very few times.
I did not want to get into the habit of going to Jesus and
asking for forgiveness for something I knew was wrong and continued to do. So I
allowed my sin to become a distraction in my life. It became a distraction
because I was preoccupied with it and with doing it to the point where I wasn’t
a benefit to the kingdom of heaven. The preoccupation with sin became the
ultimate detractor and was a powerful weapon in Satan’s arsenal against me.
However, the sin itself really wasn’t the problem because the sin was forgiven.
Satan knew the sin was forgiven, but what he did was cause me to focus on the
fact I was sinning – the same sin over and over again - and get so preoccupied
with it that I was rendered useless for the kingdom of heaven. And today I
think that is a major problem for a lot of people. The problem with Christians
today is not only do we fall prey to temptation – and there are many ways
temptation can come at us now – we have the internet and they can bombard us
globally – there are many things around us that can cause us to fall into sin.
Falling into sin really isn’t the issue if we believe that
Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we are forgiven; we are saved. It doesn’t
matter that we sinned per se. Jesus took our sin away; he took the sin of the
world upon himself on the cross. We are not called to focus on our sin. We are
called to be servants in the kingdom of heaven – to evangelize. And we cannot
serve the kingdom effectively if we are preoccupied with our own sin. And that
is the problem I had with my sin. I would get preoccupied over it; I would beat
myself up over it; I would even question my salvation. Many times I would
wonder if I was really saved. How could someone who is saved keep sinning,
particularly the same sin? And then I thought back to my high school days and
reading The Screwtape Letters. I
recalled one of the letters Uncle Mortimar sent to his nephew, Wormwood, in
which he identified a key strategy to making Christians stumble was to make
them question their faith. Again, it’s a distraction and a deception. Satan
works based on deception. As Sun Tzu said, “All warfare is based on deception.”
Satan is out to deceive us and believe something that is not true. He is out to
keep us from doing the will of God. Like the members of the early church, we
are called to do the will of God. We are called to evangelize, to spread the
word because Jesus is coming back for his church. And we cannot do that if we
are preoccupied with our own sin and the wiles of the Devil. Consider the words
of David in Psalm 32:
Blessed is the one
whose
transgressions are forgiven,whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one
whose
sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I
kept silent,
my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day
and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my
strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and
did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess
my
transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the
guilt of my sin.
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