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Facing Temptation

SERIES: Anatomy of Sin #3 of 8

2007-07-22

PRODUCTION #: 1073

SPEAKER: Shawn Boonstra

Once in a while, surprising thoughts come to our minds that we never imagined we could generate. How is it that we find ourselves falling into the very temptations to which we thought we would be immune? How, exactly, does temptation work?

His name was Mathias Rust, and even though he was only 19 years old, he did something back in 1987 that arrested the attention of the whole world.

It was May 28, "National Border Guard's Day" in the former Soviet Union, so you can imagine the embarrassment when young Mathias flew a single-engine Cessna more than 400 miles into Russian airspace and landed it right next to the Kremlin.

The question everyone asked, of course, is, "How did he do it?"

Well, the first story we heard was that he flew his plane low enough to avoid all radar, but later on we discovered that simply wasn't true. Not only had the Russians seen him entering Soviet air space, they had also twice sent fighter jets to circle the plane. But because Mathias had turned off his radio, and because nobody could be sure who was at the helm, they didn't shoot him down.

Now, you can be sure that in today's world, where terrorist groups take advantage of the smallest opportunities, they probably would have shot first and asked questions later. But back then, there was just enough doubt to make them hesitate; and on top of the doubt, they were probably worried about their public image in light of the fact that they had shot down an entire Korean airliner a few years earlier. So the next thing you know, a 19-year-old pilot had landed next door to the nation's capitol.

Back in the West, a lot of people thought Mathias Rust was something of a hero, but in Russia, they took the whole matter very seriously. In fact, they dragged him before the Soviet Supreme Court on charges of unlawful entry into the Soviet Union, a violation of international flight rules, and malicious hooliganism; and on September 4, Herr Rust was sentenced to four years in a labor camp. Later on they released him, but the message was loud and clear, the Russians were not about to let people just skip across their border with impunity.

But the fact is that somebody had done it, and he had done it in broad daylight, with the full knowledge of the Russian Army. The only thing that kept Mathias Rust from being blown out of the sky was the uncertainty and confusion he had caused. If the fighter jets had known, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that an unauthorized foreigner was flying that plane, the story might have ended a lot differently.

And that makes me wonder how many times I've been conned into something by the confusion and uncertainty that went with it. Part of being a human being, here on this planet, is facing hundreds of little moral decisions every single day.

When I step out of bed in the morning, the onslaught of information begins, and it doesn't let up until I lay my head on my pillow again that night; and my job is to sort through all the incoming information, and decide with certainty which things I'm going to allow into my life, and which things I'm going to reject.

The problem, of course, is that I don't always make the right decision. Sometimes, when I'm faced with a barrage of temptations, I make the wrong decision and cave in; and I can make all the excuses I want, or come up with a thousand reasons that I had no other choice. But the fact remains that I broke down and did the wrong thing.

I'm convinced that if we had better information and understood the actual process of how temptation worked, we would have more success in both facing it and defeating it. One of the biggest problems we have as human beings is that we've caved in so many times that we hardly even recognize the devil at work anymore.

But as Francis Bacon wrote nearly 500 years ago, "knowledge is power."

You see, there's a good reason the British Government, and other Allied governments invested so much time and money in professional code-breakers during World War II. They knew that if they could both intercept and decode German military radio, they would be better prepared for enemy attacks; and it's no different for you and I as we face the daily onslaught of temptation the devil throws across our paths.

If we only had a better understanding of how temptation works, we would recognize his fingerprints all over an idea before we follow it down the wrong path; and if we could nip temptation in the bud, we would spend a lot less time sorrowing over something we know is wrong. But we've done it a hundred times anyway.

In another program, I spent some time talking about the actual nature of temptation. In the Book of First John, we discovered that temptation falls into three general categories: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Now, generally speaking, if you face temptation, it's going to fall into one of these three areas and the more you cave in to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, the easier it gets to cave in a second and third time.

Some years ago now, the great Christian writer John Bunyan wrote an amazing book called The Holy War. Now, if his name seems a little familiar, it's because he also wrote Pilgrim's Progress, which is probably one of the best-known Christian books of all time.

Mr. Bunyan had a remarkable gift for taking complex theological issues and making them incredibly simple through the use of allegories. In PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, for example, he compared the Christian life to a man on a long journey, and used all the stops along the way to point out significant steps in your relationship with Christ. In The Holy War, he kind of does the same thing, but this time, he uses a well-defended city named "Mansoul" to represent the human heart.

Now, the language is a little outdated for modern ears, but his description is right on the money when it comes to how temptation actually works, and how the devil manages to get us to cave in. Listen to what Bunyan wrote, and then we'll go straight to the Bible for a little more detail. Here is how he describes the human heart:

"The walls of the town were well built, yea, so fast and firm were they knit and compact together, that, had it not been for the townsmen themselves, they could not have been shaken or broken forever. For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that builded Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse potentate, unless the townsmen gave consent thereto. This famous town of Mansoul had five gates, in at which to come, out at which to go; and these were made likewise answerable to the walls, to wit, impregnable, and such as could never be opened nor forced but by the will and leave of those within. The names of the gates were these: Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate."

Now, here is basically what Bunyan was saying. Your heart is a like an impregnable fortress that absolutely nobody can break into. The only way the enemy can get inside is if you actually let him in; and if you think about the very first temptation, that makes perfect sense. Adam and Eve weren't taken by force, they were taken by deception. The devil had to convince them to open the gates of their hearts before he could storm right in.

The Great Wall of China was built as a system of defense against invading armies, and for the most part, it was completely impregnable. But history tells us that at least on one occasion, the enemy managed to get through it, not by knocking down the wall, but by bribing the gatekeeper!

Listen to what the apostle Paul said in the Book of Romans, chapter six
(Romans 6:16):

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness."

Paul says, point blank, that we end up slaves to sin when we yield to it. In other words, it's our personal choice to open the gate that makes us a slave, and how does the devil convince us to open the gates of our hearts? He does it with a constant barrage of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. He does it by feeding us so much faulty information that we lose track of how important it is to keep the gates locked.

He appeals to our senses, our eyes, our ears, our stomachs, and so on, and he mixes just enough beauty and truth into his work to make it seem harmless. And when our defenses are down, and our level of trust is up, we open the gate just a crack and he pushes his way in. The real problem, of course, is that once we've opened the gate, we've lost our defenses, and we've created a pathway for bigger and bigger temptations to wiggle their way into a place that was once 100% bulletproof.

It's like that first leak in a dam that gets forced open further and further by water pressure, until the whole dam just falls apart and you've got nothing left. Over time, you drastically reduce your ability to shut the gate, and as you yield more and more territory to the enemy, you find yourself helpless to fight back.

Frankly, that's why it is so important to guard your senses as a Christian. A lot of times, we let ourselves watch things and listen to things that seem pretty harmless at the time. But once those first seeds of falsehood have been planted in our minds, they quickly spread out like crab grass on a pristine golf course. And unless you take action to stop it, it's going to take over.

Of course, one of the biggest problems we face is that sometimes we know something is wrong, or at least we suspect that something is wrong, but we allow it into our minds anyway. Just like the Soviet army circling a Cessna plowing its way into Russian air space, we hesitate just long enough to make it too late to do anything. But the moment the plane has landed, we're sorry we didn't do something sooner.

The good news is that we don't have to operate in ignorance, and we don't have to hesitate nearly as often as we do when it comes to rejecting bad information. The Bible lays out a detailed account of exactly how the devil works, and armed with good information, you stand a much better chance of actually defeating temptation more often.

Here's what the Bible says in James 4 (James 4:7, 8):

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

Now that's pretty good news! The Bible says that you are not helpless in the face of temptation. You don't have to cave in, you can actually put up a resistance strong enough to make the devil run.

And the way you do that, according to James, is to "submit yourself to God."

You see, just like you can open the gates of your heart and let the devil run in, you can also open the gates of your heart and ask God to clean house.

As you make a habit of choosing the things God asks you to choose, and making the decisions God asks you to make, you actually begin to close the gates on the devil and create a new pattern of thought that is temptation-resistant. By making a conscientious decision to pattern your life after the counsels of this book, you form new, powerful habits that will actually give you the strength to resist the seduction of evil.

But let me be clear about one thing. What I'm recommending is not a self-help plan where you can pull yourself together and conquer temptation by sheer will power. The gates to your mind have been hanging open far too long for that. The power in this book doesn't come from your ability to apply principles; it comes from the fact that God Himself actually wrote it, and He pledges to grant you the strength through His power to live it.

What you are doing is actually submitting yourself to God. You are handing him the keys to your ransacked city, and admitting that you don't even know where to begin to clean it up; and the minute you do that, the minute you surrender the whole mess to God, He moves in and starts moving the devil out. Your part is to start claiming His promises and living the life He asks of you.

And as you make a daily decision to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and live life His way, an interesting thing starts to take place in your mind. Your actions actually begin to change the way you think!

Listen to this remarkable passage found in the Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 16:3):

"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established."

Now, I hope you caught that, because it's very important. The Bible teaches that obedience to God actually changes the way you think. We know that our thoughts affect our behavior, and that's why it's so important as Christians to control our thoughts. But the opposite is also true. As you make a conscientious choice to live a life of obedience to God, it will actually change the way you think! And when you begin to change the way you think, you rebuild your defenses against the devil, making it easier for you to do the right thing.

It's almost like temptation in reverse. When you did the wrong thing, you altered your thinking, and you made it easier to do it again and again. But when you do the right thing, you also make it easier to do it again and again. Your thought, life, and your actions go hand in hand. As one of them gets stronger, so does the other.

So, of course, as you are working on your actions, leaning on God for the strength to do it, you also need to be working on your thoughts. Imagine what would happen if you started putting the right information into your mind on a daily basis. Imagine what would happen if you saturated your mind with the Word of God instead of all the garbage that is promoted on television and in the movies. When the devil gathers his troops outside the citadel of your heart, you'll know his lies for what they are, and you'll refuse to open the gates.

That's why David wrote, in the 119th Psalm, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."

A mind full of the Word of God is a mind better equipped to handle temptation, and better equipped to find the way out of it that God promises will always be there.

Now, in the time we have left for today, let me show you an amazing passage of scripture that will strip away the devil's disguise and show you exactly how temptation works.

It's found in the Book of James, just a couple of chapters before he encourages us to resist the devil. Listen to this (James 1:13):

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."

The first thing I'd like to point out here is that God is never the source of temptation. When evil creeps across your path, it was never sent by God, and the Bible is quite clear about that.

So, at any time, if you hear a voice asking you to do something contrary to the Word of God, you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that somebody is trying to get you to open the gates, and your best course of action is to simply move on. Ignore it.

Now let's continue (James 1:14):

"But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires, and enticed."

Now here is the very root of the problem. According to the Bible, the reason you open the gate to your heart, the reason you give in to temptation, is because you want to. We can point our fingers at everyone else, and scream that the devil made us do it all we want, but in the final analysis, we did it because we wanted to. That's why a solid devotional life and a living connection with God is so important.

On our own, we don't have enough information to make a good decision. Without God, we are likely going to make decisions based on feelings and impressions. And because your desires and appetites have been so perverted by thousands of years of sin, you are almost always going to make the wrong decision if you use your emotions as a guide. Your safest course of action, by far, is to stand on what the Bible says, no matter how you might feel about it at the moment.

Your feelings will almost always lead you astray, especially if you haven't been in the habit of fortifying your mind with the Word of God. In fact, the Bible warns us that the devil will take advantage of our feelings to get us to open the gate.

Let me give you a personal example. I'll never forget a couple of representatives that came to my door from a religious group that has taken the Bible and twisted it to their own advantage. I listened to them carefully as they made a presentation, and when it was over, they made an appeal to my emotions to act on what I heard.

"One of the fruits of the Spirit is peace," they said. "So if you feel good right now, it's the Holy Spirit assuring you that we are telling the truth."

Now that's dangerous thinking. Your standard for belief needs to be the Word of God, not your feelings, because your feelings can be twisted by a lifetime of caving in to the wrong things.

In fact, when James says that we are "drawn away by our own lust", he uses the word "enticed". In the original language, that is actually a fishing word that means, to lure by bait.

In other words, the devil is almost always going to dangle something in front of you that makes you feel good. When you put a worm on a hook, you are actually trying to accomplish two things. First of all, you are trying to lure the fish. You want them to feel good about what they see. But the second thing you are doing is hiding the hook. The devil simply doesn't let you see the consequences right away.

So you can't afford to operate on the basis of feelings. But even more than that, you can't afford to let your mind linger on a temptation. Listen to the next verse
(James 1:15):

"Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death."

Sin becomes a part of our lives when we entertain a temptation. Our lust gives birth to sin when we allow it to have an incubation period.

It's like mold growing in your walls. You usually don't notice the problem until its gotten way out of hand. Like termites quietly eating away at the frame of your house, it doesn't seem like a real problem until the whole thing just kind of caves in. Listen, it's not a sin to be tempted, because the Bible says Jesus was tempted, and yet without sin. But it is wrong to dwell on a temptation to the point where we actually act it out.

Like one famous preacher once said, "Just because a bird is flying over your head, it doesn't mean you have to let it build a nest."

You really do have a choice when it comes to temptation. You can walk away from it. You can throw yourself on God's mercy and find the power to make the right decision.

And never forget that He's promised in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that there will always be a way out. It's up to you whether you want to find it. Just understanding how temptation works is a huge step in getting victory over it. But I promise you, you are not going to be able to do it alone. Ultimately, you are going to have to surrender your life to Christ; and the good news is, that He's made it His business to help you overcome. Let me ask you, do you need help? Is your life a bit of mess, and you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, even though you hate yourself for doing it? Then it's time to put a stop to it, beginning today. You really can enjoy victory over temptation, thanks to the promises of Jesus Christ, and it all begins with a simple decision today.

Whenever we talk about sin and temptation, I know that everybody who's watching can identify with what I'm saying. We've all caved in. We've all opened the gates of our hearts and let the devil storm in. We've given into deception so many times we don't even know how to resist anymore.

And because it's a universal problem, I know that today everybody can pray the prayer we are about to pray. God promises, He'll come in. He'll clean house. He'll help us lock the gate again and become more resistant proof. But we've got to lean on His power to do it.

So why don't we pray together today. Let's bow our heads.

PRAYER:
Father in Heaven, so often, we are faced with irresistible temptations. Sometimes we even know that there's a hook hidden in the devil's bait, and we still seem to instinctively bite on it. We need a new heart. We need your help to renew our minds and change our lives so that we fall into the habit of standing firm instead of caving in. Forgive our sins, and give us a new heart through the blood of Christ. For we pray it in his name, amen.

Scriptures for Show #1073 FACING TEMPTATION

"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness."
—Romans 6:16

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
—James 4:7,8

"Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established."
—Proverbs 16:3

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of god: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."
—James 1:13

"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
—James 1:14

"Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death."
—James 1:15

 

Scriptures Used in “Facing Temptation”