September 17, 2009 WHAT’S THE GOOD OF TEMPTATION?

1 Corinthians 10:13 - No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Temptation is inevitable. We all face it and it seems to me that sometimes the more “in-tune” I am with God and the more effort I put into knowing Him, the more I seem to be bombarded with things intended to derail me. This is to be expected, I suppose. When we are off doing our own self-centered things we are no danger to the enemy and there is no need to distract us from our cause – Chambers says: Not to be tempted would be to be beneath contempt. Satan won’t waste time on those who aren’t threatening his plan for things – they fall easily right into his grasp. But when we shed our egocentricity and submit ourselves to the Father, we are of great danger to the enemy indeed.

Chambers explains the basis for our temptation:
A man’s disposition on the inside…determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the nature of the one tempted, and reveals the possibilities of the nature.
I think it is very important to understand that any enticements that come our way have no power over us unless we already have a pre-disposition to that behavior in the first place. I’m going to go out on a skinny branch and say that people rarely, if ever, do things out of character for them. We may be surprised by someone’s fall in this area or that, but it is far more likely that we either ignored the signs of weakness or the individual worked very hard to hide them than the unlikely possibility that they didn’t exist at all. With that said, we have to always be on our guard because the devil knows where we are vulnerable and that is ALWAYS where he will attack. He will appeal to our ego, our sense of security, our hidden greed – wherever he finds us unprotected – or unaware – he will pounce on that spot and catch us off guard. We should also take care to never be too critical of the fall of another believer – our own failing may be just around the corner, though in a completely different arena.

The arena of our temptation changes for us as we get older – I think for me they’ve become much more subtle as I age. I am no longer faced with the “Do I go out with my roommate tonight or do I stay home and study for my calculus midterm…” type dilemmas. Now they are more along the lines of choosing to spend time with God instead of with the TV remote, not saying something negative no matter how much I feel like saying it, interrupting negative thoughts about someone, or allowing myself to be distracted during my quiet time. It’s not that I’m not tempted by “smaller” sins, just less obvious ones. The enemy’s greatest weapon is his ability to mask sin in such a way that he lures us into it before we even recognize what we are into. Chambers explains:
Temptation is a suggested short-cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim – not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good. Temptation is something that completely baffles me for a while, I do not know whether the thing is right or wrong. Temptation yielded to is lust deified, and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before.
What do we do when it’s not clear cut? I read an advice column recently where a woman wrote in that her sister had set up somewhat sizeable college funds for the letter-writer’s young children. She came to find out that the money was being gotten in somewhat questionable ways and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. There was nothing illegal involved, so it wasn’t a matter of reporting anything to the police, but she didn’t know if she should keep the money or return it to her sister. She was conflicted because she knew that she and her husband weren’t in a financial position to raise that kind of money towards their children’s education and she didn’t want to deny them that over a moral issue. This example I think speaks to exactly what Chambers talks about. It is relatively easy to make choices when things are black and white – but here? One could justify keeping the money in many ways: there is nothing illegal about it, the money is going to a good cause. But is that the RIGHT thing to do? Is it more important to stand up for our principals? In my life I’ve discovered that I rarely regret standing up for my principals, even if it means a loss or temporary setback, and I always regret it when I don’t. Sometimes we have to spend some time in prayer before God to sort out just what the right answer is. When we give it to God, he will always make the answer clear to us, even if sometimes we don’t like the answer He gives us.

Although we can never avoid temptation entirely, we can avoid the sin. This verse gives us that hope. Paul reminds us that no matter what we are facing, we will never be pushed beyond our ability to resist the sinful path. He promises that God always provides a way of escape so that we can emerge victorious over whatever might be luring us.