Finding fault with temptation

Wednesday evening I met Victor and Jennifer, two operators from a company that rents out inflatable play toys, those large contraptions you can climb on and jump in and whatnot. They were just sitting there in the trailer, minding their own business when I approached. I actually think I stumbled upon a special “smoking” session because 1) the funny way I was greeted; and, 2) the funny smell in the air. I tried not to let on that I noticed anything as I just wanted to share Christ with them.

We talked for a while about the play equipment and the unique features of set-up, cleaning, packing, moving and other things. I tried to show interest in other things, but they wanted me to go away call the home office for details.

I asked Victor and Jennifer if they ever thought much about eternal matters. He looked away and she looked at him as if to say, “Oh no, here we go again.” I asked if they went to church somewhere. They both said, “No.”

I asked them if they thought good people should go to heaven. Victor stared away and Jennifer said, “No. There ain’t no good people. Everyone should just go to hell.” Victor snapped out of his trance long enough to say, “Churches are full of hypocrites. I quit going to church because my uncle goes and he just cusses and drinks when he ain’t in church.”

I agreed with them, that the Bible says there is none righteous and underscored by saying there was no perfect church, either.

Jennifer didn’t like Victor or my answer and proceeded to educate us both on the perfect church she grew up in. Despite the fact that I turned up some hypocrites in her perfect congregation, she still viewed it as perfect (a Methodist church, mind you), there was nothing wrong with her because she was once part of that church.

Intriguing!

I tried to make it more personal by showing how God views the individual heart and that each person must give an account of herself or himself before God and there was penalty for sin that had to be paid. Would they repent and ask Christ to save them? Nah.

Though they started off saying everyone was deserving hell, they saw themselves as good people, even after being shown they were lying, murderous adulterers at heart and this is how God saw them. Their response was hard to take: since they don’t think about eternal matters, heaven is assured to them (even after she admitted everyone should go to hell). Wow. I left them with some tracts and encouraged them to think about it. Victor wadded his up. She put hers in her pocket.

The motto of the age is, “I’m apathetic and I don’t care.” Actually people do care. They care so much about themselves that when it comes to dealing with struggles and difficulties and trials, not to mention the consequences of poor choices, the problems will be certainly be blamed on someone else. Take for example the recent court case of the self-proclaimed al-Qaeda pilot Zacarias Moussaoui. Even though he was a minor consirator with limited knowledge concerning events of September 11, it was not his fault. He had a bad upbringing. I suppose that means his rejoicing at being sentenced to life in prison instead of receiving the death penalty and his proud and loud exclamations of “America, you lost!” and, “God save Osama bin Laden” and “I fight for my beliefs. You think that you own the world and I will prove that you are wrong” is not his fault either. Poor guy. He needs a Social Worker very, very badly.

That’s the mind-set nowadays. Everyone is a much worse person than I am and when anything goes wrong, it’s not my fault. Do you know what causes this? “Sin” is the root answer. Idolatry is another—worshipping the idol of self. People are convinced they have to feed their ego, smooth the roughness, fill what is lacking, keep all the good nerves tingling. Chasing sensation after sensation.

Let’s take moment and examine some excuses for wrong-doing:

• “I’m gonna burn anyway.”
• “The devil made me do it.”
• “It’s my life. I can do what I want.”
• “I’ll confess it later.”
• “I’m addicted. I have no control over what I do.”
• “There are worse people out there than me.”

I am still trying to understand why even when caught red-handed, we will still try to shun responsibility for any wrong-doing. Just the other night I was watching some kids in a playground. One 6th grader rather forcefully bounced a ball off the head of another boy standing within arm’s reach. The other boy took advantage of the proximity and launched a hail-storm of fist-blows to the boy who threw the ball. Breaking the fight up, the ball-thrower looks at me and shrugs, “I don’t know what got into him. I just dropped the ball at him.” I was like, “You gotta be kidding. I saw the whole thing,” and I recounted to him what I saw. His eyes got huge, but all he could do was shrug and point to the fist-thrower saying, “but he overreacts to everything!”

Week after week I approach people in a way that gets their attention: talking about themselves. I ask them about their goodness and what makes them good. But when I ask if they’ve kept the 10 Commandments, they start to stammer. I will ask most to name as many as they can. To their own surprise, many can list about half. When I ask if they’ve ever told a lie, I will always get a “yes.” Then I help them realize that one who tells a lie is a liar. Next I ask if they have ever taken anything that didn’t belong to them. By now, the comfort zone is challenged and 9 times out of 10 I start getting excuses, “Yeah, but it was a long time ago,” or “it was my brothers” or “I was just playing around when I did it.” People will not take responsibility for their actions! And they feel the weight of the law of God and can’t shake it off!

Here’s where the rubber meets the road:
1. Everyone gets tempted, Christian or not;
2. It is common for one to blame another.

It’s been that way since Genesis 3: “When God confronted Adam with his sin in the Garden of Eden, Adam’s reply was, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). When the Lord then asked Eve, “What is this you have done?” she replied, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (v. 13). Eve blamed Satan; much worse, Adam blamed God.”[i]

In James 1:13-18 we learn a great deal about temptation, blameshifting and responsibility.
Look at what James says about God and temptation: When you are tempted, it is not God’s fault. Do you realize what this means? It means we can’t backpedal and say, “Well, who created everything? Who created evil?” The reason why God cannot be blamed is because He cannot be tempted with evil, nor does He tempt anyone. God’s role is to deliver from evil. Remember these words prayed so often by the most-religious?

“Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’[ii]

[emphasis mine, by the way]

I am inclined to think that one who says that God can be depended on to deliver from evil and blames God for allowing one to fall into temptation is one who has a healthy sense of failure to believe Him. If God can be blamed for one’s sins, then that person has broken the First and Second commandment and created for a false god that is convenient to their personal theology. Habakkuk 1:13 talks of God whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil.

James gives us a flow-chart here describing the progression of temptation to sin:
First, one is drawn away by his own desires. The best way I can think to illustrate this is a musical one. When I play a cello, I play (primarily) on one string at a time and finger all notes pertaining to that which I am playing. If I hold my finger down on the first note on the 3rd string (that would be “A” on the “G” string) and draw the bow, a nice lower-register tone is heard. When I look at the instrument however, I notice the first string is vibrating, though I am not touching it. That first string is the “A” string. If my pitch on the “G” string is right, the “A” string vibrates in resonance with the note I am actually playing. In other words, temptation may not actually be drawing on the “A” string, but playing the “A” in a different register. Regardless of where the note is played, the “A” string will vibrate. I could place a finger on the second string, about sternum level and draw and the first string would still vibrate.

This is the way temptation is. One is tempted according to that which he is attuned. Since the human heart is sinful and deceitfully wicked, the tuning is generally set. Every heart is tuned to “sin”. The fine tuning is accomplished by desire and character. In other words, when the tempter comes, he may not simply say “Steal.” He may actually say, “You don’t have one of those” and appeal through coveting.

One is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed.

One sins when he is drawn away, enticed and he desire to see it comes to fruition actually comes to fruition. This is why when I ask people if they have committed adultery, most will proudly say, “NO!” But when I point out that Jesus said if one has lusted sexually then adultery is committed, then, yes, adultery has occurred—followed by a quick, “but everyone has!” Not a good blame-shift, but still true.

But this is why James says, “DO NOT be deceived.” It can’t be clearer. Like, “DO NOT touch,” or “DO NOT run red lights” or “DO NOT seek the treasure.” Simply put, “do not have your being in wavering and chasing after sin.” He will say more about this later.

God is described as one I whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. God does not phase in rotation. He orbits and flows around nothing. He is the creator and the center. He is consistent. For us this means “remain steadfast on in Him.” God does not change (Mal. 3:6) and is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8).

Romans 7:8-25 is a passage worth consideration here. Remembering that James was the earliest book of the New Testament written, Paul’s letter to the Romans would naturally follow. Verse 8 is prominent. James said one is drawn away to sin by desire. Paul says one’s desire is drawn away by sin. Which is it? Both. Because we still live in the presence of sin (thought the Christian is delivered from its power) sin draws the desire to sin. The Christian gets to live in the tension of being delivered from the power of sin and awaits the day he is delivered from its presence. In the meantime, he struggles, doing the very thing he knows he should not do; contrarily, does not do the things he knows to. This is where we can return to James where we learn: first, to the one who knows to do good and does not do, to him it is sin; and second, stumble in one point of the law and break the whole thing.

Paul has some things to say about the law. God’s law shows man what his heart is really like. As we have seen at the beginning, however, we agree that those who are under the law are reluctant to admit any error or fault in their own lives. For the Christian, however, he has the power of the Holy Spirit to decide what to do. Sin brings conviction and conviction repentance.

Because of the Holy Spirit, the Christian has no excuse concerning sin. “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”[iii]

Because of the Scripture, the Christian has no excuse concerning sin. “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”[iv]

Something to think about:

The story is told that after Augustine was converted, a woman he had formerly lived with called to him as he walked down the street, but he did not answer. She persisted and finally ran up to him and said, ‘Augustine, it is I.’ To which he replied, ‘I know, but it is no longer I.’”

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[i]MacArthur, John. James : Guildelines for a Happy Christian Life. MacArthur Bible studies, Page 18. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2001.
[ii]New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update, Mt 6:9. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[iii]NASB, ibid. : Eze 36:24.
[iv]NASB, ibid. : Ps 119:11.