How Temptation Works

From Rick Warren's Transformed Campaign.

 

So let me explain to you how temptation works.  Because it always uses the same pattern.  James 1:14-15 tells us the pattern.  “Temptation comes from the lure of our own evil desires.  These evil desires lead to evil actions.  Then the evil actions lead to death.”  

Notice temptation is a process.  It’s not an isolated event.  A lot of people talk about like “It just caught me off guard.  It was just a one night stand.”  No it wasn’t.  There were a lot of things you gave into before you got to lowering that barrier.  Temptation is a process and the Bible describes exactly how it works. 

There’s four phases. 

Phase number one is temptation starts with desire.   

      Step number one is desire. 

If you don’t have any desire for something it’s not a temptation. 

Remember when they used to have smoking on airplanes?  It was terrible.  I heard about this guy who used to carry a card with him.  When a guy would light up next to him on the plane he’d hand the card to him said “I notice you smoke.  I chew.  If you won’t blow smoke on me, I won’t spit on you.” 

He says the lure of our desire begins inside of you.  Temptation doesn’t start out there.  It doesn’t start on tv.  It doesn’t start on the street corner.  It starts inside your mind.  It often begins with a natural desire.  Not even an evil desire.  It can begin with a natural desire.

You have a natural desire for sleep.  You have a natural desire for water.  You have a natural desire for food.  You have a natural desire for sex.  You have a natural desire to succeed in life.  These are all God given drives.  The drive to achieve, the drive for sex, the drive to breed, those are normal drives.  There’s nothing wrong with them.

 

Temptation turns a routine desire into a runway desire.  That’s what makes it bad.  It becomes more important than anything else.  It’s all you can think about.  Any desire out of control is destructive.  Fire in a fireplace can warm.  Fire on a cooking stove can cook great food.  But fire uncontrolled can burn your house down.  All of God’s gifts misused and abused will burn your house down.  Any of them will.  Sex, sleep, eating.  Any of those things.  They are good desires, good drives but misused and abused they mess you up.

 

Often temptation is an attempt to fulfill a legitimate desire in your life.  Like, “I just want to be loved (There’s nothing wrong with that) in the wrong way.” 

 

The point is it’s like steel in a magnet.  If there was no desire in me there would be no temptation.  That make sense?  So temptation doesn’t start out there.  It starts in here, in my mind – the desire.

 

      Step two in temptation it always happens this way.  Doubt.

 

What you do in doubt is you begin to doubt two things.  You doubt that God loves you and you doubt that God knows best.  Because when you start to get tempted – Did God really say…  don’t have sex outside of marriage?  Did God really say…. forgive the person instead of get even with them?  Did God really say… It’s more blessed to give than to receive?  And you start doubting God’s Word. 

 

We see this with the very first temptation.   Adam and Eve.  They’re in a perfect environment.  It’s paradise, they have no clothes and no kids.  Hello!  How do you mess up that?  Really!  Satan comes and says, “See that tree over there?  Did God really say you can’t eat of that tree?”  What’s he doing?  He’s getting you to doubt God’s word.  Then he says, “God knows if you eat of that tree you’ll be as smart as he is.”  What’s he doing?  He’s getting you to doubt that God loves you.  That God’s rules are for your benefit. 

Every time you give into temptation you are believing a lie.  You think you know better.  You think God doesn’t know best.  You think that you know what will make you happy more than he does. 

 

So there’s always the desire and then there’s the doubt.  “Did God really say?  Does God really love me?  Isn’t God being a little prudish about this?  Is it really true…” and on and on and on.

 

      Then step three is deception. 

 

The third thing that Satan does is he replaces God’s truths with his lie.  And he says, “You won’t die if you eat this!”  God had already said, “If you eat this fruit you’re going to die.”  God said you can eat anything in the whole park, Yellowstone Park called Eden.  You can eat of anything in the park except this one tree.  What does man do?  He goes immediately for the one tree.  It’s the minimum amount of temptation possible.  But it allows a choice.

 

Satan changes it all.  He says, “God says you can’t eat a bunch of stuff.  And the reason is he doesn’t want you to get as smart as he is.”  He is giving you a lie.  He is deceiving you. 

 

Any of you fishermen?  Some of you are.  The secret of good fishing is real simple.  You’ve got to use the right bait.  Salmon eat a certain kind of bait.  Trout eat another kind of bait.  Fish will even change what they’re eating, feeding on, at different times of the day. 

 

How many fish are you going to catch with a bare hook?  None.  Zero.  So obviously you’ve got to put some bait on there.  You’ve got to have a lure.

 

Question: What kind of bait does Satan use on you?  Do you even know?  Do you know the one he always uses on you?  And he keeps coming back to it because it gets you every time.  It hooks you every single time.   It may be something from a long time ago that a parent said to you.  But when that comes out you are so hooked you immediately get depressed or you immediately get angry, or you immediately get worried.  Satan goes, Got her hooked!  I put the right bait on that hook.  Satan knows your weaknesses and he hides the hook. 

 

I call this phase deception because often we know there’s a hook there but we still keep nibbling.  We know there’s a hook!  But we still keep nibbling!  It’s like people who flirt in the office.  How stupid is that?  You know there’s a hook there.  You know there’s only one way it could go – bad!  But you still keep nibbling.  You say, I’m an adult.  I won’t get hurt.  I’ll be careful.  You’re being deceived.  And there’s a lure. 

 

Anybody who has gone fishing knows that lures can be pretty flashy.  The flashier the lure the fish goes, What was that?  I’m going to swim over there.  It’s flashy.  It’s shiny.  That looks like Las Vegas!  You know what Las Vegas is?  One giant lure in the desert.  It’s shiny and it’s bright and they’ve got all you can get buffets. 

 

But you’re going to get hurt.  The poor suckers in Las Vegas… it should be called lost wages.  The next time you get tempted to go to Las Vegas just give me your money.  Give it to me.  You save the time, you save the effort, and we’ll use it for good. 

 

Temptation always looks better than it is.

 

      Step four is disobedience and defeat.

 

Disobedience and defeat.  Now we move from desire – it’s something I want; to doubt – doubt God’s Word and God’s love; to deception – I’m believing the lie that Satan’s telling me – it’s going to be okay, you can get away with it, just this once, it’s not that bad. 

 

Then you go to disobedience and defeat and now it’s sin.  What began in the mind gets translated into action and it goes like this: My attention becomes an attitude and my attitude becomes an action.  We could really spend a lot of time on this but this is how it works in the battle for your mind.

 

I’ve had guys say to me, What’s the danger of a harmless fantasy?  Are you kidding me?  It’s not harmless. 

 

Write this down:  What I flirt with I’ll fall for.  Whatever I flirt with…  it may be a cupcake – I’ll fall for.  Whatever I flirt with I’ll fall for.  I need to refocus my attention.  The Bible says that “After desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and the end result is death.”  What’s death?  The exact opposite of living. 

 

You’re free to choose anything you want in life.  You’re free to make your choices.  But you are not free from the consequences of those choices.  The moment you make that choice you are no longer free.  Because there are consequences that come to every choice.  Often unintended consequences.  What you sow you will reap and you cannot choose the behavior and not choose the consequence.

 

What am I saying?  The best time to win the battle with temptation is before it begins.  Psalm 119:112 “I have made up my mind to obey your laws forever no matter what.”  Until you come to that point you’re just going to keep stumbling and stumbling and stumbling.  I have made up my mind.  That’s a choice.  I have made up my mind to obey your laws forever no matter what.