Lead us not into Temptation

Part 2

6^th March 2009

As we saw last week, we all live with these two warring principles in us:

We want to live right
We continue to do wrong

The first thing we can do about this problem is: pray the prayer that we've been studying: "Lead us not into temptation". That is, we can ask God to keep us away from those situations where we'll be in danger of giving in to the desire to sin.

God will often answer that prayer, but sometimes He won't.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't pray it, though. It can be right to pray for something, even if God may not do what we ask in that prayer. For example, it's always right to pray for the sick to recover, for the lost to be saved, for the poor to be helped. But we all know that some sick people don't recover, some lost people are not saved and, as Jesus tells us (e.g. Matthew 26v11) the poor will always be with us.

To return to our study, sometimes God chooses to let us be tempted. Even Jesus was tempted. In fact, we read:

Matthew 4v1
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil

So we see that God will not always answer the prayer "do not lead us into temptation". Sometimes, God chooses to test us through leading us to a place where we will be tempted. But it's still right to pray that He won't, and to trust Him, both when He answers that prayer and when He doesn't.

The second thing to get clear is this: God never tempts us but sometimes he lets Satan tempt us. And sometimes we co-operate, because some of our desires are evil.

James 1v12-15
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
When tempted, no-one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Why do we succumb to temptation? Because we want the sin that's on offer! Consider Adam and Eve:

Genesis 3v1-6
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Eve succumbed to temptation because she "saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom". That is, it tasted nice, it looked nice, and it would give her knowledge. And we're the same, if something is enjoyable, or if it gives us more power, then we are liable to disobey God and take it. For most men, and many women, the greatest temptations are sex and money - that is, pleasure and power.

That's also why we gossip and criticise others: it makes us feel good, and it makes us more powerful relative to the person whose reputation we're destroying.

A second reason why our prayer "do not lead us into temptation" sometimes goes unanswered is: sometimes we don't really want it to be answered, because we enjoy temptation.

When we pray according to Jesus's instruction, "do not lead us into temptation", we remind ourselves that we need to take the problem of temptation seriously, and that we are sufficiently weak that we need God's help and protection. Since we know that we will face temptation, we need to think seriously about the following questions:

How do we avoid temptation whenever possible?
How do we deal with temptation when it can't be avoided?

I'll try to answer these questions when I conclude this series next week.