Suppose you have a thousand-acre ranch and someone offers to buy it. You agree to sell the land except for one acre right in the middle that you keep for yourself. In most parts of the country the law would allow you to build a road across the surrounding property to get to that acre you own. The law allows you a provision for access to your property. If you really wanted to stay off that property, the best way to do it would be to dispense with building the road. In that way you would make access very difficult. Likewise, the most reliable way to stay away from something that you know is wrong is not to build any roads to it that make access easy.

Ravi Zacharias tells the folk story of the Mexican bandit Jose' Rivera in his book, Can Man Live Without God? Jose' Rivera was notorious for slipping across the boarder and robbing the banks and businesses in several little towns in Texas. After awhile, the townsfolk decided it was time to put a stop to Jose's plundering so they hired a Texas Ranger to track him down in his hideout in Mexico and retrieve the money. After some inquiring, the Ranger at last arrived at a desolate, ramshackle cantina. At the counter was a young man enjoying his brew. At one of the tables, hands folded over his ample stomach, hat over his eyes, another patron was snoring away. With bravado appropriate to his profession, the Ranger swaggered up to the young man at the bar and announced that he was on a mission to bring back Jose’ Rivera, dead or alive. "Can you help me find him?" he asked. The young man smiled, pointed to the other patron, and said, "That is Jose’ Rivera."

The ranger shifted his southern girth, ambled over to the sleeping bandit, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Are you Jose’ Rivera?" he asked. The man mumbled, "No speak English." The Ranger beckoned to the young man to help him communicate with the notorious hombre.

The ensuing conversation was tedious. First the Ranger spoke in English and the young man translated it into Spanish. Jose’ Rivera responded in Spanish, and young man repeated the answer in English for the Ranger.

Finally, the Ranger warned Jose’ Rivera that he had two choices. The first was to let him know where all the loot he had stolen was hidden, in which case he could walk away a free man. The second choice was that if he would not reveal where the money was stashed, he would be shot dead instantly. The young man translated the ultimatum.

Jose’ Rivera pulled himself together and said to the young man, "Tell him to go out of the bar, turn to the right, go about a mile, and he will see a well. Near the well he will see a very tall tree. Beside the trunk of that tree is a large concrete slab. He will need help in removing it. Under the slab is a pit in the ground. If he carefully uncovers it he will find all the jewelry and most of the money I have taken."

The young man turned to the Ranger, swallowed, paused, opened his mouth, and said, "Jose' Rivera says… Jose' Rivera says… Go ahead and shoot!" (1)

You just never know when temptation will get the better of you!

All of us deal with the issue of temptation and usually it isn't nearly as funny. In this message talk about the lure of temptation.

I have two Bible texts to read this morning. The first is James 1:12-16.

The second passage I want to read is 1 Corinthians 10:13.

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow hyou to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."

I want to give you some practical, biblical steps you can take that will help you overcome the temptation in your life. Before doing that though, let me clarify a couple of truths about the dynamics of temptation that will keep you from some of the understanding pitfalls people frequently fall into.

First, temptation is not sin. It's part of the cause of sin, but in itself, it is not sin. Notice from the text that sin doesn't even exist until temptation is united with our lust. James says, "…but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin…."

Perhaps you recall that Jesus was "tempted at all points as we are," (Hebrews 4:15) yet He was "without sin." Often we give up the battle too son, thinking that because we are tempted, we've already done wrong. That is simply not true. Though we might experience feelings of guilt that a certain temptation is attractive to us, until we actually give in to it, we have not sinned.

Secondly, strong desire (hear called "lust") is not necessarily sin. Our English word "lust" usually has a negative connotation but the Greek word translated "lust" in this passage is used in both a positive and a negative sense in the New Testament. In Luke 22:15, for instance, the word is used to describe Jesus' "earnest desire" to eat the Passover meal with His disciples before his suffering. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Indeed, strong, such as desire for the opposite sex, desire for food, desire for safety, desire for companionship, and many other such urges are not wrong in themselves. Some of them are even necessary for our survival as individuals and as a race. It is only when these emotions are directed outside of their God-intended channels that they become sin. It is perfectly normal, for instance, for a young man to be attracted to a young woman (or vice-versa.) Such attraction is not dirty or ungodly or carnal. It is the way God made us and the natural outcome of this attraction is supposed to be God-approved, monogamous, heterosexual, committed-for-life, marriage. (Sorry for all the qualifiers. We used to just say "marriage," but these days people don't always understand the Biblical meaning of that word.) Strong desire becomes sin only when it is directed into an area that God says is wrong.

Thirdly, God doesn't tempt anyone. That is clearly stated in verse 13: "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God….’" The dubious honor for the title of "Tempter" goes to Satan. He is our adversary, not God.

These clarifications may not seem that important, but when temptation plays out in our lives, understanding them can spell the difference between success and failure.

With these clarifications in mind then, how can we go about keeping our strong desire from uniting with Satan's temptation as our text in James describes it? I have eleven specific steps that can be taken. I'll cover about half of them in this message and the other half in a later sermon.

When Satan tempted Eve to sin, his primary ploy was deception. Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:14, "…but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression."

While it's not clearly spelled out, it appears that Eve either became convinced that God had not really said what she thought He had said or perhaps he had not really meant it. This latter possibility appears to go along with Satan's suggestion that God was holding out on them - that He really didn't have their best interest at heart.

Whatever the exact nature of the temptation, Eve paid a huge price for something that proved to be a curse.

When Benjamin Franklin was seven, a friend gave him a pocket full of change. One day while he was out playing, he met an older boy who was playing with a whistle. As he saw the fun the older boy was having with the toy, he finally asked if he would like to sell it. The older boy, somewhat wiser and seeing his opportunity, asked Ben how much money he had. The younger boy reached into his pocket and pulled out all his change. Finally the older boy said, "Sure, you can have the whistle," and he took all his money.

Ben was elated with his new purchase. He blew it and played with it for the rest of the day. When he got home that night he showed it to his parents. When his father saw it he shook his head and said, "Ben, you could have bought four whistles with the money you had. You've been taken."

Suddenly the whistle lost all its appeal. Now, each time Ben blew the whistle, it just seemed to mock him for his foolishness.

Much later, as an adult, when he saw a politician compromise morality to get some short term gain, Ben was fond of saying, "He pays too much for his whistle."

Eve paid way too much for her whistle! So does everyone who doesn't take the time to know the truth in such matters. The Devil took advantage of her ignorance and inexperience. He'll do the same with you and me and everyone else who doesn't know God's word.

Consider the things that tempt you. Do you know what the Bible says about them? Do you know the price of giving in to them? Do you know how to spot them when they come near and see through them when they are disguised? You won't if you don't make some effort to understand the word of God. You'll end up paying far too much for your whistle.

Romans 13:14 says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts."

When my wife goes shopping she makes provision for our eating for the next week. She stocks the cupboards with food so that it is much more convenient for us to eat when we get hungry. Paul says we are not to make provision for our flesh. We are not to provide things to our fleshly nature that make it convenient to sin.

Cable television, videocassettes, and DVDs now make every kind of entertainment imaginable available to people right in the privacy of their own homes. A few years ago a book called, Vital Signs, reported that, of the so-called "Christian" households hooked up to cable, 23 percent subscribed to porno channels. That's the same percentage as the nation as a whole. Granted, the survey probably used a much looser definition of "Christian" than we would, but that is still an alarming statistic. When people bring these things into their homes, they are making provision for the flesh. They are making it far more convenient to sin.

Suppose you have a thousand-acre ranch and someone offers to buy it. You agree to sell the land except for one acre right in the middle that you keep for yourself. In most parts of the country the law would allow you to build a road across the surrounding property to get to that acre you own. The law allows you a provision for access to your property. If you really wanted to stay off that property, the best way to do it would be to dispense with building the road. In that way you would make access very difficult. Likewise, the most reliable way to stay away from something that you know is wrong is not to build any roads to it that make access easy.

If you are struggling constantly with temptation in a certain area you must deliberately take steps to eliminate all your provisions for it. Destroy the roads that make access possible. Make no provision for the flesh.

When the Prophet Daniel was still a teenager, he was deported from his home in Jerusalem to the court of a foreign king. He knew right away that he was in trouble. The food they ate in that place was on God's "don’t touch" list for the Jews. In Daniel 1:8 we are told that Daniel "made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine he drank." If we looked more closely at that passage we would see that Daniel made up his mind ahead of time - before he faced the demands of the King. The Hebrew word in that passage that is translated "made up his mind," was one also used to describe the making of rope. A rope maker would gather all the fibers he had collected and twist them together to make a strong cord that was difficult to break. That was what Daniel did before he faced the temptations of Nebuchadnezzar's court. He gathered together every bit of reason, wisdom, and courage he had into one determined decision. He would not give in though it cost him his life.

Outside the Bible, in the legend of Ulysses, sailors passing by a certain seacoast were seized with an irresistible urge to cast themselves into the ocean as they listened to the sensual music of mermaids. Ulysses, before passing by that coast, ordered the ears of all his seamen sealed with wax, and allowed himself to be bound to the mast with instructions that under no circumstances was he to be released until the temptation was past. As they approached the enchanting coastline the ravishing music became so overwhelming that the captain struggled and begged to be free. His men, by prior agreement, only bound him more tightly. Finally, when they had passed the dangerous area, Ulysses' wisdom returned, he was unbound, the sailors' ears were unsealed, and they sailed on free from temptation.

Often we give in to temptation because we don’t decide ahead of time what we're going to do when the pressure is on. We cave because we have no plan of action. Don't wait for the music of temptation to start playing to decide what you are going to do about. If you do you will certainly be overcome.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."

These words contain a promise that God won't allow more temptation than we can handle. Though God doesn't tempt us (as I pointed out earlier) He does limit what Satan can do to us. An example of this is seen in Luke 22:31, where Jesus said to Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat…." Satan had to get permission from God before he brought pressure to bear on Peter. This may also be seen in the limitations God put on Satan in the book of Job. No temptation comes upon us that isn’t first weighed by God to determine if we can handle it. According to Paul's words in first Corinthians, He will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to resist. If a temptation comes upon us, God has determined that we have the strength to overcome it.

Sometimes in the midst of temptation, we may conclude that since things are so tough, we must give in. When we conclude that though, we are really disagreeing with God who says that temptations will never be allowed to be "too much." You and I may say, "I can't," but God says, "You can."

Looking again at 1 Corinthians 10:13 that we just read, we note also that God promises to "provide a way of escape" that will enable us to endure the temptation. No, He didn't promise the kind of escape that would always take us away from the temptation. Rather, he promised a way of escape that would allow us to "endure" the temptation.

How did Joseph handle the repeated seductive advances of Potifar's wife? When all else failed, he ran out of the house! I'm reminded of Paul's words in 2 Timothy 2:22: "Flee youthful lusts…." Joseph did that literally.

A seasoned preacher once warned his handsome new associate of the dangers of immorality in the ministry. The young man said he always did his socializing in a group setting and concluded quite smugly, "there is safety in numbers." To that, the wise older man replied, "Yes, that's true, but there is more safety in Exodus!"

If you are tempted at the office or the workplace by the advances of another, it may be necessary to put some distance between you and the temptation.

Whatever the situation, there is a way of escape. God's word promises it. Our job is to look for it and take it.

We'll stop there for this message and cover the last six steps you can take to overcome temptation next time.

A small boy wanted a pair of skates very badly. His parents wanted to teach him a lesson about money, so they told him he would have to save his allowance if he wanted the skates. One afternoon his mother overheard him in his room shaking his bank and counting his money. Then she heard the bell on the ice cream wagon ringing loudly in the street outside. She decided to wait to see what would happen. The boy wanted the skates, but he also liked ice cream. As the truck went by their house, things became very quiet in the boy's room. Finally when the sound of the bell had faded away, she heard the little boy praying, "Dear Jesus, please don't let the ice cream wagon come down my street anymore."

That boy wanted to overcome temptation. My hope is that all of us do, too. That desire, coupled with these steps and the ones we'll talk about next time, can put us on the road to victory.

Footnotes: Use your back button to return to your place.

1. Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, (Word Publ., Dallas: 1994), pp. 98-99

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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