Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.14 – April 1966

 

The Tempter Within

 

Sermon by Rev. M. Schwarz on James 1:13-15

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; Genesis 3:1-15

Psalter Hymnal: 324; 266:3+4 or 247:7+8; 136; 414; 373:1+4

 

Brothers and Sisters, Boys and Girls,

There are three stages shown in our text, and each successive stage is worse than the first.  The first thing is temptation, the second is sin and the third is death.  The first may still look nice and attractive, the second is ugly, the third is disaster and outer darkness.  The words used in the Greek suggest the picture of three generations.  The Berkely Version translates: “When temptation has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and the sin, when it reaches maturity, produces death”.

But how does it all start?  If temptation is the mother, which brings forth sin, who is the father?  What is really the starter of it all – or what is responsible?  Whose fault is it, if somebody is tempted and then gives in and falls into the power of sin?  The text leads us to consider the source and the result of temptation.

“Let not man say when he is tempted: I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”

You may remember those stories of the gods of the Greeks.  There was Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite and Apollos and a multitude of other and lesser gods.  These gods had fights amongst themselves, and they took sides with some people, and not with others.  Those they opposed they tried to destroy, they tempted them to make wrong decisions.  All these gods never ever really existed, they were only projections of man himself.  They were images the Greek people of those days made up themselves.  That’s why these gods acted like the people who invented them.

But our God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not like these false gods.  Only good things can come from our God.  This God inhabits eternity, he lives in a light where there is no shadow at all.  He is never the source of evil and of sin.  If you want to know what God is like you must see the face of Jesus.  He never tempted anybody to sin, but instead he delivered people from the power of sin, He did not tempt Peter to deny him, and he did not tempt Judas to betray him.  Instead Jesus went around to heal, to cast out the devil, and raise the dead.  This is what God is like.  God is not tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

It is not God’s will that prisons are filled with criminals; that families are broken up because of alcohol; God has no pleasure when young girls become prostitutes, and when young me become professional criminals.  God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked may live.  The whole world’s history is kept going, the coming of Jesus itself is, as it were, delayed now for already 1900 years just because God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

“Let no man say when he is tempted: I am tempted of God!”  We may have learned not to blame God directly any more, as all the pagans still do.  But there is a certain indirect way of blaming God, and to say: “I am tempted of God”.  “It’s not my fault, I couldn’t help it”.  Unconverted people always blame other people, yes God himself, never themselves.  Listen to the answer of Adam, after his sin: “The woman, she gave me and I did eat”.  But worse than that, he divides the blame between her and God.  “The woman, that thou gavest me, she gave me and I did eat”.

This is the way, we may still be inclined to excuse ourselves.  “It’s not my fault, I couldn’t help it”.  The blame is all yours, not mine.  You, you God, placed me in such circumstances, you have joined me to such a wife, I couldn’t help it.  Every sinner since Adam, has his excuse, and directly or indirectly, he says: I am tempted of God.  The circumstances or the temperament, the power of the passion and of sex, the difficulties at the job, the suddenness and strength of the temptation and so on.  All these together or one by one are made the scapegoat to put the blame on for our sin.  I heard a brother say, “Oh, that’s how I was brought up, I can’t help it”, or simply: “I can’t help getting angry and irritable that’s my nature and my temperament.”  But don’t we realize that all such excuses are really putting the blame for our sin back on God?

Such excuses only add to our guilt.  There is no uglier sin than to put the blame onto God.  It’s a direct attack upon the very nature and character of God.  Suppose for a moment, God really tempted a person to commit sin, then God would be like Satan.  To blame God for my sins is to give God the character of the Devil.  This is unthinkable.  It is an utterly wrong idea and picture of God.  The truth is, as James tells us, that God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

But further, such excuses only reveal how ignorant we still are about our own condition as sinners.  We like to think of our- selves as good and nice people.  But this is a great delusion.  James brings us the truth about ourselves, when he says: “Every man is tempted when is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed”.  There isn’t a single exception.  Every man falls into the trap, because of his own corrupt nature, because of his own lust.

That should be quite an eye opener for us, to see ourselves as we really are.  No, we cannot blame anything else.  We alone are responsible in full for the sins we commit.  It isn’t our temperament, our upbringing, the lack of Christian schooling, the bad example or the evil teachings in the schools, or the bad weather or anything else.  We cannot blame the Devil for it.  True enough, Satan will see to it that the temptation is nicely wrapped up for you and that it looks most attractive; he will appeal to your inward lust, he will tell you that there is nothing wrong with it and that everybody else does the same thing.  Satan is surely there in every temptation, but the point is: this is never an excuse for us, when we fall into the trap.  In the last analysis, as James shows to us, it is our own lust, which pulls us into sin, and therefore, we alone are responsible for the sin, and for the death penalty, which is the reward for sin.  We alone are to blame.

“Every man is tempted by his own lust”.

This may seem unbelievable to us.  It seems so incredible.  After all, we live in a world, which is sinful.  Could we not sometimes meet situations when it is almost impossible not to sin, whatever we may do or decide?  Is it not at least partly the fault also of others, if I fall into sin?

Here, let us look at Jesus again.  There we see, that our Lord Jesus proved that it is possible to live a sinless life even in the midst of publicans and sinners.  He was a man with all the possible ups and downs that are possible with us, but he committed no sin whatsoever.  He was severely tried and tempted in the wilderness.  Satan suggested to him to commit sin.  Especially on the Cross, Jesus was under pressure, as we would say, even under the whole weight of the wrath of God, yet he did not sin.  By His sinless life, He proved that is it not the world of sin outside, which makes a person sin, but the world of sin inside, which finds the sin and the temptation so attractive and which makes a person to give in to sin.

In other words: “Every man is tempted by his own lust”.

Jesus gave us a striking example, when speaking on the question of divorce.  Why do people get a divorce?  We are told, that it is because there are problems of finance, of sex, of the education of the children, or because there is a case of cruelty or unfaithfulness.  But Jesus tells us: divorce only becomes a necessity, because of the hardness of heart.  So, it isn’t the world around us, it isn’t the partner, but it is the hardness of one’s own heart.

Rather than to blame anybody or anything else for our sins, we should be led to a knowledge of sin.  What James is telling us here, should bring us to a position where we acknowledge our guilt.  It should arouse in us a strong need of the Saviour and of deliverance, for we cannot escape our own lust, as a man cannot jump over his own shadow.

The natural result and outcome of sin is death.  Enticed by our own lust, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is brought to completion, produces death.  We can see all around us, that sin and vice produces physical death.  Many do not even live half their days, because of vice.  Vice and sinful habits supply the grave with more victims than war.  Many more perish by the bottle than, say, in the war in Vietnam.

But here, death does not only refer to the grave, but to the death beyond the grave – in eternity – in the pit.  Where there is no true faith in Christ, where there is no peace made with God through the blood of the Cross, sins are finished in a more dreadful death the second death – eternal death – in those regions, where the dying never die.  There is no rest for the weary, no sleep of forgetfulness, no hope ever whispers: “It will soon be over”.  But despair, gnashing her teeth, mutters: “It will never be over – never.”

Many people don’t believe in an actual hell any more, these days.  The reason may well be – apart from plain unbelief in the Word of God, where this doctrine is quite clearly taught – that people have forgotten what sin really is.  Of course, if sin is only a complex of the soul, a psychological disorder, and if temptation is only a social evil, then it will be hard to accept an eternal punishment of these things in an actual hell.

But the Bible is quite clear about the order: The lust of our own heart and the outward temptation produce sin, and sin produces death.  Sin is evil in the sight of God.  It makes us personally guilty.  Then God in his righteousness brings us into judgment, and deals with us after our iniquities and transgressions.  Then we will not be able to excuse ourselves and to hide behind the false shelters, which are offered to us by the false prophets of our day, who say: ‘Peace, peace’, when there is no peace.

As I see the terrible outcome of sin, and as I stand, as it were on the brink of the “horrible pit”, I almost cease to wonder that God gave up His Son to save us.  There is something so dreadful about that doom.  The reasonableness as well as the love of the Cross is nowhere seen in a clearer light.

But here, we also see the unreasonableness of the unbelievers, the mad insanity of all who put away God’s mercy.  To any unconverted person, I would like to ask this question: How will you be able to stand up to temptations and to sin all on your own?  How will you escape the ultimate result of sin, which is death?  Don’t you see at all your need of a Saviour to rescue you from certain destruction?

Come to Jesus in faith and true repentance.  You will find in Jesus a perfect Saviour, able to save the most sinful person, willing to forgive the most grievous sins, and most powerful to rescue a sinner from hell as long as this Day of Salvation still continues.

“Temptation, Sin, Death” – This order should make Christian people more careful in their daily life.  There is a dreadful folly in the minds of many Christian people, who think they can flirt with temptations.  If a certain thing or a certain habit is not outright sinful, it does not mean that I may indulge in everything.  Sin has to be taken seriously.  “Temptation, Sin, Death” is as dangerous and real to the Christian, as it is to the unbeliever.  We should not deceive ourselves and say: We are saved by Christ, and so, it does not matter what we do.

Like Job, let us make a covenant with our eyes, not to look at the evil.  We must flee to Jesus each day.  Struggling against sin does not get us anywhere, we must abide in Christ.  Most of the times we know what to do, and what is right; but we must also be filled with the Holy Spirit to have the power to break the power of the temptation and of sin.

“Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation”.  We have to do much more praying, individually and as a Church.  “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”  Without having a working knowledge of the Word of God, we will not be able to live consistent Christian lives.  Even Jesus needed the Word of God to resist the devil in the wilderness.

Only Jesus can take us out of this order of temptation and sin and death.  If we belong to Jesus, he will give us instead the grace of God, righteousness and eternal life.  Such is salvation through Jesus.  Let us flee to Jesus from the wrath to come.

Amen