The Lord’s Day 10 April 2005



These three encompass all forms of temptation. We have a body of flesh which is affected by sin and death and are tempted through our natural senses in various ways but they all fall under these three categories.



It is not sinful to enjoy the good things God has provided! See Ecclesiastes 2:22-26. There is a kind of fanaticism in the religion of some, by which they show almost a morbid, drive for self-destruction. They take for their example certain eminent saints who worked themselves to death or did ten times the work of the average person. This, in my opinion, is only a variation of the kind of self-harm religion Martin Luther was delivered from when he discovered that by faith in Christ he was free, that he was accepted before God on the basis of Christ’s perfection and Christ’s merits. It hadn’t impressed the Lord one bit when he had previously starved himself, deprived himself of sleep, etc. This kind of religion was utterly vain! Some of course, particularly Roman Catholic priests and monks, who had taken vows of chastity, would no doubt have followed this austere path in an attempt to subdue the natural sexual appetites within them. But the Lord’s answer to this problem is, as it was from the beginning, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” (Genesis 2:18). Marriage is the Lord God’s answer to this, not a morbid lonely life of serving God day and night, so that he becomes a complete misfit in God’s creation! The apostle, Paul, also advocates marriage as an answer to temptation (1 Corinthians 7:1-9).


My conclusion in this matter is that the Lord has given us good things to enjoy and He expects us to smell the roses along life’s pathway, giving Him the praise and the glory. When we work we should work hard and conscientiously, and while we should not focus our major attention on pleasure as so many do today, we should make time for recreation and enjoyment of all good things. If we take this approach I thing it will be amazing how spiritual our lives can be, how naturally we are witnesses unto Christ every day in ways we couldn’t even begin to plan at a Church committee meeting. (Just as an interesting aside on the subject of committees; A recent news item on some sort of government enquiry or study of a particular issue reported that of ten recommendations made, six of them were for the forming of new committees!) So, it is interesting that the devil tempts us to both disobey God’s rules and to bind ourselves to many man-made rules. Both temptations are destructive and need to be avoided. Religion can be so organized, and at the same time, so disorderly!


“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”!



Exodus 20:17 – “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house … wife … anything that is thy neighbour’s”. We must train ourselves, as Job did, not to feast our eyes on forbidden fruit. (Job 31:1). The world is geared for our temptation and for sin and overindulgence. Everywhere a man looks there is bare flesh. Every shop you take the children into has the most tempting items on display at the counter (e.g. chocolates and special treats). We live in a covetous and lustful generation. Millions of dollars are spent on advertising to persuade people to buy what they cannot afford! We are being offered fancy clothes, flashy motorcars, and millionaire-style homes on credit. We are being told daily that we can all live like the rich and famous, even though we are not rich. This is the devil’s lie, and it has ruined many a family. Some of our parents and grandparents lived in slab huts and tin sheds with dirt floors or even in tents, and they were often better people and raised their children with better values than we do today in this covetous environment. When I was a boy most people had two or three rainwater tanks of about 500 gallons each and the whole family could make do on that water. Today you can’t even begin to run a household on less than 10000 gallons storage. Why? Because, the rich and famous lifestyle is very costly, even in terms of a simple commodity like water. Fancy cars need to be washed regularly. Three or four cars and a caravan and a boat take a lot more water to wash. Luxury homes with a shower in every bedroom and a large, artificial garden take enough water so that whole town water supplies are threatened by wastage in times when rainfall is below average. (By artificial gardens, I mean gardens full of plants that won’t survive unless you pour excessive amounts of water on them.) And, of course, there are other commodities, which have also been made the focus of such temptation, such as food – How many TV shows are making an idol out of food, as they also are of houses and gardens etc.? Sadly, we are a user generation that doesn’t appreciate what it has been given.


The lust of the eyes has brought many people undone through sexual perversion. Much of the TV and movie entertainment of today could rightly be classified as pornographic. The more blatant and hard-core varieties of pornography are the cause of many of the sex crimes we hear about (rape, sodomy, paedophilia etc.). Education is vital in these matters, and that education is not the role of the governments, or of the schools, or even the churches, but of parents. And the Church’s role is to teach and equip those parents and families as a whole.


What is the answer for young people today? How can they escape the obvious pitfalls and snares of the devil? Unfortunately for many who have not been blessed with a thoroughly Christian upbringing, a dedicated Christian mother and father, daily family worship in the home, training in practical Christian living in all aspects of daily life – for these, the only answer is to repent and amend their ways and apply themselves to learn what practical Christianity is, so that they don’t spoil another generation as they bring up their children and grandchildren! This might seem disappointing to many but it is a reality we must face if we are to improve our situation. The other side of this coin is that the only real answer to the continuing problem is that the Church must have a long-term vision to set in order Christian family life, to establish true family worship and practical Christianity in every house. Children brought up in such an environment, and who have willingly embraced the good things of God’s kingdom will, hopefully, be mature enough to marry at a young age and raise a family of their own. Generally speaking, married people don’t have the time or the money to follow the idle pursuits of the world as the unmarried do. To be sure, we will not change the whole world, and if we do by God’s grace, it will not happen over night, but we must set our own house in order! The alternative is too terrible to consider!


For too long it has been the main focus in evangelical churches to harvest souls on an individual basis. Children, teenagers, and “street-kids” have been the main targets as zealous Christians try to make a difference, but while it is good to win souls of each and every kind, it is important to notice that the Biblical focus of whole families has been set aside, and this is undermining the whole fabric of the Church. Look at the example of the way the apostles operated as they established Christianity in the beginning. Then search the Scriptures and see that in both Old and New Testaments, the pattern was the same. Religion was always a family matter! The emphasis was always on men teaching and training their own households. Even among the unsaved there was generally a strong family structure. In a hedonistic society like ours the family has been broken down to a large degree, and the Churches are aiding and abetting the devil’s work (unwittingly of course). Some would establish a whole doctrine of children’s Sunday school on the fact that children were brought to Jesus so that He could bless them. But such advocates seem to forget that it was the parents who brought them to Jesus, and that they brought them to Jesus, not to Sunday-school teachers! If we take such a sketchy and fanciful approach to doctrine we can cerate almost any doctrine out of thin air!


We simply must give priority to the Scriptures and to regular family worship and discipline in every home! As we do, God almighty and His promises are with us; who can be against us?



How often do we hear people say, “I’m so proud of this or that.”? We need to be reminded that pride is sin. It was the original sin of the devil himself who wanted to be like the Most High. (Isaiah 14). It was the original sin of Eve, who saw that the forbidden fruit was to be desired to make one wise. (Gensis 3). It is the prevailing sin in every generation and the root cause of many other evils. Even preachers are taught to be actors rather than humble teachers of God’s Truth. A sermon is so often looked upon as a performance. How vain and empty is that! The Church has all too often aped the world, yet the Scriptures plainly say, “Love not the world … For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” (1 John 2:14-17)


Jesus resisted the devil’s temptation to pride; we must also!


Do we pray daily that the Lord would deliver us from these three evils? It is not safe to assume we will be OK! We must never forget our human frailty. It is an ongoing, humbling reality. Some maintain that you can have a “baptism of the Spirit” which lifts you above these things (referred to sometimes as “entire sanctification”), whereby certain ones even have sincerely claimed to have lived many years without sinning, but they are deceiving themselves. It is far better and safer to recognize the facts, like Peter, “I am a sinful man O Lord!” (Luke 5:8), and like Isaiah, “I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” (Isaiah 6:5). Compare the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18:9-14.


In time of particular need these weaknesses can be checked by fasting with prayer. This is what Jesus did. He made the Word of God (food for the soul – eternal food) a higher priority than natural food for His body. Wicked and ungodly men can fast for a cause (Acts 23:21), how much more the godly!



  1. The Motive Of Temptation






  1. The Answer To Temptation – Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)!





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