How To Deal with Temptation Wisely - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, March 29th. Did you know there's a difference between being tempted and giving into it? Here's more clarity in part one of How to Deal with Temptation Wisely. When you face temptation, what is your first response? Is it immediately to rationalize what you know you're about to do and that is you're about to yield?

Or is it to resist in the power of the Holy Spirit? And one of the most important things we have to learn to deal with is temptation for the simple reason it's always going to be with us. And so what I want to talk about is how to deal with temptation wisely. Now listen carefully.

I want to talk about simply two things. Number one, I want to talk about the fact that in order to deal with temptation wisely, there's some things I need to understand about temptation. And then secondly, in order to deal with it wisely, I must build a defense against those times of temptation. So I want you to turn, if you will, to First Corinthians chapter ten. And I want us to read just the thirteenth verse, which is loaded with truth.

Listen to what he says in this awesome promise in verse thirteen. 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're able. But with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you'll be able to endure it. Now what he's saying is simply this. All the temptations that we face, we're not the first ones to face it.

They're common to everybody. Then he says, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what God knows you can bear. That is, when you trust Him, rely upon Him to enable you to bear it. That would not be applicable to a person who's not a Christian. You're on your own.

You're doing your own thing. You're living your life apart from God, without God. And therefore, the only thing you've got to deal with with your temptation is your own human strength.

And you already know by now that that is absolutely inadequate and insufficient, and you will falter and fall. He says God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you're able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape. Listen, He'll make a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it. He did not say He would remove it.

Sometimes He will, sometimes He won. And so with that in mind, I want us to think about how do you deal with temptation wisely. And the first thing we said is, in order to deal with it wisely, we must understand some very simple things but very important things about temptation.

And the first one is this, what is it? Temptation is really an enticement of our natural God-given desires to take them beyond God-given limits. For example, let's take the desire to eat. There's nothing wrong with food and nothing wrong with eating, except God knows that there is a limitation upon what we should put into our body no matter what it may be. Likewise, there are sexual limitations. There's nothing wrong with sex in itself as long as it is practiced within the confines of the will and planning purpose of God. So that temptation is really taking those God-given desires and taking them beyond God-given boundaries.

And once we do that, we not only sin against God, but we sin against ourself. The Bible says the world, the flesh, and the devil all tempt us. And you can look around and look at all the advertisements and all the things that are out there. The world is continually tempting us to buy this, buy that, get in debt.

They'll make it easy for you to get in debt and sexual temptation, all the rest. Likewise, there's our own human flesh. We have the senses that God gave us, their fallen senses. And when we trust the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we have the Holy Spirit to indwell us and enable us. And yet in spite of that, they're still there.

We still have our naturalness about us. And then we have the devil to deal with. And you'll recall in the Garden of Eden, the first temptation, there he was.

You'll recall in the wilderness with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, there he was. The Bible says in First Thessalonians chapter three, verse five, he is called the tempter. So the truth is it's an enticement of our natural God-given desires. And not only that, but these temptations work on that which is on the inside of us. Satan is involved and our flesh is involved and the world is involved. And yet when we look at the source of it, it's very simple.

And yet very simple on the one hand, complicated on the other. What is the source of it? We said the flesh is the source of it. The world system is the source of it. And the devil is the source of it.

And so when we think about the ultimate real problem we have to deal with is this on the inside. Now somebody says, well, I wouldn't be tempted if God had not done thus and so. So I want you to turn to James chapter one because I want to deal with this whole issue of the source of it. What is the source of our temptation? So he says in chapter one of James verse thirteen, Let no one say, When he is tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone.

Look at that. You can't tempt God to do something evil. Likewise, God cannot be accused of tempting any of us. So the source of it is within ourselves.

Look, if you will, in verse fourteen. But, he says, since God doesn't do it, but each one is tempted when he or she is carried away and enticed by his or her own lust. That is, we have to deal with our own naturalness. Those things about us, that which is on the inside of us, the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we handle ourselves. Now, what is the very nature of temptation itself?

What is this all about? Well, you notice the Scripture says, It is common to all men. There's no such thing as being exception to temptation. Every single one of us has to face different types of temptation in our daily life, week after week, month after month, year after year. Now, the things that tempt you may change in your life. And some of us could say, you know, we've never been tempted by thus and so, never have been and never will be because it is absolutely no attraction whatsoever. But on the other hand, those same things may tempt other people and absolutely bring them to destruction.

We all have those things that tempt us and try us. We all have those moments of weakness that we have to watch for and be careful about. And the person who says they don't, remember what Paul said here.

He said, lest, he says, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest, he says, that he does not fall. Deception is always Satan's ploy. He's always in the process of trying to deceive us into thinking that which is true is untrue and that which is not true is true.

Always trying to deceive us. And so when you think about how it's built, the very nature, the very nature of temptation is it's built on fantasy. Now fantasy is simply this, it is the capacity to imagine something that we want, something we want to do, some place we want to go, something we want to possess, the capacity to enjoy some bit of pleasure about something without putting anything into action. And so fantasizing about somebody, fantasizing about something, having this, possessing that, is a dangerous thing because that's the beginning of the chain. Very fine, but it's the beginning.

Always a sense of deception. And fantasizing doesn't satisfy anything. Listen, it's the meditation of the mind upon some act, upon some possession, and yet not having it, it's not reality. And yet that is exactly what people do, spending their time trying to think about, trying to meditate upon, trying to enjoy something that is beyond those God-given boundaries and it always leads to trouble.

It's inescapable. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you cannot escape temptation. Now the question comes, another issue that we need to deal with in understanding temptation is this. There is a difference in temptation and trials. Temptation, we said, is an enticement to do evil, to commit evil in some fashion, and that's always bad. And the end result of that temptation is defeat, failure. A trial, on the other hand, is a season of testing. It may be a short season, it may be an intense season, it may be a long season. But a trial is a season of testing in which, listen, the end result is that God wants to approve of us.

He finds us approved. On the other hand, temptation has one ultimate goal. Defeat, yield, failure, entrapment, enslavement, destruction. That is the end result. That is the goal of Satan with all temptation.

And deception is his biggest, most successful tool. Now watch this carefully because here's the problem. Sometimes because you're tempted with something, you think everybody's tempted with the same thing. Well, you know how far we're in that position.

Well, what position? You don't know what somebody else would do. That's why we have no right to falsely accuse or accuse anybody. Just because, for example, let's say that whiskey really, really tempts you. Do you think everybody's tempted with whiskey?

No. Let's say you have sexual temptation. Do you think everybody is tempted the same way you are with sexual temptation? Not really.

You can take any kind of temptation. Everybody is not affected the same way. So don't project on somebody else and say, well, you know, everybody's this.

Everybody is not anything. We have to, each one of us, deal personally with those areas we said, those areas of weakness and those moments of weakness that we have in our life. Each person is responsible for their own weakness, their own time, their own moments of weakness, and those areas that they're aware of. So we need to understand how temptation works. We've been talking about what it is. We've been talking about the source of it, the nature of it.

How does it work? How does temptation work in your life and mine? All temptation begins with a thought. Every temptation begins with a thought. Now, the thought in itself may be wicked as the devil himself.

It may be something totally out of your honor that you think, where in the world did that come from? Have you ever been done praying and had a bad thought? Well, if you sit there and tell me you haven't, more than likely then you don't pray. Because I'm going to tell you something. Listen, one of his choice times to attack us is when we're talking to God. And if I were the devil, that's what I would do.

If you're getting too close to him, attack. And so what can he do? He can bring, listen, he knows how to bring your past in front of you and your present to get you distracted and to feeling bad and unworthy and all the rest and wondering, oh God, where in the world does this thought come from?

Here I am talking to you. And what am I, how am I thinking about this? Satan is very subtle, very powerful. He can't make you do anything as a believer.

But he can sure mess up your mind if you let him do it. That all begins with a thought. Now remember we said a few moments ago how it works. It works by being built on fantasies.

So now I want you to jot these words down because this is the way it happens. First of all, there's a thought. And then there's a fantasy.

Ooh, what would that be like? Thirdly, a desire. Well, thinking about what it would be like to own that or have that or possess that, I have a desire. Desire brings me to a point of my will. And that is I have the right to make a choice. And then comes the choice. And then I consent. And what that means is I choose to sin against God. It always begins with a thought, fantasize about it, desire it, comes to my will, I have to make a choice, and then I choose.

I choose. I consent to do it or not to do it. And that's sin.

Now let's talk about something for a moment that I know that people can use this terminology rather freely and brassy, and I don't want to do that. But I do want to say something about sexual sin. Because the truth is the power of sexual sin is its promise of immediate pleasure without penalty. That's always the big deception about sexual sin. It promises immediate satisfaction, pleasure without penalty.

It starts as a spark, it grows to a flame, and it erupts into an inferno if you're allowed to keep going. And what people don't realize is this, that every act of sexual sin weakens you to the next temptation. So people who say, well, you know, they have this affair and that affair and this affair and that affair and they think that they're strong. Let me tell you something, every single act of sexual sin weakens you to the next temptation.

Now I want to say something very clearly. If you're one of those persons who are just sleeping around with this one, sleeping around with that one, and this night and that night and one night stands and all the rest, and you think that you're not going to suffer the penalty of that, you already have. Because what you've done each time, you've bonded yourself with some other person.

It doesn't make any difference who it is. You've bonded yourself with that person. So you go to the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one. You know what you're doing? You're fragmenting your emotions.

You're fragmenting yourself. And then out there somewhere you find somebody that you think you really and truly love. You think you've got much to give them when you've been sleeping around for years and years and years with this one and that one and the other one.

And you've bonded with all of them. What do you have to give to that person that you feel like you really and truly love with all of your heart? What do you have to give? You only have what's left over to give.

You can't give them your whole self. Is there any way to deal with that? Yes, there is.

When you come to Almighty God and you deal with that honestly, truthfully, asking Him to forgive you of your sin, repenting of your sin, to restore to you your capacity to be the person God wants you to be, has God's grace left you out there? No. Will you ever be able to give that person all of yourself? I don't know the answer to that. Only you know if you try that, if you have the answer to that. But something inside of me says if you bond and bond and bond and bond and bond, how can you give your whole self to someone that you really and truly love? Is the grace of God adequate for forgiveness?

Yes. Can He restore you your capacity to be faithful and true to someone else? Yes, He can.

Yes, He can. It's not my purpose to leave you with this sense of guilt and hopelessness and helplessness and look at your marriage partner and say, I can't ever be what I ought to be because of. By the grace of Almighty God, He can restore to you and give you a sense of deep abiding love that you've never known before in your life. And so when you look at the very nature and how temptation works, that's how it works. It always works in a destructive way. And here's what Satan does. Here's how he operates. He says, don't worry about what they think. Don't worry about what he says.

There are no consequences. He gets us absolutely focused. So the only thing we're the only way thing we can sit and looking at is what we want.

We bracketed out penalty bracketed out consequences bracketed out what people think bracketed out all that. The only thing that matters is it's what I want, what I'm saying. That is the way temptation works. And once he gets you to the point that you have bracketed out all the important things that are so very important in life, then he has you to the place that you're going to yield. And what happens is we find ourselves, if we allow ourselves to let him get us off the big picture, looking at one tiny thing and bracket out consequences, which is his deceptive way of doing things, we will find ourselves in deep trouble.

Cannot afford to bracket God out of any circumstance in this situation. And that's what he'll do. If he can put the pressure on and narrow your focus so that you want that, even in spite of the fact you may go to prison if you do it or you may you may foul up your life physically, health wise, everything else, if he can get you to bracket out all the major concerns, you're gone. And he knows that. And so he wants a pinpoint focus on the very thing that is a temptation, something that you want.

And he knows what it'll do in your life. So, you think about the fact that all the things we need to understand, we need to understand, I want to repeat this, we need to understand all of these things from what temptation is, the source of it, the nature of it, how it works, the distinction between temptation and trials, the false ideas that people have about it, and then one last thing that we've said over and over and over again. And that simply is, there's a limitation. God's put a divine limitation on it. He cannot, Satan cannot, no matter what he does, he is absolutely prohibited by Almighty God of tempting you with something you can't handle if you are a believer and you trust him.

He would not allow that to happen. Thank you for listening to How to Deal with Temptation Wisely. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.