Overcome Your Temptations

Scripture: James 1:14-16

We are now entering the Temptation Headquarters to drag their war plans into the broad daylight, and make them public for everyone to see and understand. It’s finally time to unmask your temptations. 

Once you understand what are the inner workings, every single step that every temptation uses on you, you will find temptations are far easier to defeat than you ever imagined—and that’s not an overstatement.  

If you don’t know how your temptation enemy attacks you, then you are far more likely to be taken advantage of. Never lose sight of this fact, however, your temptations aren’t your friends; they seek your failure and fall into sin.  But at the same time, temptations can be defeated time after time, and during the process your character and conduct will be transformed. What temptations meant for evil, God will use for your good! 

Remember, also, that you can defeat any given temptation so often and so thoroughly that it never will bother you again.  Why? Because Temptation Headquarters knows you just won’t give in that area, so why bother? 

Temptations are aware and cunning.  Temptations are deceitful. Temptations are your enemy. Run! The more you run out the way of escape, the more often you will escape. 

So let’s jump right into the Passage revealing the 3 Stages (of 7 total)  of Every Temptation!

14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  James 1:14-16

There it is in black and white—the inner workings of every temptation. From one stage to the next.  All 3 (of 7 total) stages right in plain view.  Each of these stages builds on the previous and seeks to entice you to commit a particular sin and then continues to tempt you in that area until that sin rules that part of your life.

It’s time for you to learn the actual steps every temptation takes to undo you.  No more will temptations ever be confusing to you. The further you read, the more aware you will become of what’s been going on in your life, without you even being aware of it.  Until today.

This type of revelation is often called an awakening or an enlightening. The light will go on as you grasp what’s been going on in your temptations but without your conscious awareness.  You’ll be shocked how temptation has sabotaged you without you knowing it, time after time, right in broad daylight!

Scriptures: James 1:14, Matthew 4:1, Genesis 3:1

Stage #1: Temptations start when you are distracted and drawn away.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away.

The opening ten words lay out the launching point of every temptation: “But each one is tempted when” something specific happens: When you are“drawn away.” Therefore, temptations never begin before this “drawing away” happens to you.  You cannot and will not be tempted unless you are pulled “away” from whatever you are doing or thinking to a different focus. 

Unless the temptation pulled you away to something, you would not have been able to be tempted. This isn’t for some people but every person, “But each one (every person) is tempted” only when they have been drawn away. 

“Tempted” from Greek word peirazo which is translated in the New Testament as “tempt” 29 times and in the noun form as “tempter” 2 times and means to try or test one’s faith, virtue or character by enticement to sin.  The same word is used referring to Christ’s temptation in the wilderness by Satan in Mathew 4:1:  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The word “tempted” is in the present passive which means when you are the recipient of temptation, not the cause of the temptation.  

Although you might think that you cause your own temptations, the Bible states the exact opposite.  You don’t draw yourself away, but temptations do.  You receive, you are the passive recipient, of the temptation.  

Temptations come to you.  The temptation take a specific plan of attack against you. Even when you think that you purposefully plan on heading to sin, that initial desire was caused by a temptation that drew you away to that thought! 

The Biblical author uses a series of words in these verses that also are used to describe the process of a fisherman catching a fish, so we are going to use that analogy throughout the day’s reading..  

For instance, picture a beautiful river peacefully meandering through the countryside. On the riverside, a large tree branch overhangs the water shadowing a slow-moving pool of water, right where fish like to gather. 

Look through the water and you’ll find our unsuspecting school of fish calmly resting, totally unaware that a fisherman has just crept up quietly and is standing out of sight behind the tree. They are all facing upstream so they can swim just a little and rest in this safe location. 

Without their awareness, the fisherman quietly prepares his fly rod with the perfect fly as bait for this type of rainbow trout.  The fish obviously have no idea what’s happening behind the tree. 

The crafty fisherman begins swinging that fly with its hidden hook over the water so it looks just like a wandering fly. Then, the fisherman carefully lays that fly down so it just touches the water right in front of the fish and then flicks back up into the air. The moment that fly hits the water guess what every fish in that pool did? They instantly glanced up to see if a delicious bug or fly fell off the tree branch into the water. 

At that moment, our fisherman knows his secret battle has begun! He knows that at least one fish has been distracted and drawn away, hoping his breakfast bug will return.  Now the unsuspecting and innocent fish is now thinking about something he wasn’t paying attention to until that very moment. 

Such is the precise nature of being “drawn away.”  Temptations only occur when the drawing away has successfully occurred. 

Who then distracted the fish? The fisherman of course.  That’s exactly how every single temptation starts in everyone’s life. All of a sudden, you see a person or thing and you are drawn away to look at it. Or a stray thought flashes across your mind, totally off the topic you were considering. 

To be effective, the process of being drawn away must be very subtle and just below the consciousness of the fish.  Why? To hide the fact that a fisherman is behind the bait hitting the water.  If he mistakenly splashed the water too hard, the fish would instantly know that wasn’t a fly.  

Similarly, if you are drawn away too abruptly, your innate senses would be alerted and you would be on guard because you knew instinctively that something unusual is going on.  Subtle. Delicate. A whisper. A glimpse.  A touch. 

Sometimes a person can be the source of your being drawn away. Sometimes a wicked entity such as Satan can even be involved.  Watch how the first temptation in human history began in Genesis 3:1: 

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’”

The Hebrew word “cunning” means to be subtle, shrewd, crafty, and sly.  Satan’s question was so subtle that Eve thought the serpent only needed some clarification and certainly was not attack and lead her to directly disobey God. The moment she heard his question, Eve was drawn away.  

Like Eve, we are drawn away from our current thoughts by a subtle distraction. It’s subtle because the Temptation knew if you recognized that this was the first step in a whole series of steps eventually to hook you, you would never even pay attention to it but swim in the opposite direction. 

To be “drawn away” means that you were beckoned to leave one area to another area. 

No one lives their life in a continuing stage of temptation, do we?  Instead, all of us are busy with our families, work, ministry, and friends—and then something happens and without us being aware of it, we are subtly wooed into thinking or imagining a different area where our temptations are seeking to lure us.  

Think of this drawn away first stage as a subtle distraction.  Subtle means faint, delicate, and even difficult to perceive. Distraction means to divide the attention and prevent concentration. It’s a diversion, an interruption—but hardly noticed.  

So, what happens next?  What do you think every temptation will do next in Stage #2? 

Scripture: James 1:14

Stage #2: Temptations can only tempt because of your inner desire.  

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires. 

Now think about this second stage for a moment:  Just because you are drawn away, it doesn’t mean that you are feeling anything remotely like a temptation yet.  Until you start desiring what you were distracted to, then temptation cannot interest you in “biting the bait.”

What happens to our unsuspecting fish?  The fisherman snaps his line very carefully and allows that hand-picked bait—that fly—to hit the water a second time, just a split second longer.  It’s at that moment that our fish begins to imagine how good that would taste as his early morning snack. 

The fisherman knows that until the fish “wants” the bait, he’ll never catch that fish. 

It’s in that split second when the fish starts to desire the bait that the temptation has begun in earnest. Although fish can’t lick their lips with desire, that’s exactly what happens. 

You see, every temptation must awaken our desire or we’ll never consider chasing the bait. 

Obviously, the fisherman doesn’t desire the fly; and the fly doesn’t desire the fly—it’s only the fish that desires the fly. 

Every one of our temptations can tempt us only because it stimulates our personal desire! In context, the desire is for something forbidden—tempting us to sin.  

When we are drawn away, our attention is pulled away to something.  When our desires are touched, then the temptation has something with which to work with inside of us.  Think about it, if you aren’t desirous of the bait, would you ever pursue it? Of course not. 

Where do “desires” dwell? Inside of us. Our appetites, our emotions, our longings, our hungers. 

You have just finished a big steak dinner with your favorite bowl of ice cream. You couldn’t eat another bite.  You then head out of the restaurant and a close friend approaches you as you are getting into your car and invites you over for a big barbeque at their home in 30 minutes.  How much desire would surface under those circumstances? How much could your friend tempt you when your desires have already been satiated?  

The word behind “desire” is epithymia which is translated lust 31 times and desire 3 times and simply means a desire, craving, longing, mostly of evil desires.  

It’s important to recognize that temptations never seek to raise our desire for us to do good, but only to do evil.  You never are “tempted” to go and help a poor person, but you can be tempted to rob that person of whatever they have.  God never limits our desires for good, nor does He make a “way out” of our desires to serve others.  God only intervenes when a temptation seeks to lead us to sin.

This verse also reveals that these desires are specifically our “own” desires and not anyone else’s. 

That’s why two friends walking past the corner bar can be affected very differently. One person may not even notice the bar, while the other person who is a struggling alcoholic may immediately feel an overpowering desire to go in for a quick drink on the way home. Our desires are the root issue.  

As John Owen once said, “There are many outward temptations that best men, exciting and stimulating them to do evil. But the root and spring of all these things lie in the heart.  Temptations do not put anything into man that is not there already.” 

So, after being drawn away and having your desire peaked, what happens next? 

Scripture: James 1:15-16, Proverbs 7:10-12, Proverbs 7:21

Stage #3: Temptations increase their persuasive power by adding enticement.

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.  

The moment we experience a desire for that which we have been drawn away to, often our desire is initially small and even minimal, just a slight pull.  That’s why the Bible adds the word, “and.” Temptations cannot succeed with just a small desire in the person.  Temptations need to raise that little desire into a compelling desire. Temptations build our desire with the third stage, by “enticing” us.

What is the purpose of enticement? To fan the flame of your desire so hot that it influences your thoughts and choices.  As your desire grows stronger, you become less and less aware of anything else and become incredibly focused on the one thing you desire at that moment more than anything else. 

But the truth is only a few moments ago, you weren’t thinking about anything like that, were you? 

The verb “entice” comes from deleazo which means to catch by a bait, to trick by alluring and enticements through deception.  At this point, many of us fall prey to another major misconception because we think we are doing the enticement.  But, once again, the verb entice is in the present passive form which proves that you are receiving the action of another (temptation) and not actively doing the enticing.  This fact is very important as the temptation is the active worker in this Biblical revelation and not yourself.  

So, guess what our experienced fisherman does?  He knows that unless the fish’s desire for that bait becomes stronger, the fish will probably never act and pursue the it.  The fly fisherman expertly hits that same exact spot in the river with the fly time after time—each time letting that fly sit on the water just a little a spit second longer, increasing likelihood that the fish will find the fly so desirous that he will break free from his inactivity and lunge for the bait.

Who is doing the act of enticing, the fish or the fisherman?  The fisherman purposefully seeks to fan the desire of the fish over and over again.  Never forget that you aren’t fanning the flame of your desire, the temptation is! You may feel like you are growing your desire, but the passive participle proves that this is being done to you.  

The fisherman seeks to trick the fish by deceiving them. The fisherman hid the hook very carefully inside the fly so that the fish would never think that they are being pursued by their hidden killer.  

Who would ever chase a dead piece of colorful string with a barbed hook hidden in it? Only a person who has been subtly deceived, convinced that this “fly” is not only real, but he must have it!

The temptation keeps the attention on how good that bait looks so the fish never has time to think about the potential dangers.  

Enticing is cunning and artfully arouses hope of pleasure with no hint of any kind of danger. 

Perhaps the clearest illustration of enticement in the Bible is found in Proverbs 7:10: 

And there a woman met him, with the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious,her feet would not stay at home. At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner. … With her enticing speech she caused him to yield ,with her flattering lips she seduced him.  Proverbs 7:10-12, 21

Temptations seduce us. Just like the harlot. Temptations dress up like an irresistable juicy morsel for the fish. Temptations are crafty and lurk along our pathway.  Temptations flatter. Temptations seduce.  Temptations keep on enticing until they cause us to yield. 

“We are no more responsible for the evil thoughts that pass through our minds than a scarecrow for the birds which fly over the seed-plot he has to guard. The sole responsibility in each case is to prevent them from settling.”  John C. Collins

The next time your desires are increasing, stop and realize: “The Harlot Temptation is seducing me! If I don’t flee, I will likely be caused to yield and bite the hook!”

So what happens next? But, is being drawn away a sin? No. Is desiring something that’s clearly off-limits a sin? Never.  Is strong desire for something off-limits a sin? Nope. Is the temptation successful yet? No, the fish is only feeling strong desire for the bait, but hasn’t decided to go for the bait.