In the Lord’s Prayer, Christ tells us to pray that we will not be led into temptation. Temptation is something we have all experienced and will experience. It comes from outside us in the person of the devil and in the allurements of the world; and it comes from inside us from our own fallen flesh. Temptation would not be such a deadly enemy if we were not so prone to succumb to it. As Thomas Boston put it: ‘Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.’ In the light of this truth, what ought we to do to prepare for temptation and to respond to it?
Jesus told His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane: ‘Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation’ (Matt.26:41). Preparation is necessary in all areas of life. Even on the football field, being ‘blindsided’ is one of the most debilitating of experiences – the footballer is tackled when he is not expecting it, and so has not braced himself for the impact. Similarly in the battle against sin, we fail because we have not watched and prayed as we ought to have done (see Luke 22:40; 1 Cor.16:13). We are at our worst when we are complacent and thinking that all is right with us and the world.
A significant part of this preparation concerns reading the Word of God. The Psalmist asks: ‘How can a young man keep his way pure?’ The answer is ‘By guarding it according to Your word’. This does not come about by osmosis via the downloaded Bible on the iPhone in our pocket. Rather, says the Psalmist, ‘I have stored up Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You’ (Ps.119:9-11). David prayed that as God had tested him, so David had responded: ‘I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress’ (Ps. 17:3). It was being of his godly determination, being pre-armed by prayer and upheld by God’s grace, that he could write: ‘My steps have held fast to Your paths; my feet have not slipped’ (Ps.17:5).
Sometimes things just seem to happen. About 456 B.C. the Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, was supposed to have been killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head, mistaking it for a rock. Temptation is not so random, and it is something we can prepare against. Watching and praying are to make for reading and obeying. Yet there is more to resisting temptation than this. The Bible sets forth a corporate aspect to sanctification. We do not grow holy by ourselves but in community with other Christians. Hence the author to the Hebrews tells us to ‘exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin’ (Heb.3:13). It is with each other that we are more likely to be taught, rebuked, corrected and trained in righteousness. By ourselves, it is a downhill slide, fuelled by our own deceitful hearts.
The New Testament contains about 61 ‘one another’ passages where Christians are told how to relate to one another. For example, we are to love one another (John 13:34), be kind to one another (Eph.4:32), forgive one another (Eph.4:32), confess our sins to one another (James 5:16), pray for one another (James 5:16), and bear one another’s burdens (Gal.6:2). There is no sanctification course to be had online, where there is no actual face to face contact.
So seriously is temptation to be taken, that Paul simply says: ‘Flee from sexual immorality’ (1 Cor.6:18). That is precisely what Joseph did when wooed by Potiphar’s wife (Gen.39). Less dramatic is the warning that ‘Bad company ruins good morals’ (1 Cor.15:33). To avoid temptation, it may be necessary to avoid certain people, certain places, and certain television programmes. Far better to resist temptation at the beginning than allow it to fester and grow. As Spurgeon observed, in his own common-sensical way: ‘It is easier to crush the egg than it is to kill the serpent.’
Strange as it seems, those Christians who are most aware of God are also most aware of the devil. So we might conclude with the warning and promise of Thomas Brooks: ‘Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honour, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as He promises; all His payments are made in pure gold.’ That is the sort of knowledge that will help keep us in the day of temptation. For temptation to be dangerous to us, we must forget God, and carry on, despite our beliefs, as if He did not exist. One last quotation might summarise what we need to do, this time from John Boys: ‘It is our duty to feel sin, to fear sin, and to flee sin as far as we can.’