The Source of Temptation James 1;13-18

James The Source of Temptation 1;13-18

· We're at James 1;13 & we've been looking at the idea of trials. James is writing to the dia-spora, those Jews that were by persecution driven out of Jerusalelm, those Jews that had come on Pentecost, that first Pentecost, & had been saved, they had taken Christ in the hearts back to their homeland. They were experiencing a hardship in that they were discovering grace, they were discovering that Christ had fulfilled the law, & in that there was a hardship within itself in being around their family members that were still religious Jews.
· So James is writing & initially encourages believers as they face certain trials to realize that there are certain things that are accomplished within us, in regards to being conformed into the image & likeness of Christ that only take place in trials. And even in trials where we fail, I find that I learn much more in my failures than in my successes. And that the Lord does allow certain trials to come to us & those testings as it were, to prove us. To conform us into the image of His Son.
· And James is encouraging the believers to take heart & to count it joy when they face certain of these experiences & again I think James, in an interesting way, having grown up in the house w/ Jesus as an older bro, was a strange experience on one side but on the other realizing this one who I knew & observed & really understood so little of, I know when believers experience pain, that it's not His heart to cause them pain. He must have known in an interesting way from looking into the eyes of Jesus, as he grew in the house w/ Him, as He sees now believers in trials across the world, he's able to say, when these things come, God isn't mad @ you, God isn't getting you, what He's doing is He's allowing certain pressures in your life to conform you into the image of Christ so let those trials, let patience & your ability to endure have it's perfect work thru those circumstances when they come.
· So the first section is on trials and I believe he is taking up on God's part saying when these things come, He's not getting you, He's not vindictive, He's not angry @ you. There are certain things that come in our life that ultimately work for our benefit & He certainly has different values than we do because He looks at our lives thru the lense of eternity. And He desires then to do certain things in & thru us. And sometimes we need to approach Him for wisdom & say Lord, why is this happening? How do I get it? How do I do this in a way that honors you? And in ;12 He says there is a blessing for those who endure those things into eternity because there's a crown of life & righteousness given to us. God uses trials as tools to bring us up. They are to give us patience as it said in ;3-4, it's the word endurance, it's sticking out that commitment to the Lord even though times are tough. And so the purpose of trials is to strengthen us, to make us grown in Christ so we can have perseverance. We cannot have strong endurance in our Christian walk unless we have adversities. They don't come from reading a book, they come from tough times.

HOW TO HANDLE TEMPTATION
James 1:13–18
· The mature person is patient in trials. Sometimes the trials are testings on the outside, and sometimes they are temptations on the inside. Trials may be tests sent by God, or they may be temptations sent by Satan and encouraged by our own fallen nature. It is this second aspect of trials—temptations on the inside—that James dealt with in this section.
·We may ask, “Why did James connect the two? What is the relationship between testings without and temptations within?” Simply this: if we are not careful, the testings on the outside may become temptations on the inside. When our circumstances are difficult, we may find ourselves complaining against God, questioning His love, and resisting His will. At this point, Satan provides us with an opportunity to escape the difficulty. This opportunity is a temptation.
·There are many illustrations of this truth found in the Bible. Abraham arrived in Canaan and discovered a famine there. He was not able to care for his flocks and herds. This trial was an opportunity to prove God; but Abraham turned it into a temptation and went down to Egypt. God had to chasten Abraham to bring him back to the place of obedience and blessing.
·While Israel was wandering in the wilderness, the nation often turned testings into temptations and tempted the Lord. No sooner had they been delivered from Egypt than their water supply vanished and they had to march for three days without water. When they did find water, it was so bitter they could not drink it. Immediately they began to murmur and blame God. They turned their testing into a temptation, and they failed.
·Certainly, God does not want us to yield to temptation, yet neither can He spare us the experience of temptation. We are not God’s sheltered people; we are God’s scattered people. If we are to mature, we must face testings and temptations. There are three facts that we must consider if we are to overcome temptation.
Consider God’s Judgment (James 1:13–16)
· This is a negative approach, but it is an important one. James said, “Look ahead and see where sin ends—death!” Do not blame God for temptation. He is too holy to be tempted, and He is too loving to tempt others. God does test us, as He did Abraham (Gen. 22); but He does not and cannot tempt us. It is we who turn occasions of testing into temptations.
·A temptation is an opportunity to accomplish a good thing in a bad way, out of the will of God. It's not wrong to want to pass a temptation; but if you cheat to pass it, then you have sinned. The temptation to cheat is an opportunity to accomplish a good thing (passing the examination) in a bad way. It is not wrong to eat; but if you consider stealing the food, you are tempting yourself.
·We think of sin as a single act, but God sees it as a process. Adam committed one act of sin, and yet that one act brought sin, death, and judgment on the whole human race. James described this process of sin in four stages.
·Desire (v. 14). The word lust means any kind of desire, and not necessarily sexual passions. The normal desires of life were given to us by God and, of themselves, are not sinful. Without these desires, we could not function. Unless we felt hunger and thirst, we would never eat and drink, and we would die. Without fatigue, the body would never rest and would eventually wear out. Sex is a normal desire; without it the human race could not continue.
·It is when we want to satisfy these desires in ways outside God’s will that we get into trouble. Eating is normal; gluttony is sin. Sleep is normal; laziness is sin. “4 Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.(Heb. 13:4).
·The secret is in constant control. These desires must be our servants and not our masters; and this we can do through Jesus Christ.
·Deception (v. 14). No temptation appears as temptation; it always seems more alluring than it really is. James used two illustrations from the world of sports to prove his point. Drawn away carries with it the idea of the baiting of a trap; and enticed in the original Greek means “to bait a hook.” The hunter and the fisherman have to use bait to attract and catch their prey. No animal is deliberately going to step into a trap and no fish will knowingly bite at a naked hook. The idea is to hide the trap and the hook.
·Temptation always carries with it some bait that appeals to our natural desires. The bait not only attracts us, but it also hides the fact that giving in to the desire will eventually bring sorrow and punishment. It is the bait that is the exciting thing. Lot would never have moved toward Sodom had he not seen the “well-watered plains of Jordan” (Gen. 13:10ff). When David looked on his neighbor’s wife, he would never have committed adultery had he seen the tragic consequences: the death of a baby (Bathsheba’s son), the murder of a brave soldier (Uriah), the violation of a daughter (Tamar). The bait keeps us from seeing the consequences of sin.
· When Jesus was tempted by Satan, He always dealt with the temptation on the basis of the Word of God. Three times He said, “It is written.” From the human point of view, turning stones into bread to satisfy hunger is a sensible thing to do; but not from God’s point of view. When you know the Bible, you can detect the bait and deal with it decisively. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.
·Disobedience (v. 15). We have moved from the emotions (desire) and the intellect (deception) to the will. James changed the picture from hunting and fishing to the birth of a baby. Desire conceives a method for taking the bait. The will approves and acts; and the result is sin. Whether we feel it or not, we are hooked and trapped. The baby is born, and just wait until it becomes a toddler!
·Christian living is a matter of the will, not the feelings. I often hear believers say, “I don’t feel like reading the Bible.” Or, “I don’t feel like attending prayer meeting.” Children operate on the basis of feeling, but adults operate on the basis of will. They act because it is right, no matter how they feel. This explains why immature Christians easily fall into temptation: they let their feelings make the decisions. The more you exercise your will in saying a decisive no to temptation, the more God will take control of your life. “ For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.(Phil. 2:13).
·Death (v. 15). Disobedience gives birth to death, not life. It may take years for the sin to mature, but when it does, the result will be death. If we will only believe God’s Word and see this final tragedy, it will encourage us not to yield to temptation. God has written this in His Word because He loves us. “(23 “Do you think, asks the Sovereign Lord, that I like to see wicked people die? Of course not! I only want them to turn from their wicked ways and live. Ezek. 18:23)
·These four stages in temptation and sin are perfectly depicted in the first sin recorded in the Bible in Genesis 3.
·The serpent used desire to interest Eve: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Is there anything wrong with gaining knowledge? Is there anything wrong with eating food? Eve saw that “the tree was good for food” (Gen. 3:6), and her desire was aroused.
·Paul described the deception of Eve in 2 Corinthians 11:3. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Satan is the deceiver, and he seeks to deceive the mind. The bait that he used with Eve was the fact that the forbidden tree was good and pleasant, and that eating of it would make her wise. She saw the bait but forgot the Lord’s warning: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
·Eve disobeyed God by taking the fruit of the tree and eating it. Then she shared it with her husband, and he disobeyed God. Because Adam was not deceived, but sinned with his eyes wide open, it is his sin that plunged the human race into tragedy (read Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Tim. 2:12–15).
Both Adam and Eve experienced immediate spiritual death (separation from God), and ultimate physical death. All men die because of Adam (1 Cor. 15:21–22). The person who dies without Jesus Christ will experience eternal death, the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11–15).
Whenever you are faced with temptation, get your eyes off the bait and look ahead to see the consequences of sin: the judgment of God. “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Faith Obeys the Word 1;19-27

9 My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Your anger can never make things right in God’s sight.
21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls.
22 And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself. 23 For if you just listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.

Question #1-What are the possible hindrances & dangers which may prevent God's Word from taking root & bearing fruit in our lives?
· Lack of listening
· Speaking impatiently without thinking
· Anger/Quick fuse
· Everyday filth/evil
· Pride/disregard for God's message
· Listening and not doing
· Lack of verbal self-control
· Lack of taking care of the forsaken
· Worldly values

Question #2-Humble acceptance/;21/meekness is not to be confused w/ inactivity. What lessons does James illustration enforce concerning our reaction to God's Word & His law? We should walk in such a reaction to God's Word as to be continually walking as w/ a mirror w/ us, to where we're seeing ourselves through the mirror of God's Word & changing accordingly. It should humble us so as to cause our size in the mirror to diminish/"He must increase that I must decrease". And the blessing of the Lord will bring about a reflected mirror of peace & inner joy.
Question #3-How does your religion stand up to James' practical tests?