Temptation - A Triad

There is a triad of Scripture passages that may help us to better understand temptation; 1 Corinthians 10:1 – 22 (note verses 12 -13); James 1:2 – 8 (note verse 4); 2 Peter 2:4 – 10 (note verse 9). We’ll consider these passages in the next few meditations.

In 2 Peter Chapter 2, Peter is warning his readers about false prophets and assuring them that God will judge false prophets and those in rebellion against Him. In 2 Peter 2:4 Peter reaches back into ancient times to write of an angelic rebellion that God judged and will judge. In 2:5 Peter writes of God judging Noah’s generation and preserving Noah and his family, note that Peter styles Noah “a preacher of righteousness.” If we will, by God’s grace, live and preach righteousness we will certainly be tempted, but we will also be equipped in Christ to endure temptation – for obedient and consistent living and speaking in Jesus Christ, by the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, is a foundational element in the life that overcomes temptation, and the world, the flesh, and the devil.

In 2 Peter 2:6 – 8, Peter focuses on Sodom and Gomorrah and on God’s deliverance of Lot, who lived in Sodom. Peter tells us that Lot’s righteous soul was oppressed and tormented day after day by the sensual and rebellious conduct around him. Lot lived among a people who were in rebellion against the Holy God; in the midst of the trials and temptations that were a daily part of Lot’s life – God protected Lot and delivered him. This provides us with a link to 1 Corinthians Chapter 10 and to the point of this reflection.

1 Corinthians was written to a church which had significant sin and rebellion in its midst. 0In this context Paul turns to ancient Israel to illustrate the consequences of succumbing to temptation and rebelling against the Holy God. Consider 1 Corinthians 10:5:

“Nevertheless, with most of them [the Israelites in the Wilderness] God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the Wilderness.”

An entire generation perished in the Wilderness, with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, due to its rebellion against God and its failure to believe God’s Word and obey it. It was a generation which sold-out to temptation, which produced sin, which in turn produced death.

While there were disciples in the Corinthian church who were faithfully living for Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 16:15 – 18), considering the overall corrective nature of Paul’s letter and the number of areas of sin and disobedience that Paul addressed, we might not be too far off the mark to think that the ethos of the church in Corinth contained a broad and deep element of sin and rebellion – not unlike that of Israel in the Wilderness.

Looking at 2 Peter Chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians Chapter 10 we see the following: Noah was faithful in a wicked generation; Lot was faithful in the midst of a wicked people: and with “most” of the generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt “God was not well – pleased”; with the word “most” pointing us to Joshua and Caleb who were faithful.

God delivered Noah, He delivered Lot, and He delivered Joshua and Caleb; God delivered these men from the temptations and wickedness that surrounded them. Peter is telling his readers that God will also deliver them from the temptations surrounding them; Paul is telling his readers the very same thing. Noah and Lot lived in generations whose wickedness multiplied day after day. Caleb and Joshua lived in a generation that was called to be a holy people unto the True and Living God, and yet which was judged and died in the Wilderness. Whether we live in a hostile world, or in a hostile apostate church, God knows how to deliver us from temptation.

Our environments are hostile and opposed to obedience to the True and Living God and His Son Jesus Christ. If we are members of a local congregation which is betrothed in faithful holiness to Christ (2 Cor. 11:1-3) we have much to be thankful for – but let those congregations live in the awareness that they are living in the midst of the hostility of both the world and of Satan.

A failure to obey God’s holy and righteous Word leads to a failure to see the present age for what it is – hostile to God and under His judgment. John writes (1 John 5:19), “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

If we are going to resist temptation then we are going to go against the grain of the world and often against the grain of the professing church. As John writes (1 John 2:15), “…If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father in not in him.” Consider what James writes (James 4:4), “You adulteresses [an unfaithful church is styled an adulteress], do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

If we are not willing to go against the grain of the world and an unfaithful church (when we encounter it) then we will succumb to temptation rather than resist it. We must be willing to go it alone with Christ if that is what is required to be obedient to God’s Word.

We cannot be chameleons, blending in with the world and thinking that we are being faithful to Jesus Christ; to blend in with the world is to deny Jesus Christ and therefore to succumb to the temptation to deny the Lord who purchased us with His blood.

The temptation to question the Word of God regarding the world around us, this present age, is akin to the temptation that Eve succumbed to – we don’t really think we’ll die if we eat its fruit, we’ll just eat the pretty fruit, not the ugly fruit. Once we buy into that temptation we quickly lose our discernment regarding the holy and the unclean, righteousness and unrighteousness, obedience and disobedience.

Noah was not a chameleon, nor was Lot; nor were Caleb and Joshua. What about me? What about you? What about our churches?