The Cause Of Temptation

One evening after worship I went into the office of a church I served and made a delightful discovery: someone had anonymously given me an entire box of donuts!  There was a nice card, yet nicer still was the variety of donuts in the box: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry-iced, assorted cake donuts and creme-filled donuts.  I have a sweet tooth and this gift made my night!

As I recall, most of them were gone before bedtime.  I had given at least one away earlier, but my family ate the rest.  And when I say, “my family” I mean mostly “me.”  Oh I didn’t eat all of them myself, but I ate far more than I should have.  

Now I could reason, “Well, you know, I deserved those donuts.  After all, they were given to me and the person who gave them intended that I enjoy them.”  Yes, but they probably did not intend that I enjoy them all at once.  

Truth is, I allowed my desire for something good to be an occasion for temptation.  James says, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”  My eating too many donuts was not the anonymous giver’s fault.  Eating too many donuts was nobody’s fault but my own. 

To be sure, my consuming too many donuts may be thought a relatively minor offense, not unlike the little boy whose mother caught him in the kitchen with his hand in the cookie jar.  She thundered: “What are you doing?!”  And he replied, “I’m fighting temptation!”  

With such levity I certainly don’t mean to overshadow the seriousness of greater temptations, I’m just not willing to describe my own in this book.  Of this much we may be certain: whatever the source and substance of our temptations, James indicates that the pattern is always the same: “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

In fact, James provides no fewer than three facts we must know about temptation.  First:

Know the Cause of Temptation

James cautions: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God.’”  In other words, don’t blame God.  God is not the cause of temptation.  When you are battling temptation, whether it is a temptation to overeat, to drink, to use drugs, to look lustfully at someone, to insult another, to strike another—whatever your temptation—don’t blame God.  He is not the cause of temptation. 

Not only is God not the cause of temptation, but He Himself “cannot be tempted by evil.”  We know this to be true of God if we have a biblical theology of God.  The Bible teaches that God is all-sufficient.  There’s nothing He needs, nothing He desires, nothing He craves.  So God cannot be tempted by evil.  He is completely satisfied in Himself and is all-sufficient.  

And James adds, “Nor does He Himself tempt anyone.”  Why?  Because God does not delight in sin.  He’s not going to tempt anyone to do evil.  He hates evil.  God is not the cause of our temptation.  

Does this truth keep us from blaming God?  No.  The “blame game” was played first in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).  Our first parents (Adam and Eve) played the blame game.  They both succumbed to the temptation to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Life.  Afterwards, God confronted Adam and Adam blamed Eve.  He also blamed God!  Remember what Adam said?  “The woman…You gave me!  She made me do it!”   Then God confronted Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.

Will Rogers used to say there were two eras in history: the passing of the buffalo and the passing of the buck.  Blaming others, or “passing the buck,” is part of our sin nature.  We are, after all, Adam’s children.

No, we cannot blame God for being the cause of our temptation.  So who is to blame?  James teaches that the cause of temptation does not originate with God, but with us—or better still, within us.  He writes that “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

Sin is always an inside job.  Sin begins in the heart.  Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires, often wrong desires, or misplaced desires.  We sin only when we allow ourselves to be “drawn away” by these desires and then “enticed.”  We must recognize these desires for what they are and immediately renounce them.  If we will do that, we will avoid being “enticed” and led into sin.  Therefore, yielding to temptation is nobody’s fault but our own.  Rather than blaming our actions on others—including the devil—we must own our actions.

Like the construction worker during his lunch break at the job site.  He opens up his lunch box and says, “Oh, no!  Baloney sandwich again!  Four out of five days this week it’s been a baloney sandwich.  If I see another baloney sandwich, I’m gonna be sick!”  His construction worker buddy says, “Well, why don’t you ask your wife to pack you something else?” And he says, “Oh, I’m not married. I pack it myself.”  

At least he owned his actions! 

The cause of temptation is an inside job.  We must realize that we have within us the ability to be drawn away by our wrong or misplaced desires.  If we yield to those desires, we will be “enticed” and will fall into sin. 

Owning our actions is to acknowledge that we can avoid sin.  We are not powerlessly drawn away and enticed by something beyond our control.  Someone has said, “You can’t keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”  So true!

In a moment we’ll consider behaviors that will help us respond correctly to temptation, lessening the likelihood of our yielding to it.  Before we do that, let’s feel the full force of James’ warning by considering a word picture for the words “drawn away” and “enticed.”  They are both words that convey ideas from fishing or hunting.  They are the same words used to describe the “baiting” of something, like baiting a trap or baiting a fish hook.  To be “drawn away” is to be “lured” as by a fishing lure.

Few fish will bite a hook if there’s nothing on it.  So if you’re wanting to catch a fish, you cover up the hook with some kind of bait.  The bait hides the hook.  So the fish comes along and sees the bait.  He doesn’t see the hook.  The fish swims up to the bait and finds the bait attractive.  The fish is “drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”  The fish has taken the bait.  And what does the fish now discover?  Underneath that bait is the snare of the hook.  And all at once it is all over for the fish.  Too late to turn back.  The hook is set and the fish is caught.

It’s one thing to talk about fish and quite another to talk about men and women, but the pattern is the same.  Once we allow ourselves to be drawn away by our desires, it is just a matter of time before the hook is set and we have entered into sin.

**Excerpt from You’re Either Walking The Walk Or Just Running Your Mouth (Preaching Truth: 2020), pages 28-32, available on Amazon.