The
following message was delivered by John MacArthur Jr., of
I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the original tape was made. Please note that at times sentence structure may appear to vary from accepted English conventions. This is due primarily to the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in placing the correct punctuation in the article.
It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this transcription to strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Tony Capoccia
Triumphing over Temptation
by
John
MacArthur Jr.
Copyright
1992
All
Rights Reserved
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God
is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able
to endure it.”
[1 Corinthians 10:13, NASB]
Well God has blessed us in so many ways, what a wonderful day we have shared. What joy in the singing and in hearing the testimony of music that Joni brought to us. Joy in the baptisms and what God is doing in the lives of so many people He is bringing to Himself. And it is true that when you come to the Lord's Table it ought to be a time of celebration, for it is here we celebrate the blessedness of our salvation.
But, also, at the same time when we come to the Lord's Table it becomes for us a reminder of how constantly we have to deal with the sin in our lives. The early church gathered at the Lord's Table everyday. Many churches across the world enjoy the Lord’s Table every week. We here, come to the Lord’s Table at least once a month and sometimes more often than that, but we never come without recognizing again our sin. It's a time of cleansing, as Paul said, it's a time of self-examination, and it's a reminder of how we constantly have to deal with temptation because it is temptation that results in sin.
The Lord's Table is not just a time to look back at our sin and repent of it, it's a time to look forward in the anticipation of our future sin and temptation and resolve to deal with it. We have faced temptation in the past, we will face it in the future. We have fallen to it in the past, it should be in our hearts to resolve to know victory over it in the future.
I don't know about you, but whenever I come to the Lord’s Table there's a certain amount of grief in my life. I wish I could come one time and say Lord it's been a month and I really don't have anything to confess—but such is never the case.
And it is also rather wearisome, isn't it, to come to the Lord’s Table as often as we do and be reminded that every time we come it's basically the same list of stuff. Sometimes our progress is so imperceptible. It's a time for us to look back and to see the sin and to acknowledge it and ask for forgiveness—confessing it, but it's also a time for us to make resolves. It's a time for us to say, “The next time I am here I want to come back with a shorter list.” I want to come back with some victory and some triumph over some of those besetting or entangling sins.
So it's a time for us to review our covenant of obedience
and to make resolves to live godly. At that point you might pose the question:
“Well is it possible?” I mean temptation seems to be constant . . . it seems to
be overwhelming. Is it in fact possible for us to be triumphant? Doesn't it
seem that Satan is certainly a supernatural being and is he not more powerful
than we are? Doesn't he have sophisticated weaponry and methodology that
transcends our ability to comprehend? And don't his demons certainly amass
themselves to the destruction, as it were, of the purposes of God and the
people of God. Aren't we sometimes confronted with temptations which frankly
are so subtle that we don't even see them? And Isn't Satan wily enough and
isn't the system of his operation in the world and through the flesh subtle and
wily and deceitful enough so that we are in it before we even know it came?
Furthermore isn't the heart of man so deceitful and desperately wicked that even at its best it cannot put up a proper guard? And don't we even kid ourselves that things we assume to be righteous are in fact sinful? How can we possibly be encouraged then in this matter of dealing with sin, when it seems to be to us so deceptive, and so super powerful, and so orchestrated by the enemy of our souls? And we seem so vulnerable because of our flesh and because of the deceptiveness of our own hearts. Is it possible for us to be triumphant?
And take it a step further . . . what about people like me and people who are in ministry? We have been seeing the steady stream of fallen pastors and fallen leaders, and the question is continually posed, even to me, "Aren't they under some level of assault for which they are really incapable? I mean, don't they often say, 'Well, I was really overwhelmed by the demon of this or the demon of that.’ Isn't it true that the whole of the forces of Hell are amassed against those who are in positions of prominence and spiritual leadership, and aren't they really just victims of overwhelming temptation, that they do not have the resources to deal with?"
I think we can answer the question, in fact, we can answer all of those questions out of one verse. Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, and verse 13. A familiar text and one that should come as a tremendous encouragement to all of us as we contemplate our future and the longing and desire for triumphant holy living. Verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 10 says, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” That comes to me as a very encouraging verse . . . doesn't it to you?
The promise of that verse is thrilling. No temptation is overpowering. Satan is not so Powerful; demons are not so effective; satanic operations are not so subtle; the flesh is not so weak; the human heart is not so deceived, that we are necessarily a victim of temptation. In this verse, there are some principles that rise to the top. If we understand them, we can understand the path of our triumph.
1. First of all
we must understand the means of temptation, we must
understand the means of temptation.
Notice the verse, “No temptation has overtaken you .” Very simply stated, temptation wants to overtake you; it wants to dominate you—to put it another way, it wants to take control of you. Now, we can understand this process by just looking at the word "temptation." It doesn't tell us much in English, in Greek it tells us a lot. In Greek it's the word peirasmos. It can be translated "test." It can be translated “temptation.” I guess the interesting note about that word is that tests and temptations are two sides of the same thing. I want you to follow that: tests and temptations are two sides of the same thing. Life is full of tests. Every test, every trial potentiates a temptation.
A friend of mine told me one time, that he had taken a new job, with a very important company—he was very excited about it. He had only been on the job for a little while. Everyone had left the office one night and on his desk someone had left a HUGE sum of money. He immediately took the money, put it in his briefcase, and thought I am going to have to return this. He wrapped it up and the next morning brought it back, and when he came to work he immediately walked into the bosses’ office and put the money down on the desk and said, “Somehow, someone left this money on my desk and I don't know who it was or who will be missing it, but I wanted to turn it in as fast as I could, so no one would be distressed by its absence.” The boss looked him in the face and said, “I put the money there—it was a test—you passed.”
Now life offers us those kinds of tests. If my friend had gone home, and opened the brief case and counted the money, and thought about, hmmm . . . nobody will know and began to battle in his heart . . . boy, I could use that money. I could buy this and I could buy that, and I could go here and I could go there. I could think of ten ways to explain if anyone wondered about the money . . . then it would have become a temptation.
Once the external becomes the solicitation of the heart, it's turned into a temptation. Temptation is an inward solicitation resulting from an outward test. Life is full of those kinds of tests. Tests can be financial stress . . . financial setback. You are in the midst of the test of financial setback, and you say I am just going to trust God for this; I am going to believe the Lord for this: we are going to cut things back, we are going to live frugally, we are going to budget, we are going to be faithful to our obligations, we are going to live on less, and we are going to believe the Lord to provide. You've passed the test. If you say, how can I steal from the till, how can I cheat on my income tax, how can I not pay what I owe to someone—you have moved it into a temptation because the external problem has become an inward solicitation to evil.
It could be personal disappointment. You had expectations of someone—they didn't perform. You either accept that with a trusting heart, love them in spite of it or you begin in your heart to feel animosity and bitterness, and now you are dealing with a temptation. It could be unkindness, it could be mistreatment, it could be injustice, it could be the test of illness, it could be the test of injury, it could be the test of unexpected disaster, it could be the test of death in the circle of your love, it could be the test of thwarted plans, it could be the test of failure to accomplish something that you had dreamed for a long time, it could be the test of facing a problem with no acceptable solution, it could be the test of a person or an experience that gives you an opportunity to do evil.
These are the tests that make up life and when they go inside, then they begin to solicit evil and they become temptations. Look at James chapter one for a very lucid explanation of this internal processing. In James chapter 1, verse 13, James talks about the fact that God is not involved in tempting anyone. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn't tempt anyone.” Now that is very important. God does not bring about an inward solicitation to do evil in anyone's life. But go back to verse 2. “Consider is all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various tests, (“trials,” same word), because the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” God sends tests but not temptations. God will bring the outward extremity to produce patience and endurance and spiritual maturity. 1 Peter 5 says, that after you have suffered for awhile, the Lord will make you perfect.
So God allows the tests of life to make us strong, but God never brings them to inward solicitation to do evil. You say, “How does that happen?” Verse 14, God doesn't tempt . . . verse 14 . . . “but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by” . . . what? “His own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Don't you be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above." That's all God ever sends. God will bring the test for spiritual maturity and perfection. It is your own lust that begins to produce the solicitation to do evil.
Our victory then, I think, starts with understanding the means by which temptation comes. It comes through the trials, tests, and disappointments of life. So, we simply remind you that when things aren't going the way you want them in life and you are facing a test, that is the means by which temptation comes to you, so you learn to watch how you respond to tests.
2. There is a second thing you must understand that comes out of this verse. If we are going to experience the triumph that the verse promises even against the formidable foe of Satan and his kingdom and the weakness of our human flesh, we must understand, not only the means of temptation but the nature of temptation—the nature of it.
In verse 13, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man.” In a word, temptation, as to it's nature, is human. It is human, it is not supernatural, it is not so powerful, it is not so unique that we have no way to resist it.
You hear somebody who is in spiritual leadership and has defaulted significantly and scandalized the church, portray himself as some kind of poor weak victim to the onslaughts of the supernatural domain—not so. Temptation is common to man. What that phrase really has to say, “that is that it is human.” It is not so demonic that we become helpless victims. It’s the same for all of us. The temptations that come to me, the temptations that come to you, the temptations that come to someone in prominence in spiritual service or someone in obscurity in the congregation of believers, are all the same. It’s the same for all of us. We may have our peculiar besetting sins, we may have our susceptibilities to certain temptations, as over against certain other ones, but we are all getting hit with what is common to all of us. It’s just normal for our fallen humanness to have to deal with these things.
This is another way of saying that the strength of temptation is limited by God. It is limited by God—it is just what is common to man. Jesus experienced this, because in Hebrews it tells us that He was, in all points, tempted like as we are. And it says, “He was made like unto His brethren.” In His enduring temptation, He suffered the temptations that are common to man, that's why He is such a faithful and merciful High Priest to whom we can go and know we find one who understands.
Galatians reminds us that when your brother is overtaken in a fault restore him in love, considering yourself, lest you also be . . . what? Tempted. What he's gone through could have easily happened to you, because temptation is common to all of us. It's just part of human life. When you fall to sin, James 5:16 says, and you fall into weakness, spiritual weakness, go to the spiritually strong, and call for the elders of the church, and confess your sin and let them pray for you and you will be strengthened and restored.
So the means by which temptation comes to, generally, is through the trials and tests of life. The nature of temptation is not that it is some kind of supernatural power that is beyond us. It is simply coming on a common level, it is human, it is what everybody else experiences. When I see a prominent pastor fall into sin, all that tells me is, he did not apply the spiritual virtues, the spiritual weapons that God gave him, that every other Christian has to apply in just living normal Christian lives and being tempted in the common way that everybody else is tempted.
3. There is a third element that this verse yields for us, and that is that we must understand the extent of
temptation.
And this really follows closely the last point—we must
understand the extent of temptation. He says, “God is faithful, who will not
allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.” God knows you as an
individual and He has planned your life to be secure in Christ eternally.
Therefore, He will never allow you to go into any kind of temptation which is
more than you at any given point in your spiritual life could handle. You see
that so magnificently in John 18. The soldiers come into the garden to take
Christ prisoner and the disciples are there and Jesus says, to the soldiers,
“Who do you seek?” and they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” and He said, “I am He.”
and they fell down. The second time He said, “I am He.” and they fell down,
just under the power of the force of who He was. Why did He do that? The
Scripture says He did that, in order that the disciples . . . it might be made
clear that they had no right to take the disciples. Who do you seek? Jesus of
The Lord never allows us, at the point of our spiritual development, to go through any temptation that is beyond our ability to deal with. So if temptation seems stronger for the one who is in the position of spiritual leadership, it still is in measure to his spiritual capability. We need to understand that. He puts limits on the extent of temptation. There is a ceiling, there is a cap, there is a lid, on what He will allow in the life of one of His own. “God is faithful, He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.”
4. There is a next point, a fourth one, you must understand the way out. You must understand the way out of temptation.
He says, “with the temptation, God will always provide the way of escape.” He will always provide the way of escape. There is always a path to victory. There is always an ekbasis, is the Greek word, literally “an exit.” There is always an escape hatch, there is always a parachute, there is always a way out. What is it? Well, he tells us, he says, “God will with the temptation provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.”
The way out is “through.” The way out is “through.” Listen carefully, the way out of the temptation is to endure it as a trial and never let it become a solicitation to sin which effects a sinful response. The way out is to take it as a test and a trial and not internalize it so that it begins to solicit sin. So you've been wronged, so you've been falsely accused, so you've been maligned and treated unkindly and unjustly. Accept it, accept it with joy and you will endure it and that is the way of escape.
So someone had promised you something and they didn't fulfill it, and you had tied some of your greatest expectations to that promise. Accept it, understand it, acknowledge it as a trial that is intended to strengthen your faith and the way out is through it. Sustaining it as a test, never letting it be turned into a temptation. That you may be able to bear it or endure it is, hupophero. It literally means to "get under it and carry it." Usually we are looking for a quick and easy route, but the only way out is “through it.” You remain under it, but you endure it as a test, with the view that God is using this to bring about my maturity.
You say, “But how do you do that?” Well, you know what
the “keys” are, and I only mention them:
1. Meditating on the Word. Psalm 119, what does it
say in verse 11? “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin.” When
the test comes, you turn to the Word of God, you don't listen to your own
lusts, you don't listen to the solicitations that your own heart will conjure
up. When the test comes you turn to the Word of God, you listen to that.
2. Secondly, you pray, you pray. I think what Jesus taught us to pray, in the prayer called the Lord's Prayer, better called the Disciple's Prayer. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us.” You turn to God and you cry out to Him to keep this test from becoming a temptation.
3. A third thing that you would do, would be to take the shield of faith. That means to trust God, no matter how the fiery darts may be coming at you, understand that God has a purpose—and trust God for that purpose.
4. Another important element, maybe a fourth one, is to focus on Christ. He endured every temptation to the maximum and so you can turn to Him, and you can say to Him, "My faithful High Priest, you know what I am going through? Strengthen me for this."
Simple, really, we know these things:
--When the test comes, turn to the Word.
--When the test comes turn to the Lord in prayer.
--When the test comes retain your faith in God's purposes through the test.
--When the test comes look to Christ, the faithful High Priest who will nurture you through this test.
No, there is no test that is more than we can bear. When we fall and the test becomes a temptation, and the temptation becomes a sin, it is not that we are victims, it is that we made bad choices. We chose not to turn to the Word of God, but rather to listen to our own hearts and our own lusts enticed us. We chose not to cry out to God and ask Him to lead us away from this and deliver us from evil, but rather we pursued the evil because we wanted the hankerings of our own flesh to be fulfilled. We failed to trust that God had a divine purpose in the test, and that we could enjoy the test not for it's own sake, but for what it yields and we wanted it immediately removed. We turned away from God, perhaps even angry at Him. And if we failed it's because we took our attention away from Christ, the faithful High Priest who could nurture us through it and focused on something else.
It should be true of us, that the next time we come back
to the Lord’s Table the list should be shorter. Know this, nothing is going to
happen to you between now and the next time, that is so powerful, that you
can't possibly deal with it. You can. One thing happened at your
salvation--sums it up. It is this: Sin no longer has dominion over you.
Father, now as we come to this time, and as we look at our own lives and our own obedience or failure to obey, we thank you for what we have seen in the past of righteousness produced by Your Spirit. We thank you for the good things that you accomplished in us. We thank you for the tests that never became temptations,
even for the temptations that never became sin. We thank You for the victory and the triumph You gave us. We thank You that You never allowed us to be tempted beyond what we were able to deal with. You never brought anything in our lives that would have been a destructive test, that would have destroyed us. But You only gave us what we could bear.
But, Father, even as we thank You for those things, we have to confess that there were times when even with those things which we should have been able to deal with, we failed and we allowed the test to become a temptation, and the temptation to become a sin, and maybe the sin even to become a pattern and we are back again pleading for your forgiveness. Lord, we ask you to cleanse us, wash away our sin. You have promised that is we confess, You are faithful and still righteous to keep on cleansing us, to forgive us, to wash us and make us clean, we plead for that even now.
Give us that washing of our dirty feet that follows that full bath that we had at salvation. Make us clean, so that as we remember the death of Christ, and as we celebrate His body and His blood given for us, we can do so in a way that is worthy and not unworthy, and thus bring on ourselves blessing and not judgment. Father, may every person here who takes the cup and the bread, be one rightly related to You through Jesus Christ, and one who has honestly and genuinely confessed and repented of sin, and asked to be fully cleansed. We ask that You would lead us into that attitude of prayerful repentance as we trust in Your forgiveness.
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